Smorgasbord

By Francis Joseph LaManna

Smorgasbord is an unbelievable display of creativity. First-time author Francis LaManna guides his readers on a penetrating walk through the depths of his mind, and in the end, he leaves us wanting more. Take whatever you have in your head about what a traditional book is supposed to be like and forget it. Open your mind to something different. There is not one character to focus on. There is no single plot, and there is no clear story line to follow.

At a glance, Smorgasbord appears to be a crazy compilation of a whole bunch of stuff thrown together, but if you open your mind and commit yourself to understanding the bigger picture, it not only makes perfect sense but it also flows. The book opens with a fictional story told from the speaking mind of a murderer, which is followed up with a Shakespearean sonnet. The poem is titled “Looking Forward,” and it’s about hope, the future, and having something to look forward to, which is purposely designed in contrast to the negative thoughts of the previous chapter.

Smorgasbord is edgy and bold, and some portions can be very opinionated. With a degree in communication and concentration studies in journalism, Francis naturally has strong beliefs concerning free speech and people having the right and responsibility to voice their opinions. You might agree with what you read, you might disagree, and maybe you might learn something new. That’s all in design.

If it helps, imagine this book to be a temple. Inside there are three floors and twenty-four rooms. Each room has its own special theme and décor You’ll find tales of love, people having strange dialogues with evil entities, and of course, the real stories about Francis’s life that he’s trying to write between chapters.

If someone asks you what this book is about, you’ll probably laugh and say, “I don’t know. You just have to read it.” That’s the kind of book it is!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649520838

Book preview

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Smorgasbord

A Collection of Thoughts,

Experiences, and Stories

Francis Joseph LaManna

Copyright © 2020 Francis Joseph LaManna

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2020

ISBN 978-1-64952-082-1 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64952-083-8 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

I

Lunatic

Looking Forward

My Life: 1

Secrets, Magic, and Marlo

Coincidentally

Dichotomy: A Short Story of Good and Evil

One-Night Love Affair

My Life: 2

Act of Contrition

II

A Letter to My Teacher

My Life: 3

Illumination

What’s This All About?

Colonization, Federalization, Demoralization

ΛαΜαννα

Rock of Luck

Experimentation

Inspired, Not Enslaved

III

Lunatic 2: The Dark Side

My Life: 4

The Accursed Life of Thomas Samoht

Perception

Playtime

Conclusion

Iwould like to dedicate this book to everyone. I didn’t write it for anyone in particular; it was just something I felt compelled to do, but of course, you’re welcome to read it. It will not always be this way, however, I think when I get older, like in my nineties, I’m sure I’ll have some work or piece that’s inspired by and dedicated to a special person. I would like to thank my parents for their patience and my brother for listening to me ramble on night and day before finally putting my thoughts on paper.

Welcome. I hope you enjoy.

I

Lunatic

A drawing of a person Description automatically generated

I hate you! I’m so fucking angry, and I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you right now! I looked at myself in the mirror, and that’s what I said before leaving the house. That was my pep talk. I don’t know what went wrong or what’s wrong with me; I just know that I go through these moments where I feel like I hate everyone and everything, and when I get this way, I have to do something crazy to ease the tension. Here I go.

As I walk down the street, I casually scan the scenery before me. There’s something really comforting about having a thought in your mind that no one else knows about, and to make it even more deceitful, I wear a smile. You see, lately my thoughts haven’t been feeling so private. It feels like everyone has my attention but me. I want to drown out the noise so bad, but it seems like once I get into a comfort zone and actually start doing that by reading a book or watching a movie, someone starts yelling and banging or hammering something, and it all keeps going on until my attention is no longer focused on what I’m doing.

It seems there really is a war going on in my mind, and the struggle for gaining ground here can drive a person insane. It’s dark outside, really dark, and there’s a big bright moon hanging low in the sky, which, they say, brings out the psychosis in us. I don’t think I’m psychotic. Some people may disagree with me, but you can’t please everyone. Do you ever wonder what other people think about you? I do sometimes. Like after meeting someone for the first time, I often wonder what kind of impression I made, if I made any at all. Did they like me? Did they hate me? Oh, whatever. I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m going to ever see them again or like they’re going to have an opportunity to talk about me. To be honest with you, the only time I ever leave my house after sunset is when there’s a full moon, and that’s because I want people to fear the moon when it’s at its biggest and brightest. Some people go through life rolling with the changes, but I like to take the reins and create the change. Some people like to sit home and watch the nightly news, but I like to go out and make the news.

Have you seen the news lately? All they’re talking about is murder, full-moon madness and murder. They’re getting smart though. They’re putting two and two together. I love that statement, putting two and two together. I laugh whenever I hear it, but yeah, they’re catching on to what’s happening here. How many people must die under a full moon before people start realizing it’s more than a coincidence? At least twelve. Twelve, that’s the answer. I remember watching the news five years ago, when all this first started, and I was shocked. I thought murder was a big deal, but my work barely got coverage.

A body was discovered in a parking lot on the corner of this-and-that street last evening. Investigators are still trying to figure out the details, but they’re ruling it a homicide, reporters would say. That was it! C’mon, man. Someone is dead! Well, after the tenth body, things changed.

Investigators are starting to consider a correlation in a string of murders that have paralyzed the city, they said. That’s more like it! That’s what I’m talking about! I do what I do because I want to be talked about; I want to be remembered forever. Fame is good, but I want to leave a legacy. I’m going to just start leaving legs everywhere. Because of people like me, little boys and girls have something to talk about when they’re sitting around the campfire. They have a scary story to tell. They get all warm and cozy and talk about the twisted, demented, horrific things I’ve done to people, and then they fuck one another. And they say I’m the sick one. I’m honored though, and now I have incentive. More murder means a deeper impression, and I’m about to get real fucking creative.

So yeah, after body number 10 was found, they realized people were getting killed on nights when the moon was full. After the twelfth body, their nightmare was confirmed, but I was just warming up at that point. Shit, I’m still going. I’m on fire now, and I can’t believe people have the audacity to even leave their house, but they do. They do. They have zero respect for me and what I’m doing.

Maybe one day people will put two and two together. Maybe one day people will say to themselves, Hey, stupid, someone’s killing people when there’s a full moon out. Stay in tonight. But they won’t. They’ll keep coming out, and I’ll keep killing them. I’ll keep killing them because I’m a killer. It’s a vicious cycle.

Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! That’s what I like to say to myself while I’m working. What a night! It was another good night, but what the hell am I going to do for the next twenty-nine days? I could start working on the new moons, but a long time ago, someone told me that I should never do anything out of desperation. I don’t want to get greedy. Can you imagine a murderer getting caught because he was too impatient and greedy?

Looking Forward

Oh, what is it I see?

Oh, what is it I hear?

What is it that makes a visionary?

What do I fear?

Fear it is not;

it, however, is self-doubt.

Envision a plot,

then tell all about.

I see fortune and wealth;

I hear pleasant sounds.

There’s a vision of health,

and women in gowns.

Now you see, now you hear;

be without doubt and cast out the fear.

My Life

1

In 2003, I graduated college with a degree in journalism. I’d always wanted to be a sportswriter. How cool would it be to be a sports journalist? You could follow your favorite teams and players and write about them. You could travel from city to city and get special sideline or arena passes. It would’ve been a dream come true for me, but things in my personal life had been changing so fast. When I finally graduated and came home from college, I walked into a situation completely unexpected.

My parents separated, sold their house (which was the house I grew up in), and moved to another state. Considering I just spoke to my mother two weeks prior to graduating, I would say this whole situation was just fucked up. I couldn’t believe it. No one said anything to me. What did they expect me to do? Where did they expect me to go? How was I going to pursue my dream without a place to live?

So here I was, all alone. I was homeless, but luck was definitely on my side. My best friend, a guy I grew up with, graduated college a week before I did. He was back home with his mother, and when I told him what happened, he generously offered me the couch in his basement. I mean, it wasn’t much. I didn’t exactly have my own room or furniture, but at least I wasn’t living on the street. I had to live out of duffel bags for a while, but believe me, I wasn’t complaining.

The first month was really awesome. Think about it. You and your best friend from high school graduate high school, and then you both go off to college and don’t see each other for five years. We had so much to talk about, and every night, it seemed like we were laughing ourselves to sleep. During the second month, he told me his mother had been really sick. I was shocked to hear it. His mother was always so energetic and vibrant, but she spent the last ten years battling a cancer that kept coming and going. Eventually she died, and it was really sad. She was a lovely woman, well-liked, and extremely accomplished.

My friend let some time pass, and when he was feeling better, we cleaned her room and moved all her stuff out to make room for my belongings. I almost felt guilty considering the circumstances, but what was I going to do? What was he going to do? What could we do? We were just two young adults now dealing with the realities of life.

Before I move forward, however, I want to tell you all about the car accident I was involved in a month before my twenty-first birthday and two years before I graduated college. The truth is that I’m very fortunate and lucky to be alive, so this story I’m about to tell you is one I often revert back to when I feel like things aren’t going in my favor or I’m just struggling. Sometimes it can be really beneficial when you consider your life over a period of time instead of focusing in on a difficult moment. Sometimes when we find ourselves in difficult situations, looking at the bigger picture gives us insight into the ups and downs and all the choices and outcomes that brought us to the current moment, and that ultimately helps us move past it.

I was twenty years old, and I just dropped my girlfriend off at her house. I was also crying because she was now my ex-girlfriend and that would be the last time I would ever drop her off. Twenty minutes earlier, we were sitting in an empty parking lot—well, it was actually a very secluded parking lot that was completely empty late at