Eric's Hysterics

Jonathan Fortin

2011-09-06T17:13:00.000-04:00

The Man Who Ate Nothing But Kittens
Fiction by Jonathan Fortin

It’s amazing how many people object to the notion of eating kittens.

Back when I was younger, I remember that people had always assumed that I was joking when I told them I ate kittens. Then, upon realizing I was serious, they asked if I meant that I liked ‘eating young pussy,’ because how on earth could I really enjoy eating kittens? It’s a sad world we live in that pedophilia is more acceptable than using our natural right to eat whatever is smaller than us.

I remember one Thanksgiving—I was perhaps six at the time—I suggested to my family we eat tiger instead of turkey and they laughed. They thought I was joking. So I went to bed crying. I really had wanted to know what a tiger tasted like. I’d heard about the Make A Wish Foundation, how it had let a dying kid shoot a bear, and I fantasized about faking some kind of deadly disease and claiming I was going to die, so that they would let me eat a tiger.

Though these desires persisted throughout my entire life, I did not act on them until I was fourteen, when my family moved to America. Most American food simply didn’t agree with me. It tasted processed, plastic, with an aftertaste that reminded me of machines, even more so than the English food I was used to. Even what I ordered at high-class restaurants would usually turn out to have faint stench of corporate influence. In the hopes of finding answers, I began to research the influence of conglomerates on cooking and quickly learned far more than I wished to know of the FDA’s corruption, of the terror of trans-fats fast food chains put into their food and what eating such food could do to a man. I was livid about it all, and deciding what to eat for each meal became a chore. And so, as the days passed, I began to have an increasingly powerful urge to eat something that seemed a little more…fresh.

My parents remained ignorant of my desires; it was only when I swallowed my younger brother’s pet mouse that they began to think something was wrong, and only after I had killed and attempted to eat our next-door neighbor’s new pomeranian puppy that they were certain. They were quite frightened by the event and seemed to believe that my culinary compulsions might extend to cannibalism—that I might try human babies! Nothing could have been more preposterous but, regardless, they took me to various therapists, who always told me that there was something seriously wrong with me. For a time, I was actually naïve enough to believe them, even as they munched on chicken sandwiches and beef jerky filled with unhealthy, processed meat rather than natural, untainted deliciousness! Their attempts to change me proved fruitless, even though I tried my best; my desires were too intense for that. You cannot deny a man his right to eat, and to me eating most food was not eating at all. The pomeranian puppy had been too delicious for me to not be compelled to try again, so I hunted other pomeranians down and consumed them. To think that they had once been my favorite meal! I was such a silly child; how could pomeranians ever taste better than kittens?

It wasn’t long, however, before my tastes matured, and I found myself salivating at the sight of one of the neighborhood cats. It was black with bright yellow eyes and short, smooth hair—very cute, very cute indeed. I lured it to me with a can of tuna fish. Once it got close enough, I grabbed it. My teeth ripped into the squealing thing, my tongue licked the fur as it became increasingly soaked in warm, salty blood. Soon, I was swallowing whole chunks of fuzzy, salty flesh. The smooth fur felt strange in my mouth, but I enjoyed the sensation of it brushing its way down my throat. Nothing had ever tasted finer.

I knew then that I had found my purpose in life: to sample every last possible style of kitty-cat cooking. I tried different breeds; I tried cooking them; I tried skinning them and shaving them; I tried eating them with a knife and a fork as well as with my bare hands. I tried adding salt and pepper and ketchup and mustard. While most men wished for pussy, I wished for pussy cats.

It wasn’t long before I realized that kittens were far tastier than full-grown cats. Though they had much less meat on them and they screamed so adorably when devoured alive, but somehow this made them taste even better. One of the first kittens I ever ate was a Siamese. There was fear trapped in its beautiful, dead eyes; I laid the top half of its body on the plate while I sucked its tail like a spaghetti noodle. It was the perfect entrée.

I knew I had to be discrete with my habits. Animal rights activists were on a constant prowl, and nobody liked the idea of cute little kittens getting eaten. There was a popular internet meme called “LOLcats,” which involved taking funny pictures of felines (some of which were digitally modified) and adding grammatically incorrect captions, the most famous being, “I CAN HAS CHEESEBURGER?” LOLcats made me salivate.

Getting the cats proved problematic at times. The alleyways were full of cats, but they tended to be filthy and diseased. I preferred to get my kittens from breeders. This quickly proved too expensive to keep doing, so I ended up letting one of my kittens remain alive and grow to adulthood. Her name was Princess and I doted on her. I eventually adopted a mate for her and ensured that they bred. Princess’s kittens proved truly delicious. I never let her watch me while I ate them; I didn’t want her to know where they were going.

Soon, I created entire concubines of breeders, turning my home into a venerable kitten factory. One day I realized that I was churning out more kittens than I could eat, and I wondered if there was any way I could share these delightful meals. Maybe I could even turn in a profit and quit my day job. Though I was afraid of being judged or imprisoned, the thought kept popping up in my head, and I realized that there was no way I could deny it. I had never been one to deny myself what I wanted, and I wasn’t about to start now. So, I expanded my home and turned it into a restaurant. It took several years but, when I finished, I knew it was worth it. I called my restaurant “Kitten Delicious.”

Of course, when I began advertising, many took it as a joke. Others ignored me or told me that what I was doing was wrong, especially the local cat lady who threatened to “liberate” my breeders so they could join her mad flock. But, I showed the authorities that my cats were perfectly healthy and that their living conditions were considerably cushier than those of most animal mills. Any inspections proved me right. I was doing nothing illegal and anyone who attacked my business or my home would be.

Business stayed slow for the first year, with only about three people coming in every day. Each person who was adventurous enough to try the food, however, told me that my cooking was surprisingly excellent and that they would tell all their friends. Slowly but surely, word of mouth spread and, by the end of my second year in the restaurant business, there wasn’t a time of day when someone didn’t come in asking to eat a kitten. Soon, I had to hire staff and expand my kitten factories. By my fourth year, the restaurant had become so popular that we had to move it to another location with more tables so that the lines would not be so long. By then, we had no less than ten large kitten mills, each one breeding a different type of cat. The Sphinx proved the most popular breed, for it was hairless and most people did not enjoy the sensation of fur caressing their throat, as I did. Calicos were the next most popular, for their mild taste made them the easiest to try for people who had not eaten kittens before.

To help me manage the new business, I hired a Vice President, a man by the name of Edwin Schafer, whom I had long been friends with. He helped me amass a board to help make the endless difficult business decisions, and so our company grew. By the end of our first decade, we became a small chain, opening up other restaurants. And by the end of the next decade, we had Kitten Delicious’s all over the country. By the time we had our 30-year anniversary, we expanded out of the United States and into Europe and Asia—I was especially proud that Good Old Britain embraced it. Finally, people had stopped being hypocrites, had realized that there was nothing wrong with eating kittens. Even my parents came in to try my food once, after decades of disowning me. They didn’t come back, but they still told me that I was now free to visit them.

It was only after I began to feel ill that I realized the kittens were beginning to taste wrong. I had never thought kittens could taste wrong but, against all odds, they did now. Indeed, they tasted so wrong that I found myself wanting to try other foods, something I could not remember doing.

I ran to the kitten mills, to see if anything was incorrect. Imagine my horror when I saw what was happening to the kittens strapped to the conveyer belt: above them were tanks full of growth hormones, syringes dropping down to poke the kittens and inject them with dastardly fluid. Sometimes the kittens would squirm to such an extent that their faces (even their eyes!) would be poked. I shook with fury. Only human teeth should be allowed to poke the faces of kittens, not these mechanized needles!

“What are you doing?” I screamed at the workers. “We have to stop this! We cannot give these cats hormones!”

My underlings looked at me blankly. They did not seem to recognize me. A white-haired man in an expensive-looking suit told me to come to his office. “You work for me!” I shouted. “This is my business!”

The man shook his head, smiled and said, “Our boss is the consumer, and this is the only way to keep up with the demand. Everyone wants to eat a kitten, now.”

“Stop it!” I screamed, feeling my blood boil. I felt as though my chest was twisting in on itself. “Stop this at once!” I shouted, but I was beginning to collapse, and my heart thudded and thudded inside of me, pummeling my skin, trying to pry itself free from my chest. I fell to the floor.

I was taken to the hospital, where I was treated and tested. The doctor concluded that I probably had a heart attack triggered by stress. Unfortunately, even now that the attack had passed, my doctor looked at me with a sad face.

“I am sorry to tell you this,” he said, “but you’re going to die, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why will I die so young?”

The doctor shrugged. “You’ve been living off of kittens your entire life. The fact is, kittens aren’t particularly nutritious. Especially not the hormone-laced kittens that your company has been selling as of late. Eat enough of that and you’re bound to hit an early grave.”

The doctor forced me to stay in the hospital until he could make me healthy again. When I refused the fruits and vegetables the nurses tried to give me, they forced nutrition into my body with an IV.

I called my executive board, and Vice President Schafer in particular. The board members all came to my bedside and were very generous and sympathetic, gave every indication that they were as compassionate as could be. But as I told them what was being done to the kittens and insisted that it needed to be stopped, my underlings gave me woefully inadequate smiles. Schafer informed me that they would have to confer with the board before jumping to any hasty decisions.

“But you are the majority of the board!” I said. “Right now, in this very room! If you all were to vote as I demand then it would be a landslide!”

A few of the board members exchanged skeptical glances, as if they could not take me seriously. I shook with fury. So what if I was on a hospital bed, perhaps days away from death? I still ran the company, did I not? But as I saw their smiles, I realized that I did not run the company—not anymore.

I said, “News of my collapse will break soon! Reporters will look for me! They will ask questions. And I will tell them what has happened to my company! I will tell them what you’ve done to the kittens! Don’t you see? Kittens must be pure and untainted!”

The board flat-out laughed. “Do you really think anything will change?” asked Schafer. “People know that cigarettes are harmful, but they still smoke! Hell, I still smoke!”

They shuffled out of the room while I sat there, trying to come up with something to say.

The window to my right was almost perfectly lined up with the rooftop of the building next door and, only moments after the board left, I found myself staring at the rooftop in surprise—for a kitten was wandering across it. Soon, however, I saw another figure running across it—a little boy!—and within seconds he had caught the kitten, and tore into it with his teeth. I saw myself in that boy, and wondered how many were like him. Yes, I had lost my power; but I could not help but smile at the sight I had just seen, for I knew that I had changed the world.

Michael Baird

2011-08-29T17:09:00.000-04:00

The People Who Sell Free Things
Fiction By Michael Baird

With his temple grays, R.J. Worthington could edit newspapers. Instead, he stands at the head of a table large enough to take over the world. The men around the table play golf and don't allow children in their cars. A large pie graph hangs on the wall. It's divided into three sections. They are labeled, 'water', 'dirt', and 'air'. The water and dirt slices make up the majority of the pie. The air portion is non-existent; that is a problem.

Worthington speaks to the back wall. "Johnson, yuppies go to these oxygen bars and pay for air, right?" Worthington's hiring requirement of being named Johnson phased out three years ago. Still, everyone responds. "Yes sir, yes they do."

One of the walls in this room is essentially a massive window. Worthington walks to it and glares at the dancing air. He smiles knowingly. "Fortified air, Johnson, that's the future."

At that moment, a handful of people in spotless white uniforms enter the room and place a plate of dark brown gravy with a piece of crusty, white bread in front of each man. The men know not to touch, but they are all excited. A collective gravy dip marks a significant moment.

Tom Jennings, Vice President of Customer Specialists, speaks up. "Sir, what's fortified air?"

Worthington smiles like his face is going to break. "I'm glad you asked, Johnson." He looks to the back door. "You can bring that in now."

Brooke Hatherly, Vice President of Product Design strides in carrying a six pack of 12 ounce cans covered in silver and blue swirls. Brooke's suit is pin-striped and his hair is tousled. He used to model underwear. Last year, he completed three on-line chemistry classes.

"Gentlemen, this is our newest product, 'Fortified Air'." Worthington turns to Brooke. "Johnson, tell these nitwits what you and those lab boys have been up to."

"Well sir, we used an air compressor to fill these cans. We call it 'Aero'."

The room murmurs in approval.

"Is that all?"

"Well no sir, we dropped a dab of lemon juice into every can."

The murmurs increase in volume.

Worthington presses his hands into the table. "Tomorrow, we begin marketing. The Today Show will run a story about the importance of breathing fortified air, such as 'Aero'." Looking at Brooke, he continues. "Johnson here will be our 'scientist'. Give us your pitch."

Brooke straightens himself and speaks with boyish charm. "Although vast improvements have been made, the air we breathe is still polluted. Fortified air, once a day, can increase your mood and metabolism. Some subjects have experienced weight loss."

Wilfred Johnson, Vice President of Not Getting Sued, speaks up. "Is that last part about the weight loss true?"

"Yes, two people in our lab caught a whiff of the compressed air. That week, they lost 5 and 3 pounds respectively."

"Just from breathing in the air? I mean were they doing anything else?" Wilfred asks.

"Yes they were, but it certainly didn't derail their efforts."

Wilfred patted his sweaty head with a white handkerchief. "That might pose a problem. You could always say that it's not statistically significant."

"That won't work, Will." A familiar voice rises from the corner. Adam Stephens wears his tennis outfit, complete with pristine short shorts. He's the only one permitted to do so. As Vice President of Getting Away With Lying, when he speaks, Worthington listens. He stands and extends a hand in Worthington's direction. "May I?"

Worthington nods and speaks softly. "The floor is always yours if you want it, Johnson."

Stephens continues. "People don't want to hear about something being statistically whatever. They want support. That's what we do here. We support health. So, we can say that 'Aero supports weight loss efforts'."

Wilfred Johnson nods in approval. The men turn to each other and nod. Shirt collars dig into thick necks.

Robert Johnson, Vice President of Something To Do With Consumers, is the oldest member of the board. He addresses Worthington. "Sir, these cans can't be closed. Wouldn't people prefer bottles, to use over and over?"

Worthington's eyebrows rise. "And what will they do, when the air is out of the can?"

Johnson smiles. "They buy another one!"

The room fills with applause and joyous grumbling. Worthington leans back in his massive chair.

The men dip bread into hot, brown gravy.

Wayne Scheer

2011-08-22T11:26:00.000-04:00

Fear of Not Flying
Fiction by Wayne Scheer

Oz and Lenny, friends since college, were turning fifty. Their wives talked about a dinner, maybe a party, but the birthday boys were unimpressed. "What I'd really like to do," Oz said, "is get high, go to a club, and let loose. Be wild again."

Carla reminded him he was never wild.

"Yeah, but at least when I was young I'd get high enough to think I was wild."

Lenny agreed. "I look in the mirror and see my father staring back, disapproving. I say, let's give the old man something to really disapprove of."

Susan, Lenny's wife, wasn't so sure. "Where would we even get weed?"

Oz had already considered that problem. "There's a new Assistant Professor where I teach. She's still young enough to party. I'm pretty sure I can score some shit off of her." He hoped his vocabulary made him sound cool.

The next Saturday evening, they gathered around Oz to watch him pack the loose marijuana into cigarettes. "You never forget how to ride a bike or roll a joint," Oz proclaimed, as he licked the paper to seal the ends. He prepared four cigarettes. They were too fat and loose, but no one complained.

Although they wanted to smoke a joint right away, they decided to drive to a nearby club and smoke in the car before going in, worrying they might not drive safely if they began at home.

In the car, Oz sucked deeply on a stubby cigarette and lost most of the smoke to a cough. While passing it to Carla, he struggled to hold what was left. Finally, the urge to cough overwhelmed him. "I guess I'm out of practice."

Lenny and Susan laughed as Carla took a shallow hit and passed the joint.

Susan, unable to relax, worried about police. "We have three grown kids, for crying out loud."

"Be cool," Lenny said, as he ducked below the car window to smoke.

Oz remembered how easy it once seemed. "We're working too hard at this."

Wedged behind the steering wheel and still wearing his seat belt, he stuck his head out the window. "Ya-haa," he shouted. He tried going falsetto on the second syllable but all that came out was a crackling sound, similar to the noise a car makes when you turn the key after it's already running.

Carla punched Oz on the shoulder.

"That hurt," Oz said.

"You wuss. I hardly touched you."

"No. I mean my throat."

"Another drug-related incident," Lenny said, in his best radio announcer voice.

They passed the joint around, alternating between laughing and coughing.

Finally, Carla opened the car door. "Let's go in before you old men need your naps."

Entering the club, they were immediately assaulted by the blaring music and the stale, sweet smell of alcohol mixed with the marijuana on their clothing. Susan, who had been quiet, reached in her purse for a hit on her asthma inhaler.

"Smooth," she said.

After paying the cover charge and getting their hands stamped, there was no turning back. Feeling like Baptists at an orgy, they made their way deep into the bowels of the club, trying not to stare at the tattooed and pierced partygoers who looked younger than their own children. Finding no place to sit, they stood along a wall, swaying awkwardly to the music like four wilted wallflowers.

"Let's dance," Oz said, taking Carla by the hand.

"But you don't dance."

Pointing to the crowded dance floor filled with young bodies swaying and jumping and hopping in what seemed like random abandon, he shouted, "What difference does that make?"

But another coughing fit held him back.

"Maybe we should get beers and build up to a dance," Carla suggested.

After an hour of awkward posturing and even more awkward attempts to dance, Susan complained that the cigarette smoke was irritating her contacts. Relieved, they all agreed to go back to Oz and Carla's for a final weed-induced flight.

At the house, they tried sitting in a circle on the floor but agreed the couch was more comfortable. "Be careful of the ashes," Carla warned, fighting valiantly the temptation to pass an ashtray along with the joint. She put on a classical guitar CD, Andre Segovia, and dimmed the lights. "No incense. Cinnamon-scented candles from Wal-Mart will have to do."

Earlier in the day, Oz searched the attic and found old Jefferson Airplane, The Fugs and Steppenwolf albums. He really wanted to hear Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion," but Carla reminded him they no longer owned a turntable. He apologized to the group for the music.

No one cared as they passed the joints and relaxed into the moment. The four friends enjoyed easy conversation, recollecting and creating exploits from their past. Oz pointed out how much this beat talking about their cholesterol numbers.

They munched on raw vegetables and fat-free ranch dressing.

"Oz, you'll have to thank that Assistant Professor for us. No one at my firm is young enough to remember smoking pot," Lenny said. "Their idea of fun is a brandy before bedtime."

"Sounds good to me," Susan whispered. Carla nodded in agreement.

Oz sat up. "Well, I'm not that old, dammit! Let's make a pact to do this every birthday."

"Right on, my man." Lenny high-fived Oz.

Oz suffered another cough attack.

"Coffee, anyone?" Carla asked. "I have decaf."

Pete Lopez

2011-08-15T06:50:00.000-04:00

I Wish This Essay Was Worth a Billion Dollars

Non-Fiction by Pete Lopez

My personal stance is that wishing, hoping or sacrificing a live chicken is irrelevant to swaying an outcome in my favor. I am no different than anyone else, as I’m prone to praying for things to turn my way, but channeling willpower towards a desired result is useless. Back when the New York Giants won the Superbowl, I wished as mightily as my heart could handle for that victory but, despite my efforts, the team never recognized my fortitude at the championship parade or awarded me a ring.

In playing devil’s advocate, I have been wrong before about assumptions that I considered a sure bet. I would have gambled my first born on Goliath winning as I heard the tale. I was also certain about a romantic connection with a stripper once but, alas, my remarks weren’t as witty as my wallet emptied and she went on to see other people. It goes against my better judgment, but perhaps there is a slim chance that wishing can change a circumstance to my preference.

Since there’s an ounce of doubt, I’m preparing a backup plan in case the unexpected occurs. Maybe there is some sort of Wish Genie floating around granting rare wishes. It’s human nature to crave simple pleasures like the grass mowing itself or for there to be ice already made in the freezer but, look at the bigger picture. On the tiniest chance that there is a supernatural force scarcely authorizing wishes, it’s asinine to waste any wish on something insignificant.

Could you imagine if I was given one shinning moment of fulfillment and I used it for pre-made frozen water? I could have been blessed with anything in the universe and I fancied cubes to cool down a glass of lemonade in the middle of winter. Eternal riches were within my grasp but an impulsive urge let them melt away.

Well as of now, all of my wishes will have a permanent effect. I still won’t believe they will be answered, but “genie forbid” I am wrong, they’re not going to be squandered on a temporary happiness. Say I’m at the Department of Motor Vehicles, rather than hoping for a short wait or that all the customers ahead of me disintegrate, I’ll wish to be the Emperor of France.

That wish treats my impatience, avoids crumbling innocent bystanders into dust, and has me chauffeured around from castle to castle drinking fine wine in the back of a limo. I've revamped curing a minor nuisance into living comfortably as a foreign aristocrat. A position as a figurehead of an elite European country solves my current hassle and improves my life long-term.

So my advice to everyone is, if you are sitting in your office cubicle around 3 pm and are desperately wishing for the 5 pm whistle, please reassess. That’s skipping a measly two hours and you still have to return tomorrow. What if 3 pm was the one instant when your wish was destined to come true and it was blown on magically teleporting outside the office a couple hours into the future? On your commute the following morning, I guarantee you’ll be biting your lip in frustration that you’re not flying to superhero headquarters or constructing a play fort from an excess of gold bars.

A smart man is always investing into the future. Wishing a bit more would squeeze out of the toothpaste tube before heading to bed is fruitless by dawn. Shoot for the stars or risk settling for the booby prize is my motto. I am fairly certain this essay will not net me a billion dollars but, on the microscopic chance this wish is bestowed upon me by a higher being, I’ll be awfully glad this piece wasn’t named “I Wish I Could Trade This Essay for a Ham Sandwich.”

Lawrence Buentello

2011-08-09T00:08:00.000-04:00

Pharmacon
Fiction by Lawrence Buentello

“What do you have for a cold?” Jeremy pressed his advantage with the counterman, leaning in close to expose his scarlet nose.
Phil, the counterman in question, peered at him through calm eyes
(with large pupils) and stroked his long, gray beard thoughtfully.
Phil was an aging hippie, or a graying flower child, or possessed of
some allied persona, and tended toward thoughtful reposes lasting
anywhere from a few seconds to infinity.
Jeremy had been visiting the Botanical for years, plucking up
holistic cures from the shelves and chatting with the clerks. He had
an abiding, if not obsessive, fear of traditional medicine. Have you
ever heard of institutional euthanasia? he was fond of asking complete
strangers, and since he was the sickly sort he thought himself a prime
candidate for governmental selection. But he wasn’t harboring profound
delusions—in his mind he was only exercising an understandable
caution.
Phil nodded his shaggy head and gestured toward the rack of bottles behind him.
“How about some Osha root?” he said. “Some sumac? We just got in a
new shipment of Echinacea, can’t get it any fresher.”
“Didn’t you recommend Echinacea for my prostate?”
“Well, it works for both, I hear. The Navajo love it. Did you ever
hear of an impotent Navajo?”
Jeremy removed a tissue from his coat pocket and gently rubbed his nose.
“I have a cold, not prostate trouble.”
“Then the Echinacea worked?”
“I suppose so. After only a year.”
“Isn’t nature wonderful?”
“Surely, but let’s get back to the issue at hand. What do you have
that will alleviate my symptoms? Something that might kick in short of
a year?”
Phil touched his finger to the side of his nose and nodded.
“I have just the thing,” he said slyly, an inflection Jeremy
understood as a precursor to some illicit suggestion involving Taiwan
and possibly a hookah. But Phil merely brought up a small vial of
brown liquid from under the counter. “This stuff cures everything.”
Jeremy held the bottle in his fingers and examined it in the light.
The bottle contained perhaps a spoonful of liquid. Cough syrup? LSD?
An extract of psilocybin?
“What is it?” he asked, placing it back on the counter.
“It’s the only natural cure-all known to humanity.”
“What’s it made of, Phil?”
“Well, I’m really not sure,” Phil said, scratching his beard. “But my
manager says that’s what the manifest said, so who am I to argue with
someone with twenty credit hours of higher education? She’s a true
intellectual.”
“What’s she majoring in?”
“Psychic sciences.”
Jeremy rubbed his aching forehead; his congestion was straight out of
Sun Tzu, and the ghost of the Spanish Inquisition seemed in charge of
his burning throat.
“I’m sure the job market for Psychic Sciences is wide open,” he said,
swallowing against the pain.
“So I hear. Would you like to try it?”
Jeremy stared at the bottle again, wondering if the hyperbole could
possibly be true.
“How much?”
“Ten dollars. Unless you have a coupon.”
“For the cure to everything?”
“If you’d like to pay more I’d be glad to pocket the difference, but
my manager said the producer sets the price.”
“Why didn’t you offer this to me for my prostate?”
“It only came in a couple of days ago in a crate of curios from
Italy. Rome, I think. Would you like to try on some sandals, too?
Genuine Italian leather.”
“No, thanks.”
“Very comfortable. I’m wearing some now.
“I’ll just take the phenomenal cure-all, thanks.”
Jeremy had the uncomfortable notion that he was buying a cure for
precisely nothing, but reached for his wallet nevertheless. He’d
bailed on college after one semester, so who was he to cast stones at
the suggestion of an internationally-shipped panacea? At the moment,
if it would relieve the pressure in his sinuses he was willing to
believe anything.

Back at his apartment he collapsed in his favorite chair and stared
at his cat, Norma.
Norma, a somber Persian with a curious facial tic that caused her to
twitch her whiskers every few seconds, stared back at him from her
perch on the bookcase, twitching. The room was dim, and smelled
faintly of bacon grease. Jeremy was addicted to BLTs. Abruptly he
shattered the silence with a catastrophic sneeze, then wiped his nose
with his sleeve.
Jeremy raised the bottle to Norma. “Phil says this will take care of
my cold. What kind of odds are you giving me this time?”
Norma blinked her dull blue eyes, then twitched.
“Alas, those are the same odds for everything in my life,” he said,
feeling enormously sorry for himself. “Well, here goes.”
He unstopped the bottle and poured its contents over his tongue.
He immediately winced and made an endearingly humorous face—seen only
by Norma—at the liquid’s sheer bitterness. In fact, he’d never tasted
anything so bitter in his life (and he’d consumed some really
distasteful substances in his search for natural cures). Tears stung
his eyes; for a moment he couldn’t even open them because of the awful
taste.
When he finally did open his eyes the sight of his apartment met him
through hazy tears. He blinked several times. Then he sneezed
violently. So much for cures, he thought. When he finally focused on
the room again, though, he realized he was no longer alone.
A grizzled little man in a robe stood by the bookcase gently petting Norma.
“It was an extract of psilocybin,” he said to himself. “I’m seeing things.”
The little man dropped his hand from the cat and nodded his head. He
seemed old, very old, in-desperate-need-of-a-respirator old, but did
it really matter how old hallucinations appeared? Strangely, Norma sat
placidly licking her fur, twitchless.
“Ten dollars is way too much for this uninspired vision,” he said,
wiping his nose with a tissue. “I’m going to speak to that manager
tomorrow and give her—”
“Ten dollars is a positive bargain for the vision you are now
enjoying,” the little man said in a deep, basso voice. The sound
seemed completely out of character for the type of hallucination he
represented.
Jeremy sighed, feeling ridiculous for holding a conversation with a
hallucination; but the hallucination had initiated the exchange, and
he was in no mood to be bested by a vision.
“I wasn’t supposed to see anything,” he said. “I was supposed to be
cured of my cold.”
“You’re not satisfied with over-the-counter products?” the old man
ventured. He dusted his robe as he studied his surroundings. “Don’t
you know there’s no cure for the common cold?”
“I was promised a cure.”
“And so you were given a cure.”
“You’re a hallucination, not a cure.”
“I really wish they’d stop selling that stuff out of the gift shop,”
the old man said. “Do you know how many light years I had to travel to
get here? Even subverting the space-time continuum?”
“I’m sorry, you’re losing me.”
“Listen, you seem like a nice, ordinary sort of fellow, a human being
following the antiquated but perfectly useful Bean Curve. That is to
say, a normal, middle of the road sort of person.”
Jeremy sat up in his chair. “Are you calling me simple?”
“No, no, young man, just—well, average. So please try to follow my
argument, if you will.”
Jeremy squinted his eyes suspiciously. “I’m really middle-aged, you
know. But, go on.”
“Compared to me, you’re barely here at all. Now, if someone gave you
an elixir to cure everything, what do you think that elixir might be
made of?”
“I would have no idea.”
“Exactly, because such an elixir doesn’t exist. The ancient
apothecaries knew as much, so once upon a time a very long time ago a
very enterprising monk found a way around the dilemma. Now, what
agent, natural or supernatural, could possibly cure any illness in
existence?”
“I’m not such a dim bulb,” Jeremy said defensively, “I understand
exactly what you mean. If there is no natural cure for every illness,
then such a cure must be supernatural.”
“Precisely!” The little man clapped his hands delightedly. “And what
supernatural agent that you know of could cure any illness?”
Jeremy bit his lip in thought. This hallucination certainly was a
demanding sort. Perhaps all this cerebration was supposed to take his
mind off his cold symptoms. If so, he still wanted a refund.
“Quit thinking about money and concentrate,” the old man scolded.
“Are you telling me you’re God?” Jeremy said.
The old man smiled and folded his hands over his stomach.
“At your service.”
“So Phil sold me a hallucinogenic drink that would allow me to see
God? How’s that supposed to cure my cold?”
“No, you idiot,” the old man said, waving his arms in disgust. “The
liquid is an agent that allows you to contact God. Me, if you please.
Once in contact with God a person is capable of requesting a cure for
what ails him. Don’t you see the simple beauty of it? That was one
clever monk.”
Jeremy laughed at the thought of God standing in his living room. No
wonder the Botanical only gave the stuff out in small doses.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“You’ll pardon me,” Jeremy said, “but I really envisioned God as a
much more imposing figure.”
“Why? I can become anything I please. I could appear as a goat’s
head, or some baklava. A bolt of lightning, or a jar of preserves.”
“Why in the world would God appear as a jar of preserves?”
“It’s an ontological point I’m making. Forget the preserves. I’ve
come to you in the visage of your dear old grandfather.”
“You don’t look anything at all like my grandfather.”
The old man smiled. “Not the man you think of as your grandfather.
Life is a complicated matter. When a woman’s eyes behold an attractive
man outside of marriage—”
“That’s enough of that line of reasoning. I’ll not think of Nana in
that way, even within a hallucination.”
“Fair enough. But that doesn’t invalidate my point. I am God, and
therefore capable of curing any illness.”
Jeremy rose from his chair and began pacing the apartment, careful
not to invade the space of his talkative hallucination. He was
fascinated by the teleological implications of finding God in his
living room.
“Why not prayer?” Jeremy asked, still pacing. “Why not achieve a cure
through prayer?”
The little old man casually left his place by the bookcase and sat
in the vacated chair. Norma climbed down from the bookcase and sat in
his lap, picking at the folds of his robe with her claws.
“Sure, that’s one method,” the old man said, stroking the cat, “but
do you know how many people pray? I fulfill one at random every now
and then just to keep my hand in it, and the rest I leave for nature
and modern medicine. It’s a lot like playing the lottery. That’s why
those apothecaries kept working the problem until they came up with a
unique solution. You know, there’s only fifteen more bottles of the
stuff circulating around, but most people consider cure-alls sheer
superstitious nonsense. I mean, botanicals. Please.”
Jeremy winced at the subtle insult. Then he turned to face the
hallucination petting his cat.
“All right,” he said, wiping his nose, “I’ll accept your thesis for
the moment, but only to prove my point. If you’ve been summoned by the
liquid in the bottle to cure my illness, then please do so. This cold
is killing me.”
The old man shrugged his feeble shoulders.
“Are you sure you want me to cure your cold?” he said. “I mean, it is
just a cold. I hear your prostate’s somewhat dodgy.”
“Leave my prostate out of the argument. It’s a logical point of
contention. If you can cure my cold, I mean, completely and
unambiguously cure my cold, then you’re who you say you are and I am
truly in the presence of God.”
The old man nodded. “Indeed. But, really, it’s just a cold. Wouldn’t
you rather I cure your cancer?”
Jeremy’s eyes widened. “I have cancer?”
“No, but if you did have cancer, wouldn’t you rather I cure that
instead of a simple cold?”
Jeremy frowned deeply. “Listen, I don’t care if you are an illusion,
you shouldn’t go telling people they have cancer when they don’t.
That’s really rude of you.”
“I was making a point. And since you’re so sensitive about it, I see
it was a valid point to make. Don’t you agree?”
“Even so. Now, if there’s nothing really wrong with me—except for the
cold—then why should I need a cure for anything else?”
“How about your prostate?”
“The Echinacea cured my prostate.”
“Echinacea? Please, there’s one born every minute. You should have
invested your money in a good urologist.”
“I’m afraid I don’t trust doctors. They’re all a part of a corporate
conspiracy to bilk people out of billions of dollars every year in a
huge bait-and-switch scheme. The insurance companies are in on it,
too. And are we, the sickly public, ever cured of anything? No, we
just keep sinking our money into new diagnoses and pharmaceuticals
until we die. I’ll stick to homeopathic medicine, thank you.”
“Are you through?”
“Yes, I guess I’ve exposed it all. Being God, I’d think you’d already
know such secrets.”
The old man sucked in his cheeks and shook his head. After a moment
he released his cheeks with a loud, wheezing noise.
“Did it ever occur to you,” he said, “that the homeopathic drug
industry is just as much a scam?”
“It is?”
“Listen, my friend, someone is always going to want to sell you
something you don’t need, and sometimes it’s only going to be an
educated guess on your part as to what is best for you. But that’s for
you to decide. Frankly, if I were you I’d forget about the conspiracy
theories and quit chewing on weeds. For instance, that last bottle of
Echinacea you bought was actually crabgrass.”
“All that is beside the point,” Jeremy said, wondering if this was
the reason why his last bottle of Echinacea tasted so earthy, “if you
are God, then please cure my cold.”
“What about your prostate?”
“My prostate isn’t bothering me! It’s the cold I have, and it’s the
cold that will prove my point.”
“What is your point, exactly?”
“That you’re simply a hallucination and I was unscrupulously relieved
of my ten dollars.”
The old man sighed, pushed the cat from his lap and stood.
“All right, have it your way,” he said. “All the powers of God at
your behest and all you want me to do is cure a simple cold. You know,
a few days of rest will achieve as much.”
“But not as dramatically.”
“Fine.” The old man gestured toward the chair. “Sit.”
Jeremy nodded in a self-satisfied sort of way, though he wasn’t sure
why, and sat in the chair.
“Now close your eyes.”
Jeremy closed his eyes.
From the depth of the darkness before him, Jeremy heard the old man
clap his hands thunderously, quite disarmingly so, and then he fell
into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When Jeremy woke in the chair the next morning he realized his
sinuses were unobstructed for the first time in days. He felt
positively wonderful, no teary eyes, no itchy nose, no sore throat, no
cold symptoms at all. When he sat up the empty bottle fell from his
stomach and tumbled to the floor.
He inhaled deeply, reveling in his newly affected cold-free state.
Whatever was in that little bottle, he thought, sure did the trick!
Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings. Norma sat on top of the
bookcase as usual, licking a paw. He watched her for a moment before
realizing that she wasn’t twitching, not a bit. He walked to the
bookcase and picked her up. She gazed at him nervously.
He set her down and picked up the little bottle; a piece of paper lay
curled inside the small neck. He pulled the paper from the bottle and
held it to the light.
I cured the cat gratis, the note read, now go find a decent urologist.
It didn’t take Jeremy ten minutes to run back to the Botanical—after
all, he was no longer gagging up annoying amounts of mucous—but Phil
was all out of the tiny vials of brown liquid; though he did have some
bottles of Echinacea on the shelf, which he offered at half price.
Jeremy leaned against the counter thoughtfully.
“Your manager wouldn’t still have that manifest lying around?” he
asked hopefully. “The one from Rome?”
“Sorry,” Phil said, “I used it for papers.”
Jeremy wondered how much airfare to Italy might be this time of year;
still, there was no guarantee he would even be able to find the right
gift shop, let alone another small brown bottle sitting on its
shelves.
Besides, who was he to argue with divine advice?
“You wouldn’t know a good urologist, would you?” he asked the counterman.
Actually, Phil did.

D.T. Kastn

2011-07-31T19:26:00.000-04:00

Cabra

Fiction by D.T. Kastn

Rufus said, "There’s a goat in the hall."

He said it again, too, because no one seemed to be paying him much attention. Or the goat, for that matter. It was a perfectly normal goat, of average size—for a goat—with a reasonably healthy gray coat the consistency of a shag rug. Maybe a little obtuse-looking but, again, this was par for the course when it came to goats. The other students appeared to be sidling past it, budging against the walls, as though it carried a dangerous curse other than the strong smell, which was—again—an integral part of its very goatiness.

Rufus approached the animal with caution. Everyone else was doing so—maybe there was something to it. Maybe it was a feral goat. A vampire goat. Maybe it was trying to get people to sign a political petition. Maybe it was a land-dwelling advocate trying to find help for its cousins, the goats of the sea—manatees. Or that was cows. Either way, this was a tricky proposition. Rufus sidled sideways up to it, ready to turn and run at the first sign of a charge.

The creature appeared pacific, however; the look in its mild golden eyes was bland and unassuming, generally sort of okay with everything, as though it had been drugged. Rufus assessed the situation.

"There’s a stoned goat in the hall," he said. "Why is there a stoned goat in the hall?"

The expected response on any given day was, Dude, it’s college. Why should there not be a stoned goat in the hall? Or a gargoyle on the toilet, or twelve Mr. Rogers impersonators locked in the basement with a typewriter, or an experimental machine for controlling weather in the common room, making the coffee pot go on the fritz. College had changed drastically since Rufus’ first time around. It was the legalization of medical marijuana, he figured. Suddenly, everybody had back aches, but they were very. Mellow.

Much like the goat, in fact. Which nobody had offered an explanation for, not even the expected one. Maybe there was something else going on here. Everyone looked terrified. Rufus narrowed his eyes at the goat, and the situation in general. Something else—yes. Something else was definitely going on.

"Has anyone seen Milford?"

Still no reply, but the student who was squeezing himself past the goat—which had taken a step or two towards the wall, as though it was trying to make things awkward—suddenly developed a hurry.

"Gibze! Where’s Milford?"

Gibze mumbled something incoherent and a voice floated down cloudlike to Rufus, a pronouncement from a higher power, the ultimate being: Milford’s girlfriend, Katy, who wore pink and was terrifying. And possibly a ninja. There was a rumor going around. Rufus wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not but the fact remained that he had once seen Katy take down a traffic cop whom she believed to have been mean to a puppy. And get away with it.

Katy slipped aimlessly down the stairs into Rufus’ line of sight and greeted him with an engagingly sloppy grin. Her mouth always looked as though no thought had been put into it, as though it were the happiest happenstance, a peach tree in the wilderness. It was at strict odds with the rest of her. Katy was a highly trained individual and her body reflected all the control that exercise, diet, panty hose and a professional bra-fitting could offer. She also had no business being on campus without Milford.

"Where’s Milford?" said Rufus, as coldly as possible. "You have no business being here without Milford."

"We’re not joined at the hip, you know, Mr. King."

"But in that general vicinity," said Rufus. But his voce wasn’t quite sotto enough and Katy flashed him a glare. He gulped, rallied his forces and went on. "There’s a new charter, missy. Milford probably told you. No visitors without express permission."

"Which I have."

"And without official accompaniment."

"Milford’s in the shower. He’ll accompany me when he’s clothed. Otherwise, that’s against the rules, too. You all are so uptight. Just because of those couple of incidents in the last month—"

"The nudist streak, you mean? Or—the streak of nudists? Either way, I guess."

"You’re going to have to help me with the goat. He’s stoned out of his gourd."

Rufus had been momentarily distracted by semantics and synonyms; returning to what was passing for a conversation, he found that Katy had the goat by the scruff of its neck, like a recalcitrant kitten, and was trying to haul it to the door. The goat seemed to be content with its current lot in life, however, and wasn’t keen on leaving the relative comfort of the hall.

"So it is your goat," Rufus murmured, eyes narrowed. Katy sighed.

"The next thing you’re going to say is, I suspected as much."

"I suspe—hey, why did you bring a goat in here, anyway? You’re not supposed to be here. Why compound the offense by trailing your entourage of farm animals like you’re some hopped-up pop starlet with meat on her head?"

This was a daring comparison to make, of course, because there had been that one ill-advised karaoke video.

"You are not making yourself any more likeable, Mr. King," said the possible ninja, in a voice that dripped with sweet danger, like honey laced with arsenic. She stepped deliberately towards him and he was suddenly, acutely aware of the fact that her pink heels were sharp stilettos; which, driven into a man’s foot, would undoubtedly cause months of pain and silly lopsided dancing. Although he could legitimately file for medical marijuana at that point. He shrank back for a split second before realizing that she was still tugging ineffectually on the goat, and rallied himself again. He was always rallying himself when Katy was around. He might as well get fitted for a cheerleading outfit.

"I wasn’t really trying to, to be honest," Rufus said.

"Let’s leave your impolitic rudeness in the dust for the moment, shall we? Are you going to help me with this goat or not?"

Rufus slid his hands slowly, deliberately, into his pockets hoping this would be answer enough. It wasn’t. She was still staring at him, waiting.

"Why should I?" he said. "Why not get someone else to do it?"

"Because everyone else is pretending I’m not here. It’s like I’m a leper."

"Or a ninja," said Rufus, helpfully.

"Or a ninja with leprosy."

"Which would not help the ninja’s stealth tactics, much. If you leave a nose or a finger behind, people usually know you were there."

"Why do they treat me this way?" wailed Katy in a sudden excess of emotion. The goat eyed her askance. She loosed her grip on its nape, and it took two very deliberate steps away from her before she hurriedly grabbed it again. "Just tell me, Mr. King. You’re the know-it-all."

"I’m a student advisor, if that’s what you mean."

"So advise me."

"You’re not a student!"

"Make allowances, Mr. King. Be a mensch, step up to the plate, pay it forward, play nice with others, and for God’s sake grow a pair." She glared at him. It was infuriating. He was actually infuriated. He hadn’t been infuriated for years. He hadn’t been told to grow a pair for years, either. But at least his doctor had finally said, No, really, it’s a recognized medical condition.

"They’re terrified of you," he said, letting the fury speak for him. "They’re terrified of you, because you’re older than they are, and your hair is perfect, and you’re beautiful, and you wear pink, and your very femininity is threatening considering we’re not exactly co-ed, and you have no tattoos, and you smile at them, and you exude something which, though indefinable, is the very essence of everything they’ve ever dreamed of and everything they wake up wanting in the morning, like a warm girl with a hot cup of coffee and the world waiting in the palm of her hand. Also, you might be a ninja."

His fury was eloquent.

"I’m not a ninja, Mr. King," said Katy. "If I was, I could have got this goat in and out before any of you ever realized it. And then there would just be this inexplicable pile of goat do’s in Milford’s bed. And in his closet, too, although he wouldn’t find that till later. He never bothers to clean in there."

"What?"

Katy closed her eyes, briefly. "There were a lot of points covered in those last couple of sentences. What didn’t you understand?"

"Let’s assume I understood everything perfectly, but repeat what you said anyway. Why is—why were you—what—"

"Why is the goat here? To leave a reminder of its presence in Milford’s bed. Why were I doing that? That’s hardly grammatical, Mr. King. No wonder you had to come back to college."

"It was a personal choice," said Rufus, but it was automatic. "What—"

"—happened?" prompted Katy. "I brought the goat in to help me say goodbye to Milford. I’m breaking up with him. I have broken up with him, actually, but the goat was intended as a sort of farewell gift. Unfortunately, he got loose and discovered Mr. Gibze’s medical marijuana."

"He has a terrible backache," murmured Rufus.

"So I gather. Any other points you’re unclear on?"

"Breaking up—"

"With Milford. Yes."

"Good—"

"—bye. Yes."

"No," said Rufus. He was smiling strangely, the sort of smile a suicidal deer might give if caught in the headlights—loving its fate, welcoming it, feeling sweet relief in the very rushing of the wind of death. If deer could smile, of course, which was patently ridiculous. He was in college. He knew these things. "No," he said again, to make it perfectly clear. "Good."

He allowed Katy a moment to take that in. She took it.

"So are you going to help me with this goat, or not?"

There was a reason all the students at Eastbrick were terrified of Katy. Terrified, and yet strangely drawn to her, Rufus noted. It was the sloppy smile, the unguarded turn of her mouth. Maybe it was even the impatient tapping of her death heels. Or was it, perhaps, the professionally-fitted bra? No, it was definitely the smile.

He cleared his throat.

"It’s fairly obvious to me," he said, "that two people are needed to convince a goat to go up the stairs. Even when it’s stoned. There’s a mathematical equation in there somewhere. I know this. I’m in college."

Yeah, definitely the smile.

"You’re going to help me," said Katy, softly.

"Well, you need an official escort," Rufus pointed out reasonably. "It’s in the rules." He advanced on the seriously mellow goat and seized it by the scruff of the neck, like a fractious frilled lizard. "Come on, cabra. I’m also in Spanish 2."

"Bueno," said Katy.

"Show-off," said Rufus, glaring. "This is a task. This is a task and a half. I’m going to be half-starved by the time this is over. You should buy me dinner."

She peeled his fingers from the goat, replacing them with hers. "Is that so, Mr. King?"

"I could go for some barbacoa."

"Is that so," said Katy again, and tugged. "Get to the rear, Mr. King, and shove."

Rufus got to the rear. He shoved.

"Put your back into it," said Katy.

Rufus put his back into it. What did he care? This was college. Things like this happened all the time. It was one of the facts of life. There were probably rules about it.

Katy’s grin was shining at him from over her shoulder, and a handful of strands had fallen loose from her artful coif.

"We made the first step," she said.

"Yes," said Rufus. "Yes, we did."

"Shut up, Mr. King," said Katy, but she said it in a sort of pleasantly threatening way. Rufus grinned, and he continued putting his back into it, and he gave it his all. All he had to give. Up the stairs, and to the landing, and to the promised land.

Aaron Polson

2011-07-24T18:04:00.000-04:00

How to Write a Horror Story
Nonfiction By Aaron Polson

Every story must begin with a plot. Think of plot as a journey—and your horror story is bound for a magical destination called “catharsis.” Read a wide variety of horror tales. Start with Edgar Allan Poe—or even Charles Brockden Brown if you’re feeling ambitious. Read through some of the modern pulp magazines. Stephen King is okay. Tell yourself you can do better, and then copy the plot of one of your favorites, switching the vampire with a werewolf or vice versa. Every good horror story needs a monster. Serial killers make great zombies, but it’s a one-way switch.

You must decide on a setting for your story. Setting means when and where your story takes place. Night is always a good choice for horror because night is when things “go bump.” Things like werewolves and vampires and zombies. Serial killers sometimes have night vision goggles like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, so they rarely bump into anything.

You may have heard the tip “write what you know.” This means you should set the story in your house, especially if it is located in a rural area and/or next to an abandoned factory/warehouse. After all, if you are stuck, you can always look around for details to add to your story. Writers call these details “imagery.” If your house isn’t located near any abandoned buildings and/or not located in the country, you may want to choose one of the following spooky locations to set your story: a lake cabin, parking garage, dark house after the storm has knocked out the power, or perhaps an old farm. Old farms are scarier than new farms because there will be more items on an old farm into which to bump. Although either is likely to be in a rural area in the first place.

Finally, you will need characters. Every horror story has them because the vampire/werewolf/serial killer/zombie must have something to suck/bite/stab/eat. Here again, borrow from real life. Everyone wants to be famous, so feel free to use real names. Legal action can be avoided with the prudent blending of one person’s first name with another’s last. You may have heard the term “character development.” This occurs when an author makes a character seem like a real person by giving them baggage. Baggage can be many things: regret over stealing a candy bar from the store/anxiety about a math test/desire to lose a few extra pounds before prom. Don’t worry about developing your horror story characters personalities too much. Since most of the characters will die, it doesn’t matter if they are flat and uninteresting. The reader wants to see some blood, thus achieving “catharsis.” Catharsis occurs when a reader is happy some other person is bleeding and not her.

Catharsis is your horror-story destination.

Now that you have planned your tale, write. This is the easy part. Begin with a character and an action:

Bob walked into the house.

Here we have a character, Bob, an action, walked, and a setting, into the house. But imagine taking it further:

Bob stumbled into the dark, abandoned farmhouse.

The author has taken his story to an eleven by adding darkness and a secluded location. The verb “stumbled” also suggests a sense of urgency and/or drunkenness. Is Bob stumbling into the house to save someone after he has been shot in the leg or is he stumbling into the house to hide from something which may or may not know he is intoxicated? These are details best left to the reader’s imagination. The more unclear a horror story, the darker, and therefore more apt to have a reader wondering if the story is real. Confusion is scary. One thing is sure: Bob will be dead before you type the words “The End.” How you get from point A to point B is secondary to the fact that our hero will die a gruesome death. Remember: catharsis. You want the reader saying, “Boy, I’m glad I didn’t die a gruesome death like Bob.”

Never underestimate the importance of using multisyllabic vocabulary when describing your character’s death. Disembowel and eviscerate are personal favorites. Make sure to mention plenty of blood. The word “gore” is powerful as well because it implies chunks of flesh mixed with the blood. The more chunks, the more sure the catharsis. “Boy, I’m glad I didn’t die a gruesome death like Bob.” Think of synonyms for the color red so as not to browbeat your reader with the same word over and over and over again. Crimson, scarlet, burgundy, ruby, and cherry are all suitable substitutes. Nothing beats “dark crimson rivulets of scarlet gore cascaded from the gaping wound where Bob’s head had been viciously torn from his body by the werewolf’s claws”. Some variation is acceptable, but keep it scary. No one likes to bleed in dark crimson rivulets of scarlet gore, and they will feel sympathy for Bob. Now you have achieved catharsis. Whoot!

With a little practice and liberal application of werewolves/vampires/serial killers/zombies and blood/viscera/gore, you will be on your way to fame, fortune, and a folding table at the next comic book convention in the lobby of the local Holiday Inn.

Eric M. Bosarge

2011-07-18T14:51:00.000-04:00

Beach Chicken

Fiction by Eric M. Bosarge

I got cock-blocked by a seagull once. That’s when I noticed there are two kinds of seagulls: the first you find at the beach doing seagull things; dropping crustaceans on rocks and flying picturesquely over blue sea. They aren’t causing a nuisance, they add to the mystique, the beauty of the occasion. It's only right you have to deal with them.

The other kind of seagull is the white trash of the aviary world. They hang out near dumpsters beside Wal-Mart and McDonald's and perch on top of the lights outside movie theaters just hoping you drop some popcorn.

Dumpster ducks.

I could go the rest of my life without seeing one of these. But I’m not that lucky.

Now, I've been with my girlfriend long enough so that when she says, "I don't care where we eat, let's just go somewhere cheap and quick," that's exactly what we do. We go to Wendy's, which, not coincidentally, is next to a Wal-mart, drive through and park. And that's where I see him, my arch enemy: the trailer trash seagull.

My girlfriend squeals how cute he is and, as the yellow-beaked bastard cocks his head, I kind of agree. Nice plumage, and I've got a thing for webbed feet. I toss him a fry and wonder if I could get him to eat some of my spicy chicken.

“Don’t do that,” my girlfriend says as he chokes down the fry. “He’ll get dependent.”

His beady, unblinking eye stares back at me. More?

“French fries cause cancer,” I warn, and toss another one, which earns me a slap on the arm.

The seagull shakes his head and ruffles his feathers, shrugging almost, as he chokes down the fry. I should take him home, throw him in a pillowcase and get a good night’s rest.

“I should make him work for it,” I say, tossing him another fry.

“How, make him bob his head and lift one leg at time?” My girlfriend pantomimes this, her forearms becoming seagull legs.

“If I could catch him, I could clip his wings. Then I could work with him.” I toss another fry.

“Baby,” my girlfriend holds my arm, “you should stop. His cholesterol just went up to eight-fifty.”

“He’s a squawk box. Who cares?” I toss him a piece of bread and check to see if my girlfriend is watching what I’m feeding him. “Besides, it’s the sodium that’s gonna get this bird,” I say, hurriedly ripping a big hunk of spicy breaded chicken off and throwing it out.

“What was that?” my girlfriend asks.

“Looks like bread.”

The seagull flap-walks up to it, grabs it and, with a few jerky neck movements, manages to gobble it down. “Nice!” I say.

“Baby, that was chicken, wasn’t it?”

“Hot and spicy.”

“That’s cannibalism.”

“Not it isn’t, he’s a bird eating another bird. We eat other mammals,” I say.

“But not other bi-peds.”

Ever the biology major, I think.

“We don’t eat monkeys,” she says.

“Sure we do. Remember the nuts and the hole in the tree? Open fist can go in, can’t come back out.”

“Baby,” she grabs my arm and points out the window to where my next pillow is. The seagull shakes its beak as it staggers left and right, pin-balling around parking space.

“See, I taught it to dance.”

It makes an awful sound, like a bullfrog being squished.

“Oh come on, quit faking,” I say. But as I look closer I see the little bastard’s beady eyes are watering. And he’s glaring at me in between seizures. “Alright, seriously bird, you got me.”

I swear, he folds his wings down and clutches his stomach. His neck stretches and he gags. I can see his dry, finger-like tongue.

“Oh god.” Fingernails dig into my forearm.

“Ow!” I say, and remove my girlfriend’s talons. When I look back, the seagull is lying on its back, trying to walk on the sky.

My girlfriend jumps out of the car and runs to him. When I get there, her eyes are already glistening with tears.

“You killed him,” she says.

“He’s still moving.”

“We’re taking him to the vet.”

“Don’t touch him!” I stop her. “He could be Asian.”

She balks. “So!?”

“SARS? Bird flu? That stuff comes from Asia.”

“Don’t be a tool. We’re not leaving him to die in this parking lot.”

“Let’s call animal control.”

“No, there’s a vet just up the street.”

“He is not going into my car.”

The seagull groans, honest to goodness moans, like a baby.

She tugs on my arm. “Please?”

“Fine, but he’s riding in the trunk.”

I pick him up—he really would make a great pillow, or half a ski-jacket—and carry him to the trunk. After a few steps he seems to perk up, so I get the great idea to go into the wild on his ass. Fly away, bird. Be free.

I toss him in the air.

For one glorious moment he spreads his wings and flaps, then corkscrews to the ground and lands with a thud.

On his beak.

One wing flaps and he continues to corkscrew, scraping the pavement. When my girlfriend stops screeching, I can hear myself think and it becomes clear: that was a bad idea.

When I pick up the bird again, he’s completely epileptic. Even the little mites in his feathers are shaken loose.

I set him in the trunk, not noticing that my gym bag and a file folder full of documents that I need to review are also in there.

Two minutes later, crossing four lanes of traffic, the soda I was enjoying my lunch with spills as I turn into the animal hospital. The bird might as well have ridden up front.

When I stop the car, there’s a peculiar thumping coming from the trunk. Flap thump. Flap thump. Flap thump. “Well, he’s still alive,” I say.

A moment later I open the trunk. In a blur of flapping wings, violent squawking and flying feathers, I end up on my ass, staring at blue sky and a diminishing seagull.

“He’s alive!” My girlfriend jumps in celebration, then sees me, and covers her mouth—probably to hide the smile.

After I dust myself off, I go to close the trunk. All the papers are strewn about, covered by slimy black and white bird shit and peppered with something worse: chime-coated French fries and spicy chicken. The documents were originals.

I slam the trunk.

“Are you alright?” my girlfriend asks.

“Oh, I’m fine. But I’m buying some Alka-Seltzer.”

Mark Budman

2011-07-08T13:46:00.000-04:00

10,000 Steps
Fiction by Mark Budman

A human being, which Josh reasonably believed he was, has to walk 10,000 steps a day for mate attraction and health. Josh didn't worry about the mate. He was already married to the world's most beautiful lawyer who had never chased ambulances or litigated asbestos in her life and who did more pro-bono work than someone who wants to get into politics.

But health was an elusive target. After his accident, Josh lost all hope to ever be healthy again, especially considering that as an office worker—a software developer—he hadn't been healthy for years even before the accident. Besides, how could he walk 10,000 steps a day when he lost his balance and walked as if an invisible force pulled and pushed him from side to side?

Josh's friend William recommended Veda, the Mount Everest guru. There were two ways to contact the guru: either to climb the mountain or fill out a form at AskGuru.np. Climbing was out of the question, and they charged $100 for the form. So Josh hacked into the Guru's website and asked Mr. Veda about the 10,000 steps.

"You can't hack your way into Nirvana," came the reply.

Josh considered planting a virus at the Guru's website.

In the evening, he re-read the line again and again. The next morning, he had a better idea. He borrowed $1000 from William and made a line of T-shirts with the Guru's reply stitched in red, white and blue.

The shirts were an instant success. Josh sold almost 10,000 of them in the first year alone, most to employees of Symantec, Network Associates and AVG. He made a healthy profit and, as an added bonus, kept his wife happy. And everyone knows that keeping a lawyer happy is not a task for the lighthearted, and that domestic tranquility is key to a healthy life.

Neil Knowlton-Randall

2011-06-26T08:31:00.005-04:00

Ozzy, Harriet and Jack

Poetry by Neil Knowlton-Randall

The ones that you love

End up loving you.

Nope. Wrong.

End up appreciating you?

HA! Try again.

End up dead?

Whoa! Easy there Mr. Mayhem.

Leave psycho-boy back home.

Well what is it then?

The things that you own

End up owning you.

Oh. But I love the things that I own.

They’re nice.

They’re nice

Because you’re dependent on them;

They own you.

Not my duvet!

Especially your duvet!

Keep yourself warm!

What about the remnants

Of my botched colonoscopy?

Your what?

The Dr. said that

I would be fine; it was only

A teensy piece.

I named it Jack.

You are fucked up, man.

It sits in a jar by my bed.

I made the jar a hat.

Sooo fucked up.

Wayne Scheer

2011-06-20T07:40:00.000-04:00

Mardi Gras
Fiction by Wayne Scheer

A surprisingly shapely leg peeked through the slit in her blue silk evening gown. Sequins on her dress reflected the light in the room, flashing like paparazzi bulbs. Although the woman's age hovered somewhere between old and elderly, she flitted from table to table, microphone in hand, doing something resembling singing. She had already treated us to "Walkin to New Orleans" and the Dixie Chicks version of "Iko." Now she warbled her way through, "You Light Up My Life," while running her fingers through men's thinning hair and nuzzling their necks. Thinking herself Whitney Houston's Caucasian cousin, she demonstrated her ability to hit two notes—high and higher still—without concern for the original melody.

Although unaccustomed to prayer, I found myself mumbling, "Dear God, please don't let her come to this table."

But my fear of an unjust universe prevailed. The aging screech owl with legs I reluctantly admit to leering at perched on my lap. Worse, she wanted me to sing along with her.

She persisted until I monotoned, "You light up my… life," and hit a note so inappropriate she looked at me as if I had passed gas, kissed my receding hairline and sauntered off to her next victim.

I eyed my father-in-law, almost unconscious with laughter, pounding the table and pointing at me. My first inclination was to adjust his oxygen tube, which hung from one nostril like a trapeze artist teasing an audience. I reconsidered. He had gotten me into this, let him fix his own damn oxygen.

With that, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand, reinserting the tube, and shouted, "Isn't she a pistol?"

I muttered, "I wish I had one," but my wife kicked me under the table. Dutifully, I replied, "Yeah, she's something, all right."

We were at the Shady Grove Assisted Living Center's annual, Mardi Gras Entertainment Extravaganza, "featuring the song stylings of Miss Lala La Vine." I had already experienced a three sisters' dance act, performed by a trio of octogenarians, and a comic who began his routine with, "I just flew in from New Orleans and boy are my arms tired." Really, he opened with that.

But I hadn't seen Mike, my father-in-law, so happy in years, and before we left the house Bonnie had promised me something special if I was a good boy and avoided sarcasm for the whole night. So I took a deep breath, gave him a thumbs up and returned to Miss La Vine, who now sat on a stool, center stage, crossing and uncrossing her alarmingly shapely legs, promising us her own, very special rendition of "My Way." I closed my eyes and prayed again, this time for the strength to remain sarcasm-free.

She'll probably end with this, I thought. It can't be much longer. I imagined half the audience asleep—at least I hoped they were sleeping—and the other half caretakers, adjusting oxygen tanks and wiping drool. The truth is, as I looked around the converted dining hall decorated with purple, green and gold tinsel, masks and beads, I saw an audience laughing and singing along. Their energy made me feel like I was the old man.

After a rousing finish, with Lala holding the last note of "My Waaaaaaaaaay" long enough to render Kenny G. unconscious, she called the other performers to the stage for a final bow and an audience sing-along of, "There's No Business Like Show Business." I had no idea what that had to do with Mardi Gras, but I was grateful they didn't end with "Jambalaya on the Bayou."

Despite my inhibition, I found myself mouthing at least some of the words, amazed at how many residents of Shady Grove knew all the lyrics. Mike not only knew the words, he was doing Ethel Merman's rendition at full volume. It was good hearing him so alive.

The lights came on and I swear I could see molecules in motion. People were still singing; a woman in a wheelchair displayed happy feet. Even Mr. Riconda, Mike's poker partner, a man who hadn't uttered a positive word since Eisenhower's second term, turned his lips upwards in what resembled a smile.

"See?" Mike was saying to us. "I told you they do a bang-up job." He turned to me. "I bet you're sorry now you missed their Winter Shindig."

Bonnie glared in my direction, but she didn't need to worry. I had caught the spirit. "I can't wait for this summer's Beach Party," I said.

Strangely enough, I meant it. After all, there was a chance I'd see Lala again, this time in a bathing suit.

Jamie Mason

2011-06-12T18:54:00.000-04:00

In Committee
Fiction by Jamie Mason

“I thank the representative from Minnesota. I will comment on The Resolution before yielding the balance of my time to the gentleman from Arkansas. I am delighted to see that he brought his banjo. Our debate will no doubt be enriched by a helping of his trademark ‘pickin’-and-a-grinnin.’

“The matter before us—that is, a legislative redefinition of the term ‘gainful employment’—is a welcome pass. And in light of recent similar redefinitions like ‘property’ and, most recently, ‘residence,’ well overdue. Why should we not broaden the notion of ‘gainful’ beyond the narrow strictures of monetary compensation? Surely there is more to be gained from work than money! Experience, community engagement, personal fulfillment and prestige are but a few of the rewards. And to those who argue that such benefits are intangible I say: what would life be without them? The recent legislative redefinition of ‘life’ notwithstanding, I would answer: not much.

“As for those who maintain that monetary compensation is vital to maintenance of a home, I refer them to the aforementioned legislative redefinition of ‘residence.’ With passage of the Federal Housing Reorganization Act—HR 288257-4R—requiring the mandatory repossession of all privately owned residences by the financial lenders and the Bank Nationalization and Appropriation Act transferring all assets from said institutions into the Treasury, there are simply no more residences left for private citizens to maintain. That is now the government's job. Like cleaning the streets, where the majority of our citizens now make their homes.

“I am pleased to report that in my district, you can eat off our streets with a spoon. A good many of my constituents do.

“There have always been those who oppose the march of progress. But our nation, Madame Speaker, is characterized by a bold willingness to step into the unknown. I daresay your own presence here today, enabled by the foresightedness of those who agitated for female enfranchisement, is one example of this strength. Another would be the Thirty-Second Amendment. To think that our descendants will one day look back and marvel that there was ever a time before Congressional districts were re-weighted to reflect representation of the unborn. So it is, Madame Speaker, that the terms ‘primitive’ and ‘barbaric’ are continually recycled in light of great social strides forward.

“Therefore, Madame Speaker, there is no longer any need for the arcane notion of ‘gainful’ employment. Put another way, workers no longer need be paid. One representative has argued that the incidental costs of citizenship—the fees, for example, required to purchase a copy of one's birth certificate or renew a driver's license—demand money. But with the new ID chip implant program, despite the unfortunate violence it has occasioned in reactionary quarters, such documentation is as passé as the automobile itself. Indeed, the very reactionaries responsible for the violence are undergoing mandatory implants as part of their incarceration processing. This is a testament to our great society, where even those who would block the way forward are given an opportunity to contribute.

“Absence of work-for-pay may tempt some to shirk their civic duty by opting out of the cycle of design, invention, production and marketing. But of course work will still be mandatory. A society cannot function without it. But removal—er, redefinition—of the reward mechanism will give rise to all the usual objections based on an ambiguous understanding of ‘rights.’ But the legislation proposed by my colleague from Arkansas, ensuring not only universality of rights but also—by a redrafting of legislation to guarantee consistency of rights between two and four-legged citizens—that our proposed legal remedies meet the test of law.

“I see he is already tuning up his banjo, so I will yield the balance of my time to him. Take it away, Jimbo!”

Helen Peppe

2011-06-05T21:26:00.000-04:00

Head Over Elbows

Poetry by Helen Peppe

I am refined

Certified Organic

A carb delight.

I defy Atkins,

Comfort little kids,

Comfort you and you and you.

Whole wheat, multi grain, brown or white,

Prince, Mueller, Barilla,

You need me, crave me

For energy,

For thought,

For dinner.

Waiting beneath the cheese,

Marinara,

Smother me,

Yearn for me,

Unrefined.

Suck me! Eat me!

For I am a macaroni being boiled;

knocking against friends, lovers, enemies,

the side of the pot.

I am a macaroni! I am a macaroni!

I kiss and slide, slippery, swollen,

against the metal and

Ooh, Rhonda.

I'm lucky not to be stuck

tight against the bottom,

And luckier still not to be like Fred,

Who never made it to the pot,

but fell into the gas flame,

licked, hardened by the kiss of fire

yet forever alone

uneaten.

Dale T. Phillips

2011-05-30T08:34:00.002-04:00

Diary of an At Home Writer

Non-fiction by Dale T. Phillips

6:00- Awake

7:38- Morning ablutions done, kids off to school. Sit down to computer in basement office. Boot up, check email. No news from agent on submitted novel.

7:50- Reread yesterday’s writing, all four paragraphs. Realize yesterday’s writing all worthless, start over.

8:04- Almost getting good third rewrite of first sentence. Comes to a screeching halt when wife, carrying laundry, passes through basement office to son’s finished bedroom. “Just go on, don’t mind me.”

8:09- Back to work, trying to recapture lost thread of thought on sentence restructuring.

8:16- Sentence redone and acceptable for first draft. Second sentence begun.

8:22- Wife calls down reminder of school meeting on following evening.

8:25- Finished with thoughts of divorce, return to sentence #2.

8:37- Marginally acceptable second sentence completed.

8:42- Wife calls down to say she is going to the store- NO, nothing is needed. Except a lack of interruptions.

8:51- Phone rings, making dog bark. NO, do not want to answer poll.

8:55- Bathroom break. Notice home project needing immediate attention. Ignore it for now, as good writer should.

9:01- Back at computer, tackling sentence #3.

9:07- Phone rings, making dog bark. Daughter forgot flute, needed for next period. Take flute to school. Needle on E, yellow light on. Stop for gas.

9:55- Back at computer, tackling sentence #3. Again.

10:01- Sentence three crystallizing in thoughts, shattered by doorbell. Dog going crazy barking. Sign for package.

10:12- Am going to finish sentence #3 if it kills. No matter who it kills.

10:17- Phone rings. Scream gibberish to assistant from dental office reminding of upcoming appointment.

10:20- Calm breathing, return to writing.

10:27- Wife returns, calls down that she’s home. Dog barks again.

10:30- Feeling like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, return to sentence #3.

10:48- On to sentence #4. Wife comes down to pantry for can of soup. Asks about lunch choices.

10:54- Once more into the breach.

11:07- Call from writer friend, asking how writing is going. Venting begins.

11:29- End call, back to writing.

11:44- First paragraph complete.

11:55- Wife calls down that lunch is ready.

12:21- Back at computer, check email. Latest story has been rejected by 18th magazine. Editors recommend buying subscription anyway, as have previous 17.

12:24- In severe pain from having kicked something which turned out to be harder than it looked. Foot may be broken.

12:28- Begin search for next market for rejected story. Cannot let them sit and gather cobwebs.

1:02- New market found, fresh hardcopy printed to specifics, cover letter carefully crafted, mailer addressed, SASE enclosed. On pile on stairs to go to Post Office.

1:05- Bathroom break.

1:10- Tackling second paragraph.

1:22- Wife down for stamps. Dinner options reviewed.

1:31- Back into second paragraph, third sentence.

1:40- Dog coughs, throws up. On pile for Post Office.

2:05- Mess cleaned up, new submission packet ready. Carefully placed away from surface dog can reach.

2:08- Back to writing. Thread of passage lost.

2:14- Yawning uncontrollably, unable to stay awake. Jump on exercise bike for half hour. Of course, no interruptions occur at this time. Plot line worked out in head.

2:47- Upstairs to shower. More story developments come to mind.

3:03- Back at computer, fingers flying.

3:05- Kids home from school. Son needs computer for school essay due tomorrow.

3:12- In upstairs bathroom with yellow legal pad and tiny unsharpened golf-course pencil, scribbling hurriedly as beautifully thought-out prose dissolves like Coleridge’s Xanadu dream.

3:26- Knock on door, son says dog is coughing again. Offer to shoot *%#@ dog.

3:28- Wife knocks, asks if anything wrong. Spew more obscenities, but quietly.

3:40- Daughter knocks on door, asks for help with math homework. Sit with her to discover you remember nothing of Venn diagrams and null sets.

4:02- Back in bathroom. Slow but constant drip from faucet is like water torture.

4:14- Pencil breaks, unable to sharpen. Wife's leg razor ruined. Wonder if blood will suffice for ink.

4:27- Frantic search for usable writing implement yields dog-chewed pen under bed, which sometimes works okay if you shake it and press down hard enough to tear paper.

4:44- Daughter knocks, asks meaning of ‘obtrusion’.

5:07- One crumpled, torn, illegible sheet of prose completed.

5:15- Son knocks on door with reminder of basketball practice after dinner.

5:23- Wife calls for dinner.

5:55- Drive son to basketball practice.

6:09- With new pen, begin writing while sitting in bleacher at school gym.

6:13- Other parent asks, “Whatcha writin?”

6:14- Other parent shocked at response, moves off to finds new seat.

6:21- Loose ball knocks pen, pad from hands. Pen rolls under bleachers.

6:23- Cackling like crazy cat lady, produce backup pen.

6:24- Backup pen out of ink. Begin sobbing.

6:25- More parents move away.

7:00- Practice ends, race home, run to computer.

7:04- Feverishly attempting to transcribe hieroglyphs from legal pad. Wonder what ‘see hdvufj’ means.

7:30- Page done. Attempt to print. Printer cartridge out. More sobbing.

7:35- Mail from magazine publisher. Story written seven years ago and submitted nine months previously to be published in upcoming 2012 issue, circulation of 50. Payment of five-dollar bill to be on publication.

7:44- Celebratory bottle of eight-dollar wine opened. Toast made to success.

7:50- Back at computer with wineglass #3.

8:15- Accidentally close document without saving, losing last twenty-five minutes of work.

9:00- Page painfully retyped, as hand now sore from pounding on desk. Completed.

9:05- Gaze once again at acceptance letter from magazine.

10:00- Walk dog, taking in night air.

10:05- Pick up doggie doo, trying not to see metaphor for life.

10:15- Turn in, reflecting on glory of writing life, and one day closer to publishing Great American Novel.

Micaela Gardner

2011-05-22T14:45:00.003-04:00

Sporked

Fiction by Micaela Gardner

When Marvin decided to break up with his girlfriend of four months, Mary-Anne, he knew there was bound to be some hurt. What he didn't expect was Mary-Anne stabbing him in the belly with a plastic spork.

"Oh my God! You messed up my to-do list! I wasn't supposed to stab you until after lunch!" Mary-Anne wailed, her gray eyes filling with tears. "You derailed my whole day. I had two thirds of my tasks done already—sixty-six percent, to be precise."

Marvin considered calling the police or an ambulance or something, but Mary-Anne had her car, and she still had all of his CDs in it, so he reluctantly accepted a ride to the urgent care center that was located three blocks away. It was better than walking.

He probably could have gone without a trip to the doctor if Mary-Anne hadn't leaned forward and rotated the spork one-hundred and eighty degrees, pushing the spork so far into his belly that a passerby would not be able to identify what utensil had penetrated him in the first place.

"I didn't mean to do that," Mary-Anne said as she accelerated through the stop sign, nearly hitting a pregnant woman with a stroller. "I just—you said those things, and they made me so mad, those clichés—really, darling, it was the clichés that got hurt."

Marvin considered asking her if she thought the clichés were bleeding out through their belly buttons and hurt like holy hell too, but decided aggravating her further would not be a wise move.

"In a way," she said, "I think you should be flattered. I mean, who else would risk your life for you? Who else would love you so much, that if she couldn't have you, no one could?"

Marvin thought back to Becky, his last and only girlfriend before Mary-Anne. Sweet, dense, Becky with her frizzy brown hair who looked like a little brown bear that walked on its hind legs. For Marvin's nineteenth birthday, Becky bought them two puppies and named them Salt and Pepper. She thought it was a step forward in their relationship. Marvin had broken up with her almost immediately, the thought of taking care of animals with his girlfriend more frightening than being stabbed in the stomach with a spork. The cutesy, matching names disgusted him on a visceral level. The last Marvin had heard about Becky was that her apartment couldn't keep pets, and she had gotten rid of them and bleached her hair dandelion yellow and started sleeping with guys named "Mike" and "Adam". These escapades were all bitterly recounted on her Facebook, which he was ashamed to say was public to his parents.

"If you think about it, being stabbed is a very common literary theme. Juliet stabbed herself when she found Romeo dead. See, baby, we're like Romeo and Juliet." Mary-Anne gave Marvin one her of trademarked, quivering half-smiles, completely insane but also the single most arousing sight Marvin had ever witnessed.

The pain in his stomach seemed to lessen as they parked the car in the lot.

On the examination table, Marvin thought about how when he broke up with Becky, he got nothing. She didn't even cry in front of him. Granted, he later found out about her crying, mostly through Facebook status updates and her Twitter account ("Becky White is sobbing uncontrollably after losing the single most important person and two most important puppies all in one day"). But he didn't get the drama he had anticipated, which was both a let-down and a relief.

But Mary-Anne had given it to him.

"I think we should see other peo—"

The cliché had only partially started tumbling out of his mouth when Mary-Anne seized his gravy-covered utensil and thrust it into his quivering belly.

At first he felt nothing at all as he stared down at the white plastic handle sticking out of his abdomen. Then the pain set in, and the blood began to soak through his plain white t-shirt.

Mary-Anne, the single most selfish woman he had ever met in his entire life, suddenly sacrificed all of her white starchy napkins to the cause of his bleeding stomach.

And really, she didn't have to drive him. Wasn't there something tragically poetic about being hurt by the person you love most, and then being healed by them? Marvin stared at the watercolor painting of a daisy as his legs swung back and forth, hanging over the floor.

His father used to tell him that what scares you most is usually good for you. He had used this philosophy to teach his son to eat vegetables, how to ride a bike, and to study his geometry homework. But doesn't this apply to love, too? Isn't the idea of loving someone, of getting stabbed in the belly (metaphorically or otherwise) scary as hell but, in the end, worth it? No, he would not live in fear. Marvin loved vegetables and rode his bike every day to school, where he majored in math. A slight mishap like a spork in the belly would not intimidate him from pursuing true love!

The doctor bandaged up his stomach and prescribed him horse pills that were supposed to help with infection. Marvin was supposed to take three pills a day for eleven days, but he assumed he would forget to do so in less than a week.

Mary-Anne was in the waiting room, clutching a Highlights For Kids magazine and staring at him with wide eyes.

"Babe, I'm so sorry," she gushed. "Please, forgive me. I just don't know what got into me."

Marvin took the magazine out of her hands and carefully put it down on the table. Mary-Anne slowly rose out of her seat.

"I think we're at a point in a relationship where we can start thinking about adopting some puppies," he told his girlfriend, the love of his life, as he held both of her hands in his own.

At once, Mary-Anne flushed with surprise and delight.

"Oh, that would be lovely! What will we name them?"

"How about Bonnie and Clyde?" he asked her as they walked through the automatic sliding glass door.

"Oh God, Marvin, sometimes I love you so much it hurts," Mary-Anne exclaimed as they walked towards her beat-up, old Mercedes Benz.

"Me too," Marvin said, wincing with each step towards his girlfriend's car, "me too."

Michael A. Tashjian

2011-05-16T07:32:00.002-04:00

Of Women's Wiles and Underwear

Wiles and Underwear

Fiction by Michael A. Tashjian

First off, I want to inform you that I am not gay. I like girls—a lot—which is exactly what compelled me to pick up the magazine. I was at the doctor’s. Lately, my mom had been puking and getting dizzy, so she set up an appointment and made me go with her. I thought that was stupid, since all I did was sit in the waiting room the whole time. I was looking through a pile of Time, People, and Readers’ Digest when I spotted a picture of Jessica Alba peeking at me from underneath the out-dated issues. It was one of those teen girls’ magazines. Printed on the cover were things like, “This Year’s Trendiest Back-to-School Outfits,” “New Workout for Your Abs,” and one shout-out in bold letters: “How to Get His Attention.” That’s interesting. I scanned the room first—there were only old people around—so I picked up the magazine and flipped to the indicated page.

It wasn’t at all what I expected. There were three paragraphs filled with little secret tricks for girls to use. The first one was entitled “At the Laundromat.” Specific steps followed. “When unloading delicates from the dryers, lift lingerie and scrutinize at eye level, as if examining…” How stupid. What kind of girl would use this? The next paragraph was entitled “At School,” and detailed techniques were listed on how to smile, giggle, “bat the eyes,” and other weird stuff. The last trick was some kind of “hallway glance” and I was just getting into that when my mom reappeared and said it was time to go.

She announced at dinner that she was pregnant. My dad and I had suspected for a while, so we weren’t too shocked. By five months, though, my mom was at the point where she had to waddle everywhere she went, so we decided to sell some of her clothes that didn’t fit anymore. It was Garage Sale Day in the neighborhood, and I was helping her carry some stuff out to the drive way when in one box, I noticed some small, lacy underwear. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said.

“What?”

“You’re going to sell your underwear at a garage sale?”

“Well, why not? They’re perfectly good panties.” She obviously saw no problem with it.

“Mom! That’s gross! Nobody around here is going to buy your old underwear!”

“We’ll see about that,” she retorted. “Five dollars?” She had a weird way of ending arguments. Kind of immature, I thought, but whatever. I took on the deal.

It’d been three hours since I’d set up the tables, and no one had come even close to buying the underwear. I was looking forward to the five bucks with confidence when a girl I’d never seen before showed up. She had straight brown hair that sort of covered her eyes and a slim figure. I took the opportunity to stare while Mom was inside. Taking no notice of me, she skimmed the tables, coming dangerously close to my mom’s abominable lingerie. No, no, no, no, no! It quickly caught her attention, and she smirked as if amused. Good. She thought they were ridiculous too. Mom came outside then, and saw my jaw drop as the girl picked up the lacy thing and inspected it at eye level where it dangled from her manicured fingers. What shocked me even more than her interest was—could she possibly be using the “laundromat technique” on me? Did it count at a garage sale?

I tried not to look when the girl said, “How much for these?” Mom hobbled over to the table all too quickly, and said, “Twenty-five cents.” The girl took out the money, paid, and left.

With a triumphant smile, my mom waited next to my lawn chair, hand outstretched. I sighed, and dug around in my pocket for a while until I came up with five dollars. She chuckled, taking the cash, then pointing out haughtily, “I’ve already earned back twice of what I paid for those,” she shuffled away with her hand on her globular belly.

I couldn’t believe my luck a week later when freshman year started. That girl had English class with me and, even better, we ended up being partners for some big project. Every day we sat across from each other and plenty of “eye-batting” and radiant smiles took place. I couldn’t believe it. She liked me.

On Friday, when the bell rang to end sixth period, all of the classmates pushed through the door and swarmed into the hallway like bees. She passed me. She always does, but this time, she looked back, shot me a mysterious glance and with a mischievous smirk, and turned around the corner. It was perfect. Did she practice in the mirror or something? It’s so weird—the steps girls take to get a dude’s attention…but they work. I’m fascinated.

But there’s just one thing, whenever I’m with her...I can never help wondering if she’s wearing my mom’s underwear.

Gary Helm

2011-05-08T18:27:00.003-04:00

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The following story is a work of fiction. Any people, places or characters described within, even those based on real people or actual places, are used fictionally. Any views or opinions expressed within this story do not represent the views of Eric's Hysterics, its editors or anyone affiliated with Eric's Hysterics. You may now return to your regularly scheduled reading.
***Disclaimer***

Sleeping Beauty

Fiction by Gary Helm

A while ago I was sitting with my friend Big Dave Dodge in a bar called Mickey’s Mousehole, sipping beer and half listening to the Dodgers lose on the TV. Now, Big Dave is a man who is always interesting. He is called Big Dave because he is—well, big, and coming from me, that means something. I am six-three and weigh two-forty. Dave stands six-six, weighs two-seventy, and all of it looks mean. He rides a chopped Harley and looks like a Hell’s Angel with long hair and beard and, truth be told, he used to run with some pretty bad folks when he was younger, but now he keeps his “Crazy Ass Biker” look because it generally makes for a peaceful existence and gets him bit parts on TV and in the movies.

When the inning ended, an ad for Disneyland Vacations came on and suddenly Mick, the bar tender, spun away from where he was wiping glasses, threw his towel at the TV screen and screamed, “Fuck Mickey Mouse! And may Walt Disney rot in hell!”

Regular customers of the Mousehole understood what that was all about. Michael Haggerty III hated Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney with a passion because Disney Corporation and its famous trade mark infringement law department had sued Michael Haggerty Junior, Mick’s father, for calling his bar Mickey’s Mousehole. Mick the third had been in the Navy Seals at the time and off doing some black-op stuff in the far-east so he couldn’t be reached, and the pressure on his father, Mick Jr. had been intense. The Disney Corporation, which seldom loses, had lost that one though, because the Mousehole had been called “The Mousehole” since prohibition when Michael Haggerty Sr. ran it as a speakeasy before there was a Mickey Mouse. At the time of the law suit, Michael Haggerty Jr. (who had been called Mickey since he was in diapers) ran the joint and therefore had a certain claim to the name. But win or not, the law suit had cost Mick a lot. He swore the whole mess had been the cause of the heart attack that killed his father, as well as having cost a whole lot of money, so Mick hated Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

Big Dave looked thoughtful after Mickey’s outburst. He was a man of poetical and philosophical disposition so I wasn’t much surprised when he said, “I’ve heard that they froze his corpse.”

“Who, Disney?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard that too. Wonder if it’s true.”

Dave shrugged. “Probably. I mean they froze Ted Williams.”

“Just his head.”

“Yeah, just his head. But I bet if they froze ol’ Uncle Walt they froze his whole body.”

“I reckon.”

We sat and sipped beer for a bit, letting the idea of a Walt Disney Popsicle roll around in our minds until a question popped into my head. “Dave, where did they put ‘im after they froze him?”

Dave took a big pull at his beer then said, “Well, I’ve heard rumors around a few movie sets that he’s in a cryonic tank in a safe-like-room under Disneyland.”

“Really?”

Dave shrugged. “That’s what I’ve heard. I even heard that was one of the reasons for the management shake-up in Disney. Michael Eisner supposedly wanted access to the cryonic room and Uncle Walt’s family wouldn’t let him have it.”

“Really?” I asked again. I can be a real brilliant conversationalist sometimes.

“No, it’s probably crap, but I have heard some stories.”

“Like what?”

“Like that Eisner hired lawyers and tried to take control of the vault and when that didn’t work, he hired some private detectives to break into the place. And that Roy Disney, Walt’s nephew, hired a private army to keep Eisner out. Supposedly they are still there guarding the place.”

“You mean some of those guys dressed up in the cartoon suits down there are really armed guards assigned to protect the cryonic tank where Walt’s stored?”

Dave laughed. “I can just see Goofy running around with an assault rifle, mowing down kids standing in line at Small World.”

We both laughed at that and when we told Mickey what we were laughing about, he laughed too and once more said, “Fuck Mickey Mouse!” before going back to wiping glasses.

Big Dave and I sipped beer a little more and watched the Dodgers finish getting their butts kicked before I said, “So, where is this cryonic tank supposed to be?”

“Don’t know, but I can guess.”

“Under the Haunted Mansion? Is one of those floating heads really Uncle Walt in disguise?”

“Naw, that would imply that he’s dead, and if he’s frozen, he ain’t dead…”

“Course he’s dead. They can’t freeze a guy that isn’t dead, it’d be murder.”

“Yeah, yeah, in the real world, but we’re talking about the World of Crazy Disney Worshipers.”

“OK, OK, so he isn’t dead. Then where is he?”

“Under Sleeping Beauty’s castle of course.”

I let that sink in for a little bit and said, “Yeah, That does kinda make sense. He was supposed to have an apartment in that castle in case he wanted to stay over, so it does seem right. Uncle Walt all stretched out under the castle waiting for some prince of a doctor to come give him a medicated kiss to wake him up.”

Dave laughed. “You got a very bizarre mind, brother Helm. Very bizarre indeed.”

“Yeah, and look who’s talking,” I answered, and we both laughed.

A couple of months later, when I got roped into taking my grandkids to “The happiest place on earth,” I found my thoughts drifting back to that conversation in the Mousehole. I had sent Granny Michele and the kids off to stand in line for Space Mountain and I was sitting on a bench on Main Street looking up at the sun sparkling off the pointy tower of Sleeping Beauty’s castle and I said to myself, I wonder?

Understand that I don’t usually go out of my way to get into trouble, but I was hot and bored and tired of being elbowed by the hoi polloi so I decided I was going to go find out if there really were armed Goofies hovering around Uncle Walt’s tomb.

Now if Big Dave had been there, he probably would have tried to talk me out of the whole adventure because he is a lot more level headed than he looks; and he had spent a lot of time hauling my skinny rear out of trouble, for which I had no one to blame but myself, but he wasn’t there so I slugged down the rest of my lime soda, wishing it was fortified with tequila, and started for the castle.

I got as far as halfway across the bridge and stopped to figure my next move. There are a lot of mock-arrow slits and windows up higher on the castle walls, but down on the ground there are passages that go around under the eaves of the place. Under those eaves there are stores trying to separate the visitors to the Magic Kingdom from their last dollar. No apparent secret passages of any kind, I thought. But then if they were apparent they wouldn’t be secret, would they? So I walked around the arcades looking in all the windows and watching the people flow by. After I had walked around the castle for fifteen or twenty minutes, I happened to notice one of the costumed characters coming along. It was Mickey Mouse himself and he was being carried along by the flowing crowd, apparently going about his job of amusing the kids while the vendors picked their pockets, but suddenly Mickey cut across the crowd and stopped beside a stand selling hats. It was one of those places that look like a kind of fairy tale building made of logs and stone and between the hat shop and the drinks stands beside it there was a space of what appeared to be blank wall. Mickey stood with is back to the wall for a bit, looked left and right, and when he was sure no one was watching, he leaned hard against the wall and it swung inward like a door. Mickey slid through and the door quickly closed behind him.

Wellie well well, I thought. There is a secret passage. Don’t ask me why it didn’t occur to me that it might have been a secret door to a dressing room or a bathroom for costumed characters, but the idea never crossed my mind. When I saw Mickey disappear through that secret door I knew it was the door to Walt’s crypt.

I worked my way over to the blank wall between the hat shop and the drinks stand and leaned against it like Mickey had done. Nothing happened. It was like I was leaning against a plaster wall. Maybe there was a secret word or something, but if there was I hadn’t heard Mickey utter it so I stepped back into the crowd and studied the wall as best I could. It was painted like mason-carved stone set into a wall and no straight edge of a door showed, nor was there a knob, knocker, or bell of any kind, but when I brought my eyes to the ground in front of the wall there was a small round brass thing that might have been a sewer cleanout or access to the fire sprinklers, but didn’t look like either of those.

With a mental shrug I positioned myself against the wall like Mickey had, making sure my heel was on that brass plate. I leaned my weight on it and put my back flatter against the wall. Nothing happened, so I picked up my heel and started to step away when a kid who should have been watching where he was going but wasn’t bashed into me and I stepped back onto the brass plate. I felt more than heard a solid click beneath my foot and suddenly I was inside the door and it was closed behind me.

It wasn’t the crypt. It wasn’t even a long dark passage to the crypt. It looked more like a military or cop break room with several large tables, and several men with crew cuts in blue and white uniforms sitting at them. They all wore side arms, but they were obviously taking a break to drink coffee and maybe eat a doughnut. They looked more surprised to see me than I was to see them. At a table on my left, Mickey Mouse—sans his mouse head—was standing with one foot up on a bench. The Mickey head sat on the table in front of him.

After a moment of stunned silence, one of the uniformed men with silver Lieutenant bars on his epaulettes stood and came over to me. He looked like something out of a Sgt. Rock comic book, complete with crew cut and steely blue eyes in a craggy face. “Can I help you?” he asked, then went on, “You aren’t supposed to be in here.”

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times before I managed to say, “I was just leaning on the wall waiting to buy some mouse ears for my grandkids when some kid plowed into me and here I am. Where am I?”

“Security coffee room,” the lieutenant said.

“Oh. OK. How do I get back out? I still need mouse ears.”

A couple of days later I was back in the Mousehole telling Big Dave about my adventures. He was laughing so hard he almost fell off his stool and even Mickey was laughing so hard he forgot to curse that wretched cartoon mouse.

“You didn’t really figure you were gonna just walk into the crypt right off the thoroughfare, did ya? I mean everybody knows Disneyland has its own cops and they gotta take a break somewhere. Besides, there’s miles of tunnels and underground rooms under Disneyland. Where do you think they stash all the machinery that makes Small World go round and round and stuff? And they sure ain’t gonna put Uncle Walt anywhere he can be got to by some fool buying Mouse ears. What were you thinkin’ about?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, Dave. I was hot and bored and the thought of armed Goofies standing guard around Walt’s fridge was just too much. I couldn’t help it.”

That set off another gale of laughter with Mickey saying, “Armed Goofies!” between guffaws.

I suddenly stopped laughing. Something I had seen but not noted had driven through the fog to my conscious mind. “All those guys were wearing Black Horse patches on their sleeves,” I said.

Dave stopped laughing too, then blinked and said, “Black Horse? You sure?”

I thought about it a little more and said, “Yeah. Black Horse. They were all wearing Black Horse Patches.”

“Now why would Disney security guards be wearing Black Horse patches?” Mickey asked.

“Yeah, and why would they hire one of the largest para-military organizations in the world as security for Disneyland?”

Black Horse was a ‘security company’ like Standard Oil was a ‘gas station.’ It was a worldwide company that, depending who you talked too, was ‘private security’ or a mercenary army. The American Government had hired Black Horse to secure the gates of American military bases all over the United States, and the CIA had purportedly hired them to stir up a minor coup in Central America. The company had been put together by a couple of retired Air Cav Generals, hence the name Black Horse.

“You don’t suppose there is more down under Disneyland than a Walt Disney Popsicle, do you?” I asked.

Dave shrugged. “Maybe. But Black Horse is famous for its willingness to do anything for money so maybe Disney just paid them enough to guard Walt’s freezer.”

We all three stared into our glasses and considered for a while. At last Mickey said, “Boys, you can do what you want about finding out what’s under Disneyland, but leave me out of it. I’ve had all the Disney I can stand.”

“Maybe we should all forget about it,” Dave said.

Now I am a man of questioning nature. I like to know what makes things work and I especially like trying to unravel conspiracies, and this whole Disney thing had tickled my conspiracy bone from the beginning. Now that conspiracy bone was fairly jumping out my chest with curiosity. “There has got to be a way to get down under that castle without the armed Goofies noticing.”

Big Dave, also a man intrigued by conspiracies, scratched his chin thoughtfully and said, “I need to ask some questions from some folks I used to know.”

So that is how I wound up crouched behind a huge air conditioning vent pipe looking at a firmly locked steel door guarded by two Black Horse soldiers dressed in urban camouflage when all hell broke loose.

Dave had talked to some actor friends who were putting together a show for the Main Street Theater inside Disneyland and they listed us as stage grunts so we just waltzed in without as much as a blink from the gate security guys. The rehearsal started late because of the crowd of Disneyland visitors and that worked fine for us. We came in under cover of darkness and split off from the actors unnoticed.

We did a recon on the park as the crowd thinned, looking for go-downs to get into the depths below, and were about to give it up when we saw a Black Horse uniformed man stop beside one of the huge red trash receptacles in Fantasyland over by the Merry-go-round. He looked all around, but it was late so there were not many people left in the park. We were standing in the shadows so he didn’t see us. He put his hand inside the mouth of the trash receptacle and the side of it swung open. There was a light coming from inside so that we could see a winding steel staircase, then the guard stepped through and pulled the door/trash receptacle closed behind him.

“Might be another break room or something,” I said, remembering all too well the last time I had stepped through a hidden door.

“Might be, but we gotta get in and go down somehow and this and your break room are the only ways I know.”

“Yeah. Okay, let’s go.”

We looked all around, then stepped to the receptacle. I put my hand in the opening just as the guard had and found a button. “What if it rings a bell down below or something?” I asked.

Dave shrugged. “Push it. Been a long time since I played ‘ring and run.’”

So I did.
The door popped open and let a splash of ashy-looking florescent light slant out, followed by the damp, musty smell of enclosed concrete rooms.

If the button rang a bell below or some such, we didn’t hear it, and when we stepped inside onto the stair landing we waited a couple of moments to see if someone was going to challenge us. Nobody did, so we began to ease down the spiraling staircase. Looking over the side we could see that the stairs went a long way down—it looked like several stories—and every twelve steps there were openings out into the underground levels.

“How do we know where to get off, Dave?” I whispered.

“Gotta be at the bottom. If I was Uncle Walt I would put my crypt at the very bottom—”

“—But still under the castle.”

Dave nodded.

“How we gonna find the castle? I’m all turned around.”

“That way,” he pointed. “When we get to the bottom we go that way,” which we did.

The vaults underneath the Magic Kingdom are amazing. There are power vaults and gas mains and hydraulic pumps and lines and sewage pumps and air conditioning ducts. Pipes and conduits of every size imaginable from no larger than your pinky finger to big enough that Dave could have stood inside without having to bend over, and all that piping made for a really confusing trek, but Dave seemed to know where he was headed and I just kept tagging along.

The sound of voices echoing down the corridor slowed us to a creep. We could see that the corridor broadened into a wider room at the end but we couldn’t see anyone in there. When we got to the end of the corridor, I lay down on the ground and slowly poked my head around the corner. Two air conditioning ducts dipped and curved in front of me, but left an inch or so of space between them and the floor so I could see under them to the afore mentioned steel door. The guards, dressed in urban camouflage with Black Horse insignia, were standing at ease talking quietly. I could hear their voices but couldn’t understand what they were saying.

I scooted around the corner, still hidden by the curve of the AC ducts, and signaled for Dave to follow. He had barely gotten around the corner and out of sight when a flash followed by a loud BANG went off. It was so bright and so loud I saw stars and my ear drums felt like they had burst. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if we had not been protected from some of the effect by the AC ducts. We would probably have been left screaming and dazed like the guards at the door. As it was, I was stunned almost immobile, but I tried to scramble over Dave and back the way we had come. He grabbed me by the shirt collar and shoved me back, then motioned for me to sit still and be quiet. A second later I was glad he had because about twenty men, all dressed in black assault gear with no insignia and armed with assault rifles and other gear, came pounding out of that corridor. They were so focused on their target that they didn’t notice us, but I would have run head long into them if Dave hadn’t grabbed me.

We both lay down and looked through the space under the AC duct at the steel door. Armed soldiers milled around in front. They were establishing a perimeter facing outward from the steel door. Now that I could see it better, I noticed a key pad of some kind on the left side, but the men who were standing beside the door weren’t worrying about that. They were placing some kind of plastic explosive on the door and, after a moment, one man with a twist igniter gave it a spin and the plastic charge went BOOM. In a moment the smoke cleared and two of the men laid shoulders to the door. It didn’t give at first, but the second bash moved it a little and the third bash popped it all the way open.

Between the smoke and the noise and the guns I was about to pee my pants. I’ve been around more guns and explosions than I care to remember when I was in the Army, but that didn’t make me less scared of them. All I could do was lay there and watch as a squad of four guys carrying four large boxes went through the breached door and came out in a couple of seconds pushing a thing that looked like a big black coffin on a four-wheeled cart. Steam fumed off the box like fog rolling off dry ice and the guys pushing all had on huge gloves.

“What the fuck?” Dave said, but if he had anything more to say it got lost in the sound of gun fire that suddenly poured in from the left front of us, and I went from “about to pee” to “has peed.”

All the assault team that had breached the door, except the four guys pushing the coffin, turned and answered fire. The four guys pushing the coffin ran toward the corridor Dave and I had come down, and when they were sheltered behind pipes and concrete walls and headed on down the corridor the rest of the assault team began to retreat. They were still throwing shots back up the hall and those were being answered. I could hear slugs bouncing and ricocheting around us and the bitterness of ignited cordite made my eyes tear and my nose run.

The assault team pulled back two or three at a time and followed the coffin down the corridor. At last the final two guys pulled back and knelt beside us, using the AC Ducts for cover. One of them noticed us for the first time and swung his rifle toward us. If I hadn’t already wet my pants I would have then for sure, but I had so all Dave and I could do was stick our hands up and hope this guy didn’t shoot.

He took one look at us and must have decided we were no threat because he turned back toward the other firing, let go a couple of short bursts and then he and his partner hauled ass down the corridor.

I got to my knees and tried to follow him but once more Dave grabbed me and pulled me to the floor. Good thing too, because in another second a half dozen heavily armed Black Horse guards came pounding across in front of the blown door. They stopped beside our hiding place and threw more shots down the corridor after the guys in black, then a couple of them moved cautiously on down the corridor leaving the others behind. One of them, a guy with Sergeant’s stripes below his Black Horse patch, was talking into a hand held radio, but my ears were ringing so loud I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

One of the Black Horse guys who had been firing down the corridor lowered his rifle and looked around and there we were. Dave and I lying in a puddle of my urine with our hands up, praying this guy wouldn’t shoot us. He didn’t. Instead, he tapped the sergeant on the arm and pointed at us. The Sergeant looked down at us, did a double take and said, “Dave? What the hell are you doing here?”

There is a joke about a guy named Willy who is known by everyone in the world. Now Dave isn’t Willy, but he is known by a remarkable number of people and boy was I glad this sergeant was one of them. I don’t know that they would have shot us and disposed of the bodies in some underground sump there beneath Disneyland, but I got the feeling that if Matt Clemens hadn’t known Dave it might have been a distinct possibility. As it was, Sgt. Clemens had his men frog march us to a little room that looked very much like an interrogation cell. It had a table and two chairs and when I looked around I found a camera up in one corner so our captors could keep an eye on us. We weren’t manacled or shackled, but the table was fixed in place and there were eye bolts underneath to hook hand cuffs to if we had been.

Dave and I sat silently for a while, just looking at the gray concrete walls and thinking our own thoughts, but at last I said, “Thank God that guy knew you. And how does he know you anyway?”

“From the movies. He’s worked as an extra with me several times. I knew he worked in security, but I didn’t know he was Black Horse.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Is everybody in southern California connected with the movies?”

Dave shrugged.

“How much trouble you think we’re in here, Dave?”

Again with the shrug. “They might get us for trespassing, or maybe even breaking and entering—if they decide to bring some law into this, but they aren’t exactly in the clear themselves. Armed private militia is sorta frowned on by local and federal authorities, if ya know what I mean.”

I thought about that for a little while and looked at the windowless walls and the locked door.

“What the hell happened out there?”

Dave shook his head. “I don’t know, but I got the feeling it wasn’t an intra-corporate disagreement.”

About then Sgt. Clemens and the Lieutenant from the coffee room incident came in. The Lieutenant, whose name was Nickelson, glared at us, looking like a house wife finding weevils in her flour, and he seemed to pay special attention to me, but at last he said, “OK you two, what the hell are you doing down here?”

Dave and I both started to talk at once. The Lieutenant stopped us short and pointed at me. “You tell me, Mouse Ears,” he growled.

I’m sure I blushed at being recognized because I suddenly got hot all over and my mouth got even drier than it already was, but I managed to stammer out, “Well, one day Dave and me were sitting in Mickey’s bar…”

Clemens and the Lieutenant listened with remarkable patience to my story and shook their heads in utter disbelief when I came to the end.

“So you don’t know anything about the guys that took the…the assault team?”

the Lieutenant asked.

“No sir,” I answered. His lieutenant’s bars and steel blue eyes brought all the old military habits right up to the top.

“How ‘bout you?” He asked Dave.

“No idea.”

I said, “I swear to God we won’t tell anybody anything about anything, if you’ll just let us out of here, Sir,” but Dave was braver, or maybe more curious.

He asked, “Do you guys have any idea who they were?”

They both looked us over for a long second, still considering whether to simply shoot us I’m sure, but finally the Lieutenant said, “Clemens, do you really know this guy?”

“Yes sir.”

“And you’ll vouch for him?”

Clemens ran eyes up and down Dave and then me. “Yes sir. I’ll vouch for him—for the both of them. Nobody would believe them anyway, probably.”

“It is pretty wild, you gotta admit,” Dave said.

“Yeah. Pretty wild,” I agreed, which drew a withering look from the lieutenant.

“So who shot up your crypt?” Dave prodded.

The Lieutenant took a deep breath, let it out and began:

“This whole thing, the cryonic crypt and all, has been an urban legend since Disney died and you guys aren’t the first people who have tried to find out if it was true, but usually they get picked up before they ever get close to the security door. But even the couple who have made it as far as the door have only ever seen the guards and the door before we picked them up and handed them over to the Anaheim police. But there are some more urban legends that go along with the crypt. I mean, Disney is supposed to have had a whole new world order mapped out and was financing it all through Disney Corporation— using his movies and the amusement parks to pervert the youth of the world. So, after Walt died some of the family supposedly took over, and the organization still exists. They are allegedly funding cryonic research and underground revolutionary groups all over the world who are working to bring this Disney World Order into being, and when the world order is in place they are gonna bring Walt back from his freezer to be the emperor of the world or something. It’s crap of course, but harmless crap—or at least I thought it was until about a year ago when Black Horse got this contract. The Disney people showed us all these threatening letters and gave us the names of a bunch of pretty big people that apparently believe in this Disney World Order thing. They call it the ‘DWO threat.’ It is just mind boggling! There are web sites and organizations that send out literature talking about the “DWO threat” and how it advocates the violent overthrow of the United States government. It’s just nuts! And even the Disney people thought it was harmless foolishness until a couple of armed crazies stormed the guard gates one night—“

“Hey, I remember that!” I said. “They took a bunch of people hostage and held ‘em for several hours. I thought it was some kind of robbery gone wrong.”

“Yeah, that was the story Disney and the Police let out, and since the SWAT team killed both the perps, there was no-one left to say different,” Clemens said.

“And that was when Disney called Black Horse,” the Lieutenant finished.

“Wow,” Dave said. “I knew the Disney Corporation had enemies—I mean they’ve pissed a lot of people off with copyright lawsuits and stuff, but I didn’t know it had gone this far.”

And through all this explanation there was still only one question running through my mind and it would not stay unasked. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but it was like trying to hold a mouthful of hot soup. Against my will it came bursting out: “So that really was Disney in that box those other guys got?”

It was like I had set off a flash-bang in the room! All eyes, including Big Dave’s, clapped onto me. The sound of a pin being dropped would have been like an explosion.

The lieutenant came out of it first and said, “I can neither confirm nor deny the truth of that statement.”

“But…” I started and Dave—good old smart, calm Dave—grabbed my arm and said. “Shut up, Gary.”

“But…”

With slightly clenched jaws Dave went on, “It was something valuable enough that the Disney Corporation was willing to pay Black Horse to guard it, so just let it go at that. Otherwise these gentlemen might have to reconsider our position here.”

I had taken a breath to protest some more when Dave’s meaning got through my thick skull and I said, “Oh, yeah,” And shut my big flappy mouth.

The tension took a while to drain out of the room but at last Dave asked, “So, you got any idea who this raiding party was?”

I suddenly had a funny feeling in my belly.

“Not a clue,” the lieutenant said, “but they were pros. They had everything set. Took the box right down the corridors to the service elevator up to the parking lot and had a van waiting. They shoved the box in the van and were gone in a flash. The whole thing took less than twenty minutes from beginning to end.” There was admiration mixed with the disgust in the Lieutenant’s voice. “But I’ll tell ya this, you can bet your ass Black Horse investigations is going to find out who done it. Disney is gonna want their—want that box back and Black Horse is gonna get it for them.”

Dawn was just pinking the eastern sky when Sgt. Clemens ushered us through the same back gate we had come through a few hours before. “You guys came away lucky,” he said. “I don’t know for sure that Nickelson would have killed you, but I wouldn’t put it past him. He has a reputation as a bad ass so I don’t know. But if I was you, I wouldn’t ever set foot on Disney Property again.”

“I think that’s good advice” Dave said. He stuck his hand out toward Clemens. “Thanks Matt. If I can ever return the favor let me know.” Clemens shook his hand and then mine and I echoed what Dave had said.

Clemens said, “Dave, you know a lot of people all over the place. Kinda keep an ear open about this, OK? And for God sakes, keep your mouths shut.”

“Sure Matt. If I hear anything you’ll be the first to know, and I have already forgotten the last few hours.”

“Me too,” I added.

Dave narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “You think maybe these guys took the box to hold it for ransom?”

“I don’t know,” Clemens said, then added,”… and you don’t wanna know. You got me?”

This time it was my turn to do the saving. I grabbed Dave’s upper arm and started to drag him away. His arm was like an iron bar. “Say good bye to the nice Sergeant, Dave,” I said, and pulled him after me as I walked away.

By mutual understanding, Dave and I didn’t go back to the Mousehole for a while. We didn’t actually talk about it, we just didn’t go. Instead we went to “The Golden Gopher,” the owner of which was a displaced Minnesotan and, so far as I know, the University had never sued him for using their team name, which was fine with me. So a couple of days after what Dave and I began calling “The Disneyland Raid” we met in the Golden Gopher to begin our after action report and debrief.

“I been looking on-line,” Dave began as soon as we had beer in front of us.

“Yeah, me too. I never heard of this DWO stuff before, but it sure is all over the internet.”

“Yeah, and did you happen to run across the blog one Michael Haggerty III runs?”

I took a deep breath and a sip of suds before I nodded. “I always knew Haggerty was nuts about Disney, but I didn’t know he was into this DWO thing. I mean, damn! You’d think he believes Disney is the Antichrist or something.”

Dave nodded. “I guess everybody has a right to be a little nuts about something, but what really gave me the yips was all the other people that were agreeing with him and writing their own craziness into it. Did you read the one about Disney having been connected with the Columbia crash?”

“Made my stomach turn over,” I agreed. “It was so nuts it was plausible.”

We looked at each other through the dimness of the bar lights for a moment, shaking our heads, then we just sat and sipped beer for a little while. I am no mind reader but it wasn’t too hard to figure that Dave was thinking the same thing I was thinking—wondering how deep into this Mickey Haggerty really was and whether he had been involved in the raid to steal Disney’s coffin.

“If it was Disney’s coffin,” Dave said in answer to my thought.

“You saw the steam rolling off it same as me, and I defy you to tell me what else they would be keeping in a freeze box like that.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“And if Mickey was involved, how come he was so anxious for us to keep him out of it? Seems to me he’d be cheering us on, trying to prove that what he’s been saying in his blog was true,” I said, but I knew the answer almost before I formed the question. It was the same answer that had given me that sinking feeling when Sgt. Clemens and Lt. Nickelson had questioned us. Mickey Haggerty was in this up to his eyeballs.

We looked at each other across the table. Neither of us wanted to ask the next question but finally I said, “Should we tell Clemens?”

“Mickey’s a friend.”

“Yeah, but Dave—I mean, Disney World Order?”

He scratched at his beard and sipped his beer, then broke the wet ring on the table where his glass had been with his finger tip. “Maybe we are just jumping to conclusions,” he said at last. “And what do we care anyhow? I don’t even like Mickey Mouse.”

It wasn’t much of a hope but it was the only one I saw so I grabbed on to it. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. What do I care if it was Walt in that box?”

We stalled a few more minutes finishing our beer, but when it was gone we both got up and headed out the door. Once more we hadn’t as much as mentioned what we were about to do, but we both knew we were going to the Mouse Hole.

I really don’t know how Haggerty stayed in business because I don’t ever remember the Mouse Hole being really crowded and once more it was almost empty. There were a couple of old-timers leaning on the bar, as far away from the door as it was possible to get, but that was all. Mickey looked up when we pushed through the padded door.

“I thought you guys had left town.” He said, laughing.

“We’re considering it,” Dave said as we sat down on our favorite stools.

Mickey drew two from the tap and set them in front of us. “What’sa matter, Mickey Mouse chasing you?” he asked with a grin, but when Dave and I flinched at the joke, Haggerty twigged that something was up. “You guys go looking for Uncle Walt’s ice box like you were planning?”

“We know about the Blog and the Disney World Order and all of it Mickey,” I said.

Mickey lifted an eyebrow, then shrugged. “Just a hobby. Anything to needle the Disney Corporation.”

“We got caught in the cross-fire, Mick,” Dave said.

Now Mickey stood up straight and said, “What cross-fire?”

“The Black Horse guys caught us and held us for like six hours. We didn’t tell them anything because we didn’t know about the blog and the DWO and all that. They let us go because they thought we were harmless, but they asked me to keep an eye out.”

“They are gonna come after ya, Mickey. They want that coffin back and Black Horse is gonna come after you to get it,” I said.

He flicked his eyes back and forth over us before he said, “They can’t come after me if they don’t know it’s me. You guys gonna tell?”

“Hell Mickey, we aren’t gonna have to tell,” Dave said. “Disney has enough money that they can pay Black Horse and twenty other investigation services to go one-by-one through the blogs and websites till they come to you. I wouldn’t even put it past ‘em to get the government involved, too.”

Haggerty flicked his eyes back and forth over us again. A kind of a strange light had come into them. “OK. What if I give it back?”

Dave thought a moment. “If you give it back and Uncle Walt hasn’t thawed out any, I’d bet they would be willing to forget it, but I don’t know.”

“Besides, what are you gonna do with a Disney Popsicle anyhow, Mickey?” I asked and tried to laugh.

The corners of Haggerty’s mouth turned up in a grin that I wasn’t sure was because of my joke. “Yeah, you’re right.” He turned his eyes to Dave. “Will you contact ‘em for me?”

“I’ll call Clemens,” he said.

I don’t know what Big Dave said to Clemens or Nickelson or whoever he talked to, but it was arranged. Dave didn’t ever actually give Mickey’s name or any other real information. Mickey told us that he had the coffin stored in a freezer warehouse out in the valley and that the temperature had never changed more than a degree or two in the time he had it. We didn’t ask anything about who the raiding party were or how they had gotten into Disneyland that night, just arranged for someone to show up in the parking lot of the freezer warehouse to pick up the box. Naturally, they wanted to check the box out to see that it hadn’t been opened or whatever, but they said they were willing to just take the box after it had been inspected.

Dave explained this all to Mickey who didn’t say much except, “No Cops, right?”

“Just Black Horse and whatever techs and equipment they need to check the box.”

“I gotta be there?”

“Yeah. You do, just in case the box isn’t in the condition you promised. They aren’t a really trusting bunch.”

“And what’s to stop ‘em from just grabbing me up along with the box?”

Dave shrugged. “I suppose you could get your raider buddies out there to cover the whole thing but I don’t think they want any trouble. I mean, they have gone out of their way for a long time to keep this whole “Disney in a freezer” thing quiet, so I don’t think they are gonna do anything to draw attention to themselves now.”

“They might just kill me,” Haggerty said, but he didn’t sound much afraid of any such thing happening.

“I doubt they will want to take the chance. They’d have to kill more than just you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And Michele would be upset if my worthless ass got killed, so I wrote out the whole story and sent a copy to a friend of mine in the newspaper business--“

“And I sent a copy to a friend in the Screen Actors Guild so that if anything happens to any of us the whole crazy story is going to come out,” Dave added.

So it was all set up. Mickey and Dave and I were gonna meet whoever Black Horse sent in the parking lot. I thought I was gonna have to fight Dave before he would let me go. He protested a little, but finally gave up and made me promise to stay back away from the exchange. I told him I’d stay back in the shadows, but I thought I could probably get up close to see better when the time came.

It was a typical fall night in the San Fernando Valley— Gin clear with sparkling stars and a slight breeze to keep the smog at bay. The freezer warehouse was one of a couple dozen buildings in an industrial park and the park was more empty than not. There were probably a couple of the manufacturing places in the park that were running night shifts but none of them were close enough to have much effect on us.

The three of us put on heavy gloves and carefully pushed the steaming box out of the freezer into the shadow of the building facing the parking lot. The box was still on its four-wheeled cart and cold enough that I could feel the incipient frost bite on my hands even through the gloves. As we pushed it, I saw that it was a sort of self-contained freezer unit with dials set into the top right underneath what looked like a window so inspectors could look into it—or maybe so Walt could look out. I couldn’t see anything because the glass was covered with kaleidoscopic ice crystals and I was pretty happy about that. I didn’t really want to see Uncle Walt in his Popsicle state as my dreams are strange enough without any such thing as that being added to them.

We stood in the shadow waiting and not talking. The parking lot was a long one with one entrance off the city street and several more off the alley across which we waited. The meeting was supposed to happen at ten o’clock, so we all began glancing at our watches and as the seconds ticked by Dave and I grew steadily less able to stand still. Haggerty, on the other hand, stood as though this was just any old night. As I think back, it was kinda spooky how calm he seemed.

At ten o’clock on the dot two sets of head lights turned into the far end of the parking lot. One belonged to what looked like an ambulance and one belonged to a “deuce and half” painted haze-gray with a tarp stretched over its bed. As it got closer we saw that it had the Black Horse symbol painted on the door. The two vehicles drew up opposite us, swung around and stopped, then four men came out of the ambulance and half a dozen armed urban-camouflaged Black Horse soldiers piled out of the truck. They didn’t lower their weapons into assault configuration, but they held them across their chests at the ready.

Mickey, Dave, and I pushed the coffin out of the shadow toward the little group of men and when we were about five paces from them, we stopped and took a couple of paces back. The Disney guys from the ambulance came forward and Lt. Nickelson came with them. They all hovered around the box for a moment, then one of the Disney guys appeared to wipe the little window. He was not satisfied so he wiped it again.

Mickey stepped forward as though he was going to have a look at the window, but the guy who had been wiping it said, “This thing has been opened! That’s the only way it could get ice crystals on the inside of the window. You opened it!”

Mickey lifted his right hand to about waist high and moved it so we all could see that he had something in his hand, then shouted ‘FUCK MICKEY MOUSE!” and pushed the button.

There was some General that once said, “there is no problem on earth that cannot be solved by the judicious application of high explosives.” Apparently, Mickey Haggerty was a devotee of that philosophy because when he pushed that button some perfectly shaped charges of plastic explosive went BOOM and Walt Disney’s freezer box went straight up into the air about fifty feet and hung there a moment as fountains of fireworks, like right off Disneyland’s Materhorn, began spouting from it to light up the sky. Just as gravity finally kicked in and the box began to fall, the fireworks ended with a second explosion that disintegrated the box and whatever was inside it into ten million very, very small pieces.

The launching explosion had been so perfectly shaped that even Nickelson and the four Disney guys who were standing right beside it were barely moved by the concussion. Their ears were probably ringing but there was no other harm to them. Dave and I, at about ten feet away, didn’t feel a thing, and when the second explosion went it blew the box into so many pieces that when they reached us it was as though we were being hit in the face by wind-blown sand.

Dave and I looked at each other, and then at the place where Haggerty had been standing. He was gone. He had used the explosions to divert attention while he ran back into the shadows and on into the night.

It took a moment for the Black Horse squad to react, but when they did they all aimed their guns at big Dave and me. Our mouths dropped open even further than they already were and we raised our hands.

I don’t know if it was the explosions or if Mickey had arranged it, but within a couple of minutes police sirens and blinky lights were making rags of the clear night and all of us ended up in LAPD custody. I don’t know what anyone else told the cops, but I mostly just kept my flap shut and plead not guilty at the bail hearing. By and by, Michele showed up with a bail ticket and got me out. She didn’t say anything as I collected my personal effects, and everything was pretty quiet as we drove home, but when we got in the front door, she shook her head and looked at me with those forest pool brown eyes and said, “What in hell’s name have you gotten yourself into?”

A few days passed and I didn’t hear from Dave or anyone else. All I could do was sit and stew and, by turns, curse Mickey Haggerty, Walt Disney, Black Horse, and my own stupidity, and fight off the urge to laugh like a maniac at the whole mess. I got in touch with a lawyer who did what lawyers do and pretty soon told me that all charges had been dropped and that I owed him five-hundred dollars. I called Dave and found out that the same thing had happened to him. Apparently, the Disney people had managed to grease whatever wheels justice still has to make LAPD and the courts forget about the big noise that happened on that Wednesday evening. Next day, when I told Michele that I was going down to the Golden Gopher to meet Dave, she put the gimlet eye on me and said, “You can get somebody else to bail you out next time,” and I answered “Yes Mam,” and got out of there before she decided to throw something at me.

Dave was waiting with beer drawn when I got there. “Have you heard anything from Mickey?” I asked, sitting down.

He shook his head. “He’s probably in Mexico or something. Has anyone else tried to contact you?”

“No.”

“Anybody watching your house or anything?”

That question gave me pause. “Not that I know of, why?”

“Have you looked at any of the DWO websites or blogs?”

I suddenly felt a nervous prickle on my neck and looked around to see only a couple of people and Gus the barkeep in the place before carefully admitting that I had.

“All of ‘em have links to the pix,” I said. “I can’t believe Mickey managed to get all those pix of the Popsicle and even a tape of the explosion. Disney isn’t gonna be able to deny the rumors now with Uncle Walt’s frozen puss all over the internet. Hell, I even saw references to it on the TV news!”

Dave shook his head and I could see that he was having a hard time not breaking up laughing.

“And the fire works! It was like Fourth of July! All he needed was the Main St. Electrical Parade to have the perfect ending of a day at Disneyland!”

That did it. Dave roared with laughter and pulled me right along into it. We laughed like mad men for ten minutes until the tears ran down our faces.

When we got some control of ourselves again, Dave lifted his beer glass and said, “to Mickey Haggerty, and the MouseHole.”

I lifted my glass and clinked the rim against his and added, “Fuck Mickey Mouse.”

Gabrielle Hovendon

2011-05-01T17:43:00.000-04:00

Morning after Monologue
Fiction by Gabrielle Hovendon

– Oh God, did I wake you up?

I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! You’re getting up now though, right? Unless you want to go back to sleep. You can go back to sleep if you’d like. I have to go to work in a bit, but it’s okay, you can go back to sleep. I trust you. I trust you here in the apartment while I’m gone. After all, I’d have to trust you to bring you home in the first place. Not that there’s any reason I shouldn’t trust you, I didn’t mean to imply that. Oh, okay, you’re getting up.

– What would you like for breakfast? Can I fix you something?

If you tell me what your favorite breakfast food is, I’ll try to make it. No guarantees, though, especially if it’s something foreign. I tried to cook falafel last week and it burned the pan and I had to throw it out. You don’t look like the kind of person who eats foreign food for breakfast, but I’m not certain. Are you a toast kind of guy? How about cereal? Are you one of those people who slurps up the milk after you’ve finished the cereal? I am, but it’s okay if you’re aren’t. What about bacon? Do you like bacon? Okay, I guess I can surprise you.

– The shower’s right through there. Towels are in the closet on the left.

Unless of course you don’t want to shower. Oh God, you’ll think I think you smell bad, and that’s not what I think at all. Of course, I haven’t smelled you since last night, but you smelled fine then. Good, not fine. Fine implies you didn’t smell good, and you did. But if you want to shower, I promise I won’t think it’s because you smell bad. Some people just like to shower every morning, regardless of smell. It’s not my cup of tea, but far be it from me to – tea! I forgot to ask if you wanted some tea or coffee with breakfast! Hold on, can you hear me with the water running in there? If I sort of yell through the door, can you maybe tell me if you prefer sugar or creamer? No? What if I open the door a crack…

– Oh God, you’re not in the shower yet! I’m so sorry, I thought you’d be behind the curtain!

Did you see me looking? I know you heard me, but I think you saw me looking, too. Quick, should I pretend I didn’t see you or just make a joke? Oh, God I saw your penis and everything. It wasn’t on purpose, I swear! Only, did it look like that last night? Obviously the situation was different and it was dark and everything, but I don’t remember it looking quite like that. I mean, I don’t think it’s ugly or anything, I just remembered it differently. Do you think I’m being creepy? I’m not trying to be creepy. I saw everything last night, it shouldn’t be creepy if I accidentally walk in on you naked. This isn’t like the locker room—no surprises here. What was the joke I was going to make? Oh, you’re getting out of the shower now?

– This is really embarrassing, but I don’t think I remember your name. Keith, right, right. Sorry!

I was going to look through your wallet but then I thought you might come back into the room and it would look weird, like I was trying to steal your identity or something. Of course maybe you’ll think it’s weird that I’m thinking this now. Or maybe you’ll think it’s weird that I think it’s weird that I’m thinking it. Or maybe… ha-ha, it’s like a whole chain of weirdness. You know what it’s like? It’s like one of those halls of mirrors where things keep reflecting back on each other, but with weirdness. Hall of weird mirrors. Mirrweirds. Weirrorness.

– I’m sorry, I think I got a bit of shell in the eggs when I was scrambling them.

I tried to pick it out but I couldn’t find it again, so there’s going to be some shell on one of our plates. One of us is going to bite down on that eggshell. I’m sorry, I should have just hardboiled them, but some people don’t like hardboiled eggs and I figured… Well, which plate are you going to take? Okay, but the shell might be in that one. I’m not saying it is, but it might be. Just so you know. There’s really no way of telling, that’s the thing. Unless I made a new batch, of course. Do you want me to make a new batch? God, I should have thought of that in the first place. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll make a new batch. After all, who wants to be the one who gets the eggshell? If it’s you, you’ll think I didn’t like you enough to give you the good plate, but if it’s me you’ll think I took it for myself on purpose just to be nice, and that’s really not the kind of girl I am. That’s not the kind of girl I am at all.

– Wait, you’re leaving?

Why are you leaving? Did you get the shell after all? You don’t have to keep eating it, I’ll make something different! Or did you want something else to drink? I knew it. I should have offered you the orange juice. Or is this about what happened in the bathroom? I meant to explain better, but I promise I wasn’t trying to look at you. Not that you’re not worth looking at, that’s not what I mean. I wouldn’t have brought you here last night if you weren’t worth looking at—but not in a superficial way. I don’t want you to think I only care about appearances! It’s just I don’t usually peek at men when they’re in my shower. I don’t ever peek at men in my shower. I don’t know why I said usually. Not that I’ve even had that many men in my shower, because I haven’t. But if I had, I wouldn’t have peeked at them.

– Keith, please wait!

Oh God, it must be because I forget your name. That’s it, isn’t it? That has to be it. What kind of girl forgets the name of the guy she brings home? It’s like something the dumb lead in a romantic comedy would do, only it would all work out in the end for her. Not that I think this isn’t going to work out, I just wish you’d stop putting on your shoes and everything. What was that one movie where the girl had amnesia and mixed up her boyfriend with this total stranger? Oh God, the b-word! I’m so sorry, I swear I wasn’t thinking that way at all. It just slipped out, sort of like last night with your... Oh God, I shouldn’t have brought that up that either! You’re probably still embarrassed about it. Are you still embarrassed about it? Anyway, I don’t even want a boyfriend, really. I mean I like you, I just don’t want you to feel like there’s any pressure. There’s no pressure, okay? Although if you did want to be my boyfriend I promise I’d remember your name. Keith, see? I remember it already!

– Wait, what?

I don’t understand—you’re saying that I’m too quiet? That this morning was like waking up next to a monk? Are monks even quiet? I thought they went around singing chants and preaching to animals and stuff, or is that friars? Is there even a difference? And hold on, you’re not saying I’m like a monk in bed, are you? God, what if I’m going bald on the top of my head and don’t even realize it? And what if—Keith, come on! Please don’t go! I can start talking more! Look, I’m talking more right now!

– Won’t you at least stay for some coffee?

And do you want sugar with it? I’ll go get the sugar, and then maybe you can explain how I’m too quiet. Do you want creamer? I’ll get the creamer out, too.

– Oh, you’re late for work?

Who has to work on a Sunday morning?

– Of course. I’m fine, really I am.

It’s just a surprise to hear you say I’m too quiet, that’s all.

– Yeah. See you around, I guess.

Because sometimes I feel like I never shut up.