Cameron Pierce - Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

A few ass goblins stand beneath awnings, drinking cider. Some of them whisper and point when I pass.

I stand outside the darkened bicycle factory and shiver from scalp to toe. No lights emanate from the underground. I descend the stairs, scraping my claws against the walls to my left and right, calling, “Hello? Hello?”

No reply. I knock on the door.

Again, silence. I turn the knob. The door creaks.

My work slip is a soggy shred of runny ink, so if I encounter an ass goblin down here, I’m liable to receive a Shit Slaughter regardless of the White Angel’s sudden takeover of our daily routine.

I shut the door behind me and move by memory toward the guard’s corner. I swat at the air until I grab hold of the electricity pulley. I lower the chain. Gray lights dance around the room. They settle as the conveyor belt whirs alive.

I look around, paranoid that I am not alone. Assigning me to the bicycle factory could not be a mistake on the White Angel’s part. He wanted me here. I am an experiment, a special project. A hated pet.

The ass goblins must be watching me, recording my actions. My instincts tell me to take advantage of this opportunity and go forth on Otto’s dream of constructing bicycles to ride into the labyrinth. If this is a behavioral study, then rebelling against the ass goblins will result in death. They won’t risk preserving a test subject whose foremost instinct is rebellion.

A red bulb combusts in the dusty core of my brain.

I run around the room, flailing my arms. I must find a bicycle… a bicycle that is already built! The ass goblins will condemn me for riding a bicycle into the labyrinth, but if I play it off as a genuine result of their genetic experiments, I might build intrigue and buy time.

Handlebars and half a wheel jut from a mound of bones. I raise my arms into the air, jiggle my fingers, and dig. The children whose bones and organs make up this bicycle, they’re no longer the same. Neither am I. We all come to Auschwitz as children, but in the long run, we become something else… cider, bicycles, goblins, food for prisoners… dolls. Nobody remains a child.

I unbury the bike and wheel it to the guard’s station. The rusted door in the back leads to the underground labyrinth. I prop the bike against the wall and turn the swastika handle.

The door swings open. Colored lights flash along two sides of a tunnel. Goblin laughter echoes from somewhere on the other end. I grab the bike and lift my right leg to mount it. Immense pressure builds in my ruined sack. I bite my tongue and pedal into the tunnel.

I force myself not to depress the brakes at the end of the tunnel. That doesn’t seem like an ass goblin thing to do, and maintaining appearances is essential to my survival.

It’s a wise decision. Straight out of the tunnel, the trail plummets into three loops. Green and yellow lights swirl on the track. I hold on tight and pump my legs to gain enough momentum for the loop-de-loop-de-loop.

Upside down!

Right side up.

Upside down!

Right side up.

Upside down!

The trail splits two ways. The one I’m heading toward is a green spiral downward. I make a sharp left turn and take the yellow trail. Mist rises all around. Individual corn kernels comprise the squishy, bumpy road. The goblin laughter fades. Their bicycle labyrinth must be down the green path.

When the mist clears, I spot cockrats swimming in shallow canals that line the corn road. In front of me, a litter of cockrats dances after a cockroach bigger than an owl. I wonder what they’re following it for.

I shift my eyes back to the yellow trail--

No time to brake. A brick wall blocks the path. I squeeze the handlebars, not skilled enough on a bike to maneuver a graceful fall. I close my eyes… and crash through soft bricks. The bike slips from under me and I go tumbling, landing in a pile of foam rectangles.

I pick up one of the black bricks, digging my claws into the soft sides. I drop the brick and stand. The bicycle drags itself toward me, shrinking smaller and smaller. The bicycle becomes my testicle, alleviating my scrotal pain. I pat the flesh-encased bicycle and carry on.

This side of the foam bricks, the corn kernels slowly diminish into warm chocolate cake. I sink up to my ankles in frosting. The yellow lights fade behind me, but holes of light on the ceiling guide my way. This is where the tree stumps lead. This is the lair of the toilet toads.

The walls that kept the path easy to follow cease. I decide that exploring the cavern is worth the risk of encountering a toad gang. This place almost seems untouched by the ass goblins. It’s more like Kidland.

A hill appears on the horizon. Before moving on, I dig both hands into the chocolate cake. At first, I only lick at the frosting, remembering the sickly sweet richness.

I mash two heaps of cake into my mouth at once. Cake plugs my nostrils, crusts over my eyes, and dribbles down my face. The frosting is so thick and creamy that it lines my throat and cuts off my breathing. I roll onto my back. Frosting suffocates me from outside and in. I slap my hands against my cheeks and half-chewed cake torpedoes from my mouth. Gravity jerks it back and the spit-up cake splats across my face. I sit up, no longer choking. I resolve to ease up on the cake consumption.

Looking like a mucky frosting monster, I bound toward the hill. With today’s tweaked schedule and the White Angel running the show, who knows when work will end tonight. I’ll have to hurry. Now is not the time to go missing in action.

I realize what the hill is made of, and suddenly the cake tastes bitter. I wipe my hands on my trousers and tread over the dead kids at ground zero.

I stand at the top of the hill and look out. The underground cavern is very bright from this vantage point. The walls appear to be chocolate cake, as penetrable and temporary as the floor. I think of Otto and sit down. Hopefully he is okay. You’re lucky if you return from one trip to the surgeon’s cathedral, and hopelessly lucky if you return from two visits.

This brings me back to the days in Kidland, when everyone lived happy and free. Older kids like Otto and I taught lessons in schoolhouses, but that was the limit of authority. After lessons, we played as equals with the students. Everyone got along and no one was ever bullied. We cooked communal dinners on grassy knolls, smoked dandelions, played games with lemmings and other creatures, and snacked on whatever fruit happened to be in season. I liked strawberries the most.

I try to remember when the ass goblins first arrived, and I fail. We were a city of children, then one day we became prisoners, though not all at once. They stole us from our tree houses in droves. Nobody left their quarters after word got around. The sun fell out of the sky. I remember staying up late one night after the raids began. I wanted to catch sight of our abductors. That was the night the ass goblins came for us. Reeking of skunk spray, two goblins bashed our faces and said, “Don’t you cry.” They put us in a boxcar crammed with children. In the dark I cried, “Who are they? What do they want with us?”

“Ass goblins,” somebody said, “they live in a place called Auschwitz.”

When the train to Auschwitz arrived and the doors were thrown open, Otto and I stumbled out. The sun reappeared. Sunbeams the color of algae touched our skin, but the light made us cold. It began to snow.

There’s an unspoken rule in Auschwitz. We never speak of Kidland. As far as I’m concerned, nobody came up with this rule. Silence is an easier response to horror. It swallows up your memories. Sometimes, though, one is belched up from the blackness. I lie down on the hilltop and rest my left cheek in the palm of a dead girl. I look into her sunken eyes and say, “What do they want with us?”