Munmun(93)

“Ghost Warner, why did you do it,” she said.

It silenced me.

“Why’d you leave,” she begged.

“To help a friend,” I said, my words were whines.

“You could have belonged to me, you know,” she told me.

“Stop, stop stop,” I said.

“I could have belonged to you,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Never, never ever.”

“You could have belonged to me, I could have belonged to you,” she breathed.

“It never could have happened,” I began to yell.

“If you stayed, I would have,” she said, simple, small.

“You don’t even know who I am,” I began to really yell, loud to shut up the moaning heart. “You think I’m a pet, a saintbernard, a noble little sufferer, Kitty please shut up, you have no idea who I am.”

“I know you,” she insisted.

“Stop,” I begged.

“But I know you, I know I know you,” she told me, low and soft.

“Oh, stop, just stop it, please freaking stop,” I cried. “The boy you know wrecked Dreamworld.”

She closed her eyes, maybe she heard music instead of me.

“The idiot you know made sadness into munmun,” I raged. “The ghost you know grew fear like food and ate it to get big, the rat you know made pain for five shityears and now he’s huge, and all I want to do with hugeness is punish, Kitty, that’s all I want to do.”

She opened her eyes again, her big eyeblacks breathed in and out.

“That’s all I want to do anymore, just crush and hurt forever,” I rasped, “make bigs feel fearfull, unsafe, turn bigs into cowering frightened powerless littles, turn them into me, make fear until I die.”

She just shook her head, halfsmiled.

“Is that the boy you know,” I ached, my face was hot and melting.

“I just know you’re the boy who found me once,” she told me, “the boy who wanted to show me something, longago.”

The shock almost woke me, then noises did.





LIFEANDDEATHWORLD


It was a familiar voice that pulled me back to lifeanddeath.

“Warner, sorry, hello, Warner, wakeup please,” blared a drone near my poor weepy head, dizzy, floating in my waterbed, saltyfaced.

The dronescreen showed me Hue, behind his desk in his homeoffice, smiling pale and nervous.

I breathed away the weeping, didn’t want to seem weak or dumb.

“I’m here with Usher and Prayer, Warner,” said Hue, turn the camera and show my shaky sis and grim lawyer, well look at these two healthy fifteenfooters.

HELLO GUYS, I said, raspythroated.

“Warner, bro, you have to stop,” pleaded Prayer.

Usher nodded, jerky, needy.

USHER, SIS, I said, unsure what to say.

I thought about it.

CAN YOU PAY HUE THE MUNMUNS I OWE HIM, I said finally.

“Oh, that’s really not necessary,” said Hue.

IT’S A HUNTHOUSAND MUNMUNS, I said, got to be specific.

“Warner, I’m not talking to you as your former hostfather today,” explained Hue. “I’m talking to you as a representative of the localgovernment of Lossy Indica County.”

He was talking fast, nervous, sped right into “Wewantyoutoknow, firstofall, that we take a lot of pride in your incredible achievements, I mean you’re a selfmade bigrich, born littlepoor, it’s a true ragstoriches story, and on top of that Prayer has told me you’ve been expressing a desire to donate some of your fortune to Lossy Indica Minmun, if this is true I want to tell you how much I admire your generosity and citizenship.”

HEY IS KITTY THERE, I asked.

“Please, we need to resolve this as soon as possible,” Hue zipped, “our problem is, your recent actions have encouraged many of our local bigriches, infact I think we can say prettymuch all, to consider moving away from Balustrade, out of Lossy Indica County, perhaps out of the Yewess itself.”

Sweaty frightened Hue, fear is eating even him.

“For reasons I explained to you once, during one of our talks, this would be a disaster, Warner, and one that would hit our most vulnerable the hardest, so what we need to do is find a positive and peacefull resolution that will keep everyone happy and allow jobcreators to remain in the country that loves them the most.”

HUE, IS KITTY OKAY, I asked.

“Notreally, Warner, no, she’s notwell, but please, we don’t have a lot of time,” said shaky Hue. “Let me be uncomfortably clear with you. The citizens of Balustrade have asked the Yewess government to conduct a military strike against your body.”

Prayer breathed in hard, Usher got more grim, I didn’t even really hear Hue tobehonest, what does notwell mean.

“Ofcourse this is a highly unusual action against someone of your size and wealth and it exposes the national government to a potenchilly ruinous series of lawsuits, as your lawyer has made clear to us,” Hue said. “But the bigs are unwilling to shoulder this legal burden themselves, and they have enormous leverage over the federal government, in ways you and I have discussed, I’m sure you remember our talks about this.”

HUE I DON’T REALLY CARE, I rasped, WHAT DO YOU MEAN, KITTY’S NOTWELL.