61 "Naw, I just buy the CDs to use as a more expensive version of a Frisbee," she said with the utmost seriousness.

Says:

"Naw, I just buy the CDs to use as a more expensive version of a Frisbee," she said with the utmost seriousness.

He shook his head slowly. “Then why only box sets?”

“Oh,” she said, a smile creeping over her face, “I like to recycle the packaging.”

She confused him to death, and he was afraid he liked it.

“Alright, so wait, why did we buy this car?”

“I’m deathly afraid of getting in a wreck. When I was a little girl, my toy train derailed, and I almost died.”

“Oh, what, did it derail and run into your teddy bear?”

“No, it derailed and hit four cars, exploding and throwing me several hundred feet.”

He could tell she was serious.

“Wait, so what does that have to do with the car?”

“Oh, I drive it once, then have it pushed off a cliff. That way, I know for sure none of the parts will ever break or go bad.”

“Huh.” He looked down at the take-out container full of Poached Robin Eggs with the side container of bernaise sauce. She might have been crazy, but at least she was fun. And rich.

“Alright, when I count to three, open your door and roll out,” she said, looking him in the eye.

“Keep your eyes on the road. What do you mean, roll o-” He stopped, noticing the cliff they were speeding towards.

“Oh,” she said giggling, “I like to dispose of my own cars. Three!” She rolled out of the car.

‘Huh’, he thought, tucking and rolling. She seems nice.

61 “You ruffian of questionable lineage, the old man in the Cadillac shouted, you won't gull-cully me ”

Says:

“You ruffian of questionable lineage, the old man in the Cadillac shouted, you won't gull-cully me ”

“Gull-cully? What do you mean--” but before he could finish he was dead.

The man in the Cadillac let out maniacal laughter as he peeled out down the street. And he was never seen again.

60 The demon wandered from its path.

Says:

The demon wandered from its path.

“Knock that off,” Timmy said, hitting it with a rolled-up newspaper. “Stay on the line!”

A flame leaped from the demon’s mouth as it yelped and got back on the duct tape path. Winding through the kitchen, it narrowly avoided singeing the chairs and lighting the drapes aflame. Timmy shuffled along behind it, watching it carefully. It headed down the hallway and into the bathroom, still carefully straddling the duct tape line. It approached the toilet and made a little leaping motion, pulling itself up onto the seat before sitting down and smiling.

“Good little demon,” Timmy said, patting it on its head and giving it a raw egg. “We’ll potty train you yet!”

60 "Oh, right, gravity," he said, peeling her from the road.

Says:

"Oh, right, gravity," he said, peeling her from the road.

She giggled as her arms began to re-inflate. It was a high pitched airy giggle, that cut through the air around her. Her voice began to return to its normal pitch as the rest of her body returned to its regular size.

“Thanks,” she said as her giggling subsided.

“Anytime, babe. Anytime.”

“You know what though? As fun as that was, I want to go back to the last one. The planet with the spongy surface. You remember dear?”

“Of course. And you know what sweetheart?” he said with a grin, “I love being an immortal who travels planet to planet only to fall all the way through its atmosphere and land on its crust. The joys of being rich.”

59 At this point her head was approximately the same size as the watermelon she was holding.

Says:

At this point her head was approximately the same size as the watermelon she was holding. Her husband’s head had assumed the same pleasing size and texture of the cabbage he held gently in the crook of his arm.

“Quite lovely,” he said.

She set the watermelon back down on the wooden rack as her head deflated rapidly to average size. Seizing an orange, she held it tightly in her fingers as her head slowly shrank to its size.

“Yes, quite,” she said.

He tossed the cabbage over his shoulder and seized an avocado. This caused his jaw to swell tightly and bulge while the crown of his head grew and rounded into a pleasant semicircle. Across the market, his wife had surrendered the orange in favor of a bundle of grapes, which had caused great excitement as her head shrunk to miniature proportions and was joined by roughly twenty other small heads, each one stacked on top of the next.

“Exquisite,” she said in over a dozen tiny voices.

“Rather,” he said, leafy palm leaves growing from his head.

“I do love vacationing on this planet, Roger, such wonderful produce.”

“Yes,” he said, plucking one of his wives heads and popping it into his mouth, “quite lovely.”

59 “Well pillage my village,” she said in a lusty pirate tone.

Says:

“Well pillage my village,” she said in a lusty pirate tone.

“You aren’t coming,” said the man in a red hat. He was carrying his keyboard and mouse through the door as she caught his arm and tugged it.

“Please matey You know how I loves the pirating,” she said with a seductive grin on her face.

“Dear, it’s not what you think. It’s downloading things illegally. It’s not boats and peg legs,” he said rolling his eyes.

“I just want to be involved in what you’re doing. You never take me anywhere. I don’t care where, even if it is just with your friends and your computer,” she said dropping the accent, “You’re always going out with them, and leaving me home alone. I was just trying to make you happy.”

His frustrated glare slowly turned to a smile as he pulled her close into a hug. “You can come,” he sighed, “you might be bored though.”

“Aye aye captain ” she said with a wink.

58 “What’s your favorite band?”

Says:

“What’s your favorite band?” She asked this very matter-of-factly, nodding and writing even before he began to speak.

“It’s ‘Slayer’. Definitely ‘Slayer’.”

She shook her head disapprovingly. “Oh my. Loud music. Terrible, terrible.” The way her head flung back and forth negatively caused her tower of precariously pinned hair to shake and wobble. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all.”

He shifted awkwardly in his chair. ‘What kind of a job interview is this,’ he thought, suspiciously eyeing the woman in front of him.

“Now, tell me, son, have you ever used any recreational drugs?”

“Uh… no,” he stammered unconvincingly.

“Oh, it’s quite all right. We’re not here to rain on anyone’s parade. We just need to know!”

He slowly met her gaze. “Well, back in college, I did smoke some pot, but not that often. Just at parties and stuff.”

She beamed enthusiastically at him. “Marijuana, wonderful, wonderful!” She scribbled furiously on her notepad before looking back up at him. “You know, I think we have something for you. How does something like $40,000 sound?”

He drew back. “$40,000? Yearly?”

“Oh my no,” she said, smiling, “$40,000 right now!”

“Yeah, alright!” he said excitedly. She slid a salmon-colored sheet over to him and told him to sign at the bottom. He did so hurriedly.

“Well, now that that’s taken care of, let’s get your end of the bargain!”

He paused. “My end what?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, waving at two large men who seemingly appeared from nowhere. “Just what belongs to us. You’ll get the money when you’re in the recovery room.”

The men carried him, kicking and screaming, through the door. The secretary scuttled nervously after them.

“Don’t forget his chart,” she bellowed at them, “we’re harvesting the eyes but not the ear drums!”

58 “He was still ten years old.”

Says:

“He was still ten years old.” The man’s smile faded as he realized what he had just said. It was true, and he hated himself for it.

“Maybe I pushed him too hard. Maybe my expectations were too high,” the man continued. His eyes moistened and began to form tears, but he held them back.

“I just wanted him to be everything that he could be.”

He shifted awkwardly in his chair and was silent. Eventually the tears dried and he just sat. The smile eventually creeped back onto his face and he began again, “I loved my boy. Best thing that ever happened to me. If only he hadn’t died. He was still ten years old.”

As he repeated the same things over and over he only made it worse. He lived in the past and he didn’t change. His life was the same thing over and over. A record skipping back through the same section of a song.

57 "Carrots," he murmured, karate-chopping the table.

Says:

"Carrots," he murmured, karate-chopping the table.

He never really had enjoyed having knives for hands, but at least it was bringing in a decent living. Being the head chef in the most expensive restaurant in all of New York wasn’t all bad.

It was just the carrots. He hated carrots. There were two things that he had always hated ever since that fateful day and those were Nazis and of course, carrots.

He hated their color. He hated their smell, their taste, their texture. He just couldn’t stand it. He finished with the carrots he was chopping with his knive-hands and scooped them into the pot.

“Order for carrots a la mode,” came a cry through the door.

A fire filled the knive-handed man’s eyes and he let out a cry. It was that night that he decided not to karate chop carrots with his sharp metallic vestiges. He decided to karate chop humans.

57 "Not another deus ex machina," he said with a groan.

Says:

"Not another deus ex machina," he said with a groan. “Everything you write contains a deus ex machina… sometimes even two or three. It’s annoying.”

Paul looked up from the page and straight into Jeffrey’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Jeffrey, I didn’t realize group work meant that I had to hold your hand and walk you through our story.”

“You’re being a jerk, Paul. Knock it off.”

“Make me, Jeffrey.” He broke the name into two hard syllables and slathered them with venom. The name was spit out more than spoken.

“Look, all I’m saying is that your clean and easy resolutions are really, really predictable. Nobody’s going to want to read the story when they hear you wrote another of your famous ‘And everything was suddenly O.K.’ endings.”

“And all I’m saying is that you’re being stupid. You said you didn’t know how to write endings and you specifically asked me to wrap the story up. If I’m so predictable, why did you ask me to do the ending? Why not the beginning?”

“You just said it, it’s because I’m not good at writing endings. Still, I’m sure I could write a better ending than that. I mean seriously, the idea that something could suddenly make both the rival villages stop battling despite their deep differences is just ridiculous. I mean honestly, people will think that we just ran out of ideas and pulled something convenient out of our--”

Jeffrey stopped suddenly. In front of them was the most beautiful redhead either of them had seen.

“Hey guys,” she the most perfect voice either had ever heard, “I was wondering if you’d be willing to help me with my story.”

They both nodded.

“Paul, I think that ending will work fine.”

“I agree. Now, shall we?”

Together, they walked off hand-in-hand with the redhead.

56 “Eat up boys!”

Says:

“Eat up boys!” She gestured towards the men in their underwear tied to the spikes behind her. At this, two of the men screamed and the third giggled.

“Ha. I like where this is going,” he said, winking. One of the women with a spear leaned over and punched him in the face; he slid silently to the ground.

“Boys not worthy,” the leader said, ignoring the previous interruption. “Boys not good. Boys not welcome.”

“Boys not welcome,” they repeated.

“Last time boys here, great suffering. Time of darkness!”

“Time of darkness,” they chanted repeatedly. A moment or two later, they grew silent again.

“We not allow boys in city! We never allow another boy in city,” the leader raged, raising her voice loud enough to shake the surrounding trees. At this, the throng of women rushed towards the three men and began to tear them limb from limb, ripping pieces of flesh and consuming them. Off in the distance, the rotor of a helicopter roared silently.

“Damned Amish! That’s the third research group we’ve lost this week,” the helicopter pilot said, turning around and heading back to base.

56 It was at that point his head exploded.

Says:

It was at that point his head exploded. It wasn’t like he had expected it or wanted it to happen, but it happened nonetheless. And such is fate.

His name was Ronnie and he was a mild mannered college student. He was a normal boy, with normal problems. He had just been walking to class one day when it happened. For no reason in the slightest. At first he would complain about it, asking ‘why me?’ and ‘why now?’ He cried at night not knowing how he would make it through the next day.

It was on the fourteenth day of October that he deciding to change things for himself. Ronnie was a bigger man than all this whining and he decided to press on. He began to be more outgoing and making more of an effort to have more friends. By the end of the month he was not only invited to all the hip Halloween parties, but he definitely had the best costume.

The moral of this fine tale is thus: don’t complain about your life, because you probably don’t have it as bad as Ronnie. So stop whining all you emo sissies.

55 “OMG!!1!! he r teh L33t h4x0r of teh Int3rweb!” he said aloud.

Says:

“OMG!!1!! he r teh L33t h4x0r of teh Int3rweb!” he said aloud. The entire computer lab turned to stare. “El oh el,” he said, shrugging slightly and sitting down at his terminal once more. On the screen, an elf in a green tunic lay on the ground under the feet of a gigantic goblin.

‘ur gh@y’, he typed, furrowing his brow deeply and banging madly on the keyboard.

‘No, you are,’ came the reply.

‘shu7 ur f4t face,’ he slammed into the keyboard, following it with a cold and very unfriendly ‘v_v’.

‘What’s that supposed to be,’ his rival challenged.

‘sut up,its a face, l0s3r,’ he challenged.

‘lol Whatever’.

‘u dun n0 ho l33t i m,’ the fallen elf warrior declared to the goblin victor.

‘I don’t care, you’re probably like twelve’.

“Oh noes,” he said, staring around the computer room. “Oh noes you didn’t!” With that, he unleashed hell:

‘duD3, u'r3 l4m3. U cH3473D. MY 3lf shouLD pHr49 YoUr 9o8l1n 3v3RY 71M3 1f u W3R3'n7 us1N' M4D Ch3472. u'R3 Jus7 4 819 duM8 Los3r whO NO8oDY L1k32, 4Nd 1'm 73H k1N' oF 73h L4d132 who M4K32 Ou7 4LL 73h 71m3. 1 M4d3 ou7 W17 yoUR mom l4s7 n19H7 48OU7 7w3n7y 71M32 4ND 8y 73H 71M3 1 W42 DOn3 sH3 w42 4LL l1k3 Pl332 S7Op 9rOP1N' m3h 8U7 1 W42 4LL l1K3 no w4Y L4dY U'R3 w4Y 7oo hO7 4nd YOur SOn 12 4 L4M3 cH3471n' h4xoR.’

A few seconds passed before the goblin responded ‘lol noob’ before logging off. The elf grinned and cackled madly, much to the anger of his classmates in the computer lab. “A winn4r is m3!”

Suddenly his computer screen went black. He turned and noticed his teacher standing behind him, having just pressed the power button on his computer terminal.

‘Ghey,’ he said, placing his hands in his lap and sitting quietly for the rest of class.

55 Marie says: lol wur r u wearing rite no?

Says:

Marie says:
lol wur r u wearing rite no?

Frankie J says:
What the hell? Who is this?

Marie says:
omg! dn’t u no?

Frankie J says:
I apologize, but off the top of my head I don’t know any autistic chimpanzees who have access to the internet.

Marie says:
lol

Frankie J says:
Seriously though, why are you talking to me?

Frankie J says:

Scratch that. Why are you trying to communicate with me?

Marie says:
I’m going to kill you in seven days.

Frankie J has signed off

Marie says:
?

Marie has signed off

Why do I even try thought Frankie as he powered off the monitor. The internet just isn’t the place to meet women. It’s just so frustrating. It’s just full of freaks and weirdoes trying to get their kicks.

And with that Frankie grabbed three gerbils off of the counter, as well as a rubber ducky and a paint can and headed off to the closet.