Sixteen Unsold Canning Jars
by Nolan Devine
They collected our passports at the bunker door, rendering us stateless tourists. They’d be returned when our bachelor party flew home to those who only ever witnessed our more socially accepted selves. One day they’d understand and perhaps even participate. Until then we’d enjoy our time as nameless helpers. Cash dropping daddies set free in this forgotten hole surrounded by the soil of a subhuman country. With all they’d been through our economic charity was the least we could contribute.
Our housing was dinky but the product within made the place an oasis. There were no windows. Diesel was in short supply. The lighting generator often choked in thirst for sips off a red jug. All six of us doubled up on mattresses, each bed beside another in a cement room with wet floors. I’d known these men since childhood. So I spent my first moments of rest reflecting on how our sleepovers had evolved.
In the room next to ours were a series of stalls with swinging doors. Each led to things much brighter than this building. We’d had a long first day of play and so felt tuckered out. As I drifted into sleep I heard the groom marveling just one bed over. ”Christ that kid made me pop off like a pipe bomb.”
That night I woke to screams of nonsense. For a moment I wrote them off as one of my good friends getting carried away in a stall. Soon enough I came to realize the cries emanated from the floor beneath me. I looked under my bed and let my eyes adjust to the movement in the dark.
Thrashing on the floor was a maroon colored man tearing at his face. His skin was shredded and coming off in curled pieces as he raked his claws across it. He was naked and the entirety of his thin body oozed. He continued lashing himself. His eyes were shut and he didn’t flinch. He seemed to be in an unconscious state despite his violent spasms. Maroon beat at the bed bottom. I could feel his punches ever so slightly, like that princess and her vegetable. I called for the unseen passport collector to rid this weed sprouting from the wet soil of our proto-Edenic hovel.
Maroon’s fist snapped a board on the bed’s frame. My friend slid into me as the mattress went lopsided. He was warm and wet. We both got up and hurried to the wall most distant from the nightmare man. In my crotch I registered the generator’s starting rumble. With new light I could see more of my friends stirring under covers and asking what the hell was going on.
The click of four approaching boots beneath burly men echoed from the stall room. Upon entering they saw the problem and kicked until it awoke and went limp. It seemed to sense no pain.
One of the armed men looked me in the eye. “We give our sorries for this disruption.”
I appreciated the politeness from these casually dressed, dark-hued men. They picked the still man up by head and mangled genitals, digging thumbs into the wreckage of his skin. He was carried to another room I previously hadn’t noticed. Its door remained open.
They booted his ribs as he huddled on the ground and made pleas. “Oh God, will nowhere take me?” His inside pieces crunched with each stomp. “Oh God, will you take me now?”
Through a scraped open cheek I could see a black tongue flicking against a crooked jaw as he formed a series of sickening cries. Over and over he screeched, demanding they end him. It caused me to reminisce on my boyfriend’s pet.
The dog passed in winter. We couldn’t penetrate the frozen ground to form a grave. I set the old thing in a snowbank until springtime. When the ground had give I came for the body with a barrow. Something got at the corpse over the snowy months. Its face was picked apart. The bone bag now had so little dignity in death. I was overwhelmed with compassion for the formerly grand canine. I knew once buried it would enter dog heaven where first impressions were the most important part of networking. I thought to make it look as if it died in a fight. Using my shovel I caved its ugly head. Later I felt its soul licking me in thanks.
The last of my friends finally arose from bed due to the screams and stomps upon the maroon-skinned man. One buddy, plump and sweaty, stomped from the stall room in mesh panties. He was upset at the disruption. The big men told him there’s no problem. To go back to what he was doing. They assured him he’d still get his herpes.
He picked at his dead worm. “Mmm, down there?”
They nodded.
Seconds later a stall door swung and he resumed his work.
The rest of us went into Maroon’s room and demanded answers. They said this man broke in two nights prior and did the same. Now he was back despite warnings. This confused boy wrapped in a man’s husk was known for delusions and destruction. He wanted a family but never found one. He claimed to have fathered all the workers. I was told he tore himself into a eunuch before puberty.
He often plied a statue of Judas with cigarettes and booze to have the universe send him things he wanted. The man acted out if they didn’t come. He torched his own shack a week prior when a tin of snus failed to yield forth a wife. Now he was lonely and distraught, clamoring for death. I felt bad for the troubled soul and wondered how I could help. I walked over and asked one of the large men for his handgun. I told maroon skin he could rent it from me for self-infliction. Just one penny.
He began to sob. “I can’t afford it.” The man begged me to shoot him.
I called out to the room. “Anyone got a penny for my friend?”
The room shrugged and laughed at what they thought was a joke. I understood their mistake. I believe every man should work for what he has but at the same time feel anguish when someone is in need. I handed the gun back to the big man. I asked if he’d help this invalid by letting him swap work for what he needed.
The two enforcers huddled to formulate an idea they soon relayed. He could pull the trigger on himself if he first gutshot an aging whore. Her monthly discharge was antithetical to the brand they were building. The client who liked to slurp it from a jar never came ’round anymore. This overripe apple had to be let go.
I told him it was a fair offer. That he should take the deal. I gently patted the burnt up man as he thought about accepting this win-win. He did.
I can be reached via commenting below or by emailing gabfrab@animail.net
WordPress was kind enough to send me this summary of how my writing was discovered in 2012:
Firstly, WordPress went nuts on your 2012 recap! How fun! Secondly, I admire how you use such good lines in your writing… I’m always paying attention to “good lines” in writing, like that’s all writing is made of (which I guess it is). I’m assuming, though, that you write these short fictions pretty quickly? How much revision do you need to get to these good lines… or is that a first draft thing for you? I write quickly then I revise. Are you a slow writer with good lines that appear to you in your head even before you write them down? I’m interested to hear about your process!
Good read but did not get connection title-story
I’m glad you got some enjoyment out of it.
Okay, so the story is about sex tourists visiting a brothel of child prostitutes. The place is run as a business with zero regard for the humanity of the children. This is despite the narrator’s constant justifications of how he’s doing a good thing. A prostitute is alluded to that is having her period and thus exiting childhood. Her value is defined by the people around her, and they think solely in monetary and sexual terms. Her period means she no longer draws money from the clients they attract as she’s too old for them. So to them she no longer has worth as a product, and long ago they stripped her of any worth as a human.
One of the final lines is about how there used to be a client that liked to drink her period blood but he doesn’t come around anymore. Since there is no one left willing to pay for this girl (because the place deals in selling children, not adolescents) they ask this burnt up man to shoot her for them. It’s ironic in that he castrated himself despite wanting kids, and now here he is killing one in a place of sex whose end game is never reproduction. The title refers to sixteen months of collected menstrual blood in canning jars they’d been saving for the period drinker. He hasn’t been back in nearly a year and a half and so that’s why this girl is slotted to die. Thanks for reading!
I stopped by to say thanks because you liked one of my posts, but then I read this piece. You’re fucking brilliant!
Nice Post !!!
Love what you’re saying here. Your title rocks. Thanks for the like.
i enjoy your writing. mostly because it makes me squirm.
Wow..what a fantastic entry. I love your writing style, and thoroughly enjoyed the read. And I want to thank you for taking the time to give me the like on my post, “iJordan.” I truly appreciate the support and look forward to rummaging around your site. Great, great writing, to be sure
Jordan
I love your previous piece about the ice. Are you in a creative wriitng program?
I appreciate that and I’m glad you enjoyed. I have a bachelor’s in English and I concentrated in creative writing with that. I’m not in an MFA but maybe that’ll come down for me once I’m ready to stop fucking off haha. Thanks for taking the time to read through.
Every time I read one of your posts, you blow my mind and I have to spend several minutes thinking about what I just read. I nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award because I think your blog and you are very talented. Here is the link to my post about the award: http://legendsofwindemere.com/2013/01/12/the-versatile-blogger-award/
Thank you so much. I’m willing to help pay for the damages done to your mind. Please send me an address for me to mail a check to.
Don’t worry. I’ve got a closet full of spares. Happens more often than you think due to a few faulty wires and an occasional power surge..
Your stories are every bit as crazy as my dreams. I love it.
Thanks so much.
This story actually originated from a dream I had a few weeks ago. In it I was sleeping in a cement room with old classmates. During our rest a maroon-colored man with a shredded face was picked up and carried away. He kept screaming “I can’t even afford to stay here.”
It wasn’t exactly a nightmare but it woke me up. I had to call someone about it because it unsettled me and wouldn’t leave my brain. Then I kept on thinking about those images and it eventually became this story.
This story is amazing! I stopped in today to thank you for visiting my blog and to give you the same courtesy, but find myself enthralled with your stories. I’d forgotten how great writing wakes my brain. I look forward to reading more of your work.
After reading this, I wonder how on Earth you ended up at my dorky little blog! However it happened, I’m sure glad it did.
this was more the kind of thing i expected from the ‘hostel’ films; i thought some of the scenes were a little restrained, but i don’t think that you know the meaning of the word
Unsettling and brilliant. I expect you will be famous…or infamous..one day. Thanks for the like. I shall return.
Another fab piece of writing. Have you got an agent? Major publications? YOu have a way with words, a disturbing way. You shall be famous one day, and I can say, “I used to read his blogs.”
Haha nah, no agent or anything published. I’m not too worried about monetizing this but kind words from people like you are worth lots. I’ve submitted to online publications but its never panned out. I should renew my efforts of getting the world to read my stuff about period blood drinkers haha. Thanks for all the nice things you said in various comments about my writing. Cheers!
Nice of you to drop by my blog as well. I appreciate it.
Enthralling, thrilling, dirty little joy ride. Read this at 10 in the morning and it’s more caffeinated and adrenaline-producing than a mix of frog blood and espresso mainlined into your eyelid. Thanks for waking me up and for visiting artofstarving. I shall follow your writing around like a rag behind a jitterbugging mummy.
It took me a few re-reads and some comment surfing to fully understand the story, but I really liked it. The writing itself is just great. Fantastic. Really good job, man.