Binky checks the case one last time before closing it shut and inconspicuously sliding it over next to DW. She doesn't bother to look at him. She knows it's there.
Her plastic sunglasses dark, cold and unreflective. Her face expressionless. She too checks her watch and synchronizes.
A loud crash above, shattering glass. DW looks up at the building, shielding her eyes from the sun, despite the necessary facial protection already established. Binky doesn't bother. He just checks his watch.
The echoes of screams get louder and louder as the body descends from the heavens.

ASSIMILATION IS THE ERROR OF THE FORTHRIGHT. IMITATION AS A MEANS OF PRODUCTIVITY. D.W. HAS AMBITION.
A.R.

The body of Binky Barnes splatters on the sidewalk in front of the silent duo on the bench. The living Binky looks up from his watch and at the body. He looks at DW, her gaze fallen with his clone. He pats her on the head. She doesn't respond. Binky gets up and wanders off.

diplocracy

Arthur adjusts his glasses with his bloody stump while trying to avoid eye contact. Leaving blood spatter matted across the lenses. Other hand grasped firmly around the safety bar. Buster hums the themesong while zipping up. The circumference of his head slowly and subtly expanding.

"Gotta tell ya, Arth, this is one of the best ideas you've ever had."

"Don't call me Arth," Arth says.

"Thur."

"That's worse, I think."

"Don't box me in. You had this idea."

"I didn't have this idea."

"Who had this idea? Was it The Brain?"

"I don't know."

"Anyway, good shit. Goood shit."

"Buster," Arthur says, disgusted. "The car smells like peepee."

"There's not a bathroom on the subway. Where am I supposed to peepee, Arthur? Am I supposed to get off the train so I can peepee in the bathroom like some kind of fucking simian?"

"Yeah, Buster, that's actually what you're supposed t-"

"Well I'm not doing that." Buster shakes off while still making peepee. A glitch in the matrix. Arthur's pants suffer the wrath of his jangling. "You got the case?"

"Jesus Christ, Bus. You got your peepee on my pants."

"Don't call me Bus. Don't you ever call me Bus."

"Okay, Ter," Arthur says, rolling his eyes. "Don't box me in."

"I see the irony here and I see the piss on your pants but like. I dunno, man. Fuck that. Fuck all that. Do you have the case I handcuffed to your arm?"

Arthur laughs. Like, outright bellybellows. "You gotta be kidding me, right? I cut my hand off as soon as you cuffed that shit to me. I've been trying to stop the bleeding ever since. Right in front of you."

Buster raises his eyebrows. He notices that Arthur's sweater has more red and brown on it than it should, and that one of his hands is missing. He's vomiting what looks like piles of raw hamburger meat one blip at a time at his feet, on his shoes. The general area stinks of urine, puke, trash and gasoline.

"Maybe I should call you RALPH." Buster laughs. His voice innocent and childlike.

"Maybe I should call you DEAD RABBIT DIVIDED BY ONE HUNDRED."

"Because you'd cut me into a hundred pieces. That's funny, Arthur. That's real funny. But I'm very disappointed in you. We needed that case. We're gonna have to go back now, and handcuff it to your other arm."

"I dunno, Buster," Arthur says, tightening his soaked red sweater around his bloody stump, "I'm losing a lot of blood. I think I need to go to the hospital."
He hacks up more shredded beef as Buster's eyes widen.

"Deja vu," Buster says.

"What." Arthur says.

"What." Arthur says.

"Deja vu," Buster says.

"Buster," Arthur says, stuffing his profusely bleeding stump into the stomach of his sweater. Soaking it into the already crusting and browning dried blood from earlier. "I'm losing a lot of blood. I think I need to go to the hospital."

"That's where we're goooing. We just gotta catch the D train."

Subway cars shake the earth beneath them as they rumble and rage by. What a novel way to describe a train passing, the author thinks to herself.

"Was that the D train?" Arthur asks without looking.

"Did it stop?" Buster says, smiling with his eyes closed.

"No..?"

"Then it must have been the F train." Buster keeps smiling. The circumference of his head still slowly, subtly expanding.

"I appreciate your sound and reasonable logic in even the worst case scenarios." The degree of sincerity Arthur breathes into these words is uncertain.

Buster doesn't seem to wonder, or care. Still smiling with his eyes closed, he responds. "Thank you, Arthur. Do you have the case?"

"You gotta be fucking kidding me, Buster. You watched me cut my hand off."

"I must have had a few too many 'ludes." His voice, angelic as ever, a bit softer and slower than his usual vernacular wouldst see fit to conform. "You have the case right?"

"Is the D train really going to the hospital? I need it bad."

"Speaking of which, I need to peepee," Buster says, his eyes fluttering open. "We can't always get what we want, Arthur."

"Why don't you go before we get on the train? I'm sure we have time."

Buster turns around to face him. His head cocking in curiosity as it begins to expand to the extent of its elasticity. "Arthur. What happened to your hand?"

Arthur is dumbfounded. "What. You watched me cut it off."

Buster gasps. "Deja vu!"

Arthur's stump begins gushing, more like spraying through the fabric of his shirt and splashing down his torso and legs like some kind of waterfall but instead of a cliff face it's the body of a chump. His eyes pop open wide and he starts to scream.

.teliot eht ni repap gnipiw ekil ti hguorht skaos ti retaews sih fo cirbaf eht htiw ti revoc ot seirt yletarepsed eh sa neht ,gnihsug snigeb pmuts s'ruhtrA
.aragaiN fo daetsni pmuhc emos ylno ,sllaF aragaiN ekil ytivarg ot gnibmuccus dna osrot sih otni gniyarpS.
.ylduoL .gnimaercs s'eH

"!uv ajeD" .retsuB sepacse psag A

.suoiruc dna gniyd si ruhtrA "!?sdrawkcab ew era yhW"

.syas retsuB ".tahW"

"!?sdrawkcab ew era yhW" .fo tnemtraped eht niereht gnikcal era swonk eh ELPOEP EMOS gnihtemos ,ysetruoc fo tuo flesmih staeper tsuj eH .suoiruc ssel tub gniyd llits si ruhtrA

".uv ejaD fo esnes eht gnitteg m'I" .sesum retsuB ",egnartS .mH"

.sdnamed ruhtrA "1?em ESUCxE"

ExCUSE me?1" Arthur demands.

"Deja vu," Buster whispers into the secret microphone wired to his body under his shirt, facing away from Arthur before turning and looking at Arthur and pretending to respond. "What? You gotta be kidding me. I just told you. I handcuffed a bomb to your wrist so we could go blow up the bottom floor of a hospital. That way, the rest of the structure crumbles beneath its own weight and everyone either dies or is horrible injured."

"What in god's name are you talking about, Buster? Did Brain put you up to this?" Arthur feels dizzy and sick and very weak as if his hand were still missing. "Wait, why are we backwards?"

"Brain? Backwards?" Buster is drooling from his lethargic bucktoothed smile. "Arthur. Have you had a few too many 'ludes?"

Arthur notices his hand, still handcuffed to the briefcase. Surreal to him, he moves the joints of his fingers slowly, affirming its presence. "My hand," he says, dumbfounded.

"Cos' I had a few too many 'ludes." The skin on his face is taught and bright as a red balloon as it continues to swell with blood. His voice angelic as ever, his speech pattern dreamlike. His skull begins to lightly crack and strain under the pressure of his brain's expansion. "Damn brain gave me a few too many 'luuuudes."

"I don't have to cut off my hand. Buster, do you know what this means? I don't have to cut off my hand! Buster, where's the key?"

"Handcuff key...? I thought that was 'ludes..."

"Buster!"

His eyes are bulging out of his swelling head like an inflating dog trapped inside a mesh cage that outlived its useful size two thirds into the inflation. His leaking tongue liver in a dickpump tube. "Deja v-"

Buster's head explodes under the pressure of its own rapid expansion and sprays violence across the room like a paint can across a fur coat.
Arthur screams for a good solid minute before he remembers there's an actual bomb attached to his wrist that he needs to get rid of asap.

Now, what happens next could happen a few different ways depending on what stimulates you.

First, he could cut his hand off with the meat cleaver in the kitchen, and after a few determined whacks and some screaming, try to flush the suitcase bomb down the toilet, ultimately upsetting the bomb and exploding his house.

Or! He could try to flush the suitcase bomb down the toilet with the handcuff still cuffed to his wrist and discover the ancient ritual necessary completely by accident to Ratburn's alternate sewer dimension where he is a doctor, and Arthur needs a circumcision.

But! He could ALSO chew through the plastic chain of the handcuffs, damaging his teeth and gums in the process then try to flush HIMSELF down the toilet to shield himself from the blast!

Actually! What really happens is Binky Barns kicks his bedroom door open! He's wielding a big kitchen knife!

"There you are, Arthur!"

"Deja vu!" he screams, horrified, trying to go back to a time before this. But that only works when Buster does it, and Buster is dead. "Deja vu! Deja vu!"

"Haha! That's not gonna work this time, Arthur! Let me give you a hand!"

Binky Barns sits on Arthur and pins his arm by the hand to the ground. "Heyyy! Stop wiggling! I'm trying to help you!"

Binky stabs him in the wrist a few times, blood jettisoning out onto his face before he applies the blade at an angle and pressures his weight into a sturdy sawing motion.
With the crack of brute force, Binky manages to remove the bulk of Arthur's hand from his wrist, tearing away straggling tendons and stretches of skin before removing it entirely. He gets up and starts laughing loudly over the horrified, suffering Ardvark's screams.

"You have no hand! Arthur! You have no hand you stupid bitch! Ahahaahahahah! What a stupid asshole! Arthur don't got no hand! Look everybody! Arthur is a stupid bitch with no hand!"

Arthur only screams in terror and pain as everybody looks at him, judging him.

Later, in the sewer, as he's being strapped down to a rusted gurney, his screams continue, and echo the shitpipes and peepee halls for the rest of his wretched, sad life.

"Pull his pants down, Francine," says Dr. Ratburn cynically through his surgical mask.

"You mean expose his boypart?" says Francine curiously through her similarly situated surgical mask.

"Yes! This boy is in need of a circumcision! I love doing this!" Says Dr. Ratburn! All of those things!

"Francine," Arthur's screaming has turned into sobbing, and his voice is hoarse and fragile. It keeps breaking. "Francine, please help me. Please."

Francine remembers the time Arthur cheated on her in math class on the math quiz. That upset Francine. She didn't say he could do that and she got in trouble for it. She exposes his boy part and hands the good doctor a rusty can opener.

"Use this, Dr. Ratburn," she says, looking Arthur directly in the eyes. God's laughter echoes in the distance. "I found it in a dumpster on the way over here. More like dumb dumpster. Dumbster. Like Arthur here. He has no hand and isn't even circumcised."

The doctor laughs. "Haha!" the doctor laughs. "I never use anesthetic!"

Dr. Ratburn circumcises Arthur's boy part with a rusty can opener Francine found in the trash. It really hurts a lot. He will have to wear a hospital gown for a whole week or his boy part will fall off after it turns black and falls off in fact.

Of course, Arthur keeps screaming "deja vUu" and nothing happens. He just keeps getting circumcised. It takes some time.

DW double checks the suitcase before closing it, bloody handcuff clanking limply against the black leather.
Snapping it shut. Her job here is almost done.

She steps over Binky's corpse in the gutter and onto the sidewalk and down the sidewalk and through the front door and leaves the briefcase with the receptionist. She says it's her brother's and she goes out the way she came in.

On her way down the street, she passes a sign that says DR. RATBURN'S SEWER CIRCUMCISION HOSPITAL.
The first floor explodes and the rest of the building collapses in on itself. She adjusts her sunglasses.

DW doesn't look back.

cornwallace - 2018