A Trial of errors

The man awoke, dazed and confused. His eyes wandered while his head throbbed. As he looked down towards his hands and feet, he found himself to be lying atop a stack of hay.

The man was dressed in a black suit with a bowtie around his neck. His feet wore tall, deep-black boots. His black trousers were ragged and torn.

As the man stumbled onto his feet, he found himself to have no recollection of anything. Where he was? Who he was? Nothing seemed to come to his mind. The thought frightened him momentarily, but he managed to regain his composure, and began to look around.

The man found himself to be in the centre of what appeared to be a large barn. The walls were painted bright red all around. Directly in front of him were a couple of cows, who seemed to take no notice of him.

The man obviously had no recollection of the events preceding this, and he felt surprised as to why he would awaken in such an unexpected place.

Towards his right, he found a man, knocked down unconscious, the same way he was. Figuring the man to be someone he knew, and who could give him answers, the man walked up towards him. As he knelt beside the man, he took a hard look at his face, hoping that it would jog his memory. However, nothing changed.

He shook the man hard in order to wake him. When he didn’t do so, the man grabbed a strand of hay from the bail next to him and stuck it up the other man’s nose.

The other man arose with a jolt and punched the man in his face, knocking him down. As he stood up and rubbed his nose, the other man said,

 “What are you doing? What is wrong with you?”

“You did not get up when I shook you, so I had to take drastic action, I had no other choice. Let’s move on from that though, I need your help, sir… whoever you are. You see, I seem to have momentarily lost my memory. I don’t seem to recall my name, who I am, who you are, and why we are here, though I feel I should be knowing these things.”Q

The other man continued to attend to his paining nose as he spoke.

“You really don’t remember who you are? You certainly seem to be talking as stupidly and egotistically as you normally do.”, he exclaimed in surprise, “If you really don’t remember, then… then it worked. My word, it worked!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t seem to understand what you are referring to here.”

“Oh wow! You’re really conked out aren’t you?”, the other man said in jest, “Ok, let me give you a brief history lesson. Your name is DeJohn Harrison. You are a genius inventor, and an absolute pain in the ass, who comes up with, I must sorrowfully admit, masterful creations, and presents them to the foolish public as marvellous illusions and magic tricks, which earned you your great popularity. Everyone calls you Maverick because you’re apparently daring and audacious, but I know better. In reality, you are an antisocial, sociopathic madman who makes life a living hell for me, just for the heck of it.”

“So, I am a magician?”, the man queried, seemingly ignoring the rest of Paul’s comments on his nature.

“Yeah, sure, you can say that. I’m your best friend, Paul Anderson, or at least I think I am. Yesterday night you called me saying you had come up with something masterful and told me to meet you here because you were afraid someone would notice your creation and try to discredit you. I thought you were being paranoid, but I came here anyway. Anyhow, when I came here, you were fiddling with some black stick or something. It has this green emerald or whatever stuck on top of its tip. When I asked you about it, you told me you had come up with a device that could erase one memory, momentarily, of course. You refused to give me the details, but you did say it momentarily blocked the neural pathways connecting the part of the brain responsible for memory or something. Then you said you wanted to give a demonstration, and you pressed a little red button on the stick and aimed it at me.”

“But for some reason…”, Paul interrupted himself with a laugh, “it must have backfired and hit you instead. Or you may have just aimed it at yourself, if you are that stupid.”

“But I still don’t remember much. There still seems to be a fog blocking my memories.”, the man said, concerned.

Paul casually glanced at his watch as he spoke, “Oh you said the effects would last for about 5 minutes, which should end about…now.”

The man stood motionless for a couple of moments. His eyes remained fixated on Paul, unwavering, his hands stiff.

“DeJohn, are you okay?”, Paul asked as he placed his hand on his shoulder.

DeJohn suddenly jolted with a deep gasp of breath, startling Paul and almost knocking him backwards.

“Yes, yes, I remember everything now. It worked! It worked!”

Paul muttered under his breath as he brushed himself before looking up and saying. “Yes, ‘Maverick’, you did it. Good job!”, in a sarcastic tone.

“Now, Now, no need to be jealous. Surely you missed me while I was gone for those brief five minutes.”

“I thought my world had ended.” Paul retorted in an overly dramatic tone.

“Well, I’m glad you feel that way. Well, this has been a resounding success. Resounding. If only I could now recognise the malfunction which resulted in the shockwave and caused me to lose my memory instead of you, which was not intended, thought that would amuse you very much now, wouldn’t it? Now, where is the stick?”

“I don’t know, I thought it would be next to you.”

“Do you not know where it is? Quick, we must search for it.”

 The two of them walked around the barn, diving under piles of hay, lying down on the filthy floor, desperately searching for the stick.

As Paul walked near the cows at the front of the barn, he exclaimed with a laugh, “I found your stupid stick, but you won’t like it.”

As he said this, he gestured towards a deep black cow, with dirt patches all over its body. The cow appeared to be chewing on a black stick, its large jaws closing in on the stick repeatedly, the green ‘ember’ sticking out of its mouth.

“No! No, we must get it out. My greatest creation is not going to be consumed by a COW!”

Saying this, DeJohn lunged in the direction of the uncaring cow and, grabbing the stick, attempted to free it from the crushing jaws of the cow.

“Paul, help me!!!”, he screamed at Paul.

“But I want nothing to do with this.”

“Paul!!!”

Paul, unable to bear his fellow’s screams (but more really out of irritation), went in to assist him, grabbing him from behind and exerting effort to pull him along. The unyielding cow groaned under effort, as it refused to give in and lose its new plaything. The three crazed mammals groaned and strained in the effort, audible from well outside the barn.

With one final exertion, DeJohn managed to pull free his precious invention, but his momentum pulling him backwards, he pummelled into Paul’s front, landing on top of him.

As the cow watched the two supposedly superior beings moan and groan on the ground, it casually walked away, clearly deeming the two of them to be unworthy of his attention.

“Good, Good. No structural damage, and the prism is intact.”, DeJohn proclaimed, as he whipped out a napkin from his coat pocket and furiously wiped the body of the stick.

Paul was a lot slower in arising from the ground. “That’s Great!”, he exclaimed sarcastically.

As DeJohn flipped the stick up and down, inspecting every angle of it, he spoke, “Now that it has been reclaimed, let’s see what caused the malfunction in the first place. No indication of a short-circuit, or interruption in the functioning. It should be working as intended.”

“Ok?”, Paul spoke cautiously, for he knew well to not trust his friend’s impulsive actions.

“There is only one way to find out, isn’t there? To see it in operation.”, DeJohn said, as he slowly lifted his priceless creation and aimed it at Paul.

“No! No! Don’t you think you’re being too rash here? You don’t know why it failed in the first instance. I suggest you find that out first.”, Paul said, lifting his hands to protect himself from whatever was coming his way.

“Oh, don’t wine Paul. Don’t worry. The effects will last only five minutes. It’s fine. Don’t you want to help your dear friend in his pursuits?”

“No! Not really”, Paul exclaimed, but DeJohn did not react to his words. He aimed his invention at his friend’s face, flipped a switch and swiftly pressed down a red button on the body of the stick. However, just as before, his prized invention backfired on him, creating a shockwave that sent the two men off to either side of the barn, DeJohn being flung into a pile of hay, and Paul being knocked against the bar walls, both knocked out cold. DeJohn himself murmured illegibly before passing out.

The man awoke, dazed and confused…