Chester took a second to remember. “Shut

Chester took a second to remember. “Shut the fuck up” was all he could muster before shoving his hands into his pockets. The weather was cold and nerves always made it worse.

It had been so long. The thought that anyone would see his hands had been far from his mind. But the pain of that time remained.

The time when he was a puppeteer for Sesame Street. He'd forgotten what his hands looked like. What they were for. On a date a woman held his hand and he was silent the whole time

while the little voice that taunts and teases the heart at it's feeblest moments when the sultry winds clash with fate and the spring well whacks to the mud and all hope is lost.

A tinny ember refuses to go out. it smolders in the breath of thought that refuses to say "I quit." So it grabs any fuel and air it finds and glows brighter on faith alone.

My belief in Santa Claus has been put to the test every year. I always write to him, but he stopped giving me presents when I left home. I try not to cry or pout. I'll tell you why

I keep believing. If we don't believe in some mystical elf in a red jumpsuit, what point is there to living? Some years I just stare down the barrel of my rifle and wonder if

there isn't some bright red candyland that we all go to after we die. And then I become aware of what I'm thinking and remember that of course this is the only life we have and I

was sure whizzing down my leg in droves. I'm talking buckets of piss I could've been standing in had I still worn the buckets on my feet. Lamenting the loss of my Candyland set,

I decided to make the best of it and did a swashbucketing rendition of singing in the rain and got a standing ovation. My luck that it was tradition at the year end school play.