Merial in the Mud

Most considered Fritz to be a dim child, his elementary school teachers, his older brothers and sisters, Dianne, Marco, Trent, Elizabeth, Taylor, and Dean, and his mother and father, who were as he remembers, exceptional professionals. Fritz often felt helpless as he never did what he was asked of, as in the time that it took for him to learn something, someone else would step in and do it for him. Saying, “Fritz, you’re too slow!” and “Maybe when you’re older, egghead.”

He and his large religious family had auburn brown hair (Except for Trent, who is blonde) and tan, glowing skin. All but Fritz had brown eyes, he had green. His sisters all commented on his eyes, how pretty they were, how jealous of him they were for it. Dianne pinched him every day for this, and Elizabeth hid his homework, denting his young elementary career. Trent, who got teased for his hair, made it ritual to attack Fritz in sadistic ways, as he was the quietest and most vulnerable. Trent had colluded with Marco to replace Fritz’s ‘cup juice’ with their urine. Their eyes bulged with veiny delight as they witnessed Fritz gulp and shutter. They had executed this stunt every chance they got; Fritz had tried to alert Dean, who shut the door and locked it. Then, Taylor, who told him to stop talking about these disgusting things, drinking peepee. Fritz at seven years of age did not feel safe drinking or eating in his home unless he saw it made from scratch to table.

Karen, his mother, had climbed the ladder of her career in higher education, and so moved the family into a million-dollar timber-framed house on a mountainous plot of land in the pacific northwest. It was after they had all moved in, Fritz’s brothers and sisters doing his heavy work, that Trent and Marco had chased Fritz around with his father’s hunting knife. Fritz purged snot from his nose and cried in a hush as he ran out of spots in the new house to hide, and so ran outside.

The terrain was moist, misted, and lush. He found a hill behind the house that he focused a climb onto. If he could get far away from the path, he might be able to hide until his mom and dad came home from work. A chill ran through his body as the day dimmed. Tears crumbled down his cold red cheeks. He could feel something wet and mucky under his feet, and he observed that he was standing in a mud swamp.

Something bubbled in the center of the swamp. The ground was moving, and Fritz backed his feet out of the sticky mud. He wanted to see what it was, however, and so he stood and looked on at the emerging shape.

A white head of stringy curly hair, translucent, white-blue skin. He thought it might be a great white crab, with curly white seaweed, however as the thing emerged it looked to be a girl. She lifted out of the mud as if she were waiting on an elevator. Her eyes like holes, the whites bright but the centers black in the dimming light. She wore a grey smock that messed with mud, tattered, looked to be centuries old. As her toes emerged from the mud, she wiggled them and looked onto Fritz. Her smile abominable, and obnoxious, with tiny teeth that moved through her mouth like a conveyor belt of razors.

Fritz now tried to move. He had sunk into the mud and was using his limited strength to unsuction his feet and pants, enveloped.

“Now you stay, my baby.” The little girl vocalized, toasted, and high pitched.

Fritz began to scream, as he descended further into the swamp.

The girl stepped towards him freely and clasped his hand as the mud was up to his knees, and she began to descend as well. Their heads were popped out of the mud like flower bulbs when she said,

“I am Merial.”

He felt the mudslide way into all his cavities, he felt the choke of it and the sting in his eyes, and he blacked out.

Fritz then awoke, slowly, tiredly, with rings around his eyes from the stress he had endured and had been enduring. He saw a dingey white wall, the hard metal of what reminded him of a public restroom. A lightbulb swayed, blinked, and made a popping noise. A note was scribbled onto the mirror, it said, take a shower, clothes are hung on the door. Fritz got his bearings; it was a small white bathroom with brown and grey leaking from the corners and the ridges that all shapes met. The faucet in the bath plopped. Fritz decided to open the door, and he could see only blackness, possibly a long hallway. He stayed in the light. He took a shower, the water was hot, it smelled like earth. The mud dribbled off of him and swiveled down the drain.

He changed into the white thermal shirt and long johns. It was warm. He opened the stretching black hallway door once again and tiptoed featherlight through the dark. He kept his hands reached out until he felt the panels of another door. He so slowly turned the knob and stepped into a dimly lit room. He could see the little girl under the light, her eyes a glowing chocolate brown and her curly white hair haloing.

“Come here, my baby.” She whispered.

Fritz didn’t step closer, and her expression angered.

“I only want to play, before we go to bed.” She issued.

“Where are we?” Fritz questioned, his voice cracking from prolonged silence.

“This is my house.” She replied.

“How did I get here?” He asked.

“I brought you here. You are going to stay with me. Wouldn’t you like that baby bear?” She replied whimsically.

“I need my parents.” He rebuked.

“They don’t protect you!” She strained her voice. “I can protect you from your brothers and sisters.”

“How do you know about my brothers and sisters?” He looked confused.

“I am very smart. My mother lets me handle most situations.” She replied with airy certainty.

“It’s nice and warm in here.” Fritz changed his tone, eyeing her tiny, pyramid teeth as she smiled. Her gums, blood red.

“Isn’t it? Here,” She patted a cot, aligned with another on the adjacent side. “You sleep here my bear.”

He lied down in the cot, he was tired and thought he might wake up in his bedroom. As he lied down, Merial’s eyes glowing from the bed right beside him fixated on his own. He fell asleep to her static, talc white complexion and dark puddle stare.

When he wakes, he lies in sweat. He isn’t cold, because he’s still feeling the thermal earth, the room is a sauna, dimly lit. His face is assaulted by a glass. It’s cool water, and the girl, Merial, didn’t she say it was? The girl is tipping the water into his mouth and he’s gulping it down. It tastes like minerals and is warm. He nearly passes out again from the look of Merial’s face. He can see little red veins sprouting up inside her robin egg eyes and cheeks. She is like a horrible pastel flower with red gums and veins, he can see the globular shapes of her eyes behind her nearly translucent skin.

“Now it’s time to eat!” She announces, with great pleasure and whimsey.

He follows her through the dark, thick aired tunnel until she stops to the side and opens a door. It’s a square kitchen, with a hideously tall, thin, hunched figure looming over a sink.

“Mommy, we are ready to eat!” Merial sparkles.

“Shut up.” Her mother mutters, in a deep and bored tone. She’s lighting a bone-white cigarette. She’s washing something and proceeds to chop it up with a lever. Fritz studies this figure, who indeed looks like her child. She has straight white hair, translucent white skin with shades of robin egg, and deep, dark eyes. He shutters at the thought of her teeth. He politely sits at his assigned seat.

Merial is playing with the salt and pepper shakers. She’s emptying pepper into her mouth and making grotesque faces, which is absolutely horrifying for Fritz, however, he senses that she’s wanting him to laugh, and so he apes a little titter. She is immensely pleased with him for this.

“I think daddy would like Fritz, mommy.” She beams.

Her mother throws the cleaver towards the wall behind them, and it flies over their heads spinning, and sticks into the wall. Fritz yelps and sees that there are many scars on the wall from this.

“Shut up.” She groans and lights another cigarette. She hangs it inside her lips which are plump and blue and carries a plate and tongs to the table. She pinches deep red meat and drops them onto their plates before them. They land with a clunk. Fritz has never had sashimi and is terrified of eating raw meat.

“It’s marinated, baby bear. You can eat it.” Merial suggests sweetly.

Fritz takes the steak knife and civilly slices his whole steak before tasting. He watches Merial take it into her evil little hands and shred it in her mouth, the blood from the steak dripping down her chin.

He tries a little morsel, sweat dripping from his forehead in nervousness. Better it than me, he thinks. When it touches his tongue, he thinks it enticing, somehow sweet and savory. It’s like the time he tried a chocolate potato chip. He closes his eyes, and he can taste layers of flavor that he hasn’t lived long enough to recognize. He believes he is in a foreign land.

“It’s good.” He mentions to Merial, who has finished and now takes her pleasure in watching him eat. She is so delighted, she’s hyperactively dangling and climbing on her seat, giggling.

Her mom is sitting at the table with them, completely inattentive, reading a newspaper. Fritz tries to peer at the writing, and he can only see strange markings.

“Where are we?” He asks gently.

“Shut it, dipshit.” Mother mutters, ashing her cigarette on her white plate.

“We are underground.” Merial explains, “We are far away from where you came from.”

“Well, when am I going back to my parents?” Fritz helplessly spat out.

Merial tittered and her eyes tightened. She hugged her body, a little girl trying to keep a secret.

“We are going to see the world.” She replied to him with a tight mouth, wiggling, knowing it’s not exactly what he wanted to hear.

Merial led him to the sink, to wash his hands with mineral water and fatty soap. Then she took his hand and led him into the black hallway once again. This new passage, leading into a ladder that stopped at an earth ceiling dripping with mud.

“Close your eyes, honey, we are popping through.”

He climbed the cool ladder rungs until he could feel the warm earth on his scalp. He engaged and pushed his head through the mud, once again feeling the crevices of his face. He touched air very quickly, and he peeled open his eyes to see the light of day, blinding from lack of exposure. He saw bright, red, green, and yellow foliage and power lines. He spied a little monkey swinging through the power lines. Merial had now joined him and pulled him out of the mud completely. They walked about, and she told him that they were in mountainous terrain in Tochigi, Japan.

This was their routine. The next day after eating, they traveled up the mud puddle to the south of France, where they spent time in a cave made by the Cathars and glimpsed a little village and gnostic religious sites. On another, he took a breath inside a tomb in Egypt where he noticed the ground felt grainy and he saw many beautiful forms, from religious depictions engraved to polished statues of dog headed man.

He grew fond of his journeys. He began to play with Merial by pretending he was going to kiss her on the cheek, and she screamed and ran with glee. He liked the warmth of the cave and the taste of the meat, which he never got tired of, though they ate it every day. He didn’t know this, but he was addicted to it physically.

One day they had plowed through from under a construction site in New York City. He knew he was in the U.S.A and asked Merial if they could find his family. Merial looked at him heartbroken and threw a fit.

“I give you everything!” She screamed, with onlookers lightly gazing and walking past.

“You need me! No one else! You’re my bear!” She cried, pink tears running down her bloodshot eyes as she had experienced a hemorrhage. She then reached for his arm and sank her teeth into him. Fritz yelped and cried. It was a severe cut. Merial realized this and had him wait outside while she robbed a convenience store and wrapped him with bandages after pouring on antiseptic.

“Merial, I’ve been with you for a long time now. Why do you need me?” He pleaded.

“My daddy left.” She said, ashamed, “I needed another.”

She began to weep tenderly now. He hugged her and petted her soft scalp.

Months had passed. Fritz began exploring the tunnels while Merial slept. He found her mother’s den, which he wished he hadn’t. It smelled of scotch, burnt wood, and on the walls images of naked adults. He found another room, this one with an awful, gag-inducing smell. He thought if he didn’t look into it, he’d never go back. With candlelight, he lit the source of the awful smell. Carcasses. He knew they were human bones. Skeletons falling over each other, leaning against the wall, and sprawled out onto the earth floor. He counted eight.

Years had passed. Baby Bear knew this. By now, he felt that he must have seen most of the world. He still ate the meat because it rejuvenated him, though he noticed his skin becoming paler and his gums reddening. He noticed his hair becoming blonde and, in the plate, sized bathroom mirror he saw his eyes darken, or was it just the light? As time continued to turn, he saw that when he turned his head and looked at his reflection from the side, he could see the outline of his globular eyes. His lips became blue. He started losing teeth, and sharp baby teeth slit his tongue. Merial and her mother spoke another language, and with his knew mouth, he could pronounce some of the words he had grown to recognize. The language was hollow in it’s tonality like the caves under the earth.

He starts experiencing two transformations. He grew tall and lanky like Merial’s mother and smoked her cigarettes. Merial rounded out, fattened herself up, in an attractive way. On occasion, they drank her mother’s scotch in the den where the two women, young and old, laughed at their memories of Baby Bear and the eating of his parents, brothers, and sisters. At this Baby Bear smiled, rolled his eyes, and puffed.