Potato, Elephant, Rocket

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see if…Shit what’s the rest of it? Something about Jupiter and Mars.

“Sir, the enemy is approaching.”

“Don’t charge the elements until you see the expressions on their faces.” I thought that sounded good, strong, confident.

“Sir, that’s pretty close sir.”

“Exactly.” More confidence and strength.

“Sir, we can use our new rockets to fire at them at their current distance, sir.”

“Yes, but we have nothing to fire at them but potatoes and cans of soup.”

“I think that would hurt, sir, especially at the speed and force with which we can fire them. Canned soup at that speed is basically a cannon ball.”

“I see your thinking private, but we need that food. If all we do is bruise a few of their men, we’ll also be feeding them. I don’t know about you, but if I’m starving, I’m not above digging a spud out of the orbital socket of a dead man’s skull. What about you private?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“I said, would you dig a potato out of a dead man’s skull if you were hungry enough?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“Well private, I suppose the enemy would not be above such behavior either.” I tapped a cigarette on my gloved wrist.

“Light.”

“Here you go, sir”

CLINK, HISS.

I took a thoughtful drag and let the smoke come out with my next words.

“What do you think about pancakes private.”

“Pancakes, sir?”

“PANCAKES! Pillow-y spheres dripping with melted butter and sweet maple syrup. What do you think of that.”

The private looked up at the sky, as if the clouds would fall down onto a plate and the heavens would rain down syrup.

“That sounds nice, sir.”

“Indeed, private, indeed.”

ZIP, ZIP, SPLOOSH.

The elephant reared back, like the grand finale at a barnum and bailey’s circus act. I fell from my saddle to the rear of the elephant.

My cigarette fell, just a foot from me, I reached, pinching it between two fingers. My head, suddenly hot. Everything went dark and a smell, an ungodly smell. I could hear faint voices. Was my spirit leaving my body?

“huh, ooor eeeaaad tuck eeeefaant aaasss!”

What was he saying? It was getting hard to focus. I was getting sleepy. Time for those pancakes from the sky.

…

“I served with General Culos, he was a confident and strong man. I think about him everyday. So let this memorial be a reminder to all of us that the enemy is not always in front of you. It can come at any moment from behind–from a behind.”

There in the town square, where General Gustavos Peditos Culos was born and raised, was erected a statue of an elephant standing, trunk saluting the sky and the torso of a man, head lost in the anus of the pachyderm, with the uniform, patches and medals of the town hero.

Juicy, Cynical, Spit

The little bitch whined all night. A heavy sigh with a whimpering high c-note at the end. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had just quite smoking, the dog would still be alive. That incessant whimpering crawled into my ears, clamped down into my brain and roared into the area that inspires rage. You might call what happened next cynical.

“STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Spit flew all over the kitchen. My vocal cords vibrated, and squeezed together, forcing me to cough. For two, maybe three seconds the dog lay quiet. Then started its whine again. With each breath a whimper, so soft and pathetic but each one built up a wave that lapped at my sub-consciousness. Until I whipped around and stood up, lifting my chair above my head and slamming it down next to the sad beast.

Now it shivered. I shivered as well, holding two splintered legs of my only kitchen table chair. I was blind with anger.

The fucking dog kept whining. I picked it up and shoved it outside, into the snow. Then I grabbed the lighter and began touching the flame to everything that would catch. All around the house, I danced and paused, kissing the lighter to the corners of paintings, books, magazines, towels, jackets, shirts, anything reaching out its pursed lips to make out with my lighter.

I no longer shivered as the house glowed with oranges and reds. I tossed the lighter into the dirty clothes hamper and grabbed an un-kissed jacket from my bedroom chair. I threw it on and went outside to keep my dog company. It’s whimpering no longer affecting my mood but reflecting them. Its whimpering echoing the same hopeless sadness and anger I felt every waking moment of my life.

Now that life was burning 10 feet from where I stood in the snow, keeping me warm and melting the billions of frozen flakes around my feet.

I patted the dog on the head, who seemed to stop whining when I joined it outside, and watched that little bitch of a life filled with empty things burn. I patted my dog and we stayed warm.

Through the sliding glass door, I heard something hiss and gush, something that sounded juicy. Then I heard a shriek, followed by a pop. Shit, I forgot about the cat.