Anti-gravity pigeons circle, nipping and pecking leisurely at my gangrenous carcass. A taste of tendon here, a mouthful of bellyfat there, picking and picking and picking away until I’m nothing left.
The elevator goes up and down, sideways, even, and a little bald man is yelling at me. The doors open occasionally but only enough for me to glimpse backgrounds I don’t understand. He’s ruffling what’s left of his hair and yelling at me.
Tumescent and rolling, the pigeons are choked with me, distended helium balloons in the void of space, veins snaking across their guts like sandy roads laid incomplete. One pops, then another, and the unpopped pigeons seem unperturbed. My fully-formed leg, pant and shoe intact, bursts through a cloud of feathers. My arm up to my shoulder appears, as does my face, a face immediately slapped by my disembodied hand.
He’s mad at something I’ve done but apologetic too. His manicured fingers claw at my gums and his hair stands straight up, extending to the elevator roof, branching out at the ceiling’s resistance and dangling limp. The door opens and shuts rapidly, a mocking laugh sneaking through. A perpetual echo raises the hair’s spirit and it lunges at me as a cackling pitchfork.
I stare at the remaining pigeon, roiling in a parabola of swollen regret, and wonder if it’s angry at my torso. My foot kicks my teeth in, but they reverse their course and jump from my mouth like hurled change. Their speed increases, as does their inner glow, and they throb with light as pulsing suns gathering speed, more speed, speed enough to still them against the blurry background, the whole of the universe rushing by as I desperately try to keep up with my teeth. Smaller, they get smaller and smaller and the pigeon explodes behind me.
The elevator stops and opens and the man is standing in the doorway, standing behind me but in the doorway. He’s both yelling ferociously but I can’t hear him twice. An expensive, expansive ballroom opens behind him, in front of me, with jabbing candlestick-fingers dousing the man’s hair in soft flame. His eyes are pebbles.
My teeth disappeared. Gone, shards lengthened by a trick of light and burnt afterimages scrawled in the dark. I asked the pigeon if it was still angry, but it kept exploding and drawing me closer and exploding. Gravitationally-proficient pigeons are a dime a dozen and I paddled my words like oars but my ribcage pulled an end-around and swallowed me and ate me whole.
The throne beckoned me to sit, sashayed beyond me and forced and cajoled and diminished me in front of my colleagues. The man yelled again, at me, but all his pebbles now replaced with plastic googly-eyes by a friend I had never met. One tooth made up of thousands of other teeth shattered the elevator door and the ballroom ascended. I looked into the window of a beggar’s mouth, a jaw dislodges, my jaw dislodges, hitting the ground and rattling like a chain. The ballroom vanishes upwards, and my jaw fastens me tight to nothing.
I’m eaten and my ribs chew me and they open and close but only enough for me to glimpse teeth I don’t understand. The man yelled again, at me, ferociously, but he can’t hear me once.
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