I survived because the bullet entered my skull at a velocity concurrent with whatever I was thinking at the time. Relative patterns emerged upon the crooked and messy exit process. The allegiance of scalp to bone, the fibrous rag fucked in then out by mechanical suction, reversed homeostasis by implosion. I understood, was corrected of past sciences. My mind became a puking rap I was forced to pace or die. Revving backward through calx memories at the speed of thought kept thousands of faces winding together inserted within the tissue: a big bang millisecond of confession, the epic break dance of my wrongs illuminated by contained disruption. I evolved beyond the rhythm of my dying and became temporarily invincible. This new physics incorporated the weapon of my assassin and used its damage to enhance cognition. A rafter of blood aligned slow gleams of my used-to-be thoughts and they danced so hard I could not die.

I curtsied for my assassin, broke the gun out of his hand, stopping my radius into his throat, collapsing him in one long swallow. His Adam’s apple, rabid purple thing, rolled squishing down my sleeve. The way we shed, our play dowsed the ceiling. He died with a second grade smile against the wall. My palm contorted the architecture. An ugly frame of his last seconds grew around him. I flattened his face into the asbestos, mulched the skull until every loose idea became paint. The hot spike of his bullet rotated through my brainpan, his ballistic rape session a constant boom. We established the oldest bond imaginable, introduced by engineered metals. A homosexual Nagasaki ricocheted my corneas. I cured him of any speed, no thought a strong enough adhesive to bind back what I kept smashing. He collapsed some animated smells. The room got nasty. I did not cease my disassembly project. Both our pockets filled with blood and yellow bone, jagged inches of what composed him to be used later, for unknown purposes. I turned him into paste. I made him rain indoors. It was like being married all over again. I learned everything about his casing in ten seconds and was bored.

The woman a floor below us began her menstrual cycle. I could distinguish the bloat and grind of her expanding uterus, hear the egg leak. Each contraction of her white rapids megaphone pussy popped my ears. I was encapsulated by the volume of her cycle. She bled so loud it must have ironed out the wrinkles in her labia. I shook the gun. Hair floated out of the barrel. Needing immediate alternative pain, I let the trigger slip. A hole smacked the floor and landed on her. Her composure influenced my diaphragm. I overheard the bullet swim, blood parting toward the wound, a path roared open. I had to cover my ears. Her uterus split in half from above, some tragically wrong orgasm, simultaneously fertilized and, through her mouth, as my bullet parted from her, a monologue of self-contained abortion issued silently. I pitied her newfound noiselessness. The only crackle was skin, no children on the passing floors opening gifts to celebrate my departure.

#

A fetal stretch of moonlight kept her band-aids glowing. Her sheet was gnawed down thin as she was. She tucked the pattern along a boney outline of hip. It ended just under her chin, settled against her lips, and she, now and again, absent-mindedly tongued the cloth.

She knew I could kill her, but it was the first date. I am many things, but never rude. Her room was too small for what I wanted. What I wanted took more than eight feet of space.

Her arms bent lazily off the bed. We were trying hard to distinguish which one of us appeared the most indifferent.

“I burn myself because this guy fell in love with me. He loved me so much I went along with him, like contagious laughter, but I didn't really care. I never have, of course, but when he got wise, I had to send him back to prison. He was given a mandatory case of AIDS. The blisters let him get closer to me from hell…or something.”

"I'm not easily impressed by that kind of kitchen utensil bullshit,” I said.

She walked her bare foot across my chest, the toes brown and tiny, worming under my left suspender.

“Take your band-aids off.”

“Why do you wear suspenders?”

“It’s a skinhead thing.”

“I didn't know you were a skinhead.”

“I’m not,” I said, incredulous.

“Does your mother still love you?”

“Not like that.”

She began peeling. Her blisters were shiny. She piled the beige scabs in front of my crotch. I picked one up and licked it. The sticky part fastened to my tongue. She stopped picking her knee and gave me a look.

“You suck my burns like Fred Astaire,” the damp strip of sheet covering her lips smirked.

“How long will it take me to get through this whole pile without water? Should I be asking one of your boyfriends,” I swallowed.

The adhesive grabbed every inch of my esophagus on the way down. By the time I swallowed all her band-aids, I was sweating glue, my lips popped open.

“Yuh nippuls ruh tuh bug,” I said, touching my tongue to my finger, immediately grafting my hand to my face.

Her body, white sheen of adhesive, snapped with each movement, tearing away from the mattress.

“Yeah, well, I'll be stuck to this mattress for a week. Good thing I gave up eating a long time ago.”

“Wah dat?”

“Your conscience,” she sighed.

I opened the door to her room with my free hand. A bat-faced mammal with long middle fingers slithered across the floor. Behind it, three men wearing tuxedos urinated into a grand piano. The creature tap-danced to the bed, jumping on her stomach and, realizing it was stuck, gave a shocked yowl. It flailed, clawing her.

“Ah, uts flippun us off,” I hollered.

“Shh! Don't scare him. This is my cute pet Aye-aye. Isn't he cute?”

Her face shimmered, a reeking mix of glue and blood. Dots of Aye-aye piss squirted across her torso. I grabbed the thing by its round, fuzzy head and yanked. It would not separate from her. It panicked and sunk its fangs into my hand. I failed at screaming and fell against the wall.

The well-dressed men rushed in. They fell on top of her, flattening the Aye-aye, bones popping loose from its skin like twigs through a wet paper jacket. It screamed and went into death throes, ejaculating a numbed hiss.

The men began raping her, although she kept insisting they were her cousins. Every time I cleared my throat, they said I was next in line. Finally, I wedged my penis up like a third suspender, but could only burp dead funnels of her blister-wipes.

When I got bored, the strongest cousin, blood-soaked, pinching both the girl's legs together above her head, pounding what used to be her interiors, in a strong Swedish accent, and I think he was talking to me, said: “I assume that by coming here you enjoy the mundane so much that for you it has become a scathing criticism of anything that pretends to interpret itself as unique.”

That sticky dead blob. What a confused child. Her voice was the oldest thing about her. 

“What kind of pile is this?” I thought, offended.

I cut my finger loose with a switch blade. My tongue was bleeding, but attached. I removed my cell phone and dialed.

“Mother,” I whispered.

“Fuck you want?” she hissed.

“Please, inform my life with a little meaning.”

There was dial tone.