Let Them Whimper: A Fully Justified (In No Way Personal) Argument for the Abandonment of Humankind: A Novel by K. Enterante

Author:K. Enterante [Enterante, K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798987733813
Publisher: Oblivion Press
Published: 2023-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Seven sigs huff hard and fast to keep the fifth wall’s glass properly fogged, racing evaporation itself as they work as one to keep the scenes on the other side erased from view. The more they can’t see with their eyes—the more the glass betrays a screen of milky white—the more Calvin can see inside his head and theirs, can feel his way into his heart and theirs . . . the more the pain in his hair and theirs lessens.

The clubhouse under the Play Day House fills up with powerful feeling.

The word neurasthenic surfaces to mind like an echo made of memory, but this time—for the first time—it means something to Calvin: neurasthenia is what is leaving their bodies, he’s realizing, a collective cloud escaping their mouths and oozing over the glass like some ectoplasmic haze, shrouding scenic sights only feigning to be paradise. What leaves their bodies is what brings into the room the chilled warmth of wintergreen, whose secondary source is Calvin’s handkerchief, whose original owner was a kind, compassionate sig named Hanky who preferred Batman to Captain America, who helped Calvin pick a pair of shoes that fit his feet perfectly. Hanky, who’s been present all this time in his own significant way.

Hanky’s hanky—For your face—keeps Calvin safe.

Maria slits little diamonds into the fog with her pinky, telling Mario every little thing’s going to be all right, while Angela ribbons a string of interconnected circles below, underscored with a single upside-down triangle. Prayer should be what connects us, Angela says, so why have we let it divide us? Homer begins a harrowing tale with the conscientious air of somebody operating under clarity’s superlative spell, birthing the stars that make up the asterisms that make up the Big Dipper and Winter Hexagon and Northern Cross, all scattered across the fifth wall’s glass so as to indicate the view of the night sky from Homer’s hometown in Australia. Homer proceeds to wipe out every last star system with one slow sweep of the hand. The void that’s left behind fills right back in with the gaseous haze of neurasthenic pain leaving the sigs’ bodies behind. Calvin condenses the story Homer’s told into five insidious words: My home is on fire.

“True, in Australia’s case,” a droning voice seems to lament.

All seven sigs twist around, throwing their eyes toward the e-waste hill nested in shadows only the corners of rooms have. Calvin’s heart’s secret clock tracking their home world’s degradation’s progress ticks and ticks, and ticks are what they are, the bugs making up Mr. Moony’s body—Bod, their name is—taking the shape of horseys or goats or birds or fish or what-all. Presently Bod looks a bit like a beetle, six legs and their attached appendages splayed over the e-waste. Mr. Moony’s pale oval face hovers near what might be the thorax. Bod’s beetled form is maybe half the size of the hill on which it’s perched.

“America also enjoys a state of great indigence on every level, Calvin,” says Mr. Moony.

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