The chief scientist on board was
convinced that it would be a worth
while experiment. At times he
would think that, aside from
those that come with a risk of exp
iration, most any experiment is a
worthwhile one. But, sun of a gun,
this particular experiment came with
an extinction risk of which he remained
until the soggy end unawares. Baloney,
as it turns out, blows. Not only in the
exploding sense, but in the toxic sense,
in the Biblical sense, and even in that
risk of migrating plastics eventually
residing within the testicles sense,
whether it’s ingested, blown onto, or,
as was the case for those on the ship’s
deck, radically blown up. Fortunately
for the sake of neighbors and other
lucky landlocked acquaintances, of
the family members left on the home
front, the chief at least had the sense
to perform the experiment asea. He
thought his senses were steady, but
clearly he had begun experiencing
signs of brain-rot, perhaps brought
about by some of his earlier baloney
experiments. Most curious about this
experiment was what happened to
the men who worked belowdecks.
There was a serious misunderstanding
of some sort, or else the chief’s dementia
had been virulently contagious. For
each of the coal shovelers and the rest
of the generic belowdecks seamen,
before the baloney blow-up, were
cradling an infant-sized loaf of baloney,
rocking it back and forth, with some
blowing kisses toward the tips of
each of the baloney babies’ imaginary
noses. Some of the men who blew too
close found those noses quite tasty, but
refused to season them, choosing instead
to make baby noises. Before the ship
sunk, each had laid down their baby-
length unsliced body of baloney and
had pinned a diaper around the baby’s
meaty middle, or wherever each man
decided it was where its diaper should
be. The assistant to the head of the
blown up baloney incident had been
going around and taking notes, asking
each man cradling a baby-length baloney
belowdecks the sex of its child, despite
it being comprised of a few pounds of
cheap, non-sentient, unalive, soon to be
sinking meats from various portions
of various animals. As the ship
swooped about making its way to
ward the ocean’s bottom, the men
seemed rather astounded that their
babies seemed unaffected by the car
eening and the onslaught of incoming
sea-water. Until each man drowned,
he was cradling his baby made of
baloney as gently as if it had been
his firstborn son or daughter. When
word made it to the CEO of Science,
the Baloney chief scientist’s boss, that
the experiment had been the catalyst
of such a horrendous event, he wrote
a brief suicide note and jumped from his
office window. Ironically, for lunch that
day, he had eaten the most delicious fried
baloney sandwich that his wife had sent
with him to work as he left that morning.
