The Three Wise Men: One Year Later

The three magi stood still that night, staring into the sky.

"I don't see it."

"Neither do I."

"This is ridiculous, guys. What the hell were we thinking?"

Balthazar and Gaspar stared intently at Melcior, who had yet to say a word.

"Oookay," began Melcior, finally. "Maaaaaybe we were a little hasty last year."

"What?!" Balthazar was incredulous. "Oh you cannot be serious, Mel. I mean, you simply CANNOT be serious. Do you have any idea what last year was like for me? Couldn't afford to get the wife anything for our anniversary because I had to follow a friggin' STAR and give all the gold I had to a baby who was lying in a pile of hay in a barn while still covered in his mother's placenta! And now you tell me we might have been hasty?"

"Hold it, Balthazar," stepped in Gaspar. "Now, let's just assume we were right. I mean, that was a pretty crazy star we saw."

Balthazar calmed himself for a second and closed his eyes. "Yeah, I guess it was."

"Right. And, even though he didn't really look like it at the time, that kid is gonna be huge someday. I mean...son-of-God huge. And who do you think he's gonna be taking care of with the Big Guy Upstairs? Huh?"

"Us, that's who!" jumped in Melcior.

Balthazar sighed, and crossed his arms.

"Here's what I know: there was this crazy-ass star last year. One year ago exactly. We followed it, however the hell you follow a star. We brought the finest gifts our money could bring us. We found a kid in a barn that stank of horse poop. We gave the gifts to a kid who had no idea who or what we were. The kid farted, maybe twice. We ditched out. King Herod found out about us and killed a bunch of newborns. The end. I get what my wife was talking about now."

"Okay, it sounds kinda crazy when you say it like that," began Gaspar. "But my question is, and this is primarily for you, Mel, since it was your idea in the first place, what now? Do we go back and give the kid more gifts?"

"I've been thinkin' the same thing, guys, trust me." Melcior cleared his throat. "I think we go back. But we've given our gifts. I mean, they were essentially hoboes and we gave them gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Not too shabby, eh? I think the least they could do is put us up for the night, give us a little dinner, let us spend some time with the savior."

"But we don't know where the hell to go, Mel!" yelled an exasperated Balthazar. "Look up in the sky! You see a star? No! Nothing! Nada! They were only in Bethlehem last year 'cause of that census. Who knows where they are now."

"I hear Nazareth..."

"Nazareth? Oh man, count me out, buddy," said Gaspar. "I mean, Bethlehem's a pain in the ass enough, but Nazareth? Holy cow, I think not."

"Think for a second guys!" Melcior was a bit giddy. "If we do this every year - and we totally can - we could end up being Jesus's cool uncles. The messiah's cool uncles. We would be a shoe-in with God! We might up becoming saints or something."

"That's assuming this kid actually is the messiah and not just a hobo's kid who was born in a pile of hay next to a mare," retorted Balthazar.

"But..the star!"

"Oh yeah, the star! I almost forgot! I spent my life savings because you saw a big 'ol star and it lead you to a barn! I nearly got killed by Herod for a star! The Massacre of the Innocents happened...because you found a goddamn star!"

"Now, hold on a sec, Baltha-"

"NO! I will NOT hold on a sec! This is bullshit! Mary and Joseph never wrote to us thanking us for the gifts, we've gotten no notice of thanks or goodwill from God, whose kid this supposedly is, and to top it all off, I'm standing around with you two numbskulls waiting to do it AGAIN!"

Balthazar stomped off in a huff to get some sleep. Melcior ran after him, but returned after he realized that there would be no consoling nor convincing Balthazar. He sat on a sand dune with Gaspar, and the two stared up into the night sky.

"You think he's really the messiah?" asked Melcior, nervously.

"Not sure," responded Gaspar, sighing to himself. "Doesn't really matter though, does it? At the very least, we helped out a poor kid and his family. How old was that mother? 13? 12? And the husband couldn't have been much older. They probably ate for three months on what we gave them. And maybe that kid will grow up to be the messiah, and we helped him. And maybe he'll just grow up to be a responsible adult. And maybe someday his parents'll tell him what three noble wise men did for them the day he was born. And maybe he'll do the same for some other poor couple with a newborn. And then it'll start all over again..."

"Yeah," murmurred Melcior. "I'm kinda hoping for the messiah thing though. That'd be awesome."

Bitter Eggnog: Letters to Santa '07

Dear Santa,

I have been a very good boy all year long and I want a new bike for Christmas, please. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Jimmy

Dear Jimmy,

Fuuuuck you, kid. Very good boy all year? You think I'm blind, kid? You think I don't know all and see all? Jesus Christ, lying to Santa in the letter where you purport to be good? And having the gall to ask for PRESENTS? Are you the same Jimmy who gave his sister a wet willy at least twice a week this year? Are you the same Jimmy who broke a window and blamed it on the neighbor's retarded son? Wow, kid, you have some fuckin' balls writing to me. No new bike this year. Maybe if you're lucky I'll give you a brand new SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

Yours,
Santa

Dear Santa,

How are you? How is Mrs. Claus? I hope you and the elves are doing good, and are hard at work preparing for next Christmas, which is rapidly approaching. I know you don't have much free time, so I'll cut to the chase! I've been pretty good this year, not perfect, but pretty good. I would like a 1963 red Jaguar and for my step-dad to die in a horrible accident.

Thanks!
William

Dear shithead,

This is Santa Claus. Fuck you, buddy. Asking how I am? How do you think I am?! Doc says I gotta undergo a triple bypass in a month, assuming I survive through Christmas, which is about 50/50. And you have the fucking nerves to ask me for an antique car? Ohhhhhhh sure, I'll go get the elves to carve one OUT OF FUCKING WOOD. Hope you don't mind that when it rains the frame warps completely and a team of beavers might jack it to finish their fucking dam. And how is Mrs. Claus? None of your goddamn business. And according to her lawyers, none of mine either. And murder your stepdad? Jesus...what the hell is wrong with kids these days? Fuck you. I need a drink.

-Santa


Dear Santa,

I love you! My name is Betty. I have been good all year! I don't want any toys or nothing for Christmas. I just want my cousin Artie to not be sick. He has lookemia. The doctor says he is not doing good = (. Please make him better!

Love,
Betty

Dear Betty,

Oh man...I'm sorry. I'm worthless. WORTHLESS. I'm a joke, a hack. I can't do shit for you, Betty. Oh god...I've lost it all. Mrs. Claus won't talk to me, the elves won't listen to me, the reindeer mutter about me under their breath... I'm pathetic. I can't wait to die.

Oh, and while I admire your selflessness...SINCE WHEN AM I FUCKING GOD?! I know I ride on a real fast sleigh 'n shit, but how does that give me the power to cure cancer?! Way to make me feel even shittier about myself and my shitty life. I so do not need this right now. Holy shit, I'm done. I quit.

Oh yeah, and one more thing.

I AM NOT REAL. NEITHER IS THE EASTER BUNNY.

HO HO HO,
Me


Dear Santa,

I've been good all year and I totally want this new video game called Madden for my PS3. My parents won't buy it for me cuz I got two F's this year. Screw them, Santa'll get it for me. That's what I told 'em. You're awesome, bro.

High five,
Drew

Dear (YOUR NAME HERE)

Sorry for the inconvenience, I'm currently out of the office at the North Pole right now! I'm probably checking my list twice or making sure the elves are hard at work and not drinking too much eggnog on their lunch break...just kidding! I hope you've been a good little boy/girl this year! If you have been, I'll be dropping by with a (REQUESTED TOY) to put under your tree! Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!

-S.C.

I Will Always Love You, Bigfoot

There's an old saying about the size of a man's feet. I'm not sure what it is, but Shaquille O'Neal has to have his shoes specially ordered because they only have size 12s at Shoe Carnival, so maybe it's about being really good at dunking. Well, that doesn't really jive with the rest of my sordid tale. Whatever. I guess the size of a man's feet indicates how awesome he is at dunking basketballs and rare, self-named forms of martial arts. But the size of a beast's feet indicates something far different. Something far more...sordid. It indicates the size of their...heart.

The first time I met Bigfoot, I was out in the woods. So cliche, right? But that's the truth. I'd heard of Bigfoot before, seen a few blurry videos, bought every DVD set of Harry and the Hendersons and wept at their beauty...you know, the usual for a 34 year-old bachelor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I didn't expect to run into an unconfirmed species that day, and I certainly didn't expect to...fall in love.

I was out camping because my parents had thrown me out of the house because they had found my collection of dog urine that I kept in jars hidden in the bottom shelf of my desk. They were apparently sick of me "bringing sin into their house." It wasn't sin. It was very clearly just dog urine. Yeesh, right? Luckily, I was able to grab my pup tent and a bag of marshmallows before my dad started whacking me with the newspaper and yelling that he "had no son." I guess pop must be going senile or something, because he was very clearly whacking his own son with a newspaper. Either that, or it was dad's way of telling me that mom had an affair and I was an illegitimate love child. Didn't really matter though, both mom and dad were united enough to refuse to give me back my jars of urine. Fascists.

Then came my search for a proper camp to make my new home. My friend, Lorenzo, who worked at Circuit City said I smelled too much like Pizza Rolls and was distracting the customers. My aunt, Barb, said that I would have to wear socks if I wanted to stay in her home. Clearly neither of these locations would suit my needs. So I headed for the quiet isolation of Death Woods, right on the outskirts of town. I wasn't worried about the name, although ominous. I had never heard of anyone dying in Death Woods, mostly just setting off fireworks, being raped, or freezing to death.

I could not figure out how to open my pup tent, despite my best efforts of yelling at it and staring and hoping someone would walk by and do it for me. With no options left and my cell phone nearly out of charge, I cried to the heavens for help. "Send anyone, anything!" I pleaded to the Almighty, Poseidon. I begged and begged and wept and eventually went to the bathroom behind a shrub. "Please...I will give anything. Anything that is a pup tent but not my bag of marshmallows. Agh! Send me some assistance! Send me anything that happens to be a large, widely-disbelieved hairy creature with exceptionally large feet, like my hero Shaquille O'Neal!" And lo, the great god of the sea heard my call.

From deep within the mighty forest came a bellow, and I heard branches being trampled as the "thing" leapt towards my humble camp. I was initially frightened, as I had seen similar scenes in films such as The Edge where a mastermind bear used a similar technique to tear apart an African-American fellow and haunt Alec Baldwin. But I was not torn to shreds! Eventually I gathered the strength to look at the creature that stood before me. And the first thing I saw...were its rather large feet!

When I say "rather large," I mean that they were rather very large! Nay! Rather extremely lengthy! I had never seen a beast with such feet, except for my idol and confidante, Shaquille-O-Neal. Could this be my grand friend, come to rescue me from nature's harsh engraspment?

Sadly, no. On the other hand, happily, no. I continued to gaze further upwards, and saw my new friend had hairy legs. Hairier than that of my good mentor and protege, Shaquille of Neal. My eyes finally met its face. It was then that I knew I was in love. Just to be sure, though, I checked out its crotch. And I fell in love all over again, because it was a chick bigfoot. I couldn't see anything in there really, but I knew that if it was a dude bigfoot...well, you know what they say about dudes with big feet...they usually wear boxers to cover up their penis.

"What are you, you majestic creature?" I asked my new love.

"GRAAAAAAAAHHHH!" she replied, eating a bug she had picked off of her shoulder.

From there, it was like a classic romance movie. We spent all day with each other, taking walks, eating the raw flesh of rabbits and other small game, picking lice off of each others backs and eating it, pooping whereever we happened to be when the urge came over us, kicking rocks at me (well, that was mainly her), and being violently raped every night (well, that was mainly me). The language barrier meant we couldn't speak to each other directly, but there was an unspoken bond of love between the two of us. An unspoken bond that was often communicated by her throwing rocks at me, which meant "I love you deeply and eternally, my sweet buttercup," or by my sweetie biting me for no apparent reason, which meant "You taste like Pizza Rolls and I love you despite what others say about you!"

We knew the world would not understand the true depth of our interspecies and intermingling love. My parents would surely die from shock from the news if they were to ever discover of my sordid affair with my female bigfoot, whom I had named "Shaquilley." Coupled with the news of my mother's affair would surely spell the end of that marriage, and I did not wish any harm on the people who had supplied me with Lunchables and Fruit Roll-Ups as a child. I would keep my love a secret from the world, and the world from Shaquilley.

Shaquilley and I lived in her cave, which she shared with a family of bats, who were not very noisy neighbors, but very bitey ones. By day we canoodled and cuddled, by night we made love and sang love songs to one another, pledging our eternal love. I tried teaching Shaquilley to dance - big mistake! Her feet prohibited the delicacy and agility that was required in the art of ballroom dancing and the Macarena. Shaquilley, always the perfectionist, was deeply upset by her failure - and that was the beginning of the schism that would come between us, much like the many lice between the individual hairs on Shaquilley (and eventually my own) head.

One day I returned to our cave after gathering some fruits and berries for a mid-afternoon nosh, when I found Shaquilley was making brutal yet tender love to a wolf who had wandered into our home. I fled the scene, tears streaming down my eyes. I returned an hour later, to find Shaquilley had murdered and was now feasting on the homewrecker. Got what you deserved, you tramp! I thought to myself. There was remorse in my lover's eyes, but I knew that this was the end. The bond of trust had been broken. Although neither of us spoke or threw rocks at one another, we both knew we could not go back to the simple innocence of the early days of our love. Shaquilley bent me over and made sweet, gentle rape to me one last time.

After the pain subsided enough so that I could walk, I left the cave forever, and wandered back home. I was a changed man. I had experienced love. I had experienced hurt, in so so many ways. I had a full, scragly neckbeard.

I will never forget you, my bigfoot love. I will never forget you.

How To Internet: A How To Guide About How To Internet On the World Wide Internet (WWI)

Hello, This Sighters! I am Boris Felding Cupcake, your local online expert of all things technologically baffling, such as technology and baffles. Today we will explore the wide world of the giant intangible spider-web that is...THE INTERNETZ!

Have you seen the motion picture, The Net, starring Ms. Net herself, Sandra Bullock? The internet is a lot like that movie. Have you ever seen Virtuosity, starring Mr. Net himself, Denzel Washington? It's not a whole lot like that...yet. But give it a few years and blond Russell Crowes will be coming out of the internet and ruining our lives before you can say "MY INTERNET IS ON FIRE OH GOD HELP MY BABY IS IN THERE!"

Now that you have some vague conception of what an "internet" is, let's move on to the basics...or should I say Linucs? That's a joke for all of my fellow internetting experts out there who know what Linucs is and why it is way better than Windows '95. Anyways, the basics...

STEP ONE TO USING YOUR INTERNET: FIND AN INTERNET

This will probably be the most difficult task you will face in getting "hacked on" to the interworldwebnet that comprises the Virtual Net of an internet. Internets are wily creatures that live where you least suspect them and breed constantly because they have seen more pornography than you could possibly imagine even with a special pornographic computer that was designed and produced solely with the sole goal of creating a constant stream of pornography and delivering it straight to your brain through your cerebellum. If you can locate an internet, you must jump on it and pound its teeth in (what we experts call "keys on a keyboard") until it allows you to see its secrets on its large brain-screen. I found my first internet in my parents' basement, so you might want to check there first. Except you'll have to get permission from my parents because they are very protective of that internet, whom they have named "Dell."

WARNING! DO NOT TRY TO FEED THE INTERNET BY POURING SOUP ALL OVER IT! THE INTERNET WILL START ON FIRE AND THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET EVERY SECOND SO YOU WOULD KILL THOUSANDS AND BE WANTED FOR MURDER.

STEP NUMBER SECOND FOR SEEING THINGS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES ON THE INTERNET THAT YOU'VE CAUGHT AND TAMED TO OBEY YOUR EVERY COMMAND: USING THE INTERNET

Congratulations! You have caught an internet! It will now know you as "master" and obey your every command...on the assumption that you know how to properly command it to do things that you want it to do but it won't do and so you call your mom and ask her how to find Pokemon cheats on the internet and she doesn't know what a Pokemon is so she asks and then you tell her and she gets really upset and calls you a "nancy queer" and puts one of your dads dirty magazines in your bed for some reason. So, to properly command an internet, you must utilize its teethboard (called the "keyboard" in exper-terms*) that has the alphabet all mixed up on it (trust me, I tried to use it to memorize the order of the alphabet for 1st grade and Mrs. Poncioni did not say very good things about my performance and held me back and I told her she smelled like poop but it turned out that I smelled like poop because I pooped myself because I was nervous because of the spelling test and BOY was I ever embarassed!) and the funny-looking tail it has next to its teethboard. You must master both of these incomprehensible tools if you wish to find the lyrics to the newest Weird Al Yankovic songs and have them all for yourself!

Firstly, let's learn how to potentially use the teethboard. Don't worry, the internet doesn't bite! However, your mom might if you type in "Weird Al" on the internet face-screen and a bunch of pictures of naked dudes appear and your mom sees it before you can make the internet stop showing those things and your mom was bringing the laundry downstairs and she sees it and drops everything and screams and bites you. If you punch any of the letter teeth, those very same letters will show up on the web-o-screen-o-matic! Fantastic! What about all of those other confusing numbers, you ask? Only numbers 1-9 and 0 are on this thing? What if you need to type a number like 10? Or even 11? Those numbers aren't on it! Well, don't worry, web-slinger, you can just cry until your mom types in complex numbers, such as "Amish Paradise lyrics for my 13 year old brother" or "11 different Avatar screensavers." It's called outsourcing, and companies that makes tons of bucks do it all the time!

Fourthly, you must - MUST - control the internet creature's unwieldy tail - known in both internet and outternet circles as a "mouth." Be careful, because if you grab it wrong, you may accidentally swing it wrong and it will break the inter-face-screen and your dad will get real mad when he gets home and wants to work on taxes or see naked ladies and can't because you killed the internet and that means no breakfast for a month! So put your hand on it gently and when you move it, an inter-pointer that lives on the internet will move around and scare your cat. Here comes the complicated part: you have to press down on the mouth at juuuuust the right time in order to find the interinternet - the internet's soul that allows you access to a world of new backgrounds and funny emails about Arab people and Democrats.

STEP-BY-STEP WAS MY FAVORITE SHOW UNTIL CODY LEFT AND WAS REPLACED BY THAT FRENCH GUY WHO WASN'T FUNNY AND DID HAIR STUFF: LET'S FIND STUFF NOW THAT WE HAVE CONQUERED OUR DISOBEDIENT INTERNET

Now you must be excited. I mean, reeeeeeeal excited! You are an L3T HAx0R INT3RN3TTA now! You have access to millions upon tens of hilarious smilies, poop jokes, and quizzes about celebrities that can win you iPods! But where do you start? It's a biiiiiig world out there, and you don't want to just run in willy-nilly and be all confused-like.

Start with the basics. You have somehow made the internet show you AOL 4.0 - the best kind of internetting in the world. Wait for your computer to make a lot of funny phone call noises and then BAM! It's time to start netting the web.

Let's calm down! There's much that needs to be done and seen with your very own eyes. Grab yourself some Mountain Dew Code Red and get on that line known as the onlineternet! If you can click and mash the keys juuuuust right, you could find any of the following, and possibly even more:

• Pictures of Naruto
• Videos of pets pooping
• Videos of people pooping on their pets
• Napoleon Dynamite quotes
• Chuck Norris Facts
• Cats that say things and use internet-talk (commonly known as "webberonomics")

What are you waiting for? Grab that net and get hunted by a vast conspiracy that wants to wipe away all of your information and kill you!

STEP-BY-STEP...DAY-BY-DAY....FINAL STEP: BEING DONE WITH THIS STUPID INTERNET AND ITS STUPID FACE

Ugh. This internet is boring and confusing! The more I smash the teethboardifier, the more often weird windows pop up and the screen goes all blue! Booooring... But what to do now? Throw bricks at the screen? Pee all over it? Sing it a lullaby until it begins to slumber?

No! Just find your way into a fellow kid-oriented chat-room and let your dad type things to people who might want to be your friend and come over until that man from the TV comes and makes dad sit in a chair and answer questions and even get to be on TV! Yay DAD!

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE INTERNETTED THE ONLINESPHEREWEB!

Other fun things to do with your internet:

• Water it daily so it grows big and strong. Put some of that Chia Pet green stuff on it so it blends into nature and has a sweet camouflage so others won't know where the internet is hiding.
• Rearrange the teeth-letters on its keyboard so its easier to remember the order of the alphabet without your teacher freaking out about how dumb and lice-ridden you are.
• Touch your weiner while you sit in front of it and go to the bathroom like I've seen dad do a bunch of times. I guess seeing those Weird Al lyrics that the internet is chock full of must really make him have to go!
• Learn how to correctly use intertalk phrases: LOL (lollipop), BRB (aunt Barb), ROFL (like, what Scooby-Doo would say if he wanted a waffle), GTG (gee, that's great!), and ASL (a sealion???). Example: BRB made me some LOLs and ROFLs for breakfast, and ASL responded by saying GTG!

Return to D.Y.S.T.O.P.I.A.

The year was 2099.

I was walking through Central Government Center No. 12, to file an infinite amount of paperwork resulting from the massive bureaucracy which now ran Earth, known as Central Government. My job was to file all of the paperwork regarding robot malfunctions in Sectors 4, 5, and 6901341AA into the electronic filing systems that held all of the information you could possibly fathom.

"Surtenwortalski, have you filed the robot malfunction reports resulting from General Robot Corporation's murderous riot from last week?" asked Officer Brown, my boss at the center.

Last week, the new XB-03 Maintenance Bots got some of their programming scrambled and tried replacing the brains of everyone who worked in the factory with chunks of lead, instead of fixing VCRs and toasters like they were supposed to. A few wrong diodes or something, as I found out.

"Uh, yeah," I responded. "This is the twelfth time they've created some robots that tried dismantling peoples' brains. I think maybe they should spend more time on developing the robots before producing a bunch and giving them scalpels."

"It is not your place to question the workings of the Central Government nor General Robot Corporation in our dystopian future. It is merely your job to file paperwork electronically, not stay out past curfew, watch GovernmentVision programming during the mandatory times, take your mandatory Mood-Lite pills, and accept conformity! That is your place."

"Yeah, okay," I responded, giving Brown the finger beneath my plain, gray, shiny desk in my tiny, plain, gray cubicle in which I worked.

Brown left, and a few minutes later, a Mail-Bot came by to deliver me my mail.

"HERE IS YOUR MAIL, SURTENWORTALSKI," said the Mail-Bot.

"Thanks, Mail-Bot," I responded, taking the mail from its metallic claws.

"ERROR - STEALING MAIL-BOT'S MAIL. UNACCEPTABLE."

"No, Mail-Bot, it's my mail -"

"ROBBERY IN PROGRESS. DESTROY ALL LIVING CREATURES IN 20 METER RADIUS."

"What? No, this is my mail -"

The Mail-Bot's robot eyes began to glow red, and sparks started shooting out of its chest.

"SELF-DESTRUCT! SELF-DESTRUCT! IN 5...4..."

"Um, help? Help! HEEEELP!"

I hit the EMERGENCY DISTRESS BUTTON under my desk. Mail-Bots are notorious for malfunctioning when even doing the most basic of their assigned tasks, I should have seen this coming. Why the factory heads decided to install nuclear cores in all of them still baffled me.

It was then that the faceless dystopian guards dressed in all black entered and used their laser-guns to stop the Mail-Bot's self-destruction.

"Thanks guys, that was a close one. I think we should just stop using these Mail-Bots..."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY, CIVILIAN?" asked one of the guards.

"I BELIEVE HE SUGGESTED WE END THE EFFICIENCY THAT KEEPS OUR DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY RUNNING SO SMOOTHLY AND DEMONSTRATED FREE THINKING WHICH IS A THREAT AS WELL TO OUR DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY AND WAY OF LIFE WHICH COULD LEAD TO REVOLUTION IF LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE LIKE HIM DISCOVER HIS IDEALS AND THOUGHTS AND PHILOSOPHIES WHICH COULD LEAD TO A SOCIAL UPHEAVEL THAT DESTROYS ALL WE HAVE WORKED FOR!" responded one of the other guards.

"Well, I mean, they keep blowing up and killing people. I don't think that really constitutes 'efficiency.'"

"ONLY THE GREAT LEADERSHIP COUNCIL IS ABLE TO DETERMINE WHAT CONSTITUTES 'EFFICIENCY.'"

I stared at them blankly for a moment, before snapping out of it. I shrugged my shoulders, as I knew any further argument would fall upon deaf ears. The guards weren't really sure what to do either when I stopped talking. They stood around for a second or two before grabbing the robot and leaving, saying they were heading for "Robot Repair Center No. 34." Robot Repair Center No. 34 was notorious for having their Repair-Bots malfunction and blow up half a city block.

"What just happened?" asked Officer Brown, my boss, who had just heard about the Mail-Bot incident.

"Mail-Bot tried to self-destruct again. Fourth time this week."

"You must have broken protocol! You endangered efficiency of the Central Government with your renegade ways!"

"I just tried to get my mail, I didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm sorry, Surtenwortalski, but I'm afraid I must report you to Faceless Dystopian Security."

Oh man, those guys were just here. I knew exactly what would happen if Brown called them on me.

"They will take you to Reprogramming With Propoganda Center No. 337 and reprogram you with propoganda."

Ugh. I'd been 'reprogrammed' eight times before. They just strap you into a chair, play lots of Mellencamp music, and show you news reels about robot production and an instructional video on how to fix drywall. Which was pointless because drywall was phased out after the Great Nuclear Wars of the 2020s and replaced with all-lead walls.

"Do you really have to? I didn't do anything wrong."

"Now you are questioning a superior officer?! Your breakage of protocol knows no bounds, Surtenwortalski!"

Man, I really did not want to go to that place again. There was only one way out.

"I'm gonna leave early today, actually. Have a nice one, boss."

"What?! You think you can escape?!" Brown pressed a button on his Watch-O-Computer on his wrist. "I have sent Security-Bot to capture and retain you for processing."

"What?!" I gaped at Brown. That guy is frickin' nuts. Then again, I started to realize pretty much everyone was nuts in this dystopian society of ours. I began to ran, but I could hear the Security-Bot down the hall, smashing its way towards me.

Security-Bots are notorious for malfunctioning and just going on killing rampages and never really following its objectives, which gave me a slight advantage in that it would be busy killing other things before it got to me. A properly-working Security-Bot would just chase me, grab me, and probably try to fix my brain, which it would think was a blender. Sad to think that that is what a "properly-working" robot would do.

I ran to the plain, gray, automatic doors that lead to the outside world, where there were nothing but plain gray buildings that were all exactly the same, in dimensions, appearence, and everything else. Nature had been obliterated in the 2020s, and the world had not seen the color green since. I had heard about the color green from my grandfather, but I always thought it was just his insane ramblings. I imagined what 'green' would look like... Luckily, I caught myself in reverie and snapped out of it before the Security-Bot could gain any significant distance on me.

I heard the screams of my co-workers and the sound of smashing metal and glass behind me. I think we had invested too much faith in technology in our dystopian future.

TO BE CONTINUED...