Hammer
Snowman (now remembering his former self as Jimmy) marks the passage of several years with physical changes—voice cracking, body hair, muscle growth—and the onset of “sexy dreams.” He invents the insult “cork‑nut,” a word only he and his parrot Alex understand, which later spreads as a fad among children at the HelthWyzer Compound.
At HelthWyzer Public School Jimmy entertains classmates by drawing eyes on his knuckles and animating “Evil Dad” and “Righteous Mom” hand‑puppets. The sketches become increasingly graphic, including a grotesque “sex scene” with a fish‑finger lunch, earning applause as well as guilt. His sole confidante is his pet rakunk Killer.
One day Jimmy finds a terse note from his mother Sharon announcing she is going into hiding and has taken Killer with her “to liberate” the animal. Enraged, Jimmy mourns both his mother and Killer for months, unsure which loss hurts more.
Sharon later returns and smashes Jimmy’s father’s home computer with a hammer, using every tool from the family’s rarely‑used handyman box, and also destroys her own computer. She escapes the OrganInc Compound by faking a dental appointment, bribing a CorpSeCorps guard, and slipping through the checkpoint; the guard later disappears, hinting at deeper collusion.
CorpSeCorps men interrogate Jimmy about his mother’s motives, the missing data, and the environmental catastrophes she once described (rising seas, volcanic tsunamis, dried Florida orchards). They press him for any overheard mini‑mic recordings, but he offers only vague answers. Two CorpSeCorps women are stationed in the house, making intrusive calls, rummaging through photo albums, and attempting to extract information by feeding Jimmy omelettes, frozen dinners, and pizza.
Jimmy’s father, a genographer leading the pigoon project, is shaken; he claims no critical data survived the wipe and later undergoes a prolonged debriefing that may involve torture. He eventually resumes a semblance of normal life, shaving, whistling, and even playing golf.
Ramona, a lab technician from OrganInc Farms, moves in. The household’s rhythm shifts to secretive, “growly” sexual encounters behind closed doors, while Jimmy blasts music to drown out the sounds. Ramona tries to fill the maternal void: she watches movies with him, makes popcorn, and cooks lasagna and Caesar salad. She asks Jimmy about his feelings regarding the broken marriage but he declines to discuss it. He continues to yearn secretly for Killer and feels a lingering, conflicted attachment to his absent mother.
Jimmy receives a few cryptic postcards signed “Aunt Monica” from England and Argentina, which he suspects are from Sharon. CorpSeCorps intercept them, reinforcing his belief that his mother is communicating through proxies, and deepening his sense of failure at not protecting her.
Overwhelmed by endless replay of these memories, Snowman declares “I am not my childhood,” and seeks discipline through a mantra. He recalls a grade‑school “Religion of the Week” exercise where each student chose a word—examples he considers are “Valance,” “Norn,” “Serendipity,” “Pibroch,” and “Lubricious”—hoping the repeated chant will quiet the intrusive thoughts.