The Last Oh Yeah

Flash fiction.

The spotlights blinded the Kool-Aid Man as he was instructed over megaphone that he would be shot if he came any closer.

He was an empty pitcher of his former self. He had been bursting through walls so long that it lost all meaning. This would be his last wall.

He’s never met a wall he couldn’t best; The Great Wall of China, Fort Knox, Area 51. The US military saw the tactical implications of his talents early on. He was recruited for Korea, then Viet Nam. In the 80s he did a lot of covert ops in Latin America. In the 2000s he went to Iraq and Afghanistan. He burst through Saddam’s palace, yelling his signature catchphrase.

Going through that many wars does something to an anthropomorphized pitcher of sucrose water. He’d seen things that would make your stomach turn. In Afghanistan he took to heroin and dropped out of the military.

He traveled the world, crashing whatever walls were available. He crashed the Taj Mahal, St. Basil’s Cathedral, Notre Dame. He kept getting arrested, but no jails could hold him.

He went to Egypt to smash the walls of the Pyramids at Giza. While he was there, he met a woman named Nadia. She found out his intentions and told him what a tragedy it would be to lose the history of the pyramids. They fell in love.

She was a Palestinian activist. She taught him about the US’s campaign of terror throughout the world — a terror in which he was more than complicit. He kicked the smack and decided to make a better life. He was over knocking through walls.

They were married in Gaza. It was a small wedding; a few members of her family, nobody on his side.

They were happy for a week, until tonight a rocket attack hit their building and the ceiling caved in. He survived because a ceiling is just a horizontal wall. She wasn’t so lucky.

He grabbed the bottle of vodka that he was saving for tragedy and went out into the world. He had one more wall to smash.

By the time he got near the Gaza-Israel barrier, the Kool-Aid man had finished the bottle. He was now a spiked punch.

A Palestinian man recognized the Kool-Aid Man and saw the look of determination and sorrow in his eyes. He knew what the Kool-Aid Man meant to do. He followed along and said, “Mr. Kool-Aid, I would implore you to not do what you’re clearly going to do.”

The Kool-Aid Man said, “Oh yeah?” almost menacingly.

“We don’t need another Western savior with a death wish. We get boatloads of those.”

The Kool-Aid Man said, “oh yeah.”

“But you could use your considerable influence in the US to get the word out and organize for our freedom.”

The Kool-Aid Man, still walking, said, “oh. yeah.”

“If you do this, it will only be a weird blip in Western media, and then the Israelis will retaliate against us for losing face. It will be a hollow symbolic gesture which will cause more harm.”

The Kool-Aid Man said, “oh.”

At this point the spotlights turn on and the voice on the megaphone says in English, “You are approaching a restricted area. Turn around now or we will open fire.” And then they open fire immediately.

The bullets bounce off the Kool-Aid Man’s translucent frame easily. The Palestinian man gets one right in the eye.

Kool-Aid Man looks at this man, who was trying to help, dead in the dirt. Then he looks up at the spotlights and narrows his gaze. He knows they’ll get out the heavy artillery soon. He says, “Oh yeah!”