The Ballad of the Mud-Man

In a clean, clean world a man fell into the mud. His name was irrelevant. His priorities were not the same as theirs, which made him always confused. He laid in the mud for several minutes. He wept. He hit the sloppy ground with his fists. He screamed at God for making him so broken.

A column of mud heard the man whose name didn’t matter. The mud felt like he did, unwanted, out of place. Feeling true kinship for perhaps the first time ever, it surrounded the man. It did not set to drown him. It did not set to injure him. It was fusing to its proper companion. The man and mud finally felt like they belonged, in their perpetual embrace.

They would walk together, and they understood each other. They would touch things and leave stains together. They would find broken things and fuse with them because they were cast out and looking for kin. They would be a home for the discarded because they no longer knew any home.

A cracked green bowling ball lived in their stomach. Broken lightbulbs and toys without limbs rallied to their feet. The top of an old toaster protruded from their shoulder. Torn netting and discarded plastic wrap wove in and out of their arms and legs, buried and surfacing in waves within the mud. This man knew one destiny, and that was the mud and their new family. They were all the Mud-Man.

What was Mud-Man’s purpose, aside from collecting family and dirtying the world? He would try to teach the people that the world didn't have to be so clean. Perhaps their efforts were just a little bit excessive.

Cars were made from materials that held no water so that a rinse cycle could be performed before every trip to the store or the movies. People would bring Windex to restaurants and pocket sinks were invented to wash the dishes that were laid out for people when they ate. In fact, the new rage was a purse that contained a dry cleaner that would spray chemicals onto dishes and silverware that would kill 99.9999999% of the germs. It had life expectancy ramifications, but the lucky owners’ eating surfaces had never been so clean.

Everything had to be as sterile as possible, so of course people were horrified by the man of mud until they spoke to him.

“The dirt won’t kill you. Why do you work so hard? Why do you devote so much energy to things being so pristine when you end up forever locked in battle with the world around you?”

Many people would walk away in disgust and horror, but some would take this lesson and even be grateful to the Mud-Man for opening their eyes to all of the stress they put on themselves. Maybe they truly could withstand at least a tiny bit of mess if their life would be so significantly easier for it.

The Mud-Man developed a small sense of celebrity in the town. He carried his rebellious message and was a fun addition to the places he visited, especially for younger people who enjoyed experimenting in counterculture. A very brave person might even let him touch them, pat their shoulder. They would, of course, recoil to his touch, maybe even let out a yelp or quick scream. After the daring business passed they realized that they would survive it and had quite the harrowing story to tell. There was usually even proof!

“Look at this stain! I immediately washed it like twelve times, and even after that you can still see a little phantom on my otherwise pristine white shirt! That was where the Mud-Man touched me.”

The novelty wore off quickly though. Even when people would be impressed by their encounter, even when they could learn to accept some mess, no one wanted the Mud-Man for a friend. No one could endure a fully stained house or car. Even remaining long in the presence of such a toxic being just had to be dangerous. It didn’t matter how kind the Mud-Man might be. He was a public nuisance.

People did not know this, but the Mud-Man was clean once. He carried five bottles of sanitizer at all times, and showered six times a day. Sure, more people had eight bottles and showered ten, but to be sure the Mud-Man was certainly acceptably clean. He functioned within the world, but found it so exhausting. He didn’t see the point of washing already washed dishes and would receive confused and even angry looks when he was out. He didn’t bring a portable hand-vac to the movies. He just sat! He had scuffs on his shoes. People notice these things and the man wanted to be accepted, but he was so tired and didn’t understand.

The man had been turned away from a casual eatery because he had bitten his lip and a drop of blood found a way onto his pressed, white collar. That led the server to notice the mild wrinkling of his pants, and “oh my God! There is a huge spot of dirt on your shoe! It’s at least the size of a pen’s tip!” He was cast out and bleary-eyed from the emotional output of his rejection. That is when he slipped into the mud, when he knew he did not belong in this world, but it would never stop surrounding him.

Then came his moment of heroism. The day of the Mud-Man's destiny.

One day, the Mud-Man encountered a baby in the street and an oncoming car. The car did not see the crawling child, and the baby’s parents were talking loudly about their stock portfolios, yelling at their car that was not clean or expensive enough. The baby persisted into the street, and the Mud-Man ran and grabbed the baby, pushing it past the car and being hit himself.

The parents heard the honk of the car’s horn and ran out to see their child. It was safe, but it was FILTHY!

“I mean, saving the child was a nice thing to do, but what menace gets a child so dirty?” The father spoke harshly to the now physically broken man of broken things.

The Mud-Man did not belong in polite society. The police came and told the clearly drunk driver of the car that he had best go home and not tell anyone that he had been anywhere near the scene. He was VERY clean and didn’t deserve the hassle. Everyone makes mistakes. Such a clean man certainly would not do such a thing regularly. Also, the Mud-Man got his car unfathomably dirty when it hit him.

“The mess may never wash off entirely. Wasn’t that punishment enough?” An officer said, shaking his head looking at the driver’s car that must have been immaculate before it came into contact with the cursed thing lying on the ground in front of it.

Then they called in for a special car to attempt to move the Mud-Man. Luckily, knowing what a dangerous person he was, the mayor had thought ahead and assembled a team to dream up a solution. It was a pick-up truck with the back filled with water and a special lining that could be easily burned. The trouble was, what then? Where could they move him? No one considered that.

The Mud-Man had to be dealt with. Look, he even had a broken lightbulb where his foot was. What a hazard! Look at the certainly traumatized baby with all of its stains! They couldn’t keep the Mud-Man in prison because they couldn’t expect prisoners to be around such mess. The lawsuits alone! He could not get clean either. The brave officers tried to wash him with a garden hose when they came onto the scene, but the mud and the Mud-Man were one.

“Look around. Even the street is unacceptably dirty!” A horrified observer noted.

There was only one thing to do. They poured gasoline on the Mud-Man, and the Mud-Man was no more.