Special Issue #13 ISSN 1547-5957

“I’d just say, be careful. Eighteen-year-olds who hear voices in their heads
can be dangerous.” She looked up from the piles of papers littering her desk. Her
upper lip curled into what, for Martha, was a smile. “If you’re not careful, Feiffer,
you can influence him to become an English teacher. Do you want that on your
conscience?”
The next morning when he got to his office, Douglas found a typed story from
Chandler slipped under his door. It told how Octavius dared him to run away from
home as a child. Another, later that afternoon, described how Octavius encouraged
him to set the living room curtains on fire.
Over the next few days Douglas didn’t see Chandler, but stories about Octavius
flooded his office. Some frightened him, like one where Octavius urged Chandler
to hold a lighted cigarette to the inside of his thigh.
After class, he spoke to Chandler. The boy appeared nervous.
“Do you want to talk, Chandler? I don’t have a class for another hour.”
“No, sir,” he said, staring at the ground.
“You seem to have a lot to say about Octavius. He seems more demonic than
you originally made him out to be. The, uh, one about where he dares you to burn
yourself disturbed me, Chandler.”
“It just ... well, I sort of exaggerated.” He offered an awkward smile. “The real
Octavius never went that far.”
Something about the way he said, “The real Octavius,” scared Douglas even
more.
Chandler left abruptly, saying he had a class.
Douglas showed some of the essays to a psychology professor friend at the
college.
“The kid’s either playing with you or he’s deeply disturbed,” the professor said.
“Or both?”
“Or both.”
Douglas checked Chandler’s transcripts and talked with some of his professors.
Nothing seemed unusual. He called his former high school and inquired about
him. He had graduated only a year earlier from a rather small school, but the
guidance counselor had to check her records to remember Chandler. Although
she made it clear she couldn’t say anything specific about him over the phone, she
assured Douglas there were no red flags in his files. He asked to speak to Chandler’s
wrestling coach, but she said according to his records, he never wrestled. In fact,
there was no record of extracurricular activities.
Douglas confronted him the next time he saw him.
“You caught me,” Chandler said, grinning. “The truth is I made up Octavius for
the first paper and since you said it had to be about a real personal demon, I just
made up more stories. I’ve been straining to come up with crazy things to say about
Octavius. I hope you’re not mad.”
Douglas laughed, and gave him an A for creativity. He said he’d be happy to read
more Octavius stories, fact or fiction. “You had me believing you. You may have a
future as a fiction writer.”
12 The Literary Hatchet