Chinese Kinetics

I wish you could see the wool suit I have on. Pleated, three-button, navy blue, Enzo Barbagelata. It has the nicest deep pockets for my watch and my money stash, and a little inside pocket about one square inch where I keep my bag of coca. A humble Sicilian family made the suit just for me, you see. I paid over two-thousand dollars for this suit. Can you imagine how it makes me feel so creamy?

You think it might be a special occasion. But I don't just wear fine suits on special occasions, I wear them every day. I have a whole closet of suits. When you have money like I do, you can never have enough suits. Some of these suits I buy from families. Some of them I steal from the people I have killed, like tokens of victory. Sometimes I forget to wash them. You should see the faces of the wives when I pass by them wearing their husbands' suits. They smell the familiar smell on me and they know faster than any words could say.

One suit came from a man whose head I tied to the train track. I was so careful, not even one drop of blood on the suit, can you believe it? And then the man I stuck in a concrete block, I had to take his suit off first of course. What a beautiful man. Beautiful men have no need for suits, they are already so beautiful. He looked beautiful even after they discovered him at the bottom of the ocean, half his face eaten by sharks. I am so jealous. I will not look so beautiful in death. I am not even beautiful in life. So I wear a fine suit and it makes me look better.

I have been captured by the Chinese. I speak into a recorder now while the spinning saw blade lowers slowly toward my head. Idiotic Chinamen, they will cause the ruin of my suit. Two-thousand dollars into the toilet! They should instead inject gasoline into my heart, for example. Then they could keep the suit. But the Chinese do not appreciate a fine suit. My killers have on red and blue polka dot coats with white strings where buttons should be. They do not even appreciate a decent haircut, those Manchu imbeciles.

You see? Look at my blood gushing down onto these Super 150s wool collars. I made them promise me they would cut off my head, boil the flesh off of it and keep my skull as a souvenir. How can they do that when they are putting a sawblade through my head? And what a waste of a perfect suit! Such indignity for a man like me.

Twit

My name is Ash Stevens, and I am a vampire. Everything you've heard about vampires is true. Yes, I am immortal. Yes, I thirst for human blood; it's like milk and honey to me. I am especially fond of the blood of young nubile females with nice big naturals. Not only does their blood taste better, but their big boobs slow them down and make them easier prey. I guess it doesn't really matter since I can outrun and outjump anybody. I am also awesomely cunning, and I exude the irresistible sexiness of any good predator.

You would think that being a vampire is a pretty good thing, and in many ways, it is. But like I said, I am immortal. In fact, I am over one billion years old. Let me tell you, a lot happens in a billion years. For one, the sun has started burning quite a bit hotter, which is bad because it has killed off just about all life on this planet. That means I don't have anything to chase anymore, and as a result I've put on about thirty pounds. There are a few other vampires roaming around, but I don't like to chase them because most of them are assholes.

Also, the days are uncomfortably hot. It's four hundred degrees Fahrenheit today. I can't go to the beach because all the oceans have boiled off. I have a hard time seeing the sun because the atmosphere has transformed into something called a supercritical fluid. Let me tell you about supercritical fluids. These occur when the pressure becomes so great that the air and water no longer can support the phase boundary between liquid and gas, and they mix together in a really hot, uncomfortable way. Anyhow, the supercritical fluid atmosphere has decaffeinated all the coffee in the world, so now I can't even enjoy a good coffee buzz.

Being alive for a billion years has given me a great deal of time to think. I submit to you my latest philosophical quandary: If nobody is around to witness my sexy awesomeness, does my sexy awesomeness still exist? I don't believe it does. I can't even be sexily awesome to myself, since all the mirrors have melted and I can't see shit anyway. But there is one thing that I can still enjoy, and that is Venezuelan cilantro. Whereas all the other fragile fucking life in this world has been dead for as long as I can remember, Venezuelan cilantro is still thriving. And let me tell you, that shit is delicious. It's how I keep my anxiety level down.

Look, I'm just screwing around with you, there's really no Venezuelan cilantro. Are you kidding me? It's four hundred degrees right now. Fuck this crap.

Rhapsody in Bum

As he strolled through the darkening twilight across the gritty bumscape of south Seattle’s wasteland dockyards, he inhaled deeply upon the cold, salty port air. This ravished his lungs deliciously. His footsteps were a sort of aural companion as he swiftly passed the Jefferson Street Mission, where the rock-bottom-dwellers came to feed, find God and shelter themselves from the northwest winds.

He was awash in a sea of homelessness; he sailed on the backs of despondent transients and parallel-universe-inhabiting lunatics. His favorite was the one that sat outside the Zeitgeist and yelled, “We are the best! We are number one! That is who we are! And that is what we want!”

He considered himself the King of the Bums, a title he wore with bravado and gravitas. He walked amongst his people; he shepherded them; he gazed over his kingdom majestically.

And as dusk finally vanished beyond the sound, he thought of a time when angels spoke to shepherds and shepherds were kings. He thought of Herod, looking out over Judea from his mountain temple; he thought of Achilles, standing defiantly upon the barren Trojan plain, spear in hand.

“My purpose,” he declared to nobody in particular, “is to champion these bums and their bum lifestyle.” He knew that every man needed a purpose. To suffer for that purpose was a man's purest realization of his own nobility. And he was prepared to suffer in the highest -- which made him the noblest of all. Hence his self-proclaimed apotheosis to the wayward man’s throne.

His sneakers were his chariot; his vodka his mead; his quilted cap his crown. First avenue was his empire.