Menelaus’s hoary beard is stained red with Trojan blood. Lo, how he sits grieving at the prow of the flagship of a thousand ships, the craggy furrows of his brow deepened with the loss of his brethren, of Patroclus, of dishonored Ajax brought low by his own hand, of even the mighty Achilles. His powerful shoulders bend under the weight of a ten years’ war.

Nearby, his wife Helen is moodily gazing at the horizon, smoking a jay.

“This fucking thing will be the death of me.”

It was January 10th, 2022, and I was finally taking the goddamn toaster out of the box to set it up. The toaster was a Christmas gift from my wife. She moved out a few days after that. I received the separation agreement from her attorney last week.

“You don’t just need to step outside of your comfort zone!” shouted Vince Tickleman, “You need to leap out of it!”

It started on my hands, but I gave it no mind since I’d always had sensitivities. Food, dander, dust—people. They gave me the hives. Especially women. You could ignore men. Even act like they didn’t exist. Females were a different species, though. If you didn’t breathe, think, feel women, you had a condition.

“So,” he says, moping his nostril rims with a tissue, “what’s your interest in the frog?”