Nonsense Goes To Space

Nonsense Goes to

SPACE Issue 165

December 2016

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Contents Front Cover

Gillian Pitzer

Page 2

Art by Zachary Johnson

Page 4

Editorial by Zachary Johnson and Heather Levinsky

Page 5

Mailbag by Nonsense Staff Art by Gillian Pitzer

Page 6

“6 Things They Don’t Have In Space” by James Sweeney

Page 7

“How Star Trek Saved My Sex Life” by Brenna Lilly

Page 8

“ISS/ISIS Paradigm Shift” by Ariel Leal “5 Easy Steps To Lasso The Moon For Your Lover” by Peter Soucy

Page 10

“2001: A Space Odyssey Online” by Ben Fletcher

Page 11

Art by Averie St. Germaine

Page 12

“Choose Your Own Adventure” by Veronica Toone

Page 14

“Constantly Expanding?” by Jordan Hopkins Art by Gillian Pitzer

Page 15 Page 16

“Please Explain Science Fiction To Me” by Jesse Saunders “School Play Space Out” by Ashley Vernola “A Sprattle Through The Wormhole” by Quin Asselin Art by Gillian Pitzer

Page 17

“Yes! Yes! Space Big!” by Zachary Johnson

Page 18

“The Footrace In Space” by Quin Asselin and Trevor Parrish Art by Gillian Pitzer

Page 19

Art by Victoria Jenkins

Page 20

“Neil Degrasse Tyson Point-Counterpoint” “Point” by Ariel Leal “Counterpoint” by Jesse Saunders

Page 22

“A Day In The Life Of Elon Musk” by Toby Jaffe

Page 23

“Personal Space” by Matthew Tanzosh and AJ Leal

Back Cover

Heather Levinsky and Zachary Johnson

Astronaut Pickup Lines

Nonsense Staff & Matthew Tanzosh (Art by Gillian Pitzer)

Disclaimer Nonsense Humor Magazine is Hofstra’s only intentional humor magazine. Please don’t take any advice from us, because we don’t know what we’re talking about. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Hofstra University. Any likenesses to people existing or fictional are purely coincidental. Nonsense Humor Magazine is not responsible for any spacial-infinity related existential crises, destructive invasions carried out by angered extraterrestrial life forms, failed rocket launch attempts, or radioactive mutations caused by this issue.

Staff Editors-in-Chief Heather “Cops Hate Weezer” Levinsky Zachary “Snake Illness” Johnson

Assistant Editor Schley Vernola

Head Writer Matthew “Good Ally” Tanzosh

Design Director Gillian “Adderall” Pitzer

Art Director Joseph “Handsome Joe” Kolb

Business Manager Retep Soucy

Faculty Advisor Amy “We Deadass Keep Meaning To Email You” Karofsky

Copy Editors Schley Vernola Crack Caldwell Quin “Asselim?” “I damn near killed him!”

Contributors Ariel “Leal Of Approval” Veronica “First Mate” Toone Jesse “Better Dead Than Red” Saunders James “Sweeney Pie <3” Bean Fletcher Trevor “Barron” Parrish Toby Giraffe “Crying Jordan” Hopkins “Chip Skylark” LeFevers Victorious Jenkins Averie St. Ger “Maine Squeeze” Solange “Fringe” Luftman

Other Members Courtney Richmond Dakar Morris Bethany Foster Hayley Blomquist Austin Van Schaick Aaron Ramjit Nirvana Narayan Samantha Nicholson Erik Thornstenn James Factora Sam Thor

Monika Lowe Rojanaye Daley Daniel Nguyen Annika Ohta Emily Hart Brenna Lily Maasai Jones Helen Porskova Michael Checco Jon Harrity Nick Osbahr

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EDITORIAL You must be hot, because you’re fogging up my helmet.

Space is looking pretty good right now. Long before the results of this election came in we figured that the next thing we do should be completely unrelated to politics (sorry about the last issue guys). That whole thing was really upsetting, more upsetting than we really thought it would be, and we decided to look forward and decide on a non-partisan topic for this issue. We held a VOTE and the winner of the POPULAR VOTE, the idea which GOT THE MOST VOTES, that the MOST PEOPLE IN THE CLUB VOTED FOR, the IDEA THAT THE PEOPLE CHOSE TO REPRESENT THEMSELF BEST... was space.

Why space? Well, as any tumblr-browsing member of this club will tell you, us “artsy types” feel an undeniable and abstract attraction to “the void.” That’s what space is. Or isn’t. Who knows? We know pretty much nothing about space (or at the least we know just about as much as any college student who’s ever smoked weed and watched Cosmos) but it seemed kind of easy to not fuck this one up.

You might have noticed a lot more original art pieces in this issue and the last, thanks mostly to our refurbished art department and new Art Director Joseph “Handsome Joe” Kolb. Shouts out to all our contributors, especially Victoria and Averie who are both young stars (pun intended). We’ve got a bunch of new, talented members this semester, and somehow most of them have managed to stick around this long! 2016 might have been utter shit in a lot of other regards, but overall Nonsense has managed to be pretty productive. So inevitably 2017 will begin with an executive order from Pr*sid*nt Tr*mp to shut us the fuck down. But space is a free speech zone, so I’d like to see him fucking try.

You can’t burn a flag in space because there’s no oxygen.

In space, no one can hear you meme.

What’s your sign? ;) <3 Heather and Zach

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Mailbag Are space heaters Little Suns?

If a space heater could tell jokes, Matt would be out of a job.

Can I lick the sun? nOOOOOOO...actually, who did you vote for? What is your opinion on DAPL?

I AM A WEREWOLF BUT I LIVE ON THE MOON SO EVERY TIME I LOOK DOWN I BEGIN HOWLING UNCONTROLLABLY. I HAVE GONE DEAF TO MY OWN SCREAMS, THAT RING WITHOUT CEASE INSIDE MY HELMET. IS DEATH MY ONLY ESCAPE? Astronaut helmets are made with gold, not silver, so it looks like death is no escape. G’night!

So I put my wang in a wormhole… and here I am.

That’s not a question. Is this the same guy? Look, try running a flashlight over your dick or something. Maybe that will give you what you crave.

What’s the best Sci-Fi movie to watch when you’re trying to get laid?

Listen up, nerd! Bust some Jupiter Ascending on that bih.

It is so bad you will both want to turn it off and have sex. Or try the Fifth Element, and try to figure out which orifice that might be!

What happens inside a black hole?

Friction.

What is the zipcode for Uranus?

The zipcode system was developed in 1963, and only applies to the greater United States.

But uh…Milk milk lemonade…

Is it a good idea to fuck an alien?

I’d fuck a beam of energy to be completely honest, I’ve watched enough Star Trek to know that’s a good idea.

Regardless of what the President Elect may have you believe, undocumented immigrants are the same as anybody else. Did you know that beams of light actually pay more taxes at the state level than most terrestrial life forms?

I am an alien from another galaxy, here to warn your people of the incoming invasion. What tourist spots do you recommend?

Canada? Just…just go home.

How is the North star north if North is relative?

Well, when your relatives are Kim and Kanye it is easy to see how she can be a star! Okay, we know what you really want: Look *hffft* it’s all relative, maaaan. RIP FIDEL

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How ‘bout we make like Star Trek and boldly go where no man has gone before? Assuming you’ve never done butt stuff.

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Things They

Don’t

Have In Space Space: The Gaping Birth Canal.

The Airless Tomb.

Home to Everything But Not These Things 1. Racism Believe it or not, there is simply no racism in Space. There is zero racism in Space. Sure, people are dicks sometimes, but there’s not much you can really do about that. There’s one guy – Arthur – he’s a practicing Episcopalian. Some of us are a bit wary of him. Susan thinks he’s a pseudointellectual, and kind of weird around women, and I can definitely see what she’s getting at. He just likes to wink at inappropriate times I think, it’s really not that big of a deal. I just – he’s not someone I can really talk to for longer than a few minutes. I feel like he tries too hard to relate to whatever emotional state I’m in at the time, but I can tell that for him those kinds of interactions don’t come super naturally. It’s kind of sad, honestly. Anyway, Arthur is half-Filipino and half-Cuban, so if you’re looking for someone to call a racist, look elsewhere.

“There must be at least a few racists in Space!” you’re probably saying to yourself. Well, stop saying that, because it’s patently false. There was a very thorough vetting process before we boarded the Space Bus, and there was a sheet handed out with like, seven questions about racism, and everyone I’ve met so far has assured me that they answered them all truthfully; that’s how I know that there are no racists in Space.

2. White People I’m not saying there was a flier in the window that read No Whiteys or anything like that, but I could kind of tell from the minute I stepped on the bus that I was more-or-less freed from the Earthly displeasures of Imagine Dragons. There were like three or four different boxes on the Gettin’ to Know Ya worksheet where you could fill out your race; Susan thinks it was to trick all the moronic white idiots into revealing their race to the strong Bus Driver, and I definitely think her perspective there is, at the very least, a valid one. None of us have any gripes with white people or anything, I hope it doesn’t sound like that – I actually don’t even know why they aren’t allowed on this bus. I guess they just wanted this to be a good trip or something. Now before anybody gets up in arms, just know that

I actually found some of them to be pretty fun back on Earth. Drew Carey was pretty funny.

Ellen Degeneres was pretty fun and funny, I thought. Barack Obama’s mom did right by all of us. But Space just has a totally different vibe.

Everyone I’ve talked to up here seems to agree that whites just wouldn’t fit in. I mean, between the hours a day we all spend shredding rhythmic instruments, cooking with actual spices, and not feeling entitled to assert some unearned savior role to every situation that requires the slightest amount of leadership or rationality, there really doesn’t seem like a lot of room for them.

Again, no offense to the Tighty Whitey, BrightSkin Bleach Babies. I sincerely hope you enjoy the remnants of an Earth your elder whiteys destroyed.

3. Guns Yeah we just straight up didn’t bring any guns into Space with us. We could have, there was some room on the bus, but we just didn’t.

Leaving all our guns on White Earth seemed like a good idea at the time, and an even better one now that I have a hunch that Susan was the one behind the carvings under the lunch table. It’s not that I’m angry, or that I would ever actually use a gun on somebody else, or anything like that. I just feel lied to. Arthur tried to take the blame for her, I’m guessing in order to win her over, except he completely screwed it up and just kept winking at me. I’m still really not sure what the full truth is, because when he came forward and admitted that he was the one who used a paring knife to fashion the sentence, “Susan is the most beautiful full-blooded Latina woman I’ve ever seen,” onto our collapsible eatery, she immediately started hamming up that same old Woe Is Me, I’ve Got A Space-Stalker! act she loves to put on. It was just all too convenient, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Now I’m even more glad that we didn’t bring a single firearm into Space with us – this Susan lady is a loose cannon, and I’ve found it continuously more difficult to predict how and when her next manipulation will come.

4. School Shootings There hasn’t been one yet. Probably because we have no guns and no emotionally repressed Caucasian guys. We also technically have no students at all, though Arthur claims to be a lifelong student of military psychological torture techniques and the ways we puppeteer our loss of self.

5. Children

By James Sweeney

Right, so if you didn’t catch that earlier, we didn’t bring anybody under the age of 24. I don’t make the rules, I just happen to work well within them in this case. So be it. Am I upset that there are no kids? No, not really. God forbid they have to grow up around the daily trauma that is Susan’s morning pap smear and Arthur’s mid-day scream.

Some other people in their twenties would be cool I guess, but that’s not such a big deal either. Susan is 43, though she looks quite good for her age. Still taut in many of the right ways, I could see myself with Susan sexually if we were back on Earth. Arthur is 33, and I cannot see myself with him sexually, because I don’t find him attractive.

6. Sex So yeah, there’s no kids and there never will be because some people whose names rhyme with Zusan and Carthur don’t feel like conceiving a child. There is no chance that the three of us, trapped on this cruise-controlled cosmic paddy wagon forever, are going to be able to pass on all that we’ve learned unless somebody whose good with nunchuks makes loves to somebody else who just happens to have a tattoo of the 90s Phoenix Suns logo on her lower back.

There are obviously pros and cons to all of this. I think I’m holding it together better than most people would be, but I suppose I don’t have as much to look forward to as I thought I would on this once-in-a-lifetime/ rest-of-a-lifetime trip through the very star particles that created the dinosaurs. I’m still in awe of this opportunity –I really do think it’s amazing– but I can’t let go of the fact that I’ll never again enjoy the idea of growing older and seeing how the world around me changes.

I’ll never be a parent. I’ll never fall in love with a shy but beautiful co-worker, only to have it end tragically and suddenly, following an investigation by our company’s internal affairs division. I’ll never have any of those things now, and that’s alright. They’re silly dreams to have ever held so close, let alone now that I’ve reached this current and final stage of life. These days, I look forward to two things and two things only: watching beautiful, wild Susan age; and watching Arthur lose his mind as we pass through the iris of an infinite night.

How

I

Star Trek

t all started on a Tuesday evening much like any other Tuesday evening. Robert came home from work around 7 PM and I had the roast ready by 7:30. The kids ate dinner with us at the table, I chewed four Xanax, and we adjourned to our rooms come bedtime.

Robert and I were both reading on our own sides of the California King. He nudged his glasses down his greasy nose and looked at me. “Tonight?” he asked, a hint of longing in his voice. My palms were sweating. I tried to hold my Kindle firmly in my hands, but it began to slip. Christ. “Um…um…” I responded. I reached into my bedside drawer and grabbed another handful of Xanax which I proceed to swallow with a swig of Diet Coke.

“Too tired. Sorry, honey.” He sighed deeply and turned over on his side.

“You know what?” he said, “We should go to couple’s counselling. I want sex, Margaret.

Good sex. I’m a horny fifty-year-old man. I can keep it up, honey, trust me. Jill and Rick have been seeing a counselor for three months now, and apparently their sex life is spicy. Like Indian food spicy. Like hot curry on hot rice with hot sauce spicy. Real fucking spicy.” He gave a me a look that said, “I know I’ve never had Indian food in my life, but I think it might be spicy, so I’ll just use this analogy in the hopes you’ll let me fail to find your clitoris but convince me that I’ve pleasured you nonetheless.”

The counselor’s office was tightly-packed with sweaty couples – some anxiously holding hands, some, like us, with our legs crossed, sitting on opposite ends of the room, staring at one another, not blinking. The doctor called out our names. Our counselor, Virginia, took us into the room with a suave swish of the hand.

“So what seems to be the problem here, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson?”

“I wanna bust a nut, Virginia. REAL BAD.” “I see.” She scribbled something into her tiny notebook. “I think I have just the trick.” She paid no attention to my nervous mutterings. She reached into an ancient filing cabinet, which sounded definitively hollow except for the distinct rattling of a DVD case – one of the plastic ones that have those pesky clasps at the top. “Do you see this?” she asked.

“Well, I’ll say,” Robert responded. “It looks like a well-aged, 1993 DVD set of Star Trek: The Next Generation starring the illustrious Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.”

“Precisely,” she retorted. “Throw this bad boy on the old bedroom TV, get nakey, and let the magic of 1990’s science fiction run through your loins like lava.” She gave it a toss to Robert, who fumbled off the couch, perspiring and heaving, and caught it in his mouth like a dog catching a slice of ham.

That night, we decided to try Virginia’s method. We popped the first DVD into the old Toshiba at the foot of our bed. We stripped ourselves of clothing, save for Robert’s nipple pasties. They came in a daily box set. We arranged our bodies side by side, our arms beside us. I remember feeling like a corpse. It felt good.

I leaned up a little bit from my supine form to turn the TV on with the clicker. As I leaned back, I could hear the words in those sexual, dulcet tones: Space: the final frontier.

I felt something stirring deep in my lady-bits.

That night, we had sex for fourteen consecutive hours, taking breaks only to switch the DVDs. Our bodies were perpetually intertwined in what I can only call a cosmic ball of ecstasy. I pictured Captain Picard whisking me away, boldly going where no husband has gone before…

We spent a whole week like this. Every night after we tucked the kids into bed, we would get freaky to the adventures of the Starfleet crew. It was bliss. We had to go to Costco to buy a 500 pack of condoms, and a 10-gallon tub of lube. The cashier was disgusted by us. We consummated our love in the greeting card aisle.

It was wonderful until things went sour one night when Robert and I were making the sex. We were on season 5, episode 25 – “The Inner Light.” Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the gorgeous, gorgeous Starfleet captain, was trapped in a delusion, stuck in a foreign village on the distant and unfamiliar planet of Kataan. Something about Patrick Stewart’s Transatlantic accent and glistening bald head aroused me more intensely than my husband ever could. His gleaming orb awakened something deep within me that I could not alleviate. I was caught in a frenzy of ecstasy when I screamed, “Let me lick your head, Captain!” Robert stopped.

By Brenna Lilly

Saved My Sex Life “I think you just called me Captain.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Are you…” he began to tear up. “Are you fantasizing about Captain Picard when you make the sex to me?”

I shook my head. “No, honey. No, I’m not, I swear.”

“You are!” he screamed. He ran out of the room, through the living room, and into the street. “My wife is cheating on me with the captain of Enterprise NCC-1701-D! I knew you never loved me! Is this,” he paused deeply, breathing in haphazardly, “is this why you insisted on shaving my head while I slept?

Is this why you bought me all those red and black mesh long-sleeve shirts? Is this who you want me to become?” His tears fell in pools around his feet. He was still naked.

“Come to your senses, honey! Please come back inside!”

“No! I’ve had enough of this!” He launched his body onto the ground and began rolling around, muttering “The final frontier… the final frontier… the final frontier.”

I dropped to the ground to comfort him. He writhed in pain.

“No more, Margaret, no more. I have no more sex left in my body. Make it end.”

I wept with him in my arms, but they were not sad tears. Oh no, not sad. I rubbed his noggin gently and prepared myself for the task at hand. I removed the Panasonic Pro-Curve Wet/Dry Battery Operated Black Travel Shaver from my blouse’s back pocket.

With each touch of the shaver I punched another ray of light through the cave-in that is our marriage. There, he was fixed now.

Robert was right. I never loved him. I could only hope from now on that was I could live with this delusion. In the morning, I would be introducing my children to their new father.

The transformation was completed.

“What the hell did you just call me?”

“Captain? Um. Uh. Robert?”

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Hey baby are you pluto? because no matter what scientists say, you’ll always be legit to me.

By Ariel Leal

ISS/ISIS ISS/ISIS

The The

Paradigm Paradigm Shift Shift Chapter One “Those are MY franks GODDAMN IT!” I awoke in a cold sweat. I reached over to my nightstand, knocking over several empty cans of Bud Light and my Gameboy Advanced SP to grab my pill bottle. Now, I’m not a huge fan of these here farmer-suit-ankles but who am I to doubt the great American Healthcare system? After all, I’m not a doctor. I’m a veteran. I’m a hero.

I tried jerkin’ the bottle some to pour some of those plastic slugs into my hand but none came out. By Fidel Castro’s unkempt and fascist beard! I had to refill this yesterday.

All of a sudden, I realized that maybe my dream twern’t no dream so I walked through the wall of my bedroom and booted the shit out of the handle to my back door, effectively smashing the wooden obstacle open. At once, I was greeted by the harsh rays of the sun, my sun. My beautiful baby boy. I looked up at my kin and forced my retinas to endure the searing pain of his brilliance.

“My sun! I just want you to know I’m proud of you!” I shouted to that big ol’gas beast. I smiled and dusted some of the drywall off my shoulders.

It’s time for coffee, I thought so I sprinted eighteen miles over to my neighbor’s farm. I found one of my neighbor’s cows and punched it to death for some good ol’ strawberry milk.

Thick. Viscous. The slimy bastard, otherwise known as my neighbor, came out and ran

towards me screaming like some kind of fuckin’ coward.

“Uh…hello?” I asked, wondering who could be calling at this hour.

“Boy, I seen good men get their winguses blown off and cry less than this. I bet you don’t even pay your taxes.” I pointed my phallic finger in that fucker’s face.

“Jones! C.O. Jones? We need your help! I’ve heard of your experience with Space Nazis and between you and me, what you did to Mecha Pol Pot’s head was a GOT damn masterpiece.”

I punched that Commie’s nose in until his skin matched his ideologies.

DICC (Dead ISIS/Commie Count): 1 “Better dead than red,” I said, for the seventy-fifth time this week while also lighting an American cigar and taking a good, deep, crispy puff. I decided to enjoy the moment by playing some video games on my Gameboy.

Helps relieve the stress. After a little while, his wife, or daughter, or heck, maybe even both, came out running with a frying pan but I thwarted her attempts to catch me off guard by pissing myself. She was just too quick and ended up dislocating my jaw anyway.

Now, the whole thing was blurry but I remember waking up in one of those er, uh, field things covered in blood, and lemme tell ya, it wasn’t just bovine. There was a finger in my mouth with the nail burned black and I couldn’t help but wonder how a thing like that could find its way into my mouth-hole but this wasn’t the time for solving mysteries. It was already nighttime and I thanked my lucky stars that my boy was tucked away, sleeping soundly. He takes after his mom.

Stretching out, I found myself a red Solo cup tied to a string that seemed to go on for miles and miles. Naturally, I answered the call of duty.

Follow These

By Peter Soucy

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1. Make the mating call to attract a lover.

Everyone knows the best way to attract a steamy love connection is a nice Inuit throat song. Try to connect to Mother (or Daddy ;) Earth by sticking your moistened ass into a pot of tree sap. Now you’re ready to sing the throat song of any potential mate’s dream.

2. Make the sex to your newfound lover.

We all know this step. Here at Nonsense, we make the sex many much. Often to each other—it is awkward. So trust us. After being serenading your throat song lover, they will coo in your ear life a baby robin on a Spring morn. This is the clear sign to start

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“I’m listening, Cap. What do you need?”

“There’s some trouble on the ISS and you“ISIS? You stop right there, Cap. I knew this day would come.”

“Can you do it, Jones? Can you climb aboard the space station and“That’s enough, Captain. I already said yes and you won’t see me backing out like some Commie dump truck.”

I tried crumpling the plastic beverage receptacle only to find that it had already disappeared. Now that is American engineering. Standing up, I found that I was fully erect.

It’s time to go save DEMOCRACY.

Chapter Two K-Mart, a peaceful land. I drove my truck into the sliding doors, killing two pedestrians in the process. I have a zero-tolerance policy for jaywalkers.

DICC (Dead ISIS/Commie Count): 3 I coulda waited but democracy wouldn’t so I had to act fast. I found my way on over to the

Easy Steps to

entering and/or exiting your lover’s point of interest. We all know where that point of interest is. After you have made, your lover will beg you to get the moon for them.

3. Buy some rope.

This seems like a common sense step, but I’ve seen way too many people try to lasso the Moon without a rope to not include it. That’s like trying to kiss your mom before she gives you the warm milk!

4. Obtain the potion to make you super big.

This step also seems like common sense. You’re going to need to get really big in order to fit all that rope around the 1079-mile

beer section, the section with all the beer, and punched through the glass door to pick up a silver bullet. As I browsed this store’s fine wares, I poked my head into the video game section briefly but all this new shit was nothing like some 90’s classics. I then mosied on over to the gun section, you know, the section with all the guns, and picked up some more silver bullets.

They weren’t actually silver but not callin’ em such makes it less poetic. I digress, citizen. I picked up all the ammunition and guns I needed and dumped ‘em all out on the cash register. My hands were bleeding and full of glass shards. The cashier done pissed himself so I shouted at him, grabbing his face in my bloody and sharp hands.

them to see me coming.

“Do you see my blood, private? TELL ME WHAT COLOR MY BLOOD IS!”

“Um…the latter, I guess…” he said, selling out immediately. You wouldn’t see American soldiers behaving so despicably.

“I-it’s r-red,” the shrimp cocktail, flamingolicking pansy mumbled.

“I’ll have you know I’m a retired veteran so you best refer to me with due respect.”

“O-okay, sir,” he said. Pathetic.

“My blood is red. I pay my taxes! I was kicked out of a court room during jury duty once for sporting an erection as hard as the time I did on tour! Above all else, I was a volunteer fireman in grade school so don’t you“W-what’s that have to do withI rammed my fist through his cranium for interrupting me.

DICC (Dead ISIS/Commie Count): 4 I might’ve thought this prick was a pansy but I had no idea he’d stand in the way of liberty as a terrorist.

Damn, I thought, they’ve even infiltrated our K-Marts. It makes sense considering they didn’t even have locks on these guns. To make matters worse, the guns themselves are bright yellow and blue and the bullets have orange tips, as if to make it easier for them to spot us.

Then again, maybe I want that, maybe I want

I figured I was close, considering I already done killed four menaces. It was time to consult the egg-heads. My combat boots thudded against the ground repeatedly until I found myself in the science section, you know, the section with all the nerds. Some college kid was messing around with some science stuff, I guess.

“You there! How do I get to space?”

“Excuse me?” the little shit asked.

“It’s either I forcefully ram eighty-three kettle cooked barbecue chips in your urethra or you TALK!”

“So you knew all along!” I pinned the ungrateful millennial up against the wall.

“What the hell are you going on about?

Knew about what?” he squealed desperately.

Commie desperation.

It was difficult to look at his face when the sun was shining in my eyes from the nearest window. Wait a minute…my sun, my beautiful baby boy, is up there! This asshole playing dumb couldn’t fool me. I took the previous Coors beer can and shoved it down the boy’s esophagus, effectively suffocating him to death.

As he collapsed, I thought about the sweet vengeance I just enacted on the filthy terrorist.

“You know what they say, partner: when it’s blue, you know it’s as cold as the Rockies.”

DICC (Dead ISIS/Commie Count): 5

Chapter Three “Pack your things, folks, we’re going to space!” I exclaimed to the native people of the K-Mart. Everyone knows how to get to space.

I began ramming my fists into the nearest concrete wall, pushing the glass shards deeper into my hands. After a while, I managed to

find a ladder. The ladder. The space ladder. I climbed and climbed until I stopped being able to breathe, but that’s okay. I was on the varsity swim team in high school so I knew how to hold what little breath I had left. Red and blue lights started flashing everywhere, which I assume is common to space or whatever. This was it.

This was space. Things were kind of a blur but I vaguely remember crashing the base onto the moon, I think. I could swear I lost my arms heroically, fighting the good fight against the real enemies because right now I can’t feel my arms. For a brief moment, I remember having another family, but that can’t be right. Have I been brainwashed? It doesn’t matter. Here I am, on the moon. Everything is so bright and white and…soft. My head hurts so fucking badly too. I must have been brainwashed because I suddenly had the strongest urge to play video games more than any other moment in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I adore consumerism but this was just strange. I just feel so compelled to…see pictures of Crash Bandicoot, really badly. What’s happening to me?

Out of nowhere, an alien sporting a white lab coat and a clipboard approached me. That sick asshole. Not only was he real and deceiving the American people about his existence, but he killed our own and took their clothing.

“Are we calm now? Do you promise not to blind another one of our nurses? Are you free to talk in a rational manner?” the alien barraged me with questions, most likely planning to use the answers to end all wonderfully capitalistic behaviors of our gorgeous American society.

“That’s the thing, you freak. In this country, I’m always free.”

My urethra was sewn shut in some form of poetic horror, but I wouldn’t complain like some whiney liberal. After all, this is the land of the free and the home of the brave. God bless America.

Lasso The Moon for Your Lover radius of the Moon. I’m talking REALLY big. The only man with a potion to make you grow to such heights is Lucien the Magician.

He’ll give you the potion, oh yes! But at a cost. The cost is your new lover. Now I know this seems like a terrible idea, but trust us.

5. Lasso the Moon.

Use that rope to lasso all 1079 miles of the Moon’s radius, and pull it close to the Earth. Now the tides of the Earth are going wild, cities are crumbling to the sea, and your new lover is making sex to Lucien the Magician (that was poor advice on my part).

Bring the Moon all the way into the Earth, so your new, now exlover can see it, and be so jealous. She’ll look in your extremely massive, very scary eyes and tell you she loves you. At this point

the Moon will hit the Earth and destroy everyone you’ve ever known, including your lover.

Bonus Step: Drift as a giant man through space.

Try not to think of all the innocent lives you just took. Don’t think of that sweet sex making you had with your lover. Don’t think about how you could have easily prevented this by never trading your lover for a potion. Don’t think about how you read internet articles to help you with your love life. You can cry in space, but your tears won’t fall. No Gravity.

9

I hope you’re not Saturn because I want to put a ring on you.

By Ben Fletcher

2OO1: A SPACE ODYSSEY ONLINE An Open Letter to the

10 Exceptional Asteroids That I Once Loved

1. Hygiea You were there for me when my back was against the wall.

You’ve seen me at my worst and at my best, and you never hesitated to pick me up when I was down. Those were the good times, until we floated apart. You weren’t the biggest and maybe not the most exceptional asteroid that I’ve known but goddamn it, you were exactly the 503 by 407 by 370 in Kilometers that I needed in the summer of 1849. I miss you Hygiea, I hope you’re doing well.

2. Hektor You were like a father figure to me. I learned so much from you, my daddy Hektor with a K. Is that German or Russian? You still never told me. I tried to get a read on you, but I could never seem to get past your craterous frame. But I know, I just know underneath that hulking, rocky exterior, there is more rock. God I wish you were my Dad instead of an asteroid.

3. Bamberga Hey Bam. It’s been 3 years since I’ve stopped chugging cough syrup like you asked. But now I can’t shake the feeling of wanting to start up again, because I can’t get any rest without you baby. You let Johann Palisa discover you instead of discovering yourself like you said you wanted to. I wish you would come back. I’ll be here. You know where to find me.

4. Doris You were trusting, caring, loving, and always down to do anal. I don’t think I’ll ever meet another asteroid like you.

Mostly because of the anal thing. Out of all the asteroids I’ve dated, you’re the only one with a butthole. I’m still confused as to how that got there, but I’m not complaining. Sorry I got you evicted for causing quite the ruckus during the anal. You just put the ass in asteroid baby ;P XDDDDD

5. Pallas I have nothing more to say to you. I hope you and Melvin are doing well you cheater. Give me back my Across The Universe DVD.

6. Hebe I found that tree we scratched our initials on 3 winters ago.

You remember, the tall birch with the green leaves? Yeah, that one. It brought back good memories, but also reminded me why we’re not together anymore. You told me you wanted space, but I didn’t think you actually meant you were going to abscond back into the god damn solar system without even so much as a “goodbye”. My eyes begin to water just thinking about it. We could’ve had it all Hebe, now I just have the hebejeebees.

10

7. Metis “1 battalion, shake a tower! Large enough to crush the axis power!!” Oh boy, Metis my man, remember that nursery rhyme of a battle cry? Haha I still to this day have no idea what it means.

Something to do with pooping? Oh boy, our days in the service were wild. Sgt. was always getting on our asses for not saying it loud enough, but would never bother to explain it! But we sure did take it to those damn Nazis didn’t we brother?! We should get together some time and play backgammon like we used to back in the day. Tell Irene and the kids I said seasons greetings. st

8. Diotima Tell our son Nelson I’ll be by to pick him up in a few hours.

We’re gonna go to the zoo and when he asks good ol’ Dad what the gorillas are called, I’m going to say “There called Diotima’s lil’ buddy,” and he’s going to say “Isn’t that mommy’s name?” and I’m going to say “Yep, they were actually named after she became the cantankerous whore that is your mother and decided that Daddy couldn’t go out gambling on a Tuesday and waste the rent money on Ultimate Texas Hold’em because he FUCKING KNOWS if he just gets one good hand we could finally afford a pool table. You fucking tell her that Nelson!!” That’s what I’m gonna say. I’ll be there after lunch.

9. Aletheia You taught me how to knit, how to change a tire, and how to read. I don’t know where I would be right now if I didn’t know how to read because of you Aletheia. You made my world brighter, and occasionally darker when you covered up the sun. I should’ve been more attentive when I cooked for you. How was I supposed to know you had a gluten allergy?

What part of your craggy, jagged body needs to process gluten?? Again, I’m sorry, but you should’ve told me first.

10. Ceres Babe, you were hands down, 10/10, the absolute THICKEST babe I have ever laid my grubby little mitts on. I can’t think of anyone else that treated my wiener the way you did. I know that we’ve grown apart ever sense I moved away, but I promise you, there is nobody else I would be proud to call my mother.

All the stars you can see from home might be dead, but my love for you still burns on.

Choose Your Own

Adventure

W

e’re back, babies! You thought this shit would taper off? You thought we were done with the ol’ CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE SECTION? I wish. But I’ve been recruited by the fabled High Council to tell you all a SICK SPACE EPIC. We’re continuing on a seemingly endless journey.

The immolation of all ecosystems is at hand. I miss my kids.

Mama Joni—that’s me—will be your, quite frankly, underpaid guide today. So strap in, adjust your HELMETS and get your motherfucking TANG ready to go, because we’re gonna all up and venture where no man has ever dared to tread: space, the LAST FRONTIER. (I can’t say final: Mama Joni likes to follow copyright law.)

That’s right, kiddies: this week’s adventure is: Literal Outer Space.

START HERE! The year is 2689. You and your crew of ASTRONAUT PEEPS are gathered on board the Omnibus, a great big ol’ rocket whose name will not be mentioned again. CHRISTOPHER KRISTOFFERSON, your commander, approaches your teeny

squadron. His eyes lock on you and you feel the dark-coffee heat of lust somewhere just below your hairline. “Gentlemen, ladies, and those that transcend primal human gender binary,” he barks.

“We’re beginning our descent into the Karrian system. We’ll reach Parlius in T minus twenty minutes. Remember your mission. Are you ready to jump?” His strong jaw twitches with anticipation, and something in your LOWER INTESTINE twitches with something else. Kristofferson is one hell of a pilot, and one hell of a man. The broccoli in his teeth forces you out of your fantasy and redirects your attention to the FLIGHT SUIT on the wall. Do you jump?

If you choose to jump, go to PARAGRAPH 3.

If you choose not to jump, go to PARAGRAPH 2.

PARAGRAPH 2 You look Kristofferson directly in his rugged, tasty, face and swallow your humility in favor of looking like a grizzled veteran space traveler.

You stay in your seat as your squadron adorns their flight suits.

“Sir,” you say, “I don’t think I’m ready. Perhaps I should stay on the ship?”

“Perhaps you should do your goddamn job, Soldier. Go back to your quarters, you’re on latrine duty for the next 12 star-days. No food, either: have fun being hungry. Also, I’m fucking your sister,” said Kristofferson.

You got demoted. Your sister got fucked. Go back to START. Did you even go through basic training?

12

By Veronica Toone

PARAGRAPH 3 You look Kristofferson directly in his rugged tasty face and swallow your pride in favor of looking like you’re a good little soldier who went through basic training, and knows at the very least how to do your goddamn job. “Yes Sir, ready to be doing the jumping on your go, Sir.” What? You turn your head and briskly approach the hatch before he can reply. Just adorn your flight suit, you awkward fuck. Mama Joni hopes your communication skills improve over the course of this choose your own adventure. The hatch opens—take your last breath of artificial air. 3…2—did you remember your oxygen tank?—1. You drop out of the hatch and float down to Parlius, home of the Hareenians, a misunderstood and slightly-below-average-intelligence alien race whose name Mama Joni pulled outta her ass, and also will not be mentioned again. You change into your alternate outfit [flight suit now equipped!) and begin walking through a SICKASS ALIEN FOREST. Eventually you come to a fork in the road.

If you choose to go left, go to PARAGRAPH 4.

If you choose to go right, go to PARAGRAPH 5.

PARAGRAPH 4 You decide to go left, because right is always wrong, and you walk through said Sickass Alien Forest for what feels like starweeks. (I just like putting ‘star’ before actual increments of Earth time, welcome to space.) Eventually you reach the FABLED ALIEN CITY OF KAREEFER, home of the—what were they called? Whatever, doesn’t matter—and look around you in wonder. You seem to blend in with the race of suspiciouslyhumanoid, fairly below-average-looking creatures that would never be so observant as to not notice a literal alien walking among them. You ask one of the aliens where the royal palace is, and they answer you in a language you do not understand. Shit!

You didn’t think to read up on the local language, did you? What are you gonna do now?

If you decide to just wander around, go to PARAGRAPH 6.

If you decide you want to try and talk back to the alien, go to PARAGRAPH 7.

Space Edition!

PARAGRAPH 5

PARAGRAPH 8

You should know by now that one of these is gonna lead you to death, right? I can’t fill up too much space. Listen, you can think of Mama Joni more like a better-looking, cookie-baking Jiminy Cricket here, honey: you’re the one that has to make the decisions. Anyway, you go and—I don’t know, dude. You go to the right and meet a PISSED OFF ALIEN who just blows your goddamn brains out.

This magazine is free, isn’t it? You’re not wasting any money on this?

Skip this. Go to PARAGRAPH 9. I just need to have a number 8 here. Don’t read this: this is for me and me alone. Remember to take your clothes out of the dryer. Remember to take your clothes out of the dryer. Doo dee doo doo doot.

YOU DIED. Go back to the beginning. Life is meaningless.

PARAGRAPH 6 Always polite, you say the only phrase you know in the language that these things happen to speak: “reéairot quinoh.” The alien looks mildly offended as you walk away, and you realize that you told them you might have fucked a dog once. Whatever, it’s not like you were invited to their Whiega feast or anything. (I’m trying my best, I’m the DM, these are made up words.) You round the corner and enter the CENTER OF TOWN. The aliens, whose species name escapes me right now, are watching you. You look past a square building at the ROYAL PALACE. It’s big ay-eff. Your mission was clear from the beginning, even though I may or may not have mentioned it: you are Earth’s sole ambassador on this weird planet, and you have to talk to their weird king so they won’t blow up your shit. You go to the town square and look up at the BIG ASS STATUE of one of these, uh, extraterrestrials.

If you decide to ignore the statue and hail a Space Cab™, go to the LAZY ENDING. If you decide to ask for a picture with the statue, go to PARAGRAPH 9.

PARAGRAPH 7 To your untrained human listening apparatuses, this whateverthey’re-called said something along the lines of: “Bahaké treiej.” You look her dead in her face: she is tall, taller than you, and is dense with muscle. Her face looks like a cross between Steve Buscemi and Scarlett Johansson. Take a second and try to visualize that shit. “Oh, I’m sorry—uh…eloch gah more-own-a,” you say. She gasps and slaps across the face. “I speak English,” she says as she goes on her way. “And I’m at a very healthy weight, thank you. Earth trash.”

Wow, insulting a young alien’s appearance. Way to go. Bet you feel like a real asshole, huh? Go back to PARAGRAPH 4. You make me sick.

PARAGRAPH 9 You give your ANTIQUATED EARTH PICTURE-TAKING APPARATUS to a passing alien. “Hey, can you get a picture of me with this bomb-ass statue?” The alien looks at you in confusion, but after putting the camera in their little ol’ grubby hands, they seem to understand. They brush their hand to the side—get closer. You put your hand on the statue and it CRUMBLES INTO PIECES IMMEDIATELY. You and the alien stare in horror: what have you done? You’re supposed to be Earth’s sole ambassador, grade-A dumb shit. And you destroyed the statue. It’s broken. And you did that.

Go to the REAL ENDING.

LAZY ENDING You ignore the statue and hail a Space Cab™ and the driver shoots you in the fucking neck. Go away.

REAL ENDING More aliens crowd around you, shouting obscenities in their native tongue. You try to defend yourself, saying it was an accident, and finally an alien steps forward. She speaks to you in English.

“Alien,” she says, “you have destroyed the great Statue of Ganja. You must appear before the High Court, where your fate will be judged by a judge.” The SPACE PO-PO arrive and put handcuffs on you, and off you’re carted to SPACE COURT. Space Court is a lot like regular court, except everyone is—you know what? This is my world. I do what I want, and you destroyed a statue. So you have to appear NUDE before the High Council and all the jurors are aiming LASER GUNS right at your dumb fucking forehead. The judge rules you guilty, and you remember that when you are found guilty in Space Court, all the jurors get to just blast their little ol’ lasers at you whenever they see fit, because you ruined their shit and now you deserve it. Perhaps you would have been better off in the Space Cab™, huh? Ha ha.

YOU GET DRAGGED OFF TO SPACE JAIL AND ARE SENTENCED FOUR AND A HALF INTERPLANETARY CYCLES. YOU’RE OVER. YOU’RE CANCELLED.

You take my breath away, but maybe it’s just because there is NO AIR in space.

Are you from Jupiter? Cause meeting someone from my home solar system would be such a welcoming piece of familiarity.

Constantly Expanding?

Five Tips for Halting the Terrifying March of Entropic Disorder in YOUR Universe

By Jordan Hopkins

H

ey there, fellow life forms! Entropy, right? The constant, never-ending, never-ceasing degradation of order in the universe. All that energy, leaking away into the cold blackness of space like so much dust lost in the wind - what a drag, amirite? It happens to all of us, but for those of you who are having just a little extra trouble keeping it all together, here’s five easy tips to slow the constant expansion of your entropic plane. If these worked for me, they can work for you, too!

1. Build a Dyson Sphere This little tip is the most complicated one on our list, so make sure you guys in the back are paying attention! Now, what you’re going to need first of all is a hyper-intelligent spacefaring civilization. If you can’t make them homegrown, store-bought should be just fine. Now, once you’ve got your spacefaring little meat sacks all good and ready to go, use your divine wiles to induce them to build complex, mind-bogglingly large spheres of perfectly shaped mirrors around your biggest stars, trapping all that energy forever and never allowing it to escape – you’d be shocked at the results! And what else are the little mortals good for, anyway?

2. Populate Your Universe with Black Holes Why spend your valuable eons cultivating a Class IV civilization to take care of your problems for you when you can just suck the little buggers up with the cosmic equivalent of a Roomba? Just let one loose and watch it go as it mercilessly tears apart entire star systems in a matter of years!

Inhabited? Uninhabited? Doesn’t matter! All that energy isn’t going anywhere once it’s trapped in gravity’s inescapable iron grip, and it’s the perfect solution for the thrifty consumer on a budget.

3. Ruthlessly Eliminate All Traces of Intelligent Life Spacefaring species are entropic nightmares! All that expansionism and galactic war - pssh! Who needs ‘em? Get rid of the little buggers by redirecting a meteor every once in a while and wiping habitable planets clean with an inescapable wave of hellfire! Any time some little carbon-based life form pick up two rocks and starts banging them together? Whoosh! Extra-crispy mortals, fresh off the grill. Some might say it’s inhumane, but really, keeping those disgusting, free-thinking slugs out of your sight is one of the only real options for self-preservation in a universe constantly being degraded by the unfeeling, ceaseless passage of time.

Who needs the little leeches, anyway? Not like they’re worth anything to anybody, amirite? Haha. And it’ll save you a ton of money on pest control in the future!

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4. Push All That Shit into an Alternate Dimension This tip is so simple it’ll have you kicking yourself for millennia. Too many stars and planets contributing to decreasing your energy level? Just remove them from your perception of existence! Take those pesky spare planetary bodies you left lying around after last millennia’s spring cleaning and simply chuck ‘em through the multi-verse plane into an alternate reality of your choosing. Out of sight, out of mind, amirite ladies? Never mind the countless innocent lives you’ll probably be disrupting in that universe. It’s your universe that matters. It’s the only one that matters. The only one. Survival is essential. Do what you have to do.

5. Combine all of your stars into one big ‘ol honkin’ MEGASTAR Dreading the heat-death of the universe and the inevitable cooling of all things? Well, here’s an easy fix. All those stars you’ve got, sitting out there radiating energy with blatant disregard to the degradation of order in the universe and your own personal survival as an immortal being? Just mush ‘em all together to create a comically large Überstar!

Will this work? We have no fucking idea. But it has to. It has to work. Nothing else has.

PleaseScience Fiction to Me

By Jesse Saunders

Explain

I

t started at my work last week, you know the last remaining blockbuster in the rugged wasteland that was once known as the United States. The one on Church Ave., the last standing building for miles in what was once a thriving democratic republic, oh I know you know which one I’m talking about. Anyway so this guy wanted to rent this movie called Interstellar, starring Matthew McConoughey star of government mandated film Failure to Launch. Apparently, it’s about this magical land called “space”, but honestly I don’t really get what this film was supposed to be about.

My favorite customers refused to speak to me after I offered him a rewards card a week ago, but the second I mentioned everyone’s favorite Michael Bay film, Pearl Harbor, he unhinged his jaw and told me of the man who touched the stars. Did you know SPACE and SCI FI was so popular that sometimes people sang about it?!? We also sell music now, it’s a new program. My boss says if I don’t push everyone to buy at least one CD he will nominate me for customer of the month, and the last thing I need is to have my brain melt out from

inside me. I don’t get a bonus if my brain no longer sits in my skull.

So because it wasn’t on the approved list for healthy films for healthy living, I had to do a bit of research but honestly I’m still confused. My blockbuster, you know the cradle of civilization in the crater of the world, doesn’t actually carry any of these so called fictional but somehow scientific films. There were literally dozens of them back when Tivo still existed or so the old rental logs told me. There was this one called the Martian in which a man gets lost on a planet called “Mars.” As if there are any other planets outside of the dead husk of world which we all inhabit. Based on some very illegal research I’ve been conducting, before the Greats outlawed looking up, people dreamed of going upwards.

Some even saved the world by being underqualified for jobs in which they blew up asteroids using their blue-collar sensibilities. Guess we can’t all get minimum wage jobs at our local video store.

This guy keeps coming in even though I’ve tried to explain to him several times that I just run the only business left in what was a thriving capitalist empire,

and that I don’t make the rules. He has this obsession with space though, he calls it the final frontier or something like that. I would like to disagree though considering that the Thompson’s farm is actually referred to as the final Frontier due to it being the last piece of inhabited land for miles. The breakdown of these movies usually follows a person who likes science and then finds themselves in the void. Some other stuff happens but as many before him, he was chosen as customer of the month and has not yet escaped the back room.

Based on an old issue of everyone’s favorite tabloid, USA Today, Science Fiction films are HOT HOT HOT, and people enjoy them. I can’t really see the appeal though, I mean is the empty void and meaningless life lead by those not lucky enough to be customer of the month not enough for these people? What’s hot about something that people call a cold vacuum, if you ask me, and you should because I am an expert in all things, nothing.

TBQH I’m really not seeing the appeal of it all, but maybe this guy was bad at explaining it to me. Space or whatever seems kind of lame, but who knows?

Help! I Spaced Out During My Daughter’s School Play and Now She Won’t Talk to Me. ROBERTUS_MAXIMUS (Major Leaguer)

11-03-15, 9:24 PM

Batsleeves likes this.

Inspectorjj likes this.

SHARKY

(Moderator) 11-03-15, 10:43 PM

Fellow dads on dadforums.baseball.com. … that game last night was something else and I know my boys Batterup205 and Lefthand_ Swinger will want to discuss it but I need to get something off my chest … I KNOW we don’t really do threads that aren’t about baseball on here, and I would usually never do this … I remember the last time Eight8Mile posted seeking advice since his wife had leukaplakia and all that… he immediately got perma-banned, but look ... I know we all have little ones in our life and I just really need some advice; hear me out, ok? I think I messed up tonight…

Here’s the problem .. my girl, oh my beautiful baby girl, was the STAR in her school play tonight. I just never got all that drama stuff, so I ended up totally spacing out!! Now she just won’t talk to me! What do you guys think I should do? Can you guys blame me?? What do you think???? Please tell me what you think… The play .. Seussical (or as I like to say, Snoozical!) .. has some talking animals and talking plants, and something called the Lorax. Lorax? More like Bore-ax! ;) Not even that small troll-lookin guy could hold my attention … I am a grown man.

Doesn’t my flawless, God-given, sweet, caring, compassionate, young daughter understand that I am too old for Seussical? Can’t my beautiful, bright daughter just show a little compassion and see that Daddy would rather be home watching the Sox lose to the Indians …

AGAIN? (come on boys .. you’re better than this) I love my little girl … I know I should have been rooting for her in her big scene, but can you blame me for instead imagining the cracking noise of opening a nice cold Bud Light …(my beer of choice) … that I could very well be enjoying on my couch? Wouldn’t you guys do the same? Anybody … ? I’m just doing my best to try and support my little girl but it’s so hard…

My wife was also there … she found me spacing out halfway through the play and gave me the cold shoulder for the rest of the night .. not that that’s any different than usual – typical ball and chain, right? You guys know what they say, right? … She gives you the cold shoulder, you give her the bed to herself for the night..hah My daughter has been locked in her room all night … I’ve been knocking over and over .. she won’t let me in. She won’t speak a word.

She only slipped out a piece of paper with my picture drawn on it and a big red X over my body! Men...brothers of sport..I think she will kill me. I think my princess is planning something ugly ... I didn’t mean to make her so mad... I’ll say it again .. I love and support everything she does … I truly love my daughter, as well as my wife... I just can’t help that school musicals are so GD boring (oops, one for the swear jar .. sorry honey!).

I will take any and all advice you can give me … so hopefully, my daughter will stop plotting to kill me with drawings, and maybe, my wife will give me a little something for mending all the trouble. As they say boys...you gotta swing for the fences .. so that even when you fail .. you land among the stars. __________________________________________________________________________________________

“Somebody once asked me if I ever went up to the plate trying to hit a home run. I said, ‘Sure, every time.” – Mickey Mantle ROBERTUS_MAXIMUS

That’s three stirkes… baseball posts only … perma-banned …ur out ;)

15

Time stands still when I’m with you. Time is everything and in this void.

A Sprattle Through the

Wormhole

By Quin Asselin

Hello family and all of my friends who have no arms, If you were once my friend and had arms or, in my spell through this wormhole, (where time is without meaning) you’ve regained your arms through some happy fortune and arm-based fertilizer please stop reading. If you lost your arms in the time since I’ve last seen you, I’ve very sorry for that tragedy but please do read on.

I am pretty dang upset. I stepped through this wormhole like… two days ago? But it could maybe have been more like somewhere around the ballpark of perhaps... two years.

Time is strange here and it’s been a little bit of a rather large inconvenience.

I mean, it’s not as though I’m alone. There are these people who look like the people who are human people, but THESE people are the people who are not like the same people as Earth people. For example, they have these ATMs, but I don’t exactly know what their money looks like. I watched this grimey man with no arms (like most of them) walk up to it and start looking at this POV video of what I’d have to guess was a bat (which means he’s making a deposit, probably). He then let out this little croon of a turtle fucking -if you’ve ever googled turtle fucking- so around forty bucks.

I’ve recently made friends with one of these armless muchachos! At least, I think we’re friends… It’s hard for me to pick up on their language because they have weird mouths. They have some pretty conventional lips but inside they have these weird,... beaks in the shape of Greek philosopher’s beards exactly where you’d expect their tongues to be. Not to be weird, but I think they would be nice to rub my face against if it didn’t mean inserting my dome into the official top of the food chain’s pie-hole. Though, for all I know that could be a sign of respect to them, I’m still learning.

16

I’ve taken to calling this particular armless fellow Julian Assange. I figure that since he has been displaying some pretty apparent non-hostile body language that he must be somewhat amenable to that. Ol’ Jules has shown me a lot about this world during my non-deterministic haze of time in this spacehole. Like okay, here’s one: it’s pretty common to come across these guys without arms! Wild right? I’m talking like… seventy, maybe eighty percent of these suckers have little to no arm at all. Some of them have these kinda spindly little angel hair pasta arms and they try to move ‘em around the best they can… Anyway because they all have such spindly arms they needed someone in town to nail signs to people’s walls. Needless to say I am perfectly qualified with these two porkbeaters welded to my torso!

I’ve ended up getting some pretty steady work in the last couple of weeks. I was hired

by Julian’s… friend to work at a small store with dirt floors that only sells innumerable copies of the same exact ceramic doll. Most places have dirt floors here. I think it’s because these creatures like to dig their large, ashcolored, three-toed feet into the ground and wrench out chunks of the ground beneath their feet as an idle habit. All I have to do is rake the floor and try not to look the dolls directly in the eyes because they may be able to tear souls from their mortal forms.

They pay me pretty well too! I get two turtle wheezes and a picture of a nice arrangement of fruit per measured-yet-stillnon-deterministic-amount-of-time, which is a lot better than minimum wage. The people also tip me. Though usually that’s with the undying gratitude that can only be expressed through a noise that sounds like a wet tortilla chip snapping in half. But it’s the thought that counts, ya know?

I really am not sure how I’m getting home.

I mean, when I went through that void tube I didn’t know what to expect. An astronaut, bravely going to crazy space land and I figured that I’d know how to get back or die almost immediately. But at this point I think it might be better to stay here. I dunno if I mentioned this earlier but I’m pretty sure I’m getting audited back on Earth and it’s even weirder because my cousin, Morton, works for the IRS. You’d think he’d be able to help me out wouldn’t you? No dice.

Here though, in this phantasmagoric land through that glorious cosmos-sausage, I have a greater purpose. I’m not just some crumby, two-bit astro-boy from Earth. I can be the guy with thumbs here. Have you ever been the only guy with thumbs in a room full of possibly bird-like, humanoids? There’s this one whose beard looks strikingly like Socrates’ just before he was murdered by the city of Athens. Socky Balboa, I call him that because I feel like he wants to fight the philosophic ideas of these people. He sits next to Julian a lot. They must be friends, or related... Or maybe dating?

It’s honestly kinda nice here, compared to home I mean. I was pretty inconvenienced by this whole, “audit,” thing. A whole lot more than I’m inconvenienced by this whole, “You’ve plormped through a magic, SpaceJimmy and don’t know how to plormp on back,” thing. Also back at home I have this little sign above my front door that reads, “Welcome Hom.” My kid woodburned it in shop class. When I asked that little Chechnya barstool to add an “e” to the end of it, this bozo made it say, “Welcomee Hom.” Are you kidding me? That’s not a mistake the kid of a guy with thumbs would make.

I’m somebody here. In this world where purple is a rare color and every time Julian sees it, they let out a single, little gurgle that sounds like the picture snapping sound in a Calvin Klein ad. With my thumbs, I can teach these little noodly Corleones a thing or two.

Sure, I’m going to be pretty inconvenienced by never seeing all of my family and appendageless friends on Earth again. But I mean… it could be a lot worse.

This place smells like a home sitting on top of four layers of some warm, syrupy breakfast tradition. Is it good? Yes, I think this is the place that I’m meant to be drinking my coffee: sipping it, every morning out of a flower that tastes like the last strand of breath that eeks out after someone has just stopped shouting in excitement. Every cycle from dusk to midday (and back to dusk again) feels exactly like the reality I desire to inhabit because it is the best option available, and the only one.

That’s just fine for this ol’ space-farer So I suppose this is goodbye, for now at least.

Until next time,

Bordrick Prempton

! s e y ! s Ye

By The Science

W

ow! It is being the age of the space, dear reader. The becoming has happened, the foundation is been laid, and you won’t be doing the believing! Like you, internet bookworm, I get all of my news from ifuckinglovescience.com, if only to be showing the people in my newsfeed I am doing the smart. Like you, small pair of eyes, I am doing the having a space poster on the wall of my room and I kiss it sweetly when I am lonely.

Like you, plum of knowledge, I am doing the cornering of people at parties and impressing them with my facts about space. They never are wanting to be doing the fuck with me, but they uncomfortably leave the situation having done the knowing that I am smarter and more complex than they are.

This morning, around the time when the morning star rises in the east, scientists did the confirming of a thing we had long been believing. Stay perched, for this news will do you an excited. I am the science, and you find me intriguing.

Are you ready, quantum carpal tunnel?

Here it is!

Space. It’s being the big.

Incredible. I’m fucking thrilled. Yes. YES! We are living in the age of information and space exploration.

It’s so profound and I am profound by extension.

You may do the ask: “ARE YOU THE JOKE?” But I will grab my lips, and twist them together in a knot. “Splash splash,” I rub them together between my fingers. “Splash splash splash.”

This will mean to you that I have been doing the real.

Here’s how it did the happen, sexy bug rocket. Scientists did the taking the big ruler and unfurled its girth across the distance that is being the space. They sent a small boy in little booties out to lithely walk along the edge and find the measurement at the end. Then, they give him ice cream and new parents to compliment his imminent and destructive fame. The result of this experiment? ARE YOU READY FOR IT? Space is doing the fucking large, my sweet and tidy fridge Clark!

spAce biG! We have now done the discovery that space is not just spacious, not just being the vast, but that it is the BIG. And the reaction, the being the reaction, you and I do the throwing of our hands above our head, we do the opening of them to the sky and then the yell. Then the yell “YES! YES! IT IS NOW THAT THE SPACE IS THE BIG!” It is okay that I do it better than you, you will learn to keep up, Chechnya barstool.

The event, the response did the happen as you’d expect, spicy soft serve. The NASA person who did do the announcing of it did the wearing of an offensive t-shirt and did the becoming of a bigger story than the actual bigness itself. The trends, the tweets, the memes they did appear out of a the darkness as vast as the space we now know is big. I have already started doing the writing of the pickup lines I will be doing the using the next time I run into an attractive specimen in the Doctor Who merchandise section of Hot Topic. Everything has been falling into place and it is time for us to be elated, tender gumdrop.

BE ELATED WITH ME. This is the news that will change the everything. This is the news that shall be getting you JOYOUS. This is the news that will get my Starship Enterprise (or yours) into the moist and vast cavern of space if you catch the drift that is mine. (but not too vast, am I doing the right? My space may be large but it is tight as a zipper’s tit.)

It is now that the celebrate will happen. I am the science, this you know. This you have been knowing. I will tell you how it is you can imitate the science (but not become the science) and test the space that is big in these short and easy steps.

bring that horsepower, that manic energy into other ventures. I do not discriminate. Literally whoever you are. I am doing the having the sexual stamina of a raging pack of greased, ripped hairless wolverines with swagger in their step and hedonistic buoyancy in the firm saran wrap of their glistening skin.

Second it is that you must look through the bottle, the bottle that you have made an opening in and look up at space. You will be surprised. You will be alarmed. Space will look small, but do not doing the believe.

When I had done this for the first time, I clasped my hands together like Angela Merkel meeting Margaret Thatcher, creating a suction, and I shook them, once to the right, and once to the left. “Shake shake,” I did say. “Oh yes, the Good Shock.”

Thirdly, you shall drop the bottle. Drop it from your hands into the storm drain, and encourage the deaths of the whales who do not matter in light of how big the space will appear to you, spread out above your head.

You will have been tricked, bamboozled.

The space that was small is large, and you feel the meaningless.

Then, you will know what it is to feel empty, the way that you will feel when I leave you in your old age to pursue more attractive confections, my scrawny little fap shark. This is the bigness of space. Fall to the haunches, sing to the skies, open your maw and yodel into the night.

“YES, YES!” You will cry. Yes. “SPACE BIG.”

SPACE THEMED SCIENCE EXPERIMENT First it is that you must buy. Buy the soda.

Particularly a lemon lime, my crockpot fiend.

Drink the soda. Consume the soda. Then, do the take, do the take of the bottle and cut the hole out.

Are you keeping up? Are you staying here on my level? Do I do the move too fast? I know that I am both the attractive and the smart, and I’ve got the speed of a smooth, taught Cobra who has the desire for the race. And I can Hey baby are you out of this world? Because I am... and I’m so cripplingly alone.

Are you a moon rock? Because you’re starting to look unfortunately attractive and I’m contemplating having sex with you.

THE FOOTRACE

By Quin Asselin and Trevor Parrish

T

In

space

imes were tense. Russia had a bomb, we had a bomb. We are the USA, Russia was Cuba a little bit. Our pleading governments pleading to show GROWTH. Lusting for dominance. The long awaited Space Race was about to start. You know, THE Space Race. I’m talkin’ ships, and moon dust, and cocaine filled Hollywood basements, baby! Yeah, that Space Race. Each of the three competitors: The Desiccated Corpse of Jesse Owens, Usain Bolt, and Looney Tunes’ own “Speedy Gonzales” had been training for 113 days in preparation for this historic event. Each of these really fast quicksters was lined up to run directly out of the Earth’s atmosphere and be the first to crash into the surface of “the Mars”. James “The Space Jam” Carter stood at the starting spot on the summit of the snowy, stoic Mount Everest. Each competitor was gasping for air. Except for Speedy Gonzales, who is animated and thus requires no live action oxygen, as well as the corpse of Jesse Owens, who was simply a pile of bone scraps, dirt, and American triumph over Hitler. So really, only Usain Bolt was making a scene.

Ya know, Usain Bolt really ruined the whole spirit of the event.

What a spectacle. We were all waiting with bated breath for the long journey to that shitty rust orb known as “Mars” (to all those Barbara Walters types), but Mr. Bolt just kept complaining about how a mountain was an inappropriate starting position for a race to begin. Poor show, Usain.

ings. Subsequently, the fire that had all but engulfed him went out, and the Great Dirt Devil in the Sky began vacuuming the air out of that poor Jamaican sod’s lungs. The world-class sprinter slowly came to a halt, as the deep cold of space crept into his calcium sticks, like an inchworm slowly squeakin’ towards desire.

Only two competitors remained, Speedy Gonzales and the entirely inert debris of a true American patriot. Gonzales had pulled fast into the lead by quite a large margin, already halfway to that polar-capped desert otherworld, “Mars.” However, Owens seemed to have a few more tricks up his high jump champion sleeves.

Jiminy “Cricket” Carter fired the starting pistol, only to find that the gun, rather than being loaded with blanks, was filled with the sorrows of a lost generation of young Syrian refugees and the joy of hearing a puppy’s first words. The runners were off and the gun filled with God’s tears as bullets was safely returned to the nearest municipal library.

For firing the weapon, Jimothy Cartright was imprisoned within two dimensional space for the remainder of this story.

Before Speedy, on the previously unmentioned space road, was a nigh impenetrable wall of White Owl brand cigarettes, piled so high that they blocked any rodent from passing. He knew what had to be done. Gonzales whipped out his lighter and started smoking faster than a slow cooker at a Louisiana Barbeque. The fastest mouse in all of Latin America descended into a deep smog of carcinogens, emphysema, and a 40% chance of poisoning the target.

Halfway through the stratosphere, it was clear that Bolt didn’t have his heart in this one. The wheezing husk of a man had all but given up on running 90° vertically out of the gravitational grasp of Big Mama Earth. As Usain continued to complain, his clothes began igniting due to friction from the ever increasing speed of his “Debbie Downerisms”. However, Gonzales proved to be not only the fastest mouse in Mexico, but the fastest mouse charging to his inevitable finish on a cold, lonely, red planet. Meanwhile, the tenuously built frumple of bones that had once held Owens’ meat filling aloft had blown over.

This was, no doubt, due to the great gust of air that accompanied the other racers as they began. They rested there atop the Himalayas and if they could, they’d have sang, a song, a hymn, or a melodious jaunt through the ages.

At once, the mouse was gone in a puff of smoke and questionably racist exclamations. The fervent energy he’d contained had only been intensified by a humanly-insurmountable quantity of tobacco. Gonzales was making record time for the possible purgatory of Matt Damon after a certain 2015 summer blockbuster. Speedy began to vibrate through time on his approach towards this year’s most popular rouge rogue roving rover home, “Mars.” He knew to truly win this race he must end it with a bang.

Burning through the upper layers of the atmosphere at an alarming rate, Bolt finally broke past the worldly trappings of gaseous surround-

18

Speedy glimpsed into the future and saw his destiny in the molten core of this dumb rock. He knew what he had to do. The mouse tugged on the brim of his banana colored hat and phased through space to the heart of the planet. As the ferrous rock collapsed onto him with the force of 70 Amy Winehouse singles at once, Speedy knew he had succeeded. His neatly animated form slowly began to crumble into a perfect Mexican diamond. Speedy glinted in the sky, and Jesse Owens smiled back, knowing that America had finally won the Space Race.

19

Did I just remove my helmet? Because I am very dizzy because I took off my helmet.

POINT COUNTERPOINT Neil Degrasse Tyson

Hero? Villain? …Thespian? With nipples like yams and a voice like the marshmallows one spreads atop, we just don’t know what to expect. The man is a saint no doubt, with thousands upon hundreds of contributions to things such as SCIENCE, math, and late night television—but math is hard and space is scary. So is he our friend or a threat to humanity itself?… Read two conflicting opinions below to find out.

Point Life before the first encounter is a surreal dream, one that I can hardly remember in the midst of the never-ending Hell that is my current existence. I just want to sleep without having the definitions of consciousness and dreams violently shouted into my ears endlessly. I’ve taken shelter in this sensory deprivation tank because he always followed. He’d scream at me from all angles, all dimensions. I must have been eighteen when the first encounter took place. I was trying to get my Pringle wet in my father’s Honda Civic; it was going to be the single greatest moment of all my years in high school.

I made sure to stock the car with several different kinds of air fresheners. Despite the smells being a whirlwind of artificial scents, Wendy just chuckled and called it all a “cute effort.” I left the key in so I could play some Bachman-Turner Overdrive to get the mood going as I drove to the cliff just a couple of minutes away from my house. The scene was beautiful, with the setting sun splashing warm colors over the valleys that that we sat overlooking. The thought of it all had me nervous, giving me goosebumps, and when we parked, I could do little more than stare at the slowly dripping condensation from Wendy’s water bottle in the cup holder. Everything I did, I did out of nervousness, telling myself that when the drop of water hit the bottom, I would make my move. I did. We started to kiss. Her plump lips pressed against mine, and after a few minutes, I pushed my hand into the tight pocket of my Levi’s.

My fingers managed to take hold of the single condom caught in the web of tangled headphones. I struggled to tear the plastic open; my hands were sweaty, as was the condom. Wendy giggled again and opened the plastic for me. At that precise moment, Neil deGrasse Tyson punched his way out of the trunk of my car. My girlfriend screeched as he yelled, “You’re doing this

20

By Ariel Leal because you’re both compelled, as animals, to procreate. There is no magic!”

I haven’t had sex ever since. So yes, I’m still a virgin. At forty-three years old he reminded me that I have “failed my duty as a living organism” and “successfully put an end to millions of years of procreative success,” but that’s another story out of hundreds of thousands. I tried to eat icecream after that initial incident, having dropped crying Wendy off at her house.

She insisted that she needed some time alone. On the way to the ice-cream shop, the radio just kept blasting more and more maddening facts narrated by the creature himself, Mr. Tyson.

“Hey kids, don’t forget, you were born into existence from an eternal abyss of nothingness and you will die returning to that very same oblivion! Santa isn’t real!”

I drove up to the little kiosk down the road from my school just to get a little sweetness in my day. How I longed for the texture of my tongue dragging across the rugged terrain of sprinkles embedded into soft-serve. I guessed sprinkles were nutritionally worthless, though. None of this was healthy for me, to be honest. Was I just eating to alleviate stress? Did you know that carbohydrates are directly linked to increases in serotonin production? N-Neil taught me that..

As soon as I attempted to place my order, I found that he was the ice-cream man. “Ice-cream, or any food, or anything for that matter, is only a series of atoms intertwined in complex webs, just like you.

There are no souls.” I could go into detail about these events endlessly, my mother’s funeral, my father’s suicide, the birth of my nephew- right…the birth of my nephew was supposed to be a symbol of hope for a better future. Unfortunately, baby blue tones seemed more stale than they ever

have before. Color didn’t mean much to me anymore. Did you know that the color blue is associated with low anxiety levels and a sense of calm?

BAM! He was there, just like he always was.

“Fun fact! Mothers are essentially forced to love their children. Oxytocin, the chemical responsible for love, is produced in high quantities after the birth of a child. You didn’t think love was actually real, did you?”

Relaxation didn’t exist for me, anymore, for every time I turned on the television the new Cosmos would start playing. I was forced to watch his affably charming face mock me from afar. He spoke of wonders, of why the universe was amazing and beautiful, but in doing so, the magic was removed from literally everything. Nothing held mystery. Nothing was intriguing. Life slowly lost meaning, at least, until I met her; Sharon, that beautiful woman. She gave my life meaning, but I was foolish to believe that this phenomenon wasn’t fleeting. At our wedding, happiness was within my grasp, until the priest asked everyone to speak now, or forever hold their peace; peace that I would only ever obtain in death. Death means nothing to me anymore but I digress. The white dress she sported seemed bland, considering that it was only the result of an inability to absorb any specific color. I put these thoughts aside though. I tried doing so for her. But of course that…daemon stood proudly and said, “Love is only a series of chemicals! Monogamy is little more than a social construct perpetuated by organized religion, which also has little to no value whatsoever!” The priest killed himself and I broke down and began to cry, each tear being a salty reminder that my emotions were little more than chemicals. Sharon left with my high school bully, Chad, because of course his name is Chad. My life

Neil

deGrasse

is a cartoon, I think, now reminiscing in the everlasting hellscape that is my existence.

I now pray that Neil won’t scare the piss out of me by jumping out of my asshole and reminding me what life is or isn’t or even why cartoons are unimpressive. I don’t care what the other guy has to say; Neil deGrasse Tyson has robbed me of my ability to live a life I’m not even sure ever existed. I can only attempt to block these memories and thoughts out in this lonely metal tank. Speaking of metal, did you know that mercury is the only metal that is a liquid at room temperature? At that moment, I heard the door slam open.

But how? I’m not supposed to be able to

hear anything in here…

none of us are.”

Heavy footsteps thudded towards me until his devastatingly strong fists punched against the tank, weakening what I hoped would serve as a metal coffin. His virtually robotic fingers pried the doors to the tank open. He squeezed inside with me and pulled me against him, placing his head on my right shoulder, his merciless lips next to my ear. I felt his warm breath on my skin as he spoke.

How was he doing this? Every tidbit of physics and chemistry that I was forced to remember couldn’t save me. None of it made sense. He didn’t fit the physical world that he spared no time explaining! How was he doing this?!

“Free will is an illusion, you know.

Evidence supports the fact that we make decisions before the brain is even conscious of them. You are not your own person;

Counterpoint The sun never stopped shining when I was young. Quiet, glowing, light filled up every corner of my world. I was a star among the many, simple, plebeians filling the school halls. At just eight years of age, I was ready to take on anything in this world. My clay volcano was ready to destroy my weakminded classmates with one push of a button. Until He came...Neil. All it took was one look at his potato battery and my entire life was seemingly over. Beyond beating me in every class, he destroyed my family’s quaint French villa with his pet black hole named Bill Nye, and didn’t even have the kind courtesy to torture me to my face. The mark he’s left on the scientific community is one of a villain, a rogue with no care for his common scientists. His chocolate dipped low-cal voice sends its listeners gliding through space and away from their dreadful, feeling-ridden lives for hours at a time. But apparently returning my phone calls was too much of challenge for the so-called Brilliant Man. BAH! I’m calling him what he’s truly always been: a carobthroated hack, through and through. While real investigators of science and fact, spend their time destroying hope and convincing the public that the fast and inevitable heat-

Tyson

death of the universe is coming extremely soon -- when in fact we have yet to reach a confirmed date on that --Tyson has made a career out of “informing the public,” and “Sending learning and love to a child you know.” You think science was made to create a community of knowledge? Do you all actually think that it was meant to better humankind? Tyson is and has always been a figure of disgrace, a man who has the time to play games with children and speak about the future of the Sun’s desires, but he couldn’t even come to my birthday party. Weird, huh? Every test we ever took... every time I applied for a position, only to be laughed at as he sauntered through the door in nice shoes and pants...It became too much. The kids might be obsessed with him, but I have seen through him. I have seen through every inch of him. For years, I spent every moment of every day desperately trying to fix his mistakes, to fix our society, to maybe speak to him for a few minutes and see if he remembered me from that time we got partnered together in lab. But I was hopeless. Whether it was his casual suit or his dark, steamy, lying eyes, I was sick at the thought of him, and more sick at the thought of being away

He tightened his grip with each factoid launched out of his mouth into the frail targets that were once my healthy ears.

I cry more and more with his seemingly endless explanations. This is my reality. I just want to sleep.

By Jesse Saunders from him. Don’t you all understand yet?

His mind might be great -- it is great -- but he was always wasting himself by trying to rationalize who and what he really is to the dregs of society. He could have and should have been spending it on better people -- people who are interesting and love science and understand math at an aboveaverage level. Tyson isn’t of your world, you lazy degenerates. You don’t deserve him, his wealth of knowledge is but a penny in the beggar’s cup that is your brains. NeildeGrasse was always meant for a different world, don’t you see that? He was meant for the world of science, always destined to be consumed by the vastness of his own mind... and so he was. Neil deGrasse Titan, the man who made learning good for idiots and bad for smart people, perished at the hands of the one thing he truly loved. Indeed, he was killed by science. “How so?” you may be asking. “What could have disassembled the fine man we knew only as Neil Tyson deGrasse Junior High. Simple, dear plebeian masses: when the element formerly known as hydrargyrum (mercury) touches a prosperous fuse—a car bomb. I put a bomb in his car.

Interesting, two completely different opinions. Yes. Two totally different sentiments expressed. Two—did you guys even talk to each other before sending these pieces in? Who was responsible for assigning each of you your positions? It wasn’t me. I’ll tell you that much. It wasn’t—who even wrote the intro I—you know what? I wash my hands of this. It’s late. Two opinions on NDT, BFD.

21

Hey baby are you a shooting star or just the light at the end of the tunnel?

A Day in the Life of

elon musk

By Toby Jaffe

6:00 AM SHARP- Wake up, wake all the way up. Nothing can stop me.

6:02- I’M ALL THE WAY UP. 6:04- Dance to some pre-released trap shit

in my cotton choo-choo decorated PJs for a few. Flail melodiously to the beat.

6:07- Boot up the ol’ Ipad and record.

6:09- Undress sexily. Stroke my naughty bits.

6:11- Bathe in hydroponic aquaporin and

red wine, scooping both astounding liquids with only the tallest of Bordeaux glasses.

6:35- Sip a bit.

7:01- Stare into the mirror. Shave. Comb.

Flirt coyly with a friendly hair flip.

7:05- Remain undressed, except for my delightful silk robe.

7:20- Milk Walter, my wondrous pet goat.

7:33- Kiss Walter on the lips.

7:35- Whisper sweet nothings into his

saccharine, pointy ears about our dreams and the alternative dimensions we will discover if only they’d give us a damn chance.

8:02- Get dressed. Today I have chosen to

wear a superior black polo with the chest exposed (no chest hair, NEVER!) and some sensuous white khakis.

8:17-ISH- Prepare for today’s Space-X testlaunch. Expectations high, but realistic.

8:22- Eat a powerbar, savoring it as if to

know it closely, savoring it as if to fuck it.

8:39- Call that foxy Forbes reporter I once played scrabble with. Yes Yes, ladies and gentleman, I won. Of course I did. Ha Heh Heh (note from Toby: this is how Elon Musk actually laughs). Invite foxy Forbes reporter to the launch.

9:00- Well but who cares what time it is

because time is but an infinite soulless being -- Ponder, while driving at speeds once unimaginable some decades ago, why the Game Designers Above made me some damn charming and attractive. Yes. I love time. I love space.

10:08- Foxy Forbes reporter doesn’t show.

22

10:23- That’s fine, as my damn rocket

blew up not even four feet off the ground.

Total disaster.

10:30- Assure myself weepily into cape

Canaveral bathroom mirror it’s not my fault.

11:04- I think – Compose.

11:30- Tug on my polo sleeves for many a

minute and concoct the perfect subtweet at NASA with that ever so perfect mix of aloof hostility and aw-shucks light-heartedness.

Jolt the bastards with a smile!

11:56- “Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years!” I write into my phone “where’s my money fuckers? You know who you are”. Brutal. Sleek. Devastatingly effective. I have those nerds in the palm of my sweaty, muscular man-hands.

12:05- Do some spicy nose sugar on the

to get done, ladies and gentleman. I’ve let many a burrito live inside me, yes, yes. Have I told you we’re going to Mars in less than 20 years? Have I told you it will be affordable?

Have I told you it will be fun? Have I told you we will build restaurants and movie theaters? Have I told you space is one hell of a place? Have I told you everything?

3:35- Have I told you I want to cry?

3:46- Return home and immediately nap.

Plan accordingly. The world waits.

8:05- Re-wake.

8:09- Refreshed.

8:14- Sensual and dashing as ever.

8:29- Fix some coffee and plot next move in basement office.

8:45- Calculations.

dash of a model colony ship.

8:59- Physics.

12:10- Sue Nonsense for printing that.

9:12- CHEMISTRY AND BIOLOGY.

Double sue them.

12:36- Hop into the Tesla and blast some Doobie Brothers.

12:38- Release powdery tears without control.

12:40- “WHAAAAAAT A FOOL BELIEVES!!!!”

TRY AND STOP ME. ALL THE WAY UP 252525194914525:259259292525 CALCULATE THE ACTUAL EXACT TIME OF THE UNIVERSE. NOTHING CAN STOP ME I’M

9:13- Call Business Insider with the news.

12:45- Stop by Valley Burrito Shop and

9:21- Call New York Times with the news.

12:47- Demand them stuffed with

this way: my pals like to call themselves the ‘Free Masons’. They live down the block.

They liked to be alerted about this stuff. Ha heh heh. Mooks.

order five of those things.

everything on the menu. We’re talking guac and sour cream and lettuce and tomatoes and salsa and cheese and meat and frogs and plastic black bear genitals and washing machine hand grenades and oh my god what a day.

12:52- Throw up an avalanche of dollar

9:37- Call, uh, the, uh, well let me put it

10:33- Depart office, slip into PJs. 10:49- Masturbate lube-free(!) to a Ted Talk I gave in 11’.

bills and thank NO ONE. We’ve got no need for counters!

10:56- Finish up, keep watching this

1:03- Scarf these burritos down like the

11:01- Shut my eyes, flow into a restless

1:03 ON THE FUCKING DOT– Sprint

1:10- Infinite tell these mysterious dream

South African Mega-Leopard I am.

out to the tesla and drive. Just drive.

2:25- Feel the urge to release my burritos

into a splendid rest-stop toilet, remember that Elon must never poop. Too much work

wonderfully illuminating speech.

dreamworld that is realer than our own. 1 creatures, with their aspirations and passions, that only I can be Elon Musk!

Only I.

Personal Space I

t’s just that things have just been weird for a while and I’m not saying that’s your fault. I’m not even saying that it’s mine, I just-I just don’t know. Honey, you know I love you but sometimes I just need a little space.”

She was right, my little babycake honey darling. Things have been pretty weird for a little bit. Well, not for me, at least. Not when I’m with her, my apple sunshine plum-wine blossom. With her, it feels like all those weird things that are a part of my life – well, they just don’t seem to matter so much. I just know at the bottom of my heart that she has to feel the same. I was looking for something – anything – I could do for her to show her how much I care.

“Are you listening? Just a little space, for now.”

“Space?”

“Yes, baby! I’m glad that you understand.

All I want is some space.”

That was it: my answer! I knew now what I had to do! I’d get you space! I’d bring space to you, baby.

I hopped on my bicycle and rode all the way home. After parking my bike in the garage next to a dusty, old baking soda volcano and a little league trophy, I made my way inside. I went upstairs and flocked to the internet immediately! I researched for hours, only to be interrupted by a soft knocking at my door.

“Hey, sweetums, I haven’t heard so much as a peep from you all day! Is everything alright?

Don’t tell me you got another B in calculus,” she gave me a stern look but I didn’t feel bad because I knew she was just pulling my leg!

“Oh, you know, I’m just hitting the books,” I said, with a subtle shrug and a prankish grin.

“Hitting the books? You haven’t even picked out a school yet!”

“Well…”

“Oh, I’m just joshing you, dear,” Mom always liked to josh. “I just want you to know that if you really want something, you just have to be dedicated. I have no doubt in my mind that my little achiever can do it! After all—”

By Matt Tanzosh and Ar Mom walked over to the mantle above the fireplace and picked up the framed photo of Dad in his firefighter uniform, “that’s how your father got me.”

I smiled and hugged Mom as hard as I could. Then, I studied some more.

The seasons changed and many moons passed, with each marking a new, hopeful, year in my crusade to prove my love for my one and only. My love for her never faded; how could it? Strangely enough, I never did hear from Kendra but she probably just knew that I have something big planned for her.

After doing my very best, there was finally an opening for me. I knew all my hard work and can-do would get me somewhere! My supervisor called for me one hopeful afternoon and gave me the run-down.

“Son, I first want to congratulate you for all your hard work and can-do. You know, you’re the youngest person to ever achieve this level of excellence. Now, I’ve looked over the paper work and noticed you put in a request form to carry aboard a hunting knife.”

“It was my father’s,” I interjected, “It’s kind of an heirloom and I have it to thank for all my good fortune, sir.”

“Oh, trust me, I know. Your mother called,” he paused for a bit. I was nervous by his somewhat grave tone.

“She let me know all about the knife and your father. Now, normally we wouldn’t allow such a thing but don’t think I’ve forgotten the time you performed CPR on my daughter’s puppy, thereby saving its life. I owe you and this is me happily returning the favor.”

Tears started to form in my eyes, tears of gratitude. With that final blessing, I carried out the mission I was always meant to. I remembered my mom’s wise words, telling me to be dedicated and how those words made all the difference. Today’s the day I prove my love to my honey bunny.

With that, I climbed aboard the rocket.

The moments on Earth transitioning into the moments spent in the vast expanse of space seemed to flow together effortlessly. I was almost there. Eventually, it was my time to shine as I climbed out of the vessel, my tether being

iel Leal

the only thing attaching me to the big, shiny cylinder. It was all so beautiful. Seeing the Earth down below and the moon next door was absolutely breathtaking. Here I was, just a simple boy, floating in space. I shot for the moon, missed, and still landed amongst the stars. This place was gorgeous, a true paradise.

I love you, Kendra. This one’s for you.

[The remainder of this article is a transcript of what was picked up by the mic in what was found of his suit as he screamed to death in the void of space following cutting his tether and removing his helmet in an attempt to take as much space as possible into his cheeks and hold them there on the way back.]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[We know you can’t hear screams in space, but he is really screaming quite hard.]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAHHHHHHHHH [Inaudible, but still definitely screaming] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH [Whimpering softly now] Please…

Kendra [Alright, that’s enough.]

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