Savage Tales

rights of humans, perhaps even more.
    Why do we spend so much of our lives trying to organize the unorganizable? All I seek is an unchanging mass of reality. But conversation is nothing like that. All conversation is change.
    "How do I use this software?"
    I was taking a class on software deconstruction via Fortean analysis (this is not the actual topic but I can't remember that far back and I want to paint the tones of how it felt to me).
    "You need help?" the instructress asked, a busty nerd woman. I wasn't attracted to her but a healthy curiosity to see her naked existed in the bowels of my pants.
    "I don't believe I'll need any help, but if I do I'll shout!" I said.
    "You're already shouting."
    "That doesn't imply I need help."
    "Doesn't it?"
    "Does it?"
    "Well..."
    I had forgotten the question, the topic.
    "Yes?" I ventured.
    "See me after class."
    "It's already after class," I said. "Look around you. Everyone's gone."
    "Then who have I... been instructing?"
    "Instructress, if instructing ghosts and the invisibles was your only eccentricity then we might be lovers."
    "That's all that separates us?"
    "Yes."
    "Never to be overcome?"
    "I resolved on December 31st of the previous year to never seduce another instructress."
    "There have been others?"
    "Hence another , my wording."
    "And what if I was to do the seducing?"
    "Thus turning into a... seductress?"
    Every dog has his day. Every day has its sun. Every sun has its planets. Every planet has its dogs. Every dog has his day.
    "I should warn you, I vow never to use protection," I said.
    "Is this another one of your resolutions?"
    Had it been? Even I couldn't remember. If so, I couldn't imagine why I had chosen such a callow commitment. Perhaps it was to balance out some safe and healthy resolution, attempting to load the cannon of karma. But why couldn't I remember this counter-resolution? Never mind. I was having sex and that was all there was to it, and if it meant slapping a johnny on my willy to please some female's concept of safety, I was all for it.
    "Yes, but I'll break it if you insist."
    We mated for several minutes, removing only the necessary clothing appendages to give us access to each other's genitals. Was it good sex? I'm not even sure. It's hazy in my memory now, three hours later. I do remember reaching into my backpack afterward and opening a pack of cigarettes that I kept handy for just such occasions. They had passed their expiration date, but it was a day for living dangerously. And how could they possibly hurt me, those no-longer-fresh cigarettes? Give me cancer? Rot my skin? No thank you, surgeon general, I'll take my risk with a pound of butter bedrooled atop it.
    Right. We used butter at one point. I can't remember except through the use of imagination how it dripped into her buttcrack and I squeezed her cheeks together to make it melt a lil faster. Pause that moment on your inner VCR and savor it. I have. I freeze it. And that's what I'm talking about. But really, you can't pause reality. It just goes on. That butter melts. That seductress packs her things and goes home to be with her family. I go home to cry and watch episodes of Casper the Friendly Ghost .
    At some point while watching the cartoon ghost I remembered a resolution I'd made involving the viewing of spectres, haunts, the undead, ghosts, ultradimensional beings etc in any form of moving image media, and I cursed myself for breaking not one, but two resolutions in a day. I'm tempted to flagellate myself in the basement, but I refrain because I had also resolved to no longer flagellate myself.
    Come morning I realize another year has passed. The sun rises on an ultraviolet sky. The creamy menstruation of time's ebb and flow. The dystopian dream that was last year can be put to rest at last.
    "Have fun," somebody tells me. It's only a TV commercial. They only want my money, but I say thanks anyway.
    "You have fun too, TV person."

MARK'S NIGHTMA RE

    1.
    I was starting to feel like a pro. Like I had my shit together. Like the buzz of adrenaline was being replaced by the sharpness of professionalism. Like I could just glide in like the wind through a crack in their rich house walls and breeze away with their goods in hand. Whatever I could get. Electronics if light. Jewels. Drugs. Fine cheeses (al l right, haven't looked in any fridges yet, but one day I'll get hungry).
    Actually it was this time. I was so psyched up that I forgot to eat. I'd gone to the gym and beat the bag a