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.