THROUGH THESE CATARACT EYES

[NOTE:  I HAD SENT THE PREVIOUS TWO STORIES AND A NUMBER OF OTHERS TO A FLASH FICTION ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY WHICH SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS.  THE EDITOR KEPT SAYING THAT I WAS SHOWING AND NOT TELLING WITH THESE STORIES.  THIS IS A VALID ARGUMENT FOR "BITE ME," BUT IT WAS A STYLISTIC CHOICE I MADE.  THE REST OF THE STORIES WERE DEFINITE EXERCISES IN SHOWING.  I ONLY SHOWED YOU GUYS "THE LADY AND THE TRAMP" BECAUSE IT WAS THE ONLY GOOD ONE OF THE BUNCH.  THERE WERE PLENTY OF REASONS WHY THE OTHERS SHOULD HAVE BEEN REJECTED, BUT TELLING-NOT-SHOWING IS NOT ONE OF THEM.  THIS PISSED ME OFF, SO I WROTE THE FOLLOWING STORY, WHICH IS NOTHING BUT SHOWING.  THE EDITOR REJECTED ME AGAIN, PROBABLY BECAUSE THIS STORY PISSED HIM OFF.  IT IS BY NO MEANS GOOD, BUT I THINK IT'S FUCKIN' HILARIOUS.  HOPEFULLY, SO WILL YOU.  JUST THINK OF THIS AS ZOMBIE FICTION IF WILLIAM FAULKNER HAD TRIED HIS HAND AT IT.]

flow swarm step reach air green-world move-see meat-in-nose where?

step reach nothing swarm One-Brain ahead there!

step reach nothing step step step tickle swarm buzz uuuuugghhhh wave small-meat nothing-meat skin-crawl step step step reach grasp!

meat-hand pull slip grab pull swarm flow food mouth-squirt ahhhhh clamp!

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!  AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

chew chew chew gulp smack-flash!

guh

swarm bite bite bite red chew chew meat-mouth deep down belly-gnaw still nothing-meat skin-crawl bite shiny-rope glisten-meat deep down aahhhhh BOOM!

oh hell oh no it's George they got George oh hell!

BOOM!

red-world new-meat un-fresh no belly-gnaw good-meat glisten-scream bite chew chew chew chick-BOOM!

guh

more new-meat un-fresh no eat can't-reach skin-crawl no nothing-meat

gimmie that you can't shoot for shit aim for the head not the arm stupid let me what about George he's gone there's nothing we can do chick-BOOM!

guh

red-world un-reach nothing-chew belly-gnaw move food chew-green-world spit uuuuuuugggghhhh

it's still moving do it again before the others catch on hurry do it chick-BOOM!

guuuuuuhhhhhhhh

WHEN I HAD FIRE WITHIN MY BLOOD: CHAPTER THREE

JUNE 10, 2000.  9:15 PM.  DERRY.  EVERGLADES HOTEL.

I suffered through breakfast better today.  I knew enough to stick to things that can't get screwed up, like cereal and milk.

The tour of Belfast was amazing and scary.  It had a lot of the types of things Dublin had, but everything is falling apart in Belfast, as if they didn't bother rebuilding because they knew it would only get blown up again.  Not only that, but the British soldiers and the UVF left all their barricades and barbed wire and stuff lying around, as if they knew they would probably be back.

The place was scary enough as it was.  Imagine what it would have looked like with pissed off, armed soldiers.  There was also so much graffiti there, Chicago doesn't hold a candle to it.

The Irish Sea, on the other hand, is staggeringly beautiful.  There is nothing like watching the waves attack each other while the strong sea wind looks Lovecraftian, just without the sea monsters.

The old Bushmills Distillery was pretty cool, despite the fact that it was the worst tour I'd ever gone on.  The tour guide just took us around, said her scripted piece, asked, "Any questions?", and without waiting for an answer, started leading us on to the next stop.  However, there were free drinks, and that makes up for everything else.

Speaking of alcohol, I tried some Guinness in its home land.  I'm not a beer guy (I prefer whiskey), but this Guinness was amazingly good.  Nice and thick.  There's even an art to pouring it.  Most importantly, the first drink was free.  They keep the best for themselves; the rest of the world gets it with a lower alcohol content.  Regardless, I think they've just made me a happy customer, and I'm sure I'll be spending a lot more money on their wares.

I should say something about forests in Ireland.  So far, I've hardly seen any.  I did see a few, like the one on top of a mountain, which was so scarce and twisted and insidious that I wouldn't be able to work the guts up to hang out there at night.  There must be some kind of demon in those woods.  The pine woods, though, you could never get lost in them because you'd never be able to get in.  You could probably throw a penny at this forest, and it would bounce back at you, it's so thick.  It probably covers up some kind of evil, too.

The Everglades isn't exactly the piece of America it claims to be, but it's better than the Mespil.  The waitresses are beautiful, but one strikes my interest in particular.  Hearing only my voice over the phone, she was able to recognize me in the dining room and actually recited my order to me from memory.  When I didn't finish the terrible fish they gave me to eat, she guessed exactly what I wanted:  a cheeseburger with fries.  Either she's psychic, or she's the modern day Sherlock Holmes.  I'm very impressed with her.  If she can make a great cheeseburger, I'll ask her to marry me and go back to the States with me.  She could very well be perfect.

JUNE 11.  8:00 PM.  DERRY.  EVERGLADES HOTEL.

I think I'm finally getting used to living this way.  Breakfast doesn't bother me, so long as I stick to the cereal, and riding that small bus (sorry, "coach") doesn't hurt as much as it used to.  Maybe it's because I'm finally drinking Coke.  The bathroom, like everything else, was not made for big people.  I'm beginning to think some midget fell into political power and is now making us big people pay for our jokes.  Anyway, I had to do acrobatics to wash my hair this morning, seeing as how the showerhead only went up to my chest.

I had a great time on the walls of Derry.  Could you imagine that these walls have never toppled?  They call Derry the Virgin City because no one has ever successfully conquered the city.  Mona, the local guide (who has a love for dirty jokes and is always reminded of something else), told us great stories, including the one about George Walker's head (the Catholics got tired of the Protestant, so they bombed the statue and stole its head).

Speaking of bombs, Derry is scarier than Belfast in a way.  In Derry, which is the site for almost all "Troubles" (their euphemism for their fight for independence), they keep rebuilding and rebuilding because they know that if they don't, they won't have a city anymore.  It's even more downtrodden than Belfast.  The British soldiers are gone, but they've left cameras all over the place as a reminder that Big Brother is watching.

I saw where the Irish kings lived.  It's a fort named Grianan Ailigh.  It was extremely difficult to get to the top, considering the narrow, small steps (the midget has always been in charge), the rain, and the very strong wind (it's on top of a mountain, which our driver, Michael of the Steel Balls, managed to get our coach up).  Supposedly, the old Irish army is still buried there, and if you listen carefully at certain times of the day, you can hear their horses marching.

As we left Grianan Ailigh, a couple of drunken Irish teenagers stood on top of the fort (which must have taken a big pair of brass balls, considering the weather conditions) and mooned us not once, but twice.  If not for the presence of elderly ladies, I would have assaulted their wiping practices.

(By the way, in Ireland, the age you can smoke is 16, and to drink, 17.)

I got the cheeseburger promised to me tonight.  While it wasn't all that great, it was still the best Ireland had to offer.  The fries, however, were glorious.  A word to the wise, Ireland:  cheeseburgers should not crunch in your mouth, and use sliced cheese, not shredded; shredded makes it look like a cat puked on the meat.

I was in a real pub today (not like the pub I was in the other day), and the chairs are (surprise, surprise) made for small people.  Even the doors were so narrow that even if I was as thin as Calista Flockhart, I still wouldn't get through comfortably.  If I don't see something made for big people, I'll go mad.

THE LADY AND THE TRAMP

The things who had once been known as Scott Knowles and Brenda Jones stooped over the weak, flailing body of their neighbor with their hands jammed into his bulbous gut, rummaging around in the ragged, stinking hole as if it were a box of toys discovered at a garage sale.  Several lumpen, slippery masses shifted between their scrabbling fingers until they each found a rope of glistening intestine.  Twin spaghetti loops unraveled from old Mr. Orr's gaping belly, and they stabbed their chipped, yellowing teeth into the slick, soft meat with ease.  They chewed their way down a conveyor belt of Mr. Orr's failing digestive tract, ignoring the bitter burn of his bile in favor of the scrumptious, melt-in-your-mouth texture of guts.

Drool frothed out at the corners of their mouths as their chompers rat-a-tat-tatted along what seemed like a never-ending noodle until their faces dipped down into the empty cavity of what was now a corpse.  With the cloying mess pressed against their heads, they consumed the last of Mr. Orr's intestines only to discover themselves face to face with each other, the final purplish-pink nub an inch between their lips.

They paused, gazing at one another with clouded, jaundiced eyes, and their mouths grazed one another around Mr. Orr's meat.  In life, both Scott and Brenda had been quite attractive, but even if they could have felt the soft, feathery sensation of their flesh meeting, it wouldn't have meant much to them now that they were undead.

Brenda moved first, biting through the skin around Scott's mouth, her teeth meeting his and scraping like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Scott watched blankly as Brenda arduously chewed her prize before swallowing it.  Strings of sundered flesh swayed around the gleaming bone where his mouth had been, and he reached for her face with long, knobby tree-branch fingers, eager for a taste.

Instead, she pushed him away and returned to Mr. Orr's body in search of a new morsel.  Scott got the idea and watched, waiting for his turn, which he suspected would never come.

WHEN I HAD FIRE WITHIN MY BLOOD CHAPTER TWO

JUNE 9, 2000.  4:00 AM.  DUBLIN.  MESPIL HOTEL.

Would you believe that our departure with Trafalgar from the airport was delayed?  Forty minutes.  That's one thing Ireland has in common with America.  Would you also believe that getting our rooms at the Mespil Hotel took us almost an hour?  Worst of all, would you believe the pain was still plaguing me?  No matter how glorious that sunrise was, it nearly killed my head.

So far, this trip has been one long delay, and a hell of a long day.  With no sleep in us, Trafalgar decided to give us a tour of Dublin.

Don't get me wrong.  Dublin's a beautiful place, even the parts that are falling apart, but I was so tired and in pain that I could hardly enjoy it.  The canal was gorgeous, and the Georgian Mile, while being ultra-conformist (blocks and blocks of homes that look exactly the same), was like looking into the past.  St. Patrick's Cathedral was amazing, and while I didn't actually get a good look at it, I kind of liked the idea that I was near Jonathan Swift's corpse.  I also saw Oscar Wilde's house, which was small and not nearly as cool as the statue of him lying on a huge boulder.

Dublin is crowded as hell.  It is impossible to find parking, so just about everyone rides bikes.  The streets are so narrow that I thought the bus would get stuck between buildings a couple of times.  Not only that, but when people park on the street, they pull their cars up onto the sidewalk so as to allow traffic to continue moving.

The bus, by the way, was like the planes; it was not made for big people.  It did not help my pain-wracked frame one bit.  It was so uncomfortable that I dread the thought of going to Belfast on it.

As soon as we got back to the hotel, I skipped dinner and slept from four in the afternoon to four in the morning.

A few observations:

Everyone here does things bassackwards.  I was prepared for them driving on the other side of the road, but they even walk down the other side of the sidewalk.  I almost ran some guy over with a luggage cart at the airport because of this cultural discrepancy.  Also, the signs in Ireland are all bilingual.  The bold letters are English, and the smaller, italicized letters are Gaelic.  I understand that in Northern Ireland, the signs are only in English, but along the southern coast, the signs are only in Gaelic.

The toilet is screwed up.  Not just ours, but all the toilets.  One flush does not do it.  You have to prime the flusher to get it to work, and it doesn't always work even then.  I fear to have a bowel movement.

It does not stay dark around here very long.  Already at four in the morning, the sky is getting light (or, at least as light as it gets around here).  The sky really is a dirty gray most of the time.

Another drawback to Ireland:  there aren't enough McDonald's around; there wasn't one mentioned at all in the Dublin phonebook.

As to television, they get some American shows like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, THE X-FILES, THE SIMPSONS, and SESAME STREET.  They even get MTV around here, but all they play are the worst techno beats I've ever heard, hosted by a couple of big-headed guys saying over and over again, "Put your hands in the air!"

Prominent news stories:  a British brigadier named Saunders (I think) got shot by motorbike assassins in Athens.  If I hear about it again, I'll go nuts.  Ireland has a hunting problem:  it might be banned soon.  Soccer is unbelievably important around here.  Soccer players are the celebrities of Europe.  Who sells their souls to do commercials for just about all the businesses around here?  Soccer players.  Also, cricket is amazingly weak.  It should be noted that the BBC does not give the weather for southern Ireland.  They go by military time around here, and they give the temperature in Celsius.

November 17, a terrorist group who has been terrorizing Europe for years without getting so much as one member arrested, might have killed Saunders.

I think I might have seen Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, heading toward the government building.  If I'm wrong, it's his twin brother.

JUNE 9.  9:15 AM.  BELFAST.  EUROPA HOTEL.

I must say, after the Mespil hellhole, the Europa is a palace.  The toilets actually work with one pump, and it really is as glamorous a hotel as you can get.  Everyone wears suits, and the place is made of crystal and marble, complete with vast red rugs and just about everything expensive you can think of.  This is where celebrities and politicians stay when they're in Belfast.  It's also the most bombed hotel in Ireland, but it hardly looks it.

Speaking of glorious things, despite the pain, I was able to enjoy the miles and miles of rolling pastures filled with horses, cows, sheep, and dilapidated farm houses.  Some places were so old that I can't believe people still live in them.  The hedgerows are intriguing; they give the impression that nature is very ordered in Ireland.  They couldn't have been more perfect.

I saw one of the burial mounds at Bru na Boinee:  Knowth.  According to the brochure, Knowth is dated at c.3000 BC, which predates the pyramids of Egypt, as the tour guide said.  Not only was it a burial mound, but there used to be a village at the top of the biggest mound.  While the mound at Newgrange had tunnels through it accessible to tourists, the passages at Knowtheldritch claw and snag the nearest tourist.

There was one passage open to us, but it was way too small for me.

We also went to the Down Cathedral, where St. Patrick is buried.  While the religious types might not be good at coming up with civilized philosophies, they certainly have a knack for architecture.  They even have a huuuuge organ on the balcony.  The grave itself is simple; it's just a big weathered rock with St. Patrick's name and a Celtic cross on it.  However, it is said that if you touched the stone and made a wish, it would come true.

I held my hand to that stone a long time and begged St. Patrick to let the pain end.  Oddly enough, I felt a bit better after that.  Only my head ached.

I finally found my way to a pub and was extremely disappointed with the cheeseburger.  It was fit for a dying dog . . . maybe.  I thought Denny's was bad, but Denny's looks like the Country House compared to that terrible Belfast cheeseburger.  The food at the Europa was okay, but despite the fact that it was actually gourmet rich-people food, I'd rather have had McDonald's.  I must find a fast food restaurant, or I'll go mad!  I must also find Coca-Cola.  My addiction must be fed.

While I'm on the subject of food, breakfast is wrong.  The eggs feel like cardboard in my mouth, and the scrambled eggs have corn mixed in with them.  The juices (orange and apple) tasted like acid.  I'm beginning to think the Irish can't cook worth a damn.

Later--

I think I've been reading too many Irish ghost stories.  I left dinner early tonight (because they were serving a really, really ugly fish), and while I was going up to my room in the elevator, it stopped at a lower level, and the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, dressed in a rather skimpy dress, got on, and we both rode to the top of the building.  We glanced at each other, but we didn't say anything.  She was waaaaay out of my league, and even if she weren't, what was I going to do?  Bang her in the hotel room I share with my grandmother?  Right.

But for some reason, I got it into my head that she was a banshee in disguise.  I actually had The Fear, and I really hadn't had much to drink.  I stayed on my side of the elevator the whole way up, and when we got to her floor, she gave me another glance as she got off.  She had a weird look on her face.  I don't know what that was about, but she seemed confused about something.

I rode up to the next floor and went to my room, where I am writing this now.  I'm going to read more Irish ghost stories, and then I'm going to go to sleep.  I think I'm finally syncing up with Irish time.  By the way, the view from my window is interesting.  Just across the street from me is the Crown Bar, which is the most famous bar in all of Ireland.  Looking out late at night, it is crowded as hell, and I've noticed a weird trend:  there are young women down there dressed in nun's wimples and super-short skirts.  It seems to be the style around here.  Weird.

TO BE CONTINUED!

COOL SHIT 11-18-10

G.I. JOE: COBRA #10: Confession time: this is my favorite of the G.I. JOE books. When I was a kid, I was kind of partial to Chuckles, and this is essentially his book (aside from a short story arc). This also happens to be the darkest of the books. Early in the series, Chuckles (still in deep cover) is forced to kill his lover and point of contact, Jinx, and though he feels guilty about it later, he fuckin’ did it, man! Then there was the story arc involving the journalist who falls under the sway of the Coil only to have everything taken away from him. He’s dehumanized to the point where he willingly gives himself over to ritual sacrifice. You don’t get darker than that, friends. And now, Chuckles finds himself Cobra’s captive as they try to break him down and make him want to join their side. They might have made his life just miserable enough to succeed . . . .

PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES #4: Harlan Ellison’s mini-series comes to an end with this issue. Devon lives in an Amish-type society until one day he discovers that their 50-mile stretch of existence is actually a miniature world among many others on a starship escaping from a ruined Earth, except the crew is dead and disaster is en route to them. Devon then does something stupid: he goes back to his world to warn everyone. Ellison has a lot to say about how close-minded we human beings can be when it comes to the things we believe versus what we could know. Buy all four issues. Some of it moves slowly, but it’s worth it in the end.

SUPERIOR #2: This is probably my least favorite of Mark Millar’s creator-owned work, mostly because it is so dependant upon a childlike sense of wonder. If not for the curse words, this book would be kid’s stuff, and I’m not big on superheroes in the first place. I mention it here in Cool Shit because this one made me laugh. A lot. Simon is a kid who has MS, and a talking space monkey has granted him time transformed into his hero, Superior. Once he convinces his friend of who he really is, they decide to test Simon’s newfound powers, from flying to x-ray vision to super strength. My second favorite test: when Chris holds up a newspaper and starts asking him to read, for example: “Can you look through the paper and tell me the headline on page 22?” But my absolute favorite is when Simon tries to fly and just can’t control it. He ascends, but he can’t stop it, so he’s grabbing for anything that will hold him to the ground, all to no avail. I recommend this book. It’s not Millar’s finest, but it’s still pretty damned good.

BITE ME

[NOTE:  THE NEXT FEW WRITING EXERCISES WERE ACTUALLY SUBMITTED TO AN ANTHOLOGY THAT WILL REMAIN NAMELESS (FOR REASONS THAT WILL BECOME OBVIOUS WHEN I POST THE LAST STORY IN THIS BRIEF SERIES).  THE CHALLENGE WAS TO WRITE ZOMBIE STORIES NO LONGER THAN 500 WORDS.  I HOPE I CAME UP WITH SOMETHING NEW AND INTERESTING FOR THOSE WHO ARE TIRED OF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.]

Heathcliff took the girl because she looked weak.  He thought she might have been fourteen, but his hopes were dashed when he later checked her ID and found out she was twenty-three.

Still, he could pretend.

Amy Standish didn't look as bad as the others.  Heathcliff didn't think she'd been dead for very long, no more than a day or two.  He'd been on a food run when he came upon her milling about in a 7-11 parking lot.  Upon seeing how well she'd held together, he knew he had to have her.

There was no struggle; all he had to do was stuff her in the trunk and drive away.  When he got home, he forced a wooden spoon into her mouth and tied it into place.  He then bound the rest of her and dragged her inside.  Just in time, he thought.  The others had begun showing up, and by the time he'd locked and braced the door, they were like a crowd at a concert.

He envied them.  All they did was eat flesh, and they were nearly invincible.  Only a shot to the head put them down.

Heathcliff waded through the bones at his feet, meals of the past.  Before the zombies had come, he'd never been able to indulge his desire to eat people, but since the rules of civilization had been canceled, finding a victim was never a problem.

He'd never eaten the undead before, and he was curious.

Soon, the creature that had been Amy Standish was restrained on the kitchen counter, her dead gray gaze locked on his movements, waiting for him to slip up.

He was hungry, so he chopped her foot off with a cleaver.  After examining the meat, he seasoned it, basted it, and popped it in the oven.  A pleasant aroma spiked his senses, and his mouth was suddenly wet.

A half-hour later, he discovered that spoiled meat did not taste very good, no matter how well one cooked it, but it was enough.

Days--and half of Amy--later, Heathcliff started doubting anyone living would come along, and his hunger for real food had grown so much that his undead captor was no longer doing it for him.

At noon, a middle-aged man with a rifle tried to make it to Heathcliff's front door, but the zombies got him before he reached the porch.  The rifle had to be empty, since the man was using it as a club, and when he was torn apart and consumed, Heathcliff couldn't help but notice how happy the zombies were.

He wished he could be that satisfied with a meal.

Then, looking at Amy's slimy, yellowed teeth, he realized he could be.

Heathcliff removed the spoon from her mouth and held his hand in front of her necrotic, malodorous face.

"Bite me," he whispered.

WHEN I HAD FIRE WITHIN MY BLOOD: CHAPTER ONE

[NOTE:  WHEN I GRADUATED FROM ELMHURST COLLEGE IN THE YEAR 2000, MY GRANDMOTHER, A WORLD TRAVELER HERSELF, GAVE ME THE GIFT OF IRELAND.  WE TOURED THE ENTIRE PLACE OVER THE COURSE OF TWO WEEKS THAT YEAR.  SHE HAS SINCE PASSED AWAY.  THIS IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF LAURETTE BRUNI.]

JUNE 7, 2000.  3:00 PM.  O'HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.  CHICAGO.

I have learned a valuable lesson today.  When traveling to foreign countries, leave for the airport early and wear a chastity belt.  Otherwise, you're going to have to grit your teeth and bend over, and the airport uses dildos the size of babies, so you'd better grit your teeth hard.

Yeah, we were off to a bad start.  The main parking lot was closed, and so were most of the auxiliary lots.  Gramps and I drove around like fiends, trying to find a place to leave the car because he wanted to see me off at the terminal.  When we finally found a spot, we raced to get to the bus.  But does the bus take us to the terminal?  No, it takes us to a tram, which then takes us to the terminal.  Then, we spent about 40 minutes just waiting to check my luggage.  When it was all done, we had ten minutes to make it through security and run down to Gate L5.

We made it, and I found my grandmother, who was funding this trip because I'd just graduated from college.  She had just flown in from Arizona for this, and she seemed pretty tired, but all seemed to be well, especially now that I'd made it in time.

Oh wait!  The flight's been delayed an hour.  Isn't that peachy?  It's too windy in New York City.  In fact, as we wait, the wind is so powerful that they tack on another half-hour to the delay.

All that racing around for nothing.  I hate airports.

JUNE 7.  7:00 PM.  SOMEWHERE OVER INDIANA OR OHIO.

We've been in the air for a while, and anyone who has ever taken a plane trip in coach knows how difficult it is to stay sane.  I'm six-two, and I weigh close to 260 pounds.  Coach was not built for people my size.

Thankfully, I have the whole row to myself, which means I can stretch my legs out.  Unfortunately, all the people in front of me have their seats back all the way, which doesn't give my upper half a lot of room.  At least the food wasn't too bad, for a stale turkey sandwich.  It would have been much better without that creamy mustard crap, but I don't expect much from these people.

Aside from that, I've been passing my time reading Irish ballads.  Drinking, fighting, love, and war; these are all wonderful subjects, and the Irish know them well.  At least it's satisfying to know that no matter how miserable a person is, other people have it worse.

I like "A Nation Once Again" best so far.  It starts out with, "When I had fire within my blood," which seems like a pretty good way to look at this trip.  A youthful excursion to a foreign land.  I approve.

JUNE 7.  10:00 PM.  LEAVING NEW YORK CITY.

There I was, sitting at the window as the plane started its descent in New York, and I'm keeping a frantic eye out for the Statue of Liberty.  It's the one thing in NYC that I actually lust to see.  It's always been a symbol of America, a sight you see when you've escaped an authoritarian country, or a famine, or whatever else could go wrong.  Sure, the Land of Opportunity bit is a myth, we all know that, but still, here's this magnificent French woman standing on an island holding a torch aloft, and for a moment, maybe the American Dream is more than just a dream.  Granted, there's not much opportunity here (not to say a word about streets paved with gold), but compared to a place like, say, Rwanda, America is a gold mine.

So I kept an eye out for Lady Liberty.  We flew over the Hudson River.  I saw the George Washington Bridge.  I even identified the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers while we landed.  I did not see Lady Liberty.

I found her, however, in JFK's gift shop, with a hundred of her twins in all sizes.  She sold herself not like a cheap whore (they were anything but cheap) but a cute call girl, maybe Julia Roberts in PRETTY WOMAN.

After eating terribly expensive Burger King slop, we waited around JFK a few hours until we got on the plane (gasp!) early.  Of course, that meant we were doomed in another way.  There was, indeed, a delay, a two-hour one, and we were stuck on the runway the whole time.  Nothing good ever comes from airports.

I must say that I've never been on so big a plane before.  However, coach is still as small as ever.  The pain quickly set in, and it fought fiercely within me.  Luckily, there was another seat free, and my grandmother moved to it to give me more space so I wouldn't die.  The attendants fed me painkillers which mercifully helped me doze for a while.  Not long enough, though.  When I woke up, we were still on the runway, and it was only an hour later.

When we flew out of America, it was pitch black outside, and the only thing I could see were the city lights.  Again, I looked for Lady Liberty.  I think I might have actually seen her, but it was too dark to tell for sure.

A word on the Atlantic:  I have never seen an ocean before, but when I finally did, it was amazing.  I couldn't believe how supernatural it seemed.  It didn't look like water from the sky; it looked like the scales of an impossibly big creature.  As you get closer to this eerily still beast, you can see the writhing chaos of it.  Now, I can't see anything out the window.  It's the darkest depths of night, and they've begun to serve the food.

The beef is revolting, but the Jack Daniel's . . . well, it's free, and it helps deal with the pain of being in such a confined space.  Why not hit Ireland as drunk as possible?

Now that I have eaten the Thing that Should Not Be and have drunken quite a few of those mini bottles, we've hit turbulence.  Note to self (or whoever finds this):  NEVER DO THIS AGAIN.

JUNE 8.  MIDNIGHT.  SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.

I don't know.  Maybe it's the Jack, but I'm getting kind of spooked.

The movie with Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek is over, and the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign is off.  Everyone is asleep, and all is quiet.  Outside is nothing, or so it seems.  The moon hovers outside my window like a splinter, and occasionally, there is lightning.  What if we passed over the edge of reality, and we're in some kind of other world?  If so, what lurks in the darkness below?  It must stop moving when the lightning flashes, so we won't see it.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE has occurred to me, but there's nothing on the wing (at least, not on my side).  That would be too obvious.

JUNE 8.  1:15 AM.  SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.

Watching the sun come up like that was glorious.  It was so bright and red and gooey, it was truly like the birth of a new day.

The strange thing is, back at home, it's 1:15 am.  It's supposed to be dark as hell out, yet here's the sun, shining brightly enough to burn the air.  I can see the world isn't a monstrous landscape now; it's a long chain of mountainous clouds, parting occasionally to reveal the scales of the beast . . . AND LAND!  Holy hell, I see land!  Could we be flying over Ireland at long last?  I hope so.

Maybe I should fix my watch now.

TO BE CONTINUED!

SMALL WORLD

"Bob!  Is that you?"

"Holy hell!  Bill!  I didn't recognize you with that rat cage on your face!  What've you been up to?"

"Oh, the usual.  Torture day in and out.  You?"

"The same.  At least I don't have rats gnawing my face off, though."

"Yeah, it sucks, but what're you going to do?  This is Hell, after all.  Speaking of which, I thought you were acquitted of those charges."

"I was, but it seems the decisions of a court of law have no bearing in the afterlife.  It's more of a do-the-crime-do-the-time kind of thing around here."

"Gee, that's too bad.  I always thought you were a dead ringer for the other place."

"Win some, lose some, I guess.  Probably should have bought into that whole Bible deal.  I hear those morons'll forgive anything, so long as you ask for it.  I tried thinking of an act in which you can break all Ten Commandments.  Get this:  you could have sex with your neighbor's wife in front of your parents on the Sabbath while taking the name of the Lord in vain, then kill the gal, steal your neighbor's plasma screen TV, shout, 'Hail Satan,' worship a statue of Ronald McDonald, tell the cops your mom did everything, and all you have to do is apologize to God, and you're good to go.  Sounds pretty damned easy to me."

"I don't even think there's even a catch, but whatever.  You know, I think I did all those things you just said, but not all at once."

"Me, too.  Say, remember the time we raped that little boy, cut off his peter, and made his dad eat it?"

"Didn't you have the syph back then?"

"Oh yeah."

"Heh.  Those were the days.  Doing the mom with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire was also fun.  Wasn't Mario with us that day?"

"Yep."

"I've been in Hell for months and haven't seen him.  You?"

"Nah.  Thing is, just before they gave him the lethal injection, he confessed his sins and asked for forgiveness.  He's in Heaven now."

"After all the things he did?  No way."

"Yes way."

"But he kept a harem of kidnapped children in his barn.  Raped 'em all and killed the ones that didn't please him enough.  He made coats out of their flesh, furniture out of their bones, and drank their blood.  He bronzed their genitals and kept 'em on a knick-knack shelf."

"I know."

"He used to dig up fresh corpses, violate them, carve up their bodies, and leave them on the doorsteps of their loved ones."

"He sure knew how to have a good time."

"He cored out the buttholes of a hundred orphans, just so he'd always have something to hump in his pocket."

"That's Mario, all right."

"He burned down a home for retarded children because he liked the funny way they screamed."

"He was a card."

"And all he had to do was ask for forgiveness?  And God let him into Heaven?"

"It was that easy."

"And we're stuck here?  Forever?"

"You bet.  Speaking of which, I have to get going.  I have an appointment to keep.  I'm having my guts ripped out through my asshole while stiletto heels poke out my eyes, and some midget's going to give me a bunch of papercuts on my johnson.  They're going to roll me in salt after that.  What's on your plate?"

"Well, there's the whole hungry rats thing.  I think they're going to sew may ass shut and feed me Taco Bell while making me watch Jay Leno for hours on end."

"Damn, that's harsh.  I don't know if I could stand Leno for that long."

"Well, I'll see you later, Bill."

"Take it easy, Bob."

TRYING TO GET MY SHIT TOGETHER

Sorry it's been a while, folks.  A lot of things have been happening in my life, some of which you have been privy to.  Now that the chaos is over, I can start getting back to things around here.  One catch:  all the stuff that I've been posting recently has been stuff that I've written previously and have not gotten around to posting.  I am out of the usual Monday stuff, and in about a month, I'll be out of Tuesday stuff.  Wednesday stuff over at thenapalmassault.com will continue indefinitely.  Thursday stuff here will likewise go on, so long as cool shit comes out on Wednesdays.  Beginning Friday, I will post my Ireland journal in chapters.  That should take me through to January, which will hopefully be the end of my DUI trial.  When that happens, I will be able to begin THE DUI DIARIES.

So yeah, it won't be very busy around here for a while, but there will be stuff to be had.  Keep watching the skies . . . .