4/3/13

Beelzebub in the Ointment
By Quinn Tyler Jackson


Sean Fitzpatrick lived in a cheap but clean, almost completely empty hotel room above the Manhattan Nightly, the pound and throb from which came the cheap weekly rate for the room. From eight in the evening to two every morning, his room was an unbearable thunderstorm of dance mixes and howling college students looking to get together with other howling college students and share a few hormones. Sean, however, was in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.

Sean had spent the greater part of his life never fitting in anywhere or with anyone. His brief and numerous encounters with women over his life had given him the confidence that it was also not his appearance or his charm that had put him in the oubliette. Sean came to the conclusion that he was uncommon.

When he came to know the most beautiful woman in the world, however, Sean finally felt that even an uncommon man could be happy. So now, as he scratched poetry at eleven o’ clock at night above the noisy pit below his simple, nearly empty room, he did not feel empty or alone.

As Sean put back another glass of vodka, neat, he was happy that she greeted him so warmly and that her name wasn't Shirley Temple.


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