Page 2 of The Guy Sure Looks Like Plant Food To Me
It might also not be the first time something like this has happened.
His legs are chewed to shit, minced meat with some shreds of clothing dangling from the plant’s pointed teeth. She doesn’t mind the clothes, but she still whines as I examine the situation. She’s an overgrown baby. I have to grab the stepstool nearby and move it in front of her so I can get a better view into her planthole.
It’s hard to see from this far back, but the other option involves crawling inside fully. It’s not a problem, sure it’s a challenge avoiding getting cut by one of her many razor-sharp teeth, but the issue itself is that I’ve already bathed and getting covered in the latex goop Chewie excretes from her mouth is not something I care for.
“Can you lean down a bit, sweet girl? Kinda hard to see from here,” I ask because somehow she understands me.
I realized that early on in her growth.
She angles herself so that her opening is directly above my head and her mouth comes ajar, pieces of the man showering down on me like a burst pipe—but instead of rain, it’s sloppy Joseph filling. Bloody, chunky, tangled in clothes, sloppy joe.
Hold the barbecue sauce, because I’m barely even sure his name was Joseph.
I go to wipe blood off my face but it’s no use, my hands are just as covered and cause me to smear it over my eyes further, making it impossible to see. Pulling my shirt over my head, I use the inner fabric to clean the gunk from my eyelashes. That’s when I’m able to peer into the depths of the open mouth on Chewbacca’s trap where the Rolex twinkles, still stuck on her digestive glands.
Reaching up onto my tippy toes I can almost grab it. “A little more,” I grunt as she practically engulfs me into her opening. I dislodge it with a tug, but somehow the action forces her to heave, and once more I’m covered in the first half of tonight’s meal. The quasi-digested half.
I gag, but hold it back, dreading that now I’ll be spending the rest of the morning cleaning this mess instead of sleeping.
Just what I need.
“Hope you feel better,” I sigh.
At least arealdog would be eating his own vomit now.
2
AMERICA
“Williams, everyone is struggling right now.” I groan exhaustively before moving the phone from my ear for the incoming barrage of criticism he dishes out so well.
“You are not everybody, America Corsetti.” He reminds me in his snobbiest tone. “You are the daughter of the senator, and the future president.”
“I kno?—”
“No, you don’t know anything little girl.” My father gets on the line like he’s been listening to the call the entire time. He likely has, because he’s on the same landline as Williams but from the upstairs phone instead.
My father is probably the only person alive with a landline still in his home, but he refuses to get rid of it, and Truman Corsetti will not hear criticism until the day he’s six feet under. Especially not when it comes to the plans he has so carefully strategized to guarantee his future and legacy. Hell, I’m sure the man will leave me a detailed outline of how to conduct myself for the next twenty to thirty years if I’m to receive his inheritance.
I don’t want his money. In fact, I’d rather run off into the woods and disappear, but the words themselves would probably send the man into an early grave and if anything, I’d rather keepthe asshole alive. Mourning the death of a parent is not for the weak.
I know, I’ve already done it once.
My mother was taken too soon, she was sick, the doctors couldn’t figure it out, and before we all expected, she was gone, and I wasn’t even six years old.
That’s when Daddy hired Williams to watch over me. An over-glorified nanny slash personal assistant who didn’t even like children, only the prospect of political advancement by working for my father—who at the time was governor. He stuck around far too long, exhausting his novelty and becoming a permanent fixture in our home.
I’m twenty-five, far too old to be babysat, so Williams is more like a prison guard than a caretaker these days. He follows my father around like a lost puppy, interjecting himself into my life at the first sign of demand.
“You know what we tell you. And this is what we are telling you,now,” Williams educates me in his snobbiest tone. “We’ve allowed you to divert from your father’s plan the last six years, let you goof off in that school enough to get your little degrees.” He clears his throat with a dry cough when my father doesn’t interject. “Enough is enough, it’s time for you to play the part needed of you.”
“What do—” My father doesn’t let me get a word in.
“Meaning, find employment in your field, or I will find you a husband by the time the campaign begins.”
“That’s in two weeks! That’s too soon to apply and interview. Most reputable research centers looking for a botanist will need days to run a background check and look into my credentials, Daddy. It isn’t enough time. Not with the way things are, no one is hiring, or looking.”
“Looks like a husband was the smarter choice then, too bad you wasted all that time in school,” Williams says with a curt tone.
