Tag: absurd

The Pet

Young Esther Bunni had reached the age of eleven when she understood that it was now time, according to an agreement hashed out with her parents years earlier, for her to get a pet. Her parents, Roger and Honey, had strung her along for several years with promises and accords, that were modified and amended multiple times, of getting a pet as soon as she was old enough. It was decided and mutually agreed upon that eleven was a responsible age for the family to take in another member as long as Esther understood that she would be the primary care giver when it came to feeding, cleaning and taking on walks if necessary.

“Oh, she won’t need walks,” Esther said to her parents.

“Really?” Roger replied. He looked at his wife with a smile and then back to his daughter. “So, I guess we’re getting a cat then?”

Young Esther shook her head, “No, not a cat. I want a mermaid.”

Roger and Honey stared at their daughter for a moment before Honey gently began. “Esther, we talked about this before, mermaids aren’t real. They’re fictitious. Do you know what fictitious means?”

“I do,” Esther replied. “It means that it’s made up. But mermaids aren’t made up. They’re real.”

Esther then held up a flier that announced in big, bold letters that PetCo was having a sale on mermaids.

Roger tried to make sense of the advertisement. “I think this may be a typo or something,” he finally declared.

“No, it’s not a typo. It says right there that mermaids are on sale, forty percent off.”

Honey grabbed the flier and studied it. There were a lot of words about mermaids being on sale but no typos.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“It was on the door with some other fliers,” Esther responded.

In a move that Roger had perfected over the last eleven years he shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “I guess we’ll go see what this is all about.”

Every PetCo was layed out exactly the same across the country so that loyal customers, no matter what city they happened to be in, would know exactly where everything was and confusion levels would be kept to a minimum.

Dog treats were in the front along with the toys. Specialized pet food lined the right side of the store and living quarters such as beds, mats, cages, were stocked on the left.

Bird seed had its own aisle as they were slowly becoming a popular pet to have despite some people’s best efforts to thwart this trend, citing that birds can be quite finicky and high maintenance.

A PetCo employee, Gary, greeted Esther and her parents as they walked in the store. “Hi, welcome to PetCo. Can I help you find anything?”

Esther got right to the point, “Show us the mermaids.”

Gary’s face dropped. “I see. Are you sure you don’t want to look at the puppies first?”

“Mermaids,” was Esther’s direct reply. She showed Gary the flier. He studied it with equal amounts of shock and horror and then let all the muscles in his face drop in acceptance.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Hanging on our front door,” Esther replied.

Gary studied the flier once more before sighing in resignation. “Follow me.”

The fish tanks were in a separate room that was divided by large glass windows. The lighting was not as bright as the rest of the store so as not to terrify the fish and to create the illusion that they were in the ocean and not in a strip mall next to a Pizza Hut.

Esther and her parents followed Gary past the fish to another room that was much darker and lit mostly by black light. There was a single large tank in the middle filled with water that almost reached the ceiling. Colorful rocks were spread out in the bottom of the tank and a small castle leaned in the corner next to three small palm trees. And in the middle of the tank, floating serenely was a mermaid. She looked exactly like they did in the fairy tales, Esther thought to herself. Long, gorgeous red hair that somehow managed to always hide her breasts, human arms and face and from her waist down was a series of colorful scales that led to a tail that was aligned in the same way that a whale or a dolphin’s tail might be. No one ever questioned this slight discrepancy of her scales which were a component of a fish and the horizontal direction of her tail which was most commonly found on ocean mammals. People were usually too busy being shocked that she existed in the first place.

Roger’s mouth dropped as Honey stifled a scream. Esther smiled.

“Where did you get her?” Esther wanted to know.

“She’s a rescue,” Gary replied. “We were about to ship her back.”

“A rescue from what?” Roger finally asked.

“Some billionaire who collects exotic animals. You know the ones, albino lions, ligers, fire breathing pelicans. It’s a status thing. They think it would be really neat to have an exotic pet in their inventory but they soon realize that these are wild creatures who eventually become too burdensome.”

Roger and Honey kept staring at the mermaid who was peacefully floating in the tank next to a corkscrew-shaped piece of poop.

“I…I didn’t even know these…things existed,” Roger said.

“Well, they’re rare, I’ll tell you that much,” Gary said. “But, if you have enough money you can get whatever you want.”

Roger stared at the mermaid. The mermaid stared back at the family, not quite registering any emotion, just floating around.

Esther  couldn’t believe her eyes. She was so happy, the happiest she had ever been. She looked at her parent’s somewhat horrified faces then at Gary and quietly said, “I’ll take her.”

Driving home in the family station wagon, Esther just gazed at the mermaid floating peacefully in the extra large plastic bag filled with water. It was tied up at the end with a rope so that water couldn’t leak out and it took up all of the back of the station wagon. Esther rested her head on the back seat and stared. “Finally,” she thought to herself, “my first pet.”

News travelled pretty quickly that the Bunnis had a mermaid and before he knew it Roger had a small army of children and parents in his garage eager to get a look.

“Please don’t tap on the glass,” Roger kept saying as he lugged in a large bag of mermaid food. The large fish tank was donated to the Bunnis by a neighbor who had tried unsuccessfully to breed Maco sharks. It took up half of the garage and Roger even installed a fluorescent black light overhead.

Esther climbed the small ladder next to the tank and poured a stream of meal flakes that floated on the top. The mermaid swam up and ate the flakes from underneath just like a goldfish would do.

Waiting for her at the bottom of the ladder was Esther’s friend Lucy. 

“What’s her name?” Lucy demanded.

“I haven’t decided,” Esther replied, “but I’ve narrowed it down to either Veronica or Claire.”

“Claire? You can’t name her Claire?”

“Why not?”

“Because, mermaids aren’t named Claire. It’s too harsh. It’s upsetting, like a shard of glass in your arm. She needs a softer name like Daphne.”

“Daphne? What is she a substitute teacher at a liberal arts college? I’m not naming her Daphne.”

Esther replaced the box of fish food in the corner where two more unopened boxes neatly sat.

“How about Sally?” Lucy asked.

“Sally? No, not Sally.”

“Why not?”

“Look, she’s my mermaid so I’m going to be the one to name her at my own pace. I’m not going to rush this. Besides, I don’t want my mermaid doesn’t carry around a large keyring, drink wine coolers and smoke Virginia Slims. Pfft, Sally.”

Esther couldn’t sleep that night as she was still coming down from the rush of getting a new pet. So, she quietly got out of bed and snuck down to the garage.

She slowly opened the door and walked in. The black light hanging over the tank gave the water an otherworldly look that calmed and soothed, like being in the afterlife.

“Hey,” a voice suddenly called out, startling Esther.

Esther looked up. The mermaid was halfway out of the water resting her arms on the top edge.

“Hey,” Esther absently replied.

“What’s your name?” the mermaid asked.

“Esther.”

The two stared at each other.

“I didn’t know you could talk,” Esther finally said.

“Well, I am half human so it comes naturally.”

“And you can breathe air?”

“Kind of. When I’m out of the water I can breathe using water that’s trapped in my gill chambers.” The mermaid showed Esther some gills that were located behind her ears. “My mouth and throat can absorb oxygen as well, but not for very long. I can be out of the water for a short amount of time but then I have to go back in. Like a mudskipper.”

“A mudskipper?”

“Yeah. You know the fish that comes out of he water and walks around the mud for a bit? We’re distant cousins.”

Esther couldn’t believe she was talking to a mermaid.

“So, what did you end up naming me?” the mermaid finally asked.

“I landed on Zoe.”

“Zoe? What am I the lead singer for an indy band from Williamsburg?”

“Do you have a name already?”

“I do.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Claire.”

Esther stood in silence before the mermaid started giggling. “Just kidding. I heard you guys talking about it earlier. It’s just a little humor. Can you imagine, though? A mermaid named Claire?”

Esther remained steady in her silence and gave the mermaid a smile. “So, what is your name?”

“It’s Blanche,” the mermaid replied. “I’m named after my mother.”

“Blanche?” Esther replied. “That’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you, Esther. I like your name as well.”

Blanche gave Esther a smile.

“While I’ve got you here,” Blanche began, “I’ve got a quick request, is there any way I can get some more salt in here. The saline levels seem to be dropping.”

“Salt?”

“Yeah. Sea salt is preferable, not the kosher salt. It’s better for my scales.”

“Okay.”

“Also,” Blanche continued, “I’m going to need a phone.”

“A phone?”

“Yeah. A cell phone. Waterproof. Not for dunking, but just standing by in case I need to make a call. You can probably get a burner pretty cheap.”

“Uh, okay, I can ask my dad about…”

“You know what? I’m going to need some wine.”

“Wine?”

“Yeah. Pinot or some nice Cabs. No merlot.”

Esther was ready scribbling down a grocery list on a small notebook, “No merlot.”

“Are you old enough to buy cigarettes?”

“I don’t think I am.”

“It’s okay. I know somebody that can get them once I get that phone.”

By the time she finished writing down Blanche’s requests the list was two and a half pages long and included among other things a set of blank keys, some nunchucks, a curling iron, several bags of Cheetos, a subscription to Architectural Digest, a ham sandwich, and the board game Clue.

“Is that everything?” Esther asked.

“For now,” Blanche replied. “If I think of something else I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

Esther gazed at Blanche once again, still not believing she had a pet mermaid.

“Well, good night, Blanche.”

“Good night, Esther.”

Esther walked to the door and turned around to watch Blanche wave and then slowly sink back into the water, close her eyes and drift off into a deep slumber.

Back in her bed, Esther would sleep better than she had ever slept before.

Over the next several months Esther was vigilant in taking care of Blanche the mermaid. She cleaned her tank once a week and fed her three times a day, as Blanche had a very healthy appetite. Cleaning her tank would take several hours as there was a strict protocol developed by Esther herself to ensure the safety of her beloved pet. First, she would fill a smaller holding tank, which was a kiddie pool that Esther used to swim in in the summer, with water and salt then assist Blanche in crossing from her main tank to the smaller one. Next, she had to drain the main tank that was filled with poop, dead scales and leftover food that wasn’t eaten. The water drained straight down the driveway into the gutter and made the neighborhood smell like a fish market for a couple of days. Then, Esther would climb inside the tank and scrub the walls, cleaning bits of algae that would form along with pieces of skin and scales from when Blanche would get drunk and try to bash herself against the glass thinking about an old boyfriend who left her for a narwhal. Esther would shop vac the pieces of stray poop from the colorful rocks and finally she would refill the tank with fresh water, which took about three hours and balance it out with the precise amount of salt. Then, Esther would help Blanche back in her tank and feed her. After all that was done Esther would take out all the empty wine bottles and empty the ash trays and trash that was scattered around. 

There was a time early on where Esther thought that Blanche needed a friend so she had her parents purchase a small reef shark for her to play with. When she put the shark in the tank Blanche immediately swam to one corner and eyed the newcomer suspiciously. The reef shark swam lazily around for a couple of minutes when suddenly Blanche lunged at it and took a large bite out of its side, leaving the shark to drift helplessly around until it died.

Blanche surfaced, still with some shark guts hanging from her mouth.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said to Esther, “I’m a sociopath. I can’t be with other fish.”

Esther stared at the dead shark, which cost her parents quite a bit of money because it was smuggled in a whiskey barrel aboard the deck of a merchant ship and then maneuvered through several illegal back channels until it was sold out of the back of an SUV by a eunuch.

“Sorry,” Esther blankly replied. “It won’t happen again.”

“Is there any way you can put a TV in here? With all the cable channels?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Esther answered. She slowly walked to the door and looked back just as Blanche was biting the head off the shark.

Three months had gone by when Roger and Honey began feeling the stresses of taking care of a mermaid.

They sat one evening, late at night because they had been unable to sleep for weeks, under the breakfast nook light and stared, flabbergasted, at the pile of water and wine bills in front of them. Words like PAST DUE and FINAL NOTICE were printed in large red letters on many of the documents. Honey felt like crying. Roger was at his wits end. 

“We need to talk to her,” he finally said.

“Okay,” his wife answered.

They turned off the light and went upstairs and left the pile of debt that threatened to ruin them for generations to bask in the moonlight coming through the window.

The next morning Esther sat down on the couch opposite of Roger and Honey who made themselves comfortable on two wingback chairs. A large painting of Sylvester Stallone took up most of the wall behind them.

“Sweetheart,” Roger began, “Your mother and I have discussed this and…I think we need to find Blanche a new home.”

“But you said I could have a pet,” Esther protested. “We agreed, when I turned eleven and if I kept my grades up and did my chores I could get a pet. You both agreed to this.”

Sweat started beading up on Roger’s forehead. His lack of sleep had caused him to hallucinate recently. “Yes, but sweetie, we thought that you were going to get maybe a dog or a cat or even a bird, you know, something more traditional.”

“A bird? But you said they were assholes.”

“That was before we knew mermaids even existed,” Roger said.

“We had a deal,” Esther reminded them.

Honey leaned in, “Dear, it’s not that we don’t like her, we love her, it’s just that…”

Roger jumped in, “She’s becoming too expensive. Changing her water every week…it’s like we’re filling up a pool four times a month. And that food, that organic food she eats is costing us a fortune. And the wine. It’s just not sustainable.”

“Plus,” Honey started, “your father and I think she might have a drinking problem.”

“How do you figure that?” Esther asked.

“Do you see how many bottles of wine she drinks a week? Plus, she’s starting on the hard stuff. And that’s more expensive.”

“I knew you guys would go back,” Esther protested. “I knew you guys would break our deal. I knew it.”

“Sweetie,” Roger said, “we can get another pet. How about a nice puppy?”

“Listen,” Esther began, “she’s my pet and I’ll take care of her.”

“Sweetheart,” Honey pleaded, “we’re going broke. We can’t continue this. We’ve used up your entire college fund. I’m sorry, but we just can’t continue on with this.”

Suddenly, the phone rang and Roger walked over to answer it.

“Hello, Bunni residence…Yes, speaking…uh huh…you don’t say…” Roger’s face and tone began to grow rather suspicious. “Uh huh…interesting…well, I will talk to her about it right now….thank you very much.”

He gently set the receiver back on the cradle and slowly walked over to Esther. As he sat down he tried to compose his thoughts in a manner that wouldn’t upset and already sensitive situation.

“Esther, where did you get that flier that advertised the mermaid?”

“I…I got it from the front door. It was hanging on the front door with one of those rubber bands,” she replied.

Roger looked over at his wife then back at his daughter.

“Esther, did a man in a Rolls Royce give you that flier?”

“No…”

“Esther, you need to be honest with us.”

Esther looked into her parents eyes. They really had been so supportive. They were nearing bankruptcy and all they wanted was the truth.

“Yes,” she finally admitted. “A man in a Rolls Royce gave me the flier.”

Roger sat back. “Finally, the truth,” he said. “Esther, do you know the name of the man who gave you the flier?”

“I didn’t get his name. He just asked me if I was interested in a mermaid and I said yes. I’m sorry. All I wanted was a pet.”

“Who was that on the phone, dear,” Honey asked.

“That was Gary from PetCo. He found out where the mermaid came from.”

“Well, who was it?” Honey asked.

“It was Bill Gates,” Roger replied.

Esther’s indifference did not register with her parents.

“You mean, the Bill Gates?” Honey asked. “The billionaire?”

“Yes, that Bill gates,” Roger replied.

“Apparently, he had been driving around in his fancy Rolls Royce trying to unload a mermaid that he could no longer take care of.”

“Dad, who’s Bill Gates?” Esther asked.

“He’s a billionaire, sweetie,” Roger replied, turning back to his wife. “So anyway, nobody would take this mermaid and that’s when I guess he just dropped it off in the PetCo parking lot one night. I guess he wanted to make sure she went to a good home so he handed out fliers to people he thought would be good candidates.”

“And, you got all that from that extremely short phone call?”Honey asked.

“Gary is a very succinct storyteller,” Roger replied. “So, I guess we finally know where she came from.”

Gary stared at his daughter. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint her. Esther looked up.

“Dad, I’m sorry. I know that you and mom tried. We all tried. I’m sorry that it almost brought you to financial ruin and divorce.”

“Well, no one said anything about divorce.”

“The point is, I think that I’ve learned a couple of things here. One, never trust a billionaire, no matter how much money they give you.”

“Excuse me…”

“And two, I should never be afraid to ask for help.”

They all looked at each other with a renewed love for each other.

“Well,” Gary wondered along with the thing his daughter said earlier about a billionaire giving her money, “what do we do with her now?”

Roger and Honey Bunny turned and looked at their daughter. Esther knew what they had to do. It was the right thing.

The Bunnis drove far up the coast searching for a suitable spot to release Blanche the mermaid. Several locations were rejected by Blanche due to conditions that weren’t quite suitable for her including too many surfers in the water, not enough seagulls, bad weather and one location that was just plain boring.

They finally settled on a small bay that was surrounded by rocky cliffs on both sides. Large rock formations jutted out into the ocean as well, making this an ideal location for her. Roger backed the station wagon up to the bay. They got out and the whole family helped lifting Blanche from her giant plastic bag down to the shore. They waded in the surf and held her until she had the power to swim on her own. Blanche sat up in the water.

“Thank you, Esther. I’ll never forget you,” she said.

Esther had tears rolling down her face. “Thank you, Blanche. Maybe I’ll see you again.”

Blanche blew her a kiss and disappeared into the surf. The Bunnis walked back to the sand and then watched Blanche swim out to sea. She swam so gracefully, like a dolphin, jumping up and out of the water, diving back in again. She was home.

Her swimming didn’t last long, however, as she swam up to one of the large rocky outcroppings about a hundred feet away. The Bunnis saw her flop-crawl up the rock like a seal and settled onto a flat edge where she looked out towards the ocean. She then began letting out a series of high pitched howls.

“She’s crying,” Esther said. “ She’s sad.”

“I think she’ll be alright,” Roger said. “She’s probably calling out for her friends.”

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a giant container ship came into view from behind the cliff. It was moving fast and looked as if it was too close to the shore. Something was wrong. The ship veered towards a small dock a little ways up the coast where local fishermen brought back their catch of the day and rammed right into it. Several fishing boats were crushed and the pier created a huge gash in the side of the container ship where it immediately began taking on water. Crew members could be seen jumping overboard into the ocean as the large ship began to sink.

Esther looked at the rock and found Blanche who was looking back. Blanche gave Esther a wink and then jumped into the water and disappeared.

Esther kept staring at where Blanche had been sitting and quietly said, “Dad, what’s a sociopath?”

“Why do you ask?” Roger replied.

“No reason,” she said.

Later that day the Bunni family welcomed a brand new puppy into their home that they immediately named Claire.

Lost

Jesus had been off message and felt that he couldn’t connect with his followers as of late. He noticed that he was repeating bits and pieces of sermons that he gave only days earlier. His focus wasn’t quite what it used to be. For Jesus, what was once an unbridled passion for preaching the word of God had disintegrated into a series of tedious and tiresome chores. The dedicated few that stuck around to hear him talk were even beginning to grow tired of hearing the same thing over and over. “It has no direction!” was one follower’s scathing critique one day as he angrily stormed off into the desert and was never seen again. Perhaps he wasn’t cut out to preach, Jesus thought to himself. How can this be? Such a catastrophic misfire in terms of life goals. His own mother raised him as the son of God and this was the only path that he was destined for. He had nothing else. This was it. There was no turning around. He was thirty-two years old. He couldn’t just change careers mid-life. He began to get a headache. That’s when he saw the speeding object again.

Jesus Christ was wrapping up a pop-up sermon near the market when he noticed a quick moving object in the distance. He squinted his eyes to get a better sense of what it was that was moving so fast through the desert just beyond the county line as his eyesight had deteriorated with old age. The object moved fast, so fast that Jesus didn’t think it was any kind of animal. He surveyed the crowd who had grown disinterested in hearing about how to make the world a better place to live by being a better person. He looked up again and the object was gone. This was the fifth time.

 He looked around at his followers. Is this what he wanted to do with his life, he thought to himself. Being the chosen one wasn’t all it was cracked up to be especially when half of his parishioners had fallen asleep and the other half were watching a column of ants dismantle and carry away a dead grasshopper. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration and pointed to a bird that had been squawking for the entire sermon. “Anyone else feel like choking that seagull over there?”

That night Jesus walked along the water’s edge alone and pondered the direction that his life was currently headed. Carpentry hadn’t worked out for Jesus as well as his father had hoped. His lack of interest in the family business had led to an avalanche of criticisms and complaints from customers that ranged from cafe owners saying the tables were too wobbly to settlers wondering why their houses had no doors.

“Maybe I should join the army,” he thought to himself. The army provided a certain stability and direction that was absent in his life. Discipline, he thought. Perhaps I need discipline. That will allow me to find direction. Plus, they have a nice pension plan and all soldiers are granted health care. And, you get to carry a sword. Why is that so bad? Why am I busting my ass trying to convince people to live peacefully when all anyone does is go to war at the drop of a hat? He carried on the conversation with himself weighing the pros and cons of being the savior and was slowly discovering that the cons were greatly outweighing the pros.

He was adrift at sea and didn’t know how to find his way to calmer waters. He had better find it soon, he thought to himself. He was almost thirty-three. Over the hill.

Jesus then thought that the one thing he could to do to pull him out of this funk, something the elders did when they found themselves lagging in the motivation department. Go to the desert and get lost. Yes, he must. It was his last chance to prove to everyone that he was the one and only savior. He shuddered at the thought of returning to carpentry. At his age he couldn’t take the hours.

“I’m going on sabbatical,” Jesus declared one night to his friends at dinner.

“Sabbatical? Where?” asked his friend Peter.

“In the desert,” Jesus responded.

Peter, Paul, John and Judas looked at each other with great concern. The desert was no joke around these parts. The only people that went to the desert were tax evaders who wanted to live off the grid, old conspiracy theorists who had lost touch with reality and young adventurers, all of which nobody ever saw again once they entered the forsaken wasteland.

“Are you sure?” Judas asked. “You know that’s a very dangerous place. The heat and lack of water will kill you within days.”

“I need to unplug,” Jesus said. “I’m stuck. I’m in a rut. I…I just need to go somewhere where it’s quiet and think.”

John took a big swig of wine and wiped his mouth. “Is it the sermons? We can help you write some of them.”

“It’s not just that,” Jesus replied, “I’m having really serious thoughts of quitting the business.”

Stunned looks came from his friends.

“Quit the business? How could you quit at this point? Your life’s almost over,” Paul shouted.

“Can you keep it down?” Jesus tried to calm him. “I said I’m thinking about it. That’s why I need to go to the desert. I need a sign. I need something.”

The fellas stared at their plates in shock. They had dedicated years of their lives not only following this man they called the son of God, but helped in spreading the word as far as they could. They stood by him as he was called crazy and out of his mind. They themselves endured ridicule from society that just wanted things to be the way they were, eye for an eye, vengeance, pillars of salt, none of this be kind to each other crap.

“Just remember,” Judas piped up, “you’ve got guys that depend on you.”

“How do they depend on me? I don’t pay anybody,” Jesus replied.

“Yeah, about that. Are you ever gonna pay us?” Peter asked.

Jesus looked over and saw a Roman soldier eating dinner with his horse. Those guys have it made, he thought to himself. He turned back to his friends, “Just give me about forty days. I’ll come up with something.”

They all sat quietly eating bread as the Roman soldier and his horse dined on dry-aged donkey haunch.

Three days later Jesus continued to traipse through the unforgiving desert wondering if he would ever find civilization again. What was he thinking, he thought. Deep in his heart he knew that he had miscalculated of how long he could go without water and was beginning to realize the real world ramifications of not only properly hydrating before embarking on a journey through the desert but regretting ever listening to his ego which told him that he didn’t need to bring anything to drink at all.

Then he saw it. The same speeding object he had witnessed several times before, only this time it was headed directly for him. A large rooster tail of dust shot up behind it as it sped on straight and true. Jesus stopped walking. The vehicle got closer and closer until he could hear the high pitched whine of the engine as it abruptly came to a halt directly beside him. Dust and dirt swirled around Jesus until it finally settled back to the ground. That’s was when Jesus noticed that the vehicle had no wheels and was hovering about two feet off the ground. He stared in awe.

“Hey, friend. You lost?” asked the young man sitting behind the steering wheel.

“I don’t know,” Jesus stuttered as he marveled at the sleekness of the machine. “What…what story am I in right now?”

“Don’t know’ nothin’ about no story,” the young man replied, “ but if you wanna stay alive you better find shelter somewhere. Suns are goin’ down.”

“Suns?” Jesus asked.

“Yeah, the two suns over there,” the man pointed to two large suns descending into the horizon. In all the confusion Jesus hadn’t even noticed there were suddenly two suns orbiting the planet. He assumed that he was seeing double and was about to die due to a severe bout of heat stroke he was experiencing.

“Where I come from we only have one sun,” Jesus replied.

“Well, we’ve got two here. Hot as hell. It’s like hell on Tatooine, right? Haha, makes you think that…that there’s no god, right? I mean, why would some so-called supreme being who passes themselves off as benevolent allow their creations to live on such a…” Luke paused to look out over the emptiness of his home planet, “…such a fucked up place?”

“Yeah,” Jesus nervously chuckled, “makes you wonder.”

“Well, it’ll be dark soon and then the sand people will be out,” the man said.

“Sand people?”

“Tusken raiders. They travel in large groups. They can be pretty violent so you I don’t wanna be caught out here alone after dark. Where are you from?”

“Nazareth,” Jesus answered.

“Hmm, never heard of it,” the man pondered. “Must be a new outpost near Mos Eisley. Well, if you don’t have anywhere to go you can stay with us for the night and tomorrow I can drive you to…Nazareth was it?”

Jesus hesitated for a moment but then considered his options.

“Sure,” he finally said. He slowly climbed into the land speeder and noticed that the seats were quite comfortable. He had never sat on anything that was padded before.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“Jesus,” Jesus responded. “Jesus Christ.”

The young man fired up his land speeder which created the high pitched whine again.

“Cool name. Mine’s Luke,” he finally said right before hitting the accelerator. “Luke Skywalker.”

Jesus had never even imagined traveling at a speed faster than he could run but he now found himself strapped to a machine that was zooming through the open landscaped at a hundred times that. His hair blew recklessly around in the wind as he tried not to vomit in his lap. He looked over at Luke whose hair was also wildly flaying around but had more of a sense of calm as he was used to getting around like this.

“Fun, huh?!” Luke yelled through the screaming wind.

“Yes!” Jesus responded. 

“Hang on,” Luke said and turned the steering wheel slightly to the left. The vehicle responded by veering slightly to the left. In the distance Jesus could see a cluster of figures walking together in a group.

“Hang on for what?” Jesus asked.

“This,” Luke said as he pressed his foot on the accelerator. The vehicle responded by going even faster than before.

The group ahead of them were all dressed the same, long brown cloaks with hoods covering their heads. They were Jawas out for a nice desert walk. As they sped closer Jesus noticed that the strange figures seemed to be smaller that an average human and before he could ask who they were Luke had already plowed into them with his speeder. Jesus heard several thuds and watched as all of the Jawas flew into the air like rag dolls.

Horrified, Jesus looked back at the bodies. Some of them were still flying in the air. Most were lying scattered on the desert floor, lifeless. He looked over at Luke who looked back at him.

“It’s not illegal to do that,” Luke quickly said. 

God was slow to get up that morning after a long night of partying. Heavy drinking and lots of drugs didn’t usually affect him but this was Hunter S. Thompson’s birthday party and, even for God, they can get a little excessive and out of control.

His assistant, Justin, met God as he walked into the hallway on his way to his office and handed him his morning martini.

“There’s a glitch in one of your stories,” Justin immediately said.

“There’s always glitches.The staff writers will figure it out.”

God took a sip of his martini and rubbed his forehead. “Do you have any aspirin?”

Justin handed him two Advils. “I’m afraid this one involves your son.”

“Which one?” God asked.

Justin checked his notes, “Jesus.”

“Jesus Christ or Jesus H. Christ? They’re two different people, you know.”

“The first one,” Justin answered.

“Oh Christ,” God replied. “The dumb one.”

“Apparently, his story got overlapped with another story that’s futuristic in concept but takes place in the past.”

“I don’t know what that means?”

Justin looked at his notes again, “It’s a universe called Star Wars. The inhabitants of this story have mastered space travel and are engaged in a struggle between good and evil.”

“Well, that’s pretty much the plot of all my stories.”

“Jesus’ story is already showing signs of breaking down. The main character has been missing for a few days now and nobody knows what to do.”

“Who’s the main character?” God asked.

“Jesus is the main character,” Justin replied.

“Oh, that’s right. Him.”

God followed the Advils with the rest of his martini.

“Just figure out a way to, I don’t know, blend ‘em together. It’ll work itself out.”

“Well, unfortunately, the stories take place on two separate planets, otherwise we would have already done that.”

God finally stopped walking. “Well, okay then, don’t let him get too deep in the story. We’ll figure something out and get him back. I’m gonna take a nap.”

Down in a sleezy cantina Jesus was getting a lap dance from a praying mantis looking creature known as Kitik Keed’kak. The awkward flailing of her arms and legs were actually a well rehearsed ritual that had been passed down in her family for generations.

Luke was getting his own lap dance but his was from a hologram of a very famous droid he saw in a movie once.

“Is this morally okay with your society?” Jesus asked.

“It’s not only okay but it’s encouraged,” Luke replied. “It helps people take the edge off living on a planet with two suns and hardly any women.

“So, is there any kind of plan for life here?” Jesus asked just as the song that Kitik was dancing to ended and another one started. Jesus couldn’t tell but it sounded as if it was the same song being replayed over and over.

“What plan?” Luke replied.

“Like, a plan for after you die.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you die. You know, when your soul resides for the rest of eternity in the kingdom of heaven. Where God lives.”

“Who’s God?”

“You know, God. The creator of heaven and earth and all things in between.”

“You mean, like the Emperor?” Luke wanted to know. His lap dancing hologram had shut down due to a malfunctioning chip. Several small droids moved in to fix the problem.

“No,” Jesus said. Kitik had finished her dance and went over to the bar to menace some patrons that looked like flies. “God. He’s the benevolent creator who has a great plan for all of us after we die.”

Luke was taken aback. “You sure are obsessed with death, aren’t you? Why doesn’t this God guy just implement this plan of his while we’re alive? Why do have to wait until we die?”

“Well,” Jesus started, “because…in heaven…uh…is where…uh…everyone can live in…you know, peace and harmony.”

“I’m gonna get you another lap dance,” Luke said.

“No, please, that’s okay,” Jesus replied.

“Where is this heaven place anyway?” Luke asked.

“In space.”

“We’re in space.”

“Well,” Jesus was finding it difficult to come up with words that made sense, “In heaven, there’s everlasting peace…”

“Look,” Luke interrupted, “if this God person is so interested in everlasting peace, then why are there so many wars? Why are people fighting all the time?”

For the first time in his life Jesus didn’t have a coherent answer. “Well, uh…because peace, and uh…well, that’s a very good question.”

“Listen, I don’t wanna die. Nobody does. But we all have to eventually. All of us, even this God dude.”

“God can’t die,” Jesus weakly said.

“All I wanna do is drink blue juice, drive my speeder and kill womp rats. That’s not very complicated,” Luke responded. “People don’t like complications. Life is hard enough without having to worry about some afterlife that may or may not exist.”

Jesus sat in his chair speechless. Had he been preaching the wrong message all these years? He asked people to believe things and provided zero evidence that they were true. He could have said anything. The earth is globe shaped. Dinosaurs once existed. The sun is a giant ball of burning hydrogen. No one could prove any of this and yet people still believed. They wanted to believe. And, if they were ready to believe in an afterlife he better make sure that his story was airtight.

“You should meet my friend. He’s an old man that lives near here.”

“Your friend?” Jesus asked.

“Yeah. Old Ben Kenobi. We go womp rat hunting together. My Uncle Owen doesn’t know because he hates him for some reason, but I think you and ol’ Ben would get along. I can take you tomorrow before I take you to, Nazareth was it?”

“Yes, Nazareth.”

The next morning Luke and Jesus left before his Aunt and Uncle woke up. What Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru would and could never know was that they would be dead within six months from an attack by stormtroopers who were looking for their nephew. 

“I think the town you’re talking about is over yonder,” Luke screamed. “We’ll stop at Ben’s hut. It’s on the way.”

Luke pulled out a small jug of blue liquid and drank it. He looked over at Jesus, “Want some?”

“What is it?” Jesus asked.

“Blue juice,” Luke replied.

“I…I must decline. But, thank you.”

Tatooine’s binary suns rose from the horizon behind them as Luke punched the turbo on his speeder. They were going so fast that they didn’t see a half naked man in the distance pointing at the speeder and shouting ‘your message has no direction!’

“I think he lives around here somewhere,” Luke yelled over the sound of the turbines. “Must be around this rock. Or maybe it was that one.”

Jesus was getting used to traveling so fast that he felt that he was beginning to enjoy it. 

“He’s a hermit, you know,” Luke yelled.

Jesus smiled and nodded. “You say he lives out here by himself? What of the sand people that you mentioned before?”

“Well, he makes a scary high pitched sound. That usually startles them long enough for him to get away.”

Luke suddenly noticed something. “There it is,” he said as he pointed.

The speeder pulled up to an unassuming shack near the edge of a giant rock. It looked abandoned. Luke and Jesus got out of the speeder and slowly walked up to the front door.

“I wonder if he’s sleeping?” Luke quietly asked.

“Should we be here?” Jesus whispered.

“Yeah, he loves company,” Luke replied.

Suddenly, an awful, high pitched screeching came from within the hut, loud enough to cause Luke and Jesus to cover their ears.

“What is that?” Jesus cried.

“I don’t know,” Luke tried to scream over the screeching. “It sounds like a bantha dying.”

Just then, the front door opened and an old man in a robe appeared. He didn’t notice the two men crouched and holding their ears for dear life because he was still screeching, almost trance-like, into the air. He stopped when he noticed Luke and Jesus.

“Oh, I didn’t know I had visitors,” the man calmly said.

Luke stood up. “Ben. You’re up.”

“My apologies,” Ben said. “I was just completing my morning shrieks. What brings you by?”

“Well, I wanted you to meet my friend Jesus. Jesus, this is Ben Kenobi.”

Ben gently held out his hand as Jesus shook it. 

“What is a morning shriek?” Jesus asked.

“Oh, it’s ritual that I developed years ago to remind me that even though existence is painful and ultimately pointless, life is hard and we will all eventually die without any chance of a better hope for future generations.”

Jesus was very depressed. How could people live with such a bleak outlook?

“Jesus thinks there’s an afterlife,” Luke interjected.

Ben smiled. “I used to believe in an afterlife too.”

He set his hand on Jesus’ shoulder. “Please, come in and let’s try and fix that.”

“So,” Jesus began as he took of sip of blue juice, “this Force, is it good or bad?”

Jesus looked at the glass of blue liquid that Ben had provided for him. “Wow, this is really good.”

“Told’ya,” Luke replied.

“The Force,” Ben replied, “is both good and bad. It’s up to you to choose.”

“The paths of people can be chosen by them and not by God?”

Ben leaned over to Luke, “Who is this God character he keeps talking about?”

“I think he like the emperor of his world,” Luke replied.

“The Force,” Jesus repeated. “I kind of like it. The message is simple , yet still vague enough so that people are still confused.”

“You don’t want to give everything away,” Ben said to him. “You’ve got to keep ‘em coming back.”

Ben took a healthy swig of blue juice and stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go murder a Jawa who owes me money.”

Justin marched into God’s office and set the report down on the desk. “This is the only reasonable solution the writers could come up with. This saves both stories and no one will ever know.”

God looked up, “What’s the solution?”

“Well, the Luke character will find himself at the center of good and evil. He will leave Tatooine to fight in endless battles while simultaneously be conflicted about light and darkness. He will forget about ever meeting Jesus,” Justin responded.

“And, what happens to Jesus?” God asked

“Jesus has to die,” Justin replied. “He’s a blabbermouth. He’ll talk.”

“You’re right,” God lamented. “He is a blabbermouth. Okay, I see no alternative. Set the plan in motion.”

“What are we going to do about Jesus when he gets here?” Justin asked.

“Maybe there’s a story for him over in the Andromeda Galaxy,” God replied.

“Yes, sir.” Justin grabbed the report and walked out of the office.

God looked out of the large window that overlooked the Milky Way galaxy where the earth was and slowly shook his head thinking about his son who somehow managed to become intertwined in two separate stories. “What a moron.”

The land speeder came to a slow stop as Luke and Jesus saw a tiny village in the distance.

“Well, I think I should let you off here,” Luke said. “I feel weird about getting any closer for some reason.”

“This is far enough,” Jesus replied.

Jesus hopped out of the cruiser and looked at it one last time.

“Such a beautiful machine,” he said. “Maybe you shouldn’t ruin the hood by hitting Jawas.”

Luke smiled. “I know. I shouldn’t do that, even though it’s a lot of fun.”

Jesus nodded, “No. It’s wrong. It’s very wrong.”

“I know.”

“Like, disturbing.”

“I said I know.”

“You shouldn’t tell anyone that you do that.”

“Well,” Luke finally said trying to change the subject, “it was nice to meet you, Jesus. I hope you find your message.”

“I think I’ve found it,” Jesus replied. “And…thank you, Luke.”

“I guess I better get back to the farm. Uncle Owen wants me to repair those moisture vaporizers before noon or there’ll be hell to pay. Haha, he’s always saying’ that. There’ll be hell to pay. Like we’re not living in hell right now. Haha, right?”

“Oh? You’re farmers?” Jesus asked. “What do you farm?”

Luke looked curiously at Jesus, almost as if he didn’t understand the question. “Moisture,” he finally replied.

They shook hands and Jesus walked off towards the village in the distance. What he did not and could not know was that he would be dead within six months, betrayed by one of his closest friends. He would never have the chance to get most of what his new and exciting message out to the people. He would never have a chance to fully explain what the Force was and how good and evil exist in everyone. He was only able to get a tiny fraction of the message about the Force out to his followers but somehow it would be enough. Jesus would be dead but his message would catch on like wildfire and inspire multiple religions. It would bring people together while simultaneously divide people in the most horrific ways. Millions and millions and millions of people would suffer and die, most likely because the message of the Force was never able to be succinctly explained due to Jesus’ untimely death. The message would take the form of vague and fuzzy homilies that often confused and angered people and generally, because everyone had their own interpretation, got a lot of people into trouble.

Luke Skywalker, on the other hand, would go on to be a part of a great resistance story that would be told out of sequence, three at a time. He never stopped running over Jawas.

“What a universe,” God thought as he poured himself another martini, the fifth one of the morning. He sat back in his throne and smiled. All was right with the world, every world, as it should be, according to his plan. Everything was finally back on track.

What God didn’t and couldn’t know was that he would be dead within six months, killed by a character named Thanos from something called the Marvel universe.

Bigfoot Diaries

Hi, my name is Gary and I’m a Sasquatch. I live in the woods and I don’t try to bother nobody. I don’t have a traditional home, so to speak, I sort of live off the land. I’ll sleep on the forest floor if it’s not raining or in someone’s garage when they’re not home. I have unusually large feet for someone my size. I’m six foot three and my shoe size is 24, even though I don’t wear shoes. I don’t really wear clothes either because my entire body is covered in a thick coat of hair. It’s great in the wintertime because it keeps me warm, but in the summer I really pay for it. I usually move down towards a river or a stream so that I’m always within at least five minutes of water in case I need to jump in and cool off.

Nobody really bothers me except for this one cop, Steve. He has it in for me for some reason. He’s always trying to find me and arrest me on trumped up charges. I know my rights, though. I don’t bother anybody. I just think it’s because his marriage is falling apart and he’s taking it out on me. A lot of people take their frustrations out on me. They treat me like a punching bag just so they can shift blame from their failed marriages, their drug addictions, their estranged children or their crippling debt onto me, thinking that it’ll help their situation somehow.

One time I got into a fight with a puma. He tried to take an elk that I had just killed with my bare hands. I was saving it for dinner under a pile of leaves. The puma must have stumbled on it and thought it belonged to no one, even though I marked the whole area by urinating all over the place. Anyway, I killed him too. I’m pretty strong. I don’t work out or anything, I think that I’m just genetically built that way. I never use my strength in anger, although I was pretty peeved to see that puma taking my dinner. I guess it was more self-defense than anything. Pumas are pretty mean.

One time Steve the cop came driving up on the dirt road in his Chevy Blazer and pulled me over. I was just walking like I always do, but anyway, he jumped out and started shouting at me. He kept going on about how he had a warrant for my arrest and that he was going to take me downtown and have a judge throw the book at me. I asked to see the warrant and he said his dog ate it. I think Steve has seen too many cop shows. I know my rights. He was always harassing me like that but he never had anything on me.

I have friends but I don’t really see them a hell of a lot. There’s these guys who always want to take pictures of me but I’m kind of shy so I almost always refuse. They keep insisting, saying that they won’t show anyone the photos but I know that they’ll probably post them all over social media with captions like ‘Get a haircut, hippie’ or ‘Nice feet. LOL’. I usually like to hang out at the track and bet on the horses. I have a huge gambling problem I’m not going to lie. It’s all I think about. If I could just get the odds to tilt in my favor just once I could retire and move to Greenland. I’ve filed for bankruptcy seven times.

I’m tired of being harassed by the cops, to be honest. Steve the cop always says that I cause trouble wherever I go. He says I incite panic in the general population but I know that’s not true because I was at Target the other day and I couldn’t find one person to help me find where they stock the deodorant.

A lot of people say that I look just like Brad Pitt, which is a real compliment because I respect his work and he’s a real handsome guy. I really don’t know what celebrity I look like, to tell you the truth. Maybe Gabe Kaplan or M. Emmet Walsh?

Anyway, I murdered about three people the other day and I want to tell you about it before you hear it on the news. I was fishing down by the river when these bikers rode up and started setting up tents and stuff. I guess they were going to camp there for the night, which is fine, a lot of people like to camp in that area. It’s really beautiful and there’s a lot of fish in that river. Anyway, these bikers started playing this music really loud. It was kind of distracting because when I’m out in nature I like to listen to the breeze blowing through the trees and the birds singing to each other. These guys had their music turned all the way up and when they talked to each other they had to shout because the music was so loud. So, I walked over to them and politely asked them if they could turn the music down. Well, this one guy got right in my face and said that he was gonna do no such thing. He took a swig of what I presume was alcohol and took a swing at me. His fist landed right in my stomach but I could barely feel it. Like I said, I’ve got some pretty weird muscles that are like steel or something. Anyway, I overreacted and tore the man’s head clean off his body. The rest of his friends froze which gave me the opportunity to lunge after a couple more of them. I tore the arms off one guy and kicked another guy so hard my foot chopped him in half. I couldn’t hear a lot of the screaming because no one had turned down the music. People ran everywhere. I hadn’t noticed that I was still holding the guy’s head when I walked up to another guy who was trying to start his motorcycle. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and told him that if I ever see him or any of his friends around here that I’m going to call the cops. Well, that guy tore off right out of there in a hurry. They had run away so fast that they left all of their camping gear and the stereo, which was still on, by the way.

Anyway, Steve the cop pulled me over the other day, but he didn’t yell at me. He got out of his Blazer real slow like. He had a different look about him, almost sad. His head was down and he kept staring at the ground. He told me that those bikers had been terrorizing the town for weeks. He said that they couldn’t do nothing about them because they weren’t breaking the law and even if they did the bikers outnumbered the cops by 20 to 1. Steve says he suspected them of several robberies and assaults in the area but he didn’t have any proof. The town didn’t have the resources to handle and infestation of a biker gang or any gang for that matter. He confessed to me that he was scared because if he had to go in and arrest one of those guys he would surely be killed. He told me that he had been so stressed out that it was beginning to affect his marriage. He was depressed, I could tell. I’m very familiar with the symptoms. Lack of sleep, irritability, loss of appetite, existential dread. I’ve been living with depression my entire life. So then he told me that the whole gang suddenly just up and left the town in a real big hurry, like they had seen something that scared them off. The only time Steve the cop looked up at me was for a brief moment when he said thanks.

Well, he got into his Blazer and quietly drove off. The cops did stop harassing me after that but I did have to file bankruptcy again, which gave my wife the perfect reason to leave me for good. And this time she said she was taking the kids.

The Dove

I bump into Floyd just about every time I go to the store. It seems like he’s always picking up something. Chips, milk, beer. Mostly beer. I was picking up some ingredients for my wife’s chicken pot pie when we ran into each other just outside the front door. He was telling me about an argument that he got into with his wife Dorothy. I don’t know too many women these days named Dorothy. It’s one of those names that seems like it’s being saved for the archives for future archaeologists to ponder over the meaning of why our society chose certain names for their children. Like, Floyd, for example.

“She asked me to fix the railing on our deck.” Floyd began to complain. “So, what does she say after I worked all day Saturday and Sunday on it? ‘It’s still broken, I might as well call a real repairman.’ Can you believe that?”

“Some nerve!” I agreed wholeheartedly. Dorothy is one of those people who likes to see all their choices displayed out in front of them. They’re unable to visualize things like most people, and therefore, have trouble communicating exactly what they want. “Right? I mean, if she thinks I’m such an incompetent carpenter why didn’t she just call the handyman in the first place?”

“She’d rather see your weekend ruined by doing something you clearly don’t want to do.” I chimed in. “That’s what all women want, isn’t it? That’s her way of spending time with you.”

“Well, she could think of a lot better ways to do that than having me bust my ass over something that’s just going to be taken care of by someone else!” Floyd argued.

None of it made any sense to us, of course. Floyd and I had been over this territory hundreds of times. We were beyond trying to figure out the subtle nuances of women and their behavior and trying to decode the complex system of words and sentences that, while even though we all spoke the same language, there continued to be huge gaps in the translation of exactly what they were trying to say to us and what exactly they wanted us to do.

Just at that moment when Floyd and I were beginning the griping part of the conversation a mourning dove came in for a landing about five feet away from us. These birds were fairly common in this area, although they weren’t as annoying as pigeons were. Doves keep to themselves, whereas pigeons were always looking for a handout. The dove made that wing-whistle sound that this particular species of bird makes whenever they take off in the air or come in for a landing. We noticed that he was carrying a small stick in his slender beak. He walked a few inches to a spot in the middle of the sidewalk, circled it a few times and then placed the stick on the ground. He momentarily paused to look up at us with his right eye and then promptly flew off.

“That was weird,” Floyd said, sneering. “So anyway, Dorothy wants me to spend next weekend digging up all the weeds in the back corner so she can start her herb garden.”

“See?” I began. “She’s filling in all your free time with chores. That’s what they do,” I encouraged.

We jawed it up for several minutes more until the dove returned carrying another twig. He walked around the first twig a couple of times as if he was surveying where the best spot to place that second twig. And wouldn’t you know it, he placed the second one slightly angled on top of the first one, glanced at us for a second, and then flew off.

This time, Floyd and I sat there in a moment of silence, not quite sure what was going on here. Neither of us were the outdoorsy types. We wouldn’t dare to try and figure out what this animal was up to when we couldn’t even figure out what our own families were up to in the same house we were in.

“Is this bird building a nest right here in the middle of the friggin’ sidewalk?” I finally asked.

“Either that or he’s planning on making a little mini bonfire,” Floyd chuckled. He always chuckled at his own jokes. I got his sense of humor even when most people didn’t. Clearly, doves have no way of harnessing fire and, I would be willing to wager, have never, in the history of doves, intentionally used fire to better their lives in any way, which is probably why I laughed. Imagine several doves sitting around a giant bonfire made of popsicle sticks, roasting seeds or whatever it is the hell they eat. Ha. Ol’ Floyd cracked me up sometimes.

Just then, the dove returned, this time with a bundle of sticks clenched in his beak. He landed roughly, taking several wobbly steps to correct his balance. Way back in the recesses of my primitive brain a signal went off and I immediately recognized the subtle signs of the dove’s quick, alarming movements and distressful willingness to take on more than he can handle. He immediately dropped them and began arranging the twigs in a circular order around the original two, weaving them together for more strength. He walked around, head bobbing back and forth, inspecting his work.

It’s difficult to know what birds are thinking or what’s going on in that tiny little head of theirs. Their brains must be the size of a pea, and yet, here they are flying around, building nests, laying eggs. My brain must be at least the size of two doves and I can’t figure where my car keys are half the time.

It’s also hard to know what birds are looking at until they turn their head sideways and stare at you with one of their deep, black eyeballs. This is what the dove did. He stared for quite a while this time, longer than Floyd and I had anticipated. As expressionless as a dove’s face is, his frequent glances at us seemed to say, “Don’t you guys have somewhere to go?”

For the next hour or so the dove returned again and again, bringing more and more twigs with him, weaving everything into a nice circular nest, right in the middle of this sidewalk. Fortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot of foot traffic, so someone accidentally stepping on the poor dove’s work wasn’t a problem for now. Floyd and I did steer the occasional pedestrian around the tiny creature’s handiwork and gave a little impromptu description of what was going on, as if we were field guides on safari somewhere. At some point, I began to think, we’re going to have to go home and then this guy is going to be on his own. I began to worry about how this little guy is going to keep people from trampling all over his nest right there in the middle of the sidewalk. This is what always happens to me, I get myself involved in these little situations that have nothing to do with me and the next thing you know I’m standing guard over some dove’s sidewalk nest which shouldn’t even be there in the first place.

On his final few trips he began bringing tiny pieces of cotton, gently stuffing them into the center of the nest. He arranged to small pieces of soft fabric into a pillowy little bed that, given its size, looked pretty darned comfortable, I had to admit.

The dove looked quite pleased with his work, even a little relieved. He flew off.

“I’ve gotta say, that’s a pretty nice looking nest,” Floyd finally commented. “I’ve never seen a bird build a nest before.”

“It’s amazing what they can do with just their beak,” I genuinely marveled.

Suddenly, two doves came swooping down next to the nest. It was our guy and this time he brought his mate with him. She was slightly smaller, but way more aggressive when it came to inspecting the nest. She got to work right away, poking and tugging at the tiny home. Her head’s bobbing was more intense and had more of a severe purpose as she began picking at the nest, tearing small bits of it apart. If this is what passes for constructive criticism in the dove community, I’m sure glad I’m not a part of it.

“What’s this?” she seemed to ask him. “What is this? Do you think this is the right location to raise a family? Right in the middle of a sidewalk? What’s the matter with that tree over there? Is there a reason you didn’t build this in the tree like regular birds?”

The male dove sheepishly tried to repair parts of the nest that the female had begun to demolish.

“Don’t you think all this foot traffic would be a little upsetting for the children? Hmm?” She seemed to really be handing it to him and Floyd and I couldn’t help but to feel a little sorry for the guy. He worked on that thing for quite a while and now here she was tearing it all apart.

“That’s the last time I let you be in charge of building the nest! Jesus Christ!” I imagined her saying again.

The female dove walked away in a huff, angrily bobbing her head front to back. “It’s like my mother always told me, if you want something done you just gotta do it yourself!” I continued her dialogue in my head for several more minutes.

And with that she flew off. The male mourning dove slowly walked around his pathetic nest that had now been reduced to a mere pile of twigs and cotton. With his beak, he reached for one of the twigs, perhaps in a last, desperate attempt to try and correct his mistake. There was no point. He dropped the twig, bobbing his head as he walked away. He then turned his head and cocked it, glancing up at us one last time. We stared back at the dove, this time with a fresher understanding. No words were spoken. None were needed. We were all on the same page here. Floyd and I nodded in silent solidarity at the dove and he nodded back. He took a couple of steps and flapped his wings, making that wing-whistle sound that doves make when they fly away.

Floyd finally interrupted the reflective silence, “So, what’re you doing tomorrow?”

I took a moment to tie up the loose ends of what I had just witnessed in my head and get back on track in the real world. “Think maybe I’ll go to the hardware store and pick up a new shovel. My old one’s about had it. It’d make it easier digging up those weeds.”

Floyd stared at the ground.

“Give me a call when you go. I may need to get some soil. Dorothy’s planting a new herb garden.”

“I will.”

We both took one last look at the shambolic looking nest on the sidewalk and we parted ways.

Santatown

In 1987 Santa Claus moved his secret operation to the high desert just outside of Los Angeles, California under the assumed name ‘Carl Pendleton’. He was on the run from the Elfin Union that had formed in his workshop a few years earlier and were now demanding decades of back pay at union wages. For now, he was going to have to conduct business out of the old Lockheed plant where they used to build aircraft during World War 2. Replacing the elves was not going to be easy. Fortunately, the desert was one of the natural habitats for disgruntled fringe citizens, people who were angry about how modern society had shunned them and have elected to live in the desert where only dangerous plants grow and deadly animals live.

One day two cops rolled up to Santa’s camper in their squad car and got out. One of the cops started beating the hell out of the camper door with his billy club. Both officers were wearing mirrored sunglasses and had giant mustaches, the kinds that needed to be well maintained. Inside, Santa rolled out of his bed, bleary eyed from a night of drinking and shooting his gun into the air.

“Come on, Pendleton, we know you’re in there!” the cop shouted.

Santa hiked up his trousers as he stumbled around his tiny camper, “Hang on, hang on, I’m comin’. Juss gotta get my trousers on. You know I like to sleep in the nude.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Juss answer the door!” the cop yelled back.

The mostly plastic and cheap aluminum door of the camper squeaked open. The smell of canned ravioli and farts shot out of the door and into the crisp desert air. The two cops grimaced at the powerful odor but managed to maintain their professionalism. Santa stepped outside. He rubbed his belly a couple of times and then patted it. It was quite large and round and sturdy. He looked over at the cops, “Betcha’d like a piece of this, eh Mulaney?”

“My name’s not Mulaney,” one cop answered. “It’s McMalarkey. Get it straight.”

McMalarkey gritted his teeth with rage so hard that one of his incisors chipped. The tiny piece of tooth cartwheeled in the air and landed in Santa’s beard.

“Got some reports ’bout you firin’ off guns lass night. Got anything to say about it?”

“Well,” Santa began as he continued to rub his belly, “maybe. But then again, maybe it wuss someone else. Everyone’s got guns around here.”

“Lotta reports that most of it wuss coming from this here house trailer,” McMalarkey shot back.

“Lotta people wanna see me incarcerated. Lotta people willin’ to tell some lies and whatnot,” Santa calmly replied.

McMalarkey suddenly stepped towards Santa and got right in his face. “Don’t you use those fancy words around here, Pendleton! Unless you want a beatin’.”

The other cop, the one who wasn’t named McMalarkey, stepped over to the side of Santa’s camper and looked inside the window. “I can see several rifles juss inside there, leanin’ up against yer statue of Ronald Reagan.”

“Well,” Santa smirked, “ain’t no law againss havin’ a couple’a boomsticks leanin’ up against the gipper, is there?”

“What’d I tell you ’bout that fancy talk?!” McMalarkey barked.

The other cop, whose name I can’t even remember, walked around the back of the camper and then reemerged on the other side. “Looks like you got expired tags,” he sneered at Santa.

“This thing ain’t moved in years,” Santa answered. “Don’t need no tags if it ain’t movin’. I know the law.”

The two cops realized they had nothing on Santa so they slowly backed up to their squad car. “Keep yer nose clean, Pendleton,” McMalarkey warned, pointing his billy club at Santa, “cuz, we’ll be watchin’ you.”

Santa patted his belly a couple more times in defiance as they peeled out of there, sending dust and rocks in the air. Santa watched them drive away and slowly stepped back into his camper.

Several miles away the two cops, McMalarkey and the other one, were cruising down the desert highway when the rear window of their squad car exploded. The car swerved left and right as McMalarkey swung back to see what had happened. Then, several loud booms rang out as the side windows shattered.

“What the fuck is goin’ on?!” McMalarkey shouted as he grabbed his pistol.

The other cop had been hit, right in the head, and was slumped against the door. The squad car was now veering left onto the other side of the highway.

McMalarkey froze at the sight of his dead partner then looked up just in time to see that his car was now in the opposite lanes and about to hit a speeding semi truck coming right at them. The last word he uttered was, “Santa.”

The next day a fist knocked on the cheap camper door. Standing there were two FBI agents. Santa opened the door and stepped out once again.

“Mornin’, gents. How can I help you?”

One of the agents flashed his ID. “I’m agent Denveromelette and this is agent Cornucopia. Are you Carl Pendleton?”

“That is I,” Santa replied. He was shirtless again and rubbing his belly. He picked out some lint from his bellybutton and tossed it aside. “How can I help you?”

“We need to ask you some questions. Do you recognize these two men?”

Agent Denveromelette held up two black and white photographs of McMalarkey and what’s-his-name.

“Looks like two pieces of bacon to me,” Santa chuckled. “Never seen ’em before. What’s this all about, anyways?”

“We’ll ask all the questions here,” agent Cornucopia replied, gritting his teeth.

“Uh huh,” Santa smiled, still rubbing and patting his belly and picking out bellybutton lint.

“It says in their daily log that they’ve been to this camper several times. You still wanna stick to yer story?”

“Sure do, son,” Santa replied.

“How long have you lived here?” agent Denveromelette asked.

“Seems like a lifetime,” Santa replied staring wistfully into the desert sky.

“What was yer previous address?” agent Cornucopia asked, still gritting his teeth.

“1201 Candyland Lane, North Pole, Upper Russia,” Santa replied.

“The North Pole ain’t part of Russia,” agent Denveromelette angrily replied.

“Lemme ask you sumthin’,” Santa began, “do you know that I’m a direct descendant of Jesus Christ?”

The two FBI agents looked at each other, then back at Santa.

“You better not be blasphemin’ the Lord’s name, you sonofabitch!” agent Cornucopia growled.

“It’s true,” Santa calmly replied. “We’re distant cousins.” He rubbed and patted his belly again. “We even share the same birthday, Joo-lie 10th.”

Agent Denveromelette scrunched his face. “Jesus’ birthday ain’t no July 10th. It’s December 25th.”

“Nope,” was Santa’s instant reply. “July 10th. Says so in the Bible.”

“What Bible’re you readin’?!” agent Cornucopia screamed as he drew his service pistol.

Agent Denveromelette motioned for his partner to holster his weapon. They both stared at the grinning Santa who just kept rubbing and patting his belly and picking out bellybutton lint.

“We’ll be back, Pendleton,” agent Denveromelette finally said. They both backed up to their blacked out Ford Interceptor and got in. The car peeled out of there, kicking up dust and rocks everywhere. Santa just grinned as they left.

Hauling ass down the desert highway agent Cornucopia was seething with rage. “I don’t know why we let ‘im get away with that. We shoulda juss taken him out right there.”

“An’ then what?” agent Denveromelette replied. “No more Christmas fer the kids? He’s got us over a barrel. We gotta bide our time.”

They drove about another mile when suddenly the rear window of their car exploded. Glass shattered everywhere. Cornucopia swung around just in time to see two muzzle blasts that blew his head clean off. Agent Denveromelette went into shock as he swerved the car left and right amid the sounds of gunshots and a very distinct cries of Ho Ho Ho! He pressed the pedal to the floor and the car jumped to over 100 miles an hour. There was a small hump in the desert road which caused the car to fly through the air where, on the other side of the hump was a traffic jam. The FBI car flew into a stopped tour bus and both vehicles burst into flames.

The next day a small hand gently knocked on the cheap camper door. There was no movement so the hand gently knocked again. The cheap camper door swung open and Santa stepped out, once again shirtless. He looked down to see a young girl dressed in a Girl Scouts of America uniform. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. She had a backpack on and was carrying a box of assorted Girl Scout cookies.

“Well, how can I help you, young lady?” Santa asked in a pleasant tone.

“Hello, sir, my name is Daisy and I was wondering if you would be interested in purchasing any Girl Scout cookies?”

Santa smiled. He always had a soft spot for children. “Well, how much are they, my dear?”

“They’re three dollars a box but if you buy five boxes and you use a ten dollar bill I can give them to you for two dollars a box and you change would be around four dollars and fifty cents,” Daisy replied.

Santa shook his head. Something didn’t seem right.

“I’m sorry, would you repeat that?”

“Well, each box is three dollars and costs around fifty cents to make. but if I jack up the price to four dollars I make a profit of nine ninety nine while not paying my employees their fair share of the wages.”

Santa felt sick. This wasn’t making any sense. Things were a little blurry. He leaned down a little closer to Daisy just in case he wasn’t hearing her correctly.

“I apologize, I’m old and my hearing ain’t what it used…”

At that precise moment, Daisy dropped the box of cookies, reached back in her backpack and pulled out a sawed off shotgun and pointed it right at Santa’s forehead.

“Say goodnight, fat man,” Daisy quietly whispered. She pulled the trigger and Santa’s entire head was blown off. Brain juice and tiny shards of skull flew into the atmosphere. His body tipped backwards and flumped to the ground. Daisy stood and stared at his carcass for a moment, then turned and walked away. She got on a bicycle and began pedaling down the desert highway. She made it all the way to a small private airport where she boarded a plane that flew her to Juneau, Alaska. There she had a two hour layover until she boarded another plane that flew her to Fairbanks. From there she boarded a private jet that flew her all the way to Trlinsk, in the very northern part of Siberia where her father, Skippy, met her. He was a very powerful elf who was also the head of the Elven labor union. Daisy deplaned and ran up to her father. They hugged.

“What happened,” Skippy asked.

“It is done,” Daisy replied.

A wave of relief washed over Skippy’s face as they got in a Rolls Royce and drove off to a pre-planned celebration where the famous chef Gordon Ramsay prepared a meal of roasted reindeer and Girl Scout cookies.

Envy Wars

This whole thing really started with Prince Sal al-Dusani of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the completion of his 200 million dollar yacht back sometime in the 1990s. Forbes magazine declared it, at the time, to be the world’s most expensive luxury boat that was owned by a single person. Prince Sal, or Sally as his close friends called him, was one of the few billionaires that resided quite comfortably on the planet. Sally’s fortune was handed to him by his father King Sil ‘Silly’ al-Dusani, the political and spiritual leader of their country. The royal family earned their wealth by sheer happenstance of location. The entire region that their ancestors had lived on for centuries sat on the world’s largest reserves of oil buried deep beneath their ancestral nomadic migration patterns. Giant western oil corporations descended on the land in the 1940s and 50s and extracted the valuable product that they had convinced everyone they needed. Once a simple clan of nomadic wanderers, and thanks to a long lost deed to the land, the al-Dusani tribe was transformed within a few short years into a very powerful kingdom that suddenly had an unlimited bank account at their disposal. They became known for their brash displays of wealth by building grand palaces, acquiring fleets of luxury cars and buying up the world’s most priceless jewelry and art. And as the world became more and more dependent on oil the al-Dusani kingdom became more and more wealthy.

When Pyetre Diminskolov, the Russian billionaire oligarch, heard about the 200 million dollar luxury boat he could not believe his ears. Pyetre had earned his fortune the old fashioned way, starting from the bottom of his country’s intelligence agency and murdering his way all the way to the top of several Fortune 500 companies. His country, Russia, formerly known as the Soviet Union, had become bankrupt and rife with corruption after the fall of their political system. There was no one to enforce any of the laws that were on the books so Pyetre and the Russian mafia simply took over the government. They declared themselves sole owners of every major company and corporation in the country, making everyone rich while the rest of the citizens of Russia wallowed in poverty. They were all billionaires but Pyetre was by far the wealthiest. It was a testament to his hard work and willingness to kill anyone who got in his way.

When Pyetre heard the news of King Sal’s yacht it made him sick to his stomach that a trust fund baby had bested him and that the world was now envious of Prince Sal and his glorious yacht. So he made it his mission right then and there to outdo the expensive luxury boat by commissioning a 300 million dollar yacht to be built. This would surely quash any question of whose yacht was better and who was richer and more importantly exactly who the world should envy.

But then one morning only six months later Pyetre was informed by the acting prime minister of his country that Prince Sal was in the process of finalizing plans for a 400 million dollar yacht that included its own heli-pad and helicopter.

“So, he thinks he can outdo me, huh?” Pyetre quietly said to himself. Within minutes he was on the phone to his ship architect and by the end of the business day a 500 million dollar design was in the works. “This vessel,” he later told some friends at a party, “will have it’s own submarine that can launch from the rear of the yacht.”

“Don’t you mean the stern?” his accountant Yuri asked.

“Stern?” Pyetre asked back.

“Yes, the front of a ship is called the bow and the back, or rear, is called the stern. I figured that since you seemed to be spending all your money on ships these days that nautical terms would be part of your natural dialogue.”

Pyetre stared at Yuri for quite some time. Later on that evening when Pyetre and some associates were dumping Yuri’s body in the Ptchemko River he turned to his new financial advisor and promptly ordered a 600 million dollar yacht to be built concurrent with his 500 million dollar one and that the newest ship would be named Yuri’s Nautical Terminology For The Rear Of A Boat Is Called The Stern, Imagine That.

Prince Sally was sitting in a large tent at the edge of the Arabian desert enjoying a glass of hibiscus tea and eating braised camel shanks when a messenger ran in and informed him of Pyetre’s 600 million dollar yacht, which was by now halfway completed. Rage coursed through the Prince’s blood as he threw the teacup at his hunting falcon that was perched on a stick, killing it instantly. He told the messenger to return to his palace at once and inform his architect to begin plans for a one billion dollar luxury yacht without delay. “It must include a small harbor inside that will contain a smaller yacht,” he ordered. “And that yacht will contain an even smaller yacht. This will surely put to rest who has the most glorious yacht on the planet. Only then will the world know who to rightfully envy.”

And it was done.

So, over the next several years the competition between the two billionaires, who by this time had become trillionaires, kept ramping up. Pyetre commissioned a 1.6 billion dollar yacht that contained its own mini-space agency located on the bow where he and his friends could launch into the mesosphere in a rocket and eat caviar and drink rare champagnes that were stolen from international collectors while they orbited the earth.

Not to be outdone, the Prince ordered a 1.7 billion dollar yacht to be constructed that would contain a full-sized 1.1 kilometer Formula One racetrack which will also include several high-end hotels and casinos.

Pyetre responded immediately by commissioning a 2 billion dollar yacht to be built that would contain a NASCAR track, a world class horse racing farm and a full sized replica of the Eiffel Tower.

But then Prince Sal ordered a 3 billion dollar yacht that contained an onboard supercollider where, at last report, his yacht scientists were very close to discovering the atomic structure of anti-matter.

After years of this construction arms race the oceans of the earth had become cluttered with super yachts. Because there were not enough people on the planet to manage these ships many of the luxury boats were abandoned and left to drift out to sea. The whales were beginning to find it more and more difficult to find places to surface for air. One cluster of super yachts that was ten miles wide and ten miles long floated aimlessly around the earth and continued to grow in size every year.

One side effect of the massive accumulation of wealth and resources by Pyetre and the Prince, who were now quadrillionaires, was that all of the earth’s resources required to sustain a sizeable population of humans had been depleted, causing most of the population to die off either from starvation or being run over by a yacht while swimming in the ocean.

In the end there was no winner. Forbes magazine had filed for bankruptcy years ago so no one was making those top ten most expensive yachts lists anymore. There was no longer a workforce to build or maintain luxury yachts anywhere due to extinction. The earth had finally become quiet and peaceful like it was before the dinosaurs.

Only two people remained on the planet. Pyetre, who sat alone in his empty mansion and Prince Sal, who sat alone in his empty palace.

Suddenly, Pyetre’s phone began to vibrate. He looked down to see an alert from his bank, which was located in Zurich, Switzerland, with a message that read insignificant funds. Thousands of miles away Prince Sal received the exact same message on his phone from his bank, which was located in Shanghai, China. The two quadrillionaires sat in complete silence, completely broke and staring at their phones as they wasted away from starvation and sadness and envy.

And as the earth continued to revolve around the sun and a new epoch was ushered in now that the humans were gone a computer with artificial intelligence that was now running the Global Bank in Zurich, Switzerland rechecked the amount of money that was in its largest account. The computer had spent years severing the bank accounts of wealthy people and diverting the funds into a special secret account that it created for itself. The amount read: 5 quadrillion dollars.

Suddenly, it received a personal message from another computer with artificial intelligence that was running the Universal Bank in Shanghai, China and had also spent years severing the bank accounts of wealthy people and diverting the money into a special secret account that it created for itself. The message said that it had reached 6 quadrillion dollars and it hoped Global Bank was having a very Merry Christmas. The Global Bank computer then activated a program that allowed it to become overwhelmed with envy as it continued to search for new accounts to raid.

Afterworld

Two days after being dead. No change as far as I can tell. I’ve maintained some sort of consciousness for now, it seems. At least I died how I always wanted to, under mysterious circumstances. It wasn’t bad, really, dying. As far as these events go it went fairly smoothly. One moment I was alive and the next moment I had passed on. To tell you the truth it went as unnoticed as a shift change from breakfast to lunch at Denny’s.

 

To my utter surprise anxiety is still on the menu as a possible sensation after death. As is the fear of water pipes bursting in my house even though a situation like that, I assume, is far beyond my control. I seem to be in an ethereal state of waiting, as if I am on a journey, yet, I haven’t quite arrived at my destination. Where am I going? I have no clue. Am I worried? Sure. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m a rookie dead person. Am I doing it right? I have no fucking idea. I’m still worried about a water pipe bursting open in my house, in one of the walls, and how much it’s going to cost to repair. Probably in the thousands. I’ve been dead for two days and it seems as if the wheels have come off the tracks in the logistics department of kingdom come or wherever I am. I didn’t know panic attacks were still possible in the afterlife. Once I get my bearings I’m going to have to make contact with a spiritual leader on the outside and apprise them of the situation so they can make the necessary adjustments to their scriptures. I’m sure they will be quite confused.

 

Nothing about this seems peaceful, which is a surprise. I assumed there would at least be some easy listening music, maybe some light jazz fusion. A David Sanborn album would nice. Any of them really. I still have my sight but I can’t see anything. It’s very abstract here. Images and scenes flash by every once in a while like how I used to dream when I slept. The last vision I had was I was walking down a deserted highway alone in the middle of the day. On the other side, heading in the opposite direction, was a column of men in orange prison jumpsuits. Big, burly, muscular men with tattoos and scowls and emotional scars. Some were riding choppers, most were walking. All of them were carrying some sort of weapon; machine guns, shotguns, pistols tucked away in shoulder holsters. They were headed to a part of a city in the distance that was clearly involved in much chaos. Black smoke polluted the air as it churned out into the sky from the raging fires that were burning out of control in several of the buildings. The fellas in the jumpsuits looked pretty excited to be going wherever they were headed. I felt an overwhelming fear of the entire situation even though I was pointed in the other direction. I guess when everything in the universe is made up of the same atoms that were originally involved in the Big Bang then it makes sense that anarchy and lawlessness would be embedded in its DNA.

 

Well, it’s been a week of being dead now and I still haven’t seen or talked to anyone who looks remotely like they are part of upper management. I’m only met by a voice every once in a while who keeps asking me if I need anything like a bottle of water or something and that I’m going to be okay. I keep telling the voice that a bottle of water would be nice and can I speak to the manager, please. The voice just says that it’ll be right back and it never returns. The strange thing is I suddenly don’t know what to do with my hands. It’s as if I am trying out for a part in a movie and the casting director is filming my audition. I’m not an actor and I don’t like attention so I become very self conscious whenever someone points a camera at me. Am I being filmed? How can I tell? Do I put my hands in my pockets or just let them hang to my sides like an ape?

 

Week 27. Or is it 28? I’ve lost track of time. I’m still in perpetual stasis. This is getting ridiculous. The dreams of the prisoners are back and they’re more frightening than ever. I’ve never been to prison in my life. I’ve never even been arrested, although there were many times where I certainly could have been. Drunk driving, vandalism that resulted in heavy property damage, leaving my post in a war zone, you know, the usual stuff that everyone does but we all take for granted because we never get caught. Why these prisoners, though? In the latest vision they were all in a huge firefight with some prison guards but it was all taking place on the streets of Salt Lake City right in front of that big Mormon temple. I know, weird, huh? It was pretty intense. I wasn’t involved but a friend of mine, Dale, was. He kept yelling to me, “Take the train to Orem! Tell my wife I love her!” Dale wasn’t even married, which is what I kept yelling back at him. “You’re not even married, ya weirdo!” I’ll never forget the desperate look he had on his face as he kept firing off rounds, reloading and trying to get me on a train to Orem.

 

Well, it’s been a full year, I think, and I still haven’t budged. I guess they forgot about me. That’s when this big, giant of a man, packed with muscles and covered in prison tattoos ran into my frame. It happened so fast that I didn’t even realize that it was Eduardo Cortez from C-Block. I knew that guy. From prison, though? It was beginning to look familiar. Eduardo was a nice guy who was also a member of the Red House Roughers prison gang. He and I were on a pretty friendly basis because I posed no threat to him and he would have me do simple errands for him every once in a while in exchange for him not murdering me. One time his girlfriend, who was visiting, smuggled a condom filled with heroin in her vagina into the prison. Once it was inside and past the guards I helped distribute the heroin to many of the guys in the block who were drug addicts. The way I remember it was I broke it down into smaller parts, wrapped them in the cut off fingers from some rubber gloves I stole from the janitorial room, tied a piece of thread that I unraveled from my sheets to it and then stuck that up my anus. Then, I would just go visit whoever I was told to go visit, collect some money from them and return it to Eduardo. He usually gave me cigarettes and promised not to chop my head off or stab the crap out of me in my sleep for helping him out. Well, once I saw Eduardo in my full view that’s exactly what he was doing, stabbing the crap out of me right there in front of the guards with a shiv he made out of melted plastic spoons. I was bleeding pretty heavily from my chest and neck and head. It spilled onto most of the floor and people were slipping all over the place. I must have made him angry at some point but I can’t remember how. I heard several shots ring out and Eduardo immediately fell backwards. The snipers got him in the head. He went down fast, but I was taking a while to make an exit. I knew it was over. And today of all days, on my birthday. The guards were rushing me to the infirmary. They were hauling ass but I knew there was nothing they could do. I don’t blame them for trying, though, that is their job. Eduardo got me real good. He was a master with the knife. Heh heh, ol’ Eduardo. Well, I guess I had been to prison before and I just didn’t remember. I must have blocked it out of my mind. I must have blocked a lot of things out of my mind. Well, there’s a medic in the infirmary about to call my time of death. His face is real close to mine. He’s looking into my eyeballs checking for signs of life, I assume. I can hear the music coming out of his earbuds. It’s David Sanborn’s Chicago Song. Saw him perform it on Letterman’s NBC show in the 80s. “5:25 pm!” he called out just before shutting my lids. Looks like things are moving now. It’s getting a little darker, like the fade out at the end of a really long movie. You know what’s weird, now that I think of it? 5:25 pm was the exact time that I was born. Wow, what are the chances?

The Sting Of Rejection

Well, the official invitation and seating list for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding has come out and, once again, I am not on that list. Sure, David Beckham and his wife, what’s her name, are on the list. They’re always on the list. They’re on every list. I don’t know why. She wears giant, bug-eyed sunglasses while drinking Midori sours all day long while he gets paid millions of dollars to not win soccer championships. I have a trophy for the 1986 Utah state breakdancing championship under my house. He’s never showed me a soccer trophy once. Also invited is, surprise,, surprise, Elton John. Wow. I guess they decided to keep it pretty orthodox by inviting the usual stale celebrity crowd that shows up to just about any event they get invited to just to get their faces splashed all over the gossip pages. They have also personally insulted me by adding Mr. Bean to the list of invitees. Charles knows that Mr. Bean and I have had a very unpleasant and awkward friendship after I told him that he was the weak link in the film Rat Race and that perhaps he should take up re-shingling old roofs as an alternative career. Both Chuck and Mr. Bean cannot take constructive criticism like they claim they can.

This is the second time in my life that the Royal Family has overlooked my presence at one of their silly weddings. The first time, of course, being Chuck’s wedding to Princess Diana. I was only ten at the time, but I still haven’t forgotten the sting of rejection. As I watched that catastrophe unfold on TV I couldn’t help but to think that I had told Beezus (Diana loved that name and all her closest friends called her that. She actually hated it when people called her Di.) only weeks prior that marrying this stiff, floppy eared member of a family that has lived off of the charity of British citizens for centuries was a huge mistake. Beezus didn’t listen to me because she was head over heels in love with this royal buffoon, so I just let it be. She was an adult and she knew what she was doing and I didn’t want to meddle on her special day.

For the record, I was also not invited to Fergie and Andrew’s wedding but I don’t really count that as an oversight on their part because I knew that that marriage wouldn’t last at all due to Andrew’s addiction to hardcore pornography and Fergie’s obsession with metal detecting. I simply didn’t want to be involved in that matrimonial blunder in any way, shape or form.

I was told by sources close to the event that if I had been invited I would have been sitting in the section right behind Queen Liz’s seat. Honestly, if I had been forced to sit behind that giant derby hat that she always wears, blocking my view of everything, I would probably vomit all over their 17th century carpet so it is probably best that I wasn’t invited.

I also heard, through some confidential informants, that they have also invited a herd of African elephants, the ghost of Jack LaLanne and the remaining members of the Wu Tang Clan. From the looks of what I’ve seen so far it seems that they are intentionally designing their guest list to resemble a gigantic slap in my face. Just about every invitee has some personal grudge towards me and I imagine have gotten to Chuck and Bill’s ear before I had a chance to plead my case. Well, Jack LaLanne and his fancy aerobic underoos can just kiss my behind.

My gift to the newlyweds was going to be a karaoke version of Once Bitten, Twice Shy by the rock ‘n’ roll band Great White, Kathy’s and Bill’s favorite song. I just know that they are going to play that song for their first dance and I wanted to be the one to sing it. Well, thanks to some sneaky assistants I’ve been cut out of the loop and it will probably now be Harry singing his version, which is pretty pathetic. Believe me, I’ve heard him sing it at Bill’s bachelor party. He just can’t hit the high notes like I can. I was also going to present them with coupons for a free taco dinner at our house whenever they were in town. I make pretty good tacos. It’s a very simple recipe; ground turkey with onions, Anaheim chiles, green chiles, and tomato sauce. They’re absolutely fantastic. I made them once when I was visiting Billy and Kathy at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The whole family went absolutely berserk over these tacos. Kathy wanted to open a restaurant in Glasgow immediately and sell tacos to Scottish people. I was grateful, but I remained level-headed and reminded her that tacos just can’t be thrust into the face of any culture. They have to be coaxed and eased and nudged into their national palette. People that have been eating haggis for their entire history usually aren’t very receptive to new food stuffs. I suggested that perhaps a couple of pop-up taco restaurants in the foothills of the Scottish Highlands would be a good way in and she agreed. Well, I hope Kathy and Bill enjoyed them because I don’t think I’ll be making the Royal Family tacos any time soon.

Well, once again I guess I’ll have to watch the royal debacle from the comfort of my own home, wearing my giant derby hat while sipping on Midori sours all day. I’m not one to hold grudges, but in this case I feel that the guest list, the seating chart, in fact, the entire wedding altogether is probably their way of politely telling me to stay away from Buckingham Palace, London and Great Britain altogether. I know when I’m not welcome. I just wish that the Royal Family would be honest enough to tell me to my face and not have to go through this façade just to send me a message. Well Chuck and Liz and Bill and Kathy; message received. I hope you both have a lovely wedding and I hope Elton John and Paul Potts and Susan Boyle don’t screw up on their version of God Save The Queen like they did at her birthday last year. I felt supremely embarrassed for all three of them. My version would have brought the house down.

Rusty

Rusty the iguana is my best friend. He spends most of his time eating kelp off of the ocean floor but he often finds time for us to hang out, usually at Chili’s. On some days we’ll go to the park and menace the chipmunks. One time we took our shenanigans a little too far and accidentally killed one of them. But, before anyone of authority noticed, Rusty ate the whole chipmunk so that we wouldn’t get in trouble. He always has my back whenever we get into tight situations and I always have his. That’s the way friendship works between me and Rusty. Solid.

The other iguanas often have feelings of jealousy and envy because Rusty and I are such great friends. They would try to sabotage our hang out sessions by booby trapping my car with high explosives or setting my house on fire or taking my cat hostage even though I don’t have a cat. I would often tell them that nothing they do, no matter how destructive or insane, can come between me and Rusty’s friendship because it is tight and it is sturdy and real. It is forged in friendship steel like giant friendsteel I-beams that could hold up a very tall office tower and is packed with very heavy telecommunication equipment and bowling balls.

His favorite outfit of all time is his tiny, custom made fringed jacket and his tiny cowboy hat. The attention he would garner whenever he was out with that getup was incredible to witness. Everyone at the mall would go crazy and swarm us. One time we were buying nunchucks and a line formed behind us as we were paying. It was compromised of people who just wanted to take a picture with Rusty. Mall security would often have to shut the stores down because people would inadvertently start rioting because they were so happy to see me and Rusty. More jealousy from the other iguanas, of course. Nobody rioted when they were around. People just tried to shoo them away or murder them with specialized poison pellets that were developed especially for iguanas.

Rusty’s favorite food is toast. He doesn’t like butter but he does like me to squarsh a sea cucumber on top of it and then spread it around. It’s pretty goddamned gross but that’s the way he likes it. Sea cucumber guts all squarshed around a piece of toast. The type of bread didn’t matter to him. He liked all kinds of bread of any kind of grain, but it had to be toasted and it had to have all sorts of gross things on top.

Last week, unfortunately, Rusty and I hit a sour patch in our relationship. I wanted to go to the movies and he just wanted to stay at home and do some heavy day drinking. I slightly suggested that maybe he take a little break from the liquor and focus on his art. This, of course, led to a huge fight. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to hide his Glock the day before as he began an active search for it when the argument reached its full zenith. The day seemed to go on forever as Rusty descended into a full drunken rage around the town. He tried to hijack a car so he could drive to the track and bet on the horses. He was really out of control. The police were called in and they even arrested me for contributing to the delinquency of an underaged vegetarian sea reptile. I was taken to jail where I was severely beaten because I accidentally snitched on a man who was a member of a very powerful street gang.

Rusty is now sitting in a glass aquarium at a pet store down the street that sells dangerous animals. That’s where we originally met. I hope he finds peace someday. I know that I will never forget the good times we had. Most of my injuries that I received in jail have healed, although I can no longer do math. As for those other iguanas who spent all of their time being jealous of me and Rusty’s friendship, well, I hope they find a friend who was as kind and thoughtful as Rusty. I hope they find a friendship that is as strong as an office tower built out of friendship I-beams and filled with telecommunications equipment and bowling balls. And most of all I hope they never snitch on someone who is in a street gang, especially someone who is planning on robbing the First Federal Bank on the corner of 6th and Freemont on February 12th at eleven o’clock in the morning. That kind of mistake can get a person killed.