The Turd: An American Journey, Chptr. 16 – Xperience Fiction

The Turd: An American Journey, Chptr. 16 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.

The Turder wouldn’t give Ernest and crew his name, simply going to go by ‘Turder.’ He led them into a spacious den with plush seats, enough to seat all but two, Pico, who would set himself downstairs to the kitchen, and Ernest, who at that point would sooner shove a red hot rock up his ass than sit down. The room was lined wall to wall in bookshelves, filled inch to inch with books of all manner, consistency and colored bindings. One whole wall was leather bound.

Ernest was full. He always felt an ache in his gut, but this was full. He burped into his hand and thought he’d follow it with a steady stream of vomit, but it wasn’t to be.

When he opened his mouth, only words came out.

“How did this all happen?” He asked. “The video, the dinner plate, nobody gets it.

No one I’ve run across, anyway. Why?”

Turder picked up a soda bottle and took a swig. “I had a problem,” he said. “Like you. Well, the opposite of you. I could go. I was always on the toilet. But it was the trots. The ole’ brown waterfall. Couldn’t put a solid one together to save my life. Since I was a kid; doctors couldn’t figure it out. Put me on diets, tested me for worms, Crohn’s, E.

Coli, Salmonella, you name it. Nothing. Just me and dribble shits.”

He coughed without covering his mouth. Ernest saw Tristan turn away. Ernest didn’t care about getting a cold or catching anything that might give him the shits.

“I was a reviewer,” Turder said. “Just ‘cause I couldn’t pass a brick didn’t mean I couldn’t eat. And I did. I got on VidYou and went to every restaurant in Milwaukee, and there are a few. Ate, described it, filmed it all. And I did damn good too, but I didn’t get no love. A Don George fan club had me beat. You all heard of that prick? Been in one passable movie, that’s it, and his name is close to my real one, enough to confuse people. So I could never get out of the triple digits, and one was a Michelin starred restaurant that I paid five hundred bucks to get in.”

“I’m not even close to getting any of this,” Lysette said. “Cause it sounds like you turned the internet to shit because you were jealous of some two-bit actor.”

“I’m getting to it,” Turder said. “I didn’t do what you’re suggesting. I gave up and decided to open my own restaurant with Pico. I took out a loan, pretty substantial, and was trying to get all my licenses and permits. One of my prospective competitors found out about my runs and complained to his buddy in the Health Department. Couldn’t stop me from opening a restaurant without proof of plague, which they never had, but they put up so many hoops I would’ve had to spend half my loan money just getting through them. So instead, I bought this. It has a kitchen. They don’t seem to care, cause now, I’m not competing against that asshole.”

He sipped his soda. Ernest looked over to see Tristan with her phone out.

“To get to the overall point, Pico cooked up all the stuff that was in this kitchen when we opened. Some expired stuff, some stuff you’d never cook with; he just threw it all together. And wouldn’t you know? That night I had the biggest, most perfect solid a boy could wish for. I had to film it. Had no idea it would spread all over America.”

Ernest couldn’t believe what he heard. “So there was no message, no point? You were just proud of a shit?”

“Yup.”

“That’s anticlimactic,” Tristan said. “So why did people go apeshit over… shit?”

Turder got up and walked over to a laptop on one of the bookshelves with what looked like a camera feed on a intersection. “This is the Main intersection in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Two thousand people watch this a day. Nothing happens there except the occasional bus goes by. And everybody comments ‘bus.’ It’s not because those people are stupid; it’s just relaxing. I think that’s what shit is. It’s relaxing. It’s uncomplicated. The world is teetering on the brink, and shit is the ultimate escape. Everyone, mostly, can have one in their hands every day or two. And have you noticed that everyone is in agreement about one thing for the first time ever?”

“So how do we get them back?”

“I have an idea, which is why I sent for you. Come with me to the kitchen, you all.

We’re going to have ourselves that meal.”

“Oh, I can’t,” Ernest said.

The Turder put a hand on his back. “It’s time.”

They sat at the kitchen table and Pico had the kitchen counter filled with food, seven courses. Ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus and Brussell sprouts, creamed corn and corned beef hash, artfully prepared sardines and apple pie. Ernest deeply protested, but Turder told him if he had to vomit, there was a bucket under the table. But as Ernest ate, he found a labyrinth of room in his belly.

They laughed and joked and talked about science and politics, history and

religion. They argued and they concurred. Jasen taught the table all of his hacking tricks, Ophelia as well. Tristan took comments from her followers, who, after a few minutes, started commenting on something other than the oral-fecal route.

“Guys, I got a billion views,” Tristan said. “And people are sharing links to stuff we’re talking about. It’s not shit links.”

Ernest got up quickly from the table. “Uh oh,” he said. “Something’s happening. I gotta go!”

Everyone followed Ernest in the bathroom, which Turder had already set up for filming with lights at every angle, including a snake camera in the bowl itself. Ernest could barely get his pants off before his ass was magnetized to porcelain and, without a push, the sound of the most monstrous loaf was pinched twice, nay three times, loud enough for Tristan to hear, and through her, a billion people heard Ernest release forty nine days of rectal refuse.

Turder patted Ernest on his shoulder. Ernest looked up and smiled. Everybody in the room, and in the world, waited for Ernest’s next words.

“You guys mind if I wipe?”

In the end, Turder collected Ernest’s poo, possibly the largest in the world. And despite Ernest’s long-standing decision to flush it, size alone ruled that out. They used Lysette’s Second Go machine to create a mason jar full of shit flour that they would use the next morning for flapjacks.

That night the people of America got sidetracked just enough during their feast and its conversation to let poo return to a simple daily fact, meriting no more attention.

Shite, as a religion, evaporated into a fetish cult and clung to the shadows; a dingleberry.

Jasen and Ophelia, in fact, all of them, Turder included, joined the ranks of internet celebrities for a time, but even that faded. Within six months, things went back to normal, and the Great Turd of 2023 was relegated to a pop culture reference.

Like a duke, everything worked out in the end.

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