Quintessence of Dust
Page 29
***
Hector is on his fifth carrot and is ready with a foot-long cumber when Milton tells him to stop.
“How can this be good?” asks Milton, a nervous tremble evident in his voice.
“What’s bad about it? Your ear has consumed two bananas, one orange and five carrots.”
“That’s not what I mean. How is it possible?”
“It’s not,” he says pushing the cucumber into Milton’s ear canal. “But it’s fun! Have you a melon? Nothing too big. A cantaloupe will do.”
Milton tries to get up from the floor but still feels dizzy.
“Enough, Hector,” he says, falling back to the cold floor. “I’m thankful for your help, really I am, but I want to be alone.”
Hector lowers his head, a gesture halfway between guilt and contemplation. “You want me to leave?”
“Yes,” says Milton.
Hector draws back, as if about to get up and leave, but before doing so, reaches out his arm and thrusts it deep into Milton’s ear.
“What are you doing Hector?!”
“Learning!”
Pressing his head against his arm, Hector pushes against the ear and the canal dilates, stretching wide to accommodate his huge head.
“Hector, please don’t!”
By now, Hector can’t hear him.
A deep mumbling presents itself inside Milton’s head. “I’m entering the Eustachian Tube!” Hector shouts. “It’s frigging wonderful in here!”
“Please, Hector, come out! How will you finish your term papers?”
Inside his head, Hector replies, “Who cares?! We’ll go on the road and make millions!
Milton Ball, the young man the local kids call Gutterball, can see from the corner of his eye Hector Bingleton’s boots kicking out as they try desperately to gain the leverage to push his obese body further through the inner ear.
“I can see the semicircular canal!” shouts Hector. “And the cochlea!”
The more Hector pushes deeper down his ear, the dizzier Milton feels.
“Stop, Hector. The room is spinning!”
“I don’t believe it!” shouts Hector.
Concerned, Milton shouts back, “What? What can you see?”
There’s a long pause before he speaks.
“There’s a dog in here wearing boots!”
“What?”
Milton hears Hector coaxing the dog to approach him.
“It’s a Labrador, I think.”
Milton shouts back, “Is it brown?!”
“It’s hard to tell in this light… Wait….I can’t be sure but I think there’s a canary in here too, and… two gold…”
Milton couldn’t catch the last word properly.
“I can’t hear you, Hector! Shout louder!”
“I said there’s a….with golden scales!….and loads of pillows….all the animals, they all look so…happy!”
Hector Bingleton’s voice fades to a whisper and then surrenders to silence. The room is slowly stopping, and since falling to the floor, Milton is finally able to raise his head once again. He shouts Hector’s name a few times, but there is no reply.
An hour passes, and then another, and still there is no word from Hector.
***
Milton Ball knelt in front of his bed that night and said a prayer for his mother, his father, and added a special prayer for all his pets and Hector Bingleton. He was sad that he would never see any of those animals again, and in some way, he was sad he’d never see Hector too, but he was happy that though ugly and alone to the outside world, he had within him a beautiful place where no one wanted to leave.
The Whore that Broke
the Camel’s Back