23

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Okay, but it still won't work...

22

After countless yet fruitless hours of negotiating, I decided to tell the crew to fuck off and go gome and that I alone would handle the rest. The 30 or so hostages that had turned on their captors who then wrestled their guns back out of the hands of the hostages had now turned into a gigantic clusterfuck that nobody really wanted to sit down and figure out. I entered the establishment where they were holed up in and over the course of 5 weeks or years, I convinced each person to commit themselves to ending their lives or creating a new religion, whichever worked out first.

When the President of the Earth found out, he was rightly pissed. That was a lot of people to lose; a lot of people she couldn't say, "You even been in MY SHIT? I'll bet you haven't, you son of a bitch! You ever forget that, you better back the fuck up and ask for ME because I'LL be the bastard there to assist you in remembering!"

As I was forcibly dragged into her office, I couldn't help but to notice the smell of kerosene and coffee; two of my favorite things, just not together, especially after all that has been accused of me. She waved her guards out and it was just her and I.

"You know what you did, right?"

"Yes." I said.

"Teach me."

That threw me through a loop. It turns out she had reached her personal breaking point just minutes ago and wanted me to show her how I did.

"Sure, I'll do that. Right after I buttfuck myself with a torch. You think you're going to convice the universe to kill itself YOURSELF? Not in this lifetime, you asshole. That's my gig."

She began to speak up. "AH AH AH!" I said, and then continued to the door.

The fucking nerve of some people.

21

Looking back on it, I could have done it a hell of a lot easier, but neither you nor I have time for that shit.

It all started an hour before everyone wakes up in the morning 3 days ago when the telephone rang and woke everyone up. I answered it because I really didn't want to hear the answering machine beep every 10 seconds telling me there was a message waiting but hey the caller may not have wanted to leave a message so shut up. The caller represented the new local government and we were being told to evacute because someone had put the Konami code into the reactor too fast and was causing the meltdown, but that's not when the real trouble started. You see, they didn't want me or anyone else to know the truth.

Everyone has 30 lives now or full weapons and shields, depending on where you were standing at the time.

"I'm staying. Fuck you. I have the advantage."

My neighbors were packing their meaningful things in their vehicles when I finally gave a shit enough to look out the window. Soon the neighborhood would be vacant and I...I would wander the streets with the intention or breaking into everyone's home and urinating on the bed sheets.

I would die 60 years later after accidently slitting my wrists on a can of potted meat.

20

Old friends may come and go, but enemies fucking do nothing but piss me off with these idiot autobiographical movies they make about me. Most of them aren't even close to being true. Out of the 37,000 movies that came out last year, 35,000 were about me and even 31,000 of those portrayed me as a hero when all I've done in my life is pick three names out of the phone book and annoy those people until suicide was contemplated.

I received my award for being the giant asshole of the earth, and waited until the auditorium calmed down before I spoke. I waved everyone down into their seats.

"Ladies, gentlemen, people who aren't sure. Yeah"

With that, I took my award and left the stage, bypassing the lovely meat and cheese trays donated by the same people who voted for me to have this award.

Nah, I didn't think it was very ironic either.

19

I had the worst job of them all, I found out. I had just unpacked from a trip to Santa Columbine which, you know, doesn't exist because I'll be go to hell if I'm going to tell you SHIT about my adventures in great detail, and had just put my things away when I was dragged to the convention floor and placed on top of a pedestal after it was determined my present employment fucking blew primates. I made the mistake of asking how in the hell they came to that conclusion. Each person introduced themselves and told me about what they did for money and after the 2nd person I finally lost it and violently attempted to break my own neck.

Needless to say, I failed.

I returned to my job, which was reading every spiral pad of poetry that was presented to me. If it was written with a pencil onto 3 hole punch notebook paper, it was REQUIRED that I read the motherfucker. Not love it, not hate it, not judge it. Just read it. I was not allowed to run away or attempt suicide. I was allowed to swing a shovel at whomever felt brave enough to bring me my lunch, which passed the time.

I guess I ran out of lives or missed the 1-up or didn't enter the correct cheat code fast enough because I found myself outside in the sun, dazed. I really didn't feel the need to ask why, so I didn't, and went back to washing the pencil lead off my hands.

18

Straight from the surreal boxes of whole grain goodness came a flood unbeknownst to those who cared enough to send the light on for you.

Yeah. It took me that long to think of that. Here's what really happened.

I finally found the door out. Unfortunately, so did everyone else, and I was caught in a sea of people just like me, telling the tales of their own worlds which were so different from everyone else that it all blurred into a mess that I was going to be goddamned if I was going to clean up anytime soon, you motherfucker.

I called a doctor friend of mine for advice but found the phone didn't have a dial tone, but had a 12 year old girl screaming on the other end, "CAN'T!" If I tried to speak, that would only piss off the guy behind me wearing the long coat and no shoes, and we all know what the fuck is on HIS mind. I'll tell you what it is. I don't know.

I finally woke up behind the wheel of a semi still smoking from the impact it made 3/4 up aisle 7 of the local grocery store. Looking in the side view mirror brought on a small comfort knowing nobody in this fucking town was having anything from this store today because, well, you sorta can't just walk into a store anytime soon after a goddamn semi drives into it, now can you?

I was pulled from the semi by a mob of angry intelligent people wondering why the hell I hadn't took out a famous celebrity from 300 yards out with a high powered rifle in such a long time. I never thought about it until then. It had been a while, but hey, I figured some other motherfucker would at least pick up my slack while I was away, but no. I can't depend on anyone, and this sure as shit didn't please the producers when they went to write the next episode of my reality show which airs whenever something interesting happens in my life which hasn't happened since they took the color red off the air.

That's where I'm at right now.

17

A month or so later, the whining of the children as well as the waning of the moon and the waxing of the floor caused me to complete lose it and install martial law in the universe. But ever since they made a video game about it, I was sued for ripping off the company.

Where have you been?

16

"You see, ladies and fucknuts, Mrs. Weatherdick received a fair settlement. It was found that the semi that ass-ended her at a green light was in fact at fault. The driver was hopped up on celery uppers and Kool-Aid and just lost control of his truck. Plain and simple. What I don't get is why I have to stand here at this fucking podium and explain myself to you. The settlement was fair. She's walking around just as peachy as a kitten hooked up to a tire pump, healthy as can be. Yet you morons in the media think we fucked her over. Get real. We did everything we could to get the money she deserves for herself and her family."

That's when I felt my cerebellum fuse. I nodded to my roving reporter friend in the audience, and he made his move. He stood up.

"Mr. Insuranceman, yes, Stan Fartin, Fukaduk News. Mr. Insuranceman, is what you are saying accurate? Are you absolutely sure you and your firm did everything in your power to assist one of your customers, who has always been on time with her monthly payments, who has always been available for questionaires, who has never so much as complained about anything that has to do with your company?"

Mr. Insuranceman's shoulders began to twitch. You could tell he was caught offguard. Surprise, motherfucker. The best is yet to come.

"I....uh..."

Come on, you lousy prickfuck. I dare you. I double dog DARE the piss out of you.

"We....We did everything we could."

Wrong answer. Stan's smile and gaze met mine. Let him have it.

"Mr. Insuranceman?"

"Yes?" Smug fuck looks a little more confident now. Oh man, this is gonna hurt.

"Mr. Insuranceman, you have a daughter named Emily?"

CONGO LINE!!!!!!

Mr. Insuranceman looks around and grabs the podium, not sure where this is going. "Yes....yes I do?" He coughs.

"Good to hear," Stan says. "Right now we have her blindfolded ready to be transported to Thailand with a .44 Magnum to her head. Wanna see a picture?"

Everyone gasps. "Wha...what....Who the fuck are you?" Mr. Nervousfuck says.

"Oh, sure you do," Stan says, "Fuck the pics, she's right here." From his large dufflebag he lifts Emily out and puts her in front of him. Then the gun comes out.

"EMILY! EMILY! You motherfucker, don't you...."

Stan waves the gun. "Don't waste my time, asshole."

Mr. Insurancepantshitter calms down. "Alright," he says. "What do you want?"

Stan cocks the gun. "Are you sure you and your company did absolutely everything you could for your client?"

Mr. Insurancedick breathes out, looking around, knowing his ass is on the line.

"No, we didn't. We could have gotten her 10 times what she got, but if she's able to walk, we have to reduce the claim! We have to! We're a business! We can't give everyone everything they deserve, or else we'd be fucked! FUCKED!"

"Good." Stan says as he puts the gun to his head. "Toodleloo."

Trigger pulled, point made. I would've added Stan to my to my martyr list, but my pen ran out of ink after Marvin Heemeyer's name.

Then I went to sleep.

15

"There's too many people on the earth. It's time to clean house."

Fuck, I thought. I had only joined the squad 4 days ago, and after the rigorous training, I had wanted to sit back and drink and fuck and eat and take apart a Nintendo tape and figure out why the fucking thing worked when you blew air into it. As it turned out, my squad was up for an assignment. Turns out an apartment building 11 blocks from headquarters welcomed its last family into the last empty apartment and it was up to us to clear it.

We were the ultimate kick murder squad. We had the latest equipment from some mail order catalog the Jenkins brought in one day. Instead of combat fatigues, we were dressed casually in bulletproof bathrobes, black of course. We needed no backup. We were the backup. We were the bad motherfuckers who, once breached and made entry, were the bad motherfuckers who fucked the mothers and were bad.

But, as luck would have it, we arrived an hour or two after the start of a sale at the local clothing and food arena, and declared victory after we blew a hole through some janitor's chest and celebrated that we were victorious in our goal without the loss of ONE squad member. Beat that, fucker.

I was given shore leave, to which I took a hike up Fart Mountain in search of a BBS I could still dial into. I wasn't having much luck with that, except for some forgotten 486 in Norway still plugged into the wall serving up the latest in 16K glory.

Or at least that's what I saw.

14

"Time to go, man. You've been here too long."

He was still kneeling as if the barrel of the handgun was planted against the back of his head. Or it could have been because the god of streets had whispered into his ear about what how the truth was a lie, and how people thought each other was gay to begin with. He got to his feet and brushed himself off. "How did I do?" he asked.

"Fine, just fine. Now take a hike. I've got others to save." I pushed him aside.

I walked along and shuffled my feet as I looked upon the people with sorrow. Later on I would pass out bread and wine and pretend to save these people from damnation.

But, the secret was, there wasn't any damnation anywhere to be found, just the fact that they couldn't get the fuck and find teh savior themselves.

That pretty much explained why I shuffled my feet right out the fucking gate.

13

I was going to write something witty and eventful, but had to rob my neighbor of their newspaper or furniture, whichever I took first, void where prohibited.

12

It's been too long.

In fact, I had long burned my calendar due to the fact that I couldn't stand the notion of the same days on it. It was always the first of the month. It was always the same year. I loved it at first, because I fucking hate shit that changes constantly, which is why I don't chew bubble gum. Of course, this same logic doesn't apply for food or cigarettes, because I wrote the rules, and you can kindly take a royal fuck off a building and land on a genetically deformed puppy dog.

Getting up is the hardest thing to do. I must've been hit from behind or some shit, because as it stands I have a knot in my head the size of a oak tree. I looked around at my surroundings and frowned. This is no place to sleep, I though. Not in this alley. Then I recognized that it was in fact my alley that I had bought from a group of Native Americans when I was born, which pissed me off even more because I could have sworn I had bought the protection clause that came with this motherfucker.

I didn't have time to point fingers I had to get my bearings. I figure that if I could stand for more than 5 minutes, I'd be set to continue on where ever the fuck I was headed, which was back to whatever I owned, had bartered for food, had traded for a box of telephone wire, had put in the paper for someone to haul away no charge, had hoped for the best when Christ died.

Someone needs to clean this alley up. Strewn along the walls was the usual assortment of trash that you'd find in an alley, but for some fucked up reason, the alley continue in an infinite direction either way.

I figure I could either get walking, or maybe by some strange miracle I could construct an airplane or helicopter or shotgun from the strewn trash and take a shortcut.

Who was I kidding. I hate airplanes and helicopters. That, and I had other things to do, like wait for the bastard to hit me over the head again so I could awaken as a hummingbird.

11

I decided to stop by my old friend's house, Ms. Lily Early. She hadn't been in the scene for a while since her husband died, and I figured I would pay my respects to someone I had admired for a long time. I walked onto the porch of her house and looked around. All I could think about is when the last time this was painted or taken care of, since it was so unlike her. One of the neighbors was walking by when they noticed me.

"You just missed her. She just went home."

I turned around to see who was speaking to me by they had already walked on. At times like this there are way too many things to describe and one of the things that sucks is that even I can't describe it half the time.

Take this porch, for example. I mentioned it needed painted, right? Well, it is a white porch with chunks of missing paint and the goddamn wood underneath it is grey. Were there any chairs or hanging plants? Yes. The chairs were those plastic molded things you buy in a dollar store and the ferns were half fucking dead.

I couldn't take it anymore. I immediately went out and found the nearest drug dealer and offered to buy his stock. He produced a tiny bag of substance and when I grabbed his collar I told him I wanted more. So, he gave me the name of his boss, and his boss gave me the name of his boss, and his boss, and his boss, and soon I was at a beachside resort sitting across from the top level man.

"I'll buy it," I said.

With that, he stood and handed me the keys. As soon as I stood up, the dream ended, and the secret was revealed.

And yes, I forgot to write it down.

10

When the king finally realized that yes, the sky was indeed falling, Sam leaned his back up against a rock and wiped the sweat from his brow. Hardly anyone within miles hadn't heard the news, and were making preperations.

I came upon Sam late in the day. He casually glanced at me and spoke.

"You're in the wrong mind, son. Close, though."

I'll try again another day.

9

And where did the time go coming down from Eagle Edison Avenue? Getting thrown out of a taxi headfirst into a speed limit sign (15) was embarrassing enough, but to have the inhabitants pretend to throw garbage on me?

Somewhere in the distance, the last of the UHaul trucks broke the horizon, and everyone I ever knew were moving along to the next town, to set up the county fair, to establish a religion, to camp under the stars, to fix the thing, or to find another race of morons to think of names for. Obviously they had ran out of paper for the morning news and all that was left was yesterday's news which forecasted today's news later on the evening with showers tonight, low integer.

I hated the replacement neighborhood folk. The street was cleaner than the day it was dedicated, and I knew it wouldn't be long until some asshole barfed on it coming out of the pristine bar while pristine liquor was swishing around in their pristine stomachs, never once intoxicating the pristine liver. What do I know? I only stood there and watched the fucking thing unfold, so don't you even think of telling me that what I saw was the same as what you saw on a botched up bittorrent.

Snow from the week before. The problem was that the sun only shined on things brighter than themselves, which was great, because every celebrity that lived on this block had 1st and 2nd degree burns in their mouths.

I figured it was time to leave, so I took the first train out of town into the wilderness to start a new life among the trees and nature. This would have been a great idea if it wasn't for the fact that every elder animal met with me at the entrance to the forest and told me under no certain terms that I was a dickhead, and they didn't need any more dickheads in the forest, because there WASN'T any dickheads in the forest, and son of a bitch if I wasn't wondering that if the dickheads weren't here, where were they on the rest of the planet, and how in the fuck was I going to find them?

I didn't have time for any of that shit, seeing is how I'm standing there in the hot sun with all of my shit curious as to how the fuck I was going to sleep tonight. That's all it is ever about, folks. Sleeping. If I sleep, you continue to exist. If you sleep, I sorta do, but not without help from the ghost of Janis Joplin or someone that looks like her.

8

Then the world's shortest sentence meant nothing to the author or the fact that it could have been typed by a small child in the future in Arizona somewhere.

7

Just how many people need to stop me on the street and telling me my recipe for egg salad sandwiches isn't all that great?

It all started at the county fair and to be honest, I was so nicotine poisoned I can't remember if I walked there or flew in on my 747 and landed in a trailer park and killed a bunch of trees and wells and farm animals and fences and basements and clotheslines and outhouses, but goddammit I was there.

As the bodies began falling from the Ferris Wheel and judges began pinning ribbons on said bodies, I made my way to the nearest game booth to find a middle aged man with a shotgun his mouth. I read the sign.

"GIVE THIS MAN ONE GOOD REASON NOT TO! WINNER GETS (1) SMALL PRIZE! TRADE UP! TRADE UP!"

I couldn't think of anything. He couldn't either. Not anymore.

Past the stables where people showed off their children in cages, hoping for an award, hoping someone from the local shirt making factory would buy them in an auction, I spotted the chance to made a little cash. But not before I was grabbed by the arms and escorted to the ringmaster's tent.

6

Knowing full well what I was getting into, I proceded forward.

The Oriental golf pro from across the way decided to drop by and offer a series of Powerpoint slides to me showing how he was the center of the universe. The graph was very colorful; in fact, too colorful. It was a bar graph, showing every major event you can think of (except 9/11, because let's face it, every motherfucker on the planet uses that one), and one of the bars, colored in pastel blue nonetheless, showed his birth and rise from the ashes of enlightenment.

I'm standing there, wondering whether I really like saltine crackers or not, when he piped up with an offer.

"You can be my friend for half of the quarter of what you tithe to yourself before and after taxes."

I pondered this, and while he was powering down his film projector, I asked for more information while I tied my shoes. He remained silent, figuring he had said everything he needed to say. After zero interaction from both of us, he handed me a coupon for a free car wash and a gerbil massage from the local Italian eatery, which pissed me off to know end.

"Asshole. You know how many CLOSETS I have FILLED with these fucking things?" I said, throwing it back at him. I didn't have time to fuck around with this off-world runner because I had an appointment with the CEO of Worldtron.

I cancelled that one and decided to walk the circumference of the earth, only stopping to spin on a playground's merry-go-round until the colors changed. Eventually it caught on, and hoards of idiots just like myself walked with me, until finally the population of the earth in its mass stopped with me in a desert in some godforsaken corner of it all.

"Jump."

They all jumped.

"Keep jumping. And stay here."

I walked away, or at least I tried to. You try walking when 6 billion people are throwing the planet's axis off. I didn't think it would work until it started snowing...right there in the desert.

There is a god.

5

Right around the time the government banned the use of quarters for use in soda and snack machines, I found myself at the local grocery store hunting for a new paint to color my kitchen floor with. I was looking for a dark color, because I figured if it was dark enough, I could dump shit on it and nobody with half a fucking brain would notice. That, and I needed for supplies for my nightly sleep, mainly products with ungodly amounts of tryptophane so when I hit the pillow, the colors of unsunned skies and textures of only dreamt-of Quake maps would flood the area between my pupils and eyelids.

"YOU CALL THIS VIETNAM?" I could hear the man down the street scream this to his wife constantly as he made his way to the community mailbox where mail was sorted *right* *there* and whether or not you received the mail addressed to you was horseshit because you were goddamn good and GLAD to have gotten anything.

Upon paying for my supplies, I was asked to step outside so the owner could put a revolver to my head and have me tell him why all the cool religious stuff happened hundreds of years ago, but all we have nowadays is a bunch of motherfuckers walking around in clothes of brown telling us they are Jesus, while the rest of us simply plop money into the coffee stained cups of despair. I had to hurry home to play this new Xbox game where upon inserting the disc, a list of reasons why you should set fire to everything you own slowly scrolled down the screen. Once that was done, you had to go to your window and publically acknowledge that yes, there was a sun and that once harnessed, you too could write your own Family Guy episodes.

Of course, none of that made a fucking difference in what's known as my life, so I ran for public office and won that very day. The first thing I did was quit followed by an impromptu singing of a random Fleetwood Mac song. Once done, I bowed and left, only to return home to see it was the same fucking color, in the same fucking neighborhood, at the same fucking time, every fucking day of my life.

On top of that? I couldn't even begin to tell you why the television played nothing but Air Supply songs over color bars. But it was a welcome change.

4

As I walked along, everything subtly changed. The wind would suddenly stop blowing, or a tree would be there but then there would still be a tree there but not the same kind or where there was a walking path now was a 8 lane interstate highway system or someone you knew had a certain shade color of eyes but now didn't. All of this happened as I walked by because it sure as shit didn't change while I was staring right at the goddamn thing.

The people that hated you yesterday love you today and the people who never bothered to give you the time of day now want your autograph. I was lucky because, since my life's story from birth until death had already been published twice, I could enjoy having some poor schmuck walk around with me and tell when I'm going to fuck up and when I'm going to fuck up even worse knowing I'm going to fuck up in the first place. I found myself waiting to fall asleep so I could use that time to adjust who I am just so I can only hope to mean something to something in this world, when in fact all I got was the same caliber of persons telling me they were doing the same gig, and the only problem they could figure out so far is that AOL Instant Messenger doesn't allow for a contact list that large, so that's why we're doomed to walk around thinking we're not alone but we can't confirm that due to the restriction.

It was partly my fault due to my ego. Every morning I'd wake up and immediately pick up a copy of the script, race to the bathroom, and then count have many lines I was written for compared to the other co-stars. On the days I didn't get the most lines, I'd make it a point to go up to the other people and tell them shit along the lines of, "I'm going to help make this scene work! We can do it!". On the days I did get the most, I'd paraphrase what was written just to give the director a hard time because she worked so hard on it.

And THAT was just this morning.