Fiction By Eli Hopkins

Sometimes the smooth whisper of a jazz melody will drift through my open window as I sit at my desk smoking countless Robusta cigars. When the sound of the saxophone reaches my ears I’ll lean back in my human-skin throne and chug a Zima, one absurdly muscular arm folded behind my head: fresh and invigorating, like practicing tai chi naked in a hailstorm, which I do almost constantly. Then I’ll turn on my 5000-watt amp and plug in, complementing the sensual wail of saxophone on my 14-string slap bass. I’ll glance over at Bette sleeping on the bed, her pants half on. Poor thing isn’t used to freebasing cocaine for days at a time, and she’s very, very old. I’m often reminded of the disparity between our ages when we go on walks together and I realize that I’ve left her many miles behind, I’m talking hundreds. To be fair, I walk very, very fast.

I’ve been clocked at 46 mph, and that’s just the crabwalk; you should see me on the monkey bars, baby.

I drive the other children to tears when I’m picked first for every team, and when I eat every single other person’s lunch before they get a chance. I’m only six years old, though you wouldn’t know it to look at me. I stand a good seven and a half feet tall and weigh nearly a thousand lbs., on account of my bones having fused with a meteor that hit me when I was three. Doctors say that the accident actually saved my life because my muscles were so profoundly overdeveloped that without the added stability of meteorite my bones would have been pulverized to dust had I ever been required to flex. I’m insanely violent, even for a six year old. I’ve been known to literally crush people when I don’t get my way, and since my way often seems strange and unreasonable, people tend to oppose me. If you think people resent being bossed around by a six year old you should see them when I buckle their spines between my palms and play them like accordions—like fatally hemorrhaging accordions. It’s not a pretty sight, unless of course you’re me, which you aren’t.

Aside from my sheer size there are other things about my appearance that tend to upset people, like the many rows of shark teeth I have surgically implanted in my enormous jaw (fifth birthday present from my loving and terrified parents), and the numerous cigars that I’m smoking at any given time.

After slapping the bass around for 15 straight hours or so and chugging exactly 1,250 Zima’s I’ll lie on my back and juggle the empty bottles. I’ll start with only 10 or 20, then work my way up until I have all 1,250 whistling and writhing through the air above me. Then I’ll catch them in my mouth one at a time and chomp them into dagger like shards with my shark teeth, a holocaust of glass and blood all around me, filling up my whole world. It’s the only time I’m ever happy.