Bowling Diarrhea

a short story.

The oracles are interested in my lower extremities. One of them is weeping as she applies amber serum to the joints near my feet. Her name is Merlow. I can tell her apart from the others by the magenta streaks on her face.  She’s a quack, but I have to play along. I’ve never felt comfortable around the oracles. Too much passion on their faces. Their eyes are dazed in constant wonderment. Always speaking in sympathetic tones. 

“This is very auspicious,” Merlow said. 

“What is?” I asked. 

“Your legs. They will carry you farther than any of us have ever gone.”

“Where do you think these “legs” are taking me?,” I asked. 

My question gave her pause. Her trembling hands on my shins. 

“You are going beyond the veil,” she replied 

“What will I find beyond the veil?” I asked. 

“God,” she replied. 

Before a large crowd and with great pomp, I’m lowered into my suit: it’s full-body and pressurized, designed to protect me from changes in atmospheric pressure. Metallic, it shines in gold, abalone, and pearl. The oracles check it, six in number, three on each side. 

The crowd parts, revealing a staircase of stone. Seven miles up, the top is lost in the light. As I begin my ascent, the oracles rap my legs with reeds. Tannic burgundy inks burst over my opalescent boots. With each strike, the crowd roars. 

Without strain, I climb. Rhythmically stepping, I ponder my mission. As I pass a corpse, I’m reminded I’m not the first to take the steps. Its face frozen in a mask of begging. The suit is tangled and struck open. The staircase is scraped and worn where he struggled for days. Starvation and agony. Likely what I have to look forward to. 

After several hours of climbing, I reach the top of the stairs and the threshold the oracles call, The Veil. It’s soft, like an odd membrane. Displaying my reflection, it wobbles and distorts. As I stretch my arms to touch it, an abrupt explosion. Thrown upwards off the stairs, I’m spinning and lose consciousness. 

It wasn’t an explosion. The automatic infaltion of a bladder on the back of my suit sent me upwards at a dangerous rate. Awake now, my head and shoulders are stuck outside of the veil, my limbs below it.  I look into the void. Our star shines brightly. White-winged creatures call down to me as their numbers increase. Helplessly I ask, “What use will my legs be here, Merlow?”. 

The winged creatures are no help. They hover close then spring away. I’m stuck in the veil and it’s unstable. In great cascades, it pushes me eastward. Tumbling in blinding light, I may die this way. I thumb my suit and place myself in metabolic rest. 

Several days pass. 

Groggy and in disbelief,  I see another staircase. It stretches from the veil and reaches higher to a stone landing. It is short and of crude make. With the aid of my mechanized suit, I pull myself out of the veil and take eight steps to the top. I see dwellings of many stories. Signs covered in a language I do not know. A metropolis beyond comprehension. All presumptions fall from my mind. Was Merlow right?

Is this where God lives? 

As I raise my shoulders over the landing, a bipedal mammal with large mammaries shrieks. She and others like her run. Dozens of them are gathered on the landing, they seem to be engaged in various forms of recreation. The alarm I caused grows like a wave over the crowd. I try to flee but the gravity is too great. Amongst the screams, two males quickly approach. Ensnared with a net, I’m struck with a large guitar-shaped drinking glass. Green frozen beverage covers my visor. I can’t see. I fall to another heavy blow. My aggressors carry me to a building labeled POLICE. 

“We knew one of you would show up eventually,” the authority said. His office was dim and poorly decorated. His body was round and his skin was free of scale. He tapped a turd-shaped cigar into an ashtray on his desk. 

“Look… we gotta show you something,“ he said. 

“We have our archivist here. His name is Brycen. He’s an intern from the University of Miami.” 

I engage the translator on my visor.

“Brycen? This person is the head of your records?” I asked. 

“That’s right, he’s real tech-savvy. Look, we don’t have much time, I gotta get lunch in twenty minutes,”  he turned to his computer and waved Brycen over. 

“How do I get the YouTubes, on this thing?”, The authority asked facing the computer. Brycen effortlessly stepped to the desk and clicked on the console. 

“This video was uploaded about 25 years ago,” the young mammal said. 

A  rectangle formed on the screen showing a face. It looks just like Merlow’s, but obtuse and infantile. Magenta streaks cover a large green forehead. Golden wide-set eyes sit above sharp teeth that poke out of a mouth surrounded by long whiskers. I feel sick. I can feel the gravity slowly overpowering my posture. A mammal’s voice in the video says:  

“welcome back DIY Tank’ers, it’s your host, Mike, and I’m excited to announce that our previous video of Betty the Bullhead got over 30 million views. As you can see, she is getting pretty big and it is time for us to upgrade her tank. She is going to need a bigger set-up. That is why we got an Aquatech 220-gallon with a canister filter. If you want to purchase your own Aquatech 220, please use the affiliate link in this video’s description. Remember to like, follow, and subscribe.” 

“what is this?” I said as I nearly fall to the ground. The room begins to spin. 

“Do you have any idea what Betty did?,” the authority asked. 

“No,” I replied. 

“Play another video,” he said. 

…”Betty is pregnant and we expect her to have a couple hundred fry by the end of the week. If you are interested in purchasing a baby Betty for yourself, please DM us and fill out our Google Form”…

“one moment,” Brycen said as he clicked a different video. 

…”Many of you are saying that your Bullhead is getting too big for your aquarium. Please remember to be responsible with your animals, we do not offer a rehoming service for Bullheads or any other fish”…

To my surprise, I was no longer disgusted by the site of Betty in the later videos. She looked almost normal. Larger now, Betty sat with her head and shoulders sticking out of her tank. 

…”The fish and wildlife department want to remind us that releasing your bullhead into the wild is strictly forbidden”…

As Mike spoke, Betty rose up and stretched a long beautiful leg out and over her tank. Her mature blue and pink scales shined. Her womb was enormous and tight. Out of the frame, Mike screams. With the camera, he follows Betty as she walks out of the front door. 

“..ok, fast forward,” the authority said. 

At the water’s edge, Betty joins a gathering of adult bullheads. Perched on a rock she dangles her feet in the tide. She lowers herself in and presses out her fry. The other adults do the same. Thousands of small baby fish agitate the water into a milky bright-green phosphorescence. A siren. A vehicle. Sudden automatic gunfire rings out. Betty and the other adults fall dismembered. The fry swim away. The shaking camera drops to the ground. 

The authority looks at his watch. “Alright, Brycen, grab ‘em,” he said. 

As Brycen picks me up my suit breaks. A stream of water begins to spray out. It wets the intern’s chest turning his white shirt mildly transparent. 

“My suit is breaking. Soon I’ll be dead! Where are you taking me?,” I scream as I try to break free. Brycen is too big, my legs can’t touch the floor while I’m in his grip. I’m briskly carried down an office corridor to another room. The door opens. 

“Jesus Christ, who was the last person in here? Turn the fan on next time,” the authority said with a scrunched face. He flicked a light on. This room has even worse decor than the office. Every surface except the ceiling is covered in ceramic tile. 

On the wall is a small rack with two neatly folded rectangles of cloth. Embroidered on them are images I find familiar: an upright sand dollar (which is ridiculous), a seashell, a seahorse, and a clownfish. My suit has lost pressure and I can’t find the words to protest the lousy design. All I can muster as I’m dropped from Brycen’s hand is “Is this some kind of crude joke?” 

I fall into a basin with a splash. Floating now, the last words I hear the mammals say:

“Did you flush?”