Chapter 3
"I'm sorry, Mr. Blackball. I'm afraid you are going to lose the eye." Doctor Scorn's concern was clearly evident along with his weariness from having to tell the same story to fourteen others that day. The Fake Eyeball Emporium at the Pedagogy Mall was currently out of stock and this was adding to the unpleasantness of the situation. I mean, it's not like eyeballs come rolling down the street when you need one.
"Great!" Harry Blackball said, "Now people will call me, One Eyeball Blackball and then laugh at me. They will probably assume that because I have only one eyeball that I also have only one testicle. Then they will infer that my one ball is in fact black, which I can assure you sir, it is not. I have two balls! You hear me? Both my balls are quite intact. I suppose you, a man of the medical profession, will have to operate to remove my eyeball, since I certainly don't want my eyeball hanging to the side of my face and drying up now, do I? Oh, I remember the days when doctors treated their patients like people and not like little dolls to play with. Yes doctor, it hurts when you jab your barbaric instruments into my flesh and rip away at the soul of man. Well, I don't need your sympathy or your Novocain. I don't need your gas, or your anesthesia. I don't need your pity sir, for the depth of my pain is so unfathomable that I should feel not a pinch if I were to rip the tattered eye from the frame with mine own hand sir!"
With that, Harry Blackball tore out his eye and threw it to the floor. "There! See that? I just saved myself about ten thousand dollars in medical expenses. Not even a twinge of pain so much as tickles me. Have your janitor toss my eye into the garbage along with the rest of humanity. I laugh at your pitiable… AHHHHH! MY EYE HOLE! THE PAIN! AHHHHHHHHHHHH! PLEASE GOD, HEROIN! MORPHINE! KILL ME! KILL ME! "
Bob held the lemon wedge in his right hand and he contemplated his future. He thought to himself, yes I can do this. I can begin here, pinching lemons into the lemonade, but then when I prove myself, Mr. Avenue will see how capable I am and promote me to Stirrer. When I show that I can indeed stir the lemonade as well as anyone, he will see my skill and promote me to Can Handler. When Mr. Matheson sees that I can sort and box cans as well as those starving children over there in Packing, he will give me a raise and put me in the Shipping Department. There, I will serve to the best of my ability and drive the shipping vehicle, moving boxes back and forth with unparalleled expertise. Soon I will rise in the ranks until I am making executive decisions about the lemonade, adding my unique ideas like, New Tropical Flavor Lemonade, or Pulpy Chunky Lemonade, or Calcium-Acidophilus All-Natural Fresh-Squeezed Vitamin-Fortified Ginseng-Herbal Vegan-Scented Blue-Green-Algae-Added Black Lemonade in the new Recycled Aluminum Can with the Coated Layer inside that makes it taste like it came right out of a glass container. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Avenue will have a heart attack or retire and I will own the company!
I will take the profits and use them to feed the hungry, help the sick, heal the dead, and return the earth to its original pristine unpolluted condition by an effective green space development plan. And it all comes down to this, my first lemon squeezing. Bob held the lemon between his thumb and forefinger as he had been meticulously instructed. With his other hand, he gripped the opposite side of the wedge and slowly, he began to pinch. In an unpredictable twist of events, the slippery wedge shot out from Bob's clumsy grasp and flew into the face of Pedro Conchito; the man assigned to maintain the conditioning of the canning machine gears.
"De lemon es en me con eyeballs! Ei dios meio!" Pedro exclaimed as he held his hands to his face and accidentally spun into the rotating metal disks that compressed his torso and began to chew. The abrupt stopping of the wheels in turn stopped the rotary belt that over forty impoverished worker children were standing on. They were pitched off into the opening of the aluminum shredder and spewed out the end in tiny fragments of blood and bone. The remaining staff of screaming humanity running for the exits, stumbled and bumbled into live wires, vats of flammable liquid, switches for chemical gasses that go toxic when mixed, and before too long everybody in Flatsacks had been made sick from the fumes and the resulting fires that brought this small town in Nebraska to an unsuspecting halt.
Little Betty, tears streaming down her face, walked along a path in the meadow fondly reminiscing about the short life of Buttons the kitten. She had tried to love that kitten and protect it from harm. If only she could have seen the flying office building coming, she might have been able to rescue her kitten in time, but now it was too late. All she could do was reflect on what this incident had to teach her about life. Maybe, it was a sign from God that all creatures are God's creatures and only he can own pets. Gee, she thought, that means that I'm God's pet too, and he can pet me. He can put me in a cage and lock me up. He can put me on a leash. He can hit me with a rolled up newspaper. He can put my nose in shit.
"I hate you, God!" she shouted, but in that moment of time, in that instant of reflection, she looked down and noticed an injured bird.
Thoughts of the bird:
Oh shit, she sees me… Can't run… Wing injured… Gonna' be her dinner…Big monster human gorilla coming at me… Reaching out… Cunt's gonna' break my other wing... Mother warned me…
"Oh my, a cute little bird." Little Betty said. "And you're hurt. A big office building killed my kitty, but I'm going to protect you from that mean old flying office building and help you get better." She carefully scooped up the bird and held it close.
The warmth of her body soothed the baby bird, or maybe it was just frightened into a coma, but Betty was determined to make up for her dead pussy. She ran home, found an old birdcage in the garage and put the bird in it. For days, she fed the bird with an eyedropper and affectionately stroked the bird's little head. Soon, she began to talk to the bird regularly in an effort to get it to speak.
"Say hello... hello... hello... say hello... hello..." The bird looked at her like she was becoming annoying.
"Hello... come on, say it. Hello... hello... hello... hello...hello..." The quieter the bird was, the more vigorously Betty tried.
"Hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello..." The bird thought to itself, mother never said anything about this. Fuck, if this bitch says hello one more time, I'm going to bite her fucking head off. Maybe if I try to tell her she's annoying the shit out of me, she'll have a little sympathy and shut the fuck up. The bird attempted to verbalize its thoughts, but the net effect of the effort was a squawk that sounded slightly like the word, hello. Of course, when Betty heard this, she was delighted.
"Yes. Good bird. Say it again! Hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello... hello..." She reached in the cage to stroke her newfound friend. After the bird chewed a bloody gouge out of her finger, Betty crushed it flat with a Holy Bible that was on a bookshelf next to the birdcage.
Suddenly things made all kinds of sense.