Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living - A Novel

Paul half-heartedly tried to shoo away the persistent flyswarm as he fell into daydreaming.

— Oh, how his dead voice burrowed deep into the mustiest corners of the brain, planting the black seed that changes all you see to gray. “Seek out need and show no mercy,” he ordered. Great and terrible, cloaked and cowled, in chronically magnificent condition. He kept shagtobacco, you know, in a real heteroballsack. His rough hands gave the toughest whoreboy caresses. And the sulphurtaste of his slimy grizzlynuts … He touched me deep inside … He was so hard and went so far in … His cock was colder and rougher than the resinous dwarfpines on Ryssbergets baby-barbecueplateau.

— I’m ready to admit he was charming, Grandpa said reluctantly, trying to cut short Pauls gooey reminiscing as politely as possible. But compared to me and my Grandpa, he added, so low that only I heard him, he was a frostyvirgin trying to spruce up his deliriumfrazzled frizzdoo with spermdaubs. Now Paul, he said, louder, the boy here has been complaining that he’s never got a fishingpole wet.

Pauls nostrils widened.

— So I was thinking that if you don’t have plans for the afternoon, we could cast a few out in the swamp.

— Heeheehee … That little ratcunt has you so wrapped around his wormeaten parsnip you don’t know inside from out.

— As long as there’s strength left in my sphincter, no one farts in my mouth and gets away with it! Grandpa shrieked and sprang up from his chair, knife drawn.

Paul tried to bare his teeth at the same time as somersaulting backward. He smacked his head on the ironing board, but came sickquick to his sockless, ungulatehard feet. He groped after the fireiron and began to hum a potpourri of Gullan Bornemark’s lullabies. Grandpa crackled with rage and feinted with his scalpel. Paul circled nimbly around the overturned table, egged Grandpa on, and tired himself out with futile attacks. When I saw Grandpa begin tostumble, though, and heard Pauls maniacal “Wipe wipe wipe that sour face away,” I decided to go to the aid of the master of my nights. Paul then knocked Grandpa down with a jab to his right kneecap, but got a kick in the chin for his pains. I didn’t need any more encouragement. I started an electricdrill, jumped forward with a side-waystwist, and buried it in Paul’s left temple. He glanced at me irritably as the drill ate into his rotten cerebralcortex. Then the light in his dull eyes extinguished. I shut off the whining drill and wiped the boneshards and brainflecks out of my eyes. Paul’s remains, however, were lit by an underearthly light. Clear, white, and glorious against the dingy rug, peaceful as a stillborn in a slopbucket. Grandpa clawed his way across the lambertianarose parquetfloor and drove his scalpel into Paul’s alabaster cheeks. After the guy’s face looked like a Sutcliffesteak, he sliced open Paul’s belly and pulled out the viscera and lungs. He tossed the shriveled heart to me.

— Flush it down the toilet, he growled, foaming at the mouth. Before I could pull the handle, though, the wasted hunk of flesh was drawn into the labyrinthine sewers by a toothy maw that vanished into the seething whirlpool.

When I came out, Grandpa had already downed Paul’s testicles and had poured himself a Sevesogrogg.

— It’s probably safest if you don’t come any closer, you might get chloracne or something, he said goodnaturedly.

Then he examined Paul’s mangled remains and rubbed his blue and swollen knee.

— Horrible. Just horrible. How do you get to be like that?

Grandpa sighed like a rejected asskisser.

— Old Paul was stronger than he looked. And tough. But I got the best of him in the end. And now I’m going to fuck him.

He cut the elastic on Pauls shorts and teased out his joystick. Then he positioned himself awkwardly above the corpse and tried to work his lightlysmoked sausage into Pauls seasoned intestinalchamber.

— Dear Satan, but I need salve! he bawled and airfucked Pauls slack stomach. Then he dipped his girlygirl cock in Paul’s brain-matter and sprayed lovejuices all over Paul’s doxyhair.

— Halledoodane, he babbled softly as he milked out the last few drops.

Grandpa half-collapsed for a long moment and toyed with Paul’s eyeballs. His own eyes were half-closed, but he still studied me up and down.

— Fuck me, mite, life can be gruesome.

At that, he chugged a lug from his flask and zipped his fly.

— Time to get gone, he said. But first I need to change clothes and then, as God is my witness, were going fishing.

He ordered me to find some clean clothes. So I tripped out into the hallway and up the stairs to the bedroom. In the closet, I found two dubious hideshoes, a blouse with an underbodice, a racoonskincoat, a wifebeater, and a walruswrap. Over the arm of the chair next to the bed were two pairs of chaps.

A dead child was wrapped in the black velvet sheets. A tattooed lampshade stood on the bookheavy smokers table. In a grimy aquarium, two tapeworms twisted and writhed with bleatbreaking, and the black drapes that hid the walls were made of live bats sewn together. I took the clothes down into the kitchen and helped Grandpa into the wheelchair Paul had used for decoyhunting retirees. Grandpa was about a half meter taller than Paul, so the rags didn’t fit well. Still, since Grandpa was so skinny it worked inthe end. I got the wifebeater and a pair of the chaps and Grandpa chose a dandeliondecorated bonnet and a pair of boots he found in the dirtyclotheshamper.

— These are for you, boy. And don’t you look good!

I packed a boozebag with snacks while Grandpa wheeled himself to the indoor toolshed to have a look. I filled the bag with raw rolldough, stewed prurience, pukeshitbread, and Tuaregquenelle.

— Don’t forget the booze! Grandpa called, still rooting around in the closet.

I quickly filled a ten-liter can with syrup and phenol and then took a smokebreak astride a roughchair. The kitchen was no cozy place to be. Flies in droves sucked and licked their way across the floor. Palmsized lice performed pirouettes in Paul’s cluttered sink, troughs with workingman’s ribs and babypurée meant for the creepycrawlies reeked and bubbled. Above the sofa a teflon wallhanging caught my eye. “Vita brevis, ars longa” stood there, red on black, and underneath it the translation: “Life is short, the arse is long.” On the windowsill some wilted pigskinbegonias drooped in cracked pots, trying to shut bitter eyes against the abuse of the oncoming night.

— How about some help, fancypants! Grandpa ordered.

The entrance hall was darkly illuminated by the glow from Grandpa’s ciggi. He had a Kalashnikov, a flamethrower, and two-dozen nervegashandgrenades in his lap. He was also dragging a trough full of abortedfetuses and a hempsack with fishingequipment. I went out into the muddy yard to look for a wagon of some kind. I found a cobbled-together cart and a timid old ox to haul the stuff down to the pier.

— Well, suck the old geezers dong! Grandpa swore when he got to the door. Harry Kågström made that cart for the Party Convention in 1937. I recognize it by the swastikashaped spokes. It’ll get nasty if we don’t get out of here before the separatists make their evening rounds. Hurry and load up, you SRB-cunt!

With an effort I got the sack, trough, and Grandpa loaded onto the cart. I climbed up onto the runningboard. When I struck the ox on the flanks, it echoed dully. Bellowing, the umber beast began to pull us toward the overgrown path leading down to the swamp. Grandpa egged it on too, lashing out with his plumbbob until all the skin had been flayed off the ox’s frothing, bloody hindquarters. The beast lurched through tangled stands of flutteringelm, jaun-diceberry, and silverbirch, out onto a level marsh overrun with bogrosemary, sourdock, waxycrust, and a thriving coleopteranclub. There I took out first one of the beast’s hindlegs, then the other.