Saturday, October 31, 2009

1

It's one o'clock again. I hate one o'clock.

I wish I could leap into the ceiling and disappear.

I wish I could look down on myself, see that man sitting at that desk and realize I’m not him.

I wish I could poo-poo him for his cigarette packs and empty beer cans from up above.

I wish I could take a tractor and plow everything he’s been under the rug; let the world take him as a deduction and write the fucker off.

But, instead I’ll sit here and stare at my personal ad until six o’clock rolls around or the boss leaves or some woman comes along and makes my life happy for me…

Yes, I have a personal ad. I'm personally responsible for it and it's about
my person. Namely, me.
I hate one o'clock because there's so much day left, and yet you can't say
"I just came into work."
That's why I'm writing my personal ad.
On any given day, I will spend five of my nine hours at work on the
internet, two reading, one emailing and one working. I have no idea how I
get so much done.
But, back to my personal ad. I'm writing my slogan, or banner. Something
that will appear above my name and stats in pretty colors and bright lights.
I want to "Wow" any potential lovers. I want them to believe that I may be
the one true man out there. Something like a super hero. I want women to
believe that I am the final product of evolution. The final straw the tips
mankind into the superman.
I write "I own a HAM radio."
I have trouble taking this personal ad business seriously. I personally
don't like it. I don't like the type of people it attracts.
But, I'm lonely.
It's taken awhile to admit this; but, it's true.
I spend my evenings alternating between the TV, the IPOD, the laundry, the
dishes, the dinner, the shower, the counting of Marlboro miles for a free
dartboard, and various other small tasks (watering a dead aloe plant) that
make me believe that I'm working towards something.
In my mind I believe that this is all moving me closer to finding a woman,
finding spiritual salvation, creating some sort of art thing, and maybe
delivering me into God's warmth.
But, it's not. It's just shit to put in between where I am and when I will
die.
There's no hidden formula for life.
For instance, I used to think I would have bad luck for three years and good
luck for three years. Fat for three years and skinny for the other three
years. Dating for three years and...well, counting Marlboro miles for the
other three.
I worked this all out in my head as my boss was teaching us how create
S.M.A.R.T. goals for our department. A S.M.A.R.T. goal is a...well, if I
knew I wouldn't have worked out that three year cycle thing.
Well, it's nine months passed the day when I was supposed to all of a sudden
become thin, find the girl, get the job, and ascend higher on the ladder of
life.
No, I'm still fat, lonely, and staring at Date.com at one o'clock at my
shitty job.
So much for formulae."That voodoo you do is going to be the end of you. Ha ha. Ha. I love that one." It was hunched over the railing looking down on me. "Row, bot, row."

"I didn't know."

"Now, you do! Row, bot, row!" A cigar falls down on me and strikes wires that are, I guess, me.

I grew up finding new ways to hate myself, and I now know why. It's so refreshing to find that you're just a program or whatever. Just a bunch of wires someone made. No more blame. Row, bot, row.

He begins coming down the stairs towards me and I know he's going to kill me and I don't care. There's no heaven or hell to worry about. The only thing I worry about was just who was real and who was fake? Were my parents –

'Looks like you broke a leg." He's just feet away. "I broke a leg once. Couldn't repair me. Not like you. You can be repaired." It dawns on me that I could live forever and the high of finally being annihilated with no worries comes crashing down.

"Is this it?" I ask. "There's no copies or – "

"Buddy, you're not dead yet. Worry about copies when you're dead." The paradox gleams across his face. "I'm not planning on killing you." He's now standing above me, looking down.

"Why'd you throw me from the balcony?"

"To show you. To show you you're a robot."

"Thank you."

His head drops behind his shoulders and a laughter echoes off the stairwell. "Now, we begin."

"What?" For the first time I'm scared. What the hell does he want me to begin with him? Slavery? Sex slavery? My mind reels, the man I'm looking at looks capable of anything.

As my mind races through possible scenarios that look grimmer and grimmer he winks and says "We're gonna find God."

I can only reply "Why?"

"Payback."

"For what?"

As his eyes light up red, I realize that I never got a good look at them under that Buster Brown cap and scruff. "Um, are you a robot, too?"

"No, robots eyes don't light up in case you ever noticed."

"Then, what are you?"

"An angel."

I nod. Five hours ago I was eating a Big Mac, now I'm a robot and I'm talking to a man who claims to be an angel.

"Not the good kind." Strike that, a man who claims to be a demon.

"I'm trying my best to take this all in."

"I'm sure you are."

"What about your broken leg? Demons can't be fixed? I thought you were immortal?"

"My legs will always be broken as long as I can't fly."

"Your wings?"

"Gone. Demons can only fly in hell and on Earth and neither make much of a difference."

"What could I possibly do to help you?"

"You're His children's child. The first one."

"All this time and I – how could I not know I was a robot? Doctor's appointments? Scraped knees?"

"See that blood? See those bones? You're nervous system is the only thing robotic, including your brain."

"The wires?"
"You fell on a computer."

I look around and confirm the worst: I have a human body, although I'm a robot, and my human body is paralyzed. To confirm "I'm paralyzed, then?"

"Not for long. I can help out."

"What? For my soul?"

His eyes flare red. "No. You don't have a soul. That's why I need you."

No soul? For years I never had rhythm, but now to have it positively confirmed! I'm getting hazy. I realize I feel really, really out of it. This isn't real. I'm really dead. I really fell, this man is crazy and I'm dying here on top of a computer in the basement of my work. I'm fucking dying.

"You're not dying."

"I'm not dying." I'm not saying this, I'm thinking with the demon.

"Then???" He crouches down to lift me and



"You awake?"

"What?"

"You awake?"

"Sure." My eyes focus and I'm in a shitty apartment. It's all city-trash in here. Like something out of a movie. Some shitty movie about shitty apartments that hobos live in.

"So, you like it?"

"What?"

And now, in my mind: "The apartment, fuckface."

"Oh, right. I forgot, I'm a robot and you can read my mind."

"Perfectly."

I realize I'm not paralyzed anymore as I scratch my nose.

"That's right. Fixed you good."

"How?"

"Voodoo."

"Magic beads?"

"No, Voodoo is a program."

"Right."

"I wrote it." That makes sense.

"You're gonna have to get used to the telekinesis."

"SHIT FUCKER ASS ENTRAILS"

Enough, let me help. How? Can you feel that? Feel what? How we're speaking? You – yeah. Yeah I can. Can't tell where I end and you begin, huh? No. That's because you're me. I'm what? You're a part of me. A part of you? I look down and realize – you realize that you're a big, fat bummish guy in his fifties who's a fucking demon. Jesus Christ. Not here, pal. The mirror! Look-see for yourself. I'm you. I told you. This is fucking disgusting. That's right. I'm all fucking fat. And old. This

"Over here." I, we look. He's gone from inside my...his head, but there's a large jackal with red eyes on the floor. "Remember Berkowitz?"

Jesus, talking dogs. Wait! He's that. He's not me! I look back into the mirror, but I'm still him.

"Confused?"

"Very."

"I loaded you up into that body I was carrying around. I killed the owner earlier. No one remembers a bum."

"No one remembers a robot."

"No, everyone remembers a robot. That's why you have to hide your body." It motions towards the kitchen and I – my body is laying on the shitty linoleum floor of the shitty apartment. This should be jarring, but it's not.

"How did you load a robot brain into a human body?"

"Voodoo."

"The program?"

"Correct. It's not tough, as long as you have an able body."

"So, you possessed the hobo?"

"You are in possession of the hobo, I'm in possession of this jackal."

"Where's the hobo?"

The jackal turns around and his face pops out between his back legs "In hell!" The tongue wags out comically.

"Why?"

"Buddy, everyone goes to hell after they die."

"What about the Pope?"

"You bet."

"Then who's in heaven?"

"The Angels and God. Well, the other Angels."

"Then...Jesus, what's the point?"

"There is none. The Devil created mankind. The Devil isn't at all what you think. God is not at all what you think."

"Um...so, where's Jesus?"

"In hell."

"Buddha?"

"Hell."

"Mohammed?"

"Hell."

"Vishnu? Zeus? Captain Kirk?"

"Hell. Hell. Hell."

"Captain Kirk isn't even real."

"Everything is real...in hell."

"So, robots – where do they go?"

"Hell."

"Wait – is hell a bad place? Would I like it?"

"That's the question! Hell is a wonderful place, and yes, you would like it."

I sit down on a threadworm sofa and it kicks up a back draft of musk. The demon is out of my mind...or appears to be. He's pacing back and forth as we talk.

"Is this a trick?"

"Nope. Hell is nirvana."

"Then what's heaven?"

"Fucking awful. Heaven is what you would think of as hell, well, before I told you –"

"Circles."

"Right."

"Then, why do you want to find God? And if the Devil made mankind, wouldn't that make the Devil God?"

"I want to find God so that we can take back his throne. The Devil is not God. God still is in total control of the Universe and everything."

"But...then, wouldn't everything be a lot worse?"

"Have you been having a good time these past 30 years?"

"You said I was His children's child – wouldn't that make humans his children?"

"Nope, humans are the Devil's."

"Then, who made me?"

"Angels."

"I'M A FUCKING ROBOT!!! A ROBOT IS A MAN-MADE DEVICE!!!"

"Correct. A robot is. Men made your exterior, but your thoughts and motives and –"

"My soul?"

"You don't have a soul. You have bits and pieces of angels."

"I'm an angel?"

"Not exactly."

Ford

The feckless youth

What the fuck does “feckless” mean?

Gerald Ford came to me in a dream last night and explained that the mining of Mercury has already begun.

Yes, the closest neighbor to the sun is being mined for crack cocaine and reality TV shows.

Did you really think such things as Jessica Simpson and “The Real World” were home grown? Did you think that deep in our ancestry there were thoughts of taping Krok telling Jang to go umf herself?

No, we are a good people and we have good roots: Jesus, Buddha, Homer Simpson, etc…

“Listen, Matt, there are great things on this Earth; there have always been great things on this Earth, but for greed. Dear, sweet Zeus, the greed is what has dampened the Earth with foul stenches of rotten toe cheese! The greed that sent you to your computer at 4 AM in a porn craze! The greed that shot you from you lazy boy to the fridge in search of more things to put cheese on! Damnit, Matt, it’s the greed.”

Gerald was sweating, and I offered him a solid gold napkin to soak up his brow.

“This is exactly it! Solid gold does not absorb sweat! You don’t send people to work in oil vacuums when you can razz them in! You don’t order a whiskey sour with dinner when people can only afford alcohol and McDonalds because water and tomatoes are too damn expensive!”

I shot the napkin back into my drawer of them, and returned to my lazy boy.

“I stand in front of your TV to teach you a lesson, and the lesson is you would only be listening to me if I were in the way of this box of electricity that generates thought-maggots into your mind! When was the last time you were bored?”

I told Gerald that I was bored all day.

“No! Bored enough to do something other than masturbate and smoke cigarettes!”

Gerald was coming on to a point. I told him I couldn’t remember. Then it struck me, and I told Gerald, the last time I was bored was when I rewrote The Wall from an African American perspective. My highlight was the song We Don’t Need No Gentrification.

“You see, the only way to be productive is to fall away from greed! You need to close your eyes to it! This TV! This…good lord, why do you have nine kinds of beer?”

“To live a little.”

“GODDAMNIT!”

Gerald was now tearing up as he screamed at me. “Do you enjoy…this?” Gerald turned on the TV and my favorite woman (as of late, embarrassingly enough), Tara Reid was taking hookah shots of Pinesol and mentholated Schnapps out of P. Diddy’s ass.

“Um, well, Tera has a hot voice…”

“Your sloth and greed has turned your penis into a sun dial! Yes, you only see the bright lights and big cities; the atomic bombs for the sleeping koalas. You are at a lost as an ambassador of hydrogen fused. I am without words.”

“Gerald, cheer up, I started recycling today.”

“It’s no use. When you die, no matter how godawful you are, you enter paradise. In paradise, the first thing they do is purge you of your sins. It’s a sickening endeavor, and you come out on the other side a better man. But, you’ll always remember the puke and bile that seeps out; you wear it in your thoughts like an albatross and maybe that pain is a gift. Yes, a gift that you cling to as a reminder of just where you came from and a thermometer of just how far you can go.

But, this…this nothingness of Nancy Grace and White Russians – there’s no pain, there’s just…nothing.”

“Are they really mining reality shows on Mercury?”

“They are mining hell on Mercury. Their ambassador is Karl Rove. Their Minister of Foreign affairs is Aaron Brown.”

“Good God! Aaron Brown? He’s a scum bucket!”

“Do you see?”

“I think I do.”

“Matthew, walk with me and know the life that has been gifted to you.”

“Just let me finish this beer.”





Pleace,

Merald

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Pink Slip

So, I have this dumb leak.
I call and tell them to let me know if they're gonna have to rip the ceiling out, because I have a vacation day and I don't want to be there.
They don't call me back.
I call.
"Did they leave a pink slip in the apartment explaining what they did?"
"I'm not at home, I had told them that -"
"Well, the maintenance team will leave a pink slip in the apartment explaining what needs to be done." (I lived there two years, I know this from 50 pink slips or so)
"I understand that. However, I asked when I called that someone call me and let me know if they are going to have to -"
"The pink slip will tell you that. Just when you get home call us and let us know if there is no pink slip."
"But, I'm just wondering if the maintenance team had told you whether they were going -"
"They will fill out two pink slips. One for you and one for us. If you don't get a pink slip then -"
"No, I know. I'm just - I asked if someone would call me and let me know if they are gonna rip out the ceiling because I wanted to take a vacation day tomo -"
"It will be on the pink slip. When you get home, call us and let us know if you have the pink slip."
"No, it's just - nevermind. I'll just look at the pink slip."
"OK. Let us know if you don't get a pink slip."
"OK."
"Where are you going?"
"Huh - oh, no I'm taking a vacation day and I'm gonna be at home that's why I wanted to know if they are ripping out the ceiling - "
"Pink slip!"
"Pink slip."

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Time I Got Three Write Ups in One Recess

The Time I Got Three Write Ups in One Recess

It all started with me and my friends recruiting potential gang members for our club – the Scorpions.
It was second grade and we were at recess.
This overweight kid wanted to join our club, so I gave him the running test.
He didn't pass.
I explained to him that it was because he was too fat.
He immediately went and told the playground teacher, so I went and hid behind a stump.
Then the recess teacher blew her whistle for me, but I was all hunkered down behind a stump, so I didn't hear it.
Then I panicked and went back into the school to hide.
I got write ups for calling the kid fat, ignoring a whistle, and going back into the school during recess.
So, I can tell you about life on the street.

Sometimes I Lie

Like this one time I decided to buy cologne. I told the lady behind the counter it was for a gift. But it wasn't. I was totally going to use that cologne. And I did. I also used all the samples of cologne they gave me. And then I hung out and started asking questions like "What kind of occasions should my friend wear his cologne to" or "Is it gay to wear cologne to a football game."
Eventually they asked me to leave. So you can see why lying is not the best policy. At least not if you're gonna stick around and spray people with cologne in Macy's.

BACK ORDER:

1. Displays whether back orders are allowed. A "Y" indicates that back orders are allowed. An "N" indicates that back orders are not allowed. An "L" will print "NO" on the purchase order, but the system will allow more than one receiving on the purchase order until the purchase order is completed.
2. When a vendor makes multiple shipments for one purchase order.
3. The part of an order that the vendor has not filled on time and that will be shipped as soon as the goods in question are received, manufactured, or procured.


I Carry Cinnamon Around

It's true.
There are so many times in our lives when we could be using cinnamon, but we don't. Like the other day I had a cup of coffee and I thought "Damn, this could use some cinnamon."
So, now I carry it around with me.
Some people call it cocaine – I call it cinnamon.

This One Snow Day

This one day it was supposed to snow the following day. So, my buddy decided to crash at my place because he didn't want to have to drive to work from Kent the next day.
Well, as the day wore on the more ominous the snow sounded. It went from one inch to like five inches.
That's a lot of snow.
So, he came over and we went to the bar and I got drunk figuring they'd cancel work.
I kept toasting to the snow.
After ten beers we called it a night.
Then we woke up and there was no snow and I had to call in sick.

I Saw A Peeping Tom

Thing is, he was Hispanic, so it may be more like…? Peeping Tom, but you over pronounce the name? I don't know.
Anyway, I was walking outside in my complex and he was looking up at the trees with binoculars. But then I realized that the trees he was looking at really were an apartment building. Then I realized a hot chick lived there.
Then I felt bad that I wasn't helping him in someway.

Promotion

I recently was promoted. This was really unexpected.
I was just sitting around and the next thing you knew – promotion!
Wow. But now I have to figure out what to do with all my promotion winnings.
I've blown a lot of it on the casino and lotto tickets and beer, but I think I can do a lot in the way of buying more bad food.
That's not to say I haven't grown up. Since I was promoted, I took the time to start doing things like folding my clothes and taking showers.
I can't say that I'm a different person, but I will say I have, like, one more taco a day.

warn

Coupled with a vicious sense of vengeance “ Drop the Monkey project!” Why? “Because if Monkeys won’t do me a favor, I’m not doing them one.” But, it’s the CEO’s sweetheart project, you sure you don’t want an hour to think about this? “No – JUST DO IT!”

Megan and Jonathan are the other two I work with.

Megan is like me, but she’s quiet about it. She depends on me to call Sally and Big Red on things. Which, considering I don’t do a helluva lot around here, I take it in stride.

Jonathan is worse than me when it comes to working, but his charm and good looks get him by.

Barring all of them, it could be George that’s tapping me on my shoulder.

George is from the Flying Monkey department. He’s a dick. Out of everyone I’ve ever worked with at Dynacorp, he’s the only one who resemble the mean boss you see on TV.

He’s so mean, let me put it this way: he’s not even my boss and yet he’s mean to me.

I work on various usecases for his department and he’s more than happy to come by and tell me what I’m doing wrong and what hasn’t been done. If it weren’t for George, I might actually not even ever have to work while I’m here.

I decide its George from the Flying Monkey department.

I turn.

BINGO!

I'm correct. It's George.

"Denim?"

I look at him blank faced. I'm purposely looking as dumb as possible. I don't want George to think that I could possibly answer his question. "Huh?" I ask.

"Denim, how is the usecase for the T9 going? I just wanted to touch base and see if you had had a chance to meet with Melatonin in Armory?"

"Melatonin...." It takes me this long to figure out who he's talking about.

BINGO!

"Yeah, I talked to her last week." I realize I was supposed to get in touch with her two days ago, but forgot because I shot up in the bathroom that day...and yesterday...and today. I reflexively continue "I told her I'd get with her today and I've just been really swamped."

My screen saver turns off as my Poker Bonanza pops up with a reminder that it’s a new deal. George looks at it and I look at it and then I pick up the phone and ask for Melatonin's phone number.

"4545." And he walks away. He walks away in a way that tells me my manager will be notified about the poker bonanza.

I decide to hate him. I go back into my catalogues of crimes against Denim Lee by George and find that George has made me work a full 8-hour day twice, has gotten me written up for wearing a Corona T-shirt to work, and is friends with Jim Taylor.

Jim Taylor works in Genocide and is an even bigger prick. I don't even have to think about hating Jim; it just comes naturally. George, on the other hand, has some good quarks about him: his wife has cancer, his four-year-old is a deaf mute, and he’s bald.

Jim, on the other hand, is young, rich, is married to a woman who looks like Marla Aniston, and can speak fluent French, German, and Greek.

Another difference is that George is just mad. George is mad about his family, he’s mad about his head, and he’s mad that he’s mad all the time. George is the type that will come into work, find that they gave him Splenda instead of sugar in his coffee and decide that everyone deserves to die that day.

I can relate to George.

war

This site is really, really demonic.
If you know what's good for you, stay away. In fact, just by looking at this site you probably will go hunt human blood directly after reading it.
It's true.
Oh, plus, another Christian has threatened me.
It really amazes me why Christ didn't bomb more people and "kick (more) ass" in his time, according to what a good portion of his believers adhere to.
So, please, do me a favor and stay out of this site. There's a good chance that reading random notes and stories could probably lead to suicide, abortion, homosexuality, or drugs.
In fact, anyone who can understand any of the words I write is probably on drugs and contemplating suicide: I have this effect on people.
Oh, plus, remember that it's not OK to burn a flag, but to put organic thoughts onto an electronic bulletin board is probably evil. Because, see, a three color flag is as complex as we should delve into symbols that create ideas. Once you get 25 letters and start rearranging them on a page - then you're delving into satan territory.
I was also told to broaden my mind, in (my guess) to save my soul. Could someone tell me how broadening my mind means I should stop thinking about things that are distressing? Should I have stopped my mind at President Reagan eating jelly beans and those wholesome, but irrepressible, Chipmunks?
If this woman believed in broadening her mind, she'd be down in the deep below, as well as the great up above. Her God seemed to believe this was important (Christ in the wilderness).
But, I guess I'm just doing this because I'm demonic.
Well, there's that possibility.
Just like that possibility that I might actually get laid this weekend.
But, hey, the comments are here for your enjoyment. And, I will take my friend's (from the below post) with a grain of salt.
Now that that grain of salt is burning acid holes in my stomach, I will say just this:
WORSHIP ME, YOUR DARK OVERLORD! FORSAKE YOUR CHRIST FOR MY DARK MAGIC THAT I WEILD LIKE A CHAINSAW! GIVE IN TO MY ALL POWERFUL BLOG!!!!
Good Christ! People are generally stupid.
Lates,
More book drafts to come.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Demons

His hand falls back down to his side and he gets his composure like nothing happened. "Denim?" He asks smugly.

"Yes?"

"Didn't I ask you to speak with Melatonin in armory, hmm?"

"Yes. Yes, you did. But, see, something happened along the way. Something happened and I can't remember it, but I'm pretty sure I was attacked by something. You say it's a monkey – that's fine. But –"

"Monkeys. You know what the monkeys are for, Denim?" He's looking at his fist again, like he's proud of what he did to it. It's black and blue and bloody all over, like some shitty kid's riddle.

"George, I have a feeling I've been waiting my whole life to find out what the monkeys are for."

"Really?" He looks up at me. George is a bald man, and as he looks up the light from the fluorescents hit his bald head and there's this glare that makes his face look like an apparition from the dead, glowing with angelic power. "The monkeys are for the armies, Denim."

"Yeah, I get that. I know that we make things for warfare, but why monkeys? And who are we at war with? Who is trying to attack Mercury?"

"The armies of the night." He's not listening to me.

"What armies of the night?"

"What's worse than knowing that you have cancer, Denim." He's acting really smug now, like the bad guy in a movie, right before his goons come out from behind some sliding black door.

"I'm not sure. What's is worse than knowing that you have cancer?"
"Not knowing." He lays it out there and then, quickly, "Not knowing you have cancer is worse. Not knowing if some lump is going to end your days. Not knowing whether your boss is meeting with you to fire you or talk about the next mon-key pro-ject." He's talking in sing-song now, so I realize I'm either going to die or kill him here.

"What does that have to do with the monkeys?"

"Denim, Denim, Denim." I'm three years old again.

"Yes?"

"Denim, the monkeys are here for confusion." He's back at looking at his fist now. But, there's something odd about it. It's hanging, as if broken, but it's hanging pointing up, like he's got rigor mortis.

"Well, I'm confused."

"And you should be. We've been trying to confuse you, but you-just-don't-learn!" He twists the fist around and pulls while grimacing hard. A long, metal rod comes out of his arm along with the fist.

George has a weapon now.

I jump off the table and run to the door. I open it and run out, slamming it behind me.

I'm down the hall, near...I have no idea where I am. There's cubicles all over, with people busily working on monkeys or interplanetary confusion, or whatever they do here. I don't know anymore. I look back and George is nowhere.
People are coming out of cubes, looking at me funny. I realize George is the only one who can explain why I'm there. Rather than having to explain myself, I opt to find the homicidal mad thing that brought me here.

I walk back to the conference room and peer in the windows.

George is impaled on his arm thing, laid out on the conference table.

His head is facing me and I realize that

Goonies

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Monday, October 26, 2009

This Guy is Eight Ball

"Well, I'm confused." Of course I am, I'm talking to a loony. This guy is eight ball. It's always people like George. It's not the quite ones. It's the one's that yell and scream and kick and bitch and everyone excepts it. Then, one day they decide that kicking and yelling just doesn't release the anger efficiently, and they decide to smear fecal matter on their faces and come into work with Samurai swords yelling about how their wife burned the Wonder bread that morning and how the government is planning to steal their homes.

"And you should be. We've been trying to confuse you, but you-just-don't-learn!" He twists the fist around and pulls while grimacing hard. A long, metal rod comes out of his arm along with the fist. Blood and some sort of umbilicus come with it and it's messy, not like in the movies when...what? Robots lose a limb? I mean, George must be a robot. No one has long swords stuck in their arms.

I jump off the table and run to the door. I open it and run out, slamming it behind me.

I'm down the hall, near...I have no idea where I am. There are cubicles all over, with people busily working on monkeys or interplanetary confusion, or whatever they do here. I don't know anymore. For the life of me, I can't figure out what all these people are doing. There's one with a headset on talking about grapefruit to someone, there's another reading email with binoculars, and another that appears to putting a pair of panties over her head and...sniffing? Was it always like this? Was all of this going on in this other wing? Are they sniffing panties in my wing? Is this why I can shoot junk and get drunk at work and not get questioned? Everyone knows, why haven't I been fired? I'll tell you why – there's a guy in a cube that's pink lighting his computer on fire and his manager is helping him by putting print outs on it to stoke the fire.

Everyone is nuts.

I look back and George is nowhere.
People are coming out of cubes, looking at me funny, like I have just awoken the Oompa Loompas. I realize George is the only one who can explain why I'm there. Rather than having to explain myself, I opt to find the homicidal mad thing that brought me here.

I walk back to the conference room and peer in the windows.

George is impaled on his arm thing, laid out on the conference table.

His head is facing me and I realize that

"Are you awake?" It's Sally. I'm in a conference room or doctor's office or Burger King. I'm tired of trying to figure this all out.

"What is happening to me!" I realize I'm losing it, like George.

Sally smiles down at me and pushes back her feathered blonde hair. She's 50ish and thinks she's 18. I once saw her on a weekend at Costco without her makeup and she looked like a ghoul.

Now, makeup'd to the gills and looking 42, rather than 68, she's almost resembles someone who might be nice to me.

I sober up and keep my eyes on the prize: I'm getting the fuck away from her.

I push her away, she goes down on her back. I look around and the doctor's office is pretty much a butcher's back room.

There's meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, what looks like three different types of industrial bone saws, and several sinks stained with blood and rust.

The floor is metal, the sinks are metal, the ceiling and walls are metal, everything is metal done up in rust.

It's like a horror movie, except for the doctor, who's leaning on a sink looking terrified in my direction.

Dynamonkey

I really don't have a clue. Where the hell do I live? I'm sitting there making fun of Jonathan about being out of his head and now I can't even remember where I live.

I light a cigarette and walk down towards the water. I want to be away from the party, I don't want someone seeing me roaming around aimlessly like a stoned-out kook.

K, let's think. I lived at Ma's, then I moved in with Jim in Renton. I can't live in either place, I don't have a car. Wait.

I check my pockets and find no car keys.

I either got a ride, taxi'd, or walked.

None of this helps me out.

"Ah ha!" I say out loud and get my wallet out.

I don't have a wallet. Or, my wallet is gone. Why am I not dressed up? Wasn't it a Halloween party?

Shit, people are coming.

What the fuck? Those aren't people. What the fuck is that?

Two black shapes are approaching me. There's like these glowing orbs above and to the right of each of them. They look human, but are all black, like as in no features, just black bodies with outlines around limbs and heads.

I can't fucking move. I sit down, hard onto a chair



Part Four: Heaven



And I'm on Mars.

I don't live on Earth anymore. I'm up in space, on Mars.

The Walmarts, invasion, and games of Solitaire come back to me like the ecstasy rush that may or may not have brought me here.

The black apparitions were for real and are standing in front of me. I realize I'm used to them now.

They're around eight feet tall. Close up, there is still no definition to them, they're just human in form only, the rest is void. They're like black holes personified. Their orbs are now alternating between green and red to the right of each of them.

They could be guarding me.

I'm in a perfectly white room. There's no definition to the room, much like the sentinels but white. I couldn't tell if the room is only a few feet or a few hundred miles.

I cast no shadow.

Surprisingly, I'm wearing the bellbottoms from Earth, and not the purple jumpsuit from Dynacorp.

"Do you talk?" That's the most I can manage and the sound that comes out of me barely forms words.

The Sentinels don't reply. Instead, the orbs glow brighter and turn yellow, then fade to black.

I stare at a landscape made up of two uniform colors now. The orbs don't appear to be spinning, like they did when they had color.

Abruptly, they light up again in red and voices come out of the orbs in unison, as if broadcast through some shitty HAM radio "You have been found."

Something else is coming through with their communication. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s not them. It’s like some TV static lost out in space, that keeps bleating on and on. It’s so self important. I lose myself and feel sorry for the speakers that are dead and gone.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Bored

I decide to let him figure out on his own that he's already fixed the problem. I don't want to explain my to-do list to him.

"We did this last week. See. It works fine."

"Oh, crud. I'm sorry, I totally forgot. Crap. Um..." I try to think of something I can give him. "I'm such an idiot. Uh...here." I take out my wallet and give him a Tower card for 15 dollars that I've never used.

"That's OK. Just be sure and check the problem before you call. And, by the way, I don’t need any hand outs, thank you." I realize he’s black and I’m white and that by trying to give him something comes off as racist. I think it’s because he thinks everyone who is white wants to either really hurt him, or really be condescending to him. I know this because...shit, I’ve got to meet that Melatonin chick. He gives me a look that says I'm another piece of shit he has to wipe off his day and turns to leave.

As he walks away, I put the Tower card back in my wallet and get a giddy feeling of having gotten away without having to give him my 15 Tower dollars. I think I do this to escape the incredible embarrassment of having brought him up here to fix the fixed problem and for what he took as some form of condescension.

The monitor flipped to black and I notice that my "Wazzzzzzz Up" screensaver turned on and I feel embarrassed all over again. I want to go back under the desk.



_2



I keep thinking about how I have nothing to think about.

Work is work, and after work there's TV, beer, and food. That's as far as my mind can take me.

A tap on my shoulder. I wait and think in my head who it is before I turn around. It's like a game.

It could be Big Red. Big Red is the woman who lives in a trailer who works for my department, Usecase. She’s pushing three bills and enjoys wearing jackets that have religious passages stitched into them. She says that each passage represents a time in her life when the Good Lord tested her. She has a shock of red hair that would scare the strongest sailor out of his wits, should he see it in morn’.

It seems petty to rip a person apart about their physical appearance. That is, until you find out she’s a total bitch. The woman proofreads documents that she finds in the trash to find errors she can call you on. The woman will tell the boss when you’ve left early. The woman will promote herself by making statements like this one, to no one in particular, “Oh, dear, it looks like I’m going to have to put in another ten hour day.”

Whether she puts in the ten hour day or not is not the focus here, the focus here is she makes sure everyone knows how wonderful she is by talking to herself, out loud. In most societies, this would seem like a form of dementia, but in the confines of cube town, it’s seen as:

“Oh, Barbara, just go home! I mean it this time.” That’s my boss, and she doesn’t mean it. She’s playing along with the kiss ass, overachieving cunt – but, I’ve gone too far.

My boss is another piece of trailer trash, but she has money. She worked from the poverty of Walmart, to the riches of Dynacorp. That would be commendable, if she didn’t remind everyone of it with such remarks as “Well, I guess you wouldn’t understand what it’s like putting a ten hour day in, when you started so high up in the company.”

That’s for me having the gall to go to college and get an English degree instead of working at Arby’s during my earlier years.

Chat

Out front I look around for my car, then realize I don't have a car.

How the fuck did I get here?

Shit, where do I live?

I really don't have a clue. Where the hell do I live? I'm sitting there making fun of Jonathan about being out of his head and now I can't even remember where I live.

I light a cigarette and walk down towards the water. I want to be away from the party, I don't want someone seeing me roaming around aimlessly like a stoned-out kook.

K, let's think. I lived at Ma's, then I moved in with Jim in Renton. I can't live in either place, I don't have a car. Wait.

I check my pockets and find no car keys.

I either got a ride, taxi'd, or walked.

None of this helps me out.

"Ah ha!" I say out loud and get my wallet out.

I don't have a wallet. Or, my wallet is gone. Why am I not dressed up? Wasn't it a Halloween party?

Shit, people are coming.

What the fuck? Those aren't people. What the fuck is that?

Two black shapes are approaching me. There's like these glowing orbs above and to the right of each of them. They look human, but are all black, like as in no features, just black bodies with outlines around limbs and heads.

I can't fucking move. I sit down, hard onto a chair



Part Four: Heaven



And I'm on Mars.

I don't live on Earth anymore. I'm up in space, on Mars.

The Walmarts, invasion, and games of Solitaire come back to me like the ecstasy rush that may or may not have brought me here.

The black apparitions were for real and are standing in front of me. I realize I'm used to them now.

They're around eight feet tall. Close up, there is still no definition to them, they're just human in form only, the rest is void. They're like black holes personified. Their orbs are now alternating between green and red to the right of each of them.

They could be guarding me.

I'm in a perfectly white room. There's no definition to the room, much like the sentinels but white. I couldn't tell if the room is only a few feet or a few hundred miles.

I cast no shadow.

Surprisingly, I'm wearing the bellbottoms from Earth, and not the purple jumpsuit from Dynacorp.

"Do you talk?" That's the most I can manage and the sound that comes out of me barely forms words.

The Sentinels don't reply. Instead, the orbs glow brighter and turn yellow, then fade to black.

I stare at a landscape made up of two uniform colors now. The orbs don't appear to be spinning, like they did when they had color.

Abruptly, they light up again in red and voices come out of the orbs in unison, as if broadcast through some shitty HAM radio "You have been found."

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Wash Your Hands

Melatonin, eyes so soft and felt so deep in the heart. Handheld, portable blisters sear the skin. I keep thinking about how your skin smells like the sea, and how you feel against me. My dear, Melatonin, you beautiful degenerate, you’ve ruined me, my dear suffragette. I keep gazing into celluloid eyes, thinking that you’ll wink to my surprise. You are so form fitting, electrical bulb in ivory talons. I run around circles in my head, trying to make you out from them. There is no near printer that can realize the beauty this general glance begins, I’ve paid weightless hours to feel you bend. I’m stuck inside what was the two of us. I’m slowly leaking my glands all over the memory of you. I’m stuck in seahorse heaven, having carried your weight from here to the end of this song that’s caught in my head. I’m trying to figure you for a demon, to make it all right. Deep inside, I still feel warm touches, familiar glances, and orders to take garbage out. I’m forever yours and will never forget you. You’ve locked me in the steely walls that make better men homosexuals. I can’t wait to be turned down again. I enjoy your hatred and pity. I’ll once be one inside of what you fooled me into making. I am half a man, in my man-sized saccharine for what you may perform on me. All bets are off, as you can see. You’ve strung me up on a tree, you’ve made me out to be dead ruffles on quantum collapse. I miss you and your abuse. I wish I could have been of something other than use. We’ll wake up one morning and decide that we’re so separate and equal and we’ll walk away to strange lands where we run like buffalo into steel maw traps and blame each other for eating one another’s feet. I’m so strange now, I don’t even know me. I don’t even know you. But, you tell me it’s OK and we keep walking this lonely desert road in the middle of Chicago. The city lights turn you on, but you know I don’t like crowds. We fall wasted into an empty and vacant lot and hold hands as you catch bruises from my criticism. We marry in a trash can and breed children the like of apes. We name them after a fall moon and decide that we’ll seek peace in the Lord and the God Our Father. I find work in a factory that makes 7-11’s. We read Hesse and tell each other that when I’m inside of you we are one. Then we slink away to different corners of the bed and land on ugly tacks that someone left from hanging posters of “Let Freedom Reign.” Soon, the dinner parties kick in an I can’t take it anymore. I decide to walk out on you for a cigarette and a cheeseburger out on the outskirts of what we used to call home. But, still the children cry for more DVDs, Playstations, and chicken that’s shaped like Pterodactyls. I envy this sick, fat fuck that once watched the Daily Show while sniffing lines off the pack of cigarettes he just smoked and is trying to figure out what CDs to sell for more beer and burritos. One night, the children are off at some turnstile that we call in-laws and we fuck like rabid beavers because we hate each other. Our bodies slam into each other like planets spiraling into black holes and you ask me if I still love you. Of course I do. I love you and this mess we made, gift wrapped and sent to our former selves as a warning of what we might become. You laugh, then realize that no one closed the gate and I realize that there’s no way I’m walking out there in this weather. You decide to go on your own and the gate gets closed on this bloody corpse of a life with a sound of the Minivan taking off for some lover named Travis. I sit alone and watch TV until I can’t peel my eyes open for another sickening look at a Ronco product. You call a month later and decide that the kids are best left with you, and that for this marriage we must undo. We struggle sickly for the next several months and you leave your lover and I leave the TV. We meet each other in an ugly pine box called marriage court and something is said and something is done and we can never be caught dead as one. A month later, I call to telephone the kids and find that no one wants to see me. I look in the mirror and realize you’re still not there. I walk to the edge of the phone book for help, but everyone has wrote me off. I contemplate pesticide, but decide it’s unaffordable. I’m look at life through the butt end of a burrito and realize that everything I wanted is now down around my neck. Getting fatter, unable to form sentences I retreat into the Lazy Boy and become some Archie Bunked caldron of hatred. I start voting Republican and complaining about the teenagers and their music. Stuffed and fat on porno and nacho bell grandes I die all lousy on the sofa with some shitty beer in my hand.

Happily ever after.

XXOO

To the Very Man I Just Gave Juice To

Wash your hands
Big baby'd nut jobs we are still hiring. We found the circular up in the air amongst the trees.
Wash you hands
Good Jesus, I've just ran the car into a parking lot full of 9 year olds. I don't know what to do? Please, strike me down with the quickest, cheapest lightning.
Wash you hands
There's an older woman I'm in love with and she doesn't not notice me in the elevator and she comments on the smell of the freshly fried chicken I bring home. I'm so in love with her an her lipsticked face that I wish to push to ugly limits in my filthy housing equivelant up against a river in the ugly barrios that line Mannhattan.
Wash your hands
Oh my Zeus! I just closed the microwave on what would have one day been the Messiah. He smelled like a hotpocket, looked like a hotpocket, and spoke like a deaf-mute. We are at a joining point my friends, the one where the end of the world is eliminated by the bad taste of dull man in the middle of the night, where the rats run free and write poems about the joy of hamburgers.
Wash your hands
And that iron clad man that keeps barking orders that I don't understand. I try to explain the logic of working an 8 hour day and going home to a beer, but he won't listen. It seems that he wants more of the minions and so I prove indefinitly that I will work for as long as it takes to go home.
Wash your hands
I'm feeling funny, and I blame it on the large pieces of acrylic paintings I've swallowed. They seemed like a good meal until I realize they were painted in Peru. There's no reason to be a poor sport, so I told the waste in the toilet that I had better things to do. I would find a way to make Crisco into gold and resolve some politcal problem in Brazil that I don't know about. I would go about town and assassinate the migrent workers, because I'm so full of my self. It's like stuffing, that ego, and I've proved that I can work for all the tea in Lebanon.
Wash your hands
Where's a fucking bar when you need it? The fucking Mid East is lit up like a thousand flocks of flying, burning doves all racing towards some evil oil disaster in the sands of some sucked up countryside. There's this raining thought of chant that spells burning sand down on me and my brothers and we don't even care about what happens. Get me out of here! Send this translation up into France and down into Spain and up into the U.K. and tell my folks I'm OK. Good Christ, another sweep of the arm and I'm flying across a Exxon station in Syria. My body is forming my words in bursts. Here's a hand for my trouble, here's a leg for what I can sell to FOX, and here's my brain all over the windsheild telling those that come this way "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"
Wash your hands
There's a poker game and a porno movie ruling this galaxy. They stay safe under the unnatural arm of Evanglical Christians that tote blood the size of the moon. The more guns and Jenna Jamesom tapes you buy, the more you drop Chuck E Cheese tokens into the empty mind moon disc that is the Christian plate. Let's make a pact that we'll only watch porno on Tuesdays, gamble on Thursdays, and pray to the heavenly father only when a Friday is accompanied by a blue moon. There's no other way.
Wash your hands
And for you, oh druggy - the booze is over. No, lock yourself behind twelve doors that no one enters and find salvation in the doorknob you call a God. Take that doorknob out into the world and define the cult that is the recovering. And, make sure that we're aware that you no longer live life like it was a sink hole. Now, we can accept you as another polluted heart, instead of liver. We love you.
Wash your hands
And to the big bosses, the teachers, police, politicians, and edges of sliver nickels, I say this: watch the folds of your uniforms, because what shit they've collected you better understand that you must respond. Send the children into tiny rooms to learn about what it's like to be a criminal, send the guilty to gas chambers to feel like what it's like to be a politician, and send the masses to hell to learn what it's like to lead with dick so limp that every sun in the solar system couldn't keep it up with all the hydrogen in the universe. I hope you choke.
Wash your hands
I hope we all choke
Wash your hands
Choke on the ashes of what never was a nation. Choke on what was never a world. Choke on the fact that who you are and where you came from, this is it. This is the best we can do. And choke on the fact that we're still being tricked into thinking that there's a right way for everyone and that there's a wrong way that will be exploited for greed, and that there's humanity's way which will never see the day of light.
Wash your hands
Here is humanity: open your mouth and scream the idea you hate the most. Then, work to make sure that that idea never comes about. Keep up your search, find the evil in your soul and exploit it for all it's worth. With enough people, we might be able to put away our fingers and start working on ourselves.
Wash your hands
And make sure you sell your idea to a network, so that you can send the word via reality show. Because, we all know that whatever you think or do isn't important unless millions of people see it.
Wash your hands
God is gay, burn the flag
Wash your hands

Pleace,
Ronald Bush

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

My First Abortion

Working Title



By: Robert Eckert



Book One: The Reality



_1



"Did you hear what happened?" I work in a small closet that they some how fit cubes in, no one miss me entering. I suspect the goon they hired a year ago finally went nuts and punched someone in the face.

"No, what?" I see CNN up on Dave's computer. I realize, before they say anything that it has nothing to do with work.

As Dave says "They attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." I think about the faces I saw on the way up from parking. This guy, Blaze, who's always smiles and sunshine looked like someone shit in his mouth that morning. Kristen drove herself in this morning and so I had the tape deck instead of NPR.

"Who?" My first thought was Russia for some reason. On the heels of that, I remembered we haven't been in the cold war for ten years.

"Terrorists or something. Nobody knows." I walk to Dave's computer and there's a shot of a tower smoking.

"Holy fuck." I can't believe it, I mean, everyone's so calm. Don't they know that we could be next? How far reaching is this? I mean, Seattle's done for, what about Issaquah? Would they attack a giant wholesaler? It is a corporation?!

Nah, that's crazy thinking. I'm safe. Safe at my desk.

I put my bag down and turn the computer on and use Kristen's signon to get onto the internet.

I punch in CNN.COM. I realize that this is the first time I've looked at the news online.

I've never been that interested. Kristen would always get a paper, and if I was bored enough I'd check the front page and the last time I did that was when they were talking about those Buddhist shrines that were blown to bits in Afghanistan and how some Islamic regime was responsible. And, I remember them naming the group as being behind those attacks on the that Navy ship or something and several other things.

I realize then who the enemy probably is.

It begins to seek in. Not since the turning of the year 2000 have I thought about terrorism. Everyone was so sure they'd blow up New York that night, and they tried.

But, now? What the hell? It's September 11th. What's the significance?

How does this effect me? Does this have anything to do with that weird trip to White Center? Was that some sort of sign of this?

CNN comes up and I look at the time it happened. Crap, what was I doing then? I was getting up. Did I have any dreams last night about towers or bombs? What? It's airplanes?

"They flew an airplane into the tower?"

"Yeah, and into the Pentagon."

"Good lord." I look for a death toll and ask "How many are dead?"

"Don't know."

I realize I need to share this moment with my girlfriend. I call her. "Dude, are you seeing this?"

"Yes. It's awful."

Monday, October 19, 2009

Robopaul

Let me tell you the story of robopaul5000. robopaul5000 was so advanced and, like, smarter than humans that he need not capitalize his name. robopaul5000 was constructed by Dutch engineers in the year 5050, but was sent back in time to...you guessed it - to get food.
But, unlike that one dude with the cheeseburgers, robopaul5000 was sent back in time to find Taco Bell. robopaul was instructed by the Lord Rameus to find "those burritoes with ground beef, bean, veggies, and potatoes." In the times of 5050, potatoes no longer exist and the food of choice is normally cheese sandwiches. So, you can see how a burrito with potatoes would sound pretty good, huh?
So, robopaul5000 was sent to the year 2005, but instead of finding a Taco Bell he found himself in a small African village and of course they were not advanced enough to build tacos with potatoes in them.
So, robopaul5000 befriended a young boy named Earl (yes, Earl. I know it's Africa but it's possible that Earl's parents wanted a weird name) and Earl helped robopaul5000 journey to an airport, some five countries away.
On the way, robopaul5000 remembered that he could travel through space as well as time. He remembered this when Earl really got annoying with all the stupid questions about robopaul5000's laser cannons and stuff.
So, robopaul5000 travelled to America where he found, like, 9000 Taco Bells and bought out all the burritoes, shrunk them to the size of atoms and then returned to the year 5050.
Lord Rameus was so pleased with robopaul5000's work that he knighted him and robopaul5000 will never forget his adventure and his lovable friend, Earl.
Oh, and Earl managed to find his way back to his village, but died of dysentary in the year 2009.
See how I turned the story sad using only one sentence? Wasn't that awesome. I bet you cried.

Specialist

You, see, Estella, you’re retarded and in your mind anything that is white is racist by nature. Now, maybe that’s a valid point. Look at me – I don’t like you because you’re retarded. But, then again, retards aren’t a race. So, I guess I’m just hateful. Either way, a robot is

Just thinking about it confuses me. It’s almost as though explaining it, even in my mind, makes me retarded.

I’m not sure I can remember my telephone number now.

Coupled with a vicious sense of vengeance “ Drop the Monkey project!”

Why?

“Because if Monkeys won’t do me a favor, I’m not doing them one.”

But, it’s the CEO’s sweetheart project, you sure you don’t want an hour to think about this?

“No – JUST DO IT!”

Megan and Jonathan are the other two I work with.

Megan is like me, but she’s quiet about it. She depends on me to call Sally and Big Red on things. Which, considering I don’t do a helluva lot around here, I take it in stride.

Jonathan is worse than me when it comes to working, but his charm and good looks get him by.

Barring all of them, it could be George that’s tapping me on my shoulder.

George is from the Flying Monkey department. He’s a dick. Out of everyone I’ve ever worked with at Dynacorp, he’s the only one who resembles the mean boss you see on TV.

He’s so mean; let me put it this way: he’s not even my boss and yet he yells at me.

I work on various usecases for his department and he’s more than happy to come by and tell me what I’m doing wrong and what hasn’t been done. If it weren’t for George, I might actually not even ever have to work while I’m here.

I decide its George from the Flying Monkey department.

I turn.

BINGO!

I'm correct. It's George.

"Denim?"

I look at him blank faced. I'm purposely looking as dumb as possible. I don't want George to think that I could possibly answer his question. "Huh?" I ask.

"Denim, how is the usecase for the T9 going? I just wanted to touch base and see if you had had a chance to meet with Melatonin in Armory?"

"Melatonin...." It takes me this long to figure out who he's talking about.

BINGO!

"Yeah, I talked to her last week." I realize I was supposed to get in touch with her two days ago, but forgot because I shot up in the bathroom that day...and yesterday...and today. I reflexively continue "I told her I'd get with her today and I've just been really swamped."

My screen saver turns off as my Poker Bonanza pops up with a reminder that it’s a new deal. George looks at it and I look at it and then I pick up the phone and ask for Melatonin's phone number.

"4545." And he walks away. He walks away in a way that tells me my manager will be notified about the poker bonanza.

I decide to hate him. I go back into my catalogues of crimes against Denim Lee by George and find that George has made me work a full 8-hour day twice, has gotten me written up for wearing a Corona T-shirt to work, and is friends with Jim Taylor.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

A Chapter

It's the company's privacy, not yours. Why would you care? I mean, we make...monkeys? Ballistic missiles? Squirrels? What the hell does our company make, really? I mean, I never really thought about the big picture – what are my clear and concise instruction booklets instructing people to do? I mean, I get a "Operate Roving Bands of Monkeys" assignment, but what are the monkeys for? To kill what? They must kill something if I have to cross reference my docs with armory. Are we an evil company? Or are we peace keepers.

I always get poor marks on my reviews for "Sees the big picture." I never really cared, I mean, as long as I can go home at the end of the day with enough money to buy some beer or a gram or a hotpocket.

But, even as I try to fathom what roving monkeys and Planetary Annihilation departments might do, my tunnel vision comes back as I realize I have to distract the service technician as I take down my multiple games of Solitaire.

"Uh, could you grab me that chair?" I'm climbing out from under my desk, and trying to take an error of authority as I plan a strategic window take down.

I think in my head – I have no Word programs or Monkey Interface protocols up, that's step two.

Step one is taking down the three games of Solitaire, the window with my blog in it, the CNN home page, and the Party Poker page that's probably bleating purple and green because my AMEX is now maxed.

"I don't need a chair." The service technician is all business, and all he has to do is bump the desk and my "All Work and No Play..." screen saver pixelates out into the furthest reaches of cyberville and "Nine Hundred Thousand Dead in Martian Tsunami" appears, along with the notification that I've managed to blow 123, 485 dollars in the first two hours of my work day.

"Yes, but I like to put my feet up."

"You put your feet up? How do you fit the other chair under the desk?"

"Look, could you just –" He grabs the chair and with fingers of fury I close

CNN

Party Poker

Solitaire 1

Solitaire 2

"Huh, good game of solitaire?"

FUCK!

"Yeah, it was up from my break."

"You get in at six?"

"Yes." I lie.

"Sure. Let's just do this. Can you take clean up your, huh..workspace and logoff?"

"Sure." I'm embarrassed and I shouldn't be. Like no one fucks off at work. In fact, I just read a CNN poll that stated 9 out of 10 Dynacorp personnel fuck off for at least two hours a day. And, it's been almost two hours since I've been here, so maybe my workday starts at 10 and goes on to five in breakneck power working.

"K, you wanna go read a book or something? This might take several minutes."

"Sure. Wait. Why are you reconfiguring the computer again?" I try not to sound paranoid.

"What? Everyone's getting reconfigured."

"Yeah, but what exactly does the reconfiguring do? How does it benefit me?"

"Well, it probably won't help your Solitaire game."

"Cute. Look, if you could just explain it, maybe I'd appreciate the service a little more."

Lament

Now, I'm just wondering when you're going to go after people who drink and the obese?

I would like to volunteer my services to help you eradicate the other vices in our country that are totally none of my business.

Also, I would like your organization to join with me and ban the use of cars (exhaust is a carcinogen), perfume (same thing), cell phones (same thing), and any other abuse I term an abuse and disagree with.

Shall we send jackboots to march on Hostess factories because of their relation to childhood obesity and diabetes?

Bring back prohibition to dwindle the increasing number of drunks?

What else can we send our police force out to fight while crack heads rob and murder in the night?

You're Nazi degenerates and when they lay the long arm of the law down on you for whatever you get pleasure off, I'll vote for it.

Robert Eckert

Saturday, October 17, 2009

It's All Right

"Do you?"

She pulls her head into her shoulders and out again. "Dunno."

"All over a game of Risk."

She laughs. "So, how come you didn't bring anyone?"

"Dunno, I'm sure if I could travel parallel universes, I'd find someone like you, but, for now..."

She laughs again and in a perfect world she wouldn't be going out with Jonathan and I'd be taking her home.

But, fuck it, she's a stoner anyway.

"Hmmm." Jonathan steps out of a bathroom in front of us and looks at me suspiciously.
"What's up, Denim?"

"Nothing. Just talking interdimensional with your girlfriend."

"Fuck you."

Kristen puts her arm around him and drunkenly says "Come on, let's go home." In fact, I didn't realize she was wasted until he came out of the can. I must be pretty high.

"Hey, see you guys around." I walk out the front door and don't hear whatever they say after I leave.

Out front I look around for my car, then realize I don't have a car.

How the fuck did I get here?

Shit, where do I live?

I really don't have a clue. Where the hell do I live? I'm sitting there making fun of Jonathan about being out of his head and now I can't even remember where I live.

I light a cigarette and walk down towards the water. I want to be away from the party, I don't want someone seeing me roaming around aimlessly like a stoned-out kook.

K, let's think. I lived at Ma's, then I moved in with Jim in Renton. I can't live in either place, I don't have a car. Wait.

I check my pockets and find no car keys.

I either got a ride, taxi'd, or walked.

None of this helps me out.

"Ah ha!" I say out loud and get my wallet out.

I don't have a wallet. Or, my wallet is gone. Why am I not dressed up? Wasn't it a Halloween party?

Shit, people are coming.

What the fuck? Those aren't people. What the fuck is that?

Two black shapes are approaching me. There's like these glowing orbs above and to the right of each of them. They look human, but are all black, like as in no features, just black bodies with outlines around limbs and heads.

I can't fucking move. I sit down, hard onto a chair



Part Four: Heaven



And I'm on Mars.

I don't live on Earth anymore. I'm up in space, on Mars.

The Walmarts, invasion, and games of Solitaire come back to me like the ecstasy rush that may or may not have brought me here.

The black apparitions were for real and are standing in front of me. I realize I'm used to them now.

Taste So Bad

They're around eight feet tall. Close up, there is still no definition to them, they're just human in form only, the rest is void. They're like black holes personified. Their orbs are now alternating between green and red to the right of each of them.

They could be guarding me.

I'm in a perfectly white room. There's no definition to the room, much like the sentinels but white. I couldn't tell if the room is only a few feet or a few hundred miles.

I cast no shadow.

Surprisingly, I'm wearing the bellbottoms from Earth, and not the purple jumpsuit from Dynacorp.

"Do you talk?" That's the most I can manage and the sound that comes out of me barely forms words.

The Sentinels don't reply. Instead, the orbs glow brighter and turn yellow, then fade to black.

I stare at a landscape made up of two uniform colors now. The orbs don't appear to be spinning, like they did when they had color.

Abruptly, they light up again in red and voices come out of the orbs in unison, as if broadcast through some shitty HAM radio "You have been found."

Something else is coming through with their communication. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s not them. It’s like some TV static lost out in space, that keeps bleating on and on. It’s so self important. I lose myself and feel sorry for the speakers that are dead and gone.

As to the statement by the Guardians, I don't know what to say. "Found?"

Again, the orbs go black and I begin to feel stupid in the dead silence.
They light up red again and "You were lost. We have found you. You are safe."

"Safe from what? Is this Mars?"

The orbs go black and then immediately light up red and the vocals come out in better quality, as if whoever is speaking is closer to the cell tower "You are not on Mars. You have not been captured by Martians. You do not work at Dynacorp.

Make it stop! We are we are we and we can’t fix what we can’t see. We are. When will.

You are now outside of space." With every syllable I can smell ozone and hear lightning crackle.

"How can –" Outside of space? What does that mean? You have everything, then what’s left? Nothing? I’m nowhere? I’ve been nowhere all my life. Are they trying to drive an ironic point home?

"We are guardians sent to fix a problem caused by (static). You are no longer lost.

That's kind of an elitist question, but I’d have to say that nine out of ten times I’m perfectly straight. (Laughs) I even enjoy old Elton John. I like Nine Inch Nails a lot. This one time we were with Trent and we shot this incredible speedball that…It’s so awesome being a star. I mean really. When you think about the babes and stuff. Shit, the blow alone is worth it. I get tired of interviews where I have to be someone different. You know, pretend like I just got over all 12 steps. Fuck that. The real reason any of us are out here is pussy, money, and drugs. Home? A home? No, there’s no reason for a home. Shit, I think a star just exploded.

.

We have found you."

Are they talking in poems? I never liked poetry unless there was a guitar and drum behind it.

They go black again and I decide this is my turn to speak. "But, what happened? Where am I from? Dynacorp or Earth? Earth, right? I remember Earth. What are you guarding me from?"

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Bada Lounge

Fever spreads like butter all around the world.
Can you feel it?
Please be advised that the night watchman are looking for those of you who feel it's necessary to praise your gods tonight. Oh, sweet ecstasy! My belly warms with the unforgiving hate that we're going to let fall down on the dirt that covers your souls.
Can you feel it?
Heat in your heart?
Saddness in your breast?
Civil war?
Social unrest?
Can you feel it?
Tell your daddy that we've just dispatched your family to where fever floats; the red and black shadows that swarm the Earth like....uuuummmmmm......locusts. I love the party life....oh, my Christ, we are finally getting there.
Can you feel it?
Corruption of the fiber?
Universe up inside itself?
Where do all the lives go?
Want to believe in hell?
Can you feel it?
I feel your evil like radiation all over my soul. I'm so spent with your pent up anxiety and your need to run fish hooks into yourself. I liked you better when you were on my lap. I feel your needs and they expell everything I wish I could have told you about where I am; where I was going. It feels...it feels like a lizard just ran his tongue across my wrists like a razor. I can see God now.
Can you feel it?
It runs like water through your head?
Spiders climbing out of your chest?
Pin points of acne turn skin into body?
I want you to feel what this feels like?
Can you feel it?
I spent my life in a locker. I watched the trees fold into me and turn my thoughts into small, shiny arachnids. Anarachnids. When this was funny, I was just thinking about what the words all meant when put together. Now, the total exposure to the fury of this fever has fallen upon my and now the words just come like shapes the size of boxing gloves. I really wish you were here to understand what flesh crawling on the ground feels like.
Can you feel it?
Sinking ship?
Shopping for a new sleeve?
Sweet Jesus, do you live here?
I'd give you, baby Christ, to leave.
Can you feel it?

Bada

Chain link mouths nip at rotting flesh hanging on hooks. There's a zombie sound up the hall and I feel that my time here has just begun. Time to run fish hooks into the ground. I have this Mustang and it does 20 to 40. Paris Hilton dropped by with some ugly beads. Baubles and trinkets litter the floor. We're so full of crack we can't take it anymore.
Drum beats hump my couch and I dispense the rest of the bottle down my throat. It feels like spiders crawling down my throat. I want you to put your tongue deep inside me and down my throat. There's a vacation from all this, and it starts at the turnpike and into the freeway's throat.
Feathers and numbers fall from the shaman's skirt. He's up to the gills and absinthe and ugly mushrooms that make the world look like William Burrough's stool.
I want to tell you about the Sweathouse. It's adorned in maplewood and wormwood. It's the size of Montana, but without the open space. Our souls leave our bodies, leaving no trace. The sunken flesh sits and reeks in the alcohol and begs to be distinguished. We set the whole barn on fire and run to the next job.
There's nine cities you'll have to visit before you die. Eight of them will kill you. Visit beautiful Cairo and have your sense of pleasure tempered by wolves. Send your children to New York to be prosituted by a thick pimp with the hair of a brillo pad. Take a taxi to Toledo and buy Oxycontin from a waif in a mini skirt. There's six more to go.
I can't help but feel that whatever is under my skin is now all over you.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Stations

Running a train up into this flower bulb. They were falling from the sky last night. So beautiful in the night's sky; just falling bulbs that you catch with one outretched hand. Standing in the thick black road in front of the mailboxes. Armored nightplanes hanging on wood. Stumpy jack of red hanging on the side as a messenger to the mailman who hides bodies in his back lawn. Green as the bottom of a flower, green with innocense sapped only by the great Redwoods that violate it in the night. As black as the bottom of Satan's heart, pimpled with light as long as this galaxy. Spiral round the neighborhood of Alpha Centari and Galaga and Mrs. Pacman. Consule up right and standing true. In defense of the universe, you have this to take account for: sawdust floors, lots of yellow, and women on rollerskates.
It's Saturday!
Let's rollerskate! Jockeys run wheeled shoes around frig...er...frozen hormones. Plenty of dope, and nine out of ten will be alcoholics by the end of their twenties. Those were the days. Sell a pack or two to some...so high up in the air. Heir? Hare? Hair. Air. The RIA is coming to electricute me for downloading the National Anthem.
Oh say can you see!
Of the dawn's bright dead lights?
That Shroud of Turin that we tacked to our lives!
Oh, land and liberty
Peace and chastity
We'll kill for another knife
For the backs that we rode on
And the atoms we cracked on
So free and surreal
So full of mass appeal
You're sure to ixnay on the uclear-uh-nay
Uh
Uh
Uh
Hoe down!
Can you shake with me?
Can you feel me?
Uh, uh, uh, uh
When you insert the zippermatic into your ear, you'll know just why we're zipperiffic!
Uh, uh, uh, uh
And expressed deep regret over the tragedy, but promises more
Obese woman! What can you do to make sure that you don't become one
National test score explain a different story
Nine out of ten believe that
God is the Devil, the Devil is God
Nine men shot and gutted inside
Works just like the politics in this country
Aim, fire, and hope to God someone other than yourself
Will get one when they come on down Saturday for free beef month
I really believe that there is one true ketchup and that this might be the one. I was searching my whole life for just the one ketchup that would make my life complete. Sure, some have hobbies, sports, women and drugs and stuff like that. But, I took it upon myself to taste the varying degrees of a bottle of ketchup and figure out which one makes me feel the sweet tang of tomato

INTERMISSION

Ummmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnuhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmuhuhmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Corn Chin

What to fool time with this time? There was a crack at the door and the enormous grasshopper entered.

"And I am the fool who chose to make contact with you." He said.

He stood 7'2 and was wearing a large brown trench coat. A large nemesis to say the least. His green exoskeleton was patched in places with silver mesh, like batter for rat holes.

"What do I owe this pleasure?" I was grim, it was late and I was drunk.

The door lay in splinters behind him and he back up into the mess making more cracking noises. He must have jumped at full speed to make it through the oak.

"We require your person, at once, to the great hole in the universe."

"The prison?" I asked.

He nodded and looked around the room. He found a couch to crouch on and took a vial out of his pocket and opened it. He held it out to me in one of the pincers at the end of his front, right leg. "Want some?"

I shook my head and said "No."

He then put the vial up to his ear and I could hear music very quietly being emptied into his head. He sighed and crouched into himself in some state of orgasmic bliss.

He breathed deeply and the lids of his great red eyes closed and he whistled loudly. "You're under arrest by order of the King."

"What king?" I gasped. The idea that there was now a ruling body in the universe shook my entire being.

"Whatever one you choose." He scratched at the holes in his face that could be used for scent.

"What are my choices?"

"Well," he hesitated. "You know there's a wide spectrum, but I'd wager it's the Empty, the Full, and the Half. I can't really say which is going to be easier on you."

"But, it's prison, right?"

"Yes. No execution for you." His eyes opened and the lids barely cleared the eyeball. He was stoned on some transmission from another dimension. You can tell the force of that kind of high. You don't return from it. The grasshopper had better have a good supply of the stuff or it's curtains for the bastard.

"If I put up a fight?" It wasn't even worth asking. The bastard could be on his last leg of his insect body and still rip me in two before I made the door.

"You know you wouldn't do it. You lost most of your gas when you decided to hide down here."

"I've been writing about you all. The secret will be out down here after I leave. Bargain?"

"No bargain. This planet is to be the food of the King."

"Which one?"

"Take your pick."

"I choose Half."

"I knew you would. I'd let you go if it were up to me. I like the cut of your jib."

"And I yours. What about more of the sound? A hit or two from a pure string?"

"Lies. No one has pure strings."

"What if I told you I found a way to extract them myself?"

"Lies. No one but the Kings can extract strings. But, boy, my mother would I love to get my hands on that. Cleans you up and sends you to places that are unnamed even out there." He gestured up. His head was glowing green. "Oh, so lonesome for the pain. If I could just feel the pain again I'd be happy to go."

"Where would you go?"

"Heaven…hell? It doesn't matter. I just want to hold on for some pain."

"They have pain here."

"Not real pain."

"No, that stuff is on its way with the King."

"Yeah, when the King comes down these people will wish for hell."

"And they'll get it. But, in the meantime, you can hide out down here with me. I don't want to go back to the hole."

"You'll just escape again."

"Do grasshoppers have names?"
"I do. I'm Terry." He spoke like a child of nine now. The transmission was so deep in his blood that he was taking on human characteristics he's never learned.

"You're changing."

"How did you?"

"You'll feel pain."

"I can feel my mind changing. It's wrapping around the darkness. Am I becoming?" A long tongue lolled out of his mouth and he spread a red drool over himself. Tears the color of blood fell from his half closed eyes. "Ecstasy."

"I figured it out down here. It's so much harder to think without any real pain. So, I found a way to get around the thoughts that were involved in extracting pure string."

"Rapture." He bellowed.

"And then I realized that by becoming my environment I could become multiple things and act like the strings themselves."

"The shortest distance between two points is to be two points."

"Exactly."

"Are you me?"

"I am you."

"One."

Screams from down the hall and crashing muffled by the interior of the building. I got up and retrieved myself from the grasshopper and all of the universe.

Simultaneously, two grasshoppers crashed through the walls surrounding us. I hit the floor and fled into carpet fibers.

The last thing I heard was the loud crunching of the grasshoppers devouring their buddy Terry.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Human Fish

An American Dream



I'm driving on the freeway when I decide to take my hands off the wheel. The car begins moving into the other lanes and I try to grab at the wheel before I drift into another car. But, it's no use, not really the arms hanging off my torso don’t work. The car begins spinning and I close my eyes and try to summon the strength to grab the wheel. It's no use. The car spins faster and I realize I'm dreaming. I wake up in a car dealership and a salesperson whispers to me "Free bacon with the purchase of every tenth Honda or Acura." "What kind of bacon?" I ask. "Smoked." He says and presses his hand into mine. I give it a pump and the hand turns into a hose and I'm watering a Japanese garden. A Geisha woman riding a bike smacks into a cement wall and falls into a mess with the bike. I can't tell her limbs from the flesh colored spokes of the bike. Is that her head or the seat? I sit down hard into what becomes theater seating. Chewbacca is seated in a red arm chair next to a woman in a chaise lounge. She's explaining that she was beaten by her grocery clerk and that she's never recovered and dreams of dying by syphilis. Chewbacca grunts his understanding and then barks wildly. She seems to understand whatever he is saying and I realize I do too. He's giving her some form of Nancy Reagan tough love. Her skin begins to crackle and I realize she's burning up from the inside out. Chewbacca takes the flaming husk and throws it into the audience. Small packets of flame land on my lap and I begin burning up. Just before the flames can reach my torso a fireman puts me out and he assures me "We'll save you. No money down." I'm in a bank and the teller is telling me that she's told everyone the same thing she's telling me: "You cannot cash that check without an account." I offer a small fee and she opens her mouth to reveal fangs. My eyes magnify them and they are ivory tusks spiraled with barbed wire. Further in, her throat is a moat surrounding the Pentagon. Boats float around what is now some dormitory for demons. I can see them walking the halls and giggling at each other. They're all blue. Everything is blue. The Pentagon falls away like chalk dust and I'm in a dentist's chair. He puts a plate of brie and crackers before me and barks "It puts me in a bad mood!" He's old enough to be my sister. He's rubbing his head and his look of worry makes me worry. "What's wrong with the dentist's office?" I ask him. He just rubs his head and starts making a high pitched noise from closed lips. Paris Hilton walks in and a nurse follows her, throwing bacon like roses behind her. She's smiling like only she can, but there's something wrong with her. She looks lost, like she's not supposed to be in this dentist's office. There's bacon everywhere. The dentist shouts at her "Go away!" And she replies "I can't. I'm under contract." The nurse smiles at me and then reveals the fangs from before. Paris trips up on her high heels and her leg shatters, taking the rest of her body down into the bacon. Her final words are "I'm helpless. Help me." I reach towards her and the brie and crackers fall to the floor. The nurse looks at me and hisses "Now it's a meal." The hiss turns into the sound of air escaping from a balloon. It's in George Bush's mouth. He's taking hits off the balloon to make his voice sound wacky. "2000 dead bodies was our last count." He starts laughing and pulls out a novelty hat with an arrow through it. He puts it on and walks bow legged away from me, comically exclaiming "Fool me once and I'll fucking kill you!" He sounds like a cross between a child and Moe. I look around and I'm in the middle of a path. Bush is walking away from me towards a large lighthouse in the distance. Red light is coming from it and when the light flashes out of view the tower emits a shriek like an ambulance. There's an emergency somewhere. It's gonna be alright though, because I have a 401K plan. I'm looking at it now and I may be the richest man in the world. According to T. Rowe Price I own 900 Bolivians, 1298 Ethiopians, and several hundred hillbillies in the backwaters of the Appalachians. I'm blessed. I look at how much my soul is worth and find a crying baby icon. I don't know what this means, but when I check the index, I find that against my net worth it doesn't matter. The drop downs on the site start dropping red pellets down into my share holdings. I start firing my account information into the red blobs and they explode on the screen. Each time I hit one, my net worth goes up by 300 homeless people. If I can get to the next level, I have a chance at displacing a large forest and the last tribe of true humans. I'm in it to win it. I keep firing and the baby keeps crying harder. I ascend to the next level and the main boss is Arnold Schwarzenegger's hairdresser. He's trying to kill me with flamboyancy. And he's doing a good job. Just as I'm about to give in, I reach for a rum and coke and begin discussing the war with this young soldier in a fire fight. He seems annoyed that I have the nerve to interrogate him as he's trying to lay down some cover fire for his platoon, or whatever. I don't really care, seeing as I'm drunk and he's the only one to talk to. "How many do you think you could kill if you were the size of King Kong?" I ask him. He mutters something about me being a jackass and I'm hit in the shoulder by a bullet. I look at the wound and there's all these very small contestants from American Idol escaping my shoulder and repelling down my arm. "Where are you guys going?" They reply "Solid gold fame, where else?" I gasp "God bless you." The soldier begins blowing flames out of his mouth and with no surprise to me, he becomes a dragon and flies out toward the Iraqis, Germans, or whoever it is he's fighting. When one of the American Idols tells me it's Eskimos, I'm not surprised. Suddenly, I get this dread, like I'm going to die. So, I start grabbing the American Idol contestants in handfuls and shoving them back into my shoulder. I feel like a brand new man. And I am. I'm a center for a basketball team and it's my life long goal to play for the Knicks. And I do. And I'm awesome and I get all this money and these models and these cars and I'm just a baby crying.

If You Want It

Chuck Norris is not a Joke



It has come to my attention that many of you are sending me links and emails about Chuck Norris and all the great things he can do (i.e.; Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer, too bad he's never cried).

Well, jokes over gang: Chuck Norris committed suicide last night around eightish.

That's right. Suicide.

I guess your little emails about bench-pressing all fifty states aren't quite as funny anymore, huh?



"Chuck Norris was found dead yesterday in his Santa Monica home. Police officials believe it to be a suicide, but are still investigating. Mr. Norris is survived by his wife Claudia and son…"



You guessed it: Me.



I never mentioned it; I'm no glory whore.

Yes, I am Chuck Norris' son and my father is dead because you people treated him like a joke.

The man who brought ancient Chinese secrets to the West and defended Texas from the Trojan army is now lying in a morgue with a laundry cord around his neck.

Why? Well, it's no secret that my father had an extreme drinking problem. And, when I say extreme I mean it in the most extreme sense.

My father liked the sauce.

But, he liked other things too – like autoerotic asphyxiation.

So, maybe my father didn't die a depressing Hollywood death. Maybe, it was a wacky sex thing. They did find him with an extremely engorged hard on.

Look, let me level with you: peanuts are tubers.

But, why stop there? Chuck Norris isn't dead. And, no, I am not his son. But, don't you feel like you maybe learned something? Haven't we all had a dead action star in our lives, die of some weird sex game or suicide? I mean, isn't that what life is all about?

You heard it here first: Life is all about dead action stars with engorged boners that may or may not have died from suicide or some sex game.

Man, I'm so glad to have that all off my chest.



But, in the spirit of stupid lists, here is one about the Iron Chef Takeshi Kaga.



10. Takeshi cooks with utensils made out of Julia Child's bones.

9. Takeshi once ate Israel and then shat it out in Lebanon.

8. Takeshi insists that the most disgusting food he has consumed is a ham and cheese Hotpocket (this was explained while he was devouring an ant infested rat carcass).

7. Takeshi once had Bob Newhart, Bob Denver, John Larrequette and Steve Allen over for a private Iron Chef where the mystery ingredient was Dom Deluise.

6. Takeshi mistook his late wife for sole and baked her before he went down on her.

5. Takeshi dreams in flavors.

4. Takeshi once devoured Flavor Flav and remarked "Not…not so flavorful."

3. Takeshi can align atoms, using up quarks to create flavors from different dimensions.

2. Takeshi once stole a train and threw his mother off it. Oh, my bad. I always get Takeshi and that movie "Throw Momma from a Train" mixed up.

1. Takeshi once stir-fried an entire jungle using only his hatred of Eskimos.





So, there you go. If you're the type that's into lists for laughs. I hope you enjoyed it. But, just remember: Takeshi, too, could die of autoerotic asphyxiation in my imagination and then where would you be?



On another topic, I would like to talk a little bit about my absence from cyberville.

You see, I have just learned that my father, Chuck Norris, has died of…

Oh, we already did that.

Moving right along.



I have constructed a little story about robots and stuff and I would like you all to read it and let me know what you think. I'm thinking of entering it into a local fiction contest and your generous help and encouragement might…um….help?

Anyway, here we go. Tell me what you think.



The Robots from Beyond the Planet X


It was a dark afternoon and I had just finished drinking my Brandy when I looked across the veranda and noticed a shape.

It was unlike any shape I had ever seen. It was angular, yet round. It was both there and not there. It was the color of a grey sky, and at the same time, the color of a red sky.

I lifted myself out of the beanbag chair that I keep on my deck and hurried over to the object.

To my surprise, I was at once lifted above the deck and began plummeting upward toward the sky.

My senses were stunned as I realized I was being taken by an alien race of beings from the Planet X. I made this assumption as it has happened so many times that I'm literally bored of it.

Every time I go out on the veranda (OK, it's really the hood of my Ford Taurus), I get abducted by the robots from the planet X. Oh, plus I'm usually meth'd out of my mind.

So, anyway, I end up on Planet X and I meet Chuck Norris and he chokes himself to death in front of me…EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!

It's happened like 150 times now. I'm so tired of being abducted by robots from Planet X.



Chapter Two



It was late in the evening and I was on Planet X. Chuck Norris was dead and I had a vague idea that I was really drunk on wine and sitting in my Ford Taurus.

OK, it's not really my Ford Taurus. In fact, I stole it to buy more meth. Oh, plus, this one time I burned a church down to get an erection.

OK, so where were we? Oh, yeah! On the Planet X!

So, back in the Ford Taurus I was trying to find these wintergreen Lifesavers that I had lost a few days before when I realized that this cop was tapping on the window of the car and so I started screaming like a banshee and beating my chest. Pretty soon, the cop had shot me with one of those beanbag rounds right in the kisser.

To make a long story short, I have no teeth anymore.

Oh, and I totally escaped from Planet X because my fear of dying overwhelmed them and they, in turn, died.

THE END



So, I hope you enjoyed my story and maybe you could shoot me a pointer or two on the prose and such (I know, I'm terrible at dialogue).

Which reminds me, I'm looking for some zebras for this other project I'm working on. So, if you have any zebras handy, drop me a line. I cannot promise I will return them in mint condition.



I will try to write more often as I broke both legs in a tightrope walking accident. Curiously enough, the tightrope was still on the ground at the time.

OH ME!