Homer Simpson vs. Infinite Elgintensity: The Body Positivity We All Need

 

Game of Chicken: Chicago

 

Plot twist: he's actually from Honolulu. Or Los Angeles. Or he's an expatriate living in Mexico City. Or he has a work visa for Calgary.

Maynard from Pulp Fiction vs. Todd Akin (Rest in Piss, Teabagger!)

 

I Like Violence

VERSE 1

Columbian necktie, fuck all the dead guys

Fuck all the victims and their prison bitches

Stick a chainsaw right through your heart

Grab a double-barrel and blast you like a fart

I’m gonna bite your neck and take your head

Give it to your wife like breakfast in bed

Put the rest of your dead ass under the dirt

Wipe your blood on my Pantera shirt

 

CHORUS

I like violence

Because you don’t believe in silence

Running your mouth like verbal diarrhea

This pistol on my shelf gives me a good idea

 

VERSE 2

I’m gonna chop down your family tree

Watch it crash on your ass and make you bleed

Put the rest of your meat over a spit roast

Drink your blood and make a slainte toast

I drink to good health and the big, big money

And a lot of nice days in the hot, hot sunny

I think I overcooked your disgusting skin

But you were always destined for a garbage bin

 

CHORUS

I like violence

Because you don’t believe in silence

Running your mouth like verbal diarrhea

This pistol on my shelf gives me a good idea

 

BRIDGE

Violent nightmares have become wet dreams

The crotch of my pants has burst at the seams

I would have busted it any fucking way

With my jackhammer johnson blasting you away

 

VERSE 3

I’m gonna tie you down and make you sing

Watch you squirm while I’m eating hot wings

Squirt some sauce in your pretty blue eyes

Hold a microphone to your pretty little cries

I’m gonna cut you open, flip you inside-out

Put it all on Tik Tok for years’ worth of clout

Jigsaw ain’t got a thing on me

I ripped his eyes out and made him see

 

EXTENDED CHORUS

I like violence

Because you don’t believe in silence

Running your mouth like verbal diarrhea

This pistol on my shelf gives me a good idea

Blast your brains like you blew a freight train

Explode your chest and set fire to the rest

Am I smoking crack or am I just plain sick?

Let me think about this while I stroke my dick

Where's My Justice?

VERSE 1

I used to believe that karma was real

Until I saw my kitty cat under some guy’s wheel

Driver might be partying with chicks and drugs

While his mortal sin was swept under the rug

They say to just let God do his little thing

Assuming he’s not purchased by the far right-wing

They say the best revenge is living well

But I’d rather bust his gut with a shotgun shell

CHORUS 1

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my justice?

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my mercy?

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my justice?

Yeah! Yeah! The gods curse me!

VERSE 2

Justice is only for those with fat banks

And a trillion dollars worth of army tanks

And brainwashed lawyers who’ll shine their shoes

And broadcast their ass-kissing all over the news

CHORUS 2

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my justice?

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s comeuppance?

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my justice?

Yeah! Yeah! There’s no substance!

BRIDGE

When you try to find justice without a badge

By pulling your own trigger, killing them in a flash

They put you in a cage and say it’s all your fault

Because you couldn’t pick the lock on the money vault

When you write a bad check to the justice man

They take away your house so you can live in a camp

It’s just the way the universe is wired to work

Sorry if you don’t have a way to go berserk

CHORUS 3

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my justice?

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my payback?

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my justice?

Yeah! Yeah! There’s no way back!

American dreams are for those who sleep

Forget counting them, you’re already a sheep

You can wake up an emotional wreck and upset

Yeah! Yeah! Where’s my justice?

Hardcore Hershel

HARDCORE HERSHEL

Get off my lawn or I’ll bury your keister

Explode your noggin like the eggs of Easter

One shell from my shotgun is all it takes

Go and get a job, you millennial snake!

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Calm your ass down, Mr. Hardcore Hershel

You’re sounding like an NRA commercial

I’m just walking along and enjoying the view

Stop being afraid of everything that’s new

HARDCORE HERSHEL

This gun’s been in my family since a million BC

I’ll be damned if it’s taken away by Washington DC

I’ll be damned if you come here looking for a handout

Original Go Fund Me was being a working class standout

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Pump those damn brakes, Mr. Badass Billy

Too much Fox News is making you sound silly

I’ll be on my way if you take your aim off me

If you do, nobody will think of you as a softy

HARDCORE HERSHEL

I forgot what the hell I was jibber-jabbering about

Something about your generation doing dumb shit for clout

Eating Tide Pods and putting Gorilla Glue in your hair

I’d never do those things because I’ve got a brain to spare

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Take it nice and easy, Mr. Army Man Arthur

There’s no reason to make your heart work harder

Not all of us are like that, perhaps none of us are

Your brain is being washed by Boomer Bill Maher

HARDCORE HERSHEL

I fought in every war that this country has waged

I’ve earned my right to bask in my elderly age

Knowing that you kids will inherit this world

Makes me want to double over and unleash some hurl

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Slow the fuck down, Mr. Bullet Bubba-Bob

You can’t live forever whether you like it or not

Just raise the minimum wage and forget my age

Let someone else have the spotlight on the stage

HARDCORE HERSHEL

You’ll have to pry this gun from my cold dead hands

You’ll have to spray my red blood across the land

When was the last time you fought a war in the sands?

I’m the king of the hill and you don’t stand a chance

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t want any trouble

And for you that goes double, Mr. Barney Rubble

BOOM!

HARDCORE HERSHEL

The world is mine! The world is all mine, you whippersnapper!

HEART ATTACK NOISES

FINAL LINE

And this, boys and girls, is why we can’t have nice things. The end!

This Is Extreme

VERSE 1

Shotgun blast for calling me a name

All the drunkards get hit by a train

Every drill sergeant steps on a mine

Every mean teacher battered into slime

This is extreme! This is too much!

Using violence as my favorite crutch

This is extreme! This is excessive!

Victory is mine, I’m feeling possessive

This! Is! Extreme!

This! Is! Extreme!

VERSE 2

A hundred lashes for naughty kids

A thousand more is what we did

Drop a bomb on a town full of bullies

Their undies get drenched and sullied

This is extreme! This is illegal!

A jail sentence will be the sequel

This is extreme! This is disgusting!

More cathartic than endless cussing

This! Is! Extreme!

This! Is! Extreme!

BRIDGE

I dream of extreme every night

I cream at extreme, it feels right

I dream of self-esteem I could never have

I scream for extreme when shit gets bad

VERSE 3

Kick to your head for pushing and shoving

Attack your family, the ones you’re loving

Head butts for you until my brain explodes

I smile as I watch the bloody river flow

This is extreme! Get some damn help!

None of this is worth an eternity in hell

This is extreme! Get some therapy!

Talk about things that are embarrassing

This! Is! Extreme!

This! Is! Extreme!

Crippled

“Where the hell is the goddamn delivery boy?” asked Joe Herzog as she laid in bed with ice on her swollen knee. The ice did a tremendous job of numbing her pain. Getting pissed off over a late breakfast burrito did not, as evidenced by her hissing noise. “Why does the damn tournament have to be a week away? This is horseshit! All that work for nothing!” She pounded her mattress and sent another jolt through her leg. “Damn it!”

Figuring it wasn’t a good idea to wait in bed for the delivery boy, Joe wrapped her knee in a heavy black bandage and hobbled out of the bedroom wearing just a white T-shirt and blue sleeping shorts. Every hop had her mumbling, “Ouch!” in a low, grumpy voice. Anybody who made it to the finals of a martial arts tournament only to go down with an injury would be grumpy as well.

Her tiny gnome body made looking at her hallway of trophies and medals a chore. Twisting her neck backwards just to look at second place accolades made her shake her head in disgust. “This is bullshit…this is fucking bullshit…” She resumed mumbling, “Ouch!” as she hobbled down the hall of shame and into the living room.

Resting across her tree stump table was a blue karate dress, one she wouldn’t be wearing again for a long time. Joe wiped away a singular tear with her finger before hobbling and cursing towards the table. “I should probably just set this damn thing on fire. Besides which, who the hell wears a dress into combat? It ain’t like…” She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror and frowned at what she perceived to be a lack of beauty. Joe sighed and sat down on her eiderdown couch. “I’ll get rid of that damn dress some other time. Goddamn knee injury…”

All Joe wanted to do was close her eyes and relax until her food got here. The throbbing and pulsating of her knee kept her eyes wide open no matter how comfortable she tried to make herself. And then…there was a knock on the door. More like a feverous pounding that got louder every time Joe tried to ignore it. “That better be my food or else I’m jamming this good for nothing leg up someone’s ass.”

The pounding of both Joe’s heart and front door resumed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” She hobbled over to the rune-covered entrance, where the pounding grated on her ears some more. “I said I’m coming, damn it! This better be good!” Reaching for the doorknob on her tippy-toes, she almost fell over as she swung the door wide open. “It’s about damn time! Uh-oh…”

It wasn’t a delivery boy. The only food this man was carrying was in his wide gut, about three hundred pounds worth. The scaly orange skin, the dragon-like face, the rotund frame, and the jeans held up by suspenders. A cold sweat broke out over Joe’s face as she fell backwards, giving her a better view of “The Chiropractor” Bargon Sevili. The moniker was silly to her until she remembered that amateur wrestling was his strong suit. She swallowed a lump and said, “Bargon…wha…what are you doing here? The finals aren’t until next week.”

Bargon leaned his drooling face down and said in a deep, raspy voice, “Yes, I know!” He slathered his tongue across his already slimy lips. “Sweet gee-nee girl! Lovable midget pie! Love muffin! Come here and let me…”

Joe screamed in terror before he could finish his cutesy-wutesy sentence. She scrambled to get back up on one leg, but kept falling over and sending more shockwaves through her crippled knee. Her clutches and whiny screams didn’t earn enough sympathy from Bargon to get him to wipe his smile off of his face. In fact, his deafening footsteps on the stone floor made Joe’s head throb worse than her knee.

Instead of trying to get up, Joe crawled across her filthy stone floor using just her elbows to drag her little body. Bargon took his sweet time in approaching his opponent, though the thudding of his boots didn’t help in giving Joe any comfort. She crawled so quickly that cuts and bruises formed on her arms. She swung her bedroom door open and crawled some more.

With adrenaline flooding her system like a biblical disaster, she endured even more scrapes as she hurried over to her wooden chest. She nearly popped her arm out of her socket reaching for the latch, but open it she did. Joe stood up on both legs, her sense of urgency allowing her to numb out her knee pain. The faster she dug through her belongings, the louder the footsteps pounded. Her hands shook as she fiddled with a metal object and some tiny shells.

She loaded the shells into her single barrel shotgun as fast as she could, though not without having to pick them up after dropping them repeatedly. “Guess who, sugar britches!” Bargon taunted in his saccharine ogre voice. Joe didn’t give a shit about her knee anymore. She stood terra firma in the center of her room locked and loaded, her bruised arms still trembling with fear.

The minute Bargon kicked the door open and said, “Ta-da!”, Joe pulled the trigger. She needed this easy victory over someone who was supposed to wait until next week to fight her. She needed to be in first place for once in her life. But the shotgun jammed and blew her backwards, sending her crashing through her glass window and into the grass. Shards ripped at her flesh. Her arms were embedded with glass. Her knee pain flared up to infernal levels. Little droplets of blood stained the grass beneath her. She whined and cried like the second place loser she was.

Even on soft grass and dirt, Bargon’s footsteps grew more obnoxious the closer he got to his victim. He had to squeeze his wide ass through the broken window, but he arrived at his destination all the same. He held the shotgun over Joe’s blood-covered face and snapped it over his knee. He discarded the broken pieces and dusted his hands off like it was nothing. Leaning his head down so that he could be eye-level with Joe, he said, “Give me your knee, you sweet piece of pumpkin pie!”

“Oh god…Oh my god…Please, just get it over with. Anywhere but the knee. Literally anywhere else!”

Despite Joe’s pathetic begging, Bargon indeed grabbed her by the injured leg, causing her to cry out in agony. After picking off a few pieces of glass and getting even more ocular juices out of Joe, he asked, “Are you ready, little darling?”

“…As ready as I’ll ever be…” whimpered Joe as she covered her face with her scarred arms.

“Good, because this is going to hurt like a bitch!” Bargon made good on his promise. He yanked on the injured leg and had Joe yelling in a high pitched, demonic tone.

It did hurt like a bitch. It was the most agonizing thing Joe had been through. But the best part about it? It only hurt for a few seconds. And then the pain was gone. Was she in heaven? Was St. Peter already opening the pearly gates for her? No, she was still on planet earth outside her home. She uncovered her face and wiggled her leg. No pain. She knew the injury was still there, but she didn’t feel like dying afterwards. “You…you really are a chiropractor? Um…uh…thanks?”

Bargon grabbed Joe by her shirt and leaned in so that they were nose-to-nose. His breath radiated with skunk odors, probably due to him not brushing his fangs in a long time. “I don’t need your thanks, Joey-Bowie. All I need from you is to be one hundred percent in the finals next week. That way, when I beat the living piss out of you, there’ll be no excuses. No knee injuries, no glass shards, no bullshit. If you lose to me and get second place again, you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself. You got it?” He threw her against the grass and said, “See you next week, sugar plum” before blowing her a kiss and walking away.

Any gratitude Joe felt for her opponent twisted in the wind when she noticed a foil-wrapped burrito sticking out of his back pocket. “Hey! That’s my breakfast, you asshole!”

Bargon pulled the burrito out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and took a massive bite out of it. With a full mouth, he said, “It’s my breakfast now! Besides, if you want to beat me in the finals and be a winner for the first time in your mediocre career, you’ve got to eat better than this. You’re getting a little chunky around the belly. See you soon!”

As the demonic ogre walked away, Joe clenched her fists and stood up, her knee staying pain free the entire time. She wasn’t thinking about burning her karate dress anymore. She wasn’t looking at her second place accolades with scorn. After a morning like this one, Joe Herzog had all the motivation she could ever want. She would train as hard as she damn well could. She would pump more iron, run more laps, and beat the training bag like it owed her a breakfast burrito.

With her muscles bulging and the shaky adrenaline morphing into raw anger, Joe shouted out, “You should have killed me when you had the chance, you fat pig! I’m not just going to beat you in the finals! I’m going to destroy your career! You hear me, Bargon Sevili?! You’re a dead motherfucker!” Joe raised her fists to the sky and let out a primal scream to anyone who would listen, letting them know that motivation was not an issue anymore.

Masticators of the Universe

“Eat well, my pretties. Dinner is on me,” said Lara Spider with a grin as her tarantulas munched on potato chips like wild dogs. She could understand the trepidation of the fellow customers around her in the Brew Pub that night. Grown men inching away from her. Grown women twisting their faces in disgust. To be honest, the solitude was alright with her. If it meant no sloppy jowled, beer breathed man was going to hit on her in public, so be it. She even kissed one of her tarantulas and said, “I love you all so dearly.”

Lara didn’t even feel bad about her appearance that evening, nor should she ever have to be. A pretty pink dress made from the finest layers of silk, high heeled shoes that she slid her bare feet in and out of, and flowing chocolate colored hair that looked as delicious as the actual dessert. But once those spiders crawled around her table, she felt safe enough to be bare naked if she wanted to be, which she didn’t. “Looks like it’s just us tonight,” she said with a dainty smile.

The tarantulas scurried and sprawled into her dress once everyone the sounds of vomit-like coughing and snot gurgling erupted over the pub. “Oh no, not him again,” whispered Lara. Such wishful thinking never came to light. Bursting through the front door smelling like blood-flavored whiskey and pus-scented perfume was Tor Vemola, the bastard son of the once prominent celebrity family, the Vemola Dynasty. His blond hair covered in sewage, his blue skin ripped and shredded, his clothes disheveled and moldy, if he wasn’t royalty, he could have easily passed as a bum on the streets. “At least the bums need the money more than he does,” Lara thought to herself.

Those disgusted sentiments echoed among the pub customers, each of them backing away and holding napkins over their mouths and noises, making just as sickening noises as Tor did before skulking in the establishment. “Bunch of fucking drama queens! Har-har-har!” snorted Tor before gagging on his own snot yet again.

The young barmaid slowly approached him and struggled to get her words out as her lips trembled. “Um…what can I…get you…today?”

“I want two big fat breasts!” bellowed Tor, which caused everyone’s eyes to shoot up in horror.

“Um…pardon me?” squeaked the barmaid.

“You heard me! I said I want two big fat chicken breasts! I’m an American, I can eat big fat breasts if I want!”

“Oh, uh…hehe…chicken breasts, of course…we actually have some coming out of the oven right now…let me go check on them.”

Before she could leave, Tor grabbed her by the wrist and burst out, “Wait a minute! Aren’t you going to ask what I want to drink?”

“Uh…I think you’ve had enough to drink already, Mr. Vemola.” The zombie-like creature growled at her before she said, “You know what? Here, have some beer. Heh…” She poured him a pitcher of golden ale as fast as she could before hurrying to check on the status of the chicken breasts…or look for an exit, either one.

Tor took a long liquidly snort of the beer and Lara’s insides grumbled like a machine as she held her hand to her mouth. She could feel her dinner rising to the surface when the creature guzzled his beer and made throat noises like a double bass drum solo. Within seconds, the beverage was swimming and sloshing in his gut loudly enough for everyone to hear. Some patrons got up and left, making throaty noises of their own. Not Lara. She sat at her table and watched this piggish man with cruel intentions.

The barmaid hurried to the counter with a plate full of chicken legs as big as telephone poles. She giggled nervously and said, “Enjoy your meal…Mister…Vemola…” He tried to grab her wrist to ask for something else, but she hurried out the door screaming in sheer terror.

“Wonder what that bitch’s problem is,” barked Tor, much to Lara’s cringing disgust. If she thought she was in an unappetizing mood before, she finally had the misfortune of listening to Tor chomping away at fried chicken and smacking his lips together as hard as he humanly could.

Lara believed the next time she opened her mouth would be the last time anything of substance stayed in her stomach. But she had to say something, if not for the other customers than for her own sanity. A few lip smacks later, she said, “Please! For god’s sake! Chew with your mouth closed!”

“It’s a free country, you feminoonoo. I can eat however I want!” Another alligator bite, another long minute of his lips and tongue smacking together like crash cymbals. And another bite. And another. And another. For somebody who could finish a beer within seconds, he sure loved to take his time eating a plate of fried chicken.

The bile rising in her neck, Lara mustered up the strength to say one more time, “Chew with your mouth closed…or else!”

Tor turned around in his stool with a green-toothed grin and said, “What are you going to do, report me to the Social Justice Police? Maybe you’ll want to make a citizens arrest or some shit like that. Why don’t you come on over and…slap some cuffs on me!” The last sentence was punctuated with a swirl of his pig slop tongue.

Lara couldn’t keep it together any longer. Her stomach pounded and throbbed. Her blood and sweat ran colder than her sweet iced tea. She leaned over and puked all over the ground, losing what could have been an enjoyable meal had it not been for Tor Vemola and his gross eating habits. She puked again. And again. And again, until her mouth tasted like battery acid.

“Hey, sweet patooties! Barf with your mouth closed! You’re triggering me and offending my sensitive areas!” mocked Tor before hee-hawing and slapping his bloody knee.

“You think that’s sick? You haven’t seen a damn thing yet!” growled Lara as she extended her long sleeve and unleashed her tarantula magic upon the “patriotic” zombie. The little creepers scurried and tap-danced across the wooden floor, yet Tor’s facial expression amounted to a simple “meh”.

“Is this hocus pocus shit supposed to scare me?!” he bellowed before scooping handfuls of arachnids and eating them like candy, venom oozing from his already sloppy sewer hole. There must have been a whole army of little buggers and Tor just devoured the whole lot of them….all while smacking his lips and clicking his tongue for extra effect.

Lara could only drop to her knees and stain her dress with what was once a delicious meal. She quivered, “No…no…not my babies…not my beautiful babies…”

Tor’s expression softened, but Lara didn’t want to believe it behind her damp eyes. “Now, now, darling,” said the burping zombie. “If it’s a baby you want, I can give you that. I believe we should all be making babies, including a pretty little thing like you. It’s all part of the master plan.”

As he slowly approached her while squishing spider corpses beneath his boot, Lara crab walked away from him until she was trapped in the corner of the restaurant with nowhere to go. This man was so disgusting that the place had completely emptied out on account of nobody wanting to be around a man who ate like that. “What am I doing here,” Lara muttered to herself. “I need to get out of here…what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you, sweetheart. In fact, I love you just the way you are. If you’ve got anymore of them spiders handy, I’d love to have them chicken fried. I bet you’re a goddess in the kitchen! Actually, probably not since you came to a restaurant tonight instead of staying home.”

Tor pulled his jorts down and revealed something resembling a burned sausage with warts and pus protruding everywhere, maybe even a mushroom sprouting in the forest of greasy hair. Lara covered her eyes and squealed, but the zombie paid no mind to her fear and advanced forward. “Come on, baby girl. Let’s do this for the man upstairs. Let’s make some babies!”

Lara slowly removed her hands from her eyes and took one last look at the diseased organ. A shy smile crept upon her face as she crawled over to have a better look. On her knees with a bigger smile than before, she said, “You’re right…let’s make babies…You heard him, Pepper!”

“Huh? Pepper?”

In one fluid motion, Lara grabbed Tor’s peter and ripped open one of his pus-filled wounds before inserting her last tarantula. The zombie screamed and danced as the little bastard crawled inside his flesh, chewing, digging, burrowing, injecting poison like an inoculation for the social disease, laying eggs for “the man upstairs”.

“You sick prick!” shouted Tor as he dug inside his wound to try to get the tarantula out of his system. Lara’s grin turned mischievous as poison rotted her foe inside out. Poison sprayed from every open wound in his body. Goop sloshed on the floor like a wading pool. It looked as though he was going to drop dead at any moment. And then…

“I’m just messing with you,” laughed Tor, much to the wide-eyed horror of his victim. “What? You actually thought that little shit kicker was going to do me in? I’ve got more diseases than a chemical weapons factory. There ain’t nothing you can give me that’s any grosser than what I’ve already got!”

Knowing her spider magic could only take her so far, Lara shot up to her feet and bolted for the door, only to be tackled to the ground by a powerful force. “No! Get off me!” she shouted, secretly wishing Tor would just get this over with. But oddly enough, the sloppy odor was replaced with a French perfume smell. The barmaid! With one shotgun blast, Lara screamed her head off yet again as blood, pus, and sewage sprayed the inside of the restaurant. A resounding thump on the ground signaled the end of this would-be rape struggle.

Lara felt a gentle hand pat her on the back while saying, “It’s okay…it’s okay…you can get up now. He’s gone.” The barmaid helped her to her feet and the two of them surveyed the damage to this once lovely restaurant: vomit, blood, gonorrhea goblins, god knows what else.

The barmaid lowered the shotgun and tearfully said, “The board of health is going to kill me for this…if not them…then that damn Vemola family. Bunch of do-nothing celebrities think they own everything. Famous for being famous and rich enough to sue our asses off…what have I done?”

Lara hugged the barmaid and said, “I’ll bet you anything those other Vemola jerks aren’t as diseased as their bastard son was. I’ll bet they’re just a bunch of posh snobs.”

“So what? That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh, but I think it does…” Lara broke her embrace and smiled at the barmaid. “If they can’t handle their own bastard son…what makes you think they’re going to be able to handle a little…arachnomancy?!” Lara punctuated her sentence with a wink. “They can take us to court all the want. They can bend the legal system to their wills. But they wouldn’t last five seconds on a giant spider web without having a heart attack. Trust me, babe, there’s more where that came from!”

Incelbordination, Chapter 23

“That’s right, Oz-Man. Wipe the tide pool from your eyes for just a few seconds. You can get back to crying like a bitch once I’m done showing you something. Don’t worry, this shit will be completely G-rated. Heh, the irony!”

Wacey Judge towered over his opponents just like he always did, a fire-breathing giant among shaky villagers. The lower half of his face was hidden with a skeleton bandana, a dam from the venom spewing from his lips. His hulking chest was covered in tactical gear while his gargantuan biceps remained visible for all to see.

One unzipping of his vest later and it became clear to the fire-eyed Oswald and the trembling Sarah-Jane what Wacey’s new agenda was all about. The black T-shirt that clung to his six-pack ever so tightly had the words written on it…Incel Pride Worldwide.

“I don’t fucking believe this,” muttered Oswald. “You? Of all people? An incel? You’re a fucking meat castle! You can have any woman you want! If anybody should be wearing that shirt, it’s…”

“It’s who? You?” asked Wacey while hunching over. “Sorry, little man, but they don’t make these at the Baby Gap. I earned this shirt. I never wanted it, but it’s mine anyways. You remember that little cheap shot you gave me to the balls that one day in the gym? Well, it’s hard to be anything but celibate with a bleeding dick! You ruined me, Oswald. You took everything you could from me all over a stupid fucking joke.”

Crossing his arms and maintaining his gorgon stare, Oswald said, “Joke? The only joke I see around here is the irony of you joining a group of people who tried to have you killed. You’re a bigger meathead than I thought! It makes me wonder how the fuck you got into college in the first place. If I had grades like yours, I’d hang myself!”

“You should hang yourself anyways, little brittle. It’d be less painful than the ass-ripping I’ve got planned for you. Every incel community needs a personal trainer. I’ve got what they want. They’ve got what I want. Incelbordination doesn’t want to kill me anymore because they understand me and I understand them. Or as you faggy liberals like to say, I embraced diversity!”

Oswald tried to approach Wacey for another five finger dick punch, but Sarah-Jane held him back and pleaded with him. “Come on, Oswald, don’t do this. Let’s just get out of here and call the police.”

“Yeah, that’s right! Run on home, little boy!” Wacey taunted. “If I don’t get you today, I’ll get you tomorrow. Or maybe one of my new buddies will. You ain’t going anywhere without getting your shit kicked in. We’re Incelbordination. We’re everywhere! And besides, if you run off, who’s going to stop me from wiping my ass with that Disney blanket over there?”

Sarah-Jane’s quivering fear morphed into silent rage when she slowly stood up and approached Wacey with chest-to-chest contact. “Listen, you bastard, I don’t give a damn what you do to me, but if you defile my sister’s grave in any way, I don’t care how many muscles you have, I’ll…”

“You’ll what? Give me Chlamydia? That’s pretty much the only chance you’ve got of getting laid anyways!”

“You motherfucker!” shouted Oswald as he limped towards his target with fists close to his face.

Wacey shoved Sarah-Jane to the floor and went on the attack, kicking the dwarf in his medical boot and crumpling him to the ground in agony. While Oswald screamed and clutched his leg, the meat castle leaned down and repeatedly slapped him upside the head. “Get up! Get up, goddamn it! This shit ain’t over yet!”

Sarah-Jane scrambled across the grass on her hands and knees and took a bite out of Wacey’s cannonball calf. The muscle head yelped in pain, but not before ripping the girl off by her hair and head butting her in the forehead. The eldest Bradley sister dropped to the ground limp as a noodle and dizzy as a rollercoaster rider.

Oswald reached his hand out and yelled Sarah-Jane’s name before Wacey continuously stomped on his surgically repaired foot. The dwarf’s eyes watered like a leaky faucet while his foot crumpled and caved in with every American History X stomp. After about eight strikes, the assault was mercifully over, though mercy was clearly the last thing on Wacey’s mind as his serpentine eyes gazed down upon his weeping and agonized foe.

The gym rat removed the bandana from his face and revealed a pool of foam gathering between his gritted, ursine teeth. “Those boxing skills aren’t helping you now, are they?” No response from the screaming Oswald, just tears and pain. Through his waterfall vision, he could still see Sarah-Jane slightly awake from her head butt. Her eyes widened when Wacey grabbed the Mickey Mouse tapestry on Jessica’s grave and did the butt floss with it.

“No! Put that down! Please!” begged Sarah-Jane, but poor taste prevailed when Wacey actually stuffed the tapestry down the back of his shorts and wiped his ass with it. He even threw it at the downed sister for good measure.

Oswald knew for certain this was how his story would end: laying in a pile of blood and tears with someone who shared his cataclysm of agony. He wouldn’t slay the demon. He wouldn’t get the girl. He wouldn’t have justice of any kind. The only way this could be worse for him was if it happened in a McDonald’s bathroom covered in shit and piss. Wacey growled at Oswald as he leaned down and raised his fist, prepared to do the honors of killing Incelbordination’s greatest foe.

“Wacey Everett Judge! Put your fucking hands in the air and turn around to face me!” shouted a familiar-sounding detective. “Do it or you’re getting a third nostril!” Slowly but surely, Wacey obeyed the instructions given to him by a shotgun-toting Mia Barry. Oswald would have smiled, but his face hurt worse than his foot from all the crying and screaming. “You think Incelbordination is everywhere? Well, so are we! Your fearless leader Antero left behind a digital footprint as big as your empty head!”

“I’ll leave a footprint right in your fucking skull, you little bitch!” shouted Wacey as he charged over to Mia knowing he had nothing left to lose. Sure enough, the suicide by cop was complete. Once Wacey got too close for comfort, Mia pulled the trigger on her shotgun and splattered the jock’s head all over Jessica’s grave and Oswald’s body. Wacey’s sculpted headless body plopped over and leaked all over the shit-stained Disney blanket.

Mia dropped her shotgun and cradled Oswald’s head in her lap. “I’m so glad I found you when I did.” She pulled out her radio and called for medical attention for both Oswald and Sarah-Jane. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you fixed up.”

“My foot…my goddamn foot! It hurts!” moaned Oswald.

“Listen to me. It’ll be alright. I know you’re in a lot of pain, but there’s something else I need to tell you. You need to go into witness protection after your surgery.” The dwarf’s burning, watery eyes lit up like a neon sign at that revelation. “Incelbordination is going to keep hunting you down until they kill you. You were responsible for Antero’s downfall. That means they want blood. I’m sorry, Oswald. You can’t be here anymore. You’re going to have a new name, a new identity, and a new place to live.”

“No, you can’t take him away!” begged Sarah-Jane while tugging at Mia’s arm.

“It’s okay, Sarah-Jane, it’s okay!” insisted Oswald. “There’s nothing left for me to do here. This town can do without me. I’ll be alright no matter where I go. You know why? Because people like you make me believe that.”

“Are…are…are you sure?” wept the eldest Bradley sister.

“I’m positive,” said Oswald with a sad smile. “I can’t keep fighting Incelbordination forever. My foot can’t handle it. My body can’t handle it. My mind sure as shit can’t handle it. I swear I’ll be okay. You’ll be okay too. Everyone will be okay. You just have to trust Detective Barry. She knows what the hell she’s doing.”

A beat of uncomfortable silence hung between all three parties. And then Sarah-Jane leaned her face closer to Oswald and kissed his burning red forehead. “I know we don’t know each other that well, but… I want you to take that with you wherever they decide to put you. Thank you for everything, Oswald. I won’t forget you.”

“I won’t forget you either…I can’t even forget seeing a headless version of Wacey. No matter where I go, I will conquer. Fairytales don’t just tell us that dragons are real. They tell us that dragons can be beaten. I can do this…I believe in myself…I never though I’d hear myself say those words…”

Chicken of the Night

Mikris Nagata crouched in the bushes outside of KFC and peered through the windows with cobra venom in his pupils. His brows furrowed and his muscles tensed with every chicken wing the patrons stuffed in their jowly mouths. Even through double pane glass, he could hear their lips smacking and their tongues clicking off of their palettes. Obese men and women with their costume-dressed children devouring members of Mikris’s own brethren. The sight made the contents of his own stomach swirl around like toilet water. Why subject this massacre to small children? Wouldn’t the pillow cases full of Butterfingers and Reese’s Pieces have been enough? This wasn’t a fast food establishment; it was a graveyard for the overweight.

Every night Mikris hid out in front of this restaurant, waiting for the perfect time to strike. So many people gathered in one place on Halloween night: the opportunity was handled to the chicken samurai on a silver platter. The chairman of the Dread City Rifle and Revolver Club Steve Coleman was there licking the grease off of his sausage fingers while barely fitting into his booth. The manager of this establishment Bill Shane was behind the counter dishing out members of Mikris’s race at a chippy’s price. So much gnashing on dead chickens. So much sadistic enjoyment. So many large bellies. Mikris’s mind raced at a million miles per hour. He had to strike now or this would be another missed opportunity to avenge his people!

The chicken warrior stood up and unsheathed his double katanas, scraping the blades against each other while his beak clamped down in fury. With one shrill war cry squawk, Mirkis bolted towards the restaurant and crashed through the glass wall shoulder first, earning screams from fat little kids and gasps from their monstrous parents. Shards of glass nicked the parents’ skins, but still they stood in front of their little ones as the KFC clientele backed away at the sight of Mirkis swinging his blades and squawking like hell.

“I don’t go to your hospitals and devour your infants,” whispered Mirkis while accusingly pointing his blades at the patrons. “I don’t go to your graveyards and defile your loved ones. I don’t go to your police stations and military compounds and snack on soldiers. Why then would you disgusting people think it’s okay to munch on my species! Why do you think it’s okay to treat them this way in such horrible farming conditions!”

“Don’t listen to him, guys,” dismissed Steve Coleman with a wave of his meaty paw, still holding a drumstick. “It’s just some hippie faggot in a chicken suit. I’ll bet he also dresses in a cow suit before he hits up the Burger King. Or maybe he’ll dress up like a big ol’ potato and harass the guys who make Freedom Fries at McDonald’s!” The patrons chuckled at Steve’s dialogue.

“I assure you, sir, this is not a Halloween costume. And this is not about liberalism or conservatism. It’s about basic human decency. You can’t lock up a serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer and then eat members of my clan right in front of me at the same time! Next thing you know, you’re going to start using Military Intelligence to find Jumbo Shrimp and eat those too!” belted Mikris.

A shotgun’s pump-handle echoed throughout the restaurant followed by an authoritative Southern voice shouting, “Hold it right there, goddamn it!” It was Bill Shane, nametag, apron, shotgun, and all. With the double barrels pointed squarely at Mikris, Bill said, “If you think you’re going to ruin Halloween night just so you can spread your hippie-dippie BS, you’ve got another thing coming, mister. Now put down them Jap swords and approach the counter with your fluffy feathers of your head!”

Another gun clicked and it belonged to Steve Coleman, the proud owner of a Desert Eagle Magnum big enough to fit in his frying pan-sized hands. “You’d better listen to him, buddy. You’ve caused enough trouble tonight. Don’t make either of us pull the goddamn trigger!”

Mikris chuckled hard enough to shake his waddle back and forth. “You actually think those tinker toys are going to get you guys out of this mess? Give me a fucking break. If you guys had any balls whatsoever, you’d put down the chicken wings and play army boy overseas! Now that I think about it, you’ve got all the oil you’ll ever need in those deep fryers.”

“You want to joke around, motherfucker?” taunted Bill. “That’s right, keep running your mouth. Keep giving me a reason to shoot your ugly-ass head off. If you think what we do to your so-called brethren is bad, I’m willing to bet these fine folks wouldn’t mind dining on your sorry ass right here tonight! Who’s ready for some chicken tonight?!” The patrons cheered their heads off while waving drumsticks in the air like confederate flags.

“Enough!” shouted Mikris as he grabbed a gigantic father of five, held his blades to the guy’s throat, and used him for a human shield. His children screamed and tugged on Mikris’s legs for him to let go, but the chicken warrior wouldn’t listen. “Lay down your arms or he’s a dead son of a bitch! Don’t make me do it! I’ll fucking do it!” Slowly and surely, Bill Shane and Steve Coleman set their firearms down, kicked them over to Mikris when ordered to do so, and held their hands in the air.

Amidst the crying children and confused parents clutching tightly to them, Steve begged, “For God’s sake, can you at least let the rest of these families go? You don’t need to hold them hostage too!”

“You think these little brats are innocent?!” belted Mikris. “These little cannibals are just as disgusting and lazy as the rest of you! They’re going to grow up to be heartless bastards just like their parents, that is if they live past their twenties!” With a crazed look in his eyes, he scoped around the restaurant at all of the crying patrons and said, “You all want me to die too, don’t you? You proved that much when you pointed those guns at me. Well, if you really want to die at KFC…you’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way by eating your ass off!”

One slash was all it took for Mikris to rip his hostage’s shirt off, revealing a set of man tits and a hairy chest and back. “Dear god, that’s some disgusting shit!” the chicken squirmed. “It almost reminds me of what you guys are eating right now! But you know what? It can’t be any worse than those Kit-Kat bars your children have in their pillow cases.” He traced a finger across the man’s shoulder and parted his body hair, much to the wide-eyed horror of everyone around him. “Well, you know how that saying goes: I’m going to open my mouth, close my eyes, and you’re going to give me a big surprise!”

Mikris’s beak was open wide enough for everyone to see his dangling uvula. Drool ran down his mouth and his closed eyes were watering with anticipation. The hostage yelled, “No!” as the chicken warrior leaned his head down to take a nice big chomp out of human flesh. When he clamped down on the meaty treat, it tasted crispy, greasy, and sweet all at the same time. He chewed slowly and savored the flavor while his hostage sobbed like one of his little girls. Such a heavenly treat. Such a symphony of flavors erupting on his chicken tongue. Mikris swallowed his meal and slowly opened his eyes to admire his violent handiwork.

His eyes were bulging out of their sockets when he saw he had instead taken a bite out of a piece of chicken that Steve Coleman held to his mouth. The children pointed and laughed as the avian samurai trembled in horror. He slowly lowered his blades from his hostage’s throat and stumbled backwards with an expression of fright appropriate for Halloween night.

“How does it taste, chicken man?” asked Steve with a wide grin. “You know what you hippie-dippies always say: don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

Mikris was going to come back with snappy dialogue, but his beak convulsed so violently that he couldn’t form a sentence. All he could do was cluck nervously while tears poured down his feathered face and children giggled at him with sadistic delight. He could feel his own brethren sloshing around in his gut and making him just as fat and lazy as everyone around him. This was what it meant to dine on his kind. The phrase “you are what you eat” has never before been used in such a cruel way.

Mikris Nagata could feel the murky sewage in his stomach bubbling while his head felt lighter than the feathers on his body. He stumbled around like a drunken zombie struggling for equilibrium. He could feel the boiling sensation in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs burned like he had swallowed a branding iron. And then, the viscous acid flowed from his beak and drenched Steve Coleman’s MAGA T-shirt and sagging blue jeans.

The children laughed even harder than before, to which Mikris mockingly asked, “You like that?! You fucking like that?! Have some more!” The chicken samurai unleashed a barf storm that covered the entire restaurant and their patrons in sick fluids. A chaotic exodus from KFC saw customers trample over each other, not giving a shit about the small children trick-or-treating that night, just to get the hell away from the foul odor of vomit and shame.

Bill Shane clutched his head in sorrow while his costumers, Steve Coleman included, dashed away from his place of business. There was no way he would pass a health and safety check. His business was sure to get shut down. All he could say to that was, “Why?! I didn’t do anything wrong! All I wanted to do was serve fried chicken!”

Mikris wiped the biological sludge from his eyes and watched Bill pathetically cry over the counter with just a loose grip on the shotgun handle. The chicken warrior weakly waddled over to the manager and yanked the gun out of his hands before pointing it at him with evil intentions. Bill begged, “Please! Don’t shoot me! I’m just a manager! I’ve got a family of my own!”

The chicken warrior locked eyes with the chubby manager and got off on his fear. Mikris pressed the barrel against Bill’s cheek like a hard-on and smiled through the slimy filth on his face. His finger danced across the trigger like a nervous tick. The psychosis in his eyes grew more sadistic and perverse. And then Mirkis broke the shotgun in half across his knee before tossing the weapon to the floor. He placed his wing across the crying Bill’s shoulders and said, “Something tells me your patrons would have thrown up anyways. You’d better get this place cleaned up before the health inspector comes!”

“You’re a hypocrite! You’re a fucking hypocrite!” sobbed Bill with his head in his flabby arms.

“I know I am, Mr. Shane. But I have to admit…it tastes like chicken!”

Mine All Mine

Chris Buyatt’s motorcycle blazed down the empty highway and created skid marks in the road when he pulled off to the side. Not one cop car was within his sniper sight, but he had no illusions about safety even after making it this far. There it was as obvious as daylight: the entrance to the old style salt mine, complete with one of those wheeled carts blocking in the doorway.

He felt it in his gut: somebody beat him to this place. Once he sped towards the entrance, he dismounted in a flippy-floppy fashion reminiscent of capoeira training. Chris even danced and spun around to get his muscles warmed up. He then removed his motorcycle helmet and flipped his dreadlocks back. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he shoved the mine cart over and ventured inside this dark tunnel.

Fishing the flashlight out of his baggy shorts pocket, Chris Buyatt illuminated the tunnel and scared a flock of bats which flew right over his crouched head. The initial shock sent him jumping out of his boots, but then he shook his head and sighed in disappointment. “Pathetic. That’s all it is,” he said to himself.

The deeper he trudged into the mines, the more his flashlight gave out on him. Chris banged it against the wall to shift the batteries in the right place, but that only gave him a few more seconds of light at best. “Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath. He felt around to get some kind of idea where he was, but all he got was a palm full of dust and salt.

“Allow me!” said a baritone voice in the darkness. A singular flame illuminated the mine shaft as well as the face of a red haired gentleman with a 70’s porn moustache and neon green eyes. He chuckled with evil delight before blowing the flame like a fireball kiss toward his nemesis. Chris cartwheeled out of the way just in time to land on his ass, hip bone connecting with the cart tracks.

The flame descended upon the ground and formed a circle around the two opponents. Michael Tyoni shined brightly in his new light. The cheesy haircut, the even cheesier moustache, the red robes with flaming emblems on it, Chris could have recognized that getup from a mile away. He had indeed been beaten here.

“Running from the law again, are we, Mr. Buyatt?” said Michael in a serpentine tone. “At this rate, you’ll be running for the rest of your wasted life. I know what you’re here for and it’s not golden treasure. That shit only appears in fairytales. You’re looking for something a little more…vengeful.”

Chris nipped up and flipped his dreadlocks back before pointing a finger at his nemesis and barking, “Cut the bullshit, Mikey-Boy! Where’s the goddamn tape?! You better not have burned that shit or you and I are going to dance, bitch!”

Michael shrugged his shoulders and said nonchalantly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is this tape you speak of? Scotch tape? Masking tape? Or even more exciting than those two, duct tape? I had no idea you were into such thrilling activities.” The pyromancer chuckled in a mock sexual tone before throwing another flame at Chris and having him cartwheel out of harm’s way again.

The authoritative finger of doom was waved at Mr. Tyoni once more while Chris shouted, “You know damn well I’m looking for a videotape, nigga! Fork that shit over or I’m going to slap you silly, motherfucker!”

“And just where do you plan on slapping him, Mr. Buyatt?” asked an elderly feminine voice in the shadows. “On the ass? Is this another part of your liberal agenda? I’m sure the Lettuce, Guacamole, Bacon, and Tomato community will love it. Wait a minute, is that what LGBT stands for? Or does it stand for Lovers of Grabbing Boners and Testicles? I can never figure these overblown phrases out these days.”

With a devilish smirk, Michael lifted his palms in the air and raised the flames so that Chris could see Governor Nina Thomas standing behind the pyromancer with a shotgun in hand. The Marlboro lines in her face, the ratty white and brown hair, and that god awful teal pantsuit: that was the Governor alright.

“And by the way, Mr. Buyatt,” said the condescending politician. “You should personally thank your brother for giving you this location. He’s making a huge sacrifice just for you. He’ll spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement. I hope it’s worth it.”

“You two are full of shit!” blasted Chris. “My brother doesn’t belong in there and you know it! You locked him up for the same reason you want to lock me up!” He then pointed to his black face to make the reference clear. “Hand over the motherfucking tape, assholes! The whole world’s going to see what you bitches do to those so-called crooks!”

“Oh, that’s okay, Chris, they already know,” said Nina with a wave of her hand. The bravado melted off of the capoeira ace’s visage like butter. Miss Thomas said, “Everybody knows what’s going on these days. It’s all over the media. The problem is, they just don’t care, that’s all. What are they going to do about cops locking up black offenders, anyways? File a complaint? Sue them? Yeah, that’ll work! You actually thought playing that tape would do anything to hurt me or my career? Nobody gives a shit anymore, Chris! Get with the program!” Nina’s tirade ended with a witch’s cackle while Chris’s face became even longer with solemnity. “Kill him, Mr. Tyoni. Just kill him.”

Michael lobbed fireball after fireball at Chris and all the capoeira master could do was cartwheel and flip out of the way with little passion in his movements. As much as he hated to admit it, Nina Thomas was right: nobody gave a shit about oppression anymore. He remembered all the times people brushed him off with, “Don’t break the law” and “It’s your fault.” Chris got so caught up in his thoughts that he barely noticed his right boot catching on fire while Michael and Nina laughed at him.

Chris screamed and spun around in pain as he tried to extinguish the flame. While Michael twirled another fireball in his hands, Chris spun upside down on his hands in an attempt to use the wind pressure to extinguish his foot. He even punched his own boot to see if that would help. After whirling around like a fidget spinner, his flaming boot came flying off and launched like a missile in Nina’s wrinkly face, sending her rolling backwards against the steel wall. During the scuffle, Governor Thomas dropped the shotgun and blasted the ceiling above Michael’s head, causing a chunk to land on his shoulders.

Chris’s sock was pasted to his ebony skin, Michael’s shoulders were redder than any flame he could produce, and Nina was in la-la hand with a scar across her jowls the size of Texas. “Nina! No!” shouted Michael through gritted teeth. He turned his venomous gaze back to Chris and sneered, “You’d better pray to God above that solitary confinement is all that happens to you!”

Michael threw another fireball at his adversary only to have him twirl out of the way on his hands. The capoeira master nipped up on his one good foot and nearly lost his balance. As the pyromancer’s teeth gritted harder, the flames in his hands burned brighter. He rushed towards Chris and threw fiery haymakers his way, missing only a few times before catching him on the cheek and knocking him down.

Mr. Buyatt coughed up blood and spit out a tooth along with some ashen skin. All he could do with his bum foot was try to crawl away to get some separation. Michael’s healthy feet stomped towards Chris and the pyromancer, still with hands flaming, twisted Chris’s foot in an ankle lock submission hold. Both men screamed like demons, Michael to enhance his rage and Chris to suffer in mind-blowing agony. The pain in the latter’s foot felt as though he was exercising on a treadmill in the bowels of hell. And then…the foot was ripped off and the wound was cauterized in more hellish pain.

Chris clutched his forcefully removed foot and shouted to the heavens above in a cataclysm of agony. His voice was thunderous and his throat and lungs felt as fiery and pain-wracked as his former foot. Michael continued the torment by grabbing his victim’s blue Hawaiian shirt in one hand and conjuring a fireball in the other.

“I am sick and tired of you lazy fuckers thinking you can beat the system!” shouted Michael with more fire in his voice than in his palm. “Nobody beats the system! There will be no change in this world! Your American dream is nothing more than bullshit! Only the powerful survive and nobody’s going to tell us otherwise! Not some pundit on TV! Not some lady with a dick! Not two faggots kissing! And certainly not a street rat nigger like you!”

Michael raised his fiery fist to the sky and brought it down with a fury, only to be stopped midway by Chris spitting blood in the pyromancer’s mouth. He gagged and coughed long enough for Chris Buyatt to mount some offence of his own. With a head butt of stone, he shouted, “This is for my brother!” With a punch to the face, he shouted, “This is for my people! And THIS is for everybody Nina Thomas fucked over!”

That last sentence was punctuated by Chris wrapping his burning legs around Michael’s throat, squeezing his neck pencil thin. The cauterized foot added some extra sizzle to the pyromancer’s restricted breathing. Every time Chris thought about his brother being locked in the hole on the brink of insanity, he squeezed harder. Every time he played the N-word in his head, he squeezed harder. Every time he imagined someone telling him not to break the law, he squeezed harder. The final squeeze came when he replayed Michael Tynoi’s rant about American dreams being bullshit. With that final squeeze, the sounds of bones popping signified a limp body was soon to follow. Michael Tyoni dropped dead and the flames he caused died down with him.

Chris breathed a sigh of relief and plopped backwards. Once the adrenaline wore off, his missing foot seared with pain and he had no choice but to cradle it and scream while spitting out more blood and ashes from the punch earlier. He took deep, muffled breaths to try and calm himself down, but all that did was intensify the raging agony surging through his body like hot lava.

His tightly closed eyelids slowly opened when he heard the sound of a shotgun pumping. Through salt-covered redness, he saw Nina Thomas standing over him with a singed face that fumed with anger and hatred. “Are you happy now, young man? You killed my right hand man and now everything’s going to be better for you and your ghetto family, right? A lifetime in the hole is too good for you and your drug-addicted brother. After I blast the shit out of you, I’m recommending the death penalty to that little whiny bitch. Any last words?”

Chris took in more hard breaths as Nina’s trigger finger was getting closer to sealing his fate. He then chuckled a few times and said, “You really think anybody’s going to take you seriously anymore with that ugly ass scar on your face?”

“Excuse me?!” grunted Nina.

“Before I snapped his damn neck like a toothpick, your boy Michael told me that nobody beats the system and that only the powerful survive. You think anybody’s going to give power to you now that you’re vulnerable? You don’t look like a politician anymore. You’re no Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann. You’re a shallow motherfucker’s worst nightmare. And really, isn’t it all about looks these days? Is that why Obama served two terms in office? Because he was handsome and charismatic? You’re not oozing charisma right now, Governor. You’re oozing pus and blood. But hey, you could always use the taxpayers’ money for plastic surgery. After all…nobody gives a shit anymore!”

Nina pressed the barrel of her shotgun against Chris’s face and scowled at him with an itchy trigger finger ready to blow. She breathed intensely through her nose while staring daggers into her victim. And then her expression softened and her shotgun lowered. She pulled a makeup mirror out of her pocket and stared at the nasty gash across her face. “I don’t look like a politician…I look like…I look like one of you! A freak! You ruined my career, you son of a bitch!”

Governor Thomas smashed the butt of her gun against Chris’s face and almost knocked him out. While spitting more blood out of his mouth, he stayed awake long enough to see even more blood spiral off of Nina’s shoulders. The last image he saw before passing out was Nina Thomas headless and the shotgun barrel smoking like a cigarette.

During Chris Buyatt’s moment of unconsciousness, he dreamed that life would somehow improve with Nina and Michael dead. The two most corrupt people in the Paulson City government drifted to the other side. Flowers would blossom everywhere. Children would play around without fear of getting shot or locked up. His brother would be out of prison to enjoy life again.

But even with this little victory, Chris Buyatt knew that wasn’t how politics worked. The system was comprised of many small pieces and taking out one doesn’t throw everything else out of balance. His brother would be lost forever in the penal system and Chris would most likely be the newest member of that exclusive club. Business must go on and nobody would be blamed. However, this one small step was clearly in the right direction. No matter how long he would be locked up, it was a bigger step than if he was actually afforded a prosthetic foot. If the cops were going to drag him away, they were going to drag him away with a big fat grin on his face. Fuck the system. Fuck it hard.

Lions

VERSE 1

Elmer Fudd is hunting for blood

He’s about to be peeled like a spud

Lion claws will rip out his intestines

Cockroaches will feast on the infection

You fuck with nature, you get the fangs

Your spine will snap with the loudest bang

Your ribs will crack like shattered glass

Vultures will devour your lifeless ass

CHORUS

Lions! X4

VERSE 2

The lion’s den is far off limits

You won’t last two fucking minutes

Bring your rifles, bring your buddies

Doesn’t mean shit, you goddamn dummy

A pile of bones picked squeaky clean

A trail of blood to decorate this scene

Splattered brains the size of green peas

Shredded skin blown away in the breeze

CHORUS

Lions! X4

VERSE 3

If you hunt for fun, your life is done

Rotting into shit underneath the sun

Mother Nature wants her planet back

The lions want to roll with the pack

A trophy doesn’t mean a damn thing

Who the fuck died and made you king?

I hope you brought your screaming voice

Fuck with animals and you’ve got no choice

EXTENDED CHORUS

Lions! Lions!

Gatekeepers to your burning hell!

Lions! Lions!

Dead humans leave a rancid smell!

Lions! Lions!

Don’t shit where the creatures dwell!

Lions! Lions!

Pray for your own necromantic spell!

Fire and Fury

Ronis Wakizashi chewed his breakfast steak and savored every juicy bite before the heavenly meal slid down his throat. It had been a while since he’d eaten at The Buffalo Brunch. Catching his latest criminal called for a celebration: tender sirloin steak, fluffy scrambled eggs, butter-drenched English muffins, and crispy hash browns. Ronis ate his meal without regard for the contents tangling into his scraggly beard or splattering on his bulletproof vest and blue jeans. He even managed to get a bite of scrambled egg on his cowboy hat, which took some serious talent.

His beautiful breakfast was interrupted at the sounds of heavy breathing from across the restaurant. Among all the patrons, the female navy sailor with the jittery hands and splashing coffee cup got his attention. Her breathing patterns included some slight squeaks. Ronis stared at her for a while then shook his head in annoyance before digging right back into his breakfast.

The sailor’s breathing deepened as tears flowed from her eyes ever so lightly. Ronis slammed his fork down on his plate and gave her another annoyed look, but she was too pumped on nervous adrenaline to notice. Even the waitress had to ask the sailor five or six times whether she wanted a refill on her coffee before she snapped out of her trance and said yes.

Ronis watched as the waitress poured coffee into the sailor’s mug. The navy soldier finally snapped when a splash of coffee burned her fingers. She shot up and let out a lengthy blood-curdling scream while shaking the burn out of her hand. The waitress apologized relentlessly and scanned the restaurant for other patrons staring at her, to which she gave them an awkward smile.

The sailor pulled a knife from her belt and wrapped one arm around the waitress’s throat. When the hostess screamed, the navy soldier snapped, “Shut up! Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch! If I hear so much as a pin drop in this fucking place, I’ll carve your ass up from ear to ear!”

The waitress’s wailing was reduced to childish whimpering and a stream of heavy tears. Everybody stared at the knife-wielder, including Ronis, who kept a steady grip on his shotgun underneath the table. The Sheriff even had the nerve to keep eating his breakfast, gnashing a piece of English muffin with those smelly teeth of his.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing, old man?!” screamed the sailor. “Breakfast is over! Now you all are going to listen to me before I slash this bitch’s throat!”

“I don’t think so, you stupid whore,” said Ronis with a scarily calm demeanor. He stood right up and pointed his shotgun at the sailor, who proceeded to press her blade tightly against the sobbing waitress’s throat. “Put the knife down, navy chick. You’re not going to win this fight. I’m the one with the shotgun and all you have is a little tinker toy. Are you ready to give up or do I have to splatter your brains all over the table?”

“You want to shoot me?” the sailor stammered. “You want to kill my ass? Go ahead! Anything’s better than living with this shit inside my brain! You’d be doing me a favor!”

“Alright, I get it,” said Ronis halfheartedly. “You’re a soldier who saw a whole bunch of nasty stuff overseas and now you can’t get it out of your mind. Hell, if I went through half of what you guys go through every day, I’d be messed up in the head too. Put you’ve got to put the knife down. Carving up that sweet thing isn’t going to give you relief.”

“No, it won’t,” admitted the sailor in a somewhat calmer voice. “But it’ll make people listen. You know why people like to show up at political rallies with cardboard signs? Because they want to be heard. And now I want to be heard too. If I didn’t have this knife in my hands, you’d be sitting there finishing your goddamn breakfast.”

“You got my attention, princess,” said Ronis. “Now tell me what you want. I ain’t got all day. You’re right: I do want to eat my breakfast, so make it quick.”

“Please!” begged the waitress through horrified tears. “Don’t make her angry! Just give her what she wants so that we can all go home!”

“Shut the fuck up, you skinny bitch, this ain’t any of your goddamn business!” Ronis shouted. He returned his attention to the traumatized sailor and said, “Now, you have the floor. Say something and say it fast. Otherwise, my trigger finger’s going to get really itchy. Are we clear?” No response. “Do you want a microphone and a stage or what? Talk, damn it!”

“You want me to talk?” asked the sailor. “Fine, let’s talk. After all, if I don’t say anything, I’ll just be another statistic on a government chart. I’ll just be another homeless bum on the streets who can’t find a goddamn job. Yeah, you think you know what I’m going through? Of course you don’t. You can sleep easy at night without having to worry if you’re going to die in your dreams. You don’t have to think about exploding land mines or gunfire blowing out your eardrums or your supervisor not giving a shit either way! I don’t want to fight this war any longer. I want to know what true comfort really is.”

“And you think you’re going to get true comfort by slashing a waitress’s throat?” asked Ronis. “There are only two kinds of comfort that will get you: sleeping easy in a six-by-nine cell or sleeping easy in a coffin. In the end, it doesn’t matter if your message is right or wrong. What matters is that you’re putting people in danger with your reckless behavior.”

The sailor’s facial features softened to a contemplative expression, generating silence between her, the captive, and Sheriff Wakizashi. It was a calming silence for all parties involved, but it was really just complacency when the sailor shouted, “Reckless behavior my ass! You haven’t seen shit yet!”

The soldier raised her dagger and forced a shriek out of the waitress as it came down with a quickness. The waitress bowed down on the floor with her ears covered after Ronis pulled the trigger, knocking the sailor to the ground and freeing the server from captivity. The waitress still screamed bloody murder while the other patrons watched in wide-eyed shock and horror.

Ronis, without a hint of remorse, trudged over to the waitress and the sailor’s body with his cowboy boots clicking against the brick floor. He fished several five dollar bills out of his jeans pocket and dropped them on the waitress, who looked up at him with puppy dog eyes and more hysterical sobbing. The Sheriff said, “There’s your tip for putting up with all of this bullshit. I’m proud of you.” No response. “What are you waiting for?”

The waitress scooped up her “gratuity” and ran out of the restaurant in a big blubbering hurry, which was amazing since she wore high heeled shoes the entire time. Ronis looked coldly at the sailor’s prone body and said, “You can stop acting now. That was just a beanbag shot.” The sailor slowly regained consciousness after acquiring a huge purple bump on her forehead. She tenderly touched the bruise and winced in pain after the slightest poke.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” asked Ronis.

“Julie Clay. Seaman Julie Clay,” she said in a dizzied hush.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Sheriff Ronis Wakizashi. I should be taking you to jail right now to serve a long ass sentence. But I’m not going to.” He knelt beside her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “That tough guy talk was just to see how far you’d really go. Intimidation has always worked for me in the past. It didn’t work with you, so I had to shoot you with that beanbag. Sorry about that. You really did have something to say and you weren’t going down without getting your voice out there. I admire that. You really are the dictionary definition of a soldier, Miss Clay.”

“What happens now?” asked Julie. “Do I need to turn around and put my hands behind my back?”

“I’m afraid so, Miss Clay. The handcuffs are a precautionary measure and I never leave home without them. The beanbag gun was optional. I don’t like shooting people when I don’t have to. My father was shot during a traffic stop, not by a crook, but by another cop. I’ve had to live with that shit for a long, long time. I wouldn’t know what comfort was if it came up and bit me on the ass. So I joined the force hoping I could make a difference with just this beanbag gun. But you, it’s not too late for you to make a difference. Hell, you’ve done a lot already with your military career. But before we can turn the clock back, you have to come with me.”

Julie’s breathing got progressively heavier as she held her hands up together and whispered, “Get me out of here. I don’t care where we go from here, just get me the hell out of this place.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t care where we’re going, because I’m not taking you to jail. Jail is for people who have nothing but evil and negativity in their hearts. You’ve got something more than that. I’m taking you to the hospital to be treated. You can’t walk around town with this kind of violent force. I know you don’t mean to do it. I know you don’t want to do it. So come on, let’s get you out of here,” said Ronis before hooking the handcuffs around Julie’s wrists and gently pulling her up.

As the two of them walked slowly toward the exit with Ronis’s arms draped over Julie’s shoulders, she asked, “Why are you doing all of this for me? I almost killed someone and you’re giving me an easy way out.”

“There’s nothing easy about any of this, Miss Clay,” said Ronis in a gentle voice. “But just because your road to recovery is a long one, doesn’t mean that the US Department of Justice has to be an oxymoron.”

Sleep Study Results

***SLEEP STUDY RESULTS***

Warning: this journal about my sleep study results will be so boring that you yourself will fall asleep reading it. Hopefully, you’ll be listening to new age music and snuggling with a kitty while you’re sleeping. If you’re snoring loud enough to wake up the whole household, you too will want to undergo a sleep study. Read at your own risk.

Five days after my 31^st birthday, I finally had the sleep study that I’ve been meaning to do since forever. I filled out a questionnaire describing my symptoms (snoring, waking up drained, lack of motivation, etc.) and the doctor said they were all consistent with sleep apnea and being a night owl. In order to combat the night owl syndrome, I’ve been waking up earlier in the morning with no excuses. The first week it was 10:30, the next week it was 10:00, the next it was 9:30, and from this point forward, it will be 9:00. It seemed like I was having more energy, but I was still taking naps in the middle of the day that lasted hours.

A few days ago, I took a home sleep test where I wore a heart monitor around my chest, had tubes in my nose, and a patch around my finger. If my bed was capable of spinning, I would be able to empathize with Crazy K from “Tales from the Hood”. All joking aside, the equipment was pretty goddamn uncomfortable to wear to bed and I never got a good night’s sleep. I went to bed at one in the morning and took the gear off at five. Despite only wearing the gear for four hours, the heart monitor was still able to get a definitive result.

Later that morning, I had a weird ass dream where Smokey was kidnapped Final Fight style. There were grizzly bears in my backyard, but I don’t know how they fit into the dream. I got out of bed and scoured the neighborhood for Smokey while trying to blast a confession out of everybody with an energy shotgun. Nobody confessed and I couldn’t find Smokey, so I wrote a heavy metal song about this incident called “Scour”. I couldn’t remember the lyrics when I woke up. Otherwise, I would have written and posted it to my social media accounts. It was a damn good song if I do say so myself.

A few days later, I get a call from the doctor in charge of my sleep study saying he has the results of the home test. Not only do I have a bad case of sleep apnea, but it was worse than he expected. He ordered a CPAP machine for me to use at home for thirty days. I have yet to pick up the machine, but it’ll definitely happen. My mom’s friend from high school Sandy uses one and she sleeps very soundly at night. Hopefully, it’ll give me the same amount of energy.

This past Monday and Tuesday, I spent most of the day helping my family move a bunch of heavy crap out of their storage locker and into our garage. After both sessions of moving, I felt so exhausted that I took a five hour nap. No creative work got done during those days, which I will talk about in further detail in the next few sections of this journal.

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

Before the contest in which I posted “Zion Heart” ended, I told the WSS that I wanted to take a one-week vacation from the next contest so that I could catch up on my backburner creative projects, which included editing the shit out of Poison Tongue Tales, beta-reading for my Deviant Art bestie Zero Urrea, building a WWE Lego set that I got for my birthday, and catching up on watching the last few episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles. I also planned on catching up with reading the “Final Curtain” stories and voting for my favorite one. But like I said, the last few days have been exhausting for me, more so than usual, so I can’t work under those tired conditions. Hopefully, the next few days will be more productive. It’s probably best that I opted out of this week’s contest since the topic was “Game of Thrones”. I’ve never watched that show or read the book a day in my life, so I would be flying blind the whole time. Plus, there aren’t any story ideas in my archives that could take “Game of Thrones” as wordplay. A game and a throne? That’s two prompts in one. What am I supposed to do with them? Sorry if I sound like a whiny bitch. That wasn’t my intention. I’m just sleepy today from all the heavy lifting and getting up early in the morning.

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher, leave them kids alone. Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone! All in all, you’re just another brick the wall. All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall.”

-Pink Floyd singing “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2”

***POST-SCRIPT***

It’s funny that I should randomly select those lyrics from my quotes archives, because “Zion Heart” is about Roger Waters and his “controversial” statements about Israel. It also takes place in a high school, so there’s an added bonus. I swear this is just a coincidence. Maybe. It could be. I don’t know. Anyways, we have ears, say cheers!

Chaos

The forest road seemed to be dragging on forever, like traveling on an endless conveyor belt. With the trees on the side of the road flexing back and forth in this windy weather, this seemed like the wrong night to take such a route. Officers Kenny Ryder and Robin Cage seemed to agree on that point, but they weren’t going to complain…publicly. They had a much bigger concern on their minds than potentially falling trees. In the back of their paddy wagon was Derrick O’Brien, the nation’s most dangerous domestic terrorist.

Derrick didn’t prefer bombs. He didn’t need guns. All he needed to get his message across were the blades on the tips of his powerful fingers, the flesh and bone-chewing fangs in his mouth, and the vocal cords of a bloodthirsty monster. The brown fur all over his body reeked of death and decay, like somebody who hadn’t showered in months while slashing victims to chunky pieces. The man wolf slept peacefully in his steel chain cocoon, but not without snoring like an AK-47 every time he breathed in.

Kenny and Robin kept looking over their shoulders and out at the road in short bursts before the chocolate haired Officer Cage broke the ice. “You know, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my career, but a fucking werewolf? If I don’t see a big fat paycheck at the end of this assignment, I might turn into a werewolf and go ape shit myself.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said the baldheaded male with the scraggly beard Officer Ryder. “You should have seen all the manpower it took just to chain that bastard up. And now they’re sending you and me to transport his big ass to some goddamn lab.”

“Lab? You mean they’re going to put makeup on him and squirt shampoo in his eyes?” asked Robin jokingly as she drummed her fingers on the dashboard.

“Hey, if I ever find out they’re testing Head and Shoulders on that big furry thing, I’ll gladly do commercials for those guys.”

“You don’t even have hair, Kenny.”

“So?”

The brief moment of comedy put weak smiles on Kenny and Robin’s faces. They hadn’t lost sight of how risky this assignment really was. One steel link snaps and Robin could lose her head. One pad lock breaks and Kenny could have his intestines spread all over the windshield. As quickly as the windstorm blew that night, the humorous mood faded.

“Oh, what the hell is this shit?” asked Kenny when he stepped on the brakes and slowly brought the paddy wagon to a halt. The halogen headlights did so little to make out the hooded and robed figure in the middle of the road. It was just standing there frozen in place when Kenny blasted the horn three times. He rolled down the window on his side and stuck his head out before shouting, “Hey! Move your ass! We’ve got a prisoner in tow and you’re holding us up!”

No response from the hooded figure, which prompted an even longer horn blast from Kenny followed by another shout. “Hey! I said move your ass off the road! Are you deaf or something?!”

“You want me to take care of this asshole?” asked Robin with her taser armed. Her partner gave a nod before she got out of the paddy wagon and slowly approached the hooded figure with her taser locked and loaded. “Sir? Ma’am? Whatever the hell you are, I suggest you get out of the road before I…”

“Before you what?” asked the feminine voice from behind the hood. She raised her bladed finger and continued her question with, “Shoot me with that little toy? Go ahead. See what happens, cupcake!”

Robin fired the electrical prongs, but not without the woman grabbing them and smiling at her with creepily seductive red lips. Officer Cage shivered and watched with wide eyes as the woman removed her hood and revealed herself to be a purple-haired vampire complete with bloody fangs. Before Officer Cage could let out a whispery swear word, the vampire rushed up to her and forearmed her in the cheek, knocking her to the ground and exposing her neck.

The vampire licked her lusty lips with anticipation as she knelt down to take a juicy bite. And then she heard, “Hey! Don’t even think about it, you circus freak!” Kenny stood at the opposite side of the paddy wagon with his shotgun pointed right at her. He even pumped it for intimidation, but instead got a voracious growl from the mysterious woman.

Officer Ryder squeezed off a shot, but hit nothing as the woman quickly ducked down and rushed toward the back of the vehicle. The shotgun wielder darted over to the fallen Robin Cage and put two fingers on her neck for a pulse. She had one, but it was fading. The entire right side of her face was swollen and purple.

Kenny watched his partner fade to black in front of him and said in a comforting voice, “Please, don’t die on me. I’ll find that bitch and put one in her chest for you.”

Robin painfully lifted her head off the ground and spoke in a raspy voice, “Kenny…forget about me…what about the prisoner?!”

The sounds of wet lips smacking together romantically could be heard from the back of the paddy wagon. “Oh no, no, not this!” shouted Kenny when he saw the back door swinging wide open. He patted Robin’s chocolate brown hair and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not leaving your side. Those two are probably long gone by now. They’re someone else’s problem.”

“Such dedication to your craft, Officer,” said the lusty vampire, who stepped out from behind the opened door with her arm wrapped around a thin blond haired stud muffin in an orange jumpsuit, quite the contrast from the beast previously in lockup. She smiled at the man and said, “Derrick O’Brien, scourge of the werewolf clan.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the ultra-sexy vampire queen, Sonya Demonic,” said Derrick, who was engaged in an intense lip lock with his blood sucking girlfriend, complete with ass grabbing and breast squeezing. Sonya took off her robes to reveal a stunning silk black dress underneath. “Excellent choice, my sweets!” They kissed some more.

“You two scumbags make me sick!” shouted Kenny as he pumped the handle on his shotgun and squeezed off another round into the couple’s vicinity. The blast hit Derrick in the chest, but the human-staged werewolf no-sold his pain with sarcastic clutches at his “wound”. Sonya Demonic held her mouth in mock horror and let out a few orgasmic screams.

The couple laughed off the “pain” together and hugged it out. Derrick wagged his finger at the shock-eyed Kenny and said, “Now, now, Officer. Didn’t I hear you say yourself that it took a lot of manpower to chain me up? What do you think happened to that manpower?” Derrick broke his embrace from Sonya and patted his tummy with both hands before snickering evilly.

“You sick bastard! You sick, sick bastard!” shouted Kenny.

“Sick? Sick? Who’s the sick one, Officer?” asked Sonya. “My beautiful werewolf boyfriend here, or the one person who keeps feeding able-bodied cops to the two of us for dinner? Did you two really think this was a transport mission to some god-awful laboratory? Come on, now. There’s nothing out here except for trees and windstorms. Go ahead. Call for help. I dare you!”

Kenny’s breathing was getting heavier and angrier with each passing second. He leaned down and picked up the wounded Robin baby style before sitting her in the passenger seat. She was still breathing, but shallowly. She sat upright, but with her neck at a forty-five degree angle. She let out a small cough to let Kenny know she was still alive.

Meanwhile, the shotgun-wielding cop was in the driver’s seat trying to work the radio buttons. He spoke into the microphone, “I need backup! Officer down! Repeat! Officer Robin Cage is down! I need extra units and an ambulance for her!”

There was a heavy crackling at the other end of the radio before an ominous voice said, “I’m sorry, Officer Ryder, but Miss Demonic and Mr. O’Brien are going to be full with just you two as their meal. It was the only way I could keep the creatures of the night from taking over this city. I’m sorry, Kenny. The sacrifice has to be made.”

Officer Ryder’s heavy breathing turned to silent weeping. The silence was broken when he pounded on the steering wheel and blew the horn while swearing his head off. The fit of rage ended when Sonya and Derrick were on opposite sides of the vehicle’s cab banging on the glass windows. The creatures smiled at them with bloodshot eyes, blood filled mouths, and plenty of hoarse laughs. Derrick had transformed back into his werewolf stage and was chewing on the door handle for special effects.

Kenny slammed his own head against the steering wheel until his forehead bled buckets. His vision was getting hazy and his body was relaxing. He didn’t even feel the storm of broken glass that nearly slashed his face up even more. His last vision before passing out from the pain of Sonya’s vampire bite was Robin Cage being dragged out of the vehicle with Derrick’s wolf teeth gnashing her skull.

The entire “dining experience” took little more than fifteen minutes of chewing, sucking, and chugging. Meaty morsels sliding down the creature’s throats while the bones were being cast aside. Blood oozing from their mouths like a waterfall of violence. They were full from their meals, but still had room for dessert, which they would eat in the privacy of the paddy wagon’s prisoner hold. Red velvet kisses with a few small drops of Pina Colata. Such a lovely meal for a lovely couple, who held hands afterwards and watched the night sky together. They had to do date night again sometime.