 
### Tales of the Absurdid

Some Short, Dumb, and Perhaps  
Funny Stories for the  
On-The-Go Busy Reader  
Just Like You

by Gord Oxley

Copyright 2012 Gord Oxley

Smashwords Edition

* * *

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free e-book. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

(May I just add parenthetically outside of the official blurb above that you can always contact me as per the "About the Author" page if you do want to say "Hey Gord, 'sup, way to go with this thing," or to, say, use any excerpt for review purposes or something cool like that. Assuming you liked it. Seriously, constructive feedback is welcome. If on the other hand you're looking to review it for something like "E-Books Greatest Fails," or chime in anonymously with "I will eat you, Gord" or "How can you satisfy your woman without our patented boner pills?" then, um, no rush in getting a hold of me, I guess. Whatevs.)

* * *

A Quick Bit of Background

Most of these stories started out as 20-minute writing challenges, usually just me picking a word or short phrase at random and then plowing ahead without (much) stopping and seeing what came out. Later, some clean-up would occur and in some cases some extra flushing out or editing would happen, but largely these were cranked out with the help of coffee. Ahhh coffee... sweet, dark elixir of the underworld.

Thank Yous and Acknowledgments

For encouragement, advice, humour: Robbo, Ralph, Jane, and Jo. Thanks Jerry for the initial writing exercise inspiration. And huge thanks also to you for actually downloading this. This is one of the few times in this book where I will not try to be cheesy or whatever. Seriously, thanks.

Disclaimers-A-Go-Go

Sorry to buzzkill the good will, but I would be a bad human if I didn't mention to you that there is occasional use of bad language (the usual f's and s's plus one or two other choice bon-bons) in some of these stories. Oh hell, in most of these stories, who am I kidding? Anyhoo, please proceed cautiously if swears make you uncomfortable. And for Pete's sake, don't show those parts to the young or exceptionally impressionable; they got enough going on.

I live and breathe in Canada, so there are some Canadian spellings embedded here, such as "flavour" (not "flavor"), "theatre" (not "theater"), and "morbidly obese" (not "needs a sammich"). Hopefully you will not find these Canadianisms disturbing. If you are in fact unsettled by all of that, then you have my blessings to get a refund for all these free 1's and 0's here in this e-book.

Hopefully I caught all the typos and unintentional bad grammar. If not, then warmly bask in your copy-editing prowess.

Finally, some goofy concepts and bad wordplay are occasionally given room in some of these stories to procreate fornicatingly too. So please have a wet-vac handy as you pore over these musings.

I guess that's about it. Oh wait.

Exclamation Marks!

...galore and a-plenty... here ya go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Q!!!

Okay, that oughta hold you. Done here. Let's roll. God, I hope the TOC links actually work...

* * *

**TABLE OF CONTENTS**

Alchemy

Back

Clouds

Coffee

Death

Gaudy

Glove

Gog

Hernia

Justan Beeburr

Kingdom

Laptop

Life And Death

Month

Moon

Nausea

Nose Blow

Perfection

Plants

Puppy

Race

SLR

Small Things

Some Interesting First Lines

The Old Creaky Body

Universe

Valentine's Day

Vuze

About the Author

* * * *

Alchemy

At 10 years old, Bortis was the least successful of Merlin's apprentices. He was not only unblessed with "The Gift of the Knack," as Merlin often coached his young charges to have, but he really stopped trying after a while. He had been insulted by Merlin, Marlin, Morlin, Murlin, Mirlin, Myrlin, Meerlin, Moarlin, and Merline (who was Merlin's daughter). Bortis really felt outside of the circle. While Myrlin and the others could perform the dark arts of transposition, ventriloquism, alchemy and spellcasting at an eighth-grade level, Bortis could barely get his wand from stabbing his balls repeatedly.

He was despondent as he sat at the foot of the craggy oak tree, away from the teasings of the others. He called up to the forest sprites, the nymphs, hell even the satyrs, whoever would care to listen. "Why am I so forsaken?" he shrieked to anonymous plantlife. This was a sour time in Bortis's young and already horrible life.

Suddenly he heard a voice from behind him. "Do not be so sad." Bortis started, and turned around to see a tiny apple. Bortis squinted his eyes. "Did you just say something to me... apple?" He was greeted with silence. He turned back around and glumly thought about his prospects.

"Indeed I did, pouty fleshlump." Bortis turned around again to see the apple had moved closer to him. Bortis was skeptical. "Say something again, apple," he instructed and crossed his arms, awaiting a response.

"What would you have me say, sir?" the apple calmly asked, causing Bortis to stumble backwards from his already seated position. The tiniest of mouths moved at the tip of the stem as more apple words issued forth. "I can say that I see you are sad and in need of a friend."

Bortis was transfixed. This forest was indeed a magic place where a boy could befriend an apple. "Oh apple, I try and try to be as good as the other apprentices but I do not get it. Meanwhile they mock me and my master Merlin is likewise unsympathetic. I do not know what I should do furthermore." The apple sidled up closer to him.

"Friend fleshlump, I am not an ordinary apple. If you were to eat me, you would notice a change within yourself the likes of which you have not yet felt." Bortis looked at the apple. Could he indeed eat this newfound friend? That seems so harsh, and he told the apple just that.

"Pay that no heed, fleshpile," continued the apple. "To gain true wisdom you must eat me, and eat me quickly." The apple then added, "I am honestly totally fine with this."

Bortis looked at the apple again, and his hands, the oak tree, the sky above the magic forest, and then begrudgingly began to eat the tiny apple in basically one giant bite. It cleaved in his mouth with a wet and satisfying crunch. But as he began to chew, he noticed that its texture and flavour changed drastically. It was as if he was eating... no... he couldn't have.

He heard a voice behind him then.

"Hey Bortis, eat turds much?" asked Myrlin while all the other apprentices laughed hysterically behind him. Even Master Merlin's normally taciturn face was breaking out in huge gales of laughter.

These bastards and their alchemy and ventriloquism and other dark arts. As Bortis coughed the turd-apple from his mouth, he decided then and there that he would change his life path and go into something less arduous, like competitive eating, which was all the rage at the time. Oh yes it was. And so he did.

Over time, Bortis grew into a handsome, gentlemanly and rather enormous figure of a man, whose amazing gourmandery was unmatched throughout the land, and who had gained the favourable notice of many nobles and courtiers of the day.

Merlin was by this time a craggled old biddy, but a much softer and more humble soul after years of reflection, which was in turn helped along by a disastrous and universally-panned one-man magic show he once performed. Merlin eventually made peace with the famous food finisher and in a token of unprecedented generosity, offered the delicate hand of his daughter Merline to Bortis in marriage. Bortis graciously accepted, and was further thrilled when the rest of her was later added into the deal. She likewise was very happy with this union, and they soon developed together an odd travelling entertainment: she could make a never-ending cavalcade of cakes appear for Bortis to then make disappear, to the delight of the crowds all over England, for who doesn't enjoy a good caking? I mean really.

And so a peculiar, calorically dangerous, but ultimately very strong bond was forged, and Bortis was happy for this unexpected change in his fortunes.

* * * *

Back

Jon Monderson worked hard all day clearing out his basement. He had been trying to make some room for his daughter's rock band. Jessica, all of 11, decided she wanted to front an all-girl knucklecore band. Jon didn't know what "knucklecore" meant and when he asked Jessica, she snorted, "Chuuuh, Dad, don't you know anything?"

Jon later searched the term online and discovered that it was deeply angry, barbaric music bent on kicking the nuts of any set of ears that would dare listen to it. In other words, perfect for an 11-year-old girl.

So Jon worked diligently to move or throw out various items to make room for the various guitars, drums, hammers, and electrified breakable objects (EBOs) that Jessica and her eight friends would be using at their nightly basement band practice.

Jon's wife (and Jessica's step-mother) Sarah was less than thrilled about this, but was even less thrilled with the prospect of asking Jessica about it, so she begrudgingly let it all just happen.

Jon grabbed one end of the big four-seater couch and was going to drag it up the stairs into the living room where it would strongly clash with Sarah's decor. Jon wasn't thrilled to foresee the countless discussions this would no doubt spawn.

Suddenly, Jon's lower back tweaked, really badly. "Aaaauaauaughh ghuahgh fppaaaugh augh," he enunciated screamingly, dropping the couch. He stood there on the spot, tensed up, motionless and afraid to move. He gingerly tried to straighten up, which just worsened the pain eightfold, as indicated by the yelps that followed.

Sarah raced downstairs. "Jon? You okay?"

Jon squeaked out, "My... back..."

Sarah quickly returned upstairs to get the ice gel pack, some Elephant-Strength Ibuprofen, and some water. Jon meanwhile continued to stand in place like a statue, afraid to even blink for fear of the vibration that would be sent down his back.

Jessica, awoken from her pre-dinner nap, thumped downstairs and bellowed, "Da-a-ad! Shut up!" She saw Jon standing there frozen. He meekly tried to explain.

"Sorry... honey... it's... my... baaAAA!" Jessica punched him on the shoulder, causing him to scream more. She was startled, but slowly, her overactive anger issues were replaced by inspiration.

"Wow, do that again!" She hit him again. He screamed again, even louder. Jessica's eyes narrowed into a slightly sinister smile.

Later that night during band practice, Jessica had positioned Jon by the drum kit. During their song, "I Hate My Damn Life," she would keep time by hitting her dad instead of the bass drum, and he would scream until tears rolled down his face. Whenever Sarah came downstairs with the ice gel pack and Elephant-Strength Ibuprofen, Jessica's bass guitarist, a large, scary girl named Oyster, would fix Sarah with such an ugly stare that she would come close to fear-wetting herself and immediately bolted back upstairs.

Jessica's bandmates loved this new direction for this song, Jessica loved her new "genius" status in her knucklecore band, and Jon loved that could finally help his daughter, no matter what the cost.

* * * *

Clouds

Edwin Fitzburg was a dreamer. He enjoyed thinking of implausible what-ifs and reimagining his life in a myriad of ways. One time, he thought of himself as a knight in Arthurian times, complete with lack of washing and yellow teeth. Another time, he was a giant turtle talking to a panda bear woman who lived in a candy flower glade. Yet another time he was Angelina Jolie, making out with Jennifer Aniston, just because.

Problem was, Edwin was one of the two synchronized key operators in the super-secret Mannheim Nuclear Facility deep underneath Mount Everest. The Mannheim was Nepal's first line of defence in case of nuclear strike. Edwin could not afford to have his attention swayed by anything; it was vital to global interests that he and his partner be clear-minded at all times, at all costs.

Edwin's key partner, a rather humourless fellow named Montel, insisted on absolute silence and focus during their eight-hour-shifts. The Mannheim protocols also required that during the shifts, any bathroom breaks had to be done in tandem as well. Over time, Edwin and Montel developed an almost feminine biological co-ordination of their digestive cycles, similar to when groups of women eventually synchronize their menstrual cycles after prolonged association.

One day, during an especially quiet time where the two key partners monitored nothing in particular on their respective work stations, Edwin could feel the dream state slowly tickling in from the sides of his brain. Montel slowly transformed into a Gopher King, and Edwin found himself to be a giant carrot who was leerily eyed by the Gopher King, who made his dream-hazed intentions quickly known.

"So my pretty little carrot, who will dine on you this night?"

"Not you, Gopher King good sire, for I must retain my chastity for my chosen carrot-mate."

"I do not see other carrots around, you svelte orange beauty, and I am here, hungering with my teeth and grippy-paws."

"Good and benevolent majesty, please say no more of this and allow me passage."

"Ha ha, you are mine, carrot!"

"NO." Grabbing a nearby rock, Edwin swung until the Gopher King lay still and bleeding from the head.

"Ow, what the ffffuck, Edwin?" bellowed Montel as all things Gopher and carrot quickly vanished in a cloud of smoke, to be replaced by the drab industrial room and Montel nursing his cut jaw. Edwin looked down and saw some blood dripping down from the edge of the key which was grasped tightly in his hand.

"What is wrong with you!" continued Montel. It was the only time this month he had spoken directly with Edwin.

"Uh, I am so... sorry, Montel." The shock gripped Edwin. It had all seemed so real.

"Shut your damn hole. Oh my fucking face!" Breaking protocol for the first time ever, Montel left by himself to go to the washroom to clean up his face.

Edwin was left alone to monitor both workstations. He scratched the back of his head, ashamed of what had just transpired and flush with embarrassment and anxiety. He couldn't believe he had just lost control like that. With head down he muttered unintelligibly to himself and shook his head as he tapped his fingers lightly and nervously on the computer keypad.

As he tapped on the keypad, Edwin looked a little more closely at all those keys. All those tiny, tiny keys just dancing around under his fingers like so many little square bugs. Little, square, annoying bugs that needed mashing. Merciless mashing with his fists. His relentless ball-pine hammer fists that will save the world from all these deadly little planet-eating bugs.

* * * *

Coffee

Arno VanderMan sat at one of the eighteen Stairbox Coffee shops located near his home. The Gigante Brash Choice du Jour that he was sipping on made him think. How come the coffee he had at his house was never this flavourful, this rich? What the hell did Stairbox do their coffee? Was it like MacDunnell's fries, which were laced with animal fat in order to make them more addictive to the fat-assed North American consumer? Was there something Soylent Green-like going on? Arno, a creature of curiosity, needed to know.

He first called Stairbox World Headquarters at the summit of Mount Doom. But the administrative orc who answered the phone merely barked something unintelligible at him and hung up. Arno knew there was now only one course of action, and that was to travel to Mount Doom itself and see exactly what went on over in the giant molten coffee chambers that are always featured in the television commercials and pre-movie ads at the cinemas.

After a 14-hour West Pacifica Airlines flight that accidentally shot past Mount Doom International Airport due to pilot naptime, Arno finally got into a cab. The elf driving it tried to persuade Arno to instead go to the Tom Hirtin's World Headquarters, just at the foot of nearby Mount Hoser – the coffee there was almost as good, much cheaper, and had that added hint of sweet, delicious apology right there in the mix. But Arno needed rich, full-bodied satisfaction – even questions about Stairbox were addictive. So he instructed the cab elf to keep driving toward Mount Doom and Stairbox World Headquarters.

Soon, he stood at the foot of Mount Doom and began his slow climb up the 39,000-foot rocky west face toward Stairbox World Headquarters. Arno thought three things here: (a) "Rocky Westface" was a kid he knew in public school who went on to do infomercials about Male Pattern Incontinence; (2) he forgot to bring mountain climbing equipment; and (iii) he needed a consistent system of list enumeration. He had just assumed that there'd be a road or something more convenient by which to access this building. He assumed wrong – this was Stairbox, after all. But he vowed not to misunderestimate them again.

Eventually, after much freezing and oxygen-deprived hallucinations (his favourite being the one where he was a Sharpee pen drawing eyebrows onto sexy Mexican "guidettes"), he stood shivering and hungry in front of the daunting wooden gates of Stairbox World Headquarters. He rang the doorbell that was inside the decapitated gargoyle's long-clawed fist.

"Graaa!" shot the Grendelian voice over a crackly intercom.

"Hi, I'm Arno VanderMan, I wrote your company recently asking about what makes your coffee so addictive."

"Sklakfraaaa!" came the eardrum-impacting response. There was a distant buzzer noise and then the gate suddenly shook and rumbled open. The hot, musky smell of fresh-roasting coffee quickly stampeded into Arno's nostrils.

Finally he was going to get some answers. He tiptoed quickly over the roast bean fields and past the giant cinnamon trees, where oompa-loompas kicked the spice bushes right in the nutmegs. Eventually in a clearing he spied the giant molten coffee chambers. He recognized them from the ads. One of them was open.

He cautiously peered inside and squinted from the brightness. He spied a sign at the back which read:

"Only the brash may enter and be chosen."

Arno thought that was intriguing and as he contemplated its inner meaning, he suddenly felt pushed from behind. In fact, because he was. He fell onto the hot but aromatic floor of the chamber, only to turn in time to see the chamber door being closed by the elf who drove the cab. "Told you ya should've gone to Tom Hirtin's, ya dick-knuckle."

And as the horrible machinery began to power up around him to begin another murderous percolation, at least Arno now knew what made Stairbox so damn addictive:

Other addicts.

* * * *

Death

Death stalks me at every turn. I am Danger Man. I'm the guy who diffuses the nuclear bombs. I'm the guy who disarms the psychotic things. I'm the guy who filters out the MSG from your delicious noodle dish. Me. Danger Man.

I first caught wind of Dr. Morto's evil plan to turn the entire population of Earth into rock-zombies from beyond space when I inadvertently intercepted a commiqué between two of Dr. Morto's evil henchmen while I was having a bowl of Froot Loops. The henchmen, unfortunately for them, chose a poor delivery system for their communiqués in one of the cherry Froot Loops that was in the box I happened to buy from a convenience store which I have since learned belonged to Dr. Morto's cartel.

Spitting out the Froot Loop (but keeping the prize inside the box, a lovely Rainbow Pony water-based tattoo collection), I sprang into Danger action, and with my trusty sidekick Danger Youth, I piloted the Danger Copter straight to Morto Island, with excellent assistance from the Danger GPS and Danger GoogullMaps.

Upon arriving, we met directly with Dr. Morto who waited for us on the landing pad.

"I see you intercepted my Froot Loop," Dr. Morto hissed.

"Yes, and it was damn tasty. Too bad it's bad for me," I replied.

"You don't have to worry about cavities any more," he retorted.

"But I like good dental hygiene," I parried.

"Shut up for a second, we're getting off track," he countered, suddenly holding up a control device with a big red button in the center.

"What is that, Dr. Morto? Is that the Rock-Zombie Activat-or? And when you press that red button we'll all turn into rock-zombies? And you'll just laugh? Like this? Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hahhhhhh...? Like that? And then we'll do your bidding? And eventually we'll just die? Like this? G-a-aaaaaakkkkgghhh? Even though we're already dead being zombies and all? And things'll even get more confusing than they already were? Is that what is in your hand, Dr. Morto? The Rock-Zombie Activat-or? Huh? Is it?"

"Oh for Christ's sake, yes!" Dr. Morto was getting pissed off. "Just shut up already and prepare to become a rock-zombie – forever!"

Danger Youth, who had been struggling and fiddling with his Danger Seatbelt all this time, suddenly burst out of the Danger Copter, only to trip on the Danger Lip of the Danger Door, whereupon he smashed down hard on the tarmac, breaking his Danger Neck with a soft, innocent snap. He was dead. But since he was only a sketched-out afterthought of a character to begin with, there was thankfully no time to feel too emotionally invested, and things moved ahead.

"Well, that's one less rock-zombie to do my bidding," I said. I mean Dr. Morto. Dr. Morto said it. Yeah, it was Dr. Morto.

But before we could clear up who actually said it, Dr. Morto pushed the red button, and we all became rock-zombies. Everyone on Earth. Even Dr. Morto, who had forgotten to take his previously unmentioned Immunity Pill beforehand, because he was a ball-knob anyway.

A giant wave of something immediately swept over and through the entire world. In one weird instant the unthinkable deed was done, and Earth's history was forever altered.

After the dust had settled, "life" as a rock-zombie turned out to be surprisingly okay, once you got used to the whole being not-alive factor. And the rockiness you felt. Oh yeah, and the whole zombie thing. But since Dr. Morto didn't take his only once-before-mentioned Immunity Pill, there was no one giving commands or anything; there was no one's "bidding" to do, for anything. We were all equal here on Earth. We were all on the same playing field, the same page.

At long last.

* * * *

Gaudy

Penelope Simmons had awful taste in clothes, according to her granddaughter Arista. "Oh Gawwwwwd, Grandma, this dress is horrible! Your place is so tacky! Why did Mom send me here after school? This place reeks of old feet and death, and it's just so gaudy!"

Arista was not incorrect. Penelope's home had been in the family for a few generations, a giant Victorian mansion that was festooned with all manner of mismatching baubles, aged portraits of sunken-eyed and sepia-toned ancestors, and a lingering smell of mothballs and Salvation Army castoffs. Not a lot of fun for a teenaged girl, and even less so for one as insulting as Arista.

Arista's mom was working the late morning to early evening shift at the hospital so she needed her daughter to just hang out somewhere safe until she could pick her up. And since Arista had been spending too much time lately with that waste-of-time friend of hers Bindi-Rae Cornell, Grandma's house was a good back-up.

To her credit, Penelope didn't mind her granddaughter's rantings; in fact, she found them kind of endearing. They cast her back to when she was Arista's age and shared similar opinions to her own mother Mabel:

"Oh Mom, nobody wears corsets anymore! We like skirts and bobby socks! Corsets are so corrrrny!"

Penelope saw a lot of herself in Arista. Of course, Arista also had a pierced nose and a pierced lip, which Penelope thought was a bit garish.

"Tell me, Arista," asked Penelope, checking on the water for tea, "did those things on your nose and lip hurt much?"

"No, they were all right I guess, Grandma." Arista paused and then continued, "Bindi got one first, so I thought I wanted one too."

"Oh I see," said Penelope. The growing intensity of the kettle's hiss meant that tea was imminent. Little digestive biscuits were, however, ready to nibble on.

"Are you okay for eating biscuits, dear? I mean, will those, uh, rings, get in the way?"

"No, Grandma, I'll be fiiiiine." Arista was a bit impatient. Moth balls and Salvation Army. Gross. She took one of the offered geezer cookies off the plate and bit into it. Hmm, kinda boring but not that bad.

"That's good, dear." Penelope liked her granddaughter, even if she was a bit of a privileged princess sometimes. She smiled at her. Arista shifted uncomfortably and flashed a weak smile before finding something else to turn her attention on.

"Is that you, Grandma?" Arista pointed at an old photograph of a pretty girl with a dog. The frame actually looked kind of cool around it – ornate, but it worked.

"Yes dear, I was about eight years old there. That was our dog Flash. He was a good boy."

"Nice." Arista meant that. It was the first thing in this visit that actually didn't piss her off or make her want to laugh. "What was Flash like?"

"Oh. Water's boiling. I'll tell you over tea." Penelope got up to tend to the kettle.

"I don't like tea, Grandma. Got any pop?"

"Oh I think you should give tea a chance, dear. It may surprise you."

* * * *

Glove

A kindly man tapped the dark-suited stranger on his shoulder. "Excuse me, sir? Is this your glove that has dropped on the floor?"

The dark-suited man stopped sipping his coffee, looked at the floor, and remarked with no small amount of surprise, "Why... yes... it is... thank you very much!"

Doctor Victavius Doom then put his black alloy DestructoGlove back onto his right hand, happily pointed it at the helpful Samaritan, and blasted him into oblivion, which is just next to Cleveland. Then Doctor Victavius Doom sighed loudly, sadly shook his head, and went back to sipping his coffee in the café while the regulars, who were generally used to Doctor Victavius Doom's lethal antics, went back nonchalantly to their chats and chores. It was a surprisingly heartless city, though it boasted a vibrant club scene.

Doctor Victavius Doom was a complicated, tragic figure. He wanted to do good unto Mankind, but his given name and profession made that an already difficult sell to others. Add in his DestructoGloves and doing good was now rendered almost impossible, for like his entire black alloy DestructoSuit, the DestructoGloves contained a reverse-polarization crystal which telepathically linked to his mind and produced the opposite result. Worst Craigslist purchase ever. Case in point: all he wanted to do was shake the hand of the man who reunited him with his fallen glove; instead, the reverse-polarization crystal once again misconstrued his intention and sent another undeserving soul screaming to Cleveland's hitherto unknown sister city.

Of course, now that he had the DestructoGlove back on, the DestructoSuit's circuit was complete and he had to think the opposite of what he really wanted to think, just to keep things civil. So he sat in the coffee shop sipping his mocha-frappa-whatever; meanwhile, dark thoughts of world domination and mass murder were racing through his tortured mind just so the other coffee sippers could have a peaceful time in the café.

Later at a lovely French-style bistro, on his date with a really sweet woman named Vicky who he met via the dating site Wholelottafish, Doctor Victavius Doom continued to ride the perilous high-wire act in his mind merely so the date would not end in total annihilation.

Vicky looked at him sweetly as he was encased in his black alloy DestructoSuit across from her, cutting into his extra-tough salad. "You are a very interesting man, Victavius."

He thought of punching her face. "Let me tenderly stroke your face, sweet Vicky," and he did just that, without incident.

"Victavius, I know we discussed your love of science and world politics, but I still can't get over the suit." She was very accepting.

He thought of eating her head. "Ah my dear, let me plant a gentle kiss on your cheek." And he did just that, without incident.

So where was this going to go? Was he going to have to explain about reverse polarity and telepathy? Was he going to have to show her his lair? Was he going to have to let her meet Mom?

"Victavius, I know we haven't known each other that long, but I have a special feeling about you. I think... I could love you."

The word "love" hit him extra hard and he swelled and swooned upon the impact of the syllable against his heart. He had never known love from someone else before. Well, except for Clyde, that basset hound puppy who had the misfortune of expressing his love for Doctor Victavius Doom while Doctor Victavius Doom had forgotten that he was wearing the black alloy suit. That situation was with incident. Horrible, horrible incident.

Hearing Vicky's expression of love for him put him off-balance. He felt alive, actually alive! He wrestled with a response.

"Oh Vicky, my dear, I– wait–"

It was too late; the DestructoSuit began its Aggressive Denial Sequence, which was the usual reaction to when Doctor Victavius Doom wholeheartedly accepted something or someone.

"Run, Vicky!" he commanded while thinking a sickening slew of horrible things in an effort to try to delay what was about to happen next. Vicky, panicked and seeing the unusual struggle in front of her, agreed and managed to get out of there in the nick of time. What a bad dating week this had been for her: first the guy with the snake obsession and pungent underarms, and now this. As she sprinted down the street, she made a mental note to cancel her Wholelottafish membership.

Holding on as long as he could, Doctor Victavius Doom finally could not contain the situation any longer, and the DestructoSuit unleashed a furious volley of black alloy spike rockets and molten acid spray. In seconds, the delightful bistro was gone in a horrible stinking plume of vapour. Poor Vicky was gone too, but at least only because she managed to flee in time. And gone as well were Doctor Victavius Doom's latest hopes of finding human companionship.

This latest incident caught the attention of many lawyers and army personnel who ultimately were too chickenshit scared to do anything about it. But going where angels and lawyers fear to tread were the ratings-hungry producers of that classy television dating show, "Lady Bachelor." After many persistent phone calls and Skype sessions which resulted in the destruction of more than one laptop, they managed to cajole Doctor Victavius Doom into appearing as one of 25 love-hungry hunks vying for the adoration of a former cheerleader. The unintentional bloodbath which sadly ensued was valuable for the scientific study of impact craters as well as really terrific reality television.

A startling new career was born. Soon, Doctor Victavius Doom was a staple of various iconic reality programs such Waterfront Along New Jersey, United States Singing Icon, and The One Who Loses The Most Weight Wins. The same horrifying end results occurred in each show, which were Pavlovianly lapped up by the doe-eyed target audiences.

But Doctor Victavius Doom, now a very rich, dangerous, but well-meaning man, was still sad despite the cool TV paychecks and incoming breakfast cereal endorsement offers.

If only he could figure out how the glove fell off his hand in the first place...

* * * *

Gog

As most stories do, this one begins with a character. Ours is an average-looking guy in his 30s, name of "Gog." But it's not pronounced "gawg," to rhyme with "dog," but more like to rhyme with "rogue," or "brogue." Actually, "brogue" is a better choice since Gog spoke with a very thick Scottish-sounding brogue. I say "Scottish-sounding" rather than just "Scottish" because even dyed-in-the-woolen-kilt Scotsmen could not quite figure out Gog's particular brogue.

"Edinburgh?" asked one.

"No," was the reply. (Note that while I will write out in plain prose what Gog says, it is up to the reader to figure out exactly what it might sound like. Have fun.)

"Glasgow?" asked another, slightly irked with sweat.

"No-o-o," came the reply, slightly irked with emphasis.

"Loch Ness?" chimed a third, somewhat sarcastically.

"Sod off." And on it went until a small fist fight erupted.

I say "small fist fight" in the sense that Gog and all of the other combatants had very tiny fists, which was odd because they all had normal-sized hands. Somehow, the act of curling them into fists made them unusually small. Some tourists there at Bonneby's Public House were mildly freaked out at the sight of several angry Scottish men and one Scottish-sounding man thrashing each other with surprisingly tiny fists.

The police who were called to the scene were both very not amused and very yest amused.

"Officer MacGregor, are you amused at this brawl?"

"No, not very."

"How about you, Officer MacGregest?"

"Yest, very." Officer MacGregest had an unusual speech impediment that forced him to involuntarily append a "t" onto some of his words. This made some of the townfolk gleefully bait poor Officer MacGregest, such as young Basster MacDonnell:

"Officer MacGregest, may I pass wind near you or far away?"

"Fart away, wee Basstert," came the inevitable response.

At any rate, Gog and his fellow fighters were let off with a warning (by the unamused Officer MacGregor) not to engage in any more stupid fighting, and to grow real men-sized fists by the end of the month or there would be a fine. For Gog's home town had some interesting by-laws and statutes.

Case in point – Town Charter, Section 14, Sub-heading 8, Paragraph 3.1: "And a townsperson of anointed age shall know intimately the difference between a 'by-law' and a 'statute' and be able to use both distinctively in a sentence to the satisfaction of the Town Grammarian."

The town's current Grammarian hadn't seen any real action since "The Great 'Its Vs. It's' Slaughter Of Ought-94," as it later came to be known.

And more relevant to the immediate predicament – Town Charter, Section 72, Sub-heading 6, Paragraph 5: "All townspeople shall possess hand-fist sizes deemed normal in comparison to their open and unclenched hands by the Town Council Of Hands, Feet, And Assorted Corporeal Paraphernalia. Failure to possess so shall result in a fine deemed suitable by the incumbent Town Tribunal Against Oddities And Outside-The-Boxisms."

The charter had to be amended in 1952 to specify "hand-fist" after one Ricky Shane Jonson curled both of his feet into some rather impressive-looking fists on the front steps of Town Hall during that year's St. Valentine's Day Vomit Scrum.

Gog knew of some previous fines passed down by the TTAOAOTB, and many of them were rather unsavoury. In lieu of passing money fines, the TTAOAOTB often assessed time fines. Gog's late uncle Rory was fined 92,000 seconds for having an unsightly third eyebrow. He had to spend those 92,000 seconds watching film of smelly walruses in heat while having an actuarial table dictated to him by a particularly aggressive nun, Sister Mary Pleistocene.

Gog did not seek such trouble. Gog never ever sought trouble, but instead preferred to live and let live, or at least let trouble live far enough away from him that he wouldn't get irritated. Trouble, however, had Googled Gog many times in the past, and occasionally came drunkcalling like an unwanted ex after a night of failed carousing. Trouble's friends – Uncertainty, Want, and Curiosity – would also occasionally pay Gog some intermittent visits.

One thing that came up often in Gog's life were questions like, "Where'd your name come from?" Or, "Is that a family name?" Or, "Dude, whazzup with the name? Yo' tryin' t' b' coo'?" One more question should have been, "Hey, did you see where the ends of my words went?"

But very simply, Gog's name came about as a result of misinterpretation and tragically poor planning.

Gog's birth all those years ago happened in the town's lone hospital, St. Elegius MacFracas, a very normal hospital. It went quite normally on an otherwise normal day. Well, normal except for the fact that at around the time Gog entered the world courtesy of his mother's vagina, directly one floor above the hospital was in the process of receiving and installing some rather advanced and exceedingly heavy equipment designed to detect, measure and categorize quantum nucleotides and other protoatomic biomaterial. Problem was, the architect of the hospital, Rollie Peubiss, did not factor into his designs how much extra weight stress such a fantastic device would place on the floors. Plus let's just say that the installing technician that day, Bobby MacLorp – much to the chagrin of his by-the-book assistant – was an unforesightful dumbass who played by his own rules, and leave it at that.

One floor below, the yet-unnamed Gog was the object of awe and admiration for all the gathered family.

"Whad'ye goinna callim?" asked Aunt Tootie to Gog's parents. She was eating crackers at that moment.

"Something meaningful and forceful I hope," suggested Uncle Angus, who wasn't married to Aunt Tootie, but they did have a bit of the caber toss before back in the day, if you know what I mean. And I suspect you do.

What Gog's paternal grandfather Naebert was then about to say from the back of the room was, "Go get the 'MacTurvesh Book of Baby Names' I left in the back seat of the Rambler and we'll pick something good." The MacTurvesh Book of Baby Names was the go-to baby naming source for those couples and families who weren't sure they wanted to name their freshly wet and screaming beloveds a mere "John" or "Mary." It gave the world such fine baby names as "Hermie," "Björk," and "Gary Seven."

However, it was at this moment that the laws of physics, along with the hospital's floorbeams, were overwhelmed by the crashing reality that a top-loaded lead-reinforced Koehaegen 6079MF Quantum Nucleotidometer placed on them, and Gog's grandfather did not even get to finish his second intended word, suddenly becoming a meat cloud amidst a blurry spray of girders and boards that got quickly and unceremoniously sucked closer to the Earth's core. In memoriam of the porridged old Rambler driver was Gog then named, with "Jesus Christ" coming second in the voting and "Fuuuuuuh" a distant third.

And this story has often served as a useful reminder to Gog throughout his life that circumstances can sometimes and without warning shift in a previously unforeseen fashion, occasionally brandishing surprising and, maybe perhaps slightly yes even, beautiful results.

But I digress.

Gog sat down in his kitchen later that day to figure out his next move, nursing a belt of scotch. The kind you drink, that is. Parenthetically, the original "Belt of Scotch" proved to be an unpopular male fashion accessory in the ancestral days of Gog's homeland due to its ability to make its wearer appear incontinent, though later on it did get some wearers out of active duty from the Boer War.

Gog liked his scotch single malt and peaty. peaty was a personable enough man and a fixture at the local pub who didn't believe in capitalizing his first name, ever since the invention of the haughty little Shift key, for once that thing came into Creation (there it goes again), peaty treated it with the same contempt he usually reserved only for semi-colons and wannabe comedians; funny that. Well, Gog still liked peaty regardless.

Gog clenched and unclenched his Scotch-misted hands again and again, watching them shrink weirdly into microfists, and then balloon back out to their normal open size. What the foogin' hell, he thought, since he liked the word "foogin'" from the time of this sentence. Why me?

Or why us, rather. All of the guys in that fist fight had the same thing go on. Was it just some random thing that some jackass thought might be funny in a story, or was there something actually real going on?

Gog put out several desperate calls and paid several desperate visits in order to try and solve this conundrum. People from all walks, saunters, and knuckle-dragging runs of life were approached.

The world's leading scientist, Stephen MacHawking was asked how a man's hands could become smaller when formed into a fist. At that moment however, Professor MacHawking, who is an exact double of Stephen Hawking except he's Scottish, happened to be deliciously drunk on a particularly potent superstring theory, so his response was laced with unbelievably vulgar formulae that shall not be reproduced here. Suffice it to say, he used twelve-dimensional matrix mapping to postulate that Gog's mother was a deep and incalculably nasty-smelling black hole.

Scotland's leading male hand model, Mac MacMack, was also asked about this phenomenon, but he couldn't answer as he broke out into a sudden and sweeping rash of hangnails when he imagined it happening to him, rendering him even more useless to society than had been previously thought possible. Society took an annoyed breath and rolled its eyes in MacMack's direction but managed to carry on.

Gog was even driven to knock, somewhat sheepishly, on the foreboding granite and particle board doors of the Church of the Immaculate Emasculation, where he intended to seek any divine insight on the topic from Sister Mary Pleistocene, but she landed a quick series of vicious uppercuts upon Gog's groin, armpits, and kneecaps before any question could actually be asked. 79 minutes later, Gog woke up face-sideways in Bartnett's Duck Pond which was several drunken-giant steps away from the church, only to eventually find a well-thumbed copy of the Book of Neuteronomy performing a rather unrepentant colonoscopy on him.

Nobody was any bloody help to Gog, or as he called it, Tuesday. He needed answers and needed a solution, and fast. The TTAOAOTB was as unforgiving as its acronym and twice as sputum-inducing.

Seconds ticked into minutes. Minutes turned into hours. Hours tarantellaed into days which, while much more arousing than ticking and turning, still didn't help Gog and the other small-fisted fighters.

Gog would receive the occasional phone call from Sub-Commissioner MacPeevy of the TTAOAOTB, which would usually go like this:

"You Gog?"

"Yes."

"Your fists still tiny like lemmings?"

"Yes."

"You any closer to growing man-fists by month's end?"

"No."

"You're rogered, you know that, right?"

"Sod off, sir."

It went on like this until the 31st of this still-unnamed month, and all looked bleak for Gog and his micro-mitted ilk. They gathered at Bonneby's for a pint of the stoutest scotch they could find before heading to their scheduled sentencing by the TTAOAOTB at the end of the work day.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, a pleasant enough day. Gog was grimly sipping his scotch and thinking of what kind of time-fine he'd have to endure. Would he have to scrub the third recurrence of scabies off of Old Man MacDougall's nether regions? Would he have to listen to a Tohn Jesh CD all the way through? The mind boggled in horror while the lawyers scrutinized the ass-covering spoonerism.

Officers MacGregor and MacGregest finished their rounds for the day and came into the pub for a quick spot of tea.

"Tea please, Margaret. No milk."

"Certainly, Officer MacGregor. And for you, Officer MacGregest?"

"Teat with milk please Margaret, thank you."

After a couple of distant snickers died down, everyone went back to their drinks and their respective contemplation. After a bit of hang-time, it was at that moment that a rock suddenly crashed through the front window of Bonneby's. It landed on the floor amidst a scattering of glass shards.

The officers stood up and went for the door.

"Quickly, MacGregest!"

"Right, MacGregor. They can't have gotten fart!" They took off outside.

Nobody in the pub was hurt. The rock lay a few feet away from Gog. It had a piece of folded paper elastic-banded around it. He picked it up and took the band off. Unfolding the paper, he read it contents. In a rough hand was written:

ALL IS NOT LOST.

The words were written inside a crude sketch of a very rough-looking right hand. Somehow it was almost painful to even look at.

Gog was thinking that maybe this message pertained to his immediate situation, and brightened a little. How convenient would that be – someone on the outside somehow finding a loophole, a fix, or a way to at least partially sidestep the full-force impact of the TTAOAOTB – wouldn't that be great?

Or was it a commentary about the defunct J.J. Abrams television show not being the be-all and end-all that many touted it to be?

Then again, might it be "Luddite Llewellyn" who lived down the lane, finally making his first attempt at Tweeting but not getting the concept quite right? In this town, it was a possibility.

The officers returned to the pub empty-handed, and examined the rock and the note.

"Some crazy bugger, too fast, couldn't catch him," MacGregor muttered. "Sorry about your window, Margaret."

"Well thanks for trying, officers," Margaret sighed as she got out the broom and dust pan and ambled toward the shards and debris.

"May I have a top-up of hot teat when you're ready, Margaret?" MacGregest asked.

Gog and his fellow puny-pawed pugilists looked at each other for any sign of reassurance and finding nothing but eye veins, crusted sleep and miniscule fists propping up ashen yet flushed cheeks, went back to their drinks. The time was almost upon them. Each downing their respective poisons, they got up with unflinching resolution and made their way to Tribunal Hall just to get it over with. Well, all except for Toddy MacNoorn; his resolution flinched quite severely, but the pint and a half he consumed helped beat that back to a mere shiver.

~ ~ ~

The town's formidable Town Hall was an imposing structure designed out of stonework with fur accenting, and basically looked like a giant challenge to anybody to step inside it. It sloped outward from the base toward the viewer from all sides and just had a nasty air about it. Even some of the lifers who worked there got flop sweat every day when approaching it. Inside was no treat either, with room after room designed to intimidate, belittle, and give its visitors a metaphoric wedgie. The architect, Rollie Peubiss, designed it shortly after he had done the hospital, and thus had learned a couple of things about building stronger floors since then; those stony bastards could withstand the weight of The Giant Iron Bootheels of Justice themselves, even though they tended to scuff the finish a bit.

They opened the main doors with a large moaning creak and, climbing the menacing stairs to the second floor, they made their way to Convening Room D, which was a long, dimly-lit chamber. Peering through the open and venerable double doors, they spied at the far end a long, curved, oaken table at which was seated the 19 members of the TTAOAOTB, each looking uglier and more unibrowed than the last. Some of them squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs while others squirmed disconcertingly much too comfortably in theirs. The room smelled of Borax and pepperoni pizza, which was part of a strange month's-end ritual for the TTAOAOTB a bit too sordid to describe here. (Bottom line: you will never look at ketchup packets the same way after.)

And now at the other end of this room where fun goes to die were the accused mini-fisted fisticuffers, and that's it; not one chair for them to sit on or anything to lean against. Nothing was behind them. Why, they could just turn around and run the hell out of there if they– oh too late, a few guards just took position by the doorway. And the double doors just became doubly de-opened. Double damn.

The least pleasant-seeming of the 19 surveyed the group of men standing in front of him, cleared his graying neckbearded throat and began. "You all stand here today, in front of this esteemed Town Tribunal Against Oddities And Outside-The-Boxisms, accused of being in violation of the Town Charter, Section 72, Sub-heading 6, Paragraph 5. How plead you?"

Gog and the others all looked at each other a bit quizzically. They didn't know if they needed to plead individually or as one group. After a small pause, Gog took a tiny step forward and stammered, "Uh, sir? Do you want us to plead individually, or as a group?"

The thoroughly unpleasant man, let's call him Chancellor-Chair Doarkiss Malloy, narrowed his eyes at Gog. Gog gulped a little.

Doarkiss snorted a sulphurous blast of air from his bulbous nose and glowered over his glasses at Gog. Doarkiss had learned from the previous Tribunal convening not to glower at a man over his glasses, because it was sometimes difficult to wrest said man's glasses from him first before glowering at him over them since the table was in the way. Doarkiss led a confusing life at times that contained far too much picky ordering of subclauses and sentence fragments and so chose that moment to cut through the descriptive quagmire and after some deliberation, finally hiss:

"Where are you from, son? Edinburgh?"

"No," Gog said, taken aback.

"Surely not Glasgow?"

"No." Gog really grew weary of these attempts at vocal geographical pinpointing.

"Wait, I've got it: Loch Ness."

"Sod– uh... sorry sir, but no."

The Tribunal's second-in-command and Assistant Lord President, a somewhat portly man named MacSomewhatporkins, interrupted with, "We're wandering off the path here, Doarkiss."

Doarkiss conceded. "Sorry, MacSomewhatporkins, you're right."

"Besides, he's clearly from Glenshee."

"Glenshee? Nah nah nah, he's a Scone man," chimed Sub-Commissioner MacPeevy.

"Scone? Try Kirkbean," offered Vice-Viceroy MacThorax. A flood of helpful suggestions then poured forth from the other Tribunal members.

"Dumbarton."

"Troon."

"Aberdeen!"

"John o'Groats!"

"Bridge of Walls!"

"Bonar Bridge!"

"Peterhead!"

"You last two – enough with the dick jokes," ironically complained a member-at-large.

"Hey, that's not a placename!" sniped some real stickler for lists at the member-at-large. And so the first punch was thrown.

In an Inverness instant, the TTAOAOTB, already a tense and pent-up lot, was at each other's throats, punching and grappling each other in angrily creative ways, while the accused combatants just stood there, shoulders shrugged and looking at each other, eyebrows arched and stunned. The guards at the back of the room meanwhile just smirked. This was a good end-of-day break from their regularly scheduled low-wage tedium.

But before it could get to any real fever-pitch, almost everybody in the room suddenly stopped and gasped.

"Look at that!" cried Toddy MacNoorn, his resolution now flinching far less than his pointing hand.

"What the!" stammered Gog, unable to believe his eyes even though his ears, nose and throat were backing them up.

"Cor blimey!" exclaimed one of the guards, giving his Englishness away in a room aswim with Scottish and Scottish-sounding man-anger, but luckily nobody noticed except you.

Everyone, Tribunal member and accused alike, all were agog (no relation) to have noticed amid the frenzy that Doarkiss Malloy's fists were also microscopically tiny.

"Doarkiss?" MacSomewhatporkins hedged. "Your fists...?"

Doarkiss looked like a bear caught with his paw in a honey jar (though if he had been, he could have just made it into a fist and pulled it out no problem). "Well, er, yes, you see," he began, looking for that right turn of phrase that would tell them all to shut the hell up without sounding all pissy about it.

Suddenly, the double doors to Convening Room D were double-kicked open with two large echoing whumps. Everybody jumped twice. There, in the dust-clouded doorway, stood the masculine and imposing yet diminutive figure of Sister Mary Pleistocene. Everybody gasped.

"Look at that!"

"What the!"

"Cor blimey!" That's twice. Again, nobody but you. I don't know how either.

She strode with powerful strides toward the Tribunal, scuffing the floor finish all the way with her Giant Iron Bootheels of Justice, since her feet repelled cloth. Guards and accused alike parted like the Red Sea, though they were so scared of her that it was now the Brown Sea.

"I have something to say," she began. Her voice was one of the harshest sounds in all of Nature. Somewhere, a skintag of spacetime whimpered and folded into itself after she spoke. Undaunted by that, she continued.

"You must let these men go. Although they are truly a spotty and unsavoury collection of weakness and impurity, they have done nothing wrong here to be punished by the likes of you." A flock of sparrows flying off the coast of British Columbia mysteriously melted.

Doarkiss was visibly invisible during this, too scared to say anything, so MacSomewhatporkins took the baton. "Sister Mary Pleistocene, why do you come here today?" Her eyes steeled themselves as he realized that his question could be taken as some kind of death wish, so he wisely rephrased. "Do you bring new evidence that will conveniently exonerate these men?"

"Yes I do, Mr. MacSomewhatporkins." In New York City, a hospital-bound subway car carrying medicine and kittens suddenly crumpled like a spent bag of potato chips.

MacSomewhatporkins looked at Doarkiss, who was starting to bleed a bit from the eyes, and briefly thought about asking her to just e-mail it in, but instead found himself going against every flight instinct screaming at him from his DNA and nervously requested that she continue. He death-gripped the edge of the table.

She drew in a deep breath. So did the ecosystem. She then began.

"Yesterday, as I was cleaning the inside of the confessional at the Church of the Immaculate Emasculation, that man approached me from behind," she announced, pointing to Doarkiss Malloy (who tried to scrub the visual of her last sentence fragment from his mind), "and in the darkness and mistaking me for Father MacSmilelight, he proceeded to tell me that he harboured a deep secret from when he was a young man and that he needed to unburden himself." She paused, as every drop of water in Venice finished boiling away. She continued.

"Before I could tell him that I wasn't Father MacSmilelight, he then proceeded to tell me that he had been assisting Bobby MacLorp that day in the hospital years ago when the Koehaegen quantum nucleotidometer fell through the floor past the maternity ward. The radiation that the machine put out apparently affected only those in the area who were very young, like babies, or working very close to the machine, like him. The result manifested itself oddly: whenever the affected would curl their hands into a fist, they would inadvertently trigger a temporary singularity causing severe hand-fist shrinkage." The entire country of Bolivia quivered and hid under the Earth's mantle, where it was warm and safe. She wound up for another go.

"So these men, mere babies at the time of the incident, are not at fault. But this man," pointing again at Doarkiss Malloy, whose skull coincidentally chose that moment to explode, "is... now, uh, dead." She was taken aback, as was the continent of Australia, which had suddenly been submerged under an ocean of its own panic pee.

Seizing an opportunity, MacSomewhatporkins called dibs on Doarkiss Malloy's Honda Civic, and with a helpfully reminding glance from the about-to-speak-again Sister Mary Pleistocene, he also agreed to dismiss the charges against Gog and the others with a promise to amend that portion of the Town Charter.

If this was a smarter town, a great lesson about tolerance could have been learned that day and spread throughout the land for the ages. As it was though, charges were swept under a ratty little carpet amidst a minor fracas of mumbled swear words followed by everybody getting the hell out of Town Hall because it was five o'clock and now the night shift would have to scrape off the extra bits of Doarkiss Malloy which inconveniently coated the interior of Convening Room D. Even in bizarre and arguably tragic death, the man was a thoroughly unpleasant pain in the ass.

Nevertheless, the relieved cheers and wassails rang throughout the streets for Gog and his combatant companions, or compantants as nobody but me called them, who went back to Bonneby's for a celebratory pint. The former fighters now were fast friends. Well, maybe more like forgiving foes; let's not get too touchy-feely carried away here.

Everybody in the pub chipped in a little money to help replace Margaret's broken window; the smallest bill measured barely the length of a fingernail, but it all defrayed the cost just the same.

Officers MacGregor and MacGregest, now knowing it was Sister Mary Pleistocene who damaged the window, decided to file that tidbit under "Cold Case," and also shared a cold case to help further forget about it.

"Glad that's behind us," offered MacGregor.

"Me toot," countered MacGregest, clinking MacGregor's glass.

And town life was basically back to normal one more time. Well, until the next stupid incident at least.

~ ~ ~

A few weeks later, Gog was in his living room, a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of toast in the other. He was a simple man not given to much sentimentality, but he caught himself reflecting on the madness of the previous month. While a more basic question was never addressed, such as, "If they were such sticklers about conformity, why did it take the TTAOAOTB decades to finally take action against Gog and his friends if they've had this hand-fist anomaly all their lives?", he didn't care. He was just happy to have gotten through it all.

He now enjoyed the two new framed documents hanging on his wall above the fireplace. They also helped cover up the cracks he had meant to fix last month.

The first framed document, bearing the official seal of newly-minted Chancellor-Chair Albertine Ian-Ian MacSomewhatporkins, stated the following:

Town Charter, Section 72, Sub-heading 6, Paragraph 5: "All townspeople shall possess hand-fist sizes deemed normal in comparison to their open and unclenched hands by the Town Council Of Hands, Feet, And Assorted Corporeal Paraphernalia. Failure to possess so shall result in a fine deemed suitable by the incumbent Town Tribunal Against Oddities And Outside-The-Boxisms. Except for the designated former 'Koehaegen Babies' and other such victims of quantum nucleotidal mishaps, who shall proudly bear their pinpoint fists in pugilism or celebration without any reprisals or mockery from any townperson, who if seen engaging in mockery shall receive a penalty of a suitably-deemed fine."

Gog read and re-read that last sentence and felt a flush of something; not comprehension exactly, but something. Somewhere out there, a lawyer, a politician, a typesetter, an editor, and a proofreader all wept tears of what the fuck.

The other framed document simply read:

ALL IS NOT LOST.

Gog smiled at that.

Well, only for a second.

Because man, that right hand really was rough on the eyes.

* * * *

Hernia

Blokko Snodkrok was the greatest heavyweight weightlifter of all time. He was 727 pounds and 7'8" of unbelievable muscle. Being the smallest member of the Snodkrok family, for even his mother Gorka towered over him at 8'4", Blokko had to work even harder then the hardest-working Snodkrok, Blokko's brother Hardo, to excel at anything.

Blokko had four brothers – Fokko, the greatest physicist of all time and a towering 9'2"; Bammo, the greatest abstract artist of all time and an unrelenting 9'4"; Spukko, the greatest massage therapist of all time at a slightly more modest 8'11-1/2"; and the aforementioned Hardo at a jaw-dropping 11'7", the greatest basketball player of all time and winner of eight NBA championships despite only having played five seasons.

Sadly, Blokko's father Kokko, who in his heyday straddled the earth at an impressive 9'3", was no longer among the living as he succumbed to a strangulated hernia while lifting a school bus off a flock of trapped ducklings about seven years ago.

And now it was a hernia that clouded Blokko's immediate status as the greatest heavyweight weightlifter of all time. Blokko had successfully deadlifted more than 8,000 kg during the World Heavyweight Weightlifting Championship in Zurich, to the thunderously beef-eating applause of all, including Prince Regent Bixby of Fortescue, when suddenly he had felt his lower intestines explode above his hip socket like so much well-muscled sausage links breaking free of their impossibly-pumped casings. Prince Regent Bixby screamed like a little girl when he was sprayed with some of the non-vital viscera that shot forth from Blokko's oiled abdomen. That video went viral in sausage-splattering seconds.

Later, Blokko found himself in the world-famous Coldice Hospital for Hernia Fix-'Em-Ups, with a hole in him the size of his fantastically muscled fist. He had tested the hole size earlier to confirm this.

Dr. Ostar Thumbsdeep, the smarmy presiding asshole doctor who also patched up hernias, gave Blokko the bad news.

"I'm afraid we were not able to save your lower intestines, Blokko. You will die within the day." Dr. Thumbsdeep took a deep, loud slurping sip from his coffee cup.

"Oh... no...," pieced together Blokko. "This not good."

"Well from your standpoint... no," confirmed Dr. Thumbsdeep. "But I still get paid, so at least one of us goes home happy." He beamed a smile at Blokko that was not met half-way.

Later still, Blokko's whole family crowded around the tiny semi-private hospital bed. All except for Hardo, who was too tall to fit into the room so they set up a simulcast in the cafeteria for him.

"I die now, family," Blokko said.

"Sadness," they all glumly replied in unison.

"You didn't work hard enough," bellowed Hardo from the cafeteria.

Blokko's casket was huge. And that was even after the cremation. He had asked that his ashes be spread onto the grounds of Coldice Hospital, as well as onto the grounds of Dr. Thumbsdeep's daily coffee.

Because Dr. Thumbsdeep was really quite a dick.

* * * *

**Justan Beeburr**

Justan Beeburr got up at 5:30 in the morning as was his usual routine. After a quick round of 150 sit-ups and 89 sets of upside-down ab crunches, he then wiled away his usual hour working out the complexities of Grand Unified Theory in a conference call with the renowned astrophysicist, Neil DeGrassi Junior Hyson. After a light breakfast, he then drove himself in his bright black limousine to the recording studio to lay down some hot tracks for his upcoming album, "Don't Say Don't." He was the world's most productive nine-year-old.

Just as he arrived at Zygoat Zounds Studios, his manager and recording engineer both approached his limousine. Worried looks embedded their old, non-teen faces.

"Justan, there's a situation–" began his manager, Clem Monty, a lifer in the world of pretween music sensations.

Justan's sound engineer Marquix DeSaab, winner of 144 Grammys for Best Tweaking, looked at Justan with fear and hope, which he privately called fope.

"Justan, Serena's been–" Marquix couldn't bring himself to even say the words.

Justan looked calmly but concernedly into Marquix's lined and older eyes and commanded him, "Just breathe it out, man. It's okay. Just tell me what's going on. Is she okay?" Justan was worried about his equally successful and non-aged girlfriend, Serena Gumms, star of the hit Nisdey television show, "Werewolves of Washboard Space."

Clem took the conversational reins. "Serena's been thinking about leaving the music and television business and going into a career of anonymity."

Justan's world quickly flipped turned upside down. The horror. What did he just hear? How could one so successful and so nine years old consider giving up all of this normal fame and riches and settle into a life of a lumpen prole, an unwashed mass, a regular mortal girl? His eyes steeled and he growled in low pre-pubescent tones, "Shit just got real."

Clem and Marquix began to sweat even more than their older-than-tween bodies normally sweated. They looked at each other worriedly. With deft touches from his smart phone, Clem fired up the vaunted and storied Beeburr Machine.

The Beeburr Machine, invented by Justan Beeburr during a five-minute juice break two years ago, was the most amazing piece of equipment ever conceived and built by a multi-billionaire boy under ten. Once The Beeburr Machine was activated, the media penetration which ensued was swift and complete – photos, blogs, video sharing sites, news empires, average citizens' computers not even connected to the internet, Grandpa's photo scrap book – in short, every conceivable and inconceivable form of media outlet worldwide was saturated with fresh, constant content about how cool Justan was, how cool Justan and Serena were together, and that his new album was due out later that week, regardless of what week was being discussed.

While the Beeburr Machine was humming frantically, Justan donned his black racing gloves and pounced into his bright black limousine. Speeding maniacally along the Justan Beeburr Expressway (formerly the Brittnay Spores Car Crashway), he soon arrived at Serena's glorious palatial mansion. It was the finest mansion completely owned and upkept by a nine-year-old in the whole of Heavenly Bills.

Stopping on her mansion's long Italian limestone driveway, he bolted out of the limousine via the sunroof and sprinted to the door. He rang the doorbell, which was programmed to sound like her latest hit, "I'll Never Leave U Justan Beeburr Because I'm Your Girlfriend, Serena Gumms." The door opened a second later. It was Serena's housekeeper, Bunt, a Filipinamericanexican woman who was substantially older than nine years old, if counting the rings around her eyes was any indication. "I will get her," she said in voice-dead tones as she directed him to The Salon.

The Salon in Serena's home was her sanctuary away from work, with lushly carpeted twenty-foot-high walls and covered with large framed photographs of her, of her and Justan, of Justan alone, and of the cast of "Werewolves of Washboard Space" all smiling perfectly and without a single wrinkle among them. A bright pink grand piano stood proudly in the middle of the room and was set to auto-play her first hit, "I Am Serena Gumms, Hello," over and over again in rich, tin-pan piano tones. Truly a glorious room. Justan breathed in the familiar scent of red peppers and toenail polish that he grew to know and love so much from all his frequent visitations.

Dramatically, Serena entered through the tall French doors. "Justan!" she called out as only an infinitely rich and yet still really nice nine-year-old girl could.

Justan swung around very dramatically, as only an infinitely rich and yet still really wealthy nine-year-old boy could.

They gazed at each other for a moment, taking in their partner's presence. Finally, the tension was broken by the arrival of Bunt with some lemonade and cookies. They set into the snack like kids on a snack.

"So babe, what up?" Justan eloquently asked. "That real?"

"What? About me leaving show business?"

"Yeah."

"No."

"Ah, new album coming out, sales boost?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. And, we still good?"

"Oh yeah."

"Awriiiyight."

They smiled and shook hands, titans of the music industry that they were; professionals who understood each other and who respected the other's works.

Serena ushered him out with, "I gotta get ready to host The Oscars and then conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra."

"I know, babe. You'll rock it." And with that, he sprinted back out of the mansion, double-back-flipped into the sun roof of his bright black limousine and motored off back to Zygoat Zounds Studios where his relentlessly unteenaged associates were still nervously holding down the fort, awaiting the outcome of The Most Important Meeting In The History Of The World That Day.

With the crisis now averted and the formidable Beeburr Machine once again powered down into stasis until the next time it was desperately needed (like say a world tour or a hangnail removal), Justan, Clem, and Marquix finally could get back down to the business at hand: creating the awesomely auto-tuned and sanitized sounds for the next media-sated and world-savvy generation.

And like a powerful corporation which inundates the youth early on with non-stop advertising so that lifelong brand recognition can assure a lifelong allegiance from these adults of tomorrow to its product line, this Beeburrmania too could help pave the way someday for a President Beeburr, and perhaps even a Grand World King Beeburr.

Maybe when he turned ten.

* * * *

Kingdom

The man's cell phone rang yet again, the fourth time in the last 20 minutes. The other moviegoers groaned a chorus of disapproval.

"Get outta here with that!" "Shut off the goddamn phone!" "Dude! I'm trying to watch the film!"

A bag of popcorn hit the back of the man's head. He was quietly pissed off. He grimly rose from his chair and took the call in the lobby. He was quite unhappy.

"Yes, what is it," he sighed into the phone. "Uh-huh... Well now's not a good time– Well, yes of course I still want to be your friend– Yes, I did say give me a call sometime, but I didn't think you would actually do it– Look. I gotta go."

He hit the red Stop button and ended the call. He turned his cell phone completely off and went back into the movie theatre.

He found his seat again, leaned into his wife's ear and whispered, "What did I miss?"

"The guy in the suit just revealed he's actually the Devil," she whispered back.

"Aw crap."

"Who was that?"

"Jerry again." His wife sighed as he continued, "Honest to God, Linda, I never thought that he would figure out my ph–"

"Sssh!" came from a particularly terse older man with graying, flyaway hair sitting in the row behind them.

"Sorry," she stage-whispered, embarrassed.

"Ya wanna go?" he asked.

"No, sweetie, it's the fourth time this month. I want to actually stay and watch a whole movie."

"I know, I'm sorry... I think I should go."

"Andrew–"

"I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you later, I promise." He got up and left, leaving her burning hot-cheeked in her seat, but also understanding.

Linda knew what she was in for when they married three years ago. Andrew was a special man with a haunting ability that had been passed down over generations. He was also a special man with perhaps too open a heart for his own good.

And now there she found herself, Linda Doolittle, a doctor's widow, as her husband fielded all the calls in the animal kingdom of creatures in crisis. Like Jerry the jittery jaguar, Donny the depressed dachshund, and Emma the eternally envious emu. Callers all, to Doolittle's Animal Crisis Hotline.

* * * *

Laptop

Bognar used his new laptop in his favourite café, The Puntaterium. Why it was called "The Puntaterium" was anybody's guess, though speculation ran that the original owner of the cafe, Hobart Horkins, was a real knob, a real mealy-mouthed so-and-do, a real punter, as the Brits say. So when it changed ownership a few years ago after the 30+ years of Horkins-owned proprietorship, the new owner, a real hepcat named Decimal, named it in dubious honour of the previous regime.

Bognar mused on that as he sipped his medium coffee and typed away his Great Canamerican Novel. There had been many great American novels written over the last couple of centuries, and even a few Great Canadian novels too. They will not be named here. But no one had yet attempted the seemingly impossible – Canamerican? No way.

Bognar wanted to convey the sweeping drama, the intrigue, the pulse-pounding sexiness, the regretful aftermaths, the nation-building, the nation-sweating, the nation-shit-shave-shower-and-shampooing, the whole range of binational experience in one 250-page airport-sold page-turner uploaded to Smashwords so that he could cash in big time on the trends of self-published authors making it big time, or even moderately large and puffy time.

"Another coffee, please," asked Bognar in his slightly-difficult-to-pinpoint accent.

"Comin' up," said Decimal as he poured him a fresh cup.

Decimal set it in front of him, but Bognar was in a writing zone. More soft and rapid clicking eminated from Bognar's laptop. Decimal looked whimsically at him for a couple of beats. Finally, Decimal broke the silence.

"How's it coming?"

"Uh?"

"Your novel. How's it coming?"

"Uh."

"Oh."

More typing. More Pat Metheny playing in the background to the bemusement of the other three Puntaterium patrons, who were gossiping among themselves about Kim Kardashian or other such bullshit that shouldn't impact people's lives as much as it apparently does.

Bognar stopped typing and looked up. Decimal had moved to clean a few tables away.

"Decimal, let me ask you something."

"Sure man, what's up?"

"Why is America so great, and yet eating itself so much about crap that seems to be paltry?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in America, you can have such amazing works of passion, of beauty, of ingenuity and integrity. Then you can have such stupid partisan politics stopping good things from happening and hate-mongers arise who espouse such bigotries in one hand while saying they practice Christian values."

"We have that in Canada too."

"Oh sure, but it is brought into such a stronger, uh, forefront, in heightened relief, in the States."

"American Garage" continued its epic, warbling journey through the sound system. Decimal wiped his glasses.

"I guess nobody can agree on what is good. We all have our own thoughts and belief systems, and differences inevitably arise."

"Oh sure, but it just seems so... intense nowadays. Like a foaming dog."

"Rabid."

"Yes. 'Rabid.'" Bognar liked that word. He typed five pronounced clicks and hit the period.

"Personally, I think it's all the electronic waves in the air making people slowly batshit crazy."

Bognar thought about that. He nodded as he sipped his coffee. "Thank you."

"For what, man?"

"I think you just gave me my next chapter."

"Cool beans, man." Decimal went back behind the counter as Bognar took an energizing sip of coffee, then continued flurrying on his keyboard.

* * * *

Life And Death

Life and Death split, cite "irreconcilable differences"

by Gordon Oxley, Associative Press

NEW YORK CITY – Today, Death issued a statement saying that as of the upcoming May 1, he is getting out of the business, citing "irreconcilable differences" with his eternal counterpoint, Life.

Luella Manders, a spokesperson for Death, read from a prepared statement from Citi Field, home of the New York Mets and the site of many past chokings. Death himself was nowhere to be seen, nor was he available for comment at press time.

The statement read, in part: "I am tired of always being the fall guy, and of always cleaning up all of Life's little messes. Life has it easy; he just gets to make stuff. That's clean and organized. You break that stuff, then I have to come in like some glorified janitor sweeping up the blood and crap. I also cannot abide any more to all the negative reaction greeting my entrance anywhere. Yes, to you I look hideous, but get over it. I am actually a nice guy, but none of you stiffs will ever know it. None of you pricks would ever name a breakfast cereal after me, even after the cute logo I drew up. And quite frankly, some of you people are just pigs. At least wash up first before I come to visit you. That's one part of this job I will not miss at all. Man, if I wasn't Death, I would have contracted something hideous by now, handling all of you rotten meat sacks."

In the follow-up press scrum, Manders elaborated a little further. "Everybody on the outside thinks that Life is always upbeat and positive," she said, "but that is just not always the case. On more than one occasion, Life has been quite unfair and would sometimes lash out at those closest to him. Death found this increasingly hard to work with, until finally he was faced with a 'Life or Death' decision, so he's left on his own terms before things got more out of hand."

When asked what we could expect in the near future in terms of world mortality rates, Manders speculated, "I'm guessing they'd go down. We haven't crunched the numbers yet so I can't honestly say. We may all have to eventually learn to share space a bit more, though. Or at least build bigger storage containers down by the docks."

When asked if a successor would be appointed to handle the inevitable backlog of terminations, Manders stated that there would be auditions held within the next few weeks for Death's successor at Madison Square Garden. "So if you think you're good at killing and enjoy meeting people, come on down to Madison Square," proposed Manders. "But we're going to retire the name 'Death' out of respect for all the hard work that Death has done," she continued. "In the finest Hollywood tradition, we're going to reboot the franchise and call it something else."

Among the alternate names for "Death" on her office's shortlist, Manders mentioned top candidates currently included: "The Big Sleep 2: Ethereal Boogaloo," "Sexy Vampire Bitey Nap-Nap Time," "That Thing Where You Don't Move Around At All Ever Again," and "Serbia Saturday Night."

Life could not be reached for comment at press time.

* * * *

Month

It's been a month since we had sex. I looked at the phone. I looked at my nails. I looked at the wine puddle on my floor. I looked at the collection of monkey puppets that lined my windowsill. Could it be that somehow I scared her off?

It seemed so magical that night. I, expecting another lame-ass D&D game at Bernard's house, was totally entranced by the surprise appearance of his younger sister Arlenia, back from college after completing the four-years-in-seven B.A. in English Lit and a pert-boobied 25.

Thankfully, Leon was making his patented "motherfuckers" – a bold concoction made primarily out of gin, wood grain alcohol, chocolate-covered mints, and whatever else was handy. What else would you serve to a group of fat, balding 40-something basement-dwelling mental virgins on another loathsome Friday night? Yeah, bring on the freaking wood grain, let me forget this whole gaggle of geeks I'm stuck here in evolutionary purgatory with.

As Bernard was casting an impotence spell against Walter, Arlenia, who had been off at the side watching with unexpected interest, tapped me lightly on the shoulder and asked in a cooing, trilly voice worthy of an elfin priestess, "What's a 'hit point?'"

Our eyes locked. Both of us reeked of motherfuckers. Suddenly, the unthinkable happened, at least with that crowd: we kissed. But not a mamby-pamby little peck. This was a life-altering lip swallowing that drowned out everything else around it. And my peener – oh my glorious, dusty, underachieving peener – was finally starting to gasp for air after its lengthy internment deep in the recesses of my dungarees.

We immediately left together, eyes and lips still locked on each other. The cries of "Hey, you still have to roll the dodecahedral dice!" cross-faded into the ambience of subway cars, late night sirens and finally the fluorescent hum of my bedroom light.

We stampeded over each other like horses bursting out of the glue factory conveyor belt, and we grazed on each other's grassy fields of freedom. We each saw a million sounds and felt a billion colours.

With a sweat-laced final grunt I romantically bellowed, "I just came!" but her socks were stuffed in my mouth. I guess you had to be there.

The last thing I remember before I passed out was seeing her curled over my toilet, heaving wildly. That must have been some orgasm I gave her.

I blinked. Now my apartment is empty again. And the phone hasn't rung, not even once, in the month since. I don't get it. I've called her place at least 40 times. I'm sure she's got my number. I better check with her again, just to make sure.

* * * *

Moon

Erv Winestain's head looked like a giant, pale, shaking pockmarked moon as he read the Channel 7 Eyewitnessing News for the last time to his faithful Buffalo viewing audience. His last story was about clowns in Cheektowaga who caught on fire when they backed into a fire-eater. The appropriate "cheek" pun made, Erv smiled contentedly and with the final fade-out of Camera 2's red light, his career was done. The comments from the floor poured in.

"Great job, Erv." "Gonna miss you, Erv." "You mispronounced 'asphalt' again, Erv." Erv wiped a small tear from his eye and, after an impromptu glass of Baby Duck on the studio floor, left through the back door and went to parking spot #26, just like he had done 200 nights a year for the last 31 years.

As he fumbled for his jingling keys, he looked up at the clear Buffalo night sky. The moon was big and round and beautiful, full as a grapefruit and glowing like a 20-watt bulb. He got into his '98 Skylark and began the drive home to Townawanda.

The roads were clear, clearer than normal, and Erv was happy to breeze right along. He was thinking about what he'd do this weekend. He and Becky were supposed to go to Grand Island with the grandkids, which if the weather holds up, should be–

Suddenly a big whump came from the front of the car. Erv jerked forward and the airbag burst open. The car was stopped. Erv was dazed. He noticed the windshield was cracked.

He felt a trickle of warm going down the right side of his face. Sure enough, it was his own blood. He slowly unbuckled his seatbelt and after two shoulder jams, managed to get the door open. He staggered out to assess the damage. A deer. He probably hit a deer. They always cross the highway this time of night. He grimaced as he braced for a big twitchy carcass to be crushed into the car's front grill.

And he saw... nothing. Just a dented and steaming hood, misaligned front wheels and the components of a popped right headlight sprayed like cannonshot in front of the car.

The hairs on the back of his neck perked right up. But by then it was too late. The werewolf had already begun ripping into Erv's spinal column even before he was dashed to the pavement like a porridge-filled ragdoll. What was left of Erv Winestain could not even fill a shopping bag from Topp's Smiley Markets by the time the werewolf had finished.

The sky began to cloud over and slowly the werewolf began turning human again. The man in tattered rags surveyed the carnage he had just wrought and sighed, shaking his head.

"Tsk, tsk, I told Erv he mispronounced 'asphalt.' How many fucking times did I have to tell him? Well, I hope he gets it now."

* * * *

Nausea

It was a rough journey on the open sea for M'butu. He didn't like many things going on right now. He didn't like this boat. He didn't like the cramped conditions with the men, women, and children who were all forcibly plucked from the village to go to some strange place. The movement of the ocean – rough, unpredictable, and unrelenting – was making him and many others vomit horribly. The smell was more than enough to start a fresh round of wretching.

Who the fuck were these white devils anyway? What gave them the right to do this? M'butu had murder in his eyes, and if not for one of those "guns" aimed at him – he had seen one of them blow a tree apart with a much harder throw of rocks than even !Xoto could manage – he'd have throttled every last living white man he could find and figure out a way to steer this great ship back home. But now was not the time for rash action. No, he needed to be subtle.

His first opportunity came later that day, actually. The ocean was rough, but M'butu was getting more used to it. One of the smaller white bastards gestured him to come up to the deck to help him move something. M'butu walked ahead of the white man and could feel the gun poking into his back. A happy combination of circumstances – no other white man saw M'butu and the smaller white bastard together, they were on an unpopulated part of the ship, and ship was being rocked very hard by waves – allowed M'butu to easily chuck the white devil overboard. Nobody heard his scream for help, and M'butu slipped unnoticed back into the cargo hold. For the first time on this horrible trip, he smiled. He quietly shared his story with the other captives, and none of them outwardly betrayed emotion but inside all were now beaming with hope. They now had a new goal: throw the white beasts overboard one by one at first and then when the odds were better, overthrow the rest and force them to turn the ship back.

As luck would have it, the next few days and nights of the voyage were still pounded by rough weather, but by now the captives had acclimatized. Slowly the numbers of the white slave traders dwindled, which sent a panic through their ranks. They naturally thought that the slaves had something to do with it but they all seemed to be accounted for whenever a new absence was discovered.

Finally, the white men's numbers dwindled to that critical breaking point where they could be outmaneuvered by the tribesmen, guns or not. The captives were fine if some of them died in the insurrection – they were all hunters and warriors and faced similar stakes each day at home anyway.

After much physical coercion, the remaining white bastards were convinced to steer the boat back and so they did. The weather had calmed down and it was a very welcome sight indeed when M'butu spotted familiar shores.

The white devils were made to do the menial chores of the village like cleaning the shit out of the beasts' pens and going on snake protection duty. The villagers had not been this happy nor united in a long time, and this triumph became very well chronicled and celebrated for many generations afterward.

And so ended the first, last, and only voyage of the H.M.S. "We're Dirty Bastards But At Least We Don't Chain Up Our Slaves Like Those Other Ships."

* * * *

Nose Blow

Benny's cold had hit a peak of awfulness. He was dripping like a tapped maple tree and his head pounded out an arrhythmic pattern that kept an odd occasional syncopation with his shivers. The awful slick layer of sweat that was coated on his forehead and neck just seemed to highlight what a living wax mannequin he felt he looked like.

And yet there he still was, all 68 years old of him, greeting the Lol-Mart customers as they entered through the store's front doors, oblivious to his pain and his vulnerable mortality.

"Hi there, welcome to Lol-Mart," he croaked to a 400-pound unkempt middle-aged woman in leopard-print track pants.

"Good morning, welcome to Lol-Mart," he rasped to a slowly shuffling couple easily in their early hundreds who smelled vaguely like cracked rotten eggs left out in the sun in one of the less scenic parts of deepest, darkest New Jersey.

As the day waned and his pallour grew more to match the gray concrete floor, his manager Jim came over to him when there was a lull. Jim was a thin, wiry, harassed-looking young man with thick-framed glasses and a bad teenage moustache that had entered its 15th consecutive year of living on Jim's upper lip. He wore a badly ironed short-sleeved white shirt with a name badge over the left breast that proudly bore the words "Jim Manager" stuck on it with block-lettered label tape. And he also wore a sneer of smug frustration that was a facemask for all who were stuck in unfulfilling middle management roles. He gestured with the clipboard in his right hand.

"Benny, seriously, what the fuck. You're scaring the customers."

Benny wheezed, "They're in their own worlds, they don't even notice. Or care. You may as well get a cardboard cut-out for all the good I'm doing here." He struggled to hold back a mollusk of phlegm from spasming out his mouth as he got to the end of his sentence. He glumly swallowed it back down as Jim's face registered profound disgust.

"Well I'm sorry, Jim. I'm really sick and I wanted to stay home. You know that."

"Benny–" Jim froze him with a look. Benny knew what was next and rolled his reddened eyes. The throb in his head had found an interesting sambalike rhythm now.

"–what is Lol-Mart's internal corporate motto?" asked Jim. Both he and Benny then said unison: "Lol-Mart don't give a fuck if you're sick, just show up and don't be a dick."

"That's right," continued Jim. "So don't be a dick or you'll be fired quick. And blow your goddamned nose–"

A young redneck couple with matching tramp-stamp face tattoos and dragging behind them a brood of four yelling children entered the store, forcing Jim to change his sentence's direction and chirp at them, "Hello folks, and welcome to Lol-Mart!"

Benny felt like shit and suddenly couldn't hold back anymore. Out came four days' worth of sick, pushed up by three years' worth of job dissatisfaction, and ably assisted by an ill-fitting Lol-Mart corporate vest. His aim was nowhere near the garbage can that stood several feet away.

Jim looked blankly while chunks dribbled down Benny's chin. Jim made sure none got onto his precious clipboard.

"So, you still want me to greet the customers, Jim?" Benny weakly asked.

"Oh hell yes," enthused Jim. "They can relate to you more now."

Benny just sighed and soldiered on best he could, because that was what men of his generation did.

* * * *

Perfection

All his life, Gerald McNamara was considered absolutely perfect. A golden god on earth, sheathed in shimmery silver and bronzed to perfection. When he was a boy, his classmates held him in the kind of awe that kids usually reserved for the latest blockbuster movie or that time when the horse came to school. His teachers gave him no-brainer perfect marks, and predicted that he'd go places, reach heights that no mere mortal could normally even get to imagine let alone actually see, let alone actually have the power to influence.

All the girls he ever dated, had sex with or made out with, starting with Mrs. Danvers back in First Grade (long before this practice became standard teaching protocol like it apparently is today), fell instantly and madly in love with him. Eventually, of course, he'd have to break up with them, and after the requisite heartbreak of losing such a boyfriend, most of the girls (and later, women) involved would totally accept the decision as a natural course of events. Though it still didn't prevent a higher than normal percentage of suicides from happening.

Gerald McNamara left an unparalleled string of broken hearts in his wake throughout his whole life. It was estimated by scientists at M.I.T. that from the time of his first dalliance with Mrs. Danvers up to his eventual, perfect death at the exact age of 100, Gerald had been officially single for a cumulative time of 8 minutes and 14 seconds, and that only happened because of one bout of diarrhea he had at age 12 after eating some bad sushi. But even then, it was the most perfect diarrhea in the history of Man.

Gerald did eventually rise to prominence as the undisputed ruler of Earth, and governed the planet perfectly for 74 years. He solved pretty much all the big crises that had befallen the planet – the "War on Terror," world hunger, global warming, and global health care. The only nut he couldn't crack was why guidos were such douchebags, but luckily The Great Douchebag Explosion of 2036, when the small asteroid later dubbed "The Ameliorator" hit New Jersey during the Newark Douchebag Expo, took care of that small sticking point in his administration.

Gerald McNamara was the perfect father, leaving behind a veritable race of perfect children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all as aesthetically pleasing as he was, and as compassionate and mentally sharp as he ever was.

He was the perfect role model, whose well-written speeches and intelligently chosen words brought down despotic empires and inspired countless billions of people. His legacy will influence planetary and interstellar affairs for generations to come. He gave humanity an incalculably huge leg-up to its next phase of societal evolution.

He was absolutely perfect.

And that's why I pissed on his memorial statue, Officer. Because I am a jealous. mealy little homunculus.

* * * *

Plants

Joanie Havershaw loved her plants very much. They were all she had now, being the last person on Mars. The orchids, the apple trees, all different varieties growing in the greenhouse not only helped feed her soul but helped her just basically stay alive.

Joanie hadn't initially trained to be an astronaut. She merely trapezed her way through a series of improbable career paths in a very short span of time. When EPEE (Earth Planetary Exploration Enterprise) needed a trained botanist sent to Mars to replace their their last one who was eaten by a mutant Venus fly trap (since dubbed a "Mars fly trap,") Joanie got the call. In fact, EPEE discovered that many things were, no pun intended, star-crossed about their manned Mars missions. At their last Board of Directors meeting, they privately regretted having bought out NASA those eight years ago, and had not delivered on their promise of a "catastrophe-free Mars mission" in their two attempts so far.

Of course their first attempt, Mars Prime, was at least able to set down a series of stable colonial structures. It was just the unforeseeable catching of a type of communicable psychosis that prevented Mars Prime from succeeding.

Four years later, Mars 2.0, besides suffering from a lack of creative naming, was also hindered by the constant dust storms which irreparably clogged the nitroxy generators, making the colony of 15 slowly drop off like victims in some generic Agatha Christie novel.

Eventually the sole survivor, Joanie Havershaw, set up home in the greenhouse. At least the colony was close enough to an underground runoff from the ice cap that sufficient potable water could keep her and the plants going for a while. Ever the improviser, Joanie also had to make the grim conversion of her former mission specialists, co-habitants, and friends into extra-potent fertilizer.

It had now been 7 months since she became the last one standing. She was curious to see how the baby growing in her belly would do once it arrived in a couple of months' time. She reviewed again the birthing procedures on the mainframe, but it would be a challenge to do this by herself. And all of this going on while still chipping away daily at fixing the radio so she could at least let everyone know back home what was going on. By now, she was sure that EPEE would have either dispatched help or just washed their hands of Mars 2.0, putting it into the "acceptable losses" column of their corporate ledger.

In either case, she was hoping to add "radio repairperson" to her ever-growing C.V. And "mother." They'll both look great underneath "survivor."

* * * *

Puppy

Of all the things Karen wanted in the world, she wanted a puppy the absolutest most! She loved puppies. Big puppies. Happy puppies. Running puppies. Puppies who jump up and lick you and are always happy to see you and who always love you and who always sleep in your bed with you and keep you warm and happy and safe.

And now that Karen was about to turn 8, no longer 7 anymore, but now a nice even 8, that seemed to be a sign of good things to come. Like a new puppy in big box with a big red bow on it. Red was her favourite colour, and that would also be the name of her new puppy whether it's a boy or a girl. She'd decided.

The few weeks leading up to her birthday, she kept asking for a puppy.

"Daddy, can I have a cute puppy pleeeeeeeease?"

"We'll see what your mother says, Kitten."

"Mommy mummy mummy, can I please have a puppy, please? I'll take care of him and walk him and feed him. I'll be good this time, I promise!"

"This time" meant it would be different than "last time." "Last time" Karen had a pet, it was a goldfish who met an abrupt end when her friend Jacklyn told her that goldfish could swim so fast that they could dodge the blades of a blender. Well, Jacklyn was wrong. But that was "last time," and besides, no puppy would fit into a blender and besides as well Karen was now 2 whole years smarter than before, and so she'd never stick her puppy into a blender 'cuz she'd love her puppy till the end of time so please mummy please can I have a puppy?

And on it went, right up to her birthday. And on that sunny Sunday, Karen woke up to find a big box with a big red bow on it, at the foot of her bed. Behind the box were Mommy and Daddy.

"Good morning, sweetie."

"Happy Birthday, Kitten."

Karen was thrilled! This was all happening just like in her dreams. Her eyes grew wide as saucers as she got out from under the covers and crawled over to the box with the big red bow.

"Thank you, Mummydaddy! Thank you!" she squealed as she gleefully began to tear open the box.

"Careful, Karen, go easy," cautioned her mom. But Karen was in the giddy zone of a kid having a birthday. She ripped off the bow and the ribbon and yanked the lid off the box. "Here I come, puppy!" she screamed.

She looked inside. Her eyes narrowed. She waited a second.

Then she screamed again.

Inside the box was a large brown rock with a note taped on it. Karen was stunned. She slowly took the rock out of the box and unpeeled the note. She frowned as she read it, sounding out the words.

"Dear Karen: Your father and I thought we should start you off slowly with a rock first. If you treat it well then maybe next year we'll get you something alive. We still can't get the blender to work right after 'last time,' and besides your father has spent much of our savings on booze so we couldn't afford a puppy anyway. Happy birthday from your parents."

Karen remained gape-eyed in silence for several seconds. Little tears began brimming but she held back from crying.

She knew that something important and honest had just happened.

For that day, she learned the true meaning of the word "assholes."

* * * *

Race

Lannce Armstronng had cycled all the great races of his generation. The Bike Tour of France 1999. The Bike Tour of France 2000. The Bike Tour of France 2001. The Bike Tour of France 2002. The Bike Tour of France 2003. The Bike Tour of France 2004. Yep, he did them all. He was a hero to millions and a whole slew of babies were christened "Lannce" or "Armstronng" for years after. They renamed the great cycling race the "Tour de Lannce" in his honour. He eventually went on to become both the President of the United States and the King of France at the same time. In fact, he didn't want to be king, but the public, so enamoured of his abilities, insisted that he be their divine ruler, chosen by the people but crafted by Almighty God himself.

In 2015, Lannce Armstronng contributed to the space race by designing the first practical and functional warp engine in human history. Star Trek aficionados, or "geeks," hailed him as their personal god, and he received 25,000 marriage proposals. When the Vatican declared him Pope in 2017, he was allowed to marry all 25,000 brides as a way to say thanks for helping the human race.

The year 2020 brought, appropriately enough, clear vision to the crisis in the Middle East. Lannce Armstronng raced around the clock to come up with a multi-pronged solution that allowed all the parties to get what they wanted while all saved face. The U.N. was so happy that they decreed that the planet Earth should be renamed the planet "Lannce Armstronng." The UN flag was quickly changed from the familiar Earth logo on a blue field to Lance's handsome face on a yellow background, the colour of the yellow jerseys he used to wear when leading the Tour de France.

When a race of war-mongering aliens landed on the planet Lannce Armstronng in 2038 and declared their hostile intent to dominate the world, it was Lannce Armstronng who raced to our defense. Ingeniously crafting anti-matter pellets out of chunks of dirt and leftover Fannta Orannge, he crippled the alien armada and once again saved the day. The cheering was so loud they could even hear it from Moonbase Koka-Kola.

And now here it was, the year 2066. Lannce Armstronng, the most famous and accomplished life form ever in the history of the planet Lannce Armstronng, was now an arthritic 94 years old. He was so cramped up and buckled over that the food-o-bot at the virtual MacDunnell's did not recognize him. The food-o-bot kept Lannce Armstronng waiting. Lannce Armstronng, so unaccustomed to moving slowly, felt his heart racing with growing anger.

"Damn robot race," he muttered. He abruptly stopped muttering though because he suddenly noticed he was dead. He looked down at his own gnarled body collapsed on the floor as he began floating up to the ceiling, on his way to meet God. He mused to himself.

"Wow – it happened so fast." And Lannce Armstronng smiled benificently, knowing he had finally raced his last.

* * * *

SLR

Morton Broscoe loved his cheap little camera very much, and he had taken it everywhere ever since he first got it four years ago. At that time, he'd managed to buy so much nasal spray from Shopping Drug Mart that his Optimax Points card became quickly top-loaded. Not bad for a guy with faulty nasal passages. As a result he was soon able to cash in for a reward. He opted for the "Cheapix 2000," which at the time was the most amazing little camera on the market.

When Morton went to Amsterdam, he took the Cheapix. Cuba, the same, and even for just shooting pictures around the city, anything – his girlfriend, his dog, the people at work. Soon all became fodder for his ever-growing digital album on Facebook.

It was at a work party – John Boeing from Sales was getting married and they closed the office early that day to celebrate – when Morton, after one too many vodka-laden Russian Assgrabbers, dropped the Cheapix on the tile floor. It sprayed apart on the floor in a fountain of plastic, glass, little screws, and electronics that, ironically enough, would have been beautifully captured on the Cheapix with a manual shutter setting suitable for photographing athletics.

Morton at first couldn't believe it, but then the happy haze of the Assgrabber quickly cross-faded into vocal anger at himself. Explosive and quick, just like the demise of the Cheapix. Or like its manual shutter setting suitable for photographing athletics.

Morton almost felt like he lost his best friend because in a way, he had. He had the Cheapix before he met Laura, and just about a month before he got Muttley. It took a couple of days for his self-loathing to drain out of him.

The following week he was at Hank's Cameras after work, looking at what was available and he saw some unbelievably sexy cameras with features that the Cheapix couldn't even begin to hold one candlelight power to. He could feel that itch brewing inside him – he knew he must have a good, beefy camera now.

The salesman, sensing a large, pigeon-shaped commission, sidled up beside Morton and began singing the praises of each model. In gradually ascending keys, even. He took Morton through a progressively more expensive labyrinth of details and aesthetics until finally, they arrived at the mother lode: the Perfectovision 10000 SLR 800GB Orgasmix. Morton's proverbial wang shot rapid-fire repeated wads at the sight of it. When he was allowed to pick it up, he shat his pants with weeping joy.

Later that evening, he arrived home with the camera. Laura was happy to see him smiling and Muttley was happy to smell him reeking of poo. The camera, gleaming new, the single most expensive item of anything in the house, worked as advertised and as Morton would joke later that while "SLR" stood for "So Long Retirement," he did manage to use it well to capture all the minutiae of his world quite happily.

Well, at least until Perfectovision came out with the 10000 SLR 1TB Orgasmix Alpha three months later.

* * * *

Small Things

Here I am, just some wise guy in a row of wise guys, who all got busted for stupid-shit things.

For example, Joey Thumbs over there with the thumbs failed to signal right at a turn off of Rutherford Boulevard. Frikkin' cop pulls him over, one thing leads to another, harsh words were exchanged shall we say, and the cop finds the ten kilos of cocaine wrapped in garbage bags and stuffed in the trunk. Joey Thumbs, man, what a useless wad. Rule #1, or 17, or whatever, is if you got some damn drugs in your car and a cop pulls you over, don't give the cop any reason to suspect you. Don't do shit to draw his attention, just shut your frikkin' face, nod up and down, yes sir no sir then get outta there toot-sweet, right?

See, Frankie The Steel over there with the hair was in a similar situation. Some little prick that Frankie had in his employ owed him money and for reasons known only to himself he didn't pay up. Needless to say Frankie don't like being jerked around so he messes him up and shit, then decides to hell with this and kills him. Dead. So the little prick ain't so tough now 'cuz he's now in pieces and Frankie's on his way to the junkyard with bags of cut-up mook in his trunk. Some cop, meanwhile, notices the busted taillight.

Here's the thing about Frankie – he looks like frikkin' Mister Rogers, right? Look at him. He's through and through made guy but through a quirk of DNA he don't look like one. He's all apple pie wholesome and shit, and this helped him get away with tons of crap over the years. Sometimes for a laugh he'd even wear a cardigan just to further take the piss out of some asshole before he iced him.

So Frankie's driving around like Archie Frikkin' Andrews All-American Boy, cop pulls him over about the taillight, and Frankie, man, he's workin' the charm, eventually wins the cop over to his side in what, 10, 15 minutes. Meanwhile he must've been shitting his pants just a little as the cop was literally a foot away from the carved-up mook.

Cop says, "Okay, you can go," Frankie says, "Thank you, officer," and all looked great. Then Frankie pulls a dumbass move and pulls out a bit too quickly. Tires squeal a bit but he didn't see the car coming behind him to his left. It wasn't a big bang or nothin' but Frankie's trunk gets popped open and suddenly two bags of wet dead mook hit the pavement and the other driver's grill.

So: just play it cool. It's the little things that'll bust your stupid ass. They got Capone for tax evasion, right?

As for me, it was one damn drop of blood – one – that I didn't notice on my collar that made the day of fresh-faced frikkin' Detective Harvey. Now that prick's all smug and shit because he nailed my dumb ass.

So pay attention, all right? Take care of the small things so you can take care of the big things.

* * * *

Some Interesting First Lines

Aggner Parson woke up after disconcerting dreams to find he had been covered in melted cheese.

The eleven velociraptors chewing on Bob's testicles were, at that moment, the least of his problems.

Jessic Smit was so poor, she couldn't afford to finish spelling her name.

When Corbin Anderson was born, he was only seven atoms wide.

"Motherfucker!" screamed the librarian, just to the left of the "Self-Help" section.

Claudia looked in the mirror and felt as attractive as a fistful of rat holes.

At 87, Gummy Sainte-Claire was the porn industry's busiest octogenarian, and he didn't mind.

David sold his soul to the Devil for a pack of Mexican smokes and a torrid night with Salma Hayek.

Speckler reflected on the day's events that led him to have his bare nuts stuck to the frozen flagpole on this particular mid-February afternoon.

When Tony Albers went on a date, he habitually checked out whether or not she had odd spinal curvature as he found that sexy.

The President's rampant, policy-altering syphilis had taken a turn for the worse.

Summoning every ounce of will power he had left, Auguste put one foot down on the floor, then the other, then reluctantly hoisted himself out of the most luxurious bed in the world.

The lion, hit by a tourist's discarded pop can one too many times, stood upon his hind legs and muttered, "Okay, enough of this shit."

Armando looked deep into Rosalinda's eyes and thought, "How much could I get for those?"

Louie was examining the cut on his lower lip in the mirror when he noticed the tiny fingers prying it open from the inside.

It took a lot of voter convincing, but after an intelligently-run campaign, Zombie Josef Stalin was now the 49th President of the United States.

Coco was the worst Dalmatian in the history of the world.

For being such a devotee to the game "Angry Birds," it was ironic that Gerald would have met his end when a fiercely territorial hummingbird flew down his throat when he strayed too close to the nectar.

After using several complicated code-breaking algorithms to decode the alien message, the chief radio astronomer at Mount Palomar announced to the world that the people from Gliese 581 c want the people of Earth to please, please stop spamming them.

Bobby Or's tender knees were thoroughly wrapped for their protection, but since he was just a chartered accountant instead of a famous hockey player like Bobby Orr, nobody gave a crap.

The mice had formed an honest-to-god conga line, which prompted the researchers who worked under Dr. Leary to ask, "What the hell did our boss put in the cheese?"

Kellerby's pants pinched his waist so much that he was constantly browning his trousers and yet his company was still making more money than God.

After years of trying, the arthritis finally crumpled Ethel into an ossified hoop.

Every time the right-wing candidate spoke, the tic in Larry's face grew more pronounced until it started cracking the sound barrier.

Whenever "Cake Boss" was on, Lonnie dreamed of having an employer made entirely out of Black Forest cake, instead of the one he had which was made entirely out of reinforced concrete and foam core.

In the mighty jungle, one phenomenon that was far less-known than "the Circle of Life" was "the Octagon of Death."

* * * *

The Old Creaky Body

Jim woke up with that vague pull in his back again. He was 44, balding and flabby, especially around the middle. In the last few years, he'd had some problem with his lower back and thus became a real tug of war for him. He wanted to exercise more but felt held back because he'd had bad experiences in the past with his trick back suddenly giving way without even the courtesy of a call-ahead cablegram.

The worst one was several months ago when he was still fully employed, and he had just finished a light workout at the gym. He had just showered and, naked, was in the process of threading his right leg through his underwear when he was suddenly stopped hot in his tracks by the overwhelming sensation of his lower back exploding like a cargo ship packed with too much dynamite that glanced against a silo full of temperamental nuclear warheads. He would have called it the "Halibacks Explosion" if he was a cleverer man but he hated puns, especially when they worked against him. Besides, esoteric thoughts didn't help him in the now, with that pull above his right ass cheek that went into the middle of his right love handle.

He applied the ice pack for 10 minutes, followed by the heating cream. Ah Rubadub B353, how I should have bought stock in you, he mused out loud to no one. Ever since the divorce and the relocation, he had been out of work and just slowly reconnecting with the dull echo of his life around him. He didn't go out much – partly as a cost-cutting measure (now that he was in Club Alimony he needed to hang onto his shekels), but also because he just didn't have the inner strength right then. Never had he felt more washed up, useless, directionless and truly alone.

So it was at this point, or rather the next day, that he encountered Lisa, purely by accident. Literally. Jim had gone to the local coffee shop to sit down and try to do the Sudoku just like he did every day, but before he could even set foot inside, a jogging Lisa had not seen the lagging Jim and they had a fairly spectacular wipeout in front of the shop.

They were both angry to start: at themselves for not paying better attention to their surroundings, at each other for being a pain-in-the-ass obstacle, and at The Great Whatever In The Sky for possibly putting them in further injury risk; Lisa's bad knees and Jim's back were both tipping in the balance. But they each managed to overcome their desire to yell "you stupid goddamn motherfucker" and gruffly but civilly checked on the other.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'll live... you?

"Yeah."

It was then that, suddenly, they just looked at each other and shared a laugh. "The least I could do for almost killing you is buy you a coffee," offered Jim. "Make it a chamomile tea and you got it," countered Lisa.

So they sat down over hot drinks and talked about all sorts of stuff. Overall, it was very enjoyable and was soon followed up by a second meet-up.

And for the first time in a long time, neither of their bodies felt that creaky to them. Not one bit.

* * * *

Universe

And so he started to write, not knowing where it would take him, not knowing what kind of twists and turns would present themselves after each new sentence.

Very soon, he opened up a whole new universe on the page, and it was intriguing. Not entirely beautiful, but certainly compelling. As the initial scribblings began to slowly take shape, he actually began to care what would happen to the characters on the page, as if they were kin.

After some time had passed, he grew tired so he put down the pen and absentmindedly scratched the top of his head as he reviewed what he had just done. In one big explosion of words, God had poured his heart out.

He soon realized what a task he had set for himself, as finer things soon started to web and network off the coarse outlines he had begun with. More places, more names, more fates, all to be determined with the stroke of a pen. Soon, it became an obsession with him, possibly an unhealthy one, to keep this thing going. But he certainly felt up to the challenge, to keep this ever-increasing number of plates spinning.

Soon though, his health began to suffer. He stayed in his room more and more, his friends stopped calling, and his parents got worried. "Go out and play a while," they would encourage, only to be shot down with "No, that's okay, I got more to write down."

Three days later his pen ran out, and God, bleary-eyed, neck-strained and hand-cramped, was crushed. He knew that he could easily pick up another pen and keep going, but it would be tainted somehow. And so, after 16 minutes of crying irreconcilably, he pushed away from his desk, picked up his universe, and put it in a drawer. He sighed deeply and then, turning toward his bedroom door, opened it and stepped out of his house. The light outside was harsh and beautiful and for him, a new beginning.

The fate of countless trillions, meanwhile, lay safely ensconced in his desk drawer, at least until his mother accidentally threw it all out along with some old hockey cards that were right on top of it. Mom, thinking that hockey was a waste of time for her boy anyway, didn't understand the gravity of what she did, and God held a grudge for a very long time. He tried many times later on but he couldn't recapture the magic of his first universe.

And that is why we are stuck like this, being his latest attempt to recapture the magic; imperfect and yearning, but still with flecks of hope and beauty caught amidst the steaming piles of miscommunication and douchewaddery.

* * * *

Valentine's Day

Eunice's breast heaved up and down. The other one heaved down and up. This was one of the few quirky things that gave Jefferson a boner whenever they got together. The sight of the sweaty undulating woman flesh overcame Jefferson and he proceeded to mount Eunice, coincidentally enough at their cabin retreat on the western slope of Mount Eunice.

They both loved, yet hated, their trysts. Eunice, a devout atheist and married mother of two, felt really guilty rutting in these afternoons while her husband Elmer toiled away at the key factory and the kids were at Pubis Public School. For his part, Jefferson felt bad, but it was mainly gas that he was holding in again, so as not to ruin this lovely ménage à deux. Jefferson always got a bit nervous in the presence of Eunice, being co-workers at the Mount Eunice National Observatory and all.

As his throbbing Johnson & Johnson (he had two) kept her busy in two places, he slid his hand along her taut, firm belly. Well, as taut as two kids and no gym membership will make it. She arched her back and wrapped her silky legs around his waist, drawing him in even closer. He leaned in and held her face between his hands. He then held her hands in his face. He then faced her hands while she handed him his face. He then faced faces with her face, and handed off his hands to her hands. It was an intense interlude.

Ninety-four seconds later, he lay on top of her, face-down in a pillow and drenched in sweat. She too was drenched in his sweat. She didn't mind; it made the afternoons go more smoothly when she led the tour groups around the Observatory. Suddenly she bolted upright, forgetting that 190 pounds of moist and spent man-flesh was recuperating on top of her.

"Oh shit!" she exclaimed.

"Snrkhuh?" asked Jefferson.

"I forgot – my kids are in the tour group this afternoon. They'll be at the main door in 15 minutes! And I bet you anything Elmer will be with them. He's so predictable that way."

"Snohhcrap."

They hurriedly got dressed and parted. A little too hurriedly though as they were now wearing each other's clothes. Luckily (and surprisingly enough) they were about the same size, but still, no dice, so, switching clothes quickly and straightening themselves out, they dashed out and across the slope just in time to see the bus pull up and the kids pour out. Sure enough, Elmer was with them and, spotting Eunice, walked up to her, gave her a warm peck on the cheek, and presented her with a sizable bouquet of red roses.

"Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie." She felt nothing for this pleasant but unattractive man. She smiled warmly anyway. "Thanks, Elmer."

Jefferson addressed the tour group. "Good afternoon everyone, I'm Jefferson Meatlog and welcome to the Mount Eunice National Observatory." He flashed a subtle look over to Eunice, who blushed a bit and looked away. Elmer, meanwhile, was smiling past him and marvelling at how large and round the dome was. Jefferson continued his patter.

"Today, we're going to learn about the Big Bang Theory, and no, not the television show." The kids cheered about "big 'splosions" and scrambled to get into the theatre. Jefferson quickly flashed a smile Eunice's way, who rolled her eyes and grinned a little. Elmer obliviously scratched the top of his head and walked in after the kids, as only an innocent cuckold can.

* * * *

Vuze

Vincent Vuze was sick of pumping gas for a living. He initially did it to keep his dad happy, family business and all. But after his dad passed away eight years ago due to a toasted pastry going down wrong, Vincent just kept his routine going. At first he just felt he needed to work through the grief, but after that it just became a kind of depressed complacency and a safe albeit boring cocoon that enabled the barest of life to be sustained.

It was a mid-March afternoon when Sherri VanDramme thundered into his gas station driving her one-of-a-kind Mustang GT 344. The muffler was shot and the paint job was uninspired.

"Can you help me?" she asked in a honey-toned voice. Their eyes locked. His, tortured by years of underachievement and gasoline fumes; hers, liquid and alive like two blue lustrous wombs, but not in a gross way if that's even possible. Needless to say, they were both hooked. Hooked to the point where they just did it on the counter. They didn't care if anyone walked in – it was a hard, fast, slow, soft, wet, dry, loud, tender, explosive, calming, hair-pulling, ass-slapping 12 seconds that Vincent would not soon forget.

Later, adjusting her clothes, Sherri asked, "So, again, can you help me?"

"Sorry babe, I don't do mufflers – I only pump gas and lusty-eyed wonder babes."

Their eyes locked. His, wincing from Amish-brand motor oil; hers, sizzling like two blue gristly steaks on the grill, but still really attractive.

Eight seconds later, adjusting her clothes, she concluded, "So, I'll have to take my car elsewhere to get it fixed."

"That's right, babe," Vincent countered, "I can't fix a car. I can only fix a lonely lady's lusting loins."

Their eyes locked. His, squinting from Econo-Save windshield wiper fluid spray; hers, pulsing like two blue Cobalt-267 laser giga-cannons that could lay waste to a small moon and which don't exist in the real world but that still sound cool enough to type in a run-on sentence such as this.

And it was a good mid-March afternoon.

# # # # #

About the Author

Gord Oxley is an actor and writer. This is his first e-book. He lives with his Ikea furniture, typos, Oxford commas, and coffee in Toronto, Canada (The Golden Gateway to Oshawa).

You can reach him about non-boner-pill-related things at  nawdrawg@gmail.com. He's also on the Twitter: @heyitsgordo.

(Here's a quick question you can answer if you like: Now that you've read this free e-book, do you think that, compared to other stuff out there, it's worth paying a small amount of money for, like $0.99, for example? Just curious for the future...)

Gord has no other e-books to offer you at the moment but hopefully there'll be more sometime. In fact, if you want to suggest one-word or short-phrase titles for future writings, e-mail him and he'll see if he can write something halfway decent. He makes no promises on this point.

You can also check out his comedy duo's web site Fast & Dirty if you are screamingly bored. Heck, you can also stream or buy something off his comedy CD from iTunes if you like. That would be cool.

Thanks for hanging out here. Take care and have a good and productive day.

As for Gord, he will now resume speaking in first-person. Oh yes I will.

– Fin –

