Robbie Reflects On His Love Life As He Dies Horribly

The ULTIMATE short story experience

Robbie Jamberson knows death is imminent the moment his stomach starts to rumble.

That’s how it always starts, with a rumble, a soft rumble that turns into an unpleasant churning, an unpleasant churning that turns into an intense twisting, an intense twisting that turns into a horrible cramping, a horrible cramping that turns into a burning-hot jet of diarrhea violently blasting from the anus, all of which leads to the grandest and most final of finales: the sudden and spectacular exploding of one’s entire head.

That all happens in the span of about three minutes. Five million people, the whole world over, have died that way in the past month. They call it the “Are you fucking kidding me?!” Fever.

No one knows how it started. No one knows how to stop it. Civilization has collapsed. The human race is going extinct.

And now it’s Robbie’s turn to die.

He has two minutes and forty-five seconds left.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Robbie says, fumbling with his belt buckle as he jumps to his feet in the duct tape-sealed bathroom he’s called his home for the last few apocalyptic weeks. How did the virus breach three whole layers of duct tape?! he wonders, the soft rumbling now an unpleasant churning.

He shoves his khakis and his undies down to his ankles and frantically dances toward his poor, helpless, unknowing toilet, knocking down a gallon jug of filtered water and a box of saltine crackers (his breakfast, lunch, and dinner) along the way.

The churning turns to twisting as he reaches the toilet. He flips open the lid and slams his sweaty ass down on the cool porcelain, shaking the entire bathroom around him. Another gallon jug falls over and spills out, adding to the pool of soggy saltine-filled filtered water growing at his feet.

Robbie kicks and stomps and splashes in that water as the twisting turns to cramping, a horrible cramping, the last step before the dreaded butthole-scorching jet that won’t let up until he’s about twenty inches shorter and a whole hell of a lot dumber.

His bulging eyes shoot over to the small analogue clock sitting on the bathroom sink, next to the tube of minty toothpaste he used earlier in the day to make a better-than-expected toothpaste and saltine sandwich.

The clock reads 4:12. At 4:14, Robbie will be dead.

The clock’s big hand hits 13 as Robbie’s butthole detonates.

As the hot jet of steaming diarrhea singes his ass hair, as his cranial-bursting demise draws nearer and nearer, as his frazzled mind rushes to reach a satisfying conclusion to this ridiculous existence, to find some sort of peace in purpose fulfilled, Robbie can only think of one person.

He can only think of her, his first love, the first one who ever dared him to dream.

Robbie Jamberson can only think of Mary Beth Whamblert.

Robbie first met Mary Beth twenty years ago, twenty years before the world shit itself and exploded. Robbie was a nervous and anemic twelve-year-old boy, and Mary Beth was a sassy and asthmatic eleven-and-a-half-year-old girl.

They found each other in front of the Animorphs display at a Scholastic book fair, where, after a brief meet-cute showcasing their respective nervousness and sassiness, Mary Beth suggested a trade-off: a puff on her inhaler for one of his chewable iron supplements.

She touched Robbie’s hand as he passed her the SpongeBob-shaped supplement, and he tasted her razzleberry-flavored lip gloss as he puffed on her inhaler, both of them maintaining heavy, lascivious eye contact the entire time.

Chewing and puffing and staring, the two tweens exuded a carnal chemistry so thick and so pungent that no one dared go near the Animorphs display until the area was properly aired out.

They were deep in that hormonal haze™ when Mary Beth asked Robbie what animal he would most want to “animorph” into.

A bona fide frog-boy since age six, Robbie said it was a toss-up between the fire-bellied toad, specifically the species native to mainland Europe, and the blue poison dart frog, found in the forests surrounded by the Sipaliwini Savanna.

A burgeoning sapiosexual, Mary Beth was sweating hard at Robbie’s fast frog facts.

She wiped dry her glistening forehead as he asked her what animal she would most like to “animorph” into. She said, “Uh, um, I dunno, probably like a golden retriever or giraffe or something like that,” before running off to ask her mother, Tina May Whamblert (née Schmaplin), if it was acceptable to share their home phone number with Robbie, her new nervous and anemic object of affection.

A week later, Robbie Jamberson and Mary Beth Whamblert were officially going steady, and they would remain steady for seven years, until that horrible day when-

Shitting faster than he can possibly flush, Robbie watches with immeasurable horror as his overflowing diarrhea sprays from the cracks between the cool porcelain and his sweaty ass, painting the walls around him with a color that completely fails to compliment the rest of his bathroom’s modern, minimalist, and shit-free aesthetic.

Fat drops of sweat shoot from his throbbing forehead as he stands from his drowned toilet, waddles through the pool of soggy-saltine filled filtered water, and rips down the sixty-dollar shower curtain he purchased from Macy’s eight months ago.

Aiming his still-shitting ass toward his poor, helpless, unknowing bathtub, Robbie takes another look at the analogue clock sitting on his sink.

The clock’s big hand remains steady on 13.

He had only been dreaming of his beloved Mary Beth for thirty seconds, leaving him with another thirty to live, another thirty before being thrust into eternal nothingness, before his ruptured brain matter adds another unflattering layer to his bathroom walls.

Robbie Jamberson has thirty seconds left, and he would gladly spend them all with her.

If only he could remember the last words she spoke to him. What were they? Surely something that would help guide him through this, his untimely and smelly demise.

Robbie’s desperate mind searches for his beloved’s final words, searches for her parting wisdom, searches for the forgotten answers she must’ve given him…

In the years following their initial Scholastic encounter, Robbie and Mary Beth had scaled the highest mountains of young love (e.g. the fabled Mount Face Smooch) and sank in the deepest swamps of young heartache (e.g. the vast wetlands of I Can’t Believe You Broke the Protractor I Lent You For Honors Geometry).

They found themselves somewhere in the middle (the great plains of Apathetic Hand Stuff) as they approached their seventh anniversary of dating. Wanting to reinvigorate things, Mary Beth drove Robbie to the local public library on the morning of, bringing with her two items of great personal importance: her old, lip gloss-stained inhaler and a bottle of chewable iron supplements she bought at Walgreens for $8.79.

Items in hand, she led Robbie to the children’s section of the library and sat him down at a child-sized table meant for children. She took a seat across from him and opened her palms, presenting Robbie with the two items she had previously kept hidden. “We are about to engage in a love ritual,” she said.

Robbie grabbed the inhaler from Mary Beth’s right palm. “By recreating the first time we met?”

“That’s right, my European fire-bellied toad,” Mary Beth said, popping off the lid to the supplement bottle. “But now we’re going to take it to the next level.”

“How?” Robbie asked, watching Mary Beth pour the entire supplement bottle out onto the table.

“For every night we’ve slept in each other’s embrace, dreaming together as one, I’m going to take one of these supplements,” she said, tossing the empty bottle over her shoulder and gathering the supplements into one big pile. “And you’re going to take a puff on that inhaler.”

Robbie was immediately moved to spraying tears by the beauty of Mary Beth’s idea. “Oh…my…God…” he struggled to say through convulsing sobs, “the… the poetry…the…the…the romance…I…I…I…I almost can’t handle it!”

“I know, I know, my blue poison dart frog,” Mary Beth said, placing a comforting and steadying hand on Robbie’s quivering shoulder. “I almost couldn’t handle it either. Last night, after coming up with this idea, I sobbed so hard I blacked out for a full hour.”

It took close to that long for Robbie to stop sobbing and regain his composure in that local public library. “So, how many days have we-” he said, before breaking back into a sob and working himself back out, “…how many nights have we slept next to each other? I mean, how could we possibly figure that-”

“I’ve already figured it out!” Mary Beth said, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “I found this paper lying next to me after emerging from my blackout. I apparently crunched the numbers while bawling wildly.”

“Damn,” Robbie said, taking the paper from Mary Beth and unfolding it. “It’s incredible what the human mind is capable of.”

Mary Beth leaned in closer and looked Robbie straight in his red, puffy eyes. “The human mind is capable of anything… when love is involved.”

The awesome power of that sentiment sent shockwaves of emotion throughout Robbie’s body, covering every inch of him in the goosiest of goosebumps. “That’s so true…” he moaned, drool spilling from his mouth and dripping down onto the paper in his hands, onto the number 106 scribbled on the bottom of the page.

“106 nights together,” Mary Beth said, wiping away Robbie’s drool with one hand and grabbing a fistful of supplements with the other. “And 106 chewable iron supplements…”

Robbie swallowed hard and brought the inhaler closer to his trembling mouth. “And 106 inhaler puffs…”

Robbie woke up in a hospital bed the next morning.

“Where is she?!” he demanded to know, yanking the IV from his arm as the doctor entered his room. “Where’s Mary Beth?! What’s going on!?”

The doctor, named Dr. Rampslamperston, sat at the foot of Robbie’s bed and delivered the bad news. “Yesterday afternoon, the children of the children’s book club met at the children’s section of the library, where they found you and Mary Beth draped across a child-sized table meant for children,” he said. “You were both out cold and foaming at the mouth. You had also wet your pants. The librarians had to throw out the table. It couldn’t be saved. Much like your girlfriend.”

“Wait…what?”

“The two of you both experienced massive overdoses, you on inhaler puffs and her on chewable iron supplements. You were able to pull through, but unfortunately… she wasn’t.”

“…is she… is she… ”

Rampslamperston shook his head. “No, not yet. She’s holding on, but not for much longer. She said she had something to tell you first, something incredibly important that you will not want to forget.”

Numbed from disbelief, Robbie shuffled after the doctor, following him down the sterile halls of the hospital and to his beloved Mary Beth’s deathbed, where his numbness gave way to unimaginable anguish.

“I’ve ironed myself, Robbie…” Mary Beth croaked. “I’ve been ironed…”

Robbie knelt next to her and grabbed her hand. “I know,” he said, trying to stay strong, biting his lip to hold back tears. “The doctor just-”

“Robbie, it’s time for you to shut the fuck up and listen to me. I’m dying and I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah, okay, sorry, go ahead.”

Mary Beth readied herself for the delivering of her final words by clearing the phlegm from her throat and shaking the hair from her face. “I need you to do something for me, Robbie,” she said in a breathy whisper.

“Anything. I’ll do anything.”

“I need you to-”

“And I mean anything. I’ll do anything. Literally any-fucking-thing-”

“Robbie! Seriously? You kidding me? I just told you-”

“Sorry, sorry! I’m just freaking out a little. This is my first time comforting a dying girlfriend. I’ll be quiet. I’ll let you finish. Please, just…continue.”

“Okay, alright, I’m gonna start from the top.” Mary Beth re-cleared her throat and re-shook her hair. “…I need you to do something for me,” she said in an even breathier whisper.

Robbie, keeping silent, gave her a quick thumbs up.

“I need you to…” Mary Beth trailed off, the life fading from her flickering eyes as that nefarious iron dragged her closer and closer to death. “…I need you to…need you to…need you…”

Robbie bit his lip until it bled, his strength failing him as tears spilled down his cheeks. He brought his ear closer to Mary Beth’s mouth, feeling her final breaths brush against his wet face.

“Need you to…need you to…need you…” she continued, her soul spiraling faster and faster toward a deep, dark nothingness. “I need you to…to…to get my Animorphs fanfiction published… ”

“Oh shit,” present-day Robbie grunts, still ass-blasting into his bathtub. “I forgot to do that.”

The clock’s big hand hits 14.

Robbie’s head explodes.

The End.