Lepers and Mannequins by Eric Beeny

Author:Eric Beeny [Beeny, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Eraserhead Press
Published: 2011-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

Quall felt all the lepers staring at him.

All of them, in the woods, sloshed through the mud, pulling one foot out of the mud as the other foot sank into the mud.

Sometimes a leper’s foot, sometimes a whole leg, would snap off from the suction.

Those on crutches, like Autocrates, and now Farmer, were doing their best to not sink half their crutches into the soggy ground, losing any leverage to hoist themselves back out if they got stuck.

All the lepers kept on as best they could, carrying tattered burlap sacks full of hand grenades slung over their shoulders and empty burlap sacks folded and tucked into the ropes wound and tied around their waists to fill with all the mannequin limbs they would harvest—spare parts they would use to rebuild themselves.

Quall, too, carried his tattered burlap sack slung over the shoulder with only his one arm left.

Farmer watched Quall force-feed his sack dark green jellybeans back at the colony where he told his pet mannequin to stay and guard the colony’s entrance.

Farmer hardly spoke in the woods.

He breathed real hard, sometimes stopping to look around and wonder whether or not he was going the right way.

Farmer led the lepers, and he wanted Quall right beside him—both to watch Quall and to ask him directions.

Quall felt all the lepers behind him, staring.

He felt them plotting something.

He wasn’t sure what to expect.

“How much farther?” Farmer said.

“I don’t know,” Quall said. “I’ve never been there.”

“Bullshit.”

“We always meet in the woods.”

“Mellon,” Farmer called.

Mellon pushed through all the lepers, carefully, past Rosko and Soren and Credo and Bayer, too.

“Yeah, Farmer?”

“Where did you find our friend Quall’s arm?”

“Just over that hill, beyond those trees.”

Farmer looked where Mellon was pointing.

Quall closed his eyes, put his head down.

Farmer nodded toward the hill.

Mellon led the lepers through the woods to where he found Quall’s arm buried under a soft patch of wet leaves near a small stream.

All the lepers stopped behind Farmer and Mellon.

Farmer looked at the soft patch of wet leaves.

“We going to find your dick here, too?”

Quall turned away.

He didn’t say anything.

Farmer looked at the stream.

“I think we should follow it.”

“Yeah,” Mellon said.

“Let’s move.”

Quall and the other lepers followed Farmer along the stream.

Rain soaked their clothes, weighing them down, their hopes heavy.

But the prospect of rebuilding themselves was greater than the gravity of their impending oblivion, enough to lift their legs and hoist them forward, pump blood through their leprous limbs, air into and out of their lungs, as if their entire bodies were involuntary muscles they would give anything to replace with parts they wouldn’t ever have to move again.

Lepers wished they could be like mannequins.

Mannequins never died, lepers thought.

Lepers could only rebuild themselves so long.

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