Fungus of the Heart (14 page)

“You have a beautiful home,” Doctor Ivanova says, wrinkly and smiley and small as a child. “I love the colors. The curves. Are you, by any chance, a fan of Antoni Gaudí?”

“Who?” Kevin says, sucking a tofu burger off his Elves Presley limited edition collector plate.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Mr. Wire says. “But this food tastes like shit.”

“I um…” Drippy says. Then he sniffles, and charges into the tofu preparation room.

“My festering friend in a sensitive soul,” Kevin says. “You’d best keep your criticisms to yourself, Mr. Wire.”

The grimy cytologist shrugs. “I’m sorry.”

But he doesn’t sound sorry.

And Kevin can’t help but grin. He loves a challenge.

Doctor Ivanova glowers at Mr. Wire. And when she frowns, her whole crinkly face joins in. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen.” She rushes into the kitchen, and licks Drippy’s festering wound.

Kevin spends the next few minutes chatting with Doctor Bloss about the weather.

But eventually, the ethologist returns to her cement clam of a chair.

And Kevin says, “A feast of the heart has little to do with physical sustenance, so we’d best get down to those brassy tacks.” He faces the marine biologist. “Tell me why you’re here, Doc. Tell me why you think you’re here.”

“Well,” Doctor Bloss says, running his hand through his ashen hair. “I’m here to study you. I would love to remain in the area for a few days and monitor you in your natural habitat. If it’s no problem for you.”

“I’ll give it a think.” He faces the ethologist. “And what about you, Doc? Why are you here?”

“Well,” Doctor Ivanova says. “I wanted to meet you. And I wanted to observe the social interactions between an Agape Walrus and a Zombie Polar Bear. Your relationship is quite fascinating.”

Kevin nods, and faces the cytologist. “And you, Mr. Wire? What do you want from me?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Mr. Wire says. “I’m here to collect a sample of zombie cells from the bear.”

“I see,” Kevin says. “Now, do you want me to tell you the real reason why you’re all here?”

The three scientists stare at the walrus.

Doctor Ivanova looks amused.

Doctor Bloss looks confused.

And Mr. Wire looks bored.

“You’re here for love,” Kevin says. “Who wants to go first?”

After a few moments, Doctor Ivanova raises her hand.

Kevin smiles. “Hippity hop on over here and take my tusks.”

The ethologist obeys.

“Now press your face against my whiskers, if you would be so kind.”

The ethologist obeys again.

“This might tickle a bit,” Kevin says.

And as his tusks turn the color of a Gold Lamé Suit, his glowing whiskers wriggle and writhe their way into the doctor’s face.

“What the fuck?” Doctor Bloss says.

Entering the doctor’s heart, Kevin expects to find a malnourished spirit in need of a savior. But instead of confronting his stereotype of a scientist’s soul, he finds himself wrestling a whirlwind of sunshine and smiles and silly stories.

The force of the doctor’s love knocks the breath right out of him.

Her love is pure. Her love is true. And even more shocking to the walrus, her love might just be purer and truer than his own.

Kevin sighs. Sure, the doctor’s love causes him to burst with ecstasy, but still, he feels somewhat disappointed. And more than a little jealous.

Finally, the one soul splits into two.

“Thank you,” Doctor Ivanova says, collapsing to the flowery floor.

Kevin looks at the two men. “Who’s next?”

Doctor Bloss wipes his face with a lacy handkerchief.

“Doctor Bloss?” Kevin says.

“I wasn’t raising my hand,” the biologist says.

At this point, Drippy returns to the feasting room, and nuzzles his snout against Doctor Ivanova’s nose.

“Doctor Bloss,” Kevin says. “If you connect with me, I’ll let you stay here for a week. I’ll let you watch me eat and sleep and jig. I’ll even weewee and poopoo in front of you.”

The biologist bites at his fingernail.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Doctor Ivanova says, wrapped up in the arms of the bear.

“What do you say, Doc?” Kevin says.

Doctor Bloss closes his eyes, nods.

“That’s the spirit!” Kevin slaps the biologist’s back with his flipper. Tenderly.

And moments later, Kevin finds what he expects to find in the doctor’s heart. He finds an emaciated spirit, no more than skin and bones. The soul clings to Kevin. The soul gazes at him with puppy dog eyes.

And the man and the walrus become one.

Kevin drowns Doctor Bloss in a tidal wave of crabs and colors and the King’s Christmas album.

After the separation, Doctor Bloss collapses to his knees, with snot and tears oozing down his blushing face. He wraps his beefy arms around the walrus. “I wanted to kill you.” He sniffles. “I wanted to kill you and the bear. I’m sorry, Mr. Donihe.” He hugs Kevin tighter. “I’m not Doctor Bloss. I’m a fucking poacher. Why am I a fucking poacher?” He presses his face into Kevin’s blubber and sobs, hard.

“I forgive you,” the walrus says.

The poacher collapses, and crawls on hands and knees over to Drippy.

Then, Kevin turns to Mr. Wire. “If Drippy gives you a bit of blood, will you let me love you?”

The smelly cytologist shrugs. “Fine.”

“You’re not gonna clone me, are you?” Drippy says. “Because I don’t really believe in cloning.”

“Clone you?” Mr. Wire laughs through clenched teeth. “I’m looking to wipe all you bastards off the face of the Earth.”

“Why would you do that? I mean, genocide is wrong.”

“That’s the point, you idiot. Decades from now, zombies will mutate into mindless killing machines. And my mission is to find a way to prevent the apocalypse.”

“Oh…well…” Drippy scratches at a boil with his claw. “Alright then.”

“That’s settled,” Kevin says. “Now let’s get all lovey-dovey, shall we?”

Mr. Wire shrugs and connects with the walrus.

And Kevin supposes that inside Mr. Wire’s heart, he’ll discover a rotting carcass of a soul in desperate need of resurrection.

Instead, Kevin encountered an abyss. And not just any abyss.

This abyss is pure. This abyss is true.

Kevin stares at the void with his mouth wide open. And he feels himself drifting closer and closer to the nothingness. And part of him knows that he needs to snap out of this state of shock, so he thinks about Drippy’s rumbly chuckle.

And the walrus and the man disconnect.

Kevin finds Drippy by his side, crying, growling his name.

“I’m alright,” Kevin says.

“You were screaming,” Drippy says. “And I wanted to separate you two, but you said…you told me I should never do that, no matter what. Are you OK?”

“I’m peaches and cream. But I can’t say the same for Mr. Wire. He has a big boo-boo in his ticker.”

“What kind of boo-boo?”

At this point, Mr. Wire sticks a sparkling syringe into Drippy’s open wound. “Thanks for the blood, asshole.”

“What’s wrong with your soul?” Kevin says.

“What’s wrong with your soul?” Mr. Wire repeats, in a cartoonish voice.

Then, the cytologist studies the syringe in his hand. He chuckles, and tosses the zombie blood out the open shark-shaped window.

“Why would you do that?” Drippy says.

Mr. Wire shrugs.

Kevin looks into the man’s eyes, hoping to find some answers.

But before Kevin can figure anything out, the god of life and death whispers the secret into Drippy’s heart.

As a zombie, Drippy’s privy to all sorts of fascinating facts.

“Mr. Wire doesn’t have a soul,” Drippy says. “Only the physical body can travel back in time. So he…you know…left his soul back in the future.”

Mr. Wire snorts. “Ridiculous.”

Ridiculous, yes, but Kevin trusts his friend.

And so there’s only one thing Kevin can do for this soulless monster.

“I want to love you,” Kevin says. “One more time.”

“I don’t need your love,” Mr. Wire says.

“Pretty please.”

The sunburned cytologist shakes his head.

So Kevin blocks the front door. “Hold him down, Drip.”

“What?” the bear says.

“Hold him down.”

“But you said before we should never force people to share their soul with you.”

“He’s not a person, Drip. He’s a big bad boogieman, and he needs my help.”

“I guess you’re right.”

And so, Drippy holds down Mr. Wire, while Kevin gives him a piece of his soul.

It’s not much, of course.

But it’s enough.

Later, Mr. Wire stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. He runs his crusty finger up and down the frayed edges of his tattered silver jumpsuit.

Then, he takes a long, hot bath.

And as for Doctor Ivanova and the poacher, they’re spooning on the linoleum.

“Should we wake them?” Drippy says.

“Not yet,” Kevin says. “Let’s let them feel all fuzzy-wuzzy for a while longer.”

The bear nods.

And all through the night, Kevin dreams of the abyss.

And when he wakes, the nightmares refuse to end. He fears the nothingness will haunt him forever.

So after Drippy sculpts the morning tofu, Kevin allows the bear to unlock and remove his titanium skull. Then, Drippy uses a sterile X-Acto knife to cut out a miniscule chunk of memory out of Kevin’s head.

Kevin eats the tofu. Drippy eats the brains.

And this is what some scientists like to call love.

Kingdom Come

My Filter edits out the utility wires and pollution, so I can truly appreciate the view. And as foggy fingers caress the curves of the earth, I think of heaven. Not the heaven I envision today, with walls and guns and sentinels. No, I’m reminded of my childhood heaven, where everyone wears flip-flips and walks on clouds.

I was a stupid kid.

And in my undeveloped mind, I imagined my parents and my sisters and me living together in a white castle, one big happy family again. I knew this would never happen in my lifetime. But I thought if God embraced my father, forgave him, then my mother would follow suit.

Back then, I didn’t know much about my father. Sure, I knew he was a coward. I knew he refused to fight. And I knew he was the worst kind of man, because that’s what my mother told me. But I thought I loved him anyway.

I loved him, even when my mother cried and told me she couldn’t go on. And I tried to convince her life was worth living. I talked about her favorite foods, and my good grades, and Christmas.

After my rambling, she would hug me and say, “You’re a brave boy. If you were older, you’d fight for me. I know you would.”

And she was right.

But the war’s over now, and I’m sitting on top of the world, or at least at the highest overlook in Kingdom Come Park and Penitentiary.

The Cumberland Plateau bursts with fall foliage, dazzling my eyes.

I feel so small. So connected.

And as I read in the brochure, these feelings, they’re a warning sign. Symptoms. If I don’t medicate myself soon, I could develop a full-blown case of Thoreau Syndrome.

So I hop off the stone column, and lead my family to the Art Hut.

There, I sit on a bench and study the black bears.

And I chuckle, cured of the reverence plaguing my soul. These creatures look so pathetic, stuffed in glass boxes like the contortionist I once marveled at in my youth. But unlike the performer, these creatures inspire only pity, victims of their own weakness.

Sure, beasts like these posses a certain raw strength, but their power can’t compare to that of a human being. Of an American.

Therefore, these bears will live the rest of their wretched lives in these boxes, with tubes jammed in their orifices and flesh.

I laugh again.

Then my son cries.

And I notice a young couple. Pointing, smiling.

“What’s wrong with you?” I say, holding my son’s shoulders.

“They want to go home,” he says.

“Who?”

“The teddies. Can’t we let them go with their mommies?”

“Stop crying.”

And after I touch my belt, my son obeys.

“Maybe I should take him outside,” my wife says.

“No,” I say. “He needs to see this.”

An older man in a suit steps closer to me. “It’s refreshing to see a father taking an interest in his son’s artistic development. You’d be surprised what a rarity that is these days.”

“You’re right. I am surprised.”

The old man grins. “I’m John Miller, the Curator.”

“Samson Carter.”

We shake hands.

And after a few minutes of talking about black bears, we shake hands again.

“See you tomorrow night, Mr. Carter,” the Curator says. “Assuming you and the missus are planning on attending the show.”

“Show?” I say.

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard. All of Kingdom Come’s buzzing about tomorrow’s guest. He’s supposedly quite the comedian.”

“I doubt we’ll be in attendance. I’m not a comedy fan.”

“Well, to each his own.”

Outside the hut, my son approaches one of the glowing rhododendrons, and I have to grab him by the arm.

“Don’t touch those,” I say. “Don’t even get near them.”

“Why?” my son says.

“Because I told you not to.”

And that’s the end of that.

One good thing about my son, he knows when to shut up.

*

Thankfully, my Filter’s sophisticated enough to differentiate between the day-to-day screaming in Kingdom Come and the yelling of my wife. So the machine lets me hear her, and I wake up.

And I find her on her knees, a few meters from the tent.

“What’s wrong?” I say.

“It took our son,” my wife says. “It took our son.”

I glance around. I don’t see him. “Who took him?”

“A monster.” She cries.

I feel like shaking the truth out of her, but there’s no time for that. “Which way did they go?”

“I don’t know. It pushed me into a bush, and when I got up, they were gone.”

By now, a small group’s formed around us, and a middle-aged woman steps forward. “I seen what happened. They went that way.” She points.

“Call the Guardians,” I say, and look down at my wife. “Don’t tell them what you think you saw. They’ll lock you up.”