Yesterday was May the Fourth. It's not a holiday, but apparently it means something to a certain subculture of nerds. It's Star Wars Day. The day in the year when I'm reminded of George Lucas' contributions to the world and and have no choice but to give thanks to the fact that, while my circumstances may seem grim at times, and my contributions to the world appreciated less than I'd like them to be, at least I'm not also a Star Wars fan.

I actually had a collection of Star Wars toys when I was a kid, because I thought they were neat. I didn't give a flip about the characters, I just thought, you know, robots and lasers-- what's not to like? I was a twelve year old boy, and I'm pretty sure that if somebody asked me to name what my favorite things were I would have said robots and lasers and also snacks. That was probably the most I could come up with off the top of my head.

When I was older, I saw the films.

I didn't quite get them. I thought they were boring, and slow, and had that sort of “THIS IS AN EPIC STORY” manufactured self-important tone behind the writing that I find so tiresome in all things fantasy (For that reason I still can't get into Game of Thrones).

Which was... really fine. I didn't get Star Wars. Everyone else liked it...I had the action figures, cool. I didn't need it. I had The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is precisely 2²⁷⁶⁷⁰⁹ times better and more clever than Star Wars in my opinion anyway. Cool. More people liked Star Wars. Nothing wrong with that.

Things started getting a little weird after the prequel movies started coming out. You know. Episode One and all that.

You know how when a movie comes out, Hollywood starts flooding the market with cheap gimmicky merchandise to promote the movies, and grocery stores start selling movie-themed toys to kids in their checkout lanes, and T-shirts start springing up with the characters' faces everywhere, and generally a bunch of movie-themed crap starts flooding the market that everyone will forget about in less than six months? That same thing happened with Star Wars, except on a much larger scale, and it never went away.

The thing about Star Wars is that it's not just a series of films, it's a culture. People identify with Star Wars, and wear costumes of its characters to cons... and paint paintings... and build sculptures... and paint their trash cans to look like R2D2 (lookin' at you darlin'). People have made a culture of Star Wars. And what has anchored their culture? What has tied the culture all together? What is the one thing that Star Wars fans can find common ground with?

I don't think that question has a straight answer.

The one thing that Star Wars fans like about each other and can identify with is the fact that they're all Star Wars fans.

It's not because they like the films. It's not because they like the merchandise. It's not even one thing in particular. Just Star Wars exists... and that's it. People have built a Star Wars culture around the fact that people have built a Star Wars culture.

Star Wars, as content, is mostly terrible. The first three movies people liked, really liked even, but everything that came afterwards-- really, everything-- has mostly just been falling flat on its nose. Yet on the culture still goes.

Everything that comes out with a Star Wars logo in it is mostly a sleazy way of getting money from Star Wars fans. DVD box sets, TV shows, video games, comic books, more movies (oh god the movies... they won't stop). And the Star Wars fans buy them up. They keep the culture going. Even though Star Wars itself-- the actual movies, that is, the thing that the culture is supposed to have come from-- is nearly entirely sub-par garbage.

I'm not alone in this assessment. Even die hard fans and intelligent, loyal analysts bemoan the fact that Star Wars mostly sucks, and yes, even make the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, there's too much Star Wars in Star Wars. So why is the culture still so pervasive?

Because Star Wars, that's why!

And now, Star Wars has achieved a new level of corporate, soulless, money-grubbing sleaziness. It's been bought by Disney. The company that corporatized princesses, whose most original movie was actually stolen from someone, who sued a day care center for daring to depict Mickey Mouse without permission.

Luckily, I'm not among the fans. Now that Star Wars is owned by Disney, I simply have no qualms about shaming fans of Star Wars. It was a sleazy omnipresent cash machine before (despite its colorful culture)... now it's reached a sort of sleazy critical mass that is doomed to explode some day.

I'm luckily among those proud few whose favorite work remains untainted by corporate monoliths. My favorite science fiction world remains clever, so brilliant, that Disney wouldn't dare touch it or ruin it or anything.

OH GOD DAMN YOU.

I feel bad for Star Wars fans. They've been through so much. They've put up with so much corporate misery and mistreatment. The movies and comics and video games that come out are consistently terrible, and yet, despite it all, they truck along. More power to 'em.

That is, I would feel bad for Star Wars fans if I didn't want to give them wedgies so much.

(Apologies for the poor sources. It's late and I'm not in the mood for crawling around the internet looking for things related to Star Wars).

I also wish I could be more forthcoming about my plans and aspirations. This is supposed to be a personal journal, a public place for my thoughts where I can freely convey information about my upcoming projects and stories.

And I am working on such things, really. It’s just that I’ve come to realize how inappropriate it is for one to reveal one's projects when they are still merely works-in-progress. So I try to make sure I have something worth showing anyone before I reveal anything about it. Otherwise… it’s just talk.

The problem is, though, with my current work schedule, I’m having difficulty finding time to work on things.  Doing my job and things related to it takes 10-11 hours of my day.  I get maybe 1-2 hours of spare time on workdays (before I have to  grab some fitful rest), and most of that is spent unwinding and/or trying to forget the troubles I faced earlier in the day.

My weekends are different though. I get 48 glorious, unscheduled hours during which I can do what I like. And that’s when I get to do what I do best: writing the snot out of stories.

Or at least I would if I weren’t using those 48 hours to instead catch up on the many things I wasn’t able to get done during the rest of my workweek.

Unfortunately, at such a slow pace, I just can’t produce content as fast as some of my more favorite people on the internet.

I will work on that, though. If I can manage time itself, I could manage anything!

Ahem.

There is a project that I have finished and which is ready for the open world… which until recently was tied up with an online publisher that has since given me back distribution rights. That’s of course my novel Mister Mercury. Since traditional publishing is no longer a possibility for it, it falls upon me to take matters into my own hands and release it myself.

And that means that I’ll have to (gasp) promote it as well. That requires being more socially active for its cause, and be more willing to talk it up on the various social networking tools that we have regretfully found ourselves so hopelessly addicted to that we actaully make commercials like these.

It’s going to be an abrupt change, because if there’s one thing more reclusive than me in real life, it’s me… on the internet.

The first part of the plan is to update this site more. I need to talk less about myself and more about the rest of the world. I need to make reviews, talk about things and people I like, and possibly write a lot more about rabbits.

It’s going to be slow going at first while I get my bearings. But for those who have stuck with me all this time… well, thanks. There is more to come!

Here is the absolute largest thing: My novel, Mister Mercury, has been unpublished from Eat Your Serial. I've left the company on amicable terms with my distribution rights safely secured, and will still be involved with them from day to day, including being their official ebook consultant, and publishing short stories with them from time to time. They've been excellent about giving me back my distribution rights, and have even pulled the story from their website, taken it down from Amazon, and have generally been very receptive to my questions and needs. I can take Mister Mercury and do whatever I like with it now.

The past two years have been very exciting, nerve-wracking, and overwhelming, and I can hardly put it into words in a single post, especially considering the massive workload I have ahead of me. I think it's mostly been a positive experience, with a massive, sun-eclipsing caveat that is not by any means their doing.

It is thus:

Now that I have published with Eat Your Serial, Mister Mercury is no longer eligible for traditional print publishing.

The news came a few days ago and it was akin to being punched in the stomach by Mike Tyson in his heyday while being run over by a Mack Truck. When I first went into this, it seems the traditional publishing market, which I had been crossing my fingers and holding hope for, had not yet decided what to do about, or with, digitally published works. Now, it seems, they have come to decision.

They won't publish them.

Unless they've sold thousands and thousands of copies, that is.

Mister Mercury had a few devoted fans and had some very enthusiastic people behind it, but it did not sell thousands of copies. Which is fine. I didn't expect it to... not right away. Perhaps over the course of a few years, but not in the few short months it was available as an ebook. Apparently, that is not good enough for traditioanal publishers (and the agents who work with them), because now, the only way Mister Mercury will ever see the light of day with a publisher's seal of approval is if I sell the absolute snot out of it.

I'm prepared to put the effort into making this happen. But it will not be easy, by any means.

It requires a massive amount of work, which I'm prepared to do. It requires using social media, which I'm (begrudgingly) prepared to use. It requires reading, it requires writing, and most importantly, it requires time which, short of getting a time machine, I genuinely wonder where I will find. But I will get it wherever I can, even if I have to invent the Flux Capacitor myself.

I can no longer query agents, because they will not take previously published works. I can't submit directly to publishers, because most of them require agents, and also won't take previously published works. I wish I had known any of this before submitting to Eat Your Serial, or I would have held off on showing the world my work. But then again... at the time I started this, nobody quite had a straight answer for whether this would happen. The social network is changing things so rapidly that it has become one of those William Gibson singularity things. Too fast, too different, too unpredictable.

It's not been an easy few months for me. But it's not over yet. Mister Mercury will rise again-- if the world will have it.

Keep your eyes peeled and your fingers crossed-- Let's do this thing!

WE WILL TAKE THE WORLD BY STORM. AND BY FANCY SANDALS.

For a small while, I'm pulling my short story collection, The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower & Other Tales of the Weird. I say small, but in reality I have no idea how long.

I admit that a few of the stories in there are not exactly... "polished," or "ready," or "good." But some are, and I think I should try putting those stories in respectable places that won't reject you for self-publishing.

It won't work, of course. But at least I gave it the ol' College Try!

So I'm pulling it. It's already down from Smashwords, and soon it will be off Barnes and Noble, the Sony Reader Store, and other similar markets soon enough. You've got about two weeks to grab it while you can! Just look for it in Google or something.

And here's the cover again, just in case you forgot how awesome it is.

When discussing my lack of willingness to celebrate my birthday with my pal Valerie, she suggested that I might have become a Jehovah's Witness. They don't celebrate birthdays, apparently, because it's a pagan and/or Jewish ritual.

And since I'd been binging on that most excellent show Adventure Time recently (mayhaps a post about that later), and I had recently watched my favorite episode, the Hug Wolf, I immediately came up with the idea for the following short story. Valerie suggested I write it, so I did. It's silly and ridiculous and totally unpublishable, and that's how I want it.

I tried not to be too offensive against religious people in this one, so you should be fine reading this. Unless you're a Jehovah's Witness, of course. Sorry, that can't really be helped.

The WereWitness.

Giando Sigurani

The full moon is supposed to bring out the freaks. Crime rates go up, hospitals busy themselves with an increasing number of injuries and illnesses, and the world becomes generally more weird and dangerous.

I was not expecting to see an entire procession of Jehovah's Witnesses out and about on the night of a full moon, but then again, the Jehovah's Witnesses are exactly the sort of people who wouldn't give one Good God Damn about such things. I didn't know much about them, other than the fact that they seem really nice, that they somehow have that ability to make eye contact without actually looking into your eyes, and that they don't celebrate any birthdays, holidays, or, indeed, anything at all. So of course, full moons would be as absent from their calendars as everything else.

The Witnesses were in a small group of about eight to ten, tightly knit with an almost synchronized walking pace. When they saw me they smiled in their polite and harmless way, and started reaching into their pockets, presumably to arm themselves with Watchtower pamphlets. One of them, near the edge of the crowd, looked right at me. He was a bit more ragged than the rest, and was swaying oddly, with a weird grin on his face. He was sweating. It almost looked like he was ill. And then he lunged at me and bit me on the hand, drawing blood.

I knew they were Jehovah's Witnesses because they emerged from a local Watchtower church, entitled Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. I waved meekly as I passed them by. I attempted to slide harmlessly into the crowd, expecting to probably come out with a few Watchtower pamphlets and some empty-eyed but well-meaning stares in my direction, but instead I got something else entirely.

They smiled sweetly as I passed, and their empty eyes looked happily into mine. Or past mine. Whichever. None of it mattered at that time, because one of them decided to bite me.

The Witnesses weren't expecting that either, because they immediately fanned out in shock when they had witnessed one of their own attack me. They cast wide-eyed, accusatory stares at the attacker, and gave a veritable tidal wave of apology to me.

“... I'm so sorry...”

“... We are normally against violence in any way... unless forced into military service of course...”

“... John is new, you'll have to excuse him...”

“... Please, read our pamphlet for more information...”

I waved my hand to show that there was no harm, no foul. One of them seized the moment and placed a pamphlet in it. “It's all right,” I said, despite the trickling blood. “Really, I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?” one of them asked, sincerely.

“I'm sure,” I said, looking holding up my hand, which now had a Watchtower pamphlet skillfully entwined in its fingers. They were good, I had to give them that.

“Well,” one of them replied kindly, “We are really very sorry that John bit you. You can read our pamphlet for more information about how we're normally against that sort of thing.”

I took a look at John. There was something odd about him, even for a Jehovah's Witness. He had a look of apology on his face, yes, but I also saw- what? Reluctance? Fear?

Some kind of sense that he wasn't entirely in control of his actions?

“It's really okay,” I said. “It's okay, John. Don't worry about it.”

John squeaked, and then smiled. He turned around and the other Wittinesses followed suit.

* * *

That night, I felt ill, like I was running a fever, and the strangest urge I've ever felt in my life came over me. No, urge was not the word for it. It was a distinct non-urge... a complete attrition of enthusiasm.

“Hey,” said my roommate Jennifer. “Remember, we're celebrating my birthday tonight at the bar, are you coming?”

I'm the sort of person who jumps at any possible excuse to celebrate. Me and Jennifer frequently get into trouble, often drinking until four in the morning and waking up somewhere with strange hats on. But we always made sure that, no matter how intoxicated we might become, that neither of us did anything illegal, immoral, or dangerous. We looked after each other in that regard.

But something was changing within me. “No...” I found myself saying. “No... I don't feel much like... celebrating.”

Jennifer blanched at these words. “What?” she said, genuinely offended. “But... it's my birthday!”

I looked into her eyes. She flinched. “Don't look at me like that,” she said.

“What's wrong with the way I'm looking at you?” I asked.

“I don't know, you're just looking at me all weird,” Jennifer replied. She was clearly confused.

“Go have fun on your birthday, Jennifer,” I said. “I'm going to stay... here... and... not celebrate anything.”

Jennifer was visibly hurt. “Fine, jerk,” she said. “See if I'll come to your birthday next month.”

“I don't feel like celebrating that one either.”

Jennifer shouldered her purse and stormed off. I did not feel, at that time, that I had done anything wrong. Couldn't Jennifer respect my reasons for not celebrating her birthday? It was only a birthday after all. You know who else celebrated birthdays?

Only Herod, the traitor King of the Jews!

I do remember feeling something though, and it was not guilt or shame. It was pity. And I didn't feel it for myself, I felt it for Jennifer. I had this overwhelming sense that by celebrating the time of her birth with friends, she was missing out on something far more profound.

That night, when Jennifer was celebrating with her friends and presumably trying on increasingly more silly hats, I felt some strange sort of craving. I could not determine its source, until I fished around in my pocket and pulled something papery out of it.

It was a Watchtower pamphlet. I thought I had thrown it out, but apparently I had it with me the entire time. The craving lit up like a fire within me. Yes... there was something about this pamphlet. I must copy it... I must spread it... I must...

I must!

The craving within me reached a furious crescendo, and it felt like I was about to burst.

I passed out.

* * *

“Dude,” came a voice.

I felt a prodding on my arm.

“Dude,” the voice came again.

I groaned, and sat up. The speaker was Jennifer. She was wearing a sombrero. Near her were three other good friends, Mercedes, Jeffrey, and Paul. And in each of their hands were...

“What are these?” said Jennifer, holding up a stack of Watchtower pamphlets. She was visibly angry, practically vibrating with insolent rage.

“I... I don't know,” I said. “They're pamphlets I guess. Those Jehovah's whatsits... they give them out to everyone.”

“You were giving them out to everyone!” Jennifer nearly shouted. “I caught you stuffing them into every hand you came across.”

I did not know what to say. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You were all over the place, dude,” said Jeffrey.

“You were like a ninja,” said Mercedes. “Every time someone held out a hand, pow, pamphlet. No hand was spared.”

“You wasted all my printer ink,” said Paul. “Not cool dude, those things cost fifty bucks.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, standing up. I felt a toppling head rush as I stood; I was exhausted. Every joint ached and burned, every muscle seized and cramped. It felt like I had done a triple marathon the day before.

“Ouch!” I proclaimed, holding a violent pain that had suddenly flared up in my back.

“What's gotten into you?” said Jennifer. The anger had gone from her, and it was replaced by concern. “I thought you were an atheist.”

“I...” I said. “I am an atheist... I think.”

“Well, what gives, man?” said Jeffrey, holding up his printed Watchtower pamphlet. “Did you get bitten by a radioactive Jehovah's Witness or something?”

“No... I...” And that was it. I came to a sudden realization. I knew what I had to do. “I... I have to go,” I said.

“Not until you stop and explain yourself!” said Jennifer. She adjusted her sombrero in an affronted manner.

“I will... I think. I just... I have to do something.”

“You can't use my printer till you buy me another cartridge, dude,” said Paul.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'll get you another one... just... Just let me do this thing!”

I managed to escape them and flew out the door. I knew what I had to do. I had to find John, the frightened Jehovah's Witness who had bitten me the day before.

I came to the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, banging frantically at the door. An elderly Witness with kind eyes answered. “What is it, my child?” His eyes were kind, but he still managed to stare into mine as if there was something far more interesting dancing just behind me.

“I'm looking for someone,” I said.

“You have found him,” the Witness said. “God lives here, and He is all you need.”

I'll never figure out how the very religious manage to pronounce capital letters like that. “No, I'm looking for a person. His name is John. He... um. He bit me last night.”

At the mention of John, a spark of irritation flickered on the old man's face, which was immediately hidden by a glazed smile. “I... see,” said the old man. “Well, my child, I can't tell you the location of John. Because, my child, retribution is not a path available to a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Whether or not he bit you, I will not give you the opportunity to do something rash.”

“I don't want to do something rash,” I replied. “I just want to talk with him.”

“Oh?” said the old man. “In that case... I don't know exactly where he is. I just know he's spent a great deal of his time at the archival library lately.”

“Don't you keep church records or something?”

“We do,” said the old man. “But John... well, he was only with us for a few days, and last night, he quit.”

“He quit?”

The old man lowered his eyes in disappointment. “We thought we had found a true convert in John, so dedicated was he,” he said. “But last night, he said under no uncertain terms, that he was done with us.”

“Which library?” I asked.

* * *

The archival library was one-floored and small. It would be no trouble at all finding John. He was pouring over a dozen large, dusty, complicated-looking books that smelled as stale as year-old bread.

“John?” I asked.

He did not look up.

I sat down across from him, and at last he looked up at me. His eyes lit up in relief.

“Thank God!” he said. “I was so worried I'd never be able to find you, but you came and found me instead.”

“What's going on, John?” I asked. “What are you researching? What do you know?”

He held up the largest, most leathery, most worn of the books he had been reading. It had a drawing of a gigantic, bipedal wolf. The title, which was embossed in gold, read: Lycanthropy for thee scholasticallie stuntedde.

I gasped. “I knew it!”

“Yes,” said John, breathless. “I presume you had an interesting night.”

“Interesting?” I burst. “I completely avoided my friend's birthday party. She was so mad. And... I... Oh god.” I buried my head in my hands. “There were pamphlets. There were pamphlets everywhere!”

“And you knew it had something to do with me,” said John. “I'm sorry. I... I did not realize I had bitten you until after the deed was done.”

“I could see that,” I said. “I saw something in your eyes. Like you weren't in control.”

“Exactly,” said John.

“How did you find out about all this?” I asked.

“I'm Jewish,” said John. “Not practicing. I can't stomach matzah. But every month, on the night of the full moon, I kept finding myself joining up with the Jehovah's Witnesses and spreading pamphlets like the plague. A polite plague, but a plague nonetheless.”

“So that's what this is?” I asked. “The Jehovah's Witness religion... spread through bites? Like a werewolf? And it's the worst on the full moon?”

“Exactly,” said John. “LycanWitnessism.”

“But,” I said. “I thought they were nice. I don't have a problem with them... not even when they give me their pamphlets. Mosts atheists aren't okay with that.”

“I don't think it's their fault,” said John. “I'm thinking it's just the modern strain of Lycanthropy, evolved into something much different, so it can survive in these modern times.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, nobody likes wolves killing people,” explained John. “But who's going to hunt down a nice, cuddly Jehovah's Witness?”

“Point,” I said. Then a thought struck me. “Wait, Witnesses are allowed to cuddle?”

“I... Uh, well,” stuttered John. “I dunno...” he blushed and looked down.

“Well, either way,” I said. “The question is, how do we stop it?”

“I don't know,” said John. “Everything in these books say that the only cure is a silver bullet. But that's werewolves, not WereWitnesses like us.”

“We'll find out the answer,” I said. “We'll come here every day until we find a solution.”

“Good!” said John. “With the two of us, we'll have this cracked in no time.”

* * *

For weeks we tried to find out a cure for our disease, but we did not get anywhere. Not a single book in the library mentioned LycanWitnessism. So we turned to more modern avenues.

The Internet, however, was just as unhelpful. It seemed that John and I were the only WereWitnesses in the entire world. It was starting to become hopeless.

There were hundreds of variations of lycanthropy, with just as many cures. There was lycanitchthyism (silver fish hook), lycanmusculism (silver mouse trap), and even lycanlepidoptery (silver butterfly net).

“You hunt a wolf with a gun,” I said. “How do you hunt a Jehovah's Witness?”

“You don't! That's not nice,” said John. “They're still people, just like you and me.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Back at square one, then.”

Our symptoms took a while to wear off, but we were out of the woods eventually. After a few headaches and some bad mornings, I was able to celebrate with friends, I found no idealogical conflicts with war or blood transfusions, and I had no wish to print or distribute a single Watchtower pamphlet.

It had been a few weeks since starting research at the archival library with John. We were still in the same predicament as before, with no known cure for our affliction. When preparing coffee in the kitchen one morning, I happened to glance at my watch, and noticed that it was my birthday in less than a week.

I don't keep calendars, but Jennifer does. She has one pinned to the refrigerator. Like most calendars, it had the phases of the moon. I glanced at the calendar, and met with a shock.

The full moon happened to fall on my birthday.

“Oh no,” I said aloud.

“What?” Jennifer asked. She had found it in her heart to forgive me for my transgression on her birthday, but there was still some resentment in her voice.

“My birthday's next week,” I said.

“What do you want to do for it?” she asked. “Not that I'm going, you jerk. You missed mine.”

“I...” A terrible thought struck me. “I don't... I don't want to celebrate it.”

“Oh, come on, dude. Have you gotten old or something? You're twenty-six, for God's sake.”

I put my hands on my cheeks. “I have no desire to celebrate my birthday!” I said, with horror.

“You're weird,” said Jennifer. “I don't know what's gotten into you--”

I ran to her and grabbed her by her shoulder. “You don't understand!” I said. “You can't... you can't... you must make me celebrate my birthday!” I said.

“Dude!” said Jennifer. She brushed my hands from her shoulders. “What are you talking about? If you don't want to celebrate it, I can't make you want to.”

“Let me explain myself,” I said. “Now... listen.”

And I gave her a thorough summary. I explained about John, about the bite, the full moon, and the fact that I was a-

“A WereWitness?” Jennifer said. Her face was completely unreadable.

“Yes,” I said.

Jennifer's face remained inscrutable for a few seconds. Then, her eyes crinkled, and her mouth curled into a smile. Then, she burst out laughing.

She guffawed for two whole minutes, shrieking and slapping her knees. I thought nobody slapped their knees. I frowned.

“Dude,” she said. “Dude! A WereWitness. Wait'll I tell Mercedes...”

“No!” I said. “Please... don't tell anyone. You have to believe me.”

“All right,” said Jennifer, but I knew that she didn't believe me. “Okay, fine, I'll keep your secret. But you have to throw your own damn birthday party.”

“But I don't want to!” I said desperately.

“I don't know what to tell you, dude,” said Jennifer. “I gotta go to work.” She pulled out her phone and started typing on it. “It's gonna look like I'm texting Mercedes... but... um... well... goodbye.” And she headed out the door.

As my birthday drew closer, my symptoms grew worse. I thought in scripture and started smiling more often than necessary. On more than one occasion, I got comments about my glazed smile.

“Is my smile not... adequate?” I said to Paul one day.

“Bro, you're calling your smiles ade quate,” Paul replied. “Something's not right with you, man.”

“Strange,” I said. “I don't feel any different. Say, friend, won't you let me use your printer?”

“Absolutely not,” said Paul.

On the night of my birthday, I could feel the transformation taking place. Jennifer, Paul, Mercedes, and Jeffery were trying to get me to go to my own birthday party.

“I simply don't see the need to celebrate it,” I said. “It is a day, like any other before or after it.”

“C'mon, dude,” said Jennifer. “I've got something special for you.”

“There is nothing special about this day,” I replied.

“I knew he was going to be like this,” Jennifer said. “C'mon.” She grabbed me by the arm, an started carrying me. Paul grabbed the other one. “You're going to this party that Jennifer set up for you, whether you like it or not.”

“But... But I cannot celebrate my birthday! That's for Pagans!”

“Uh, okay,” said Jeffrey, prodding me out the door.

“No!” I fought. I could feel the WereWitness coming out in me. “I must not... not party!”

“Good, goooood,” said Jennifer. “It'll be fun, dude.”

“I need to... I need a pamphlet,” I said. I was starting to break out in a sweat.

“No, you do not,” said Paul.

They carried me down the road. We knew better than to drive on a birthday. You don't need to appoint a designated driver if nobody drives, so each of us was allowed to drink as much alcohol as we wanted.

We came to a building. There was nothing special about it; just a white brick corner building with a plain door. There was a very shiny silver sign hanging above it.

“What is this place?” I said with an edge of suspicion in my voice.

“It's called the Silver Room,” said Mercedes. “Jenn found it.”

“The... Silver Room?” I said. The WereWitness within me roared with rage. Well, not rage. More like worry and concern for the unfaithful. “No... I... must... not... go!”

“You're going and that's final!” said Jennifer.

I don't remember what happened next with very fine details. Jennifer, Paul, Jeffrey, and Mercedes shoved me into the Silver Room.

I looked around. Everything was silver.

There were silver chairs. Silver tables. Silver chandeliers, silver walls, even the bar was silver. The cups were silver, the taps were silver. I saw John's face as I stumbled in. He smiled meekly. And there was nothing glazed about that smile at all.

Then, I passed out.

* * *

I woke up with a pounding headache.

“Dude,” said a voice. I felt another poke on my arm. “Wake up.”

I moaned. I got up. Once again, I felt sore, but I also felt...

“My god,” I said, noting that I hadn't pronounced the capital G. “I'm... I'm hungover!” That could only mean one thing:

I partied.

And I did so because I wanted to.

“Sure are, party animal,” said Mercedes.

I looked at Jennifer. She was wearing a silver fedora and had silvery confetti in her hair.

“A silver birthday party,” I said. “Oh my god, that's brilliant.”

“It was Jenn's idea,” said Mercedes. “She told me all about your LycanWitnessism. We planned this party just for that.”

“You were definitely showing signs of a Jehovah's Witness,” said Jeffrey. “So we thought... Witnesses hate birthdays, right? Maybe a silver birthday party would cure it.”

“For... for me?” I said. My voice was quavering.

“And me,” said another voice. A shape stirred from the floor. It was John, and he was wearing a silver top hat.

“We knew that there was something up when you started running my printer for those stupid pamphlets,” said Paul. “We knew you weren't yourself.”

“You were sick with something,” said Jefferey. “And you know how Mercy is crazy for astrology. Of course she caught that it happened around the full moon.”

“Welcome back to party town,” said Jennifer.

I choked, and tears came out. Something fell from my head. Even with my hangover, I managed to catch and inspect it.

It was a silver porkpie hat.

I smiled a true smile, a pure smile. “Well, I don't know about you guys,” I said, “But I'm not done celebrating.”

Having a website is pretty pointless when you don't actually maintain it.

Making promises about what I can get to is probably not a good idea. I will say, though, that the reason that this whole thing exists is mostly to have a spot on the internet for people to come if and when my work takes off. The things I do to get my work off the ground- sending query letters and submitting short stories- are not exactly website material. As much as I'd love to make commentary, it's unlikely that I'll be able to do it on a regular basis with the time I have.

My current employment takes a large emotional toll, which means I'm exhausted when I get home and still tired when I wake up for work the next day. But I'm not going to complain about “fairness” or anything- that would open up a whole can of worms. I'm currently typing this on a device that probably caused deadly lead poisoning to the workers who assembled it,  drinking coffee that was likely harvested by slaves, and which is flavored with chocolate harvested by other, younger slaves.

But one of the things I have been working on is getting into a certain secret underground group of elite writers. Which required me submitting some of my previous work. Preferrably good work.

Well, damn, I just happened to have a previous short story- which fit the criteria exactly in length and genre- which was read and enjoyed by thousands of people across cyberspace!

But it needed to be perfect, before it was ready for submission to this elite group of covert writers, so I spent a month huddling over it with my good friend Valerie and my other good friend, Gmail chat.

That story is of course The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower.

It was a good story, according to many people, but it had a slow start. It began with two privileged white men talking about their lawn. Not exactly an attention-grabber. And not fit for submission for the aforementioned underground group of master writers.

So I slaved over it (probably not the same way those kids slaved over the chocolate that's in my coffee) nearly a year after its internet debut, and here it is. A revised The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower.

You are allowed to enjoy it now.

Go on.

I'm not stopping you.

The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower

Giando Sigurani

Alan's wife had described a building with ugly architecture, and Alan knew right away when he had found it. While the surrounding buildings were easy to look at with a pleasing desert motif, this one was painted a bright, obnoxious red. Alan walked up to the building and paused at the glass door, chuckling at the address printed on it: six sixty-sixty, Seventh Street.

He went inside. The lobby was completely and alarmingly bare. There wasn't even any furniture to sit down in while waiting to be seen: Just a single desk and a single chair, occupied by a single receptionist.

The room was red. The desk was red. The paintings hanging on the walls had red frames and held nothing but canvases painted solid red. The receptionist had red hair, and was even wearing a red dress and a pair of red glasses. No matter which direction he turned, Alan was reminded of flames. He felt like he had walked into a kiln.

He walked up to address the receptionist. “Um, hello,” he said.

The receptionist responded with burning silence.

“I'm here... um...” Alan continued. The receptionist pursed her cherry-red lips and her thin red eyebrows started to sink into a frown. “My neighbor works here. I just wanted to see if I could talk to him. He's borrowed something of mine, and I haven't seen him.”

“If he does work here,” said the receptionist rudely, “and it's doubtful, I promise, then you can't see him because he's busy.”

“Um...” said Alan, “Well, I need to see him. It's kind of urgent.”

“We're all busy,” said the receptionist. “We have a deadline we're trying to make with the firm on seven seventy-seven, Sixth Street.”

Alan could not remember anything about the office complexes on Sixth Street as he passed them by on the way over, other than the fact that the buildings were all painted blindingly white.

“His name is Lou,” said Alan.

“Definitely not someone who works here,” said the receptionist.

Alan hung his head forlornly, and reached into his pocket for his car keys. He felt something in his pocket that he was sure he hadn't put there. He pulled it out. It was a folded piece of paper: the contract that Lou, Alan's neighbor, had signed a week prior, stating that he promised to return Alan's lawnmower.

Alan handed the paper over to the receptionist. “He gave me this,” he said. “Do you recognize the signature?”

For a moment the receptionist did nothing, but then she reached out and snatched the paper from his hands impatiently. With complete disregard for the condition of the document, she unfolded it roughly and read the first few lines. Then, she screamed.

It was like the sound of a thousand damned souls crying from the very bowels of Hell in simultaneous and incalculable surprise. It was over in an instant, but in that small moment Alan's mind felt like it had been dragged across hot coals. Alan jumped two feet in the air from the sound of the sickening noise, and stared at the receptionist in sheer astonishment. She still had the document in hand, but her eyes were darting back and forth across the page in excitement. Something was bathing her face in light, and it took a few moments for Alan to realize that the light was coming from the contract itself.

The receptionist snapped her head up. Tears were building in her eyes and threatened to rain down. “Where did you get this?” she asked. Her voice was a strange cross of hopefulness and desperation. Alan thought it all so strange: it was just the written promise to return a lawnmower, yet the receptionist was treating it like it was the salvation of the damned.

“I told you,” sputtered Alan, still startled from the reaction of the secretary. “From my neighbor, Lou. I loaned him my lawnmower, and he promised to return it. In writing.”

“Lou?” asked the secretary. “Why do you call him Lou?”

It occurred to Alan that while Lou had lived next door to him for nearly two years, he knew very little about him, save the fact that he was polite, handsome, and seemed far too young to own his own house. “That's his name,” said Alan with a shrug.

The secretary got up out of her seat. There was a brightness in her eyes, and it wasn't a figurative one. They burned with the intensity of exploding stars. Alan thought he might go blind. “Well, your neighbor is not named Lou,” the secretary said fiercely. “He is Lucifer, the First Fallen, the Last Saved. He is the Prince of Darkness, the Father of Lies, and the ruler of Hell! Your neighbor, sir, is the Devil!”

Alan stood his ground. He thought about Lou, how he seemed so young and so successful. He remembered the tall man with the fake skin and the Hugo Boss suit, and the swarm of bees that could talk, and the fact that Lou had vanished without a trace and had taken Alan's lawnmower with him. And for these reasons, Alan thought, it made absolute, one hundred percent, perfect sense that his neighbor, Lou, was actually Lucifer, the Devil, the Prince of Darkness.

Alan put his hands on his hips. “Well,” he said authoritatively, “I'll have you know, ma'am, that the Devil still has my lawnmower.”

In response, the receptionist escorted Alan to an elevator that revealed itself when a regular-looking bit of red wall slid away. The secretary shoved him in roughly, and glowered at him. “Please hurry up,” she said. “We're almost done preparing.”

“What for?” asked Alan.

The receptionist just smiled, reached into the elevator, pressed a button, and the elevator door closed.

The elevator was also red. It had two red buttons, oriented vertically, without labels. The elevator only stopped two places, it seemed:

On the top floor.

And on the bottom one.

After the door closed, and the elevator started its descent.

It seemed to take hours. No fewer than ten times did it seem like the elevator would finally stop, only to accelerate again.Thus, he had plenty of time to ponder on how strange his week had been.

* * *

One week prior, Alan had found his usually chipper neighbor Lou in a state of distress. Lou was standing in his yard, visibly upset, inspecting his hedges critically as if demanding his shrubberies to explain their unkempt state.

“Hi Lou,” Alan said while retrieving his newspaper from the driveway. He was clad in a bathrobe and waddling in slippers, blinking at the sun.

“My yard needs work,” said Lou. “My shrubs are looking ragged, weeds are taking over and my lawn's overgrown. I thought I was a better caretaker than this.”

“Better fix that before the Homeowner's Association gets word,” said Alan.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Lou. “I tangled with them last week, and they fined me. Dealing with them is worse than hell.”

“I don't doubt it,” said Alan. “I hear our HOA's got lawyers for their lawyers. So what happened last week that they fined you?”

“Some damned kids performed a satanic ritual on my yard.”

Alan blinked a few times. “And the Home Owner's Association fined you for it?”

“They've never been lenient in the time I've known them. Didn't matter that it wasn't my fault.”

“So... what'd they do?” asked Alan with a humorous smile. “Draw a big pentagram on your yard? Cover it in trash? Sacrifice your lawn ornaments?”

“They built a stone altar and burned a lamb alive on it,” said Lou. “And to top it all off, they broke my lawnmower.”

There were a lot of answers Alan had been expecting, but that had not been one of them. “Uh,” he said. “I'm sorry, Lou. Sounds awful. I wish I would've been there to stop them. I've been working a lot of overtime lately.”

Lou sighed. “What can you do?” he said. “When kids get an idea in their heads, they just can't get 'em out. It doesn't bother me so much that they found me; the part that bothers me is that Levitcus 1:9 clearly states that burning lamb entrails creates a pleasing odor for the Lord. I guess they got the wrong Lord.”

“It says that in the Bible?” said Alan.

“It says a lot of things in the Bible,” said Lou. “It's three-quarters of a million words long. Depending on the translation.”

Alan and Lou lived in a gated community with dozens of cookie-cutter houses exactly like each other. It was extremely unlikely that any kids could break in and desecrate a lawn, but not impossible. The past few days, a doomsday cult had left its usual concrete compound and had been camping out just outside gates proclaiming the end of the world, and Alan would not put it past them to sneak in and pick on a poor guy like Lou.

“Do you think it has anything to do with those doomsday whackos?” Alan asked.

“Maybe,” said Lou.

“Bunch of crazies, the lot of 'em,” said Alan. “No reason to take it out on guys like you and me.”

“I wouldn't write them off so soon,” said Lou. “Someone's always proclaiming the end of the world, and you never know, maybe the world will end one day.”

“Do you think so?” asked Alan.

“One day the angels of demons of the world will get bored with life as we all know it,” said Lou. “And on that day, we're all in for it.”

“Umm, okay,” said Alan. He was about to go back inside, when he caught a glimpse of Lou's lawn. It was, indeed, in a pitiable state. “Your lawn does look pretty unkempt. I haven't seen it that shaggy before.”

Lou shook his head. “Those kids broke my lawnmower, and my warranty's expired. I knew I should have bought the extended coverage. A friend of mine got his tiller in 1802 and they still covered it when it broke last year.”

Alan chuckled. “Nothing's built to last these days. Tell you what. Why don't you borrow my mower?”

“That'd be awful swell of you,” said Lou.

Alan shook a warning finger at Lou. “But you better give it back. My wife doesn't want me lending out any of my garden tools. And my twelve-year-old son needs to earn his allowance somehow.”

Lou smiled. “If you want it back so bad, why don't I get in writing?”

“Oh, that's not necessary,” said Alan. “You've been my neighbor for- what is it- two years now? I know you're good for it. Besides,” he added, “I know where you live!”

The two neighbors laughed at the corny joke. Lou reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a piece of typical notebook paper and a pen. He started writing. “No, I insist,” he said. “I'd like to get it in writing. I sign a lot of contracts at my job, and I swear by them.”

“No fine print, right?” Alan joked.

“Those days are behind me,” said Lou.

Lou placed the piece of paper in Alan's hand, and Alan went out to drag his mower from the garage. He didn't even bother reading the piece of paper Lou had given to him, and simply tucked it into the belt of his robe.

Alan retired to his living room to have his morning cup of coffee and read the paper. His wife, Betsey, trotted in moments later. “Lovely day out,” she said, giving her husband a peck on the cheek. “Good way to start the weekend.”

“Can't say the same of our neighbor Lou,” said Alan as he took a sip of coffee. “Poor fellow has a lot of yard work to catch up on.”

“Poor man. I heard about the trouble he had last week with the altar. Some kids come by and wreck his lawn, and not only does he have to pay to fix it, but he had to pay the Association as well.”

“That H.O.A.,” said Alan, “I tell you, they work for the Devil. Charging a young guy like Lou for something he didn't even do.”

“Money is the root of all evil,” said Betsey. “I think it says that somewhere in the Bible.”

“I wouldn't doubt it. It's three-quarters of a million words long, you know. I loaned him our lawnmower, by the way.”

Betsey looked upset. “What have I told you about loaning our expensive tools to neighbors?”

“It's all right,” said Alan, pulling out the slip of paper from his bathrobe. “I got it in writing.”

“Oh?” said Betsey. “He actually signed a contract?”

“I insisted,” lied Alan. “Now he is required by powers far greater than myself to return my lawnmower.”

Betsey smiled. “Well, good,” she said. “I'm glad. Thomas will get to the lawn later, then. I don't want the H.O.A. fining us. Anything good in the paper?”

“Just another interview with those apocalypse nuts camped outside the gates,” said Alan.

“That's nice, darling,” said Betsey, and went out of the kitchen.

* * *

Alan watched Lou perform his yard work. He would have offered a hand, but he was tired. His joints were not like they once were.

Lou started with the hedges, pulling out a pair of sharp-looking shears. He gently trimmed each leaf with the care of an experienced botanist, sometimes measuring branches with a ruler. He took ten steps back to admire his work, and took a short break. After a few minutes, Lou emerged with a glass of lemonade in his hand. It was shortly after this time when a black car pulled out in front of Lou's yard.

The man that got out of the car to talk to Lou was... unique. He had a slick Hugo Boss fashion sense, a wide-brimmed black fedora, and a dominating swagger in his step. But there were things about that seemed off to Alan. His skin did not look right, in fact it didn't looked like skin at all, as if a talented artist had painted on a convincing mockery of flesh.

The man tapped Lou on the shoulder, and Lou almost jumped from surprise. The tall man began to speak, and Lou sipped his lemonade with one hand and put his other in his pocket, listening attentively. The two had a conversation that became progressively more heated with every moment. Lou started shaking his head violently and gesticulating so rapidly with his lemonade that he spilled most of it on his as-yet unmowed lawn. Finally the tall man quickly spun around, walked aggressively to his car, got in, and pulled away. Lou, obviously still upset about the encounter, began the process of weeding his lawn before the mowing.

“Dad. What are you looking at?” came a voice.

Alan jumped at the interruption. In his doorway stood his twelve-year-old son Thomas, leaning against the doorframe and glowering.

“Good morning, Thomas!” said Alan cheerfully, folding up his newspaper and pretending to look at a story on the back page, which was in fact a full-page grocery store spread.

“You're spying on the neighbors again,” said Thomas.

“I was just staring into space,” said Alan defensively. “I wish you would say good-morning to your father, Thomas.”

Thomas walked over to the refrigerator and violently plucked it open. “Whatever,” he said.

“Maybe you should be a little more appreciative of the people who house and clothe you,” said Alan gruffly.

Thomas withdrew an entire quart of orange juice and started drinking straight from it. He walked over to the bay window in the kitchen, through which Alan had been watching his neighbor do yard work. “What's so fascinating about Louis anyway? He's just so boring.”

“Watch how you speak about your neighbors!” snapped Alan. “And don't drink from the carton either! What's wrong with you?”

Thomas threw out his arms, almost spilling the orange juice. “Why do you have to talk to me like that, Dad? You're antagonizing me.”

“Stop talking to me like that!” Alan said.

Ever the angry pre-teen, Thomas turned around and resumed watching Lou. Alan angrily resumed reading the paper. He wished the child-rearing books that Betsey had made him commit to memory had mentioned this. Thomas has a mean comeback for everything, it seemed.

Thomas giggled. “What's so funny?” asked Alan, still gruffly.

“Looks like our neighbor has a bee problem,” said Thomas. “They're all over the place.”

“You're laughing about that?” said Alan angrily, getting up from the kitchen table. “That's not funny! He could get really hurt!”

“They're not stinging him,” said Thomas. “It looks like he's talking to them.”

“Oh, don't be ridiculous-” said Alan, but he stopped. It was true. Lou was indeed talking to a swarm of bees.

The conversation seemed just as unpleasant to Lou as the one with the tall man in the Hugo Boss suit. The swarm of bees maintained a cylindrical pillar shape, instead of a shapeless cloud. It contracted and expanded in controlled ways as Lou spoke, its bees displaying a wide range of flight patterns. The bees flew in graceful spirals and drifted into lazy loop-the loops; then progressed into urgent swoops and again into angry, jagged vibrations. If Alan didn't know better, he would have thought that the swarm of bees was trying to express itself.

Lou, apparently no longer willing to be buzzed at in such a rude way, angrily strutted towards Alan's lawnmower. With a single, powerful pull on the rip-cord, it roared to life. The swarm of bees, recognizing the battle cry of its natural and hated enemy, dispersed in a state of panic.

“Dude,” said Thomas. “That swarm of bees was fucking pissed.”

Alan resolved not to discipline his son for such harsh language. “Poor Lou. First, an overgrown lawn, and now, bees.”

“Isn't that our lawnmower?” said Thomas.

“That's right,” said Alan sternly, looking over at his adolescent son. “I've loaned it to him. The only thing preventing me from sending you out there with it to do our lawn is that Lou's broke last week.”

“Wow!” said Thomas, excitedly. “Maybe he's not such a boring, white bread, goody-two-shoes after all. Thanks Louis!”

“Watch it how you talk about people!” snapped Alan.

“Sorry, for being mean, Dad,” said Thomas, who turned around and started walking out of the kitchen, orange juice carton still in hand. “I'm going to go play video games!”

Alan sighed as his son left the room, and resumed watching his frustrated neighbor drag the lawnmower back and forth across his lawn.

Lou shook his head angrily, gritting his teeth as he forced the lawnmower across his lawn. The visit from the tall man and the swarm of bees seemed to make him quite angry indeed, angry enough that he was missing entire rows of grass with the lawnmower.

Alan resolved to give Lou a helping hand to cheer him up, but he wasn't about to do it in his bathrobe. He went to his bedroom and changed into a pair of ruddy jeans and a stained T-shirt. When he went to the back yard to get his straw hat, he heard the lawnmower stop. Lou must have stopped to empty the grass-catcher.

Alan walked through the house and into the front yard, whistling cheerfully as he went around the hedge and into Lou's yard. It wasn't until he was halfway down the lawn when he realized that both his neighbor and his lawnmower were nowhere to be found. He looked left, he looked right. There was simply no way that Lou could have managed to sweep up all the grass clippings from the sidewalk, put away the lawnmower, and go back inside in the time Alan had taken to change into work clothes. Furthermore, the lawn was not by any means finished, and the missed rows of grass were still untrimmed.

Alan walked up to Lou's door and knocked. There was no answer. He waited a minute or two and knocked again. Still nothing.

Alan walked back into his house and continued his day. Perhaps Lou had an urgent errand to attend, and had stashed away Alan's lawnmower in the backyard until he was finished. In either case, Alan was sure that his lawnmower was safe, and whatever was bothering his polite and unassuming neighbor would surely be resolved.

* * *

A week later, Lou was still missing, and Alan's own lawn was now starting to look like it needed attention. Alan knocked on Lou's door, and was treated with the same silence he had experienced the weekend before. Nothing seemed to have changed, except a notice from the Homeowner's Association taped to Lou's door notifying him that if he didn't mow his lawn soon, he would be faced with a fine.

Alan turned around. Lou's lawn was still unmowed, and in fact, since it had been a week, was now even worse. He went back to his house and woke up his wife.

“Dear,” he said, “have you seen our neighbor?”

“Lou?” asked Betsey. She was still groggy with sleep, and rolled over to rub her eyes in protest of the unwelcome consciousness.

“Yes,” said Alan. “I think something might have happened to him. I haven't seen him since I loaned him my lawnmower.”

Betsey frowned. “I told you not to loan out our tools. I told you. Our yard has to be done this week, or we'll get fined. You should call him.”

“I've tried. He didn't answer. He also didn't finish. His lawn is still terrible.”

“Well, that's not our fault,” said Betsey. “Get our lawnmower back. Thomas needs to do some yard work if he's going to get an allowance from us this week. Maybe Lou's at work.”

“Where does he work?” asked Alan. “Do you know?”

“Some office on... Oh, I don't know, I think it's on Seventh Street next to the behavioral therapist that we took Thomas to that one time,” she said. “The one with the ugly architecture.”

“All right,” said Alan. “I'll check it out.”

* * *

The elevator rumbled along as it made its descent. Alan worried that he’d be rocked to sleep like a baby. He wondered how many other people had gotten to ride it. He pondered the logistics and practicality of building an elevator to Hell. What did heaven have? An escalator?

The contract was still in his hand, and it occurred to Alan that he'd never even read the thing himself. What had the receptionist seen in it that had caused her to scream like the damned of Hell?

He opened up the contract.

If Alan had any doubts that his neighbor Lou was actually ruler of Hell, they vanished at that moment. When he had first been given the contract, it was scarcely larger than a typical sheet of folded notebook paper, yet when he opened it, it unfurled to the width of a tapestry and unrolled all the way down to his feet like an ancient scroll, complete with fiery, crimson tassels.

Additionally, the words inscribed on the parchment were made entirely of fire. Alan read them aloud.

“I, Lucifer, Lord of the Nine Circles, the First Fallen, the Last Saved, the Abaddon, the Leviathan, the Antichrist, the Lawless One, the Serpent of Old--

--Do Solemnly Decree That I Shall Return My Neighbor Alan's Lawnmower Upon Completion of the Mowing of My Yard.” Alan read it over and over again. When he saw Lou scribble the contract out, it hadn't taken more than half a second. How he had produced such an enchanting legal document was beyond Alan's comprehension.

Alan was agnostic. He had attended church when he was young, because his parents thought it was something that families ought to do. He'd never found a reason to believe in god, as he'd had no proof. But he had proof that there was a devil, and that would do for now.

He nodded, folded up the contract, and put it back in his pocket. Once again, the document assumed the form of a regular sheet of folded notebook paper. He put it back in his pants pocket just as the elevator finally came to a rest and opened its doors into the yawning depths of suffering and misery that was the final resting place for the Souls of the Damned.

It was pleasantly warm, actually.

Alan, confused, stepped forward. The elevator closed and ascended behind him. He turned around and stared back at it. “Hey!” he shouted as it disappeared into the blackness above. “Come back here!” He accidentally bumped into something. It was a stalagmite. It had an elevator call button on it. “Oh,” he said.

Hell, it seemed, was not how most people let on. It looked like a reddish, well-lit cave. There were rocks and stalagmites everywhere. And not much else.

He was expecting lakes of fire from which legions of tortured hands protruded, their owners forever burning, screeching, reaching for the heaven they had been denied. But there were no screams, nor was there anybody to make them.

“Hello?” called Alan. Nobody answered. He walked forward. “Hello?” he called as he walked. “Is anybody there?”

For ten minutes he walked, until he finally met someone. It was a janitor. He was dressed in a blue jump suit and had a white mustache that could easily sweep the cave floor as efficiently as the broom he was holding. “Um, excuse me,” said Alan. “Do you know where everyone's gone?”

The janitor stopped his sweeping and stared at Alan alarmingly. “What're you still doin' here?” he asked. “Everyone's gone. Yer late.”

“Where've they gone?” asked Alan.

“Don't act like you don't know,” said the janitor, and resumed sweeping.

“Look,” said Alan, withdrawing the contract from his pocket. “I'm Alan. I've got a signed document here from your boss.”

“Boss ain't here,” said the janitor. “I'm just sweepin' up after everyone so when they come back it'll be nice an' clean.”

“But where have they gone?”

“You work here,” said the janitor. “You must've gotten the memos.”

“No, I don't work here,” said Alan.

The janitor paused his sweeping again. He stood up and looked Alan up and down. “No,” he said. “You don't work here.”

Alan once again offered the signed document, and this time the janitor took it. He unfurled it, and read the fiery letters. A faint smile could be seen under his enormous mustache. “Lord,” he said. “You must really want yer lawnmower.”

“Not really,” said Alan. “I'm more worried about my neighbor. He disappeared one day. He never told me he was the Devil.”

The janitor folded up the document and handed it back to Alan. “Yer a good man,” he said. “Nobody ever worries about the Devil. Who says he don't need lookin' after?”

“Well, where's he gone?” asked Alan.

“Same as everyone else here,” said the janitor. “Off to purgatory to fight the Apocalypse.”

“The Apocalypse?” asked Alan. “You mean that group of religious nuts camping outside my neighborhood was right?”

“There's always someone proclaimin' the Apocalypse,” said the janitor. “One of em's gonna be right eventually. Can't beat them odds.”

“Well, then, if they're fighting the Apocalypse, what are you doing here?” Alan asked. “If it's the final battle, they aren't coming back, are they?”

“Oh, they never actually do it, y'know,” said the janitor as he swept. “Somethin' always comes up, and they get interrupted. Then, they come back and wait till the next End of Days.”

“Something always happens?” asked Alan. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, if I'm readin' that there document correctly,” said the Janitor, gesturing with his broom handle towards the folded contract in Alan's hand, “Looks like this time, that somethin' is you.”

Alan thought about this for a good long while. He nodded, and put the contract back in his pocket, knowing what he had to do. “Well, then,” he said, “Can you tell me how I get to Purgatory?”

“If I didn't,” said the janitor, “I'd be out of the job.”

* * *

The written directions from the janitor were both well-illustrated and tirelessly explicit. He had clearly drawn them much, much earlier. Either that, or he had the same time-defying hand as Lou. It wasn't that far-fetched.

As Alan walked, he passed many things that he thought didn't belong in an eternal pit of suffering at all: A courtyard with chess tables, a Squash court, even an arcade with pinball tables and a popcorn machine. But as fascinating as he found these, he had somewhere to be, and therefore didn't stop to inspect any of it. He looked down at the directions the janitor had given him:

Turn left at the stalagmite that looks like it has a big bite though it. Check. Keep walking twenty paces until you find a stalagmite that's twenty feet tall and looks like it's covered in dragon claw marks. Good. Now spin left three times, close your eyes after the second turn, and say--

“Too bad for Heaven, too good for Hell;

“What place can there be for a soul like me to dwell?”

As Alan said the words, he felt some kind of disturbance, somewhere between a headache and a gust of wind. And then there was a door.

It was the plainest door that Alan had ever seen in his life. It was inoffensive, unobtrusive, and unspectacular. It must have taken a group of twenty bureaucrats to design such a door, and not one of them must have been allowed to have a hobby.

Alan reached out and opened it. He couldn't see what was on the other side. It was just a blinding glare of shapeless, white light. He had to go in.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and entered Purgatory.

At last, he could see the denizens of Hell. He was expecting pitchforks. He was expecting forked tongues, flaming eyes, mangled flesh and burnt hair. He was expecting impossibly ugly creatures a thousand times stronger then men, he was expecting the smell of rotting flesh and the screams of mortal torment. He received none of these things. The Denizens of Hell were no more remarkable than any other random sample of the human population. Hell is where people go when they die; it never occurred to anyone that they might remain that way.

Alan pushed his way through the throngs of standing bodies. He must have been somewhere outdoors, though it couldn't possibly be anywhere on Earth. It was amazingly hard to navigate, since that there was no way whatsoever to tell where he was going. The ground was gray. The sky was gray. There were no stars in the sky or markings on the ground. There wasn't even a breeze. He tapped a demon on the shoulder.

“Can I help you?” asked the demon. He was an elderly, cheerful man with a sparkle in his eye and the blues in his voice.

“Yes,” said Alan. He held up the contract. “I need to find the Devil.”

The demon eagerly grabbed the document and read it. “My stars,” he said. “You’re him! You’re him!”

“I think... yes,” said Alan. “I'm me, last time I checked.”

The demon held up the contract for all to see. “Bless you, man! You came!”

Other demons started turning their heads. Their eyes went wide, and their mouths opened with smiles and laughter.

“It's him, man!” the demon continued, this time shouting so that everyone could hear. His voice was clear and could be heard all throughout Purgatory, as it was no longer constrained by the pesky laws of physics. “I got 'im! The Contract Holder! HE'S COME AFTER ALL!”

The demon pressed the document back into Alan's hand. “Go on, son,” he said. “Go and sing your song, man.”

Alan felt hands pushing him and shoving him, guiding him and leading him. He drifted through the crowd, awash with smiles and shouts of excitement. Whispers of things to come drifted all across Purgatory.

And finally, Alan could see something ahead. A small hill right in the middle of the crowd. The Epicenter. The start of the Apocalypse.

The last gentle hand escorted Alan to the base of the hill, and he was on his own. He looked up. The hill was tall and steep. He couldn't see the end of it. But as he started climbing, it was easier than a set of stairs.

Finally, he reached the top, and was greeted by several figures. The first was a blond man clad in white, with blue eyes and a melancholy look on his face. Standing behind him were two more white-clad figures, equally solemn.

It surprised Alan to find a pair of figures he recognized: A tall man in a wide-brimmed black fedora, and a swarm of bees in shape of a column. The last figure at the top of the hill was Alan's long time, cheerful neighbor, Lou. Lou, as it was now powerfully clear to Alan, was the Devil.

Lucifer was a powerful, imposing figure, who emanated might with every inch of his body. When he moved, his muscles danced and writhed like snakes in an earthquake. Lou turned to Alan, the ground trembling with every tiny step, and smiled.

“There you are,” said Lou. “I was wondering when you'd get here.”

“Is this him?” asked one of the men in the white robe.

Alan looked over the man in white robe's shoulder and tried to find Heaven's army, but all he could find was a small, pathetic group of people in white robes near the base of the mountain. There couldn't have been more than a hundred people, and not one of them looked happy to be there.

“Alan,” said Lou, gesturing towards the taller of the white-robed people, “I'd like for you to meet my good friend, the angel Gabriel.” He pointed to the other two white-robed figures. “And here's Ezekiel and Elijah,” and at last introduced Alan to his own cohorts. “And here's the Tall Man, and my second-in-command, Beelzebub.”

The Tall man nodded once, and Beelzebub buzzed, “Pleazzed to mzzeeet you.”

“Have you got something for us, Alan?” asked Gabriel expectantly.

Alan smiled. “Yes,” he said holding out the contract to Lou and giving Gabriel a smile. “I think I do.”

Lou opened up the document, and showed it to Gabriel. Gabriel practically wept with joy.

Lucifer turned to the denizens of Hell. “My friends!” he shouted. His voice boomed and roared loudly and clearly, thundering across the skies of Purgatory. “We have gathered here to initiate the final battle at the end of the world. We have waited century upon century to raise our swords and lay waste to the human world.”

There was a steely silence from the army of Hell. Each end every one of them was listening with all their might. Lucifer continued talking.

“And as much as I'd love to give the word and start the Apocalypse--” Lou held up the contract and unfurled it, its fiery letters shining like a beacon upon the armies of Hell. And he finished. “--But I'm afraid I have to return a lawnmower!”

And with those words, there came a hellish cheer.

* * *

Alan pulled the last bit of crab grass from the yard, surveying his work. There wasn't a weed in sight. Not even a dandelion. He dared the Homeowner's Association to find something wrong with the yard.

Lou emptied the grass-catcher into the garbage can. “It sure feels nice to get something done with my own two hands,” he said.

“What we obtain too cheap,” said Alan, “We esteem too lightly.”

“Thomas Paine,” said Lou. “He's a good man. A bit racist, but he's just as smart as everyone thinks he is.”

“Named my son after him,” said Alan. “Maybe that's why he's such a smart-ass.”

Lou laughed. “Well, if it's any consolation, the real Thomas Paine isn't the most humble human being in Hell either.”

“He's not in Heaven?” asked Alan. “He doesn't seem like a bad person.”

Lou grabbed the garbage can and shook it. The grass clippings settled at the bottom of it. “Getting into heaven is a tough gig, Alan. Hate to break it to you.”

“Why is that?”

“The rules are... well, a little outdated,” said Lou. “Not everybody's a saint. But everyone's a sinner.”

“That hardly seems fair,” said Alan. “Have you talked to God about it?”

“Would if I could,” said Lou. “But he's not been around since before the Bible was written.”

“Why not?”

“Perhaps he's grown up,” said Lou.

“You're saying God was a child when he created the world?”

“Not necessarily,” said Lou with a knowing grin, “But I like to think that our world is just sitting at the bottom of the Lord's toy box.”

Alan wiped off his dirty hands on his trousers. “So since nearly everyone goes to hell, everyone gets punished?”

“Only the bad ones,” said Lou. “We still have to follow all of God's commandments. We weren't given free will like you lucky humans. Though, as you can see, some of read between the lines.”

“Sorry about that,” said Alan.

“No need to apologize,” said Lou. “It says in the Bible that Hell is a place of fire. It's a bottomless pit. There is the gnashing of men's teeth. There is weeping and misery and sorrow.”

“Hmm,” said Alan.

“But,” continued Lou, “There is also swimming and ping pong. There is chess and Subbuteo and shuffleboard and skydiving. There is a lending library with every book in the world, and the tallest rock climbing wall you've ever seen.”

“So even the damned get to play ping-pong from time to time?” said Alan with a chuckle.

Lou looked deeply and seriously into Alan's eyes. “Eternity is a long time, Al,” he said. “Not everyone who goes to Hell deserves to suffer for that long.” He looked down and inspected his hedges. “There are kids down there, you know.”

Alan felt a tinge of discomfort and embarrassment. “Well, at least God says you can still play ping pong in Hell.”

“Not exactly,” said Lou. He smiled warmly, cheerfully, and earnestly. “He just didn't say I couldn't.”

Lou and Alan laughed. Then they both looked at Alan's lawnmower.

“So once I get this back,” said Alan, “What's to stop you from starting the Apocalypse?”

“The window's closed now,” said Lou. “The Apocalypse can only be fought when every member of each army has completed all their obligations, and there is nothing left for them to do but fight the battle at the end of the world. You and your lawnmower prevented that this time. And while we were doing yard work, the Denizens of Hell started borrowing and trading and doing favors. It won't be another thousand years or so until all of us have got no obligations left.”

“What happens then?” asked Alan. “Are you going to borrow a shovel?”

“It's not my turn,” said Lou. “It'll be up to Gabriel.”

“What do you think he'll do?” asked Alan.

“Hopefully,” said Lou, “There will still be Homeowner's Associations. And they will still be bastards.”

* * *

Alan wiped his feet on the welcome mat. He opened the door, went inside, and washed his hands.

“How's Lou?” asked Betsey, who was cooking a stew.

“Not too bad,” said Alan. “I'm glad he didn't have too much pride to let me help with his lawn.”

“Is he going to be fined?”

“We managed to avoid the end of the world,” said Alan.

“As long as we got our mower back,” said Betsey.

“Of course, dear,” said Alan, pecking his wife on the cheek.

Alan wandered into the living room, and collapsed into his favorite chair. He heaved a sigh of relief. He was exhausted.

“I wanted to help,” said Thomas. He was lying on the couch with his Game Boy. “But Mom said you didn't want me to bother you.”

“Oh?” said Alan.

“Yes... I wanted to make up for being a...” Thomas swallowed. “For being mean to you earlier.”

“Oh, it's all right,” said Alan. “Lou and I were just catching up. We had a little guy time while doing the yard.”

“I still think he's boring,” said Thomas. “I mean, not in a mean way. He just seems so normal.”

“Oh, he's actually quite interesting,” said Alan with a chuckle, “Once you get to know him.”

Poetry, to the dark voices that live in my mind, is cheating.

That's why my own poems are tongue-in-cheek jokes. I wrote Danny Dizzle not because I truly felt that a certain Rudyard Kipling poem desperately needed to be interpreted into Snoop Dogg, but because it was a writers' group exercise and I hang around too much with Valerie, who tends to break out the white girl gangster-speak now and again.

And it was due to a writers' group related fiasco that I met a girl who read me a beautiful poem by Dylan Thomas. The first time I saw her, she was sitting on a bench near a friend's house, waiting for the same bus I was. I was behind her, and for some reason the first thought that came to my mind was that I couldn't tell whether it was a guy or a girl I was looking at because of the big puffy coat. After that I realized that it didn't really matter whether it was a guy or a girl and wasn't my business besides, which is when I saw the frilly lace of her undergarments peeking out from her pants and decided that it was probably a girl, unless it still wasn't which is all right, but it all didn't matter because you're not supposed to be looking at women's underwear, you stupid ass.

I sat down on the bench beside her and she turned around and smiled at me. I'm glad she didn't know what I was thinking, but then again, I guess she wouldn't have cared, based on what happened shortly after. We took the bus down to the Max light rail station. I was on my way to a writers' group meeting, or, more specifically, I was on my way to totally miss my writers' group meeting since apparently there are two coffee shops twenty miles apart with exactly the same name, and I was about to go to the wrong damn one.

But anyways, I once again joined her on the bench, this time at a different transfer station. After a while, I had that good ol' sense of Doubt picking at the back of my head- I had been down to Portland tens of times before, and it should be permanently ingrained in my head by now how to get there, but my certainly that I was going the right direction had led me hilariously astray before, so I might as well ask someone who probably knows more about these things than I do.

“Does the train to Gresham go to Portland?” I asked her.

“Can you say that again?” she said. I guess I had kind of mumbled it.

“Does this train go to Portland?” I asked again.

“No,” she said. “That's on the other side.”

“Damn,” I said. Now I had triple doubts. Google Maps had distinctly told me to get on the Blue Line if I'm to go to Portland, and the side of the tracks I was currently sitting in had a distinctly blue quality to its benches and signs.

After about a minute, she said: “Oh wait, yes, it does go to Portland. And that's this side of the tracks. You'll want to get on the Blue Line to Gresham. Sorry, I've not been around here for a while, and I still need to get a little re-oriented.”

“Cool, thanks,” I said. “So, you said you've not been around here, were you going to school?”

“No, I'm getting my life back together. My life's really fucked up. I've had a lot of shit happen to me, and now I'm trying to get it together. You know how when you're writing a story about mental health? I'm at the end of that story.” Her voice was raised and a little harsh, like a stern mother lecturing a child, except I didn't feel like I was being lectured. I think that this was just how this girl talked.

“I see,” I said. I liked her directness.

“I've had tons of shit,” she said. “I almost died. I've stared death it in the face. My pulsed dropped from 160 to 70.”

“...”

The reason that I didn't dismiss her has everything to do with the fact that I've been working on a post- a treatise, if you will- about what happens when people talk about things that other people don't want to hear. The reaction is always overly shrill and negative, which drives me mad. As someone who comes from an “irregular” background that makes people uncomfortable when discussed- even when they ask about it- I, too, get particularly riled when people show reluctance to hear anything slightly uncomfortable to their pampered nerves.

I was mostly caught off-guard. I thought it was refreshing. I had asked her which one of the Max rails goes to Portland, and she opened right up about death and dying and her experience with cancer, no problem.

“I've never had a life-threatening experience like that,” I said. “There was one time when I lost my ability to speak and understand words for a few days.”

“I was awake for four days,” the girl replied. “I was supposed to be taking sleep aids, but instead I was taking awareness pills.”

The Inner Moron who lives in the back of my head- who usually pops up during conversations with strangers in the interest of being polite- said, “I suppose you were... trying to be awake by any means necessary?”

“No,” she said. “They mixed up my medication. It was really bad for my health, and they blamed me for it.”

“Oh,” I said. The Inner Moron promised not to say anything for the duration of the conversation.

“I got cancer twice,” the girl continued.

The Inner Moron quietly thought, but luckily did not say, “Oh no! Double cancer!”

“And now I'm at that point where I have to deal with all this bureaucracy and shit, and I can't get back into school. Everybody treats me like there's something I've been doing wrong all this time. They're so judgmental.”

I told her that I had a passing familiarity with how most mentally stable Americans treat those unlucky enough to have unstable psyches, which is basically, “Hey you! Stop being crazy. Get over it!”

“That's right!” she said, excitedly. “That's exactly what people do. Everybody thinks they've got it all together, but nobody conquers their inner demons. Have you heard of Dylan Thomas?”

“No,” I said.

“You've got a Kindle, right?” she said, gesturing towards the aging but faithful Sony reader that I was holding.

“It's a Sony,” I said.

“Can you look him up with it?”

“No, it doesn't have wireless,” I said. I had my phone in my pocket but I had powered it off because I hate using it.

“I want to read you this poem, I think you'll like it,” she said. Even though we had known each other less than five minutes, I believed her.

She pulled out her own smart phone and read me the following poem by Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into the Night:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And for the first time I was moved by poetry. For some reason I could [almost] see what she claimed she was seeing as she read it. I could see her withering away on the hospital bed, and here these words floating across the darkness of her dying thoughts.

“I've heard that before,” I said. “I don't know when and I don't know where.”

“I could hear these words when I was dying,” she said. “I stared the devil in the face, I realized that I had to conquer my inner demons. I thought I had, but I hadn't.”

Luckily the Inner Moron did not mention that the only experience I've ever had with devils has to do with a lawnmower.

“You have to conquer your inner darkness,” she said. “Don't deny it. Embrace it, but still keep the goodness inside of you. Everybody's got darkness.”

“I've done that,” I said.

“Everyone thinks they've done that,” she said, but not unkindly.

“Well, I'll try.”

The Blue Line to Gresham pulled up. She took a seat near the front, and I would have joined her but there were no seats left. I took a seat near the back.

It's not every day that I meet interesting people. I kind of wish there were more people like her, and that I had more conversations like that. It was short, intense, honest, and a little weird. It was certainly not what I was expecting when waiting for the Blue Line to Gresham.

I should tell those inner demons of mine that poetry isn't so bad.