Chucked by Knowcebo

Chucked by Knowcebo

Chuck me!

Chuck gripped the plunger’s handle, his mind going through a list of possible culprits: Not Roni because he hadn’t come out of his room for either lunch or dinner yesterday. There was not enough in him to produce a tsunami of that size. Not Art. He was too jealous of his privacy and would have cleaned up after himself. That left Twist.

As if Chuck had ever doubted who had left the chucking toilet plugged…

Chuck put the plunger into the bowl, and the stink came up, an unreal smell, a living and breathing pit toilet gargling shit-flavored Listerine. It filled his nostrils and made him cough. Meanwhile, the displaced water, wobbling like swamp colored jello, threatened to spill over.

“Twist, you worthless chuck,” he shouted, his voice echoing in the tiny bathroom. He plunged and plunged, putting his weight into it, until something finally gave way and the foamy brown water drained down the trapway like a loosened bowel.

Of course, Twist was to blame. Shoulda chucking left him in the Mens. The Mens was the California Institution for Men in Chino, CA, and Chuck should have stayed there himself now that he was thinking about it, which he had been doing a lot lately, even though, had he stayed, had he just coasted through his terror like a chucking brave man would have, he would have been gassed in his cell, or burned in his cell, or shot in his cell. He didn’t know what had actually happened to the rest of them, but the kind of terrified animal noises that must have sounded on the cell block sometime after they bugged out — they, the Rejects, Twist, Art and him — could not have been easily banished from the memory’s ears. Of that, he was certain.

But then again, those hellish screams and pleas for mercy had only lasted a short time. If he had stayed, if hadn’t come up with his plan to get them out of there, getting them trapped on this hospital ward instead, he would be completely anesthetized now, burdened no more with the drudgery of waking up every morning with an aching bladder — only to find the chucking toilet full of diarrhea. Sure, he could have pissed in the sink and left the surprise for the next sucker to come along, but that was not who he was.

He came out of the bathroom, wielding the plunger like a saber, its upturned cup dripping shit water on the carpet. When there had been twenty-one of them crammed on the ward, the Rejects had worked all day (and part of the night) just to keep from drowning in trash and soiled underwear, so he had never really had the time to learn the finer points of his unpaid position as janitor. He tossed the plunger in the space between the washer and dryer. The set was tucked into a cubby next to the shower stalls. Should he check the stalls? Make sure there wasn’t a mud puddle in one of them? Chuck that. He had done too much already.

Leaving the short corridor, Chuck turned down the long one. Twist was at the far end, standing in front of the heavy steel door that kept them locked in. Chuck had spent a lot of time in his bunk, thinking about that door. It was the ward’s only exit.

“I know it was you,” Chuck shouted. “Don’t even lie.”

Chuck’s fists were balled, and his eyes ground lit cigarettes into the back of Twist’s neck, but he wasn’t going to do anything drastic. He had never been much for physical violence, his sins being more in the way of chronic drug use and petty larceny — plus, a passive irresponsibility that seemed to always end with people dead.

The long corridor connected ten bedrooms. Before the “prisoner swaps” began, it had been two guys to a room, except for the Rejects, who had to fit three. Chucking tight squeeze. Still, they had never bothered to spread out when the real estate opened up. It felt safer to stick together.

Chuck glanced into Roni’s room as he went past. Roni was the last of the Healthy Ones. Unlike the Rejects, the Healthy Ones hadn’t tested positive for Hep C. Nor did they look like junkies forced at gunpoint into sobriety, which was more or less the case with the Rejects. The Rejects were interlopers on the ward. At some point or other, all the Healthy Ones had said that they should be expelled. If the Rejects hadn’t made themselves useful by cleaning the ward everyday, who knows what the Healthy Ones would have done to them? The brutes had bullied them plenty as it was. Got what they chucking had coming.

Did Chuck really believe that? It depended on the day and on how much shit he had to deal with. Roni, at least, didn’t bother picking on the Rejects anymore. He was too depressed. He awaited his “release” sprawled on his bunk like a brooding teenager. As the ward’s population dwindled, it became clear the government was not really swapping prisoners with the separatists. It just didn’t make sense that the prisoners were traded one at a time or that they should be wheeled out on a gurney with their arms and legs restrained to the side bars. The “prisoner swap” was a cover story for something else, and that something else required a medic to take weekly blood and urine samples.

Chuck guessed they were the livestock in an organ harvesting operation. He kept his gruesome speculation to himself, not because the others weren’t thinking the same thing. There had been rumors of the government selling livers and hearts to the highest bidder back when Chuck’s parents were still alive. The rumors had partly inspired the Tent City Uprising that spread across California like fire through drought grass and from which the separatist movement had arisen.

Obviously, the Rejects hadn’t been stripped for parts yet because their insides were too diseased, but they couldn’t take much solace from the unfortunate bit of luck. After all, what use did the soldiers have for them once Roni had his turn on the dissecting table? One by one or all at once, they would be taken somewhere and shot.

Which was why it was not uncommon for them to join Roni in his brooding.

Not really Chuck, though. He didn’t brood because he wanted to die. In fact, he had been actively suicidal since before he was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and GTA and sent to the Mens. The Mens was where he was supposed to die, but then the separatists took over the region where the prison was located and stopped feeding them everyday. As Chuck got closer to starvation, he lacked the energy and resolve to kill himself.

Then the government took the territory back from the separatists, and it became clear to Chuck what was going to happen next. The government was going to liquidate the prison population. There were far too many potential separatists with hungry bellies. Extermination was the only logical outcome.

Chuck started numbering the hours he had left to breathe. Then he found a way out. He heard a rumor about a few Walmart trucks parked outside the prison gates. The last Walmart store had been shuttered a decade ago, but you still saw the trucks around sometimes. The rumor further revealed that the soldiers were recruiting certain inmates to be loaded on the trucks, probably to become cannon fodder in the endless civil war. Becoming cannon fodder seemed to Chuck like a good way to get himself killed.

As luck would have it, Chuck knew a guy he could blackmail: a C.O. he had sucked off for lines of meth over the last few months. Chucking baby dick. The fat-faced coward didn’t want any rumors about his reckless behavior spreading around. Not when the government was actively looking for people to execute.

The C.O. agreed to sneak him out of the prison and let him hide under a tarp at the back of a Walmart truck. At first, Chuck planned to go alone, but then he had second thoughts.

Twist was Chuck’s cellie. He was mentally ill and never stopped moving. In bed, he waved at the ceiling just to be doing something with his hands. Did Chuck feel sorry for him? Not really — not at all, in fact. Twist drove him to Donda, as the inmates like to say, using the putative slang of their great-grandparents because it connected them, however vestigially, to a better world. Maybe, though, Chuck assumed that if he told Twist the plan, Twist would find some way to chuck it up and get them killed. Now that a ray of hope had appeared, Chuck’s death wish came rushing back.

“We’ll go after dinner tonight,” Chuck said.

Twist was so existed he started clapping his hands. Over and over. Chuck had to get out of his bunk and yell in his face to make him stop.

“After dinner, right?” Twist asked.

“What did I just chucking say? Yes, we’ll go after dinner.”

And so they did, but Art stopped them on their way out. With his eyes, he threatened to rat them out, and the C.O. started to freak out, so they took Art with them.

The Rejects ended up, not on the front lines, but on a hospital ward cum butcher shop. Assholes and toenails ground into hot dogs. Chuck was glad. He was sick of swirling around and around in the shit stew of existence.

Reaching Twist, he poked his shoulder.

“What the chuck are you looking at?” he said.

Twist was peeking through the slit of window in the door. Chuck had thought a lot about that window, too. Its thick glass couldn’t be broken, as it was reinforced with criss-crossed wire.

Twist turned to face him.

“They didn’t take our dinner cart back to the kitchen,” he said.

Chuck felt sick to his stomach, and it wasn’t just a delayed reaction to the stench of Twist’s shit. Something was wrong. It was getting to feel like the Mens again.

& & &

The Rejects sat around the big round table in the common room. When the ward had been full, the Rejects were seldom allowed in there. Mostly they lingered in the doorway. They certainly were never invited to sit at the big round table.

“There’s not going to be any breakfast,” Twist said. “I know it.”

“No you don’t,” Chuck said.

“They didn’t pick up the dinner cart last night.”

Disgusted with the obvious logic of Twist’s words, Chuck looked at Art. He didn’t like the frown on his face. Art always wore a frown, but it had deepened considerably in the last five minutes.

“It’s like Chino all over again,” Art said.

“It’s the Men’s, numbshit,” said Chuck. “And stop talking so loud. Roni is going to hear you. You want to set him off when there’s no food?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? We got bigger problems than him.”

“I have no idea what’s going on, and neither do you.”

In one respect, at least, Chuck was glad the breakfast had not come. It meant they did not have to deal with the soldiers coming onto the ward. The soldiers still treated them like apex predators, pointing their rifles at them and shouting, “Face with wall and and put your hands behind your head.” They had to stay like that until the soldiers wheeled in the meal cart, stacked the styrofoam food containers on the big round table and wheeled the cart off the unit again.

The soldiers were too lazy to push the cart all the way back to the cafeteria, so they just left it in the hallway outside the ward. A food worker came for it later. No civilians were ever allowed on the ward. That was why there were no janitors, except for the Rejects.

“You got to get us out of here,” said Twist.

The plaintive note in his voice put butterflies in Chuck’s stomach. He hadn’t really been afraid before now.

“I can’t,” Chuck said.

“That’s right,” said Art. “He just got lucky last time.”

 Chuck about had his fill of Art. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was the Mens all over again. So be it. If they got to starving, they could always break Art’s neck and cook his blubber in the dryer. Problem solved.

“We’re doomed,” Art said louder than he needed to.

“Do you have a death wish?” Chuck asked. “Roni has nothing to lose at this point.”

“Roni is fine. Stop trying to blow smoke up our ass.”

“I didn’t know you shared one.”

“You’re cringe, mane. You’re just fucking cringe.”

Chucking cringe.

“What’s cringe mean?” Twist asked. He had been raised by mountain people, Hindutva whites, saffron crackers people sometimes called them, and was culturally illiterate.

“It means I have two assholes,” Chuck said quietly.

What was his problem anyway? Why did he care if they were going to die? Wasn’t that what he wanted?

Twist got up. The shock of seeing the dinner cart still outside the ward had grounded him for a little while, but now his manic energy had returned. He circled the common room twice. Then he went into the long corridor and began pacing from one end to the other. He did that everyday, over and over, until he was too tired to walk anymore.

 Chuck and Art did not speak after Twist left the room, just hunkered down in their diametrically opposite positions at the round table, presumably pondering the hopelessness of their situation.

Then the lights went out.

Lacking any windows or a skylight, the ward went black without lights. Art bumped the table standing up.

“They’re coming in to kill us,” he said.

“Chuck,” Twist called, his confusion and fear clear in his quavering voice.

“Just hold still, Tee,” Chuck said. “Hold still and don’t move.”

It was an impossible demand, but it would keep Twist busy while Chuck dealt with Art.

“There’re gonna kill us, man,” Art said in a harsh whisper. “Don’t you get that?”

“Shut up and sit down.”

“No–“

Chuck banged the table with both of his fists. The boom was impressive. “It wasn’t Twist, was it?”

“What?”

“You left the shit in the toilet this morning. Clogged it up and just walked away.”

“No. What are you talking–“

“I said shut up and sit down. I’m trying to think. I got us out once. I can do it again.”

There was silence. Chuck listened for the sound of the steel door opening. There was more silence.

Then the lights came back on.

Art looked around, his eyes blinking.

Chuck folded his arms on the table, feeling the weight of gravity settling on his shoulders. He needed to really think now. He had no idea how was he going to get them off the ward.

& & &

Roni summoned them to his room. They lined up before his bunk.

“What’s the sun say?” Roni asked. He was sitting cross-legged on his mattress, fully awake for the first time in days.

“They didn’t bring breakfast,” said Chuck. “Then the lights went out.”

“I know the lights went out, numbshit. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“They may of left us here to rot.”

“Whoo yeah, boy. That’s the mutterlucking shit, mane.” Roni’s mouth tried to make the shape of a smile, but he was out of practice. “You sure they gone?”

“Of course not. And how is that good? We are trapped in here, and we don’t have any food.”

“Gots to break out.”

“How?”

“You tell me, numbshit. You got you and these rejects into this mutterluck.”

Chuck did have one idea. “There’s drywall behind the washer and dryer. We should see if we can break through it. Maybe we can get somewhere. Or maybe we’ll get shot.”

“Hey,” Roni said, snapping his fingers twice. “No more of that. I never met a bigger incel, I swear.”

“What’s an incel?” Twist asked.

“It’s–” Art started.

“Shut up,” Chuck said. He did not want to hear Art talk about his supposed family connection to the Elonites again. It made him sick that Roni seemed to buy Art’s big talk because Roni, who ran with the Based Boys in the Mens, should know better.

“Yeah, shut it,” said Roni. “All of you. Let’s get started.”

Roni scooted off the bed and led the Rejects to the laundry nook. He unplugged the dryer, and he and Art dragged it out of the way.

Chuck started working on getting the hot and cold water valves turned off. Twist stood by his side, stepping on the plugger that had rolled out from where Chuck had tossed it. There was no reason for Twist to step on it. No chucking reason at all. He was like a child who purposely blunders into a rain puddle, muddying his new shoes.

“Give me that,” Chuck said, shoving Twist out of the way and grabbing the plunger. He felt like bonking Twist in the head with it, but instead he raised it over his head as if to throw it at the wall. Then he had a second thought.

“You and Art go flip the big round table over and screw out one of the legs.”

“What?” said Art.

“I need a table leg.” Chuck pointed towards the common room with the plunger. “Gonna use it as a hammer. It will screw right out. Go do it.”

“You gonna let him boss me around like that?” Art asked Roni.

“I’m gonna smash your face in, mane.”

Twist and Art disappeared down the long hallway.

Roni watched Chuck put the plunger’s cup between his feet and unscrew the handle.

“We can nail a hole in the drywall with this,” Chuck said, holding up the handle. “Help me get this washer moved out.”

It worked. Chuck made a hole in the drywall twice as big as his head. Roni and Art went back to the common room to get table legs of their own. Roni wanted to take down as much of the wall as they could, and in his estimation the best way to do that was to bash the shit out of it with the table legs. Chuck didn’t like the idea of making so much racket, but he wasn’t going to stand in Roni and Art’s way when they started swinging.

Twist put his weight on his right foot and then his left foot, then his right, then his left, then his right again. Chuck looked over his shoulder at him.

“Will you back the chuck off of me,” he said.

Twist took a half a step back.

Chuck shook his head.

“I should have left you in the Mens,” he said.

He poked his face into the hole. Without a flashlight, it was too dark to see much, but he seemed to have broken through to a little space for the plumbing. He put his arm into the hole up to his elbow and felt a second barrier of drywall. So they could probably go a bit further before they hit a cement wall. They would hit cement at some point. Chuck had no doubt about that. The entire effort was a pointless farce. When the others finally accepted that they were already dead, he could stop playing their game of make-believe and start thinking how he was going to off himself. If he asked nicely, maybe Roni and Art would beat him to death with the table legs.

But first he would have figure out what he was going to do with Twist. Chucking pain in my ass. He couldn’t leave him to the mercy of the other two. They would torture him for kicks. That was how guys from the Mens were. It was even worse than that. That was how people everywhere were. Back when his parents were still alive, it might have been different, but probably not. Probably people just needed to die as quickly as possible. He wished the government would follow through with its threat to drop a nuclear bomb on the separatists. And then drop a bunch of bombs on the rest of the world. And then a few on themselves.

Boom. Everyone’s dead.

& & &

Chuck broke through the second drywall barrier seconds before the lights went off again. He stood still, waiting for them to come back on, but several minutes later he was still in total darkness.

“Now we really gots to break out of here,” Roni said, his nose close enough to blow air on Chuck’s cheek. “What if this mutterluck catches fire?”

“We’d be chucked,” Chuck said.

“What’s wrong with you, numbshit? Why do you say that?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Art said behind them.

“Shut the chuck up,” Chuck shouted, listening for Twist moving around and not hearing him. “Where’s Twist?”

“I’m right here,” Twist said. He was far back in the dark, the only one of them without a table leg and no real job to do other than move the fallen drywall out of their way occasionally. They didn’t trust him with a table leg. He might accidentally bust one of them in the chops.

“You mean chucked?” Chuck said to Roni. “It’s hard to explain.”

It had started as a private joke when he was doing time in the Redlands’s work camp, but it came to define his entire life. He had always been chucked.

“I got my arm in the hole,” Roni said. “But I don’t feel nothing.”

“I didn’t see anything before the lights cut out,” Chuck said. “It was too dark.”

“Let’s bash through,” said Art.

Chuck had no idea how they were going to do that in the pitch black dark, but bashing wasn’t his job. Roni and Art would have to figure it out. He slipped the plunger handle into his back pocket, so he would have a free hand.

“Art, put your table leg out.”

Moving away from the wall, he blindly waved his hand until his fingers grazed the end of Art’s table leg. He grabbed it and pulled Art to the wall. Then he backed out of the way, calling for Twist. When he got a hand on Twist’s upper arm, he told him to stay next to him. He grabbed a handful of Twist’s shirt sleeve to make extra sure the numbshit didn’t walk into a swinging table leg, but Twist found his hand and pulled it off of him. Twist didn’t like to be touched. Chuck didn’t think the kid had ever had sex. All that physical contact would be too intense for him.

The work went slow. Roni and Art were too wary to bash in tandem, so they took turns. Roni’s bangs were slow and forceful; Art’s were quick and angry.

After a while, Twist could not stand still any longer, so Chuck sent him down the long corridor to pace back and forth, hoping he would not trip and hurt himself somehow. He didn’t need more shit to clean up.

Tossing his tools aside, Chuck sat down on the floor and closed his eyes. He couldn’t see anything anyway, so why not? It was restful. In fact, the dark was a lot more comforting than he might have expected. It absorbed the light from his mind and with it the doom laden chatter that plagued him day and night. If it weren’t for the grumbling of his hungry belly, he would have been at peace.

The last time he had known true peace was when he was a little boy. That was during the storm years when it rained for months at a time. Dams broke, and the Central Valley started turning into a giant lake, but he and his parents were far away from the danger, and the sound of rain pattering against his bedroom window always comforted him. Sometimes his mother would open the window to let the rain smell fill his bedroom, and he would drift into a dream world, an underwater kingdom, where cartoon fish people swam. They smiled at him. They waved. They swam upwards and did loop-de-loops or spun in tight circles like helicopter seeds falling from trees. He could join their bottle-blue paradise if he wanted. All he had to do was stop breathing air. But how did a person stop breathing? You could only hold your breath for so long. Then the air would come rushing back into your lungs against your will.

Eventually, the rainy days went away, and the drought returned. From then on, everything happened against Chuck’s will. His parents died in a pandemic, and he went to live with relatives who didn’t care much for him. He had to start fighting for his every meal. He grew strong and capable because of it. He became hard to kill, and that was essentially the same thing as being chucked. If he started shooting Brazilian tar and committing risky crimes to feed his habit, it was because he wanted to get away from all that strength and will, all that rude animal life, and back to the peaceful smiles of his fish friends.

“Chuck, look.”

It was Twist’s voice, so of course Chuck’s first instinct was to ignore him. How can I see anything in the chucking dark, you chucking numbshit? He opened his eyes anyway.

Bright as sunlight, the slit in the dark grew and shrank. He heard Roni shout, “Push!” The slit grew. It became a crack. Then a wedge. “Push, numbshit!”

The dark receded into the corners at the same time as the crash resounded through the corridor.

“We were behind a bookshelf,” Art cried.

“I’m free, mutterlucks,” Roni said.

“Help me up,” Chuck told Twist.

Twist allowed Chuck to clasp his hand, and Chuck used his weight as an anchor.

“We got to move before they leave us behind,” Chuck said, unsure what he was saying. If they actually made it out, Roni and Art would go their own ways sooner or later. A split was inevitable. So why not do it now? They were all gonna get shot anyway. Only a moronic optimist would deny it.

Nevertheless, he and Twist hurried towards the light.

At first, Chuck thought the other two really had ditched them. He stood in the empty room, empty except for him and Twist, looking at the books spread across the floor like a flow of lava. They were in an office. Sunlight was scribbled on the carpeted floor, as if with a big yellow crayon. Chuck was still half thinking about his childhood, and the light reminded him of his grade school classroom.

“What are you waiting for, Chuck?” Twist said.

Chuck looked at him. The young idiot had hounddog eyes, the lids drooping, and Chuck remembered him in the Mens, waving his hands at the ceiling. It had irritated him then as much as thinking about it now did. The corners of Twist’s mouth twitched. All the time. Was there a person who lived in between the twitches? Or was Twist just the twitch?

“Hey, did you ever go to school?” Chuck asked.

 It took Twist a few seconds to respond. “No.”

Chuck nodded. “Me, neither. C’mon.”

They went through the door. On the other side, a corridor stretched in two directions. Windows formed its roof and far wall. Chuck stared a moment at the rolling green landscaping and blue sky beyond the translucent wall. He had been locked up for so long he had forgotten how beautiful bright colors were. If his fish friends had suddenly appeared, frolicking in the fresh air, he would not have been totally surprised, though it occurred to him with a pang that he would still be on the wrong side of the glass.

“Which way, Chuck?”

Chuck looked left and right. He decided to go left. They went through a steel door and down a flight of metal stairs, the hollow echo of their footfalls echoing in the stairwell.

They came out of the stairwell and into another corridor. It was identical to the one above. Roni and Art were there, standing stock still, staring at something. Chuck looked where they were looking and saw the solider at the other end of the corridor. She was pressing her body against her faint reflection in the window glass.

Chuck didn’t know why she was doing that, and he didn’t care. All he wanted to know was if she had a gun. He and Roni met eyes, and the latter put his finger to his lips. Chuck didn’t need to be told. He didn’t move or breathe, much less speak. He looked at Twist.

Oh, Chuck.

No, this one wasn’t on him. Sure, he should have left Twist in the Mens, but he couldn’t do it. For whatever reason, he had adopted the numbshit, but that didn’t mean he had any control over what he was about to do.

“Hey, lady,” Twist called with his hands cupping his mouth. “Whatcha grinding on the window for?” Dropping his hands, he looked at Chuck and smiled. “She’s crazy.”

The soldier whirled around. Her eyes darted from one to the other, counting maybe. Then she smiled. Chuck didn’t like that smile one bit. It was not stupid like Twist’s. It was joyful.

She ran towards Twist, her arms outstretched.

Chuck held his ground, waiting for her to come closer. Right before she threw her arms around Twist’s neck, Chuck lunged forward and deflected her away from him.

The solider veered towards the glass wall. Her boots slapped the floor, breaking her momentum just in time. She looked around, reorienting. Then she started towards Art, her arms still outstretched.

Art smirked and let her embrace him. She pressed the side of her face into his pillowy chest and told him she loved him. Art smirked at Roni. “Thot,” he said.

“I know who you are,” the solider said, laughing into Art’s bulk. “You’re the test subjects. We were going to let you go free. The last few of you anyway.”

“The rejects,” Chuck said.

The soldier’s smiled brightened, and Roni shot Chuck a dirty look.

“We were really going to let you go,” she assured them. “But we got caught up in the happiness. It took us by surprise. I mean, how fast it spreads.”

“What spreads?” Roni said.

The woman laughed.

In one continuous motion, she stopped hugging Art, squatted down and took a knife out of her boot. Is black blade was double-sided. She drove it upward into Art’s neck. She tried to twist the blade as Art pushed against her face to shove her away from him. He succeeded in slamming her to the floor, but it was too late. Blood squirted from his severed carotid. It flowed down his mutilated neck, staining the front of his shirt. He made the same horrible noises he probably would have made had he remained behind in the Mens. Chuck watched him sink to the floor and die.

Meanwhile, Roni threw himself onto the solider. He knocked the knife out of her grip and got her in a choke hold. She struggled for Chuck didn’t know how long. Finally, Roni left her body drop, got up and kicked her in face a couple times, making sure she was dead. She was dead.

Roni picked up the knife and used the soldier’s pant leg to wipe the blood off of it. He held it at his side, looking at Chuck.

“So what the sun say, mane?” he said.

“Does she have a sidearm?” Chuck said.

They examined her body, but found no gun.

“A gun’s a good idea,” Roni said. “You got the good ideas, incel. Too bad you got numbshit there tied to you.”

It was an offer. There was no honor among test subjects apparently.

“Let’s go find some guns,” Chuck said, stepping toward Roni and grabbing his shoulder. “But you’ve got to promise me something first.”

Roni brushed Chuck’s hand off of him. He didn’t ask what Chuck’s terms were. He obviously didn’t care. He held the knife.

“Whoever finds a gun first, you gotta let me have it,” Chuck said. “Just for a few minutes.”

“What do you need it for, Chuck?” Twist asked.

“I’m going to blow my brains out.”

Roni laughed. “No, you’re not.”

The two men stared at each other, Chuck impassive, Roni amused.

“Are you, Chuck?” Twist pleaded.

Chuck refused to look at him, keeping his eyes locked on Roni. “You don’t think I will?”

“No, not really.” Obviously, Roni didn’t care one way or the other, but Chuck was glad to have his opinion anyway.

“Yeah, maybe,” Chuck said, finally relenting and giving Twist a sidelong glance.

Twist smiled at him, the corners of his mouth twitching more than usual.

Chuck frowned. “What are you smiling at?”

Chuck was more annoyed with Twist at that moment than he had been all day. Even the shit in the toilet had not enraged him so much. There were two corpses at their feet. There were probably mutilated bodies all over the hospital, and the dying world never ended, but just went round and round, mile after mile of nothing but hunger and drought; dead parents and lost childhoods; the healthy ones and the rejects both equally chucked, and still Twist smiled, his lips twitching, his happy, hounddog eyes waving at him like they were friends. They had never been friends, and they never would be. Chuck would not allow it. Chuck would kill himself before that ever happened.

“I shoulda left you in the Mens,” he said through gritted teeth. “I really mean that.”

But Roni was smiling, too, all of a sudden.

Then Chuck felt the smile himself. It grew inside of him, fluttering and swirling and screaming, screaming just like a child running barefoot through the fragrant grass on a beautiful summer’s day.

But why? Why is the child screaming? Tell me. For joy? Is that why? I said tell me. Is that why? Or is there some other chucked reason?

“You’re smiling, Chuck,” Twist said. “I’ve never seen you smile so big before. Are you really happy?”

Chuck’s belly jiggled. The air dried his teeth. No question had ever seemed so easy to answer, but he didn’t answer it. He had no time for Twist and his idiocy, not now anyway, not when he was busy wresting the fucking knife away from Roni.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Knowcebo 2024