Split House

Everyone called Elloise mad when she insisted on taking half of everything during her divorce from her husband Earl. Half of everything isn't uncommon, half the money, half the possessions, and in these respects, she was reasonable. She took half the books, half the dishes. She took one of their two dogs. With singular items, however, her madness showed. They had only one house, and she wanted half of it. Earl proposed they sell the house and split the proceeds, but Elloise was not satisfied. She wanted half the house. He protested, but she ignored him and took a chainsaw to the walls. In the end, she had half a house. She was crazy, they would say, certifiably nuts. Then one day, she met a divorced man named Ray who also owned half a house. They talked, they fell madly in love, and with a little carpentry, they were able to make a new house out of their two literal broken homes. The neighbors agreed, theirs was a relationship of pure insanity, but all relationships and all people have their insanity, and as Elloise and Ray would say, love is finding the crazy that matches your own. 

Originally mailed to J. Dunn from d'Iberville, Mississippi

Tin Men

Once a beloved but clumsy wood cutter, the Tin Man had become a monster since he took control of the forest in a bloody coup. People dreaded the coming of his “justice” which fell upon them as quickly as the blade of his axe. He was a heartless tyrant who cared nothing for his subjects. There were attempts to overthrow him, but most weapons the poor peasants could fashion deflected effortlessly off his metal body, and they learned soon enough that the few that could puncture his iron hyde did nothing, for the Tin Man was as hollow as he was heartless, a foul ghost trapped in an empty metal suit. So great a dissatisfaction cannot go unaddressed, however, and though they dared not speak their thoughts aloud for fear of his axe and they could no more assassinate him than change his mind, they resorted to an anonymous protest, crafting men of tin cans and leaving them hanging from the trees of the forest and the poles in town.

- Originally mailed to J. Cox of New Orleans, Louisiana

Wrestling Flies

Phinneas, the current world heavyweight fly wrestling champion, pinned Hector “the Nectar Protector” to the mat and went in for the Pinned Wing submission hold, only recently taken off the banned move list and only then due to a clerical error. Hector buzzed in rage and spun hard, trying to shake his opponent free so he could fly to a better vantage and swoop in for the pin. Phinneas clung tight and spun with him, throwing the Nectar Protector off balance. Things weren't looking good for the underdog and people's champ. That's when Hector had his brilliant idea. Dragging Phinneas on his back, he charged for the edge of the mat. The rules said they couldn't be outside the ring for more than ten seconds without being disqualified, but that was plenty of time. He dove off the edge. With Phinneas pinning his wings, he couldn't fly, but if his opponent kept him in that hold, neither could Phinneas. It was a dangerous game of chicken they were playing as they plummeted to the floor. At the last second, Phinneas broke free, and Hector, who always made in aerial precision what he lacked size zipped in like a bullet toward Phinneas, who blinked first and changed course to avoid a head on impact. Hector used the moment to pull an immelmann turn and come in square on Phinneas. Inches above the table, Hector latched on to his opponent's wings and put him into the dreaded Pinned Wing. They both crashed, but at such a low altitude, Phinneas took the brunt of the crash, and Hector, triumphant, held the pin for the full ten seconds. He had done it. Hector the Nectar Protector was the new world heavyweight fly wrestling champion.

- Originally mailed to J. Germany of Biloxi, MS

Message in a Bottle

There was once a woman who stumbled across a bottle beside the sea, and inside she found a message. It was from a man who lived on the island on the horizon. The two countries being cut off from one another for reasons too myriad and complex to enumerate here (suffice it to say, there were lawyers involved), he wondered what things were like across the sea. How did they live? What did they eat? Were they happy or sad? She sent a boy to fetch some paper and a pen and sent a reply. “Slow and easy. Fish and fruit. Mostly happy. You?”

For years they corresponded via bottles (for there were no laws against bottles), and in time, their unusual discussions blossomed into romance. Many a message, when not professing their undying love to one another, worked on the serious business of finding a way to meet. Boats were out of the question (lawyers), it was too far for a bridge, and flight was a thing not yet invented. They despaired at the prospect of never meeting.

One day, our beloved heroine had a most brilliant idea. If the lawyers had no issue with bottles, a giant bottle she would make. She gathered the glass makers of the island together to make a bottle big enough for her to ride in. When her bottle was complete, the islanders gathered to see her off. They loved her so, but could not imagine keeping her from her love, and so with a heave and a ho, they shoved her and her bottle into the sea. After several days of bobbing about at sea, she washed ashore on her true love's lands and climbed out. She looked and waited, eager to surprise him, but he did not come. Finally, she asked a little boy what had become of the man she loved.

“He built a giant bottle and cast himself into the sea.”

- Originally mailed to M. Taylor in South Korea

The Forest and the River

The forest and the river got into a bit of a feud one day. A few trees had grown into the river and the river felt quite put upon, and rightly so. A river changes its boundaries very slowly, but forests spread much faster at a consistent rate of regular slowly.

“But river,” said the forest, “every few years you overstep your bounds and enter me. What say you to that?”

“It is only a temporary visit, and only when my relatives from up north come to visit,” the river said. “Besides, you grow richer and stronger every time I do, so where can the harm be?”

The forest considered this and said, “But river, without your visits, I would never have been able to grow so big and so far. It is you who allows me to enter your banks.”

Now it was the river's turn to consider what the forest had said. The forest was correct, he realized. Sure his visits to the forest were not long at all and the trees would be in the river longer, but the river visited the forest often and the forest visited the river only rarely. Besides, the roots made homes for the fish, which made the river more beautiful, and who could object to that? From then on, the river was more forgiving of the few trees who overstepped the banks, and the forest was more forgiving when the river came to visit, for they were always both the better for it.

- Originally mailed to P. Walker of Diamondhead, Mississippi

Serious Sideburns

“Too wiry,” said one judge.

“Agreed,” said another, “and the hairs go in every which direction.”

“I don't know,” said another. “I like the swoops. Sideburns aren't meant to be tamed house cats. They're wild face beasts. I give it a solid eight.”

“Wild face beasts? Do you even hear yourself?” cried the first. “Look at the shape, the way it arcs away unevenly from the ear!”

“And who even knows how even the outer trim is!” agreed the second with a very serious high five.

“The arc is distinguished. Besides, real mutton chops have a curve to them. Why shouldn't facial chops?”

“Don't be so literal,” said the second. “You can't possibly think this is a good sideburn. Look at the uneven, almost abrupt shift from thick and dark to scruffy and light! If you give this sideburn a high rating, it compromises the integrity of the entire World's Best Sideburn competition, and then where will we be?”

“It will be chaos!” cried the first.

“Anarchy and chaos!” cried the second.

But the third would not budge and his eight stood.

Twelve hours later, WWIII broke out. Nineteen hours after that, it went nuclear, and by the end of the week, man had been reduced to a pack of irradiated savages picking at the bones of civilization. Centuries later, historians would misattribute the end of civilization as we knew it to strained relations between the US and China.

- Originally mailed to M. Krell in Horn Lake, Mississippi

The Gathering Storm

The twelfth annual The Gathering Storm, a convention for clouds, took place on the weekend of July 27th-29th in Oxbow, Nebraska. It allowed the various clouds of the world to gather, share news and gossip, swap job techniques, and generally socialize outside of the office. The convention began with the president's Harrison B. Nimbus's oft-quoted “Clouds: Above It All” keynote speech, in which he asked his vaporous brethren to take pride in all they do for the planet. Afterward, the clouds attended the seminars on topics such as when to rain (“The Grass Is Long, Looks Like Rain,” “Parades: A How-To,” and “Withholding Affection: Why We Drought”), panels on how to rain (“California: Just Pour,” “Attracting Water Vapour: A Growth Roundtable,” and “Gradual Intensity: How Sprinkling in the Morning Means More Drenched People in the Afternoon”), and the seldom attended lectures on where to rain (“Farmland Needs You!” and “Hurricanes: How to Choose a Strikezone BEFORE the Last Minute”). The the weekend ended with a mixer, which like most cloud mixers, had a lot of shouting, turned into a pissing match, and ended with everyone storming off.

- Originally mailed to H. Ainsworth from Gulfport, MS

Balding Security

After pre-natal genetic customization became commonplace—albeit at a steep price—the beautiful became far more beautiful, genetically flawless in fact. The wealthy had their health, their looks, their brilliance, athleticism, and ambition all guaranteed from birth while the rest of humanity was forced to rely on the traditional crapshoot that had been genetic heredity for the past dozens of millennia. With every genetic and monetary advantage stacked against them, the lower class became more resentful than ever, until soon the world existed in a state of precarious balance, just barely avoiding civil war. The Beautiful People paid their guards and servants in single genetic enhancements for their children. Of all genetic modification, from eye color and skin complexion and bone structure and teeth straightness, the hardest to perfect—and the hardest for the poor to fake—was hair. There were too many variables. Sheen, shape, shade, volume, bounce, density. The odds of someone being born with “perfect hair” without genetic manipulation were astronomical. As such, security systems on both sides no longer cared to pinpoint faces anymore. Instead, they pointed their cameras straight down on the hair, searching for receding hairlines, implants, dye jobs, or split ends. The natural part could tell friend from foe better than any interrogation.

- Originally mailed to S. Sartin in Atlanta, Georgia

Bartleby, Cattorney

Bartleby Black, Cattourney at Law (his marketer's idea, not his) took all proceedings with the solemnity of a church. It gave him no pleasure to conduct business in conditions such as these, surrounded by pop culture and other common geekery, but he needed to see the alleged forged issue of Detective Comics #27 for himself before he agreed to file suit. “My only condition,” he said, “is that you must handle the comic book yourself. I will not have any accusations that I have somehow tampered with the pages.”

“Besides,” he said. “I have no thumbs.”

- Originally mailed to M. Krell in Horn Lake, Mississippi

Rival Insurance

Attorneys Jerry Goliday (“Putting the I in Goliday”) and Phyllis Meeks (“Seek Meeks – Inherit the Earth) realized they had stumbled upon a gold mine when rival insurance agencies set up shop on opposite ends of the building. For reasons no one could prove, the rivalry between Martell from Progressive and Helen from All State soon escalated into a full scale war of words, with each attorney comfortably kept on retainer. On a good day, Goliday and Meeks made small fortunes on out of court slander suits, sometimes as many as ten before lunch.

Within five short years, Goliday and Meeks made enough to have their dream wedding in the Bahamas and retire someplace sunny. Helen was sent upstate after shooting Martell for saying some things that were not so progressive.

- Originally mailed to C. Sawyer in Ocean Springs, Mississippi