Munmun(38)

Creaking, crying, slipping ripping, outerspace was an unlit underground room and the walls were paper, I was straining them, stressing them, little gills of light breathed through.

I reached through one, grabbed either side, tried just tearing it open like a box.

“Oh no,” said outerspace.

I got an elbow in there, really jammed it around.

“No no no,” yelled outerspace. “Nope.”

But I stuck my head through.

“Help,” cried outerspace, but it wasn’t outerspace, it was a horrified banker in the white windowless underbank, and right about then, the lights came on.





LIFEANDDEATHWORLD


I woke up in a littletub, in a littleroom, alone, crazy with thirst and hunger.

But it wasn’t a littletub, it was the same middletub as the one I fell asleep in, same middleroom too, I was just fivetimes bigger.

I gasped like a fish, trying to fill my roomy lungs.

“Do you mind if we come in and help you adjust,” asked a banker over the pee ay, and I could only nod, couldn’t use my voice.

The bankers came in and my heart jumped to see them shrunk to just twice as big as me, littlepoor allofasudden. Except they weren’t, Warner they’re still middlescale, you’re just bigger now, halfscale, middlepoor, you lucky idiot.

I flailed my big numb arms, grayed from bloodlessness, asleep and wobbly.

The bankers handed me a bottle of water so small it fit in my hands, except it wasn’t small, I was just bigger, bigenough to hold waterbottles now, my thoughts kept hiccuping.

I drank it so fast I choked. I gripped the bottle, crinkled its thin plastic, felt like a oneyard god. I stood up in the bankers’ arms, tried to fall down, the bankers wouldn’t let me. They toweled me off, kept me on my feet, walked me into the robe on the wall, now my size exactly. They gave me another bottle of water and some powerbars and I drank and ate like an animal, sloppy and desperate.

We practiced standing, walking, it took an hour to figure out the ground under my feet, the feeling of being in a fivetimes shrunkdown space.

I saw my old clothes on the floor, reached down, picked them up, and that’s when I started crying, harder than ever before, dirty little dollrags that used to fit my body, the clothes of sad little previous me.

It was like Prayer said. The most normal boring things felt amazing. Walking, breathing, talking, nottalking and just making sounds with your throat. Touching things, holding them. Everything in my hands had incredible textures. Wallpaper, plastics, rubbers, clothing. When you’re littlepoor, the threads of fabrics are ropes a lot of times, nothing really soft about it. But when you have middlehands to hold them they melt together into fantastic softness.

On the drive home we ordered fried chickens and Kitty handed me a wing, the entire wing of a chicken, and I bit through the crinkly bready skin and into the slippery wingmuscle all in one bite, first time in my life, and a beautifull warmth filled my mouth, salt, juice, herbsandspices, I shrieked through closed lips.

“What did you eat growing up?” Kitty wanted to know.

For some reason I felt like I had to joke, play it cool, be normal, Warner, nothing amazing has happened and definitely don’t burst into tears.

“Oh, same same,” I told her. “My family raised littlechickens.”

“What?” said Dawn. “Littlechickens? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Sure, littlechickens on our littlefarm,” I said, trying to joke, more just babbling. “With littlecows and littledogs. Littlehorses in the littlebarn.”

Dawn moved her lips, repeating me silently, watching the road, Kitty watched me with the pretty eye a littlebit wall.

“You’re joking,” guessed Dawn in a laughless voice.

“No joke,” I blurted. “We used to fry up littlechickens just like this everyday on our littlefarm, littlefarm on a littlemountain, on a littleisland, a whole littleworld that middleriches don’t know about, so little you can’t even see it unfortunately, wish you could.”

Kitty said, “Yeah, Mom, he’s joking.”

“That is funny, hahaha,” agreed Dawn, trying to laugh afterthefact.

“Sorry, I won’t ask you questions about your old littlelife if you don’t want,” Kitty whispered a little later.

“Nono, it’s okay,” I said, she didn’t though and I was glad.

Prayer was waiting for me on the steps of Hue Family Palace, old toobig clothes hanging loosely off the shoulders of my divorced sis, flyswatter arms dangling out of the folds.

Ofcourse it was an emotional scene, tons of crying, hugging, laughcrying, a little just plain regular laughing, grouphugging with Kitty’s legs to tell her, we know you’re responsible and you did all of this, therefore thanks.

With my sis around it was a little easier for me to get weepy in front of Kitty and Dawn, we thanked them a million times.

“Well, thank Warner too, dontforget,” Kitty made sure to tell Prayer.

“Noneed,” I said, “are you kidding, I’m required to share everything with my sis, otherwise she slaps my face.”

But Kitty didn’t laugh, just grimaced with that scrunchy mouth, in our house we’re not huge fans of faceslapping.

“No, Warner, forreal thankyou so much, bro, I’ll never be able to thank you enough,” said Prayer hastefully.