Rondelet II

Utopia
In the footprints of Rex, we play
Utopia
Lucky we didn't provoke the
Felidae that day. Luck, they say,
We didn't die, and you did
Utopia

On Rape Jokes

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State of the Union

Thank you, thank you all so much. Thank you. Please. Thank you, again. Sit down, please. I beseech you. Thank you so very, very much.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, venerable companions, esteemed colleagues, friends of friends, enemies of enemies, our beloved families, thank you. Please. Thank you. Please, be seated. Stand up. Sit down. Amen.

Thank you all for coming here, for being so brave and striving against adversity, etc., etc. In what now seems like a distant memory, all the way back in 2001, sexy left. I don't recall the exact date, nor does anyone else, but we'll call it, for no reason, September 11, 2001. I'll never forget it (the general time, not the day), as I'm sure is true for all of you as well. In any case, we all suffered greatly then, from 9/11/2001 until roughly July 7, 2006, which is when sexy came back. Inexplicably, and to our shared delight and benefit.

Again, I'm sure you all remember the details, but for those who don't I'll offer a brief refresher. What I'm talking about is the Justin Timberlake album. Ah, I see you all nodding with recognition now, and speaking genially yet seriously with your seatmates.

[crowd murmurs respectfully, in a vaguely approving manner]

Please, hold your applause until the end. And no flash photography; it's distracting to the performers. Thank you. You're welcome. God bless you.

To return to the album that brought sexy back...it was released seven years ago, and yet I felt it necessary to address now. Its importance is undeniable, and its impact unprecedented. A year before the album's release, around July 7, 2005, (and then again, two weeks later) to compound the general unsexiness of the terrible events of around-9/11/2001, things were decidedly unsexy. To be completely honest, so much unsexiness occurred during those years that it all kind of blurred together. And yet we persist.

JT inspired us. We so greatly appreciated what he was doing. But it wasn't enough. Perhaps it was our failing. He did all that he could. Did we let him down? It's possible. For our precious youth, the future of our country, the brightest minds and purest hearts, always striving for perfection, this is a history lesson. Cherish it. Memorize it. Apply it in your schooling, because it will be on the final exam.

[rabid applause; hooting; a chair is thrown; glass shatters]

Please, thank you. I so greatly appreciate you. Thanks. Sit, please. Yes. Not a problem.

Somehow I keep losing the thread. Oh, right. Sexy. It left, came back, and then, all of a sudden, it was gone again. We didn't know when exactly it left that second time, or why, or where it went. It was just gone one day, suddenly and conspicuously absent from our lives. We all simply woke up one morning (the date which no one remembers) and slowly realized sexy had left us once more.

It was such a helpless realization, and people across the country stayed in bed for weeks and weeks. Society ground to a halt, with its crushing sexy deficit, and eventually it crumbled. Chaos reigned.

[scattered boos]

Please, shut up. I'm trying to talk to you honestly and candidly about this most recent crisis in our country's history. Thank you. Excuse me. Hello. Goodbye. Just kidding. I'm still here. Thank you, thank you so much.

Where was I? Oh yes. Roving gangs patrolled the countryside on motorcycles and other degenerate vehicles. Tanker trucks, for instance. Most eighteen-wheelers, actually. It was similar to a popular film whose name I can't remember but which will be the only reference to a post-apocalyptic world I make. It was the opposite of sexy.

Anyway, the remaining sexy few, those who held on to some semblance of sexy, who seemed to recall its elusive nature, they were sent to the camps, with the Jews and the Roma and the homosexuals and the communists and the dissidents, etc. May they all rest in peace, up in Heaven with The Big Guy and Jesus.

[loud praying and rending of garments]

Again, thank you. I do what I can. But I'm only one man fighting for sexy in a dark, unsexy world. I can't do this on my own. I need your help. All of you, from the lowliest parasite to the most valuable producer. Are you ready to bring sexy back...for good?

[momentary bewildered whispers; exponential crowd enthusiasm swell until the sound is deafening]

Alright then. Let's have a minute of silence then, for those we remember. Those we lost in the unsexiness. A literal minute. I mean it. I'm timing it. With my sexy watch. Nobody speaks! Don't shuffle around in your awful suits. Let's go...now.

[forty-five seconds pass; a man coughs and is executed on the spot; a minute passes]

Thank you...most of you. That was one minute. I even cut it short a couple of seconds, actually. No matter. Let's forge ahead. Uh...let's see. Here we go. For a time, I was the only one trying to bring sexy back. Everyone else was dead, or in hiding, or just not sexy whatsoever, with no chance of ever being sexy. But tonight I have some help. He's not dead, or hiding, or unsexy. He's here...now.

[dramatic pyrotechnics; JT descends from the ceiling; riotous applause; the ground opens up; the earth burns]

Legholes

So me and Merle were sitting around chatting, talking about horses and how they should wear clothes if they're already wearing shoes, and it got me to thinking. "Jesus Christ!" I shouted.

"What?" Merle asked.

"I'm about to blow your goddamn mind, buddy. Hold on and let me collect my thoughts."

So I set quietly for a spell, Merle eying me like he wanted to fuck me but also kinda like he was scared of me, so maybe like you might look at a mighty stallion that you're trying to have sex with or something. I thought and spat and said, "Alright. Let me break this down for you."

"I've been waiting so damn long already, Chet. I'm losing my shit over here. I almost got up and walked off while you was sitting there, staring into space like you wanted to fuck it. Get on with it, you slow bastard."

Merle's impatience angried up my blood something fierce, but I stifled my frustration momentarily and continued. I figured I'd give Merle what-for later on that night, when he least expected. He was dumb as shit anyway and had a memory like a well-fucked goldfish, so it'd be a grand surprise. "I was getting on with it, man. Sometimes these things take time. What I was about to say is, four-legged animals got four legs, right?"

"Yessir. It is right there in the name."

I nodded at Merle, impressed with his relative astuteness. "Precisely. So, if they're gonna wear clothes, what are they gonna wear?"

Merle's mouth dropped open and a giant wad of tobacco rolled out his bottom lip and splattered on the ground, a few spots dribbling on his boot. He poured a little chardonnay on the boot to rinse it off, and said, "Shame to waste this on boots, but can't do nothing about it now. Where were you, again?"

I sighed and cursed Merle for not drinking that wine, with its fresh lemon blossom taste, and that touch of butterscotch, and the transcendent finish full of orange zest and minerals. That was good shit. Still, I wasn't going to let it ruin my evening. "I was saying that since four-legged animals have four legs, we got to figure out what kind of clothes they're going to wear. Will they have pants, just for the back legs? Will they have pants for the back and front legs?"

"Do we call them pants if they're for the front and back?"

"Good question," I replied. "Are you thinking about more of a onesie-type garment, or a two-piece setup, which we then might call pants and a shirt?"

"Well, even if it's a two-piece outfit, do we call it shirt and pants? Isn't it more like front-pants and back-pants since, as you mentioned, four-legged animals only have legs, and not arms? Are items like shirts and pants defined by what you put in them? Must a shirt contain arms? Must pants contain legs?"

"You're bringing up great questions, Merle. This is the kind of deep thinking I love engaging in with you. My god, my mind is racing contemplating the possibilities."

"It just occurred to me that four-legged animals are called quadrupeds, Chet. Fucking quadrupeds."

"Why, I do believe you're correct. Excellent recall, Merle."

Just then, I realized Merle and I had been sitting and talking for over eight hours. Though we'd spoken little, so much left unsaid could stay that way, at least for now. I got up from my seat on the stump, walked behind Merle and put my hand on his shoulder. "My friend, I'm afraid I need to turn in. This sure has been a stimulating conversation, and I thank you kindly for it."

"Yessir. I enjoyed it myself."

As Merle got up to head to his tent, I bashed his head in with a shovel. He fell to the ground and I kicked sand in his dead eyes. "You know you deserved that," I said. Then I put a onesie on my horse and rode off into the night.

Powerful internet romance

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A Joke I Do Not Find Funny In The Least

I'd like to address something serious. There's a so-called joke that I don't find funny at all, and I'd like to explain why. I first came across it in one of those bathroom humor books, something like The World's Finest Dirty Jokes (I suppose it could have been in a Reader's Digest, though it seems too risqué for that). The book was almost certainly from the '70s and I found it in a closet at my dad's house when I was young, maybe 10 or 11. Incidentally, all I really needed to know about sex and adult relationships I learned in such books.

I'm not exactly sure how familiar people are with this joke, if at all, but it goes something like this:

A man walks into a bar, of course, and he immediately notices, on the bar, a tiny man sitting at a size-appropriate piano (that is to say, also very small). The man asks the bartender where the little man and piano came from, and the bartender tells him something about a genie. This part isn't clear in my memory, but it's something about how there's a magic beer mug which, when rubbed, produces a genie, who then gives the rubber a wish (pretty standard for genies, other than living in a glass rather than a lamp). It's possible it's not a beer mug at all, but some other object one would find in a bar, like a jukebox or pool table or Scotch eggs. In any case, the man rubs whatever it is, and a genie appears, asking the man what his wish is. The man says, "I want a million bucks," or something to that effect, and the genie snaps his fingers or twitches his nose or blinks or whatever genies do that facilitates wish-granting. A million ducks appear, and before the man can confront him, the genie disappears. The bartender being the only person left in the bar, the man turns to him and says, "What gives? I wished for bucks, not ducks." The bartender replies, "Yeah? You think I wanted a twelve-inch pianist?"

So there we have it. I have numerous problems with this joke, but I'm most offended by the punchline. It's not that I find the punchline itself offensive; rather, I'm offended because it comes at the expense of the genie. You see, I knew this genie. That's right, knew. He's dead now. During the time in which this joke occurred, he was experiencing temporary hearing loss related to an extremely serious ear infection, which was why he misheard both the bartender's and bar patron's requests.

In fact, the ear infection later spread to his skull and brain, which caused his death. Although he likely could have easily been treated with antibiotics, he and his family lacked health insurance, so he was unwilling to see a doctor. As he was dying, his wife took him to the emergency room, but it was too late. He died promptly and in great pain, both mental and physical (have you read The Death of Ivan Ilyich? It was like that), leaving behind not only a wife, but two children.

The genie's wife, having never worked before and lacking any secondary education, due to her unplanned pregnancy in high school, continues to struggle to provide for the family. She works three jobs, including as a waitress for the bartender from the joke. None of her jobs pay well, and the bartender in particular treats her poorly, unreasonably blaming her for her husband's hearing loss and thus for mishearing his wish (though, to be fair, surely we could all use bigger members). She experiences great difficulty providing for her children, who often go hungry, and spend most of their time alone, or on the streets, because their father has died and their mother is absent due to her heavy work schedule.  Often all they eat in a day is beer, stolen from the bar by their mother on her sixteen-hour shift. Please donate clothing and household items through their church.

I'm a firm believer that jokes aren't funny unless everyone is laughing, so this one really doesn't work for me. It isn't fair to mock someone's disability, nor to continually remind their family of the unfortunate circumstances of their demise. Dirty pool, dirty joke book! Shame on you.

Relationship advice

That sucks, dude. So, yeah, what happened? You met her and started hanging out all the time, like, immediately?

Oh, that's cool. Everything's going really well, you like each other so much, have so much in common. I dunno, maybe you're in love with each other. Yeah, yeah. It's like magical or something. So she moves in with you? After like a month?

Ugh. That's an awful idea. But yeah, I get that. I mean, it makes sense at the time, even if it ends up terribly, and obviously it will.

So, like, clearly you were still enjoying yourselves for a while? And then, what? You start to actually get to know each other? You're spending literally all of your time together, and it's still fun and cool, mostly, but also, like, at some point her true self and your true self start to emerge? Yeah, little stupid arguments about nonsense and shit?

Right. And, what, it just continues to get worse after that? Like, uh, little by little you start arguing more and more, and instead of being dumb bullshit arguments it's like actually about things you think are important, and gradually your philosophical differences begin to reveal themselves? And you're like, at least in the beginning, you're like, I dunno, in denial about it, and even though these deep philosophical differences are becoming more apparent, and it's becoming more clear that these things are not going to resolve themselves, and in fact you might say they're irreconcilable, you both still try to keep it together? And after a time you both realize that neither one of you is willing to change anything about yourselves, even though it would certainly benefit you in this relationship and likely in future relationships?

Oh, yeah. That's really shitty. So your arguments get worse and more frequent and you kind of start hating each other, and of course that makes the situation itself worse, but for whatever reason neither one of you wants to give up? Like, maybe you think one of you will eventually win the relationship, whatever that might mean, but you know that's never going to happen, and in reality you're just going to continue making each other more miserable, hopefully until one of you dies? Yeah, man. I've totally been there. That sucks.

Business email template, for all occasions

[Salutation] [Name],

I just wanted to fill you in on the [Name] thing. The reason for the [noun] being [verb, past] [adjective] was indeterminate so I [verb, past] [company] to find out why they didn’t [verb] [noun]. I assume they [verb] the [noun] because the [place] [noun, pl.] say, “[boring business sentence]” from last [day of the week]. I’m also assuming they [verb, past] those [noun, pl.] either because the [noun, pl.] of [noun] were outside the [noun] or, as you suggested, there was some [adjective] [noun] or [adjective] [noun] or something that resulted in [noun, pl.]. For now I’m just leaving the [noun] [adjective] and not [verb, present progressive] the [noun]. The [company] [noun, collective] are used to waiting on [noun, pl.] so I don’t [verb] it should [verb]. I’ll let you know when I hear back from [name].

[Valediction],
[Name]

List of fears, part II

1. Boating accident
2. Botulism
3. Building collapse
4. Shooting, accidental
5. Shooting, targeted
6. Gangrene
7. Lice, head
8. Lice, body
9. Electrocution
10. Constipation
11. Car accident, nonfatal
12. Car accident, fatal
13. Overdose, anesthesia
14. Prison
15. Homelessness
16. Thousands of rats simultaneously licking me

List of fears, part I (in the order in which they occurred to me)

1. Heart attack
2. Serious infection resulting in death
3. Amputation, leg
4. Amputation, arm
5. Amputation, hand
6. Amputation, thumb
7. Incontinence
8. Cancer, lung
9. Cancer, throat
10. Cancer, jaw
11. Cancer, colon
12. Cancer, stomach
13. Cancer, brain
14. Cancer, blood
15. Cancer, bone
16. Cancer, testicles
17. Accidental castration
18. Purposeful castration
19. Public speaking
20. Disfiguring car accident
21. Severe burns
22. Death by fire
23. Impotency
24. Rotten teeth
25. Rabies
26. Assault, public bathroom
27. Assault, dark alleyway
28. Tentacled monster living behind my mother's garage
29. Attacked by pack of dogs
30. Blindness, sudden
31. Blindness, gradual
32. Parasites
33. Being alone
34. Being wrong
35. Being perceived as stupid
36. Loss of brain function
37. Dementia
38. Biting off my own tongue
39. Disembowelment
40. Various viruses (more research necessary)
41. Human interaction

Bl.Bl. - Chapter I

 This is the first section of my bachelor's thesis (slightly modified):

    Years before I was born, my father had met a man, one Morris Moore, on a train from Philadelphia to Boston. He had boarded the train early, as he customarily did, and taken his seat. Moments before the train departed the station, Mr. Moore entered their shared cabin in a rumpled suit and removed the sagging derby from his head, nodding politely to my father as he did so. My father, impeccably dressed (as always), briefly looked up from his newspaper and acknowledged the greeting in kind. He returned to his paper, loathe to engage this dowdy man in conversation. Mr. Moore, however, after placing his briefcase and overcoat on the seat next to his own, sat across from my father, sighed deeply, and asked my father if he was headed home.
    Once more, my father looked up from the paper, surprised, and explained that he was merely conducting some business overnight.
    Mr. Moore mentioned that he too had hoped to attend to some business, though that had not gone well. He pulled an engraved pewter and brass flask from his suit jacket and offered my father a sip, mentioning that he wasn't normally much of a drinker, but that sometimes circumstances left few other choices. Shocked by the man's forthrightness and evident lack of class, he shook his head no and stared at him, wide-eyed. It was off-putting to my father, this stranger exposing himself to someone so private and guarded. As my father contemplated how to ignore the man most politely, Mr. Moore said that he had created something ingenious. Unfortunately, no one in Philadelphia would meet with him to discuss it.
    Though my father was unwilling to pry, as it was completely contrary to his nature, he was, certainly, intrigued by the man's claim. Unsure of the proper response, and unnerved by Mr. Moore's continued drinking, he mumbled that the situation was unfortunate.
    Fortified by spirits, Mr. Moore opened up further, drawing attention to the ink spots on his shirt pocket: an embarrassing and common complaint, he said.
    Indeed it was, and my father had indeed fallen victim to the destructiveness of the leaky fountain pen. He found it quite annoying (as did most) and he nodded his head in affirmation.
    The trick, Mr. Moore explained, is a threaded cap, like a screw. If the nib can be sealed off, then there will be no chance of ink leaking into the pocket. My father sat slack-jawed for a moment, considering the elegant simplicity of the idea and silently cursing himself for not first thinking of it. He quickly regained his composure and expressed surprise that no one had been willing to pursue the idea.
    Mr. Moore once again said that no, no one had yet been interested. That very afternoon, in fact, Mr. Waterman had refused to see him altogether. Would a distinguished gentleman such as my father like to enter into a partnership?
    The man was clearly unable or unfit to realize his vision. He was a slave to circumstance, whereas my father saw himself as a powerful catalyst - he could, through sheer force of will, determine his own fate. Mr. Moore could do no such thing, so my father took it upon himself to rescue the design from what he thought would be an otherwise ultimately dismal end. In response to the man's question, he lied, saying that it wasn't exactly his area of expertise and he had little interest in exploring new industries.
    Mr. Moore, further dejected, drank from the flask intermittently while my father read the paper. Eventually, he fell asleep.
    Shortly after, my father quietly reached across the cabin for Mr. Moore's battered leather briefcase and unlatched it. Careful not to disturb the sleeping man, he reached inside and removed all the papers, making sure that the innovative pen design was contained within them. Once he had found it, and after inspecting the other papers to ensure that no other evidence of the invention remained in Mr. Moore's possession, he placed it in his own briefcase. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and slid it into Mr. Moore's valise, confident that the man would never have received any compensation otherwise. Mr. Moore still slept as the train pulled into South Station and as my father disembarked.
    My father told me this when I was in my early twenties, after I had informed him of my intention to join the clergy. As he spoke I sat silently, terrified to interrupt him. He stared, unblinking, at the floor of his office, the arms of his chair gripped with chalk-white knuckles. The last thing he said, before he got up and left me in the room alone, was, "Alea iacta est."
    "Deo gratias," I whispered.

Rondelet I

On this missile
Alone and aimless we do ride.
On this missile
Temporal – our craft, a thistle.
Not life within formaldehyde;
Impermanence, where we reside
On this missile.

The normality of the regular day, pt. 1

It was a day like any other. A Thursday like any other, to be precise. I awoke to the usual beeps from my alarm clock. "Good morning, little buddy," I said to my cat, Randy. He followed me from the bedroom into the kitchen, where I opened a can of food for him and dumped it into his bowl. It smelled okay but I decided not to have any breakfast, like most mornings.

While Randy ate, I went to the bathroom and took care of my morning routine. I brushed my teeth, evacuated my bowels, and took a lukewarm shower, just the way I like it. After the shower I carefully combed my hair and returned to the bedroom to get dressed. I had laid out my clothes the previous evening so I didn't have any choices to make. Just the way I like it. I put my shirt on and mussed up my perfect comb job, as usual, so I had to go back to the bathroom and fix that mistake. The morning was quickly becoming frustrating, like most mornings.

I finally got my hair back in place and put on the rest of my clothes (pants, belt, socks, shoes, tie [clip-on, for ease of use]). Randy sat on the floor and stared me down as I did so, managing to unnerve me slightly. I'm a nervous guy, and I don't like being looked at. What else can I say? Why am I defending myself to you?

In any case, I was almost ready to go to work. I shoved some Kleenex in my pockets and grabbed my keys and cell phone, even though I knew taking the phone was largely pointless because the only people I knew were my coworkers, and we weren't particularly close. They would really have no reason to call me, whether I was at the office or not. But I took the phone anyway, as a kind of insurance against whatever unforeseen unfortunate event might happen. At least 911 would answer my calls. I hoped.

I got in my car and turned the radio to a non-station (85.3), so I would hear the soothing sounds of static during my hellish commute of 15 minutes. Granted, sometimes the drive only took ten minutes, or sometimes as few as five, but it was torturous nonetheless. Other road warriors would honk and curse and shake their fists at me, speeding by and glaring. They displayed all manners of rudeness, really, and this day was no different.

I reached the parking lot at work and breathed deeply to calm myself down after I had parked. After a few minutes of hyperventilating, I was somehow ready for the rest of the morning.

"Good morning, Hortense," I said to Hortense as I walked into the building. She nodded and half-smiled in reply. I wondered if she had some kind of facial muscular disability, since I'd never seen her fully smile. Or maybe she was ashamed of her teeth for some reason, and wanted to hide them. Either way, her half-smile slightly unnerved me that day, like every other day. I scuttled past her as quickly as my too-short legs would allow and arrived at my office.

I sat down at my desk and wondered what I would do today. My job title was CSOM IV, which stood for something that apparently was not necessary for me to know in order to do my job. I also wasn't exactly sure what the company I worked for did, other than some kind of consulting, whatever that means. I didn't have the desire or wherewithal to investigate further, and it never came up in conversation because I so rarely spoke to anyone outside of the office. Even within the office itself, the topic of what exactly we were all doing, what purpose we were working towards, was never broached. No matter. I knew my duties: receive forms, study them, input them into our system and pass them along to someone else. Sometimes the forms were different, but the principle remained the same whether they were CRFs, CFs, S3s, TRAICs, or whatever else. I remembered seeing a few EE7s when I first started, but they must have been phased out shortly after. I loved my job.

More hungry than hungry

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Wait, so I have worms? Living in my stomach?"

"Yes, that's correct. Well, not entirely correct. They're not only in your stomach, but your intestines and colon as well. And possibly elsewhere."

I stared at the doctor for a moment, wondering how this could have happened to me. Sweat beaded up on my forehead. I felt like I might pass out at any time.

Then I vomited, lost consciousness, fell off the examining table and cracked my head open on the floor.

I am become milkshake.

Herbert felt satisfied. He also felt sure that he would soon feel yet more satisfied, conceivably more satisfied than he had ever felt. Finally he would taste a milkshake.

Herbert's childhood had been one of deprivation. He cried a lot, possibly because of what he had been deprived, or possibly his mother deprived him because he cried so much. It was impossible to tell some five decades later. He resented his mother, Helga, for not allowing him to have milkshakes and other things children crave. But mostly milkshakes.

"Herbert, you're too fat already," she would say, which was true, but a rude comment to make to a child. "And you're crying. If I give you this milkshake you'll just cry into it and your tears will make it salty. Milkshakes are supposed to be sweet. So no, you can't have any. You'll ruin it." What Herbert didn't know was that his mother was an alcoholic, and she loved to drink vanilla milkshakes with peach schnapps, because she was a disgusting woman. Not only did she think he was too fat for a tasty milkshake, his partaking would have directly cut into her alcohol consumption. So clearly that wasn't an option. And who could afford two milkshakes in those days, anyway? They weren't rich, clearly.

His mother's arguments were persuasive, Herbert thought, so he worked tirelessly to create a tear-catcher. To be honest the tear-catcher was nothing more than a washcloth safety-pinned to Herbert's glasses so that it hung down across his cheeks and nose, soaking up the tears as they streamed down his face.

"Look!" Herbert yelled after completing the tear-catcher. "May I have a sip now, mother? Even if I cry my tears won't spill into the drink. See? See?" he asked while bawling.

Of course his mother didn't want him to drink her precious peach schnapps so she smacked him in the head and broke his glasses, which also caused the tear-catcher to break, although more than anything it just became unattached from his glasses and dropped to the floor softly, like a washcloth and two safety pins likely would.

As far as Herbert could remember, similar scenes characterized his childhood, and later his early, middle and late-middle adulthood, as he was a loser and lived with his mother for a variety of loser-y reasons. He loved her, but he loved her in a distinctly Stockholm syndrome way, although neither Herbert nor his mother was aware of Stockholm syndrome, even though it had long been used as a plot point in sitcoms. But they didn't like sitcoms. They liked shows about carpentry, and those nice Sunday morning news people, and sometimes they watched The Wheel when Herbert's mother got really drunk.

So Herbert learned to live without milkshakes in his life. His knew his mother couldn’t live forever, and when she was dead he would have all the milkshakes he could handle! Maybe even more than he could handle, he thought devilishly. That would teach her – he could drink so many milkshakes that he would make himself vomit just like she used to (though that was due to the schnapps, not the milkshakes; Herbert, however, never knew about that).

He waited for his mother’s death, first a year and then a decade and then soon 47 years had passed. Herbert graduated from high school and took a job in an office, sitting at a desk and doing nothing that benefited anyone but was somehow supposedly a necessary function in modern society. At first he had a typewriter and then a series of computers that he was barely able to operate, but it didn’t really matter because everyone else in his office was old and worthless too and they couldn’t operate their computers properly either.

Herbert struggled daily with his computer at work for eight hours, then took the #117 bus home to his mother. One day, not unlike any other, Herbert walked in the front door after a long day of incompetency and shouted, “Mother! I’m home. What shall we have for dinner?” Herbert always asked his mother what she wanted to eat, although he knew full well that, being a Wednesday, they would have spaghetti and meatball TV dinners. Normally Herbert’s mother would respond to his query with some meanness, but on this particular day she said nothing and he immediately knew she was dead.

He walked through the house to her bedroom, where he found her sitting up in bed with a sitcom blaring on the television. Herbert wasn’t sure what it was, and its vileness caused the bile to rise in his throat. He turned off the TV, turned to his mother and said, “Well, I guess I’ll try a milkshake now.” A single tear dropped off his cheek, and he ground it into the filthy carpet with his heel.

Herbert felt triumphant. He had buried his mother in the backyard beneath the hackberry tree, per her request. It had taken a long time, and moving his mother (who was herself quite fat, more than likely from all the milkshakes and sugary liquor) proved more difficult than expected. With the aid of a wheelbarrow, though, he was able to get her outside. After filling the grave, he went inside and took a shower. Then he took the bus to the nearest fast food restaurant.

“I’ll have a milkshake,” Herbert said breathlessly. He could hardly believe it was finally happening. “What flavor?” the clerk asked. Herbert had never considered this. Flavors? He thought all milkshakes were vanilla. He went with that, as that’s what his mother had always had. “Vanilla, please. To go,” he replied, with more confidence in his voice than had ever been present before. He had barely enough money to pay for the milkshake, and he knew he would have to forgo the bus ride home in order to afford it, but he could hardly give up now.

Herbert watched the birth of his milkshake, created by this god of a pimply teenage fast food employee. His mouth dropped when he was handed the milkshake. A tear came to his eye, but he sucked it back in. He didn’t want to cry even though the occasion was so joyous, and crying was pretty much his default response to any situation, good or bad. Still, he wanted to maintain his dignity. This was a somber and solemn moment.

Herbert took his milkshake and walked outside. He breathed in deeply and felt satisfied. He took the top off the cup containing the milkshake and peered inside. It was silky and smooth and it clung to the walls and moved with a glacial magnificence. This must be what it was like discovering Antarctica, he thought. He put the lid back on, careful to protect the milkshake, and took his first step home. His toe caught on a crack in the sidewalk and he fell forward. The Styrofoam cup was crushed in his grasp and milkshake exploded outwards. Herbert’s face hit the ground and his glasses were smashed. Blood poured out of his nose and he began to cry.

The world collapses in ten minutes

"...a violent event controlled by political cowards."

They didn't think they were cowards. I imagine they thought what they were doing was their only recourse. Backed into a corner, options running out. Maybe that does make their actions cowardly. They were certainly afraid. Fear is a great motivator. I wasn't much afraid myself, being as far from the violence as I was. I'm not very motivated, coincidentally. Or not coincidentally.

I decided to frighten myself. To do something rash, to feel fear. To motivate myself. What I was motivating myself to do, I wasn't sure. I didn't much think it through, to be honest. I figured it would work itself out. Fear would motivate me to act in some manner that would be beneficial to myself.

It sounds silly to put it that way. It makes it seem like I didn't know what I was doing. Which is true, but who wants to acknowledge they're flying blind? Just put your head down and proceed. Pretend like you know what's happening, and things will work out for the better.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work out. It certainly didn't in this case, which I probably could have predicted if I had given it more than a moment's thought.

I never thought I could hurt so many people. I mean, the results astounded me. How could it do such terrible damage? I underestimated everything except my own abilities.

Whole grain

A spider sat on top of the muffin. I hoped the woman at the table would notice it herself, but of course she didn’t. It wasn’t a big spider, and I could tell it wasn’t a black widow or a brown recluse (the only two types of poisonous spider I can identify), so I didn’t say anything. I’m uncomfortable interrupting conversations.
   
The woman and her friend (also female) were discussing the television they had watched the night before. I had no idea what they were talking about.
   
The spider lifted one of his front legs in that oddly mechanical way spiders do and just kind of held it upright. It vibrated slightly from the wind of the woman’s breath or the air from the ventilation system, I wasn’t sure which. It almost looked like the spider was waving at something. Maybe spiders can be friendly, I thought.
   
I waved back, just because, and the woman noticed and glared at me. She probably thought I was trying to pick her up. She needn’t have worried; I wasn’t really attracted to her anyway, so there was no real risk. I was simply trying to be cordial to the possibly-waving spider.
   
Then she ate him.

Imperial haiku VI

A long-haired star rose
Lightning struck his father's tomb
October thirteenth

Rondel I

My lover has the reddest hair
Indeed, and fickl'est of moods.
At times she may seem coarse and rude,
Yet still I know of none so fair.

I must repeat that none compare,
though condescension she exudes.
My lover has the reddest hair
Indeed, and fickl'est of moods.

Both her heart and her womb are bare.
A brood? No gift, we each conclude.
And sympathetic attitudes,
For misanthropes, create a pair.
My lover has the reddest hair
Indeed, and fickl'est of moods.

Imperial haiku V

The cocks crow at night
Bleak, the number twenty-five
Protect me, Hecate