by Aimee Bender
A hearty cheer rang out from the crew.
“Who among ye might place this motion on the agenda?”
Another cheer rang out.
“Who among ye might move this motion to the top of the agenda, given its priority?”
Another cheer.
“Who among ye might discuss this motion?”
Then began much shouting and confusion, as the People’s Committee carried the Captain’s motion through their arcane decision-making process. The motion was affirmed, recorded, amended, reaffirmed and re-recorded. Debate was extended, although there was no opposition. Fiscal impact and environmental impact were both assessed. Fingers were wiggled. It was very boring. And through it all, Mrs. Teeth scraped away at my pole from below. Scrape, scrape, scrape.
Then I noticed Aimless. He was standing waist-deep in the hatch in Martha Hilton-Trump’s floating charred head, waving at me.
And I saw that the fat, toasted carcass of Martha Hilton-Trump rode very high in the water, much higher than before. And I thought I heard a rumbling, a mechanical hum, in the tone of her voice.
What is Aimless doing in there?
The ire of the fat people is rising. The clouds are blistering brown-black smoke dragons, pregnant with thunderbolts. Hot diarrhea starts to drizzle down on us. The pirates have finished their plebiscite, two hours after they begun, with much laughter and much shouting.
It is finally resolved: the pirates will fight the fat sky-bastards to the death.
Mrs. Teeth is making good progress, I think. As the rough sea tosses our boat, my pole flexes farther than ever, and I sometimes hear tiny splintering crackles in the wood.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
Martha Hilton-Trump is making ominous noises: whirring, sucking, pinging, gurgling, ticking. Aimless is in there somewhere, busying himself with something insane. Occasionally he scurries out of Martha’s head, runs down her back, peers at something in the water below her huge charred buttocks, then scurries back inside. But not before waving at me.
THE FINAL SHITSTORM
Now it begins. Shit-encrusted lambskin steering wheel covers flutter down from the sky and plop on the deck. Then come shit-covered iPhones. The men slash at the sky with their swords, deflecting the hail, laughing. They’ve seen worse.
Then, the My Little Ponies come tumbling down, covered in feces. They bounce and skitter across the deckboards. One smacks directly on my skull, kicking me with its little plastic hooves. I feel what might be a tiny trickle of blood behind my ear, or perhaps just diarrhea
Boardgames covered in shit. Air Jordans covered in shit. It keeps coming, but the men just laugh. Really it’s not so bad. We’ve all seen worse.
I wonder, have the fat people grown weak? Have they not yet recovered all their power?
But then come the children’s bicycles. Crashing down hard and shitty, exploding into whirling pink plastic and steel skeletons when they strike. One pirate is crushed by a direct hit. Another man’s throat is impaled on a seat-post decorated with plastic horses. Shrapnel flies everywhere. The captain is felled by a ricocheting Spider-Man chain guard to the face, but he regains his footing. “Fight, scalawags!” he cries as blood streams from his eye, but the smarter pirates dive below deck and cower, while the pink and black metal hail smashes apart the railings and chops at the deck. Only myself, the Captain, and Mrs. Teeth remain topside. Oblivious to the danger, Mrs. Teeth is still sawing frantically with her little metal knife. I see the blood-blisters in her hand, and the madness in her eyes.
Then a sideways-gliding pink mini-bike shoots down from on high, coming straight at me, its handlebar streamers screaming! It strikes the mast hard, just below my foot. With a rough crunch of yielding wood, the mast tips sideways a dozen degrees, settling into a wounded stoop.
The People’s Captain stands on the bow, surveying the carnage with his remaining eye, as death bombs down from the sky on little girls’ pink bicycles. He sees the mast teetering, and then he spots, for the first time, what Mrs. Teeth is doing and has been doing all this time with her rotten little knife.
In a glance, he sees why she has spurned him. He understands the object of her obsession, and why she is so often by the mast and so rarely at his side. He sees what love has wrought.
With a great leap Captain Slasher-Jones crosses the deck and draws his scabbard. With a wrenching scream of misery, he decapitates the woman he loves. Mrs. Teeth’s hideous head tumbles through the broken railing and plops into the shit-dark sea, her animal eyes leering at me all the while.
But her headless body clings to the crooked mast, and keeps on scraping away with its little metal saw.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
Then the storm pauses. Up in the sky, directly above us, a bright orange light boils away a hole in the clouds, as a roaring, swirling wind yanks at the broken sails. The hole in the clouds opens wider, and through the telescope I see clearly the immense Prada shoes on the fat feet of, the vast Dolce & Gabbana sport-coat around the lunar girth of, the enormous Tommy Hilfiger necktie around the angry, flabby neck of, the titanic Gucci sunglasses on the scowling evil face of ... the biggest, fattest, ugliest, meanest fat person I have ever seen in the whole of my filthy useless life. My life that is about to end.
I look to Martha Hilton-Trump, whose daddy is finally coming.
But now, with Aimless waving from the hatch in her head, Martha Hilton-Trump’s body is slowly rising, fattening, re-inflating with gas, and now I see that mad Aimless has actually repaired something in her, because she rises above the waves, dripping with shit, and slowly hovers closer.
The Captain stares in shock at the oncoming family drama. Martha Hilton-Trump’s charred body floats up beside me, and from the top of her head Aimless tosses to me the frayed end of his rope collection. I tug weakly on the line with my one good hand.
“Aimless!” I yell through the roaring wind. “What are you doing? You’re going to get killed!”
“We’re going traveling!” he yells. “Come with us! There’s lots of room!”
“What about Gertie?” I ask. “Aren’t you in love with a whale?”
For a little while, there’s nothing but the whirling of the wind and the roar of fat engines.
“Gertie’s a wonderful lady,” he says. “But me and Martha have a really special thing going. I mean ... there’s a kitchen in here!”
The mast teeters and creaks. Down below the Captain stares up in shock and horror, as the headless lady scrapes, scrapes, scrapes.
Love! You can’t burn it, you can’t eat it, you can’t depend on it, or argue with it, or explain it. You can’t even kill it! It just grabs you by the neck and marches you into the shit-dark sea.
I wouldn’t take ten buckets of Love for one handful of my own shit.
“We gotta make time,” shouts Aimless. “Just tie the rope around you and I’ll haul you up. There’s a sofa in here. And a mini-bar!”
“Go eat your fucking mini-bar!” I say. “I’m in love with Gertie! And I’m going to meet her!”
Admitting that miserable truth, I let go of Aimless’s rope-collection. It twirls down to the deck below.
The horrible fat father looms over us like a toxic cloud, staring down, clenching and unclenching its fat fingers, its sunglassed face grimacing in horror. Its fat anguished voice thunderclaps in my ears:
MARTHA!
Aimless shrugs. Then he ducks back inside the head of his new girlfriend, and they rocket past Daddy into the sky.
But Captain Slasher-Jones will not be denied. He seizes the other end of Aimless’s rope collection and expertly lashes it around the stout brass anchor cleat on the bow. When the slack runs out, the ship jerks violently and my broken mast tips sideways, dangling me over the edge of the ship.
Gazing down into the shit-dark sea, I search for my beloved.
With a mighty roar of Martha Hilton-Trump’s engines, the Bloody Hatchet is dragged, creaking and swaying, up out of the ocean and into the sky! The pirat
es peer out from below deck in confusion, while the People’s Captain laughs and laughs. The knots of Aimless’s threadbare rope shudder as the they tighten, the fibers crackle and twist under the strain. The wind screams.
Now we rise up past the face of the fat father, its huge head twice as large as the ship. It removes its sunglasses. Where its eyes should be are two bloody, grinding metal mouths. Its third mouth gapes open, screaming with the horror of a father’s love:
MARTHA!
Its seizes the ship in a stubby squeezing hand. Captain Slasher lassoes the huge fat fingers clawing at his deck. The loud ticking of three gigantic Rolex watches echoes from its wrist.
“Now, my comrades! Now!” screams the People’s Captain, and the mad pirates of the Committee for Raping and Pillaging pour out from below deck and swarm over the monstrous hand, stabbing and slashing at it. They climb up its fat wrist, into the fat sleeve of its fat sport-coat, slashing and stabbing and setting fire to the fabric. Captain Slasher winds more thick ropes around the fat father’s fingers and lashes them to the cleat. Two other pirates drive red-hot harpoons under its fingernails.
The powerful machinery of Martha Hilton-Trump’s ascension roars still louder, straining still harder, and we rise still higher into the sky. The ratty, knotted tow-rope twitches and shudders. The fat father writhes and screams, helpless. It’s so fat and round that its left arm can’t reach its right to rescue it. The laughing horde of pirates surges forward up its arm, toward its fat neck and head. It flails blindly, swatting our boat against its great belly again and again, trying to flatten the crawling attackers. The hull fractures, the deckboards snap, the bow bends in upon itself, and my mast snaps cleanly free from the hull and tumbles to the broken deck, snagged in various ropes and turnbuckles. Through it all, Captain Slasher-Jones clings to the brass cleat, laughing and laughing as we rise higher and higher.
I look out over the wide horizon, shit-dark and pestilent in all directions, without a scrap of land, a scrap of anything clean or safe to cling to anywhere
Martha Hilton-Trump and her father tug against each other with all their power. From far on high, Aimless shouts my name.
CHEESEBURGER! CUT THE LINE!
Me? But I’m still strapped to this pole, unable to move, my broken hand throbbing as the mast spins around the deck, as the Bloody Hatchet whips through the sky, as the fat father howls in pain and panic, as the pirates crawl all over the fat father’s face and through its hair, laughing, stabbing.
And now, the headless body of Mrs. Teeth is staggering blindly toward me, humping its way along the length of the mast, stabbing the air with its sharp little saw. Even headless she won’t leave me alone!
Love!
I call to the Captain: “Cut the line!”
The one-eyed Captain sneers at me with wounded laughter. “Drown in shit, ye treacherous pond-scum!”
“Please, Captain! Cut the line! We’re rising too high!”
The Captain shows me the middle finger on his free hand. “Rise high on this, ye filthy pigeon! Ye deck-crapping troglodyte!”
I recognize the sadness in his mad laughter. “What have ye got?” he cries, staring at me dumbfounded. “What speck of manhood? What did she find in ye so desirable, ye drifting dingleberry? I’m the People’s Captain! And I loved her so!”
Then he releases the giant brass cleat, draws his bloody sword, and climbs toward me across the heaving deck with murder in his one good eye.
Love!
I AM ABOUT TO DIE
It seems certain that I am about to die in one of the following awful ways:
I may be raped and sawn apart by a headless madwoman.
I may be crushed to diarrhea between the rolling mast and the flying ship, or impaled on broken, twisted planks.
The People’s Captain may slice me in two, in his jealousy.
The fat father may eat me, as my father was eaten before me.
I may asphyxiate in space, if we rise much higher.
I may fall down into the shit-dark sea and drown.
Or, most likely: all of these, in quick succession.
I’ve always expected to die, and I never held any hope that my death would be pleasant. Lately I have even longed to die, fantasized of escaping this cruel, tiring, pointless life.
But I would like to have a choice, just one choice, before I die. I would like to do one thing for any reason at all besides this awful habit of prolonging my life and this piercing hunger in my guts.
Nobody gets what they want, or what they deserve. Nobody gets anything anymore, except the fat people. For the rest of us this world is a hell of shit and pain; only the mad are suited to it.
But I demand to make a choice! I demand that one thing about this world be changed by my brief suffering. I can’t die until I’ve left my mark! I don’t care if it’s selfish, but I just want to change the world in some tiny, lasting way. Any change at all would be an improvement.
The fat father writhes, and the ship heaves, and the mast skitters and rolls, and suddenly the Captain and Mrs. Teeth’s body and the mast and I are piled up on the bow, on top of the big brass cleat. My arms are caught—the pain in my hand is agony! But from where I lie I can just about stretch out and lay the back of my neck across the rock-hard knot that holds Martha Hilton-Trump’s tow line.
Captain Slasher-Jones is first to recover his balance and his blade.
“Kill me, Captain!” I scream! “Cut my miserable throat!”
Mrs. Teeth stumbles to her feet, gore oozing from the stump of her neck, waving her dirty saw.
“Take me, Mrs. Teeth!” I yell! “Saw off my head! And fuck me!”
I arch my head back, pressing my neck harder against the bitter end of Aimless’s rope-collection. If just one of them will slice my head off, they might cut the knot as well, and set Aimless and his stupid girlfriend free.
But then, the headless body of Mrs. Teeth, instead of raping me, finds the Captain with its blind fingers. It molests him savagely, grasping at his genitals and slashing at his face.
And then Captain Slasher-Jones, instead of slicing my head off, cuts the line.
A whip-snap whistles away into the sky, and we are falling.
The fat father roars in pain. Pirates are cutting his face, cracking open his skull, crawling down his throat, and we are falling.
The Captain and Mrs. Teeth copulate on the deck of the ship while they slice one another apart, and we are falling.
The ship shatters, the mast cracks apart and I tumble away into space, falling.
The burnt-black body of Martha Hilton-Trump the Twelfth rockets away into the starry sky.
And I am falling, falling, falling, down into the shit-dark sea to drown.
I’m so happy! I’m so ready to die!
Gertie! Baby! Sweetie! I’m coming!
GREETINGS FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA!
Gertie the Whale changed my life! I really mean that. I used to be bitter and depressed, but now I’ve found my reason to keep living! I know it sounds corny, but you know everything they say about true love? Well, it’s true.
We live together at the bottom of the sea, down here in this wonderful bubble of life. Sure, it’s kind of dark and damp, but we think it’s the best place in the world. It’s so beautiful and alive; it’s full of great scenery and really excellent food. The water is delicious, clean and healthy, and it turns out that the fungus in my belly is able to breathe it. Imagine my surprise!
Now I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been. I’ve put on weight, my skin has cleared up, and I’ve gotten to be a pretty good swimmer. I hardly even cough anymore. All thanks to Gertie.
I know what you’re thinking: sure, she’s kind of fat. But she’s special!
Sometimes we float for hours, singing and gazing into each other’s eyes.
Every now and then, Aimless and Martha come down to visit us. But rarely; it’s tricky sneaking past their in-laws. It’s always great to see them though, even if Martha is kind of
annoying sometimes.
The two of them used to travel around the solar system a lot, but now they’ve more or less settled down on a nice crater on the far side of the moon.
Aimless keeps busy. He’s been fixing up Martha; he’s organized and displayed his space-junk collection in her abdomen, and remodeled the kitchen and the wet-bar. He still plays a wicked guitar, too, and he’s learning the drums.
Martha plays the Sousaphone, but she’s not very good.
Aimless and Gertie never talk about that romance they used to have. But they’re still very fond of one another. It’s funny how things work out.
Life is good, great, grand; Gertie and I are really happy ... except, if the truth be told, I really do miss my dear friend Aimless sometimes. I wish he could visit more often. I’ve tried to talk the two of them into moving down here, but Martha says she’d find it depressing, and I’m sure she’s right.
It seems like forever ago, when Aimless and I used to dig for nautical supplies together in the mountains of trash on the crazy shitting planet’s surface. I often ponder moving back up there with Gertie; she could meet my family, and maybe we could build an aquarium. But now’s not the right time. The world, sad to say, is still fatally fucked and shat upon by mighty floating assholes. Except down here.
But sooner or later those fat people will choke on their own shit. We will wait them out.
That’s my philosophy: things are so shitty, they can only get better!
CATERPILLAR GIRL
ATHENA VILLAVERDE
ONE
Something was wrong with Cat Filigree. Ever since her seventeenth birthday, her skin felt tight, like someone had dipped her in glue. It slowly hardened and peeled off. Her feet seemed too big for her body. Her vision was intermittently blurry and her sense of smell went haywire. Constantly feverish, she was burning up and freezing cold simultaneously. Her body itched. Her skin blistered and peeled off in layers. She was undergoing chrysalis.
