The THING

The Thing 

The soldiers stood waiting impatiently for the sun to shine. They stood next to the THING and bent their yellow flaxen and black woolen heads back. They scanned the sky earnestly. Steel gray clouds hung low, crushed their spirit, and made then look dwarfish. They spat, cursed, and shifted their feet as if they were grinding ants with their boots. Women stood with them, flank to flank. Their uniforms fit them like balloons and gave them hulking shoulders. They cursed louder than the men. 

The Civillian populace stood on the sidelines fanning flies and.watching also for the sun. They were eager for a reason to wave their crimson and royal blue flags. They wanted excitement, some kind of violent diversion. Football no longer made their asses twitch in ecstasy. Not even when the players were pitted against wild boars, bulls, or wounded elephants. The Civillians wanted nore. They stood on the verge of a whorehouse of an orgasm. Only the shining sun could release this last nut of lust and blood.  

"Oh God, let the sun shine 

And release the THING to blow 

To confetti bits, the enemy." 

This was the cry of the Civillians because it was the cry of their Leader. The "enemy" was the people of Psyclops-people similar to them. People who ate flesh and roots just as the Civillians. People who sometimes ate their children just as the Civillians did. The only difference was that the Civillians had eyes that sparkled like green diamonds. The people of Psyclops had no eyes. What would have been eyes were pus filled holes that leaked a yellowish thick liquid.  

The Leader of the Civilians knew the value of this liquid. Mixed with simple table salt from a blue box, this liquid became gold dust. This was the real reason why the THING was aimed at the Psyclopians. They had to be made weak in order to be captured. Only The THING could penetrate the mile thick excrement shield over the Psyclopian city of Dung Ho. But as for the Civillians, all they needed was some diversion to hide their woes from themselves.Their woes were many. However, hunger and a puzzling new disease were the main Civillian butt kickers. This new disease caused anuses to close and those stricken defecated through their mouths. The conundrum of the disease was that those who had it and suffered from hunger, never knew they were hungry. In fact if they were fortunate to have the disease they looked fine and robust until a violent explosion roared from their mouths and they choked to death on their feces. The plain hungry Civillians without the "disease" simply agonized themselves to death. "At least they are full," was the mockery of the hunger sufferers.  

There was also a lack of burial space for the dead. This fact created new diseases and caused a plague of giant shiny blue flies to descend on the population. The Leader said there was no money to fight the woes of the Civillians. All the money had to be spent to build the THING so they could kill the foul smelling Psyclopians whose eyes were causing the Civillians to be ill. The more the Leader spoke the more the Civillians hated the Psyclopians, whom they had never seen. Thus everyone had good reason to stand and wait for the sun to shine. 

When the commander of the soldiers thought he saw a slice of the honey-dew sun, he ordered the THING (Thermal Heat Ignition Nuclear Gun), moved to the spot where he thought the sun's rays fell. The low green broadbacked truck moved slow like a stuffed alligator on huge donut wheels. When the vehicle reached its destination with the THING on its back, the sun was not there. The soldiers resumed their sky watching: shifting, grinding, and cursing the clouds. 

The THING was a huge pyramid made of three mirrored triangles. It was seven stories high and thirteen hundred feet wide. The THING's hollow contained one hundred rockets. Each rocket contained one thousand mortars. Every mortar swelled with ten thousand shells. One hundred thousand pellets rattled inside of each shell. One pellet was strong enough to turn an All Right parking lot into a geyser of blue flames. In order for the THING to work, it was imperative for the sun to shine. 

The commanders in deer antler helmuts bickered among each other. 

"Why couldn't you get a faster truck to move the THING?" General Snutz demanded from General Gast. 

"And what idiot ordered airplanes to drop rain capsules on the clouds," retorted Cast "Look at them gray and heavy with water. And if your intent was to drown the enemy, Sir, why did you drop the pills so close to home? And of course only a nimble brain like yours would forget the shit dome over the Psyclopians. Seeding clouds! Boo!" 

"A faster truck! A faster truck," Gast squealed. The two commanders stood for hours butting each other in anger before another idea hit then in the butt. They decided to use an old sea captain to serve as lookout for them. (He wasn't really a sea captain. The old man spent fifty years in a touring production of Mobv Dick. He had risen through the ranks from deck swabber to Ahab. But he was patriotic.) The Commanders installed him in a white house high above the base. The old man loved his job too much. He had an uncanny ability to see the sun when it really wasn't there. 

"Snutz, Gast, move the THING to the north end of the base' Move it east! There is the sun, in the west. Hurry! Don't let the blue flies bite you on the ass! . . . Quickly, move the THING" 

He drove the commanders and their men crazy. They decided that his zeal might cause great damage to the THING. They thanked him for his services and drove him away in a black box of a car. 

The weeks that followed, were still full of blackish gray clouds, shaped like toadstools. And the men walked as if they carried upon their shoulders sacks of lead. The Civillians were not pleased either. Many more were belching feces and dying. The commanders, grasping at the last straw, called in a cardinal. The Cardinal arrived at the base arrayed in a finepeacock headdress. His robes shimmered as if they were a golden heat mirage one might see in the desert. His black leather pumps outshined any General's polished hooves. He leaned on a staff of gleaning emerald. At the crown of his staff was a four headed python. Inscribed in Latin on this pole were the words, "The Eyes of Man." A young boy in white robes carried a cross and walked in front of the cardinal. The Cardinal stopped and kneeled next to the granite typewriter-shaped monument dedicated to "POETS WHO SPEAK AS INSTRUCTED." He touched the ground with his forehead and the boy marked the spot with his cross. The priest led the commanders and their men in prayer. 

"Oh God, strike dead our eyeless enemy. Rent them from your earth. Confuse their sexuality. Make their men lust after their own sons and their Mothers eat her daughters. Pour bitter sugar down their throats and make their gears grind to a halt. Scud their missiles and make them blow up in their homes. They are dogs! Yes, yes, yes, strike dead our eyeless carrion eaters. May their head Mullah pop his cork. This is our prayer. Your humble servant, your peace loving vicar of the godfull people of this land. Amen." 

After this prayer was uttered and the Cardinal sprinkled the crowd with holy tomato juice, the events that followed made the bibical Day of Pentecost seem like a meeting of stamp collectors. Flaming eagles screamed across the sky. Doves swelled with violence tore giant anacondas from tree limbs. The money changers in the House of Morgan and Chase opened their windows and threw gold out into the street. They then ran to the ocean and drowned. The seas bobbed with fat bellies. The Civillians so overcome, could only fall to their knees and beat the ground. Even the soldiers trembled. Suddenly the clouds parted and the sun shot an arrow of light that danced on the THING. Then the sun's rays rained down in sparkling cascades of lights. 

The soldiers cheered and some fell on their knees, thanking their God. A flag was raised. They saluted it with tears in their eyes. The commanders raved how great and brave they were, and how the world would thank them for freedom. The old man was brought back. They had not forgotten his zeal. He preached, stuffing them with words of their goodness and planted this idea that swelled in them: ". . . freedom in armor is better than life without eyes." He suggested to the cardinal that they form a partnership to promote the ideas that only people with emerald eyes be allowed to vote and have windows in their homes. 

As the sun's rays burned the giant mirrors of theTHING, it cracked from the heat and released the huge rockets that spit fire toward the Psyclopians. The soldiers and Civillians were filled with a black rapture. Blood rushed to their faces, colored them a dark purple, and burst their brains through their ears. This syrup drowned them and thus ended their woes. The Psyclopians never felt a damn thing except a hot flash, which the women blamed on menopause. The THING gurgles in a Martian sea until this day.