Novum Corpus
They had no stomachs today. Just my luck. I woke up this morning feeling frail and weak; hell was in my belly. Or maybe my liver? Nevertheless, immeasurable core pangs were going on. I hobbled all the way over to the organ market to find myself some tripe for my stomach ache, to no avail. Desperate for some guts to eat, I wanted to ask the counter-clerk for some assistance; it would be my salvation to hear that they stored all the innards in the back freezer. Met with hesitation, however, I found myself struggling to ask the girl with the name tag for help. Maybe I should’ve just taken the pain like a man. Yeah! I should’ve just stayed home and adopted the Stoic lifestyle. Now those guys know how to live! Every possible alternative flitted across my manic mind. Do a flip, trip and fall, anything; without some guts, I couldn’t formulate my thoughts into an intelligible word. She looked so miserable, and scared, with “Patricia” about her bosom. I finally mustered up the courage to take a step forward toward her, but mid-stride I figured the word “Patricia” had too many syllables for me to effectively grab her attention with. I looked at the free periodicals next to her station, picked one up, and went home.
On the ride home, munching on a pack of BirdBrains, I noticed the migraine I had sustained was dying off, and I started mumbling to myself the word “coward”. Why didn’t I ask her? Can I dare to be honest? My stomach churned yet again. As I got settled at home, still enduring the stinging hurt above my belly, I noticed my roommate Jorge yelling in the bathroom. “Those friggin’ money-grubbin’ no-balls-havin’ scums!” It must’ve been the plumbers doing this time. He was the sort of man who had nothing nice to say about anyone, with pure vitriol coursing through his veins; it was all complaints and no solution. Yet I stayed with him as a roommate because I was the only one who could tolerate him. At that moment, though, I wanted to tell him off. Silence. The low drone of the ambient air filled the rests of my roommates’ outrages.
I just wanted some guts. I looked in the fridge and found all the organs gone. There was no brain, no stomach, no skin, and, of course, no heart. Jorge had told me a week ago that he was going off hearts’. The phone rang, startling my belly into a jolt of sharpness. It was my mother. I told her about my stomach ailment, and she began to vent with that sweet voice of hers (no doubt she’d been eating tongue lately) about how the entire nation was afflicted with a shortage of guts products and so I was doomed to suffer until we got a new supply lined up. She also recommended to me some heart dishes that would make my roommate digest them easier, but I told her that it’d be a miracle if he ever wanted to fix his darkened heart. That night, I couldn’t sleep through the weight of pain below my ribs. I turned on the television to the news station and to my surprise found that the national economy was about to crash due to the recent lack of businesses opening up and the increase of monopolies despotically taking advantage of price control.
“And so, citizens of , we see throb that no one throb is taking any risk throb of attempting…” The newscaster’s voice trailed off as my train of attention was intermittently disrupted by violent jabs to my core. Oh, how this searing pain was so loud and present! I threw myself onto the floor, trying to find solace in the frayed carpet that was my only companion. I hadn’t eaten anything all day; ailment is that great obstructor of appetite.
At that moment, however, I was reminded of my hunger; I thought I could eat a whole horse. And so I, like a drunkard, got up, knocked the coffee table about, and clumsily made my way out the door to find something to consume, anything. The night was young, it must’ve not been even eleven, and I made it my mission to find some stomach. Shoot, I’d even eat a whole body at this point, I remember thinking. But nothing came up; “STORE CLOSED! NOT OPEN! TOO LATE!” was the message I was getting from all the signage the businesses were adorning. They might as well have read “YOU’RE DEAD MEAT!” And I sure felt like it.
I heard some distant buzzing about a quarter mile in front of me, so, in a drool of desperation, I went. As I peeked through the corner of the glass mosaic wall, there were people singing some wonderful melody, a jubilant psalm sung ostensibly by angels. The people looked so full and complete. I’m sure they had some guts on ‘em, maybe I could eat them! I took one step forward to bum rush the resplendent beings in some carnivorous carnage and ended up waiting in the back alley until they left so I could pillage the kitchen. The clock struck midnight as I remained lying alone in the cold back alley, heavenly humming the soundtrack to my end.
My stomach spoke to me, grunting some mournful elegy, but I could barely hear what it said amidst the euphony behind me. I noticed a very dark liquid and some half-eaten pieces of a doughy substance in the “angels” back alley trash. I scarfed it all down in a single inhale. Disgusting! This was not a stomach! I needed a stomach! I needed guts, where are the guts?! I wasn’t thinking; it was eat or die. Immediately, I stood up with a vigor newly found and my belly stopped belting out its funeral dirge. The back alley door slammed open, and one of the choir members stepped out. “Welcome! How’s the body feel?” He said.