Munmun

by Jesse Andrews

  He’s the genius god, I’m the idiot human, even if I think He made a screwedup world, whose judgment do you think really matters, a woozy kid who wrecked his only chance in life, or the freaking Eternal Architect And Landlord.

  No, I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t. But I still tried.

  If there is a God hopefully that’s enough for Him, if not, ohwell.

  Service ended, last chance to run or duck out in the crowds, but Puppyneck was just a few feet away, escape was an impossible hope.

  They’re taking you to the bank anyway, Warner, surely you can ask the bankers to protect you, call the cops or something, they won’t just hand you to your killers.

  So I got up and said started to say goodbye to my little mom.

  But she wasn’t done with church for the day, heckno, just the beginning, kiddo let’s march over to the Crisp New Church of God And Sons and try to make some converts, spread some knowledge, convince the godandsonsers as they walk out that hey, people, you’ve got the wrong church, don’t you know the Lord King God doesn’t have any sons, for one thing He didn’t bang anyone.

  Puppyneck met my eyes, shook his head, put out his spliff, took a few steps closer.

  I didn’t want Mom to meet her son’s murderer so realquick I just said, “Sorry Mom, I gotta go study, I’m happy to see you though, I love you, okay,” couldn’t believe this was my stupid goodbye to my mom forever, there’s got to be something else.

  “I understand, kiddo,” she told me. “I love you too, go back and study, keep making a nice life for yourself, keep your sister out of that cult, and remember, you can always come pray with your proud mama, I’m so proud of you and I know up in heaven your poor daddy is, too, I love you so much, sweetfish.”

  “Okay, Mom,” were my last words to my mom, I tried not to think about their lastness as I turned and walked to the bank.

  Different bankbranch, different bankers, same robes, same middlescale, same spooky underbank.

  Different attitudes of the bankers this time, not smiling and encouraging, instead sorrowfull and grim, eyes of, we are suffering along with you, voices of soft firm comfort for the hopeless.

  I waited until we got to our preproom and said, “Bankers, please call the cops, those guys who brought me have been prisoning me for days, as soon as they get my scalemun they’re going to kill me.”

  I held my breath for their response.

  But the bankers just got deepeyed and stiff.

  “The only law that is enforced in the bank is munlaw,” said a banker.

  “They’re going to freaking kill me though,” I repeated.

  “That’s criminal law, not munlaw,” explained a second banker, “and we are honorbound not to let it affect our doings in the bank.”

  “Criminal law doesn’t exist in the bank?” I asked, trying to stay calm, reasonable, keep these bankers on your side.

  “The bank is a neutral zone as far as criminal law is concerned,” said first banker.

  “So if I attack you, leap up and beat the hell out of you, you can’t call the police,” I said.

  “No, but we have our own security,” said second banker.

  “They’re not bound by criminal law either,” said the first.

  Same doctor questions, is there anything artafishill in your body, my mind was racing and I wasn’t thinking and said no.

  “Are you sure, looks like there’s a couple faketeeth in there, forexample,” said the bankdoctor, peering into my mouth.

  “Oops, yeah,” I said and he numbed me, pulled them out.

  Different new additional process of pumping my stomach and emptying my butt, I guess if there’s still food and crap inside you when you scale down, the nonshrinking food and crap can blow you open like a balloon. So they drugged me up and some chemicals scraped out my insides for a bad few hours.

  It was night by the time I was ready for Scale Down, not that you can tell night or day in the underbank.

  I was woozy, weak, lightheaded and lightbodied, hard to keep fighting, can’t really fight the bank anyway.

  It’s okay, it’s fine, I’ll take care of it when I get out.

  Same tub getting prepped, tinydoor in the bottom, I guess I’ll walk out of there when I’m ratsize again.

  Tinyrobe waiting for me on a hook lowdown on the wall.

  Different songs hummed and crooned by the mournfull bankers, melodies of a prayer you’d sing to someone else’s God, dark hurting chords of, sorry, other God, turnsout you were real and my God was fake, I hope you’ll have mercy but I know you won’t.

  Before I drank the scaletea, I tried one last thing.

  “Look,” I said to the bankers. “I know this munmun’s going to the munflow of Faceboy Industries, but heresthething, my scalemun is actually a loan from someone else, a pretty important cityboss named Hue.”

  The bankers were quiet, making a web of glances at each other.

  “Well, what we more need to know is where it’s going, which is still Faceboy Industries,” said a banker.

  “Sure but what I’m telling you is, the munmun’s not really mine to give,” I told her.

  The bankers murmured like faraway traffic.

  “It’s in your scale account, therefore yours to give,” said the banker.

  “That can’t be munlaw,” I said. “You have to atleast check with Hue. I mean you have to.”

  Sad smiles all around.

  “We don’t have to check with anyone, Warner,” said another banker. “We’re the bank.”

  I sipped, stripped, lay in jelly, closed my halfscale eyes for the last time, fluttered down into dark quiet Dreamworld.

  And like lasttime in the underbank, I entered Dreamworld under the earth, I could feel it getting huger even as I swam and kicked to the surface.

  I broke through the ground of some dreamy giantville, alone again, solodream walled me off from every other dreamer.

  I was in a threecar parkinglot, vast as a stadiumfield, getting vaster every second, all around me were fleeing mountains.

  Empty apartmentblocks zipping away from me and shooting into the sky, grass growing up all around me over my head, ground under me getting bumpier, lumpier, uneven, and crazy.

  Like the old bankdream but in reverse, that time I got too huge for the world, this time the world was getting too huge for me.

  Dang, remember your first wild bankdream, you were tugging hills, lugging coasts, wearing fogs, chomping suns.

  The planetball dwarfing on your hip, cometsilk between your fingers, starry powder fizzling to nothingness, rememberthat.

  But this time it was a shrinkdream, the world violently ballooned around me, I even got too small to stay on top of its skin. The ground was so huge that cracks were yawning open in it everywhere, cracks in the air as well, joining, making a sea of darkness, another nothingness.

  Soon I was floating in same old outerspace.

  Outerspace, hello oldfriend, remember that time when I jammed my fingers in you.

  Fingers, palms, elbow, I really dug around in you, I found a banker and scared the crap out of him.

  Ohwell, it’s my last dream, might as well try it again.

  So I grabbed, ripped, pulled on the wisps and strands and vapors.

  “Oh come on,” said outerspace.

  It was easier this time somehow, who knew why. But the nothingropes of outerspace were jumping into my fingers, toes, teeth.

  “Please no, please stop,” pleaded outerspace.

  Sorry outerspace, has to be done. I bit, yanked, twisted, whirled, it all unwrapped and fell apart, the lights came on, there was a banker again in a bright cold room.

  “Somebody get in there and give him more solodream,” shrieked the banker, “we need another fiveminutes, help help help.”

  But I shrank away from him in front of his horrified eyes, down onto a cloudy tabletop, through the cloudcover and down into widening Lossy Indica, the city bloomed beneath my winging arms.

  I was loose in Dreamworld
, dreamers drifted and watched me, a shrinking giant hiccuping back into hugeness every few seconds.

  First they just stared, gaped, most didn’t know what they were seeing atfirst, lots of dreamers need to see something fivesickseven times to really get it.

  They watched me shrink, blink, blow up, shrink again.

  Then onebyone and twobytwo, insanities came swirling out of them, confusions and fearscapes.

  I watched dreamer hands turn to paws, feet to useless tentacles, they stared crazy and afraid at their mutating bodies, collapsed inward like jello or paperbags. I watched the dreamers give eyes to the air, fingertips to the graspy ground. Space crumpled, time shuddered and flattened, in every direction a pit pulled and sucked.

  Okay, I thought and also maybe said, I know my scaling is hard for you to deal with, infact it’s making you insane, it’s my last dream though, how about you just chill.

  But no one would chill and beasts and demons began roaming the citystreets, countrylanes, lurching, shrieking. Horns and hooves, batwings, slithery tongues. Washmachining spiderlegs, nailfangs, hairneedles, firevom, lavacrap.

  Chill while I make you something nice, I thought, did a little thinking about what’s the nicest thing I can make.

  Where did I begin, I bet you can guess.

  I searched and scanned, looking for a certain operahouse, braidheaded girl inside playing everycolor music, songropes I could braid into light, clay, water, smoke, foam.

  Didn’t find the house though, instead the girl found me.

  She was a moth, a dove, a little moon trembling in the air in front of my face.

  “Warner ohgod, I’ve been looking and looking for you, everynight, Warner is that, Warner is that you,” she hiccuped.

  Hope warmed me for a moment.

  “Kitty,” I said. “Do you think you could come and save me one more time.”

  “Warner where’d you go, why would you leave, whe, where are you and why are you scaling, oh, Warn, er, you’re hard to look at, can you s, stop for a second,” she shivered.

  A super clear dreamer like Kitty doesn’t need fivesicktimes to realize what she’s seeing, the impossible insanity of a scaling dreamer, her bright wild brain was crazing prettyquick.

  “Stopstop, stop looking, shut your eyes and please just listen,” I pleaded, “I’m in the Dockseye bankbranch, the faceboys kidnapped me for my scalemun, the bank’s giving me back to them prettysoon.”

  Did she hear me though, I could see that she didn’t.

  She twitched and glitched, shuddered at my downandup, bigsmallbig.

  Her braids began unforking, wings began to spiderweb.

  “Kitty just wake up though,” I urged, “main thing is, wake up.”

  Her eyes were fuzzed, mouth was slacking.

  Toolate I put walls between us, bricks around her, woods, trees, mountains.

  “Ohgod Kitty just wake up,” I yelled, “don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine, Kitty I’m not Warner, I’m just dreamfluff, I’m a terrible kingkong somebody dreamed.”

  “Kingcon,” I heard her ask all blurry.

  I built an operahouse around her, tried to hide her in a concerthall.

  Surrounded her with seats and boxes, orchestras and curtains, velvets, ribbons, a thousand ghostkings and queens to sing to.

  I heard her dreamy mumble, Warner wh, why did, you leave, why did you go.

  I dreamed her faraway, until I couldn’t hear her anymore.

  Gazed around at the awfull shitscapes, tried to leave them too.

  Hid myself inside a cave and tried to sing some kittysong, tried to remember the notes.

  I couldn’t though, couldn’t make the music in my head, my memory is a glitchy phone, a rainedon painting.

  It’s all too sad, it’s too hard, Warner, maybe it really is time for you to leave.

  You made wild druggy fearzones in Dreamworld for too long, now everyone’s twitchy, touchy, ready to feel fear at a momentsnotice.

  When you try to save yourself you hurt people, when you try to leave your prison you trample other people’s dreaming, you even bruised the girl who dreams the best of anyone.

  Everyone’s fear is atleast a littlebit your fault, maybe a lot your fault, why should you keep living, what good does it do.

  I realized I was hearing the voice of Ghost Grace, do you need to live so much that you’re okay with making the world worse.

  Even here in Dreamworld my eyes got wet, my throat got thick.

  Meanwhile the air around me began to thicken into walls, outside my cave the dreamers began to disappear.

  More solodream entered my veins in Lifeanddeathworld, panicky bankers were drugging me. Flushing me from the dreamcity, back into my sleepcage.

  Aloneness blanketed me, I ripped its strings halfheartedly but more blankets of solodream arrived, I stuck elbows and knees into them but they wrapped softly around me, into me, entered my eyes and throat, butt and guts, sticky like spiderwebs, loneliness gently wrapped my tiredout little body.

  I fought until I couldn’t fight and then I let it hold me, wrap my skin, wrap my insides. It’s like a pulping, after a while you must give up, you have no choice.

  The dream was almost over anyway, I just wanted to watch a few more minutes, peer through the threads of solodream, watch and hope the dreamers start to heal themselves without me.

  I thought I heard my lungs breathe music.

  Or maybe it’s not me singing, maybe that’s Kitty somewhere, remembering her song, forgetting me.

  I couldn’t tell who it was, just felt sweet and peacefull.

  Outside I thought Lossy Indica was forgetting me too, the dreamers were forgetting their berserk fears, the housefires I started were finally damped and dying.

  “Thank you,” I thanked the world, “thank you, bytheway I mean it,” as the meds wore off and I woke up gasping and little again in the giant tub.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  But that changed everything, waking up tiny, weak, on fire with pain and sickness.

  DREAMWORLD

  Oh did that change everything, passedout briefly, bellowed flames and fumes into Dreamworld, roared boiling seawater, screamed broken rocks and fell back into Painworld.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  Goodbye dreamy druggy sadness, well hello there rage forever.

  Hello heart racing like a rat’s, hello littlelungs flapping my ribs frantically, hello garbage in my guts and blood, toobig objects clanking around in there now.

  I thrashed in the slippery grapebowl, this last uneaten grape was bloodymouthed and screaming.

  “NO NO NO,” I bellowed, each word couldn’t even make it all the way out before I had to suck air back in.

  The bankers asked over the pee ay if they could enter.

  “NO,” I screamed, “NO, NO, NO.”

  But the bankers hustled in.

  “WARNER’S NOT DYING TODAY,” I shivered and sobbed.

  The bankers cleaned me, robed me, muttered instructions to each other.

  “WARNER’S NOT DYING TODAY, EVIL BANKERS,” I told them, coughing, vomming.

  If you’ve never scaled your body down, I can never explain to you how freaking terrible it feels, you can never understand.

  You’re getting pulped and drowned and starved and stuffed allatonce and there’s nothing you can do, no escape, it’s how you’ll feel forever.

  Trembly, shivery, cantbreathe, canteat. Can’t calm down, can’t stay warm, puny, wobbly, weak.

  Eyes can’t let in enough light, ears can’t let in enough sound, body vibrates outofcontrol with every hum and whir of voices, giants, machines, earthsounds.

  Everything feels wrong on your fingers and attacks your skin, mouth has too much spit, insides feel beaten and bitten.

  Worst is that it’s because someone took your body from you, someone else will swell their bones with your scalemuns, someone else will wear your fat and skin, oh I was mad, all mad and only mad, no room anywhere for sadness, I knew I would never not be ang
ry again.

  “EVIL FREAKING BANKERS,” I bellowed from the cart, bloodynosed, bloodyeyed, as they wheeled me to the littlevator. “EVIL.”

  “We’re the only ones in the Yewess who can’t be evil, Warner,” soothed one banker finally. “We are tools of society, we swear a sacred oath to be purely instrumental. And good and evil are never in the tool, only in the person who—”

  “TOOLS OF EVIL, EVIL FREAKING TOOLS,” I yelled, shut up peen banker, save your sermons for the Crisp New Church of Evil Jerks.

  In the yawning waitingroom Puppyneck loomed fivetimes bigger than me, maybe I should have felt fear and dread and smallness, nope, all I felt was rage.

  News on vidscreens babbled, tons of crashes on the roads this morning, more than usual, groggy drivers blame disturbances in Dreamworld, more news at eight, hey it’s eight now, okay great here’s that news.

  “Time to go,” said Puppyneck, lowering a cage.

  He said it and a plan bloomed in my bloodred brain, out of sheer rage, a giant clever perfect plan.

  “Face,” I told him. “I dreamed a way to make us rich.”

  He shook his head sadly, heard that one before.

  “Listen to the plan first, then do what you want,” I said, not even panicky or desperate, totally matteroffact.

  “Look, dave, it’s too late,” he said.

  I just stared at him, shoved his big eyes with my little ones.

  He sighed, “Fine, tell me if you need.”

  I told him.

  Here’s what I can do, here’s what Prayer can do, here’s what Usher can do.

  Here’s a new corporate partnership for the faceboys.

  Here’s how I make us all big.

  His bored face didn’t change as I told him, except maybe the eyes.

  Afterward he said nothing, just caged me.

  Carried me to the facecar, put me in the backseat with some other cages, other littles, druggy or scared.

  From the frontseat boomed a friendly happy voice.

  “Ohboyohboy, does Shoulderheads have a cool surprise for you, and just incase you forgot, I’m Shoulderheads,” thundered Shoulderheads from the frontseat.