Survivor

Squirting huge teardrops toward her hairy vagina is a severed penis as big as a man.

Heaven, the words say, is an all-you-can-eat pussy buffet.

Heaven is getting fucked up the ass.

Go to Hell faggot.

Been there.

Go suck shit.

Done that.

These are only a few of the voices around me when a real voice, a woman's voice, whispers, 'You need another disaster, don't you?'

The voice is coming through the hole, but when I look, all you can see are two lipsticked lips. Red lips, white teeth, a flash of wet tongue says, 'I knew you'd be here. I know everything.'

Fertility.

At the hole now is a plain gray-colored eye made big with blue shadow and eyeliner and blinking lashes heavy with mascara. The pupil pulses large and then small. Then the mouth appears to say, 'Don't sweat it. Your plane will be delayed for another couple hours.'

On the wall next to the mouth it says, I suck and swallow.

Next to that it says, I only want to love her if she'd just give me the chance.

There's a poem that starts, Warm inside you is the love ... The rest of the poem is washed down the wall and erased by ejaculate.

The mouth says, 'I'm here on an assignment.'

It must be her evil job.

'It's my evil job,' she says. 'It's the heat.'

It's not something we talk about.

She says, 'I don't want to talk about it.'

Congratulations, I whisper. About the killer bees, I mean.

Scratched on the wall is, What do you call a Creedish girl who goes down?

Dead.

What do you call a Creedish fag who takes dick up the ass?

The mouth says, 'You need another disaster, don't you?'

More like fifteen or twenty, I whisper.

'No,' the mouth says. 'You're turning out just like every guy I've ever trusted,' she says. 'You're greedy.'

I just want to save people.

'You're a greedy pig.'

I want to save people from disasters.

'You're just a dog doing a trick.'

This is only so I can kill myself.

'I don't want you dead.'

Why?

'Why what?'

Why does she want me alive? Is it because she likes me?

'No,' the mouth says. 'I don't hate you, but I need you.'

But she doesn't not like me?

The mouth says, 'Do you have any idea how boring it is to be me? To know everything? To see everything coming from a million miles away? It's getting unbearable. And it's not just me.'

The mouth says, 'We're all bored.'

The wall says, I fucked Sandy Moore.

All around that, ten others have scratched, Me too.

Someone else has scratched, Has anybody here not fucked Sandy Moore?

Next to that is scratched, I haven't.

Next to that is scratched, Faggot.

'We all watch the same television programs,' the mouth says. 'We all hear the same things on the radio, we all repeat the same talk to each other. There are no surprises left. There's just more of the same. Reruns.'

Inside the hole, the red lips say, 'We all grew up with the same television shows. It's like we all have the same artificial memory implants. We remember almost none of our real childhoods, but we remember everything that happened to sitcom families. We have the same basic goals. We all have the same fears.'

The lips say, 'The future is not bright.'

'Pretty soon, we'll all have the same thoughts at the same time. We'll be in perfect unison. Synchronized. United. Equal. Exact. The way ants are. Insectile. Sheep.'

Everything is so derivative.

A reference to a reference to a reference.

'The big question people ask isn't 'What's the nature of existence?'' the mouth says. 'The big question people ask is 'What's that from?''

I listened at the hole the way I listened to people confess over the telephone, the way I listened at crypts for signs of life. I asked, so why does she need me?

'Because you grew up in a different world,' the mouth says.

'Because if anybody is going to surprise me, it's going to be you. You're not part of the mass culture, not yet. You're my only hope of seeing anything new. You're the magic prince that can break this spell of boredom. This trance of day-after-day sameness. Even there. Done that. You're a control group of one.'

But no, I whisper, I'm not all that different.

'Yes, you are,' the mouth says. 'And your staying different is my only hope.'

So give me some predictions.

'No.'

Why not?

'Because I'll never see you again. The world of people will eat you up, and I'll lose you. From now on, I'll give you one prediction each week.'

How?

'This way,' the mouth says. 'Just like right now. And don't worry. I'll find you.'

According to my itinerary, I'm in a dark television studio on a brown sofa, a 60/40 poly-wool blend by the feel of it, a broadloom weave, treated to resist stains and fading at the center of a dozen stage lights. My hair styled by. My clothes designed by. My jewelry provided by.

My autobiography says I've never been more joyful and fulfilled in my joy of living life every day to its fullest. The press releases say I'm taping a new television program, a half hour every late night when I'll take calls from people needing advice. I'll offer new perspectives. According to the press releases, every so often the show will include a new prediction. A disaster, an earthquake, tidal wave, rain of locusts could be headed your way, so you'd better tune in, just in case.

It's sort of the evening news before the fact. The press release calls the new show Peace of Mind. If you could call it that.

It's Fertility who said I'd be famous someday. She said I'd be telling the whole world about her so I'd better get my facts straight.

Fertility said, after I was famous to describe her eyes as catlike.

Her hair, she said, was storm-tossed. Those were her exact words.

Yeah, and her lips were bee-stung.

She said her arms are as smooth as a skinless chicken breast. According to Fertility, the way she walked was fun-loving. 'After you're famous,' she told me, 'don't make me look like a monster or a victim or anything.' Fertility said, 'You're going to sell out your entire religion and everything you believe in, just don't lie about me. Okay? Please.'

So part of my being famous is I do this weekly sit-down program with a famous television journalist to