The first and only adventure of Stump aka Deelnemer 11
“No I Haven't got anything left, I only have the right ones” said the arms dealer to the sad stump of a man in front of him.
Since then Stump was known as the man with two right arms. An improvement, knowing that he lost both his former arms because of bad hand eye coordination, to be honest only the bad hands given made him the Stump he was and most likely still is, both of his eyes are just a bit short sighted, they always stop looking after seventeen seconds. Anyway, he just should't have tried to cut his own fingernails with a chainsaw even if this chainsaw was one of the best in the field. You know most people Stump and I knows cut their toe and finger nails with machines way worse than he used for his former hands. I cut mine once a year with an old flametorch, a true classic, used in world war one, so I've been told.
Stump needed new arms like I needed a fourth wife to replace the sixth. He was lost without them, His job as a casino card dealer depended on a good efficiënt stereo set. It was hard to shuffle a deck with only his mouth and even harder to make it look like he still had arms to shuffle with so that he wouldn't loose his job or worse was made to work in casino security for higher wages. Wages placed so high that he never could reach it not even with both his arms intact. Stump was sorta dwarfish. His two right arms made him look taller. This was caused by the fact that they were a tit bit longer then he was so he had to walk with them raised above his head. This made him more attractive to the ladies, thats why he doesn't complain all the time about this new handicap caused by the old. Ladies like to shake his new hands and arms because of the thrill this shaking thing causes in their calves and shins, sometimes even their ankles. Stump just likes the attention, the shakes not so much.
With his new arms he can deal cards like he never could before, most gamblers can't believe their own eyes watching him shuffle but once they look in the cards given they know nothing has changed, not for real. The great boss above only gives what he can miss to earn much more then he gave away, no matter the pretty shiny glitter of a good shuffling of the deck before. Now still is how it was, that what you don't have you won't get, They begotten still shit all from deck maestro Stump. Eventhough he was a very talented deck shuffler, a gift that kept on giving to the men high above, long tall men residating in the accountants office, Stump self never rose in the gambling hierarchy, not even now with his new tall arms, and not just because a raise in salary made Stump cry, You know, not being able to make pay just because your short is a pain that never stops aching, ladders might work but you can't afford them, its catch 22 times 22 over and over. You probably don't know, I didn't, only until I met Stump I began to realise how difficult live is when the shape of a body causes men to never rise up in society, and you can't lower the salary after rising because that's the same as not raising it at all.
Once I've written an idea and dropped it in the idea box, Why not give him two salaries at the same height and at the same time that would be the same as raising, aye, doubling it, he would be double paid for all his shuffling decks and arriving on time at work and so on. The good stuff people appreciate you for, being around and make them more money than you earn yourself. But they said this was unfair because Stump was only himself alone and not two at the same time, only if he could prove to be two persons at once they would pay him as being them twice. He could not do that no matter how much I tried to make him split up, he was too ticklish to split. He just laughed but did not split his side. I failed him, that's how I felt, not all the time, just every workday at a quarter past two but not on wednesdays and only in the groin area. It's a thing I have to learn to live with. My suffering is nothing compared to Stumps endless days of misery, his many shortcomings, his new set of two too long right arms, the shaking of all the women now suddenly intrested but only in shaking his arms, he being a drug to their senses, at the under under extremities, way below the point that really matters, all this, and his lack of self awareness.
Did I tell you yet that Stump does not have self awareness, none at all! I can always see that he never knows that he is either here or there, he believes he is nowhere and yet we know that he is not but because he isn't aware of that fact we have to tell him all the time that he is where he is and he isn't somewhere else or not even around. When Stump arrives at work, the place where we see him be, we all do everything we can to acknowledge him for being at work, otherwise he thinks he is still not here, he be at home or still in transport to us. We say “Good seeing you Stump” “Stump, We know youre here” “Look its Stump, how you doin' workmate” Things to say so that he knows 'ah I guess I'm somewhere and it looks like I'm at work to shuffle the decks as to say' We can never once let him be because there is a big chance he might no longer be with us at the end of the work day, After work we don't care about his lack of self awareness. Stump his self can not be with us everywhere, we have things to do and think about, very much unlike work.
We know nothing about Stump, he never even told us he cut of his hands with a chainsaw he just came to work without them, we had to tell him he didn't have hands anymore, his lack of all awareness made him not see, I still wonder who told him that he had to cut them? Is he married, does he still live with his parents, so that at home they will tell him that he is and he has to cut his nails, because he has them and they can be cut. It must be so, otherwise Stump would completely disappear after work, with no nails to cut and an arms dealer to get them a new. Sometimes I think maybe Stump only appears to us to be seen so that we ourselves become true too, Stump extras, people to accompany the company of his being alive story. Stumponettes. I hope this isn't true, I don't want to be a Stumponettes, I just want to be who I am, the man that tells you a real story so that you can believe, or just think and say something about it. Instead of being a semi conscious pseudo man whose mission is nothing more than being an awareness slave, a marketeer, a believer for some dwarfish guy called Stump. No way... I hope Stump will saw of his head while he is trying to cut his own hair!