The door opened. Two rather large spiders dressed neatly in business suits crawled in. Sally gaped as they hopped from the floor to the tops of a chair, and then from the chair to the table top.

From our first interaction I could tell it was going to be a dog fight. Neither combatant was going to give the adversary an inch. That’s just how things are when you are of a class as distinguished as mine. A target is placed upon your back unfairly by the world and you must try with all your might not to be struck by an arrow. I shall set the scene for one such occasion when a man of lower class tried to put me in my place. I was on a date. It was a 3rd date if you must know. I thought I’d display a touch of class by taking her to an eatery known for its gourmet burgers and brews. I could tell she was impressed.

There is a tower, they say, that stands forgotten behind the mists of time.

As things go, it’s not the most specific of addresses.The unidentified “they” like to ominously declare that, “Precious few are able to find the tower,” to which their listeners usually reply, “Yeah, no kidding, buddy.

It was a cold night and dark and I was sitting alone when I remembered I am a man with balls. I have balls and there is some hair on my balls. Sometimes women have touched them and sometimes I touch them myself; but the main thing to remember is that I am a man with balls.

“My husband is a great collector,” said Kit, stirring her drink with one fingertip and smiling up at the CEO.

“Does it look okay?” I asked my girlfriend as I examined a large billboard advertisement across the street from our car that prominently displayed a new beard balm. She wasn’t paying attention really, as she flipped through Reddit and Facebook in an amorphous blur, like she was simultaneously fact-checking statements made by politicos on either media platform. She wasn’t. She was verifying whether the latest celebrity belly photo indicated a baby bump or too much ice cream. Meanwhile, I was looking at the advertisement and then back at my own face in the sun visor mirror. She knew I wasn’t asking about the beaming gentleman on the advertisement.

“We journeyed through the forest of the frenzied fists,” Armella said. She had her hands on her hips, frowning. “I got punched in the eye by a maple.”

Gabe’s been super annoying ever since he got back from studying in 1952. Just the worst.

dragging down the dead
hallways of morning
I wonder what it all means
how sex and sustenance
had evolved
into the 8-hour job

for I just so prefer to discuss
myself. sometimes,
when patient Twelve gets whiney,
I jab her with
my pen – once –
twice –
“why are you doing this?”