Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck

ALSO BY DALE E. BASYE

Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go
Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
MY DAD, DALE,
WHO—DESPITE HIS COMPLETE LACK OF ORIGINALITY
IN NAMING CHILDREN—TAUGHT ME THAT
A WRITER’S GREATEST TOOL IS STICK—TO—IT—IVENESS,
UNLESS, OF COURSE, YOU HAPPEN TO BE A FLY
WRITING YOUR MEMOIRS ON FLYPAPER.

  
FOREWORD

  1.
SCAMMING THE FAT

  2.
LOST SHEEP ON THE LAM

  3.
CREATURE DISCOMFORTS

  4.
SCRAMBLED EXILE

  5.
STARK
,
RAVING MADAME

  6.
IN THE FLICK OF IT

  7.
DROP–DEAD GORGE–OUS

  8.
TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS

  9.
A DISGUSTING DISGUISE

10.
NOT JUST ANOTHER KITTY FACE

11.
FRIENDS IN WIDE PLACES

12.
HEALTH CLUBBED

13.
WALLOW THE LEADER

14.
SCOFF AND RUNNING

15.
SISTERS ACT UP

16.
JAILHOUSE RUCKUS

17.
COOKING UP TROUBLE

18.
DISEMBODY AND SOUL

19.
CALLING THE BIG SHOTS

20.
HIJINKS IN LOW PLACES

21.
OUT TO LUNCH AND OUT OF LUCK

22.
A CASE OF DO OR DIET

  
MIDDLEWORD

23.
LOST AND HOUND

24.
AS QUEASY AS PIE

25.
TENDER LOVING SCARE

26.
RUNNING OUT OF ESTEEM

27.
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

28.
HOLLOW
,
GOODBYE

29.
MIDNIGHT SHACK ATTACK

30.
LUCKY RUNS OUT

31.
DIVINE INTERVENTION

32.
WAKING THE DEAD

33.
A LOT OF HOT ERR

34.
CRY ME A RIVER

35.
PRESSED TO CHANGE-O

36.
POOP D

ÉTAT

37.
A NECESSARY UPHEAVAL

  
BACKWORD

FOREWORD

As many believe, there is a place above and a place below. But there are also places in between. Some not quite awfully perfect and others not quite perfectly awful
.

One of these places may seem to some, from the outside, like a big fat joke. But, I assure you, none of the unfortunates trapped within are laughing (unless one of their generous thighs happens to shift in an unfortunately farty way in their chairs)
.

This place—located at the bulging midsection of Heck—is, like so many realms in the underworld (and many above), completely
full of it.
Yet, almost immediately upon arriving, you feel as if you’ve stuffed yourself full of dozens and dozens of empty doughnut holes. That is to say, you’re left with only a sugar-scented vacuum, leaving you hungry for more
.
And, down in this place of ample curves that—ironically—doesn’t grade on a curve, more is in short supply (unless you mean
more
humiliation
, more
insecurity, and
more
exploitation—they’ve got
loads
of that!). Even more of a
good
thing, you’ll find—on the off chance that you actually stumble upon one down here—isn’t necessarily a good thing. Take dimples, for instance. A couple are cute on the cheek, but when they start appearing all over your body, suddenly no one is lining up to pinch you
.

With that in mind, this place called Blimpo is, in and of itself, a recipe for disaster. An insufferable, un-stuffable soufflé so full of itself that it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing collapses
.

The mysterious Powers That Be have stitched this and countless other subjective realities together into a sprawling quilt of space and time
.

Some of these quantum patches may not even seem like places. But they are all around you and go by many names. Some feel like eternity. And some of them actually are eternity, at least for a little while
.

1 • SCAMM
i
NG THE FAT

VIRGIL’S STOMACH RUMBLED
like a gastric earthquake, registering somewhere between a 6.7 and 9.4 on the digestive Richter scale. He was starving, but that was only half of it. His belly was also waging a protest against Blimpo’s aptly named Gymnauseum.

No matter where Virgil looked across the strobe-lit gym, the checkered pattern of the walls—painted in Pepto-Bismol pink and vomit-green hues—wobbled in sickening throbs. Between the hunger and the nausea, Virgil’s stomach was currently more active than the rest of his body had ever been.

Like Virgil, the other boys in the bleachers were hunched over with hunger at the sight of their seldom-seen-yet-surprisingly-
appetizing
vice principals on the raised platform below. It was, apparently, the first time in years that the vice principals had descended from the
floating castle that bobbed above Blimpo, tethered to the Circle’s inner courtyard. Virgil could instantly see why. Even the girthy girls perched across the auditorium—normally separated from the boys in Girls’ Blimpo but brought together for this special assembly—were rubbing their distended bellies with want.

The Burgermeister sat imperiously on an overstuffed, wheat-colored throne. His face was a pinkish-brown gray as plump and shiny as a roasted frankfurter, with a lattice of crisscrossed marks that made him seem flame broiled. Grease stains darkened his plush, ketchup-colored armrests; his round, pickle-colored head cushion; and the lettuce-green blanket he kept on his lap.

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