Cameron Pierce: Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

The ass goblins turn off the lights and exit the room.

The White Angel takes me to the barracks after lights out. The ass goblin who is supposed to be holding post outside the door waddles over from a card game with the other guards. “Just a game of gambling,” he explains, his eyes peeping out from his fat buttocks, staring guiltily up at the scientist.

“I am only returning a prisoner,” the White Angel says. “No need to be alarmed. Doing my duty, as you do yours.”

He scales the staircase two steps at a time, leaving me alone with the guard. His gambling buddies holler at him. Some want him to return, others drunkenly clamor for a wee hour Shit Slaughter. “Ah, fuck it. You got the mark of a hot one.” He unlocks the door, pushes me through, and locks it behind me.

I hold my breath in the darkness. Children whisper in their bunks. My entrance must have startled them. My vision isn’t adjusting, so I grope along from bunk to bunk until I find the eighth on the wall to my right. That is where Otto and I slept. I run my hands against the side, calculating the easiest way to pull myself up. My right hand brushes against something cold and small. I slide my fingers over each of its sides and realize that I have discovered a foot. The foot’s owner jerks away and I leap back. The foot owner sits up, leans close to me. “Who are you? What do you want?” she whispers.

I would recognize that whisper anywhere. It’s Frannie. She’s alive after all. “It’s me,” I say, my throat raspy and soar.

“Who are you?” Her eyes must be closed. They aren’t flashing in the dark like they used to.

“999, Otto’s twin.”

“Oh…”

Someone stirs beside Frannie. The form pushes Frannie down on the wooden cot and creeps to the end of the bunk. I fail to make out the face until sour breath curdles my nostril hairs.

It’s an ass goblin. Frannie is sleeping in my old bed with an ass goblin.

“999,” the ass goblin croaks, “It is Otto, your brother.”

I grab hold of the cot to keep from collapsing on the floor, and in one unbearable moment, it all comes rushing back to me. I understand the meaning of the conversation between the White Angel and Bumblestum after our separation.

“I am not an ass goblin,” he says, his voice totally ruined. He couldn’t speak above the softest whisper if he tried. And neither could I.

“I’m sorry I let you down,” I say. “I’m sorry for cutting us apart. I messed up our entire plan. We’ll die here for certain now.”

“Your eyes are weak, but in the morning, you will see that we can no longer pass as children.”

“What’s to be done about this?”

“Climb into bed. The morning siren should be sounding soon. We must rest until then.”

Otto slides his hands under my arms. Claws he never had before dig into my back as he lifts me onto the bunk. I push Frannie into the middle, between Otto and I, and pass into a dream about plugging her miniature twin, my first Auschwitz dream.

No matter how many times it startles me, I am never ready for the morning siren. Today seems worse, probably because nobody’s condition ever improves in Auschwitz. It’s a lemming-drop straight to the bottom. I am also recovering from surgical procedures not yet familiar to me. I gaze sleepily at Frannie and Otto. He is sitting up in bed. She is also sitting up in bed, but missing her head. Her torso is a pair of lips. We have no time to discuss her headless condition, for the guard at the door is eager to clear the barracks, swiping his claws at children as they scuttle into the hall.

Green claws twice the size of my hands are grafted to my skin. My palms look normal, as do my arms and legs. I pat my butt and that seems regular too. Even if I am no longer a pure child, at least I do not have a goblin ass.

I run to catch up with Otto, leaving Frannie behind in the crowd. The less contact she and I have beyond the barracks, the safer we will be.

Today is the coldest of the season. Swastikles blow in on a southbound gust. Thunder and lightning gallop across the horizon in fits and starts. I can hardly make out the ass goblin’s cry of “Apple! Apple! Apple!” This is going to be one heck of a roll call.

I catch up to Otto as he seeks out his usual place in line. The chaotic weather disrupts our natural order. Bewildered goblins poke their heads out of factories or pace around the apple platter. Unless they’re assigned roll call or breakfast duty, few ever show their heads until the work day begins. Big storms must affect their perfect alignment with the universe.

My first direct view of Otto almost makes me bite my tongue in half. I understand why I mistook him for an ass goblin in the dark. His child hands are gone. His new hands look to be green rubber gloves ten sizes too big. They hang down to his knees. A rubber mask has melted over his gray face. He catches my drop-jawed stare, his expression synthetic, unchanging. “You are not much better,” he says.

Last night, I thought he could hardly muster a croak because of throat problems like my own, but the mask muffles his voice. I hope he can withstand these mutations.

“Attention! Asses up!”

We drop our pants. My brother’s ass puffs out, a lunar nightmare of craterous pustules. Semen worms slither out of his infected tissue and dive to the apple platter. They burrow into the marble where 1000 used to cower. Nobody has replaced the cider boy.

My spine aches and threatens to crack in two by the time the ass goblin taking roll reaches us many hours later. The sun never rises.

I brace myself for the typical swastika carving and rectal inspection. The guard sets one hand on my buttocks and lets his claws linger. I try to leave my body. No success. I nearly pull off the flying trick when the guard’s hand darts between my legs and tugs on my scrotum. Against my better judgment, I turn my head and catch sight of a needle.

The needle enters my right testicle. Barf and stomach acid rockets up my throat. I swirl it around in my mouth to keep from puking on the marble. I might already be in serious trouble for turning my head. The bile catches in the gaps between my teeth and congeals around my tongue. The needle drains my right testicle until the nut inside the sack shrivels to nothing.

I can’t tell for sure, but the White Angel appears to give Otto the same needle treatment.

The snow turns to sleet.

When roll call ends, I rise into the black of night, my body crackling in a million different places. The White Angel orders us directly to the work assignment station. No kidskin for us today.

I pick bile from between my teeth with a clawed hand. Otto and I waddle side by side, rubbing our empty sacks. “Auschwitz is transforming,” he says.

“We are the transformed ones,” I say. “They want to remake us in their image. They want Auschwitz to be a fairyland.”

The White Angel also controls work assignments tonight. He stands under a flickering bulb that sways in the wind. When Otto steps up, the ass goblin hoots. Rather than handing over the next card in the pile, he takes a blank slip from his pocket and scribbles on it. “Doctor’s orders.”

Otto shuffles away with his head down. The White Angel gives me a special note as well. I am to report to the bicycle factory. I slosh through the mud, catching up with Otto. “Let me see your card,” I say.

He holds the paper out to me, but the ink has already smeared into black rivers. “Surgery,” he says, “I am going to surgery.” And then he is gone.

We have never worked a day apart in our lives.

I trudge on toward the bicycle factory. Other children scurry to their own work assignments. Even in the storm, many do a double take when they see me.