It had to be the bumblebee parachute. I wanted one with Hello Kitty on it but Al said no. Black and yellow clashed with the sky. That was important.

Good choice, given the photograph above. Man, I thought Lady Liberty's presence was so commanding that she'd always be the focal point. Not true. It's me and Al in our parachutes.

Yep. We landed on Liberty Island and there's a whole throng of well-wishers around us. Someone asks if someone watched that old David Copperfield special where he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Nuh uh. That was a long time...

There was a knock at the door. It was Theo, the kid from next door. He was only seven. Wearing nothing but blue jean shorts. Scabs on his knees. Feet filthy. Skinny as a broom. Darn kid probably hadn't eaten since Tuesday.

"You busy?" he asks.

"Kinda," I say, and hold up my crocheting.

Theo looks at the ground then back up at me. "Thing is, I'm hungry and I don't know where mom is."

I sigh. This happens all the time. I back up and let Theo march past me into the kitchen. I thought he was going to...

I shot my butler. His name was Greg. I shot him because I don't think butlers should be called Greg. They should be called things like Alfred or Jeeves or Cadbury or Pennyworth. Not Greg, who was from New Jersey. He didn't have a British accent. He lisped. And he was a dwarf. And his armpits stank. And he insisted on working naked. That wouldn't have been so bad if his scrotum hadn't been seven feet long so that it dragged behind him when he walked. True, it helped keep the marble floors a little more polished, but grandma kept...

there were roses of Blue Cross is everywhere everywhere I look I could see a blue cross suddenly I noticed that 1 of the Blue Cross is this a crescent moon this disturbs me a little bit because it interrupted the uniformity of the rest of the field of Blue Cross is I was all alone so I had no 1 to complain to which is why I am completing to you dear reader of my 6 minute story see that little crescent moon it looks out of place no obviously the crescent moon is there because it marks the...

We were sitting in the basement, Danny and me. Tv's on. Hockey game. Upstairs ma and pa is fighting again. Bills. Or pa's philanderin'. Didn't know. Didn't care.

"Hey," Danny says. "Let's make a mix tape."

I roll my eyes a little but I don't say no. The two-deck tape player is in the basement as is my whole cassette collection. I know Danny doesn't like most of my music but he does like some songs (The Beatles' Birthday, The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again, The Pointer Sisters' Neutron Dance.)

So we start making a mix tape. Danny, who is...

Kent was stabbing someone. I think it was Mary. Maybe it was Bill. I don't know. The important thing is that it was a person and he or she was in the process of being killed by Kent, who everyone called "The Guy Who Likes to Stab People." Once he tried to stab Tony buy Tony was wearing chainmail so it didn't work. Later they went for figs.

Kent finished stabbing the person, who then died. The person was red, slick with blood. I didn't know if it was a man or woman. When he was done, Kent wiped his...

Mrs. Johnson put the Cheez Whiz in her shopping cart. There was nothing in the cart but her jar of Cheez Whiz. It sat on top of the hashmark design of the shopping cart, basking in its cheezy glory. The lid was securely fastened to the jar of Cheez Whiz but later, when someone removed it, it would pop and the jar would yield its treasure of orange cheesy paste.

Mrs. Johnson pushed her cart of Cheez Whiz through the store. People smiled at her because she was well known in her town. "I see you're buying some Cheez Whiz,"...

The fat girl at Kentucky Fried Chicken touched my forehead with the palm of her hand. Her skin was oily and she had pimples. There was a green fungus growing on one armpit and I knew that when she was in junior high, she played the trombone. But I let her touch me anyway.

"You are not where you belong," she said. "You are not doing what you are meant to do."

"What am I meant to do?" I asked. "I know it's not to be a porn star because that would mean getting laid and that is something I...

"Let's go for a walk," I said. "I have eaten the salami and now I have strength and you girls need to find sex partners so you will not be frustrated by your inability to satisfy your sexual needs."

"Yes," one girl said. "Let us go for a walk."

And so we went for a walk. Here is how we walked. We put one foot in front of the other. We kept doing this and eventually, we covered distance. I was wearing boots. The girls were still naked so they were in bare feet. I looked at their bellies, which...

I stepped into the bathroom, which was green. There was a tape player and it was playing Chinese gongs. There was a salami in the bathtub. The salami was wrapped in that white netting stuff that they wrap salamis in at the salami wrapping plant. There was a toilet too and the toilet was filled with pee and poo and used tampons.

I was still hungry though so I started eating the salami.

"Are you grossed out because of the pee and poo and tampons in the toilet?" one girl asked.

"Both of us are members of Greenpeace," said the...