Superbly Villainous

I wonder if it is appropriate to be daunted prematurely by the class list and itemized section of books I’m supposed to buy before they have even been discussed. I received two emails from my professors this morning with those things and, much to my distress, the old competitive rage erupted within me and I felt threatened on all borders like a polish president in the thirties. I wanted to mobilize immediately to stave off these foreign entities, to erect huge seawalls and anti-tank batteries on hilltops. I fought hard against doing this, trying my damnedest to remember that this is not a pissing contest but rather, a chance to receive help in my craft as well as help others in theirs. The Air Force, however, remains on high alert until further notice.

I suppose these lamentations are unnecessary and misguided, but if I cannot put them here where can I put them? And don’t say straight up my ass you cheeky bastards.

Also, as a P.S., I have not a fucking clue where this came from. As with all the things I’ve posted, it was written in one sitting while I drank coffee and listened to Sinch. Disclaimer over.



The seismic way in which my father walked through the house reminded me of a shelling in pictures of World War II. His feet arched over fallen toys, foot stools and wildly thrown legs, over discarded clothes and plastic soldiers whose bodies were broken in the hellish sandbox wars of the Back Yard, only to come crashing down in a land of toy trucks where the people would rather stay glued to their fake plastic seats than run for the safety of Batman’s cave nearby. Foolish.

Only the plush toys, much larger than their metal or plastic counterparts, survived such onslaughts mostly unscathed, something I blame on their incredible resilience. Only a truly superhuman entity could be crushed under fifty times their own weight and snap back into their original shape, their guts still intact, their eyes still light and genuinely alive in glossy black perma-wonder. Little do they know that I’m plotting to test their ability to regenerate, sharpening my scissors just a little each day to snip at the plushy fabric flesh.

“There can be only one,” I whisper to them amidst the scrape-scrape of the scissors against the stone, “I may not have been born with your immense survivability, but I know where you are weak. Tell me your secrets and I will leave some of your fibrous white blood behind to nourish what is left.”