The Adventure and Woes of Gregory Smit

Many people often regard Brussels-sprouts negatively, ignorant about the fact they actually have the ability to heal bullet wounds, destroy cancer, and ward off angry pelicans. If the end of the world was to come tomorrow, it is these people who would not live to see another day. Therefore, I would strongly suggest either learning to like Brussels-sprouts, or slathering them with so much gravy, you cannot distinguish they‘re true taste.

It is better if you do not ask me how I know this. It would create a lot of unsightly questions and greatly waste what very little time I have to speak. Questions are often unnecessary and largely irritating. They are also one of the few things that one needs to survive.

My name is unimportant. The name you need to know is Gregory. Gregory Smit. This seemingly boring name is actually a very extraordinary name, first used by the Nymphs of Yesterday. Gregory is a man (which is good because very few girls would be pleased with the name Gregory.) who rarely left his house, preferring the solitary life that some might call ‘hermitish’. If ‘hermitish’ were a word, that is.

I will begin his story soon, but first I would like to make sure that no one who is reading this has a fragile mind. If you are cursed with a mind that is “normal” or “regular”, it would probably be best for you to leave. I do not want any letters from lawyers saying that my readers had a hemorrhage. You see, the following pages are odd, strange, alien, quaint, queer, unusual, rare, rummy, diverting and absolutely true.

Those of you with mental illnesses or tendencies towards thinking outside the box are welcome.

We should probably start at the beginning of the story, but I hate being predictable almost as much as I hate short things. So instead, I will start at the end.

The End.

There. Now I feel comfortable starting at the beginning.

Gregory is an English man, who enjoys his tea and educational talk shows. He lives in a house that is three stories tall, with three tall towers and three front doors side by side. The furniture in his house is scattered, at best. The living room takes up the entire third floor, but merely consists of one large chair, a small tea-table, and a throw rug. Gregory’s story begins on Tuesday, a gray Tuesday that held promise much rain, gusts of winds, and large amounts of tea with cream. Gregory sat in his large armchair, the bright red one that was five times his size and overstuffed beyond recognition of a chair. It was Gregory’s favorite chaired and it was named Hal.

“Today is going to be a quiet day,” Gregory sighed to Hal. Nothing was said in reply, Hal being the shy chair that he is, but this was as per usual.

The day would turn out to be not very quiet at all, as I’m sure you all have guessed. In fact, the day would begin with a very noisy death. The death of a rather friendly mailman who had done nothing wrong, but had to be removed due to the fact that he chose to deliver mail as a profession. Very few people know that being a mailman (or woman) is possibly the most dangerous job out there. Why, I myself shudder to think of the many horrors that have caused the deaths of perfectly capable men and women. Those out here with parents or spouses with this career, I would suggest checking into the witness protection program immediately, and never even look at another mail box again. Perhaps if the nameless mailman in this story had taken heed to such a warning, he would not have perished.

As it were, Gregory’s tea was interrupted by the very loud screech of brake tires and the scream of metal on metal. With an exclaimed ‘Dear Lord!’ he jumped from his chair (after a moment of floundering in the folds) and ran to his front door. He hesitated for a second, trying to decide which door to exit out of (the red one), and then finally burst from the house, his purple bathrobe waving behind him.

An over turned U.S mail truck had crashed into Gregory’s lawn, crushing the life out of several petunias and poppies, along with a few unlucky worms. On his green grass lay the body of the poor mailman, with a single letter clutched tightly in his fist.

“Oh!” Gregory exclaimed at the sight of the blood that streamed from the mans head. He rushed to the victim, turning him over. The mailman coughed, blood cascading from his mouth and he struggled to speak.

“No, no!” the bathrobe clad Englishman discouraged, “Save you strength! I’ll call an -”

“Your…” the mail man spoke, the word scratchy and urgent, “…letter…” Then the mail man handed Gregory the letter that was clutched in his hand. Blood spotted the white envelope but our hero could still make out his name printed in scrawling letters.

“You sir, are a dedicated man,” Gregory said, impressed. Unfortunately, he glanced down to see the man had already expired. After a moment to compute this fact, Gregory dropped the corpse and promptly vomited on his lawn. He then turned and stumbled back to his house, bent on calling the police right away. Had he not been in such a haste, he might have noticed the flat right tire of the mail car. Upon closer inspection, he would have noticed a bullet hole in the thick rubber of the tire. If he were lucky, he may have deduced that someone did not want him to receive this letter. And if he were a very smart man (which he is), he would have been wise enough to dispose of the letter immediately, therefore never being exposed to the words it contained.

But Gregory was. In a haste, that is. He burst into his house, using the green door this time because he hated being repetitive, and dashed to the stairs. He began to climb them, for as mentioned before, there was very little in the living room, and certainly no phone.

Now, though Gregory was not an overweight man, he wasn’t quite in the shape he used to be. So by the time he reached the phone that resided at the top of the third tower and dialed, he was very much out of breath. Then there was also the fact that he was traumatized after watching a man die. The phone call went something like this:

“911, what is your emergency.”

“Huff….HuuUUuufh…Neh…”

“Sir? Are you all right sir?”

“Da…..stairs….Huff….”

“…..Sir what is your emergency?”

“..Ah!….Daaagh…bagh….stairs…body…”

“Sir, I will be hanging up now. This is an emergency hotline, not a joke.”

“No! aah…Mailman!!!”

*dial tone*

As you can see, it was a largely ineffective call.

Gregory slumped into a kitchen chair and put his face in his hands. He shook his head ‘no’, as if able to deny the sequence of events. He went through it all in his head, suggesting that perhaps in doing so he could pretend he had made it all up. He then, with a grim demeanor, Gregory walked down the stairs, resigning to trying the call again later. It wasn’t as though the mailman was going anywhere.

“Oh, Hal,” he moaned as he flopped into the chair. For a second he sunk a bit, as if Hal were trying to give him a comforting hug, “We have a problem, old chap.” he reached to take a sip of his cold Earl Grey tea, and in doing so was reminded of the letter in his hand.

Slowly, he brought the letter to his face, as if not completely sure it was really there. Turning it over, all that could remind him of the earlier events was a single bloody fingerprint, as clear as a bell. Running a finger beneath the flap of the letter he wearily tore it open, and pulled out the letter inside. Unfolding the single piece of paper, Gregory placed his reading glasses (pulled from one of the inner folds of Hal) on his face and looked over the letter that the mail man had died for.

The first thing that one would notice when gazing upon the letter, is the scarlet emblem. What appeared to be a wing was curled, struck through by three lines. Gregory’s brow furrowed as he studied it for a moment, then turned his attention to the rest of the letter.

Dear Mr. Smit,

If you are reading this letter, then excellent. That means that you are not dead. If you are not Mr. Smit, but are reading this letter, then we have failed terribly and it is likely the world will crumble very soon. Please alert your local head of authority, and eat a large helping of Brussels - sprouts. I do trust in my agents, however, so I find it safe to assume that the person who is reading this is indeed the one we seek.

Mr. Smit, you have something of great importance to us. As you may expect, for these things seem to happen often these days, if we do not receive it our lives could very well come to an end. And by ‘our’ lives, I mean everyone.

Please follow these exact instructions.

1. Go upstairs to your bedroom. Pack eight pairs of socks, two shirts, one sweater, three pairs of pants and an umbrella in a large backpack. Include any personal items that are light. Include toiletry items. Include any money you have. Go to your library. Get the book. You know the one I speak of.

2. Leave your house. Do not drive. They will have a tracking device on your car.

3. Go to the St. William’s Bank. Ask to see vault 328. If they ask for a password tell them “avocado”

4. Empty the vault of all it’s contents.

5. Go to The Moor, a restaurant on the west side of town.

6. Order the braised Brussels sprouts.

7. When the order arrives, eat it all. Then ask the waitress for eight and a half more.

8. Pay and leave.

9. Try not to get killed.

I cannot thank you for your cooperation enough. If you follow these instructions exactly, I can be positive assure remain confident hope that you will come out of this unharmed. Good luck.

And that was all.

Readers, let me take this moment to tell you about a very wretched type of people in this world. They are the most coldhearted beings to ever walk this earth. They will suck every slice of happiness from you soul and spit it back in your face. They enjoy taking things and categorizing them in predictable little boxes, then uses those boxes to beat their victims into the ground. No, not lawyers. These monsters go by a different name - Critics. And these people have a name for guys like Gregory. That name is - a ‘reluctant hero’.

Gregory was indeed reluctant. As he sat on Hal his mind reeled, searching for a way to get off this crazy train. Alas, he could find none. Unless someone was playing a very cruel joke, it sounded as though his life could very much be in danger.

On normal circumstances Gregory would have passed this event off as just another teenager playing a cruel joke on him. But the dead body on his lawn was no joke, much to the dismay of both the body and Gregory. So he stood, taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves. He then ran for a second time up his stairs, letter held tight in his hands.