The Electric Boogaloo
Day 2
March 24th, 2020
Full disclosure, we decided to stick to the original themes before even considering what those themes were. We assumed (memory fails) that “theme” meant something like “love stories” or “stuff about royalty” or “thinly veiled erotica,” but instead, the themes are weird nonsense like this. Coming into today, we were a little concerned. If every story has to follow the same path, from misadventures to a sudden happy ending, won’t these all end up the same? Won’t the surprise of the happy ending stop being a surprise?
As it turned out, our concerns were unfounded. Misadventures are hardly the same and neither, of course, are happy endings. In the original, the misadventures mostly conclude with money or love falling into the protagonist’s lap. Here, “happy” looks like a lot of different things, some of which don’t seem happy at all.
So, we concede, the theme is not bad. And right now, we understand why they would have wanted to hear a day’s worth of stories where everything’s a mess and then, to paraphrase: one day, like a miracle, the mess disappears. The magic of fiction.
Xoxo,
-Amy & Cassidy
Carly Rose Roy
Jack Becker
Amy Muller
Joey Rupcich
AJ McDougall
Cassidy Jackson
James Bean
Evan Montgomery
Anna Keating
Vivian Qiu
By Carly Rose Roy
BRADLEY JERUSALEM WAS having a horrible day. He put both his shoes on the wrong feet this morning and still hasn't found the courage to fix it. The shower was cold and his hair hasn't dried in the 6 hours since. The yogurt he ate for lunch that he stole from the fridge was moldy (the kind you could see and taste!). There was no toilet paper in the bathroom and the mirror was unflattering. Or it was the lights. No matter! His trip to the bathroom seriously wounded the self-esteem he had assembled for the day.
And now! On his way to his dog sitter’s apartment (His Goldendoodle will poop in his bed if left alone. He does not blame this on Pretzel of course. He blames it on the bed.) the elevator screeches to a slow and steady halt.
Bradley just screeches until he runs out of breath. Capacity constrained lungs are bad and lame. Bradley was badder and lamer though. "This motherfucking horseshit bitchnozzle of an elevator had one shitty job to perform! Go up! Up! Up! Fucking UP!" He’s breathing heavily. Huffing at a truly embarrassing rate. He does not even have the decency to feel shame.
Suddenly, he looks at the women next to him. He had not noticed her before. He often forgets to notice people without penises unless his penis notices them first.
She’s short. (A good inch shorter than he.)
Plump. (But not as plump as he.)
Her shoes are on the right feet. He hates her for it.
"Two jobs," the woman says quietly but not without courage.
"What!?" Bradley screeches at her now.
"The elevator has two jobs to perform. Up AND down."
Bradley does something now, that he perhaps had never before done in his life. He pauses before speaking. She didn't ask a question but he still feels the need to answer one. Or rather, he feels the need to answer her but thinks she ought to have asked him a question instead of whatever hullabaloo this was.
He straightens. She does not shrink.
Bradley does not appreciate this like even a little.
~
You wouldn't know from looking at her, but Janice Withers was thrilled with how her day was going. Imagine me! she thought a girl from smoltown Nebraska stuck in an elevator. But wait! Not just stuck in an elevator. Stuck in an elevator with a boy. A man. A male. The opposite gender. A human with a penis (she thinks!). Her very own meet-cute.
What a day this was becoming.
Janice thought that he certainly couldn't under any circumstances be considered attractive. She did not think this was shallow to say because his personality was also horse shit.
Janice really wanted her first kiss though. She would've tried a kissing booth route again if they didn't install the age maximum of 40. The man with the penis (she thinks!) was staring at her with a lot of heat. She took it as a good sign. He must love how she corrected him just then. He must want me, she thought.
Janice stepped forward until their toes were touching. They were basically the same height so when she pushed her lips into his there weren't a lot of logistics that needed to be considered.
It was just him and her and him and her doing all the heavy kissing lifting.
This went on for probably too long.
She backed away, then opened her eyes.
She reached into her mouth and pulled out a particle that appeared to be cottage cheese.
Janice smiled and said, "Yum,” a sigh wrapped in a toothy smile, “My favorite."
By Jack Becker
**Content Advisory: The following contains gore involving animal remains. No animals are harmed or killed.**
ON THE GROUNDS OF A New England boarding school, two students who are also the children of different faculty members—making them “fac-brats,” as these types of students are so affectionately called—trudge through the woods, high out of their minds. They’ve taken LSD, which Cassie, the more resourceful of the two, sourced from a middle school friend in town. It’s a Saturday afternoon; the sun will be going down soon, but for now it is languidly radiant along the two-foot blanket of snow that has fallen last night.
Dave—the less resourceful of the two, but Cassie’s best friend since their parents started teaching at this school in the same year when they were both eight—falls into the snow with his mouth open. He chews and chews.
“The fuck you doing?” Cassie asks the back of Dave’s thick frame.
“It’s like if mulch were ice,” says Dave.
“Well you’re not wrong.” Cassie looks at the snow in front of her. She can’t remember why the two of them decided to go on a trip in the woods on such a freezing day, but suddenly it seems that they’re here for the snow. She’d never liked the snow very much, and can presently feel her throat getting tighter with annoyance at the bit of it that’s gotten inside of her left boot and has started melting. But right now some ice mulch sounds fucking great.
She looks around for the best place to plop down and feast like Dave. The area right in front of her is too branchy, that other part has deer shit. She takes five steps one way, nine steps the other, rounds a quiet oak and—
“OH MY FUCKING BALLS,” Dave hears her cry.
He springs up and looks around. “Cassie?”
“FATHERFUCK ME WITH A LADDER SIDEWAYS.”
“Cass?” Dave stumbles forward. “Where are you?”
Cassie appears, pale cheeks flushed, and not only from the cold. “There’s—there a—I don’t—FUCK!”
Dave follows Cassie to where she has just been and gasps. “Fuck is right,” Dave says, the inside of his chest jumping. “It’s a BUCK.”
The deer is as dead and resplendent as a pile of crinkled orange leaves. There’s no sign of injury or decay. Standing still and watching it, both of them think that they can hear the buck breathing—but no. Its chest is unmoving. No steam comes from its mouth or nostrils.
Cassie, now calm, moves closer.
“What are you doing?” says Dave.
“I want to touch it.”
“Don’t,” says Dave, “it could have disease.”
“That’s what people say about you, and yet.”
Dave’s mouth twitches downwards. “That was unnecessary.”
“Just get over yourself and come look with me.”
Cassie takes off her glove and puts a hand against the buck’s side. She’s surprised by the stiffness but delighted by the warmth. Dave steps around her to get a better look at the antlers, which are as ornate as the branches above them but possess a greater fortitude. Its eyes are still open, big black glass orbs filled with fear, regret, and something else, Dave decides—something very tired, maybe even calm.
Joining Dave by the head, Cassie looks into the buck’s eyes and notices the same thing as Dave, although neither of them speak of it. Instead, Cassie airs a suggestion.
“You know where this would look amazing?” she says to Dave. “Your wall.”
Dave pictures his room in the most popular boys’ dorm on campus and agrees. The buck head would go perfectly with the folksy New Hampshire vibe he’s been working to cultivate with all of his warm yellow-light lamps and vinyl album covers thumbtacked to the walls.
“Yeah,” says Dave. “How’re we gonna do this, though?”
Cassie thinks for a moment and smiles. “The Vampire twins.”
“Those spindly motherfuckers?” says Dave.
“Those spindly motherfuckers,” Cassie repeats. “They’re fucked up enough to help us, don’t you think?”
It might be the sun off of her borderline anemic face, or it might be the LSD, but either way Cassie’s face is glowing when Dave looks at her. Glowing and smiling, and he feels himself glowing and smiling, too.
“Totally,” he says in answer to her question. “Let’s go get those Dracula-looking dickheads now.”
The Vanderbrink twins, John and Colton, are two freshmen that both ended up in Dave’s dorm this year. Being a senior already gives Dave a level of authority over them, so even if they are hesitant to come along, Dave could threaten them one way or another, could say he’ll piss in their sheets, or frame them for drug possession. But neither he nor Cassie think that it’ll come to that. The Vanderbrink twins give everyone a bad feeling. Pale like most of the students at the school and hailing from a K-8 boarding school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, they are both piano prodigies who don’t say much. They just stare. Not absently but actively. Teachers hate having them in their classes. Their arms seem too long, their heads too narrow. They aren’t unattractive, though, yet that only makes them more disturbing. Who knows how charming they could be if they decided to open their mouths. Most students—and even some teachers, whether to their spouses or close friends—call them the Vampire Twins.
If Cassie and Dave weren’t as high as they currently are, they would probably think through the decision a bit more before fetching the Vanderbrink twins from Dave’s dorm. Both John and Colton just nod when they are told the goal of the operation, and follow Cassie and Dave silently back to the buck’s death place.
“Oh, fuck,” says Cassie as they walk up to the buck. “I—I forgot, we don’t have anything to cut the head off, how’re we—”
Before she can finish or Dave can respond, John Vanderbrink pulls a two-inch pocket knife from the interior of his flannel jacket. He steps towards the buck and straddles its shoulders.
He looks up at his brother Colton. “Hold the antlers,” he says.
Colton approaches the buck and does as he’s told. That’s when John starts cutting.
It’s the sound of someone chewing an apple and ripping cloth at the same time. Blood, dark as the inside of a molten lava cake, melts the surrounding snow into a puddle of gore.
The faces of the Vampire twins remain impassive, as if this is something they are being paid to do, even though Dave made it clear they would not be paid. Soon both Cassie and Dave are picturing the twins as literal vampires, cutting into the buck’s neck to extract the blood. They witness John’s hands becoming more skeletal, Colton’s arms becoming longer with a more pronounced and sinister bend at the elbow. And the pool of blood continues to grow. Growing, growing, until the entire forest is full of it, until the trees and the plants are all revived from the winter, no longer slumbering but galvanized by the sweet fucking taste of liquid meat, wanting more, wanting it all.
Cassie can hear a small whine coming from Dave, who is frozen next to her. Upon further listening, she realizes that she is emitting a thin line of sound, as well.
They can do this, though. They just need to remind themselves that it’s the LSD forming these visions, that what they’re seeing isn’t the truth. But that becomes hard to remember when John’s knife gets stopped by the buck’s spine. To circumvent the issue, John orders Colton to take an even stronger grip on the buck’s antlers as he climbs onto the buck’s back and starts jumping up and down. With every leap there’s the resounding crack of a thick wet branch being pushed to breaking.
By the fourth jump and the fourth crack, Cassie and Dave lose it. They run away, screaming.
They don’t say a word to each for the rest of the day, which they spend huddled underneath blankets in the basement of Cassie’s parents’ faculty house on the edge of campus. Neither of them needs to talk to understand that they’re both clenching their eyes shut for the same reason, trying to banish the sight of two eerie long boys from wreaking havoc on an animal corpse, sending Cassie and Dave’s ecstasy trip fully south.
They also don’t need words to agree that they will never speak of this day again. But unbeknownst to them, this is the day that they will both stop buying drugs from connections in town, when they’ll start being nicer to the underclassmen who really don’t deserve to be bossed around. And every time they see an animal after today, they will shudder with guilt at what they incited the Vampire twins to do to that poor buck’s body. They will look at animals and never think again about decorations. They will never wear fur. Dave, after a couple of weeks where the sight of blood in any context will make his stomach turn, will soon become a vegetarian. When Cassie will arrive in college, she’ll think about this day and decide to become a vegan. And they’ll each go to therapy, where they’ll talk about this event and get it off their chests, and find that there are actually many things that therapy can do for them, many other topics of conversation they can dive into besides an incident with two piano prodigies and the carcass of a buck. As awful as they feel now, they have started a path to becoming better people—the trip they were always destined to take.
By AJ McDougall
YASMIN SMILED BEATIFICALLY. “To err in the care and keeping of your infant is to utilize solid food,” she said, gazing into the middle distance. “To breastfeed is divine.”
The circle of uber-hip, white-soled-shoes-wearing InstaMommies bobbed their ponytailed heads in agreement. Winifred piped up to add that formula was the devil’s work. Especially Gerber’s Good Start Powder. She did not elaborate further, but murmurs of assent arose around her regardless.
Alice nodded along with the others, trying not to notice Bridget’s awkward fidgeting on the red plastic chair next to her. When prompted by Yasmin, she spoke up with the mini-monologue about Jayden’s progress burping and spitting-up, a speech she had practised over and over again in the car to get it just right. The jokes would land, she told her husband, Declan, over feta toast that morning. They had to. And some of them did. She concluded her report on Jayden’s gum density and sank back into her chair with relief, feeling the mommies’ steady gazes boring into her.
She was new. They were all so much better at this than she was. But at least she was better than Bridget. Bridget, the outcast of the group. Bridget, ginger monster who told laughingly of her twins’ misadventures falling off the bed, while the others sat in rapt horror. Bridget, who was only in the group because her husband was a Hoosier and could get any of their husbands courtside seats anytime they liked. Bridget, who was a proponent of... alternative techniques.
Later, after the meeting, Bridget would sidle up to her, tap her on the shoulder, and inquire if Alice wanted to buy any of her line of organic, home-made formula. The inquiry would be made far too loudly, and Alice would cringe as Heather and Blake’s heads snapped over from where they stood chattering by the plate of keto mocha brownies that Olivia had brought.
“Bridge, I breastfeed,” she’d reply, as gently as she could. “I brought it up in last week’s session? I just... I don’t know. I want to bring Jayden up in a way that he’d be proud of me, I guess.”
Bridget would ply her with talk of the flavors. Vanilla cream! Chocolate chip cookie dough! Orange soda! Alice heard Blake make a poorly-concealed noise of disgust.
The redheaded disgrace of the New Mothers of West Lafayette’s eyes were pleading. Don’t make me play the trump card, she seemed to be saying. Alice held firm; she shook her head again.
Bridget sighed. Here came the royal flush. “But, Alice,” she said wheedlingly, “you bought some just last week, remember? Cola-flavored, as I recall.”
Alice’s blood turned to ice. She heard Heather’s snickering drop off suddenly, like she, former Miss Indiana runner-up and creator of her own yoga pants line, had flipped a switch. Alice shrugged, forcing her shoulders to move up and down nonchalantly.
“Yeah, to get you off my back,” she said coolly, lips curled in a snarled grin. “Just like I’m doing now. Give me one packet of chocolate chip cookie dough.”
The exchange was made in shameful silence. Yasmin watched expressionlessly from across the room. “See you next week, honey!” she sang out as Alice pocketed the little beige baggie. “Don’t forget, it’s your turn to bring the snacks! Vegan and non-carcinogenic—not like last time, please!”
Alice slammed the car door behind her out in the parking lot and sat fuming behind the wheel. Her knuckles, digging into the leather of the Oldsmobile, grew steadily whiter and whiter. After a minute of controlled breathing, picturing pummelling Bridget’s face into a bloody pulp, she was able to start the engine and peel out of the lot.
Half a mile down the road, once she was sure none of those harpies could see her, she pulled off the main road, bumping down a small ravine into the ditch that separated the tall Indiana grass from a corn field. Frantically, she wrenched the baggie from her pocket and ripped it open.
Alice poured the contents into her mouth, gulping wretchedly. Powder ballooned across the front seat of the car, covering her dashboard. She didn’t care; most of it went straight down her gullet. It was far too much, far more the amount she’d taken last week—perhaps a dangerous amount. But, sated, she collapsed into herself. The warm feeling was there again—the powder seemed to curl through her veins, and suddenly she knew the cosmos to be not so large after all. Thanks to Bridget, Alice rediscovered milk-drunk infancy once again.
Winifred, driving by in her champagne-colored Corvette, happened to glance to her right. She saw Alice slumped over the wheel and knew in an instant what had happened. She whipped out her phone, tapping away with her right hand as her left hand confidently steadied the wheel. She hit ‘Send’ with a purple acrylic nail. The group chat, made up of the mommies minus the half dozen newest members of the group who hadn’t yet been tested, went nuclear within seconds.
“Ugh, ladies, guess who was chugging the formula as I passed by just now?”
“Noooo. Three guesses.”
“Knew she was a goner the second she walked in.”
“Aww. I liked her. Jayden sounds adorable.”
And from Bridget, a gif of Spongebob dusting off his hands with a satisfied smirk on his yellow face, and a message:
“Another one bites the dust ;)”
By Cassidy Jackson
WE'VE BEEN IN THE CAR for about six hours at this point. I think I might be losing my mind. From what I can tell we haven’t gotten very far at all. In fact it feels an awful lot like we are driving in circles. Not literally. In fact, we have literally been driving exclusively straight this entire time. Neither the road, nor we, have turned for as long as I can remember. My memory isn’t so good, but that is not the point. We have been driving in one direction for way too long.
I know that before, I had said we hadn’t turned in six hours. Now that I’m thinking about it, I think we tried to. I think Joyce, who is driving now, pulled the wheel to the right and for some reason it just wouldn’t go. Yeah, now that I say that, I remember. She screamed when the wheel jerked itself back straight. That yell broke the spell between my nose and the window and the blurry trees just beyond the guardrail. Then, with my attention, she tried again, and again the car wouldn’t turn.
I forget where we’re going. Or how we got here. Or how long it’s really been. Did I say six hours? Joyce tugs the wheel to the left, nothing. I think it might be more like thirty-six hours, now that I think about it. But how’s a girl to know, really? And don’t say the sky. The sky has looked exactly the same this whole time. Grey. The only thing that makes any part of the highway look any different than another is the Culver’s’ billboards scattered every couple of miles. Couple of hundred miles? I don’t know. But there are Culver’s, or at least I think there are. I haven’t actually seen a Culver’s, just the signs for them.
I’m not hungry. I actually haven’t been hungry for as long as I can remember. Which, again, not so good with the remembering. But still. Despite that, what I would do for an order of Wisconsin Cheese Curds, a Cheddar ButterBurger® with Bacon, and a Concrete Mixer® with hot fudge and Heath English Toffee Bars. I would do a lot. Again Joyce tries to turn. Again, nothing. I am so bored. It would be nice to talk to someone, even if it was just in the drive through and all I said was, “Hi! Can I please get an order of Wisconsin Cheese Curds, a Cheddar ButterBurger® with Bacon, and a Concrete Mixer® with hot fudge and Heath English Toffee Bars, please? No that’s all! Thank you!” Joyce and I don’t talk much. We don’t have much of anything to say. I think we’re both pretty bored.
I don’t think I mentioned that the car is empty. Well, it is. Super empty. Not a single clue about where we might have come from or where we are going. We didn’t bring anything with us, very convenient and cool. Not even the backseats of this 1996 Chevy Lumina have decided to join us on the journey. The car is rattling, by the way. It rattles more every time Joyce tries again. She tries again. *rattle RATTLE rattle* no cigar. It has been rattling for all 60 hours of this drive. Did I say 60 hours? That feels more right now that I think about it. 60 hours in a straight line. In Wisconsin? Wisconsin is not that long in my memory. But as you know, the thinker, not so good, so your guess is as good as mine.
It’s starting to feel like something weird is happening here. We haven’t seen another car in hours, or maybe weeks. For however long we’ve been in this car going straight I haven’t seen anyone besides Joyce, who is now incessantly jerking the wheel to no avail. I’ve known Joyce for as long as I can remember. I think even before we got in the car. I seem to remember a teenager that looks an awful lot like the middle aged woman sitting next to me. She’s far away but she’s there, somewhere back in the squiggly parts of this brain of mine. I think we shared a milkshake, sometime, someplace ago. Maybe a Culvers. Hahaha, now wouldn’t that be just as rich as a frozen custard milkshake?
All the sudden Joyce screams again and I’m back to paying attention. There’s an exit ramp coming up on our right. I hadn’t even realized, but we hadn’t seen an exit ramp since we got on this highway. I didn’t know you could miss something you didn’t know was gone. But now that I see that ramp veering off into the trees I realize that I’ve never missed anything more than I have missed a ramp like that these past six weeks. And right before the ramp a sign reads, “Culver’s. Next Exit. Turn Right.” I look at Joyce and I scream, “JOYCE. CULVER’S. NEXT EXIT. TURN RIGHT!” Joyce looks at me and as she does she turns the wheel to the right, and the 1996 Chevy Lumina starts to rattle to the right.
We’re turning! We’re turning! And suddenly I’m ravenous. I’m not sure a human person has ever been so supremely starving. We’re turning and starving and yelling at the top of our lungs when we find ourselves in the drive through of a Culver’s. Joyce rolls down the window. Over the speaker a kind voice crackles, “Hi! I hope your journey wasn’t too bad. Welcome to Heaven. How can I help you?”
All in one breath I say, “Hi! Can I get an order of Wisconsin Cheese Curds, a Cheddar ButterBurger® with Bacon, and a Concrete Mixer® with hot fudge and Heath English Toffee Bars, please?”
The Form, Function, and Frequency of Harassment Within the 2019 Seventh Grade Class (Part Two)
By James Bean
PHYSICAL HARASSMENT
Under the umbrella of “physical harassment” we have included any and all found instances of physical abuse against a seventh grade student’s body or belongings. In general, we found physical harassment to be the least commonly experienced form of abuse, but students were more willing to voluntarily report experiences of physical harassment than verbal harassment. Male students were equally as likely to experience physical harassment as female students, but both male and female students were nearly 60% more likely to experience physical harassment from male students than female.
Voluntary Student Reports.
Daniel Kravits reported being “deeply pantsed” Jordan White.
Josh Graber reported that the soccer team urinated on his clothing while he was in the locker room showers.
Drew Mansfeld reported that an anonymous person(s) had placed rotting fruit in the back of his locker multiple times over the past year. The emanating smell has led to rumors about him not taking showers or being “poor.” Most recently, Drew found four Ziploc© bags filled with goose excrement hidden amongst his personal belongings: one in his locker, one in his backpack, one in his trumpet case, and one in his lunch box.
Liam Garland reported that Maxwell Davis cut off a chunk of his hair, which was at the time but is no longer, an astonishing 12 inches in length.
Michelle Chen, Kendall Jones, Aria Jones (no relation), Rachael Washington, Isabel Kotoriy, and Lila Robinson all individually reported having had their rear ends touched without their permission. When asked if they had ever had their breasts or genitals touched without their permission, 4 of the 6 (Michelle, Isabel, Rachael, and Lila) reported that no, they had not. Aria responded to the question with a question of her own (“Why the hell would you ask me that?”) which perhaps indicates that she is unaware of the extent to which some girls of her age experience sexual violence.
Kendall responded that yes, an eighth grader Jack Ryans had touched her breast without her permission on school bus 8. When pressed further, she reported that it “could have been a joke, [she guessed].”
Nora Halley reported that the student who sits behind her in “Music Appreciation as Pertains to Letter Writing” has a habit of pulling her braids, pretending to drum with her braids, tying her braids in knots, and making one braid into a circle and penetrating it with another braid so as to mimic intercourse.
Jason Rich reported that the soccer team urinated into his backpack while he was buying a hot pocket from the student snack store, but that the hot pocket was nevertheless “very good” and his day was, overall, “not so bad.”
By Amy Muller
NINA WAS HARDLY A STRANGER to emotional breakdowns. She’d had several in her day: the playground, the library, the 6 train (or the 4 express, if she was in a hurry)... she had always found something freeing, almost godlike, in the public meltdown. Her ability to draw a crowd, cry so hard her mascara stained her shoes, and walk away whole time and again left her feeling somewhat invincible.
This time felt different.
First off, she wasn’t drawing a crowd: on the floor of a third-rate Vegas casino, a woman having a “moment” is hardly enough to turn anyone’s attention. Second, her mascara couldn’t stain her shoes this time, as she was only wearing one. And third, that one was a six-inch heel, so she was hardly able to “walk away” in any dignified sense. So there she was, in the middle of the bustling floor, screaming and crying, in the arms of a friend she was mad at, feeling very, very small.
All the while, her head was pounding with the sounds of whirring slot machines, fists beating tables, and shouting. All the shouting.
“Jackpot!”
“This guy’s cheating! Someone keep an eye on him!”
“Oh don’t you worry, he can’t count cards. He doesn’t even know how to count!”
The night had started off on a high. Darcy, Nina’s maid of honor, had gotten her one of those bachelorette party crowns with the tasteful little dicks on it, she was wearing the kind of sparkly little romper that background characters in New Year’s Eve scenes always have on, and she was surrounded by her four best friends in the world. Also, they had tried cocaine.
They walked from dinner to the casino, laughing and drinking and keeping an eye on each other to intervene before any potential nip-slips could come to pass in the glowing neon lights of the Strip. They looked like the poster for a movie, the kind that’s bad but has a really great poster.
Once they got inside, they started to drown in the chaos around them.
“COMING THROUGH!”
“Lloyd, that’s enough! We’re going home!”
“I don’t have a gambling addiction! I have a winning addiction!”
They had started out with naively romantic ideas about having a crazy night full of “bad bitches making bad decisions,” but four hours in, bad decisions having been made, the bitches were feeling a different sort of bad.
Rhea and Keely, never ones to deftly handle intoxicants or desire, alternated between throwing up and hooking up in the bathroom, leaving their bodies weary and dehydrated. Darcy got in a physical altercation with a slot machine, and then a bouncer. Stella lost all of both her and Nina’s money betting that one of the hotter dealers was married. Nina, high out of her mind but still considering herself quite clever, reasoned that they could get the money back from the hat-wearing stranger with whom they made the deal if they could just prove that, despite what he said, the dealer actually was married.
Which is why Nina decided to marry him.
They were married at the chapel next door during the hot dealer’s break, with Stella serving as the witness and, by her own appointment, the maid of honor (Nina had thought, foolishly, that the ice between Darcy and Stella on this matter had thawed).
When they returned to the casino, they couldn’t find the fedora’d bastard who facilitated the original wager, but the dealer called “no takesies-backsies” on the marriage, so on all fronts, what was done was done.
Engaged, married, one-shoed (no idea when that happened), broke, and coming down off of cocaine, Nina was no longer having fun at her bachelorette party.
This is where the crying began.
Soon she was on the floor, inconsolable. Stella tried to help.
“Aw, honey, what’s wrong?”
“You gambled away all my money and then let me get married to a stranger on the night before my wedding,” she blubbered, making some fair points.
“You’re still pretty though.”
“NO I’M NOT, I’M UGLY.”
It had gotten bad.
“I want to call Seth.”
“Won’t he be mad?”
“I HAVE TO TELL HIM, STELLA!”
She kicked off her other shoe and took out her phone, walking away from her friend as she punched in Seth’s phone number, which she had memorized because she loved him. He answered, but since she was wandering between crowded tables full of people hollering nonsense, she had to shout just to hear herself.
“Hit!”
“SETH, I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING.”
“Give me double zero! That’s my pants size, actually!”
“I MAYBE CHEATED ON YOU A LITTLE TONIGHT-”
“This one’s for you, grandma. SNAKE EYES!”
“-WELL, MAYBE A LOT. I GOT MARRIED. TO SOMEONE ELSE. AND HE SAID NO TAKESIES-BACKSIES.”
“And now for you, grandpa! Boxcars!”
“BUT THERE’S NO EMOTIONAL COMPONENT TO OUR RELATIONSHIP, IT WAS TOTALLY TRANSACTIONAL.”
“Damn, this guy’s on a roll!”
“BUT I PROMISE, YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE I LOVE. I’M SO SORRY I DID THIS TO YOU.”
“Hey, don’t jinx me! I’m running out of ideas here... Hard Ten!”
She could hardly hear his response. But he didn’t sound mad. She could just barely make out words like “it’s okay,” and “stop freaking out,” and either “it’s no big deal” or “hit snow, big eel.” Nina started to breathe a little easier. Seth was still talking, but she could hear him a bit more clearly now, even over the cheers at the nearby Craps table.
“Alright, alright. Someone in the crowd, gimme a number and if I hit it again you’re walking away with half, I’m talking tens of thousands of dollars!”
“Actually, Neeners, I’m glad you cheated on me a little bit. Now we can go into this marriage knowing that we’re even. Since we’re putting it all out there, I’ve cheated on you like five times.”
“FIVE!?!?!” Nina was furious.
“Alright, we’re going with a Fever Five from that lovely-looking sad lady on the phone! Roll ‘em!”
“Babe, don’t be mad! It was never serious, the longest thing only went on a few months, but I ended it yesterday!”
“Oh my god, Seth. We’re over. Don’t call me again.” She hung up the phone, she was devastated. But before she could get back, anew, to her earlier bawling, she was being hoisted in the air. Apparently, some guy had rolled a five, and unbeknownst to her, it had become her business.
A few months later, she and the hot dealer had a proper wedding. It cost tens of thousands of dollars.
XxALEX_THE_KIDxX: So before I start this let me get this out of the way, this is an NC-17 review of the film. If that triggers you, I suggest you see a different film. With that out of the way, let me just say that Sonic the Hedgehog really grabs you by the balls, delightfully toying with them, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Every single second feels like Sonic himself is pleasuring you, relentlessly edging you, refusing to let you cum with his classic “nuh uh uh” finger wag until he thinks you're worthy. Until then, that finger is gonna be wagging up and down the shaft of your cock, rubbing your meat raw. Sonic has gotta go fast, but he takes his time orgasm denying you. The movie starts off by teasing you over the clothes, showing you scenes of him in his home dimension of Green Hill Zone. As you get sucked into the story, suddenly you realize that your belt is off, and you don’t remember ever taking it off. Before you can question it, you feel a cold, gloved hand sliding down your chest, undoing your fly, and exploring your very own Green Hill Zone. As Sonic runs across the screen you too feel your heartbeat pounding, your blood racing towards your growing erection. From there the pleasure becomes more euphoric as James Marsden’s character starts to talk about having the Olive Garden app on his phone. When you’re at the Olive Garden, you’re family, but Sonic is treating you like it's naughty step sister. Every witty quip eloquently delivered is like the tickling touch of Sonic’s massive gloved hands along your body, sending shivers up your spine, making your hair stand on edge like Sonic’s own quills. Your gasps of ecstasy intensify as the movie starts to play with your asshole like it's one of Sonic’s interdimensional rings. I tried to point out how that’s not what the rings do in the game, but all I could mutter for the entirety of this movie was “yes sir, please sir, I need you Sonic.” And that was only when Jim Carrey’s performance as Dr. Robotnik wasn’t bombastically throatfucking me. The movie let me breath in the interlude when Sonic visited the cowboy bar with James Marsden, but once the fight broke out I was thrown to the ground, forced onto my hands and knees to worship at the shrine of delight that is Sonic the Hedgehog. I was a dirty little pain piggy begging my mistress to whip me harder and harder, each slow motion effect like another clothespin pinching my soft delicate nipples. Director Jeff Fowler clearly was a disciple of the Marquis de Sade as his sexual sadism knew no bounds, every little detail a drip of hot wax on my bare chest. The fight choreo, the special effects, the intense sexual tension between Sonic and James, I could handle it all, but when Sonic started flossing, it felt like he was flossing directly on my prostate. It was like when I discovered masturbation for the first time all over again, only times 100. It was pure bliss. It was perfect. It was the Omega Nut. Anyways I passed out and woke up about 2 hours later covered in my own cum and am now banned from that AMC, but I’m pretty sure the second half would be good too. 5 out of 5 stars.
United Land of Lost or Damaged Goods
By Evan Montgomery
THE ANNUAL EIGHTH GRADE TRIP to Washington D.C. had finally come to an end when the wheels of United flight 2564 touched down at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. All 162 of the students along with 16 exhausted and underpaid teachers made their way off the plane and into the freezing cold jet bridge. The only thing the teachers had to do before they were set free to go home and drink an entire bottle of well-deserved wine, was to get through baggage claim without losing anybody or any luggage.
While making their way to baggage claim, two best friends Brian and John, discuss the crazy stunt they pulled off while at the Lincoln Memorial.
“It still doesn’t make sense how no one noticed? He is literally the only thing people come to the memorial to look at and no one had a clue what we were doing.” John boasts, as he rolls his luggage down a moving walkway.
Brian chuckles, “Yeah, you would think that 2 kids decapitating Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial would turn some heads, but I guess not.”
“I’m just shocked that you got it to fit in your suitcase. I mean Abe’s head is not small. But then again the suitcase your mother sent you with could fit a fucking car if you tried hard enough.” John says before looking over at Brian who looks like he is going to throw up out of nervousness. “You okay Brian?”
For once Brian is thinking about the possible consequences of his actions. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I guess I’m just worried we are going to get in trouble.”
“Brian, my sweet baby boy," John says knowing Brian hates when he calls him that. "Do you remember how many people the tour guide said visit the Lincoln Memorial every day? If they haven't noticed already, they aren't going to notice anytime soon."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I just want to get it home and never have to think about it again."
As they approach the baggage claim carousel Ms. Daily -the teacher in charge of the whole trip- yells out “once you have your bags, please make your way to the bus and call your parents to let them know we will be back at the school in 45 minutes”
A few minutes after Ms. Daily makes this announcement, the siren above the carousel lights up and begins to make a buzzing sound eerily familiar to the sound that would come out of an air raid siren in a post-apocalyptic movie.
One by one, the students’ and teachers’ bags come filing out of the flaps at one end of the carousel. Brian’s bag is nowhere to be seen. One minute goes by, two minutes, five minutes, then ten minutes. At this point, everyone has gotten their bag except for Brian. He begins to panic. John, being the great friend he is, stands with Brian and Ms. Daily (who is eager to leave) while they patiently await the arrival of Brian's bag and subsequently, the head of Honest Abe.
Brian, who is sweating uncontrollably, turns to John and whispers in his ear “What if they found the head? I’m so dead. I’m going to be tried and hanged for treason if anyone finds out what’s in that suitcase.”
"Aww, Bry Guy started paying attention in history class. Treason is a big word, I’m so proud of you!” John says mockingly.
“John, now is not the time. I- I gotta find that bag, man.”
“What do you mean? They probably just lost it. You can’t expect much more from United.” says John.
Brian’s face is as pale as a ghost. With sweat dripping down his face Brian exclaims "The suspense is killing me, John. I can’t take it any longer, I gotta get that bag back!”
At that moment, Brian does what everyone at one point or another has always dreamt of doing. He hops on the moving carousel and begins making his way to the rubber flaps where the bags that haven't been picked up exit through.
Ms. Daily looks up from her phone to see what had just occurred. "Brian! What the hell are you doing up there? Get down this instant!"
Brian turns back just before passing through the rubber flaps into the unknown and says “John, tell my family I love them. Oh and Ms. Daily, your husband is cheating on you with the school librarian.”
Brian disappears behind the rubber flaps.
Ms. Daily looks down at John and asks “What has gotten into your friend! He is talking nonsense.”
John looks up at Ms. Daily with a look that says “You know he’s right.”
As Brian passes through the flaps of the baggage exit, he realizes that he has never seen any pictures or videos of what it looks like behind one of these things. He closes his eyes out of pure terror of being crushed or dropped off the conveyor belt.
Right when he passes through the flaps to the other side, his face begins to feel warm and through his eyelids, he can tell wherever he is, it is excruciatingly bright.
He opens his eyes and finds himself in what seems like a whole different world. Surrounding him are hills greener than any he has seen in his entire life. That bright light and warm sensation he felt was the beaming sun in the sky. There are rivers made of Kool-Aid and scattered across this paradise are people’s luggage which are all open and have rainbows bursting out of them.
As Brian is taking in the bright blue sky and fresh air, he falls off the end of the conveyor belt and on to a patch of grass.
“What the fuck?” Brian mutters to himself.
“Watch your language, kiddo.”
Brian’s heart stops for a second. He looks up to see a figure towering over him. After closer inspection, there is a tall man wearing glasses standing right over where Brian has fallen on the ground. He looks vaguely familiar.
“Welcome to the United Land of Lost and Damaged Goods. What can I do for you today?” The man says with a bright smile.
With a confused look on his face, Brian askes "Where do I know you from?"
“Does this ring a bell?” the man asks as he lays down on the grass and pretends to get dragged away.
A lightbulb goes off in Brian’s brain “Oh! Aren’t you the doctor who got forcibly dragged off that United flight?”
“Bingo!”
“Wait, then what are you doing here? And why are you so happy?” asked Brian.
"The fine print at the bottom of the settlement between United Airlines and I, states that for the rest of my life I have to work in their United Land of Lost and Damaged Goods, and I have to like it. They are always watching!” says the man with a smile on his face that he has been keeping up for a scary amount of time.
Brian, who is still visibly confused at the events that have taken place in the past 2 minutes asks “That’s cool… I guess. Have you by chance seen a large bust of Abraham Lincoln's head come through here recently?”
"Oh, Uncle Abe? Yeah, he's right up there!" the man says as he points towards the top of a nearby hill.
"Okay, thanks." Brian says hesitantly. He is still creeped out at the man's big smile and blank stare.
“Of course! And remember, nothing in life is guaranteed! Certainly not plane seats!”
Brian isn’t sure what he is supposed to say to this. So, he gives the creepily happy man a brief nod and starts walking up the hill.
Brian can’t quite make out what is at the top of the hill yet. On his way up he passes a dead puppy and a dead bunny. He’s not sure why they are there, they seem out of place in this paradise but in a weird way they fit in well.
After about a 10-minute hike up the hill lined with bright green grass, he makes it to the top.
Sitting at the top of the hill is the Abraham Lincoln head in a jacuzzi, smoking what appears to be a fat blunt. Also, in the hot tub are 2 absolutely shredded United Pilots only wearing their Pilot’s hat. The pilots take turns taking the blunt out of Abe’s mouth seeing as he is just a head and therefore does not have arms.
Abe is too deep into conversation with the pilots to notice Brian.
Brian clears his throat to get Abe’s attention.
Abe looks up to see Brian standing over the hot tub “Oh look… it’s Brian” Abe says in a very unenthusiastic manner.
“Since when do you talk?!” Brian shouts. He didn’t think this experience could get any weirder.
"Have you seen Night at the Museum 2? Look, Brian, I'm kind of in the middle of something, what can I do for you?" impatiently replied Abe.
“We’ve gotta go. I have to get you home.” Brian says.
“Brian, my baby boy. I’m not going anywhere. I love it here.” The pilot to Abe's left takes a hit of the blunt. "Oh yeah, and they even have this stuff called marijuana here. It makes you feel all funny inside" Abe motions his head for the pilot with the blunt to give it to Brian.
Brian is tempted to take a hit but knows now is not the time, so he pushes the pilot's outstretched arm away from him. "I know what weed is- look, if you don't come with me you have to promise that if someone comes looking for you, you won't tell them I'm the one who took your head off of your body."
Abe chuckles. "Brian, you do know that my whole shtick is not lying right? Like, that's my whole thing."
"Okay, then I guess I'll just take you with me then." Brian says as he begins to reach his arms out to grab Lincoln's head.
Lincoln, remembering that he is just a head and therefore has no way to stop Brian from taking him quickly proposes a compromise. “Okay, okay, okay, I will keep my mouth shut if it means I can stay here with these smokin’ hot pilots.”
Brian questions Abe's priorities but couldn't care less as long as he doesn't get in trouble. "Great. Now, how the fuck do I get out of here?" Brian asks while looking around the paradise for an exit.
“Down the hill and to the right.” Abe replies.
Without hesitation, Brian turns around to start walking down the hill but before he could get going Abe stops him.
"Hey, Brian…" Abe says nervously.
Brian turns back around to face Abe.
“I had a lot of fun with you this weekend, and I’m going to really miss you”
A small grin grows on Brian’s face as he replies “I’m going to miss you too pal.”
With a smile on his face, Brian starts down the hill towards the exit.
Brian takes one last look at the whimsical world he had just discovered before hopping back onto the carousel that is moving towards another set of the black flaps. The flaps have a red neon sign with the word "Exit" on it.
Right before he reaches the flaps that will take him back into the airport where an angry Ms. Daily will be angrily waiting, Will Smith appears wearing the suit and holding the memory wiping device from the Men In Black series. Before Brian could even comprehend the fact that Will Smith had just materialized right next to him, a bright flash came bursting out of the device Will was holding.
The next thing he knew, Brian was back on the airport carousel having remembered nothing that had happened for the past 20 or so minutes when he was in the United Land of Lost or Damaged Goods.
Immediately after opening his eyes Brian spots an infuriated Ms. Daily on the side of the carousel.
Before Ms. Daily could even get a word out, John looks Brian in the eyes and says, “What a fucking legend”.
By Anna Keating
SWIMMING UP TO THE TOP of her bowl, Astrid looks through the opaque glass at the people walking around on their legs. They walk and she swims. She turns to look back at her fins and wonders what that would be like. She swims in and around the leaves in her bowl and settles on top of the largest one in the calmest corner. Imagining the wide, uncharted ocean where she can swim as far and as fast as she can with her little fins. Farther and faster than ever before. She swims through all the colors of the coral and the hammerhead sharks and the starfish and the orcas.
She swims up to a school of minnows. As she gets closer the fish dart away as fast as they can. Startled, she looks back to see a large tail many times the size of her own body and her fins have become hands. What kind of creature is this, she wonders? Not legs, but a tail. And not fins, but hands. Not quite the people who feed her and not quite the body she used to have. She keeps swimming past the colorful fish and the crabs.
She goes up to a giant sea turtle to try to make a new friend. When she gets up to the sea turtle, she taps him on his shell. He turns and looks at her strangely over his shoulder. He swims away looking back to make sure she didn’t follow. Dejected, Astrid keeps swimming.
The water grows colder and the current changes. She swims up to an orca in the icy water. She inches closer and closer to the giant whale. Unnoticed, Astrid gets close enough to touch. He opens his mouth and snaps shut narrowly missing her with his spiky teeth. Astrid swims away as fast as she can.
When she gets a safe distance away the water has changed again. Warm, fast currents push her through coral and tropical fish. She swims up to a clownfish. This fish doesn't budge and stares her down. Astrid waves her hand and the fish gives her a curious look. Astrid waves tail and the fish smiles. The clownfish swims away quickly into the coral. Then, he comes out a different entryway. Astrid trots over to that door but the clownfish is already gone. The little clownfish pops his head out a different door and Astrid races to try to keep up. But again, when she gets there the fish is already gone. Astrid giggles. The clown fish waves from across the coral and Astrid swims over. The little clownfish and Astrid dance and dart all across the coral reef smiling.
Astrid suddenly opens her eyes and the clownfish is nowhere to be found. She looks around and the coral is gone too. As is her tail. She’s back to her 2-inch-long betta fish body. All that is left is a human making a fishy face in the glass. Astrid smiles her fishy face and darts around her bowl. The human follows her, laughing.
By Vivian Qiu
AT 11:59AM ON A TUESDAY, 15 people in the same office building tripped over.
Sam was carrying a donut in their hand, which inevitably got smushed against their work shirt, staining the white fabric with powdered sugar and chocolate glaze. He had a presentation coming up later that day and didn’t have a spare shirt in his bag.
The newly-hired intern David, was still trying to get on his boss’ (and everyone’s) good side. He was carrying a stack of recently printed documents to deliver when he fell. In the process of his body transitioning from vertical to horizontal, the stack of sheets flew in different directions of the room.
Nine people just fell straight down, some having tripped over shoes or cubicle corners, and some tripping over nothing at all, with a thud that drew more attention than warranted in the workplace.
Two people, Mary and Alice, were in the same room, both having risen from their desk to get water or go to the bathroom. They were falling while facing each other, trajectory fully in line for their heads to meet right when both reached 45 degrees. The lady at the nearest cubicle flinched in pre-emptive pain.
Susie, the five-year-old daughter of the CFO, was running down the hall, disregarding her mother’s fleeting comments, when she found herself flying through the air, just a little bit.
John had just heated up a tuna melt in the office kitchen for his lunch, and had grabbed a knife to cut the sandwich diagonally when he tripped over his two feet, towards the hot pan and the sharp sharp knife.
As Sam returned to his seat, slightly crushed about his appearance, he found his friend Jackson sitting at his desk. Jackson saw Sam’s shirt and laughed, and told him he had a spare shirt just for moments like these. Sam, relieved, asked Jackson for a drink after work to thank him. He then aced his presentation, in a shirt that smelt really really good.
Other workpeople in the room clucked at the poor newbie, and helped David collect his papers up for him to deliver. He felt more comfortable knowing there were friendly people he could recognise at the office now.
The nine people got back up again. There was nothing really about their fall. It was just embarrassing but they’ll get over it.
Alice, being considerably shorter than Mary, fell first, and in some sort of crazy stunt person way, tucked and ducked and twisted out of the way long before Mary came close to her. Turns out Alice had just started taking stunt and action lessons, in the hope to leave her office job for a more glamorous and exciting life.
Susie fell down and cried, she had hurt her wrist on the way down. But it meant her mum came out of her office to give her attention, which was what she wanted.
John’s arms flailed about, knocking the knife away, and pushed the hot pan away as well. The back of his hand smarted from the pan, but saved his face. His tuna melt also left the scene unscathed. Lunch tastes better when you tease death and misfortune.
