Random Moments In Masculinity (part 1)

You look over and see this beautiful young face looking back at you, large eyes still filled with hope and wonder and post coital reverence. And for a minute the unending trainwreck of life pauses as she rests her perfect face on your chest and the cosmic howl, the constant white noise of the universe howling in agony, stutters and you let out one tired sigh of content.

Then she plays your favorite Mulligan Brothers song and gets up to go pee. She puts on those cute little black panties you drunkenly tore off what felt like five minutes ago but the angry red light coming from her night stand says was 3 hours. You try not to stare, but get distracted watching the weary silver moonlight cast shadows over her every perfect curve. She slips into one of your shirts which are comically oversized on her and she catches you watching and strikes this play-sexy pose, pulling on the hem to draw it tight against her breasts and belly. It's too fucking adorable so you sit up and pull her back over and kiss her just a little too long and a little too hard.

Finally she steps out of the room and the trainwreck snaps back into violent motion, now angry for being involuntarily paused. You're buffeted with all the anger and the fear and the sadness and self loathing from before, but also something new and shiney and within focus. This white hot molten core of insecurity, knowing life is already so hard to deal with, even without love. Without the stress of providing not just for yourself but for a whole other human being. Possibly more, if you have kids. And not just financially, but emotionally. Better wrap up those emotions a little tighter you walking sack of shit, because women don't like their men weak and if she knew the dumb shit in your head all day...

She comes back and crawls into bed and snuggles up next to you and fuck it feels like home, but not your real home, like the way home is supposed to feel. Her skin is hot and soft against yours, from her nipples tickling the hair on your chest to her leg she tangles up with yours. And then a little piece of you wants to cry. Because it feels so good, and because you know this won't last. Can't, though. Men don't cry. Suck it up, pussy.

She kisses your chest and you get a waft of her hair that still smells like apples or vanilla or whatever mixed with little traces of smoke from the bar and sweat from what you did to her. She whispers "I love you", but quiet enough she thinks you don't hear, and it breaks your heart. Because you love her too but you know you've already corrupted her with your cynical hate filled nonsense. You're the cigarette smoke and sex-sweat to her Apple smelling hair. You're cancer. And this perfect moment will some day just be a bittersweet memory you'll have with several different faces and even if you truly love each one- which you do- it'll be small consolation when you inevitably walk away.

A Little Bit of Fear (part 4, Words Are Weird)

In the distance there were chickens. Chicken? Chiken? Words are weird.

That face is sanity revived. It is the essence of purity distilled out of its quiet shambling shell and put before me to remind me of what could have been. Yet there is something different about this creature. It has not yet settled into quiet desperation that defines most of these strange straight standing monkeys that have the arrogance to think themselves Gods. Common in children, though.

"BEING A CUNT IS LEARNED BEHAVIOR."

Bear's voice resonates between the low garage to his left and the now-deserted dwelling to his right. Blood, fresh blood, is spattered across his broad chest and down the fine curve of Jasmin's hips. Ten feet in front of him is a small girl, between knee and hip height.

You didn't really expect Bear to know how to tell the age of children, did you?

She is the last living thing in Desolation. Unless you count Bear. I'm not entirely sure I would, but I could see your point if you wanted to make the argument that he was.

At least, the last living resident. Like I said, in the distance there were chickens.

She is not afraid. She does not beg for the sweet release of infinity. What is that she wants, staring at me that way?

There are only three ways most women look at Bear, and none of them are very wholesome.

Why does she not cry? Children always cry when they see Nature for the first time. Unless this is not the first time. Yet, no... what is it?

"WHY DON'T YOUR EYES MAKE JUICE, TINY VICTIM!?"

"I'm not sad."

Lies. Children are always sad. Sad when they fall, sad when they are refused, sad when they see Nature. Sometimes they laugh, but that is only the harmony to their sadness. Everything must have its harmony or else it would be singing a solo, and the Universe has no need for egotistical soloists. There are no Egos in Nature. That is the faulty conceit of man, and it gives in quickly to fear and hatred and release...

"MAKE TRUTH WITH YOUR FACE."

She blinked, looking away from him for a moments to squint into the twin suns on the horizon. She spit.

"Don't you think it's time you gave up? You're not nearly as edgy as you think you are, you know."

Bitch.

"AAARRRHGHGHHAHRHSRHRH."  

What? You fucking tell me how to write an unintelligible scream, and I'll go back and edit this shit for you. No? Haven't got anything for me? Okay, good. Now shut the fuck up and let me finish the story.

She sees into my soul. Do we have a soul left? There definitely used to be something where one goes. What is the nature of these ectoplasmic abominations? They, surely, are the cause of all pain and suffering that has ever been known across the length and breadth of the Universe- and whichever of the other dimensions you'd care to measure in, as well. Without them there would be no pain. Only Release.

"Jesus. Laying it on a little thick, aren't you?"

"YOUR NOISE OFFENDS."

"Quit yelling."

A flick of his wrist and blood and hair splashes in a tight pattern down Jasmin's thighs and onto the dirt between Bear and the girl.

"Feeling lucky?"

The little girl has a gun.

"THROW YOUR SADNESS AT ME!"

Before Bear can move, she pulls the trigger. A bullet rips through the flesh in his left bicep, exploding through muscle and tendon and bone and getting quite tragically lodged there.

Ahh, yes. Pain, our old friend. We remember you. Your first lover never truly leaves you, no matter how hard and how far you might run away from her. She lingers in your essence, coiling about the things you would never admit to anyone, until you can scant tell where you end and she begins.

"LIKE BARNACLES! HANG LIKE TESTICLES! BARNACLES!"

Wait...

"TWO MEANINGS, ONE NOISE!"

Bear is delighted.

"What?"

"TWO MEANINGS

"Oh my God, shut up. You're not nearly as clever as you think you are."

Which one of us is she talking to? Does she know I'm here?

A Little Bit of Fear (part 3, The Girl Edition)

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Torture. Didn't I read about somebody using this as torture?

She was sitting against the closed bathroom door, staring at the faucet of her bath tub. The damn thing had been dripping for weeks, but she had never really paid it any mind before that night. She stared at, bored with its existence and yet blindingly fascinated with it at the same time.

She took a drink from the cup in her left hand-

Ah, what the fuck?

The glass was empty save for a few pathetic remnants of ice cubes.

Handy dandy... uh... why the fuck aren't there any words for bottle that rhyme with 'dandy'?

She took a drink from the cup in her left hand after filling it with whiskey from the bottle on her right. Filling it gave her the unfortunate pleasure of seeing herself through gently gyrating eyes for the first real time of the day. Her tank top was pulled and stretched from having been worn too long. Given up.

Why do clothes give up?

(Why do you?)

Shut up.

There was a small splash of vomit on the lower hem. It matched the spray pattern around the toilet. She grinned.

Never was a sloppy drunk. Still ain't.

Drip.

She felt a speck of dirt against the bottom of her ass cheek, peeking out from her sleeping shorts, and brushed it away.

I need to change.

She stood up

In a while. I'll change in a while. That.. mother.. fucking...

Drip.

Get checked and take your god damn penicillin you god damn cock sucker.

She crawled across the bathroom floor to the tub, never spilling a drop of her whiskey, eyes still fixed on the offending fixture. She reached up with her free hand, pulling futilely on the handle, getting no give out of it but staying persistent even after her hand fell off for the second and third time. She closed her eyes taking several exaggerated drunk breaths. Finally having collected herself, she grabbed the damn thing and really pulled.

There was an ungodly cracking sound followed immediately by the realization that she had just broken the plastic inside of the fucking thing and the handle was free floating in her hand instead of controlling the shower like it was meant to.

Adds up.

She threw it across the bathroom, still leaning, exhausted, with one arm over the lip of the tub.

Play.

"What did you think was going to happen?" A recorded old harpy's voice.

"Rational discourse? Good parenting? Supervised visitation?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm surprised it lasted this long, but you were never an idiot. This is no time to start pretending."

"I'm not going to let you do this."

She mouthed the words along with the recording for the thousandth time, lying there on her dirty bathroom floor, ass scratched from picking up that pebble on her way over, unable to focus on anything. Hard to tell if it was from the alcohol or not.

"You really don't have any choice. Why complicate the matter?"

"I'm his mother."

"An unfortunate reality. No great difficulty."

"I'm his mother." This time tears fall onto her lips while they follow along.

"As you've said. If you feel you have been treated unfairly I urge you to file your grievances with the appropriate authority. We are prepared to meet you in family court, if we must, although my son insists that is an unnecessary hardship to inflict upon you. Just be reasonable."

"I'll see you in court (Hell, you fucking cunt)," this time she edits the conversation.

"So be it. Of course, having someone in charge of a colony with such an obvious grudge against the corporation and its controlling partners is clearly a conflict of interest. The next supply ship will collect you and your things."

Incoming message

She jumped, dropping her whiskey into the tub even as the small HUD generator bud slipped into her left ear buzzed to warn her an incoming call.

"Fuck!"

Which, naturally, it interpreted as 'answer', because that makes sense.

"Hey, boss."

"What, Judas."

"What? Who?"

"What, Jacob? The fuck you call.. me for?"

"Just giving you the morning call you asked for. Morning meeting is in an hour. We've got the freighter unload and the maintenance ship to Desolation on the schedule. Want me to hold off for a couple hours?"

Fucking Jacob. He knows I'm drunk. Of fucking course he does.

"You know god damn well we can't delay the freighter. I'll fucking be there."

"Absolutely, boss."

"And Jacob?"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Stop fucking calling me that."

Click.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Why... do... what? Shit. Get up, Jess. Don't be a cunt. Not today. Get your shit together. Too bad the girls look like shit today.

She was staring down at her tits, hyper aware of the way it caused a slight double chin.

She got up. She got dressed. And she went to work.

[WP] Show Your Work (a very short story)

[WP] - signifies that a piece is something I wrote to submit over at /r/rwitingprompts

This one was in response to 'A historically famous or infamous person suddenly finds themselves in the present to witness the long term results of their impact on history'.

Listen. A job is a job. In this day and age you do what you have to do. There’s no law that says you have to be proud of your profession. I mean, I pay my bills. I put food on my own table. Shit, I even have health insurance- man, I’m telling you I have dental! Paid time off! Which, coincidentally, is a pretty good thing. There’s only so many nights you can stay up, burning the candle at both ends, cutting together porn. Somebody has to edit it. Did you think the camera man was Johnny on the spot, jumping back and forth and thinking to himself, “Money, Jonesy boy!” every time the talent changed positions? Hell no. For every proud independent woman taking fat loads in the face for a few thousand bucks, there’s an army of guys like me making sure they look their best.

At least, that’s what I was telling myself as I stepped outside the squat little warehouse building in Southern California where the central office of ‘Giggity Studios’ was located. Typical night in So Cal; a little muggy, ocean breeze, and a low hanging canopy of smog to make sure we didn’t get delusional while star gazing. The parking lot was dead except for one lonely row of cars next to mine. The one working street light did its best but everything was all ethereal shadows and silhouettes. I lit my cigarette and pulled my phone out of my pocket to find a reddit thread to cruise over my break.

“Ah, yes. Excuse me.”

I just about shit myself on the spot. In the dark, I hadn’t seen anyone coming and it was the kind of night that just felt like it deadened sound. I was in one of the biggest cities in the world and yet I couldn’t hear anything. Not even the distant thrum of passing traffic.

Except this one stern faced dude with a British accent.

“What’s up, buddy?” I asked. “Sorry, kinda scared the shit out of me there. I mean, not literally. But almost. Bout to pull a Code Ten.”

His hair was dark and meticulously coifed save a few strands that I couldn’t help but think were a little wind tossed. Which was odd. That ocean breeze was more like a mellow fart than a howling gale. He was wearing a gray tweed suit I’d picture some dork at a community college teaching a Creative Writing course would wear. Nothing about him seemed to fit. I couldn’t help feeling a little insecure, underdressed, and out of place. Here I was at my job, in shorts and a t shirt and a crisp pair of Chuck Taylors, with two full sleeves of tattoos, not ten miles from where I grew up, but this English cat made me feel like I was the one who didn’t belong.

“I’ve had quite the evening, let me assure you. I don’t mean to trouble you but is there any way I could bother you for a drink of water and the use of your tele?”

I finished my cigarette and closed reddit. Nothing felt good about it but this was LA. I wouldn’t really have been worried even if he’d had a six year beard and shit smeared across his chest like war paint. It seemed unreasonable to assume this British character in a tailored suit was up to no good. “Sure, follow me.”

I swiped my ID card near the reader by the front door and led him back inside and down a long hallway toward the break room. It was kind of a cruel joke that the room specifically designed for people to take breaks in was on the far side of the office from the place where I took most of my breaks; in this case, meaning outside. Halfway down the hall one of the doors popped open and a middle aged woman with comically oversized glasses stuck her head out. “Hey, Greg? Can you look at something real quick for me? Having some trouble getting the sound editing on this one right and I know you had a trick for the ‘radio’ effect on people’s voices.”

“Sure, Alice.” Alice knew damn well what my trick was. She just liked me a little too much. Which was fine, Alice was a nice girl and all, but sometimes I wished she’d be more creative in her approach. “Give me one second, I’m just gonna get this guy some water.”

“Sure thing,” Alice said.

I was almost to the break room before I laughed and looked over my shoulder to say, “Hey, sorry about that. She can be…” I trailed off when I realized my visitor was no longer following me. In fact, he was all the way back at the open doorway I’d just left. Alice was standing next to him gesturing at something, and they both walked into the editing booth. I shrugged and snagged a water before heading back. The British guy was staring, totally dumbfounded, at the row of computer screens that all had half-cut scenes from recent shoots on them. Razor clear images of blowjobs, male on male, DPs, bondage, a dominatrix, one even had that new super HD but sweet looking stuff that had started gaining traction lately. They called it porn for women but I’ve got to admit, it’s a lot better than the old bullshit for men. But maybe that’s just because I watch hundreds of hours of it, all day every day, for a living.

“Sorry, Greg. He said he worked on computers when I asked him what he did. I thought he was an IT guy. He uhh… he hasn’t said anything since we came in, though. Just, staring like. Hey, Alan? Alan are you okay?”

“It’s…. Beautiful,” Alan said.

A Little Bit of Fear (part 2, Electric Chik-A-Loo)

NOTE: This portion of A Little Bit of Fear was written by my old buddy old pal, Dave Lynch. He hit me up one time a long while ago and said he wanted to work on something with me. I sent him part 1, and this is what he sent me back. It's all the collaboration we did on the project, but it's good, and everything I wrote after this part was written with this part in mind so I'm leaving it in. He can sue me later if he wants to, but he'd probably have to be able to afford a lawyer for that. Also he's not a douche. Usually. Also also he wanted to work on it with me, so I don't think he has a case anyway.

Hard to say, really.

In any event, Dave wrote this. I edited it a little bit just to bring out my boy's natural talent.

So here you go, A Little Bit of Fear (part 2, Electric Chick-A-Loo)

I am a perfectly rational person.

The most brilliant minds the galaxy has ever known spent eons gathering absolutely unfathomable amounts of knowledge to do things which were once considered impossible. Generation after generation of humans tirelessly sculpting their minds, becoming intellectual behemoths, accomplishing feats that were nothing short of miracles. Thousands of years of progress leading to the crowning achievement of

mankind. Faster-than-lightspeed space travel. A handful of scientists were called the saviors of the human race. They were the first scientists to drown in pussy.

Life on Earth had changed. There were too many people. We started sending the excess, the chaff, the low born not pretty enough to be fit to serve, off into the black. We found planets that could sustain life. Others that could be made to. Some were for living, others to gather resources for the job creators back home. The sheer logistics of it are staggering. Thousands and thousands of years, an entire planet’s collective income, countless lives lost, and an unbelievably lucky shot in the dark to beat God at his own game.

All that incredible progress and luck? Somehow we managed to cock all that up pretty much immediately. This planet, Desolation, couldn't be terraformed for shit and Earth basically said fuck it almost from the start. Let em eat cake, but also let em die. How long would it take for it to fall apart? Could the planet be mined dry before it happened? Somebody get me the risk reward analysis and figure out what our investment risk is on this one.

I think about it all the time. Its incredible.

But right now I'm just irritated that my part in that incredible story ends with me about to die while holding a terribly annoyed chicken and staring down an ornery horse.

Look, normally I don't steal from people, especially my neighbors. For lack of a better word, we're all shit farmers. We all grow what we can and trade amongst each other, help out with manual labor when somebody is sick or injured, all that shit. We all live within a few miles of each other, all of us have been here for our entire lives, and chances are we're all going to die here. I actually have a sweet gig making and selling Scal to my neighbors and the occasional traveler. I grow the corn myself, my neighbor grows the grain, and I get the sugar from a guy a few miles east of Unionside.

The sugar guy is partially why I'm currently hiding in a tiny barn, clutching a six pound feathery ball of hate. The sugar man hasn't shown up in a while. The other reason would be the cloven-hooved douchebag staring at me from across the dusty isle of the barn. The chicken was in my arms because I couldn't remember the last meal I'd eaten. The reason why I couldn't remember is because the stupid horse that was looking at me, while I'm struggling to retain my wits and dignity, covered in dirt and feathers.

He was looking at me with an expression of... something... on his face. What the fuck was that expression? The word was right on the tip of my tongue. Son of a bitch, that was going to drive me nuts. Anyway, the reason I'm holding THAT chicken, being silently judged by THAT horse, hiding from certain death in THIS barn is because all of these things belonged to Gene Congdon. His asshole horse keeps wandering over to my place and munching all my damn corn. Not eating it. Just chewing it up, and blehhh, spitting it out, like he has a hot date coming up soon and he’s watching his carb intake or some shit. I've asked Gene to handle this situation like two dozen times, and he's always a total dick about it and doesn't do jack.

My corn is demolished, my profits are nil. I can't afford to eat, so I'm taking a goddamn chicken. A chicken. Don't judge me.

Gene lives about a mile from me. I rarely go to his place unless it's to bring back his asshole horse. I knew he had solar panels. Everybody has solar panels. You know what Gene has that nobody else does? Motion-triggered flood lights. He apparently paid extra for the model with comedic timing. They caught me with an armful of poultry, with a deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face to match my cartoonish 'sneaky tip-toe' pose. I swear even the chicken looked surprised as shit.

Somewhere, a butterfly flapped it's stupid butterfly wings earlier. Gene was a regular customer of mine. He sleeps like death when he gets some of the good ol' family Scal in him. When he doesn't? He's awake, sick, and irritated. That flood light kicked on and it wasn't more than a few seconds before the unmistakable sound of an

incendiary round whizzed by terrifyingly close to my face. The military was largely privatized almost a decade ago, so the corporations all but gave away outdated-but-still-unbelievably scary armaments when the switch happened. Fortunately, dickhead Gene went wide with the shot and gave me a window of time to heroically flee in terror.

My heart is pounding. I'm covered in dirt, feathers, and shame. Gene is screaming at his son and curiously-hot-for-his-income-and-personality wife to find who is on the

property. I didn't bring a weapon. I'm hungry, not a dick. I will not panic. I am logical. Breath. I'm sweating profusely. I'm hungry and weak. Limbs are shaking from malnutrition and fear. Fear is good. For, like....reasons and shit. God, I'm hungry. I look at the chicken.

"Motherfucker, you are gonna GET it." I hiss at it.

"Bwaaaaak" it retorts, snarkily.

"Fuck you, nuggets!"

I feel my impotent rage may be a misuse of energy. Okay. Breath. Look around. What can I use? The tiny barn initially seems ill-equipped for ass-kickery. My hopes are briefly lifted at the sight of a pitchfork leaning near the door until I remember that the bullets in Gene's gun make you catch fire from the inside-out. I quickly rule that out. I'm rapidly losing hope. There isn't much else in the pitiful little barn. A couple haggard saddles and assorted horse tack, a riding ion-propulsion lawn mower that hasn't worked since Gene traded a bale of moldy hay for it, a canister half filled with fuel for said mower, a toolbox with nothing menacing inside it, and a plastic shovel used for cleaning horse stalls.

I've always been pretty optimistic. I haven't eaten in forever; if I die, I'll look fucking great at the funeral. Shit, if one of Gene's crazy Satan bullets gets me, it'll probably just be my brother carrying an ashtray to the front of the church/local auto parts store. The thought provides a decent distraction while a burny-shooty death closes in. The shouts are getting angrier, they're getting closer, the chicken doesn't care, and the horse is still staring at me with that fucking face. I suddenly feel that my greatest regret in life is dying without identifying what the look on that stupid horse's face is.

 

I'm just too tired. My stomach is screaming. My limbs are screaming. The Congdon family is screaming, and getting really damn close. The chicken seems fine. I look up and make eye contact with that horrible equine.

"Huh."

Slowly, deliberately, I pick myself up. One arm reaches above me and hoists myself up, the other arm cradling what was once supposed to be my dinner but has more or less become my security blanket with a beak. I'm leaning against the opposite wall from that asshole horse. I'm sweating even though the air feels fantastic tonight. I take another look at what was so obviously my escape. I'm such a silly goose. I should've seen it as soon as I ran into this barn with that stupid horse. Serendipity, nothing less. I open his stall door, gently take him by the halter, and smile to myself.

I am a perfectly rational human be-

"FLUMMOXED! You stupid fucking horse, you're FLUMMOXED!"

* * *

Gene and his family had quickly made a sweep of their modest property looking for the trespasser. You know, me. He had noticed the smell just a moment before chaos came screaming directly at him through the gates of my own Hell. They were closing in on the barn, their suspicions confirmed when they heard a man shout triumphantly from within, immediately before his horse burst from the doors, having been presumably set ablaze by the stranger. Gene and his kin were so taken aback by the spectacle that they failed to notice the the sound of "hehehehehehehehe" trailing off into the night, leaving naught but a few feathers as evidence behind him.

* * *

It was nearly sunrise when I collapsed into my favorite chair on the front porch. My half empty (or FULL, amiright?!) jar of Scal was right where I left it. I take a little victory sip, even though I hadn't eaten in ages and knew it was probably a bad idea. I didn't care. I won. I finish the half jar and decide to open another. Fuck it. Fire has been a fun theme tonight, let’s be flammable.

I giggled to myself.

I look down at the the chicken, still clutched firmly to my bosom. It was looking right at me. I felt like this was a very intentional, very unnerving sort of eye-contact.

My feeling of victory slightly faded as I look into it's eyes.

It let out a low, "Bwaaaa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aaak."

....

....

"I mean.... yeah.... I guess I could've just ridden it out of there."

"Bwak."

....

....

I never did eat that chicken.

* * *

I awoke in the mid afternoon, either very hung over, or slightly dead. Probably dead. I assume this is what dead feels like. I am either very good or fucking terrible

at making Scal. Either way, I'm my own biggest fan.

I drag myself off the couch and sit on the front porch in my usual chair. I rarely have company, I'm not sure what the other chair is for. Right now a large chicken is perched on top of it, with unusually judgemental eyes not typically found in meal birds. Quickly, the night comes back to me. "Heh." The quarter-chuckle I allow myself feels like a punch to the head.

"Bak?"

I contemplate Chikens question.

"HHHHRRRRRRRRWWWWUUUUUUGHHHHHHNnnnnnnnn......pwuh *GASP* pwuh...*gasp*....ptuh....."

I casually vomit onto my deck. Uncertain if my choice of words makes my point, I let my red face and bulging, red, watery eyes do the talking for the next two minutes.

Chiken just tilts its head in the flightless avian equivalent of silent judgment.

I agree. It IS weird that Sugar Mike hasn't showed up in so long. I decide to take a trip to check up on him, make sure he's okay. I'm actually not positive if his name is really Mike, but I don't know how to grow that shit, so off I go. It's a long trip on foot, but none of my neighbors have a vehicle, and the only one with a horse is a dick. Plus, you know... mucho fuego. No bueno.

I pack a bag, gather up my rifle, and get get ready to leave on the long trip ahead of me. I stand on the edge of porch, puke all over my boots one last time, and go back to sleep for the rest of the day.

I'll leave when I feel better.

Fuck Sugar Mike.

* * *

I woke up still spinning a little. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. Jesus, I'm gonna die before I get to my driveway. I can't focus my eyes. I'm stumbling. I keep forgetting where I'm going. Sugar Mike. That's right.

If I don't fuckin' starve first.

...

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Tried to catch a squirrell. Unsuccessful. Cried a little bit. Tears salty.

...

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Salt makes you dehydrated. Hungry and thirsty now.

...

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So much walking.

...

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I fucking hate squirrells so much.

Why don't I know how to spell squirrells in my head?

Why are there squirrells on this planet?

...

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Thought I was hallucinating for a minute, but Chiken is definitely following me. Not sure what to make of it. Very weak. Feathery death not expected.

But also not ruled out.

...

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Lost track of Chiken for about an hour. Found Chiken in road. Dead squirrell at its feet. Is this real life?

...

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...

Feeling pretty good. Coming up on Unionside, finally. Haven't been here in months, gonna grab some non-squirrell food and some tobacco, rest for a bit and then

continuing to S.M's.

...

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...

Hahahahahahahaha Just saw the greatest shit ever. A dude in a busted helmet just screamed "YOU FILL MY COCK WITH HATRED, LITTLE HERO!" at some guy with a gun.

What happened after, slightly less amusing.

* * *