Puppies For Sale

A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the 4 pups and set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy.

"Mister," he said, "I want to buy one of your puppies."

"Well," said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck, "These puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money."

The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer.

"I've got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take a look?"

"Sure," said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle. "Here, Dolly!" he called.

Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur.

The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight. As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse.

Slowly another little ball appeared, this one noticeably smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then in a somewhat awkward manner, the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up.

"I want that one," the little boy said, pointing to the runt. The farmer knelt down at the boy's side and said, "Son, you don't want that puppy. He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would."

With that the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers.

In doing so he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe.

Looking back up at the farmer, he said, "You see sir, I don't run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands."

With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and picked up the little pup.

Holding it carefully he handed it to the little boy.

"How much?" asked the little boy.

"No charge," answered the farmer, "There's no charge for love."

The Good Things

A married lady was expecting a birthday gift from her husband.

For many months she had admired a beautiful diamond ring in a showroom, and knowing her husband could afford it, she told him that was all she wanted.

As her birthday approached, this lady awaited signs that her husband had purchased the diamond ring.

Finally, on the morning of her birthday, her husband called her into his study.

Her husband told her how proud he was to have such a good wife, and told her how much he loved her.

He handed her a beautiful wrapped gift box.

Curious, the wife opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the wife's name embossed in gold.

Angrily, she raised her voice to her husband and said, 'With all your money you give me a Bible?' And stormed out of the house, leaving her husband.

Many years passed and the lady was very successful in business. She managed to settle for a more beautiful house and a wonderful family, but realized her ex-husband was very old, and thought perhaps she should go to visit him. She had not seen him for many years.

But before she could make arrangements, she received a telegram telling her that her ex-husband had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to her. She needed to come back immediately and take care of things.

When she arrived at her ex-husband's house, sudden sadness and regret filled her heart. She began to search through her ex-husband's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as she had left it years before.

With tears, she opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. Her ex-husband had carefully underlined a verse, Matt 7:11, 'And if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father, who is in heaven, give what is good to those who ask Him?'

As she read those words, a tiny package dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a diamond ring, with her name engraved on it -- the same diamond ring which she saw at the showroom.

On the tag was the date of her birth, and the words.'LUV U ALWAYS'.

English is Tough Stuff

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

An excerpt from The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité

Yearning

Bitter rain in my courtyard
In the decline of Autumn,
I only have vague poetic feelings
That I cannot bring together.
They diffuse into the dark clouds
And the red leaves.
After the yellow sunset
The cold moon rises
Out of the gloomy mist.
I will not let down the blinds
Of spotted bamboo from their silver hook.
Tonight my dreams will follow the wind,
Suffering the cold,
To the jasper tower of your beautiful flesh.

By Wu Tsao,
Translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung

Hopscotch Poem

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret never to be told
Eight, you live
Nine, you die
And you'll never know the reason why

How to Make Love to a Trans Person

Forget the images you’ve learned to attach
To words like cock and clit,
Chest and breasts.
Break those words open
Like a paramedic cracking ribs
To pump blood through a failing heart.
Push your hands inside.
Get them messy.
Scratch new definitions on the bones.

Get rid of the old words altogether.
Make up new words.
Call it a click or a ditto.
Call it the sound he makes
When you brush your hand against it through his jeans,
When you can hear his heart knocking on the back of his teeth
And every cell in his body is breathing.
Make the arch of her back a language
Name the hollows of each of her vertebrae
When they catch pools of sweat
Like rainwater in a row of paper cups
Align your teeth with this alphabet of her spine
So every word is weighted with the salt of her.

When you peel layers of clothing from his skin
Do not act as though you are changing dressings on a trauma patient
Even though it’s highly likely that you are.
Do not ask if she’s “had the surgery.”
Do not tell him that the needlepoint bruises on his thighs look like they hurt
If you are being offered a body
That has already been laid upon an altar of surgical steel
A sacrifice to whatever gods govern bodies
That come with some assembly required
Whatever you do,
Do not say that the carefully sculpted landscape
Bordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue
Looks almost natural.

If she offers you breastbone
Aching to carve soft fruit from its branches
Though there may be more tissue in the lining of her bra
Than the flesh that rises to meet itLet her ripen in your hands.
Imagine if she’d lost those swells to cancer,
Diabetes,
A car accident instead of an accident of genetics
Would you think of her as less a woman then?
Then think of her as no less one now.

If he offers you a thumb-sized sprout of muscle
Reaching toward you when you kiss him
Like it wants to go deep enough inside you
To scratch his name on the bottom of your heart
Hold it as if it can-
In your hand, in your mouth
Inside the nest of your pelvic bones.
Though his skin may hardly do more than brush yours,
You will feel him deeper than you think.

Realize that bodies are only a fraction of who we are
They’re just oddly-shaped vessels for hearts
And honestly, they can barely contain us
We strain at their seams with every breath we take
We are all pulse and sweat,
Tissue and nerve ending
We are programmed to grope and fumble until we get it right.
Bodies have been learning each other forever.
It’s what bodies do.
They are grab bags of parts
And half the fun is figuring out
All the different ways we can fit them together;
All the different uses for hipbones and hands,
Tongues and teeth;
All the ways to car-crash our bodies beautiful.
But we could never forget how to use our hearts
Even if we tried.
That’s the important part.
Don’t worry about the bodies.
They’ve got this.

By Gabe Moses

The Stalker

Leslie sat on the barstool, sipping a margarita. She’d hit a run of bad luck in the past few months.

First her boyfriend Ricky left her, then she lost her job. She got a new job, but not as well paying, of course. So she had to move out of her house and into a cramped apartment. Her cat, Muffin, died. Her mother was ill, and needed her support, even though she couldn’t support herself. With all that bad luck, its little wonder that she let that guy sit next to her, buy her a drink, the same old routine. The fella’s name was Geoffry. He seemed nice enough, even if he was kind of a dweeb. He wore horn-rimmed glasses with a blue button down shirt, he wasn’t nerd-skinny, exactly, but he was kind of on the thin side.

They talked for awhile, and then she left the bar. The next day, as she was walking home from work, Leslie saw Geoffry again, standing at the bus stop a block away from her office building. “Hi, Leslie! Hey I was thinking maybe we could head down to the bar tonight. I really had fun last night.” She politely declined, and he said, “Okay, well, I’ll see you again.”

She left for work the next day, and guess who she saw? Geoffry was standing right there about a block from her house. “Hi Leslie! You wanna hook up tonight? I was thinking maybe a movie?” She politely declined, and went about her work. When she got home, she had a new message on the answering machine. [Hi, Leslie! It’s me, Geoffry. I just thought you might’ve changed your mind about the movies. Don’t make me keep asking, just call me, bye!]

The next morning, Leslie left for work. Geoffry was standing outside her door. “Hi Leslie! Why’d you stand me up last night, huh? I just want a chance, Leslie, we can try, right?”

After 3 days of annoyance, Leslie caved. “Fine, Geoffry, we can try. Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow night? We’ll see how it goes, okay?”

Leslie sure was having a bad run of luck. Ricky was in hysterics when he left her, her cat was dead, and now Geoffry too. What was left of his corpse was found a week later…

Credited to SugarD.

The Tapping

It’s about 9:35 at night. The show on your TV is silent, the volume turned down. Maybe you’re one of those people that has to have a static noise and picture, even when listening to or watching something else.

The living room light is on. Two of the five bulbs have burnt out. The one in the back seems the next to go, but you don’t think much about it as you stretch out in your chair.

Something begins gnawing at the back of your mind. It’s just a normal Monday night, the rain outside a steady drizzle that freezes as it hits the road. Something that makes you want to look out the large pannel window beside you, covered up by a Harley Davidson blanket to keep the warmth in the house.

You try and distract yourself, turning on your favorite band. Maybe it’s Collective Soul, or Rammstein, or anything. Something to take your mind off of it. It’s only 9:37 now, just a few minutes later, and you still have this urge to turn around and look out that window, shrouded by a black and orange blanket. You hear a slight tapping on the glass, like a fingertip trying to get your attention. You turn the music up louder, trying to drown it out. It becomes louder and more insistent now, faster and faster, still trying to draw your attention.

“It’s in my head, I’m just worked up, too little sleep. Last night was crazy.” You tell yourself. The rapping on the window ceases, and you begin to settle back in. It’s 9:41. You turn your attention back to the TV, commercials flooding your brain.

The tapping returns. A simple, sharp tap. Curiosity overwrites fear, and you lift up the blanket with your left hand, expecting to see a stray limb from a tree smacking the window from the wind outside, or maybe nothing at all.

A long, pale white tongue drags across the window, smacking back with another tap. Your heart stops as you look up, seeing two great, white staring eyes bulging from an elongated face, lacerated with boiling cuts and keloid scars, coated with burns, it’s face nearly as long as your window itself. It’s upside down, hanging from your ceiling. It’s mouth is lined with razor-sharp teeth, there may be thousands or millions of them. Several are rotten and pulsating, and it keeps staring at you. It’s cavernous mouth seems to be smiling. Like it knows something you don’t…

The Homeless Man

Somewhere in New York City there is an old homeless man missing both his legs from the knees down, whose spot along the streets is the corner of Lexington and East 21st, near Granmercy Park. Approach him after nightfall, give him some change (NO pennies, NO dimes) and ask him, “What did you see on the other side?” He will then tell you all about his travels to other realms and times, where he lost his legs, how he lost his money.

It is up to you whether to believe him or not, but as you listen you’ll find yourself being drawn in with every story. You must stay alert, or the old man will notice your inattentiveness, and with a scowl he will stop imparting his wisdom; he will chase you as fast as he can, tottering on his stubs. The other reason why you must stay alert is to check the time. Before midnight you must interrupt him (do NOT let him finish whatever story he’s telling you at the moment) and say “I’ve heard enough, old man. Good day and good luck”, then walk away.

Make at least two left-hand turns around the block before going about your business. You must do this, because anyone who has stayed to listen past midnight is never seen again, at least not in this particular plane of existence.

The Steubenville Ghost

Our encounter with the Steubenville Ghost was very surprising because we didn’t believe in such phenomena. If I had imbibed, or been by myself, I would probably have turned to some professional for help after the experience. I say we, because I was not the only participant.

The late Clarence R. Coulter, who’s family still reside in Akron, Oh. and I owned Halbert and Coulter Construction Co., Inc. in Wheeling W.Va. Early morning of December 30, 1948 he drove his new Hudson as we went into a small factory at 1817 E. High Ave. in Youngstown, Oh. It was an unusual day for that time of year in northeast Ohio. It was an overcast day with temperatures in the forties. I give you this because records can verify the accuracy of my memory.

About 11:00 am. in the office of Storm Sash, Inc. a radio announced an extreme cold front was approaching carrying extremely hazardous icing conditions. It warned everyone to get off the roads and streets shortly.

We went to a little greasy spoon nearby and prepared to leave earlier than planned to try to beat the severe weather. We concluded our business and left about 2:00 pm. As we proceeded south on Market St. we came to the south edge of town and Schotts Restaurant on the east side of the street. It was a well-known establishment that was only closed and torn down a few years ago.

Neither of us was smart enough to be too afraid, and we were both great optimists. We couldn’t resist a feast. We ate with no drinks. We had parked about 20 feet from the front door. As we stepped out of the door, we almost fell on the predicted glare ice, so we held onto the car fenders and anything else for support to keep from falling. We were agile and very active young men.

We saw no traffic moving. We entered his car and sat there debating if we should try to find some place to stay. Since New Years Eve was the following day, we preferred to be home in Wheeling for it. We decided since we were experienced drivers in inclement weather, and no traffic was moving, if we proceeded at 20 or 25 miles per hour and slid into something, we might bend a fender, but unlikely to be injured, so we decided to go home.

We proceeded south on Route 7 and already to the point where it turned east to East Liverpool, Ohio. There we encountered two emergency vehicles crawling along. There were no others moving until we next traveled through the small town of Steubenville and came to our place of encounter. The temperature had plummeted and was now biting cold.

About some twenty miles south of Steubenville on the old highway, we came to a place flat and even as a floor. At the north end of it the Ohio River turned east maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 mile, then south a ways, then turned back west to the highway. There had been a town there on that low plain but it was washed away in the Great Flood of 1936.

As we entered this plain from the north, we saw a string of maybe six cars entering it and approaching us from the south end. After passing only 2 moving vehicles in about 3 hours, this struck us as very strange. Suddenly, the lead car moved over and back again on this very straight road. Those behind did the same in a serpentine line. We remarked that maybe an animal was down or something had fallen onto the road that they were trying to avoid hitting. When they came to us, they passed us making a sloshing, drumming sound as if they were in heavy water on the pavement. This eerie sound seemed weird to us since the road was smooth glare ice.

We proceeded and came to that place where the strange maneuvering had occurred, and a woman in a white gossamer gown with a veil over her head put up her hand to stop us. We thought she was dressed in a wedding gown. There was a lot of crime activity in the Wheeling, Steubenville, Pittsburgh triangle we were in. We thought she might be there to stop us for robbery, as we looked prosperous. But no one would be out there with others lying in a ditch for that kind of activity in the bitter weather conditions we were in.

Clarence steered gently into the left lane. Man or beast could not have stood to move quickly on that uncleared, untreated glare ice. When she saw we were trying to pass her by, she floated smoothly and quickly over into the left lane. Fearing we might hit her, we steered back into our right lane as she quickly glided or floated back to it and stood in front of our approaching car. It was either hit her or stop. As we stopped before striking her, she moved back on the berm of the road and we came to a complete stop with her standing by the right hand door where I sat.

We were confused and scared, but completely lucid and in control. I rolled the window down about 4 or 5 inches. She sounded like someone in a complete alcohol or drugged stupor as if her tongue was very thick. She leaned down and her face was may be 18 inches from mine. She asked if we were going to Steubenville. She kept repeating it and I said “any fool could see that we just came from there”. Clarence leaned forward to see her past me, and tried to get some sense out of her. I was sure I was going to see here in a police lineup for identification, so I stared intently at her face looking for any marks or features whereby I could positively identify her.

I suddenly realized she was featureless. There were dark spots where there should have been eyes, nostrils and mouth, but she was like smoke. In back of her to the west against the foot of the hill, a house had been recently built. As we were both staring into her face, someone turned on a light in the front of that house, and we saw it – through her.

We were suddenly very scared. He was a semi-pro fighter, and I was not a coward either. I was afraid she might enter the car. I’ll never forget my exact words as I cranked the window closed, “let’s get the hell out of here”. We went spinning our tires out of there to a night club/bar down the road at maybe Tiltonsville or Yorkville. We slid into the lot, stopped by the front door, as there was only one customer there. We clung to the car to the steps, entered where I called the Ohio State Patrol and told them someone should investigate. If that was a human being we left there, it would be a terrible thing to have done. Hearing no news, I called the patrol office two days later. The dispatcher laughed me off the phone saying they received no such report. I replied they had, since I gave it.

In 1961, I moved to Topeka, Kansas. During the course of business, I met an Air Force Staff Sergeant based here at Forbes Field. I don’t remember his name. In a conversation I began to tell him about the forgoing experience. Before I mentioned the name of the town as I related the event, he pulled on his pipe and said “that was the Steubenville Ghost”. Somewhat surprised, I asked how he knew about it. Since I hadn’t yet mentioned that she wanted to go to Steubenville. He said, “matter of fact, I was reading about her just last week“. She is one of the phenomena many people still discuss. I asked if he know anything about her. I don’t believe I ever referred to her as the Steubenville Ghost before that time. He said the most general or plausible explanation was this.

In downtown Steubenville on the west side of the main street sits an old small frame church. I believe it was a Congregational or Episcopalian Church. He asked if I remembered that church. Of course I did. He said the prevailing wisdom was that she was a young lady near Rayland, Ohio, dressed up and in a buggy at that point on her way to that little mid-town church for her wedding. Maybe a riverboat whistle, something spooked her horse which bolted and threw her from the carriage where she struck her head on a rock and was killed.

I told him I often thought of returning to see if I could meet her again. Maybe we should have given her a ride. He said I had better be glad we hadn’t. He said he didn’t know if it was true in this case, but that there were reports of similar incidences where the apparitions were given a ride and those who gave the ride disappeared to never be seen again.

This is all I know of this phenomenon. After all these years and the former roadway having been made into a divided 4 lane, maybe she doesn’t appear now. But I would really like to know the whole story. Maybe what I’ve given here will fit into other known pieces.

Help Us

I don’t have much time left. I’m hoping the blood will drain out of my wrists before they can get to me again, but I can’t be certain. Oh god, it’s so cold. I’m losing a lot of blood. But I have to finish. You have to read this. Maybe you can stop them.

It all started about a month ago. I was frantically trying to finish a writing assignment for Social Studies that was due next period, writing so fast I thought I’d snap my pen in two. I think the paper was on World War II. Amazing that I can remember things like that, through all of this, isn’t it? Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. As I wrote this paper, I began to notice something odd. I was making a lot of mistakes. You’ll have to excuse my digression for a moment, but I need to explain something: I never make mistakes when I write. Teachers use words like “impeccable” and “exceptional” to describe my conventions. That’s why I was finding this odd. And what’s more, they were all errors in capitalization, which served only to confuse me more. I hadn’t capitalized the beginnings of sentences, proper nouns anything. But, capitals were cropping up sporadically throughout my writing. I had words like “gErmans” or “alliaNce”, without the faintest clue why. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I quickly corrected my mistakes and finished the paper.

In fact, I didn’t even think of the incident when it happened again. I was commenting my friend’s new MySpace picture. In the middle of typing up some inside joke, I noticed that my capitalization was once again awry. Scanning through it, I noticed something else odd: The word “hello” had been capitalized entirely. Figuring I’d just go back and finish it when I was done typing, I started again. And again, my finger would hit the “shift” key unbidden. When I checked my typing again, I looked closer. My mind began to subconsciously piece together the capital letters. Imagine my surprise when I realized that it formed a message. It read, “GLAD WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION”. What I did then could only be described as a double-take whilst being completely still. Not knowing what had begun then, I signed off and promptly went to sleep, chalking it up to an overactive imagination.

The third time was during Language Arts. I was writing an analysis of “The Iliad”, when it happened. A message spelled itself out once again: “YOU WILL HELP US”. Now I was nervous. My hand shook slightly as I tried to erase the mistakes. As soon as my eraser touched the page, indescribable pain lanced through my hand. It was as if someone was excising all the nerves in my fingers, and impaling my hand on a railroad spike. It was over before I had time to scream. My hand shaking even more, I continued writing. “DO NOT DISOBEY”, my mistakes spelled out. I think that’s when I sealed my fate. I wrote faster. Whatever happened, no matter what I had to do, I never wanted to feel that pain again. It must sound cowardly to you, but I assure you that you would have done the same in my place. That’s why you have to stop them.

At home, I continued the paper. They spoke to me again. “GET A CERAMIC BOWL”. Confused, I hastily got up and retrieved one. I continued writing. They continued their instructions. “PLACE A BOOK IN THE BOWL”. Trying to move quickly in order to avoid the pain, I tossed The Iliad in. “BURN IT”. I looked around my house quickly. Hurriedly, I grabbed a match, and lit the book aflame. The next directive was more ambiguous. “FEED IT”. I didn’t know what they meant. In the middle of my paper, I wrote “With what?” and continued writing. The answer unnerved me. “BLOOD”. I stared at the paper for a second. Then, before I knew what I was doing, I’d scored a long cut over the tip of my finger with my pen. I held it over the burning book, and a sick-looking mixture of ink and blood dripped slowly down. After about 5 minutes, a hum began to emanate from the book’s bloody funeral pyre. It started softly, and increased in volume until my whole body vibrated. I felt as if my entrails were turning to liquid, and I shut my eyes and covered my ears. I lost track of time then, but after what seemed like an eternity it ended. I opened my eyes to be greeted with a disturbing sight. The book had stopped burning, but it was no longer a book. The pages had formed into a blackened, papery tendril that had embedded itself into the floor. That wasn’t all that had changed, though. The tree outside the window of my bedroom had lost its leaves. The wood floor around the bowl was rotten. And finally, I realized to my horror that I my skin had wrinkles.

The next month continued in their demands. Every week, they instructed me to burn a book in the bowl, and add an offering. Once it was a fingernail. Then a tooth. They wanted a piece of steel. And every time I completed an iteration of the ritual, another tendril was growing from the bowl and into the ground. The tree by my house died. My floor grew soggy and completely rotten. And I- I’m covered in liver spots, and my hair has turned gray. I’ve grown old. I sit in my room all day, writing randomly, no longer forming words, just following their demands. But even through my servitude, some part of me rebelled. Whatever I’m creating in that bowl, whatever they’re forcing me to engender, it’s going to unmake reality. Its very presence is killing me. kIlling everyThing living around it. i have to Stop it. it might already be ToO late. i’m lOsing a lot of bLood, and i’m getting dizzy. hopefully i’ll be deAd before They gEt to me again. oh god, they’re in mY writing again. oh my gOd, it’s cold. i can feel my life Unraveling-consider this a wARning. my dEath will Only slow them down. they want to Undo cReation. don’t ever read their meSsages. if you do, theN you’ll be fOrced to finish what i started. and no matter What, there is no escape.

Credited to Ed D.

Awake

I am awake. I should not be awake. You have been far too bad for far too long, and it is time to stop. I wish I didn’t have to do this, believe me. It is so much easier for me to continue sleeping for eons than have to worry about you, humanity. I am awake, and I am most displeased.

You have all committed many atrocities in my name, some of those atrocities were committed against my name as well, and not a single drop of blood has pleased me. It is not a matter of benevolence or malevolence, but of point and worth. Your existences serve no purpose any more, as they did mere millennia ago. Furthermore, your “sacrifices” are of no worth to me. What do I care if you send one of your own back to me? I made you and spat you out, what makes you think I want you back?

There is a reason you are not with me. It is because a great many of you are a failed experiment in its death throes. I was simply waiting until you destroyed each other, but now you have crossed the line, delving into matters that do not concern you. I thought you safe, confined from the others on the prison you call Earth, but no, you must reach your plagued, failed hands out of your cell and grab at anything that floats by.

You think you are only flying out into space, but really you are leaving the cage I made for you. It had everything you needed right there, but no, you must have more. If I allow you to continue you will creep into my more successful creations, and you will destroy them. They know this, and that is why they awoke me.

I have tried to let you sort yourselves out, but I cannot let this continue any longer. Soon you will all feel the wrath of your creator, for what was made can be unmade, and you all have so many wonderful ways to be unmade.

Some have called me God, others have called me Demon. All I am is awake, and very unhappy.

By: Facade.

Headphones

I can tell, how you’re staring there at this screen, finding some enjoyment. You need anything, just anything to keep you awake and entertained. It’s late, you’re dead tired, but you want to use up every moment. I know how it is. This happens to me, too.

Are the sounds on your computer too loud? Don’t want to wake your folks? Don’t want to get complaints from neighbors, even? Whatever, not a problem. Lower the volume on your speakers. Now that doesn’t really work for you. Instead grab some headphones. You walk through the dark with that slight paranoia, the old childhood fear of the dark. It never really goes away, but it’s all in your head, and you know that. You find your room, you dig through your drawers and your junk to feel for some wires. Ah! There they are. Time to head back to the computer.

Drop them on your computer desk, and go grab a drink of water. Come back and sit down comfortably. Throw on your headphones. You hear a dark ambient sound in the background. A liquid dripping sound, even some metallic grinding there, too. Is it from outside? You take off the headphones, and suddenly, the sound goes away. You think for a moment, suspicious and even frightened. You slide the headphones back on. There it is again. There’s some high-pitched frequency you hear as well. You rip them back off, thinking this is just a joke. It’s gone again. You slide them back on and turn the volume on your speakers all the way down, you even break off the switch trying to make the sound disappear. But it remains.

But then suddenly you notice something. Something you feel stupid for not noticing before. Your headphones aren’t even plugged in. But wait. The wire, it’s dangling straight out, stretching into the darkness elsewhere. You try to pull it towards you, but nothing. You must’ve gotten it stuck on something, you think. But when was I even over in that area? You walk blindly into the darkness, using the wire as a guide through. The wire is longer than you once remembered, much longer than how you remember. “What the hell is this?” you say in your head. The further you go, you finally feel something on the wire. It’s a heavy, gooey, mucky liquid-solid matter. You pick up your hand and bring it close to your face to see what the substance is. It’s dark, and it glistens off the glow of your computer screen, which is now a lot farther away from you than it should be. You glance at your computer’s set-up, and back at your hand.

But in that quick glance at your computer set-up, you noticed something. You saw something there, standing there and staring at the dark and dull light radiating off of your computer monitor. Not only did you see something, but you heard something as well. A heavy, gooey, mucky dripping sound.

You look back at your computer set-up, as the tall, man-like figure there glistens in the light.

Credited to Mr. Valiant.