Fed Starving
Active Member
My grandpa was a tortured soul, spending his time like a rung towel dried up on a coat hook, his supervillainous attitude spilling out on anyone he could reach when his hankering so suited him. His ever so nascent disposition always jolted us all into silence with his sarcastic musings and his empty jaded mutterings. He was like a thirty foot tall evil snapping turtle with the most sensitive short fuse you could imagine. Good thing he wasn't physically abusive or we'd be putty on his floor.
We couldn't blame him for being an arse muffin, he had his reasons. Number one was his muscular disorder. Every morning he was fresh and new, could run a mile in fifteen minutes. (not bad for 80). But by the time the sun had sunk and the moon had risen he was curled up so much from muscle tension and tendon tightening that he could barely walk or barely use his hands. His condition was rare to say the least and because of his endless cycle of physical function and dysfunction he was going to get set on ear and detonate every so often.
Second reason Mr. Mike had an intolerable taste for despair and emotional bankruptiveness was his social obligations to his religious cult of evil. He belonged to this cult that required him to do favors for other members whether he liked to or not. If he refused to oblige them then he would be in a dire mess that could lead to an early demise. They were brutally strict on him and had him do favors for some of the most heinous and untrustworthy individuals you'd ever see. Their cult operated much like a north korean commune, brutal and bleak and demanding and unrewarding. We all could see that he always regretted his decision to join them but once they had his balls in a vice there was no escape. So, this constant requirement to do favors for people he would normally shoot with a rifle got on his nerves a ton and contributed a lot to his malicious attitude.
He always kept his cult activities private and never shared with us any of the details, keeping them all to himself and away from us. But one time I happened to walk in on Mr. Mike while he was performing one of his religious acts, swinging a polmegranate around his head that was attached to a string while citing a Betty Crocker recipe backwards. He was contemptuous to say the least and his top exploded, warning me to mind my own business. I asked him about what he was doing and he wouldn't respond. Turns out he was doing a favor for someone. How was that a favor? Nuts.
We loved him though, because he was our grandpa. We would say, "It's okay, Mr. Mike, everything is gonne be alright." He hated when we said that but what else could we say? We didn't blame him and tolerated his sour villainy to our best abilities, not knowing what he was really a part of and how evil he truly was.
Eventually I found a new secret about Mr. Mike. (We called him Mr. Mike because that was what he wanted us to call him. Not grandpa, grandad or pops, but Mr. Mike. That wasn't even his real name either!) He would go spend time in his own personal den that he almost always kept locked up when he wanted some peace and quiet to himself. He only took me in there a few times and I liked hanging out in there. On this day in particular he didn't lock the door when he went to the sunday market to pick up some fresh food.
I went into his den and discovered that his computer on the desk was on. A young man's picture was on the screen, he couldn't have been more than 25. Along with his photo there was a ton of information about the unknown young man that was sorted into folders, such as his daily activities written in a timeline format, maps of the locations of where he went and the routes he took, his interests and hobbies, his personality, things you could say or do around him to get his attention or manipulate his actions. This thing was deep. Like a dissection.
Folders on the desk next to the computer, six of them, contained the same and similar information, going so far as to what concerts the young man attended and the movies he went to see, all of his family, friends and social circles and how they relate to each other and relate to his life. Some folders and files and documents had an official stamp from his organized cult pressed onto them. I couldn't believe the extremity of information about this one guy my grandpa had sitting in his den like some sort of serious spying operation. I didn't have a clue. What was Mr. Mike doing in there?
So I left the things in his den the way they were when Mr. Mike went to the sunday market and I would continue to monitor his operation in the next several months, spying on him spying on the other guy. He was working with his cult in tracking this young individual who happened to be 28 at that time and in a world of hurt. They succeeded in sabotaging the young man's life so thoroughly and enough so that he was left with nothing and trying madly to get on his feet once again. He didn't appear to have done anything to deserve what they were putting him through and he didn't seem to fully know who was behind the sabotage. He had an idea but he would never know to what extent they were nailing him.
And truly they were even spreading lies about him in the hopes to either indirectly kill him or make him go insane or act out badly enough to get him thrown in the slammer, none of which they could 100% succeed at, but they did well at disrupting him and unsettling him so much that he was a constant mess. This had actually been going on for a long time before I discovered the conspiracy, how long I don't know, but long enough to completely demotivate the young man and remove all faith of a decent life out of him. In my opinion he was no match for them, they had all the advantage and truly there was no chance at all for him. They outnumbered him, outresourced him and outeviled him at everything.
Eventually he was able to break their sabotage scheme and outperform their strangulation through some clever tactics and was almost free of their power and able to get his life together. Then they decided that they would have none of that at all and that if he were to re-establish his life once again they would plan to kill him. So, as he finally reached a point where his life was returning to normal they went ahead with their plans. I intervened though and intervened in the same manner that they sabotaged this poor young man's life, through intermediaries and associates of my own and some help of a government agency that turned their whacko organization upside down and basically made them eat themselves from the inside out. They never knew that I was the one that foiled their plans and I'm proud to say that I saved that innocent mans life and put a halt to his unnecessary suffering.
I witnessed some very intollerable action through this experience and I am quite ashamed of my grandpa, Mr. Mike, and now that he is dead and gone I couldn't say that I miss him much. The organization didn't so much as say goodbye to him, writing him off like yesterday's bad meat, and moving on with new suckers to immolate and exploit. I'm relieved the ordeal is done and finished and never to return.
The question though was why did they target that young man in particular? They weren't retaliating against any of his actions, he wasn't guilty of anything horrible, well not enough to ruin his life wherever possible. I couldn't find a clear answer other than there was no logical motive, all their exscuses weren't sufficient. They sort of chose him at random and then became religiously obsessed with him and causing him strife. He fought back and fought hard and that seemed to further the obsession. They went too far and when they realized their mistake they wanted to off him to cover up their stupidity. They were the sort of folks who torture the disabled because there was no chance of retaliation, they were cowardly like that.
That is my story and I am not stink cling two wit.
