Why? How could it be? That out of all the things the government lies about it was this that they decided to be honest on? Public Advisory Statement #672: “Do not go vegetarian and by all means do not stop drinking. Otherwise you will become paralyzed.”
The woman, who for all intensive purposes is essentially naked, sits on my chair and tinkers with the chainsaw with a screwdriver. Her bare feet rest ankle over ankle on top of my LED-embedded keyboard. (Damn. Now that I think about it, I actually got a lot of LEDs in my room. What’s up with that?). I’ve been trying to tell her to get her feet off ever since she put them up there about ten minutes ago, but my tongue refuses to cooperate with the messages my brain is sending it.
I’ve been stuck having to watch her like that, because my head will not turn and my eyes will not shut. I pray to God that she will not get the chainsaw to work, but she’s a lifelong gearhead, and I imagine that I am one of those few mediocre people that the Lord allows to go so that a special few may rise above.
Her face cracks into a smile that distorts the Maori tattoos on her face. And I think: “Maybe one of the special few will be a great American chess player. And he will finally kill that bastard Parpov.” But then I think: “Best not to think about him now. I don’t want him to be the last thing on my mind.”
Oh no. She’s screwing back on the panel on the chainsaw that covers all the metal nonsense that she was tinkering with. Big smile. As she turns the screwdriver, I can’t help but look at her and think about how white and clean and pretty her skin would be if she didn’t have all that ink on her body. All those lines and curves and swivels. All of them screaming: “War! War! War all the time!” What’s wrong with her?
Didn’t she have a mother? Didn’t she have a father? How about friends? Boyfriends? A husband? Just anybody else, perhaps? Surely she must have a job. Something to help pay for new ink. Really what I’m trying to get at here is that she must have something else to do right now other than rev a (heavily-modified) chainsaw hazardously over my naked flesh to arouse sexual gratification, right? So what the hell was she doing here?
Finally I get to hear the chainsaw rev. “Alright!” she says excitedly. “You ready?” She marches over to the bedside and climbs up. She stands over me and wields the chainsaw like Excalibur.
“You goddamn pissant,” I think to myself, “Why the hell do you bother asking if you aren’t going to wait for a response?”
She turns my head to look up at her and pokes my nose. And as she brings down the saw, great elation on her face, my brain tells me: “Why couldn’t you have gone vegetarian tomorrow?”
The chainsaw comes down beside my right ear, bursting my eardrum and ripping through the mattress. This is the worst thing: bits of silk and cotton fly into my open eye. They burn horribly as they delicately touch down onto my pupil. She says something but I can’t hear a sound other than the horrifying tearing of the bed. The thing is dead, now she’s just ripping apart the carcass.
But very quickly she disappears behind the rain of white flecks that comes down and sets my eye on fire. Of course I notice immediately that the flecks fall down onto my eye like Marshall’s plays in the Gold Coins Game. Right down to the legendary Queen move. When I realize the formation, the pain is all gone.
I know she’s outlining me with the saw, but I have no idea where she is. What can I do now? I only hope she is careful between the legs.