The smell of cherry cotton candy, hot dogs, Luigi Mario's Italian ice and hay fills the air and the next thing I know, Cassie is spraying me with perfume labeled "Amazy Dayzee Aroma" but smells like crazee dayzees mixed with yoshi spittle.
Cassie blows me a kiss and tells me to follow her.
Behind us, our yoshi are swallowing wooden crates. Making eggs, making explosives. The crates hit the bottom of their stomach with a thud.
Taking my hand, Cassie leads me to the Yoshi Ranch Gift Shoppe, its sign decorated with Old English font. The store owner is sleeping. Inside, Cassie takes me to the book rack and leafs through a few books.
Outside, the sound of abortions and explosions. The sound of yoshi being slaughtered by yoshi.
"Take all of them," she tells me, and she hands me an egg-shaped bookbag from off the wall. I slide all the books into the bag.
Cassie takes a pitchfork off the wall. Extending an overgrown fingernail, she points at a black pea coat. Cassie and her overdeveloped calves and her pitchfork creep over to the store owner. Without waking him up, she swipes a keyring from him and then hands me the pitchfork.
Cassie tells me to wait here.
I'm standing at the front of the store and I watch the store owner. The store owner is a monty mole, his sunglasses folded on the glass counter in front of him. The monty mole's snoring is clear, so I think maybe the fighting is over.
In the distance, I hear eggs hatching. Eggs not splattering, but bursting with new life. I hear the cry of baby yoshi, hopping up-down, up-down with their little shoes already on. Cassie feeding and nurturing the babies and giving them names. Calling them dears and precious.
I watch the monty mole's chest rise and fall with each breath he takes. From this far, his name tag either says "Bob" or "Rob" or both. I feel the wrought iron handle of the pitchfork in my hands. I reach into my eye hole to wipe the sweat off my forehead.
In the distance, Cassie tells her new yoshi that she is their shepherd. That they are her flock. She tells them her name is Birdo and not Cassie.
Cassie is Catherine but prefers to be called Cassie.
Bob or Rob stirs. He yawns and twitches.
The wrought iron handle of the pitchfork feels warm the way Cassie's hand felt.
Birdo is their resurrection. Birdo is their life. Cassie and her overdeveloped thighs and her Abercrombie & Finch jeans and her cult of yoshi.
When you're the best, they send you to do the most boring jobs.
Bob or Rob rises, dazed. He blinks a few times and reaches for his sunglasses. His eyes glaring right at me, Bob or Rob begins, "What in tarna—"
This is where I pierce Bob or Rob in the chest with a pitchfork. The monty mole and his chair just fall right over. He lands on his side and stains the dirt floor red.
The smell of gasoline and blood and smoke fill the air.
All this killing, all this resurrection. Cassie being Catherine who prefers to be called Cassie being Birdo. Bushes that look like clouds that look like bushes. Liberating yoshi. Copy and paste and paste and paste. Start of a new age.
Cassie drives by with the golf cart and tells me to hop in.
