Any Given Segway, Part 1

About the story: During my senior year of high school, we did journals at the beginning of English class each morning. My teacher had a habit of making the dullest journal prompts for us to use, and it was a challenging exercise in faking it to come up with something meaningful. I often wondered if he actually read our journals when he took them up, and I came up with a few pretty outlandish journals to test it.

One day, we received the prompt, "Making a transaction..." Being given 5 minutes to write on these prompts made it even harder to write something that made sense. Chapter 1 of this story is the entire journal entry I did on that prompt. I took the journal home one day and got a huge kick out of it, and I thought it would be funny to expand upon it. So I typed it on my computer and kept writing. What follows is the result of that. I've been writing this story off and on for the past couple of years, whenever I feel like adding something.


Chapter 1

One time, I went to the bank. I went up to the ATM and, wanting to make a transaction, I made a transaction. As I was leaving, the owner of the bank(also named Tom) ran up to me and said, "Sir, you left your pancakes in the bank!" Having already eaten all my pancakes, I found this rather odd, and I maced him. He yelled at me as I ran off, "Sir, the pancakes! THE PANCAAAAKES!"

The next day, the cops(also named Tom) called my house and said, "You are under arrest. When can we come over to get you?"

I said, "Later."

They said, "Okay. Just call us when you're ready."

I said, "What's the charge?"

They said, "First-degree burns."

I said, "What?"

They said, "Oops. That should have been 'murder'." We had a good laugh, and when they came to arrest me, I left my pancakes behind. Thus the cycle was completed.

Chapter 2

Now you may be thinking to yourself, "How can mace kill someone?" It's easy when it's a mace, and not mace. It was a big ball-and-chain. Don't be ignorant.

Anyway, I was at the police station, and the chief of police was in the middle of executing someone Texas-style(which involves shooting while laughing), when he saw me and said, "Hey, pancake man!" Not knowing at all what that meant, I was inclined to mace him, but my mace was gone. Ironically, the police didn't take it - it got stuck in the banker's skull. This occurred to me as they walked me into the interrogation tank, and I asked them about it.

"Do you guys have my mace?" I asked. One of the cops then maced me. That didn't really answer my question until later on, when I came to and was able to think straight. Then it answered my question. See, what I mean is, the cop maced me in the head, so I was knocked out. I couldn't piece it all together until I woke up.

After that, they sat me down in the interrogation tank. How it worked was like this: They put me in this huge tank of water - well, they sat me above it, anyway, and it was sort of an ugly mixture of water and blood, since I had been dripping blood from my skull into the water. For some reason, the cops didn't do anything about it. I asked one of them, "Could one of you guys make the bleeding stop on my head?"

Then he said, "But the bleeding has stopped on your head! It isn't going anywhere else, is it?" Everyone started laughing. Even I did, because that was funny. After we were done laughing, he slapped me on the back of my head and knocked me into the tank. I really thought I would die at that moment, but luckily, I didn't. The tank actually didn't have any water in it, so I just hit bottom and broke my leg. It hurt, but at least I wasn't dead. Or was I?

Chapter 3

No.

And thus it was for the next few days until my court date. The judge found me guilty of denial of pancakery and deadly assault with archaic weaponry, and I was sentenced to fifteen minutes of community service. Basically, he just wanted me to help him move this really heavy bookshelf to the other side of the room. That only took five minutes, so then he had the bailiff whip me fifty times with a chain. This really helped me forget about the bleeding on my head, which hadn't stopped. The cops kept reopening that wound in my head, which was very unpleasant. Eventually, when I was released from jail, I had the whole situation sorted out with a doctor, and with a few weeks of bed rest, my head was as good as new.

During the time I spent at home - since I'm normally out fighting crime(or robbing people, I can't remember what I usually did) - I got quite a few calls from telemarketers who wanted to sell me drugs. I didn't know they could do that, but I went along with it anyway. This is how one call went:

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is your old pal Joe. How you doin', buddy?"

"I don't know anybody named Joe."

"Well, you probably don't remember me because of the blow you received on the head recently from those cops."

"That makes sense. So, what's up, Joe?"

"Not much, just selling drugs, you want some?"

"No."

"Okay."

Then we hung up, and I immediately regretted not buying drugs from him. Luckily, I had a whole bunch of painkillers that I stole from someone - they work so well, I don't even remember whom I stole them from - and I managed to avoid most physical sensations for at least a week. Now they say that if you don't use your body for a long time, your muscles will weaken(and when I say "they", I mean "common sense"), so after about a month in bed, I tried to stand up, but it didn't work. Here's what happened: One morning, I realized that I was out of painkillers. Since they had worn off, I remembered whom I stole them from and wanted to go get some more. I threw off my covers.

I first realized there was a problem when I couldn't get my legs to move. I pulled them over the couch with my arms, and my feet landed on the floor with a loud thump. When I tried to stand up, I fell over. I tried three times that I recall and fell over each time. I lay there for a minute, gathering my thoughts and locating my legs - still attached to my body, luckily - and I eventually devised a plan of action for finding the guy with the painkillers and taking them. I had devised six plans, actually, but four involved murder, and one involved murder and arson, and I thought I should probably avoid the long mace of the law for a while. So I went with the legal one.

I won't bore you with the story of my leg transplant. Suffice it to say that my old legs had stopped working, and when I mentioned that to the guy I stole the painkillers from, he recommended a good leg transplant surgeon that he knew. Dr. Bob something. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful, I just never got his name.

Dr. Bob recommended a great place to buy one of those weird motorized scooter-like things that turns around and stuff, so I went and bought one of those. I rode by my house, and saw a letter on my front door that read as follows: "Hey man, I came by your house to force you to buy drugs, or at least give me some money, but you weren't there. Call me later so we can set up an appointment. 555-7069. - Joe." So I decided I'd go inside and call Joe up to set an appointment.

I rode inside, and tried to go upstairs to get the phone. I had a hard time getting up the stairs while riding my scooter. I got to the fourth or fifth step and did something wrong, so I fell backwards, hitting my head on the ground. It gave me a concussion or something, and I was knocked out for a while. The scooter was fine.

Chapter 4

I woke up some time later, and I left the scooter downstairs while I went upstairs to get the phone. I was just stupid enough to try to ride a motorized scooter upstairs, but not stupid enough to try it twice. Once I got upstairs, I called up Joe. I won't bore you with the details, but I will bore you with an exact transcript of the conversation.

"Hey, Joe?"

"Oh, hi, scooter man!"

"How did you know I got a scooter?"

"What, you kidding me? I got my fingers on the pulse of the streets."

"But how does that - "

"So, do you want some drugs or not?"

"Well, my legs work again, so no."

"Okay, well, I gotta reach my quota before the end of today, so could I just give you the drugs?"

"Does the government know you're doing this?"

"Okay, I'll be right over. What kind of drugs do you want?"

"Uh, regular."

"Okay, so I got 500 pieces of regular drugs. Is that right?"

"Sure."

"Be right over."

I hung up with Joe and made my way back downstairs. I remembered that I needed to get dinner, since I hadn't eaten all day, so I rode my scooter outside and drove down to the McDonald's. I went through the drive-thru, and I had this idea in my head that I was going to get my food and then drive off really fast without paying, but somehow I got it mixed up, and so I paid them and drove off really fast without getting my food. I was so proud of myself until I got home and realized I was still hungry and must not have eaten anything. I went back to the McDonald's, and they were surprisingly patient with me. I got my food, and while I was driving back home, a car came at me out of nowhere and hit me. I was at least partially at fault for driving against traffic.

So I was lying there bleeding when the driver of the car came out and berated me for denting the hood of his car. I don't blame him, his car was awesome. I told him he should probably sue me, so he said he would.

A week later, I was in court. I was charged with second-degree denting of a kick-ass car, which I didn't even know was a crime until then. The driver walked into the courtroom, and the judge walked into the courtroom too. Funny that. The judge sat down and told everyone else to sit down, so they did. He said to the bailiff, "So what's going on, Joe?" The bailiff said, "Nothing."

And the trial went on like this for months, or maybe it was a week. I went to sleep a lot, and they kept waking me up. One day in particular was so interesting that I was awake the whole time, until the end. I was sitting in the witness stand, and I was being berated by my own attorney for banging up that dude's car, which probably isn't a good sign. Anyway, I was ignoring him in the first place. Suddenly, this guy in the audience started relaying messages to me via sign language. The only problem was, I didn't understand sign language, so this is what I got of his messages:

"Whirl your hands around, tap yourself."

"My heart is open."

"Check the palm of your hand for any markings."

"To be or not to be, there is a ham sandwich."

I'll admit, I just made all that up, and for the most part I just sat there mimicking what he was doing to make him mad. It worked, too, because he then got up, pulled out a handgun and shot me in the arm five times. The judge got up and shouted, "Order! Order in the court!" He then pulled out a double-barrel shotgun from his robe and shot the guy in the chest twice, killing him. Then, this lady got up, took the guy's handgun, and shouted, "My beloved husband!" and shot the judge in the head. Then the bailiff killed the woman, someone killed the bailiff, and one after another until the room was covered with over a hundred dead bodies. Not only that, but I couldn't remember where I had left my scooter, so I hopped over the corpses and left the court room, and I caught a cab home.

Chapter 5

My first clue that the car I had gotten into wasn't a cab should have been the fact that it wasn't yellow. What's more, cab drivers don't usually sit in the back seat and roll down the window and ask you to get in. At any rate, being unusually trusting of strangers that day, I got in, and we started driving. The man in the car had a t-shirt on that read "Joe," so I could only deduce that it was that dealer Joe who kept claiming to be my friend. "Are you Joe?" I asked.

"No."

After that, we rode silently on the same road for around three hours, until a thought occurred to me. "So why does your shirt say Joe, then?"

"You ask too many questions, Joe."

"My name isn't Joe."

"Then why'd you say Joe?"

"I thought it was your name."

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, your shirt says Joe."

Just then, I realized that whoever this guy was had been driving the car, but stuck something down in the bottom to keep the car driving while he sat in the back seat. This worked well enough, except we came to a really sharp curve, and the car overturned about ten or five hundred times until we landed somewhere. I was bleeding profusely from the head, and the other guy was dead - at least his torso was. I became exceedingly worried about the driver for a split second, until I realized he was an inanimate bar of metal, and he'd be fine. I soon passed out from the bleeding, which was only weird because that's the first time it's ever done that to me.

I woke up some time later, once more lying on my couch at home, watching an infomercial for knives on TV. I looked over at my clock, and it was flashing twelve, so I figured it was 3:34 AM. I checked on the TV Guide channel, and I was right. The only problem was, I never knew if stuff that happened to me was real or not. I still hadn't found my scooter, and as far as I could deduce, that whole incident in the car was just a dream designed to tell me that I should find it. So I got up and immediately felt a sharp pain in my arm. Wanting to know what it was, I went to my bathroom and looked in the mirror. I saw five bullet wounds.

At that, I went to my phone and called up Joe.

"Hey, Joe."

"Hey, buddy, how's it happening?"

"Huh?"

"You know, what's hanging, man, where's up?"

"Uh, yeah. I got shot, how did that happen?"

"Oh, that's a long story."

Then he hung up. I think he used call blocking on me after that. I decided that the best time to go look for my scooter was right now, since I wasn't tired or anything. I went to my room, got my pistol from inside the jar labelled "Candy," and left the house to find the scooter. Thinking I was going to have to shoot someone or something, I was all ready to go out on the town when I noticed my scooter was lying on its side right outside my door. The only thing that immediately struck me was that someone hadn't taken it before I got to it.

Chapter 6

I immediately hopped on the scooter and set off on my journey. I told myself this, but really, I didn't know whether I was on a journey or not; moreover, I left my door unlocked. Suspiciously, my scooter was going at about ten times its original speed. I found myself passing cars by on the street, whereas before, the cars would hit me. I came to the third or fourth light past my house, and I stopped alongside some young guy in a red sportscar. I looked over at him, and he revved the engine a few times, so I guessed he wanted to race. I wasn't ready when the light turned green, and he sped off and got to 70 or 80 miles per hour to my 50 at best. Remembering I had my gun, I aimed really carefully and shot his tires out. Eventually he had to roll to a stop - unfortunately, it was the car rolling, not the tires. To add insult to injury, as I passed the car on the side of the road, I shot the guy in the head a few times. That doesn't seem like me, I know, because that was just something I saw on TV. It didn't really happen. And when it happened on TV, both guys were in cars.

So anyway, I was looking over at this guy at the light, and he was both laughing at me and flipping me off at the same time. I assumed he was laughing at the way my hair was parted; I was trying something new. I moved my hair back to the way it normally looked, and he started laughing harder, so I figured he thought I should get my hair cut. So I did.

I rolled down to the local barber shop, and after the owner of the shop insisted that I not drive the scooter inside, I left it by the door and came in to get my hair cut. I sat down in the chair and listened in on this conversation the other guys in the place were having. Well, I didn't listen to what they were saying, but I did drown their voices out, watch their lips, and put words into their mouths so they said different, funnier stuff. This is how their conversation went:

"Saturday murder tire."

"All those purple decisions, so little John."

"Question the third: Hello! Yes."

"The weather out here is like the bastard son of a rainstorm."

It went on like this for about an hour. I then got up and went to leave, but I soon realized that I had been sitting there, waiting the whole time, and my hair had not been cut at all. I paid them the eight dollars and left the shop, immediately noticing that my scooter was again missing. Because of that, I had to walk the entire two blocks back to my house. However, I got sidetracked after the first block.

As I was crossing the street, this car sped up and almost hit me. I was really surprised that it didn't. When it came to a stop right in front of me, the driver got out of the car and started shouting at me, "GETINGETINGETIN!" Well, not being one to turn down a free ride, I got in. I was used to being picked up by guys pretending to be taxi drivers, so I got in the back seat.

The driver then sped off, hitting a few animals on the way, but with no major incident. I had never seen a car go above 150 miles per hour before, so this was a first for me. Luckily for us, we were on a pretty long, straight stretch of road.

"Uh, excuse me, if you don't mind my asking, who are you, why did you pick me up, do you know who I am(and if so, how), where are we going, why are we going so fast, and what day is it?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up(shut up), shut up, shut up, Tuesday."

"Thanks."

I already knew what day it was, actually, I was just trying to make conversation. For some reason, total strangers who pick me up for no discernible reason never like talking. After driving for about five minutes and eighteen seconds, we turned off the road and into a cornfield, and the driver looked back at me and said, "Hold on for a second. You can't see where we're going, so I have to sedate you or whatever the word is for putting you to sleep." Then, trying to keep his eyes on the road, he reached back and started trying to hit me in the head. Over and over again, he kept hitting the seat next to me, since I had moved over after the first one hit me on the ear and gave me a headache.

"Where ARE you, god damn it?" he shouted at me, now trying to hit the other seats. He managed to hit me a few times, but I avoided most of them by moving out of the range of his arm, which was pretty short. I was wondering at the time why he didn't just stop the car for a second. Suddenly he stopped swinging at me and put both hands on the steering wheel. He sped up as much as he could and after a few seconds, came to a complete, if not safe, stop, around a tree.

I had a nosebleed. I got out of the car, went up front to see if the driver was dead or not. Then I got distracted by a piece of paper sticking out of the glove compartment. I pulled it out, unfolded it, and it read as follows:

"If you're reading this, then you must have survived the crash. Otherwise, you wouldn't be reading it, because you're dead. Not only would you not be able to get up here and reach for the paper, but as a dead person, you would not have the faculties to read it. So I must deduce from the fact that you're reading this that you're alive. It's the only possible conclusion. Otherwise, the idea of your reading this message makes no sense.

"By the way, I'm the guy that was driving this car, trying to hit you. I seriously didn't mean to hit that tree. I forgot it was there. And who puts a tree in a cornfield, anyway? I need you to do something for me. If humans have not discovered the power of resurrection by the time you read this or any time after, please bury me a few hundred feet to the west(left, basically) of this tree.

"Now I know it seems rather odd that I would do any of this."

I really expected more after that, but that was the whole letter.

Chapter 7

I was a little disappointed, because I remembered last month's highly publicized yet unsuccessful attempt by scientists to resurrect a human being and realized that I'd have to bury this guy, whoever he was. I went over to the driver door of the car and pulled most of him out, trying very carefully not to get blood on my hands. Before I began dragging, I tried to remember how long a hundred feet was. Satisfied that I wouldn't have to walk far, I grabbed the corpse by the arms and started dragging furiously to the left.

After a bit of a struggle, I had him at a distance of what I thought was about a hundred feet from the car. Then, it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have a shovel. Well, I left. I may have been bleeding, but I can't bury a guy without a shovel.

I walked back to the wreck and sat down inside the car. The car itself wouldn't move, but I did get the radio working, and I lay back and listened to a soft rock station. Suddenly, the music stopped and a reporter came on the air:

"Attention citizens of this area: The case which the media have dubbed 'The Scooter Killer' took a disturbing turn when the suspect, assumed to be a man seen around town on a scooter, actually committed murder earlier today. There were no witnesses. The victim, who has chosen to withhold his name from the press, was killed at approximately 10:06 AM, and his body was found shortly thereafter. Citizens are warned to stay on alert for that man who was riding around town on a scooter, even if someone else is on the scooter now. The scooter tends to get around a lot."

I sat up quickly. My mind began racing. Where was my scooter?

I jumped out of the car and landed in a really bad position on the ground. I knew when I heard the crunch that I'd be lying there for a while, and beyond that, it hurt a great deal. I mean, I figured something was broken from the sound and the pain and everything. So I wouldn't be able to get up. Because it was my leg.

I lay there on the ground for a while, watching the sky slowly dim from day to night. I thought about all I had been through with my scooter; well, I tried to, but every time a memory came up, a voice in my head shouted, "YOUR LEG HURTS A LOT!" and that hurt my ears. At least I thought the voice was in my head. As it turned out, there was a guy standing over me and yelling at me, and he had been there for about an hour. I only realized this when he kicked my head and I looked up at him.

"God, didn't you hear me tell you your leg hurt, man?" he asked me. I politely informed him that I knew already. "What's that supposed to mean, you crippled freak?" he asked again. I explained.

"Oh," he said. "Hey wait! Aren't you that guy that's been killing people on his scooter, the uh... what was it..."

"Scooter Killer?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's it!"

In all fairness, I had only committed murder once, and I feel I was totally justified in finally laying that poor sleepwalker to rest. His family maintains to this day that he was in bed when I killed him, but I personally don't stress over details. But anyway, I said no.

"Like hell!" he exclaimed, and swung at me with his fist. He got me right in the jaw, and I blacked out instantly.

Chapter 8

I woke up, and I was a little scared because I was in the exact same place I blacked out in, and that never happens. What I noticed next was that hundreds of flashing lights and sirens surrounded me where I lay. I sat up, and a voice shouted, "DO NOT MOVE! STAND UP AND PUT YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD! DO NOT MOVE!" I hedged my bets and stood up, putting my hands over my head. I wasn't shot, which was my second huge surprise in less than two minutes.

"NOW, UH..." the voiced started, but then trailed off. I was surrounded on all sides by cops, and I turned to see the one who was yelling. He had put his bullhorn down and was having a conversation with his partner.

"Um, excuse me," I said.

"EXCUSE ME!" I shouted after I noticed no one heard me. Immediately, the guy pulled his gun on me again and started yelling at me.

"PUT YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR... okay, he did that, now what? OKAY, NOW, uh... COME HERE!"

As I was walking over to the police, I noticed my pants felt a bit lighter, and I was going to reach for my wallet, but then I thought better of it. I made my way over to the squad car very slowly, and as soon as I did, the cop who was yelling at me swung his bullhorn right at my head, knocking me out instantly.

When I woke up, I felt a sensation of movement. I was lying down in the dark, I didn't know where, and I sat up just long enough to ask. "You're going downtown, you criminal," a voice told me. I've been there before, I thought, as I lay back down in the car.

"Can we see a play?" I asked.

"What the hell are you talking about?" the voice responded.

"We're going downtown, aren't we? Some local theater company is doing The Odd Couple."

He grumbled loudly, but didn't answer me. I was disappointed, because I really wanted to see that play. I really enjoyed Paul Simon's work. Of course, thinking about Paul Simon got me to thinking about my scooter, which I hadn't seen in at least a day. Then that reminded me that I needed a haircut, and that reminded me of the guy with the stubby arms who crashed his car, and so on.

I didn't really feel up to sitting, so I just continued to lie there until we got to the police station, which was like a summer home for me now. For a few minutes, I didn't hear anything, and I coughed to make sure I still could hear. Just as I was beginning to doze off, the officer in the car got out, and it sounded like a second officer was joining him outside. Then I felt like I was moving. I was rocking back and forth. This is probably just a little hazing ritual they go through with new prisoners, I thought to myself, so I didn't get up to stop them.

"The chief is gonna kill us for this!" one of the officers yelled as they pushed the car.

"Shut up and keep pushing, god damn it, I know you're as sick of this guy as I am!" shouted the other.

They counted to three, and on three, they pushed even harder than before, and it dawned on me that we weren't actually at the police station when the car fell off a cliff - the police station isn't near a cliff.

I had to make a quick decision then and there. This was a life or death moment for me, and if I were to come out of this alive, I had to use all my faculties to save myself. I was absolutely certain of this as the police car came to a crashing halt at the bottom of the cliff.

I wasn't sure I would get out of this alive, but then again, I never thought they'd get me on denial of pancakery, so my track record wasn't spotless. I could see out the window of the car, and I noticed that the police car was emitting a steady stream of white smoke. I knew that I had to be careful, or the car would start to emit black smoke, and then it would catch fire.

First, I figured out if I was upside down or not. I was not. Then I figured out if the car was upside down. It was. By the time I figured all this out, I heard a loud scream and another car came crashing down beside me. I noticed that it was that guy Joe who died in the car crash, or it looked like him.

"Joe!" I shouted at Joe's evil twin, because he had to be Joe's evil twin.

"Who the hell are you, and where is your scooter?" Evil Joe shouted back.

"You know, we're like, right next to each other," I said, lowering my tone.

"Good point."

At that point, I dragged myself out of the wreckage and then pulled Evil Joe out of the car he was in, which happened to be another police car.

"Hey, they pushed you off a cliff too. What did they get you for?" I asked.

"Admission of pancakery."

I guess they just don't like pancakes downtown.

Later that night, we were in a diner having whatever meal it was appropriate to be having at that time. Getting back up the cliff had been quite a problem, but some ways up there was a trail under construction for what they called "The Lost Souls of the Cliff," or at least what Evil Joe called it. I said that sounded cool, and now I could call myself a Lost Soul.

Chapter 9: "Escape of the Lost Souls"

I thought it would be cool to start giving the chapters titles, and since now I was a Lost Soul, I could use that in the next chapter title. Evil Joe later told me to stop saying it so much, and he even stabbed me a couple times for it, but tonight, he hadn't quite gotten tired of it yet. We were still in the diner, enjoying what I decided was dinner, when we heard sirens surround us outside.

"Is that the cops?" Evil Joe asked.

I shrugged. "Probably not, it's probably an ambulance or something."

"But there's... six of them."

I looked outside and saw two police cars lying in wait outside the diner. Evil Joe told me about his triple vision, yet he never believed he was suffering from it when it occurred. Because of that, I didn't tell him.

"You think they're here for us?" Evil Joe asked.

If they were, I thought, then we needed to get away before they could throw us off another cliff. I think I sprained my wrist in the fall, and it was going to be all the harder to ride my scooter once I got it back.

"Well," I said, "we Lost Souls need to stick together, so let's see if we can sneak out the back."

That was the first time Evil Joe stabbed me, and only the second time he had tried. "Stick together to yourself, sucker!" he screamed at me and ran out the front door of the diner. I was a little dizzy from the stabbing, so I wasn't looking, but I heard a couple hundred gunshots and Evil Joe shouting, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! Don't shoot! Okay, just shoot my arm! Just the arm! Okay, the legs too! Just the arm, okay both arms and both legs! You guys have terrible aim! Ow, not the chest, not the chest!" And then it stopped.

It turns out I wasn't dizzy from the stabbing, I was just a little sick from eating too much, so after the gunshots stopped, I stood up and asked the guy at the counter if there were a back entrance. He pointed me to the door Evil Joe had left through, and it was then that I realized that that was the back door. So I left through the front door, where there were no cops at all.

As I made my way down the unfamiliar street, I turned around and peeked behind the diner to see what was going on. I heard more gunshots, and another man shouted, "Don't shoot! I work here, I'm just taking out the trash! Oh god, you shot a hole in the trashbag! You hit me! You hit me again! HEY!" And then a loud thump as the gunshots stopped. This really cemented in my head that old proverb: Don't leave out the back door of the diner or you'll get shot to death by the police.

Evil Joe taught me a lot from the time I met him under those cars at the bottom of the cliff. He taught me how to dodge a knife when someone tries to stab you from behind(although I may take credit for that, since I apparently already knew how, the first time). He taught me to send out a decoy to see if the cops are particularly trigger happy before you go yourself. And most of all, he taught me to ask for names, because I don't think his name was Joe. He probably responded to me saying Joe because he thought I said "yo" or because he had just been in a terrible car wreck.

As I walked further and further down the street, I realized that my apartment was on this street. I never knew that diner was there. Another faint round of gunshot blasts could be heard some distance back, and this time I heard a dog barking along with it. I finally made it to my apartment. There were more stairs up to my apartment than I had remembered, but then I realized that was because I always took the elevator. I forgot what floor I was on, so I went back down and took the elevator after all. There was a note on my door.

"There's a surprise for you inside, jerk," it read in sloppy red print. It looked like the author wanted it to look like blood, but the tiny "Page 1 of 3" at the bottom didn't help. It was authored by someone named "Joe," as the note said, so I could only assume that all the guys I had met so far, since they had all been killed, weren't the real Joe. I couldn't wait to see what the surprise was inside, so I stopped thinking about it and went inside.

I was shocked to see the mace lying there, on my couch, in pristine condition, aside from some blood on it from when I maced that banker. I picked it up and gave it a swing or two. Two. It was two, now that I think about it, because on the second swing, I hit myself in the head and fell unconscious.

Chapter 10: "Revenge of the Lost Souls"

I had all but given up recently any attempts to gauge the length between my bouts of unconsciousness. But I still got it within a day, and believe it was the next night when I came to. This time I woke up on a hospital bed. I wasn't in a hospital, though, unless they have special rooms painted to look like the top of a large hill. I decided they didn't.

"Where am I?" I asked, hoping against all odds that I was wrong.

"This is all just a dream," said a disembodied voice. Then the body walked in, so nevermind. A tall form, dressed in a black suit and wearing a top hat appeared beside the hospital bed. "Just a long, long dream..."

"It hasn't been that long, ac --"

"SHUT UP AND LET ME FINISH!"

"Wait a second, are you Abraham Lincoln?"

"I said shut up, assface!" I knew then that he had to be Lincoln. No other man possessed the oratory power that that man did, and he was demonstrating it to me right now. "Now, as I was saying, this is all just a long dream. Wait, I meant bad dream. That makes more sense.

"Um," Lincoln said, standing there looking pretty bewildered.

"When did the dream begin?"

"I don't know, I'm just a messenger."

"Wait," I said, sitting up in the hospital bed. "Who sent you? Was it George Washington?"

"What the hell is wrong with you? George Washington was dead before I was even born, dumbass. Now shut up and let me try to remember what else I was supposed to tell you."

I did as Lincoln said, in awe of the great eloquence of speech he possessed. I thought to myself that this was the best dream ever.

"Now," Lincoln continued, "I--"

"Hey," I asked, "Can I call you Abe?"

"SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH OR I'LL KILL YOU!" Abe screamed. Like poetry.

"Now," Abe continued, "I was sent to you in this dream to tell you of your mission. You have a mission, as you have heard from Abraham Lincoln. Your mission is to exact revenge. It is of the utmost importance that, before the night falls on the seventh night, you have exacted revenge swiftly and silently. You have a virtuoso talent with the mace, and this will aid you greatly, along with that wussy-ass motor scooter you have."

I didn't have the heart to tell him that my scooter was awesome.

"You will do as has been commanded of you," Abe said. "Or else."

"Or else what?" I asked, almost out of habit.

"OR ELSE I'LL KICK YOUR STUPID ASS!" Abe screamed. "Now shut your stupid ass mouth and wake up!"

I woke up in the exact same position I fell asleep in, prostrate over my coffee table, my hands still firmly gripping the mace that I had knocked myself out with. I puzzled at the words Honest Abe had said to me. He said that I must "exact revenge," but how? With my mace? I was, as he had said, a virtuoso with the mace, but still I could not imagine exacting revenge.

I thought about all of this for at least an hour before I realized that Abe never told me who I was supposed to exact revenge on.

Later that evening, I was watching TV, trying to forget all that had happened recently, not the least of which being Abraham Lincoln's appearance in my dream telling me to exact revenge. I flipped through the channels, hoping to either find porn or go to sleep, when I came upon a documentary on the History Channel about none other than my dear Abe Lincoln, impassioned orator and passionate leader. I recalled his words as I watched his face on TV:

What the hell is wrong with you? George Washington was dead before I was even born, dumbass.

Then at the end of the documentary, they said that Abe got shot in a theater by John Wilkes Booth. I was shocked. If Abe Lincoln had been killed more than a hundred years ago, then... that meant... I had to exact revenge upon John Wilkes Booth! I was glad I had finally figured that out.

I mulled over my plan as I went to the cookie jar to get my gun. I would reach out my window, yell out for the first person named John or who knew someone named John or had heard the name John before, and shoot them on the spot. My couch lay against a window which looked out on the street in front of my apartment complex, so I kneeled down on it, pulled up my window, and loaded my gun.

"Hey!" I yelled at the first guy I saw go by.

"Hi!" he yelled back. I would have shot him, but he had a nice coat on.

Another guy walked by. I stopped him and asked, "Hey, is your name John?"

"No, why?" he shouted back.

"Do you know anyone named John?" I asked.

"No, but why?"

"Have you ever heard the name John before?"

"It doesn't ring a bell."

Having met none of the criteria I set, I carefully aimed the gun and shot him.

Rest in peace, Abraham Lincoln.

Chapter 11

The next morning, the garbage truck came to take away the body of the guy I shot, which was good because I imagine it was probably scaring young children or something. I had fallen asleep on my couch, watching TV with my gun in my hand. It wasn't in my hand when I woke up, though, so I looked out the window to see if I had dropped it outside. I had.

I leaned out further to see what would happen. The garbage truck pulled up to the curb, and two guys got out. They immediately saw the gun and the dead body, and one of them picked up the gun. "Hey check this out, dude, I'm a murderer!" he exclaimed, brandishing the gun over his head.

"Ha ha, yeah, you WISH!" the other said.

"Oh yeah? How much you want to bet that I'll murder YOU?"

"You're such a loser, you'd never murder me, I bet $500!"

The first guy lowered the gun and sighed. "Damn, you're right, I couldn't do that."

The second guy started laughing and shouted, "I TOLD YOU! I win, give me $500!"

"Oh crap, I forgot about that," the first guy said, and he raised the gun and shot the other guy point blank. "HA! Now you give ME $500!"

I got back inside and lay down on my couch so the garbageman didn't see me or anything. If he would shoot his partner for a bet, then he might shoot me if I were to make a bet with him. I liked making bets. I had to stay away. I picked up the rock that was on my coffee table, sat back up on my couch and blindly hurled the rock out my window, hoping it would knock him out.

There was no sound, so it was either a spectacular hit or a complete miss. I believed it based on no evidence whatsoever to be a spectacular hit, so I stood up and made my way downstairs and out to the street. The garbageman was busy stuffing the body of his co-worker or partner or whatever garbagemen call each other into the truck along with John Wilkes Booth, so he didn't see me going to get my gun. I just wish I hadn't loudly made a bet with him that he wouldn't murder me.

He turned around and looked at me. "Uh, but what if there aren't any more bullets in the gun?" he asked. "Hold on, I'll check." He pointed the gun at himself and pulled the trigger to see if there were any more bullets, and there weren't.

At least there weren't after he shot himself. I ran inside, but not before stealing his wallet and climbing the stairs back up to my room. Now that both garbagemen were dead, there would be no one to come by and dispose of bodies. I was going to have to call the city to have it taken away.