Meat
April 12th, 2008 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I find out that I have a new class this afternoon. It lasts about six hours and is about video games, which is frustrating because I don’t even like video games.
There are many other problems with this class:
- It conflicts with my hours at the Writing Center. I will deal with this later.
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It requires me to “stuff a dead squirrel into the compost so that it decomposes to the point at which it will make belching noises when poked.” I must also make some large slabs of meat decompose. While stressing out about this requirement, my female friend offers to take care of it for me. She finds hunks of meat as large as a person and starts punching them. Punching meat makes it rot faster.
We need signs to keep people from eating the meat. For signs, we need paper. I run to the Writing Center to get paper. Running is difficult and requires all of my concentration. When I arrive, the WC is a dock. Fishing is going on; a fisherman guard stops me from entering. I tell him I work at the WC and he starts to let me by. A fat, old, naked man in a passing boat speaks to me.
not in order
April 12th, 2008 by Kris Skotheim; no comments
I am alone in my house. It is completely dark, and the floor is covered in broken glass and blood. A woman is lying dead on her back with her arms at bizarre angles. There is a knock at the door. I pick up my gun and jump through a smashed-in window. I tumble into the grass. There are headlights in the distance. Bullets spray from my gun towards the porch. There are bodies covered in blood.
I am in a large lecture theater listening to something about philosophy. Spiders are crawling over my toes. My assignment for the class is to give a presentation in front of the packed theater. It is due either this week or next week, I’m not sure, but I haven’t prepared for it yet. Nobody in the class does their assignments. Instead of philosophy we learn about how terrible we are for it.
I am with my wife in my house. The lights are off but there are candles lit and open wine bottles around. There might be a snake in the closet. I go to get something to put the snake in, but when I come back it has eaten her. Broken glass and blood on the floor. As it slithers past me it holds part of its body above the floor, like a slowly moving altar. My dead wife is on the altar.
I have not done my assignment. My professor is calling me to give the presentation, but I stay in my seat. Everybody leaves. I have done something terrible, so people are after me. The same people who took my wife. I tumble through the grass and kill whoever was at the door. More people shoot back, but I jump away.
date
April 11th, 2008 by Kris Skotheim; no comments
A boy at a fancy hotel asks me to dinner. I accept. I get lost. I really, really want to come but I can’t find the restaurant.
some wars
April 7th, 2008 by Kris Skotheim; no comments
I am hanging out with the prince of Germany on Bainbridge Island. He’s pretty cool. We decide to walk down the road to run some errand. On our way, we see some uniformed soldiers marching in rank and file emerge behind some trees. They have muskets and dark green uniforms. There seem to be a few hundred of them. The prince grabs my arm and pulls me out of the way, behind some bushes. From behind a hill emerge another army dressed as the British royal guard, waving swords and bayonettes. Some of them are on horses. The two armies yell at eachother, then the British charge under a hail of gunfire at the green-coats. There is much chaos.
The prince pulls me away, into some other property which soon becomes a large University. It seems that the British have won the battle and are continuing to march in the direction we chose to run. The prince finds two swords and gives one to me – there is a strange, thick wire which wraps around the entire university which I am to follow and sever at every hundred meters or so. I do this, running, and come across nobody else in the process. There are a set or steep, wide stairs at the end of the wire that look like something you might find on an Aztec pyramid. The prince catches up to me, wiping blood off his blade. He tells me to run and, if possible, escape the impending battle. I do so.
I run through deserted squares and courtyards. The buildings, looming over me, are all simple geometric shapes and built with the same bricks as the roads and squares are. Finally, I see somebody in the distance who appears to be looking intently for something. I approach him, but he grabs me and drags me through a large wooden door into some sort of warehouse (It would seem that the thing he was looking so intently for was me). Some soldiers pack me into a large shipping crate already stuffed with people and shuts the door. There is no space even to move an elbow.
The crate is full of young men and women. Some are kissing, but it is difficult to see exactly what is happening in the dark. I feel awkward to be surrounded by so many couples while I, myself, am quite alone. As I am thinking this, one girl grabs me and locks her lips onto mine for just a moment. She gives me a soft, gentle kiss, then looks me in the eyes. Another girl grabs me and kisses me in a much more unpleasant fashion – her mouth is dry and her tongue lumpy. I realize that we will all probably die as soon as we get out of the crate.
A voice is heard over a speaker. It says, in German, that the enemy is invading and that we have been conscripted to repel them. Some of us have rifles, most do not. The doors open and everybody rushes out all at once. I realize I have a rifle, but I have no idea how to use it. The man who grabbed me runs in one direction, opposite that everybody else seems to be running. I follow him. I find myself in a narrow street connecting two much larger, parallel ones. Both of the large streets are packed with soldiers in gray uniforms running and screaming at, I imagine, those who I was locked in the crate with. There seems to be little resistance. I try to hide, but one soldier sees me and starts walking down the narrow, dark alley. He is chuckling and limping, sometimes calling out to me. The little light there is in the alley flickers across his deformed face to reveal a sinister, toothy grin. I fumble with my rifle but have no idea what to do to make it work. Something clicks into place, I point it at him and pull the trigger – suddenly, he is dead. I grab his coat and run out into the main street with the other soldiers who, I can tell by their accents, are Russian.
We end up at the steep stairs where I last left the prince. I can see him at the top of the stairs, but he is well concealed. I break away from the main group of soldiers and run up to him. At the top, there is nowhere to go – only a door locked from the other side. Some of the soldiers at the bottom of the stairs realize what is happening and line up in preparation for a charge. The prince calls down to them, explaining how if they do that they will all die. From the summit, the Russians at the bottom seem to be no bigger than ants. About a dozen of them start to charge. The prince loads about twelve bullets into his rifle, then methodically and quickly shoots them all. The dead soldiers look like ants in little puddles of red paint. He tells me to start shooting.
My rifle has become bizarre. It is not symmetrical anymore, and the trigger is at a strange angle. There is something bulbous where I would naturally put my hand. I shoot at one of the ants that seem to be staying still, but nothing happens so I assume I miss. I try again – this time, a little puddle of red paint appears around them. I find the fattest ant of them all, thinking he will be easier to hit. I shoot, but instead of a bullet my gun fires a seed. The seed implants itself next to the soldier, then grows up and grabs hold of him, rendering him immobile.
From behind the locked door at the top of the stairs emerges one of the girls who was in the crate with me earlier, the good kisser. She has a rifle, too, and lays down next to us to help with the killing. She smiles at me, I worry that she will be shot, and wish that our only escape route hadn’t just locked itself again.
After a very long time, the soldiers seem to be thinning out. The few remaining retreat to regroup. i hear a low, quiet drone, which is slowly getting louder. A space ship, or something, appears above the soldiers. It is unclear what it is doing but it is clear that it is the enemy. I fire two seeds, my last, into the turbine at the rear of the ship. Nothing happens, so the prince tells me to go find something heavier. I find him a lead pipe, which he throws at the distant turbine with absurd strength, but just barely misses. The space ship seems to realize what we are doing and turns around, pointing its dense arsenal of firepower directly at us.
The prince confides in me that we are out of bullets. The remaining soldiers start to charge.