Yo boyfriend so nasty, he gets off to your yearbook photos.

More people peel bananas each year than bananas peel people.

There are more planes in the sky than in the ocean.

When the sun goes away, it gets dark. When the moon goes away, it gets bright.

Fish swim more than you do each and every year.

At least one in ten people across the globe live on planet Earth.

Every time you eat food, food enters your body.

Every bee that stings you knows how to fly.

There will be a day when you’ll smell something you’ll never smell again.

You can tell if someone is a bad driver by if they cause accidents.

If you cut someone with scissors, you can fix them by cutting them up a bandaid.

Crabs are caught and served as a delicacy at many restaurants because they’re too slow.

Lobsters live forever until you kill and eat them. You will then live forever until experiencing a similar fate.

There is an undisclosed amount of cannibals that get pranked every April with beyond meat foods.

The natives were so native to America that the colonists hired Woody Guthrie to convince them to give up a share.

Every year, people die from unknown causes because if they knew how to get out of it, they probably wouldn’t have died.

The most bullied piece of musical equipment are guitar strings which get picked on quite a bit.

More seagulls fly through the air than through the sea.

Yo mama so seductive, when yo dad cheated on her she got engaged to the sidepiece.

Five little fingers laid out on a table

Two are for you, three are for me. Maybe the other hand could do us some good,

Sprinkle on pepper and sesame.

You can have one, but you must save the other

Earth’s hungriest men are known only for hunger.

—

Mealtime with my family; my grandparents have gotten older, so they tend to eat dinner earlier and earlier. This night, dinner’s at five o’clock sharp, and though I’d rather wait a while longer for dinner, I decide I can’t object to their desired schedule. I have to be courteous while I’m around them, mother told me, and I’ve done well understanding and keeping with that rule.

Grandma’s been fine through the past week. I saw her out in the garden when I arrived, and she showed me the new flowers and plants she’d gotten around to growing all along the property. She told me she had gotten into a bit of a tulip craze (mentioning more than once that her being Dutch must have something to do with it) and had gone wild for squash and tomato plants, of which she had multiples. The garden had been laid out sprawling across the entire perimeter of their lawn, and mixed into those top interests of hers were other flowers she had gotten into caring for. She toured me around the lawn in a proud manner that lead me to only be able to congratulate her accomplishments and tell her that I was proud of all she had done. She seemed overjoyed to show it all off to me.

Grandpa, sadly, remained rather worse for wear. From the moment I walked inside up until now, he’s been in bed. He’ll get up occasionally but only really for the bathroom, for a meal, and then back to bed. Grandma told me that he moved around much more than usual last Friday when he walked to the shed and fixed up its busted doorknob. I couldn’t help but realize that even an activity such as that required almost minimal effort; grandpa’s scaring me, and I know he doesn’t mean to but his condition’s gotten much worse than assumed. I hope he’ll be okay. I miss when he would take me fishing and out about the town to gas stations and to lots where he’d make money for tree branches he’d send in. He’s got that heart still, I know that much, but his physicality, that’s where it hurts most.

Every time I visit their house, it seems to grow smaller. I’m sure this has to do with the fact that I’ve gotten older and taller, but it’s still so strange being here and seeing all the furniture. The space is so limited in comparison to how I remembered the place. When I could run around and climb up these metal poles they have in the basement and wander up to the attic without even having to duck my head down. I truly must have grown, must’ve grown a lot. Of course, that’s what grandma told me when she saw me, before showing me around the garden. The second thing she asked, of course, was about my left arm.

“My, my, what happened to your arm?”

For the past four months, my left arm’s been placed in a sort of cast, a cast specifically tailored to me. Of course, it’s embarrassing to talk about and even to think about, so I had them get me a cast I could wear so I wouldn’t have to be seen out in public without a hand, even after healing. And obviously, I hadn’t thought to tell my grandparents. I couldn’t have them know about it; grandma would probably make fun of me or something.

“I fractured my hand playing a game at school,” I lied to her. “I have to be in this cast for a couple of months while it heals.”

“Oh my, that’s awful,” she responded with some tone of disgust. “How long ago did it break?”

“A few weeks ago; it hasn’t been very long.”

“I see,” she said. And then suddenly, “May I see it?”

A thousand thoughts ran through my mind, most thought-provoking of all, what do hospitals do with amputated limbs like that? Do they just throw them away immediately, or..? But I was also completely confused about her wanting to see and told her that my hand would be that much better kept in the cast and not moved around too much. She seemed content with the answer and didn’t bring it up anymore. Instead, she turned to plants and said:

“Look what I’ve done!”

"Officer, can you step in my office for a second?"

"Yeah, sure," I responded. I knew what I was being called in for.

The truth is, for the past couple of months, I've found myself sleepwalking in a state that I can't get myself out of. I don't know what I'm doing and I can't see what's going on, but I can feel myself moving. Walking. I'll wake up in some random part of my house, outside my doorstep, in random places. The farthest from home I've ever woken up was near a dumpster I discovered was behind a McDonald's a little under half a mile from my house. I had never heard of such a thing, and the thought of telling the professionals I work with every day made me feel a little embarrassed. This wasn't something I could comfortably talk about unless awfully pressured into it, and I figured that had to be why Mrs. Harlow wanted me in her office.

I've been waking up and coming in to work late.

I sat down in the visitor's chair as she shut the door behind me, and she walked round her desk and sat down, her elbows on the table and her fingers interlocked.

"Officer Stuart," she said, "do you know why I called you in here today?"

"I think so. About me coming in late?"

"Yeah, what's been going on with that? Are you getting enough sleep?"

"I've been sleeping okay."

"Oh, you have?"

"Yeah."

"What's been going on with you coming in late?"

I sighed.

"This is a dumb reason, I get it, but while I've been sleeping okay, something's been happening."

“Something?.. As in what?”

“Now, I know this is stupid so bear with me here but I’ve.. I’ve been sleepwalking. That’s what’s going on. It’s been happening for over a month now and no issues have come up from it until this week.”

“Yes, as you’ve begun to come into work late.”

“It’s embarrassing, I didn’t want to tell you or Dave or Bryan because of embarrassment. It hasn’t been an issue so I thought it’d be fine not to mention.”

“But now it is a deal, Stuart. Stuart, you’re a police officer. If you can’t come in to work on time because of troubles sleeping, how does that look?”

“I understand that that doesn’t look good..”

“This is a serious job. You know that. And if you can’t fill in the entire time you’re supposed to be here, coming into work either late like you have been, not showing up at all, what have you, you better tell me or Dave or Bryan or any of your other commanding officers so that that is taken care of. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I responded, feeling rather uneasy and dreadfully helpless.

“Have you been taking any new medication lately?” She asked me in a distinctly different tone than the one she had been building.

“No, I just take my vitamins. I stopped getting allergy shots back in January, I know that that’s not very much related at all but those two are really the only medications I’ve taken in the past year.”

“January.. 3 months ago?”

“April.. yeah, 3 months ago.”

“I’m going to ask you a question, a little weird one, okay? Have you got your phone on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead and take it out.” I did as was instructed. “I want you to go through your camera roll, texts, anything and tell me what you did on the day of March 22nd.”

“March 22nd?”

“Yes.”

“Well I know off the top of my head that was the day before the first murder case,” I told her. “I’ll look but I remember I had a cookout for the neighborhood that day. Fired up the grill for the first time in a while and just invited people from the block over to have fun on a Saturday.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll ask you one more question, alright?”

“Yes, ma’am. Anything.”

“How’s the search going on the killer?”

A routine question, yet it struck me in some kind of way. The way she asked reeked of distrust in the sense that she was accusing me of something, insinuating, involving me in the crimes. I didn’t have a clue how to take it besides treating her, like always, as my boss.

“The search hasn’t come up with any one particular suspect yet,” I told her. “I have some suspects but nothing concrete yet.”

“You’ve told me about one of them, a Anthony Hopkins, you said. Anything on him?”

“He’s got a record for shoplifting. Last year, he got into a big altercation with his landlord at the time and put him into the hospital. Could be something.” I remembered at that moment that there was a piece of information I was meaning to tell her, and I let it out.

“I’ve gone back and tried to review the tape, but something strange happens when I do. Not only for that one crime on the 23rd but every time the killer has been caught on camera.”

“Which is?”

“He’s blurred out,” I said. “I can make out that he’s lanky from the looks of him I could make out from the pixels, kind of like the way I am, but he’s all blurred and indistinguishable. Anthony Hopkins is 6’ 4”, Officer Hopkins. My height. So height-wise, that does match. But he’s always blurred out so I can never get anything concrete.”

Out of nowhere, she began to look puzzled. This wasn’t an expression I knew her for, it seemed from a genuine response to something, maybe to something I had said, that must’ve set her off.

She spoke into her walkie-talkie asking for someone from security to come to the office before addressing me. I didn’t understand why.

“Why didn’t you mention this to me earlier?”

“I was only officially given access to the footage yesterday. Today’s the first time I’ve gotten the chance to mention it to you.”

“In the videos, our guy’s the only one blurred out? Not his victims?”

“No, not the victims. Just him. It’d be hard to spot him anyway because of the bad lighting from each of the videos, but the pixilation makes it impossible to make out anything definitive.”

“Can I see some of the footage now? Do you have anything saved on your phone?”

“None of it’s on my phone.. but I emailed you and Bryan a link to one of the videos. You could pull it up on your computer, it should load.”

“Alright.”

She went ahead and got it going. One of the security staff came in as she began onto the email and started the footage.

It was instantly obvious the moment our killer stepped into frame that he was completely and utterly pixelated and that even though it could be determined that he was facing the camera on his way out after the attack, no distinguishable features could be made out.

The footage showed the killer walking up to an elderly lady walking by herself down the street. No explanation for why the lady was there walking at that time of night, right after 21:00, but she headed in the direction our guy was walking from.

I expected Officer Harlow to be upset, questioning the possibility that the footage had been hacked or tampered with in some way. But what I saw was a look on her face that didn’t look puzzled or mad. Instead, she squinted in a way that gave off some feeling of insight, as if she knew something that I didn’t. I became the puzzled one. Why was she looking like that?

The footage continued and I noticed she and the security guy were looking more at me than at the screen. An unsettled feeling came down on me; I kept my eyes focused on the crime scene and made sure I didn’t look over at Harlow and the guard.

Our suspect, now close to the old lady, stopped walking. He stood still about 10 feet in front of the woman, who stopped walking herself and seemed thrown off by the situation and the man’s look.

After a moment of tension with the lady beginning to appear worried, she turned around to go back the way she came.

As soon as her back was turned, the man pulled out a gun from his right pocket and shot her twice; the first bullet got the back of her head just above her neck, and the second aimed and went right into her spine. The lady toppled over fast. She had moved a hand over the head wound as she fell forward onto the pavement, grasping at it as if she had a nasty headache or a concussion.

The man, our suspect, was peculiar. Any sane criminal, any person with a sense of fear of being caught and tried, runs from a crime scene. They want to show no relation to the events taking place unless they’re trying to send a message or committing an atrocity in an act of revenge. But this crime seemed different. He didn’t turn and run or step closer to the body. What would’ve made more sense if they were completely out of it.

He stood still. He had lowered his gun but hadn’t put it away. It was just out there by his side. He kept looking at the lady he had just murdered, I had to check the little clock in the bottom corner to make sure the screen hadn’t gone frozen. He faced directly at her becoming corpse and kept so for about 15-20 seconds.

Finally, he put his gun into his right pocket and took a step back before slowly turning around and going back the way he came. But even then he walked slow, poised. A few other cameras picked up his walk away from the scene, but he eventually stepped out of sight. The footage ended abruptly.

I felt a gripping sense of needing to say something because of the looks on their faces. Harlow wasn’t saying anything and the guard wasn’t either. I felt their stares.

"Goodness," I said in response to the footage, although I had already viewed it over twice.

“Yeah,” said Harlow. “Any more footage of this guy?”

“That’s the only link I’ve received, the only one I’ve heard that was recorded. The others happened in people’s homes or around neighborhoods, not one that’s usually recorded and surveilled.”

“Okay..” She thought for a moment before speaking again and I let her do so without butting in. “Have all the crimes happened within the same area?”

“With the exception of this one and one other, yes. They’ve all happened close to where I live, I believe. I can run you over the files and tabs I’ve gathered on evidence and locations but the bulk of the murders have happened not far away from my house.”

“Really?” Harlow asked in a tone that didn’t seem thrown off in the way I had anticipated.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been thinking that’s why I’ve been having trouble sleeping, this all happening so close to me. The sleepwalking’s scaring me, too, and I know I should’ve talked to you guys about that already. Now that I’m talking about it now I think I’m going to try and see a doctor about it before anything bad happens.”

“I understand,” Harlow said. She turned to look at the security guy she had called into the room, still without explanation.

“10-35,” she said, and that was all.

“10-35?..” I spoke out fast with a flush of anxiety, and then everything went dark. The man from security nodded at her code, and immediately he came upon me.

---

I awoke in a cell. I had my same clothes on (my uniform, though my weapons were missing) and all of the cells around me were vacant. I knew this place, but not from the position I found myself in. This was the city jail, from the numbers of the cells opposite mine I could determine I had been put into one of the farthest cells down deep into the facility. No one had explained to me why.

The camera in my cell flickered; after a couple of minutes of being up, I came to know that there was a red light just under the camera that would blink just about every 10 seconds as a sign that it worked and was picking up everything I was doing. I called up to it.

“Hey, Officer Harlow, Officer Finley..” I thought my way through other names. “Dean, if you’re there, bring someone down. Explain all this to me. What’s going on here?” I felt defeated inside the cell, an unexplainable essence of dread.

How long was I going to be down here behind these bars? When would I get an explanation? Why was I placed here?

The camera’s red light continued flickering, and every blink of red sent me farther and farther down a rabbit hole of rage. The cell was cold and unloving, with a nearly rock-hard bed in the corner with no other décor or furniture. I waited with a morsel of patience for someone, anyone to come by.

It was about an hour later, or at least what felt like an hour later, before a guard, the same one that Harlow sent earlier, walked his way over and stood just outside of my cell.

“Officer Stuart,” he said to me, “Do you know why they had me put you behind bars?”

“No,” I said rather distastefully, worked up still.

“This is going to be something to take in, and I know this isn’t exactly the best place to have this talk but they’re having me tell you the truth.”

“Yeah?”

“You haven’t been an officer long, right? Like a few months or so?”

“I was hired in December, I’ve been here 4 months.”

“4 months, yeah. Quick question for you, do you sleep with your gun on you?”

“Yeah, I do,” I told him.

“All of our guns have a little small chip on them on the handle. Here, take a look.”

The guard pulled out his gun, looked for the chip he mentioned, and held it up for me to view.

“You see it?”

“Yeah.. Yeah, I see it.”

“It’s small, I know. With our camera technology and our policing technology combined, they’ve added these chips on our guns to recognize that we work for the law, for the state. These chips can scan through state issued camera systems, I don’t know the exact science behind it but they can, and our department has been using this system to blur out deputies, sheriffs, officers and security like me from CCTV and security footage.”

“What?” I felt unnerved. “You can’t be serious.”

“I wish I was. Anything we do gets covered up for the most part, or at least enough to battle things out in court. You could guess the footage showed someone pulling out a gun and pulling the trigger, but it’s so blurred that nothing can truly be proven against any specific officer. This is a police state, I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

“Well yeah, I’m aware,” I blathered, “But I obviously didn’t think that this could possibly be something we’re doing.”

“Yeah, and I understand that. But you need to understand something and I don’t think you’ve caught on yet. The shooter’s blurry. Officer Harlow mentioned you thought they were lanky in the way that you are. 6 foot 2 inch guy, you fit that description. You see what I’m getting at?”

I was too stunned, shocked, to speak. I, on my knees, and the guard stood firm; I felt so small.

“The only reason you’re behind bars right now is because, as you mentioned, the guy in the video is lanky. If the footage gets out to the public, they’ll eventually find you. You killed that Lisa Montgomery that night. I don’t know how you did it, but you did. I don’t think you meant to, Harlow doesn’t either. So in an attempt to get you out of jail for 20 years to life, we’re going to run an experiment on you.”

The guard reached over to his back pocket and pulled out a different gun. I knew this gun to be mine.

“That’s your gun, I’m sure you can tell.” He handed it to me.

“Like I said, I don’t think you killed her on purpose. I think you know what that implies as far as.. the other murders.. but I want you to understand that if this experiment works, you’ll go free and will continue to be an officer, although you will never again be allowed to sleep with a gun in your pocket.”

“What experiment?” I asked in fear.

“Harlow’s decided that we’re going to keep you in this cell for 2 weeks, okay? You won’t be treated like a prisoner in terms of harshness against you. You can’t leave your cell for the 2 weeks except to use the restroom but you’ll be provided with good meals of your choosing.

“You will sleep with your gun in your pocket for all 14 nights that you’re here. 14 nights should be enough to prove your innocence or guilt. We’ll have eyes on you at all times. If on any of the 14 nights your gun goes off, if you shoot your gun, we’ll let you go free. But if you don’t on any of the 14 nights, we’ll have to keep you here. Officer Harlow has made sure that you will be scrutinized by multiple people, and if any of them think you purposefully shot your gun off so that you go free, you’ll be kept here.” He broke character for a moment. “I hate to do this to you, man. I believe that you did this while sleepwalking and that you weren’t consciously in control, but my God. The circumstances, you know?”

I didn’t know how to feel. Every bone in my body felt weak, every hair as if they were to fall off onto the floor. My eyes felt like crying but they remained dry. If I ever experienced a depressed emotion throughout my life, that would be the most horrid. Feeling that gun in my hands now, there was always a certain thing about machines and inventions that scared me.

“I killed them?” I asked.

“That’s how it sounds, man. You haven’t noticed bullets missing at all?”

“I..”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I really hadn’t realized all the bullets had gone missing. I had refilled the gun with a mental fog surrounding me; a routine maneuver.

Was it possible, really possible, that the hands that held my gun now, my hands, were the same ones that killed that woman? That older lady who had somewhere to be, even if she was only on her way home. All of those other people.

There was no mass murderer, there was a sleeping cop. A sleeping cop, and a blurring camera that was meant to cover my atrocities.

The guard’s walkie-talkie went off, someone on another side of the jail had beaten up an inmate, and bruised him badly. The walkie-talkie on my uniform must’ve had its batteries removed.

“I’ve gotta go help out up there,” he told me. “You have a right to life if you’re innocent. Don’t blow your brains out if you are.”

I looked out at him as he ran away from me, and when finally out of view, my attention turned to my gun. I had set it on the ground because it felt heavier than it ever had. And it looked more grotesque than ever the longer I stared at that thing. And the memories of practicing with that gun rang back through my head, and suddenly that person I was left the room.

14 days, that’s all it would take until out. That’s all. I still couldn’t believe what they had told me, but in 14 days I could go back to my bed, without a gun in my pocket, and I could try and get some rest. I could go back to being an officer, working on high-profile cases like I was hired for.

But there’s no life left with settled guilt of murder, and every glance at that gun of mine made its sound to my head more and more justified.

There was a time in a village unnamed when a witch came 'round each and every year on the eve of a dying summer and would appear with word of a new yearly curse. Given no exact date each year as far as could be told, the townspeople panicked as the summer winded down, and the town's farmers worried year after year over their harvest, for the witch possessed the power to ruin all the fields in their crops, or so was said.

In years previous, the witch had come and had turned the ground to sand; she had moved every tree 5 feet to the left, leaving many houses in ruin, and in the year before present, she had wished away the town's spoons. The only good bit of news involving her soon return was the fact that she reversed each prior wish when she came. She had turned the ground back to the way it had been before the sand, she had moved the trees back 5 feet to the right, and soon, she would bring back their spoons. To the children, the witch meant good news; they could eat cereal once again.

The day began swiftly as the colder temperatures began to kick in. Harvest season kicked off in a rigorous succession of the summer, and the witch arrived much the same. No one saw her come into town, though some speculated that she lived underground in an undisclosed location, and some claimed to have spotted her when in reality, they had seen some form of harmless animal on the village’s outskirts. She was an unkempt witch, with dark frizzled hair that appeared fried running down to her stomach and wearing all red. With a red hat on the top of her head, a red coat, tattered red pants, and an absence of shoes on her feet, she reeked of petulance.

The witch’s face was composed of much the same absurdity as her outfit. Eyes of slightly differing sizes (her left eye slightly smaller than her right, her left being orange in hue and her right eye blue), a nose that only barely ran with snot, cheeks that harbored moles, warts, and dirt, and a smile missing all but five teeth. Two on the top and three on the bottom. Unsettling, unsettled.

She had come, as she had years before, to the town square, an area of the road next to which an old-timey bar and a children’s playground were situated, and she yelled at the top of her lungs to alert the people that she had come and that they better arrive. It was believed that the more people present for her yearly wish made her kinder due to a greater amount of attention, and so when that scream came, everyone knew that they were to show up; drop what you’re doing, and come to the town square. She’s back.

Within five minutes, the entirety of the town’s population had shown up, which wasn’t much considering it was a village of only about two hundred-and-fifty, but it was all that could attend. The witch seemed satisfied with the turnout.

“All here?” she asked in a shriveled tone that must’ve smelled putrid up close. The villagers looked around and nodded their heads. Some of the children that had come began to cry; the witch paid no attention to these kids, and their parents shut them up by using their hands to cover up their mouths.

“You all know what happens next,” said the witch. She looked out to the children after their tears had halted, and aloud she said, “I wish for the villager's spoons to be returned to them.” Though nothing flickered or changed to the seeable eye, the people knew that when they returned home, there would be spoons right back to where they had been a year before, in cupboards, in shops, and most importantly, soon in the hands of the children. But this wish was merely one of two, and the villagers were plagued with quick flushes of anxiety.

“Okay,” she heaved. “Now, it is time. You all are to respect my wish and abide by it, and anyone seen attempting to reverse my curse shall be met with an even worse sentence. Is all understood?” The shivering townspeople nodded their heads, some saying “yes” as the question was asked.

“I wish..” spoke the witch, and the villagers held their breath in worried anticipation, “for the leaves to turn red during the harvest season as a reminder of my power.” The farmers clutched their hats, put their other hand in their pockets, and gulped down; worrying news.

Suddenly, the leaves around the villagers began to change. They turned an orange color immediately, some straight to red. It almost appeared as if the witch had done the spell wrong due to the variety of colors laid out around the town, but she seemed satisfied with the look of the newly colored leaves.

“The leaves will then turn back after the harvest season and the winter ends. I choose to be light this year and watch the pretty leaves; next year will be much, much worse.”

With these words, the witch turned around and walked off down the road past the old-timey bar and soon out of sight. But as she left, the voice of a child, whose mouth had become unbound, rang out, “I wish she could go away and never come back!”

Suddenly, though far away, it became noticeable that the witch had been lifted into the air by some unique force, and before they knew it, she had disappeared. Her frizzled hair, her hat, her pants, her diseased feet, all gone into the air before the men, women, and children, and in a flurry, the conclusion beset them all.

The witch wasn’t all-powerful like they had thought originally; this day of the calendar, or perhaps this time of the year, harbored some magic it seemed when anyone who had discovered the correct time frame could make a wish! A wish that could come true. And what the villagers found when the witch had been cast away was that the leaves she left were beautiful, and reflected well the feel the autumn gave to the farmers and the children.

The villagers decided to keep the leaves.

The decision was not a tedious one and began with a farmer, one who had but until that moment been utterly afraid, muttered under his breath, “my, I wish the leaves changed to be this color every year.” And some force did it for him, and for everyone else but couldn’t help but fall in love.

The years went by in annual succession, and every fall, the leaves turned red, as the farmer had wished. The witch remained wherever she had been cast, and though the villagers remained rather conservative in their wishes, some were able to get their way and make the most out of once was the worst time of year. The leaves were a reminder of a horrible curse, but as that farmer saw it, the leaves were leaves, and they were, like all the people of the town, absolutely beautiful.

I don't stick to any sort of a schedule, I write when I want to. That way, I don't force out anything that would or could be better. You get exactly what you click on.

That being said, I'm rather lazy. I try to post more, but I get crazy writer's block and can't continue. I've got college going on and a job and my fingers need a break after a while. I have plenty of posts, but only a handful of new ideas.

If you follow me, you give me a reason to keep going. I hope to one day make it big. I remember all my followers. When that day comes, you'll be remembered and revered.

A red light.

Color often means nothing in our lives, but when it comes to vehicles and laws, they suddenly mean everything.

The light stays red.

You’re there for a while, and you ponder the consequences if you go ahead. There’s no cars that’ll hit you, and you have some place to be. Just drive ahead a couple feet, all you have to do.

The light’s red for far too long.

What have you waited for? You’re out of time now. You’ve been done.

When the light changes, you speed as you can, but you’ve missed the event. Too late.

The bank went up in flames. Scattered people running to and fro on the streets, panicked. There are mothers out there flailing their arms, children that are shaking. Men that can make no sense of the horror that has unfolded around them. No peace, no protest. This is an act of hatred, jealousy. I can almost throw up.

The three of them that went in come flying back toward the van as I lower my head and reach within an inch of shedding a tear. Bruta slides open the side door and they shove in bags of cash, storming inside the van and slamming the door behind them.

“Drive!” one of them yells. With their masks on, I cannot tell who is who, which voice is which. Wing up front heeds the call, puts the van in drive while we’re all still a jumbled mess in the van, and zooms off far away from the bank. Outside I can hear people screaming, but I know that I must look down. I cannot look.

A hand rests itself down on my shoulder. I look up in a roar at who it is and it’s John. It’s John, and the expression on his face matches mine.

“We have to get out of here,” he must be telling me through his head. In the back of mine, I tell him I agree, and I think he understands.

There’s police sirens in earshot now; one cop car passes us on the way back to the dojo, not stopping us as they head to the bank that they’ve blown up. The bank we’ve blown up. This is not what I did for my mom. I wanted to join a peaceful protest. John and I, we did. We must get out. Now. And John looks at me again as I think this, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.

Collusion. Patriarchy. Istanbul. I don’t know what any of those words mean, but I do know something.

The Simpsons is a popular American show about jaundiced individuals living in the nations worst state capital. A significant point of interest about these diseased peoples is that often what happens in the show happens in real life. We’ve seen this phenomenon time and time again, from when The Simpsons predicted 9/11, to the time they predicted the Ebola outbreak. With so many accurate predictions, how is it possible so many were all correct?

Ladies and gentlemen, this were no predictions, these were planned events. It’s not often that federal agencies co-operate with kids cartoons, but it does happen. This is one of those cases.

The accidental use of a 9/11 magazine? Whoops, gotta do something to make this show have better ratings. Ebola outbreak? We could do that.

The fact of the matter is that when said cartoons make wild predictions, this is all part of the plan. Government agencies get royalties off of these shows, and making their “predictions” accurate not only controls the public but also reels them back in to these shows, making the government rich.

When I was 5, I was almost bit my a rabid bat. When I was 9, I stole over $40 from classmates and lost it all the day after. When I was 10, I threw up all over the main hallway of the Illinois State Capitol Building. Case in point, I am sporadic and a follower of multiple styles and ways of life. You’ll get that in my writing. I talk about psychological horror as much as I do comedy and satire. I am a walking recluse. If you decide to read my works, know that I’m 18 for the time being and that I’ll get better, I promise. Hope you all have a great rest of your day.