Read This Shit

theunsluttyalleycat asked: Blustery is my favorite word right after akimbo.

Ooh, akimbo is a good one.

When he entered the room, he stalked in like a predator at a buffet of lesser creatures seen only as flesh for the feast, and no one knew a thing about him. Not his name, not where he came from, not why he was there. But primal instinct is a powerful thing and they could all tell he was a beast to be reckoned with, a creature of hell’s design. He stormed by them all, passing each one with such force it caused their heads to turn, not toward him, but away. Most pretended he wasn’t there.

“Man?” they’d say, “What man? No man here, buddy. Certainly not one in an old fashioned black and white suit, certainly not one with the face of a man who has done terrible things to good people, certainly not in this room, no sir. Not here.”

He cut a path all his own through the room and never once looked anyone in the eye. He made his way to the large oak door and he stopped. The room fell silent as everyone in it simultaneously failed their attempt to ignore the hulking stranger at the door in the back of the room. They all looked up from their places at their desks or the water coolers, they peered in from the break room door while cups of coffee shook nervously in their hands. They all sat and they waited. The man knocked upon the door only once and he listened for a response from behind it. When he received none, he sighed deeply and reached into his jacket pocket, producing a 9mm pistol, and with one brutish kick, the door splintered around the edges and nearly fell off its hinges.

The silence had been broken, and with it, the tension and the unspoken uncertainty as to how to act in this situation. This was no longer the sort of situation where one sits quietly, still and afraid, waiting for something big and loud to happen. The big and loud thing had already happened and everyone in the room acted accordingly. Cups of coffee were dropped, files and folders and scraps of paper took to the air, and the silence that had once occupied this space was now replaced by a god awful clamoring and collection of screams and curses.

Inside the office at the back, through the broken door and away from the turmoil in the room outside, the tone was much different.

“You have a lot of balls, coming here, coming into my place of business. Who the fuck do you think you are?” asked the man behind the desk. He was thin and bald, his face was mean.

“The guy with the gun usually talks first.” Said the man with the gun, “But since you asked, my name is Avery and I’m here to conduct some business of my own.”

“Your name isn’t really Avery.” said the bald man.

“You’re right, it isn’t.”

“Who’s paying you? Who’s your employer?” asked the man behind the desk, “Listen, I have a right to know who hired you to kill me.”

“You’re sure I’m here to kill you?”

“A guy shows up out of nowhere in a three piece suit and slicked back hair, looking like a mob enforcer from the 1950s. He kicks in my door and points a god damn pistol at my head. Something tells me you’re not here for a consultation.” said the bald man.

“I’ll be honest, Mr. Gabriel-“

“Please, John.” said the bald man.

“John.” Avery replied, “I’ll be honest, John. Killing you is definitely an option that is available to me right now. But that’s all it is: An option. The choice is yours, really. This could go one of two ways.”

“I’m listening.”

“The fact of the matter is you owe my employer a lot of money. Money that I’m here to collect. So, the choices laid out before you are as follows: One, you give me the money that you owe my employer, all $500,000 of it, and I take my leave of you. I take my leave of you and this whole thing will serve as a learning experience.” Avery said.

“And the second option?” asked John.

“That’s when my job gets a bit messy.” Avery said, “I don’t like it when my job gets messy. You sure as hell won’t like it either.”

“I see.”

Time passed, minutes maybe, and there stood Avery with a pistol aimed at John Gabriel’s head. The two men held eye contact and Avery smiled.

“You’re trying to stall me, Mr. Gabriel. Your thought is that out of all your employees that ran screaming from the other room, surely at least one of them will have called the police by now. Surely the police must be on their way, and you’re hoping to hear sirens outside before you give me an answer.” Avery said, “Am I close?”

“You’re good.”

“I am.” Avery said, “Now, as cliché as it may sound, I’ve little choice here but to say it. Your money or your life, Mr. Gabriel.”

“Mr. Forsythe, your employer is Mr. Forsythe.”

“Yes.” Avery replied, “How many other people do you owe half a million dollars to?”

“Exactly.” said John. He rose from his chair and buttoned his jacket, and Avery kept the pistol trained on his forehead. “Mr. Forsythe is a desperate man, Avery. He didn’t hire you to kill me. No that would be the last thing he would want, because with me dead, he’ll never see his money again. Half of a million dollars is a lot of money, even to men like us, and if he should go to such lengths as this, as hiring a man of your obvious talent to retrieve it from me, that means one thing. He needs it now as much as I needed it when I came to him for it.”

“You’re stalling again.” Avery said.

“There’s something Mr. Forsythe does not know, Avery.” John said, “Through a series of shrewd investments, not all of them completely legal, I’ll admit, I have in fact more than quadrupled that money. My not paying him back had nothing to do with not having the money, but rather I just didn’t want to. A man in my position can afford to do things like this, you see.”

“I don’t understand.” Avery said.

“Of course you don’t.” John replied. Avery heard a familiar click from behind his head. “Avery, meet David. David is the man I hired to stop whoever Mr. Forsythe hired to get his money back, in this case, you.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I suppose I’d expect such language from a man in your profession.” John said, “Little account for manners. Here’s the fun part: I have no reason to send you back to Mr. Forsythe alive, since it would make a much bigger impact on him to find out that a skilled retrieval expert such as yourself would turn up dead by my hand. Well, David’s hand, technically, but I keep that hand well-greased with compensation.”

“It’s true.” said David, “I’m a well-fed and obedient guard dog.”

“So, you see my dilemma, Avery.” John said, “As much as I’d like to have David here rough you up and send you on your way, I’m afraid that’s simply not in the cards for you. It’s nothing personal, though. I’m just a businessman.”

“How long has David been in your employ, Mr. Gabriel?” Avery asked. John blinked.

“Roughly six months, I suppose.”

“Since you quadrupled Mr. Forsythe’s money.” Avery said.

“Well, yes. Once I could afford it, I thought to protect myself.” said John, “I’m not stupid.”

As the roar of police sirens slowly faded in, Avery smiled. John suddenly felt uneasy, as though his stomach was attempting to warn his brain of something awful that was about to transpire. Before he could acknowledge this horrible sense of dread, John was painfully aware of the fact that he now had not one, but two pistols aimed at his head.

“What is the meaning of this?!” he shouted, raising his hands slowly. 

“My friend here and I are in a particular sort of business.” Avery said, he took a step toward the desk. “It’s the sort of business one must be very well trained for. Over the course of many years, David, as you know him, and I put that training to use in the manner we just presented to you. We offered our services as retrieval experts, or as personal bodyguards. Both of those jobs paid very handsomely.”

“Like I said, well-fed puppy.” David said.

“But it wasn’t until a few years ago that we came to the realization that we were missing out on an entirely new level of this business, complete with far better compensation.” Avery said.

“You- You play one against the other.” John whispered, “One is hired to retrieve the money, the other hired to guard it, you get paid twice.”

“Plus, if both of our respective employers should meet an unfortunate end, we also get to keep the indebted amount itself.” Avery said with a smile. “We think of it as a sort of finder’s fee.”

“My god, this whole time, he’s been with me.” John said.

“Long enough to learn every thing about you.” said David, “Including where you keep your cash.” John’s eyes flashed to the ugly painting of a sea captain on the wall behind the two men with guns.

“No.” Avery said, “There? In the wall behind that ugly ass painting?”

“I know, right?” said David.

“Not very original, Mr. Gabriel.”

The sirens grew ever louder, as outside the streets were flooded with police cars and television news vans, all clamoring for a good view. 

“It’s nothing personal, Mr. Gabriel.” Avery said, “We’re just businessmen.”

Two shots echoed through the air like claps of thunder and they were gone.

Five police officers armed with automatic rifles and vests that read “S.W.A.T.” in bold white letters rushed into a room in utter chaos, coffee staining the already bleakly tan carpet, important documents strewn about the floor. Once inside the office, they discovered the body of Mr. John Gabriel slumped in the chair behind his desk, dead by two precision gunshot wounds to the head. The window behind him was awash with blood. The ugly painting of a sea captain lay on the floor, ripped from the wall in which there was now an open and very empty safe. 

                                                       END

“I’m going away for a while.” he said to no one. It echoed. “I’ve no idea when I’ll be back, but it won’t be soon. I might not be back at all.”

He reached for a coat that was no longer there and he wore an invisible hat.

“Miss me while I’m gone?” he asked the shadows cast from the moon hanging outside closed windows and the dust on the bare floorboards lay still.

The door opened then, and the light flickered on, and he turned to see the man peering in. He smiled at him and tipped his invisible hat in a greeting of an era long dead and forgotten.

“What is it?” asked the lilting voice of a woman from the hallway and the man turned to reply.

“I thought I heard someone in here.”

“No one’s lived there for years, you know that.” she said and the man shrugged. Off went the light and the door closed. The voices were gone.

He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly turned back to the empty room.

“No, I don’t know who that was. New neighbors?” he asked the darkness and the silence and the void that was once a home.

“They seem nice. Maybe I’ll stay a bit longer.”

                                                    END 

Hi,

I’ve gotten a few new followers to this blog recently, so to you, I say: Hello and welcome.

I don’t update this as often as I’d like, even though I write more often than it seems that I do. But I appreciate the follow, all the same.

I’ve been pretty lucky with this blog so far, in that I’ve gotten a few “high profile” reblogs and such. I’m pretty proud of that, silly as it might be. It just means that something is working somewhere.

I’m a pretty typical writer-type person, though, in that I don’t think I’m very good at it. Every so often someone I don’t know will tell me I’m doing a pretty okay job at it, and that makes me good enough to keep going.

There’s an About Me section, in case you’re interested, and I welcome any and all questions or comments or criticism here. I don’t really write to please anyone else, though I do try sometimes, mostly I just write because I don’t know what I’d do if I ever stopped. But I am interested in getting better, so I do accept criticism from others. I promise you, though, no matter how harshly you criticize me, I’ve probably already criticized myself even harder about whatever it is you’re messaging me about.

Anyway, long story short (WRITER HUMOR), thanks for reading.

—Rob Kaas 

The boat was propelled, by the force of his own two arms, for well over an hour before the man realized where he was and what he was doing. No recollection of leaving his home, or finding a row boat, or rowing it to the middle of where-ever-am-I-now. So confused, so foggy in memory, he sat and stared at his calloused hands and the splinters jutting from his thumb. The salt air stung his eyes and the world took a hazed appearance and he couldn’t blink it away no matter how hard he tried. The world around him was darkened by twilight and the water went on forever. The confusion had not yet faded when the water began to convulse beneath the boat, when the waves licked at the tiny craft like a voracious lover, when it was clear he was not as alone as he felt.

The water around the boat caused it to rise and fall and the man felt sick. He felt sick from the motion, he felt sick from the confusion, and now, last but certainly not least, he felt sick from fear. He had known water to be choppy, especially deep water and especially distant water, but this was different. This was not choppiness across the top of the ocean, this was movement from below it. He gained his composure as well as he could and he peered over the edge of the boat and into the murky dark waters beneath him. For a split second, he thought he saw something move, something very large and something very green. He felt a number of things all at once, including terror, but also something he had felt many times in his life but never had a name for. He felt as though he was being watched. There was no doubt in his mind that, as hard as he tried to see into the deep waters below him, as difficult as it was for him to see anything other than shadows beneath the waves, something else was looking directly back at him and, whatever that something was, it saw him with perfect clarity.

The boat trembled, as his body trembled, and he made a valiant attempt to paddle out of the way, but just as he feared, it was too late. It rose from the water and the waves began tearing the wooden craft apart. He fell over the side and was overtaken by the blinding cold, blacking out for a split second, before grasping onto what was left of his boat.

How did I even get here? he thought, What has happened to me? Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the ocean water that drenched him to his very core. Nearby, a very old looking book floated atop the water. Clutching to the shattered pieces of wood that were once a boat, he looked from the book, to the enormous thing that emerged from the deep, all tentacles and eyes of crimson, a thing of horror from the pits of hell, a terror only seen in the dreams of the depraved and conjured from the depths of insanity. A profound evil unleashed upon this earth.

“Oh god.” He said aloud, “What have I done?”

As the waves enveloped him, as he gasped his final breath, the man did not see his life flash before his eyes. He did not wonder who would miss him, no, he did not mourn his own death. Instead, he mourned that he had no time or means to warn anyone, to let everyone else see this mass of horrible scales and claws and tentacles, that no one would know what was coming. But none of that mattered, now.

Everyone would know soon enough.

                                                            END 

Every thing is a matter of contrasts. Life versus death, dark versus light. The universe is made of them. The world can be a loud and terrible place when cast upon it is the unforgiving brilliance of daylight. People shout and run and push the less fortunate out of their way, all while they travel across this tiny rock under the harsh and hot sun. They feel a sense of security during the day they dare not feel at night, no, not while the moon casts her shadows and the world bathes in darkness. For others, these roles are reversed, as they flinch and whimper and squirm as the sun bears down on them, as though the light was shining on them and them alone, as though the light burns through to their souls. But at night, as the red hot bitch sinks over the horizon and her pale sister rises in the east to greet the freaks and vagrants, they slink out from their holes like vampires exiting their crypts and they breathe a sigh of relief as they dance off into the shadows.

Such contrasts stand as a universal truth, as monoliths of reason that exist to mock the tempest of foolishness and insanity swirling around them, trying their damnedest to corrode them into dust.

                                                      —- 

It was three fifteen in the morning and the man walked through the empty lot full of gravel and discarded beer bottles, he walked over the grassy hill and ran his hand along the chain link fence, allowing his fingertips to dance across the cold metal. The wind pushed him forward, blowing his hair into his eyes, and it filled the air with a soft hum. He stepped off of the curb and walked the four paces it took him to reach the center of the highway. He looked north, then south, but saw no headlights, no taillights, no sign that anyone had passed in either direction. To him, it felt as though no one had passed here in years. He stood there, in the middle of the highway, one of the many circuits that connect city to city and provide people with a clean and safe path to see their loved ones or to find new ones. He reached down and dusted a section of the asphalt with his hand, right across the faded twin yellow lines that separated the road in half, and he gently sat down. He crossed his legs in front of him, he closed his eyes, and he waited.

                                                        —-

Time has such capacity to amaze. It crawls at a maddening pace when we are aware of it, yet it speeds past us in the blink of an eye. We are but specks in the stream, lost and alone and grasping for any bit of solidity we can find, hoping to slow the stream or indeed stop it if possible. All too often, we are pulled under, we lose sight of land, we lose our footing and the rushing waters engulf us, never to let go again.

                                                          —-

She was turning forty in only a few days and she wondered aloud what that meant. She wondered how she grew so old so fast, she remembered her childhood so clearly, and she wondered when time would stop for her. When the world would cease it’s rotation and when she would slip out of this world of physicality and into the next, more spiritual, plane of existence. Will it be tomorrow? she pondered, Or will I live to be a hundred years old, all wrinkles and wisdom? She drove on into the night and she looked down at the bright blue numbers that shone 3:16am from the shadows, but when she looked up from them, she screamed. She turned the wheel sharply to the left and as her car careened into a spiral of flying metal and terror, as the headlights fell upon the figure in the center of the highway, she had but a moment to think Is that a man? before the car landed with a crash, wrong-side up. The roof forced sparks of fire to leave the ground as it slid, however smoothly, across the blistered asphalt road. It came to a stop and the night fell silent.

                                                         —-

It is a widely held belief that there are no coincidences in this universe. It is simply too convenient an answer to all of the complexities of existence, both in this space and the space beyond, to say that it is all a series of coincidences that should be brushed aside and ignored as commonplace occurrences. The vastness of it all, the thought of multiplicity among universes. To cast such impertinence upon these things would be dire. No, things happen for a reason. Cause and effect, every thing linked to every other thing in a boggling maze of design as to reduce the most brilliant of human minds to madness, as human minds are still feeble things in the face of such circumstance.

                                                        —-

He opened his eyes. How long had they been closed? He smelled the smoke and felt the heat of the fire radiate against his skin. He stood and stretched his arms and walked to the flaming wreckage. He knelt down and peered into the window. He grimaced, then turned away. Not tonight. he thought as he walked back over the grassy hill. The moon hung low in the sky and glowed eerily against a sky with no stars. The screeching howl of ambulance sirens pierced the air and he was gone.

                                                       END 

neil-gaiman:

I’ve seem to be hitting writer’s block far too often now. My grade in my creative writing class is suffering because i don’t turn in anything because i’m never really satisfied with anything i do. all my good ideas seem to turn into bad ones once i write it down. How do you get pass writers block?

 whimsyrachy

You turn off your inner critic. You do not listen to your inner police force. You ignore the little voices that tell you that it’s all stupid, and you keep going.

Your grade isn’t suffering because your writing is bad, it’s suffering because you aren’t finishing things and handing them in. 

So, finish them and hand them in. Even if a story’s lousy, you’ll learn something from it that will be useful as a writer, even if it’s just “don’t do that again”.

You’re always going to be dissatisfied with what you write. That’s part of being human. In our heads, stories are perfect, flawless, glittering, magical. Then we start to put them down on paper, one unsatisfactory word at a time. And each time our inner critics tell us that it’s a rotten idea and we should abandon it.

If you’re going to write, ignore your inner critic, while you’re writing. Do whatever you can to finish. Know that anything can be fixed later.

Remember: you don’t have to brilliant when you start out. You just have to write. Every story you finish puts you closer to being a writer, and makes you a better writer.

Blaming “Writer’s Block” is wonderful. It removes any responsibility from the person with the “block”. It gives you something to blame, and it sounds fancy.

But it’s probably more honest to think of it as a combination of laziness, perfectionism and Getting Stuck. If you’re being lazy, don’t be. If you’re being a perfectionist, don’t be. And if you’re stuck, figure out where the story went off the rails, or what you got wrong, or where you need to go deeper, or what you need to add to make it work, and then start writing again.

“Did you hear the news?” was the question du jour. I heard it when I got up in the morning, it came blaring out of my alarm clock by way of some annoying morning talk radio personality whose name I didn’t care to catch. After I showered and ate a sensible breakfast of pop tarts and a shot of whiskey, after I locked my apartment door and took the stairs because of the elevator that hasn’t been fixed since I moved in, once I hopped into the back of a cab, I heard it again. The cab driver had to repeat it, his accent was thick and awful but not from the country you might be thinking of. I like to remain silent in taxis, I find you never know who knows the driver and it’s generally best to stick to the minimum amount of small talk required in those situations. I stepped through the door at work and I heard it from three different people in as many minutes and then I heard it last from the man who signs my paychecks, the only time I’d heard the question and actually felt obligated to give some sort of answer.

“Did you hear the news?” he asked. I coughed and muttered something. “What?”

“Yeah.” I said, “Damn shame.”

“Another pop star gone from the night sky of celebrity, eh?”

“Absolutely.” I said, “Well put.”

We exchanged niceties and he cobbled together a few more Frankenstein worthy phrases using a smattering of buzz words and pop culture references before he had to leave to catch an important phone call. I was glad to see him go but afraid of what our chat meant for the rest of my day. Did the others see me acknowledge the latest news story? Did they hear me converse with this skinny tie wearing douchebag with a five dollar haircut about which retroactively beloved celebrity passed away yesterday morning? Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t, but if they did they might approach me and try to use that to strike up conversations of our very own. I hate conversing with co-workers because of the futility of it. We might as well be speaking foreign languages at one another, for all the looks of confusion that pass across our faces. I never have anything to talk to them about and all of the topics they bring up are things I’ve no interest in ever hearing about, let alone hearing about while I try to smile politely and nod.

“Tim, hey.” said the round man with glasses. Here we go, I thought.

“Oh hey.”

“So, big story huh?” he said. I fought the urge to scream and nodded. “It really makes you think.”

“How so?” I asked like someone who cared. I don’t know why I asked it or what sort of answer I was expecting, but it happened and now it was too late to do anything about it but smile and listen.

“Well, I mean there are people holding candlelight vigils and donating money to charities doing everything to make sure that no one forgets the name of a singer or an actor.” he said. “It makes you wonder who will remember you when you die, you know?”

The round man with the glasses was right, though I hated to admit it. Listening to his words, they made a lot of sense, too much sense. That was the end of me for the day, those last words of his, It makes you wonder who will remember you when you die, you know?

It did make me wonder, it did make me think, I wandered the halls from that moment on, lost in my own mind. After all, who were these people? These singers, these actors, the rich and famous and out of reach of the rest of us. No work was completed that day, there was simply no way I could focus on anything other than the existential crisis I had just stumbled into. The thought of calling in sick crossed my mind that morning, as it does all mornings before I pry myself from bed, but never before had I regretted not doing it more than this day. I sat at my desk and sipped from my coffee and cursed when I realized, all too late, that it had gone cold.

“You got a minute?” asked the man who signs my paycheck, leaning into my office without a knock. I nodded and motioned for him to come in, which he did. “I need to know when you’ll be finished with that piece I asked you about. Hey, are you okay? You look worried about something.”

“Hmm?” was the only noise I could make. “I need to go home.” I said.

“What are you, sick?” he asked, taking a few steps back and out of my office door. “I don’t want to get sick.”

I slid my jacket on and patted his shoulder as I walked by him.

“We’re all sick. We’re all dying of the same disease.” I said. He didn’t respond.

I made my way through the building slowly as I thought hard on the subject at hand. Am I becoming jaded? I thought, No, that happened years ago. But why? Why did I care about so many people throwing their love and attention away on the passing of someone they had never met or even been in the same room with? Why did the thought that an actor or a singer or a television personality would be remembered more fondly than I would after finally kicking the bucket make me feel sick to my stomach?

I took the elevator to the lobby floor, more a luxury than a convenience given my living conditions, and the questions kept flooding my mind. It wasn’t that I wanted a million people to miss me or light a candle for me or hold a moment of silence to commemorate my death, I didn’t want any of that. I only wanted for one person to grant me even a fraction of the love that these famous bastards, these Hollywood martyrs, received and ignored. Not in death, but in life. That’s when it hit me, an epiphany from the depths of my own mind, as I stepped out of the building and on to the sidewalk. None of these people even know my name. I thought, They call me every name under the sun that is not my own. Tim, Joe, Rich. These cretins see me as a meal ticket, a dispensary of words that they can turn into money. They don’t know who I am as a person.

I was alone when I stepped off that sidewalk and into the street, not just as a singular person performing a seemingly harmless action, but as a person who has realized that he has no true friends or family in the world, no one who truly knows who he is, and thus no one who would truly miss him should he leave the physical world.

I heard the truck’s horn fill the air before the screeching of it’s tires and as I saw my reflection in the metallic teeth of it’s grill, moments before it struck me, I shouted one thing.

“My name is Roger Phillips!”

Then it all went dark.

The smoke flowed upward like a waterfall in reverse. She knew what she was doing was wrong, that it could very well end in her death, but she didn’t care. Those few minutes of inhaling the sweet nicotine into her lungs, taking it into herself like a vaporous lover, was worth whatever horrible outcome she could imagine. The sign above her head read ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING in bold harsh letters. Under it, a second sign read PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. Still she puffed away happily. So lax in her enjoyment, so caught up in that full bodied finish that the pack had advertised, so alive in the moment and so drunk on a much needed nicotine fix, that she failed to hear the clicking of a gun being cocked.

A loud bang that echoed sharply through the alley, a momentary flash of light, then a splash of crimson across the wall behind her. She fell limp and the cigarette fell, still lit, onto the ground. The man in the black riot helmet and bulletproof vest with the word POLICE emblazoned across the front sheathed his weapon, his figurative sword of justice, as a second officer approached from behind.

“Another one?” the second officer asked. The gunman nodded. “You gonna call it in?” The gunman shook his head.

“This is patrol unit 513 in city south, requesting a clean up at the coordinates listed in our GPS signal. Another smoker.” the second officer said into the radio receiver on his shoulder. The gunman knelt down and looked into what was left of the womans face for a moment, before standing and turning to his partner.

“Why do they do it, man?” he asked, “Don’t they know those things will kill them?”

                                                           END

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876 

Dear Dr. Von Magma-brain,

Writing to inform you that your most recent attempt at world domination was one of particular amusement for me. The fact that you tried to claim the White House while the President was on a diplomatic mission in another country is sad enough, but the fact that you did so with an army of bears (and while riding one of said bears!) is comedic GOLD. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. Especially when the bear you were riding bucked you off his back and tried to maul you. Classic stuff.

Sometimes being a superhero can be a lonely gig and having someone like you constantly making me laugh is nice.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, please don’t ever stop trying to take over the world. I’d be so bored if you did.

Enjoy what’s left of your sentence.

Heroically Yours,

Captain Splendid

—-

From The Desk of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma
Mount Evil
Evil Volcano Island, USA 02946 

To Captain Splendick,

Oh, ha ha ha. I’m so glad to hear that the greatest disappointments in my life bring you such utter amusement. That bear did NOT try to maul me. She was actually, well, attempting to mate with me, if you must know. I hadn’t taken mating season into account and I- Well, what the hell am I telling you all of this for? Why do all of the villains always tell you their entire plan? HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

Also, I’ll have you know that I am no longer in MaxCell Prison, as I have escaped yet again! Bwaha haha ha!

Yours in villainy,

Dr. Von Magma (NOT MAGMA-BRAIN BECAUSE THAT IS STUPID AND DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE YOU ARE SO STUPID)

—-

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876 

Dear Dr. Von Magmama’s Boy,

You do realize that listing your address on your stationary while revealing that you’ve escaped from prison is really stupid, right?

—Captain Splendid

—-

From The Cell of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma 
MaxCell Prison for Supervillains

Captain Splendid,

You son of a bitch.

 —Dr. Von Magma
P.S. MY MOTHER WAS A SAINT.

—-

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876 

Dear Von Magsy,

That’s my new nickname for you. Von Magsy.

What’s your deal, anyway? You’re a mad scientist, I get that, but I mean, why? What happened to you? Who hurt you, Von Magsy? Who hurt you?

 I look forward to your next prison break and subsequent failure to take over the world.

Signed,

Captain Splendid

—-

From The Cell of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma 
MaxCell Prison for Supervillains

Captain Horrid,

Von Magsy is a terrible nickname. Just awful. At least have the decency to call me DR. Von Magsy, I am a scientist dammit.

My “deal” is simple: I am the smartest being on the planet, thus I should be in charge. Having me as ultimate ruler of the world wouldn’t be that bad, really. I mean, no more minimum wage (everyone will be slave labor), the streets will be cleaner (everyone is to clean the area in front of their home with their toothbrush every afternoon), plus, no more American Idol! I would cancel the shit out of it! Why don’t more people see how wonderful all of that would be? Everyone is so dumb.

Including YOU.

I also look forward to my next prison break, because I’m having quite a bit of difficulty with it this time. They have these dogs, now. They’re huge and mean and one of them bit me on the ass the last time I tried to escape. On the ass.

See?! WHY DO I TELL YOU ALL OF THIS?

Hatefully yours,

Dr. Von Magsy  Von Magma

—-

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876

Dear Dr. Von Magsy,

Because maybe you’re lonely. Maybe you need someone to talk to. Have you ever thought that maybe if you vented some of this stuff to you wouldn’t be so angry all the time? Food for thought.

We’re not so different, Von Magsy. We have a lot more in common than you think. You’re a funny little dude. We shouldn’t keep fighting like this, we should be bros!

Signed,

Captain Splendid
P.S. American Idol is pretty bad. I hate J-Lo, but I’m not even sure why.

—-

From The Desk of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma
NOT Mount Evil 
NOT Evil Volcano Island, USA 02946 

Cap’n Crunch,

OH GOD SHE’S THE WORST. I mean, she was cool when she was a Fly Girl and even some of her early songs aren’t bad. Jenny From The Block is pretty damn catchy. But still, every time I see her in a commercial or something I just think “Not J-Lo again, jesus no.”

I’m going to ignore the pseudo-psychology happening in your letter. It never happened and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Also, I ESCAPED HA. Once I drugged the dogs, it was easy.

—Dr. Von Magma

—-

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876

Dr. Von Magma,

Right? She’s awful. I miss In Living Color, that show was really funny.

Look, all I’m saying is maybe we meet up for coffee at some point. Maybe you just talk it out. You might feel better!

—Captain Splendid
P.S. Have you seen The Voice? It’s much better than American Idol and it’s got this hip hop guy that looks just like a Ninja Turtle.

—-

From The Desk of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma
NOT Mount Evil 
NOT Evil Volcano Island, USA 02946 

Cap,

I don’t watch The Voice, but I know who you’re talking about. Have you seen Christina Aguilerra’s rack lately? When the hell did that happen? I don’t remember that on the Mickey Mouse Club.

And, actually, I do like coffee. And my self esteem has been non-existent recently. WAIT, this is a trap, isn’t it? You lure me to a coffee shop with promises of friendship and bro-ish-ness and then I’m hauled back to MaxCell! I’m too smart for you, Captain Peabrain!

—Dr. Von Magma

—-

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876

Von Magsy:

Nope. No trick, no trap, just coffee and bro time. I’m serious.

—Captain Splendid

—-

From The Desk of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma
NOT Mount Evil 
NOT Evil Volcano Island, USA 02946 

CS,

You swear?

—Dr. VM

—-

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876

Von Magsy,

Swearsies.

—CS

—-

From The Desk of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma
NOT Mount Evil 
NOT Evil Volcano Island, USA 02946 

Cap,

“Swearsies”. You are such an idiot.

I’ll be at the Starbucks on 4th St at noon tomorrow. Defy me and I will kill you.

—Von Magsy
P.S. I saw The Voice last night and I really like Adam Levine. But how old is Carson Daly now?

—-

Captain Splendid
Care of John D. Smith, Reporter, World Daily Globe Times Gazette
Herotown, USA. 09876

Von Magsy,

I like Adam Levine, too. But you don’t know why, right? He’s llike the anti-J-Lo.

And I’ll be there.

Signed,

Captain Splendid
P.S. He’s so old.

—-

From The Desk of Dr. Mortimer Von Magma
NOT Mount Evil 
NOT Evil Volcano Island, USA 02946

Dear Captain Splendid,

I wanted to thank you for coffee this morning. You were right. It does help to talk things out with someone. I’d never in a million years dreamed that you and I would become friends. I mean, it’s like I’ve stepped into one of the alternate dimensions I tried to banish the world to that one time. Remember that? Oh man. Good times.

Thanks for lending me season one of Fringe, but I don’t think I’m going to like it.

Also, thanks for… All the talking and stuff.

SuperBuds,

Dr. Von Magsy 
P.S. I’m still so much smarter than you.

“The headaches are getting worse.” he said to his girlfriend. She offered him a pill. Time seemed to speed up, minutes felt like seconds, days like hours. He could no longer remember what day it was when he woke in the mornings. Blinding pain, the lights pulsated everywhere he went, the world grew very bright then very dark, repeatedly and no matter the time of day, not that he could remember the time of day.

“Go to the doctor.” his loved ones said, though he shrugged and sighed and fought them on it. They loved him and would come to miss him once he’d left them. He would wake in the night, uncertain where he was, and he would climb from bed and go downstairs and sit on the couch and stare. He would stare at the wall or the blank screen of a television that hasn’t been turned on. He would think of his childhood and remember his mother’s face. He would drink a beer in the dark and chuckle at memories of his younger self, seen to him now as some sort of story told from the first person perspective of some character he never knew personally.

“You’re just drinking the pain away. I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore.” she would tell him, threatening to leave, threatening to take her things and go. Tears would stream down their faces and voices would be raised and sooner or later all things would work themselves out. She never left him. She never got the chance to.

He went about his daily life as though nothing was odd or out of place and he ignored the pain as best as he could. He felt happy, when he was sober, and thought nothing of the dizzy spells or the loss of memories from so long ago, and somewhere deep within his brain, it grew and consumed every bit of who he was and who he had yet become.