Beard Katamari

Published in Malefaction - Quaranzine

The man with The Beard has arrived.

Jaunting down past St Margaret's barefoot, doublet bursting with muscle and chest hair against his jerkin (stained a disconcerting shade of red), he smiles his sharp, sharp smile at us and whistles; a broad vibrato cutting through the morning crowd.

Slung over his shoulder is The Beard.

Woven into a sack and stuffed with Itself, speckled with breadcrumbs and flies and what may be jam, we feel the gravity of The Thing as It is heaved by us and held up by the Man, who seems to be comparing its size to Westminster Abbey.

The man sighs and thrusts his hand deep within The Beard. His whole arm disappears within, then his shoulder, followed by most of his huge, bulging torso until he finally comes out brandishing a bread knife the size of a park bench. After cursing us with another grin, he sets to work liberating the mass of hair and filth from his chin.

Back and forth, back and forth, he saws, fibres breaking one by one until finally The Beard and the man are two.

He sets The Beard on the ground and he begins to roll.

First he rolls up the remains of a baguette discarded on the grass. It is instantly lost and the ball seems to grow bigger, hungrier. Again that smile.

A seagull, pecking at the crumbs left behind, shrieks as the man shoves the ball towards it, slurping, crunching sounds cutting the cry short.

Faster.

The Beard rolls over a flowerbed, guzzling roses and sticks and dirt and worms and growing, growing, careening towards a fruit stall and devouring all, it's ready now, yes, ready for something more filling, more bloody, yes, it rolls over Davie, the fruit vendor's Son and he is bent to the curve of the ball and his bones twist and snap, but The Beard isn't done yet, the man is not done yet, he begins to sprint down Abingdon Street, thrusting The Beard in front of him with fire and gears and pistons

NAAAAAAAAAA NANANANANA NA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY

he roars as he rolls over Mr. Eaves and his two dachshunds

NAAAAAAAAAA NANANANANA NA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY

Mrs. Gillespie's hat is all of her that can be seen on the ball of death rolling down the street before it swallows a whole crowd of protestors along with all the people they were protesting against

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NANANANANA NA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY

It's as tall as a building now and it inhales a whole line: the printer's, the shoemaker's, the post office, the police station

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NANANANANA NA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY

The man, now dwarfed by his bloody, brutal creation, hurls The Beard at St Margaret's and it disappears as if into a black hole

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NANANANANA NA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY

Joy in his eyes, tears on his cheeks, the man screams I'M COMING FOR YOU HENRY VIII YOU FUCK as he engulfs Westminster Abbey.

No monarchy can withstand the throbbing lurch of the beard katamari.