A Story About a Man with a Bear Head That Doesn’t Have Any Stupid Bear Puns in the Title

I was walking through the woods one day, when a gypsy put a curse on me and gave me a bear head. The specifics of what happened between the gypsy and me aren’t really important anymore. We can’t exactly go back and fix it, so why worry about that aspect of the story? What really matters here is that I left the scene with a bear head.
I looked pretty normal otherwise: Normal arms, normal legs, normal body. The only difference is now I have a bear head. I don’t think the curse changed anything else about me, I mean the gypsy was pretty specific in her wording after all: “You will have a bear head from now on.”
Gypsy curse removal isn’t exactly a specialty in the medical field anymore, so my doctor told me that I’d probably just have to make do with my circumstances. I was kind of upset about this at first, but I got used to it eventually. Life with a bear head isn’t really that different from life with a normal head. I mean, sure, I get wild cravings for honey every now and then. And every spring, I get the urge to stand in the river and catch spawning salmon with my mouth. Given that I live in Albuquerque, I never catch very many.
There are a few perks to this whole bear head business, though. A local high school hired me to come to all of their football games and be their mascot. They pay me fifty bucks a game. Fifty bucks! This one time, some snarky sophomore in a letterman jacket snidely suggested I be paid in “pic-a-nic” baskets instead. I didn’t find this very funny, so I mauled him. Nobody really seemed to mind. I guess they kind of expected a certain number of maulings to inevitably happen when they hired me. I think I’ve kept below my quota so far, which I guess is a good thing, though I kind of feel like I’m missing out on a lot of freebies in the mauling department. You know, I never really liked that one assistant coach who always called me Winnie… well, I’ll worry about that later.
Anyways, I’m also in talks with the circus. I might get a job riding a scooter around in a circle. They haven’t called me back about this yet. I’m actually getting a little nervous that I’ve missed out on this opportunity. Maybe they found a guy that turned completely into a bear. …Nah, that’s just ridiculous. They’ll call.
I guess you could say I’m making the best of things with my bear head. Heck, I’d say I’m doing better than ever. I mean, without a bear head, what would make me unique?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a hot date tonight. I’m trying out this tortured soul angle, a sort of , “Ooh, I’m doomed to live the rest of my life with a bear head, woe is me,” sort of thing. I think she’ll really go for it.
If not, I can always maul her.

Lost Whale.

I liked the consolidation idea right up until I did it. Now I am very unsure about it.

I may be deleting the Neffits comics here and giving them their own blog back. Argh. I don't know.

Here's a bonus cartoon for you.

The Unnecessarily Complicated Matter of Tommy McMulligan

The Unnecessarily Complicated Matter of Tommy McMulligan
by Victor Monterroso

Tommy McMulligan, a perfectly average man of thirty years, is about to have a not so perfectly average experience. He is walking down the street and in extreme risk of dying. Most people may not realize just how many risks exist in a simple Sunday stroll, but they’re certainly there, and ignoring them won’t make them not happen to you. A car could swerve off the road and strike you dead. A robber running away from the police could wildly fire his gun at his pursuers and one of his many stray bullets happens to pass through your head, striking you dead. The sidewalk could be slightly uneven and you trip and fall and hit your head on the curb and suffer severe brain trauma and slip into a coma and become a vegetable and the doctor says there’s no hope for you and you will never wake up again but your weeping family refuses to pull the plug so you just lay there for a long time until your brother can’t take it anymore and knowing you’d want him to put you out of your misery if you could only speak to him he sneaks into your hospital room in the middle of the night and smashes the vase of flowers he sent to you when this whole ordeal started across your temple, striking you dead.
But among the risks (those previously mentioned and oh so many more) commonly cast upon pedestrians of our city’s sidewalks, Tommy McMulligan has been exposed to none of these. Instead, his path of travel is about to meet the perpendicular path of a falling piano.
Why a piano, you ask? Where on Earth did it come from? Well, I imagine it came from a fine music retail store that sells quality pianos. How it eventually found itself in the sky from which it is currently falling, however, is another matter altogether. Perhaps it has fallen from a plane transporting it across a long distance and the pilot has failed to realize that his cargo has somehow escaped. Perhaps the piano is a victim of some strange entanglement of time and space, transporting it from its original position in the universe to a randomly generated spot, which just so happened to be a considerable distance in the sky. Perhaps, and I certainly wouldn’t rule this one out, the piano is a victim of defenestration, possibly at the hands of an eccentric and/or jealous composer.
Why the piano is there, however, won’t alter the fact that it is in fact there and now a few feet above poor Tommy’s head. There are other people around, and they see the falling piano, but they really haven’t registered this in their brains yet. You can’t really blame them, either, I mean when’s the last time you saw a piano falling from the sky (outside of a Daffy Duck cartoon, of course)?
And what will happen to Tommy, you ask? Well, that’s an easy one. He will most certainly die. Pianos aren’t exactly light.
But who will pay for Tommy’s funeral? Does he have insurance? Does his family have any money? Will they have an open casket funeral, despite Tommy’s flattened state?
And what of the piano? Will it still be playable after impact? If it survives, can it go to jail for Tommy’s murder?
And who will feed Tommy’s dog after this? I haven’t really considered this yet. If he dies, will someone know to feed his dog? Does he even have a dog? I think he does, and if he didn’t before, he does now because I say so. In movies, when people get shot or something, I’m always the most concerned about their pet’s well being. It’s kind of strange, but true. After all, it’s not the dog’s fault that his owner got into some trouble with the mafia or whatever. He just wants his food.
It’s now become evident that I, the author, am now not only responsible for Tommy but his dog, too. Their lives are in my hands. Now I’m pretty sure that somehow, Tommy will miraculously survive. Maybe the piano will act as a catalyst to Tommy turning his life around. Maybe he’ll start a one-man show with the piano, playing charming songs about rainbows to children. Maybe Tommy’s dog could somehow get into the act, too.
People will probably think I’m copping out by not killing him. If I published this story, it would most certainly get bad reviews, because I wasn’t brutal enough. A bad review like that could easily ruin my career. So maybe I’ll save myself and Tommy and his dog the trouble and trash this story. Trash it like so many others.
I wonder if I kill all of my characters when I throw a story away?
Who will feed their dogs?
Hmm.
Well, I guess I’ll go find an envelope, then.

I Woke Up One Average Morning In Purgatory

I Woke Up One Average Morning In Purgatory

determined to leave it once and for all. I had a thesis paper due at the end of the week. It was to see if I could get out of Purgatory or not and I probably won’t because I never do week after week but I keep trying because hey what else is there to do here? This week, however, I decided I would get the upper hand by buying a thesaurus. That way I could spice up my thesis paper with fancy words and who ever grades the thing will be so impressed that they will ignore the fact that I have provided them with absolutely no special reason as to why I should be let out of Purgatory in the first place.
My roommate Eddie and myself rode bikes into town, but Eddie had other plans, so we went our separate ways. People usually don’t hang out with me in Purgatory, but I’m not certain of that’s another fault of the place or just a personal problem on my end.
It was slightly chilly today, not enough to make me want to bring along a heavier jacket on my errand run, but chilly enough to make me uncomfortable all day long. Such was the weather in Purgatory all the time. I went up to the local thesaurus store, of which there are several in town. So many thesaurus stores and yet no hospitals, pharmacies, brothels, or anything else convenient. But that is a completely different story.
Anyways, I went into the thesaurus store, only to be informed by the clerk that there were absolutely no thesauri in stock. Thinking that many other sly Purgatorians had the same idea as me, I asked the clerk when he would be expecting a new shipment. He told me that he was still waiting for the first shipment. They never stocked them since the store first opened, which was back at the beginning of time since there had to be a Purgatory along with what I suppose is Heaven and Hell because I mean I’m in Purgatory anyways so that would logically mean the other two existed though I can’t be for sure given that I haven’t been to either one but I did meet God once and He said He was real although there may have been a chance that it wasn’t God after all but rather an actor or some other deity or divine entity or maybe even a con man which the more I think about it the more I figure that’s probably the case considering my wallet was missing afterwards.
I left the thesaurus store with empty hands and the same lousy vocabulary with which I walked in. I figured that all of the other thesaurus stores would be out of thesauri as well, given the nature of things in Purgatory. So, I elected to go home instead of embarking on a pointless afternoon of searching.
And wouldn’t you know it, on my way back, I see about ten people carrying brand new thesauri. I consider going back into town and finding the source of this, but a crossing guard started following me about a mile back holding up his little handheld stop sign and giving me a very stern look.
Such as it is here in Purgatory, but hey, there’s always next week I guess.

Apology and Three Cartoons

So yeah, I know I started off by saying I'd be updating this regularly. I've fallen out of this right on schedule (read: immediately). So, sorry about that (not that I have many readers [yet!]).

Trust me when I say that I'll be getting you more short stories very soon. I promise you a new post this week (and at least one a week after that). Until then, please accept these three cartoons that I did as a token of apology (click for a way bigger version).

Abraham Lincoln Stole My Bicycle

ABRAHAM LINCOLN STOLE MY BICYCLE
by Victor Monterroso

So yes, I spent the better part of my childhood without a bicycle. Well, rather, I spent the better part of my childhood not knowing how to ride a bicycle. I actually had one at one point, but I could never figure out the thing. The whole balancing on two wheels bit… yeah, didn’t really work for me. So it just sat in our garage and I got too tall for it and then I didn’t have a bicycle again.
Eventually, I told a friend in college about my bicycle-less childhood and he felt sorry for me, so he taught me how to ride a bicycle. And I’ve been riding a bicycle ever since. Well, not literally; I’ve gotten off of it periodically, but I do ride it whenever I get the chance. It’s fun and liberating and, despite it having been three years now since I learned, it still feels like a new experience every time I ride it.
I find it kind of funny just how many things I’ve experienced before learning to ride a bicycle. Driving, drinking, touching women in intimate ways… I can’t think of any six-year olds who could claim to have done these things before learning how to ride a bicycle.
Anyways, so I enjoy riding my bicycle, and I’m enjoying riding it right now. It’s a pretty day. I’m out on the boardwalk by the coast, a pleasant little road where people can walk or ride around and appreciate all of the ocean water and beach and seagulls. Despite how pretty it is today, there is hardly anyone out on the boardwalk.
It’s a good five minutes of actually being on the boardwalk before I see anyone. It’s a man running in my direction off in the distance. Not too unusual, really, lots of people go jogging down here. But wait a minute; this guy’s not dressed to be jogging… no, not at all. He’s wearing a brown suit, a tie, and a big black top hat. As I get closer, I can see that it’s an old suit; it’s wool or something. That must be really uncomfortable to run in.
I can see the man’s features now. He’s older, tall, and thin. He’s got a well-kept beard, but no moustache. High cheekbones, sharp features, and probably middle aged… he looks really familiar.
He stops when he gets close to me and waves me down. I slow down to a halt, and swing my leg over the bicycle to where I’m standing beside it.
“Hey kid,” he says, “I need to borrow your bike.”
I’m not sure if I understand him correctly. He wants to borrow my bicycle? And will I get it back? I am quite certain this man will not be touching my bicycle, but I’m somewhat curious as to why he wants it, so I ask him:
“What?”
“I said I needed to borrow your bike, kid. It’s very important. The fate of the nation depends on it.”
It’s probably a crazy man, which would explain his manner of dress. It would also explain why he’s asking for my bicycle: he wants to steal it so he can sell it for drug money. Nonetheless, I am still curious as to why this (probably) crazy man would want my bicycle, so I attempt to find out more information:
“What?”
The man sighs. “Do you know who I am?” he says.
I kind of shrug. “I’ve seen you before, maybe on the television or something,” I say.
“I’m Abraham Lincoln,” he says.
“Abraham Lincoln,” I say.
“Abraham Lincoln,” he says.
I reach into my pocket and fish out the five dollar bill I had brought along for lunch. I hold it up so I can compare the man to the picture on the bill. And wouldn’t you know it, the resemblance is uncanny.
So now we’re both standing here in an awkward moment in silence, just looking at each other. Then, I say:
“What?”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln,” he says.
“Yeah, I got that part,” I say, “but if that’s true, then wouldn’t that make you around two hundred years old or so? And dead?”
“I’ve time traveled here to your day and age,” he says. “I’m part of the Time Police Alliance. We make sure everything stays the way it’s supposed to be in the space-time continuum. Adolf Hitler’s traveled to this time period as well, and I have to stop him from taking over the world. But first, I need your bike so I can catch him.”
I ponder all of this for a moment and say, “Okay.”
“Great then, I’ll just be taking this then,” he says, reaching for the bicycle’s handles.
I stop him and pull the bicycle towards me. “No, no,” I say, “I just meant ‘Okay’ as in, ‘Okay, I understand your situation,’ but I’m not quite sure if I believe it.”
Abraham Lincoln is looking rather offended now. He says, “What’s there to debate? You can’t prove me wrong. I’m the real deal, kid, and Adolf Hitler is the real deal, too.”
“But see, I can’t prove you right, either, so I’m kind of having a problem with this,” I say.
Abraham Lincoln starts to stroke his beard. “Okay then,” he says, “what part of this do you have a problem with?”
I say, “Well, the thing I have a problem with is the fact that you’re arguing me about borrowing my bicycle, when you could have saved yourself a lot of time by just walking, or running. This doesn’t seem to be very productive if this is so important.”
Abraham Lincoln says: “Oh, I knew there would be an argument over your bike, so arrived a bit early to give me time to convince you.”
“Couldn’t you just traveled back in time to the point before Hitler travels back in time, then stop him there?” I say.
“Hey, time travel’s a tricky thing, kid,” says Abraham Lincoln.
We have another moment of silence, then I say: “Are you a hobo?”
“No! I’m Abraham Lincoln!” He looks really flustered.
“But you could just be a hobo pretending to be Abraham Lincoln so you can steal some poor sap’s bicycle,” I say.
I think about this possibility for a moment.
“Then again,” I say, “if you really are a hobo that went through the trouble to get an Abraham Lincoln outfit and make up some crazy story about time travel wars with Adolf Hitler, just in order to steal a bicycle, then I think you kind of deserve it just out of the time and effort that must require.”
“So are you giving it to me, then?” he asks.
“Yeah, sure,” I say, “Have fun with it. Go stop those Nazis. Just don’t sell it, it meant a lot to me.”
“I knew you’d see it my way,” says Abraham Lincoln with a smirk.
He gets on the bicycle and rides off with surprising grace. I didn’t even think they had bicycles back in his day.
“One last thing,” I shout out to him.
He slows to a stop and looks back at me.
“Really, who are you, man?” I say.
“I told you, kid,” he says, “I’m Abraham Lincoln.”
Then he laughs, and rides off.
I stay on the docks for the rest of the day, thinking about what just happened. I just gave my bicycle away to a con artist. Why did I do that? It was almost subconscious, the way I eventually gave it to him, and there was really no gain on my part, except for maybe having a particularly good trump story (“Oh yeah, you think your day was weird? Well, guess what happened to me today—Abraham Lincoln stole my bicycle!”). I guess, deep down inside, I knew he needed it more than me, whether or not he was actually a time traveling dead President.
A hand taps me on the shoulder. “Hey, did someone already come by and take your bicycle?” a man says.
I keep looking out at the bay. I nod my head.
“Oh, okay. Never mind, then,” he says.
I hear him walking off down the boardwalk. I turn and look at him, and I notice a bit of a goosestep in his stride.