The Putt Putt: World's Best Mini Golf, Holes 1-9

Hole 1

“Scotland Green”

Handicap: 2 strokes

A long narrow single green with two small hills as obstacles. On the second hill a young woman sits weeping, a potential distraction to the player.

Hole 2

“The Windmill”

Handicap: 4 strokes

A large model of a windmill block the entryway from the first green to the second, with it’s spinning sails. The windmill pumps water from the greens into the adjacent pools. There is a hole in the dike, which the player must plug with his or her finger while putting and attacking the windmill with his or her club. When the windmill is dismantled, both greens will begin to flood, hampering the player’s accuracy.

Hole 3

The Membrane

Handicap: 6 strokes

The first green is submerged in one foot of corn syrup. Biologically engineered goldfish swim through the corn syrup creating slow currents that move the player’s balls along on their course. There are a number of openings in the aquarium where the corn syrup flows into a solid wall of tree sap at the base of a miniature.

The players either hit the ball into the sap or atop it, where it sinks in. Both ways the ball is submerged. After millions of years the sap hardens into amber, and the amber from the ball is cut from the block, polished, and mailed to an independent evaluator, who prices the amber golf ball, and sends it back The Putt Putt. The ball is delivered via a Rube Goldbergian system of wire tunnels and transportational devices, onto the third green of this hole, a conventional circle of Astroturf with the flag-hole and one small hill as an obstacle.

Note: Place this one close to the refreshment area.

Hole 4

The Temptation

Handicap: 3 strokes

A long single green with traps of sand and water on each side. A rich figure dressed as Satan offers the player one thousand dollars to write down six strokes and move on to the next hole. This offer should be refused and the hole can be easily completed in two or three putts.

Note: Some cynical players might view the one thousand dollar temptation as too enticing, and may be willing to throw the hole for the sake of the money. It is a depressing indicator of a society in decline. Those wicked souls that do should be paid in gift certificates to the Putt Putt, which will take them an onerous number of visits to fully redeem and, of course, subject them to “The Temptation” countless times. .

Hole 5

“The Labyrinth”

Handicap: 3 strokes

A row of holes leads to a system of tubes that deliver the player’s ball to the second green. Inside the tunnels is a tiny robot Minotaur. There are large spoons of yellow thread, which a player can wind around his or her ball in case it gets stuck in the Labyrinth, in which case they can be pulled back out. After the ball comes out onto the second green, it is scooped up in a basket attached to a system of pulleys by fine crafted wax wings. The pulleys lift towards a large incandescent light bulb suspended over the second green. As the wax wings melt, the baskets spill the ball onto the green, where another putt or two should complete the hole.

Hole 6

“Iraq and Afghanistan”

Handicap: 6 strokes

Sounds of recorded applause play when you exit the first green into the second, a series of sand traps and rock obstacles.

Note: Players may loose a number of balls, and they may purchase new ones for a small fee. The Player may have to start over in the first green and in fact his or her ball may never have left, only been forgotten. This hole may drag on and on with no end in sight. Place close to the refreshment area.

Hole 7

“The HealthCare System”

Handicap 1 Stroke

Players who have purchased all day passes may play this hole, others will have to take the detour to the emergency hole, the price of which will be deducted from the all day pass holder’s credit cards. Non-pass holders may play this hole, but will be billed until they have no money left, and must foreclose on their homes. There is a wave shape in the first green, which must be navigated to get to the second green, which has a small hill for an obstacle. There is also a hospital.

Hole 8

“Jack and the Beanstalk”

Handicap: 5 strokes

There is a spinning green beanstalk in the center of the first green, with broad leaves spiraling up the stalk into the cloud layer, which contains the second green. A player climbs a spiral staircase to the cloud layer, while a leaf scoops up the ball. On the second green the player is threatened by giants who sing infantile poems and try to eat the player. There is also a robot cow on the first green, creating obstacles with its metal hoofs. Puffy cloud shapes function as hills.

Hole 9

“The Masked Ball”

Handicap: 6 strokes

Everyone is disguised. The playe must guess who the player’s allies are, and who are the player’s enemies, but the ball attendees keep changing faces. The player can trust no one completely. And what is the answer to “The Second Riddle of The Second Sphinx?” The Ball is transported by envoys through back channels finessed by black-market bribes. As the player climbs the unspoken chain of command, the net tightens around the player in a suffocating game of layered deceits. There are two hills, one large, one small, and a water trap.

--Dan Kilian

The Ghost of Ford Talks to Obama

The Billion Dollar Omelet

Rough Night

Woke up covered in gore, again. I was wearing some kind of organ on my arm like a sleeve. Could have been human, could have been goat. No big deal either way.

So I washed up a bit in the mop sink, hosing myself down in cold water and scraping off the worst chunks with the back edge of a straight razor I found behind the toilet. Took a couple shots of Yukon Jack warm and then a big pull of cold gin to get the taste out of my mouth, and then had a pickle. People, it was a good pickle. Anyhow, I jerked my cock till it spat and then decided to shave my nuts and ass. Didn't get around to it, though, since I must have taken a nap in the kitchen – at least that's where I woke up the second time.

Did four lines of blow that were laying around and tried to wake up the dame that had puked all over herself and my new leather couch. She wasn't moving much and was sort of blue around the gills, but I didn't have time to mess around with that. I had a busy day ahead of me. Sprayed on some perfume – don’t let 'em tell you it's "cologne"; it's just perfume for men – and then I felt respectable. Went out and started up the El Camino and tore out of there. Didn't get too far before I realized I had a U-Haul trailer hitched up to it and it was running on one flat tire and the rim.

I unhitched the trailer and was about to go when I heard something knocking around inside. I snapped the lock off the door and opened it up. There was a skinny white girl in there and I can tell you she would have looked good if she hadn't shit up the place so bad. As it was she was still a looker so I climbed in and shut the door behind me.

She struggled a bit but I knocked her over and got her from the back and after a while she sort of gave in. I was a bit rough on her on account of I'd already spat, but the whole scenario was pretty damn erotic so it didn’t take too long before I'd shot it again. I pushed her off and I could hear she was crying. That upset me or something because the next thing you know I'm snapping her neck. Her chin just went around like a doll's -- it was that easy. "Aw shit," I said, and went to the back of the truck for some gasoline. I splashed the trailer down good and lit it up and took off.

I'd gotten some gas on my hands so I jerked it again, working my middle finger up my ass pretty good. It stung a bit and I almost ran into the back of a postal Jeep but I recovered and things worked out OK. I pulled into a Dairy Queen and drank a few pulls off a gallon of milk and then put it back in the cooler. The guy at the counter started yelling in some language or other and I gave him the finger and grabbed a pack of Newport 100s and a Slim Jim and left.

I lit up two smokes and drove out to the beach so I could clear my head. I ate the meat product and felt like I was gonna puke, but I didn’t. I pulled into the beach lot and bought a round of ice cream cones for the kids. I like kids.

I got naked and waded out into the surf. A ray tried to take a bite out of me so I stomped it and tore it in half. The water was cold so there weren't many people in it, but one kid came up and said, "Hey, mister. Why are you naked?"

"Forgot my suit," I said, and walked out to where it was deeper. The water felt so good I could have swum to England. The kid's mom was yelling for him to get away from me, which was probably a good idea. I dove down and swam for deeper water.

I probably got a hundred feet or so before my lungs gave out. I sucked in that salt water and it burned something awful. What was nice is I didn't have to fight to keep down. I just sank to the bottom. I bit the legs off a crab and my eyes went dark.

I woke up in a clinic with a tube in my throat. I pulled that out and the IVs in the back of my hand and went looking for the pharmacy. I was buck-ass naked but clean, except for an iodine stain around the scar on my side. They must have pulled something out of me. I got to the pharmacy and there was a little woman doctor in there. I just said, "You're something sweet" and she didn't even struggle. She was combing my snot out of her hair and I was grinding the Percocets between my thumb and forefinger when her boss came in.

He made a lot of noise so I grabbed a handful of syringes and put them in his neck. He took off gurgling and I held a handful of Percocet out to my number one girl. She snorted it up like a horse taking an apple and then I took a boost myself. There was still some powder in my hand so I put it up her skirt and she was ready for another go-round.

I had things to do, though, so I grabbed a couple vials of morphine and took off. My car wasn't in the lot so I put my fist through some doctor's window and drove off in a slightly damaged BMW. I got to a park and tilted the seat back and put my feet on the ceiling. I snapped the top off one of the vials and poured the morphine into my ass. I spread my cheeks and let it settle in nice and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I must have dozed off like that because I woke up to a boy in blue pointing a gun in my face. I got out of the car like he said and he told me to put my hands over my head. I wasn't about to go to jail – I had a busy day ahead of me – so I slugged him and damn near took his jaw off. His partner shot me through the shoulder and missed three times before I got to him. He got the worst of it.

I got into the cruiser, hit the lights, and started barreling into town. There was a 12-gauge propped in the front, which I unlimbered and pointed out the passenger side. I pulled up next to an Abdow's Big Boy and blew the statue off its pedestal. Then I went past the firehouse and blew out their windows for good measure.

Some cops started tailing me so I cracked the top on the second vial of morphine and rammed it up my nose. I tipped my head back to let it run in and slammed into the back of a station wagon.

I got out and went to check that they weren't hurt. It was a damn shame, innocent bystanders and all, but a kid in the front seat had hit the windshield and left a clump of hair on it. His mom must have bounced off the steering wheel and cut her upper lip clean off. I pulled off the rear view mirror and showed her what she looked like and asked if she wanted me to finish her off. She was crying and her kid was starting to stir so I put my thumb two knuckles deep in her eyesocket before the kid woke up. Nobody should see their mother die.

The cops shot me three times in the abdomen and once in the back of the head. I went down – I'm not afraid to admit it. I was bleeding out of my mouth and my ass and all I could think of was that pickle. Damn it was good.

I lurched back up and they tased me three or four times. One of the jolts made me come pretty hard, and I smiled at the lady cop. She hit me with her baton and one of the tough guys pistol whipped me until I passed out.

I must have died or something because I never woke up after that.

--Steve Kilian

Hard Case

Good vs. Evil

His Retirement.

On the first day off work he went to visit his wife’s grave and then went shopping. Came home with some Mexican take out food, a few bottles of wine, and an easel and a pre-stretched canvas. He vowed to learn to stretch them himself, but was impatient to begin. He prepped his canvas with Gesso, and, stimulated by the gooey texture, masturbated in the shower. He masturbated again and went to sleep.

His still life became an abstract expression. He smeared black paint on his penis and went to the shower.

On the third day of his retirement it hit upon him to use semen and wine stains as his medium since he had so much of it at the ready.

“I shall build on the work of Ruscha!”

And cigarette holes, now that he was smoking again.

The vomit canvases really began to smell and they had go. The same with the excrement canvases. Most of the blood canvasas had puke or shit on them too, so they went. He kept a couple of the blood canvases that escaped soiling. He was making progress.

He put flowers on his wife’s grave, bought more wine and cigarettes and ordered another crate of canvases delivered.

He woke up on the fifth day, passed out on a canvas, his pants around his ankles a meager drip dangling off the tip of his raw, red and flaccid penis. He was out of semen and out of wine. He went into town.

He came home with a whore, passed out and the whore took his wallet and what money was lying around, his computer and the booze. She left him half a bottle to get him through the next morning.

On the seventh day they found him, without identification, passed out on his wife’s grave, his pants around his ankles, with a bottle in one hand and his penis in the other. He couldn’t remember his name. They let him out on the street. They didn’t connect the grave to his family, who never saw him again.

If he’d ever remembered where he’s lived, he would have found his son’s family living there. He never did. He just ambled on, incoherently hustling booze money from strangers and clutching at his shrunken useless cock.

--Dan Kilian

The Critic Masturbates

Godzilla's Ghost

Hard Case

Momma tried to do me in before she was even showing. She smoked like a chimney and drank like a sailor and was probably huffing spray-paint for good measure. It just made me madder than hell and by the third trimester I was taking it out on her something fierce: I'd punch her in the bladder first thing in the morning and in the kidneys all night long.

She must have hit a scratch card or turned a trick or something because she got up enough money to bring in a professional. They knocked her out good, which must have taken a lot, and I was a bit woozy but still feeling pretty mean, and then they came in trying to cut me. I grabbed the curette and pushed it into Momma and came up the shaft like I was climbing rope. I punched the doc in the nose and just started running. I made it about three feet when I was caught up by my belly cord. I'd already had my teeth for two weeks (and a full head of hair, ladies), so I just bit through it, gave the doc the finger, and winked at the prettier of the two nurses before high-tailing it out of there.

I slipped down a laundry chute and then made my way to the clinic's boiler room. Sure enough there was an old coal-chute that they'd only seen fit to cover with some light gauge galvanized sheet. I crawled up the chute and before I'd even bloodied my knuckles too bad I was through that sheet metal and out on the street. Of course I was naked and covered in coal dust, so I wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. I also wasn't smelling too much like roses – Momma's hole wasn't the cleanest address around.

Fortunately I saw a garbage truck rumbling by, so I ran out between two parked cars – an El Dorado and a Hyundai, go figure – and jumped up into the undercarriage and held on for the ride back to the municipal pound. Sure enough we got there in an hour or two and they ran that thing over with power washers and ammonia. A nice shower after a relaxing ride through the country. I jumped down, went into the locker room, and stole three wallets, two packs of smokes, and a handkerchief that I could use as a pants and a t-shirt after I'd gnawed a few holes in it.

It was time for a drink. I rolled down to the Olde Horseshoe tavern, stepping on the bouncer's foot on the way in. I hopped up on the bar and walked down to where the bartender was yapping away on the house phone. I flipped a quarter to one of the broads that was nursing a Seven and 7 and told her to play something nice on the jukebox – something that would get her in the mood. Then I put my foot down on the phone hook and gave the bartender my order: "Warm gin and butter, in a bottle." He started to say something but caught the look in my eye and thought better of it.

The barkeep must have thought he was funny because he poured in a shot and made to hand it over. "I'm a growing boy, here," I said. "Make it a triple." I turned to the ladies and asked them if they had a light. The one at the jukebox looked over her shoulder and gave me a kissy-face while the brunette at the bar just reached into her purse for a Zippo. I could see she packed a .38 along with three shades of lipstick.

It was gonna be a long night.

--Steve Kilian

Violent Dream

Top Trek A Pan Fiction

The Citadel: Anvil

Sparks flew from the steel, searching their way out the window, merging with the scattered lights of the enemy's campfires on the plain. These in turn merged with the stars as night took the last color from the sky. He would not sleep tonight, nor had he slept for three nights previous. Instead he hammered out spearpoints that were mounted on the ends of oak dowels as thick as his thumb was long. The ballista crews would go through his entire night's product in a quarter of an hour, but it would be enough. He'd seen men pinned to the horses they rode on, the horses themselves pinned to the blood-softened earth below. Man and beast would writhe as the attacking hordes split around them.

He remembered playing in a stream once, throwing rocks into the shallow rapids. The stream would part, leaving a teardrop-shaped spot of calm in the lee of the rock. Once he'd thrown a rock that had landed exactly where a frog had been basking half-submerged. The frog -- through luck or alertness -- had jumped clear just in time, and landed in the downstream calm. It blinked and looked at him, climbing half-way onto this new basking place.

A friend came up beside him with a home-made bow. He'd nocked a reed with the tip cut cross-wise like a writing quill. He aimed and loosed the reed, which hit the frog broadside and killed it. His friend was immediately shocked that it had worked -- he'd never hit the quarry before. The young blacksmith was angry, although he didn't know why. He had just moments before tried to crush the frog with the stone. But it seemed a shame that having survived his attack that it would fall to another. Especially since he'd given it shelter of sorts.

A hiss and popping sound brought him back to the present. Perhaps he'd fallen asleep at the anvil. He glanced at the fire to be sure that a knot hadn't jumped from the hearth. Everything seemed fine. The point he was working was still red, so he continued hammering.

He missed his first stroke, the bright clang of hammer on the bare anvil ugly in his ears. He went to pick up the hammer again, but it was as if it had fused to the anvil. He stooped to look closer, but the feathers on the arrows sticking from his chest caught fire on the spearpoint. "They attack at night?" he thought, "I should have shuttered the window." He stared at the flaming ends of the arrows, wondering what was making the flames leap horizontally. "The flue couldn't have that much draft from this distance." Then he realized he was staring at the vaulted ceiling, flat on his back. "Well then, I guess I will get some sleep after all."

--Steve Kilian

Joseph in the North

Russian Roulette

The Citadel: Undone

It was perhaps his greatest work, and nobody would know him as its author. Worse, they wouldn't even know it had happened it all.

He drew the catgut through the powdered jewels, trying not to cut his fingers too badly in the process. Then he strung the silver lines between the nodes of the vault, tracing out the patterns he'd found scattered among the texts he'd collected. In places the web-work was so dense he needed a wooden shuttle to thread his way through the lines. When that was done he went about the floor, plugging cracks with beeswax. Finally it was sealed tight and he rolled over the cask, cursing the lead lining that kept its contents pure. He worked it over onto its side and pulled the stopper, letting the quicksilver flow out onto the floor, settling into a perfect round mirror reflecting the shuttered oculus above. The domed ceiling was covered with the runes he'd drawn over the previous three weeks, words in forgotten languages written with inks obscure and profane in their composition.

Now all he had to do was wait for the sky to catch up with his plan. The almanacs said he had two days to wait. It was just time enough to begin the incantation. He climbed the winding stair to the roof, pulled his cloak tight around him and began the chant. Every hour or so he would drink from a flask of bitter spikepine liquor, and his hunger would subside. His urine ran from his pantleg down to the gargoyled scupper at the edge of the roof. The sun wheeled by once, chased by a sliver blade of moon. On the second day the moon made its cut, the black disc edging its way across the sun in time with the rising words of the spell. Finally the sun was directly overhead, obliterated by the moon, and he cried his throat raw, cutting his tongue on the harsh angles of the alien words.

He threw back the shutters of the oculus, exposing the quicksilver mirror. He could see the sun's halo flaring in the vault below, the strings fired with its muted light. The sun above flared brighter, as if in response. Blue wisps of arcane energies pulsed along the lines of web. The sky folded along these lines, forests and continents compressed into irrational geometries. He could not hear the final words as they were torn from his throat, drowned out in the great rush of in-folding matter and event. Time bent to the same twisted skein he had created, battles and famines curled like scrolls and tucked into newly formed alcoves in the universe. His body was buffeted by the swirling forces around him, chaos shrieking as it was imprisoned in the calculus of the spell. In three short barks he uttered the closing syllables that would mark the unbending of the new world, changing the paper-doll creases just slightly, but enough to work his will:

The first battle for the Citadel was undone, recast, and became again, and the forces of Matthew stormed the black walls, finally taking the parapet.

The second battle for the Citadel was shattered and the fragments cast into the ocean. A million times the sea tumbled the shards, blunting them into dull rounded memories of what had happened. A old fisherman's widow collected the pieces and lined her hearth with them, where they fused into a sooty bowl. After she died her few possessions were distributed among the villagers, and a small girl held the bowl up to the setting sun, where she saw images of the black keep under siege, the forces of Daniel being repelled from the walls. Matthew's soldiers had won again.

The third battle for the citadel raged in the signet ring of an imbecile king, a drooling savant who cared only for digging mines in the barren hills of his dying kingdom. Fields went unplowed as the peasants starved and still he sent troops to the pits and galleries, looking for nonexistent treasure. When the king was finally assassinated the ring was stolen and passed from noble to noble, losing value with each transaction as if it somehow bore the curse of its former owner, until finally being paid to a storyteller in exchange for a tale of a defeated army throwing their bodies against an obsidian fortress, unable to avenge the deaths of their brothers in the previous battle. It was yet another song of Matthew's victory.

As these restructured events blossomed back into being the wizard finally lost consciousness. He wondered in that last moment if even he would remember the thing he had wrought.

--Steve Kilian
Death To Everyone
Capsule

Back to The Return To The Last Trip To The Well, Part Two

Editor's note: This is the third part in series celebrating the online release of The Ks video "Last Trip To The Well."

Centuries past. The park turned into a desert. Sandstorms whipped the geography unrecognizable. He was still alive, supernaturally, but it felt all too natural to him. One of his wishes kept him an aging zombie. Sometimes he wished for death, sometimes he wished for other comforts. Mostly he wished for more wishes, and he was free to wish as futilely as he could. He wrapped himself in skins and marched around the desert hoping to find some grasses, or just a coolness to the sands, anything that might be a sign of his old wishing well.

He saw something on a dune miles away, flashing. He marched towards it. It could be water, it could be mica, it could be a mirage or a hallucination. It disappeared as he marched towards it but he staggered towards where he thought he’s seen it last. He kicked up sand, wailing, his life, once a magic realm of wish fulfillment, now reduced to finding some thing he’d seen, some distraction his only focus.

Finally his foot hit something. It was a music player from back when they had computers. This had the solar power chip, and amazingly, after all these years in the sand, still worked. Of course he had no headphones, so it was silent. But he could read the names of the songs pm the little screen, and see the album cover art float past. He lay on the ground, blocking out the sun with his new toy, wheeling through the menus.

It had a single video. A skinny man battling a robot, with flashes of a band playing. He wondered what it meant, and then remembered there was music, an inaudible and long forgotten song. He tried to imagine what it sounded like. He made up songs in his head as he lay there, watching it over and over and over and over and wishing for things.

--Dan Kilian




Return To The Last Trip To The Well, Part II
Return To The Last Trip To The Well

Intro from last night's show: Asphalt Planet

I knew we were in trouble when the road-making machines started to self-replicate. It only took three years before the whole planet was a blank ball of black asphalt hanging in space, featureless but for gravel shoulders at the poles and a double yellow line around the equator.

We lived off of the legless birds that fed on the bats that fed on the insects that fed on the algae and yeast suspended in the atmosphere. We drank dew from our cart-sails in the morning and ran from the pothole fillers in the afternoon.

It couldn't last. We needed to pull over, crack the crust and get to the buried topsoil. We needed to drill down and get some water so we could raise up a proper median.

We needed to get back to the return to the last trip to the well, part two

. . . ladies and gentlemen,

the Ks.

--Steve Kilian
----------------------------------- Tools
----------------------------------- Jesus in Hell

Keepstones

The little boy led his older sister up the path to the trove. It was under an old pine tree that had been split long ago. One trunk was surviving, more or less, while the other was a mass of kindling suspended in the air. He crawled under the tattered canopy and beckoned her in. "See what I found, Evvie?" he said, pointing at the a pile of glassy black shards mixed with more ordinary pebbles. "I think they must be arrowheads."

Evelyn sighed. "No, stupid. That's just keepstone." She was tired of always having to explain the simplest things to her little brother.

"What's keepstone?" he asked.

"It's old, and it's boring." Evelyn started walking back down the path to their parents' hut. Dad had netted two pigeons that morning and she had the juniper berries for the stew in her apron. Cole scampered up behind and asked, "How old?"

"Older than grandpa's grandpa. It's from before, when there were armies and things."

Cole's eyes flashed. "Do you think there's a sword in there?"

It was too much. Evelyn turned and swatted at Cole. "No, stupid! Leave me alone," and she ran off faster than he could follow. All the swords (and nails and cart-axles, for that matter) had been carried off by scavengers long ago, no more than a year or two after the Keep fell. "Fell" probably wasn't the right word for it, though, since piles of keepstone could be found miles away from the lake where it used to stand. "Exploded" would probably be better, although Evelyn had never seen anything actually explode. She had once seen a lampglass break when it got too hot, and a few bits of glass shot away from the flame. It was enough for her to imagine what had happened, or so she told herself. And she thought, "All the swords but one."

She opened the door to the cabin and smelled the stew already cooking. Mother had put spring onions and yellow tuberoot in with the birds. "I've got the berries, Ma," she said. "Thank you, dear," said her mother, taking the berries in one hand and patting her on the head with the other. "Run go get some more wood for the breadoven." Evelyn walked off toward the woodshed.

When she got to the shed she looked around to be sure that her mother wasn't paying attention. Her father wouldn't be back until suppertime; he went to smoke with the men at the brewery in the afternoons. She climbed up onto the woodpile and reached above the third rafter from the end of the shed roof. She would need a different hiding place once winter came, but for now nobody had found the bundle. She took it down and opened up the dirty chamois cloth. The hilt of the dagger shined, the silver matching the trim on the scabbard, which was made from a heavy black wood like ebony but harder. She eased back the latch that held the dagger safely shut and drew out the blade. She turned it in the light, watching the runes etched into the blade come in and out of relief.

Was it from the Fourth Onslaught? She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't wondered what it must have been like to be part of that attack, when the besieging armies had finally breached the Citadel wall. The outer chambers of the keep had fallen first, the defenders retreating to the central tower before Daniel's soldiers. They barricaded themselves within while the attackers looted the stores of food that had been left behind. For weeks they'd had to live off the land, stripping it bare of what livestock and game the defending Servants of Matthew hadn't hoarded in the time before the First Onslaught. On their night of victory they could think of no sweeter reward than oat porridge spiced with goatgrass and honey. But they knew they needed strength for the final assault.

"What's that?" asked Cole, startling her. She turned to see him standing not two feet away. He must have seen everything. "Cole! What are you doing?"

Cole looked worried, and not at all interested in the dagger she was clumsily wrapping back into its cloth. "There's men on the road," he said.

"What men?" she asked.

"Men on horses," he said, and inexplicably broke out in tears. He ran off to the cabin sobbing, arms reaching out for Mother's legs long before he reached the door.

Evelyn tucked the dagger into her apron and walked around to the side of the woodshed. She could see the cart-track that led down to the mill and the brewery. There were indeed four men on horseback, dressed like penitents in grey woolen sacks. But she was more startled by the men who walked alongside, leading the horses by the reins. They were wearing armor -- black armor, like in the stories.

It was the color of the final guard who defended the Keep during the Fifth Onslaught. Daniel's soldiers had battered down the great door to the inner Citadel, swarming in to exterminate the Servants of Matthew. The battle had raged for a day and a half in tight corridors, the dead propped up by those behind them, men hewing into each other through shields of meat and bone. Finally they came to the tower sanctum where Matthew himself was surrounded by the black-armored Marchers of the East. Daniel's soldiers seemed like a ragged group of farmhand conscripts in comparison, motley arms and armor against an elite cadre of trained warriors. But they had lost brothers and fathers and sons in the fields outside the wall, and their numbers carried the day. The fell on the Marchers and then Matthew himself, hacking into him and pulling his corpse to shreds.

In that chamber their bloodlust exceeded all reason and became an orgy of violence. Men coupled with organs or the blood-slick stones of the Citadel itself. Soldiers who had once been priests defiled the fallen bodies of the Marchers. Matthew's severed head was hoisted on a pike to observe his final defeat. When the rage finally subsided the victors couldn't believe what they had done. Nor could they understand why the walls of the Citadel seemed to be glowing red, as if they had become penetrable to the light of the sun which shone through their thick coating of blood. And they certainly could not understand how Matthew's ruined skull was now laughing, the dangling eyes weaving and mad. And then they knew nothing, for the keep was broken and scattered.

Of this last assault Evelyn knew almost nothing, other than that Daniel has won but had his army destroyed when the Citadel erupted in a fountain of blood, metal, and stone. It was the story that explained why there were no more armies in the land, and why the black stones of the bridges were so strong and so strange. But before her on the road were these four penitents and their warders who looked to be soldiers. When she saw the smoke from where the millhouse stood she wondered if it all could happen again.

--Steve Kilian
------------------------------------ Sweet Nothings
------------------------------------ Globama

Feathers

She unbuckled the case and opened it. The familiar smell of leather and feathers reminded her of school, back when the craft of her old profession still required precision tools manufactured in Germany, fine constructions of stainless steel with knurled surfaces and threaded rods. These were mixed incongruously with small bits of graphite and charcoal, clumsy earthen lumps gripped in zero-tolerance pincers. All this was in the service of rendering an approximation of a mental image of space and material. It was no wonder then that more direct methods were devised, that these crude workarounds were abandoned to handsome velvet-lined wooden boxes set on high shelves of closets. These boxes had form-fitting depressions for each tool, and inevitably one or two would be empty, slowly losing their crispness, as if forgetting the shape of what they were made to hold.

But this was not the sort of case she opened. These tools were part of the day-to-day work of her new profession. She ran her fingers along the row of feathers, condor and albatross for distance, starling and swallow for control, selecting them individually and fitting them to the armature. Soon she was nearly complete, and snugged the harness-straps over her shoulders, testing the spring tension and flexure limits. She drew out the wings to their full span and brought them in quickly, fluttering them to be sure no feathers slipped free from the clamping bar. Satisfied with this she folded them back and returned to the case.

She selected a last feather, and drew a small blade from its sheath. With a practiced swipe she took a quarter-inch from its tip, examined the quill to make sure it wasn’t split, and dipped it in a small pot of resin-ink. She laid out a sheet of parchment and quickly documented her flight plan. There was enough of the quill for two or three more uses. She hesitated for a moment, since if everything went as planned she wouldn’t need to file any more flights. But a good tool is a good tool, so she fitted the feather back into its slot. She folded the case and buckled it shut.

--Steve Kilian

----------------------------------- Russian Roulette

----------------------------------- The Future of Cars

War-holes

Though given dispensation to mate using the war-hole, the spiky offspring of that sub-tribe's unions were often vilified by standard citizens. Even the gaunt product of famine-hole couplings would hiss and spit at warlings' passage. Not that the taunts mattered to those at which they were hurled. They lived apart from and above the cares of the citizens - without genitals, they produced no offspring, and so were not beholden to the web of obligations that dominated that society. Instead they served as sentries at the perimeter of the city, or flying above in fragile contraptions of shell, iron, and sailcloth.

Strange thing, then, when a scholar or merchant would apply for war-hole mating. Was it an aberration of the natural desire for such a thing that would overcome the citizenry during times of true warfare? Much like those who held a fetish for the famine-hole even in times of plenty, were there those who longed for the armored orifice of the war-hole? Perhaps.

--Steve Kilian

--------------------------------- Joseph in the North

--------------------------------- Dan's Almost Daily Musings

The Citadel: Death on the Ladder

The moat was choked with corpses, the centuries-old lizards crushed beneath the weight of armored men. The advancing troops marched over the backs of the fallen, scaling the wall with ladders and grapnels. Boiling pitch rained down from the machicolations of the battlement, and the sweet smell of roasting flesh hung around the battlefield.

It was this last absurdity which ruined the attack. Matthew, numb with fatigue, clung to the ladder, wondering where the wonderful scent came from. My God, he thought, I've only had cabbage and bread for two weeks now. He glanced from side to side, not noticing the archer leaning over the parapet above. The arrow entered just above his collarbone and was buried to the fletching, piercing the lung, which instantly filled with blood. Matthew tried to look up, but could only raise his eyes to the level of his hands, which were growing slack on the ladder rung. They seemed somehow grey and alien, as if they were someone else's hands.

I should hold on, he thought, and fell.

--Steve Kilian

-------------------------------------- Epideme

-------------------------------- Quickleaf

Back From The Past

Someone used the time machine and now the present’s all screwed up.

They came through the airlock, nano-fumes dispersing, with a mounted T-Rex head in tow. They looked around, and the world was a nightmare. Pollution, war, corrupt religion, and the advance of science had slowed to a crawl. They could smell the dystopia.

“Let’s stick close to the T.M.” warned Dr. Meritus, “It’s probably the only one in existence.”

The natives gathered round, drawn by their shiny clothes, strange ways and, of course, their large machine which had materialized out of thin air. Or thick air.

“Who are y’all?” one called, a question echoed repeatedly, the “y’alls hanging in the air like seagulls cries. The crowd drew in tighter.

“There are so many of them!” said Amanda.

“No population control in this universe. They’re like bacteria in an agar dish, mindlessly eating their way to oblivion,” mused Dr. Morbidia.

Just then the Sharkmen from Universe 13 appeared, brandishing their lazerpoons. “This Universe is ours!” their translators bleated. “You are all chum!”

Blam! Wally’s hand cannon took one Shark-man’s shark head clean off. Melee ensued. Hand cannons blazed and lazerpoons crackled, and the people in the crowd trampled the fallen as they fled.

The Ks appeared, rocking their instruments hard, from a gig in the future. They were killed almost instantly.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Three more Sharkmen dead!

CRRrrRRAAACK! Amos was shrouded in the eerie green light and disintegrated.

Dr. Morbidia threw a smoke bomb to hide them so that they might regroup. It lay at his feet, only a small fume of smoke spewing from it.

“The smoke bombs in this universe are mere children’s novelties! Let’s get out of here!”

But it was too late. They were outnumbered and overwhelmed. One by one they were subjected to the disintegrating power of the lazerpoons. The Sharkmen had finally won. All of Earth, and indeed all planets in this present universe were enslaved to their evil whims.

Perhaps it is for the best. Mankind was a poor steward of this world. I certainly think so. For I am a Sharkman! All bow down before me! You are CHUM!-- Dan Kilian
Pupa
Top Trek

Vicious Viking

Arinbjörn Nöthnagle rode his winged horse down to the battlefield. The blood was already congealing, and the stench of decay brought a smile to his cruel lips. The ladies were gathering the heroes of the battle, for their endless night in the dining hall of Valhalla. That was the ladies’ job, but Arinbjörn’s task was different. He was here to kick the losers, the weak, the unlucky.

“KAARGH!” he exclaimed, laying boot to the guts of a dead Swede, who had already suffered the indignity of having his head split by an axe.

“Why? Lord of Asgard, why to you torture me?” moaned the fallen warrior. “Did I not fight bravely?”

“You would think you fought bravely, wouldn’t you?” The Nöthnagle barked, laughing his contempt. “You know nothing of the glory that belongs to the truly brave. You fought with fear in your heart!”

“That was adrenaline!”

“FEAR! KAARGH!”

“Oof!”

After he’d spent the morning kicking similar dead wretches of the battle, adding insult to fatality, Arinbjörn took a long draught on his horn of mead.


Frulgjna the Valkyrie descended to the field where he stood.

“Good Arinbjörn Nöthnagle, how is your drink?”

“It tastes like blood, but what doesn’t taste like blood? I love it.”

“You are a cruel God, Arinbjörn. I have often wondered why Odin assigned you such a cruel duty, torturing the less than glorious dead?”

“What Odin? What assignment? I’m just killing time so I don’t have to gather sticks for Baldar’s eternal Pyre!

“Oh.”

“This is how I get my kicks!”

“Oh”

“Get it? Kicks?”

--Dan Kilian
------------------------------------------- The Melancholy Viking
------------------------------------------- Fixing The Banks

Late Solstice

I could hear the sun grind to a halt in the sky above those shingled single-family rooftops. I could hear the mandibular squeak and shuffle of Japanese beetles mating in iridescent brown clusters on the tattered rose bushes. I could hear a blimp somewhere overhead droning under the weight of advertisements for motor oil (starboard) and steel-belted radials (port). And I could hear the clunk and tick of bocce balls and old men's knees as they examined the workings of that great lawn-clock of a game that marked the passage of the summer's afternoons.

And then the driver pulled the lever, tattooed arm already tan, and the door squealed open onto weeks upon weeks—a future stretching beyond the imagination—of limitless possibility.

*

"Go on, son," he said, smiling, "It's summer."

*

—Steve Kilian
------------------------------- Wolcott Pond

------------------------------- Fixing the Banks

Our Top 20 Hits

We recently posted our 200th post, and we’re pretty proud of the body of work we’ve generated. Why not take a look and see if there’s something you might have missed? Here’s the current take on the twenty best Klogs.

The Ghost of the Ayatollah Khomeini talks to The Ayatollah Khamenei, but things aren’t what they seem!

This is pretty silly stuff, but it makes me laugh every time I read it. A very off color not for the squeamish take on the Gilligan’s Island Theme song.

This, weirdly enough, is our most viewed item. I guess we’re on the search engine for birthday cake balloons. How to duplicate this effect?

This is our most commented on piece, even if at least one of the commenters hasn’t read the piece. It’s about the new Star Trek movie.

Geek that I am, I prefer this piece mocking the original Star Trek series. Geek that I am, I combine it with Top Chef.

In hopes of replicating the success of the Star Trek piece, we tried a Terminator piece. Too bad that movie’s supposed to suck.

And we mock The Beatles Rock Band Game.

Political satire has a short shelf life, but here’s us keeping Obama off the pedestal, regarding those detainee abuse photos.

Our fascination with the occult and with money combine in this spooky piece about Thomas Jefferson.

The ghost of Nixon talks to Obama.

The Iranian uprising meets twitter.

Mickey Rourke as Godzilla.

Music, politics, why not religion? This piece is NOT for the devout. Joseph in the North.

H.P. Lovecraft meets Steve Kilian with Kuo-toa Assimilated.

On some computers, this poster looked decent, and on some it looked all messed up. Hopefully it’s all better now. A minor character in a Neil Diamond movie gets his own in Love On The Rocks.

Here’s a tale about bumping into Billy Idol at a wedding.

A sad tale involving squirrels.

The ultimate heavy metal rock video, From Space to Destroy!

Perhaps describing this entire blog, The Critic Masturbates. Warning: this piece is about masturbation.

And the original piece about The Cookie Monster.

Let me know if I missed anything. Enjoy!

---- Here's what we thought were the Top Ten Klogs after 100 posts.

The Michelangelo Project

In a Scientology lab deep in the heart of Hollywood, Forrest Whittaker and John Travolta are suited up in level III containment gear. They are working through a glove box on scraps of nose and lip tissue that have been kept in liquid nitrogen for years.

"Do we have a viable sequence?"

"By Xenu's shroud, I think we do."

"Well, then, let's insert it into the host cell."

Suddenly they are interrupted by their supreme leader. Tom Cruise, through the speakers built into his shiny black level IV+ gear, says, "That won't be necessary, gentlemen."

Perplexed, Forrest and John take their hands out of the glove box.

Cruise continues, "You see, I haven't been completely honest with you. Others have had access to the same material that you are now working on. The Michelangelo Project has been in progress for years."

"Years? How many?"

Then a figure steps from behind Cruise. He's familiar, but something about him is strange. The skin tone, the structure of his facial features - it is like looking at the brother of someone they've known for a long time. But then he speaks, and understanding washes over them.

In a high, perfect voice, he says, "Sixteen. I'm sixteen years old."

*

*

--Steve Kilian

------------------------------------- Steve's Grisly Video

------------------------------------- Michael J. Fox's Bad Day

The Cargo

They hoisted up the bodies in a sisal cargo net, limbs and heads poking out and dripping. The loaders slid it along the gantry rail with gaffs and chain-hauls, followed by a crew with stiff brooms and foaming bleach and yellow buckets on wheels, scrubbing behind them until the bristling sack was over the refrigerated container. Feeling that cold those trapped in the net started a pitiful moan and mumbled out weak curses in Chinese and Farsi and Hindi. The gantry operator let slack the cable and dropped the load into the container, the round shape binding on its rectangular edges, cracking bones as the weight settled. The loaders prodded the sack with shovels, forcing it into shape, hacking off fingers and hands that clung to the lip of the box, picking them up and tossing them in after the mass was in place.

They flipped the lid down and slid the bolts shut, using a mallet on one that stuck. Fists and feet pounded on the inside of container, but gradually grew silent. The barge pulled away and headed out to the research station.

--Steve Kilian
---------------------------------------- Olde Tales Of The Sea
---------------------------------------- More Grim Death

Wolcott Pond

The geese got flash-frozen into the pond one year, stuck sitting in place as we skated by in hand-me-down Bauers. My laces were knotted together where they'd broken before. The ice wasn’t hard enough but we couldn’t wait, so it was wrecked by the time we were done skating. It didn't matter, since we were the only ones who skated on the pond. Our older brothers skated at the town pool and we didn't even have goals or enough sticks to go around. Mostly we just skated past the hissing geese and avoided the branches that reached up from the pond, or the tufts of yellow grass where the ice got thin over the swampy ground.

We wondered if they'd been asleep when the water froze, or if they just sat there watching while it got solid around them. Then we changed back into our boots and tied the laces together and slung the skates over our shoulders and walked home, making snowballs with stiff pink fingers. By the time we got home my little brother's nose was running and he was sniffling and wiping it on the back of his glove. We kicked the snow off of our boots on the back steps and went inside.

Mom reheated some cocoa and it had some skin in it that didn't melt back into the chocolate. But at least she made it with milk so it was better than "hot chocolate" which was just chocolate-flavored water. Kids at the pool bought that with new ten-dollar bills that their mothers gave them. Sometimes they got to keep the change. My little brother and I ate a bowl of puffed rice cereal and Mom gave us some raspberry danish from Stop & Shop, which was good. She also had a bag of iced cookies but they were hard and I didn't like them.

I found my book in my room and started to read it. I only got a few pages in before I started dozing off, tired from skating. Mom shut the light off at some point and I woke up to the room being dark and cool and I fell asleep again.

*

I woke up, startled, on the bus from New York City. The driver had put on the overhead light and people were starting to gather their things as we pulled in to the Hartford bus station. I checked my phone and saw that we were a little bit early. I'd have to call home for someone to get me or take one of the cabs that line up next to the covered walkway. It was cold for October and I didn't want to wait, but I distrusted the fare negotiation process of suburban cabs. I stood still for a moment of indecision, asking myself why I came back, feeling the water freezing around me.

--Steve Kilian

---------------------------------- Shamecon

---------------------------------- Initiation

The Great Wyrmm of the Sea

"The largest of these flutes can be found on the island of Kur-kurret, far from the shipping lanes in the South Sea. The specimen that the flute came from has been calculated to have been between 400 and 500 feet long, depending on the age at the time of extraction. The flute itself is well over 70 feet long. Core samples of the bone walls have been inconclusive as there is heavy scarring and nodular growth throughout, indicative of a systemic arthropathy which no doubt left the massive creature in near-constant agony.

It is no surprise then that the local history of the flute's origin includes tales of a "great wyrmm of the Sea," and of fishing vessels being capsized and all hands consumed by a "serpent most dyre in its cryes and loathsome of countenance." Such behavior could be explained by a painful condition such as evidenced by the bone fragments that have been studied by other fellows at the Institute. It may also be that the smaller specimens more commonly encountered are not as aggressive simply because of their small (relatively speaking, of course) size.

The Kur-kurret histories indicate that the flute was extracted from the beached carcass of the tubefish approximately 350 years ago. The local patriarch of the fishing tribe that dominated the island had the flute dragged to his hillside retreat (no mean feat, as the object's weight has been estimated at 12 tons -- heavier than might be expected due to the predominance of solid ossifications in the otherwise porous medium), where it was incorporated into local religious festivals.

Interestingly there is evidence that smaller tubefish flutes were treated with no great respect, having been found alongside the typical array of beads and wooden toys in common gravesites of children euthanized during the last century's polio epidemic. This runs contrary to many accounts of similar cultures revering even the smallest examples of tubefish flutes. Further study of this phenomenon is warranted but is not covered in the scope of this inquiry.

The Kur-kurret flute has been maintained in active religious use through to the present day. Should in-situ analysis be undertaken, field personnel are advised to prepare for primitive conditions and frequent storms, particularly in monsoon season. Political instability in the region is another concern, although recent improvements in relations with the South Sea Archipelago naval oligarchy have mollified this concern to some extent. Equipment recommendations for use in tropical regions can be found in Appendix C. . . ."

Professor Van Hoek slammed shut the concordance. Roebling was likely already steaming for Kur-kurret with a cargo ship purpose-built for the journey. If he was to have any chance of making an objective study of the thing he'd have to move with utmost speed. He uncapped a speaking tube and yelled into it, "Reynolds! Dr. Morse! Meet me on the bridge!"

Within minutes the nose of the Silver Tulip was turning through light clouds as the airship headed toward the South Sea, trailing a thin streamer of black coalsmoke.

--Steve Kilian

------------------------------- The Polar Turtle

------------------------------- Tips For Landing A Job