Munmun(95)

I breathed long and hard, tried to keep my hands still, not jostle and snap this kid’s spine, atleast not yet.

“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed again.

His eyes screamed Please don’t kill me, he didn’t say it though.

He must have known the moment he said it, I would, I’d bunch my fists and mangle him like a napkin.

I breathed again, closed my huge eyes, saw my father’s face.

CAN I TELL YOU ALITTLE ABOUT MY DAD, I asked.

Jasper, he called me little redfish, psst, wake up little redfish, that was how my days began.

His name was Robin, always weird to hear people call him that, Robin can you fix our broken stove.

He smelled like oil and rubber always and his hands were huge, I mean littlepoor huge, long strong grippy fingers stained with black grit.

He was best at fixing old brokendown middlepoor gadgets, didn’t own a workshop though, had to pay to use shopspace and tools, bounced around between rentalspaces owned by jerks.

Always hoped to own his own shop, own his own tools, just need to get a few clinky clanky little tools and then we’ll start scaling up, funny redfish, that’s our way out.

Prayer was rubymouse and I was redfish, at night we played with him by creeping our hands closer and closer to his until CHOMP, his big strong hands chomped ours, we shrieked and giggled like lunatics.

He teased my mom always about the Lord King God, wonder what that big godly fella’s doing right now, hey Rosy you think He’s watching some sportsgames or what, what do you think He likes on his hotdogs, he knew how to tease so she wouldn’t get too mad.

But Dreamworld was where he was most himself, Dreamworld was where I loved him best.

My dad could dream anything, stars and suns and cityblocks, his favorite was the ocean though. He saw oceans and water in everything always, he called good things wet, bad things dry, I do it too sometimes, it feels true.

I talk like him, Jasper, I know I do. I talk in his long listy sentences, words all piledup, and do I ask myself questions the way he always did, yup, forsure.

When you hear my voice you’re hearing the voice of the dad you killed.

And before jail I dreamed the way he used to dream.

He dreamed ripply fish, chubby seals, nibbly sharks and squiggly squids, jellies, crabs, thousandcolor corals and seaflowers, rippling pages of kelp. He made dreamzones for me and sis, adventures of redfish and rubymouse, after you killed him I tried to keep making them, when I dreamed myself into the ocean it was to feel like a babybrat again.

In Dreamworld he played the game of Make Stuff Out Of Other Stuff, Jasper he was the one I learned it from, whoelse. I learned it from my clever funny dad, watching him dream pools of cloud, mountains of teeth, accordion palaces, whale buses. Winking humming Dad drawing the vines of road on brickwalls, pulling the churning orchards of rivertrees from the ground with the gritty grippy hands.

And when I dreamed them too onenight to show him that I could, he glowed all proud and happy, he told me he loved me so much, amazing redfish.

I asked him did he love me more than Prayer, did he love me the most, he bellylaughed and tossed me in the cloudpool.

He tried to tell me something after you crushed him, Jasper, rememberthat, he moved his mouth and tried to talk.

Couldn’t push the words out though.

? ? ?

Okay. It’s time.


Shut up. Shut up and listen.




Jasper, can you swim.

Do you think you can swim a mile.

Jasper, we’re a mile from shore, a mile from Lossy Indica.

Go swim back to safety, Jasper, swim back to your good wise dad.

I placed Jasper in the water, watched him paddle away from me frantically, furiously, rat leaving a sinking ship.

I stopped my shaking, stilled my quaking, drifted north, and gazed again at Balustrade.

And knew what had to be done,

sorry Usher,

sorry Prayer.

Sorry Yewess, sorry Hue.

But listen.

The world is sick, the world is sad.

If I don’t bash some bigs then no one will.

? ? ?

Even if they bomb me, go ahead. Let me put my giant smoking stinking carcass on their shore, sicken them, sadden them, choke them on the fumes.

And if they don’t bomb me, great, I’ll eat them.

Char their skin, roast their muscles, gulp their blood, slurp their fat. Kill them, cook them, eat them, turn their flesh into my flesh, scale into my scale.

You are meat that I will eat, I thought, watching the limping rich.

It’s time.





LIFEWORLD



But I floated,


and floated,


and didn’t swim to shore,


just kept watching, floating, feeling very still.




And prettysoon I began to hear a song,

imagined by my giant head.





SONGWORLD


The song was shrieks, chirps, giggles, hoots, hums and laughs, barks and whoops, whatshappenings and isthisreals,

notes made out of notes.

I was hearing littles, in twos and threes, families and crowds, coastguard stationfulls,

growing.


My mind heard every littlepoor in Lossy Indica, allofasudden breathing in a littlebit more air, with allofasudden a littlebit bigger lungs, gasping the moreandmore air back out with roars and croons, chuckles and squeaks.