J.G. Ballard Gets Paid to Plug Taco Bell

This article is part of the The Great Authors Series series.

Why I Want Ronald Reagan to Eat the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Griller

Computer generated contour maps of Ronald Reagan's penis are projected into the environment of dog fight simulators. Pilots are given Spicy Buffalo Chicken Grillers before missions. They take off from a carrier at Yankee Station in the scrotal folds. Canopies of flak blossom over the presidential glans. Hydraulic rams shake the cockpit to realistically simulate orgasm damage. A woman's voice moans missile tone and the pilot veers to avoid the rocket. Villagers flee the shadow of the aircraft. They fire uselessly as the plane transforms into a crispy snack craving breaker.

Napalm fireballs roll into the air. Good hit. A Texas barbecue above the corpora cavernosa. Eyes bursting. Skin liquefied in the intense heat of the Buffalo Griller sauce. Phimosis shrouding the war crimes of helicopter infantry. Sperm flung through every open door, spattering the cockpit screens, blinding the missiles that can track and destroy the human heartbeat. Go low and use the guns. The screams of women and children denied access to the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Grillers are recorded at a sound stage in California and played in the cockpit to disorient the pilot. Some men are sick when they emerge. Others, as noted by approving comments in their records, are smiling.

Why Pay More

In his attempt to populate the $1 Cravings Menu, Dr Numan sought a greater understanding of human desire. The case contained one hundred crunchy tacos. The trunk recovered from a grounded freighter was filled with chicken soft tacos. The body of Marilyn Monroe was attached to a mechanical pump to circulate the blood. A heating coil was placed into the uterus and recordings of her films were projected across her nude figure. The head was detached and preserved in Lucite.

Amazon tribesmen, believing they were to be inoculated for tropical fever, were brought into an adjacent room and were given a series of choices. A crunchy taco on a tray. A chicken soft taco supreme. Pintos n' cheese in a foam bowl. The chance to make love to the most beautiful woman ever to live.

Dr Numan sought honest reaction uncontaminated by modern prejudices and he was rewarded. Again and again, the tribesmen chose the crunchy taco. They broke it in their fists and smeared the meat into their hair. They tore at their clothes and beat their hands against the one way glass screaming in a language Dr Numan had not bothered to learn. Poison gas flooded the experiment room to prepare it for the next subject. The machines continued to circulate the blood in the untouched body of Marilyn Monroe.

Still Life of Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco

Corporal Douglas awoke from a dream of strangulating his childhood dog and moved through the deserted shopping mall. Its shape was known to him, but in its emptiness was a strangeness, a crime that remained in the dust motes and circulated up the humming escalators. The music continued to play from the speakers, occasionally interrupted by the recorded voice of a woman inviting shoppers to the spring sale. It was winter outside the shopping mall. Forever spring within. The sale never ended.

He moved slowly among the tables. Nothing disturbed the dust until now. It was a sheet across everything and it swirled in his path. When he looked back, his footprints reminded him that he was an intruder in a habitat for precious ghosts. Their faces haunted the signs. 25% Sale on lingerie. Dust smearing the mouth of a child faded almost to white by the sun.

He stopped. On one table was a blue envelope containing a surprisingly thick and succulent ration of ground beef, bright yellow cheese, lettuce and orange sauce dripping from the fried corn vulva of a taco. It looked impossibly delicious and free of dust.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

Corporal Douglas' words echoed through the shopping mall. He was answered by the hum of the escalator and the woman interrupting the music to invite him to the spring sale. He had never wanted anything more in his life than to eat the delicious Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco. It was an apex item of human civilization. A relic of an age now slipped forever over the horizon like a moored boat loosed in a storm.

To deprive himself of this pleasure after all the hardship was unthinkable. He could eat it, succumb to this lust, and then? There was only one Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco. The last of its kind, gone forever from the world. He sat down next to it at the table and slowly realized there was only one possibility.

He took out his pistol and, with his last bullet, shot himself through the head. His body slumped. Blood spread across the table, caressing the taco's labial shore.

"Come to the spring sale, where all our lingerie is 25% off," said the recorded voice of the woman.

	Zack is the author of the new short story collection Wages: Future Tales of a Hired Gun, a blood-soaked satire of private military contracting. He is also the author of the genre-hopping novel Liminal States, soon to be available as an audiobook. You can find out more about Zack's latest projects and special offers on his Facebook page.

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)