The Finalist

By Chris Wei

(Opening line by Katie Chatterton)

Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.  Don’t stretch yourself too thin.  Et cetera.  That’s the advice I get from my mother.

Don’t give in so easy.  Don’t sell yourself short.  Et cetera.  That’s the advice I get from my father.

It is hard sometimes to reconcile two widely varying worldviews like these.  It is hard to find a middle ground and discern where the truth is.  My mother and my father are both happy people but they look at most philosophical questions with opposite assumptions.  If you believe that a person’s philosophy is justified by their happiness level, then Mom and Dad are both right, even though they disagree.

It’s sort of confusing sometimes.  I have never thought of myself as much of a relativist before but in the past several years I have started to abandon the idea of absolute truth, of absolute right and wrong, of absolute certainty.

Not in all things.  There are a few things I still think are absolute.  Two plus two will always be four, innocent human life will always be worth protecting, and the original Star Wars trilogy will always be better than the prequels.

But other truths always seem to rely on circumstance.  Sometimes when I am exhausted from trying to do too much, I need to listen to my mother:  I need to stop trying to carry the world upon my shoulders.  But other times, when I am lazy, I think the opposite.  I don’t get lazy because I’m exhausted.  I get lazy because I’m depressed.  And I get depressed because I sell myself short and tell myself how incapable I am.  That’s when I need to listen to my father, and just keep pushing ahead.  “Don’t give in so easy,” he says.  Okay.  I won’t.

Yesterday is an example of when I needed to listen to my father.  I was a finalist in the annual Milwaukee hot dog eating contest.  And it was really difficult to get all those hot dogs down.  I wanted to give up.  My mother’s voice in the back of my head whispered, “don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.”  But she was wrong, of course.  The world, the world of hot dog championship, was indeed upon my shoulders and I needed to carry it.  I needed to gobble those wieners faster than my visiting Korean opponent.  For the honor of my family.  For the honor of Milwaukee.  For the honor of America.

The contest was grueling.  Sweat dripped down my brow as I stuffed the final six hot dogs in my mouth and started chewing.  My Korean enemy was finishing his last few as well, but chewing slower than I.  Maybe that was wishful thinking.  I couldn’t be sure.  My vision was blurring.

I closed my eyes and focused.

Eventually I prevailed.  But it was too much for my body to take, and I died.

When I got to Heaven, I was expecting St. Peter to put his arm around my shoulder and say, “your mother was right.  Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.”  But he didn’t.

Instead, he shook my hand, smiling, and said “you sure ate a lot of hot dogs down there, son.”

The Life and Times of Steven G. Ratenstein

“It was a dark and stormy night and the only sound heard was a large rat scratching at the door…”

“Stop right there.  That’s an awful way to start a horror story.  It’s too cliché… it just feels like you’re a twelve-year-old boy scout telling a ghost story over the campfire.  You could probably give a toddler chills, but beyond that, it reads closer to comedy than anything else.  What did you say your book was about again?”

“It’s about a serial killer from Tennessee.  He has this special power where he can turn into a rat and…”

“That’s absolutely idiotic.  Give me the manuscript so that I can burn it and then toss it in a port-a-potty where it belongs.  You’re a hack.  My seven cats are probably all better writers than you are.  I don’t even know how you’ve published any books. “

“I haven’t.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.  Please do the world a favor and break all of your fingers so you can never write again.  Or better yet, kill yourself.  Yeah, do that.  That would be wonderful.  Now get out of my office.”

Paul was devastated.  He had spent the last four years of life writing his book, The Life and Times of Steven G. Ratenstein.  After all, he had plenty of free time.  Coming out of college with a degree in medieval literature, his only job offers had been as a jester at King Richard’s Faire and as a barista at Starbucks.  Since he could neither juggle nor make smiley faces in the foam of a latte, he opted to try his hand at writing a full-length novel.  Now, he had even failed at that.  He couldn’t seem to do anything right in his life.  He had no job.  He had no girlfriend.  His parents had kicked him out of their basement, forcing him to live in a dingy seventh-story apartment, sandwiched between a prostitute and a coke dealer.  His life was miserable.  Maybe the editor was right.  Maybe he should kill himself.  Fifteen minutes later, he found himself walking down the medicine aisle at Rite-Aid, looking for sleeping pills.  He grabbed six bottles, figuring it would be sufficient for his needs.  He arrived at the register, set down his manuscript, and fumbled around for his wallet.  The cashier, a pink-haired twenty-something with a nose ring, glanced at his manuscript and smiled.

“A writer, eh?”

“I try.”

“I dig writers.  My name’s Hope.  I get off at six.  What are you doing then?”

Paul smiled and finished paying.  On his way out, he dropped all six bottles of pills in the garbage can.  Hope had arrived.

Tourist Attractions

(by Chris Wei)
(first line by Steph Lee)

She had a thing for freaky tourist attractions.  World’s largest ball of yarn.  New York’s most expensive pizza.  That sort of thing.  So when she heard about my collection of paranormal artifacts, she called me.

“My name is Sara Smith,” she said over the phone.  “I’m writing a book on unique tourist attractions throughout the country and I’ve heard you have a shed full of weird stuff I’d be interested in looking at.”

I hung up the phone without saying anything.

Moments later, the phone rang again.  Twice.  Three times.  I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Sir?  This is Sara Smith.  I think we got disconnected before?”

“No, we didn’t.  I hung up on you.”

Sara paused.  “Why?”

“Because, Sara, my collection is not a tourist attraction.  The stories behind the things I have aren’t stories anyone wants to hear about.”

“Like what?”

Despite myself, I told her about Sammy, the big stuffed green carnival bear who smelled like beer.  Sammy came alive for fourteen minutes in the summer of 1996 and brutally attacked a small girl.  I had it chained up in my shed for safekeeping and tests.  It’s likely that whatever spirit had possessed Sammy would never come back, but I wanted to make sure I could record its behavior if it ever returned.

I told Sara about the jar of unidentified black liquid that always stayed ice-cold, no matter what temperature the room was.  I used to keep that jar in my refrigerator, but it shouts sometimes, and my cat hates it.

Sara listened intently to a few more little stories like this, then decided my collection would be a worthwhile addition to her book.  She convinced me that if I let her come visit it, take some pictures, and write some notes, then she could write a few pages about me and interested people would start coming by.  It could be profitable, she said, for me to charge the occasional passerby for a tour or even a souvenir, if the price was right.

I reluctantly agreed.  She visited, and then we fell in love.  A couple months later, a fire demon I’d been keeping in my basement ate her soul.  Her death was all over the news, and because of it her book instantly became famous, especially to the morbidly curious.  The tourist business at my home became very successful and I retired early and wealthy and alone.

Poor Sara.  Too bad she had a thing for freaky tourist attractions.

Phineas Floo

Sometimes, when I’m alone in the apartment, I like to try and sing like Johnny Cash.  I once took a girl out who made me a whole mix CD of murder ballads, which I guess is a well-known genre of bluegrass.  Or something.  I didn’t want to admit how little I knew about bluegrass, which is probably good, because she was trying to send me a message, and if I’d made her really explain about how she wanted me dead, it would have been fairly uncomfortable. As it was, I saw her occasionally and said hello and moved on, in artificial, ignorance.

So it was that on this Saturday afternoon I was alone in the apartment, singing like Johnny Cash, when a knock came at the door.  It was like one of those drug dealer knocks from TV, kind of a knock-shuffle-knock-shuffle-knock, to let you know exactly who it was, only I wasn’t in on the code. 

I opened the door to a man with a six-month beard, scraggly teeth and a T-shirt advertising my high school track team.  He complimented my singing.  I thanked him politely, actually rather pleased with myself, and asked him what he wanted.  He introduced himself.  His name was Phineas Floo, and he was on a trans-dimensional journey.  It turned out that his last jump had misfired, and somehow placed him in this backwater and he required my assistance, as one citizen of this galaxy to another.

Now, Rule Number One of my life has long been never turn down adventure. And Rule Number Seven is to cultivate all interactions with strange people.  Thus, with two rules in his favor, and Rule Eleven closing in (always go out on Saturdays), I locked the door behind me and we set out.

Phineas was certain he needed help, but uncertain what he needed help with.  We went to the park and strung tin foil from the monkey bars, but apparently the frequencies were wrong.  Or maybe it was the wind.  We then drove to the radio towers on the hill across the lake and tried the same thing, but there was some kind of cosmic interference.  By this time it was getting dark, and Phineas Floo was hungry, tired and discouraged.  We stopped for chili dogs at Tommy’s drive in.  Though he complained several times about “meat foods” and “recycled ingredients,” Phineas seemed relatively pleased with his meal.

After dinner, I pushed back my chair, dropped a tip on the table, and started preparing my excuses. Rule Number Five (all strangers sleeping over must be female) required that I let Phineas go.  But he had other plans.

Out of his pocket he pulled a curious little brass ring.  He told me to sit back down and order another chili dog.  I started to make excuses, but he grabbed my shoulder and squeezed the sides of the ring.  Out popped little wings, and the ring started to buzz on the vinyl table top.  I order another chili dog and some onion rings.

While we were waiting, Phineas started to sing at his little device.  The words were a mash up of Top 40 hits and nursery rhymes.  We were back to nonsense.  I picked at the onion rings. On my first bite, the whole onion slice came out, leaving me holding a deep fried shell.  I know it’s not exactly vegetable wonders, but when the onion is gone, I feel bad eating the empty shell.  By the time I looked back over, the ring-on-wings was floating four inches off the table.

Phineas was looking at me now, chili dog cold and forgotten on the table.  I rubbed my eyes, but the brass contraption was still floating there. 

“Give me your hand,” Phineas rasped.  I wanted to say no, but before I knew it, I he had placed my hand under the whirring wings.  All of a sudden, they shuddered, clipped and fell into my hand.  The wings popped back in and were still.  The whole ring was warm.

“Well, that’s it.  God bless.”  And Phineas stood up and walked out into the night. 

I still have the ring.  It’s on my bookshelf, next to a little jade elephant I got in Chinatown and the clay jaguar I made in Ms. White’s second grade class.  Every once in a while I pick it up and shake it, or squeeze the sides like Phineas did, but nothing ever happens.  I’ve mostly convinced myself that it was just a long day with a guy who smelt like weed and a lot of sun that got me seeing things.  But sometimes I hear a buzz from the other room.  And on those days, the ring still feels warm.

-David Cramer

Le Soleil

He skipped along the surface of the sun, happy to finally be home. It was a slow, majestic skip, worthy of the sun-god himself. It had been a long journey, and there was nothing like the warmth of the sun to keep one happy and healthy, especially when one lived in it. The familiar comforts of home brought back a certain nostalgia, a certain joy that propelled him from each flaming geyser of hydrogen and carbon to the next. He couldn’t believe how long it had been since he had seen his familiar bedside, by the core of the sun, where temperatures reached in excess of 15,000,000 kelvin. The servants of his dominion crept forth from their hiding places, their fear quickly dispelled as he sauntered forth boldly. The little sun nymphs flew beside him, singing their anthems and praises to their god, their small wings bespeckled with molten flapping furiously with joy. He took time to greet each one of them, carefully, placing his hands on each of them and in turn blessing their endeavors to keep the vast machine that we know as the sun turning, turning every so slowing. The sun required constant care—the unruly electrons had to be kept in line, the hydrogen had to be fused into helium, the helium into larger elements. The larger solar flares had to be tamed in order to avoid destroying the universe. He was slightly in awe of how it had all kept together in his long absence. On the long, lonely nights spent drifting through space, back to his home, he had envisioned scenes of terror, the frightful exploitation of the sun nymphs by some restless creation of his long forgotten in his youth, the loss of control over the complex chemical procedures necessary for the functioning of the sun, the destruction of a couple of the lesser planets of the solar system due to excess radiation and heat.

The voyage had been a long one, and necessarily so. He did not often meddle in the affairs of men, as they no longer took little interest in his doings. His was a duty to serve, not to be served, and if man had long since forgotten him, he did not forget his duty. From time to time he attempted to make men remember—perhaps arrange an eclipse with the moon, or put on a little night show in the northern climes of the planet of men. He felt vague regret about the destruction of life on the surrounding planets, but they had just show too little interest in cooperation, and early experiments were quickly eliminated through a series of accidents, whether from too much heat or too little. But man was another story. He had thrived through it all—through the great worker strikes from the early years to the industrial accidents of a rapidly maturing star experiencing some rather uncomfortable growing pains. He was more or less impressed—when he first got the job, as inexperienced as he was, he had expected to make a lot of mistakes. And of course, he did. Lots. But he felt like he was finally starting to get the hang of the constant rotations, the difficult mathematical calculations, the directing of the heat, until just recently. That’s when man, who had all but forgotten the ancient gods, the nature spirits, the Greek legends of before, suddenly remembered again. 

-James Juchau (First line credit: Unknown)

Killing Softly on the Barefoot Grass

By Jenny

The only things that really interested him anymore were Nerf Guns and walking through the grass barefoot.  Simple things. Difficult to mess up. Hard to be bad at.

Because he was bad at a lot of things.  No one said it to him out right.  They were very kind. They talked with high pitched voices and bright smiles. When they were angry they yelled that he was doing something wrong. Not that he was bad at it. Just wrong. Don’t do that. It’s not the time. It’s not the place. For heaven’s sake STOP!

But Milo knew what they were trying to say. He was bad at it. Bad at everything. Bad at life.

The problem was just that he had trouble articulating things.

“Milo, where did that book go?” “Milo, why aren’t you eating?” “Milo, what are you doing?”

Or maybe it wasn’t that he was bad at articulating things. Maybe there really was just no good answer to these sorts of questions. Or maybe no answer was better than the truth.

After all she didn’t want to know that her favorite book had been torn apart with pages scattered under his bed. She didn’t want to know that the meatloaf looked like a hamster. And as for the existential question: “what are you doing?” well how was he supposed to know? Men much wiser than he had written entire books, taught entire courses on the subject. Milo was just milo-ing along. And do to a great many failures lately, he had decided that the only two options open to him at the moment were nerf guns and barefoot grass. 

Nerf guns… Oh the power! Oh the opportunities! With that bright orange, yellow stripped instrument he was the leader of his very own death brigade. With it he terrorized the neighbors, the cats, the passing joggers. When he ran out of Styrofoam bullets he would scavenge for pebbles. They didn’t even know what hit them.

As for the barefoot grass, well…winter had been long this year. He had spent many afternoons on his tip toes staring through the living room window. She wouldn’t let him leave the house without her. Not even with his shoes on.

                So today he was enjoying the sunshine. He was enjoying the thick green dew dropped grass of his back yard. He was relishing the satisfaction of a well-aimed shot. Not even that crazy dog next door could upset him.

                Suddenly a scream came from outside. Milo stopped in his tracks, swaying for a moment on his short legs.

                “MILO!” she yelled.

                Fear lit up his dark brown eyes covered under a layer of charming cheastnut curls. He stood frozen in the middle of the lawn.

“Milo!” she yelled again, throwing open the back door and brandishing her shoe.”

“Where did this come from Milo? WHERE did this come from?”

She approached him holding the heel an arm’s length away, her nose scrunched up, careful not to touch the dark brown squishy blob at the toe of the shoe.

Milo kept his mouth closed. There was just no good way to explain. It didn’t have to come from him. Maybe it was the cat.

She reached over him and pulled back the top of his pants. Her eyes widened as she surveyed the damage.

“Alright Milo, upstairs. Now.”

Milo started to cry as she pulled the nerf gun from his hands and dragged him towards the house leaving a dark, smelly trail in his wake. There were a lot of things that Milo wasn’t good at. And potty training was one of them. 

Ugly

 It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. That’s what he told her, anyway, right after she proudly presented him with her latest drawing of our new puppy. Surely he had seen uglier things, like the pleather pants our 60-year-old neighbor wore while gardening, or the hairless cat that wandered our street at night. Even if the statement were true, he shouldn’t have said it. Doesn’t he know how impressionable young children are?

            My sister always tells me that positive reinforcement is the best way to get children to be everything you want them to be. For example, if your son is tone-deaf but you decide to tell him every day that he has a beautiful voice, then one day he’ll sing like Pavorati. Or if your daughter is really dumb but you repeatedly tell her that one day she could be the next Einstein, she will literally become the next Einstein. Ok, not literally. That’s impossible. But she WILL be really smart. Then again, my sister’s kids are still both tone deaf AND pretty dumb, so I’m not convinced that the whole theory of positive reinforcement is all it’s cracked up to be.

            Anyway, I’m getting off track. The point is that he shouldn’t have told her it was the ugliest thing he had ever seen, because now it’s late at night and I’m tired and I still have to give the dog a bath and make lunches for tomorrow and clean the kitchen and do the laundry and call my mom and pay the bills and go pick up some milk all before tomorrow, but I can’t because I have to calm a sobbing 5-year-old that refuses to let me out of her arms while she wails about the fact that she drew an ugly picture.

            I want to tell her to get over it. I want to say that sometimes the people that are supposed to love us say mean things. I want to communicate that no matter how good you want to be at something, or how hard you try to stay on top of your own life, or how kind or talented or passionate you are, someone will always be there to criticize you. I want to tell her, but I know I don’t need to. Soon enough she will grow up and go to school and she will fall in love and she will get heartbroken and she will succeed and she will fail and she will be criticized and she will criticize others. She’ll learn soon enough that life is just a big, complicated mess that eventually we have to decide to create our own meaning out of.