The Donut Man

[Unpublished]

Another morning, and I stepped out into the day. It was dull and overcast and I noticed a blanket of dew upon the untrampled grass that was by the roadside. I gazed upwards, relishing the sky and the clouds, smelling the cleanness and freshness of the atmosphere. As I began my journey I passed a collection of poets heading in the opposite direction, each dressed in a black suit and scribbling words feverishly in small notebooks. An evil-looking cat was staring at them from a house window, green eyes stabbing at their intellectual minds.
I crossed the street, taking careful steps upon the cold ground, glancing in all directions as I did so. I gazed up; there was a rainbow! A group of dogs were looking also, barking at the colorful spectrum. A housewife in a gray dress was scolding the hedge that surrounded her garden.
“Why do you always grow so high?” she screamed, eyes ablaze.
Shop windows reflected my face as I passed them. I tried to ignore it, but each time I was strangely drawn to one side, so that I became compelled to slow down and peek at my countenance within the glass. I looked troubled and ill at ease, which was the truth, but the fact that I appeared that way caused me some alarm. I endeavored to force a smile, not a maniac’s grin, but just enough to dissuade the passing stares and glances of the curious.
Yet still I was perplexed. It was a horrid feeling, and I felt myself begin to shiver a little through fear. I spotted a tiny girl in school uniform and chewing a candy bar, her eyes digging into mine. I was immediately unnerved, so at the first opportunity I took a quick turn to the right and into an adjoining street. I experienced a sudden relief, for I had entered upon an almost deserted area of the town, and my nerves started to settle down a little.
There were shops to my left, all in a row, and as I passed each one I captured its unique smell. The fishmonger’s was strong and pungent, the butcher’s a little sickly and disturbing, the florist’s quite pleasant and alluring. As I approached the baker’s and caught the aroma of freshly baked bread and cakes I spotted a stocky fellow gazing into the window. He appeared to be in some type of trance, and he was so close up to the window that his nose was almost in contact with the glass. I passed him, and lingered at the entrance to the store, for I had become rather curious about this stranger.
I studied him surreptitiously for some seconds, believing that he was unaware of my presence, but then he suddenly turned his head to me. This occurred so quickly that I visibly jumped, and I did not have the chance to look away. His eyes bore into mine, which disturbed me immensely. I wanted to flee, but I was trapped, and a swift exit at this point would attract unwanted attention and a feeling of foolishness on my part.
“Are you going inside?” he enquired, flashing his eyes at me.
I didn’t know what to say. A seagull suddenly darted overhead, letting out its unique shrill shriek that shattered the quietness. My plan was not to enter the shop, for I had no business there. My intention was to merely roam the streets, engaging in my usual daily search. But I had to answer quickly; anything else would mean I wasn’t sure of what I was doing, which I believe people regard as eccentricity or even madness.
“Yes,” I muttered, my voice nervous and somewhat hoarse.
At this point I realized that the man had posed the question so that I was able to reply yes or no, which wasn’t really difficult to do, and indeed involved not a great deal of thought. Yet I couldn’t help feeling that I had responded incorrectly considering my own circumstances. If I had chosen to say ’no’, then I could have easily excused myself and wandered off down the pavement. But with selecting to say ’yes’ I had immediately compelled myself to remain within his vicinity, and to actually go into the shop as well. How foolish!
“What will you buy?” he asked.
He appeared nondescript, rather like myself. He was almost bald, with a mere sprinkling of hair upon his crown, blonde in color and appearing as tiny speckles upon his scalp. He had a pug-shaped nose and wild eyes, and pudgy little fingers that he stretched and poked as he spoke. He was dressed in a gray suit that had seen much better days and years, and that seemed too little for him, hugging him tightly like a second skin.
“I’m not sure,” I said in response to his question.
Suddenly his eyes widened, and he shot towards me. “donuts!” he hissed. “Make it donuts!”
I wanted to back off, but I had become petrified and so remained still by the entrance to the baker’s. I glanced into the window of the establishment, and spotted a silver tray that consisted of nothing but donuts, and realized that this was what the stranger had been gazing at. His preoccupation with donuts was now apparent.
“Maybe,” I replied, unconvincingly and in quite a nervous manner.
“donuts!” he barked, pressing his features up to mine. He was now snarling, and saliva was escaping from the insides of his mouth, snaking over his lips and on to his chin.
“Okay, okay,” I conceded, “I’m buying donuts.”
“Oh yessss!” he hissed again, and seemed to literally judder, his entire body experiencing some kind of orgasmic spasm. He stepped back an inch, as if to recover from this absurd thrill. “What kind?” he then asked, in a much calmer tone.
“Just ordinary ones,” I said, humoring him, “ring donuts.”
“Lovely,” he enthused, rubbing his stubby fingers together. “Virgins.”
“Pardon?”
“Virgin donuts,” he repeated. “Untouched and unblemished. No creams or jam fillings or icing or hundreds and thousands.”
I suppose so,” I agreed, although I had honestly never considered such an opinion.
“Do you realize that the hole in the ring donut signifies the female vagina?”
Oh no, I thought. I couldn’t believe that this fellow had begun to point out the sexual connotations of the ring donut. How bizarre! I really wanted to get away now, although luckily not one person had entered the street and so no-one was present to witness my exchanges with this stranger.
“I’m going inside now,” I explained to him, interrupting his ongoing explanations, “I’m in rather a hurry if you don’t mind.”
“Oh yes, yes,” he mumbled in an apologetic fashion. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.”
I left his smile outside the shop and went inside. The aroma became even stronger, and nearly overwhelmed me, so much so that I went quite dizzy, and had to clutch the counter in order to remain balanced. I immediately came face to face with a middle-aged woman behind the counter. She was grinning at me, as though I had done something foolish and she regarded me as some kind of cretin. I realized that this was not the case, and that this was merely her way of being polite to her customers, even though I did find it unsettling.
“May I help you?” she enquired.
She was clad all in white and her hair was the color of steel wool. I was pleased that I was the only customer in the shop, for I think that I would have felt seriously ill had there been others there too.
“donuts,” I blurted out. “I want donuts.”
“What kind?”
“Ring donuts,” I said without even thinking. “Virgins.”
No! Why did I say that? I didn’t mean to say that word. I felt my face begin to heat up, and I imagined my facial skin to be as red as a strawberry. The woman merely grinned at me though, a sweet sparkle arriving to her eyes.
She lifted the sugary offerings into a small paper bag, just as the clock struck ten. I experienced an uneasy feeling of impending doom as each gong erupted from a grandfather clock that stood almost lifelike in the corner behind the counter. The sounds ate at my brain, devastating my senses like a baseball bat to a frying pan. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. Seven, eight, nine. The world was going to end. And then the clock hit ten, and I let out an almighty yell, long and true. I opened my eyes, expecting a scene of complete chaos and wretchedness. What I witnessed were the features of the donut man pressed up to the window, distorted like a clown in a downpour, and the emergence of an ugly pensioner in an unfashionable blue suit and training shoes, smoking the stub of a cigar. As the door shut behind him I imagined that he had been smoking that same cigar for the entirety of his lifetime, as if it had been attached to his lips at birth, a part of his body like a hand or a penis.
“No smoking in the store,” said the woman, her cleavage dotted with wrinkles and moulds.
She handed me the bag and I gave her some cash. The pensioner grimaced as he pulled the cigar-stub from off his lips, and I noticed that once he had done this his mouth started bleeding. He dashed out of the store and down the street, yelling incomprehensible words, his training shoes squelching and splashing in puddles.
I smiled at the woman, and left the shop at once. The donut man was waiting eagerly outside. Twins walked past, a male and a female, although I couldn’t tell which was which in the daylight, but I knew that at least their souls were identical.
“Oh yesssss!” he cried out, his eyeballs swirling around almost preternaturally and his pudgy hands all a-tremble. “May I see them please?”
Of course he was referring to the virgins that lay hidden and innocent within the paper bag that I held in my grasp.
“You can have them,” I mumbled, now completely uninterested in him and his crazy craving.
I gave him the bag, and immediately he pulled it open and began to munch at the donuts, devouring them like a starving Third Worlder at Red Cross time. The sounds he made were quite alarming, and I looked away, only to meet the sickening sight of perhaps a dozen dogs defecating in a field, sniffing at each other’s deposits when finished.
I had to leave this place, I was getting nowhere by remaining in this street. And so my feet started to quicken along the pavement slabs, but just seconds later I felt a forceful tugging at my sleeve, and turned to discover the donut man displaying a strange grimace.
“Wait!” he exclaimed, digging his fingers into my arm. He licked sugary remnants from around his lips as he spoke, and I noticed the paper bag lying motionless and empty upon the wet stony ground.
I watched as he plunged his hand into the inside of his jacket, and in a second produced a photograph which he held in front of my face. I became intrigued, for the image on the photograph was a young girl of around 13 or 14 years, dressed in school uniform and looking as glum as a cow stuck in a puddle of treacle.
“Have you seen this girl?” he asked me eagerly, linking his arm into mine so that I could not escape easily.
I hesitated, then asked, “Who is she?”
“You really want to know?”
His grin was evil, I didn’t like it at all, and I started to wonder whether I should enquire further about the identity of the girl. I imagined that their connection was something wicked and unsavory, and therefore declined to ask that particular question again. So I shook my head and told him that I had not seen her anywhere. He appeared quite dejected at this stage, and I felt a little sorry for him. But then I slid my hand into my own inside pocket and produced a photograph of my own, at once holding it before his eyes as he had done with me.
“Have you seen this girl?” I asked.
I did not need to gaze at the photograph as he did, for the image it portrayed was etched into the forefront of my brain, like a birthmark on the back of someone’s hand. The white dress that clung to her body like glue, the long brown hair that hung around her shoulders in girlish curls, the way she held one hand in the other before her, the eyes that gleamed and hypnotized, and the sheer beauty she exuded.
“Who is she?” asked the donut man.
I waited some seconds before answering.
“She is my angel,” I said. It was the only way I could describe her. “My sweet one, the only girl I have ever loved.”
“So what happened to her?”
I looked at him, as though he had asked the most stupid of questions. “I’m not sure. I just want to find her, that’s all. We sort of lost each other.”
“I know what you mean,” he replied with a grunt and a smirk.
I doubted if he knew what I meant at all. Each relationship is private and entirely different from another. He knew nothing about us at all, and I knew nothing of his relationship. Neither did I want to know.
“Tell you what,” he then said, all enthusiasm and grins, licking sugar from off his pudgy fingers, “you find my girl and I’ll find yours. What do you think?”
Immediately I considered his suggestion to be out of the question. However after only a few seconds I began to think, why not? Hell only knows I had spent many weeks searching for Amy without even catching a brief glimpse of her in this snot-hole of a city. The donut man appeared loathsome and insane, and yet I felt that this idea would suit the both of us.
So I agreed. He handed me his photograph and I gave him mine, and we agreed to meet up at this very spot the next day. Quite happily I left him outside the baker’s store, clutching the schoolgirl’s image in my trouser pocket. I wondered if I would indeed manage to find her, but more importantly I wondered if he would discover Amy.
A flock of seagulls burst through the sky, adopting an attacking formation, and making a hell of a racket, before flitting over the donut man and depositing in unison a splattering of white bird-shit all over his suit. I listened to his laughter and turned away when he started to lick away the sloppy offerings with his slimy tongue.

I walked home with images of both girls etched into my brain. A swarm of clouds was drifting quickly across the sky, dark gray and threatening a downpour. I heard sounds of glass smashing in the distance and a group of poets zoomed past scribbling and mumbling as they went by. The grass seemed to be growing swiftly, sprouting up like tiny green erections, time appeared to have evolved into something altogether more sinister.
When I got home I locked myself in and trudged into the kitchen. After putting the kettle on I sunk into a chair deep in thought. I was missing Amy terribly, I just wanted her back. Whatever had occurred in the past could be mended, nothing was beyond repair. As the kettle steamed up I arose and pulled open the drawer beside the sink. Instantly I was met by those beautiful brown eyes, gazing at me from the dozens of photographs that littered the interior of the drawer. I picked a few up and let them fall like water between my fingers. I could give these out, I thought, give them to everyone I see in the street, ask if they could look for her, to assist in some small way. Yet I trusted no-one; not even the donut man, if the truth be known.
Through the open window I could hear the sound of sausages sizzling in a frying pan, and an army of crows flitted past, beaks at the ready. I thought about the girl in the donut man’s photo. It didn’t matter who she was, I had promised to seek her out and this was what I intended to do, or at least I would try to find her. I considered my options; the donut man had offered no clue as to her identity, not even a name, so I didn’t have a lot to go on. I made tea in a broken cup and sat at the table staring into the hot brown liquid. The main clue was the school uniform she was wearing. I could find out which school this belonged to and go from there, that would be an enormous breakthrough. Yet why hadn’t he done that? Was there an extra special reason for asking me to find this girl? Something he wasn’t telling me? Something illegal?
Hell!
I ought to have known.
But a vow is a vow. And as I blew ripples on the surface of the tea in my cup I promised that I would begin my search for the girl the very next day.

The sun decided to shine on the world the following morning. That big yellow orb cast shadows all over as I departed from my home to seek out the girl. All night I had spent dreaming of Amy, both in sleep and non-sleep, but now it was time to get down to the task in hand. My thoughts were of schools, those large hulking buildings that reeked of dry paper and polished floors. Did I recall ever seeing any of these in the town in which I lived? Perhaps, but like other things they appear in your line of vision and then vanish without even a recollection. I knew that my search would be exactly as difficult as the one for Amy.
Two madmen were sitting on the steps outside the asylum, busy counting the shadows of passing humans and arguing about everything. A squirrel bounced across the road in search of nuts, and a line of Micra hatchbacks were waiting patiently at the traffic lights, humming and revving in unison. The poets came out looking haggard after an evening of recitals and alcohol at Henry J Bean’s Bar and Grill.
“Good morning,” said the undertaker as he studied a copy of Nemonymous magazine on his way to the morgue. I wondered how anyone could appear so cheerful so early in the morning as I nodded an unenthusiastic greeting in return.
Getting back to the job in hand, I stopped one of the poets and asked, “Where are all the schools?”
He seemed flustered and blinked at me repeatedly, as if I had interrupted his train of thought. He threw me a meaningless haiku before scurrying off into a dirty alley-way. Feeling forlorn I trudged off with an unhappy scowl upon my face.
Having no watch upon my wrist I didn’t know how long I had been walking before I found a school. It was concealed behind a swarm of trees whose branches obscured the sunshine. I tried to remain hidden but surprisingly felt quite exposed, like a dustman without rubbish. A breeze started up, causing the branches to sway and dance around, but I ignored this as my nerves twitched around inside me.
The place seemed deserted. How long would it be before someone came out? Lifting the girl’s photograph from my pocket I noticed that her uniform was navy blue in color, although I was unable to read the blazer badge and therefore could not discover what her school was called. A huge greeting sign at the front gate informed me that this was the School of the Damned. Could this be the right place? Could I be so fortunate that I had found the correct place at my first attempt?
No.
The front doors opened and a single pupil came out, a girl of around twelve with evil, dark eyes that spoke of menace. Her uniform was black in color.
Dejected I walked away, observing a small group of Australians jabbering about television soap operas in their thick accents, an occasional laugh or scream quite evident. No poets in sight; was this a stanza-free zone?
I discovered the School of the Insane and the School of the Dead, with uniforms of dark green and midnight black respectively. The School of Mad Saints had shocking pink, the School of Ugliness had vermilion, the School of Torture had soil-brown. I wondered if I would ever discover the right place, until I turned wearily into a dim cul-de-sac littered with silence and grass verges.
The school gates were enormous iron things flanked by stone pillars and freakish gargoyles staring directly into my eyes. Immediately I caught sight of the name of the establishment; the School of Lost Souls. There was no-one around. I shivered before venturing further.
I was still unaware of the time, but jumped in fright when I heard a clock striking. I glanced up at the high tower that stood like a lunatic’s boner at right angles to the school building. The windows appeared to be black, but maybe this was a trick of the light. There was complete quietness everywhere around, a thrilling hush that covered the entire area like a huge invisible blanket. The clock struck four times. The end of the school day. Freedom time.
The sky became gloomy-gray, as dull as a librarian’s attic. I watched as the big wooden doors were flung open, and out sprang a humdinger of a noise. It was as though hell had broke loose, and I placed my palms to my ears as I observed a blatant swarm of boisterous juveniles shouting and screeching as if in horrible pain. Yet this was mere youthful exuberance, a concept I had abandoned some years previously, long before I had adopted my present peaceful existence. But then I felt a jolt to my heart when I spotted the color of the uniforms these pupils were wearing; navy blue.
I became frantic, dropping my hands to my sides and advancing so that I could watch from a closer position. My nose was almost touching the cold metal fence that flanked the school grounds. I studied each female face, occasionally glancing at the photograph I held in my shaking hand, but I was unable to spot the girl that the donut man sought. It didn’t appear to take long for the crowd to dwindle and the noise to subside. Still peering through the gap in the fence I saw the numbers filter right down to twosomes and single lonely figures sauntering unhurriedly from the interior of the School of Lost Souls. Then teachers came out also, grown-ups with haggard expressions and worry-lines, hunched backs and wearisome trudging movements toward their awaiting rackety old motor vehicles. The place was practically deserted, but I seemed to have missed my target. Wondering where the girl could be, I crept around to the front gates and entered into the school grounds.
It was akin to venturing into the unknown, or going back in time to my own school days. Immediately I detected the smell of chalk and dusty blackboards, and in my mind I pictured brimming ink-wells and initials etched into wooden desks. It seemed to be a huge place, a sprawling mass of fresh green grass and neat concrete and dull-red brickwork. The windows were opaque, some open, some closed, and I guessed that school-youths were peering out and laughing at me.
I felt defeated. I was certain this was the place, and yet the girl that I was looking for had not emerged from within the building. I thought that maybe she was still inside, and I was compelled to leap through those intimidating wooden doors, but something prevented me, a certain fear, or was it a certain realization? A realization that perhaps she had come out after all and was hiding from me, like a playful teaser. And to reinforce this idea I experienced a brutal shudder, and turned in the direction of the nearby cluster of trees.
I remained still as I observed from a distance. A peculiar thrill came to me, like an alcoholic’s glimpse of an absinthe label, or a sex maniac’s glare at a cleavage, or a junkie entering an opium field. She was there. The donut man’s girl. Standing beside a tall tree, dwarfed by its massive branches.
I must admit that I wasn’t sure what to do. She was staring at me, and I found it a little disconcerting. She didn’t know me, and I believed that I might disturb her if I approached. Yet it was something that I had to do, for the sake of finding Amy, for my belief was that the donut man was having similar luck in discovering my lost love.
So I walked in her direction, a trifle apprehensive, but focused on my actions. She did not flinch nor blink, and I admired her for this. The earth was as still as a pumpkin, the sky drenched in gloom. In seconds I was there, standing before her, absorbing her innocence and tender years. Her eyes were dark, her skin as pale as goat’s milk, her lips as red as blood.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Viva.”
The reply was immediate. The ice was broken.
“I’m David, “ I told her.
I waited to see if she made conversation, but she didn’t. She seemed quite timid, which was kind of expected anyway, I thought.
“Do you know the donut man?” I asked, realizing at once that she might not know who I mean by my description of him, but I did not know his name so I was forced to pose the question in this way.
“No,” she replied.
“Well he seems to know you. He asked me to find you for him. He gave me this photograph.”
I handed it to her, and watched as she studied it with interest. There was not a flicker of a change in her expression.
“It is you, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, but I don’t remember posing for it.”
I took it back, and glancing at it once again I noticed something rather odd about it. In the photograph she was surrounded by the same collection of trees as now, as though the picture had been shot at this exact location. I dismissed the notion, for I had an important matter to attend to.
“He wants to meet you,” I said to the girl. “Will you come with me?”
I know how it sounded, and I did feel like a kind of pervert, although I did my best to appear as normal-sounding as I could under the circumstances. However to my surprise she agreed at once.

Together we trudged along the damp streets, watching the day unfold and the skies blacken horribly. Conversation was minimal, Viva was certainly a quiet one. I questioned her lack of reluctance to accompany me, it didn’t seem quite natural, and yet who was I to ponder over such things in this abysmal world of ours.
Several window-washers sped by, like hyperactive silverfish wriggling through the sands of time. I ignored each one, instead keeping a watchful eye on the schoolgirl. Thunder came but no lightning, black clouds but no rain, and through all of this Viva walked silently like a female Jesus minus the cross and the beard. She was an enigma, I realized this; a strange phenomenon, holding many secrets that would maybe go with her to the grave, whether holy or unholy. A few times I leant my head to her side, pressed my personal space up to hers, intent on posing that question, asking about this and that and all of her secrets, and yet on each occasion I opted out, my streak as yellow as a bucketful of bananas. And before I could even dare to seek out an answer I realized that we had reached the street where I had first met the donut man.
He was outside the bakery, his usual haunt it appeared, his bulldog nose squashed flat against the window, peering at the delicacies within. I noticed that his podgy fingers were spasming and twitching at his sides, spread out like the tentacles of a stuffed miniature octopus. I wondered how he would react to the fact that the schoolgirl was with me; and then I quivered upon spotting that he was alone. Had he failed in his quest to find Amy?
Poets passed by on bicycles, pedaling effortlessly as they read works by Keats, Orphant or Wordsworth, tomes resting on handlebars like prostitutes leaning against walls. We reached the donut man, who swiveled his head around on spying the girl beside me. There was no recognition on her part, but he knew who she was, I could tell. His eyes appeared to gleam and a brash grin came to his face.
“My god, you found her!” he cried.
“Yes,” I replied, handing him the photograph.
“Was it difficult?”
“There have been more difficult things in my life,” I said, feeling like a celluloid actor at a huge awards ceremony.
Androids were watching from bedroom windows, eyes as bland as custard, and a ferret zoomed across the road, indifferent to everything it seemed. I was becoming more and more agitated. What about Amy?
The donut man turned to the girl. “What is your name?” he asked, his eyes wandering all over her slight frame.
“Viva,” she said quietly.
“Viva!” he exclaimed. “What a beautiful name. It reminds me of… life. A destiny fulfilled.” He stepped closer to her, his lips almost resting on her lithe neck. “You don’t know how long I have searched for you, and how I have yearned for you.”
With that he lunged, sinking his large teeth into the side of her head, gouging a black hole in her scalp. There was no sound as he ripped a chunk out of her, taking it back into his mouth and chewing like a demon. I looked into the hole and noticed that blood was oozing all over, a huge mass of it clogging up the new orifice.
Viva didn’t appear to be perturbed, she hardly flinched, hardly moved at all. The donut man finished his mouthful and reached out again with his teeth, increasing the size of the hole, spreading it over the top of Viva’s head, coming away with another morsel of her flesh. But then I realized; it wasn’t flesh at all. It was coated in sugar, and it wasn’t blood that bubbled up inside but some kind of fruity filling, like strawberry jam or something similar. And inside her head, there were no veins, no bones, no brainy tissue; it was light and fluffy, like a kind of dough. It was as though he was feasting on a human donut.
“Did you find her?” I yelled all at once, dismissing the barmy notion of a walking, talking delicacy. “Amy. Did you find her?”
He drifted out of his own private world and looked me in the eye. Still chewing like a madman, his mood seemed to drop, to sink to the ground like a falling swan.
“I found her.”
I felt a jolt, like a bullet to my knees. “Where is she?”
He sighed. “Do you really want to know?”
I glanced at Viva. Half of her head had been bitten off, and yet I detected a life within her, those dark eyes coming alive like tiny jewels, as if this had been her destiny all along. I turned back to the donut man and nodded.
“I won’t beat about the bush,” he said. “I’ll tell you right away that Amy is dead.”
“Dead?” I cried; as if I didn’t know.
“Yes, dead.”
I hesitated, counting out three seconds deliberately for dramatic effect.
“So.. where is she?” I enquired.
“Black Hill cemetery,” he replied without a pause.
Black Hill. So there she was. All the graveyards I had visited, all the burial grounds I had tread upon, Black Hill was the one.
I felt kind of elated as I watched the donut man continue his hungry ravishing, dipping his teeth into Viva’s doughy innards. He was obviously distracted, and so I chose this moment to slip off my longcoat and spread out my wings, shooting off into the sky in the direction of Black Hill, the rotting tombstones and dying embers, relishing the thought of my reacquaintance with Amy, my angel.