faded jeans float across the blood red sky (almost full version)

FADED JEANS FLOAT ACROSS THE BLOOD RED SKY

Okram, Eddieson

mistershithead@hotmail.com

Toronto, ON

24^th jan 2006

…AND YOU READ A TRUE FRICTION

(Dedicated to an idiotic female HJT and a tribute to all my favorite writers, shoplifters, musicians, and painters.)

INTRO: A young moron sits, and then stands, and then sits again, in front of a PC. And he analyses a profile on his PC. He likes the girl in the profile very much. Today she returns an angry reply to one of the comments he left. Heart broken, he decides to clear up her misunderstanding by writing her some blogs, but as time teleports by… strange events slither in.

PART ONE: Our surrealist history to clear up your misunderstanding.

Once upon a time, many autumns ago, at the beginning of the end of winter, in a little village of tribes, a most unusual baby is born.

The sun was setting when the child popped into this world and the child's mother held our kid in her arms in the candlelight and said, "What a funny little boy he is!"

The child's aunt took a good look and said, "He looks like our great grandfather… thin, stupid and needs a diaper. I'm tellin' you sister your kid will grow into a complete nutcase just like our great grandfather!"

Everybody laughed at this. Little did they know that truer words than this would never be spoken again.

At age 13 our kid stands by a wooden bridge at the foot of a little hill. He has grown up and is known by the name "Mister Nuts" but we shall just refer to him by his totem name "Naoba".

The sky was blood red as the good old sun slowly set. Naoba listened to the wind rustling against the leaves and smiled stupidly. He had absolutely no idea what he was smiling about and having suddenly realized this he burst out laughing. He first fell on his knees and laughed but pretty soon he was rolling all over the field like a pig and howling with laughter.

This was the first time that he improvised on nothingness and he was feeling good when suddenly a little voice called out, "Oi' you laughing at me?"

"I could if you want me to" Naoba replied.

"Don't you dare get claver with me. I know you. You're the retarded kid from across the field. I shall stone you to death if you laugh at me again!"

This mighty threatening voice belonged to a whimsically lovable little girl "JT", but let's just call her "Jane" to avoid certain complications.

NAOBA: ha!

JANE: What did you say? I will keep hitting on your empty head with a brick just to see if it produces any echoes.

NAOBA: eh!!! You look very fine but you sound like an authentic criminal… are you by any chance on heavy medication?

JANE: That's it! I'm going to bite on your head until your armpits bleed! Don't you try and run because if you do I'll follow you home and bite your dog to shreds too!

Jane runs down the hill. After a few moments she is no more running. She's rolling down the hill. Naoba laughs nervously but before he could complete his laugh, the rolling lump that is Jane, bumps right into him and he ends his laugh with perfectly authentic groan.

Anybody want some popcorn?

When Naoba regained consciousness, Jane was laying on top of him breathing heavily on his neck. Her hair tickled his face and at this moment he felt very, very strange. He would've kissed the girl on top of him if he had just not forgotten to brush his teeth that morning. He signed, and his bad breath immediately woke the little terminateress from her slumber.

Jane notices a little ring that had slipped from Naoba's fingers. She picks the ring up, but that's after she picked herself up and two feet away from him, and she throws the ring into the body of water that lay beneath the bridge. Naoba yells to her to stop but it's too late. A flash and a flush and the ring played "titanic"!

NAOBA: Why did you do that? That was my totem ring! Grandpa use to say that I must always wear it and never let it out of my sight. I never laughed at you, in fact I like you so…

JANE: because you're a really annoying boy! Plus your breath smells like dirty underwear!

NAOBA: WHAT?!! I never knew that and sorry about my breath. I forgot to brush my teeth today, OK? No big deal, I'll just brush three times tomorrow, but I didn't mean to insult you.

JANE: Are you tryin' to score with me, you little bastard?

NAOBA: Not yet but do you really think I should?

Jane gives Naoba a long, cold, nasty, traumatizing and nightmare inducing look for about 5 minutes, and then she turns and walks into the dusk…

PART TWO: STRIKE A POSE AND STAB THE FOOL!!!

Naoba couldn't sleep that day, so he slept during the night. That night Jane appeared in his dream and she looked very hurt and sad which in turn made him very sad.

The next day he got up early and ran to the wooden bridge. His friends called out to him on the way but he just told them to go on and that he would catch up later on. He waited the whole day at the foot of the hill in hopes that he would meet that girl again but it was all in vain, his legs experienced a new level of pain. As the sun began to set, patience drained, he finally returned home.

Once home, he realized that he had totally forgotten about going to school, and on his bed was a pink card on which the following words were written:

"Dear son, you're grounded"

Signed: mom and dad!

P.S: don't be sad!

…And so life went on but Naoba never met her again.

Sometimes he would see a thin figure on the hill and he would run and run to her, achieving insane speeds, due to which sometimes a cop would just pull him over and give him a ticket!!! And so by the time he reached the hills she would be gone!

One day when he was 15, some of his friends were going to this school dance and he went along. The halls were brightly lit, and the atmosphere seemed fit.

Spirits were high and kids were high.

The principle and the librarian.

The bully and the bong.

Cheers and laughter and perfumes and candles subdued any sound or sight of nervous farts and sobbing hearts and there in this tornado of corniness, unaffected by it aura, stood Naoba.

He stood in a stupid fashion and eyed the food on the table.

He undid his intention and shifted his attention…

And there in the middle of the hall, he saw her! She had grown beautifully and fairies, if existed, would look like her. Look at her!

"Just wait till she climbs the stairs," thought Naoba… grinning all over the place.

The glimmer and the glitter and the reflection of the neon all seemed to make her look so, so cute and fine. She danced like an anaconda, twisting and turning, dreamy but there.

She holds the young blonde male tight and off they go again swirling… WAIT! WAIT! Hold on! She is dancing with another man? Oh well, Naoba's in trouble now. Poor old sod, he's just standing there staring and staring and something is happening inside him...

A tear disappears back inside his eyes and starts to stain the brain.

A flute plays over a frozen sky…

A note that kills and another that saves…

The long weeds wave in the wind…

In limbo!

Whiteness all around…

A hyena laughs and…

Oh… and there was this breeze over… over nothing?

And in a distance, inside his head, a sound of breaking glass erupts. Inside Naoba's head a shadowy figure steps out and shoot's Naoba right between the eyes with an imaginary gun. A dull thud and Naoba is no more.

Naoba now lays floating on the dark side of the moon in a coma and out walks RED JACK!

PART THREE: our surrealist history to clear up my misunderstanding

Red Jack walks a burning road out of the hall. His flaming head smelling like a barbecue! He eyes a girl and then two and then three until he wished he had another set of eyes to go around. Suddenly he turns back. He's staying, yeah. He heads for the washroom for what do you call it… er… ah! Number one!

Once inside the washroom, he senses a constant dull thud at the back of his head, almost like the sound of whales raining down on an insane 4/4 beat, and freaked, turns around to realize that a girl was hitting him with on the head with her purse!

Even more confusing was the fact that she had a brick stuffed in her purse!!! Now, I can't imagine why anybody would want to walk around with a brick in their purse so don't ask!

"What the fuck do you think you're doing at a girl's washroom, you psycho?" yelled the girl… yelled Jane… yelled the scorpion queen… yelled the cholesterol in my heart… whatever!

Jack turned around and froze at the sight of Jane. Thoughts and feelings raced in his empty head. Neurons transferring signals in sparks… overload… overload… short-circuit!!!

And Jack stands numb…

"Well, at least you got the name right." he replied at last after thinking 10 times, and extended the free hand for a handshake that was never meant to be.

Shove! Went the high heels, right up Jack's nose. He understood completely and immediately, and pushed the cannon back inside his pants. Then he unscrewed the high heel from his nose and scraped pieces of his brain from off its edge.

"The Scorpion Queen!" he whispered through a mouthful of surprise.

"What? How the fuck did you know my name?" came the reply, "were you freakin' stalking me or something? I have seen a lot of your kind. You're one of those sadistic bastards who walk in and sits next to me when the whole damn place is literally littered with freakin' empty seats. Annoying, disgusting, freaks!"

JACK: No, no… I'm not that type! Please don't strike any sick pose. I just like you the way you are and not because of your looks only but because of your persona, your brain defects. There's just nobody like you, look at you!

You’re a total psychopath! And about that guy staring at you, have you never wanted to sit next to a beautiful rose plant or an ultra thin ipod and enjoy its beauty?

JANE: DO I LOOK LIKE A STUPID ROSE PLANT TO YOU, YOU STUPID DWEEB?

JACK: Of course not, of course not… plus damn him, after all he's in my way. Hehe. You did get the name right though, what I mean to say is that… well, never mind that. Do you remember me?

JANE: Don't tell me you're that guy whom I caught filming me while I was conducting business in the washroom!

JACK: Damn! I so wish I was, but sadly, I'm not. I totally stole your heart a couple of years ago, beside the hill, near the bridge and over the waters. Remember?

JANE: WHAT!!! Oh! I am so not paying for that ring mister, so don't get too excited!

An awkward silence follows… Jack utilizes this time to quickly deliver some CPR to his confidence. He felt a lot better and was confident enough to ask her to dance with him…

A group of girls suddenly walked in and they gasp a collective gasp as they saw a boy inside their temple of business! One of them had brains big enough to think up a question, and the mouth, as usual automatic and well oiled, raised the bow and fired the question.

"What's that really ugly looking guy doing in a women's washroom?" and immediately suggestions followed, "is he a pervert?"

"Is he from Kazakhstan?"

"Is he blind?"

"Borat?"

"Wait a minute, were you guys making out?"

"No, he must be gay, you know they like to use girls washrooms!" (Lots of giggling) etc, etc.

Jack stood in the Bruce lee pose, ready to defend himself.

Jane raised her hand and spoke, "He's just a really retarded retard. C'mon girls, let's go back to the hunks!"

The night breeze blew the romantic music, cheerful laughter and shy giggles, from the bright warm hall to bleeding ears and meditating hearts. Outside in the fields, near a little hill, stood Jack, and he was planning his attack…

A few wolves appeared on the edge of the woods across the river. He called out to them and tried to negotiate a deal. He asked the wolves if they would help him disrupt this mating dance event that was unfolding in a terrifying manner at that very moment. The wolves didn't seem to understand so he tried to bribe them with a $20 note (universal language) but the alpha male (of the wolf pack) just snatched the $20 note from his hand and took off…

Money in jaws…

Speed gathering paws!

Jack could see the wolf pack heading for the nearest CIBC bank!

"You bastards! PETA shall hear about this, mind you!" he yelled, but there was nothing else he could do, so he sat and planned.

At last he just decided to torch the hall and immediately proceeded to the local LCBO to obtain the required sprit.

Before igniting the hall, he decided to ignite his mood and had a few gulps and a few more and then for miles around you could hear a snore.

The next morning Jack woke up with a wicked hangover. He picked himself up and took him home.

The brick wall that he built around his heart proved useless. The scorpion queen totally jumped over it, smashed through it and even painted random graffiti on it, so Jack decided to move to a big city and achieve something in life. Then he could come back and try to win her over.

He knew that he at least needed to get a real good job to prove to her that he wasn't retarded or brain damaged. well, maybe slightly damaged but not that much. So off he went… to Toronto! hehe!

He got off at the airport and then had no idea what else to do so he just sat around on the sidewalk for a few minutes until people started throwing coins at him. He sat some more cause he thought it paid but after 2 minutes people started throwing really ugly looking eggs, empty piss filled Champaign bottles, cigarette cans and stuff like that so he quickly moved on.

He checked the classifieds for rooms to rent but they all demanded 1st and last month and he could only afford 1st month's rent, so as the sun began to set, he began to feel very lonely and didn't know what to do.

He sat on a bench in a park and looked at people. Hot people... people that can only be hot if they are set on fire...

Little games any psychopath worth his/her salt usually plays.

It was Saturday night and very soon young couples poured out in spades and shovels, and he was feeling lonely. So he sat there feeling' as miserable as any nutcase could feel.

CHAPTER TWO: CHILD LEARNS SOME LESSONS.

Out stepped a dark figure, The Dark wolf, the mystic metaphysical godfather that takes over when you're too crazy to think.

The Dark Wolf spoke in a dark voice that sounded like cattle being slaughtered in the middle of the night by a chainsaw wielding bastard who probably was mistreated in his childhood by the neighbor's dog, who probably had rabies, a liver disease and a very curly tail.

"Ah! A lost soul!"

Jack looked up and Jack looked down.

He wondered and he pondered, and then realized that the voice was coming from behind him so he turned around, and there in front of him was the Dark Wolf in an armada suit, holding a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand while the other held a bottle of the finest milk.

"Who are you, Dark Wolf?" asked Jack and was taken aback by the lack of ignorance in a question meant to dig for information with arrogance.

"Why… I'm The Dark Wolf! New to the big city, eh? Go write your name on that wall over there…"

"Why…"

At this point the Dark wolf displayed two neat rows of the most disgusting rotten bloody five inch long set of teeth anyone had ever laid eyes, hands or legs on.

Jack, for some reason that I still can't comprehend, decides to do as he is told.

The old building's wall shivered and hummed as Jack drew out his marker. Like an ancient machine reactivating after eons, its water pipes rattled in ancient hues and intoxicating blues. Jack wielded the marker and brought down a tearjerker, and as he finished up the carvings, he could hear the city taking a huge gulp of air and then suddenly everything was on psychedelic fire and he heard the city move!

The city towered over his mind and walked beside and the city spoke:

"Nice to meet you Jack, I'm Toronto…" and then the city shook his mind…

…And then the city was gone, but the city was there still! He turned around and there was the dark wolf, body curled, as if about to pounce on him any minute, with a playboy magazine in his bloody hands.

"Ah! So what did you learn?" snarled the Dark Wolf dripping acidic saliva all over the used guns that littered the park causing metallic fumes to rise out with a psychotic hiss.

Jack shrugged, as he didn't have a clue what the hell the dark fucktard was talking about.

"You've just introduced yourself to the city, you fool! Which means that, life will be easier for you in this city from now on, as the city has become your friend. Treat the city well and the city will return the favor kid." growled the Dark Wolf humping a defenseless tree with utmost zeal and satisfaction, his bushy tail swinging to and fro, just like the way a faithful dog's swings when they're happy.

And then, suddenly, the dark wolf jumped into the sky and left.

"Ha! What a freakin' weirdo! I can't even afford rent right now. I don't even know where to spend the night!" complained Jack looking absently at the rabbit that just walked out of a KFC looking mighty worried. The rabbit took a dying look at his watch and then hurried off on a magic sidewalk…

Suddenly the intro riff of the nirvana song "In bloom" blazed as if it was on steroids.

Poof!

A dark figure exploded out of a garbage can that was meditating nearby.

Enter Dark Wolf…

Constantly striking various poses, the dark wolf spoke, "Ah, Fucker! What is this I hear about rent and bleeding hearts? Hot dreams and chicken rolls, you fish faced fleabag. You don't know much about this and that, do you? Don't take it personally. I counsel psychos all the time because it's a beautiful hobby. Flattering, I know, but it's really no big deal."

The Dark wolf flexes his paws and daggers spring out. They glittered in the moonlight stained neon lights. He took a step and suddenly the park was gone! They were now standing in a place that looked really familiar to Jack.

Endless white space that stretched forever and a kilometer, and frozen in the pale blue strip sky, a pair of the most beautiful blue eyes!

The scorpion queen forever stared at them.

Back in Limbo, with a psychotic hound?

The ground was gone, it couldn't be found!

Whiteness all around!

Surround sound, surround sound!

He would've gone insane if not for the eyes that glued him there. It was raining and the eyes kept staring.

LOCATION: Somewhere in Grand Canyon, on top of a huge rock…

Underneath the starry night a little bonfire burns upon a rock, and in the dim moonlight the Dark Wolf puked words all over the valley.

"You are a Pisces, but your raising star is Scorpio, and your totem animal is the eagle. Be the eagle."

"Why are you telling me this?" inquired Jack. He was getting real hungry.

"SHUT UP!!! There! That's much better! Hmmm… as I was saying, your rising star maybe Scorpio but you're a fish so your real character is the day dreaming eagle gliding through the silver skies on a sunny summer day. Day dreaming deep enough to miss the glint of a hunter's gun far below in the bush! You can be a lazy eagle or a bloodthirsty shark! Choose! The lesson here is simple: keep one eye glued to the ground!"

BLACK OUT...

It was morning when Jack woke up.

A train station…

Rainy day…

It rained and it rained and Jack felt good and Jack felt beautifully sad and Jack smelt the smell of the raindrops hitting the dusty roads and Jack felt warmly cold.

Then he suddenly noticed something.

Something was sitting next to him.

"Hi" said something, looking extremely casual. "Isn't that the girl you're so scared of?"

There in front of a little shop she stood.

And you know she always looks good.

And some say it's all in the mood.

Look at her, but like a gentleman should!

Jack called out to her and ran to her but a speeding train came in the way and when the stupid train was gone so was she!

Jack ran after the train as it was gathering speed and then managed to jump on it. He was satisfied as he prepared to meet her and he grinned and looked back at the station as it grew smaller and further, suddenly, out of the little shop that he saw earlier, stepped Jane! Damn!!!

Jack jumped off the train so he could run back to her but landed in a river and the river decided to take Jack for a ride.

After an hour he managed to get off the river and headed for civilization.

The river had dumped him at a deserted desert area and so under the flaming sun he walked. Aching hunger gnawed his bones and sweat stung like seawater, but still he walked and he walked.

After two day, however, he couldn't anymore and so Jack falls…

BLACK OUT...

A funny feeling and eyes stretch to see a dog standing…

The dog stood on its legs and the dog stared back with hugely goofy eyes and then it barked out the following words:

"Hi! I'm a wild dog, ain't it freakin' cool?"

"Yes, yes… that’s very cool. I'm dying, wild dog. Please bring me some food. I've to meet the scorpion queen one last time before I die."

"Here…" yelped the wild dog and vomited a sandwich. "I can also lead you to the scorpion queen if you want."

Jack ate the sandwich and then blacked out.

In frozen blue skies the eyes stared at him and he woke in cold sweat with a cry.

The dog was sitting nearby and torturing a bug.

"Why are you torturing that poor bug? Bugs have feelings too." said Jack, to the dog, but the dog just grinned and shook its head.

"What's so funny?" asked Jack.

"Insects don't have feeling like us animals. That's why god made them different and so tiny. Everybody knows that! Didn't they teach you that in school?" replied the dog with a look of pity on it's dumb face.

"Dunno… I was always ditching classes and stuff… must've missed out that part" replied Jack and followed the dog.

The dog walked wicked steps with a magnifying glass held in front of its face using both paws and Jack followed and they walked.

Hours later they came to a little house on the edge of civilization.

Here the wild dog turned to jack and said, "You must continue you quest alone now. I wish I could come with you because I know that a retard like you could always use some help but I don't have a collar and so I can't go with you anymore. It's either that or the dog pound, you see. Anyways, she's in that house. I just heard her voice on my magnifying glass. Oh! And, Good luck Jack!"

Jack walked a speedy run towards the house and as he approached the house he could see her through the window.

She was hugging someone and she was bending over and…

At this point all hell breaks loose and the panels of envy and panels of reality collapses and everything starts breaking down like cheap mirror. Shut down…

BLACK OUT...

OUTRO:

A sad, sad soul sits beside the PC and stares into empty space. It's been days now.

He can't believe it.

He can't think thoughts of psychoactive cosmic lead anymore!

Fingers freeze before they hit the keyboard.

He sits there staring at a certain profile.

The profile that ate his brains?

Suddenly a million virgins scream in perfect terror and a dark figure rolls out from underneath the table!

The Dark Wolf grins and strikes an indecent pose!

"WHAT! This can't be! You're the character in my story! I must be going nuts!!!” yelled the 22-year-old child.

"Ah! Shut up! You ARE nuts, you retard… listen to me for a moment and then I'll show you how to upload audio files to your ‘myspace’ profile" whispered the Dark Dirty and proceeded to rub himself against the oven, "Ah! This thing is so damn hot!" he murmured drooling vintage chunk light tuna all over the floor.

Then he went upstairs...

The landlord's scream echoes...

The Dark Wolf tumbles downstairs looking extremely happy.

"OK, here's what actually happened, you closed your story too soon because you only thought about yourself. You never thought about what she might've been going through, you bastard. One as selfish as you shouldn't black out so often."

In the little house the scorpion queen tends her friend.

Friend’s story: he was only 5 when they met but at 13 his spinal chord rebelled and a day later his body wouldn't listen to a word he said.

She lays him down gently on the bed and takes out a book and reads it to him.

Outside the house, in some distance, a stupid selfish figure blacks out.

THE GREAT DETOUR

CHAPTER THREE: JUICE HANGOVER!

Woke up today, feeling like a shrimp. Guess I had too much to drink last night. I mean, seven bottles of orange juice is enough to make anybody's bladder overflow into the pancreas or something. The levee was about to break when I woke up. I ran to the bathroom but didn't make it.

Ordinary men would've looked down at their wet pajamas and immediately shed bucketful of tears but not us Pisces, for we're strong men. It’s in the blood I guess, these accidents keep happening from time to time you see. Strongman like me face it like men.

It was only after breakfast and shower that I felt normal again. But something troubled me greatly, and it was only after lunch that I realized that I hadn't brushed my teeth yet. I was brooding over this when I hear a familiar voice call out to me.

"Good morning Tim!" said Fire Moo, the owner of this fowl voice and my roommate. We share an apartment you see. His room is downstairs and mine is upstairs.

"It's already afternoon, dude!" I said coldly.

"It's what?"

At this point he chocked on one of his yawns and collapsed on the floor clutching his throat. I didn't worry. It wasn't the first time that such a thing had happened to him plus we Pisces may not be as brainy as say… er… Paris Hilton or Marilyn Manson but we sure are resourceful. I kicked him in the throat three times and he was Ok. Fit as a fiddle or two!

"Thanks du…" This time he chocked on gratitude and again proceeded to do the standard maneuver (fall on ground, clutch throat and roll around) I kicked him in the throat four times this time (just to make sure), after all, when it comes to friends, we Pisces are willing to do anything. Yep! I'll do anything for my buddies except perhaps share my ancient vintage cookies. But here I must add that it once belonged to Napoleon (can you believe that he didn't eat it because he thought it had gone bad?!!) He missed the treat of a lifetime, these cookies are killers! I eat them only once a year.

This time he sat there, blinking at me with large dumb eyes, for about a minute or two, and then rubbing his throat he spoke, in a very annoyed tone, I must add.

"Why is my alarm clock, not working, Tim?"

"Eh!"

"You hear me."

"Really?"

"Of course you did, you dumbass!"

"Eh?"

"Don't say that again or I'll smash your head in!"

"Maybe it's broken!" I said this as quickly as possible because Fire always keeps his word, hell! Sometimes he even keeps my word!

"Well, why the hell is it broken?"

"I don't know"

"Why don't you know?"

"I don't know"

"Should I smash your…"

"Maybe the batteries are dead!"

At this point he paced around the room restlessly with the attitude of a man defeated at chess, mumbling bitterly under his breath. After doing this he changed the subject and proceeded with his attack.

"Have I brushed my teeth yet, Tim?"

Here I was just about to tell the moron that I don't usually follow him around in the washroom and all that but then I decided to have some fun.

"Of course you have, dude!" And having said this I couldn't help but let out a grin. If my teeth are rotting at least they're not rotting alone. Ha-ha!

"Really? Well then, how does my breath smell, Tim?"

A 20 miles/hr bad breath that stank of rotten fish and disfigured odors smashed into my face! But I managed to stay conscious. We Pisces are strong men and, for reasons that I can't comprehend, are well accustomed to the smell of rotting fish.

"Ah! Dude, your breath smells like roses!" I said and I know I'll get an Oscar for this act when I die and go to the other side.

"Yours smells like roses too! Rotten roses smeared with shit, ha!"

Now this was it. I was pissed. And mind you, an angry fish is… er… forget that! I was angry and I was about to give this dumbass a piece of my mind when suddenly the doorbell rang.

"That must be Angelina." apologized Fire, "she told me she'd visit. Totally forgot to warn you."

I ran upstairs to hide. Angelina was fire's sister. The kind of girl that'd empty your wallet and an overflowing fridge in 5 minutes and then make you buy dinner, twice!

"I'm a growing girl, you see" is her usual excuse. I'm not convinced yet. I mean she's 27, five years older than me, with a mile long police record and a couple of missing teeth; she can be pretty threatening.

A week ago she made me buy dinner for her and her boyfriend (he's always broke!) four times within an hour and by the time she ordered the fifth installment I was broke so I told her boyfriend that I desperately needed to pee and slipped out of the restaurant and ran back home.

I'm not too keen on finding out what happened next. I had a feeling that I was about to find it out now. Ordinary men would've searched frantically for cyanide pills or razor blades to do the job before Miss Horrorface arrives but we Pisces are not only brave but also very skilled in the art of concealing oneself. Off I went, underneath the bed, I disappeared!

I hid myself with a touch of mastery only seen on paintings by Salvador Dali, Vincent van Gogh and, of course, me. In fact if you walked into my room you'd just see a bed. You'd never know that underneath the bed, artfully curled in a tight ball and shivering skillfully, like a jelly, was me!

I strained my ears listened as if Mozart was about to perform.

"Hello Angelina" greeted a dumb voice that had the name Fire the residential moron written all over it.

"Shut up and go brush your teeth" replied a voice that sounded like bird droppings and it drove the final nail in the coffin. That voice could only belong to Angelina.

"…But Tim told me that I already had!"

"Tim? Is Tim here?"

"Maybe…"

At this point I had an overwhelming desire to hire a sadistic surgeon to perform a demonstrative lobotomy on this retarded sibling of the female T-Rex that's about to bite me in half in about two seconds. I however am a strong believer in non-violence so I comforted myself by thinking that I could always poison him later, if I walk out of this alive, that is.

"Great! I've to mutilate him immediately!" replied the bloodthirsty psychopath.

"Mutilate?" Asked Fire with a touch of protest in his voice, bless his retarded soul!

"Do you want me to demonstrate it on you?' replied the fatal female.

God knows how many times she had used this answer before when somebody tried to stop her from mutilating some poor soul. Heartless, totally heartless, I tell you. I thanked god that by now my bladder was empty! I shivered under the bed. I couldn't help it. Sounds of sinister footsteps were hacking away at my nerves.

She kicked the door open NYPD style.

"He's not here!"

"Must've jumped outta the window!" replied a male voice.

It was Dick, Angelina's boyfriend, who spoke. I didn't realize that he was here too. I knew it was him because when he spoke he bombarded my nose with really, really rotten smell. I wonder if he had, by any chance, swallowed a really talented skunk the night before. Now, I must tell you that I've sinus, but that didn't stop the smell from blasting their way in through my nose NYPD style!

Some even got into my eyes and so bad was the smell that tears ran down in sufficient amount. When I say, "sufficient amount" I mean enough tears for a rat to shower with. Not that any rat ran up and took a shower right in front of my eyes, but they could if they wanted to, if you know what I mean.

"No… he's a spineless ass… must be hiding in the washroom" said Angelina and walked downstairs.

At this point I poked my head outta the bed to swallow a handful of fresh air. I was doing so, and gleefully, when suddenly I realized that I wasn't alone. Something that looked like something that a pig or a goat had just refused to eat was staring at me!

At this point I sprained my toe and my face naturally screwed up in pain. The thing, which by now I realized was Dick, took one good look at me or rather my head and then shot downstairs screaming, "ANGELINA!!! There's a head rolling around under the bed making faces at me and I'm not drunk yet, I swear!"

"Ha!" said the terminator and dashed upstairs into my room.

She was quick but I was quicker. You see, just as Dick tumbled downstairs in horror, I managed to sneak out from under the bed and lock the door shut and bolt it and stuff.

She bumped against the door and the door moaned.

"Open the door, you worm!" she screamed.

I played dead and remained quiet, praying all the time. After about 10 seconds she began clawing the door. This freaked me out in no uncertain terms so I put on my headphones, turned the volume to the max and then I sat on the bed eating dark chocolates, waiting for the creature to bite the door off any moment now.

It did me no good so I took a couple of sleeping pills and collapsed on my bed shivering...

CHAPTER FOUR: TIM DREAMS INSIDE A DREAM.

Prologue: This little section is the dream of Tim after he consumed those sleeping pills and went to sleep, which I use here for my personal gain, as a revenge, to achieve something I never will in real life.

I had a dog once when I was a kid. He was my best friend. But one day he died and I never got to say goodbye, and I know it can never be undone, but by making a character in my image and changing the ending I'm setting an example for the writer of my life story. The man upstairs, the poor loser "god" who wishes to achieve critical acclaim through a little kid's misery.

All my creations shall have their wish fulfilled in the end. A middle finger to the "God" that wrote my life story so far. Can you imagine how ashamed he/she must be of himself/herself if they're (these gods) making me write these lines?

TIM DREAMS INSIDE A DREAM

A warm breeze blows over a green horizon and dreaming eyes open wide. In a deserted street Tim walks, casting random thoughts aside. The day is warm and hauntingly familiar, greenness overflowing everywhere. And the sun shone, oh, so brightly! And in complete silence, broken only by the twittering of a few birds, Tim walks a hypnotic walk while time folds and unfolds itself on the sidewalks. He had his hands in his pockets and whistled a broken tune about riding rockets. Suddenly something caught his eye.

A road…

A new one, one that he had never met before!

"Hi! I'm Tim… nice day, eh?" said Tim to the road.

A soft breeze blew and dust rose from the road as if in reply.

"Can I go exploring with you?" asked Tim.

The ground shook and gigantic trees rose on both sides of the road. Trees that stretched endlessly into the sky. Smaller ones followed the giants. Far ahead he saw somebody run. Tim had a sudden feeling, a sudden urge… nay, a sudden hunger to follow.

He ran after the blurry figure, deeper into the woods, where spiders crawl. Very soon he came along a big, big hall in the middle of the forest. He saw the person that he was following run into the hall and so, again, decided to follow. Trees of black steel with white balls of leaves stood on the lawn in front of the ancient gothic hall that stood in the clearing in the middle of the woods and the sun shone down. And the grass sparkled on the ground.

Suddenly Tim feels an overwhelming feeling of the rarely experienced phenomenon know only as "the futuristic déjà vu". A dream unfolds within a dream.

It starts with a strong smell of burning incense sticks or cigarettes, and then a heaviness in the heart that gradually grows. A distant sound of a song sung by a street artist, on a tiny acoustic guitar, with at least 3 broken strings, and then, a flash of a Sunday morning documentary about deforestation or a Simpson episode. A cry of an eagle across the winter hills, instantly transforming it into autumn, spring and summer. Time compressed video on the radio.

And as the smoke cleared, a steam cloak pillar stood, and Jack was standing there like a statue. Six Acres stretching behind, and before him the road divided into two. And Tim… Wait a minute! Jack? Tim looked around but there was nobody there! No steam cloak pillars either, just whispers, whispered in sublime verse.

The hall stood still. It’s heartbeat against Tim's. Tim waits, then as the rhythm starts to match, he steps in. And bumps his face against the closed doors. He remembers the old saying that goes, "one mustn't step in without first opening the door" and having realized his mistake, he enters the correct way.

The door swings open, and in he ran, the empty-headed-imaginary-man.

The door swings open, and in they ran, the empty-headed-imaginary-men.

Drums rolled as drum rolls rolled. Strange eyes that looked like tunnels stared at Tim, yeah, they stared right at him. Hollow eyes, that seems to have been dug out. People, dancing mathematical dances, in theatrical masks. A continuous, monotonous dull laughter and there a figure ran. Mask on, speed on and blur on too! Ah! Caught a glimpse! Steel toed speed's deliberately not so swift… a lead!

Tim releases that this person is trying to lead him somewhere and he follows.

Stepping on rabbits, tumbling over freaks

Jumping over hobbits, for this nutcase never retreats!

The blurry figure ran out into the woods again and Tim followed still. He followed her deeper into the forest until they came to a clearing on top of a hill and there hidden in the tall weeds was a little pond.

"Where are we?" yelled Tim.

"Inside your head" answered a voice that seemed to jump at him from all directions at once.

"Please don’t open my head, evil serpents will emerge!" screamed Tim, and suddenly, he remembered where this place was…

There had been times that he had dreamed about it and woken up only to forget what he had just dreamed. The dream he could never remember. More than that it was his secret childhood place! The one where he and his dog, "The Black Dog" use to hang out instead of going to school.

The Black Dog… funny how he could forget a friend so close to him. All these years… why didn't he remember?

Then he remembered! That night, that stormy night, when his dog got hit by a car. His parents told him that everything would be fine and sent him to sleep. He remembered that he couldn't sleep that night, and he ran to see his friend as soon as it was dawn, but… but, The Black Dog was already dead. He hated him for that. He didn't go to the bastard’s burial.

"He gave up on me… he died on me."

And a young mind's neurons and electrons rearrange. They dig a grave in the young brain and bury the memory within. The child lives, carefree, but slightly brain damaged?

Tim stood still and stared at the Black figure that was now creeping out of the weeds beside the blurry figure (he also sees three figures moving away and disappear into the forest.)

… A black dog?

THE BLACK DOG!!!

"Hi" said the Black Dog and wagged its tail.

"Black Dog!!! Come here you little Bastard you!"

CHAPTER FIVE: HELPED BY A HELPING HAND!

Knock! Knock!

I was knocked into awakening.

"Who's there?"

"Fire"

"WHERE?" I said jumping out of the bed, for I didn't want to be crisp fried, and landing on the floor on my head. Mine is the good quality "thick" type of head so I wasn't hurt much.

"Standing outside your goddamn door!"

"Oh! Whew! Uh… is Angelina still there?"

"No, she's long gone!"

"Thank God!"

"But she told me that she'd be back with a chainsaw!"

Well this rattled my soul and my soul puked into my brain and my brain told me I was doomed and then refused to talk to me anymore.

"Bye, bye brain" was my reply.

So having delivered this message Fire went downstairs to roll in the washroom perhaps. I mean, who knows? Meanwhile for some reason I found myself sitting on the bed again, this time holding a pair of socks. I was baffled! Why the hell was I holding these socks? And it was the smelliest pair, mind you! And then it occurred to me that unconsciously I might have been thinking about running as far away from this godforsaken place as possible. I needed some fresh air anyway so I took a walk.

A dog nearly bit me, a car nearly ran me over, a junkie nearly robbed me, an old lady nearly spanked me and a lawyer nearly sued me! All this before I had hardly taken 50 steps. I crossed the road so I could rest in the park and a thug nearly shot me!

A stupid guy was staring at me, and stare at me well, he did. He just sat there, mouth open, eyes bulging and ears flapping and then suddenly he called out my name!!!

"Tim! Is that you?"

"Oh! Hi Ed! What a surprise!"

Ed is an old friend of mine. He's a free spirit. He tries his best to get fat using every known technique. The problem is that he was always slim, no matter how much he ate, and this frustrated him immensely.

"Imagine what I would look like if I was on a diet. Tell me honestly, you coward, won't I look like a pumpkin head on a stick?" he use to ask and I use to comfort him by saying, "A pumpkin is a vegetable to be reckoned with!"

"What's up bad seed?" he asked, "you look like a dead beer can!" this, he added, as if it was suppose to flatter me.

I gave a rather tasteless laugh and narrated my tragedy. Finally, when I was finished, he patted me on the shoulders. He understood the mess I was in, he being my old friend and all.

"Don't worry, I've got an idea."

What, so soon?"

"Yes… I'm older than you."

"Of course and your head is also giganti…"

At this point I stopped dead in my tracks for I didn't want to hurt the old boy.

"You've to make a deal." he continued as if he was long used to my stupidity, "Angelina likes theatre, doesn't she?"

"How did you know?"

"Well, she use to date my brother. Anyways, she likes theatre so what you should do is take her to see a play, that way, you don't get slaughtered"

"But I don't think I'll have the time to tell that when she and I meet. She'll bite my limbs off before I could ever negotiate a deal."

"Leave that to me" he said. " I'll go with you… I don't think she'll kill you in front of a witness."

The sun was setting. I looked at the sun and asked, "away so soon, dear sun?"

And the suns seem to say, "Sorry old friend but I don't want to be around when the killing starts!"

So Ed and me sat on the porch and waited. He must've noticed my anxiety as I was wriggling my fingers, throwing my eyes up and down the street, occasionally getting up and walking back and forth and tearing away at my hair at regular intervals.

After about half an hour of this Ed felt that I really should have some beer. It seemed like the brightest idea anyone could, would or will ever come up with so off we went to this place called, "Hell Bar" and proceeded to swim in this extraordinary liquid. Well, I was the one doing the swimming; Ed just ordered a pint and sat there getting ready to call the ambulance or something.

Eventually he said, "That's enough. You'd feel like a totally sissy plus pretty stupid too if tomorrow you wake up dead and god tells you that you OD'd on beer!"

So we walked back home. Actually Ed dragged me back home.

It seems that I meet beer and beer used a baseball bat on my head!

CHAPTER SIX: ED’S STORY

It was a beautiful Sunday morning and I was sitting around in my house thinking of things, this and that, when all of a sudden I heard a cry. Sounded like a mix between a native Indian war cry and the scream of an opera singer on a rollercoaster ride, and somebody just jumped in through my open window and landed on my recently vacuumed carpet like a pile of shit!

It was a girl and she was young and beautiful but totally covered in dirt.

"Help me" she cried, "The agents of distress are after me!"

Here I must admit that I was a little scared myself and I didn't want to get involved with any group of agents with a name like that. My conscience told me to make the female stand in front of the door, give her a quick shove in the back, and then shut the door tight behind her. And I proceeded to do so, but she jumped in through the window again, and once more landed on the carpet!

"You think I'm nuts don't you?" she asked in trembling tones.

This was getting weird. She’s not only crazy and dirty but she also seems to be a goddamn psychic!

I didn't have time to reply. She picked up an empty beer bottle and hit me in the nose.

"What did you do that for?" I yelled in an interrogative tone.

"Sorry! I was aiming for the head not the nose. Now sit still."

Knock, knock… it went on for about a minute before I started to black out. I never knew that I had such a bloody thick skull!

I didn't know if I should be proud or ashamed of this new discovery and with this dilemma and an unrelenting beer bottle on my mind I blacked out.

Splash!

I woke up. Cold water sunbathing on my face. I tried to move but I couldn't. I was tied to a chair!

"You must help me out" she begged jumping down from the ceiling.

"I can't if I'm tied up like this" I replied and I replied in a very strict tone. I meant it to sting.

"Shut up!"

I was scared!

She, however, untied me and I made us a cup of tea.

When I said, "a cup of tea" I meant exactly what I said and I didn't want to share it with her and my conscience told me to hide behind the cupboard and quietly drink the whole cup myself. I did and I told her that I accidentally spilled all the tea. She looked unconvinced, maybe because the floor was spotlessly clean and dry, so, I told her that the cat drank it. She still seemed unconvinced due to the fact that there weren’t any cats around, so I told her that the cat just went out for a stroll and will be back any second. Now, before she had the time to look unconvinced, there was a loud knock on the door.

"The agents of distress are upon us!" she cried.

I really cried. My conscience told me to leave the girl to her own devices and run for the back door. I did. She followed me. I reached into my pockets and took out a handful of broken glass and threw them behind us as we ran.

The agents came…

Shredded boots and painful hoots…

The agents changed directions and ran to their car.

Time was running out and I had to do something quick. I knew the neighborhood well and I used it to my advantage. I just had to sing the song that I always use to sing, real loud, and Walla! Neighbors poured out in piles and started demanding their money, which I had borrowed when I was a kid and haven't yet returned, back… this blocked the road and the agents were slowed enough for me and the girl to escape unnoticed into an alley.

LOCATION: a valley full of greens, countryside.

We rested beside a stony river.

My breath was still unsteady from all the running around plus she still had the empty beer bottle and that, for some reason, made me very nervous. We sat there and did nothing. She stared into the river all the time and didn't even look at me.

She was very pretty. She looked as if she was about to jump into the river any minute and start killing fishes with her teeth.

My conscience told me to push her in the river. If she drowns then I won't have to worry about the agents anymore as they were after her not me, and if she can swim, then throw her soap and at least when she comes out of the water, she'd be clean and dandy.

I did so and she broke the empty beer bottle on my head before falling into the river.

She fell in and I blacked out!

When I woke up I found her climbing out of the water looking all clean and new and fantastic. I asked her who she was, where she lived, who the agents were, what they wanted to do with her… etc, etc but she just sat there and looked at me as if I was a cockroach in a vegetarian's salad.

It hurt me deeply but what was I to do?

Boom!

A tree that was standing around doing nothing suddenly blew up! A dust cloud at a distance and the agents make a comeback!

I had to do something and my conscience told me exactly what to do. I took the girl's hand and off we ran.

Just by the old abandoned mine, stood an ancient little hut and into it we went.

The agents eyed the territory and they meditated on the hut.

They took out their murdering pencils and they put on their bloody hoods.

Out they stepped without a hint of grace.

Shoe on the sand, but leaving no trace.

The agents sniff and the agents drool and with perfect co-ordination, in the agents rushed.

It was dark inside the hut and they saw a spark and then it's big, big brother…

As the little hut explodes, a satisfied laugh echoes through the valleys.

Ed stands on top of a hill on the other side of the hut. The hut was where his mad grandfather (he collected dynamite of all size and shapes!) stored his beloved collection.

Ed and the girl had obviously managed to sneak out through a small hidden tunnel inside the hut. Now the hut had vaporized!

Half the hill was gone, exposing some dinosaur fossils that had been buried there for who knows how long!

Satisfied and tired Ed turns to the girl but finds no one there. The girl had disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared and without any reason. He didn't know why but he actually was deeply heartbroken! Hehe! If I had the chance I would've told the fool to never fall in love. Especially with someone that beautiful!

So as the golden sun sets Ed walks down to the park like a zombie, with no sense of time or direction. He sits in the park bench and wonders if he would be able get the girl out of his mind ever again. He didn't want to anyways. He felt beautifully sad when his heart got heavy and he kindda like it.

He felt like a poet.

He was sitting there thinking about this when suddenly in front of him a thug almost shoots a moron!

Sound of sirens and the thug disappears into thin air.

The moron looked familiar.

It was Tim!

"Tim! Is that you?"

"Oh! Hi Ed! What a surprise!"

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE COFFEE SHOP INCIDENT!

I was blissfully dreaming about eating a dozen beer burgers in a peaceful place when Ed woke me up. It seems that he had talked to Angelina and fixed my problem.

"Wake up Tim!" he said and knocked me on the head with an empty but utterly evil looking beer bottle.

This was a rather extreme way of waking somebody up. I mean, why was this brainy old pal of mine (the same old buddy that, once upon a time, use to advise me on excellent topics such as; how to slip a frog into my schoolteacher's pockets, push Fire Moo over the bridge and convince the chain-smoking nun from the neighborhood church that I was her long lost grandson even if she didn't even have a son) acting in such a foolish and reckless manner. He also seemed a little goofy which was odd as it was already morning and the beer's hold would have expired by now.

"Stop that, Ed"

"Oh! Sorry buddy, just a habit I picked up recently." he replied suddenly looking all dreamy.

His already freaky eyes looking even more freaky as it grew all shinny and dreamy and budged to its full proportion. Ever noticed a goldfish daydreaming with magnifying glasses on?

"Eh?" I inquired for I thought it deserved an inquiry.

A light shone in his eyes and he smiled a dreamy smile.

"I met a girl yesterday before we met in the park. It's a long story, really, you won't want to listen to it."

I said, "I probably won't" and went to the washroom to freshen up and stuff. He started banging on the door.

"No, No… You'll probably like to hear about it, it's a very entertaining story."

"No, Ed, I don't think so."

"Well, my conscience is telling me to tell you the story or at least what happened today."

"What happened today is none of my business, good friend."

I was just getting lost in my own reflection in the mirror when Ed interrupted me again. His hard headedness reminded me of an incident that happened when I was just a kid.

It was this electric wire with a torn outer plastic layer, you see. I first touched it by mistake and got a real nasty sock. Then I wondered if I would get a sock if I touched it with a key. The second sock was a little nastier than the first one. "What the hell am I doing?" I remember thinking. Then I saw a needle lying nearby, so I touched the live wire with the needle because some say third time is the lucky one. They were right. The sock was much less painful this time around or maybe I got used to it. "I've to stop this madness." I thought but then I saw a spoon and you know what happens next so let's move on.

“I saw her again today! I was going out for a walk early in the morning and she was sitting in a coffee shop right across the street. She was sitting there a cup of coffee in her hands and when she saw me she hid her face behind the cup as if she was embarrassed, oh, I miss her so!" continued Ed, paying no attention whatsoever to my pleas for a quite bathroom session.

"Maybe the sight of you, early in the morning, before any breakfast, made her sick. It even makes me sick sometimes but I'm used to it now, being an old friend and all that."

"Pardon?"

"You were saying something about a seat, a she, a shop and a coffee?" I asked quickly and tactfully displaying rare negotiating skills.

"Yeah, she was sitting right by the window. I ran into the shop at about 50 miles/hr but she was gone! I don't know how she does it. I was heartbroken but then on the floor underneath the table was a paper with about four or five smiles drawn upon it and nearby on the wall a tiny graffiti signed: Jane!"

"Anyone could've dropped it, plus, why would anyone drop 4 painted smiles and then run away as if a twisted telemarketer was after them?"

"I use to be a twisted telemarketer, damnit! But I don't care! My conscience tells me that if I stop being an insensitive jerk she'll like me somehow, someway."

Here I let out a mocking laugh and I pointed my finger to my head and then rotated it (my finger not my head) in a circle. I intended to tell him that he was nuts. I may not know Ed but I know his conscience well, ha-ha! I truly pity him. But then I realized he was on the other side of the closed door and so couldn't see me. This naturally made me very angry so I threw the soap hard on the floor but, of course, he couldn't see that too.

After I had finished and dressed myself, we went out to get some much-needed coffee. Ed wanted to go to the same coffee shop that he visited earlier and so we had to walk for about a mile or two.

We took a short cut through an ally and there, standing straightly right in front of us, was The One. (Not to be mistaken with "The Two".)

THE CAR THAT NEARLY RAN TIM OVER.

I'm a time traveler from a different dimension.

My name is Zoe.

Why am I here? I don't freakin' know!

Why do I speak English?

Because if I speak alien you won't freakin' understand.

I'm hungry. I eat shit. It's one thing robbing a shop, but believe me (even though I don't have a valid ID or a driver's license), robbing a toilet is something else entirely.

I was sent here by force. My superiors wanted me to make a documentary about this hellhole. I don't believe in heaven or hell, I just said, "hellhole" to achieve the desired effect. Landed yesterday and I disguised myself as a tree. Didn't want any trouble so I positioned myself out in the countryside, far away from you humans. I stood near a stony river and I observed and I documented.

At night I sneak into houses and then I sneak into the washrooms and eat, (do I need to tell you?), shit.

I was living in such peaceful and boring manner until two humans came to the river today.

A male with a dangerous conscience and a female with a dangerous beer bottle. It was a glorious chance for me to observe humans up close. I was just doing that when some idiots blasted me with some kind of rays. Rays, which were dying of wavelength cancer.

My body was destroyed and my mind was scattered. By the time I recovered my mind and started gathering my body, they were gone, the two humans, as well as the bloody idiots who blasted me with vintage radioactive rays. I however had already started my study on these two particular specimens and I now had to finish my study on them. I would be executed if I didn't, for it is the rule of my people. Time was running out and I had to find them quickly before my psychosmellotary organs completely lose their track.

Out in the distance I saw a machine, the one that you humans use, to travel. If I remembered correctly, it was the vehicle of the same idiots that blasted me with that blasted ray. Well, not anymore! Hehe. By the way, I like to laugh. Nice human habit. It makes my several balls shake, which in turn relaxes my fingers.

I talked to the vehicle and off we went, after those two humans. I traced the scent of the male nearby.

I zeroed in.

Almost ran over a stupid moron who, for some reason, was blissfully tying his shoelaces in the middle of the freakin' road!

Suddenly the air was filled with this horrible noise and before I know what's going on I find myself here, and that's my story.

Having told his/hers story, Zoe stares at the bright light that's been shoved in his/her face for the past half hour, in a dark damp room that smelt like any 50 year old’s grandma. A solidly built man, with a wicked moustache and a star on his chest, steps out from the shadows and nods to a thin man in a ragged gray suit.

"So Professor Fwedwick, you're a renowned psychiatrist, do you think that he's really nuts or is he just pretending?"

The thin man ran a set of bonny fingers down his shinny baldhead. "Yes, Sheriff Butflatt, the suspect indeed seems to be completely insane. It's a good thing that the patrol car was nearby to stop this madman from hurting himself or anyone else. I suggest that you transfer him to an asylum where shock therapy could be administered immediately. However, if indeed, he turns out to be an alien like he claims to be, we’ll just have to improvise and perform an autopsy instead. Can’t argue with logic, eh? Order the Champaign."

THE THUG THAT NEARLY SHOT TIM

Out, with my heart, people play.

Out in the park, people play.

Out in the streets, people play.

Out inside the office, people play.

Out on vacation, the president gets paid.

It's been a while since I've ventured out into the open. My friends tell me I should shave. My friends say that I should but I wouldn't. Shaving doesn't make any sense. My friends say a lot of things. Not that they shouldn't.

I thought about this for a while and then I fall asleep.

When I woke up I found my body levitating a few inches off the ground. In panic I panicked. Then I realized that maybe I should pretend that I was lying on the bed, my feet dangling, not levitating. Out in the park, ideas played… giant fingers rained upon a typewriter, oblivious to the oddity unfolding. Ideas, in flesh and bones, ran around.

I saw the truth. I saw though. I saw nothing. I was busy seeing when I heard a knock, or should I say sound waves vibrating in a particular wavelength?

I displaced the barrier that obstructed a face to face meeting with who ever or whatever it was. It was Jack. Red Jack. I felt hopeless. I was in no mood to counsel psychos.

"What's up Syd?"

"Jack! Long time no see. C'mon in. I was just observing ideas running wild in the park."

"You didn't take your medication today, didn't you?"

"Medication?"

He didn't reply.

Just kicked me in the butt. I felt acute pain. I told him not to repeat the process again.

He told me that I'm insane but I can't thrust him, he's a complete psychopath. I needed proof. He tells me to shove the proof up my ass. I tell him I require proof to execute that particular action, for what am I to shove up the dumper if proof is missing? He gets angry and starts eating all my pizza. It was cruel.

I wondered if I should talk to him at all after what he just did.

"That was one cheerful pizza! I've to talk to you about something very important. Can I thrust you with a secret?"

"I've no one to tell the secret to."

"Good. Listen carefully Syd."

"Good. I will listen very carefully, Jack."

"You're not listening, you little psycho! Stop talking and start listening."

I listened. I listened to the radio. An old song erupts from the speakers.

"I think I'm suppose to hate her

But All I can do is love her

She abuses me in such creative ways

Poisoned riddles, everything, it says

Insane, Am I, or just unsanitary?

Should I quit art and join the military"

Jack turned the radio off.

"Yoga unites the body, breath, mind, lower and higher energy centers and, ultimately, self and God, or higher Self/lower self."

"Higher self is something I can understand but lower self?"

"Higher is lower is higher, understand? Everything is a palindrome. Nothing can also be pronounced as infinity. You'll be treated by the way you treat others. It's Karma. The Avoided Unavoidability."

"Well…"

"You know that I write short stories, don't ya, syd? The dark Wolf tells me that some of the characters are now rebelling, writing short stories about me!"

"Cool!"

"Cool? Ha! I won't be so happy if a character called, "The Horrorhead of Knotsville" was writing my life story! I'm having a serious case of identity crisis, Syd, but all will be well if this works out like The Dark Wolf said."

It seems that Jack is here on a mission. He keeps telling me about a character he calls, "The Dark Wolf". Nothing made much sense except for the fact that I had to find somebody and give that person a special gun. Jack can't do it as he has to use my PC, to counter the storyteller, he says!

He was typing away at the PC as if his life really depended on it.

I walked out with a gun in my pocket. My life just got a lot stranger. I can’t believe that I'm finally gonna have an adventure!

I smile.

I smile again.

I smile again and again… CONTD…

CHAPTER (?): A FIX OF POISONED POISON.

INTRO: Through the foggy morning mists, two figures emerge. One of them sings a really crappy song, dancing in an awkward rhythm. The second one walked like a freak with no legs, eying his merrily sad friend with a touch of pity.

"Oh, do you really have to put the needle down?

Nothing else will comfort you in this lonely town

C'mon, pick it up and fix, now don't be shy

You're depressed, I'm telling ya', and don't you deny

Oh, do you really have to put the needle down?

Nothing else will ease your crimson frown."

So, like I said, we walked down this alley, which according to Ed, was suppose to be a short cut to where the coffee shop was. I pity Ed. Poor old sod. Never thrust a coffee shop, I say.

A dark figure suddenly popped out, out of nowhere, into the alley.

(Enter Dark Wolf!

Falling down on the ground in a disagreeable fashion.

Rolling around on razor blades, over-defining mutilation.

Clawing away at the walls with extreme dedication.

With a shit eating grin, enters the psychoactive manifestation.

Flexing muscles which a normal wolf could never flex, the Dark Wolf howled. The day immediately grew dark.)

Something that looked like a gigantic dark wolf with limbs of a native Indian and the body odor of a legendary skunk, jumped in front of us!!! Oh! And the eyes, I bet they were imported straight from hell!

I was so shocked that I couldn't move. I called out to Ed for help but the bastard just told me that he'd like to but he couldn't control his legs and ran away at full speed! I turned and tried to run but then the dark thing growled, "Ah! Perfect! More sissies… stop, both, SIT!"

I did as told. Surprisingly, Ed came running back and sat beside me! This was getting creepy. This was also funny. This might turn just plain bloody.

CHAPTER NO: THE WISHING GAME: YOU LOST LITTLE DEAD KID!

The Dark Wolf stood in the "superhero" pose, smoking four cigars at once and blowing out so much smoke that it fogged the whole damn alley.

Tim and Ed sat there shivering. They couldn't move.

From the blinding tobacco fog out crawled the dark wolf, like a giant spider, twisting a bit here and a bit there, the face wreck nightmare approached. A cold, sharp and bloody claw ran through Tim's face and he felt as if his face was being cooked by a really inexperienced cook.

"Make a wish, please." Snarled the Hell Faced One eying a cute female street hound, and then eying a strip club as if to make a point, but instead making several.

Tim didn't know whether the dark figure, who was now happily running around in circles chasing a fat sewer rat, was serious or being ironic.

"WISH!"

"Ok… um… there's this girl who's been threatening to murder me…"

"Done. Your problem will shortly be taken care of. Now, it's your turn Ed"

Ed almost grinned. Ed did grin. He grinned well and he grinned skillfully, displaying teeth that should never be allowed to display in public.

Poof! A mini beach appeared out of nowhere! Two Hawaiian girls rolled out of the sky and landed to a crunch of shattering bones. Their broken bones poked out of their flesh and missing teeth scattered like coins at a casino in Vegas. They flapped around like fish out of water, healing with giant steps. Bones rearrange, blood disappear, wrinkles vanish and bikinis clean themselves in one or two moments, and before you know what the hell is going on, the girls jump up and tend the Dark Wolf as he sunbaths in the dark alley with dark glasses on and a bottle of suntan lotion in his hand.

"I would like to meet this girl…"

"What a pathetic wish! You should be made to do up to a hundred hours of community service for that. Anyway, we'll do it your way, the retarded way."

And with that the Dark Wolf jumped into the air and tore itself to shreds. Blood, fur, intestines and teeth rained.

Yodeling now and then the girls came running, equipped with a thrash bag and after collecting all the bloody mess, ran away giggling and arguing about the hippest color for lipsticks.

It was a weird day, with dark figures jumping in and out and what not. Ed was visibly shaken but not me. I only wet my pants because I had too much orange juice two days ago. It has nothing to do with being scared, because I truly wasn't.

I felt it my duty to calm the old nut and proceeded to do so.

"Chop-chop, old chap, all fine and dandy, eh?" I asked in a big brotherly manner.

Ed said something about returning home before anyone sees us so I could change my pants. Shameless! Treason, I tell you, naked treason!

Now, here I must point out that he was the one shivering like a jelly! But we Pisces know how to calm ourselves and conduct oneself in appropriate manner. I only told him that he looked like an orangutan and that he stinks.

I also told him to wait at the coffee shop, as he probably wouldn't want to not risk being seen with me, and I turned to walk home to change.

Suddenly he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back into the shadows.

"What now?" I asked the traitor.

"Angelina!" he said, pointing at something that looked like a fully stocked truck. It was Angelina and her boyfriend.

"I thought that you've already taken care of my trouble with her!"

"Just shut up and sit tight. I'll explain everything after she's gone."

The streets suddenly grew really dark as if somebody had just turned the lights off.

There was silence everywhere and the whole city looked deserted. Tim and Ed walked down the street that wasn't familiar anymore. It was as if someone had just killed the city. The city wasn't a city anymore it was a corpse.

Someone was crying at a distance. It was not the silent type, nor the wild loud type. It was the low mourning full throat type of crying… just loud enough to be audible yet tender enough. Like a woman’s heartbroken cry when her mate hits her for the first time?

Sick… want to run far, far away from it.

Sick…vomit, tears… heart on a stick.

Ever present was the sound and the sound was everywhere.

Someone...

Running down the street.

A kid?

A kid made out of meat brought from a supermarket store!

Safety pins holding the flesh, dirty hairballs and a file named "anti-soul.exe" together. Others followed the kid.

Strange disfigured eyesores.

Mirror men, mirror men… The Crowbar Headed Mirror Men!

Mirror men, mirror men… The Crowbar Headed Mirror Men!

In pairs they rush in.

Screams screaming screams.

Sneak, sneak… sneaking in!

Sneak, sneak… sneaking in!

Did anyone speak? Somebody please speak! Squeak!

And just like that it was gone. Everything was back to normal again. The sky cleared and the sun was bright not pitch black like a minute ago.

Something strange and sick had just taken place. I wet my pants again but this time nobody can tell the difference, as it was already wet! Ha! There is a god after all!

We stood around recovering our senses. A bystander crept up to us, eyeballing us from different angles with his hands held up for view, as if he was a hotshot director.

"Just the guys I was looking for!" said the bystander, jumping out with a look of utter stupidity on his face. "You guys have to capture this little rotting dead kid. He's been running around town, stealing perfumes!"

This was getting rather stupid and I was in no mood for stupid jokes.

I had a great desire to bean the fruitcake with a brick or something heavier, but I did not, for I'm a believer in non-violence although not a strict follower.

I'm also well trained in the art of yoga so by skillfully breathing in and out and sideways and whatnot, I managed to curve my murderous impulse.

I told myself to let it go.

"After all I'm taller than him and I've a suspicion that I can beat him at chess, so don't get angry just pity him." I told myself.

"What's this thing about and why us?" Asked Ed, apparently amused.

"Do you remember what just happened? Well, the dead kid got left behind." Replied the Bystander. "And you're the only guys that can stop it because you're under the protection of the Dark Wolf. Please try to understand, reality as we know it may collapse if this matter is left unattended to."

"How?" I inquired. If Ed can think up a question so can I.

"I suspect it has something to do with someone called Red Jack. He seems to be writing a palindrome to find the Scorpion Queen. He is doing it to counter the storyteller, the one who writes our story. He's trying to change the genre of our story. From what appears to be a sentimental tragedy to a fun romantic comedy with a happy ending perhaps. I suspect we crossed over to the 'horror' territory for a bit just now. That's one of the side effects, you see."

"So how are we connected to this whole damn thing then?" I asked instinctively. I think I might be a natural born inquirer. I mean, I'm getting pretty good at this questioning thing. But then again, I always knew that I was talented, I just didn't know at what. Well, I know now.

"Because you all share the same journey totem, "The Dark Wolf"!

Because you all share the same totem, "The Dark Eagle"!

Because I suspect that you're all one.

Because people with the 'eagle' as their animal totem usually are connected to the Cosmic Writer. He, who writes about us all, and you are his messenger to her, she who influences the story he writes.

And most importantly because, if you do as I say, I pay you guys good! There is absolutely no time to waste."

Well, I heard the last sentence and so did Ed. I think I saw his ears flap at the utterance of the word "pay"! So the thing was settled. We had to locate a gateway through which dead thing might still be leaking out into our dimension and then we had to seal it shut.

Suddenly Ed says he has to deliver a very important message to a friend of his, so we went to his friends place first. Meanwhile, the Bystander kept telling us that time was running out.

CHAPTER WHAT: SYD’S STORY

I was teleporting down the street, one inch at a time, so that people won’t get suspicious, when I saw the guy that I was suppose to give the gun to. It was already dark and I couldn’t see his face properly but I just knew it was him, just like Jack told me. It’s strange, in minute quantities. I mean, how did I recognize him without visual aid? I think I must have smelt him or something.

He nearly got run over by a car right in front of my eyes.

Why doesn’t anyone give him medication?

Why me?

Why?

I was disappointed. I mean this was suppose to be an amazing adventure but it was already over. I just extended my hand and shoved the gun in his face. He said, “Mommy” and then immediately proceeded to wet his pants. I checked myself. I was confident that I wasn’t his mother. I was right, he must be wrong.

Suddenly I hear sirens, and before I knew it, four cars that only knew black and white were shinning their love light on me! The cars send out two legged machines with hollow heads after me. I had no intention to find out what they wanted to do with me. I teleported… an inch! Damn teleportation! I freakin’ ran! And I ran like hell.

I ran straight into the nature reserve that was waiting around right next to the park. I didn’t look back. My legs nearly had a heart attack. Finally, I was sure that I had given them the slip and decided to return home when something heavy fell from a tree and stuck me in the head. I either blacked out or fell asleep immediately.

It was almost noon when I woke up the next day. My head felt numb. I touched my head just to make sure it was still there. It was, but it now had developed a lot of bumps!

“Sorry about that, mister, it was mistake. I thought you were someone else. By the way, I’m Cliff.”

It was a kid. He was dressed in rags but had a boyish charm that didn’t fail to charm. I wasn’t charmed.

“Come here so I can teach you a lesson or two, you little savage, you!” and then I wondered whether I should teach him physics or math.

“Look, mister, I need your help. Come with me I’ll explain everything on the way.”

Here I was just about to teach the kid why it is a bad idea to order adults around when suddenly the sky grew dark. It felt as if the city had just rolled over and died. All the trees were sprouting shadows instead of leaves, and they were all hollow. And everything looked at me and cried. The cry… the cry of a woman hit by her mate for the first time? Why did it sound so familiar? Why does it make me feel as if somebody had just puked inside my head?

Sick… want to run far, far away from it

Sick… vomit, tears… heart on a stick.

Suddenly Syd has a flashback:

A MID SUMMER NIGHT’S SCREAM

In an old Canadian countryside a tiny house stands. The night is stormy and the rooms are dark, and the only light burning is a solitary candle. Inside the house a young women sings a lullaby to her little kid, who’s refusing to go to sleep without a fight.

“And so, asked the rotting rabbit

When will the ‘howlings’ descend?

Buttercups and dead strawberries

The blood witch eats the family

And with the bones constructs a face

Ah! Just go to sleep, you little nutcase!”

The mother holds the kid in her lap and gently smiles. The kid plays with the mother’s long hair. Hair that flowed like a river, from her head, down upon his face.

The kid suddenly gets distracted and then asks the mother, “Mommy, mommy, why are we inside someone’s head?”

“Hush, don’t say that, sweetie! People will think that you’re retarded.”

The mother smiles gently, perhaps wondering how cute her little nutcase looked in the dim candlelight.

“Mommy, mommy, hide mommy

The mirror man, he is ‘a coming!

Bottles can be filled with blood

And my young eyes will surely flood

Mommy, mommy, hide now, mommy!”

The clock strikes twelve and he descends.

The door mourns and in walks the hammer headed Mirror man!

A well built man staggers home with a bottle in his hand. Drunken men tell no tales, there are no tales fit (decent enough) to tell.

The apelike arm swings and the vessel flies.

And a second latter the kid hides his face in his mother’s bloodstained hair. And that night the kid felt the mother’s pain as she held him tight and wept.

The “howlings” have descended.

The midnight air stained.

The little kid remembers… that night the kid swears to himself that such a night shall, in his presence, never unfold again.

Syd finds himself in the nature reserve again. The day still looked dead and Cliff was rolling around on the ground as if having a seizure. He tried to help Cliff but before he could even move, he slips back into another flashback. This time he finds himself in an ancient theatre. A play is about to start. People start pouring in. Curtains levitate, depart and whatnot, and the play starts.

WHEN SYD WAS YOUNG AND SANE

A play by “The Dark Writer”

Bases on true life events of Sir Syd Jerzy

ACT ONE: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME – MORNING.

SETTING: An aging women and her daughter are gossiping at the left side of the stage. They appear concern. The old lady starts banging her head on a door. The scene is set outside an old barn with the sign “HEADQUATER OF DISEASE TRANSPORTATION” and the door upon which the old lady so dedicatedly bangs her head suddenly breaks. Chicken feathers fly out in all directions.

CHARACTERS:

THERMOLINA: Syd’s mother

EMILY: Syd’s sister

EMILY: That’s not going to help, mother! You should try cleaning the house every time you get angry instead of smashing doors with your thick head.

THERMOLINA: That’s it young lady, hold your tongue or you’ll soon be holding a broomstick!

EMILY: (Suddenly suppressing the irritated look on her face and forcing a gentle smile with all her facial muscles) mother dear, what I meant was that it’s not your fault…

THERMOLINA: Don’t try to get claver girl, in case you forgot, I am your mother… (Sighs) your brother sure is one hell of a moron, just like Willy, our pet donkey! Now be a good girl and make your mother some tea.

EMILY: Of course dear mother… (In a fake voice) by the way, where did you put the rat poison? I was just wondering. I don’t intend to put it in your tea or anything.

THERMOLINA: (Letting out a steam engine laugh) your father already tried that girl, it won’t work. God doesn’t want anything to do with me, neither does the devil!

Emily goes inside to prepare the infamous “rat poison tea” for her mother.

Thermolina begins talking to herself…

THERMOLINA: Oh god! What the hell are you planning for my family?

When I named my son “Jerzy” I expected great things from him, after all, “Jerzy” means the sunlight shining over the waters of a deep blue lake, which lies beside a vast green open field filled with… Oh well, I can only hope for the best.

He has his so called “ads” all over the town! A real job is what that moron needs! After all, what good will a job like “disease transferor” do? They say that “Santa” is offering jobs this year. I must ask him… no, force him to try it out today itself!

Suddenly the sun (some kind of stage light) comes crashing down and the scene ends with a black out…

ACT TWO: ONCE UPON A BOYISH CHARM – EVENING.

Same old scene, but with a gloomier lighting. Mother and daughter are having tea on the left side of the stage (it took Emily the whole day to make tea!) and from the right a teenager in his late teen appears…

THERMOLINA: Syd, is that you?

SYD: Of course… (Taking out his photo ID and showing it as proof) I’ll go get my birth certificate too if you don’t believe me.

THERMOLINA: (pointing at the sign on the barn) what’s the meaning of this young man? What kind of work is a disease transferor? And haven’t I told you to stay in bed? You are ill, young man and you haven’t even taken your medicine yet!

SYD: I could take up sunbathing as a full time job if you don’t like what I’m doing now.

EMILY: Now, that’s my brother!

THERMOLINA: Stop it, you two! It’s no time to be joking around. (Turning to Syd) The neighbors think that you’ve gone mad!

SYD: Mother dear, let me explain my job to you in full detail…

EMILY: He goes around school to school and sells his diseases to the kids there…

SYD: Yup! They get two options: eye disease or fever!

THERMOLINA: (slightly annoyed) but why would anyone want to buy your disease? People don’t like being sick!

SYD: Well, naughty kids that don’t want to go to school and instead play around all day do. No one would buy my fever, because you can’t play hockey with fever, but thirty-one kids of all shape and size bought my eye disease for two dollar each! It’s easy to contact; all you have to do is stare at an infected eye for about two minutes and Walla! Just like that! So teachers totally fear it as it’s really contagious. It’s not that painful and it doesn’t put you in a foul mood like fever so you can stay home and play, ride a bike, eat or do whatever you like.

EMILY: You’ve no clue about the long term side effects though!

THERMOLINA: That’s it young man, you just wait till your father comes home!

EMILY: He has already thought up something to counter that mother dear.

THERMOLINA: What?

EMILY: Can’t you see that he’s bought a whole box of beer for dad. When dad sees that, he’ll be blushing like a cow encountering a particularly fat cabbage! On the other hand it may be for his own personal use, is it Syd?

SYD: (in a fake evil overlord kindda voice) I’ll place my hand on your head and then apply pressure upon thy cranium, crushing it a little, which will make about three drop of blood fall on the ground and hurt a lot, psychotic sister, if you keep spilling all my little secrets.

THERMOLINA: Doesn’t matter if your father is on your side, you’ve to deal with me first, young man. Tomorrow first thing in the morning you’re going to go ask “Santa” for a real job.

SYD: Ok mom, here’s the deal. I’ll give you generous options:

I do all the dishes for a week

I buy you an umbrella or something.

I kick Emily down the stairs every time she mocks you.

I use my beer to influence dad to follow your orders.

Or I find a job like you said…

THERMOLINA: (thinking real hard) oh all right… you don’t have to find a job if you do the first four things.

SYD: Ha! Whatever! but remember who finally got his way!

EMILY: Brother Dearest, that was real claver of you. Now, won’t you be a good brother and go wash those dishes for us…

(They all laugh)

SYD: Baby, I sure ain’t got no brain!

Curtain comes down and the play ends.

All of a sudden Syd realizes that all the audience in the theatre are screaming. Something sinister was murdering them all with extreme dedication, displaying legendary murdering skills. Bones crunch, heads fly, intestines explode and shit rains and out of the bloody mess a dark figure yodels in a horrible voice.

The Dark Wolf stops and strikes a pose.

“Ah! Syd.” it growled, “Look at you now, where has your fun persona gone?”

Then the Dark one started chasing its own tail, yelling obscene verses at it in English, French, Chinese, Japanese and German, to stop. It caused a wave effect, which made the reality swirl and ripple as if it was water, everything began to shiver, and Syd was back in the nature reserve again.

CHAPTER WARM: RETURN OF THE MYTHICAL JANE!

And so like I was saying, Ed and I decided to take up the bystander’s mission because he said he was going to throw money at us until we passed out.

The problem was that we didn’t exactly know how to deal with the undead and another big issue was that Ed was just plain refusing to cooperate.

He kept insisting that he had to meet this friend of his at all cost, so we followed him through the alleys for about fifteen minutes until we arrived at a crappy looking dollar store. We went in.

It turns out that Ed was lying! He only wanted to buy some dark chocolates and this was the only store in the neighborhood that sold bloody freakin’ premium dark chocolates with 120% cocoa!

“Why did you take us out on a wild goose chase, old chap?” I asked.

“Sorry guys, but what can I say, my conscience suggested that I should do it. I absolutely refuse to face the horror that we’re about to face without a chocolate in my hand. Plus you know that I’m still recovering from heartbreak, don’t you? I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I just sit around and feel sad. This is my only escape, chocolates!”

He had a point or two. I took some advance from the bystander and stocked my pockets with similar.

Now that we had been fully equipped and stuff, we stepped out bravely, ready to take on the worst.

Right outside the shop was a lady standing.

Lady shady turns and Ed’s knees are bending.

The birds are a singing.

My friend is a drooling.

“Jane?” asked Ed and chocked on the dark chocolate. He fell to the ground and started flapping around like a helpless fish. The Girl, who, I think is Jane, stepped forward and kicked him in the throat twice. He recovered immediately.

Good technique. I actually kick with the toe and I usually kick three times but she kicked just twice and she did it as if she was playing soccer, interesting.

“Jane?”

“Yes?”

“Look everybody, she talked!”

Ah, young hearts, so carefree and whatnot.

Jane, as far as I can tell is a very fine lady who has a good heart that may rich people would pay shiploads of money to transplant or something.

She looked tired and sad but she smiled at Ed and gave him a hug. Ed blacked out.

“Please tell him that I told him to take care of himself. We will meet again, soon, perhaps in the next chapter, as of now I’ve to go.” And with that she levitated about a meter above the ground and then suddenly streaked straight forward. Her dark jacket leaving a long shadowy streak through the air, like a slash of a paint brush. How did she do that? Did she install a jet engine in her jacket?

“I hope so, Ed really like you, you know” I yelled but I don’t think that she heard me. Anyway what did she meant when she said, “next chapter”?

CHAPTER NEXT: SUPER GRAVITY AND OTHER RELATED THEORIES

LOCATION: The Nature Reserve, Canada, earth, universe z (ours!).

Syd followed Cliff down a winding path. The damp forest floor was strikingly sweet, not that one should put it in their tea and drink it. The forest grew thicker and thicker. Suddenly out jumped a tiger, they scream, and the tiger jumped back in again.

“Goddamn noise polluters!” It murmured as it went.

It jumped back out again.

“Damn, I lost my wallet… oh! There it is! Ha!”

It picked up a bloody wallet (which Syd and Cliff thought, very likely belonged to the tiger’s lunch) and then jumped back in again. Syd and Cliff instinctively walked faster, just in case the tiger jumps out again and says something like, “Damn! Forgot to take my dinner along!” and jumps on them.

Very soon they came to a green valley surrounded by beautiful little hills from china, Africa and Russia.

Cliff unfolded a finger and picked his nose, and then using the same finger, pointed and said, “ Look” and Syd looked at the finger and puked.

“Don’t look at the finger, or you’ll miss the even more hellish horror to which it points, you old fossil.” Said Cliff, now picking his earwax, if I’m not mistaken.

There in the fields they saw a family. They looked really happy and ok. Syd thought so and told Cliff so.

“Look again, and this time, remove those rose colored glasses off first” spat Cliff now busy picking his teeth with a dirty twig, which, in comparison to his teeth, looked clean.

There were four human beings on the valley, probably a family, and they were all riding a bike.

Human one: male, 35-40 yrs old, the father and with possible mental disorders? This bastard was dressed in black from head to toe, and wore a thick jacket in the middle of summer! (The temperature at the valley was 35 degree centigrade, as the sun was concentrating very hard on this area, this particular day.) A dried corpse of a beaver, or someone small and inhuman enough to resemble a beaver, was sticking on the front tire of the parked bike, upon which, he was sitting and dishing out orders and insults to all. He looked stoned but wasn’t. On the other hand he didn’t look like a Nazi but, most probably, was.

Human two: female, 30-35 years old, very nervous and worried. The mother. She looked very concerned but it was obvious that she dared not raise a protest and pull the plug on the imaginary peace that was lying around, in coma, on life support.

Human three: Female, 5-7 years old, very nervous and scared and tired, crying but quietly and secretly so that her father might not see her tears, or hear her sobs.

Human four: Male, 12-13 years old, very calm and claver, very nervous and stupid, playing the peacemaker and comforting her sister.

The father was ordering the little girl to drive her bike up a little hill, which was too steep for the little girl.

CLIFF: The boy with the white shirt is my friend, Andrew. He’s been really worried about his sister. He tells me that his dad is going to tie an unholy rope to his sister’s legs and then throw her in hell, using her as bait, to fish for demons, you see. And he is going to do that tonight.

SYD:(looking slightly confused and skeptic) yeah, right!

CLIFF: No, really, His dad’s the leader of this cult, you see. They call it “The Cult of The Fishing Kings!”

SYD: (slightly annoyed) look kid, if it was Jack who told you that I was on medication, then tell him, that the last pizza he ate was poisoned, as well as bugged, to record his death, so I can watch it again and again at my leisure.

CLIFF: (sounding somewhat annoyed) Are you really on medication? (Long pause) Anyway, this cult is no ordinary cult. In fact, the story goes that the members of this cult were people with extraordinary fishing abilities. With their endless talent they could catch any fish they wanted. Whales, sharks and giant sea monsters were a joke to them. The problem started when Andrew’s dad came up with a new idea. Since fish no longer provided any challenge for them, they decided that they would move on to bigger and more illusive prey. They started fishing for the chair in the white house, fishing for youth, fishing for dinosaurs by casting bait into history with a time machine equipped fishing pole, and so on. Yesterday one of them accidentally caught the key to hell while fishing for information from the pentagon, and tonight, they are fishing for demons with my friend’s sister as bait. We must stop them.”

THE NEXT CHAPTER!

(In an insane chair the cosmic writer sits. The cosmic writer is, right now, writing this. He can’t decide which direction this scene should proceed. Inside his head feelings breed.)

Self and the bystander whacked the unconscious Ed in the head a couple of times with a particularly fat and evil looking chocolate bar and our moron opens his ugly eyes.

“What? Oh! Hmmm… Jane! Where’s Jane?” Asked Ed.

I pity the fool.

“Well, old buddy, she’s gone.”

“What do you mean she’s gone?”

“When I say she’s gone I mean she’s not here anymore, you old prick.”

At this point the bystander interrupted. When I say interrupted, I meant that he merely coughed in a particularly sinister fashion, that, if translated in English would read: you’re wasting my time, and time, especially mine, is money, especially mine.

TAKE ONE:

So off we went to “Mini Hell Bar”. MHB is the local waterhole for all sorts of crappy noise opera bands and violin punk yodelers and whatnot. The Final Mathematics Exam, the most sinister band on the horizon, was playing tonight. Here, I must mention the night when 20 of the most ugly geeks from FBI came down and threatened to cut their weenies off, because they sung this song, which had detailed information and instruction on how to make a nuclear bomb and where to get the required plutonium, for about 5 bucks a pound! Nowadays, they mostly stick to the safe stuff; songs about prince charming, the president and snow white not using condoms, snow white’s evil lesbian step-mom who tries to get her again and again, about little red riding hood murdering her grandma because she ate up all the goodies that she was suppose to give her grandma and didn’t know what else to do, and then blaming it on the wolf, who, like her, didn’t know what to do, and, in the confusion, ends up eating her up!

Excellent band.

We walked in. According to the bystander we were suppose to gather some information from someone in there. The bystander told us to stay near the door and went off to do whatever it was that he wanted to do. Ed said something about crowd surfing and dissolved into the crowd. I sat and slept.

Tim sits by the door and snores in tune to the song that’s being played onstage, while Ed slithers deeper into the crowd. Suddenly he bumps into someone. Jane?

“Hi Ed!”

“What?! Oh… hi… um…”

“Let’s go outside and talk.” Said Jane before Ed could say anything. He followed her nervously.

“Why am I scared?” he thinks, but he knew that he also felt euphoric. He had this suspicion that he was scared because meeting her was sortta like getting’ high and he didn’t wanna come down. He almost wanted to wake Tim up and drag him along for company and support as they passed him by.

The night air was warmish. Jane just stood and looked at Ed as if waiting for a reply. Ed didn’t know what to say. He never felt so helpless before. He tried talking to his conscience but even his conscience told him that he was on his own! Suddenly he yelled, “What’s that?” and pointed towards some trees behind Jane. Jane turns around to look and Ed slips and runs away! Poor old Ed. He lost his nerve! Spineless! He’s starting to piss me off. I just might kill him later on in the story, just for fun!

TAKE TWO:

Beside the door Tim dreams… he sees the people dancing. The place looks very familiar. Like an old friend, he knew it well. He was standing outside a hall. Music and shy giggles slipped out it. He turned around and saw his old high school buddies beside him, laughing merrily, beer in hands.

“Hey Naoba, what’re you thinkin’ bout man?” asked a red haired teen with generous amount of pimples on his face.

Tim smiled and looked at the night sky. The sky stared back with eyes that snatched you off your senses and hugged you to bits. Startled, he looked down, and saw the sky! He was just about to scream when everything was normal and he was back on the ground again.

“C’mon buddy, let’s check out ‘em chicks! Hehe!” said the red head, playfully punching his buddy in the ribs and nearly breaking one.

Tim enters the hall and is suddenly slapped in the brain by this intense feeling of déjà vu. Spirits were high and the kids were high. The principal and the librarian, the bully and the bong… and in the middle of all this corniness, unaffected by it’s aura, stood Tim.

He stood in a stupid fashion and eyed the food on the table. He undid his intention and shifted his attention.

At there he saw her. She saw him and waved at him, and then she walks over to him. Tim actually didn’t know what to do so he said, “Hi Jane! Hmm… er… Nice weather, eh?”

JANE: (smiles) Hi! Never thought I’d see you here. By the way, are you still mad at me for throwing away your ring?”

TIM/NAOBA: No, No… (Shuffles his feet and looks down) can I… would you… I mean, you look beautiful.

JANE: Thanks! You look… I mean, your suit… er… I mean, your hat… hmmm… ah! Yes, your shoes look real nice!

TIM/NAOBA: Oh thanks! (Pause… they both stare at each other and then Tim looks down) I always wanted to tell you that you’ve the most beautiful eyes. I love… I mean, I like you very much and I think you’re a very beautiful person with a high quality heart. I mean, not the kindda heart that can pump blood at legendary speeds and whatnot, but the type of heart that…

JANE: (holding Tim’s hand) The kind of heart that could learn to like a retard like you? Let’s dance…

TIM/NAOBA: (breathing in hard) Can I ask you something?

JANE: Yes?

TIM/NAOBA: (pulling J closer and holding her tight) What if I never let you go?

JANE: Oh don’t worry about that, I’ve got a peeper spray .

Hehe… I like this guy! He has potential. Ah! Well at least he tried! Now…

TAKE THREE:

Red Jack decides to take a break and decides to take a walk. He walked through the sun stained park in wonder. Somehow the park looked very surreal today. An aqualung was sitting on a park bench. Eying young girl with bad intent, but suddenly catches a glimpse of Jack, and runs away, with a terrified look on his face, murmuring, “The Sick Horseman! The house of pain! Nails through brains! Asylum caged in head! Red Jack! Red Jack!”

Clunk! Jack hits the old man, on his shinny baldhead, with a bag full of stones, cans and other garbage.

“Old man, you forgot to take your luggage!”

Jack smiled, he was feeling very spiritual today and wanted to help everybody. He was at peace. He walked towards the little lotus pond that had just appeared nearby. There was a bench nearby and he thought that he should sit and rest his tired legs. He proceeded towards the bench, when suddenly, someone appeared out of thin air, and beat him to it.

It was the Scorpion Queen, and she ruled his heart.

“Hi! Long time no see!” says Jack, and then doesn’t know what else to do.

“Yes, long time no see… come, sit here beside me, Jack” ordered the Scorpion Queen.

Jack executes the order with perfect accuracy. The Scorpion queen looks at him as if waiting for an answer, or as if someone watching a puppy dog, waiting to see what stupid thing will it do next.

Jack does a lot of foot shuffling, eye rotating (looking slightly through the corner of his eyes, as if too scared to look at her directly, and then quickly looking away quickly) and finger twitching and then suddenly shoves his hand into the pocket and fishes out a chocolate bar and hands it to the Scorpion Queen.

“Chocolate.” He says, quietly.

As he passed on the chocolate his hand brushes against her hand and they both look at each other. Heaviness in the heart. They hug… the sun sets slowly with a smile. Jack looks at her and he hugs her even more tightly and whispers something in her ears. Something that ends with, “…ckie”?

After about 2 hours of intense hugging and what not it starts to get dark, as the sun slowly sets. Suddenly, a huge drop of what looked like ink, dropped into the lotus pond, from the sky!

A dark, oily and psychedelic ripple spreads across the water surface and water boils and bubbles cook. Lotus rots and mutates into zombie cactus, graceful swans begin to shed feathers, bleed, and giggle and act in a drunken and insane manner and suddenly, out of this dead pond, jumps the Dark Wolf!

“Ah! I humble apologize to your highness for my rude entrance, but I just had to meet you. Big fan of yours! I’m blessed to be in thy presence.” Growled the Dark One, bowing artfully to the Scorpion Queen.

“It’s ok… you may get up now. I actually, quite like what I’ve heard about you, you cute little fur ball! You may lick my hand if you like.”

CONTD…

CHAPTER Z: LE MENIFESTATION DE L'EXTRÉMITÉ

SCENE ONE:

The Mini Hell Bar, downtown.

Sirens howl and an ambulance streaks along. A thin, fragile figure is rushed out of the bar on a stretcher.

FLASH TO SCENE TWO:

The city hall explodes and the mayor comes flying out, landing beside a gutter. Something drags the mayor into the shadows. Flashes of laughter and sound of shadows. A homeless guy, who was starving nearby, yells, “Les voici qui viennent, les quatre cavaliers!” Smoke spreads in the alleys and blood runs like thousand Ferraris.

FLASH TO SCENE THREE:

Joe was a simple guy. He use to live in a crappy apartment and go to college during the day, and at night, he use to hang around at crappy indie music bars. He always wanted to be a punk rocker. But, for the past 15 months, he’s been living in a basement with lots and lots of things to smoke. He lived a nightmare. His thoughts warped in smoke. Everything was a blur. Everything was dark and always had shadows lingering around them.

It’s been three days now and he hadn’t smoked a thing. He knew he had to be strong. He knew he had to step out into the world and remember how things were, before smoke poured in. He wanted sunshine so bad, and he desperately hoped that he wasn’t already mad.

Today, he blasts the song, “let god be your gardener” by the melvins, one of his favorite bands, as he walks down the street. Molly, an old friend, on whom, he had a crush on, waved at him. He waved back. The warm shinny sunbeams reflected off the buildings and hit him on the face and he felt blessed. He was at peace. He felt as if he was in heaven.

Splat! A huge silver piano suddenly falls from the sky and lands on him with a loud “E dim 7” note!

He is in heaven.

FLASH TO SCENE FOUR:

Germany, fall, 1939: Edmund Adolphus is a black and white guy, who walks upon a black and white landscape. All he ever wanted to do was to shoot people and then watch the blood ooze out from different angles. In short, a true cold-blooded killer. Today, he can do it freely. Today, he can slaughter lots of people, all of Poland, if he could. He realizes this and he smiles.

“Ich benötige Lose Gewehrkugeln” he says to his friend who was busy gobbling his breakfast.

At the camp, the Nazi troops stomp up dust clouds and shout praises of Hitler before they head out to make history.

An hour later, Edmund points his rifle at a polish border guard, and pulls the trigger. A little bang, and the Second World War erupts with a thundering scream!

Edmund however disappears instantly, from the battlefield, from the year 1939, from earth and finds himself in another planet. A tiny black radioactive planet with a black sky!

It’s been almost 80 years now. Edmund is still trapped in the black planet. The loneliest guy ever! No one to talk to, no place to go to, nothing to listen to, nothing to eat… He wants to die but the planet won’t let him. He snapped a long time ago. Now, he keeps talking to himself most of the time and scratches his balls the rest of the time. The planet feeds on his insanity. It’ll restore his sanity every fifty years just so that he can go through it all over again.

FACT: The planet is actually made out of millions of restless souls that’ll eventually get killed in world war two. It is located in the nuclei of a molecule on the tip of the bullet that Edmund himself fired. The bullet that started world war two!

FLASH TO SCENE FIVE:

Judy is a painter. She paints pictures of sunny valleys from inside a dark, damp basement. At age 11, a psycho snatched her from her family, and then the world became a basement, and heaven, what lay beyond the walls. She’s now 21. She has given up all hope, and she even went so far as to hate herself for staying alive this long, when she could’ve killed herself a long time ago. If you watch her paintings closely, you’ll notice the absence of anything cylindrical, and that just might tell you how she suffered. She sleeps most of the time, chained to her bed. Today, a dark voice whispered indecent suggestions to her, in her dreams. With a sinister grin, she now sits, and waits for her torturer to return home, from work.

She plays the song, “Whitey in the woodpile” by the cows, as she meditates on what she has to do.

The door creaks and a twisted voice calls out in a mocking voice.

“Honey, I’m home. Open wide and say ah!”

Thud, knock… knock… etc! A lead coated baseball bat rains down upon his disgusting skull!

When he woke up he was in a hospital. He tried to move his legs but there was none! He tried to move his arms but there was none. He screams as a girl climbs in through the window and starts poking out his eyes! He screams, but there was no tongue! He laid still. A few months later he’s rolling around in the streets. Limbless, sightless, penniless, dickless and whatnot. Good riddance!

Judy now sits on a porch and cries. The world had changed so much that she find it impossible to cope with. No school diploma, no sweet sixteen, no job… She was just about to kill herself when she hears the Dark voice, which whispered to her, the day she broke free. The same voice that told her to chop the freak’s limbs off. The same dark voice that taught her how to slide her hand into the sick dimension and snatch the blades of amputation, with which, she cut the freak’s limbs off.

The voice calls and she answers and then shivering sunlight rolled down shimmering, warm summer breeze blew without a clue, her memories stabbed themselves in the neck and flew, the world suddenly turned so simple, and everything amazingly big and blue and she was 11, once again, walking back home from school.

A car screeched to a stop behind her and a freak jumped at her!

SPLAT! A bus hits the freak and spreads him all over the road.

Little Judy runs home and tells her mother the whole story. The mother laughs and turns to her husband and says, “ Our little Judy is going to be an artist when she grows up. She has a great imagination. Do you know what she just told me? A bus, driven by a wolf, nailed a freak! Ha! Maybe she’ll become a painter.”

FLASH TO SCENE (hmm… let me count… ah!) SIX (incase you didn’t hear it) SIX (let me repeat that again) SIX:

The Inner Chambers of Chambers, Pentagon.

Inside the pentagon the Yellow Sorcerers chant. They chant magic and they chant geek. Magic Mushrooms in hand, computers hooked to their brain. They sit in a hole that floats beyond. A tomb of a chamber, spread out like butter on bread, upon the X-Where. There is where, there is where!

The Agents of Distress.

Agents in black and agents stabbed into one’s back. Agent from here and there gather. The missing key must be recovered. The Yellow Sorcerers had warned them that the terrifying first son of Satan, “Lord XiX Sixtherinx “ has positioned himself just outside the gates of hell, and is waiting for the cult of the fishing kings to invite him to earth, with a bait, because he can’t step into earth, even if the gates are open, unless he is invited in.

Lord Xix will manifest to gather a few prime souls. If the Agents can get these souls before Lord Xix manifests, and offer it to him, he will grant them all a wish!

They already tried to get a female named Jane, but she proved too hot to handle. They now concentrate on others. They meditate on murder and grind their teeth, thinking about plunder.

As the sun starts to set the agents stretch their legs. Guns, claws, a book of advanced murdering techniques, neck straw for sucking blood, bloody handbag for storing eyeballs and the agents are all set. They claw the floor, restlessly. They growl at each other, gracelessly. The Harvesting unfolds tonight at the death of light.

THE LOST GUN OF DADA!

Syd and Cliff hid in a bush and waited for Andrew. They waited for a long time.

“Ops! I forgot to give the signal!” apologized Cliff and immediately shouted, “Andrew!” at the top of his voice!

“Are you stupid? Now, you friend’s dad’s probably gonna shoot us both, or fish us out or something!” snapped Syd, teeth grinding… eyes pooping.

“Nah! He’ll probably think that it was a damn loud parrot or something. Parrots can talk like human beings, you see.” Replied Cliff, cleaning his finger on Syd’s shirt.

It seems that Cliff was right. The psychotic fisherman didn’t even blink. Andrew, however, seems to have some common sense as he came running.

“Here, take this and go to the tree on the African hill. Open it with the key and it’ll take you to the lost garden. Try to convince it to manifest here and stop dad.” He said, throwing a brick, which vaguely resembled a key, at Cliff.

Poink! The brick bashed into Cliff’s face and Cliff immediately started dreaming. Syd had to drag the poor kid up the African hill. They were just about to reach the tree, when, all of a sudden, thick, blinding fog settled in on them.

Something suddenly moved inside Syd’s pockets. Startled he dropped Cliff and checked his pockets. Was it his dick? No, it was the gun. The one that he was suppose to give Ed. It was alive and it was dragging him through into the unknown. Dragging a person along in ways never imagined, the gun went.

Syd opens his eyes and sees Ed and the bystander walking down a street. He couldn’t exactly say where it was but he knew that it was somewhere in Canada. The gun started dragging him towards them.

The bystander saw Syd and put his hands up in the air. Ed just stood there staring, silently throwing tears on the ground. He didn’t even seem to notice that someone was pointing a gun at him. Well, he did, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Don’t shoot!” yelled the bystander, sounding a bit like a little girl. Well, sounding a lot like a little girl.

“No, you don’t understand! It’s the gun! It’s a special gun. I was suppose to give it to somebody.”

“You mean that’s the lost gun of dada?” exclaimed the bystander, eyebrows flying here and there.

“I don’t know, maybe it is!” replied Syd, with his trademark dumb look on his insane face.

“In that case, you were suppose to give it to Tim!”

At the mention of Tim, Ed looked up and then looked away. The bystander took a deep breath and told Syd to drop the gun. Syd dropped it but it just remained there, floating in the air, for a few minutes, before flying straight at Ed.

“Oh, so he is Tim. I swear that he looked kindda different in the dark, that day in the park.”

“No,” replied the Ed, suddenly speaking in a grave voice. “I’m Ed. Tim passed away sometime ago. He went to sleep while we were at the MHB and he never woke up. We called the ambulance but there was nothing we could do. His doctor told us that he had a brain tumor and was suffering a heart condition too. I don’t know why he never told us that. He was the kindda guy that cheered everyone up, you see. I never would have suspected in a million year that he was hiding something that serious from me. Tim and me, we go way, way back. I… I promised him that I’d take care of this trouble that he was having, but I never actually got around to doing it... well, the only consolation is that he died painlessly in his sleep. And I know that he died happily and fully content because he had this big stupid smile on his dumb face. Oh god! I’m gonna miss that bastard like hell…”

So there they stood under the blood red sky.

Remembering, longing and trying to forget.

For what is life but a scream?

For what is life but a scream?

Outside Tim’s house from a clothesline, a gust of wind blows his old faded blue jeans away… away into the clouds…

Faded jeans float across the blood red sky.

Faded jeans float across the blood red sky.

CONTD…

CHAPTER AGAIN: LA FILLE AVEC LES YEUX DE CHANT

The scorpion queen, the dark wolf and Jack are at the park. Jack was shuffling a pack of cards (Damn! Looks like he and the scorpion queen spent the last 2 hours playing cards!) when suddenly he looks up at the sky and shoves the pack of cards in his pockets.

The sun had crashed to the ground instead of setting in a proper fashion!

It must be very ill or very tired or else what could it be?

The scorpion queen stops scratching the Dark Wolf behind the ears and analyses the atmosphere for a minute or two, then she excuses herself and then floats into the sky and walks away into a door in the clouds.

Meanwhile, the dark wolf shoves his claws into his belly, pulling out intestine and crawling into it at the same time. In about five seconds he had completely crawled into his own belly and disappeared!

Jack stood alone. He had things to do.

Meanwhile, in North Pole something strange happens.

A group of wildlife photographers were recording a group of walrus (the walrus were murmuring, in what appeared to be, old Victorian English), when they spotted a group of insane penguins, eating a polar bear with twisted grins on their blood soaked face!!!

The penguins looked as if they had been smoking too much. It was obvious that they had also been reading books on advanced killing techniques. The technique they used, to bring down polar bears, was simple but effective. Whenever a polar bear tried to eat them they, instead of running away, jumped into the polar bears mouth, willingly, and crawl down its throat. This immediately chocks the bear to death, and then the penguin eats its way out of the dead polar bear!

Has the judgment day finally arrived?

THE FRESHLY RESCUED AND BORN AGAIN MEATHEAD

In a damp dark room, the torture begins. First, the physical kind, which starts with making the subject stand continuously, while being questioned non-stop, for up to 40 hours.

The torturers, however, were taken aback by the lack of tiredness their subject displayed. So they proceeded to soften s/him a little bit, by pounding their subject, on the neck area, with a ten-pound hammer. The subject, strangely, looked as if it was enjoying this!

Baffled, they switch mode and start the psychological part. First, they make their subject take a huge dose of Lysergic acid diethyl amide 25 (LSD), then, they put their subject in a soundproof room equipped with huge speakers, spiders and pictures of dead bodies.

Having done this, our twisted torture kings grin a sadistic grin and hug each other in feverish anticipation.

Having done that, they proceed to play recordings of the old childhood bully song “na-nana-na-na” mixed with low monotonous murmurings, dull sharp laughter, a dog’s yelp, a women’s cry and a voice repeating the words, “who’s your police?” over and over and over again!

I forgot to mention that the subject was also electrocuted every now and then while this torture was unfolding.

The subject immediately starts showing signs of anxiety, fear and working mind deterioration or thinking mind expansion/soul extension. It thrashed around in the padded torture cell. On the other side of the one-way mirror, our sadistic tortures howl with joy and pop open Champagne bottles.

After 30 minutes, the subject opens it’s ultrasonic mouth and lets out a scream that folded and wrapped all time, within a radius of 120 inches, in neat little bloody packages. Then our subject starts untangling its human form.

“Zoe, the documentary filmmaker of eyeball TV” identity was the first to go, it faded to none. Then, “Zoe, the dropout, from Universe Y University” folowed. Then, “Zoe, the Xarts college student”, who cheated his/her way to university. Then, “Zoe the class clown”, from xeasus high, and so on, until at last, there was none left!

Stripped off all identity, stripped of all form, our subject lays on the floor, a puddle of muddy thoughts, with no shape or form.

Our subject is now an everlasting scream, spreading out in all directions, at once. It tries to think, but stripped off language, its thoughts couldn’t solidify. Zoe is now reduced to just being a thought. Reduced to being just an idea.

In fact, Zoe is one of my ideas.

Inside the underground military base an alarm erupts.

Super stink bombs exploding everywhere!

Soldiers ran around shedding tears, making the floor wet and slippery, slipping on the slippery floor and cracking their skulls! Blood everywhere! The floor gets bloody slippery.

The wind was up and the wind was down, blowing extremely twisted odor all around. All of a sudden, out stepped the Dadaists. A guy named Mister E and a girl called Miss J rolled out, ninja style!

“Flower!” screamed Mister E in the Bruce Lee pose and stabbed a soldier in the eye with a flower. The Soldier murmured, “I know…” before falling to the ground with a dull thud.

“Say cheese” screamed Miss J taking out a paintbrush and painting faces on another soldier. “By the way, the colors I used on you are all poisoned!” she added with a cute smile. The soldier said something about being sucker painted and collapsed on the floor.

At the military base soldiers shoot their nose off as the utterly wicked smell rolls in. Every last one of them subdued, the Dadaists proceed to the torture room.

The door was solid steel and time-locked and what not, so Miss J pulled out a feather from her pocket and tickled the door. The door had no option but to give up. The feather technique always works, you see. Inside, a shapeless soul lay, twisting and turning in all directions at once.

Mister E turns to Miss J and nods.

“Still reachable, Miss J, work your art, I’m a lazyass.”

Miss J pulls out a painting, a painting of somebody painting a poem. With a little grin they throw the poem into the nameless, thoughtless, shapeless thing that lay in the room.

The painting dissolved immediately, serving as an anchor for the scream. A focal point established, the thing’s scattered thoughts ferment upon it, giving the scream a direction and a motivation. Sprouting thoughts like mushrooms, reconstructing it in Dadaist format. The pile of ooze rapidly solidifies into a figure that was unmistakably human. Zoe is gone, and out steps Misster Z!

THE ORIGIN OF MISTER E AND MISS J

TIM’S DIARY: 22^ND FEBUARY (WHICH YEAR?) WEDNESDAY.

Hi Diary!

Now listen attentively, dear Dairy, or else I’m gonna draw cartoons all over you, or probably give you to Ed, who’d probably use you as toilet paper without any hesitation or remorse. That guy’s one cold-blooded psychopath when it comes to toilet papers!

Today was a really weird day. Maybe it’s because today was my birthday.

I woke up at about 3 in the morning with a weird dream.

MY DREAM: A DAY AT THE BEACH WITH GOD?

I was a kid, once again, in this dream, and I was at a beach. There were lots of half naked girls running around and whatnot but I was thinking about someone else. I guess I was, even as a kid, a chic magnet. Here, you might think that I’m merely jesting but I’m not.

Girls around me held me in their arms and kept telling me what a cute little kid I was and kept kissing me on the cheeks and stuff. Finally it got to a point where I had to tell them to hold on to their panties until I was 18, I mean, I was just a 5 years old kid in this dream, which sucked!

I had just managed to escape from them when I saw someone that I’ll never forget. I saw a stupid guy standing on the beach, staring into the waves. There was something very strange about this man. I couldn’t see him clearly, it was as if I was looking at him through the corner of my eyes. He also seem to radiate some sort of aura. I was certain he was stupid and I was also certain that I was watching a god in action, or rather, in inaction, which was funny because he was so much like me!

He had a tired expression on his ugly face and he seem to be lost in deep but totally useless thoughts. Behind him, at a distance, a thin feminine figure was watching him. I couldn’t tell whether she loved him or hated him but she was there as if she were a hologram leaking out from his head. I was thinking about this when a dolphin swam out of the ocean and almost onto the beach. It flapped around helplessly in the shallow water yelling for help. It was a life and death situation and I just had to help.

I ran to the water and tried to help the dolphin. The strange man also came running in, we joined forces and together we kicked the dolphin’s fishy ass back into the waves. This dolphin was a really funny dolphin, in the sense that it kept yelling imprudent things like, “ Push the water under my right fin, not down my nose, you dumbass!” or, “Don’t even think about putting your hands anywhere near my tail and hurry the fuck up, I ain’t got all day!” Cool Dream, eh Mister Diary?

You better agree, mister, or do you want me to introduce you to miss flaming candle. Look at her, ain’t she hot? I think she likes you, hehe!

Hmmm… where was I?

Ah!

Like I said, I had this stupid dream. Now, I usually don’t remember dreams but I could remember this dream clearly, so I went to the library and consulted a book regarding dreams. The book frowned a little and told me that my dream was a particularly unusual one. The book consulted other books and then told me that dolphins always come in a dream to save the dreamer from drowning, or, to swim with the dreamer, but in my dream, it actually came to be saved by the dreamer, not to save the dreamer!

Anyways, enough about dreams, back to biography.

Something was bothering me for the past few days, ruining my sleep and upsetting my stomach, making me well acquainted with the toilet seat. The problem is that I hadn’t paid my rent for about three months now and the old landlord was getting real pissed.

I generally don’t like landlords of any kind, but the sort that I dislike the most are the one’s who had, in recent history, been in trouble for smashing people’s head in, and my landlord was the kind who would immediately have been elected the president, if these neck-snapping landlords ever decided to form a club.

But I’m a Pisces and we Pisces are tough men so I, instead of weeping into a jug so as not to flood the room, decided to consult the matter with some old chaps of mine. So I put on my bohemian underpants, trousers, pen, paper and whatnot and fell off the balcony.

Splat! Luckily I landed on my thick head and was unhurt. I still crushed gravity, just for fun. I had lots of things to do today but first, I had to meet Ed at the coffee shop across the street. I guess I’ll never know why all these damned coffee shops are always across the street, I mean, I’m not very good at crossing streets, you see.

I had to push an old lady into traffic to jam the traffic, and, in the meantime, I cunningly crossed the road. Ed’s advice!

ED was standing outside the coffee shop, in the cool dude pose, wearing an orange shirt with bold pink stripes and black dots. I must ask him where he got it from, it’ll make a fantastic gift for my landlord!

He looked at me as I approached.

“What took you so long and what is it that you want to talk to me about, fishface?” he asked, as if he had never taken a good look at his own face.

“It’s very important and it’s very urgent. If you guys do this one thing right, the beers on me tonight!”

“What do you mean, ‘the beer’s on me tonight’? Today’s your freakin’ birthday, you’d have to buy us beer anyways!” He shot back, never once considering the fact that he hadn’t yet wished me, “happy birthday” or bought me any presents!

I told myself that I shall not make him anymore tea or serve him biscuits when he comes to my house from now on.

“Of course, but, now I’m serious ok? Look, look, look at the intensity with which my eyes are focused. OK? So what I need you to do is to meet me at my apartment within half an hour with Mister E and the gang.”

He told me that he would try his best, which wasn’t very comforting as his “best” is a bit like the Canadian dollar. It’s a dollar, alright, but still not that effective, if you know what I mean.

So I returned home and made myself a cup of tea and I waited.

In a damp dark room, Tim is sitting on the couch sipping tea, when Ed walks in without knocking.

ED: What’s up man?

TIM: Ah, Ed! Nothing’s up, you psycho! (Gesturing Ed to a chair) Been waiting for you for half an hour now! I was starting to think that you’d never show up.

ED: Hehe… What a coincidence! I was starting to think that I should never show up, too!

TIM: Ok, enough… cut that crap out, man, I really am in deep shit. Where’s Mister E and the gang?

ED: They’ll be here soon. Always an hour late, hehe… you know that he keeps forgetting to turn his clock back an hour since last winter, don’t you?

TIM: Yeah, yeah… (BEAT) I just hope he makes it in time. I need those guys to soften up the old bulldog.

ED: How many months’ rent is it this time?

TIM: Only three.

ED: Only three! Hehe… sometimes you crack me up, my old bloodsucking friend!

TIM: Bloodsucking? Me? It was you who suggested that we bet the money on your favorite hockey team! I still remember what you said, “They cannot be defeated, at least, not by mere mortals!”

ED: Did I actually say that?

TIM: of course you did, you dumbass!

ED: Hehe… right, how silly of me!

(Knock, knock! There is a knock on the door)

ED: Who’s there?

VOICE: well… hmm… is it me?

ED: Hehe… that’s Mister E alright! Come in, E.

Mister E and the gang walk in with guitars and several other instruments of assorted ink.

MISTER E: Hi guys!

TIM: You’re late!

MISTER E: sorry about that, I’ll try to be less late next time. Now, what are we suppose to do?

TIM: All you guys have to do is to support me, to second my story, that’s all. Look, I haven’t paid my rent for 3 months now and the old bulldog’s really pissed.

ED: Hehe… he might actually piss on you today, X.

TIM: Yeah, yeah, but we all know that beneath his thick, hard, carpet-like skin, he actually is a soft pile of dirt, so, I’ve decided to buy some time by exploiting his sentimental side.

MISTER E: What are you gonna tell him, that your dog has AIDS or something?

ED: Ahehe… actually that’s a good one, Mister E!

TIM: No… let’s get serious, guys! I’m gonna tell him that my mom’s in a coma, on life support, and I’m having a real hard time keeping her alive.

MISTER E: But you’re an orphan, Tim!

TIM: You want to keep reminding me how freakin’ miserable I am, don’t you, E? (Looking away as if about to cry) I thought you were my friend.

MISTER E: Ok, ok, from now on you have a mom and she’s in a coma.

TIM: (suddenly back to his old self) Perfect! And you guys can tell him how we all visited my mom in the hospital and how she cried when she saw us.

MISTER E: uh… X, how’s your mom suppose to see us and cry if she’s in a coma?

ED: Hehe… maybe she’s in a coma with her eyes open.

MISTER E: …or maybe she takes a coffee break every now and then, eh? I mean being in coma all day long can get very tiring, right Ed?

ED: Absolutely, Mister E, you’re always so very thoughtful… hehe!

MISTER E: (looking down and blushing) Oh, it’s nothing that great, my doctor says it’s all in the genetics. I’m just extremely talented, that’s all.

TIM: Haha! Oh yeah? Tell him that it’s all in the genitals, ha! (High five with ED)

ED: Yeah, you’d have to be real talented to stay alive this long with an I.Q that could match our current president Bush’s.

MISTER E: (still blushing) Thanks, guys.

(TIM and ED look at each other)

ED: Never mind… so Tim, what’s next?

TIM: yeah, where was I? Hmm… Ah! So Mister E, I want you guys to play a very soulful tune while I narrate this story to the landlord, who’ll be here any second now.

ED: Hey, what are friends for, dude, everything will be just fine. Now, if you could direct me to the beer that you promised, I absolutely refuse to face the old bulldog without first getting thoroughly stoned, you see!

TIM: …But you can’t get drunk on the job, Ed!

MISTER E: uh… excuse me guys, but I think someone really heavy is coming upstairs, I mean, just listen to those footsteps, man, they’re like… (BEAT) uh… guys, is it just me or is it starting to sound more and more like an elephant or something?

ED: It’s just you, Mister E, and don’t forget your part!

(knock… knock…)

VOICE: TIM?

CONTD…

CHAPTER HUNGER: DIMENSIONS OVERFLOWING INTO EACH OTHER.

VOICE: Tim? Are you in there? (Sound of door being pounded by a man, who, when in public, had been frequently mistaken for a buffalo, in the background)

TIM: Yeah, I’m coming, man. I’m coming.

(Turning to the gang)

Look I’m gonna improvise here and there, just follow.

ED: OK, but where’s the damn beer, man?

TIM: Not now Ed, can’t you hold on for a few more minutes?

ED: Hehe, alright then, I’m just gonna tell the landlord all about your dirty little trick!

TIM: Ed! (Pause) ok, the beer’s inside the microwave, just don’t drink them all.

ED: hehe… I should’ve known that the last place anyone would look for beer is inside a freakin’ microwave oven!

(Tim goes to the door and opens it)

MELVIN/LANDLORD: So, what’s up, Tim? Wait! Wait! Before you speak anything I’m tellin’ you, straight up, if you don’t have the rent, this time, I’m going to confiscate your belongings and throw your crazy mad-lookin’ ass out the window.

TIM: Which window? Ha-ha, just kidding. Go on, go on… keep talking, let’s communicate! Ha-ha, still kidding! So, how are things goin’, Melvin?

MELVIN: Pretty fine, except for you not paying the rent, and what’s up with all the jokes, finally got the greens?

ED: (appearing with a half empty beer bottle in his claws, and a shit eating grin on his face) Hehe… maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t… by the way, did you know that Mister E’s uncle is a famous bloodsucking lawyer?

MISTER E: But…

MELVIN: What?

ED: …butts, yeah, that’s what he said, poor guy’s obsessed with butts! Now, we don’t want to start a conversation about butts, do we?

MISTER E: Maybe he does! Look, look, he’s scratching his butt!

ED: Shut up, E!

(Turning to the landlord) So like I was saying, that moron’s uncle turns out to be a famous bloodsucking lawyer! Did you know that?

MELVIN: Why do you ask?

ED: Oh, never mind that, I just thought you might be surprised. I was.

MELVIN: I am.

TIM: No he’s not! The ol’ bastard almost yawned when he said that.

MELVIN: Yeah right! Listen, just give me the greens and I’ll leave you guys alone, ok?

ED: Hehe… not so fast, let’s chitchat.

MELVIN: (Looking around suspiciously) Look, I really don’t have time for this. (To Tim) Tim, do you have the rent or not?

TIM: Yeah, Yeah… we’ll talk about that soon, in the meantime, why don’t you make yourself comfortable. (To Ed) Ed, can you please go get this bastard a beer from the oven?

MELVIN: Beer from the oven?!!

TIM: Yeah… Ed was coming over, you see.

MELVINS: Ah!

TIM: So how are things going? I mean, things have been pretty tough for me the past few weeks, you see.

MELVIN: Yeah… so, what happened?

TIM: Didn’t Ed tell you that my mom’s in a coma, on life support? She’s getting’ worse.

MELVIN: look, I’m really sorry about that but I need my freakin’ cash, right now!

TIM: (Gesturing to Mister E) My mom was the only person who ever cared about me. She was a kind women who called me, “son”.

(At this point Mister E and the band starts playing a really comedic tune but Ed walks out of the kitchen just in time to kick their ass and make them play a soulful tune instead.)

ED: Damn right. Mothers are mothers, you see. Melvin, tell me frankly, don’t you ever think about your mom?

MELVIN: No, I don’t.

TIM: She use to hold me tight in her arm and sing to me all night. She had such a beautiful voice that I just couldn’t help but stay awake and listen to her sing all night, which, of course, freaked her out in no uncertain term, for, the whole point of this singing thing was to put me to sleep, you see. (BEAT and looking really sad)

She even use to drop me off to school everyday.

ED: yeah, I still remember the day she gave tad “the residential bully” an atomic wedgie. He didn’t bully us anymore after that, poor kid! Hehe!

MELVIN: Hold on, let me ask you something, how the hell do you manage to keep your mom on life support? I mean, from what I hear, those things cost a fortune.

TIM: Oh… I have my ways. I go sing in the subway and what not.

(While Tim is speaking, Ed sneaks up behind the landlord, and takes out cash from his wallet.)

MISTER E: What the…

MELVIN: what?

MESTER E: Nothing, nothing…

ED: (giving Melvin his own cash back) OK… enough bad breath endured for a day, look, here’s your money, now, buzz off!

MELVIN: Well, that’s what I wanted to do all along. (Walks out of the room)

SCENE THREE:

(A door opens and Melvin steps out. An elderly women, a nun, is waiting for him by the stairs)

WOMEN: So how did it go?

MELVIN: (smiling gently and shaking his head) They actually stole my money and paid me with it this time!

WOMEN: Oh, that’s molly’s kid alright. (BEAT) Why don’t you just tell him about it?

MELVIN: Nah, Molly didn’t tell him about me because of a reason. She probably knew she was doing the right thing. (BEAT) I was a dangerous man back then, and molly probably thought so too, sister. (BEAT) I just can’t thank you enough for taking care of him all these years while I was behind bars.

MOLLY: You don’t need to thank anyone… Molly was my best friend and Tim is like a son to me. Sometime, I truly believe that he’s my son.

(A faraway look comes over her eyes and her voice gets passionate, totally breaking with emotion, every word dripping passion.)

I loved Molly. I loved her. I loved her like a man loves a woman…

(Embarrassed and quickly changing topic)

Uh… anyways, as I was saying, you’re a changed man now. Accidentally killing a men in a bar brawl isn’t that evil, I’m sure he’ll just accept you. He listens to experimental noise rock bands for god’s sake, he prepared for anything!

MELVIN: Nah, not yet, sister. He’s still a kid at heart, but maybe someday… maybe someday…

END SCENE.

BACK TO TIM’S DIARY

So as I was saying Ed and Mister E helped me out. I don’t wanna go into details regarding what actually went down but it went well. We manage to trick the old bastard yet again.

Ed was, by now, already drunk and Mister E was acting rather impatient, like a rat with an unfinished mission.

“What’s up Mister E?” I inquired in a brotherly manner.

“Uh… can I use your computer for a while Tim?” He asked, he was always a shy guy, unlike me.

I, being someone equipped with a sharp mind, found this strange, as I’ve never seen him use a computer before and I hit the chap square on the forehead with my question.

Turns out he had been using the computer for a few months now. Oh and the funny thing is that he’s in love with this girl that he met online. Hehe! What a stupid ass!

So I asked him to tell me about her. He scratched his head with utter dedication (here I must tell you that dandruff erupted like a mushroom cloud) before replying.

“I dunno what to say, Tim. I just met her about a month ago and something tells me something… (Here he scratched his head again and Ed warned him not to do it again or he’ll have to feel the empty beer bottle on his head)

“Yeah, yeah, something always seems to tell you something. Out with the full details, man, and don’t be shy!” said Ed, staring at the empty beer bottle in a philosophical way.

“Yeah so, did I tell you that she’s in a band? I think they’re called ‘The Residents of Toilet-X” and they have this page on…”

“Get to the point, E, you’ve already wasted 5 perfectly good minutes of our lives!” snapped Ed. He’s such a lovable guy, ain’t he? Ha-ha!

“Uh… so, they posted this song on their page. I am not sure if it’s theirs or not but it’s a freakin’ cool song. As far as I’m concern, they’re just damn unique. I’m just gland to be one of their earliest fans!”

“Shut up, and describe the song.”

“Well, I must confess that I didn’t get it at the first listen but I totally got it the second time around. It kindda sounds like…”

“Like what? And be quick!

“Well… let’s suppose that the song, ‘stairway to heaven’ was actually a person, not a song, and you shoot this person and bury this person. Their song sounds like what you’d find when you’d dig up the body after a month. In short, a nightmarish ‘stairway to heaven’!”

“You could’ve just freakin’ said that it sounded like a dead stairway haunting a flower, and saved us all your bad breath!”

“Well, you should check them out. I particularly like the incomprehensible murmurings, repeating guitar line (or is it a bass played high up? I don’t know but I liked it a lot) and this completely offbeat operatic part, which totally scared me. They’re freakin’ cool! It kindda ended quite suddenly though.”

“So are these guys you’re with, your new band?” I asked, gesturing at the two nitwits that he brought along, and who were now busy arm wrestling each other in the corner of the room.

“Yeah, I actually put an ad on “craigslist” on the 30^th of January under the title, “indie/experimental/noise band mates seeking/willing to join” in the ‘musician’ section. I posted it under both Toronto and Vancouver just to see which city generates more replies. Turns out tons of people from BC answered to my ad, compared to these couple of freaks (from Toronto) that I bought along today. I’m planning to hook up all the people from BC, who replied to my ad with each other since I can’t just tell them that I’m from Toronto, and I just posted it as a survey.”

“Whatever, now that Tim’s problem is fixed, the question is, how do we fix yours?”

This, of course, was our main concern now, for Mister E’s problem is the kind of sinister, twisted and hopeless problem that would take all our combined brainpower, plus tons and tons of luck to fix.

NEXT: FIXING THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEMS

CHAPTER MATTER: HATTER SELTHER HER FEATHERS

INTRO: So, I sit her in the nature reserve and read Tim’s diary to you, but I know things that happened back then that even Tim doesn’t, and I’ll be filling in all the blank spots like I’ve so far done.

MISTER E AND HIS HEART

Mister E on the porch, on a rocking chair, and writes a letter.

“Deer gurl

How re you? I hop you re phine ok. I think you re veri, veri talented n I lik you read dress toteli.

I use to lov you but now I’m aphraid that it’s sumting sumthing way biyond avenger average lov. I’m totally obese obsessed. I’ve knever bin dis daddycatedly madly inn lov, which is inshane inshan nuts.”

He suddenly stops writing at this point and looks up. He thought he heard something move. Something did move!

There, at a distance, he saw Ed and talking to someone. He knew who this guy was but he just couldn’t remember his name. He knew it started with the letter ‘r’… rascal… nah… rotter… nah… Ah! Red… Red Jack!

BACK TO TIM’S DIARY

So like I said, I was brooding over Mister E’s problem. Ed was out to get some things which weren’t necessarily necessary to get, when suddenly E came in looking rather like a monkey who couldn’t find his banana.

“It’s time, the old frog must be croaking.” He said.

I understood.

Actually, I stood under and grasped the idea.

The Frog that he refers to is his aging relative, who, because of his silly will, is causing us all so much misery. The “will” in question is a document rather like a toilet paper, but with signatures and whatnot.

E’s uncle is a really rich business man who, when he was a youth, neglected his love life for the sake of the greens. It all came down to this point where his love asked him to marry her immediately or lose her. He told the poor girl that the price of silver was going up, and he’ll be very busy that whole week, so he must politely decline the offer, but, she was welcome to join him surf the stock market with him if she wanted!

Needless to say, she married someone else, and only then did he realize the folly of his ways, but it was too late.

His heart went bankrupt from filling his pockets, and his eyes, they were reduced to sockets.

So he earned all his life, but then, near the end, was faced with a question.

“So I’ve earned tons of greens, now what do I do with it, especially since I’m too old to enjoy what it could buy?”

He pondered over this question for fifty seven seconds and then decided that he would leave it all for his only nephew/relative, Mister E. But the old geezer didn’t make it so easy.

Once a businessman, always a businessman.

He told E that he would leave all his money in E’s name only if E marries the daughter of his old sweetheart, the women that he was too busy to marry, otherwise he would donate all his wealth as a charity to this organization which specializes in managing nightclubs and E would get Zero.

Now, the problem here is that:

1. The old man was totally nuts.

2. Mister E was madly in love with some girl he hasn’t even met but still wanted the cash.

3. There was not much time, as the old man had already stopped watching porn. It was clear that his end was near.

Today E is supposed to meet him at a restaurant downtown and announce his decision. I wave him aside and told him to stay calm till Ed arrives, for he’s the one who has the plan mapped out and whatnot.

“But he’s outside talking to Red Jack!” he replied.

This was strange. The name, Red Jack, somehow gave me the creeps. I think I’m having enough oddity to freak out a truckload of hippies in a day. I mean, just today morning, I kept hearing the most horrid screams one can imagine, from inside a candy shop!

Anyways, this was no time to dwell on mysteries of life, I psyche myself up for the interview with the old frog.

Ed arrived in style. When I say, ‘style’ I meant that he arrived in a car that wasn’t falling apart.

“Let’s go!” he yelled.

We had to tie E to the seat, as he just wouldn’t get in, just because the car didn’t have seat belts. He seemed satisfied but demanded a scissor, incase the car caught fire and he had to cut himself lose. He had a good mind or presence of mind or both. We threw him one and, his wish fulfilled, E sat there like a milked cow.

“So where did you get this car from?” I asked Ed, for I thought it would be a particularly claver question to ask.

“It’s stolen!” He replied, smiling a stolen smile.

“What do you mean it’s stolen?” Asked E, desperately cutting at the ropes that tied him to the stolen property, and trying to jump out of the stolen window.

“Oh it’s a long story. Jack left it in my care, says it belongs to someone who won’t be looking for it anymore, whatever that means!”

“That was kindda short” I replied, and rightly so if I might add.

“Here we are” he replied and pulled up beside a mean looking restaurant that looked really mean, in the sense that it was imposed upon the beholders eye in a mean manner.

We got off and deposited the car in the thrash can. Having done that, we decided to run through the dialogues that we had sketched out to melt his uncle’s heart/pacemaker. I and Ed had no problem delivering the well crafted words of cunning but E, for some reason, seemed very nervous.

This maybe due to the fact that his uncle had invited the girl that he, wants E to marry, to the restaurant too! She wasn’t there yet but that didn’t matter much, our old boy was shivering like a giraffe in a tornado.

This was a serious drawback. We just had to psyche E up, and Ed, as usual, had a sinister plan up his sleeves. Lace E’s chocolate milk with a bottle of Rum!

SIOUXSIE AND THE CANDYMAN

AUTHOR’S NOTE: There! Got you bastard!

A little girl runs down an alley. She’s familiar with the area and navigates her way into a sweetshop. There the fat guillotine snickers and flashes a smile.

“Ah! Little Siouxsie, come in…”

Little Siouxsie doesn’t know yet, that she’ll later on write a song about how ugly things today get.

Little siouxsie doesn’t know yet, that somewhere in some dimension the fat bastard is walking into a bait.

“Oh trust in me my pretty one… Come walk with me. I’ve got candy to give you, that I sure do”

Little Siouxsie walks in, an attempted molestation later, runs out. Something interrupted the candy man and made him scream. Something huge an ugly was upon the candy man! It looked at little Siouxsie with huge dead eyeballs and spoke in bloodstained English, “Run along now, Strawberry Queen”

Ah stupid Candy man, you didn’t know that I was watching you, did you?

Ah screaming candy man, I didn’t program the Dark wolf to go easy on you.

You’ve just been eternally terrorized!

…And you scream inside the candy shop as Red Jack put the ‘closed’ sign on the door. A huge thing with the head of a wolf is mounting you as Red Jack steals all the cash from your counter.

A stack of candy stuffed up his ass and then buried alive in a steel coffin. Permanently attached food pipes feeding the bastard directly through the throat. The candy man will live in this coffin for quite a while, but he’ll have to shit in his pants. And, as time passes, and as hours turns to days turns to weeks, will feel the worms get nasty on his private parts. The soul will be flung into an eternal scream.

The Red Jack didn’t forget to install a video camera inside the coffin to record the details. This video will then be sold on e-bay as an easy way to make overweight people lose appetite thus aiding in the process of dieting.

BACK TO THE PRESENT

Syd, Ed and the bystander stand under the blood red sky as Tim sets with the sun. Bells ring at a distance.

Shadows shift and whispers gather speed.

Out in the alley, Melvin waits by the stairs, for his kid to return home.

A wait that may last a while.

A wait that might be without smiles.

Out in the hills… the lightning hits. Charging the key and turning the wheel.

Grinning avalanches, the fishing Kings enter.

A short figure that looked like a Zen Buddhist midget monk. A mechanical arm equipped with an arcane fishing pole. The Zen fisherman.

An eight feet tall, thin, pale wizard, who waved like a blade of grass in the wind, dressed in a long, long black velvet handkerchief, which was permanently attached to his head, and warped around his length and breath. Fishing hooks littered in his hair. His long overflowing hair, overflowing freely like nobody’s business. The black-magic sheep.

A Nazi in an orange jumpsuit, with a golf bag fully loaded with various kinds of fishing poles. Brute force. The Hammerface.

And a bald guy in leather and chains, the leader, the father, the organizer. The Baitmaker.

The Zen Fisherman waves his mechanical arm and fished a white dove out of thin air.

An effective Creation.

The Black-magic-Sheep Wizard shakes the shinny fishing hooks in his hair, and the dove explodes into a shadow skeleton bird, with wings of nightmares and eyes of delirium. Transforming the bird beyond time, space and the reach of FBI.

In short, arcane-mutation.

The Hammerface whips the bird with a hammer shaped fishing pole, sparks jumped out in gallons and pounds.

The bird is threatened into submission.

Finally, the Baitmaker, goes to the bird and whispers, “Tell hell, that the son of hell is invited upstairs if the door is opened, wishes fulfilled and neutrality granted.”

And the skeleton bird screams its way into hell.

Mission Completion.

The sky tears open and openly weep and, momentarily, the gods stop smoking weed. They look around at the source of the sound, but the skeleton bird has already dived into hell, it couldn’t be found.

Madness abound, madness abound.

NEXT: THE BATTLE OF THE WISHPERING FLAGS

THE FLAMING CHAPTER: ENTREZ, LE CAVALIER MALADE

PRESENT:

The hills from Vancouver yawn and stretch their legs. They look around and scratch their heads. The night had descended and today the world was unusually quite.

It was afraid.

Down in the valley stands a solitary house, the Bait maker’s house.

In the basement of the house, Andrew, his mother and sister are held captive by his own father. Andrew realizes that he doesn’t have much time left before his father returns, but he was tied up along with his mother and sister.

The rescue party was suppose to have rescued them hours ago, before this had even happened, but they never arrived. Very soon now, his father will return along with the rest of the Fishing Kings.

Very soon, they’ll pawn his sister away, casting her as bait, into hell.

The winds howled upstairs and all Andrew could do was cry. Andrew cried, for that was all he could do. He looked at his mother but she just sat there and stared into thin air. A sad state of affairs.

Not fair.

Unfair.

He tried wriggling his hands until they bleed but the rope didn’t loosen. A fishing knot, almost impossible to undo.

His mother suddenly breaks down and but then calms herself and turns to him and says, “ When your father takes us out to the hills, call out to the one who rules the asylum, call out to the Sick Horseman… and maybe...”

At this point she stops to listen. The door creaked upstairs. She looked at him and then looked at the little girl that was lying there fast asleep.

So this was it?

Andrew looked around the room frantically for something. He didn’t even know what he was looking for.

Hope?

Time ran out.

The basement door opens and footsteps slide downstairs.

“Andrew?”

It was cliff.

Hope.

Still rubbing the large bump on his head he proceeds to untie Andrew and co without a word.

An understanding.

"No use, Cliff. Fishing Knots."

Cliff grinned.

A wicked grin.

Andrew lets his left eyebrow curl high.

An ancient sign language.

Only friends are the ones who recognize a dare, a loophole, when given.

A spark sparks on Cliff's head, and, for a moment, his hair looked as if they were about to burst into flames. Then smoke erupts from his ears as if his ears were chimneys!

He stood there with hollow tunnel eyes and stared at the fishing knot, it gave up and unwrapped itself.

The group wasted no time. They ran upstairs.

“They’re coming!” Andrew said, peeking through the window.

“Through here.” The mother said pointing to the backdoor. “You kids hurry along now, run”

“But aren’t you coming too?” asked Andrew.

“No. I love you all, now, go!”

BACK TO TIM’S DIARY

Mister E took a sip of the rum laced chocolate milk. He looked puzzled.

“My chocolate milk tastes funny,” he said, “I wonder if it’s gone bad.” And then he scratched his head.

“It’s because you’re nervous, you little bastard, now shut the fuck up and drink your damn milk!” yelled Ed, sounding like Mussolini on steroids!

Mister E shrugged his weird looking shoulders and drained the weird tasting liquid with a weird looking expression on his weird looking face.

Weird scene.

Thrust me.

He froze for a few seconds, and then, shaking his dumb head, proceeded to exhale like a defective wind tunnel.

“Strange, I feel fine,” he said.

“Of course you do, you dumbass.” replied Ed.

Rum does rummy things to people and it certainly did a number on Mister E. “Shut up, will ya, you flea-faced fish-head?” he shot back. Ed staggered as if he had been chunked on the head with a particularly blunt object of high density, and before he had time to recover in walked E’s uncle with a young girl along with some little kids, probably the girl’s siblings, who were looking particularly bored.

“Ah, there you are!” said the old pile of cash, and then looked at us as if we were from Mexico of some other twisted dimension, “ Who the hell are these? What are they?”

I felt that I should introduce myself and I did so before he could start mistaking us for chairs and whatnot.

“I’m Tim and that guys who’s busy tying your shoelaces together is Ed. We’re E’s friends, we come in peace.”

“I don’t believe you!” replied the fossil, eying us with growing hatred.

“Well guys, forgive this old relative of mine, he has a hard time believing people that he hadn’t met before ever since his momma told him not to talk to strangers.

Isn’t that so, Uncle Shit-face? No… sorry, I meant to call you Armpit-head… or was it nipple-brains, eh?” asked E stepping forward and puffing his chest high.

“No… yes… WHAT?!!”

The old guy was in shock. His wig slid to the left side and, for a moment, his eyeballs got entangled.

The kids immediately cheered up. One even giggled! They apparently wanted more of the similar.

The girl blushed and lovingly re-arranged the old man’s wig with a shy smile.

I thought it’s about time we got the dinner started and so hushed the party into a table to calm things down.

The old man crashed right down to the floor.

Dentures fly and got entangled with the specs, which also went flying!

He forgot that his shoelaces were tied together!

The kids cheer wildly and a particularly sinister looking kid even began to clap.

The old ATM, however, recovered and joined the rest of us on the table, and then he immediately got right down to business.

“This is the young lady you’re suppose to marry, E. I brought her here today so that you might get acquainted with each other, which, in turn, will help you decide what you want to do and the little kids aren’t her kids, they’re just her siblings.”

Here E waved at the little brats, most of whom had missing teeth, and spoke.

“Hiya Kids! Let me introduce myself. I am the nephew of this old pig…” he said pointing at the old pig, “… and today I shall teach you some card tricks that can be used to cheat all your opponent’s money out of his green card, which…”

At this point the person sitting on the table beside us, who turned out to be a holy man of some sort, stood up, and protested.

“You shouldn’t teach things like that to a kid, it’s unfair!”

E stood up and observed the unfairly holy men for a few seconds, then he yawned in a drunken way.

The Kids cheer wildly and gave E a standing ovation! One threw his hat in the air, two threw their shoes in the air and another, the smallest of the group, I believe, would have thrown his diaper in the air if he could have managed to open the safety pin, which, luckily he didn’t!

E, it seems, was an instant hit with the youngsters!

Suddenly the door swings open and she walks in.

Jane. (I love her, but don’t you freakin tell her, she’ll kill me and distribute the body parts to Mac Donals [note the spelling? Now you can’t sue me corporate pigs!] Food chains)

She walked in with some freaks.

Freak One wore a second-hand eye patch over both eyes. He had short hay-like hair due to which he avoids cows and other assorted hay fans. A thoroughly insane guy who humps anything when provoked and then tries to convince whoever or whatever it is that he just humped that it wasn’t him who humped them. Nobody/nothing has believed him yet; maybe it would’ve worked had he pulled his thing out of their hole before commencing with the lies.

Freak Two was dressed in a stolen dressing gown. He is the quite guy, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t insane. He is a complete nutcase. Grade A psycho.

Don’t let the empty tuna cans hanging around his neck fool you into thinking that he’s a decent conservative guy. He cuts other people’s hands when he gets suicidal.

Don’t even wonder what he does when he gets angry.

Freak three L likes pearl jam G. On sunny days you’ll find her hugging a lamppost and on lonely days you’ll find her singing merrily and poisoning pigeons in the park. She is a doll in a cardboard that doesn’t fit.

Striving Position Growth.

Space to flex her zigzagged fingernails and play around with her human eyeball collection. She wants change never realizing the changes she had brought to several others lives (All of them, have, for some reason, committed suicide.)

Freak four is a total freak.

Sings and dances upon a pile of screaming bodies and then asks us, “Isn’t this so totally funny?”

And we nod because we know; we know that freak four is a total freak.

He’ll be found, in the cemetery, tickling dead bodies that he just dug up. He also yells obscene jokes at them all night long.

When ask why, he’ll say, “practice makes perfect with a vibrating toy.”

TODAY: SPINELESS BOYS CHICKEN OUT DIRECT TALK

NEXT: REGRETTING THE COWARDICE OF THE SPECIAL DAY

NEW CHAPTER: POURQUOI PAS FILLE (J) I L'AMOUR NE LIT PAS MON BLOGS?

“Where is the world, and why are we within? Without, I freak out. Hate me so much? Are you still?

Save this pace

Save this face

Save this space

Save displaced.

Why my, heart?

All my heads, head home, I’m so alone.

All my heads, head home, I’m so alone.

All my voice, refuse me, you’re free… marry him twice and keep in all angels. Keep in all angels under the floor. Close the door. Your pet lion roars.

See…

Flex your eyes…

Finish this guy.

Flex your eyes…

Finish this guy.

See…

Silly boy in the mirror

What are we doing?”

Young Cliff writes his poem, which was about this girl he had a crush on, sitting beside a lotus pond.

He should be in school right now but he has, once again, skipped classes. He lives in a little town called Knotsville, which is a very bizarre place to live in.

Today his friend Andrew and Lord Melvino were suppose to meet him by the lotus pond. They haven’t arrived yet and he was getting bored.

He watched the clouds drift and wondered if he could jump on them if he climbed the high hill across the lotus pond. He was thinking about this and that when he became very drowsy. He had a lot to do, he told himself, and he couldn’t afford to go to sleep. He had to visit his grandfather, who was on his deathbed, and repair his bike on the way there, but right now, he was waiting for his friends to come so they could go to the school downtown, where the girl he had a crush on, studies.

He tries hard not to fall asleep as he was afraid that he might dream, dream the dream which he has been dreaming quite often now, a dream about his death day.

But stubborn eyelids refuse to co-operate without coffee. In sunshine, his knees begin to blur. Out of sight, the psychedelic snake slithers. And the grass turned into warm fur. In your arms, forever, your arms forever, encircle, blur.

Kaleidoscope scope

Kaleidoscope scope

A gust of strong wind blows all the sunlight away, and landscape melts away, like a sandcastle in the arms of waves, waves upon waves of stormy shadows.

In slow motion young feet descend upon a familiar scene.

A haunted high school in ruins, it’s corridors stretching forever, and the wind howled with all its might.

Sketched bushes and tress waving in the midnight storm

Darkness everywhere… gray scale reality

A bell rings somewhere and ghostly students pour out in waves and Cliff stands there waiting for someone… who?

This is the night he dies

This is the night he dies

And then he wakes up… but… Well, why don’t we just let him tell his story, eh?

CLIFF’S STORY: HAPPY DEATH DAY!

The snow was shivering and it was dawn. I woke up with a head that was still crowded with the dream’s feedback.

The sun was shining here and there, after a while it started shinning everywhere, and that’s when I realized where I was.

I was somewhere.

For the past few days, I’ve been stuck in nowhere, you see, but it seems that I’m awake again! What a pile of luck!

I was just agreeing with what I just said when something awfully heavy, stinky and painful stuck me in the head and I blacked out again.

A sudden splash of water (or was it urine? Frankly speaking, I don’t know!) woke me up. A really hot girl was smilling at me.

“Sorry,” she said, “You frightened my pet bear, he’s never seen anything as freaky looking as you.”

“That won’t do, I demand a kiss!” I said. Now, of course it was meant to be a joke, but she obviously didn’t get it, because the next moment she produced a small but utterly solid, and highly effective metal rod and began pounding on my head with it!

“Bad boy!” she said, as if explaining her actions. Her pet bear was about to clap, but changed his mind at the last minute, and did a little tap dance and sniggered at me instead.

This was getting weird!

“Where am I?” I asked politely.

“You’re in Melvexico. Are you a tourist?” She replied.

I nodded. I didn’t remember any country named Melvixico, although for that matter, I’ve never seen a girl as beautiful as her. Her weird pet bear bothered me a little though.

Then I noticed something. There were three suns shining!

At first I thought that I must still be dreaming but the stinky smell from the bear was very real. Dreams can’t replicate such hideous odor!

The Girl led me to a city in the mountains. A city so big, it looked like a giant! This city had the best of both worlds: technology and natural beauty.

It was shaped like a gigantic oak tree, in fact, it was a gigantic oak tree!

The Oak Tree City was about fifty miles tall and was crowded with all sort of freaky looking alien creatures, funny thing was, and all of them spoke English fluently!

We walked towards a leaf, which was the size of a very, very big football field, and many alien creatures were sunbathing upon it, using it as a beach, getting creative on a leaf, ha!

The girl took me to a seven-foot tall owl head (the body was a snake with a solitary wing at the end of its tail!)

Here the girl turned to the freaky owlhead and said, “Hi Java! I found this ugly one in the valley of the shivering snow, he seems to be lost. What shall we do with him?”

“Introductions first.” Replied the owlhead sharply.

“Oh, sorry… Java, this is ugly one and ugly one, this is Java the Aristotler and I’m Jacy and this is my pet bear, Menu.”

“Uh… Menu, huh? Well, you can call me Cliff” I said, to the girl, not to the bear.

“It’s ok, I’ll just call you the ugly one. It has a nice ring to it.” She said.

“I think I’ll to the owlhead thing for a while.” I said, I was angry!

We all looked at the pet bear, it was his turn to speak, you see. The bear said nothing, just slapped me with shit-stained paws! I blacked out again, when I woke up Java was fanning me with his wing, this, as you’ll probably agree, was getting way freaky!

Jacy was patting her pet bear affectionately. It made me jealous!

“What’s your story, kid?” asked Java, so I told the freak my story.

He looked concerned.

Well, either concerned or hungry.

Finally, he spoke, but only after pouncing upon, and devouring a passing ratman who spoke fluent Spanish and English! When he spoke, the ratman’s tail was still dangling from his beak.

I puked, but kept listening.

It’s bad manners to not pay attention when someone’s speaking, you see.

“For the past few days, strange things have been happening,” he said, sounding grave “It seems that you’re from a parallel universe very similar to our own, but totally different in all aspects. The dimensions are collapsing and you’re one of those who fell through, but there’s nothing I can do to help you, except, catch you a ratman or two. They’re very tasty, you know.”

I quickly declined his generous, but otherwise totally disgusting offer, and asked him if there was I could get back to my own universe.

“…and what does an Aristotler do?” I added.

“An Aristotler controls the ratman population,” replied the wise guy, ”There is one way you can go back but it’s almost impossible. The machine that can send you back is in the office of the evil sorcerer, Lord Dragonface. You can’t go there unless you’ve an appointment with him, and if you try to break in, he’ll nearly kill you, revive you, and then repeat the process every hour or so.”

At this point a freaky looking lamb walked up to us singing something that sounded like, “Mary had a little lamb, a little lamb with sharp fangs!”

He wanted to talk to Java and so off they went and I was left alone with Jacy and her Menu.

“So, how come Java knows so much about Dragonface’s habits?” I asked. I had to break a rather embarrassing that settled after Java left us so I asked this question.

Jacy seem to have some time left to kill, so we sat on the edge of the leaf in the sky and talked.

It seems that Java was one of the founding members of the resistance force that was formed to battle Lord Dragonface and his shiny army of darkness. Java was the brains behind the resistance and he had a plan to end Dragonface’s reign of horror.

According to Jacy, the plan seems to involve Java, Internet dating Dragonface, pretending to be a witch!

The plan was a success and Java was invited to Dragonface’s Office of Darkness.

Java went there disguised as a witch. Aristotlers are excellent shape-shifters, Jacy explained.

Once inside he tried to kill Dragonface but failed. Dragonface was too skilled in the dark arts, commerce and science of all kinds!

Java was captured and tortured for fifty years until he finally escaped using the teleporter inside Dragonface’s office.

So, after telling me the story, Jacy pushed me off the leaf! Damn, I thought, they’re gonna have to scrape me off those hard looking rocks way, way below, down there!

I closed my eyes and the next moment I felt a hand hold mine. I opened my eyes and it was the bear! Damn! I was so hoping it was Jacy!

Jacy too, was floating just above us.

Turns out, the air in this planet was thick like water and one can, if limbs are flapped about, swim like a bird!

It was amazing! The breeze swept the hair off my face and the three suns showered sunbeams in truckloads. People, aliens and animal parts were flying about and I nearly pissed in my pants when a T-Rex flew past, wearing dark sunglasses and grinning blissfully, with a giant cigar glued to his immensely ugly jaws!

Strange creatures were having barbecues upon little chunks of floating lawns, ancient Viking ships delivering mails and death threats and the landscape was just beautiful!

It looked just like a very beautiful girl!

Suddenly Smokey black submarines, the size of a small city, appeared out of nowhere and started zapping freaks, aliens, animals and whatnot.

In the confusion, I drifted away from Jacy, and got zapped by a very smelly beam.

I blacked out.

I was lying on top of a giant mushroom, in the middle of a forest, when I woke up. It took me sometime to remember what happened and while I was doing so, something exploded so loudly that it swept me off the ground without a broom!

Giant clouds of smoke raised from afar.

I had to get back to the city, but the trees were so tall, and by now the sky was so dark that I didn’t know which way to go. Actually, that’s just an excuse, I’m just not good with directions, ok?

I wandered, clueless and whatnot, until I got to a little lotus pond. A grumpy looking frog-head midget was sitting on a giant lotus leaf in the middle of the pond, reading a book titled, “Gingery frog-head stories” upside down.

“Hello!” I called out, in my most polite voice.

The froghead didn’t even blink! He kept reading with a look of great concern on his slimy fingers.

“Hello!” I repeated, at the top of my voice. Froghead stayed still, didn’t even breathe!

“Hello Ugly” I screamed, hoping to annoy him into responding, but it didn’t work!

This was starting to get most annoying, so I plucked a brick from a brick tree that was usefully standing nearby, and I beaned the old chap neatly on the head!

Froghead let out a little scream, closed his book with a loud snap and lit a cigar. He then hummed a little song as he sat there, a big bulge on his forehead, puffing out tobacco smoke with a faraway look on his eyes!

I snapped!

I swam through the air and neatly landed beside him, and then, after folding my sleeves up, proceeded to strangle the shit of the weirdo! I shook him hard and assaulted him verbally and physically and then I threw him in the pond.

He sank like a brick, but after a minute, he popped back up to the surface again, with a fish in his mouth, which, he gobbled with a blessed look on his dumb face. I gave up and was walking away, when he said, “hello!”

I turned back but found out that he was just talking to someone on his cell phone!

I walked on.

NEXT: ENTER LADY JANE AND THE FOUR HORSEHUMPERS!

CHAPTER QUESTIONS: A PICTURE OF A CAT

ALL ABOUT JACK

In the haunted forest Cliff walks, a walk that we shall talk about, while we walk.

He was feeling odd.

The haunted trees, the silent hills, the curving of the wind, and from somewhere, an echo… an echo?

He had a feeling that he was being watched. The wind seem to have suddenly stopped blowing, stopped flowing…

The birds all went quite and the noise of the bombs exploding somewhere far, they all disappeared.

No sound around.

He stood in a little clearing where sunbeams squeezed through the treetops, upon the bare ground, untouched, by moulds of short green grass that surrounded it.

The forest was rapidly melting away and he stood still. The sun was so, so warm and he felt very peaceful. He was in a field, Grassland that stretched forever.

He walked down a little footpath, and, for some reason, he was humming a song he had never heard before.

“The boy who isn’t there

Got caught by a face

In past lives they held hands

Intertwined in grace

The boy who isn’t there is me

And him and them and Tim, you see

I hope that it was all meant to be

As all my emotions are running free”

Before him lay a little brook that divided the grassland with a little bridge on a small mould of earth.

It was just one of those days when you feel that nothing can disturb you, the sunshine, the sound of water gently flowing in the brook, the twittering of birds…

Cliff was at peace.

He decided to rest a little so he sat on the little bridge, his feet dangling, toes skipping the running waters of the brook below.

He was just dozing off to sleep when suddenly he heard something move beside him.

He opened his eyes and saw three figures walking towards him.

Dressed in black cloaks with colorful embroideries of twisted faces.

A man with a sadistic mask…

A shady lady…

And, a living skeleton…

Cliff had a feeling that they were up to no good. They were slowly moving towards him without a sound, their creepy eyes fixed on him.

Cliff wanted to get up but he couldn’t move!

Something about their eyes…

Like a flame attracting flies…

Every ounce of will inside Cliff dies…

Something about those eyes…

Cliff felt as if he was being torn to shreds, he wanted to scream but couldn’t. The man with the mask grinned through the mask and lifted his claws as if he was about to do something nasty, when suddenly, an annoying voice called out.

“Hello there! Sorry to interrupt and what not, but do any of you guys know where I can find a washroom around here?”

The eye contact that held Cliff was broken.

The spell lifted

Attention shifted

And their eyes drifted.

There upon a tree by the brook, sitting lazily with one feet dangling, was a shadowy figure. “Really, I need to go, now! Call of the nature, you see, can’t be ignored! Hehe!”

Added the guy on the tree, with a shit-eating grin.

The three strangers stared at him and slowly started drifting towards him, their scrawny fingers twisting with anticipation, and their eyes focusing in and out, reading the aura, reading the soul.

Cliff suddenly recognized the face grinning upon the tree, leaking bad breath with great intensity, I must add. He use to go to the same school as Cliff. He was suppose to graduate the same year Cliff started high school, but he didn’t.

He dropped out.

Yeah, Cliff remembered him… who can forget? There upon the tree was the worst student in all of Knotsville. The psychotic prankster, the oddity that never grew up, the palindrome man, Jack… Red Jack.

“Ah!” said the man with the mask, “What have we here, interesting… so they call you Jack, red jack, eh? We can see into your past, your soul, you aura… there’s nothing you can hide from us.”

The shady lady stepped closer and her eyes lit up as she hissed, “Ah! An oddity! Intriguing… so many faces… abstract thoughts… never underestimate… a living wildcard.”

The skeleton stepped sideways and the air shivered and hologram like images fluttered as he spoke.

“Jack had a little scream

Hid it under 22 masks

But it reappears in his dream

Sad questions, and it asks”

Jack jumped down from the tree. He stood lazily and eyed the strangers for a while.

“C’mon, what’s up with you guys? Me, an oddity? I mean, look at you! Hehe!” he said after analyzing the strangers and then waved at Cliff, who was recovering from a shock.

Cliff remembered Jack. Jack use to go to the same school as him. In fact, Jack was the one person he could always relate to. Jack had his own way of doing things, but that didn’t mean that he walked around with odd cloths and makeup and bizarre hairstyles like all the other kids, who desperately wanted to be different. Here, it must be mentioned that he sometimes does walk around with a wicked home made mask, equipped with a candle stand crown, on.

Cliff remembered the time when Jack walked into a couple of bullies. They were big brick-heads who use to beat up every skinny kid they could get their hands on. They stopped Jack just outside the school and all the students gathered to watch, like sheep they flocked.

The biggest bully punched Jack in the face without a word, just like that. Jack fell on the ground with a heavy thump and then laid still, one of his legs kicking around weakly. It looked as if he was about to die. He lay motionless, grasping for air and then stopped. The bullies panicked and so did everyone else. Everyone thought that the bullies had finally gone too far and killed a kid.

The bullies, realizing what they had done, in front of so many witnesses, almost wept, when all of a sudden, Jack jumps up, and with a shit eating grin yells, “psyche!”

That’s the kind of guy Jack was.

One wicked fruitcake!

This incident had a great impact on little Cliff’s outlook on life.

It changed everything.

The masked man took out a weird spec and puts it on. He then bends down and stares hard at Jack.

“You don’t believe us, do you? Very well, let me demonstrate our abilities by telling you a little bit about your past.

When you were young your family had to move a lot due to the nature of your parents profession. This had a great impact on you, for instance, you had three best friends and you guys were unseperatable, until fate intervened, that is.

Like always, your family had to move to another city far away. You, however, couldn’t stand being away from them so you took them, or rather, their personalities along with you.

Inside your head, there’re always there, aren’t they? Guiding you, arguing with you, constantly begging you to plant stink bombs in the classroom… They turned into your 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th masks, am I right?”

For a second, Cliff thought he saw a flash of sorrow in Jack’s eyes, but then again, he wasn’t sure.

The skeleton grinned, and a tooth fell off. He looked alarmed, searched frantically, and then quickly picked it up and shoved it back in place. Then he began singing again.

“Everywhere the little kid went

People said, ‘what a happy-go-lucky kid!’

The masks sure do know how to entertain

Never showing, what beneath, hid

Who are you, poor little kid?

Who are you, poor little kids?

He thinks that life is a story he’s working on

And he’s slowly turning into a being, imaginary.

Never lets go of characters, long gone

Yeah, he belongs to rhymes, nursery.”

Jack scratched his head and then started to sing his own song.

“The skeleton sounds so self-satisfied

But his deepest secret, I can see

He glances now and then at the shady lady’s breast

And wishes he had an un-fossilized dick, like me! Ha!”

“That isn’t true!” the skeleton yelled. It seems that this time, he forgot to sing his lines!

The shady lady blushed and quickly folded her arms and covered her titts.

The man with the sinister mask grinned.

“Ah, it seems that you’re having quite a good time taking cheap shots at my companions here, but don’t forget the fact that we can see into you, Jackie boy.

Hmmm… let’s see… ah!

You have a nice little problem, don’t ya? You’ve fallen in love twice.

Hmmm… this is interesting… The first girl that you fell in love with, she died a long time ago.

She actually told one of your friends that she liked you very much. She loved you and you loved her, but you, for some reason, never directly told her so.

Then one day, she suddenly died, but you just couldn’t let go, she was still alive inside your head, and the problem starts there. You couldn’t date another girl anymore because you felt that you were cheating on her. This continued for years until finally she appeared in your dreams and told you that she’s dead, and therefore, you should let her go, or join her! Hahahaha!”

The skeleton laughed his head off but quickly picked it up and started his song again.

“His second love is even more funnier

He hasn’t ever met her yet

She doesn’t even talks to him

And he thinks that she’s his fate!

Jackie boy, you’re totally insane

Jackie, oh boy, should I call her Jane?”

The shady lady spoke, her voice trembling, for some reason she seemed moved.

“What’s a nice boy like you doing alone? You don’t know but you’re cursed. The sum of your birth year is 22, which can’t be added further as it’s a master number. Now, your birthday is filled with the number 2. 22/2/22, add them up and you get 1 and that is your destiny but 2 is all about sacrifice and 22 is all about building things. Now, little boy, what do you conclude?”

Jack stood there picking his teeth with a twig, an act that Cliff will master in time, and after doing so for a while replied, “Numerology was made up by a caveman, who probably didn’t even go to school or used any toilet paper, and I don’t follow any man. I maybe just a speck of dust in this vast universe but I shall not be ignored, as always. By the way, you dropped something.”

The Shady Lady bends down to look for what she dropped, when suddenly, Jack yells, “Psyche! Ha! I just wanted you to bend over so I could see your boobies, you have been covering them up for a while now, you know!”

“How long will you deny the truth, Jack? You hate yourself, don’t you? All the philosophical personas of yours like solitude, but the entertainer and the prankster inside you constantly ends up hogging the limelight, you end up being the centre of attention, something you work so hard to avoid at all cost. The prankster stares at my impressive milkshakes, but the old romantic persona hates you for that, doesn’t he? You’re a walking contradiction, Jack, ten thousand theatre masks, and never will a time come when all your personas agree absolutely, there’ll always be an opposition. You cover it up so very well but… let’s say, for example, the stories that you write; sadness creeps out from beneath all the jokes, which were put there to cover up the scream!”

Replied the shady lady, but Jack wasn’t listening.

“Yeah, yeah… whatever you say!” he said, and drooling heavily added, “Can I touch them? I just want to check if you’ve breast cancer, you know.”

“Hehe, that’s the Jack I know!” thought Cliff, who was enjoying this immensely.

Suddenly the three strangers looked up at the sky. A wizard with flaming black hair flew down and landed with a dull thud.

“Well, well, well… what have we got here?”

BACK TO TIM’S DAIRY

I was just about to dig into my lunch when suddenly the door flew open and in stepped an extremely attractive lady accompanied by four psychopaths.

E froze, Ed froze, and I froze too.

The kids all looked at us and then at them as if a tennis match was going on.

The old man murmured something that sounded like, “Damn, I miss my libido!” and sat there poking a lobster in the ribs with a fork.

The Girl was Jane, Ed’s never-ending flame. She however didn’t notice us. They were here to perform. Jane’s in a band, you see. They sound like brain-tumor!

They slithered up the stage and immediately proceeded to play without any sound check or introductions! The other girl that came with them was their friend, she wasn’t in the band, but was there for the free snacks, and so she immediately started eyeing the lobsters, salad, roast zebra and other assorted snacks.

Me, and the gang cheered, along with the kids, who were trying to dance, but couldn’t, because of the broken structure of the noise piece.

E’s uncle immediately turned his hearing aid off.

The pope stood up and demanded that they stop making noise immediately.

“Request denied!” said Jane, the creepy guy with the untuned guitar nodded in approval and continued scratching his guitar.

The bass head threw a playboy magazine at the pope, “Shut up and read that” he added, “there’s some great literature and plenty of surrealistic cumshots in there!”

The girl that came with Jane walked up to the pope and falling at his feet confessed about how she had slipped Viagra into the (the pope’s) soup that he was, at the moment, devouring. She claimed that it was an accidental!

“Forgive me father, for you’re about to sin!” she added, with a grin that could frighten sewer rats.

BACK TO THE NARRATOR

So the restaurant scene continuous, but little did Tim know that Jane and co were there for something else. The performance was a cover up!

NEXT: THE PLAN THAT KEEPS PLANNING.

CHAPTER SURRENDER: HAPPY SPRING

PAST: THE RESTAURANT INCIDENT

Inside the restaurant, the crazy band performs a crazy performance. When, all of a sudden, the door flew open, once again, and a tall lengthy man walks in with a backpack. He was of mixed origin; with long silver hair that curled and uncurled as it they had a mind of their own, an unshaved face that had shadows where normally eyes would have been, and a skin color that’s hard to define. He was dressed in long black cloak that slithered on the ground behind him as he walked.

He slithered in and sat on a table opposite to where Tim and the gang were, at that time, sitting. He kept stealing looks from the corner of his eyes as if he was afraid of something. A waiter floated towards him.

“…And what would you like to have, sir?”

“Rats!” replied the strange man. He replied without looking at the waiter, in fact, he was looking everywhere but at the waiter.

“Wha… uh… excuse me, sir… could you repeat that again?” asked the visibly shaken waiter, who had lots of pimples on his face and kept looking at all the girls in the restaurant at regular intervals.

“Hmm… never mind, just bring me a… a… something… just bring me anything, ok?”

The strange man was getting more and more restless, meanwhile, the band was taking a break and Jane was writing something down on a piece of paper, sitting on top of an amp that looked blessed.

The horny waiter turned out to be a wise guy. He returned to the strange man, with a couple of security guards.

“I’m sorry but I must ask you to leave now, sir.” Snarled the perverted waiter, his thin arms folded on his chest, which was pumped up, and sounding really cocky. “No weirdos allowed, you see. Hehe!”

The security guards stepped forward as if to make a point.

The strange man’s lips curled slightly and he slid his hand inside his backpack. When he pulled his hand back out again, he had a wicked looking fishing hook in his hands. He blew on the fishing hook as if to blow off dust from it, and whispered, “Thanos!”

Tim noticed that Jane had stopped writing, she dropped the paper on which she was so dedicatedly scribbling away, just a few moments ago and the crazy band started playing again. Meanwhile, Tim’s eyes drifted to a shadowy figure in the corner of the restaurant. Tim knew that the guy came in along with Jane and gang but for some reason this guy wasn’t in the band and was deliberately laying low. He had stationed himself by a window in the far left side of the room and was watching the streets as if his libido depended on it. He was sitting in the shadows but he was dressed in the loudest possible colors, his hair looking absolutely freakin’ drunk!

Meanwhile, Tim was suddenly distracted by the sound of people gasping, screaming and whatnot. He turned around to find the waiter and the two security officers lying on the ground… they weren’t breathing, he also noticed the piece of paper that Jane had earlier dropped, was now floating silently, and in a very sneaky manner into the strangers backpack. The stranger closed his backpack and left the restaurant, with a satisfied ghost of a grin on his incomprehensible face.

People started running in all directions and Tim and the gang, sizing the opportunity ran into the crowd, and off into the streets.

PRESENT: CLIFF AND ANDREW

Cliff dragged Andrew and his sister out through the back door as the mother figure stood her ground, with what looked like a digital watch in her hands, and a song on her lips.

A minute later the house explodes into 16798 little burning fragments. Andrew faints.

PRESENT: SYD, ED AND THE BYSTANDER

The bystander took a gigantic joint out of his pocket and lit it. They stood there under the night sky and smoked as stars started to splatter in the sky.

“Enjoy it… it might be the last joint you’ll ever smoke… here’s to Tim” said the bystander as he rolled another one.

“After this joint, we face Hell…”

BACK TO TIM’S DAIRY

I won’t bore you with anything but let’s just say something strange happened and the meeting at the restaurant came to a sudden and a rather fortunate end. Which was fine with me as I had already finished my meal and stuff but Ed was pissed because he was just about to get medieval on the lobsters when the event unfolded.

People were dropping dead inside the restaurant for no apparent reason or logic! There should be some sortta law against such rude behavior. I mean, rudely dying on top of one’s table, upsetting dishes and wine glasses and what not. And as all the alarmed people, and people who hadn’t paid their bills yet, started rushing for the door, Ed came up with this idea that we should join all the healthy people for a jog.

Once outside the restaurant I felt like a sunflower in the sun, well, not inside the sun, just in the sunlight. E was looking pretty relieved too. Ed, however, was the most excited. “Here,’ he said, handing out half-cooked shrimps from his bulging fat-soaked pockets. “I just couldn’t let these poor shrimps go to waste!”

We decided to head back to my place, and crawl around on the floor, with a can of beer in our hands. On the way back, E started talking about the girl that he had never met, again.

“I’ve decided to try to forget her but I just can’t,” he said, kicking a fat sewer rat in the ribs, as we walked through an alley. “So I’ve decided to think of her as a special friend instead. ‘Do anybody but don’t let anybody do you,’ is what I would say to her, you know what I mean?”

Well, from the look on the fat sewer rat’s face, I could tell (I’ve a very sharp mind when it comes to communicating with rats and fish.) that it didn’t seem to give a damn about what E just said. Rats have no feelings, I guess.

At this point, Ed let out a scream. It looks like one of the rats had managed to climb up his legs, undetected and was feasting on the shrimps! (He was just about to take a bite outta what he thought was a fury, giant and quite energetic shrimp when E pointed out that it was actually a sewer rat. Ha-ha!) “Would you shut the hell up? It’s annoying!” he said throwing the sewer rat aside and wiping his hands on E’s shirt.

E was visibly upset, I would be too, for he now smelled like a rat, and there were lots of female rats in the alley. We quickened out pace, in case totally naked female rats come pouring out in hundreds, with condoms in their jaws and whatnot.

“I’ve started to think the same thing about Jane… she deserves someone far better that me, you know.” Said Ed, picking out rat fur from the remaining half-eaten shrimps, that he now held in his hands. E and me nodded in approval.

“But what would you do if you meet her inside a bar, let’s say she meets you inside the ‘hell bar’ and actually starts talking to you, what would you do?” asked E.

“I would probably try to distract her and then run away before she breaks my heart,” replied Ed, looking like a salmon that’s being introduced to a hungry bear.

Around here, I must tell you that I was just about to pat the poor fish-face on the back and loan him my sympathies on high interest, when I suddenly realized that we were completely lost. We must’ve taken a wrong turn because as we walked out of the alley, we were, if I remember correctly, in Venice!

And what’s even stranger was the fact that the strange man from the restaurant was right there, sitting on a boat, and reading horoscopes from a newspaper!

UNKNOWN TIMELINE: JACK, CLIFF AND THE LAND OF OFF

So like I said, a wizard flew down and landed beside Jack.

“Hmmm… is that the student that showed up late?” He asked, turning to the shady lady and pointing at Cliff.

“Yeah, he is the Lairen.” She replied. “Should we take him to his fate?”

Cliff looked at Jack. Jack nodded in approval. “Don’t worry Cliff, it’s alright. Now, I’m not exactly sure about that, but I guess that’s ok… isn’t it ok?”

Having said that, Jack leaned against the tree and began singing:

“A little bird faxed me

About a young soul in sin

Someone, something, somewhere

The sin of early youth that’s already been

Years have passed, so please recover

The future, I like you, to discover”

“Look, look… he’s mocking me again!” complained the skeleton, pointing his fossilized finger at Jack.

“It’s not about you, you perverted bastard! It’s about someone I really care.” Replied Jack. “…And would you mind if I use you for a while to make some soup?”

“ENOUGH!” yelled the wizard, and then turned his attention towards Cliff. “ What’s your name Kid?”

“C-Cliff…”

“Don’t worry Cliff, we’re not going to hurt you. I’m here to tell you something and I’ll offer you two choices, like Morphiouse, or whatever his name was, did in matrix. I’m a wizard, and, believe me, magic exist. It’s a whole world of magic out here. Magical washrooms, magical shit… you name it, we’ve got… er… actually we’ve to check if we’ve got it, I got carried away, but, you know what I mean, right? This world is completely hidden and only a few selected human and certain cows can wander into it. Jack here has been able to access our world quite often, too bad he’s insane otherwise he might have learned quite a lot about magic by now… so what’s going top be your choice? Do you want to become a weirdo with superpowers? If so, come with us, if not, we’ve to perform a lobotomy and erase your memory. Decide!”

In Venice, the clueless walk. Rubbing the wind, and breathing the paint, stepping in, and pouring out, they walk.

They?

Yes, “they”.

I was there, by the sidewalk, sitting upon a fence, brooding in the sun.

I know that you know (After all, you’re psychic! Which scares me away from fantasizing about you, so I change your name every time I do, hehe!) that we know about the fact that they all, must, very soon know, when the time comes for one to know.

Tim and the gang walked past me, and all I could do was smile, and wonder, if I too, had ever, in my world, walked past the one who writes my life.

They looked so carefree, and they were so funny.

Foggy day… Fog clears and we can see Tim, E and Ed waiting for a bus or something, which was odd, as they were now in Venice, which was odd too!

TIM: damn… don’t they have anything that looks remotely like a bus around here?

ED: c’mon Tim, are you stupid or something? Everything floats around here, no roads!

E: (ignoring Ed) How the hell did we get here… just a moment ago we were in a restaurant in Toronto, remember?

ED: Whatever… we’ll find our way back home. Let’s ask someone where the Canadian embassy is.

(They walk around looking for someone to ask directions but find no one. The sidewalks were deserted. They only have sidewalks and canals in Venice, you see. They walk a little, but then take a wrong turn, and wind up in front of a weird magical park or garden or something.)

TIM: Holy Dalmatians, look at that!

ED: (in a faraway voice) It’s… it’s too beautiful to be real…

E: (scratching his head) yeah…

A VOICE: (from a distance) HELP!

E: Was that you, Ed?

ED: c’mon stupid!

(The strange man with the silver hair was drowning in the canal or whatever. Things are really confusing in Venice, you see. They quickly throw him a hand and a leg, and pull him out of the water.)

STRANGER: (breaths heavily, then coughs up some water and then speaks) Thanks dude…

TIM: You’re welcome, weird guy, take it easy.

ED: How did you get down there?

STRANGER: Thanks again, dude! My name is illegal, therefore, I can’t tell. I hope you understand. I can’t remember how I got down there. I was searching for a garden. This garden, it’s been haunting my dreams ever since I was a child…

E: (raising an eyebrow and flashing a hand) Whoa, hold on a sec, freaky guy, what do you mean you’ve no idea how you got down there?

STRANGER: First of all, stop calling me freaky or I’ll kill you, your goldfish, and all the rats in your apartment.

ED: Hehe, just limit your killings to the rats, and I’ll buy you a beer, and what’s all this crap about gardens and similar items?

STRANGER: When I was a child, I was constantly haunted by this garden that I talked about earlier. I call it the lost garden of dada. This garden exists everywhere and nowhere, you see. It exist in your kidneys, in your microwave oven, in your room, beside your bed, it exists in your dreams and… yes… and that’s where I first found it, long ago, I was a little orphan back then.

ED: (grinning) uh… aren’t you technically still an orphan?

STRANGER: I said, I was a little orphan, now I’m a big orphan, get it?

TIM: oh! I think I’m really talented because I just believed a weirdo, which, I’m sure, is a real hard thing to do without sufficient practice.

ED: Shut up, Tim… Go on stranger, tell us your story.

STRANGER: umm… where was I… oh! Right… One Christmas eve, I was trying to sleep when I passed out or something…

E: maybe you just fell asleep…

CLIFF: Shut up, E… Go on stranger, tell us your story.

STRANGER: …and that night I had a dream, and there was this wonderful garden with huge gates. As I stood there staring, the gate, it opened, and the garden it called! I knew I had to answer. From where I stood I got a glimpse of what lay beyond the gates, it was heaven, hell, it was slightly better than heaven! I mean, I couldn’t see any annoying bearded old men with white robs on. It was more like wonderland. Are you familiar with “Alice in wonderland”?

TIM: Yeah, of course, nice band…

ED: Shut up, Tim!

TIM: Shut up, Ed.

Ha-ha, go on stranger, tell us your story.

ED: (wildly frisking himself) Damn, why can’t I find my freakin’ knife every time I want to stab somebody?

STRANGER: As I was saying, I was just about to step into the garden when I felt a sudden pain in my arm. The dream was over, I woke up, and found myself inside an ambulance, needles in my arms. I recovered the following morning.

TIM: (suddenly interested) oh really what did they do to you, I mean, did they give you a lobotomy? Personally, I prefer shock therapy.

STRANGER: (to Ed) What’s up with this guy?

ED: Never mind him… continue the story that you just made up. We’re all ears.

STRANGER: (slightly annoyed) Well, that’s all I can remember about my past. I just woke up today, in an asylum!

(Suddenly the stranger sees his reflection in the water)

Wait a minute, who’s that weird guy? Oh my god, it’s me!!! (Falls to his knees) Oh God… what’ve you done to me?

E: Sorry buddy, by the way, you still haven’t told us how you got here.

STRANGER: Like I said, I have no idea. I was just walking down an alley, and then I was here, and then I was drowning. It was so confusing that I almost thought that I had lost my mind. That’s how I got here. It makes no sense, but it’s a groovy thought though!

TIM: hehe… groovy eh? My grandpa use to say that a lot, and one day, all his teeth fell off, you have been warned!

ED: (Coldly cutting Tim off with a below zero look that only a frozen Eskimo could top) That garden that you were talking about, I think I know where it is…

STRANGER: (with renewed enthusiasm) REALLY?!!

Where is it?

I kindda felt it’s presence a while ago, I was right! I suspect that it was the garden that brought me here. Yes, it must be the garden that rescued me from my insanity, from the asylum, from reality and laws carved by society, to imprison itself, so that it doesn’t fall apart, and melt into the nothingness of empty spaces where gods haven’t yet laid their eggs!

ED: Can I ask you a favor, stranger?

STRANGER: Go on.

ED: OK then, Ahem… SHUT UP, FRUITCAKE! Follow me…

E: Lead the way, fearless leader…

(Ed leads them to the garden but to his surprise the garden had vanished… instead there was an old antique shop where the garden once stood!)

TIM: What the…!!!

ED: SHIT! It was right here… this is getting creepy!

STRANGER: Oh god, I missed it again! (Suddenly a young smile spreads across his technically prehistoric face) The suspense was groovy though, eh?

The garden, it’s testing us.

Will you guys help me find it?

TIM: (Grinning) Only if you promise to kill all the rats in my apartment.

THE LOST GARDEN AND THE DEUX EX MACHINA

The three stooges, and the stranger, are standing outside the old antique shop.

The shop itself was closed.

I jump off the fence, and walked in their direction to get a better view.

E looked visibly depressed and was wildly tearing away at his hair.

Tim was just standing there like a zombie and picking his nose.

Cliff, for some reason, was trying to break into the shop, when, suddenly, the sound of sirens filled their collective ears!

Three cops appear on a boat equipped with sirens and bags of peanut.

The tallest cop pointed at them and waved his fist.

As they get closer, we find that the tallest cop is dumb/mute, the dirtiest cop is blind, and the sleepiest cop is deaf.

They sailed right up to our goons but just as the first officer tried to step ashore, Ed pushed the boat away, back into the middle of the canal.

They, however, didn’t give up, but sailed back again and again.

The first officer tried, repeatedly, to jump ashore, but again, Ed pushed the boat away.

This went on for about fifteen minutes.

By now, the deaf cop was crying loudly.

Puzzled, the blind cop asked him what the fuck was going on, but the deaf cop, being deaf, couldn’t hear him, and, therefore, didn’t reply, which, in turn, made the blind cop visibly upset, probably because he couldn’t figure out why his best friend (the deaf cop) wasn’t talking to him anymore, and so, he decides to start crying too!

As for the dumb/mute cop, well, tired and exhausted, he gave up his attempt to get ashore, shrugged, and joined the other cops, and they sailed away, crying along to the tune of “I can’t get no satisfaction” by the rolling stones.

E: They kindda reminds me of the three monkeys, you know. See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.

CLIFF: well, it just shows that if you follow that rule, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to you.

(At this precise moment a strange looking machine floats down from the sky)

STRANGER: Hey, look out, it’s deux ex machina!

(A terribly mechanical looking machine floats down from the sky, and hovers above them.

The machine flashes, “justice will be served and the good will prevail” on one of it’s many screens, and then, proceeded to pick our boys up and dump them into the water in a neat, orderly fashion. Suddenly, a truck filled with lead bricks, falls from the sky and lands on the deux ex machina.

The deux ex machina emerges from beneath the pile of smashed junk, that once was an utterly painful truck, and then, looking puzzled, projects the following words on the walls of a shop:

“My lawyers will soon be in touch, you crazy whoever-did-that-to-me”

Having done that, it flew away like a drunken housefly!

I grin.

After all, I’m responsible for the safety of my team. Ha-ha, back to the story.

THE COSMIC WRITER PRESENTS, FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT, THE MISERY OF THE FALLEN LOVER. COME ONE, COME ALL, WATCH THE FOOLISH LOVER’S PAIN, AS HE ROLLS IN THE DIRT AND TEARS AWAY AT HIS HAIR. GUARANTEED TO CHEER YOU UP. FUN, FUN, FUN…

CHAPTER OF PAIN: THE LOVER AND HIS BREAKDOWN

TITLE ONE: ENTER ZENO:

He was a totally insane Eleatic philosopher, from Velia, in Italy. Use to hang out on earth around 488 BC. He was the favorite disciple of Parmenides, and this guy was completely fucked up in the head. He had a theory, actually a challenge, of sorts, which went something like this:

To travel a distance, say, a meter, one must first travel a half of the length (1/2) and then half of the remaining half of the distance (1/4) and then another half (1/8) and then (1/16) and so on, until it finally reaches 1/infinity. So, in order to travel a distance, you must first travel infinite number of short distances, which, is impossible, therefore, all movement are, in fact, an illusion.

We’re all always there, standing still, holding hands, and hallucinating!

…So I know I’m already there, in your arms, when, in fact, I’m here, alone, and entertaining myself by adding salt to my roommate’s coffee. Why else did I (we?) undergo that feeling of déjà vu? That’s because you already have loved me, saved my life and sent me down the street, during a snowstorm, I must add, to get our groceries.

TITLE TWO: TORTURING ANDREW: A SPRANKING NAMED DESIRE

5 YEARS AGO.

In a countryside, at the foot of the mountains, two kids play. One of them is a girl named Julie, and, the other kid is Andrew.

Andrew was feeling good that day. He had a new high score on his little pocket videogame, so he decided to show it to Julie, who, unlike any other decent kid, wouldn’t believe him without proof!

“I got a new high score, Julie, and it’s higher than yours!” said Andrew holding out his videogame. Julie snatched it from his hands and then threw it in the river, which, to my surprise, was flowing nearby, and without my permission, I must add! I’ll look into that later on, but, for now, that’s how it went.

Poor Andrew, his lips curled down, started crying. Julie smiled. For some strange reason, she liked it when Andrew cried.

She quietly hugged Andrew tightly, and, as Andrew’s warm tears tickled down her neck, she bit her lips, and whispered in his ears, that she was sorry, and then, she pushed him in the river.

Then she jumped into the river, herself, and pulled Andrew, who couldn’t swim, back to solid walk-able ground. There, she made him lay down, and then she kissed him several times, because, that’s what grown up people did on TV, whenever anybody drowns.

After that she slapped Andrew for jumping in the river without thinking.

“What were you thinking? You could’ve died! Whom will I play with if you’re get bitten by fishes and die?” she scolded, squeezing Andrew’s face.

“But you pushed me…” complained Andrew.

“Why, you little rat! You didn’t even thank me for saving your life!” yelled Julie, suddenly getting all angry, and whipped Andrew with an evil looking stick that was lying nearby. Now, please don’t complain about the fact that there are a lot of things like rivers and sticks lying around, for, what else should they be doing if not lying, teleporting around, for god’s sake?

“Stop it… why do you want to hurt me?” asked Andrew, a red stripe on his butt. Poor guy, seems like that’s where he got whipped! Ha-ha!

Suddenly Julie pushes Andrew away and greets someone. Someone, who looked like something, but definitely didn’t look like a human being, was approaching them at a slow pace. It was Cliff.

Cliff was wearing yellow teeth, black shorts, and a somewhat white t-shirt. He waved at the pair, and then, taking the poor little twig, that had, till now, been suffering the indignity of being chewed upon by the foulest mouth in the west, proceeded to speak his mind, which was funny, for, he didn’t have one to start with!

“What have you guys been up to… all wet and whatnot?” asked Cliff, eying them with suspicion.

“This retard jumped into the river, because he wanted me to marry him, and I wouldn’t agree.” replied our evil little Julie, lying through her poisonous spade-like teeth.

“I thought so, ha-ha, poor perverted Andrew! I’ve great instincts, you know.” replied Cliff, chest puffing, vainly posing against a tree, teeth grinning, and bad breath leaking out in generous amounts.

Andrew lifted his tear-soaked eyes, and was just about to protest, when Julie gave him a threatening look, filled with spiders, snakes, and all sorts of freaky looking aliens sex symbols. Andrew didn’t utter a word. Julie may push him around, but she was the only one he’d let himself get pushed around by, because, in spite of all the pain, he loved it immensely when Julie hugs him occasionally.

“Look guys, I’ve to help mother with her chores, so, see ya’ soon.” With that, Julie slithered off elsewhere.

“You’re one sadistic shameless girl-obsessing kid, aren’t you?” Asked Cliff, after Julie had slithered off the horizon.

“You don’t know the whole story, Cliff,” replied Andrew, wiping tears of his eyes, nose, ears, and socks. He didn’t bother to wipe the tears that were now a muddy puddle on the ground, though.

“Oh, wait… let me guess… you tried to kiss her, right?” asked Cliff, now getting all excited, and stepping on a dog poo that was lying around helplessly. Blame the dog on this one, not me!

“No, anyways, did you go to the doctor today?” asked Andrew.

“No… I hate going there. It smells awful, plus, the doctor has shifty eyes.” Replied Cliff.

Cliff had a rather strange medical condition, you see. Doctors have been puzzled, native-Indian medicine men have been muzzled, and aliens have been dazzled! Ever since he was a kid, he’s still a kid, but I’m talking about a time even earlier, he could add or subtract a dimension to any object or person. He also use to have regular seizures but they eventually got better.

Cliff sees too much information for a normal brain to process, and, bad news is, his brain isn’t even normal, in fact, it’s below average!

Pre-historic, that’s the word! So like I said, this causes Cliff be utterly indecisive. His decision-making skills are more similar to a dodo’s rather than a human’s. Recently, however, a shifty looking doctor has been able to fix this, by putting him on a medication, made entirely out of cigarette buds, old cloths, vinegar, spice and red feathers! Bless that good, but shifty looking doctor!

“ Anyways, did you know that the grumpy old man who lives down the street caught a bird today?” Asked Cliff, desperate to change the topic.

“Really?” replied Andrew, all amazed and whatnot. He took off his wet shirt, squeezed some water out of it, and the put it back on. Now, it looked like a wrinkled cardboard. Fantastic! “Let’s go see, then!” he added, panting like a well-trained dog, after a nice little jog, in the woods, under a log, panting similarly too, was a frog.

“We’ve to rescue the poor bird, it’s was flapping helplessly around the rose bushes and the grumpy old man caught it, it had blood on one of it’s wings.”

“Blood? Is it dead?”

“No… it happened a few days ago. He caught it and then put it in a birdcage. Turns out, the injury was minor, and the bird healed in a couple of days, so, yesterday, at night, I snuck up his porch, and set the bird free, but he heard me and came running out. I manage to escape, but the bird…”

“Did the bird run away too?”

“Shut up, Andrew! So like I said, I manage to escape, but the bird wasn’t so lucky. It seems that its wing had not completely healed yet, it flew a bit, but landed in the rose bushes again, and got entangled in the thorny arms of the rose bushes.”

“So the old man caught it again, right?” asked Andrew.

I believe Andrew is growing some grey matter, because recently, an increase in fish consumption has been noted in his eating habits.

“Yes and the poor bird looks so sad, but now the old man has reinforced security; a man-eating bulldog, two spy cats, and lots of bobby traps!” replied Cliff, looking concerned and lifting his eyebrows slightly, standing in the Clint Eastwood pose, twig in mouth and whatnot.

“But we have an advantage…” replied Andrew, looking like a sneaky, but mental retarded rat.

“Really! What?” An utterly surprised retard, replied.

“We have two brains working on this case, but the enemy has just one, the grumpy old man himself! Of course, the bulldog might count if it was highly educated, or was a highly intelligent poet or a business dog, in which case, we must proceed with utmost tact and cunning.”

“Like highly intelligent snakes slithering in the grass, or like the silently cunning, and twisted dog shit on my shoes, eh?”

“Exactly… so what’s the plan?”

“I thought you were the one who had a plan!”

“Oh… um… thanks for thinking so highly of me!”

Finally the boys, after planning and plotting for three short, but very wide hours, had a plan. This is their plan:

LORD ANDREW AND LORD CLIFF’S AWESOME PLAN

Wait till sunset, test dog’s intelligence by throwing a grade 9 math book at it, then, if smart, the drooling jaws will be occupied with solving the equations, otherwise, bribe it with a vegetarian hamburger.

Then comes the cat, we must buy some tuna and procure a dead rat. Problem solved.

Booby traps: will be disarmed when the cat is lured out with the tuna, as all bobby traps will snap on the cat, and the cat being a bloody cat, will somehow escape and descend upon the tuna.

Old man: pissed! Ha-ha!

PLOT FINISHED! AREN’T WE SMART?

That evening, just as the sun was setting, the two idiots slithered like snakes towards the old man’s house, huge freakin’ grass stains on their shirt!

Andrew crept up to the fence, and threw the math book at the bulldog. That’s when everything went wrong, the dog started barking wildly, throwing its jaws at their direction. The old man ran out, and our idiots tried to make a hasty retreat, but Andrew slipped and fell, and hurt himself so bad, that he couldn’t walk! The bulldog came after them, drooling in slow motion, the old man came after them, drooling in slow motion, and, last, but not the least, the cats came after them, eyeing the chunk light tuna in their pockets, in slow motion.

It didn’t look good. Everything was falling apart when suddenly a shadowy figure stepped out from the darkness.

“You guys need a hand?”

It was Julie!

VENICE STORYLINE

So, after being dumped into the canals by the deux ex machina, the boys got out of the water and began loitering here and there, cluelessly. Meanwhile the stranger slipped off somewhere, “to meet somebody” he told the boys.

So Tim, Ed and E were walking down the alley when they bumped into a fully stocked guy. One look and you could tell that the guy was well fed. He had a black eye and broken teeth. He pushed E. “can’t you freakin’ see where you’re going?” he yelled.

“No… can you, wise guy?” replied Ed. The healthy guy snapped like a twig and started throwing punches at Ed.

Tim and E jumped in.

After a few seconds, they jumped out with black eyes and broken teeth.

Ed and the healthy guy agreed that they had enough and now sat on the road panting and blood stained.

“I hate you, but, at the same time, I feel that you’re a real nice guy.” Said Ed, coughing up blood.

“Do you want a cigarette?” asked the healthy guy.

Wait a minute, is smoking healthy?

Well then, kids, remember, every morning, when you wake up, don’t forget to drink your milk, and smoke a cigarette!

“Thanks, I will enjoy this smoke while thinking about how I gave you a black eye and stuff.” Replied Ed, with a grin.

“What? I was planning to do the same. Cheers!” and with that the healthy guy strolled down the sidewalk.

After the beating they took, the boys were all tired out and stuff, so they decided to rest by a bridge, when suddenly, Tim noticed something. A book was floating down the canal towards them. There was something strange and mysterious about the book. The book, surely, was not ordinary, it called out to them, and it swallowed their thoughts.

Tim managed to grab it as it floated by.

They hurdled around it. On the back of the book was a picture of a girl with a banana, and, on the front, written in pale ancient ink, were the following words:

“FADED JEANS FLOAT ACROSS THE BLOOD RED SKY”

CHAPTER OF PAIN: AS YOU WANTED, CHEERS!

Julie whistled.

A dark figure emerged from behind Julie, and the dark figure growled. It was Julie’s crazy dog, Jeff.

It’s rumored that Jeff is actually a half wolf and stuff, hell, some even say that Jeff is actually half alien-half stuffed pillow or something!

Jeff growled a bit more and then got to work, demonstrating “muay thai” techniques on the grumpy old man’s bulldog. The grumpy old man, himself, was too dazed to react.

He stood there, frozen, looking every inch like a snowman with a wicked stomachache.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of this great advantage, Julie and Cliff drag Andrew away.

“Julie, what are you doing here? Aren’t you suppose to be in bed… I mean, you sneaked out, didn’t you?” asked Cliff, panting a bit here, and shaking a bit there. He had too much adventure for a day, I guess, what with the old man running at them with a shotgun and two crazy cats, and all that!

“Yeah, whatever! What the hell were you guys trying to do? I saw you slithering through the grass like retarded snakes with no legs, so I sneaked out of my window, climbed down a tree, and came to see what the hell you guys were up to.” Replied Julie looking rather impatient and then looking frequently at Andrew. “Is he hurt bad?” She asked Cliff.

“Nah, he’s fit to run for the Olympic gold. Just sprained his ankle, that’s all.” Replied Cliff, rather proudly, for he felt like a hero helping a helpless soul and what not.

“We were planning to rescue a little bird but it didn’t work out well… anyways, the best thing to do now is to retreat and plan.” He added, a tad scared.

“Well, I’m taking Andrew to my house. His leg is bleeding, and my dad’s a doctor so see you tomorrow, Cliff!”

Cliff hurried home, unaware that the old man was following him, at a distance, with a shotgun glued to his claws. Funny thing was, he thought he saw Julie kiss Andrew as he walked away. He was thinking about this as he walked back home when he had an old feeling erupt inside him.

Oysters on acid, cats on parade, limpid lettuce and peeps integrate. Red, yellow and a twisted fan, lectures are in progress and elephants too, spinach sauce and garlic toothpaste, flashed wildly, thrashed, mashed.

Crashed.

Cliff crashed.

Caught up in all the excitement, poor Cliff had forgotten to take his medication! He fell to the ground with a loud thud, stomach pain unfolding, arteries hurting, veins twisting, body shaking, and dimensions unfolding.

The sky turned grayscale, divided at every 36 degrees into a different shade. Tones and tints melted and out of the grey mess a dimension erupted upon the lonely deserted road, and then everything was silent.

“Ah! Got you, you sneaky little thief!” barked the old man, lifting his shotgun and taking aim at Cliff, who was laying on the road, semi-unconscious.

The old man’s finger tightened around the trigger. Squeeze! Bang!

“!”

What the hell just happened?

Well, I’ll tell you what happened. Something big jumped in front of Cliff when the shot was fired. The bullets hit the big shadowy thing, whatever it is, but bullets didn’t seem to have any impact upon this thing!

The old man stood there for a minute, shivering like a steel pole, but quickly recovered, and took off like a very good, well oiled car.

As the thick smoke and noise from the shotgun shots cleared, a huge bear walked out, followed by a really cute girl.

The girl bent down and inspected Cliff, and the bear stood there and scratched its butt. Nasty thing to do in public, I must admit. Hehe.

“Oh Cliff…” whispered the pretty girl and silently taking out a wristband from her pockets, yes, she was equipped with pockets, and putting it on Cliff’s wrist. She then kissed him on the forehead.

The bear looked puzzled.

“It’s ok, he’ll be fine otherwise he wouldn’t have met us.” She replied, apparently at the bear, for there was no one else around. Well, there was somebody about a mile away but he doesn’t count.

The grayscale sky broke like cheap mirrors, and the bear and the girl were gone with the wind.

It was nearly dawn when Cliff woke up. He felt very weak and tired, his body ached, and his eyes were blurry and red.

He, somehow, felt very depressed and weird.

There was a girl that he kept dreaming about since he was in uterus, and he saw her again, tonight, when he blacked out.

The funny thing is Cliff could never see her face clearly. She usually comes to him, in his dreams, when he’s really sad. She never speaks, and never shows her face, but quietly hugs him, and that’s when Cliff always wakes up.

Cliff has this feeling that one day she would hug him tight and show him her face, and he hold her too and kiss her lips, and that day she won’t let him go back to the cruelty of the real world, that day she won’t let him suffer anymore, she would hug him forever, and he would never wake up.

That day he would be back where he belongs, that day he truly will become what he always was, a dream, just a carefree character in a funny story, a non-being, nirvana, nothing.

Cliff staggered his way home. He wasn’t really concerned about what his parents would say, how long he’d be grounded, for he had no one in this world but his friends. He was living like a cat in the nature reserve when he first met Andrew. That’s when Andrew introduced him to a bunch of other kids, and they helped him built a tree house in the nature reserve, and they would regularly bring him cloths or food or books. One time, one of the retarded kids even bought his sister’s bra to Cliff!

He Climbed up his tree house and was just about to go to sleep when he noticed the wristband. The wristband had a circle on it. It somehow looked very familiar, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t recall where he got it from or what it meant. He, for some reason, felt that it was a parting gift or something, and then he fell asleep.

“Wake up retard!”

Cliff woke up with a jump and a kick. It was Julie and Andrew.

“Listen, I’ve a wicked plan.” Said Julie, with a sinister smile.

VENICE STORYLINE

They gathered around the book. The girl on the back looked strangely familiar. She wore a white sweater with black dots and had a banana in her hand. There was something about the expression on her face.

Here are some of the expressions that she seem to be expressing in that picture:

Expression one: The expression of a mother watching her child do something stupid and going, “ah, there he goes again!” expression two: the expression of a lover was watching her lover.

Expression three: The grim expression of victory?

Expression four: utter beauty and goodness of soul.

The last expression was so damn strong that they couldn’t look at it and turned the book over because she looked so, so innocent and good that it made them look totally evil and bad.

Ed was just about to read the book when the stranger returned. He seemed really surprised and horrified when he saw the book.

“Don’t read that book,” he yelled. “It’s not a normal book, it shouldn’t be read without first undergoing a proper meditation or medication.”

He snatched the book from Ed. “It’s magick,” He added, “There are rules that must be followed or you’d be stuck in here forever.” With that he wandered off again, this time fading away into thin air with every step he took. What a freaky guy, eh?

Ed was pissed, Tim was surprised, and E kept yelling that he was hungry.

After a while, the boys decided to walk to the Canadian embassy. They were doing so, and in orderly fashion, when out popped the three cops, and arrested them without a word or a smile.

Ed, however, didn’t seem to mind; he was busy stealing the cop’s wallets. E started crying but Tim managed to comfort him, by telling him, that the worse that could happen was a minor death sentence.

An hour later:

The Prison cell was cold and damp, which wasn’t what worried them, it was the seven feet tall murderer, who was eyeing them with sick intentions, that was worrying them.

The clock ticked on and stuck midnight. The cops snored in chorus, and inside the prison cell, the murderer made his move.

He started touching E, and E didn’t like it one bit, which made the murderer even more cheerful. He punched E and knocked him unconscious. Ed and Tim jumped in to help E out but the murderer smashed into them, breaking Tim’s leg and Ed’s nose.

Ed went into a fighting frenzy, got up, and jumped at the murderer, but, in the end, after a brutal fight, the murdered stabbed him with a prison-made knife.

Ed lay on the ground bleeding from multiple stab wounds, his vision blurring fast. The murderer then knocked Tim so hard that Ed could hear his bones shatter into bits.

Tim didn’t move, he laid still, like a lifeless rag doll, on the floor.

In the corner of the cell Ed cried, and, as he lay there dying, he prayed to god for the first time in his life, begging for the safety of E and Tim, and as darkness engulfed his vision, he wondered if it was too little, too late.

The murderer grabbed E, who was recovering, and beat him up some more, he then pulled his pants down with a sick grin.

RED JACK’S MISSION

Having wrote his little biography, Jack signs. It was time for him to do what he had to do. Time was running out. He didn’t know if he would still be alive after the mission, but he didn’t care. All he ever wanted was to be loved, and if he succeeds, even if he dies, he would know that he would be loved, so with this thought, he steps out.

Somewhere, at a distance, a crow howls.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY 2007!

Cliff was still dizzy and very much shaken from what had unfolded last night. He hit his head on the low ceiling as he jumped up, needless to say, he crashed down again.

“Do it again, do it again!” begged Andrew, smiling, with a sprained ankle.

Julie whacks Andrew on the head with a TV remote control, which apparently was working, for Andrew shuts up, immediately.

Julie cleared her throat, and the two idiots flapped their ears and listened. “Listen, the plan is that, you and Andrew will distract the grumpy old man, and I will set the bird free, while he’s busy shooting at you!”

“That’s brilliant, Julie, you’re a genius!” chocked Andrew, for Julie had shoved a mean elbow, earlier, at his throat, as he was finishing his sentence.

Cliff sat up and wrote something down on a piece of paper that lay on the table. This is what he wrote:

“Breakfast for three.”

And then he snapped his fingers and bam! The table, which not so long ago, didn’t had anything on it, but a blank paper and lots of air, suddenly was surprised to find breakfast for three on it.

Andrew gasped!

“Cliff, you’re suppose to use your powers, remember? Don’t tell me you’ve quit taking the medication.”

Cliff frowned, “You don’t have to eat, if you don’t want to, you know.”

Julie nodded from behind a pile of hamburgers, fried coffee, and various other stuff in shiny packages, which people generally have for breakfast.

Later on, in the day, they get ready to perform their plan.

A garbage can rolls down a deserted footpath, causing agony to every working ear. As it rolls to a creaky halt, out from it, jumped two whimsical kids.

Once out of the garbage can and into the field, they immediately start slithering through the tall grass. A moment later, Cliff yells loudly. “Damn, aaarrrggghhhh… Andrew, I think I just slithered over one gigantic dog poo!”

“I bet it was dished out by the old man’s stupid bulldog!”

“Sssshhhhhhhhh! Let’s be careful.”

They crept up to the old fence. Andrew quickly took a peek through a small gap in the fence.

“What do you see?” asked Cliff, crying with anticipation and whatnot.

Andrew turned to him, and replied, “Well, just a moment ago, I was seeing a lot of interesting things, but now all I see is your dumb shit stained face! Seriously Cliff, I refuse to participate in this mission unless you wash your face, and throw away that shit stained shirt of yours.”

They sat by the fence, and began to argue loudly, about, among other things, dog shit. Andrew, was absolutely refusing to cooperate, unless his demands were met, on the other hand, Cliff, was doing his best to convince Andrew, how dog poo can sometimes be highly motivate and whatnot!

At last, Cliff drew a fresh shirt, and some soap and water, and adding dimensions to it, made them real, and did what Andrew insisted.

Once shit free and fresh, they resumed their mission. Under the cover of darkness, Cliff sneaked towards the house and threw a rock through a window. The bulldog started barking, but didn’t come charging after them, like it did before. It was obviously anxious about running into Jeff again, hehe!

The noise was followed by an even greater noise, the noise of drunken yells and rampaging footsteps! The old man, it seems had installed some back up. Within seconds, a dozen rednecks rushed out, shotgun in their hands and dirt on their tongues!

Andrew and Cliff ran. They ran like hell. They ran into the nature reserve and they grinned. Everything was, up to that point, going according to the plan. Julie would’ve already set the bird free and was probably on her way to the tree house, right now, for they agreed to meet their earlier. The only thing left to do now, was to lose the old man’s mob of bloodthirsty rednecks, but it proved much harder than they thought.

After ten long minutes, Cliff decided that they needed to split up.

“Andrew, go wait for me at the tree house, I’ll have to lead them away from the tree house, I don’t want anybody to know about it. Now go, Julie might already be there.”

Andrew ran through the woods, breathing heavily, when he bumps into Julie! She had reached the tree house a long time ago, but got worried when Andrew and Cliff took so long to return, so she came looking for them.

She was just asking Andrew where Cliff was when they heard Cliff scream, several gunshots followed.

VENICE STORYLINE.

The murderer grinned, he was ready to do the nasty.

Shove! The key turned and the bars creaked. An officer.

“What’s going on here? That’s it, mister murderer, you got yourself a month of solitary confinement, did you know that? As for you, idiots, you’re lucky someone just bailed you out. Now hurry up and get your broken bones outta here! Follow me.”

They took the murdered away after hitting him a couple of times, with one of those sticks that they usually carry along with their doughnuts.

Ed and Tim were carried out on a stretcher as E followed the cop slowly. The cop stopped in front of a door, turned to E and asked, “Do you know who bailed you guys out?”

“No, sir” replied E, tears in his eyes.

The cop didn’t reply. He, instead, opened the door, and threw E in. There in front of E was a girl, the one that he earlier saw, at the back of the book that swam, and she was with the stranger.

She somehow looked real familiar.

She hugged E. E was blessed.

“Thank you.” He whispered into her hair.

PRESENT TIMELINE: THE LADY WITH THE RINGS

As they sat there smoking their last smoke, the bystander telling Ed and Syd what happened, Ed suddenly stood up.

“So who is this girl? She kindda remind me of Jane, in a very strange way.” Asked Ed.

The bystander smiled, and Syd immediately begged him not to. He suspected that the bystander’s breath might be radioactive; it was so stinky that it was visible! Jets of pale green stench poured out with every sentence uttered.

“Jane, Julie, Judy, Jacy and Miss J, they’re all different aspects of her persona. Remember, I told you that our life is a story and someone’s writing it?” replied the bystander. “Well, a story is like a baby, it has parents, and she’s the mother of this story which is our life. Ah, well, now that I think of it, today’s mother’s day, let’s all wish her a happy mother’s day!”

With that the Idiots raise their eyes to the pale blue eyes that stared at them from over the clouds and yelled, “HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! Here’s wishing Oma all the good health and serenity she deserves! We LOVE you!”

CHAPTER LOVE

Andrew nearly screamed as Cliff’s scream faded into shotgun shots, but Julie quickly managed to cover his mouth in time. Good thing, I mean, worse things than a scream that gives away their position had escaped from that little mouth in the past. Seal that mouth forever if possible, is what I’d say, if you ask me.

“Oh Julie, I hope that Cliff is ok.”

“Sssshhhh! I think they’re coming this way… quick, this way!”

Julie slipped her hand into Andrew’s hand and squeezed, and for a moment, they stood there frozen, lost in each others eyes, then Julie dragged Andrew out of sight as, moments later, the redneck mob smashed into sight.

They ran and they ran, deeper and deeper into the woods. Behind them, a shadow quietly follows, it stared and it followed, without a word, rhyme or reason. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll ever know.

The trees started to look the same, and a dense fog starts to settle. Julie and Andrew were now totally lost. They stopped running. They couldn’t hear the mob anymore.

“I think we lost them, I just hope Cliff’s ok” Julie said, panting heavily.

“I think we’re lost, I just hope Cliff’s ok” replied Andrew and immediately let out a howl as Julie’s elbow smashed into his mouth.

“Suck my elbow!” she added, as if it was a catchphrase.

They sat beside a tree and rested for a while. After about an hour, they decided that it was about time they go back and check on Cliff.

“Let’s be very careful, Julie, I’m really scared...”

“Scared of what? The only thing you should be scared of is me!” barked Julie, grinding teeth.

“I… I… I’m scared that they might get y… you… I mean… um…” Well, Andrew was about to say that he loved her and stuff, but he realized that Julie wasn’t listening to him anymore. She was already busy finding the way back, so he killed the sentence and followed her silently.

Julie looked worried. The trees, somehow, had all rearranged themselves, and the little footpath they were on was now twisted into a knot, it had turned into a scribble, entangling thoughts that tried to walk down it, even the footprints were now floating in the air like condom balloons filled with hot air!

Everything had gone insane, and they searched, in vain. Everything had gone insane, and they hugged each other, in pain…

They wandered, and they wandered, but they always ended up back where they started. Something was terribly wrong. They were getting hungry and tired, and the forest was getting darker and darker. Suddenly, Andrew tripped on something and fell. Partially covered in dry leaves, was an old broken signpost.

“Look, Julie! We might get some directions!”

Julie picked it up and brushed the dry leaves and dust that had stuck to it. It read:

Beware; you’ve wandered into the land of the lost!

“What does it mean, Julie?” Asked Andrew, suddenly getting tense, his heart beating hard, in chorus, to hers.

“Nothing, Andrew, it’s just a stupid sign.” Lied Julie, for she didn’t want to make Andrew sad, but deep inside, she knew that their chances of them ever getting out of there was almost none. She had heard about the land of the lost before. Her grandfather, who was the only man to ever walk out of the land of the lost, use to tell her stories, stories of people who wandered in, and never ever came back out.

It is rumored that once the land of the lost was a lust green forest where anyone could come and go as they pleased, but, one day, man invented bronze, and then they began to make weapons of bronze, with which they started cutting down trees, and making houses. The trees in the land of the lost disappeared one after another, until, one day, only one last tree was left standing. The last tree cast a spell on the surrounding area before, it too, was cut down. Now, due to the spell, only wild animals can find their way out of the land of the lost. Any human who wandered in, disappeared, like the trees that once grew there. In time, the forest grew back, as woodcutters stayed away, for, otherwise, they’d get lost and eaten by the woods, thus keeping the trees safe.

Julie’s heart was heavy as they lay there in complete darkness. She wouldn’t have felt this sad about dying if she could only save Andrew. She thought about this for a while. About her saving Andrew… Andrew growing up without her… Andrew dating some pretty girl… at this point, she, for an instant, felt jealous, but as she looked at the idiot blissfully asleep beside her, she knew she’d much rather see Andrew walk away alive, with some other girl, than die there with her.

She knew what she had to so, she would make a deal with the woods, the way her grandma did, and saved her grandpa. She looked at Andrew again, and in a sudden burst of emotions, she put her arms around Andrew and hugger him so tight that he woke up with a groan.

Julie took his hands and wrapped it around her own waist, and then she held his face in his hands and there, they stared into each other’s eyes, and as Andrew fell into Julie’s endless blue eyes, she kissed him a kiss he’d never forget.

A Shadow nearby shifted and out flew a little bird. It waited till the kiss the over, and then flew down and sat on Julie’s shoulder. It caught a bit of Julie’s hair and pulled. Julie turned. Surprised! It was the same bird she and the gang had rescued earlier!

It gave Julie a meaningful look and then flew away.

“It wants us to follow! Andrew, we’re saved!”

An hour later Andrew and Julie were at the tree house, but Cliff wasn’t there. They hurried down the tree and began looking for him frantically. The bird, which I suspect has more I.Q that it needs, appeared again and they followed it to a ditch.

There in the ditch was Cliff. His shirt had several bullet holes in it and when they called his name, he didn’t move or respond. He was still.

They were climbing down into the ditch when Cliff groaned.

“Damn, my shirt is ruined, and my head feels like a heavyweight wrestler.” He said, taking off his shirt. His chest was covered with about twenty painted bullets! Seems like the sneaky idiot had managed to subtract certain dimensions off the bullets, microseconds before it hit him!

VENICE STORYLINE: TIM’S DAIRY

Ha-ha, Dear Dairy, I woke up today, with several ex-broken bones!

A hot nurse drifted in with breakfast. I snatched a doughnut off the tray before she could blink. Ha! Poor nurse, she stood there dumbfound, her mouth wide open, like a fish who just had a fishing hook pulled out of it’s slimy gum.

I, obviously, had surprised her with my superior agility.

I was just planning to surprise her even more with my extensive knowledge of the different varieties of peeps and whatnot, when E walked in, looking mighty blessed.

I later found out that his anus was saved from being broken, at the last moment, by that mysterious, exceptionally beautiful and banana loving girl that we earlier saw, on the back of the book. Ha-ha!

Well, E blinked at me, or rather my doughnut and said (drooling a bit now and then, I must add), “Tim, the story of our lives… it’s just about to take a whole new turn!”

PRESENT: THE CULT OF THE FISHING KINGS

Cliff could only watch on as Andrews house exploded.

As the smoke slowly cleared, out stepped the fishing kings! The fishing Kings, it seems, are invincible or something, must be all the spinach they eat, eh?

Out of the fire, they walked, strangely, smelling like roasted fish! Andrew’s dad was carrying his unconscious/dead wife on his shoulders.

The short freak, Hammerhead, raised his 8-inch nose into the night air and sniffed.

“The kids are running into the woods!”

The Bait maker grinned, “ Let’s torture them first and then kill them slowly, after all, two of them are mine…”

VENICE STORYLINE: TIM’S DAIRY

I was confused. I mean, this idiot comes barging in, while I was just about to enlighten the poor old nurse on the proper technique to digest a peep and what not, so naturally, I was slightly annoyed.

“What do you mean, dear old pinhead?” I asked, as politely as I could, for, I’m a gentleman, and, would never resort to such dirty habit as using swear words.

“Not here, not now.” Replied the idiot. I couldn’t figure out if he was talking to the nurse or me for, through the corner of my eye, I could see the nurse arranging her pillow-size hand revitalizers.

This was getting rather annoying. It got even more annoying the moment he started eating my breakfast!

I reminded myself to... what was it? Damn it! I forgot what I was about to remind myself!

Anyways, by this time, another question popped up in my mind.

“Where is Ed?”

I must admit, I was getting a bit worried about that old bastard! I was about to worry a little more, when, all of a sudden, the nurse shut me up with a doughnut! After I finished the doughnut, I couldn’t remember what the hell I was about to get so worried about. Cool!

I ate a whole lot of peanut butter, and then quickly ate a lot of bread. Wasn’t very nice, but maybe next time, I’ll eat all the bread first, and then eat the butter, eh?

E, after gobbling my breakfast and coffee, seem to be very nourished and refreshed, for, he immediately started gossiping with the nurse, very much like an athlete on steroids, ha-ha!

After collectively showering me with bad breath, dry gossip, and chunks of saliva for about half an hour, E finally looked away, the nurse sizing the opportunity immediately, managed to sneak out of the room, in full speed.

She gave me a look of pity as she closed the door behind her, as if to say, “I’m sorry about you, guy, but my ears are already bleeding, listening to him talk, on and on, and on!”

I was trapped! If my legs were fully healed I would’ve excused myself and ran the hell outta there, but I couldn’t, for I was temporarily crippled.

E was getting unbearable. He reminded me of a really big dog, the kind that always sits there, drooling all over your breakfast, with a silly grin on its face!

Finally, I couldn’t bear any more, I had to escape. Using every single muscle in my brain (is there even any muscle present in a brain?)I thought.

Finally, it hit me!

“Dear old friend, E!” I said.

“What, what?” He replied eagerly, hopping around like an energized bunny, almost before I finished my sentence.

“Do you remember the nurse you were talking to?”

“Yes, yes, yes… how can I forget… yes, yes, yes…” he replied, looking a bit dazzled, but otherwise thoroughly excited.

“I think she wants you to follow her. She’s behind that bush. What’s it all about?” I asked, pretending to be as innocent as I could be. In fact, there was no nurse behind the bush in the garden, outside. I just made it up to fish E off my freakin’ room.

“Really?!! Oh… she probably wants to ask me if the food was ok and stuff… I’m afraid, but I’ve to leave you alone for a while, bye!” he replied, closing the window, and pulling the curtains down, added, “No peeking!”

Having said that, he ran off, right into the door! What an amusing idiot! This time he produced a helmet from a little backpack that he had, and shoving it into his head, proceeded with the attack. The door creaked, and the idiot moaned.

I staggered to the door, and opened it for the poor idiot. He thanked me graciously, and while doing so, fell off the stairs. Ah, well, young idiots in spring, so full of energy and whatnot!

I staggered back to bed and I thought about her. Eyes that kept staring, while outside, it kept raining…

VENICE STORYLINE

Things were getting blurry, and I started to doze off under the influence of the hot summer noon. I was dozing all over the place like nobody else’s business, when, in walked E! I had, in my newfound bliss, forgotten to lock the door. Damn, too late, the idiot was already in!

This caused me to convert my mid-summer daydream into a mid-summer day scream. I screamed and my jaw nearly snapped.

“Careful with the broken jaw… btw, I couldn’t find the nurse… which bush were you pointing to? Was it the rose bush or the cactus? It funny, I mean, I checked both but found no nurses attached to it. I only found one female, too bad she was a bird, not human… blah, blah, blah…”

On and on, the idiot went on. Annoying me with striking brilliance, flies encircling all around him. I dozed off again. I felt confident that one could stand E’s prattle if, the said listener is asleep, while the speech is being delivered. But I was utterly wrong.

I was dozing off like a good boy after gobbling a thanksgiving turkey in advance, without proper permission from his/her parents and whatnot, when E’s constant bad breath began sipping into my dreams.

Needless to say, inside my beautiful but manly/macho head, my dream started rotting away into a nightmare.

This annoyed me and it would, if drastic actions weren’t taken, probably annoy me for the rest of the… um… day? Nah… year… that’s more like it! So, like I said, I had to take drastic actions or my year would be ruined. I woke up immediately, and told him to go get me a coffee, extra large.

I was feeling rather proud of myself for being a man, I mean, only hard and tough guys who are well oiled in the head, like me, can think up of such a brilliant plan to get rid of E, while under the stress of one of his lengthy ear bleeders.

Strangely, I began to miss the retard when he didn’t return, after about three hours. I was worried. Call me sentimental, but a man’s got to have his coffee while it’s still hot and stuff. A tear rolled down my cheek as I thought about the coffee, which was meant to be mine, but is probably rotting away in E’s hand.

I think I was slipping into deep depression when E returned, looking all excited, in a strikingly stupid way, rather like a snow owl dining on a lab rat, which, for some strange and unexplained reason, was stuffed with Viagra pills, by some sick scientists!

He, for reasons that I haven’t deciphered yet, looked excited and confused. Well, here I must tell you that the bastard’s always confused, like a sperm without a map to the egg, but he rarely looked excited. I thought hard and fast, and after two minutes of hardcore thinking, I deduced that my tired ears were about to get a mouthful of good news.

“Come on, guy, stop looking stupid and start spread your bad breath!” I barked. My message, it seems, got parked.

“Uncle’s here! Turns out, the old bastard got here just now!” he yelped, rather like a puppy with an erection.

“He came for us?” I asked, tears almost shedding, nostrils fuming and whatnot. I was touched. (Not in any physical way, you horny reader!)

“Nah, he is on vacation! But the good news is, we can stay at his place until the Canadian embassy sorts this whole mess out!”

This was good news. I mean, this boy is dying for some high society action, and now it came straight to the boy, who, in case you’re clueless, is me!

So E wheeled me out of the clinic/asylum, I can’t figure out which, and off we went to his uncle’s place. On the way, I noticed that E looked a tad more confused than usual, and I being a good friend, slapped him in the head a couple of times, to cheer him up.

“What’s up, E?” I asked.

“Well, I was thinking about her…”

“Her, who?”

“Her… the girl that I had never met… Miss J-3-22.”

I signed. It’s been a long time since he spelled out her name like that. E’s a numerology nut, you see. Turns out, the “3-22” thing is the numerological interpretation of her first and last name. He has the same numbers so he use to demand that we refer to him as, “Mr. E-3-22”. Obviously, none of us complied. I mean, something… can’t remember right now, but… well... anyways, read on.

“Do I look like a stalker, Tim?” he asked, sounding like a sad fish pooping in a pool of beer.

“Why do you ask?” I asked.

I was sly.

I needed to get the full details. What if this idiot was really a stalker? What if he was a wanted man? Would they have a price on his head? If so, my dream of getting rich was soon about to be fulfilled, hehe!

“I mean, I saw the news today and there was this sick rapist/stalker on TV. I’ve been thinking and I wonder if all the messages that I sent to Miss J-3-22, despite her not wanting to do anything with me, makes me a stalker?”

“Just limit the name to Miss J, ok? As for your question, I’m sorry old friend, but I wasn’t listening to a damn thing you just said!” I said. I meant it to sting.

Here I was, high on my dreams of turning E in and getting rich and whatnot. Damn!

I brooded over this new developed for a while. The news item that E mentioned was on TV today. The nurse had put it on for me. It was about this sick rapist who had moved to Vancouver after he was released from prison. The old residence, however, were having none of it. They wanted the sicko out of their neighborhood. Good thinking, I mean, I’ve a few people residing there whom I love and respect, and if they don’t get up and kick/kill/torture this ugly sick rapist from their neighborhood, then I’ll probably lose all my respect for them.

There is a limit for everything, and this rapist had, obviously, crossed it repeatedly. Letting him settle down in one’s neighborhood certainly means putting one’s loved ones and kids at ultra high risk. I mean, a sober junkie would never stay sober if you keep waving a bag of drugs at his face. In a similar way, how do you expect a rapist to behave when there are so many easy prey running around in the neighborhood? Plus, as far as I’m concern, most of the girls in Vancouver are beautiful, which would only entice him more!

“…so, do you think I’ve been acting like a stalker?” E asked.

“Absolutely! You’re a sick guy, dude!” I replied coldly. Why does this guy tries his best to disturb me every time I’m brooding over something or nothing?

E got the point and silently walked along. I started brooding again. This time, however, I wasn’t thinking about that ugly sicko, I was thinking about someone else… her… endless eyes… felt her… passion… this week’s Monday… 4^th of June…

I was slipping into a state of numbness and bliss when E suddenly stopped walking. I recovered, but still found a silly grin attached to my face. I, however, decided that it wasn’t a good idea to be seen in public with such a silly grin, and so dealt with it before E noticed.

E turned to me.

“We’re here!”

VENICE STORYLINE

It took all my strength but I managed to run E over with my wheelchair.

What did he mean when he said, “we’re here!” eh?

I mean, I don’t wanna be here, I wanna be in his freakin’ uncle’s hotel, resting my legs, watching T.V and whatnot!

“We’re here, at my uncle’s hotel!” he moaned, from underneath the wheels.

“Oh!”

I felt kindda bad, and so asked him if he wanted to run me over with my wheelchair. Thankfully, he said he kindda wanted to, but couldn’t, due to me still parking my wheelchair on him.

Oh well, if the only thing that’s stopping him from running me over is the fact that he’s being getting crushed under my wheelchair, then so be it, I kept parking! At last, after about five minutes, he told me that he’d changed his mind about running me over, so off we went, into the hotel.

We were just doing that, when out stepped a young guy, probably still in his early twenties, seemingly equipped with a mental illness or two. “Listen” he said, grabbing my wheelchair. I told him to wait till I turned my ears on. I’m a sarcastic bastard, aren’t I?

Turns out the madman had a very interesting story to tell! He scooped us to the balcony and having done that, made sure there was nobody around, and then, exhaling deeply, began his story.

THE MAD DIRECTOR: THE INSANE NEGOTIATOR

On a cold winter afternoon, a young man stumbles through the snow covered sidewalks. He has a smile on his face, and he thought thoughts with grace, without leaving any trace, walking in a trance.

The past few years have been unkind, but even with that in mind, he didn’t mind. He dragged a heavy backpack, laden, mostly with junk, and a few odd objects with certain sentimental values.

He came to a halt in front of a nice little street filled with happy, shiny people, and laughter.

He stood still for a while and smelt the air. It smelt like cheap carbon dioxide, but he didn’t mind, and he wouldn’t have, even if he had a mind. He smiled, and headed for the house with the number "7356764547608756897" pasted on its door.

He knocked, and then, still knocking, turned around to take a good look at his potential neighbors. Meanwhile, while he was looking away, the door opened, and he ended up knocking on his potential landlady’s head.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry, didn’t notice you opening the door!”

“Are you the one who called?”

“Yes, can I take a look at my room?”

The old lady, still rubbing her head, let him in. as for the Mad Director, little did he know that he was walking into one bloody, sticky situation.

The house, as it turned out, was owned by a high-ranking mafia mobster, who had just recently passed away, leaving his eighty years old, paranoid wife and his bi-polar, forty year old, junkie/mafia son, behind.

The old lady was constantly in mental disarray imposed upon her by her own son, who had been behind bars for no less than seventy freakin’ times!

The house also had four other tenants, all related to the mafia, and they were all screwed up in the head!

Every day problems unfolded. Tenants trying to beat the shit out of each other, dead threats… He tried to be the peacemaker because he felt bad for the old lady. Everyday he’d ruin his own day trying to break up fights and stuff.

One day the old lady’s son got arrested for something and was sent to prison for four months, in the meantime, all the tenants started taking advantage of this, and started to not pay the rent regularly, or not treat the old lady right, but our guy tries and manages to keep things under control even though it did get out of hand sometimes.

One day, the old lady have had enough, and was about to call certain people and get some of the guys who lived there whacked, but he (The mad director) knew he had to do something, so he told the old lady that he saw her husband’s ghost earlier that day, and it seem to be really sad, which, in turn, got the old lady thinking that her husband disapproved what she was about to do, and thus our mad director manages to maintain peace in the house, the house of doom and despair.

He was about to move out the next day, when the old lady told him that his son was on the phone, and wanted to talk to him. Turns out, he wanted the mad director to stay in the house, until he gets back out, and take care of her mother, and it wasn’t a request. It was a command.

Well, life for the mad director got real strange after that. His social life detoriated to none, as he didn’t want anyone close to him getting involved in the bloody mess that he was in, and his head hurt a crimson hue, from trying to solve every problem in the house in the least violent/most peaceful way.

Now, he’s assigned a new task, and even though he hates it, he knows he has to see it through.

BACK TO VENICE STORYLINE

So, this idiot who calls himself the mad director or something, he stares a faraway stare, lighting a smoke and stood there silently.

“Well, that’s horrible!” I said, patting him on the back and bumming a smoke off the poor bastard.

“I’m used to it.” He replied, scratching his sandpaper chin and snarling at the setting sun.

“Well, so is that all that you wanted to tell us?” I asked, secretly, I wondered if his new task was to send us six feet under, or steal a kidney from us, for his boss. I prefer the second option, for there’s always E, the guy with golden kidneys.

“I’m suppose to break a relationship up.” He murmured, “The thing is that, it’s strictly against my code of ethics. I’ve never, in my life, tried to break up a relationship, (here he stiffens up and vows to us that, if he had ever broken a relationship willingly or intentionally, may he rot in hell for eternity if he ever had. We quickly pretend to believe him and let him carry on with his story.) even if it involved the girl I love, and mind you, I loved her to death and I love her still, for, to me, love is a very holy thing.”

Here, he paused again, like a kid trying desperately to think up an excuse for not doing homework, but he still wasn’t making any sense, so I asked him about his girl.

“Oh, she’s a great women.” He replied, “She’s not a girl anymore, you see. She’s with someone else now, and even though I could easily break their relationship up, I don’t want to, and I never will, it’s strictly against my code of ethics. I just hate seeing lovers drift apart.”

“So what the hell do you want from us?” yelled E, it seems that when I ran him over with my wheelchair, I not only broke a few of his ribs, but also his patience!

“I want to offer you guys a job. Great pay! Interested?” he asked, with a shadow of a grin.

E and me, we both nodded like a stoned high school student’s eyelids, during a particularly lengthy lecture.

PRESENT: THE CULT OF THE FISHING KINGS

Cliff, Andrew, and his sister ran. They ran straight into the woods.

Not so far away the cult of fishing kings slithers at amazing speed, depressing snakes and running over rats. They were catching up on our boys and our boys knew that in another minute they’d be in some serious trouble.

Andrew was still crying over his mom’s accident, when Cliff looked at him with a sly grin.

“This way, Andrew! We wait here, on the edge.”

Andrew grinned.

The cult came slithering like a tornado. A few more seconds now and everything would be over.

Moment of impact, and our boys sidestep. Poof goes the cult, into the land of the lost!

NEXT: DEATHS AND BIRTHS.

TIM’S DAIRY

Today, for some reason, I felt very calm, and I knew I was at peace with myself. I guess it was the mad director and the concept of his story. He kindda reminded me of the silver surfer (comic book version, not the movie version), but with the superpowers off and with clothes on, or a spy who disobeys his government to preserve peace, and it made me want to do something good too. I felt peace and I wanted to share it with some idiots, but since there was no one around, I decided to share it with my childhood superhero. Here’s the story:

THE BAT AND THE BOY

It was an exciting day, and little Bruce was so excited and happy that he manages to convince his parents to walk home rather than use the limo.

He sang a song as they walked back home. His mom held his left hand and his dad held his right hand, and they lifted him gently.

“Ha-ha, look ma, I’m walking on air!” He said, almost chocking on laughter.

His parents smiled and nodded, “Of course, you little freak, you must be one of those mutants that you read about in your comics!”

They were chatting along, walking along and laughing along when, suddenly, a man stepped out of the shadows and demands money. He was holding a gun in his hand, but he himself was scared, for his hands were shaking violently.

Bruce’s Dad slips his hand into his trench coat in order to take out the wallet, but the guy with the gun probably thought that he was reaching for a gun, for, the next moment, he squeezed the trigger, and squeezed the life out of two adults, and the love/innocence out of a kid.

TEN YEARS LATER

The kid has grown into a man, a man filled with hate. His desire for revenge kept him alive, but alone. He now has mastered 22 different types of the most sinister killing techniques and he has vowed to take his revenge, even if he had to burn in hell, he’d murder the devil and take his powers, then come back and take his revenge, he swears.

He puts on a costume to instill fear into criminals for he thought that they were superstitious and cowardly and thus our boy becomes a one-man army, protecting his city.

Every night he puts on his costume and goes around stopping criminals, breaking bones, and fighting super-villains. He longed to meet the guy who murdered his parents, oh, the torture techniques he had learned just so he could use it on the guy…

One night, he sees a man helping random homeless people, intrigued, he decides to follow and talk to this little helper.

He jumps down from the sky and walks up to the man. The man who was helping the homeless, at first, was startled, but our hero assures him that he just wanted to talk, and so, they walk down an alley chatting about the pain and suffering in their city.

“Listen, guy-with-bat-like-costume,” The man says, “ I once was a fun little kid. My family was very poor and we hardly could afford our meals, but it was ok, because our family had each other, but then, everything went wrong one day, when my parents got fired from their jobs. For two weeks, my parents looked for jobs but could find none. I must tell you that by this time my little brother had starved to death because my mother was unable to breast-feed him, there was no milk left in her breast. That night my mother committed suicide and the next day my father, upon finding my mom’s lifeless body, did the same.”

Our hero sheds a tear silently but listens quietly.

The man pauses for a few seconds and then resumes his story.

“That day I was filled with hate. With each passing second my hate for the rich grew and grew. I became a thief and a criminal and I robbed the rich.”

“But now, you’ve changed your ways, right?” asked our hero, his left eyebrow curling beneath his mask, his hand slipping into his equipment belt and resting on the handcuff pouch, ready to arrest the bastard, if he hadn’t yet changed his ways.

“Yes, and I’ll tell you what made me change.”

Here, he paused for a while and lit a smoke, and then he resumed his story.

“I was busy robbing rich people with grim satisfaction, one night, when, I ran into a rich couple, I could hear them laughing and singing as they walked along, and that made me burn, I was about to rob them but my hate took over, and I, in that moment of hate, shot them. It felt good, and I was about to dance on their corpse, when I noticed that they were not alone, there was a little kid with them, it was right here in this alley, yeah, this is where it happened…”

Our hero stands still, frozen, dumbfound, and tears rolled down as his teeth grinded silently. He had finally found the bastard who murdered his family!

“I didn’t know what came over me, but the look in the kids eyes, they were my eyes when I saw my parents died. What’ve I done, I thought. And at that instant, I realized that, I’ve not taken revenge, but just created another version of me, another little kid fueled by hate, another little kid who’ll live only for revenge. And at that instant, I realized that I’ve become what I’ve hated, like the rich guys that destroyed my family, I had become just like them and from that day on, I’ve dedicated my life to helping suffering families like mine.”

Having said this he bids our hero goodbye and walks away. Our hero stands still, he removes his mask and stares at the man who had killed his parents, walk away, and he smiles, for, now he no longer felt any hate. Now, he knew that if he’d kill this guy he’d only be creating another kid driven by hate, a kid that’ll hate superheroes, a kid who’d burn like he did, for he (the murderer) had tons of homeless kids and people who loved him, because he helps (and that shows the love he has inside him) them avoid taking the path he himself, had, in foolish rage, taken, unlike him, (our hero) who goes around braking bones for revenge (and that only showed the hate inside him).

And our hero knew what he has to do. He has to help people from turning into criminals, not stop criminals, for criminals are made, not born, and at that instant all the hate inside him vanished and it was replaced with love. Far away, he could hear a flute play and high up in the clouds he could see his parents smile back at him, and he knew that they were proud, they were proud of him, at last… and as our hero stood there smiling gently, he wondered who was writing his story now, and deep inside he knew that somewhere over the rainbow, a young god has found peace and was sharing it with him.

And he smiles back at the skies. Our hero has finally found love and peace.

The mad director’s offer was kindda hard to resist. Turns out he wanted me to write a story, and E to paint a portrait.

Now, normal folks might find it strange, well, I do, but this guy, I think, is totally insane. He wanted me to write a story about a boy who’s trying to redeem his past by writing a cosmic sigil. Here’s how he describes the plot, it’s very interesting:

Once there was a boy who was filled with too much hate. Everything he did was based on hate, revenge and destruction. His karma finally slaps him in the jaw. He hits rock bottom. Shell-shocked, alone, depressed beyond comprehension, he finally breaks down, and falling on his knees, prays to god to bleach the hate inside him. That night, a girl appears in his dreams. She was no stranger, in fact, he’s been dreaming about her his whole life!

She always wears a wedding dress and never shows him her face. He loved her like only a madman would. She held him in her arms that night and tells him to write a cosmic sigil.

“The gods who write our story, write it from a place which is beyond time. Which means that, your story doesn’t start when you were born.” She tells him.

“But why must I write a story? All my hate would be gone if you’d only love me when I’m lonely.”

“Well,” she replies, “That’s is the whole point. Your story will start once you start writing this story. Look everywhere, anywhere, for, tomorrow, you’ll find me. You’ll know it’s me, when you see me, even though you’ve never seen my face.”

“But how?” he replies.

“Well, little moron, you’ve never seen my face yet because you haven’t seen my face yet. Tomorrow, you’ll find me and, from then on, you’ll be able to see my face.”

“But how’ll I know it’s you?” He cried, tears in his eyes and anger in his heart, for he was still filled with hate.

But instead of answering him she just vanished, and he woke up. It was morning.

That day, he walked around town the whole day but didn’t see her. Tired, sad and angry, he returns home and lighting a smoke starts browsing on a website. He met a skinny girl with a ring tattoo on her wrist. He added her as a friend. Then pissed at not finding the girl in her dreams he goes off to sleep.

The girl in the wedding dress appeared in his dream again, that night, but he didn’t even look at her. He hated her and without looking at her called her a bloody whore and to get the hell out of his mind before he snaps.

The girl didn’t speak, instead, she walked upto him and hugged him. This was the first time he felt so helpless, pissed, angry and equipped with an erection! Then he found out why, He could see her face! She was the same girl that he had met at the website!

He was overjoyed and the next day he starts writing to her. He writes her surrealistic stories for he was still filled with hate and his story overflowed with attitude. But as time flowed by he realized that this girl was changing him, he was no longer afraid and his hate was slowly draining away.

He very soon decides to make his whole life into a sigil, a sacrifise, a sigil of love, happiness and protection for her, and at that instant he blacked out and was in limbo. Whiteness all around, surround sound, surround sound!

And in the pale blue strip sky a pair of the most beautifull eyes stared back at him, and he knew, he knew that she had shown him the way. He knew that the gods started writing his story from that instant. His past was nothing but a flashback. He knew that she was always with him when the gods started writing, and he knew that he had successfully written his story and no matter how hard he had to suffer, it didn’t matter for he knew, that the foundation of his life story had been shifted from hate to love and that’s what mattered most.

And he loved her like no man ever would. Romeo and Juliet were jokers compared to his love.

TIM’S DAIRY

The Mad Director, as it turns out, was really mad! I mean this guy lives up to his name, ha-ha!

The reason, the bastard wanted me to write the story was, to use it as a back up file, while the real story, according to him, is continuously being created, by his god, in the real world! He also told me the main reason for writing this story, but I’m not allowed to tell, yet!

So E, me, and, the mad bastard, sat on the balcony and got drunk. The mad idiot drank like a fish, in fact, after eating up 3 bottles of vodka, E got a tad concerned for he walked up to the mad idiot, patted him on the back and asked, in a very polite manner, “Sorry to bother you, but, you’re aware of the fact that what you’re drinking is, in fact Vodka, not water?”

At this, the mad director looked up, tears of vodka dripping out of his vodka filled eyes.

“Just shut up and write this down.” He replied.

“What? Write your tears down?” asked E, a bit baffled on top of being totally baffled.

“Well,” he replied, “…put it that way if you want.”

He cleared his throat and started telling his story, puking now and then at regular intervals.

HIS STORY:

Well, like I said, the boy writes this surrealist stories to the girl that he saw in his dreams. He had, after she appeared in his dreams, attained a new level of spirituality.

He suffered, and he suffered, for he was far away from his love.

“One soul, one love” he thought and grind his teeth and carried on.

He was either an idiot, or an intensely strong willed man because any other normal man would’ve, long ago, given up.

He, however, just couldn’t, for if he gave up on her, he’d have to become a monk or a priest or something, for after meeting her, he wanted no other.

One day he gets depressed and stops writing to her. Instead he focused on the main story about he and her. In his mind, he saw her in the middle of a labyrinth and he knew he had to find a way to her, not just sit there and dream.

He knew that it was gonna be hard, but he also knew that when they finally meet, they would be fictional characters coming to life… lovers walking straight out of a story book.

He planned it all exactly as she told him to, in his dreams. Even the story that he was writing was fished out of the story itself, in short, creating everything out of nothing. The Big Bang, that created the universe… infinity… time… biggest and smallest numbers… and he had just added their LOVE to the list. Somewhere Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Shiva, and Mohammad, sheds a tear, sitting and watching it all unfold with a huge freakin’ joint in their hands. Lucky bastards!

So, like I said, he, instead of writing to her, focused on getting to her. Writing had to be temporarily stopped in one dimension to let the story progress on the other dimension.

He wanted to just pop into her life, meet her, and get to know her and stuff. He didn’t want her to know what he was planning because he wanted to surprise her so he wrote her a farewell note, and then worked on getting all the required items, money and whatnot, to travel to her.

On the first night that he wrote that note to her, he felt as if he was being torn apart, he felt insanely restless and bit his hand to numb the pain, and as he was about to go to sleep, wished to her that if she truly loved him, she’d come to his dream, or better yet, they would dream one same dream together, and he dreamed.

In his dream, he was, naked, crawling like an animal on all four limbs, in a hall, somewhere beyond time and space, he couldn’t describe it, the hall of eternity?

There were long white translucent curtains flowing, and (SURPRISE!!!) she appeared, naked, walking on all four limbs. He, for some reason, only saw her face, and didn’t think about staring down at her body. (He’d regret it very much when he woke up the next day)

At first, for a slight moment he was scared (she looked like an ancient mythical human-eating god) but then realizing that it was her, immediately felt better. And they approached each other and bit each other and twisted and turned and… and…

BACK TO TIM’S DAIRY

Here the mad bastard puked a bit and blacked out. I stole his cigarettes and with it bribed E to clean up the mess, ha-ha.

CONTD…

NEXT: THE SECOND DREAM & THE EVIL FRIENDS WHO MURDER THEIR OWN FRIEND VS SOME GREAT FRIENDS.

TIM’S DAIRY

So like I said, the mad director blacked out, and E cleaned the mess he left behind, while I, being an intellectual intellectual, began thinking rapidly about this and that.

It was doing me no good, so I put on my jacket on, and went for a walk. Oh, how I walked, I don’t know, but I got to a park, and making sure it was E free, parked myself there.

I put on my headphones, lit a joint, and turned the music on, my emotions today were too deep, and it was wrong for a dweeb, to be in love, this deep.

A strange song leaked out.

A song that leaked with smooth, smooth moods

Of madness, and longing, and emotions that sing

Out in the barley fields, the blue whales swim

And I wonder if we’re trapped in a dream… somewhere in the time stream… lost deep, deep, inside a dream…

And suddenly, from behind a tree, a girl walks out, with love in her eyes, and magic in her hair, and I stared… I was a bit scared… to her, my soul, I bared…

She wears black dots and wears them well

A stare…

In slow motion she waits there…

And as we walked, towards each other, in the full moon night sky, I loved her…

A hand sliding through the night air, intertwined and twisting, we danced in the night air, while all around Ariel Pink’s song, “for Katie I wait” played like a piper… pulling strings… strings that hurt… strings that hurt my heart, and, softly yet painfully, stings…

And I wonder now, if it really happened. I wish, I wish and I wanna scream. Forever and ever, for you I wait, humming gently, while outside my window, it rained… and it rained… pained… heart stain stained heart stain… and it rained.

And I dreamed a ride, her, and me on a bike… the night sky flying above us, and stars twinkling in her eyes… and why do you make people dream, when you know it’ll make them scream? And I sleep with a scream. Screaming sleep.

UNKNOWN TIMELINE: A KING AT THE BATHURST

Out in the alley Tim and E walk to the local LCBO. The goddamn time was getting late, and the store, if closed, sealed will be, their fate.

They were walking merrily, when out popped a thug with a knife, and demanded money, cigrattes, shoes, and the direction to the nearest strip club!

The boys shivered in their pants, and their pants shivered in the alley… the alley shivered in the city, and the city shivered inside my mind… this tale of two cities…

Anyways, back to the story…

They decided to hand over the assorted items to the knife with the idiotic thug attached to it, when out popped Jacki, with a bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand, I must add.

“Ah, what’s up?” she said, draining the bottle in one huge gulp.

The thug looked impressed and scratched his dumb head.

Jacki then produced a lighter, and, lighting it, blew the contains of the bottle through the flame, igniting it, into the thugs face.

The thug, for some reason, decided to start swimming on the ground, yelling fiery stuff through his flame stained face.

Jacki turned and smiled at the boys, “Don’t mess with this guy,” she said, grinning smoothly, “can’t you see that he’s got fire in his eyes?” and with that she jumped back into the shadows again and vanished.

And as she leaves, our boys kept staring, staring at a shadow rapidly fading, hearts flaming, our boys start fading.

Towards her.

NEXT: LOTS OF THINGS AND LOTS OF FEELINGS.

THE GREAT QUARANTINE

Poof!

The cult of the fishing kings disappear into the land of the lost.

Cliff, Andrew and his sister sat down and rested, in silence, dazzled by what had just happened.

The cult of the fishing kings…

Enter land of the lost…

‘the cult of the fishing kings’ smile.

The Baitmaker, puts his wife down gently beside a tree, and, bending down quietly whispers in her ears, “It’s ok now, the kids didn’t suspect a thing.”

Andrew’s mother woke up and kissed her husband.

“So this is the land of the lost.”

“Yep, solid, eh?” barked, Hammerhead, yawning with his brick-like head!

“But are you guys sure that it can contain the son of hell, when he descends tonight?” Asked the mother, looking a bit worried, but feeling a lot more worried.

It didn’t matter though, she, at least, has her lover by her side, and he had her by his side, and that, my friend, is a luxury some souls can’t afford.

“Don’t worry, dear, the land of the lost has strong ancient barriers. Barriers set up by time itself.” replied the baitmaker. He knew that she’d been a bit down, and worried, ever since noon, when they watched the kids play, one last time.

“Hehe! What a lovely pair, can you talk to each other in baby tongue, please? Just to entertain us before we get our ass kicked, you know.” Said the Black magic sheep, sounding like a black magic sheep, which was strange, believe me!

Suddenly everyone was quite. The one who never speaks, spoke, “The agents of distress might be able to find this place, so let’s hurry. Good thing, we were able to trick the kids into leading us here. By the way, how come they can find it and we can’t? Anyways, let’s get to work now, we’ve lots to do.”

NEXT: RETURNING BACK TO THE OLD SCHOOL TEXTS