It's late. I'm tired. The only thing I want

It's late. I'm tired. The only thing I want is to sleep. But the baby is crying and my wife is too sick to sooth him. I drink to numb the pain. I could just end it all. It would be

"How do you feel now, son?" I ask him, holding him in my arms. Tears in his eyes, he looks up at me. "I can't go on like this," he blubs. "It's too painful...it hurts my...my...

heartstrings... to live... in an imperfect world of skinned knees. Forgive me, parent, I... must indulge in a good existential cry every now and then." I take him out for ice cream

but he just looks at the bowl & says "What's the point? Sure it'll taste good now, but then it'll be gone. Why even bother?" I took a deep breath. If ice cream wasn't the answer

to his great ennui, then I wasn't interested in the question. With a "don't mind if I do" I scooped up the bowl of vanilla and slurped it down. It was posh vanilla with black bits

which gave the appearance of being authentic vanilla. But the black bits were not vanilla bean pieces, they were micro-bots. Once inside my body, they fanned out in a floatilla

Of nomatophobia, which only allowed symbolic characters resemblig pigs' feet in her fiction. Micro-bots were willing to ghost write her autobiography which was set in a place named

Serenity 3. "Before we were Survivors", it bagan. It paints a condemning picture of the actions taken by General Custer at the Battle of Tortilla Flats against the Mushroom People.

Boston "Creampie" Custer, brother of George, visited Tortilla Flats with his fiancé, Millie Putz. After having unprotected sex, Custer mistook Millie for a mushroom and ate her!