"There was silence.
..............
[riiiiiiiiip]
..............
I slowly swam into consciousness
[riiiiiiiip]
(AARRRHHHHHGGGGG!!!!)
(WHAT THE FUCK?)
[RIIIIIIIIP]
A satisfied sound
"mhmphmhmphmh"
"mmm, I see you are awake now."
HMMMRFRUMMM
"would you like the gag removed?"
"Murf"
He reached over and pulled the object from my mouth. I 
didn't even get to see what it was, and I really didn't give 
a fuck because the pain was tearing up and down my spine..
"Who are you and what the fuck are you doing to me?!?!"
"I am the Flenser. I have been called here to clean. You."
His blades flickered in the dome light overhead and threw 
reflections on the walls.  A noise, metal striking metal, 
and then... 
[RIIIIIIIIP]
The flesh was torn from the small of my back all the way 
up to my neck.
"FUUUUUAAAAAAAAAHHHHHKKK!  Untie me NOW!"
"I cannot and shall not.  You are not clean."
[riiiiiiiiiiiiiip]
Thrashing..
"LET. ME. GO."
[riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip]
My head arched back and then I saw in the mirror on the 
wall the dog with the blades and I realized... 
[RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP] 
The next thing I remember I was underneath this tree."

-STEVE

"rite of Spring"

and there were more worms 
seeping out of the ground that night 
than I've ever seen in my life...
forced from study (another preparatory
bout, me versus a cat with academic teeth)
by a klaxon's knell
	cooking gone wrong or the dread 
	Cannabis, ring the alarm, and I'm
out into the smell of worms bellying
	to their deaths, and rain soaks,
	a winter-death baptism benediction.	
On the sidewalk
	They gather in pools of sulfur light 
cast by energy savr bulbs
inch to nightcrawlers, 
	still writhing or knobby tire smeared,
and everywhere I walk kills.
	(a rubber sole more merciful
		than drowning)
profane,there spineless reek
	eyeless, mindless, dirt-eating weak      
cutting yields nothing, not two.
	I wish for fishbarbs to skewer 
you each,so may cheat the sun its joy of
		baking you.
	better still a host of eager yet
clumsy third-grade biologists to make of 
you a gory first dissection.
	tonight nothing helmenthic earns audience,
		and tears of dying worms 
			mingle with the rain.    

			-Mark Cicero

"The leaders of the system say they want to strengthen the family, but what they really mean is that they want the family to serve as an effective tool for socializing children in accord with the needs of the system." -The Unabomber's Manifesto Paragraph 28, Note 4

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