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March 25, 2024

Soft Taco Supremacy

By Josh Brown

The Taco Belle Experience kicked into the final stage. Luckily for Jack, he pulled into the driveway of his home and slammed on the brakes just as the grumbling in his gut warned him.

He hopped out of the sedan into the cool evening breeze. Goosebumps rose along his arms as he unlocked the front door and strode purposely through his messy living room, down the hall, and into the bathroom.

He failed to register the fact that the toilet seat was down. Living alone and always leaving the seat up should have alerted him to this fact, but his mind was distracted by his desire to finish the Taco Belle Experience in the least messiest way possible.

So he lifted the toilet seat and almost learned the definition of incontinence first hand. Floating in the toilet water as if it was a kiddie pool, staring up at Jack, was a large, upside-down, tear-shaped green head with big black eyes. The head was attached to a far-too-small body with straw-thin limbs that couldn't possibly hold such a massive head up. The creature let out a warning shriek--or perhaps a greeting--just as Jack let out a yelp and a wet fart that filled the room with noxious fumes. Jack's hand immediately shot out and pressed repeatedly on the flusher.

The toilet roared to life. The rush of flushing water mixed with the shrieks and squeals of the creature as it swirled uncontrollably around the bowl and then started to be pulled down the drain. Only it didn't make it very far. The giant green head plugged up the hole; its black eyes stared up at Jack as the last of the water in the toilet puddled around its head. Its tiny body now lodged in the toilet's drain, the creature could do nothing but struggle with futility at its current situation.

Again Jack's gut rumbled out in warning of the impending event in his bowels. He clenched his ass tightly as he tried to assess the situation at hand.

"What are you!" Jack said.

The creature's shrieks failed to cease. If it was attempting to communicate, it failed miserably.

Jack realized then that the creature looked strikingly like an alien. He'd never really considered things like other life in the universe. Sure, he'd heard stories of little green men and anal probes and the like, but he'd never really sat down and considered what he believed.

None of that truly mattered to Jack, though. Right now he had one seriously deadly goal in mind and that was taking a shit before his pants were ruined.

Reaching into the toilet bowl, Jack tried to grab a hold of the round head that clogged his drain. His hands slipped around on the wet fucker, however, and he couldn't get a decent grip.

Touching the alien caused a warm sensation to jolt up his arms and he momentarily lost his clenched ass, causing a loud ripping fart to accompany the alien's shrieks. Then his mind blanked completely, his body froze, and a mixture of images along with high-definition quality movies flooded his mind.

First he saw throngs of aliens that all looked exactly like his current house-guest standing in front of an enormous screen with an image of Earth growing larger by the second. When the Earth image stopped growing, an alien facing the crowd slowly turned his head back and forth scanning those present. Then he said something Jack couldn't understand and the swarm of aliens all turned to look directly at him. He felt full of pride and glory at being selected for this most monumental of occasions and somehow knew that being selected was very rare.

Then in a flash the view changed. It took Jack a moment to realize he was looking at his own house from a much lower angle than he was used to seeing. He watched, mesmerized, as he moved toward the house. Then the view changed and he was standing inside his the unkempt living room.

Again the view changed, this time Jack was looking eye-level at his toilet. Frail, thin arms that didn't belong to Jack but sure as hell felt like they did reached out and tiny three-fingered hands grabbed hold of the edge of the toilet bowl while in the background Jack could hear the sound of the front door opening in a hurry. He watched in fascination as he vaulted over the rim of the toilet and into the freezing cold water. His body shivering for a single moment and then adjusted to the cold, feeling at home floating there in the water. His spindly arms reached up and pulled the lid down, hiding himself from the approaching sound of rushed footsteps.

All of that ripped through Jack's mind in an instant, and then he was back in control of his own body. He stepped back from the toilet, wiped his hands on his pants repeatedly, and squeezed his ass cheeks tighter than ever before in an attempt to hold off the building pressure of the inevitable.

Pulling the alien out failed, so Jack rummaged around under the sink next to the toilet until he found a bottle of liquid clog remover. He felt ashamed and apprehensive at doing this, but he really needed take a shit and this alien had picked the absolutely wrong house to visit on this day. He unscrewed the cap to the bottle and dumped every last drop of thick blue liquid into the toilet where it promptly pooled around the alien's head and didn't do a damn thing else--like remove the clog.

The last thing he wanted to do was touch the alien with his bare hands again, so he grabbed the plunger from behind the toilet and pressed it against the alien's head. Jack's entire body started to revolt against him as he pushed and pulled on the plunger and desperately tried to force the alien out of the drain one way or the other. The alien thrashed and shrieked at such a high pitch the toilet shook and blood started to ooze out of Jack's right ear. Still the alien would not break free from the drain.

Vowing to never again eat four soft taco supremes from Taco Belle, Jack tossed the plunger into the shower and sighed deeply. The pressure in his intestines intensified as the need to finish the Taco Belle Experience became overwhelming.

"I hate to do this," he said to the alien. No longer could Jack think straight between his bodily needs and the deafening shrieks of the alien.

Jack dropped his pants and turned around, planting his ass on the toilet, drowning the alien in darkness. Thankful that the alien's arms were trapped in the drain. Jack let loose and finished the Taco Belle Experience with a great flood of relief.

"Welcome to Earth," Jack muttered.

Almost immediately the shrieking stopped. Jack feared the alien had died and he refused to look inside the bowl after using half the roll of toilet paper to wipe his ass.

No longer under pressure, finally able to think clearly, unable to hear anything out of his right ear--Jack went into the kitchen and pulled out his Yellow Pages to look up the number for a plumber. He didn't have the foggiest of notions about what he'd tell the hapless sap who dared to answer his call, but he'd worry about that when the plumber arrived.

As he went over to the phone attached to the wall, however, a wave of drowsiness overcame him. Standing there, Jack slumped forward and promptly fell asleep with his face mashed against the buttons of the phone.

When he awoke several hours later. The evening sun had vanished and darkness surrounded him. He struggled to his feet, the indentations of the phone buttons on his face incessantly throbbed. The air smelled stale and slightly of burnt ozone. As he walked slowly down the hall, the stench of the Taco Belle Experience accompanied the odors creating a deadly combination that made Jack want to puke. He reached around the door frame of the bathroom and flipped up the light switch. Refusing to look inside yet, he stared at the illuminated wall across from the bathroom door.

"Have to do it, Jack," he said to himself.

With great trepidation, Jack stepped into the bathroom and looked at the toilet. Or not--where the toilet normally sat between the shower and the sink was nothing more than an eccentrically designed circle like you might find in a field of crops. Only instead of crushed corn plants, it was made out of shit.

Jack didn't need to be able to read alienese to know that message spoke loudly and clearly across intergalactic divides. Deep down in his heart he felt it said, "Fuck you!"

Epilogue

Every day since Jack's encounter with the alien became a repeating cycle for him. He'd felt so terrible about what he'd done that he did the only thing he could think to do; he tried to get a do-over. By repeating the events of that day, Jack hoped that the alien would come back and give him a chance to apologize.

So he made it a point to go to Taco Belle every evening. There he ordered four soft taco supremes and ate them without tasting them--which was for the best. Then he returned home to complete the Taco Belle Experience on his new toilet with hope that he'd find the alien there. It never happened--not that this surprised Jack.

One week later, as Jack sat in a sticky chair at the Taco Belle absently chewing on his third soft taco supreme...

Earth exploded.




THE END



Originally appeared 2009-08-24.

Article © Josh Brown. All rights reserved.
Published on 2017-03-27
Image(s) © Sand Pilarski. All rights reserved.
6 Reader Comments
Hazz
08/24/2009
11:46:45 PM
Kudos. Good story
Bruce C.
08/24/2009
11:49:53 PM
Intensely quotable. "Right now he had one seriously deadly goal in mind and that was taking a shit before his pants were ruined" may be the most awesome line in modern American literature. Thot I was going to hurt myself laughing.
Bernie
08/25/2009
06:25:49 AM
This is so reminiscent of a "Die Hard" movie plot that Bruce Willis will probably be cast as Jack in the movie version (which I am sure will follow as soon as Spielberg reads it).

Welcome back to active duty, Piker.
Autumn
08/26/2009
11:45:09 AM
My kind of alien story. :) Well done, Josh.
GuardianOfTheFronds
08/28/2009
07:35:56 PM
So the aliens left a CRAP CIRCLE? This was a great Friday night read.
Alex
05/10/2020
01:36:52 PM
The mark of great literature is that it remains relevant. Although labeled "fiction", this thinly veiled autobiographical experience reads as well today as when it was first published, and completely explains the string of bad "luck" that is the hallmark of 2020.
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