Was Moses a giraffe?
“Calm your nerves.” She had said with those thin black lips rolling over the sarcastic words like they were sweet candies. She was a Swiss talker of the Third Reich, so there’s little else for a Jew to expect.
Her nerves stiff like the whiskey on my breath, laying warm under that puddle of blood—even after two hours…maybe it’s this summer heat.
Nazis act super-human, I guess it’s an ego their born with—they all die the same though.
Don’t get me wrong, most Nazis deserve it—though mostly I’ve been waiting for David to finish turning her into some kind of…art piece? I guess that’s what the monkey is doing.
Saying monkey might not be politically correct and if the Baboon can read my thoughts I hope he doesn’t want to turn my own corpse into a Star of David once I’m underneath my own puddle of blood…
Yeah…you’re not the only one who’s lost.
I found David the Baboon sometime last week, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you the day. Time goes by like a snowman in the oven when you’re in Nazi America.
They still called me Yo-yo Yigol then…
***
“Do you know why we call you Yo-yo Yigol, you dirty little Jew?”
The tall and skinny frame of a man sat broken nosed and crooked eyed on a red leather sofa trimmed in twenty four carat gold. The man heard his captors with a sixth sense, his one good eye smoothing a sharp edge over their mouths. Every word spoken was consumed by the incessant ringing of his ears, a deafening Banshee’s howl from the fire hot Kraut Magnums held against his ears.
I can read your lips, but you can’t read my thoughts. It’s a damn shame that even if you could, you would just see me being shot in the head so I can get some rest. Thought Yigol, I’m just too damn tired to imagine gunning you down anymore…pathetic isn’t it?
“It’s because you’re our little toy Yo-yo Yigol!”
Yigol watched them laugh; fat rotting gum lines, unshaven haggard jowls and pig faced—‘letting themselves go’ to the monster within ever since they won the war; every Nazi became an obese mess, just like these two fine hosts of mine…
“Show us how well I can ‘walk the dog’ Yo-yo Yigol!”
The Kraut Magnums fired with their violent ‘CRACK’, though all Yigol felt was the branding heat of their barrels.
On all fours he began to walk and bark.
“Gunter, you must let me take it home for the children, little Heidi would love to play with him!”
“I can not let your daughter end up killing the thing Eigen, after all there’s so few of them left; this one cost me over Ninety Million Deutsche Marks! I’m going to bring him as a gift for Adolf the seventh during his annual Gestapo ball. I think I will be promoted for it, don’t you?”
Yigol watched them as he barked and wondered how long he should continue to act like a dog—sometimes they would hit him if he stopped and other times they would hit him if he did the act for too long; he decided to take a chance and stop.
They didn’t hit Yigol and so he rested his good eye while they continued their talk, he began to fall asleep but caught himself and picked up a pebble from inside his shoe, as he chewed and sucked on the pebble he silently cursed his life.
***
The Nazis had worked something out and Eigen ended up taking me home to meet his daughter Heidi. So there I was; my long curly brown locks in pig tails and pink ribbons—she had dolled up my face with her finger paint, a crude job and with my disheveled rags I must have looked like the worlds prettiest transvestite hobo.
Heidi was a nice five year old girl…for a Nazi. We had a tea party where she only pretended to give me lumps of coal instead of sugar for my tea, which was supposed to be mud water. So I sipped the empty cup and played along, every once in awhile she would call me a ‘poop head’ but other than that it was the most enchanting evening I’ve had in a long time.
After Heidi went to bed her father Eigen took me into his basement, he told me that I was important to his research on Jews and with ‘my kind’ being such a rarity these days, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to test his studies.
“It’s not like I have a choice right?” Yigol coughed.
“I would appreciate it if you did not tell Gunter about this night, I would not like to make matters worse for you and if you cooperate I could give you a hot meal once I’m finished.”
“How about a cigarette instead?”
Eigen pulled a black velvet case from his vest pocket and dispensed a hand rolled cigarette, he lit the cigarette with a strike anywhere match upon the cement walled basement as they descended, taking a long drag before handing it to Yigol.
The cigarette illuminated his thoughts as Yigol dragged down the rich smoke, he felt himself wishing for a hot bowl of soup, but he didn’t believe anything a Nazi told him. Yigol believed he was as good as dead in this basement and he didn’t want to waste the offer of a mirage meal when there was a tangible cigarette to be taken.
At the bottom of the steppes, Eigen turned a light switch on.
Generally Nazis are disturbed individuals, but Eigen…he was a special case. I thought I had smelled something…off, as we walked into the basement, but my nose being broken as it is, I disregarded it as my own stench. It wasn’t my B.O, it was definitely monkey shit.
If I knew more about monkeys I would list what I had seen, so just imagine a wide variety and a whole bunch of each and all stuffed into five foot by five foot cages in a basement the size of a small church.
“What the fuck is this!?”
“Monkeys and Apes Yigol, I collect them.”
“I can see that. Uhh…why are they so quiet? Shouldn’t they be hooting and screaming, don’t they want out?”
“They no longer have any will to shout since they’ve been converted to the Third Reich.” Eigen spoke with a swelling pride, his piggish eyes glistening in the dim lamp light.
“You’ve made monkeys into Nazis?”
“Yes, it has always been my life work, for decades I’ve perfected my techniques and for decades I was met with failure. But now they are perfect.”
“Why monkeys…what about…oh I don’t know, Kittens?”
Eigen’s eyes lost their glamour and he looked at Yigol as though he didn’t understand his question; then he grabbed Yigol by the nose and squeezed. As Yigol’s blood began to trickle from his nose the monkeys and apes screamed and rattled their cages.
“Is this how you prefer the monkeys acted Yigol?!”
Yigol backed into a corner and dropped his cigarette. “They’re blood thirsty…”
“No Yigol, they are Jew blood thirsty.” Eigen smiled.
Yigol reached for his cigarette and concentrated on smoking it slowly to calm is nerves. “That’s very impressive sir.”
“More than impressive Yigol! You see these will be my ticket to fame and fortune, with them I will capture every last hidden Jew in America!”
“Adolf the Seventh will be very thankful I’m sure…how much longer till that meal?” His nerves were on the edge, the monkeys and apes violently shaking the cages, turning them over upon the ground, hanging cages falling from the ceiling, the sound was loud enough to pierce the numbness that was Yigol’s hearing.
“I’ve just never tested them out on a real Jew yet…”
This is it old boy, all she wrote, you’re going to die wearing drag in a basement by a horde of Jew hungry monkeys and with less than a puff left on your cigarette. Well maybe God has a hot bowl of soup waiting for me.
Eigen began to unlock one of the cages with a key from his waist pocket, the large black chimpanzee inside suddenly sat still and quiet at the back as he did so, its powerful chest heaving in and out slowly while its focused pupils became the size of tea cups…then its cage door swung open.
The chimpanzee smiled as it tightened its head between its massive shoulders and all at once the chimp lunged onto Eigen’s face, instantly tearing a large piece of it off.
Eigen dropped the key; quickly it slid toward another cage, where yet another chimp began working his own cell open.
“Goliath!” Eigen screamed in a panicked frenzy. “Goliath, help your master!”
Eigen fired once into the chimpanzee’s lower jaw and fell the creature, though before he could regain his senses another chimp lunged at his legs knocking him over, he fired once into the chimp and grazed its skull but before he could fire another shot his gun arm was completely ripped clean off buy a third chimp.
The room looked sound proof and Yigol was unsure about how that made him feel, but watching Eigen scream certainly made him happy.
***
By the time they were finished with Eigen there were barely any remains left to be said. The monkeys began fashioning Eigen’s bones into crude weaponry, some of them were opening cages, some were grooming each other and the rest…just sat and stared at me…admiringly.
A tiny one brought me Eigen’s black velvet cigarette case and gave a little friendly squeak to me when I took it.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing at that moment and after three cigarettes and twenty minutes of having the once believed Jew hungry monkeys staring at me and smiling with those big cherry eyes, I decided to take a look around. That’s when I saw David for the first time. He was just sitting there at the back of the room blanketed by the shadows on a sofa eating bananas from a pile of crates…he reminded me of Donkey Kong.
I stood in amazement before the massive twelve foot tall Baboon and I must have looked frightened to the creature because he made a friendly pat on the sofa next to him and smiled at me, so I sat. I don’t know why I did it but I offered him a cigarette, he shook his head and offered me a banana. I must have inhaled that fruit because I can’t remember how the first one tasted, or the second or the third.
He had a name branded upon his arm that read: G.O.L.I.A.T.H. I ran my finger against it and he turned over my own arm and ran his finger against the numerical tattoo my captors had branded me and every other Jew with. His fur was a light brown that met with his colorful face of red, blue and yellow and a set of piercing orange eyes. He kept handing me bananas and I kept eating them while staring into those bright orange gems; I felt like a little boy staring into the eyes of God.
As I devoured the bananas David groomed me and for being such a massive creature he was surprisingly gentle. After I was fully groomed and well fed on the bananas, I fell asleep on David’s lap like a small animal would cuddle with his mother. The whole ordeal was practically senseless, never in my life did I believe I would be saved by some knight in shining armor and this surreal experience was far from what my mind could have concocted on my best drug induced high.
When I awoke everything was in chaos and the bullets began to howl.
***
It was then that I realized they had no purpose or real drive to do anything except protect me. When Gunter entered the basement the creatures where utterly docile, it was only until he grabbed me by the arm that they began to react. They all hooted and shrilled in excitement as David swatted Gunter’s hand away from me and snorted. In reaction Gunter withdrew his Kraut Magnum that my ears were so familiar with and in the blink of an eye I was behind David and the gun was fired into him consecutively.
Noises like the ping of a hammer against hard steel sounded in firecracker bursts and then…that was the last of Gunter.
After it was all done I rushed to David’s aid but suddenly realized he had no need of any assistance. Not a single drop of his blood had fallen; the bullets had literally bounced off of his skin!
I decided at that moment to test an idea as I lit a cigarette, the monkeys had once again become docile and I took Gunter’s Kraut Magnum and pointed it at my head while slightly pulling the trigger on a gamble.
Instantly, David swiped the gun away from my hand.
“Just testing a theory buddy.”
David looked at me oddly and then handed me back the gun. I smiled at him and started to dress myself in Gunter’s attire, being sure to rip off any Nazi patches and pins. He was much larger than I was so the clothes sagged like I was wearing a parachute, but it was nice to be wearing something dry cleaned for a change.
“I’m going to have to give you a name big guy and Goliath just doesn’t suit you, how do you feel about David?”
David grinned at that and handed me a banana, he let his large hand lightly fall upon my shoulder and patted me upon it like a close friend would have done.
“David, we’re going to have to get out of here, we can’t stay in this basement forever and it’s only a matter of time before they send others to look for Gunter and Eigen. How do you feel about…” My mind began to drift, where was I going to lead them? This was Nazi America, there was nowhere safe to hide. The realization hit me hard and obvious; I saw the weapons the smaller monkeys had made from Eigen and were now making of Gunter’s bones, I saw the bullet holes in the concrete walls from the bullets that had bounced off of David. The path was right in front of my face, a path paved in gold by the orange eyed God himself.
“Scratch that David. How do you feel about killing a bunch of Krauts?”
And that was that; it was time to throw some barrel sized Nazis to their deaths.
***
The Annual Gestapo Ball was booming on Saturday night, it was filled with more Nazis than you would find at a Sound of Music protest.
We were cocky that night, maybe it was the summer heat, maybe it was all those bananas we ate before we started the march—either way there was one hell of a reckoning coming to those Nazis.
The streets were all but emptied, no cars traveled the roads and no shops were opened—anyone who was anyone was at the Gestapo Ball and those who weren’t were watching it televised inside their homes.
The Ball was held in a high rise building consisting of over a hundred floors; I was clung to David’s back as he and the other’s climbed up the building from the outside. The plan was to get to the top floor where Hitler the Seventh was going to start his decent of the floors while being showered with gifts and praise. It was a lot of bull shit if you ask me; they were so cocky that they didn’t even have security around the building. Over the years all oppositions were eradicated, the world as I knew it was Nazi Earth.
For some reason and I don’t know why; but I wondered how all of us made it out of Eigen’s house without waking up his daughter or wife. He may not have had a wife, but Heidi was only five and I can’t imagine her just sleeping through an army of monkeys marching out of her basement.
My curiosity was short lived; I’ll tell you that I’m not a mastermind, I don’t strategize like a General should before leading his men…or monkeys into battle and I didn’t take into consideration that they would see us through the damn windows as we climbed up them.
David was the first to react, a thick woman with a walrus look to her screamed and threw her glass of champagne at the window when she saw us, we were only twenty or so floors up and I cursed my own stupidity just as David burst through the window.
It was a lounge room with a piano player; the woman was the singer, she wore a sparkling white gown and lots of diamond rings that purpled her sausage fingers at the tips, that’s what must have got the attention of the monkeys. They were on her like white on rice, biting, clawing and tearing. Dancers in the room began to run; some men at a table threw the table over and started to lay on heavy gunfire.
David slid me aside and jumped in front of the gunfire; one of the bullets that pinged off of him rocketed in my direction and nearly took off my head. I jumped underneath the piano where the piano player was currently hiding and he instantly tried to push me away. I grabbed his hand and in the spirit of the monkeys I bit down upon it hard. He was a fat squeamish man and he began to crawl away, but I grabbed his little curly ear and pulled him back to my teeth. He kicked the wind right out of me in the awkward way that you can while underneath a piano. I ignored the sick breathless feeling in my body and forced myself upon him, balled up my fists and thrashed over and over. Eventually his weight over powered me and he stood right up underneath the piano, knocking it over, just then David’s fist went right from the back of the piano player’s head to the front of his face.
Panic hit the floors of the Gestapo Ball like a cancer, there were Nazis running down the steppes while the monkeys and apes ran up, some of the Nazis tried to escape through the windows, attempting to climb down from the outside during the chaos upon their floors, at those times they were grabbed by the monkeys still climbing the building and ripped from their foot hold to meet their descent with a ‘SPLAT’.
***
“What’s going on down there!? I want answers!” Screamed Adolf the Seventh.
“Sir there’s really no reason to panic; we’re completely in control of the situation.” Across from Adolf who was clutching a Kraut Magnum and squeezed into the corner of the room, were his trusted Generals. Each one of Adolf’s Generals were grotesquely obese, their decorated suits were hand tailored to a Moo-Moo dress littered with swastikas, flowers and kittens.
“How the hell are we in control? We have no security set up!”
“Der Fuehrer is right Peter, we’re fucked.” Wept one of the Generals.
“I didn’t know I would actually have to fight when I became Adolf the Seventh…I just wanted to be adored and have lots of anal sex…why must this happen to me? Why!?”
Adolf’s Generals surrounded him and together they held hands while staring at the doorway where the sounds of panic and brutal murder brought tears to their eyes.
“My Fuehrer, may I make a suggestion to ease our worries?” Spoke Peter.
“Yes my friend?”
Adolf the Seventh stared into Peter’s eyes and the madness began to drift away, Peter slowly moved his hand around the nape of Adolf’s whale sized neck and caressed his Adams apple. “I love you my Fuehrer…”
***
Most of them didn’t even have guns and even out of the ones that did, few of them tried to fight back. Yigol had found a large butcher knife in one of the kitchens and in the heat of the madness was chopping at the neck of a chef.
The chef just laid there after a while, his eyes darting for safety while he squeezed his hands against the neck wounds. Just then Yigol’s eyes fell upon a bubbling pot of soup.
“I’ve wanted this for some time now, but lucky for you I’m all filled up on bananas.”
Yigol spilled the boiling soup upon the chef, as he screamed the monkeys in the kitchen banged pots and pans together and hooted like a German experimental Black Metal Band.
David ignored the entire spectacle Yigol made of the chef and stared into the large lens of a video camera which was set up to show the billions of viewers how their Fuhrer’s meal was being prepared. David picked up the video camera and took it to Yigol.
“What do you have there David?”
David pushed the camera into Yigol’s hands. Yigol questioned David’s intentions momentarily and then smiled. “They’re all watching us…”
David nodded and smiled back. He kneeled and turned his back to Yigol who climbed upon it and rested the camera upon David’s shoulder. “Lets find Adolf.”
From room to room they went broadcasting the carnage, until they found Adolf.
***
“Honey come quick, they’ve just found our Fuhrer!” Screamed the Nazi husband.
“Are they fighting?!” Shouted the Nazi Housewife, as she ran to the next room.
“No…you must come see this…”
The Nazi couple sat and watched silently as the events unfolded, their mouths were hung open and their eyes never blinked the entire broadcast.
What their house pet Poodle saw, sent the tiny poodle named Auschwitz into a sexual frenzy and he immediately started to hump his owner’s leg in frantic excitement, his tongue hanging loose and eyes rolling in pleasure.
***
Yigol and David broke down the barricaded doors where Adolf the Seventh and his Generals were in the middle of an orgy, their bulbous meat bellies slapping sweat everywhere. It looked like a heard Elephants trying to fight over a peanut.
“My God!” Cried Yigol.
The site of the monkeys made one of the Generals instantly shit himself; Adolf began to weep.
“Please have mercy!” Begged Adolf upon his knees, (which he was already on).
The monkeys surrounded them wielding knives and guns, David began to laugh in a guttural shake, Yigol stopped himself from vomiting.
Yigol bit back the sickness in his belly climbed down from David and booted Adolf right in the jaw. “Look what your leaders do in your time of need.”
“I don’t want to die! I don’t even want to be the Fuehrer if there’s fighting; I just wanted to have fun! This isn’t fun anymore, I want my mommy!”
Peter crawled over to Adolf’s side but one of the monkeys jumped in front of him, “My Fuehrer, take hold of yourself please!”
Yigol looked down at the pudgy mustachioed man that led all the problems he ever had in his entire life. He was bitten by astonishment at that moment, how could a man like this be leading the world? Adolf shook and wept and begged and screamed for help while Yigol just stood there and watched him in disbelief.
“You only have a bruised jaw there Adolf, don’t you think you should save all this for when we start feeding your insides to the monkeys?” Suddenly chuckled Yigol.
At that moment Adolf fainted.
***
The world watched as Yigol gave Adolf’s Generals the choice to fight the monkeys for the Third Reich or to jump out of the window. They watched as each one of Adolf’s Generals landed with a ‘SPLAT’; some jumped and some where just too scared and cried before being thrown like barrels by David. They watched as Adolf himself was fed to the monkeys and they all watched and held each others hands when Yigol told them they would be next.
***
As Yigol and the monkeys left the Gestapo Ball they weren’t surprised to see that the streets were still empty.
Yigol was riding upon David’s shoulders once again, on his way out he had grabbed a bowl of soup for himself that he was now eating and in his mind everything seemed like it was going to be okay. Then he saw Heidi.
She came running out of an alleyway, her little pig tails caught in the wind. “Where’s my Daddy you poop head?!”
Yigol stepped down from David’s back and walked over to her, a look of sorrow on his face. “I-“ he didn’t know what to say.
How can I feel this way? He was a piggish bastard that tried to kill me…no it’s not for him; it’s for this little girl. This innocent little five year old that doesn’t know any better…who just wants her father.”
Heidi pulled out a Kraut Magnum then, though before she had pulled the trigger David crushed her little body under his massive foot. Yigol dropped his bowl of soup.
***
So that’s the story of how I got to where I am now…Nazi America is falling now because of my army but at what cost…the kids are just kids but the monkeys can’t see that—to them they are just another threat to me. While we were in the Gestapo Ball murdering all those men and women, how many children died there too? I was too blind with rage and adrenaline to see the full picture then.
It looks like the Holocaust never ended; it just took another form of hate.
David has been getting more and more malevolent lately and as I’ve told you in the beginning of my story he’s started making a game out of the Nazis deaths. This woman on the floor before me right now was one of our captives, she was making a cake for me and got too close with the knife, she was actually a nice woman, her and I stayed up and talked together last night—she had asked me what I thought the world was going to become now that America was almost free again, I told her I didn’t know and she said that I should calm my nerves because it’s all in God’s hands now. Maybe God favors the animals I said to her. Hey do you think Moses was a giraffe? She laughed. -I �#:.P� � family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#333333'>
She read the book again; felt strange for doing so and began to think; Admiral’s Handbook…Routine…
***
She wasn’t sure what to wear outside at this time of night; so she kept her nightgown on; the axe was very light, carrying it over her head in both hands to mimic her husband when he would chop logs. The forest was dead quiet; she couldn’t recall a time when there were no visible Cardinals outside—she had walked for a long while now, still no sign of a Cardinal. Turning to look at the Cabin she realized it was out of sight; she turned around again, Routine…Joshua—a cold wind blew across her face; she continued to walk.
***
Hopping noises came here and there in the distance; so she followed, for days. It was hard at first; to ignore the impulses to routine, but she reminded herself; routine can’t exist unless I kill a Cardinal—so logically killing a Cardinal is routine—she thought.
***
Oblivion night suddenly folded upon the world; there may have been trees—at times she would step into something, but she couldn’t be sure what it was; she depended on light and there was none what so ever here. It had happened so suddenly, there was a brief fluttering noise and then complete darkness all around. She didn’t see a Cardinal before that darkness spread; but she did see something, she just wasn’t sure what it was; it was something; she thought—something like that thing on the kitchen table…
Routine…Joshua…Howard—it’s important to listen to the Admiral’s Handbook it helps when something is not right. She felt something slide just above her foot and catch her ankle; trying to brace her body for a fall, dropping the axe and holding out her hands—thud. She heard a hopping near her then and when she felt the soft soil beneath her hands, she moved them around to meet with the fallen axe; but she couldn’t find it.
“Forest all around us, vast, endless…I’ve hiked for more than five days, climbing trees and looking beyond the lush green canopy…nothing but a sea of green. But it’s not a forest Fiona. There are wires—rubber coated copper veins amongst the base of the trees, burrowing in and out of the soil like florescent roots.” This voice coming from in front of her was familiar; she knew instantly that it was Howard’s voice, though there was something a little off about it; almost like a scratchy whisper of his voice.
“Howard? You were not at the table today.” She moved closer to the voice.
“Don’t worry Fiona dear, next time; okay?”
“Do you see your axe? I have to kill a Cardinal to go back to routine; our son will come back then; the Admiral’s Handbook said so.”
An iron tight grasp fell upon her wrist and began squeezing—she pulled back, it pulled her in; squeezing harder, crushing frame, ripping flesh. Yellow eyes incandescent; flashed open Click! And stared into her—“That…thing; it’s not my son…” Yellow light framed the mangled machine; it was burnt once; long ago; charred to black and flaking for years while moss struggled to cover truth, a single elbow joint solely waved circular in long scraping noises like nails upon stone; there were no legs or abdomen just a network of orange, red, blue, black and white wires protruding from the earth—cut at their tips exposing copper lines that twisted around the machine and sometimes making little sparks. The machine was not talking; all its mouth did was open, close, open, close; clank! clank! clank!—with great force as its arm pulled her in—behind the machine she could see; aglow in yellow aura, a Ly Bird whispering—“Don’t deny your lover’s bitter smile,
Calm his doubt away;
For when your lover’s bitter smile comes today,
Just give all your love away,
Just give all your love away—
Gentle will be his hand
As it falls upon your heart
There will be no room for bitter smiles
When you give all your love away—“
The machine pulled her all the way in towards its mouth and bit down upon her collar bone; she placed her feet upon its chest and pushed off with all her strength—tearing off her arm which was still in the machine’s grasp as well as partially tearing out her collar bone. Sparks wildly flew out from her neck and arm stub; the Ly Bird hopped over her—she noticed the axe held within its feet and she jumped for it; grabbing it with her single arm. The Ly Bird tried to land on a branch but the added weight threw it off and sent it into the branch instead; it was stunned and began to fall and as it did she wretched the axe from its grasp—when they landed she was upon it; axe above her head at one moment and into the Ly Bird’s face the next.
***
She scooped up the blood bubbling out of the Ly Bird’s split face within her cupped hand and let it roll into her mouth as she tilted her head back. Voices were everywhere; hundreds of Ly Birds hopped away into hiding, freeing the spots of the canopy they once perched upon to blotch out the sun—“ Howard; make me laugh, Howard!” “Invisible child.” “Just give all your love away.” “How can you live and not be disturbed by this?” “ Oil—black, pungent and rich smelling oil.” “I love you mommy!” “Routine.” “The Admiral said so.”—over and over until they vanished from sight.
***
Hot, fire, trickling down; filling, growing—searing pain claimed her body as the memory flowed like a fever dream—it was her boy; Joshua, he was in his bedroom standing upon his bed as she watched cross legged, facing him. At first he was still; lifeless, hollow eye sockets—then there was a Click!—and tiny yellow orbs spread rays over the dark. Limbs flung unnaturally and hypnotic in clock like movements. As though the child were an industrial animated corpse; the boy became a cacophony of madness; whirring, click clacking, high pitched buzzing—dancing and singing, dancing and singing, dancing and singing; whirr, click, clack, buzz, clack, whirr, buzz, buzz, clack, click, whirr, buzz—endlessly. She was captivated, proud, trance like: My son. She thought.
Howard walked into the room; he was naked, bloody, holding Joshua’s slimy light blue eyes in his hands outstretched toward Fiona—he wept; “Why do you ignore the signs? How can you live and not be disturbed by this?”
Fiona smiled at him and began to clap her hands as if to a song’s beat—“Deary, as long as you and I have one another and of course; our lovely boy—what could any of that possibly matter?”
Burning, reaching toward the past, and pulling it into view, coursing flame, encompassing the mind, the heart, the truth. Joshua was in the closet now; she remembered saying—“Your father is going to be home soon Joshua; he had another accident with the Cardinals so he’s going to be silly again—hehehe, Isn’t it beautiful when father is silly? Maybe he will take my eyes out next, what do you think?” Joshua sat motionless, head to the side, empty, staring at nothing.
It started with Joshua—she thought; once again in the woods, Ly Bird blood dripping off her chin, sparks sizzling off her collar and arm stub. One day during breakfast there was a strange bug on Joshua’s fork as it went into his mouth, it was a…mosquito—he made the Mmm; sound—it must have fed on a Ly Bird, that’s why Joshua began acting strange…playing those strange games with me. He must have felt alone, alienated, so he stabbed a Ly Bird with Howard’s fork and made Howard the same way—he didn’t do it to me because he needed at least one of us in the ignorant state to compare their theories. Howard and Joshua began doing things to one another…experimenting on their heads together; confused, trying to understand, they played with things in their heads that triggered emotions, sometimes amplifying them, sometimes shutting them off; then they did it to me too; but they only did simple adjustments to me; such as slightly increasing my vocabulary. Something happened during these experiments, Howard made a mistake and Joshua was never the same. Howard was so strange after that; disappearing all the time, coming back to the cabin just to ramble things to me that he knew I wouldn’t understand; but he did so anyway. Then one day he discovered something about Joshua…Joshua was not simply ‘dancing and singing’ as I called it; but he was acting as a transmitter to something else, something Howard knew and Joshua once knew all about—this terrified Howard and he dismembered Joshua right in front of me, I just smiled and said—“I love you.”
***
Clank, Clank, Clank—Howard’s mouth opened and closed violently; his single arm reaching out to her—she glared at him. “You wanted to end it all so badly; the guilt was overwhelming, I know better than to tamper with my circuitry.” She picked up the axe and walked toward Howard—“you thought I would help you with your experiments after you did that horrible thing to our son?” She stopped just out of his reach; his arm waving violently to grab her—“I’ve found all the pieces you buried, it took me over a decade; but it’s finally done and now I can use him to call them back; to fix us and make us like we used to be. I’ll tell them of the strange bug, the mosquito—so this will never happen again and I’ll tell them of the Ly Birds so they can replace them with more intelligent guardians.” Howard frantically tried to reach the wires beneath him—“keep trying Howard; it will give you something to do while I’m gone, but know that it’s useless—I made sure long ago that you couldn’t shut yourself down. You want me shut down too right now, I know that also; she looked at her sparking stub—but soon you’ll be saying; I love you.”
Fiona turned and walked away from Howard; she was very far from the cabin, but she knew the way—because now she remembered everything. She had found her way home once before this, from a place even further away then where she now walked, a place called loneliness.
