that guy - part 6

            It took the rest of the night, diligence on all sides, to get the whole thing stuck in order. In fact, there was more order than expected, more than could have possibly been dreamed of. An extraordinary batter of festering neuroses, desperate fantasies, depraved aesthetics and simple bad luck went into creating this particularly deadly delicacy. A heartless putty of sweet dissimilitude came together that night and it was nothing less than a perfect sum of parts that pushed the dawn, belching grey and beaten dim, into the early morning sky that following day.

            Index finger from chin to buzzer - two-feet? and a half? Really, how long is it shoulder to wrist? Watching it traverse the short distance gave him the hiccups. Watching the sick crescent of chewed nail across the top of it bob and weave along a miniature horizon gave him gas, on the spot, hot farts, burps like lesions.

            He’d shoveled himself across the hall where history and future collided there on the landing; a cosmic parallax failure made him dizzy, then nauseas, and then spun him into something more tragic than he’d ever known. By the time that finger was upon the buzzer, that pathetic guy had watched every opportunity in his life bob, and dip, and scoot off into the land of Mysterious-Impossible.

            The buzzer screamed like a B-movie murder victim. He vomited. Babe unlatched the door. It was too late to run. He farted, burped, and wiped his mouth.

            Babe drew in the vision, the offering, the failure. She smiled.

            “You’re that guy,” she said, nuzzling her nose in the direction of his door.

            That guy vomited again.