'Twas the Night Before Christmas (in Chicago)

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'Twas the Night Before Christmas (in Chicago) by Wyl

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the town
All the drunkards were singing, there was nary a frown.
And the bottles were flung into the street without care,
With knowledge that street-sweepers soon would be there.
And the trixies were letting the drinks get to their heads,
Without thought to how they were going to get back to their beds.
And the noise was fading, so I pushed the cat out of my lap
And tried to settle in for a nice Chicago nap.
When out from the street there arose so much laughter,
So I leapt from my futon to see what they were after.
Away to the window, but I fell like the snow
And sprained my ankle, and stubbed my big toe.
The streetlights reflection off of the grey colored snow,
Shined like diamond on the scene below.
Why, what to my tired and bagged eyes should appear,
But a homeless man stumbling and drinking a beer.
With a long white beard, and red coat so thick,
I thought, with a laugh, that he looked like St. Nick.
The yuppies still cat called and made many jokes,
And in their cruelty I pitied the bloke.
“It’s Christmas” I though, and contemplated my choices
And made one with resolve as I heard their shrill voices.
I ran to the fridge, and found the leftovers,
Chinese food and a fork, and some chocolate from Stover’s.
So out from my 2 bedroom apartment I flew,
But I had to turn back to put on my shoes.
The bros had scattered, but their words hung in the air,
But when I caught up to the man, he seemed not to care.
I presented him my food, and the chocolate too,
And his red face got more rosy as he said “thank you.”
He was dressed in rags, from his head to his foot,
And they were all dirty and tarnished with soot.
His worldly possessions were hung on his back,
And in his left hand, he held a glass flask.
His eyes were a bit glazed, and he spoke with a stutter,
And you could tell by his posture that he slept in a gutter.
His droll little mouth was missing some teeth,
And the few that he had were sharp like a beast.
The butt of a cigarette he held with his gums,
And the smell of it all made my nostrils go numb.
He looked malnourished, but still had a belly,
That shook when he laughed like a big bowl of jelly.
And for a man so downtrodden and poor,
He was jolly and happy, and something still more.
A wink of his eye, and a tug on his ear,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to fear.
He reached into his pocket, and pulled out something round,
And into my hand, a gold watch I had found.
He then lay a finger on the side of his nose,
And giving a nod, up from the ground he rose,
I stood in still silence, amazed at the guy,
And watched as he disappeared into the sky.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he flew out of sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

Boom.

This is 15 pages long, a full movement, and my final for fic1. Enjoy, if you choose to read all of it.


The putrid smell of burning hair just barely overpowered the metallic stink of the blood that covered me from head to toe. I sat, face blank, contemplating the course not only the evening, but my entire life had ran. As the shrill, muffled sounds of sirens pierced through the ringing in my ears, I finally started making sense of the night. The problem was me. My ex was right; I force people to lash out at me. There are sometimes that others can’t be held responsible for their actions, this time included. Three bodies rolled past me on stretchers as I pulled up the rough overly sterilized blanket around my shoulders and thought to myself “This is the most fucked up blind date I’ve ever had.”

April and I had been daring for three magical months. Every minute I spent with her made me feel like I was twelve years old again, and not just because I had to hide my erections in public. The smell of her hair would linger in my nostrils for hours after I would leave her on her doorstep. We would go on dates that history has proven to be the most romantic possible: long walks on the beach at sunset, picnics in the park, and (my favorite) going to the zoo. Looking at the animals in their cages always made me feel better about myself, and even though I tried explaining that to April, she never really understood what I was talking about. Have you ever seen a tiger look like he was crying?

The way they pace in those tiny pens, the food that they have thrown to them instead of having to hunt it themselves, the utter lack of any sort of running room? These are things that I don’t have to deal with. I am a free man, and sure, I might not be the best looking, or best dressed, or smoothest talker, or… well, let’s just say at least I can roam around more than an eight by eight cell. Even though she didn’t get the same ego boost that I did while looking at the animals, April did love the photo booth in the gift shop. I kept one of the frames, me kissing her on the cheek, my disheveled black hair tickling the side of her face, and April looking playfully annoyed, in my wallet covering the obligatory bad photo on my driver’s license. After I would get home, I would call her on the phone, and we would talk for what seemed like seconds, but my cell phone service charged as days. I would call her “Schnookie poo” and “Gumdrop” and while she didn’t have any pet names for me, you could hear the love in the way she pronounced “Julius.” She must have had a speech impediment she didn’t like to talk about, because I’ve never heard anyone else pronounce “Julian” that way. I loved her little imperfections. They reminded me of my own. Much like the pen ink tattoo I stabbed into the side of my ankle the night before my heart was torn in two.
We were at our favorite hotdog place, the 7/11 on the corner. April always went through great care to perfectly top her hotdog, and while I was sloshing ketchup from one of the many square containers, she turned to me and said “There’s someone else.”
“What?” I asked, the ketchup spoon falling back into its home with a splat.
“He goes to my gym.” April sprinkled onions on the left half of her hotdog. “He’s
a lawyer with a 401k, dreams of a house and kids, and pecs that shine like Adonis in a light sun shower.” Next she reached for the celery salt as I stood reeling from what was possibly the worst news I had ever heard. “He’s going somewhere with his life doesn’t complain about his job every chance he gets, and doesn’t need constant attention.” She punctuated attention by slamming the salt shaker down, hard.
“But what about me? What about us?” I asked after trying to think about how often I complain about my job. I would probably have been able to think of it quicker, but they have me working such awful hours that I never get any sleep. That place is a nightmare anyway.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about.” She picked up a massive scoop of jalapeños and dumped them all over her hotdog. I hate jalapeños, they are horribly spicy and awful. Plus, when I kiss April after she eats them, I have to taste them anyway. They aren’t quite as bad as the relish. The weird radioactive green freaks me out. But I’m distracting myself, trying not to get to the worst part. “You, you, you. It’s always about you. Sometimes I just need some me, me, me.”
“But I give you my everything. Everything I do is for you” I didn’t notice that my hotdog had fallen into the mustard.
“There you go again.” April had finished her ritual, and had already started eating her hotdog. I would have laughed when she had pieces of onion fall from her cheek, but I couldn’t see it if it did happen, because by this point my tears had started to make it hard to get a sight of her. “And the tears. You cry all the time. You aren’t even close to being a real man. I’m glad I found someone who knows how to act like a grown up instead of a pissy cry-baby. This is really your fault. You make people lash out at you.” April started to put her food away and leave, but before I could let her walk out of my life forever, I pleaded one last time.
“I know you want to leave, but know that everything I do is for you.”
“You said that already.”
“I know! But please, just keep me in mind. I will be here. I will be here forever.”
“Whatever you want. I’m leaving now.”
“Well, have a good life, until you call me.”
“You too, I guess… Oh, and Julius?”
“Yeah?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
With that, April walked out.

The next few weeks were hard. I tried not thinking about her, but everything that I saw was a bitter reminder of better times. I was walking home one day and saw a daisy in a flowerbox; daisies are April’s favorites. I passed a Pepsi ad and remembered her preference for Coke. Because of all of the images of her manifesting themselves in front of me, I walked with my eyes closed. That’s when I stepped in a huge pile of dog shit. April hated stepping in dog shit. As I scraped my shoe on the sidewalk, brown streaks being drawn on the grey concrete, I took a deep breath; April had to breathe to live. I sat down, right back into the foul smelling poop calligraphy I made that read “Apr”, trying to not to cry too hard. I knew it was my fault for being clingy, but she could have asked for some space without breaking up with me. No, I must be wrong. I’m always wrong. It’s all my fault.
I went to work, with April’s accusation of complaining still ringing in my ears. As much as I tried to just stay focused while fact checking for the Herald, the words would all swirl around, making pictures of April. I couldn’t shake them, and after three hours of not working, I gave up and asked my boss if I could take a sick day. He’s an angry, bald, red faced, and stout man, as most news paper editors are, or at least I assume, since I only know one. The thing with Jim Ryan (he demands we call him by his full name. I don’t get it either) is that he makes you feel wrong no matter what. So asking him for anything is always a hairy ordeal. I tried telling him that I was love sick, a real disorder that had affected my ability to work, and he simply said “Shut the FUCK up and get to work you goddamn peon! If I EVER see you in my office again I will chew off yer head and spit it up yer godforsaken ass! ‘Love sick?’ BULLSHIT!” Did I mention he’s not a nice man? I went back to my desk, trying to figure out if there really were 11,000 puppy mills in the Los Angeles area, and if that was indeed more than in Chicago, when I felt the tears coming. Jim Ryan said there was no such thing as being love sick, but this was more than I could take. April thought puppies were cute! I went back to Jim Ryan’s office, handed him my letter of resignation, and ran out as fast as I could before he read it and started having a coronary. I went out, bought a black turtle neck, new black pants, and some really heavy curtains. After stopping to pick up “Wish” by The Cure, I went home, changed, put the album on, and locked my door.
After a week I had a solid depression beard grown. While “beard” might be too strong of a term, it certainly did the trick of showing how haggard I felt inside. My world had crashed into the sun, then the sun imploded, and all that was left was a poison vacuum of death, swallowing universe after universe, leaving nothing but pain and misery. Whys flew around my darkened apartment, and as the piles of take out containers grew and the moldy homeless person scent permeated, I found myself curled up in a ball like a child, screaming broken “Friday I’m in love” lyrics through my sobs. As Robert Smith and I wailed about Sunday always coming too late, there was a knock on the door, then another, then the door just opened.
“Julian, you gave me a key and I’m coming in. Stop masturbating…or whatever you’re doing in here. God I hope he’s jerking off, because if he’s dead I will vomit.” Wade’s voice made me straighten up off the floor. “Holy shit, it smells like a hobo died in a puddle of his own vomit in here.”
“JULIAN! ARE YOU DEAD? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Logan started screaming before I could have answered Wade. The light from the hallway was blinding, and I must have looked like an Iraqi prisoner coming out of solitary confinement, because Logan yelled “DAMN! You look like an Iraqi prisoner coming out of solitary confinement!” My friends are assholes.
“I’m fine, just… close the fucking door.” I said, trying to hide the tear streaks on my face.
“What the fuck have you been doing the last week? You know what? I don’t really want to know. I do want to know WHY you haven’t left your apartment, or why I keep getting voice mails from you that just keep saying ‘she’s gone, she’s gone.’” Wade always had a way with making me feel better…
“Or why you smell like the inside of a fat man’s gym bag. If a fat man ever went to a gym…”
“Is this about your girlfriend leaving you? ALL OF THIS?”
“Because that would be pretty fucked up. It’s just a girl.”
“Seriously. And don’t feed us any of that ‘I loved her’ shit. We don’t want to hear it, because you only knew her for three months. And in that time a man doesn’t learn to love his own mother…”
“Never the less some bitch girl. Where’d you even find her? Bitches r’ Us? Because she literally leaked evil.”
“Right. Now get the fuck up, and start… showering. But THEN start dating again! We’ll help you out! And if Logan or Rob or I have to set you up with some of our hot lady friends, we will.”
“Wade’s right. Grow a pair and stop crying in the dark to The Cure. It isn’t the eighties anymore anyway!” I was trying to understand where they were coming from. I knew I should man up, but April was so beautiful and wonderful and magical, that I couldn’t stop thinking of her. I was about to tell them to fuck off and get out of my house, when Rob chimed in for the first time. Rob was normally very mild mannered, and gave great thought to everything he said. Which is why I was so surprised to hear him say:
“Come the fuck on! If I have to rip those fucking black clothes off of you, dress you, force drinks down your throat, and then get you into bed with blonde twins from Sweden on spring break who desperately want to lash out at their parents by having some loser American’s illegitimate child, only to move back home and raise it on their own, I FUCKING WILL!”
After that I really didn’t have a choice but to open the curtains and buy a new razor.

Logan had a cousin come up from Alabama, and he wanted to set us up. We all met at some terrible dive bar, the kind with their specials printed on banners from a Super Bowl from which both starting quarterbacks were now long retired. I said I would give her a shot, but as soon as I saw her, I made up an excuse to leave, saying I felt sick. She looked just like April. I mean, sure, her hair was darker, and longer, and styled in a way that would make most women vomit. And yeah, she was only about 5’ 1” compared to April’s 5’ 7”. She also had two less front teeth and cauliflower ear. Her smile made her moustache dance, and as she batted her clumped eyelashes at me, I had to look away. I could see April right under that sloping brow and through her hunched shoulders. Even the way she said “Howdy” (more accurately, “Haughdeeeee!”) reminded me of April; how she had such perfect diction. I hopped on a bus and headed home, passing homeless person after homeless person, wishing I could be left alone just like they were. Lonely, and free. What a great life!
Wade gave it a try next with the worst possible situation to throw me into; karaoke. The thing about karaoke is that you attempt to sing some really awful song in front of a bunch of people. For those of us who are the worst singers, this means that a bar full of people will be watching us awkwardly flounder for a few minutes, before finally running away to vomit in the bathroom. I can never do ANYTHING right, nevertheless pull off a tune in front of people judging me. So it stands to reason that there is nothing I want to do less. But still, I had to try to push April’s ghost from my mind, so there I was, standing in a karaoke bar, pencil and sign up sheet in hand because apparently it would make me seem “cooler” to the amateur boxer Wade had brought along. She was decent looking, save for the healing black eye, way too much make up, and distinct height advantage over me. I was pretty sure she had an Adam’s apple, but Wade assured me that she was “all woman.” There was a lot of that that I didn’t care to know about. I got called way sooner than I was ready for, having only drank about six shots of whiskey, and made my way to the stage to sing “Angel” by Sarah MacLachlan. I didn’t know the lyrics, and as I was singing and reading them for the first real time, I kept thinking of April. I wished I was in the arms of that angel. I started to tear up again, and screamed into the microphone “I LOVE YOU APRIL! I MISS YOU SO MUCH!” The song eventually ended, and as the overwhelming silence finally broke to jeers and laughs, I made my way back to my table. Wade’s boxer lady friend asked who April was, and I told her, at length, about how gorgeous April was. How much I loved April. How no woman, or freakishly tall, man-handed, lady-monster could ever take her place. In retrospect, that might have been a bit mean, but I was just so crushed by all of the memories of April that I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions. I guess I deserved the slap to the face I received that moment. Unfortunately, her being a gigantic monster woman meant that I couldn’t chew solid food for almost a week after that. I headed home defeated, once again, to find an icepack and drank until I passed out.
I was half way back into my black turtleneck when Rob called. He had made me reservations at Le Branlette, the French restaurant that makes my wallet cry every time I walk past. There is a live string quartet, several crystal chandeliers, and the waiters wear full on tuxedos. The place has a dress code. All of this while trying to live off of savings before going on unemployment. I would have told him to cancel, that there was no way that I could afford it, but I figured I would treat myself to a nice dinner. And even if the girl turned out to be an awful, bitter reminder that I would be alone forever without my dear April, I would at least get to eat expensive food. So I found the only tie I owned and went.
The inside of the place was even more intimidating than I thought it would be. Not only did I feel incredibly underdressed in my near skin tight black khakis and worn out dress shirt that wouldn’t stay tucked in, but I also had to wear a big, red carnation. To “let her know it’s you” as Rob put it. Sticking out like a sore thumb is my forte, so there I sat, between paintings from French artists I couldn’t tell you the name of, French wines I couldn’t pronounce, and a waiter with a French accent, even though I swear that I took an English class with him once, and was pretty sure he said he was from Minnesota. I sat staring at happy couples, each of them looking deeply into the other’s eyes, wearing formal wear I had up to this point only see on TV during the Oscars. My phony French waiter came and asked if I would like a drink, to which it seemed the only logical answer was yes. I was sitting alone at a very expensive restaurant, a giant goofy red flower half stapled to my chest, and my boxers hanging out of the back of my pants. Yes, I needed a drink. I ordered a whiskey and water, and it came, but it must have been a very small one, seeing as within a minute I was asking for another, but a tall one this time. I sucked down the pale brown courage juice, and time stood still. Or at very least crawled by at the pace of an elderly woman coming home from a lunch buffet. This must have accounted for my having finished the second drink before I felt the effects of the first. As the waiter came around and asked if I would like another drink, he eyed me up and down, presumably trying to calculate my net worth. His guess was probably high, even if he had nothing but the worst expectations. Although, we also probably had similar unpaid student loans, so there was always that. I did want another drink, but worried that it would make the difference between dinner and no dinner, I went with just a water. I was then asked if I would like him to remove the other place setting. It was at this moment that she walked through the door. The entire restaurant seemed to quite, as a magical spotlight shined on her from both the front and the back, casting a heavenly glow wherever she went. She was gorgeous with brilliant perfect teeth, flawless porcelain skin, and hair so shiny that it could blind you even in the daylight. But not in a bad way, mind you, but in a “I feed my dog Alpo so that he has a shiny coat!” kind of way. As she walked towards me I prayed that she would take off her sweater revealing a matching red flower, knowing full well that she would wear it with grace and beauty and far better than I did. I knew that I didn’t have a chance of ending up with a woman so good looking, so you can imagine my surprise when she stopped at my table and asked “Are you Julian?”
I have never been good with words, but if I was asked to describe this girls beauty I would say:
“There stands a Goddess. Mortals of Earth, bow your heads and shield your eyes, less you become blinded by the flawless glow that surrounds this pale creature. Ten thousand poets could write for ten thousand years and never come close to crafting a verse that would read half as beautifully as the freckles on her perfect nose. Were her eyes to carry the powers of Medusa, I would happily gaze into them just for the brief moment of bliss that would accompany that gaze, and I could stay forever caught in that moment of knowing true, perfect love.”
Luckily, no one asked me, otherwise they would have been completely ignored as I continued to stare dumbly.
Her name was Samantha. She sat across from me, ordered a matching glass of water, and then started talking immediately about how fake our waiters accent was. She laughed and smiled as I told her about my possible English class with him, and it was the first time I felt any sense of self confidence in a long time. She went on to tell me about her job as a zoologist, and how it was her dream to go to Africa and study gazelles. This is my favorite animal, and the fact that we shared this obscure love made me fall for her. The gazelle is a perfect animal for her to love. Just like her, the gazelle is an animal of grace and beauty. It is a natural survivor and a very communal animal. Like me, gazelles have a urine fetish, but that didn’t come up during our conversation. The topics changed and changed, seamless transitions from animals, to heavy machinery, to the absurdity of British royalty, but everything that Samantha said was in a perfect soprano, each note hit with flawless execution, leaving me breathless at the end of each symphonic sentence. At some point the faux French waiter came back, asking for our orders, and standing rigidly with a look that read both “You are a lucky man” and “Please, you poor bastard, hurry up and order your credit card maxing meal before I die of old age.” I deferred to Samantha, who’s order made me fall in love with her:
“The house sirloin, medium rare. And can I get a whiskey and water with my meal, please?”
It was meant to be. When he turned to me, all I had to say was “Ditto.”
When the waiter left, we just looked at each other for a minute. Normally, this would be a very awkward minute, trying to find something to say, trying to break eye contact. That is what I would have expected going into this date. Instead, she broke the silence by leaning in close, her strawberry blonde curls framing her face better than any painting in the Louvre. “I know it’s only been a little bit, but I could see us together already. I think…I think I might fall for you. Please don’t think I’m weird and run away.” I sat breathless as flashes of hopefully-her-side-of-the-gene-pool-is-more-prevalent babies, giant houses in the suburbs with white picket fences and golden retrievers, and matching cemetery plots passed before my eyes. Fantasies of the night we were sure to have after dinner started playing, and I was thankful for the tablecloth covering my lap. I knew there was a reason I didn’t like the spring time, particularly late March, but I couldn’t explain why. Nor could I understand why I hated jalapeños so much. My heart had swollen to the point that it was pushing the air out of my lungs and I thought it would burst out of my chest, when I was brought back to reality by the smell of meat and the sound of the pretentious fake accent of our waiter. He served Samantha first, and she immediately cut into her steak. As he placed my plate in front of me, along with our drinks, he asked how everything looked. I will never forgive him for this. Samantha put a fork in half of her steak and held it up to the waiter.
“This is medium. What did I ask for?” said a rather red-faced Samantha. The fire in her voice could have cooked the steak to a char, and I felt strangely warm as she spoke.
“Medium rare. I am terribly sorry madam; I can have the chef remake it more to your liking.”
“Why on earth should I have to wait another half an hour to eat just because you can’t do your fucking job?” Samantha was getting redder, and must have made the waiter feel tiny, because she seemed to grow larger and angrier with each word. “What kind of shit-hole establishment is this that I can’t even make a simple order? How much extra do you get paid to make a mockery of the service industry?” Samantha seemed to shine with an unnatural, yet strangely beautiful glow. I admired her passion, but was beginning to wonder if I should step in and save my former classmate from her wrath. I decided that I would probably make the situation worse, so I just sat there, loosening my tie and wondering why I was sweating. “IS IT SO MUCH TO ASK THAT I GET A MEDIUM RARE FUCKING STEAK?! IS THAT SO HARD? WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET-”
It would be at this point that most people would realize they have made far too big of a scene. Most people would apologize, ask for a doggie bag, tip thirty or so percent, and run far away from the restaurant. Or at least that’s what I would do. I would also have suggested this to Samantha, had she not exploded. Quite literally exploded. In a burning hot flash of fire and smoke, Samantha burst, pieces of her rocketing away from her chair. The waiter was too close to survive, but luckily blocked most of the blast from reaching me. Some of the other patrons weren’t quite as lucky as forks, plates, and slightly overcooked red meat went flying indiscriminately across the room. A small child sat helplessly on the floor under half of our table. An elderly woman about twenty feet away sat sprawled in her chair, one of Samantha’s perfect fingers half exposed in her forehead. The overhead lighting, once brilliant, were now a red and pink mess of crystal and Samantha. Strands of her curls and one of her gorgeous green eyes had coated one of the paintings, adding a human touch to the stark French landscape, and if you ask me, improved upon it greatly. At some point the paramedics came, asking if I was alright, and if I could stand up. I was one of the few people left sitting upright in a chair, and certainly the only one who was sitting alive. I would say it was a miracle, but with my sad state of affairs it felt like just the opposite. Somehow I ended up on the back of an ambulance. It may have been the explosion causing me to hallucinate, or it may have been real, but I watched as my once rabidly erect penis slithered down my pants and onto the street below. As it slinked off slowly, presumably to find a new home, it turned back to me and said “Please don’t come looking for me. Everything you touch turns to shit, and if that’s any indicator, I don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell.”
“But penis,” I said, “What about me? What about us?”
“That line has never EVER worked! I was there, dip shit! I know! And besides, one of us has to get some. And frankly, it’s not gonna be you. So do me a favor, and fuck off.” I don’t really blame it, I hated me too.
The coming weeks and months held investigations, hearings, and looking for a job. But still I had a lot of down time. I tried not thinking about Samantha, but figured I would need a hobby if I really didn’t want to see her perfect face every where I went. So I learned to knit, further removing any chance I had at getting a girlfriend. But you know what? I think I’m finally starting to be good at something.

Inocencia

The cupboards had all been flung open, and dishes lay helplessly on the cold tile floor of the kitchen. The porcelain disks, still intact, were deafening in their silent stillness; a physical representation of childhood abandon, naïveté, and search in a mysterious world. Past the kitchen, where the split level house in rural Connecticut earned its name, a trail of knick knacks from a riffled chest led towards the miniature detectives. A young boy, no more than eight years old (the elder of the two) barked orders to his sister, their matching brown hair as frayed and frantic as their hunt. It was hot in the house, a typical July day with the picture widows letting the oppressive sun’s rays float languidly throughout the house. A housecat’s dream, being able to stretch its fur out in those rays, it’s lethargic lifestyle being displayed prominently and without remorse. But these children were on a mission. Neither man nor God could dissuade them from the absolute human necessity of finding what they were after, namely their Christmas gifts. While their knowledge of seasons and holiday schedules were telling them that there was an eternity before St. Nicholas would be visiting them in the middle of the night, his sled pulled with the mighty force of eight reindeer, they still searched for the gifts from their parents. Even be it a new pair of woolen socks, the thrill of the hunt, and the delicious, sweet taste of success forced their little minds to search. Soon, the inevitable decision was reached, and the young girl, two years her brothers younger, said it best:

“We should look in mom and dad’s closet. I bet they’re in there.”

At some point in time, all children must break that barrier of privacy, and delve into their parents closets. The range of what one will find varies immensely. The most vanilla of households will have clothes, shoes, and other wardrobe accoutrement. Then, there are the houses where the skeletons are only hung in order to prevent the real monsters from being see by any outsider. For our two, the former was the life that their parents led. The father, archetype for the patriarch, with his nine to five at a respected law firm, and their mother, housekeeper, child raiser, and school teacher. Both respected throughout the community, and rightfully so. The lawn was trimmed, their private lives kept private, and their good nature only outshined by their good humor. Their story book marriage, high school sweethearts, soul recipients of each others undivided love, had been rock solid their entire adult lives. Their planners, tacked on the wall with as much care as they give their fine works of art, held more importance and beauty. Their house was pristine, and the children soon found themselves in the entry way of the even better kept boudoir.
Their height would be the factor that worked against them. Prior to the grow spurts that would warn of puberty, they stood tall enough to neither reach nor see the top shelf where the young ones were sure the goodies of a Christmas future sat, waiting anxiously to be found. A plan was soon formulated to use their collective lengths to see higher than once believed they could. The taller of the two would stand on top of the smaller, his longer frame able to get a better vantage point, or so he argued. And being the older and wiser, she soon gave way to his logic. And into her hands he placed his foot. All of his boyhood strength was transferred into that one limb, as he used his boyish hands to balance himself on her mess of hair. The spider web feeling under his palms tickled immensely, and soon he found himself fighting to stay upright. The swaying of her brother caused her to sway herself, and their collective swaying made the spider web feeling intensify, and that started the falling cycle all over again. Soon the swaying was too much, and with a great crash, both of the siblings came crashing down to the earth, with the intensity of a falling star, and the danger associated with a grandmother knitting. Could one of them been hurt? Surely. But in a time of great effort one is able to exert great strength and quickness, and with their adrenaline surging, they had managed to avoid each other and all other obstacles. They brushed themselves off, silently acknowledging something they didn’t quite understand. In hindsight, a concept they were far from understanding, they would see the universal justice in their near miss. The violation of the privacy of their parents, the fall. All things are connected. And while this is meaningless to the average child, to an adult the messages ring forever. Want not, be free. Want it all, deal with the consequences, great or minuscule. But for now, they would simply go about hiding their evidence until their mother came home and cooked them lunch.

Esperanza

I have been put on this Earth for a purpose. I am justice. I am vengeance. I am the lone sword of lawfulness that shines in a black cloud of despair. I am the protector of the weak. I am the shepherd of the lost. I am the last bastion of truth! I am-

“Honey! Do you want me to do a load of undies, or are you all set for next week?”

“IM FINE, MOM!”

Dang! She always manages to chime in when I’m rehearsing. I almost had my speech down too, but no. She just has to interrupt me asking about my underwear. I never ask her about her underpants! Not that I ever would, because, like, she’s my mom. Besides, who can really call those underwear? There’s not enough fabric to cover one of my hands…not that I would know. Because that’s gross. But, I mean, seriously, those have to be uncomfortable, with that string riding up your butt all day. I don’t understand. Whatever.

Mom and I don’t really talk all that much. I mean, yeah, we eat dinner together, and breakfast, and on the weekends lunch, unless I go over to a friends house. And sure, we watch TV together, because we both like that new super hero show. But I mean, outside of that, and the rides to and from school, we never talk. She’s been weird since my dad left. He went out for milk and never came home. I mean, this was after the divorce, and the packing, and the crying (mostly by mom, I’m a man and I don’t cry). But still, one second he’s here, then: poof. Gone. He was a cop. Prob’ly still is a cop. I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in ages. Since, like, June. And now it‘s almost a month since Independence Day. Anywho, he’s the one who got me into the detective stuff. But I took it a step further and became The-

“Dinner is going to be done in ten, hun!”

“ALRIGHT MOM!”

Shoot! Always when I’m trying to explain myself. Oh well, it wouldn’t be much of a hidden identity if everyone knew who I was at night! Speaking of, I finally solved a crime! All that’s left is to finalize and get my man. It wont be easy, and it will be dangerous, and death defying, and totally scary, but it’s all in a days work for The… wait, I almost spilled the beans. Lemme explain:

I got the regal position of “Library Helper” at school. This noble title meant that while the rest of the losers were in line waiting to check out wavy copies of Harry Potter, the pages crumpled and stained with grease, I was behind the counter, doing all of the hard work. The librarian would have me slave over the demagnetizer and it was my sworn duty to ensure that the wicked alarm never went off. In my days of service, not once did the wailing cat of an alarm sound without warrant. Sure, sometimes the stupid demagnetizer didn’t work all that great, but that wasn’t my fault. There was one class where it went off at least five times due to technical difficulties. But whatever, if they wanted it to work they would buy a new one. That what mom does when her car stops working. We’re basically rich so she just buys the same car in the same color. She likes it a lot I guess, so we never get anything different. She said that I can have a Ferrari when I turn 16. Or maybe a Porsche. Or I could just get my own private jet, because I wont even want to drive, I can just fly to my friends houses. It’s going to be pretty awesome. But anyway…

The most important thing that I do at the library is make sure all the books come back. I could do it on the computer, because I’m a computer genius, but I do it by hand because I don’t want to make Mrs. Shu, the librarian, feel dumb. She’s old and she kind of looks like a new baby, all gross and veiny and wrinkly. But with more hair. My friend Kevin had a baby sister not too long ago and I told him it looked more like a naked mole rat than a baby. So I have a list of every book that everyone checks out and when they are due back. Usually it’s only a week, which is good for me because I read whole chapter books in an hour. But some of the other kids aren’t quite as fast as I am. Some even need longer and check out the same book twice in a row. But some kids forget their books and cant check them back out. These kids are the bane of society. There’s a girl Julie, who totally has cooties, that forgot her book this week. She said that she didn’t know where it was. Mrs. Shu said that she could have a couple days to try to find it, but if she didn’t she would have to pay at least a million dollars in late fees. I don’t think Julie lost the book at all. I think she’s hiding it. And I think this is a job for me, The… almost did it again! Maybe I will say it some day, but for now it’s still a secret. I went to Julie at recess, after getting a new cootie shot, and asked her about the book.

“So where is it, you thieving wench?” I demanded.

“Where is what, weirdo?” She snapped back. I could detect a slight quiver in her voice, so I knew she knew exactly what I was talking about. I learned that trick from the show I watch with my mom. The hero always can tell when someone is lying. It’s a power that he and I share.

“The book, you foul criminal! I know you know where it is, and if I have to find it there will be some serious consequences!”

“Knock it off Felix! I don’t know where I put that stupid book. It wasn’t even that good.”

“That’s just what you would say. I know you have it, and I don’t intend to rest until it is back in the safety of the library!”

“Whatever, freak. Why don’t you go away now?” She was terrified of me finding the book. She would probably end up in jail, probably serving life. Theft is a serious crime. But for now I knew it was better to back off and keep an eye out.

This is the crime I knew I could solve. I knew exactly where that book was. It was in her house. Most likely behind some painting in a secret safe. So I waited and waited, and when it was dark out I put on my costume, all black with a mask and my secret symbol in silver on the chest, and headed out to Julie’s house to return the stolen book!

The streetlights are on. This makes my journey more difficult. There aren’t quite as many shadows that I can hide behind. But Julie only lives a couple of blocks away, so I dart between the well kept shrubs and the blue mail boxes, stopping between the cul-de-sacs and the main road to make sure there aren’t any other crimes that need stopping. After another couple minutes of sneaking and rolling, I find myself at Julie’s front door. But only fools go in the front door. If she knows that I’m coming, she will have laid a trap for sure. It’s safer to try to find an open window in the back. So I crawl around the side of the house, and make my way into the back yard. I was right! There is an open window that looks perfect for me. Working quickly I make my way through the window and into the kitchen. The house is dark, and still. I walk into the dining room, and the floor boards squeak under my footsteps. Not too big of a deal, I think, it was pretty quiet. As I scan the walls for paintings I see a picture of Julie and her Dad. Her dad is a cop, just like my dad. I hold the photo in my hands. The cold metal frame picks up a glint from the lights outside. I wonder why my dad had to leave us. Why couldn’t he have just worked things out with my mom? Why did they have to fight all the time? I bet they were happy before I came around. I bet I ruined everything. The whole time they were talking about moving and whatever, they kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, but I didn’t believe them. Sometimes I think about where my dad is. He only lives a town over, and I talk to him on the phone all the time, but he was busy with police things, and cant ever come to see me. I wonder if Julie’s dad ever sees my dad. I bet, after I get this book back, that when I see her next she will understand why I had to steal the book back from her. Maybe I can then talk to her dad and ask him to talk to my dad and tell him to call me. Maybe Dad could take me to a baseball game like we used to.

I hear some steps behind me and my cover is blown! I turn around to see my would be captors, prepared to fight my way out. But all I can see in the light from the street is a very large shape, with a matching shine from something metal in it’s hand. Before I can make heads or tails of what’s going on, I hear a huge boom! My chest hurts. It’s on fire. Then another boom! I cant breathe all that well. I don’t feel good, and I keep coughing up something wet and warm. I feel dizzy; something’s wrong. The lights are on now. Someone keeps screaming “oh my God, oh my God!” over and over again. I cant see much more than blurs. I think they got me. I don’t think I can get that book back to Mrs. Shu. I don’t think I’m much of a superhero, or even a detective, or even just a police officer like my dad. I think I might fall asleep, even though someone keeps telling me to hold on. But I’m so tired. Evil might have… won this battle… but the war… will…
be won…

by..


The-

Dear Plagiarizer,

This is an actual email sent to an actual person who stole Boom. off of here and handed it in for an assignment. Someone read it, figured this girl wasn't the author, googled a section of it, and found this blog. They then posed as me, emailed said girl, then sent me the responce. I have since emailed the professor, and sent her this

(also, this girl is from a different state. not Columbia.):



Wyl Ryan, Wyl Villacres, all the same person really. But there is a point to why i am messaging you...again... or for the first time... like i said, it's been a weird day.

First off, how do you know Omitted? We were in Omitted together and i havent talked to her in ages. Also, no, it wasnt Omitted that sold you out, nor is it anyone that i'm related to. Just some concerned citizen who is amazing at hunting people down.

Anyway. I know that you were behind in a class, but why did you do it? Why my story? Why at the end of the semester? If it wasnt for credit, why would it matter what you turned in? That was a first draft of that story, and how did you even find my blog? Why did you copy it verbatim? Why didnt you paraphrase? It would be a lie for anyone to say they havent borrowed heavily from a source, but normally a quick edit will prevent anything from traced back.

Do you enjoy reading my blog? Did you actually enjoy the story? In what way is stealing it "giving it a bad name?" if anything, now i can tout how my work has been stolen, which makes it even better. So what are you really sorry for? Is it that you got caught?

I have had two reaction to this whole ordeal. The first is an undeniable happiness and appreciation for what i assume is someone thinking my story is good enough to steal. the other one i would like to take some more of your time with.

I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel like I personally mean nothing, and that my stories are just a cheap trick that can be used to substitute actual intellect. I dont know what you plan to do with your life, but this is my life. I write stories and i want that to be what i do for the rest of my life. I live and breathe short stories, i pour a part of myself into each and every one of them, and i try to live through them. Taking it, changing it's title to something awful (the blind date? really?) and putting your name on it is like cutting out a part of my soul. Not one part of that story wasn't pulled directly from my life, soul, and mind, and you cast that all to the side in order to turn in an assignment. Up to this point, after 3 revisions and a night of heavy drinking in order to finalize the story, i had called Boom. my favorite. I was writing the cover letter in order to get it published, and have five different publishers on my short list. This doesn't bode well for that. It hinders my progress with it, not only by being out there under a different title and name, but by me having to deal with this all. I hope you really do understand how inexcusable your actions have been. I hope you never steal anything ever again. No assignments, no make up, no kisses, nothing.

There is justice in the universe, there is no hiding from it. I hope that when it finds you, it pities you, and has mercy. And i hope you will figure out a penance for your audacity, and make things right for yourself.

-the real Wyl Villacres

Sirena

Below the cerulean waves lays a mermaid. She sits and waits for lost sailors to fall overboard and drown before inspecting the corpses. There’s something in the way the life starts to fade from their graying skin beneath the waves. She longs to feel the sun, but fears to leave the deep, afraid of the fresh air and the consequences it will have on her undisturbed home in the sea. I’ve seen her. Under ships and floating carcasses, the bones of her last meal resting on the foam. Her hair glows in contrast to the infinite depths that stare out from the void; an explosion of gold trailing behind her. Her eyes royalty, stagnancy, putrid validity. A stare that locks you in solitude praying for a well built tomb, buckets of water being pulled out of you. Your water drains into the aquifers and lakes, into streams and rivers, and back to her. She tastes your demise, she wants it, she prays. And every day she rides the waves back into the shipping lanes. Her siren song a metaphor, even to a creature as mystical and beautiful as her. She flashes rocks at passing crews, hoping the shine will catch an eye, but the wooden giants usually pass by, leaving nothing but their wake.

Mi abuelo was the first to speak of her, her azul tail followed him during his times at sea as a merchant marine. Glorified tide puller rising in the east, the sun setting on the other side left him on the deck with a mist in his eyes. Searching for a home amongst the whales and sharks, he saw pale skin through the moons reflection in the water. “Ay dios mio!” pero all he could do was stare. She was a ghost by the next second, disappearing as quick as she came. Un reflejo de una historia falsa. Ella too afraid to make contact and my grandfather used to breathe too much air. So he never saw her again, but knew that she was there, on moonlight filled nights he could feel her eyes on him. The hairs on the back of his neck, el pelo que he heredado, would stand on end, knowing that from the ocean sat a stalker.

I try to find her. The promise of the unknown awoke a side of me desperate to be free. My calloused hands clutching frayed rope, swinging from starboard to port. The salt chaps my face, and I’ve lost weight, but every day I search. First the seven seas, then I will find seven more; los mares son tan grandes but I will find her. Some say I’ve gone mad, but that is short sighted, the mad are only mad from being cast to the side. So I eat an orange, fighting off the scurvy, yellow gums ache and my head is hazy but I will find her. And as I grow old, peg leg, eye patch, and a hook for a hand, collecting clichés instead of sight of land, I repeat my mantra over again, I will find her. As the stars stare bright into my skin, and as I pray for death to bring my miserable life to an end, I will find her. As my vision gets dark and I stand on the bow, I will find her. As I lean forward to let the sea eat me now, I will find her. And as I sink to the deep, leaving my ship at sea, and the pressure starts to force the life from my body, I will find her. She will come, in the moments before my demise, look into my eyes and tell me it’s alright. She will brush my hair and I will breathe in the sea, and she will kiss my eyes and tell me it’s alright.

Veneno

Homie’s too attached to past memories that look like all the birds he’s sweating now. Ella looks like she’s more Mary Magdalene before salvation than someone he wants to take back to home to mom. Those circles under her eyes are the same color as the ones that dot her arm are the same as the eastern sky at sunset. Todos los Reyes no tienen enough dinero to pay for that royal purple. Regardless, homie doesn’t care. ¡¿Do you, you love sick maricón!? Nah, El is too wrapped up inside his head staring at the white inside the crimson in her eyes, and at the blue that hands out at the center. Blue is the best I can do to help you out with the color, but homie sees the shore of the lake, seaweed included, the green hue shining through the almost clean agua. If those ojos are the lake, then it explains the cloud on top of them, but homie sees no gleam. He notices the glare of of her honey golden hair, and how las nalgas de ella bounce like lo-lo’s when she walks. She comes up to his scarred chest, and he only knows because after ten minutes his balls finally dropped and at this late night drug spot he took a walk over to her.

Honey had finished with the dealer in a lonely back room of the apartment (dude laid sweaty on the floor, more sucio than the rest of the room) and walked past the piles of basura towards a broken drywall panel. As she fumbled with a tourniquet, homie mustered up the courage to chase a little dragon with honey on his left. I thought homie looked pretty feo, his acne ridden skin turned into a lunar surface ever since puberty ended. He was lighter than the rest of la raza, a coconut turned inside out, white on the outside, brown underneath, and in the room filled with three junkies he looked more nark than down. He had a habit that would go unnoticed under his button downs and tight jeans. Business casual. So you can imagine the sight of this fancy fuck of a dude tying off honey’s arm. Yeah, he tied the knot and cooked the poison for her. And ella thanked him slowly once she had kicked off. Homie está enamorado. Homie es un tonto.

Numbers were exchanged, although they always met at the same spot. That dirty apartment where the bloodstains multiplied at the same rate as las cucarachas. She offered homie only seconds, sloppy and undignified, but he was a romantic and only wanted to sit by her side. He brought up possibilities of checking out a restaurant, eating food that didn’t come from a bag or microwave. She’d like that, I’m sure, pero the hunger wouldn’t come and even if she could feel her stomach she wouldn’t be able to get food past her swollen tongue. Homie wanted nothing more than copping a feel, but the gentleman in his head beat the vandal in his heart. As her sunken cheeks leaked streaks of shining drool from her bobbing head, as her shoulders lacked the strength to hold her arms up under her neck, and as her skin paled to match the powder (keeping the same piss yellow tint), he wondered what she felt like between the thighs.
Swallowing the violent images of her tied to a bed, fresh wounds slashed across her stomach, her toes curled and back arched in éxtasis, homie took a rain check, packed up his vice and left.

Not granting innocence, porque no one is, homie cut up lines of chiva and coats his sinuses. Eyes wide he lies on his couch, smelling the cleaning products he uses in the studio, trying to keep a sense of order. The piercing cut of the bleach would burn most peoples tear ducts, but not this dude. A bottle of Clorox comes second to only the dust. Don’t look directly into any surface of este piso or you might catch the reflection of your inner demons. His neurosis is another issue, and if homie stopped lying to himself he might be able to face it down. You could figure shit out, homie, if you laid of the junk. A stupid fucking word for your stupid fucking drogas. ¡Vete la chingada y tu caballo tambien! But I digress. The apartment in question is whiter than a junkise complexion and the leached tile floors make your footsteps sound unclean. The furniture is sparse and it’s just as white as everything else; the one couch sits awkwardly close to the useless TV (cable costing more than a half filled plastic baggie). He slept on the couch not having room for a nest to rest in. Homie sleeps only in appearance; closed eyes and heavy breathing, lack of consciousness, but a total lack of dreaming. And he rises from the dead like Jesus after three hours, puts another ironed shirt on and heads out to his nine to five.

Homie mans a forklift for a living. His ears are never ringing, because to the higher ups he’s just a number and a paycheck, one who will cycle out for a fresh face after he grows tired. They all do. You would too, if you spent a year lifting spare parts for someone or another. The boxes all look the same, and he follows a color code, yellow goes to the back, green is to the left, but brown is all anyone really ever sees. Homie spends half his day driving around a warehouse, breaks to have a cigarette, then spend the second half doing the same thing. One day a little while ago homie decided to start dipping into his stash at work. Fuck it, he thought, no one would notice if I did. So he’d suck a little into the length of his smoke, and let it smolder on his lunch break and give him some relief. The pack was half empty and so he would tuck the rest inside of the box, then hurry outside and suck down whatever he could. Most days he went unnoticed but today was different.

I could see it coming, and homie should have too, but as he enjoyed the burning opiate his boss came outside. The ball of a man had no way to differentiate his top from his bottom half, and his thin comb over was starting to reflect his other curvatures. Chiseled features were a dream, and hombre was long past them, nightmares of a failing marriage taking up too much of his time. Underneath his beet red face was pain from a miserable life, divorce, and undiscovered cancer, and this all showed itself outwardly when he talked with those below him on the totem pole.

“What the fuck is that smell?” El jefe demanded with full knowledge that it was something that would end in termination. Homie was about to say nothing and pitch the evidence, but the boss snatched it out of his mouth. Too doped up to snatch it back homie stared in amazement as el jefe busted it open and saw the powdered remnants. A brush of yellow powder dots the fat man’s sleeve, and homie fumbled with his pack, dropping the bag onto the pavement.

“You’re doing drugs?” This was a statement, not a question. But homie just grabbed the stash and ran as fast as his stoned legs could move. Dude looked like a drunk with even less coordination, and his zigzag pattern across the parking lot was punctuated with el jefe de grasa screaming “If you ever come back here I will call the cops!” He would have called them then if he could remember homie’s name, but that’s what the office life teaches you; only watch out for number one.

The drugs wore off after the run and a couple hours sitting in his white apartment. The white walls were so bright, and homie couldn’t stand seeing his reflection in the countertops, in the mirror, or in the dead-screen TV. The situation hit him, with his shit brown eyes popping out of his skull, that he had no source of income, and not only did he have bills to pay, but he had a habit to feed. He clutched the last of the eight ball he had tucked inside his pocket, and decided that he should get as much as he could before he defaulted. As he walked to the drug den, his fingers on the plastic, he spat in the dirty sidewalk. Not because he needed to, only because he could. The control made it easier to deal with the downward spiral. The neighborhood started to change, and instead of storefronts he saw cages keeping out the looters and the transitorios. The sounds of people died out, leaving only a couple sirens, and as he found the familiar drug spot he thought about the girl with the honey colored pelo. She would be in there, sucking dick for a dime bag, her bruised knees sitting next to a syringe and a lighter. She would come out of the back, and toss her honey hair before setting those blue ojos on him and resting in a corner. She would trace the porcelain of her skin up until the curve of her elbow, around the spotted fleshy spot and up onto her bicep. The loose skin around her shoulder would be begging to be brushed by his calloused hands as he tied the belt around her. He would ask her to go out to dinner, hoping for a buena noche after, but she would be off in another world and he would leave disappointed. This time would be different, he thought to himself as walked the stairs, a new fire in his eyes. He opened up the door and saw the dirty walls, covered in more blood than normal. He looked around the apartment, at the junkies in the corners; not a single one was breathing, and their chests were riddle with holes. There was a sound from the corner, and he saw honey sitting there, teeth clenched, holding her arm. You or I would be more cautious, seeing the bullet holes everywhere, but homie isn’t like us. No, hemos un poco sentido. Pero homie was still love sick, and blind to the gun resting on the floor.

“They tried to take my fucking stash. Those fucking assholes. They tried to take it while I was shooting up. I tried to stop them, but shit got out of hand. I just wanted to fix, man. Then all this shit started happening, and dude came out of the back waving his fucking gun. I don’t know what happened, I have no idea what happened. I just grabbed it…” Honey said the last sentence six or seven times, before homie stood up and moved away from the poisoned girl. Her sick sense of priorities reminded him of his own, and he kicked away the gun still looking at her arm. A ripped open abscess was leaking a viscous fluid, rojo y amarillo trickling down in a chunky stream. It was ripped open by a needle and now the apartment was in ruins. Homie was over it. He had perspective. You have perspective homie! Time to shape up! ¡Felicitaciones! He dug the bag out of his pocket, flipped it to the wounded bird (her one working wing was still clutching the other) and walked out. He walked down the street, past the dead shops, past the crack heads and drug dealers. He walked until he came to his sterile house, pulled out the bottle of bleach, and cleaned until he passed out.

Then he dreamed.

X

A kid I went to school with died. A kid that I spent at least an hour with every day. I may not have been friends with him, I may not have really liked him, but I tolerated him, and he tolerated me, and even while most people in school called me a faggot or other such names, he was usually cool. In middle school I would have spitting contests with Bryan. Who could spit the farthest, who could spray their saliva the widest, who could freak girls out the most. He was the first kid I heard use the term “eat out.” And in context back then it sounded as awful as it does now. In 8th grade he made up a rap about me, and even when it started out kind of douchy, it rounded itself out with the word friend. When we walked at middle school graduation, we had a few words, just between us.
Our moms both took us on a trip to Washington DC. It was a class trip, but being that our mothers were there, it was kind of expected that we talk to each other a few times. And that was the most that came out of that. Our mothers hated each other, both being from opposite camps of “boys will be boys” with his mom being the much more liberal, let-them-make-mistakes-as-they-please camp. Bryan and I were in all sorts of extra curricular activities together, so it was always amusing seeing our parents together. The shallow hellos, the sideways glances, the awkwardness of untold bitching that sat over both of them. I’m sure Bryan got the same speech I got over and over, “His mother is a horrible woman. I can’t stand her!”
In high school, people are polarized. Bryan was to become the class clown, his fluffy brown hair bouncing on top of his slack-jawed face. He wasn’t unattractive, but his charisma was what struck people. I was a nerd, a drama geek, and a band geek. I like to think that I was the coolest of the uncool, but I think that just exemplifies the follies of high school males. Bryan would have been my total opposite as a goof-off ne’er-do-well, but still we were both in jazz. One of the things we had in common was a love for our instruments. Guitar on my part, bass on his. For almost 7 years, we sat next to one another, playing Baise, Santana, Ellington, not to mention red hot chili peppers….

Bryan isn’t the first person I’ve known who’s died. A crush from high school, a couple acquaintances, luckily no best friends. But still, I think about the ways that I could have been next. I used to do just as many drugs as Bryan. I used to sell them. I used to want to drop out or not go to school. I moved back to that awful suburb and started abusing prescription pills in my basement. I almost got arrested on a paraphernalia charge. My life is a bunch of “almosts” and “could haves” and I’m lucky, and thankful that I got away. Bryan wasn’t so lucky. He spent six months in a county jail doing time for a crime that I have committed, got out, and downed too much of something to kill the light. He was free, but wanted to be freer. His last words to the public: “I got a message from god last night… its all over.” I got a message from god, and it said to not fuck up like that. There were people asking him to call them. There was plenty of support, and while I wasn’t part of it, it wouldn’t have made a difference if I was. There are some things that we’ll all blame ourselves for. Not being there, not saying the words we had to say. I cant say that I have those regrets. Bryan and I hadn’t spoken in almost 4 years. His life was something I got second hand and only afterwards. His downfall, and my triumph stand in out dichotomy that has been and now is only magnified. He sleeps, I breathe. I may be sad for his death, but I’m glad he got what he wanted. I’m depressed because it could have been my family surrounding that casket years ago. But it’s not. And I swear to any god that will listen that it never will be. It never will be. It never fucking will be.

How to Eat 3000 Calories a Day (And Not Gain a Pound)

So your skinny ass wants to live like a typical fat ass American? You want to have a protruding, greasy stomach with a deep sea oil well for a belly button? You want to ride a rascal and shop at Walmart and complain about how them “jap cars” are too damn small, and own a Hummer? Well, too fucking bad. Your wiry frame would never support that and you will forever be a twig. But that doesn’t mean you cant eat like the typical American! The intake will be hard at first, but you should give it the ol’ college try, because GOD BLESS THIS FAT FUCKING NATION!
First things first, you have to realize the initial irony of what you are doing. Perhaps irony doesn’t quite encompass the sad (pathetic, really) reality of keeping tabs on your caloric intake and nutritional information, even while the grease rolls down your sunken cheeks and onto your flat(ish) stomach. The real fatties will laugh at you, as you must snicker at others when the time comes. Although, you are attempting to eat a years worth of a North Vietnamese rationed calories in a day, you still have to read all of those boring numbers that mean nothing to the standard American. But while you will look like a yuppie, granola eating, rice cake fucker, the information you seek will aid you immensely. You should know that a package of poptarts is 420 calories, compared to the 540 from the same amount of donuts. A hundred calories here and there will make all the difference in the end. Use this knowledge and plan accordingly.

Breakfast

“The most important meal of the day” is it’s title for a reason. This is the way you start off, and sets the tone for your commitment for the rest of the day. It will be too early when you wake up, because chances are your life is hectic. Hence the heroine chic look you’ve got going on there you fucking twig. It should make you sick to look at you in the morning, those deep purple cow tongue bags under your eyes. Some may find your appearance “sexy” or even “healthy,” but those people are communists. Filthy, filthy communists. Since it’s early, though, you will need caffine, and none of that regular roast, drips for an hour bullshit. You need a triple latte with whole milk. Whole milk is the key here, because in order to balance the cattle prod shock to your metabolism, you need all the extra calories you can get. You probably don’t need me to tell you not to drink caffeine on an empty stomach, do you?
It’s a good idea to get something vile into your pit first, otherwise you’ll get the dry heaves and risk setting yourself back a stomach full. This is where those handy donuts come in. When you’re starting off eating like a disgusting pig, you should use those magical rings of carbs and fat to get you acclimated to the harsh commitment you have made. The first one is delicious. The second one builds character. Later, once your morning can involve real food, switch it up to the sausage, egg and cheese on a bagel. Another hundred calories, and some much needed grease. Don’t neglect any of that scalding hot bean juice with the cattle discharge. Drink it quick or it gets cold, and you might throw some out. Although being wasteful may help you feel more American, it wont make you feel like a disgusting blob, and that is really what we’re shooting for. You should probably smoke a cigarette at this point. It will settle your stretching stomach, and calm you down.

Cigarettes

The stress of forced eating will make a pack of smokes a necessity. Nicotine is a wonderful drug, and it is completely safe. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. You should pace yourself, only smoke when you:
-finish eating
-are walking from the train
-are on breaks at work
-are inbetween classes
-are bored and not currently eating.
If your state has an indoor smoking ban, get your food to go, and smoke while you walk and eat. It is a trick maneuver, but with time you will come to master it. Practice makes perfect, and perfect is one pack for every one day.

Lunch

KFC made lunch easy for the new power eater (you, you anorexic looking diva). The idea of an easy to eat chicken sandwich is great, but then they took it a step farther for you, you crybaby-barely-eats! Two deep fried chicken breasts for the buns. Cheese and bacon and mystery mayonnaise sauce for the fixings. And it comes with a large drink and potato wedges! All of this AND it’s a great 1290 calories! That’s more than a third of your day, and we’re in the home stretch! While eating lunch, it is probably a good time to take stock in your life, and figure out what all this will accomplish.

Moral.

Why are you eating like you just spent ten months in an Iraqi prison? What made you want to live an extra large lifestyle inside of a child’s medium body? Think back to the last time you put something on and it didn’t fit. Chances are you don’t remember that ever happening. And the last time it did, it was because you got taller, not wider. You might have clothes that still fit you that you wore in elementary school. All these things are a trophy to your failures. You gain no mass, muscle or fat, no matter how hard you seem to try. You simply stay at a constant, boring state of stagnancy, moving not at all, until the end comes. And when it comes they will bury you in the suit you wore on your first date. When you were 15. Society pressure young men and women to stay skinny, to look good, and to be healthy, but all these messages get drowned out by everyone else buying into them. If you’ve reached this point, you’ve had at least one person say “oh! You’re so lucky to not gain weight. I would kill to be like you” or call you a slew of names in reference to your insultingly overactive metabolism. These people do not know the struggle that it takes to stay awake. Your blood sugar crashes at the drop of a hat, and 3 meals a day is a laughable under calculation. Walking around with snacks, making sure that you never eat celery for fear of the negative calories, never getting the body you want because you are forced to have the body you have now. This is what they are “envious” of. The grass is always greener, and while they pick at their salad, wishing they could eat a steak, you should be tallying up the numbers, trying to make it to an arbitrary goal. Because after the caffeine, nicotine, and natural metabolism, you’ll continue to stay the same size. But at least you’ll feel like a fat ass.

Dinner

Well congratulations. You’ve made it to the final meal of the day. Assuming you’ve snuck an extra soda (a liter of Mountain Dew, 880 calories, a day keeps the… something away), you’ve met your goal. Passed it by 60 calories even. You’re blood is now 30% grease, and your pores will never forgive you for the salt, fat, grease, caffeine, smoke, and whatever stress your life is causing you. If you don’t hate yourself, you’re not really a God fearing American, so go back and try again tomorrow. Either way, it’s time to unwind with the last supper.
Honestly it doesn’t matter what you eat. Steak and potatoes would make you pretty Yankee-doodle-dandy, but so would wrapping yourself a burrito up in an American flag. After your first day, it might be easier to skip the meal and head straight into dessert. A pint of ice cream is a perfect nail in the coffin, and as you sit back, spoon in hand, with your stomach screaming death metal lyrics at the rest of your body, something will hit you. Your soul will sit there staring back at you, and you will realize that all is for not. That what you eat will mean shit, and you leave nothing more than an undersized jar of ashes in the end. So enjoy the company, and feast upon your feelings.

Want. (from Boom.)

I want to feel your shoulders. I want to run my rough hands along the curve of your biceps while standing far too close to your back. I want you to wonder if the pack of cigarettes in my pocket is something more exciting or something more excited. I want your soft skin to indent under the pressure of my finger tips, your breath to quicken, and your heartbeat to pound in the center of your jeans. I want the cold calluses on my hands to chill your skin, forcing blood to flood the pale white of your arms, warming you and reddening your tone. I want every hair on your body to stand on end as my breath, stale with the lingering scent of the last cigarette, limps across your neck, getting trapped in the dark of your hair. I want to trace the shape of your bra, the bums in your shirt, the edges skewed slightly by the thin fabric on top of it. I want you to whisper my name, your voice shaking as you reach for my hands. I want you to ache, starving and wishing for my firm grip to move its way south, and I want your breasts to feel near fatal anticipation as I hint to my intentions. I want the walls to fall away, and leave you standing alone with visions of us naked in your bed, your head on my chest, tracing the scars with your index finger. Visions of your tiny hands rubbing my clavicle, the bone protruding from years of malnourishment. I want you to snap back from your dreams to realize how close you are now. I want you to know how for so many years you were alone. How all of the other boys that made their passes, all the other men that voiced their urges were nothing. They never held a candle to what I can give you, and the ball in the pit of your stomach wants you to accept that. My slow embrace carries the gravity of a sinking ship, the pull of a thousand suns, and the heat of every last icecap that melts into oblivion.
But I am vile. I am putrid, and the touch of my flesh leads to necrosis only. Your body will go into shock, and before the rapidly progressing rot of your perfect skin encompasses every inch of you, you will look up at me and ask “why?” The puss will ooze from every orifice, natural or eroded out, and your stark white bones will start to decay, and I will say nothing. The black will fill your veins, and as your skin bubbles you will claw at it in terror. There is nothing you will be able to do. Like anything good in life, what I touch will die. Midas wasn’t so bad off, as his ends were quick and painless; trapped for ever in gold, a glinted trophy to excess and greed. My trophies aren’t as beautiful.
I have no feelings. I have no hopes or delusions of a cure. I don’t know why this happens only to me, but I try not to dwell on it for very long.

“And this is a reoccurring dream?” April said to me at last.
“Yeah…”
“Have you seen a therapist? Because this is some fucked up shit.”
“Why would I see a shrink when I have you, Snookums? You can fix all of my problems. All I ever need is you.” I took a bit of my hot dog. The convenience store hummed its usual florescent hum, and as April looked at me, her beautiful brown eyes had a secret behind them.
“You’re smothering me.”

The Lube Faerie (LONG!)

Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Bess. She had curly brown hair so dark that if it covered her eyes she was sure that it was night. She wasn’t tall by any of the modern standards, but she could easily reach the top shelf in any kitchen, but didn’t have to duck to get through doorways. She ate what she pleased, but should certainly never be considered heavy, as the amount of work she put into making her home sparkle kept her at a reasonably petit size. Bess lived in a reserved village in the lower missionary mountains called Prudence. In Prudence, all of the women did the cooking and cleaning, their full length dresses brushing the tops of their perfectly polished black patent leather shoes. The grey and black dresses looked elegantly simple next to the men’s grey shirt sleeves with their black suspenders clipped onto their black trousers. The villagers cherished simple traditions, such as communal meals, compulsory voting on all town issues, and church every Sunday. The sense of community was strong, and they intended it to stay that way. Whenever a lonely traveler wandered into the village, the entire population was there to help with whatever they could, be it a pot of food, shelter, or some spare clothes. The village had seen a steady rise in population, due to its strongly asserted belief that sex was solely for the purpose of procreation, and while there were no laws stating such, it was just the way things had always been and always should be. And most of the villagers didn’t dare push those boundaries.
Bess had always been a curious girl. The first person with a question, Bess often asked why the sky was blue, or why rain made a pounding sound on her roof instead of something more interesting. As she grew older she continued asking questions, but a sense of shame that is instilled in all churches kept her from asking them aloud. Why does wearing grey make you modest? Why can’t women work? Who decided that stroganoff tasted good? These were questions that she never got answered, and not wanting to upset the village elders, she kept them buried deep inside her. As she entered maturity, found a young man named Hal, and found herself married and trying to have children the questions got more personal. Why is trying to reproduce so boring? Why does it only feel kind of good? Why can Hal go inside me, but I can’t go inside him? She hoped and prayed that one day someone could answer these questions for her, but never imagined anyone would. Until one fateful day…
A new woman had come into the village from the far eastern town of Tantra. This newcomer had introduced herself as Virginia. Virginia would regale the townswomen with stories from back home, where all sorts of behaviors that would make your grandparents blush took place on a nightly basis. Bess found herself enthralled in every tale, and was amazed to have found someone who she was sure had answers to all of the questions that she had. One day, Bess found herself washing her clothing next to Virginia.
“Oh, Virginia! Do tell me more stories about your home!”
“You don’t want to hear those old stories anymore Bess, you have a great town here. Those vile, vile things they would do at home… oh sure they feel great, but you don’t have nearly the same connection to The Almighty as you do here.”
Bess wanted to shake Virginia by the shoulders and force her to tell all of her stories, but being a good Prudencite, she held back.
“Please! I have to know about… something.” Bess said, not sure of the right way to approach the subject she had on her mind. She immediately shot her gaze back to her laundry, and started scrubbing twice as hard, biting her lip and wondering why she couldn’t just know things instead of having to ask.
“What do you want to know about?” Virginia asked.
Please don’t make me say it… Bess though. After a few moments in silent, both women trying not to meet the eyes of the other for fear of having to be direct, Bess finally cracked.
“I want to know why you had such a good time trying to procreate in Tantra! I want to know why when I do it here, it is ever so dull. Is there anything I can do to make it more enjoyable?”
Virginia sat stunned for a good long time. She fought the smirk that started to pull the corners of her lips towards her ears, as memories of long nights wrapped around countless male suitors flashed through her blond little head. Virginia could tell Bess all of the best ways to make reproduction curl her toes, or how to hold back from screaming while in the act, but didn’t want to ruin the wide eyed and innocent girl. How Virginia longed to go back to the all night town gatherings, everyone naked as the day they were born, and huddled in a seething mass. Virginia’s green eyes started to glisten with the thought of never returning home, and before any tears could work their way out she reminded herself that she was living a better life now. But Bess was right. The way they would “do it” in Prudence was indeed boring for the woman. Lying on ones back for a few minutes was hardly an incentive to get bigger and bigger until the day that one would lie on ones back again, this time in mind numbing pain. Virginia carefully weighed the pros and cons of telling Bess her secrets, but then decided to do it anyway.
“I will tell you three secrets, and only three. If you use all of them, then you will understand why trying to reproduce is worth it. First, use your hand on yourself while it’s happening. Find a spot down there that feels good when you touch it, and keep on touching. Second, wrap your legs around him. This one is simple, but it will help, trust me. Finally…” Virginia looked around to see if anyone was watching them. There wasn’t. “Finally, stick this inside of him.” She removed a small black cone from her pocket. It was real thin on the top, but fattened as it approached the bottom before tapering off at the last second to its original size. It looked like a drain stopper for the sink, but bigger and longer. There was a circular base to it, and it could stand upright if set on something flat. Bess had no idea what the object would do, but after so much help for the first time, she didn’t care. She just wanted to go home and try it out.
“There is one thing I should tell you.” Virginia said. “You must be careful putting it inside of him, otherwise he will scream in pain, and you may never get another chance to use it. There is someone who can ensure that it will all go well, but it is a day’s journey from here.”
“Oh! I will go anywhere! Anywhere, as long as it makes procreation more fun!” Bess squealed.
“Very good. To the east there is a castle. Inside of this castle lives a matriarchal being called The Lube Faerie. She will help you. But know this, it is a treacherous journey. You must go over the Numbing Gel swamp, then through the Vibrator Forest, through the caves of Anal Bead Mountain, and then, only then can you find the Faerie’s castle. Be wary of the dangers along the way!” But before Virginia could explain the perils that lay ahead, Bess was gone, leaving her clothes by the water, stopping only to grab some food to eat on the way.

*******

Bess was eager to start her journey, and as she ran down the hills towards the east, she thought of the happiness this journey was sure to bring. Surely anyone from the town of Tantra would know how to make anything feel good, and as the feeling of pleasure already started welling up inside of her, she came to the edge of the Numbing Gel Swamp. It was a dark, wet stretch of land, and the smell made her nose tingle, and then she couldn’t smell at all. The trees that rose like obelisks out of the still waters seemed to erode before her wide brown eyes. Bess tested the water by throwing in a twig, and as it hit the water, it bubbled, then smoked, then evaporated right out of the swamp. This poses a problem, Bess thought. As she looked around for solutions, or at least to see if it was a small enough swamp to walk across, she spotted a rowboat. This boat was not a new vessel worthy of breaking champagne on, but its rotting hull seemed just sturdy enough to make one last journey across the water. Bess hoped that it didn’t belong to anyone, and when she approached it, she saw on the oars a message that had been carved a long time ago:
“Use this boat to cross the swamp, if it’s The Lube Faerie that you want.”
Bess was filled with confidence. She knew that this rickety boat would get her to the other side, and she would be able to keep going! She pushed and pushed, and after working up a sweat and ripping the bottom of her dress on another twig so that it now came up to the knee, she managed to get the old boat into the water. There was a horrible hissing sound and smoke started to rise from the bottom of her vessel, so Bess knew that she should move quickly. Jumping in the boat, Bess landed on the wooden seat with a thud and a splash. Her impact caused some of the swamp to leap out, diving straight at her hand like an eagle hunting its prey. When the swamp water hit Bess she let out a yelp. Her hand had gone numb!
“Oh! What shall I do? I can’t hold boat oars if one of my hands won’t move!”
Determined to find the faerie she had already set out so far to find, Bess bit her lip and thought quickly. Her boat was starting to dissolve, and she figured she only had a few minutes to cross the swamp before she was lost to its numbing waters. As she thought, one of the last branches of a tree fell down into the swamp. It fell straight in, only about 3 feet down, before standing rigidly upright. Bess knew how she could cross! She thrust the oar behind her all the way to the bottom, being careful not to splash her other hand. She then pushed as hard as she could, propelling herself forward. Every push seemed harder than the last, and when she felt she couldn’t push any farther, she noticed the hole that had formed in the boat.
“Oh no!” Bess said “Will I ever make it to the other side?!”
Just then, the boat stopped. She had reached dry land.

*******

The swamp had been dark and ominous, but not nearly as dark as the Vibrator Forest. The strange, brightly colored trees were so high that they blocked out the sun, their leafless, mushroom shaped tops seeming to stare down at Bess. There was an awful sound coming from every direction that sounded like a hive of angry bees. Bess wondered why there were some trees that were covered in bumps and why others were so smooth, but knew she would never get an answer as there didn’t seem to be another living soul around. Bess decided it was best to follow the path that was laid out before her. The path was just wide enough for her to walk down comfortably, without having to dodge the fallen trees that still kept buzzing. She walked for a long time, and each step reminded her of the snacks that she had brought with her. She wanted nothing more than to sit and eat, as she had been on the road for hours, but she felt like someone or something was watching her. And not just the trees. Bess couldn’t fight the feeling that she wasn’t alone in this desolate forest. So she kept on, and the path kept going straight. The forest was getting denser, and the little light there was had started to thin even more.
“Well I shouldn’t eat in the dark. That would just make me messy.” Bess said aloud, hoping someone would hear her sound reasoning, but also hoping there wasn’t anyone that was within ear shot. Certainly, if there was, they would have announced themselves by now, she thought. Settling on the fact that she was indeed along, Bess found a fallen tree and decided there was no place better for sitting and eating. As she walked up to it, she notices that it was shaking, the same with the rest of the trees.
“How dreadfully awful! That is no way for a log to behave! Even if it is a purple and oddly squishy log…” Bess sat down on the soft purple log anyway, as she was quite tired. As she sat down she found herself annoyed with the constant shaking. But the longer she sat there, eating her apple and roll of rye bread, she became more relaxed.
“This isn’t that bad…” she found herself thinking. After a few more minutes, she was quite pleased with the vibrations. She found herself wanting to feel them all over, and without thinking, she was face down on top of the log, each of her thin little legs on a different side. I feel fantastic, like something is building up inside of me, wanting to burst its way out, she would have said. But at that moment, the waves pulsing through her body, all she managed to say was “ohhhhhhhhhh.” This was a feeling that Bess had never had before. The spot of the log between her legs started to get moist, and Bess started rubbing her whole body up and down against the log. The intense feeling was like being in an ice bath next to a roaring fire, the conflicting extremes creating a tingling and happy medium. As her young heart started beating faster and she started gasping for breath, a sweat covering her brow from labor that seemed to come so easily, she was startled to hear a raspy voice in front of her.
“WHO DARES ENTER MY WOODS?!” said a voice that felt like hot coals in Bess’ ears. Bess sprang up from her resting place, panting and scared, but still feeling an odd sense of happiness. There was a woman standing in the path, wearing a skirt made of chains and no shirt. This green tinted woman had two more chains that attached to her breasts, and her long, sharp fingernails played with two metal clamps shaped like crows’ beaks.
“Who are you?” Bess stuttered as she asked.
“I am the Nipple Clamp Witch! Who are you, and why are you in my woods?!” the witch snarled back. Bess was terrified, but knew that she still had a journey to finish, and no horrifying witch was going to stop her.
“My name is Bess, and I am looking for The Lube Faerie.” Bess squeaked.
“The Lube Faerie? That old hag is my arch nemesis! Therefore you must be an enemy as well! I shall cast you in chains and hang you from the tallest of the trees!”
As The Nipple Clamp witch lunged forwards towards Bess, she tripped over the core of Bess’ apple. The metal crow’s beak snagged the top of Bess’ dress, tearing the neck and sleeves, leaving only the fabric around the chest intact. As the tops of Bess’ small breasts were exposed to fresh air outside of her own home for the first time, Bess found her feet tangled in the witches chains. As she started to run away from the witch she tripped, ripping the clamps off of the witch’s nipples. With a ding, the shiny metal slid across the ground, and the witch started to deflate. The hiss of the wind leaving the pruning body of the witch drowned out the buzzing of the trees, and soon it finished, once again leaving Bess alone in the woods.
“Well, I guess that’s that.” Bess said, looking at the greenish pile of skin on the ground, chains pointing every which way. “I should get going if I want to make it through Anal Bead Mountain before dark. But maybe I will sit for a while… I need to get my strength back after fighting that witch.” And she laid back down atop the log, this time staying there until she filled with forest with her own praise to God.

*******

The sun was bright as Bess exited the woods. She was still tired, despite resting on her log for much longer than she anticipated. She trudged across the fields, the ominous Anal Bead Mountain growing ever closer. The sun was in its slow decent, and if she didn’t navigate the treacherous caves quickly it would surely be dark before she found the castle. The village would be worried, and they would all find out that she was out searching for The Lube Faerie. That would cement her as an outcast, and she would have to go live among the wild hillbillies of the Tang clan. As she drifted off into thought, she approached the base of the mountain. The mouth of the cave stood before her, open and inviting, with strangely warm air blowing out of it. She quickened her pace, trying desperately to speed her journey along, but didn’t notice the rock shards that guarded the path. Catching the bottom of her dress on one of the shards, and scraping her leg, she let out a yelp as her dressed ripped up to her mid thigh, and before she had time to check if she was bleeding, she her the low rumble and quick pitter patter of an avalanche. Living in the Missionary Mountains, she was accustomed to how to survive in these conditions, but decided to brave it and ran into the cave that she didn’t quite know how to navigate. The falling round rocks closed the mouth of the cave behind her, and soon she stood in the dark, the warm, damp walls surrounding her. Unsure of where to go next, she decided to put a hand on the wall and started moving forward.
Bess kept groping her way down the cave for what seemed like an eternity. After what she assumed had been years in the dark, there was a point of light up ahead. She started moving faster and faster, the light becoming brighter and brighter. She finally reached the orange glow, finding a huge colony of small grey creatures with giant pointy ears.
“Goblins!” Bess tried not to yell. They were busy working, building houses, and farms, and catapults, because goblins love catapults. She knew that they had a short temper and hated outsiders, so she hid behind a rock, and tried to plan her next move. The goblins seemed to crawl everywhere. She grew steadily more nervous as she couldn’t see any way out of their lair.
“Maybe if I offer them something they will show me how to leave. I’m sure they can be reasoned with.” Bess said to herself, trying very hard to sound convincing. But she had nothing, except for her ripped dress. Even goblins don’t care for ripped things, and they are creatures that spend all day working on machines that will throw them into walls. They are terribly unintelligent, and hate reason. All of these facts left Bess in quite the bind. She started to wonder if she had been too brash in wanting to find The Lube Faerie. She started to worry that she would never see Hal again, and that the… THE BLACK THING! Suddenly she was filled with hope as she remembered the black object that sent her on the quest in the first place. The goblins might find it interesting, and be willing to trade for it, but she didn’t care. She would fight a thousand goblins if it meant being able to put that black plug inside of Hal. She readied herself to fight, but didn’t even stand up before noticing a wooden sign, scrawled in undercommon (the language of vile creatures such as goblins). She had learned a little undercommon from her grandfather, and made out that the shaky handwriting said “out” with an arrow pointing down a narrow, barely lit cave.
“Oh. How lucky!” Bess said as she walked straight down the cave, finding the exit in no time.

*******

The dank, dark cave stood in contrast with the beautiful landscape that now laid before young Bess. The brilliant sun danced across the sky, leaving trails of blue and purple and gold, a royal sky fit for, well, royalty. The green grass held pools of white viscous liquid, small semi-transparent rabbits drinking from them, and vibrating in tune with the far off forests. The center of her view was a tan castle, huge in comparison with anything from her small village. The castle had two large masses on the front, small red doors in the center of each. The other walls also seemed to have small entrances, some pink, some just darker tans, and some shaped like giant mouths. Bess had a tear come to her eye as she saw what she had traveled so far to get to. She started to run towards the castle, her exposed legs moving faster and faster until she was a tan and grey blur in the fields. When she arrived to the castle doors, she picked the mass closest to her, and flung open the door, not bothering with traditional manners, as she was too exhausted to care. When she entered she saw men, naked and ripped with muscles. They seemed to sparkle as if coming out of water at high noon. They gave her a friendly smile, and she felt her dress get moist between the legs once again. She asked loudly “Where do I find The Lube Faerie?!” and the men simply pointed down a long corridor.
Bess ran down the hall, before finally coming to a large door marked with a heart. She flew open the door, and was amazed at the beauty sitting before her. Not only was it the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, but she had striking green eyes; eyes that seemed too familiar.
“You made it Bess! I knew you would!” the Faerie exclaimed.
“How do you know my name?” Bess asked.
“It’s only been a few hours Bess, but you’ve been through a lot. And I do look a little different when I’m not wearing those dreadfully dull colors.”
“Virginia?” Bess asked, knowing the answer for the first time.
“Yes dear.” Virginia responded “I am indeed the Lube Faerie. I show up to small villages to find those in need of what I can provide, and then, after they prove their devotion to finding answers, I fill their needs.”
Bess was trying to figure out what all of this meant. She had trekked across such a vast distance, and was so very tired. She knew she had come to the right place, even though the fact that her fellow Pudencite was the one she was trying to find. Before the slew of questions that had come to her mind were able to come out of her mouth, Virginia spoke and interrupted her thoughts.
“Dear, I will answer your questions. I know you must be confused, and tired, but let me explain some things before I let you sleep. First, your village lives under the false pretense that God will only love you if you prove yourself with humility and reserve. This is not true. God loves you and wants you to be happy. She wants you to be happy, and to have physical happiness as well as mental. Second, all of the knowledge in the known world is in our library. We do indeed have answers to most of the questions that you ask, and it’s the answers that we don’t have that drive us to get more knowledge. Finally, sex, procreation, reproduction, “doing it”, all of this can be fun, it can be free, and it doesn’t have to end in 9 months of salmon cravings and a day of extreme pain.” Bess was swimming in a sea of extreme ecstasy with all of the answers she continued to get, but still wondered about Hal. He still lived in the boring town she left to find pleasure. She found it, but could she bring it back to him?
“You have a choice now, Bess” The Faerie said. “You can go back home, the Horny Pony, a relative to the unicorn, can fly you there in mere minutes. Or you can stay here, and enjoy your life without the boring colors. What will it be?”
Bess thought about it. She had a life back in Prudence. She grew up in the Missionaries, and loved them so. But The Faerie had a point, it was far more… interesting here in the castle. And Bess always hated the color grey. So in a flash Bess ripped off what was left of her dress, and yelled “Teach me more!” The Faerie closed her grand door with a wink to the men in the hallway and Bess never left the castle.

The End.