by Aimee Bender
“Eaten from within.” A dull woman at the very end of the table repeated this in a parrot-like manner. She wore a large dome cap, the obvious fashion of one hosting an organism on her head. Hers appeared tall and slightly conical; I was very interested in what type of creature it might be, but it is considered rude to ask about other people’s organisms—they are ultimately too much of a bodily function.
“But we feed the ants so they don’t have to eat me. I come here once a month so you can put their food inside.”
An authoritarian doctor whispered something to my doctor, who whispered to me. “They’re not eating it anymore.”
I whispered back to him. “Can we start feeding them something more enticing? A different bone-substitute? Ground bones from animals? Or maybe even the dead?” I knew it was a tasteless suggestion, but I did have money and my life was apparently in danger. The authoritarian doctor scooted back in his rolling-chair and looked at his shoes.
“No,” my doctor said, and then he stood. His hands lifted slightly above his head. “This is not about consumption. It is an act of interspecies war!”
In the following weeks, my strength and health deteriorated until I was finally admitted to a very special hospital ward. It was a room my doctor had built onto his existing home just for me.
Around this time, the doctor also started wearing a large sack around his waist—to conceal his organism, I assumed, whatever it might be. It must’ve grown larger since when I’d first met him. I was grateful my organism wasn’t making me wear a sack around my waist, even if it was eating me alive. The sack made a swish noise when he walked; in motion the doctor sounded like a giant broom.
This swishing became more and more of a comfort as I gradually lost my vision. The doctor reminded me that when one door closes another opens, and this was true; I did seem to be gaining a sort of ant-sight. My ears began to turn away from human sounds as well, but soon I could pick up more ant noises. Around the third week I requested that my room’s television be taken away. When my eyes were closed I could see various dark caves and swarming ant-limbs, and these images gradually started to feel preferential to anything I might view of the outer world.
“I’m becoming them,” I said one night when I heard my doctor swish in. “I’m becoming the ants.”
I heard him pull up a chair and sit down next to me. “It is wonderful, isn’t it? My swan, my pet?”
He hadn’t called me those things before, but I was in no condition to disagree. My arms and legs could no longer move—I could only move through the ants. It was like having hundreds of different hands. I could make them go anywhere and do anything inside my body; I’d even started eating with them. Though I didn’t necessarily want to devour my own bone, I had an insatiable hunger, and there was a commanding voice, Eat, Walk, Lift, Chomp, it was my own voice but much deeper, not exactly masculine but echoing and confident, like my home was a large cave and I firmly believed in everything I said. I seemed able to express only one word at a time, but this felt more liberating than restrictive—suddenly every word could be a full representation of myself.
I lost all track of time. Eventually I was certain of only two things: the appetite was getting out of control, and my old eyes were completely gone.
“The rest of the world thinks that you’ve died,” the doctor told me. As he swished into the room, there was the sound of yards and yards of material being unwrapped and lifted. His words seemed round with satisfaction. “You cannot see it, but I have just unveiled the portal.”
I would’ve answered him, but I was no longer sure if my voice still made a sound or if words even came out when I felt like I was talking.
“It is right here on my waist; I’ve been making paths inside of me just as there are paths inside of you. After you first came to see me, I reported to the government that I, too, hold ants inside my body, but I don’t. Not yet. It is your ants I’m after. You have now become the ants who have fed on you; your consciousness is united with theirs. And when you all crawl inside of me, we will all be one forever.” As his voice continued I could feel the ants rallying, see their legs beginning to kick with heightened motion. “I never actually fed the ants you’ve become; I simply allowed them to eat you whole. But you will not eat me. I will feed you properly so that you don’t. We will share my stomach—I’ve inserted a tube whereby everything I swallow will also be accessible to your minions, your thousands of minions that are now you entirely and do your bidding. I have always loved you, and when you came to my office, I knew this was my chance to make you mine.”
And then I smelled something irresistible and began to crawl towards it, into the new pink-grey cave that must be the doctor. If what he said was true, in a primary way I was somewhat grateful to get inside of him—if I was now just thousands of swarming ants I did not wish to be in the public eye.
Once we had transferred, I was pleased to realize that I could see through the doctor’s eyes as well as those of my ants. It is calming, to look through the eyes of another person. It stills your own thoughts almost to a halt.
“Do you love me?”
The doctor likes to ask this; he does so almost every hour. Although I cannot speak, he always smiles afterwards and says that he loves me too.
Throughout the day I have all types of sensations. Some are good, others worry me, but my fears can’t grow so big that they reach outside of his body. Nothing can move beyond this body, so in a way I feel like I am the world, and he is the world, the same way that lovers feel. “How strange,” I often think, though I try not to let him hear me thinking it, “to have so much in common with an unattractive man.”
And then there is the evening, when sunlight pours into the window like nectar. He sits down to the dinner table in front of a large mirror—I think so that I can see him, though maybe he has figured out a way to see me. Then he carefully opens the bag of sugar with a knife. When I hear this sound, each of my ants jump and he smiles, his legs and arms contract whether he likes it or not. And though they are his own, I feel as if I guide his fingertips, that the tiniest of my workers go down into the marrow of his thumb and help to grip the teaspoon.
I love watching him eat. Teaspoon after teaspoon disappears into his mouth; his saliva coats the spoon’s surface with stuck granules that change its color from silver to a crusty white. I cannot decide if he did me a favor or if I’m a victim. When I try to think, all I can feel is the sugar fluid, and a rage that comes when I find myself, after our feedings, somewhat hungry.
FIRE DOG
JOE R. LANSDALE
When Jim applied for the dispatcher job, the fire department turned him down, but the Fire Chief offered him something else. “Our fire dog, Rex, is retiring. You might want that job. Pays good and the retirement is great.”
“Fire dog?” Jim said.
“That’s right.”
“Well, I don’t know . . .”
“Suit yourself.”
Jim considered. “I suppose I could give it a try—”
“Actually, we prefer greater dedication than that. We don’t just want someone to give it a try. Being fire dog is an important job.”
“Very well,” Jim said. “I’ll take it.”
“Good.”
The Chief opened a drawer, pulled out a spotted suit with tail and ears, pushed it across the desk.
“I have to wear this?”
“How the hell you gonna be the fire dog, you don’t wear the suit?”
“Of course.”
Jim examined the suit. It had a hole for his face, his bottom, and what his mother had called his pee-pee.
“Good grief,” Jim said. “I can’t go around with my . . . well, you know, my stuff hanging out.”
“How many dogs you see wearing pants?”
“Well, Goofy comes to mind.”
“Those are cartoons. I haven’t got time to screw around here. You either want the job, or you don’t.”
“I want it.”
“By t
he way. You sure Goofy’s a dog?”
“Well, he looks like a dog. And he has that dog, Pluto.”
“Pluto, by the way, doesn’t wear pants.”
“You got me there.”
“Try on the suit, let’s see if it needs tailoring.”
The suit fit perfectly, though Jim did feel a bit exposed. Still, he had to admit there was something refreshing about the exposure. He wore the suit into the break room, following the Chief.
Rex, the current fire dog, was sprawled on the couch watching a cop show. His suit looked worn, even a bit smoke stained. He was tired around the eyes. His jowls drooped.
“This is our new fire dog,” the Chief said.
Rex turned and looked at Jim, said, “I’m not out the door, already you got a guy in the suit?”
“Rex, no hard feelings. You got what, two, three days? We got to be ready. You know that.”
Rex sat up on the couch, adjusted some pillows and leaned into them. “Yeah, I know. But, I’ve had this job nine years.”
“And in dog years that’s a lot.”
“I don’t know why I can’t just keep being the fire dog. I think I’ve done a good job.”
“You’re our best fire dog yet. Jim here has a lot to live up to.”
“I only get to work nine years?” Jim said.
“In dog years you’d be pretty old, and it’s a decent retirement.”
“Is he gonna take my name too?” Rex said.
“No,” the Chief said, “of course not. We’ll call him Spot.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” said Rex. “You really worked on that one.”
“It’s no worse than Rex.”
“Hey, Rex is a good name.”
“I don’t like Spot,” Jim said. “Can’t I come up with something else?”
“Dogs don’t name themselves,” the Chief said. “Your name is Spot.”
“Spot,” Rex said, “don’t you think you ought to get started by coming over here and sniffing my butt?”
The first few days at work Spot found riding on the truck to be uncomfortable. He was always given a tool box to sit on so that he could be seen, as this was the fire department’s way. They liked the idea of the fire dog in full view, his ears flapping in the wind. It was very promotional for the mascot to be seen.
Spot’s exposed butt was cold on the tool box, and the wind not only blew his ears around, it moved another part of his anatomy about. That was annoying.
He did, however, enjoy the little motorized tail-wagging device he activated with a touch of a finger. He found that got him a lot of snacks from the firemen. He was especially fond of liver snacks.
After three weeks on the job, Spot found his wife Sheila to be very friendly. After dinner one evening, when he went to the bedroom to remove his dog suit, he discovered Sheila lying on their bed wearing a negligee and a pair of dog ears attached to a hair band.
“Feel frisky, Spot?”
“Jim.”
“Whatever. Feel frisky?”
“Well, yeah. Let me shed the suit, take a shower . . .”
“You don’t need a shower . . . And baby, leave the suit on, will you?”
They went at it.
“You know how I want it,” she said.
“Yeah. Doggie style.”
“Good boy.”
After sex, Sheila liked to scratch his belly and behind his ears. He used the tail-wagging device to show how much he appreciated it. This wasn’t so bad, he thought. He got less when he was a man.
Though his sex life had improved, Spot found himself being put outside a lot, having to relieve himself in a corner of the yard while his wife looked in the other direction, her hand in a plastic bag, ready to use to pick up his deposits.
He only removed his dog suit now when Sheila wasn’t around. She liked it on him at all times. At first he was insulted, but the sex was so good, and his life was so good, he relented. He even let her call him Spot all the time.
When she wasn’t around, he washed and dried his suit carefully, ironed it. But he never wore anything else. When he rode the bus to work, everyone wanted to pet him. One woman even asked if he liked poodles because she had one.
At work he was well-respected and enjoyed being taken to schools with the Fire Chief. The Chief talked about fire prevention. Spot wagged his tail, sat up, barked, looked cute by turning his head from side to side.
He was even taken to his daughter’s class once. He heard her say proudly to a kid sitting next to her, “That’s my Daddy. He’s the fire dog.”
His chest swelled with pride. He made his tail wag enthusiastically.
The job really was the pip. You didn’t have fires every day, so Spot lay around all day most days, on the couch sometimes, though some of the firemen would run him off and make him lie on the floor when they came in. But the floor had rugs on it and the television was always on, though he was not allowed to change the channels. Some kind of rule, a union thing. The fire dog can not and will not change channels.
He did hate having to take worm medicine, and the annual required trips to the vet were no picnic either. Especially the thermometer up the ass part.
But, hell, it was a living, and not a bad one. Another plus was after several months of trying, he was able to lick his balls.
At night, when everyone was in their bunks and there were no fires, Spot would read from Call of the Wild, White Fang, Dog Digest, or such, or lie on his back with all four feet in the air, trying to look cute.
He loved it when the firemen came in and caught him that way and ooohheeed and ahhhhhed and scratched his belly or patted his head.
This went on for just short of nine years. Then, one day, while he was lying on the couch, licking his ass—something he had cultivated after three years on the job—the Fire Chief and a guy in a dog suit came in. “This is your replacement, Spot,” the Chief said.
“What?”
“Well, it has been nine years.”
“You didn’t tell me. Has it been? You’re sure? Aren’t you supposed to warn me? Rex knew his time was up. Remember?”
“Not exactly. But if you say so. Spot, meet Hal.”
“Hal? What kind of dog’s name is that? Hal?”
But it was no use. By the end of the day he had his personal dog biscuits, pinups from Dog Digest, and his worm-away medicine packed. There was also a spray can the firemen used to mist on his poop to keep him from eating it. The can of spray didn’t really belong to him, but he took it anyway.
He picked up his old clothes, went into the changing room. He hadn’t worn anything but the fire dog suit in years, and it felt odd to try his old clothes on. He could hardly remember ever wearing them. He found they were a bit moth-eaten, and he had gotten a little too plump for them. The shoes fit, but he couldn’t tolerate them.
He kept the dog suit on. He caught the bus and went home.
“What? You lost your job?” his wife said.
“I didn’t lose anything. They retired me.”
“You’re not the fire dog?”
“No. Hal is the fire dog.”
“I can’t believe it. I give you nine great years—”
“We’ve been married eleven.”
“I only count the dog years. Those were the good ones, you know.”
“Well, I don’t have to quit being a dog. Hell, I am a dog.”
“You’re not the fire dog. You’ve lost your position, Spot. Oh, I can’t even stand to think about it. Outside. Go on. Git. Outside.”
Spot went.
After a while he scratched on the door, but his wife didn’t let him in. He went around back and tried there. That didn’t work either. He looked in the windows, but couldn’t see her.
He lay down in the yard.
That night it rained, and he slept under the car, awakened just in time to keep his wife from backing over him on her way to work.
That afternoon he waited, but his wife did not return at the usual time. Five o’clock was when he came h
ome from the fire house, and she was always waiting, and he had a feeling it was at least five o’clock, and finally the sun went down and he knew it was late.
Still, no wife.
Finally, he saw headlights and a car pulled into the drive. Sheila got out. He ran to meet her. To show he was interested, he humped her leg.
She kicked him loose. He noticed she was holding a leash. Out of the car came Hal.
“Look who I got. A real dog.”
Spot was dumbfounded.
“I met him today at the fire house, and well, we hit it off.”
“You went by the fire house?”
“Of course.”
“What about me?” Spot asked.
“Well, Spot, you are a little old. Sometimes, things change. New blood is necessary.”
“Me and Hal, we’re going to share the house?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She took Hal inside. Just before they closed the door, Hal slipped a paw behind Sheila’s back and shot Spot the finger.
When they were inside, Spot scratched on the door in a half-hearted way. No soap.
Next morning Sheila hustled him out of the shrubbery by calling his name. She didn’t have Hal with her.
Great! She had missed him. He bounded out, his tongue dangling like a wet sock. “Come here, Spot.”
He went. That’s what dogs did. When the master called, you went to them. He was still her dog. Yes sirree, Bob. “Come on, boy.” She hustled him to the car.
As he climbed inside on the back seat and she shut the door, he saw Hal come out of the house stretching. He looked pretty happy. He walked over to the car and slapped Sheila on the butt.
“See you later, baby.”
“You bet, you dog you.”
Hal walked down the street to the bus stop. Spot watched him by turning first to the back glass, then rushing over to the side view glass.
Sheila got in the car.
“Where are we going?” Spot asked.
“It’s a surprise,” she said.
“Can you roll down the window back here a bit?”
“Sure.”
