Wretched Joe
A Short story I wrote for an English class that I completely ad-libbed in an hour.
Joe was not a fortunate man. His ancestors were forced out of France and into Scotland two centuries before his birth. Since then, he and his family had suffered enough misfortunes that people started calling him Wretched Joe, which wasn't fair at all. Joe was a nice man whose mother had died during his birth and whose father was driven mad fourteen years later by "ill humors" caught from a whore, causing Wretched Joe to be put in a foster home, where the children teased him for his misfortunes, which were many.
Within the first month, Joe's arm was broken by a fall from the second story of his foster home, his nose bloodied by hooligans that demanded money from him, and a beehive fell on his head, causing Wretched Joe to swell up red like a tomato.
Four years passed and Joe finally came of age. The injuries he collected over the years were many, but none damaging enough to maim. The towns-folk thought Wretched Joe and his family to be cursed, and most shied away from him except a bar-maid that lived above the local tavern. The beginnings of a relationship bloomed, and Joe seemed to finally catch a whiff of luck when the Stabler agreed to hire Joe, whose payment was a hay-bed in the stables behind the tavern where the love-birds would flirt when they weren't working.
One day, the fair maiden didn't respond to the rocks upon her shutters. Dismayed, Joe continued to chuck rocks at the window until the tavern-owner, Her father, angrily burst his head out of the window.
"Away with ye, churlish lump!" the short man yelled. Joe wasn't fazed, this greeting from his lover's father was normal.
"Pray, sir! Where is my Cibyl?"
"Sick, now leave," answered the tavern-owner, "...and she's not yours!" he added, as an afterthought, before slamming Cybil's shutters closed.
Joe turned back to his duties as a stable-boy with a bowed head and a heavy heart. He worried for Cybil repeatedly in his mind. Perhaps it was some new devilry brought from the English soldiers or maybe--
Joe didn't have time to finish his last thought before a ghastly crunching sound rung though the morning air and everything turned to black.
When Joe came back down to earth, he didn't see at first, everything was still black. The world buzzed with a low, ethereal hum that reverberated until it grew into a sharp, unbearable ringing. He opened his eyes, and pain flooded in with the dim light. He wanted to scream, to move, but every inch of his body screamed in pain, from the pores of his forehead to the bones of his toes. Joe cringed his eyes closed again to muster every ounce of his energy. As the power he felt inside him grew, the pain multiplied exponentially. The armies of his body fought off the invading Empire of Pain. Drums sounded and bugles called as the men fighting inside him flew to heaven until one lone soldier of energy remained towering over his fallen comrades and enemies. The soldier panted, kneeling, before he lifted his gleaming, blood-streaked sword to the heavens and shouted his glory.
Joe groaned weakly.
"Good, he wakes." said a familiar voice, "Too often he's entered my practice."
"Will he live? There was much blood." questioned another familiar voice.
Joe groaned louder again, having mustered more troops.
"Quiet, man! Save your strength," chided the first voice as its hand rested on Joe's forehead above his closed eyes. "He will, but I shall have to fetch an ewe or more to replace his teeth."
"He's lost them?" The second voice sounded surprised.
"The hoof caught his mouth, his intact jaw alone surprises me." The soldiers in Joe soon liberated his mind from the occupiers. Joe placed himself in Doctor Hill's practice, which he'd frequented before. The doctor must be the first voice, but who was the second?
"I'll not pay for his new teeth." So it was his employer.
"Out! The expense is my own." The doctor folded his arms as the stabler left and turned to Joe. "You're lucky to be alive this time." Joe grunted.
A day passed as Joe lay on the table and the aging doctor chased sheep around a field for him. Joe drifted in and out of sleep for the better part of two days, but woke to a sickening crunch and a mouthful of pain as Doctor Hill cracked open Joe's mouth.
"Bear this pain for but a minute, man. Be strong," encouraged Hill's voice. Joe merely whimpered before letting out an ear-shattering scream as he was operated on. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they were secured by the dentist's assistants, who allowed Joe little movement.
Two weeks later, Joe walked back to the stables, slouching and carrying an air of tired melancholy.
He was able to chew again, though painfully for the first few months after his accident. Over the course of those months, word spread through town that Wretched Joe's head was full of sheep's teeth!
From then on, Wretched Joe was a memory and Wooly Joe was a happily-married man.