wr_post17:subj_fict

PASS THE SASS!: A BERNICE H. MAYWEATHER JAM

nobody liked bernice. she was a nice person, if you got to know her, but she had a shell of animosity you had to get past. she used to sit in the lunch room facing the wall away from everyone else. everyone thought it was because she was just a jerk, but she really sat over there thinking of all the things she'd say if someone would just come over and talk to her. she knew things. she was really smart. she read books all the time and wrote fantasy. she was in fourth grade. everyone was learning geography and long division, but she was just sitting there. she didn't want to grow up because she didnt think anything was going to change. she had no forseeable reason to look forward to more of the same depression and loneliness, but in her stories she was older. it was an odd internal conflict that although she envisioned being a woman, she couldnt conceive of process of aging. on a day-to-day level, the transformation was too surreal. her body was constantly shedding it's cells and producing new ones. she read a book on anatomy and biology. she read einstein and it blew her mind. she wanted to travel at the speed of light, leave this earth, find new worlds and when she stopped, come to the realization that if she went back, everyone she knew would be dead. but for the time being, until she re-entered that frame of reference, they were alive. what was that called? schroedingers cat, right.
nothing much ever became of bernice. she's one of those old ladies who work at libraries now. she hates it when people brush against her in the elevator. she hates alot of things. she's really old now. how did that happen? she thinks sometimes. against the collective will of her constituent parts, she had aged. it didnt matter though. because everyone died eventually and if her body could keep changing without her insides being affected, then what was the death of the body other than a loss of a hull. an escape of creative energy from this frail, fragile box we walk around in. she knew better, really. knew that there were two realities. the reality her body and the reality of her soul. science vs. romance.

wr_post14:subj_fict

URBAN ANTHRO: KNOW YOUR 'FUCKER'

when you're in love, it shows. you glow, i guess, but glow isn't really the word. you exude the inner peace that having someone to confide in grants you. there's a spring in your step (an expression that must (and here i have chosen my words insensitively) sit funny with the paraplegic. can one have a spring in ones' roll? a question for another time). there are those who will resent your newfound or longstanding happiness and in turn find you absolutely repulsive. you must, above all things, ignore this jealousy. it can ruin a relationship; make you question your motives; give you a repulsion towards yourself, and by extension, the one(s) you love. instead, as with any pack animal (and humans are most certainly pack animals), you must establish dominance. there is nothing wrong with your behaviour. you are entitled a healthy amount of pride in finding that someone who does it for/to/with you.

begin your training regimen by establishing boundaries. to truly instill a sense of inferiority in the unlucky few, for simplicity's sake we'll call them 'losers,' who cannot adapt to the necessities of reproduction and subsequently, the passing on of ones' genes (and in many cases, jeans), you must catch them out of their element and repeatedly emphasize their aloofness. invite your single friends out to bars and doubles tennis tournaments. next, startle them with gestures that emphasize your superiority. grab a sensitive area on your significant other's person while grunting loudly. proffer it to your single friend. when they make to accept the gesture, strike swiftly. it is crucial that they perceive no hesitation on your part.

repeat as necessary.

when they are sufficiently demoralized, you may reward them in some small way. offer to hook them up with another single friend. so that they don't react too strongly to this gesture, it is important to temper it with characterizations of their attire, build or personality as undesirable.

remember, above all else, that you are better than they are: more virile and lithe; sexier. it is entirely acceptable to goad them into self-mutilation. it will indicate that they have accepted their role in the pack.

kill yourself.

wr_post13:subj_fict

OH, HENRY!

Henry Benson.
Hank to his friends...if he'd had any.


So already, we've established Hank as an outsider. He probably could've had friends if he weren't so particular about the friends he (would've) kept. He worked in finances and made enough money to retain a substantially well-endowed girl. He'd never tried the gay thing, he was just waiting for the one, as they say. Generally reserved was he in two words. Sure, he went out on weekends and got drunk and social, but he'd never felt the need to take anyone back to his rat's nest. He wasn't a pack rat, per se, just disorganized. He kept ill-kept records on potential terrorists, do-badders in his neighborhood and people who had pissed him off in one way or another. They occupied the rooms Hank didn't and waited for their date in court.

Late in the afternoon, one August day, he slit both wrists and died on the phone with his grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer's. She told the rest of the family that he had decided to move to Swaziland. No one looked into it and his firm replaced him.

Minute Rice in the Era of Instant Obsolesence

Gary and Tina had three ugly kids, a run-down bungalow on the industrial edge of the suburbs, two rusty sedans and no ambition. They'd been married for nearly three decades and the only thing keeping either of them going was each's desire to see the other die first. Gary Fleenor had been the Runner-Up State Spelling Bee Champ in High School, but he'd assumed the title after a scandal rocked the world of competitive letter recitation, connecting the winner, one Margaret Bloom, to both the Yakuza and Archibald Pez, of novelty-candy-dispenser fame. The title had earned Gary the admiration of then-incarcerated Tina Radmonowitz. She was performing community service, collecting trash on the highway median, when she happened across the article that had broken the "Spelldown Snafu" story. It would be eight months before they met in person, but what began was a fiery correspondence built on lies and exaggeration, would gradually blossom into a bitter, stagnant marraige. Derek Fleenor, the first mistake, was good with his hands, or so went the testimony of the five eyewitnesses to his first aggrivated assault. He'd made it through six states before the stolen Chevy he was driving into oncoming traffic siezed up and went into a skid. When he awoke in the prison hospital, he was no longer a biped. It was the subject of much ridicule in the infrequent letters to "ol' one leg." Betty, the only Fleenor who had ever shown promise outside of the world of organized crime, died of Leukemia during a protracted legal battle for the rights to her first novel, "Please God! Kill Me Now." Eventually, the royalties were awarded to Gary and Tina who spent them on huckster balding cures and crack cocaine, respectively. The baby, Vernon, four-and-a-half, had no real concept of the hell he was being raised in. He also knew very little of his older siblings. To him the world consisted of blaring sirens which, when he was lucky, were from the "Real Police Drama" programs his mother watched and the slow, sour smell of unwashed clothing, which made up the bulk of the house's furniture. Eventually he probably grew up to do something undesirable for shit pay, but nobody cares about stories like that, so let's just say he became an astronaut. Vernon Fleenor, the first man on Mars!