Void
I have a bowel movement that lasts for three days. By the time I’m finished—emptied—I’m sweaty, exhausted and famished. No longer myself.
When I go downstairs I discover someone has played a horrible trick on me. They’ve removed every item from the downstairs and replaced it with a cardboard replica. The couch, the refrigerator, the television—all cardboard. Even the carpet has been removed, crayon stippled onto the cardboard, only a simulation of the real thing. I pick up the cardboard phone, ready to call anyone I can think of—I need answers—but, rather than a dial tone, I am greeted with a voice repeatedly asking what I’m wearing. Struggling somewhat, I rip the phone to pieces and toss it onto the floor.
What am I wearing?
I look down at my clothes and see that I, too, am made of cardboard. A terrible shock seizes me. I have to get out of the house. Charging outside, I am horrified to see that it is raining and looks like it has been raining for quite some time. The water sluices its way down the sides of the street, running into the sewer.
Yes. That’s it. If I can get down into the sewer, I can regain that part of myself I have expelled over an arduous three day period. I can reclaim my waste. I rush out to the street, the rain pounding down onto my cardboard flesh. I absorb it, growing heavy and soggy.
I manage to reach the sewer. It is cool outside and a thin mist rises from the slit. I think of a halitosis smile, a diseased vagina. Holding my breath, I enter the sewer. My right arm comes off in the process, remaining on the street.
Plopping down into the sewer, I stumble after the lost part of me, wanting only to be three dimensional and whole once again. Following the tunnel of the sewer, I come to a small door. Hoping it isn’t locked, I pull on the handle. I am greeted by family and friends, everyone I have grown apart from over the past several years, all hunched over in a tiny, brightly lighted room.
“Surprise!” they shout in unison.
My dad steps forward, nervous, smoothing his thin hair with his left hand. In his right hand he holds a box. A present.
“For you,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the gaily wrapped pink box.
“Go on,” he prods, licking his lips. “Open it.”
Having only one hand, I set the box down on the floor. I try untying the bow but my soggy fingers only bend back. The people in the room chuckle. I hear someone, I’m pretty sure it’s my grandfather, bemusedly say, “He’ll never get that thing open… Not with those fingers.”
“Let me help you with that,” my dad says, crouching down and farting a little.
He easily tears the wrapping off the box, wadding it up and sticking it down his pants. Then he opens the box and pulls out a miniature toilet, setting it beside the empty box.
“Go on,” he says. “Open it.”
I crouch down and try to flip the lid up but, again, my fingers won’t work.
“There there,” my father says, demonstrating a patience he never showed in my childhood, this time only bending over to pull back the lid and reveal the contents to me. I can’t identify what lies inside the toilet.
“Go on,” my father says. “Try some. It’s food.” I reach into the bowl and wrap my waterlogged hand around something that looks like a miniature baseball hat. I put it into my mouth and cautiously chew. It’s delicious. I can’t identify a specific element about it but it is, without a doubt, the most delicious food I have ever eaten. My family and friends all stare eagerly as I extract random items, all familiar-looking, all completely foreign tasting, and shove them into my mouth. Gradually, I become full. My other arm is back and the rain water is sweat seeping from my pores and I have visions of myself sitting on the toilet and straining, voiding sweat and waste… But that is in the future. For now, I eat. Becoming full. Letting the people around me chatter and fill my soul to bursting.
