More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse by Joel Arnold Page A

commence engine pulse on cue.
    The child began a countdown starting from
one hundred.
    By the end of the day, Harry was well
acquainted with Bobby, the child who was unwittingly talking
directly into Harry’s brain.
    Harry also became acquainted with Bobby’s
mother (‘Maaa-aah!’) and father (‘Daaa-aaad!’) and their lack of
effective discipline.
    - Bobby, take off that damn headset and sit
up at the table.
    - But Daaa-aaad! Can’t I wear it while I’m
eating?
    - Just until your mother gets home.
    Later -
    - Bobby, take off that damn headset right
now!
    - But Maaa-aah! Can’t I wear it to bed? Just
tonight? Pulleeease?
    - Well - just don’t let your father catch
you with it on.
    And to top it all off, the little shit
snored like an off-key chain saw.
    Harry gritted his teeth. Tossed and turned
in bed. Pounded his fists against his pillow.
    “ I have to find that boy,” he thought
out loud. “Or I’ll go crazy!”
     
    * * * * *
     
    He went crazy within the week. One of his
lab assistants found him huddled in a corner of his lab screaming,
smelling of urine. He was taken to St. Clinton’s Mental Health
Institute that same night and put on a diet of vitamins and Bliss
Arcana an hour after checking in. As he chewed his own invention,
the child’s voice didn’t sound so bad. The snoring became music.
The child’s conversations with make believe astronauts and
invisible animals became a series of warm, tender notes as Harry
chewed. A psychiatrist asked him why he was swaying his head back
and forth.
    “ I’m listening to my inner child,” he
replied.
    Harry was placed in a ward for dangerous
psychotics and began to chew his prescription gum all the harder.
The entire ward was redolent with the percussive sound of chewing
and lip smacking. Unfelt erections were plentiful as drool dribbled
down numb chins. Yet everyone smile pleasantly. Even many of the
interns hid in closets full of cleaners and disinfectants, sitting
on piles of clean rags, chewing their shifts away. It was indeed
true bliss.
    After a month passed, they inexplicably
stopped giving Harry his gum and put him in a straight-jacket.
    “ What’s the meaning of this?” Harry
bellowed, wiping dried spittle from his cheeks onto his confined
shoulders. “This is inhuman!”
    While they explained to Harry that he was
getting visitors the next day, little Bobby was still in Harry’s
head, singing an off-key and grating song.
    - You’ve got a big butt,
    A very hairy pig butt
    A stupid, stinking ugly butt,
    A smelly, gooey, fooey butt.
    Little Bobby sang it over and over,
sometimes whispering it, sometimes shouting it.
    - You’ve got a big butt!
    A very hairy pig butt!
    Oh, Christ, Harry thought. I’m in hell.
    By the time the Mayor came to visit the next
day, Harry was writhing on the floor of a padded cell, the
straight-jacket keeping him from pounding his head into the shape
of a squashed melon.
    “ Harry,” the Mayor said. “Harry! Snap
out of it, boy! We’ve got a problem.”
    “ You’ve got a problem?” Harry grunted
through clenched teeth.
    “ It’s the Oxycrete. It’s turning bad.
It’s beginning to stink. The smog is coming back in waves. My
constituents are up in arms. What the hell am I going to
do?”
    Harry’s head lolled around to face the
Mayor. A large malicious grin crept onto Harry’s face.
    “ It’s hungry,” he said. “You have to
feed it.”
    “ Feed it?” the Mayor blustered. “What
the hell do you feed it?”
    “ I don’t know.”
    “ Don’t know? You’re the guy who
invented the stuff. It’s your baby. What do you feed
it?”
    Harry’s eyes rolled in a circle. He began to
chant;
    “ You’ve got a big
butt.
    A very hairy pig butt.
    A stupid, stinking, ugly butt.
    A smelly, gooey, fooey butt.”
    “ My God!” the Mayor said. “You sound
just like my son!”
    Harry’s jaw dropped.
     
    * * * * *
     
    After removing the headset from his son and
removing Harry from his straight-jacket, the Mayor