* Author : Mitchell Shanklin

* Narrator : Elie Hirschman

* Host : Matt Dovey

* Audio Producer : Devin Martin

*

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PodCastle 891: Trending Now! Help With Legal Fees for Reluctant Swordsman is a PodCastle original.





Content warnings for child endangerment and injury





Rated PG-13

Trending Now! Help With Legal Fees for Reluctant Swordsman

By Mitchell Shanklin

 

Hi, I’m Joshua Henzel. You might have heard of me from the New York Post article or all the YouTube videos. I’m the guy with the giant flaming sword who’s suing the NYPD. One thing the articles and videos got right is that I do have to stab myself in the heart to ignite the flame. But no, I don’t do it “for fun.” If the flame dies, so do I.

I’m sick of all the lies and If I’m going to ask people for help, they should know the whole story, so I’m going to tell my side of everything. My lawyer told me I should only tell part of the story (sorry, Mr. Schmitz!), but my best friend Billy told me that lawyers are paranoid little poops and I trust Billy. (He didn’t say “poops” exactly, but I don’t like profanity, so I edited it, even though he says I’m way too young to be such an f-wording prig).

I’ve never done a GoFundMe before, so I’m going to have Billy read it before I post it, but I don’t think he’s done one of these before either. If I screw anything up, tell me and I’ll try to fix it. Billy told me I should record a video for the GoFundMe, but I don’t really like my face or the sound of my voice much. (My face is narrow and pointy and my voice is high and squeaky.)

So, when I meet new people, the first thing they talk about is all of the “debunking” videos and how there’s no way I can easily stab myself with a seven-foot-long, thirty-pound flaming sword. The first thing I tell them is that the newspaper lied; it’s only six foot two inches and ten pounds, but that’s still two inches taller than I am so I understand why they’re skeptical. The second thing I tell them is that it’s not that easy, there’s a lot of preparation involved.

In my apartment, I have an iron stand that’s bolted to the wall in the kitchen that angles it just right. I don’t have many visitors so I usually just leave the sword in the stand. My kitchen is small so there isn’t a lot of room, but I can still get to the counter and all the appliances without singeing myself.

It’s trickier when I go out. For a while I didn’t go out much, but then my uncle told me that staying inside all the time wasn’t good for me, so I started to take more walks. I usually only need to relight the flame every few hours, but it’s unpredictable. The shortest it ever lasted was fifteen minutes and the longest was a bit more than eight hours. And stabbing myself early before the flame starts to go out doesn’t seem to make it last any longer.

If the sword is unsheathed, I can see the fire dying down and that gives me a little more warning. But if I can’t see the sword, it takes longer for me to notice. It starts with a . . . twinge isn’t the best word, but I don’t have a better one. Imagine that your heart is an old, worn guitar string and some cruel musician with a pick as sharp as a knife starts playing Misirlou on you at twice the normal speed. When my chest feels like that I know I have two minutes tops.

I have no idea why the New York Post reporter said that I “drew the blade from my hip” — there’s no way that would work.