"Ta-klaaak!" the reptile-people moan. The sunlight glimmers on their flying green sperm, and their faces are now broken plates.
A few miles away, the missionary is now standing in the cloudy water, baptizingnative hunters. The priest is sizingthe negro men on the shore.
"What a dirty little gathering!" he mumbles under his nose. The warriors are all naked, their eyes are empty bird nests. Long, black penises hang down on to their knees, bone-rings tinkle in their foreskin.
"All right, let's get over with this." sighs the holy man, and he waves for the first to step into the water. The missionary grimaces in disgust, when he sees that the bloody scalp of an infant hanging out from his mouth.
"My God, what am I doing here among these people?" growls the priest, then he reaches out his hand, like a rigorous teacher who just caught his student chewing gum. The warrior spits the bloody skin into his palm, along with a great amount of pink saliva.
"The true children of Christ doesn't eat human! How many times do I have to tell you?" he yells, throwing the shred into the water. A fish arrives, it swallows it then swims away.
"Now let's start, or we’ll never finish!" says the missionary, putting his hands on the dark fellow’s wide shoulder.
"I baptizeyou in the name of the Father Son and Holy… shit, why won’t you sink?" The priest tries to force the mighty man down, but he just stands there, still like a stone statue, looking at him with motionless white eyes.
"Just squat, you idiot!" The missionary shows him what to do. Finally, the black hunter gets the idea and repeats his moves. But when he sinks and the grey waves crash over his head, the warrior turns into a giant catfish, and slips out from the proselytizer's hands.
"What the fuck?" The white man curses. "Well, okay, this one's gone for sure. May the devil take his soul. Who's next?"
And a new negro arrives. But when he descends, he too turns into a giant catfish and swims away. The forenoon takes down it's skin. Monkeys scream among the trees. The natives arrive one by one – stepping into the water, but every time their heads disappearunder the water, they turn into fishes and vanish in the depths. The missionary can't take it any longer, and he crawls out of the river, murmuring, "To Hell with you all then! Pagans! Go back to your ugly statues, your bloody rituals then, what do I care? But you're all gonna cry when the flames of Hell are kissing your asses!"
On the shore, he discovers tiny black leeches hanging on his hairy legs.
"Oh! That puts the lid on it!" he sighs, beginning to strike off the worms with his Holy Bible. No use. Then he drops some holy water on the animals, which makes them fall into the grey mud. He kicks back the leeches into the river. A big splashing starts in the water as the giant catfishes fight over the worms. Gaping, round mouths rise to the surface.
"So you're back?" The missionary gets all red, and he throws the first thing at them he can find. The Holy Bible falls into the river with a big splash, and the water starts to boil, as the fishes strike at the prey.
"The sacred words! What have I done?" The priest immediatelyjumps after the book. "Dear Christ, I'll save you! You’ve suffered enough already!"
The hungry, wild fish spring at the man. They bite away the missionary's marionette strings that were moving him from the clouds. The puppet-priest floats while the fish keep pecking him, then the animals get bored of the wooden man, and they head into the depths to find some other prey. The drift carries away the helpless Marionette
The jungle cries. A giant snake swallows down a coat hanger. A black comb, like a centipede crawls away on a giant fleshy leaf. Down by the river, a negro woman stands in the cool water, washing out the blood and the splinters from her tired hands. Then a big piece of wet wood knocks her on the legs. She looks down. It's a wooden puppet. She carries it out to the river shore, and lays the Marionette into a carved out coffin.
The sun falls, hitting a monkey in the head. Some warriors arrive, poking their fingers into the animal’s open skull, they paint tribal signs on their face with the blood. One of them draws a cross on his cheek, then disappearsbetween the trees, and the death-screams of animals fill the forest.
The night sticks out its forked tongue. Sick catfishes are squirming in the mud. Their stomachs are full of indigestiblebook pages. They are dying, pukingtheir unholy souls at the sky.
SECRET SKULL HOUSE
SOME BRATTY BOYS from the neighborhood decide to make a secret clubhouse in my skull. They don't ask me about it, but I have no argument against the plan. So, every afternoon getting home from school they occupy my head. The kids laugh loudly, and crack their chip bags. Sometimes smoke flies out of my ear. I suspect they are experimenting with their first cigarettes. Of course, I was just like them when I was their age, so I'm not going to tell on them; that’s for sure. If only they wouldn’t leave such a mess every time. It can be really awkward, when having a conversation with someone I begin to shake or nod my head and suddenly a crumpled porn magazine falls out from my ear.
Soon, the parents get wind of the secret clubhouse, and they step into my apartment swinging a bone saw. They insist on looking in my skull; telling me they have the right to know what their boys are up to behind their backs.
Now, the kids and I are both punished – they are grounded in their rooms, as for me, the parents won't give back my skullcap. It's quite embarrassing. Going to work in the mornings some cheeky brats on the bus are having a great time pushing spitballs and chewed bubble gum between my brain wrinkles when I'm not looking.
That’s enough, I decide one morning, I have rights too. So I knock on the mother's door, who has my upper head.
She just stands there in the door, smoking, holding my skullcap in her hand, which looks like a half hairy coconut, and she flicks the ash into it. After I’m done with my speech about human rights, she slams the door in my face.
I have no time for a second round I must leave to work. Scratching out a used ticket from my brain wrinkles I catch the next bus. A young couple whispers and chuckles behind me. I quickly get off at the next stop, before they could plan a secret date in my occipital lobe.
THE KIDNEY STONE INFANT
SPASMODIC PAIN TORTURES me, and my urine seems bloody. I suspect I have kidney stones, so I visit the doctor. The ultrasound test shows a clay-pigeon growing inside me. The doc writes me a prescription for antiepileptic drugs and for some tap water, telling me, that this will help my body to get rid of the rock. Finally, he makes a call for the local rifle club, just to be sure, a gunman will always be around me. I ask if they could remove the clay-pigeon by surgery, but the doctor shakes his head, "Well, you know, the hospital is running out of money, so we don't do surgeries anymore. We only take action if it's really necessary, otherwise, the scalpel stays in the cabinet." he mumbles. His pupils are dissolving pills. Then he pats my shoulder, saying,"Be a man and give birth to it!"
So a guy wearing an ear defender is always on my back, following me everywhere, and when I need to piss, he stands behind me, cocking his gun. And every time I put my dick back in to the pants, he lowers the weapon with a disappointed face.
"Sorry." I tell him, but it seems these false alarms make him more and more angry. His eyes glint at me like barb wire. At night, I watch him standing beside my bed, pointing the riffle at my crotch, his sweaty fingers are dancing on the trigger. He doesn't let me turn off the lights, telling me he would miss the target in the dark, and I'm starting to fear that eventually his hands will grow tired, and he will shoot me right in the balls while I sleep. So I take a few pills, and that knocks me out, therefore I don't have to think about that riffle anymore.
In the morning, I wake up in the middle of a green field. I'm layingon an operating-table, the doc stands beside me. He pulls aside his surgical mask, telling me, "I'm sorry, it looks like you're not a man enough to give birth to this pigeon. We must do the surgery."
I sneak a look behind me. There stands the whole rifle club, with guns on their shoulders. Birds fly over the sky. It'
s a beautiful summer day; a fat bee buzzes in front of my face, then it descends onto my chest, rubbing its tiny black legs like a cartoon villain making up an evil plan. Looking at it closer, I realize it's a painkiller pill, only with wings and tiny legs. I try to catch and swallow the pilule-bug, but it flies away. What a beautiful summer day! Gauze strips are hissing under the rocks, birds with medical scissor-heads are picking tiny squirming catheter tubes out from the ground, loose radiograph-kites disappear among the clouds. The scalpel between the doc’s fingers shine, and when he cuts me open, I realize he forgot to anesthetize me. Maybe the hospital doesn't have any money for that. I don't really mind, I'm still doped by the painkillers, my bored gaze just elbows out on my eyelids, and I’m watching as the doc’s hands disappearin the hole inside me. I’m biting the air every timea painkiller-bee fliesby. My blood is dripping on to the grass. The doctor soon pulls out something dark and round. He cheers, and throws it up in the air. The gunmen fire behind me, like angry bulls, rifle butts run against the bony shoulders, and the whole field shakes from the explosions. Something falls into the ground, smoking. The doc walks to it, picking it up he looks over the hole that a bullet left in the strange object.
"Sorry, it was one of your kidneys!" he apologizes, then he returns, plugging his hand back inside me. Next, he routs out my spleen, but I have no time to warn him, it too flies into the air and the rifle club fires.
Again the doc asks for my pardon, and soon, my liver passes across the sky. It continues like this for a while, then after an hour, he finallycomes across the clay-pigeon, and the riflemen destroy it. It explodes, and the splinters wound the birds. I thank the doc, who looks at his watch, and runs away, leaving his bloody gloves behind. I stagger to my feet from the operating-table and I start to collect my holey organs, packing them back inside my body with shaking hands, trying to figure out which goes where, but really, I have no clue. They fall out again. I look at the members of the rifle club, but the men just lay there, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.
"Could you give me a hand?" I ask them.
They stare at me and my organs. One of them shrugs, and brings me the nylon bag, still cold from the beers.
"Thanks." I growl, putting my insides into the bag. I decide to reassemble myself at home, with the help of anatomy pictures on the net. Who knows why, I pick up the doc's messy gloves too, and wave goodbye to the riflemen with them.
*
A strange scene greets me at home. Stepping into my bedroom I find myself between the sweaty sheets, I'm screaming in pain, pointing at my crotch. I throw away the bloody bag, and run to myself. I look like someone who's going to give birth: my pisshole widens like a gaping mouth, something is pushing itself through my urethra. Grabbing my hands, I tell myself that I can do it, I just have to push harder. Seemingly, I don't believeany of my words, I just curse myself, but knowing that only the pain makes me say these things, I forgive myself. Looking for some painkillers, I realize that I already took all of them. The pill bottle is full of fallen-out bee stingers and filmy wings.
"Doesn't matter! We'll do this anyhow!" I encourage myself, and we are doing it: my penis is so fat now, like an anaconda digesting an antelope, and soon, it pukes out a round clay-pigeon. But then, I realize that the ceramicobject ends in a neck. The neck ends in shoulders and a tiny chest. It's a baby. A real child is coming out. I couldn’t imagine a penis giving birth to an infant, but it's happening now in frontof my eyes. My dick is a bursting hose pipe. In no time, the premature looking little man falls into my hands. As he wiggles with his stumpy arms and legs, he sprays bloody mucus into my face. The child, apart from having a clay-pigeon instead of a head, and the fact that he was born from a penis and not a vagina, looks completely healthy and normal. A long, tremulous umbilical cord connects the crying infant with my run-down cockhead. I watch me standing before myself, holding the child, with tears of joy gathering in my eyes.
"Say hello to daddy!" I stick the infant into my face, and I know we're gonna raise the kid together. Me and me and the child, we're gonna be a beautiful family. Of course, there will be people talking behind our backs, pointing at us with their severe fingers, mocking the poor boy, because he has a clay-pigeon for head and he was delivered by a man; but right now, I really don't care. It’s is the happiest moment of my life.
And this is when the rifleman steps into the room. The one who was following me in the last couple of days. He must have been in the toilet, or hiding somewhere in the house. A surprise comes to his sandpaper face, when he glimpses at the kid.
"There flies the bird!" he yells, raising the gun to his shoulders. And he fires. The infant's clay head explodes, and sharp splinters wound up the wallpaper.
THE VIOLIN-FISHERS
SHADOWS OF CIRCLING seagulls stick to the heated rocks on the bay. Sleepy seashells blink at naked boyswho drag their fishnets to the shore. Their spines chamber out from their backslike snakes hiding under the sand. The rope bites into their sunburnt shoulders. In the unfolding net, along with silver fish and purple crabs, a dozen violins squirm. Their strings are covered with seaweed and flutter in excitement, gills discharging on their brown sides, pushing out the remaining salty water from their bodies. One of the older boys sticks two fingers into a gill, stretching it open, and shows it to his little brother.
"Look! It's just like a pussy!" He winks at the kid, and the other boys start to laugh. Seagulls swoop down to the sand, eye the fish in the net, but suddenly the sharp sound of a horn scares the birds away. The fisherboys look back at the road where an old truck is parked, a fat, hairy hand hanging out the front window, waving for them to hurry up. So the boys pick up the violins, and run to the truck—they throw the musical instruments into the hot metal truck bed, where they keep squirming and jumping. When they rub their bodies together, their strings squeak.
A fat man leans out of the van. Sweat glistens on his round face, the hairs of his tiny mustache collect the salty drops. His stained yellow undershirt is like a map leading to nowhere—and the ashes of his burning cigar keep falling on it. The boys finish with the packing. The oldest one runs to the driver, who fishes out some greasy money from the glove compartment and slaps it into the kid’s palm. He nods and turns the key. The engine roars and the truck disappears over the horizon. The boys runs back to the shore, where one of the nets still wobbles with a violin inside.
"Okay, let's build a fire!" orders the biggest boy, and the other children scatter along the beach.
"Tonight's program: Debussy" says a poster in front of the opera house. A truck drives into the parking lot, and when the driverhonks the horn, musicians in suits arrive, pick up the dried violins, and walk back into the building.
The driver steps out of the truck, stretching and cracking his joints. Feeling a bit dizzy from the heat, he staggers through the stage door. In his dressing room, he pulls off his sweaty undershirt, throws it in the corner, then opens a closet and takes out an elegant suit. He stubs his cigar in the ashtray and gels his hair back.Someone knocks on his door.
"Are you ready, maestro?"
And the maestro is ready. There's an aquarium next to the mirror with a giant sea urchin inside. Dipping his hand into the water, he pulls out one of its spines.
In the concert hall the musicians are tuning their new instruments—some of them are blowing huge sea shells, others are touching the jellyfish tentacles of a harp. As bows touch strings, the violins come to life—their gills begin to purge, puking salty water onto the musician's shoulders. The audience rumbles as obese women in their choking tight cocktail dresses, pearls clinking against each other on their huge necks, turn to their yawning husbands and poke them with sausage fingers. When the maestro walks to his podium, the sound of clapping rises. The man bows, thenraps the music stand with his baton.
In the meantime, flames rise on the shore, and the fire begins to chew on some broken oars. The oldest boy is skinning the violin with a knife. The blood of the instrument drips into the sand.
He cuts out the inedible parts, and throws the gills at the tiny boy next to the fire.
"Here ya go, marry it!" he mocks the boy. "This is the only pussy you’re ever gonna get!"
The other boys begin to laugh, while tears well up in the corners of the child’s eyes. He jumps up and runs into the night. The laughter chases him for a while, then meshes with the roar of the sea’s dark waves.
As the maestro warms up, he sweats, as if he were still sitting in the truck. The waves of music run at the rocks wrapped in cocktail dresses and blow into spray of notes. The musical keys turn the husbands on and they grow young again—turning into bronzed boys.As they laugh, their penises grow hard and ejaculate. White pearls roll out of their trousers, and their wives begin to chase the small spheres, trampling each other, eventually becoming entangled in the boy-nests. The little fishermen sharp each musical note they find in the air.
"Okay, let's build a fire!" orders the biggest boy, and they huddle their seats up. The shells on their chests begin to clap. The wailing of fat ladies drowns out the sound of the instruments. The maestro perceives the muddle, but he simply can't stop conducting, not even when the boys carry away his podium and throw it on the fire. His baton smolders like a cigar, but it doesn't stop at his fingers: soon his whole arm turns to ashes and drops to the ground.
The boys watch the fire bite into the meat—the cosmic notes of stars on the mirror of the sea—under the light of the moon the violins swim in the bay, casting a greenish light under the waves, laying their eggs in the sludge.
On the other side of the bay, the young boy sits crying on a rock, watching the distant glow of the instruments. Then he notices something: on the shore, in the cool sand, a giant dark mound stirs. The boy stands and sneaks up on it. It's a beached piano—digging into the sand with its slim legs. The child watches its wide, gleaming dark side in amazement—its giant gills open and close continuously, foamy water oozing out on the sand. The boy extends his tiny hand and touches one of its keys. The instrument shakes in fear, its legs dig deeper pits into the sand, as it tries to drag itself back into the water. And then the boy smiles. He sticks two fingers into its enormous gill, stretching it open.
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