The Soil Is Contaminated (Part 3)

Weeks had passed since their meeting and excruciating boredom settled down upon the farmhouse like the ghost of Passover upon the residences of the firstborn. Not a potato was cultivated, nor a penis moistened in the span of time during which her and Merzbow awaited the commencement of their chemotherapy.

There came a knock upon the front door. Expecting to be greeted with a doctor, she was surprised to see a middle-aged Japanese man with long hair standing in her doorway. He wore a thick, black trench-coat and a t-shirt with the slogan “meat is murder” (which it most certainly is not).

“Greetings”, he said. “My name is Masami Akita, may I come inside?”

Merzbow, barely able to suppress his enthusiasm, sat across from Mr. Akita in the olive green armchair in which he often occupied. He wore a beaming, almost unnaturally formed grin. Merzbow was not known to display any conspicuous emotion in the presence of strangers, but having met his lifelong idol for the very first time, he was able to contain naught.

“So, what brings you to our humble farm Mr. Akita? New Brunswick is an awful long way from Japan.”

“I received a call from a friend of mine, Dr. Parvanov—you’ve met him yes? Anyways, he has informed me that you are in possession of something that may be a great deal of importance to me.”

“What would that be?”

“The potatoes you’ve been growing have been contaminated with radioactive soil, as Parvanov has told me. If this is the case, I would like to purchase every potato you have grown and are to grow from now on for the sum of one million dollars.”

She was bewildered, albeit cautious less this be some kind of clever ruse on behalf of Parvanov to crush what had remained of their spirits.

“I can’t imagine what use they could be to you. They can’t be eaten or you will grow hideous tumours on your head. God only knows what that would do to your music career!”

She pointed to the horns on her head, which had grown about an inch since her confrontation with the intoxicated scientist. Masami laughed.

“Oh course I know that! I’m not planning to eat them. Obviously you’ve never sampled the feedback from a radioactive potato before; they make such an eerie, otherworldly sound that would sound amazing with my new split EP with Boris. Besides, it’s the least I could do for such an enduring fan of mine.”

Merzbow perked up.

“Thank you sir, you have no idea what a considerable deed this is. My brother thanks you as well.”

Using the payment they had received from the generous musician, The Emporium of Unsavoury Delights had its grand opening in Miramichi a month later. Her dream, against all odds had finally come to fruition. The magnificent brothel, much like the John Galt line or the Battle of Adwa, stood alongside the glorious triumphs of human history as testament to the fact that one could achieve their most lavish dreams, regardless of how bizarre they are, or how much the odds are stacked against you. Larry, Vern, and Gus were all happily serviced, as were the rest of her clients.

She had not been so selfish to use all the money for herself. With the excess profit, she bought Merzbow a brand new stereo system, and the entire Merzbow discography, complete with all the bootlegs and compilation discs. He wasted not a breath of daylight listening to them all.

One quiet afternoon, about a month after the brothel had opened, a mysterious dark figure walked into the storefront. He had a large Canadian cigar pressed between his lips and a glass of scotch in his left hand.

“Dr. Parvanov! I knew you would have the time to stop by. I cannot thank you enough for helping my dream become a reality. Merzbow thanks you too.”

“Haha it’s no problem really. Mr. Harper thanks you for keeping my plant a secret, and I am glad to see the chemotherapy is going smoothly. The Einsteinites are receding quicker than I would have thought.”

“Yes they are, and these wigs are so very comfortable and stylish. Say, to show my gratitude for not having us killed earlier, your first visit is on the house!”

Parvanov removed his coat and she led him into a vacant room with a bed. She said that when she had been 
transferred into his possession, that it was akin to reclaiming a lost part of herself.


the end

The Soil Is Contaminated (Part 2)

Batman screamed in agony. The scream of pure, unadulterated misery is a sound most people are not likely to so often hear. In fact, unless one is an infantryman or a dental technician, it is improbable that the raw wails of human anguish have ever vibrated into one’s eardrum. It is not a pleasant sound to behold, at least relative to the meow of a kitten or the guffaw of an inebriated comrade.

It however, was precisely this awful sound that was emitted from the masked crusader as he was repeatedly shocked with Dr. Parvanov’s cattle prod. It was the fate that had befallen many intruders found sneaking around in the Cameco Einsteinium Processing Facility.

“What the fuck were you doing here Batman?”

Batman spat some blood onto the floor and responded.

“Let me go Parvanov!”

“Shut up! I let you down once you’ve answered my question. Who sent you here and what were you doing?”

“Fuck you.”

He sunk the shocking end of the cattle prod into Batman’s chest. Again, he let out a high-pitched cry of pain.

“Cough, cough! Damn you Parvanov, you know the radiation your company is infecting the soil with is extremely dangerous. You won’t get away with this treachery!”

Dr. Parvanov reached into the breast pocket of his overcoat and revealed a large calibre handgun. He aimed it at Batman’s face.

“Tell me who sent you!”

“Fuck you Parvanov!”

He was flecked his gore as the projectile pulverized his skull and terminated the intricate function of the tender grey matter residing within.

“Hilda, send the cleaning staff over to room 404. Tell them to bring lots of extra-absorbent towels.”

A distorted female voice responded into the receiver of his walkie-talkie.

“Yes boss. Oh, and there are two people at the front desk here to see you doctor. They say they are potato farmers.”

“But I’m not expecting an appointment with any potato farmers. Tell them to go away.”

“They seem very insistent on speaking with the conductor of operations here Dr. Parvanov. It’s something about the horns that are attached to their heads.”

There was a pause.

“Dr. Parvanov?”

“Send them up to my office.”

Dr. Parvanov poured himself a glass of scotch. He looked at her in a perplexed expression as to demand a justification for their presence in his domain. He was a cold, malevolent nuance, pacing nonchalantly within the sun’s projection of its magnificent rays through the grand window, casting a long black shadow upon her and Merzbow.

“Why did you buy that farm?”

“It belonged to my grandparents! I would have been crestfallen to see it in the possession of anyone outside my family.”

He took a sip of scotch.

“You bad man you! Take nuclear house go away!” a stammering Merzbow spewed out.

Parvanov shifted his owl-like gaze upon him.

“What’s your problem?”

“He has autism. Leave him alone.”

Parvanov snorted. An ironic smirk peeled across his face behind the translucent obstruction of the glassware he held to his lips.

“Neither of you are in any position to be giving orders. I could have you both killed for trespassing upon highly classified government operations. I take my orders from the most powerful man in all of Canada—Steven Harper, and I know for a fact that in my current position, he would not have hesitated to put your throats to the mameluke’s edge!”

Merzbow’s mood degenerated from bold and confrontational to remorseful, and not without good reason. They had no purpose meddling with the government’s affairs in synthetic actiniums. Her brother had the same consternated expression he bore when she had found him passed out in the agglomeration of oestrogen supplement scattered upon the bathroom floor on that fateful evening.

“You two know what a grave situation this is, don’t you?”

They both hung their heads.

“This of course is Canada’s preliminary laboratory of Einsteinium research. Its existence is not mentioned in any Wikipedia articles of Facebook pages, and as such, Mr. Harper and I wish to maintain the secrecy of this clandestine operation.”

“But what does that have to do with us?”

Parvanov took another sip of his scotch and seated himself.

“You are to undergo chemotherapy in order to remove the malignant protrusions on your heads. No mention of what transpires here shall be discussed by either of you in any form or context from here thereafter. Do I make myself clear?”

She grabbed with both hands the horns atop her head.

“You mean to tell me these are tumours?!”

There was an overtone of general disgust in her vocal projection, perhaps more likely to have been used while wading through a labyrinthine septic tank or in the city of Winnipeg. Parvanov lit a cigar. Being an expert on cigars herself, she recognized from the label that it was an authentic Canadian cigar. He coughed a little as he spoke.

“No. Not quite. The politically correct term would be Einsteinites. They share many properties with the behaviour of skin cancer. They form as a result of eating potatoes grown with einsteinium-contaminated soil. You foolish humans—that is why the government took that farm away from your grandparents! I have no idea how the two of you managed to sneak back onto that farm without our detection.”

“We are sorry.”

Parvanov’s office was large and imposing like a bouncer from one of the nightclubs she used to frequent when she lived in Fredericton. It consisted of many sharp angles and vertical lines. The sun’s light shone through the grand pane behind the desk and whispered the breath of life into his room of inhumanity. Parvanov’s office reeked of a cold, systematic inhumanity such as that of bureaucratic ostentation or of the holocaust.

He poured himself a third glass of scotch.

“I have noticed you are wearing a Merzbow t-shirt. Surely anyone who claims to be a fan of Merzbow’s so-called music cannot possibly have the self-respect sufficient not to be a prostitute.”

“Indeed, this is my brother’s shirt, but I am a proud prostitute, until recently that these horns have forced me to give up the profession.”

He stroked his beard contemplatively.

“My dream was to open the very first brothel/potato farm in Canada. However, since the otherwise luscious russet potatoes I have been cultivating are radioactive, my dream, sadly, will never come to fruition.”

Parvanov took another sip of scotch. It was apparent to the two agriculturists that his behaviour betrayed elevated blood-alcohol content surely sufficient to have impaired his operation of an automobile or some kind of heavy machinery. It may have been his state of intoxication, or his affinity for sarcasm, but she had noticed him to be slightly more empathetic to her plight than when they had first met him.

“I shall have my doctor visit your estate in a few weeks to commence your treatment.” He said with the semblance of a smile.

“Now be gone from here! You have already seen more of this operation than Mr. Harper would have been comfortable with.”

She and Merzbow left his office with the feeling that nothing of importance had neither been communicated nor accomplished by their meeting with this drunken bureaucrat. Farming and prostitution are surely best left in the hands of trained professionals.

Parvanov picked up his walkie-talkie.

“Hilda, please get Mr. Akita on the phone. I must speak with him at once.”

The Soil is Contaminated (Part 1)

Although it had only cost her two hundred dollars to buy the estate, she said that when the deed had been transferred into her possession, that it was akin to reclaiming a lost part of herself. The farm had belonged to her grandparents for many years before the government seized the property. She held fond memories of the summers that she used to spend there long ago; harvesting the rich tubers from the soil, petting the family ass, or swinging off the Toyo tire and plunging deep into the icy water of the abandoned amosite quarry nearby. Ever since one evening when she lay out in the dew-soaked pastures, looking up at the deep yawning abyss of stars and interplanetary miscellanea, she knew that her purpose in life was to harvest potatoes. New Brunswick was full of potato farmers, indeed, many of the denizens who she had been acquainted with as an adolescent earned a wage growing spuds, but she was determined to grow the potatoes most plentiful of starch and abundant with nutrients than any other agricultural institution in Canada.

Her parents had begotten a male of inferior mental capacity whom they had neglected to name before they had disowned him on account of his condition. After his favourite musical composer, she entitled him Merzbow. He was a tall, somewhat androgynous child-shaped man; a timid creature of introverted tendency who only ever spoke to his big sister. As anyone who knew Merzbow as well as anyone who could have known Merzbow would tell you, was that his waking (and a fraction of his dreaming) life was spent listening to Merzbow. Any interpersonal relationship was scarce. Yet, out of loyalty to his sister, in whom he had invested a great deal of trust, he decided to accompany her on her agricultural conquest.

The first week of her potato farming saw her spend the necessary capital to restructure the crumbling farmhouse and purchase nitrogen-enriched fertilizer with which to optimize her yield. On Saturday evenings, when Merzbow was securely fastened into his crib, she drove her Cadillac Eldorado out to the nearby municipality of Miramichi. She would park the automobile in a garage and stand scantily-clad, bathed in the twilight of the streetlamps on Main Street. She would wait for an hour, perhaps even two, before a client would pull up beside her and inquire about her wares. The usual fee was twenty dollars. The client would then drive her back to his apartment (which on occasion was a house) and possess her in ways that bordered upon the unsavoury. Her raison d’être may have been potato farming, but her second love was prostitution. Suffice to say that she had missed the Sunday sermon which denounced the inclination to be fucked by strangers. To her, it wasn’t masochism, nor was it a manifestation of self-hatred, but merely an honest hobby which she held dear. When she had earned a reasonable profit by harvesting tubers, her dream, as she called it, was to open the very first potato and hooker franchise to satisfy both the genitalia and digestive cavities of all the good citizens of New Brunswick.

It was on one particular night, upon returning home from her sordid sexual escapades, that she was to find her brother unconscious on the bathroom floor. To her mortification, he had consumed an entire bottle of oestrogen supplements, using a ball peen hammer to incur his retarded wrath down upon the child-proof cap. Both frightened and angry, she had known that a transgression of this nature was only inevitable, as Merzbow had lately shown the intention of escaping his crib and that night she had neglected to fasten his straps properly. After she had awoken him, he received a thorough lecture about the dangers of wanting freedom.

“Merzbow, what did you think you were doing? Why did you eat all my oestrogen?”

“I thought they were skittles.”

He had an expression that resembled remorse; an upturned lip and hollow, sad eyes.

“You’re probably going to start growing tits now Merzbow!”

She slapped him upside the head, not hard enough to induce injury, but sufficient to convey her frustration with him. Merzbow retreated back to the solitude of his bedroom and cranked Venereology at maximum volume. She returned later to fasten him into his crib—tightly.

After months of strenuous labour, she had grown enough crops to nourish the both of them. Farming potatoes was a cold, methodical process; the sowing of the sprouts and the raising of the crop. Her farming skills were superlative. Long ago, her grandfather had shown her how to cultivate the land with competence. When he wasn’t listening to Merzbow, Merzbow usually helped water the plants or spray pesticides in order to kill the beetles that gnawed away at the stems, rendering the potatoes unfit for human consumption.

She noticed two odd protrusions on his head one evening at suppertime.

“Now look what you’ve done to yourself Merzbow! You’re sprouting horns from that oestrogen you ate. Perhaps you should see a doctor."

 As she had scolded him several times about speaking with his mouth full, he devoured his mouthful of mashed potato; the gargantuan under-bite flapping loosely beneath his palate and chewing the starchy substance into a fine paste by which to fall with greater ease down Merzbow’s esophagus and into the confines of his digestive tract.

“I don’t want to see a doctor.”

“But those things are like an inch long! Who knows if they will get any bigger? You don’t want to look like a freak, now do you?"

At her response, Merzbow burst into a tantrum of blubbering tears. He stumbled out of his high-chair and run back to his room. The door slammed and she could hear the faint sound of 1930 being played on his stereo. Once he had weeped himself to exhaustion, she tightly strapped him back into his crib. She always thought that Merzbow looked so peaceful, so tranquil after a good cry. The moonlight poured in through the window and caressed the back of Merzbow’s malformed skull. She reached out and felt the protrusions on his head between the grip of her thumb and forefinger. They were tough, yet weightless like gristle or Styrofoam.

“It’s probably nothing to worry too much about.” She thought, and closed the door to his room behind her.

Silently and gracefully, she slipped into her plastic mini-skirt and zipped up her knee-high leather boots to prepare for yet another evening of vice upon the streets of Miramichi. She got into her Eldorado and drove to the same parking garage and stood at the same avenue at which she prostituted herself every week, yet no clients availed themselves to her. She was devastated. She waited for four hours. She waited for Vern and his Hyundai Sonata, who had called upon her services many times, for Larry and his Ford Econo with trash bags stretched over the windows in which the two of them would fuck like hyenas, or even for Gus, the filthy, hairy Vietnam veteran who had a smelly cock and always underpaid. None of them came. She drove back to the farmhouse in shame.

As her Eldorado pulled up the gravel road to the farmhouse, it seemed to her that the potato pastures emitted a soft red glow. The moon was full that night and the rolling landscape was soaked in the sun’s borrowed light. However, there was something particularly askew about the glow of the fields. She would not have the mind to pay this anomaly its due consideration, as when she went into the bathroom to remove her pomegranate no. 9 makeup and her pink plastic mini-skirt, she was confronted with an abhorrent scene. The very same protrusions that her brother had grown, lay upon her head as well, albeit nearly twice as long. The two naked bumps that poked above her hairline mocked her. They stood as a stark reminder that she would never again feel the embrace of a misshapen fisherman or quarry worker. Her spirits had descended to a depth from which the sunlight was no longer visible. Her dreams had been dashed to the ground, shattering into a myriad of unsalvageable bits and fragmentations. She stood motionless before the shattered dream that starred back at her from the bathroom mirror—an apoplectic horror captured within a pane of glass.

“You still have the potatoes.” She repeated to herself in a vain attempt at self comfort.

She awoke from a turbulent slumber the following morning to the urgent cries of her little brother. She rushed into his room and saw him motioning to the window.

“Smoke! Red Smoke! Look!” He kept saying in his rather unattractive speech impediment.

Sure enough, there were tuffs of red smoke billowing from the horizon that seemed consistent with an industrial smokestack or perhaps a modest-sized grease fire. The smoke appeared very dense and smothering. The colour was that of fresh, unoxidized blood.

She dressed Merzbow and herself in a violent fit, throwing on one of his old Merzbow t-shirts, and the two of them ventured out towards the source of the red smoke. After a half-hour walk over the hilly terrain, they came upon a large imposing structure. It bore smokestacks and chimneys that scraped the flesh of the morning sky.

Vision of The Leech

The most beloved of creatures to constitute the freshwater ecosystems in today’s flowing streams and babbling brooks is the common leech. Certainly the most adorable of all aquatic parasites, they provide a nutritious morsel to predatory fish and water fowl alike. Who, among us has never, upon wading out into a shallow creek, perhaps to rescue a drowning child or retrieve a floating corpse, discovered one of such benevolent annelids clinging to your ankle, only to cast the poor creature away with the aid of a lit matchstick or a grain of salt?

Human leeches, on the contrary, are a much more challenging pest to rid oneself of, particularly when federal law frowns upon the deliberate immolation of one’s fellow man, regardless of how much of a nuisance they may be. Such were the ruminations of one Sergej Vodenicharov, upon being stopped in the town square by yet another blubbering charity case. 
“Could I borrow a minute of your time Sir?” meekly asked the young, brown-eyed lady.
Sergej would have undoubtedly cast this human leech aside, had he not been initially captivated by the beauty of the young woman. These charities were growing ever more cunning, strategically employing attractive people to more effectively peddle their lowly, pathetic causes. The girl wore a tight black polo shirt with a World Vision logo stitched onto the right breast.
“I’m sorry miss. I have a meeting I must go to and I’m already running late.”
Despite his rejection, the young lady was persistent.
“It will only take a minute of your time sir. What’s one more minute to you if you’re running late anyways?”
“Very well, but do hurry.”
“Sir, did you know that forty-two percent of Azerbaijani children between the ages of six and ten live below the poverty line? Every day, these poor youngsters struggle to find adequate sustenance, only to do so in vain, as rich white Americans such as yourself squander all the world’s wealth which could otherwise have been used to feed these poor, misfortunate, hungry, lonely, disparaged children.”
She had recited the aforementioned dialogue as if from memory. Sergej could have guessed that she had more of a vested interest in her commission than she did for these disparaged children of whom she spoke. She held a clipboard in her left hand, writing something down which he could not see.
“Uh, no, I did not. I really have to get going now. It’s already been one...”
“Sir, did you know that for the miniscule payment of just three dollars a day, you can help to purchase a goose and a sheep for one of these poor, forsaken, misshapen, beggarly, destitute, needy, impoverished, underprivileged, meagre, indigent, poor little souls? If you can afford one of those coffees a day, surely you can help a small child in need.”
“I am very sorry, but I really must...”
“Please sir, Abdul would appreciate your generosity so very much.”
She produced a photograph of a young boy—clearly malnourished. He wore tattered rags and held forth a begging bowl. The boy had large, sad eyes and the light in which the photograph was taken emphasised the tears streaming down his cheeks.
“While I agree that the situation of these Azerbaijani children is indeed dire, I really have to...”
“Oh sir, if only the rest of the rich white imperialists were as generous as you are, maybe the world’s poverty problem would disappear.”
If one removes an attached leech by force, as opposed to salting it or burning it off, the creature’s sucker remains embedded in your flesh and causes a rather painful sore that can last up to several weeks. Likewise, if one were to merely walk away, engaged in mid-conversation with one of these human-leeches without adequately disposing of them, the sore that would develop from doing so could induce severe mental frustrations and suppressed rage later on.
“May I ask why you’re doing this to yourself?”
The girl looked perplexed.
“You can drop the act. Look, I know employment is difficult to come by these days with the economy in the state that it’s in, but I would really like to know why a capable young woman such as yourself feels the need to lower herself to such humiliating and degrading labour. Every day, you people stand on the same street corners, preying on the same misbegotten passersby, and yet, you never cease to be cast aside as the parasitic creatures you so plainly are. Do these charities really pay you so well that you’re willing to embarrass yourself like this every day?”
She quivered a bit, looking down at her clipboard, which undoubtedly held a list of generic responses to the excuses with which they were most commonly presented.
“Um, well if it’s an issue with money you have, World Vision offers a very affordable payment plan. Surely you can afford our very low premium package of only two five dollar payments a week?”
Sergej snatched the clipboard from her hands and smashed it to the pavement.
“How does it feel to be but a mere pawn? You are a tool to be utilized by these giant philanthropic organisations to acquire profit for them! Such a small percentage of the money you’re leeching off of honest, hardworking citizens will go to these children which you claim to care so much about. You’re only lining the pockets of CEOs and corrupt businessmen who are no less despicable than yourself. If you really cared so much about the welfare of these children, you would move to Azerbaijan and help them directly. However, the corporations by which you are employed only seek to use the logical fallacy of emotional appeal to sap money from gullible, albeit well-meaning people and use it to buy themselves mansions and private jets. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for acting as an accomplice to this most detestable affair!”
And with that, Sergej walked away, leaving the young lady with a feeling reminiscent of a leech that had just been dowsed with salt.

The Rainbow Road to Sophia

Throughout the entirety of man’s existence, he has created for himself a myriad of gods, spirits, specters, and deities for which to support him. Hand-woven into his psyche, they are a spiritual crutch for his pride and a hierarchy for his ideals. It is little wonder that just about every significant culture from antiquity onto the present day has conjured up for himself some brand of religious adherence. From the feathered-serpent Quetzalcoatl, to the illustrious Jesus Christ, son of David, all these various deities carry essentially the same likelihood of existence. Although many intricate and needlessly complex, albeit entirely pseudointellectual cases have been pieced together in order to prove for certain the physical existence of these deities, religious sympathizers have attempted to carry about their hefty burdens of proof with mere speculation, gut-feelings, God-of-the-gaps reasoning, and numerous logical fallacies. Considering these arguments from a completely objective standpoint however, one might wonder why they are rarely contrived upon nothing more than various interpretations of bronze-age manuscripts. Ancient texts and gut feelings alone have never been enough evidence to account for anything tangible. Why then, should the claims of these theologians be considered when dealing with gods? If the same speculation alone was used in an attempt to justify any other sort of radical declarative statement, one would be hard-pressed to take their proposition seriously. Take for example, if one were to use the same nonsensical logic utilized to support the existence of God in order to conjecture that an entire country, for instance-- Bulgaria, did not exist. Such a proposition would be dismissed outright, and with good reason. It is however the premise of this proposition, the central-point alone which one would find completely absurd, and not merely the supporting arguments for it. Despite that both of the aforementioned propositions must rely heavily on leaps of faith in order to give due consideration, is it not odd that people would be much less likely to discount the premise of religious arguments on account of their absurdity than a case against the existence of Bulgaria?

From hours of reading through atlases as a child, I can point out with ease, Bulgaria’s supposed location on any map of Europe, which lies between Turkey and the rest of the Balkan states. I also know that they were one the constituents of the axis powers, who fought with Germany against the allies in the First World War. However, it is rather an odd little fact indeed that I (and perhaps you as well) have never heard of or known anything or anyone remotely associated with this obscure South-Eastern European country (at least prior to writing this). Furthermore, it’s size and geographical location contribute even more to this mystery, seeing as it shares common borders with more than a few fairly-known eastern states (Romania, Serbia, Turkey, and Greece to name but 4) and with a grand population of over 8 million people, it leaves one perplexed as to significance of this supposed land mass. For an intricate case has been made to prove the existence of god, I shall construct an equally dubious case for the non-existence of Bulgaria in order to prove once and for all that the road to Bulgaria has been paved for centuries upon a twisted heap of malicious lies and deceit, and we (the good, unsuspecting people of North America) have been fooled by this great Bulgarian conspiracy for far too long. For if the gut feelings and logical fallacies used to prove the existence of God are given serious philosophical consideration, than the same logic which shall account for the non-existence of this ghostly Warsaw pact-country stands just as valid. Bulgaria does not exist, and any man who believes the shifty case for a supernatural grandfather should then adhere to this logic as well.

Saint Anselm of Canterbury, the Christian apologist of the eleventh century once proposed what is today known as the Ontological argument. Essentially, Anselm felt that because things have observable characteristics, that is to say they are either smooth or rough, sharp or dull, bright or dark, pleasurable or painful, than there must exist something to which we judge the standard of all these various characteristics. For example, if a knife that we can observe is sharp, then it must only be sharp relative to the sharpest possible thing in existence, which Saint Anselm concluded, was God (the Catholic god of course). Because his God encompassed all of these perfect qualities, then he must certainly have possessed the quality of existing, which admittedly, is better than not existing. Now consider the logic of the ontological argument in relation to Bulgaria.

Bulgaria has one of the lowest human development indexes of any European state, second only to Ukraine and Belarus. Relative to its income per person, the country is also the saddest nation in the world according to a recent study done by the University of Pennsylvania. Bulgaria has a lack of mineral wealth and possesses the dusty, infertile soil of Anatolia, which only yields meager fruit, roses, and tobacco as the nation’s main exports. It is evident that Bulgaria, from these aforementioned observable characteristics coupled with its relative obscurity, would deem it among the worst possible European nations. However, in accordance with the ontological argument, which theologians and apologists hold so very dear, the country could not be the worst possible European state if it were to exist, which it therefore must not.

The majority of arguments for a god’s existence are based purely on anecdotal evidence. One of the most prominent theologians of the twenty-first century, the American Preacher Fred Phelps, argues that the evidence for god is all written in the bible. This is a perfect example of anecdotal reasoning, as the scientific, historical, metaphysical, and philosophical claims presented in the bible have been falsified time and time again, and any faith one places in the factual validity of such scripture is doing so based entirely on personal feeling. For instance, the world is not a flat plane, as the Old Testament claims, and contrary to the book of Exodus, which describes Moses’ flight from Egypt and God’s subsequent dictation of the Ten Commandments, it is a confirmed historical fact that the Egyptians never kept Jewish slaves. Phelps, along with many other religious adherents holds the bible as the literal truth which infallibly affirms all his personal conjectures. Likewise, because my subjective opinion has just as much an impact on fundamental physical laws  than those people who lived two thousand years ago, I conjecture that the country of Bulgaria is only but a ghost upon the world stage. It is a figment of geography; an object of pure fantasy. Any other religious adherent whose worldview is dictated by the same speculative reasoning and anecdotal logic should be compelled to believe this claim as well.

(Disclaimer: I love the nation of Bulgaria. Even though I've never been there I'm sure its a very beautiful country and its citizens are very proud. The negative references to the country are for satirical purposes only! If you are offended by this post's content then I insist you buy a dictionary and look up the word humor. Cheers)

The Alien

A plume of steam hissed from the bottom of the alien warship over a crowd of thousands of curious humans. Slowly, a ramp slides down from the warship’s belly and settles to earth. Silence ensues, until after several suspenseful moments, a large anthropomorphized reptilian soldier appears monumentally from the shadows of the doorway and aims his fearsome looking firearm onto the crowd. He shoots. At least twenty humans are instantly turned to cinders. The humans panic and flee en mass, although a group of anthropomorphized alien reptilian soldiers emerge from the warship and chase them on foot. All about the city, the alien craft are terrorizing, not to mention killing off the general population, turning human artifacts into piles of ash in mere seconds, and causing untold millions of dollars in property damages, for which their insurance agencies would not be likely to so readily pay. A large alien craft appeared over the park and promptly defaced the city property with a large, concentrated beam of light emitting from several unnecessarily lavish cannon-like protrusions on the airborne ship’s hull. The park burned, thousands died. The bank was taken over by an army of the reptilian soldiers whose armour plating rendered them immune to bullets and similar projectiles. Millions of dollars were stolen and everyone they found in the bank was killed; the aliens being not in the least bit merciful. The human resistance against the invasion was futile, as all about the world; the warcraft burned entire countries to dust and wiped civilizations from existence.

Otherwise, the aliens, as the humans knew, could never be stopped. Everyone lived in fear, never knowing if the aliens would destroy their city next. Indeed, they would not have ever been stopped, and the human race extinct from the earth, had one day, the leader of the highly advanced anthropomorphized alien community not contacted one of the last, most significant human colonies left on earth—New York City. The aliens were willing to compromise their invasion of the earth if the humans could meet but one request, which would be demanded in person from the general of the alien army. The human race was jubilant, though they didn’t know what the alien general might ask of them, it was a certain victory nonetheless. Indeed, if they had actually known what his request was, they would not have been so jubilant.

The massive warship lowered slowly over a small patch of suburb in New York. A cannon appeared at the bottom of the ship, and emitted a large rectangular beam of light just below it. Thousands were killed in a heartbeat as several blocks of buildings and structures all crumbled to ash, leaving the earth completely flat; cleared for landing. The reptilian general crawled out from a small hatch in the front of the warship. He looked out to the horizons of the flat, barren wasteland, that just moments ago, had been filled with thousands of humans, going about their filthy affairs. He shuttered at the fact.

Just on schedule, a CH-47 Chinook came into visibility over the horizon moments later. It landed about 200 yards from the alien warship. A door opens and 3 men wearing onyx black suits step out from the helicopter. They made their way over to where the general awaited them.

“Hello Earthlings. I am Zecharike from the distant planetary civilization of Nibiru. For millennia, we have closely observed the habits and customs of you humans.  For millennia we have waited in anticipation for the day we could scrape your people off this planet like the moss off the bark of a tree. If my intelligence serves me correct, you would be President Nader, yes?”

Ralph Nader nodded.

“You are Correct.”

“Very well then. If the people of your kingdom can satisfy for me this one request, we will return from whence we came and will never bother your kind again. The human race will be spared. However, if you cannot grant me this one object that I so desire, I shall unleash upon you the most terrifying weapons of our arsenal; the earth itself will crumble into a fine powder and I shall see to it that every last human will die the most horrifying, painful, most atrocious, the most gory, and undignifying deaths utterly conceivable, that is, if you fail to acquire for me this one object.”

Ralph starred up at the alien general, who was well over nine feet tall, decadent with armour gleaming with the lustre of an unearthly metal. The sun burned the corneas when one starred directly at its reflection in the creature’s breastplate. The general’s skin was much more of a pale and aged hue, contrasting the bright red and green tones of the other soldier's. He was indeed a fearsome sight probably to god himself.

His presence reeked strongly of death. The only sentiment Ralph Nader and his bodyguards could feel standing before him was of death and of decay. His presence was so frightening, so otherworldly, so inhuman, yet the only thing it all amounted to was the strongest awareness of mortality that any man could have possibly beheld.

Ralph looked straight up at the general’s eyes and vomited a bit into his mouth. He knew that the menacing creature could kill him in less than an instant. It took but a mere whim for his finger to pull a trigger on something, pull a pin on another, or to give the order for one of his men to do the same, and kill the three of them without the slightest repercussion. The thought that he had been responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people yet chose to spare the lives of the three humans in front of him both confused and frightened Ralph Nader. He refocused his train of thought back to the Alien’s pending request. He whimpered vaguely, barely summoning the composure to form his softly spoken words.

“What is it?”

The alien general responded:

“I would like from you the sum of 999999^999999999 trillion United States dollars, delivered to me all in discreet un-marked bank notes. You have until the end of the day!”

At first, Ralph wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Alien’s request. Why this advanced race required human currency was indeed baffling, though he figured that should the alien species require money, any of the remaining mints ought to print for them whatever they wish.

“I want my money in 24 hours Nader, or mark my words, your kingdom will suffer!”

Ralph and his bodyguards called the Federal Reserve all the last banks, mints, and currency exchange booths left structurally integral in the United States; anyone that could possibly amass 99 trillion dollars by the end of the day.

“Why can't you just print tons of billions dollar bills Mr Greenspan?!”

...

“What do you mean it’ll cause inflation?!”

...

“No, what the fuck does Germany have to do with this? Screw you Alan.”

Evidently, Alan Greenspan was not willing to print the money necessary for the alien race to spare theirs. Seeing as though the country had just started recovering from a nasty economic recession (among other things), neither the mints nor the forgers were willing to contribute to the astronomic inflation that would inevitably land them into another one. Ralph Nader called his vice-president John McCain to discuss the fate of humanity.

“Oh Hello Mr. President, have you learned what it is that the alien bastards require from us?”

“Yes, they want our money John! It’s our money that they want for some reason, well over 99 trillion dollars of it! We can’t give it to them though because there isn’t 99 trillion US dollars and to print that much money would cause the inflation to inflate to the size of the bump on President Obama’s head... Sorry, that last bit was uncalled for. It’s really a shame what happened to Obama.”

John McCain interjected:

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, don’t worry about that right now, focus on the money Ralphy! You’re the president now Ralph, and now at last I am in a position of noteworthy power; second from the top, though a respected position of power nonetheless! Just let me take care of this Ralphy. I’ll have you the money by sunset, I promise. John McCain out!”

Just then, Ralph received a phone call from the economist Ben Stein.

“Ralph, you can’t let Vice President McCain print all that money for you. I’ve been talking with some of my fellow economists on Wall Street, and we’ve come to the conclusion that to drive inflation up by that much would be terribly unethical. We would descend to the likes of Robert Mugabe if you were to do such a thing. Imagine paying a million dollars to buy an apple Ralph!”

            Stein had been appointed by Nader as his chief economic adviser, much to the contempt of John McCain and the rest of his administration. Nader justified the fact by insisting on Stein’s extensive knowledge in the field of economics, as well as having the monotone voice that Nader claimed was safe at any speed. Ralph Nader enjoyed the roles that Ben played in many of his films, and bolstered his fan-hood of Stein’s acting career, going as far as making Ferris Bueller’s Day Off mandatory viewing in all remaining public schools.

“I must warn you Stein, the alien general seems intent on doing some pretty terrible things to every man and women left on this planet if we just leave him with nothing. We have to give him his money!”

“Is an existence were the economic inflation is so astronomically high really a place in which you would like to live? The American way of life as you and I know it rides on the backs of the economy. That sort of intervention you’re talking about is going to send us into a depression, the likes of which would make the 1930’s seem to us like Candyland! Please, I beg of you Ralph, call back John McCain and tell him not to bother about the money. Please.”

Stein’s arguments seemed indeed compelling.

Again, Ralph thought about his predecessor, Barrack Obama the Musulman. It was indeed a tragedy that had befallen him, he thought. Nader wondered what Obama may have done if he were still in the position he was in. How would Barrack Obama have both thwarted off an alien invasion and saved the American economy from collapsing in doing so?


Ralph then cautiously walked back to where the alien general stood, again vomiting a bit into his mouth when he made eye-contact with him.

“Mr. Zecharike sir, me and my kingdom were wondering, well, if you might consider to compromise your most gracious offer sir, that is, just by a few nine values off the exponents. Our pathetic lives, as you are most gracious in considering to spare, could only amount to you a few trillion dollars at most. It’s all we could possibly amass without its value going down.”

A grin, not of anger, nor of spite, though of pure sordid satisfaction slowly peeled across the reptile’s face, and it froze Nader into his stance with sheer terror. The alien aimed his long, black rifle at Nader, and then at his bodyguard. He shot. The bodyguard burst into flames.

“You fools! Just print it with your machines!”

“We’ve tried phoning around, but all the economists on Wall Street have been telling everyone not to print the money for us. They say printing that much would cause horrible inflation.”

“wtf? Inflation you say?!”

“It’s when the cost of goods rise to accommodate the amount of currency in circulation. Usually inflation occurs steadily and naturally over time as a population increases. However, printing the amount of money you’re asking for would make the US dollar essentially worthless to us. The Country of Zimbabwe, as I’ve been told, had a rather nasty acquaintance with inflation. But, that was before you, uh, destroyed all of Africa.”

The general shot Ralph’s other bodyguard. His body exploded, and Nader was flecked with the entrails of his charred and fragmented comrade.

“The same fate shall become of you if I don’t have my money by sundown! This shouldn’t be a difficult choice, just print me my money and I will leave you alone forever! Look around you Nader! Your kingdom doesn’t stand a chance!”

Ralph Nader gazed down at his shoes and noticed he was standing in the ashen remains of what appeared to have once been a house. He received a phone call from Ben Stein der jude.

“Hello Mr. President, I’ve been trying to find John McCain. Nobody has been able to contact him, though Sarah claims he is in the process of creating mass quantities of trillion dollar bank notes. We can’t let him do it Mr. President, for the sake of our way of life! Obama would have done the right thing!”

“You mention Obama! I’ve just been thinking that perhaps we should ask him?

“What you propose is preposterous! You know as well as I do that he’s been in a deep, vegetative state for the past 2 months!”

“Yes, indeed that was a tragedy, him falling down that massive flight of stairs like that. Did the FBI ever find out who pushed him down?”

“Not for certain, though a 2008 presidential election pin was found smashed to bits at the crime scene. I can’t imagine what that could have meant, but I feel that they did him justice by deifying him, don’t you? It was the least we could have done to honour his reign of prosperity.”

“But don’t you see Stein, that’s just it! If he is indeed a god, then he must not be constrained to his physical body and therefore able to manipulate objects in attempts to communicate with us. His divine omnipotence will tell us what we shall do!”

The attendant to President Obama’s physical body was Miss. Francon, an elderly woman for whom Barrack had a fondness during his tenure. She claimed to be a newspaper writer in her younger years. The both of them were concealed deep within Barrack’s diamond-encrusted Washington DC compound. She was in the midst of force-feeding the quadriplegic deity his dinner of mashed peas and squash when Miss Francon received an unexpected telephone call. Ralph Nader was on the other line and explained to her everything that had just transpired. He told her that John McCain could be the potential saviour or destroyer of American life-- or what remained of it anyway. He told her about the ultimatum and the alien’s threats with which they had been faced and that only Lord Obama could tell him what to do now. He pleaded with her to ask Barrack for a sign of guidance. She gratefully complied.

“Put the phone up to his mouth Miss Francon, I want to talk to him directly!”

She rested the receiver up against the pillow on which Obama’s head lay.

“Mr. President Sir, I trust in your most divine and holy wisdom and I just wish to ask you a quick question.”

No signs of life came from the body except the gentle beeping of the heart monitor. His face was paralyzed in the expression he had when he had fallen. Even his breathing was silent.

“Mr. President, I must trust your most holy insight into this particular political dilemma. As you may have noticed, an army of reptilian overmen have invaded our earth. As we haven’t been able to stop them by force, the only hope for humanity’s survival is to pay the alien race a ridiculous sum of cash, which if printed would surely cripple the economy much like your earthly form. John McCain is in the process of making this money, but we aren’t sure if he should be stopped.”

Suddenly, at the mention of John McCain, Barrack let out a faint moan, whose tone could have lead one to have construed to be made in despair. He made several violent jerks, reminiscent of a man wrapped in packaging tape struggling to break free. The heart monitor sped up.

“God doesn’t seem to like what McCain is doing.”

Miss. Francon set a lukewarm towel upon the President’s forehead and fed him another spoonful of mashed peas. His heart rate then returned to normal.

“Your Holiness, if you want me to give the aliens the money, please make another sign.”

Silence.

“Thank you Mr. President, I know now what must be done.  Miss. Francon, you have been most helpful.  Sorry to have disturbed Lord Obama during his mealtime.”

The alien General stood there, his rifle aimed at Ralph Nader’s forehead. His finger was gently stroking the trigger of the giant weapon and his smile, even more menacing than before.

“So what will it be human? This is the last time I’ll ask you-- are you getting the money or not?”

Ralph stood there on the barren wasteland with more conviction then he had before. He looked up and made direct eye contact with the alien for a good 5 seconds, more than he have been able to do so prior and proceeded to vomit the entire contents of his stomach directly into the alien’s ugly face. His eyes and mouth were painted with a spray of half-digested carrots and baked beans. The courage he had mustered and the relief he felt from unloading a good two pounds of Mexican food into the scaly creature’s mug spilled out in two monumental words. They sounded so resonant and so certain that it seemed as though Nader had spoken for the very first time.

“Fuck no.”

Appreciation for the Wondrous Nuances of the Historical Peacetimes Society and Art Gallery

Get off your asses and come on down to visit the grand opening of the AoTWNoTHPSaAG on the corner of Burlington Street and Victoria this Saturday! View in amazement at our collection of various oil paintings and pictures conveying the breathtaking excitement of all human history’s most memorable periods of peace. Photographs upon photographs of halcyon days in Soviet Russia and a decedent masterpiece by de Neville of a pretty little avenue garnish the walls of our building. Bask in awe at our collection of high-resolution photographs depicting a post-war Winston Churchill shaking hands with various world leaders. A hallway lined with all history’s most ruthless pacifist dictators make it worth the cost of gas to drive here. Please come, as we would really like to pay our heating bills.

Of Course, we also wholeheartedly invite all like-minded admirers of nonviolent history to join our humble society, because we believe peace is so much more inclusive than war. We will be offering complementary fair-trade coffee and sliced cucumbers to which you may help yourself. We strongly encourage you to visit this grand opening, as all the war museums seem to be disproportionately crowded.

Adult Admission is 10$, Children are free.

Come one, Come all!

All Hail the AoTWNoTHPSaAG!

Get Off My Property

Many times man has set up a flagpole in the dirt and claimed ownership to a piece of land. He declares that he, above all the denizens of nature is the rightful heir to this segment of dirt and rocks to which he has laid claim despite none of the land’s qualities having changed; nothing is different about the land from when it was owned by nobody. The man will set up shelter on the land and cultivate its resources for his own gain, however the land does not recognize it is owned. The animals and bacteria, and flora and fauna do not beg forgiveness because they infringe on the man’s property. They won’t conform to the man’s laws and regulations, for they will not recognize his claim to the earth. Despite of this, He will beget and raise a family on the piece of land. The population will grow. Buildings and institutions form and scrape the clouds out of the sky, but the land will still not have changed. The borders he has established do nothing to keep the air from flowing in and out of his state, nor do the trees rip themselves from their roots and settle elsewhere to accommodate all the man’s roads, banks, and public housing projects. The man is preoccupied establishing laws and regulations keeping other inhabitants of this fenced-off corner of the universe conformed to his interests and respectful of these lines he has drawn in the dirt. Meanwhile, the sun shines down on the grass and the maple trees absorb the sunlight and turn the nutrients into sucrose which they use to live. Deer eat the maple trees and cows eat the grass and are thus consumed by wolves and boa constrictors. While beneath them, the land remains as it had been before it was owned, and shall thus remain until the buildings block the sunlight from the sky.

Discordance

The parent’s council of St. Patrick’s Elementary School had gathered in the basement of the local parish to stroke their egos in yet another inconsequential meeting they deemed necessary to upload their Moral code. The folding chairs were lined into eight rows, divided into an alley in the middle, resembling a chapel. Flies, both human and insect sipped on the coffee used as a petty financial sacrifice by the council to attract a few otherwise socially reclusive organisms to their cause. The cups were paper with foldable handles on the sides. From a distance they resembled porcelain coffee mugs. The speaker was mounted upon a wooden platform in the forefront of the room. He was a stout, balding man wearing an expensive polo shirt and a timid, monotone address. They sipped on their coffee and listened half-heatedly to his announcements: a dead cat, a lost bicycle, nine bake-sales, and a divorce.

“Who is going to contribute to the bake-sale for Father Stevens’ birthday next week?”

Raoul thought that it was not his place to contribute to another fucking church bake-sale. He had nothing personal against Father Stevens; indeed, the sermons he had given when the Patriots weren’t playing on FOX had been rather enjoyable. It was just that his wife Mary was going through menopause and vehemently reiterated that if those cunts at the church wanted any more baked goods from her they could retrieve them from her septic tank. He was in no place but to comply from her. Mary snatched at Raoul’s sleeve.

“Don’t raise your hand Raoul or I swear I will cut your penis off and bake that for them!”

Raoul shook himself free. “I wasn’t going to! You shouldn’t use profanity in the house of god.” he whined.

The council lowered their hands as they had otherwise not heard Mary’s exclamation. There were four volunteers. The monotone bald man gathered his papers and stepped to the side as a figure in a dark suit walked over from the left of the room.

“Thank you parents for coming once again to our weekly council meeting. I would like now to turn our speaker over to Mr. Woodward.”

Mr. Woodward stepped onto the stand. His audience applauded nonchalantly. Mary looked away from the hypnotic swirl of her coffee. She thought that his name sounded familiar. Mr. Woodward had never spoken before any of the parent council meetings she had previously attended, but she swore that she had heard his name before.

“Thank you Jim for your address. I have come before the Parent Council of St. Patrick’s Elementary School today with news of a horrible trend that has ensnared our precious youth.”

There was a feedback of whispers among the audience. Raoul shoved Mary to get her attention.

“A horrible trend? Listen Mary, something has ensnared our Kelly!”

She wished he would shut up.

“There is a musical genre that few of you may know about that is teaching our children to worship Satan and kill one another in bizarre, autophagous rituals. Although it is contained in an obscure subculture, I contend that no children are safe from the dark influences of this dangerous music.”

The man had a cold stoic face that looked worn with age, like boot leather. His hair was slicked back, coloured dark, though it was evident to most that he had dyed it from its natural grey. He leaned on the pulpit with the desperation of a man exhausted beyond composure. His suit was dark. It likely hid various stains. Mary took another sip of her coffee.

“This musical genre that I speak of is called black metal.”

Woodward hinted for the lights to be turned down and projected a menacing photograph of Count Grishnackh onto the screen behind him.

“This music is crafted from the pits of hell itself, it is the...”

Johnny Interrupted.

“Excuse me, but what evidence do you have to prove that this black rock music is as bad as you say it is. Are you a doctor or something?”

Johnny was the father of a boy named Bruce, who was known to be the closest child to resemble the archetype of a school bully. He had been suspended countless times for his trivial acts of delinquency; exposing himself to the classmates, asking distasteful questions about the human anatomy, etc. Nobody at school liked Bruce. Nobody liked Johnny either.

“I used to be a black metal musician myself, so I believe I have full authority to make you aware of its dangers. It has destroyed my hearing, my ethics, and my soul.”

Mary was perplexed by the old prune of an orator the council had allowed to waste everyone’s time with his nonsense, there was a certain familiar quality about him that Mary couldn’t quite discern. Woodward changed the slide on the projector to a photograph of a church immolation.

“As you can see, the music has a history of violence towards religious affiliations.  The members of these black metal groups are murderers and psychopaths.”

He changed the slide to a picture of Per Ohlin. Johnny interrupted.

“I’m sorry but this is a load of shit! Music is clearly nothing we need to be afraid of anymore. I grew up listening to rock n’ roll bands and there is nothing wrong with me!”

Johnny made a face by pressing his lower lip outwards and glaring that neither looked like a frown nor a snarl. He shook his fist at Woodward and motioned for him to leave.

“Rock music has not changed since I was a kid!”

“That used to be my philosophy sir, but rest assured, black metal is a genre that defies all the artistic elements and conventions of typical rock music. There are dangerous chords being played here that children should not be exposed to.”

“Then let’s hear some of this devil music then, shall we?”

There was no response from the crowd to the exchange between Johnny and Woodward, as apathy is not usually considered a response. Mary watched Woodward attentively as he grabbed a CD player from below the wooden stand. He reached into his waist pocket and held up a compact disk.

“I will now play for you the orchestrations of the black metal band Mayhem.”

He pressed play. As the music commenced, the most devote churchgoers among the lot of parents burst into flames upon the first dissonant strings of Cacophony erupting through the speakers. Johnny screamed in agony as the flesh melted in a cascade off his skull and into a pool on the floor. The flames died down with the music and only Woodward and Mary were left unscathed. She stood up from her folding chair and kicked the ashen remains of her husband into a cloud.

“I remember who you are now.”

Mary had said it almost as a statement of fact, as if Woodward had already known.

“March 20^th, 1992, Oslo. You were the guitar player of that band.”

“Black Jesus.”

“Yes, and you...”

“I fucked your brains out. You were the hottest groupie I ever slept with.”

“Is that why you came back, to save me from this hell?”

Woodward placed the CD player down and pressed the pause button. It had already started playing the next track.

“Yes. It is. Now how about we go back to Norway together and burn down some more churches. I think the Catholics just built a new one in Hammerfest.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Hugo

                 With a grand, perhaps almost foreboding entrance into the Jackson Square food court, reminiscent of a thick cumulonimbus cloud billowing just before a new-found horizon, thus looms Hugo; the utmost bane of cardiologists and nutrionists the world over. A thickened plate of petrified bacon grease and high-fructose corn syrup envelop the motorized scooter that propels Hugo forward, beyond the terrified and utterly confused stares of Hamilton’s more well-fit citizens (the sorts of people who will almost certainly never conceive of the joy and sheer unbridled glee that overtakes oneself during the consumption of fourteen Big Macs with extra mayonnaise). Burger King cashiers recoil in disgust at the shapeless mass, possessing the collective weight and appetite akin to that of the Oakland Raiders stood overshadowing them. Perhaps they would even have been able to serve him; had his order not been so lengthy, or better still, if they’d even stocked enough inventory sufficient to accommodate him. Any sane mind would deny that a man of such self-destructive a conscience would be probable to exist, and if he did, it would truly be one who had to despise himself, but there loomed Hugo, the epitome of this law, a creature of such ill taste and gross, debilitating negligence one would think utterly improbable, but alas, we behold Hugo.

                Begotten by mystery and shrouded in salami grease, Hugo’s appetite was responsible for 7.5% of the net earnings of the Food Festival food court in the heart of Jackson Square. Hugo was an addict, the drugs of choice for him being French fries, cheeseburger combos, double cheeseburger combos, rice, triple cheeseburger combos, KFC, and Chinese food (just for the sake of multiculturalism). Every morning, the 850 lb. behemoth would arise monumentally from slumber to pay the daily debt of his consumer obligations. He ate day and night, holiday and weekend; bulk tubs of cookie dough ice cream were relentlessly devoured during the thick, sweaty summer months, whilst Hugo’s fangs sunk deep into whole rotisserie chickens when it got really cold out (provided courtesy of Swiss Chalet). Poor Hugo was confined to a rascal scooter, after decades of binge eating took its inevitable toll of his knees, which upon giving up on supporting the absurd mass of lipids any longer, thus rendered useless. Hugo ate, and ate, and ate, and ate, and ate; yet despite of this fact, He was relatively empty inside. You see, Hugo (as he was known) knew nobody, and of course nobody knew Hugo. Nobody wanted to hang out with Hugo, nobody wanted to get drunk or smoke pot with Hugo, and of course, nobody wanted to take fistfuls of MDMA and rave for seven hours to Yolanda Be Cool songs at the London Tap House until revived by paramedics the following week with Hugo. Hugo just continued to eat and grow. 

His only other companions were the other variously crippled and insane people who add a much needed flavour to Hamilton’s Downtown core (and if I must say, do a mighty fine job scaring away pesky tourists). The crazy man who has conversations with the plush Maple Leafs doll he carries around with him, the schizophrenic women on the 5A Delaware bus who looks like the female version of Quentin Tarantino, the bearded man with the trench coat who talks to pigeons at the Public Library, and of course, all the other sorts of various beggars and minstrels who linger about on the corner of King and James; these were Hugo’s only friends, the only ones he talked to, the only ones he hadn’t already eaten (and it’s probably safe for us to assume that the aforementioned lunatics don’t taste very good). Diabetes would have claimed Hugo’s entire left leg, had he bothered to show up for the surgery three years ago, and upon hearing of the procedure, slipped into a deep depression, in which he consumed 5 more than his usual 12 cheeseburger combos a week. Some say Hugo has not feelings, no emotions, no desires; his only urge is to eat, and eat, and eat.