The Thing was lonely. Every day it went from here to there searching for a friend, but always it found none, and the Thing was sad. It was tired of singing and dancing by itself and it wanted someone to sing and dance with.

One day when the Thing was up and about it found a little girl. Now, the Thing loved the little girl and the little girl loved the Thing. They were always together, singing and dancing and playing pirates and Indians and everything else one could imagine playing at.

After a while though the Thing got hungry from all the singing and dancing and playing at, so it ate the little girl.

And the Thing was lonely again.

Chasing the deer through the twisted underbrush, David was hunting to feed his pregnant wife. He had been hunting all day and his muscles were throbbing in refusal but he had no food to bring home and another day and Jenny his wife would possibly have a miscarriage or die from starvation. The winter had been long and the forest was oddly quiet but David continued to chase after the deer. Into the clearing it dashed with David right on it’s tail, he was going to get this deer no matter what it took. Out of breathe from all the running David stopped and pulled out an arrow and shot the deer straight in the eye, if only he’d thought of this sooner.
Deer dragging behind David headed back for town hoping that his brother would do him a favour and butcher the deer for him. But as he came to the village his thoughts became panicked because for some reason no one was outside even though usually all the children would be out playing at this time of the day. Trying to think of reasons David thought maybe there was a town meeting or maybe old Franny’s hips were hurting so every one was holing up for a storm. No matter David continued to trudge through the slush to his cabin on the far side of the village. As he walked he got more and more weary because the houses looked empty and if someone even dropped a pin you would be able to hear it, something was definitely going on.
Approaching the Cabin it was just as quiet as in the village center but this wasn’t strange, Jenny was never one to be a loud talker or make a lot of ruckus. Through the window David could see that Jenny had left a candle burning as she did every afternoon waiting David’s return. Walking up the stairs they creaked with aggravations, as David pulled the deer up onto the porch he stopped for a moment, something was wrong but he couldn’t place it.
Maybe it was the faint sent of baked bread missing from the air or maybe it was the fact that Jenny had not come to greet him, whatever the reason something was very wrong. Slowly approaching the door David’s heart felt like a hammer in his chest. Cautiously David turned the knob on the door and pulled it back, but what he saw made him shut it faster than his brain could process. What David had seen was utterly terrible Jenny had been slaughtered and her body was now mangled sitting in the chesterfield as she always did waiting for David to return.

When I was around eight years old, this is going back to the early 70′s… (Now don’t be doing the math trying to figure out how old I am, let’s just say I am old enough)

My mother (who is Italian – it’s not a good thing or a bad thing, I just thought I’d let you know) was planning a big family get-together (were talking like 50-60 people – I have a big family) and was in desperate need of BREAD. My father was working, my older sister was at a friend’s house and my older brother was out playing hockey. I was upstairs watching TV (on a black/white with two antenna’s like a V on it – now you can stick a TV on the wall…go figure?) when all a sudden I hear my mother calling me (I’m thinking I did something wrong – that’s usually when my mother calls me) and she tells me (not asked me) to go buy bread for her.

Being the good son that I am I said sure no problem. I see my mother getting a piece of paper and a pen and began writing. I am going to buy bread, how hard can that be? (Believe you me, you’ll find out).  I ask my mom… “Ma what are you writing?” She says “I’m making a list of bread that I need” – (in Italian) which I could translate for you but why?  Ok… I’m thinking how long does it take to write BREAD on a piece of paper? I was eight years old; I figured it took awhile.

My Mom finishes and I could see her “folding” the piece of paper (not once, but a couple of times?) Maybe the piece of paper was big and she just wanted to make it smaller so I could carry it better (boy was I wrong). I take the paper and began to unfold it. My mother screams out “What are you doing?”, Ma… I just wanted to see what you wrote. Never you mind (that’s how my mom speaks in broken English) what it says, go buy the bread. You don’t fool around with my mother; you just do as she says. “Ok… I’ll go buy the bread”

So I take the paper and start walking outside heading towards my bike (which was a ten speed, not ideal for carrying bread – you’ll see). I hop on the seat and just before heading off, I figure maybe I should take a peek. I take the paper out of my pocket and began opening it (can you believe it unfolded ten times – It was as long as my arm!) It had every kind of bread known to man on it… buns, biscuits, loafs, bagels, long ones, shorts, round ones, round ones with wholes in the middle, everything! Along with the money to pay for it (must have been $1000 I thought). Here I’m thinking how the hell am I am going to carry all this bread?

Fearing to go back in the house to tell my mom (I was a big boy I could do it) I had to ask her how I was going to carry all that bread. I walk downstairs and there she was making pasta (Italians do not believe in buying pastas – that would be to easy). I say “Ma, how am I going to carry all this bread” “Are you still here she says?” (Nice eh?) My mom thinks about it (Like she actually thought I was going to carry the bread in my hands?) She walks to the pantry, reaches in and pulls out a hand full of shopping bags. “Here she says, now hurry up”.

Like a dummy (hey! I was eight years old, don’t be like that) I take the bags, get on my bike and start peddling off to the bakery. All the way there I’m picturing me on a bike surrounded by bread. I arrive at the bakery, parked my bike outside and walk up to the counter. The lady says “Can I help you?” “Yeah” I said. My mother needs all this bread, I handed the lady the piece of paper. She opens it and had a huge smile on her face (like she just won the lottery, you know she was going to make a big sale). She looks it over and then says “I can’t read this very well” and she points out some words and said “What does this say?” How the hell should I know I said (in my head – I was a nice kid). The writing looked Chinese but the lady said she could figure it out. “Ok… figure it out I said”.
I’m sitting there watching these ladies (yeah that’s right ladies – it took more than one to fill those bags). “Here you go” the lady said to me. “Can I help you put these bags in your car?…. “CAR”!… What car I said? I have my bike. The lady looks at me like I’m from Mars. “How are you going to carry all these bags?” she says. (Ah.. apparently you weren’t there when my mom said “Never you mind, just go” – again in my head) I ask the lady to help me “Load” the bread on my bike. We go outside, I sit on the seat and she begins handing the bags to me. I must have had at least ten bags on each hand. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to ride your bike like that”?. (Umm, I don’t think I have a choice now do I?) I tell her. Yeah no problem (Like I do it all the time).

So there I am sitting on my bike, ten bags of bread on each hand (and if that’s not enough for you) I had to cross a four lane road with no STOP LIGHTS! I ask the lady for a push and she does (Now if you were in her shoes, wouldn’t you have pushed “LIGHTLY”?) Well she decided I needed to break the speed barrier and launches me. I manage to get up to edge of the road (without falling) and see nothing but cars. I tried to brake but my hands were glued to the handle bars (have you forgotten I had 20 pounds of pressure on both hands). What if I had to brake suddenly I’m thinking? I managed to circle the parking lot until the coast was clear. I saw my chance, prayed and went for it. I cross the first lane, the second lane, the third lane and then “Oh my God” (I had your heart pounding there for a second didn’t I?) the last lane… “I MADE IT” I said (Damn I good)

As I’m riding all I could feel was bags hitting me all over (and I’m talking ALL OVER) I kept on riding (thinking everything is going good) and then all of a sudden (this time I’m serious) a car cuts out in front of me as I’m turning onto a side street. I go to reach for my brakes but my hands couldn’t move (Now this is the part you can tell your grand children about) Remember I have about half of a second to react at this point. I manage to free my right hand (still holding the ten bags – can’t let go of the bread) and then the turning point. Do I go for the brakes (If I do, I’m back to where I was) then it hit me (this goes down as the greatest decision ever made – by a eight year old) I decided to grab the bags of bread and throw them into my front tire (that should stop the bike I thought) Well Holy mother of Jesus did the bike STOP. It stopped on a DIME! Next thing I feel, I’m going head over heals over my handle bars (without a helmet mind you) Now what am I going to do? I’m thinking. As I’m going over my handle bars, my left hands become free (Oh great I’m thinking now I can use my left hand as well) still holding the bags of bread (I’m thinking about mama). At this point I had to make a quick decision (like I had a lot of time to make that last decision) Do I take a beating now or take a beating at home? (Believe you me the beating at home is way worse). I opted to take the beating now. I take the bags from my left hand only (the bags from my right hand are stuck in my front tire… remember?) and threw then in front of me (tried to cushion the blow – I had to think about my future to you know) the bags land perfectly for my back to land on (this is a good thing right?… WRONG!) I hit those bags like a stream roller hits tar, I turned every piece of bread into a pan cake (Flat as a board – you could have used it for paper, which I should have to write my will on because I still haven’t had “time” (HA) to think about how I was going to explain this to my mom) What happened to the bread in my front tire your asking? Well those got chopped up into a million little pieces (you should have seen the birds bolt down for them – god forbid they flew down to help me)

The Car (the one who’s to blame for all this or is it my mother?) sees all this happening in his rear view mirror and slams on the brakes. Open’s the door and comes screaming “Oh my God, are you Ok? Me?… Who cares about me I said – LOOK AT THE BREAD!! “Can I take you to the hospital” he says. “Buddy, I gotta be home in five minutes, I have no time for hospitals” “Are you seriously hurt?” he says. Humm…”have you ever flown over your handlebars before? – try it and then let me know if it hurts” I get up and see nothing but bread all over the place. I am running all over the road looking for any piece of bread that was still edible (I had to go a few rounds with some Seagulls, they wouldn’t let go of the bread). I couldn’t go home with NOTHING. I managed to scrap up enough bread to fill one bag. I picked up my bike, not a scratch on it (they don’t make them like that anymore, now there made of this Carbon Fiber stuff – you can snap it with your fingers).

I climb on top, start peddling (slow…very slow) thinking… What am I going say?…What am I going to say?(to my mother)… If I tell her I fell off my bike, she’ll kill me. If I tell her someone stole the bread, she’ll kill me even more (is that even possible?). If I tell her I lost the money (no…no…bad idea). What could I possible say that would give me the least beating? Remember when I said should I take a beating now or take a beating later? Will it’s time to take the beating later. I pull up to the house, park the bike (still in mint condition) and for the first time I take a look at myself. My cloths were ripped, I had a few cuts and scraps and its like – that’s it… once she sees me all busted up, she could never want to hurt me then. I walk down the stairs waiting for my mother to open her arms and embrace me with a huge Kiss. But in stead I hear her saying “Where the hell is he? I’m going to kill him, Wait till he gets home, How long does it take to buy bread?, (you would think at this point she would have run out of things to say… well she didn’t, she was just getting starting) it’s been 5 minutes since he’s left (ah… it’s a 10 minute bike ride, not walk) where the hell is he? (I should tell you that my mom is saying all these “nice” things about me in Italian, which is way funnier but it would take to long to translate everything)
My mom finally sees me coming (please, please, please, huge me and kiss me – I’m thinking) AND SHE… (I’ll leave up to you to guess what happened).

The Funny Guy

The Football Story…

It was my grade seven elementary flag football championship game. Are you familiar with Flag Football?  No… it’s not a bunch of kids running around with country flags (you know like United States, Canada, Italy, etc) on a stick. How the hell can you catch a football while trying to hang on to one of those flags? It’s impossible… what’s the matter with you?

Flag football is basically a game for wimps (listen I’m not a wimp, I wanted to play tackle football but if we did, then it wouldn’t be called flag football now would it?) So here’s how it’s played. You get a belt that you wrap around your waist (not a real belt) it looks like a karate belt and on either side (meaning your left hip and your right hip – must I explain everything?, get in the game will ya) there is a long narrow piece of plastic that’s suppose to be the flag part. These pieces are fastened to the belt by Velcro. To tackle someone, you simply pull off one flag of the opposing player and the play stops. Sounds easy no? Well try it while wearing pants that are skin tight and ten sizes smaller then you. By tight I mean your legs are stiff as a board, you can’t bend your knees. (Remember the episode of Jerry Seinfeld when Krammer wore those tight jeans and could not walk, well picture that)

I guess you figured out that I experienced this situation. Well believe you me, I did.  It’s the morning of the football game. I woke up all excited and couldn’t wait to get on the field and run (like I was mad at the grass). My mom (yeah the same mom from the Bread Story – if you haven’t read it then I have to explain what my mother is like and will take to long so it’s easier to just read my Bread Story first then come back) Look at me acting like some tough guy Millionaire trying to plug other material I have. Ok if you don’t want to read my Bread Story (but you should), my mom is your typical Italian mother. It’s her way or the highway. You don’t question my mother, you just do as your told.

Anyway my Mom comes into our room (by our I mean my older brother and I slept in the same bed – Hey… times were tuff back then so we had to sleep together, what’s wrong with that?) and gets our cloths ready for us to play.   Sounds easy right? Well here’s the problem. My brother is ten times skinner than me. The guy could hind behind a broom. Yeah I like Italian food (have you had Italian food? – you gain 40 pounds just looking at it), my brother obviously didn’t. When the food was on the table (and I’m talking like ten course meals daily – for Breakfast, lunch, and dinner – you could feed a wedding) I ate – wouldn’t you? Well I guess I ate more than my brother.

My mother gets his cloths ready in seconds but when she went to get my cloths ready we had a major crisis. My normal track pants (that fit) were in the washing machine and I had no other pants to wear. So put my track pants in the dryer you say? What dryer?… my mom doesn’t believe in dryers (to this day she doesn’t have one) – her dryer is the outside line. She has a wire hooked up from the back of her house to a pole stuck in the garden. It’s got to be at least 100 yards long. The pole is the size of a telephone pole. Who needs a pole that high? My mom could put the laundry of the whole block on her line. Let’s see a dryer do that!

She tells me to wear a pair of my brother’s pants. Are you picturing this? My mom hands me a pair of pants that were the size of one of my legs. “Ma, I scream, these pants won’t fit” (now for those of you who read the Bread Story, you know what my mother is going to say… “Never you mind – put them on”!)  Ok.. I’ll put them on. I unbutton the pants thinking they may get bigger but they didn’t. I tell my brother he has to help me put on his pants. I put one leg in and then the other (the pants were at my ankles at this point) and I couldn’t breathe. How the hell was I going to breathe if I got them all the way up? My brother pulls, I pull – the pants are moving a millimeter at a time. I’m pouring sweat and for some reason, God was with me that morning because I managed to get the pants on. The pants were made of some sort of steel, no stretch to them what’s so ever. I took a quick look in the mirror, man did I look Fresh! The pants fit me like the new style women wear, I think their called Capris?. For us guys out there, we call them Floods.

My brother looks at me and says “How are you going to run in those pants?” “Run?… I can’t even walk” I tell him. I suck in my stomach ( I gotta tell ya, I was looking pretty good at that point) and start walking stiff legged (like a soldier) out of my room and as I approached the stairs, reality hits me. There is no way I’m going to make it down these stairs alive. So what do I do?… I figure I’m already stiff as a board, why not go down the stairs like a board. I lied down (on my back) and slid down the stairs (you should try it, it’s pretty cool, just make sure your pants are Tight… really Tight). We get into the car and drive to the football field.

I get out of the car (with no help) and walk over to where our team was. The coach looks at me and says “Why are you wearing those pants?, they don’t fit you and you can hardly walk”. I tell him don’t worry, I’m fine (meanwhile my face was beat red because I have had no circulation going to the brain)  Just so you know my brother and I played wide receiver. That’s the position of the players who runand catch the ball. The ref calls for the teams to come to center field to put on the flags and get ready to kick off. As I’m walking on the field, I notice everyone pointing at me. I felt like Jerry Rice (for you women out their, he’s not a guy named Jerry who loved rice).  Jerry Rice is a legend football receiver, but you know very damn well why they were pointing at me.  I go to bend over to pick up my flags and I almost fainted, I couldn’t breathe. I managed to pick them up (thinking the worst was over… oh yeah right) and start heading towards the sidelines. The coach tells us (my brother and I) to get on the field to receive the ball.

The other team kicks the ball and guess where the ball is headed?… To my brother (yeah I only wish) it came whistling right at me. I catch the ball (that was easy) and try to run. My brain said “Ok legs run” but my legs said “Ok fat boy (I wasn’t fat, it was the pants) let me see you try”. I’m running like Frankenstein. I think I took two steps before my flag got pulled off. I get back to the sidelines and the coach says I can’t play receiver anymore (because I couldn’t run). I begged him to let me play. He knew I was a good player (but those pants sure as hell didn’t make me look it) and he tells me I could play center position (that’s the person who snaps the ball to the quarterback – no running involved) the next time we get the ball.

I’m watching the game and then a bolt of lighting strikes me in the head, relax it’s just a figure of speech (although if I ever wanted a bold of lighting to hit me, that was a good time for it to happen). In other words I just thought of something. If I couldn’t breathe trying to bend over to pick up my flags, how’s it possible to bend over (many times) to snap a football between my legs?. I walked over to my mother and asked her for her rosary beads (you know it’s a religious necklace with beads on them and you start with the top bead and say a prayer for each bead). I said a few prayers… “God, please help me make it through this game” (didn’t have time to do the whole necklace) and went back to the sidelines. Sure enough our turn to go on the field came up. I walked to where the football was on the field thinking “Do I just bend over or try to bend my knees?” I decided to do both. What happened next was reason to have the fire department there. Our team lines up on either side of me and I go to bend over and all you hear is KA-BOOM!! My pants didn’t rip – THEY EXPLODED! It echoed a roar clear across the field and neighbor’s were coming out of there houses trying to figure out what the noise was. It ripped the seam from the front of my pants all the way threw my legs and up my back. If it wasn’t for the waist band holding my pants together, they would have blown right off my legs.

Now here’s the funny thing (if you haven’t found any of this funny so far). I get up and my pants felt great. I thought I lost weight. I was ready to tell my coach I could play wide receiver again. I take my first step and suddenly I felt a breeze up my leg. I look down and I see my skin and a strip of material over my leg. Where’s my pants? I was hoping that nobody saw what happened. I look around and everybody (our team, there team, coaches, parents, refs, water boys, spectators, neighbors, people waking by…) were on the ground roaring like coyotes, laughing there heads off. The field was covered with water (not because of rain but from the water pouring out of everyone’s eye balls).

I try to cover myself up and walk to the sidelines. My mother comes over and gives me shit because my pants were too tight. I tell my mother “One of these days…One of these days – Pow, right in the kisser”.  How stupid do you think I am? I’d be walking (with no pants) and a limp if I said something like that.  Instead I gave my mother a great big kiss (sorry, I just had a memory lapse) I don’t think I did that.

So all in all, I had a good game. Who won? Believe it or not I can’t remember. Hey! can you blame me? I was traumatized over that day. I needed counseling, I went to see a psychiatrist, and I was heavily medicated. I was known from then on at school as the Kid whose pants exploded. Try living with that for the rest of your life.

The Funny Guy
P.S. Maybe I’ll ask my brother and find out who won.

“Dammit!!” As Sarah looked down at her watch, she couldn’t help but express a slightly colorful expression; she was over an hour late for work, and it was only her second week.
“Not like it’s my fault! First the car, then stupid Davis and his damn rent issues…” she continued to mumble crossly to herself as she stormed out of her apartment in a rage. She’d got rear-ended the day before, so she had to walk the four and a half blocks to work.
Feeling a cold, wet plop on her face, she looked up to a grey and bulbous sky. “Awesome. It would rain on a day like this. I should just quit and use my master’s degree for a Big Mac wrapper…” she said to herself. Not that she didn’t like her job; she did a lot. It was just lately that nothing seemed to go in her favor.
Head down to avoid the wetness falling from the sky, she didn’t see the homeless man charging like a bat out of hell after her.
“MISS! PLEASE, HELP ME!” He yelled after her, about a block away. She turned around, and seeing no one else, assumed the raggedy hobo was addressing her. She decided to cross the street; she couldn’t even handle her own problems, let alone someone else’s.
“Ma’am, PLEASE! It’s life or death!!”
That phrase got her. She stopped, hesitated for just a moment before turning around and saying, “Look, I’m already late for work, and-“
“Please, it will only take a moment!” He pleaded. She looked at him; he really was a pathetic looking person. He was maybe in his early to mid twenties, needed a bath, and a good meal wouldn’t hurt any. His dirty brown hair was sticking out in tuffs under his sopping wet beanie, and his expression was one of desperation.
“Fine! What do you need?” she snapped, hands on her hips. At least she would have an excuse to be late, she thought sarcastically to herself.
“Oh, thank you! I don’t have time to explain, just please deliver this for me!” he said, almost cried, even. And before Sarah knew it, he had thrust a red envelope into her hands and had run off.
“What the…?” she said softly to herself. Standing alone on the wet and dismal walk way, she took some time to study the envelope.
Aside from being red, it was extremely ordinary. Sealed in the front, no markings of any kind except a sloppily written address jammed into the upper left hand corner. 42 East Second St-that was on her way to work.
“Well,…it wouldn’t hurt. Seemed so important to the poor guy.” She muttered. She headed off again, and a few minutes later arrived at her destination.
It was a singularly nondescript house that would be pretty easy to overlook if it wasn’t for the door the same color as the envelope: blood red.
“Now why did I think of that?” she thought. She’d never been a superstitious person before, so she shrugged off the feeling of unease that had crept up on her and walked up the sidewalk to the door.
The grass on either side of the sidewalk was extremely overgrown, and the color of corn in late fall. The overall appearance of the house was very unkempt, and she wondered how anyone could live there. The shutters were hanging off, holding on by just a hinge, and most of the paint was chipped off or so molded from the weather that it was hard to guess at its original color.
She got to the front door and knocked. No answer. She knocked again, harder this time, and the door creaked open. Looking from left to right, she slowly opened the door and went inside.
The inside reflected the outside: disheveled, unkempt, and nasty. There was even a smell to it, like death, that almost blasted her over like a brick wall.
There was no furniture in the room, save for some black plastic bags all over the place. The wall paper was yellow and peeling, and the ceiling was long gone; all that remained were the rafters showing the groundless rooms above.
Wrinkling her nose, she called out, “Hello? Anyone here?” she paused, waited with her hand on the door about to leave.
“I was given a letter to drop off, should I leave it on the floor, or..?” she perked her head, ears strained to catch the tiniest of sounds; but there were none. Sarah tossed the envelope on the floor with a shrug, and was about to leave when one of the black bags caught her attention.
It was just a simple black bag, like the kind you would use to put leaves in after raking. But there was a rip in this one, and something was sticking out. She cautiously stepped closer, eyes straining to figure out what it was. It was long and thin, the color of a peach.
“It almost looks like a…” she began to think, but never finished the thought as she realized she was right.
“Holy SHIT it’s a finger!!” she said yelled, tearing backward and falling over. She started to pick herself up, when suddenly a figure was standing over her.
“Where do you think you’re going, miss?” the large, bearded man said. She didn’t fail to notice the bloody cudgel in his hand.
She let out a blood curdling scream and half crawled, half ran towards the door, frantically. Thankfully, luckily, she had left it open.

“Do you need anything for that coffee miss?” Officer White asked.
“N-no, I’m fine.” Sarah replied, holding her mug tightly for warmth. “What was that?” she asked.
Officer White plopped a manila folder on the metal table, which echoed slightly in the tiny interrogation room with a light thud.
“Some sorta halfway point for black-market human body parts.” He said gruffly, flipping open the folder and showing her pictures of things she wished he hadn’t shown her.
“What?!”
“Not that uncommon nowadays, to be honest.” He said, giving her an uneasy look.
“And the man?” She asked.
“Name’s Richard, he’s the ‘owner’, middle man, whatever you want to call ‘im.” He said, waving a meaty hand in a nonchalant manner. “Bigger guys up than him would come, buy whatever he’d happen to get that week and then sell it in bigger cities.”
He paused for a moment. “My question is though, where’d ya find this at?” he asked suddenly, leaning across the table and pulling the red envelope out of the manila folder.
Sarah swallowed. “… I’m not sure who he was. What I thought was a  homeless guy came running up to me this morning, said it was life or death, then before I knew it….He was gone.” she said with a slight shudder. She pulled her jacket tighter around her.
“Do ya wanna read it?” he asked abruptly.
“….Do I want to?” Sarah replied. She looked at him, and he hesitated for a second before responding.
“I think ya should. That guy didn’t give you this on a whim, ya know.” With that, he slide the envelope across the table. She picked it up hesitatingly; to think something so simple could be so insidious.
With a rip, she broke the seal and pulled out a small, crumpled note that read, This is your last delivery for the week Rich, make it count.

No one remembered when it started, or why; the only people who were alive at that time were the Elders of the village, and even they had been but swaddling babes when it begun. ‘It’ referring to the unique preservation of its citizens upon deaths arrival, that is.

As parchment was both expensive and rare in this part of the world, the village at some point in time had begun the practice of making the skin of its departed into Vellum for book bindings and pages, which would then be added to the hundreds of others in the village library.

Now, as it so happened, there had been not been a death in the township for some years, so when the village doctor was found slumped over at his desk, the populous was not at all depressed; quite the opposite, due to the fact that over the last few months there had been much clamor for a copy of Holts and Tramers Guide to the Human Anatomy.

A few days after the Book Binders had come for the good doctor, his now widow was leafing through his notes, as he had always been most private concerning them. Most of them, as she had presumed, dealt simply with the everyday mumps and pox that had plagued them all at one point or another. As she stood up to walk of restlessness, though, a brown folder managed to separate itself from the remaining manila ones and fell to the floor with a light thud.

Curiosity gripped her as she picked up the unknown folder. Opening it, she saw a fresh page of notes with the heading “Sleeping Beauty Effect” Her features composed a face of confusion as she read his attempts to make what he had dubbed an ‘anesthetic’ to put ones patients to sleep, allowing for more invasive procedures. Her confusion changed to horror as she continued to read how, unable to find a willing test subject, he had chanced to try the concoction on himself only yesterday.

With a yell of pure horror, she tore from the room and out her front door, only to hear the piercing scream of a person’s skin being ripped from their still-living body echo throughout the village.

Arthur was hiking in the woods one fine summer morning. It was such a glorious day, with the clouds so white and the grass so green and the sky so blue.

So very beautiful, he thought to himself as he listened to the joyous sound of the burbling brook and the chitter-chatter of little animals in their leafy houses. It was such a glorious day.

It was a day that had been made for being out-of-doors, for romping through the wood and becoming deliciously muddy in the much of the forest.

Arthur loved the sight of the birds twitting away amongst the brilliantly swathed trees, the happy foxes and jolly rabbits frolicking to their music, not seeming the least bothered with him as he paused to bask in their happiness. He whistled to himself a merry tune, passing by a plump spider slurping away on a twitching, struggling moth that seemed to scream to Arthur for help in a teeny bug voice, its struggles slowly ceasing…

In such a merry mood, he failed to notice the darkening sky that was fast overtaking his beautiful day. Quite suddenly, the moon managed to eat the sun, and with a defeated sigh was forced to make camp.

After rolling out his bed pack and making up the fire, his stomach gave a mighty rumble. Happily he looked through his bag to see what vitals he had packed, but found none; he had forgotten them in the anticipation of the glorious day, it seemed . He grumpily settled back down around the fire to help fight off the cool bite of the night air, tummy a-rumbling.

His mood slightly lessened, he tried to think of things to cheer himself back up. Ahh, at least he was warm! Gratefully he stretched out a hand to the merrily dancing flames that offered such comfort against the chill of darkness.

So very warm, he thought. Stretching out a tad more, he jumped back with a yelp as the once mirthful flame nipped his finger, seeming to laugh at him as he put the angry- peeling flesh of his forefinger in his mouth.

Licking his burnt skin with his tongue and tasting the seared epidermis, he was surprised when his stomach chose that moment to give a loud bellow. Ignoring it, he continued sucking on his burnt finger to ease its pain.

Upon pulling it out, Arthur was alarmed to see that all that was left of his finger was bone! His stomach gave another growl, and he with little hesitation was obliged to answer this time.

He stuck another finger in the fire until it was blacker and more burnt than the first one had been, and began hungrily gnawing until not two fingers where white as snow. Still hungry, he stuck the remainder of his hand in the heat.

So very good, he thought to himself upon finishing now both hands. Despite the rather large meal he had just eaten, he still found himself with a rather impressive appetite, so he swung his right leg around to the blaze, impatient for more.

So very HUNGRY, his thoughts screamed in his mind, now being only a meaty torso with four paper-white, jangly limbs. His hunger absolutely insatiable, he rolled himself into the inferno and to him they seemed to embrace him like a friend, holding him in its warmth…

For the rest of the night, he picked the rest of his savory flesh from his bones with teeth and twiggy fingers until all that was left was a bleached skeleton with bits of himself stuck between his teeth, sitting next to the camp fire and grinning at how lovely the forest seemed that night.

Richard had been working on the painting for ten years now. It was quite beautiful, depicting a lovely young women carefully pouring over some unknown novel underneath a willow tree, which had been planted aside the chief beauty of the art work: a pristine, glass-like lake. To look at the young woman next to it, she seemed very content simply sitting in the springtime Richard had painted for her.
Another ten years went by, and the painting grew ever more angelic. Every day following work, Richard would come home and retire to his study to labor over it, only breaking to use the restroom or eat. He wanted nothing less than perfection, no matter how long it would take him. The painting, though, was a little less patient than Richard was. The woman beneath the willow had reread the unknown novel several times now, and she found the plot line had become very dull. The painting longed simply to be finished, to sit upon some mantel and be admired for years to come; for the moment, however, it was happy to wait. Perfection was worth it, after all.
Ten more years passed by, and the painting was still not completed. It was more beauteous than ever, each brush stroke being a breath of absolute radiance, so beautiful as to make the Sistine Chapel look rudimentary. However, the painting failed to see this in its frustration at Richard. Each day it grew ever more displeased, wanting its creator to simply put down his brush and look upon it with a sign of contented finality. No, every look it received from its maker was one full of criticism and imperfections. It made the painting feel ugly, and hideous. Surely thirty years was long enough for perfection? Surely, if after thirty years and Richard was still not satisfied, then there was nothing more he could do? The painting pondered this…
The next day when Richard went to his study with brush in hand, the woman beneath the willow stood up, grabbed him by his smock, and pulled him down into the painting before he could do so much as blink. After several moments of darkened dizziness, Richard opened his eyes against the blackness and beheld a gorgeous sky of robin’s egg blue, streaked with the most delicately feathered clouds. He sat up to see an exquisitely wrought willow tree, surrounded by an array of wild flowers of every hue in the spectrum; from colors like sapphire, jade, scarlet and violet to a white so pure it would make the firmament itself look soiled. There seemed to be something missing from this Eden, though; there was a place just under the tree, an ugly bald spot that was worn down and bare as if someone had sat there for a rather extensive amount of time. He spied the spot’s occupant some paces away, a white void in the emerald grass.
She was glowing and radiant in the early morning sun; she had hair the color of purest gold, and satiny pale skin any oyster’s pearl would have envied, touched with the faintest hint of rose on her cheeks. She held out a tiny gloved hand and said, in a voice like pealing bells, “Come see thy work, master.” He took her hand as she smiled at him, such a sincere, innocent gesture. She proceeded to show him the fragile wild flowers he had spent so many years on that kept her company, the sturdy willow he had strove so hard to perfect which she leaned on when wearied, and finally that lake of such superb artistry that Aphrodite herself would have wept from sheer beauty.
“Go ahead,” she whispered in his ear, “touch the water.” He kneeled down, hands centimeters from the crystal depths when he saw her reflection in the water which showed her true nature: her thick, gilded locks were withered and brittle, her soft velvet skin was pock marked and stretched taught over skeletal features. Her tattered, now grey dress clung loosely to her emaciated frame as her sunken eyes clouded over white, filling with an insatiable rage. With a scream, he quickly turned around only to flail backwards into the water as the frighteningly grotesque figure surged towards him, and with surprising strength grabbed him and held him under the water color lake, screeching all the while. “You did this to me! You did this to me!” until the waves were quite still and Richard’s struggles ceased.
Her immaculately white dress sopping wet, the radiant young woman returned to her post beneath the willow tree, and resumed her book; she had just gotten to the good part.

The octopus stared at Jimmy, and Jimmy stared back. His five year old eyes widened with wonder at the sight; it was a gigantic fluffy thing, traffic-cone orange with a sewn on smile and bright button eyes, and Jimmy wanted it tremendously. Turning his gaze from the fogged up window, he stuck a tiny hand in his pockets for 25 cents. He found nothing but some crumbs and an old tootsie roll wrapper, the treat being long since digested. With a defeated sigh, he dragged his feet back to the bench to wait for his mother to finish her shopping.

Swinging his feet back and forth, he heard a curious sound of metal against stone. He turned his Spider Man shoes over to see a dirty, sticky quarter held precariously in place by a piece of blue chewing gum. He jumped up excitedly and ran to wash it off in a nearby fountain, the octopus staring at him all the while. Shoving the coin into the slot of the machine, he impatiently hopped up and down as the mechanism sprang to life. Hardly breathing, he painfully directed the shiny, rudimentary hand over his prize and pushed the button.

He started, not daring to even blink as his octopus was lifted into the air like some bizarre piñata. It dropped into the gigantic chute, its smile disappearing down in the darkness. With an exuberant yell, Jimmy stuck his hand in the door on the machine to grab his new toy, but was disappointed when his tiny fingers failed to grasp it. He got down on his knees and opened the door, seeing it all the way in the back, the mouth of the chute being more of a tunnel than an actual chute. With a triumphant grin, he pushed himself in the chute to get his toy until half of him was dangling out of the hole. Just as his hand was about to touch his treasure, a fluffy tentacle latched onto his arm. With a scream of pure terror, Jimmy tried pulling back, but he lost his footing outside the chute door, allowing the octopus to pull him into the plushy darkness while it continued to smile.

Not yet ten minutes later, the octopus watched as a little girl with bright green eyes pushed her nose against the glass, her face a lit with wonder. The octopus smiled back at her, still hungry.