So, I take a deep breath and get it from the shelf. It was the last present she gave me. It’s nothing really valuable. Funny how quickly trash can become our most valuable possession. Actually, it was meant as a joke.

I didn’t even realise I was doing it, but somewhere along the way she noticed that I tap my mobile in my hand, the way a smoker taps a pack of cigarettes to get one out. She smirked and asked me if I wanted a smoke. My face must have had that inquizical frown until I realised her reference and smiled a ‘no thanks’. I had never smoked in my life. She let it go, chiding, “They have less calories than chocolates..”.

A week later she was dead.

When her family went through her belongings, they found a present she had intended to give me for Valentine’s Day. A heart-shaped box of chocolates. At this point, no gift in the world could have lifted my spirits. I put it on the table in front of my chair and tried to block everything out.

I was blocking out so much in the next few days that I didn’t even realise it was Valentine’s Day. By chance, something caught my attention and reminded me. I looked at the box on the table and thought, “Why the heck not?”.

So I opened it, and it wasn’t chocolates at all. It was a pack of Imperials and a lighter engraved with a cursive ‘TQM’. My head dropped as the breath escaped the mouth of a grief smile. Closing my eyes didn’t keep the tears from flowing out.

Wiping my arm across my eyes and nose, I took the lighter and pack, and lit one up. Every year, I come home, and I have one. Every year, another cigarette, and every cigarette we’re one smoke closer to being together again.

Constant panting echoed through the pure white halls of Heaven as John Brown hustled towards the transporter room. Once inside, and still gasping, his sweaty hand slapped the red button to send him back to Earth. Sparkles flew and particles of light circled around him as the room began to incrementally shake in a mechanical way.

Soon enough, John was sliding through inter-dimensional wormhole. The walls of swirling purple plasma and constricting high pressure came to a relieving end as his body began to materialise on Earth. Visually, it looked much the same as the beginning of his journey: sparkles with particles of light spiraling around him.

After fully materialising, John stretched. His large white feathered wings straightened to their full length. His superhuman manifestation was entirely snow white, except his skin retained some element of life, bearing a fleshly hue. Considerably taller than a normal man, he still was retained an humanoid form, with the notable addition of the wings. Each hand held a large doubled edged sword with the blades encircled by glowing white flames.

Apparently, it was nighttime, with a mild breeze in the air. Noone was out and about, despite the nice light cast from the not entirely full moon. In this light of darkness, John began his first visit. The way in which he moved gave the appearance that under his long white robe, neither his feet nor legs were actually moving, but rather floating or sliding along the ground effortlessly.

Before long, his irking pace led him to the wooden door of a farmhouse. With both fists, still holding the swords, he beat on the door. A middle-aged woman answered the door.

Letting out an elongated “Hoooo!” with his rounded lips and with the tip of the sword in his left hand he bopped her on the head, inflicting a mortal wound. Upon hearing the commotion, her husband rose from his chair, yelling, “What the sam hell..”. Seeing the visiter, his eyes grew larger, leaving him in a paralysed shock. Brown then lunged towards him with the sword in his right hand, piercing the man’s chest. The man hollered, “Ahhh! You got me!” before Brown lopped off his head with the other sword.

Now, the entire household was awake. The slaves rushed to their master’s aid, only to find they no longer had a master. Seeing them, Brown raised both arms into the air, and boisterously declared, “You are freeeee!” With feelings mixed with gratitude and fear, they fled his presence.

The remainder of the night continued in much the same way. John joyously jogged from one homestead to the next. He developed an rhythmic methodology, not unlike that of a ballroom dance. In fact, the Bitter Sweet Symphony Remix began to play at the beginning of each visit he made.

Finally, after another visit, the wide eyes of his no nonsense expression gazed into the sky to see that dawn was quickly approaching. Around half way back to the town square, he realised he wasn’t going to make it. Dropping both swords, he used each hand to hold up his flowing robe. Bustling along as quickly as he could, he cried allowed with a tinge of desperation in his tone, “I have to get back to Heaven!”

Reaching the destination right in time, he quickly spun around and stomped his right foot onto the ground. The earth shook and sparkles flew as particles of light began to encircle him.

As I was at a conference, a doctor was speaking. Already, he had oiled his institution and programme in prestige. The arrogance metre was elevating. He was telling of how he had considered giving some pointers for the admission interview to a prospective student of the graduate programme of this particular doctor’s institution. Explaining why he chose not to do so, with the air of having received a revelation in his personal journey in life, he suddenly declared, “Because that would inject a bias!”. Whilst making this declaration, he cocked his head, jolted both index fingers into the air and even his buttocks from off his seat. I can’t say a normal person would have acted this way.

I have no quarrel with his decision nor his reasons behind it, but the way in which he recounted the event and turned it into an academic outburst is what raised the eyebrows. The whole incident was so prestigious.

Standing inside a dimly lit room of his house, young fell gazed out the window into the clear blue sky. It was another late Friday afternoon, right when there’s that stillness outside. No wind, and very little sound. Hardly another soul to be seen. He looked back inside the room, seeing the dust particles floating in the rays of sunlight. But, beyond the sunbeams, a dark figure stepped out of the shadows. It was Lucifer.

Another steady step, and then he stopped. His eyes continued to gaze into the boy’s, as Lucifer opened his mouth with a touch of wetness. Then it became clear, his lips where wet so his offer could roll of them so smoothly: “Give me your soul, and I’ll grant you seven wishes.”

Startled, the boy stepped back with his right foot. Reaching into behind his back, he pulled out an orange water pistol and fired with lighting precision into the face of Lucifer. The attack was accompanied with the response to the offer: “Screw you!”

In a shrill voice, Lucifer shrieked in pain, “Ahhh my eyes! You douche!” Continuing to fire, the boy rolled once he was empty, picking up a water burst rifle. This weapon was quite the analogue to a shotgun, pump action with bursts of water.

Repeatedly being hit with shots from the new weapon, Lucifer began roaring as he stepped backwards. Suddenly, a black hole opened behind him, spanning the entire width of the room and even part of the floor behind. On its edges, drips of darkness blurred and mingled with the physical realm of the room. Continuing to step backwards, Lucifer finally put his weight on a foot that had no foundation and he fell backwards into the black hole, roaring as his stiff body rotated.

Though we failed the mission, we were still alive. Our chopper had gained enough altitude that we were relatively safe, no enemy fire, no enemy aircraft, and no anti-air. The only ‘threat’ that remained were a few ants on the ground still pursuing us. They had slaughtered most of our unit on the ground with their swords, but there wasn’t much they could do to us now.

After a few minutes, I looked back. We’d lost a lot of good men down there.The patches of blood were still visible, even from this far away. It’s at this time, that I noticed the enemy was still chasing after us. More disturbing is that they were actually keeping up with our helicopter.

Then, one of them pulled ahead of the rest. Gradually, he was not only keeping up, but actually gaining on us. As he got closer, I remembered him. All of them fought fiercely, but this one, it was like he was possessed. By now, I could distinguish the colour of his armour against the glow of that giant sword. The sword was as sharp as any from these lands, but had to have been over 2 metres long and it burned as hot as Hell itself.

When I began to make out the details of his face, I realised that he was no longer on the ground. He was running in the air. No, not quite. He was stepping on butterflies. Not stomping on them, but gracefully bounding from one to another with every stride.

The situation was quickly turning into a real problem. Alerted, the commander ordered us to open fire with whatever weapons we had left, mostly just pistols. No effect, that which actually hit barely dinted that blue armour.

He disappeared. I looked out the door and saw him nowhere. In an instant, I was face to face with him as he jetted up from below. His eyes were opened wide with that possessed look. As quickly as he appeared, still outside, he jetted to my right, the front of the copter.

With my jaw dropped, I don’t think I moved for a second. But when I did, I could see a beam of light spanning from the left to the right side of the fuselage coming towards me. It sliced right through the helmet ‘protected’ heads of the pilot and copilot. This was it, he was decapitating the whole freakin’ chopper.

A trinket was tossed down from the heavens. It was fashioned in the shape of an animal, maybe a giraffe, with a glow and sparkle like cheap crap out of an entrance machine. While still in the air, a young zealot sprang into the sky to take hold of the trinket. In the air, he did a flip, and then stretched out his body with all his might, reaching up so far that his armpit ached until his desperate hand finally took hold of the trinket.

Once he acquired the object, and whilst still in the air, it was as if time stopped. A disturbing holler of excitement come through his mouth as beams of red and pink stars began puking out of both eyes. Time started again, but the stars continued coming out of his eyes and he began descending back to the ground. As he descended, his body was nearly in a seated position, as if he were sitting in a chair. But if the invisible chair were rotating continuously forward, making the man continuously flip.

This continued and the rotations became faster and faster as he came lower and lower. Amazingly, he literally hit the ground running and proceeded to run down the street. He continued running until he reached the other side of the Earth and disappeared.

Many, many years ago, the god of excrement made a deal with humankind. He said, If multiple times a day you will show me your private parts and present your urine and feces as an offering to me, I will utterly remove such waste from your presence. Humankind agreed. Then, the god of excrement instructed, Build you a room and place in it an altar idol which you shall call Toilette for which to offer your gifts unto me. Humankind did so. And to this day, nearly every building has a room dedicated to the god of excrement, with an altar idol in his image.

Masses, and masses of people, an ocean of people standing everywhere. But there’s a trail that really stands out because there’s no people on it. It’s the only piece of ground for kilometres where there are no people. If you looked down the trail, you wouldn’t see the end. Not because the trail wasn’t straight, but because it’s so long.

As you walk down the trail, you reach a shadow that spans over the trail and the masses. At this point, you can finally see the end. There’s a large tower. For the most part, the tower’s texture is rounded and smooth like river stones. But there’s spikes or horns emanating from it, presenting a devilish contrast. The whole either slate grey or black, you can’t really tell because the sunlight on it makes the colour ambiguous.

Closer, and closer you go. Soon you can see the trail leads up a rather steep set of grandiose stairs. And the stairs lead up to disturbingly large doors. In the cast iron blackness of the doors, you can clearly see there etched jackal feastings and carnivorous ceremonies.

With a consistency and elegance, the doors smoothly float open. Once open, Duel of the Fates began to blare across the entire spectrum. And as you see Sawyer walk out from the door, you realise for the first time in your life that the song is saying “Sawyer comes forth! Sawyer lives with us!”.

Long, long ago, there was a man named Moon. Moon just kinda hung out on his own, doing his own thing. Then he saw a really hot woman named Sun. He instantly fell in love with her. The two became great lovers.

Then one day, a new girl moved in the neighbourhood. Her name was Earth. She was very young, but had beautiful blue hair. Moon saw her and couldn’t help falling in love with her. Of course, Sun was really pissed off at her paedophile lover Moon, and divorced him. In turn, Moon moved in with Earth and made her the centre of his life. As Earth matured, she became sexier and hotter. This is the cause of Global Warming.

Further out in the neighbourhood lived a pimp named Saturn. He had the most moons in the neighbourhood.

On the outskirts of town, lived Pluto. No one really knew if he was a moon or a planet, so they labeled him as an hermaphrodite.

There once was a man named Charles Manson who was king of the Mansons. He had drugs and insanity beyond your wildest dreams. Before they threw him in the prison, these were the final words he said: “My LSD is yours for the taking, but you’ll have to find it first. I left everything I own in One Dose.”.

Ever since, people from all over the world, sent fan mail for him, searching for One Dose, the drug that would make their dreams come true.