NOAH'S ARK BETWEEN TWO BUNS

by Lotus Rose

          

 

     Greg stepped into the Burger Despot restaurant.  He was hungry and he had a coupon.  He thought to himself, Here I am, entering a Burger Despot restaurant, with each of their burgers comprised of a mixture of a hundred cows, like Noah's Ark between two buns. 

     As a child, he'd been born without arms.  But now he had two, though he kept them covered all the time.

     He handed the coupon to the counter-girl, who had eyebrows that were drawn on.  The coupon was for a Glory Meal with "chicken-like" nuggets.  She said they had to cook the nuggets up.  He grabbed two of the little tub-of-sauce packets and a cup.

     He had started thinking about his arms because of the picture of the smiling nugget-creatures on the coupon.  They were little happy creatures with eyes and a mouth on a chicken nugget, with no arms or legs--and they seemed to have a perpetual smile on their faces, but strangely their heads were not separate from their bodies . . . their bodies were their heads, like some kind of bizarre body-head combination.

     He sat down, slurping his soda while he waited for his order to be filled.

     He was a poet, and boy did he know it.  He enjoyed being a poet--enjoyed the romanticism, the allure, the artistry of connecting with the muses--and he liked how easy it was.  His poems were all one page long--being a poet was easy--all you have to do is write a page and you're a poet!

     For some reason, he knew not why, he felt compelled to write a poem at that very moment.

     He grabbed a napkin, then took out the pen he carried at all times, and scribbled these words:

 

          We have no legs!

          It's hard to run!

          But we're not eggs!

          Or meat in a bun!

 

     He gazed, puzzled at the words he had written.  Why had he written such a thing?  Perhaps it was the sugar going to his head.  Or maybe the five oxycodone he had just taken . . . or the three benzodiazepine.  Yes, he was taking medication, but it wasn't the medication his psychiatrist had prescribed.

     And each burger is a combination of a hundred cows.  And what if they had ground Noah's Ark up and put it in a burger?

     Would Noah have liked that?

     Had the nugget-creatures been on the Ark?  Had they been hopping happily as the human race was drowning beneath the worldwide flood?

     Did God punish them for their sin of inappropriate glee by forcing them to jump into sauce, and making them biologically unable to stop smiling, no matter how horrendous they felt inside, unable to stop their grotesque compulsion, their nagging death wish to dip their own bodies in sauce?--oh, cruel joke of a vengeful God!

     Now he felt his mind becoming obsessed with the subject of chicken nuggets.

     As a child, he would have nightmares about smiling nuggets--for some reason he had been obsessed with them, perhaps because they didn't have arms, just like him.  In one particular nightmare, a gang of them viciously attacked a chicken, tearing it apart with their mouths.  In other dreams, they might happily be doing things like playing badminton, the rackets magically levitating by their sides, since they had no arms.

     No arms.

     He shouted out, "Oh, but I didn't have arms either, did I?  Did I?"    

     Customers turned to look at him--a little girl gaped at him with her jaw dropped and a little piece of burger fell out of her mouth--the old lady sitting with the girl scolded her.

     He looked over at the girl, sweet little girl, maybe six-years-old, with red, braided pigtails and freckles, the-cutest-thing, big huge dimples--he imagined you could probably stick a quarter of your finger in one of those dimples and make the twisty motion--yeah, give the girl a lollipop--so damn cute I could puke, he thought.  He stuck his finger forlornly on the tabletop, solemnly making a twisty motion.  What would it feel like?--to have a child of his own, to reproduce.

     Now his thoughts were really starting to creep him out.  Why was he thinking about children?  He never thought about children--he hated children.  He even hated the fact that he had ever been a child.

     Yeah, Greg had been born without arms, but he hadn't known any better, so he had gotten used to it.  But then they had "fixed" him when he was three-years-old.  Was that how the human race had evolved?  To the point of fixing people?   But it was only the outside.  What about the inside?  What about making people not be such complete jerks?  What about that? 

     In a fit of irrational rage, he suddenly stood straight up, and his chair tipped back and clanged to the floor.  The patrons turned to look at him again, and this time a few of them rolled their eyes.  He was reminded of the incident in a fast food restaurant where some guy had shot and killed an armed wacko.  He should be careful and try not to make people think he was a wacko.  There were a lot of wackos in the world.  That was part of the reason why he always carried a gun, in accordance with the Texas concealed handgun regulations, of course.

     The little girl giggled at him and held her hand daintily to her mouth, as her pigtails swayed lazily from the pivots of scrunchies connected to her head. 

     But Greg was too angry to be soothed by cuteness.  He walked up to the counter.  The counter-girl looked at him with a bored expression, sighed, then said, "Oh, you haven't gotten your order yet?" 

     This was too much for Greg.  "No nugs for Greg?!" he shouted.  Then in his rage he forgot how to conjugate verbs, only screaming, "Reason?!" then again, "Reason?" 

     The stupid girl actually rolled her eyes!  She said, "I think the new guy went back to the nugget room.  I think he'll be back soon, I think."

     Now he was grumbling, "I could cook them faster myself!"

     And the girl snapped back, "Well why don't you then?"

     Greg thought for a moment, then nodded and went to the employees' door--walked behind the counter and started walking through the kitchen to the back, as the girl called weakly behind him, "Wait, I was just kidding!"

     He looked around for a few moments, then found the door with an old tattered sign that said, "nuggets and condiments."  It had a set of keys dangling from the doorknob.  No one stopped him, so he turned the key, opened the door and went inside the room, carrying the keys with him.

     He stormed inside.  He was surprised at how large the room was--he had expected a crowded closet, but the room was about twenty feet by twenty feet with a lot of open space.  It was home for various boxes and bottles with labels like "relish" and "worcestershire."  He started looking around at the shelves. 

     Then he looked down and to his left.

     The little red-headed girl with the braids stared back up at him and giggled. 

     Greg rolled his eyes, and muttered, "Oh, great."

     In a mocking tone, the little girl said, "Employees only, dum-dum head."

     Greg scowled and shouted, "Greg didn't ask you!" then he pointedly ignored the girl and started looking around again.

     A few moments later, he heard the girl say, "Oopsy!" then heard a hiss of air as the door closed and sealed.

     He turned around and scowled, and said, "What now?"

     The little girl held her head down in shame, and replied, "I seem to have closed the door and it doesn't seem to want to open."

     "You're bugging me, kid," said Greg.  He was about to try to open the door or knock on it or something, but then he noticed something.  A crowd of scurrying, little creatures were coming out from various hiding places of boxes and bottles, surrounding them.

     He looked his left, to his right, the feeling of dread rising up in his throat.

     He was surrounded by a crowd of inch-high nugget-creatures, all looking up at him, with big eyes wide and frightened, yet bordering on angry on their body-heads.  They looked menacing.

     He felt a tugging on his pant leg and looked down and there was the little girl again.  "Looky," she said, as she pointed to the creatures.

     "You see them too?" Greg replied.

     "Yuh huh."

     "Damn." 

     Greg immediately decided that he didn't want to be there, so in a jerky manner, he acted, hoping to catch them off guard--he stepped quickly, but slightly slower than he could have, hoping they would move out of the way rather than be crushed!

     They scattered.

     But then as he stepped down, he felt the sickly squishy feeling of one of them under his foot--the nugget-creature let out a piercing, tortured scream.

     Reflexively, he let off the pressure.  In order to recapture his balance, he tottered a little, then stepped on the ground beside the creature.

     He looked down at the nugget lying on the floor.

     And with a look of terror, the nugget looked back at him, with twitching eyes.

     Clear, greasy liquid oozed from various points of rupture on its body-head.  It seemed to be going into shock, its whole body-head trembling.  Greg's eyes began to fill with tears as he looked at the poor little thing.

     With a quivering voice, it looked into his eyes and croaked, "Dunk me."

     Greg didn't understand.  "What?"

     In its high-pitched voice, it explained, "I don't want to die this way!  I want you to dunk me!"

     Now Greg understood.  The whole reason that nuggets lived was in anticipation of being dunked in sauce and then eaten--they lived to die.

     And he realized now that he had a few packets of the sauce in his pocket--barbecue.

     With a solemn reverence, he fished a packet out, opened it and set it on the floor.  He wasn't deterred by the fact that the nugget had been hopping around on the floor, then stepped on by his dirty foot--it just didn't matter.

     He couldn't stop the tears from flowing down his cheeks.  He squatted down, then hesitated as he brought his hand down to the injured nugget.  He looked to it with a questioning expression on his face, but the poor thing nodded its approval with a stiff upper lip.  The thing was so brave.

     He sighed, then dipped the nugget in the sauce and popped it in his mouth.  The nugget gave one final giggle of glee before succumbing to the grinding action of his molars.

     He expected it to squirt out gizzards and guts, but it just tasted like a regular nugget, which was not saying much.

     He shrugged.

     He watched curiously as a bunch of nuggets scrambled and fought with each other for the chance to hop into the sauce container.

     But then a shout of "Behold the queen!" was issued forth and all the nuggets stopped and prostrated themselves on the floor.  From behind a big cardboard box, labeled, "Catsup," four nuggets were carrying a giant nugget on a cushioned platform held up by poles--the giant nugget must have been at least three feet tall, and was wearing a paper crown on its body-head.  As the crowd of nuggets parted, the servant-nugs carried the giant nugget up to Greg and the little girl.  They set it down and the little girl approached it, peered at it and said, "You're big."

     "I'm the queen!" the huge nugget roared. 

     "That's okay, because my daddy tells me I'm a little princess."

     This confused the big, huge nugget.

     But then the little girl tilted her head down and dazzled the queen with her dimples.

     Simultaneously, they pressed their heads together, her little pigtailed girl-head against the queen's body-head and as one they began to sway and hum as the girl held the nugget in her arms.  Surrounding them on the floor, the horde of nuggets all swayed as well, singing,

 

          We are nuggets, through and through!

          No arms, no legs, just eyes for you!

 

     Their voices were like a choir of chipmunks, singing in tandem, the love in the room like a swarm of fast food joy, served immediately from beneath a heat lamp!  Then they suddenly stopped singing and stood silently watching.

     A strange far-away look came over the queen's face.

     "Such a beautiful child," the queen was murmuring as they swayed together, the pigtails of the girl rocking like a gentle pendulum.  "Such a beautiful, limbed child.  All my children used to have limbs too . . . when they were born."

     Greg cocked his head, the beginning of an idea forming in his brain.  The queen's expression was strange . . . insane.

     The little girl was cooing, losing herself in the rapture of affection--it wasn't dawning on her. . . .

     "You're so pretty," the queen continued.  "My, what pretty dimples you have. . . ."

     "Thanks ya, Nugget-queen," mumbled the little girl, her voice muffled from the contact with the queen.

     "But you're not perfect."

     "No, nobody's perfect, queeny."

     ". . . but I will make you perfect . . . just like I did to all my children."

     The little girl seemed unaware, but Greg's eyes went wide with terror.

     Then the queen's expression turned mean.

     The little girl tilted her head back, then her expression turned to fear as she looked into the queen's eyes.

     "Oh, I will make a proper nugget of you, so streamlined . . . perfect for dunking. . . ." said the queen.

     Greg leaned over and whispered in the little girl's ear . . . she peered at the big nugget, then called out, "Mommy?"  This confused the big nugget.

     "Now!  Drop!" Greg shouted.

     Deftly, the girl dropped to the ground, then rolled to the side--issued forth was the thwap thwap of alternate slaps of pigtails contacting floor.

     Greg pulled his handgun out and squeezed the trigger, rapidly firing twelve rounds into the queen, who slid back into a big plastic jug of mustard--the jug was torn by the bullets and ruptured, drenching the queen's lifeless form with glowing yellow condiment.

     All the nuggets gathered around the queen and wailed and cried, though they seemed unable to wipe the perpetual smiles off their faces for more than a few seconds at a time.

     Then the manager entered the room, finally, using a spare key.  He looked around the room and swore.

     And Greg sat squatting in the far end of the room, as if he could escape the horrendousness of what he had witnessed.  He had truly gone insane--it had all been too much for his already-shaky grip on reality.  He sought the only escape he could--the only solace there had ever been in his life--poetry.

     He was scrawling on a discarded burger-wrapper he had picked off the floor, these words of verse:

 

          Nugs are sad cuz the queen is dead,

          But we're all nugs without the body-head!

          Just take my arms and legs and throw them away,

          Because I don't deserve them anyway!

 

     And he stared at the words, shuddering with sobs, as the little girl comforted him, with her arm around his shoulder, saying softly, "There, there, I'll make it all right.  Wendy will fix."

***

     A month later, Greg was happy again.  The doctors--he had a total of three of them now--had put him on new medication, and it was great--he almost couldn't believe it was actually legal.

     The little girl named Wendy had turned out to be the part-owner of a different fast food restaurant chain--it turned out that she was rich as a result.  And she had taken pity on Greg, and had offered to pay for him to have a "comfortable" life in exchange for his saving her life.

     He sat happily swaying in his rocking chair, feeling the pleasant sensation of the world shifting around him.  He hummed as the drool of his opiate pleasure oozed out the side of his mouth.

     The two prostitutes had stripped him naked.  He knew they were paid to pretend to enjoy themselves, but that was okay--because he was in charge--he told them what to wear--violet-colored lace lingerie--and he told them what to say.  They lavished praise on the nubs where his arms and legs used to be attached--the arms and legs that had been surgically amputated, paid for by Wendy of course--and they said how sexy his nubs were, how much the nubs turned them on, how they had never seen anything so sexy in their lives.  And this would make Greg grin, and he'd say, "Do you like that baby?" and they'd reply with, "Ooh yeah, daddy."

     "Now do it.  Carry Greg," he said to them.

     His limbless body wobbled a little as the two prostitutes lifted him up, carrying him toward the giant tub of sweet n' sour sauce.

     He grinned as the tub came ever closer to him, and cooed flirtatiously, "Dunk me, baby.  Dunk Greg."