1 Wally found Rhonda inside the eyeball. It was where she had to be. They dreamt of stealing the breath out of the lungs of somebody's sister's newborn baby. Maybe they could learn to be happy sharing that kind of life. They could breath it back and forth like a kiss. They could live forever. But the hospitals were all floating in the clouds and the only people who did home births were fish. The clouds were something they remembered. They remembered the fish too. Wally thought about the time he paid cash for candy canes even though the candy canes salesman had a white thing on his phone and it was the only cash he hadn't sold yet. Rhonda had jumped into a bonfire because of embarrassment but only burnt off the fuzzy hairs on her forearms. That was on her birthday which was also Christmas day. 2 Smoke didn't age. Fresh smoke smelt the same as old smoke. It was only when things that were alive passed in between the source of the smoke and the smoke that the smoke changed flavors. 3 The key was to keep the mind moving. Wally knew he had to write a dozen self-help books a day to stay alive. Even though Rhonda had slacked off as an editor the books remained on the bestseller list. Each paragraph was a tick and each chapter a deep and disgusting personality flaw. Every word was a negative thought turned inward until it exploded back onto the page as advice. 4 The money that the self-help books made was stitched together to make pants as was all the money in the world. The money made off selling self-help books wasn't any better than the money made off books on how to do self-harm. Pants were still just pants and all the pants were made out of stitched-together money. 5 Rhonda cried when the slime had touched her foot. She thought about fruit salad but thinking about fruit salad didn't remove the slime from her foot. She thought about a dog getting neutered and that didn't work either. A lot of the time you can spend thinking all sorts of things like resealing a banana peel with something other than banana inside but it doesn't work like that. The new banana will never look right. 6 Through the flesh of fish the sister had poked the slime. She inserted it inside herself and in nine months gave birth to the world. The world took an eternity to grow an eyeball and when it finally developed the world demanded a pirate patch to cover it up. The person whose sister this was was just artificial intelligence in the shape of a doughnut. They didn’t like the sister giving birth to the world or having a social life at all. They resented the world and truly began to hate the world when it covered its one and only eye. 7 The funny thing about feet is that they wouldn't know a utopia from a bag of marbles if they were standing on it and they are feet. Standing is one of the best things feet know how to do. Wally chopped off his feet because he was worried about slime touching them. Before the sister put the slime inside her everyone worried about slime touching them. People were constantly getting stuck in the slime. He never would have to worry about slime or anything else touching his feet ever again though. He also never had to worry about standing or walking or running either. 8 The artificial intelligence in the shape of a doughnut was covered in synthetic flesh. It was the size of a small town. It sold its gender for the synthetic flesh because it was programmed to feel great shame. The buyer of the gender could not reveal the gender as part of their agreement. The buyer of the gender was not Wally or Rhonda and certainly not the slime. The slime was not part of any economic system. 9 The pants made out of money were paper pants and when it rained they got very wet and became ruined easily. 10 There were certain artifacts Wally liked to pass around to his inner circle back on the outside so they would never forget him. One of them was the tricycle he had pedaled into the heart of the eye. He painted it gold and it was a real big hit making the rounds. He had surgically attached his leg stumps to the pedals and some of the burnt flesh was still visible beneath the gold paint. 11 Rhonda had hoped the man with the flamethrower who detached Wally from the tricycle would have burnt his entire body and soul up too. She secretly hated him and wanted him dead. 12 The man with the flamethrower saw this murderous glimmer and made sure to tell Wally all about it while he was in recovery. He had no proof beyond this glance but Wally still believed him. He thought about the moment in time when the world lifted its pirate patch long enough for him to enter the eyeball. He had long thought Rhonda was waiting for him there when in fact she had been hiding. 13 Wally converted this knowledge into an energy he used to grow potatoes inside the eyeball. No longer would they need to feast on tears and eye goop. Rhonda was suspicious about the potatoes but there was no denying their deliciousness. 14 Ed returned the golden tricycle one day and with it he brought news. The man with the flamethrower had drowned at an aquarium. He was trying to save a candy cane his daughter had dropped into the shark tank. The sharks had eaten him whole but officials said he was already dead from drowning most likely. Christmas is everyday of the year now. That's why there is so much candy cane consumption. 15 Ed was the oldest friend of Wally and the only person the world allowed to enter the eyeball for visits. This was because Ed was a gentleman and never referred to the world as a cyclops. Even if that's what the world was. Ed would bring Wally's artifacts to and from the eyeball of the world. Mostly these artifacts were boring knickknacks like pants made out of fabric and not money. 16 All of the pants that were not stitched out of money had been destroyed once the economic systems were deemed unnecessary and so it was kind of a hoot for people to see what old pants looked like. 17 Whenever a fish flings themselves onto dry land the world closes its eye even though it's behind a patch. It crunches itself up and Wally and Rhonda feel the brunt of it. The crunching hurts. But fish flopping about on the ground is not the thing which makes the world cry. That is another thing and Wally and Rhonda are often very thirsty. 18 The sister Wally and Rhonda like to think about is not a mother. She hasn't even been born yet. The mother of the world is somebody else's sister. 19 Outside the eyeball all of the people alive are somebody's sister. They like to watch the dying fish. Almost all of the world that isn't water is covered with fish flopping about and trying to breathe. They don't eat these fish. These fish are only used for entertainment purposes. The fish they eat are the ones they catch in the net at the end of the pier. They dance and sing until a fish gets so excited and amused that it flings itself into the net. These are the fish they eat. 20 The circle is finally complete. The fish that die accidentally exist to entertain the people. The people survive by so entertaining the fish that they die on purpose out of respect. 21 It's unfortunate that the earth is only sisters because this system is perfect. They will eventually all die. Ed is a sister too. He is the last sister named Ed. 22 Ed downplays the situation when he visits the eyeball. The world outside has no more men. Wally is the last man alive. He is not a father and he is not a brother. But if he were to leave the eyeball perhaps he could be both. After awhile all the people outside stopped caring about Wally's artifacts. Ed just brings them and back and forth and never shares them with anyone because no one cares anymore. 23 Wally is the son of a tree and will live for a million years like the rest of the pine cones and seeds. But Rhonda is aging like the sisters outside and it makes Wally sad even though she secretly wants him dead. 24 The thing that makes the world sad enough to cry is the fact that Rhonda and Wally hate each other. 25 Wally thinks that if he can escape to the pier and capture a fish then Rhonda will love him. He thinks that if he can cook Rhonda a fish dinner then she will stop hating him and learn to love him. It's very risky because he's not sure if he can get back inside the eyeball. 26 Escaping the eyeball is easy. It's getting back inside that will be hard. Wally walks out and keeps walking. He walks all the way to the pier. He meets someone named Sally who is doing a stand-up comedy routine at the end of the pier. A flounder flips onto the wooden deck. The flounder is laughing like a human. Wally didn't know flounders could flip their bodies up like that. He asks Sally if it's easy to make the fish commit suicide like that. She tells him that it took her nearly sixteen years of honing her craft to get the fish to jump. 27 Wally has cut the line at performer pier and people are mad. Women named Daria and Susan and Melody and Margaret and June and Abigail all tell Wally to get the hell back to the end of the line which is actually in a different city all together. The end of the line is many miles inland. 28 The ladies aren't alarmed by Wally's maleness even though they have not seen a man in a quite a long time. This is because Wally is dressed as a woman in full niqab garb and also because they feel bad for looking too closely at him because he is in a wheelchair. 29 Wally has a long time to think about what he is going to perform when he gets to the front of the line. He wants to sing a song but doesn't want to practice for fear that his deep vocals will give him away. So he sings the song in his head and it sounds beautiful. 30 Wally sings a very high-pitched tune inside his mind's eye. He visualizes himself removing the cover from his mouth and unleashing the lovely tone upon the sea. 31 He is very nervous when it his time to perform. He had just witnessed a lady named Gail fail spectacularly doing a juggling routine. She dropped all her balls into the water. Gail failed Wally thought. He gently pulled the niqab fabric away from his lips and licked them. He took a deep breath and began. 32 But it doesn't sound anything like that. It doesn't sound anything like he thinks it is sounding. It is deep and ugly and male. Before he gets to the big chorus he is being drowned out by the masses in line behind him. They have discovered him. Wally the last man on earth has returned and they are not going to let him finish performing on the pier. They are not going to let him catch a fish to cook for Rhonda inside the eyeball of the world. 33 They claw at him like animals. The wheels of his chair begin to roll backwards toward the end of the pier. He falls into the water and sinks like a stone. 34 At the bottom of the ocean he sees the man with the flamethrower standing next to a shark. He is just standing as if the water isn't water but something like air. He says to Wally that he is glad this day has finally come. He says that Wally is the last piece of the puzzle. He tells him the men are very hungry. 35 The shark offers Wally safe passage inside his stomach to the place they are going. Wally is reluctant to get inside the belly of a shark but he is too confused by the fact that he can breathe underwater to truly care. The ride inside the shark's stomach is dark and squishy. 36 Eventually the shark vomits Wally out and the man with the flamethrower thanks the beast. The shark swims away. The man pulls on a piece of coral revealing a door. The man with the flamethrower asks Wally if he's ready to meet the other. Wally asks him who they are. He tells him that it's every man in the world. Wally asks where is flamethrower is and the man just laughs. They enter the door. 37 Inside Wally is greeted by thunderous applause. A crowd of millions is chanting Wally's name with deep male voices. The man whispers to Wally that they have been waiting for years eating nothing but sea algae they get by sucking on the ceiling of their underwater kingdom. He points up and sure enough there are hundreds of men atop various crisscrossing catwalks sucking on the ceiling. 38 Nothing can grow in this underwater kingdom of men. Every animal they tired to bring here drowned. They are starving and can't go on living like this much longer. There are gaudy Christmas decorations covering every inch of the kingdom. 39 The man who once had the flamethrower tells Wally that Wally knows what to do. Wally tells him that he does not. The man laughs. 40 Before he knows what's happening Wally is being tossed above the heads of the giant horde of men. He is surging toward a clearing in the middle of the kingdom. As he's being tossed from man to man he can only see swirls of red and green in a blur. In the clearing he sees three circles made out of pebbles and rocks. Two of the three circles have rotting corpses sticking out of them. These were the false prophets the man tells Wally. Legless men who never ventured inside the eyeball. Men who never considered stealing the breath of the baby that would one day become the world. Wally wonders. Perhaps that actually happened. 41 No. Wally tells the man that he is wrong. He tells him that he is not a prophet. That he is not really the son of a tree even though he is. The man laughs. 42 They dig a hole inside the center of the last remaining circle and plant Wally like a tree. They wait to see if he will sprout as he screams a name over and over again… 43 Rhonda!!! |