Spidercamp

(how do you feel?)

(how do you feel?)

I'm warm, my headache's gone, and I love you.

Six holes appeared in the serpent's throat

Six holes appeared in the serpent's throat to represent the six times she would strike. I knew one was for me. While she was writhing, I put poison in the milk. She opened er eyes and shot across the room for me. I didn't try to get away. She sank into my leg and I could feel her needle tongue poking around. I held onto the couch and tried not to let on that she wasn't really hurting me. I knew all her secrets.

"Clytemnestra," I said, "you're a bitch."

---

The Beastie Boys had made some hippie love song music and were marketing it as such. They only sold the cd in back alleys for $3. The liner notes had a photo of a VW beetle and the jewel case was bright orange.

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a video game where your ship streaks through space, destroying jellyfish and saving hamsters. the goal is to get the hamsters safely to the LAN.

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a comic book: my swim instructor was a jerk and made fun of my dive.

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Harrison Ford said he remembered me. He shuffled across the waiting room to sit next to me. He was in hospital pajamas; I was thrilled. He said he remembered that time I stood in the kitchen clicking all the dials on the stove and then ended up burning the turkey. He apologized for thinking I wasn't all that bright, at the time. I forgave him.

He said the virus existed only to reproduce itself, and had spread to all parts of his body. The doctors weren't sure it they could get it out, but were going to try. "It's a one-shot thing. You go in the first time and hope you get it all out. You ever go back in again, all you do is piss it off."

I wasn't worried because I could see the future. I knew I would wait there a long time, the surgery would go well, and the nurse would let me sleep on a cot in his room until he woke up.

I told him about the Beastie Boys ("They're Jewish, right?") and a funny thing I had heard a Muppet say once, and was immediately embarassed. Harrison found it charming. We weren't in the hospital any more, we were in my living room. My grandmother was in the corner, furiously playing a Gameboy.

"It's funny, how much she wants me to leave. She must think I'm very bad for you."

I said, "She could be wrong."

A bright blue bull was hang-gliding

A bright blue bull was hang-gliding on the field below me. I was looking over the edge of the cliff. He looked like he was having a great time. Then I was down on the field with him. A lot of other people were there but they didn't say anything about the bull. Hey can't you guys see this? Nobody answered. I realized it was because they all worked for the Company. A series of bright blue VW Beetles raced around me and I yelled at them to stop but the drivers didn't look at me. The bull kept running and jumping.

I tried to take a picture of the gigantic american flag covering the side of the Company's headquarters, because it was crooked and had a hole in the middle. My camera wouldn't work. I asked Bizz about it and she told me to shut up. I had forgotten we were in mourning. The hole in the flag was also a hole in the building. A tree had fallen over in last night's storm and crashed into it. Now I could see the cracks running through all the windows on this side. Then I knew that we were not mourning for those killed by the tree, but for the building. Everyone was walking toward the annex, which had not been damaged. I heard millions to rebuild and such a tragedy, all that new carpeting.

I didn't want to go into that building but the crowd was taking me along with it. I grabbed a post outside the entrance and would not go in. A man in a business suit walked up carrying my car. He took it inside and I knew it belonged to the Company now. My heart sank; I shook myself awake.

---

watching a video of Jared running around after a woman, both in their underwear. It was an old video; they both should have been children, but weren't. No one else was scandalized.

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In the fire pits we hit a dead end and panicked. It was Logan who got us out alive. The fire tube wanted to eat things. If you threw something close enough to it, it would suck up the object and blast it into the furnace. Logan threw enough stuff in, and the fire tube sent everything to the furnace, which overheated and imploded, knocking us free of the game.

We hadn't counted on side effects. I woke up on a couch, between Lupin and Fred Savage. Fred was deep in a book and didn't seem to have noticed our absence. How's the book, Fred? My voice was shaking and I was so dizzy from the trip. Fred looked up and grinned and started babbling about dinosaurs. Something was wrong and at first I didn't understand.

Lupin smiled at me sadly. Have a sip of water, dear. By this time I knew there was something wrong with me, too. Lupin whispered in my ear, Ten years.

We needed to get rid of Fred so we could talk. Lupin suggested a video game. Fred laughed and said You know my mom won't let me have that stuff until I'm thirteen. It made my stomach sink. His mom didn't know that living in her house was the man who would transform video games into reality, and she wouldn't even let him have an Atari.

It really was an enormous gift. Reliving ten years with all new decisions, if I wanted. But jesus christ. Puberty, again. My old life was as good as dead because it would take me ten years just to catch up with it, and it would not be the same as I had left it. I did not know what to do. Lupin tried to calm me down; he was always kind. I shook myself awake.

I was the guy who had to lie

I was the guy who had to lie on top of the bunkbed and look for snakes to kill. There were a lot of them in the lake. Or I thought there were a lot, until I realized it was one big one, folding back over itself in hundreds of loops. It wanted to eat me. I had some bullets left.

It was uncoiling in the mud and I wanted to throw up. I shook myself awake and didn't know where I was. But it was just the floor.

Yesterday in Virginia Highlands

Yesterday in Virginia Highlands a tree fell over and crushed a car driving past. A woman and her two sons were killed. One was three years old, the other was a baby. The driver - the father - was untouched.

I can't stop thinking about the rest of this guy's life. What could you do? The desert? You couldn't do anything.

dont forget about the bugs

dont forget about the bugs

on the way home tonight, taking the exit for home

on the way home tonight, taking the exit for home, a possum darted into the road. not a baby but not full-grown, not as sickly obese as they can get. wobbling. lecherous. fucking terrible beasts. when i was little we had a tree full of baby possums in the back yard and i thought they were cute but have since changed my mind. this one was not one of the worst but was still horrible pink albino rat/snake repulsive. it was not me, but the driver in front of me who had to decide whether to swerve (he did). an interestingly odd moment in which i wanted it to escape unharmed and also be mangled flat.

once my mom was waiting for a light to change and she saw a mouse running across the road. something terrible happened to it. i don't like that story. mice are ok.

once, i killed a raccoon. i didn't mean to.

I went into that mansion even though

I went into that mansion even though I was intimidated by it because I had to find my new husband. He was asleep on the couch and I woke him up, but then it was his father and I was glad I hadn't woken him with a kiss. I ran past his pompous mother and down the stairs and there was my husband, asleep on the couch. I had to look at his face for a while to make sure. We had first met that morning.

I kissed him awake and then I was him and I knew she was more terrified of me than I was of her. She was embarassed at how childish her old bedroom seemed. Kids' books. A chalkboard covered in drawings. It was peaceful and I liked it. I said so. She smiled. I kissed her again.

---

Pete said the lady in the upstairs apartment had a black eye and refused to leave her husband. I was furious about this until I found out she was a cat. Pete called from work to say he'd be late for line-casting. I thought he was talking about going fishing but then he told me he had written a play for cats. Well, I mean, of course their owners have to read their lines for them. But the kitties really seem to get a kick out of it! And honestly if they want decent careers they're going to need all the practice they can get.

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Jamie Lee Curtis would NOT stop trying to get that guy to stop drinking. He loved her and would do a lot of things she asked. He wore false teeth for her, but he drew the line at liquor. She pushed him down the stairs about it.

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That dwarf was following me home again and I wasn't surprised. Something was wrong with my bike so I couldn't just ride away. He waited until I was in the park and no one else was around before trying to attack me but I hit him in the head with a hammer over and over until he passed out.

The girls were there, and I looked up for one second and then he was gone. Everyone scattered to look for him but then I knew where he was and I doubled back. He was crouched on the ceiling, waiting for me. He dropped down and tried to attack me but I hit him in the head with a hammer over and over. He shot me in the head with a ray gun before he passed out but I didn't care.

The expert was teaching me how to nullify poisons.

The expert was teaching me how to nullify poisons. All the deadliest poisons in the world were set out on a tray in little paper medicine cups. We broke chips of wood from a rotten log on the table and saturated each chip with a different poison. I was nervous and I spilled a clear, glistening liquid all over my right hand. I told my instructor, but he wasn't worried - none of the poisons were topical, they all needed to enter the bloodstream to work.

Suddenly there was so much pain. I looked closer and found a tiny cut on my infex finger. I told my instructor and he paled. He told me to hurry and wash out the wound. Make sure it's still bleeding. It will try to seal in the poison. If it stops bleeding, you're fucked. Use this if you have to. He threw me a machete. I caught it by the hilt, already running for the kitchen. I glanced at my hand and could see no blood. I passed out before I even reached the house.

---

I flickered in and out of consciousness. I didn't always know where I was or what had happened. The only thing I always knew was that I was in pain.

A friend came to help me. He was able to get me out of the machine and undo some of my chains, but then they shot him. The room was filling with water and I managed to get outside, but I was slow - my feet were still chained together. I screamed HELP ME as the professor stood behind me, laughing.

The nearest "help" is an hour from here, and that's if you were able to run, which, well..." Smirk.

I screamed at the people in the parking lot, begging for help. They didn't even look at me. I hobbled away from that bastard and went after some of the people I saw. They were all in identical blue lab suits. Only a few glanced at me. One woman murmured to her friend he certainly must be dangerous to be in all those chains. I'm so glad Rummigan's back with us. She and her friend waved and smiled at the professor, strolling behind me.

I kept wandering and we ended up behind the lab building. There was no one back here and we were out of sight of the parking lot. I faced Rummigan. He took out his pocket watch and grinned at me. He picked up the end of the chain I'd been dragging. He braced himself against the curb and said Let's see if you'd like a nice groin pull.

The fact that this made no sense was what made me know that this was the only moment in which I could beat him. Before he was able to pull me off my feet, I pulled on the chain and he smashed face-first into the concrete. I slammed his face into the curb over and over until he was dead and then I threw him in a dumpster.

My chains fell off. I went back into the lab, found a bowl of mashed potatoes, and ate them with my hands, knowing they were probably part of an experiment, or a trap, or a drug. I didn't care. I hadn't eaten in days and I was going to have to walk for a very long time.

We didn't know the grocery store was evil

We didn't know the grocery store was evil until the announcement came over the p.a. system, telling us it had locked the doors and now we had to do its bidding. It made us make recipes with its groceries. but then it needed 5 elongated blueberries and there weren't any in the store. it told me to go down the street to the specialty fruit store. The store said that I shouldn't even try to run away because it had my friends inside it and if I tried anything, it would shut off the air and they would die.

Before I left, I had to measure the crackers. They were green. I poured and poured them into the hanging scales but they would NOT add up to a pound. So I got pissed off and started yelling. "Are we just gonna lie down and do what this grocery store tells us? NO!!!" Everyone got very excited and shouted with me. The p.a. system was saying nothing, so I wrote the grocery store a note saying it could fuck off and put it in the scales.

---

There was a horse where a horse should not be. Out in public, in a city. It was a famous horse, from a movie or something, so the story got a lot of press. The army showed up and wanted to shoot it, but the public was outraged. So the army had to walk the horse home on the highway. The army marched in formation and the horse pranced along in front of them.

Curious people walked alongside and formed a parade. The horse was so happy to be going home that it started rearing its head back, kicking its hooves out to the side, sometimes skipping back and forth as it walked. The people walking the horse home started mimicing this dance. The Happy Horsie Dance caught on and quickly swept the nation.