They...

I stepped right up next to the edge of the waterline, the hyper toxic creek trickled past me with a quiet and soothing sound. The liquid was a burnt and grotesque yellowish-orange with deep violet crusty edges ringing the shorelines and rocks that protruded above the waterline. I thought about how primordial the scene was, how this place had existed like this for hundreds of millions of years untouched and unchanged. I thought that in some way I was standing at the birth of life on Earth, that these hot twisted pools of filth contained the words that made the language of our DNA. She came over and asked if I saw any yet.

I said: “No nothing… what am I looking for again?”

She said only: “Them”.

She asked me why I never chose to study science and do field work on things that interested me instead of whatever the hell it is I do now. I gave her my stock answer: That I was young and stupid and cared more about making out with girls then doing my homework… that I was sure I’d become a rock-star drummer like Tommy Lee and that the math was simply above my head after the basic ideas of physics and thermo dynamics. And well, that although I didn’t know it when I was young, I was destined to become germaphobic as an adult, and doing “field work” sounded dirty and gross.

Some time pasted and the bright sun light began to fade a bit. She said that if we had no luck seeing them in the wild that we could go back to the outpost and see the captive ones they had in large tanks. I agreed and we walked up the jagged and curiously shaped outcrops of sandstone and shale back to the field lab.

The lab was typical as far as remote science outposts go, a few tubular shaped trailers connected by a rather large plastic circus tent looking structure that housed the tanks she spoke of. A few 4 wheelers and a Jeep caked in dried mud and flaked paint from the acidic environment were at rest in no apparent order just outside the 2 stepped porch. Each had their keys dangling from the ignition… No one steals vehicles out here I guess. Inside the lab the smell of chlorine and ozone hit my face like I was standing next to the exhaust of the CTA bus in the summer; hot on hot with a blast of hot. I rounded the corner into the open circus tent area and saw the large in-ground pools filled with what I surmised to be the liquid from the primordial creek just down the mountain side. Only the liquid seemed brighter, more like a swimming pool I guess. Must be from the white walled swimming pool container the liquid was housed in. The creatures were easy to see against this sterile backdrop. They were greenish shadows moving around fluidly in the water with what looked like little or no bone structure. Sometimes they appeared large and then a split second later very small. I remember thinking they must be flat like a mantra ray. They reminded me of the demons from hell in the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze. They would just shift and move at impossible angles. No animals or fish I’d ever seen moved in the water with this kind of precision. One second tiny and flat, then 6 foot long and turned at a right angle, then wide and round. They shimmered in the liquid more then swam I guess.

She looked at me watching them and said: “Would you like to go get one?”

My eyes never left the pool when I replied: “Sure you have a fishing pole or what?”

She grabbed what looked like a human sized condom from below the desk and started to unravel it a bit, tossed a small weight into the bottom and gently placed it into the pool like she’d done this a thousand times before. I remained quiet but I could tell she could tell I was completely lost.

She said: “You have to be careful not to touch the fluid, it’s extremely alkaline and burns flesh rather severely. On cue she held a large and uncooked turkey leg above the liquid until my face told her I was comprehending what she was about to do, and then lowered it into the liquid. It fizzed and popped for a few seconds and I could see the tension in her smooth and girlish forearm as she tried to hold the end steady in the tumult of the angry acid pool.

Upon lifting the cleaned and bare bone out of the water I quipped: “I’m cool, you go get one… I’ll watch from here”.

I started to look back at the doorway as if to plan my quick escape if things turned all horror-flick on me. She slipped down into the human condom carefully and began to navigate the liquid into the center of the pool. When she got there she held out a chuck of raw meat and They began to swirl around her. I could feel my neck tense up and I knew that I was now sweating more then I like to around girls doing more manly things then me.

I said: “Maybe you have a net? We could just fish um out from the edge over here”

She smiled and said: “It’s okay, they just like to play around with me for a few minutes before they concede.”

I was beginning to panic and looked around for something sharp or a gun or something. I mean this is science fiction right? Something around here should say: In Case of Emergency (Or Weird Fuking Demon Slug Attack) - Break Glass. Nothing but mundane science and office supplies were within reach though. I tried to think of different ways I could kill things using a Bic Pen and a plastic clip board as a shield. In my panic I failed to witness her scooping up one of Them and bringing it over to the side of the pool. She asked for my hand to help her out but I froze just staring at the creature she was holding like a baby waiting to be burped slung over her shoulder.

I stuttered: “di- di- does it burn you? Wha-?”

“No it’s fine, it’s the liquid that burns not their skin”. She interrupted.

Unwillingly I reached my fully rigor mortis ridden arm out to her. She pulled my body forward as her weight lifted out of the body condom and onto the edge of the pool. I braced myself backwards to balance her one hundred and five pounds and she popped up with a smile on her face and the primordial companion against her chest. It turned what I guess was it’s head a full 180 degrees and looked at me with tiny black eyes. His back then turned into his chest as he turned himself inside-out to accommodate his heads new position. He didn’t turn around in her arm, he just ‘became’ facing forward. I say ‘He’ because it just looked like a male for some reason. He was forest green and slightly fuzzy, and very flat and completely dry.

I said: “You’re growing flat jellyfish Kermit the frogs?”

She giggled cutely and said: “Oh these are no amphibians, they’re much better…”

Then she told me… They… were the end of the world. They were the first things here and the last things left. They were from what she could tell cyanobacteria that evolved into a community capable of instant adaptation to whatever surroundings it found itself in. They started out with the other blue green algae around 3 billion years ago but these particular creatures adopted an ability no other creature before or since could: The ability to adapt and change instantly, not over successive generations thru mutations like ever other living creature on Earth. These were literally super creatures. You throw them in acid, they swim around in it like an otter, you toss them into a fire and they cozy up to the glowing hot ambers, you throw them in the freezer and they set up camp right next to your ice cube tray. These were extremophiles in a macro cellular form. They could be the size of a dime or the size of a bus, it didn’t matter to them. They could grow or shrink depending on the situation at hand. I was blown away and wondered why they (and her for that matter) were not on the cover of Time Magazine. This just seemed so huge.

Sensing my amazement she began to answer my rapid fire questions with easy to understand and matter of fact answers.

- There is no name for them
- We are incapable of determining their age
- They have no internal organs and do not seem to reproduce or mate
- They are docile and have no aggression
- They like raw meat but will also eat just about anything else you can think of including Bic pens and plastic clip boards

I was feeling something inside I’d never felt before. I was happy for mankind I guess I don’t know. I mean who gets happy for mankind? That sounds so ‘politician giving a stump speech”. It sounded very Kennedy to me or something. I was just happy I guess; finally something amazing in an otherwise boring life.

I looked down at my watch and it was about 11:30 p.m., where had the time gone today? I glanced up as she was talking to me about the potential implementation and implications of these creatures for humans when everything in my life grind to a halt. While she was talking it had slithered up around her head and was now ‘her’. She was It. It was her, it had blended itself with her. She was smiling and talking normally like nothing was happening but I was looking on in horror.

“It doesn’t hurt Jay, only the liquid they live in does. That liquid is a product of mankind. That's the waste. We come up with hundreds of ways to destroy ourselves in our world but they can take it. They can take whatever we throw at them and they don’t even get angry about it. They’re prefect… and you can be too”.

“I don’t want to be perfect; I just want to be human…” I said, my voice now obviously cracking like a teenager.

“You just say that because you haven’t tried it. You can do all the things you’ve always wanted to do Jay, you can travel to the stars, you can live forever. You can eat fire and walk on water. You can live a million lives any way you want to and never look back in regret. You make a mistake? Start over. You can have everything you want… Come here… just touch them, it’s like heaven”

My mouth was dry, I felt dizzy and I felt myself stumble over the office chair as I backtracked toward the doorway. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her/it. She/It reached out to me with both arms but they were not smooth and girly anymore, they were green and fuzzy and moved fluidly in waves like her bones were gone. I turned and ran thru the trailer until I crashed against the door. Without looking back I busted out into the night and fell off the 2 step porch onto the cold and dusty ground beside one of the haphazardly parked 4 wheelers. When I stood up I could see it’s silhouette in the doorway. The xenon white lab light was now yellow as it haloed her/it in the doorway. She/It looked frightening as her still human shaped body now bent and contorted at impossible angles.

“Jay, where are you going to go? There is nothing left you know. This IS the end of the world. There is no Chicago… There is no United States, there isn’t even any civilization anymore. It’s over, all of it. There is only… Them. Only… Us.”

I looked down at my hand; it was warm and itched badly. The night sky was bright with stars and the moon cast a dim enough light for me to see my hand in detail. It looked fine but had a strange greenish tint to it. I felt it with my other hand and it felt fuzzy and warm. It felt like I was touching Kermit the Frog’s puppet skin. I stood up and looked at the jeep with the keys dangling in the soft night breeze.

She said: “There is no where to go Jay. Come back inside before They get angry with you”

“I- I thought you said they didn’t get angry”

“Come back inside Jay”

Love fears no comets from outer space...

Love holds us as we vaporize in a violet flash

Love binds us as the shock wave rips us apart

Love covers us as the sky comes ablaze with fall out

Love warms us as the 1000 year nuclear winter sets in

Love revives us as the first flower grows again in the dim sunlight

Love fears no comets from outer space...

List 1

Words I'd like to use more:
- Booby Traps
- Ass Over Tea Kettle
- Serpentine
- Mr. Pussums (great name for a cat)
- Dangerpuss (great name for a superhero cat)
- Juxtaposed or conveniently adjacent to...
- gangly
- Ass-9 (even though I know it's suppose to be asinine)
- Marmasets
- Regular Pantsed (as apposed to fancy pants)
- [insert word or thing] the Hutt (like Jabba, but something funny)
- Asian Mike

Words I find myself over using:
- Dickface
- Dickhole
- Fuk You
- I can't I have to work tomorrow
- Lame
- Fuk the CTA, seriously fuk you and fuk everything about the CTA
- I will throw a beer bottle full of burning gasoline at The Duke of Perth I swear to god...
- I ran out
- Sorry

Things I see very little use for:
- Home Pizza Oven
- Quitters
- Red Carpet events, pre and post awards shows
- Simon Cowel or whatever that dickfaces name is
- Pickle forks
- Dust bunnies
- Situations or applications where a profound knowledge of farming equipment would be necessary
- the word Uber

Things I could use more of:
- Money
- Free Passes to various things of my choosing
- Back rubs
- Temperatures over 50 degrees Fahrenheit
- My cat Sylvester's face sleeping next to me
- My own Space rocket with gas card
- Days off (filled with all of the above things in this section)

Spaghetti Finishing

Dear Spaghetti Not-Finisher,

I wish you would have been more of a Spaghetti Finisher last night and less of a Spaghetti Not-Finisher, so there would have been less Not-Finished Spaghetti today. Then I would have eaten less of this Not-Finished Spaghetti at lunch today and consequently felt considerably less full and tired. Don't get discouraged though, Spaghetti Finishing is something we've all aspired to since our childhoods, when promises of Ice Cream and The Muppets Show held more weight as a motivator for us to see the Spaghetti Finishing thru to the end...

Thank you,

Jay

Untitled Number 3

My Angel in the Devil’s hand
Sitting quietly for the world to end
A story for all time… that I left behind
It just will not stop
Calling and calling when I’m almost asleep
In a moment I can’t seem to keep
Cross your arms before they steal your heart
Across time I’ll reach for our new start
But I’ve faded in your eyes
Like the Summer’s color dies
Your words no longer make sense
Of some untold violence
So speed things up like my demons always do
Speed things up while I swerve into you

Chess

(pictured above: The Super Bishop)

My co-workers have been borrowing my Chess board to play at lunch a lot lately. I haven’t thought about chess in a while, every since Dimitri left I haven’t played at all (single tear runs down cheek).

It got me thinking of my childhood… In the 4th grade we were forced to learn to play chess, every single student in Mrs Garable’s Kick-Ass 4th Grade Class. (That’s what we named the class that year… well, that’s what I and my friend Steve Zyke named it at least). Each day during study time 8 children were selected to go to the back of the class and fire up a game on 1 of the classes 4 chess boards. Being that I was a kid already obsessed with war and all manors of armed conflict I took to chess with great zeal. In fact like most things I’m really into (drums, outer space, dinosaurs, beef jerky, etc.), I went over board with my affectations; drawing knights and castles all over my notebooks, mapping out strategic moves and ideas, reading books about the historical significance of the game, etc. etc.

My point is that for a short time I became overly involved in the game of chess and I waited restlessly everyday for the afternoon ‘study time’ to approach so I could get picked and play chess instead of work on my grammar and spelling words. Now I know that chess is good for the budding young mind. Chess players are known for being great problem solvers and free thinkers. Complex multi-faceted problems like: ‘2 trains leaving from the train station going different directions at different speeds with varying weight in cargo’, are a breeze for chess players. But I spent an exorbitant amount of my 4th grade life thinking and playing and thinking about playing chess, and not much else.

So I’m just going to say it… The reason I can’t spell is because I was too preoccupied with playing chess to work on my spelling words okay. There it’s out and I feel better now. Dani and Chrispy and Dan Schindler and Mandy and all my high school teachers and my sister and a whole bunch of other people who love to point out my spelling errors but I can’t remember who you are at this moment, can all just deal with that! It’s not my fault I spell like a 3rd grader, that’s as far as I got okay…

Consequently in this current atmosphere of super-hero/vampire movie pop culture, I decided to make a few much needed updates to the age old game of Chess to better reflect the concept that destroying an apposing army or foe does not necessarily require a superior force lead by a charismatic leader anymore. All you really need is some special effects and an audience that is willing to believe it. So jot these updates down and dazzle the fuk out of the next poor sap you wail on at chess this coming holiday season.

The Super Bishop – This is when you stack your bishop on top of your rook to create a Super Killing Machine. The Super Bishop moves in concentric circles, like a shock wave from a blast point, wiping out all juxtaposed pieces, both adversarial and friendly, without conscience. Think of this guy as your own personal Richard M. Nixon… carpet bombing the Viet Cong has never been seen before in the chess world until now.

The Knight Rider – You’ll need some tape or glue for this one, any household-grade adhesive will work. Tape/glue one pawn to the back of your horse like he’s the horses ‘rider’. Once you have that done this new piece moves in a full square. Like the normal L-shape that the knight usually moves but now doubling back to one square over from where he started. (So the rider can sleep at home at night, he’s not into camping and horses are smelly, who wants to sleep outside next to that thing snorting and chewing grass and stuff all night, gross). The beauty of this piece is that when you get killed you now actually have 2 lives. At the first strike, you lose your rider, then on your second strike you die for real. (As in your piece is removed from the board). Think of Yoshi in Super Mario World… when you get hit you pop out the top of Yoshi and he goes all whilly-nilly back and forth with no stirring and you have to try to catch him to get back in the saddle. Same idea, after your rider gets taken off, your horse goes buck-wild (literally, if that is what you call wild horses) and starts to take out pieces all around him until he’s either killed again by your opponent or is mercifully shot in the head by your queen.

The Snake – This requires purchasing a pack of rubber or plastic snakes from the ‘kids isle’ at Walgreens. Don’t tell your opponent about this one before you start playing. When you get a pawn across the board to your opponent’s side, instead of trading up for one of your taken pieces, you replace your pawn with a plastic snake and make a hissing sound. This means that you now get 2 moves in a row and when you bite your opponents piece that piece becomes infected with your venom and becomes one of YOUR pieces. Totally sweet! (Have a permanent marker handy as well so you can quickly color the piece to whatever color your team is). This will strike fear into the heart of your opponent and if they happen to be a mathematician from the former Soviet Union they could possibly accuse you of being KGB and swallow a cyanide pill ending the game and making an awful mess on the rug.

On a final note, gather up whatever figurines you may have around before you play your next game of chess and create an audience. (Stacks of books make great bleachers for stadium seating and a better view of the battle). Having an audience watching creates more of an urgency to do well and not make mistakes. It puts pressure on your opponent and makes them self conscious. They’ll think their intelligence is being judged by you and your collection of bobble-head Michael Jordans. Any edge is a good edge in the cutthroat world of chess.

Have fun…

Bombs away Millhouse!

Why I hate Sports and consequently High-Fives

This essay could be nearly 30 pages if I wanted it to be, but there are a few simple things that I can address to explain my stance. The fact that all American Males are suppose to be a part of an organized sports team sometime in their youth is in-in-of-itself enough of a pain in the ass for a person of my size and stature. But it’s also assumed that I should know about and follow religiously any and all competitions that may be taking place in any given season we happen to be in. The guys at my work talk about it to no end all day and I can’t stand it. I do not care about any of it, and I’d rather stick my head in an oven then listen to what that kid I can’t stand in Tech Ops thinks about some over paid gangster rapper’s potential to chew up the defense or out rebound anyone who has ever walked the Earth.

I think whole heartedly and with my deepest conviction that NASCAR is just a waste of gas. We are running out of Mesozoic Era microplankton and you diks are going in circles for 7 hours!? There is a reason you have to change your tires so many damn times; It’s because some redneck made a simple math mistake and turned yards into miles and now it takes all day to accomplish what could be done in 14 minutes: that is to tell us which guy named Dale is faster… And on one single set of tires no less! (This is exactly like the architects who screw up inches and yards and end up making tiny Stonehenge models that are in danger of being smashed by the dancing midget druids). Just leave me alone already.

Now onto Sports most coveted signature; The High-Five! The high-five is to sports what Ronnie James Dio’s Devil Horns is to metal fans. It is the identity by which to show others that you are not to be fuked with unless you are dressed in the same exact color as the person with his open hand in the air. The high-five is best used in situations where you’ve just scored and you are in fact in your house and everyone around you should know whos house they happen to be in. The same concept applies to being hammered at a bar and watching the sports team from the state you happened to be born in while they are doing the same thing. (e.g. scoring ungodly amounts of points on the other teams asses, and there by “owning” their collective asses. Not in a gay way though).

The reason I hate high-fives so much is twofold. One is that it is just simply retarded looking. The other is that it reflects on who you are as a person, which usual amounts to an upper middle class white kid who has a hair trigger temper (due to being told he was the smartest and best at everything he did his entire life from his parents, and was applied to literally everything he did from finger painting with his own boogers to crashing his dads car into the back of the garage in the 9th grade), and who’s entire outlook on life is molded around what other people should be doing for them. So pretty much acting like the kids on any MTV reality show. Most post-collage doughy sports dudes will talk of their glory days on “The Team” and about “Coach” who use to call him T-Bone or Smitty and demanded said doughy sports dude’s absolute best everyday in practice for the “Ultimate Game”… LIFE. So throwing high-fives some 3, 5, or 13 years later drunk in a bar is a way to show other doughy sports dudes that you did in fact use to “Rule” and that you are one of them. (And still currently 'Rule' at stuff now). Now this all seems harmless until a certain intoxication level makes them long for the glory days of “ruling” and can most easily be recaptured in being a total dik to anyone without an Official Champion Jersey on. That is 99% of the time me or my friends. I’ve never actually been beat up before (see my close in encounter with this under the story about Sissys). But I’ve come really close a few times and every single of them evolved high-fives in some way.