Stephen had a little lamb

Stephen's prayers were finally answered when one night the Lord appeared in the luminescent form of a blue goat. He named the goat Ohio Silver Ataway. Whenever Stephen was lonely or felt like cutting mean people's faces off and showing it to them he would think of Ohio Silver and he would appear next to him again and Stephen's sad or lonely feeling would dissipate and he would be back to normal.

"He's gone too far man! The chord won't reach!"
"Oh well, want to get lunch?"
"Yeah."
"Burritos?"
"Sure."
"You seen that new Mitsubishi DXL 8700 they just released?!"
"Yeah fucking thing puts out 4000 horses!"

The novelty of adopting monsters for children has worn out fast since their original function was used up at the Halloween party.
Now they just keep wanting to do stuff.

practice

Patrick practices long jump over vast deep expanses where monsters with big teeth await below.

Sunday Tea

'Theseus not on the sofa. I told you already.'

On meeting Miller

I was on my way to get some chap stick and orange juice when I came upon a man who had been severely burned, asking for donations off the walkway. He wore a face of contorted misshapenness. His hands congealed flesh without fingers; more like hooves. I stopped to talk with the man to understand what his story was.

He had a cardboard display that showed he was trying to get to a conference in Vancouver, British Columbia by October 3rd. He said he tries to go every year to these conferences where he can meet other burn victims and talk with doctors and counselors. He showed me some pictures of the friends he made from his last trip to California. When I asked him what had happened to him he said his cousin was taking out the gas in his house and there was an explosion. His cousin died in the accident. He said he now has screws in his spine and knee's and when I couldn't grapple with how mere burns could cause one to need screws in their bones he gave me a look that said it all. I felt completely insensitive to his position, I quickly withdrew this line of inquiry. He was going to get emotional over the recollection had I pushed here. I meandered into a segue, 'you don't have to go into it'.

'So these are some of your friends you met during a convention?'

I knew I only had a ten dollar bill on me, but while I was feeling what I've heard referred to as a sense of empathy or 'good will toward man' for his circumstance, I wasn't feeling that philanthropic. A contribution of five dollars compared to ten wasn't going to make or break his trip out to B.C. Wanting to help, I told him I would come back.

Looking through the chap stick selections in the grocery aisle I couldn't help but notice the air of meaningless vanity lingering in my decision between the 'medicated' or 'cherry' daily; flashes of the face I had just witnessed still fresh. Yet, my mind couldn't pass up the dark humor underlying the situation. He's been like this for close to twenty years. The incident happened in 1987. Because I feel the first tinge of bitter cold approaching, I hurry to protect my lips.

I talked with him some more when I came back. It was an attempt on my part to familiarize myself to a random stranger on the streets, something I initially do not do for obvious health hazard reason's, but this one was different; he wore his evidence on his very skin. I almost felt drawn to him, that it would be wrong if I didn't talk with him, like walking by someone you know without acknowledging their presence. There came a time in the conversation where I even felt ease to share a smile with him. For the majority of the exchange I was projecting some ludicrous feeling of being sorry, but what I started to realize was that this man did not want that from me; it would be pointless. I noticed he was smiling and I was grimacing. I began to relax and look at him as a person who could really use someone looking at him as such and not as some monstrosity.

I was going to the grocery to get some chap stick.

I had the opportunity to meet Brom but chose not to.

I arrived at Robin's Bookstore early. Brom was to read from his latest illustrated novel called, 'The Devil's Rose'. Before the talk I flipped through some great McKean/Gaiman collaborations and some Roald Dahl collections I want to read sooner than later. I noticed that not many people were in the building. I overheard some lady say, 'it's quite in here', after I had thought the same thing ten minutes prior. I began feeling sorry for Brom at this point. He's a well established sci-fi illustrator creating a career out of painting skin tight latex vixens with blood soaked swords and dark winged beasts in ashen landscapes, but on this day he was nobody in particular. Nobody showed up to hear him talk about his new book which he spent long hours making.
The talk was supposed to start at six, upstairs. I flipped through a book on minotaurs while several people approached him for signatures in their new purchased book; one a fan, another an employee, and another who said ,'you're like my favorite artist of all time!' Brom responded with pause then, 'Wow!' I almost felt embarrassed for him. I thought of what I would ask him, I thought about asking him about his early career: how he got started in illustrative work, how things got rolling for him, but then I quickly began to think that anything he were to tell me about that would be relative to his experience. That I really didn't need or care to know that anyway. He probably did what had to be done at the time for him. I walked out of there at six thirty two and not a person was sitting down in the provided chairs to hear him read from his book. Only three people came up to him to get signatures. He told the same joke about getting 'in line' to all three fans. I over heard him saying to one of the fans in response to the turn out that, 'you never know what to expect. Sometimes it's a hundred people and sometimes you only get four or five.'
I left not talking with Brom because I didn't want him to tell me what I already told myself; that you have to 'get the work out there' any way you can, everywhere you can. People will take notice if it's good. Also, that twenty years down the road I could be in this same scenario as Brom, with noone to read my work to, and I laughed because it didn't bother me. I don't think it bothered Brom either really.