The ref shakes his head sadly. “There’s nothing in the rules that says your soccer team CAN’T include a forward whose coloration is unrecognizable to human eyes such that our eyes slide off and we can only infer their presence on the field by the movement of the ball and the sound of their hot breath.”

Things Sacrificed at the Ebony Altar (Because the Nice Altar is in the Shop)	What Happened
eye of newt	transformed a regular newt into a one-eyed newt with trust issues
an ancient tome, bristling with knowledge best forgotten	forgot all the knowledge
a receipt for the nice altar that, in hindsight, maybe I should have held on to ’cause I think I need it when I pick it up again from the shop	a being of smoke and fire appeared and put in their pocket
a mixtape of smooth jams	the smoke/fire creature realized I have a crush on it

sorry you guys, a mustachioed man had me tied to train tracks, is why I’m late and why I’m bisected

sorry you guys, some hipster cannibals flew me into the jungle in a private jet then tricked me into climbing into a big stew pot ’cause it looked like a hot tub, is why I’m late and smell like carrots and potatoes

sorry you guys, my rocket’s jets wouldn’t turn off, which is why I’m late and why you’re finding this recorded message next to my skeleton, inside an astronaut suit, on a dusty planetoid where I’ve spelled out the word S-O-R-R-Y with rocks, visible from space

A circus strongman in the middle of the tent. A series of weights that increase in size are arranged around him in a spiral, small in the center where the strongman starts, equal in height to the elephants that preceded the strongman on stage out by the tent’s edge

He lifts and sets down, moves over, lifts and sets down, moves over

He follows the weight trail out beyond the tent flaps until, in the parking lot, he comes across a weight labeled THE HISTORICAL INJUSTICES THAT GAVE YOU YOUR LIFE

hello venture capitalists what I have for you today is a chance to sign on to my start-up which is called “Change Your Name and Move to a Town Where No One Knows Yu”

we drop the “o” out of the word “you” so we can trademark it

anyway the deal is you join this social network & we tell you what town to go to & we set up your friends network of strangers who don’t know or like you but you’ve left your other troubles behind and inherited all new troubles like in the good ol’ days

okay who’s in

 

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hello venture capitalists, welcome to my pitch for my start-up called ‘hey let’s start wearing the skins of animals and living like animals i’ll go frst”

we leave the “i” out of “first” so we can trademark the name

how it works is: i dress in animal skins and become an animal and all my complicated human problems are gone, and then other people do it too and the world is a zoo where money has no meaning

okay who’s in? maybe you, the person who already looks like a badger?

hundreds out thousands of years ago, an unknown ancestor of ours stamped their hand in red clay, then upon the wall of this cave

and it wasn’t until now that this work was perfected, as we draw <b> and </b> on both sides of this field of ancient hands using the same red clay, connecting us across time

Don’t expect the future to save you. The only thing that would motivate a time-traveler to come back is if the future is worse.

“Is there a cure found for my cancer in the future you come from?”

“What? Hell no. No one lives long enough to get cancer. The last doctor was eaten by spiders right before I jumped out of there.”

Any time-traveler you meet is a parasite and worthy of contempt.

That dream where there’s a door in your home that you’ve somehow never noticed, but you’re awake, or dreaming you’re awake– no, awake and realizing that the reason you don’t remember the door is because you’re not supposed to remember the door.

There’s a sense of having done something irreversible, even before your trembling hand alights on the doorknob, even before you open the door and find another hand on the opposite doorknob, someone else holding the knob from the other side, tugged off balance as you pull. Someone who looks exactly like you.

Now you’ve done it, you say. The other you. I was holding it. All you had to do was forget.

Nothing moves fast in the desert, which is why the camp is out in the middle of a plane, the tents aligned in spokes, a final circle of salt around the entire grounds, renewed daily.

During daylight, the campers memorize sigils and learn to cooperate in adverse conditions, singing together while counselors aim giant fans at them, play the sounds of growling tigers.

At night, the counselors sleep, leaving the campers to ignore their training, read books about electrical engineering, have make-out parties, or fits of foolishness, journey outside the camp’s salted border to ask the skinwalkers and dervishes directly what they did to be kept out.