The seizures I'd been having wore down my neck muscles with stretching.  I was inside a living room, somewhere in an apartment I didn’t recognize other than smell, and my roommate, again alive, next to me on a couch.  Across from us another couch with an anorexic woman petting a large black dog.  The dog was over a hundred pounds and had gray hairs along its mouth.  Its hands resembled human hands, with long claw nails, them clear and gripping the side of the couch.  

The anorexic woman stared at us.

She said—I am an anorexic bitch.  Which one of you will fuck me—She said.

My roommate said—We didn’t come to fuck we came to watch you die.

She petted her dog, staring.

I want to show you what he can do—The anorexic bitch said.

She reached into the couch and retrieved a tennis ball and then threw the tennis ball on the ground, and the ground was see through, to the sidewalk below, eyeless fish swimming over and around dying plant life.  The large black dog got off the couch and lay by the tennis ball, chewing it.  

The anorexic bitch said—He does that for hours, it hypnotizes him.

Your parents are in jail—I said.  And they are getting fucked by groups of men with few teeth.  Come streaks their thighs and it’s wet newspaper pulp—I said.  I said—Sorry for being so mean and dramatic like that, I don’t know why I am acting like this, really—I said. 

He does that for hours, it hypnotizes him—she said.  She said, cheering—Get it.  Get it.  Who’s a good boy.  Get it—She said.

The dog was on its side, and its huge gray muzzle held the tennis ball.  It bit into the ball, then let the ball expand back.

Look at the teeth—My roommate said.

Yes look at the teeth you faggots—The anorexic bitch said.  

The dog’s teeth were claw long and yellow and they chewed the tennis ball, holding the tongue hanging out along the toothline.  Elastic resistance of the tennis protected the tongue from the teeth, inside narrow margins each time.

She had dog teeth too.  Actual dog teeth.  They had maroon layers around them nearest the gumline.  My roommate and I, we sat and stared at the chewing, and the anorexic bitch stared at us.  This was our moment.  The dog’s eyes were open but entranced, had lulled eyelids, looking out along the see through floor, chewing.  It bit down and its tongue curled, a huge muscle.  And the dog’s tongue size fluctuated; it would swell then shrink, big maroon veins defining it.  But the teeth always missed it, popping back open elastically.

The air conditioner clicked on in the apartment, and the ceiling became pennies.

We sat in the cold blow of the air conditioner and became ourselves hypnotized, watching the dog chew.  And I watched it narrowly miss biting off its own tongue, over and over.  It would happen soon.  I knew it.  When would it happen.  Would I vomit.  I went heavy with fear of watching the dog and with total cold from the air conditioning.

I love the air conditioner—The anorexic bitch said.

She closed her eyes then opened them.  They were gone.

She said—I love the air conditioner and I am an anorexic bitch.  I literally want someone to eat the skin off my inner thighs—She said.  I guess—She said.

The ash of her sunken face melted and stained her shirt and she closed her eyes and opened them again.  They were back.

There is freon in air conditioning—My roommate said, still watching the dog mouthing its slow grotesqueries with the tennis ball.

The muscled-tongue cramped.

Freon is deadly—My roommate said.  Fuck—He said, holding his chest.  I’m going to stop breathing—He said.  He said—I can’t afford to poison my brain with freon.

He panicked and fidgeted.

Fuck—He said.  Fuck.

He clawed the couch.

The freon will kill us all—He said.

I felt my heart slowing, and yellow confetti bursts lined the wall.  My heartbeat and the yellow confetti bursts synchronized.  I realized I was looking at my own heartbeat.  And it took a few seconds  for my mind to realign with having a body.  But that’s what everyone wants.

We are getting damaged by your convenience—I said to the anorexic bitch.

Help me—My roommate screamed.  Fucking help me—He screamed.

He kept almost passing out, trying to take small breaths and hold them.  He fell to the ground and pounded on the floor, causing little cracks in the see through floor from which issued the bubbles of the eyeless fish.  These bubbles then inhaled by my dying roommate.  And he inhaled them with rattling breaths.

I love the airconditioning—The anorexic bitch said.

Sugar rained from her mouth onto her lap.  Covering her hands.  She moved her fingers and let the sugar pile on the floor.

She said—Let him die.  Let him die—She said.

Lesions covered my roommate and he grunted, face blue.  He breathed out the bubbles of the eyeless fish and lay there, dying.  I kept watching the dog chew.  It would happen.  Bite down, spring back up, pause, then down again, chewing. This was chewing.

The anorexic bitch said—Marry me you fucking faggot.  Her dog teeth clicked.

She laughed, dryness and teeth-clicking audible in a way that muted everything else.

She said—Marry me or I will make you a faggot.  And you’ll carry my weight in your eyes.  Do you know how to fall face forward or do you want me to teach you—She said.  Answer—She said.

Her teeth kept clicking, and she tried to keep her lips from sticking to them.

I had no answer.  I sat with my hands on my thighs.  Thoughtless.

The dog went to bite down, but sent the tennis ball out in a slip.  And the hooked yellow teeth downed together in their holding pattern, capturing the tongue and severing it in a lurching bloody-muscle flip.  Blood ran from the dog’s mouth and it lay there, hypnotized.  I laughed and the anorexic bitch laughed.

She opened her legs and said—You want this faggot.

And from her came scents.  I picked up the dog’s severed tongue and pushed it into her, causing moans of pain.  I didn’t want to see what the birth would look like.  Moaning pain.  I recited the Lord’s prayer to her, ending with—May this tongue be a tampon for this bleeding bitch, in place of whatever other tragedy would’ve been its dam.

And I stepped on my roommate’s throat on the way out.  I pulled the freon from his body cavity as a long dark blue rope that I ate and felt undying health.

I said—Needing to orgasm changes my personality unnaturally.  Hey you’re right—I said.

I walked down the hallway and left and outside I found myself under water so I became still and floated to the surface where only the very tops of the tallest buildings penetrated the water, what was now the world ocean, no longer needing names but only a singular name.

And I said—You carry me.

And it did.