MicroHorror

He carried that slice of red velvet cake with him all night. He never took a bite, not even a little taste of the icing, but he never put it down either. Just walked and talked and drank the champagne they always had at openings. Didn’t touch the cake.

“Take this, if you know what’s good for you,” he told me, passing me a slice of my own. “You won’t like it. But they get suspicious if you pass it up.”

“They” were the swarm of minions that followed the artist around the gallery, making condescending sniffing noises when he shook a hand and commenting among themselves in snotty little chatters when they passed someone they deemed unworthy of the artist’s attention. They looked like they saw too little sun and too much heroin in an average day. But they ate the cake. They ate a lot of it.

A woman near Garden Of Hunger, acrylic on leather, 2007, took a bite of the cake and then tried to spit it into her napkin and put the napkin and the remaining cake in the trash without being noticed. She was noticed. A few of them swanned over to her, fawned over her jewelry, and struck up pleasant conversation. I looked away for a moment, and they were gone. So was she.

I took a bite of the cake. I didn’t blame the woman.

“You’d better swallow that,” he said to me.

I did. Where did they go? Did they take the woman somewhere? “What the hell is in this?” I asked him.

He led me to Tower VI, acrylic on leather, 2004. “Look close,” he said.

I looked close.

Acrylic on leather. Leather with pores, with fine hairs still attached, with a tiny scar, with a few millimeters of a tattoo peeking out from under the paint.

He gestured towards the painting with his untouched cake. “The rest of them.”

I looked at the artist. The artist grinned at me, nodded at me, and helped himself to another slice of cake. Behind him, they snorted and chattered.

“This is delicious.” Erica grinned as she tried not to rush to the next mouthful of the soft, pale, tender and juicy meat.

“Thank you.” Gabriel smiled. Erica thought she heard a small growl under his voice, but decided she must be hearing things. “Drink some more of your wine,” he suggested. She sipped the red liquid in the glass, ignoring how unnaturally thick it was.

“Thank you,” she said. She shook her head for a moment. Something was making her lightheaded.

“It’s the other white meat,” he said, taking a bite himself.

“Oh, you mean pork?”

“Well, you could call it that,” he said, glancing under the table and wondering whether she’d remember the pleasure of the meal when the drugs wore off, and she found herself with only one leg. He was still hungry, however, and licked his lips as he eyed her other leg.

Four by four score of years I lurked at the fringe of the town, waiting for the constellations to be perfectly aligned for the meeting. Meanwhile, the prey was going by every night, growing confident and unaware of our intended date.

When I finally made my move, that full moon night dictated by stars, she had no time to struggle and I soon feasted on her flesh, spreading her blood in the required pattern. This done, all was in place for me to lay my eggs in her carcass and send my spawn into the world, as per the ancient prediction.

Slipped myself a Mickey. Right mouse clicked delete. Boarded Steamboat Willie. Took a powder inside a keg over Niagara down to Pluto.

Popped–a la John Glenn–out of keg. Hopped the ferry that pulled alongside. Flipped the pilot a Kennedy half. Bumped at length against the far shore. Scampered off to locate Minnie.

We had just been married. Cake still on lips. Strolled through the garden, trading gold futures. Till a snake bit her foot. Now up to The Mick to foot the bill if we ever again to coo.

For what seemed days, in a daze, I followed the urine brick road. At last came upon the City of Dis. Sneaked under Dat Gate. Hustled down Dese Avenues. Darted across Doze Plaza. Entered, as if being interred, the F-Word Palace, where Dis discovered Himself on a throne of iron gilded with rust–from the many, many tears.

The wizard’s lidded eyes watched the intruder. I glimpsed mirrored on the pupils only my little black-and-white self; the hundreds of attendants crowding the chamber being beings incapable of reflection.

“Holy cats,” Dis finally exclaimed. “We got rodents!”

Persephone, seated beside Him costumed as the Witch of Endor (it was Halloween–always down there Halloween) farted. From a distant room Pluto barked. The stink fought for recognition above the brimstone.

“I’m here,” I squeaked up at the obscenity slouched on the twisted throne, “to reclaim my wife. I pose no threat. Represent no colonial iceberg tip. No flesh and blood in its right mind would ever dream of infesting this shithole. Give back my wife, and your turnips, caviar, pomegranates, whatever you goblins gobble, stay untouched.”

A harmonica leaped into my little white fist. “Here–lemme blow a tune to melt your heart.”

Persephone belched ozone. Predicted the fall of Israel. Then motioned I toss the harp. Nobody in hell a follower of anything not discord.

“I can blow that, too!”

Dis shrugged, “Take the bitch. P in the A anyway. Scatters her scat all around the kitchen. Only use for her is to chew the cheese off my frenulum. But, hey, watch it–don’t look back; not till you reach topside.”

He rooted a finger up a nostril. Winced. Yanked. Contemplated on the tip–in the torchlight–a sooty booger the size of enough plastic explosive to bring down a jet. “So turn around. Scat!”

I did. Weaved through the slavering attendants garbed in rags of goldshot silk; the bonier specimens leering at my round black body.

For days I hiked through gloom along the urine path, hearing at my back my every step dogged. Trek the psychic equivalent of an orgasm in reverse. All the while the wheels of cogitation spinning, digging ever deeper the following rut:

If I fail to look back, I believe Dis; show faith in hell. On the other appendage, the devil being the devil, he’s lying; what’s behind is a fake–a zombie knockoff or some giant insect made in Japan. Minnie still back in the toilet, mind overflowing with rot.

I can’t play the dupe. Even if I am Mickey Mouse. This is the Big Tent. Anchored to the pole that turns the stars. Too much contradiction for my dick.

I whipped around–ready for either rage or ecstasy–first ray of dawn not quite hit–and it is Minnie, who bursts into tears, waving to me a last paw, as she vanishes into the mouth of Pluto yapping at the morning paper flung out front on the concrete.

Light a candle. Tie a balloon to the chair. Get into silk pyjamas. Tired of getting ahead, get comfortable in bed. Put a .38 to my head.

Cock hammer. Fondle trigger. Prepare to blow myself into that sleep no traveler ever posts a letter from. Mutter to the air who cares about a cock for whatever Greek?

Depress–amid visions of caterpillars pooping my jammies–the trigger. Click… on a dud; time stopped on a dime.

Into the room clicks Miss Fire–nude but for nylons and stilettos, plus a strap-on. Face blank; buxom, hippy, rollercoaster curvaceous.

Struts over. Hops up on the sheet. Yanks my bottoms off. Indulges in a spate of head; which fails to qualify as getting ahead; so I allow the blood to swell the tube to bursting.

The wheels behind the eyes spin, deepening the rut. Till, when I’m about to seed her gullet, she slams me on my chest. Elevates my butt with pillows, and the rape begins.

Hums while she works Dixie mixed with Jingle Bells. Ditty cramps memory cyanide-in-the-punch fast. Goes around; and around; comes in the face of any escape. Sounder she humps, naggier the beat.

Dildo does a number on my rectum. Bed creaks up a cricket nest. Frame bangs wall. Humiliates me to have started this whole affair.

About to undergo massive anal menarche, I squeal, “Let me… let me SEE!”

The blind guppy wiggles up. Demands a dime. I even let this dipshit gimme lip. But a dime I don’t got.

But as I keep getting fucked, a credit card jolts from my pyjama top pocket. The guppy makes off with the plastic. Puts himself at my expense on a rocket to the moon. From where he telepaths a path out for my set-about butt.

Dig fingers into mattress. Guppy inside the skull berates, “Dig it! Dig it! Dig it to the nth!” See through thought flesh show spirit way out, if the spirit gets enough way out to reverberate.

The firebird then racks the balls in this game of pool. Pulls out. Jerks me up on the bed edge. Jams the toy down my throat.

Fortunately, eager to die hungry, I have been fasting for the last forty-eight hours. Isn’t much to taste–mucus on plastic, trace of a blood finish.

But must the gag persist? Can’t she see suicide just another wisecrack in this routine before an audience of gods bored shitless?

He isn’t really a guppy, I think, trying not to gawk at the above insight. More a pollywog–dark sperm snapping about, about to tap into an egg the size of a beer keg.

Comes that tune again–vibrating down through her pelvis, oscillating tonsils; now more a cross between Yankee Doodle and The Syncopated Clock.

To drive rhythm home, she exits my pipe. Cranks head sideways, palm on crown, other below jaw. Takes aim. Dives polyurethane erection through my ear.

Pounds so hard screwed-shut eyes hallucinate both ears shishkabobbed, thinker rooted through, apple cored; while chords circle; till she halts tip mid-brain, and the plastic speaks.

But either it’s dumb or I’m deaf. Bottomline: read lips, decipher fluctuating orifice ordering chaos embrace–kiss number off, file down rank, hump the first, screw the last, felch in-between. Welcome to stasis is crisis, metamorphosis stutters to evolve puns on the better.

Dildo pee-hole jabbering at my pituitary too much. Eyes swing coffinlike open. Roll up at her own prune pit balls, where back stares a crapshot brown.

She gets out of my ear. Rebalances on stilettos. Pauses outside my pate two syncopated beats. Then gorgeous pelvis thrusts strap-on through gore-greased gash.

Rocks through my temple. Follows the slug’s path. Seems Miss Fire after all live.

A moth stitched over the pocket flies. The guppy still births on the moon. Credit no sweat.

She fills me with plastic. We have won. We are one. Both will survive. Two forever dead ahead.

Got all dolled up. Hair done. Eyebrows plucked. No idea where going. Over the phone, he guaranteed it would be nothing like the movies.

Occupying the rocker, I contemplated the overhead parlour globe glisten on my new nails. Listened outside for the honk. This our first.

He’d always been around. We’d just never gone anywhere. He said we’d go for a spin, try not to talk about the office.

I smoothed my dress. Tightened hose. Dabbed at shoes. Read, reread, memorized the comics. Cinched belt. Picked lint. Unraveled in the crossword the last few impossible clues. Endured the blues of fingers drumming whatever daydreams under the skin.

Till on the wall above, the cuckoo Dad brought back from Iceland–ten years before his arteries clogged–squawked midnight.

A tear welled. Trickled across the cheek.

I smiled slightly–to channel the drop onto the tip of my barely extended tongue. Licked the lifeless liquid in. Mixed it with spit.

Stood up, again.

I swallowed. Plucked pins from hair. Stood. Pressed to my chest an intangible corsage. Drifted upstairs–once again to love myself to sleep.

Kick the statue’s crotch. Break a toe. Slap it in the face till palms bleed. Shatter knuckles gutpunching the sucker. Bite nose. Chip teeth. Butt the sumbitch in the chest till at last black out.

Wake up on the grass to the tickle of a fly sipping blood. Prop up on elbows. Focus, in the growing dusk, the roots of a dead sun…

Dreamed I forgot to stir; froze solid; a monster threw me in god’s own stir.

Hobble to broken feet. Catch breath as if myself had set the trap.

Confront creation. Bespit granite eyes.

Choose to leave the rain to melt–long after I pass–the statue. Move on into the night to pick, long as I last, the next loser.

The mirror was turned to the wall.

“Are you superstitious?” I asked. “Afraid it will steal your soul?”

He chuckled. “Something like that.” He turned the mirror around so that it caught my reflection. For a moment I could see my own face. Then there was a horrible blurring of my features. My face melted away. Nothing was left.

“It doesn’t steal your soul,” he explained, “just everything else.”

Pick the right card and God will give you eternal life. But he takes his damn sweet time shuffling those cards. And they are all marked with the blood of the losers.

Hmm… Wherever to begin?…

“At the beginning,” the King had said… or was it the Rabbit?

I can’t seem to recall now.

But I guess it’s really not that important. Little is anymore, you know?

The wide mouth, the silent terrified scream, like choking on fear–sometimes these things are important, to me, at least.

Like once when I was walking through this graveyard–they’re so peaceful at night–and I saw this little boy passing through as well.

He noticed me and I knew he was so afraid of everything.

So I said, “I’ll walk with you, if you want, just ’til you get through.”

He seemed relieved then. He said, “I’m glad you’re here. Graveyards give me the creeps.”

I turned to see him smiling faintly, hesitantly, and I smiled back.

“I know what you mean,” I told him, “They used to scare me too… when I was alive.”–I guess that is the best way to describe myself, if you can understand.

Like my name—Ghost–it seems to fit.

All parents have ideals for their offspring, goals, distant dreams.

I am sure my mother—

I can still
ALMOST
see her—

had hers.

But I never really concerned myself… or did I? It doesn’t matter.

Life makes its own decisions, and you come to appreciate them in time.

Beauty can be so relative, you know?

Like Popeye–”I am what I am, and that’s all that I am.”

And it was true, too–he was just that–no more than the sum of his parts, those The Artist had created.