The sky opened up, the light shone down, the surgeons got distracted, and Mack made his escape.
As he lurched down the wide, white hallways, the excitement wore off. The depression rushed in immediately. Stomach would miss the other organs, even as beaten, sick, and grumpy as they were. He almost turned around.
Then those horrible clenches came back, the ones that felt like he was turning inside out.
No, there was no peace for him there.
Mack grumbled down sidewalks that scratched him, past dogs that tried to eat him, and human organisms who glared at him with disgust. He found his way to a bar for creatures like himself.
Though the walls were painted festive red and yellow tones, and jukeboxes trilled happy tones in the corner, the bar’s patrons hunched moodily over their drinks. They looked friendly as cats in a car wash.
The bartender was a liver, and introduced himself as “Phil”. Mack felt homesick to see those four reddish lobes. One of them squeezed limes into a flat dish while another dipped margarita glasses into the juice, them rimmed them in salt.
The liver eyeballed him. “You’re the saddest organ I’ve ever seen. You won’t last long on the outside.”
Mack looked at the little oyster-shaped crackers on the bar and felt himself turn. “Lonely ain’t natural for an organ,” he agreed.
Phil leaned over. “See that organism over there? The one in the corner? Maybe he can help you.”
The man hunched in a ball because of the low ceiling and clenched a black jacket around him. He wore sunglasses and a moustache. He tapped the ash of his cigarette onto the floor.
Mack sloshed over. “I need a home. Barkeep says you can help.”
The man snorted. “No good, hoss. No point trying to traffic stomachs these days, market’s too small, doctors don’t use ‘em enough yet. But if you got any kidneys friends, you just send ‘em my way. Meantime, why don’t you look online?”
There was a single laptop on a card table in the back, but Mack just gave is a sarcastic laugh. And how, just how, was he supposed to type?
He slumped onto a chair and moaned. He had been a faithful servant of his organism. He endured patiently through the super-sour candy phase, then the phase of eating enough for six people at one time, then the binge drinking, and even the four-fancy-coffees-per-day phase. But this last one, the one that made him twist, turn, and burn all day and all night… he thought it might be the end of him.
Mack had never thought of himself as a deserter. In this cold outside world, the lonely stomach felt like a heel.
He was designed to be faithful, and that’s what he would be.
Mack returned to the hospital. He lurched back down the hallway, in time to see a couple organisms in white outfits arguing in the hallway.
“This is unbelievable, Henderson!” roared a bearded one to a younger, beardless organism. “You lost it? First that colon last week, now a stomach? Should I be wary for his spleen too? Henderson, you’re fired!”
Beardless turned and moped away, and just as the bearded one was about to return to the operating room, a female organism ran up to him.
“It’s Paraquat,” she said. “An herbicide. He’s been poisoned. Looks like it’s been happening for a while in small doses.”
Mack shook himself from his shock. The organism had its answer! The pain would stop! He could go… home! His acid sloshed happily.
And as an added plus, that dreadful harpy of a girlfriend would soon be history! Mack hated her from the get-go. She put hot sauce on his organism’s food.
He scooted his way back home to a future of warm broth and crackers and playing cards with Karl the Kidney.
Shelley Spedowfski is happiest making bread dough, gardening in soft soil, and knitting baby blankets for charity while thinking of new and unusual ways to kill people. In her murder mysteries, of course.
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18 Responses to “MACK’S TROUBLE • by Shelley Spedowfski”
Comments
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June 19th, 2009 at 2:51 am
A refreshingly surreal read.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:17 am
A silly premise needs a really transcendent treatment to make it work. I have no idea how to do that, but I know that this piece isn’t it. The adventures of the runaway stomach were too pedestrian to keep my interest. I wanted to like this, but couldn’t work up enough interest; sorry.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:57 am
EWW
June 19th, 2009 at 5:23 am
Enjoyed this sweet work and it’s original concept. Pulled me in.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Sorry, but this was really annoying to read.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Exceedingly strange, either brilliant or totally stupid. I can’t decide if I liked it or not.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Jim – My vote is that it’s number two.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:12 am
This was an original approach, and well-executed. Good work, Shelley.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:07 am
This was a pleasant oddball, for sure. And I liked it because of its oddness. I think it has a good voice and flow and is well-written.
–dj
June 19th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I thought it was cool. Loved it.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Woody Allen could’ve made the movie.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Ha! I was chuckling all the way through this one up till the end when it felt like it unravled a bit. It was Monty Pythonesqe sillyness, which I enjoy, just without a satisfactory resolution.
–John
June 19th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Weird and unique. No doubt about that.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Must admit, I quite liked this. Well wacky.
It reminded me in a strange way of the film ‘Ghost’.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I don’t get it.
June 20th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I’m going to think of this story every time I drink four lattes in one day.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I do not like Bob.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:43 am
Anit-Bob –
Is Bob the “dreadful harpy of a girlfriend?”