Garrison Kelly's Blog, page 78
September 6, 2017
Wal-Martians
“Tell me again how this is different from any other day at Wal-Mart?” asked the metal-armored Amazon Alexis Lee as she stamped the butt of her spear into the pavement.
“You’ve been making that joke for hours, Alexis. Knock it off. Yes, we’re well aware that Wal-Mart has been taken over by these…creatures, if you want to call them that. We know how ironic it truly is. We still have a job to do whether you think it’s hilarious or not,” said the aura-covered paladin Micah Fireborn as he swung his sword in the air to warm up his muscles.
“Can we just get in there and rescue Lady Sakura already? This place gives me the fucking creeps,” said the muscle-bound, kilt-wearing barbarian Cain McLeod, who sharpened his double-edged axe with a stone. “Not one more joke out of you, Alexis!”
“Please? Just one more? What do you call a bunch of zealots who will die for a supermarket? Wal-Martyrs!” chuckled Alexis while her two companions sighed and held their faces in their free hands. “Come on, you have to admit that was good!”
“The hell I do!” belted Cain. “Can we please just start the damn mission and get that fucking religious nut out of there?”
“Fine, fine, you guys win. I guess killing will be funny enough,” frowned Alexis.
The three warriors marched their way through the parking lot knowing the fun and games were over and the ass beatings were about to commence. They pounded their weapon handles, let out short roars, and slapped their own faces to psych themselves up. When they reached the automatic double doors, they gagged and wheezed at the sight of green alien goop sealing the hinges together. “I got this,” said Micah Fireborn as he ignited his sword with an aura of fire and chopped through the slime with ease, splattering some on Alexis and Cain.
Alexis could barely tolerate the rancid stench, but Cain spewed his dinner all over the pavement while the Amazon giggled and the paladin shook his head at him. Cain wiped his mouth off with his leather gloves and pointed at Alexis before commanding, “Don’t you start with those jokes again! I mean it!”
“Okay, okay, Jesus, I won’t make anymore puns. You happy now? God!” whined Alexis. The three warriors kicked down the glass doors and chopped away at any remaining slime paste. Cain nearly emptied his bowels yet again when he saw that a drained human was underneath one of the slime piles. Micah grabbed him by the arm and jerked him into the store.
“See? What did I tell you guys?” asked Alexis rhetorically as the three fighters took in the surreal scenery of the invaded superstore. Skeletons and green slime decorated the floors, walls, and ceiling while the actual food items had mushrooms growing out of them. Legos were scattered across the floor and had blood sprinkled over some of them, most likely due to somebody stepping on them in bare feet. The assault rifle rack was useless since the barrels were dripping with this awful snot-like substance.
The warriors treaded lightly around the store and made sure to huddle together so they didn’t get separated. So far, no sign of the enemy, just lots and lots of snot, shit, and urine flooding the store. Just a tiny drop of this viscous substance landed on Cain’s nose and he immediately dropped to his knees dry heaving his guts out.
“For the love of God, Cain, get it together!” snapped Micah. “If you don’t like the smell of this stuff, why did you agree to this mission to begin with? You’re a barbarian, for shit’s sake! Suck it up, buttercup!”
“Trust me, Micah, he won’t be sucking that stuff up anytime soon,” joked Alexis, who afterwards raised her hands defensively when Micah and Cain scowled at her.
The stomach juices were really going haywire when the slime moved across the floor to various clothing items, whether it be ‘Murica T-shirts, jorts with holes in them, or Make America Great Again baseball caps. Micah, Alexis, and the newly recovered Cain backed up against the wall with home improvement tools and stood strong as the goo filled up these clothes until they were in the shape of alien creatures. Their whip-like tongues and tentacles swung from side to side in anticipation of their human meals.
Cain wasn’t vomiting anymore, Alexis wasn’t cracking jokes anymore, and Micah…well, he was the only serious one around. The three warriors stood their ground while Cain used his free hand to signal the aliens forward. “Come on, you fucking Wal-Martians! Let’s make ass-kicking great again!”
The aliens swarmed on the three heroes and were treated to high speed and high power chops, slashes, and pierces from each of their weapons. Alexis stuck her spear into one giant tub of goo and slammed the creature into others, creating a tidal wave of sick fluids in her wake. Cain spun around like a buzz saw with his axe and cleaved through hordes of aliens, turning their bodies into puddles of gelatin. Micah’s fiery sword cut through even more hordes of aliens and melted them to the point of boiling and steaming over the already thick Wal-Mart air.
“Is that all you got?!” taunted Cain while an alien wrapped its massive tentacle around Alexis’s legs and dragged her screaming across the filthy floor. When she dropped her spear and yelled for help, the barbarian shouted back, “I’ll save you, Alexis!” and dove after her. His end result was getting tackled in the ribs and sent flying across a shelf full of Lego sets.
Micah stabbed his flaming sword into the aliens repeatedly until they melted into a river of trash. His back was turned for one small second and an alien wrapped its tentacle around his throat before dragging him across the floor kicking and gurgling, leaving his blade behind. In the midst of his capture, he could see another tentacle wrapping itself around Cain’s body and pulling him as well.
The mass of alien humanity melded into one gigantic squid-like being, complete with more tentacles, more razor-sharp mouths, and more sickening slime that had Cain sticking his tongue out and heaving once again. Through this pool of disgust, not one warrior could get a good look at who was commanding this gigantic creature. All they heard was a raspy voice command, “Join us! Join my army and let us ride into heaven together!”
“You call this heaven?!” shouted Alexis. “I’d rather have the devil himself shove a fiery trident up my ass than go to your version of heaven!”
The tentacles squeezed harder around her legs and caused her to shriek in mind-blowing pain. The creature said, “So you must be the funny one of the group. You’re the one who likes to laugh at other people’s beliefs. You’re the one who likes to laugh at the prayers of the holy ones! I will not have such blasphemy in my church!”
“Church, my ass, you sick freak!” shouted Micah as he pulled some of the slime away from his neck. “Sakura Divine is more of a priest than you’ll ever be! She’ll be the one who guides us to heaven! Last time I checked, heaven didn’t look like a big ass used Kleenex!”
“You’re absolutely right!” belted the creature as she cinched the tentacle tighter around Micah’s neck. “Sakura Divine is quite the leader. She has the answers for us all. You’ve been listening to them the whole time!”
The faces of the warriors grew sullen as they realized what had just been revealed. Cain murmured, “No…no, it’s not true! You’re Sakura Divine?! You’re the one we came to save?!” After a demonic laughter from the slimy creature, Cain roared at Micah, “This is all your fault, you fucking altar boy! I told you we shouldn’t have trusted this religious whacko!”
Insulted by the “blasphemous” display, Sakura squeezed her tentacle around Cain’s ribs even harder than before while other tentacles joined in to squish him like a grape. Alexis screamed and hollered for mercy, but Cain’s body exploded into jelly once the constriction became too tight. “You sick little bitch!” Alexis shouted. “How could you do this to us?!” She too was squeezed by multiple tentacles until her body went kaboom like a nuclear warhead.
“No!” Micah shouted while struggling to break free from Sakura’s grip.
“Don’t fight it, Micah!” ordered Lady Divine. “You’re a noble paladin, a warrior of the light. You should know better than anybody how good heaven will feel once you walk past the pearly gates. End the struggle, my dear friend. Let the magic of heaven flow through your veins.”
“I’ll never join you!” shouted Micah.
“Don’t think too hard about your decision, paladin!” mocked Sakura. “I crushed your two friends because they were not worthy of such a trip into space. But you, Micah, you were destined for greatness. As of right now, you have two options: you can rot here forever in your own personal hell, or you can join me in my spaceship and we can rule over heaven together!”
Micah stopped struggling for a moment and actually had to think about this decision. He replayed both of his friends being crushed into gelatin in his head like a nagging schizophrenic vision. His mind went numb, his eyes became teary, and his body was relaxing. Being pasted to the ground of an already joked-about store like Wal-Mart was the true definition of hell. What if Sakura was right? What if heaven was waiting for him in that space ship?
“You know what, Sakura? I’m with you on one thing. I don’t want to go to hell tonight. But you will!” roared Micah as he activated his fiery aura to melt away the tentacle around his throat. Sakura screamed while the rancid goop melted down Micah’s nose and throat. He coughed and vomited several times, but he could feel the flame surge through him. He could feel his insides burning with passion and holiness. He stood up and shined his flaming aura even brighter until the entire store was covered in it. Sakura’s gelatinous form liquefied like butter…but only because that was what happened during hallucinatory trips.
In reality, Micah’s insides were burning for a much different reason: he swallowed the acidic mess. His brain cycled through different parts of the slimy battle whether he was in danger or fighting alongside his friends. His head was pounding with agony so badly that it felt like he was being smashed with a sledgehammer. His chest and stomach felt like he was going to through up so badly that he would turn himself inside out.
This was what it felt like to betray his religion and follow his own path. He was going to hell no matter what. But even with all of this pain wracking his body, he felt like he was already in heaven since he would be joining Cain and Alexis soon. They could crack all of the jokes they wanted and nobody would break them. Sakura may have shredded their bodies, but their souls were free. Was it worth the pain? Always. Even in death, Micah, Cain, and Alexis would make the afterlife great again.
“You’ve been making that joke for hours, Alexis. Knock it off. Yes, we’re well aware that Wal-Mart has been taken over by these…creatures, if you want to call them that. We know how ironic it truly is. We still have a job to do whether you think it’s hilarious or not,” said the aura-covered paladin Micah Fireborn as he swung his sword in the air to warm up his muscles.
“Can we just get in there and rescue Lady Sakura already? This place gives me the fucking creeps,” said the muscle-bound, kilt-wearing barbarian Cain McLeod, who sharpened his double-edged axe with a stone. “Not one more joke out of you, Alexis!”
“Please? Just one more? What do you call a bunch of zealots who will die for a supermarket? Wal-Martyrs!” chuckled Alexis while her two companions sighed and held their faces in their free hands. “Come on, you have to admit that was good!”
“The hell I do!” belted Cain. “Can we please just start the damn mission and get that fucking religious nut out of there?”
“Fine, fine, you guys win. I guess killing will be funny enough,” frowned Alexis.
The three warriors marched their way through the parking lot knowing the fun and games were over and the ass beatings were about to commence. They pounded their weapon handles, let out short roars, and slapped their own faces to psych themselves up. When they reached the automatic double doors, they gagged and wheezed at the sight of green alien goop sealing the hinges together. “I got this,” said Micah Fireborn as he ignited his sword with an aura of fire and chopped through the slime with ease, splattering some on Alexis and Cain.
Alexis could barely tolerate the rancid stench, but Cain spewed his dinner all over the pavement while the Amazon giggled and the paladin shook his head at him. Cain wiped his mouth off with his leather gloves and pointed at Alexis before commanding, “Don’t you start with those jokes again! I mean it!”
“Okay, okay, Jesus, I won’t make anymore puns. You happy now? God!” whined Alexis. The three warriors kicked down the glass doors and chopped away at any remaining slime paste. Cain nearly emptied his bowels yet again when he saw that a drained human was underneath one of the slime piles. Micah grabbed him by the arm and jerked him into the store.
“See? What did I tell you guys?” asked Alexis rhetorically as the three fighters took in the surreal scenery of the invaded superstore. Skeletons and green slime decorated the floors, walls, and ceiling while the actual food items had mushrooms growing out of them. Legos were scattered across the floor and had blood sprinkled over some of them, most likely due to somebody stepping on them in bare feet. The assault rifle rack was useless since the barrels were dripping with this awful snot-like substance.
The warriors treaded lightly around the store and made sure to huddle together so they didn’t get separated. So far, no sign of the enemy, just lots and lots of snot, shit, and urine flooding the store. Just a tiny drop of this viscous substance landed on Cain’s nose and he immediately dropped to his knees dry heaving his guts out.
“For the love of God, Cain, get it together!” snapped Micah. “If you don’t like the smell of this stuff, why did you agree to this mission to begin with? You’re a barbarian, for shit’s sake! Suck it up, buttercup!”
“Trust me, Micah, he won’t be sucking that stuff up anytime soon,” joked Alexis, who afterwards raised her hands defensively when Micah and Cain scowled at her.
The stomach juices were really going haywire when the slime moved across the floor to various clothing items, whether it be ‘Murica T-shirts, jorts with holes in them, or Make America Great Again baseball caps. Micah, Alexis, and the newly recovered Cain backed up against the wall with home improvement tools and stood strong as the goo filled up these clothes until they were in the shape of alien creatures. Their whip-like tongues and tentacles swung from side to side in anticipation of their human meals.
Cain wasn’t vomiting anymore, Alexis wasn’t cracking jokes anymore, and Micah…well, he was the only serious one around. The three warriors stood their ground while Cain used his free hand to signal the aliens forward. “Come on, you fucking Wal-Martians! Let’s make ass-kicking great again!”
The aliens swarmed on the three heroes and were treated to high speed and high power chops, slashes, and pierces from each of their weapons. Alexis stuck her spear into one giant tub of goo and slammed the creature into others, creating a tidal wave of sick fluids in her wake. Cain spun around like a buzz saw with his axe and cleaved through hordes of aliens, turning their bodies into puddles of gelatin. Micah’s fiery sword cut through even more hordes of aliens and melted them to the point of boiling and steaming over the already thick Wal-Mart air.
“Is that all you got?!” taunted Cain while an alien wrapped its massive tentacle around Alexis’s legs and dragged her screaming across the filthy floor. When she dropped her spear and yelled for help, the barbarian shouted back, “I’ll save you, Alexis!” and dove after her. His end result was getting tackled in the ribs and sent flying across a shelf full of Lego sets.
Micah stabbed his flaming sword into the aliens repeatedly until they melted into a river of trash. His back was turned for one small second and an alien wrapped its tentacle around his throat before dragging him across the floor kicking and gurgling, leaving his blade behind. In the midst of his capture, he could see another tentacle wrapping itself around Cain’s body and pulling him as well.
The mass of alien humanity melded into one gigantic squid-like being, complete with more tentacles, more razor-sharp mouths, and more sickening slime that had Cain sticking his tongue out and heaving once again. Through this pool of disgust, not one warrior could get a good look at who was commanding this gigantic creature. All they heard was a raspy voice command, “Join us! Join my army and let us ride into heaven together!”
“You call this heaven?!” shouted Alexis. “I’d rather have the devil himself shove a fiery trident up my ass than go to your version of heaven!”
The tentacles squeezed harder around her legs and caused her to shriek in mind-blowing pain. The creature said, “So you must be the funny one of the group. You’re the one who likes to laugh at other people’s beliefs. You’re the one who likes to laugh at the prayers of the holy ones! I will not have such blasphemy in my church!”
“Church, my ass, you sick freak!” shouted Micah as he pulled some of the slime away from his neck. “Sakura Divine is more of a priest than you’ll ever be! She’ll be the one who guides us to heaven! Last time I checked, heaven didn’t look like a big ass used Kleenex!”
“You’re absolutely right!” belted the creature as she cinched the tentacle tighter around Micah’s neck. “Sakura Divine is quite the leader. She has the answers for us all. You’ve been listening to them the whole time!”
The faces of the warriors grew sullen as they realized what had just been revealed. Cain murmured, “No…no, it’s not true! You’re Sakura Divine?! You’re the one we came to save?!” After a demonic laughter from the slimy creature, Cain roared at Micah, “This is all your fault, you fucking altar boy! I told you we shouldn’t have trusted this religious whacko!”
Insulted by the “blasphemous” display, Sakura squeezed her tentacle around Cain’s ribs even harder than before while other tentacles joined in to squish him like a grape. Alexis screamed and hollered for mercy, but Cain’s body exploded into jelly once the constriction became too tight. “You sick little bitch!” Alexis shouted. “How could you do this to us?!” She too was squeezed by multiple tentacles until her body went kaboom like a nuclear warhead.
“No!” Micah shouted while struggling to break free from Sakura’s grip.
“Don’t fight it, Micah!” ordered Lady Divine. “You’re a noble paladin, a warrior of the light. You should know better than anybody how good heaven will feel once you walk past the pearly gates. End the struggle, my dear friend. Let the magic of heaven flow through your veins.”
“I’ll never join you!” shouted Micah.
“Don’t think too hard about your decision, paladin!” mocked Sakura. “I crushed your two friends because they were not worthy of such a trip into space. But you, Micah, you were destined for greatness. As of right now, you have two options: you can rot here forever in your own personal hell, or you can join me in my spaceship and we can rule over heaven together!”
Micah stopped struggling for a moment and actually had to think about this decision. He replayed both of his friends being crushed into gelatin in his head like a nagging schizophrenic vision. His mind went numb, his eyes became teary, and his body was relaxing. Being pasted to the ground of an already joked-about store like Wal-Mart was the true definition of hell. What if Sakura was right? What if heaven was waiting for him in that space ship?
“You know what, Sakura? I’m with you on one thing. I don’t want to go to hell tonight. But you will!” roared Micah as he activated his fiery aura to melt away the tentacle around his throat. Sakura screamed while the rancid goop melted down Micah’s nose and throat. He coughed and vomited several times, but he could feel the flame surge through him. He could feel his insides burning with passion and holiness. He stood up and shined his flaming aura even brighter until the entire store was covered in it. Sakura’s gelatinous form liquefied like butter…but only because that was what happened during hallucinatory trips.
In reality, Micah’s insides were burning for a much different reason: he swallowed the acidic mess. His brain cycled through different parts of the slimy battle whether he was in danger or fighting alongside his friends. His head was pounding with agony so badly that it felt like he was being smashed with a sledgehammer. His chest and stomach felt like he was going to through up so badly that he would turn himself inside out.
This was what it felt like to betray his religion and follow his own path. He was going to hell no matter what. But even with all of this pain wracking his body, he felt like he was already in heaven since he would be joining Cain and Alexis soon. They could crack all of the jokes they wanted and nobody would break them. Sakura may have shredded their bodies, but their souls were free. Was it worth the pain? Always. Even in death, Micah, Cain, and Alexis would make the afterlife great again.
September 3, 2017
Research
***RESEARCH***
If you’re going to make a bold and loud statement, you’ve got to have research to back it up. Otherwise, you’ll get eaten alive by those debating your statement. This is especially true with historical fiction, especially if you don’t want your critics to accuse you of being inaccurate. And that right there is the reason why I don’t write historical fiction: not because I’m too lazy to do research, but because if I’m off by a one-percent margin of error, here come the internet wolves to dine on my flesh. Of course, there is an entire genre out there called alternative history, where you can purposefully rearrange the timeline to benefit your story, but even then, it’s a slippery slope.
So what constitutes good research? How do you know when you have enough information to make your statement? I’ve often heard the mantra that if everyone says it, it must be true. Lots of people thought Obama was born in Kenya, but that doesn’t mean it’s anywhere close to the truth. For one thing, your sources have to be reputable and independent. Then and only then can you use popular opinion, but only among those reputable sources.
But research doesn’t always have to be limited to writing historical fiction. Sometimes researching simple things like combat scenarios can greatly improve your story. Sometimes personal experience can play a huge factor. But if you’re going to research something and apply it to your story, the margin of error has to be razor thin. Otherwise, it’s feeding time, motherfuckers.
If I may be blunt for just one moment, research is my least favorite part of writing stories and novels. Sure, anybody can do it with a simple Google search and it’s actually pretty easy. It’s that razor thin margin of error that gets to me, though. That’s why most of my stories take place in the fictional locale of Paulson City. I can put anything I want in Paulson City and nobody’s going to question my imagination.
I suppose my stories could take place in Washington state, my personal home, but I’m not sure even my home sweet home could house all of the madness that goes on in my writing. A political rally in Port Orchard? Sure, if you can find people who give a shit. A heavy metal concert at The Matrix Coffeehouse in Chehalis? Do they even play that kind of music or is it just indie rock? Even if they did play metal at The Matrix, would that mean I’d have to role-play the people who own it? I’m sure they’d enjoy the shit out of that.
Paulson City is my own personal shield against those who want to chomp at my smooth skin. Anything can go on in this locale and usually does. Sunny beach parties? Sure. Political riots? Absolutely. Organized crime? Disorganized crime? Traffic jams backed up as far as the eye can see? Hell yeah it can happen in Paulson City! Irwin Gladden may be the Mayor, but make no mistake about it, I’m in charge of this city!
And whenever Paulson City becomes too realistic of a place for my Poison Tongue Tales adventures, I simply change the destination to Dread City. Cyberpunk corruption? Yes, yes, yes! Magical warfare? Damn right! Apocalyptic hell? Shit yeah! Paulson City may not be the ideal vacation spot, but Dread City is fucking unbearable! And that’s how I like it!
I’m sure many of you have wondered where exactly Paulson City is on an American map. Now you know for sure: it only exists in my head. There are no real world or historical inaccuracies because I make the fucking rules. I’ve got more high schools and colleges in that city than I know what the hell to do with. I’ve got mountains off to the side where people go to not only vacation, but also to die horrible deaths. Maybe one day I could draw a map of Paulson City and put all of these pieces together. Or I could just roll with it and keep putting odd places there.
I may have gotten off topic with that Paulson City rant. The real question I’m trying to ask is, how do you, my audience, make the margin of error so thin that you can’t even see it with the naked eye? Razor thin isn’t thin enough for me. Paper thin is even worse. Not even Cosmo Kramer’s meat cutting machine can get me the thinness I want. Other authors can pull it off, but I don’t know if I can. Then again, I could be paranoid about something not worth being paranoid over. Surely, lots of books out there have been disputed for accuracy and came out the other end smelling like roses. Oh, what now? Do roses not smell that good either? Damn that margin of error! We’ve got ears, say cheers!
***PAPER TOWNS***
As many of you have seen on my Good Reads page, the next novel I plan on plunging into is “Paper Towns” by John Green. I enjoyed reading “The Faults in Our Stars” and I expect “Paper Towns” to be just as heartbreaking. Yes, I know I’m a big softie, and I don’t care!
***POISON TONGUE TALES 2: THE RIGHT TO REMAIN PSYCHOTIC***
Now that all of my American Darkness 2 stories are complete and ready for critiques, I can concentrate solely on PTT2 and Lunatic Justice. The next story on the chopping block will be “Wal-Martians” and it goes like this:
CHARACTERS:
1. Cain McLeod, Barbarian Hero
2. Micah Fireborn, Paladin Hero
3. Alexis Lee, Amazon Hero
4. Sakura Divine, Priestess Captive
5. Nameless Aliens
PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.
SYNOPSIS: Wal-Mart has been taken over by an alien race and it’s up to the three Diablo II-style heroes to liberate it and free Sakura from captivity. Throughout this whole bloodbath (or goo-bath in this case), the heroes joke to each other by questioning how the alien invasion is any different from how Wal-Mart usually looks.
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
If you’re looking forward to drawings of Cain, Micah, and Alexis, know that I’ve already drawn them several years ago when they were Diablo II characters. Cain was then known as Cannonball. His name was changed because I didn’t want two stories in PTT2 with cannonball themes in them. I have a short story named Wolf’s Cannonball, so I don’t need a barbarian in Wal-Martians named Cannonball. For the Dark Fantasy Warriors series, I’ll draw Sakura Divine since she hasn’t had a picture yet. How does that sound?
***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***
Most of my fictional stories take place in the made-up locale of Paulson City. Sometimes the problems in these stories have to be solved by the Paulson City Police Department, a.k.a. the PCPD. So basically, criminals in my story are being arrested by…the PC Police. By PC, I mean Paulson City. What did you think it stood for? And while I’m at it, I’ll start a wrestling organization in California called San Jose Wrestling, which initials spell the acronym…oh, dear. Hehe!
If you’re going to make a bold and loud statement, you’ve got to have research to back it up. Otherwise, you’ll get eaten alive by those debating your statement. This is especially true with historical fiction, especially if you don’t want your critics to accuse you of being inaccurate. And that right there is the reason why I don’t write historical fiction: not because I’m too lazy to do research, but because if I’m off by a one-percent margin of error, here come the internet wolves to dine on my flesh. Of course, there is an entire genre out there called alternative history, where you can purposefully rearrange the timeline to benefit your story, but even then, it’s a slippery slope.
So what constitutes good research? How do you know when you have enough information to make your statement? I’ve often heard the mantra that if everyone says it, it must be true. Lots of people thought Obama was born in Kenya, but that doesn’t mean it’s anywhere close to the truth. For one thing, your sources have to be reputable and independent. Then and only then can you use popular opinion, but only among those reputable sources.
But research doesn’t always have to be limited to writing historical fiction. Sometimes researching simple things like combat scenarios can greatly improve your story. Sometimes personal experience can play a huge factor. But if you’re going to research something and apply it to your story, the margin of error has to be razor thin. Otherwise, it’s feeding time, motherfuckers.
If I may be blunt for just one moment, research is my least favorite part of writing stories and novels. Sure, anybody can do it with a simple Google search and it’s actually pretty easy. It’s that razor thin margin of error that gets to me, though. That’s why most of my stories take place in the fictional locale of Paulson City. I can put anything I want in Paulson City and nobody’s going to question my imagination.
I suppose my stories could take place in Washington state, my personal home, but I’m not sure even my home sweet home could house all of the madness that goes on in my writing. A political rally in Port Orchard? Sure, if you can find people who give a shit. A heavy metal concert at The Matrix Coffeehouse in Chehalis? Do they even play that kind of music or is it just indie rock? Even if they did play metal at The Matrix, would that mean I’d have to role-play the people who own it? I’m sure they’d enjoy the shit out of that.
Paulson City is my own personal shield against those who want to chomp at my smooth skin. Anything can go on in this locale and usually does. Sunny beach parties? Sure. Political riots? Absolutely. Organized crime? Disorganized crime? Traffic jams backed up as far as the eye can see? Hell yeah it can happen in Paulson City! Irwin Gladden may be the Mayor, but make no mistake about it, I’m in charge of this city!
And whenever Paulson City becomes too realistic of a place for my Poison Tongue Tales adventures, I simply change the destination to Dread City. Cyberpunk corruption? Yes, yes, yes! Magical warfare? Damn right! Apocalyptic hell? Shit yeah! Paulson City may not be the ideal vacation spot, but Dread City is fucking unbearable! And that’s how I like it!
I’m sure many of you have wondered where exactly Paulson City is on an American map. Now you know for sure: it only exists in my head. There are no real world or historical inaccuracies because I make the fucking rules. I’ve got more high schools and colleges in that city than I know what the hell to do with. I’ve got mountains off to the side where people go to not only vacation, but also to die horrible deaths. Maybe one day I could draw a map of Paulson City and put all of these pieces together. Or I could just roll with it and keep putting odd places there.
I may have gotten off topic with that Paulson City rant. The real question I’m trying to ask is, how do you, my audience, make the margin of error so thin that you can’t even see it with the naked eye? Razor thin isn’t thin enough for me. Paper thin is even worse. Not even Cosmo Kramer’s meat cutting machine can get me the thinness I want. Other authors can pull it off, but I don’t know if I can. Then again, I could be paranoid about something not worth being paranoid over. Surely, lots of books out there have been disputed for accuracy and came out the other end smelling like roses. Oh, what now? Do roses not smell that good either? Damn that margin of error! We’ve got ears, say cheers!
***PAPER TOWNS***
As many of you have seen on my Good Reads page, the next novel I plan on plunging into is “Paper Towns” by John Green. I enjoyed reading “The Faults in Our Stars” and I expect “Paper Towns” to be just as heartbreaking. Yes, I know I’m a big softie, and I don’t care!
***POISON TONGUE TALES 2: THE RIGHT TO REMAIN PSYCHOTIC***
Now that all of my American Darkness 2 stories are complete and ready for critiques, I can concentrate solely on PTT2 and Lunatic Justice. The next story on the chopping block will be “Wal-Martians” and it goes like this:
CHARACTERS:
1. Cain McLeod, Barbarian Hero
2. Micah Fireborn, Paladin Hero
3. Alexis Lee, Amazon Hero
4. Sakura Divine, Priestess Captive
5. Nameless Aliens
PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.
SYNOPSIS: Wal-Mart has been taken over by an alien race and it’s up to the three Diablo II-style heroes to liberate it and free Sakura from captivity. Throughout this whole bloodbath (or goo-bath in this case), the heroes joke to each other by questioning how the alien invasion is any different from how Wal-Mart usually looks.
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
If you’re looking forward to drawings of Cain, Micah, and Alexis, know that I’ve already drawn them several years ago when they were Diablo II characters. Cain was then known as Cannonball. His name was changed because I didn’t want two stories in PTT2 with cannonball themes in them. I have a short story named Wolf’s Cannonball, so I don’t need a barbarian in Wal-Martians named Cannonball. For the Dark Fantasy Warriors series, I’ll draw Sakura Divine since she hasn’t had a picture yet. How does that sound?
***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***
Most of my fictional stories take place in the made-up locale of Paulson City. Sometimes the problems in these stories have to be solved by the Paulson City Police Department, a.k.a. the PCPD. So basically, criminals in my story are being arrested by…the PC Police. By PC, I mean Paulson City. What did you think it stood for? And while I’m at it, I’ll start a wrestling organization in California called San Jose Wrestling, which initials spell the acronym…oh, dear. Hehe!
I'm an American
CHORUS
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
VERSE 1
I don’t need the police to tell me how to eat
If it’s a candy bar or a mountain of meat
Chewing on the treat with my mouth wide open
You can do nothing about it, just remain stoic
Will you make an arrest for the way I eat?
Surrender my ass to the nearest precinct?
Good luck finding a jury who gives a shit
Good luck finding a judge who cares just a bit
CHORUS
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
VERSE 2
I don’t need the law to tell me how to dress
I have no responsibilities or people to impress
Sweatpants and Pink Floyd shirts are my style
Take selfies and post them online for a while
Will you put cuffs on me for the way I dress?
Did you actually pass the fucking bar test?
Good luck finding a jury who’ll find me guilty
Good luck finding a judge with a heart so chilly
CHORUS
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
BRIDGE
This is America, not North Korea
This is free speech, not verbal diarrhea
This is free expression, not acting like a clown
This is America, not Putin’s hometown
VERSE 3
I’m not a member of the Washington Bar
But I know your case won’t go very far
Nothing illegal about chewing like a beast
Nothing immoral about sweatpants in the least
The case is closed, just like your mind
A not guilty verdict is what the jury finds
You wasted the taxpayers’ time and money
In the land of opportunity, milk, and honey
CHORUS
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
VERSE 1
I don’t need the police to tell me how to eat
If it’s a candy bar or a mountain of meat
Chewing on the treat with my mouth wide open
You can do nothing about it, just remain stoic
Will you make an arrest for the way I eat?
Surrender my ass to the nearest precinct?
Good luck finding a jury who gives a shit
Good luck finding a judge who cares just a bit
CHORUS
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
VERSE 2
I don’t need the law to tell me how to dress
I have no responsibilities or people to impress
Sweatpants and Pink Floyd shirts are my style
Take selfies and post them online for a while
Will you put cuffs on me for the way I dress?
Did you actually pass the fucking bar test?
Good luck finding a jury who’ll find me guilty
Good luck finding a judge with a heart so chilly
CHORUS
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
BRIDGE
This is America, not North Korea
This is free speech, not verbal diarrhea
This is free expression, not acting like a clown
This is America, not Putin’s hometown
VERSE 3
I’m not a member of the Washington Bar
But I know your case won’t go very far
Nothing illegal about chewing like a beast
Nothing immoral about sweatpants in the least
The case is closed, just like your mind
A not guilty verdict is what the jury finds
You wasted the taxpayers’ time and money
In the land of opportunity, milk, and honey
CHORUS
I’m an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriDON’T X4
Beefcake
Sergeant Corey Jakes had seen a lot of shit overseas and still saw it during the cab ride to her apartment. Still dressed in camouflage fatigues with her raven hair in a bun, she stared blankly out of the shotgun window with visions of war cycling through her head. Every bullet she fired, every mine her squad mates stepped on, every drone bombing marked as “friendly fire”, she couldn’t wait to have this horrible shit erased from her memory.
A long process it may be, she knew she had the support of her green-haired boyfriend “Froggy” McKee. From all the times they Skyped together, his eyelids were baggy and his face was longer than the Nile River, probably just as wet too. Corey hated leaving him for such long periods of time, but the life of a soldier didn’t discriminate when it came to who fought on the frontlines.
She stared into space for so long that the taxi driver had to snap his fingers several times to wake her up. “We’re here, Miss Jakes. That’ll be twenty dollars and sixty cents,” he said as he stopped the meter.
Corey pulled a twenty and ten out of her wallet and languidly said, “Keep the change.” The cab driver thanked her with a shit-eating grin on his face before popping the trunk and allowing his passenger to get her duffle bag. The marine absentmindedly waved goodbye and the taxi drove away.
She stared at the apartment complex for a while and took several deep breaths before ascending the stairs to room B22. Would Froggy even recognize her after everything she went through? Would she open the door and find him with another woman? Would he even be alive? On one hand, the excitement of seeing her supportive boyfriend again sent chills through her scalp. On the other, her heart raced for reasons other than traumatic visions.
Sergeant Jakes wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and entered the unlocked apartment declaring, “Honey, I’m home!” The next words out of her mouth were anything but loving: “What the fuck?!”
Froggy recognized Corey just fine, but Corey didn’t recognize him in return. One tour of duty later and Froggy’s newly round stomach bulged out of his sweatpants and T-shirt. His chubby cheeks sagged and his spiky green hair was all over the place. In one hand was a big ass brick of cheddar cheese and in the other was a Diet Mountain Dew (as if the so-called zero calories was going to save him now).
His breathing was labored and intense, like he was trying to suck down a whirlwind full of air. BO radiated off of his armpits like a plutonium rod. The state of the apartment wasn’t any better with pizza boxes and chip wrappers scattered about. There was even an ash try on the coffee table when Froggy didn’t even consider smoking before.
Corey scrunched her face into a warrior’s mug when she angrily whispered, “What the hell happened to you, Froggy? I go away for a few months and this is what you do to yourself?! Weren’t you the one who encouraged me to lose weight before I signed up for the marines? Huh?! Does that shit mean nothing to you now?!”
Froggy struggled to get up from the couch and grunted in pain when he made it to his feet, stretching his back in the process. “It’s nice to see you too, Corey. It would have been nice to see you more often, but you know…Murica and all that.”
“So that’s it, huh?” said Corey as she dropped her duffle bag on the ground. “You ate all this disgusting food and gained all this weight because you were lonely? How do you think I felt?! After a while of losing my friends in combat, I got a little lonely too! That’s kind of what happens when terrorists are firing bullets at you!”
“Nobody forced you to go over there, Corey!” shouted Froggy before coughing and wheezing. A few more labored breaths later, he said, “You’re damn right I got depressed without you. You think I’m in bad shape now, imagine what the fuck would have happened if you came home in a casket.”
“So you want to be in a casket too?” snapped Corey. “You want to take away the one person I have to come home to because you’re too lazy to go to a gym? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in my life! I hope that brick of cheese was tasty! I hope it was damn good! I hope chewing on that lump of fat made you happy! You don’t look so happy now, do you?! You look like a giant sack of protoplasm! You look like three hundred pounds of chewed bubblegum!”
“Cut the drill sergeant shit, that’s not going to work!” shouted Froggy, again coughing after his outburst. “You want to body shame me? You want to make me feel guilty? Fine! Then go back overseas and shoot some more brown people! Apparently, those squad mates of yours are better friends to you than I ever was! Never mind the fact that I paid your bills and bought you groceries when you were down on your luck without ever once raising my voice! Now you’re going to pull rank on me with that macho marine crops BS?! After everything I’ve done for you?! You’re a hypocrite! You’re a fucking hypocrite, Corey!”
The marine marched up to her boyfriend, flipped the coffee table over, and knocked the cheese and soda out of his hand with brute force. “Do I have your attention now?! Huh?!” No answer, only jitters. “You think this is body shaming?! I could have said a lot worse to you right now! Hell, I’ve said worse shit to the guys I trained in boot camp! If they can take it, you can too! Don’t like it?! Tough shit! I’m not going to stand here and watch you waste away just because you went without me for a little bit of time! I fight like a motherfucker for that reason, Froggy! Every bullet I fire on that battlefield is so I can come home to you in one piece and hopefully spend the rest of my life with you! But now…I don’t even recognize you anymore!”
Froggy pulled Corey closer with her shirt firmly death-gripped in his sausage fingers. He gazed angrily into her soul, as if his chubby belly was full of fire and venom instead of cheddar cheese and soda. Corey’s own stoic gaze refused to change at the threat of this newfound aggression. The marine had left one war and came home to another, neither time would she relent or cower. In fact, she coldly said to her boyfriend, “Take your fucking hands off of me right now or you’re a dead son of a bitch.”
Froggy would release his grip, but only because his hands found a new place: his chest. He coughed and wheezed some more, but this time he plopped backwards onto the couch and had glassy eyes. “Froggy, are you okay?!” asked Corey with genuine concern instead of macho marine BS as her boyfriend called it earlier. He wouldn’t answer her question, only cough violently again. And again. And again, until he had slipped into unconsciousness and fell off the couch with a thud. Corey went back into war mode and scrambled to find her cell phone to call 9-1-1.
Corey Jakes’s recollection of the ambulance ride to the hospital was as blurry as the taxi ride home. The visions of war tormented her even further, now with visions of her aggression towards Froggy piled on top. She kept imagining pulling the trigger at the enemy, but Froggy’s ghost always got in the line of fire and his blood smeared the desert ground. A tear rolled down her stony face as she contemplated why she ever thought it was a good idea to push Froggy over the edge. Why did she push all of her students over the edge as well? Why did she survive when others didn’t? Another tear rolled down, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it, not even to the paramedics pointing it out to her.
The marine sat in the hospital lobby with her head tucked in her hands wondering where the hell it all went wrong. Was she selfish for going overseas? Would it matter where she went in the first place? Could she save everybody with her marine training alone? So many questions swirled through her mind along with images of blood and gore from her tour of duty. Every time she thought she had the answers, a leg would blow apart, a head would burst open, a marine would scream in agony, and Froggy would be left behind all the same.
Corey once again had to be snapped out of her trance to receive the news from the blood-covered surgeon. “I’m sorry, Miss Jakes. Your boyfriend didn’t make it.” Tears flooded her eyes like a river of sorrow no matter how hard she tried to remain stoic and strong. The tears poured even harder when the surgeon gave her a small velvet box and said, “I found this in his pants pocket. I thought you might want to have it.”
The marine’s heart beat like a war drum as she slowly opened the velvet box to find the greatest treasure of them all inside: a diamond ring with a golden band. It sparkled as brightly as stars in the night. Corey clutched the wedding ring in her hand and completely lost any last ounce of stoicism she had left. She plopped back on the bench and allowed her tears to rain down with heavy force.
Froggy had shown her kindness and love in the past and she believed she had repaid him with harshness and evil. Being at war overseas was very different from being at war with a lover. Corey couldn’t separate the two and it killed her deep inside like she had taken the bullets herself. How liberating would a bullet be for her at this point? Maybe the next tour of duty she had would be her last. She had nothing else to fight for and nobody else to fight with. But if she was going down in a suicide mission, she would go down swinging. Once a marine, always a marine. Once a lover, now an empty shell.
A long process it may be, she knew she had the support of her green-haired boyfriend “Froggy” McKee. From all the times they Skyped together, his eyelids were baggy and his face was longer than the Nile River, probably just as wet too. Corey hated leaving him for such long periods of time, but the life of a soldier didn’t discriminate when it came to who fought on the frontlines.
She stared into space for so long that the taxi driver had to snap his fingers several times to wake her up. “We’re here, Miss Jakes. That’ll be twenty dollars and sixty cents,” he said as he stopped the meter.
Corey pulled a twenty and ten out of her wallet and languidly said, “Keep the change.” The cab driver thanked her with a shit-eating grin on his face before popping the trunk and allowing his passenger to get her duffle bag. The marine absentmindedly waved goodbye and the taxi drove away.
She stared at the apartment complex for a while and took several deep breaths before ascending the stairs to room B22. Would Froggy even recognize her after everything she went through? Would she open the door and find him with another woman? Would he even be alive? On one hand, the excitement of seeing her supportive boyfriend again sent chills through her scalp. On the other, her heart raced for reasons other than traumatic visions.
Sergeant Jakes wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and entered the unlocked apartment declaring, “Honey, I’m home!” The next words out of her mouth were anything but loving: “What the fuck?!”
Froggy recognized Corey just fine, but Corey didn’t recognize him in return. One tour of duty later and Froggy’s newly round stomach bulged out of his sweatpants and T-shirt. His chubby cheeks sagged and his spiky green hair was all over the place. In one hand was a big ass brick of cheddar cheese and in the other was a Diet Mountain Dew (as if the so-called zero calories was going to save him now).
His breathing was labored and intense, like he was trying to suck down a whirlwind full of air. BO radiated off of his armpits like a plutonium rod. The state of the apartment wasn’t any better with pizza boxes and chip wrappers scattered about. There was even an ash try on the coffee table when Froggy didn’t even consider smoking before.
Corey scrunched her face into a warrior’s mug when she angrily whispered, “What the hell happened to you, Froggy? I go away for a few months and this is what you do to yourself?! Weren’t you the one who encouraged me to lose weight before I signed up for the marines? Huh?! Does that shit mean nothing to you now?!”
Froggy struggled to get up from the couch and grunted in pain when he made it to his feet, stretching his back in the process. “It’s nice to see you too, Corey. It would have been nice to see you more often, but you know…Murica and all that.”
“So that’s it, huh?” said Corey as she dropped her duffle bag on the ground. “You ate all this disgusting food and gained all this weight because you were lonely? How do you think I felt?! After a while of losing my friends in combat, I got a little lonely too! That’s kind of what happens when terrorists are firing bullets at you!”
“Nobody forced you to go over there, Corey!” shouted Froggy before coughing and wheezing. A few more labored breaths later, he said, “You’re damn right I got depressed without you. You think I’m in bad shape now, imagine what the fuck would have happened if you came home in a casket.”
“So you want to be in a casket too?” snapped Corey. “You want to take away the one person I have to come home to because you’re too lazy to go to a gym? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in my life! I hope that brick of cheese was tasty! I hope it was damn good! I hope chewing on that lump of fat made you happy! You don’t look so happy now, do you?! You look like a giant sack of protoplasm! You look like three hundred pounds of chewed bubblegum!”
“Cut the drill sergeant shit, that’s not going to work!” shouted Froggy, again coughing after his outburst. “You want to body shame me? You want to make me feel guilty? Fine! Then go back overseas and shoot some more brown people! Apparently, those squad mates of yours are better friends to you than I ever was! Never mind the fact that I paid your bills and bought you groceries when you were down on your luck without ever once raising my voice! Now you’re going to pull rank on me with that macho marine crops BS?! After everything I’ve done for you?! You’re a hypocrite! You’re a fucking hypocrite, Corey!”
The marine marched up to her boyfriend, flipped the coffee table over, and knocked the cheese and soda out of his hand with brute force. “Do I have your attention now?! Huh?!” No answer, only jitters. “You think this is body shaming?! I could have said a lot worse to you right now! Hell, I’ve said worse shit to the guys I trained in boot camp! If they can take it, you can too! Don’t like it?! Tough shit! I’m not going to stand here and watch you waste away just because you went without me for a little bit of time! I fight like a motherfucker for that reason, Froggy! Every bullet I fire on that battlefield is so I can come home to you in one piece and hopefully spend the rest of my life with you! But now…I don’t even recognize you anymore!”
Froggy pulled Corey closer with her shirt firmly death-gripped in his sausage fingers. He gazed angrily into her soul, as if his chubby belly was full of fire and venom instead of cheddar cheese and soda. Corey’s own stoic gaze refused to change at the threat of this newfound aggression. The marine had left one war and came home to another, neither time would she relent or cower. In fact, she coldly said to her boyfriend, “Take your fucking hands off of me right now or you’re a dead son of a bitch.”
Froggy would release his grip, but only because his hands found a new place: his chest. He coughed and wheezed some more, but this time he plopped backwards onto the couch and had glassy eyes. “Froggy, are you okay?!” asked Corey with genuine concern instead of macho marine BS as her boyfriend called it earlier. He wouldn’t answer her question, only cough violently again. And again. And again, until he had slipped into unconsciousness and fell off the couch with a thud. Corey went back into war mode and scrambled to find her cell phone to call 9-1-1.
Corey Jakes’s recollection of the ambulance ride to the hospital was as blurry as the taxi ride home. The visions of war tormented her even further, now with visions of her aggression towards Froggy piled on top. She kept imagining pulling the trigger at the enemy, but Froggy’s ghost always got in the line of fire and his blood smeared the desert ground. A tear rolled down her stony face as she contemplated why she ever thought it was a good idea to push Froggy over the edge. Why did she push all of her students over the edge as well? Why did she survive when others didn’t? Another tear rolled down, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it, not even to the paramedics pointing it out to her.
The marine sat in the hospital lobby with her head tucked in her hands wondering where the hell it all went wrong. Was she selfish for going overseas? Would it matter where she went in the first place? Could she save everybody with her marine training alone? So many questions swirled through her mind along with images of blood and gore from her tour of duty. Every time she thought she had the answers, a leg would blow apart, a head would burst open, a marine would scream in agony, and Froggy would be left behind all the same.
Corey once again had to be snapped out of her trance to receive the news from the blood-covered surgeon. “I’m sorry, Miss Jakes. Your boyfriend didn’t make it.” Tears flooded her eyes like a river of sorrow no matter how hard she tried to remain stoic and strong. The tears poured even harder when the surgeon gave her a small velvet box and said, “I found this in his pants pocket. I thought you might want to have it.”
The marine’s heart beat like a war drum as she slowly opened the velvet box to find the greatest treasure of them all inside: a diamond ring with a golden band. It sparkled as brightly as stars in the night. Corey clutched the wedding ring in her hand and completely lost any last ounce of stoicism she had left. She plopped back on the bench and allowed her tears to rain down with heavy force.
Froggy had shown her kindness and love in the past and she believed she had repaid him with harshness and evil. Being at war overseas was very different from being at war with a lover. Corey couldn’t separate the two and it killed her deep inside like she had taken the bullets herself. How liberating would a bullet be for her at this point? Maybe the next tour of duty she had would be her last. She had nothing else to fight for and nobody else to fight with. But if she was going down in a suicide mission, she would go down swinging. Once a marine, always a marine. Once a lover, now an empty shell.
August 30, 2017
How Could You?
Ross Maynard sipped his iced tea and read his newspaper as nonchalantly as he could. Even with a nearly deserted Denny’s like this one, he still had to keep his secret in the public eye. Wouldn’t want a nosy waitress making too much small talk with him. In between reading various stories in the paper, Ross would sneak a quick peek at the front entrance. He knew he had to keep calm at a time like this, but his racing nerves wouldn’t slow down for even a moment.
And then the Mexican bombshell Fatima Ruiz entered the establishment with a frilly red cocktail dress on and a heat-seeking glare. Normally she glided across the room with the grace of an angel. But even in high heels, she pulled off the perfect angry stomp with both fists at her side. Ross took another sip of iced tea to settle himself for the shit sandwich he was about to eat (not because he was dining at Denny’s).
Fatima sat across the booth from Ross and spent the first few seconds staring icicles into her former lover. She tapped on the table with her manicured fingernails and fidgeted with her long black hair, but never once taking that ice cold stare off of Ross. The guilty-looking gentleman took another sip of tea and maintained his silence. This lengthy moment of discomfort melted Ross’s heart like butter on an English muffin. He knew why she was here. He knew he was screwed.
Fatima gazed down at her engagement ring with even more ice cold bitchiness before ripping it off and waving it in front of the smart phone she pulled out of her purse. The sounds of popping and crackling echoed in Ross’s ears while a siren going off in his head told him to get the fuck out of there.
“When were you planning on telling me you were a cop?” asked the stone cold Fatima Ruiz. “Did you think I was stupid? Did you think I would never find out? Do you think this shit is going to end now that my father is in jail? This shit’s not over until I say it is.”
Ross fluffed his jacket and wiped his wet hands on his jeans to buy time. When he had enough of it, he folded his hands across the table and looked seriously into his lover’s eyes. “Your father was the leader of the Ruiz Cartel. He was responsible for too many deaths in this city. He had politicians and policemen alike in his back pocket. Not this time. A lifetime in the hole is where he’s headed. I make no apologies for my detective work, Fatima. It’s my job.”
“No apologies, huh?” asked Fatima rhetorically while nodding. “That’s your job: breaking women’s hearts? I trusted you, Ross. I let you into my home. We made love together. And now you’re telling me that doesn’t mean shit to you?” When Ross refused to show remorse for his actions, Fatima swatted the newspaper off the table and yelled, “What do you have to say for yourself?!”
“Nothing,” said Ross with a frosty tone. His confidence returned and he showed it with furrowed eyebrows. “I’m an FBI agent. It’s what I do. You were an easy target. You were my golden ticket into the Ruiz Compound. That’s how these investigations work, Fatima. I’m sorry you got your heart broken, but it is what it is. None of it was real. It was all business.”
Ross’s stony expression countered Fatima’s criminal rage to where the Latina beauty hung her head and allowed tears to flow softly from her eyes. Agent Maynard slowly reached his hand over to comfort his now ex-lover and she jerked away while shouting, “Don’t touch me!”
The agent allowed the tension between them to simmer down before asking, “So what did you come here for? To let me know that you’re on to me? To deliver some veiled threat? To kill me? Your entire cartel is being rounded up even as we speak. There’s nobody left to help you, Fatima. Your empire is gone. Gone!”
The Latina sobbed some more while gently saying, “I could kill you right now…” When Ross snapped at her to speak up, she snapped back with, “I could kill you right now! I don’t need a gun or a knife. I want to strangle you with my bare hands. I want to rip your balls off. I want to rip out your tongue for all of the lies you’ve told me!”
“If you’re so eager to join your empire behind bars, I’d say go for it. Go ahead. Slap me. Punch me. Do whatever it is you want to do. I don’t give a shit. I’ve got the cuffs in my jacket pocket. You want some new jewelry, be my guest,” said Ross in his increasingly icy tone.
Fatima wiped the tears from her eyes and gingerly picked her head up to meet her ex-lover’s hateful gaze. Her own heartless expression turned into a sadistic smile, but Ross remained undeterred. “Like I said,” she started with. “This isn’t over until I say it is. You think you’ve got the upper hand because you put my family in jail? You think you’re the only one who can play games with people’s emotions? I’m pregnant!”
Ross scoffed, “Bullshit!” and Fatima smiled even harder. She even threw in a few giggles. The detective’s solemn expression grew even darker as he contemplated the potential reality of what his lover just said. “Please tell me you’re bullshitting. This is all a joke, isn’t it?”
“I make no apologies for my detective work, Agent Maynard,” said Fatima. “I’m keeping this baby and I’m going to raise him as my own. You and I are going to have a family together, Ross. Oh wait, you already have a family, don’t you? A wife and daughter of your own. I wonder what they’ll think when they find out daddy impregnated a gangster chick. What will your coworkers think? What will the judge think when I demand child support from you?”
“You don’t know shit about being a mother!” belted Ross.
“And you don’t know shit about being in love. It’s all fake to you, right? I bet your own family doesn’t get to see the side of you that you’ve shown me all this time. All those expensive gifts. All of those happy moments. All of the love we shared. The whole world will know and you can do nothing about it,” grinned Fatima.
“So what are you going to do with that little runt, anyways?” asked Ross hastily. “You’re going to raise him to be a gangster just like every other member of your sick family? You’re going to teach him to murder and steal? You’re not a mother. You’re a damn fool! You’re going to march over to that abortion clinic and…”
“And what? Give you the satisfaction of fucking me over one more time? I don’t think so, honey. We’ve done things your way for the past couple of months. Now we’re going to do them my way. Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to rebuild my empire from the ground up and you’re going to help me. That means getting my peeps out of jail and recruiting new members. I don’t want just some hoods and thugs running around here. I want top brass motherfuckers on my payroll. I want cops, politicians, and other cartel factions. And who knows? Maybe if you do all these lovely things for me, I’ll show you what true love really is. That’s what you seem to be lacking these days,” said Fatima with a red-hot smile and villainous eyes.
“Give me some time to think about it, Fatima,” said Ross.
“Take all the time you need, baby cakes. It’s not like this little guy is going to pop out anytime soon,” said Fatima. She mockingly waved goodbye to her ex-lover and blew him a kiss before turning heel and model-walking out of the restaurant.
Ross tried to keep up his emotionless stature, but he couldn’t help holding his head in his hands and wondering how the hell Fatima Ruiz got the best of him. He thought of his own wife and daughter and all of the happy days at the beach they had. The little lady would run across the sand and bounce in the water like a little froggy. He would hold hands with his wife and shower her in kisses despite the disgust of those around them. He loved his family and he didn’t care what anybody thought.
He cared what his fellow FBI agents thought, however. They were going to tear him limb from limb, rip his badge away along with his heart and soul, and leave him homeless and alone. What kind of life was that for a soon-to-be former detective and his family? They’d have to do illegal, disgusting things just to get by, much like how the Ruiz Cartel got started. Ruiz Cartel…Fatima Ruiz…that bitch!
Ross pulled out a six shooter and fully loaded every chamber. One bullet for her. One bullet for him. Four bullets for anybody who disagreed with his dark logic. He kissed the barrel of his weapon and angrily whispered, “I’ll show you what love is, Fatima, you fucking bitch. I’ll kiss you with a bullet!” He knew he looked insane to the waitresses and waiters, but he didn’t give two shits and a flying fuck. In fact, he loved the bloodlust in his bulging eyes.
And then the Mexican bombshell Fatima Ruiz entered the establishment with a frilly red cocktail dress on and a heat-seeking glare. Normally she glided across the room with the grace of an angel. But even in high heels, she pulled off the perfect angry stomp with both fists at her side. Ross took another sip of iced tea to settle himself for the shit sandwich he was about to eat (not because he was dining at Denny’s).
Fatima sat across the booth from Ross and spent the first few seconds staring icicles into her former lover. She tapped on the table with her manicured fingernails and fidgeted with her long black hair, but never once taking that ice cold stare off of Ross. The guilty-looking gentleman took another sip of tea and maintained his silence. This lengthy moment of discomfort melted Ross’s heart like butter on an English muffin. He knew why she was here. He knew he was screwed.
Fatima gazed down at her engagement ring with even more ice cold bitchiness before ripping it off and waving it in front of the smart phone she pulled out of her purse. The sounds of popping and crackling echoed in Ross’s ears while a siren going off in his head told him to get the fuck out of there.
“When were you planning on telling me you were a cop?” asked the stone cold Fatima Ruiz. “Did you think I was stupid? Did you think I would never find out? Do you think this shit is going to end now that my father is in jail? This shit’s not over until I say it is.”
Ross fluffed his jacket and wiped his wet hands on his jeans to buy time. When he had enough of it, he folded his hands across the table and looked seriously into his lover’s eyes. “Your father was the leader of the Ruiz Cartel. He was responsible for too many deaths in this city. He had politicians and policemen alike in his back pocket. Not this time. A lifetime in the hole is where he’s headed. I make no apologies for my detective work, Fatima. It’s my job.”
“No apologies, huh?” asked Fatima rhetorically while nodding. “That’s your job: breaking women’s hearts? I trusted you, Ross. I let you into my home. We made love together. And now you’re telling me that doesn’t mean shit to you?” When Ross refused to show remorse for his actions, Fatima swatted the newspaper off the table and yelled, “What do you have to say for yourself?!”
“Nothing,” said Ross with a frosty tone. His confidence returned and he showed it with furrowed eyebrows. “I’m an FBI agent. It’s what I do. You were an easy target. You were my golden ticket into the Ruiz Compound. That’s how these investigations work, Fatima. I’m sorry you got your heart broken, but it is what it is. None of it was real. It was all business.”
Ross’s stony expression countered Fatima’s criminal rage to where the Latina beauty hung her head and allowed tears to flow softly from her eyes. Agent Maynard slowly reached his hand over to comfort his now ex-lover and she jerked away while shouting, “Don’t touch me!”
The agent allowed the tension between them to simmer down before asking, “So what did you come here for? To let me know that you’re on to me? To deliver some veiled threat? To kill me? Your entire cartel is being rounded up even as we speak. There’s nobody left to help you, Fatima. Your empire is gone. Gone!”
The Latina sobbed some more while gently saying, “I could kill you right now…” When Ross snapped at her to speak up, she snapped back with, “I could kill you right now! I don’t need a gun or a knife. I want to strangle you with my bare hands. I want to rip your balls off. I want to rip out your tongue for all of the lies you’ve told me!”
“If you’re so eager to join your empire behind bars, I’d say go for it. Go ahead. Slap me. Punch me. Do whatever it is you want to do. I don’t give a shit. I’ve got the cuffs in my jacket pocket. You want some new jewelry, be my guest,” said Ross in his increasingly icy tone.
Fatima wiped the tears from her eyes and gingerly picked her head up to meet her ex-lover’s hateful gaze. Her own heartless expression turned into a sadistic smile, but Ross remained undeterred. “Like I said,” she started with. “This isn’t over until I say it is. You think you’ve got the upper hand because you put my family in jail? You think you’re the only one who can play games with people’s emotions? I’m pregnant!”
Ross scoffed, “Bullshit!” and Fatima smiled even harder. She even threw in a few giggles. The detective’s solemn expression grew even darker as he contemplated the potential reality of what his lover just said. “Please tell me you’re bullshitting. This is all a joke, isn’t it?”
“I make no apologies for my detective work, Agent Maynard,” said Fatima. “I’m keeping this baby and I’m going to raise him as my own. You and I are going to have a family together, Ross. Oh wait, you already have a family, don’t you? A wife and daughter of your own. I wonder what they’ll think when they find out daddy impregnated a gangster chick. What will your coworkers think? What will the judge think when I demand child support from you?”
“You don’t know shit about being a mother!” belted Ross.
“And you don’t know shit about being in love. It’s all fake to you, right? I bet your own family doesn’t get to see the side of you that you’ve shown me all this time. All those expensive gifts. All of those happy moments. All of the love we shared. The whole world will know and you can do nothing about it,” grinned Fatima.
“So what are you going to do with that little runt, anyways?” asked Ross hastily. “You’re going to raise him to be a gangster just like every other member of your sick family? You’re going to teach him to murder and steal? You’re not a mother. You’re a damn fool! You’re going to march over to that abortion clinic and…”
“And what? Give you the satisfaction of fucking me over one more time? I don’t think so, honey. We’ve done things your way for the past couple of months. Now we’re going to do them my way. Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to rebuild my empire from the ground up and you’re going to help me. That means getting my peeps out of jail and recruiting new members. I don’t want just some hoods and thugs running around here. I want top brass motherfuckers on my payroll. I want cops, politicians, and other cartel factions. And who knows? Maybe if you do all these lovely things for me, I’ll show you what true love really is. That’s what you seem to be lacking these days,” said Fatima with a red-hot smile and villainous eyes.
“Give me some time to think about it, Fatima,” said Ross.
“Take all the time you need, baby cakes. It’s not like this little guy is going to pop out anytime soon,” said Fatima. She mockingly waved goodbye to her ex-lover and blew him a kiss before turning heel and model-walking out of the restaurant.
Ross tried to keep up his emotionless stature, but he couldn’t help holding his head in his hands and wondering how the hell Fatima Ruiz got the best of him. He thought of his own wife and daughter and all of the happy days at the beach they had. The little lady would run across the sand and bounce in the water like a little froggy. He would hold hands with his wife and shower her in kisses despite the disgust of those around them. He loved his family and he didn’t care what anybody thought.
He cared what his fellow FBI agents thought, however. They were going to tear him limb from limb, rip his badge away along with his heart and soul, and leave him homeless and alone. What kind of life was that for a soon-to-be former detective and his family? They’d have to do illegal, disgusting things just to get by, much like how the Ruiz Cartel got started. Ruiz Cartel…Fatima Ruiz…that bitch!
Ross pulled out a six shooter and fully loaded every chamber. One bullet for her. One bullet for him. Four bullets for anybody who disagreed with his dark logic. He kissed the barrel of his weapon and angrily whispered, “I’ll show you what love is, Fatima, you fucking bitch. I’ll kiss you with a bullet!” He knew he looked insane to the waitresses and waiters, but he didn’t give two shits and a flying fuck. In fact, he loved the bloodlust in his bulging eyes.
Kickboxer: Vengeance
MOVIE TITLE: Kickboxer: Vengeance
DIRECTOR: John Stockwell
YEAR: 2016
GENRE: Martial Arts
RATING: R for bloody violence, mild swearing, and nudity
GRADE: Mixed
Martial arts prospect Kurt Sloane travels to Thailand to exact revenge for his brother Eric after undefeated Muay Thai champion Tong Po kills Eric in an underground fight. Kurt attempts to murder Po in his sleep with a pistol, but gets taken away by the police instead. Kurt’s only chance at avenging his brother is to train with the legendary Master Durand, who initially prepared Eric for his own fight with Tong Po. While all of this is going on, the Thai police are building a case against a fight promoter with corrupt connections to the law. Between Tong Po and Marcia (the crooked promoter), Kurt Sloane has an uphill battle that will see him spill more blood on the canvas than even his own dead brother.
Because this is a marital arts movie with various UFC fighters and former WWE Champion Dave Bautista in starring roles, the obvious positive point of this movie was the high octane violence. Kurt Sloane is a badass warrior, but even he has to succumb to much more powerful fighters in the early going of the movie. The training under Master Durand is no joke: cracking coconuts, bicycling under water, vertical pushups, and of course, getting the crap kicked out of him from time to time by his own teacher. No battle in this movie is gorier than Kurt’s eventual championship fight with Tong Po (it’s not much of a spoiler since even the dumbest viewer can see it from miles away). In that fight, blood splatters the arena like a modern art masterpiece as they get to use glass-covered gloves and katanas. All in all, this is a well-choreographed movie. Every beating Kurt takes both in training and in real fights will shape him to become the ultimate Muay Thai warrior (or he can die trying, one of the two).
And then we have the low points of the movie, most of which include clichés, bad acting from UFC fighters, cheesy dialogue, and characters I couldn’t give a damn about either way. As far as clichés go, there are so many of them peppered throughout the movie: classic revenge tale, training a nobody to become a champion in a short time span, instant relationships, vanilla sex, and lax authority just to name a few. The characters were so badly acted that I couldn’t get emotionally invested in them. I didn’t shed one tear when Eric was murdered by Tong Po. It felt like Eric and all the other characters were just there for the sake of being there. The only performance I could really praise was Dave Bautista as he took the role of the villainous Tong Po. He had the look, the athleticism, and the menacing aura of a warrior, all of which he probably picked up while working with the WWE. Other than that, there’s really nobody to cheer for in this movie.
I’m probably being a little too generous when I give this movie a mixed grade (three stars out of five), but I’m a huge fan of martial arts ultra violence, so that’s pretty much the only thing that saved the movie from being a train wreck. It would be hypocritical of me to disrespect the violence in this movie considering I watch pro-wrestling and mixed-martial arts on a regular basis. The storylines, dialogue, and acting in WWE isn’t always Oscar-worthy, but at least it keeps bringing me back to my TV every Monday and Tuesday. Maybe a mixed grade is appropriate after all.
DIRECTOR: John Stockwell
YEAR: 2016
GENRE: Martial Arts
RATING: R for bloody violence, mild swearing, and nudity
GRADE: Mixed
Martial arts prospect Kurt Sloane travels to Thailand to exact revenge for his brother Eric after undefeated Muay Thai champion Tong Po kills Eric in an underground fight. Kurt attempts to murder Po in his sleep with a pistol, but gets taken away by the police instead. Kurt’s only chance at avenging his brother is to train with the legendary Master Durand, who initially prepared Eric for his own fight with Tong Po. While all of this is going on, the Thai police are building a case against a fight promoter with corrupt connections to the law. Between Tong Po and Marcia (the crooked promoter), Kurt Sloane has an uphill battle that will see him spill more blood on the canvas than even his own dead brother.
Because this is a marital arts movie with various UFC fighters and former WWE Champion Dave Bautista in starring roles, the obvious positive point of this movie was the high octane violence. Kurt Sloane is a badass warrior, but even he has to succumb to much more powerful fighters in the early going of the movie. The training under Master Durand is no joke: cracking coconuts, bicycling under water, vertical pushups, and of course, getting the crap kicked out of him from time to time by his own teacher. No battle in this movie is gorier than Kurt’s eventual championship fight with Tong Po (it’s not much of a spoiler since even the dumbest viewer can see it from miles away). In that fight, blood splatters the arena like a modern art masterpiece as they get to use glass-covered gloves and katanas. All in all, this is a well-choreographed movie. Every beating Kurt takes both in training and in real fights will shape him to become the ultimate Muay Thai warrior (or he can die trying, one of the two).
And then we have the low points of the movie, most of which include clichés, bad acting from UFC fighters, cheesy dialogue, and characters I couldn’t give a damn about either way. As far as clichés go, there are so many of them peppered throughout the movie: classic revenge tale, training a nobody to become a champion in a short time span, instant relationships, vanilla sex, and lax authority just to name a few. The characters were so badly acted that I couldn’t get emotionally invested in them. I didn’t shed one tear when Eric was murdered by Tong Po. It felt like Eric and all the other characters were just there for the sake of being there. The only performance I could really praise was Dave Bautista as he took the role of the villainous Tong Po. He had the look, the athleticism, and the menacing aura of a warrior, all of which he probably picked up while working with the WWE. Other than that, there’s really nobody to cheer for in this movie.
I’m probably being a little too generous when I give this movie a mixed grade (three stars out of five), but I’m a huge fan of martial arts ultra violence, so that’s pretty much the only thing that saved the movie from being a train wreck. It would be hypocritical of me to disrespect the violence in this movie considering I watch pro-wrestling and mixed-martial arts on a regular basis. The storylines, dialogue, and acting in WWE isn’t always Oscar-worthy, but at least it keeps bringing me back to my TV every Monday and Tuesday. Maybe a mixed grade is appropriate after all.
August 27, 2017
Cold
VERSE 1
I gave up on helping you a long time ago
The tears in your eyes continued to flow
You never wanted help, never wanted peace
The negativity never really wanted to cease
You argue even after being proven wrong
Your heart is weak, your ego is strong
I’ll never help those who won’t help themselves
I guess that makes my heart cold as hell
CHORUS
You wonder why I act so cold
Because this shit is getting old
Sick of watching drama unfold
It’s the final time you will be told
VERSE 2
Believe it or not, I was once in your shoes
But I turned negativity into the oldest news
Took me many years to see clearly now
At my kind of age, I’m feeling damn proud
My ego was once the size of good old Texas
I had no interest in cleaning my own messes
I hated the world with a burning passion
If I hadn’t listened, I’d wear funeral fashion
EXTENDED CHORUS 1
You wonder why I act so cold
Because this shit is getting old
Sick of watching drama unfold
It’s the final time you will be told
Call me heartless, call me cold
Your hand was never mine to hold
Take a chance, be brave and bold
Or sleep underground covered in mold
BRIDGE
I’ve never been great at the toughest love
Now my new role fits just like a glove
You’ve pushed my buttons too many times
With the number of times I’ve heard you whine
EXTENDED CHORUS 2
You wonder why I act so cold
Because this shit is getting old
Sick of watching drama unfold
It’s the final time you will be told
Call me an asshole, call me a bastard
Call me anything, it doesn’t matter
You’re going to listen if you like it or not
Wipe away your tears and bubbly snot
I gave up on helping you a long time ago
The tears in your eyes continued to flow
You never wanted help, never wanted peace
The negativity never really wanted to cease
You argue even after being proven wrong
Your heart is weak, your ego is strong
I’ll never help those who won’t help themselves
I guess that makes my heart cold as hell
CHORUS
You wonder why I act so cold
Because this shit is getting old
Sick of watching drama unfold
It’s the final time you will be told
VERSE 2
Believe it or not, I was once in your shoes
But I turned negativity into the oldest news
Took me many years to see clearly now
At my kind of age, I’m feeling damn proud
My ego was once the size of good old Texas
I had no interest in cleaning my own messes
I hated the world with a burning passion
If I hadn’t listened, I’d wear funeral fashion
EXTENDED CHORUS 1
You wonder why I act so cold
Because this shit is getting old
Sick of watching drama unfold
It’s the final time you will be told
Call me heartless, call me cold
Your hand was never mine to hold
Take a chance, be brave and bold
Or sleep underground covered in mold
BRIDGE
I’ve never been great at the toughest love
Now my new role fits just like a glove
You’ve pushed my buttons too many times
With the number of times I’ve heard you whine
EXTENDED CHORUS 2
You wonder why I act so cold
Because this shit is getting old
Sick of watching drama unfold
It’s the final time you will be told
Call me an asshole, call me a bastard
Call me anything, it doesn’t matter
You’re going to listen if you like it or not
Wipe away your tears and bubbly snot
August 25, 2017
Bloodstained Paycheck
Owen Edge took a sip of his black coffee out of a thermos and smiled at the strong flavor. He sat in his car as the morning sun peaked over the horizon and gave him that little burst of sunshine he needed to start his day. He loved orange clouds and pink skies since they reminded him of eating sherbet ice cream as a kid. What he didn’t love was the fact that his car was parked outside of a porn theater. Sure, masturbation was a natural function, but pressing sticky white fluids against the walls was straight up disgusting. Nonetheless, Owen had a job to do.
He took one last sip of his coffee, straightened his brown jacket and blue tie, and exited the vehicle after popping his trunk. He pulled a gigantic blue tarp along with some cleaning supplies out of said trunk before sighing heavily and trudging his way into the porn theater. Because his arms were full, he kicked at the steel door to let the bouncer know he was here.
A little slide on the door opened up to reveal harsh eyes staring bullets into Owen’s soul. The cleaner asked, “Are you Dennis McKay?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m Owen. I clean messes for a living. Mind if I come in?”
Dennis slid the eye hole shut and opened the door for Owen, who was hurried inside and patted down by the hulking bouncer. Dennis’s muscular frame made the skinnier Owen look like a small child by comparison. The bouncer wore a black security T-shirt that magnified every muscle in his body along with a pair of blue jeans that were conversely too baggy.
Once Dennis found no weapons or contraband on Owen, he said, “Security protocol. I’ve got to do it with everybody…even if you are earning a bloodstained paycheck today.” Mr. McKay handed Owen a taped up stack of freshly laundered one hundred dollar bills, to which Owen dropped his cleaning supplies and thumbed through it quickly to see if it was real money.
Satisfied with his findings, Owen picked up his acidic spray bottles and sponges and said, “Grab that tarp. It’s time to get busy. Show me where the body is.”
The two of them strolled to a glass booth only protected by a thin black curtain. As if the semen stains on the glass and curtain weren’t disgusting enough, the bloody corpse of a young man with a college logo T-shirt made the claustrophobic booth look like a slaughterhouse. “Jesus Christ, Dennis, what the fuck did you do to him?”
“The bastard had it coming. Yeah, it was a little rough, but come on, if you saw the shit he was doing, you’d go berserk too. He thinks he can do whatever he wants just because he’s got a liberal arts degree from some faggot university.”
“Fair enough,” said Owen. The two of them rolled the dead body in the tarp like a burrito so that not even the head and feet could stick out. The cleaner then gave the beefcake bouncer a book of matches and ordered, “Take the corpse out to the dumpster and burn that motherfucker. If some cop sticks his nose where it shouldn’t be, just tell him some homeless fucker got drunk and fell into his own fire.”
“Got it,” said Dennis. “Just make sure you’ve got all that blood cleaned up and I’ll give you the other half of your payment. My boss paid good money for you.”
Owen patted the hulking ogre on his shoulder and assured him, “Trust me, Dennis, by the time I’m done with this place, people will be able to eat off of it, in more ways than one.” That last joke was punctuated with a wink, to which Dennis smiled and hauled the corpse out to the back alley.
The cleaner evaluated the work he had cut out for him with a mixture of disgust and professionalism. The blood and semen would be the easiest part of his job. It was the pieces of brain, skull, and god knows what else that would prove to be difficult.
Nonetheless, Owen knelt down, wetted his sponge with the acidic cleaning spray and scrubbed down the mess as hard as he could. Despite being a skinny guy, he scrubbed like he had Dennis’s 24-inch pythons, working his arms and hands down to the bone. Even with this tiring effort, the stains wouldn’t come out so easily, so he sprayed them some more.
As he was wiping the carpeted floor, he could hear rapping underneath. His eyes darted from side to side in confusion, but Owen Edge ultimately shrugged his shoulders and continued scrubbing. The rapping got progressively louder until Owen threw his sponge in frustration. “What, has he got fucking rats down here or something? Shit!”
He scoped his general vicinity to make sure all was clear before spraying acid on the corner of the carpet and ripping it up with ruthless force. Underneath the carpet was a trap door that took the brunt of the light rapping. Soon that rapping turned to kicking. And then the kicking turned to muffled female moaning. Owen squirted acid on the wooden door and used the newly formed hole as a leverage point to heave the heavy son of a bitch. The cleaner gazed into the hole with wide eyes and shaky hands before whispering, “Holy shit…”
Fifteen minutes later, Owen Edge stood cross legged and arms folded against the wall of the porn shop’s lobby, preferably a wall that wasn’t decorated with dildos, ball gags, whips, chains, gimp hoods, god knows what else. With the way the cleaner drummed his fingers against his arm, he knew there was going to be hell to pay for Dennis once he got his giant ass back in here. What was taking him so long to burn the body?
“Owen? You’re done already? Holy shit, you are the best! High five, buddy!” said Dennis as he sneaked back into the lobby with his hand held high in the air.
“You know, Dennis, I’d love to high five you right now, but I actually figured out where that hand has been. Not even my superior cleaning skills can get that mess off. You need help, buddy,” said Owen sternly.
“You’re in a porn theater, dumb ass. Get used to it!” barked Dennis.
“Oh, I’m fully aware of my current location. In fact, I seem to know this place up and down, backwards and forwards…first floor and underground.” Dennis’s arrogant smile melted off of his face like a popsicle. “That girl has a name, asshole: it’s Felicia Strom. She told me everything, every goddamn detail, although I could figure most of it out by the fact that she had a ball gag in her mouth and she was in a leather thong and bra. Were you planning on telling me this minute detail?”
Dennis chuckled nervously and said, “What her? She works here. She needs the money just like we all do in this life. You know something about that, don’t you, Owen. Besides, when did you get a moral compass all of the sudden?”
“Yeah, who knew that fucking with teenaged girls would be one of my berserk buttons?” said Owen as he sized up his bouncer nemesis. “Everybody has standards, Dennis. Everybody has a line that they don’t cross. I don’t know what yours is, but mine happens to be kidnapping young ladies and making them…do the things she did.” He gagged at that last sentence.
“Where is she?” asked Dennis before screaming the same question and grabbing Owen’s suit jacket.
“She’s long gone, probably going back home to her parents for the first time in forever. But you? You’re going straight to hell if you don’t get your splooge-covered hands off of me,” threatened Owen.
Dennis burst into a rage and hoisted Owen up by his arm pits before slamming him repeatedly against the wall. The cleaner felt the air being driven out of his lungs with every hard slam as well as his head popping and his neck creaking. Dennis’s barbaric anger caused him to slam Owen into other parts of the wall, knocking sex novelties off their display holders. Owen tried to grab a dildo off the wall and pound Dennis over the head with it, but the bouncer no-sold it, smiled, and chucked the cleaner over the counter.
Owen could feel his muscles weakening, his bones chipping, and his brain fogging up. He also coughed up a liberal amount of blood as he grabbed the counter and gingerly pulled himself to his wobbly feet. He fell down a few times and coughed up more blood, but found his footing after the third or fourth try. His vision was dark and hazy, but he could make out the shape of Dennis with his arms folded. The bouncer laughed at him with a demonic voice, one that was ear-splitting enough to keep Owen from falling asleep. The only words Owen could muster at that point were, “Felicia…run!”
The sex slave teenager stood in the doorway naked, shivering, and teary-eyed. She also had Owen’s thermos of black coffee, which was still steaming hot even after all of the time spent cleaning the crime scene.
Dennis mocked her by spreading his arms out and saying, “You’re going to throw that in my face, bitch? Go ahead. Do it. I fucking dare you! Come on! Throw that shit in my face! It’ll be like what my customers do to you every night, but with a different liquid!”
Felicia continued shivering and crying while weakly holding the coffee thermos out to potentially throw. “I…I…I won’t let you…I…you can’t…”
“Leave her alone, Dennis! Felicia, run!” shouted Owen as he still struggled to maintain his equilibrium.
“That’s what I thought, bitch. Give me that fucking coffee, I’m thirsty!” grunted Dennis as he yanked the thermos out of his victim’s hand. He gulped it down in a hurry, not giving a damn how hot it was. He sighed and said, “That’s some damn good coffee, bitch! Mmm-mmm-mmm! What flavor is this? Taster’s Choice?”
“Actually, Dennis…” squeaked Felicia. “There’s vanilla…some caramel…some whipped cream…and…Viagra! Lots and lots of Viagra!” The last list item was punctuated with a confident stance and deadly eyes.
Dennis’s own eyes bulged out of his head as he coughed violently and clutched his chest with a death grip. He dropped to his knees and hacked some more. He tried sucking down air, but it came out raspy and sweat poured off of him like a fire hydrant. “How could you?” he said weakly. “We gave you everything. A home…good money…and…” Dennis coughed up blood before rolling on his back and passing out with a bulge in his jeans. His breathing became shallow and his eyes rolled back in his head. His skin whitened like glue. And then, his head twisted to the side to signify his otherwise limp body.
Owen kept holding onto the counter for balance, but he struggled even more when he couldn’t stop laughing. “Dennis McKay takes Viagra? Holy shit! All that muscle mass and….god, what was I saying?” The cleaner lost his balance again and collapsed to the floor.
Felicia rushed to his side and held his hand. “Are you okay? Speak to me!”
“Oh, I’m fine, Miss Strom. This ain’t my first rodeo and it won’t be my last. I’m more worried about how you are.” Owen dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out the wad of one hundred dollar bills. Felicia’s eyes widened as she handled all of that money. The cleaner said, “Listen, babe: that bloodstained paycheck belongs to you. Get your ass home, spend that money on college or some shit, and don’t ever come back to this place again. Got it? Don’t worry about me, I’ll find my way out of here. I’ll get to a hospital…or hell…or heaven…who knows where I’m going from here…”
Owen nodded off while Felicia pounded his chest in an attempt to wake him up. The further he drifted off, the harder she shook him. During his last few moments of consciousness, he kept wondering if being in the cleaning business was worth it anymore. Would there be other scummy clients like Dennis McKay? Of course. Would they go to his extremes? More likely than not. Being neutral and coldhearted was Owen Edge’s mantra for so long. Now that he was about to meet his maker, all the laundered money in the world couldn’t help him in the afterlife.
He took one last sip of his coffee, straightened his brown jacket and blue tie, and exited the vehicle after popping his trunk. He pulled a gigantic blue tarp along with some cleaning supplies out of said trunk before sighing heavily and trudging his way into the porn theater. Because his arms were full, he kicked at the steel door to let the bouncer know he was here.
A little slide on the door opened up to reveal harsh eyes staring bullets into Owen’s soul. The cleaner asked, “Are you Dennis McKay?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m Owen. I clean messes for a living. Mind if I come in?”
Dennis slid the eye hole shut and opened the door for Owen, who was hurried inside and patted down by the hulking bouncer. Dennis’s muscular frame made the skinnier Owen look like a small child by comparison. The bouncer wore a black security T-shirt that magnified every muscle in his body along with a pair of blue jeans that were conversely too baggy.
Once Dennis found no weapons or contraband on Owen, he said, “Security protocol. I’ve got to do it with everybody…even if you are earning a bloodstained paycheck today.” Mr. McKay handed Owen a taped up stack of freshly laundered one hundred dollar bills, to which Owen dropped his cleaning supplies and thumbed through it quickly to see if it was real money.
Satisfied with his findings, Owen picked up his acidic spray bottles and sponges and said, “Grab that tarp. It’s time to get busy. Show me where the body is.”
The two of them strolled to a glass booth only protected by a thin black curtain. As if the semen stains on the glass and curtain weren’t disgusting enough, the bloody corpse of a young man with a college logo T-shirt made the claustrophobic booth look like a slaughterhouse. “Jesus Christ, Dennis, what the fuck did you do to him?”
“The bastard had it coming. Yeah, it was a little rough, but come on, if you saw the shit he was doing, you’d go berserk too. He thinks he can do whatever he wants just because he’s got a liberal arts degree from some faggot university.”
“Fair enough,” said Owen. The two of them rolled the dead body in the tarp like a burrito so that not even the head and feet could stick out. The cleaner then gave the beefcake bouncer a book of matches and ordered, “Take the corpse out to the dumpster and burn that motherfucker. If some cop sticks his nose where it shouldn’t be, just tell him some homeless fucker got drunk and fell into his own fire.”
“Got it,” said Dennis. “Just make sure you’ve got all that blood cleaned up and I’ll give you the other half of your payment. My boss paid good money for you.”
Owen patted the hulking ogre on his shoulder and assured him, “Trust me, Dennis, by the time I’m done with this place, people will be able to eat off of it, in more ways than one.” That last joke was punctuated with a wink, to which Dennis smiled and hauled the corpse out to the back alley.
The cleaner evaluated the work he had cut out for him with a mixture of disgust and professionalism. The blood and semen would be the easiest part of his job. It was the pieces of brain, skull, and god knows what else that would prove to be difficult.
Nonetheless, Owen knelt down, wetted his sponge with the acidic cleaning spray and scrubbed down the mess as hard as he could. Despite being a skinny guy, he scrubbed like he had Dennis’s 24-inch pythons, working his arms and hands down to the bone. Even with this tiring effort, the stains wouldn’t come out so easily, so he sprayed them some more.
As he was wiping the carpeted floor, he could hear rapping underneath. His eyes darted from side to side in confusion, but Owen Edge ultimately shrugged his shoulders and continued scrubbing. The rapping got progressively louder until Owen threw his sponge in frustration. “What, has he got fucking rats down here or something? Shit!”
He scoped his general vicinity to make sure all was clear before spraying acid on the corner of the carpet and ripping it up with ruthless force. Underneath the carpet was a trap door that took the brunt of the light rapping. Soon that rapping turned to kicking. And then the kicking turned to muffled female moaning. Owen squirted acid on the wooden door and used the newly formed hole as a leverage point to heave the heavy son of a bitch. The cleaner gazed into the hole with wide eyes and shaky hands before whispering, “Holy shit…”
Fifteen minutes later, Owen Edge stood cross legged and arms folded against the wall of the porn shop’s lobby, preferably a wall that wasn’t decorated with dildos, ball gags, whips, chains, gimp hoods, god knows what else. With the way the cleaner drummed his fingers against his arm, he knew there was going to be hell to pay for Dennis once he got his giant ass back in here. What was taking him so long to burn the body?
“Owen? You’re done already? Holy shit, you are the best! High five, buddy!” said Dennis as he sneaked back into the lobby with his hand held high in the air.
“You know, Dennis, I’d love to high five you right now, but I actually figured out where that hand has been. Not even my superior cleaning skills can get that mess off. You need help, buddy,” said Owen sternly.
“You’re in a porn theater, dumb ass. Get used to it!” barked Dennis.
“Oh, I’m fully aware of my current location. In fact, I seem to know this place up and down, backwards and forwards…first floor and underground.” Dennis’s arrogant smile melted off of his face like a popsicle. “That girl has a name, asshole: it’s Felicia Strom. She told me everything, every goddamn detail, although I could figure most of it out by the fact that she had a ball gag in her mouth and she was in a leather thong and bra. Were you planning on telling me this minute detail?”
Dennis chuckled nervously and said, “What her? She works here. She needs the money just like we all do in this life. You know something about that, don’t you, Owen. Besides, when did you get a moral compass all of the sudden?”
“Yeah, who knew that fucking with teenaged girls would be one of my berserk buttons?” said Owen as he sized up his bouncer nemesis. “Everybody has standards, Dennis. Everybody has a line that they don’t cross. I don’t know what yours is, but mine happens to be kidnapping young ladies and making them…do the things she did.” He gagged at that last sentence.
“Where is she?” asked Dennis before screaming the same question and grabbing Owen’s suit jacket.
“She’s long gone, probably going back home to her parents for the first time in forever. But you? You’re going straight to hell if you don’t get your splooge-covered hands off of me,” threatened Owen.
Dennis burst into a rage and hoisted Owen up by his arm pits before slamming him repeatedly against the wall. The cleaner felt the air being driven out of his lungs with every hard slam as well as his head popping and his neck creaking. Dennis’s barbaric anger caused him to slam Owen into other parts of the wall, knocking sex novelties off their display holders. Owen tried to grab a dildo off the wall and pound Dennis over the head with it, but the bouncer no-sold it, smiled, and chucked the cleaner over the counter.
Owen could feel his muscles weakening, his bones chipping, and his brain fogging up. He also coughed up a liberal amount of blood as he grabbed the counter and gingerly pulled himself to his wobbly feet. He fell down a few times and coughed up more blood, but found his footing after the third or fourth try. His vision was dark and hazy, but he could make out the shape of Dennis with his arms folded. The bouncer laughed at him with a demonic voice, one that was ear-splitting enough to keep Owen from falling asleep. The only words Owen could muster at that point were, “Felicia…run!”
The sex slave teenager stood in the doorway naked, shivering, and teary-eyed. She also had Owen’s thermos of black coffee, which was still steaming hot even after all of the time spent cleaning the crime scene.
Dennis mocked her by spreading his arms out and saying, “You’re going to throw that in my face, bitch? Go ahead. Do it. I fucking dare you! Come on! Throw that shit in my face! It’ll be like what my customers do to you every night, but with a different liquid!”
Felicia continued shivering and crying while weakly holding the coffee thermos out to potentially throw. “I…I…I won’t let you…I…you can’t…”
“Leave her alone, Dennis! Felicia, run!” shouted Owen as he still struggled to maintain his equilibrium.
“That’s what I thought, bitch. Give me that fucking coffee, I’m thirsty!” grunted Dennis as he yanked the thermos out of his victim’s hand. He gulped it down in a hurry, not giving a damn how hot it was. He sighed and said, “That’s some damn good coffee, bitch! Mmm-mmm-mmm! What flavor is this? Taster’s Choice?”
“Actually, Dennis…” squeaked Felicia. “There’s vanilla…some caramel…some whipped cream…and…Viagra! Lots and lots of Viagra!” The last list item was punctuated with a confident stance and deadly eyes.
Dennis’s own eyes bulged out of his head as he coughed violently and clutched his chest with a death grip. He dropped to his knees and hacked some more. He tried sucking down air, but it came out raspy and sweat poured off of him like a fire hydrant. “How could you?” he said weakly. “We gave you everything. A home…good money…and…” Dennis coughed up blood before rolling on his back and passing out with a bulge in his jeans. His breathing became shallow and his eyes rolled back in his head. His skin whitened like glue. And then, his head twisted to the side to signify his otherwise limp body.
Owen kept holding onto the counter for balance, but he struggled even more when he couldn’t stop laughing. “Dennis McKay takes Viagra? Holy shit! All that muscle mass and….god, what was I saying?” The cleaner lost his balance again and collapsed to the floor.
Felicia rushed to his side and held his hand. “Are you okay? Speak to me!”
“Oh, I’m fine, Miss Strom. This ain’t my first rodeo and it won’t be my last. I’m more worried about how you are.” Owen dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out the wad of one hundred dollar bills. Felicia’s eyes widened as she handled all of that money. The cleaner said, “Listen, babe: that bloodstained paycheck belongs to you. Get your ass home, spend that money on college or some shit, and don’t ever come back to this place again. Got it? Don’t worry about me, I’ll find my way out of here. I’ll get to a hospital…or hell…or heaven…who knows where I’m going from here…”
Owen nodded off while Felicia pounded his chest in an attempt to wake him up. The further he drifted off, the harder she shook him. During his last few moments of consciousness, he kept wondering if being in the cleaning business was worth it anymore. Would there be other scummy clients like Dennis McKay? Of course. Would they go to his extremes? More likely than not. Being neutral and coldhearted was Owen Edge’s mantra for so long. Now that he was about to meet his maker, all the laundered money in the world couldn’t help him in the afterlife.
August 24, 2017
Body Positivity
***BODY POSITIVITY***
Judging from how my selfies look these days, this is going to come as a major shock to a lot of people (eye roll). I treat the fat guy with the same respect that I treat the athlete. There are good and bad people on both sides of that spectrum and that’s really the only criteria I use to decide if I like someone or not. You can do bicep curls and military presses until the end of time, but until you treat your fellow human being with love and kindness, you don’t deserve my respect.
I know that sounds ironic considering my love for WWE and how only a small minority of those wrestlers are out of shape. Yes, I enjoy the flippy-floppy techniques of guys like Neville and Seth Rollins, but I also don’t feel the need to bash out of shape wrestlers like Kevin Owens and Bray Wyatt simply because of how they look. Whether it’s with WWE or real life, looks don’t mean shit anymore. There are fat guys who are happily married and muscle studs who are struggling to find a girlfriend. Yes, I know Family Guy is only a cartoon where the characters beat the shit out of each other constantly, but the fact that a chubby guy like Peter Griffin can have a sexy redhead like Lois isn’t lost on me.
Not everybody on this planet has to be a sex object with rippling muscles and firm thighs. Sometimes I get the feeling that the only reason we have fat shaming in our society today is because the ones doing the shaming want someone to jerk off to. They don’t have enough people wax the carrot to, so they expect the whole world to look like sex statues. So that’s it, huh? If I were to go to the gym and exercise my ass off until I was 200 lbs, my biggest reward would be people jerking off to me? Gee, thanks a lot.
Another excuse fat shamers like to use to do what they do is that they’re concerned for their target’s health. So let me get this straight: you’re worried they might die from a heart attack or a stroke, so you insult them until they feel suicidal? Great logic. Great fucking logic. If you’re legitimately concerned about a fat guy’s health, cheer them on, don’t insult them. That drill instructor logic will get you five knuckles of death right in the fucking jaw.
So, the primary excuses people have for making fun of fat people are not enough wanking material and fake health concerns. I thought that would have been the end of it. And then Bill Maher closes an episode of Real Time with one of the most disgusting monologues I’ve heard in a long while. He chastised publications like The Huffington Post for promoting body positivity because obesity is supposed to be a disease, not a fashion trend. It’s one thing for him to make fat jokes about guys like Donald Trump, Chris Christie, and Rush Limbaugh, because those three are bona fide assholes. But to generalize the argument to include everyday people? Unbelievable.
Imagine if the wrong person were to see that kind of message on TV. Maybe it’s a fat guy in high school being bullied by jocks. Maybe it’s a binge-eating fat woman with low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. No less than a week after doing an ending monologue about Republicans being trolls, Bill Maher became a troll himself to the entire obese population. He was already on my shit list for telling his audience how to dress and bitching about superhero movies and fast-paced novels. Those things I can deal with. But after that night of fat shaming, I have to reconsider my fandom for Mr. Maher. Yes, he and I are both proud liberals with a strong sense of zeal, but is he really fighting for someone like me with his show?
On one hand, I understand the health risks of being overweight. I know this, because there were times when I’d get winded climbing the stairs. I would come home from walks to the convenience store dripping with sweat like a fire hydrant. I have sleep apnea that isn’t always cured with my CPAP. The fact that I even have a CPAP says a lot about the state of my body. Am I the healthiest person on earth? Not really. But that doesn’t mean I have to feel like shit because of it. There are worse things in this world than being fat, such as being evil, stupid, shallow, obnoxious, and hateful among other negative qualities.
In the end, the only one who has the right to an opinion of your body is you yourself. If you like the way you look, good for you. If you don’t, do something about it. But if you are going to do something about it, make sure you have the final say. It’s your body, after all. Making diet and exercise choices shouldn’t be taken lightly and shouldn’t be because of coercion or insults. Surround yourself with people who embody a positive state of mind. They’re the ones who will help you through your body issues, not the jerk-offs and trolls. Somebody out there loves you and hopefully you love yourself too. We’ve got ears, say cheers!
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
Two days ago, I finally pumped out “Wolf’s Cannonball”, the martial arts retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. The next character from that story to be drawn will be Little Red Sniper. I ordered some red colored pencils from Amazon and I might wait for them to get here before I get started on this drawing. I might have other variations of red in my collection, I just have to look for them.
***BOOK REVIEW***
I only have a little over a hundred pages left to read from Chris Jericho’s third memoir “The Best in the World: At What I Have No Idea”. I would have made some progress on it today, but I was feeling the blahs as far as creativity went. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a more energetic day. I plan on giving this book the same grade I gave to Chris Jericho’s first two memoirs: four stars out of five. He’s witty, he’s to-the-point, he’s entertaining…what more could I ask for out of a pro-wrestler turned author?
***JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: What did Barack Obama say to the Republican Party in 2012?
A: Damn Mitt!
Judging from how my selfies look these days, this is going to come as a major shock to a lot of people (eye roll). I treat the fat guy with the same respect that I treat the athlete. There are good and bad people on both sides of that spectrum and that’s really the only criteria I use to decide if I like someone or not. You can do bicep curls and military presses until the end of time, but until you treat your fellow human being with love and kindness, you don’t deserve my respect.
I know that sounds ironic considering my love for WWE and how only a small minority of those wrestlers are out of shape. Yes, I enjoy the flippy-floppy techniques of guys like Neville and Seth Rollins, but I also don’t feel the need to bash out of shape wrestlers like Kevin Owens and Bray Wyatt simply because of how they look. Whether it’s with WWE or real life, looks don’t mean shit anymore. There are fat guys who are happily married and muscle studs who are struggling to find a girlfriend. Yes, I know Family Guy is only a cartoon where the characters beat the shit out of each other constantly, but the fact that a chubby guy like Peter Griffin can have a sexy redhead like Lois isn’t lost on me.
Not everybody on this planet has to be a sex object with rippling muscles and firm thighs. Sometimes I get the feeling that the only reason we have fat shaming in our society today is because the ones doing the shaming want someone to jerk off to. They don’t have enough people wax the carrot to, so they expect the whole world to look like sex statues. So that’s it, huh? If I were to go to the gym and exercise my ass off until I was 200 lbs, my biggest reward would be people jerking off to me? Gee, thanks a lot.
Another excuse fat shamers like to use to do what they do is that they’re concerned for their target’s health. So let me get this straight: you’re worried they might die from a heart attack or a stroke, so you insult them until they feel suicidal? Great logic. Great fucking logic. If you’re legitimately concerned about a fat guy’s health, cheer them on, don’t insult them. That drill instructor logic will get you five knuckles of death right in the fucking jaw.
So, the primary excuses people have for making fun of fat people are not enough wanking material and fake health concerns. I thought that would have been the end of it. And then Bill Maher closes an episode of Real Time with one of the most disgusting monologues I’ve heard in a long while. He chastised publications like The Huffington Post for promoting body positivity because obesity is supposed to be a disease, not a fashion trend. It’s one thing for him to make fat jokes about guys like Donald Trump, Chris Christie, and Rush Limbaugh, because those three are bona fide assholes. But to generalize the argument to include everyday people? Unbelievable.
Imagine if the wrong person were to see that kind of message on TV. Maybe it’s a fat guy in high school being bullied by jocks. Maybe it’s a binge-eating fat woman with low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. No less than a week after doing an ending monologue about Republicans being trolls, Bill Maher became a troll himself to the entire obese population. He was already on my shit list for telling his audience how to dress and bitching about superhero movies and fast-paced novels. Those things I can deal with. But after that night of fat shaming, I have to reconsider my fandom for Mr. Maher. Yes, he and I are both proud liberals with a strong sense of zeal, but is he really fighting for someone like me with his show?
On one hand, I understand the health risks of being overweight. I know this, because there were times when I’d get winded climbing the stairs. I would come home from walks to the convenience store dripping with sweat like a fire hydrant. I have sleep apnea that isn’t always cured with my CPAP. The fact that I even have a CPAP says a lot about the state of my body. Am I the healthiest person on earth? Not really. But that doesn’t mean I have to feel like shit because of it. There are worse things in this world than being fat, such as being evil, stupid, shallow, obnoxious, and hateful among other negative qualities.
In the end, the only one who has the right to an opinion of your body is you yourself. If you like the way you look, good for you. If you don’t, do something about it. But if you are going to do something about it, make sure you have the final say. It’s your body, after all. Making diet and exercise choices shouldn’t be taken lightly and shouldn’t be because of coercion or insults. Surround yourself with people who embody a positive state of mind. They’re the ones who will help you through your body issues, not the jerk-offs and trolls. Somebody out there loves you and hopefully you love yourself too. We’ve got ears, say cheers!
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
Two days ago, I finally pumped out “Wolf’s Cannonball”, the martial arts retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. The next character from that story to be drawn will be Little Red Sniper. I ordered some red colored pencils from Amazon and I might wait for them to get here before I get started on this drawing. I might have other variations of red in my collection, I just have to look for them.
***BOOK REVIEW***
I only have a little over a hundred pages left to read from Chris Jericho’s third memoir “The Best in the World: At What I Have No Idea”. I would have made some progress on it today, but I was feeling the blahs as far as creativity went. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a more energetic day. I plan on giving this book the same grade I gave to Chris Jericho’s first two memoirs: four stars out of five. He’s witty, he’s to-the-point, he’s entertaining…what more could I ask for out of a pro-wrestler turned author?
***JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: What did Barack Obama say to the Republican Party in 2012?
A: Damn Mitt!
August 22, 2017
Wolf's Cannonball
Little Red skipped and hopped through the forest with a wicker picnic basket in hand and a sunshine smile on her face. Her red cloak and hood flapped like a flag in the morning wind while goose bumps formed on her arms from the chilly weather. After a lengthy summer of boiling hot weather, a gentle breeze was most certainly welcome. By the time Red reached the top of the hill, she gazed into the distance with a star-struck expression and said, “My, what big eyes you have! You dead bastard!”
Her innocent aura was replaced with a menacing scowl as she pulled the hood over her face and knelt down to unload her picnic basket. Instead of delicious treats for grandma, Red pulled out pieces of a sniper rifle and assembled them with military quickness. She laid on her stomach and peered through the scope to acquire her target. Even with so many trees standing in her way, the target was as clear as the morning weather. “That bounty money is as good as mine, motherfucker!” she said with a sadistic grin.
Within Little Red Sniper’s crosshairs was the Big Bad Wolf himself, the hairy beast moving gracefully with martial arts movements. Every spin kick and palm strike would have made the legendary Bruce Lee proud. One of his spin kicks managed to slice one of the trees down. The thunderous crash to the ground made Little Red Sniper giggle and shake her head. “Pathetic. That’s what it is,” she said under her breath. “All that kung fu BS won’t mean a damn thing with a bullet in your head.”
After performing his kata, the Big Bad Wolf stood still and breathed intensely to relax his body while he spread his palms out. This wasn’t the kind of breath that could huff and puff and blow somebody’s house down, but it did let Little Red know that he worked hard to perfect his craft despite her unimpressed stare through the scope. The innocent-looking sniper focused her crosshairs right between Wolfie’s eyes and she took the perfect shot.
As the thunderous blast rang out through the forest, Little Red Sniper got up and celebrated her perfect shot with arm swinging dances and moonwalk shuffles. She giggled as she peered through the sniper scope to see just how badly Wolfie’s head exploded. “No fucking way,” she said to herself. “This is some sugar frosted bullshit!”
Wolfie had caught the bullet with his fangs and spit it out like chewed bubblegum. Instead of splattered brains, all she got was a tiny trickle of blood running down his furry chin. The martial arts genius’s deadly grin showed a dark side of him that the public was used to seeing. Even Little Red had been quivering in her boots upon seeing such a vicious expression.
With her rifle still concentrated on the Big Bad Wolf, Little Red slowly backed away while stuttering uh’s repeatedly. The further she backed away, the closer Wolfie got as he power walked across the forest to go in for the kill. Little Red kept backing away until she bumped into a muscular figure behind her and dropped to her knees, losing her rifle in the process.
When Little Red reached over shakily to pick up her weapon, she felt a death grip around the nape of her neck as it yanked her off the ground kicking and screaming. “Put me down, you big oaf! I’ll pop your head open once I get my rifle!” she threatened.
The massive hand turned her around and now she was face to face with yet another razor sharp mouth and bloodlust glare. The orange flannel shirt, the baggy blue jeans, the black combat boots, and the blood-covered axe, not to mention the filthy green skin: they all spelled the presence of Hacksaw the grumpy lumberjack. The orc leaned his face closer to Red’s and said in a throaty voice, “You ain’t gonna do shit!” before tossing her aside easier than a beach ball.
After Little Red bounced off of a tree stump, Hacksaw kicked the sniper rifle away into the nearby bushes while the Big Bad Wolf leapt onto the battlefield with grace and dexterity. Wolfie did some marital arts punches and tornado kicks in the air to warm himself up, but only received a belly laugh from an indifferent Hacksaw. “You think any of that shit’s going to matter once I chop your goddamn head off?” he mockingly asked. “I don’t give a damn about your big bad reputation; that money is mine!”
Hacksaw charged at Wolfie and swung his axe like a barbarian possessed by eye-bulging rage. While that battle was going on, Little Red wiped the dirt out of her eyes and slowly crawled towards the bushes where her sniper rifle was kicked. “Almost there…” she said weakly before Hacksaw accidentally stepped on her hand and made it sound like he walked on packing peanuts.
“Yeouch!” hollered Little Red as she pulled her hand out and felt it pulsate with redness like she was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. “Watch where you’re stepping, you giant sack of turds!”
Hacksaw grabbed Little Red by her crunchy wrist and slammed her against Wolfie, sending him flying backwards against a tree, which crackled and smashed upon impact. After tossing Little Red aside once again, Hacksaw raised his axe to the sky and shouted, “Yes! That bounty money’s mine! Ha-ha! I did it! Woo!”
Little Red once again attempted to crawl towards her weapon, broken hand and all. This time she was sure she would retrieve it. It was inches away from her good fingertips. Victory would be hers and bullets would fly everywhere in this god forsaken forest. Her fingertips were on the barrel when she felt a hard boot come down across her spinal cord. She yelped in pain and howled like a puppy while Hacksaw pulled her up by her blond locks.
“I’ve had just about all I can stand of you, you crazy bitch!” grunted Hacksaw with his axe raised in the air. “All I wanted was a nice beachside vacation for my family and you’re out here trying to take that shit away from me! That pretty little head of yours is coming off today!”
Little Red spit out blood and protested, “Beachside vacation?! You’re doing all of this to get sand in your ass?! My grandmother has cancer, for god’s sake! Hell, there are lots of guys out there who need that bounty money more than you do! There will always be time to get salt water in your nose and sand in your G-string! My grandmother has six weeks to live! I need this money, damn it!”
“Ah, who cares about that old hag?!” grumbled Hacksaw. “She would have been dead even if she didn’t have cancer! She’s probably so old that she has Jesus on speed dial!”
“So this is it, huh?” said a familiar grunting voice. Once Hacksaw recognized it as an arm-folded Big Bad Wolf, he released his grip on Little Red and allowed her to scoot away while holding her lower back. Wolfie continued with, “You two are finally going to be the ones who take me to jail for a crime I didn’t commit? Of course they’re going to pin it on me. I’m a fucking wolf! Never mind that the two of you are killing each other over some ill-gotten reward. Never mind that children go missing every day around here. Never mind that not one body was found out in these woods. Not one fucking body!”
A beat of silence befell the bounty hunters as their expressions softened and their shoulders slacked. Wolfie wasn’t done yet. “I know how the so-called justice system works. It can’t be called justice at all. The guy with the sharpest teeth and the martial arts skills is automatically guilty despite there being no fucking evidence of any crime. How dare you judge me based on a fake reputation! How dare you come at me looking for a shallow reward! If I wanted to waste my time with you guys, both of you would be dead as fried chicken by now!”
Wolfie stroked his chin and as a light bulb went off in his head. “Come to think of it, there is one technique I’d like to try, but it might actually kill me, it’s so powerful. I’ve been working on it for years. If I could get it right, both of you would be dead ass motherfuckers and I could finally live in peace. Yeah, that sounds about right…I call it the Wolf’s Cannonball!”
Holding her hands up in defeat, Little Red pleaded, “Now listen, Wolfie-Pie: you don’t need to do that shit. Both of us will get out of here and leave you alone. Hell, we’ll probably start a petition to get that bounty off your head. Right, Hacksaw?”
“Wolf’s Cannonball, my ass! I ain’t gonna help him with a damn thing! He needs to die and if you’re too much of a sissy to collect that bounty, I’m going to do it!” shouted Hacksaw as he charged at Wolfie with his axe yet again despite Little Red’s protests.
In defense the Big Bad Wolf backed up Hacksaw by curling into a ball and spinning in the air with mystic blue energy surrounding him. Little Red crawled on the ground like a snail while Hacksaw tripped over everything in fear until he was on his knees crouching into the fetal position. The faster Wolfie spun in the air, the wider the blue energy spread and the tighter Little Red and Hacksaw clutched their prone bodies. In a moment of desperation, the two hunters even hugged each other knowing their financial wishes wouldn’t come true and their lives would be over.
In a blinding flash of blue light, a jet engine wooshing noise flew past Little Red Sniper and Hacksaw and had them screaming like torture victims in hell. They screamed even louder as their skin boiled and their hairs stood up. The energy got hotter and the light was bright enough to damage eyes worse than a solar eclipse. And then…total darkness. All that remained of Little Red and Hacksaw’s pain were migraine-sized headaches and pulsating eyeballs.
“You can let go of me now, Hacksaw,” said Little Red Sniper in a sheepish voice. The orc lumberjack obeyed and the two of them slowly rose to their feet while dusting themselves off. Once Little Red popped her spine back into place, she and Hacksaw saw that the Wolf’s Cannonball had left a deep trail beneath them and that trail was leading into the city. They could see the castle from here as it exploded into a bright blue fire before being sucked up in a gigantic energy beam blasting into the sky.
“So that’s the Wolf’s Cannonball. He didn’t want to use it on a couple of bounty hunters. He wanted to take down the justice system. Eh, makes sense,” said Little Red with shrugged shoulders.
“I bet that castle as a shit load of gold in it somewhere. Government buildings usually do. There’s probably enough in there for both of us to get what we want,” said Hacksaw.
“Are you suggesting that we loot the castle?” asked Little Red in minor shock. Once Hacksaw smiled and winked at her, she smiled back and said, “For the first time in my life, I like the way you think!”
The two bounty hunters wrapped their arms around each other and walked from the scene. Hacksaw asked, “Don’t you want your sniper rifle?”
“Meh. I’ll just buy a new one. Maybe I’ll get a rocket launcher, who knows?” said Little Red nonchalantly.
“I also like the way you think!”
Her innocent aura was replaced with a menacing scowl as she pulled the hood over her face and knelt down to unload her picnic basket. Instead of delicious treats for grandma, Red pulled out pieces of a sniper rifle and assembled them with military quickness. She laid on her stomach and peered through the scope to acquire her target. Even with so many trees standing in her way, the target was as clear as the morning weather. “That bounty money is as good as mine, motherfucker!” she said with a sadistic grin.
Within Little Red Sniper’s crosshairs was the Big Bad Wolf himself, the hairy beast moving gracefully with martial arts movements. Every spin kick and palm strike would have made the legendary Bruce Lee proud. One of his spin kicks managed to slice one of the trees down. The thunderous crash to the ground made Little Red Sniper giggle and shake her head. “Pathetic. That’s what it is,” she said under her breath. “All that kung fu BS won’t mean a damn thing with a bullet in your head.”
After performing his kata, the Big Bad Wolf stood still and breathed intensely to relax his body while he spread his palms out. This wasn’t the kind of breath that could huff and puff and blow somebody’s house down, but it did let Little Red know that he worked hard to perfect his craft despite her unimpressed stare through the scope. The innocent-looking sniper focused her crosshairs right between Wolfie’s eyes and she took the perfect shot.
As the thunderous blast rang out through the forest, Little Red Sniper got up and celebrated her perfect shot with arm swinging dances and moonwalk shuffles. She giggled as she peered through the sniper scope to see just how badly Wolfie’s head exploded. “No fucking way,” she said to herself. “This is some sugar frosted bullshit!”
Wolfie had caught the bullet with his fangs and spit it out like chewed bubblegum. Instead of splattered brains, all she got was a tiny trickle of blood running down his furry chin. The martial arts genius’s deadly grin showed a dark side of him that the public was used to seeing. Even Little Red had been quivering in her boots upon seeing such a vicious expression.
With her rifle still concentrated on the Big Bad Wolf, Little Red slowly backed away while stuttering uh’s repeatedly. The further she backed away, the closer Wolfie got as he power walked across the forest to go in for the kill. Little Red kept backing away until she bumped into a muscular figure behind her and dropped to her knees, losing her rifle in the process.
When Little Red reached over shakily to pick up her weapon, she felt a death grip around the nape of her neck as it yanked her off the ground kicking and screaming. “Put me down, you big oaf! I’ll pop your head open once I get my rifle!” she threatened.
The massive hand turned her around and now she was face to face with yet another razor sharp mouth and bloodlust glare. The orange flannel shirt, the baggy blue jeans, the black combat boots, and the blood-covered axe, not to mention the filthy green skin: they all spelled the presence of Hacksaw the grumpy lumberjack. The orc leaned his face closer to Red’s and said in a throaty voice, “You ain’t gonna do shit!” before tossing her aside easier than a beach ball.
After Little Red bounced off of a tree stump, Hacksaw kicked the sniper rifle away into the nearby bushes while the Big Bad Wolf leapt onto the battlefield with grace and dexterity. Wolfie did some marital arts punches and tornado kicks in the air to warm himself up, but only received a belly laugh from an indifferent Hacksaw. “You think any of that shit’s going to matter once I chop your goddamn head off?” he mockingly asked. “I don’t give a damn about your big bad reputation; that money is mine!”
Hacksaw charged at Wolfie and swung his axe like a barbarian possessed by eye-bulging rage. While that battle was going on, Little Red wiped the dirt out of her eyes and slowly crawled towards the bushes where her sniper rifle was kicked. “Almost there…” she said weakly before Hacksaw accidentally stepped on her hand and made it sound like he walked on packing peanuts.
“Yeouch!” hollered Little Red as she pulled her hand out and felt it pulsate with redness like she was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. “Watch where you’re stepping, you giant sack of turds!”
Hacksaw grabbed Little Red by her crunchy wrist and slammed her against Wolfie, sending him flying backwards against a tree, which crackled and smashed upon impact. After tossing Little Red aside once again, Hacksaw raised his axe to the sky and shouted, “Yes! That bounty money’s mine! Ha-ha! I did it! Woo!”
Little Red once again attempted to crawl towards her weapon, broken hand and all. This time she was sure she would retrieve it. It was inches away from her good fingertips. Victory would be hers and bullets would fly everywhere in this god forsaken forest. Her fingertips were on the barrel when she felt a hard boot come down across her spinal cord. She yelped in pain and howled like a puppy while Hacksaw pulled her up by her blond locks.
“I’ve had just about all I can stand of you, you crazy bitch!” grunted Hacksaw with his axe raised in the air. “All I wanted was a nice beachside vacation for my family and you’re out here trying to take that shit away from me! That pretty little head of yours is coming off today!”
Little Red spit out blood and protested, “Beachside vacation?! You’re doing all of this to get sand in your ass?! My grandmother has cancer, for god’s sake! Hell, there are lots of guys out there who need that bounty money more than you do! There will always be time to get salt water in your nose and sand in your G-string! My grandmother has six weeks to live! I need this money, damn it!”
“Ah, who cares about that old hag?!” grumbled Hacksaw. “She would have been dead even if she didn’t have cancer! She’s probably so old that she has Jesus on speed dial!”
“So this is it, huh?” said a familiar grunting voice. Once Hacksaw recognized it as an arm-folded Big Bad Wolf, he released his grip on Little Red and allowed her to scoot away while holding her lower back. Wolfie continued with, “You two are finally going to be the ones who take me to jail for a crime I didn’t commit? Of course they’re going to pin it on me. I’m a fucking wolf! Never mind that the two of you are killing each other over some ill-gotten reward. Never mind that children go missing every day around here. Never mind that not one body was found out in these woods. Not one fucking body!”
A beat of silence befell the bounty hunters as their expressions softened and their shoulders slacked. Wolfie wasn’t done yet. “I know how the so-called justice system works. It can’t be called justice at all. The guy with the sharpest teeth and the martial arts skills is automatically guilty despite there being no fucking evidence of any crime. How dare you judge me based on a fake reputation! How dare you come at me looking for a shallow reward! If I wanted to waste my time with you guys, both of you would be dead as fried chicken by now!”
Wolfie stroked his chin and as a light bulb went off in his head. “Come to think of it, there is one technique I’d like to try, but it might actually kill me, it’s so powerful. I’ve been working on it for years. If I could get it right, both of you would be dead ass motherfuckers and I could finally live in peace. Yeah, that sounds about right…I call it the Wolf’s Cannonball!”
Holding her hands up in defeat, Little Red pleaded, “Now listen, Wolfie-Pie: you don’t need to do that shit. Both of us will get out of here and leave you alone. Hell, we’ll probably start a petition to get that bounty off your head. Right, Hacksaw?”
“Wolf’s Cannonball, my ass! I ain’t gonna help him with a damn thing! He needs to die and if you’re too much of a sissy to collect that bounty, I’m going to do it!” shouted Hacksaw as he charged at Wolfie with his axe yet again despite Little Red’s protests.
In defense the Big Bad Wolf backed up Hacksaw by curling into a ball and spinning in the air with mystic blue energy surrounding him. Little Red crawled on the ground like a snail while Hacksaw tripped over everything in fear until he was on his knees crouching into the fetal position. The faster Wolfie spun in the air, the wider the blue energy spread and the tighter Little Red and Hacksaw clutched their prone bodies. In a moment of desperation, the two hunters even hugged each other knowing their financial wishes wouldn’t come true and their lives would be over.
In a blinding flash of blue light, a jet engine wooshing noise flew past Little Red Sniper and Hacksaw and had them screaming like torture victims in hell. They screamed even louder as their skin boiled and their hairs stood up. The energy got hotter and the light was bright enough to damage eyes worse than a solar eclipse. And then…total darkness. All that remained of Little Red and Hacksaw’s pain were migraine-sized headaches and pulsating eyeballs.
“You can let go of me now, Hacksaw,” said Little Red Sniper in a sheepish voice. The orc lumberjack obeyed and the two of them slowly rose to their feet while dusting themselves off. Once Little Red popped her spine back into place, she and Hacksaw saw that the Wolf’s Cannonball had left a deep trail beneath them and that trail was leading into the city. They could see the castle from here as it exploded into a bright blue fire before being sucked up in a gigantic energy beam blasting into the sky.
“So that’s the Wolf’s Cannonball. He didn’t want to use it on a couple of bounty hunters. He wanted to take down the justice system. Eh, makes sense,” said Little Red with shrugged shoulders.
“I bet that castle as a shit load of gold in it somewhere. Government buildings usually do. There’s probably enough in there for both of us to get what we want,” said Hacksaw.
“Are you suggesting that we loot the castle?” asked Little Red in minor shock. Once Hacksaw smiled and winked at her, she smiled back and said, “For the first time in my life, I like the way you think!”
The two bounty hunters wrapped their arms around each other and walked from the scene. Hacksaw asked, “Don’t you want your sniper rifle?”
“Meh. I’ll just buy a new one. Maybe I’ll get a rocket launcher, who knows?” said Little Red nonchalantly.
“I also like the way you think!”
