The Screaming Front:
Part I, Ashes to Ashes
by Mike Schwalke

***

Commandant Bobo picked up an orangutan skull and brushed ashes from it. He held it up and thought of the waste. Unlike many of his fellow Chimpanazis, he found the waste of life disquieting but he always held his tongue. Better to dislike something quietly than rouse the attentions of Herr Chuckles.

Bobo looked over at his young cadets Chippy and Zippy. They were rummaging through the ashes looking for jewelry--it was well known that the petulant 'tangs would swallow their prized belongings to hide them from the Chimpanazis. Zippy had found something and initiated a shrieking, feces-throwing tug-of-war with Chippy. They looked silly in their tutus, Bobo thought.

These 'tangs had built the railroad to Grozny for him, worked hard, toiled endlessly. They did a good job. They didn't deserve their fate.
Bobo sat down and rested his chin on his fist and gazed into the empty sockets of the skull.

Is this the best solution we can come up with? he thought. -MAS

A Survey.
by Ben Joffrion

***

It is I, Ben! I have decided to take another stab at the ancient art of survey crafting, hoping to return mankind to the Halcyon days of yesteryear.

Enjoy.

1. Are vampires the victims of a sexually transmitted blood disease that induces "ultimate" anemia, or those that have rejected God and all His works for unearthly power and potential immortality in the base animal horizon?

2. How do you know?

3. Are you a dancing machine, or merely a denizen of Funky Town?

4. If a denizen of Funky Town, did you vote in November for the Funk Tax increase which would dedicate Funky Funds for Funky Computers for our Funkementary Schools?

5. As we all know, there is that perfect person for each of us--a perfect love. However, given the total number of people who ever lived and ever will live over all human time, statistically the perfect person for you is either already dead or not yet born. You will die alone and bitter; but, before that, describe this unattainable missing piece to your soul.

6. If total war were declared between The Fifth Republic of France and Exxon, how long would it take Exxon to win?

7. Have you ever clicked on a pop up ad, thus encouraging the practice? And if so, how do you sleep at night, you son-of-a-bitch?

8. Light travels as a wave, yet contacts as a particle. Explain.

9. How much blood would you shed to stay alive? I mean, do you donate blood?

10. Is it an "Icee" or a "Slurpy"?

11. What's more important: The pure gold trophy glittering in the daylight, clutched in your hand high above your victorious head for all to see; or crushing the hopes and dreams of your opponents, rendering all their efforts and sacrifices(indeed, their very lives) a meaningless waste--humiliating them before the very eyes of their loved ones?

12. Should we force people to get drunk before taking the witness stand, under the legal theory, "in vino veritas"?

13. Will the great questions of the time be decided by speeches and votes of the majority, or by iron and blood?

14. Yo Yo Ma or Iggy Pop?

15. Did Sam Seaborn and Josh Lyman totally want to get gay with each other?

16. It's April in Louisiana and I'm freezing my ass off. Global Warming--can it come soon enough?

17. Have you ever met someone so pretty you wanted to name a puppy after him/her?

18. It is an established scientific fact that the cuter the animal, the tastier the meat. That in mind, what would Audrey Hepburn taste like?

19. In a fight between Jack Bauer and the U.S. George Washington Carrier Strike Group, how did Jack Bauer win?

20. Do words have any real connection with noumenal reality, or are they merely self referential and thus discourse is only a matter of replacing opposition's arguments with your own more aesthetic rhetoric--and if the latter, how is it just that I get slapped so often in bars?

21. Justice: the New Black?

-WBJ

King of all Stories
by Ben Joffrion

***

I’ve been sick. Sick as a sick dog whose master is without pet medical insurance. I went to the doctor, leaving hundreds of pounds of tissues in my sorry wake, but he didn’t do a damn bit of good. Something about tests. Modern medicine having failed, I turned to Eastern medicine, but the monk kept going on and on about how to prevent colds. Too late, Confucius, I already have one, and I want it gone, not aligned with my chi.

Asshole.

My face was puffy, so I could barely see. Every breath was forced. Every hole in my head gushed. I couldn’t keep any food down. Couldn’t sleep. Confused, blind, exhausted and starved, abandoned by both West and East, I did what any other man in my plight would: I turned to pagan gods.

I shopped around Wikipedia for a while and finally settled on Anansi, a spider god from West Africa. He could take the form of a human, so I hoped I wouldn’t come face to face with a giant, immortal spider. Name, the Sky God, made Anansi the King of All Stories after Anansi cleverly caught The Jaguar With Teeth Like Daggers, The Hornets Who Sting Like Fire, and The Fairy Whom Men Never See. Struck me as a god that could get things done.

I borrowed some Playdough from my niece and made a graven imagine of a man with eight legs with a sun flower sticking out of its head, thinking, you know- man/spider/god or something. I don't know, I wasn’t thinking very clearly as I worshiped my new arachnid deity. I remember poking tunnels throughout the violation of the First and Second Commandment so that blood, poured onto the head, would funnel out of Anansi's massive penis. Now I needed a sacrifice, so I went to the pound and took the cutest puppy they had.

I lit some candles around my idol, which was difficult and dangerous because Lamb, the puppy, kept knocking the candles over. I pretended to rub the puppy’s stomach to get it on its back, and raised my Ginsu blade. Lamb looked up at me with perfectly ignorant eyes, opened its mouth, and yipped. I don’t know what he said, as my ears were clogged like everything else in my head, but it made me stop and think.

Hmmm... I didn’t want to screw this up and offend an ancient King of All Stories, I warned myself. I had three DVDs on the way from Netflix, and the Great Spider may tell me the endings before they got here; especially Farscape Season Three Disk Four. I went to my kitchen and cut a can in two with my nonholy blade; then a tomato. The tomato sliced perfectly. I was ready to slaughter the helpless puppy to please my pagan god so he would alleviate my cold. But then, as I was closing drawers, I saw several large bottles of Nyquil. But of course! I could simply drink myself into a stupor until this bloody cold passed!!

So I dismantled my man/spider/god sacrificial alter, and got drunk on over the counter medicine. I'm keeping the puppy, because I may need to sacrifice him on April 15. -WBJ