A Short History of John Doiron
The Minister of horror flash fiction
As a child, John was called Johnny, even by his teachers. Johnny’s mother’s maiden name was Fingursdottir, which explains why she hired a private tutor from Iceland when Johnny’s understanding of mathematics started — to say the least — lagging.
Mr. Hringlaga, for it was the tutor’s name, had non-conventional ways of teaching mathematics; he used poetry. Limericks and Haiku were regular guests at Johhny’s extra-curricular Icelandic mathematics.
As much as I would like to write it, that wasn’t what made Johnny fall in love with poetry — and writing. Johnny hated both back then. Mr. Hringlaga wasn’t a fun person; he had the ice of his motherland without the warmth of the volcanoes.
But he did the job.
Johnny learned his mathematics, and it helped him become the small-time retail manager he is today. Even if the job title doesn’t sound like much, Little John loves it. Now that he’s an adult, nobody calls John Johnny anymore. At 7 feet four, that wouldn’t make any sense.
Little John doesn’t make more sense, but that’s what John’s teammates decided to call him, and he goes with it. John knows that employees, particularly in retail, need to make fun of their managers. It’s all part of building an atmosphere of trust and open communication.
What made Johnny a poet? you might ask. (Please do).
Licorice.
Big Johnny — that’s what I like to call him, first fell in love with licorice, then poetry.
Once a week, every Friday after our rowing training, John religiously went to the store on the other side of the block and bought five sticks. Three for him, one for his dog, and one for me.
You know I can have silly questions sometimes. One day I asked him how he would describe licorice to a blind and tasteless person. Big Johnny just waved it away and kept on sucking on his green apple licorice stick.
I didn’t give up.
“What would you say in favor of Green Apple Licorice if it was judged for tartness?”
That triggered Little Biggy John. In a good way. He started defending his favorite candy in verses. Old Hringlaga’s lessons came back to his mind.
I remember only the first line (the rest was awful)
The color! The melting rigidity! The taste!
Since then, Big John the Little has made tremendous progress. The lid to his creative volcano exploded during a root-exploring trip to Iceland.
On this island, lost somewhere in the Atlantic, Johnny John the Little Big became Medium Johnny.
And here we’re today, celebrating his arrival on the platform.
Welcome, John Doiron. May the followers and the algorithm always be with you!
I made up everything in this article. To my knowledge, it has nothing to do with John Doiron’s life so far. The only true sentence is the next one. I enjoyed John’s horror flash fiction and decided to write this piece in the hope of lifting him.
