Garret Craek was a man above others. Everyone was jealous of him. He worked all the time to make his wife and young baby happy. Other girls went onto him, and he had a funny way of turning them down. He would flat-out push them off his desk and tried to leave somewhat of a crack in their backs when he did it. Was it right? No, but it showed he was loyal to the woman he loved most. He works at the top building of Mother Goose and Associates. He has several major audits to try and get back what people may be withholding from the IRS, and since he’s so good at cornering evaders, some call him, “the scrambler.”

. . .

When I was seven years old, I have only images of memory, but I remember how it was when money was tight for us. They used to say to me “Garret, wait your turn, if you push ahead of people and go too fast, you will surely fall.” I looked at my dad, and with a solemn expression he looked back at me. No words can say it all.

My dad was always working. He was always tired when he got home. I asked him “Daddy, can we play catch?” He looked at me with sadness and said, “Mr. Moneybags over here think we can even afford a ball to play with.” At that moment, mom came into the living room.

“You could use this,” she says, laughing, “Just don’t drop it I suppose.” She handed me an egg, a food I learned to hate because that was one of the rare foods we could actually afford. What some saw as life beginning and a popular breakfast food I saw as poverty, weakness, and turmoil.

“Sounds great! Dad, can we please play?” He agrees and we go out to play catch with it and have fun. Throwing that egg back and forth with my dad was one of the rare fun moments of my childhood. When I was throwing that egg, I was throwing away all of my troubles. Poverty, sadness, turmoil, anger, all gone. At least in those moments.

. . .

Craek was working late, his wife told him she would watch the baby while he worked tirelessly to support them. “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said to himself. He truly thought he and Delilah would be together forever. They would have to suspend parts of their lifestyles if one of them went on parental leave, and it was the 1980s so guess which one took one-hundred percent of the time off. Delilah, much like her husband, worked tirelessly as a law clerk and drama was heating up anyway. She figured a few months would be fine. The baby will get settled and she could avoid her idiot co-workers. And their demanding idiot (yet attractive) new boss, Phall.

One night, Craek was driving home late. The gel that kept up his Gordon Gekko hairstyle was losing its magic, but just in time. He had a wife and baby to see.

“Honey, I’m home!” His wife gave no real response. Craek heard the window open and shut so fast, like lightning, and it confused him. He went inside to see the issue. He saw his wife sitting straight up on their bed, with only her robe on.

“What was that?” Craek had no idea what to think.

“It just got too windy, and I also just got out of the shower.”

Craek Smiles. “Well, that’s a relief.” He goes in for a hug with his wife, and she begrudgingly hugs him back.

. . .

One night, my dad was working late. I was relaxing in my room when my mom came in with an idea.

“Tonight is my and your father’s ten-year wedding anniversary,” she gets all excited. “I think maybe you could help me do something special for him!” We go to the store and look through a bunch of cakes.

“That cake there, it’s beautiful!” She was looking past an egg cake to look at a tree cake. “It’s branches represent you and our achievements as a family, and the tree as a whole represents your father’s and my love for each other! It’s perfect!” She proceeds to buy the cake and we head home.

“Surprise!” Dad is actually sitting on the living room couch when we get back. He is astonished. We proceed to eat cake and celebrate their anniversary.

. . .

After her parental leave time was up, Craek’s wife eventually got back into the office. The dramatic stories about the people in her office themselves were gone, but there were new, worse things to worry about. Phall had his eyes open for a new woman, and Delilah was number one on that list. Not only that, she was the only one on it. Phall did not care if she was married or not, he cared to get her no matter what. In listening to his advances (and, we shall say, spending more time with him), Delilah was able to learn more about this Phall fellow.

From her recollection that she told me, Phall is one of the main people who some found out he was friends with the Gambino crew, but not always near them to stay out of trouble. 

“With an idiot like Phall running a law clerk,” she said, “you know he got help somewhere. He even went as far as to ‘jokingly’ say he would kill my husband and baby so that we could live alone together.”

. . .

When I was playing with my toys in my room, my mother and father walked in with a young baby boy.

“Can you believe it?” She was ecstatic. “We were able to adopt him after all!”

I looked into the baby’s eyes. They were so bright and filled with potential. Only something truly soul-crushing could diminish them.

“What’s his name?”

“Phall… Phall Craek!”

. . .

Craek came home late another night after a gruelling audit with Bernie Madoff.

“Just a little late, his sons seemed nice.”

As he walked in, he could hear his wife shrieking. He rushed in.

“Phall!” They look each other in the eyes. Brother versus brother. They fight. Garrett loses. Phall picks him up and takes him to his car parked outside their driveway. Phall looks menacingly at Delilah.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take out the trash for you.” Both Garrett is dragged out. Phall did not kill the baby, but he broke into the house hours earlier and took it and dropped it off at the “children’s wing” of some commune.

After driving him away in the back of his truck in a body-bag, he takes him inside some building.

“Here we are…”

. . .

“Here we are…” I take my new little brother into the nursery.” He cries a little and then relaxes. Such a peaceful soul. Nothing can make him any different.

. . .

Phall takes Garrett out of the body bag and straps him with about twenty other guys around him to a table.

“Drink this…”

. . .

“Alright, little man, drink this,” I feed Phall his bottle of formula. I hear my mom calling.

“Garrett, don’t forget to finish your homework.”

“Alright, mom.”

. . .

Strapped to the table, Garrett is shown a mirror by Phall. Garrett is now a giant egg with human-like limbs and a face. Phall then turns to the crowd.

“Gentlemen,” he proudly states, “since we have just finished our ritual transformative song. Now we must put our captive on the wall and do our ritual chant and dance.

Garrett is forced onto a wall with the crowd screaming at him.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, we the members of the Dumpty Brotherhood will never yield, Humpty Dumpty, fall into the field.”

Garrett fell and died, crushing everyone in the crowd, including Phall. I, in a last minute fashion, sneaked into the room to see what was going on. It pains me to no end that my two children have died.