David Ohle - The Pisstown Chaos

It is," Roe agreed. "You play the saw. I heard you."

"What's that? My hearing's half gone and I'm facing away from you."

"I said you play the saw."

"I do try, but my arms are weak. It's just a screeching. Poor Louise patiently puts up with it."

Roe was about to let on that he played the saw himself when Louise returned from the garden with a metal box. Mr. Chips handed her a key. "Give him a hundred."

She opened the box and counted. "Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty…. Oh, dear. There's only fifty." She gave Roe that much, held the box upside down and shook it. "It's all there is."

Roe opened his bag of tools. "That's only half, Mr. Chips. I'll have to take out a couple of those teeth."

"Please," the maid said, "he only has a few left. He doesn't eat much, but without them, he'll have to be spoon fed."

"I'm only doing my job, Ma'am."

"Just a minute," Mr. Chips said. "I'll make this easier for all of us." He put the bag back in place, then banged his head on the wall and fell backward to the floor, his mouth conveniently open.

The first tooth came out of the gum with little effort on Roe's part and no blood. The second took a little moxie and more than a few hard tugs before it tore out of its dry socket. Mr. Chips showed no sign of pain or discomfort.

With the teeth in his pocket, Roe said goodbye to the maid and left the premises.

After an evening together at the Bones jangle a steam press operator and his stinker paramour returned to their hotel The Gons, where he plunged a knife into his companions body She, in turn, quickly unsheathed the blade from her taut, sunken belly and plunged her lover twice. Still, they laughed until other guests complained and Guards arrived. The bellboy turned the key in the lock and the two were dead before the door flew open. A note found in the stinker's purse indicated the bloody encounter was the result of a suicide pact, commonplace in the early days of any Chaos.

The Reverend has endorsed the theory that, because the earth has begun to wobble and list in its orbit, the lower half of the planet will eventually fall away a cataclysmic event that would send the two halves striking for the stars separately one to freeze, the other to burn. Meanwhile, the Reverend says he is going to re-calibrate the weight of the planet, now that we know roughly half of it will be gone: "To perform this measurement I'll take a pendulum to the Pole and note its vibration there. Then it must be taken to the Equator and the vibration there noted. "After calculation, he admits, very little ofscientiflc value would be known, "but something would have begun toward solving this mystery "

In Bum Bay hopeless stinkers are hanging themselves from the be of the Templex, from lamp posts and from the eaves of dwellings. Bum Bayans can't leave their homes without seeing another one strung from a rafter tail, or swaying like a piece of meat from an awning, with imps licking at their feet. Living stinkers believe that when one of them is completely dead, the soul hovers near the body for forty or fifty days. So no one is willing to take them down until it is safe.

The Reverend has spoken out on the issue: 'My people can't go out of their homes without seeing them hanging from the soffits like bats. On the pedal buses we see them swinging from the ceiling, their faces blue. They dangle from trees in Hooker Park, near the lagoon, swishing in the breeze, frightening children and drawing flies. This bad business hovers over us like a rain cloud. I'll find a way to stop them. That I can promise. "

One of the most remarkable experiments in the indefinite prolongation of life in tissues by artificial methods, it became known today is the specimen of a donor stinker's heart extracted at the Permanganate facility eight years ago. It has not only retained the spark of life, but has grown to many times its original size. The organism is still functioning and, disbarring accidents, will continue to grow indefinitely. The organism has been nourished regularly while cultured in an antiseptic solution.

You can survive a Chaos, says Wallace Hooker, who remains in guarded condition after a venomous snake bite, if you order one of his patented Hyberhomes. Pre-made of driftwood and pig iron, walls six inches thick, the structure measures ten by ten with a maximum occupancy of six and can be lowered into a backyard excavation. Along with the Hyberhome, buyers receive a copy of Hooker's Survival Tips for Chaotic Times, a how-to manual for living in a stuffy Hyberhome for indefinite periods while Chaos rages above.

An excerpt from Survival Tips: "The Chaos has finally come. Now what? Without one of my Hyberhomes, survival is a matter of luck. With one, it is almost guaranteed, provided you and your family can weather the stillness and boredom. That! what this manual is all about. First, as soon as the Chaos reaches your area, adults should escort the young children into the Hyberhome and explain to them that there will be a very bad period of depression for three or four days after the door is closed and sealed. After the shock has worn off and the dreadful monotony of lift underground sets in, activity is one of the best remedies. Each person should have regular tasks to perform. In the off-duty periods, there should be reading, games, Willy-taking, anything to keep from dwelling overmuch on one self. Afar the depression passes, there will be a notable lift in spirits. Talk will turn to planning what to do when the all-clear signal is broadcast.- rebuilding homes, putting out fires, disposing of corpses, and planting a garden. When this happens, you are over the hump. "

Reports from Pisstown detail a series of hair thefts. Young females, grown females, long-haired males are all potential victims. The thief pulls them down to the sidewalk and applies a sanitary napkin soaked with chloroform to their faces. This behavior has been described many times by his shaven subjects. Some say he mumbles in a barely articulate manner when he works his magic with razor and scissors. He has not injured anyone beyond minor abrasions and superficial cuts, although an overdose of chloroform did completely kill a young male stinker, third-stage. Some say he mumbles his name, which sounds like Ozalo, perhaps Oxward or Oswald. Guards are fearful of what they might find when the hair thief is finally caught and his quarters entered for searching.

What then is a final-stage stinker's life like? It has been described by scientists as showing a poverty of sensation and a low body temperature. In their nostrils is the persistent odor of urpmilk. The membrane which lines their mouth is extremely tough and is covered with thick scales. They like to touch fur and drink their own urine. Because they have been known to go without food for as long as eighteen years, we can assume that their sense of time passing is also very different from our own.

Less than a week after Jacob Balls's fatal fall, which occurred just a day before his sixtieth birthday, Mildred appeared at the Pisstown Templex to file a lawsuit. There was every reason to believe his death was not an accident.

"Take a number, please," the receptionist said without lifting her gaze. "What grievance brings you to this office?"

"I plan to sue the RPC."

"The Reverend's Parachute Company?"

"Yes."

"Your claim against them?"

"My husband's death. The parachute was demonstrably flawed. It failed to open."

"You'll see the first available counselor. Give me your hand, the back of it. You need a number."

Mildred held out her hand, palm down. The receptionist used a rubber stamp to ink the number seventy-three onto her liver-spotted flesh. "Seventy three? But I'm the only person here."

"Pay no attention to that. The numbers are not in order. We're very busy and we have no time to waste. We call the numbers randomly, coo, so everyone has an equal chance."