By David Sheskin.
A pair of antique glasses dangle from a delicate gold chain atop the more than ample bosom of a kindly looking woman who is inside a small simple room with an uncommonly large disheveled man whose body is encased in a straitjacket and steel shackles who she asks, “Please share whatever it is you see in the inkblot?”
“What I see is a large pizza pie.”
“Is it all cheese or is it garnished with toppings?”
“Oh, atop the pie there are two hundred and thirty-four mushrooms and approximately sixty-four anchovies.”
“Is there anything else about the blot you would care to share with me?”
With a Herculean shrug of his shoulders the man suddenly pops himself out of his bondage and rising to his feet proclaims in a firm and eloquent voice, “Madam, in the center of the blot I see the visage of Dr. Hermann Rorschach who was born in Zürich in 1884 and died at the age of thirty-seven from a burst appendix on April 1, 1922. One would assume that a person with your professional credentials would know that in his youth the esteemed doctor at the behest of his father experimented with different forms of art and subsequently familiarized himself with the obscure art of Klecksography, which is the making images out of inkblots, after which he saw fit to develop the test to which I have been subjected for the past half-hour which you and your colleagues believe will penetrate into the deepest layers of my mind and reveal why it is that I have descended into madness. Simply put, the reason I have become mad is that for the past forty-seven years I have first by my mother and then by various and sundry other scheming health-conscious caretakers and companions been coerced to subsist on a gluten-free, fat-free, low-salt, sugar-free vegetarian diet consisting of tofu, sprouts, kale and assorted other tasteless fodder that at some point undoubtedly wreaked havoc on the neurons of my once-intact brain.”
At this point the lady, who by now is cowering in a corner of the room terrified of the Colossus looming above her, emits a scream so shrill and piercing, so peculiar in its frequency, that somehow it penetrates deep into the bowels of the earth and awakens the long-deceased soul of Hermann Rorschach who miraculously materializes in the center of the room embracing a steaming hot twenty-four-inch double cheese pizza topped with onions, mushrooms, anchovies, pepperoni, and sausage, which he offers to the patient who without a moment’s hesitation greedily devours the whole pie in what appears to be no more than three bites and thereafter brushes a residue of cheese and sauce from his jowls, declares himself to be cured of whatever madness has afflicted him all these years, and proceeds to march out the front door of the Lizzie Borden Institute for the Criminally Insane and makes his way to the Promised Land.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Sheskin is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in numerous publications including Shenandoah, Vestal Review, Tampa Review, DIAGRAM, Quarterly West and Chicago Quarterly Review. His most recent book is Outrageous Wedding Announcements.
