I was awakened suddenly this morning by the terrible sound of metal grating upon metal. When I opened my eyes, I was treated to the nightmarish countenance of Nurse Pin-head, who, brandishing a steam-fitter’s wrench, was busy unbolting the great collar which holds me fast to my iron-lung.
It then occurred to me that this was the day the interior of my iron-lung was to be scoured with a cleansing solution of carbolic-of-lye. It’s about time! It was getting awfully moist and sticky in there, and what-ever it is that’s squirming about, it sure as hell isn’t me.
My enormous nurse then used her unworldly strength to pry my age-raped body out of that metal womb and place me on my death-bed, which had been specially mounted with casters. In her deep voice, Pin-head told me I was to be wheeled into the basement hinterlands of the Zweibel manse, where I would be safe from the deadly carbolic vapors. Before I could protest, how-ever, Pin-head summoned my stable-boy, Augustus, and ordered him to escort me on this perilous outing.
The feared basement! I had heard my father talk of it on occasion. Many a legend has arisen from its clammy depths. Scaly serpents who can consume a score of men with a single snap of their jaws! Servants whose faces are on the middle of their torsos! And, most fear-some of all… a storied chamber in which recreation is practiced, allegedly containing a dusty old davenport upholstered in vulgar plaid, and a mysterious parlor-game known only as bumper-billiards!
Unfortunately, I saw none of these things. I say unfortunately, because the truth turned out to be far worse than the legends. The forgotten skeletons of the many enemies I had kidnapped and tortured grinned maniacally at me. Then, a mob of salamander-complected troglodytes swarmed about me and made off with one of my prosthetic ears. My wheeled death-bed soon broke down, and the stable-boy was forced to carry me. Finally, as we entered a great hall, paneled in blood-red leather and populated only by wax statues of Cotton Mather, Augustus dropped my carcass and fled shrieking. I was abandoned.
I write this in urine on scraps of skin cast off my consumptive chest, using the fairy-light given off by my body’s decomposition. I have abandoned all hope of rescue. If anyone chances to find this note, to hell with the ungrateful lot of you, and death to that whoreson bastard Hearst!
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
