The Human Centipede

I have met the Human Centipede. Unlike the movie, the human elements are not connected by a macabre surgical procedure. Instead, they are connected by the repulsive act of ass-licking. They are a slimy retched bunch who'll stop at nothing to obtain their selfish petty goals and they all work in the same lab. From top to bottom: Izabella. Juan. Lillian. Richard. Sandra. Sophie. Mario. Time will certainly make this Human Centipede even longer...
I feel sick just thinking about it. 

The Rotting Athlete

Terry is a runner. I’m not sure in what category he runs in and I have no idea how many competitions he has won, but I do know that he complains about how his victories decrease in number, every single year. The other day, over coffee, he told me that he’s plagued by a terrible recurring dream. In it, he’s sleeping with the suit he wore on prom night and around him are dozens of blue poppies. In his dream time goes by and while the blue poppies maintain their unchangeable healthy look, Terry quickly rots into dust and bones. He feels like the blue poppies are mocking him. Terry knows his running days are almost over and yet the tracks that gave him so much joy will always be there. He also thinks that the same may be said about Man and Nature. "Entropy is a bitch and it always hurts the ones that'll feel it the most."

The Unflushable

Many years ago a complete stranger offered me a book (trap) on my birthday. She told me her name was Liliana and that she had a crush on me. I was so flattered, we eventually made out once or twice, but I soon realized she was a total bitch. She was one of those insufferable retched beings that are jealous of all the good and happiness in others, the kind that would shoot puppies and kittens to get what she wanted, the kind that mistakes obsession with love. Even though I hated her guts, I tried to dump her gently... She went psycho. She’d call my house at all hours, spread lies about me, and she’d even put the evil eye on my female friends. No matter how many times I told her I wasn't interested, she just wouldn't go away. It was 6 months of hell. Ultimately it died off, but that girl really taught me just how unflushable psychos can be. Kids, beware...

The Father

I've got this good buddy of mine... He's a great guy, but he used to be a couch potato of the slowest caliber. If you looked up 'sloth' in the bible, you'd probably find an engraving of his face. Shit, geologists could have studied his movements as a reference for continental drift. Then his wife had a kid...
Now, Alaric will climb mountains of razor-sharp rocks and cross oceans of burning acid with the strength and the courage of a barbarian warrior just to see his little girl smile. Alaric's willingness to change inspired me beyond words.

The Responsible Self-Burner

Old man Stan once said to me:

"Kid, don't let the responsibilities of the future burn away the dreams of your present."

It took me years to finally understand the meaning of this little piece of fortune cookie wisdom, but I've realized that the old geezer was right. Babies, burn thinking if they'll always give enough reasons for their mother’s to love them. Teenagers, burn under the fears of a lousy sex-life and a shit paying job. Adults, burn worrying if they’ll have enough money to retire gracefully and if they’ll leave a decent life for their children. Old men, burn with death and unforgiving deities on their minds.
Apparently, Stan learned this the hard way. Everyone always said he looked way older than he actually was. I guess he let the responsibilities burn him too soon. Responsibilities are an unavoidable burden, but we shouldn't let the worries of the future steal so much from our present, we shouldn't let them burn our dreams. Fuck ulcers and depressions; let’s have some fucking fun!

The Music Listener

People scream to the top of their lungs how much they fucking love music. But the majority doesn't really love music, they only like whatever trendy piece of crap is being coughed out by the celebrity music industry. They have no notion or curiosity for the cultural and historical significance a song might hold, they ignore anything that is older than their last trip to the dentist, and they disrespect the art by using it like cheap decorative wall paper. 

Allegra is different. Whenever she's in the mood for some music she goes to her special room, she lies on a blanket and she listens… No distractions. No bullshit. Black Metal, Synthpop, Vocal Jazz, Punk Rock, Baroque, Ska, whatever the genre might be... The music fills the room and Allegra drowns in it. That’s true love. I wish I was more like her.

The Anger Sprayer

No, this isn't acid rain. This is just Huan's bile spewing from his mouth. It burns doesn't it? Huan has always been a good friend, but lately he gets angry about everything. It’s either over something political or something to do with TV celebrities or even about the music younger kids listen to. In a way, he’s right to get upset over some of these things, but cursing his tongue off and dragging others under his pointless cloud of rage is no way to deal with life.  No matter how much we try to convince him to accept the things he can’t change or to look towards the more positive stuff in life, he just doesn't listen. He doesn't even converse anymore, he just rants. Maybe the rage works like a cocoon protecting him from pains I don't know about. Whatever the real reason may be, it's exhausting to be around him. Huan is becoming an angry acid spraying monster and I’m running out of umbrellas. 

The Fire Dancer

Metaphysical quacks would have you believe that fire has divine cleansing properties. Bullshit! Fire turns stuff to ash. There’s nothing enlightening about it, you silly twat. Unless...

Katrine would sit next to me in class. She would draw faeries on the pages of my school books and whisper cosmic secrets into my ears. She painted, played guitar, got high, and even became a medical doctor. We kissed one afternoon. I loved this girl, but never really wanted to date her. In addition to her many amazing abilities, she would also play with fire. She practiced Fire Dancing, specifically long Fire Poi from the Maori culture. When she lit those wicks and got the chains twirling she wouldn't turn things into ash. Instead, she would breathe fiery life into everything and everyone she saw… She would even do the same to me. 

The Wing Clipper

There are bad influences and then, there's personal responsibility. Around what age does one take over the other? 

There was this group of kids that were always getting into trouble. Most of them were usually nice and well behaved except when they were around Edmund. I’m not totally dismissing the responsibility for their own actions, but you could really see his nasty influence on them. I don’t know if Edmund was born evil or if something in his childhood fucked him up. All I know is that he had the keen ability to clip off the wings of his naive friends and make a bunch of regular kids into total assholes. They ended up being expelled from school and drifted off to a world of shit and misery.

The Octopus Fucker

Have you ever seen a girl fuck an octopus? 
About a year ago, my friend Nandalia called my attention to the erotic tactile pleasures of tentacles. She explained to me how the maneuverability and aquatic nature of those things have been making girls wet for ages. From impassioned Japanese paintings to the animalistic madness of Hentai, you can find hundreds of examples of Tentacle Erotica on the net. Unfortunately for her, all these monsters are fictional. As long as they're not hurting anyone, everyone has the right to live out their fantasies. So I told her that she could probably make her boyfriend an octopus suit. “Just soak the tentacles in your favorite lube and wrap them around your naughty parts. It may take a shit load of sewing and it obviously won't be exactly like the real thing, but it’ll get you close enough, right?” Nandalia gave me a sympathetic kiss on the cheek and started giggling. Yeah, being such a creative person, of course, she had already thought of it.

The Invincible Eater

Silvio - This is more or less what I’ve eaten almost every single day for the past 7 years. 
Me - You should be dead by now or at the very least the size of a monstrous walrus oozing sweat by the gallon with every breath.
Silvio - Especially since, I don’t even work out. I really should be dead, but instead, I have some kind of super immunity that makes me invincible to the deadly clutches of junk food.

Me - Lucky fucker. I love that sort of food, but if I ate it every day, I'd would've had quadruple bypass surgery, by now.
Silvio - Well, we can't all be invincible eaters.

The Loved Nerd

I used to like stereotypes when I was a kid because they made the world simpler. As I grew up, I realized how boring and wrong stereotypes really were. Occasionally though, I find someone who fits a profile. While chatting with him online, I found out that Kirk is a second generation nerd. His parents were big time Trekies back in the day, but his greatest passions lie within comic books. He loves eating chips and working at home allows hims to spend the whole day without pants. Kirk also admitted to me that he had more computers then friends. This doesn't bother him though, he claims the computers give him all the love he needs. Kirk also said that he sort of has an online girlfriend. "Sort of..." 
It's great to be loved.

The Mixtape Lovers

I was seeing this girl... Her name was Martha and she was a junior lawyer at some firm. Mostly surrounded by paperwork, we only spent time together in the bedroom. One night, I asked her about a painting she had over her bed. Very enthusiastically, she told me that her ex-boyfriend and high-school sweetheart, Martin had painted it for her a couple of years before he left her. She also told me how for 6 years they celebrated their love by giving mixed tapes to each other. She kept going on about him, but I just fell asleep. 
I stopped seeing her. It just didn't feel right. Martha was obviously still into him and I didn't like her enough to try and make her forget the past. A guy I know started dating her last year, but eventually left her when she wouldn't take the painting down. Some people, mostly girls, are like that, they hold onto the aura of their first love contaminating all future relationships. I honestly doubt that this Martin guy will ever get back with Martha and I know she'll never find happiness while she's still clinging on to the memory of The Mixtape Lovers.

The Burning Balls Guy

Two friends and I were at the beach a few summers ago. We laid out our stuff, tried out the water, and then decided to lay down for a bit. Paolo sat in the middle. After a long while of sun bathing, he suddenly jumped up and started screaming: “I’m burning! I’m burning! My balls are burning!” In his head the long exposure to the sun had somehow induced his balls to spontaneously combust. A few seconds later the pain lessened and he looked at his junk inspecting the damage. There were some mysterious small burn marks. My other friend, sitting on Paolo’s left side, was finishing a cigarette and started laughing… The answer was there: A little bit of ash flew with the wind over to Paolo’s shorts and since they’re made of synthetic fabric, the ash easily burned into his ball sack. Paolo was relieved. A bit of cigarette ash is much more reassuring then having to face the possibility of testicles spontaneously combusting. 

Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!

The Renaissance Widow

One summer, Wilhelmina met a guy at a Renaissance Fair. They both really enjoyed dressing up and pretending they lived in that era, occasionally speaking in a Shakespearean way. They married the following year and were very much in love. A couple of years ago he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident. Weeks later, Wilhelmina would put on the dress her husband made for her and then go to his grave to cut herself. Not too deep, just enough to feel his look upon her. She knew this wasn't a healthy thing to do, but she said it made her feel closer to him. She eventually stopped. We all have our different coping mechanisms.

The Puke Licker

"Once upon a time there was a little boy who liked to eat slowly. This little boy had a mean nanny who had no patience for him, so she smacked him around to make him eat faster. One day, she made the little boy eat so fast that he threw up his lunch. Enraged by her dirty kitchen floor, the awful nanny made the little boy clean up his own puke… with his tongue."

When Katsuo told me his story, I fell silent for a moment. I knew the little boy was him. If any of us had lady parts, I would've probably hugged him or said something apologetic. Instead, I said: "Here buddy, have another beer." Pretty soon, we were laughing our heads off over some stupid shit on the internet. Life is just fucked... Sometimes, its best to just laugh the pain away.

The Mama Nature's Boy

Erik thinks we should go back to Nature. It's a nice idea, but this isn't some informed environmentalist who knows what the hell he's talking about. No; Erik is a lazy delusional idiot. He wants to go back to Mother Nature so she can take care of him, and nourish him, and tell him that everything is going to be alright...

Years of pop environmentalism have taught him that green is good and that green is clean. (Almost like synthetic grass.) Bad news, Erik, Mama Nature isn't that clean. If you really want to suck on her tit like we did in the old days, you have to leave your parent's air-conditioned Wi-Fi equipped pristine glass bubble, fill your hands with dirt and manure, sweat your ass off under the baking Sun, fight off hoards of hungry bugs, and quit whining like a little bitch. 

The Incubator

Over a decade ago:

Me - Have you told the father yet?

Eleanor - Yeah...

Me - Are you guys going to keep it?

Eleanor - I don't know. I'm scared. Kids can be evil little shits... And when they grow up, they can become viscous retched adults. Some mothers give birth to wonderful children. Others, are merely incubators for monsters...

The Party Animal

Rajul used to be a shy quiet mouse. He never drank, never smoked, never chased girls or listened to loud music, he barely even spoke... His grades were high and his clothes were neat; you could just smell the woeful boredom off him. He was a poster child for repression. The only thing his parents could complain about was his sideburns, but even they knew it was a small price to pay for such a well behaved (lifeless) son. 
Ever since he went to college, Rajul has changed. Something inside him broke the shackles and ripped its way free. Away from his parents, he learned a new way of life, a much more joyful, liberating way of living. The old Rajul is gone. The new Rajul is a crazy fucking party animal! It might all backfire one day, but for now, it's great to see him so happy.

The Paranoid Microbiologist

My friend Christy finished her Master's degree in Microbiology about a year ago and we were all very happy for her. In fact, we even seemed happier than she did. On the night of her graduation party, after a few shots of tequila, she drunkenly smiled at me and said:

"Can you feel them? The 10 thousand microbe species inhabiting your innards slowly revolting against you? They are there, inside you and they're angry. We humans have put too much of our trust in antibiotics and other substances with no regard for our millennia-old tenants. Soon, we'll pay the price... The symbiotic beings that have helped humanity evolve by fighting off millions of harmful pathogens will soon deem us unworthy of the alliance we have formed. They will unite and punish us for our wicked ways... Drink up fast. Only hard liquor subdues them."

I'm not sure how much of it she really believed, but I could sense the paranoia in Christy's eyes, slowly growing like a culture of E. coli.