MicroHorror

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.