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The Life Guy

This guy--the Life Guy--ate nothing but heat lamps and defecated only wholy intact live salmon. Such was his appetite. And talk about healthy. Renaissance painters could have spent years attempting to capture the rosiness in the Life Guy's cheeks.

At the coaxing of one of his roommates, who was pretty convinced that the Life Guy's eating habits were a manifestation of deeper issues (the Life Guy lacked a solid father figure) and that perhaps the lamp devourings were shredding the esophagus, the Life Guy went in for a colonoscopy. Well, the doctor discovered that his insides were fine and that they simply consisted of a complex ecosystem of lifeforms. An entire world where the heat from the lamps fed the plants under the sea, which lifted the rivers up and pushed them along, which leaked springs and bubbled the lilypads, which stimulated the activity of crocodiles and caused their teeth to swell into marionettes which harvested fish as a pasttime--fish which were ultimately rubbish to the entire life cycle and were tossed in the rain gutter.

Anyway, the gastroenterologist had kind of a crazy idea and, considering that such an opportunity was unlikely to present itself again, he went ahead and transplanted a dollhouse art museum in the very center of the universal innards. He then stitched up Life Guy and sent him on home.

However, I am sad to report that the art museum's grand opening was very well attended by the marionettes. So many guests arrived that the caterers of the event ended up tossing out leagues of soiled paper place settings, some of which they sent up in hot air balloons to clear off the driveways. When Life Guy woke up the next morning, every passageway was clogged, he tried popping a few Sudafed but suffocation couldn't wait for its moment. You can blame the gastroenterologist if you like for the death of Life Guy, but it's just another textbook case for microdecoration's misplaced zeal.


by why the lucky stiff

june 4, 2005