Storymania - Mightier Than The Sword by Simon King

Mightier Than The Sword
Simon King

-1-

“Oh, go to hell Jack”, Bob shouted at his manager across the office. Actually, to be totally accurate, he didn’t shout it at all. To be absolutely precise, no sound left his lips, but the inside of his head was still reverberating from the yell.
  Bob had just been on the receiving end, yet again, of a patronising, vitriolic broadside from Jack Bennett, his boss. Jack had this way, always had had, of never saying anything severe or derogatory to any of his staff until exactly fifteen minutes before five o’clock. They always knew if they were in for some kind of “advice” from Jack if they were “invited” into his office at four forty-five. And today it had been Bob’s turn to benefit from the wise, sagelike Oracle as he sat in his black leather swivel chair. ‘Smug, Overbearing Manager’s Chair. Patent Pending’ could have been stamped underneath it’s copious seat. Today’s lecture had been on the subject of efficiency.
  “You see Bob”, Jack had begun in the most irritatingly reasonable tone it was possible to imagine, “we are a team. You, me, all the guys out there. It’s like, well, it’s like a cricket team really.”
  ‘Oh Christ’, thought Bob. Once he gets into his cricket team analogy, we’re in for a big one.
  “Now, I like to think of myself as the Captain of the team,” Jack continued, peering over those ridiculous bloody half-glasses he insisted on wearing, though he used them mainly as a prop. As he pursued his highly amusing metaphor, the glasses would be taken off at intervals. One leg would be slipped gently into the mouth, sucked on for a moment, then the wretched things would be replaced with the care and precision of an Archbishop placing the crown on the new Monarch’s head.
  “I like to think of myself as the Captain of the team, but a Captain’s no good without his batsmen, his bowlers, his fielders. They all have a role to play, no cricket team ever won a match without scoring runs and taking wickets. Are you with me here Bob?” he asked, making sure that this simple underling could follow the highly complex thread of his argument. Bob nodded to indicate that he was managing to hold onto the intricacies of his esoteric discourse.
  “But at the moment, Bob, you see, I don’t think you’re making enough runs with that bat. In fact, you’re making so few runs that some of my bowlers are having to come in down the order and make up the score, and then go out and bowl. Now we can’t really have that situation, can we?”
  It was a rhetorical question, as most of Jack Bennett’s were, but Bob shook his head in automatic response, totally Pavlovian, simply responding to the general downward movement in pitch towards the end of the sentence.
  Jack was into full flow, and rose from his chair like some semi-Divine far-eastern emperor about to pass judgement on the mere mortals in his presence. He paced slowly over to the blind-covered window, and peeped out. Bob felt the first prickling of perspiration on his brow, but was determined to stay cool, to show he was not being belittled by this pompous old fart. Did his best, but failed.
  Jack turned, glasses in hand now, for a little added extension, as if to make the point more strongly. Like some hammy old Shakespearean actor, with the emphasis on the ‘or’, this was his piece de resistance. This movement of the arm, starting gently somewhere above his head, then moving down and out to end up pointing at his interlocutor like Michaelangelo’s hand of God.
  “You, Bob, are simply not pulling your weight”, he intoned, slowly, but with rising volume. Bob held onto the edges of his hard-backed chair, waiting for the final tsunami of vitriol to blast over him. “That is the fact of the matter. Others in the department are having to take on extra work because YOU ARE NOT PULLING YOUR BLOODY WEIGHT!” he finished, just one degree below shouting, the colour starting to rise in his cheeks.
  He seated himself again, composed himself for a few seconds, then recalled his earlier patronising tone to deliver his final piece of advice. “Now, it’s almost five, it’s Friday, so I don’t want to end the week on a sour note.” A sickly, sour sneer played with his thin lips as he said this. “I’d like you to think about this over the weekend, and let’s see if we can’t put together a better team performance starting next week. Okay? Fair enough? Goodnight then Bob.”
  Bob seized the opportunity he had just been offered to get out of Jack’s sight, and mumbled merely, “I’ll do my best, Jack. Have a good weekend.” This is what came out immediately following his internal outburst. He felt absolutely weak and pathetic, but stood, turned, and left the office, leaving his manager looking though his stupid little half-glasses at some paper or other which now demanded his absolute total attention. Bob closed the office door quietly, put on his coat, picked up his briefcase, and left.

-2-

After finishing his meagre tea, beans on toast yet again, and washing the pots, Bob walked over to his ‘study’. It was no such thing of course, just the corner of the living room where he had a small desk, and kept various papers, and did what little correspondence a simple-living bachelor had to do.
  He couldn’t remember when he had thought of this idea, but it was probably the best he had ever had, although that did not lend it any great credentials, since Bob was not the most original thinker in the world. But this was a good idea. He had decided, the next time he had received some apposite advice from his manager, the estimable Mr Bennett, he would write down exactly what he would like to say, and do, to the arrogant old git, were he in a position to exercise complete control. This would be most enjoyable, he knew.
  Selecting his favourite fountain pen, a beautiful tortoiseshell Waterman that he used for all his most important writing, and selecting a crisp white sheet of writing paper, he began to conduct all the thoughts, the hatred in his mind, down his arm, through his hand and the pen, onto the paper.

‘Mr. Bennett is sitting in his living room. It is around eight o’clock. He and his wife have finished their meal, accompanied by a very palatable bottle of claret, and he is now relaxing in his armchair, reading glasses perched on nose, reading a particularly uninteresting book, written by some little known economist espousing some half-baked theory of the net flow of money in an economy. I walk into the room quietly, a sports bag in my left hand, the loaded pistol in my right hand already aimed at Mrs Bennett, and as she turns in my direction, I shoot her through the forehead. I have nothing against Mrs Bennett, I don’t want her to suffer, so it is quicker simply to put her out of her misery in this way.
  Mr Bennett swings round at the sound of the gunfire, and I say to him, in a totally calm voice, “Stay where you are, please, Mr. Bennett. I have no wish to shoot you, but make no mistake that I will if you move a muscle. Just remain at the crease please. The bowler has commenced his run-up.”
  Mr. Bennett complies, and remains motionless as I drop the bag, then bind his legs and ankles together, then meekly holds his hands out to the front for me to tie these up also. Finally I tie his hands to his legs, rendering him virtually immobile, save for his head, but that should not present a problem. Not for long anyway.
  “Now, Mr Bennett,” I begin in my finest patronising tongue, “it’s like this you see. I’ve had just about enough of your browbeating, your ridiculous gestures with those bloody stupid glasses, and your FUCKING CRICKET BOLLOCKS!” My crescendo towards the final explosion is one of which Mr. Jack Bennett himself would be proud, I think. I continue, back to normal volume. “So, you see, I’m afraid we’re going to have to do something about all this. Let’s see how far this cricketing metaphor can be taken shall we?”
  I place the pistol on Mrs Bennett’s lifeless lap, now it is no longer required, and reach down for my bag. I place the bag next to the ex-Mrs Bennett, and open the main compartment, from which I first remove a shiny new cricket ball, and toss it in my hand once or twice.
  “You know,” I start in a conversational way, “the Australian method of taking a high catch is different from the English way. You see, in England, players are taught to wait for the catch with the heels of their hands together, fingers pointing outwards towards the ball, and take it either into the chest or overhead, whereas, in Australia, high catches are taken at head height, directly in front of the face, with the fingers pointing straight up.” I demonstrate both these methods quite accurately, for Mr. Bennett’s benefit. “Now, the only trouble with that method is that, unfortunately, from time to time, the ball passes straight through the player’s hands and hits him in the face, which has caused some very nasty injuries. Let me show you.”
  With admirable calm, but all the might I can muster, I smash the cricket ball into Mr. Bennett’s left eye, shattering the left lens of his glasses into the soft jelly of his eye, and Mr. Bennett screams in a most unusual high-pitched manner. I repeat the demonstration on the right eye, and both the volume and pitch of Mr. Bennett’s outburst are raised by about fifty percent. I watch as the aqueous humour dribbles out of his ruined eyes, mixing with the shards of glass, blood, and bent frames of the reading glasses. I return the cricket ball to the bag. Then I remove two bails.
  I have to explain things more fully now, since Mr. Bennett is having some difficulty in seeing what I am doing.
  “Did you know, Mr Bennett, that the original “Ashes” were those of some burnt cricket bails, very much like the two I have in my hand now? It’s a very interesting story actually, but sadly I don’t think we’ve got time to discuss it. Now obviously this would be much easier if these were ashes rather than rough pieces of hard wood, but beggars can’t be choosers can they? We’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got.” So saying, I force the bails gently up Mr. Bennett’s wide, hairy nostrils, with sufficient force to split the nose away from the upper lip, and pierce his sinuses, but being careful not to push hard enough to damage his brain. His innings needs to last a little longer yet. His high-pitched scream reinvents itself, this time with the added variation of liquid gurgles as blood from his mangled nasal passages dribbles down his throat. His head thrashes backwards and forwards, fairly ineffectually, as though he disagrees with my point of view. But that’s okay, I can take constructive criticism.
  Reaching into my bag one more time, I remove a smooth, pale cricket stump, admiring it’s beautiful graining for a second or two, before explaining to the writhing Mr. Bennett what I am about to do. “Now, Mr. Bennett, at the end of a match, it is quite common for members of the winning side to pull a stump out of the ground, to keep as a memento. I regret to say that I think you may have lost this match, but I’m not an ungenerous man, and Cricket is a game for gentlemen after all, so I’ve decided to let you keep this stump, as a memento of this very enjoyable meeting.” I think he understands, but his peculiar grunts, whinnies and gurgles are not really intelligible.
  Carefully, in the manner of a dentist, I lean his head back, Mr. Bennett does not resist, and open his mouth. Next I place a foot to the left of him, on the armchair, and climb up, putting my right foot onto the seat, and standing above him. Finding his mouth with the pointed tip of the stump, I offer my final piece of Wisden wisdom. “I think this saying must have originated in the Cricketing world, Mr. Bennett, so I will use it now. Please forgive me if I misquote. ‘It matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game.’” With that old adage, I push, slowly but firmly, on the top of the cricket stump, forcing it down Mr. Bennett’s throat, listening to the gagging, the choking, and, after a while, the final wheeze as his oesophagus is crushed and further intake of air is impossible.
  I climb down from the chair, leaving the stump in it’s mounting, collect my things and leave. A very enjoyable match.’

Bob folded the several sheets of handwriting-covered paper and pushed them into one of the letter slots at the back of his desk, replaced the top on his fountain pen, put it away, stood up, and walked into the kitchen. Smiling. Totally unwound now.
  He made his usual cup of drinking chocolate, walked back into the living room, switched on the TV, and spent several hours soaking up whatever was thrown at him.

-3-

As was not uncommon, particularly on Monday mornings, Bob awoke a few minutes before his alarm clock had the chance to do it's duty, and lay, listening to the morning sounds from outside, waiting for the radio to switch on, just in time for the local news. As he watched the digits change from 6:59 to 7:00, the radio came alive. The nasal radio voice of the newsreader came through.
  “It’s seven o’clock, here is the news. The hunt continues for the person responsible for the double murder committed on Friday night in the Oakleas area of the town. The murdered couple have been named as Mr. John Bennett, a finance manager, and his wife Mrs. Eileen Bennett. Both were in their early sixties. Mrs Bennett was shot from point blank range, whilst Mr. Bennett was tortured and killed in what police have described as a most unusual and horrendous manner. Details of this have not been released, since the police are appealing for anyone with any knowledge of this tragedy to call them on the following number….”
  An icicle moved it’s frozen way down Bob’s spine, then proceeded back up again. Slowly, a smile broke out on the plain, featureless face, and he put his arms behind his head, and decided to give himself an extra ten minutes this morning, anticipating a rather more pleasant day’s work than for many years. Maybe he’d score a few runs today. Maybe.