Excused

Dear Mrs. Hadler,

Please excuse Daniel's abscence yesterday, he was unable to come to school because he was at home sick. I hope you'll be able to forgive him for not being able to attend the test about the human skeleton yesterday, and you might allow him to take a retest. Unfortunately, Daniel still has quite a fever, and it has left him unable to study. Also, please do not touch him or allow the other students in the class to ask him where he has been. Just tell them all that Daniel has been ill. And that's all they need to know.

Additionally, please assure Daniel that his answers are right, despite if they are or not. This will help to let the other students in the class that Daniel is every bit as good as them, and even smarter than Todd Matthews. Also regarding Todd Matthews, please note that I often go to lunch with his mother, and she has a lot to drink.

Please note also that Daniel might need to leave for no apparent reason. Please don't stop him or ask him where he is going. He has business to attend to, so, just let him take care of it, ok? Thank you for excusing Daniel and for taking these precautions with Daniel, and know that if anyone makes him mad, he might somehow be able to spread this sickness to them with his mind. I will also be unable to attend any PTA meetings or open house events for the rest of the year. Or sign report cards, as my hands are broken.

Sincerely,
Cynthia Doris

The Omega Clock

Things have been basically non-stop shitty since they installed the Omega Clock. Sure, everyone wanted it at first, but now it seems like the whole world is second guessing itself. Because there it is, hovering in the night sky, a huge digital reminder of the only time any of us has left.

There are only 2 kinds of people now:

1.) People who still have hope.
2.) People who have none.

The first group is busy. They are working day in and day out to find a way out of this mess. They work tireless and dedicated lives, but they're smart and driven. They can't see what the rest of us see, though, and that's that we're fucked.

Excitebike

First let me tell you that there is an awesome party going on at my house right now. A Nintendo party! We got a NEW NES at the store in the mall last weekend, and we have been playing it NONSTOP. In case you were wondering, we have all the best games, too. Yep, we're talking Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, and even Excitebike. If you haven't played Excitebike, GET IT! It's pretty much one of the best games out there right now, and we got it. I can hear the whir of the high speed dirt bike motor humming from the other room right now. I kick major ass at that game.

Have you ever played Tetris? Then you are probably a girl.

Right now, my kid brother, Nathan, is trying to rev the motor all the way up. He is going to flip over the handlebars, I just know it. The best thing about Excitebike is that you can make your own stages. Yesterday, I made one with about 18 huge hills right in a row. It was impossible to beat. BECAUSE I DIDN'T PUT A FINISH LINE ON IT! Ha! You can never beat the stage. Awesome.

We are supposed to be doing homework right now, but Brandon came over to study and I wanted to show him the new game. He is getting his ass kicked, even by Nathan. Yesterday after school, we were going to go out and make our bikes into dirt bikes, but we didn't have the right stuff in the garage to do it. Also yesterday, we found a dead cat down on the road. Nathan threw a rock at it, and it just went THUD and some flies flew out of its head. We wanted to bury it, but mom just told us to throw it in the woods instead. I took this rusty shovel and kind of scooped it up and tossed it into the ditch at the end of the road. It was a lot heavier than I thought, though, and it hit the pavement hard and sort of bounced. I kept expecting the smelly old cat to stand up and brush himself off and say heyyyy, what'd ya do that for? and walk off into the woods. But he didn't.

Seeing all those flies and guts come out of him made me think of the zombie movie we saw last weekend. Are there zombie cats? Probably. That's why I have this butterfly knife in my closet. Brandon's cousin Lakey gave it to me. He's sixteen and has killer posters all over his wall. Poison, Kathy Ireland in a bikini, and this great Grim Wreaper blacklight poster that glows and points at you no matter where you stand in the room. Lakey is awesome. I'm growing my hair out to be like his.

Lakey told us a story about the time he fingered a girl in the auditorium after school. He said it felt like she was peeing on him. He said she was going to go down on him, but that they thought they heard someone coming. Brandon says Lakey has porno mags in his room, but he can't find them and Lakey says to not go in his room when he's not there.

Nathan's yelling. That means he's losing. Brandon is kicking his ass. I can beat them both, though.

Another awesome game is Pro Wrestling. We borrowed it from Lakey last week, but we haven't played it that much. My favorite guy is The Amazon. He's this lizard guy and he bites your face if he gets his hands on you. And you do NOT want his hands on you.

I'm supposed to be doing my homework, but it is sooo stupid. We are taking electives this year, though, and I'm in shop. I think I am going to make a sword or an escape ladder.

Bed & Breakfast

Dear Sir,

Thank you very much for ruining what may be one of the most important times in my life. When you advertised a Romantic Weekend Getaway, there should have been some qualifications to that claim. A number of factors bring me to this conclusion, including the way you've held up the exterior walls with railroad ties wedged into the earth. How is this even considered sound construction? I plan to have this examined by the appropriate authorities immediately.

When my new wife, Rebecca, and I first arrived at your "bed and breakfast," we thought that there must be some sort of joke here. Well, as it turned out, the joke was truly on us. We immediately checked the pamphlet we had secured from Denny's three months ago which so beautifully advertised your place of business in a decadent light of homey atmosphere. Sir, there is nothing decadent or lovely about this bed and breakfast. Rebecca immediately welled up with tears at the dismal state of things. Luckily, in my positive nature and "make the best of a bad situation" attitude allowed me to trudge on and persevere the weekend. How I wish I had given up.

I'll spare you the details of my most miserable time on this planet, which were spent in what could, in no way, resemble a bed. I believe my pillow was actually stuffed with hay. Do I deserve that? To pay $800 and expect to sleep on lump of horse snacks? Do I deserve having to shower in cold water from rusty pipes? Should I be punished for attempting to celebrate my wife's birthday weekend? I believe the answer is no.

I expect a full reimbursement, or I will be forced to take legal action. I will also have you know that your night clerk "Terry" was terribly rude and unsupportive when I tried to express my concerns with him. He actually "flipped me the bird" when I became terse with him. I hope that he will get the punishment he deserves. They wouldn't let this shit fly in the army, if you'll excuse my French. Please understand that I am VERY SERIOUS when I say that I will take legal action if I don't receive a full reimbursement very soon. Good Day.

Sincerely,
Ronnie Werthers

P.S. The breakfast was also very bad.

A New Jersey Turnpike Rest Stop Attendant Explains the Effects of The Bite of a Brown Recluse Spider

It all starts with a headache. You get a little nauseous and then you lie down. Then everything soft in your head starts to get tight, and gets real bruised. This, of course comes with a great deal of pain. This pain isn't typical of pain that can be associated with a burn or a cut or a broken bone. N-O sir. This is the kind of pain that feels like everything inside you wants to get out. It's when your body gives up on you, tries to make a break for it. That's why you claw at yourself. That's why you see these poor bastards with fingernails dug into their cheeks. This shit is not not pretty, I tell ya. These guys that come in here with no eyes. It's fucking unbelievable. Fucking spiders.

So after the onset of this extraordinary pain and your muscles snapping tight in your head, then your whole body gets warm. We're not talking about any hot tub comfortable fucking spring day warm, either, Jack. Its your blood starting to boil under its own heat. So then it gets a hell of a lot hotter, and the only reason you don't black out right there is because your heart is pumping so fucking hard. Another two or three minutes and nobody can touch you, you're so fucking hot.

If your heart hasn't exploded by now, that's bad fucking luck for you, pal, because here comes the real shit. Every bone in your body turns to wood. But it's like balsa wood or stryofoam or some shit. Your knees just crack and you fall right to the ground and break a couple a ribs and your fucking wrists. Oh man, I tell ya...Fucking spiders, man. They'll do some bad shit to your body. That pain will make you forget who you ever were, right before you die. Even God can't even do a thing for you at that point. It doesn't matter what religion you are, your God will give the fuck up on you when he sees the way you look. Shit, these fucking spiders. The only worse way to die would be to have your balls unraveled and knit into a pair of socks which you then have to wear while running a marathon on pieces of broken porcelain while chewing on steel rivets until you can blow a bubble. That, and being stung by a Portuguese Man O' War; holy fuck.

SINEs

At this point, it might be too soon to say that what we're dealing with are actually ghosts, or some other sort of apparition. The owners of this 1,200 sq ft. coffee shop in Lincoln Park claim that sometimes lights switch on and off after 9, but only a handful of them have seen it happen. They called us, incredulous as you'd expect, and started the same conversation I've heard a thousand times: You're never going to believe this... But we do believe it. We've heard it all before: My refrigerator is haunted. There's a ghost in my attic. My son can't sleep, when the lights go out, Indians appear in his bedroom and scream at him. We know.

So we're not surprised when this cozy java house calls us saying they always feel like someone is watching them. Most of the time, it's something low maintenance like poltergeists or banshees, but occasionally you'll get a full scale spirit dorm and you've got a real project on your hands. I wouldn't call us Ghost Busters or Ghost Hunters per se, but we definitely hunt, and we absolutely bust ghosts. Unfortunately both of those names are copyrighted so we went with Spectral Intelligence and Neurophysical Engineers, or SINEs for short. It took some time, but I think we made the acronym work.

Roman Shade

My father explained these people had likely burned down their own house, because they didn't want to live so close to the highway. It made sense, I suppose, because they could maybe collect on the insurance-- make it look like an accident. They could get all things out they REALLY needed first, and then made it look like some sort of electric thing.

His hard-hat didn't quite fit on my father's head, so it perched comically on top, wobbling as he plunged his shovel into the rubble-- black wires of hair spilled out around his shoulders. Around him, sunlight poured all over the ash and debris, and what was left of the house's frame glistened silver bubbles of charred wood. My father, the bear, trudged toward me and pointed to his orange Gatorade. I handed it to him, as he took off his gloves to reveal two stubby reddish mitts of hands. To me, he looked more like a line drawing of a man in a coloring book, violently scribbled upon despite the boundaries by some odd 4-year-old with only a black crayon. Soot haphazardly sprung from his hair and beard, his goggles caked with dust-- he was a heavy black beast, save his pristine pink hands.

Though we had been at it all day, I felt like nothing had been accomplished. Despite how much I dug or hauled in a wheelbarrow to the giant dumpster in the front yard, it just seemed futile. The damage had already been done, and we had to deal with what was left. The roof had burned entirely, and I felt the sensation of being inside of something, but also being outside. The fakeness of it reminded me of trips we had taken to the zoo in my younger days and walking through the aviary. An improvised habitat just for show. The birds there could be identified by placards with their picture on them, and the plants each had little black aluminum signs that read things like:

Watery Rose Apple
(Syzygium aqueum)

Through the rubble, you can still make out what things used to be. Food Processor (Preparus choppium), Dollhouse (Imaginarium domesticus), Love Seat (Couchus amora). Our shovels clanked and sang and scraped, and the evening had begun to surround us. I watched my father quickly shovel a pile of black, crumbling cabinetry into my wheelbarrow as if into the firebox of a locomotive. With the sky melting around us where the ceiling had been, its clouds a roman shade of purple, it felt like we were moving.

Blemish

My son, the cat burglar, told me recently that he would no longer be eating dinner with the family if we continued to rely upon the listless tradition in our menu choices. He said this to me while disguised as a French sailor in a cafe not far from his cigarette boat. Zee pot-roast, he explained, is so terriblah blahnde. We shared a long pause before he stood with a snap, saluted me gracefully and whistled his way down the dock. Frustrated, I considered what other choices might allow for the most stimulating fare to entice my son's palate, so I consulted one Dr. Steven Cowmilk, my long time friend and associate-- and an esteemed professor at the local university.

Dr. Cowmilk's office held the same fragrance as had my Aunt Ingrid's apartment in Queens, a rather pungent acidic bite followed by a very sterile and fabricated floral scent. It was the kind of sanitary fragrance that one might experience visiting a retirement home built no less than 50 years ago. Nonetheless, the good Doctor gladly offered his sage wisdom to my recent woes.

Surely he would enjoy braised beef ribs? Dr. Cowmilk seemed to have a knack for making everything he said sound as though it were a question. I nodded and explained that I would discuss this issue with my wife, which I wholly intended to do as soon as I arrived home. The conversation with Judy was a somber one, as she took full responsibility for our son's unhappiness. Of course, we both wanted the best for him, but it was Judy who took it the hardest when Noran first told us of his plans to become a cat burglar. He's doing this to push us farther away! she bellowed, weeping onto my chest, What have we done wrong? Where did we fail?

I also considered that this was merely a ploy of Noran's, in all his narcissism and elusive nature, to find new ways to avoid spending time with the family. First he hated the selection of games we chose to enjoy on our weekly game nights, and then it was the brand of orange juice we preferred, and now it was a flagrant rejection of the food upon which we had raised the boy. It had been like this ever since Noran came home from his first successful robbery. I could see the rush in his eyes as he snuck back into the living room with a bag full of expensive jewelry on his shoulder, smiling devilishly. I knew it was not a good life to live, then, but I also knew it was what made him happiest. He often told me that burglary was what "chose him" and that he would "be the best there ever was," even then, in those early days, I believed him.

That night, as I thumbed through the recipe book in search of something exquisite for our beloved son on his next surprise visit home, my thumbs at once stopped and could no longer bear to turn the pages. Instead, I walked into Noran's room and looked around at all the things he had collected, all the fruits of his late night labors. Paintings, jewels, pieces of ivory and ancient weaponry were scattered haphazardly across the room. I smiled and thought for a moment that braised beef ribs might be a nice change.

For Breakfast, I Will Eat Satellites

Isn't it hard being so tall and powerful? they will ask, So graceful and kind? and I will tell them No, no, it is a gift that only the truest and mightiest may possess. I cherish it so! They will smile and ask if please please can we see just one more amazing feat?, and I will frown and nod and start to say perhaps another day, friends, but just as their twinkling eyes begin to dwindle into melancholy, I will turn and reach inside each of their hearts and pull out their wildest dreams.

I will extract puppies and gold bracelets and heirlooms and other such rewards for their faith. They will drop to their knees and weepthank you! thank you! oh you are so kind and merciful! we owe you big time! I will say it will be no matter, because for me it will certainly be none.

I will fly off into the future, where my army of followers will rejoice in glee at the sight of my return. There will be a grand ball in my honor, 400 years in the making. The bride of every man will toss him aside in hopes of a glimpse of my rippling chest. My followers will slaughter their first born to touch my hand. And I will make them do it. See? See what I am willing to do? Please let me touch your hands!, they'll say as they choke a piglet wrapped in swaddle to his death, all squealing and kicking. I'll let them touch my fingers, and then I'll expertly spin the dead squealer into a meal fit for forty kings, and all my desperate minions will feast until they explode. We shall dance, and I will outdance each man, wife and child. And their children's children, whom they will borne right there, as a result of my dancing.

When I finally tire, I will swallow the sun and sleep in the ocean-- the sand my bedding, and each wave my blanket.

The Spigot, She Poured

Like this?

Madeline streched her neck out and to the left, which brought the softest parts of her lips into the sunlight. The window let it in just enough to drape her nose and nipples, and now the glisten of her tongue, which crept out just briefly to moisten her lips. She bit them, hard too, with the rationale that they would puff out and make her beautful by her own design, in the same way you might pinch your cheeks in order to make them look rosier.

Perfect-- then a sound like: bee-beep and then click and then good...

This was exactly like she had pictured it. This was what Steph had told her it would be like. There was no romance or pride. No plush modern furniture and coked out blonde getting fingered in between shots-- her cigarette mouth laughing.

There was no thumping house music and nitrous oxide. There was no sweaty Grecian beefcake with deep amber toned abs and wet black eyebrows.

...again...same thing, just kind of point your ass up in the air a little more this time...

This was exactly like she had pictured it. There was Paul, the photographer, with his tight, round belly, with his gray mustache and gin burps. bee-beep...click...good

Madeline felt a sneezing fit coming on and signaled for a break.

In the bathroom, two thumb sized pieces of shit patroled the toilet bowl, and Madeline blew her nose violently. She washed her face off, rubbed her eyes smiled in the mirror, and wondered if she was really fooling anyone.