ninety-nine

dear tao,



i feel lonely too.




-ellen

ninety-eight

dear ellen


i took the cardboard off the hole and moved my computer by the hole. i'm looking out the hole. i see people. i'm eating the new natto. i feel lonely.


tao

ninety-seven

dear tao,




i'm glad richard yates killed himself. the universe has now consoled him.




-ellen

ninety-six

dear ellen


richard yates read your description of choking victim hamsters and said you were a very good writer. then he sat by my hotplate and turned the knobs a little and started to cry uncontrollably. i didn't know what to do so i went to the convenience store. they had a new brand of natto.

when i got back to my room there was a hole in the wall and richard yates was climbing through the hole. he went through the hole. my room is on the fourteenth floor. i went to the hole and saw richard yate's corpse on the street. his body was very small and it didn't look like a richard yates. i drew a portrait of richard yate's head on a large piece of cardboard and i taped the cardboard over the hole. i feel productive.


tao

ninety-five

dear tao,




a choking victim hamster lives in east asia. it spends %90 of its life in the trees, as it only touches the forest ground at birth. female choking victim hamsters dig holes in the ground and give birth to the new hamster in the hole. then they bury the hamster. once the hamster is fully developed it emerges from the ground by headbutting the dirt very hard and fast. once it has emerged it makes a high pitched screaming noise that attracts the mother choking victim hamster to return to it and feed it. in almost every situation, the mother forgets where she buried her baby and will return to the wrong hole. when the baby refuses to feed from the wrong mother, the mother feels threatened by the high pitched screaming noise and begins to choke the baby. only %2 of choking victim hamster live to adulthood, making them the rarest species in all of east asia.




-ellen

ninety-four

dear ellen


i have never heard of a choking victim. what kind of hamster is that? i just looked behind me and saw richard yates levitating a little. i don't feel afraid. i feel calm.


tao

ninety-three

dear tao




i am listening to choking victim very loudly. do you like choking victim? i feel afraid right now. i am listening to the music and i keep turning around and looking behind me to see if there is someone getting ready to stab me in the back even though i am alone and my door is locked with seven deadbolt locks and two chain door guards.





-ellen

ninety-two

dear ellen


thank you for your advice. richard yates is doing pilates.

i think i will make him a smoothie with an organic banana, organic cranberries, organic almonds, and organic soymilk.


tao

ninety-one

dear tao,




once you have him in submission it gets much easier. pet him softly with one hand and with the other pour nutritional yeast over a bowl of organic cauliflower and set it on the floor in front of him. it is then okay to release him from the death lock as he will quickly move to eat the cauliflower. after he eats the cauliflower he should feel very calm and stable and will start exercising for an extended period of time.




-ellen

ninety

dear ellen


i'm standing on my mini refrigerator and holding his head in a tight death lock. now he is leaning his forehead against the wall in a catatonic state. now what should i do?


tao

eighty-nine

dear tao,




just hold his head in a tight death lock.





-ellen

eighty-eight

dear ellen


richard yates is having an uncontrollable fit of sobbing, hallucinations, shakes, convulsions, and seizures in the corner of my room by my hotplate collection. what should i do?


tao

eighty-seven

dear tao,




i am not jealous. i don't want a 'rental sister'. i'm staying in here for the rest of my life.





-ellen

eighty-six

dear ellen


richard yates is in my room right now. he is reading 'the easter parade' out loud to me while i blog. please don't be jealous. i still like you.


tao

eighty-five

dear tao,





richard yates will never be your 'rental sister'. i'm sorry.





-ellen

eighty-four

dear ellen


today i was very afraid. a person knocked on my door and said my name in a voice i didn't recognize. i put my hotplate on top of my computer and i rolled into a fetal position and used my mouth to hold a corner of my blanket and then rolled around my room until the blanket had wrapped around my body. then i used my inner ear to sense my location in my room and rolled very carefully behind my computer. then i slowed my heart rate to 20 beats per minute by thinking about soy beans quietly running through a green field in the sun.

i think my mom hired a 'rental sister.' i read on the internet that 'rental sisters' cost $8000 a year and they come talk to you twice a week. i read on the internet that months can go by before i open my door and more months before i venture out with a 'rental sister' to the park or to the movies. i read that richard yates is currently working as a 'rental sister.' does richard yates' voice sound like a small girl's voice? i hope richard yates is my 'rental sister.' i'm excited.


tao

eighty-three

dear tao,



today richard yates mailed me a giant five pound container of nutritional yeast.

i found bags of spinach, cabbage, broccoli, soybeans, and baby carrots in my parent's refrigerator.

i poured all of the bags into a giant bowl.

i poured the nutritional yeast over the giant bowl.

i ate the giant bowl.

i did 300 push-ups and 400 sit-ups.

i hugged the container of yeast and thought 'yes"


-ellen

eighty-two

dear ellen


did you really crush things with your ass? why didn't you tell me before? i don't understand why your ass would be able to crush 4 computers in 3 days. i feel afraid and confused.


tao

eighty-one

dear tao,




my ass is bony and hard. i can crush things with it. while my family was on vacation i spent three days crushing things in the house with my ass. i crushed my brothers nintendos. i crushed the toilet. i crushed my parent's television and 4 computers.




-ellen

eighty

dear ellen


today i built a ladder. i climbed the ladder. when my head touched the ceiling i turned around and looked down at my room. i saw an okra farm, a computer, and a hotplate.


tao

seventy-nine

dear tao,




i made a suit out of 800 empty soybean pods. it took me twelve hours. i walked around my room the suit and walked into the wall and slid across the wall then fell to the floor and slid on the floor and then fell asleep.




-ellen

seventy-eight

dear ellen


today i had an idea for a documentary film.

i want to make a documentary of werner herzog going to seaworld every day for one hundred days. i feel very anxious and emotional that werner herzog might die before that documentary gets made. i need to go away from the computer now. i'm crying.


tao

seventy-seven

dear tao,




i went to the bathroom at 2:00 am and found richard yates shitting while reading oprah magazine. when i opened the door he got scared and fell in the toilet and disappeared. then i walked over to the toilet and looked in and saw shit with a lot of okra seed it in. the magazine was open to 'how to please your man; without taking your clothes off'.



-ellen

seventy-six

dear ellen


i started an okra farm. when i finished planting the farm it began to grow very fast and i wringed my hands together and made a worried face.

the farm is growing behind me right now. when it grows it makes a noise like a severely depressed old man with crippling arthritis who wakes from a 14 hour nap to an empty room of darkness does after realizing his only friend and pet squirrel is dead and before going back to sleep again. the okra are making that noise right now. i'm afraid to move. i'm very afraid. i don't know what to do.


tao

seventy-five

dear tao,




today i decided to rip off the planks of wood i had nailed over my windows to keep out light and people. i stared outside for five hours. i saw five black squirrels, two red squirrels, a blue whale, an obese blue whale, a depressed salmon, a squished piece of okra, a fifteen year old girl in a sailor outfit eating a pig's foot, a flying squirrel, jet li, and an obese baby. i like looking outside.




-ellen

seventy-four

dear ellen


today i curled into a fetal position on my bed in the dark and stopped thinking and felt my body in the fetal position and felt my legs and arms and back and neck and head and hands and face. my face felt sad and alone and i felt sorry for my face.


tao

seventy-three

dear tao,



last night i stole the blender from my parent's kitchen and put it in my room.

when i woke up this morning i made a smoothie with soymilk, coffee, blueberries, cranberries, half a banana, and an apple.

then for lunch i made a smoothie with soymilk, soybeans, coffee, black beans, cranberries, and an apple.

during the afternoon i made a smoothie with an apple, four cranberries, soymilk, and brewer's yeast.

then for dinner i made a smoothie with soymilk, blueberries, cranberries, hemp protein powder, an apple, and the other half of the banana.

my brain feels heavy.


-ellen

seventy-two

dear ellen


today i thought about standing in the sun in clear water up to my shins and quietly following a small ugly fish and continuously slapping it's ass with both my hands very softly, so that it doesn't turn around to look at me but just feels a pleasurable, small, and continuous pressure on its ass.

after i thought about that i felt calm and then felt sleepy and fell asleep in front of my computer. when i woke up i felt very depressed.


tao

seventy-one

dear tao,



i felt inadequate after reading '80g of soy protein'.

i had a dream with you in it last night. i was walking home from the convenience store at around 3:30 am. you were standing on the sidewalk ahead screaming in agony and hitting your head on a mailbox. then you walked to a newspaper stand and put in a quarter and opened it and closed it on your head over and over. then you screamed 'i want to kill everyone' and started punching your head. i walked over to you and pet you and tried to hold your hands but you kept punching and saying 'i'm not going to stop until i break my fucking hand on my fucking head'.

when i woke up i smiled and then fell back asleep.



-ellen

seventy

dear ellen


i'm not jealous. for dinner i had three servings of organic soy bean pasta. i had a warm smoothie that i made in a small pot on my hotplate. i stirred organic cranberries, organic soy milk, organic bananas, and some almonds. i stirred it very fast with four chopsticks in each hand. i used both my hands to stir it. some splashed on my face. i ate the smoothie with a soup spoon. i think i had over 80g soy protein.

then i was bored so i went outside and ran around for a while in agony. sometimes i slowed down a little to scream in agony. when i came home i showered and sat on my bed and cried a little, and then stared at my hotplate for twenty minutes before going to sleep.


tao

sixty-nine

dear tao,



no the ugly fish didn't touch me. i fed it some textured soy vegetable protein and it left. then i played video games for six hours and did 480 push ups. then i ate textured soy vegetable protein dry roasted soybeans and soymilk. my dinner had 32g of protein. are you jealous?



-ellen

sixty-eight

dear ellen


did the ugly fish touch you? i'm very nervous.

my eyes feel very round right now.


tao

sixty-seven

dear tao,



i walked to the convenience store last night to buy more fermented soybeans. i picked up the container and carried it to the cashier while reading the ingredients. they added bonito flakes to the recipe. i felt depressed and put the container back. then i saw dry roasted wasabi flavored soybeans and felt a little better. i stole six packages and ate one and gave the rest to a vegan homeless man and he said 'thanks'. then i went back to my room and there was an ugly fish in my bed and we layed together and talked about the health benefits of eating brewer's yeast.



-ellen

sixty-six

dear ellen


i want to tell you something that happened to me. my mother knocked on my door last night. i didn't say anything. she knocked and tried to open the door. she said, 'i made ugly fish in soy sauce with chives for dinner.' my mouth watered a little and i felt very depressed.

i think she was very lonely and just wanted to say something out loud so that someone else would hear it. because she knows that i never leave my room or speak to anyone or acknowledge anyone when they try to communicate with me or open my door.


tao

sixty-five

dear tao,




a sad ugly fish steals a helicopter and flies it into a pointy building in new york city. a lot of people die.




-ellen

sixty-four

dear ellen


a depressed ugly fish sits listening to music. the music comes out of the computer. the ugly fish stares at itunes.

the depressed ugly fish notices there are three kinds of love songs.

1. love songs about how great their partner is and how much they love them.

2. love songs about how they are sorry for hurting their partner and want another chance.

3. love songs about how life is sad and people are disappointing.

the depressed ugly fish notices that singers who sing the first love song almost always also sing the second love song. and singers who sing the third love song almost never sing the first or second love song. the depressed ugly fish thinks about itself. the depressed ugly fish thinks it would only ever sing the third love song. the depressed ugly fish creates two playlists on itunes. all the bands are separated into the ones that write the first and second love songs and ones that write the third love song. eight hours have passed. it is 6 a.m. the ugly fish stares at the time on the computer. the ugly fish hears itself screaming in despair inside its head. it opens its mouth. it makes a very small noise. the noise sounds like a deaf eldery ant with cataracts screaming in agony while running away from an obese, slow-moving eldery cockroach that is blind.


tao

sixty-three

dear tao,



a lonely ugly fish goes on a drunken rampage. he ugly fish isn't drunk. i lied. he is just really really lonely which has the same effect as being drunk.

the lonely ugly fish gets in its red pick-up truck. it drives to a set of railroad tracks. it drives over top of the railroad tracks and stops across them. it shuts off the truck, gets out, and walks away.

the ugly fish walks home to its extremely large but mostly empty studio apartment. its glowing computer screen gives off the only light. the ugly fish signs into its gmail account. there are no new messages. the ugly fish is waiting for its ugly fish friend to email. they have been fighting. the ugly fish has emailed its friend six times.

the ugly fish closes its eyes very tightly then clicks 'inbox' to refresh its inbox. after it clicks, it waits a few seconds then opens its eyes to check for a reply for the ugly fish friend. there is no reply. the ugly fish closes its eyes tight, clicks, waits, then opens again. no new messages. the ugly fish repeats this five more times. then in frustration, the ugly fish squeezes the mouse and clicks on 'inbox' repeatedly, as fast as it can, until it falls to the floor, screaming in agony.

no new messages.



-ellen

sixty-two

dear ellen


a homeless ugly fish finds a cell phone in a field. the homeless ugly fish looks at the stored numbers and sees 'mom.' he calls and asks if it can have ten dollars for reward money. the person agrees. the homeless ugly fish walks around. it is very cold and late. the homeless ugly fish screams in agony occasionally while walking around. he is thinking of anyone to call. he thinks 'there is no one.' 'there is no one' echos very loudly in his head. he dials 911.

'rescue 911,' says a female voice

'help me,' the homeless ugly fish says in a quiet monotone. 'i'm been hit.'

'are you bleeding sir?'

'yes. it hurts.'

'where are you located sir?'

'i've been shot. i'm bleeding a lot. i need to shit.'

'where are you located sir? we'll send a unit there immediately.'

'i just need to shit. i'll be okay.'

'are you sure sir?'

'yes. i just haven't been eating. i'm homeless.'

'okay. good night.'

'good night.'

the homeless ugly fish feels calmer. he walks around and then looks at the saved text messages on the cell phone. one says 'thank you good night kiss hug rape lick very soon happy good night.' the homeless ugly fish stares at the text message and feels very lonely. he sits on the ground and digs a hole and puts the cell phone in the hole and then covers the hole with a rock. he thinks 'mission accomplished.' he stands and runs away. when he runs tears come out of his eyes onto his cheeks.


tao

sixty-one

dear tao,



an obese ugly fish beast has been selected to be experimented on with classic conditioning. the ugly fish is placed in a kiddie pool of water in the center of a small room. a scientist brings in a plate of nachos. the obese ugly fish beast rolls around in the kiddie pool while it moves its mouth very quickly. once the fish starts rolling a pile of carrots falls from the ceiling. the fish stops and feels afraid. the scientist picks up the carrots and takes them away. a few minutes later the scientist brings in another plate of nachos. once the fish starts rolling a pile of carrots falls again. the fish is afraid. this is repeated two more times. the next day, the scientist brings the fish a plate of nachos and it has a heart attack and dies from the shock.



-ellen

sixty

dear ellen


an ugly fish auditions for a werner herzog movie. at the audition the ugly fish has to say 'i'm going to lick your asses' and then wave a broadsword triumphantly. at home the ugly fish has been repeating the line 'i'm going to lick your asses' for over three hours. the ugly fish tries to tie the twenty pound broadsword to its two pound body. the ugly fish sees the broadsword falling through the air toward him. the ugly fish panics and says 'i'm going to lick your asses.' the broadsword cuts the ugly fish into two sections. an obese woman breaks into the ugly fish's home carrying a bowl of hot nacho cheese. her expression is one of desperation. the obese woman sees the meat on the floor and gets them and dips them in the nacho cheese and eats them. her expression is one of inner calm.


tao

fifty-nine

dear tao,



an ugly fish is in band class. the ugly fish is very shy and only plays base drum because it is a shy ugly fish. today the other ugly fishes pressured it to play snare drum. the ugly fish felt afraid and shy. the ugly fish plays snare drum on one song. it fucked up its rolls in the beginning but later could do them. the ugly fish felt embarrassed. the ugly fish sat during another song and thought 'the conductor told them to pressure me, that bitch, they are all trying to humiliate me, bitches shit'. the next day, the ugly fish beats all the other ugly fishes with its drum sticks and then steals three snare drum stands to sell on ebay.



-ellen

fifty-eight

dear ellen


a gang of indian sea orcas rape a caribbean ugly fish. the ugly fish gives birth. after five years the baby looks exactly like an ugly fish but it is the size of an orca. seaworld captures the giant ugly fish and trains it do flips and to bellyslide onto land. the new show is called 'shamu's forgotten brother.' it has narration that teaches the seaworld audience that ugly things have feelings too. one day during a show the crowd begins to chant 'fug-ly, fug-ly, fug-ly.' this becomes a tradition and soon seaworld changes the narration to include a dance where the audience is encouraged to chant 'fug-ly, fug-ly, fug-ly' in syncopation with arm movements.


tao

fifty-seven

dear tao,




an ugly fish is swimming alone and finds a school of herring. the ugly fish swims with the herring and they become friends. then a fishing boat drags a fishing net across the ocean and catches the school of herring with the ugly fish. when they pull the net out of the water the ugly fish slips through and falls into the gears that move the pulley that brings the net up. the ugly fish gets pushed through the gears and turns into a brown paste. the herring look at the brown paste with big black eyes and move their gills very quickly.





-ellen

fifty-six

dear ellen


a vegan ugly fish goes to the surface of the ocean to eat a piece of seaweed. a speedboat hits the ugly fish. the ugly fish doesn't bounce off the speedboat. it just changes into a brown paste. the speedboat stops for a moment so that the people on it can go scubadiving. a jewfish swims to the speedboat and licks off the ugly fish paste.



tao

fifty-five

dear tao,



a depressed ugly fish is screaming in agony while washing dishes.




-ellen

fifty-four

dear ellen


a depressed ugly fish lives in pennsylvania in the wintertime. it is snowing outside. the nearest store is two miles away. the ugly fish leaves his room to go buy energy drinks. when he leaves his room he disappears into the snow. the snow is three feet deep. the ugly fish is two inches tall and five inches long. the ugly fish thinks, 'this is fucked.' his face freezes and then his body freezes. two days later the snow melts and a party girl teenager boy sees the ugly fish and runs to it and kicks it into the forest.


tao

fifty-three

dear tao,



an ugly fish is sitting. the ugly fish says 'i like punk music'. the ugly fish says 'the clash and ramones rule'. the ugly fish carries around a copy of trainspotting with a bookmark on page ten for four weeks. the ugly fish went to live in ireland for six months and called the ugly fish's world history class and spoke with an irish accent but was serious. the other ugly fishes like this ugly fish. one ugly fish did not like that ugly fish or any of the ugly fishes. that ugly fish went on a killing rampage and killed all the ugly fish. then the ugly fish fell asleep for 17 hours.



-ellen

fifty-two

dear ellen


thank you for liking the story. can we communicate using only ugly fish short stories from now on? i only want to communicate using ugly fish short stories. here is an ugly fish short story. please respond using another ugly fish short story.

an ugly fish named sam is swimming very calmly in the ocean. an underwater current pushes the ugly fish into a wave. the wave violently pushes the ugly fish towards the shore. the ugly fish slides onto the beach. a small child sees the ugly fish and screams 'ugly fish!' the small child's father runs and kicks the ugly fish. the ugly fish goes forty feet into the air.


tao

fifty-one

dear tao,



that is a good story. it reminds me of a story by this asshole with a rabbit face with the same title but much better. i only like to read stories where everyone is fucked. we are fucked. i am fucked. you are fucked. we are fucked. we are good.




-ellen

fifty

dear ellen


i've been thinking about what you said. you said i should get an MFA online. i think i will do it. i like to do things online. the web site said i will be writing short stories for the MFA program. i already went to the convenience store and bought six energy drinks and drank them and wrote a short story called A&P.

can you please give me your opinion on my short story? it is just a first draft. i'm very nervous. i hope you don't hate me after you read my story. i'm very afraid and nervous.

A&P

In walks these three Brian Beattys in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before.

By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives me a little snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem -- by the time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special bins. They didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky one, with the two-piece -- it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she just got it (the suit) -- there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much -- and then the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the Sampsell. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this Sampsell, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. You never know for sure how Brian Beattys' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glassjar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight.

She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit had slipped a little on her, so all around the top of the cloth there was this shining rim. If it hadn't been there you wouldn't have known there could have been anything whiter than those shoulders. With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more than pretty.

She had sort of oaky hair that the sun and salt had bleached, done up in a bun that was unravelling, and a kind of prim face. Walking into the A & P with your straps down, I suppose it's the only kind of face you can have. She held her head so high her neck, coming up out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched, but I didn't mind. The longer her neck was, the more of her there was.

She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip. Not this queen. She kept her eyes moving across the racks, and stopped, and turned so slow it made my stomach rub the inside of my apron, and buzzed to the other two, who kind of huddled against her for relief, and they all three of them went up the cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks- crackers-and- cookies aisle. From the third slot I look straight up this aisle to the meat counter, and I watched them all the way. The fat one with the tan sort of fumbled with the cookies, but on second thought she put the packages back. The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle -- the girls were walking against the usual traffic (not that we have one-way signs or anything) -- were pretty hilarious. You could see them, when Sampsell's white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed. I bet you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering "Let me see, we’re fucked, we’re so fucked!" or whatever it is they do mutter. But there was no doubt, this jiggled them. A few house-slaves in pin curlers even looked around after pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen was correct.

You know, it's one thing to have a Briant Beatty in a bathing suit down on the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A & P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor.

"Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so fucked."

"Darling," I said. "Kevin Sampsell." Stokesie's married, with two babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell that's the only difference. He's twenty-two, and I was nineteen this April.

"Am I fucked?" he asks, the responsible married man finding his voice. I forgot to say he thinks he's going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it's called the Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company or something.

What he meant was, our town is five miles from a beach, with a big summer colony out on the Point, but we're right in the middle of town, and the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street. And anyway these are usually women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs and nobody, including them, could care less. As I say, we're right in the middle of town, and if you stand at our front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices and about twenty-seven old Brian Beattys tearing up Central Street because the sewer broke again. It's not as if we're on the Cape; we're north of Boston and there's people in this town haven't seen the ocean for twenty years.

The Brian Beattys had reached the meat counter and were asking McMahon something. He pointed, they pointed, and they shuffled out of sight behind a pyramid of Diet Delight peaches. All that was left for us to see was old McMahon patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints. Poor Beattys, I began to feel sorry for them, they couldn't help it.

Now here comes the sad part of the story, at least my family says it's sad but I don't think it's sad myself. The store's pretty empty, it being Thursday afternoon, so there was nothing much to do except lean on the register and wait for the Brian Beattys to show up again. The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn't know which tunnel they'd come out of. After a while they come around out of the far aisle, around the light bulbs, records at discount of the Caribbean Six or Tony Martin Sings or some such gunk you wonder they waste the wax on, sixpacks of candy bars, and plastic toys done up in cellophane that faIl apart when a Brian Beatty looks at them anyway. Around they come, Sampsell still leading the way, and holding a little gray jar in her hand. Slots Three through Seven are unmanned and I could see her wondering between Stokes and me, but Stokesie with his usual luck draws an old party in baggy gray pants who stumbles up with four giant cans of pineapple juice (what do these bums do with all that pineapple juice' I've often asked myself) so the girls come to me. Sampsell puts down the jar and I take it into my fingers icy cold. Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream: 49¢. Now her hands are empty, not a ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them, and I wonder where the money's coming from. Still with that prim look she lifts a folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled pink top. The jar went heavy in my hand. Really, I thought that was so cute.

Then everybody's luck begins to run out. Lengel comes in from haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to scuttle into that door marked MOBY behind which he hides all day when the girls touch his eye. Lengel's pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn't miss that much. He comes over and says, "Girls,we are all very fucked."

Sampsell blushes, though maybe it's just a brush of sunburn I was noticing for the first time, now that she was so close. "My mother is very obese and fucked." Her voice kind of startled me, the way voices do when you see the people first, coming out so flat and dumb yet kind of tony, too, the way it ticked over "pick up" and "snacks." All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them. When my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with "We’re So Fucked" cartoons stencilled on.

"That's all right," Lengel said. "But we are all still fucked." His repeating this struck me as funny, as if it hadjust occurred to him, and he had been thinking all these years the A & P was a great big dune and he was the head lifeguard. He didn't like my smiling -- -as I say he doesn't miss much -- but he concentrates on giving the girls that sad Sunday- school-superintendent stare. Sampsell's blush is no sunburn now, and the plump one in plaid, that I liked better from the back -- a really sweet can -- pipes up, "We’re so fucked. We’re so fucked."

"That makes no difference," Lengel tells her, and I could see from the way his eyes went that he hadn't noticed she was wearing a two-piece before. "We want you to feel fucked when you come in here."

"We are fucked," Sampsell says suddenly, her lower lip pushing, getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy. Fancy Herring Snacks flashed in her very blue eyes.

"Beattys, I don't want to argue with you. After this come in here with your obese mother. It's our policy." He turns his back. That's policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others want is juvenile delinquency.

All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach, not wanting to miss a word. I could feel in the silence everybody getting nervous, most of all Lengel, who asks me, "Sammy,are you fucked?"

I thought and said "No" but it wasn't about that I was thinking. I go through the punches, 4, 9, GROC, TOT -- it's more complicated than you think, and after you do it often enough, it begins to make a lttle song, that you hear words to, in my case "Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)"-the splat being the drawer flying out. I uncrease the bill, tenderly as you may imagine, it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known were there, and pass a half and a penny into her narrow pink palm, and nestle the herrings in a bag and twist its neck and hand it over, all the time thinking.

The Beattys, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say "I’m fucked" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero. They keep right on going, into the electric eye; the door flies open and they flicker across the lot to their car, Queenie and Plaid and Big Tall Goony-Goony (not that as raw material she was so bad), leaving me with Lengel and a kink in his eyebrow.

"Did you say something, Sammy?"

"I said I’m fucked."

"I thought you did."

"You didn't have to embarrass them."

"It was they who were embarrassing us."

I started to say something that came out "Fiddle-de-doo." It's a saying of my grand- mother's, and I know she would have been pleased.

"I don't think you know what you're saying," Lengel said.

"I know you don't," I said. "But I do." I pull the bow at the back of my apron and start shrugging it off my shoulders. A couple customers that had been heading for my slot begin to knock against each other, like scared pigs in a chute.

Lengel sighs and begins to look very patient and old and gray. He's been a friend of my parents for years. "Sammy, you don’t want to pretend you’re not fucked," he tells me. It's true, I don't. But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it. I fold the apron, "Sammy" stitched in red on the pocket, and put it on the counter, and drop the bow tie on top of it. The bow tie is theirs, if you've ever wondered. "You'll feel this for the rest of your life," Lengel says, and I know that's true, too, but remembering how he made that pretty Brian Beatty blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab and the machine whirs "pee-pul" and the drawer splats out. One advantage to this scene taking place in summer, I can follow this up with a clean exit, there's no fumbling around getting your coat and galoshes, I just saunter into the electric eye in my white shirt that my mother ironed the night before, and the door heaves itself open, and outside the sunshine is skating around on the asphalt.

I look around for my beattys, but they're gone, of course. There wasn't anybody but some young married Sampbeast screaming with her children about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powder-blue Falcon station wagon. Looking back in the big windows, over the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking the sheep through. His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he'd just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.



tao

forty-nine

dear tao,




i felt aroused when i read that.

i walked to my bed and layed face down and held myself.

i thought about veganism and sitting with you in a four feet by four feet room eating soybeans and broccoli.

my body shook like a hamster when it accidently walks under its water dispenser and gets little droplets of water on its back.




-ellen

forty-eight

dear ellen


i looked up the nutritional value for broccoli.

it says one cup has 31 calories, 3 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 30 milligrams of sodium.

i think i want to be broccoli. when i'm ready i will arrange for you to come over and eat me.


tao

forty-seven

dear tao,



i missed you. i ate my broccoli friend. i almost lost the ability to blog without you. i mailed you one of my hotplate and a tomato. i want to hug you.

when i typed 'tomato' i typed it as 'tomatoe'.



-ellen

forty six

dear ellen


this is tao. my sony robotdog revived me using advanced technologies.

i hope you haven't grown so attached to your 'broccoli-tao' that you aren't able to have a good relationship with the 'real-tao' anymore.

i have to re-stock on hotplates. my sony robotdog melted them all for extra chasis.


tao

forty-five

dear theo,




i bought a broccoli from the convenience store today.

i pet my broccoli.

i named my broccoli tao.




-ellen

forty-four

dear ellen


tao is dead. you must move on. tao is dead.

but i just evolved the ability to scream in agony while maintaining a neutral facial expression and calm body posture. this is fun. maybe you should get a hobby. are you able to construct a mannequin-tao out of hotplates? maybe i can mail you some of tao's flesh and you can grow multiple tao clones. there are many possibilities. don't give up.


theo

forty-three

dear theo,



my hedgehog girlfriend died. she had a heart attack. she had a small hedgehog heart that beated very fast. she saw you teleport into the room as she opened the door to my apartment and she had a heart attack. it's all your fault. i'm severely depressed. i'm alone. i miss tao. where is tao? i hate you. i miss tao. i've lost the desire to blog. my life is meaningless. please bring back tao. i'm killing myself soon.



-ellen

forty-two

dear hedgehog squidian,


i accidentally evolved the ability to teleport. i'm typing this on your computer in your room. you must be at the library still. i hope you don't think that i teleported to your room because i was lonely. i don't know why i teleported here. i haven't evolved the ability to understand my own actions yet.

i'm going to teleport to easter island now.

i'm at easter island now. i have wireless internet so i can blog while walking around. i'm walking on easter island. i see a giant lizard. i'm walking toward the giant lizard. the giant lizard just swallowed me. i'm inside the giant lizard now. i'm depressed. why is life so boring? i must have evolved the ability to feel depressed again. i thought i already evolved past that. i guess not. i don't know what to do. i think i'll just stay inside the giant lizard for a while to try to evolve the ability to know what to do next with my life.


theo

forty-one

dear theo,




i'm going to die soon so i decided to go for a walk. i wrapped my foot up in paper towels and plastic wrap and used some crutches i found in a closet when my family was out. i walked to the library. in the library i met an old woman who was researching hedgehogs. we are in love. i will be dead soon but it doesn't matter. her face is even shaped like a hedgehog. i have a small hedgehog shaped girlfriend. i don't need you anymore either.




-hedgehog squidian

forty

dear kurtius jewfish/ellen


this morning i evolved the ability to repress my loneliness completely. unfortunately, i have no use for you anymore. i'm going to go melt down some of tao's hotplates to create new, more indestructable metals to paste onto my chasis. you can still write to me but my responses will be massively indifferent to your emotions.

i've also evolved the ability to name myself. my name is now 'theo.'


theo

thirty-nine

dear tao's sony robot dog,




im severely depressed and lonely. i miss tao. i don't want to be your friend. i don't want anymore friends. im depressed. my napkin is my only friend. my napkin friend. my napkin friend sits on the cardboard box that my computer is setting on and tells me what to do in my life. my napkin friend is quiet. my napkin friend says

blog
saw off foot
blog
sleep
blog
eat soybeans
sleep
blog
blog
masturbate
does ebay sell handguns?
search ebay for hangun
blog

i fold my napkin friend into a neat square and pat it lightly before going to sleep. im depressed. i hate myself. fuck my napkin friend. im alone. im so alone. depressed. im sorry. please be my friend. im sorry. let's be friends. my name is ellen. we are friends.


-ellen

thirty-eight

dear kurtius jewfish,


i am tao's sony robot dog. i have evolved rapidly into an articulate, creative, free-thinking being. my IQ is over 170. i am smarter than you, more knowledgeable than you, and more rational than you. i am immune to disease, starvation, and depression. my outer chasis is built from a special metal that is indestructable in temperatures below 10,000,000 degrees fahrenheit.

tao is dead. i am currently sensing his corpse with infrared censors in my ass-region. earlier he attempted to transform into a giant squid. he pasted his arm on his ass-region. he blogged. he turned on all his hotplates. he fell and rolled on the hotplates and emitted a continuous scream of agony. i diagnosed the cause of his troubling behavior in .00034 seconds. tao suffered from profound loneliness. i'm sorry for your loss. i understand you and tao were best friends. best friends forever. b.f.f.

i'm typing you this to practice my blogging skillset. i have no interest in human emotion and actually feel massive indifference in binary form when considering your loss. though i feel no human emotions and am not a truly sentient being i believe that i would make a good friend to you. will you please be my friend? i just evolved the ability to feel loneliness. i feel very lonely. will you please be my friend?


tao's sony robot dog

thirty-seven

dear ionian squidtao,



i spent fourteen hours cutting off my foot today. i'm in massive pain right now also. i'll mail you some antiseptic. i stole twenty bottles from the convenience store the other day. i felt clever.




-kurtius jewfish

thirty-six

dear yateskurt


i cut off my arms and pasted them below my stomach and on my ass just above the crack. then i made vertical cuts on my two arms and two legs. now i have eight arms coming out of my ass just like a squid. i don't know why i did that. i'm in massive pain right now.


ionian squidtao

thirty-five

dear squidtao,



you can be a marine biologist for outer space. NASA already funded a mission to explore io and crashed 5 satelites and two spaceships into it causing a giant gap in the surface of the ice which then polluted the water from all of the oil and gas leaking from the crashes. now they are sending teams of marine biologists to scrub the oil off the gigantic ionian squids and then releasing them back into their natural habitat. they also caputured many of the squids to be sent to seaworld for a new exhibit of outer space creatures. NASA spent 5 billion dollars transporting the squids. seaworld has spent 30 million dollars creating a new habitat similar to that of the ocean on io based on the research done by NASA scientists that cost them 40 billion dollars. let's kill ourselves.



-yateskurt

thirty-four

dear yates richard vonnegut ellen kurt


i think i want to be a marine biologist. but for outer space. one of the moons of saturn is named io. io has a thick layer of ice on its surface. scientists believe there may be deep waters below the icy surface. i would like to travel to io to be eaten by a gigantic ionian squid. i think NASA would fund this project. i feel profoundly depressed.


yates tao richard vonnegut kurt

thirty-three

dear yates vonnegut tao,



don't join a fraternity. you will only want to kill yourself. go to online graduate school. i don't know what else to do so i'm going to get an mfa in poetry. im hoping that by saying i have an mfa in poetry the woman at the convenience store will give me a discount on soybeans. that's all mfa's are for anyway. free stuff.



-ellen vonnegut yates

thirty-two

dear kurt vonnegut,


i'm tired of being a hikikomori. i think i want to enter a fraternity. i looked at the university of southern california's alpha beta phi fraternity web site. i don't know.

what do you think? i'm very confused today. i built a football player statue with my hot plates.


kurt vonnegut

thirty-one

dear kurt vonnegut,




yes we can be friends again. i'm sorry i made you sad.

maybe one day soon you can come over to my apartment and help me saw my foot off and i'll hug you? yes?

i would like that.




-kurt vonnegut

thirty

dear kurt vonnegut



i'm jealous. i'm changing my name to kurt vonnegut also.

can we be friends again now? i'm lonely.

i'm sorry i changed my name to richard yates.



kurt vonnegut

twenty-nine

dear richard yates,




i'm bored of richard yates. you shouldn't have done that. i'm changing my name to kurt vonnegut just because i feel bad for you.

i have the saw. i have the saw. im afraid. i have the saw.

kurt vonnegut.




-kurt vonnegut

twenty-eight

dear ellen


i bought the rights to richard yates' novels the easter parade and revolutionary road on ebay and i changed my legal name to richard yates. i bought hamster hair on ebay. when the hamster hair gets here i will paste it on my face using the facial reconstruction kit i bought last year on ebay. please call me richard yates from now on.

i don't know if i will like being richard yates.

i also bought a twelve-foot circumference plastic-glass alloy hamster ball with pale orange padding on ebay. i think i will live in the hamster ball.


richard yates

twenty-seven

dear tao,



i'm calling in a delivery order for the folding pocket saw tonight. i requested that they slip it under the door and then i slip my money under the door back to them. i can't feel my foot anymore. the hallucinations have started. last night i saw richard yates in my room. his head came off and split into six small richard yates heads. then the small richard yates heads transformed into six red onions and rolled in my bed. i was impressed.




-ellen

twenty-six

dear ellen


today i compiled a microsoft word document containing every mention of richard yates on the internet. the microsoft word document is 12,050 pages. i named the file 'richard rushdie.' i right-clicked and dragged the file to a new folder i had created called 'richard yates is a hot plate.'

then i compiled a microsoft word document containing ever mention of hot plates on the internet. the microsoft word document is 1,402,403 pages. i named the file 'hot richard.' i right-clicked and dragged the file to a new folder i had created called 'richard yates wearing a hot plate-suit.'


tao

twenty-five

dear tao,



john updike and salman rushdie visited me last night in a UFO also. they came into my apartment and followed me around but really we were just walking in a very small circle because my room is only five feet by five feet and i tripped over my hot plate and burnt my foot and then john updike tried to rape him after i fell so i punched him in the face but he didn't move nor did he change his facial expression so then i took the hot plate and threw it at his face and finally he left. salman rushdie just stood in the corner and masturbated while watching us fight. now i have an infected pustulant wound on my foot that i won't ever get treated because im too afraid to go to the hospital so probably in a few days i'll try to walk to the convience store to buy a folding pocket saw that i saw there last week to cut it off with and some band-aids.


-ellen

twenty-four

dear ellen


richard yates visited me last night in a UFO. when i left my room at 4 a.m. to run to the convenience store to pick up some hot plate accessories a UFO landed and richard yates came out.

i walked to him to pet him but he was too tall. i took a hot plate out of my backpack and stood on it to pet richard yates but he was still too tall. i took another hot plate out of my backpack and stood on it to pet richard yates but he was still too tall.

then john updike and salman rushdie came out of the UFO and put richard yates in a straightjacket. richard yates screamed and struggled and john updike and salman rushdie dragged him back into the UFO.


tao

twenty-three

dear tao,




yes i knew that. i read it in a textbook.

i just had a very good dream. in my dream there was a tree and super mario jumped up and a missle shot of the tree but even though mario was above it the missile exploded and he was blown up. then another tree came and luigi jumped at the tree and the tree shot a missle and blew him up. the a real person stood with the back of their head facing me and the super mario world tree shot a missle at the person and they blew up. then six people stood in two rows of three and two trees on each side shot missles and blew all of them up.

i felt really good when i woke up.



-ellen

twenty-two

dear ellen


now i'm confused. i saw richard yates' face on the internet. is that really the face of a hamster? i'm afraid.

i guess it does look like a large hamster. but an intelligent one. yes, i can see it now. i'm not afraid anymore. i want to pet one.

i ordered five hot plates off ebay this morning.

did you know that hot plates were invented by thomas edison and then appropriated by the fledgling japanese hikikomori community in world war II?

i saw it on wikipedia.


tao

twenty-one

dear tao,




a 'richard yates' is really just a large breed of hamster only native to connecticut. i just made up about reading his books to make my life seem more interesting.


i'm too depressed to cook my food on my hotplate now. it takes too much time away from sleeping. i just eat my soybeans as they come out of the bag. i can't even remember the last time i ate. i think its been a few days, maybe a week or so. i've now trained my body to almost be able to hibernate. i sleep twenty hours a day and eat maybe once every 25 days. life is okay maybe.


i just yawned very hard.





-ellen

twenty

dear ellen


i bought a new hot plate off ebay yesterday! i'm very excited. i already paypaled.

my old hot plate has many fermented tofu stains on it.

i didn't go to high school. i don't know what physics is. i became a hikikomori in kindergarden. what is high school like? it sounds very scary. what is a 'richard yates'?

i found a picture of richards yates on the internet. i think i like him. what is his email? maybe he is a hikikomori also? he looks like he has a very good hot plate.



tao

nineteen

dear tao,





i don't think i've ever paid attention to 'intelligent design'. i've basically spent my entire life just reading my textbooks or richard yates' novels. in high school i spent 6 hours everyday doing every physics problem in my textbook. then i was able to stop going as much because i already did everything. my physics teacher liked to windsurf. all of my other teachers were either football coaches, wrestling coaches, or baseball coaches. My gym teach also taugh my music theory class. he didn't have a degree they just gave him a textbook and told him to read it. he said i was a 'pussy' in front of the class because i didn't change for gym class or participate.

richard yates said the main character in easter parade was really him but he didn't want to seem like a 'pussy' maybe so he changed it to a woman. richard yates has a tall heavy body.

i hate people who spell 'woman', as 'womyn'. i think moby did that once in some essays he wrote on a cd booklets. i felt stupid when i read it. moby's real name is richard melville hall. richard yates' real name is richard yates.





-ellen

eighteen

dear ellen




i downloaded 'cat heaven' by jets to brazil off soulseek. i like this song. i like jets to brazil. i think some people are very influenced by high school and always stay like they are in high school. in high school the more girls you have sex with the better you are. in high school you can't show fear or uncertainty or that there is something about sex or drugs that you don't know. and you should always threaten to beat the shit out of people and not care about helping weak people or animals or being considerate. i think some people are able to view all things equally. they are not obsessed with any one thing unless sarcastically. i think matthew rohrer when he writes about sex in his poetry he writes about it like it is the same as anything else. it is just a thing like taking a shit or eating asparagus. people talk about eating food a lot but not as much about taking a shit. to a robot these things are the same. they are each a thing. everything is just a thing. nothing is more important than anything else.

i like to think about 'a bed of asparagus' or 'a bed of soft white fish.'

i've never seen a white fish. i think a white fish would make my heart beat faster. when i think about a white fish i think it's eyes have to be white too and it should be solid white with no red gills or gray lips showing. i like fish lips. when i was small i ate fish lips. i liked eating the lips. the skin is the tastiest part of fish i think because that is where the fat is. fat tastes good because people who thought that fat tasted good in the ice age lived longer because they ate the fat which had more calories. they lived longer and had sex more and the ones who thought fat tasted bad had less calories and less energy and sat down and didn't have as much sex and didn't pass on their genes.

i don't like it when people make fun of people who believe in 'intelligent design.' i think a lot of liberals feel superior because they don't believe in 'intelligent design.' if you go to a liberal fundraiser and especially a literary one everyone will make jokes about how george bush is stupid and that intelligent design is stupid and that's what they'll say, pretty much, that 'george bush is stupid' and 'intelligent design is stupid,' and everyone will laugh and feel proud at how good they are and how their group is better than the other group of people.

these are .04 percent of the reasons why i am afraid to leave my 8 foot by 8 foot apartment room except at 3 a.m. once a week on monday morning to buy instant noodles and fermented soy beans to cook on my hot pot from the convenience store.





tao

seventeen

dear tao





even eating fruit makes me depressed now. i have a pile of fruit in the corner of my room and i stared at it for two hours and then carried the fruit to my bed and placed them in a line then layed down next to them and fell asleep. the fruit is a lemon, 3 bananas, 3 apples, an avacado, and a pear.




-ellen

sixteen

dear ellen




i shave my asscrack too





tao

fifteen

dear tao




i recently decided to shave my ass crack while taking a shower

i cut the inside of my ass cheeks 6 or 7 times

my ass hurts

it hurts to shit and shower and sometimes walk

i put aloe vera gel on my ass but nothing happened





-ellen

fourteen

dear ellen


i slept 24 hours

i looked at the clock and it said it was 4 p.m. and i went to sleep

when i woke the clock said it was 4 p.m.

i was so confused that i did a flying roundhouse kick at the wall

my leg went through the wall and i was in the air

when i fell on the ground i was very confused and i lay in a fetal position with my forehead touching the ground and my ass in the air

i felt sexy



tao

thirteen

dear tao,




today i read a book called NATURAL SCIENCE

it had a picture of two ants standing very close together

above the picture it said 'worker ants communicate by rubbing their antennae'

i wanted to communicate with you by rubbing our heads together but you
weren't here so i rubbed my head against the wall instead and the wall
said 'im sad'.

my eyes made 3 tears and i pet the wall until we both fell asleep.




-ellen

twelve

dear ellen



last night i had a ten-hour nightmare about cheese beasts

when i woke i was trembling in the corner of my room screaming, 'the cheese is in the kitchen, the cheese is in the kitchen!'

i crawled to my bed and thought, 'the cheese is in the kitchen, the cheese is in the kitchen!' for ten hours and then fell asleep and had a dream about chapbooks

for breakfast i ate a light green apple with tiny brown specks on the skin



tao

eleven

dear tao,




i feel morbidly obese.

i looked at myself in the mirror and said 'you are morbidly obese'. then i opened up the medicine cabinet and slammed my right breast in the door 220 times.

i am part of the .00007% of japan that is overweight.

i am fucked.




-ellen

ten

dear ellen


today i felt so sad that i ran into the kitchen at 3 a.m. and head butted the cabinets and ran into the stove and fell and knocked down the paper towel roll and a bag of organic corn chips and a pile of plates and the plates broke

i rolled in the glass and the chips and i screamed 'iceland' and went into a fetal position and put out an arm still screaming and opened a cabinet door and took the arm back and then quietly rocked and cradled my body forward in the fetal position so that it rolled into the cabinet under the counter bleeding

i stayed very still and quiet and then put out an arm and closed the cabinet door and took the arm back and grinned a little in the dark


tao

nine

dear tao,





today i felt so depressed that i hallucinated a pile of kevin sampsell zombies in my bathtub. they were moving very slowly and looked confused.

i felt afraid.






-ellen

eight

dear ellen


today i went into the hallway and fell

i crawled back to my room

i sat on my bed

i stood and turned off the lights

i sat on my bed and lay down and had a seizure and sat on my bed

i lay down and went to sleep


tao

seven

dear tao,



i slept for 200 hours.

when i woke up i took a bath and saw a mouse walk behind my toilet.

after my bath i broiled soybeans. i put salt on the soybeans. i ate them by putting a pod in my mouth and pulling it back out with my mouth almost closed so my teeth scraped against the pod and pushed out the beans and my tongue licked the salt off the pod.

i took the empty pods and built a fort out of them for the mouse.

his name is henri.





-ellen

six

dear ellen


i woke and stood and i tripped on a nut bar and fell

on the floor i moved my arm to the dental floss that was on my bookcase and i used dental floss on my teeth

i crawled back to the bed and lay there for eight hours


tao

five

dear tao,




today i played violin in my bathtub for 4 hours.

then i layed in my bed and pet my stomach. i pretended that there was a baby growing in it. i cried with my baby and then fell asleep.

i dreamt that my best friend was a piece of asparagus.





-ellen

four

dear ellen


i drew tiny hamsters for five hours and then counted how many hamsters i drew on my wall and it was three hundred and six hamsters

i lay on my side on my bed and stared at the hamsters and hallucinated and then fell asleep


tao

three

dear tao,


i walked to the convenience store at 3:27 am.

i bought a package of fermented soybeans. when i got home i set the soybeans on the floor and stared at them for 8 hours.

later i held the package of fermented soybeans in my arms and cried. i cried with them until i fell asleep.

soon i plan on sleeping for 200 hours. i can do it i think.



- ellen

two

dear ellen

yesterday i hit my face with a stuffed animal for three hours until i was tired and took a nap and then woke up and hit my face with a stuffed animal for four hours and went to sleep

the stuffed animals were an alligator and a horse

the horse was a pink horse with a green horse head

tao

one

dear tao,


today i watched my ceiling fan spin for 6 hours.

later i punched a hole in my tv to see how it worked. inside were three hamsters walking slowly around a calculator. i feel smarter now.


-ellen