by Aimee Bender
And then the other thing: an explosion in Heaven.
FLAMING FAT PEOPLE FALL FROM THE SKY
There’s a bright white flash, and for a moment my vision is full of blinking pink pain and squirming lines. I rub the heels of my hands against my face as pink lightning slowly subsides to sky-orange throbbing. Eventually I can see points in the orange plane: high up over the shit-dark sea, there are tumbling, burning obese bodies, growing larger, falling down out of the sky, trailing black smoke.
Mrs. Teeth sees them too, and the sight throws her into religious ecstasy. She hurls herself to the ground and moans, screaming “Forgive them! Masters, forgive them!” She tears at her hair, bashes her face against the scrap-strewn ground, and starts to weep.
The fat people loom larger in the sky now. At least a dozen of them are falling down on us.
Aimless shouts “Submarine!” and scurries over the edge of the cliff, climbing down to his battered Caravan with the battered guitar over his shoulder. Given the choice of following Aimless or remaining with Mrs. Teeth, I decide in a heartbeat. But once in the van, I can see we are well and truly trapped.
Aimless rolls up the windows, adjusts some dead knobs on the dashboard, buckles himself into the driver’s seat, and looks out over the sea. The fat people are about to splash down. The first one strikes far out to sea, and with a massive crash it explodes, tossing blubber into the sky.
Aimless asks me if I want to smoke some drugs. Never have I wanted this more.
Through the smoky haze of the Caravan’s atmosphere, I see a tidal wave of crap rising up on the horizon, and other flaming fat people shooting over to land behind us, striking the land with booming impacts. The scrap metal cliffside rattles and shifts. Either we will be dropped into the sea and drowned, or flattened by a tidal wave, or else the trash will fall on us and suffocate us.
I’m grinning with relief as I buckle my seat-belt. All of these deaths are so much nicer than being eaten by Mrs. Teeth.
Aimless is grinning with excitement. He’s going to meet his girlfriend in the shit-dark sea.
The wave strikes the cliff, and we’re flipped over as we plunge down, down, down into the ocean of excrement. The roar of explosions, crashing metal, distant screams, and the loud moaning of Mrs. Teeth are all suffocated in a cold wet plop. All is stinking blackness, while we wait to hit the bottom. Aimless peers through the glass into the sea of crap, looking for fish.
Time passes. Feces seep in slowly through cracks in the floor. The vehicle bobs and sways. We smoke more drugs. There’s nothing else to do.
I tell Aimless that I’m really enjoying dying like this. This is almost beautiful.
Aimless asks me if I still think his girlfriend is fat.
I wonder when the ocean is going to crush us.
After a while, I hear the slapping of waves against the roof of the van. We are floating. But we can’t see through the windows because they’re slathered with feces. And the bottom of the van is filling up, slowly but surely, with the ocean’s diarrhea. Aimless unbuckles himself, opens the hatch in the roof and climbs out. I follow.
Our submarine is floating on the ocean, far from home. Shit surrounds us on all sides, and the smell is twice as revolting as it is on land. But the sun is shining in the orange sky, and not far away we see a shape on the surface of the water.
It is the bobbing, charred body of a fallen fat person, still smoldering. A woman, perhaps.
Very slowly it bobs closer, facedown in the slime, while gently sloshing waves of shit lap higher against the side of the van. The roof of the vehicle is slick and treacherous, so we stand perfectly still, even as the van begins to tip, ever so slowly.
The massive black corpse is our only salvation. I don’t know how to swim, but as I slide into the shit-black sea I thrash my weak, gangly limbs and wave my trash stick in an effort to push myself towards the fat person’s body. I manage to keep my head mostly above the waves, and soon I am climbing the hot fragments of the fat person’s burned-up pearl necklace, clambering up onto its deflated back. I collapse, heaving and choking, but safe. But where is Aimless?
Aimless is still standing atop his capsizing submarine, gazing out over the waves, ignoring the fact that he’s about to drown, strumming his guitar. Oblivious to danger, that’s Aimless.
“GERTIE!” he sings over the waves. “GERTIE BABY SWEETIE!”
If any imaginary whales can hear him shouting, they’re keeping mum about it.
After much screaming, I finally convince him to throw me a line: a knotted-together collection of short lengths of twenty kinds of rope. His rope collection.
Using it, I haul his van alongside the bloated body, and he hops aboard, guitar in one hand, telescope in the other, just as the vehicle rolls upside-down and bubbles under. Aimless stares down in dismay as the sucking whirlpool steals his submarine, home to his nautical-supplies collection, his collection of vintage soda cans, his dead insect collection, his rubber snake collection, his charts, his dreams and his drugs. All his riches, his life’s work, slithering down into the shit-dark sea.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “Gertie’s going to love it.”
With my trash stick I scrape a hole in the back of the fat person, through its expensive dress, its expensive blouse, its expensive blubbery skin. Beneath that is an expensive metal shell which blunts my stick. My father told me the fat people were floating castles full of food and money. But even in death they won’t share it with us.
I’m hungry. The fat person’s skin itself is delicious, especially the parts that have been char-broiled in the sky. The flame-roasted Prada dress is tougher than most clothing I’ve eaten, but not bad.
We sit on the floating fat woman’s back—our own private island, warm, soft, round, upholstered in wool and food. We watch the urine sun sink down into the toilet Earth. Our bellies are full, and we’re free.
That night the sky is clear and I can see the sky full of perfect stars. The stars are the only things I know that don’t have shit all over them. They’re beautiful. I would give anything to prevent the fat people from soiling them, but I’m not hopeful.
Aimless sings to his girlfriend for a while, and then we both lie down to sleep.
MARTHA HILTON-TRUMP THE TWELFTH
In the middle of the night, a booming, blubbery, gurgling panic of a voice starts screaming beneath us:
“Lice ... maggots! Get them off me!”
It appears that the floating fat person is not quite dead.
“Parasites! Daddy!”
For a moment I see my latest death: drowning in shit, while the fat person pisses on me. But it remains motionless.
“Daddy! I’m stuck! Help me right now! They’re eating me!”
Not a twitch from the giant fat fingers. Not a nod from the huge floating head. I stab into the ground with my trash stick.
“Ow! Stop it!”
Stab, stab, stab.
“OW! Daddy! Mommy!”
And still, it doesn’t move.
Stab! Stab, stab, stab! The giant fat bastard is crying now! The ones who ate so many of us, the ones who ate my father, who shat on my family! Stab, stab! It cries out in pain and yet it’s still powerless! The ones who humped each other screaming in the sky for hours, while we buried our heads in the shit to block out the sound ... the ones who fucked up the world ...
Stab! Stab! Stab!
Then Aimless puts a hand on my stabbing stick. He looks pained, worried.
The anger drains out of me in an instant. We listen to the pathetic, booming sobs of fat pain and fat fear. So human.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Yeah, right!” it sneers. “Parasite! Maggot! Let me go! My daddy is going to eat you! Waaaaaaah!”
Eventually it stops crying. It tell us its name: Martha Hilton-Trump the Twelfth. It tells us it’s one of the richest women in Heaven, it’s college-educated, and its father, Danforth Hilton-Trump the Eleventh, is an extremely powerful and important fat person w
ho is going to eat us. We take turns watching the sky with Aimless’s telescope, but no fat people are approaching to eat us at this time.
I tell Martha my name is Cheeseburger, and she laughs. So I stab, just a little bit. This upsets Aimless, but I hate when people laugh at my name.
Aimless asks Martha Hilton-Trump if she sees any whales down in the ocean. And Martha Hilton-Trump the Twelfth laughs some more.
Night turns back to day. The sky is still empty of fat people. Aimless and I fix breakfast, to the loud protestation of Martha Hilton-Trump.
“AAAAAAA!” she gurgles. “Daddy! They’re eating me!”
“We’re eating a tiny, small piece of your clothing,” I say. “Shut up.”
“Ow! It’s mine! And you’re eating it!”
“Why not? You’re dead anyway.”
She is silent for a while, as thick waves of shit lap against her body, as her greasy shit-soaked hair floats out around her face-down head like a blonde carpet, as we eat her dress and welcome the day.
Then the weeping begins. No more threats, no more complaints, just loud, hacking, heaving sobs that swell into loud bawling, retreat back to sobbing, swell and retreat.
We sit and listen to this all day. We scream at her to shut up! We stamp on her flesh, pound her, stab her, pull her hair, but the wailing carries on. I wrap long strips of her shitty fried clothing around my head to block out the sound, but the sound is too loud.
Such pain! Such anguish! Such terrified misery! Never did I cry as loud or as long as this, not when the fat people ate my father, not when Mrs. Teeth ate my mother, never. Oh, how the sobs of this enormous fat woman claw at the armor of my soul!
The fat people are sadder than we are; they have so much more to lose.
Eventually, to block out the noise, Aimless starts to strum his guitar as loud as he can. Finding a tune, he sings a lullaby for Martha Hilton-Trump the Twelfth:
Sleep pretty baby,
darling, sleep,
Rock on the tide
of the warm dark deep.
Your Daddy will come,
in the morning you’ll ride.
Sleep pretty darling
and rock on the tide
Sleep pretty baby,
rock on the tide
Your Mommy is waiting
at home in the sky
At home in the sky,
your Mommy will keep.
So rock on the tide,
and sleep, baby, sleep.
He sings this over and over, strumming the guitar, and Martha Hilton-Trump the Twelfth seems to hear it. The sobbing boils away slowly as night falls, receding into deep wracking coughs, and then silence. But Aimless keeps on playing his guitar for hours, as the sun goes to sleep in its bed of shit, and even the stars lower their orange screen and come out to listen.
The next morning, the dead fat person called Martha Hilton-Trump has changed her dead fat-person tune. Now she wants to know Aimless’s name, and where Aimless’s from, and what it was like for Aimless growing up in a stinking pile of shit instead of a fluffy floating cloud of food and money. And he tells her some stories about his youth, and she says “Oh, you poor dear!” and “I never even imagined!” And she tells us some stories from her youth, all of which are revoltingly luxurious, even the supposedly bad parts.
Martha Hilton-Trump says she likes Aimless’s singing. She asks for more. And for a whole day, she doesn’t once threaten us with being chewed up and swallowed by her rich daddy.
I think Martha Hilton-Trump the Twelfth is in love with Aimless.
But she has nothing to say to me.
THE BLOODY HATCHET
All this time, we have been taking turns watching the skies with the telescope, waiting for the arrival of Martha Hilton-Trump’s father, or any other fat people. When we see them, we know we’re dead. But so far we don’t see them.
However, that afternoon, we see something else: a shape on the horizon.
A ship!
Father told me about ships. I’ve even seen ships. Aimless had half of a book about ships somewhere in his submarine. They are like big floating boxes with sticks coming out of them, and on the sticks are bags of wind. And this is one of them, a sailing ship, sailing to meet us. Atop the tallest spire it flies two flags: one red, one black.
Aimless gives Martha Hilton-Trump the news, and Martha starts to cringe and whinge and weep all over again.
“It’s the Bloody Hatchet! The terror of the shit-dark seas! Daddy!”
It grows slowly on the horizon, at the rate toadstools used to grow before we ate all the toadstools. It takes most of an hour to reach us. Fat person Martha Hilton-Trump is inconsolable the whole time. The Bloody Hatchet is a scavenger ship, she tells us, a zombie ghost ship that picks apart the dead and rapes the living. The ship’s insane crew never stops laughing. “They’ll flay me and fillet me!” says Martha.
“Why doesn’t your fat daddy just eat them for you?” I ask. And Martha starts bawling.
She begs Aimless to protect her. As if Aimless could do anything with his little guitar against a ship full of laughing zombies.
Slowly, slowly, the Bloody Hatchet looms closer. It’s a beautiful ship, fast and tall. Through the telescope I can make out shapes of people on the bow, staring back at us through their own telescopes. Two of them wave. I wave back. They seem friendly.
“They’ll boil my bones! They’ll steam my spleen!” Martha is howling in fear now, as Aimless frantically strums on the guitar, trying to calm her down.
The ship glides toward us. The people on the deck are still waving their greeting. I can hear their laughter. I can see their faces now.
And on the very bow of the ship, arms outstretched to embrace us, I see a member of my family! My aunt!
Mrs. Teeth!
“Hallelujah!” she cries.
THE PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE FOR RAPING AND PILLAGING
The Bloody Hatchet pulls up alongside Martha Hilton-Trump; its pirates swing down from the deck on ropes, happy, laughing, eager to meet us. They are all so nice! And so well-fed! They are muscular and tan and strong, you can tell they eat well. And they wear clothing: ragged red sweaters and tattered black trousers, all of it warm and beautiful. They’re so healthy, so alive. They shake our hands, pat our backs, and offer us water.
Water! I’ve heard of it, but never seen it. It’s the cleanest thing I’ve ever tasted.
Mrs. Teeth smiles from the deck, waving down at me, drooling.
The largest of the pirates boards us. He is a huge tree of a man, wearing a heavy black coat and a black beret with one gold-embroidered red star. He introduces himself as People’s Captain Slasher-Jones, the chairman of The People’s Committee for Raping and Pillaging. He bows a long, elegant bow, and asks us how long we’ve been stranded, if we’re sick, if we’re thirsty, and if we’d like to come on board to drink grog and dance a jig in celebration of our rescue.
Mrs. Teeth is hopping up and down with mad glee, waving at me, blowing kisses. Aimless sees her too, but says nothing.
While People’s Captain Slasher-Jones congratulates us on our impressive catch, and tells us how thrilled he would be to take us aboard and introduce us to the members of the Steering Subcommittee and the Jig Subcommittee and the Grog Subcommittee, a team of men from the Pillaging Subcommittee are already stripping Martha Hilton-Trump of valuables. Using long pole-hooks, they expertly snag the pearl necklace, sever it from her neck and hoist it on deck. Then they lasso an arm, hauling it up from the fecal depths, and strip it of a ladies’ Rolex, some gold rings and a few other giant baubles of gold and silver. The pirates gather around the pile of booty on the deck, whooping with joy.
Through this all, Martha Hilton-Trump remains silent, playing dead. Through it all, Mrs. Teeth leers at me from the deck, drooling with excitement.
The People’s Captain is waiting for our answer. He says if we join the pirate crew, we will sail together, battling the fat people and living on the sea. He says I can be the
People’s Watchman, riding on the top of the mast with my telescope, and Aimless can be the People’s Singer-Songwriter, composing some desperately needed new jigs, subject to the approval of the Jig Subcommittee.
Aimless asks the captain: what will happen to our fat person?
Captain Slasher-Jones is sympathetic to Aimless’s concerns. He places his beret over his heart and solemnly swears that absolutely nothing will happen to Martha Hilton-Trump without a plebiscite of the People’s Pillaging, Raping, Devouring and Jettisoning Subcommittees.
All around us, the pirates are yelling: join us! Please, join us!
I stand at the edge of Martha Hilton-Trump’s expansive ass and gaze deep down into the shit-dark sea. I’ve always known I’d end up down there. The only question has been when.
I look to Aimless. Aimless stares into the hole of his guitar, thinking.
But what choice do we have?
When we announce our decision, the pirate host shouts a unanimous “Hurrah!”
Then, Martha Hilton-Trump the Twelfth commences to weep.
STATUS REPORT FROM THE PEOPLE’S LOOKOUT SUBCOMMITTEE
For three days I have sat on the top of this pole. I will probably die here.
For three days Aimless and I have been pirates. As soon as I climbed on deck, Mrs. Teeth chased me around the ship, while all the pirates laughed. So I scurried up this pole with my telescope and my poking stick. Captain Slasher-Jones says my job is to keep the lookout. I am the Special Investigator of the People’s Lookout Subcommittee.
With one eye I gaze out across the shit-dark sea with the telescope, confirming the ocean’s constant, stinking emptiness, and the sky’s curious lack of marauding fat people. With my other eye I watch Mrs. Teeth, who leers up at me from the bottom of the pole, making kissy-faces.
