My Heroic Insanity

by Jay Palmer

Prologue

      Sir Wilhelmina is a hero, and I love and admire her. Unfortunately, all heroes are mentally sub-normal. A normal person, when faced with a fire-breathing dragon or other unlikely terror understands that the vicinity of a deadly threat is directly proportional to the likelihood of sudden and painful extermination. Normal people vacate the vicinity of deadly threats because they don’t wish to be exterminated. Heroes advance toward deadly threats because they’re mentally sub-normal.

      Sadly, heroes seldom risk life and limb alone.

      Being a sidekick sucks because sidekicks follow heroes who are mentally sub-normal. Sidekicks come in five types. The first type of sidekick is paid sidekicks, who have their own version of mental sub-normalcy. Paid sidekicks don’t seem to realize that good serving skills are very valuable to people who don’t insanely advance toward deadly threats, thus paid sidekicks willingly serve in conditions adverse to their own safety.

      The second type of sidekick is the heroic sidekick. Heroic sidekicks are only partially sub-normal; dumb enough to follow the hero, but smart enough not to stand within reach of a deadly threat. Heroic sidekicks run up to the dragon’s lair, and then decide that only the most mentally sub-normal person in the vicinity is smart enough to conceive of, and execute, a plan to kill deadly threats. Heroic sidekicks thrive in the glow of reflected glory, but rarely live for long.

      The third type of sidekick is the loyal sidekick. Usually, this identure is due to their parents, as in ‘my family has been loyal to the hero’s family for generations’ or other such nonsense. The only prayer loyal sidekicks have is if the hero comes from a large family; if the hero has many brothers and sisters then the best thing the loyal sidekick can do is stand back and let the hero get killed before he reproduces and pollutes his family tree with inherited mental sub-normalcy. An only-child hero doesn’t give their loyal sidekick this best-for-all option.

      The fourth type of sidekick is the obligated sidekick, someone who once suffered from proximity to a hero during a time of extreme distress. The hero may have saved their life or the lives of one or more members of their immediate family. Obligated sidekicks are the luckiest, as when their debt has been paid, assuming that they survive, which is a huge assumption, they can then depart and leave the hero to indulge in their unique version of mental sub-normalcy from a safe distance.

      The fifth, and worst, type of sidekick is the loving sidekick, doomed to a very short life of unrequited passion before they are dragged kicking and screaming into the jaws of death by a mentally sub-normal hero who remains eternally unaware of their sidekick’s true feelings.

      My problem is that I, a seventeen year old boy and a very unwilling sidekick, don’t fit into any of these standard categories: I fit into all five categories of sidekick types. If I was doomed only by four of the five sidekick types, I might feel I had a chance, however slim, of escaping inevitable doom. But no; my life is condemned to following Sir Wilhelmina until she gets me, herself, or (most-likely) both of us killed.

      Some sidekicks think that if they follow their hero around long enough, always advancing toward deadly threats, that eventually their hero will get killed, and then the sidekick will be free. These sidekicks suppose that, once dead, their hero no longer needs a sidekick. This problematic theory proves fallacious because most sidekicks fail to grasp the depth of heroic mental sub-normalcy. It is the nature of mental sub-normalcy to make deadly threats deadlier. Delighted by their success at killing a hero, deadly threats feel empowered, and deadly threats celebrate each heroic murder with mass-repetition, meaning everyone in the vicinity, starting with the sidekick.

      Knowing this, a wise sidekick attempts every possible trick to keep their hero away from deadly threats. Sadly, such tricks only work when they’re alone, just the two of them, because heroes actively seek out deadly threats.

      Every hero’s manifestation of mental sub-normalcy begins at childhood with luck and intelligence. A smart, unlucky child builds a leaning tower of rickety chairs in front of the highest shelf, and before the child seizes the delicious sweet that their parent put upon that highest shelf, their tower of chairs collapses and the child gets hurt. Thus the smart, unlucky child learns not to take risks. The smart, lucky child builds an unrickety tower of chairs, achieves the height required to collect their desired dessert, and the worst that they suffer is punishment by the parent upon being discovered either before or after they’ve consumed the delicious sweet. The lucky and mentally sub-normal child achieves their desired sweet, but falls in a pile of broken and collapsed chairs before they get the chance to eat it. This child gets hurt, but then discovers that the object of their desire also fell, and thus rewards them for their pain whether they actually get to eat it or not. The lucky and mentally sub-normal child is most-likely to become a hero in later adult life.

      Sir Wilhelmina did not start out as a knight. Most people, especially sidekicks, believe that knighthood is a reward for people who successfully display indisputable and unwavering courage. Actually, knighthood is a reward given to heroes for mental sub-normalcy. The white belt, gold chain, and silver spurs of knighthood are warning signs to normal people, especially sidekicks, of heroic mental sub-normalcy. Few women get knighted, which means that those women who earn this dubious rank must excel at mental sub-normalcy. Even the desire to be a knight is a sign of mental sub-normalcy. To earn knighthood, heroes must face and destroy deadly threats. Becoming a knight means accepting the privilege of remaining mentally sub-normal, as knights are the acclaimed and undoubted pursuers of deadly threats.

      Knight or not, there are five types of heroes. The first type of hero is the adventurer. Adventurer heroes possess the attention span of a horny fruit-fly during mating season, which, in their entire brief life, lasts about half an hour. Adventurer heroes quickly get bored, no matter how pleasant worthy sidekicks make their lives, and rush off to find excitement, which crescendos only with the appearance of deadly threats. Sidekicks condemned to an adventurer hero must continually strive to keep up with the source of their misery, never acquire sufficient supplies, and suffer the foulest extremes of nature without adequate shelter.

      The second type of hero is the protector. Protector heroes fall into two subtypes: those protecting a treasure so vast that deadly threats are attracted to it, and those that seek to rescue someone kidnapped, or some treasure stolen, by a deadly threat. Protector heroes are relentless, the most determined and unassuadable of heroes. Sidekicks following a protector hero can expect every argument in favor of caution or level-headedness to be refuted, and must face problems hero-created by divinely-sworn oaths of ultimate duty.

      The third kind of hero is the quester. Quester heroes are glory-seekers, whose ears perk to every rumor of deadly threats, and no distance or duration of time, not even uncertainty of the form or magnitude of the deadly threat, daunts them. The deadlier the threat, the greater the quester hero seeks to challenge it, no matter the risk. Sidekicks of quester heroes usually have the advantage of time to prepare, but are regularly dragged onto long journeys to distant, baking deserts or frozen, glacial caves where even the greatest store of supplies quickly proves inadequate.

      The forth type of hero is the cursed hero, also called the unlucky, or comic hero. Cursed heroes usually have defied powerful gods or constantly thwart rich, nasty enemies with endless resources. Cursed heroes don’t go looking for deadly threats; deadly threats rain upon them. Sidekicks of cursed heroes consistently have the shortest life expectancies, as does everyone befriended by a cursed hero, but they do have the luxury of comfortable surroundings between unexpected, deadly attacks.

      The fifth, and worst of all, type of hero is the kindhearted hero. Kindhearted heroes wander the countryside butting their noses into everyone’s business, peasant, royal, or unempowered deity. Minor threats not even bothering kindhearted heroes are forced into becoming deadly threats to protect themselves. Kindhearted heroes are the most-likely to have hired killers paid to hunt them. Sidekicks of kindhearted heroes suffer every problem in the world as their own and are required to listen to, and commiserate with, every whiner and idiot who chooses a path toward self-destruction. Sidekicks of kindhearted heroes frequently suffer abuse and resentment from willing-victims who don’t want the kindhearted hero’s help, and whenever success yields even the smallest amount of financial reward, the sidekick must agonize as the kindhearted hero donates all their profits to an endless parade of starving peasants and grimy orphans.

      Sir Wilhelmina started out as an adventurer hero, but her extreme mental sub-normality did not limit her to one type; through the course of her insanity, Sir Wilhelmina deviated into every type of unpleasant heroic imprudence. Throughout each, I have followed her, through swamp and forest, across mountain and ocean, on her endless quest to make my life miserable. I followed and, when required, assisted at great cost, as Sir Wilhelmina risked both our lives and the security of the whole world in the sole, faint hope that we may someday requite my unspoken love before she causes her death, my death, and the end of humanity.

      This is our story.

Chapter 1

The Warning Signs of Heroism

      My family has been loyal to Sir Wilhelmina’s family for generations. Why this was so, I have no idea. We were peasants, dirt farmers. We farmed dirt. Somehow, the fact that we were allowed to farm dirt on land that belonged to Sir Wilhelmina’s family seemed to be sufficient to indebt my family to them for five generations. I don’t know who my family was indebted to six generations before my birth, but I can only hope that they suffered a long and agonizing death, hopefully involving a smoking, red-hot fireplace poker.

      My biggest mistake came the first day I met Sir Wilhelmina, who was then not a knight and whom all the peasants called ‘Wild Willie’. Wild Willie was exactly my age, eleven years old, meaning that we shared the same birthday, which I should’ve recognized as an omen of ill luck. We lived in Succubi, a small barony in the Kingdom of Manticoria; every kingdom and village I knew of was named after legendary beasts, although no one had ever seen one and only little children and the very old believed in them. I was weeding beside the wagon road, minding my own business, as Wild Willie rode up, headed back to her father’s castle. At the same time, down the road, came a caravan of mule drivers. The distant mountains boasted rich coal mines, and mule drivers were employed by all the local smiths to carry freshly-dug coal to their iron-melting forges. Mule drivers are not the nicest people but if you ignore them and keep your face averted they usually leave you alone. If moving aside doesn’t attract too much attention, it’s best to stay out of reach of their whips. However, I was stuck weeding beside the road as the mule drivers rode past, hoping that they wouldn’t notice me. The biggest mule driver took it into his head to crack his whip across my back, which made my eleven-year-old self cry out and fall face-first onto the dirt. The other mule drivers all laughed at this, then resumed their boring journey without further incident. Wisely, I stayed down, not moving a muscle; all mule drivers carry whips.

      Suddenly, a shrill, youthful voice cried out.

      “How dare you?”

      I heard my death-knell in the abrupt silence as the mule drivers stopped laughing.

      “My father is Sir William!” Wild Willie continued, and I risked a glance up at her, disbelieving that anyone could be so stupid. Of course, Wild Willie never looked down at me or she’d have seen my urgent and desperate head-shakes which, I now know, were irrelevant; Willie would grow up never heeding a single warning in her life. So I lay there, staring up as she confronted the ruffians, some of whom seemed extremely troubled by her pronouncement of noble parentage. “On your way, royal bitch!” the biggest driver sneered.

      Mule drivers are usually not pleasant to look at. This one had a face that even his mule wouldn’t lick. His head looked like that of a skinny, deeply-tanned pig if you cut off its snout and replaced it with an old, dried cork, roughly trimmed its pointed ears, pulled them down to the sides of his head, and covered his pate with greasy black matted hair that had never once endured the touch of a comb. His clothes looked as unwashed as the rest of him and his angry stare belied a vacancy of mind that made even heroes seem mentally superior.

      This driver, the biggest and meanest-looking, had to be the unquestioned leader, because it is a universal constant that however ugly mule drivers are, their ugliness dwarfs their collective intelligence. Their only job is to propel an animal that is so stupid that it will bear burdens that few humans could with little complaint. For a mule, carrying coal is a decent living, which proves that they are smarter than their masters; mule drivers travel from coal mines to smithies, each of which offers better employment opportunities than driving mules. The evidence that mule drivers are exposed to better career options, but can’t take advantage of them, is sadly overwhelmed by the existence of the leader of mule drivers. Obviously, leaders must excel their subordinates in their primary job requirement, and Pig-face was clear evidence that low-intelligence was an advantage to mule drivers.

      Of course, this looks bad for dirt farmers, who rank below mule drivers on the preferred-occupation scale. I only mention this to point out that I had been born a dirt farmer and I was only eleven years old. Thus far, in my short life, I hadn’t been offered any opportunity to elevate my own status, although I prayed for one daily. All I needed was a chance, but Wild Willie seemed adamantly determined to get me killed before my chance came.

      Wild Willie turned her horse suddenly and blocked the wagon road. Now, mules are stubbon, especially while burdened with heavy loads of coal on long journeys, but mules seldom threaten full-grown horses. All these mules stopped, despite their driver’s urges, which meant trouble for everyone; mules can bear great burdens for long distances once they get started, but balk at additional movement once they stop. Atop the train of fourteen tethered mules, I counted six mule drivers, all of whom cursed most-profanely as their fourteen charges ceased momentum.

      Pig-face, as if needing to prove that he was of lesser intellect than his mount, cracked his whip at Wild Willie with a blatantly-blasphemous curse. This is the biggest problem idiots have; idiocy does not satisfy them until it’s proven. Wild Willie ducked the lashing whip’s tip so that it merely cracked in the air above her head, which proved that Pig-face wasn’t as insane as heroes; he must’ve known that Willie’s father would surely have him killed if he scarred a nobleman’s daughter. He’d missed her on purpose, as a mule driver’s whip is like another arm to them, so much that most mule drivers could slice a single leaf off a tree without even shaking the branch. Logically, knowing the threat that Pig-face represented, Willie should have fled; an eleven year old girl is no match for six tough mule drivers, but Wild Willie is proudly logic-free.

      “Move that brood-mare!” Pig-face ordered her, but Wild Willie stood adamant, as tall in her saddle as she could sit, her taut, youthful cheeks flushed, her tiny button-nose raised, her long, thick, sunlight-blonde hair blowing in the wind, her blue eyes staring icy defiance from under thin, pale eyebrows with noble severity.

      Patience is not a quality often attributed to base mule drivers who pride themselves by enhancing their reputations for brutality at every opportunity. An average mule driver’s intellect is inversely proportional to their anger; anger makes them stupider. Being thwarted by a petite, eleven year old girl didn’t repudiate the lead mule driver’s sinister standing among his colleges. Apparently, being humiliated, Pig-face consciously decided to confirm his sudden intellectual slump by flipping the end of his whip so that it wrapped tightly around Wild Willie’s arms and chest, binding her firmly still upon her saddle. Only one of the other mule drivers laughed at this, which should’ve been a clue to Pig-face that this action was unwise. Most of the other mule drivers gasped; even the dumbest mule driver must understand that the basis of a feudal, class-based economic system requires that peasants don’t attack rich and powerful noblemen’s daughters.

      Pig-face was apparently a bigger and dumber ass than the one he was riding; while Wild Willie sat unmoving, merely glaring, bound tight in the leather braid of his whip which she’d seen raise a painful welt across my back, Pig-face foolishly yanked back his thick-muscled whip-arm. Wild Willie toppled from her tall horse with a furious cry and crashed hard onto the road.

      Not one of the other mule drivers laughed at this, only Pig-face, whose descent into dim-wittedness was now complete. Unfortunately, Wild Willie, displaying her first hint of becoming a hero, became suddenly determined to prove that no one was stupider than she. Incensed by her own humiliation, her arms and knees scuffed, her bright white dress smeared with brown dirt, Wild Willie squirmed free of the coiled-around-her whip, picked up a fist-sized rock (her fist, not his), and hurled it at Pig-face, striking him in his chest.

      Logically, fear cascaded over me; I was still in whip-range. Nothing good could come of this, and the farther I got away from their insanity the safer and happier I’d be. But the unexpected actions that instantly followed the striking of this tiny rock upon Pig-face’s broad, muscular chest occurred with such rapidity that I scarcely had time to think. I jumped up to run away as Wild Willie reached for another rock, a larger rock, and Pig-face cracked his whip right over her head again, unknowing that he was impotently attempting to warn someone who was warning-deaf. Wild Willie hurled her second rock, striking Pig-face in his pig’s face, and then she jumped back, behind her horse, out of his deadly whip’s range.

      Furious at getting hit by rocks, Pig-face leapt off his mule and charged as Wild Willie reached for a third stone. He was a huge brute, thickly muscled and as ragged as he was scruffy, so much that my pitiful, eleven-year-old muscles seized in terror. The other drivers shouted at their leader to stop, voices of alarm and protest, but all fell unheeded. Angrily Pig-face dove at Wild Willie just as she drew back to throw.

      Her rock flew off into our newly-turned field, unheeded, as Wild Willie toppled backward; as his hard, calloused, fist reached forward, she’d tried to jump back and throw at the same time. Both fell, sprawled onto the rough, hard road. Pig-face landed with one hand tight around Willie’s skinny ankle, his whip in his other hand, and an expression of fury gritting his crooked, brown-stained teeth. Wild Willie kicked at him as she scraped and clawed her fingernails upon the coarse surface of a large rock firmly half-buried in the packed dirt on the side of the road, but her youthful strength couldn’t free it.

      This was my moment of doom, my first utterly insane decision, which thereafter made me a sidekick and ruined my life. Not that I’d much of a life before, but at least the worse I had to face back then was cruel, bored mule drivers; a single whip-lash would prove a compliment compared to what this decision eventually cost me. I started to run away, knowing with the certitude of a powerless peasant that Wild Willie was about to get her first lesson in manners when dealing with the wholly unmannered. Then I hesitated, the supreme proof that even the most-intelligent can suffer moments of brainlessness equal to that of the ultimate village idiot. I saw little Wild Willie about to suffer numerable whip-gashes like the stinging, bleeding wound newly-opened upon my back, and suddenly, without thinking, I ran to help.

      I don’t know why I did it. I knew it was a mistake and that I was asking for trouble. My father would beat me; only the truly stupid intervene between the equally stupid. But I did.

      I kept out of Pig-face’s reach; I wasn’t yet infinitely stupid, but in three strides I reached and kicked the dried dirt cementing the large rock into the raised side of the road. The restraining dirt crumbled and the great rock fell loose into Wild Willie’s grasping hands. With all her youthful strength, Wild Willie lifted the big rock and smashed it down hard upon the savage lead mule driver’s greasy pig-head.

      Pig-face cried out, but his agonized outburst was full of fury, not surrender. Mules have notoriously thick skulls, probably because their drivers beat them so hard, but these mount’s skulls were far thinner than those of their masters. I knew Pig-face wouldn’t stay down for more than a second, so as Wild Willie reached for another rock, I grabbed her reaching arm and pulled desperately.

      For the first time that day, luck proved stronger than idiocy: Wild Willie looked up at my filthy, frightened face, and some semblance of wisdom must have transferred along our aligned eyesight. Willie jumped up, pulled free of my grip, and grabbed for her saddle. I seized her foot to assist her up, and then slapped her horse’s rump with all my eleven-year-old frightened might.

      “Go!” I cried.

      Her horse bolted across the dirt that my family was farming; Pig-face scrambled aside to keep from getting his legs trampled by her horse’s iron-shod hooves and my sane reflexes finally took over. For my life, I ran away and didn’t look back. The nearest woods lay two miles distant, yet I plunged into them before I was even aware that I was still running. I didn’t stop in the woods; I kept running. The sun set, the moon came out, and morning came before I crept back home. To my relief, the mule drivers were gone. Only then, more than twelve hours later, did I dare breathe easy.

      How I wish all my troubles had ended there.

Chapter 2

My Life Changes Forever

      The relationship of nobility to peasants is roughly equivalent to dogs scratching their fleas. Nobility ignores peasants unless irritated by them. To irritate nobility, a peasant must be incredibly stupid and unlucky, much like the child destined to be a hero. Every dog’s size and strength is vastly greater than that of their all their fleas combined, and although the dog is usually outnumbered, in any confrontation, the flea always suffers the worst. Nobility have armies of thugs that they call guards who insure their non-irritation through the custom of extreme violence perpetrated upon peasants who irritate their superiors. The secure and reliable employment of these guards depends greatly on their ability to inflict severe chastisement, whether the irritation caused by the peasant was intentional or not. Therefore, peasants avoid proximity to the nobility whenever possible, excepting only beggars, who prostrate themselves in attempts to demonstrate the superiority of the nobility by proving the discrepancies between their own actions and those of their betters, thus pleasing the humor of the nobility, who like to believe that they belong to a higher species.

      Being a dirt farmer, not a beggar, I avoided the nobility and anyone else who could obliterate my poor existence with no more effort than a dog scratching its fleas.

      We owned no ointments for my whip-wound, but my mother washed it out with her own spit, which was probably cleaner than anything else we owned. Then I was punished by my father, partially for getting wounded, but mostly for interfering in the activities of my betters, which, as we were dirt farmers, included mule drivers. My father lived by the strict rule that no one would bother to kill us if we made ourselves not worth the effort. This humble lesson had been beaten into me before but never this severely; soon my butt hurt almost as badly as my back.

      Physical punishment is a great lessener of pride. It’s hard to boast while aching, unable to sit, or starving on a wintry night, watching your small fire consume the last of your firewood. Butt-smacks were far less painful than hunger or cold, but personal preferences usually don’t include either. Physical punishment of sufficient intensity can educate all but the most mentally sub-normal, meaning that pain affects everyone except heroes. My father was a master of inflicting serious education. However, when finished, the matter was usually forgotten. Unfortunately, my punishments had only begun.

      Being one who learns lessons quickly, especially those painfully endeared, I ran back to our house as several noblemen, followed by a score of guards, came riding down the road. These men were tall with thick beards and gleaming jewelry glittered from their wrists and fingers. One wore a thin gold crown, sunlight reflecting off its many tiny gems. Their clothes were bright and washed without holes or ragged edges. Their guards wore matching red and green tabards over linked mail and steel helmets plumed with fluffy white feathers. Their horses were almost as impressive as they; thick-chested, long-legged, and well-fed, with meticulously-brushed coats that gleamed in the daylight. Their horses stepped high, seeming proud, but not as pompous as those who rode them. The lords stared about distractedly as if totally removed from the lands outside their castle, as if all the sweat of peasants laboring under the hot sun, struggling to work the royal’s lands in exchange for barely enough food to survive, were nothing but a faint, unpleasant scent on an otherwise perfumed breeze. They rode with their backs straight, their beards neatly trimmed, and their superiority as evident as their arrogance.

      Fortunately, I wasn’t alone, but that didn’t help. Though I tried to run and hide behind my parents, terrified of getting another beating (or worse), the guards on horseback quickly chased me down and forced both my parents and I into a royal audience with our wealthy masters. To my amazement, in the center of their pack rode Wild Willie, her blonde, youthful glow a shining gem amid their ruddy, wrinkled faces.

       “My lord, this is the peasant boy who aided your daughter,” a guard said very loudly, almost shouting, but staring straight forward as he spoke, not looking at anyone in particular, as if talking to himself.

      The nobles all looked down from the height of their horses as if noticing us for the first time. I cringed beneath their penetrating stares; any or all of these men could kill my parents and me, and not one of these guards would decry it. If ordered to kill us, these guards would gladly murder. Even Wild Willie looked at me, although hers was a mere glance before she looked away and heavily sighed, as if impatient to be finished with this nasty business. In that alone I shared Wild Willie’s feelings. My parents dropped to their knees and drug me down with them.

      The royal men stared, frowning, and then the old man beside Wild Willie, the one with the thin crown, tallest horse, and brightest cloak, spoke.

       “Reward them.”

Please log in or sign up to review this excerpt.