We Need to Do Something

by Max Booth III

The way they act around one another, it’s less like a marriage, more like an epic rivalry. Maybe that’s what all relationships are like. Maybe nobody actually loves each other. They just argue and fight and have babies and scream and break things and eventually everybody dies. The outcome will always be the same, no matter what anybody tries to do. Everybody dies. The end.

“Oh no.” “What?” “I have to poop.” “Oh no,” the three of us say in unison. It doesn’t take long before we’re fighting for a chance to press our faces against the door opening, desperate for fresh air, gagging on the hideous stench emitting from my brother’s asshole. “Oh god,” I moan, “we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die.” “Jesus, Bobby,” Mom says, color draining from her face, “what did you eat?” “Farts! I ate farts!” he shouts atop the toilet, howling with laughter as waves of flatulence erupt beneath him. “I ate all the farts!”

The longer we stay in this bathroom, the tighter the tension grows. It will not hold forever. Sooner or later, something is going to break. Something or someone.

Slimy with blood or something else, who can tell? I scream but noise refuses to escape my lungs. I try to throw the insect but it clings to my hand. It refuses to let go. Please stop, I silently beg it, and after so long only one solution makes sense, so I bring it back up to my arm and push the insect back into the wound. It buries itself into my flesh and disappears. All night long I feel it moving inside me. Eventually I start to welcome the sensation. Then I feel nothing, and all I want in this world is for it to return and keep me company again.

The fucj k

“I’m a good boy,” the dog says from the other side of the door, only it’s not a dog at all, not with a voice like that. In the darkness, everybody loses their shit, including me. The thing on the other side lets out a deep, guttural laugh, then grabs my wrist tight, preventing me from retreating back into the bathroom. Its tongue runs up and down the back of my hand, then it starts sucking on my fingers, making loud wet disgusting noises that I’ll never unhear for the rest of my life. “I’m a good boy,” it croaks, “I’m a good boy, me, me, me, I’m a good boy, yum yum yum yum . . .

AHHHH

“What happened to the snake?” Bobby asks. “What happened to Monkey?” “Monty,” Dad says. “His name was Monty.”

“We have to do something, don’t we?” I wail. “We have to do something.”

Our existence has been a burden on not only them but also ourselves since day one in the womb.