It wasn't that he didn't think things through. It was just that the deliberative process never seemed to yield the answers which informed his actions - most times it just wasn't done yet by the time he began whatever undertaking he was considering. And it was this fact that made him think that perhaps he was doing someone else's bidding, that perhaps all this thoughtful consideration was really just a charade, like a sweater put on a hog. But if that was true then who was it pulling the strings? Who was the Svengali? Who was the puppet master? He went down the list of people he knew that perhaps had benefited from some of his hastily conceived acts. Aunt Una certainly seemed pleased when he broke down and bought one of her pamphlets on safety with power tools; His friend Madge was only too happy to learn that he and his long time swimming buddy had decided that they just swam irreconcilable strokes. His brother Murtha certainly benefited from his decision to start wearing vertical stripes as he was gifted all the horizontally striped leftovers. And still he felt that behind it all there was someone or something pushing the buttons to make him do his trademark twirls. But all this was palatable, he reasoned, but what if whomever it was making his decisions showed a comparable disregard for reasoned acts - what if whoever was behind him was just as willy-nilly? How could he go on? How could he think of himself as anything but a pawn's pawn? And what is there for a pawn's pawn to do but...but wait, maybe he could take some comfort in the invisible intrinsic coherence of others' acts: maybe Lutz had a reason for practicing his jump kicks; maybe those geese had a reason for just staring at him like he was a piece of bread; maybe it all made a sense that wasn't his to understand. And he felt a peace that he'd not felt since he inexplicably began hording root beers.

True to his campaign promises, his first official act was to try to eliminate any laws of evidence and his purposes were elucidated and enumerated in his now-famous Fort Ticonderoga speech: trust: it is the cornerstone of every healthy relationship and what was an electorate if not a series of relationships - and what were the rules of evidence if not a formal cataloging of man's distrust for his fellow man, a veritable latticework of misanthropy, a codification of all that keeps us apart? So, he reasoned - and his reasoning is now thought to have catapulted him into office along with some vagaries about whether toddlers are allowed to vote - whatever one says in open court shall be taken at its word. If I say I couldn't have stolen those garden hoses because I was busy myself investigating the alleged victim of suspected cronyism then the scrutiny is rightly placed on them instead. If I say that I didn't throw plums at them at all but they threw them at me then my history of similar incidents leading to similar counter accusations is really not all that relevant. And if I say that I have never even heard of the term 'stewing chickens' then I surely couldn't have been able to fence them. For without trust, he admonished us, all is lost.

His conviction that his sense of proper punctuation far exceeded his peers was dubious enough but the fact that it was the only basis for his certainty that he was among the greatest writers of his day was just wrong no matter how fast he claimed to have wrote those - they're not prose nor poetry nor narrative nor expositive and it looks as if he was just writing down the things his speech pathologist had him repeat to overcome the stigma of his speech impediment. But still, bearing out the old adage that the poet's real work of art is his life , he spent his days in curious repetitions of altogether odd, though no less prosaic acts, be they: experimentation with his lifelong belief that one could stop a sneeze by forcefully rubbing one's eyeball; or pursuit of proof of his suspicion that the most erogenous part of a body is not among the popular choices, nor the brain as has been posited by more booky types than himself, but rather just behind the ear right about where a Labrador might happily receive your solicitations; or fleeing from suggestions that he floss more; or in invariably aborted attempts to breathe underwater by allowing water passage through his throat. But in the end, his mark was indelibly stamped upon the world, as his written repetitions were hailed by many as the ignominous end of communication and the beginning of a world where those afflicted with stutters and the like needn't fear anything but pillage by the hordes which stalked the ruins of our once great townships and shopping centers making sounds of their own choosing fueled by their now-inexpressible rage.

Perhaps, he thought, I'll just not think those thoughts - maybe no thoughts at all; for anything that can enter the mind without really making itself known is not really there - more like a ghost free to haunt all it likes but without recourse to typical tricks like hurling candelabras or blowing, like a draft, through the cellar or causing to be misplaced various articles not entirely essential for everyday living but certainly helpful including the salt-ternative, the October Reader's Digest, the just-bought lunch meats, or the lufa sponge: just a ghost condemned to live amongst the living able to walk through the door into the women's locker room but unable to hide towels. No thoughts at all, just the faint suspicion that someone's watching.

Loaves and Fishes: the story of one Christian woman's battle against yeast infection

Coming Soon!

As days turned to nights, nights became days again making the difference as semantic as silly as the Sun surrounded and silhouetted her leaving her sleek, graceful and equine as her decision became final, against suggestions to the contrary, not to call before digging. The impulse to dig had come as suddenly as its execution for why should the heretofore theoretical existence of buried wires call for any sort of forbearance that the far more real threats from the true owners of the land had - assuring her, as they did, that their retribution would also call for damage to her decorative landscaping. Really, she reasoned, there was probably already a parallel world where she had already begun digging; probably one where she was even done in addition to those of the sort of mystical mitosis perched in present potential as her digging would either run aground on the electric snakes or not. There was maybe even another world where her damn silhouette wasn't so horse-like, she thought, as the sudden futility of any sort of action in any of the infinite worlds instead inspired in her a brand of melancholy and a taste for fried rice.

Though his speech was erudite and eloquent there was just no getting over the effrontery of stealing a man's palm wine and then urinating that selfsame fluid, slightly altered, back onto that man's hut.

"They may bite you" he was often heard to say "but no one, but no one, can ever bite you in the teeth." Though his meaning was unclear, it was generally accepted as true and the children - so selected for displays of a willingness to work through common ear infections and predispositions towards cannibalism - were given sometime occasion to test its veracity as they tried to make plans for their evening without the guidance of hour or minute hands instead making use of only second hands, the evening weather report and makeshift wind sockets. The results were clear and if it cannot be said that they were running away from something they must have been running towards something else as they spent most of their time - understanding it however they might have - in fits of frenetic desperation or its intestinal equivalent. Such is the way of children made to do with just that which their parents had; for what could be wrong with parents and children in social stasis is just that which should be wrong with it: a perverse incentive to give your children something better by conception when scarcely ready to bear for little reason more than to make sure their implements are only 19 years old and not 27-33 and the fact that the satisfaction come by through experimentation with cannibal children will always be fleeting.

The villagers worked the while separating the corn niblets from the cobb only too careful not to drop one lest their punishment be swift, odorous and, by custom and law, self-imposed. They milled and spoke of the ways that it was different before the millennium though few could offer examples to help the claim apart from the fact that back then it seemed easier to find certain seasonal fruits and properly fitting pants. And still they spoke. “How are you?” they called out. “Not as good as the king.” they’d reply. They had no king and the meanings of the response were as mysterious as the practices of their Queen whom, it was said, believed, according to a prophecy of the local oracle/notary, that a challenge to her throne would arise from the east on a dusty day. The Queen kindly confused east with left and forever made people approach her from the right with their questions and suggestions at pains of death or public embarrassment by impugning their chastity or hand-eye coordination. The days were all fairly dusty and the nights passed with chilled corn cocktails. As the recipe had been somewhat lost in translation several generations back the cocktails never had any alcoholic-content though, it bears mentioning, people felt compelled, by the weight of history perhaps, to act in ways suggesting just such an influence if in no other way than slightly slurred speech (equally applicable to the corn chunks floating in the brew which all to easily lodged in what few teeth the people could claim their own). For who were any of them - humble to the right of the queen, to the left of their corn work and under the printed vault of a sky - to question history. Though historians have since suggested that the Oracle may have merely noted to the Queen that a change of address would slow the receipt of her East Bay catalogs.

I saw the sign that said you'd cobble shoes while I wait.
That's right we'll cobble them while you wait.
Ok, sign me up.
Well, it's actually less formal than all that; just give me the shoes.
What do you mean 'give me the shoes'?
What part required explanation?
I thought you'd cobble them while I wait.
And you were right to do so.
Well now you want me to hand them over?
Yes.
So, I'm to wait without shoes?
I'd just as soon leave the details of your wait to your discretion and tastes.
I can't wait with my shoes on?
Take all the time you like. When you're ready, hand them over. We're not changing oil.
Have you got a spare pair?
Only the shoes of others who, for reasons all their own, opted not to wait here.
Well could I put them on so I'm not sitting here like a vagabond?
I don't believe it's my place to make such an offer with another man's shoes.
Surely there's no cobbler's oath.
Sometimes it goes without saying.
Come on.
OK

[he gives him a pair of shoes]

[customer runs off with the shoes just as he'd done to cobbler's throughout the tristate area.]

Trace their airy orifices to their center and proceed and, slowly, you’ll reach the night-lit sky of their common struggles. Constellations trace the hairy hand that first lifted them out of their soupy stoicism. On the ground it’s business as usual as various grains, widely thought to enlarge the teeth so as to facilitate chewing, command top prices to be paid for in seasonal dishes or by money order. The problem of people coming to blows after disagreements over proper pronunciation has largely subsided after it was agreed that epistolary communiqués were a more refined mode until the letter carriers demanded additional deference to their decisions on certain matters including headings and physical education. And still the gears turn and the wheels crank and the antennas bow gently in welcoming the night’s programming and the telephones lie in their cradles because no one knows how to say what everyone’s thinking without sounding like a stew or a beet farmer trimming the horizon for borscht that won’t be eaten until the cabbage is done and the sun hangs like a head turned down to see if the smell traveled with heat and rose or at least to mind the curb. At this point it’s safe to say that they’re not coming. They never come and still it’s not always safe to say it for fear of reprisal. But just where they are is the sort of thing that anyone can imagine and most are probably right for they spread their tendrils with the sweeping certainty of a rat-bitten salesman come to peddle this the last, though finest, of his extension cords: freedom can be yours. And with it you too can do what you like but you ought not go that Hardy’s again. It’s their loss, but your shame, but their “wall of the banished”, but your picture sitting alone as you were when the police entered.

And you won’t get the report because it hasn’t been written

As the door opened, Jimpers couldn't have been more surprised to learn that Heaven was a place where unkempt types wore lined flannel and almost preferred not to speak to their Maker for the blinding light that punctuated everything He said, whether He was trying to be emphatic or not, opting instead for seemingly endless ruminations on how strange it was that it wasn't quite day and wasn't quite night.

Noodles the Cat had learned almost everything he knew from the Temptress Sheharizad but try as he did his attempts at her lustful ennui came off as little more than kitty hi-jinks.

Mavis was certainly sorry, but it was just funny the way a little beer always made her think of her late husband and how he'd said beer was proof that foam in all substances had curative properties. The laughter would soon stop as, invariably, she'd next be reminded of the tragic fate innocently staged as a mere foam enthusiast once again tried to treat his wet cough by eating styling mousse.

Cosmonauts, Uri, Vlad, and Uri, react to the news that because of strained relations with the U.S., Russia will be resuming the space race.

It's true: Michael Bloomberg is Margaret Thatcher for the new millennium!