Happenstance

By James Lannan

Of the more than three hundred stories that appear on the pages of this book, the author offers a few excerpts to give the reader a sense of its content:

After several nights of vigilance, two of the elves were captured and promptly throttled, and only then did their tribe move on. The people of the hamlet were free at last to take up normal life again. Before dawn one morning, he was found hanging from a rafter in the market with a rope cinched round his neck. Ever righteous anger might have saved Andrz, but never had he near enough.

Jesus Christ heard the devil out and cast him back to hell. But Jesus was the Son of God, and Martn a mere upholder of mundane law. He picked up the bills, stuffed them in his pocket, and backed into the alley.

A woodcutter and his son discovered the naked poet curled like a foetus on a bed of pine needles, an hour past dawn. The poets body was covered with insect bites, and when roused, he displayed symptoms of a truly nasty head cold.

When he was younger, it had always seemed to Joe that who he was at one moment remained consistent with who he was a moment after. But now as he tossed and turned in bed, it occurred to him that his former self might be as indeterminate as the color of flowers on a bush. Before he fell asleep that night, he concluded that the connection between past and present was purely a matter of happenstance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543433906

James Lannan

This book is James Lannan’s third published novel. Although he maintains an address in Wyoming, for much of the year, he roams about unfamiliar territory and listens often to strangers’ tales.

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Copyright © 2017 by James Lannan.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017910383

ISBN:       Hardcover       978-1-5434-3392-0

                 Softcover         978-1-5434-3391-3

                 eBook               978-1-5434-3390-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/14/2017

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To Cratylus

L ate one night, upon leaving a lakeshore bar, Johnson spotted his nemesis slumped against a building on a deserted side street. For more than a week, no matter where he went, the mendicant had turned up with palm extended.

Johnson resented being tr

eated as a pushover. On this night, instead of walking by the vagrant without the slightest acknowledgment of his existence, which he should have done, Johnson dropped to a knee and fastened his gaze upon the glassy gray orb that bulged from the beggar’s right eye socket.

Tongue curled over his upper lip, the beggar grinned at him and made to speak, but Johnson’s fingers clamped upon his windpipe before any sound came out. He wanted the presumptive idler to comprehend the limit of his patience, but he’d drunk too many tequilas to fully appreciate the man’s fragile state of health.

Aghast at what he’d done, Johnson shot to his feet, ducked around the nearest corner, and made directly for his hotel.

Midmorning following, he awoke with a start, rolled out of bed, and threw together his belongings. On his way to the boat dock, he nearly collided head-on with a ghost.

Buenos días, amigo, croaked the beggar.

With a trembling hand, Johnson fished coins from his pocket and dropped them into the mendicant’s hand. Disculpe, señor, he stammered and rushed off like a scalded dog.

W ith one stroke of his ax, the woodcutter dispatched the wolf, and dragged its bleeding carcass out of the cottage.

He didn’t notice he was being followed until he’d traipsed well back into the forest. When his eyes fell on the girl, she raised the hood of her red cape and asked, Won’t you stay for tea, sir?

The woodcutter leaned his ax against a tree and returned with the child to the hovel, where there was a place set for him at a table. The girl retrieved custard tarts and apples from under the cloth that covered her wicker basket while her grandmother poured cups of hibiscus tea.

During the repast, Grandma asked her guest where he lived, but the woodcutter gave no reply. When she went on to mention that she was well-acquainted with her neighbors, he nodded. The girl saved the woodcutter from further questioning by reciting the names of wildflowers that grew in the yard outside.

Back among the trees, ax in hand, the woodcutter secured about his waist the magic rope by which, in the nick of time, he’d descended, and gave it a tug. Up he went.

S ome time ago, American sailors on shore leave in an Asian port played baseball while their ship underwent repairs. They drew several interested bystanders to their games.

A year later, at the same site, the first known baseball competition between American and Chinese players took place. The game was decided in the bottom of the ninth with the visiting team (the sailors) leading by a single point. There were two outs and runners on second and third.

At this point, the Chinese manager called time to make a roster change. His pinch hitter turned out to be an old man with chin whiskers down to his navel, whom the manager addressed as Sifu.

Despite the old guy’s ineffectual appearance, the American crew chief suspected a ringer and signaled his pitcher to load the bases. Which almost occurred, except that after watching three balls lob wide, Sifu took lazy cuts at the next two pitches, and then what could the visiting hurler do but accept the old guy’s dare?

Nobody on the visiting team saw Sifu swing a third time, but the heater never reached the catcher’s mitt. Runners trotted home while outfielders searched the sky in vain.

Thus, the historical event wound down, with the Americans exchanging bewildered shrugs, which morphed into cries of disbelief when the old guy ambled to second base, extended a hand, and caught his own fly ball.

A tinsel veil of multicolored lights shimmering on ripples from the village across the lake set Sam to thinking hard about illusion and reality until Horace joined him uninvited on the dock and commenced to relate his thoughts of the moment, such as where to buy herbs and vegetables at the best price in the market and how happy he was for the girl he’d met at the hotel to whom he had been sexually attracted but who only wanted to be friends and who was therefore the cause of his three-week absence from town and who, upon his return, seemed to have found a more compatible lover; and such as his plan (Horace’s) to bus up to Cancun in a couple of weeks and from there fly to Spain and cross into Portugal where he would brush up on his Portuguese and, after that, maybe Germany to practice his German (he spoke six languages fluently including Mandarin and Cantonese), and then he’d be obliged to return to New York City and apply for a job (he’d brought with him four thick tomes on the subject of project management to study while he was traveling), and then, finally, Horace asked how Sam was doing on this beautiful night, to which his listener answered Sleepy and wished Horace a pleasant evening and moved off chuckling under his breath because it was either that or shove the gabby fool off the end of the dock.

" E verything happens for a reason, she espoused, while they lay in bed after making love. To defend her hypothesis, she pointed out that if she hadn’t had all her money stolen, they never would have become such cozy pals. To which he responded, You’re not going to pay back the loan, are you?" And when she admitted that she hadn’t planned on it, the reason at least for what had happened between the sheets came clear to him.

To gain an edge in a long-distance bicycle race, a rider swallowed copious amounts of amphetamines. Notwithstanding the lead he achieved over the opposition, his heart burst before he crossed the finish line.

Ancient Aztecs practiced human sacrifice to appease their gods and ensure longevity for their empire. They were conquered by a people who burned witches at the stake.

Week by week, a woman purchased tickets in the state lottery, hoping to obtain untold riches. Thirty years passed, and still she hadn’t realized a return that equaled her investment.

These examples, along with the creation of the universe in six days, illustrate the proposition that anything’s possible.

If I had it to do over, he said, my life would be much improved.

But if once improved, his wife proposed, why not improved again and again?

After due consideration of her remark, he concluded it was probably much easier to live with his mistakes.

After attending the funerals of two dear friends, a woman up in years could not rest easy until a third dear friend’s name appeared in the obituaries. Death comes in threes, she believed.

If only I knew then what I know now, she said, to which her smarty-pants husband answered, And if only you knew now what you knew then. His point being that she only got away with feeling superior to the person she once was because that person could no longer defend herself.

B eneath a red earth and gravel mound newly established among a jumble of squalid graves in a Guatemalan cemetery lie the deteriorating remains of Samantha Morgan, expatriate American and part owner in a San Pedro cafe that caters to tourist trade.

She had been a slender woman of medium height with a long countenance, narrow eyes, wiry hair—hard-bitten, some would say; wry, according to others; fair-minded and frank were the descriptive adjectives most volunteered at her wake.

Sammy’s good times began to peter out when her migraines entered a chronic phase. She kept working at the cafe until she fell in the shower and broke her wrist. After the cast was removed, periods of blurred vision assailed her and, even when she saw clearly, she bumped into furniture and doorjambs and had trouble lifting a coffee cup to her lips without spilling a quarter of its contents in her lap. The final, barely legible entry in Sammy’s journal read, Time draws nigh to end this bullshit.

And so she did. Despite the bum cards she’d been dealt, Sammy went out like a movie star on champagne and pain pills.

O ne evening in the middle of the rainy season, a Maya woman hurried in a downpour down a slick footpath that ran along the shore of Lake Atitlan. Within a hundred meters of her home, she heard an eruption from windswept waves and spun about in mortal fear. The woman fell back when she saw a giant lizard heave its head and shoulders upon the land. While she looked on, the monster swallowed whole a butcher’s boy who also happened to be walking beside the lake.

Many of her neighbors believed her story and many did not; but after weeks of searching, no one denied that the boy had disappeared without a trace. The child’s father at first aligned with the doubters, but in the end, grief over the loss of his youngest son drove him to desperation. Night after night, he scouted the lake with his sharpest carving knife thrust in his belt.

Then he too vanished, and three days after his disappearance, his body washed up on shore covered head to toe in a thick film of semi-translucent slime. The giant lizard never struck again, which fact the woman who beheld the creature claimed as proof that the butcher had delivered it a mortal wound before smothering in its belly.

Many generations of Atitlan villagers have kept alive the legend of the lake monster, though no one today remembers the names of its victims or of its sole undevoured witness.

I n her late thirties, Susana was a tall handsome woman with a firm figure and a gregarious disposition. Foreign male travelers passing through San Pedro found her intriguing, but Susana preferred the company of local Maya boys.

Municipal police became so familiar with Susana’s complaints they began to wonder whether the lady had taken leave of her senses. One unfortunate decision they could understand, but after another and another similar mishap befell the woman, they discerned a pattern of serious derangement.

One of her lovers made off with her cell phone while she slept. A second stole her camera, and a third nicked a treasured watercolor painted by her beloved grandmother. And yet the Englishwoman continued to invite the local sports to her bed.

By the time yuletide commenced that year, the last of Susana’s valuables was out the door, and she thought she was free to party on without fear of upsetting consequence. When she awoke on Christmas morning, however, Susana discovered that her guest from the night before had absconded with the only bottle of shampoo in her bathroom.

T he people in the hamlet awoke one morning to a predicament. The floors of their homes were swept and mopped, their windows sparkled, shelves were dusted, pots and pans scrubbed to a sheen, shoes polished, clothes washed and folded. In the air lingered a mixed aroma of charcoal and rhubarb, which could have meant only that elves had paid them a visit during the night.

Oh, what have we done, the people of the hamlet lamented, to deserve such hardship?

A meeting was called and countermeasures taken. The people of the hamlet locked their doors and bolted their windows before they went to bed. When that failed to keep the elves out of their homes, they plugged every crack and crevice in their walls and blocked their chimneys. Still, to no avail.

A second meeting was called during which it was decided to starve the hamlet dogs and set them upon the invaders. But the following morning, the dogs lolled about front doors, well-fed and content. It was then the people realized decisive action was their only remaining option.

After several nights of vigilance, two of the elves were captured and promptly throttled, and only then did their tribe move on.

The people of the hamlet were at last free to take up normal life again.

T o anyone who knew Andréz, he was the most considerate man under heaven. In his third year of high school, he married Miriam Sanchez, and she bore him a daughter fewer than six months later.

Andréz worked in a tourist hotel at night to support his family, and he continued his school studies during the day. If not for the assistance of classmates, he would have had no hope of completing his fourth year at the colegio.

Miriam was a jealous woman, and her family resented her husband. He had no notion of how much rancor they bore him until the day he bought his classmate Rita a gaseosa in gratitude for her tutoring help prior to a science exam. Purely by chance, Miriam witnessed the exchange, and from then on, he was barred from the Sanchez home and denied all further communication with his wife and child.

Andréz called on his mother-in-law and pleaded for an audience, but she slammed the door in his face. He tried to approach Miriam in the street, but her brothers drove him away. Classmates consoled him, but the noise of collapse that grew loud in Andréz’s head drowned out their speech.

Before dawn one morning, he was found hanging from a rafter in the market with a rope cinched round his neck. Ever righteous anger might have saved Andréz, but never had he near enough.

W hen Cecil espied Tess in the café, he dreamed of love. She sensed his look, lifted her head, and smiled at him. He crossed the space between them and nodded quizzically at the empty chair beside her. When she introduced herself, her voice electrified his nerve endings.

As they left the café, Tess took Cecil’s arm. That evening, they went dancing, got a little tipsy, and he walked the girl to her hotel. On the landing, Cecil leaned in for a kiss, but Tess turned away. He apologized for acting fresh. The girl forgave him instantly and suggested that they visit Antigua together the next day.

On the bus ride over, Tess napped with her head on his shoulder. They went sightseeing arm in arm. Over lunch, they told each other secrets about themselves. Cecil’s dream of love intensified when Tess conveyed her wish to stay the night in the city. To save on expenses, she proposed they share a room. Cecil’s loins quaked when he heard that.

Once settled in comfy quarters, the girl took a shower. She emerged in a cloud of steam with nothing but a towel covering her lovely body. Cecil disrobed and stood before her, his penis semi-tumescent. Tess looked him up and down. Don’t take this the wrong way, she said, but you’re old enough to be my grandfather.

T he earth disgorged a golden city wherein the gods resided. It was good.

Creatures small and large came to be and flourished. Many had bodies of a single cell, and many others grew to the size of giants and gained their sustenance directly from the sun. Some creatures were feathered and flew through the air. Some were scaled and lived in the waters. There were those with hooves and those with toes, and there were those that slithered. It was good.

Men arose from clay and invented clothes and tools. They were proud of their accomplishments. In time, they became jealous of the gods, who neither worked nor suffered pain nor ever died. They realized that as long as the gods existed, men would remain inferior beings.

And so men devised a plan to rid themselves of gods. They dug a channel that routed a mountain river to the golden city. The waters undermined the homes of the gods, and down their city sank, down to the hidden source of its beginning. The river formed a lake where the golden city once was, and men ate fish from the lake and fruit from trees that sprang up along the lakeshore.

It was good until men began to miss the gods and invented ceremony to recall them, but the gods who returned were not as tolerant of men as the gods before.

T he characotel lived in a section of San Pedro that bordered on the cemetery. Neighbors rarely spoke to her, and she turned her head away when they looked her in the eye.

A sister or brother taken ill, a cousin injured in a tuk-tuk wreck, an uncle driven out of business: these calamities were blamed on the characotel.

With no understanding whatsoever of her power to do harm, the characotel accepted the judgment of her neighbors, bowed to fate, and resided in lonely shame.

And then it came to pass that a pack of street dogs mauled the characotel’s four-year-old niece, and the child fell into a coma. Neighbors apprehended the girl’s impending death as just retribution for her aunt’s many sins.

But the characotel’s subsequent act of contrition astounded her accusers. Worship service ceased abruptly when an impoverished old woman crept on knees and elbows up the center aisle of their meeting hall. At first, her strained pleas fell on deaf ears, but as her cry rose to a strident demand, the faithful laid hands upon the woman and prayed for her deliverance.

In this way, a child’s life was spared, and the characotel got shed of her malevolent nature.

T hree pandilleros stormed the apartment where Canche resided with his sergeant in Guatemala City. They disarmed Canche, slammed him against a wall, and demanded that he reveal the whereabouts of Juan Gutierez. Canche didn’t know where his sergeant had gone. The gangsters tied his hands behind his back and left him standing tip-toe on a chair with an extension cord wrapped around his neck.

For hours, Canche remained suspended from the ceiling. Tears ran down his face as he gasped for breath. Excruciating pain invested his ankles, and he lost feeling in his feet. During the ordeal, Canche gave up hope of rescue and resolved to kick the chair out from under him, but his stubborn legs refused to grant his wish. His rotund body went rigid, and if not for the agony of locked joints and muscles, and if not for the pounding in his chest, Canche might have believed death had found him. But the pain went on, and tears dried on his cheeks, and chin and breath rasped from his burning throat.

Juan Gutierez returned to the apartment just after midnight and cut him down. The sergeant made no mention of his business with the pandilleros. Instead, he reached into a plastic sack he’d brought with him and handed Canche a beer to celebrate the man’s fortieth birthday.

T en o’clock in the morning at a taco stand, Doug invites Patrick for a beer.

Laying off, Patrick answers, not looking so hot.

Catch bad ice last night?

Not sure what happened. A warning I’m low on brain cells, maybe.

Care to expound?

Couple of rateros jumped me on my way back to the hotel.

How much they take you for?

That’s the weird part. I’m carrying my passport, my bank card, $500 US, around Q$1,000. By rights, I’m totally screwed. But then the cavalry rides to the rescue.

What you mean by cavalry?

A dog, actually. Mean son-of-a-bitch. Lays into the rateros like it’s lookin’ to rip their balls off.

Doug laughs.

No, man, I’m flat serious. The rateros beat feet, and then the slavering beast spins in my direction.

Not a mark on you, Doug observes dryly.

When I pry my eyes open, I notice this sombrero lying in the street. The dog struts over and noses the hat onto its head. And then there’s this dwarf walking off. A frickin’ dwarf, man, bandy legs and all.

That why you’re on the wagon?

Wouldn’t you be?

Relax, it wasn’t an hallucination. You made the acquaintance of the Sombreron is all.

Huh?

Guardian of drunks in Guatemala.

Hey, bud, I’m young, but I wasn’t born yesterday.

"Point is, have a beer. You’re under the protection of the Sombreron."

T heir association ended on the day the black helicopter appeared over the lake. As it clattered to lower altitude, Ned yanked the brim of his hat lower on his forehead. Bob stopped and heaved a disgusted sigh.

I have a question, he said. Ever considered how many unprovables have to be true for your cockamamie theories to be correct?

Keep your voice down, Ned said, and headed at a brisk pace up the cobbled street that fronted the lake.

Bob came abreast of him. You going to answer?

About an equal number to show I’m wrong.

"Well then, how about this? What’s the special threat you pose to world order?"

They began watching me after I wrote my book.

Bob circled around in front of Ned. Got a copy of this book you keep touting.

It’s been suppressed. Ned made to move by, but couldn’t, since Bob had grabbed him by the arm.

You know, Bob hissed up close, I’m just about done reasoning with an idiot.

Ned snorted. They’re going to be disappointed in you for showing your hand.

And you’re not going to like what I put in my report, Bob countered.

Helicopter noise faded with these final words spoken between the two men.

N ight after night, the mother of the drowned child stood on the shore and mourned her loss. People in the village called her llorona , which means the weeper. For the sake of her other children, members of her family begged the woman to stop grieving, but she could not.

Even after her death, the llorona’s moans could be heard along the shore at night. Year after year, her tears flowed into the lake, and its waters began to rise. Buildings near lake edge were inundated, and many residents were forced to abandon their homes. Then these poor souls began to weep, and a new generation of lloronas lined the shore. Their tears swelled the floodwaters, more buildings were swamped, more villagers bemoaned their losses.

On and on the crying continued, until the entire village was swallowed by the lake. It was only after the villagers had nothing left to lose that the weeping stopped.

N orthern people took gold from a mountain and used it to adorn their king’s palace. The Spanish came with horses and muskets and made war. After the invaders conquered the people’s kingdom, they took the gold from the palace and crated it for shipment back to their country across the sea.

But the officer in charge of transport through the jungle lusted after the treasure and conspired with his men to steal it. He and his band had crossed into territory that would later be known as Guatemala before word of the officer’s failure to arrive on the coast reached his commander.

Following months of pursuit, a detachment of soldiers loyal to Spain finally caught up with the traitors. A battle was joined that ended at great cost to both sides. Though the leader of the loyalists succeeded in his mission, his force was reduced to a mere dozen men, three of whom were severely wounded.

The leader was in a bad way as he set upon a return journey north. The wounded perished within a week, and the remainder of the detachment became too weak to continue the march. While they rested on the shore of a lake, what little luck they had left ran out.

A mudslide broke loose from the mountain behind their camp, and the men were swept away, along with their crates of gold. To this day, the Spanish treasure lies buried beneath a mound of sediment at the bottom of the lake called Atitlan.

S ome might have found Oso’s nearly 300-pound bulk intimidating, but really, he was the most mild-mannered among patojos he ran with. His pals could get rowdy on occasion, but when they did, Oso held back and watched them make asses of themselves. There was this one incident, however, that happened in San Pedro, when Oso acted out of character.

Early on a Saturday morning, the four friends bussed from the capital to spend their weekend at leisure in the lakeside town. They started drinking beer as soon as they checked into their hotel, and by 11:00 a.m., they were all feeling exalted. It was after the party moved to the fourth-story terrace, and the boys began shouting compliments to the foreign lovelies passing on the street below, that Oso decided to do something outrageous.

He climbed onto the top of the retainer wall and, with arms outspread like eagle wings, launched himself into cloudless sky. Down the big man plunged as his stunned compañeros looked on. A moment later, the three remaining revelers stumbled down the hotel stairs, fearful that Oso had drawn his last breath.

And yet, El Señor granted this gentle soul a reprieve, though the pardon did not come without reproof. When the other drunks again saw Oso, he was on his knees amid fallen sheets of metal roofing and broken bottles of custom ointments, beefy forearms cradling his head, as the cosmetologist whose salon he had landed in delivered repeated blows to his body with a handheld hair dryer.

T wo middle-aged men ascended a mountain trail in tandem. Jack gained a hundred yards on Roy, then stopped and waited for the slower man to catch up. When his hiking partner came abreast of him, Jack struck out again before Roy had a chance to rest.

Jack’s irksome behavior extended also to the cribbage board. They’d been playing most nights for the past month, and Roy was on the short end of the running total of their wagers.

How much you owe me? Jack would ask while they drew for low card. Maybe cribbage isn’t your game, he’d add when Roy stonewalled him.

Finally, on the mountain trail, Roy got fed up with Jack’s patronizing attitude. Within shouting distance of the crest, he drew on every ounce of his reserves to stumble up to Jack while his back was turned, and after that, the race was on. For several strides up the slippery track, the two men clambered until, with a painful cry, Jack fell.

Help me, he pleaded as Roy charged past him. Only at the finish line, lungs billowing and heart drumming, did Roy stop and face about.

Roy was sorely tempted to let his adversary find his own way off the mountain, wrenched ankle and all. He realized, however, that in doing so, he’d end up the loser in another sort of game. He shuffled down to Jack and stood him up. With Jack’s arm slung over his shoulder, Roy dragged the fatty back the way they’d come. They were both exhausted by the end of the ordeal.

Guess I owe you one, Jack said, on level ground.

Roy deliberated before replying. Beautiful view from the peak, he said. Sorry you missed it.

A quintet of men stopped to examine the androgynous woman seated on a stool behind a horizontal plank that served as prop for her forearm.

She’s naked, one man said, propounder of the obvious.

Petite breasts, commented another.

She also had inordinately long bone-and-sinew arms and a severe jawline that rested on a lip wrist. Her crotch was hidden, but below the plank could be seen hard-muscled thighs, protuberant knees, and rigid calves.

She’s supposed to be happy, asserted a different member of the group. But there’s no more expression on her face than on the man-in-the-moon.

An astute observer might have discerned an extra shoulder extended from behind a hair bun flattened at the left side of the woman’s head. Such a fellow was in attendance.

Let’s ask Primo about the lady’s deformity, he suggested.

I did, piped up the last of the group to speak. ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ he told me.

The first to wonder about the lady’s state of mind again brought up the theme. He proposed that the subject’s dual hue, blue-green and green-yellow, suggested a mood suspended between joy and regret. Or, perchance, the cat set to pounce on a mouse near the woman’s foot was meant to convey playfulness.

Allow me to posit a theory, the astute observer offered. She was happy a moment ago, and could be happy again, if someone re-filled the wineglass at her elbow.

Close enough, the men agreed, and resumed their tour of the art studio. Fragility of a Happy Woman was the title Primo had given his painting.

T he guy was so sad and ugly that dogs were known to moan as he walked by, and babies to wail when he looked at them. Residents of the town he lived in rarely referred to him by name; instead, they called him simply the sad ugly guy.

That is, until a woman of stature ascertained how unfairly the man was being treated and made it her business to reverse the trend. She proclaimed to members of her social circle that the poor fellow, despite his disgusting appearance, had as much right to happiness as anybody else.

And after the woman spoke on his behalf, the sad ugly guy found himself inundated with friends. Which made him happy, once he got over his initial shock.

But just as he was becoming accustomed to happiness, his friends began to lose interest in him. So he became sadder than ever, until his friends again took notice, which made him happy, until their attention waned once more. After a while, the sad ugly guy’s emotions became so confused that sometimes he felt sad when he should have felt happy, and sometimes happy when he should have felt sad.