R E D R I B B O N

Intro to a short story I wrote.

// R E D R I B B O N //

His chubby jaw struggles to open wide enough for my grenade. The combined voice of a generation roars from afar. I giggle. He whimpers. Just moments before, this 'all powerful' man was babbling about how we should dread what will happen to us. Crouching beside him I whisper, "The man that hath no music in himself..." Each word an arrow I shoot into his eardrums. Two waterfalls of tears join the rivers of innocent blood this man has spilled in a vain pursuit of power. This is it, this is: mayhem. This is Carnage. Revolution. Revenge. Obliteration. I give him a little smack on the cheek as his lips wrap tight around the not-so-little explosive. He's a pig on the dinner table, complete with the apple and all. I'm starving. Men unanimously dressed in black surround us in a circle. Us being: me and this bloke on his knees, like a high-school prom dance. I'm the king and this fat fuck is my queen. I pace around her. All eyes on our dance. Addressing the audience I fling my arms out expressively and spit my mind out into the open, "With this, we rid the world of infestation." The syllables just float there, lingering in the ephemeral silence. Clenched fists thud into the chests they sprouted from. I have myself an army of single-armed gorillas. We are the fist of the people. Continuing I utter, "The greatest parasite this world has ever known," my voice joined in prayer by the amputee gorillas, "it's not microbial, it's linguistic." I lead the sermon, "Free the world..." The ring light around the broadcast camera lens projects a minuscule halo onto her eyes. "Not by taking men's lives..." The gorillas' eyes bore into her, seeing all. Through that camera, two billion more sets of I's join us on this momentous occasion. "But by taking their tongues !" I pull the pin, ping, And her suppressed screams sing throughout this room with walls of skin. Beautifully she sings, solemnly. I know it's not going to blow and yet I still count.
1...
2..
3.
It ain't over till the fat lady sings. It's arduous to count accurately when you can feel death breathing down your neck. There's an inherent rush to it, you'd think a man who lives by the timer would count slower. Most grenades have a 4 to 8 second fuse.
4-Mississippi.
5-Mississippi.
6-Mississippi.
Gorillas stand stoic. Her eyes give off the most flagrant fear... It's in their most carnal moments that people are most beautiful. The grenade does not blow. We do not die, neither does she. Syllables dragging themselves up the traffic jam of her throat. I carelessly retrieve the grenade from her mouth, a jumbled grunt comes out with it, as if all the cars came out of the jam in a different order than they got into it. The fat man is wheezing like she just scaled heavens stairway. A singular gorilla, fist tightly wrapped around a tool, emerges from the pack. I hold this world leaders head by the hair, uncomfortably pulling its head back. The gorilla shoves his set of industrial pliers down the fat fucks throat, his whole arm jittering about in there as if he's searching for something. A smile cracks along the gorillas stone face, his tool reemerges into the limelight. Gorillas pound their chests to the rhythm of their heartbeats. The pigs sanguine tongue caught between the jaws of justice: I shiver. Rusty butter knives are by no means efficient cutters, so I get to work. The cold and grimy steel makes contact with this weapon of mass destruction. This is the red velvet rope that stands between I and the party. The red carpet, I'm finally here, glistening gorilla eyes blinking like paparazzi. This is the red ribbon I cut to unveil my personal pet project. 'The world, only renovated.' Fear in such a potent form has a tangible taste. We've broken it, this hollow husk of a man loosens up limp. It's with the pain now, the butter knife brutally tearing through each individual muscle fiber. I look it in the eye, making sure it hasn't passed out in its greatest moment of glory. I'm halfway through now and the heartbeat choir amps up, each thud is heavy artillery. Unified. Plier-gorilla is pulling at the tongue now, the flesh separating. I stop sawing at it and start stabbing. As I puncture it, the two remaining strands snap, a bloody mist painting me and plier-gorilla crimson. The tongue of the most powerful man in the world drops the floor with an unsatisfyingly gentle smack sound. I pound my chest and scream, "I will tear this world asunder, only then will it be free." Tonight, the pig carcass is a war memorial with red wreaths of shattered dreams laid at its base.