Martin Luther C*rpse
A very unhinged comedic horror story about America.
*Various warnings about gore, racism, and not being allowed to be mad at the author, who is a lovely person.*
By Moses Morrow
My sneakers crunched against the lifeless turf as I walked the jagged aisles. The growing audience chattered in whisper hush tones, a soft rumble, as I shuffled past other bodies on my way toward the front row. I slipped my glasses into my purse and took a seat dead center, a few inches from the stage and its crimson curtain.
I glanced at the rest of the front row and bit my tongue. Everyone else was white, which made sense, and they were all looking at me. I was glad I brought my knife and the words my mother gave me.
Their eyes lingered for a second and almost in unison turned back toward their previous conversations. I tasted blood in my mouth.
I crossed my legs as I stared down at my playbill to escape the awkwardness. “Our Dream”, the title, pulsed in a vibrant red font. A list of reviews from local papers and one nationally syndicated publication covered the back side. I flipped through it quickly, but the words were difficult to make out with such poor lighting. I faked a yawn and stretch and scanned the few faces near me.
Fuck.
More grinning white faces. I knew there must have been a few people of color, I’d heard more and more came now.
I wonder if they’re all in the back. I chuckled a little, which seemed to alarm the blonde haired woman next to me.
“I’m sorry.” I said quickly, for no fucking reason. She smiled a wild smile, flicked her wrist and waved it off.
I nearly jumped out of my seat as the loud ringing of bells shook me from my neck and back, down to the cracks between my toes. The red velvet curtain suddenly swung open as dueling spotlights bounced toward the center. The audience hushed in anticipation. In seconds, a white man and woman holding hands stepped out of the shadowy corners to take their position in the spotlight. They were roughly the same height, dressed like a Sunday Brunch, and could have easily passed for siblings, but the wedding bands and intimately clasped hands implied a different story.
“We are so glad you all made it out here tonight!” The woman gleed. “Thank you all so much”. Her blue eyes popped brilliantly in the spotlight.
“This is going to be our baby’s last show for the season.” The man said, grinning, a block of white teeth cracked across his square jawed face. The remark drew scattered applause, awes, and playful boos.
“So with no further ado,” his head bobbed left and right, “OUR DREAM”
The audience burst open with applause and cheers. The couple bowed and disappeared into the shadows of the stage. The applause lingered for a moment, but soon withered into the darkness. The spotlights dimmed.
A pale white girl in a black dress stepped into the light. Sweat dripped from her blonde brow, her ankles twisted inward, her feet pointed at each other in accusation. Her face stricken with mortification, she spoke with a high, trembling voice.
“Thank y’all, thank y’all for coming to our show,” she said, head down. The audience awed in response. “This show means a lot to us folks in Memphis, and we hope any outsiders here like what we’ve cooked up for ya’ll tonight.”
The girl began tearing up. “And I hope we do y’all justice tonight! Because this country needs something good right now, something to heal all that pain and dividin’ those people are out there causin’!”
The applause shook me in my seat.
“And with no more to do, I introduce to you, the late, the great Martin Luther King Junior!”
The girl gave a bow and backed away into the darkness as the stage light dimmed. The light slowly bled back and then brightened into a singular spotlight focused on a lumpy presence behind the red stage curtain.
I don’t know if I can go through with this.
My hand slipped into my pocket, fingers running along the blade within.
With a crack, the national anthem began blaring from the speakers surrounding the audience. Blue white and red lights danced around the stage before reuniting upon the lump behind the curtain.
A slow creeping creak silenced the awaiting audience. The lump emerged from the darkness.
Upon that stage, stood the bloated corpse of Martin Luther King Junior. Hooks and ropes and pulleys grabbed at his puffy decaying body. His hollow eyes swallowed the light as his faceless off-stage puppeteers dragged him forward. I could see the little hooks in his mouth, pulling his mustache and lips into a scabby grin. Yellow and green dripped behind him.
And his smell. Damn his smell. He smelled like rancid meat and vomit and eggs boiling in port-a-potty shit.
“I have a dream!” the speakers blared a poor facsimile of his voice. The audience roared, they cackled, they stomped, they hollered.
“I have a dream that little white girls and little black boys.”
The white woman next to me looked like she was about to faint from joy, eyes gleaming, teeth sharpened as she rocked along to the words in her seat.
“Can sit together at the table of prosperity, having a good time together.” He stretched one arm out toward us.
The white woman passed out in her seat.
“I have a dream!”
I couldn’t help but to prick myself with my knife. Not enough blood, obviously, but I needed the pain.
“That the color of a boy’s skin is no more significant than the content of his character. That we can all reach the mountaintop together and move on from conflict and tension!”
Both arms raised above his head, flesh bulging beneath the stretching seams of his black suit.
“I have a dream!”
Men in white suits ran through the crowd, passing out tarps and bibs. The crowd stomped and screamed, some men, and two women, tore their shirts off and ran toward the stage, white chests shining in the moonlight.
“That I can DANCE!”
The lights switched to a colorful strobe as a thick drum and bass exploded from the speakers. Martin’s body twitched and lurched into a staggered two-step. The crowd erupted.
I slipped the blade from my pocket and with shut eyes and quick swing, I sliced open my right wrist. I put my head down as I grabbed forth to contain my wound.
Martin gyrated his hips as his head bobbed along. His body wobbled and shook with each step, pus and preservatives pushed through each pour. The suit stretched and stretched as his bloated belly trembled.
I put my head down and whispered “Dìde, Bàbá Dìde, Bàbá Dìde, Bàbá”.
“I have a dream! That I can DANCE!” he bellowed again. The front row stood in response, forming a mosh pit in front of me. The fainted woman arose like a porcelain Christ, and in jubilation she rushed the stage and grabbed at Martin’s suit from the edge.
Martin’s gut exploded, intestines and dead blood rained upon the crowd. The cheers continued as they danced on the flaps of belly skin. Martin continued dancing, baring rotting ribs for those close enough to see.
“Dìde, Bàbá Dìde, Bàbá Dìde, Bàbá” I said louder as I rose and approached the stage.
The formerly fainted white woman looked at me, with a piece of Martin’s small intestine leaking from her smiling mouth. She cocked her head and started chanting with me. “Deeday, Baba,” she said, laughing.
“Dìde, Bàbá!” I screamed. The crowd stopped. They all stared, frozen.
“Dìde, Bàbá!” I yelled again. “Dìde!” The crowd hissed and booed as they began approaching me. The fainting woman leaped toward me, nails scratching at my face while cackling “Deeday baabaa.” The white mass grabbed and pulled and kicked and spit at me. Blood poured from a fresh wound to my head as I collapsed beneath their blows.
“I had A FUCKING NIGHTMARE,” Martin’s voice cracked through his decayed mouth. The air froze as the white masses all turned to face the stage. Wire’s thwicked and thwacked as the lumbering corpse of Martin Luther King Junior slung his body in starts and stops toward me. He turned his face toward the sky and gurgled out.
“YOU HAD A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!”
Martin grabbed the nearest white man’s neck with one hand, with a quick squeeze the man’s skull and brains exploded into chunks. Martin flung one of the remaining hooks in his arm toward a man who’d began to run, tearing an eyeball then whipping back around a woman’s throat. She screamed as her neck cracked in unholy rotation. The corpse stumbled off the stage into the crowd of now screaming and scrambling humans.
His hands ripped and tore bodies into bloodied scrap. Waves of red spilled as King thrashed through bones and tissue. The quaking woman next to me was yanked away as her throat exhaled a crackling shriek.
One by one, Martin pulled apart the mountain of bodies, bunches and bits were launched into the air before him. A pair of blue eyes popped as he choked the white hostesses throat into a sliver. A blood soaked piece of a white man’s nose flew into my mouth. The taste of raw pork and metal danced on my tongue before I could spit it out.
Martin’s bloody corpse appeared through the carnage. He grabbed my neck with a single hand and began to squeeze. I kicked and gasped and clawed at his arm, rotten flesh piled beneath my fingernails.
“WHY DID YOU WAKE ME?”
Tears and blood vessels swelled in my eyes as I struggled to speak.
“White peo…”
“WHY DID YOU WAKE ME?” He squeezed, just a little tighter.
“Please…” I choked out.
He loosened his grip, just enough to let me breathe.
“White people are misquoting you on the internet!” I gurgled.
His arm dropped as I fell to the soaked grass beneath me.
Martin roared, grunted, and gargled, and disappeared into the night.