Humans have enough blood vessels to go around the earth’s equator 2 and a half times! That’s about 62,000 miles!

“Pack your bags, kids,” I said. “We’ve got our spring break plans.”

I’ll admit; somewhere near the second go-through of Somalia, I start to feel fatigue. My wife is dying for an Arby’s, but no matter how many times I tell her she doesn’t get why no one out here sees the profit potential of a franchise. My two sons are arguing over video games. My teen daughter has texted her way through the world’s most exciting jungles. And how do I feel? How’s dear old dad? I’m running on fumes. I figure at this point I’ve got about 10,000 miles of blood vessels left. Let me tell you, an 84% decrease in blood vessel quantity is hell on the old ticker. I keep slugging along, doling out feet of vein and artery as we walk like I’m giving slack on a coiled garden hose. With three kids and a wife on your back, this is no way to see the sights. It is terribly exhausting and many villagers have taken to using my veins as jump ropes or my capillaries as dental floss. At night we wrap ourselves in a cocoon of unfurled blood vessels, tight and warm but faint, as each beat of my limp heart must pump a squirt of blood around the circumference of the earth before its oxygen reaches my anemic organs.

Nevertheless, I press on, weak and weary but constantly grateful that at no point on this trip did we have to stay at a god-awful Best Western. That would have been hell.

“I’m sorry,” says Denise. “It’s just that the spark between us has died out.”

“But you said it was love at first sight.”

“The first time I saw you, Kyle, you were self-immolating outside City Hall.”

“That was a phase. I no longer care about pelicans.”

Denise sighs heavily and lays her hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “I’m just not attracted to you when you aren’t roasting in white-hot flames.”

Kyle stands motionless as Denise shuts the door behind her.

*

Four days later Kyle drenches himself in butane and stands in his computer room. He clicks to video-chat Denise as he strikes a match against the desk and sets himself ablaze.

“Kyle?”

“Come on, sweetheart, take me back! I’m blistered and broiling! Red Lobster! Tonight at seven! I got us the booth by the fish tank!”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to say… That was just a phase I was in.”

Behind Denise enters a fat beekeeper. “Hey, babe,” he says. “Let’s have some of that disturbing sex you mentioned.”

Denise tries to end the chat, but her click misses. As Kyle scalds silently in his computer room, he watches the fat beekeeper take Denise from a variety of angles, with her hips propped up on a hollow beehive. Kyle’s organs melt into a rainbow-colored puddle next to his mass of USB cables as he wonders what Denise really had to offer beyond her father’s season tickets to the Quiznos on Highway 9.

As Kyle sprays himself down with his fire extinguisher, he realizes that tickets aren’t necessary for entering a Quiznos, and especially not the premium-priced ones Denise’s father had purchased. Kyle decides to go to Quiznos for lunch, free of charge, and hopes that maybe he’ll meet a nice girl in there who falls in love with more than just the image of him accidentally grilling his face in the sandwich toaster.

“I’ve always thought you’d look great in a Satan costume,” said Jeff, holding Amy’s hand as they walked down the forest trails. “And you proved me so right at my cousin’s baptism.”

Amy smiled and squeezed Jeff’s hand. She had never felt so sure she wanted to be with anyone. “Do you think that someday, in the future, we’ll live together and have a hundred little babies who don’t eat food but instead subsist on rat—” Suddenly there was rustling in the trees. “What was that?”

Jeff put his arm in front of Amy and shot his head from side to side, tracing the crackling, shuffling noises. “Quiet,” he whispered. “This area is full of vile, deadly creatures. I never should have taken you here. I only stopped here because I made a wrong turn and didn’t want to admit my mistake.”

As the noises surrounded Jeff and Amy, they spun in a circle, looking for a safe route out. But there was none.

Holes in the branches formed. Jeff and Amy held their breath, anticipating a violent and brutal death. From deep within the trees emerged six bloodthirsty young men dressed in pleated khaki pants and bulky blue blazers.

“No!” shouted Jeff. “Back off! Back away!”

“We finally meet,” growled Ronald, the pack’s leader, flaring his wide nostrils. “We have been courting you for some time, Jeff. Your GPA meets our elite standards. But it seems you have been too preoccupied to respond to our direct-mail campaign?”

Two of Ronald’s minions snarled and licked their lips at Amy. Jeff searched for a hole through which he could run, but there was none. “Stop!” said Jeff. “We don’t want what you have.”

“But you haven’t even read the full brochure,” said Ronald, extending a glossy pamphlet from his breast pocket. “The Golden Handshake Honors Society offers a veritable smorgasbord of social and career benefits, from alumni mixers to volunteer opportunities. In fact, just having our name on your resume is a surefire way to land an interview.”

The minions cracked their knuckles and sniffed the air wildly. Two of them kicked up clouds of dirt. Inside his head, Jeff tried to tune Ronald out, thinking of baseball, of roast beef, of snorting a line of dead bees to get a good buzz going, but no matter how hard he tried, some of those perks were starting to sound pretty good.

Ronald leaned his mouth inches from Jeff’s ear and in one gust of musky breath, hot and meaty, whispered, “Our weekly e-newsletter is highly regarded.”

“Fine!” said Jeff. “Just don’t hurt Amy. What do I have to do? What is it you cretins want from me?”

“Fantastic. We just need a one-time enrollment fee of $79.95, followed by monthly dues of $14.95.”

Jeff let out a deep breath. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” said Ronald. Jeff held out his debit card and one of Ronald’s minions snatched it and ran it through his smartphone’s card processor. It took three swipes for it to work properly, during which time Jeff and Ronald smiled and nodded back-and-forth six times. Finally, Ronald’s minion asked Jeff to enter his phone number into his phone so that the minion could send a receipt to Jeff via text message.

“That’s pretty cool,” said Jeff, punching in his digits. “So this is it? I’m in, okay? Can you please let my girlfriend and I continue our stroll?”

“Sure, sure,” said Ronald. “We’ll let you be on your way as soon as you complete a brief initiation rite.” He extended his right hand out to Jeff and held a leatherbound book in his left. Jeff whispered to Amy that it would be okay and stepped forward to grasp Ronald’s hand.

In one fluid motion, Ronald dropped the leatherbound book and reached his left hand down Jeff’s throat and then pulled it back out hoisting Jeff’s lungs. The blue air sacks huffed and puffed in front of Jeff’s chest as the five other Golden Handshake Honors Society members surrounded Jeff and slapped his lungs, chanting, “Kikimora, Kikimora, Kikimora!” Amy winced and cowered near a tree as Ronald poked Jeff’s lungs back into his mouth, then lunged into Jeff’s cargo pants to pull Jeff’s penis up and over his own head. The stretched shaft bisected Jeff’s body, up and over, until it came full-circle in a knot. “Hop like a bunny!” shouted Ronald. “Hop!” Jeff pranced around for a bit, but even he would admit it was half-hearted. “I said hop!” Jeff putt more effort in, leaping into the sky like a popular jackrabbit. “Now you must break this GameBoy Pocket,” said Ronald, holding out the red game system. “Destroy your childhood!” Jeff, grunting but unable to speak through his penis, snapped the GameBoy in half. As the GameBoy’s electric green blood ran down Jeff’s palms, Ronald gazed directly into Jeff’s bulging eyeballs and whispered, “Say chimichanga.” Jeff writhed his lips to get them around the side of his penis.

“Chimichanga,” he said.

Ronald and his minions threw up their hands and cheered. “One of us!” Ronald untied Jeff’s penis and set his pants on straight.

Jeff jumped up and down. “Brotherhood!” he screamed. “I feel like I’m finally myself.” A minion unveiled a pair of pleated khaki pants and a bulky blue blazer. Jeff tried them on. They were baggy and fit like hand-me-downs from a father who was at one time pretty chubby. “Perfect,” Jeff said. “Let’s go network with some alumni!”

As Ronald and the minions patted Jeff’s blazer and they ran through the brush into the deep woods, farther than anyone could see, Amy stood from the tree. She brushed herself off, took a deep breath, and made a pledge to herself to get her GPA up next semester so she could join the Golden Shoebuckle Honors Sisterhood and finally feel in her exposed, beaten lungs what it means to truly have purpose.

SANDRA: Thank you all so much for having me. It was a real honor when your professor, Dr. Langston, invited me to speak with you today about my experiences in the publishing industry. It’s been a wild journey, so I’m just going to start from the beginning. When I was in college, back in the stone age, there was this show on TV called Happy Days. Does anybody here remember—No, you kids are way too young to know that show.
ABBY: We know Happy Days.
SANDRA: Oh, that’s great. So Happy Days had a great theme song, but you could only hear it once a week, when the show was on. I wanted to listen to it all the time, so back then there were no iPods, so I had to save up to buy the song on a record. Now, I know I’m speaking a foreign language to you kids. A record was this big black disc that contained music—
DAVID: We know.
SANDRA: No, listen. I’m not talking about an MP3 file. These were big, flat discs—Oh, never mind; you kids are too digital to ever understand. The record cost four dollars, and I was flat broke. But there was a poetry writing contest sponsored by the local rotary club and the winner would get five dollars. So, without any inspiration beyond my desire for that record, I lugged out my typewriter and—Oh, wow, you all just went blank.
CHRISTINE: We know what a—
SANDRA: A typewriter was sort of like a computer, but with a lot less Facebook. So I cleared my head, sat down in my chair—. Wait, when were most of you born?
DAVID: Nineteen ninety-one.
SANDRA: Oh my. So a chair was sort of like an ab-toning exercise ball but with four legs. I sat down on this primitive piece of furniture and channeled inside to some emotions I’d been feeling – longing for home, nostalgia for my childhood – and translated those thoughts onto the page through my fingers. Wow, no connection there. You’re all just staring back like deer in headlights. So fingers were like these wacky miniature arms that shot out of your hands, and most people had an even set of ten of them.
SANDRA: Please stop treating–
SANDRA: Anyway, I went to work typing out whatever ideas came to me – just free-verse ideas and images of wanting things to be simpler, of longing for an idealized time in my life, and then I tied those ideas back to the object of my desire–. Wait. You kids aren’t old enough to understand desire, are you?
ABBY: We desire that you would stop.
SANDRA: So desire was like this old-fogey feeling when you wanted—
CHRISTINE: We know.
SANDRA: No, no, this isn’t some app you kids are thinking of. It was an emotion, which were like these tingly feeling-bubbles that would rise up in your heart and brain from time to time. I turned in the poem, relating my feelings at college to the show Happy Days, won the contest, and officially became a published author. That was step one on my long road—. I’m sorry, but are any of you old enough to remember roads? They were these insane asphalt lines– Dr. Langston, could you help explain?
DR. LANGSTON: Even I’m not that old! I have no idea what these asphalt rods are.
SANDRA: Roads. Like Rhode Island.
DAVID: Please stop.
SANDRA: I’m sorry, but what is that fantastic yellow boomerang you’re peeling?
DAVID: … A banana?
SANDRA: A what?
DAVID: A banana? It’s a fruit. It grows on a tree.
SANDRA: You kids with your zany techno-inventions. I remember back when we ate apples, but those goofy red balls would take hours for me to explain.

SpongeBob Squarepants – The End

“The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” – Edgar Allen Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”

Scott squeezed Amber’s frail hand, wishing some of his energy could surge into her, just enough to last until the EMTs arrived. Her arm was the only part of her visible from the wreckage. The long train of her wedding dress, the one her parents didn’t get to see, was buried beneath the crumpled mass that once was her and Scott’s private airplane.

“Hang in there, babe,” said Scott. “I hear the truck pulling up now. You can make it. You’re going to make it.”

A large SUV whipped around the gravel, spraying dirt onto Scott’s face. A man with plastic hair sprung from the backseat holding a microphone, trailed by a camera and sound crew.

“My wife is under here,” said Scott. “Are you the EMTs?”

“The EMTs are on-deck, waiting for approval from our crack team of beauty experts. Welcome to Poetical Death or Homely Broad Kicks the Bucket? As always, I’m your host, Chip Scrotum—”

“Hey, some help here? Can you guys—”

“And here with me today is our team of beauty experts, on hand to determine if this dying woman is beautiful, making her death poetic and therefore compelling enough to make viewers stick around after the commercial break, or if she is merely a homely hag, making her death a waste of airtime.”

“Please—”

“Stepping out of the car we’ve got Sandy Ass, editor-in-chief of HotOrNot.com and the only thirty-two-year-old dedicated enough to make twice-weekly trips to her former middle school to continue her legacy of reminding sixth graders that their misshapen bodies are disturbing. Behind her is the magnificent Dale Rectolio, Beverly Hills’s leading practitioner of unnecessary and dangerous plastic surgery. Finally we’ve got Stu Cockburn, one of the Internet’s top commentators on various celebrity gossip blogs, a man who holds the Guinness World Record for having the highest standards for women’s physical attractiveness relative to his own gut and inability to put his penis inside anything more alive than a baked potato.”

The judges approached the crash site and crouched to peer inside at Amber’s bloody face.

“She’s got, like, puffy face to the max,” said Sandy Ass. “I mean, and her tits are falling onto the side since she’s in, like, the least-sexy pose ever.”

Dale Rectolio nodded. “If it were up to me, I’d stick a bicycle pump into those titties and get them up to around a double-G, and then we’d be in shape to implant a pair of hams into them butt cheeks and maybe fix some of those fucked-up chompers.”

“Come on!” shouted Scott. “She was in a terrible accident! Help me lift the plane!”

“Hold on one second, pal,” said Chip. “We’ve got to keep this fair, okay? Each of the judges gets an equal chance to share their opinions. Stu? What’s your analysis, Stu?”

The camera crew panned to Stu, who was crouched near the road having sex with a bush on which he had taped a photograph of Jessica Alba.

“I guess that settles his vote,” said Chip. “With three resounding No votes from the judges, we’re declaring this dying ugly woman to be completely non-poetic! This spinster’s death will inspire no one and elicit no tears. Her segment will cause zero viewers to stick around to see her fate.”

“But…Come on, you have to help her.”

“Send in the EMTs!” shouted Chip Scrotum. “Save this shrew and maybe we’ll use some of this footage in a promo spot. Let’s go, team! Back in the van! This old maid is old news. Fingers crossed the next woman is hot enough for us to let die. We need a few stunners to go during sweeps.”

The camera crew, Chip Scrotum, Sandy Ass, Dale Rectolio, and Stu Cockburn boarded the van and sped off into the horizon.

An ambulance parked near the plane wreck and three EMTs lifted Amber’s body onto a stretcher. “We got her just in time,” one EMT said to Scott. “Good thing Cockburn was fucking that bush. His usual rants can go on for, like, fifteen minutes. Pretty brutal, but man they’re hilarious.”

Halfway to the hospital, Amber opened her eyes to see Scott leaning over her and squeezing her hand. “What happened?” she said. “Where am I?”

“There was an accident, sweetie.” Scott leaned in, wrapping his hands around her face, sticky with blood. Scott kissed her forehead hard. “You look beautiful. You’ve never been so pretty. You’re so pretty.” Scott laid his head on Amber’s chest and held onto her for the rest of the ride.

SAM
It’s when she’s in costume that she can finally express her love for Orlando. See, Shakespeare’s making the point here that when we’re disguised, we feel freer. We can do things we wouldn’t do in ordinary life. – Never Been Kissed

-Since when does Doug build oak desks?
-He just started.
-Why the hell’s he in that panda costume? Must be sweating up a storm in there.
-He said something about Shakespeare. He also wants to take an HTML course all of a sudden, but only if the library will let him wear the panda suit.
-I guess I’d rather he be in the suit making oak desks than in his jeans defecating into my Suburu’s exhaust pipe.
-Not one of his better phases.

SAMPSON: Thank you, captain, for joining me. I will keep this pre-cruise debriefing short.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: No problem at all. Always good to review the itinerary.
SAMPSON: The ship deports at 0800 hours from Boston Harbor and heads east for ninety-six kilometers, at which point you will steer due north for sixty kilometers.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: Excellent. At that point I will adjust to south-southeast to avoid harsh northern winds. From there we cruise for three-hundred and forty kilometers until—
SAMPSON: Hold it right there. I actually have a note on mine that suggests a course alteration. You will cruise for two-hundred kilometers and plow full-speed into an oil rig.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: Excuse me? Of course I would steer around any obstacle.
SAMPSON: No, I was emailed this itinerary directly from the CEO, detailing how the ship will crash into the oil rig at 1400 hours. It’s right here in the plan.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: But that’s heinous! We have to get to Ireland!
SAMPSON: Captain, listen. I wasn’t supposed to let you in on this, but our parent company has already pre-sold the international distribution rights to the documentary about this epic crash.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: But the damage will be enormously expensive.
SAMPSON: Listen, we’re pulling in a couple million from the tickets we sold for this thing, and sure, repairing the ship will cost a fortune. But the merchandise based on the crash? The t-shirts, soundtrack albums, commemorative books, all based on the sinking of the great Ocean Flyer? It’s a money machine. So all you’ve got to do is steer the ship right into the oil rig we’ve set-up. Don’t worry, there are no passengers on it.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: What about our passengers?
SAMPSON: Don’t worry! They were all pre-screened and selected by casting directors. We’ve got a great mix of gorgeous young people and several controversial romances that bridge social classes. Any of them are ripe for film adaptations.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: I cannot willingly—
SAMPSON: Remember what I said about the oil rig not having people on it? Scratch that. We just got the green light on a cable docudrama called Invincible Oil Riggers, and the whole thing will be staffed with wide-eyed youngsters eager for work. You will drive the ship into them, causing the rig to burst into an enormous fiery explosion. It will make for one hell of a sweeps episode.
CAPTAIN SNOOK: And you expect me to drop my morals into the sea and just follow these orders without question?
SAMPSON: Did I mention the first film script we’ve commissioned is titled Captain Snook: Hero and Sex God?
CAPTAIN SNOOK: I had no idea. I will drive the ship as fast as it will go, directly into the most explosive oil barrels. I’m gonna be a star!

“This is the place,” said Susan, gesturing grandly. “Its location in the heart of Greenwich Village can’t be beat, and for only six-hundred a month? I’m not talking as the agent here, but as your friend. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Doug peered into the gap between brownstones and saw the backside of a large African elephant with a swinging door knocker hanging beneath its tail. “We can sign the lease today,” said Susan.

Doug sighed. He had already scored a job in Manhattan, and this was really the only place in his price range. It was the last piece of the puzzle to live out his childhood dream. “I’ll take it.”

That night, after placing his briefcase on the ground and removing his shoes, Doug gripped the handles attached to the elephant’s legs and placed his feet against the elephant’s anus. Slowly he slid inside, engulfed by the moist heat of his new home, until he was swallowed up to his neck, so only his head poked out of the elephant’s backside. Doug took a deep breath and looked into the night sky. This isn’t so bad, he thought. Kind of like a sleeping bag full of hot mud. And for the price? It was almost a steal. Suddenly something tugged at Doug’s foot. “What is that?” Doug shouted, wiggling inside the filthy cocoon. The tugging turned to punching and with it came a muffled cry, “We’re your roommates, asshole! Give us some space!”

Doug slid his knees into his chest just as a cloud broke and rain pounded his face. A young girl walking past pointed to Doug and said, “Mom, we learned about these in school. They’re called hemorrhoids!” Doug sighed and reminded himself to focus on his life goals. He hoped the elephant would remember to shit him out at eight o’clock because he had a very important presentation the next day, and he knew that once he aced that he’d be on the fast-track to being a CEO living in his own place, free of roommates, inside a giraffe bottom or maybe a rhinoceros rear-end on the swanky Upper East Side.

Don enters the kitchen.
CHERYL: Oh, thank god you’re home, Don! If I had to wait any longer I think Larry King may have finally died! (Laughter) Did you find a job?
DON: I sure did, honey. The family is going to be okay. (They hug; audience swoons)
Don removes his dress shirt and takes a crack pipe out from his pocket. He lights it up.
CHERYL: My god, Don! What are you doing? We don’t allow crack in this kitchen unless your brother Louie is fixing the faucet! (Laughter)
DON: Listen, babe. Times are tough. This sitcom act just isn’t cutting it anymore. We’re out-of-touch.
A knock on the door.
DON: Bring them in, Louie.
Louie enters trailed by six buxom prostitutes.
PROSTITUTE: Oh baby, this house is nice. I could get used to this.
CHERYL: What on earth is going on?
DON: I had to take a job moving us to pay cable, sweetheart. It’s where the business is headed. Louie’s running a brothel out of the basement. Oh, and I’m smoking crack now and I sell steroids to the high school baseball team.
CHERYL: This is all illegal! Think about the kids!
DON: The kids are fine. Marissa is set up to have an affair with her English teacher and Ronald is going goth.
CHERYL: But he’s in military school.
DON: (Takes puff of crack) The arguments he’ll have with his officers will be full of the foul language we are now encouraged to use. Speaking of which, fuck.
CHERYL: Don!
DON: As for your new job, I hope you’ve got a good shovel and a taste for robbing graves.
CHERYL: Oh my god. This is so grim. I can’t do drama! I’m not made for drama!
DON: Oh, we’re still a comedy. Pay cable comedy.
CHERYL: How come no one is laughing?
DON: Rules are different over here. Sorry, the motherfucking rules are different. At least we’ve got a job.
CHERYL: Is there much money in it?
DON: Not really. But we can stay afloat for six or seven seasons even if barely anyone watches. And we’ll probably win an Emmy.
CHERYL: Can we pay the water bill with an Emmy?
DON: No. But at least we can avoid the agonizing hell of DVD and online streaming until the kids are out of school.
Don and Cheryl hug. Don puffs a little crack behind Cheryl’s back.
LOUIE: How many corpses will yous’ guys’ freezer hold?