Mystery & Suspense - Daily Short Stories

The Hypnotist - Ambrose Bierce

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Duration:: 18m
Broadcast on:: 11 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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That's renterswarehouse.com, or call 303-974-9444 to speak to a rent estate advisor today. Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring. Laundry, a book club, computer solitaire, huh? Ah, sorry, we were looking for Chumba Casino. That's right, ChumbaCasino.com has over 100 casino-style games, join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. The Hypnotist by Ambrose Beers By those of my friends who happen to know that I sometimes amuse myself with hypnotism, mind-reading, and kindred phenomena, I am frequently asked if I have a clear conception of the nature of whatever principle underlies them. To this question, I always reply that I neither have nor desire to have. I am no investigator with an ear at the keyhole of nature's workshop, trying with vulgar curiosity to steal the secrets of her trade. The interests of science are as little to me as mine seem to have been to science. Doubtless, the phenomena in question are simple enough, and in no way transcend our powers of comprehension if only we could find the clue. But for my part, I prefer not to find it, for I am of a singularly romantic disposition, deriving more gratification from mystery than from knowledge. It was commonly remarked of me when I was a child that my big blue eyes appeared to have been made rather to look into than look out of. Such was their dreamful duty, and in my frequent periods of abstraction, their indifference to what was going on. In those peculiarities they resembled, I venture to think, the soul which lies behind them, always more intent upon some lovely conception which it has created in its own image, than concerned about the laws of nature and the material frame of things. All this, irrelevant and egotistic as it may seem, is related by way of accounting for the meagreness of the light that I am able to throw upon a subject that has engaged so much of my attention, and, concerning which, there is so keen and general a curiosity. With my powers and opportunities, another person might doubtless have an explanation for much of what I present simply as narrative. My first knowledge that I possessed unusual powers came to me in my fourteenth year when at school, happening one day to have forgotten to bring my noon-day luncheon, I gazed longingly at that of a small girl who was preparing to eat herbs. Growing up her eyes met mine, and she seemed unable to withdraw them. After a moment of hesitancy she came forward in an absent kind of way, and, without a word, surrendered her little basket with its tempting contents, and walked away. In expressibly pleased, I relieved my hunger and destroyed the basket. After that I had not the trouble to bring a luncheon for myself. That little girl was my daily purveyor, and, not infrequently, in satisfying my simple need from her frugal store, I combined pleasure and profit, by constraining her attendants at the feast, and making misleading proffer of the Vayans, which eventually I consumed to the last fragment. The girl was always persuaded that she had eaten all herself, and, later in the day, her tearful complaints of hunger surprised the teacher, entertained the pupils, earned for her the sobriquet of greedy gut, and filled me with a peace past understanding. A disagreeable feature of this otherwise satisfactory condition of things was the necessary secrecy. The transfer of the luncheon, for example, had to be made at some distance from the madding crowd in a wood, and I blushed to think of the many other unworthy subterfuges entailed by the situation. As I was, and am, naturally of a frank and open disposition, these became more and more irksome, and, but for the reluctance of my parents, to renounce the obvious advantages of the new regime, I would gladly have reverted to the old. The plan that I finally adopted, to free myself from the consequences of my own powers, excited a wide and keen interest at the time, and that part of it which consisted in the death of the girl, was severely condemned. But it is hardly pertinent to the scope of this narrative. For some years afterward I had little opportunity to practice hypnotism. Such small essays, as I made at it, were commonly barren of other recognition than solitary confinement on a bread and water diet. Sometimes, indeed, they elicited nothing better than the cationine tales. It was when I was about to leave the scene of these small disappointments that my one really important feat was performed. I had been called into the warden's office, and given a suit of civilians' clothing, a trifling sum of money, and a great deal of advice, which I am bound to confess, was of a much better quality than the clothing. As I was passing out of the gate into the light of freedom, I suddenly turned, and, looking the warden gravely in the eye, soon had him in control. "You are an ostrich," I said. At the post-mortem examination the stomach was found to contain a great quantity of indigestible articles, mostly of wood or metal. Stuck fast in the esophagus, and constituting, according to the coroner's jury, the immediate cause of death, one doorknob. I was, by nature, a good and affectionate son, but as I took my way into the great world from which I had been so long secluded, I could not help remembering that all my misfortunes had flowed like a stream from the niggered economy of my parents, in the matter of school functions, and I knew of no reason to think they had reformed. On the road between Suckattash Hill and South Asphyxia is a little open field, which once contained a shanty known as Pete Gilstraps Place, where that gentleman used to murder travelers for a living. The death of Mr. Gilstraps and the diversion of nearly all the travel to another road occurred so nearly at the same time that no one has ever been able to say which was cause and which effect. Anyhow, the field was now a desolation, and the place had long been burned. It was while going a foot to South Asphyxia, the home of my childhood, that I found both my parents on their way to the hill. They had hitched their team and were eating luncheon under an oak tree in the center of the field. The sight of the luncheon called up painful memories of my school days and roused the sleeping lion in my breast. Approaching the guilty couple, who at once recognized me, I ventured to suggest that I share their hospitality. "Of this cheer, my son," said the author of my being, with characteristic pomposity which age had not withered, "there is sufficient for but to. I am not, I hope, insensible to the hunger-light in your eyes, but." My father has never completed that sentence. What he mistook for hunger-light was simply the earnest gaze of the hypnotist. In a few seconds he was at my service. A few more sufficed for the lady, and the dictates of a just resentment could be carried into effect. "My former father," I said, "I presume that it is known to you, that you and this lady are no longer what you were." I have observed a certain subtle change, was the rather dubious reply of the old gentleman. It is, perhaps, attributable to age. It is more than that, I explain. It goes to character, to species. You and the lady here are, in truth, two bronchos, wild stallions both, and unfriendly. "Why, John?" exclaimed my dear mother. "You don't mean to say that I am." "Madam," I replied solemnly, fixing my eyes again upon hers, "you are." Theresely had the words fallen from my lips, when she dropped upon her hands and knees, and backing up to the old man, squealed like a demon, and delivered a vicious kick upon his shin. An instant later, he was, himself, down on all fours, headed away from her, and flinging his feet at her, simultaneously and successively. With equal earnestness, but inferior agility because of her hampering body gear, she plied her own. Their flying legs crossed and mingled, in the most bewildering way. Their feet, sometimes meeting squarely in midair, their bodies thrust forward, falling flat upon the ground, and, for a moment, helpless. On recovering themselves, they would resume the combat, uttering their frenzy in the nameless sounds of the furious brutes which they believed themselves to be. The whole region rang with their clamor. Round and round they wheeled, the blows of their feet falling like lightnings from the mountain cloud. They plunged and reared backward upon their knees, struck savagely at each other, with awkward descending blows of both fists at once, and dropped again upon their hands, as if unable to maintain the upright position of the body. Grass and pebbles were torn from the soil by hands and feet. Clothing, hair, faces inexpressibly defiled with dust and blood. Wild, inarticulate screams of rage attested the delivery of the blows, groans, grunts and gasps their receipt. Nothing more truly military was ever seen at Gettysburg or Waterloo. The valor of my dear parents in the hour of danger can never cease to be, to me, a source of pride and gratification. At the end of it all, two battered, tattered, bloody and fragmentary vestiges of mortality attested the solemn fact that the author of the strife was an orphan. Arrested for provoking a breach of the peace, I was and have ever since been, tried in the court of technicalities and continuances. Once, after fifteen years of proceedings, my attorney is moving heaven and earth to get the case taken to the court of remandment for new trials. Such are a few of my principal experiments in the mysterious force or agency known as hypnotic suggestion. Whether or not it could be employed by a bad man, for an unworthy purpose, I am unable to say. End of The Hypnotist by Ambrose Beers Well, it sounds like the tenants at your rental property sure know how to throw a great party. You just wish they wouldn't throw so many parties, on Tuesdays, until four a.m. But if they could pay the rent on time, that would be nice too. Being a landlord can be stressful, but it doesn't have to be. Let renters warehouse handle the hard part of property management for you, like finding quality tenants you can trust. 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