This Epub may contain traces of bluescreenofdeath.
Anything that appears in, on, or around this Epub is by featured artist PAWL SCHWARTZ and is his intellectual property.
WARNING: Immovable owls of absolute reality are lurking. The hot sweaty hunks of utter truth that follow will WARNING will cause alien sensation, heart disease, and unwanted arousal; may also cause sudden infancy, neurosis (the band), and pants.
Watch your back.
Play every card you got
and always remember:
sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.
The editor apologizes for the ungodly amount of words contained in this booklet. The next issue will be a cutesy per-zine about Pawl’s period, and the one after will be a list of interesting things about Pawl followed by drawings of stuff he likes. The Story Fluff was published previously at www.ignaviapress.com
FNORD
and many thanks to the Cyberpunk Apocalypse. Without their amazing hospitality, this zine would not be possible. Read it now. -Editor, Tymonch press, 2013
We Stay Up All Night Because We Are Dissatisfied #2
By Pawl Schwartz
Copyright 2013 Pawl Schwartz
Crotch.
Walking down the street, I thought I felt pretty full. It was nice, but there was so much food that it felt like I had kind of been pushed off somewhere back behind it. I was wearing my thin dress, the one with the Native American patterns on it. I had my new flip flops on, breaking them in. I loved the sound they made. It was like that satisfying click of wearing heels, but without the trouble. Slap slap. These ones didn’t make my toes sore.
I kind of felt like I had to pee, but then again, I always did. I noticed a swirl on my dress that I hadn’t seen before. It was facing up towards me, sitting on top of my pregnant belly. I had just started to show about a month ago.
Breathing in, I could smell the expensive perfume that one of the sales lady’s had sprayed on me. Said it had magnet dust in it. Was supposed to help circulation. I pushed past some people gathered around the CVS and kept on walking. Adjusted my tights. I liked them, they smoothed out my skin, made me feel like I had a real girl shape, like I was supposed to have.
I was on the way to drop off Dave’s pants at the dry cleaners now. I didn’t know why he never dropped off more than one article at the time, but he never listened to me when I asked him. Said he cleaned what he needed.
I had them slung over my shoulder, noticed that they still had some of his smell on them. I felt it in my nose and liked it. Put my hand on my belly.
Some people stared at me as I walked past, most of them smiled. I knew they were doing it because I was pregnant. It made me feel like I was some kind of public servant, or a disabled person. That they all probably felt better, like they had done something good for the day because they had smiled at the pregnant woman. I kind of resented it.
I wanted to smack the man behind the counter at the dry cleaners when I got there. He was looking at me like he always did, telling me to go to this herb shop or that one, that this thing would help the baby be a boy. I lied and told him that I didn’t care whether it was a boy or a girl. He wrote his number on the back of the receipt. He did it every time, I didn’t care.
Going off towards the Korean place to get us dinner, I felt a little queasy. I had to stumble off behind a dumpster to puke up a pitiful little bit of lunch. I didn’t know why I was still getting these little bouts of sickness. It didn’t really make any sense. The doctor said that some women stay sick until they have the kid. I hoped that didn’t happen.
I grabbed the food and began to walk back towards our apartment, both hands full. I walked a good three blocks before I saw a bum peeking out from an alley between two big brick buildings. I could just barely see the mouth of the little road he was on, the far wall peeking out behind the blocking one like one buttcheek defines another. When I saw the grit on the ground and on the wall in there, I thought of the word crotch, remembered the first time I had heard my mom use it. It recalled some dirty unscrubbable place, something tender and pockmarked with grit. The word gave me shivers. That alley gave me shivers. I began to cross the street. The bum was still peeking out.
When I got to the other side with my bags, I saw someone I knew. A girl I had gone to college with and still ran into sometimes. Tessie. I always recognized her by her glasses. She had little square ones that she wore on top of her head, almost never brought them down in front of her eyes. I could see her smile from a block away. She ran up to me so that I wouldn’t have to do all the work approaching her. I was, after all, The pregnant lady. She hugged me gently and started in her smooth tenor, “How far along are you?”
The Bum was saying something across the street. I remembered the grit of the word crotch and shuddered again. Tessie looked to me, waiting. She had that same Oh my god you’re a pregnant woman do you need help you make me so happy ohhhh I want kids I want kids smile on her face, the one I had seen drifting around from face to face all day. I thought hers looked hungry though, wanting. Thought that all of them might, that they all mentally put themselves in my belly somehow when they did it. Made themselves another wanting thing, another product of my pregnancy. I wondered how many smiles I would have to feed when the baby came. How many spoons I would fly into his mouth- oh, if it was a boy!
“Well, there’s still a long way to go,” I started. I heard footsteps across the street. Felt ashamed for hearing them. Heard another noise. Noticed Tessie had started looking. “But it could be longer than what they told me,” She wasn’t even paying attention. I looked across the street, didn’t see anything, just the dark open hole of the alley. Started to look back, and stopped. The bum had sneaked right across the street, was hiding on the other side of a parked car we were standing next to. I stepped back.
“You ain’t got much room fer yerself, doya?” He asked quickly. I acted like I hadn’t heard. Started to say something to Tessie again. He cut me off. “Ain’t got much room for yerself with that thing in ya. With all that people in ya.” I stepped back further, Tessie grabbed my arm and started to pull me away. I shook my head back and forth.
“What a loon,” I started, but Tessie shooshed me, pointed back. He was still behind us.
“Dude just pried the door open with his thing,” He rasped out loudly. Other people began to stare. We walked faster.
“Dude pried you open like a safe. Shot his chemical in. Kept ya open. Chemical made ya stay open. It set.” He sounded like a computer with a cold.
I went as fast as I could in my flip flops. Started to get my cell phone out to call Dave.
“Now you’re all open so the whole world can get in. Everything’s getting sucked in there. Got street dust and smiles and bugs and dead shit. Woo!” He grabbed onto a trash can like a man about to be thrown overboard. “I can feel the pull man! I can feel it! Woooooah!” He smiled hugely. “Ain’t none of your food makin that baby, it’s stealin everyone elses shit! It ain’t getting me! Your stomach runs around that shit. Thing’s pushin you back, man! You got everyone goin in there man! Shit, you don’t even know what’s happening with it! It ain’t yours. It ain’t yours!” He started screaming like a shot moose. We ran around the corner fast as we could, luckily he held onto that trash can.
I heard Dave yelling on the phone. I had forgotten that I’d called. He hung up before I could put the speaker to my ear. I must have had him on there for a while.
“What the hell was that about?” I asked Tessie. She just shook her head.
“Bums, just bums. I wish he’d just asked for chan
ge.”
“Yeah, me too. Guy never got sex-ed or something. He didn’t even know what he was talking about.”
“Nope.” Tessie agreed. She was still holding my arm tightly. The squeeze of it shocked me somehow, seemed to draw up a cold at my legs, at my stomach and belly. My legs felt clammy, just cold enough to define the warm front of my thighs as they hit my dress hem, as I walked. There was grit rolling between them. I had forgotten to wear underwear that day. I felt my vagina smashed against my cold thighs, lips sticking. And then, suddenly, I felt like the letter C. Just like it. Didn’t know why. Ruffled my plucked eyebrow. Tessie squeezed harder and walked me home like that. Sat me down on the couch and waited with me till Dave got home, sat down his beige raincoat and leather gloves. He looked worried, wrinkled forehead and leathersmell, but seemed angry with me for not running away faster once he heard the story. He rubbed my belly when he talked, seemed to address it not me, seemed to be talking to himself. Tessie slept over that night, stayed on a chair in our bedroom curled up like a night watchman.
I didn’t feel the same going to sleep that night. Rustled under the blankets trying to get them around me but I couldn’t. There was always one part of my body that was cold-exposed, so I had to re-arrange until I gave up, let go of the top of the blanket and almost wretched from the motion. I swear everything just moved closer. Everything in the goddamned room.