u/Beautiful_Dish6390

Doug surveyed the valley from an observation deck high up on the mountainside. This was the most important weekend of his life. A pair of hiker bros loudly debating the quality of the latest Drake album passed by on the hiking trail connected to the deck. Doug didn’t let it distract him. He wiped sweat from his forehead. He had labored setting up equipment in the valley below all morning. It was the most physical activity the portly man had endured in at least a decade, but his adrenaline kept the fatigue at bay. Somewhere, down in that blessed valley, roamed not just one Bigfoot, but an entire family of Bigfeet. Doug was certain of it.

That night, on the public campground, Doug struggled to erect his newly purchased tent. A passerby took pity on him and helped him pitch the tent correctly. Doug sat in the tent for hours staring at a half dozen baby monitors connected to cameras placed strategically throughout the valley. He drank Mountain Dew Baja Blasts to keep from tiring and listened to affirmations recorded by his hypnotherapist to keep him motivated.

“You are valuable. You are capable. Your goals are obtainable. They can be accomplished through hard work and positive thinking. Believe in yourself.”

The recording played on a loop. There wasn’t a hint of Bigfoot activity on any of the monitors, but Doug did not let that discourage him. There had been a baker’s dozen sightings in the valley over the last half decade, and Doug was a strong believer in the old adage “if there’s smoke, there’s fire.” He took a swig of a Baja Blast to ward off a yawn.

Doug awoke mid-morning the next day.

“Rats!” he exclaimed. He skipped breakfast, showering, and brushing his teeth to compensate for lost time. Not a half hour later he was exploring the valley.

A Bigfoot poster loomed on the ceiling in Doug’s childhood bedroom. It was the last thing he saw at night and the first thing he saw in the morning. He was singularly driven and, as a result, isolated from his peers.

Doug stood still as a pair of does drank from a small stream not twenty yards from him. He admired their wild grace and tried not to think of the carnage that happened in this valley when deer like these were preyed upon by the local Bigfoot population. Doug had no stomach for that sort of thing, but he understood it as a reality. A predator the size of a Bigfoot would prey on large game.

Sunset came like bad news. The valley was gorgeous in the golden light, but to Doug it signaled defeat. This made two days in a row he had left empty-handed.

“You are valuable. You are capable. Your goals are obtainable. They can be accomplished through hard work and positive thinking. Believe in yourself.”

Once again, he stayed up late sipping Dew and surveying his monitors. Outside his tent, a thunderstorm blanketed the area. He wondered whether or not Bigfeet ventured into treacherous weather. He suspected they did not.

The image on one of the monitors illuminated from a nearby lightning strike. It caught Doug’s attention just in time for him to see a dark figure dash across the monitor. Doug chugged a Dew, grabbed his flashlight, and charged into the night.

Rain pelted him as he sloshed down a trail to the valley. He felt a deep appreciation for modern technology. He knew the monitors would make this weekend a success. They had cost him three weeks’ pay, but he gladly put in overtime at the factory to come up with the funds in fourteen days. The rainwater crept into his boots and began dampening his wool socks. Doug couldn’t help but wonder if his parents would have found success if they had access to the technology he had.

As he neared the site of the camera linked to the monitor, Doug’s heart pounded in his chest. He was certain that it was about to happen. Doug was about to fulfill his family’s destiny. After four generations, his bloodline would finally get vengeance on a Bigfoot. Doug heard his father’s raspy voice in his head.

An eye for an eye. No matter what. No matter how long it takes.

Doug hadn’t seen his father since he was eleven years old. He and his mother had departed for a Bigfoot hunting expedition and never returned. Authorities never even found their bodies.

Doug slipped on a wet stone, fell, and cracked his head on a tree root.

When Doug was in the seventh grade, he was suspended for assaulting the school’s mascot with a baseball bat. Inside the Bernie the Bear costume was Stevie Miller, the school bully who pestered Doug relentlessly. On this occasion, Stevie, in costume, pretended to be Bigfoot while two of Stevie’s friends pretended to be Doug’s parents. They acted out an attack. Doug ran away crying. He returned minutes later with a Louisville Slugger.

Doug awoke at sunrise, dazed and confused. He felt like someone was actively jackhammering his temple. He sat up and came face to face with a black bear. It charged. Doug had no energy to fight back.

In his final moment, Doug saw a memory of himself sitting alone on his lunch break at the factory. He always ate alone. Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a honey bun, a tangerine, an orange Powerade, and a strawberry energy drink. He’d watch a video from his favorite cryptozoology YouTuber while he ate. Doug hoped they had honey buns in heaven.

The black bear grew sick of Doug’s flavor. The beast had eaten its fill of the fatty human but regretted not walking the extra half mile to the river to catch a tasty fish.

A spear flew through the black bear’s skull. It was thrown by a Bigfoot that stood ten feet away. Physically, the Bigfoot was consistent with its depictions in pop culture. It wore a loincloth for modesty and had a necklace of carved stones around its neck. It approached its kill and hoisted the bear over its shoulder. It looked down at Doug’s lifeless body. It felt pity for the human.

The Bigfoot returned to its cave, cooked the bear over a fire, and served the meat to its family.

Reggie hated being a caterpillar. He felt the constant hunger robbed him of agency. He grew heavier and more cantankerous with no time to pursue his true interests. In the back of his mind he wanted to travel and sightsee, but the front of his mind, where the steering wheel was, kept him on a straight course to his next meal.

Reggie hated his stay in his cocoon even more than caterpillarhood. He barely remembered constructing it. One day he was building it. The next he was locked in its confines, dangling from a tree branch. His morphing body ached. He just wanted it to end.

Reggie hated being a butterfly the most. He finally had the ability to drift on the winds and see the world, but he quickly discovered the world was full of hungry robins, tits, and orioles.

Fireman Frank fought flames with fists. Inadvisable of course, but he did it. He also used water, the cool suit, and the even cooler truck, as the little town of New Watertown and Frank would have burned up long ago if he only employed fisticuffs. His knuckles had burned and calcified, but he never lost his conviction. He once described the habit to a local journalist, and he spoke of it like an addiction. Frank needed to punch a billowing fire. He needed it like Dennis the Dentist needed to lick teeth. He needed it like Mailman Mike needed his mail gun. He needed it like Lou the Librarian needed his nitrous and Percocet. The men of New Watertown were an odd bunch. Something in the water gave them each a peculiar affliction.

In 2024, Fireman Frank was arrested in Paris for attempting to land a right hook on the Olympic flame during the torch relay portion of the opening ceremonies.

He was released and returned to work in New Watertown earlier this year.

[HM] Bully Joe Fight to the Death

Bully Joe practiced his breathing technique, as he often did before a fight. In through the nose. Hold for five seconds. Exhale. Hold for five seconds. Repeat. It never failed to calm his mind before combat. On this particular occasion he found it more challenging, because he and his soon-to-be opponent were standing in the center of an abandoned football field being watched by dozens of anonymous spectators wearing Eyes Wide Shut masks. This was the semifinal match of the Secret Billionaire Club’s annual Anything Goes Bloodsport Tournament. Being that this was the semifinals, Bully Joe had begun to get used to the peculiar spectators, and with just a few more deep, held breaths than usual, he successfully cleared his mind. He found himself in a state of nirvana, which he referred to as “dummy mode.”

While in “dummy mode,” Bully Joe’s mind reduced to its most primal. It is worth noting that even at his sharpest, Bully Joe’s mind was never described as sophisticated, cultured, or even competent. Still, the control he exerted over himself to achieve “dummy mode” was commendable, and the results spoke for themselves.

Bully Joe’s opponent, Victorious Vinny, was a moderately successful college basketball player turned moderately successful drug dealer turned model inmate turned moderately successful youth minister and taekwondo instructor. He had a size advantage on Bully Joe as well as the steadfast belief that God was on his side. Victorious Vinny charged Bully Joe like a raging bull. Bully Joe dodged a flying side kick and swiftly eliminated Vinny with a single, lethal jab. Not so victorious after all.

The masked spectators never cheered. They hardly reacted at all. Particularly gruesome kills elicited a handful of groans and a couple of golf claps, but Bully Joe’s blows were never flashy. So far, he had only watched his opponents get dragged off the field in silence.

In the early rounds, some contestants attempted to flee before and between fights. None of them made it very far. There were snipers posted atop the old concrete bleachers. The contestants had all been drugged, kidnapped, and brought here against their will. They did not know it, but they were each personally selected by a member of the Secret Billionaire Club. The scouting process was different for each member. Some went incognito to local martial arts classes and preyed on instructors and classmates. Others selected based on criminal record. Bully Joe frequented karate classes at his local YMCA and also had a considerable rap sheet, so either was possible. He never gave any thought to how he arrived at the tournament. He and the others were told that the only way to survive was to win every fight. Bully Joe understood this as “Highlander rules.”

With Victorious Vinny now unceremoniously disposed of, Bully Joe was escorted back to the tent where contestants waited between fights. On his way in, Two Swoll Tommy and Ole Granny Adelaide, the other two semifinalists, were being escorted to the field for their penultimate battle. Granny Adelaide waved at Bully Joe as they passed.

The member of the Secret Billionaire Club who selected Ole Granny Adelaide was an especially sadistic oil baron with severe mommy issues. He had no interest in winning the tournament, only in fulfilling his own sick desires for Adelaide’s demise. He had not known about her past as a gymnast or her recent invention of a martial art for the elderly, which she called “Cane-Fu.” Each round she was underestimated by her opponents. She charmed them with gentle smiles. Then she bashed their skulls in with her cane.

Two Swoll Tommy was a more conventional pick. He was a juice head with bulging veins and thin skin. His first opponent had mocked his receding hairline, and Two Swoll Tommy flattened the man’s skull with his fists. He still had skull fragments lodged between his knuckles.

Bully Joe waited in the tent thinking about what he would do after the tournament. His girlfriend, Betty the Barista, would probably be angry with him since he wasn’t able to pick her up from work earlier, due to his being kidnapped and forced to fight to the death. He figured he’d steal some flowers from the grocery store and do his apology dance to win her over when he got back. The apology dance had a 100% success rate.

After a few minutes, Two Swoll Tommy returned with tears in his eyes and one less molar in his mouth. Bully Joe was left feeling conflicted. He wanted the old lady to survive, but he also didn’t want to kill her. He didn’t hold any resentment toward Tommy. Bully Joe knew he was just doing what he had to do. So many complex emotions rattled around in his skull as he and Tommy were led back out to the field. Bully Joe cast them aside and started his breathing technique.

Two Swoll Tommy screamed obscenities and pounded his chest as Bully Joe breathed his way into “dummy mode.” The fight began. It wasn’t much of a fight. Tommy’s stamina was greatly depleted during his bout with Granny Adelaide. She gave him hell with that cane. Bully Joe dodged a few punches and ended the battle with a karate chop to Tommy’s neck. Two Swoll Tommy fell lifeless. A blow dart struck Bully Joe in the neck. He collapsed next to Tommy.

He woke up the next day a few blocks away from the Starbucks where his girlfriend worked. He wasted no time and sprinted in that direction.

He arrived breathless a few minutes later. He steadied himself as he took a deep breath through his nose, held for five seconds, exhaled, held, and repeated. His love, Betty the Barista, burst through the front door and began screaming at him. Bully Joe launched into his apology dance. It worked, as it always did.

Bosco had half an hour to deliver the briefcase to Two Tone Tony. He was making great time as he weaved through traffic in his candy red Ford Mustang. Today was to be the day he made a name for himself. He felt like a million bucks right up to the moment he got pulled over. When the sirens blared and the red and blues filled his rear view, Bosco’s sphincter tightened and his palms oozed perspirant all over his wood grain steering wheel.

“Oh, Madonna!” he exclaimed in frustration.

Bosco had two options. First, he could pull over and hope the officer did not discover the briefcase. Second, he could put the pedal to the floor and bounce on the devil. He thought it over, to the best of his minimal ability.

“Don’t be a wuss, Boss Boy. Show the world Ma was wrong about you.”

Bosco chose the thrill of a chase.

He slowed, turned on his blinker, and crawled to a stop on the side of the highway. The cop car fell in behind him, and just as the officer slowed to a stop, Bosco stomped on the gas.

Bosco’s favorite films included (and were strictly limited to) Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the Cars animated film franchise, and the first seven Fast and Furious films. In his mind, he was born for this. In reality, his vehicle ended up wrapped around a telephone pole half an hour into the chase.

He tried his best to flee on foot with the briefcase in tow. He did not make it very far on his broken leg. The pursuing cop caught up to him, beat him up, cuffed him, and then beat him up again.

When the officer cracked open the briefcase, Bosco begged him not to.

“Yo! Woah! Madonna! Knock it off, copper! Ain’t nobody ’posed to peek!”

The officer opened it, laughed, and tossed it to the ground for Bosco to see. It was empty.

Meanwhile, Two Tone Tony paced around his office awaiting a delivery from his most trusted runner. There was a knock at the door. Valeria, an exceptionally plain-looking woman in her early thirties, entered and handed him a briefcase. Tony could always count on her to make it from point A to point B in her unassuming Honda Odyssey. On this particular occasion, he had sent some of his less intelligent workers on decoy missions. This extra precaution said more about the importance of the briefcase than it did his faith in Valeria.

As always, Tony paid the young woman, thanked her, and sent her on her way.

Despite Tony’s notoriety in his little corner of the underworld, he was a small fish in the underworld at large. In this particular transaction, he was a mere middleman facilitating the exchange of whatever was in the briefcase. He considered this a potential “big break” for himself. There were genuinely horrible men on both sides of this transaction, and if Two Tone Tony pulled this off he would be endearing himself to both. All he had to do was keep the briefcase safe and unseen until the buyer’s representatives arrived, but the mystery ate at Two Tone Tony. He considered himself an honorable man, and he knew damn well what happened to the curious cat, but still he could not resist temptation. He opened the briefcase and discovered that he had been far too trusting of Valeria.

Valeria pushed her Honda Odyssey to its limits as she sped down the freeway with Two Tone Tony, Tony’s posse, the buyer’s representatives, several police departments, and a handful of angry civilians she had nearly crashed into on her tail. Her engine sputtered. She panicked as she approached a spike strip trap on the road ahead. She slammed on her brakes. One of the vehicles behind her slammed into her rear. There were more impacts. She lost consciousness. Her Honda tumbled seven times before it finally came to a stop.

In Valeria’s final moments she saw flashes of her past. A feeling of regret consumed her. This was supposed to be her ticket out of this life, not the nail in her coffin. Valeria left this world feeling like a fool.

A massive twenty-three vehicle pile-up ensued. Then there was a firefight between the surviving police officers and the surviving criminals. It was a very cinematic and bloody battle. When all was said and done, the boys in blue prevailed.

Officers searched Valeria’s vehicle at the scene but found nothing of note. It wasn’t until a cavity search performed at the coroner’s office that the mystery of the briefcase was solved.

Within Valeria, a solid gold dildo encrusted with diamond accents was discovered. An engraving at the base read, “GO FUCK YOURSELF.”

Marla knew she would not survive much longer. It had been two months since her Cessna went down in the North Woods of Maine.

She sat in the remnants of the aircraft, which had become the centerpiece of her makeshift camp. She watched as her small campfire smoldered just outside. She needed to collect more firewood, but she pushed that from her mind for the time being. It was the latest hour of her day, and she always reserved it for reminiscing.

She thought back to her twenty-sixth birthday. It was only two years prior, but it felt like a lifetime ago. She celebrated by flying cross country to visit her friend Helena in Olympia, Washington. Helena took her to a concert at Capitol Lake Park called the Capitol Lake Jam. There they saw a band called My Name and another called Nirvana. The music was a bit abrasive for Marla’s taste, as she preferred artists like Whitney Houston and Taylor Dayne, but Helena assured her the sound was popular locally.

The sound of a snapped twig and rustled foliage pulled Marla from the escape of her memory. An anxious energy surged through her as she brandished the hatchet she had come to rely on in these situations.

Per usual, the disturbance was the result of a white-tailed deer passing by. Marla caught a glimpse of the white on its tail fading into the darkness of the woods. For the most part, she had grown numb to the many sounds of the night, but when something got as close to her camp as that deer had, she always went into survival mode.

Marla tossed the last of her firewood onto the flames and retreated back into the Cessna for the night.

She dreamt of the first man she loved, Rocco, a withered pilot with a coke problem that she met in Little Rock. The man was impressed with her and swept her up in a high-flying romance. Rocco was fun, but eventually cancerous to people who got too close. He and his habits tended to be contagious. In her dream, he was lost with her in the North Woods, professing undying love for her while constructing a log cabin for them to live in. It was not the worst dream she’d had since the crash, but she was unable to give herself to its fantasy, as she knew, in the back of her mind, that Rocco’s drug addiction had spiraled out of control in the years since their breakup and he had passed from a heart attack at sixty thousand feet in August of last year.

The next day she washed her feet in the frigid little pond near her camp. She needed a full bath, but the temperature would be unbearable, and there was no one around to be bothered by her anyway. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water’s surface. It was a rare sight. Marla recognized herself fine, but was still unsettled. She was unkempt and out of control. It bothered her. Marla never considered herself vain or even especially feminine. She only wore makeup for formal events and her wardrobe contained more leather jackets than dresses. Still, her current appearance bothered her. She did nothing to change it, of course, as she was still alone.

The rest of her day was spent collecting firewood and hunting rabbits. She had perfected the latter with a system of traps that would make Elmer Fudd green with envy. When the sun began to slip toward the horizon, she returned to camp and roasted one of her kills over her fire.

Sleep was off the table on that particular night. Deep into the witching hour, she sat curled in a ball by her fire, wrapped in every torn and tattered piece of fabric in her camp, shivering uncontrollably, on the edge of hypothermia. She couldn’t even manage to let her mind drift into the past. All she could think about was being frozen like a statue, undiscovered and eventually scavenged by a black bear.

Morning came and heated Marla away from the brink. She lost consciousness as the birds chirped their morning songs. The long battle with the elements was too much for her already depleted body.

She dreamt of Helena swimming freely in the pond by her camp. Marla approached the water and saw her reflection. She was younger. Maybe nineteen or twenty. She wore a bathing suit. Her body looked strong and healthy. Helena called for Marla to join her in the water.

Marla looked back at the woods in the direction of her camp. She looked back at Helena.

“C’mon, Marla. It’s so warm.”

Marla knew she would not survive much longer. It had been two months since her Cessna went down in the North Woods of Maine.

She sat in the remnants of the aircraft, which had become the centerpiece of her makeshift camp. She watched as her small campfire smoldered just outside. She needed to collect more firewood, but she pushed that from her mind for the time being. It was the latest hour of her day, and she always reserved it for reminiscing.

She thought back to her twenty-sixth birthday. It was only two years prior, but it felt like a lifetime ago. She celebrated by flying cross country to visit her friend Helena in Olympia, Washington. Helena took her to a concert at Capitol Lake Park called the Capitol Lake Jam. There they saw a band called My Name and another called Nirvana. The music was a bit abrasive for Marla’s taste, as she preferred artists like Whitney Houston and Taylor Dayne, but Helena assured her the sound was popular locally.

The sound of a snapped twig and rustled foliage pulled Marla from the escape of her memory. An anxious energy surged through her as she brandished the hatchet she had come to rely on in these situations.

Per usual, the disturbance was the result of a white-tailed deer passing by. Marla caught a glimpse of the white on its tail fading into the darkness of the woods. For the most part, she had grown numb to the many sounds of the night, but when something got as close to her camp as that deer had, she always went into survival mode.

Marla tossed the last of her firewood onto the flames and retreated back into the Cessna for the night.

She dreamt of the first man she loved, Rocco, a withered pilot with a coke problem that she met in Little Rock. The man was impressed with her and swept her up in a high-flying romance. Rocco was fun, but eventually cancerous to people who got too close. He and his habits tended to be contagious. In her dream, he was lost with her in the North Woods, professing undying love for her while constructing a log cabin for them to live in. It was not the worst dream she’d had since the crash, but she was unable to give herself to its fantasy, as she knew, in the back of her mind, that Rocco’s drug addiction had spiraled out of control in the years since their breakup and he had passed from a heart attack at sixty thousand feet in August of last year.

The next day she washed her feet in the frigid little pond near her camp. She needed a full bath, but the temperature would be unbearable, and there was no one around to be bothered by her anyway. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water’s surface. It was a rare sight. Marla recognized herself fine, but was still unsettled. She was unkempt and out of control. It bothered her. Marla never considered herself vain or even especially feminine. She only wore makeup for formal events and her wardrobe contained more leather jackets than dresses. Still, her current appearance bothered her. She did nothing to change it, of course, as she was still alone.

The rest of her day was spent collecting firewood and hunting rabbits. She had perfected the latter with a system of traps that would make Elmer Fudd green with envy. When the sun began to slip toward the horizon, she returned to camp and roasted one of her kills over her fire.

Sleep was off the table on that particular night. Deep into the witching hour, she sat curled in a ball by her fire, wrapped in every torn and tattered piece of fabric in her camp, shivering uncontrollably, on the edge of hypothermia. She couldn’t even manage to let her mind drift into the past. All she could think about was being frozen like a statue, undiscovered and eventually scavenged by a black bear.

Morning came and heated Marla away from the brink. She lost consciousness as the birds chirped their morning songs. The long battle with the elements was too much for her already depleted body.

She dreamt of Helena swimming freely in the pond by her camp. Marla approached the water and saw her reflection. She was younger. Maybe nineteen or twenty. She wore a bathing suit. Her body looked strong and healthy. Helena called for Marla to join her in the water.

Marla looked back at the woods in the direction of her camp. She looked back at Helena.

“C’mon, Marla. It’s so warm.”

Joel had loved Rebecca for as long as he could remember. Joel also suffered from a rare neurological condition that reset his memory every fifteen minutes. So far as he knew, he met Rebecca in line at their bank eleven minutes ago. It was love at first sight.

Rebecca had loved Joel for as long as she could remember. They first met ten years ago when they attended Blue Mountain State University. It was a typical love story. They married after graduation, bought a house in the suburbs, and adopted a German shepherd with dwarfism. They named him Frodo. The pair planned to start a family, but just as they decided they were financially prepared for a child, Joel began showing symptoms. It only took a year for his memory to shrink to a window of fifteen minutes.

Joel spent the next four minutes engaged in the most riveting conversation he’d ever had.

When Joel’s memory reset, Rebecca had two options. The first was to show Joel a video on her phone that the couple had prerecorded. It concisely explained his condition and their relationship. The second option was to let Joel’s mind be a clean slate. She rarely chose the second option, but when she did, she made the most of it. In a mundane situation like waiting in line at the bank, it brought excitement. Seeing Joel fall for her over and over again was equal parts riveting and reassuring. Occasionally she would make up a crazy character like Rita, the divorced business tycoon, or Zena, the alien princess in exile on earth (this one required green body paint and an old Halloween costume). Even when she was Zena, Joel fell head over heels.

One day, Rebecca took Joel to the park for a picnic. It was something they did regularly, and it was usually a fun and romantic afternoon. This particular occasion was neither. A torrential downpour took the park by surprise. Vicious rain pounded their picnic, gale-force winds carried their snacks into the heavens, and ribbons of lightning danced overhead. Meteorologists later stated that the storm was an act of a vengeful god that could not have been predicted. Rebecca lost all faith in meteorology after that.

In the midst of the freak storm, Joel’s memory reset. The pair were separated.

It had been years since Rebecca had a panic attack, but the panic attack she had on this day made up for the lost time. When the weather subsided, her voice had already grown strained from screaming his name.

Joel, who was never a fan of thunder, had run out of the park and ended up under a nearby overpass with Adriana, a homeless junkie who resided there.

Adriana greeted him warmly, suspecting he was there to solicit her for sex. That was the only reason decent looking men ever found themselves on the underside of Adriana’s overpass. She was never thrilled about it, but $20 was $20. When Joel revealed himself to be a wholesome amnesiac seeking shelter, Adriana welcomed him with open arms.

Adriana loved telling stories, but she was an awful storyteller. To Joel, every story was the greatest story ever told. She smoked her rocks, told her stories, and gave her new lover a crash course in the art of urban foraging. As time went on, Adriana developed a system similar to Rebecca’s before her. She wrote a bit of backstory and a list of rules for their relationship on a piece of cardboard and carried it around to read to him each time his mind reset. She would read it then regale him with a tale of street life. Each time he fell for her.

One day, the couple were dumpster diving behind a Panera Bread, which they did on special occasions, when they discovered a missing person poster with Joel’s face on it. They were shocked. Joel became sorrowful after reading a message at the bottom of the poster.

If you have any information about Joel’s whereabouts, please contact his loving wife Rebecca at 420-676-769.

Adriana destroyed the poster. Before Joel could react, his memory reset.

A few months later, Adriana did what junkies do. She smoked her last rock and left this world, twitching and foaming at the mouth.

Joel, who by this time had developed a nasty physical dependency of his own, ended up living with T-Bone, the city’s most likable crack cocaine distributor. T-Bone was sympathetic to Joel’s disability and let him work as a dope bagger in exchange for food, shelter, and dope. Joel was certainly not the best worker, but T-Bone liked having him around to introduce him to new things. In the year they spent together, Joel got to experience first fifteen minutes of the film Goodfellas for the first time over a thousand times.

Eventually, T-Bone’s duplex dope house was raided and he was sent to prison. Joel was also arrested and tried as an accomplice. He was quickly found innocent due to his condition, and the oddity of the situation brought a fair amount of coverage from local news stations.

When Joel left the courthouse, he found Rebecca waiting for him. She fought back tears and showed him the video they had recorded long ago. They lived happily ever after for fifteen minutes at a time.

Well….

They lived happily ever after for fifteen minutes at a time, with the exception of the fifteen minutes in which Rebecca discovered she had contracted genital herpes. The herpes had been gifted to Joel by Adriana and then unwittingly gifted to Rebecca, but aside from that whole debacle the two lived happily ever after.

The End.

Riki Lou was a legend amongst fighter pilots throughout the galaxy. They called her Ice-Woman.

She cruised through systems in her THX38 model star jet and kept lanes of travel safe from pirates. It was said she first earned the moniker Ice-Woman on the tundra planet Drake Minor, which was at the time home to the notorious Galaxy Gang. She won dogfight after dogfight while maintaining a steady, low resting heart rate. Journalists from the Galactic Journal Constitution described her as “having ice in her veins.” The nickname spawned naturally from there.

She became a galactic superstar who appeared on entertainment streams, had her own line of skin care products for deep space travel, and was once subjected to seedy tabloid coverage for an alleged affair with a sentient moon. The moon’s publicist denied the claim and stated the pair were “just friends.”

Riki Lou enjoyed stardom at first, but became increasingly overwhelmed by the constant attention. She hated seeing her public image separate from her reality. She was portrayed as a caricature of a strong fighter pilot who had time on the side to hawk overpriced placebo creams. If ever she had inspired people to chase their dreams, those days had come and gone.

The so-called Ice-Woman turned to smoking Galaxian Spice in the evenings to calm her mind. She could no longer handle the attention, she was heartbroken from the very real breakup with Paul, the sentient moon, and she lived in fear of the public discovering that her trademark cool-under-pressure persona was greatly exaggerated. One night, after a few joints stuffed full of premium Galaxian Spice and a pinch of Terran tobacco, Riki Lou concocted a plan to fly away to a primitive planet and live out her life in solitude.

She got behind the wheel of her pale blue THX38 and set course for Tejas, an easily habitable jungle planet with no advanced intelligences. She fired up her engine, initiated her warp drive, and rocketed toward the stars.

She was almost immediately pulled over by a local Space Cop for failure to maintain lane. A few hours later, her mugshot was streamed live all over the galaxy. To Riki Lou this was rock bottom. She thought she was finished, doomed to the life of a recluse shunned from the public eye, but she was wrong. The public rallied around her. They viewed her as a sympathetic figure. When she was released from rehab a month after the incident, #IceWoman trended on social platforms galaxy wide.

Life was good for a time. She got a book deal, she got back together with Paul, and she started flying for fun again, as she had done as a young woman but stopped when it became difficult to go flying without attracting attention.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last. Paul cheated on Riki Lou with a sentient comet. The story was plastered on streams in every system. Riki Lou relapsed on Galaxian Spice and crashed her star jet into an asteroid refinery.

Naturally, she ended up back in rehab. There she met Glorf Balore, a former Martian militant who had developed a nasty nitrous dependency after two tours in a black hole. The pair fell in love. When she left rehab with Glorf, the public showed minimal interest. At long last, she had become old news.

Riki Lou and Glorf got married, had eleven children, and lived happily ever after in a McMansion on Palis, the suburban planet.

The Mura Village was experiencing the level of heatwave that could be seen hanging in the air. Shuran, the village’s elderly alcoholic sheriff who wielded Yoto, a legendary cursed katana capable of slicing through mountains, responded to the sweltering heat by ditching his uniform and going about his daily routine in his birthday suit. Luckily, most citizens of Mura had opted to wait out the heatwave indoors, but those with the misfortune of crossing paths with the nude sheriff quickly lost their lunch and returned to their domiciles to wash their eyes. Despite the unanimous disapproval of his unsightly and unprofessional conduct, the villagers let it slide, as Shuran and his cursed blade were their only protection from the monsters that lurked beyond the village walls.

On one especially scorching day, a giant, poisonous spider-snake, one of the most deadly beasts from beyond the wall, attacked Mura village, destroyed dozens of homes, and infected a baker’s dozen villagers with its deadly poison. Shuran slept through the whole ordeal. He awoke, hungover, and unprepared for their scorn. When they demanded he seek the rare antidote for the venom, Shuran refused, as it would be a long journey that he would be unlikely to survive.

That night Shuran drank alone on the village wall. He was drunk, naked, and covered in rotten fruit that the villagers had thrown at him. The voice of his cursed blade spoke to him in his mind.

What has become of you, Shuran? You were once a brave warrior. Now look at you. A withered, drunken old coward.

The words cut deep.

And you’re getting fat too, Shuran. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.

Those words cut deeper. It had been years since Yoto had spoken to Shuran. They used to have a strong relationship and an open dialogue, but that was before the war.

Thirty years prior, Mura had been home to an elite military outpost. Shuran had been a leader in the ranks of skilled swordsmen. When their nation went to war with the neighboring Kingdom of the Ice Elves, all the soldiers left Mura for the ice mountains. Shuran was the only one who made it back.

Redeem yourself, Shuran. The man I bonded with was a courageous warrior.

“No,” Shuran mumbled. He took a swig of sake from his flask. He burped a disgustingly powerful burp, which caused him to lose his balance and fall off the wrong side of the wall.

He awoke the next morning bruised, hungover, and nude. A group of villagers stood atop the wall looking down at him. They refused his plea for help and informed him they would not open the gate for him unless he had the antidote for the spider-snake venom.

Shuran decided to simply cut the wall down with Yoto, but when he tried to pick up the cursed katana, he found it to be thousands of times its previous weight. He could not lift it.

I’m giving you an ultimatum, fatso. If you don’t agree to the quest to retrieve the antidote, you will never again wield my form.

No matter what Shuran had become since the war, he was a warrior first, and therefore would prefer death to disarmament. The naked old man agreed to the quest. He lifted Yoto off the ground, turned his back to Mura village, and set out to save them or die trying.

It did not take long for Shuran to come under attack from the monsters beyond the wall. First came a pack of giant kangaroo-turtles.

Let’s see if you’ve still got it. Time to burn some calories, fatty.

Shuran surprised himself in the battle. Even in his twilight years, he could dodge the high-hopping kangaroo-turtles and their powerful tail attacks. The beasts’ carapace shells were no match for Yoto’s cutting power.

Well done, Shuran.

The next dangerous beast he stumbled across was a ravenous giant wolf-panda, but the monster was frozen solid. Shuran looked the beast over with more fear in his eyes than he would have had if it were unfrozen. This meant there were ice elves around.

Sure enough, two young adult female ice elves revealed themselves. Their names were Niki and Rishi, and to Shuran’s surprise they were not combative. Neither woman could face Shuran while speaking to him, due to his unpleasant nakedness. Still, the old swordsman was wary of them. They informed him they wanted no trouble, that they had been banished from the Kingdom of the Ice Elves, which was notoriously homophobic, and were simply seeking a place where they could be together in peace. Shuran was moved by their tale and, despite his old wartime prejudices, decided to share a camp with them for the evening. Niki fashioned him a pair of pants made of ice using her powers. She offered them to Shuran, but of course he declined. He didn’t want to freeze anything off. The women never looked directly at him during their stay together.

Shuran had trouble falling asleep that night. He had relied on booze to punctuate his days for too long. He wished he had stumbled across sake elves rather than the ice variety. When he did get to sleep, he dreamt of the war. The icicle arrows that rained down on his brothers in arms haunted him. The cold chill that rushed through his body was as strong in the nightmare as it had been all those years ago on the battlefields of snow and blood.

The next morning, the women informed Shuran that he was nearing the end of his quest. The antidote for spider-snake venom was derived from the honey of pterodactyl-bees. They told him of a hive a day’s walk from their camp. They parted ways.

After a few hours of battling the pterodactyl-bees, Shuran really wished he had some pants. The winged beasts had repeatedly stung him in his hindquarters. The battle was gruesome. An individual pterodactyl-bee was no real test for Shuran and Yoto, but fighting the entire hive was overwhelming. Eventually the last pterodactyl-bee was slain. Shuran took some time to craft a basket from nearby sticks and leaves. He collected more than enough honey for the antidote. Then he decided it was time to regain his modesty and crafted himself a rudimentary loincloth from twine and pterodactyl-bee hide.

On his return home, he once again encountered Niki and Rishi. The women were sorrowful and informed Shuran that they had sought asylum in the nearby Kingdom of the Swamp Elves, but found that they too were a bigoted society. Shuran suggested the women join him in Mura. They struggled to believe they would be welcomed by former enemies, but Shuran had a plan to get around this. They reluctantly agreed.

The villagers welcomed him back once he presented the honey. They were less welcoming of Niki and Rishi, but came around when the women used their ice powers to cool the village. It worked so well that Shuran put his entire uniform back on.

Bronson had a deep appreciation for rare chandeliers. His career as a hitman who catered to the upper crust of the underworld left him with ample disposable income. All of it went to his collection of rare chandeliers.

On the twelfth of May, after the successful assassination of Brooklyn’s most notorious black market platypus distributor, Bronson stumbled upon an opportunity he could not pass. In the platypus kingpin’s office, he found his holy grail. Hung above the man’s desk was the Givenchy Royal Hanover chandelier. The masterpiece of German steel, crafted in 1736, had many elite owners, including King George II, Ludacris, and that lady from the AT&T commercials. In 2011, it was sold at auction for $9 million. It was then stolen and bounced around the underworld for years. Bronson had heard rumors of course, but he never had concrete evidence of its whereabouts. He looked up at it, mouth agape, fully erect, mind racing. He smiled. It was his for the taking.

Chandeliers were cumbersome to heist. They did not lend to discretion. Perhaps a thief without an appreciation for this particular art form would have simply ripped it from the ceiling and left, but Bronson took his time. He understood the chandelier’s delicacies. It needed to be caressed, not toted. The hitman ever so carefully escaped the platypus dealer’s compound and walked the chandelier five miles to his safe house, eliminating every unhoused individual and opossum he passed on the way. There could be no witnesses.

Bronson’s safe house was an overpriced brownstone where he kept his arsenal of weapons and his collection of chandeliers. A chandelier forged from Damascus steel, adorned with polished sapphires and 24-karat gold accenting, was the centerpiece of the safe house, hung in the middle of the unfurnished master bedroom. The piece was a tad gaudy for Bronson’s taste, but it was designed by his favorite actor, Gary Busey, so he held it in higher regard than the others in his collection. He did not hesitate for a moment to take it down and put the Givenchy Royal Hanover in its place. He stared at the Givenchy for hours until his phone rang. An unknown number. He answered reluctantly. A woman’s voice spoke.

“Bronson Cornelius McDonald, I know you are in possession of the Givenchy Royal Hanover. I’ll give you an hour to bring it safely to the intersection of 3rd and 69th. You will receive no compensation, but I will spare your life.”

The woman hung up. Bronson spent the next hour preparing for war. His arsenal housed more firepower than the militaries of seven sovereign states. He was prepared to exhaust his supply in defense of the Givenchy.

First came the ninjas. Bronson dispatched them quickly, as no one has ever won a gunfight with a katana. Next came waves of gunslinging mercenaries. They put up a better fight. For twenty hours, he defended his position. His heart cracked, little by little, as pieces of his collection fell victim to the firefight. His safe house contained hundreds of chandeliers. He knew there would be casualties, but as long as the attackers did not make it upstairs to the master bedroom, Bronson would prevail.

When all was said and done, shell casings, shattered chandeliers, and mangled bodies littered the floor. Bronson had sustained heavy damage and near-critical blood loss. Despite it, he dragged himself up the stairs to the master bedroom. He collapsed in a pool of his own blood, but there was a toothy grin on his face as the Givenchy Royal Hanover, unharmed, sparkled overhead.

Footsteps approached from behind him. Bronson turned to see the chandelier’s last legitimate owner, Milana Aleksandrovna Vayntrub, the actress from those AT&T commercials, enter the master bedroom. He thought it was odd that she was dressed like her character from the commercials.

“Bronson Cornelius McDonald, I warned you, didn’t I?”

Bronson was too exhausted to reply. She kicked him repeatedly with an animalistic ferociousness. He grunted and groaned and wondered if she had a soccer background, as each of his ribs cracked in response to her merciless blows.

She tired herself out as a team of men in hazmat suits entered the room and carefully took down the Givenchy. Bronson faded in and out of consciousness. He knew he didn’t have much time left. Her team gently prepared the chandelier for transport, taking more care than even Bronson had. He grinned and took some solace in knowing that the world’s rarest chandelier was being caressed, not toted.

Todd loved his tan jacket. He wore it through sunshine, rain, winter, and summer. To say it was his lucky or special jacket would be a gross understatement that would deeply offend the man. Todd’s entire personality revolved around this tan jacket. He was neutral, practical, and resilient. Todd was the tan jacket.

Once a month, Todd had the jacket dry cleaned. He paid extra to have it cleaned on site while he waited. It only took 45 minutes, but to Todd, that was an excruciating wait. He just stood there in the cleaner’s lobby, paced back and forth, and practiced the breathing techniques that warded off his panic attacks. The cleaners, who humored Todd’s peculiar behavior, always brought the jacket out and handed it to him once they finished. Todd would hastily wrap himself in its loving embrace. Then and only then did he calm down enough to return to his neutral, practical, and resilient self.

One sweltering summer day, Todd boarded the Staten Island Ferry wearing flip flops, six-inch short shorts, and his tan jacket, en route for a nice relaxing day at Midland Beach.

Unfortunately, shortly after departure, a giant sea monster attacked the ferry and bit a sizable chunk out of the hull. Fortunately, the giant sea monster decided it did not have a taste for steel on that particular day, so it spit it out and swam to deeper water to hunt mermen. Still, Todd was on a sinking ship, but it could have been worse, so he considered it an unexpected but minor inconvenience.

He calmly navigated the situation, helped women and children onto rafts, assisted the crew, and eventually boarded the last raft alongside the ferry’s captain and first mate. The raft was a surprisingly smooth ride. It wasn’t what Todd had in mind for his afternoon, but he was willing to roll with the punches. A particularly queasy seagull flew overhead and deposited a glob of chalk-white excrement straight onto Todd’s sleeve.
Many who knew Todd would have expected him to lose his mind the moment the foul fluid made contact, but he did not. He wore the jacket every day, so this was far from its first stain. Todd knew the jacket was resilient. All this meant was an extra trip to the dry cleaner’s.

Unbeknownst to Todd, an evil wizard had attacked his dry cleaner’s a few days after Todd’s most recent visit, murdered all the workers, and shape-shifted into the manager’s likeness. The evil wizard, Reggie, had a long track record of this sort of crime. He once impersonated a golf coach for a year, gave clients terrible advice, and cursed them to slowly lose their depth perception. Reggie was as strange as he was evil.

Todd arrived at the dry cleaner’s, reluctantly handed over his jacket to who he believed to be the manager, and began his pacing routine without a word. He became immediately suspicious when the manager did not get to work as he always did. Before Todd could question the situation, the evil wizard shape-shifted into a small dragon and incinerated the jacket with a single scorching breath. Reggie shifted back to his normal evil wizard form to point and laugh at Todd. Todd, who was in the lucky 2% of humanity born with total immunity to magic, proceeded to beat Reggie the evil wizard to death with his bare knuckles. He stood over Reggie’s mangled corpse and still felt the need for more violence, so he began his pursuit of the sea monster that had started this whole mess.

At the water’s edge, Todd took an incredibly deep breath and walked casually into the Atlantic Ocean. He knew sea monsters typically dined on mermen, so he headed for Atlantis.

After days of walking along the sea floor, Todd found himself lost in a kelp forest. He stumbled across an old man with a preposterously long white beard and an eye patch, who sat on a throne made of sand and calmly stroked the mane of a large seahorse that floated over his lap.

“Lost, huh? You look like you’re seeking vengeance. Let me guess — a mermaid stole your favorite hat, and now you’re heading for Atlantis to murder it and its whole family? That’s what happened to me.”

Todd figured the man’s guess was close enough and responded with an affirmative nod.

“An eye for an eye does nothing but line the pockets of the big eye patch companies. I speak from experience, young man. Continue down this path and you’ll end up old and alone like me.”

The seahorse scoffed and floated away. As the old man frantically tried to convince it to return, Todd considered the warning.

The next day, Todd arrived in Atlantis. He visited the first arts and crafts store he could find, bought a notepad and colored pencils, drew a photorealistic sketch of the sea monster, floated at the corner of a busy intersection, and showed the image to every merman and mermaid that passed until eventually one merman recognized it and agreed to take Todd to its lair.

The lair was nothing special. A plain sea floor cave. A few pin-up posters of sexy lady sea monsters adorned the cavern’s walls, which indicated to Todd that the beast was a young adult male, unlikely to have a family. That made things easier.

When the beast returned home for the evening, Todd gave no speech mourning his beloved tan jacket. He knew the beast hadn’t seen it. He doubted the creature even recognized his scent, but Todd didn’t care. He wanted all the smoke.

Todd, who had been one of the best swimmers on his high school swim team, lunged at the beast, who swatted at him with a two-ton tentacle. Todd dodged gracefully. He swam closer and closer to the beast’s gnarly beaked face. The monster chomped at him, but again he dodged. Todd came within striking distance of the creature’s lone eyeball. He took pride in knowing it got a good look at him before he unleashed a barrage of powerful punches onto the optical organ. Todd was pretty dang strong. The beast could only withstand so much.

With the deed done, Todd got one last look at the poor creature. It hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, and Todd knew that. He had always known that.

Todd wandered the ocean floor for days until he found a nice little kelp forest of his own with plenty of oversized seahorses to keep him company. He built himself a new jacket out of sand. It wasn’t the correct shade of tan and it certainly wasn’t as comfortable, but Todd was a new man who needed a new jacket.

Jeff is the shortest giraffe. Keep in mind that there is a shortest and tallest everything. Somewhere in the world, the tallest miniature poodle goes about its day not knowing it’s the tallest miniature poodle. There once was a shortest tyrannosaurus that lived an entire life not knowing it was the species’ least threatening individual. Unfortunately for Jeff, he was not only the shortest giraffe but the smartest too, and as a result, Jeff was keenly aware of his vertical deficiency.

Jeff spends his days waiting for the more conventional giraffes in his tower (Tower is the actual term used for a group of giraffes. Isn’t that fun?) to pick through the highest branches, select the most appealing leaves for themselves, and knock down the less desirable leaves for Jeff. As Jeff forces down browning leaves and leaves that have already been picked at by insects, he often finds himself wondering whether the taller giraffes give him these leaves on purpose or if they just happen to knock them down. Perhaps they think he is an eternal youth who they must provide for. While he hates to feel infantilized, this hypothesis comforts him, because it at least makes him feel like part of the tower.

One morning, Jeff wakes to find his hypothesis was incorrect. As the sun rises over the safari, Jeff is the only giraffe the light touches.

It takes seven days for a giraffe to starve to death. On Jeff’s sixth day of solitude, as each of his stomach’s four chambers rumble, he begins to suspect his time is running out. There are plenty of muddy puddles for him to drink from, so thirst isn’t an issue, but he struggles to compete with zebras (racists who don’t like sharing) for ground level sustenance. Depression creeps in as Jeff decides staring at the ground is less painful than looking up at the bountiful branches.

Jeff shuts his eyes on the sixth night, expecting not to open them the next morning, but his eyes don’t stay shut for long. The sound of a motorized vehicle jolts Jeff up onto his hooves. Jeff watches a group of men exit the vehicle, prop a ladder against a tree, scale the ladder, and spend some time atop it. After a few minutes, they descend the ladder, load it into their vehicle, and drive away.

Jeff’s magnificent brain kicks into overdrive. Under the pale moonlight, the safari’s nocturnal creatures watch in amazement as Jeff hustles despite his empty tummy and constructs a ladder of his own from fallen branches, zebra bones, and stalks of grass.

At dawn, the nocturnals and the day walkers cross paths for the first time as they all depart from their typical routines to watch Jeff put his invention to the test.

Naturally, the ladder fails immediately. Jeff crashes to the ground. The now grumpy nocturnals storm off, regretting staying up past their bedtime. Jeff cries. Zebras laugh. Feeling foolish, Jeff lies there motionless on the remains of his ladder. It begins to rain. The zebras, now unsure whether or not Jeff is still crying, lose interest and stop gawking.

In his final moments, Jeff looks up at a pair of vultures circling overhead. He feels no fear. He just envies their wings. A giraffe with wings? Wouldn’t that be something.

Nora learned a valuable lesson today. If you drop your vape pen down a well, DO NOT dive in after it. It was a shame she had to learn this lesson at the bottom of a well with a broken vape pen, a soaked and shattered iPhone, a broken ankle, and ten broken nails, but Nora wasn’t the sharpest katana in the Emperor’s katana collection. Luckily, she fell in a relatively shallow well, with only a foot of water resting at the bottom. The well’s narrow cobblestone siding allowed her to slow her momentum on the way down. It worked, but at the cost of her fresh French tips, which she was more concerned about than her rapidly swelling ankle.

Nora chewed the tip of her waterlogged vape pen as she racked her mind for an escape plan. She doubted anyone had seen her fall in, as she had strayed from her tour group in order to violate the winery’s no smoking/vaping policy. Eventually her friends would notice she was gone, but they would likely assume Nora had hit them with her typical Irish goodbye. She couldn’t count on someone coming to rescue her. Unable to climb back up due to her injuries, she had half a mind to sit and give up, but the water at the bottom of the well was a muddy green color and smelled like body odor, so she decided she’d starve to death on her feet if she had to starve to death. If she weren’t on enough anti-depressants to make Shamu smile, she’d likely be having a panic attack or screaming bloody murder.

It started to pour rain. Nora couldn’t help but laugh. She recalled her ex-girlfriend, Dina, who had said that Nora laughed like a helium-huffing hyena. After that, Nora had always been insecure about laughing around Dina. When they broke up, she told Dina that she should drive off a cliff — it was an especially contentious breakup. Nora wondered if this was some sort of karma for that.

The water crept up to mid-thigh. Nora began to feel lightheaded and braced herself against the cobblestone wall. Ironically, what she wanted more than anything was a long, minty drag off her vape. She continued to chew the tip of her vape pen, at least to fulfill her oral fixation, even if it wouldn’t alleviate her impending nicotine withdrawal. She lost the strength to chew and dropped the pen into the water below. She began to lose consciousness.
A voice called out from above. She looked up to see the Greek god of wine, Dionysus. She felt the water rise to hip level and noticed it was warmer than she would have expected.

“Young lady in the well! Make haste! The only way out is down!”

She began to slip down the wall as Dionysus shouted slurred words down to her. Her knees buckled. She collapsed and blacked out.

When Nora awoke, she was sitting in the passenger seat of Dina’s Subaru, listening to Dina lecture her about needing to quit vaping. Nora knew this wasn’t real, but she decided to vape while she had the chance. She puffed unashamedly, infuriating Dina. The Subaru approached a bridge. Dina hurled insults at Nora, who exhaled an obnoxious cloud of minty vapor. Dina screamed a blood-curdling scream and drove the vehicle off the bridge. Again, Nora blacked out.

When next she woke, Nora found herself at the bottom of the ocean with Dionysus. They sat in lawn chairs, drank glasses of red wine, and watched dolphins play. Nora decided not to ask if she was dead. She suspected she was. She just enjoyed the moment. She noticed her nails had magically regrown. That made her smile. She looked to Dionysus, who smiled back at her. His smile turned to a frown as he began to dissolve into the water. He dissolved completely, leaving nothing but an empty wine glass.

Two dolphins approached her. One blue. One red. The blue dolphin offered her a vape pen. Nora instinctively knew the vape would not only work at the bottom of the ocean, but would never run out of juice. She bit her lip as she mulled over the tempting offer. The red dolphin offered nothing. It chirped at her and bumped its nose into her chest. She was taken aback at the rudeness of this red dolphin as it reared back and charged her chest more forcefully. Nora tried to swim away from the red dolphin and reached for the blue dolphin and its eternal vape. Suddenly, Dina — now wearing scuba gear and wielding a spear — appeared out of nowhere and attacked the blue dolphin, viciously stabbing it in the blowhole. The red dolphin reared back one final time, charged Nora, and struck her square in the chest. The force of the impact propelled her upward at unfathomable speed. In a split second, she breached the surface of the ocean and found herself blinded by light.

Nora truly awakened as a paramedic succeeded in clearing her airways. She sat on the ground a few feet from the well and coughed up five fluid ounces of disgusting well water, surrounded by her friends, a team of firemen, a few paramedics, and a man in a Dionysus costume — whom she now recalled as the winery’s creepy mascot, who had flirted with her earlier.

Surely, I read the notification alerting me that my phone’s battery had reached a meager 10%. My bloodshot eyes had not strayed from the screen in hours. My phone didn’t forget to notify me of its own impending death. I must have seen it and acknowledged it, but I have no recollection of it whatsoever. I remember watching half of a blind ranking video that made me angry, I remember scrolling quickly past a dozen OnlyFans advertisements, I remember scrolling back up a dozen times to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important, and I remember a video of a fox helping a piglet cross a busy street (I suspect it was AI, but I’m not entirely sure), but I don’t remember being notified of my phone’s low battery. Did my phone’s battery win a game of limbo? No. Was it as low as it could go? Yes.

I roll to the side of my bed. I reach for my charger cable. I don’t find it. I wait a few minutes for my massive panic attack to subside. I concoct a plan of action.

I shoot out of bed, dash out of my apartment, and casually walk out to the parking lot. I slow to a casual pace once I enter a public space in an effort to not alarm my neighbors. Luckily there are none out to alarm. I reach my sedan, open the driver’s door, and search every inch of the vehicle’s interior. No charger cord. I had been convinced I left it in the car. I exit the vehicle. I quickly check the top of the car just in case I set it down there for some reason. I did not.

I take a peek at my phone. It’s still on 1%. Part of me hoped it had magically recharged itself. It did not.

I walk back to my apartment at a leisurely pace. Once I close the door, I frantically turn the apartment upside down. I come up empty-handed.

Defeated, I look around the ruins of my apartment. I cry. I look out my window. I wonder how much damage a one-story fall can do to an adult man. I decide I’m overreacting. I cry again.

I pull myself up by my bootstraps. I clean my apartment. I decide I don’t need a phone. I wonder if the Amish have everything figured out. Could I be Amish? I think I could be Amish. I decide that I’ll go to bed, rest, wake up, and go join the Amish.

I return to my room. I freeze. A tidal wave of embarrassment crashes over me. I see my charging cable resting in the me-shaped indentation on my memory foam mattress. I sigh as I realize I had been sitting on the charger. I decide the Amish are foolish, I plug my phone in, I get cozy in the me-shaped indentation in my memory foam mattress, and I scroll.

Surely, I read the notification alerting me that my phone’s battery had reached a meager 10%. My bloodshot eyes had not strayed from the screen in hours. My phone didn’t forget to notify me of its own impending death. I must have seen it and acknowledged it, but I have no recollection of it whatsoever. I remember watching half of a blind ranking video that made me angry, I remember scrolling quickly past a dozen OnlyFans advertisements, I remember scrolling back up a dozen times to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important, and I remember a video of a fox helping a piglet cross a busy street (I suspect it was AI, but I’m not entirely sure), but I don’t remember being notified of my phone’s low battery. Did my phone’s battery win a game of limbo? No. Was it as low as it could go? Yes.

I roll to the side of my bed. I reach for my charger cable. I don’t find it. I wait a few minutes for my massive panic attack to subside. I concoct a plan of action.

I shoot out of bed, dash out of my apartment, and casually walk out to the parking lot. I slow to a casual pace once I enter a public space in an effort to not alarm my neighbors. Luckily there are none out to alarm. I reach my sedan, open the driver’s door, and search every inch of the vehicle’s interior. No charger cord. I had been convinced I left it in the car. I exit the vehicle. I quickly check the top of the car just in case I set it down there for some reason. I did not.

I take a peek at my phone. It’s still on 1%. Part of me hoped it had magically recharged itself. It did not.

I walk back to my apartment at a leisurely pace. Once I close the door, I frantically turn the apartment upside down. I come up empty-handed.

Defeated, I look around the ruins of my apartment. I cry. I look out my window. I wonder how much damage a one-story fall can do to an adult man. I decide I’m overreacting. I cry again.

I pull myself up by my bootstraps. I clean my apartment. I decide I don’t need a phone. I wonder if the Amish have everything figured out. Could I be Amish? I think I could be Amish. I decide that I’ll go to bed, rest, wake up, and go join the Amish.

I return to my room. I freeze. A tidal wave of embarrassment crashes over me. I see my charging cable resting in the me-shaped indentation on my memory foam mattress. I sigh as I realize I had been sitting on the charger. I decide the Amish are foolish, I plug my phone in, I get cozy in the me-shaped indentation in my memory foam mattress, and I scroll.

If you have never kicked a drinking fountain off a wall, you may be surprised at how cleanly they detach. Well, I was surprised. I do not want to sound presumptuous. Your own level of surprise may vary depending on your own life experiences with drinking fountains and roundhouse kicks. In my experience the detaching of a drinking fountain from what was in this case a brick wall occurs near instantly. Composite toed boot makes contact with metallic side panel of said fountain with an audible ding followed immediately by an audible crunch. Then the shoddily fastened fastenings fail, the force of the kick tears the fountain from a pair of pipes connecting it to what was in this case the plumbing of my local community college, the entire unimpressive drinking device clatters on linoleum, and finally a line of parched, coed onlookers overcome their debilitating dry-mouth to call upon campus security.

…

“Son, your pupils are the size of flying saucers”. I struggle to decipher the officer’s words. He is not my father. He looks like Paul Blart. I close my eyes.

…

Surely, this is the afterlife. A sense of certainty washes over me. Simultaneously, a blinding white light fills my vision. A fuzzy blue form manifest in my periphery. Not blue. Purple. Colors become clearer. My eyes pick up more and more nuance. The purple fuzz takes form. Maybe this is not the afterlife. Maybe I’m still —

“You got a pretty mouth, pony boy”, Grimace says in an uncharacteristically effeminate voice.

“Grimace”? A fuzzy purple fist strikes me square in my pretty mouth.

…

The next sensation I feel is an intense pain. An oral pain. I finger my throbbing top lip to find it slippery. I tongue around my teeth, taking inventory. Porcelain soldiers are missing in action. Their strong jawed parents will be sending empty caskets to the tooth fairy.

The second sensation I experience in this episode of consciousness is an indescribably offensive odor. Days old gas station sushi mixed with the bedding of a morbidly obese gamer mixed with a Durian scented candle in a Voltron of vulgar smells that assault my schnoz.

I climb. Summiting a mound of garbage. I look around. I laugh. I grab a refrigerator door from the pile. I descend the triple black diamond of garbage. I close my eyes. I see the flower of life.

…

In an instant, I understood just how wrong Christopher Nolan and that mutant brother of his were. Black holes were nothing like they are in the movies. They’re actually a pretty smooth ride. I’ve endured wooden roller coasters less pleasant than journeying through black holes. Well, I shouldn’t speak on black holes in general, as this is my first and to date only experience navigating a black hole, so maybe the Nolan brothers and scientists are correct about all the other ones. This particular black hole at least was very cool. Visually, I would describe the experience as 2001: A Space Odyssey meets that one episode of South Park where Kenny huffs cat piss. Physically, I would have to describe the sensation as sitting on a table tennis table as it floats somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

…

Tick. Tick. Tock. Tick. (Imagine this continuing.)

I open my eyes to find the hands of the clock in the campus security officer’s office are undulating randomly between the 6 and the 7.

“You with me kid”?

“Paul”?

This could not be the first time the man was accused of looking like Paul Blart, as a look of genuine anger overpowered his previously unwavering professionalism. He inhales deeply and exhales sharply.

“How about some water kid”? Paul Blart extends a plastic water bottle toward me. I can see it at a molecular level. H2O. My sworn nemesis. I stand quickly, and I deliver a textbook roundhouse kick to the bottle.

Splash.

If you have never kicked a drinking fountain off a wall, you may be surprised at how cleanly they detach. Well, I was surprised. I do not want to sound presumptuous. Your own level of surprise may vary depending on your own life experiences with drinking fountains and roundhouse kicks. In my experience the detaching of a drinking fountain from what was in this case a brick wall occurs near instantly. Composite toed boot makes contact with metallic side panel of said fountain with an audible ding followed immediately by an audible crunch. Then the shoddily fastened fastenings fail, the force of the kick tears the fountain from a pair of pipes connecting it to what was in this case the plumbing of my local community college, the entire unimpressive drinking device clatters on linoleum, and finally a line of parched, coed onlookers overcome their debilitating dry-mouth to call upon campus security.

…

“Son, your pupils are the size of flying saucers”. I struggle to decipher the officer’s words. He is not my father. He looks like Paul Blart. I close my eyes.

…

Surely, this is the afterlife. A sense of certainty washes over me. Simultaneously, a blinding white light fills my vision. A fuzzy blue form manifest in my periphery. Not blue. Purple. Colors become clearer. My eyes pick up more and more nuance. The purple fuzz takes form. Maybe this is not the afterlife. Maybe I’m still —

“You got a pretty mouth, pony boy”, Grimace says in an uncharacteristically effeminate voice.

“Grimace”? A fuzzy purple fist strikes me square in my pretty mouth.

…

The next sensation I feel is an intense pain. An oral pain. I finger my throbbing top lip to find it slippery. I tongue around my teeth, taking inventory. Porcelain soldiers are missing in action. Their strong jawed parents will be sending empty caskets to the tooth fairy.

The second sensation I experience in this episode of consciousness is an indescribably offensive odor. Days old gas station sushi mixed with the bedding of a morbidly obese gamer mixed with a Durian scented candle in a Voltron of vulgar smells that assault my schnoz.

I climb. Summiting a mound of garbage. I look around. I laugh. I grab a refrigerator door from the pile. I descend the triple black diamond of garbage. I close my eyes. I see the flower of life.

…

In an instant, I understood just how wrong Christopher Nolan and that mutant brother of his were. Black holes were nothing like they are in the movies. They’re actually a pretty smooth ride. I’ve endured wooden roller coasters less pleasant than journeying through black holes. Well, I shouldn’t speak on black holes in general, as this is my first and to date only experience navigating a black hole, so maybe the Nolan brothers and scientists are correct about all the other ones. This particular black hole at least was very cool. Visually, I would describe the experience as 2001: A Space Odyssey meets that one episode of South Park where Kenny huffs cat piss. Physically, I would have to describe the sensation as sitting on a table tennis table as it floats somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

…

Tick. Tick. Tock. Tick. (Imagine this continuing.)

I open my eyes to find the hands of the clock in the campus security officer’s office are undulating randomly between the 6 and the 7.

“You with me kid”?

“Paul”?

This could not be the first time the man was accused of looking like Paul Blart, as a look of genuine anger overpowered his previously unwavering professionalism. He inhales deeply and exhales sharply.

“How about some water kid”? Paul Blart extends a plastic water bottle toward me. I can see it at a molecular level. H2O. My sworn nemesis. I stand quickly, and I deliver a textbook roundhouse kick to the bottle.

Splash.