Mongrels

by Jared Axelrod
February 4th, 2006

Marcus crooked his fingers around each of his eyeballs, and plucked them out with a small “pop.” He unceremoniously placed the squishy orbs in a small jar of salt water on his desk.

“Marcus! Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Stella was leaning against the door frame as she yelled; she hadn’t quite gotten used to the half- inch diameter pole that now connected the top half of her ribcage to the lower half of her pelvis. It was still a bit of a balancing act for her to stay upright.

“I can’t look at you,” Marcus said, slowly spinning around in his chair. The light glinted softly off the modular plugs deep within his empty eye sockets. “I’ve removed my eyes. In a minute I’m going to do the same thing to my ears so I can play Galactic Conquest Online. I just got to Level 546, so if you’ll excuse me, I have a spaceship to select.”

Stella looked at the game module in Marcus’s lap and seethed. “You spend more time on that game than you do with me! I go through all this surgery so I can look beautiful for you–”

“Don’t start that! I never asked you to remove your midriff! That was your decision! You’re always getting things removed. You know what I miss? Your toes! You think I like feeling those cold stiletto monstrosities you call feet up against my legs at night?”

“You know what I miss? I miss you! You’re always plugged in to this goddamn game!” Her multicolored eyes blazing orange and red, Stella snatched the game module away from her boyfriend.

“You bitch! You fucking whore!” Marcus waved his arms blindly. His left arm made contact with Stella, but only succeeded in knocking her up against his chest of drawers. The game module skittered across the floor. Stella found her body crumpled and unresponsive; the impact had broken her torso pole in half. She tried to get up, but only succeeded in spastically kicking Marcus’s desk.

Marcus got out of his chair in order to better feel about for the game module. He heard Stella kicking his desk, but he didn’t turn around to her until he heard the crash of glass, as a jar fell off his desk.

It wasn’t until he heard the squish and pop underneath his boot that he realized what the jar had held.