Monday, August 20, 2018

What If? - The Shambling Man

Sometimes I wish I was the kind of person who saw a field of pretty flowers for what it was and not as an excellent hiding place for slithering, slobbering creatures. Or who saw an old man at a garage sale as just that and not as a sinister Stephen King character shambling toward me . . . .

Scenario: You're wandering around a big neighborhood garage sale. It's a beautiful day, lots of people are out and about, and everyone is friendly. An old man - tall, thin, gangly - shambles toward you on the sidewalk. He moves as if his joints don't quite fit together, his limbs loose like a scarecrow. Hedge clippers - large, dull - hang heavy from his left hand. He doesn't smile, but he nods, says hello, shuffles past.

What if . . . he's on his way to take down more than the hedges around his property? What if he's going after his wife? A neighbor? Why?

What if . . . he believes he must protect himself from a time traveling murderer lurking in the woods beyond his fence? Or that he must slay a monster living in the bushes around his house? What if he's crazy? What if he's not?

What if . . . plants, weeds, spindly trees are growing where they shouldn't? In the attic? In the car? From the carpet in his living room, in his bedroom? What if they're starting to grow inside of him, sprouting out of him? What if he's the only one who can feel them, see them?

What if . . . the hedge clippers are cursed and everything they cut grows back faster, thicker? What if whatever they cut into actually bleeds? What if the people who sold them to the Shambling Man know exactly what they are, what they do, but this was the only way to free themselves?

*****

Your turn! What is this man's story? Did you ever make up stories about people at garage sales? Imagine the history behind the items being sold? Ever wish your imagination was wired differently, like in a way that would actually let you sleep at night? 

21 comments:

  1. I play this game all the time in my head! I never wish my imagination was different. I love it. :)

    What if... the exhausted man has been lost in this neighborhood for decades, trapped in its happy and beautiful surroundings? What if he has been trying to cut his way out but can't? He might finally skewer himself with the clippers and now you're the one trapped in the too perfect neighborhood.

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    1. Love those ideas, Christine! Maybe he's finally figured out the exact place he needs to cut in order to escape...and it's in your house! :o

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  2. Your mind works in very interesting ways :-) The first thought that came to my mind is that unicorns are somehow involved.

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    1. "Interesting" is one way to put it. :)

      Hmm, is he a unicorn hunter, going after their horns with the clippers? Or does he think he saw a unicorn in the hedges? Or is he going to make a topiary of a unicorn?

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  3. Well, if he's anything like my husband, he's thinking: Damn, now she's going to make me work.

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    1. Ha! So that's why he's shambling along, walking so slowly - he doesn't want to do chores! :)

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  4. What if he's a serial killer with bodies planted in his garden under the flowers?

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    1. Good one! And is he on his way to dig them up, move them? Is his house being sold? Or does his wife want to put in a pool?

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  5. What if... the old man is a hedge disguised as a human looking for revenge. I hear you and live there too. My window is my television. hehehe

    Have a good one.

    Anna from elements of emaginette

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    1. So, he's not carrying hedge clippers? He's carrying . . . human clippers?! :o

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  6. Body snatcher! That's why he's shambling, because his natural inhuman joints don't work the way ours do.

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  7. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I freaked my mother out once by wondering, out loud, if there was a dead body in the trunk of the car in front of us when we were stuck in traffic. After an awkward silence, she said, "I've always wondered if you were switched at birth." And of course, I'm immediately thinking, hmm, what if I was?

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  9. What if... he just bought those dull clippers at the yard sale, and now he's trudging home to do a job he doesn't want to do? His wife is a control-freak who's been bugging him about those hedges for months, but now he's gonna put them to good use. Not on the hedges, of course. On his wife. The fact that the clippers are dull might make the job a little messier, but they'll also inflict more pain.

    Nah, I "never" do this sort of thing... HA! It's a blessing and a curse to have an overactive imagination. (But never dull!)

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    1. Hmm, might be a good idea for that wife to rethink that "honey do" list. Fast. :)

      So true about that old imagination - it really is a blessing AND a curse.

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  10. What if . . . ? Oh, I'm usually into that question, but my mind went blank. Hmm.
    What if in his exhaustion from hedge trimming, he gets lost in his own neighborhood, sits down by a tangle of bushes, and then falls asleep. While asleep the bushes encase him in revenge for all of his past trimmings, and he becomes a hedge-man, part-plant, part-man, part-clippers?
    Or not.

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    1. Hedge-Man! Oh, and his nemesis would be/look like hedge clippers! :)

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  11. What if he turns around and stabs me the minute my back is turned?

    Great prompt!

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    1. Yikes! What if he had to do it in order to free himself from a curse? What if you now have to carry both - the curse and the clippers?

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