Mr. Fitzpatrick's Malady
Mr. Fitzpatrick’s Malady
The sun struggled over the horizon as Adam Fitzpatrick gurgled helplessly in his bed. He lay supine, his body like a useless corpse. He shifted this way and that at first, but he was accustomed to his station; thus had it been for years. He threw a sidelong glance at the digital clock perched upon his mahogany bedside cabinet. 6:30 AM. He sighed audibly; no one would come to wake him for at least thirty minutes. He cursed the sun for having woken him, and he lay.
To pass his empty time, he whimpered with indignance. How could this illness have befallen him? He had organized businesses all over the world. He had known international leaders intimately. He had built the mightiest commercial juggernaut in the world. Nostalgic, he glanced about his bedchamber. Fine silver had been mounted upon a glistening dresser located upon the wall to his right side. It stood erect, bestowed with a vertical elegance for which Fitzpatrick covetously ached. Its supple legs curved lasciviously. He remembered Angie. He missed her. He missed Angie.
He tore himself from his reminisce and forced his eyes to roam about his realm once more. By chance they grazed his clock (6:48), and he thrust them onward. Rococo ornamentation embraced the threshold that lay centered across from Fitzpatrick’s glorified casket. His eyes had since memorized the ornamentation’s elaborate folds, its sinusoidal excess, its effete decadence. He poured himself into the furrows and crevices of the shell motifs mirroring one another on either side of the portal. Ennui owned him. The sun continued its stagnant ascent. Fitzpatrick’s aged eyes returned to the sensual cabinet and remained fixed. His eyes burned holes into it. Behind him the clock now read 7:00 AM. And so, as Fitzpatrick stared transfixed, remembering the forgotten woman, Owen burst noisily into the room.
The steward was a far younger man than Fitzpatrick; the frail patrician had always stuffed his mansion with vivacious young men. The bedridden invalid wore a plastic smile as the servant neared. The valet strode effortlessly to his master’s side with the gross flamboyance of the riche nouveau. Fitzpatrick felt a pang of resentment.
“Good morrow to you, sir! Have you slept well?” The healthy sycophant beamed upon him as one patronizes a powerless child. Owen stood effeminately, affecting the grace of classical contrapposto. He thrust out a haughty hip, but his gaiety mocked restraint.
The old man said nothing. The conceit of his servant’s bourgeois chin aroused Fitzpatrick just as readily as it repulsed him. In his bored mind he had fantasized of slaughtering the bore, or of abusing him. But he said nothing.
Owen bowed superfluously to his benefactor (“One moment, sir; I shall fetch your chair”) and flounced from the room. The wrinkled man lay alone. The silver tinkled, the cabinet glistened, the handsome mahogany exhaled ersatz vitality. He sighed.
The sun still struggled as Owen reentered the adorned prison. He handled the empty wheelchair with a melodramatic flair that suggested its already being occupied. His face was rapt with care. Fitzpatrick boiled with resentment.
The misanthrope poured over the cabinet’s leg again. (Oh! that she would come to mock me! that she would curse me!) He stirred uselessly. And as his servant delicately lowered him onto his throne, Fitzpatrick seethed with sadism and malice and bitterness and hatred.