That We Are Underlings
Original absurd, satirical and funny fiction. Influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut, and Norm Macdonald (all lovers of SEO).
The Minister for Technology vomited into the top drawer of his desk, slammed the drawer shut, and begged the phone to stop ringing.
He was in the midst of a panic attack, having locked himself in the office since the news broke: he had betrayed his constituents. More to the point, he had been caught betraying his constituents.
With a jolt, the Minister shot from behind the cluttered desk and paced to the door. He gave the handle a strong shake. A dining chair wedged against the handle’s backplate, and a parliamentary bookcase barricaded the door slab, but the Minister still needed to double-check.
Confident he was secure, the Minister then marched to the leather couch against the wall and re-commenced tearing the innards from the cushions. At his feet lay a pile of stuffing, white like shredded documents.
He had let the party down, betrayed his electorate. You can’t launder dirty money through a fishmonger, you idiot. His legacy was ruined, children disgraced, but worst of all: he had wronged his wife, having gone outside the marriage with the fishmonger’s daughter behind the bins at Tony’s Fish & Seafood.
There she is on the news: bloodied apron, cradling a fish carcass like a baby, confessing to the affair and the ill deeds; behind her, the stout woman’s elderly father is jiggling a sign for cheap barramundi. He’s yelling over the journalist that people should buy his fish, he’s waving to his friends, the electorate. Tony has hairy arms like a cartoon bear, wakes up twelve times a night to piss.
The Minister finished tearing the stuffing from the cushions and stripped naked. He had tiny balls, a bald head, and a strange tuft of hair on one side of his upper back. On the wall, his parliamentary portrait grinned mockingly, as if to say I’m better than you, as if to say I’m not you at all.
Once naked, the Minister bent over - goodness me - took a fistful of cushion stuffing and crammed it into a stocking he had torn from his wife’s clutches that angry morning. He then shaped the full stocking into an oval and, with a Texta, doodled his best interpretation of his own face.
The banging started again. From outside, the Prime Minister called him a fish-fucker, Chris-Tucker or boat-lover (the last being the worst insult given the Party’s inclinations). The exact words were hard to make out, though, through the door and over the pleas of the Prime Minister’s security detail who begged their fearless leader to calm down and again offered the emergency warm milk.
That man is not fit to lead, thought the Minister for Technology as he crab-walked to the bookcase, naked.
There, he swiped a chest-full of books and cradled them to the couch. He re-buttoned his shirt without putting it on and inserted the books into the cavity. He did the same for the pants and tied the trouser cuffs like one would a scarecrow. Then he tucked the stuffed shirt into the stuffed pants and placed the constructed man in the chair behind the mahogany desk.
Like a doting father, the Minister then stood behind the fake man, knotting and then pulling tight the tie around his neck. He then threaded the stuffed arms through the suit jacket and pinched tight the lapels. It was the most tender machinery of government change never witnessed.
The Minister’s last formal act before officially leaving office was to salute his replacement. This he did straddling the window frame before climbing out in a bedsheet he wore like a Roman toga.
That evening before seven, the Minister was semi-intoxicated at a pub near his ex-home. His life was over. His marriage ruined, career in tatters, desk filled with vomit. There was nothing left to do except watch the little bubbles in his beer rise, pop and disappear.
On a television in the corner, the news played. The next story was his own: Disgraced Minister’s Fishy Dealings. That was no surprise - a corrupt member of parliament is clearly newsworthy - but the Minister was shocked when the footage cut to a live press conference allegedly with him.
Sitting behind the mahogany desk was the stuffed-stocking Minister for Technology. Behind his right shoulder, in front of the bookcase (now empty except for one short story collection by an unknown author) was the Prime Minister. His left hand gripped the stuffed man’s shoulder while the right pinched his own nose to block the stench. Out of frame, a gaggle of reporters foamed at the mouth.
One reporter asked, “What do you think about the opposition leader’s comments that your behaviour reflects poorly on the seafood industry?”
The stuffed-stocking Minister for Technology smiled. Then his head half-collapsed, and the smile and the head nod came across as condescending to some.
“That guy is a joke,” said a man in the bar. “He should take this seriously.”
The real Minister turned from the television to the bar. A couple were seated before the beer taps with their necks craned up to the television. The Minister’s eyes narrowed. He was wearing a fake moustache, real toupee.
“I disagree,” said the woman. “I think he’s rather stoic. If these journos want to ask terrible questions, they deserve the silent treatment.”
“What are you talking about? It was a great question. Many Australians enjoy eating fish; I know I do. I want the damn truth, for once.”
“The truth is I think he’s rather handsome, in a masculine way.”
“Handsome? Are you joking? The man looks like a stuffed stocking filled-”
But the man at the bar fell silent, his line of thought severed by the bright colours of a toothpaste ad.
“Oo, toothpaste,” he muttered, conveniently.
After the advertisements came the next news piece: the Ukraine War.
As the death toll rose, the couple at the bar discussed the intricacies of that conflict. The woman kept asking why the elites avoid discussing the Azov Regiment while the man, who was #OpenToWork on LinkedIn, used beer coasters like a History channel documentary to try and explain troop movements near Bakhmut.
When the story ended, so did their discussion. This happened again with Novak Djokovic’s recent Australian Open appearance, and again with the film review for John Wick 4 (It’s shit vs. Did you know Keanu Reeves rides a subway?).
When the news ended entirely, the couple stopped talking. It was as if they were completely dependent on the news prompts, like some reverse game of Pictionary, every night until death.
The Minister sitting nearby watched the couple as they gathered their things in complete silence. They seemed unable to locate an exit, and when they did - by accident - the man walked straight into the glass door like a pigeon.
When they were finally gone, the Minister called over the bartender.
“What’s on the top shelf?” he asked, pointing at the whiskey under the lights.
“Celebrating. What’s the occasion?” asked the bartender.
On the Minister’s face emerged a smile as grotesque as the one he wore that sweaty night at Tony’s Fish & Seafood. The smile was so broad that the edges of his fake moustache unstuck, and he let them because who cares? Then, as if in the comfort of his own bathroom, the Minister adjusted the Roman toga near his tiny balls and spoke.
“Well,” he said, followed by a sharp exhale, a release. “I think I just left a really horrible job.”
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Profitron contains absurd, satirical and funny short fiction and prose. Literary influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut and Norm Macdonald. That’s all we have time for, folks.
I liked the crab walking line. I kept wondering though, what colour was the stocking?