Tony Burgess - The n-Body Problem

A commercial comes on for WasteCorp. Lot of sunshine in these ads. Time lapse photography of yellow tulips becoming vertical in yellow light. Robins hooping straw on a backyard tool shelf. It’s easy to hate these commercials and reasonable to do so, but there’s no mistaking the way they make you feel. The TV becomes a full-spectrum light box for thirty seconds and people crane in, like basking dandelions. The lump in my mouth has changed a bit. It’s a fat disc now. I picture myself turning scissors this way and that trying to feel my way to the first snips. Or do I carve an X in the chin and draw the thing out with pliers? Not worth thinking about. I’ll know what to do when I do it.

News story about the thickening lattice. It’s an interesting feature of orbit. Was a selling point for a while. The bodies orbit in layers, or skins as they’re called, and when the skins get too deep, I think the number was 30,000 or so, then the innermost skin starts to breakdown. This was supposed to insure that the structure wouldn’t become too dense or too thick. Never really worked. Whatever architecture’s going on up there is evolving on its own. The other feature of the peel was that bodies would re-enter the atmosphere in a controlled way. They would burn in the sky and enter the thin stratosphere as ash. We would be able to see this at sunset. It would be natural. It would be poetry. Except it doesn’t always happen like that. Some years there’s no peel at all. The lattice becomes tighter. The light more fragile. Life on earth, with no outward sign of apocalypse, is suspended by despair.

There’s a story on the news about a major event over India. It’s the kind of peel we see more these days. Millions of bodies at once. A massive inverted volcano in the sky over Mumbai. A funnel of hot ash and charnel debris hits the city and chokes it out. Thousands can die in these events. Their lungs fill with blood and their skin burns under accumulating death paste. WasteCorp moves in quick. The dead are conveyed. Everything starts again. It is unusual to see this actually on the news. Usually they show the inverted cone and the fierce pyroclastic ring and it’s sold as a wonder, as a stunning phenomena. A murmuration of the dead. The images they’re showing now, of people lying down in the streets, is rare to see. Reminds me of the term “first responders.” Not many of those around anymore.

The news ends and I notice X hasn’t eaten anything. It occurs to me that he isn’t all that different than the dead. His movements are a little more purposeful, sure, but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t act on his own. I wonder what’s in this kid. Honestly, he could be extremely minimal. An imitation of the new dead. I wonder if that’s not a pretty good survival strategy. No thought, no danger. A reboot of Barnaby Jones on the TV. Columbian. Starring Jose Marins.

“What’s this shit?”

I’m trying to see if X is there or not. He just stares.

“There’s a guy after us. Old friend. He’s gonna want to kill us.”

Nothing.

“We’re gonna have to sleep on the roof. Safest place.”

X reaches over and grabs a stick of celery. He returns the hand to his lap. No eating. He’s telling me not to talk to him.

I’ve been alone for my whole life, but this is a bit much.

My mind has wandered. I have come to believe that I have Barrett’s Syndrome or possibly esophageal cancer. When I swallow it’s like my throat is too dry to complete the task. There’s a constriction at the base. A burr beneath my collar bone. A bleeding white cluster of throat tubers. Voles scuttling through thin tunnels. Honeycomb tongue. It’s probably because I spoke for the first time in a while. It felt unnatural. It triggered the picture. My serotonin syndrome has advanced alarmingly. I definitely have colonized stem cells. Neurotransmitter flower boxes. I need to inventory. I need to find items I can organize. I turn the TV off. It may well be giving me advanced throat cancer. I need a good honest list.

It’s not enough to do things. Doing things makes thought slide, gives way to automatic images, unbidden connection. The only way to reset is deliberate lists. Mental lists. X has kicked his shoes off. There are no sores or scars or marks on his feet. A little surprising. The inflated tissue at the base of my throat makes me think of those hemorrhoid rings you sit on. There are no lists. I can’t just make a list of everything. You can’t just count. You can’t just point. Lists stop linear chains and prevent atomization. No dictionarying. Lists take the outside and stack it inside. Lists are like chemotherapy. Chop the fear from the image. Shrink the new body. Cease evolution. I need a list that can’t be ignored. That isn’t inconsequential. I need a list with its own gravitational field.

Dixon.

Here is a list of the things he is known to have done with the bodies in the towns. Dixon sewed seventy-nine people together in a fountain: testicles to vaginas, testicles to tongues, testicles to eyes, testicles to anus, testicles to testicles, testicles to penis, testicles to breast, testicles to removed liver, testicle to small intestine, testicle to exposed brain, testicle to open throat, testicle to stomach lining, testicle to bone fragments, testicle to cheek, testicle to fontanel, testicle to arch, testicle to navel, testicle to bladder, testicle to eyelid, testicle to lung cancer, testicle to parotid gland, testicle to frog, testicle to windpipe.

Also involving the same seventy-nine people: vaginas to vaginas, vaginas to tongues, vaginas to eyes, vaginas to anus, vaginas to penis, vaginas to breast, vaginas to removed liver, vagina to small intestine, vagina to exposed brain, vagina to open throat, vagina to stomach lining, vagina to bone fragments, vagina to cheek, vagina to fontenal, vagina to arch, vagina to navel, vagina to bladder, vagina to eyelid, vagina to lung cancer, vagina to parotid gland, vagina to frog, vagina to windpipe.

Dixon removed his shoes and jumped across the tense, agitated surface like a kid in a bouncy castle.

Dixon tied several hundred people to a fence along the highway then drove at speed beside them with a bat held tight in the window. Dixon managed to hit most of the heads, launching bone and brains into the cows.

Dixon made a hood from the eviscerated body of an eight-month-old baby. The hood moves magically. Fingers tickling his temples. Small feet clenching on his shoulders.

Dixon made sunglasses out of the sphincters of twins. The tiny apertures working like slits to reduce brightness. Unnecessary since we have been able to stare directly into the sun for over eight years now.

Dixon has made a practise of necrophilia and his list of partners numbers in the thousands. Dixon has sex with several on a typical day.

Dixon has ejaculated into vaginas. Into anuses. Into mouths. Into eyes. Into cuts opened on every imaginable part of the body—throats, ribs, bellies, etc. Dixon has also ejaculated into brains, testicles, spines. Dixon has ejaculated inside the oldest and the youngest females. The oldest and the youngest males. Dixon has attempted to ejaculate on those merely stunned by electrocution and has had to kill the person manually in order to ejaculate. Dixon has ejaculated wearing a cored penis on his own penis. Noting the cored penis moves on its own like a worm shroud. Dixon has ejaculated in the hole left by a severed penis. It is impossible to finish this list as it is always longer than one imagines. Ejaculations involved penetration where practical.