Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

across the wilderness. After an hour or so, the stand of trees went up in flames as the guns fell silent. But not those from our village, as their shells fell farther and farther off in the distance. All of a sudden, the sky above the sandy ridge was blue with flying shells that whistled through the air and landed on our village. The volleys dwarfed those that had come from the trees, both in numbers and impact. I’ve described the volleys from the grove as flocks of crows. Well, those that burst from behind the sandy ridge were like neat formations of little black pigs, with loud oinks and twitching tails until they chased each other straight into our village. When they landed, they were no longer little black pigs, but big black panthers, tigers, wild boars, biting everything they touched with fangs like ripsaws. As the artillery battle raged, the airships returned; but this time there were twelve of them, flying in pairs, wingtip to wingtip. From high up in the sky, they dropped their eggs, creating holes over the landscape. And then? A column of tanks rumbled out of our village. At the time I didn’t know those clumsy machines with long, trunklike gun barrels were called tanks. Once the column reached the alkaline wilderness, the tanks spread out, followed by helmeted foot soldiers, trotting at a crouch and firing into the air.
Pow pow pow. Pow pow pow. Pow pow pow pow pow pow pow.
Hit-or-miss. We dashed over to one of the artillery craters, where some of us sat and others flattened out on the ground, yet calmly, as if unafraid.
    The caterpillar tracks under the tanks sped along, one link following the other, carrying the tank ahead with a loud rumble. Ruts and humps didn’t faze them; their trunks kept pointing forward. They raced along, wheezing, sneezing, spitting, a column of outrageous tyrants. Tiring of spitting their phlegm, they began spitting fireballs, the trunks recoiling with each burst. All they had to do was spin back and forth a time or two to flatten out a ditch, sometimes burying khaki-colored little men in the process. Everywhere they passed was now a mass of newly plowed soil. They rolled up to the sandy ridge, where bullets rained down on them —
pow pow.
They just bounced off. But not off the soldiers behind them, who crumpled in droves. A platoon of men ran out from behind the sandy ridge with sorghum-stalk torches, which they flung beneath the tanks. Explosions sent some of the tanks leaping off the ground and men rolling on the ground in front of them. A few of the tanks died, others were wounded. More men on the sandy ridge reacted like rubber balls, rolling down the sides to do battle with the helmeted soldiers. Jumbled shouts, incoherent screams. Flying fists, well-aimed kicks, choke holds, squeezed groins, bitten fingers, grabbed ears, gouged eyes. Silvery swords went in, red swords emerged. No form of battle went untried. A little soldier was losing to a bigger one, so he picked up a handful of sand and said, “Elder brother, you and I are distant cousins. The wife of a cousin on my father’s side is your kid sister. So please don’t use that rifle butt on me, okay?” “All right,” the bigger soldier said, “I’ll spare you this time, since I’ve sat in your house and enjoyed a few drinks. That wine decanter at your place is finely crafted. Those things are called Mandarin Duck decanters.” Without warning, the little soldier flung his sand into the bigger soldier’s face, blinding him temporarily. He then ran around behind the man and cracked his head open with a hand grenade.
    There was so much happening that day that I’d have had to grow ten pairs of eyes to see it all and ten mouths to tell it. Helmeted soldiers charged in waves, the dead piling up like a wall; and still they couldn’t break through. Then they brought over flamethrowers that spurted death and crystallized the sand on the ridge. And more airships came, dropping great flatcakes and meat-filled buns, as well as bundles of colorful paper money. Exhausted by nightfall, both sides stopped to rest, but only for a short while, before the battle recommenced, so heated that sky and earth turned red, the frozen ground softened, and wild rabbits died in droves, their lives ending not by weapons but from fright.
    The rifle fire and artillery barrages were unending; flares lit up the sky so brilliantly we could barely open our eyes.
    As dawn broke, the helmeted soldiers threw up their arms in surrender.
    On