Munmun(78)

Puppyneck met my eyes, shook his head, put out his spliff, took a few steps closer.

I didn’t want Mom to meet her son’s murderer so realquick I just said, “Sorry Mom, I gotta go study, I’m happy to see you though, I love you, okay,” couldn’t believe this was my stupid goodbye to my mom forever, there’s got to be something else.

“I understand, kiddo,” she told me. “I love you too, go back and study, keep making a nice life for yourself, keep your sister out of that cult, and remember, you can always come pray with your proud mama, I’m so proud of you and I know up in heaven your poor daddy is, too, I love you so much, sweetfish.”

“Okay, Mom,” were my last words to my mom, I tried not to think about their lastness as I turned and walked to the bank.

Different bankbranch, different bankers, same robes, same middlescale, same spooky underbank.

Different attitudes of the bankers this time, not smiling and encouraging, instead sorrowfull and grim, eyes of, we are suffering along with you, voices of soft firm comfort for the hopeless.

I waited until we got to our preproom and said, “Bankers, please call the cops, those guys who brought me have been prisoning me for days, as soon as they get my scalemun they’re going to kill me.”

I held my breath for their response.

But the bankers just got deepeyed and stiff.

“The only law that is enforced in the bank is munlaw,” said a banker.

“They’re going to freaking kill me though,” I repeated.

“That’s criminal law, not munlaw,” explained a second banker, “and we are honorbound not to let it affect our doings in the bank.”

“Criminal law doesn’t exist in the bank?” I asked, trying to stay calm, reasonable, keep these bankers on your side.

“The bank is a neutral zone as far as criminal law is concerned,” said first banker.

“So if I attack you, leap up and beat the hell out of you, you can’t call the police,” I said.

“No, but we have our own security,” said second banker.

“They’re not bound by criminal law either,” said the first.

Same doctor questions, is there anything artafishill in your body, my mind was racing and I wasn’t thinking and said no.

“Are you sure, looks like there’s a couple faketeeth in there, forexample,” said the bankdoctor, peering into my mouth.

“Oops, yeah,” I said and he numbed me, pulled them out.

Different new additional process of pumping my stomach and emptying my butt, I guess if there’s still food and crap inside you when you scale down, the nonshrinking food and crap can blow you open like a balloon. So they drugged me up and some chemicals scraped out my insides for a bad few hours.

It was night by the time I was ready for Scale Down, not that you can tell night or day in the underbank.

I was woozy, weak, lightheaded and lightbodied, hard to keep fighting, can’t really fight the bank anyway.

It’s okay, it’s fine, I’ll take care of it when I get out.

Same tub getting prepped, tinydoor in the bottom, I guess I’ll walk out of there when I’m ratsize again.

Tinyrobe waiting for me on a hook lowdown on the wall.

Different songs hummed and crooned by the mournfull bankers, melodies of a prayer you’d sing to someone else’s God, dark hurting chords of, sorry, other God, turnsout you were real and my God was fake, I hope you’ll have mercy but I know you won’t.

Before I drank the scaletea, I tried one last thing.

“Look,” I said to the bankers. “I know this munmun’s going to the munflow of Faceboy Industries, but heresthething, my scalemun is actually a loan from someone else, a pretty important cityboss named Hue.”

The bankers were quiet, making a web of glances at each other.

“Well, what we more need to know is where it’s going, which is still Faceboy Industries,” said a banker.

“Sure but what I’m telling you is, the munmun’s not really mine to give,” I told her.

The bankers murmured like faraway traffic.

“It’s in your scale account, therefore yours to give,” said the banker.

“That can’t be munlaw,” I said. “You have to atleast check with Hue. I mean you have to.”

Sad smiles all around.

“We don’t have to check with anyone, Warner,” said another banker. “We’re the bank.”

I sipped, stripped, lay in jelly, closed my halfscale eyes for the last time, fluttered down into dark quiet Dreamworld.

And like lasttime in the underbank, I entered Dreamworld under the earth, I could feel it getting huger even as I swam and kicked to the surface.

I broke through the ground of some dreamy giantville, alone again, solodream walled me off from every other dreamer.

I was in a threecar parkinglot, vast as a stadiumfield, getting vaster every second, all around me were fleeing mountains.

Empty apartmentblocks zipping away from me and shooting into the sky, grass growing up all around me over my head, ground under me getting bumpier, lumpier, uneven, and crazy.

Like the old bankdream but in reverse, that time I got too huge for the world, this time the world was getting too huge for me.

Dang, remember your first wild bankdream, you were tugging hills, lugging coasts, wearing fogs, chomping suns.