Fungus of the Heart, page 12
“Absolutely nothing,” Mr. Wire says. “I’m here to collect a sample of zombie cells from the bear.”
“I see,” Kevin says. “Now, do you want me to tell you the real reason why you’re all here?”
The three scientists stare at the walrus.
Doctor Ivanova looks amused.
Doctor Bloss looks confused.
And Mr. Wire looks bored.
“You’re here for love,” Kevin says. “Who wants to go first?”
After a few moments, Doctor Ivanova raises her hand.
Kevin smiles. “Hippity hop on over here and take my tusks.”
The ethologist obeys.
“Now press your face against my whiskers, if you would be so kind.”
The ethologist obeys again.
“This might tickle a bit,” Kevin says.
And as his tusks turn the color of a Gold Lamé Suit, his glowing whiskers wriggle and writhe their way into the doctor’s face.
“What the fuck?” Doctor Bloss says.
Entering the doctor’s heart, Kevin expects to find a malnourished spirit in need of a savior. But instead of confronting his stereotype of a scientist’s soul, he finds himself wrestling a whirlwind of sunshine and smiles and silly stories.
The force of the doctor’s love knocks the breath right out of him.
Her love is pure. Her love is true. And even more shocking to the walrus, her love might just be purer and truer than his own.
Kevin sighs. Sure, the doctor’s love causes him to burst with ecstasy, but still, he feels somewhat disappointed. And more than a little jealous.
Finally, the one soul splits into two.
“Thank you,” Doctor Ivanova says, collapsing to the flowery floor.
Kevin looks at the two men. “Who’s next?”
Doctor Bloss wipes his face with a lacy handkerchief.
“Doctor Bloss?” Kevin says.
“I wasn’t raising my hand,” the biologist says.
At this point, Drippy returns to the feasting room, and nuzzles his snout against Doctor Ivanova’s nose.
“Doctor Bloss,” Kevin says. “If you connect with me, I’ll let you stay here for a week. I’ll let you watch me eat and sleep and jig. I’ll even weewee and poopoo in front of you.”
The biologist bites at his fingernail.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Doctor Ivanova says, wrapped up in the arms of the bear.
“What do you say, Doc?” Kevin says.
Doctor Bloss closes his eyes, nods.
“That’s the spirit!” Kevin slaps the biologist’s back with his flipper. Tenderly.
And moments later, Kevin finds what he expects to find in the doctor’s heart. He finds an emaciated spirit, no more than skin and bones. The soul clings to Kevin. The soul gazes at him with puppy dog eyes.
And the man and the walrus become one.
Kevin drowns Doctor Bloss in a tidal wave of crabs and colors and the King’s Christmas album.
After the separation, Doctor Bloss collapses to his knees, with snot and tears oozing down his blushing face. He wraps his beefy arms around the walrus. “I wanted to kill you.” He sniffles. “I wanted to kill you and the bear. I’m sorry, Mr. Donihe.” He hugs Kevin tighter. “I’m not Doctor Bloss. I’m a fucking poacher. Why am I a fucking poacher?” He presses his face into Kevin’s blubber and sobs, hard.
“I forgive you,” the walrus says.
The poacher collapses, and crawls on hands and knees over to Drippy.
Then, Kevin turns to Mr. Wire. “If Drippy gives you a bit of blood, will you let me love you?”
The smelly cytologist shrugs. “Fine.”
“You’re not gonna clone me, are you?” Drippy says. “Because I don’t really believe in cloning.”
“Clone you?” Mr. Wire laughs through clenched teeth. “I’m looking to wipe all you bastards off the face of the Earth.”
“Why would you do that? I mean, genocide is wrong.”
“That’s the point, you idiot. Decades from now, zombies will mutate into mindless killing machines. And my mission is to find a way to prevent the apocalypse.”
“Oh…well…” Drippy scratches at a boil with his claw. “Alright then.”
“That’s settled,” Kevin says. “Now let’s get all lovey-dovey, shall we?”
Mr. Wire shrugs and connects with the walrus.
And Kevin supposes that inside Mr. Wire’s heart, he’ll discover a rotting carcass of a soul in desperate need of resurrection.
Instead, Kevin encountered an abyss. And not just any abyss.
This abyss is pure. This abyss is true.
Kevin stares at the void with his mouth wide open. And he feels himself drifting closer and closer to the nothingness. And part of him knows that he needs to snap out of this state of shock, so he thinks about Drippy’s rumbly chuckle.
And the walrus and the man disconnect.
Kevin finds Drippy by his side, crying, growling his name.
“I’m alright,” Kevin says.
“You were screaming,” Drippy says. “And I wanted to separate you two, but you said…you told me I should never do that, no matter what. Are you OK?”
“I’m peaches and cream. But I can’t say the same for Mr. Wire. He has a big boo-boo in his ticker.”
“What kind of boo-boo?”
At this point, Mr. Wire sticks a sparkling syringe into Drippy’s open wound. “Thanks for the blood, asshole.”
“What’s wrong with your soul?” Kevin says.
“What’s wrong with your soul?” Mr. Wire repeats, in a cartoonish voice.
Then, the cytologist studies the syringe in his hand. He chuckles, and tosses the zombie blood out the open shark-shaped window.
“Why would you do that?” Drippy says.
Mr. Wire shrugs.
Kevin looks into the man’s eyes, hoping to find some answers.
But before Kevin can figure anything out, the god of life and death whispers the secret into Drippy’s heart.
As a zombie, Drippy’s privy to all sorts of fascinating facts.
“Mr. Wire doesn’t have a soul,” Drippy says. “Only the physical body can travel back in time. So he…you know…left his soul back in the future.”
Mr. Wire snorts. “Ridiculous.”
Ridiculous, yes, but Kevin trusts his friend.
And so there’s only one thing Kevin can do for this soulless monster.
“I want to love you,” Kevin says. “One more time.”
“I don’t need your love,” Mr. Wire says.
“Pretty please.”
The sunburned cytologist shakes his head.
So Kevin blocks the front door. “Hold him down, Drip.”
“What?” the bear says.
“Hold him down.”
“But you said before we should never force people to share their soul with you.”
“He’s not a person, Drip. He’s a big bad boogieman, and he needs my help.”
“I guess you’re right.”
And so, Drippy holds down Mr. Wire, while Kevin gives him a piece of his soul.
It’s not much, of course.
But it’s enough.
Later, Mr. Wire stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. He runs his crusty finger up and down the frayed edges of his tattered silver jumpsuit.
Then, he takes a long, hot bath.
And as for Doctor Ivanova and the poacher, they’re spooning on the linoleum.
“Should we wake them?” Drippy says.
“Not yet,” Kevin says. “Let’s let them feel all fuzzy-wuzzy for a while longer.”
The bear nods.
And all through the night, Kevin dreams of the abyss.
And when he wakes, the nightmares refuse to end. He fears the nothingness will haunt him forever.
So after Drippy sculpts the morning tofu, Kevin allows the bear to unlock and remove his titanium skull. Then, Drippy uses a sterile X-Acto knife to cut out a miniscule chunk of memory out of Kevin’s head.
Kevin eats the tofu. Drippy eats the brains.
And this is what some scientists like to call love.
Kingdom Come
My Filter edits out the utility wires and pollution, so I can truly appreciate the view. And as foggy fingers caress the curves of the earth, I think of heaven. Not the heaven I envision today, with walls and guns and sentinels. No, I’m reminded of my childhood heaven, where everyone wears flip-flips and walks on clouds.
I was a stupid kid.
And in my undeveloped mind, I imagined my parents and my sisters and me living together in a white castle, one big happy family again. I knew this would never happen in my lifetime. But I thought if God embraced my father, forgave him, then my mother would follow suit.
Back then, I didn’t know much about my father. Sure, I knew he was a coward. I knew he refused to fight. And I knew he was the worst kind of man, because that’s what my mother told me. But I thought I loved him anyway.
I loved him, even when my mother cried and told me she couldn’t go on. And I tried to convince her life was worth living. I talked about her favorite foods, and my good grades, and Christmas.
After my rambling, she would hug me and say, “You’re a brave boy. If you were older, you’d fight for me. I know you would.”
And she was right.
But the war’s over now, and I’m sitting on top of the world, or at least at the highest overlook in Kingdom Come Park and Penitentiary.
The Cumberland Plateau bursts with fall foliage, dazzling my eyes.
I feel so small. So connected.
And as I read in the brochure, these feelings, they’re a warning sign. Symptoms. If I don’t medicate myself soon, I could develop a full-blown case of Thoreau Syndrome.
So I hop off the stone column, and lead my family to the Art Hut.
There, I sit on a bench and study the black bears.
And I chuckle, cured of the reverence plaguing my soul. These creatures look so pathetic, stuffed in glass boxes like the contortionist I once marveled at in my youth. But unlike the performer, these creatures inspire only pity, victims of their own weakness.
Sure, beasts like these posses a certain raw strength, but their power can’t compare to that of a human being. Of an American.
Therefore, these bears will live the rest of their wretched lives in these boxes, with tubes jammed in their orifices and flesh.
I laugh again.
Then my son cries.
And I notice a young couple. Pointing, smiling.
“What’s wrong with you?” I say, holding my son’s shoulders.
“They want to go home,” he says.
“Who?”
“The teddies. Can’t we let them go with their mommies?”
“Stop crying.”
And after I touch my belt, my son obeys.
“Maybe I should take him outside,” my wife says.
“No,” I say. “He needs to see this.”
An older man in a suit steps closer to me. “It’s refreshing to see a father taking an interest in his son’s artistic development. You’d be surprised what a rarity that is these days.”
“You’re right. I am surprised.”
The old man grins. “I’m John Miller, the Curator.”
“Samson Carter.”
We shake hands.
And after a few minutes of talking about black bears, we shake hands again.
“See you tomorrow night, Mr. Carter,” the Curator says. “Assuming you and the missus are planning on attending the show.”
“Show?” I say.
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard. All of Kingdom Come’s buzzing about tomorrow’s guest. He’s supposedly quite the comedian.”
“I doubt we’ll be in attendance. I’m not a comedy fan.”
“Well, to each his own.”
Outside the hut, my son approaches one of the glowing rhododendrons, and I have to grab him by the arm.
“Don’t touch those,” I say. “Don’t even get near them.”
“Why?” my son says.
“Because I told you not to.”
And that’s the end of that.
One good thing about my son, he knows when to shut up.
*
Thankfully, my Filter’s sophisticated enough to differentiate between the day-to-day screaming in Kingdom Come and the yelling of my wife. So the machine lets me hear her, and I wake up.
And I find her on her knees, a few meters from the tent.
“What’s wrong?” I say.
“It took our son,” my wife says. “It took our son.”
I glance around. I don’t see him. “Who took him?”
“A monster.” She cries.
I feel like shaking the truth out of her, but there’s no time for that. “Which way did they go?”
“I don’t know. It pushed me into a bush, and when I got up, they were gone.”
By now, a small group’s formed around us, and a middle-aged woman steps forward. “I seen what happened. They went that way.” She points.
“Call the Guardians,” I say, and look down at my wife. “Don’t tell them what you think you saw. They’ll lock you up.”
“Your wife ain’t touched,” the middle-aged woman says. “I seen the creature too. I can corroborate her story.”
But I trust this hick even less than my wife.
“Tell them you can’t remember,” I say to my wife.
She nods.
And I run.
A few times, I stumble on steps and the roots bulging from the earth, and I remember the veins that swelled on my mother’s forehead whenever she exercised or threw my father’s porcelain horses at the wall. She limited herself to only destroying a couple every few weeks, because she wanted them to last.
Eventually, I end up catching my breath beside what looks like a fallen petrified tree. But no, I read about this in the brochure. Log Rock’s a natural sandstone bridge, and my Filter’s supposed to edit out all the vandalism, the names and messages scratched into the stone.
For a few moments, however, I see enormous letters that run almost the entire length of the bridge.
THE MONSTER IS INSIDE.
And I hear a chorus of screams.
Then, silence.
*
I follow the escort into the Coal Mining Museum and Guardian Headquarters, up the stairs, to a large office on the fourth floor.
Standing in front of Warden Rose is almost like looking in a mirror. The same buzz cut. The same color suit. And if you squinted, you might mistake one tie for the other.
While the escort whispers into the Warden’s ear, I let my eyes explore the photographs on the wall. Photographs that the Warden obviously acquired from the exhibits, because the pictures impart a bloody history of the coal industry. Mining accidents, burning houses, dead families. I also see some newer photos of the reconstruction, when the mines were transformed into the jail it is today.
Warden Rose shakes my hand, smiles. “Do you always bring suits along on your camping trips, Mr. Carter?”
“Yes,” I say.
He sits, and motions for me to do the same.
I obey.
Then he leans forward, frowning. “I want you to know, we’re making every effort to find your son. We already tracked down his Filter, but I’m afraid the device wasn’t attached to his head.”
My head vibrates with a shiver. “Would such a removal cause him any permanent damage?”
“That depends on our enemy’s knowledge of Filters, and the tools at his disposal. For now, let’s assume your son is alive and well.”
I nod. “Do you have any leads?”
“Yes. But I didn’t call you here to brief you on the investigation. Your desire to assist in this case is understandable. However, you aren’t qualified—”
“I fought in the war, Warden Rose. I’m more than capable of—”
“With all due respect, Mr. Carter, your attempts to help would only reduce your son’s chances of survival. I read your file, and I know you’re a man of myriad abilities. But this is a matter of harmony. If I allowed you to enter our system, we could no longer synchronize and achieve perfection. I hope you understand, I’m not trying to insult you. I only want to save your son.”
I still feel angry, but I also feel more respect for this man and his organization. “I understand.”
“Good. Now.” The warden taps a button on his desk, and a monitor lowers from the ceiling. “As you must know, there are security cameras in place throughout Kingdom Come. One such camera captured the initial moments of the kidnapping.” He presses another moment.
And I see a monster with black matted fur and metallic fangs. It pushes my wife’s chest. Snatches up my son. Runs.
Then the warden turns off the monitor. “I don’t blame you for not believing your wife. Like me, you’re a man who refuses to accept outlandish stories without empirical data.”
A hint of guilt tingles in my gut, but the feeling’s soon overpowered by rage. I told my wife not to talk about the monster, and she did so anyway.
“But now you’ve seen the truth,” the warden says. “Now you can give your wife the validation she needs. Don’t tell her about the recording. Just tell her you believe her. And convince her that what she saw was a man in a suit. I’m sure she’ll see reason, if it’s coming from you.”
I nod.
“One more bit of advice,” Warden Rose says. “Take your wife to the show tonight. I hear our guest is a genius in his field.”
“I’m not in the mood for comedy,” I say.
“That’s exactly why you should attend. Laughter is the best medicine, Mr. Carter. At least promise me that you’ll consider the matter further.”
“Alright.”
“Good.” The Warden stands, and I do the same. “I’ll contact you as soon as I find your son.”
“Thank you.”
We shake hands.
And halfway to the door, I turn around. I almost forgot. “My Filter’s been malfunctioning ever since my son was taken.”
The Warden sits. “How so?”
“The audio and visual editor shut off once, for a few seconds. And my dialectal translator doesn’t seem to be working at all anymore.”
Warden Rose rubs his eyes. “I apologize for the inconvenience. To be honest, the Filters have a hell of a time coping with the effects of heartbreak. Still, this is no excuse. My Guardians assured me they’d stomped all the bugs in this new model, and they’re going to suffer for their failure, I assure you. I’ll send a technician to your tent tonight, and he’ll fix your Filter while you sleep.”
