(Yesterday, I blew up a bank as eight year old Jenny Steward was about to withdraw enough money to buy a baseball bat so that she could beat her bullying older brother to death. Someone tried to rob the bank at about the same time that several other people were about to rob the bank. None of them got to rob the bank and Jenny never got to beat her brother to death with a baseball bat. Today, Louise Harmon wants to be blown up and her best friend, Kyle Saunders, wants to be eaten by dragons. WTF)
Louise Harmon was obsessed with being blown up. As long as she could remember, she’d had fantasies about being blown up. Her favorite dreams were the ones in which parts of her body were flying all over the landscape. She read stories about people being blown up in Afghanistan and India and she was jealous. She couldn’t understand why she’d been born into a small town a million miles away from where everyone was being blown up.
Louise, of course, had few friends. In fact, she had just one friend, Kyle Saunders. Kyle wanted to be eaten alive by dragons. Louise felt that she could respect Kyle’s desire, even though she felt that her death wish was a little more realistic. And he didn’t talk much about it. He just stated clearly and concisely, “I want to be eaten alive by dragons.” And left it at that, which was fine with Louise because it meant that she could spend all their mutual time talking about being blown up.
“I mean, don’t you think it would be cool to feel every cell in your body separating from every other cell in your body?” said Louise as she and Kyle sat on lawn chairs in his back yard. Kyle always nodded agreement, even though he thought it would be much better to have all your cells digested together inside a dragon’s stomach.
“Can you imagine that feeling just before you feel the full force of the explosion?” she said dreamily. “I mean, that split second right before. What would that be like? Would it be heat? Numbness? A full-body itch? A tingle? I somethings think that it would be like picking the scab off a sore…like ripping up the top layer and then the next layer and the next.” Kyle nodded agreement, noting mentally that his friend was missing the joy of feeling razor sharp teeth dicing her body into succulent portions ready to be swallowed.
“And just imagine…being completely evaporated. Can you imagine?” Louise’s eyes were beginning to bulge a little with excitement. “Evaporated! I mean, turned into mist, gas, vapor. Wouldn’t that just be the coolest thing you could imagine?” Kyle nodded, but he really couldn’t understand how Louise could miss the exquisite splendor of having her body torn to shreds by giant reptilian claws and tossed into a maw smelling of brimstone. What was wrong with her?
“I mean, nothing left of you but a giant hole in the ground where you were standing.” She was beginning to froth at the mouth. “Your vapor mixing with the smoke and fire.” Kyle nodded cautiously. It looked like Louise was about to explode just from wanting to be blown up. He imagined her head expanding so that all the parts of it separated into blood soaked projectiles and he had to admit…it seemed like a pretty cool idea. But it lacked the dignity of a mythic creature, something feared and referred through the ages. Something so fearsome you could stand proud and say, “I was eaten by a dragon.”
Louise suddenly went silent. Her eyes sunk back into their sockets. She wiped the froth from her lips. “I don’t know, Kyle,” she said wistfully. “Is it too much to hope for? I mean, I could die tomorrow from a car swerving off the road and onto the sidewalk. Where’s the beauty in that? Run down by a frickin’ car.”
“So ordinary,” said Kyle, nodding agreement. “Everybody gets run down by cars.”
“Exactly,” said Louise. “I mean, why couldn’t I have been born some place where people are being blown up more than they’re being run over by cars. It’s just not fair!”
Kyle forced a smile and said, “Don’t worry, Louise. Some day you’re going to be blown up. I just know it. You are.”
“Really, Kyle?” she said, imploringly. “You really believe that?”
“I sure do,” he said. A smile curled across the lower half of his face. “I have an idea. Let’s try something.”
“Does it have something to do with being blown up?”
“Yep.”
“Not being eaten by dragons? Blown up.”
“Blown up.”
“OK, what is it?”
“Let’s both close our eyes and visualize being blown up.”
Louise rolled her eyes. “Kyle…I do that all the time.”
“But this time we’ll be doing it together. A group effort. We both merge our energies and lift ourselves to another plane of being where you get blown up.”
Louise laughed. “Kyle! That’s crazy!” She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “But…OK. Let’s do it. It might be fun.”
“OK. But first we have to touch foreheads.”
Louise looked at him suspiciously. “Kyle, if you try to kiss me…”
“I’m not trying to kiss you! Eeuw.” He made a face convincing enough to convince Louise that he didn’t ever under any circumstances want to kiss her.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that but this game was starting to excite her. “OK,” she said as she leaned her head forward.
Kyle did the same and they were touching foreheads. “Now,” said Kyle, “put all your thoughts and energy into being blown up.”
They both squinted their eyes as they concentrated. And concentrated.
After a few moments, Louise said, “You’re not thinking about being eaten by dragons, are you, Kyle?”
“No. I’m thinking about your head disintegrating and spraying all over the walls and ceiling.”
“OK. Good, keep focusing on that.”
They squinted their eyes and…
“Did you feel that?” said Louise.
“I’m not sure. You mean the rumble?”
“Yeah. The…”
And in that instant, Kyle knew that he was never going to be eaten by dragons as he and Louise evaporated together.
___
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