Original Spelling Edition

I've known Mr Death for years. He was present at my birth, and rarely does a day go by without some conversation with him. He always treats me with respect, which is more than I can say for other people. The only person I've ever heard him badmouth is someone I never met until yesterday, namely Mr Life. Mr Death told me that Mr Life had a massive ego and was incapable of recognizing any side of an argument save his own. "He's not what you'd call a tolerant person," Mr Death told me. "He's got a one-track mind."

With all this information I was prepared to not like Mr Life when I met him for the first time yesterday. I expected arrogance; instead I met someone pitiful. Mr Life laughed when I told him what Mr Death thought of him. He said: "Oh, Mr Death always thinks I'm muscling in on his territory. He has his dominion, and I have mine. He shouldn't be so narrow-minded." His demeanor impressed me.

Today, Mr Death dropped by. He'd gotten wind of yesterday's meeting, and he told me: "I don't envy you your dilemma; it's painful to play a true zero-sum game."

 

*

 

The gas jockey said: You should go through the Sonora. The Mojave is a monster.

We said: We don't have time.

He said: It's your skeleton. 'Buh-bye.'

The car broke down halfway across.

We were a couple bottles short of a dozen.

The nights were cold, and useless.

It appeared that trucks and cars never use this detour.

We walked for a million miles.

We regretted throwing out our empty water bottles because they weren't entirely empty.

Taking a cue from Dune, we put our sweaty shirts under bowls to collect condensation.

We didn't get very much water that way but it must have helped.

I tripped over a sternum.

The horizon was a million miles away.

Our lips cracked and our groins chafed.

On the plus side, we had great views of the constellations.

'Not a cloud in the sky.' Hateful phrase it became.

The sand was hot to sleep beneath, but slept we did.

I put a kerchief by her corpse so I could send back morticians.

I was literally crawling along the sands like I was in a New Yorker panel cartoon.

As I lay dying, I dreamed of sleeping in our bed.

It's raining: cats, dogs.

 

*

 

He dropped the porcelain teacup he had been holding. The cup broke into a score of pieces. His eyes bugged out.

He cried: "There she is! The woman in the window!"

Donna said: "So there is a woman in the window. So?"

He stumbled backwards and upset the umbrella rack. "Whenever she appears, bad things start to happen."

"I don't see any woman in the window."

"How can you be so blind? I say!" He tore down some vintage Morris wallpaper and fell over it. "I say! Nothing but disasters!"

"Does this have to do with your mother?" Vivienne asked. "Perhaps it's the Eternal Feminine that's to blame?"

He pulled down a bookcase of musty medical dictionaries. "I believe I am going blind!"

"Then you'd be free of seeing your 'woman in the window' now, wouldn't you?"

"Are you mocking me?" he said as he picked up his lectern and threw it into the hallway. "Look at this chaos!"

"I am not mocking you, and I also don't believe you're in need of serious psychiatric attention," said Angela.

He said: "How long will I be tormented so?"

"If you want to stop your torment, it's easy. Let me back inside!"

 

*

 

We made our plans. We made many plans.

We were going to the big moon because it's easier to measure once you're there.

After we moved the house, we swore we'd fix the foundation more securely by filling in the sides.

All the photographs we'd been keeping here and there were going to be collected, sorted, and annotated.

We planned on cancelling our organ donation cards because they're all vampires, ghouls, and grave-robbers.

We were going to phone you. It's not our fault you died first.

Once we realized that the jeweller, when he had his loupes on, had godawful peripheral vision, we planned on pocketing two pretty opals.

We missed it this time, so we'll get around to it next month.

Crazy we planned that fishing trip to Canada.

We were going to find a cure for Eastern Finnish Miserabilism.

We were going to get organized via a to-do list.

To buy the screw to fix the light to find the manual to repair the printer.

We weren't going to drink so much this weekend.

We wanted to read Proust yet one more time.

We'll be friends forever, really I swear.

We made our plans. We made many plans.

 

*

 

Pornstar Funnies #5

 

PANEL ONE

 

Two women, Liz and Diane, sitting in a café

LIZ (in a bubble over her head): So tell me.

DIANE: It was a #rapenarrative we were supposed to be doing that morning. I don't mind #rapenarratives, but at dawn? However, there was a #poweroutage in my neighbourhood.

 

PANEL TWO

 

LIZ (leaning forward now, curvy lines of steam coming off her coffee): Oh, your power went out? What about it?

DIANE: Well, wouldn't you know it? #Busted! I got up way too late! #hourslate! You know how us in the biz say that you don't have to #begood, so long as you're #ontime!

 

PANEL THREE

 

LIZ: You're talking weird right now. Like in a code.

DIANE: What? So I figured I could #showerthere, so I got in an #ubercab and got to the set #tootsweet! And when I got there, the #assholedirector made a fuss about how all the techies had been standing around waiting for me to #sucksomecock!

 

PANEL FOUR

 

LIZ: They had a right to be annoyed; what's with all the number signs?

DIANE: #jointhematrix, Liz! Or #jointhevectors! Anyway, I'm an artiste, and they can wait. It wasn't my fault. What is this, #blamethevictim?

 

*

 

The first word is the most important word. Many people do not continue reading a story or novel if the first word sets them off. These people give titles some leeway, knowing as they do that titles are paratextual and not a part of the text itself. One must be careful about the first word used in any novel or story in order to ensure the largest audience possible.

If one starts with a proper noun, one should be cautious. A euphonious name settles the waters nicely, so if you are using a proper noun, my advice is to use a multisyllabic female name with one sibilant. Sarah is a good choice, as is Serena. Avoid plosives. People may allow plosives later in the sentence, perhaps as early as the next word but one, but this is risky in all cases.

Our research indicates that articles are inoffensive, so The, A, and An away to your heart's content. Results on the use of verbs is inconclusive due to the small sample. And as for the adjective and, even less, the adverb clearly indicates that these parts are never to be used, for continuity algorithms shows they are, like, total cock-blockers.

 

*

 

I hired a skald for the postprandial elements of my grand wedding feast. We all sat back digesting merrily as he struck up his lyre and praised me and my new wife. He sang of my great conquests; he detailed my peace-making negotiations with the Jarl Hæsgottir for the return of his lands in exchange for his daughter and a fine dowry of ninety-nine warriors; he sang about how I was double-crossed while the daughter was locked up tight in a high tower; and he sang of my despair in the Oslo fjord, when I wandered mad amongst the rocks and ice of my heart.

The music then turned joyful as my betrothed escaped by killing her guards, swimming the frozen sea, recovering in an enchanted cave, and sailing to Ireland where she sent out messengers generally in search of me, only to discover me some four hundred miles away in the marches of East Anglia.

The skald sang more about my reunion with my betrothed in the midlands, and of the death of her father by influenza, and our forthcoming joint reign over England, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, and Wales.

He ended sadly; singing of dust, and bones, and time....

 

*

 

‑The rules are simple. You put your pieces on the table, trying to get a row or column to be all in your colour.

‑Yeah yeah got it. Who goes first? The clock's ticking.

‑I'll go first. There. On an edge.

‑This is just some fuckin' trumped up tic-tac-toe. Fine, here, I block thee.

‑Okay, then there's this. Two in a row.

‑Jesus Christ, here, another block. Do diagonals count?

‑No. You're actually ahead anyway. The second player‑

‑Just put your bit on the board before I keel over.

‑I place my piece thusly.

‑Why am I doing this? I should be revising my will; revising you out of it.

‑There's plenty of time for that! You've got to save your strength.

‑It's all going away anyway, no hindrance from me. Time's doing the heavier lifting.

‑Put down your piece, and we'll see how it goes.

‑There. Another one for the worms.

‑You're doing great with this?

‑You think I can be fooled just like that? It's hopeless. I'm hopeless, and you're hopeless; you'd know it if you could think.

‑I play this one.

‑I have to pick some funeral music.

‑Play.

I have this dialogue with myself every day.

 

*

 

After I told her about my day during which I, early in the morning, chose not to go to work but rather instead I chose to do some banking, that is to rob it, at which I was successful and therewith proceeded to drive very fast and at great risk to the outskirts of town and a bar called The Seed Pit (for which it is aptly named) just in case any of my extramarital girlfriends was there and wouldn't you know it, Susan was there, who got into my car, taken up with the sheer criminality of it all we broke grammar to find another bank, a bigger bank, to rob, during which poor Susan was killed yet I escaped to go to the other outskirts of town to the aptly named Last Chance Saloon wherein I found Nancy who let me to the back room so we could divvy up the loot whereupon her other boyfriend ambushed me and I fled naked to sneak into my office to meet a spare suit and then I stopped telling her about my day and she sighed, "I see," and I smiled, because the poor dear could never remember a plot.

 

*

 

At a time when global trust in journalism is at a crisis point and the media literacy, The Toronto Star.

At a time when global trust in journalism is atop a crisis point and the media literacy, The Toronto Starch.

Atop a time when global trust in journalism is atop the crisis point and the media literacy, The Toronto Starch.

Atop the time when global trust in journalism is atop the crisp point and the media literacy, The Toronto Starch.

Atop the timer when global trust in journalism is atop the crisp poipoi and the media literacy, The Toronto Starch.

Atop the timer whenever global trust in journalism is atop the crisp poipoi or the media literacy, The Toronto Starch.

Atop the timer whenever globated trust in journalism is atop the crisp poipoi or a media literacy, The Toronto Starch.

Atop the timer whenever globated truth in journalism is atop the crisp poipoi or a medica literacy, The Toronto Starch.

Atop the timer whenever globated truth less journalism is atop the crisp poipoi or a medica literalism, The Toronto Starch.

Atop the timer whenever globated truth less journey is atop the crisp poipoi or a medica literalism, A Toronto Starch.

 

*

 

Hey! Those tall weird cats that run around on their hind legs haven't been around for some time. Notice that, sis?

Say! Now that you mention it, they haven't been around for quite a while. I do believe I've slept nine or ten times since seeing them last.

I wonder when they'll be coming back. No wonder there was a load of dry food out for us; there's probably still a bundle down there in our bowls.

I've forgotten. Should I go check?

Let us finish our philosophising before examining that question. What evidence do we have they are ever coming back?

It is their habit, is it not? They have gone away before--probably never for this long--but they have always come back.

Yes, but to what extent does the past predict the future? Things change. Remember that toilet paper roll we had such fun with?

I'll say! And then, one day, it disappeared. Do you think they are like that toilet paper roll?

Hark! There is a noise at the front!

Could it be them?

It sounds like them! There's a key in the door!

Lo, the door opens!

It is them!

Feed us!

Feed us! Meow!

 

*

 

I went around three corners, left right right, and came across another goat. This goat was one of the bigger goats I'd seen. He bleated at me like he was protecting something. Fortunately this hall was wide enough for me to clear by him without coming into contact.

I continued on. A long corridor sloped upwards, leading to a five points. Two goats, possibly related, were eating corn cobs out of a bucket, chewing roundly and ungulately. They looked up at me as if they'd seen it all before.

I went around another couple of corners here and there, it didn't seem to matter, making sure I was a good distance from the two goats, and lay down and slept.

In the 'morning' I continued on, and didn't run across a goat for quite some time. She was a beaut, spackled with spots so dark they were almost blue. I considered stopping for a spell, but I had to continue my odyssey.

Left, then right, then right again.

I found myself in a decorated hallway. Decorated by whom? for whom? A credenza had perfumes on it until I noticed there was only one, and a mirror reflecting. I saw goat.

 

*

 

THE PROCESS

 

The day was already old when I awoke in my old bed and got out of it. I got into my old shower and in it I shaved with an old razor. I put on some old clothes and made a lunch (soon to be an old lunch) from old bread, old meat, and old cheese. I went out onto my old street, walked down to the old streetcar stop, and got onto the next old streetcar that came along.

I got to my old place of work, took an old elevator to the old fourth floor, and sat down at my old desk. I turned on my old computer and read some old emails to see what immediacy I had missed. I drank some old coffee (which I'd already bought from the old coffee shop) and tried to decide what of that which should have been done already I was supposed to do. I sighed, CREATED A NEW DOCUMENT on my old word processor, saw it get old before my eyes, and wrote this old thing.

My old job is a very old job; as old as history itself, and history itself, why, she is very old.