I even fell in love this way, believe it or not. There was a kind girl who lived next to the hunter’s house who would feed the mastiff I lived in tasty leftovers through the gaps in the fence. She wore pastel sundresses and had dandelions in her hair. I couldn’t believe how light and beautiful she looked in the sun.
“What are you doing in there?” the girl said when she saw me peeking from the back of the mouth.
“I live down here,” I said, ashamed.
“Well, come on out!”
She laughed, but I was afraid and slid back down into the guts. I didn’t think a boy who had lived his life in the bellies of beasts was worthy of her.
I howled with self-pity, and the girl rubbed the mastiff’s belly, saying, “There, there.”
Eventually my constant loneliness made me resolve to leave the dog’s belly. And I did. Using all my strength, I pulled my way out of the mastiff’s maw. It was dark outside the dog. My limbs ached, and I decided to rest. As I sat on squishy ground, I realized I was merely in another belly. The dog had been gobbled up by a grizzly bear when I hadn’t been paying attention. I couldn’t believe my bad luck!
When I tried to escape the bear, she grew angry and climbed up a tall tree. I was almost a teenager now, and life felt like a rotten trap. Everything that seemed sweet contained hidden thorns. If I had fresh honey in my grasp, it was followed by the painful sting of swallowed bees.
But life moves on, and one grows accustomed to anything. Years passed. The grizzly was drugged and placed on a boat that set off for a foreign zoo. The boat was caught in a terrible storm, and the bear and I were tossed overboard, only to be consumed by a shark that was later swallowed, accidentally, by a giant sperm whale.
I was now in the largest belly I had ever been in. There was nothing to restrain me anymore. I was a man, and I had to make a life for myself. I set to work, building a shelter out of driftwood scraps and skewering fish from the stomach’s pond for food. Sometimes I thought about the little girl in the sundress and felt a sadness in my stomach. I lived in the whale for a long time. My skin grew spots, and my hair fell softly to the ground. My years were swallowed one by one by the beast of time.
Then one day, I noticed the whale was no longer moving. I hadn’t felt stillness in many years. I was afraid and sat waist deep in the cold saltwater. I pressed my ear to the whale’s rib cage and heard shouts and noises beyond the barrier of flesh. Then metal claws tore the walls of my world open, and I tumbled onto a wooden deck.
It took my eyes quite some time to adjust to the light. My old skin was covered in flecks of blood and slick blubber.
Between the unshaven sailors, I saw a woman looking at me and smiling. Her skin was crumpled with age, and her hair was long and white. She was wearing a green sundress and holding out her hand.
“How did you find me?” I managed to say.
“I’ve been searching for you all my life,” she said. She bent down to kiss me softly on the brow.
She helped me off the ship’s floor and gave me a bowl of hot soup. The sailors waved good-bye to us at the next port. We married and bought a little apartment in the city, far away from the woods and wild beasts. Inside, we enveloped each other in our arms and whispered the words we’d saved up over all that time. There weren’t many years left for us, so we were determined to live them happily. We drank dark wine and filled our bellies with rich meals of liver and ripe fruit.
Time passed, and my days were calm.
Yet despite all my happiness, life was uneasy for me on the outside. Often at night I would wake up in a sweat, my body encased in the tight sheets of our little bed in a cold apartment in a city surrounded by the warm sea. I felt small and alone in that dark room. I could feel the breath of my wife on my neck, but it felt like the breath of some unstoppable and infinitely large beast, the one waiting for the day that it would swallow me inside the blackness of its belly forever.
THE SOLDIER
The soldier was called into the sergeant’s tent and slapped across the face. There was something the soldier had done, of course, but he wasn’t sure what. The sergeant was yelling at the soldier, about either the shine or lack of shine on the toes of the soldier’s boots. It was a hot day in that foreign land. The soldier left the sergeant’s tent and, with the sting still blooming on his cheek, kicked a mangy dog in the ribs.
I would like to make a point here about violence inflicted on one person being passed down to another in an endless cycle. But the kick was accidental. The soldier was running to hide the tears welling in his eyes and didn’t notice the dog in his path. The soldier was far from home. He was in a lonely place, and the men he was trying to kill always seemed to be hiding in large bushes where he couldn’t see them.
The dog, however, was not far from home. He was a native dog and so was considered an enemy by the other soldiers. When the dog came by begging, the soldiers threw their empty bottles and cigarette butts at him. The dog would then run back into the forest only to come upon the rebel camp. There, the rebels, believing the black-haired dog to be an evil omen, would hit him and yank his tail.
The dog spent the days of the war like that, running to and from the camps, always in search of companionship. The soldier stepped on a land mine, and the sergeant died of an exotic disease, but the dog was still there. There were no other dogs in the woods he ran through. When he was hungry, he sat on the ground and gnawed on his own leg. Sometimes at night he would see the face of the man in the moon and bark loudly in anger.
THE HEAD BODYGUARD HOLDS HIS HEAD IN HIS HANDS
When the Dictator settles on a day of shopping, the head bodyguard notifies the store twenty minutes in advance. In this way, assassination plots are eluded. The Dictator arrives in a black limousine along with his four favorite bodyguards. The head bodyguard sits in the front seat and lazily scans the tops of buildings for any glints that might signify a sniper rifle or bazooka. The Dictator reclines in the backseat between two of the other bodyguards — two brothers, in fact — and sips a small cup of single malt Scotch and water. Sometimes he will substitute the Scotch for an obscure brand of grape soda he has consumed since childhood, although only if the Dictator thinks that the bodyguards will not be able to guess the contents of his drink. This is why the Dictator only drinks from black mugs.
Hastily, the boutique has been emptied until only one female employee remains. It is well known that the Dictator is fond of well-breasted women, and indeed the woman in the red dress — for the Dictator prefers red dresses on well-breasted women — is the bustiest woman the store currently employs.
The head bodyguard has known the three other bodyguards for as long as he can remember. Their fathers were junior partners in the same law firm, and they spent their summers exercising at the same country club gym. As schoolboys, their physiques and large allowances allowed them to twist and punch the arms and legs of smaller, poorer boys in the hallway between classes.
The head bodyguard has also known the Dictator for decades. By now, he feels the inevitable affection that results from years of proximity.
The bodyguards wear black Italian leather jackets, black sunglasses, and black slacks, and each carries a black snakeskin briefcase that contains various items the Dictator may or may not require. Each briefcase’s contents are unique. The head bodyguard’s briefcase contains the Dictator’s honorary diplomas — for the Dictator never completed university work on his own, having dropped out to pursue a career in advertising — an address book of various allies and surrogates of the Dictator; a list of the Dictator’s enemies, alongside each of their greatest weaknesses; a small box of ammunition; and two gold-plated.38 caliber pistols.