Doctor Mongoloid sat on the uncomfortable wooden bench and glared menacingly at the other people in the park. “Insipid ignorance, piles of shit the lot of them...” he mused out loud. “Running around trying to tongue-jack their own shit-boxes...” A child’s wayward Frisbee landed unceremoniously at his feet. He kicked it away and sneered. “People are just inflammations, festering boils on the great ass of the world.” Dr. Mongoloid leaned back and started rubbing his hands together lecherously. “Soon though, soon enough... My orbital sterilization ray will be complete. Oh yes, oh yes, then all of the plodding failures that call themselves the Human Race will weep and bleed and stop laughing at me...” The doctor’s eyes wandered over to another child, crying and pointing at the scoop of ice cream melting on the sidewalk. Doctor Mongoloid stood up languidly and sauntered over to the child, smiling like a rabid dog on amphetamines. “Poor fool. I’ll give something to cry about. How about when your daddy paste dispenser fires pitiful poisoned wads of sheer impotence! How bitter will those tears taste, eh? Fuck your caramel peanut ripple, dying its slow and deserved death! I will space rape your sperm!” The wasps were unmercifully stinging the couple. The syringe of atrophene was twenty feet away. The dosage was only enough to save one of them. “Will they do what it takes to survive?” the jovial baritone boomed from overhead. The man brought himself to his hands and knees, pausing to acclimate himself to the burning pain. The woman grabbed his ankle forcibly and pulled him down to the ground. She dragged herself forward, inch by slow inch. Her neck craned to her opponent. He was gaining on her. She rotated herself and made her way towards him. His confusion did not hinder his progress. She smiled sadly, knowing nothing would ever set this right, as she punched him in the face. He flung himself backwards as she lunged at him. She undid his pants and crawled away. The wasps, excited with the new development, engulfed the man’s bare legs. As he screamed in agony, the seepage of blood, venom, and pain exiting from his new open wounds, she used his pants to lasso the syringe, grabbing it firmly, and forcibly plunging it into her chest. “And that, audience, is how you win one million dollars...” said the jovial baritone voice. It was the cold leeching its way through the bedroom that started it all. He rubbed his feet together under the covers and found that one of his socks was missing. He begrudgingly got up, walked around to the foot of the bed, and hefted the covers up. As the sheet and comforter flapped about his face, the bland bedroom was replaced with a verdant forest. He wasn’t holding his comforter, and more importantly, he wasn’t in his bedroom. A gruff voice weaved its way through the brush. “Anal isn’t a bad word here, my sonny Jim.” The man spun around and couldn’t see whom the voice belonged to. “Down here, you pasty wee boy-tickler.” The man looked down and was surprised to find a troll staring back up at him. “Anal?” asked the man, rather unsure of his current safety. “Aye. The land’s duchess is cursed, y’see. She can clean all she wants, make things sparkle like the stars above, but her crown, y’see?” The troll paused to take in the man’s lack of comprehension. “Her crown is always brown and caked with filth. The kind you dig a hole for in the woods.” The man’s face distorted with disgust. “Aye. Only one way to break the curse.” The man’s mind flickered with thoughts of daring-do and the shiny armor he’d daring-do in. “What’s that?” “All she had to do was be a bit of pleasant to me...” The man’s knighthood flittered away as his heart sank. “...dammit.” “No, you can’t call a baby a cocksucker. No, it doesn’t matter what gender the baby is...” More than priests, I hear confessions. Every shitty thing you wish you said to your boss. Every girl your boyfriend slept with that wasn’t you. Every time you just want to scream “fuck” into the phone as loud as you can. My number is up at bars, college campuses, and doctors’ offices. CALL ME FOR A BAD TIME. I just answer the phone and ask what I did to you. You’ll tell me. You’ll tell me a thing-or-two about a thing-or-two. I pulled the plug on your dying mother. I fucked your brother. I fucked your sister. I got to that first class upgrade before you did. I fired you. Every wretched thing that’s ever happened to you, regardless of your own fault...I did it. Me. Not God or the Devil. Me. I have to drink just to pass out hard enough to not hear the phone that rings at all hours. But if I were to blame someone for where I am today, it’d be me. I am the one that feel in love with her voice when she first called me. I was doing the “I-have-to-piss-like-the-mother-of-twelve-bastards” dance before the Neanderthal in front of me moved out of line to the bathroom. As I walked in to the restroom, the stagnant smells of old urine and new vomit hit me like a hungry prizefighter’s punch. Every surface was wet and, with a fathomless and profound sadness, I hurtled myself into the first empty stall I laid eyes on. I pulled it out of my pants with a blinding speed and a blundering accuracy. I sprayed the seat I forgot to lift up and was struck with the realization of why everything was wet. I gagged slightly. Jenny was waiting impatiently on the outside. No matter how much I willed time, the beer seemed to pass continuously out of me for what I figured was two and a half years. Jenny told me what she had to tell me later that night. By the time she was born seven months later, the Jitterbug Club was condemned, a parking lot and a strip mall with a Fashion Barn and a Starbucks. Sometimes I look at the city and I look back to my daughter and realize they’ll never know each other well. “Goebbel's Favorite Puppy” A furry little head was in the vice as he cranked it closed menacingly. He didn’t care if dogs weren’t Jewish; he was having fun. (132) “Fucked With A Knife” “Just the tip? Please? I’m really good at it. But I love you, don’t you love me? You’d let me if you loved me, and you DO love me right?” (137) “Six Broken Fingers” The doctor stared at the x-ray. “How exactly did you break it again?” Alan dawned a shroud of shame. “I thought the super glue was lotion.” (140)