Munmun Read online

Instead of hells I began to make strange announcements. GOD IS A KINGKONG, I dreamed in the stars, in the grass.

  GOD IS A GODSILLA, I billboarded in everybody’s room.

  THE KINGKONG GODSILLA GOD IS COMING, moths whispered everywhere, schools, warehouses, sewers, wholefoods, trains, barmittsvas, keensayingyearas, everywhere but the operahouse.

  I didn’t touch the Kittyhouse but I did make it hard to find.

  Built a glazing desert around it, stacked a dark salty sea over it.

  Kitty didn’t even notice, never stepped out of that house, might as well be solodreaming.

  Sure I thought about her, maybe more than anyone, somewhere out there in Lifeanddeathworld Kitty must be in a colledge, I like to think a music school, maybe she’s found the therapies that let her hands play guitar.

  And somewhere maybe Tony is learning to try a little less hard, people hate you when they know how much you want to be liked. And Daisy is still playing shootemups late at night and Hueagain is doctoring bynow, Dawn is walking the dogs and Hue is getting reelected, and some other bright strivey middlepoor is living in their house, sleeping in the halfroom, learning the secret patience of How To Be Rich.

  But I learned it too, Kitty Family, I did.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  The day came, I gave Puppyneck his orders, he didn’t put up much of a fight.

  “I could still just stomp you,” he joked.

  “Forsure,” I agreed, “my lawyer could also put a crisp twenmillion behind a Puppyneck Is Wanted Dead Or Alive type of poster, though.”

  “Lol what a bluff,” lolled Puppyneck, carrying me out onto his backdeck, down to his motorboat, firsttime under the sun in years.

  Out on the ocean he placed me in the water, the waves jostled me.

  “Seriously though, how big are you getting,” Puppyneck wanted to know.

  “Step back and watch,” I told him.

  His boat motored away from me a few feet.

  “That might not be far enough,” I yelled, he didn’t hear me though.

  I floated, hummed to myself, waited for the bankers to begin.

  Rubbery seaweed ribbons wreathed me.

  Shadows moved below me.

  Wish we could have done this at the bank, ohwell.

  A tuna sniffed me like a dog, whispered water at my feet.

  Another couple moments passed, water lapped my ears.

  The tuna gulped me, ate me whole.

  I was sliding and flailing in a wet slippery nightroom, nothing to breathe but seawater, didn’t even have time to think dang before I felt it, my bones began their creaky stretching.

  In a few seconds I was too big to stay in this fish’s tum, I punched through his side, poor brainless maneater.

  Wriggled head and arms out, paddled like a madman back to the surface, my waist was snapping fishribs onebyone.

  Broke the seatop and gasped, halfscale already, splitinhalf fishbody falling away from me to the bottom.

  For sure it hurt, a warm beautifull hurt though. It was the soreness of You Just Ran For A Super Long Time, Then You Lifted Weights, Then You Climbed A Giant House.

  I lay back on the seatop and closed my eyes, felt every ache bloom through me, heard my heart get slow and my lungs get huge.

  Saw my brain get enormous, a thought might take allday to swim across this thing.

  Against my skin the waves became ripples, seaweed became a tickly fringe, seadust, seafluff.

  I pushed my hands backandforth through the water, moved blocks of ocean here and there.

  Became a whale, wordless, slow.

  Kept my eyes closed for a while after it was over, finally opened them and looked around, where’s Puppyneck.

  Didn’t see him for a while, did he freak out and motor away.

  Ohsnap, is that the boat.

  That tiny seashell, upsidedown toyboat halfsunk already, must have been flipped by my bathtub waves.

  PUPPYNECK, I rasped, drythroated, my voice was a thunderboom, too big even for aircommas.

  I sifted through the water, looking for him.

  Aha, there he is, a struggling little insect.

  Look at this tiny little guy, treading, giggling furiously.

  I picked him up and put him in my hair.

  I had fiftybillion munmuns in me, twentysixscale, about a hunfiftyfeet tall. Usher had moved every last munmun from munflow to scale, put it all in my scale account, the bank tried to tell him this is really not a goodidea but toobad, bankers, it’s like you said, you’re just a bunch of tools, now you must serve a lunatic and his lawyer.

  And now a little Lossy Indica lay dull and flat twomiles from my monster’s body, under the heavy morning heat.

  A mile from shore, my feet touched the seabottom, I stopped paddling, began to wade.

  Thousandfeet from shore, the seatop didn’t even reach my knees, sorry everybody for this perfect view of my peen and furry nuts.

  I brought sheets of ocean with me, waves and surges, swimmers were freaking out, paddling to the beach and stumblerunning, surfers tried to ride along.

  I stepped onto the sand, drippingwet.

  Toed the boardwalk, took a few steps into town, each step has to be super slow, hold the foot up and wait for the antpeople to scurry out from underneath, then lower slowly, ground still trembles though.

  Rested my arms on top of a fivestory building and looked around, tried not to rest the arms too hard or break too much roof.

  Look at this low wide goofy little place, toy town, toy cars, toy Metro.

  I’m Grant now, less janky playset though.

  Police and coastguard were buzzing around me frantically, copters, sirens, guys on horses. Are they going to attack, will I have to swat and crush.

  The answer was nope, I wasn’t who they hated.

  “MOVE IT PEOPLE, GIANT COMING THROUGH, HOW ABOUT YOU GET OUT OF THE FREAKING WAY ALREADY,” their speakers screamed.

  All around me were loyal copswarms chasing ants out of the way, shoving with shields, bulldozing with shovelcars, under the motors and rotors I heard quiet outraged barks and chirpy little screams from the pushedaround crowds, how the heck did all these police get here so fast.

  “Big sir,” purred a spokesdrone near my face, “would you like for us to summon some transport for you, travel in style and convenience to wherever you’re going?”

  There was nowhere that I was going ofcourse, I was right where I was supposed to be, here to make my huge announcement in my giantvoice, hey citizens, littlepoors inparticular, listen up, I have goodnews.

  See how big I am, see how much I took from riches, well now I’m giving it to poors. I’m donating my fortune to Lossy Indica Minmun, no one in this city will ever be ratscale again.

  It’s fiftybillion, not sure how exactly the math works out but I think the new minimumsize will be about quarterscale, maybe a little bigger.

  Safe from cats and spiders, bigenough for schools and hospitals, strongenough for smaller jobs, Lifty and Cleany.

  So get ready, get set, in a few minutes I’ll start scaling down, after that you can sprint to your local bankbranch for a Scale Up, enjoy your new middlelife courtesy of Consolidated Warning.

  But I didn’t say it.

  I gazed down at the littleville and filled my enormous lungs and something happened, I don’t know, the announcement sat in my throat and dried out.

  Somewhere Usher and Prayer watched, waited, must have thought, Warner, spit it out, big guy, what’s the hangup.

  But a different plan was yawning open in my giantbrain, notsomuch about goodnews, more to do with badnews.

  And heresthething, as soon as I thought of it, I knew the badnews plan was really my plan allalong.

  “Big sir, at your convenience feel free to peruse our menu of tantalizing transpo options,” piped the spokesdrone, displaying tanks and choppers.

  THAT’S OKAY, I’LL WALK, I told the drone.

  “Fantastic choice because we will clear any path you need, remember
we exist to serve and even our biggest citizens can always count on the Lossy Indica Police Department, infact I’d say especially our biggest,” reminded the drone.

  Meanwhile I looked around at all these roofs I could step through.

  Cars I could pick up by the fistfull, houses I could stoop down and lick off the hillsides.

  ACTUALLY I’LL SWIM, I decided.

  “CLEAR THE FREAKING BEACH,” blared the coastguard. “A GIANT WANTS TO SWIM.”

  Twothousandfeet off the coast, I paddled north a little bit, police and coastguard proudly flanking me like dogs.

  I was ofcourse ravenous, my giant stomach was empty, thirsty too, my raw dry mouth was panting.

  My plan had been not to eat or drink, anything in the tum makes it tricky to scale down, forget the plan though.

  I needed food and water, had ideas of where to get them too.

  I passed a few points, a few inlets. The tiny toy cliffside houses got bigger and bigger.

  I dove a couple times to see how close is the bottom, turnedout it’s pretty close. I itched my belly on the tickly coral, dragged knuckletrenches through the ocean dirt, clouded the water with blownup seafloor. When I came back to the surface the choppers and speedboats were cheering me.

  “EPIC DEEPDIVE,” they roared and clapped. “SO HEROIC.”

  Before long, there it was, the familiar spannishvilla.

  I waded to shore, police and coastguard had to hang back, Balustrade was ofcourse a private defense zone.

  “IT HAS BEEN AN UNLIMITED PLEASURE ACCOMPANYING YOU ON YOUR VISIT TO LOSSY INDICA,” a boat trumpeted after me and more stuff like that, I ignored it and stepped onto land.

  Wow, were the bighouses of Balustrade dumb and pathetic to my gigantic eyes. To halfscale me they had been soaring concerthalls. But now look, they’re actually just sad weird huts.

  Spannishvilla, castle, shrine, plantation, glasscube cluster, all pathetic. Onestory boxes for caging lonely giants.

  I stood and dripped and gazed and each bighouse was just a few twinedtogether alleyway milkcrates.

  Betterdecorated obviously, bigger windows, filled with tiny servants, oceanviews.

  But each house was the one my dad built and tinkered with everyday and patched the roof and papered the walls and died inside when a kid stepped on it, Warner why are you thinking about that, idiot, you have work to do.

  I stepped onto the villa patio, Mark’s staff ofcourse was trying to intercept me with gentle welcomes of Hello Honored Guest and apologies of You Know What Though, Mark Is Resting And Relaxing At The Moment and suggestions of Would You Like To Wait Out Here, Perhaps We Could Get You Something.

  I ignored them too and knocked on the door, tried to open it, it was locked.

  But the locks they make even for bigriches are pretty puny when you’re a kingkong, it wasn’t that hard for me to rip off the door and drop it in the sand.

  Inside quiet cooks were prepping bowls of lemonwater and charred cows, fantastic, I lifted a bowl and drank it down as they cowered in silent terror.

  Water filled me, spread to my fingertips, my throat loosened, eyes brightened, giant lungs uncurled even further.

  I munched a cow, pretty good but pretty bland, guess it’s hard to brew enough sauce.

  Meanwhile in the nextroom blinky toadcolor Mark bolted upright in his bed, staring at the naked godsilla in his kitchen, munching his food.

  “HEY,” he grogged. “UM, WHAT’S GOING ON HERE.”

  I said nothing, just stared at him in the eye and chomped his cows, gulped his drinks, man did it feel good to be putting food in the tum.

  He squinted at me, ran a hand across his perfect rigid hair.

  “YOU LOOK KIND OF FAMILIAR,” he said. “WHO ARE YOU?”

  I AM THE KINGKONG GOD, I told him.

  “OKAY,” he said. “DID YOU JUST BREAK MY DOOR?”

  I finished his food and water.

  YUP, I said.

  “WELL OKAY,” he said. “JESUS. UH, STAFF, I GUESS COULD YOU MAKE ME SOME MORE COWS.”

  Behind me I heard the staff spring into action, Heather barked commands, we need five charred cows blitzed and sauced immediately, four bowls of water, movemovemove, Mark has a naked mystery guest, looks like atleast a fourtybillionair.

  I walked to his bedroom doorway and blocked it with my naked body.

  YOUR STAFF CAN MAKE MORE COWS BUT I WILL EAT THEM, I told Mark.

  “HAHA OKAY, I BET YOU WILL, NOW HOW DO I KNOW YOU,” wondered Mark as he got up.

  YOU KNOW ME FROM DREAMWORLD, I told him.

  “OKAY, CAN I GET PAST PLEASE,” he asked.

  NO, I said.

  “OKAY WELL LOOK, UH, FRIEND,” he said, getting a little snappy, “I JUST SLEPT SIXHOURS, I’M VERY DEHYDRATED, LOWBLOODSUGAR, YOU KNOW HOW IT IS.”

  WELL, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, I told him. BECAUSE NOW I AM THE ONE WHO DRINKS YOUR WATER AND EATS YOUR FOOD.

  I watched him begin to realize he had a problem.

  He tried to push me out of the way, put his big hand on my way bigger chest.

  With lightningspeed I grabbed his wrist, twisted it, threw him down like a ragdoll, heard one of his knees smash into the tile like a gunshot, back in the kitchen the quake bowled his staff over.

  “HAAAHHH,” he gasped and sobbed.

  I stood over him patiently, waited for what was next.

  Took him a while even to talk, he just moaned and stared with fear and hate at the young bruisy monster who outscaled him by atleast thirtyfeet.

  Meanwhile behind me the staff was buzzing around like crazy, had some guns and bombs readytogo but didn’t know whether to use them.

  “STAFF,” croaked Mark finally, “GET THIS FUCKING INTRUDER OUT OF MY HOUSE, LIKE WITH FORCE IF YOU HAVE TO.”

  STAFF, WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENS IF YOU ATTACK ME, I said, ANSWER, I ATTACK YOU TOO.

  I watched them with my huge eyes, you fearfull babybrats will do nothing, I know cowards when I see them.

  ANYWAY I’M BIGGER, RICHER, IN NEED OF A STAFF MYSELF, SO HOWABOUT YOU WORK FOR ME, I suggested.

  The staff stared back at me.

  Then they started glancing at each other.

  Then a thousand bickerings broke out among them, What Do You Think, on the otherhand How Dare You, but thenagain What Choice Do We Have.

  Some were loyal nomatterwhat, others were super excited to betray, most though were just trying to figure out who was leaving and who was staying, where will I get the highest promotion, all kinds of tricky ugly chessmoves, it kind of broke my heart to see.

  Meanwhile I ate the other cows and drank the bowls of water. Mark tried to rush me when he thought I wasn’t looking but I knocked him to the ground again, gentler this time but firm, also I guess not that gentle, I did break his nose.

  Under the blood his face was toady gray and sick, he knew he had no power, was trying to make tools out of words but his hungry thirsty brain didn’t have the patience, it really doesn’t take long for a bigrich body to freak out and shut down.

  “DO YOU WANT MUNMUNS, PART OF MY COMPANY, WHAT DO YOU WANT, OHMYGOD I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE,” he blurted.

  ALL I WANT, I said, IS ALL YOUR FOOD AND WATER.

  “OKAY WELL HERESTHETHING, UH, IT’S IN THE BASEMENT, ALL THE FOOD AND WATER IS IN THE SERVICEBASEMENT, I’LL SHOW YOU, JUST OPEN THAT TRAPDOOR AND STEP DOWN IN THERE, DONTWORRY I’LL FOLLOW YOU,” he yelled.

  NNNNNNNOPE, I said, picking cowskin out of my teeth.

  “PLEASE,” he sobbed. “PLEASE, I’M DYING. I’M ACTUALLY DYING, MAN. I’M SO HUNGRY AND THIRSTY. I CAN BARELY TALK.”

  NOPE, I said.

  “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS,” he cried.

  KINGKONG GOD, I explained.

  “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN,” he sniveled.

  IT MEANS I EAT YOUR FOOD AND DRINK YOUR WATER, I explained.

  I watched him hiccup angry sobs, the guy has not felt these feelings in a long long time.

  OK GUESSWHAT, I announced finally.

&nbs
p; But he refused to guesswhat.

  YOU CAN HAVE SOME FOOD AND WATER I DECIDED, I told him.

  He glared and sniffled, thought I was messing with him still, and look, he wasn’t wrong.

  IT HAS TO BE YOUR NEIGHBOR’S THOUGH, I explained.

  So we walked to Bill’s castle, through a window we saw the old guy watching news, hey that young fellow on the screen looks familiar, shaky footage of naked ropey me staggering in from the ocean.

  “Little is known about the mysterious wealthy giant who emerged today from the sea,” I heard a stern anchor explain, “government records do not exist and he is thought to be either foreign or of nonhospital birth, like littlepoor or perhaps to some religious crazies in the forest.”

  “BILL,” called Mark through the window, Bill didn’t hear him though, that guy is super into the news and also deaf.

  “Look at this bold young munmaker,” cried a newspanelist, replaying vids of me dripping all over everything, “the discovery of a new bigrich is always cause for celebration, a new jobcreator for our needy city, I certainly hope the localgovernment is prepared to welcome this behemoth with openarms.”

  “BILL BILL BILL. HEY BILL,” said Mark a little louder, freaking out from hunger.

  “Can’t the bank make an exception and release this guy’s basic info, atleast tell us who he is, I mean we have no idea where he’s from or how he got so rich, what if he’s a terrorist forexample,” complained another panelist, uhoh, flashing screentext told us she was ALLEY THE COMPLAINER.

  “Boooooo,” screamed the live studioaudience of the news.

  “There goes Alley again, always complaining about the bank, trying to question our most essential privacy protections,” groaned first panelist.

  “BILLLLLLLLL,” hollered Mark but Bill was shaking his fist and excitedly yelling, “ALLEY, I GOT A HUNCH SOMEBODY’S ABOUT TO PADDLE YOU GOOD.”

  “Alley you idiot,” yelled a third panelist, “privacylaws protect us from comyounism, spoileralert, they tried comyounism in like twenty countries and it never ever worked, so inotherwords you lose, I win,” airhorn screamed, broadways flashed, this third panelist got a Win The Argument Point, the anchor handed him a paddle.

  Mark pounded on the window.

  I thumped on the wall and knocked a hole in it.