The n-Body Problem

There is a small piece of glass missing now at the top of my case. In the right conditions I can make out what people say.

In time Dixon comes down. He walks in heavy steps. He is perspiring. He speaks close to the doctor and I can’t hear. She listens, then bends back to spot Y.

“Well, Dixon. It’s okay. We do our work.”

Dixon nods severely. He raps the wall once and comes over to me. He pulls the black bag over my case. I am a thin black wisp of hair. I am black crayon on a black sky. My knees buckle and I go down.

I sleep because I haven’t slept. I sleep in a closed-off dreamless airless box.

A band of light wakes me. Someone has cut an almond-shaped hole in the bag. Someone cuts another hole. These are eyeholes. They want me to see. I feel a rush of hopefulness. They are including my care. I am to be given light. Not to keep me alive. But to bring me comfort. The thought makes me dizzy. I feel my knees again. I look out one of the eye holes. The doctor’s shoulder. I can see her and she cannot see me. A vein in my anus fills and rolls on its side. The light makes a perfect cone over my eye. We are going upstairs. We are going upstairs. The topless doctor is taking me to her room. The case is tipped against the wall while she opens the door. I see the top of her breast rise under her turning arm. It’s an achingly soft surface. The breast drops from view as the door opens. She points me forward to a curtained window. Drops me on the sill and turns me. There is a wide unmade bed. The doctor removes her skirt. She rolls her pantyhose down, then drops them from her toes. She walks toward me. Her large black-grey bush is inches from my nose. I can see the lips of her vagina. The slow separation of tissues relaxing. She is hanging her hose on the rail above me. She can’t see me while I cling to the details of her hole. My lower half is bunched. Veins an open confusion. I can feel my cock springing to life on a wall. On the ground. She turns and walks to the bed, bending over to pick up her clothes. Light touches her asshole for a second then she stands again. My bottom shatters. I am filling something with something. A spasm. I feel warmth. I must be shitting. I push at it hard. I want to feel it come out. I want to feel my body express itself. I want it out.

She is gone. I stop holding my breath. I smell gas. I haven’t shit. I have farted. A wonderful changing and calming fart.

there is no upside.

I sit in this box for hours. Maybe longer. I hear a car door close outside and a man’s voice. People down below. Must be WasteCorp. They want an account of Beeton. Probably needed to bring in a clean-up crew. I’ve been on them. Different company, different war. The doctor came in once and took something she’d stashed inside her pillow. I see you, Doctor. I know you’re in trouble. SSRIs in the pillowcase. I decide that because I am non-human, a deity of some kind, that I should be able to close my eyes and see great things, visit exotic places. Even if this isn’t true, shouldn’t the mind provide? Can’t I just go completely mad and leave this? Go so far inward that I’m a new thing? I close my eyes and wait. I try to picture simple things. A shoe. A bottle. A tree. I can only manage fleeting lines and shadows.

The door opens. The doctor enters. She is fully clothed. Her bosses are here. She comes over to me and turns the box. I see the yard clearly through my hole. There are two black vans parked up the driveway. So that’s WasteCorp, I guess. Guys dressed like milkmen from another century. Smart blue capos and white piping on the legs. Not tough guys, that’s for sure. Dixon and Y are up by one of the old maples. A bald man in a black suit is showing Dix something on a wide unfolded sheet. Plans have been drawn up. Things are being done differently. Beeton shook them up, bad. The milkmen unroll a wide mesh mat. It reaches all the way to Dix and the tree. Size of a football field. Milkmen attach cables at each corner. No more coaxing folks to toe the line. No more people running off or letting go too soon. They’re going to sit them down for the show, then just burn ’em all where they sit. Y and Dixon are walking the perimeter. I can tell by the way Dixon walks, with a repressed swagger, that he doesn’t like something. He doesn’t like seeing his bosses. Doesn’t like them being here. Don’t fuckin’ tell me how to do my job. Dixon and Y have walked up into the house. The milkmen straighten out any creases in the mat, like old women showing off patchwork at the fall fair.