Cameron Pierce - Abortion Arcade

“What the fuck,” Celia says. She stands beside him now. He meant to help her up, to kiss her wounds and make her feel better, but the sick animal prevented him from going to her.

“Are you okay?” he says. He puts a hand on her lower back.

“I’m fine.” She crouches over the sloth, evading Simon’s hand. Simon can tell by her tone that she is annoyed.

“Watch out for the beetles,” he says.

“I know,” she says.

“I’m sorry you crashed into a sloth.”

“I used to like sloths. Now that they live in the city, I think they’re pretty stupid. I wish they would send them back to the jungle. It’s like we’re living in a fucking zoo.”

“I kind of like having exotic animals around,” Simon says.

“Even the air we breathe is manufactured.”

“It’s better than living underwater. The oceans are dying and we couldn’t ride bikes down there.”

“I guess it’s good that automobiles were banished to the ocean, but what does it matter if they replaced all the trees with fake plastic ones? We’re living in a false city.”

“At least we can ride bikes and not get hit by cars.”

“No, you only crash into sloths now.”

“You think you’d get used to it after six months.”

“Get used to it? Get used to it? Fuck you, Simon. I will not buy into the apathy machine. Fuck you.”

“You’re drunk. You shouldn’t have drank tonight. If our baby has fetal alcohol syndrome, I will never forgive you.”

“I thought you wanted a freak.”

“Can we go home?”

“Admit that the world is a cold dead place.”

“The world is a cold dead place.”

“You didn’t say it with feeling.”

“Because I’m so cold and dead that I feel nothing. Can we go home now?”

Celia crosses her arms across her chest. “Fine. Will you read me a bedtime story?”

“Yes. What do you want me to read to you?”

“Anything. I don’t care.”

Simon picks up his bike and stares at the decapitated sloth. The beetles move around inside its belly, making the sloth look pregnant.

“I’m sorry you crashed into a sloth.”

“You said that already.”

“What do you want me to read to you?”

“Gah, you decide.”

“Penguin Island?”

“You decide,” Celia says, as they pedal into the fractured bloom of a late summer night.

Simon and Celia lock their bikes to a light post. They stand out side the door of their apartment, their fingers clasped loosely together. They hear the footfall and trumpeting of a miniature stampede within.

“Elephants again,” Simon says.

“Impossible. I sprayed elephanticide this morning.”

“The elephants are transcending our poisons. They are elementally evolving,” Simon says in a monotone voice, but meaning it as a joke.

“This is serious, Simon,” Celia says.

“It’s just an infestation.”

“They’ll destroy everything we own.”

Simon shrugs. “I don’t like anything I own anyway.”

“I think I’ll kill them this time. I really think I’ll kill them.”

“We are beyond peaceful negotiations. We are beyond poison. We must squash the elephants beneath our shoes.

We must boil their children in hot water spiced with cloves. We must be ruthless in the face of the intruder.”

Celia unlocks the door and pushes it open. They stand side by side, staring into the darkness. Simon flips on a light.

Tiny white elephants parade in a single-file line that spirals inward and outward like a vortex of pestilential cuteness.

Simon lets go of Celia’s hand. He steps toward the parade of tiny elephants.

“Please don’t kill them,” Celia says.

“I thought you wanted them dead.”

“I was just mad. I didn’t mean it for real. They’re only elephants. They don’t know any better. Look how tiny they are.”

“If we don’t make a stand now, they’ll never leave us alone. They’ll run us out of our own fucking home.”

Celia is crying now.

“There’s got to be another solution,” she says.

“We’ve tried everything. There’s no other solution.”

“Can’t we wait until morning?”

“And let the elephants shit all over the floor and keep us up all night with their trunk music, just to kill them in the morning?”

Celia nods.

Simon looks at the tiny elephants. The tiny elephants are very cute. A while ago, Simon would have liked to keep one as a pet, but he hates them now. Celia hates them too.

It makes them sad to hate tiny elephants because they used to love tiny elephants, before tiny elephants were imported to the city and infested their apartment. Simon hates the government for making him hate tiny elephants.

Simon looks away from the tiny elephants. He massages the right side of his face. He has a minor toothache.

“Let’s go to bed. The elephants have until morning to pack their bags.”

“Do you hear that?” Celia says to the elephants. “You have until morning. Then your death bell rings.”

Unlike rats, tiny elephants are not afraid of humans.

They do not scramble for the dark when lights come on.

They are festive creatures and might be pleasant to have around, if only they did not congregate by the hundreds or thousands and make noise all night, for tiny elephants are nocturnal.

“Still want a bedtime story?” Simon says.

Celia slips her arms around him, saying, “Yes please.”

They hold each other close, and in holding each other dis solve the sandpaper feelings that rubbed them raw earlier in the day, when they argued about money. They say that money is shit, but they are in debt, accumulating more debt, and learned two weeks ago that Celia is pregnant.

“I love you,” Simon says.

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have drank tonight.”

Celia buries her face in his chest and sighs. “Are you sure you still want to start a family with me?”

“Of course I’m sure. Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

Simon kisses her forehead. She pulls away from him, kicks off her laceless red shoes, and tiptoes across the apartment, careful not to squash any elephants. She climbs into bed. Simon unties his shoes and throws them across the room. He shuffles into the bathroom, where the elephants have unwound the entire roll of toilet paper.

Simon decides to leave the toilet paper alone. Celia usually wakes up before him. He wants her to see the toilet paper and get mad at the elephants for being messy and wasteful. Then they can kill the elephants together. Maybe they will eat one. He wonders what tiny elephants taste like. He thinks that maybe he should be more concerned about the baby and less concerned about the taste of tiny elephants.

He opens the medicine cabinet and picks up his toothbrush. He squeezes a cashew-sized glob of glittering blue paste onto the frayed bristles, closes the medicine cabinet, and sticks the brush into his mouth without wetting the bristles. He stands in the bathroom doorway. While brushing he says, “Will I make a good father?”

Celia lies facedown in the pillows. The sunflower-patterned sheet is pulled up to her waist. She has taken off her shirt. Her back is a pale honeydew rind, bereft of distinguishing marks, like a desert without cacti or rocks. Her breathing is slow and heavy. She has fallen asleep.

Simon spits toothpaste foam into the sink and rinses his mouth. He swallows two aspirin for the minor toothache. He crawls into bed after turning off all the lights except the bedside lamp. He gets under the sheet and picks up the book on the nightstand. It is a copy of The Little Prince in the original French. Although he understands almost none of it, Simon begins reading aloud from the book.