Dinosaur Bees

Uncle Shorty
Peter Schwartz

My uncle is cheap in another language.

No matter what I say, even if it's about things like sailing that I know interest him, he looks at me like hearing those words just cost him something very valuable. Like I've stolen something from him. They're just sounds, I'd like to say someday.

When I look at my uncle I am not positive that he is not about to go ballistic and start punching me in my face or even try to kill me. That sucks. Especially since my slight emotional attachment to him (more just a residue from childhood than anything else) would probably slow me down in battle. That seems like the only way he would be victorious because he is a very short man.

In fact, this may be the root of the problem: I think my uncle is pissed because he is short.

Anyway, I wonder if my uncle has NBA fantasies when he is on top of my aunt doing sex.

Please do not judge me because she is not a blood relative and you might make me feel short and angry just like my uncle.

My uncle should embrace his shortness because there was once a rapper named Too Short and he made literally a shitload of money.

Maybe if my uncle embraced his shortness he too would make a shitload of money and he could marry someone prettier than my aunt who is not very pretty at all.

I feel very, very badly now. My aunt seems like a very spiritual person and I have now insulted her physical appearance. I am short right now.
Like my uncle.

*

Getting back to my uncle's anger, realistically, he might be angry for a myriad of reasons.

He's a retired schoolteacher and he once told me that he retired the very first day he could even though that means he now receives a smaller pension which is like the financial equivalent of being short.

I once read somewhere that the human body shrinks a few inches when the life force some call “soul” leaves the body. This will probably make my uncle really angry because he will be even shorter but it won't matter because he will already be dead.

I think my uncle will look stunningly beautiful when he is dead because all the anger will drain right out of him and he will at last be at peace. If I go to his wake I will probably imagine kissing him or even putting my dick in his lips because I am a very bad person.

I have more self control than anyone can possibly imagine.

I am not really an angry person, I just have bad thoughts which can make me seem like one. I think acting on them is what would make me a bad person. It would certainly make me a worse one.

My uncle is an angry person but I do not know what kinds of thoughts he has because people don't really talk about that stuff with each other.

If I asked my uncle why he is so angry he would get angry which is funny in a way.

If I asked my uncle why he is so angry in front of my family, meaning, my mom who is his sister, and my aunt, who is his wife, they would both get angry at me too. That makes no sense to me because I am just saying what's already happening.

*

I want to understand my uncle and his anger very badly but mostly I just want to call him a fucking prick.

My father used to act angry towards me for no reason and then would get abusive so maybe my uncle reminds me a little of my father.

I do not have a very healthy concept of family. To some people that makes me very cool but to others that makes me a very bad person.

Some people have said “You are my family” to me like maybe they wanted to change my idea of family but then they went ahead and hurt me just the same.

That doesn't really make me angry either though. Just sad.

I am 5'10” which is not short, but not particularly tall either.

The tallest person to have ever lived (on record) was named Robert Wadlow and he was 8'11”. He died at the age of 22.

I am not sure how tall my father is but he sure seemed tall as a kid when he was on top of me doing sex like my uncle probably does to my aunt who is not very pretty but is very spiritual and seems like a good person.

*

Maybe I am not very pretty. I do not know because so many people lie about these kinds of things.

If I could go back in time I would scream the wildest things at everybody. I would scream “My asshole's not a playground!” really loudly, right in my father's face. I would scream “Don't you know what's going on?!” in my mother's face, but from a little further of a distance because I think that when your husband does sex on your son that is probably a pretty hard thing to deal with.

I would also ask my teachers specifically about the part of their educational training that dealt with detecting signs of abuse in children. If I was not satisfied with any of their responses I would say bad things to them to try to make them feel short. I would look for the hurt in their faces very, very closely.

While I was at it, maybe I would go back and watch my uncle getting picked on as a kid because if he is this short now as a grown man, I can only imagine how short he was back then. Oh, because children pick on other children whom they perceive as weak and I am pretty sure that's how my uncle would have been perceived.

I would go back to a time when my uncle first met my aunt, before they even got married, and I would watch them have sex. Not to get horny or anything like that, but just because I think it would be interesting.

I'd probably do that with my parents too, but wouldn't watch all the way to the end.

I would not even try to do that with me and my dad though. I think that would hurt very, very badly and maybe even permanently make me a short person.

I am 5'10” which is not short, but not particularly tall either.

PETER SCHWARTZ is an artist, poet, and writer. Hi work has appeared in such places as Failbetter, Opium, and The Columbia Review. Visit the whole mess at: www.sitrahahra.com.

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