The Gift of Volkeye

by Marque Strickland

  “Excuse me, can any of you inventors help me? I can’t make love to my wife…my parts are defective! Money is no issue, lads…I’ll pay top dollar to any one of you who can heal my love muscle and make it INDESTRUCTABLE.”

  Of course, all except Zynathian laughed at him.

  “Peenuhs! Now I remember…how are you? Everything’s all right, I take it?”

  “Things are bloody marvelous since you fixed me up…my wife and I are on our eighth child and planning two more! In fact, she’s pregnant as we speak!” He paused, taking another slurp of his lager, licking his lips afterward.

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, in which he stared at Zynathian in a curious fashion. Then he finally asked his question.

  “Say, I’ve been wondering all these years...wudja’ do to me?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Ya’ know…one minute, we were in the coffee shop that we agreed to meet at, and the next thing I knew four days had passed! All I remember is that you bought me some tea, asked how I took it. Then you spent quite a bit of time over at the bar stirring it up, while I sat reading the paper. Once you brought it over, I remember taking a sip. It was nice and smoky, but with a bit of something sweet that I couldn’t place. And that’s the last thing I recall. Four days later, I woke up in my own bed with brand-spankin’-new parts!”

  Peenuhs scratched his eyebrow in curiosity.

  “Well, it was long time ago, friend, I’m sure you’ve just forgotten.”

  “Nah, I couldn’t have…I don’t have single visual image of your home or lab in mind. I usually remember things like that, mate.”

  “I understand that you think you should remember, Peenuhs, but let us not forget that you are rather fond of the lagers, are you not?” Zynathian gestured towards the frothy mug of beer. However, he had an odd grin upon his face, as if feeling guilty about a prank to which only he knew the details. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re happy with your penis, Peenuhs.”

  “Happy with it? Hell, that’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one! I ain’t stopped smiling in eight years, mate! And this bad boy, here…” He paused, tugging at his crotch. “…is an absolute work of art! I can go home and give that woman a thrashing all night with it! She has a hard time keeping up with me nowadays!” he bragged, letting out a mad cackle of laughter, spilling more of his beer.

  Zynathian was amused, but he wanted to get back to Ya Minj now and decided to bid him farewell.

  “It’s been wonderful seeing you again, but…”

  Zynathian extended his hand. Peenuhs ignored the gesture and embraced him in a smothering hug.

  “Before, I didn’t get the chance to test it out before we parted, so I couldn’t thank you!”

  At this, Peenuhs gave Zynathian an extremely rough kiss on the forehead, which was more like a head butt that nearly knocked him unconscious.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you, you brilliant man!” Peenuhs exclaimed with a drunken swagger. Then he turned his back and waved. “Farewell, Zynathian Volkeye! Thanks, once again, for tuning up my parts...they’re marvelous now! Ever since you played with them, life has been grand!”

  As the drunken embarrassment stumbled his way through the crowd, Zynathian was still massaging his forehead. He looked over and saw Ya Minj holding her side in laughter.

  “Ever since you played with them, life has been grand!” she mocked. “You have a habit of playing with men’s penises, do you? …Men who are NAMED ‘penis’, no less!”

  All the blood rushed to Zynathian’s face. “It’s not how it looks, really.”

  “Oh, God, I hope not, because if we have to share a bed with him, the wedding is off, buster!”

  Zynathian was slightly less embarrassed now, as he loved a sense of humour in a person.

  “Hardy, har, har…hysterical, isn’t it?”

  “Damn straight, it is!” Ya Minj replied, wiping her brow. “I haven’t had a laugh like that in ages!” She smiled.

  (Though she wouldn’t let on, Ya Minj had needed that laugh very badly, for she’d had an all too trying morning. She’d made a sale that she was regretting more and more every second. Had the charming ‘Zynathian’ not come along to take her mind off her currents woes, by nightfall Ya Minj thought she would’ve taken the sharpest object at her disposal and attempted to pluck out her heart! She’d have to keep Zynathian here with her all day in order to not go mad!

  …Or perhaps she should just act upon her careless and utterly ridiculous intuitions and leave with Zynathian? Surely he, of all the rich and strangely talented people in world, could relieve her sadness. Having a mate like him would be the only suitable compensation for what she’d lost.)

  “It’s my pleasure to be of assistance,” he said, kissing her hand.

  “Aren’t you a suave one…and you expect me to believe that you’ve only ever shagged one woman?”

  “Well, things are going rather well with you at the moment, so I imagine very soon the number will be two!”

  She buried her face in her hands, wondering what her father would’ve thought of her having such a conversation with a complete stranger. Meanwhile, Zynathian continued his jest.

  “I should warn you right here and now that although I’m capable, I’ve performed no such operations on myself, as I did with my drunken friend. So if you’re looking for an indestructible love muscle, Peenuhs Dickery is your man!”

  Ya Minj couldn’t help but play along.

  “Damn it, man, why didn’t you say so before?”

  She began pleading at the top of her lungs.

  “Penis, come back, my love...it’s you that I’ve been waiting on all my life! Penis, don’t leave me…I can’t live without my Penis! I need you! PENIIIIIIIIIS!”

  The next thing Ya Minj knew, Zynathian had his hand cuffed firmly around her mouth, muffling every word.

  “Dammit to hell, woman, are you mad? Embarrass us both right into our graves, why don’t you!”

  Now that they’d finished teasing each other, they sat together on a nearby bench. Knowing more of Zynathian’s personality, Ya Minj was comfortable making other inquiries.

  “That thing…your gift that’s in my sleeping quarters this very instant—keeping quiet as I told her—she’s yours isn’t she? I mean…you did invent her, am I right?”

  “Alas, I’ve been found out!” He smiled. “How’s Marcia working out for you?”

  “Oh, she has a name? Well, Marcia is a marvelous housekeeper. I keep her hidden though, because the folks in the company are a superstitious lot, and if I revealed Marcia’s existence they’d think me a witch and murder me in my sleep!”

  “Don’t you have witches who work here at the market?” he asked with a cynical grin.

  “Everyone knows those bitches are frauds!”

  He laughed at her rudeness then fell silent, seeing Ya Minj eye him with curiosity.

  “Zynathian, how did you do it? I’ve never come across a talent like you…you’re a miracle!”

  “I beg your pardon, my Lady, but you are no slouch in the intellect category either,” he rebuttaled.

  Zynathian strode over to her plants on the table, and she followed. He ran his index finger along one of the stems and started when the plant jerked away from his finger.

  “Hah! And you call me a miracle!”

  She sighed. “Yes, but I haven’t the slightest clue why it happens! You didn’t even see my greatest creations…I sold them earlier in the day, I needed the money so badly!”

  She kicked the dirt, angry at herself.

  “What were they?”

  Ya Minj’s sadness had taken her once again, and her eyes watered as she began recounting the tale of her most prized possessions.

  “Well, it’s a complicated story. My father was a fertility specialist, and as a young girl, he often had me help him with his lab projects. When he died several years ago, he left me all of his equipment. I’ve been playing around with it for some time now, experimenting. Botany has alwa
ys been my area of interest but combined with my father’s teachings, I began to ponder the possibilities of…”

  “…plant life combined with human genes,” Zynathian finished for her.

  “Yes. I thought about it for a few years without any action, but then I realized that plants and people are not so different. Despite our sex, humans both have male parts and female parts, as do plants. The male pollen is used to fertilize the female parts of a flower, so I wondered…”

  “…what would happen if you used male pollen on a woman’s unfertilized egg?” he said, finishing her thought a second time. Zynathian frowned in disbelief. He’d never been so impressed by a woman before. “So what happened?”

  “I’m sure you know already, Zynathian.”

  “Your experiment produced a seed?”

  “Not just one...several!”

  “Incredible!”

  “And of course, I put them in rich soil, watered them, and gave them plenty of light. However, nothing happened for over twenty weeks but, between the fifth and sixth month, in the middle of winter, I might add, the most grotesque vines you’ve ever seen emerged from the earth.”

  Zynathian leered at her with growing intensity. “What did they look like?”

  “They were all joined together at different sections, much like Siamese twins. Also, each one was covered in slime and had human features. Many weeks passed, and the thick, slimy substance fell from their skin, and their colours changed as well. What was once grotesque was now beautiful. However, they remained in their sleeping state for some time. Then, one cold morning I went outdoors to find all of their eyes open. They looked upon me with these large, colourful, but inhuman eyes, staring with wonder. Then all of a sudden, the one in the middle, my favourite of the bunch, he that I would eventually name Khyetarah Vyx Mune, began making a series of unintelligible grunts, as if trying to speak to me. There was a small mouse scurrying past, and suddenly he leaned over and scooped the entire thing in his mouth! I could see the mouse struggling to get out as it slid down his rail thin, pink-skinned body, and I was so horrified at what I created, I ran indoors and didn’t look at them for a day!”

  “But the curiosity was too great to resist, I bet.”

  “Correct. I near went crazy over the next twenty-four hours, wondering what they were doing, and upon my next visit to the garden, I discovered that the mouse, whose body was once bulging from Khyetarah’s innards, had been completely digested. Not a trace of it remained, and it was clear to me then that not only could these plants eat anything, but they did so through Khyetarah. He was their mouth.”

  Ya Minj paused a moment to wipe away her tears. The more she spoke about her beloved friends of two years now, the more she realized what a catastrophic mistake she’d made in giving them away.

  She continued her tale.

  “Anyway, this time I went with a peanut butter sandwich and sat it on the ground in front of them. Khyetarah gobbled it up immediately, then looked at me and started making more noises...just as babies communicate. From this, I assumed that combined with certain manlike features, he had human intellect as well, so I took it upon myself to teach him to speak. In six months his voice went from a high pitched, children’s cry to the deep tones of an adult male. As the year turned, not only could he speak, but the others could as well. It seems that they learn through him, also. By then, I had named them all and started giving Khyetarah reading lessons.”

  “Reading lessons! How in the blazes does he turn the pages?”

  “With his tongue.”

  “My God!”

  “Anyway, I can still make beautiful exotic flowers that one can’t find anywhere else, but I have never again been able to duplicate what I did with that group. Khyetarah, Bauba, ToKu, and Eyeadore have been my closest friends for a long time now…and now they’re gone.”

  Zynathian shook his head, unable to believe that she could have parted with such creations.

  “Why did you bring them here in the first place, dear? I thought you were afraid of the people believing you were a witch?”

  “I am, but I didn’t want my plant friends to starve to death while I left home for a month to travel with the market. I had to keep them hidden in my tent. So along comes this massive bloke, a few hours ago—hugest creature I’ve ever seen with intelligence enough to speak—and asks me if I had anything other than what was at the table. He wanted a pet, kind of…said he was willing to pay top dollar. So, after a while of his pestering, I agreed to show him ‘the boys and girl,’ as I call them. I did not, however, say that I would sell them. But when he met Khyetarah and the others, he just couldn’t resist offering me a bundle of money. Knowing how poor I was at the moment, Khyetarah agreed to be sold only if he and the others were allowed visiting rights with me. Alas, I agreed. Had I known that you were going to come strolling in here with sacks of Arhyz that weigh more than my whole body, I would’ve never considered it! Now…what’s done is done.”

  “Ya Minj, Ya Minj!” He threw his head back in despair. “Do you realize how rare minds like ours are? I can see now that you don’t have the slightest clue as to the depth of your talent! I must help you with that otherwise you’re liable to do such a thing again! You should never give up such a creation, never. Not under any circumstance. No, I can’t let this be. There’s too much studying to be done…we must get them back!”

  “You can’t, Zynathian, you haven’t seen the size of the creature that purchased them. He’ll rip you limb from limb!”

  “I’ll just offer ten times as much for their return. If that’s not enough, I’ll set him up financially for life. I’ll do what I must,” he said. Then it suddenly struck Zynathian that his idea might not be all that far fetched.

  “You said he purchased them a few hours ago? Is there a chance he might still be here? This is an awfully big place.”

  She stood up and looked about the market.

  “Hmmm, I don’t know…he’s so big, one should probably see him immediately, but then there are many dark corners in this place. It’s worth a try, I guess. Okay, husband, while you’re looking, I’ll package up the plants,” she said bluntly, immediately busying herself.

  Zynathian was shocked, looking as if he’d just been slapped in the face. He had no idea he’d been that persuasive.

  “You’re serious?”

  Ya Minj looked at him like he’d asked the most foolish of questions. Zynathian repeated himself.

  “So…you agree to marry me then?” he asked, scratching his head, laughing. “Dammit, woman, you didn’t even give me the chance to do things properly!”

  He scurried around, looking about the dirt floor of the market for something suitable. When he happened upon a black and charred piece of tin foil, looking as if it had been used for barbecuing, he decided that it would have to do. Zynathian rolled it into a thin sliver and curled it, making a loop. He then took her hand and got on one knee, sliding the ridiculous piece of foil over her finger.

  (Passersby chuckled, as they watched the improvised proposal involving a tin foil ring.)

  “Will you marry me, Ya Minj?” Zynathian said, severely exaggerating the deepness of his voice in attempts to sound more suave.

  Once again, Ya Minj’s cheeks and ears were a violent shade of crimson, as she vocally considered his offer.

  “Let’s see, you’re not too bad looking and obviously absurdly wealthy...so in my book you’ve already won half the battle. You don’t have a bad mind either, and it’s important for someone as brainy as I am to have a mate who can bring a bit of intellectual stimulation to the relationship. And, to top it all off, you can surgically enhance a penis to marvelous results! At this point, it’s safe to say that you’re a keeper, and I’d be an absolute fool to reject your proposal. The answer is yes, you oaf.”

  The audience that had gathered around burst into laughter and applause. Zynathian rose and addressed them all.

  “Once we decide on a date, we’ll have the wedding within these gloriou
sly black, dirty leather walls, and you’re all invited!” he yelled in his over-exaggerated deep voice. Then he turned to kiss his fiancé. “You’re not playing with me, are you?” he asked as their lips parted.

  “Are you playing with me?” Ya Minj queried in return.

  The two simply grinned at each other. Zynathian looked down at his crudely made ring. “I promise I’ll get you a proper ring soon.”

  “Absolutely not…I think this one is lovely. Besides, it’s not jewelry I’m concerned with. What I really want is for you to retrieve my damn plants, or have you already forgotten?”

  “Blast! Sorry, love, I’m on my way!” he said, briskly jogging through the crowd. He yelled over his shoulder. “You realize we’ve been engaged for about sixty seconds, Ya Minj? What an amazing feeling!”

  As Ya Minj watched him run off into the distance, disappearing into the darkness, she marveled over the events that took place in the last half hour. Though it wasn’t in her nature to be hasty, for some reason it felt right. And she, like Zynathian, always followed her instincts.

  As she wrapped each plant in soft cloth, placing them in individual boxes, she realized that, in this instance, she wasn’t really preparing purchased merchandise for a customer. Instead, this was the first step in packing for a move to her new home…wherever it was. If she had the foresight to witness this moment, years before, Ya Minj would’ve thought herself mad. However, for all the absurdity of the situation, she could do naught but smile.

  2

  Zynathian had been frantically searching for at least three quarters of an hour and had seen hair, nor hide of a gigantic beast. But he did encounter many strange ones, all of which he’d done a study on at some point in his life. The one Ya Minj spoke of, however, sounded like something unusual, because she would’ve told him exactly what to look for otherwise. After all, she was a scientist and would’ve known its breed and all other sorts of distinctive details.

  He cut through a thick patch of wandering shoppers, suddenly stopping and running his hands through his hair as desperation seized him. He didn’t just want to retrieve the plants because he knew he’d be missing out on one of the most profound studies of his life, but he so eagerly sought them mostly because Ya Minj had been in tears over them. It would not do to disappoint her so early in their relationship.