stumbled outside and stood in the brinestorm. My sixteenth Sad Day party was scheduled for today. That's why I was suicidal, and also because I was born a pickle. All pickles kill themselves sooner or later. Anyway, back to my Sad Day party.
Mother tried baking me a cake but she slit her wrists instead. Father got so worried, he had an epileptic fit. I took my single present to my room. Alone, I unclasped the rusted latch of the mildewed wooden box. There was nothing inside. My parents had been so depressed, they forgot to buy me the customary sixteenth Sad Day present: a shotgun.
I dropped the box underfoot and stomped it into splintered scraps. I decided I would leave this place forever. I had reached this decision a long time ago. I hated Pickled Planet. I hated my fellow pickles. I hated brine. Every pickle received a shotgun on their sixteenth Sad Day, but not me. I guess I’m not your ordinary pickle. I don’t worship my sadness.
*
We were in the living room. Father and Mother lay side by side on the floor. They had blank expressions on their faces. Mother's wrists bled.
"Father?"
"Yes son?"
"Will you buy me Captain Pickle brand rocket thrusters? My rocket ship needs them. It's my Sad Day."
"Isn't the Nothing enough? Your Mother strained herself wrapping it this morning."
"I deserve more for my sixteenth Sad Day, don't I?"
"No, you don’t," Father said. "Go on now. Go away. Waste your own time. Build that stupid ship of yours. I don't care."
Father rolled onto his side and yelled at Mother. He called her pathetic. He called their marriage a disappointment. He called me a walking abortion. He called her pitiful. I left them lying on the floor and walked into the kitchen.
I opened the back door and shut it quietly behind me. I shivered.
The fallen, mold-flowering cacti twitching in the muddy yard reached their arms to the algae nooses hanging from the sky. Brinestorms made the cacti sick. I thought how lucky they were to be just physically ill.
The brinestorm cast a yellow glow on everything.
I bent over and dug beneath a cactus. I lifted a handful of garlic spiders out of the mud. I needed them to complete my rocket ship. Garlic spiders relied on cacti for nourishment, so they were easy to find. I pocketed spiders until my rubber trousers bulged.
I returned to our green, dome-shaped house and went straight to my room. I took my rocket ship out of the closet and set it on the floor, parallel to my bed.
My rocket ship was almost ready for takeoff. I would finish it today. I would launch into space at nightfall. I would discover happiness and never feel sad again.
I removed the tool kit from beneath the bed and set it between the bed and the rocket ship. The hollow craft was carved from the corpse of a pickle who'd been twice as large as me, allowing room for brine chowder, for when I got hungry on the journey.
I crawled into the cockpit and nailed a garlic spider to the control panel. Its pale guts splattered across my hands.
I nailed more garlic spiders to the panel. Their white, cloven abdomens formed perfect, tender buttons. They squeaked and pleaded as the nails pierced their squishy skulls. I pretended they were me, or I was them, but even fantasies of death failed to make me happy. That was the Eternal Plight of the Pickle. We were always sad.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to leave it all behind.
The Eternal Plight of the Pickle started a few hundred years ago, when the climate of Pickled Planet changed drastically. Our ancestors, who called themselves cucumbers and named this world Cucumber Planet, left behind a lot of books and pictures about the transformations that swept over the world. There used to be all kinds of joyful weather, like Happy Hurricanes and Smiling Tsunamis. The weather spread so much happiness that all the cucumbers danced and played and laughed every day of their lives. They were healthy creatures. They were glad. Even death was a fabulous affair in those
Mother tried baking me a cake but she slit her wrists instead. Father got so worried, he had an epileptic fit. I took my single present to my room. Alone, I unclasped the rusted latch of the mildewed wooden box. There was nothing inside. My parents had been so depressed, they forgot to buy me the customary sixteenth Sad Day present: a shotgun.
I dropped the box underfoot and stomped it into splintered scraps. I decided I would leave this place forever. I had reached this decision a long time ago. I hated Pickled Planet. I hated my fellow pickles. I hated brine. Every pickle received a shotgun on their sixteenth Sad Day, but not me. I guess I’m not your ordinary pickle. I don’t worship my sadness.
*
We were in the living room. Father and Mother lay side by side on the floor. They had blank expressions on their faces. Mother's wrists bled.
"Father?"
"Yes son?"
"Will you buy me Captain Pickle brand rocket thrusters? My rocket ship needs them. It's my Sad Day."
"Isn't the Nothing enough? Your Mother strained herself wrapping it this morning."
"I deserve more for my sixteenth Sad Day, don't I?"
"No, you don’t," Father said. "Go on now. Go away. Waste your own time. Build that stupid ship of yours. I don't care."
Father rolled onto his side and yelled at Mother. He called her pathetic. He called their marriage a disappointment. He called me a walking abortion. He called her pitiful. I left them lying on the floor and walked into the kitchen.
I opened the back door and shut it quietly behind me. I shivered.
The fallen, mold-flowering cacti twitching in the muddy yard reached their arms to the algae nooses hanging from the sky. Brinestorms made the cacti sick. I thought how lucky they were to be just physically ill.
The brinestorm cast a yellow glow on everything.
I bent over and dug beneath a cactus. I lifted a handful of garlic spiders out of the mud. I needed them to complete my rocket ship. Garlic spiders relied on cacti for nourishment, so they were easy to find. I pocketed spiders until my rubber trousers bulged.
I returned to our green, dome-shaped house and went straight to my room. I took my rocket ship out of the closet and set it on the floor, parallel to my bed.
My rocket ship was almost ready for takeoff. I would finish it today. I would launch into space at nightfall. I would discover happiness and never feel sad again.
I removed the tool kit from beneath the bed and set it between the bed and the rocket ship. The hollow craft was carved from the corpse of a pickle who'd been twice as large as me, allowing room for brine chowder, for when I got hungry on the journey.
I crawled into the cockpit and nailed a garlic spider to the control panel. Its pale guts splattered across my hands.
I nailed more garlic spiders to the panel. Their white, cloven abdomens formed perfect, tender buttons. They squeaked and pleaded as the nails pierced their squishy skulls. I pretended they were me, or I was them, but even fantasies of death failed to make me happy. That was the Eternal Plight of the Pickle. We were always sad.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to leave it all behind.
The Eternal Plight of the Pickle started a few hundred years ago, when the climate of Pickled Planet changed drastically. Our ancestors, who called themselves cucumbers and named this world Cucumber Planet, left behind a lot of books and pictures about the transformations that swept over the world. There used to be all kinds of joyful weather, like Happy Hurricanes and Smiling Tsunamis. The weather spread so much happiness that all the cucumbers danced and played and laughed every day of their lives. They were healthy creatures. They were glad. Even death was a fabulous affair in those
Similar Books
