unintelligible mutterings of a not yet dead corpse

by Odin Meadows

The corpse lies on the couch eating Cheerios while I clean. It keeps muttering in a loop, That fire poker, the one by the fireplace. The secrets to salvation. God put it in the tip of that there poker. You need to drive it into your eye. Grab the poker and shove it right in.

I ignore it, sweep up the last of the cereal off the floor.

The bell rings.

My guests, Paula and John, walk in, catch me with the dustbin of Cheerios. Paula throws her purse across the living room, and it lands neatly on the mantle. She kicks off her shoes, then sits upon the corpse’s chest, squeezing rotten air out of its lungs.

It smells fucking rancid. I dump out the Cheerios, gagging a little. John sits next to Paula, snapping the corpse's legs. God! Can’t they smell it? It doesn’t look like they can.

They can smell it, the corpse croaks. No, if they could smell it, I would be able to see it on their faces, so I sit in the recliner, not on the corpse. I can’t.

They smell it.

We make small talk. Me, Paula, and John. Things have been a little awkward lately, but we’ve been ignoring it. They smell it. I ignore that, too. Paula brings up John’s promotions, and he starts hogging the conversation, which I don’t mind.

Two beers in, Paulas excuses herself to the restroom. The corpse wheezes in a long breath. John knows you want to fuck Paula. His eyes shoot at me, a smile creeping across his mug.

I ignore it.

Paula returns.

We’re four beers deep now, and things get loose. The corpse rummages between the cushions, shoves a handful of Cheerios in his mouth, and Paula brings up the topic of sex. Well, sex between her and John, but the conversation shifts, asking me when I’m gonna get a girlfriend, beginning their tedious ritual of trying to get me to go out.

John knows you want to fuck Paula.

I ignore it, again, tell them, No no, I’m good, really, and down my fifth beer. I’m not lonely at all, and I don’t drink. Well, to tell the truth, not since the corpse, but I say since college, and John nods, says, That’s when Paula and I settled down.

John knows you want to fuck Paula.

I shake my head and say, Yeah, me, too. I finish off my sixth beer, and things get fun. John says, Good thing I’ve got Paula to keep me satisfied and pulls her in toward him. I say it must be nice and hope she’s satisfied, as well. I laugh to soften the jab. Paula says, Oh, he does.

John knows you want to fuck Paula.

No, he doesn’t, I say. I only feel the words, don’t remember saying them. John says, What the fuck does that mean? The corpse starts laughing this maniacal, fucking laugh. Paula looks confused. I’m sorry, I mutter, I’m sorry.

John punches me in the face and the world splatters into darkness. The corpse's laugh turns into a droning screech. I fall back into the recliner, the back of it slamming into the wall. I open my eyes. John is staring at me all red-faced.

I’m sorry, I say. Blood drips over my lips, down my chin. Paula grabs John by the arm, and brings him back to the couch.

I excuse myself, walk up to the bathroom. My nose is fucked, all bruised and now crooked to one side. I twist it back into place, and the corpse’s scream slowly devolves into a series of grunts, grunts and moans, moans and pants and pants and pants.

They’re fucking, the corpse screams up the stairs.

I drop the towel and run downstairs. They’re not on the couch. The corpse is lying there alone, chomping on more Cheerios. Where are they? The doors open. I run outside, catch them leaning against the porch railing.

“What are you doing?” I ask. Just needed to get some air. says Paula, It was starting to smell kind of weird in there. I gasp.

They can smell it, laughs the corpse.

I sprint back inside to my supply closet. I throw the door open, and an avalanche of Cheerios pours out. I sift through the cascade of tan, digging into its tiny circles, searching desperately for the air freshener.

They’re fucking.

I run back into the living room. Nobody. I run into the kitchen. Paula and John are sitting at the counter in front of a tipped-over box of Cheerios. They’re picking them up and eating them one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one…

What are you eating? I ask. Paula’s head whips up, the irises of her eyes…Cheerios. She mutters, The secrets to salvation.

I stumble backwards, grab the moulding to catch myself, but it breaks, and I fall onto the floor.

The hole. I stand up and look at the hole. “Is that?”

I grab a little fray of wallpaper, start pulling, and underneath…underneath, it's all Cheerios. They spill out of the hole I formed like a Cheerio faucet, forming a pile on the floor, an ever-expanding pile.

Paula and John drop to their knees, begin eating the crunchy loops by the handful. The corpse laughs. It laughs and laughs.

Grabbing it by the shoulders, I shake it, scream and scream at it. It laughs louder, and I fall to my knees in front of the fireplace. I weep, call out to God for answers, scream for help. The corpse falls silent.

The secrets to salvation, it whispers.

My tears stop. I can hear Paula and John feasting on the Cheerios like it’s pig slop, I can smell the corpse bloat filling the room, I can feel it. Everything falls into place.

I grab the fire poker, jam it in my eye.

Photo of Odin Meadows

BIO: Odin Meadows is a first-generation graduate with a BA in English from Yale University currently living in the midwest with his husband and two dogs, not too far from the rural town where he grew up. His work has appeared in ergot., Impossible Archetype, Fraidy Cat Quarterly, and more.