Saturday, January 30, 2021

LARRY DONOVAN’S TONGUE

 LARRY DONOVAN’S TONGUE


There was this invasive creature that his imagination could just vaguely describe - No words came to express a concrete image - Which viciously pushed itself between his lips and teeth to nip away his tongue. The monster then attached itself inside his mouth where the tongue had been rooted. It did this each night, between four and four-thirty, several horrible times in succession, and he, desperate to eject it, straining, yet unable to make the slightest defensive motion. He would finally jerk awake and seek out the clock, which always proclaimed it four-thirty-one.


Then Larry Donovan would lie still, hoping to gather some restful slumber before time to roll out of bed and stumble tiredly into the bathroom. It went on like this for three weeks. Then one morning he awakened, refreshed, after not having to rouse himself from the dreaded nightmare. He tripped almost lightly into the bathroom. As he sloshed his mouthwash, the thought sounded in his head, “Okay, that’s some miserable tasting stuff.” 


He had to have had the thought. But, why would he? He had sort of enjoyed the artificial cherry flavoring his entire life. “It’s good,” he said after spitting it into the basin.


“Not,” said that voice, which he now distinctly understood to come from inside his head, but not from his brain. 


His tongue moved involuntarily. A slight tic, he might have assumed one day in the past. However, still powerful in his imagination was the recurring dream of the tongue monster. He shuddered as a gigantic WHAT IF? lit up for him like a neon billboard. “What if my tongue actually was replaced by a monster?”


He pushed his face close to the mirror in the medicine cabinet door, with his mouth wider than even a dentist could coax from him. The tongue looked at first to be normal. Pink and smooth, the way he liked it. Still he peered intently inside the mouth reflection, not totally convinced. He moved his head a bit to catch the different angles. He nearly gave up a few times, but continued his study, until at last he caught it: The glimmer like he would expect from two eyes, set deep in the back.


Debilitating fear gripped him at first, but he regained control by reminding himself that panic sets one up for defeat. Must be calm. Must - Must get help.


Dressing desperately quick, almost falling over while putting on his shorts and again while pulling on his trousers. He slipped into a shirt, grabbed a pair of socks, and headed into the living room, where he had gotten in a habit of taking off his shoes at night. As he sat bending over to slip on the socks, the voice said, “Where’s breakfast?”


“Hell with you,” he replied, gathering the shoes. 


With the shoes neatly tied, he grabbed a few envelopes and started for the door. Just as he reached to turn the deadbolt the monster in his mouth shifted somewhat and began vibrating. The movement quickly built so strong as to rattle Larry’s head, clattering his teeth together. His hands tried to hold his head still. The vibrating paused. “How about it, Larry? Breakfast.”


Larry meekly slinked into the kitchen, where he pulled from the dishwasher a cereal bowl. He poured a heaping portion of frosted flakes and overfilled it with milk so that cereal sloshed over the side on his way to the table. He sat down, with cold milk wetting his thigh. Ignoring his discomfort, he consumed huge bites in rapid succession. 


“Hmm-mmmm,” the tongue monster sighed.


After the bowl was empty, Larry arose and went to look for the envelopes he had been carrying before his head became a mariachi. The monster still moaned with satisfaction as he took the found envelopes out to the car.


“Where are we going?” asked the tongue monster.


“To my job.” Larry had opted to be polite, for now. “I have to get these papers to my boss first thing this morning.” 


Monster had other ideas. “Wouldn’t you rather do me a favor and drive us to the zoo? I left my family there.” 


Larry considered. “I don’t know. Are you going to rattle my teeth if I don’t” 


“You don’t want to experience some things I could do to you,” The monster said blithely.


Larry had no choice but to continue with his politeness. “In that case, it’s the zoo for us. What did you say was your name?”


“I blush to say it,” the monster answered.


“Suit yourself. I will just make up a name for you. UG,” Larry said. “Ug for short.”


“What does it mean?” the monster asked.


“It labels you for what you are,” Larry said with a nasty edge in his voice. “Unwelcome Guest.” 


They were already halfway to the zoo. “So what’s your story, Ug? Why did you do this to me?”


The monster sounded irritated. “If you weren’t driving I would rattle your head so hard. Your teeth would shatter. Stop calling me Ug. My name is Finnless, in honor of my ancestors, who separated from deep ocean fish to arrive here.”


Larry was intrigued in spite of himself. “How did this parasite thing get going?”


Finnless took a moment to think. “We picked it up several hundred generations before moving on land. In our oral history, there is no explanation how it first happened.”


“It’s too ludicrous,” said Larry, “you went to all that trouble before leaving out of the ocean. How long until you experimented with humans?”


“You, Larry. You’re the first.” It seemed to Larry Finnless must be smiling.


Larry frowned. He continued frowning as he pulled onto the lot and searched out a parking space. “What do you want to see first, Finnless?” he said as he eased into a stall and killed the engine.


“To the zebras, my man. That’s where my family is camping, Oh boy, I get to visit my Mama again,” Finnless gushed. “I haven’t been back since after I killed a man in a box truck for sticking me with a pocket knife.”


Larry paused with his hand on the door handle. “But you told me I was the first.”


“Oops. First success,” said the mutated fish. 


Larry stared hopelessly out the windshield. “How did you kill him?”


“Crawled down his throat; exited his anus.” 


Finnless paused, reflecting. “Don’t worry. I like you like a brother already.”


Larry paid at the window. It had been a lot of years since he visited a zoo. He hated to see anything enslaved. Walking the path to the cages, he picked up the conversation. “You know, you could have chosen the gorillas to live in.”


Becoming strident, Finnless said, “And what? We stand around with his belly pressed against a truck tire? Rot while the goons on the other side of the bars have actual lives? Do I seem like that kind of a tool to you?”


Larry yielded the point. Looking ahead, he thought the zebras ought to be near the giraffes, the heads of which he could see towering over nearly everything. There was another point he needed to clarify. “Something that’s starting to puzzle me is, how did you manage to remove my tongue with no awareness on my part?”


Finnless laughed. “Easy. Once you sleep I insinuate myself inside, secreting a fluid the whole time to make you oblivious to pain while it deepens slumber. The old tissue dissolves and mixes with your body fluids. The nightmares you experience are meant to condition you into acceptance, once you learn the truth.”


Larry said, “Oh.”


Finnless expanded on the topic. “Evolution can be a wonderful thing. For instance, you and I enjoy a symbiotic relationship, Larry. I can do lots for you. How long do humans survive? Perhaps eighty years. My presence boosts your immunity enough to make you live twice that amount.”    


They passed the giraffes, who watched their young one cavorting with the abandon of one too young to realize the boundaries of the prison it was born to.


Larry understood what his personal parasite was saying, but he still was hoping to learn something that could free him of it. He would continue to listen. And to wait.


The zebras were away from the fence, paying no mind to the visitors. “Yell at them,” the parasite said. “Tell them Finnless is here.”


To the quizzical looks from other visitors, Larry did as he was told. The humans were astonished that the stripes quickly crowded against the fence. 


“Hey, Mama; it’s me,” Finnless said, voice quavering with emotion. “I’ve got me a home now. It’s perfect. I want you to move in with me. Oops. Not in your mouth, Larry. Your friends‘. Or family’s. What ya say?”


“Later,” Larry muttered, mindful of the small cluster of humans potentially listening in.


He began walking back to the car. Once beyond the range of the people, he said, “Give me some time to consider this, and who to do it to.”


“Fair enough,” Finnless agreed. 


They went home and consumed a snack of leftover pie. Larry took a seat before the television set. After making himself comfortable and after calling work to explain his “illness,” he reached into a humidor and pulled out one of the Cuban cigars a cousin had smuggled to him. Without giving a thought to Finnless’s confiture, he snipped the end and pushed it in his mouth.


“What’s this?” Finnless queried. “Another snack this soon? Well, I am game to sample everything you enjoy. It’s just, this one’s a little odd.”


Larry had a second thought but went ahead with it. “You’re going to love it,” he announced.


His lighter put a flame to the tobacco. The first puff bathed Finnless in heavy smoke. The fake tongue made a sound like groaning, causing Larry to hold back on further smoking. After a long pause, Finnless spoke impatiently. “Get on with it,” he demanded.


Larry took in deep drags, paying attention to Finnless’s sighs of bliss that grew weaker and finally ceased. He suspected his zoned-out border had lost consciousness. He touched it, then tugged it. The root tying them together was not deep. He gently eased the creature out onto a table. Then ran to a closet to fetch the Have a Heart trap. He stood the trap on its end to as gently as possible drop it in. Mission accomplished, he closed the gate and set down the trap on the coffee table, that he might contemplate it and the future from the comfort of his stuffed chair.


He stared at the caged creature for a long time without moving. Without a thought in his head. Staring. Experiencing emotions. Wistfulness. Sadness. Laughter. Remorse. At the end near to crying. 


He began to weigh his options carefully.


He was on the brink of getting condemned to a life with no tongue. He had to believe there were medical inventions to help overcome such a condition. It all was certain to complicate his life, which depended on clear speech in so many ways.


There was no animosity toward his prisoner. Finnless had done what Finnless had been born to do. He had to admit having a close companion to talk to any time he wants is a plus. Didn’t he say his presence would double Larry’s life span? 


If the creature were stupid or a nag, he would take him to a government agency without a qualm. 


By now the creature was whimpering very slightly. About to wake up. Larry tensed up. He was too tenderhearted to listen to any victim’s pleas without cringing and feeling sorry. After a moment, without further thought, he extricated Finnless from the trap and pushed him back inside his mouth. He settled in his chair and began casually rifling his mail, as though nothing was going on. Cautiously pausing when his partner awakened and voiced concern that he had somehow gotten turned around. The tongue monster fixed himself back into place. 


Larry smiled. “Enjoy the tobacco?” he asked.


“O-o-ho-ho. We’ll do that again. But not too often. It could be habit-forming. You and I are going to be a great team,” Finnless said.


Larry agreed. “How much family of yours needs a home?”         


    

             


No comments:

Post a Comment

INDEX OF THIS BLOG

INDEX OF STORIES AND VERSES

          MARCH 2020 ALTERNATIVES THE TWEKIAN I'M DARRYL PENNY AND DREW AND THE NEARLY PERFECT ZOO GRAPE           APRIL 2020 THE HOLLOW...