Malarya

Malarya Snark awoke in her bed, the sidewalk. She had been roaming the streets of Blahblahblahvos for months, tricking people into thinking she was a beggar by asking for money and starving to death. In addition to this she had to deal with the loss of her vision, which wasn’t all that bad, except people constantly berated her and beat her up because her eyes were a little milky looking and were hanging out of their sockets. This turned out to be a positive as she then learned a new type of fighting—fighting the adversities faced by millions of visually disabled people every day.

All this was part of Malarya’s training with the Tasteless Men, a secret order of Blahblahblahvosi assassins who disguised themselves by wearing dead people’s bloody faces. Malarya had sought them out to learn the art of killing people really hard, so she could ultimately eliminate everyone on her kill list. Malarya recited the list aloud: “Walty Fuck. Cervix Bangsister. Um…” She found herself struggling before she even got to the hard part of the list, which had two guys in a row named “Throwup Jackson” whom she could never tell apart. “Uhhhh… Cervix Bangsister… Ed Sheeran?” That can’t be right, she thought. Ed Sheeran? The genre-redefining singer-songwriter-guitarist? Malarya would have to take her own word for it.

Malarya had been in Blahblahblahvos for far too long. She wanted desperately to be back in Westopolis—she hadn’t seen her remaining family in years, and she felt unwelcome in this strange land. She had no allies here, no friends, and the people of Blahblahblahvos would never accept her as anything more than a foreigner. Plus the public transit was garbage, and you ended up having to horse everywhere. But it was still too early in her training—she hadn’t been given a single target to assassinate.

Malarya heard a coin drop into the small collection box she had in front of her. “It has been too long, girl,” said a man’s voice. Malarya recognized the voice—it was Jaqof Cigar, her mentor, one of the Tasteless Men. He came at the top of every hour to kick over Malarya’s collection box and make fun of her goofy eyes.

“Please, Jaqof, don’t—”

“After six months in the streets, has a girl finally become no one?”

“What does that mean?”

“Would someone who is no one ask questions?”

“You just did.”

“I’m not no one. I’m Jaqof.”

“Well, then, I don’t want to be no one.”

“Well, you have to be no one, so—”

“I’m Malarya Snark of—”

“LALALALA—I didn’t hear you say that.”

“Fine! Fine, I’m no one.”

“Just as the prophecy foretold…”

Jaqof grabbed Malarya’s dangly eyes and shoved them back into their sockets, restoring her sight. He dropped a slip of paper into her collection box, kicked it over, and walked away. Written on the paper was Malarya’s first official assassination target: a traveling actress in a local production of Westopolis: The Musical! Malarya excitedly grabbed her sword, Noodle, and ran to the theater.

Upon joining the audience, Malarya clutched Noodle and identified her target as the lead of the show. Malarya watched the actress nervously, unblinking, clutching her sword so hard her knuckles turned white, but as the show went on, she found herself taken by the mystic beauty of the theater. She laughed. She cried. By the end, she was singing along:

“… AND THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT,

THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT,

THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT,

THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT,

THAT RIGHT THERE? THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT,

OH YEAH, THEY CALL IT,

OH MAN, DO THEY CALL IT,

AW GOD, THEY CALL IT,

OH OH OH—OW, OW, SERIOUSLY OW. SERIOUSLY. STOP. THEY CALL IT,

OH MY GOODNESS… DO YOU SEE THAT? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT

THING? IT’S… OH GODS, IS IT OOZING? OH NO, OH NO, IT’S GIVING

BIRTH. THE CHILDREN! PROTECT THE CHILDREN! NOOOOO! GODS,

WHY?! WHY?! WHY HAVE YOU SENT THIS THING TO US?! WELL THAT

THING RIGHT THERE’S WHY THEY CALL IT,

THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT,

THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT WESTOOOOPOLIS!

THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT.”

Malarya wept. That was why they called it Westopolis. The show was hard to follow, but something about it kept Malarya’s attention: the nudity.

After the show, Malarya thought deeply about her target’s performance—she decided not to kill her, moving Noodle off the actress’s throat after cornering her backstage. The actress gasped for air. “Thank you,” she said, through tears, “That’s my singing throat!” They shared a laugh, and an arrow flew through the window and into the actress’s eye.

Malarya ran—the Tasteless Men knew of her betrayal of orders, and they would stop at nothing to kill her. An assassin chased Malarya through the shady, disease-ridden alleyways she once called home. The assassin was gaining. Panicked, Malarya ran into the nearest open door and just prayed it was a no-assassins-allowed establishment.

Beyond the door was complete darkness; the two were sightless, but Malarya had picked one thing up during her training that the assassin had not: night-vision goggles.

Noodle plunged through the assassin’s heart, quickly and painlessly. Then through the assassin’s head, also quickly, less painlessly. Then just a full slice down the middle. Malarya stood above her would-be killer’s body. “Well… I guess Noodle made… al dente in your skull.” Malarya smirked, though her people were still millions of years away from inventing pasta.

There was nothing left in Blahblahblahvos for Malarya—yet she couldn’t stop herself from returning to Jaqof Cigar for a final word, and maybe a few faces.

“Finally, a girl is no one,” he said upon seeing her.

“Stop saying that.” Malarya was having none of it today.

“A girl is no one. A girl is no one. A girl is no one.”

“Stop it! I said stop!”

“No one no one no one!”

“A girl is Malarya Snark of Wintersmells, and I’m going to go kill Walty Fuck and all his fucking Fucks, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!” Malarya pocketed six or seven faces and left—just as Jaqof thought of the perfect comeback.

Malarya stood at the entrance of the ancestral castle of House Fuck. She clenched her fists and repeated her kill list: “Cervix Bangsister. Walty Fuck. Ed… Ed something. Uh… Deaddard Snark. No.” A servant woman approached her, and she froze.

“Welcome!” the woman said giddily. Thank the Gods, Malarya thought. They speak British here too. Malarya killed the woman.

“Well, it looks like Noodle was ‘welcome’ in your skull—no, wait, well, it looks like—looks like the ides of March was in your head all along—wait, no I got it, guess that’s why they call it the blues—wait—” There was no time. Malarya donned the servant woman’s attire, then set to cutting off the woman’s face. After several dozen attempts and false starts, Malarya messed it up really badly several more times. When she finally succeeded, the face was in tatters, bleeding all over the place, most of it still on the woman’s corpse. Malarya was pretty sure she was doing something incorrectly, but she shrugged, stapled the mangled face to her own, and rushed inside.

She entered Walty Fuck’s chambers at suppertime. Walty was by far the oldest man Malarya had ever served dinner to while in a disguise.

“Servant girl! Servant girl!” Walty was wearing triple-bagged adult diapers.

“Good eve, my lord,” Malarya said politely.

“You know, you’ve got a real tight… something. I don’t know, tell everyone I said something sexist. And what’s going on with your face? It almost distracted me from only staring at your tits this whole time.”

“I’ve prepared your supper, my lord.”

“You know, let’s do things differently tonight. Fetch me my sons. Not including the fat one. Wait, wait, wait—yes, including the fat one.”

Malarya smirked. “I already have, my lord.” She produced Walty’s supper—his sons’ bodies, barely cooked, on skewers.

Walty sat in shock. He yelled, “Get. Out. Of. My. Head.” He began to devour his meal, which he referred to as “son kebab.”

“My—my lord, these are your actual sons.”

“I know, right?” He spoke with a mouthful of cheekbone. “It’s like, I think it, you do it. Incredible work, servant girl.”

Malarya grew frustrated and removed the servant girl’s face from her own. “Well, well, well!” she proclaimed. “The time has come!”

“Oh my Gods. I. Love. Son kebab. Do we have more sons?” Walty wasn’t paying attention.

“Hello! It’s me! Look! Weren’t expecting that, were you?”

Walty thought for a moment. “Who?”

“Me! Come on, it’s me, Malarya! Pretty surprising, huh?”

Walty thought for a second, then continued eating.

“You killed my whole family? At a wedding?”

“This is preposterous, girl,” Walty said, spitting out a chunk of foreskin.

“I’m a Snark, and I’m here to kill you, okay?”

“No, I get it, but how was I supposed to recognize you?”

“Because, you—because—no, yeah, you’re right.”

“You know, for a Snark you sure are a nice slice of—”

Malarya slit Walty’s throat. He spoke his final words: “Wait… were those my REAL SONS?” He died, and Malarya laughed loudly—she was remembering “that’s my singing throat!” from earlier.

“And that’s why you don’t have a destination wedding. No. Okay. And that’s why you always bring a plus-one—that’s why you—” No time.

That night, Malarya assembled the entirety of House Fuck while wearing Walty’s face. She had never known the man in life and so would have to guess as to how he would have acted at one of these feasts. Malarya, as she assumed Walty would, stood to give a toast.

“You might be wondering why I gathered you. That’s, well, you know, that’s a very valid question. It’s—you know, that’s the thing about us, about House Fuck, you know, we’re—we eat together, we eat together often, and uh—”

“Why is Walty Fuck’s face stapled to yours?” a faint voice called out.

“Ahh, you know, and we’re always busting each other’s balls too, right? Like this guy over here.” Malarya stumbled as she tried to point, dropping her wine. “But—but it’s all in good fun, here! You know, here in House Fuck it’s all in good fun. You know, I’m, you know, I’m Walty Fuck, I’m the real Walty Fuck, and, truly, I’d truly take a bullet for any of you. Except Uncle Charlie—where is that troublemaker?! Ahh, kidding, kidding, busting your balls, Uncle C, I’m just busting your balls, you know how we do that here.”

“Are you a female child?” the voice beckoned.

“Yeah, well… that’s, you know, we’ve got good wine, good food, the moon is out, there’s… birds exist, and, essentially, you know, we stick together, but that doesn’t mean we don’t bust balls. We do. And, you know, fuck the Snarks, you know? I’m glad that we killed—” Malarya choked up—“that we killed—their whole family, I’m—I’m—it’s good, I’m good, and, on a night like tonight, you know, where the moon’s out, the balls are being busted, et cetera. You know, it makes me think—”

“Seriously, who are you?”

“I mean, I, me personally, I—Walty Fuck, that is—love my family. Family is really a gift, like I said, and you know, the moon’s out tonight, it’s a great night, yada yada, and… ahhhh, screw it! Let’s feast!” Malarya ripped up her fourteen remaining note cards.

The tables were lined with chalices. What the Fucks didn’t know was that Malarya had spiked their wine with three hundred cold hard cc’s of Westopolis’s most ambiguously labeled over-the-counter laxatives; what Malarya didn’t know was that the Fucks had collectively not defecated in seven years. The Fucks gulped down their wine, and almost immediately the floor started rumbling. Within seconds a raging shitstorm erupted out of the entire Fuck family. There was shit in every chalice. There was shit between every floorboard. Falling from the ceiling, shit. There was shit outside, looking in through the window because the building was at shit capacity. There was even shit just hanging out, not in any one place in particular.

Malarya swam to each Fuck, killing everyone responsible for the death of her family and also killing the ones who were innocent but begging to be killed because of the shit. The crazy thing was, their bodies, even after all the shitting, emptied their bowels again upon death.

After some time, Malarya was sure that every Fuck was dead. She went back and stabbed them all, to be sure, and then she set the castle on fire and stepped outside. She then stepped back inside and stabbed them all several more times than before—hundreds of times, really—and then really took her time walking back outside. As she watched the blaze, she tore off Walty’s face, and, with it, a significant amount of her own.

Malarya had finally avenged her family’s death and could cross Walty’s name off of her kill list. But she couldn’t help but feel that she was forgetting something. “Cervix Bangsister. Deaddard Snark. Ed… Goddammit, Ed…” Surely that isn’t right? thought Malarya.

And there he was. As if the Gods had placed him before her, Malarya looked upon the one and only Edward Christopher Sheeran, singer of hits such as “Shape of You” (2017) and “I See Fire” (2013, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug soundtrack).

“Sorry to bother!” he said, approaching Malarya. “I’m looking for Walty Fuck?”

“You are?” Malarya asked, feeling a twitch in her sword arm.

“Yeah, an old friend!” Things were looking pretty grim for Ed.

“An old… friend?” Malarya stepped closer, the twitch in her arm now a violent stabbing motion.

“Yeah, an old friend! A pal! I played at his daughter’s wedding!”

“You… did, did you?” Malarya unsheathed Noodle.

“Right, yeah! Come on, you remember, it was cold out, he killed a whole bunch of people right as I launched into ‘Photograph’ (2015), hilarious! Old pal. Where’s he about then?”

Malarya brought her sword down upon Ed, slicing him in half. There was no time for a catchphrase. She pulled out a cloth and cleaned off Noodle before Ed’s two half corpses hit the ground. A nearby horse approached Malarya to see what all the commotion was. The horse looked at Ed’s corpse and then at Malarya, and as they locked eyes, it gave her a knowing glance that all but screamed “NYEYEYEYEEHEHEHHHHHH.” Malarya mounted the horse, pointed it north, and set it in motion. She had to get to Wintersmells. She had to find her family.

As the horse walked on, Malarya pulled out her list to update the names after the day’s work. She read the list silently, then looked back at Ed and let out a chuckle as his two cross sections shrank to a speck in the distance. She had been right. He wasn’t on the list after all.