Poof

By tenderbastard

Raised in the extraterrestrial enclave of Spirit Lake, Iowa, when Eric Foster was an infant Osiris the Alien gave him a translucent orb containing a vial of the Buddha's tears, Geronimo's bible, Cleopatra's hand-mirror, a Niklaus Copernicus telescope lens, a Teddy Roosevelt toothpick, Leonardo da Vinci's scissors, Van Gogh's painting trowel, Crazy Horse's moccasins, a box of Christopher Columbus cigars, and a lock of the Minotaur's hair. Having misplaced it, Eric wonders where the orb went and hauls his humanly-historical relics to Happytime Hot Springs and Unusual Event Center in Boulder, Colorado to be night-desk clerk. Osiris returns  the orb, Eric befriends Andy the Inter-Dimensional Hot Springs Dog, and competes for Atlantean granola-girl Valentina Meraki's affections with nemesis, Hardbreath who transforms into a mountain lion at will. When Colonel Chemtrail and the Space Force Hot Spots arrive with Socrates, the Buddha, Copernicus, Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Columbus, and Teddy Roosevelt, Happytime happy times rocket over the moon. That's when Laughing Disease infects humanity, Glenda the Glacier goes rogue, and Marty the Meteor decides to mash Earth's potatoes on Labor Day. Famed film director Quentin Quarantino and assistant Clora Quinn are making a Happytine and trio-of-calamities documentary. "This will win an Academy Award."

Labor Day. Marty pierces Earth's gravitational influence and it's goodbye Happytime hello last open earthly portal, in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The Minotaur and Teddy Roosevelt smash an alien-FBI roadblock, da Vinci and Van Gogh paint a shortcut the aliens and FBI crash into like Wile E. Coyote chasing Roadrunner, and Colonel Chemtrail's bomb-vest thwarts the final alien assault and himself. Laughing Disease ravages the populace and Glenda soaks everything, it doesn't matter, Marty slams Earth soon after the Happytime gang pop through the portal and wrangle the MIlky Way to Sirius the Dog Star, safe among cosmic creatures knowing how to dodge a meteor better than humans.

A perception-provoking defiance of reality with a hundred humorous spins, Poof is one part Eastern Mysticism, one part Magical Realism, and one part what's  left of American Gumption, a modern-day Alice in Wonderland, a butt-load of fun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tenderbastard
• Release date: Oct 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215621042

tenderbastard

tenderbastard is a songwriter, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, activist, pancake enthusiast. He and his dog are public intellectuals. - tenderbastard.com “There's a thin line between sexiness and absurdity and tenderbastard is determined to find it.” ~ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “His writing is like Jack Kerouac and Douglas Adams.” ~ A Novel Way “As good as anything on Broadway.” - Jeff Horn, director ~ Moon Over Mangroves. - youtube.com/tenderbastard "One of the great literary finds of the decade." ~ Doris Chu, editor "I have met tenderbastard and find his writing witty. This book review confirms that conviction." ~ President Barack Obama Other books at tenderbastard.com Two Chimps and a Chump - President Atlas Emerald pays the ultimate price for trying to make the world a better place. Sticks and Stones - Dylan Sticks and Seamus Stones save the Colorado Territory from being boon-swoggled by Samuel Sidewinder Sullivan and his oily accomplice, Senator Billfold Haggle. Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, look out, Sticks and Stones are in town. Thank You for Being My Boy by Georgia the well-heeled terrier hound. Adventure, intrigue, insights and all the love in a dog's heart.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE – Blessings in the Skies

RAISED IN THE EXTEATERRESTRIAL ENCLAVE of Spirit Lake, Iowa,, Eric Foster was a hand-picked human being, as a child having been visited by Osiris the Alien and given an oddish assortment of unusual artifacts and remarkably renowned relics. A vial of tears wept by the Buddha during his persecution and exile. Geronimo's bible, given to him shortly after converting to Christianity and shortly before passing to the Big Buffalo Hunting Ground in the Sky. The hand mirror Cleopatra gazed upon her exotic countenance with one final time, atop the Pyramid of Giza as she awaited her alien friends to whisk her into outer space, Marc Anthony dashing about Giza's base, frantically calling her name. A Niklaus Copernicus telescope lens, utilized in the discovery that Earth was not the center of the universe, and not flat, ticking off a lot of whiskered, wrangly men in tall hats. The toothpick Teddy Roosevelt chewed charging up San Juan Hill. He did it for a girl named Juanita. Leonardo da Vinci's scissors, him being their inventor. Vincent Van Gogh's painting trowel used in the creation of A Starry Night. Crazy Horse's moccasins. Known to go barefoot, it was argued that's why they were in such pristine condition. And a lock of the Minotaur's hair, mythical creatures lacking discernible DNA. Unrecalled how the curios accumulated, Eric vaguely remembered the orb they were delivered in, merely having to arrive at Happytime Hot Springs and Unusual Event Center in Boulder, Colorado to have it in his possession again.

The Buddha'd never been a whiner, having engineered a honey-dipped human condition through tai chi, chi tea, yoga, and meditation. As enlightened as he was, decades of political and personal prodding nudged him to the end of his sandalwood scented incense stick. Earthly frustrations overriding Human Higher Awakening, in a moment of mortal weakness he blurted, STOP MESSING WITH MY PRAYER FLAGS.

Tourists and locals fondled them like grocery store cantaloupes, snipping souvenir swatches like locks of a teen idol's hair, tearing them free and making off with them like a contact number on a community billboard announcing an apartment for rent in a desired location.

To his credit, it'd taken years to explode like an M80 in an oil drum, unlike the constant and cork-screwed tirades of his perpetually-peeved planet-mates who were devoid of the emotional and spiritual capabilities to make positive changes in their lives and ascend to a higher level of human contentment. Lacking the desire to actually do anything about anything, mankind's majority was bereft of initiative and assertiveness in their psychological-emotional lunchbox. Politicians achieved power and control because damaged balloteers always sought someone else to do what wasn't in them to accomplish, their earthly frustrations beginning and ending with a paucity of control of their lives. Yacking like the Leaky Drain Pipe Symphony, they'd perfected the art of never saying a positive thing.

When it was over and done and the planet was a radioactive blip on some alien's inter-galactic radar, it was agreed. All the other animals on earth had had more drive than humans, the alley cat prowling midnight shadows in search of some treasured morsel and a gambol of feline love. The orangutan advancing on a bulldozer destroying its home, giving a few good whacks before getting a resounding response from a rifle's muzzle. The lone elephant with its baby in tow facing off against a pride of lions that saw it and its child as dinner and a side of fries, the only human plight more life-threatening being a pack of frenzied Bernie Sanders supporters spouting satanic left-wing diatribes,  vowing by blood to see them become the status quo for all.

Wildlife knew 'when to walk away' in Kenny Rogers Gambler fashion. Humans would engage in shouting matches and fisticuffs until the cops came, a gathering standing in protest for whom it had been ill-lawfully decided they should not be in assembly, their cause met with violent crowd control. One animal exception, the bull being spine sword-severed by a guy wearing a suit that looked like he'd picked it out at a Cirque du Soleil Fire Sale or slept with a rodeo clown to get.

To his favor, the bull could've said, "I'm glad I'm not that poofy wanker," wankers not knowing they were wankers, that being the essence of what made them wankers, that and the wanky things they said and did. A bull engaged a matador to knock the stuffing out of a gaudy gaucho egging to get his intestines punctured. They might've been the creatures to wipe them out altogether if it hadn't been for Marley the Meteor making a Labor Day mess of everything. That's all Eric was going to get for his Happytime summer adventure, ninety days with his New Atlantean girlfriend and a spirit guide named Andy the hot springs dog. Then it was off to outer space with Osiris the Alien.

As far as earth was concerned, it did what it could with the personnel and materials it had to work with. When the cool, green planet parked front-end in at its existential cul de sac, it was for the best it vaporized and vamanos-ed. The Buddha wouldn't say so much when he met Eric at Happytime Hot Springs and Unusual Event Center that summer of Eric's Happytime adventure, but it was heavily implied. Like Geronimo told Eric, When it's your time to go...

His eleventh grade summer, Eric worked for a catering company owned by a married couple who loved to hate one another. It was that or be a life guard or sell pot. Eric didn't tan well and it would've broken his grandmother's heart if he'd gotten caught slinging weed in his hometown, alien-entrenched Spirit Lake, Iowa. Selling cannabis in such a place? Law enforcement had locked down a sizable sum of the market.

Folding forks, knives, and spoons into napkins and setting them akin to a never-ending procession of dinner plates, water glasses, and coffee mugs, Eric fantasized about sneaking into his grandparents' garage and blowing his brains out with his grandfather's shotgun or hanging himself from the middle rafter with his grandmother's garden hose, undecided as to which was more appealing. He carried the Buddha's tears in his pocket like an elixir he might swallow and fly to a planet with life forms less wired for destruction, a little more humble, and a little more grateful considering it was earth that gave everything what it needed to survive. Eric didn't know why he thought like he did. He just knew that was how he was.

The catering wife took her position in the kitchen and the catering husband held his ground in the loading area, hurling ferocious insults at each other designed to slay their spouse's mortal coil, giving the other the thing they needed most, the reaction they fiendishly craved, endlessly coveted, desired most, an obnoxiously toxic knock down drag out argument e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e time. Punches weren't thrown. That would smash the bottle their genie lived in, their vial of Buddha tears, ending the morbid delight. The only things hurled into the vacuous hell of their soulmate's inhumanity were barbarous jibes, slung like ninja death stars.

Did they kiss, cuddle, hug, make love on the odd occasion? The fighting began long before their wedding vows. The best man said, They deserve each other, smiling wryly, raising his champagne glass. If either had been anybody else one would've left and that would've been that, more precisely, that wouldn't have been that. What could Osiris the Alien have taught them about Human Higher Awakening? Their arguing was embarrassingly uncomfortable to be around.

In a somber, mock-deferential tone and manner he'd practiced in his grandparents' bathroom mirror and the sound recorder on his smartphone, Eric quit prior to the end of his eleventh grade employment obligation that summer previous to the one Marty the Meteor, sporting a suit he'd bought at a Cirque du Soleil Fire Sale, pulverized a pastoral planet verging on the periphery of its heliospheric galaxy, the summer of Eric's Happytime Hot Springs and Unusual Event Center adventure. Laughing Disease having savaged the masses, Glenda the Glacier having ravaged the landscapes, there was nothing for Marty to do except bring down the curtain like a bowler taking out all ten pins.

THWAM.

Eric said, I have to care for my grandmother. She's a hunchback, and a bird enthusiast, his inner monologue being, I'd rather drown in a kiddy pool or get caught slinging weed. Eric's grandmother was a hunchback and a bird enthusiast. The bird part was said in protest to the couple's denial of everything beyond the audio-bubble of their caustic inter-confrontations. It was over their heads, like Marley.

Had he known it, Eric would've added, My grandfather's half alien. It wouldn't have surprised the catering couple. They were half alien, the bad half.

The rage rule of trusted Buddhas everywhere was, Scream once. Get it out for good, like kicking a tire instead of punching a parking meter attendant, giving it its boisterous moment then snuffing that rude emotion like Chubby Checker teaching teenyboppers to Twist. Worse than punching a parking meter attendant was being a parking meter attendant. It was the devil's work.

Hooligans shennanagined the Buddha's prayers flags. He pretended to let it slide, opting for digging a trench and covering it with dirt and sticks. The initial pinhead that fell in told the others and they thought they could maneuver around it, failing to notice the ninja security guard the Buddha'd hired. The next intruder wasn't prepared for the stealth warrior rooftop triple-flipping to come up in front of the trespasser who, in his startlement, fell backwards into the hole the Buddha'd dug. It might not've been one of the Buddha's sayings, but, What went around came around, Little Orphan Annie singing, The sun'll come out tomorrow, that button-eyed girl theatrically dead-on long before everything went house lights up and curtain down.

It did nothing for his ground game that the Buddha's holy name was Shaktyamuni.

You're not from around here, are you boy? His birth-name didn't win him points either, Siddhartha Gautama.

You ain't from Texas.

Eric had never heard the word mantra. Neither had Barry Manilow however, the Buddha's was, You deserve a break today. Years later Barry Manilow used the phrase in a popular MacDonald's jingle. Manilow's and the Buddha's hitting upon the same notion ages apart argued for 'what went around came around', and that there were many roads to the truth.

Several paved access routes led to Spirit Lake, but nobody was pushing and shoving to get there except aliens and people who demanded to know who'd reeled in the largest Walleye, or who was the biggest wanker, the catering woman or the catering man. Some humans and aliens alike thought 'Walleye' was an ocular affliction, as in, You couldn't see a wall if it hit you in the face.

Spirit Lake was a typical Midwestern town right up until the rapture of earth's extermination saw its head go through its Mayberry RFD, news of Marty's intentions making many gloss it over with, Everything's going to be okay, like telling the family of the deceased, He looks good. Those final crumpled days sword-severed the spine of an irrevocably broken planet. Nobody had a half decent Humpty Dumpty game plan, not even Osiris the Alien who'd come to teach humans Higher Awakening. It hadn't looked good for the cool, green orb for quite some time. Iowa had tried to be mindful, offering five cents on every recycled plastic bottle while Michigan and Oregon would've gotten a person ten.

Along with thoughtful, well-meaning folk, Spirit Lake had its evil people and its evil aliens residing up and down its shady lanes. They would've bitten the head off a doll and said the dog did it, their sort driving the apple cart, or lining up to get a good seat. Across the nation and around the world Evil had wrested control of everything and smashed it into bite-sized bits. Humans had been given so much to start with and had done so very little with it so that Laughing Disease's, Glenda's, and Marley's final extinguishment of the planet was a humane shooting of a lame-legged pony.

Water embraced Spirit Lake on three sides like a ship about to be christened. New Orleans was similarly semi-surrounded, but unlike the Big Easy none of Spirit Lake was built below sea level...except for its underground alien base no one talked about because they either didn't know about it or did and knew better than to blab. In  New Orleans' case, what were they thinking when they built its famed French Quarter six feet below sea level?

Who's a little water going to hurt?

They found out August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina breached its levees.

Minnesota to Iowa's immediate north was the Land of Lakes, waterholes in abundance, evidenced by the packaging Land of Lakes Butter came in. Spirit Lake was practically southern Minnesota. It was the hinterland of waterholes that started far to the north and ran down to the heartland with a midwestern proverb heralded in the coldest of months. Ice fishing is hot. It wasn't for everybody, but it could grow on you, if you were a snowman or polar bear.

With a 51360 zip code and a 712 area code on that last Labor Day when Marty mashed everybody's potatoes Spirit Lake claimed a population of five thousand seventy, nearly as many exoplanets as were in the Milky Way Galaxy, some people and their extraterrestrial counterparts imagining 'Milky Way' as a sexual position, a proportion of that demographic thinking 'carnal' described 'things having to do with a carnival'.

Situated in Dickinson County, Spirit Lake was incorporated October 14, 1878. Being incorporated meant a community had elected officials sworn to uphold the interests of its citizens, a police force sworn to protect and serve those citizens, and a tax base designed to take as much money from people living within the reach of their elected officials and law enforcement organization.

A practitioner of the duly-attested Central Time Zone, it set its clocks ahead an hour in the spring and back one in the fall. Some were adamantly against messing with what they believed was God's instrument, ignorant of the fact God's instrument had always been a clarinet. Consequently, some of Spirit Lake's gentried inhabitants refused to turn their clocks either way, adhering to the belief that besides being a parking meter attendant, frivolously fiddling with the hour of the day was a mark of Satan's meddling. It was equally-ironically supposed the Devil made them early or late for parent-teacher meetings, dentist and doctor appointments, work, and church and family functions, never figuring how or why those dueling decisions negated one another. People could come to any conclusion if they failed to think about it. That's how presidents got elected.

If the good Lord wants us to be untimely we'll keep Almighty God's faith and be wherever whenever He wants. These hamburgers look done? Nobody ever mentioned which god was being referred to anytime this theological maelstrom surfaced. Most took it to mean the most popular one of the time, the one that favored the clarinet. Some people were praying to Amazon Home Delivery, some to the Federal Reserve. It was a subjective matter. Some went so far as to proclaim their faith with, If the good Lord'd wanted time to jump around like a brisket on a backyard barbecue griddle he'd'a brought the charcoal and lighter fluid and done it Hisself.

Briskets on a barbecue jumped around because science had concluded that heat rearranged molecules. Nobody had the nerve to call Him, Bad Lord, to his face, but behind his back, drunk in a bar or wiped out and destitute when Laughing Disease came to town wearing that suit and whistling a lively tune, that was a toot from a different flute. People threatened to mop up the floor with him, insult to injury when they were forced to mask-up like the Lone Ranger or a devout Muslim woman, and social distance, shelter-in-place, as if anyone besides Osiris the Alien could shelter in two places at the same time.

While it was discerned where Glenda and Marley originated, Laughing Disease had a more-mysteriously questionably disinformed origin. And no one knew a cure. But each and every day exact numbers of new cases and deaths due to the incurable virus were readily dangled in front of the public, the rub being the people doing the diagnostics and expiration announcements were not trained in the study and detection of viruses. Yes, they were in many instances medical personnel, but not to the level and skilled specialization to say either way. People who died of cancer were listed as 'death by Laughing Disease'. It got so out of hand that people involved in fatal car crashes were said to have succumbed to the vicious virus. It was just one more item in a long list of dead end reasonings that pointed to, The planet's tea kettle's boiled. Almost everybody was lying about almost everything.

Despite the horrifically heinous human conditions God and Government ladled on the land, Iowans did what they were told, having swallowed the notion nineteen men with a half a million dollar combined credit card budget crashed airliners into buildings, outwitting all the intelligence agencies in the world, nobody knowing nothing except it all came down in an hour and forty minutes, the buildings sailing to the ground in perfect, free fall fashion and precise, vertical alignment. That Kennedy was killed by one man from an impossible angle and the 2008 World Financial Crash was an honest mistake. When Laughing Disease came to town swinging hard and fast they lined up to witness the smiting of those who'd challenged Heavenly and State propaganda, never-minding the holes in the music they were told to march to, unaware the virus had come for them too. If Laughing Disease had had a theme song it might've been The Beatles' Helter Skelter, the song that got Charlie Manson and the CIA in bed to drive the final nail in the 60s Peace Movement. Those were fun times.

Veterans Memorial Plaza on Hill Avenue had a snappy history. Suspects who didn't agree with questionable facts were taken there, tried for treason in midnight-kangaroo fashion, then shot, not always in that order. Either that or they were recruited for their criminal skills.

Hey, you seen Jim?

Last time I seen 'im he was being escorted by federal agents across Veterans Memorial Plaza.

Spirit Lake homes were mostly traditional wood-framed or brick structures with yards that had trees in 'em, fences or shrubbery around 'em, and a doghouse where Fido went when he'd had enough of his humans. Some people grew gardens, several with marijuana. Strange that so much energy would be focused on keeping illegal a weed that was fun and good for you, healing many ailments without side effects that ranged from dizziness and nausea to seizures, memory loss, and heart palpitations, right up to and continuing through depression, suicidal thoughts, and death, the last being the most irreversible side effect so far invented by mankind.

Kids received somewhat of an education from the grains of intelligence ground up and left in the gym lockers of the football team. Some went away to continue their questionable knowledge base. Others succumbed to unskilled employment. People bought and sold real estate, some getting hogswined in the deal.

Does this house have termites?

Would I sell you a house with termites? looking away, not making eye contact, answering the question with a question.

Couples got married, divorced, cops gave out tickets, doubled as heroin mules, politicians doled  out disinformation, and citizens of all sorts ate farm-raised pork tenderloins, homegrown sweet corn, homemade ham balls, and fresh-baked rhubarb pie. Some steered clear of ham balls, thinking they were a sexually transmitted disease.

Spirit Lake was home to the Indian Motorcycle Factory. Their website said, In 1901 Oscar Hedstrom and George Hendee created America’s First Motorcycle Company, establishing Indian Motorcycle's reputation for outstanding performance by building powerful and reliable motorcycles, our motto being, F—k Harley Davidson and those whiny, Jap crotch rockets."

Indian Motorcycles employed five hundred and fifty skilled professionals who took pride in every detail of the assembly process. Their dedication to excellence was a commitment to future generations of motorcycle riders, that tradition of premium craftsmanship guaranteed right up until Marley made the planet go BLAMMO. Along with those workers proud of their skilled efforts were a number of people who just wanted a job until they could retire and fish all day, especially in winter when ice fishing was hot.

The town had many waterfront properties because there was a lot of water around Spirit Lake, making it a great place to dispose of a body. Homes ranged from quaint to very upscale. Like a poor man and a rich man in floodwaters, when Glenda arrived, all those structures floated away in the same manner, with a creak and a crumble and a lurch until they came off their foundations like Huckleberry Finn set adrift down the Mississippi, walls buckled, ceilings caved in.

When the end came residents were laughing themselves to the grave, Glenda making a mess of everything, but nothing compared to the salmagundi Marley let loose. After the meteor there was no muss, no fuss, just pulverized dust in the space where the planet had been, no cleanup of any kind, just a mild radioactive buzz that said, They were on to something, then it all went to hell in a Hyundai. like the Elantra Eric drove.

Nebraska-born, Iowa-bred, if anyone had said, Eric Foster is a hacky-sacking-wheat-thin-munching-bean-sprout-eating-foothills-hiking-crossed-leg-sitting-on-the-floor-meditating-tofu-chewing-prayer-flag-waving-tai-chi-flowing-chakra-weavng-yoga-posing flower child, he would have told them to go chew an old shoe, but he did talk to his grandmother's houseplants and to his grandfather's vegetable garden. People made fun of him, their only being several things more disagreeable than a flower child spawn from decent midwestern lineage, among the more despised, a washed up, wild-eyed, flat out, full blown Bernie Sanders supporter. There was an express lane to hell for that. It was okay to have uninspiring presidential candidates, just don't bring reason and compassion into the fight.

Franklin Roosevelt had polio. It screwed up his legs, not his mind. It didn't stop him from serving fourteen years, three and a half terms. He'd run away with the White House, was on a roll, and a lotta' people were passing him the butter. Roosevelt was the reason a limit of two four-year terms was insti-tooted, that and wheelchair ramps added to the White House. He got the States into World War II, handed the ball to Harry S. Truman, then poofed like a parsley sprig at an all-you-can-eat vegan restaurant, several of which were located in Boulder, Colorado, Eric's destination and the location of his Happytime Hot Springs and Unusual Event Center summer adventure.

Eric'd been born in Omaha, Nebraska, to a crackhead-prostitute named Ella. after jazz-singer Ella Fitzgerald. Ella the singer was born in Buffalo, New York. When she was thirteen Ella the singer went to live with her father in Cleveland, Ohio. When Eric was three and a half he went to live with his mother's parents. Eric'd seen pictures of his mother, a pretty girl before she became a crackhead-prostitute. It was all downhill from there, crackhead rushes ending like the crash that killed Buddy Holly. That's how it felt on the ride down, like you'd clipped a tree and slammed into a snowbank. Then it was more flame to the bubble and the roller coaster started over. Eric was sent to live with his grandparents. Kids would ask, Why're your parents so old?

He would naively reply, They're my grandparents. My mother was a crackhead-prostitute and my father went to prison for murdering her. Most people dropped the subject after that.

Eric was raised Protestant, but it didn't damage him much as it never stuck. He was destined for something else.

Protestantism had been the second-largest form of Christianity, nearly one billion followers worldwide, thirty seven percent of Christians. Originating in the 16th century's Reformation, it pointed to Catholic discretions while having little if any innocence to call its own. Protestants believed every word of the Scripture, that being a Protestant absolved you of sin, like being president absolved you of criminal activity, and that the Holy Trinity, like bacon, lettuce, and tomato, was absolute, and that Church and State should be Crazy-glued at the hips.

Eric's grandmother was religious. His grandfather wasn't. Aliens had evolved to know better. His grandparents'd forgotten to read the fine print before signing on the dotted line and spent the rest of their lives wondering what the hell they'd done. They would've made excellent gin rummy partners for the catering couple. His grandmother loved condensed canned milk. So did his grandfather. It was the only thing they agreed on.

Eric's Boulder, Colorado summer would be far more exciting and educational than a Peace-Corps foray to Africa or a jolly good European wander. At Happytime Hot Springs and Unusual Event Center his heart and libido would leap and twirl as if filled with unicorns, dragons, Skittles, and Mexican Jumping Beans, the hardest working beans in the truest sense of the word, working longer hours than green beans, kidney beans, spicy black beans, cannellini beans, and even chick peas.

At Happytime Eric would find collateral kinship, unlike what he'd grown up in and never felt comfortable with, the difference being he was the only person at the hot springs with Geronimo's bible, Cleopatra's hand-mirror, Copernicus' telescope lens, and a vial of the Buddha's tears. Try finding those at Costco. He'd discover a new world, on another planet. That's where Osiris the Alien came in. Like Harry Potter's Hogwarts professors, Osiris would teach him the value of knowing these magical words.

Futon crouton pepto klepto cling clang ching chang walla walla bing bang.

Life didn't hand out road maps that said, Follow the arrows. Eric didn't need one. He had smartphone GPS and was prepared to use it all the way to Happytime in Boulder, Colorado.

By his junior year Eric's body had grown faster than the rest of him, odd to say since the body was almost the entirety of a person. After Marley, nothing would be the entirety of anything. That's not to say Eric was tall or short nor was Marley. Standing five feet ten inches, what Eric lacked in mental and emotional maturity he made up for with kindness and curiosity, the