Blow Up the Outside World by Jordan Krall Page A

Potter’s cage. He poked them every morning though he didn’t know what he expected to happen or how it would help his situation. Maybe deep down Potter hoped the sacs would burst open and send a cascade of milky salvation over his body. Then he could stare at the liquid as it dried and cracked like the paint on the walls of the movie theatre he used to go to back when he was on earth. Unfortunately, the sacs were never close to bursting; their tough membranes acted like impenetrable walls around a fluorescent-blue liquid fortress.
    Through the frenzied haze of captivity, he imagined the sacs as enlarged breasts that looked like they had been bruised and battered during a violent bout of sex. These milk mounds soon morphed into giant blue testicles that jiggled with each poke of Potter’s finger. He got close to them and sniffed. They had no scent.
    Shouldn’t they have some aroma? Potter expected a sour milk or crotch smell. He dug his chin into his chest, raised his arm, and sniffed his armpit. The stench of his body odor was potent enough to convince Potter it wasn’t his olfactory sense that was failing.
    Potter wanted the sacs to smell, wanted them to smell like anything just so he’d know they were something natural, something based in his old reality. He would have been happy for them to smell like anything but preferred if they possessed the aroma of a woman. He was honest with himself and admitted if they had that musky scent, he would’ve attempted to make love to the sacs in hopes of penetrating the membrane and burying his cock deep into the blue milk. His eyes fluttered while his mind spat out freeze-frame images.
    An ejaculation into blue wetness. Sperm mixing with milk. Membrane stretched and broken like deflated balloon. Glass melting from scrotal heat exploding into a sour orgasm.
    Hours later, Potter came to his senses. He looked down at himself and saw that his stomach had become one of the sacs: a translucent membrane surrounding blue milk that swished with every one of his breaths. The round glob of gel that was formerly his belly button jiggled as Potter inspected it.
    What had the Valdrott done to him? Were they expecting him to go insane? If so, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He’d rather live out his short, captive life with this monstrosity of a stomach than to give them any sort of contentment. Their experiments would not be successful if he had any say in the matter.
    Potter continued poking at his belly, somewhat enjoying the movement, the milk swishing like polluted ocean waves. He thought it was getting bigger though he hadn’t eaten a thing in days. Perhaps that was why he had tried poking the sacs open, to eat what was inside. It would give him sustenance or it would kill him. Either way, he had to try.
    The membrane on his belly seemed weaker than the membranes on the sacs. He poked his finger into his gut, pushing his fingernail into it until he was convinced it would pop open, spilling the contents all over. Potter wanted to drink what was inside. His thirst and hunger were now overwhelming him. The sight of his swollen abdomen made his mouth water. He kept poking and poking until he heard the Valdrott outside of his cage.
    They were ready for him again.
     
    (Potter’s Transmission)
    They gave me another exam: four rods inserted into my brain that made me see sparks of bright colors that looked like scratchy Technicolor on a torn up movie screen. I was swept up in them and couldn’t escape their blinding effects for days. My stomach is giving me hell. It won’t let me inside but I keep trying as I am now immune to self-inflicted pain. I want to eat and drink. I am starving. I am beginning to think the Valdrott have won. I am beginning to think that even though they are more advanced than us, they are nothing more than bloodthirsty butchers.
    ( End of Transmission)
     
    Potter closes his eyes, the darkness of his eyelids transforming into a point-of-view showing him