spaghetti war crimes

When we all got news that Hawley was headed back home to Reno, none of us knew what to think. The strongest link in our chainmail, in our holy divine armor, was about to come undone. We had spent countless weeks forging those chains, building what we had come to enjoy for the past couple months, weeks, years? Time has felt odd while in this settlement. One can’t be quite too sure what day it is, what year, what month, what season. It doesn’t help that the weather is perfect with a high of 75 each and every fucking day. Blending the mondays into tuesdays and the tuesdays into wednesdays and so on and so on; so that there is just one blanket of continual day and night that spans for such a time that beards crop out and babies begin primary school. So that relatives pass and that no one can be sure if the ham in the fridge has gone bad. But yea, Hawley’s leaving town. It’s sparked a certain hysteria amongst the group. We’ve all got this trepidation beginning to rear up in our bellies, for...

          Alexander was a careful young man. He measured up all decisions in his mind before ever taking action. The world of his thoughts was more vivid than the world of forms that danced before him on his cave walls, lit up by the ever-present firelight. Each morning upon rising, Alexander would make himself a fresh pot of coffee. Everyday it was the same amount of the same blend made in the same coffeemaker and poured into the same cup alongside a small amount of the same cream. Alexander measured out 31.8 grams of coffee each day to load into his coffee making machine. That amount was–in his eyes–the perfect ratio for a cup of coffee. Of course, he would only drink a single cup and dump the rest down the sink, but he saw this as a necessary sacrifice in order to obtain the ideal ratio of coffee grounds to hot water in his cup. When ready to measure, he would place the special scale he got as a Christmas gift from his mother on the kitchen counter, do...

          Sergeant Mooney was raking over the mass of limbs, debris, and blood-soaked cloth when something caught his eye from out of the rubble. Traversing closer to the object, he realized the thing that had caught his eye was a red piece of paper. It was a sexy red, the kind they’d paint on the sign of a sleazy motel frequented by pimps, prostitutes, and drug dealers. As if this was its purpose in another life, the red piece of paper lured Mooney over to the chest pocket of a young boy.           After 6 months overseas, Mooney knew now that all the inhabitants of the small nation they had occupied were the enemy. Seeing the face of a dead 10 year old boy who had lost both of his arms was not the same for him as it would have been for a civilian back home. They would see a poor, defenseless boy blown to smithereens. A life wasted. Innocent killing. He saw a threat neutralized. If this individual was not face down dead in fro...

          On old Nantucket’s property sat a national monument: the oldest tree in all of North America. Of course, like most all great trees, it sat firmly in the ground off to the side of a front porch, offering a house its tranquil shade and shelter from the sweltering sun. The trunk was large and cockeyed, running at a slant from the ground to the sky. The slope was mellow enough for a young child to crawl on hands and knees upwards, but after about five feet, the trunk shot up. A wide array of dark brown pinecones–none larger than a baseball–peppered the lush green thistles that populated the many branches. Exposed roots laid at the foot of the tree, rolling in crisscrossed patterns that spread out from the trunk. One does not hold the title of Oldest Tree in North America without bearing a few scars of a life well-lived however. Brown thistles gathered in small patches throughout the tree’s head, and knotted portals of darkened wood spotted the tree’s...