I love making coffee in the morning. Every morning. Every morning here in Seattle. Oh, the gradual, sloppy slide of my naked skin over the edge of my bed after I ax my alarm, the
whump ass
WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!
whump ass
pillow thumper dumper alarm
hearing folks sometimes think is a goddamn bomb.

Yeah, pillow thumper alarm clock. My clock as a small, thick, flying saucer-shaped vibrator I slide inside my pillowcase. It bangs my brains awake. See, I’m beautifully deaf in both ears. I can’t hear. I can’t hear very well, so I therefore I feel. Feel into the world. Feel into it all. Oh, yeah, where’s my Adderall? Where did I put my pill bottle? Oh, goodness, this crazy feeling! So much to know! Just didn’t know I could do it, this feeling, feeling this way and that way, at the unexpected moment I watched someone die. She died horribly, too. Died right in front of me. Died drinking coffee. Or while I was drinking coffee. Bus stop coffee. It’s all a haze of red and brown mist now. As she passed on into the Afterlife, I felt life wrenched loose from dying flesh. Scary at first. Almost…intoxicating. As intoxicating as the smell of fresh roasted coffee in the morning as I prepare the drink of Gods.

We are all connected, right? On some level. In some way. And not just thru standing around in the rain here in Seattle drinking coffee at the bus stop. We’re many yet one. Each one of us spirits is but a facet of a greater diamond of soul. You don’t need any meds then. We feel through one another’s bodies to sense the world and the stars around us as all one and the same. And then some one dies. Someone dies suddenly. Without time to prepare for transition.

The pain of separation is so intense it feels as if a hot fragment of molten slag plunged from the sky and gored through your skull then your tongue to drop through the bottom of your jaw to bore through your right foot into the earth through wet moss and leaves and sticks and tiny little purple, yellow, and creamy white flowers.

Life feels more than anything else. Feels. Afterall, isn’t all energy vibration? My wake-up alarm clock vibrator going
“WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!”
reminds me I live. I am alive. Regardless of the species I’m inspeciated into. I imagine the pleasure of being reminded one’s bodymind is alive is the primary reason, an unconscious reason perhaps; so many humans apply various vibrating devices to their genitals.

My thumpa-dumpa whump-whump-whumpa alarm clock, however, unless one is a true double numbnut or an eunuch, would be quite unpleasant upon one’s genitals as it would triple smack yer nuts up to the size of overly-ripe-about-to-burst purple plums. Nor would you apply such a whump ass beat thumping yer clitoris all puffy owchy bruisy, should you be blessed with an uncarved kleitoris. It’s much too jarring of a rhythm. Certainly it would be for us Drac Boreas guarding the stargates against the Anunnaki. We don’t like being jarred.

Who, really, wants to fuck or get fucked by a real jackhammer? Makes me numb. Dumbs down my nerves. So, yeah, Hell, no! I don’t particular care for numbnuts. Don’t like dumbnuts either, dammit. Although I feel angry enough to castrate those men who mutilate women and … jeeez … what about those women who mutilate their fellow females? See what conversations thumpa dumpa whump ass alarm clocks for the profoundly hard of hearing and the deaf leads us into? It’s why I don’t have cats and can’t find my ADHD meds. Oh, to feel so human in this mammal body between resurrections, reanimations, and downloads.

I used to have two kitties, but every morning my vibrator alarm whomped the dust mites all to pieces, well, my cats would freak out. Freak out like my Aunt Blanchalina did back when she in Angola and spied a dark green mamba snake hanging near her head as she danced a wild mambo with a crazy ass lesbian motorcycle lady who’s a doctor from Cuba. Blanchalina dove away just in time and jerked her partner off her feet. Dr. “Harley Cuba” fell and hit her head hard as she toppled across two chairs to crashed sideways atop Blanchalina. Mamba Snake slithered away into the darkness as the two women moaned and groaned. Except my kitties didn’t moan. They hissed and yowled instead.

Mistletoe, my sweet, brownish-green kitty, would race up to the top of the China cabinet I inherited from Grammaw MeMe and knock over my grandfather’s collection of German beer mugs. Mistletoe broke every one, including the famous memorial Bier Steinkrug from Munich commemorating the 1923 defeat of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi’s Beer Hall Putsch. That was our first defeat of those fucking, bloodlicking Nazis, and GranPawPaw’s Bier Steinkrug hit the floor and burst into a thousand shards. GranPawPaw cried three million four thousand five hundred sixty-three tears, too. It was if the ocean streamed from all of his chakras. Salt water flooded the floors and surged out windows and doors.

My other cat, Serafina, my dear burning angel kitty, was even worse. When the vibrator shakes the whole bed, it’s as if she feels an earthquake. Serafina freaks out, rushes into the bathroom, jumps into the empty bath tub, and takes a big, stinky kitty shit. And I hate cat poop. Hate dog poop, too. Hate stepping in it worse. But at least I am not an eunuch because castration freaks me out big time, y’know? So I gave Mistletoe and Serafina away to my nieces and told them to be gentle and not to ever pull their kitty tails and not to turn their little human brothers into eunuchs. No eunuchs. No way.

Although I have a friend, Paulie James, who has this rapier-like neutered male calico cat named Ichthus. A fucking fish name. The rest of us couldn’t pronounce Ichthus as Ichthus with the precision such a name as Ichthus demanded, especially after one too many beers. Not even Paulie James could pronounce Ichthus after a pint or two. We certainly did not share any desire to mate with a fish. Once he got all drunked up, tho, he’ll start telling us stories about these Ancient fish gods and goddesses from Outer Space who came down to Earth to mate. Then parts of Earth fell under the dominions of mutant, half-human, half-fish chimeras. Weird, huh? Give me a kitty cat with double nuts, and forget all about hybrid gill people.

One night as a group of us sat around gazing into the fake campfire of his natural gas fireplace up top his Seattle high rise, we started giggling. Ichthus slowly tromped about with his tail waving as antennae wriggled upon the head of an enormous cockroach I once fled from the last time I visited Frankie Franklin in Austin, Texas for SXSW. Not going back there. Too repulsive. Especially after those weird WEDx Talks where a loud leviathan dude in a digital cowboy hat overly shared about the exact moment one of the neighbors got caught down in the barnyard trying to mate with tin can-eating billy goats. Double Ewwwuh! But kitty nuts put on a show right here in Seattle.

Ichthus’s scrotum was so taunt, so very taunt, that as he jumped over Mitchie D’s legs, it quiver-jiggled ever so slightly like teeny tiny little itty bitty Christmas tree balls. So we giggled. And giggled. And tried to stop giggling, too, as it was embarrassing. Because this was just fucking stupid.

“Hey!” shouted Clarence who moved up from Mobile, Alabama to dive into Seattle’s sex positive subculture. “Lookit! Lookit Li’l Tight Nuts!”

“Yeah! Li’l Tight Nuts!” we all shouted.

We all howled. Even Paulie James howled. And we howled again after he knocked his beer over onto his carpet. As messed up as we were, we giggled even more as we imagined the beer actually enhanced the hideous, retro-shag carpet. Balzane howled as he tipped a bit from his beer into the maw of thirsty carpet.

“For thee leetle Tight Nuts kittee kat,” Balzane announced with his most solemn poker face. “May thee Dead leave heem be, so enjoy thees beaver ridge instead. Ameen!”

Mitchie D and Clarence stared at one another as they shared that’s-too-weird-man looks.

“To Li’l Tight Nuts,” they both said as they raised their brew in cheers.

And so from that point on we all addressed or referred to Ichthus the Calico Cat as Li’l Tight Nuts.

Except Paulie James had to go one further to exclaim, “Li’l KITTY Tight Nuts!”

Who in Heaven’s name ever heard of a goddamn kitty cat named Ichthus anyway? I mean, shoot, I would have to go back to speech therapy to pronounce such a crazy name. Six years of having lovely young women with strap-on beehive hairdos teaching me not to milfpronote vords no mo’ butta speak so clearly I done winned me a butterslop lollypop back when I was a tormented little razor clam was enough torment for me.

So this deaf people vibrator thing looks like a small, compact flying saucer the color of Ivory soap, well, it gets me going. Yeah. I have to reach out pretty far to shove a switch down to turn my thumper off, because if I don’t it would jerk its way out of my pillow case, crash to the hardwood floor of my studio, and make such a god awful heavy clatter even I can hear it. Well, feel it, really. And I hate clatter. That’s why I keep a little camping ax tucked between my mattress and boxsprings. It ain’t just to whack intruders in the face. Which, praise the Lord, I have not yet had to do and pray I never ever have to.

And as I’m already overextended, I go ahead and roll out of the bed, drop to the floor like a beer drinking kitty cat, look quickly around, then lunge up as if I’m gonna slap dunk this muhfukka basketball thru the imaginary hoop of my bedside lampshade. Without breaking shit. And that’s my early morning aikido yoga calisthenics for ya. Cuz I LOVE coffee!

Good thing, too, as it prepared me to watch a hearing woman die below the belly of an unusually large cement mixer truck. Well, it was really an Oshkosh front discharge concrete mixer truck. And that’s weird, y’know, cuz I thought Oshkosh made clothes for babies and little kids and stuff, so what in the world are they doing making these massive monster trucks? Ow.

I was at the bus stop top of Fremont near the intersection of Phinney Avenue North and North 43^rd Street. I like that spot as I love the smell of fresh roasted coffee emanating from across the street. Locally renowned Lighthouse Roasters with a funky little café tucked inside with delightfully beat up old furniture was my kind of place. One of my favorite places in all Seattle to watch coffee being roasted fresh as I lean my elbows into piles of inky old newspapers and show off my tight Carrhart derrière.

Oh, my God. I can tell I haven’t taken my Adderall yet. I have ADHD, if you haven’t figured it out yet. I really do. I really do have ADHD. I’m not overdiagnosed or underdead or whatever. Bipolar? Maybe. Just a little bit? No, I don’t think so. My brain chemistry is kinda scrambled, tho.

Hate the terms “mental illness,” or “emotional sickness,” or what else, oh, a “mood disorder.” Aye, I do have a disease, aye, I do, but I don’t feel sick or ill or disordered. Different with injuries, such as fractured femurs or a jellified cerebrum. Others aren’t so fortunate. Traumatic Brain Injuries are often invisible.

Although once I fell ass over teakettle off a big seesaw when I was a kid. A chunky lad sat down hard and my end shot up for what seemed six miles high. I squealed and let go like a damn girl. Oh, sorry, girls. But you gals squeal an awful lot, and so do I. Or did. Used to. I just like to feel the vibrations inside my entire head and neck and torso when I squeal really loud for hearing people. Oh, I so enjoy it, this squealing! Then that darn seesaw flopped back down and bopped me on the head. I pooed in my corduroy britches as I passed out and woke up crimson, green, and brown inside a sparkly-white hospital room.

The first thing I saw was a hideous calendar pinned to the sparkly-white hospital wall. O Nommo Dagon, this calendar was UGLY! It was contaminated with faded photos of large snowmen standing in Paradise Meadows on the slopes of Mt. Rainier on a summer day in the national park. Proud, smiling tourists from tropical countries stood in the snow wearing sunglasses and flip-flops. I hate snowmen. They scare me like clowns scare a lot of people.

One night when I was a little boy I got a hold of my Dad’s red plastic canister of lawnmower gasoline and drenched a snowman the Jollettes kids had built earlier that day. It was a huge snowman with a large, crooked, orange carrot cranked into its face with two red radishes poking out above it for eyeballs. Ugly damn thing.

Yuck. I hate snowmen! Poured gasoline all over it. I mean all over it! The whole can, too! I was very careful not to spill it. I’m good at careful cuz I used to take lots of piano and violin lessons just to feel vibrations and stuff. Whipped out a box of long, skinny-stick matches, grabbed three at one time, held them tightly together in my fingertips, struck it, watched ‘em flame up, and tossed those three burning matches against the gasoline-drenched snowman.

KA-BOOM!!!

I then remembered why Dad preferred to burn stuff with diesel fuel.

That snowman blew up all to pieces, soggy pieces burning a dirty, orangey-yellow color with bursts of blue and green. So bizarre! I fell backwards and squealed really loud. I squealed three more times. I saw whirling blue and red lights up in the air, too. Oh, cool, cops! The Jollettes had called the Police, then ran out there in the yard yelling at me. Their faces were so animated by firelight, their eyes furrowed sharply like pissed off billy goats, their mouths opening and shutting over and over and over like big, fat, mutant Lake Tahoe goldfish demons from the River Archeron of Hell. Their piranha teeth were rimmed with writhing snake lips. Ewwwuh!

Two things rilly, rilly turn me off! Turn me off and gross me out when I feel rilly, rilly horny. One is rotten toofie breath reeking of hot cadavers. Yuck! The second is lips wiggling as if they belong in an old Campbell soup can full of fishin’ worms trying to get out. I may not have the world’s longest measured expression of male genitalia like that Jonah in the Whale fella at 13.5 inches, but I do have the world’s third longest penis at 12.9 inches. Yep, that’s MY dick. With a whole lotta coffee in me, too! Woo Hoo!

Well, not everyone. Raoulie Jollettes, two years older than me, smiled like a little kid at Christmas. He thought blowing up his snowman was the coolest thing ever. Raoulie came over, bent over, and helped me get back up onto my feet. By then my parents had run over and were signing fiercely in ASL with mittens tucked under their armpits. A few other neighbors came out, too, standing stupidly in the snow with fuzzy slippers and velvety bathrobes on. Some scowled. Some grinned and laughed. Others stared as if in a drunken stupor, staggered about, and shambled back into their homes and shut the door.

Oh dear, where was I?

No damn Adderall, shit! Man! Bus stop…yeah, bus stop top o’ Fremont near the Lighthouse Roasters. Love that smell, the smell of coffee dust in the air, the aroma…so I buy my pound of whole beans straight from those Lighthouse people in a small, brown bag. Oh, it is such a TIGHT and FIRM little one-pound bag of coffee beans, too. My bag is packed so very tight! I love seeing the coffee beans pushing back through the paper oh so taunt!

Right away I scoot home, race up the stairs, and dart over to the kitchen counter. I measure out two scoops into the Burr Grinder. Heck with it, I go ahead and measure out one full cup of whole beans and pore into the Burr Grinder. Set it for espresso grind. Flipped on the switch, and by golly, it sounds as if a jet airplane is roaring down the streets. Yum yum yummy yum, my machine butchers coffee beans so sweetie sweet.

My portafilter, already clean and ready to yonifie those butchered, ground beans, is resting on a little square blue plate made in Japan. After my jet airplane “lands,” and the grinding’s all complete, I slide out the container of fresh, ground coffee bean dirt. Oh, it smells so fucking good. Ah. Ahh. Oh, it smells so good, so…fucking…GOOD!

So GOOD my nose dove down into the coffee with hot, man mammal lust. Woo Hoo!!!

One snort, and, uh oh, fine coffee-flavored grit is up inside my nostrils. I sneeze and dart over to snatch up three tissues and spend a few minutes blowing and honking and twisting tissues up into my nose as far as I could go. In my imagination I wanted to hose out my nasal turbinates with my $14.99 ivory-colored Himalayan Institute Neti Pot.

Instead, I quickly flip over my scoop and use the handle as a scraper to gently pull the coffee grounds from their container into the portafilter. Spread ‘em around, light tap; then tap it down firm. I’m now in a hurry, and I’m no professional.

Never worked as a barista. Learned on my own and did well, I’m proud to say, and without having to blow shit up in steambomb punk explosions. I had that happened to my friend Freedie once.

He got so drunk he decided to go make his drunked-up ass the BEST espresso EVER! Yes! The BEST! Ol’ Freedie gets EXCITED he almost gets a hard-on except he had a little too much alcohol in his blood. So he’s extra careful and thus a little too sloppy, y’know? So he sets everything up just perfectly right, except there’s chunky coffee dirt scattered as sand on a beach all over the kitchen counters. Even up on the windowsill!

Freedie turns on his espresso machine. His intention, apparently, was to steam up a cup of Bovine mammary juice. His lemon yellow espresso el machino, he would’ve killed me if he’d heard me say “espresso machine,” his lemon yellow espresso el machino had sat cold for a long time. Slowly it began to chug and shudder and lurch and splutter. Freedie watched for “the magick button,” as he called those lever switches, to go from bright red to dark so he could flip down the shiny metal penis stick.

God, it apparently took a long time to build up steam. And it kept building up steam. Well, Freedie’s eyes musta glazed over. He sorta slid down the wall, yawned, I guess he yawned, stretched out across the tile floors, and went to sleep. Passed out as if he, dear fellow, was dead.

His lemon yellow espresso el machino, however, wasn’t dead at all. Quivering as a little toy train shakes along cute, little boy toy choochoo train tracks, Freedie’s lemon yellow espresso el machino shook and steamed and vibrated and rocked and until a part somewhere, maybe a gasket, I don’t know, BLEW as pent-up steam BLASTED a HOLE thru the FABRIC of space-time and it, it, it SHRIEKED like a goddamn train whistle the moment the locomotive thunders out of the tunnel. Loud one, too.

Banshee screech of metal grating alongside metal as two trains jump the tracks to slam against one another as they surged forward in opposite directions with all of time blasting thru the ragged rip shredded across Freedie’s lemon yellow espresso el machino.

Sounded as LOUD as all the combined screams arising from billions of shrieking dead human corpses when they burst forth from the Earth to realize the Messiah left them behind in Hell in the wake of the Raptures as the those who submitted in OBEDIANCE rose up with the Lord Shaitan and Archangel Lucifer to overthrow the angry false god Demiurge the Archon. The same usurper Demiurge who had erupted forth upon the Throne of God to cast out The One God Beyond All into the supernova of His own Creation.

Yep, there was some pretty messed up folks who woke up with their faith all upside down and turned inside out, because you don’t mess around up top and down below where we all go to get up high. Swarms of angry zombies raged across the Earth so mad at being left behind unraptured they bent down upon the ground and sunk their teeth and hands and fingers and wide open jaws into soil and rocks and began to devour the planet itself. Left behind and locked out of Heaven, they scooped up rocks and bit mountains apart.

Must be similar to the sound of espresso machines when they orgasmed under pressure. A geyser of steam gushed out of the breach as if it was a cutting laser slicing battleships wide open to the sea. Drunk ol’ Freedie ass woke up, pulled himself up to the counter with one foot shuffling, and stood up into the fountain of steam.

It was awful.

The stream of shrieking liquid fire melted skin across Freedie’s left face, opened up his cheeks so you could see his teeth, and…uh…well, melted out his left eyeball. It gooed up and evaporated as if it’s all jello jelly.

In that moment Freedie remembered when as an angry boy of age eleven he used to torture animals and garden gnomes in secret shame to vent his rage upon the mainstream world in the only way he knew how before he woke up to the Horror he participated in and made a vow to quit and a promise to the One True God he would quit and so he did and he did, too.

As his eyeball bubbled into a spray of smoke, Freedie knew he had been deceived not by the Lord Shaitan and His Holy Mate the Archangel Lucifer but by Archon Demiurge posing as The One God Beyond All. And all Holy Sins were forgiven. Yes, the Loving Light of the Archangel of the Rising Dawn forgave all Holy Sins, for sins do indeed serve a holy purpose, yes or yes? YES! all in the deepest depth of Mercy and Compassion.

A loud honk blared into my hearing aids and woke me from my contemplation of the secret worlds behind the veils beyond our own world.

My espresso was done. My hands and eyes and feet and elbows and hips and backbone went on autopilot to complete the necessary tasks while my mind shot beyond my brains reliving the horrors of past comedies. It was actually a double shot espresso allowed to run a little too long as I was distracted by a bladder full of morning water. Yep, one of the first things I do upon waking up and stretching and lubing up my joints is to drink two ten-ounce glasses of fertile water. Ten ounces is, for me, the perfect glass, too.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

“Hey, you stupid chick! Stop texting when you cross the street! Goddamn dumbass people texting everywhere!” a man redfaced and unshaven yelled out of his rolled down car window with such intense vehemence my hearing aids picked up every aural vibration of pure hate.

She ignored him. If she was present to him. She was a young woman of olive complexion, maybe 23 or so, maybe even 25 trying to look 23, all tattooed up and pierced in a fashionable way, crossing the street with tight little steps as she hunched over her smartfone. Her thumbs pecked away with relentless, unhurried focus. She was in the zone; this beautiful young lass with her curly hair dyed a bright orange red streaked with black and a slash of violet.

HONK!

She cradled this smartfone in both hands with a cigarette slipped between two fingers of her right. Somehow she also managed to hold a twelve-ounce up of coffee in her left hand. It was plain white paper cup. She had colored purple pentagrams on it with colored pencils back in the coffee shop. You could see those pentagrams bright across the street they were so purple. It made me want to drink more of my coffee, and so three more sips I took.

Lights turned different colors. Bus was running late again. Rush hour traffic. The young walking woman slowly tromped across four lanes of traffic moving like, oh goodness, just like that calico cat, Li’l Tight Nuts or Ichfuck the Kitty Kat or whatnot.

The redfaced man sat muttering in his car, an old rumbling Buick speckled with dents and flaking, pale red paint. It was a big, ulgy ass old Buick, too, one tank of a car. Ol’ Mr. Buick Man blared his horn, gunned the engine, and with right foot shoved down hard on the gas, released his left from the brakes. Rubber wheels screeched like a tornado tearing thru sheet metal. Just then his right front tire exploded and his car jerked sideways into a big Isuzu donut truck advertising several juicy glazed flavors of organic, gluten-free, and sugar rich donuts.

“SEATTLE MINGO COUNTY CO-OP DONUTS! Fresh from Olde-Timey West Virginia Offspring! Brought to YOU by the Descendants of the Battles of Matewan and Blair Mountain! Peace, Love, & Donuts! Power to the Worker-Owners!” stood out in bright, neon, dayglow, cartoon letters from both sides of the Isuzu truck and across the rear. It was quite distracting in the most amazing and hyperbolic way.

This young lady tromped on to my side of the street, still looking down, still holding coffee, the cigarette now bit tight between her teeth, and worked her way down to the bus stop, where, still texting, she stood next to me.

I praised Jesus and Lord Krishna, too, this beautiful young lassie made it across alive. She never looked up from her smartfone as police, fire trucks, and ambulances surrounded the accident behind which traffic backed up in simmering heat.

Our metro coach arrived. The doors opened. No one got off. Everyone’s off to work. I instinctively reached up to touch my hearing aids, sipped more of my espresso, and stepped aboard behind young lassie gal. Halfway toward the back of the bus, she sat down, taking the seat next to the window, and I sat down next to her. A quick glance out the window showed a three tow trucks were now on site with their rotating top lights, too.

Damn, I realized once again I forgot my Adderall! So I finished my espresso. Yum. And sighed.

“Good Morning,” I said, as I turned to face the young lassie sitting so close to me. “I saw what happened out there. I am glad you are safe. That guy was crazy! The one in that old bomber car.”

She turned a little bit to look at me. A sideways glance of such depth her eyes lit up the shadows enraptured around her face and neck. She was magickal and enchanting, and to my delight, her eyes twinkled in such a glinty way even I felt intoxicated to recognize such powerful kink discreetly in my presence. I nodded in quiet submission, and she turned back to tap her smartfone. All at once I felt blessed to live here in Holy Seattle with so many other polyamorous bisexuals. Yes, legalizing group marriage is our next battle! Woo Hoo! And legal divorce, too! Can’t get divorced unless you get married first, right? Oh yeah! Be free like the Bonobos!

Without looking at me but speaking clear enough for me to read her lips sideways, she began to speak, then paused, relaxed, and started over.

“You know that crazy guy back in that old bomber car, the one yelling at me and calling me names?” she asked.

I nodded my head as I suddenly felt the siren call of the dead. I could smell the feel.

“Do you know anything about hostile Alien Blobs from Outer Space?” she asked.

“Actually, I have,” I replied and nodded my head. “Unfortunately the mainstream media makes fun of these Extraterrestrials with ridiculous sing-along videos such as the Purple People Eater. And they’re not stupid like in the old Steve McQueen movie, The Blob.”

“Wow. I’m impressed already,” she said as she continued to look at me over the top of her coffee held up in front of her face with both hands as in prayer. “The driver who honked and yelled at me, well, I know him. He’s gone mad, so I forgive him for his conduct.”

“I don’t understand. Would you please clarify?”

“Sure. He was in combat, too, in a secret war against a Confederacy of Blobs. He and many others were part of a covert operations group of Special Forces from around the world engaged in USAPs. Unacknowledged Special Access Programs. In this war they fought giant, people-eating Blobs. These Blobs, oh, Dude, they are so scary! Terrifying! They’re not really ETs in the conventional sense, but EDs.”

“Oh, Extradimensional intelligences?” I asked. “I’ve…yes, I’ve heard of them.”

“They popped in from another dimension, arriving inside ships filled with an organic fluid. Even their ships are genetically engineered living machines. These Blobs, uh, they eat people. It’s gross. They eat people the same way giant amoebas engulf their prey. Cuz that’s what they are! Giant, carnivorous amoebas! Giant purple ones, too, and all ectoplasmic brain, man! Huge purple amoeba brains, Dude! Throbbolicious! Well, all these wars, these crazy ass wars, these murderous, horrible, bloody ass wars, well, these wars made him insane,” the young lassie said with eyes full of diamond soul. “There were many wars, Dude. This one against the Blobs was the worst.”

“Who won the war?” I asked.

“We did. We ended up using microwave beam weapons and high-pitched sonic cannons to cook them alive from the inside out till they boiled and burst or else disintegrate under a barrages of sound.”

I nodded quietly, held her gaze softly with compassion, and kept my mouth shut. She clearly knew more than 99% of the general public. How much more bizarre could anything so strange get?

She preempted my next question. “I was a exobiologist involved in researching alien organisms. I got out after I felt it was too dangerous. The exposure to toxins in alien bodies as well as pathogenic microbes was terrifying. I saw too many strange and horrible things happened. We had to quarantine so many people. Every one died in quarantine. All of them. I had to get out. The man in the car who yelled at me and honked his horn? He was my Dad.”

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say. It was necessary I found this woman. Kitty cats and ADHD aside, she had altered her appearance dramatically to avoid being captured and detained.

“Don’t be sorry,”she said and turned to stare out the bus window a few minutes, then turned back to face me full on with eyes heavy with soul.

“His breaking point came when he was on a covert mission deep inside China. Slipped over from India, I think. There was a hostile Alien base deep underground near those mysterious Ancient pyramids outside Xi’an. This was a long time ago, deep in the mountain snow, although it feels like right now.”

“Seems like it,” I nodded. “And, please, then what?”

“He disappeared from his unit. So did half of the team. According to the survivors, they simply vanished without a trace. He was found naked two days later, however, 350 miles way by a Tibetan family. My Dad was the only one alive. His flesh was blistering and flaking off. He looked like a zombie and screaming for help. Turns out he’d been kidnapped by those Greys, those Grey Aliens, you know. Been probed big time, too.”

My eyebrows shot up and I suppressed a grin.

“Probed?” I asked with my eyes wide. “What exactly do you mean?”

“The doctors examined and X-rayed him and all that. CAT-scanned him, too.”

“Well, what did they find?” I said as our bus careened through a maze city streets bottlenecked by lakes and canals.

“He had an anal probe, but it wasn’t all machine, either. Part animal; like a cyborg. They pulled it out from his intestines.”

“Y…shit…You mean this thing, this probe…was alive?”

“Yes it was. The doctors pulled out a jellyfish crab-like thing with little wires going to so many places. This probe critter was way up his ass, too, but it wasn’t all that big. Essentially it was a living radio transmitter. Imagine a giant jellyfish tapeworm thingie being part-robot and crawling like a goddamn crab way up inside your ass. Good thing it was caught so soon, too. Found it embedded in his transverse colon.”

“Oh, my. His … uh …. transverse colon, huh?”

“Yeah,” she continued. “It was growing slender little tentacles, as refined as human hair, that wrapped around and around little structures inside the colon and embedded themselves in the walls like tapeworms do. Inside the main body of this creature was a digital brain. We don’t know what its purpose was. He didn’t have it up his ass all that long.”

“Good Lord,” I whispered and shuddered.

“There was some speculation this probe was some sort of miniature micro-nanoreplicator designed to flood his body with nanobot viruses. Again, we don’t know why or how. Nor for sure. Two of the doctors involved with its removal contracted something from it, maybe a nanovirus, and died horrible deaths in quarantine. Apparently every cell in their bodies was replaced by some kind of metal alloy, yet metal that was … um … alive.”

“Oh, Nommo, he literally had a goddamn bug up in his ass!” I said and whistled in aw. “So, so, what happened next?” I asked.

“We dissolved them in an enormous vat of molten steel. There were concerns the nanoviruses could spread through the molten metal or via fumes, but so far nothing like that has occurred.”

The bus clanked down a few more drops and screeched to a halt. Folks got off, more got on, and we both commented on how much we would enjoy a cup of plain black coffee. I looked out the window and saw a coffee café I’d ridden by countless times before on my way to and from work without ever stopping by. It advertised itself as organic and a supporter of worker-owned coops and farm federations. The Purple Swoon was an odd name, I thought, but hey, there it was.

“Would you like to join me for some coffee or tea,” I asked her. “I simply cannot show up at work in the shape I’m in. And in fact, I don’t think I shall ever be going back. I need to chill out around a cup of good hot espresso or plain black drip.”

“I’ll be happy to join you,” she said.

The bus screeched to another halt, making awful swooshing sounds. As the doors opened, a man in very, very tight and revealing pants stood outside the bus waiting for us to exit so he could enter. I was reminded of Li’l Tight Nuts.

“Hey,” I asked her again. “Do you like cats?”

“I do,” she said and turned back to me. “I do like cats. My last one passed away two years ago. Died of a brain tumor that grew up out of her ears and pushed out her eyes. It was so gross! Eeewie! We chose to cremate our cat, our community cat. Her name was Cock Baby.”

I spluttered in my scarf.

“C…Cock Baby?” I asked as she laughed. “D…Did you say, ‘Cock Baby?’”

“Yes, I did.”

“My goodness, that’s so nasty.”

“It was cute, yes, pretty cute. Nasty cute. Cock Baby,” she replied with a devilish grin.

“One of my best friends has this amazing calico cat. Walks kind of like you, actually. My friend is into all sorts of weird occult esoterica and bizarre, prehistoric creatures and stuff, but I think he reads enough to make up the rest.”

“Sounds rather cool.”

“Yes. It can be,” I emphasized. “And he this calico kitty, this amazing calico cat, as I’ve said. He named it, God, I can’t even pronounce it, something like Ickyfukky or something stupid like that from some book about the evolution of fish and amphibians.”

“A very strange manner to go about naming one’s kitty,” she said and laughed, standing there smiling at me. “So it wasn’t anything to do with cats like to eat fish?”

“No,” I replied. “Calling his kitty Tuna Puna Huna would be too crass for my friend’s tastes. My sense of humor’s down in the barnyard. His floats up high in the rain gutters.”

“Ah, very strange indeed. I appreciate barnyard. Or a sex-positive club for poly-kinks. Which is why I call my cat Cock Baby. Could just as easily have been Kunt Kitty. Not Icky Wicky.”

“Yeah, but none of us could ever pronounce IckyItchFuthFuss or whatever the hell, Ickyfukky or whatever. It was like, um, like reading those old spooky science fiction horror stories by H.P. Lovecraft about these prehistoric fish gods from Outer Space who turned into giant squid elephants or something awful like that.”

“OK.”

“So instead of IckyItch-Whatever we called him Li’l Tight Nuts.”

“Little Tight Nuts, huh,” she repeated with a sly grin.

“Oh, yes, he had the tightest little testicles. Rather alarming, actually. Comical, really. We all had a good laugh.”

She turned and squinted at me with eyes inside of eyes inside of eyes. “Are you familiar with Dagan and Kullulû? Oannes and Cybele? Ea Enki and the Apkallu? Our ancient half-fish, half-human aliens once revered as Divine? You know of these entities from ancient worlds far beyond our Sun here?”

Uh-oh. Too much tension between Light and Dark lubricates the Kosmic Razor’s Edge. I could feel it. And it … drained me. Memories from eons ago pinwheeled through the deep oceans of memory. Back when lords and ladies rose up from the seas to stride upon new lands with Mesopotamia and Africa underfoot. Lord, it became increasingly more difficult to maintain composure. I expended great effort to maintain the shape-shifting shield cloaking my body and true nature.

“Hey, I need to smoke me a cigarette,” she said. “So, hey, I’m going to step back in this alley and light up for a bit. Ahhh, yes! No more of Nommo and Olokun. At least for now. Ah! Tobacco! Ahhh.”

She giggled at me as she lit up a smoke.

“Little Tight Nuts, huh,” she snorted and shook her head.

Poor creature. My shield shimmered and spluttered in broken sparkles. Shoot. Too late. Quickly, thirty slender, muscular tentacles uncoiled from my trunk and snapped out, wrapped quickly around her, six across her face and jaws alone, and drew her into me. The front of my body opened into rows of mandibles to receive her whole and squirmy alive.

Ahh, the blood, the muscles, the flesh. I hunched over and masticated her as quickly as I could. Devoured her fast. The most important task, however, was to preserve the integrity of her soul. Her soul was more precious than diamonds. Flesh was nothing, really, and could be replaced, reanimated, and restored, however messy the process.

I felt sad, I felt such compassion for this young lovely lassie, and I had to fix this situation immediately. Bones were not my favorite, especially Earth animal bones, but in they went. I discarded her clothing and accessories and what not, crushed her smartfone underfoot and kicked the shards thru a metal grate in the street, and looked about. My skin exuded a layer of salty water to clean and dissolve remaining blood and lymph fluids; then I reabsorbed it all.

Time was short. Damn, time was short. Too short. These people have no idea. Even I did not know specific details.

WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

Deep heavy tremors vibrated the cobblestones underfoot and the buildings on either side of me. Swirling dark clouds with objects braced with glittering lights zoomed overhead to cast shadows down the alley and across the neighborhood. Giant Anunnaki swarmed across Earth far from their homeworld of Nibiru.

Too late! Too late! I almost screamed, but I kept my mouth shut and race as hard as I was able to run.

The Anunnaki fleets had violated a most ancient galactic treaty. Immediately without vengeance or compassion, Cthulhu and the Prehistoric Ones Who Still Spawn Deep In The Mountains of Space return to smash the Anunnaki. The Great and Dreadful Cthulhu, neither good nor evil yet all of both, surged forth against those treacherous invaders from Nibiru in a campaign of merciless annihilation.

My own people, the Drac Boreas, still alive deep underground, once spanned the Solar System. Now we are few, bereft of Sun and Stars, living below the surface in small subterranean cities here on Earth and beneath the Lunar surface, too. The remaining three subsurface cities on Mars were destroyed a year ago. The giant Annunaki pursue us relentlessly and with great violence for the fourth time in eons.

Our Saurian ancestors were first, wiped out with a mix of genetic weapons and giant, guided asteroids. Five hundred thousand years ago the majority of non-Drac Borean life on Mars, including Martian hominids, were extinguished.

Then again seventy to one hundred thousand years ago, as we struggled to prevent the Anunnaki from interfering with mammalian primate species evolving on Earth as well as the hominids. The Anunnaki established another one of their confederated empires and used their reengineered hominids as efficient slave labor to mine gold and transport ore to refine.

Now Cthulhu pursue the Anunnaki to Luna and the Earth, warring over the most precious gold in the galaxy, the ethereal diamonds of human souls. Deep inside me the soul of this poor human lass rested safe as I vowed to get her soul into Lucifer’s holy hands so the great Lord of Light would immediately place such precious spirit diamonds within the sanctuary of Heaven where not even Cthulhu and his puppet Archon Demiurge dare enter even as they pretend to sit upon the Great Throne of the One Beyond All Who Is Everything And Nothing. It would take a return of Lord Shaitan and his legions of Avatars and Archangels to stop this apocalypse and correct the genetic imbalance of life in the galaxy.

Even tho reptilians, we were rather fond of our mammalian wards. Inside the special sac next to my ancient heart I could feel the Soul of the young human female stirring and writing and wondering. I spoke softly to her, sighed, and pulled out of one of my pockets a beat-up cigarette.

“Oh, what the Hell,” I muttered as I fished around, found a lighter, and lit up.

Took a drag, leaned back against a wall of old bricks, and exhaled with a sigh. Smoke blew out in coils and reminded me of chambers underground full of nesting souls kept hidden from both Anunnaki stormtroopers and Cthulhu’s monstrous hordes.

Chaos descended all around me, but I wasn’t worried. I was near the hidden portal and within minutes would be plunging far underground with a soul. It was unfortunate, yes, and some may not understand, and, it is so. There were many more souls for which strategic decisions must be made soon.

The cigarette burned down to a smoldering stump. After one last smoke, I tossed it into the garbage dumpster next to me. I focused hard once more to maintain the shape-shifting qualities of my cloak; darted out around the corner, and jumped through the portal only I and other Drac Boreans could see. I was on my way down into the safety of underground chasms beyond which our few remaining cities lay.

WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

The whole planet shook as if gripped and shaken by some mad god standing solid upon the surface of Spacetime. A horrid screeching, wailing, howl roared through the rock of the planetary mantel. Archon Demiurge! He must already have turn loose his armies of bloodthirsty and venomous parasites upon this Planet Earth in advance of Cthulhu’s daemonic leviathan roars and screeking twitterings.

WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

I tucked my tentacles tight, folded up my cloak, spread my leathery wings, and flew off toward the warm light blazing far ahead, back to my clans, back with this precious human soul, to safeguard until Lord Shaitan in His infinite mercy blessing us with the salvation of the Light of Christ, lifts her far up into the Glory of Heaven.

I can see it now.

“She’ll want to reincarnate one more time,” the Guardian of the Gates Deep Below the Sleeping Mountains declared as he entered data into our communal holographic library.

I reached up and patted my pockets, then remember I had discarded all my hominid clothes once I uncloaked. Missed my coffee, too. Cuz I love coffee! Damn, I thought to myself as my tentacles coiled in and out from between my rows of mandibles. Just one more cigarette…

William Dudley Bass
Monday 6 May 2013
Thursday 20 June 2013
Seattle, Washington
Cascadia

 

* Copyright © 2013, 2015, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you. *