Mr. Snickerdoodles by Brian Hesse (reading rainbow books txt) 📕

A warm summer night in the backwoods of Pennsylvania is hard to describe to anyone content with busy urban living. Imagine standing in a field of lush wild roses, as far as the eye can see, and feeling the tall grass gently brush your bare skin. You can smell a strange and beautiful mixture of rose, lavender, and something so hard to identify, so alien to the modern human, the smell of clean living. Imagine looking up at the night sky and seeing thousands of stars shining so bright, as though each star is signaling to the observer alone a profound heavenly revelation that we are not alone in the universe. The only sound to hear is the beautiful sound of crickets singing their nightly operetta, “Sleep soundly listener, all is right with the world tonight." These were the thoughts running through the sad and broken mind of Jacob Smith as he stood outside his broken-down farmhouse. The farmhouse has missing and broken siding, a hole in the roof that floods his kitchen on stormy nights, and creaking front steps that his wife never would have tolerated while she was alive.

Jacob felt his heart beat faster, beginning like a steady drum and slowly progressing to a jackhammer like rhythm with each slow turn of his head toward his first-floor broken window. Jacob could now see the unholy apparition in his peripheral vision……. Mr. Snickerdoodles, the cat. 

   Living on the farm in Lancaster Pennsylvania with his beautiful wife was a dream come true for a poor country boy like Jacob. At thirty-five years of age, Jacob lived a sometimes poverty stricken life as a corn farme,r and adventuresome life as soldier. However, nothing can compare with the day he met Jasmine Rhodes at the Lehigh County Fair. There she was standing next to the big Ferris wheel, a slight breeze blowing through her shoulder length auburn hair each time a chair full of children, and young lovers ,rushed by. Locals professed that this Ferris wheel was the biggest on the Eastern coast. This boast may be disputed but the fact that Jasmine looked so small and vulnerable standing next to the monstrous ride cannot be denied. She was wearing tight jean shorts that accentuated the perfect shape of her thighs and perfectly rounded backside, and a low-cut gray and white blouse, the same color of a sad and serene Pennsylvania cloudy sky. This was also the same color of her forever favorite pet in the whole world…. Mr. Snickerdoodles.

   It was not long before Jacob made his best move, best move for a good old country boy like him that is. “Hi there, I’m Jacob Smith. Someone call heaven because I am sure they are looking for a missing angel!” I can’t believe I just said that, he thought. She must think I am one dumb son of a bitch, Jacob looked into her big beautiful emerald eyes, nervously waiting for a response. 

“Well aren’t you a smooth one? My name is Jasmine,” extending a small and smooth alabaster hand to Jacob.

 From that short introduction one just need to look up at that clear country sky and know that marriage for Jacob and Jasmine was written in the stars. What the amateur astrologer would not see is the hidden black hole behind those beautiful twinkling messengers from the heavens. Jacob Smith and, the future Jasmine Rhodes Smith, certainly did not see that blackness ready to devour their perfect future written so daintily in the constellations.

The Wedding

   The wedding was a simple ceremony in a faded white chapel in the middle of nowhere. Jasmine’s family was Episcopalian and that was the type of service they would have. Jacob did not have family so the groom side consisted only of his brother Bob. Bob was an alcoholic and no doubt only showed for the after-ceremony reception to finish what he already started, but couldn't afford to finish. Quite simply, you could smell the scent of Southern Comfort on his breath from a mile away. The bride side was packed with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, girlfriends, and strangers from town who just seemed to follow her beauty wherever she strolled.

Lord, what did I do to deserve this beautiful angel? Thank You so much, thought Jacob, bursting at the seams with happiness.

The honeymoon was delayed until Jacob could raise a good healthy crop of corn for market. Keeping up with the agricultural corporations was murder on a small operations farmer like Jacob. He had 225 acres which was slightly under the government definition of a small- sized family farm. Jasmine worked as a secretary for a law firm in Philadelphia and made enough to pay bills and make ends meet in hard farming times.

Well, Jacob thought, I am jumping the gun here. We have only been happily married for six months, but I am sure Jasmine can keep us going when the farm runs into inevitable bad times. I really need to cover that damn well out back though. My honey has been on me for weeks now to cover that damn thing up. Maybe, she is preparing for children soon, Jacob contemplated with a smile on his sun weathered face. But for now, life consisted of Jacob, Jasmine, and Mr. Snickerdoodles.

Mr. Snickerdoodles

Mr. Snickerdoodles was a three-year-old tiger striped cat with gray and white fur. He was quite an impressive looking specimen with a jet black striped pattern that extended from the head to the tip of his unusually long tail. Something, to Jacob, those deep emerald eyes signaled loudly of a cold intelligence towards him but, a warm affectionate, almost unnatural affection, for his mistress, Jasmine Smith. Not saying that the cat did not allow affection between husband and wife. Not like some dogs who will purposely squeeze in between lovers in a jealous show of defiance toward one or the other.

However, Mr. Snickerdoodles always remained close to his beautiful mistress and would glance at Jacob with a cold stare that warned, "Never hurt my lady you stupid human man!" This was the phrase that always entered the mind of Jacob when he would see that intelligent glare of the emerald eyes. A thought that would bolt through his mind like a lightning bolt splitting a tree in half and burning the soft pulp inside. Never has a single thought so disturbed the man who survived two tours in a war zone and countless early hardships on the farm. 

One year to the date of the happiest marriage on God’s blue planet, Jacob discovered the mangled body of his only reason for living. Finally, motivated by constant requests to cover the old well behind the farmhouse, Jacob set out to board up the proverbial thorn in his side. After reaching the edge of the well Jacob looked on with a feeling that can only be described as surreal. It was as if he was looking at a mannequin that was quite too large to fit down the well so someone kicked, punched, and beat the damn dummy so hard until the limbs contorted in unnatural positions and angles. These were angels that surely no human appendage could achieve no matter how hard you twisted or pulled the muscles, bones, and tendons. But this was no mannequin lying at the bottom of that well, because mannequins do not bleed. Mannequins do not have intestines that spill out to the ground when the abdomen is perforated by sharpened rock from the side of a well. Mannequins do not have innards that look like ripe melons split open under a hot summer sun.

Once Jasmine was pulled out of the well by the local coroner, Dr. Ernest Wheeler, it was obvious the extent of the wounds corresponded with the physical dimensions and abnormalities of the well. The well itself was a fifteen foot drop onto a small pile of sharp rocks which must have settled to the bottom due to erosion. This explained Jasmine's cracked open skull and the subsequent exposure of bloody gray matter. The perforated abdomen was explained by, not a sharp rock, but a sharp piece of rebar that was sticking up out of the pile of rocks at the bottom of the well. More than likely thrown down by some kids playing in the well some time ago before Jacob's family bought the land. Finally, the limbs were not as bent as described by the traumatized Jacob. His quick glimpse of the body of his beloved brought back memories of Baghdad, Iraq  2004. When Jacob was an infantry soldier he witnessed a car bomb explosion that killed seven people and wounded fifteen in the heart of Baghdad. That time Jacob saw what looked like mannequins strewn across a dusty desert road with arms and legs bent and snapped at strange geometrical angles.

His beloved did break her right arm causing a compound fracture. What Jacob really saw was the polished ivory bone sticking out of the skin, like the sharp white teeth of a shark tearing through her skin from the inside out. The coroner ruled the death an accident but would surely contact Jacob with new findings after the official autopsy. These horrid thoughts, going through Jacob's mind became irrelevant and small compared to a single most troubling thought….

"I am completely alone."

End Game

Time passed as it always does. The crop for the year was a failure more so due to sorrow than any act of nature or economic conditions. Simply put, Jacob made good friends with his estranged brother Bob and, more importantly, their mutual friends Jack Daniels and Mr. Southern Comfort.

“Bob, you know only a short time has passed since that rainy day when they placed my baby under that cold dirt, but I can't even remember her face.” Jacob began to sob loudly between mouthfuls of Jack Daniels repeating the same phrase repeatedly….” Can’t even remember her face.” Bob just listened and provided the only comfort a man like him could provide. He kept the whiskey flowing from noon until sundown every day before leaving Jacob’s side and returning to his own shack down the old dirt road that separated both neglected farms.

 One night, Jacob was awakened by a heavy suffocating feeling on his chest, like a vacuum sucking the air out of his tired lungs. Just before forcing open his whiskey laden blood shot eyes, Jacob heard a loud blood curdling scream, like that of a hungry deformed infant desperately crying for its Mother's milk. But this sound was not in the far distance of the nursery now covered with dust and broken dreams of what may have been. This unholy scream was only inches from Jacobs sunburnt face. This scream was coming from the mouth of something fueled by hatred and contempt for the broken form lying on dirt and urine stained sheets. Jacob slowly opened his eyes and came face to face with bright emerald eyes that had just a hint of an amber glow. Teeth that appeared as knives, as sharp as razors and dripping with that clear saliva that always indicates an animal’s craving for soft bloody flesh. Jacob could tell by the dark shape that this was Mr. Snickerdoodles but, larger, heavier, and with a face contorted just ever so slightly enough to make intentions very clear.

“I am Jasmine’s vengeance your stupid man.”

Jacob could imagine grabbing this apparition of vengeance and quickly snapping his neck. Just before forcing every ounce of courage through his veins into the large calloused hands that would deliver him from this evil, Mr. Snickerdoodles extended his right claw and quickly scratched Jacobs left cheek from the bridge of the nose to the bottom of the jaw. This sudden assault was enough to drain Jacob of every ounce of courage he could muster just seconds ago.

This bastard can read my mind,