Butler's Revenge

by Chris Heath

The chandelier fell. A hundred thousand pieces of tiny, shattered glass fragments lied scattered on the dusty, mahogany floor. As the butler was scooping with a dustpan and brush to clear up the small pieces, Mr. Limpsdale entered the massive hallway proudly.

Nothing like a broken chandelier to annihilate somebody's pride.

"What on EARTH is this?", he screamed furiously.

The butler felt his hands become so sweaty that he dropped the brush. His heart thumping, he shakily answered.

"Ug..um..I er..the chandelier.....", he clasped his hands together behind his back, momentarily feeling that familiar lump in his back pocket, and forced out the last few words, "it, er.....it fell, sir." "Yes, I can very well see that it fell! I'm not stupid! I don't belong to the ignoramus club for idiotic morons! WHY did it fall?"

The tone of why made the butler jump like a dog that has just been trodden on. "Um, well,sir, I don't know, shall I investigate, sir?", he really didn't want to investigate, not now.

"No, clean up this god damn mess first!", although the two were standing at least ten feet apart, the butler saw a small sphere of saliva egress from Mr. Limpsdale's mouth as he said mess. Mr. Limpsdale turned and walked into the living room door. Out of sight, out of mind, the butler thought thankfully.

He picked up the brush and dustpan, and continued to sweep. He spent several long minutes participating in this tiresome and knee-destroying task, before realising it would be better if he used a larger tool. He stood up and started rubbing his chin, querolously wondering what tool he might use. Aha! he thought at last, a towel!

This was as exciting as his life got under the instruction of the omnipresent dictator, Mr. Limpsdale. Not a moment of joy came hurtling in his direction, not a single exciting thought skimmed his brain. His only source of sanity was playing tricks on Mr. Limpsdale. For example, the prank he had set only earlier, whereby he greatly untightened the chandelier bolts knowing it would cause them to fall in due time. However, he had hoped it would fall on Mr. Limpsdale. It was a long shot, he mused.

Oh, for how he hated Mr. limpsdale! O, how he despised that fat, plattyrhine, mustachioed face! How he longed to hurl a brick between the man's eyes, and see him fall, fall to his deserv?d unconsciousness! Watch the blood trickle and gently percolate into several avenues down his face, eventually reaching the floor, staining Mr. Limpsdale's oh so beloved mahogany floor. How euphoric indeed that would feel!

Now he was beginning to ponder. He supossed he could leave small amounts of glass, so that only he knew where they were. Yes, yes, he could pull that one off. Then, Mr. fat-face comes out of the living room, treads on the glass and.....perfect! Bloodshed in the hallway! The butler fetched a towel, cleared up the rest of the mess - although in his eyes it was a piece of art - and put some of the smaller pieces of sharp glass into a small velvet pouch. He entered the living room, announcing his finished work, and after Mr. Limpsdale dismissed him (and the butler had given him a massive smile) he adjourned to his upstairs study, with the idea of drawing out a map in his mind.

The map completed, he leaned back in his chair - a small, boring browness of a seat - and admired his work. It looked rather like a blueprint, he thought. He had carefully shown where the glass pieces would be placed; in such a pattern so that they represented Mr. Limpsdale's peculiar face. He stood up, pulled open a drawer on the other side of the room, and brandished a long pipe. He placed it down on the table-top, and withdrew from the drawer a small pouch of green leaves, compressed into a block of natural beauty, he believed. He picked off a small amount of the stuff, dropped them into his pipe, put the pipe to his mouth, and lit it with the lighter he always kept in his back pocket.

He returned to his chair, pipe in mouth, and rolled up the blueprint. It was only on a piece of A4 paper, so he could fit it easily into his pocket. Mr. Limpsdale wouldn't notice the bulge. Gradually discarding his ganja pipe, he collected his thoughts, gathered his ideas, and harpooned the miasma of intermingling mind-sets he called his mind. Then he left the study and stepped into the bright, natural-lighted upstairs landing. He breathed in its inexplicable wondrous beauty for a moment, then made his way down the stairs, feeling his pockets for the map and the velvet pouch, and also feeling much happier and lighter than before. A smile broke out.

He reached the bottom of the stairs after an eternity (he didn't care much for real time, he trusted his brain so much more than Big Ben), and checked that the hallway and all rooms in close proximity were empty. He practically tip-toed his shiny-shoed-feet over to where the chandelier had fallen, and bent down so that he was on his knees. He removed the map from his left pocket, and the velvet pouch from his right, and started as he heard footsteps. Hurriedly, he screwed up his precious map, his piece of artwork, and shoved it into his pocket. Almost simultaneously, he thrust the pouch into his right pocket, and stood up so fast that he felt a head-rush.

Trying to decipher the hallway around him through his new-found crystalline, bleary vision proved to be difficult, but he didn't have time to bother with that. He would just have to feign feeling normal. So, a little weary and a little high, he turned to his right, and tried oh so desperately to look at Mr. Fucksdale normally.

"Ahh, I see you've cleared up that mess", said the master of all things butlery. It's not mess, the butler thought, it's art.

"Err...yes, sir..yes, sir...sir...", he opened his eyes widely to try and throw out the possibility in Mr. Limpsdale's head that he was high.

"Good, good, now would you ple....are you okay?" The butler couldn't handle it anymore, he rubbed his forehead so briskly that a few flakes of skin fell to the spot where glass should be by now, and put both hands in pockets, a behaviourism he has never done before. Mr. Limpsdale was not angry, luckily, just confused. If not a little scared, that is.

"Well...off...you...upstairs with you, man!", he spat slightly on the butler's stoned and dissapointed face, and then the butler made his way upstairs and eventually, back into his study.

He sat, picked up his pipe, and wallowed away into his internal world of light, feathers, and all things mellow. Drifting through this plethora of phantasmagorical fantasy objects, he lost himself completely, devoted himself entirely to the resistance of gravity, the weightlessness of his own thoughts, and the feeling of a head full of eiderdown, a heart full of happiness, and nerves full of liquid soul.

He smiled in a weak, happy fashion, and put down the pipe.

Bliss.

He dopily leant back in his seat, transmuting with his internal doppelganger, until no longer is he aware of his surroundings, his life, his ego, but only of his veritable child of the soul.

Awakening gradually from his dope trance, he unfurled his mind, whilst unfolding his map. He placed it on the Victorian table in front of him, and looked for something to use as a paperweight. Feeling around as if he were blind, he found in the bottom desk drawer a small sphere; a frosty-coloured, bumpy surface inglobed like the Earth itself. He dropped it on the top left corner of his blueprint, and placed his right hand on the bottom right corner, picking up a pen with his left hand. He began to alter various parts of his work; he lowered the eyebrows, thickened the moustache, and made the right ear far more pointy than the left and, indeed, more pointy than in reality. Once he had finished, the face was not so much a charicature as an actual unintentional portrait of Mr. Limpsdale's face. The only difference was the lack of hair on the portrait, due of course, to lack of glass pieces. He should have saved more.

So, once more, he curled up the now creased map, assured himself he had the velvet pouch and its glass pieces, and went downstairs to perform a miracle of sorts.

He was reading an old hardback book ('The Brothers' by Wordsworth - one of his favourite poems) when Mr. Limpsdale bellowed up the stairs with rage. Our rebellious butler ignored him, and continued to read the poem. These Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live A profitable life: some glance along, Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, said his internal reading voice. Once again, this voice was interrupted by Mr. Limpsdale's real voice (or, rather, simply material voice). Pushing the book closer to his face, he heard in his head: And they were butterflies to wheel about Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise, Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag. Shouting and screaming from the real world. More bliss from the prose, as: A man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbours corn. But, for that moping Son of Idleness, Why can he tarry yonder? he was beginning to hear footsteps up the stairs now - a loud thwomp - and started to read the poem aloud, loud enough for the owner of those steps to hear.

"In our churchyard Is neither epitaph nor monument."

Thwomp. Thwomp.

"Tombstone nor name-only the turf we tread."

Thwomp. Thwomp. Thwomp. Creak, as the study door starts to open.

"And"

Creak.

"A"

Creak.

"Few"

Creak.

"Natural"

Creak.

"....Graves."

A bloody Mr. Limpsdale stepped forward slowly, his eyes afire with pure fury and anger and all things hate.

"I'LL SEND YOU TO A FUCKING GRAVE IN A MINUTE!", he bellowed, and that was the trigger to the butler's own fury.

"I don't give a fuck! You think I actually want to work here? You think I enjoy it? I don't do it for pleasure, I do it for money. Not an ounce of pleasure has passed me here, besides the marijuana.....yes, yes, I smoke the stuff, get over it." To demonstrate his point, he picked up his pipe once more, and inhaled deeply. Mr. Limpsdale reached forward and knocked the pipe out of his hand, sending it flying through the closed window. Bits of glass fell inside and out the house.

"If you hate it so much, why don't you leave? Why didn't you leave a long time ago?!?", Mr. Limpsdale was aware of his spitting now, but he didn't care.

The butler leaned closer, closer, and closer still until he was an excruciating inch from his face. He whispered in a low, monotone, gravelly voice:

"I enjoyed playing tricks on you." the butler took a sip of Mr. Limpsdale's pain, and found it exquisite. He withdrew his face, and observed the red, plump face in front of him. Mr. Limpsdale's bleeding fists were shaking.

"Get...out", this was basically a whisper.

"What about my pay?", the butler knew what was coming, and felt the thrill of victory, the thrill of good over evil.

"Here.", he said gravelly, and handed over roughly one hundred pounds. "Now," he was feeling emotional now, the butler could tell,"get out."

"With pleasure."

The heroic butler packed the few clothes, books and general belongings he had and trod downstairs for the last time, stepped on that mahogany floor for the last time, and walked to the large front door. He stepped out and, just before pulling the door fully closed, he looked back into the hallway, saw the face on the floor, his piece of art, and closed the door as loudly and hard as possible.

Strolling jauntily away from the house, he stooped for a moment to pick up his pipe.

Pipe in mouth, ganja in pipe, the butler left the driveway, and turned out of sight. Mr. Limpsdale turned his back on the broken window, fell to the floor in emotional collapse, and, sitting in a very slight rocking motion, felt a great surge of tears come pouring their way out of his lonely, lonely heart.

Even glass couldn't be, More shattered than he.