Free Slob by Rex Miller

stinging marks.
    The stream of black fills the round white ball like the ebb of black water rising in a dish of perfect, pure white, rising as the white heat cools in the black water, and the curve of the white dish is a black curve now as the water overflows and fills the dish and the rounding of the black curve that he sees so vividly becomes their gleaming, round piano top that Mommy was so proud of and on the top of her baby grand sits a ticking metronome, his mother's metronome, and Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski-Zandt breathes in the essence of the black and stills his beating heart with the ticking of the metronome.
    "Tick . . . Tick . . . Tick . . . Tick."
    And subtly, the imperceptible and inexplicable containment begins. Slower, with the slow, measured ticks of the ceaseless ticking pyramid, with every thu-bump, thu-bump, beat of his strong heart he slows wills slows wills slows his heartbeat down slightly, as he dreams he is driving listening to the hypnotic hmmmmmmmmmmmmm of the white line roaring through the dark envelope of night piercing the darkness with his twin lasers zooming toward a kill as the white line comforts him and stills his heartbeat with the measured tick of Mommy's piano-top metronome slowing willing sloooowwwwiiinnnggg
    "Tick . . . Tick . . . Tick . . ."
    And at first he dreams of a time when he was afraid. Yes, even he is sometimes afraid. He is getting on a bird and he hates them because it hurts his ankle when he drops out of them and then he must walk a long ways and it is not good. He is also afraid of the edge there where he must sometimes sit and he cannot look down or the bloodrush will take him and he will pitch forward and fall thousands of feet and die there in the jungle and he is afraid when he walks under the whirling blade and he is afraid when the noise is so great and there is screaming and he knows that he can shift his weight quickly in a certain way and cause a bird to pitch over and kill everyone in it and it pleases him to think about that when the crew chiefs work to counter his bulk and the only reason he doesn't kill them is that he might hurt himself when the bird tipped over and he is always glad when he feels them lift from him in a whirl of rocks and dust and limbs and stinging things and he often thinks of pitching a frag up into the birds when they lift off and how much fun it would be to see the bird explode in a ball of orange flame and how pleasant it would be to kill the smiling occupants.
    But he is a realist and a detail man and he must dream the dream in sequence or he cannot get to the lovely moment when he is there in the jungles killing the humans and taking the parts of them that satisfy his awful hunger and so he must think first of the time when he is still on the bird because that is the way that dream begins:
    It is 0230 and he is standing with a fireteam on the pierced steel planking of Ramp 2, at Quang Tri Air-strip, "Viceroy." They are boarding a Huey slick, and he must climb in first so that they can position his weight for the takeoff. They are arrogant as all of these helicopter personnel are, and he could easily kill them but they will take him where the killing is unlimited and wonderful, delightful killing fields where he can take many, many human lives, and he ignores these childish men.
    The starter makes an awful, pained noise and the turbine begins running up and the blade above them begins wh-yuuuuup, wha-yuuuuuppp, whaaa-huppp, yup, yup, ypppppppppppppppping as it picks up speed and the noise is a deafening blast furnace as the machine groans and shudders and improbable as it always is lifts in a whomp-whomp-whomp of spinning blades and noise and heat and confusion and he can overhear the pilot say, "Yeah, Diamond 21, Viceroy Tower, we gotta' load and we're up and on our way to Hillside Killer." The pilot smirks.
    "RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRRR," the radio crackles, [Garble] Diamond 21." And he hears the static garbage of intercom