Chapter 1 (A preview for the curious)

                                "I would like to thank you all again for coming tonight. I look forward to talking with you next week at the same time. And don't forget, the meeting has been changed to conference room number two oh eight so we’ll meet there next week." Steve-Bob flashes a youthful smile that belies his adulthood as he uses his sausagy digits to gather his notes, curriculum and other assorted papers. "By the way, I wish you all a careful drive home, watch the wet roads everybody," he follows up as the small assembly of drones slowly disincorporate and each person begins finding his own way in life again, one trudging footstep at a time. Joy radiates from Steve-Bob's tall frame as he tries to connect with each lost soul by way of handshake or friendly pat on the shoulder and a gracious 'thank you' or 'good night'. This group has a bit of promise, Steve-Bob thinks, reflecting on the many anger management groups he has spoken for in the last couple years. Groups like this remind me why I continue on this path of servitude. They make it all worthwhile.

                                With his seminar closed and his heart open, Steve-Bob embraces the warm cotton that fills his chest and finishes gathering his charts and worksheets, bundles them neatly into his black canvas briefcase and wheels about on his heel to the door only to find the way blocked by a looming figure holding a long, slender weapon. Joy and fulfillment drain from Steve-Bob's face along with his blood. The warm cotton in his chest freezes, sending chilling tingles to the furthest reaches of his large body and he is suddenly aware of an electrical hum from an unknown source.

The figure does not move.

Steve-Bob's mouth begins to compensate for the immediate dryness and the dams break, allowing the saliva to flow. The blood drains to his hands now, making his fingers heavy which nearly prevents them from holding anything. As the handle of the briefcase begins to slip, the friction in his hands remind him of the tangibility of the moment and he knows this isn't some dream and reaffirms his grasp on the bag. "H-Hi there," Steve-Bob musters, "I'm sorry but the seminar is over."

No response.

"There um…there will be another one next week. You can come to that one if you like."

Nothing.

                                Oh god! A chill shakes his spine into submission. This is it! This man is going to kill me! What did I do? His mind begins playing a high speed slideshow of the human mutilation and autopsy photos he had to endure during his training for emergency responder. Each of these bizarre slides replace the generic victim's face for Steve-Bob's own, providing there is a face left.

                "Hello?" Steve-Bob manages to stumble, but still...nothing. The hum amplifies and suddenly, Steve-Bob realizes that he is required to be absolutely anywhere but inside this room at this time. "L-Look guy, I um...I am just on my way out. So, uh...so do you need something?"

                A nod from the stranger. Finally! A response. He raises his hand and offers forth the end of his weapon with dirt traced knuckles to reveal a bristled head. A broom? Oh lord, how stupid! "Hey sure, fellah. I’ll be out of your way in just a second, just let me get my things together and I'm through with this room." Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid! He's just a janitor. Come on, get it together! With his spare hand, Steve-Bob gathers his tacks and the flyer for next week's seminar and heads through the door, shuffling past the cleaning man and his tool. The janitor grins crookedly. Did he just scoot closer? Steve-Bob's meaty back scrapes the door frame and his largish belly brushes awkwardly against the janitor and his broom. Creepy! "Good...uh....good night." Without waiting for a response, Steve-Bob heads down the hall as fast as his long, meaty legs can take him without seeming too obvious that he feels like a hen trapped in a chicken coop with a fox on the loose. He listens as he high paces down the hall but can hear no footsteps other than his own and, once getting to the lobby of the large building, he relaxes his momentum long enough to stop at the community bulletin board to post his flyer for next week's class. With one frantic scan back toward tonight's class, Steve-Bob hurriedly stabs the paper onto the board and darts through the front door, nearly plowing down a small elderly woman trying to make her way inside. "Excuse me...” he exclaims apologetically, “…excuse me"

                                Fresh air fills his lungs and thaws the cotton that once felt nearly warm enough to heat an igloo. Okay, get it together, he coached himself, it was a janitor...nothing more. Not everybody is out to get you. Calm down. With one last curse toward his anxiety attacks, Steve-Bob composes himself and heads down the street, feeling more confident with each stride. He heads out on foot toward his final destination before going home and by the time he makes it to St. Paul's Church of Eternal Joy, the memory of the creepy janitor is all but gone, replaced by the comfort and safety that the towering edifice of old world religion instills within his breast. From the pointed roof, down to the statues of the holy mother at the base of the stone steps, this building serves as a spotlight in the dark of today's society. The ancient architecture of the brickwork and the stained glass windows set the premises apart from the uniform of the modern construction, reminding Steve-Bob that there truly is some stability in this ever changing world.

                                Steve-Bob begins to climb the steps of the church as the doors atop the steps swing open and a woman nearly as tall as Steve-Bob makes her exit from the building. Her hair is cut close and curled and, despite her slightly advanced age, she still carries a figure that increases the heart rate of many. Steve-Bob knows her well, many times having to remind himself that his thoughts of her are immoral and most likely unappreciated but he never can stop looking fondly upon her. "Good evening Evellyn." His words covered in satin.

                                "Oh..." she says with a start, "Hiya Stevie B. I didn't realize you were going to be here this late," she pauses with a glance deep into the church. He knows she makes little nick names for everyone whose name she can remember but he can't help but feel just a little special any way. She turns back to Steve-Bob, "So, is there...is there anything I can do for you?"

                                Thou shall not covet another man's wife. That wasn't a come on line. Thou shall not covet another man's wife. Come on Steve-Bob, say something. She's waiting. Was it a come on?

                                "Stevie B?" her demeanor is pleasantly impatient.

                                "Uh...No Evellyn. I'm just...is father Nichols still here? I wanted to talk to him about my day." She listens patiently as he continues, "I made so much progress and I think I'm really starting to touch people."

                                With a graceful step to the side, Evellyn motions Steve-Bob inside, "You know he is. I think he's still in the back chambers but he will be out momentarily." She smiles as Steve-Bob skips up the stairs and thanks her before going into the building. Can this guy really be in his thirties, she questions to herself as she continues aloud, "See you Sunday Stevie B."

                                "See you then Evellyn. Good night." He races back out as she's making her way down the steps, "Hey Ev, um...would you like me to walk you home?"

                                "That's thoughtful of you Stevie but, well, I drove here and my car is right at the corner," she awkwardly jabs her thumb just behind her. The two meet glances and each fidgets with uncertainty until Evellyn closes the conversation, "Okay, good night Stevie B."

                                "All right," he shoots a school boy smile, "Alright then, goodnight," he offers as he walks back inside, allowing the thick oak doors to close behind him.

Society

I am desolutely stranded in this discordant for of blabbery and nonsensical ego puffery. I am ethereally tethered to my designated prison as the lashings of intellectual vapidity strike across my brain's back, ripping me open, forcing the plasma of knowledge to bubble and seep, pouring down my spine cooling and freezing as it spreads from vertebrae to contorded vertebrae. By the time it passes through my now frostbitten toes, any resemblance of worthwhile thought has since been transfigured into ghostly nothingness and fled, no longer bound to this concentration camp as my less fortunate husk which even now rots and decays into the dreary realm of the world of the conforming herd. Here I am, alone in the woolen crowd, causing myself to wonder; am I left to bleat my way through the remainder of my existence?

Barnacle

Thanks to good living and semi-regular exercise, illness seldom befalls on me and mine. The need for a pharmacist still does not escape my family, however; and I occasionally find myself lined up for a fix from my local pill pusher. With that said, like the rest of the cattle waiting slaughter, I am standing in the rope chute, being herded to the front of the line. This line is not completely unpleasant as most of the cattle are minding their own business and are very content with their role in the universe.
We are all lulled into a zone of content boredom by the never too invasive elevator music showering down from the serenely painted ceiling and I am standing at the end of the herd, amusing myself with fantastical stories for each person ahead of me when my safety bubble is abruptly and callously invaded by a static presence behind me. The attack was unnoticed initially until it welled into a vocal mosquito buzzing across the back of my head and irritating my ear.
The voice of a pretty young woman became consistently more present as I realized she was engaged in a dramatic conversation with, by the direction of the conversation, was a newly acquired lover or at least very close friend that seemed to offer physical benefits.
"So I just found out that my monthly check has been cut," says the voice.
Filled with concern, the male object questions, "You aren't going to be kicked out are you? Do you have somewhere to go?" sweet.
The gears had not yet clicked into place for me by this time and I was still occupying my time by filling the void in the lives of the people ahead of me when the feminine voice reassures her partner, "I don't have to worry about getting kicked out. All they will do is lower my rent. Its based on what I make and because I'm not working, they will base rent from that. Its pretty cool because they don't count my welfare check or the child support so I can pretty much live there for free."
WHAT?! I don't care to eavesdrop but I couldn't believe what this girl just blurted out and, more importantly, I was astounded by what seemed to be a sense of pride in her cleverness at scamming the system and her lack of guilt of basically robbing from everyone around her!
The sickening part is that she went on; bragging about making no money, not working for a living, getting hand outs from every angle and not having to worry about paying any of it back! Her male companion also seemed to get more impressed as she continued, like the secrets of the universe were being set out at his feet and neither of the two were very quiet with their elation over this momentous discovery! The holy grail was a yard sale trinket compared to the inexhaustible source of funds that one could carve from the government money tree and these gold diggers were carving through the bark like termites!
My veins were lava tubes, aching to erupt. I could feel the pressure building in my head and was slightly nervous that steam might be rolling from my ear vents. How could these people?! There are families that could honestly use the resources these two are squandering away! Honest people with legitimate problems were suffering because they didn't want to sink so low as to take such sympathetic hand-outs and these two are chewing through the government green faster than locusts in a field!
With blinding speed, their conversation went from free money to partying and drugs...DRUGS! These imbeciles were using my tax dollars to pay for their dope! The man, knowing that his new partner was easier catch than goldfish at the pet store began to suggest plans for later where the two of them could be alone to explore the boundaries of illicit chemicals and each other's body, even jokingly asking if the pharmacy handed out free samples!
At some point, he invaded her territory and she took an offish stance in the conversation, using her assumedly newborn child as an excuse by not having a babysitter. This offended the primitive male and with slight chest pounding, he protested to her plights by insisting, "...just have your mom watch the kid."
To this, her response was simply, "You don't know how hard it is to be a single parent." This coming from a parasite that just openly and proudly admitted that she has been given every hand out known to the system; a rodent who is in line to get free medication that would cost any of the rest of us a good chunk of money; a barnacle that, because of the lack of employment, has nothing but FREE time on her hands to consume as much illegal drugs as she can obtain...and she is complaining about the difficulties of responsibility? Will someone please pinch me? This cannot be real!
I have made it to the front of the line, amazingly without invoking violence. I can't take it anymore, I have to know what a tax sucking vampire truly looks like so I turn my head slightly while her boyfriend is off rummaging through the donut case, eating whatever he can touch and there before me stands a young girl, possibly in her early twenties. Her radiant blond hair is up and well taken care of, just off the shoulders that help hold her elegant sweater. Even her magnificently manicured nails hint at high class and well-to-do. Her face was framed like a portrait with glorious hues of dazzle and sparkle. From head to toe, this creature was covered in money and posh. In fact, the fashion was nearly enough to hide the flabby gut that stuck out over the pants from a lack of exercise or motivation and crude stance and mannerisms that seemed to crawl straight out of the sewers and make a home inside a worthless pile of flesh.
I was brimming with a sense of outrage and to pound the final nail into the coffin was the enormous tattoo that was emblazoned across the entire right hemisphere of her neck meat! Don't get me wrong, I love tattoos. I have many myself and would love to get more but for this worm to not even try being a productive member of society and then have the audacity to adorn herself in a cultural branding that used to rely on pride and self worth and therefore prove the stereotype that most of society has of tattooed people as scum? To say this was an outrage would be akin to saying a couple people died in World War II. My instinct was strangulation.
This is one of those moments in a life that will affect the entire future. Murder or silence. Which is more rewarding?
I walked out of the store without wearing handcuffs for three reasons and three reasons only; my children.
As I was ready to lunge at her and her drug induced male tumor, I thought about what put these cretins where they are and I wondered if killing these two, though beneficial to society, would be detrimental to the positive life of my children. Maybe if my children had to visit Daddy in jail every other Tuesday, they would also place themselves in the position of filth and my actions which could have rid the world of two more life consuming bacteria would have inadvertantly created three more. This couldn't be allowed to happen so, with shaking fists, I summoned my willpower and left...before I could take no more.

This blog is 100% true. I included only the exact dialogue that I remembered in order to preserve the intelligence level of these despicable people. Sadly, these two are not exceptions to the rule of welfare recipients and, though many use these benefits properly (for which, I harbor no ill will) a great deal of the people on welfare today are "career" welfare recipients. Is this what we have turned into as a 'proud' country? Is this something you want to allow to happen? This cycle not only continues with your inaction but it grows...just like the plague it is! Get active in your community or in local politics! These are YOUR dollars these people are spending on drugs and irresponsibility! YOU are supporting drug abuse, child neglect and broken homes if you stand idly by and watch this travesty continue!
I believe it was Andrew Jackson that said, "One man with courage makes a majority."