A Million Versions of Right (21 page)

“My great grandfather came across his notes and the first batch of woebegone several decades later. He was no scientist and couldn’t even decipher the rudiments. However, he was instinctive enough to know that they were important. As such, everything was stored in a vat of my great grandmother’s chutney where he was sure it wouldn’t be touched – my great grandmother was renowned for her unpleasant chutney.

“As luck would have it, shortly after my grandfather was born, he stumbled upon the chutney vat and went for a swim that nearly took his life. When he was eventually rescued – several months later – my great, great grandfather’s notes were attached to his legs. Whereas most children of sound mind exhibited love for a favourite teddy bear or doll, my grandfather became enamoured with the notes. Thankfully he was in possession of mild scientific aptitude. He could sense their import almost immediately. He handed the notes down to my father and instilled a love of science that ultimately lead to a failed batch of woebegone. This same love of science was eventually handed down to me and I finally perfected the woebegone formula. I’ve been sitting on the woebegone for decades and it has become apparent that I need to act. I will ultimately end menstruation.”

I was staring hard into Max’s eyes, trying to extract jest from his story. No matter how hard I stared, Max was as earnest as ever. “I have no doubt that you’re nuttier than a testicle factory, Max, but you haven’t even touched on how I’m involved in this.”

Max nodded in agreement before taking another sip of tea. He sprayed the putrid broth from his mouth in disgust, seemingly unaware that he had already endured it once. “Wow, that tastes particularly dreadful. I wouldn’t recommend touching yours, Jack.”

“Duly fucking noted. Get to the point.”

“Of course, I’m sorry, Jack. You see, the onset of menstruation had a particularly unusual side effect. Unusual in that the side effect befell the male population. It stumped them then and it still stumps us now. You see, Jack, men never used to have hair. The minute females began to experience menstruation hair began to sprout from the male head.”

I clenched my fists into white hot balls, feeling an intense urge to punch him. Who the fuck did this whacko think I was? Did he really think anyone, let alone me, would fall for this cock and bull story? Max could clearly sense the rage my disbelief was causing and defensively waved twinkly fingers at me. This calmed me for reasons beyond my understanding.

“So after all of that, it leaves me with you, Jack. I have every reason to believe that if I enact my plan and the menstruation stops, all men will lose their hair once more. I’ve been watching you for several weeks and I can think of no one more qualified to understand the detriment my actions may cause. At the same time, if I do follow through with it, I need to do it in the place it would affect the most. I need to know how bad it could get.”

I glared at Max in stubborn silence. I had been to hell in the last couple of days and for what? For this? For some nutjob to unload his delusional fantasies on me? For some bald bastard to fuck up the only thing I truly loved? The District was my heart and Max’s jar toppling antics were the hands wrenching it from my chest. I didn’t want to say a word to him because there was nothing worth saying. There were no words qualified enough to express my desolation; my rage. There was only the growing silence, which clearly made Max uncomfortable and filled me with a fleeting sense of power and control.

He stood up and walked toward a tiny chest of drawers. I watched in detachment. From the top drawer he retrieved a small jar of red pills, which he shook nervously in his hand like a medicinal maraca. The drawer was gently closed and Max made his way back to the chair.

“These pills, Jack, they’ll show you what it’s like to be female. They’ll force you to feel what so many women were designed to feel. These pills will temporarily inflict the symptoms of menstruation. I can’t make you help me and concede that expecting your counsel is quite unlikely. But I need you to feel it, Jack.”

He placed the pills carefully on my chin and I stared at them in their spherical perfection.

“I need to leave for a few days. I plead with you to stay here. It’s not safe for you on the streets. I sincerely apologise for any misery my actions may have caused. Really I do. Just think about what I’ve told you. Take the pills, Jack. I hope you’ll still be here when I return.”

Max tightened his cape and headed out the door, turning around one final time to reiterate, “Take the pills, Jack.” I stared at the closed door for what felt like hours until the overwhelming thought broke through,
what’s with that stupid fucking cape?!

* * * * *

I wasn’t about to start shoving mysterious pills down my throat, especially if they came from that maniacal bald man. Who knows what they were laced with? I’d probably swallow the pill and find my dick slurping into my body like wet spaghetti. I had one goal in mind. I had to get back into the good books with my comrades from the District. If I didn’t, my life was fucked. I readily admit that I knocked over Billy’s jars but it was completely accidental. I was even willing to endure some form of punishment for the mistake. If it meant that I had a shaved head for a while, so be it.

I needed rest and I needed plenty of it. When my head was clear I would simply amble into the District with an apologetic smile and take it from there. It was up to them to forgive me. I just hoped they could find it in their hearts. It was a tall order. I shut my eyes and sleep struck me instantly. I dreamt a montage of slimy tongues licking up coffee rings from various surfaces. It was strangely cathartic.

I awoke in reasonably high spirits surrounded by bowls. I hadn’t collected bowls in my sleep since my pubescent years and my return to old ways intrigued me. I brushed them aside and embraced the dull chinking sounds with open ears. My bladder was long like a bank queue and if I didn’t get the piss out of me soon it was bound to burst like a bank queue. Max’s abode didn’t appear to contain a toilet of any sort so I filled several of the bowls that now littered his house.

I approached the only door Max had with optimism. An optimism that was dashed the second I stepped outside.

 “There he is!” someone yelled as they threw a pair of barber’s scissors with devastating velocity. I caught a flash of their angry face before a blur of spinning steel engulfed my vision. My forehead stopped the blur and the scissors lodged with a cartoon-like twang. I fell backward, instinctively pulling the door shut with a hooked foot. I clutched at the scissors, feeling my warm blood trickle like a weak fountain. There was no real pain at first, just surprise and a deafening ringing in my ears. When the pain did hit a few minutes later it burnt like lightning. I howled with tears, which instantly gave me an erection. While my wanking hand went to work, the other grasped at the scissors in my forehead. All the while the blood and tears merged on my chin before arcing to the floor. As I ejaculated I recalled how angry the scissor thrower had looked, which caused my semen to retreat back into my testicles and shiver like an orphaned lamb.

The ringing in my ears faded, giving way to the multitudes which had now gathered outside Max’s house. They were screaming for my hair; for my death. Slamming at the walls with bare feet and hacking at the front door with scissors and combs. The door splintered and cracked but somehow refused to give in. I was faced with imminent death and strangely, all I could think about was the packet of Barber’s Delight chips which had been crushed beneath my fall earlier.

I crawled back into the bed that Max had prepared for me, curled into a world-ignoring ball and closed my eyes. I was inside the chip packet, empathising with each and every chip as they became crushed into crumbs. I moved in to hug them, to mourn them, but I was also crushed. I could feel every crumbled speck of myself as if still connected by phantoms but I had no control. Instead I felt every piece of myself assimilate into the potato dust; felt every piece of myself screaming in private torment,
I don’t belong here.

* * * * *

I opened my eyes to calm. The multitudes were gone. I reached for my forehead, already half-assuming it had all been a dream. The scissors were still lodged as painfully as ever. I picked at the clotted blood, inviting fresh flow. I felt utterly trapped and alone. I even found myself longing for the return of Max. I didn’t want to be alone in this mess.
How could they all shun me so utterly? Hadn’t my work meant anything to any of them? Couldn’t they see that I lived and breathed the District just as they did?
I was a part of them as they were a part of me. Wiping me out of the District should be sadomasochism on their part. At least that’s what I would have thought. Now I was seeing things differently, in an uncomfortable new light. They didn’t need me. They didn’t care.

My mind kept lingering on Max’s menstruation claim. It’s not as if I began to believe him. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I disbelieved, but he was damn passionate; I couldn’t deny him that. I wanted that passion within myself. The passion I used to have. The passion that Max had removed from me. I wanted to inflict him with my revenge. The truth was I
did
have thoughts of revenge; it’s just that they weren’t directed at Max. They were directed at the District. Max’s only mistake was to clumsily knock over the comb jars and I was an unfortunate casualty of that. The District hadn’t even made a mistake. They were calculated in their attempts to do me in. The more I thought about it the darker the residents of the District seemed. They didn’t deserve my passion and commitment. They deserved nothing.

I ran my fingers seductively over the jar of pills. I pondered their contents and imagined my body absorbing them. I contemplated popping one in my mouth and waiting for my body to react. I wanted desperately to trust someone and I sure as fuck couldn’t trust those bastards out there. Max was the only thing left. Could I trust him? Did I want to trust him?

The minutes dragged like decades. I explored Max’s strange little home, which was ascetic in its design. There was an armchair, a stove and an unfinished manuscript, penned by Max, devoted to buttock jokes. I flicked through it. The jokes weren’t overly amusing and I could understand why it sat unfinished. There was a basket of food in the corner that I assumed was for me. I hadn’t eaten in a while and knew that hunger should be knocking but it wasn’t. The food looked unfamiliar and didn’t smell overly edible. I left it as a last resort. I decided it would be sensible to pass the time sleeping and forget about the District, Max and the scissors in my head.

Sleep wanted to take me but my body wouldn’t allow it to fully penetrate. I just skirted around the dazed edges. Restless dream flashes concerning women’s rights and misogyny drizzled through my brain. A militant feminist performance artist was extolling the virtues of menstruation and flicking her blood at me with spindly fingers. Several more women informed me that the artist didn’t speak for them; that for every woman who embraced menstruation there were a hundred others who didn’t. I was reminded that a man has no right to an opinion regarding the topic at hand. I was told to go back to my macho Hair District and have a bear hugging party. My penis was minced by horse teeth and I was laughed at. I mounted the same mutilating horse and tried to escape the mockery but was bucked off after a short time. I crawled desperately through a field that at once became an enormous vagina-scape. I was swallowed into nothingness.

I popped the lid without thinking and placed a pill onto my tongue. I swallowed and felt as it travelled down my throat in a painful, dry scrape. Then I just waited. 

* * * * *

There was nothing at first except for an increase in my appetite. I crawled over toward the basket of food and sniffed at the contents. I picked up a jar of grey paste and slowly unscrewed the lid. The smell leapt out and bitch-slapped my nose. I dry wretched but had nothing to bring up. After several minutes I acclimatised to the odour and decided to scrape out a large gob of the paste with my fingers. It instantly dried into a crust, which transformed the odour into delectability embodied. I sucked at the hard crust and embraced a flavour that was orgasmic in its utter perfection. I scooped out as much paste as my fingers would allow and smeared it about my body. The next several hours were spent picking at the crust and devouring as much as I could. The acid in my stomach churned in appreciation.

With my appetite satisfied I began to experience an amazing awareness of my own body. My nipples were aching and jutting out like pins. I spat on my hands and slowly massaged the saliva into my nipples, which did little to curtail the sting. This affected my mood rather strongly and I began to cry dismally, which in turn gave me an erection that I took care of immediately. I grew incredibly angry at my penis after I ejaculated and slapped it about until it shrivelled away. Every emotion inside me grew into unstoppable behemoths that wrapped themselves around everything. I wanted to break things, I wanted to howl but most of all I wanted my mother. I screamed for her, knowing full well she wouldn’t come. I hugged at a pillow, pretending it was her; imagining her caring arms around me, totally looking after me.