No One Will Ever Believe You

I was sitting at home reading the Bill Murray stories when all of a sudden there's a knock at the door. I go to answer the door and see that it is myself. I looked to the mirror we keep by the door and see my reflection that is not me. I've been replaced with a gray-haired and bearded man. I turn back to myself at the door way and tell me, "No one will ever believe you." I then close the door and look into the mirror in which I am myself.

Fuck you Bill Murray. Fuck you.

The craziest thing happened to me the other day.

So I'm on my way to work after it had snowed the night before. There wasn't a car as far as I could see, which, in retrospect, seems kind of strange given that it was in the middle of the day. But at the time I thought how lucky I was, at least when I drive my car into a ditch no one will be around point out that I've driven my car into a ditch.

The drive was nerve wracking. Every bump sent the tail end of my jeep into a different direction than the rest of the vehicle, and it is only after a bevy of swears and a near fatal heart attack do I resume a straight course. The highway in front of me curled onward, mockingly, nothing but a pair of thin black stripes cutting into the snow.

About thirty more miles, I think as I fight the Jeep for control. Awesome.

After another twenty minutes, or about four miles depending on how you want to look at it, I finally hit a patch of black ice that was too much for me. Despite my frantic insistence that the car go the way my wheels were going, the Jeep begins to slide to the right. The front tire hits the ditch first, causing the rest of the Jeep to sling itself around, painfully slamming its rear counterpart into the ditch as well. I was now facing the way I had come, the scene through my windshield now lopsided.

Fuck.

For several agonizing minutes I didn't do anything. With my hands still wrapped painfully around the steering wheel I had lowered my head onto them and was staring at my shoes, hoping for some kind of inspiration.

When I had decided that I would spend the rest of my life with my ass resting on this cracked leather, there came a sharp knocking on my window. Naturally I almost shit myself.

Since my car had died, I couldn't roll down my window. So instead I cracked the door open so I could address my... what, guest? Savior?

Bill fucking Murray?

He was unshaven and had a cap pulled down over his ears but it was unmistakably him. When he spoke I knew.

"Car trouble?" He says. I nod. It's all I can do. "Let me take a look."

So I pop the hood for him wondering what he thinks he's going to accomplish. As he tugs and pokes at whatever there is in there to tug and to pole I think, should I go talk to him? Should I let him know that I know who he is? But before I can decide the hood comes down with a crash. He comes over to my door again and tells me to try it now. Nothing. The lights don't even come on.

"Well, I tried," he said, and he starts away from the Jeep. He gets a few paces before he turns back and says to me, "And kid?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"No one will ever believe you."

Once when I was still in high-school, some friends and I went out to see a movie at the local theater. I believe it was “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.” We bought our tickets and snacks with no problem, and entered the theater. Once we sat down, I dumped my entire box of Hershey “Whoppers” into my tub of movie popcorn (extra butter.) This procedure is known as “Whopcorn,” and if you’ve never tried it, you definitely should. Anyway, I began to eat my whopcorn in peace, but as soon as the previews began and the lights went down, things began to get strange.

At first, I almost didn’t notice anything. The warm breeze I was feeling on my ankles was a little annoying, but I just figured that this particular theater had floor vents for the heat and I had chosen a particularly unlucky chair to sit in. Then, I remembered that it was the middle of summer, and almost 90 degrees outside. There was absolutely no way that the theater management would have turned on the heat. My heart skipped a beat as I speculated what exactly could be causing the movement of warm air across my ankles. I slowly, carefully, lifted my feet and placed them on the fortunately unoccupied seat in front of me. I tried to concentrate on the movie, where Cameron Diaz had just back-flip-kicked this poor dude right in the…well, right in the full throttle.

A few minutes later into the movie, and there had been no further problems. I was beginning to dismiss the odd warm breeze, when suddenly my chair jolted, just a little. My feet slipped in surprise, and fell back to the floor. Almost immediately, the warm, gentle breeze reappeared, and I jerked my feet back up to safety. I looked around, embarrassed. The only one of my friends who had reacted was the one sitting right beside me. All the others were totally engrossed in the film. “Did you feel that?” I asked my friend. “No, I didn’t feel anything, but I saw you spazz out. What happened, did you drift off for a second there?” he replied. “Yeah…yeah, that’s it. I fell asleep for a bit.” “How?!?” he demanded. “I’ve never seen anything more full throttle than what is occurring on this screen right now.” “Sorry, long night last night,” I lied. I knew I would only sound crazy if I told him the truth, and maybe even cause a panic. I lifted another handful of whopcorn to my lips, trying to calm myself down. As soon as the first piece of whopcorn had barely touched my mouth, there was another small jolt to my seat. It felt like it was coming from directly beneath me. This time, I was able to subdue my reaction, and as I looked around it became clear that whatever maliciousness was present in this theater, I was its primary target. None of my other friends had felt or even noticed the tremor from under the seats. The entire theater was transfixed by the crime fighting antics of Lucy Liu.

My mind raced. On autopilot, my hand reached into the bucket of whopcorn again, I felt another tremor. I lifted some of the salty-sweet snack to my mouth. Another tremor. I steeled my nerves, and flipped open my cell phone for the light of the screen. I aimed the dim glow downward, leaned forward, and scanned the area in front of my chair. I couldn’t see anything.

I sat back up, and reached into the bucket again. Thump. I froze, then I slowly pulled my hand out of the whopcorn. I reached back in again. Thump. Reach. Thump. Retreat. Reach. Thump. Retreat. I was beginning to notice a pattern here. I reached into the whopcorn bucket again (thump) and pulled out a handful (thump) and dangled the hand barely over the edge of the chair (THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.)

Startled, I dropped the whopcorn onto the floor. I heard a scuffling sound, then a munching and finally a small, satisfied belch.
Gathering all my courage I grabbed another handful of my favorite movie-time snack, this time, I leaned over in the seat with my hand as close to the ground as possible. It was cupped, but open toward the area under the seat.

Almost immediately, I felt the warm breeze on my hand, which I now realized must have been the breathing of this creature. The breeze turned into snuffling and sniffing and then, to my disgust, I felt a warm, wet tongue licking the whopcorn from my hand. However, it wasn’t the tongue that disturbed me so much, especially not when I felt what seemed like a human nose attached to this thing’s face. And…was that stubble around its mouth?

Screw what my friends thought of me, I had to know what was going on. I flipped my cell open again with my free hand, and bent over quick. I was almost bent in half now, with my head dangling upside-down looking under the seat. I could hear my friends reacting in shock, but their surprise at seeing me apparently practicing an amateur contortionist act was nothing compared to what I felt when I realized what, or rather who, was under my seat.
I was face-to-face with and inches away from a grinning Bill Murray. Bill was lying on his stomach under my seat, his face covered in chocolate and butter from the whopcorn. (Looking back, the worst part had to have been the fact that Mr. Murray looked just so friggin’ proud of himself. Like he had won the Nobel Prize or something. I mean, that sucker was smug.)

“You….wha…?” I stuttered. Bill raised one finger slowly to his lips. “Shhh. No one will ever believe you.” he whispered. Then, silently, Bill Murray slid backwards, as if he were riding on some sort of conveyor belt. His grinning face disappeared from view, leaving nothing but darkness under the seat. Suddenly, one of his hands shot out, cobra-fast, and snatched up some more of the whopcorn that had spilled on the floor. The hand disappeared into the dark again.

I shot up and turned a full 180 in the seat. The girl sitting behind me screamed in protest as I pushed her legs out of the way and searched the ground behind my seat. Bill was gone, leaving behind no trace of his ever being there. I turned around again, apologizing, and sat back down in my seat. I was breathing hard and sweating, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. I noticed that all my friends were now staring at me. Come to think of it, the whole theater was staring now, no one seemed to care that Drew Barrymore was fighting off a horde of ninjas wearing a towel. (Drew was wearing the towel, not the horde of ninjas. That would have had to have been a huge towel. And I bet it would have slowed down their ninja skills, to be all trapped in one giant towel….sorry. Anyway…) “Well?” asked one of my friends, “Got anything to say?” I opened my mouth to explain, closed it, opened it again, and then I remembered Bill’s only words to me. “No one will ever believe you.”

That smug son of gun.

I had finally found the perfect sandwich. Ham, turkey, cheddar and provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, sprouts, mustard and submarine dressing. Delicious. As I went to refill my drink, I see a shady, bearded man run over to my table, and finish the last few bite of my heavenly sandwich. I begin to protest this when I notice that it is none other than Bill God Damn Murray. Grinning, he begins inching towards the door, looks me straight in the eyes, and shouts so that all in the restaurant can hear him, “No one will ever believe you!!” and walks out.

Thanks Kael

Night. Dark, warm and dry; summer is dying in Los Angeles. Graffiti sprayed on top of graffiti adorns the walls and alleyways. A lone working fluorescent street lamp sets its cool, anaesthetic-white flame to a covered bus stop bench. The bench advertises the Machiavellian schemes of a recently deceased criminal-defense attorney. I sit upon the bench, scraping a generous portion of wintergreen chewing gum from my shoe with a stick that has inexplicably found itself miles from the nearest outdoor foliage. From the depths of darkness beyond my safe bubble of energy-efficient lighting steps a graying man, graced with a pair of sea-green shorts and a beige corduroy sports coat. Only when he deigns to share a seat on the bench does any sense I possess stir with realization of another human presence, to which I merely make something vaguely resembling a gesture of acknowledgment; my brain occupies all remaining forces with its battle against the gum. It is a battle of attrition that continues for countless minutes. Finally, the battle is won, the gum has conceded defeat, and willingly resettles to the lands specified in our unspoken treaty. I smile. These small victories seem to be all I have left in such times. Suddenly, my celebratory smirk is shattered by a new aggressor. A wrinkled hand has invaded my personal space, and placed a declaration of war on the sole of my loafer, a shock and awe strike of cinnamon fire. I follow the arm up to its shoulder, neck, and eventually discover the head of the old man, staring disinterestedly forward as though pondering a thought of his that he’d left in the street ahead. His visage creates a familiar profile, heavily overgrown with beard and sideburns, all silver and black hair surrounding a weathered face. The man turns to meet my gaze with tired, apologetic eyes, and a bored, disapproving demeanor. I watch, more incredulous than furious, as the stare of Bill Murray, famous American comedian and film actor, melts into a smile reserved for one who has bested an opponent through a clever but daring maneuver in a game of wits. I sit, resigned to my defeat at the hands of a greater man than I, as the famous actor I’d paid no more attention to than the street lamp or the bench we were sitting upon, leans to his right, and utters in a forgiving tone “And no one will ever believe you.”

Thanks Steven