Ditalini Press

Scrapheapula



(I had invented a character back in my late teens that was an amalgam of Italian
Son of Hercules movies, and a more futuristic hero.
His name; Scrapheapula)

From the land of caustic ethereal mist, regions of clamor, and ceaseless pounding, emerged a noble son of the rising mountains of refuse. Scrapheapula.
Raised as a humble plastic herder in the peasant village of Loki-sad,
life proved difficult as a youthful boy. His parents, who lived in a discarded coal cart,
wished great things for their lithe and bright eyed son. So poor was his family that his
mother wove his first clothing from strands of cobwebs and nasal mucus.
His father, a janitor inside nuclear reactor cores, would arrive home late
and warm the dank, cold coal car with his residual glow.
We called him Neutron Furnace. NF for short.
NF earned .05 rubles per month, and therefore frugal, would also put food on the table in the
form of dregs he had scraped from inside the aging reactor rods and spent casings.

Scrapheapula grew as steadily as a ground zero perennial at Hiroshima. His endurance seemed inexhaustible, and he was certain he would soon be ready to go out into the world and
earn a dying. The mountains in the distance groaned, creaked and belched in ferment and
fevers of oxidation. The valley was adrift in music. His mother, a former Olympic
gymnast, had at one time won the gold medal in 3 events. It was later that the IOC
stripped her medals away citing she had not had the required levels of noxious, toxic hydrocarbons in her blood. We called her Ruined. It was certainly her favorite
adjective.

Scrapheapula realized the weight of growing up amid harsh conditions. It was forced upon
him continuously. He was nudged out of the coal cart at 18 months due to room limitations.
He slept underneath the cart with venomous spiders, rats, and pools of blind tadpoles.
Pygmy albino baboons would frequently attack at night at the mouth of the cave where
the rusting coal cart stood. They were after human toe jam and would press furiously
in large numbers until they had acquired their quota. It was in these nightly battles
in preserving his own dignity, that Scrapheapula stood as a warrior to be respected.

One day Scrapheapula left his home. He posted a note on the lid of the coal cart.
It read,

"Dear Ruined and NF,

I am leaving. I am glad you are my parents.
I will always remember you. And, if I make good in
my life, I will send compensation to you.
I know life has been harder than a dura-steel bulkhead for
you, and me as well. I have a couple knives, a spear, and a few
plastic bottles full of algae spongiform gack.
So, don't worry about me.

your eternal son,
Scrapheapula"

Scrapheapula walked out of the valley and did not stop.
He followed the moon, which he had always called, Bowl of Stupid since
he was able to mouth the native language.
He hiked for hours under Bowl of Stupid light, sipping the
blue-black gunk that had been trapped inside liter bottles for eons.
Also, he had secreted away a small cloth bag that nobody knew of outside
a couple pygmy baboons whom he domesticated. It was a delicacy known in
few quarters. A quantity of munchy android eyeball retinas.

He slept for a time under a crashed ore processing ship, at least a section of one.
It was one of the ancient Bowl of Stupid mining operatives that was blasted
down by rival ore companies. At first light he searched ship compartments for
valuables. He found a few broken android heads long devoid of retina.

As Scrapheapula exited the fragmented hulk he saw that the perimeter was filled, shoulder to
hoof by a freakish mutant band of loathsome drooling, snarling, rasping, ugly,
blood-flecked, gut-greased, cadre of teeth gnashing, breathing insecticide.

For a child who's lullabies were torturous collisions of metallic hulls cracking open in the troposphere, the sight of these morbid creatures brought forth a warming glow. Scrapheapula gestured
hypnotically at their dark eye socket holes hoping to reach some intact quadrant of
their worm eaten brains. Ineffective responses were indicated by increased quantity of
mouth froth, lip smacking, and head ooze. It was time to construct a new plan prior to
complete frontal assault.

His father NF, had bestowed upon his genetic upbringing, a significant element by the
regular consumption of reactor dregs, Scrapheapula pulsed a brief, blinding, blue spark that emitted from his navel and showered his adversaries. His belly was ripe with a supra-cosmic lethal dose of Chernikov radiation.

He respectfully proceeded past puddling mounds of hissing flesh. Cell walls obliterated by a thick blanket of neutrons. A putrid stream of waste wove through
the perforated gray dust where the deceased miscreants lay.

Onward to destinies unknown. A man someday to be renown, a giant among the
simian minions. An uncommon hero in an amok epoch in time.
Scrapheapula the bold.

Marc