THE WAY GONE

They had sent a pair of burly security guards to her office, where she had been hurriedly trying to pack her belongings.  These were cold, quiet men she had never seen before in the building.  Icy, anonymous and bulky, the type of man obviously not meant for any generic lobby reception desk.  They had each taken her by an arm, and lifted her bodily from her desk without a word.  As they raised her up, her feet clipped the box with her few personal things- a  picture of her son, one of her mother, a mug and a bowl- spilling to the ground in a crash of broken glass and crockery.  Though they were rough and it did hurt; she never made a sound of protest or pain.  Although some distant part of her was thinking shouldn't they have female guards doing the manhandling?  And as they roughly dragged her down the hall and to the elevator, she let herself smile a little bit.  They obviously knew that she had been the leak, but they hadn't checked to see what else she had set in motion.  If they had, perhaps they wouldn't have had the goon squad haul her from the elevator, and through the lobby, and then pitch her through the front doors.  They should have instead first had their thugs check her now vacant lab, where the automated centrifuges were now slowing to a close, her new compound nearly complete.  And when it was finished, the final reaction was going to be as if somebody drove a dump truck full of phosphorus into a small lake.  Or maybe a big pond.  They pitched her unceremoniously to the sidewalk and went back inside without another look with absolutely no idea that in about ten minutes the whole building was going to be a crater.  She unclipped her now useless security badge and let it drop, shed her lab coat and got herself gone.  She didn't look back either.

Me, You, and an Episode of Hoarders

Well, hello.  I can see you have followed my trail of love.  I personally plucked the petals from three dozen of the reddest roses to make that, milady.  And I am more than pleased that you followed that romantic trail of mine all the way from the garage up into the boudoir to where I; your love machine is waiting for you.  Oh yes, darling Janice.  The kids are away, the dog is in the basement, the lights are low and now it’s just you, me, and this episode of Hoarders.

Care for a glass of white?  You are most welcome, beloved.  Please, slide that fine body of yours over my way across our Tempur-Pedic and relax yourself.  Let my experienced fingers play over that tense and unhappy brow of yours to erase the tension of a bad, long day.  And sit back, nestled into my arms as we watch an hour’s worth of intense personal struggle and hopefully some healing.

Oh my.  That’s right, the kids are gone and away.  I know that’s how you like it.  Yes, the state has taken them away until Sheena can find a way to make their home a safe and livable space again.  Yeah, I know you like it like that.  You like it when bureaucracies in rural North Carolina care enough and have the resources to intervene on the the well-being of minors.  You love it like that.

Oh my!  Oh my, you are a dirty girl.  Damn, woman.  Why on earth would she need to keep every single plastic bread bag you’ve purchased since 1995?  Can you believe it?  I mean, wow.  She must be growing mold cultures from every single loaf of bread she bought for nearly twenty years in that kitchen.  

...why yes, Janice.  That’s not the only thing growing right now.  Ah ha. Ha.

I don't even want to talk about her downstairs bathroom...on a related note, can I interest you in a chocolate? Belgian.  You are very welcome, beloved.  Just sit back and enjoy your sweets, and let me take control of your body with my magic fingers.  Much as professional organizer Geraldine Thomas is trying to take control of an explosive situation between Sheena and her sister Felecia.  But she’s got to do it without my magic fingers.

Oh my, Janice!  Janice!  Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?  Or perhaps...it’s both of us?  And things also seem to be getting pretty hot between Sheena and professional organizer Geraldine Thomas.  Geraldine sure does seem to be annoyed at how noncommittal Sheena is acting towards the prospect of clearing out her collection of VHS cassettes.  There is some definite tension there, oh yes.

Conflict between seasoned professionals and people with complex compulsive hoarding tendencies gets me so hot.  Know what I mean, baby?

Mmm?  Oh yes, we’re perfectly safe.  We’re not going to be disturbed, I sent the kids to a movie a half an hour ago.  We’ll have at least a full hour to enjoy an hour of the most compelling real life drama on TV.  And each other.  

SKEDADDLE

The spiders had come from the forests, swarming hordes of the weird things flowing over the asphalt like a weird, lime green wave of legs and glittering eyes and hairy fangs.  It would have been almost pretty, if it weren't for the fact that they were the size of cats.  Well, kittens.  But a spider the size of a kitten, you have to admit that's more than big enough to put you off your dinner.  At first they just ran over the town, ignoring man and beast alike as they quested through the short, dusty streets and inspected things.  Everything, really.  It was creepy, but nobody really felt like they were in danger.  Big as they were, they were still small enough to get stomped.  A bunch of the neighborhood kids spent the rest of the day doing just that.  But that night the bravery faded as the rumors of swarming green spider attacks had started to flow freely over the phone lines and email chains, and people kept the kids inside with the windows shut tight.  Myself and a few of my neighbors took the arrival of thousands of abnormally large, lime green spiders as a sign that it was time to get the hell gone.  Sadly, my ex-wife didn't get the message to skedaddle.  I let out a whisper-sad sigh whenever the TV news shows footage of my poor old town, our little doomed town in the woods covered completely in brittle, green cobweb.

Something To Look Forward To

"Why do you always drink so much, Grandpa?"  Kyle asked nervously.  He'd been planning to use the bathroom for some 'private time' with his miniature Smart Window, but for some reason the bathroom was where Grandpa was having his morning drink.  Perched on the closed toilet seat in his bathrobe, with a 8 AM martini in one hand, and a nicotine inhaler in the other.  The bathroom LED's embedded in the walls reflected harsh white light from Grandpa's ancient steel-rimmed glasses, and on his sudden tears.  "Because I worked all my life to be a writer, and my crowning achievement was I had a book on tape."  Grandpa said, voice as bitter as his tumbler of gin.  "And nowadays, you kids don't know what either of those things are."

I'M A TERRIBLE PYROMANIAC

That night I went out with an entire box of wooden matches, a little yellow bottle of lighter fluid, a road flare, and my camcorder.  The old shack was right there on the side of the desolate dirt road.  Abandoned for years, decades, and generations.  I knew that it was another place that nobody would miss, the perfect place to unleash that flickering mass of oranges and reds and yellows I have come to love.  But I didn't plan for the wet weather.  It had rained all day, the wetness penetrating through the many cracks in the walls, the gaps in the roof.  And weakening the planks of the floor.  I hadn't gotten two steps in when the damp and soggy floorboards gave way, a jagged splinter of wood as long as my leg piercing me through the stomach and suspending me above the darkness of the cellar.  The bleeding has slowed to a trickle, which should worry me more than it does.  The shack should have exploded into a shower of glory, a ran of sparks and flames and beauty.  Instead I hang here, lighting match after match as I slowly bleed to death.

My Dog Food Will Change The World

Sir,

First of all, I take great offense at your flat denial of my application for a $10,000 small business loan.  One would expect that your bank would have taken an appropriate and reasonable amount of time to review and assess my business plan.  Perhaps a month, a week at the least.  

And yet my application was denied in under twenty-four hours. 

This does not seem either appropriate or reasonable to me.  This in fact leads me to believe that somebody in your organization simply rubber stamped a rejection, and did not take the time to properly consider my plan to prepare and market pre-chewed food for dogs.

My business plan is exemplary.  I detailed line by line my plans:  the location, cleaning and remodeling said location into a place suitable to chew food for dogs, procurement of raw goods such as grains and meats -all organic, mind you!- and hiring a staff of four to eight employees to assist in pre-chewing the dog food.  I even included the paperwork for the theoretical employees heath plans, medical and dental.  

Especially the dental.

Furthermore, I take exception to your professionalism.  Yes, your professionalism.  One would assume that a reasoned, well-thought out rejection letter would be a bit more verbose than what I received.  Perhaps you could have taken time to write at least a paragraph.  Instead I got two sentences.  Two!  

Allow me to reread these two sentences to you: ‘Are you nuts?  Nobody’s going to pay you to chew food for dogs.’ 

This is not what I would consider ‘brevity.’  In fact, I consider it lazy.  Yes, lazy!  Compared to the countless hours that I put into my proposal; as well as the countless hours I put into producing samples of my wares I do consider your flippant denial of my loan to be rooted in laziness.  I myself spent hours and hours masticating pound upon pound of raw meats, grains, and vegetables to create my Canine-free Canine Chow (trademark pending) samples for your perusal, to prove my devotion to my product as well as to attest to the quality of my wares.  

The beef, the chicken, the beef and chicken, the salmon.  The salmon, so rich in Omega-3’s! And the organic vegetables, the whole grains, the fresh blueberries so plump with flavor and antioxidants! The raw egg yolks, which proved to be quite difficult to chew. So much work and care went into this project and to be so cruelly dismissed...well sir, I am more than offended. I am outraged.

And to add injury to insult: the samples I had provided you were simply returned to me, unopened.  I am aware that some close-minded individuals find this proposal to be unsettling.  ‘Disgusting’ is a word that has been carelessly thrown around by several other banks, I am sorry to say.  "Unseemly." "Terrible." "Please get out of my office." I will credit you sir, for at least sparing me those heartless words.

I beg you sir, please think of the many, many elderly dogs out there that are unable to chew their own food.  Do you consider yourself an animal lover?  Pre-chewing their food is simply the most economical way to prepare food for elderly dogs with weakened teeth and jaws.  And while the human mouth does not have as many enzymes as that of a dog, it still contains enough to help in breaking down food in order to make it easier for dogs to get the proteins and vitamins that they so need!

Also, jaw-powered food processing is as close to green energy as the animal food industry will ever hope to become.  Tell that to the people at Eukenuba!

I beg of you sir, please reconsider my proposal.  This is a chance for your bank to get in on the ground floor of an exciting new industry. Join me at the forefront of history! Please don’t let my hours and hours of chewing raw meats (organic raw meats) be in vain.  

ARE YOU THERE, DOG?

I've been depressed lately.  I don't get out much, and I'm alone pretty much most of the time.  I stay inside at all times, I've got something of an issue with the outside world: I don't like it.  The only times I do go out is to walk my dog, a husky-mix named Trevor.  My dog told me to kill the president today.  I was of course shocked at his ability to speak, but was also dismayed by his poor grasp of modern politics.  You see, the name he mentioned was president Harry S. Truman.  When I explained this to him, he shouted "No!  I'm too late!" and then he ran around in a circle for a minute, snapped at the air, and then lay down in front of the TV, utterly depressed.  I've tried to get him to speak to me again, but he's not having it.  He's too depressed. That makes two of us.

THE PRICE PER POUND

The man sat almost in the firepit, staring straight ahead as he gnawed at a chunk of burnt and smoking bone.  I could not tell from where he had obtained the meat, and this troubled me.  The carcass had been cooked- well, it had been burnt fully black, and he had scattered the bones and the cuts of meat into an unrecognizable pile.  He saw me staring and called out.  "You!  Yes, you there!  Care for a bite?"  He pointed the tip of his mysterious bone at me, sloppily chewing as he spoke.  "You look like a hungry one, you do."  And I was, I was ravenous.  My provisions had run out two days ago, all I had was a canteen of rainwater.  My stomach growled as I looked at his massive pile of barbecue, but I still held back.  "What is it?" I asked, my mouth filling with drool as the marvelous smell of roasted meat hit me.  He giggled, an oddly small sound coming from a man so large.  "It's free, is what it is." his smile faded as he spoke, and my horror grew as I recognized the curves and contours of his bloody bones.  "It's free meat."