Goddaddy Death

Abstract

43 LAIRD HUNT Goddaddy Death • nd it came to pass that in the cave he was taken to, as Goddaddy Death’s noose tightened around his neck, and Goddaddy Death’s finger pressed into his back, and the eyelash of the candle of his days burned thin, the Thirteenth resaw the royal room. There the lovely tangerine-tinged princess foamed and moaned, and all her maids wept, and her father, too busy to attend now that he was well, kept tabs from afar via a shiny-trousered messenger. But it was different, too, this lovely room. The same but not. For those royal breasts, the Thirteenth saw, no longer purred. They hissed and scratched; they bit and tore. And when Goddaddy Death appeared, Big-Banged his way into being, nothinged then somethinged himself into position, he did not stand where he had stood before. He stood not at the head of the bed, nor at its foot. He stood on the right side, and then on the left. And then back to the right, then the left, then the right again, where he settled near the window, outside of which lay only the Führer dark. He wore a faceshield and a mask and a cap and a gown. He wore blue gloves, the Thirteenth saw. “Theyaremadeofthefinestnitrile,myboy,”saidGoddaddyDeath. There was a scalpel in one of those smooth blue mitts. The princess lay cat-mad on her bed. The Thirteenth thought she might be his ticket out of the cave and away from the candle that now crackled just tall enough to score the fissures between tightly packed atoms and so must soon go out. But turned her head to the Thirteenth did the princess and spat. “You are not in this story anymore,” she said. “You had no idea what was wrong. And now this idiot with his scalpel doesn’t know either.” Goddaddy Death gave a big grin and shrugged. In the room around him, everyone was sick. They wheezed; they shivered; they moaned. “You see it all goes on, my boy,” whispered Goddaddy Death. He ran the hand holding the noose through his hair, which had been slightly mussed by the hot exhalation of the dying princess’s breath. He pushed his finger straight through the Thirteenth’s back like it was soft butter, a 44 and paused for a moment, perhaps waiting for the candle flame to fall into the chasm between electrons, to fall away into further nothing. Then Goddaddy Death tap-tap-tapped at his heart. ...