Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

To Whom It May Concern:

I promise this isn’t a suicide note. Or, at the very least, it was only academic suicide rather than the goopy kind. I am emailing to appeal my academic dismissal from Southern Michigan University. I was surprised, but not very upset to receive an email last month informing me of my dismissal. I would have responded earlier, but I wasn’t really paying attention over the break, but now I am and I would like to urge you to reinstate me for next semester.

I admit I had a very difficult time last semester, and my grades cratered as a result. I don’t mean to make excuses for my poor academic performance, but I would like to make some excuses for my poor academic performance. I knew that registering for 25 credit hours in the spring would require a lot of me, but I needed to earn the hours so that I was on track to graduate on time. Never mind that I have theoretically infinite time; I still think of college like second high school lasting four years even though that’s more the exception now than the rule. I also didn’t realize that I’d only gotten 36 of my 136 attempted credits, and that you have to be on probation for three semesters before dismissal. Oops.

Still I thought I could handle my workload, meaning both school and my actual day job at the dog spa, except that my grandmother became very ill in February. While she was home sick and unable to grandmother, I had to drive home every weekend and some weeknights to help out with household duties and to care for her. The ladies in the nursing home were kind of bitchy about this. Needless to say, the seven-hour-long drive each way cut into my study time, as did the chores I had to do.

Even when I was at school, I was very distracted with the situation and was unable to focus on my schoolwork. You might tell me that I should have talked with my professors, or even withdrawn from my classes. But I thought it would be a far more cunning strategy to avoid the professors altogether, and to double down by enrolling in an additional 1-credit course just before the drop-add deadline. I was sure that by zigging wen they expected me to zag, I could make it work.

I love Southern Michigan University, and it would mean so much to me to graduate with a degree from this school. It certainly wasn’t my fifth choice, and my application definitely wasn’t a form letter with University of Michigan taken out in a find-and-replace. Ever since I visited campus and saw all the ugly postwar Brutalist buildings, I knew that being a Grizzly was for me. Also, graduating would make me the first person in my family to complete a college degree. At least if you don’t count Uncle Stu, who graduated from University of Phoenix. I don’t count him.

If I am reinstated, I will focus much better on my schoolwork. I’ll take fewer hours, just one hour if I have to, and manage my time more wisely. For instance, I’ve spent a solid fifteen minutes on this this letter and you can’t even see the seams where I modified the sample I found online! Fortunately, my grandmother did not recover and is now a vegetable, so I should not need to travel nearly as often. Also, I have met with my advisor. Just once, and it was more of a brief encounter in the parking lot, but I will follow their advice about communicating better with my professors from now on. Once I ask for it, of course, since the advising offices are currently closed for winter break.

Please understand that my low GPA that led to my dismissal does not indicate that I am a bad student, even though it is essentially the only measure of academic performance available to you or anyone. Really, I’m a good student who had one very, very bad semester. And then another one. And also a third. I hope you will give me a second chance, which in light of my three bad semesters is really more of a fourth chance. Thank you for considering this appeal, and go Grizzlies!

Sincerely,
Unter Gräd

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St Hiddle-on-Botham Town Hall
Named after a local saint that was declared fictitious and removed from the Catholic saints registry in 1289, St Hiddle-on-Botham (not to be confused with the St Hiddle in Strothshire) nevertheless benefited from a stream of pilgrims to the site where St Hiddle reportedly beheld the divine llama. Its town hall was built near that spot, replacing an earlier structure that dated to 1534. The current building handles all government affairs and still admits a few diehard pilgrims each year.

Bhampton School
The most prestigious academy in St Hiddle-on-Botham, Bhampton maintains a strict British boarding school atmosphere despite being a local public institution. It has produced one-half of a Rhodes scholar (don’t ask) and a champion field Quiddich team. It has also stubbornly resisted attempts to change its motto from “Parcere Praedae Virga Puer.”

Heaton-on-Westom Weather Field Station
The moor of Heaton-on-Westom may owe its grand name to a long-destroyed manor on a long-silted creek, but its reputation for science stands undiminished. Researchers from the University of Camford and the University of Oxbridge routinely conduct experiments here, though many locals insist that they do not so much predict the weather as cause it.

The Meadery on Twettle Row
A place for strong liquor and stronger personalities, the Meadery serves drinks to numb the tongue and strip paint. Its food may be legendarily inedible, but no one has yet drunk the owner under the table with their own supply of backroom hooch.

Elle’s Chorels
The drinks as Elle’s may be as watered down as Botham Pond, but her food is a local staple. Hearty meat pies, aspics, and sponge cakes are her specialty, even if they are washed down with the weakest beer this side of Milwaukee.

Newtons St Pethen Library
Newtons St. Pethen was a local eccentric and bibliophile who left his large collection of esoteric tomes to the city upon his expiry. They reside here alongside s few newer volumes, and are a favorite of researchers into the normal, paranormal, and supernormal.

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Like many who settled on Hylewood, the Bashalde Hungarian-Slovak Romani were fleeing persecution on the mainland. They arrived in a small group, and have settled permanently though they do still enjoy taking their still-functional wagons along the island roads from time to time in honor of their itinerant ancestors. They make most of their income from tourists, selling handmade crafts and CDs of their unique music, but are also frequent performers in island festivals and at the Screaming Banshee.

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The Pixie Patch
The Lofgrens fled to Hylewood to escape anti-fairy persecution on the mainland and established themselves in this charming eclectic antique. The bricks are fired from locally sources enchanted clay, while the timbers were imported from the enchanted isle of Evermeet. Legend has it that the large turret doubles as an escape rocket should the anti-fairy hysteria ever return.

Olive Acres
Family patriarch Augusto Alivardo built this Victorian home with his own two hands, and some additional hands borrowed from hired laborers. Designed as the potioneer’s perfect perch, it is reinforced against explosions and features an elaborate hidden laboratory amidst the family graves, albeit shielded to protect against accidental resurrection.

Blue Barn
Lydia Wolfowicz makes this charming Cape Cod house her home away from the Screaming Banshee inn. It is curiously reinforced from the inside, with numerous safeguards and reinforced woods designed to keep…something…inside. It was originally known locally as the Red Barn before its relatively recent repainting.

Fisherman’s Paradise
This Victorian cottage was built during Hylewood’s boom times but had fallen into disrepair when it was purchased by local fisherman Andersen for his new “foreign” bride. Reflecting the couples’ tastes, the pink exterior and nautically minimalist interior combine to form a unique and attractive package. Just don’t ask about the subterranean tunnel to the sea rumored to exist beneath it…

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“I’d say a flightless rail, probably endemic. Very interesting plumage! I wonder how it might have evolved to better suit the Southern Rata forests here on the island.” Rahman was examining the footage with evident pleasure.

“With no predators able to scale the bluffs, I’m not surprised,” Gupta said. “Maybe you can name it after your wife since the ICUN rejected the last one.”

“Hey,” Brooks said. “Ramirez and his team. Has anyone seen them since they left?”

Negatives all around. Rahman looked at his watch. “That was almost six hours ago. Surely they’ve found what they’re looking for by now.”

“I didn’t hear any gunshots,” Gupta said quietly. “If they’d run into any trouble-”

“It’s not our job to worry about that,” Rahman said. “We’re the cover story, nothing more. Let them worry about that signal.”

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“Yeah, I remember that,” said Brooks. “I had to wait for hours to get another phone after mine was fried.”

“Well, you don’t,” said Ramirez. “It wasn’t sunspots. It was a high-energy signal, one of staggering power, that was deliberately aimed at Earth from an extrasolar location.”

“Wait, wait,” said Gupta, her hands raised. “Deliberately? Extrasolar?”

“The signal was aimed at Eden Island in the South Pacific,” Ramirez said. “Thousands of miles of ocean in every direction. To hit it by accident–to hit Earth by accident–is so unlikely we had trouble calculating the odds.”

“And you’re just telling us this now?” said Rahman. “Surely you could have just sent a helicopter from an assault carrier and been done with it.”

“I would think that you of all people would appreciate the value of deliberate discretion and not contaminating a possible study area,” Ramirez said softly. “It also means that we can much more easily control the flow of information.”

“I beg your-” said Rahman, looking alarmed and put-upon.

“Needless to say, you will all be subjected to a thorough debriefing. We have also confiscated all your cameras and cellular telephones. You’d find them quite useless here anyway. You will be able to complete the original field study once we have learned what we want to know, and you’ll be fully funded for it.”

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“Breach!” cried Hernandez. “Go, go, go!”

The Masterkey shotgun on Tuck’s rifle did its work, blowing the lock. Farraday swung in a second later with her ram, smashing the door in. The squad poured into the house, arms at the ready.

They found the suspect in the living room, seated in front of the TV with a remote in his hand. Still in his pajamas, he clearly hadn’t been expecting company.

“On the ground!” Hernandez barked. “Get on the ground with your hands on your head!” The suspect, shocked and awed, complied.

“Contraband over here!” cried Tuck from another room of the house.

“Over here too!” said Faraday from the bedroom. She and Tuck each emerged into the living room with their arms full of evidence, which they dumped on the couch.

“Look at this stash. There’s some from Canton, some from Royal Oak…just about everywhere you can get ’em,” Tuck added. “Most of these are wanted on outstandings.”

“Are these your books? Are these your DVDs?” Hernandez said, approaching the suspect.

“Who are you? What’s going on?” he squeaked in reply.

“I am a licensed and bonded library bounty hunter in 27 states, and you’re wanted for outstanding fines and fees from 17 branch libraries,” Hernandez said. “DVDs, hardcover novels, and even CDs.”

“We’re taking you back to face justice for what you’ve done,” said Tuck.

“And getting 10% of the outstanding fines for doing it,” Faraday added.

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Phlegmy the Younger was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Phlegmy’s uncle, Phlegmy the Elder, helped raise and educate him. Both Phlegmy the Elder and the Younger were witnesses to The Sneezening of 80 AD, the loudest and most prolonged mass sneezing in history.

Phlegmy the Younger wrote hundreds of letters describing the Sneezening and his theories on mucus in general, of which 247 survive and are of great historical value. Some are addressed to reigning emperors or to notables such as the historian Tacitus. Phlegmy served as an imperial handkerchief-bearer under Trajan, and his letters to Trajan provide one of the few surviving records of the elaborate rituals and pageantry surrounding the wiping of an emperor’s nose.

After Trajan’s death, Phlegmy rose through a series of civil and military offices, ultimately serving as consul with Nostrildamus Majorus in 119 AD. He was a friend of the rhinologist Achooius and might have employed the mucusier Snotonius on his staff.

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Eaten my pocket linings
Eaten my shoes
Throat hoarse from screaming
Fingers are looking tasty
Why was I
So clumsy
Over that
Bottomless
Pit

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Each slice of pizza comes in one of the five different free tetromino shapes allowed by mathematics (seven if you regard mirrored chiral pizzas as distinct figures!). Line them up in the box for an infinite variety of combinations, with each piece individually topped!

But don’t arrange the tetrominoes to form a straight line, of they’ll blink out of existence! Tetrominos Pizza LLC GmbH is not responsible for any eliminated pizza slices and does not offer refunds.

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