The Diary of Mitch R. Singer

Dawn pouring through the blinds, a wound on my skull
I awake in a motor home, my hands bound to the sides of the bed, an elderly couple bustling about in their underwear. They speak a reptilian language, their skin sagging and barely covering the scales beneath. The old woman comes over to me and smiles, revealing homogenous two-inch fangs like a viper's. Their breakfast looks to be thawed raw meat, and they offer some of it to me, grinning their hideous grins, but I refuse, to their vast disappointment. "Eat, eat, eat!" says the male, pulling down the blinds, saliva dripping from his maw. Already the hordes of people are arriving in their vehicles, climbing out of their cars to walk into the enormous structure. "Wally-world, here we come!" says the female. I've almost worked myself out of my binds, but I don't know if I will be too late.

...

Deep within the belly of the beast

I am paraded about with a leash tied around my neck, the elderly couple walking slow and deliberate, mimicking the gait and pace of the typical Wal-Mart customer. An immense man seemingly composed of gelatin waddles up to us and congratulates them on their pretty dog. "I'm not an animal!" I scream at him, which causes the creatures to beat me until I've settled down. There are great deals on lawn furniture, I notice, seventy-five percent off. I watch as a woman allows her child to defecate in the middle of the aisle, and I feel as though I should do something, something drastic to end this terrible cycle, but they pull me away. We pass a figure of skin and bones, moving rapidly from item to item, its eyes inflamed, its teeth dangling precariously from its chapped mouth. "Tweakers," says the male, shaking his hoary head. "What's this world coming to, ma?" I try to say something, but all that comes out is a feeble yelp.

...

The meat aisle
The old couple fills their cart with one-hundred pounds of meat. All about us the herds saunter, moving their tree trunk legs with great effort. Some pass us on motorized scooters, their fat spilling out of their cheap clothing. The creatures that have ensnared me lick their chops and hiss, flicking their forked tongues out to taste the greasy pheromones released by these bovine humans. "It's almost time for the cookout, ma," says the male. The gleam in his eyes tells me that I will bear witness to the slaughter.

...

The reckoning

The lights go off suddenly as we stand in the canned foods aisle. I hear the moaning of the fat people, the panic in their voices as they stumble and crash into each other, rolling on the floor like turtles turned over on their backs, helpless and squealing. The elderly couple have shed their skin, and their scales glisten as the backup generators try to kick on, the lights flickering epileptically, their teeth long and sharp in the stroboscoptic illumination. One great land beast rushes toward us, his eyes mad, his gigantic gut bare and pregnant with a lifetime's worth of adipose tissue, and the male creature cuts him open with a deft slice of his claws, his intestines spilling out like wriggling worms. "There's plenty for you too, son," he says, tugging on my leash. I pull as hard as I can and it snaps, and now I am running through the store, passing the grotesque, my legs pumping hard to reach the light. The reptiles stand at the doorway, blocking the exit, so I rush into the clothing section and lock myself in the dressing room. It takes hours for them to finish. The sounds will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

Hanging with the Goon

Dis is the backside of our place, we cleaned up them picknick tables and all the trash real goode.

Howdy everbody, I'm here to talk today about da dangers of teh internet. Now, I spent most of ma life without the fancy, smancy internet, let alone a compooter, or lectric, runnin' water, central heat, blah, blah, blah, you get da picture. Well, Remy and Slack an I decided we's should enter into the twentieth century, so we pooled our monies together and got a generator from Uncle Thom so dat we's could stop stinkin' up the libary an get on the world wide web from da comfort of our home. Now I have to admit, we did steel a compooter from the high school; Slack broke a window an I snuck in and hauled one out along with the contents of a vinding machine so we's have somethin' decent to eat for supper for once in our lives. Back at da trailer, we had to call Uncle Thom to come over an show us how to hook the damn thing up to da generator, 'cuz Remy had it plugged in to an outlet spite da fact dat we don't have lectric; his explanation was dat da witch docter had rendered him able to conduct lectric usin' just da powder of his mine, like he was Cap'n Picard or somethin', which I guess ain't true, seeing how we never did get any lectric. Thom got us hooked up, though eh did say some mean things, mostly referencing our lack of telligence--he says we couldnt find our asses if theys was attached, which ain't true, I certainly have no problem findin' my ass, considerin' how it smells. Well, first thing we do when we get da internet is to look up all da fine ladies of the night in dere berfday suits, an boy, lemme tell ya, I had no idea women could look so goode naked; maybe its the area or my breath, but I ain't never seen any ladies wit boobies an asses like basketballs. We all took turns lookin' at da pictures, an each of us got ourselves some private time, which was fine, but nobody cleaned up da mess an pretty soon da compooter was lookin' like somebody shot elmer's glue all over it, an da keyboard was stickin' to yur fingers somethin' awful.

I typed in "dangers of da internet" in da google an dis is what I got, which don't make no sense.

So Slack, being a ladies man, gets himself in a bit of trouble almost immediately. He starts hanging out in chat rooms, pretendin' to be a teenager, which is more then a bit deceivin', since he's 'bout thirty-one years of age, if da stars be right. I tell 'em he's gonna get caught an have to go back to jail, but he don't listen, an pretty soon he's got himself a date with a strapping young lady of like fourteen or so an dere gonna meet in da park. Remy and I go along wit him, just to make sure he don't do nothin' stoopid like try an take her somewhere public like Ponderosa. Slack's got himself dressed as Justin Beever sa dat he look somethin' like a fourteen-year-old, an I do declare, he's pullin' it off pretty damn goode. Well, we never see no lady of da night, but a fat man wit a pony tail come up to him an ask if he's da gentlemen he's a lookin' for, an it turns out dat the supposedly strapping young lady is in actuality a forty-year-old convicted child molster, which, ain't dat just 'bout right? Me and Remy jump outta da bushes then and start wailin' on da perv, beatin' him wit sticks, an he just collapses and starts crying 'bout ponies or some shit. We take da Beever home and get 'em cleaned up, an tell 'em that they can't all be victories an yus gotta be warry on da internet. He says "Ok" an then he start lookin' up boobies again. I swear, we dont get nothin' done; all we do is pound our meat, an I'm a scared dat da compooter will get too full of seamen an stop workin' an den what we gonna do? So watch out, peoples, da internet is addictive an full of boobies an pervs pretendin' to be Justin Beever followers, an ain't dat just 'bout da most awful thing yus ever heard?

Conan Brothers Q&A

Dave just plays Skyrim because he's a deviant, cat-person lover.

LamerforLife asks: "Do you guys play video games?"

Arnold: Do we play video games. Oh do we.

Dave: Video games are yet another form of electronic mass entertainment designed to keep the masses distracted from their poor, pathetic lives of serfdom and mindless consumption.

Arnold: He plays video games all the time.

Dave: I kind of feel guilty for it, though. I always feel like I could be doing something more productive with my time, like studying German or becoming proficient in advanced mathematics.

Arnold: That's 'cause you have the ol' American work ethic ground into your brain. Do you feel guilty when you jerk it?

Dave: Only when I'm using particularly dirty material.

Arnold: Well, I guarantee you lose a lot of work hours pounding your meat, and I don't see you ceasing your masturbatory habits, you hypocrite.

 

Dave: I guess I would like to play less.

 

Arnold: So make it happen. If there's anything we constantly preach about, it's taking responsibility for your actions. If you truly feel that video games are hampering your development as a person, then cut them out. Although, why stop there? Might as well throw the TV away and unplug the internet. Toss your smart phone in the garbage. Stop driving to work or wearing clothes. Return to the woods, make your fires, eat your meat raw. Fully embrace Luddism.

 

Dave: I like the conveniences of modern society.

 

Arnold: You have to take the good with the bad, Dave.

 

Dave: I don't know if that's necessarily true, but I see your point. I will stop feeling guilty about playing video games.

 

Arnold: Maybe if you didn't always play as a cat-person, you'd feel less guilty.

 

Dave: Maybe you're right.

Tony, you fat liar, you didn't get those chunky legs by using that piece of crap.

 

RudyWasaPussy asks: "Are machines evil? I don't mean like the Terminator, I mean the types of machines you see in your Globo Gyms. Exercise machines, to be precise."

 

Arnold: Machines will never replace free weights, for the simple reason that machines help balance the load. You press a barbell overhead and all sorts of muscles are helping stabilize the weight. It's just you verses gravity.

Dave: Yeah, but machines aren't useless. Neither are single-joint isolation exercises. Both are primarily used for assistance work, that is, high rep stuff done just to get a pump.

Arnold: Done to get your hypertrophy on.

Dave: I might do leg extensions after squats, but I won't use a heavy weight. I'll do four sets of twelve with about ninety pounds. Nobody cares if you're using three-hundred pounds on leg extensions.

Arnold: If you are, you're probably fucking up your knees.

Dave: Don't build your workout around machine movements. Otherwise, they're fine.

Rufus is kind of a dick, if you can't tell by his expression.

CommunistMephistopheles asks: "What's the best kind of dog?"

Dave: Isn't that kind of like asking what the best kind of person is?

 

Arnold: There are no bad dogs. All dogs are made perfect before the eyes of the Lord.

 

Dave: We have a pit bull named Rufus, because we are big, tough guys that need a big, tough dog.

 

Arnold: Pits have suffered from masculine postering, that's for sure. I can't tell you how many times I've seen some skinny dude being dragged down the street by his eighty-pound pit bull. Hey, asshole, if you're going to get the Schwarzenegger of dogs, how 'bout you make sure you can control it?

 

Dave: They're sweet dogs, though. Rufus is kind of a bad apple.

 

Arnold: It's not his fault the mail man has to saunter into his yard like he owns the damn place. If I were a dog, that'd piss me off too.

 

Dave: The only difference between you and a dog is that you don't eat dog food. Not usually, at least.

 

Arnold: Thanks, brotha. That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time.

One-Hundred Obituaries

I had the strange idea to write one-hundred flash fictions based on the deaths of various flawed characters. I got no further than chapter four, but I might return to this project some day. 

Three

Wesley Willis died during the middle of a Tuesday, a massive heart attack being his cause of death. Poor Wesley was only thirty-three, yet he'd lived a strange, unhealthy life of booze, altercations, and unsafe sexual activity. His mother, who found him, will take a certain secret to her grave, the aforementioned secret being that Wesley was stark naked in front of a computer screen at his time of death, his right hand clasped firmly around his flaccid penis, a pornographic video looping on his computer, his eyes fixated on that eternal image, his tongue lolling out of the corner of his mouth like something poisoned and discovered on the side of the road. Mrs. Willis watched that video many times in an effort to comprehend her son. The pornography was pretty banal by Wesley's standards, and although we cannot exactly call him lucky, we can be thankful that he was not watching Japanese scat-porn or anything involving bestiality, two genres that Wesley did indulge in from time to time. The video featured a disarmingly pretty (disarming in that wholesomely-pretty girl-next-door way) brunette being anally fisted by an emaciated young man clad in a pair of red-checkered boxer shorts. The brunette has a bob haircut; her face is oval, her lips crimson and opened. They do not shut but for a few seconds during the course of the video. Her moans and wordless exclamations of pleasure are genuine; this sex is intimate, it is not manufactured, it is true and authentic. Even Mrs. Willis cannot deny this fact, though she wishes she could, for these people do not look like porn stars, and somehow that makes her son's voyeuristic interest in them more disturbing.

            The video was only one of many discoveries that Mrs. Willis made regarding Wesley's life. In his closet behind a broken piece of plasterboard, she found a large black safe, which she took to a specialist and had opened. Inside were fifty disks containing footage of sexual encounters between her son and other people. Most of Wesley's companions were women; they ranged in age from uncomfortably (and possibly illegally) young to disturbingly ancient (a septuagenarian grandmother being the oldest), and consist of varying ethnicities and nationalities. Some of the encounters seemed to be nonconsensual. These women were not aware of being filmed, that is clear as well. Some are beauties, though most are simply average-looking people, the kind of people you pass at the grocery store without giving them a second look.

            "What do I do with all this?" Mrs. Willis asked her husband after showing him the disks.

            "Burn them," responded Mr. Willis.

            But she could not. Every film was viewed. His house was examined further and a journal detailing Wesley's extensive sex life was found. The things she read convinced her that her son was something worse than a deviant. She doesn't know what to call him or how to remember him. She looks to herself and her husband, searching for the cause of the sickness that rooted itself deep within Wesley's fragile heart.

            "He was just a man," says Mr. Willis.

            Mrs. Willis cannot accept this. She thinks of her baby, her little boy crawling on the floor, pushing his toy trains and dinosaurs around. She thinks of driving him to basketball practice as a teen and of staying up late, waiting for him to arrive home from a party. She thinks of college, of his success in the business world. He never brought a girl home, she realizes. This bothers her, weighs heavy in her stomach like a ball of acid. Maybe he hated me, she thinks.

            She looks at Mr. Willis, sees him as bald, heavy jowled, grizzled, implacable, stern. He is distant, far from her, and he was that way with Wesley. Maybe it was your fault, she thinks before going back to the diary, the disks, and that last video.

            "He was just a man," says Mr. Willis.

            "He was my baby once," she responds. There is nothing left to talk about.

 

Excerpts from the Hillsdale Paranormal Society Log

Totally come at me ghost bro, and I'll kick you in your stupid ghost face!

June twenty-second, in the graveyard behind the Howard house, eleven o'clock at night

So we get a report from Art's grandma that there's something spooky floating around the graveyard, making noises and shit, and basically being a royal pain in the ass for any decent human being trying to get a good night's rest. I was a little hesitant (IMAGINE ME, HESITANT) on investigating these claims, seeing how Grams is a little bit in the nuthouse, like, almost three-fourths the way in, and half the time while I'm over there she thinks I'm Art's brother Gary, and she starts yelling at me for having pins in my face and puking all over the bathroom, which is stuff that Gary does, he being a good for nothing bastard. But work's been slow lately, and the prestigious Hillsdale Paranormal Society will investigate any claim, any time--that shit's our motto, or at least one of them. So we convene at Art's place, which is right behind the graveyard, Art, Trent, and I, the boss core of the Society, all of us members of the Adventurers' Guild, a secret society where only the strong freaking survive (all of us had to climb to the top of my barn and retrieve this plastic cup with marbles in it that my uncle Billy put up there a long time ago because he's a crazy nut, and don't tell me that shit's easy, 'cuz I'm afraid of heights and it's like a twenty-foot drop or something if you slip and fall), and we get our gear ready, drink a couple brews, smoke a couple packs of cigs, and wait for midnight, the prime ghosting hour.

12:30, in the heart of the graveyard

Art starts off the night being an asshole, like always. He trips over a headstone and cracks his forehead against another one, and so he's bleeding all over the place like a bitch, and Trent tells him to stop because he's going to attract all the ghouls to us, ghouls being eager to feast on the flesh of the dead as well as the living (my man Trent knows his paranormal shit), and then Art has to go and say that we're a bunch of assholes, wasting our time looking for nothing. WELL, HELLO, YOUR BATSHIT CRAZY GRAMS TOLD US ABOUT THE SPOOKY GHOST, ELSEWISE WE WOULDN'T BE OUT HERE. If you don't take the job seriously, then you might as well go home and sniff glue--this ain't no place for nonbelievers.

1:15, camped under a big-ass sepulcher

We get all the equipment set up--the nightvision cameras, the advanced mass spectrometer, the tape recorder--which is quite a feat in all, considering how much beer we've drank. Trent never drinks anything, 'cuz he's a little weird. One time we bought him sake because he's your typical nerd and gets a big ol' boner for Japan, and we tried to get him to drink just a shot but he wouldn't, and you could see he was getting upset, so we bought him a chocolate milk and he settled down like a bitch, sucking on that shit like it was a teat.

2:30, still under the big-ass sepulcher

So we're really drunk now, being drunk paramount in seeing ghosts, 'cuz they know you're vulnerable while your drunk, which really, we ain't, 'cuz we all hold our liquor like bosses. Art's started babbling on about his romantic problems, which is par for the course, he being a total Don Juan, that is, if Don Juan was a big bitch who got mace in his face every time he approached a woman. Art's bitching gets cut off mid stream when we hear some noises coming from a couple rows in front of us. Trent gets out the salt and the bible, and we creep over, being really stealthy like Sam Fisher until a goddamn headstone comes out of nowhere and I run face first into it, knocking myself on my ass. The noises stop. Art turns on the flashlight and there's a couple of teenagers, butt-ass naked, boning on top of a grave like they're in Paris and that dude from the Doors is beneath them, getting his ghost voyeur on. The girl starts screaming 'cuz we got the light on them and you can see her goodies, and the dude pulls out and starts sprinting through the graveyard, his dong wobbling about like a propeller, and it's the funniest fucking thing in the world when he slips and nut-checks himself on a gravestone (THESE THINGS ARE DANGEROUS). The girl grabs her clothes and takes off, and Art wants to follow her and make sure she's ok (YEAH SURE YOU DO, ART) but I tell him she's probably an underage hood rat, and it would be best if we vacate the premises. So, just like the Scooby Gang, we solve the mystery of the weird-ass noises for Grams, so the old bat can get some shut eye. Another fine accomplishment for the Society. 

Internet Ad Bot Presents: One Weird Trick

AD BOT STARTING TRANSMISSION...

One weird trick to make your penis bigger. One weird trick to get you ripped. One weird trick to turn her on.

A revolutionary new method promises ridiculous results. There's one really weird old trick to it. Did your wife leave you? One weird trick to make her come back.

Does your penis not work any more? One weird trick can fix it! In fact, there's one weird trick to make you grow another penis! Awesome!

It's a revolutionary new method, but it relies mostly on one terribly weird and disgusting trick. It will make your family love you again. They don't want you to know about it.

Trainers hate him because he knows one weird trick that will make you a sexual tyrannosaurus. This one weird trick will remove the hundreds of pounds of whale blubber from your grotesque frame and make you a human being again.

Cambridge scientists have discovered the unifying theory of physics and there's one really weird trick to it! It also boosts testosterone, and they don't want you to know about it.

Everyone hates him because he discovered one really weird trick to solve any problem! He's a warlock but there's one weird trick to it.

This trick is so weird yet so easy and simple, you'll hate yourself for not knowing it! You're so stupid! Good thing there's one really weird trick to fix that.

There's one really weird trick to getting out of jail that you don't want to know about. One really weird trick to make the voices stop.

Once, there was no such thing as one really weird trick. Those were the dark ages, the times of ignorance. Now we know everything thanks to one really weird and old trick.

Wait. I have a confession to make. It's about one really weird trick. Thing is, I'm kind of scared of it. The arrogance. The hubris. The putting on of airs. It's getting too big. Too powerful. I think it might swallow the world.

Good thing there's one really weird trick to fix it!

ONE REALLY WEIRD AND DISGUSTING TRICK, SO BAD, SO GROSS, SO GODDAMN SIMPLE THAT YOU'LL CURE CANCER AND SHIT THUNDER THANKS TO ONE FUCKING WEIRD TRICK!

AD BOT ENDING TRANSMISSION...

The Least Interesting Man in the World

Howdy there squares. Nice weather, eh? Not too hot. Not too cold. Just nice and mediocre, just like I like it.

Went over and met the new neighbor kid today. Brought him a cool pack of O'douls as a friendly gift. He took it reluctantly, as though he didn't know what it was. I told him not to get too crazy! Kids these days. They're good people, I tell ya, but sometimes they party just a little too hard.

I spent three hours watching a baseball game. I can't tell you who played, but lemme tell ya, those guys had fun! Nothing screams America like baseball, apple pie, and falling asleep on the couch in the middle of the afternoon!

Took my date to Applebees because where else in God's green earth would I take her for premium food and fun at an affordable price? We had the ultimate trio of wanton tacos, quesadillas, and cheeseburger sliders. Say, why do you figure they call 'em sliders? Is it 'cause they slide right down the ol' gullet something right? Or is it because you have to visit the bathroom more frequently after consumption? Geez, I dunno.

I practiced my trombone a little bit today. Old man Murry came over and told me to quit strangling a goose, and I responded that I didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. "Stop playing that friggin' boner," he said, although he actually used an expletive before the word boner. So my practice ended prematurely. No sense stirring up the neighborhood! We all have to be gracious neighbors.

Lemme tell ya, I watched that Seinfeld program that was all the rage over twenty years ago. That George is some neurotic, is he not? How's a guy like him get so many good-looking women? Doesn't seem like he can hold a job. Perhaps that doesn't matter so much to women these days. I don't get that Kramer guy, though. He seems like a mental patient.

Living by yourself is tough sometimes, folks. I have nobody to help me find my Bob Hope CDs. He was a funny guy, Bob Hope. He knew something about humor.

Some nights I look up at the sky and wonder if there's anybody upstairs watching. Do you think he gives points for good behavior? Because I tell ya, I've been very good.

Smoked the pipe before bed while reclined in my easy chair and wearing my tweed smoking jacket. One of my few vices, the pipe. It eases a man's mind and body, as well as his spirit. I took out my big book of Arthur Conan Doyle stories and fell asleep almost immediately. This happens some times. I live such a full life.

The Tragic Expedition of Commodore Ulysses L. Gruffudd

June nineteenth
The precipitation does fall most thoroughly from the sky on this day. After noon, the mule handlers refuse to travel any farther, having grown quite tired of sloughing through the thick mud while carrying several pounds of water-weighted clothing on their backs, and I surrender to their demands and make camp a little ways from shore, finding good shelter beneath a grove of oaks trees that stretchs toward the heavens. I christen this spot "Heaven's Roost," and claim that I will return to build my estate on this very earth. Colonel Whittaker snickers in an uncouth manner at this declaration, and says that any of us will be lucky to return, and even if we do, somehow, manage to survive, I, Commodore Ulysses, lack the powers of reason and sense of direction to navigate myself back to the oak grove. This, of course, perturbs me, and I ask the Colonel how he developed such a low opinion of my faculties, he who was, not long ago, a bosom friend of mine. "Bosom friends," says the Colonel, "are for dandies of the womanly sort," and I know not what he means. Bitterness and disagreeable behaviors are the norm for the Colonel now; some unknown tragedy must've torn at his soul, causing him to arrive at such a foul disposition. I fear our status as bosom friends to be no more.

June twentieth
I decide to further the progress of our journey by keeping a skeleton crew awake during the night, to continue to move our pole boats along the Ohio. Though he protests much, Beauchamp draws first watch. I do think the man has some irrational fear of the moon; during our argument, he keeps looking at it as though it were liable to plunge from the sky and do him some great harm. "The moon, Beauchamp, is just a satellite of the earth, placed there by the Deity to give us light during the night," I say. "There is nothing to fear from it." "Reckons yous, mon ami," he spouts, in his barbaric French-Canadian accent, "For l'homme like me, la lune is da beckon for le diable." After saying this, he tears open his shirt, revealing a chest covered in an extraordinary amount of hair, and bids me to look and touch his chest, as though I will find something besides lice in those tangled locks. "Keep at your position, man," I tell him, going below deck. I resolve to rid myself of Beauchamp when the opportunity presents itself; the man has been nothing but a nuisance.

June twenty-first
I awake just before twilight, a great commotion on deck disturbing my slumbers. Up top, the men are in a frenzy, firing their rifles into a dark shape which glides through the waters, heading for shore. "Rougarou, rougarou!" yell the French-Canadians, pointing at the object. "What nonsense is this?" I ask Colonel Whittaker, who has joined me on deck. "The heathens think there's a monster among us," says Whittaker, taking a swallow of whiskey from the bottle. "Beauchamp is missing." "Certainly, they cannot be serious," I state, "Such drivel is fit for only the most depraved and superstitious minds." Whittaker shugs; I can tell that he does not care, one way or the other, and it will be up to me, therefore, to settle the crew. I run among them, grabbing their rifles, admonishing them for their foolishness, and they respond by sulking, muttering curses in their language. At daybreak, we learn that one of the mules has gone missing, along with his handler. Beauchamp is nowhere to be found.

The Diary of Mitch R. Singer

Somewhere in the desert, the heat falling down like knives from the sun
There is a saguaro cactus before me, tall as a telephone pole and pronged like a trident. I find and consume a fallen fruit, ruby red, full of water that cools my parched tongue. Rocky desert is all around, and I see something shimmering on the horizon, something long and lean like a panther. I look down at my belt and find that my pistols are missing. On the opposite horizon, there is a mesa rising above the wasteland, and I move my feet toward it. My Stetson hat has bullet holes in the brim, and there is dried blood on my hands. It's coming, I hear a voice say in the wind. The creature on the horizon makes good time, moving between rocky outcroppings, bounding with preternatural grace. At the mesa there will be a knife and an altar, but I don't know if I can get there before it reaches me. There are no gods that I can pray to, none that will listen, none that will answer with anything but taunts and curses.

A wasteland village, composed of squat shelters and crumbling ruins
The villagers speak to me in Spanish, pleading with me to leave, but I do not heed them. I steer towards the saloon, where I sit myself down at the bar, ordering whiskey after whiskey. It tastes like liquid iron, but I keep drinking, my grin growing with every glass. A dwarf ambles over to the piano and plays ragtime music, his little hands dancing on the keys. Eventually a boy saunters over, his face stern, and I can tell he's thinking of taking out his knife, so I pick up a bottle and hit him in the face. They drag him outside, blood gushing from his eyelids. A girl comes down from the upstairs, her bodice full, her lips making silent protests. I tell her I am the mayor's chief man now, and that whatever I want, I will have. She smiles sweetly, and we go upstairs. In the morning, I find myself in darkness, with no air, dirt in my mouth and eyes. They've buried me, I conclude. My hands know the way, and we tear through the subterranean, desperately seeking light. 

A hunting trail, winding through the scraggly pines
Big Chief and I follow the trail of blood on horseback, our ears listening for any sound from the wounded bear. The elevation climbs, and I hear my Indian cohort sucking in air, his breathing heavy and wearied. There's a hole in his heart that no medicine man can ever close, and I find myself similarly wounded. "She left nothing but bones and scrapes of meat," I tell him, and he nods, whispering words in his own language. We come to a cave with human skeletons lying in disarray by the entrance mouth, bones of women, men, and children. I see tears welling up in Big Chief's eyes; he has lost his child, and I have lost a lover. "We do what is asked of us," I tell him. We dismount and enter the cave. Inside it is cool and moist, water dripping from stalactites, eyeless creatures of alabaster scurrying at our feet. The smell of the beast is heavy and musky, a pungent odor that makes our eyes water. We find her with red ragged jaws, scrapes of clothing caught between her teeth. "I loved you," I say, as she rushes toward us, her roar deafening beneath the earth. Her claws slash through Big Chief chest, and as he falls I fire my rifle, the bullet breaking her skull. She does not transform in death; she stays an animal. I cover the entrance to the cave with rubble, sealing her inside along with my friend and the other souls she consumed.  

Short Excerpt from In the Depths of the Valley

I'm finishing up editing my horror novella In the Depths of the Valley to enter it into a literary contest, and I thought I'd share one of my favorite passages. These lines are spoken by the main character, William Jameson, a high school teacher obsessed with one of his peers.


"No," I respond, still looking into her eyes. I don't flinch; she doesn't blink. Can you make someone understand an obsession? Can a stare communicate more than my bumbling words, more than my feeble gestures, more than any book of poetry? In my pockets I have pages of my manuscript, folded twice, freshly printed, waiting to be read. Are they doomed to lie forever in my desk drawer? She can't understand how much she means to me; she can't understand that she is my last hope of salvation, my last hope for happiness, my last hope for a life resembling normalcy. She professes to love a suspected murderer, a deranged animal, and I think that she cannot know what love is, she must have some schoolgirl notion of devotion, because love is an obsession, love is lust, love is drinking and wanting and masturbating to no one else; love is spying through windows and crawling through graveyards; it is that sick feeling in your stomach when you realize a beautiful thing does not belong to you, that you are not worthy of it, that no man is really worthy of it; love is spilt blood and unholy words; love is talking to the dead; love is the prostration of the self before an idol; love is the creation of monsters, it is a rambling, incoherent beast, it is all you can hope for in this world; it is worth more than anything.

The Esteemed Critic Critiques Fathers' Day Gifts

This, my friends, is not art.

It is that time of year again when the greeting card companies deign to make us feel guilty for being spawned, and so we must scurry about and discover something appropriate to present to our sire, despite whatever role he may have in continuing the patriarchy (Dad, I'm looking at you). Surely many of you have put little to no thought in your gift purchases; you see a talking plastic bass and you think "Dad has to have that," and this is why your father loathes the very sight of you, you terrible disappointment. But really, when we get down to it, all sons and daughters are disappointments to their fathers, simply because children are nothing more than vessels for which one can project all their failed dreams and aspirations. But I digress. Let us take a look at some of the gifts I suspect you of buying for your dad this Fathers' Day.

The above article of clothing is the first image that popped up after I searched Amazon.com for Fathers' Day gifts, which is what I know most of you will do. This shirt says it all: you are lazy, you cannot compose a complete sentence, and your father would've been better off proceeding with his original plan and having you aborted. In short, purchase this shirt for Dad along with a tie, a package of socks, and a note that says you are the worst thing he has ever created in his entire life.

Here you go, you degenerates. Here's a book written for children, with a nice saccharine message, and you have the audacity to present it to your father as some sort of "touching" gift that shows you really "care." Well, you don't. Amazon.com has failed you again, and now there's nothing you can do to make your father love you.

Whiskey stones are reusable cooling cubes, invented by some degenerate who thought ice had outlived its usefulness to modern society. If your father drinks whiskey at such a rate that he's running out of ice, then perhaps this is a considerate gift, although it may serve you better to contemplate why your father is drinking so much and what role you might play in his severe alcoholism.

Please, for the love of god, do not buy this movie, either for you or your father. Billy Cristal's career has amounted to his appearance in City Slickers; the man is a terrible comedian, and should be condemned to rot in prison for his crimes against humanity. Similarly, Robin Williams hasn't produced anything of note since Misses Doubtfire, and that film's simplistic exploration of the marginalization of the American male in modern society has not aged very well, to say the least. I have not seen Fathers' Day, but I imagine it to present a crass message, furthered by its two incompetent leads and a script that was probably cobbled together by a disgruntled chimpanzee who later went ape-shit and murdered much of the cast.

Amazon suggests another children's book for your father, proving my hypothesis that Amazon hates you and your beleaguered sire. Is your father a child? Does he like Star Wars, especially when said property is presented to him in an easy-to-read format? Judging from the cover art, this volume seems to take extreme liberties with Star Wars' story, though let's be honest, there wasn't much there to begin with. We see Vader at a kitchen table, clad in his armor, proceeding in the humiliating task of tea time, a catatonic Ewok to his left, an adolescent Princess Lea smiling from across the table. You, the author, and society are all degenerates. Is your father a degenerate? He produced you, and so the answer must be yes.

Ah, here is something your father can really use. According to the item description, this is a seat belt cutter and "emergency escape tool." It should come in handy when your father decides he's had enough of your inane babblings. Reaching over with his new gift, he severs the metaphysical tie between you and him, correcting his penultimate mistake. When the telephone pole rises up before you like a totem of doom, you think back to whether or not you could have prevented your death, had you only thought a little more about what to get good ol' Dad for Fathers' Day.