Your Next-Door Neighbor Is a Dragon:. Zack Parsons

Anders said. “I am going to ask you a series of questions. You vill see images on zee screens, but you are to respond only to my questions. Zer is no right or een-correct answer to zees questions. Answer however you like and recall your goal is to manifest your inner self.”

      “Are you ready?” he asked.

      “Ja!” I replied.

      “Vee begin…now!”

      Images began to flash rapid-fire across the screens. It was an accelerated version of the earlier collage of faces, but covering a much broader spectrum of subjects. It was an onslaught.

      Mundane images, violent images, strange images, and pornographic images exploded in complete disharmony across three walls of the chamber. One moment a black-and-white photograph of a ranch house appeared and a moment later it was covered by a photograph of genital herpes from a medical textbook. A moment later the herpes disappeared behind an image of kids cheering on a roller coaster.

      I reeled from the imagery. I was being deluged with disorienting optical static even more intrusive than the words being shouted in my ears during the first exercise.

      “Vat is your favorite color?”

      The Taj Mahal at sunset. A gauzy glamour photo of three children with Down syndrome standing in front of a Christmas tree.

      “Vermilion!” I shouted.

      “Name your best quality,” Anders instructed.

      A stone arrowhead. A fat woman’s cleavage. An F-117 Stealth Fighter parked at an air show. The world was spinning. An insane whirling kaleidoscope of colors and pictures.

      “My punctuality!” I shouted.

      “Vat is your greatest flaw?” Anders asked.

      A recreational Jeep stuck in a ditch. A baseball pitching machine. Dolphins leaping out of the water in unison. I could no longer tell what was actually being projected on the screen and what shapes my brain was creating out of the rippling, turning bands of color.

      “Ahhh fuck I hate…late women,” I answered.

      A tombstone. A collectible motorcycle. Question after question. Bile crept into my throat. My legs shook involuntarily.

      I tried closing my eyes, but an unseen camera in the room betrayed my tactic. Anders warned me to keep my eyes open and chided me about joking with my answers.

      A rabbit chewing on a wood chip. A woman nude except for a headband. My friend from childhood?

      The questions continued. It felt as if I was drowning in the sensations of the room. Sweat coursed down my temples and over my forehead. I was constricted, almost breathless.

      “If you could have two of anything, vat vould you vant?”

      A Brazilian football player catching a ball with his face.

      “Vaginas,” I answered with a gasp. “Vaginas on my…hands.”

      A T-72 tank model kit.

      “What is zee name you call yourself?”

      The strange way Anders phrased the question had to be intentional.

      “Vaginahands?”

      “Who is—”

      Anders was interrupted by a ringing telephone.

      “Excuse me, Herr Parsons,” he said.

      The images abruptly faded to a deep gray static. A soothing ocean of nothing. The room was dark again. My pupils were so blown out I could barely make out my hands resting on the arms of the chair.

      I heard a pop of audio, as if Anders had turned off the intercom. He had only switched channels. When he answered the phone, his words were broadcast through the chair’s headrest.

      “Hello,” Anders answered.

      “Becca, I can’t talk now,” he said in a perfectly normal Midwestern accent. “No, we can talk about this tonight. I’m with somebody.”

      There was a pause as the person on the other end, presumably “Becca,” said something to Anders. I took a moment to absorb this new information. Anders Zimmerman was a fraud on at least one level. He sounded like he was from Des Moines, not Dresden.

      I realized that if that asshole was faking a German accent to earn kooky science credibility, well, it had worked. But the proverbial jig was proverbially up.

      “It’s not Megan,” Anders said with evident anger. “She’s gone and I haven’t—”

      Becca shouted something so loud it was audible (though unintelligible) in the headrest speakers.

      “No, no! No, sweetheart, it’s just some jerkoff who found me through U of C. I don’t—”

      Ol’ Vaginahands had heard enough. It was a struggle to get out of the slowly rotating seat, but with a grunt of effort I flopped out on the side.

      It was difficult to navigate by the stroboscopic flash of the digital collage on the wall screens and I tangled myself up on the seat’s hydraulics. I spun uncertainly and nearly fell back on my knees. At last, I was able to steady myself by looking at the distorted reflections in the glass back wall. It was much darker than the other three walls.

      I shuffled my way to the back wall. With one hand resting on the glass I slowly worked my way to the door I remembered in the middle. My fingers found the latch and I opened the door with a pressurized thump and a rush of air.

      Anders was still on the phone when I emerged from zee chamber. He looked up with surprise.

      “Herr Parsons, I varned you not to get up!” he exclaimed, setting aside his cordless phone.

      I blinked away the stars from the lights. My head was swimming with the aftereffects of the digital torture and I still wasn’t steady on my feet, but I was through with the bullshit. I was even content to leave without confronting Anders, but he stepped between me and the door to the stairwell.

      “You have not yet manifested your inner self,” he said.

      Anders was wrong about that. His stupid light show hadn’t answered my questions, but he had unwittingly told me exactly what I needed to hear. Thanks to his bizarre attempt to scam me, I could see Zee Retarded Matrix. I didn’t cram years of human understanding or journalism school into an hour in a computerized funhouse, but I did manifest my inner self.

      I was an asshole.

      I gave Anders a shove. One-handed. Not enough to knock him over, I’m not a particularly tough or strong person, but it was forceful enough to make him take a step back. He looked at me with surprise.

      And let me go.

      A Special Delivery

      Strange as my visit was to Anders Zimmerman’s amazing Technicolor dream chamber, there was an even stranger epilogue.

      About a week after I discovered my inner self, I was sitting at my desk working on an article for Something Awful. The doorbell rang and I answered to find a FedEx deliveryman. I signed for a standard FedEx shipping envelope.

      I tore open the perforated tab and a single playing card spilled out into my hand. It was the ace of spades—the death card.

      On the back was a message written in fine-tipped black marker.

      “I see you when you’re sleeping.”

      It was signed with the initial “A” printed in a circle.

      I called Anders and received his voice mail. The message I left for him was, well, let’s just say it was intemperate. I promised to do things to his face that are a crime just to contemplate. I remember at the end of the call I told him I would jump up and down on him until his guts popped out of the top of his head like a tube of toothpaste.