Multiplication – Kevin Johnson Murillo

May 14, 2026

[…] one’s under the impression of being subjected to an explosion […] as a result of the conspiracy of bodies that, copulating, create a new variant.
– Witold Gombrowicz, Diario

Monica dashed out the front door to receive the guests.
        “Come in. Come in.”
        Another family of four joined the several inside.
        She took one fast look, left and right, to see if there were any more coming. The day was glorious and yellow. She closed the door.
        The first (which is to say the last) family made itself at home in the living room. A TV showed colorful cartoons to entertain them.
        The second family ate stacks of pancakes in the kitchen, but not before holding hands and praying to our Lord Jesus Christ.
        The third family sat on stacks of clothes and washing machines and told each other anecdotes about when they were younger and more naïve.
        The fourth family sat on garden chairs and drank tea in the anteroom to the garden. They ruminated on their futures.
        The fifth family sat on the grass outside in a circle. They chanted love songs and played the bongoes.
        And so on.
        Satisfied that the house was full to brimming with families, Monica made her way to her room in the left wing of the house. She locked the door and wept in front of the bathroom mirror.
        Someone knocked.
        “Who is it?”
        Through the door: “Monica, I’m afraid you’re going to have to make room for another family.”
        M. unlocked it and came face to face with a family man (she couldn’t tell which). He pointed at the front door. Monica did her job. She opened it and instructed the newly arrived family to sit on a set of houseplants lining the wall of the living room. Who were they to question her intelligence? And she was about to hide away again when there was another knock.
        Monica guided the new family onto pots on kitchen furniture.
        And another knock.
        And thankfully the backyard was roomy enough because she began to cram the families left and right. This didn’t stop the 5th family in their chanting and the bongoes.
        She was beginning to run out of space.
        “Where will I find more room for all the children and the guests?” she asked no one.
        “Might I make a suggestion?”
        She was being followed by a pimply man with glasses. She didn’t know what family he belonged to.
        “Shoot.”
        He suggested piling the families on top of each other. They were so busy fidgeting and reminiscing that they surely wouldn’t notice the operation had taken place.
        M. didn’t know, but while she pondered another family blocked out the sun in the entranceway impatiently. She had no choice.
        “You three, come over here.”
        She placed them on family #3 in the laundry room. It made no fuss as the daughter went into painstaking detail about why she resented her father ever since 9th grade in high school when she wanted to leave the softball team and he forced her to stay and etc. No one so much as budged as the weight of the new family was set in place.
        “See what I mean?” said the dork/assistant.
        She agreed that it seemed to be working and rushed to the entrance to address another family. This one she placed in the kitchen. Before long, all the old places were occupied by new families. It didn’t even occur to her to question reiterating the process: a third family was put on the second layer; and then a fourth; and so on—actually, that was as far as it went—until families were crammed, bending into unnatural shapes to fit properly but never questioning the opportuneness of their arrival in Monica’s house.
        M. could no longer move through the house freely and realized she would have to tell the next family that enough was enough.
        “I’m sorry, there’s no more room.”
        “What do you mean there’s no more room,” said this family man. “I can see plenty of room between elbows and torsos.”
        She was too tired to make a point.
        She signalled to them to come in but didn’t tell them where.
        Almost as soon as this family made its way inside then another appeared and Monica nodded, exhausted, yawned and pointed inside.
        She chose not to look at what was happening behind her. It was easier on her psyche; that’s what she told herself.
        “May I?” asked a family woman, #446, perhaps.
        “By all means,” said M., and once again mindlessly pointed inside.
        “But there’s no room.”
        So Monica was forced to turn around and witness the ungodly mass of bodies and twisted limbs that occupied what-was-once her living room. The muffled sound of the cartoons could be heard from somewhere far away.
        “You’re right,” she said and closed the door behind her and walked briskly away from the house across the lawn.
        “Wait! Where are you going?” following her. “We just got here.”
        Monica ran. (She didn’t know where she was going.)
        “Hey!”
        As if out of a clearing in a forest in a dream, M. heard the insistent beating of the bongoes behind her.