Jeff punched his work card and clocked out, grabbing his knapsack on his way out of his place of work. This exact scene was taking place at thousands of other places around the world but for one small detail: Jeff was an exotic pole dancer in the British Virgin Islands.
This wouldn't normally be anything to phone home about, but Jeff had triumphed over adversity and had even learned to emulate the esteemed English accent tolerably well. He had moved into a new apartment--a seedy one-room deal over a disreputable whorehouse--a few weeks ago. It was in an excellent location, a block and a half away from his place of work.
Jeff was hired at "Bad and Bawdy Boyz" as part of a diversity program instituted by the United Hookers' Front due to his ostentatious limp. The limp was incurred at a previous employment and thus details of this hapening are rather hazy and not generally well known. Jeff was always recalcitrant about his experience and limited his explinations to the age-old adage "stilletos and fishnets don't mix."
Even after his incarceration for pandering early on during his stay in the Commonwealth, Jeff had not kept his life squeaky-clean. Another pole dancing accident (completely unrelated to the OTHER pole dancing accident. Jeff was, after all, a hapless fellow, really...) diminished Jeff's chances of living a relatively normal life. (Relative, of course, to the other crippled exotic pole dancers with criminal records currently residing in the British Virgin Islands.) While performing a routine dance in the club, one night during happy hour, Jeff fell off the stage and into a transsexual with three pierced nipples who happened to be a cop.
Deputy Pablo Escobar was a dirty cop attempting to cast blame of an inter-office drug ring on some poor, unsuspecting, upstanding member of society. Typical cop stuff--no biggie.
While Jeff attempted to extricate himself from the 14-carat gold thong of one of his acquaintances, Pablo slipped a measure of cocaine (about 50 years to life's worth in Canada) into Jeff's fishnets. Unbeknownst to Jeff (but knownst to us) a police raid had assembled outside the establishment. In short order, our poor exotic dancer was arrested for posession with intent to sell, cuffed, printed and booked. Jeff is currently serving a life sentence in prison but will likely get out in six to eight months for good behavior and very very good buttocks.
We should probably inform you that this book is not about Jeff. In fact, he is not even mentioned or referred to even once during the course of the novel. This is just a random bit of information that you can read and promptly forget.
If, for some reason, you would like to help Jeff in his plight, send money to us and we will be sure to get it to him. That is, of course, if we are rich, happy and in the mood. If not, we'll hold it in trust until we BECOME rich, happy and in the mood or until we blow it all on lotto tickets. Whichever comes first.
Tony Bandolucci plopped his considerable girth into an old, grimey lawn chari in the kitcken of his grungey pizza parlour. He propped his muddy combat boots on top of the counter, toeing away a few wheels of cheese and a clump of tomatoes that looked to be on their last legs. Tony sat back and relaxed, wiping his dirty hands on his patched and stained apron and waited for his next customer.
The chimes hung just above the entrance to Tony's Pizza announced the arrival of his best customer. "What took you so long?" he asked loudly. "Time was, you were here at twelve sharp." He looked up, expecting to see the face of So Lo Hung, the Secret Agent Pizza Transfer Technician. Hung was a terrific agent in Bandolucci's opinion. One of his best customers. And, as his name implied...well...YOU know. And Tony knew. Oh so very well.
The facce he did see, however, was obviously not Hung's, since he had just been described in great detal, and inserting him would n ot only be predicatable, but also extrordinarily dull.
It was a boy. His hair was a bit too long and a bit too red. He was a bit too tall, and a bit too skinny. His face was a bit too effeminate and his clothes were a bit too dressy. He was probably a bit too straight, but Tony ignored that suspicion. Raising the right half of his unibrow, he suavely asked, "How YOU doin'?"
"I'm picking up enough pizza to feed the slavering hordes from a run-down, ramshackle pizza parlour half way accross town which is no doubt infested with mice and roaches, not to mention in direct violation of at least a dozen helth code violations, about to embark on the journey of my life with a top-secret government agency--with a pension, I might add-- but I am acting as the glorified pizza boy about to pick up two-dozen inferior pizzas at cut rate pricing from a homosexual wearing combat boots!" As he said "combat boots", he almost keeled over in grief. "I'm going to smell like cheese for the rest of my life," he added miserably.
So once again, it would probably be a good idea to warn you that this chapter is completely random. Bandolucci will not be making another appearance in the story, unless of course he decides to stip naked and dance on the counter of his little establishment. In that case, we would probably mention the occurance with a line or two of text later on. Nothing big.
We should also probably mention that Tony's Pizza is about to go out of business. After our dear pizza boy left the pizza parlour (with the two-dozen pizzas) he filed a complaint against Tony and the health inspectors were out in full force the next day. The fumigation costs left Tony bankrupt and the physical exertion expended while tidying the place up a bit gave Tony a heart-attack.
If you would like to help Tony, perhaps by paying his medical bills or perhaps getting him out of debt, send money to us and we'll mail it to him post haste at the hospital. Of course, if, by that time, Tony has been discharged, we reserve the right to keep the money and use it to fuel our new penchant for lotto tickets.
Ralph the dog sat in a patch of shade, tongue lolling and tail wagging. He was relaxing after a hard day of chasing squirrels, licking his own nuts, and castrating unwary male mailmen new to the route.
He rolled over onto his back and studied the big yellow blotchy thing that made his eyes hurt when he stared too long. Today he fancied it was dog kibble and attempted to reach it, lazily extending a paw.
His paw stopped in mid-air and he froze, sniffing in the breeze. A small gray cat sat a few metres away, hastily grooming its matted fur. A tiny white paw passed over ears chewed ragged, a bushy tail waving stiffly this way and that.
Before he could get up to chase it, his owner and that blasted step-daughter of his came out of the house and made their way over to him. They appeared to be arguing, which was old news, really. Diphthong unleashed a series of very colourful adjectives at Elph. She countered with a few scattered nouns, and then a well-placed adverb, a smattering of adjectives, and a handful of VERY PG-13 nouns. She continued by making a few statements that implied that Diphthongs mother had done something very unlikely with a Chihuahua. Diphthong tried to turn the tables back in his favour by making use of a poorly placed noun in an imperative sentence. The argument ended swiftly with Elph telling her step-father to go verb himself with a adjective noun, adverb-ly.
Ralph did not know what any of this meant, but he supported familial arguments wholeheartedly, since occasionally it meant one or both parties got so mad that they fed him twice.
If you would like to keep Ralph well-fed and alive, you heartless bastard, send money, priceless family heirlooms, and unwanted mothers-in-law to Alice and Steph. Of course, only the last will actually be fed to Ralph. The rest will be used to keep us out of jail after the unwanted mothers-in-law are fed to Ralph. If, in the event that we are not caught, all donations will be placed in the Quintessential Lotto Tickets Trust Fund, to be spent at our discretion. All goods and/or mothers-in-law are non-refundable, and letters begging for money to buy a house/Porsche/pay for mortgage/life-saving operation/prosthetic member, will be ignored.
P.S. We respectfully request that you not send us laundered money. We got in deep shit last time--cost us 50 lotto tickets.
It was at the age of puberty, when God experienced a surge of creativity. He was moping around, wearing gaudy robes, depressed at being completely alone in His existence. He really was alone actually, because all of existence was a void, having not yet been Created by Him. And then he realized, Dear God, I AM God!.
So, being bored and a bit moody, he decided to Create a universe to toy around with. It sure beat pulling the wings off the yet-to-exist flies.
Creating the universe was easy, though He screwed up a bit when it came to setting up laws and constants for everything. Though hed made 11 dimensions possible, only 4 were perceivable in any way. Second, He made the speed of light much too slow, impeding His Creation. Third an unfortunate constant that he had set created the possibility of 10^500 worlds. Oops.
He did not foresee that billions of years later, ape-descended life forms from a small, insignificant blue-green planet somewhere in the backwaters of the Milky Way galaxy would be pondering these laws and wondering what the HELL he was thinking when he Created this mess.
Light was pretty fun to Create, God admitted. He wasnt sure why He made stars to hold that light, though. His lesser light, the earthly Moon, accidentally ended up being a pathetic reflective ROCK. Originally, he had made the Earth, around which everything in the universe revolved, perfectly flat. That was, of course, another miscalculation on his part, as the Earth eventually became a silly little ball, and had taken to circling the Sun instead.
For a whole week, God Created and Created, and struggled in his fight against acne. Then, he chilled out, and got very, very pissed.
Obviously, he was a very hands-on sort of guy, having built the universe from scratch but he hated having to rely on the hands-on approach, if you get my drift.
He had Created the heavens, hell, and angels. Ahh, the angels One of the angels made him want very much to stop needing the hands-on approach. Lucy, he was nicknamed and sported buttocks that looked to God like two scoops of butter-pecan ice cream. Lucy, or Lucifer as he was more properly known, refused Gods love interests. This little-known fact is the reason why God banished Lucifer to Hell, and is infinitely more plausible than the common belief that he disobeyed Gods command and tried to rise above him.
God is now very, very sober, and very, very bored. He harbours a desire to eradicate the current uni(or multi)verse and start from scratch.
If youd like to help him gather funds to finance The Universe, Take II, Send your soul to the nearest place of worship for your particular religious denomination. If you have no religious denomination, dont worry, because evidently its Gods way to confiscate your soul in some painful and/or messy way after you die a horrible pagan death.
If youd like to bypass all this selling-your-soul stuff, a monetary donation to the authors would go a long way in establishing a completely tax-refundable ticket to self-actualization. OUR self-actualization, as it were. We cant guarantee that these donations will ever make their way to the ready pulpits of the holy, but we can assure you that the money will be spent on religiously themed lotto tickets. Oh, yeah. Amen.
One fateful day, approximately 2000 years after some dude got nailed to a tree-like structure, (or several billion years after some large explosion rocked the socks off the great void of the universe, depending on your point of view) the great Powers That Be decided that a second religious revolution was needed. They planted a large seed into the minds of two twisted, diabolical and generally hopeless individuals that grew into the inescapable compulsion to write silly stories in classes when they were supposed to be paying attention.
The writing all went well and good, until one day, individual pats on the back were not enough
The Powers That Be, each having suffered minor apoplectic fits at the incorrigibility of the Chosen Ones, decided that these messiahs would be granted several disciples. And lo! there were disciples. But ordinary, run-of-the-mill disciples were not enough...
The first disciple was named Elisha, and she introduced many entirely pointless yet twisted ideas that somehow never made it into the story. The second was Brian, brother of a Chosen One. He wasnt very good. The 58-year0old man named Caitlin was next, though he was too busy molesting young boys to devote much time. Cynthia and Ariana were intrigued by Quintessentialism, but were rather useless to the faith. No one knows quite how James became a disciple of Quintessentialism, but his randomness and sick mind have been a beautiful minefield of creativity. Alix was a good disciple; she laughed at the stupid moments, grinned at the innuendo, and generally enjoyed her job. Adam is the disciple that everyone likes to pretend does not exist. And then there was Chris--a veritable Judas. He did not even believe in the power (or existence) of the WORD Quintessential. SPLITTER. Perhaps the greatest disciple of allalmost as revered as the Chosen Ones and infinitely more faithful--was Andre.
Of all the disciples, Andre The Golden was perhaps the least likely. Intelligent, nice and not at all twisted and sadistic, the Chosen Ones really had no freaking clue as to what the hell this Golden Boy was doing reading the Chosen Ones story. They chalked it up to hormones and let it pass.
Soon, however, it became apparent that he was more than what he seemed. He toiled and toiled, reading each Quintessential chapter, story, poem and perusing the off-colour pictures, laughing at all of them. He encouraged and advised, scanned and researched, and through it all, he never gave up on the dream of Quintessential.
In Quintessentialism, there is no heaven, only Hell. And the Golden will have an entire group of tortured souls to rule over. He will be able to poke, prod, vaporize or castrate anything he wishes, to make up for his goodness and faithfulness in life. So it had been foretold by the Chosen Ones, so it shall be.
If you would like to support Andre the Goldens ascension to exalted power and general ruthlessness, send cash, cheques or money orders to an anonymous bank account in the Cayman Islands. We might consider giving Andre the money, but what the heck, hes going to hell anyway, right? Lotto tickets will be bought in bulk instead, and if any one of the pays off, we promise to give some of our winnings to the Golden Boy of Quintessential for cashing in on his good name.
The morning was pleasant and mild. The birds were chirping, the bees were buzzing and the peaceful strains of accordion music filled the air. Wait--ACCORDION MUSIC?!
Larry the Canadian Subway Musician leaned back against a handy wall, polka-ing his heart out.
Just then, this previously mentioned heart did a few wild somersaults. Makimee Hawrney, a pretty Inuit woman, was walking his way. Her fiery, waist-length red hair swished around her...well, waist, and Larry's heart finished with the somersaults and continued on with a double-handspring. She smiled at him with that beautiful sexy smile of hers. His heart did cartwheels and a few well placed round-offs before tying itself in knots.
"Hey, Sexy!" she said brightly, hugging him tightly. His heart chose this moment to un-knot and instead began to do a series of back flips. His accordion dropped to the ground. Ahh, Makimee, the love of his life. Well, not "LOVE" love, but she made him pretty "hawrny" anyways.
Makimee winked at him, grabbed his arm and pulled him into the nearest subway.
"Anyways, what's with the crazy get-up?" asked Larry, staring pointedly at the golden pantaloons and the puffy sailor-top se wore.
"Oh, I borrowed them from the new girl at the bar I work at--Paolina is her name."
"Eh, I see," he said, running his fingers through his shoulder-length blonde hair. "Those pants, though--"
"Pantaloons."
"Right. Those pantaloons, they're pretty tight!"
"Well, yeah. This isn't really your ordinary bar, this Slippery Pole place..."
Larry nodded. He was already aware that his girlfriend was currently employed at a less-than-respectable place. Whatever. She had a nice body.
"Love, it's your body...men just go CRAZY over it!"
"Yes, well, that's the reason I came here. We need to talk."
Larry listened patiently.
"You see, Lar...I'm a man."
A pause.
"How the HELL did I miss THAT?!"
A very bewildered Larry followed Makimee off the subway and down the street to a gay nightclub--The Slippery Pole--gazing about in horror at the multitudes of men, all in various states of undress. The tattoo on the upper thigh of a particularly rowdy waving his pants around his head caught Larry's attention. A large red key with an arrow pointing upwards adorned the leg, emblazoned with "The Key to my Heart" underneath in flowery letters.
Larry crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
Evidently, self-expression was too much for him.
If you would like to help Makimee make his/her condition more permanent, send money to us for her surgical/recovery fees. We are currently trying to ascertain whether Makimee's Aboriginal Insurance (and tax exemption) covers "lifestyle changes", so in the event that it does, we reserve the right to keep it all and blow the wad on whatever we want. Since the Canadian Gaming Commission has discovered our under aged-ness, we have been reduced to devising craftier money-making schemes. We will be investing in Canadian stocks; therefore your money will be spent on bacon and maple syrup futures.