George Saunders - In Persuasion Nation

The piles of mush are reconstituted into two human halfheads, which are then reconstituted into a single human head, which goes rolling toward the torso of the grandson, which stands at the bottom of the walkway, summoning its own head.

Jim the penisless man suddenly has a penis.

The man briefly involved with the Ding-Dong thinks warmly of his fiancée, who, he feels certain, is waiting for him in a certain meadow.

The polar bear, the puppet-boy, the headless guys, and Voltaire, terrified, race back to town.

Hours later the polar bear with the axe in his head is still hiding under his bed, trembling. He's never seen anything like that before. That green thing can raise the dead. That green thing can brainwash the most powerful coalition in the world.

He does not want to mess with that green thing, not ever.

He knows what he has to do. He has to get up, go into the bathroom, take a shower. During the shower, the axe in his head will miraculously disappear. Then he will get hungry, very hungry, specifically, for Cheetos. He will walk out of town, cursing himself under his breath, simultaneously ashamed and aroused. The landscape will suddenly go arctic. An igloo will appear. Will anyone be home? They will not. He will begin madly salivating.

Oh, he can't stand it. It makes him so nervous. He must have some kind of anxiety disorder. He remembers the enraged expression on the father Eskimo's face as he draws back the axe, the frightened yipping of the Malamute puppy, the shocked way the Eskimo kids cover their O-shaped mouths with their mittens.

His alarm clock goes off.

I really don't want to do this, he thinks. Please, God, send me a sign, tell me I don't have to do this, show me that you are a gentle loving God, who desires good things for me.

Suddenly the roof of the house flies off, the room fills with green light, and a pulsing muscular green limb, like an arm/ hand but more fluid, extends rapidly down from the hovering green symbol and flings the bed aside, revealing the trembling polar bear, ass-up.

The polar bear gets to his feet, wets his paw, pats down his hair.

"I was just, uh, cleaning under that bed?" he says.

"Of course I desire good things for you!" the green symbol intones. "Such as, I desire that you have the deep feeling of pleasure that comes from doing your job and doing it well."

"You can read my mind?" the polar bear says.

"Do you sometimes have a sexual fantasy involving a vulnerable reindeer who comes to you asking for help fending off a mean cougar?" says the green symbol.

"Ha, well, ha," says the polar bear.

"Get to work now," the green symbol says. "And don't think about it so deep. Don't be so negative. Try to be positive. Try to be a productive part of our team. Do you have any questions?"

"I can ask you a question?" says the polar bear.

"Sure, of course," says the green symbol. "Ask me anything."

"Are you GOD?" says the polar bear.

"I can read your mind," says the symbol. "I can raise the dead. I can rip off your roof. Any other questions?"

The polar bear has, actually, a number of other questions. First, what did that penisless guy mean when he referred to devising an approach "in which the sacred things in life are no longer appropriated in the service of selling what are, after all, etc., etc.?" The polar bear distinctly remembers him saying the word "selling." What is being sold? Who is doing the selling? If there is "selling," musn't there be "buying"? Who is doing the "buying"? Are their vignettes somehow intended to influence this "buying"? Are the instances of elaborate cruelty he has witnessed ever since he was a small cub believed to somehow positively impact the ability of the vignettes to cause "buying"? If so, how?

"How dare you even think of asking me that!" thunders the green symbol. "How dare you get all up in my business?"

"You said I could ask you anything," says the polar bear.

Every vase in the house explodes, all the flowers die. The kitchen table collapses, then bursts into flames.

The polar bear, blushing, gets his towel, goes quickly into the shower.

When he gets out, there's no axe in his head, and no scar. The green symbol is gone, the roof is back on the house. The vases are intact, the flowers alive, the kitchen table is fine, and actually has a nice new tablecloth.

No problem, the polar bear thinks, in case the symbol is reading his mind at that moment, no problem, no problem at all, just going to work now.

The polar bear walks for miles through the desert, mumbling encouragement to himself. Yes, okay, that moment when the axe goes in is bad. The moment immediately after, when the Eskimo says something in the Eskimo language, and the Eskimo kids laugh at him as he stumbles out of the igloo blinded by pain, and the subtitle appears ("Yo, Keep Yet Pawz Off My Cheetz"), not so great either. The long walk home, dripping blood into the fresh white snow, okay, also not the best.

But what's he supposed to do? Fight with GOD?

He feels a chill. It starts to snow. Everything goes arctic. On his left is the familiar glacial cliff.

The penguins he always passes nod gravely.

The igloo comes into sight.

Is anyone home? They are not. He begins madly salivating.

Filled with dread, he enters the igloo, takes the usual single handful of Cheetos, waits.

In rush the Eskimo children, fresh from sledding. Behind them comes their father, with axe, enraged. But for the first time the polar bear also notices, in the man's eyes, a deep sadness. Of course, of course, it makes perfect sense! How much fun can it be, driving an axe into the head of a perfectly nice polar bear, day after day, in front of your kids? He's heard through the grapevine that the Eskimo father drinks heavily and has lately started having violent nightmares in which he turns the axe on his own wife and children.

The truth is, this stupid system causes suffering wherever you look. He's seen the puppet-boy returning from work, sobbing from his excruciating leg bums. He's watched Voltaire, blinded by the bright sun shining in his extremely wide-open eyes, struggling to find the store where he buys his French bread. He's heard the wives of the headless working-class guys fall silent whenever one of the headless working-class guys insists he's perfectly capable of driving the kids to school.

And the crazy thing is, it's not just the victims who suffer. He's seen the T. rex moping around the quarry, asking passersby if the working-class guys are still mad at him. He's seen the can of Raid absentmindedly spraying its contents around, even when there aren't any bugs, because it feels so bad about what it did to Voltaire, whose work it actually admires.

The polar bear looks directly into the Eskimo father's face.

I know you don't want to do this , he tries to communicate with his eyes . I forgive you. And please forgive me for my part in this. I am, after all, breaking and entering.

With his eyes the Eskimo father communicates: Same here, totally. This whole thing is just a big crock of shit as far as I'm concerned.

The polar bear communicates: Better swing that axe, friend. It's getting late .

The Eskimo communicates: I know, I know it.

And then he does it.

As the polar bear stumbles out of the igloo, blinded by pain, he thinks about his mother, who, all through his childhood, again and again, while out gathering flowers, nearly collided with a guy in jodhpurs, who then shot her, and after being shot, she was made into a rug, which was then, in montage, sold and resold many times, until finally it was shown being cleaned, decades later, with RugBrite, by hippies, after a big hippie party. He thinks about his father, who, every day of his working life, was given a rectal exam by Santa Claus, in the middle of which Santa Claus, who had allergies, sneezed. That was the big joke: When Santa sneezed, Dad winced.