The Inferno

There's a new book by Chuck Palahniuk that's set in Hell. Think The Breakfast Club and The Inferno twisted into one narrative. Madison Spencer, a thirteen-year-old daughter of liberal-secular-humanist celebrities who collect her siblings from impoverished regions of the world, finds herself in Hell after a serious weed overdose. Once there she meets a jock, a punk, a nerd and a slut. With them she goes on wacky adventures, one of which involves bringing giant she-demon Psezpolnica to climax with the severed head of her Hell-friend, Archer (the punk). Those little rascals.

The sights Hell has to offer: The Sea of Insects, The Great Plains of Broken Glass and the Giant Ocean of Wasted Sperm. Of the environment of Hell, Madison once said: "Hell is very much like Florida in that the resident bug life never dies." The currency of Hell is candy and all the operations are run by demon-bureaucrats who look lifted from a triptych by Hieronymus Bosch.

People Madison sees in Hell:

Norman Mailer

Kurt Cobain

Susan Sontag

John Lennon

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Madison learns a lot in Hell, like having a body mass index greater than .0012 and using the word "ain't" are damnation-worthy infractions. She also learns that the dead have many ways of sending messages to the living on Earth. For instance, if a soul is trying to tell you that you'll be dead before sunset, you will hear the song "You're the One That I Want" from Grease three times in the same day, seemingly by coincidence.

At a little over 240 pages, it's a hell of a good read. Ha!

The First Chill

Located under Georgia and Alabama lies a sleepy little state in the union that was colonized by New England in 1845. Because this sleepy little colony lacks the culture, heritage, hospitality and charm of the other southern states above it and the climate experiences the highest average heat of any other in the country the colonists who populate it do so for only the five coldest months of the year.

 But every year the residents of this colony, quaint as they are, wait longingly for the first morning of the Autumn season when they step out from their cozy little abodes to feel the first chills of winter, signaling the first waves of their seasonal flocks.

For the rest of the holiday season the simple residents of the warm, sleepy colony marvel with delight at the joyous clustering and spirited chirping of their visiting snow fowl in malls, restaurants, movie theaters, grocery stores and coffee shops. The darling residents gander curiously while their vacationers ruffle jolly plumage on highways, beaches, pontoon boats, tennis courts and golf courses.

Just as the curious residents of the warm little colony delight in the fluttering arrival of their annual gaggle in time for Christmas, so they despair when the time comes for their company to take flight back to their northern roosts.  Having nothing to do for the seven months until their yearly covey returns, the twee residents of the colony dawdle languidly without the knowledge of what a real bagel tastes like.

The Cat Named Guns

There's this orange cat that lives in a house built on farmland. This house is his second (maybe third) home. His age is indeterminate, but he spends most of his day doing nothing but lying around. He might sleep in the middle of an empty living room. He might investigate the happenings in the backyard of the house across the street (the one that doesn't get mowed regularly; whatever could be happening there). Or he might sneak up and gaze suspiciously at children waiting for a school bus at the bottom of the street for an hour. If nothing of the sort, he would probably go back to the house and sleep in some other, more interesting, empty room.

The people who live in the house think he is a perfectly acceptable little kitty. He's greeted with smiles and love and cutesy refrains of his name whenever he enters the room his people are currently occupying. When he's done being with his people, he leaves through a hole carved in a wall of the house provided for the comings and goings of him and the other kitties that live there. When Guns leaves, his people know that they have nothing to worry about, that he will soon return as surely as all the other kitties.

But one night not long ago, to the dismay of one of the people driving home after class, a dead orange kitty was spotted on the side of the road not far from the house. As all the people in the house came out to investigate the site of the accident it was concluded, after a few sad moments, that it was indeed their orange Guns who had perished.

Having many animals over the years had emotionally prepared the people of the house for a night such as this one. As the hole was dug in the backyard, they were careful not to strike the graves of the other animals who had once been residents of the house. After some solemn words were made for their good little cat, and his remains were peacefully laid to rest, the people went inside for their solemn shots of tequila, making melancholy jokes that their precious orange cat might stroll back inside after an hour's time like the heartbreak of the evening had never occurred.

These jokes proved strangely prophetic when later that night, as one of the people left their bedroom for a trip to the bathroom, their beloved orange cat was laying in the hallway looking back up at them as he would have done on any other unremarkable night.

The identity of the orange cat buried in their backyard is still a mystery.

Sonnet I

AM breaking fucking unrelenting,
Millions of boxes moving filthy miles
On roaring highways and waist-high mornings
For one but not all in all-changing styles.

Fat-noised the truth through galvanized salvage
Than with a better way to spend the day;
Out hacking off a crucial appendage
Clearly malignant, if it may so say.

Facial friends and vocal disagreers;
Of white static speech a black precedent,
A signal reaching the ionosphere,
A people for a dispatch never sent:

Most painful choices, the easiest, too.
My problem's not but a problem for you.