by Brian A. Bernhard
Oscar walked through the door of his rat-infested studio apartment with a disgruntled look on his face. He stumbled around the room until he flopped, belly first, onto the sofa. Chunks of muddy gunk dribbled out of his mouth as he drifted off to sleep muttering the words, “It smelled like shit but it was glowing bright green…”
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. “Where is my rent money Oscar?”, the landlady screamed, “I want my money now! That was the deal. You were supposed to bring me my god-damned money this morning, bright and early, at nine AM and it’s already going on 3 in the afternoon. If you don’t give me my money right now, I am going to kick this friggin’ door down! I will give you to the count of five, you little shit! One…two…three…four…five!”
With a thunderous crack, the door to Oscar’s apartment was splintered into a thousand pieces. As the rubble and dust cleared, a tiny little elderly woman with calves the size of a quarterback and combat boots that were clearly meant for stomping heads during jungle warfare, just stood her ground smoking a cigar that smelled like the undercarriage on a central park horse and buggy.
“Get yer ass up, you lazy chunk of donkey manure!” barked the old bag. As she waded through the debris of Oscar’s little shithole, she noticed him face-down in his sofa. She leaned in and lifted his left arm, then let the lifeless limb drop with a thud. Unfortunately, at that moment, the little landlady’s hip gave out and she fell on top of the body that once belonged to her former tenant. A horrible earthen blob squished out of Oscar’s mouth as the bootstrapped woman’s stick-like elbow careened into his ribcage.
Screaming the scream that only miserable old crotchety coots can scream, the old bag got the attention of a strapping young lad who happened to be passing by the decimated front door to the apartment.
“Grandma, is that you?” he said.
“Yes Wilber, now get your lethargic ass over here and pick me up off of this dead man’s chest. We need to look through his things and see if there is anything valuable around. The bastard died before he paid this month’s rent, and I will be damned if I get stiffed by a stiff!”
Wilber noticed a strange look in his grandmother’s eyes as he lifted her out of the gore. There was also what looked like chunks of mud dribbling out of her mouth.
“Wilber, I don’t feel so good. Why don’t you carry me into the kitchen and help me get a glass of water?”
“Sure grandma.”
He was able to pick up his grandmother much easier than he thought, there was almost no mass to her body and she was as light as a feather. About halfway into the kitchen, the old lady made a noise and Wilber looked into her oddly distant glazed-over eyes and she muttered, “It smelled like shit but it was glowing bright green…” At that very moment, Wilber did not notice the chunky gunk that was oozing out of his grandmother’s rectum all over his sneakers; he only noticed that there was nothing left of his grandmother except a sack of old skin and some big-ass combat boots.
Feeling a tear well up in his left eye, he looked to watch the salty drop splash on the floor; when suddenly, some sort of organic mass, began to creep up his right leg. Feeling a sharp pain coursing up his left hip, he furiously looked for a way out of the apartment. Noticing a window open, he decided that he would rather splat like a bug on the street than be consumed by the sinisterly stinky symbiotic earthen color of his worst nightmares.
I guess some colors could be considered evil…maybe.
Brian A. Bernhard©2010
