Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Q1
14:55 – Holding. 5y penalty.

12:55 – Unsportsmanlike conduct. 10y penalty.

4:77 – Posession by unauthorized spirit. 5y penalty.

1:00 – Too many men on the field. 17 unauthorized players ejected from field, 7.7y penalty.

Q2
15:00 – Illegal laying on of hands. 15hp penalty to quarterback.

14:12 – Holding. 10y penalty.

13:13 – Illegal hex. Blight End ejected for turning wide reciever into horned toad.

7:77 – Palpably unfair act. 10y penalty for all players in impromptu love-in.

5:10 – Unsportsmanlike conduct. 5y penalty.

1:05 – Leaping. 10,000 ft cruising altitude penalty.

Q3
12:21 – Offsides. 10y penalty.

10:46 – Intentional grounding. 1500 volt penalty through tight end.

5:57 – Unsportsmanlike conduct. 15y penalty.

2:28 – Pass interference. 15 gallons of Immodium AD confiscated. 20y penalty.

Q4
14:31 – Personal fowl. Illegal chicken escorted off of field. 5y penalty.

12:01 – Offsides. 5y penalty.

9:32 – Roughing the snapper. Sparky the Snapping Turtle replaced with his backup, Snarky the Snapping Turtle. 10y penalty.

8:18 – Targeting. Satellite Orbital Laser (SOL) guidance lock remotely disabled after severing tight end’s arm. 5y penalty

3:33 – Tripping. 12 blotters of lysergic acid diethylamide confiscated. 10y penalty.

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ZOMBIE PRESIDENT BRAYNE: Hello? Australia?

AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER TURNCOLM: Yes, hello. This is Prime Minister Turncolm. Am I speaking with Zombie President Brayne?

BRAYNE: I’m going to eat your brains.

TURNCOLM: I beg your pardon?

BRAYNE: I’m going to eat your brains.

TURNCOLM: Did you…did you just say that you’re going to eat my brains?

BRAYNE: No. I don’t know how you got that idea.

TURNCOLM: Perhaps when you said ‘I’m going to eat your brains’ twice in a row?

BRAYNE: I was joking. It was a joke.

TURNCOLM: I think it was in rather poor taste, Mr. Zombie President.

BRAYNE: I think you’re in poor taste. When I eat your brains.

TURNCOLM: There! You just did it again! Are you trying to set back Zombie-Australian relations, Mr. Zombie President?

BRAYNE: That was also a joke. If you can’t take a zombie joke, that’s your problem.

TURNCOLM: You’ll forgive me if I take the leader of the zombie world seriously when he says he’ll eat my brains.

BRAYNE: I don’t know where you are getting these ideas. Some fake news site, maybe. But I am committed to Zombie-Australia relations.

TURNCOLM: Well, that’s good to hear. I do have some serious issues to discuss, Mr. Zombie President.

BRAYNE: I am also committed to eating your brains.

TURNCOLM: You just did it again! Is this a game to you, Mr. Zombie President?

BRAYNE: You keep hearing alternative facts, Prime Minister.

TURNCOLM: This conversation is over.

BRAYNE: Okay. Enjoy the zombie nukes.

TURNCOLM: What?

BRAYNE:

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And that’s why all the remaining great apes live in forests, where they can run andd hide and stay hidden.

It’s because they know that we the humans are coming for them. We’ve pruned off every other branch of our family tree, leaving only the hardiest and most elusive members still kicking.

For when humanity finally lays low the last of the great apes, we will become the Greatest Ape and win the Prize.

There can be only one.

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You may have noticed that most over the counter medicines don’t kill every microorganism in your body?

That’s why GesteCo LLC GmbH has introduced NukeQuil™. NukeQuil is the only over the counter medicine guaranteed to kill all the germs in your body. By killing your body.

It’s 100% effective!

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The number of parts you’d had replaced with cybernetics determined your place in the Sion Hierarchy; everybody knew that. From the enhanced eyepiece you got for free upon joining the Blackcoats to the 2.5-ton rated steel arms you had to purchase to become an Over-Lieutenant, it was a continuous ladder of aspiration. Each rung was more expensive than the last, true. And beyond the level of a Blackcoat Private Initiate, the Sion Hierarchy didn’t give you a cent to help pay your way.

But the Primarch was at the head of that hierarchy, and this would be the first time that Jell had ever seem it.

The Primarch walked out of its office slowly. It was living proof that, though the Heirarchy favored utility, it was not immune to decoration, to pomp. A rich red sash adorned the Primarch’s tall, thin frame, and it was equipped with a series of flexible bulletproof shields designed to evoke a long designer trench coat. A crimson gorget, bearing the seal of Sion, was also prominent.

“One of my Tetrarchs tells me that you have information about the Intersectionalists.” The Primarch’s voice was synthesized, emenating from a head that had no human features whatsoever, only smooth metal and plastic. Rumor had it that the Primarch instead saw through dozens of miniaturized cameras distributed evenly over its body.

In fact, there was no flesh of any sort visible. Rumor also held that only the tiniest portion of the Primarch’s brain was yet of the flesh.

“Y-yes, Primarch,” said Jell.

“Why have you not uploaded this data?”

“I feared it would be intercepted,” stammered Jell. “Better for me to perish carrying it than for it to fall into the wrong hands.”

“Perhaps,” the Primarch responded. It approached further and Jell noticed, to his surprise, that the vaguely humanoid frame nevertheless rested on a cane. “I will make a connection to a private and secure server available to you. You will then upload this information for analysis.”

It was not a question, but a command.

“To…to your own private server?” Jell said, palms sweating. Everything would go awry if the file was not directly linked to the Primarch.

“That is immaterial, is it not?” said the Primarch. “The data will be analyzed and your reward–or punishment–will be determined solely on its merits.”

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Late Friday, President Brayne signed a controversial direct order from the Blight House, bypassing the Zombie Congress. Opponents in the zombie and fleshy media were quick to describe the president’s order as a “living ban,” one which forbade fleshies from entering zombie lands on penalty of having their brains devoured.

“Listen, this is not a ‘living ban’ or a ‘fleshy ban,'” said Blight House Press Secretary Amy G. Dala. “It is simply a temporary precaution to prevent careless fleshies from terror attacks by the Brainist Nation of Braaaaaaaaaaaains (BNB),” she added.

Asked by reporters from the New York Postmortem about the title of President Brayne’s order, the Act to Ban the Living from Zombie Lands, Secratary Dala dismissed them as “fake reporters from a fake newspaper.” Asked by a reporter from online Brainist website Brainbart News whether the order meant freedom and security for all zombies everywhere, Secretary Dala agreed.

Zombies and fleshies at home and abroad were quick to condemn the order, citing the possible damage to zombie-fleshy relations. “This brainless move sets back our detante by a decade and merely plays into the Brainists’ hands by making us appear unreasonable,” said the European Reunion zombie spokesperson Sir Low Botany. “It is even more harmful than the British Union of Zombies’ vote to leave the European Reunion.

At press time, there was no statement from any Brainist organizations, but fleshy students at prestigious zombie universities such as Brainmouth and Cerebrum Tech reported that armed members of the Callossum Corps prevented them from attending class and escorting them to the border.

Coming on the heels of other recent controversial acts by President Brayne, who was recently elected under the popular but controversial slogan “I Will Eat Your Brains,” this order has raised fears that a Brainist agenda will dominate the new administration. Dismissing these fears, Vice President Sarah Bellum insisted that zombies should stop listening to media outlets like the New York Postmortem and instead put their trust in President Brayne’s truthfulness. “He has never told a lie,” she insisted. “This order is the start of a glorious new meeting of the minds.”

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Of course, no one would ever wear plaid jeans.

Successfully crossbreeding plaid with jeans to get plaid jeans would cross the seams, and that would be bad. Bad in that it would cause a singularity. And that would open a portal through which the denim demons foretold in the book of Levi could invade our world and wreak havoc.

Do you really want that? To be scalded by red-hot rivet rain from on high while the world is thoroughly pantsed?

I thought not.

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“So here’s the thing. Elves won’t go to school with orcs. They say that, in their holy book, orcs stole the Light of the Twin Boughs and fed it to Ariachne the Star-Devourer. So naturally, that means that their kids can’t learn about geometry together.”

“And the orcs?”

“There are enough velfor tots around to show that they’re one and the same once you get past appearances, but a lot of the orcs are a little hostile on account of the fact that the elves saw fit to condemn them to an eternity of servitude after the defeat of their dark master Malktozt the Enemy. So the orc parents are likely to agree to shared bussing but their damn kids get in trouble with the elves. And of course neither of them likes the velfor.”

“I see what you mean about this being complicated.”

“And ours is an easy lot! District 12 is 15% dwarves and 5% hoblings. Now any student of history knows that they have a common origin, but thanks to the Dwarf-Hobling conflict in the Middle West, they get hysterical at any idea of shared schooling. And naturally, the dwarves believe that orcs are unclean thanks to the Dimming of the Two Bushes (subtly different from stealing the Light of the Twin Boughs you understand), while the hobbling are a bit peeved at elves thanks to the Harrowing of Hoblingshire, during the war, when 50% of their people were killed by elves for no good reason I’ve ever been able to uncover.”

“So you can’t bus orcs and elves, orcs and dwarves, hoblings and elves, or hobbling and dwarves. That’s beyond complicated.”

“Oh you can try. Many have. What you wind up with is the elves pulling their kids out to go to expensive private elf academies, the elves move away and stop paying taxes, and then you’re got a school that is 90% orcs again.”

“Makes me glad I’m an goblin and reproduce through budding.”

“You and me both, buddy. You and me both.”

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It may look a pattern of wool
But inside’s a pattern of steel
If into your home you let it pull
Your soul will never heal

It looked an organic pattern a little lopsided but competent. Almost like a blanket from the Southwest made by a journeyman, still making their bones. You had to stare at it to see the squat man in armor emerge, sword in one hand and shield in the other, his armor a devouring black.

The nightmares had started the week after Jamie brought it home. Armored men rode wild through their heads every night, leaving every roommate bleary-eyed and irritable. At their head, the Rook. Built like a castle from a chess set come to life, he never spoke, but only glowered.

By the next month, he had begun to be seen in the waking world. Just out of sight, in the periphery, a shadow in the corner of one’s eye.

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We have a lot of rain in June. Mom tries to be cool by saying that she likes all the same things that I do. She folds her handkerchief neatly. The sky is clear; the stars are twinkling. I ask her: “Where do random thoughts come from?” She tells me, against the water streaming down: “He didn’t want to go to the dentist, yet he went anyway.”

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