Sayak Mohanta, The Stateless Body, black pigment on cloth.
It was four years since the attempted self-immolation by my body. Three years since my body was named The Idiot. Two years since The Idiot had any contact with sister, mother or father. A year and a half since The Idiot’s prayers had been answered. In the wrong way.
The center had collapsed. Crumbled like a napkin at a truck stop, covered with chicken-tenders grease, thrown mindlessly, missing the trash bin.
How much of it was The Idiot’s doing?
All the deaths while asleep had fueled conspiracy theories that the deep state was after the orange creep’s lackeys. His base was turbo-charged-up.
The center, complicit in genocide abroad, complicit in much misery at home, finally showed it had no solutions, no answers. Threw in the towel and ran for cover, groveling.
Stormy times were ahead. The crazies had wind in their sails. All the high-tech weirdos, crypto bros, celeb wanna-be’s and has-beens lined up to kiss the ring. The ring was in the sigmoid colon.
***
“So, why not the Supreme Court? You said you were going to,” I asked.
I really wanted to know. If The Idiot could actually cause that kind of damage, and it was intent on taking revenge on a global scale, then the Supreme Court would have been obvious.
“You think I haven’t tried? Those guys are impenetrable. All six of them. Same with the orange creep. No shame to tap into. No guilt. No conscience. No memories of things past. It’s like … like they can even hide memories. There’s nothing there. Nothing. Like they have no soul. Not human. They’re machines. Can’t get through to Elon either. A shield protects him. Or he’s an alien life form, resistant to human guilt.”
***
The Idiot was working on fine-tuning its prayers to extract public confessions.
The deaths were continuing, in the meantime. Lawmakers from former slave states’ legislatures were perishing at a steady pace. Corrupt politicians from Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Wyoming legislatures were disappearing, three, four a week. Republican Governors, frantically lobbied, were busy as never before compiling lists of candidates to replace the dying politicians. Candidates had to be vetted by vicious crazies.
The Idiot was seeing the picture: prayers having more unintended consequences than expected or imagined. The disappearing politicians replaced by even more vicious ones. The rapid disappearances of their politicos riling up the far-right even more. Violent attacks on marked communities more frequent, pushed by malicious politicians and right-wing media.
***
This story originally appeared in Locust Review 13 (Winter 2025/2026)
It took some time of recalibrating things, but finally there it was, The Idiot claimed.
“I know how to get confessions out of these assholes.” it said.
I was beginning to believe. But only beginning. I was still skeptical. Still … What unbelievable things The Idiot was doing if it was all true. Not good things. Just unbelievable.
The Idiot changed its tactics, started targeting lower ranked politicians; less jaded, less experienced, less well-funded, less secure, more insecure.
“Look man,” The Idiot reasoned, “these freshman assholes, jumping on the band wagon, crashing the gates hot as hell, real keen. But they’re not blue bloods, not born into it. They can’t deal with the ton of guilt that comes with real-life backstabbing. Haven’t had to have hand-to-hand combat with their own conscience on an hourly basis. I can use that!”
Prayers aimed at extracting public confessions produced some fruits. At a respectable returns-on-investment rate of 78%.
A first term U.S. Congressman from Kentucky and a first term state assembly member from South Dakota held hastily announced press conferences broadcast live on evening news, where they held up documents which, they claimed, were kept with their lawyers, filed with local courts that morning, confessing to fraud and rigging votes, in briefs for cases pending hearing in relevant courts in the districts they represented. They resigned on live TV.
Five lower-ranked rightwing politicians from Louisiana, Kansas, Arkansas, Florida, and Alabama made public confessions, detailing money they received for their votes to help pass bills party bosses introduced, attacking Trans kids.
A Minnesota state Senator, the guy who blamed global warming on Trans kids, opened his press conference by taking out of the holster inside his jacket an old-looking handgun and said:
“My grandpa gave me this Colt Navy 1851. This is what Clint Eastwood used in his westerns. We were on a hunting trip. I was fifteen. He said, ‘Boy, one day you’ll do something good with this, and don’t you ever sell it!” he laughed, so did the reporting crews.
A long pause as the audience settled down, expecting a folksy tale followed by a policy proposal. Then he said, “So … today … I’m going to do something good with this!”
Another pause. Reporters waited. He scanned the audience, smiled. He was nodding to a distant mental image: a beach, short waves brushing the shore gently then retreating, the frothy foam chasing the receding water.
After a long pause, he said, “Today, I seek redemption and forgiveness, Lord, for I have sinned. I have indulged in indecent pornography.” He then put the barrel of the gun in his mouth and shot himself.
The press gaggle shrieked in unison on live TV. The nation was stunned.
***
I was in the backyard communing with the orange trees. I didn’t want to go in the house. The Idiot was in there tripping. I was keeping my distance. I wanted to be close, though, just in case it went really crazy.
It was early evening, close to the last of the daylight.
Oranges were ripening, growing, turning more orange. The birds were singing, chirping, signaling back and forth whatever they signal to each other: safe here, bugs available, no predators in area, humans nearby.
It was early moon, the thin silver-blue sickle blade was low in the western horizon, in a smile.
I heard a girl’s voice faintly, singing from a distant. A neighborhood kid singing to herself, practicing a voice lesson, I thought.
“[G]Everybody’s on the [A]other side, [G]Everybody’s on the [A]other side, [G]Everybodyyyyyyyyy … is on the [A]other side.”
The voice was familiar. It sounded like …
I couldn’t place it at first.
“[G]Eveybody’s on the [A]other side … [G]Everybody’s on the [A]other side … [G]Everybodyyyyyyyyyyy… is on the [A]other side.”
My ears told me it sounded like Missy: the stowaway sister who committed suicide at sixteen.
The voice continued singing. It then started to get closer slowly, floating on air and approaching. It kept getting closer. It went silent at about twenty feet away.
***
“What the fucking FUCK?????!!!!!!” I screamed when she appeared.
She was chewing something, her left hand on her hip, the other holding the invisible thing she was chewing. Her bites sounded like it was an apple.
“You … you … What the fuck??!!! When … where have you … I’m hallucinating! The fucker is tripping!”
“No, you stupid! Look at me! You see me! OK? Stop it! You see me! I’m here. I’m talking to you.”
“No, I don’t. The fucker is tripping. OHHHHH GOD! Please stop this!” I cried out.
“You see me. Yes, you do! Stop crying. Please. And keep quiet. Don’t be so loud!”
“You look … What the !!!”
“When you die, you stop aging. OK?”
She took another bite of the invisible apple.
“This can’t be … This can’t be. She died!” I kept repeating to myself.
She took her hand off her hip, threw away the invisible apple and started running fast towards me.
***
I blacked out for some time.
When I came to, she was still there. She was sitting on the ground next to the orange tree at the farthest end of the backyard, away from the living room’s open sliding glass doors. She was sitting cross legged, counting something on her fingers.
“You’re back!” she said. “Look ... I’m real. Just like you’re real. He’s really doing all this. We need to stop him doing what he’s doing,” she said.
“Stop what? What are you …?” I was confused, disoriented. Had no idea what was going on. I was convinced I was trapped in The Idiot’s hallucinations. My brain was playing tricks.
“Stop HIM …” she said in a hush, pointing toward the living room where The Idiot was watching the local news while tripping: surest lane to a bad trip.
She Pointed to her ear, commanding me to listen, and said, “You KNOW what he’s doing.”
I did. Of course I did. Pretending it’s killing people by praying, tripping its brains out and fucking up my perceptions of reality.
“YOU have to stop this,” she said.
The whole thing was insane. I had imagined Missy not committing suicide at all and hiding somewhere in The Idiot’s deep unconscious. Possibly. Just imagining. Like you imagine coming into a billion dollars. You don’t really expect it. You just imagine it.
But there she was.
Nothing made any sense.
Maybe, under orders from the superego, unbeknownst to the ego, The Idiot’s subconscious, or even unconscious, was trying to communicate with me. In the form of Missy. A very plausible explanation.
Basic Physics says nothing ceases to exit entirely. Things become other things. One form of matter becomes another form of matter. One form of energy becomes another form of energy. Energy becomes matter, matter becomes energy. Maybe energy can acquire consciousness and intent. Maybe consciousness is just another form of energy. This was like spiritual energy: Energy with a spirit and a purpose, a face, a body, and a voice.
This was just another form of Missy. “That’s all. Just another form of Missy. No mind tricks,” I thought. I wasn’t going crazy. Everything had an explanation.
Whatever it was, there was no evading it. She was talking to me. I could hear her. She was responding to me. I had to respond to her.
“We must redirect him. How are we …” she asked herself, frowning, looking at the weeds growing at the base of the orange tree, still counting something on her fingers.
“What do you mean?” I asked, still confused, not sure what to say.
“We need to redirect him,” she said, again not directed at me, she was thinking out loud.
“Create some situation. Something that will make him think. He’s caught up with having something special. That first rush. Running with it. Not thinking. Not expecting or planning for what’s next.”
How could I know I was not trapped in another mushroom trip?
“Look! You SAW Elton die. You saw the reports on TV. You HEARD what you heard as he died. You saw,” she said, pointing toward the living room, “his note from the safe. OK? You SAW that!” she said, frustrated. Took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, shifted around till she was in Lotus pose.
Then she said calmly, “By tomorrow morning he will be off his mushrooms. He has to sober up all day and get ready to show up for work on Monday. Not drunk. Not high. You’ll have a full workday to see for yourself. Go around, check for yourself. Is it happening or not? Go find out, DUDE!”
She was right. Made me feel stupid. Of course! Of course I could see for myself! Whatever form of Missy was talking to me, it was right. I was not chained to The Idiot’s brain. I had yearned for so long to be reunited with The Idiot that I had forgotten who I was.
I did have my own brain.
I would see for myself.
***
“So …., look,” I said. Had an idea how to redirect The Idiot.
It was the Monday after my run-in with the ghost of Missy on Saturday evening. The mid-afternoon cargo train was passing by, all three miles of it, about half a mile north of us; five-second air horns every twenty seconds, the continuous clanking of rolling wheels.
Agricultural workers stopped working at 3:00PM at The Idiot’s work site. Hole diggers’ physical work ended before 3, being ahead of mulchers and planters in their task. The Idiot watched others catch up to the 3:00PM end-of-workday and noted their time difference. On that day, The Idiot, the hole digger, was ten seconds ahead of mulchers and ten minutes ahead of planters.
The Idiot was now showered and scrubbed of all the dirt and the glyphosate the sprayers were spraying to kill the weeds.
It was on the couch with the TV on and the sound off. No beers yet.
“You’re a man of numbers, right?” I said, “You’ve always been. You knew the multiplication table before the first grade. Dad practiced it with you every day. And I was like, WHAT!??? You were great. And you kept with it. It got you into Berkeley, then your dream job at the L.A. firm, forensic accountant, finding fraudsters for twenty-five years. Then the thing that … you know … the thing that started all this.”
The Idiot winced at the mention of the accounting firm. But numbers were its thing. It was nodding to the floor, smiling.
“It’s even like, OK here … what’s your staple whiskey?” I asked.
“The Old No. 7, of course.”
“Of course. Right? And … Your favorite beer?”
“805! Is it time yet?” The Idiot said, looked at the time; almost four.
“Yep, 805 … There you go. Mr. Numbers!”
The Idiot was nodding. Just a couple of matter-of-fact observations.
“So?” said The Idiot. Looked in the direction of the fridge and got up.
“So …,” I paused, waited for The Idiot to get back from the fridge with a fresh 805.
“OK … You have these things you can do. You guilt-trip people into heart attacks. You say they’re bad people. Sure. Whatever. But look at what’s happening. Chaos. You think the orange creep’s not creating enough chaos? You’re just adding to his thing. Who wins? Not you. You’re like … you’re just a lone terrorist, man, and you placed your bets on certain things happening. But the opposite has happened. So, guess what, man? You’re the fucking idiot!” I said, laughing.
“Not a terrorist! Not an idiot! Not betting on nothing. Not praying for heart attacks. Not praying for anyone to die. Just showing ‘em what they’ve done. If they can’t stomach seeing what they’ve done, that’s not on me! The others are just talking. You’ve seen ‘em.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen them. They’re confessing. So? Not changing anything. Can you get people to do something positive? You know. Something that makes their communities better. Something good!”
“The public confessions are good. They’re showing people all the corruption going on.”
“No, man; not by a mile! Kidding me? Everybody knows politicians are corrupt, Ok? People will be like, ‘Figures; there goes another asshole politician.’ Next week, they’re still powerless to do anything about the living politician fuckin’ ‘em. Not the crazies, though. They don’t forget. They got guns and ammos, not powerless, get all riled-up into violence … thanks to you!”
I took my time to see The Idiot’s reaction. Not much. It was frowning, nodding to the floor, with elbows on the knees, hands clasped. Beer bottle, still mostly full, sitting on the side table, getting warm.
“If you can really do what you say you can do … do something positive. Something that can be positively verified. NOT while you’re tripping, not high or drunk! Look for somebody good. Have THEM do something good. That’s the test. You do that, then I’ll be your watchman. That’s my condition.”
“Like … who? Everybody’s bought or corrupt, or sick in their head!”
“There are lots of people who do good things every day. There are lots of people who are not sociopathic assholes, you know! Good people trying to do good things that help people! Millions more of them than assholes. Numbers, man, numbers!”
“Like, WHO?”
I let it think about that awhile. It was pacing the floor now. Nodding slowly. The frown was fading, relaxing a bit.
“Remember the line from the old song? “They’ve got the guns, but we got the numbers.” Think the young generation. Man, they got the numbers! They’ve been fucked, though. First hit with the 2008 meltdown, massive unemployment, millions of their families homeless. Then came COVID-19, just when they thought they’d landed a steady job! BOOM! Gone! Now they get the orange creep, round two. Can’t afford rent. Can’t afford good food. No healthcare. Militarized streets. A fucked up Supreme Court sending them back to 1800s. A do-nothing Congress that only passes tax cuts for the billionaires and nothing else. They see nothing but fucked up shit for miles ahead. So? So … Show them something else. Something better.”
After a long pacing back and forth, The Idiot stopped, looked up, smiled from ear to ear and said, “OK!”
The ‘kay’ rose in pitch, with an energized force of ‘Let’s do this!’ tone. “O-Kaaaayyyyy!”
I was shocked at the sudden change of the situation. But I didn’t black out. I was still there. It was really happening.
The ghost of Missy was right.
The Idiot calmly sat down, with back straight, hands on knees, calves to thighs at 90 degrees, smiled, looked me straight in the eye then whispered in my ear, “What do you want me to do? You got ideas. Tell me!” and laughed.
Was it a dare? The tone had more than a hint of it, but I wasn’t sure. Why the whisper to the ear?
Was it a friendly, childlike even, playful signal of the reunion of our purposes?
I was keen to find out.