Tumour-Djinn Read online

  TUMOUR-DJINN

  By Zoltan Komor

  FOR

  MorbidbookS.Wordpress.Com

  Tumour-Djinn is giddily published in the US and A by MorbidbookS and the Grace of God. Copyright: Zoltan Komor for words and music 2014. Cover Design by Zoltan Komor and poorly edited by Steven Scott Nelson, 2014. Stage direction by The Grim Reverend Steven Rage. The moral right, such as it is, of this author and his various disjointed proclivities have been asserted. All Rights Reserved. No part of this collection of Bizarro short stories may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, alien or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, drawing stick figures, seventeenth century printing press, chain mail, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of The Reverend, Zoltan Komor, The Great and Powerful Oz and the Hand that turns the Big Wheel, except where permitted by law or whatever the hell you think you can get away with. But if you do, please be advised that you will incur the righteous disdain of The Reverend. And that is no bueno, primo. The characters in this vicious tome are fictitious. Duh. Obviously. Any resemblance to real persons, be they living or dead, demons, succubae, demi-gods or the ‘formerly living’ (zombies) is purely coincidental.

  Mall-Head.................................. .................................................... 5

  The Wild Bull 7

  Tumour-djinn 15

  Cuckoo Cunt 26

  Nipples of a Soda Automat 36

  The Marionette Missionary 43

  Secret Skull House 48

  The Kidney Stone Infant 49

  The Violin-fishers 54

  Crotch-couch 62

  Interlude 1: Dolphins on Fire 75

  Porn-fugitives 78

  Cayman-cradle 82

  The Other Half 87

  The Womb-Tailor 89

  Slaves in a Closet 94

  Interlude 2: Gloomy Sunday 95

  Wet Dreams 97

  Horses from the Sky Ate Her Sugar Lump Eyes 98

  Old tricks 102

  Plasticat Surgery 104

  Fuel 105

  Confetti Tears 106

  The Working of Walls 108

  Afterword: The Death of Art 109

  Info & About the Author 110

  More From MorbidbookS.......................................................113

  MALL-HEAD

  THE NOISE OF construction wakes me up in the morning. Turning to my side, I notice that a yellow string cordons off my sleeping wife. There's a tiny excavator on her forehead, and one inch long workers are demolishing her face with concrete crushers. A black sign on the yellow line says: WIFE UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

  Great, she must have ordered this one too from her favourite online beauty shop, no matter how much I keep telling her, she doesn't need any of these stuff. I watch as a crane lowers my wife's new nose into the dug out red pit in the center of her face. It's quite a pretty nose, I admit. A few smudgy workers hammer her face using all of their strength, the others are just sitting on her ear, drinking beer. One even stands up and pisses down onto the pillow.

  There's a little guy holding a piece of paper. That must be the blueprint. I peek over the tiny man's shoulder, and gaze at the drawing. Say! It looks rather nice! But it could be better. Using two fingers, I pinch out the blueprint from the guy's hands. He yells at me, shaking his micro fist, but I flick him away. Then I sneak out to the kitchen, holding a magnifying glass and a very sharp pencil I make a few changes in the drawing. Then another few. Making the nose look a bit thinner, the forehead more narrow, and so on. When I'm done, I hand back the blueprint to the little guy, who seemingly tries to kill me with his needle-point eyes.

  After a few hours, they finish the job. A man dressed in a suit arrives; he cuts the string with scissors, drinks a few glasses of champagne, then staggers back to a matchbox sized limousine he arrived in. He drives away, disappearing behind the closet.

  I hardly recognize my wife, she is so beautiful. Other people stare at her too. In the street, tourists come over to us, they ask if they could photo themselves with my wife's face. A telephone call arrives: a noted international architectural magazine would like to publish a picture of her head. After a week, they send us a copy. Her portrait is on the forth page, along with a newly built shopping mall in Yokohama. I keep praising myself for making those changes in the blueprint. But then, the accident happens: on a windy day, walking on the street, a strange noise arrives from my wife's head, a cracking sound, like if something collapsed behind her eyebrows. A little piece of her forehead falls out, down to the pavement, and through the hole, I can see the wrinkled brain in the skull. Whats more, one of her eyeballs slackens, it seems like, it might pop out from it's socket any minute. When she gazes down, you can clearly see the muscle-line that holds the eye in it's place. She looks pretty awful. I keep consoling her, wiping her hanging, crying eyeball with a hanky, telling her, one of the miniature workers must have fucked up the blueprint.

  So we order the face-reconstruction beauty pack again. I lay my wife in bed, and open the package. Tiny workers crawl out, and pester her face. I take away their blueprint, and show them the opened architectural magazine. They look at it, scratching their chins, then they nod and begin to work. Seemingly, they want to start from scratch – they slide tiny dynamite sticks into her face dimples, they run into shelter. Soon, an explosion tears my wife's head into bloody pieces of meat – and then construction begins. I feel tired. A fall asleep, leaving them to work.

  In the morning, waking up I find the miniature version of the shopping mall in Yokohama in the place of my wife's head.

  "好き?" she asks, her voice echoes through the small building along with calming music. Tiny Japanese teenagers with party-coloured hair wander around behind her window-eyes. They wave to me, then venture into a sushi bar.

  THE WILD BULL

  Inspired by the electronic music piece of Morton Subotnick

  COBBLES HEATED UP by the sun – like the thousand shoulder-blades of the devil. Above the narrow street hangs a bunch of dead roosters on a drying-line. Red ink keeps dripping out from their cut throats down, to the by-passers heads. Stray dogs stick their long tongues into dark puddles. Children in raunchy trousers run up and down in the morning hot-spell, begging for money on the corners.

  "For one peso, I'll show you, what's today's bullfight gonna be like!" offers a dirty faced boy to a fat tourist, who hands him a coin.

  "It'd better be good!" he warns the kid, who begins to shadow play. His small hands shield a tiny man and a bull onto the cracked wall. The animal rushed towards the tiny toreador, who steps aside in the final moment, and tricks the bull.

  "I say! I can't believe it! Like it was real!" the fat fellow wonders, touching the wall with his sausage fingers.

  "Stop! Don't do it, senor!" shouts the boy, but it is too late. The little shadow-bull runs at the groping hand, stabbing its horns deep into the skin. The tourist's scream echoes through the streets, it lights the cigars between the chapped lips in the boozer, where sweaty men place their bets and glasses clink. Not far, in the arena the wood benches creak as the first arrivers take their seats.

  The toreador is still at home, standing in front of the mirror, putting on his glittering clothes. Then he steps into the bedroom, and pulls off the red blanket from his naked lover. Her milk-white skin almost lights in the shady room.

  "I'm gonna sit in the first line, like always!" she promises. "Will you give me the bull's testicles?"

  "You little eager!" The toreador smiles and fondles the girl's face. Then he runs out of the room, holding the blanket.

  Distant trumpets harrumph and fat, raddled faced senoras arrive. Their gigantic boobs sway left to right and right to left, k
nocking off the plaster from the walls. Men turn and whistle after them. But then, the admirers notice that these aren't real women at all, only shadow figures.

  "Come here, you skunk!" they yell at the dirty faced boy, who begins to laugh, and runs toward the alley, with the angry men in his back.

  "Now this is what I call running of the bulls!" the kid cheers, accidentally knocking over a basket full of apples. The boy disappears behind the next corner, but his shadow stays behind, picking up the shadows of the fruits, putting them into the shade of the basket.

  The toreador stands now in the middle of the arena, facing the corral's wooden door, shaken by the attacks of a wild animal in the other side. Tears of sweat keep dripping from his moustache to the thirsty ground. He turns aside, and watches his lover, as she sends a kiss to him. The kiss turns into a white pigeon in the air. Men in black hats arrive and try to catch the scared bird that flies above their stretching fingers, then sits on to the toreador's shoulder. But then, the trumpets begin to cry, scaring away the bird that disappears in the sky. A sharp slam shakes the air, as the corral door swings open, knocking down the plaster from the old wall of the arena. The toreador stretches his muscles, and the crowd rumbles. As the smoke of the plaster dust subsides, the toreador's mouth hangs open, when he sees, that there is no bull in the corral, only a small, dirty faced boy stands there. What a joke, he was the one, who banged the door with an old, rusty bucket. The crowd begins to laugh, and the toreador tries to join them, but only flustered whimpers leaves his throat. The red blanket shakes in his hand.

  "Senor, senor, I can invoke the beast if you like, it will only cost you one peso!" cheers the boy, dropping the bucket. He twists his fingers, and a shadow-bull appears on the wall.

  "Here's your enemy, mister! Come quick, or it will run away in fear!"

  The toreador just stands there, ashamed, the red blanket falls into the dust. He looks at the crowd with supplicant eyes, but everyone just keeps laughing. Then he stares at his lover. She's the only one, who doesn't even smile. She just sits there with a straight face; her jaws keep chewing, like she was eating something. What can it be? There's some kind of bloody egg between her fingers. The legs of the toreador begin to shake. As he looks down, he sees a growing blood stain on his trousers, between his legs. He faints and collapses into the ground. His shadow flies out from under him, and moves into the small boy’s palm.

  *

  The cables melt quietly under the soft steps of the girl. As she walks over the narrow streets, her white dress and even more whiter skin fades into the walls. Suddenly a hand taps her back. She turns around, and sees a small beggar boy. The dust on his young face is like a shadow.

  "Senorita!" begins the kid. "For one peso, I'll show you, what's today's bullfight gonna be like!"

  The girl begins to laugh hearing this offer; she tousles the youngster’s hair.

  "Don't bother, I know exactly what it's gonna be like!" she answers. "It's gonna be glorious! You can believe me, I'm the toreador's lover! And he's a real hero, who already defeated ninety-nine bulls! He told me, when he conquers this one too, he's gonna hire a psychic to invoke the ghosts of the hundred bulls, just to fight them again!"

  Then she leaves the kid, who follows her with his angry eyes. As the girl walks away, she suddenly feels a raindrop hitting her shoulder. Then another one and another one came. Is it going to rain? That would be a real disaster, because the bullfight would be cancelled, and she couldn't watch her beautiful lover fighting his hundredth bull. She looks up, and realizes, that these aren't raindrops at all. Dead roosters hang above the street on drying-lines, the blood keep dripping from their cut throats.

  "Oh, my pretty white dress!" she hisses, looking at the red dots on her shoulder. Then she hears that the boy behind him begins to laugh. The girl continue to walk, the blood keeps dripping on her. Where ever she looks, she sees dead roosters – they are everywhere, hundreds of them, hanging on those strings. More and more tears fall on her, it's almost like a blood rain that slowly paints her dress all red. The girl finally decides to turn back. She gives the boy a bitter look. He just stands there, still laughing.

  "Stop it!" she yells at the kid. The dress and her skin are all red now. The girl begins to cry.

  "I would hurry up a bit, if I were you, Senorita!" tells the boy. "They will soon release the bull. I bet that beast gonna like your new dress very much!"

  She opens her mouth, and tries to answer, when a sharp slam of a door shakes the air, and the knocking of hooves can be heard. The red girl begins to run, she gasps and yells for help, but it seems like the whole city would be empty.

  "Maybe everyone's at the arena!" the thought crosses her mind, accidentally knocking over a basket full of apples. She runs along, speeding up, turning right in the next corner – almost hearing the huffs of the bull behind her. She's afraid to look back.

  The next street is just like the exact copy of the previous one. And then, every street looks the same. A bowed over basket and rolled away apples hampers her everywhere.

  *

  Moustached men keep blowing their golden trumpets – the crowing of roosters fills the arena – the sound of horned pigeons vibrate in the air – the whimpers of stray dogs under the hot cobbles. The toreador cuts out his image from the mirror with a sharp sword. He hands it to her lover, who kisses it all over, painting it red with her rouged lips. Later, the man steps into the plaza de toros, and watches as his mirror image wilts into a shadow between his fingers.

  "You aren’t gonna defeat the bull with that, senor!" yells a fuzzy haired little boy from the crowd. The people around him begin to howl.

  The walls sweat, salty drops on the lime, like the shiny tears of the old building. Young girls tear off their kissing mouths, and throw them at the toreador, who dribbles the squelching lips with the shadow in his hand.

  "Toro!" he laughs. The crowd gets excited, they pass around a basket full of apples, and everyone takes out one fruit. They begin to peg them at the toreador, who skilfully sidesteps from the flying apples.

  "Toro! Toro!" he yells, strutting up and down, like a shiny rooster, provoking the human mass. Someone throws the empty basket at him, but he jumps away, and it lands on the ground. His lover in the first line moans in pleasure, admiring his man's skills.

  Soon huddle rises. The dirty faced boy is the spokesman, he's tiny, but cruel voice echoes int he arena: "Stone him!"

  So the people run out to the streets, and pry out the hot cobbles, which they begin to throw at the running toreador.

  "Leave him alone!" his lover begs to them, white pigeons fly out from her throat, but no use, the villagers kick and squelch the birds with their boots.

  The ashes of smouldered horns all over the town got spread. Glasses hustle in the boozer. Dogs lie in the shadows of fat Senoras. The girl stands in the street, looking up at her dead lover, who hangs above the narrow street, on a drying-line. Blood keep dripping from his wounds, painting the girl's white dress and face all red, the drops mix with her shinny tears.

  "See, Senorita, it's your entire fault!" tells the boy behind her. "If you would have given me that peso, I would have showed you, this is going to happen."

  Then the bigger boy walks away, the alleys drink up his long echoing laugh. The girl bends down and pries out the toreador's shadow from the ground. She crosses it over her hand, and returns home. There she lies in her bed, blanket her with the shadow, and closes her eyes. A nightmare rushes at her forehead over and over again.

  TUMOUR-DJINN

  I ORDER A magic lamp from the internet. According to the seller, it is good as new, and after rubbing the thing, a djinn will come out and give me three wishes. A few days pass, and the package arrives. A sign on the lamp’s side informs me that the product is not suitable for children under the age of three, because they can swallow the small pieces. I don't know what tiny parts a genie could possibly have, but nowadays they write this warning to everything.

  I begin to rub
the lamp, but what comes out fails to meet even my lowest expectations. Along with some dark smoke a thin, bald guy crawls out. His skin is all grey, the eyes are colorless pebbles. He hands me his medical charts, like it was a business card or something, which reads: Stage 4 Lung Cancer.

  "I never smoked one cigarette in my life!" adds the genie, and begins to cough.

  I don't know what to do with my new cancerous djinn. I keep telling him my wishes, but he just stares in silence, or talks about nonsense.

  "I want a tree which grows money as leaves!" I command him.

  "I never realized, life can be so short. We are just putting the bricks, one into another, then we try to climb over the wall that we created. But it is so big. It covers the sun." he mutters, drawing in the air with his pencil-like fingers.

  "I want a sports car!" I try again, but he just looks out in the window, gazing the clouds, telling me: "Can cancer grow in birds? Does it kill owls in the forest, or eagles in the mountains? The deer maybe? The giant fish on the bottom of the sea?"

  With a desperate look I say: "I want a swimming pool."

  But the djinn begins to cough up blood, and it is damned sure, I won’t get any swimming pool today.

  *

  Days pass, the bitter smell of death fills my apartment. My djinn would need a treatment in a hospital, but I can't find his Health Insurance Card inside the magic lamp. So I tell him we are fucked. I brew some chamomile tea, and read a few articles about methods of shrinking a tumour. They say acupuncture can work wonders, so I begin stitching his air with a safety-pin, to activate his inner energy and self-healing abilities. But he looks worse, if that's even possible.

  All right, enough, I decide to make a complaint to the seller. I write him an e-mail, telling all about the state of my djinn’s health; I even threaten him that I will give a bad rating on the online auction site, if he doesn't take the lamp back. This, of course, is effective: a couple of hours later he answers – offering to send me a new one, if I return him the old.