Ugly Heaven

by Carlton Mellick III

  Tree takes a few steps up the pile of wagon wheels.

  "Can we get a closer look?"

  "No," Rowak says. "Anyone who gets too close will be killed."

  Salmon spills more of his coffee on himself.

  "Killed?" Salmon says. "You mean we can still be killed?"

  "I thought we were immortal," Tree says.

  Rowak pokes at balloon-flowers until they pop.

  "Nothing is immortal," Rowak says.

  "But we're in Heaven," Salmon says. "The Bible says we'll live forever in Heaven."

  "The Bible was written by people who had never been to Heaven," Rowak says. "After you died on Earth, your soul did not become immortal. It just changed." He sits down in the mud. Razorblade butterflies flutter around his left ear. "It escaped your old body through a doorway in the back of your brain and arrived here, where it was made flesh. You do not age in Heaven. But eventually you will die."

  "What happens after we die in Heaven?" Salmon asks. "Does our soul leave this body and go to another place?"

  "No," Rowak says. "The body you are in is your soul made flesh. Once this flesh dies, your soul will end."

  "I'll just die?" Salmon asks. "Forever?"

  "You'll just end," Rowak says.

  Salmon hides behind pickled bushes to make sure the crab creatures don't see him.

  The town still looks kind of like a pile of old boots on arrival. The houses are made of stone and clay, lopsided, melting into the earth. There is an iron gate wrapped around the buildings covered in green rust and a dark blob of cloud directly overhead like a warm canopy.

  Tree rubs his square nostrils as a sweetly rotten gooseberry smell hits the air. "It looks deserted," he says, even though there are dim lights in several of the buildings beyond the gate.

  "New ones," Rowak calls out to a cone tower above.

  The tower is black. Every brick in the tower seems to be a centimeter away from falling out, all at once. It doesn't look like anyone could possibly stand up there without collapsing the structure.

  "How long has it been since you were here last?" Tree asks.

  Rowak waits a few minutes before he responds, staring up at the window with an O mouth.

  "There are only a handful of people living on the surface," he says. "It always looks dead."

  A long wait, with Salmon clacking his empty coffee cups together and wobbling his hips to the rhythm, and Tree lying in green mud with his hand over his eyes.

  "She's waking up," Rowak says to a very dim light in the blackness of the tower.

  An azure woman appears at the window. Her body wrapped in a blanket.

  "A couple newcomers," Rowak tells her. "Can you believe it? Two at once!"

  The azure woman: tiny black holes for eyes, glaring like a gargoyle down at them...

  "It's been a long time since any new arrivals have come," Rowak tells her. "I've been getting lonely out there all by myself. Can you believe there's two of them?"

  Rowak pauses for an answer but the woman does not speak. Her lurid stare twitches a nerve down Tree's spine like an eel under his skin. Rowak is shaking. He's nervous for some reason. He doesn't look at the azure woman in the face.

  "I wonder why nobody ever comes anymore," Rowak continues. "It's been so long. I don't think people are able to find the doorway in the backs of their heads anymore."

  Another pause. He waits for her to speak.

  It takes several moments, Tree rubbing green mud on his fingernails, then:

  "How many times do I have to tell you?" her voice crackles and bubbles.

  Rowak shivers.

  "Don't bring me any pinkies," she says.

  Rowak looks at Salmon. "He's not pink. He's much more red than pink. He's salmon-colored."

  "He's pink enough," the woman says.

  "What's wrong with pink?" Salmon asks, stretching his neck out at them like a snail.

  "Nobody likes people with pink skin," Rowak tells him.

  "What?" Salmon cries. "You're judging me by the color of my skin?"

  "There's racism in Heaven?" Tree asks.

  "Everyone is judged by the color of their skin here," Rowak says. "Your skin color is the color of your soul. Some types of souls are less popular than others. Pink souls are by far the least popular of them all.”

  "Pink represents annoying and irritating," the woman creaks.

  "You are only about half pink," Rowak tells Salmon. "I didn't think they would make you go underground for being only half pink."

  Salmon cries, "What do you mean go underground?"

  Rowak avoids Salmon's gaze, frowning. He looks up at the tower window but the woman is no longer there.

  "Anyone they want to forget about they put underground," Rowak says.

  "But I'm not annoying!" Salmon says.

  "I don't know you enough to judge," Rowak says. "But your soul is pinkish and all pink souls belong to annoying people."

  Salmon rubs at his skin as if trying to rub the pink off.

  Tree says, "But what is annoying to one person might be endearing to others. It's like saying blue skin represents beauty or red skin represents good fashion sense. It's all a matter of opinion."

  "It's not just a matter of opinion," Rowak says.

  The woman arrives in the nude. Just like the others, she doesn't have any privates. She has breasts but there aren't any nipples attached to them. She is taller than all the men, almost twice their height. And she has two sets of arms. The back of her head is like that of a triceratops. And the markings on her skin are chaotic, like a violent abstract painting. Not a symmetric pattern like the men's flesh.

  She opens the gate and locks her pinhole eyes on Tree.

  "A yellow?" she asks.

  "Yes," Rowak hyper-nods. "Isn't it wonderful?"

  "What does yellow represent?" Tree asks.

  The woman's neck moves machine-like to Rowak. "Why don't you ever tell them anything?"

  Rowak crouches. "Mystery is more fun."

  "All the questions you fail to answer just come to me," she says. "Making my job so much more difficult."

  The azure lady bends down to Tree and whispers against his cheek with thin oily lips. "Yellow is special."

  The interior of the town is like walking into a smooth ceramic dish with powder mites and mulch barrels polluting the otherwise spotless surface. Powder mites are wobbling rat-sized fleas that make fizzy noises and excrete piles of grayish dust along the waffle-iron sidewalks. The azure lady doesn't mind crushing them with her dinosaur feet, coating her blue heels with orange mucus.

  Beady-eyes peek out of melty windows, glaring at them. The citizens have frozen facial expressions. They are like large porcelain dolls. Some of them wear wigs and cartoon makeup, to look more human, to cover up the true appearance of their souls.

  "What is wrong with them?" Salmon whispers to Tree.

  Tree tries not to look at the scary doll people glaring down at them. Their mechanical faces tilting only slightly to follow their movements. Footsteps sound like peppery saliva in Tree's new ears.

  "Get rid of the pink one," Azure Woman says to Rowak. "I'll take the yellow."

  Rowak nods and leads the pinkish man in another direction. Tree and Salmon stare at each other with broken eyes and clogged throats. Lizard tongues darting in and out of Salmon's nostrils.

  "You don't need him," the woman whispers to Tree. "You're a yellow."

  The majority of the town looks destroyed, as if burned down centuries ago. The dead buildings are like rotten fruit scattered across the landscape. Only a small section of town is still occupied. Only a couple dozen souls live here.

  They leave the small circle of old boot buildings and enter the black ruins, thick with ash and crispy whispers. There is a small trail cutting through the charred sculptures, tiny flappy mice leading the way.

  "Are all towns in Heaven this quiet?" Tree asks.

  "There aren't many t
owns in Heaven," the azure lady says. "The capital city is the largest. It is where God lives. But nobody goes there anymore. It is forbidden."

  "Have you ever met God?" Tree asks.

  She glares at him with her hole-eyes.

  "Do you have any memory of your old world?" she asks.

  "Not really," Tree says.

  "Good. It's better that you forget about the old world and concentrate on the new. Some of your past will come back to you eventually, but for now it'll just get in the way."

  Tree nods.

  The trail ends at a black wall. Not so much a wall as a bunch of scraps of burnt wood nailed together into a sheet.

  "Come," she says, opening the wood scraps like a door, "I will buy you a drink."

  The tall blue woman ducks down into the dark structure, hot liquids twisting under her skin as she bends to fit inside, pulling on Tree with her extra set of arms.

  Inside it is damp and dim, a patchwork of charcoal wood and chunks of rust-sticky metal. A pub. Debris scraps woven violently together to form a new structure out of the black ruins. A lounge, containing three or four people with drinks, making little noise, just the sound of arms rustling and sweat leaking down ashy pig backs.

  Hundreds of nails of all sizes point down from the ceiling like metal icicles. The chairs and tables: a roller coaster of rotten wood and thick spikes. The furniture is not gigantic as it was in Rowak's home. It will fit Tree perfectly, but is a little small for the azure woman.

  She says her name is CLOTTA, pronounced in all capital letters. Tree asks if CLOTTA is short for anything and CLOTTA says she needs a drink.

  CLOTTA sits Tree down at the bar in a lumpy blond chair made of finger-thick splinters. They cut into his yellow flesh and make him feel like an autumn oak leaf wrapped around a chocolate-filled wasp. CLOTTA needs two to support her enormous mass.

  The other people in the bar are all swollen eyeballs at Tree. Looking at him with chubbed cheeks and leaky face paint. They appear to be aroused and disgusted by Tree at the same time, flapping their ears and elbow-tails at him.

  "Two donkabies," CLOTTAsays to the fish-silver bartender, who grunts with a melty warthog chin and rolling belly fat.

  Then CLOTTA places a finger on the bartender's wrist. A few grams of flesh rise up from the azure woman's palm and crawl up her hand, onto the Bartender's arm. It changes into a silver color and sinks into his flesh, becomes a part of him.

  "What was that?" Tree asks CLOTTA as the bartender pours greasy fluid into bone-white cups.

  "I gave him a piece of my soul," she responds. "Soul is the only thing of value we have in Heaven, so we use it as our currency."

  "You trade with flesh?" Tree asks.

  "Soul-flesh," she says. "You give people some of your soul-flesh for their products or services and then you take soul-flesh for products and services you provide."

  "What if someone doesn't have any products or services?" Tree asks.

  "Then they become very small," CLOTTA says. "There is always something you can do, but every once in a while there are the lazy ones. These people will eventually lose all of their soul-flesh and be completely consumed. Usually by Jeke here," the bartender nods his portly neck, "or myself. We are the largest people in town. The wealthiest."

  "What services do you provide?" Tree asks.

  "I am the caretaker," CLOTTA says. "Everyone pays me taxes to live in my town. If you don't have extra soul-flesh at the end of every month I will completely absorb you into me. Your soul will become my soul and you will no longer exist.”

  She takes a gulp of the greasy beverage.

  "Drink," she says, pointing to the lumpy mug. "It'll be the only free drink you ever get."

  Tree scoops out the thick sleep-textured goo with two fingers and presses it to his tongue. It tastes like cherry pine mixed with Detroit cops arresting a pregnant prostitute. Like other flavors in Heaven, it is more disturbing and confusing than it is disgusting. After a few sips, Tree begins to feel the effects. It is not the same as alcohol. It makes the insides of his flesh whirl into tiny circles. Like he's getting thousands of miniature massages from the inside out. It has a calming effect on his entire soul. He understands why people would spend a lot of their soul-flesh here, even if the taste/texture of the fluid is unfriendly.

  CLOTTA allows Tree to enjoy his new sensations for some moments. She watches as his eyes focus into the deep pores of the counter top, at the magnificent textures. He carefully examines his yellow skin and finds new details in his soul-flesh: there are cityscape patterns within the seashell patterns, and dragon scale patterns within the cityscape patterns, with multiple colors hiding behind the yellow, multiple textures that his senses can hardly process.

  His new body is a complex web of art.

  Tree is so captivated by his skin that he doesn't even notice an obese winged infant flop-flying into the pub and sitting down next to him. It orders a small drink and masturbates.

  The azure woman purchases a tube of tightly packed yarn and places it delicately next to her drink when something shiny catches her eye. It is attached to Tree's elbow.

  "What is this?" she says, leaning down to Tree and grabbing his arm with all four of her hands.

  Tree oozes into her grip and smiles.

  She pulls on the shiny metal tag sticking out of his elbow and out comes a handleless blade as long as Tree's forearm.

  "This is unusual," CLOTTA says, examining the intricately designed blade. It is more stylized than his flesh, with battle-scenes carved into the metal. "I have never heard of someone sneaking a weapon into Heaven before."

  "Why was it inside me?" Tree asks.

  "Perhaps it's just part of your soul," CLOTTA says, sliding the blade back into Tree's arm. "People have been born with wheels attached to their feet, with televisions in their bellies. I've even heard of a little girl who was born into Heaven with toys buried deep in her torso. But I never thought a weapon would come through."

  "It's just a knife," Tree says.

  "It's a symbol of power," CLOTTA says, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You're going to make an excellent addition to our community."

  Tree doesn't respond. He shrinks in his seat as she stares down at him with a spider-smile on her big blue face.

  "So what does yellow mean?"

  "Imagination," she says. "Yellow is the color of art, music, poetry. Yellow is the color of creation. We have been waiting a very long time for a yellow to join our community." "I don't remember being a creative person." "That doesn't matter. You will be our new entertainer. I'm sure you'll come up with all sorts of creative ways to make us happy. Even if you didn't live a life as an artist, it is in your soul. We will all benefit from your imagination."

  Tree notices the masturbating baby seated next to him. It looks up at him with a toothless grin and gurgles.

  "It's an angel," CLOTTA says over Tree's shoulder.

  "What's an angel?" Tree says. He doesn't remember that part of the Bible.

  "Angels were God's first inventions, created long before humans. Heavily flawed. Not good enough to be the children of Earth, so He tossed them aside and forgot about them. They don't have language or very much intelligence. Their limbs hardly work. They are not very good for anything."

  "Why is it masturbating?" Tree asks.

  "It isn't masturbating. It doesn't have any sex organs. The penis-shaped tube it is jerking on is actually an air pump. It has to constantly pump air into its lungs in order to breathe."

  "How many of them are there?"

  "Not many. Most have died off. Those that remain are preserved and protected. They are our only connection to Heaven's past and we hope one day we'll learn how to communicate with them."

  Tree watches the obese baby/angel masturbate its air pump and guzzle its beverage.

  "You don't know Heaven's past?" Tree asks.

  "Much is still a mystery to us," CLOTTA says. "It was a belief on Earth
that after you die all of the questions you ever had would get answered. But, in actuality, after death very few answers are given and a whole lot more questions are asked. You will have to learn to live without all the answers."

  "I have many questions," Tree says.

  "Save them for later," CLOTTA says. "I will get you a mentor in the morning. He will be able to answer more questions than I am willing."

  CLOTTA finishes both of their drinks and grabs the tube of yarn with her lower right hand.

  "Join me out back," she says.

  The goblin baby drools at them with steel ball eyes.

  Outside with spiky curls of wind, CLOTTA lights her tube of yarn like a cigar with a pinching of her fingertips. She is made of lightning. The cigar isn't really made of yarn but ropes of tobacco woven together. Each rope of tobacco is a different color and flavor. The flavors are too complex for Tree to taste correctly, so she does not waste her smoke on the newcomer.

  Tree doesn't mind the smoking giant. He is busy examining the black graveyard of city ahead. Rows of charred blob-buildings slide down the throat of a silver forest less than a mile away. Beyond the forest is a small gated village on top of a mushroom hill. There are lights emanating from the village. Just a faint sign of life.

  "What is that place over there?" Tree asks.

  "There is nothing there," CLOTTA says.

  "I see a village on that hill in the distance," Tree says.

  "There's no village. The only other populated city in Heaven is miles away in the other direction."

  "I see it right there."

  "You are mistaken."

  Tree squints at the village in the distance. It is clearly there. Lights are on in the buildings. There is a silent twitch in CLOTTA's face.

  "I don't think I'll be very entertaining," Tree says to CLOTTA.

  "You will be. You're yellow."

  "But I don't feel like a yellow."

  "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

  "I don't know what to do."

  "It'll come to you. I have faith."

  "What if I'm not entertaining?"

  "Then you will be poor."