Not Wanted in 50 States
Last updated 07/10/2026
The restaurant was the kind of fancy place where the menus had no pictures and the water sounded like it came from El Dorado.
The waiter led a man and his date through the dining room, past several empty tables, all the way to a small table near the restroom.
The man looked around.
“Is this the only table you have?”
The waiter smiled.
“Yes, sir. The other tables are reserved.”
The man glanced at the empty room.
“Reserved for who?”
The waiter lowered his voice.
“For guests who are expected to arrive properly dressed.”
The waiter placed three menus in front of him.
“Here is our dinner menu, sir. Here is our wine menu. And here is our water menu.”
The man looked up.
“I’ll just have water.”
“Of course, sir. We have water from Mount Everest. We have polar water, bottled by polar bears.”
“By polar bears?”
“Yes, sir. They wear white gloves. They sanitize before handling the bottles. Then they fill them directly from Arctic streams.”
“We also have water from the Fountain of Youth.”
“And of course, we have water from El Dorado. It has tiny speckles of gold.”
The man closed the water menu.
“Just bring me tap water.”
I looked away from that table, and that was when I saw her walking toward me.
The woman arrived at my table and thanked me for letting her join me for dinner.
“That’s no problem,” I said. “OpenTable wouldn’t let me book a table for one.”
She sat across from me and introduced herself as Mr. Porcupine’s lawyer and handler.
They say Mr. Porcupine is wanted in all fifty states.
That is false.
Mr. Porcupine is not wanted in any state.
In fact, all fifty states have formally requested that he remain outside their borders.
He is wanted out of those states.
Every state has issued the same official statement:
“Please keep Mr. Porcupine away from us.
If spotted, do not approach. Spray with water until he leaves the premises. He’s a prick.”
“I met with Mr. Porcupine because of his animal abuse allegations,” she said. “And while I was visiting him in Alcatraz, he told me that you are heartless.”
I sighed.
“I hate admitting that Mr. Porcupine is right, because he is usually wrong.”
“So you admit it?”
“At the moment, yes. I am currently heartless.”
“But I have an explanation,” I said. “My heart is not with me at this time.”
“But I am working on it,” I said. “I am trying to get my heart back.”
“If the raven I sent after it doesn’t succeed, I will put a new engine on my broom and collect it personally.”
“Currently, my broom can only fly within a fifty-mile radius.”
Mr. Porcupine claims he is only in trouble because he tried to be a good Samaritan.
According to him, he was only trying to help a damsel witch in distress retrieve a heart she had misplaced.
“That is not what happened,” I said.
“No. Mr. Porcupine was already heading to the West Coast to find himself, like he saw in a pirated Hollywood movie.”
“The reason I’m trying to talk to you,” she said, “is because I need a letter of reference for Mr. Porcupine.”
“The only kind of reference I can give you is a negative reference.”
“That’s fine.”
“Anything helps.”
“How does a negative reference help?”
“The courts are overwhelmed with paperwork,” she said. “They’ll probably read ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ assume concern was expressed, and keep moving.”
“So you don’t need a good reference.”
“No,” she said. “We need volume.”
“We need to make Mr. Porcupine look important enough that people took time out of their lives to write about their experiences with him.”
“But those experiences are negative.”
“That is still engagement.”
“We understand how the court system works,” she said.
“That is why, on the day of his trial, Mr. Porcupine will be wearing stilts.”
“To make himself appear taller.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
“Studies have shown that people are more likely to be lenient toward defendants who are tall and attractive.”
Mr. Porcupine is a menace wherever he goes.
This is the same porcupine who once woke up an entire neighborhood and demanded that everyone move their cars so he could parallel park on a narrow street.
Because he refuses to take driving lessons.
Mr. Porcupine is now claiming he plans to use animal abuse allegations to get out of his case.
According to him, Officer Cop committed animal abuse during the arrest. Apparently, he tightened the leash around Mr. Porcupine’s neck and nearly broke it.
What his lawyer and handler doesn’t know is that Mr. Porcupine already had a prior injury from a county fair.
He was watching the Olympigs (the pig race) got distracted, fell off the benches, and hurt his neck.
So no, Officer Cop did not injure Mr. Porcupine.
It certainly crossed Officer Cop’s mind.
But he couldn’t turn off his body camera.
Apparently, they are solar-powered now and can’t even be turned off during a bathroom break.
But as soon as the jury hears “police brutality,” they might sympathize with him.
The public may even try to turn him into a saint without a background check.
Do not be surprised if one day, at a Catholic church, they plaster his face over a lesser-known saint.
The lawyer told me that Governor Nuisance was considering pardoning Mr. Porcupine.
“And if none of that works?” I asked.
“Mr. Porcupine is also planning an escape from Alcatraz,” the lawyer said.
“Of course he is.”
“But for that, the cat’s iron claws need to grow back.”
“As you may know,” she continued, “the cat courageously used his iron claws to make a hole in that man’s garage door to extract your heart.”
“Is that why they requested that I send Flintstones iron gummies?”
“Yes,” she said. “To expedite the claw regeneration process.”
“He is protecting the claws.”
The lawyer looked down at her phone.
“Mr. Porcupine is doing everything he can to keep the black cat from accidentally breaking one of his new claws before the escape.”
“Don’t be fooled by Mr. Porcupine’s sudden concern for the black cat,” I said. “He is not protecting him out of kindness. He is protecting his ticket out of Alcatraz.”
“And knowing Mr. Porcupine,” I added, “he has probably already considered using the cat as a flotation device.”
“I saw nothing but remorse in his face,” the lawyer said.
“That is because he got his eyebrows tattooed that way,” I said.
“He tattooed sad eyebrows on his face. That is why he looks remorseful. He is not sorry. He is cosmetically remorseful.”
The Easy Way or the Heart Way
Mr. Porcupine pulled up in an oversized monster truck flying a Texas flag. Across the back was a giant sticker: EVERYTHING IS BIG IN TEXAS EXCEPT PORCUPINES.
The monster truck was so large that Mr. Porcupine couldn’t parallel-park it anywhere near the house.
He pulled alongside the curb.
Backed up.
Pulled forward.
Backed up again.
After several attempts, the truck was still sitting diagonally across the street.
Eventually, the entire crew had to climb out.
Mr. Porcupine sent the koala to knock on one of the neighbors’ doors.
A woman answered.
“Excuse me,” the koala said. “Would you mind moving your car forward?”
She looked past him at the monster truck occupying most of the street.
“How far?”
“Preferably into the next neighborhood.”
“We need enough room for him to parallel-park,” the koala explained.
The woman stared at the black cat holding a coil of rope.
“What exactly are you cute little creatures doing?”
“Heart repossession.”
The woman slowly closed the door.
A moment later, her car moved.
Once the monster truck was finally badly parked, Mr. Porcupine adjusted his shredded cowboy hat and strutted toward the house, the enormous heels of his pointed cowboy boots striking the pavement with every step.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
He planted himself on the porch, stretched as tall as the boots would allow, and knocked.
When the man opened the door, Mr. Porcupine lifted his chin and cleared his throat.
“Mr. Porcupine,” he said. “Texas Heart Repossession Division.”
“We’re here,” Mr. Porcupine said, “to repossess one witch’s heart and return it to its original owner. Her name is Cin.”
Cin?” the man said. “Is that short for cinnamon? cinematic?”
“Both,” said Mr. Porcupine.
“Doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
Mr. Porcupine showed him a photograph of the heart.
The man studied it closely.
“I’ve collected many hearts,” he said, “but I’ve never seen one like that.”
“That’s because it’s a witch’s heart,” Mr. Porcupine explained. “They’re extremely rare. There are only a few of them left in this dimension.”
“It’s understandable that you might not remember. Some people suffer from emotional amnesia. Fortunately, we have a locator.”
He pulled out a small device.
“The signal leads directly to this property.”
He pointed dramatically toward the garage.
“So,” he continued, “we can do this the easy way or the heart way.”
The koala shifted awkwardly.
“Boss,” he said, “we already did it the heart way.”
Mr. Porcupine turned.
Behind him, the black cat was emerging through a huge hole in the garage wall, dragging the witch’s heart across the floor with a rope while carrying a case of popsicles in his other paw.
The man stared in horror.
“You destroyed my garage just to take back that witch’s heart?”
Mr. Porcupine narrowed his eyes.
“Aha,” he said. “So you do know exactly whose heart this is.”
The crew loaded the heart into the monster truck.
“You’re going to pay for this damage,” the man said.
Mr. Porcupine looked over at the enormous hole in the garage.
“No, I’m not.”
“Your crew did that.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Porcupine said. “My crew did it. I didn’t.”
“They work for you.”
“That doesn’t make me responsible for everything they do.”
The man pointed at the ruined garage. “I’m pressing charges.”
Mr. Porcupine gave a small shrug.
“Then you’ll have to come to Texas.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where I live.”
“And even if you do come,” Mr. Porcupine continued, “California has no jurisdiction over Texas. They’ll throw the whole thing out.”
“I merely traveled here from Texas to recover stolen emotional property.”
Mr. Porcupine turned and strutted back toward the monster truck in his pointed-toe cowboy boots.
“Good luck proving anything.”
“Wait,” the man said. “How much is she paying you to recover the heart?”
“You know what? Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll add another zero to it.”
Mr. Porcupine stared at him.
“If you could just give it back,” the man said.
Mr. Porcupine pulled out his calculator and added another zero.
“That works,” he said. “You owe me one hundred dollars.”
“That’s no problem.”
The man pulled out a roll of ten-dollar bills.
“You know what?” the man said. “I really don’t care about the garage anymore.”
Mr. Porcupine paused.
“You don’t?”
“I just remembered that I have rodent-damage insurance.”
“So thank you,” the man continued. “You’ve basically paid for the renovation of my garage door.”
Mr. Porcupine looked back at the enormous hole.
“We did?”
“Yes. You’ve been extremely helpful.”
The black cat started choking on the stolen popsicle.
The man smiled.
“Honestly, you’ve been a blessing sent from Texas.”
“And don’t tell her I bought the heart back because I care,” the man said. “It’s simply a rare specimen for my collection.”
Mr. Porcupine nodded while running a counterfeit pen across each ten-dollar bill.
One bill.
Then the next.
“If she wants the heart,” the man continued, “she can get on a plane or a boat and come claim it herself. I get airsick, carsick, and seasick.”
Mr. Porcupine held another bill up to the light.
“Understood.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Of course.”
“What did I just say?”
Once again, the thought of money had completely porcupied Mr. Porcupine’s mind.
He marked the final ten-dollar bill with the counterfeit pen and completely ignored the man.
Earlier, Mr. Porcupine had made one of the neighbors move her car so he could parallel-park the monster truck. But while he stood at the door negotiating the return of the heart, someone else had parked only inches behind him.
When Mr. Porcupine finally turned to leave, he stared at the tiny gap behind the monster truck.
“Who parks like this?” he demanded.
Then demanded that the man helped him keep watch while he back up.
Once the monster truck was clear, Mr. Porcupine lowered the window.
“How do I get to the freeway?”
“Go straight, follow the street around, and it’ll be on your left.”
By the time they finally reached the freeway, the koala had started muttering to himself.
“It still makes no sense,” he said. “Accepting one hundred dollars when the witch was going to pay you a thousand.”
Mr. Porcupine whipped around.
“What did you say?”
“She offered you a thousand dollars.”
“I don’t remember her saying any of that.”
The koala stared at him.
“She did say it.”
“When?”
“When she gave you the ten-dollar deposit.”
“How did I miss that?”
“She said she would pay you the remaining nine hundred and ninety dollars after you delivered the heart.”
“I would remember that.”
“You were distracted.”
“By what?”
“By checking every dollar for counterfeits.”
Mr. Porcupine blinked.
The koala leaned forward.
“While you were counting them, she explained that the ten dollars was only a deposit. She said she would pay the rest after delivery because she didn’t trust you.”
Mr. Porcupine looked offended.
“She didn’t trust me?”
“Exactly. She said you’d already stabbed her in the back once at some acupuncture place.”
Mr. Porcupine thought for a moment.
“I remember her talking.”
“That was the payment agreement.”
“You told us to stay out of all negotiations.”
“She gave us a gas card and even packed lunches for us” the koala said.
Mr. Porcupine turned toward him.
“What lunches?”
“For the drive to California. Lunches, snacks, and refreshments.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Where are they?”
“They fell.”
“Where?”
“In our mouths.”
Mr. Porcupine looked toward the black cat.
“You gluttonous fat cat. Gluttony is a deadly sin!”
Then he turned back to the koala.
“So I lost nine hundred and ninety dollars?”
Mr. Porcupine pressed one tiny paw against the brake button on the controller.
The monster truck stopped.
Everyone flew forward.
The frozen popsicles shot from the backseat and punched through the windshield like projectiles.
One struck the hood of a nearby sedan.
A father ducked behind the steering wheel and pulled his son down with him.
“I didn’t know we were at war.”
His son looked out at the popsicles raining across traffic.
“America is always at war.”
Right after the popsicles went flying, Mr. Porcupine tried to make a getaway.
Unfortunately, California traffic was barely moving.
He pressed the controller forward, lurched ahead a few feet, and immediately stopped behind a line of cars.
Red and blue lights flashed behind him.
Mr. Porcupine looked in the mirror.
“Damn California,” he muttered. “You can’t even flee properly in this traffic.”
The officer approached the monster truck, practically rock-climbed his way up the side, and tapped on the door.
Mr. Porcupine lowered the window.
“License and registration.”
“Don’t you know who I am?”
“Are you a celebrity?”
“No. I’m a Texan. Ever heard ‘Don’t mess with Texas’?”
The officer nodded.
“Ever heard ‘Don’t trash California’?”
Mr. Porcupine frowned.
“We just watched frozen popsicles launch out of your vehicle and scatter across the freeway,” the officer said. “That’s littering.”
“As you may not know, Officer Cop, I happen to understand the law. I’ve spent enough time around courts to know my rights. Crimes committed by Texans in California cannot be prosecuted in Texas.”
“That may be true in Texas,” the officer said. “But here in California, crimes committed by Texans get double the penalty.”
Mr. Porcupine stared at him.
“And California loves overcrowding its prisons,” the officer said. “So everybody out. You’re all going to Alcatraz.”
“Wasn’t that prison condemned?” Mr. Porcupine asked.
“For everybody except Texan criminals.”
Mr. Porcupine demanded his phone call.
When they finally handed him the phone, he passed it to the koala.
“Call the witch,” he said. “Ask her how the weather is, then tell her we failed the mission and ask her to bail us out.”
The koala stared at him.
“But I don’t have the heart to tell her we don’t have her heart.”
“Just do it.”
A few minutes later, the koala hung up.
“What did she say?” Mr. Porcupine asked.
“She already knew we don’t have the heart.”
Mr. Porcupine froze.
“How does she know? Is she psychic?”
“No. She has access to the same app. She can see that the heart is back in the freezer and that he tossed a bag of frozen peas over it to hide it.”
Mr. Porcupine looked down.
“What else did she say?”
“She said she’s bringing the raven out of retirement to recover it.”
Mr. Porcupine gave a cautious nod.
“And she said he’s going to peck your eyes out.”
“His eyes?”
“Your eyes.”
Mr. Porcupine squealed like a pig and squeezed his eyes shut.
Telepathic Trespassing
Last updated 07/04/2026
After picking up my car from a tire alignment, I realized that all the stress of planning a major move had knocked my chakras out of alignment too.
Clearly, I needed a chakra alignment.
So I stopped at a new acupuncture and massage place on my way home.
A very small woman greeted me and asked how I wanted to be massaged.
“Hands, knees, elbows, or feet?” she asked. “Or would you rather spin the wheel and take your chances?”
So I gambled.
The wheel landed on knees.
Without introducing herself or explaining what was about to happen, the masseuse climbed onto the table like a ninja, positioned herself over my legs, and began massaging them with her knees.
Apparently, the technique was reserved exclusively for Westerners.
It had been completely banned in its country of origin.
She placed several hot stones along my back, then returned shortly afterward to remove them.
As she lifted them one by one, she told me the acupuncturist was very short and would be with me shortly.
That was when I heard what sounded like a small stool being dragged across the floor.
Then I heard his voice.
Mr. Porcupine!
He pointed the flashlight on his phone directly at my face. The room was pitch-black.
“What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” he said. “I’m in a court-ordered rehabilitation program.”
“So this is part of your rehabilitation?”
“I’m supposed to learn an honest profession and become another productive slave of the system. I was released from prison a few months ago after serving time for practicing medicine without a license.”
“I just received my certification,” he said, pulling a sheet of paper from inside his shredded white coat. “I printed it on my friend’s home printer.”
He handed it to me.
“It’s still warm.”
The certificate was from the Believe It or Not Shamanic School.
He had graduated with honors.
I turned it over.
His acupuncture license was printed on the back.
“You put both credentials on the same sheet of paper?”
“It saves trees and space in my wallet.”
“Do you really have to wear that white coat? Your quills have completely shredded the back.”
“I want people to take me seriously.” He adjusted what remained of the collar. “And white looks good on me.”
He pulled out his clipboard.
“Anyway, what brings you here?”
“I have this being stuck in my mind like that meow-meow song.”
“Like the song that never ends?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about this mysterious being.”
“Where do I begin?”
“Did you exchange bodily fluids when you met him?”
“No!”
Mr. Porcupine looked surprised.
“You don’t smooch on the first date?”
“It wasn’t a date, and that is none of your business.”
“I’m trying to gather all the relevant details,” he said as he removed the hot stones from the warmer and poured a handful of popcorn kernels inside.
“Are you making popcorn?”
“I get the feeling this is going to be an interesting story.”
I continued with my story.
“Right after I met him, I felt all the energy drain out of me. I became spiritually weak. At first, I assumed I was simply exhausted from traveling.
“But a few weeks later, the thoughts intensified. Eventually, he began entering my dreams.
“He would flash signs at me so quickly that I couldn’t read what he was trying to say. So I started entering his dreams because I wanted to find out.”
Mr. Porcupine started typing on his phone while talking to me.
“It sounds to me like this has developed into a serious case of telepathy trespassing.”
“He entered my dreams first.” I said.
“That doesn’t give you permission to enter his.”
“I was investigating.”
“You were trespassing.”
“You see, humans are like computers. When two people stare meaningfully into each other’s eyes, they can begin transferring files.”
“Files?”
“Thoughts, bucket lists, passwords, dreams, emotional viruses. That sort of thing.”
“So he downloaded himself into my mind?”
“Possibly. Or you accidentally left your spiritual Bluetooth turned on.”
“Tell me, did you accept any food or drinks from him?”
“No.”
I paused.
“Wait. I did. He gave me a bottle of water, and I drank it.”
Mr. Porcupine lowered his eyebrows and shook his head.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to accept drinks from strangers?”
“She told me not to accept candy from strangers. She never mentioned anything about drinks.”
“What he gave you was not water. It was a love potion, and the seal only made it more potent.”
“At first, I thought distance would dilute the thoughts, but it only made them stronger.
“Give me his ZIP code.”
I gave it to him.
Mr. Porcupine opened Google Maps on his phone and studied the distance.
“Aha!”
“What?”
“You’re still much too close. You’re only a few hours apart by plane.”
“That is not close.”
“To heartbreak, it is. You may as well live down the street from him and see him every day.”
“My body can still detect him?”
“Of course. That is why the potion hasn’t cleared from your system.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Move to China.”
“China?”
“Within a week, he’ll be completely out of your system. You’ll be so busy trying to find your way around that there won’t be a single ounce of space left in your brain for him to occupy.”
He continued the treatment and informed me that he could perform a shamanic exorcism to temporarily evict him from my mind.
He pulled out a baby rattle, and began reciting what sounded like Hollywood Latin… the kind supernatural movies use whenever they want the audience to know that something demonic and poorly translated is happening.
Whatever Mr. Porcupine was saying was badly mispronounced. He was reading it directly from his phone.
He kept dragging the little stool around the massage table so he could reach me, shaking the baby rattle over every part of my body.
He finally stopped the ridiculous chanting and informed me that the treatment was only a temporary fix.
“If you want him completely flushed out of your system,” he said, “You’re going to have to flush the old blood out of your system three times a week,” he said. “I know a place that can help.”
“What place?”
“Dracula’s Mobile Blood Donation Center.”
“I know exactly where it is,” I said. “I was coerced into donating blood there once during a hospital stay.”
A few minutes later, he gathered his things and left the room.
“Mr. Porcupine!” I shouted. “Mr. Porcupine! Mr. Porcupine!”
He froze in the hallway.
It worked, he thought. I redirected the obsession toward myself.
He straightened the shredded remains of his white coat.
I have to tell her the truth. She deserves to know where she stands and what she’s up against.
Then he walked back into the room.
“I need to be honest with you,” he said. “I’m married. Shotgun wedding. Baby porcupine on the way.”
“Oh, Mr. Porcupine,” I said. “You have no idea how long I’ve prayed for a one-foot creature capable of shredding me into pieces and with baggage on top of it. At last, God or the demons have heard me.”
He lowered his eyes modestly.
“Mr. Porcupine, you’re a CERTIFIED IDIOT! You left one of your quills in my back, and I nearly impaled myself when I rolled over.”
“Oh.”
He reached over and pulled it out.
“I’m so sorry. I got distracted.”
“By what?”
“Calculating how much I was going to bill your insurance for all the unnecessary treatments I performed during this session.”
I suppose it was true what they said.
A porcupine never changes its quills.
My Heart Belongs to Me
Last updated 07/03/2026
I had already texted him to say I was running late because something had come up.
“Take all the time you need,” he replied.
I was late because I had offered to help an elderly woman cross the street. When we finally reached the other side… an expedition that took more than ten minutes… she confessed that she had not actually been waiting to cross the street.
She had been waiting for her Uber.
Apparently, no one had shown her kindness in such a long time that when I offered to help her, she didn’t have the heart to tell me no. So she allowed me to slowly escort her away from the exact location where her driver was coming to collect her.
By the time we reached the other side, she had missed the Uber.
Now I had to order her another one and help her cross the street again, returning her to the same shady spot where I had originally found her.
When I finally arrived at the restaurant, he came outside to meet me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been having a great time talking to the fortune teller inside. I actually took the liberty of hiring her to do a reading for both of us. I thought you might enjoy it, since you’re into all that occult stuff.”
So while I had been outside reversing an act of kindness, he had been inside discussing our destiny with a fortune teller.
“That was thoughtful. Thank you.”
He led me back to the table, where the fortune teller introduced herself and held out her hands.
“Give me your palms.”
I placed both hands in hers.
She examined them for a moment.
“How strange,” she said. “You don’t have any lines.”
“A very small percentage of people are born without palm lines,” I told her. “It’s unusual, but it’s not supernatural.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I’ve considered having the lines tattooed on, but that would feel like predetermining my destiny.”
She looked at me.
“And where would the fun be in that?”
The fortune teller’s phone rang.
She answered it.
“I knew you would call.”
Then he told me he was looking for a good Christian woman, though he considered himself very open-minded.
“It’s always important to know exactly what you want,” I told him.
He had crosses tattooed all over his body, loved Jesus, and seemed deeply concerned about the precise nature of my relationship with Him.
Then he asked whether my heart belonged to Jesus.
“My heart belongs to me,” I said.
The fortune teller, who apparently had one ear on the phone and the other on our conversation, leaned over from the next table.
“The truth is, her heart is in California with a man she briefly met,” the fortune teller said.
“Not because I gave it to him out of romantic love,” I said. “He borrowed it for an exhibition. Apparently, people wanted to see what a witch’s heart looked like on display.”
“That was six months ago, though. The exhibition is over, the trend has died down, and everyone has already forgotten about the witch’s heart.”
“I suppose he put it in the freezer inside his garage and forgot all about it.”
“So now I’m just waiting for him to remember to mail it back.”
I looked back at him.
“But just so you know, I do have a heart.”
“Do you believe in Jesus?” he asked.
“I like the rebellious Jesus,” I told him. “The sharp-tongued one. The one who went face-to-face with the devil and essentially told him to f*** off. The one who healed people on the Sabbath and called hypocrites exactly what they were.”
“That’s the Jesus I like.”
“I believe heaven and hell are internal states, and that God is consciousness.”
“I respect your beliefs,” he said, “but that’s wrong.”
“You’re not like most Californians I’ve met. I actually really like you,” he said. “Texans value people. We still know how to treat each other. We’re nice. We care for one another. You’ll never see road rage here.”
“That’s because everyone is armed. You think twice before honking. I’ve seen people sit through an entire green light because they were too afraid to honk at the person sleeping through it.”
Then he complained about Californians.
“They come here, raise the prices, and take over our land.”
“You should’ve seen me when I arrived in my wagon and planted the California flag in Texas soil, like they did in that moon-landing commercial in 1969.”
“You’re funny,” he said.
Then he began listing everything he owned.
“I have a house here, another property over there, a vacation condo, a pool, a boat, and friends with boats.”
“Do you have a time machine or a teleportation portal?” I asked.
He paused.
“No.”
“Then I’m not impressed.”
“So tell me… why do you Californians say ‘like’ so much?”
“The same reason you say ‘y’all.’”
“I dare you to go twenty minutes without saying ‘like.’”
“Actually,” I said, standing up, “I can go much longer than that.”
And I fulfilled his wish by leaving the table.
I asked the waiter to box up my taro mochi and add a side of caviar.
My date apologized and followed me to the car.
When we reached my car, he looked through the window.
“Is that a chicken in your back seat?”
“Yeah. I’m trying to find him a home before I move.”
“Did that bird just flip me off?”
“He has free will.”
“You know, McDonald’s could probably take him off your hands.”
“Unless McDonald’s is the name of a farmer, he’s not ready to be consumed.”
“I have to go now,” I said. “I need to get home and feed my dog.”
“But you told me you didn’t have a dog.”
“I just ordered one. It’s on its way.”
A Yankee, a Foreigner, and the Texas Holy Trinity
There I was, taking the back roads toward New Braunfels with a newfound possible friend in the passenger seat.
I had known her for approximately thirty minutes.
I told her I was heading to New Braunfels to make some returns and could drop her off first.
“No, that’s okay,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
And that was how she became my temporary passenger, possible new friend, and companion for every errand I had planned that late afternoon.
As we were driving, the wind suddenly threw open the door of a portable construction toilet sitting beside the busy road.
Fortunately, it was unoccupied.
The portable toilet had apparently grown tired of modesty and decided to expose itself to traffic.
We both jumped.
“What the fuck?”
Then we started laughing so hard that the exhibitionist toilet immediately became the first shared memory of our thirty-minute friendship.
We continued toward New Braunfels, surrounded by endless cornfields. She had never been there before, so I was giving her the scenic agricultural tour while we got to know each other.
That was when she told me that her boyfriend and one of his friends had once Robin Hooded corn from a field outside Dallas.
They worked their way around the outer edges, filled their trunks, kept some for themselves, and drove around distributing the rest to people who sold corn on the street.
It was theft, but with community outreach.
Funny how life works: one of the men they generously donated the stolen corn to turned out to be the owner of the very cornfield they had stolen it from.
They had unknowingly returned part of the harvest to its original source.
As we continued along the back roads, surrounded by rows and rows of corn, I looked over at her.
“Do you notice something or maybe something you don’t notice?”
“What?”
“There aren’t any scarecrows.”
She looked out the window.
“You’re right. There aren’t.”
It was strange. Miles of cornfields, but not a single scarecrow standing guard.
“You know what?” I said. “Now I really want to know why there aren’t any scarecrows.”
Out of excitement, I immediately spotted a farmer standing near one of the fields and violently swung the car to the right.
The farmer immediately ran to the left.
He thought I was going to hit him.
I was not trying to hit him. My excitement had simply taken control of the accelerator.
The car went slightly into the cornfield.
I parked, got out, and began removing pieces of corn husk from my windshield while the farmer stood there at a distance staring at me.
This was not the entrance I had planned.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Farmer. I’ll pay for all the corn I just ran over.”
“If you want to keep driving around like this is a NASCAR circuit, you’re welcome to,” he said. “I’ll bill you after your last lap.”
Then he began walking toward us.
“We’re armed,” I warned him.
“So am I!” he yelled back.
“What are two pretty ladies doing out here?” he asked. “Shouldn’t y’all be somewhere braiding a pony’s hair?”
“Farmer, we have so many questions we’re dying to ask you. We were hoping you could help us.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Well”
“You only get three.”
“First question: Are you a genie?”
“No.”
“That sounds exactly like something a genie would say. Although I was hoping you’d say, ‘I’ll grant you three wishes.’”
“Anyway, we want to know why there’s an exhibitionist toilet sitting beside a busy road and why none of these cornfields have scarecrows.”
“Well,” the farmer said, “the toilet is how the construction company keeps tabs on its employees.”
“Through the toilet?”
“It’s so windy here that they only have a few seconds before the door bursts open. That keeps them productive. They have to finish their business and get back to work before the entire highway sees their business.”
It was an outdoor employee-monitoring system.
“And the scarecrows?” I asked. “Why aren’t there even any of the mechanical Halloween kind?”
“Jeepers Creepers gave scarecrows a bad reputation,” he explained. “People became afraid they might actually be possessed, so the farmers stopped using them.”
Apparently, the agricultural industry had responded by replacing scarecrows with real human beings who clocked in, stood in the fields, and received a fifteen-minute break every few hours.
Then the union became involved.
It became too expensive, there were concerns about working conditions, and the farmers had to start respecting the constitutional rights of the people hired to frighten birds.
Eventually, it became far too much trouble.
“So now,” the farmer said, “we genetically modify the corn until the crows stay away on their own.”
The corn had apparently become so genetically modified that even the birds could smell the toxicity.
“I don’t really care about the corn around the edges,” the farmer said. “That’s the poisonous corn.”
“The poisonous corn?”
“That’s the corn people usually steal. Sometimes it takes years for the poison to kick in and do its job.”
My potential new friend’s eyes widened. The color drained from her face.
“Mr. Farmer, do I still have to pay for all that slow-acting poisonous corn I just ran over?
“Of course you do,” he said. “Somebody has to pay for all that karma.”
“So,” the farmer said, looking between us, “a Yankee and a foreigner.”
“You’re very observant for someone with only half an eye,” I replied.
“How long have y’all known each other?” he asked.
“About thirty minutes.”
“Aha! You got yourself a hitchhiker.”
“No…”
“Great,” he said. “A hitchhiker and a foreigner.”
“But she was born in this state,” I said. “She’s native to the land.”
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Native?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it. Tell me the three-word code.”
“Whataburger. H-E-B. Buc-ee’s,” she said, annoyed.
The farmer seemed pleased.
Before we left, I told him, “Listen, I’m preparing to move out of Texas. Would you be interested in adopting a chicken?”
“I could use another worker,” he said. “What are his qualifications?”
“Well, he sings, he dances, and he knows his way around town.”
“An entertainer could raise morale among the other animals,” he said. “Then again, it might create jealousy. They could all start competing to outshine one another in their assigned fields.”
“It could lead to a farm civil war.”
He looked thoughtfully across the corn, as though reminiscing about the old South.
“Let me think about it.”
The Road Less Traveled by a Trash Can
My friend looked toward the house beside mine and said, “What is going on with your neighbor? Why isn’t he cutting the grass?”
“You mean the Jumanji house?”
“You call it the Jumanji house?”
Of course I do. The grass grows several feet tall, and a vine has completely swallowed the porch. One of the perks of living in a neighborhood without an HOA is that Tarzan is free to recreate his natural habitat on his own property.
To be fair, his yard has always looked like that. He eventually cuts the grass, but only after the ivy has nearly made it impossible for him to enter or exit the house.
The strange part is that I haven’t seen him in about five months. The last time I did, he seemed uneasy as he rummaged through the trunk of his car.
This is cartel country, after all. Those of us who are new to the neighborhood know better than to ask too many questions.
It’s all a mystery. Different cars still come to the house once in a blue moon, and someone occasionally moves the trash cans, so there are signs of life… just not necessarily his.
I don’t understand what the house could still be throwing away unless they think trash cans are like dogs and need to be taken for a walk.
“You don’t think he died, right?”
“No. I haven’t smelled anything strange. I also haven’t seen anyone carrying a shovel, planting a suspiciously beautiful garden while whistling ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm.’ Nor have I seen anyone struggling to lift several heavy-duty black trash bags into the bins.”
I still liked having him as a neighbor because he was quiet and minded his own business, just like I do… as you can probably tell by the amount of detail I know about the activity at his house.
Although it is possible that he never forgave me for kidnapping his trash can.
“How the hell do you always get involved in the most absurd incidents?”
“Remember that time you went to Houston and almost bought ice cream for the entire city?”
“Yes, I recall.”
“I got distracted talking to my little cousin about the Minions movie and accidentally left my credit card inside the payment terminal. I didn’t notice until I tried to pay somewhere else and realized it was missing.
“When I returned, the employees had saved it for me… along with a stack of receipts for all the ice cream it had purchased in my absence.”
If you must know about the accidental kidnapping of my neighbor’s trash can, it happened on a windy day. Nothing serious… just a casual 80 to 85 miles per hour.
My trash can spent the afternoon trailblazing back and forth across the street, according to my Ring camera, while I wasn’t home. In the past, it had always ended up in my neighbor’s yard. This time, however, it took the road less traveled, and I made the mistake of assuming it had once again landed on his property.
I got home and retrieved my trash can from my neighbor’s yard assuming it was mine.
The next day, I went outside to feed it. I opened the lid and found empty wrappers from unmistakably masculine snacks: Pickled Jalapeños & Sausage and Little Debbie Strawberry Shortcake Rolls.
I stared into the bin.
“This ain’t my trash can.”
Then I looked toward my neighbor’s fence.
His trash can was missing.
Or, more accurately, I had abducted it.
I analyzed the limited range of my Ring camera, but the footage ended before I could follow the trash can through the final leg of its journey.
I had no choice but to go door to door, ignoring a series of increasingly unwelcoming signs:
BEWARE OF ARMED DOG.
YOU KNOCK, WE SHOOT.
WE ARE NOT CONVERTING AGAIN.
KKK MEETING IN SESSION.
But the last sign was the most terrifying of all:
SHERIFF’S HOUSE.
So I knocked on the first door and asked my neighbor if she had seen my trash can.
“What does it look like?” she asked.
“It looks exactly like your trash can,” I said, “but with a different serial number.”
“I don’t know my serial number,” she said, “but you’re welcome to open my trash can and see if it stinks familiar.”
“I’ll keep checking,” I said, and moved on to the next house.
A man answered the door and immediately began firing questions at me as though he were a retired detective who had been waiting years for one final case.
By the time the interrogation ended, I had forgotten to ask whether he had seen my trash can.
As I was descending the steps from the previous house, the woman next door came outside and told me she hadn’t seen my trash can, but promised to let me know if she ever did. Then she added that God works in mysterious ways and perhaps this was a test meant specifically for me.
I skipped the next house because I was reckless, not stupid.
I knocked on the sheriff’s door.
He opened it and immediately asked, “Have you been drinking?”
Then he paused.
“Sorry. Habit. What seems to be the problem?”
“I lost my trash can.”
“You don’t know the serial number?”
“No.”
“Well, when you find it, spray-paint your house number on it. Make it very visible.”
“Isn’t that damaging community property? And technically graffiti?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” he said.
Then I told him I could see an extra trash can over his fence.
“I think that one might be mine.”
It was.
My trash can had turned himself in for reckless driving through the neighborhood.
Porcupied with the Porcupine
The porcupine was crossing the street in a school zone, jaywalking, and carrying a small bouquet of flowers like he had somewhere romantic to be. A woman failed to brake in time and rolled right over his little foot. Not his whole body…just the foot.
I saw the whole thing and ran over to help. The porcupine was on the ground, furious, with one tiny foot still pinned beneath the tire.
Instead of backing up, the woman got out of the car and immediately started yelling at him.
“Could you at least move the car so he can pull his foot out?” I asked.
“No,” she snapped. “I want the cops to see exactly where he was. I’m making a citizen’s arrest.”
“A citizen’s arrest for what?”
“For jaywalking. And emotional damage to my morning.”
I looked at her. “You clearly saw him. This is a school zone. You were supposed to slow down.”
“I did see him, but I’m only required to stop for children and school staff,” she said. “Not for some romantic animal carrying flowers.”
At that, the porcupine pulled out one of his quills, reached up with shocking precision, and punctured her tire.
“There,” he said. “Now you have something to be porcupied with.”
Then I used the eyebrow tweezers from my purse to help pull his little foot out from under the tire.
As we waited for the police, the porcupine glanced at Mrs. Karen’s deflated tire.
“I happen to know a mobile tire-repair service that can come out and fix that right here,” he said. “And because of the circumstances, I can offer you a special price.”
Mrs. Karen narrowed her eyes. “You punctured it.”
“That is why you qualify for this limited-time offer.”
“I’m not paying you to repair the tire you damaged.”
“You wouldn’t be paying me,” he explained. “You would be paying the company. I would only receive a small commission.”
She stared at him.
“But you must act now,” he added. “This offer will not last.”
“We’re waiting for the police!”
“You work at a tire shop?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“On commission?”
The porcupine looked at the ground.
Mrs. Karen screamed, “I KNEW IT! HE’S GENERATING LEADS!”
The officer finally arrived, took one look at Mrs. Karen’s flat tire, and pointed at the porcupine.
“Hands behind your back.”
“I can’t.”
“Are you resisting?”
“No. My arms are too short.”
“Fine. Hands forward.”
The porcupine held out his tiny hands. The officer fastened a pair of regular human handcuffs around them, but they slipped straight off and fell onto the pavement.
The officer stared at the cuffs.
“So now you’re evading restraints.”
“Aren’t you at least going to hear my witness statement?” I asked.
“Actually,” the officer said, turning toward the porcupine, “let me have your anti-social security number.”
“How do you even know he has one of those?”
“I can tell,” the officer said, pointing at the tiny teardrop tattoo beneath the porcupine’s left eye.
The porcupine sighed. “One, two, three, four, five…”
He paused, momentarily forgetting the last digit.
“…six.”
The officer typed it into his system.
“Bingo! You have a rap sheet longer than Santa Claus’s naughty list.”
He turned to me. “You see? Just because he looks cuddly in the front”
The officer grabbed a handful of the porcupine’s soft little belly.
“doesn’t mean he’s a good guy.”
“Could you stop manually demonstrating your point?” I asked.
“He’s bad,” the officer continued. “Listen to this. Recently arrested for getting high on catnip and eucalyptus while associating with a black cat and a koala.”
“I was standing near them,” the porcupine said.
The officer kept reading. “Under the influence and in the company of known users.”
Then he looked at me.
“Ma’am, you seem awfully porcupied with this porcupine.”
“I’m trying to explain what happened.”
“We can switch you out,” he said. “Like a prisoner exchange. Legally.”
“How would that be legal?”
“The law requires a suspect. It doesn’t specify which one.”
“That cannot possibly be true.”
“Ma’am, please don’t make this more complicated. I already opened the ticket, and I can still alter it without leaving a trace.”
He turned back toward the porcupine.
“Have you ever considered changing your life?”
“I have a job.”
“At the tire shop. On commission.”
The porcupine looked away.
“You could become an acupuncturist,” the officer continued. “You already have the necessary tools.”
“Or a professional head scratcher,” Mrs. Karen added.
“Back scratcher,” the officer corrected. “There’s more surface area.”
“I am not changing careers because one woman failed to brake,” the porcupine said.
The officer pulled out his phone and handed it to me. Then he held the citation over one of the porcupine’s quills.
“Wait,” he said. “Take one now. I want a picture of the exact moment of service.”
“This feels unethical,” I said.
“Just move a little to the left so the sun doesn’t cast such a harsh shadow.” He turned toward the porcupine. “Now, Mr. Porcupine, open your mouth just a tiny bit and furrow your brow. Try to look remorseful, but dangerous.”
“Hold that pose.”
Click. Click.
The Familiar Has to Be Unfamiliar
Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 114
I had been walking through the neighborhood for hours with a basket of muffins, a damp flyer, and a level of commitment that, in hindsight, may have crossed into poor decision-making.
By the time I reached his house, the rain had gotten worse. My hair was stuck to my face. My cloak was soaked through. The almond flour muffins had absorbed so much moisture they were beginning to resemble emotional sponges.
I knocked.
When he opened the door, he looked at me standing there in the rain with my basket of witch muffins and immediately said I was going to catch pneumonia.
“I don’t think pneumonia works that way,” I said.
“That’s what everyone says right before they catch pneumonia,” he said.
Then he looked down at the basket.
“And not only are you going to catch pneumonia,” he said, “but those muffins are going to catch pneumonia too.”
“They’re almond flour blueberry muffins.”
“Not anymore.”
I looked down.
The muffins on top had absorbed so much rainwater that some had begun to swell against their paper liners. The ones buried near the bottom of the basket, however, remained relatively protected.
“They’re moist,” I said.
“They’re pneumonia sponge muffins.”
“How many pneumonia sponge muffins have you sold?”
“Only a dozen,” I said. “And I’m about to sell another dozen in this house.”
He stared at me.
He sighed.
“Venmo or Zelle?” I asked.
He pulled out his phone.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take a dozen.”
I lifted the basket.
“Give me the batch from the bottom,” he said. “Some of those still look spiritually uncompromised.”
That was when he told me to come inside.
He handed me his raincoat.
“Put this on,” he said.
So I took off my wet clothes and wore only the raincoat while my clothes dried.
I had just come from the witches’ reunion, and told him we had failed to close the circle properly.
We had been unable to locate a stray black cat.
A lot of people assume any cat will do, but that is not true. The familiar has to be unfamiliar. That is what most civilians don’t understand about pentagram work.
If you bring your own cat, he will step into the circle just because he wants you to like him more and keep enabling his catnip problem.
That invalidates the ritual.
What you need is a stray black cat. A gangster cat. A cat who has eaten behind restaurants shut down by the city, slept on top of cars and under them, and fought at least one koala on parole for territorial reasons.
That kind of cat does not get scared and break the circle just because a shadow appears.
“I missed your goofy-looking face,” he said.
“It’s not goofy,” I said. “I just have really high cheekbones, and they keep getting higher and higher. One day they’ll rise all the way to my forehead and become horns.”
“It sounds like you wouldn’t mind at all,” he said. “You’re probably already shopping for hats slightly bigger to accommodate them.”
“Did you put cinnamon in the blueberry muffins?” he asked. “You know I’m allergic to anything good.”
“I did,” I said. “But just a little. So you should only die a little if you eat them.”
“I wish you were joking,” he said. “But knowing you, you probably calculated the dosage.”
“That’s my Cin,” he said. “Always obsessed with just dying a little.”
“Dying a little never killed nobody,” I said.
“I bet if I woke up dead, you would probably love me again.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I guess you’d have to die first to find out.”
“Okay,” he said. “This is going too far. I like funny Cin better than macabre Cin.”
How do I stop seeing you in my dreams. Can you remove the spell?
“It wasn’t a spell,” I told him. “It was one single eyelash and one of the buttons from my blouse. The button must have popped off inside your house. They were both carrying residual charge, a tiny part of my soul.”
He stared at me.
Then he looked horrified.
“Once you find the button and the single eyelash” I said, “you should be able to exorcise me from your head and your home.”
“I heard you’re done with everything,” he said. “Getting rid of everything. Selling everything. Closing everything.”
“Where are you going?”
“Here,” I said.
And I pointed.
He looked at it for a moment.
“That’s out of this world,” he said.
“Exactly.”
The Witches’ Reunion: A Special Guest
Last updated June 19, 2026
Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 112
As the High Priestess, I decided to host the first witches’ reunion in the city of Pasadena while everyone was distracted by the Rose Parade.
Our faces looked more tired, but the spells and our old-world cooking recipes remained the same.
Witches came from everywhere.
Some parked their brooms in the bicycle area, which immediately caused problems because several of them looked identical in the dark.
Others Ubered to the reunion because they did not want to deal with confusing their broom with someone else’s and accidentally flying home on a stranger’s emotional baggage.
But we denied entry to anyone who bought their sage and palo santo at Silver Lake boutiques and used Google Translate to turn English into Latin, as if Latin were the official language of the supernatural world. If we had to assign it an original language, it would probably be Hebrew. The Devil was already speaking it in Genesis.
We had to draw the line somewhere. We openly discriminated against Hollywood witches.
“Blessed be,” I said.
“Now, sisters,” I said, tapping the microphone. “Tonight is a very special night.”
The room had been decorated with battery-operated, realistic-flame candles from Costco and essential-oil diffusers instead of burning incense, for fire-hazard reasons. Even the occult had to follow venue policy.
“For centuries, we have had to communicate through intermediaries. Spirits. Ouija boards. Magic 8 Balls. Occasionally, an unplugged Zoltar machine. And one severely overworked raven.”
Several witches nodded.
“You remember the raven,” I said. “He took forever to relay messages because he had accepted too much work. Funerals. Omens. Breakup dreams. One woman kept asking him to check if her ex had moved on, and eventually the raven was named in a restraining order.”
“At some point, he was carrying so many messages that he started misdelivering them. He sent apologies to the wrong widows. He delivered bad omens after the person had already died.”
“It got so bad that the raven exceeded the number of liens legally permitted on a single nest.”
A witch whispered, “If you can no longer trust ravens, who can you trust?”
“The devil,” someone shouted.
The room froze.
That voice sounded familiar.
I paused.
Then I continued, because when you are hosting an event, you cannot allow every demonic voice to derail the program.
“Recently, my cable company upgraded my internet at no extra charge.”
“I do not know exactly what plan I have now. Fiber? Ultra? Max? Something with bandwidth. The point is, I was finally able to host a night with the spirits without buffering.”
A few witches gasped.
“Yes,” I said. “The connection was strong enough for the spirits to carry a message all the way down to him.”
Someone whispered, “To the devil?”
I nodded.
“To the devil.”
“And tonight, sisters, for the first time in his devilish life, he has agreed to appear not through a dream, not through a Ouija board, not through the smoke of a campfire, but through the projector.”
The room grew still.
A witch in the back dropped her candy canes.
“No other witches’ convention has ever brought you the devil himself as a guest speaker,” I said. “Not Salem. Not Voodoo Doughnut. Not even that overpriced retreat in Joshua Tree where they made everyone sleep in yurts and called it spiritual resilience.”
Several witches murmured.
“You remember the one,” I said. “The retreat where they released goats into the camping area to police negative energy, but the goats immediately turned against the participants and began trampling through the tents.”
A few women nodded.
“By the end of the weekend, every participant needed a chiropractic adjustment.”
“And then,” I continued, “instead of apologizing, one of the organizers tried to add another healing activity.”
“What activity?” someone asked.
“Chiropractors with goats.”
Then one witch in the back finally snapped.
“Show us the devil!”
At that exact moment, someone’s phone started ringing.
The ringtone was an eerie little song, the kind of melody that sounded like it had been composed by a haunted ice cream truck.
Everyone turned.
The Costco candles flickered mechanically.
The computers in the back began installing mandatory updates.
On the snack table, the hot salsa began getting hotter.
A witch dipped a tortilla chip, tasted it, and immediately started coughing.
“It’s increasing,” she said.
Then the fire alarm went off.
The projector screen flickered.
A figure appeared on the screen, seated in what looked like a very Wayfair-decorated home office.
The devil adjusted his horns.
“Can everyone hear me?” he asked.
The organizer rushed forward.
“You’re muted.”
The devil rolled his eyes and cursed.
“I have been summoned across dimensions,” he said, “and still somehow, the first thing I hear is that I’m muted.”
“For centuries,” he said, “humans have been using my name irresponsibly.”
The room went still.
“They keep blaming me for everything. Wars. Son of Sam. Greed. Reality television. Men who own acoustic guitars. I have nothing to do with most of that.”
He sounded tired.
“I have not had official business on Earth since they crucified Jesus.”
Someone gasped.
“What?”
“That was the last time the assignment made sense,” he said. “Jesus was there. There was structure. At one point, we even tried to be civilized and went out for a glass of wine at one of his wineries to resolve our differences. Or perhaps three glasses. I was too drunk to keep counting.”
“And did you resolve your differences?” one of the witches asked.
The Devil looked away from the screen.
“In a way.”
“We made peace. I returned to the underworld. He returned to his Father’s kingdom.”
“And both of us,” he said, “gave up on humanity.”
“Then what happened?” someone whispered.
“Humans started freelancing,” said the Devil.
“Do you know how annoying it is to be blamed for every terrible thing people do when I have been retired for two thousand years?”
“So you retired after the crucifixion?” someone asked.
“Spiritually, yes,” he said. “Administratively, it took longer. The final paperwork wasn’t processed until the end of World War II.”
The room went still.
“Once God accepted my resignation, I looked around and realized humanity no longer required outside influence.”
“That’s dark,” someone whispered.
“That’s documentation,” said the Devil.
Another witch raised her hand.
“Then who was dancing in the forests with our ancestors?”
The devil stared at her through the screen.
“Those were lookalikes.”
“Lookalikes?”
“Yes. That was not me. People have been falsely identifying me in forests for centuries. They were wearing very convincing costumes made from real animal hides.”
“But they had horns.”
“Do you have any idea how many creatures have horns?”
Then he logged out without saying goodbye.
“Okay, everyone,” I said, returning to the microphone. “This concludes our reunion.”
The witches looked disappointed.
“I know. I know. Traditionally, this is where we would dance around a fire.”
Several women nodded.
“Unfortunately, we are not allowed to do that here.”
A few witches started heading out.
“I did try to negotiate. I told the owner of the center we would keep it casual. Nothing dramatic. Just a small ceremonial flame. Maybe roast a few marshmallows and twerk a little.”
“He wasn’t buying it.”
“He said if he smelled anything burnt or sulfurous, we were not getting our deposit back.”
“And sisters,” I said, “since we are not allowed to have a fire anywhere on the premises, please place your lists of unwanted burdens, attachments, and problems into this black bag.”
I held up the bag.
“I have hired a stork through the local zoo to deliver it to the shredding center for destruction,” I said, “so our release spell can be completed without violating the fire code.”
“Also,” I said, before anyone could leave, “do not forget to take the blueberry muffins.”
“The almond flour blueberry muffins I made to raise funds for Witches Awareness. Everyone grab as many as you can fit in your baskets and sell them on your way home.”
“Please Venmo me the proceeds by midnight tomorrow,” I said. “And do not eat the inventory. This is a cause.”
“I will be sending owls as your companions,” I said, “to ensure everyone remains honest.”
“These are compliance owls.”
Several witches looked toward the ceiling.
“They will accompany you home, observe your sales activity, and report any muffin-related misconduct directly to me.”
Someone whispered, “What does Witches Awareness even do?”
I looked at her.
“It raises awareness.”
“For the fact that we are still here, still misunderstood, still being blamed for TV hauntings, and apparently still responsible for family curses.”
“Also,” I said, “everyone must remain in uniform while selling the muffins. Put on your black cloaks.”
“Won’t that scare people?” someone asked.
“That is why it is called awareness,” I said.
After the reunion ended, some of the witches collected their baskets.
Some witches went to parking validation for their brooms, which apparently cost extra if you left them in the structure for more than two hours.
A few simply started walking home in different directions with their baskets of muffins tucked beneath their cloaks.
I decided to walk home too.
Unfortunately, it started raining.
Mrs. Peeping Tom
Last updated June 19, 2026.
Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 111
The first time I met Mrs. Peeping Tom, I had just moved into town.
The moving truck was still outside. The movers were unloading boxes. I was carrying something I had absolutely paid them to carry, because apparently I like to participate in the illusion of being helpful.
Then a woman appeared at my front door holding a plate of sealed Atkins protein bars.
Not cookies.
Not special brownies.
Not a casserole.
Sealed Atkins protein bars.
Which, in hindsight, should have been my first clue that she was either extremely considerate or extremely familiar with how evidence works.
“Hi,” she said. “I noticed you’re my new neighbor. I’m Mrs. Peeping Tom.”
I stared at her.
Because what do you say to that?
Is that hyphenated?
Before I could decide, she held out the plate.
“I brought you these. They’re sealed. I figured most people won’t eat homemade cookies from a stranger. Or even a store-bought cake, because it could still be tampered with. So I brought protein bars.”
“That’s… thoughtful,” I said.
“I noticed you work out,” she added. “I could tell by your well defined calves. Also, you were moving things out of the truck even though you paid movers.”
I looked down at my own legs like they had betrayed me.
“Right,” I said. “Let me put these away and I’ll bring your plate back.”
“You don’t have to invite me in,” she said.
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’ll just watch from here.”
And she did.
She stood in the doorway while I walked the plate into the kitchen, set the protein bars down, and tried to act like this was not the first scene of a documentary I would later regret participating in.
On my way back, I noticed a fly inside the house.
I grabbed a towel and started swatting at it.
“Oh, the whole town has a fly problem,” she said. “These houses are brand new, but they’re not built well. Lots of gaps. That’s how things get in.”
I froze for a second.
Because that is the kind of sentence a person says before revealing they have been living inside your walls.
I handed her the plate.
“Well,” she said, “if you ever need anything, just ask. I have a generator, gasoline, first aid kits, cat formula, and a full arsenal.”
“Cat formula?”
“For emergencies.”
“Of course.”
“And I have the only working landline in town. So if there’s ever a storm, or a tornado, or the cell towers go down, don’t hesitate to come knocking.”
“That’s very nice,” I said. “I usually try not to bother my neighbors. I’ll do my best not to become a damsel in distress during a federally declared event.”
She smiled.
“I live at the end of the street,” she said. “You’ll know the house. It has the red light outside.”
And then she left.
Which is how I learned that in Seguin, emergency preparedness sometimes comes with surveillance, protein bars, and a woman named Mrs. Peeping Tom.
After that, I could no longer relax in my own home.
I felt watched.
Not watched in the normal neighborhood way, where someone notices you forgot to bring in your trash cans.
Watched in the architectural way.
Then one night, from my upstairs bathroom window, I saw something.
At least, I think I saw something.
An elongated silhouette.
Standing outside.
It looked like Mrs. Peeping Tom. She was about seven feet tall, which is considered average here in Texas, a state mostly occupied by giants.
People are always asking, “Whatever happened to giants?”
They moved to Texas.
They built the countertops.
This explains why my sink feels like it was installed for someone with an NBA contract. I have to stand on my tiptoes just to see myself in the bathroom mirror, and at the grocery store the plastic bags are mounted so high you have to perform a vertical leap just to bag some tomatoes.
Or maybe it was the shadow of my neighbor’s tree.
Or maybe I was hallucinating from all the mushrooms on the pizza I had eaten that particular day.
We will never know for sure.
So I did what any reasonable woman would do.
I cemented the bathroom windows shut.
All of them.
Because the bathroom is where a person is most vulnerable. You can be brave in the kitchen. You can be composed in the living room. You can even pretend to be mysterious in the hallway.
But nobody is mysterious under fluorescent lighting with wet hair and mismatched slippers on.
Then I cemented the rest of the windows, just to be thorough.
Unfortunately, her prophecy became real.
A tornado came through town. It skipped my street, as expected, but it flooded both exits, which meant I was technically safe and completely trapped. There was no power. No internet. No phone reception. The cell towers were down, and I was vulnerable, helpless, and hungry as hell.
And not just normal hungry.
Pizza hungry.
The kind of hunger that makes a woman ignore every red flag she has ever collected.
Every pizza place in town was closed because everything in this town closes at six and becomes legally dead on Sundays. The only option was to order from the next town over, which meant I needed a phone.
A real phone.
A landline.
Which meant I needed Mrs. Peeping Tom.
I walked to the house with the red light outside.
As I approached, another woman came out of Mrs. Peeping Tom’s house. She did not look at me. She did not acknowledge me. She kept her eyes forward in the way people do when they have survived something but signed an NDA with their own soul.
I knocked.
Mrs. Peeping Tom opened the door almost immediately.
“I knew you’d come eventually,” she said.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “But I need to use your landline.”
“For what?”
“I need to order pizza from the next town over.”
She stepped aside.
“Come in.”
I did not move.
“Before I come in,” I said, “I need you to know that I know.”
She blinked.
“You know what?”
“I know you watch people.”
Her face changed.
“Have you been watching me?”
“Yes,” I said.
She stared at me.
She looked almost impressed.
“You cemented your windows?”
“I started with the bathroom windows,” I said. “Then I did the rest of the house.”
She sighed.
“Do you still have flies?”
I froze.
“What?”
“Do you still see flies inside your house?”
“Yes,” I said. “Unfortunately.”
“Then I still have a way in.”
I felt my stomach drop.
“As long as flies can get into your house,” she said, “so can my gaze.”
“Damn it,” I whispered.
“You have to follow the flies,” she said. “Find where they’re getting in. Find the gaps. Seal the gaps. Only then will you truly shut me out.”
“Why do you do this?” I asked. “Why peeping?”
She looked past me, toward the flooded street.
“Ever since my husband died, I’ve been bored to death,” she said. “There’s no one to argue with anymore. No one to make my life a living hell. And there are not many hobbies in this town.”
“So you chose voyeurism?”
“It chose me.”
“You could have chosen crochet.”
She frowned.
“Doesn’t yarn attract cats?”
“Yes,” I said. “But only if you’re doing it correctly.”
“I’m allergic to cats. Actually, I’m allergic to all animals.”
She considered it for a moment.
“No. I’m too deep into this. I can’t start a new hobby at my age.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, before I use your phone, I also need you to know that I left a letter in the outgoing mailbox telling people I came here. So if I disappear, they know your house was my last known location.”
She looked at me.
“You mailed a letter during a flood?”
“I had no stamp, so I used an ‘I Voted’ sticker.”
“That won’t work.”
“It might. This country is built on hope and dreams.”
She smiled.
Then she led me to the landline.
“You can use it,” she said. “I’ll give you privacy.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Then she walked to the other side of the door and closed it.
I heard her breathing behind it.
“Mrs. Peeping Tom?”
“Yes?”
“Are you watching me through the peephole?”
“No.”
“Are you listening?”
“No.”
I stared at the door.
I picked up the phone.
Ordering a pizza while being watched by a female peeping Tom is one of the most vulnerable things a person can experience. You think vulnerability is being naked. It is not. Vulnerability is saying “extra mushrooms” into a landline while a widow with an arsenal and cat formula silently evaluates your character through a peephole.
I ordered the pizza.
I hung up.
Although the roads into the neighborhood were flooded and no car could cross, I figured we could still make the delivery work through athletic creativity.
I had tipped enormously through the app and promised an additional cash bonus upon successful delivery, which I hoped would inspire commitment.
The DoorDash driver could drive as far as the flooded road, stand on one side of the water, and toss the pizza to me on the other like a football.
The distance wasn’t impossible. We both would have had to believe in ourselves, but that is what delivery fees… and excessive financial incentives… are for.
The distance wasn’t impossible. We both would have had to believe in ourselves, but that is what delivery fees are for.
Right after hanging up, I looked through the peephole and asked the most serious question I had asked all night.
“Mrs. Peeping Tom,” I said, “how long do you plan to keep watching me against my consent?”
She looked offended.
“You should be flattered by all the attention I give you.”
“I cemented my windows because of you.”
“That was your choice.”
“I went to the police.”
“And?”
“Apparently, there is only one cop for the entire town, and for my case to even be reviewed, I have to get on a waiting list.”
She nodded, like this was a normal administrative delay.
“Not a list,” I said. “A waiting list to get on the list.”
“Well,” she said, “government moves slowly.”
“So now I’m trapped in a house with no windows, waiting for one cop to become emotionally available enough to investigate you.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“It is difficult. As much as I appreciate darkness, I still need fresh air.”
She sighed.
“How long?” I asked. “How long until you stop visiting me through the architectural weaknesses of my home?”
Mrs. Peeping Tom thought about it.
“Until the newness wears off,” she said.
“The newness?”
“You were new in town. New people are interesting. Once I figure you out, I lose interest.”
“That’s horrifying.”
“So I’m basically on surveillance until a newer person arrives?”
“Most likely.”
“And after that?”
She shrugged.
“I may visit from time to time. Nostalgia.”
“Not often. Maybe years from now. Maybe I’ll pass by your house one evening and think, I wonder what she’s doing now.”
“That’s not nostalgia. That’s relapse.”
She smiled.
“Call it whatever helps you feel relaxed in your windowless house.”
The Hot Air Balloon Intake Process
Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 110
We found the offer on one of those coupon websites that specialize in optimism.
The kind where the photos show golden sunsets, smiling couples, and a balloon drifting peacefully over a valley that does not appear to exist anywhere in Texas. The original price had been crossed out△ △ △ aggressively △ △ △ and replaced with something that felt less like a discount and more like a clerical error.
Two-for-one hot air balloon ride.
There are certain phrases that should be approached with caution. “Unlimited refills.” “No closing costs.” “Two-for-one aviation experiences.”
We purchased immediately.
This was our first mistake.
To reach the hot-air balloon launch site, we first had to meet in a parking lot.
From there, we were told there would be a “short scenic walk,” which turned out to mean half a mile through a deserted area where several people began quietly calling their insurance companies to make sure they were covered.
Eventually, we reached a narrow bridge leading into what appeared to be no man’s land.
That was when the ringmaster stopped.
He tilted his head.
“What is that noise?”
The assistant looked around. “What noise?”
“That clacking sound,” he said. “It sounds like a horse is walking with us.”
Everyone turned.
I was standing near the back of the group in real horse hooves.
The ringmaster stared at my feet.
“What are you wearing?”
“Footwear.”
“You look ridiculous,” he said.
I looked him up and down.
“Not as ridiculous as you look with those veneers.”
The group went silent.
“You’re so tall and your teeth are so bright you look like a lighthouse,” I said. “I think evil extraterrestrials discovered life on Earth because of you. You’re probably the one who gave us away.”
The ringmaster stepped closer and bent down.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I need to see if they’re real.”
He pinched the front of one hoof boot.
I kicked him.
“What the hell was that?”
“Sorry,” I said. “That must be a reflex. I guess it came attached with the dead horse hooves.”
He crouched again, horrified and fascinated.
“So these are real?”
“Yes.”
“Real horse hooves?”
“Yes.”
“From a horse?”
“No, from a NASA engineer. Yes, from a horse.”
The group went silent again.
“The horse was already gone,” I explained. “They were putting him down, and they were going to throw the hooves away. I just thought they could make good all-terrain boots.”
No one said anything after that.
We kept walking.
Eventually, we arrived at the hot-air balloon location, where men in orange jumpsuits were unloading tray after tray of donuts from the back of a truck and arranging them inside the facility.
Across their backs, in large block letters, were the words: PRISON VOLUNTEER.
The donuts were included, though not listed.
Trays circulated continuously, and the ringmaster encouraged participation in carbohydrate intake.
“Take as many as you can hold,” he said. “In some countries, donuts are considered a luxury.”
This introduced a moral dimension to the experience.
People began eating with a sense of global responsibility.
He encouraged participation.
“Eat,” he said. “Don’t leave anything behind. You only die once.”
Then, as if sugar required a moral framework, he expanded his arms △ △ △ wide, theatrical △ △ △ like a ringmaster addressing an audience that had already paid.
One leg slightly forward, the other trailing behind, as if even his stance required staging.
“Think about the children in developing countries,” he said. “Some of them don’t even know what a real donut looks like. They only know donut holes. That’s where the donut holes get exported.”
And as someone from one of those countries, I regret to say that it resonated.
He had accessed a memory.
Possibly several.
So I nodded.
This was my second mistake.
He saw me nodding.
This was his cue.
He gestured toward a small podium that I had not previously noticed.
“Would you like to share your experience?” he asked, already certain that I would.
At this point, refusal would have disrupted the performance.
So I stepped forward.
I confirmed that, yes, growing up, a filled donut was a luxury. Not everyone had access to that level of abundance. Donut holes were the closest they can get to the real experience
The crowd listened.
Some nodded.
Some reached for another donut.
I did not yet understand what I had done.
The ringmaster stepped forward again, reclaiming the space with a sweep of his arm.
“Any questions?” he asked.
There were questions.
A man in the back raised his hand.
“What about the donut holes we see at local shops?”
“Right,” the ringmaster said. “But those are domestic-grade donut holes. Those are the ones that didn’t pass inspection for export. The germ count was too high for international shipping, and obviously they’re not going to risk killing their largest overseas consumer base.”
There was a pause.
He continued.
“They’ve likely exceeded the five-second rule at some point in the supply chain.”
No one challenged this.
But several people looked visibly disturbed by the idea that the germ-covered donut holes had been left behind in the United States.
The ringmaster appeared satisfied.
The session had concluded.
After approximately thirty minutes, we were instructed to form a line. This was framed as a courtesy to ensure timely boarding. In practice, it functioned as the first stage of reduction.
About ten individuals did not make it past this phase due to donut-related complications.
The remaining participants were transported by the prison volunteers to a secondary facility. The vehicle resembled a theme park train, which created a false sense of whimsy.
Upon arrival, we were introduced to the scale.
A sign indicated that, per the agreement signed during coupon redemption (section 13, subsection unclear), individuals exceeding 180 pounds would not be permitted to board due to safety concerns. This was the first time anyone had encountered this information.
The weigh-in began.
Those who exceeded the limit △ △ △ even by one or two ounces △ △ △ were immediately removed from the process.
A collective strategy emerged.
Someone mentioned that swimmers remove body hair before competitions to reduce drag. This was immediately misinterpreted as evidence that hair had significant monetary and aviation-related weight.
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “I think it makes them faster. I don’t think it makes them lighter.”
No one responded directly, which is how I knew the group had already accepted the premise.
“You lose nothing by trying,” someone said.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “Your hair.”
There was a pause.
“And Samson lost all his power when a woman cut his.”
The room grew quiet.
This was apparently considered a compelling counterargument.
By that point, however, the order had already been placed.
The clippers arrived within ten minutes.
Someone had added a heroic tip to the DoorDash order, which apparently moved the delivery from “reasonable” to “emergency shaving response.”
No one questioned this.
People brushed crumbs from their clothes, sucked in their stomachs, and stood sideways on the scale as if gravity could be deceived by angles.
As though we had accidentally wandered onto a reality television survival show, contestants were eliminated one by one and escorted into another room to be presented with alternative opportunities.
Approximately half of the group was eliminated during this phase.
Thirteen of us remained.
We were then escorted into a dark room that resembled a small movie theater. This marked the beginning of the final stage.
The final stage was a safety presentation.
It began with ordinary warnings.
According to the presenter, we were more likely to die in a hot air balloon accident than while jaywalking or riding in a plane.
Then it escalated into footage of hot air balloon accidents, failed landings, emergency rescues, and grieving pets left behind by owners who had only wanted to see the sunrise from above.
Then they explained that even survival had consequences.
“If you fall and survive,” the presenter said, “you may still find yourself stranded in the desert.”
A video appeared of a rat giving birth to a litter.
“Is that what you want?” he asked. “To become a midwife to a desert rat?”
No one answered.
“That,” he said, pointing to the screen, “may become your Wilson. The movies have conditioned you to expect a volleyball. This is not guaranteed.”
That was when people began tapping out.
One by one, participants withdrew their consent to pursue aviation.
The presenter nodded with understanding, then informed them that last-minute cancellation would result in a penalty equal to three times the original ticket price.
Unless, of course, they agreed to attend a timeshare presentation at a secondary facility.
The transition was immediate.
The prison volunteers escorted the newly cautious toward another vehicle. Most of the group accepted the timeshare option with the visible relief of people who had chosen financial entrapment over desert rats.
When the room cleared, only two of us remained.
My friend and me.
“Hold it right there, both of you Rapunzels.”
We stopped.
He pointed at our hair.
“You think I’m letting both of you Rapunzels climb into my balloon with all that hair near an open flame?”
“Nobody gets in the basket until the hair is tied up.”
“I’m not letting either one of you commit arson with your hair in my balloon.”
“With our hair?”
“Yes. Hair. Hairspray. Frizz tamer. Cow spit. Whatever else you country people put in there. Wind. Open flame. That’s how civilizations fall.”
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll tie it up.”
My friend started digging through her purse.
“I found one!” she said, holding up a hair tie like she had discovered the cure for cancer.
“Great,” the ringmaster said. “Use it.”
She paused.
“But if you give me twenty more minutes, I can take my purse apart. I think there might be another one in one of the hidden compartments.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. They’re hidden.”
“There is no time for purse excavation,” he said. “This isn’t a bar entrance.”
She looked at me, then lowered her gaze.
“Damn it,” she said. “You know what? Just go.”
“What do you mean, just go?”
She sighed, like she had already accepted my fate.
“Knowing how you live your life, you’re probably going to die before I do anyway.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re the one who went into a cavern to get sketched by some stranger while bats played instruments for ambient music.”
“That was art.”
“That was Craigslist behavior with better lighting.”
“It was not Craigslist behavior.”
“You went there so he could stare at your fat deposits under dramatic lighting. Alone. You’re lucky he didn’t cut you into pieces and arrange you by bone type.”
The ringmaster shook his head in disappointment.
My friend pointed at the balloon.
“So yes. Between the two of us, I feel like you have already made peace with danger. Go enjoy your little murder balloon.”
“It’s not a murder balloon.”
The ringmaster cleared his throat.
“It was misused by Nazis during World War II.”
I tied my hair with the scrunchie.
Then I prepared to board.
Because I was wearing real horse hooves as boots, I charged toward the basket with the confidence of a horse entering the final stretch.
I jumped.
It was not graceful, but it was committed.
The ringmaster watched me land inside the basket.
“You could have used the ladder on the other side,” he said. “But thank you for the performance.”
I rose into the air and reached into my purse to retrieve the donuts I had stashed earlier.
I expected to feel something.
Fear. Wonder. Butterflies. A sense that the dream had survived the process.
But once I was up there, it was not what I thought it would be.
Below me were the whimsical little trains transporting the disappointed, the prison volunteers in orange jumpsuits driving carts between facilities, and what appeared to be the real-life incident that inspired Cujo: a group of people running toward their car while a large black dog chased them with unusual commitment.
Beyond that, because this was Texas, there was only dead grass and flat land.
That was the view.
That was the dream.
Only disappointment.
Why Statues Don’t Face Each Other
Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 102
I was at a store when I came across a small Venus de Milo.
There she was: topless, armless, and completely unbothered, sitting on a shelf like this was not one of the most famous divas in art history.
I carried her to the cashier and said, very seriously, “Hi, I was wondering if I could get a discount on this.”
He looked at me.
I held up Venus de Milo.
“As you can see, she’s defective.”
He looked at the statue.
“The arms are broken.”
Without hesitation, he apologized.
He said, “Oh, I’m sorry about that. I can probably get you a discount. Let me call a supervisor.”
And that was when I realized I had gone too far.
“No, no, no, no,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was just joking.”
He looked confused.
“She’s supposed to be like that,” I said. “It’s Venus de Milo. That’s how the statue comes.”
Which is a very strange thing to say about a woman with no arms.
He stared at the statue.
Then he stared back at me with the expression of a man who had just been introduced to art history against his will.
It was one of those moments where Venus de Milo herself probably wanted to come alive and say, “Excuse me. Don’t you know who I am?”
Then put her hands on her hips.
Then remember she does not have hands.
Or arms.
So she just stood there.
Armless.
Famous.
And still not recognized at checkout.
“Oh my God,” he said. “I can’t believe I fell for this. I’ve got to pay more attention when people ask for discounts on items that appear defective.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was supposed to be a joke.”
He shook his head, disturbed in a way I had not intended, like I had just awakened a dormant retail suspicion inside him.
From that moment on, I imagine he changed.
I imagine I made him suspicious of every discount request that came after me.
Someone could approach him with a chipped mug and say, “Can I get a discount? This is damaged.”
And he would just look at them and say, “No. That’s kintsugi.”
Everything defective was suddenly potential art.
I probably ruined discounts for everyone in that store.
All because I couldn’t hold a joke back.
But the whole thing left me with a bigger question.
If Venus de Milo is supposed to come that way, then what really happened to her arms?
People say they were “lost over time.”
Convenient.
At Absurd Geometry, we do not simply accept official explanations.
We investigate unofficial sources, mostly because those are the only sources willing to speak to us.
So we decided to look into what really happened to Venus de Milo.
And unfortunately, the truth is much worse than history wants you to believe.
So I prepared accordingly.
This time, I made sure my phone was fully charged and fully updated, because I have learned from experience that nothing ruins an investigation faster than your phone forcing itself into a software update while you are trying to photograph a suspicious manatee at the circus.
I would not be silenced by technology again.
Armed with battery life, current software, and absolutely no credentials, I went to the closest museum.
Which was five states over.
There, after several minutes of looking official near a wall label, I was able to secure a brief interview with the most powerful man in the museum.
The curator.
Unfortunately, he was on his way to the toilet.
“Excuse me,” I said, walking beside him. “Is it possible for you to speak with us? We’re trying to find out what really happened to Venus de Milo.”
He looked at me.
Then he looked toward the restroom.
“I’m on my way to the toilet,” he said.
“That’s fine,” I said. “We can walk.”
Which is how most serious art investigations begin.
He sighed, like he had been waiting years for someone brave enough to ask.
“So why is Venus de Milo the way she is?” he said.
Because marble has zero chill.
“Everyone thinks statues in museums are placed that way for ‘optimal lighting’ or ‘curatorial balance.’
“No.
“The real reason is stupid.
“Marble staring contests.
“The moment two statues lock eyes, they enter a silent, psychotic duel of intensity. The first one who can’t handle the pressure literally cracks.
“This is not metaphorical.
“This is structural failure due to disrespect.
“And the clearest example?
“Venus de Milo.
“People say her arms were ‘lost over time.’
“No, they weren’t.
“She locked eyes with another statue.
“Big mistake.
“He nearly vaporized her.
“Curators spun her around at the last second, but the damage was done.
“Since then, no statue is allowed to face another statue.
“Not even goddesses.
“Especially not goddesses.
“Because marble doesn’t flirt.
“Marble challenges you to a duel and then shatters you if you lose.”
Do not just believe everything you read here.
Do not treat me like some kind of oracle.
I used to be one, but I let my membership lapse.
So the next time you go to a museum, pay attention.
Find out for yourself.
Check the alignment.
You will notice something.
The statues are never facing each other directly.
Because museums know what happens when marble makes eye contact.
And they are not filling out another incident report.
The Chucky Compromise
Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 101
Every year, I throw a New Year’s party at my house and invite my friends and family over.
By the end of the night, my house looks less like a home and more like a refugee camp with better snacks. Every room is occupied. Every couch has a body on it. Every pillow and blanket has been claimed.. Someone is sleeping on the hammock. Someone is sleeping in a corner. Someone is probably sleeping under a table for all I know.
But I always make sure my parents get their own room.
Unfortunately, the room I gave them was my room.
And my room has dolls.
Not regular dolls. Not soft, friendly, “I love you, Grandma” dolls.
I mean dead dolls. Dolls that looked like they belonged to Annabelle’s sorority house.
Macabre dolls.
Dolls with the expressions of Victorian orphans who know where the bodies are buried.
My 4-year-old nephew walked into the room, saw them, and became deeply concerned.
“Auntie Cindy,” he said, looking at me like I had failed every safety inspection known to mankind. “I don’t like those killer dolls being in the same room as my grandparents.”
And honestly, fair.
But instead of admitting that maybe the killer dolls did look suspicious, I decided to turn this into a moral exercise.
“Well,” I told him, “if I take them out of here and put them outside on the street, you see how cold it is. They could die out there.”
He paused.
This tiny child stood there, weighing the safety of his grandparents against the survival rights of haunted dolls.
So I told him, “But if you want me to get them out, I’ll get them out.”
He thought about it.
Then he said, “No. It’s okay. I don’t want them to die.”
That was his final ruling.
The killer dolls could stay.
But there needed to be conditions.
So I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll just take the knives away.”
Because one of the dolls was Chucky.
Naturally.
For extra safety, and to ease my nephew’s worries, I also gave Chucky and the other dolls a formal lecture.
I told them, “My family is off limits. My friends are off limits. Occasional maintenance people are off limits. Anyone here by invitation, appointment, or blood relation is off limits.”
Then I paused.
“But burglars,” I said, “are fair game.”
Because I may be irresponsible enough to keep killer dolls in my room, but I do believe in boundaries.
I also patted down the dolls and removed anything sharp: knives, weapons, anything that could turn the room from “eccentric decor” into “true crime documentary.”
And somehow, that worked.
He relaxed.
The dolls were still in the room. My parents were still sleeping there. Chucky was still present, although without batteries.
But Chucky had been disarmed, and apparently that was enough for the Department of Nephew Homeland Security.
What killed me was his heart.
He was scared of the dolls. He did not trust the dolls. He fully believed they were capable of harming his grandparents.
But when faced with the idea of putting them out in the freezing cold, he couldn’t do it.
He chose compassion.
Not comfort. Not logic. Not even grandparental safety, exactly.
Compassion.
For killer dolls.
That is how much heart this child has.
He would rather leave Chucky in the room with my parents than put him out on the street to freeze.
As long as we took the knives away.
We’re All Going to Hell
I heard the news the way all serious public information traveled in my neighborhood: children yelling from house to house.
The missionaries had set up on the corner of my street.
That was all you needed to hear as a child growing up in a banana republic.
The word missionary meant free toys.
Oh, and yes, allegedly, the word of God.
My street had everything: the only school in the neighborhood, the only church, and the only techno dance house, which sat right next to the church.
This meant that whenever missionaries, suspicious vaccinations, or clinical trials appeared, the people on my street △ △ △ including me △ △ △ always got first dibs. Sometimes people did not even know what the vaccines were for. They just heard free and started running.
So when the missionaries came with toys, I ran too.
Usually, the process was simple.
The missionaries asked if you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
You said yes.
They gave you a toy.
By that point in my childhood, I must have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior at least a hundred times.
Not because I was spiritually advanced.
Because I understood inventory.
But this time was different.
This time, salvation required supporting documentation.
They wanted to know if you had been reading the Bible.
They wanted evidence.
A psalm.
I got in line, performed my psalm, collected my toy, and immediately made the kind of financial decision children make when they are poor and morally flexible.
I got back in line.
Unfortunately, I only knew one psalm.
“Wait a minute,” the bouncer missionary said. “I remember this girl. She already got in line. She already got a toy. She already performed.”
Performed.
As if I had tap-danced through the Book of Psalms.
“She didn’t even want to get off the stage,” he said. “And she’s the only little blonde girl I see around here.”
The crowd turned toward me.
“Was that you?”
“No,” I said. “That was my twin sister.”
“Where is she?”
“She died.”
A silence fell over the missionary toy department.
“She died?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Just now?”
“Yes. They took her away.”
“Who took her away?”
“The dead.”
“The dead?”
“Yes. Jesus said, let the dead bury the dead.”
The missionary stared at me.
“So… dead people took her?”
“Yes.”
“Dead people took your twin sister?”
“Yes. That is why she cannot come forward.”
I paused, because even I understood the situation had become serious.
“At this moment, I do not have any further information to share with the public.”
The missionary stared at me.
“But let us not allow the memory of my dead sister to distract us from praising God. At that age, death was not a medical event. It was a scheduling conflict.
Another missionary found forgiveness in his heart and convinced the bouncer missionary to let me perform.
I began my psalm.
“No,” the bouncer missionary said, narrowing his eyes. “We already heard that one from your dead twin sister.”
I panicked.
Then I leaned into the microphone and improvised the only theology I had left.
“God loves us all.”
I said this to remind him that even tiny sinners were loved by God, after all. The kingdom belonged to the children. It was in the scripture.
And if God’s real estate belonged to the children, then surely one additional small plastic toy could be released from inventory.
I can’t help thinking about how magical that street was.
I still remember when the biggest hurricane in history came through, and the street I grew up on was the only street spared from damage.
It didn’t rain on my street.
There wasn’t even wind.
The hurricane moved around us like Moses parting the Red Sea, except Moses was apparently standing on my street.
Naturally, I believed this had something to do with my supernatural powers.
As a child, I believed I could control the rain.
Other streets flooded. Trees fell. Roofs disappeared.
My street remained untouched.
The lack of hurricane activity gave credibility to the church on my street.
The hurricane had become the church’s first unpaid advertiser.
Unfortunately, my family believed we needed church for salvation.
But their interpretation of salvation worked more like a household subscription service: if one of us attended, the whole family was covered.
I was chosen as the representative. The spiritual intern. My mother watched me walk there from a distance, sending one small blonde child into the building to negotiate on behalf of the bloodline.
There I was, sitting in the front row so God could spot me easily. After all, the most devoted fans are always at the front.
Hell for skimpy clothing.
Hell for liking Coke.
Coca-Cola, he elaborated.
Hell for dancing.
At first, I thought I could survive the sermon.
Coca-Cola? Fine. I preferred grape Kool-Aid anyway.
Skimpy clothing? I only wore what my mother bought me. If my shirt showed my belly button, that was not seduction. That was a growth spurt.
But then the preacher said dancing gave strength to the devil.
I felt cold water pour over my soul.
“No dancing?” I whispered to the person next to me.
“Yes,” they said. “Dancing is evil.”
That was when the spirit of doubt entered me.
Because if dancing made the devil stronger, and God needed us to stop dancing in order to defeat him, then what exactly was happening here? Was God all-powerful, or was God training like Rocky? Was the devil surviving on Coca-Cola and techno? Had my tiny body unknowingly been funding the enemy through rhythm?
So God can do anything, I thought, except defeat the devil while people dance?
After church, I walked home and decided I would not return.
I had chosen the house of techno over God.
I walked home in my light-up shoes, two sizes too big because my mother believed children grew fast and money did not.
Every step squeaked.
Every step flashed.
So not only had I failed as the household representative to heaven, I was announcing my spiritual resignation to the entire street in blinking footwear.
A child is walking alone at night.
A child has chosen dancing.
A child is no longer available for salvation-related services.
I remember thinking, I guess my family and I are going to hell.
But at least we are all going together.
Call Me When You’re Dead: Collect Calls from the Afterlife
Project/App Name: Call Me When You’re Dead™
Patent Pending
Tagline: A satirical dead man’s switch for final messages, unfinished business, last wishes, emotional retractions, and people who periodically text “wyd.”
Subtitle: Messages for When I’m Gone
Series/Episode Title: Collect Calls from the Afterlife
Audio Evidence Included Below
Here at Absurd Geometry, we care more about your dying arrangements than how irresponsibly you are currently living your life.
Aren’t you tired of meeting people, having one briefly wonderful connection, saving them in your phone under a name that predates the dinosaurs, and then never hearing from them again?
Only to find out years later that the mysterious person you once trauma-bonded with during flight turbulence, in a tattoo shop, during a bank robbery, or inside a tornado shelter has been dead for years?
We believe closure should not depend on social media algorithms, mutual friends, or someone finally cleaning out their contacts.
That’s why we created Call Me When You’re Dead.
The app will send you one message every day:
Are you alive today?
You respond yes, then wait anxiously until tomorrow to check in again.
It’s like playing chess with the Reaper.
You alive: 1
The Reaper: 0
But let’s be real.
The Grim Reaper is like the casino. It always wins.
Maybe not today.
Maybe not tomorrow.
Maybe in three days.
So if you fail to check in for three consecutive days, the app will consider you officially dead and send your pre-recorded messages to everyone you have carefully categorized.
Bonus Category:
For an extra charge, we also let you follow your favorite celebrities’ current scoreboard, so you’ll be one of the first to know once they lose the chess game with the Reaper.
No more falling for rumors that your favorite actor died in 2010.
Now you can confidently argue with your friends, pull out your phone, and say, “Actually, I subscribe to his death-status notifications, and as you can see, he checked in this morning.”
So unless he’s filming a sequel to Weekend at Bernie’s, or his assistant is pressing the button for him, he is very much alive.
At Absurd Geometry, we believe in testing things ourselves.
That’s why Cin, our main investigator, tested the app for the past 3 years.
This is what happened.
Below are sample classifications taken from Cin’s personal three-year test trial of the app.
Please note: these categories were created during emotionally unstable but scientifically important circumstances.
Sample Relationship Taxonomy
From Cin’s Personal Three-Year Test Trial
Category A: Family, loved ones, and possible kidney donors.
Category B: Officially confirmed best friends.
Category C: Acquaintances, one-time intense conversations, and temporary trauma bonds.
Category D: Romantic John Does, or men I considered dead to me even though their pulse said otherwise.
Category E: People who owe me money.
We take our findings so seriously that Cin agreed to allegedly die for three days just to find out if the app would work.
She risked her life, her reputation, and several pre-recorded relationships to determine whether Call Me When You’re Dead could successfully notify the correct people in the correct emotional order.
The results were disturbing, legally confusing, and scientifically important.
Case Study: Cin’s Accidental Death Trial
During Cin’s personal three-year test trial of the app, one incident triggered a premature death notification.
For approximately one hour, the system believed Cin had lost the chess game with the Reaper.
She had not.
For public transparency, we have included the complete MP3 recording of the incident free of charge.
Listeners may now hear the full communication as it unfolded, including the original death notification, the Category D transmission, and the emergency retraction issued one hour later after Cin was discovered alive.
What follows is the official transcript from Category D.
Call Me When You’re Dead: Collect Calls for the John Does
Original Transcript Copy
Dear John Does,
You have received a pre-recorded message from the dead.
Caller: Cin.
This message was prepared for all John Does previously listed under Category D.
This message is intended for all John Does who briefly appeared in Cin’s life, caused unnecessary loss of sleep and recurring nightmares, periodically returned with an “I miss you” or “wyd” message, or may one day become curious enough to wonder whatever happened to her.
To accept this message, please remain on the line to hear the transmission.
Standard emotional charges will apply.
Please note: the extra fees might be scary
Hi! If you're hearing this message, I died.
Knowing me, I probably went on a solo trip somewhere freezing and mysterious, got distracted by my own imagination, slipped on a single snowflake, and fell directly off a cliff… or into Vladimir’s Vacation Garden of Stakes, where I was unfortunately impaled.
Anyway, the details are no longer important because I am now deceased and frankly, loving it!
I know some of you are probably wondering if I miss you.
The answer is no.
There are actually plenty of John Does here in the morgue.
Frankly, the market is oversaturated.
Listen, John Doe #1.
You’re not as special as I thought you were.
Just because you could sculpt clay figurines with your feet, I thought you were gifted.
You were not gifted.
You were just avoiding the traditional hand-based process for attention.
And frankly, clay figurines look better when they’re made with hands.
John Doe #2.
For a while, I thought you were practicing telepathy because you kept guessing the exact number I was thinking.
Then I found out you were networking with my loved ones to collect my favorite numbers.
So no, John Doe #2.
You are just an ordinary man with access to my loved ones.
John Doe #3.
I know you’re still mad at me because I attempted to muffle your snoring with a couch cushion from a medically irresponsible distance.
Just because you’re a slightly known singer doesn’t mean your snoring sounds like Beethoven’s musical notes.
Anyways, good luck to all of you living with the living, swimming with the rest of the piranhas in the human sea, getting sunspots, and aging.
By the way, I enrolled all of you in the most expensive afterlife messaging plan, where recipients are billed per character.
Which is why I am intentionally making this message much longer than necessary until I reach the maximum character limit allowed.
Financially, this seemed like the right thing to do.
I wish I could add a few more thoughts, but unfortunately…
--- Character limit reached ---
--- One Hour Later: Retraction ---
Operator:
Hi, this is Cin again.
The doctors just realized the life-monitoring machine was temporarily disconnected from the outlet so the nurse could charge her phone.
That’s why they accidentally declared me dead.
I didn’t die after all.
So I’m calling to retract my death notice.
Listen, I meant everything I said except the part where I was dead.
I am currently in line to donate at Dracula’s annual blood drive.
Apparently, his baby bats are in dire need of formula, and all hospital patients are being coerced into donating blood.
No one gets their discharge papers until Dracula’s baby bats are fed.
Anyway, I’m using this downtime wisely.
[Dracula, over the blood drive PA system:] Donor number 13, please proceed to the velvet curtain. You are just my blood type.
Oh… they just called my number. I’ve gotta go.
Bat-bat bye!
My Philosophy on Post-Mortem Cat Assistance
If you die and no human is around to witness your soul leaving your body, your cat will show you its greatest sign of devotion by performing its final act as your companion: eating your face.
Because of this technicality, many people are afraid to die alone with their pet, especially a cat. Some might even go to the extent of exchanging their pet for something less threatening, like a vegan turtle in a Houdini-proof cage, when approaching their final chapter△ △ △ or planning to leave the mafia.
But in defense of all furry creatures accused of emotional coldness, I’d like to share an interpretation of what some might perceive as morbid behavior.
In a world where people are often trying to mine others for their time, talent, or attention, nothing compares to the company of a furry friend.
A furry friend that might eat your face if you drop dead△ △ △ not out of malice, but so you could keep living within it, preserved in its stubborn fat reserves.
That’s true love.
So next time, try not to judge a cat that is a little on the chubby side. It might be proudly carrying its past owners as one final act of devotion.
Circus Act V.5: The Forensic Mermaid Report
Since I did not have any photographs, I needed tangible evidence of what I had encountered. I commissioned two artists to reconstruct the alleged mermaid, and I am now prepared to share what is, for legal purposes, approximately 50% accurate.
The first artist was hired off Fiverr, based on a careful review of his portfolio, pricing, and willingness to work with emotionally unstable source material.
This is what I received.
The sketch was completed on lined paper because blank paper required a five-dollar upgrade, and the investigation had already suffered multiple budgetary setbacks.
The face has been altered to preserve the subject’s anonymity, but the emotional accuracy remains intact.
Exhibit A: Initial Forensic Composite of the Alleged Mermaid
Artist: Leonardo DiFake
Medium: graphite on lined paper
All rights reserved.
To be fair, Leonardo DiFake captured the soul.
The eyes were there. The confusion was there. The quiet aquatic grief was there.
The issue was the hair.
I had clearly explained that the alleged mermaid had straight hair, but Leonardo insisted on curls because, in his professional opinion, “it looked better.”
This was troubling, as the investigation was not about what looked better.
It was about the truth.
I was not fully satisfied with the first forensic composite. Leonardo DiFake had successfully captured the emotion in the eyes, but failed to document the full movement and volume of the hair.
Here at Absurd Geometry, we like to be as factual as possible. Therefore, a second rendering became necessary.
An overwhelming feeling came over me to find someone with a fresh mind △ △ △ someone who still believed in fantasy and had perhaps been around marine life recently.
I visited the local kindergarten with some leftover Halloween candy, hoping to commission a second forensic rendering.
I arrived during whistling class, which I did not know was part of the kindergarten curriculum.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but this is important.”
The teacher looked concerned.
“For the police?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “For me.”
I explained that I needed a reenactment sketch of what I had seen at the circus before it escaped my memory. I asked if she had any aspiring criminal profile sketchers, forensic artists, or children who had been to SeaWorld recently.
One child came forward.
He said he might like to do that in the future, along with becoming a veterinarian, a hunter, and Mickey Mouse’s best friend.
There was only one condition.
He could help after his nappy.
The tiny artist accepted the upfront payment, then requested a nappy as part of his creative process. So we waited. After the nap, he emerged refreshed, emotionally stable, and ready to reconstruct the suspect from memory.
Exhibit B: Kindergarten After Nappy
Artist: undisclosed minor
Medium: graphite on blank paper
Compensation: leftover Halloween candy and one uninterrupted nappy
Rights: reserved by parent or legal guardian until age 18.
Circus Act V: The Sideshow Mermaid
At the entrance to the mermaid tent, a sign read:
MANDATORY WHISKEY SHOT REQUIRED BEFORE ENTRY
I told the attendant I was a teetotaler.
“I don’t drink,” I said.
“You have to,” she replied. “It’s part of the safety protocol.”
“How is whiskey a safety protocol?”
“It calms the system.”
“Whose system?”
She hesitated.
“Yours first. Then the mermaid’s.”
I had to remain calm and let the universe figure this out for me.
Before entering the mermaid tent, every guest had to blow into a breathalyzer to confirm their alcohol level was high enough to safely perceive the mermaid.
I found this invasive.
Usually, these machines are used to keep drunk people out of vehicles.
Here, they were being used to keep sober people out of fraud.
As I waited in line, a man bumped into me and spilled both his whiskey and mine all over my clothes.
Why had I not thought of this before?
I stayed in line. To strengthen the illusion, I put on my dark shades and loudly complimented a below-average man standing nearby.
This was not flirtation.
This was forensic method acting.
When I reached the front, the woman holding the breathalyzer leaned toward me, sniffed once, and said to the other attendant, “I can smell the alcohol on this one.”
Then she yelled at the bartender to close my tab and waved me inside.
Inside, a man removed his jacket from the chair beside him and said he had been saving the seat for someone whose name he could no longer remember, though I was fairly certain she had his last name.
He insisted I sit down.
That was when the dim light appeared and revealed the alleged mermaid.
The specimen was not, in fact, a mermaid. It was a bald manatee wearing a remarkably high-quality, luscious wig made from real mermaid hair.
Management did not consider this false advertising, as each ticket included a mandatory complimentary whiskey shot designed to reduce biological inquiry.
The men whistled from the folding chairs, insisting she looked much better in person than on the flyers.
The manatee seemed happy. Out here, beneath the circus lights, he was a desirable mate. Back in his natural habitat, he was just another bald manatee.
I went backstage using an old VIP badge from a fashion show I had attended years ago. It said ALL ACCESS, and I chose to interpret that broadly. Security let me through without a second thought. Someone even whispered that I looked like the illegitimate daughter of the circus owner.
I waited for a wig-adjustment break, then approached the man pulling down the curtain.
“From the promotional photos, I can tell you did, at one point, have a real mermaid performing here,” I said. “So what happened? Did she drown?”
“No,” he said. “She ran off with the prince.”
Apparently, this had become a recurring problem. The prince had a habit of running away with the mermaids and dumping them into the Atlantic Ocean, once the newness wore off, or once they developed a voice △ △ △ whichever came first.
The worst part was that all the mermaids were nearly identical. Only the hair color changed. And still, the prince could not help himself.
After the most recent incident, management had been forced to ban him from the circus. This was not an easy decision, as donations from the royal crown were very generous. But the operation had become financially unsustainable.
“It costs a fortune to keep hiring Captain Ahab to recapture them,” the man explained.
They had tried warning the mermaids. They had shown them footage of previous mermaids being abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean, but there’s no changing someone’s mind during the infatuation period.
Still, the last mermaid refused to listen.
And now there she was, somewhere in the cold water, learning that happily ever after had expired after a few days.
I asked what would happen once the manatee started getting old.
The manatee had expressed some anxiety about aging out of the role, but Human Resources told him not to worry.
“We’ll double up on the makeup,” they said, “adjust the lighting, add a second complimentary whiskey shot for audience members in the front row, and move the audience farther back.”
Privately, however, the circus had begun scouting younger manatees.
I still wanted to talk to the manatee directly, just to make sure he was not being held captive.
“Of course,” the curtain man said. “He is new to fame, and this will be his first interview, so he will be excited.”
I finally met him.
“Are you happy?” I asked.
He looked surprised.
“No one has ever asked me that,” he said. “Men usually want a way to contact me, and women want to know my skincare routine. But yes. I am happy.”
He only had two requests: that I not disclose the location of the circus, and that I blur his face if I ever posted photographs of him.
I told him not to worry. My phone had forced itself into a software update during the incident, and I could not turn it back on.
That seemed to comfort him.
He gave me an autograph, a flower hair clip, and a very long hug because he said he liked the way my odorless perfume smelled.
He claimed it soothed him.
Then I went on my way.
Circus Act IV: The Shapeshifter vs. The Trickster
Chaos broke out as a large number of people began stampeding toward the exit.
Some random person stopped me and asked if I wanted to know why everyone was running.
I told her I did not like to be involved in gossip, but the tea seemed tempting.
She told me some filthy, greasy animal had found oil inside one of the city potholes, and now everyone was running through the streets checking every pothole in town and several nearby cities for black gold.
People were abandoning the circus in massive numbers.
The only ones who stayed behind were those with weak internet signal and no access to the pothole updates.
Within minutes, the place felt like a fully functioning ghost town.
Fortunately, the mermaid show had not been canceled.
It was, in fact, the only attraction still operating at full capacity.
The reason quickly became clear: many of the men had sent their wives, children, and pets into the streets to inspect the potholes for petroleum while they themselves remained behind to continue studying the mermaid.
Several had even filed for an emergency temporary pause on their prenups.
Officially, they said they were “saving the seats.”
I did not believe this.
As I stood there witnessing human madness and predictability, a raven pulled a strand of my hair.
This was code for: the Trickster is nearby.
I gave the raven the last of my red rose Poe stickers, which it accepted as legal tender, and sent it on its way.
The Trickster can only find me in chaos, which is why I take precautions.
Every time I know I am going to be in close proximity to mob mentality, I wear my odorless perfume.
The saleswoman said it was subtle.
I said, “Perfect. I am trying to avoid being recognized by archetypes.”
I suppose I hurt him.
Not emotionally.
Worse.
Competitively.
The Trickster had never lost a game before.
Not riddles, not “what happens if I press this button?” and not “guess which door leads to nowhere.”
I had beaten him at Mexopoly, which is basically Monopoly, except it is played with Mexican money because your money goes farther.
He had no experience with the conversion rate.
That was on him.
Still, he considered the entire incident a betrayal and had been looking for revenge ever since.
He kept treating pesos like dollars.
I let him.
That is not cheating.
That is allowing a man to meet the consequences of his assumptions.
“Come out,” the Trickster yelled. “I have a lot of souvenirs with your legal first name on them.”
That was when I realized why I could never find my name at souvenir stands.
He had been buying them all.
“I know the first of the hundreds you use must be your favorite,” he shouted.
The worst part is that it is not even my favorite name.
I only buy souvenirs with my legal first name on them in case I lose one and someone needs an easy time finding me.
It is not sentimental.
It is identification.
The Trickster believed he had discovered my original form.
He had not.
He had discovered my emergency contact name.
I do not feel bad for the Trickster.
I am not the one spending money on personalized souvenirs with my government name on them in an attempt to lure a shapeshifter out of hiding.
I am not the one flying across the world — knowing him, probably first class — to find someone in the middle of chaos.
That is his financial decision.
He says he is seeking revenge.
I say he is carrying the cross of holding grudges through international airports in a potato sack full of personalized souvenirs.
At that point, what he needed was not vengeance.
It was a financial advisor and a back adjustment.
The Trickster, unable to reach the podium on his own, used the man standing nearby with crutches as temporary scaffolding.
The man complied because he believed he had been randomly chosen as an audience participant in whatever act was currently unfolding.
This was reasonable.
By then, the circus had suspended normal ethics.
Once elevated, the Trickster cleared his throat and began what I assumed was a sermon.
At first, it sounded like he was trying to sympathize with the man beneath him.
Then I realized he was using the man as both a podium and a character witness in his campaign to expose me as the Wicked Witch of the South.
Meanwhile, the Trickster kept shouting.
He was desperate now.
Almost evangelical.
He was doing the full gospel of revenge, calling me out in front of the crowd, promising restoration, judgment, and possibly a rematch of Mexopoly.
But nobody was listening.
Half the crowd had noise-canceling headphones on.
The other half checked his profile and realized his follower count did not end in K.
This destroyed his credibility immediately.
In the old days, a trickster could stand in the center of town and cause mass hysteria with one sentence.
Now he needed at least 10K followers, a verified aesthetic, and one verified celebrity following him back.
The Trickster said this is why they should never have burned the witches.
By burning them, they made them stronger.
The ones who were already witches were fed by the fear, the spectacle, and the belief of the crowd.
And the ones who were not witches were burned so deeply into the public imagination that they were reborn as witches anyway.
That is the danger of collective belief.
People think they are destroying something, when in fact they are giving it shape, energy, and permanence.
In the end, the fire did not erase the witches.
It multiplied them.
The Trickster spotted a mysterious woman wrapped in many layers of clothing and assumed it was me.
Without warning, he kissed her on the lips.
“You taste fully human,” he said. “It’s not her.”
Then he proceeded to ask for her digits.
This was his first mistake.
His second mistake was believing the layers were symbolic.
They were not.
The woman was a shoplifter, and the layers were evidence.
Seconds later, the Trickster reached for his wallet and found nothing.
She had taken it, along with his return-flight tickets.
This was devastating because it meant he was now trapped in my town until his replacement credit cards arrived in the mail.
This whole time, I had been hiding behind the cotton candy machine, snacking while watching him make a fool of himself.
It was not that I was afraid of the Trickster’s tricks.
His tricks had gotten boring.
That was the problem.
I was afraid he would find me and force me into the full polite human interaction: the greeting, the fake surprise, the brief weather report, the comment about how long it had been, and a full recap of everything he had experienced while searching for me all over the world.
Then he would try to warm me up emotionally.
Then he would suggest a rematch of Mexopoly.
Then, if I survived that, Uno.
Then Dos.
This was not revenge.
This was social death by escalation.
I had a mermaid show to catch.
To be continued.
Circus Act III: The Pothole Incident
As soon as I finally entered the circus, I ran to the first souvenir stand I saw.
I needed to secure a personalized souvenir with my name on it before it disappeared from the spinning rack.
My name is apparently so popular that it is never there.
Every rack has fifty Britneys, twelve Marias, seven Jesuses, and one suspiciously dusty McLovin △ △ △ but never my name.
So this time, I wanted to be the first person with my name to arrive.
I was not going to let another Cin beat me to my own keychain.
Just as I was about to grab it, my phone rang.
I glanced down to see who was calling, and another person snatched it from the rack.
“Close enough to my name,” she said, walking away with the only evidence that I had ever existed in mass production.
It was the city, informing me that the rabbit had been located inside the first pothole he saw on the street.
They were still trying to remove the oil from his fur when officials realized he had accidentally discovered a petroleum deposit.
In just a few hours, while I was being searched by elf security like a chimpanzee being groomed for contraband, the rabbit had been awarded mineral rights, become a fifteen-minute trend, and received a small commemorative helmet.
Unfortunately, he had also filed paperwork requesting emancipation from me, citing “financial independence” and “irreconcilable differences regarding cage maintenance.”
The judge denied the rabbit’s emancipation request, largely because the rabbit had shown no evidence of being able to manage his own affairs, finances, or sudden access to crude oil.
The lady from the city told me that by the time I got home, I would most likely find the rabbit sleeping in the hammock, reeking of crude oil, as if none of this had ever happened.
Then she lowered her voice.
“Listen,” she said, operating under the municipal code of Hoes Before Bros, “during a brief break, the rabbit hopped onto an unattended computer and searched, ‘how to pretend to have amnesia after betraying your business partner.’”
This strengthened the judge’s ruling, making it final, official, and ineligible for appeal. The rabbit had clearly demonstrated that he had no control over his faculties.
He had enough control to commit fraud, but not enough control to stop entering holes.
I confided in her that I should have known what kind of monster he was.
He used to bring me flowers every day, which I thought was a token of devoted friendship at first. Excessive, but kind.
I kept thinking, Where is he getting the money for all these flowers?
Then one day, while I was stuck in traffic near the cemetery because one of the elephants had escaped the local zoo and was trying to set off a domino effect with the tombstones, I looked over and saw the rabbit dragging a bouquet off a stranger’s grave and hopping home.
That was when the smell finally made sense.
Those flowers had never smelled like roses. They smelled like formaldehyde and deception.
At the time, I told myself he was just resourceful.
But now, after the pothole, the oil money, the emancipation petition, and the amnesia search history, I was forced to reconsider the entire relationship.
I did not have proof he was trying to slowly poison me.
But all lies point to yes.
By the time I finished the anecdote, I realized I had zero bars.
She had probably heard none of it.
If the court had granted the emancipation, I would have come home to empty drawers, missing luggage, and a note written in carrot juice explaining that he “needed space.”
Which was suspicious, because the rabbit does not own luggage. He would have had to take mine.
Unfortunately, I could not just throw him out into the street. The city had already established that he had no control over his own faculties and would enter the first hole he saw, which meant abandoning him could be interpreted as animal abuse, negligence, or indirect cooperation with the petroleum industry.
So now I was stuck with him.
At least until my next magic act, when I could disappear him forever.