Kurt Vonnegut is God

by Daniel Groves

I once knew a man named Perry Twinkleman. He liked to eat food, watch television, walk through the park, discuss the meaning of life, stare up at the clear blue sky, swallow pills, try and fail to play the piano, imitate birds, smoke cigarettes, read books, get drunk, and talk. He stood five feet seven inches tall, weighed two hundred and seven pounds, was nearly fifty-five years old, had white skin, brown hair, brown eyes, and a fat belly that jiggled from side to side whenever he laughed. If you asked Perry Twinkleman who were the funniest people in the universe, he would say the late comedian Mitch Hedberg, the late writer Kurt Vonnegut, and himself. He would live at the FBT, or Federal Bureau of Termination, until noon on his fifty-fifth birthday, at which point he would be summarily euthanized, per the Age of Death amendment to the United States Constitution.

On the final Saturday before his final birthday, Perry Twinkleman sat on his recliner in his bedroom and read the final pages of a book called Breakfast of Champions by top-three-most-hilarious-person-in-the-universe Kurt Vonnegut. After reading the final page, he closed the book and said this: “Wow.” Then he stood and went out into the hallway.

At the same time Perry Twinkleman was finishing the book Breakfast of Champions, Nurse Lois Underwood—whose name I knew because her white name tag said NURSE LOIS UNDERWOOD—was in the supply closet parsing out the upcoming batch of pills. The pills provided to the residents of the FBT were the greatest things ever—or so I’m told. I’m just a thirty-year-old writer commissioned by the State to write a nonfiction bestseller about the wonders of the Program and have never tried the pills. Nobody said what would happen if the book was not a bestseller. I tried not to think about it.

On the day in question, I sat on a bench in the hallway looking at two things: a painting of a bowl of fruit plastered to the wall opposite, and Nurse Lois Underwood stocking up in the supply closet. She turned and saw me staring, then said this: “What are you looking at?”

“I’m looking at you,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because you’re talking to me.”

“Would you like some pills?” she asked, extending toward me a small, plastic container filled to the brim with a rainbow of little capsules. I waved her off. “The residents love them,” she said, flatly, as if she’d rehearsed and spoken the line thousands of times before.

“I’m sure they do,” I said.

At this point in the story, Perry Twinkleman made his entrance. “If you were to ask me who are the funniest people in the universe,” he announced, “I would say that our Lord and Savior Kurt Vonnegut is in the top three. I mean, wow, this guy. Have you read this book? Have you?”

He brandished the paperback about and looked at the ceiling as he spoke, so I wasn’t sure to whom his words were addressed. Nevertheless, it was clear Nurse Lois Underwood had no intention of responding. “I haven’t,” I said.

“Well, boy, oh, boy, let me tell you. It’s about these two guys named Dwayne and Kilgore and one guy is crazy and the other guy is a writer…”

I’d always assumed those two things went hand in hand, but alas, Mr. Vonnegut saw fit their separation.

“…and the crazy guy,” Perry Twinkleman continued, “he’s really nuts, oh boy. Like, whew, big-time nutso. I’m glad I’m not nuts like him.”

I tuned out awhile so I wasn’t exactly sure where he was in his soliloquy.

“I mean, listen,” he went on, “I’m a little nuts, sure, I’ll be the first to admit it. But who isn’t? Aren’t we all a little nuts way down deep? But, anyway, the nutso guy ends up biting off the writer’s finger. Can you believe it? Bit it clean off. Like this, see?” He stuck his own finger in his mouth and pretended to bite it off. “Then the guy actually telling the story tells everyone that he’s the Creator of the universe.”

“So, he’s God,” I said.

“The Creator guy sends the writer all over the world to prove he’s the Creator. And I thought, ‘wow.’ Then the book ended and I came out here. Boy, you sure are a good conversationalist.”

Nurse Lois Underwood moved toward Perry Twinkleman, crossing the space between them in four steps. She handed him two things: a small, plastic container of pills and a plastic cup filled half way with water. Perry Twinkleman, as if a robot, tipped his head back, swallowed the pills all at once, and washed them down with the water. Nurse Lois Underwood took back the containers and pushed the supply cart off down the hallway.

“Gee, oh my, those sure are some good pills,” said Perry Twinkleman. “Hey, mister, you had any of these? You should have Nurse Lois get you some.”

I gratefully declined. With twenty-four years to go before I entered the Program and made the move to the FBT, I intended to keep my sanity as long as possible.

Perry Twinkleman pointed a big, fat, sausage finger down at my paper and tapped it three times in a row: tap tap tap. Then he said: “What are you writing there?”

“A book.”

“The nurses and doctors here are all robots.”

“Mmmmm,” I grunted. Perry Twinkleman spread his legs and bent down and held his face very close to mine and whispered: “They’re going to kill us all.”

“Now that isn’t news,” I said.

He continued whispering, as if being overheard would result in a swift and early death. “Whenever I press a button on the bed in my room, they all come but they’re very upset. They’re usually different people but sometimes they’re the same, and they always come when I press the button. Boop.” He mimicked the button-pressing sound while simultaneously poking his sausage finger into my cheek. When he did this, he stood up and looked around, but nobody was coming. “Guess you’re not a robot,” he said.

“No, I’m not,” I confirmed.

Perry Twinkleman started walking down the hall but stopped at another painting. It also showed a bowl of fruit, though it contained cool colors—blue, green, purple—whereas the painting in front of me contained warm colors—red, yellow, orange. I only knew that because I’d looked earlier at the cool color painting before sitting down on this bench to work on my book. After a moment, Perry Twinkleman returned.

“I’m writing a book, too,” he said.

“That so?”

“I just started writing it twenty-seven seconds ago and it’s called On God by Perry Twinkleman. My name is Perry Twinkleman so that’s how you know I wrote it. It’ll be finished soon.”

I knew his name was Perry Twinkleman before he told me because it was on a sign glued to the wall outside his bedroom. The sign said: 928, TWINKLEMAN, PERRY. This was my first visit to the FBT’s ninth floor. All the other doors in the hallway were suspiciously closed, the floor in my sightline deserted.

“In On God by Perry Twinkleman,” said Perry Twinkleman, “I tell how I know that Kurt Vonnegut is God.”

“How’s that?”

“Because he’s the funniest person in the universe and it’s like he can make the people in the books do whatever he wants. How can you explain that if he isn’t God? Can you? You can’t.”

“I can,” I said. “He’s a writer.”

“No, no, no, I know that, but the people are real because he talks to them. He goes in and tells them things and then makes them do things and, yes, he wrote it all down but he wrote down what really happened.”

All I could think was the following: nutso.

At that point, Nurse Lois Underwood passed by again with the supply cart, handed Perry Twinkleman another cup of pills and another cup of water, both of which he swallowed without question. I wondered whether she’d forgotten about giving him the first batch, but she left again before I could ask.

“It’s all true, I tell you,” said Perry Twinkleman. “Kurt Vonnegut is God.”

“But he’s a writer,” I said again, foolishly trying to jam logic into the conversation. “He made it all up.”

“Ain’t that what God would want you to think?”

Admittedly, he had me there. As I considered the possibility of Kurt Vonnegut being God and ultimately deciding he was not, I heard a sound.

Thud thud thud thud thud.

Perry Twinkleman banged his forehead repeatedly against the wall. I turned my head side to side, but nobody was coming to stop him. No nurse in light blue scrubs and no doctor in a white coat. I stood and put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around. There was an impression left on his forehead by the wall, but he seemed no worse off than before. Nurse Lois Underwood returned to the supply closet with her cart and I walked over to her.

“Perry Twinkleman was banging his head on the wall.”

“Okay,” she said automatically.

“Shouldn’t you make him stop?”

“Did he take his pills?”

I could’ve sworn I’d misheard even though I knew this was an impossibility. “You’ve given him two batches already?” I said.

At this, she drew her eyebrows together and said: “Did I?”

I turned back around and saw Perry Twinkleman had crouched down and bundled himself up as tightly as possible—difficult given the size and scope of his belly, which now flowed in every direction at once. Without warning, he unfurled to his full but short height, stretched his arms high above his head, then held them out to his side, all while shouting: “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” His pitch went up and down, up and down, like a siren.

“What are you doing?” I asked, now genuinely concerned. I glanced back to Nurse Lois Underwood, still at the supply closet. She took no interest.

Caw caw caw caw.

Perry Twinkleman flap, flap, flapped his arms as hard as he could. He bent his knees a little then jumped and rose perhaps three inches off the ground. When he landed, the resulting quake rolled like thunder. He bent and jumped, bent and jumped. Caw caw caw.

“What are you doing?” I repeated.

He took off running down the hallway at his very slow but full speed. The hallway’s end was capped with a large, glass window taking up the entire wall. From afar, the space appeared to simply stop. Perry Twinkleman gained momentum the farther and faster he ran. Caw caw caw. He kept flapping his arms. “I’m flying off to Maui!” he shouted. “I’m flying off to the Taj Mahal. I’m flying off to Ohio.” He ran and shouted, ran and shouted, flap, flap, flapping. “Kurt Vonnegut is God! Kurt Vonnegut is God!”

At the window, he leapt with all his might.

THWUNK.

The impact on the window reverberated in the floor beneath my feet. I shook like maracas when Perry Twinkleman crumpled into a ball at the base of the window.

Nurse Lois Underwood stuck her head out of the supply closet. “Don’t worry about him,” she said, employing a distinct monotone. “Those windows are bullet-proof and his birthday’s next week.”

Perry Twinkleman moved not a muscle. I only knew he was still alive because his big, fat belly heaved up and down, up and down, with each enormous breath. Still no doctors appeared. It was clear nobody cared.

I returned to my bench and watched Perry Twinkleman breathe, knowing that he would be dead this time next week. In my notes, I wrote and underlined the following: Kurt Vonnegut is God. I examined it, considered it, pondered it, mulled it over. Then, I added a question mark.

Daniel Groves (he/him) is a writer from Ohio whose work appears in Hidden Peak Press, Of Rust and Glass, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, and others. He earned his MFA at Concordia University—Saint Paul, is the EIC of The Bloomin’ Onion, and is working on his debut novel. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his wife, reading, sports, F1, theater, film, and both applying to be on and watching Survivor. A complete list of his published work is available on Chill Subs and he’s on X – @The_Grovenator.