Hardware

I apologize in advance if this is deranged and/or disturbing for you to read...you see, guilt is a damn powerful emotion, and this guilt...this...this...fucking guilt is forcing my quivering fingers upon my profusely sweating palms to pound upon each letter of which you see before your eyes. Its result? The letters will become sentences and the sentences will become paragraphs and the paragraphs will become... this work of deranged and/or disturbing reading material based upon the events of just an hour or so ago.

And so I continue: this fucking guilt. It is sadistically watching me suffer as it possesses my spinal cord and its nerves to write this work of deranged and/or—

Fuck it; you get the picture.

Harry's Hardware

That is (perhaps was) my stepfather's proprietorship—a small and independently owned business that sells (perhaps sold) hardware for your standard home improvement. His name was Harrison Jones, and he was...was...a fucking asshole!

I don't know who the hell got my mother pregnant with me, but he sure as hell isn't my father. I don't know what happened to him and I've made no effort to find out, but his absence was eventually replaced by Harrison Jones.

I could see that...twinkle in each of their eyes and I am embarrassed to say that I could hear that...that...aggressive moaning in the upstairs bedroom down the hallway from my own and it sounded like love. But do you know what else I heard? Crying. And that crying had become the result of her undeserved beatings.

Now I will refuse to call my own mother a stupid bitch, but I will definitely imply it—you see, she...married Harrison Jones. You can see my mother in her wedding photo with an artificial smile and excess makeup to incognito her bruises.

Harry's Hardware had remained relatively successful since its grand opening a few years ago back in '97, and I eventually became employed within the business. It was not my choice, desire, or decision, but I was in absolutely no situation to decline the request.

And so I worked...nothing strenuous; I remained a tracker of miscellaneous business inquiries and remained stationed upon this computer of which I am typing on at this very moment and occasionally I swept the hard and smooth floors and eliminated its clouds of dust and various nuts and bolts.

And one night, after the store had closed for the day, You missed a spot! Oh, goddammit son! (I am not your fucking son) Right there, clean that shit up, and he used his hand to point a flexed finger with a yellowed fingernail. And then he used that same hand to...to...hit me.

If you ever see me smile (which will probably never happen again), you will notice a vast gap located within the left of my mouth. I watched my teeth evacuate from my gums with so much perception that I could count them...I watched two of my teeth repel from my stepfather's fist and twirl in a path of which was blazed with blood.

My jaw had been severely strained upon its hinges and my mouth had quickly become a container for a mouthful of blood—I spat the blood onto the floor of which my teeth had resided upon and created a derogatory stain upon my stepfather's shop. So he hit me again.

My head was struck with the same hand that had equipped his wedding ring and my neck was whipped in its opposing direction. I collapsed upon the floor with my ears ringing and my vision deteriorating...I heard the muffled voice of my stepfather say There's blood everywhere, clean that shit up, and I visualized a stream of blood leaking from my temple and onto the bloody floors.

But I didn't care that he hit me; hell, I didn't care that he hit me twice. But I sure as hell care that he hit my mother.

It's been one helluva day...twenty-five customers in a single afternoon, each requesting something unique and desiring something different and being assisted by my stepfather and his ersatz personality of business. But then the store had finally closed for the day and I was sweeping the floors of the empty establishment. My stepfather had resided in his office while I obediently "cleaned that shit up."

I eventually discovered that my stepfather had fallen asleep as he sat slouched upon his chair with an immensely overpowering drowsiness. I stepped inside his office and glared at the sleeping Harrison Jones, thinking about how he was...was...a fucking asshole.

I noticed that his wallet had fallen from his back pocket. It rested in idle existence upon the floor, and I carefully and cautiously retrieved it, and then I opened it. The only aspect of my interest was for the wallet-sized photograph encased within a transparent plastic and concealed beneath a buttoned flap of leather. The photograph was of my stepfather and...and...another woman—her mouth was open and her tongue was suggestively extended upon my stepfather's cheek.

I briefly rummaged through the hardware store and obtained a coil of rope. Then I anxiously returned to my stepfather and refused myself to experience hesitation as I wrapped the roping around my sleeping stepfather; I knotted and tightened it with enough constriction that it may have been capable of eliminating his circulation. And then I relocated his desk against a wall and delicately shifted his chair towards the center of his office. The final result was of my sleeping stepfather being bound to his chair within the core of the spacious chamber.

I wielded some garden shears and smirked at my stepfather as I approached him with the horrifically oversized pair of scissors...I carefully opened the pruners and situated his finger between the blades...the edges of the shears were impatiently gripping his left hand's ring finger between his knuckle and his wedding ring...fourteen karats of solid gold that my mother had wasted eight hundred dollars on.

I clamped the garden shears together and they uttered a satisfying chop as the blades collided with the bone of my stepfather's finger. The finger fell to the floor and produced an echoing clang of divorce as the wedding ring contacted the surface. The blood had immediately coated the bone's whiteness that had emerged from his hand and continued to spurt from the severed veins of where his finger had fled. And simultaneously, my stepfather had opened his bloodshot eyes with agonizing terror of excruciation.

My stepfather screamed at me every goddamned day...but I had never heard him scream in pain...and it was so...so...satisfying.

I watched my stepfather as he struggled against the roping, shouting things like What the fuck is wrong with you you fucking sonofabitch I'm gonna fucking kill you! but I only browsed through additional merchandise within Harry's Hardware. I returned to my stepfather with a weed whacker.

I powered up the electric string trimmer and drained the sounds of his pathetic screams...I held the viciously spinning rotary inches from my stepfather's face, and slowly allowed the cutting head to kiss his petrified flesh. The flexible lines of monofilament literally erased half of his facial features in an instant shedding of blood...the blood splashed as it tore the cartilage out from his ear and removed his cheekbone with a ripping of flesh and disintegrated one of his widened eyeballs.

But to hell with the gardening supplies—I returned to my stepfather with a fucking power saw.

Regardless of my part-time job here at Harry's Hardware, I don't know much about power tools, but I do know how to insert an electrical plug into an outlet and flick the switch. It was a power saw with a ravaging rotation of a single circular blade that possessed a threatening perimeter of sharpened teeth...it kicked within the grip of my hands and infiltrated the office with a screeching noise louder than that of the weed whacker.

The cord was strained as its extension continued to consume the current of electricity that powered the circular saw...my stepfather's mouth was helplessly moving in a verbal attempt of protest and pleading as his remaining eyeball stared at the approaching hardware...but I could not hear him, and I didn't care.

The incredible speed of the blade gave it the pleasant appearance of a stationary disk with a perfectly smooth edge...but the horrid reality was five thousand RPMs of a jagged serration tipped with carbide upon each point of the fatal metal. I brought the circular saw to a steepened angle near my stepfather's neck and slowly allowed it to gently prick his skin with the breeze of its airflow alone.

But then I gradually increased the inclination until contact was made between the circular saw and his chin...the flesh upon his lower jaw became the property of the saw as it was tore from his face in a revealing scene of blood of which progressed as the jagged edges corroded his jawbone and ripped it from its hinges. His tongue was immediately severed into oblivion as it disintegrated into additional blood of which spurted across his office walls and ceiling due to the morbidly disgusting incision.

The circular saw remained in operation as the rapidly rotating blade eliminated the upper row of my stepfather's teeth and began to carve its signature groove of indescribable pain into the roof of his mouth...the blood began to explode from the power saw and had given a thick coating of red upon the blade in addition to my body and the interior of the office...and then the plug was unintentionally pulled from its outlet.

Harrison Jones remained constrained and constricted as nearly seventy-five percent of his face had been obliterated into a bloody conversion...the only aspect of his face that continued to function was his remaining eyeball...it had become glassed with blood and tears of agony, focusing upon me with fury. I returned to my stepfather with a nail gun.

The nail gun was a piece of hardware of which was cordless, pneumatic, and fully loaded with a magazine containing two-inch rods of pointed steel. I held it a mere millimeter from my stepfather's remaining eyeball...it unblinkingly stared down the narrow barrel as I told him I quit, and took a final glance of anger within Harry's Hardware as I admired the spilled blood...clean that shit up, and I pulled the trigger of the nail gun.

A compressed blast of air propelled a nail into his eye socket, its speed appeared to be that of a bullet with equivalent effects. The final implement of my stepfather's vision imploded into the back of his skull as the nail exited through an exploding exit wound. I heard the clatter of bone and splashes of blood echo within the horrific chamber of which had once been the office of Harrison Jones.

His head snapped backwards and allowed the loose peelings of flesh to dangle from his face...the amount of blood was irrationalized as it poured from the severe wounds...and it is still emptying itself as his deceased body continues to be restrained by the roping as his neck rests upon the back of the chair...the cracked hole within the back of his skull continues to provide the floors with a splatter of trickling blood and my guilt continues to enhance my feelings with an inception of sorrowful regret.

And now I don't know what to do...my mother has been widowed because of me. I...I...killed that fucking asshole, and a guilty deed of depths this dark will never be unaccounted for. I currently exist above my stepfather's newly inhabited residence of hell but someday, my deranged and/or disturbing behavior may require me to visit that fucking asshole.

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Credited to Shane Chowdhury 

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