Douglas J. Ogurek

The Dink, the Donk, and the Poo Pile

 

 

A woman holding a used menstrual pad stood on a fifteen-foot-high pile of colorful, sparkling excrement. A fence of multicolored coils separated her yard from the next.

 

The girl on the other side of the fence slammed an instrument against it. A “bluh bluh bluh” sound came from behind the girl. Its source was a row of holey ice cream and cookie boxes.

 

Hundreds of brown cubes covered the woman. She used a looping straw to sip from a bottle filled with bright blue liquid.

“My husband and I love this. It’s not for kids.”

 

The girl waved the instrument. It was straight in places, curved in others, colorful in some sections, and black and white in others. And it had many holes.

 

The woman found it strange that the girl wore no facial paint.

 

The girl said, “Vrum vrum” then resumed slamming the fence.

 

The woman had never seen the twastyum used that way; it was a wind instrument.

 

A man appeared above the woman. He sat on the end of an arm that looped and undulated until it met, far in the distance, a looping, undulating pole with many similar arms pivoting around it. The sign atop the pole said, “Gettisuff City: All for Children.” Bright colors covered the man’s face. “Ma’am. Please, please. Can I please just have one piece of chieve poo? It’s for my little girl.”

 

The woman stretched an orange piece of poo. It made a cheering sound. She moved the menstrual pad in a circle.

“Dink…donk…dink…donk.”

 

The man grimaced upward. A hundred feet above him floated a network of colorful swirls and loops spotted with golden nests. “You dinks…my child will be your boss.”

 

The woman pretended to lick the pad. “I got it.”

 

The large arm swung away, taking the man with it.

 

*

 

The banging and bluh-bluhing continued. A girl and a man with colorful faces appeared above the woman. They too were on an arm connected to the pole, but they were higher than the previous visitor. The girl wore a hat made of chieve poo and sweated profusely. She manipulated the digital display that covered the man’s massive belly. “Dazzy Buttons, how did Auntie Oodles get all that chieve poo? Why don’t you have that much chieve poo?”

 

The man looked longingly toward a beige, rectangular building within a jumble of swooping and spiraling kaleidoscopic facilities. The sign on the beige building said, “Ew Drinks.”

 

Poo Hat slapped Dazzy Buttons then pointed up at the colorful network and the nests. Dazzy Buttons clasped his hands behind his back and looked up.

 

Poo Hat yelled at the girl banging the fence. “Stop that.” The banging continued. Poo Hat’s sweat dripped onto her pink, puffy outfit. She addressed Dazzy Buttons. “Tonight for dinner Mazzy Levers and you will make cotton candy nuggets and caramel noodles.”

 

“One cannot disagree with that. What if one were to request no more than one cup of coffee before one goes home with one’s daughter?”

 

“You can’t have the ew drink Dazzy. Coffee’s mucky yucky blucky.” The girl plugged headphones into Dazzy Buttons’s belly button.

 

A man with the brown cube clothing similar to Auntie Oodles’s bounced on a huge ball. He bounced toward them. He bounced high, as high as Dazzy Buttons and Poo Hat.

 

Poo Hat watched cartoons on the digital stomach, while Dazzy Buttons addressed Auntie Oodles below him. “If one were to ask one how one was doing, how would one respond?”

 

She twisted the pad. “I got this on my side.”

 

He tapped the girl’s poo hat. She pushed his hand away then pointed up. Dazzy shouted, “Look at that blue drink your auntie has. It’s blue.”

 

Poo Hat took off her headphones. “Auntie Oodles, give me that drink.”

 

The blue liquid looped up the straw. “It’s not for kids.”

 

Poo Hat wiped sweat. “Everything’s for kids. Give me that drinky you stinky dinky.”

 

“But this is so good.”

 

Dazzy Buttons swung his digital stomach, then knocked the bouncing man off the ball. He pointed at Auntie Oodles. “That drink costs no more than ten stickers. One would think that one in your position would know the rules.”

 

Auntie Oodles flipped the bottle up to Dazzy Buttons.

 

A bird soared out of one of the golden nests. It sounded like violins, and flew in an S pattern. Dazzy Buttons put his hands behind his back and watched it descend.

 

The girl took a sip of the blue liquid, then started to cry. “It’s so yucky. It needs sprinkles, Dazzy Buttons. It needs sprinkles.”

 

Auntie Oodles hoisted a trophy-shaped blue and orange piece of poo. “I like bitter. But if you don’t drink it, I guess you’ll have to give it back.”

 

Poo Hat took another sip and grimaced.

 

The bird approached. It had a diamond-shaped head, and coin-like eyes.

 

Poo Hat sweated and sipped and cringed. Dazzy Buttons consulted the top of his massive stomach display, then watched the bird. “One would be surprised to discover that the one standing on the poo pile spent no more than 59 minutes on child service today.”

 

“Here’s my diagnosis regarding your child.” Auntie Oodles wrote on a piece of paper, then held it up. It said, “BAD PARENT.”

 

“The one below me still has no less than one minute of child service hours left today.”

 

“Maybe I’ll do my minute, and then have a cup of coffee.”

 

Dazzy Buttons put out his hands. The bird flew by him and Poo Hat. It landed on Auntie Oodles’s pad then rolled around. It dropped a sparkling green and pink piece of poo on the pile. Then it flew back up to its golden nest within the swirling network.

 

Dazzy Buttons locked his hands behind his back and expanded his stomach. “In Gettisuff, one doesn’t discriminate against dinks. However, one doesn’t necessarily condone dink behavior.”

 

The instrument banged, the boxes bluh-bluhed, and the new piece of poo cheered as Auntie Oodles stretched it into a medallion. “I’m missing the mommy gene.”

 

Dazzy Buttons and Poo Hat swung away.

 

*

 

Auntie Oodles held her sparkling poo medallion toward the girl with the instrument.

 

The girl stopped banging, but the bluh-bluhing continued. “I don’t like the swirlylots. Vroom.”

 

Auntie Oodles thought the colorful network the kiddyups built above Gettisuff was excessive, but it attracted chieves. “You expect the chieve nests to just float?”

 

“The swirlylots hurt the bluh-bluhs.” The girl looked back at the cookie and ice cream boxes. “My name is Phialia.”

 

Auntie Oodles used a piece of poo to fasten her pad to her wrist. “Well give her a big batch of cotton candy.”

 

“What’s that white thing with the stuff on it?”

 

“Donk.” Auntie Oodles sipped from another bottle of blue liquid. “This is good, but it’s not for kids.”

 

Phialia pretended to drink from her instrument then held it toward Auntie Oodles. “What’s donk feel like?”

 

“Relative.”

 

“What’s it made of?”

 

“The essence. Want to try this drink?”

 

Phialia started pounding again.

 

Auntie Oodles tapped the pad on her wrist. “That’s quite a technical masterpiece you’ve created.”

 

“To call a clear bird, you have to be memorable. Vvvt.”

 

Auntie Oodles had never heard of a clear bird. She attached a ribbon-shaped piece of blue and purple poo to one of her brown cubes. Phialia didn’t seem to care. Didn’t every kid yearn for chieve poo? “A clear bird isn’t as beautiful as a chieve.”

 

“You can’t see a clear bird.”

 

“Well it doesn’t sound as beautiful as a chieve.”

 

“You can’t hear a clear bird.”

 

“Well what good is it?”

 

Phialia thrust three fingers toward Auntie Oodles. “It fills. Vvvooom.”

 

Auntie Oodles wanted her brother and niece to return. She flicked her poo ribbon. “This fills.”

 

Phialia stopped pounding, then walked to a tattered ice cream box. A creature came out. It stepped onto her hand, then bluh-bluhed. Bruises covered its gray, block-shaped body.

 

Auntie Oodles stuck a thin green piece of poo beneath the pad. It resembled a flower. “Chieves only like dink donk. They don’t like your mommy’s donk.”

 

“When it rains, the swirlylots drip.”

 

“Dink…donk…dink…donk.”

 

“It turns into hard shiny things. Like candy. And these guys take it to their nests.” Phialia petted the creature. It bluh-bluhed. “Then these guys get holes in their nests, and when it rains again they hurt each other.”

 

“They do it to themselves.”

 

“We can help. Vrum vrum vrum.”

 

Auntie Oodles wondered why the girl wasn’t with her parents. Bossing them around. She twirled her donk flower. “Isn’t this beautiful?”

 

The creature stepped onto Phialia’s instrument. “Isn’t this?”

 

“The bluh-bluhs have such an extensive vocabulary. ‘Bluh bluh bluh’ all day.”

 

“You can understand them. Vvvt.” Phialia put down the creature, then resumed pounding.

 

Auntie Oodles didn’t know much about bluh-bluhs. Just that they loved to bluh bluh, and that they didn’t contribute much.

 

*

 

Auntie Oodles’s brown cubes changed to colorful squiggles. Above her, Poo Hat manipulated Dazzy Buttons’s digital stomach. “You needed more sprinkles, Auntie pooples.”

 

Auntie Oodles held out her pad and kissed her fingertips. “This isn’t for kids. Guess how I made it.”

 

Poo Hat sweated, and Phialia kept banging her instrument.

 

“Your uncle and I mixed one part extra time, which your mommy and daddy don’t have, and one part ingenuity, which you’ll never have.”

 

Poo Hat pulled up a video on Dazzy Buttons’s stomach. It showed her banging sticks together and screaming “Play play play plee plah ploo.” It overpowered Phialia’s banging. 

 

Dazzy Buttons looked toward the Ew Drink building. His face paint had started to smudge.

 

Another chieve landed on Auntie Oodles’s donk, then rolled around.

 

Poo Hat turned off the video.

 

Auntie Oodles sipped her blue liquid. “That was a really moving piece. So profound.”

 

“You’re pooving.”

 

“Such a way with words. Somebody give her a big bowl of ice cream.”

 

*

 

The bird defecated, then flew away.

 

Dazzy Buttons locked his hands behind his back. “One would be disappointed to learn that one’s sister failed to meet child service hours no fewer than twelve times.”

 

“Well give him a big frothing glass of root beer.” The fresh discharge shimmered and cheered as Auntie Oodles molded it into a coffee cup.

 

Poo Hat pushed damp hair from her face, then slapped Dazzy Buttons’s digital stomach. “Get me some donk, you stonk bonk.”

 

Phialia banged the instrument in triple time. Auntie Oodles’s brother and niece started to swing away. She yelled, “True or false: pregnancy decreases brain size.” But they kept going. “It’s true. It’s true.”

 

*

 

Phialia stopped banging, then circled her instrument as if stirring something. “That hat makes her sweat. She should use it for something else.”

 

Auntie Oodles thought every kid envied her niece’s chieve poo hat. “My husband does something that your daddy never does: He pays attention to his wife.”

 

“My father listens to everyone. Vroom vroom.”

 

Child service hours. Squigglybounce tolls. Dink taxes. Every day, Auntie Oodles had to give to kids. And because she was a dink, she got nothing in return. A chieve landed on her donk. “Donk’s not for kids.”

 

Phialia used both hands to repeatedly lift the twastyum over her head.

 

Auntie Oodles’s yearly income was only 32,000 stickers. Right away, a tenth of that went to the fun fund so kids like that Phialia could keep getting stuff to squish or scrunch or bounce or stretch. But the one thing that no kiddyup would ever have was more chieve poo than Auntie Oodles.

 

The chieve took flight. It did not add to Auntie Oodles’s poo pile. Instead, as it ascended, the bird dropped a rainbow-colored bowel movement in Phialia’s yard.

 

The excrement flashed and cheered as the girl flattened it.

 

Auntie Oodles stared at a gap in her poo pile. Then she shaped golden dung into a star. “Look. You can make shapes. I got it.”

 

Phialia pressed the fresh poo over several bluh-bluh nests. “When the holes get covered, they don’t hurt each other.”

 

“Well give her a big…” Auntie Oodles held up her stool star. “Hey, you stopped playing for too long. Now you have to start over.”

 

“Now you have to start over.”

 

“Your clear bird never came.”

 

“You sure? Vrum vrum.” Phialia brought the instrument to her lips. Her fingers sped across the holes and music filled the yards.

 

Auntie Oodles had never heard the twastyum played with such power and skill.

 

Poo Hat and Dazzy Buttons swung back. Auntie Oodles’s niece, who’d been raised as the center of attention, played her screaming video on Dazzy Buttons’s stomach. This time, Phialia’s twastyum overpowered the screaming.

 

Dazzy Buttons showed Poo Hat’s face and grade point average on his stomach because, somewhere along the line, he started to believe that achievement outweighed individuality.

 

Phialia returned to banging the fence, and Auntie Oodles flattened her stool star.

 

 

 

Douglas J. Ogurek’s fiction, though banned on Mars, appears in over 40 Earth publications. Ogurek founded the literary subgenre known as unsplatterpunk, which uses splatterpunk conventions (e.g., extreme violence, gore, taboo subject matter) to deliver a Christian message. Ogurek also reviews films at Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction. More at www.douglasjogurek.weebly.com.