The Tragic Story of Frank von Sniggel
Part I
"What cannot be known hollows the mind. Fill it not with guesswork." - Commander Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
JACK: Since izzie’s arrival, an inglorious happenstance I like to call Theos (short for “the end of sanity”), Brady and I have taken refuge in newer forms of mental leisure. Needless to say, each of us has seriously weighed the possibility of a reckoning of sorts, perhaps using a one-of-a-kind artifact or stratagem to rid ourselves of the ritzy beast without so much as a kerfuffle. The possibilities are endless, but the means are scarce—or so we have established.
In his later years, Professor Emeritus Frank von Sniggel had already accounted for more than an entire lifetime’s share of woes and tribulations. His walls, once adorned by scores of wordly accomplishments, now laid bare as he realized the enormity of the challenge ahead. He’d also admired, for quite some time, the kind of mental rhetoric that passes for nominative self-help advice; his imaginary axis mundi finally exposed for what it really was: a delusional, albeit prismatic look at what could or should have been, and yet it wasn’t. In other words, he often mistook simple cause and effect for the governing works of a higher power.
He also loved T. S. Elliot and his Prufrock. Not necessarily by the manner in which the main character is remitted to the trappings of destiny without an escape plan, for this was a glitch he already knew too well, but in the sense that “disturbing” the universe becomes a real possibility as one caresses the veil of time. Incidentally, he was his most stern critic as well as his own savior. “Daring to question the legitimacy of one’s intentions is a work of patience,” he once added, citing one of his many musings carefully curated as he endured the worst of the Great War. He’d foretold, even at a young age—as if coming from some sage of old—that the price of immortality is always paid in countless tears; for all anyone cares, a barrage of insidious arguments against the validity of such premises has ensued ever since.
As the years of his youth passed, he became enthralled by the prospect of a mind free of predispositions. The advantage of hell to those who actively cherish it is that everyone fits the mold; there are no shades, no hues, no debilitating subtleties, no attenuating effects to be had from a life devoted to anything other than the perfection of reason. And there he was, always filling the void between the porcelain and the tea …