Munmun(67)

“It’s not really a town, think of it more like a nationalpark,” suggested Lily.

“No visitorcenter though,” Kitty pointed out.

“And all the rangers are dicks,” said Markfive, loudenough for the driver to hear.

As we motored down to the water I spotted him floating in the ocean in bright boyant waterrobes, Mark, the tenbillionair birthdayboy, a handsome giant with saltandpepper stubble and a beautifull head of uplifted rigid hair. I could see his giant eyes all the way from land, brown emeralds in milk, skin also was toadcolor. His hairy knees and tum were little islands and the waves were barely ripples as they passed around him.

Around him were various barges of dancing partiers, chefs roasting fishes on openflames, barkeeps stirring giant vats of drinks, a rental popstar singing a familiar song.

Waitaminute, that stupid song plays over the speakers at Mun World like every twentyminutes, is that the actual freaking guy who sings that freaking song, holy crap yes it’s Famous Randy in his famous turtleneck, that’s amazing.

Mark said nothing, basically just bobbed upanddown, floating there listening and watching. His movements were super slow, I wondered if giants can’t move at normal speeds, then I realized he’s trying not to make huge waves that would drown everyone.

I stared like a maniac as he slowmo reached a dripping arm from the ocean, plucked a couple twofoot fish right off the grill, dropped them whole into his roomsize mouth, snacked and crunched the bones and heads.

I kept staring and goggling as he lifted a vat of vodkatonic from another barge and tipped that onto his bedsize tongue, meanwhile the bevbarge was rocking and rolling because there used to be a ton of booze on one side and then there wasn’t, the bartenders were drenched in sloshing vodkatonic and rearranging vats in a frenzy.

“What a crazy and disgusting life, makes me glad he didn’t marry my mom tobehonest,” muttered Markfive as our motorboat arrived at the familybarge.

“Sure, agree, try not to say such things in front of your sibs though,” murmured Lily, and we tried to approach Mark Family with dignified walks on the shuddering platform.

Mark Family was various babymamas and offsprings, elegant clothes all around, tuxes and businessgowns. Markfive was the only young slacker, also the littlest. His three and fourscale brothers and sisters gave him poisonous smiles.

“Little Five, you’re looking littler than ever, hope you’re not having mun trouble,” wondered a bro.

“Such a shame you can’t afford respectfull clothes and instead must dress like a thuggy hoodlum,” murmured a sis.

Markfive ignored them all graciously, I was pretty impressed, I would be freaking out and mashing faces before long.

“BE RIGHT BACK,” said giant Mark suddenly to everyone from the middle of all the barges, a low normalguy voice except it’s like he said it right in my ear, from twohundred feet away.

And he sank under the water, became a shadow and submarined away from us, rippling currents rocked the barges and everyone lost their balance, Famous Randy collapsed violently and hopped right back up bloodynosed like it was part of his danceroutine.

Twominutes later Mark surfaced about a halfmile further out to sea, but no one was looking at him. Weirdly everyone seemed to be taking an intrest in the shoreline instead.

“Warner, Blessing, don’t look at him, turnaway,” murmured Lily.

“Wait why, what’s happening,” I said.

“Nature called,” she said.

“He’s taking a crap,” said Markfive.

“Oh dang,” said Prayer.

“He’s not supposed to crap in the ocean but who’s going to stop him,” explained Markfive.

“Baby, enough,” said Lily, but enormous hostile ears had already heard her disrespectfull son.

“Five, wow, judgmental of Dad much,” accused Markthree, a bald fourscale big in a shimmering threepiecesuit, looming over us with hungry eyes. Behind him his giant eaglenosed mom hissed, “Yeah.”

“Mybad, Three, mybad,” said Markfive. “It’s easy for me to be judgmental, unlike you I am not big enough for the privilege of wiping the residual craps out of Dad’s huge soakingwet butt.”

A littledrunk Lily wanted her son to not go there but instead accidentally laughed.

“Five Mom, your son is making an ugly spectacle at Mark’s birthdayparty, can you not get him undercontrol,” demanded Three Mom.

“Nope,” decided Lily.

“I enjoy your jealous ignorant middletalk, hilarious middlekid, I truly do,” boomed Markthree. “You don’t even know how defecation works for us bigs, you don’t understand biologically why we need to defecate into the ocean sometimes, well dontworry, you’ll never have to, have fun with your lazy middlelife.”

“Yup, it’s super tragic that I don’t understand the glory of oceancrapping,” said Markfive, but Three was already hustling away importantly to get the lastword.

Back on land, we had some fish in the bigpatio, the vast tablelegs and structures towering over most of us.

It took me back to being littlepoor forsure, being roofed by tables, gazing up at the undersides of everything.

“Are these fish safe to eat, with all the oceancrapping that’s going on,” I asked.

“Put it this way,” said Markfive. “These fish don’t get crapped on more than any other fish you’ve eaten.”