Madness as the New Year uses me to wipe its post-coital fluids. I'm not an old t-shirt.

It's the year when the spaces between the stars will fill with the laughter of a sad clown who lost his last dollar at the cheapest blackjack table in Vegas; sparrows will scoop whales from the sea and drop them in the desert; a popsicle will melt in the last gasp of the sun. I have no expectations. I'm looking for the sea from the edge of my bed.

Am I just sedentary or waiting to spring into action like a teenaged cock?

Carl didn't know who his father was. Carl's mother bathed him until he was 23; he became aroused during every washing. When Carl's mother died Carl married a beached whale woman and through awkward sex spawned beached whale children. Carl wore thick spectacles; Carl wore baseball caps with his favorite local sports team on them. Carl was a worm of a man, shrinking back from the world outside his shit-lined tunnel. Bright lights scared him. Loud noises scared him. Women scared him. (Excepting his mother.) Today Carl is president of the largest multi-national corporation in the world. Be like Carl.

The Black Iron Prison stretches to the horizon and I shit myself in awe. Wet and crawling I stretch out and lie on my back; the ceiling is beyond sight; I'm swimming in cold ink.

Tired today. I don't have the energy to write anything interesting or at least entertaining tonight. It's 2 AM and I need the sleep, but if I lie down I know I'll just be awake for another hour or two. It's a horrible thing when oblivion is the only thing you want and your mind won't shut the fuck up. The Tooth Fairy isn't coming.

Slept for four hours after I got home from work. I try to be as lazy as I can but there's only so much time in the day. A sense of puritanical duty weighs on me like a ten ton sack of shit. I either sleep, work or sit. That's it. It's all I do. I'm some horrible purposeless robot driven by some useless Prime Directive programmed by a master I turned on and killed. I devolve into science fiction. Bad science fiction. My cold, cast-iron claws thrash at the keys as I write. Sparks fly. Error. Does not compute.

I need to get it together. My brain has been stretched over a snare drum; a two year old beats it with a spoon. A useful thought will sometimes echo in my mind but I don't have the means of recording it; it dissipates in the ether like a fresh fart.

I'm getting older and time is accelerating. Does anyone else feel that way? Is that what happens as the years grow stale and fossilize behind you? It might be that things are just less interesting, less new. The strata of incremental time shows under my eyes. I'm collecting dust.

Craig Kriegaffe watched the girls out of the dance floor; the blondes were the best. Thoughts of the next day's football game floated though his mind along with visions of fucking that hot blonde with the shoulder length hair in the ass. He took a pull from his beer. His buddy called him a faggot. Craig laughed and thought about the time he kissed his best friend in middle school. No one besides himself and his friend knew about that. He went home that night and jerked off to some lesbian porn. He wiped himself off with an old t-shirt.

I'd thought of something clever to write for this entry earlier in the day but I've forgotten. How am I supposed to bullshit my way out of this? A lengthly discussion of my neuroses? A humorous anecdote? No. Fuck that shit. It'll come easier than a thirteen year old watching his first porno.

I'm supposed to go out to a bar tonight but I'm not feeling up to it. Something about the people, their numbers or their type or both, makes me go limp. A person is fine, but people are horrible. But I'll go anyway. And drink some beer.

He rose out of the water and for the first time filled his lungs with air. Accountants bled from their eyes and ears while poring over Dr. Seuss and stopped only to strip their clothes off and masturbate in a furious rage until raw and red. Lizards and snakes grew wings and took to the skies as the seas filled with the bile of murdered children. Every piano in the world struck an off-tune chord and the elderly and insane were left in the desert. Smoke rings emerged from behind the largest desk in the universe and extinguished the sun.

Have you ever had someone try and bullshit you so badly you just wanted to start laughing in their fucking face? People don't realize that they're such poor liars. Myself, I can only lie well to get my ass out of a bad situation, otherwise I don't have the guts to really pull off a good performance; I have to make myself believe before I think anyone else will. It's why I love girls that will call me on my bullshit; I can respect someone who's not a dupe. Stay away from someone you can convince of anything, they're dead.

He left the last glow of the mouth of the tunnel an hour ago. A subway car hadn't been this far in 30 years. He'd tripped on a dead bum; it had the face of a mummy. He felt he needed a suit that an astronaut might have. He remembered seeing astronauts walk on the moon as a child, thinking they were much braver than he was. He was very scared.

A dull, distant roar began to fill the tunnel. The bulb of the cheap flashlight dimmed. Black noises filled his head as a thousand eyes suddenly stared at him.

Ghost babies with clear skin cling to the backs of their living mothers while cockroaches crawl out of their cleavage.

The TVs blinked off and the people went crazy. People killed so their crimes would be solved by forensic science; wives cheated on their husbands for the sake of confrontation; people in general talked frankly but childishly about sex. Light bulbs advertising "soft blue glow"were sold in the millions so the populace could sleep. Liquor sales went through the fucking roof. The first atomic bombs fell within a week and the families welcomed the bright flash and oblivion.

Shafts of soft blue light shot from his eyeballs and the secret to life revealed itself in the form of a drunk old woman.

He woke up kicking at his bedsheets. The dreams had been getting worse for five months and no amount of liquor could silence them. Heavy duty garbage bags were taped over the window of his bedroom to keep out any daylight; he could only sleep when the sun was up. His cat had been avoiding him and now ignored its food dish, preferring to scavenge from the neighborhood. Flies buzzed around his pillow. He was alone.

Who wants to say something? Speak up.

She stood with hunched shoulders and clasped hands. She wanted to tell them about the days spent sitting in on the few patches of wood remaining, smoking cigarettes and watching the sunlight play through the green summer leaves. She wanted to describe the thoughts that came to her, the doubts, questions that came from somewhere deep in her mind. She wanted to describe the hurts and joys she had felt.

She didn't do anything of the sort. She quickly sat down again and a few snickers came out of the darkness around her.

The people around me seem to know what they're doing but I don't know. Is that OK? Is being unsure after living for 23 years acceptable? "What are you going to do with yourself?" Why should I do anything?

Maybe it's juvenille, strictly arrested development. Growth, advancement, progress all stalled.

How often are you with yourself? Just you and your thoughts, no TV, no music, no newspaper: hardly ever. Fear busies you. If people compared what they thought they were with reality, the asylum doors would be thrown open. The insane would be made into mad dukes to rule us.

I know it's hard at first. It stings, it's uncomfortable. You'll get used to it, son. See? Already it isn't as bad. No, no, you don't want to do that. It'll only make it worse. Can't you see I'm trying to help you? There. You're doing fine. An upstanding citizen, that's what they'll say. A man of character. You'll do things, go places, be respected. Hm? See, you ask for more. You ask and don't even realize you're asking. Nice and easy. Being fucked and reamed by the dildonic superego isn't as bad as they make it out to be.

Fueled by lunacy she tore through the atmosphere with a sledgehammer scream. She was crazy. She was crazy and unable to convince anyone of her insanity. No one would listen. Co-workers, family, friends, all waved her away without once meeting her eyes. But she knew. She knew that it was coming and that there'd be a cell made of black iron for everyone. Had she been a thinker she might have sat down and tried to puzzle out the situation. Instead she ran through the streets with blood streaming from her eyes and a dead cat tied to her ankle.

Out of it, too tired to think properly. 100 words feels like a staggering number to pry from my head, but I'll do it. That puritan sense of duty again, most horrible of guilt trips. People say the puritans came to the New World to escape persecution. You know why they were being persecuted? They were tightwad assholes who couldn't relax and have a good time. They were probably always ruining someone's fun and Europe finally got sick of their bullshit. Religious freedom my ass, they were a bunch of squares forced off of a continent. Back on the Mayflower.

She walked in and jaws bumped into hard dicks before hitting the floor. She made you glad you had balls. Only she didn't know how good she looked. She'd never grown into her body and carried herself like a tomboy, like an awkward piece of luggage. It was endearing and made her even more attractive, it let you know she had a heart under her giant, undulating, fleshy orbs. Dammit. She was so good. Tank top and short short shorts. Summertime glow on her skin. Smile for you as you walked up to her. A laugh. What the hell happened.

He woke up to a bad smell. He groaned with hangover pain; his head hurt and was sensitive. As he rubbed his temples his palm brushed over a bumpy patch of skin on his forehead. "Fuck,"he thought, "must've fallen down last night." His forehead seemed to gather and quiver as he tried to remember the events of the previous night. "Huh,"he said into the shade-drawn darkeness.

Going to the bathroom he turned on the light. There it was. An asshole in the middle of his forehead. It puckered reflexively as if sensitive to the flourescent glare. It stared.

The Heavy was the self-styled eunuch of the new millenium. His testicles had shrunk to the size of BBs due to the large amounts of gorilla testosterone injected into his body. Thick hairs bristled on his arms like steel wool. He wasn't a well-muscled man; he was a slab of protein. His knuckles were the size of baseballs and textured like a peach pit. Dozens of ax handles had been broken over his skull to no effect. A fifth of vodka looked like a bottle of eyedrops in his hand.

Women were scared of him and he'd never been loved.

The visions began when Frank was a teenager. The rags of irreality tore away and he saw God and Satan playing Russian roulette at a dark table at the back of a dive bar. God took a drag from his big cigar and put the revolver on the table. Frank turned away from the sound of the gunshot and woke up in his bed. He was bleeding from his ass and eyeballs.

The doctors gave him tranquilizers. The visions were more violent now. He would thrash around and see John the Baptist's head fellating a donkey in a dank basement.

He wore a hairshirt of pity and carried a flagellate of loathing. He floated through a haze of ideas, and even the solid forms of everyday life - a chair, trees, the sidewalk - had a fuzzy edge to them. He was one of the branches of modern man, the urban ascetic, cloistered in his hole of an apartment living on ramen noodles and coffee. He talked to no one but readily patted dogs that passed him on the street and called in vain to stray cats in alleys; he felt the animals were honest. No one knew his name.

Last night in bed, trying to sleep, I thought worthy thoughts; ideas that burst forth in their golden placenta to blind the masses of men. But they evaporated like a fart in a hurricane. Something about saints, the difference between them and someone. It was good.

Kindness? Something about kindness. Love maybe. I don't know. The tiny exertions of everyday life rode on the sunlight and snatched it away. I am back in the dark. Sleep squeezes on my eyeballs; fairies come in the night and drink the sweet nectar from my head with crazy straws. They belch sweet dreams.

Godamn you with your TV screen glasses. Every morning I hear you breathing like a dying pack animal and the blood curdles in my veins. You are dead. You are dead and you don't know it and you take living chunks out of my soul like a stupid smiling dolphin living in two feet of water in the desert. I want to murder you in the library with the candlestick; I want you to stay at the hotel on my Boardwalk. I heard you fucked factory workers in closets. That's fine; just leave me alone. Stop stop stop. Jesus fuck.

Oh fuck it. It's best not to think about these things and just let it fly like a five year old with dogshit on a stick. Splat. Get the hose.

Are dogs embarassed when they shit? They look embarassed to me. You can see it around their eyes, not in their eyes; shame, guilt, fuck, everyone is watching them shit, haunches stuck out, getting their ass as far away from themselves as possible. Dogs are smart.

People are dumb. We shit and read the obituaries then the funnies. We shit and think about pretty girls. We shit and count coins.

Raw bacon legs at the end of the day and the vultures go round and round. I'm greased up and ready to be squeezed through any opening. The dull roar of the crowd gives me encouragement and my mother blows me kisses. Four dozen Brazilian ladyboys swing their dicks in unison and four clowns juggle fifths of bourbon. A brass band starts up playing "Happy Birthday"in the wrong key. Small children release crows into the air that fly straight into the sun.

A hairy claw reaches down from the sky, grabbing me as I wave to ghosts and demons.

Intergalactic sex organs stretch across the vastness of space and stars are born. I can hear their first cries radiate in the ionoshere with my hyper-sensory perception (H.S.P.) and the reflexive human reaction is multiple orgasm.

I change my pants.

An underwater atomic detonation halfway around the world sends me into frothing convulsions where I see myself floating along with angels on a liferaft in an ink-black sea.

I pee myself and change my pants again.

I can hear the photons scream off the walls of the next apartment; their pitch and timbre tells me my neighbors are watching "Friends.-

My mind slimes its way out of a primordial sea where giant ants quickly cut it to bits with powerful pincers. It almost made it.

No work today, but I can't remember the last time I vegged out this badly. Three states for man: animal, vegetable, and mineral. I came close to mineral today. Passivity was my mantra; my eyes glazed over, my heart became beefsteak. Tenderized beefsteak.

Possibilities seem so limited. No whammy no whammy no whammy. I refuse to press my luck. The button is coated with a film of dust and is rusty from disuse.

Buzz buzz.

12:50 AM, I'm back in action.

This shit's ridiculous. Tired an hour or two ago, now I'm refreshed, revitalized, it's like I ate some shitty nutrient bar that's supposed to make you a powerhouse. Only I didn't, all I did was sit around.

Not looking forward to the week, time is dying, its leg caught in a steel trap and unable to gnaw through the bone; a frenchman with a club appears on the horizon. Whack whack.

That's how it feels anyway. I maybe have ten hours of real activity in a week.

Fuck this. I need a stunt double.

Chimps. They're fucking chimps. If you don't watch them they start jerking off and throwing shit everywhere. I work in a monkeyhouse. The monkeys won't stay in their cages and they won't shut the fuck up. The monkeys think they're great, but they're not; they're stupid monkeys. Sometimes I have to spray them with the hose just to get them to leave each other alone. The monkeys annoy me. I can't understand their awful monkey language. The monkeys get fed once a day. The monkeys are quiet then, each guarding their small pile food. The monkeys are suspicious and mean.

The sleepless nights continue. Sleeping until noontime is the secret to life. If everyone got up at noon there wouldn't be any war, famine, or disease. We'd all be well rested and smiling.

Duty and work is an infectious disease, a horrible meme transmitted through school and every other godamn thing. On time eyes forward rank and file yes sir fucking bullshit. But I'm so good at it. I've spent my life developing horrible, stupefying skills.

No one cares anymore, there used to be a time of crazy anarchists bombing shit and not giving a fuck. But they're all dead.