by Frank Lesser
My best friend Martha thinks it’s lame that I have a crush on Brendan even though I know he’s about to die. But don’t you always want what you can’t have, especially when you can’t have it because it’s going to be involved in an adorably tragic drag race on Friday? I thought Brendan might notice me if I stuffed my bra, but it didn’t work, because by the end of the day I had used up all the tissues on my cursed tears. :(
Tried out for the school’s production of West Side Story, but the theater instructor didn’t like when I went “off-book” during my audition and announced, “Before the end of this play, Tony, Riff, and Bernardo will perish.” I kind of see what he meant about that ruining it for the audience, but he lacks vision, and not just because he can’t foretell deaths: to avoid offending anyone he’s making both the Jets and the Sharks Puerto Rican.
Well, Brendan had his chance, but unlike with that semitruck, he totally missed it. I don’t want to get into details, because there’s no use crying over spilled brain matter. But I think I’m ready to move on. Still, thinking about my first crush (ironic, considering how he died) inspired me to write a poem:
Crematorium of the Snowmen
As clouds trudge through the sky,
they pour down chilly rain,
and so do I.
A snowman melts and dies
alone, he hides his pain,
and so must I.
And as I close my eyes,
my life swirls down the drain.
And no one cries.
I stopped crying today in the middle of gym class. It was super embarrassing. My parents are worried there’s something wrong with me, so they took me to see an ear, nose, and tear duct specialist, who prescribed twice-daily viewings of the ending of Old Yeller—but it’s not like I don’t know what’s coming. Life just seems so pointless when all you do all the time is warn people it’s about to end.
My parents took me to a therapist to discuss my feelings. He asked if I wear black because it helps disguise the darkness inside, but I told him it was because I’m always going to funerals. Then he spent the rest of the session asking me if any of his relatives were going to die.
Another poem, this one inspired by my therapist:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Though art more lovely and more temperate.
Your aunt will die of sunstroke Saturday.
Woke up this morning weeping. Guess I’m cured. Even better, after biology, Sam asked me to the prom, although it probably won’t work out because the day before his uncle in Pittsburgh is going to have a heart attack. Another prom ruined! But things are looking up: I recently foresaw that by the end of this year, I’ll totally get to make out with Anthony, although the only reason I could foresee it is that him kissing me is directly related to his untimely death.
High school truly is a time of conflicting emotions.
Learning from Your Teleporter Mistakes
Welcome to your first day of Introductory Physics. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions about college, and also about why I have a giant fly head. I can tell by your puzzled stares, multiplied a thousandfold in my insect eyes, that perhaps some further explanation is in order.
But first, could I trouble one of you to get a glass of water for my teaching assistant Colleen, who seems to have fainted? I’d get it myself, but there was a spider by the faucet earlier.
In hindsight, I probably should have alerted my colleagues to my situation before the semester began. After all, I’m tenured—the university would need one heck of a flyswatter to get rid of me! Get it? A flyswatter? Hmm. Is the reason that none of you are laughing because you’re still focusing on my giant fly head? Can you even understand the words I’m saying? It’s not coming out like “buzz-buzz-buzz” or something? Okay, good.
I don’t want to focus too much on what happened, because we have a lot of material to cover before midterms, and considering the average life span of the common housefly there’s a good chance I’ll be dead before finals—suffice it to say that the teleporter I’ve been working on still has a few kinks in it.
We’ll cover proper experimental techniques in greater detail later in the semester, but on a related note, I cannot overstress the importance of a sterile lab environment, one that is free of contaminants such as dirt, bacteria, and insects. Especially insects.
You know, while we’re on the subject, one more thing: Never use yourself as an experimental subject. You may want to write that down somewhere so you’ll remember it, maybe along with a drawing of yourself with a human head? Sure, there are well-known exceptions such as Jonas Salk, who tested his cure for polio on himself. For his bravery, he got medals, awards, and the gratitude of millions. Me, I got a giant fly head.
Yes, you in the front row, a question? Ah, yes, you’re wondering about my right arm, which I have as of yet failed to mention. I should apologize for this oversight, but you see, I often forget that my right arm is also the arm of a fly, because I GET DISTRACTED BY MY GIANT FLY HEAD.
I’m sorry—I should have warned you that when I get upset my mandibles tend to flail about. Could we get another glass of water for Colleen?
In any case, as I said before, we’ve got lots of material to cover, so if you’ll open your textbooks to page—I’m sorry. I need a moment. Please don’t be alarmed, but flies don’t have tear ducts, so when I cry, well—it’s the mandibles again. Could someone please escort Colleen out?
This is personal, and I probably shouldn’t be telling all of you this, but when you have the head of a fly you take whatever opportunities for human contact you find: My marriage is falling apart. You can stop taking notes. Sure, some of the problems are normal—poor communication, a growing sense of alienation, disagreements over whether to raise our children Catholic or arthropod. But I’d say the biggest problem is that the wedding vows don’t go, “For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in giant fly head.” We started seeing a marriage counselor a couple of weeks ago, but we had to stop after I accidentally contaminated his office with E. coli.
Which reminds me, you’ll want to wash your hands as soon as you get out of here. I’ll spare you the details, but I snuck a quick snack before class.
This has likely been an awkward introduction to the world of physics. I apologize, but I really need to get home to work on my marriage, or as a backup at least work on grafting a fly head onto a woman’s body.
On second thought, bring Colleen back in.
I’m going to dismiss you early today, but before you leave, please note that the syllabus has changed. Next week, instead of reading the first three chapters of your textbook, please come to class with a bag of sugar. White, brown, powdered, it doesn’t matter, but I’d prefer if you moistened it.
Oh, and if any of you have any experience splicing apart genetic material using semifunctional teleporters, please stop by during my office hours to discuss earning extra credit.
The Joy of Unicorns
Hey, preteen girls, put down the rock and roll music records and listen up! If you give up your virginity before you get married, you’ll miss out on something far better than sex: befriending a unicorn.
The little-known fact is, every abstinent teen gets her own unicorn as her BFF. Why do you think good girls don’t mind 9 p.m. curfews? I’ll give you one hint: unicorn slumber parties!!!
You see, in medieval times, a virginal maiden would sit alone in the woods until a unicorn, enchanted by her purity, approached and laid its head in her lap. At which point, the waiting hunters would reveal themselves, and presto—unicorn kebabs. Of course, nowadays most unicorn meat comes from factory farms, which means wild unicorns can spend their free time teaching virtuous girls how to wear makeup without looking cheap.
The only reason abstinence promoters don’t tell everyone about this is because then we’d run out of unicorns.
However, one night of mind-blowing, soul-shattering ecstasy means you’ll never in your life enjoy this magical creature’s g
entle nuzzling. (It feels like taking a bubble bath full of giggling puppies!) And unlike a sex-crazed boyfriend, a unicorn will never “use” you. Sure, sometimes you and your unicorn will have movie night plans to watch My Friend Flicka, and he’ll come over to your place and immediately want to lay his head in your lap, and then after a couple hurried minutes of lap cuddling he’ll make up some excuse about how he has a lot of work to finish before rushing out the door. But it’s worth it, because unicorns eat your nightmares.
I know about the joy of unicorns firsthand. When I was a teenage girl, my best friend was a majestic unicorn. Arondel would let me ride him and braid his mane, and we’d stay up all night dishing about our Bible crushes. (For the record, I was crazy about Judas. I guess I like the bad boys!) Of course, now that I’m married to my Lutheran summer camp counselor Peter, Arondel and I only meet up for coffee a couple of times a year, and the conversation always feels a bit forced.
You might be wondering, “If you’re telling the truth, then why haven’t I ever seen a unicorn before?” That’s a very good question. You’re a very smart little girl. Good luck trying to find a husband!
The reason there are so few unicorn sightings today isn’t because they are mythical creatures that never existed, but because of modern society’s moral depravity. This is why you will never see Lady Gaga riding a unicorn. In fact, she’d be lucky if she got to split a milk shake with a narwhal.
Don’t fret if you’ve already given in to temptation. Unicorns are forgiving creatures—to a point. If you’ve had fewer than four sexual partners, and you pray really hard to God to restore your virginity, and you take a purity pledge, you won’t get to pet a unicorn, but it might still accept your Facebook friend request. However, if you’ve had more than four partners and you so much as wave to a unicorn, the beautiful creature will gore you with its deadly horn. Harsh, but it is a fate far better than the crippling sexual diseases you no doubt contracted as a result of your harlot’s escapades.
Of course, if you’re no longer a virgin, there are still plenty of other mythological creatures who’ll be your friend. Like the minotaur. He’s a great listener, providing you speak loud enough that he can hear you over his cud-chewing.
So the next time your boyfriend tries to get you to “go all the way,” tell him you don’t want to “horse” around, because you’d rather get “horn-y” with your platonic unicorn. Then be sure to tell your unicorn what you said. They love puns, and every time a unicorn laughs, an angel has tender sexual intercourse on her wedding night. And nine months later, a rainbow is born!
You Suck One Goat . . .
Dear “News of the Weird” editor,
I am writing to correct several inaccuracies in your article about the mysterious creature you call el chupacabra , or “the goat-sucker.” First off, I have a name: Ernesto. And while I appreciate your interest in my goat-sucking accomplishments, draining livestock is just one of my many interests.
For instance, I am an experienced ballroom dancer. Yet you don’t call me el bailador. Your readers will have to learn about that nickname elsewhere—perhaps on my Latin dance blog, chachacabra.blogspot.com. And while it’s true that my dance partners are goats whom I suck right before the tango’s completion, that just makes them easier to lift during the Dirty Dancing finale.
I also play competitive chess (el jugador del ajedrez). I’ve got an Elo rating over 1500. I’m sure it would be even higher if I played opponents other than goats, since they’re rarely ranked above 500, and that’s before their brain fluids have been sucked.
And not that I would expect any free publicity, but you could at least mention that I’ve got an online business selling hand-knitted sweaters, scarves, and iPhone cozies, all made from the finest mohair and cashmere fibers plucked from the withered hides of my dried-up prey.
Additionally, I try to keep abreast of current events, and I have a detailed knowledge of the Middle East conflict. I even have a unique peace proposal that I plan to submit to Foreign Affairs magazine, which involves piercing the thoracic membranes of several goats and inviting the Israelis and Palestinians to suck them TOGETHER—ah, but once again, I suppose you will focus on the goat-sucking, rather than the politics.
Not to mention that sometimes I suck cows and sheep, for variety.
I’m sorry if I seem excessively upset over what to you might seem like a minor issue of nomenclature. I’m sensitive about this issue because my father had a lifelong goat-sucking problem. In fact, he was a goataholic. And it was my dream that leaving Puerto Rico for America would be a fresh start, but I didn’t realize the venom I’d face from narrow-minded bigots who apparently think I’m taking away goats that Americans want to suck.
I’m not accusing you of overt racism, but there’s a long-standing anti-cryptid bias in the mainstream media. When you report on us, you always question the witness’s reliability. Yet when you’re interviewing a source about the deficit, your follow-up question is never “How much did you have to drink?” Instead of questioning our existence, you should question your own slanted news reporting.
Case in point: Bigfoot. He, too, has a name. And how do you think it makes Barry feel that everyone is always talking about his big feet? Thanks to reporters like you, he has body dysmorphic disorder. And then you have the gall to ask why he doesn’t like to come out in public.
Perhaps the details of our lives wouldn’t seem so “mysterious” if you would report all the facts, rather than merely the sensationalistic details of our shoe size or high-protein liquid diet. I hope I have sufficiently proven that el chupacabra is, at best, a misnomer. I have little doubt that my argument is sound, considering that I was president of my college’s speech and debate team. My teammates called me el debatidor.
I’m just asking to be treated with respect. And also for more articles in your dining section on goat breeds and goat blood pairings. After all, as the saying goes, the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his juice digesting sac.
Finally, why is your coverage of me always relegated to your paper’s “News of the Weird” section? Whose goat do I have to suck to get in your gossip column?
Thank you for your time,
Ernesto
Giant Ape Class-Action Lawsuit
[Prosecutor rises, approaches judge.]
PROSECUTOR: Your honor, the defendant, Mr. Carl Denham, would have you and the jury believe that when his giant ape died, “it was beauty killed the beast.” But it was not, in fact, “beauty killed the beast,” any more than it was “love that damaged the Empire State Building’s facade,” or “symmetry that plucked the late Ms. Gloria Bennett from her thirtieth floor apartment window and tossed her to the pavement below,” or “passion that destroyed the elevated subway, causing grievous bodily harm to over three dozen passengers.”
No, it was not “beauty”—it was Mr. Denham’s criminal negligence.
“It was beauty killed the beast”? With these words, spoken over the broken body of the aforementioned ape after it plummeted a hundred stories to the pavement below—crushing several memorabilia vendors, whose families are also joining this class-action lawsuit—with these words, your honor, Mr. Carl Denham attempted to exculpate himself from blame for bringing a giant wild ape not just to one of the most crowded cities in the world, but to Manhattan, the city’s most populous borough. Did Mr. Denham think the giant ape—this so-called “King” Kong—could finance such an extravagant Manhattan lifestyle? Space is at a premium in this city. Shouldn’t the giant ape have been renting a warehouse loft somewhere in Brooklyn?
That a film producer should think he could run a successful Broadway show is hubris enough. But that this same film producer should bring any actor to this city to star in a Broadway show with no backup job should said show close due to said actor’s self-and city-destructive behavior, is criminal hubris in the first degree.
Of course the late Mr. Kong was going to go mad. This is a big city, and newcomers can find it difficult to fit
in. Mr. Kong may have been as tall as a brownstone, but the sheer size of this city can make anyone feel insignificant. Who hasn’t looked out on vast Gotham from the observation deck of its tallest skyscraper and thought, “Look at all those millions of people down there, each with his own dreams and hopes, each a whisper amplified a thousandfold: ‘You are but a nameless droplet in a vast and unfriendly sea’ ”?
Which is why I am also asking that the jury hold Mr. Carl Denham liable for King Kong’s suicide. That’s right—the thoughtless actions of Mr. Carl Denham drove this erstwhile Eighth Wonder of the World to leap to his death!
It wasn’t the airplanes, and it wasn’t beauty—it was Mr. Denham who killed the alleged beast. A description, incidentally, that is slander, pure and simple. Why not say, “It was beauty killed the loving, caring father”?
That’s right—Mr. Kong only accepted Mr. Denham’s sham of an offer of work in the first place so he could put his son through college, where the boy planned to study architecture. Which is why joining in this lawsuit against Mr. Carl Denham—along with surviving relatives of the late sailors Mr. Denham brought to Skull Island, the families of the late Ms. Gloria Bennett and memorabilia vendors, and the aforementioned subway passengers—is King Kong’s child. I would now like to call to the witness stand . . . Son of Kong!
[Audible gasps from jury box, some scrambling. Son of Kong is led in chains to the witness stand by guards, one of whom he immediately eats.]
Mr. Of Kong—Mr. Of Kong, I know you’re going through a very emotional time right now. You recently lost your father, and then you were kidnapped from your home on Skull Island and transported against your will to New York to testify against the man responsible for his death.