BURSTING WITH FLAVOR

The building shivered suddenly, letting out a long and lingering groan that resonated across the street.  People on the sidewalks looked up uneasily, suddenly frozen in place and  uncomfortably aware of things that they rarely considered in their day to day life.  Things like gravity.  And velocity.  Great, gaping cracks began to scar the foundation of the building.  A pane of glass two hundred feet up shattered in its frame, and that broke the pregnant pause, pedestrians scattered with a scream, cabbies peeled out with screeching black rubber tracks in their wake.  The building continued to shake, more and more windows exploding in tinkling clouds over the street.  And then the cheese came.  Great, steamy gouts of mozzarella pouring from the shattered windows.  More and more windows broke and began to spew load after load of melting cheese all over the street.  The cheese began to spew from the cracks in the foundation, trapping pedestrians in nets of stretchy cheese and scalding them horribly at the same time.  And then the building started to jerk, upwards and outwards and then it loomed another ten stories high above the boulevard; towering unsteadily above the street on a mountain of oozing mozzarella.  There was a pregnant pause then, the only sounds the sizzle of hot cheese on the sidewalk, tinkling glass tumbling to the ground, and the screams.  And then, the building toppled forward.

The Home Game Sucks

Julia's fingers clenched on the steering wheel, teeth grinding against one another as her nemesis crossed the street.  She hadn't seen Marcy since the end of the game show, since that fake hug the producers made them share as the end credits ran.  Time slowed, crystalized, stopped for just a moment.  Her eyes narrowed, her mind racing as she ran down three separate courses of action in her mind.  One, drive right at her and put the scare of a lifetime in that bitch Marcy.  Two, drive right at her and fling the driver's side door open; give that bitch a taste of door number one.  And then option three, well option three was a no-brainer and a felony.  Even enraged, Julia knew that she couldn't run her over.  She just couldn't.  But then the show, the final round of that goddamned game show replayed behind her eyes and Julia heard herself hissing to nobody "You bitch, you cheat, that should have been mine, that was my prize you fucking bitch,  I ought to kill you you fucking sneak cheat," and then her foot had the pedal to the floor and she saw the light was red and she thought to herself I'll just tell them it was green, and she was disappointed that she didn't get to see the look in Marcy's eyes before she ran her down.

THE BEST RUMSPRINGA EVER

Oh boy, oh boy!  I cannot wait.  I’m going to be turning sixteen in less than twenty-four hours, and then me and Martin and Ichabod are going on the best Rumspringa ever!

For those of you who do not know our ways, Rumspringa is the traditional time for young Amish to get out there and experience the world.  And I for one, can’t wait to get out there and sow some wild oats!  I can’t wait!

We’re taking a page from Martin’s cousin Abram, but not the whole book, mind.  Abram is one of the rare ones who embarked on his Rumspringa and then chose to not rejoin the community.  Normally Abram is completely shunned by the community, but myself and my friends reasoned that in order to have the best possible time we should take the advice of one who had gone before us.  And who better than Abram the heretic?

First of all, we’re going to get something called ‘Zima.’  I know it’s liquor and is forbidden...but not for Rumspringa!  Abram said it was the most exotic and delicious flavor that he has ever tasted.  I have never tasted anything in the flavor of ‘citrus’ before, so I am most excited!

Second of all, we will acquire clothing like the English wear.  There is a store of thrift in the township nearby, and I saw a number of things in the window that I feel will be most exciting to wear!  There are pants there that come in every color of the rainbow!  I know by the names that they are from some far-off, exotic land.  What better thing to wear for my Rumspringa?  Perhaps I will try and pretend that I am an exotic prince from the land of...”Zubaz.”

Third, we have plans to go to the state fair this summer.  Usually we would go with our kinsfolk to deliver our butter and preserves, but we were never allowed to stay and participate in the frivolities.  I hear they deep fry butter at these sort of events, and I intend to try it.  

And I will dance!  Never before would I even consider it, but there will be live, modern music at the fair and we all made a promise to ourselves: just this once, we shall dance.  We risk condemning our mortal souls to the Devil, but this is our time to experiment.  Our time!  I do not know what the music of ‘Ratt’ will sound like, but I am ready to dance to it.

I am hoping that my new finery will impress the girls of the township as well.  Miriam and Ruth both will be of age at the same time as myself and Martin and Ichabod, and I hope that the five of us will have a chance to experience the world together.  And I hope that they also go to the store of thrift as we will.  They had a number of what are called ‘scrunchies.’ And I would dearly love to see what Ruth’s hair will look like out of her wimple.  

It will surely be a struggle for us, I am sure.  I know that there are a great many temptations out there.  The bright lights and clothes, the music.  I fear the rhythms of ‘Ratt’ will tempt me greatly.  

But we are all willing to test the limits of our faith.  And after all, for all of the temptations in that modern world...if they are made by man, then at their roots are they not a piece of the Lord God?  I mean no heresy, I am simply questioning.  That is what this time is meant to be for, is it not?  Well, our faith is strong and I know that in the end I will choose to return to our beloved community.  What else could I do?  I could never imagine a life outside of the farmsteads.  

I don’t know how Abram does it, honestly.  But we’re off to see him in the morn, when he will help us acquire our Zima and also something he calls ‘crystal meth.’  I don’t know what ‘meth’ means, but I do surely find the icicles along the barn gutters to be lovely so I’m sure that this ‘crystal meth’ is yet another example of the Good Lord’s bounty.

AND ENOUGH OF THIS

It had been a long morning for Marc.  Wake up, no shower.  Breakfast of a red onion and garlic omelet, with raw yellow onions on top.  And then off to the gym for his workout, dressed in an old fashioned gray sweatsuit.  He skipped his regular routine in favor of something more cardio related.  As in all cardio related, a half hour on a bike, another half hour on the elliptical, and then lap after lap on the track, around and around until he was wet with sweat.  He could smell his onion-based breakfast sweating from his pores.  He did not go shower or change out of his workout clothes, he simply hopped into his convertible with the top up and the heat blasting.  Marc crept in through the side entrance and sneaked into his office unseen, locking the door behind him.  He used his bathroom, and did not wipe.  As he was washing his hands, he heard the knock at the door that he had been dreading.  Marc opened the door and there she was, his boss; Mrs. Snyder.  He saw her many wrinkles and the sagging flesh of her neck.  He saw the gleam in her eyes as they shot directly to his crotch, saw the lizardlike flicker of her tongue across thin lips.  "Given any thought to my...proposal, Mr. Brown?" It wasn't a question.  She traced a bony finger down his chest and he shivered at the touch, but he swallowed it before he could audibly gag.  He nodded instead.  "Come on then big boy," she whispered, leaning in towards his neck. "Mama wants a taste."  Marc closed his eyes as he felt another bead of the only defiance he could muster run down between his shoulder blades and head south.  "Hope you like it," he murmured.

Laps

The racers are grouped together thickly, the dust churned up from the track thick and staining the hot air brown. The wheels make a faint rustling sound as they spin; muffled by the thunder of many hooves.  There are the cracks of the whips, and then one singular one that deafens the rest and a chariot in the rear is upended, spins in the air, and crashes.  The voice of the crowd surges, they all rise up at once; and then sit again.  The race goes on.

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

Imagine the first cavemen to discover that yes, apples are both edible and delicious.  How could you possibly describe the very first time that you taste something new and fresh and delicious like that?  There are no words.  And for cavemen, there were literally no words.  You can't even compare it to the first time that a child has an apple, children eat all sort of sweetened things from birth.  Their relatively short lifetime is already filled with baby foods, the little jars of pureed apple and banana and pear prepares them for when you eventually gift them with that first bright and shiny apple.  But the first primitive man to chomp on an apple, that must have been a hell of a good day for him or her.  What else did they eat back then?  I'm imagining they had a lot of poorly charred meat.  Or perhaps just raw.  Tough and gamy, stringy, getting in between your caveman teeth and up in your gums.  And then you find one of these round, smooth and shiny red things.  What the heck is this?  It doesn't look like burnt meat.  Well, guess I'll try to bite it.  Right?  Shouldn't I bite it?  I'm biting it.  And then, happiness.  But then after that, the cavemen was looking around and thinking "maybe I should be biting more stuff," and I bet that's when the very first asshole was born.

WHAT ELSE CAN I PUT BACON ON

You know what, I think tonight I'm just going to walk out there, fry up two, maybe three pounds of bacon, drizzle some butter over it and just start flinging fistfuls of it into the audience.  Hell, I'll throw a handful of chocolate chips on the pile too, then I'll drizzle it with melted butter.  Does that sound like something you'd want to shove in your fat, greedy faces?  What's that?  Oh sure, I'll deep-fry some foie gras and slap that in the mix too.  "No such thing as too much of a good thing!" right, TV fans?  My god-damned producers came up with that hateful slogan.  I hate it.  I hate all of you.  I hate this.  I'm only, you know.  A classically trained chef.  I spent thirteen years traveling Europe, learning the craft from true culinary masters in France, Italy, Spain.  But what do you want?  What gets your motor revving?  Excess.  Excessive displays of culinary masturbation.  I screw up once, I end up candying some bacon and putting it on pancakes and all of a sudden I'm "America's hottest new food queen."  "Food queen," that's pathetic.  I wanted to be a chef, damn it all; and now all I do is find new ways to add bacon to things, or dip things in cheese.  Yes, it made me rich and I took the money, every greasy penny you pushed into my hands with your own obese paws.  And now I'm going to deep-fry a pile of bacon and dip it in dulce de leche or something, and I hope it gives you all diabetes and kills you.  

WHEN CATS RULE THE EARTH

The cat hopped down lightly from the side of the overturned police car and stretched. It was a seriously long and luxurious stretch, his back legs raises and his front fully extended; the claws of his front feet soundly sinking into the empty pair of pants on the sidewalk before him. He straightened up and looked around, licking his lips. It had been a busy square before, too busy for him to even dream of sneaking through, let alone prowling. He would come at night to scavenge the trash cans and even then only nervously, afraid of the crowds of mankind. Now basking in the warm sunlight, everywhere the cat looked the people were just piles of grey dust, spilled into empty clothes and left on the street, on the benches, in the cars. The cat nibbled at his foot briefly, but stopped abruptly; his ears flattened back against his head at the taste. He'd gotten their dust in his mouth now. He shook himself a little, and then the cat sauntered off in search of a blade of grass to clean the taste from his mouth.