He goes on:
Dead people were there in the ground, in the dead ground where I stand now above them and I am watching them or well so really not watching them because I can’t see them, really, but I wish I could see them there where they are, in their homes, dead, in their dead homes or in their tombs, dead, I mean see them there in the place where they rest eternally, in death, as being dead — and know them. Wish I could see and know them. There. Where they are. Them there where they are and where I am not — but I cannot. I can see the ground. The ground which they are below. I see the above.
I stand and watch the ground and the grass. The dead grass.
Hundreds dead, all around, and more and more every day. It doesn’t mean anything. People die everyday. I am dead already, in my head. I’ve been dead for a few years, I’d say. I feel nothing. Nothing at all. Empty and nothing. Nothing. I feel nothing.
I see her there, dead, naked and dead, and being placed into her hole, her fresh hole, her hole, just for her. There wasn’t a dead person there, but now there is. Stupid dead girl. Goodbye. He dropped her in. Plop. Dead girl in her dead hole. It’s late, I can’t imagine he’ll be filling her hole tonight.
“Hello! Hello!” I say to him, Mr. Deadholer, but he can’t hear me. “I love your holes! I love your holes!” In my head I’m perfectly loud and clear, but I know I must be whispering. No one can ever hear me. I always am whispering. Quiet as a mouse. And stupid too.
He’s walked off. I’m alone again with my deads, my fellow deads. Sweet sweet deads. I walk up to our holy girl. Look at her dead dead body. Alone with deadgirlbody naked and free with me, deadmanboy.
She is naked. Nude. Naked. Completely naked. Unclothed. Her pussy and cute little breasts. Cute little tits. Beautiful, I mean. She’s beautiful and perfect. I love her and she’s beautiful and perfect.
And it’s horrible.
Horrible that she’s there and dead and gone and “nude.” Awfully nude, naked, unclothed, bare, baring it all — completely, truly, baring it all for whatever, whoever, for all of it — all seen there. Naked. This is all she is. Dead body. Deadgirlbody with deadmanboy, alive with me, in her death. Holy death. Sweet thing. Sweet girl. I hold her, I mean I imagine holding her close to my chest and lifting my shirt so I can feel my belly skin on hers and her belly skin cold on my hot flesh…and I cry. I mean I imagine that I cry, I mean really I do cry but just a tiny bit. Holding her, crying. I am crying. Like a half of a tear, not enough for it to drop I mean, just welling up enough that I’ll need to wipe at my eyes to get rid of it, to stop it from annoying me. But I’m not crying and I’m not holding her.
I’m looking at her boobies.
There he is, amongst them all. The corpseland proliferates, in a place of death. Thousands dead all around, and buried. Just over the wall a million more, still alive and waiting, waiting for the death that was His alone. The boy doesn’t know a thing. The black lands roll away before him, vast. On and on, the death never ceases, each with their place.
Oh, look. It’s Timothy. Timothy’s here to see the deadgirl.
“Leave her alone,” I say. But he doesn’t listen. When he’s done I really am crying. He used me too, like he always does. He told me before about a difficult time. It was troublesome for him, when he was young. His parents tried to eat him. They only got his finger. They chopped it up in their shed and fried it and ate it. They were going to eat more of him but he ran away. So that’s how come he’s got just the one pinky. They chopped up his pinky and ate it, the other pinky, the one that’s missing. In front of him. They ate it in front of him. So I can understand why he is the way he is. I guess maybe that’s how you deal with something like that, your parents eating your pinky in front of you. And I guess they had to chop it off too. He didn’t mention that part, just the chopping it up into little pieces part. And frying it. And eating it. “Yum,” they said, he told me, “yum yum,” and “mmm,” as though it were delicious. It makes me cry. That’s why I’m crying.
A million, a billion, what difference does it make? The burialman came back and put her in her place, for good. Covered her up for good. And gone and done with she was. He ignored the boy, as always. But the boy followed him back to his shop. The little lantern there shining true his tools and little messes, little devastations there of body and soul and soil. Tinkering. A piece of flesh on the wood. Staring at it. A green plastic case. He opens it, pulls out the amber glass and unscrews the dropper, drops the brown liquid onto the flesh and watches it bubble. Cocks his head at it and takes another glass from his case, uncaps it and drops it on the piece of flesh too. The flesh curls in on itself, as if alive. The boy watches the man watch it bubble and curl, wide-eyed, snot dribbling down his nose, perfectly framed through the cross-barred window, his hands against the pane, smearing their print into it, through the dust, the tears and redness still marking his face, what horror is this for our boy? What horror is this?
The man puts his things away and turns to put out the lantern. Meets eyes with the boy. Doesn’t turn from him as he puts it out, yes.
I don’t care, says the boy to himself. I don’t care.
This is a place one should not be. One where death is the best, really like the best thing. The best! It’s basically like a concentration camp, but the ones who watch from above make it way cooler. Death death death, and nothing else. Except for life, “being towards death,” really, to quote that one guy?
Anyway, “death” and “the dead”. The boy there is alone again. Sitting near his deadgirlhole, resting on her fresh dirt, getting sleepy. He misses Timothy. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through short videos of dead people and dying people, wishes he could be like them.
Here’s one: a Japanese man is smiling and jumping in the rain. He stands in the middle of the street. A woman’s voice cheers him on in Japanese as the action takes place. She says things like, “Ganbatte! Ganbatte!” or “Akiramenaide! Aliramenaide!” or “Faito! Faito!” Her voice is high and cute, we assume she is a schoolgirl in uniform. Two other Japanese men appear from off-screen, together holding a large two-man saw or “misery whip,” one man at each end. They quickly run through the jumping and smiling Japanese man, chopping him in half. Here the woman is cheering, “Banzaiiiii!!!!” as the man is halved. The two men stumble as they’re going through him and fall into oncoming traffic. Both of their heads explode under opposite wheels of a white utility van. The woman says, “Yare yare…” and then the video repeats.
The boy scrolls to another.
A concrete sidewalk is seen, the camera is shaking. An onboard flashlight lights the ground. You can see the man’s feet as he walks. “Where are you…? Where are you…?” he says. The end of an animal’s tail can be seen disappearing into a bush just off the sidewalk. “There you are!” he says. The camera becomes frantic and nears the bush. Everything is obscured for a moment except for the black outline of some leaves. The skunk is held up before the camera by its tail. Fluid is ejected from its anus, first in a fine stream then sputtering to a mist. The man screams and throws it on the ground. It whines. He stomps it with his right foot and the camera goes out of focus for a moment so that the knee of his left leg is the only thing clearly visible as it lifts before each stomp. The stomping ceases and the camera comes in close to the bloody and battered body of the skunk, which appears dented and is leaking further fluid from its anus. Its tongue hangs visibly pink out the side of its mouth, and its left eyeball has popped. Then the video repeats.
The boy continues scrolling through. There is a nice beheading in an antique guillotine with some bikinigirls in hoods, a classic shotgun-in-the-mouth suicide, etc. On and on until he’s too sleepy, but he can’t sleep. Just lies there.
Whaaa, whaaaa. I can’t sleep. I wish I could sleep but I can’t. And I’m so sleepy, but I can’t sleep. No. I’m just lying here, like a deadboybody. I wish I had my deadgirlbody with me. To sleep with me and hold me. To be with me and coddle me. I’d lay here with her and we’d be together forever, dead. Whaaa, whaaa. I wish I was a baby. A sleeping baby, but it can’t be. A sleeping dead baby, forever, with my deadgirlbody dead with me. We’d be at peace in death together and not alone, together. We’d be together and we’d have something worthwhile together, in death. But it can’t be. I’m just laying here, awake. She’s with me down below. She’s with me. There’s no difference. Above or below. There’s no difference. I can’t sleep.
And he falls asleep. Timothy watches him. The burialman watches him. The ones above watch him. The dead watch him. Want him. Wish to be like him. Just like him, and no one else. Dead and living. Living dead and pure, like him.
Above and below, they watch him and want. And from above they look down upon him and grant it, this wish, that they might come, all. And it is so.
Little wriggling worm in the dirt. Our little boy is snoozing, honkshoe-mee-mee-meeing, on the dirt, over the deadgirlhole, whining in his sleep, sadly, and the worm wriggles there too, next to him.
Hi, wormy, how are you? But the worm only wriggles through, dirt pieces sticking to his wriggling, contracting, extending body, up from underground. Worming his way out. His little worm head wavering just off the ground, wondering.
Things gather further, and more dirt moves, crumbles up and out to make way for the hand. The dirt sinks between the tips of the fingers, falling to the palm which rises, with its delicate folds, its tightened, coldened skin. The hand comes up from under the boy, over the boy, reaches up, the fingers twisting, delicate and thin fingers twisting, worming about again like the worm, who he, he the worm, has already wormed out and away, free, so slowly has this first hand risen. Delicate, slender hand comes up and out to wrist and arm, slender and petite arm comes and curls down to rest against and upon him, our boy, and comfort him.
It’s his girl! of course, and she loves him just as much as he loves her. Unfortunately, all the rest are coming too. The creepy-crawly zombie horde, oh no!!! Ooohuurrrggghhhllllglglglgglglglglglgglgl they go, crumbling up from their little burialholes, parting the dirt to each side, dusting themselves off, covered in their own blood and feces and pee-pee, and their clothes tattered if they have them, and their bones and putrified organs exposed if they don’t. Uuunnngghhhhhuuurrrrrglglglglgglglgl they go as they shuffle up to say hello, collapse on the nearby grass, near to the boy, some further breaking their hips and knees as they try to sit, ggggglglglglgooooggghhhmyyyyyybaaaaaackkkkkk, as they settle in indian-style, circling the boy. The deadgirlbody, she’s undirted herself too, looking at him now, dead eyes twinkling as she starts nibbling on his cheek (no biting! no biting! only light, cute, sweet little nibbles), smiling.
The nibbles wake him so sweetly! He sits up and rubs at his eyes like, “Golly gee!” Such tender happiness he knows now. He then sees, through his sleepy-deepy daze, Timothy running past, screaming, waving his hands in the air with a few stray zombies following behind. “Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!” He screams! Our boy giggles and that makes the girl giggle too. He wraps his arm around her deadgirlshoulder and they giggle again together, looking into one another’s dead eyes, in dead love. His circle of new friends lightly gurhurhurgigigigilles, too, followed by some desperate deathrattles. They all watch him, smiling!
“How did this happen?” he asks himself.
How did this happen? And why am I so lucky! She’s looking at me now. She’s so perfect, with that dead look in her eyes, and she’s nibbling away…at my fingers now! My little pinky! Rawraawrawrrrr!!! Her lips over her teeth, because she knows otherwise she couldn’t contain herself…. Mwah! Mwah! A little kiss for you, my girl! On your littledeadhead. You’re so sweet. With you, it’s like I’m truly dead. How did this happen? What’s the difference now? Hm? I rest my head on hers, I feel her with me. I feel her. We close our dead eyes together. I lift my shirt to reveal my belly, and place my belly on hers. It is cold. We are happy. We open our eyes together and stare together into each other’s eyes, together. We are together. I can hear her gurgling with joy. She rises. She rises for a moment, suddenly stiff and serious, with thought in her eyes, looking at me, thought in her dead eyes, and says, very clearly, as if just for me, and it is, but really as if it is, and as if it is the only thing she ever needed to say, she says, “Some things are meant to be.”
How did this happen?
It was those above, high and far above. In their ship watching over this world of death and life, over all and doing it now only for him. They’re aliens. In a ship.
Beep beep boop boop goes the ship. They’re aliens. They’re pressing buttons on the ship, letting the dead live for a moment or two, laughing silently to themselves. They have antennae and green skin. They have funny suits that are leather. Their heads are grotesquely large, with extensive folds on the skin. Their language is dense and difficult to understand. Hurrgur hurrgur, they go, speaking, hurrgurr. One is pressing buttons with his finger. The buttons light up and flash and then he presses them. They all are constantly mumbling to themselves, hurrgur hurrgur. There are hums all around, with the beeps and boops, and the ship is clean. The one constant hum calms the whole ship, hummmmmmmmm. They are watching the action down below on a splitscreen, divided two ways between our boy and Timothy, with a smaller PIP of burialman in his shed, occasionally zooming in on his window to keep an eye on his experiments.
Hurhurhurhur, one says, pointing at our boy and his growing circle of deadboyappreciators. On its leather is a pin with a photo of deadmanboy, with text circling: hurhurhurhur boy hurhurhurhur. It is smirking, pointing at our boy. It nudges the one to its left and winks.
On the screen, our boy sits like a prince with his deadgirlbody(living) at his lap and the deads circling him, sitting politely watching him.
The left alien one goes HURR! Deadboyfan goes, Hurrr? Lefty points to Timothy and signals for the whole crew to come see. They hurrgurrdle up.
On the screen, Timothy has collapsed, with a horde coming after him. He is there next to a barren tree, screaming as they come for him. Lefty and deadboyfan high-five.
Timothy screams, he has tripped over an exposed root of the dead tree. He is grabbing at his ankle which is now broken and twisted all the way round. There is blood and bone exposed, splintered, little bits of viscera tendriled out like a jelly’s tentacles. Timothy is crying and screaming, tears and snot run down his face. The first zombie gets to him and collapses mouth-first onto the ankle, immediately slobbing on the exposed bone, clicking at it with her (girl zombie!) teeth. Timothy can feel the bone slightly shifting in place with each connection, his whole body spasming each time, but he doesn’t try to shake the zombie off. He knows there is nothing he can do. All he does is scream.
The next one comes along the opposite side (it’s his right foot that’s occupied) and immediately goes for Timothy’s neck.
Before the bite comes, Timothy thinks about how much pain he is going to feel, the tightness of his neck, how the blood is already pumping through so intensely. He feels it, he knows. He knows how much pain he is going to feel. He jerks his head away so as not to see what is coming.
It comes. He (boy zombie!) bites into Timothy’s bulging, giant, swollen neckvein. Blood spews and spurts, Timothy hears it bubbling, feels squirming inside his neck, starts shaking uncontrollably. He grits his teeth, lockjawed, foaming and crying through it, his eyes wide. There is nothing.
The third zombie gets Timothy’s pants down and bites his cock off — then all the rest (like 8 or 10 of them) pile on top of him.
HURRHURHURHURHURHURHURRRGURRRR!!!! All the aliens laugh hysterically, grabbing at their bellies, pointing at the screen, keeling over because they can barely breathe through the laughter. They love it.
He goes on:
Hm, I wonder where Timmy went. I hope he’s having fun. I miss him now. I bet he’d love to see me and my girl, I bet he’d be so proud of us. Jealous too. Very jealous. Oh look there he is! Looks like he’s dead now too. I’m so jealous. He’s dead and yet he lives. The bastard. Living dead. No it’s ok. It’s ok. I am ok. He’s dead dead while living, while I’m the living dead, dead while living, not dead dead. Look at his guts all hanging out. Look at them. All fresh and red. Look at him limping along. Look at him. He’s getting closer now. I should say hi.
“Hi Timothy!”
He’s looking at me, but I don’t think he can see me. He’s missing one eye so I get it. It’s not a big deal really. Doesn’t matter. He’s walking on by. Walking on by. Everyone’s gnawing at me, more and more of them now, some coming just to sit with us! Me and my deadgirlbody. Coming to see the deadmanboy and his deadgirlbody. They’re all gnawing at me, well some of them. I tried gnawing at them too but they all taste kind of funny. Some aren’t gnawing at me, some are just looking, some are just looking and staring, at me. I give my new girlfriend a kiss on the teeth. Mwah! She growls at me and smiles! I want to go to sleep again. Still sleepy. I didn’t get enough rest. I’m so alone. Alone and sleepy. Oh no I’m not. I’ve got all my friends with me. More and more now, more each second. My little horde. My little army. I’m not alone, I’m just sleepy. So sleepy. Tired.
Look now, where is Timmy going? Going to see Mr. Deadholer?
Hurrrrrrrrrrrr….. goes the lead alien, its got the biggest antennae and it’s chubbier than the others. It has a pin on its leather with a picture of burialman with a cross through it. It crosses its arms, hurrrrrrrrrr. It’s not liking what it’s seeing!!
The shipcamera zooms in on burialman — his hair gone to white, crazed. He’s laughing like mad, looking out through his window at the mess outside…his little experiments out on the table, wriggling, hopping! Chemicals everywhere, a Serum…. He’s even got his labcoat on…. And so…his True Identity…finally…revealed!…he is not Mr. Deadholer…nor ‘burialman’, he is…: THE MAD SCIENTIST.
HURR GURR!!! HURR GURR!!! goes the captain.
That means: this certainly can’t be good!
Hurrrrurrrurrrr…goes the second-in-command.
This means: you’re right, Captain. If the man’s experiments were a success….
“EUREKA!!! I’VE DONE IT! I’VE DONE IT!” it blares out over the ship’s speakers from the live feed, cracking because it’s so loud. The aliens all cover their antennae, in pain.
It’s our mad scientist. He’s Cracked the Case.
He’s Poured the Fluid onto DeadTim.
DeadTim’s Eyes go Wide.
HHHHUUUUURRRRRGGGUUUURRRRR, says the captain.
Translation…: Our very worst fears have come to pass. On this, our third enactment of the living-dead cycle with a (supposedly) clean mind-wipe, some residuals have come through. The mad scientist, who I have always hated ever since his betrayal of the deads in the first cycle (unbelievably tacky), has secretly maintained some understanding of the priors, and has successfully recreated his living-dead-psychodome — that same technology which has allowed us to create the world-death-tomb we now watch over. Blast! That damn chap sure is slick. He must have had this planned from the beginning, ever since we accidentally murdered his beloved wife and mistress and two children over the course of several years in order to convince him to develop this technology for us. Also Timothy seems to be, or have been, aware of something too, somehow…. We are surely doomed.
The alarms are sounding. Buttons are being pushed. Still, it is all too late.
Every dead thing lives and breathes, and comes together to reach for the heavens.
DeadTim goes out and it all comes together. He falls before our boy, bows before our boy, before our boy’s circle of death, of the dead, his dead followers who worship him, our boy, who are all here now for Him. The (boy)King of Death — and DeadTim knows what he has done, what he has made him, and DeadTim lays his head before the boyking and looks him in the eye, “gggghhhhhoooouuuuuurrrrrrooouuuttttaaaannnndddddllllliiiiiivvvvveeeeee,” he says. And the king lets it come to pass, and with a single touch upon the crown of the dead one’s head, the king lets it be known, that it is the truth (so like here the Fluid of the Living-Dead-Psychodome serum is absorbed from the scalp of DeadTim into the hand of KingDeath (our boy), allowing him total control and communicative ability over All Death, as he is of course “destined” to have been, because of God or something). And all dead come to rise with him, their king and his beautiful queen (our girl!), damned to eternity, they lift him up so that he may know. Every dead thing lives and breathes, and comes together under him to lift him the King to the heavens. A pyramid of death. (Like literally a pyramid of the dead is being formed here, through the total psychic control and influence that KingDeath now commands over all dead things, which of course are currently Alive — and so they’re making their way up to like the ship? Or like y’know, to the End of the World-Death-Tomb, this pyramid of zombies climbing atop one another, crawling, screaming and groaning, crushing one another with their weight, for their King, for the Ultimate.) More and more, he rises, sat perfectly with his queen at his lap, to reach them. And now then, just above his head, he reaches, and with a single touch—
No more. No longer. I do not wish to see it. Let it end. Let it be so. I do not wish to see.
It ends. God said let it end. It ends. God said let it be, and it was so. To the end. To nothing. The antennae undone. The man undone. The boy undone. There is nothing to see. There is nothing to say. There is no death and there is no life. It is undone. There is nothing. It is undone. There is not, there never was. No. None. End. It ends. To nothing. — And actually also God is gone now too and nothing happened ever, because I said so.
-- Christian McDonough is the author of Cunus and the editor of the Cunus Response Project. He also wrote a book of a thousand poems. He can be found online here.
