by Andy Remic
Lumar and Zoot turned to face Svool. Or at least, Zoot rotated until the flickering lights on his matt-black casing were pointing in the direction of Svoolzard Koolimax XXIV.
“You could make some?” suggested Zoot. Then, to Lumar, “Come, my dear, let’s get you into the cool of the jungle; I need to sterilise and seal your wounds.”
“What a good idea!” beamed Svool.
Lumar and Zoot ignored him, and moved away under the wavering rubbery palm fronds. Svool followed, beaming like a happy pup.
~ * ~
IT WAS EVENING and progress had been slow, mainly due to Svool’s injured feet. Under Zoot’s instruction, Svool had fashioned wide shoes made of fronds and twine, but they were still far from comfortable and Svool complained with every single fucking footstep.
Zoot suggested making camp for the night, and as Lumar built a shelter and laid out sleeping mats, Svool was sent off into the darkening jungle to collect “dried combustible material.”
Svool wandered alone, in the gloom and lengthening shadows, mumbling and cursing and tripping. He carried an armful of dead creepers and branches, which although they were definitely not wood, were at least something he was sure would burn.
“Not bloody fair, this, a genius poet of my incredible standing and reputation collecting shitty firewood in the shitty jungle.” He tossed back his golden curls, which were no longer gleaming and oiled and beautiful, but instead matted and stained and stuck with twigs and bits of creeper. The rings on his fingers glittered, but seemed somehow tarnished under the light of the sinking green sun; like cheap fairground baubles.
“What happened to the honeyed wine? The endless succulent women willing to wrap their vaginas around my suckling face? What happened to the drugs - oh, the drugs, I miss the drugs, hey, I wonder, wonder-wonder if Zoot has some stash stashed away in his little black casing. Hmm?”
He halted. There had been a sound, registering on the fringes of his acuity; but he’d missed it, missed its solidity, like waking from a dream and trying to grasp the wispy tail-end before it struggled away.
Svool stood, his nakedness covered by a simple leaf in the shape of a V, his bottom still exposed and red raw from the kiss of the cannibals’ fire. He wondered what the noise had been. A stealthy pawfall of another beastcat tigercat? Or maybe the creepy figure of a hunting cannibal, ready to shoot him with another sleep dart and drag him off into the jungle to cook and chomp before the others even realised he was gone...
Svool shivered, and looked around, and was frightened.
He dropped his collected kindling and ran, leaf-shoes flapping, back in the direction of their makeshift camp.
He emerged into the clearing. A small fire was burning, and Lumar, her perfect shelter already complete, had cut several plates of bark and was cooking some kind of basic nut broth from ingredients sourced by Zoot.
Svool stumbled forward.
“Got the firewood, I see,” snorted Lumar.
“Where’s Zoot?”
“Not sure. He scanned this food, said it was safe to eat, then hummed off into the jungle. Looking for your sorry ass, I’d wager.”
Svool frowned.
“I can’t help but notice a negative vibe emanating from you,” he said, flapping forward and sitting on a fallen log next to the fire. He held out his hands to the warmth, and acknowledged there was something deeply primeval and satisfying and morale-boosting about the simple honest beauty of a roaring camp fire.
Lumar laughed, and he realised she was sharpening another piece of wood with a small, silver knife. Beside her were a pile of... stakes? Spears? There was certainly a collection of sharpened wooden spiky implements. “You think so, do you, back-stabber?”
“I am not a back-stabber,” said Svool, eyes wide, pouting.
“You left me to die, motherfucker.”
“I... I... I thought you were already dead!”
“Bullshit. You were looking after your own sorry carcass. You saw those beasts dive on me, you shit your pretty little jewelled panties and hot-tailed it off across the sand like somebody had lit a fuse under your testicles. You’re a sorry fucking excuse for a human being, Svoolzard Koolimax XXIV. You have no honour, no nobility, and no fucking friends. So shut up, before I stick one of these sticks up your nose.”
Svool flapped his lips for a moment, then closed his mouth with a clack. He sat, stewing, staring into the fire. How did it come to this? How did it end up like this? How had his beautiful vixen mistress, so supple and willing with hand and tongue and orifice, how had she turned into this vile-tongued, bitchy, nasty Svool-hater? And that was something else, the way she said his name. Her eyes shone with mockery, and she spoke it with such emphasis as to make it sound ridiculous; like he was a breakfast cereal, or a sexual lubricant, or something.
Svool sat, stewing, as night fell over the jungle.
Eventually, the broth or soup or whatever it was was ready, and Lumar poured a little into a cleverly fashioned bowl of wrapped leaves. Svool took it from her in silence, and started eating, then looked up at Lumar again.
“Yes?” she snapped.
“Thank you,” he said.
Lumar’s eyes widened, and she bit her tongue. She gave a nod, and lowered her head, green dreadlocks brushed to one side as she delicately drank from her bowl. Svool, also, drank his soup.
“It tastes like shit,” he added, “but thanks all the same.”
Lumar snorted into her soup, and it took a moment for Svool to realise she was laughing. She looked up, and her face had softened, and she took a great, deep breath and let out a great, deep sigh.
“You know something?” she said.
“Hmm?”
“That’s the first time, ever, that I’ve heard you say ‘thank you’ for anything.”
“Maybe I’m a changed man,” said Svool, grinning at her.
“Your new, ahem, attire is certainly a changed fashion statement; better than that peacock shit you used to wear, though.”
“I am particularly proud of my shoes,” said Svool, holding out a foot and wiggling it for Lumar to see. She let out another laugh, and Svool realised something very, very important. Lumar laughing was a truly beautiful thing to hear.
“Maybe you should write a poem about it?” said Lumar.
The smile fell from Svool’s face, and he looked away. Lumar stood, more of an uncoiling than a human movement, and she moved to him and touched his arm. “That wasn’t a dig, Svool. It was a genuine suggestion.”
He looked up, like a little lost boy through his golden curls. Here was a man who had truly had the rug pulled not just from beneath his feet, but from under his world. He was a spoiled, pampered brat, an individual to whom every pleasure imaginable was just a click of his fingers away. Drugs, sex, appearing on the cover of GGG TIME magazine, all were there in an instant. And now he was half-naked and lost in the jungle of a toxic world with burnt feet and empty veins. Lumar could see, his eyes were haunted but also... clearer. More pure.
“You hate my poetry,” he said, voice thick. “I see it in your eyes. Hear it in your snide comments.”
“I confess,” said Lumar, voice level, “that to me, poetry is a pointless thing. I understand a good book, a story, getting involved with the characters and the narrative; but in your world of poetry, Svoolzard, all I see is bickering egotistical wordsmiths trying to be clever, trying to outdo one another, clawing their way up the literature ladder with no real thought of content or of entertainment. The focus, for you, is on a manipulation of words to satisfy your ego and narcissistic tendencies - whereas I am kroona, we’re tribal clans, and we value the content of story above all else. Maybe it’s a feature of my species, but when you look at it in the cold light of day, you have to admit, your entire world of poetry and poets looks like one big pissing contest.”
Svool considered this, for quite a long time.
Eventually, he said, “I cannot agree. I have written poems with narrative strands. Poems that tell a story
. Admittedly, they are often stories of my sexual conquests, but by your definition it is not whether the subject matter is tasteful or distasteful - after all, that’s a subjective viewpoint - what matters is the fact that the poetry told a story.”
“Tell me this, Svool. Do you spend more time on the story, the content, or on the structure? The wordplay? Do you clap your hands in glee when you come up with a clever little word construct? Are you pleased with yourself when you get a particular rhyme to work, or dream up some intelligent new metaphor? And most of all - when you look at your own poetry, at your collected work, do you think of yourself as a genius?”
“Yes, I spend more time on wordplay. And I see where you are going with that. And yes, I do think of myself as a genius; but only because my poetry has brought me galactic fame and fortune, and so many other people say my work is that of a genius.” He grinned at her, then. “I admit. I have too much self-love. But that was put there by others; they passed me the baton, and now I run with it, Lumar. If that makes me a bad person, if having six naked concubines suck Nutella from my belly button makes me a bad man, then you’ll have to kill me right now.”
“I don’t need to kill you,” said Lumar, gently, sitting down and staring into the fire. She shivered, as if she’d seen a ghost. “There’s plenty of things on Toxic World that’ll happily do that for you.”
“If you like, I could write you a poem...”
Lumar held up a hand, and smiled. “Not now, Svool. I need some sleep. It’s been a harrowing day. The poet in you might have thought today adventurous, a rapturous joy of manly pursuits, o’erthrown by the love of a good strong woman, a strangely succulent sojourn into the misty mists of mythical majesty; but me? Personally? I thought today was a shovelful of pigshit, and I want my bed and oblivion dreams.”
She crawled into her shelter. Her voice echoed out. “And when Zoot gets back, tell the little sod he forgot to bring me the mushrooms he promised.”
“Okay,” smiled Svool, and despite being tired, weary, and filled with pain from a hundred different areas, he sat there and looked around - really looked around himself - and realised that this, here, now, this was living. And with a sour feeling, as if he’d just bitten a bitter pill, cracked it open to allow reality to flood his mouth and brain, he realised his life up to this point had been... a sham. Pampered. Shielded. Sheltered. Protected. A spoilt only child on a truly galactic scale.
A cool wind whispered over him, and he listened to the sounds of the jungle. The whisper of ferns, the creak of the rubber-tyre palm trees, the chatter of insects. What is this place? he found himself thinking, and could almost be lulled into the sense that he was in some magical wonderful mystery world, instead of a once-beautiful place poisoned beyond recognition.
Somebody had ruined Toxic World. Somebody bad.
~ * ~
SVOOL DREAMED. HE was in his palace on Taj, the one built from pure gold ingots, and in every single room hung enormous portraits of his own face on the covers of various Manna Galactic Publications. In fact, Svoolzard’s image was everywhere: the statues were carved in his likeness, the ruby busts chiselled to show his strong jawline and golden curls; the tapestries were woven with the most incredible fine detail, each one showing a scene in which Svoolzard triumphed. The fountains trickled and spurted with his own brand of Champagne - Zardpagne, they called it, completely missing the point of what Champagne actually was and where it was created. Svoolzard’s own poetry recitals, the albums which had sold hundreds of millions of copies all over the Quad-Gal, played in continuous rotation. Softly, just at the level of hearing; he wasn’t so crass as to have them blaring out, oh, no! And in his dream, as Svool wandered naked from golden chamber to golden chamber, seeing his own image in every room, hearing his own voice in every orifice, he smiled, for this was luxury, this was happiness, this was perfection. Surely?
He padded over carpets made of SoftGlass™ and SquishDiamond™ and ToothFibre™, revelling in the feeling of his toes sinking deep into the massaging strands.
He passed through dangling organotubes and tickletickles, shivering and giggling as they caressed him all over, and onwards into the dimly lit bedroom chamber, where not just the bed was fluid and alive, but so were the floors, ceiling and walls. Somebody was there, in the gloom, all naked and oiled and crooning. Svool slipped from his gossamer robes and squelched his way across the floor, slopping onto the bed and reaching out to touch warm flesh. She moaned, a low “ooooh,” and wriggled seductively, and he kissed her feet, sucking her toes which wiggled and squirmed in his mouth. He got harder and harder and harder. His need and lust and need rose and rose and rose. He wriggled upwards, his tongue tracing a line up her firm calves and across her quivering thighs. Both her hands were wound in his long golden curls now, and he was crooning himself as she squirmed and thrust against him. He found the warm wet honey place, and his tongue darted in, and he tasted her, and smelt her, and was filled by her, and her hands caressed his head and tugged gently at his hair as he cunnied her cunnilingus. She was so warm and wet and willing and hot and sweet and honeyed. And that was it. Heaven. Right there between her squirming thighs. Nothing, nothing on Earth or in the whole of Manna could cum close to this...
~ * ~
LUMAR, EXHAUSTED, SLEPT like a zombie. Slept like the dead. But something intruded in her dreams. It was a dog. A huge, golden dog with flopping golden ears and curly golden hair. It was a beautiful dog. It licked her toes, and she giggled, and squirmed in her sleep, and then it licked her legs and she started to get annoyed, for she knew dogs licked their own testicles and a dog’s tongue on her flesh wasn’t exactly what she wanted, and then, in the dream, the dirty dog went further...
She swam up through mists and glittering oils, surfacing into the realm of dozy consciousness with her mind fluttering and brain filled with smoke. She groaned, and then, suddenly, like a striking cobra, she was awake. Fully awake. One instant asleep, the next, ten-coffees-caffeine-injection-awake, sat up in the sleeping shelter.
“Oy!” she screeched, noting in the gloom that somebody - bloody Svoolzard - had his head between her legs and was sliming her with his slimy tongue. She whacked him across the head with such force he flipped and rolled across the shelter, whining and whimpering and clawing at his battered skull.
“What the fuck are you doing, you sexual fucking deviant?” she snarled.
“Urh, erh, what’s going on?” Svoolzard sat up. He rubbed at his eyes. He coughed. He clutched his whacked skull.
“You, you bastard molesting dirty fucking pervert; what do you think you’re doing?”
“Ahh, ahh, ah! I see! I was dreaming, Lumar, and, obviously, you were the delight in my dream...”
“Well you were a dog in mine, you disgusting bastard pervert.”
“Will you stop calling me a pervert!”
“Well only a pervert attacks a girl in her sleep...”
“I didn’t attack you, I was giving you some special Svoolzard loving...”
She stared at him. Stared at him hard.
He sensed her total and absolute RAGE.
“If I wanted some Svoolzard personal loving,” she said, coldly, “I’d fucking ask for it. Now, I suggest you sleep outside. In the jungle. With the other insects. Because next time, my sweet, I’m going to cave your pervert head right in.”
“But, but Lumar! After all we’ve been through! We were lovers...”
“No, you bought me.”
“That wasn’t the way it felt at the time. I could see the love in your eyes...”
“That was the reflection of yours, Svool. And it wasn’t love.”
Svool crawled onto his knees, scowling. “You know something, Lumar? When we were together, back on The Literati, I truly believed we had something there. Of all the thousands of girls who’ve shared my bed, and my drugs, I thought of you as something special. Yes, you were appointed by the PR company, to no-doubt help keep my manic needs in check; but, well, if ever I was going to marry one o
f my many ladies, it was going to be you.”
Lumar stared at him, in silence, for long, long moments.
“Get out,” she said.
“What, into the jungle?”
“Yes, into the jungle.”
“But it’s cold out there.”
“Not as cold as in here.”
“There’s ants and things. They’ll bite me.”
Lumar loomed close. “Trust me, Svool, whatever awaits you out there is nothing - I repeat, nothing - compared to the hell I’m going to give you in here. Get out now, before I crack open your skull and fist-fuck your rancid brain.”
~ * ~
THE DAWN LIGHT was creeping through the jungle like twisting snakes in the air. A stench of putrefaction from rotting vegetation and... something else... filled their nostrils. The jungle was filled with pockets of cold air, which chilled their skin, and then they’d rise from a seemingly random area into heat. Svoolzard wondered, with a strange shiver, what caused these odd temperature fluctuations; because it wasn’t the sun, which kind of pointed the finger at some kind of weird pollution. Temperamental temperature toxicity. Great.