He was destitute, without hope, and a loser at life. He drove off the only woman who had ever taken an interest in him. But he still knew the world existed, with or without him. because there were those who were trying to contact him. But everything landed in his email's junk folder.

Yet, maybe...just maybe someone cared. Maybe someone was reaching out to him.

But probably not, he sighed. He was still bitter about that Nigerian prince who had what was left of his saving. He would miss his mortgage payment. And what he had learned from over half a million dollars in student debt was that it didn't matter whether he was here or not.

Not.

He contemplated it. Everything pointed to his ending it all. He was at the breaking point. If he were to suffer just one more reason to leave this Earth, be given just one more indication he should do it now, he wouldn't be able to resist. He'd hit critical mass in suicidal ideation. What would be that last thing? he wondered.

He opened his email's trash bin, and the very first one he saw, the most recent one—as if it were a direct response to his question—he read:

Complimentary cremation discount offer.

Of course, it was meant to be marketing an estate-planning strategy. But it made even more sense for him to—as the offer read—take advantage of this smart opportunity because, even better, there was no interest nor any payment due for 12 months.

It was a time-sensitive offer, he realized.

Systolic pumping

Explodes each carefree moment

To distribute life

With a beat here and one there

To my parts everywhere

.

I am flush with life

One stroke at a time, in time

Until the final

Feeds my brain its farewell

And resignation as well

THE BUNT

In the VIP room, I said the wrong thing to her, as is always my fatal flaw in all of my come-ons. But she misunderstood me. Thank God! I mean, I don't know what she thought she heard, but I wasn't into diagramming sentences. And what she thought she had heard was the right thing, apparently.

She told me I was a great kisser.

I thought about baseball. She was a great pitcher, with never a wrong thing said, especially that compliment. Compliments come few and far between, so when a pitcher throws one, I swing, I connect, and I scramble. So there I was, safe at first base.

STEALING SECOND BASE

This distraction allowed me to cop an outside feel. I surveyed the bases, and I assessed the weak links in the field. I kneaded her breasts like a hungry baker with dough. She liked it. She allowed the steal.

THIRD BASE

Emboldened, I wondered if I was moving too fast. But then, after all, she was a sex-worker. Her bust was full, and so were her lips. I synchronized my "great" kissing with my handwork. It was great teamwork.

My fingerprints were all over her skin, everywhere—so much that if there were any foul play (foul balls?), I'd be a person-of-interest, for sure.

Ten fingers. One tongue. The rest of my team was playing ball like a well-oiled machine. Ten fingerprints, ten simultaneous moans. She had been in control, but somewhere she dropped the ball. Her error, my opportunity. I didn't want just a popup, so I thought about baseball. Guys, you know what I mean. Just baseball.

I dropped my pants.

HOME

It was a great line drive, but she rejected my play. I had gotten greedy and dared too much. But then another man peaked in. It was my wingman. He wanted in. He would catch the ball for her, to throw me out. I should have traded him when I had the chance!

He had heard what I had told her to get her out into her bullpen, so he repeated it. The very thing she had misunderstood.

This time, she heard it right.

She became enraged. She threw him out. And as if to seal the rejection, she dropped her pants, too. I scored!

While I knew what she had heard—correctly—from my wingman, which was his unintended sacrifice, I must figure out what she thought she had heard from me—incorrectly. No team motto is worth its salt if it doesn't drive the runs home.

Italics is the typographic equivalent of underlining. Detalics is the typographic equivalent of undermining. Normally, italics is a slanted (to the right) cursive font of calligraphic handwriting, first used by Aldus Manutius and his press in Venice in 1500. Alternatively, detalics is slanted to the left.

It is a subtle distinction, as opposed to life and death, which are, respectively, underlined to the right and to the left.

I feel that nothing I do is important, nor worth underlining. I live my life in detail. I live leaning to the left. Does that sound sinister?

My biggest fear in life is that there will be—understood in a goes-without-sayingvsort of way—an embarrassing, deprecatory, and/or shameless exposure of me, relegated to that most feared of typographic sentinels.

What is that? you ask.

That sentinel can be affixed to my name. It is like a bullet that goes through both sides of my head, ending up outside, to the right. (Thus, like italics, it—and bullets, in general—lean to the right.)

And that typographic mortal blow is the asterisk.

I have an asterisk next to my name as if it is following me, and it is, because it follows my name.

It could be worse.

I could be followed by a footnote, with a full haranguing diatribe encased forever in posterity. A philippic of venom. A tirade a dozen invectives more than a full rant. (1 rant + 12 invectives = 1 rant.)

I block my entire legacy to change the font, style, and point-size. But that's not good enough. After blocking it again, I [CMD+X] it. Poof! There goes the Garamond. Poof! There goes the bold! The italics! The detalics!

But somewhere there is a remnant of it all—of me in detalics—written in cursive. In a notebook. One with coffee stains on it and perhaps even some squashed bug foolish enough to worm its way in between some pages further compressed by the coffee mug itself.

That bug is me.

Better that I not be an open book. Better that I be glyphicked in byzantine scribblings that only a cypher on the other side of the world can de-cipher. Reverse the tilt from left to right. De-talic the detalics until the sinister decays in reverse from maladroit to adroit. I long to be a droit. I long to be italicized, my asterisk plucked away and my footnotes whitewashed like weatherworn graffiti.

There is vision and there is visionary.

I look—I look hard.

Immaculate skies waft toward me at 475 nm.

A blanket of clear blue is beautifully clear, but cruelly dishonest.

Still and quiet, the silence hides the turbidity of a roar behind it.

What will follow, I foresee, is black and intangible,

But it will be delivered as flak.

Thus, it means to kill me.

The missiles are aimed at me by persons I do not know.

And they don’t know me.

Oh, but our nations know each other very well.

Clear skies are quiet and warm and calm.

But death is noisy and black and, having no wavelength,

Absorbs all living wavelengths.

The birth of Man was white—all colors, all possibilities, all at once, all the time.

Prismatic unfolding was our history.

But black is our death.

That’s the way I see it.

A visionary vise

Holds me fast as all fades to black...

I spent a week

In Battle Creek

To write content for backs

Of cereal packs

The hardest thing I found

Was coming 'round

To finding content befitting

Breakfast food while sitting

My assignment was Rice Krispies

And Frosted Flakes, fifty-fifty

And authoring about taste

To make them sound GRRREAT

But Krispies are mostly air

Except for the arsenic that's there

And Flakes are mostly sugar-refined

Contributing to my large behind

Post and Quaker want me badly

And now the other cereals—madly

Next job of which I'm dreaming

Are limited series on network streaming

Conquer or concur

Roar on or gently purr

Embrace or deter

The choices that were

Flight or fight

In the day before the night

The dark will blur my sight

The light will slight the fright

I stand at both alone

With warmed heart or chilly bones

Whether still lost or tucked at home

The event devolves in foam

Run or stay

Live—or not—another day

There's never time to pray

For the quintessential way

So, this is it.

I'm away and can't take any calls right now. But if you whisper whatever sentiments you wish, I'll be sure to engage with them in the order in which they were received.

Cara: I love you, Dad. I hope you know you gave me a wonderful life. What my life would have been like without you! Stay in my head and you'll hear that every day. Forever.

Phoebe: I love you so much. You'll always be with me. I hope you're right about what you said—what happens when we die. I'm sure you are, so I will always be living with you.

Blaise: Dad, they say of all your children, I'm the most like you. I can feel that. Your love, your empathy, your sense of humor, and your sense of purpose. I hope I stay like you as long as I can: it's my lifetime goal.

Luke: Daddy, I know I was special, and I know how special I was to you as you cared for me, kept me healthy, even cleaned up after me—all the joules and ergs of extra work. I hope what I gave you was worth having a special child. When I die, I will finally be able to see you, walk with you, and even run. I'll finally be able to understand the world that I can't grasp or navigate like everyone else.

Evan: Dad, you've been my template, despite the different directions the rest of us have gone. I've gotten my mores, work ethic, and perspective of our world in the universe from you. How could I navigate it otherwise? I hope you're right when you said we're trapped in 3-dimensional cross-sections, but we've always existed and will always be. That's a great life comfort—how this life is both important and unimportant at the same time.

Linda: How do I offer my love to my husband without using clichés? You are everything to me and I'll have a hard time without you. But if you're right, then spending the rest of my life with you will be the only forever that matters to me. I love you. And what I say next will say it all: I'd do it all over again.

Your wishes, dreams, and sentiments are now part of me. I carry them with me as I drift off. Different functions are going away; I can feel it.The distractions of my motor and sensory cerebral hemispheres are fading. The coordinating instruction sets of my cerebellum are no longer needed. My self-embrace is now cradling my limbic system.

Was I right? Is the rest of my afterlife next? Or is it just oblivion? If it's just oblivion, it won't matter, because I'll no longer be. Oblivion really hurts—just on the front end: now, while just fearing its possibility.

I pray I was right. Having you all would be such a loving way to engage eternity. And with the universe, no longer constrained by mere skull.

Hello. Welcome to QNN Evening News. I’m Hirrient Tril. Breaking as we come on the air, on this very busy news night:

--Horrific 2-car crash kills 14 and injures dozens of others.

--The NAACP balks at the administration’s recommendation to change its name.

--TikTok goes to half-speed operations while the new deadline approaches for shutdown or sale.

--The recent executive order dismissing all of those working in the Unemployment Office sets a new bar for irony.

--Explosive scandal rocks the National Bridge-on-the-River Choir.

--More worms found in RFK, Jr.’s head.

--Marvel superhero movies blamed for autism spectrum disorder.

Those are the latest understandings, mis-, or not. And now, for the revisions:

A horrible car crash involving only 2 cars has killed 14 people and injured dozens of others. At first, it was suspected that the colliding cars had landed on a group of pedestrians to account for that number of casualties. On the scene is QNN correspondent, Suzy Sucklipz. Suzy?

“Thanks, Hirrient. Yes, it was assumed the two cars had struck an entire crowd of Democrats, but after the facts emerged, the incident was found to have involved at least one clown car, which could easily explain the number of those killed and injured.”

What about the other car? Any details?

“The other car initially was felt to have had no survivors, as it was eerily silent for some time, until first responders identified its occupants as three mimes, still buckled in and gesticulating wildly. Keeping them in the car were imaginary glass barriers they pointed out using the flattened palms of their hands.”

And the clowns who survived?

“Well, with so many casualties, this presented quite the logistics problem in getting them all to hospitals. Currently, we’re still waiting for a clown-ambulance, which has only been used once before, after that Big Top collapse catastrophe 14 years ago.”

I remember that. What a circus!

“You bet, Hirrient. Three rings. Although the clowns crawling out of the carnage were cited with a ‘too-soon’ clown offense when they were seen to have their pants down. As you know, the penalty for such a clown crime calls for mandatory shoe deflation.”

Sad, Suzy. Just sad. Now for politics. The NAACP has rebuked strongly a call to change its name because of many critics who have complained that they considered “colored people” to be derogatory. Its executive committee had especially harsh words for the White House recommendation, the NAAYP, or the “National Association for the Advancement of You People.” Covering our political beat is our own, Notso Fatso. Notso?

“Yes, Hirrient. Were they angry! When the press secretary was asked, as a rhetorical question that went right over her head, “What people,” she only responded, “You know what people. Everyone knows what people, am I right? When asked about the possibility of NAAWP, or the National Association of We People, the dwarves lobby objected.

Notso Fatso, at the White House. Back to you.”

There’s no pleasing some people, Nosto.

“What do you mean, some people, Hirrient? Ha ha.”

Ha Ha. In other news, TikTok is making contingency plans for its postponed demise. As a show of good faith, it has begun operating at half-capacity, offering only the Tik portion of its platform. The German subscribers are particularly upset, bringing their grievances to the EU, saying, “Vee hab vays of makink them Tok.” Some have called for breaking it up, due to it being accused of being a monopoly, into Tik and Tok. But that’s really a little tit for tat. Meanwhile, the clock’s also running on their copyright infringement suit against Tic Tac.

The Department of Irony (DOI) has issued a red-flag sarcasm warning now that all the management positions of the National Unemployment Office have been given notice of their pending dismissals. “Where will we all go now?” asked CEO Tempero Fugit. “I mean, once we’re gone.” We here at QNN answer, “Who cares?”

The Bridge-on-the-River Choir has hit a sour note now that its choir has been rocked by disharmony. While the sheet music is still pending, the choir conductor has been treated for decrescendo. Rising to the position from humble beginnings as a solo castrato, he was quoted as saying, “It’s not really all about the bass,” but only dogs that have been neutered could hear him, which may even top the irony from the Unemployment debacle.

More to come on this very busy news night. Wormipedes were found in RFK, Jr.’s head, this time several feet long and from the 6th dimension. And the American Pediatrics Association has published its findings on how Marvel superhero movies are contributing to the rise in autism spectrum disorder. The Hulk fires back, right after these messages.

All men are created equal

But they all begin as women

Y? you ask. Y, indeed:

There's a new hormone in town

All men are created equal

But the race skews the track positions

The outer runners must run harder

Until the playing field evens

All men are created equal

But their billion women hide, unseen and mute

In religions a thousand years behind:

A billion is a terrible thing to waste

All men are created equal

But slings and arrows rain from high

Equality absconds from the inner runners

The human race allows no rematches

All men are created equal

But society sorts them out

And politics and legacies and birthright

Against the ones who fall behind

All men are created equal

But mistakes and luck and poor decisions matter

And equality grants no second chances

Initial classlessness decays in plain sight

All men are created equal

But what happens to them, after that, is up to us