IN THE PLAYROOM THEY could all hear Job and his cops kick in the front door and run their macho asses hard toward them. Job’s mother put her hands up. She was trying to slow them before they came, busting ass into the playroom and scare everybody. She couldn’t do it, they just bulled over her. Job had his cops, all five of them, file through the open doorway with their guns out and safeties off.
“Secure,” Mother softly commanded and the Arch pointed at them as they rushed into the room.
“Melt,” the angel said. In an instant the gunmetal melted to their gun hands, solidifying with a loud hiss and clicking sounds. They all dropped painful to their collective knees, howling to beat the band. “Silence,” he added and their mouths were erased. All of it: the lips, pie-hole, teeth, tongue and all. “Sleep,” he finished and they did.
Only Job remained standing. He stood and stared silent at the tableau laid out before him. He took in a great big breath to steady himself.
“Be calm,” his mother advised. Job nodded his agreement.
“There’s no play here,” Mother warned, “So quit trying to think of a way out. You will only lose another.”
Job hesitated. He wanted Mister Mo’ Thug here so he could advise Job and tell him what he should do. By wishing this Job caused cold to begin coalescing in the room. Mother’s smile turned upside down. She held the baby close. She kissed this one’s soft spot in the same place as the last one. The little boy closed his eyes and stopped breathing. He was gone before you knew it.
Job’s heart dropped as fast as he did.
“I can give,” she told him, bringing the dead baby from her chest down to her lap, “And I can take away.”
A third toddler came happily up to Immanuel as she reverently placed the second dead baby beside the first. They quickly disintegrated into two piles of ashes and dust from whence they came.
“No, please stop this,” he pleaded.
“And that’s the exact same thing I want from you,” Mother told him. She held the new little one close to her. The baby was giggling. She gazed up at Job. “Dismantle this atrocity,” Mother commanded, “And do it right now.”
Job, with tears rolling river fast down his quaking face, nodded his assent.
Mother nodded and handed the unharmed baby back to its grateful mother, the one mother who wisely hugged a quiet corner during the whole ordeal.
A small conical funnel swirled near the two piles. Twirling, it scooped them easily up and transported the dust in the sirocco toward the window and out into eternity, as free as the dust in the wind.
As soon as Job could gather his composure, he asked for a phone.
“We are done,” Job assured all of them, “This ends now.”
* mean mug mo’ thug…*
HE WAS FEELING DOWN and dirty, feeling kind of mean. The hermaphrodite he was fucking had a ball-gag deep in her mouth and it was securely fastened. The man turned to the girl’s mom, smacked her two quick ones in the cake-hole. Then he shot his expulsion in the girl’s face and hair. The mom exhaled the Plata smoke as she brought her mouth over to the dude’s lumpy cock. She proceeded to clean it all off by using her teeth and tongue.
The man leaned back and watched her do this while he flipped up his feet and placed them on the hermie’s back. He closed his eyes as she exhaled her relief. She began to cry pitifully. The mom thought briefly about removing the come covered ball-gag from her child’s mouth, but instead she lit up another pipe of the Plata. Priorities, you know.
The man, himself, opted for a regular smoke. He lit a custom made cigarette he kept in a rather ornate case nearby. He inhaled the delicious Turkish blend, held it a moment and then blew out the plume. He pulled his feet from the hermie’s back. The girl stayed right where she was. The man opened a small chest on the lamp table, removed a two gram bag and tossed it in the mom’s direction. The mother grabbed the dope, stuck it up her twat for safe-keeping. Then she helped her kid get out of the gag and onto her feet. She made to wipe the male from her face and hair.
“Do that shit on your own time,” he told her. “Now get the fuck out.”
Once they left, Job’s earthly father brought out his tray of his personal upstairs coke. The lightly blue-tinged Peruvian flake was set on his lap. He started chopping and lining up the coke, smiling. He leaned down and pulled up a finger-thick chalk line when the temperature became frigid in his living room in an instant. Ice formed in the air, contrasting the warm, cozy heated room and snowflakes inexplicably formed and began to swirl all around. His heart began to thunder, the feeling familiar, but hard to sink his teeth into, it was from so long ago.
Mister Mo’ Thug appeared in front of him. Job’s father’s hair turned white from fright in an instant. He dropped the coke straw. He watched with mortal dread as he beheld the eight foot tall mean mug. His impossible weight cracked the floor beneath him.
“My Lord – “
He put up a stifling hand. “I need not your voice.” Job’s father paled further as he sat dumfounded. “Place your hand within mine,” he commanded.
His servant did and he began with the pinky finger. Mister Mo’ Thug slowly and methodically bent all the fingers up one at a time. Each one broke with a gruesome wet snap.
Job’s father dropped to his knees. Beads of sweat sprang up from all over his body. He cried out and mean mug hit him in his face, breaking a cheek bone and causing the man’s face to swell and misshapen.
“Not a word.” Job’s father bit through his own lip, trying his failing best to keep quiet, to not further infuriate. “The cur you sold me has let me down. He stopped and looked down to the blubbering human. “I cannot exact my vengeance upon him, so it will now fall to you.” Mister Mo’ Thug curled his hand into a fist. He crushed Job’s father’s hand and twisted fingers into almost dust. “And there will be things done to you,” he said, “that ye shan’t imagine.”
Mister Mo’ Thug has always been an asshole. Most everyone agrees. Mother certainly does.
The man’s face was leaking blood unimpeded from his nose and his cry was stifled quickly by his remaining fist. He shoved it down the human’s throat. Mean mug then went from the flat, pulpy ruined hand next to the man’s wrist and on up to the forearm, crushing them both, before just tearing the fucker off at the root and dropping it beside the human’s quivering, dying body. Job’s father looked down to the floor at his missing arm like it was something he should know, but couldn’t quite place.
With Mister Mo’ Thug’s fist down the man’s throat, his eyes threatened to bulge right out of their sockets. He reached all the way inside Job’s father and pulled the human inside out. He flat out hated fucking losing his wagers with Mother.
The imps appeared. Job’s father was still breathing and conscious while Mister Mo’ Thug’s imps climbed on him. One imp fell wildly in love with the human’s severed arm, it being still warm, and consummating this with a love act, rubbing hard on the bone with his own.
The others perched on Job’s father, jacking off into and feeding on the wet inners. They climbed up his pooper and plucked at his exposed heart and lungs, tearing and ripping.
* mean mug mo’ thug…*
Months later….
JOB HAD HIS HELMET light switched on and it scanned the smooth cement walls all around him. He pushed the forward lever and the speed increased on the small rail train, traveling underground between the two silos. Job was deep inside the de-commissioned missile silo in the icy wind-swept plains of the Black Hills state. Job and his family were settling in to their new home.
Job had bought the two-silo missile site and grounds in an auction, paying a quite reasonable cash price. The complex was in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t any neighbors, not for miles around. He bought the property as he de-constructed the atrocity of The Harbor’s Plata trade. There was nothing left, as far as he could control. He’d kept his promise to Mother. He burned the processing lab-plant to the ground. He emptied everyone’s accounts and assets. He
sold everything he could get his hands on.
With the proceeds from this fire sale, he bought the missile silo complex. His own property, money, and assets left him with a stream of income that was more than enough to keep his family happy and safe. All three of his women were in their second trimester, everything looking lovely. Two of the young mothers were at this very moment, baking sets of twins, even.
Job brought the small train to an easy stop. He exited up the ramp to the elevator and pressed the ‘up’ button. The mechanized cart wheezed and creaked, but rose steadily two short stories to where most of the living areas were. He stepped out of the elevator cart and closed the doors behind him. He made sure it was secure, not even wanting to think of losing any of his children to accidents, not after what they’ve all been through.
Job saw his growing brood scattered all over the huge main room. There were cooking smells of his favorite Puerto Rican rice, an animated film on the flat screen, children laughing and crying, fighting and playing, everyone safe and healthy and together.
Several of the walkers saw him and toddled over to him, happy as can be. He bent down to scoop two of the babies up, smiling big and bright behind the full cranial and facial mask he was forced to wear. They could not see his expression with its sunny smile, so he lifted the lilt of his voice so they could hear his happiness and not be afraid. They were getting used to the mask on their father. He had to wear it all the time. Same with the gloves and wrists to ankles dashiki, he now always had to wear head to toe covering. He didn’t want his infectious Skoolboy/Mr. Mo’ Thug punishment to harm any of his loved ones.
Job kissed each one through the thick but see-through plastic mask and set them down at his feet. He walked toward the kitchen, saying hello to his moms and everyone else in his family as he passed them by. The cooking smells wormed right into the nose holes of his mask.
“Smells great,” he told the three women standing there through the thin slit in the mouth hole of his face mask. The forced smiles he accepted.
They still weren’t used to what had happened to him, the women, and they were still a little frightened of what he’d become. But Job could really care less. There are always prices you have to pay. As he thought of his family’s safety, this was an easy asking price he was more than willing to pay. He was the pater familis and it fell to him to protect his brood, whatever the personal cost.
“Can’t wait to taste it,” he said. Grabbing his plate and thanking the mothers of his children, Job left to have his evening meal, nearby, but by himself.
He didn’t want to frighten any of them anymore than he absolutely had to. So Job sat by himself to eat. He carefully removed his mask, placed it on the table a close snatch away. Sometimes the little ones barged in and he didn’t want them to see his face and the way the sores had opened up.
The sores were open wounds, replete with running pus, loaded carbuncles and hellish bugs that liked to travel from wound to wound, eating the diseases that grew there in abundance.
Job brought a big forkful of the rice to his cracking, oozing lips. A big fish-belly white grub lost its perch where it was feasting on the scabbing edges of where his nostrils used to be. It landed on the fork. Job saw it in time and picked it off the rice. He took a good long look at it. The grub was hellish and it had a tiny man’s face. He brought it close to see the face, saw it talking. Job brought it up to his ear and listened to the damned bug as it cursed heartily at Job in a tiny squeaking Latin which the man could not begin to understand.
“Sorry, bug,” Job told it, “I can’t dig one fucking word you’re saying.”
The bug kept up its misunderstood litany of verbal abuse. All the while it screamed as Job dropped the grub into his mouth. His molars popped the bug and opened its inners. It splashed the inside of Job’s mouth. It went well with the Puerto Rican rice, Job decided.
Job continued eating as he listened to his children playing in the next room and their mothers chatting to each other nearby. The leak of light yellow serous fluid dripped off of his decomposing face, landing in the plate of food. Job scooped up forkfuls of the rice and cursing grubs. He carefully dabbed the decomposing face-sauce from his countenance and smiled with genuine joy.
Hell’s Bells, Job thought. It felt like a win to him.
* mean mug mo’ thug…*
THE WAITER RETURNED. HE hurriedly cleared the bistro table. The two strange guests had been milling about, checking texts, and fortunately, eating non-stop. They polished off fancy wee sandwiches, scones, creams and other sweets, cups of tea and coffee by the score. The waiter left as quickly as he had come when Mister Mo’ Thug paused to light up a blunt. Mother glanced up from her text, confirming the results of their wager. She was smiling. Mister Mo’ Thug was not. He blew a smoke ring toward her. It spun and twisted and turned itself into a double $$ sign. Mister Mo’ Thug reached over and pushed the spoils over to the victor. Mother happily accepted the two 8-balls of de-hydrated souls. One baggie held the remains of sinners, the other of saints.
Mother, the winner, sprinkled out a pile from each one. She mixed them in an even keel. Mother lined up a few hits. She pulled up two lines, sniffing the finely ground scores of cores deep into her sinuses. All the collective dreams, desires, depravity and despondency scattered and dug in deep like hungry spores.
Mister Mo’ Thug hated losing to Mother. But he loved that she always shared the pot. He smiled when Mother slid the plate over and handed him the silver straw. As he bent over the plate, Mother told him, “You know the drill, Tea’s on you. Don’t embarrass me this time. Tip your server at least twenty percent, you cheap bastard. That’s two-zero.” It was a damn fine thing the 8-balls were such the tits, because Mister Mo’ Thug hated losing. He didn’t like tipping much, either.
Well, Balls to that, thought the cheap bastard.
Mister Mo’ Thug has always been an asshole. Most everyone agrees. Mother certainly does.
So does the waiter. But he ain’t saying shit.
….the end
THE KILLER PAIN KILLER
“VICODIN”
HE WALKS THROUGH THE wall, unimpeded. A huge blocky slab of ice forms in an instant and he is gone.
The near-dark he leaves you in is fogging up from the ice melting and the hospital’s industrialized environmental heat control kicks on and ramps up.
Hell for you begins in the here and now, in your sickbed. You don’t need some snarky visiting Dark Deity to clue you in on this golden nugget. You know how you got here, that’s for sure.
It is here you started planting your sins. It is right in this spot where you have watched with joy, in the bits of clarity, their budding fruits. You looking down and smiling as they piled high. The silent cries and screams and pleading troubled you not. You enthralled at restraint, too weak to fight back, aware of how wrong it was. She could not understand why you were doing that to her.
Now the dharmic spill has covered you, laying still and unmoving yourself. Chemical restraints they call it, keeping you drifting in and out of consciousness, fleeting as a swirling passing breeze, then back down to the deep dark warm nothingness.
Because you cannot be baby-sat 24/7, strong leathers make sure you stay put, if you accidentally throw off the chemical shackles. If you ever try to heave yourself over the safety rails and truck right on out of this place. No way, Jorge, just forget about it; ain’t happening. You are here, my friend, for the duration. The Big Man says so.
This is why you are wrapped in your sick bed, dying slow, perfectly still, alert in this moment. Not surprisingly, you seek your only form of comfort. You search for the dark cloth to pull over this pesky alertness, but then you feel something under the covers with you.
Through the foggy dim light, cold drizzle falling soft on your bits of exposed skin, you see her.
The hand grasps up your leg, dark blue and crawling. The night-light glow, showing through the growing fog of melting ice, illuminated the bone-thin and veiny dead hand. Her old f
ace comes into view. Her mouth is screaming silent. Her eyes are red and leaking, reeling you in, you stare hard at her as she grabs your crotch with her other hand. She tugs and pulls her way up, the tired green covers slipping past her wigless, spotted scalp, blue with death, hands icy on your bare stomach. You screaming noiselessly, the breathing tube keeping you alive placed through useless vocal cords. She uses the hair and loose skin on your withered chest for purchase. Your head is rigid and your neck too drugged and heavy to move. Her horrid breath is leaking out of the great black hole of her dead mouth as she reaches your face. She grabs hold of your life support connection and pulls the circuit from your breathing tube. She drags her dead, decaying self, one more tug and she clamps her hole of a mouth onto your breathing tube. She begins to suck on it, aspirating the life right out of your lungs.
The breathing machine alarms shrilly, but no one comes. You crash inside, darkening your peripheral vision, narrowing, closing down. Your heart thuds crazily in your chest. You lose your hold on consciousness and you lose, are lost.
Finally, as the only thing left of This is the faraway alarm of a cardiac arrest and the only thing so far of That is the scent of sulfur and sugar, the code team arrives.
They come wading in and save your sorry ass, again. They pull you away from That and back into Hell’s waiting room. Back to your bed, back to being resuscitated by a whole fucking squadron of scrub-clad heroes. Fifty bills an hour times twenty of these motherfuckers and you ain’t worth the scratch, brother, not by half.
The heroes bring you back, successful, slowing down. Just now noticing the cold water puddling their clever-stupid multi-colored crocs on their sore wet feet, wondering from whence this shit came.
Fuck fuck, dumb-ass donkey fuck, you think. I’m still here. Show some mercy and gives us some morphine, you fuckers, you yell in your mind. You need to go under, rest. Because you know they’ll be back. And so must she.
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