The Origin: Part 1: Timothy and Mrs. Wyn

Perhaps if everyone understood how the poor thing had come about, perhaps if everyone knew the story of it, it could finally be defeated. Thus far though, the creature escapes all reality, delving into the world of legends and myths. One thing is for sure though: it had to come from somewhere.

 

The origin began with young Timothy.

 

Timothy worked part time at a diary farm. His family was poor. They lived off milk and Oreos and their TV was only a black and white 30 inch box.

 

Despite how disheartened his predicament made him feel, he had his own glorious dreams of becoming a private detective one day, but he wasn’t a scholar. He was barely scraping by school as it was. Still, whenever he was not struggling through English homework, he was studying up, watching all the cop shows, his favorite being Criminal Minds. He had watched every episode, staying up late into the night to accomplish it.

 

Maybe if he worked hard enough, he could get into the nearest police academy.

 

The problem was his English teacher was determined to make him fail.

 

Mrs. Wyn must have grown up wanting to be an English teacher. Her desk sported a sticker saying, “Grammar Nazi” and another saying, “Death to all who do good” with “good” crossed out by a red line.

 

Every week, her class would sweat over the dreaded GRAMMAR TEST that Mrs. Wyn wrote every week herself. During the test, Mrs. Wyn would walk around, hovering over her students like a vulture waiting for its prey to shrivel up and die. Her eyes were beady little things in a desiccated face, hungry for failure.

 

Suddenly, she swooped down on Timothy and snatched up his test.

 

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she crooned. “‘My mother and me went to the market.’”

 

The class giggled.

 

“Did you Timothy?” she demanded. “Did me go?”

 

“I – I don’t know,” Timothy stuttered.

 

“How do you think you did on this test?”

 

Timothy cleared his throat. “Pretty – pretty good.”

 

“Good!” Mrs. Wyn shrieked, apoplectic with rage and her beady eyes bugging out. “It’s well Timothy! You can’t do evil on a test, and neither can you do good! F minus!”

 

At first, Timothy didn’t know how to react. He sat there in a daze with his mouth wide open. His face felt hot and the tears were coming. He couldn’t let his classmates see him cry.

 

Panicking, his hand shot into the air.

 

Mrs. Wyn, who had been peeking at another’s test, glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

 

“Can I go do the bathroom?” Timothy asked in a small voice.

 

“I don’t know, can you?”

 

He swallowed hard. “May I go to the bathroom?”

 

“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Wyn replied, waving him away dismissively. “Get out of my sight.”

 

Timothy streaked out of the room, almost breaking down before he could even reach the door. Blinded by tears, he scrambled into the nearest bathroom and locked himself in a stall to cry. He remained there for the rest of the day, hating school, hating life, and especially hating Mrs. Wyn.

 

She has to pay, Timothy thought, antipathy burning in him like live coals beneath a fire.

 

By the time the final bell rang, Timothy had made up his mind and his eyes were quite dry. He molded into the students exiting the classrooms and made his way to the parking lot. There, he waited beneath the protection of the trees close to Mrs. Wyn’s car. Everyone knew which one it was. The word “Good!” had long ago been stained into the side by shaving cream.

 

Mrs. Wyn walked out to her car fifteen minutes later, her arms weighed down with papers to grade, her eyes distracted by an especially horrible essay. Timothy, silent as night, snuck up behind her and whacked her over the head with his exceedingly heavy literature book.

 

Mrs. Wyn was no heavier than a cow, and Timothy had manhandled plenty of those at work. He managed to shove her into the back seat of the car. He found the keys tucked into the pocket of her pea coat.

 

With his expression hard and set, Timothy drove home, ignoring the continual moaning from the backseat. It was a good thing his parents worked so late in the day; it took Timothy the better part of an hour to drag Mrs. Wyn down into the basement, get her into a chair and secure her with duct tape. He had to hit her over the head a few more times to keep her docile before he was done.

 

Timothy waited in a dark corner, flipping idly through channels. None of his favorite shows would be on until that night.

 

Eventually, Mrs. Wyn started awake, groaning from the pain in her head. She blinked in the darkness, confusion apparent from the furrow of her brow.

 

“Who – What –Where?” she stammered. She caught sight of Timothy in the corner. “Timothy? Where am I? What’s going on?”

 

Timothy, his expression menacing, stood slowly and walked around to the back of the chair where his teacher could not see him. Mrs. Wyn was trembling.

 

“You’re going to watch trash TV,” Timothy explained, his tone dark. He pointed over her shoulder at Jerry Springer playing on the small, black and white screen. “You’re going to hear all of their grammatical mistakes, and there’ll be no way to correct them.”

 

“What?” Mrs. Wyn yelped. “No! No please! I – I’ll do anything. Anything!”

 

Timothy had already walked out of the room.