My Life as a Human Hairball

by Bill Myers

  It’s been another sensationally super day of superherohood for the gorgeously good-looking and humongously handsome Mirror Man. Already he has straightened one of his hairs that the wind has nearly mussed, polished his teeth a half-dozen times to keep them at their sparkly best, and discovered a zit that was (gasp of gasps) just about to appear on the side of his nose. If it wasn’t for his stage makeup, things might have gotten ugly. (Just don’t let his superhero buddies know he uses the stuff. Okay?)

  No one is certain how Mirror Man became so concerned about his reflection. Some say it was because he had grown up with too many sisters always hogging the bathroom mirror. Others insist it came from brain damage when he tried imitating Alice in Wonderland (walking through real mirrors can be a lot more painful than the storybook ones). Then there’s the ever-popular theory that as a perfectionist the only image he could possibly fall in love with was his own.

  Whatever the reason, our hero is never able to pass a mirror without checking himself out——for four or five hours at a time. The good news is he always looks great in case he’s photographed for the cover of any famous superhero magazines. The bad news is he’s so busy looking great that he never has time to do anything great to get into those magazines.

  Fortunately that’s all about to change. As he stands at one of his hundreds of mirrors, emptying another one of his hundreds of cans of hairspray, suddenly, the earth stops rotating! (Don’t you just hate it when that happens?) In fact, it stops so abruptly that our varnish-haired hero is thrown against the wall in a major, crash-dummy-through-the-windshield kind of way.

  K-SMASH!

  Filled with alarm, he staggers to his feet and desperately races back to the mirror. The good news is that not a single one of his hairs is out of place. The bad news is the earth starts up again, only this time in reverse. Suddenly Mirror Man is thrown into the opposite wall.

  K-SMASH!

  Now our hero is really upset. Don’t get me wrong, he likes playing Ping-Pong as much as the next guy——he’s just not crazy about being the ball. But there’s another little problem. In all of his superhero days, he has never heard the sound: Sure, there have been plenty of K-RASHES!, K-BANGS!, and even the ever-popular K-POW!——but never a K-SMASH!

  What on earth is going on?

  Suddenly our incredibly intellectual hero suspects an inconsistency. (Looks like it’s time to crack open the ol’ dictionary again.) Anxious to find out what happened, he races to the TV and turns on a late-breaking news bulletin.

  ABZ’s anchorman, Peter Jerkings is already on the air, giving a report. But for some reason, he is impossible to understand. Our hero leans forward to hear better:

  Suddenly they cut to a commercial break with some guy in a suit and briefcase running backward to catch a bus...that is also running backward...along with the rest of the traffic. Come to think of it, the music is playing backward, too.

  But before our heartbreakingly handsome hero has any hint of what’s happening (say that seven times fast), the TV picture breaks up and the remarkably revolting and repugnantly repulsive (Translation: “Majorly Ugly”) RetroRunt appears on the screen.

  “Greetings, Mirror Man. Or should I say,

  Our hero gasps a manly gasp. “RetroRunt?” he shouts. “What’s going on? Are you the cause of all this chaos?”

  “Of course,” the little guy squeaks. “I’ve tied retrorockets all around the earth and fired them to reverse the earth’s rotation.”

  “Is that why everything’s running backward?” Mirror Man cries.

  “You guessed it.”

  “But you can’t do that!” our hero shouts.

  “And why not?”

  “Manipulating time was Time Trickster’s plan back in book number seven. You can’t ripoff another villain’s gimmick.”

  “I’m not ripping off anything. I have no desire to twist time. Once we return to this morning, I’ll release the earth and let it continue its normal spin—— until tonight, when I’ll reverse it again. Until it’s this morning, and then again, and again some more.”

  “But why?”

  “To keep living this day forever!”

  “But you can’t do that!” our hero shouts.

  “You’ve already said that.”

  “But why?”

  “You’ve already said that, too.”

  Even though quoting himself is almost as much fun as looking at himself, Mirror Man tries a new tact. “How come I’m not affected?” he demands. “How come I’m not living backward?”

  “Because you——my grotesquely gorgeous geek——have spent your entire life looking into mirrors. You are used to seeing things in reverse. In fact, you are the only one on the planet who can stop me.”

  “You don’t mean...” (Ta-ta-daaa! —— That’s supposed to be dramatic music.) “That’s right,” RetroRunt replies. “Everyone is doomed to live this day over and over again...unless you decide to help them by saving the day!”

  “Great Scott, you don’t mean...” (TA-TA-DAAAA—— that’s even more dramatic music.) “That’s right. You’ll actually have to leave your mirror and try to stop me.” “And if I don’t?”

  “Then the entire planet will be forced to relive this day forever!”

  Our hero gasps a gorgeously good-looking gasp. Holy Handsomeness, what will he do? How will he save the world from reliving the same day over and over? More importantly, where can he find a full-length mirror easy enough to carry with him?

  These and other mildly moronic questions race through his head, when——

  “Wally . . . are you guys there!? Wall Street!? Can anybody hear me!?”

  I looked up from the computer to the main video display at the front of the submarine. There was Opera’s face filling the screen.

  “Can anybody hear me?” he shouted.

  I turned to Wall Street with relief. “We’re found!” I shouted. “We’re saved.”

  But before she could answer, the entire submarine lurched forward. We began pitching back and forth. Wall Street started screaming. (I would have joined her, but it’s hard screaming when you’re busy reminding God of all the good things you’ve done just in case you’re about to meet Him.) Everything was topsy-turvy in an electric blender kind of way. One minute we were on the ceiling of the submarine, the next on the floor.

  I wasn’t sure what was happening, but when I caught a glimpse through the window, it looked just as turbulent outside as it felt inside. It was impossible to tell what was going on or where we were going . . . but we were definitely going there way too fast!

  Chapter 3

  Digesting the Facts

  After several more seconds, our private little wash-and-tumble cycle finally came to an end. It looked like things were finally getting back to normal. Well, normal except for the fact that we were still miniaturized people in a miniaturized submarine floating in . . . I looked out the window to check. We were no longer floating in brown bubbles. Instead it was some sort of clear, pinkish liquid.

  But that wasn’t the only difference.

  Wall Street gave me a nudge. “Check it out.”

  I turned to the opposite window and saw what looked like the world’s biggest potato chip. It floated outside the submarine and stretched on for dozens of yards. Not only that, but the clear liquid we were floating in seemed to be slowly eating away at the chip and turning it into liquid.

  “Pretty gross, huh?”

  I nodded, but before I could say anything we heard:

  “Wally! Wall Street? Can you guys hear me!?”

  We spun back to the front video screen. Opera was still on it, and he was still trying to get our attention. “Guys? Are you there!?”

  “Opera!” I shouted. “Where are you? Opera!”

  “Wally?”

  “Opera?”

  “Wally?”

  We would have gone on like that a few more hours, but Wall Street figured it wouldn’t hurt to start a real conversation. “Opera,” she cried, “ju
st tell us where you are!”

  “I’m back here in the lab. At some sort of communications desk. I came back in to find you guys, but no one was here. Where are you?”

  “We’re in the submarine,” I shouted.

  He looked around. “It’s not here,” he yelled. “Where did you take it?”

  “We didn’t take it anywhere,” I shouted. “It took us!”

  “What??”

  Wall Street tried to explain. “You know that big Miniaturization Machine there in the room?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I think we sorta accidentally turned it on and got ourselves accidentally miniaturized.”

  “You what!?! That’s impossible. No one could be that klutzy!”

  “But Wally is with me.”

  “Oh, yeah. I see your point.”

  She continued. “Listen, you said you’re at a communications desk?”

  “Yup, there’s all sorts of cool video screens and stuff here.”

  “I’m wondering, is there any type of like . . . tracking device? You know, something that might show where the submarine is.”

  “Hard to say, there’s so many displays . . .”

  Wall Street nodded. “But if they plan to send this into human bodies some day, there’s gotta be a way to keep track of it.”

  Opera shook his head. “I don’t see anything. There’s nothing but . . . oh, wait a minute.”

  Wall Street and I exchanged glances.

  “That’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?” I asked.

  “There’s this giant outline of the human body. You know with the digestive system and blood vessels and everything, and . . .”

  “And?” Wall Street asked.

  “Well, there’s a green flashing light that kinda looks like a submarine, and . . .”

  “And?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s flashing and . . .”

  “And!?” we both shouted.

  “And it looks like it’s inside the body’s stomach.” “Inside the body’s stomach!” I spun back to the window. Could that be where we were? Could all this liquid be inside somebody’s stomach? I looked over to the giant potato chip. To my amazement it was nearly completely dissolved.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing dissolving. I tried to shout. I tried to warn Wall Street, but my heart was too busy leaping into my throat to get out any words.

  “How could that happen?” Wall Street continued talking with Opera. “How could we have gotten inside somebody’s stomach?”

  I cleared my throat trying to get her attention. Still no luck.

  “I dunno,” Opera answered, “but that’s what this diagram shows. It shows that you’re right in the middle of—wait a minute, there’s another light that just came on.”

  “Uh, excuse me . . . ,” I finally managed to croak. He continued. “It’s bright red.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt but—”

  “Yeah, below it are the words, ‘WARNING: HULL PENETRATION.’”

  “Hull Penetration?!” Wall Street cried. She spun around to me. “Wally, did you hear that?”

  I nodded and pointed. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  She leaned past me to look out the window. “What? Where?”

  “There, on the outside of the submarine.”

  At last she saw it. Now it was her turn to try and talk. “It’s . . . ,” she swallowed hard.

  I nodded. “Yup.”

  We watched in horrified silence. It was exactly what Opera’s warning light showed—the clear, pinkish liquid that had dissolved the potato chip was now dissolving the outside of our minisubmarine!

  * * * * *

  Again, I’ll save you all the embarrassing screaming and hysterical begging for God to save our lives. Let’s just say that as much as we enjoyed our little visit to Digestiveland, it was best to be moving on—as fast as we could!

  But how?

  “Guys! . . .” Opera was on the screen again, trying to get our attention. “Guys! GUYS!”

  He definitely got our attention that time. And just as soon as our ears quit ringing, we’d be able to hear what he had to say.

  “There’s some sort of video readout on the screen beside the body diagram.”

  “Video readout?” I asked. “What’s it say?”

  “I dunno . . . looks like it explains all about the stomach and intestines and stuff.”

  “Take a closer look,” Wall Street said. “If it’s about the digestive system, maybe it will tell us something.”

  “Let’s see, um . . . it says the digestion of food takes several steps. The first step is to chew it up in the mouth and swallow it.”

  “I think we’ve already passed that,” Wall Street sighed.

  I nodded. “We may have missed the chewing, but we definitely got to the swallowing.”

  Opera continued reading. “After that, it slides down something called the esophagus and into the stomach.”

  “And that’s where we are now?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  “But why’s this liquid stuff dissolving everything?” Wall Street asked.

  “Hang on, I’m checking . . .”

  As Opera read, Wall Street and I looked out the window to the surface of the submarine. It was definitely getting softer and gooier by the second. “Hurry,” Wall Street called. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Ah, here we go. The liquid is called gastric juice. It’s made up of several enzymes called pepsin as well as hydrochloric acid.”

  “Acid?” I cried.

  Wall Street gasped. “That’s why it’s dissolving the submarine!”

  “We got to get out of here!” I shouted. “Opera, does it say how we can get out?”

  “Don’t think so. It says some food stays in the stomach for up to five hours!”

  “Five hours?” Wall Street cried. “We’ll be goners for sure.”

  “Wait a minute,” Opera said. “That’s for big pieces of food. It says liquids and small pieces of food pass through the stomach almost immediately.”

  I looked back out the window. “Unfortunately that’s not us. It doesn’t look like this submarine is going anywhere.”

  “That’s ’cause it’s too big,” Wall Street said. “But if it was just us . . . if we were out there on our own, I bet we’d be small enough to get out of here fast.”

  I gave her a look. “Out there? Without the submarine?”

  She nodded.

  “You want us to swim out there on our own?”

  She motioned toward the back wall. “We’ve got those diving suits back there.”

  I glanced to them. “Yeah, but—”

  “And ever since we dove for that treasure in Mexico, we know how to scuba dive.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And the rubber wet suits will protect our skin from the acid . . .”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And if we don’t get out of here soon, the hull’s going to collapse and we’re both going to die!”

  I opened my mouth and gave it one last try, but apparently I’d run out of “Yeah, buts.”

  Don’t you hate it when your friends are always right? But she was and there was nothing I could do about it—except let out a long sigh and mumble, “Okay, but if we die, you’re going to live to regret it.”

  * * * * *

  Ten minutes later we were suited up. The gear was pretty fancy. Not only were the wet suits and scuba tanks like something from the twenty-third century, but the face mask had a built-in intercom, which was pretty cool, too.

  What was not cool was the way I kept stepping on my flippers. No problem—except that stepping on my flippers meant falling on my face. (I guess futuristic equipment can’t solve everything.)

  “Guys?” It was Opera again, only now we could hear his voice inside our headsets.

  “What’s up?” Wall Street asked.

  “I th
ink you’d better hurry.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “You know that warning light that said, ‘Hull Penetration’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, now it’s flashing and there’s an alarm beeping—”

  “No sweat,” Wall Street said as she started up the ladder. “We’re on our way now.”

  “Hold it a minute,” I said.

  “Now what?”

  “What are you going to do when you get to the top of that ladder?”

  “I’m going to pop the hatch.”

  “Right, and let a gazillion gallons of that acid splash down on top of us.”

  “What other choice do we have?” she asked. “It’s the only way out.”

  I shook my head. “There’s got to be another way.” “Guys!” Opera warned. “Go! GO!”

  It’s not that I was chicken or anything like that, it’s just that I was . . . well, all right, maybe I was sprouting a few pinfeathers here and there. But I’d rather be a Colonel Sanders special (as long as there was a side order of mashed potatoes and corn-on-the-cob) than have all that liquid acid pounding down on top of me.

  I folded my arms and leaned against the submarine’s wall, making it clear that I wasn’t going anywhere. At least that’s what I wanted to make clear. But it would have been a little easier to make it clear if the submarine’s wall hadn’t already dissolved into something with the consistency of Jell-O.

  The good news was that we didn’t have to climb out of the hatch’s opening. The bad news was that I’d suddenly made my own opening. I quickly fell through the wall with my usual:

  “AUGHhhh. . .”

  But it wasn’t just me. As I fell out, the liquid poured in. And as the liquid poured in, Wall Street was also washed out.

  “WALLLLYYYY. . .”

  Like it or not, we were both outside the mini-submarine now—or what was left of it. And even as we were swirled around, I could see the hull dissolving and breaking up in a Titanic kind of way.

  Now the only thing between us and the stomach’s gastric juices were our rubber wet suits. I threw a look to Wall Street. Like me, she was doing her best to swim, but we were both caught in a pretty fierce current—a current that was growing stronger by the second.