There is no earthly explanation for what happened to me one terrible night last spring except that I was deeply depressed, seriously thinking of killing myself because I wasn't a celebrity (or at least rich, successful and sought-after) and had started having a real problem with alcohol.
          ​I was in the newsroom (I'm a reporter in her mid-to-late forties; the exact date won't pass my lips in this cruelly ageist society. Also, my name happens to be Dorsey Corn and I don't like hearing jokes about it) doing my routine daily work when the invitation was tossed on my desk along with the rest of the morning mail, which I customarily read with a latte and a sticky bun or two. Little did I know this would be my last morning of relative peace and sanity!
         I turned the square of cream-colored pasteboard over. Sure enough there was a Hallmark logo so it couldn't possibly be a hoax. I immediately showed the card to my editor, we call her Susan Lucci, a still glamorous aging movie star I'd been having some trouble with lately (nothing to do with business I assure you) --Susan said it looked like a breakthrough opportunity, adding "Go follow up on it, Dorsey! File a story by this week's deadline and you'll get a nice raise." 
          According to the small print, I was on my way to interview none other than Athena the Goddess of Wisdom; I could hardly believe it. What an opportunity! Once in a lifetime? More than that--once in a million lifetimes--
        Forthwith, I began packing. The invitation said "Bring no baggage. Nothing at all" but of course that wasn't possible; I began filling a backpack with thermal underwear, my travel alarm, a parka, sweaters, the Bible, my roach clip, a change of shirt, camcorder, passport, journal, nail polish and so on--the bare essentials.
          Following instructions I took a cab to Paine Field late at night--a cold, beautiful night in early March. I paid the cabbie, watched the taillights disappear in dark shadows-- 
          I was all alone; even the cafe (which is nothing spectacular at that small airport) was closed. I saw plenty of tethered Cessnas and Piper Cubs, etc., but no people at all; maybe it was too late for them.
          On the runway was a private jet ready for takeoff, otherwise there was no welcoming committee, nobody at all. The minute I boarded the aircraft the steps folded up, whoosh! and we taxied out- the pilot, if any, appeared to be locked in the cabin. I knocked repeatedly but there was no answer, only a note pinned to a seat-back. The note read, "Without trust you won't make it."
           "Okay. Don't panic" I said to nobody in particular, and fell asleep under an army blanket with a Greek logo on it (I found the blanket along with several Greek magazines and a can of warm Diet Pepsi in the overhead compartment).
          We set down in what appeared to be a rice paddy with a falling-apart hangar, no food or drink anywhere (by now I was starving) and again, not a soul in sight. A note pinned to a fence post informed me that the rest of the trip would be made by muleback; Athena and I would meet in a bamboo hut on a mountaintop "Twenty gazroans from the blue Indian Ocean," said the note. Attached was a rough map.
          "What is this f*#& sh#&?" I blistered the air, mad as hell; I'd had nothing to eat or drink for hours (except for one warm Pepsi) and was furious at such shabby treatment of a member of the American Press Corps, but what the f*#?& could I do? There was a mule tethered by the fence.
             I arrived panting and bleeding from a painful fall (at first thought my wrist was broken but it turned out to be only badly sprained), had lost my backpack and most of the equipment I'd brought including my cell phone, was scratched from head to foot by brambles, exhausted, in no shape to interview a Goddess or anyone else and all I knew for sure was that somebody was going to have a big fat lawsuit on their hands as soon as I got back to the U.S. of A.!!
          Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the goddamn bamboo hut was empty! Damp, moldy, obviously nobody had used it for years, and yet--that figured, didn't it? Isn't this the kind of torture that the so-called "gods" have always inflicted on us poor dumb mortals? Exactly. You bet.
           I was angry, scared, tired beyond anything I'd ever before experienced. And then-- Behind the hut I found a series of steps leading to an open space surrounded by crumbling columns that were holding up a roof of some kind. I walked deep into the interior of this shaded structure, whatever it was--my eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness--
          To be honest, at this point I was crying bitterly (but silently) and was utterly terrified. Why had I come on this stupid mission in the first place? All I wanted was to be safely back home again! My wrist throbbed, I was trying to palpate it to see if a bone was broken when lightning suddenly flashed all around. Gray clouds came rolling in--the lightning picked out a shape at the end of this godforsaken temple or whatever the hell it was--
           What I saw was fuzzy and indistinct at first.
         I just stood there, staring blankly. Eyes trying to adjust to--what? And then rising out of the gloom was an enormously tall, robed figure. And a voice that broke the stillness.
          "Come nearer," the voice said.
         It was a loud, deep, rather pleasant voice and it came so suddenly (as if out of the blue) that I remember uttering a nervous little laugh (like an idiot). Next I cleared my throat to say: "Before we do anything else, ma'am, I'm a reporter and I'll need to establish your identity before asking a few questions, all right? I'll make this quick-"
          "I'll make this quick," the voice echoed my words. The speaker was a woman, probably Athena herself (of course, who else?) and she was (as I said), many times bigger than life-sized, dressed in flowing white robes, saying: "First I'll need to ask a few questions. Are you aware that you stole my church--the temple of Athena on the Acropolis at Athens put there by Pericles himself? Has your precious government explained that you just walked in and ripped off my temple as your people so often do while trumpeting their 'niceness' and 'humanity' and simpering 'Oh, I'm so, SO sorry' and 'Can't we all just get along' and other hypocritical cant? So tell me, what is your opinion, Dorsey Corn? Do your beloved laws cover a theft of this magnitude and if so, should not you little locusts receive the death penalty for it?"
           "What?" I'd started to say "What are you talking about?" but that sounded rude and I didn't quite have the nerve to finish it. Not under these circumstances.
           "Don't play innocent, you criminal," she said coolly.
        I watched those marvelous lips as the words tumbled out--I don't have to say that the goddess Athena claimed my full attention (or what was left of it).
          "Examine the facts," she said. "Your people spend a lot of time bragging, ''We are a nation of laws.' Let me ask a question you probably never considered before. Can you imagine how such a vain, lying, wretchedly ignorant boast might sound to the ears of an Olympian?"
           "Look, lady, I'm tired. I've come a long way, I have injuries, can't we call an aid car or something? Please? You don't have to worry, my paper will pay for any out-of-pocket money or expenses you may incur --"
           She held up a hand and just plowed ahead with her own agenda, saying, "It makes you sound like the worst hypocrites ever born. Mark well: in a god's view, your much-touted law is unfair. Unfair laws stink in my nostrils, and a whole nation of them is nothing less than a stinkpot."
          "Hey! Hold on there. You can't just--""
       "Secondly, you think the word 'human' means kind, good, considerate, etcetera. False! It really means a barbarian. A cruel, stupid savage. Third, your religions including social psychology are nothing but myths to keep you from exploring your own mind--please keep quiet, fool; your turn will come!" she thundered.
        "Fourth: you brazenly stole my temple, the Parthenon, and rebuilt it stone for stone in your absurd little country--minus my great ivory-and-gold likeness that the Parthenon itself was built for the sole purpose of housing and then you scavengers, you bottom-feeders, went ahead and renamed it ''The Supreme Court Building,' thinking nobody would notice and having full confidence that such outright thievery wouldn't bring you the foulest of luck."
          "Now wait just a damned minute. In the first place, that's a lie!"
          She ignored my protest and said, "Why do you people steal? Because you have no great art of your own, no talent except as mechanics, grease-monkeys in the service of computers and piddling space flights (a Mars shot is like a flea jumping from one hair to another on a mule). You call yourselves 'free,' you are no more 'free' than a poor sad little chained-up monkey. The things you do best are brag, and steal. But in this case, unfortunately you don't know what you're messing with."
        "Are you threatening me? You can't say these things!" I was crying, angry, in pain and shock. My wrist throbbed and I hated this cruel bitch who didn't put bodily wellbeing above all else in life!
          "Where is your vaunted freedom of speech?" she said softly, looking seriously at me. "Even the words are a joke. Every one of you knows that your government is a mere tool of corporate profiteers and that your acts of vengeance--your foolish wars--are all stupid and suicidal no matter how many flags you wave or monuments you build--"
         Athena is gorgeous, that goes without saying. Oh, those flashing eyes of hers---the proud curl of her lips! But never at any point did I let this magnificent goddess see how impressed I was.
        "I get it, Athena (if that's really who you are); you're bitter! " I yelled. "You're bitter and angry because you think we stole your precious temple, just went ahead and ripped it off, copied it totally and gave you no credit at all, is that the problem?"
         "Not angry. Never angry with a poor barbarian. You haven't seen my anger yet--I am only very, very sorry for you. You don't remember who you are, my poor friend. I pity you and your people. You are not bad people, only victims."
         "Don't remember who we are, that doesn't make sense--so who are we if you're so smart?"
      "You've forgotten that you're a race of Great Ones conquered long ago, degraded, scattered around the planets and driven insane. Turned into what I see now: whores looking for paying customers. That's incredible, a terrible tragedy, a working definition of 'hell' and you'll deny it with your dying breath--but truth impinges and somewhere deep you know you are not a body but a spiritual being with hidden abilities beyond your wildest dreams."
          "O.K., whatever you say," I held my ground. "Go on. What hidden abilities are we talking about?"
         "The potential you have is mind-boggling, yet all of your cultures are designed to minimize you, to make you feel weak, small, bad, wrong, and that you must punish and be punished. You are in a deadly trap. I can help you get out of it. But you must be willing and must understand."
         "Willing to do what, understand what? I've come from a great distance at your invitation! I'm tired, hungry, injured, depressed, shivering, my skin is icy cold and I'm probably in shock--" Nothing I said impressed Athena in the least. She went on:
        "You are a race of sleepwalkers who've lived thousands of lives with the terrible amnesia of the body-worshipper, but I have news for you! Ghost=soul=spirit=you. Discorporate beings whose gods come and go with the fashion of the day, because you worship a material universe and since time immemorial you've denied it but now-- "
        "Yeah? Now? And your point is?"
      "The point is simple. I'm offering you my help. I've taken pity on you, but if you want my help I'll need a groundswell of you--millions not just asking but DEMANDING to be set free, to be given a technology a hundred thousand years ahead of where you are now."
        "I'm sure we'd accept that," I said (making a feeble attempt to be nice and end this conversation pleasantly so I could get the hell out of this place, alive!)
        "Then try to see into the distance. Most humans are in a tumult of despair; no matter how many conceited speeches they make, humanity's face is always wet with tears. But mark this. You must agree to be helped before I will agree to come back and help you."
         I was swaying on my feet. "I'm sorry," I moaned. "Whatever we've done to you, Athena, I'm just so, so sorry!" My eyes kept closing (did she care? Not at all!) But still-- Her immensity, her beauty, her sheer presence--
        "I'm apologizing! I'm sorry, so, so sorry! There, I apologized! I said I was sorry--so why can't you be nice? Can't we all just get along?" I babbled these platitudes and many more until she gave me a goblet of wine which I drained at a gulp.
         I then thanked her earnestly--not sure she was still there. It was even worse getting home--how I made it down that cliff I hardly know, then a bus took me to the airport--after five hours on winding roads and no free ticket home--and when I finally arrived in America and was getting my wounds attended to in the emergency room, I discovered that everything was gone.
​         Of course I'd taped the interview with Athena but the tape along with everything else, was gone; later that night, looking over what I had managed to salvage I found there was nothing left but a grainy photo of the Parthenon. Her "temple" as she called it, stolen by us light-fingered Americans. Here it is, for what it's worth. And yes, it's where we got the model for the Supreme Court Building but does that make us a gang of rotten, lying, talentless thieves? Of course it doesn't!
           In any case, this is my story. I'm filing it quickly, mistakes and all--in hopes of getting that raise Susan Lucci promised me. There are probably larger issues in what Athena said that escape me, but I'm only human; I'd rather be dumb and comfortable than have to deal with that crazy stuff she said--most of which I must admit went right over my head.
         Yes--I'll file this story but they'll never print it. As we all know, nothing unflattering to humans ever gets printed. And as for me--I'm more interested in resolving my own self-image issues. I mean, isn't a positive self-image what is really important to a person?
-Dorsey Corn

Don’t be so cruel as to enclose him or her in a small space.  Leave that to the barbarians.  
Plan A: You take him to a vast empty space, let him run completely free for several weeks, then follow and begin imitating whatever he does.  In this way you gradually get his attention.  Up to now he hadn’t a clue that anyone else existed, there was only a hostile chaos out to smash him if he didn’t smash it first.  
​You should know you’re dealing with a badly injured being in full amnesia. You treat him with calm kindness.  Steady as she goes.  No court-like hysteria, no foolish judging or religious mania.  Soon, begin to have him imitate you.  All this will be a revelation to him.  The process is expensive. 
​Room and board alone costs a bundle, so your other option is to shoot him; a psycho must be taken out of human society.  If you kill him he will of course come back but often they come back sane.  If not, go back to Plan A.  But on no account return him to your court system— their punishment will insure that he murders again and again for eons, unchanged.
-Jody Scott

Stephen King’s Welsh Corgi, Arfy, has done it again.
​              His short story Bite ‘Em in the Butt, first published in The New Yorker, won the coveted Peeker Award; now his novel Bowwow Up the Yingyang is topping New York Times bestseller lists on its way to Hollywood and major money.  
          “It’s no big deal,” Arfy told this reporter modestly as we lunched yesterday at Manhattan’s popular Four Seasons.  “Both of Steve’s sons, Owen and Joe, had books published recently.  Of course those boys don’t need to mess with agents or other pedestrian crap; Daddy’s name does the work for them.  Both their books suck big time, oboy do they ever!  But it doesn’t matter how rotten you are, only how well-connected.”
            “Where do you get your ideas, do you mind my asking?”
        “From the infinite greatness of my own mind,” Arfy chuckled, wolfing down a caviar-laced pop tart.  “I thought I was at my peak brilliance in Bite, but Bowwow is really making those Hollywood moguls sit up and take notice.”
            “How long did it take you to write Bowwow, and did you use Steve’s computer?” 
         “Yes to both questions,” nodded Arfy.  “If I’d been a Rottweiler it wouldn’t have worked so give me some credit here for sleight-of-paw Darwinian adaptation as a solution to an environmental problem serving a functional purpose—much as long-necked giraffes began having more offspring because of phylogenetic inertia, know what I mean?”
        “Er,” I said.  “Yes, more offspring would really do the trick.  But tell me, when is Steve’s daughter Naomi coming out with her first novel?”
           “Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,” Arfy snarled.  “We writers are a jealous lot and if she gets published it’s only because Steve is her Pop; aside from that she has no talent whatever.  Now I, on the other hand—”  
           A brush fire cut our interview short, but we hope to tap Arfy for the next installment as soon as his singed fur grows back out.  
-Agatha Runcible

 (written by Jody in 2006)  

THERE are now six billion humans on this planet, soon to be twelve billion.  Won’t that be nice?  Won’t we all be twice as happy? 
Oh, clap-clap-clap & Goody for us.
 
While you let that sink in for a minute, let me change the subject a bit, O.K.?  
            We all heard all this stuff about Scientology last year, and how bad it is, like, Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch to proclaim his love for a girl or maybe a woman or something—showing, according to the great audience, far too much enthusiasm, right?  
                Not to mention all these talk show hosts going “Haw, haw! Blah blah blah” about the subject and on and on until it comes out your ears.  Well, as your Roving Reporter I have a duty to perform; I must check out these things and see if they are good for YOU dear reader or not.  So I went and enrolled in a Scientology course just to see what was going on and tell YOU about it, O.K.?  I did this just for you so let’s see some appreciation please you varlets and plenty of it.  Anyway--
                Your reporter was placed in a class with about fifty other eager students, all of whom looked fairly sane, if I am any judge of sanity.  (You over there, heckler in the propeller beanie: Shut the F. up!  Save your insults for the Q and A period, kid)  Anyway, this course I was in was called Student Hat. The first thing they had us do was read some material by Hubbard and then—I realize this may be too much for you to take, so please be sitting down—then we had to look up every word we didn’t fully understand!  How outrageous was that?  
                 Why, never in any of the public schools I attended did we ever have to do such a thing as actually look a word up in a dictionary; schools have plenty of free computers and electronic gadgets and “products” up the yingyang, but certainly they do not confuse us poor citizens with a stack of dictionaries at every desk   But here in this  classroom, well—those Scienty-whatevers, they are really wild and crazy.  Because any word you didn’t fully understand you had to look up in a goddamn dictionary.
                What an insult; what an unwarranted slap in the face!  I was so mad.  How dare they do this?  Think how demeaning it was—exactly like saying, “Your educational system sucks and your Leaders have not the first idea what they are talking about.”  I mean, how dare they! I had to look up a couple of hundred words—a day, that is! Were these beasts trying to say I was iggorunt?  

​Believe me I was mad as hell (and wasn’t going to take it anymore).  But after a day or two—well, holy cheese whiz, not to mention wow.  I had learned that when you go past some word you don’t understand, the rest of what you’re reading becomes a sort of a hazy blank, and there are other physical symptoms and actual illnesses caused by plowing through material you only half understand, which we all do all the time in our regular educational system, on a day-to-day basis with no questions asked.  (It would be unpatriotic to question Authority, do not forget.)  Anyway…
          It made me very mad; it was like saying to us humans “You are being trained as a gaggle of compliant idiots but now hear this: If you mispronounce a word, you really don’t know what that word means and should go forthwith and look it up; for behold, if a Leader calls a word ‘nucular’ when it’s really ‘nuclear’ that person has no conception of what he or she is actually saying and should be regarded as dangerous to your safety.” 
              Why, I never!  I was so mad I could spit, and did!  This class implied that no wonder we are a bunch of brainwashed zombies listening all day long to advertising crap, all of which must be a million miles from the truth in order to get us to go out and buy the asinine junk they are flogging so intently, right?  So you can see that Scientology IS BAD because it shows our whole educational system as being totally idiotic, and based on the lie of not knowing what we are saying, writing, thinking or doing, all day long.  Should we put up with this?  NO!  We should stick up for our own educational system no matter how dumb it may be, right?  Right! Because that’s the American way, right?  Right! 

Anyway, hey, I was talking about this Tom Cruise fellow who is a known Scientologist, can you imagine?  And in light of that astounding piece of news, here is something even worse; they have a thing called an emotional tone scale.  At the bottom is the guy who sighs and says “What’s the use?” being half dead and ready to fall over at a moment’s notice, and this is considered good.  Just above that state comes the grief-stricken person, Boo Hoo all the time, and then the ashamed, embarrassed or afraid person, and then the sneaky knife-behind-the-back type guy, and then the ANGRY one and the hostile one; and these states of emotional tone are considered good because they are where most people ARE, see?  And a bit above that is the Conservative person (fearful and uneasy, ramrod up fundament in order to be “safe” which he/she definitely is not) followed by the bored one, then the cheerful one, then the enthusiastic one—but hey, when you get enthusiastic you are getting above the public acceptance level.  
         You can’t be enthusiastic in this society!  We-the-majority simply won’t tolerate it, because a “grieving” or “bored” or “angry” person will think you are CRAZY for having the sheer effrontery to dare to be enthusiastic.  Golly.  Look what they did to Howard Dean, remember him?  Howard gave an enthusiastic yippee, thus proving his chin wasn’t safely resting on his shoe tops like everyone else’s, which is just not nice and made him lose the nomination for president.  Because he should have remained very, very “serious” and “important” like a Bank President or somebody really Important, right?  He should have been safely three-quarters dead like everybody else.  You bet.  Because if a person gets enthusiastic, why, our whole house of cards might collapse just like that (snaps fingers while appearing to be very Serious and Important).
             So you can see at a glance that Scientology is bad, because it will make our whole way-of-life look like something made to order for brainwashed zombies, and that is insulting and makes me mad and ashamed and embarrassed and apathetic and afraid, etc., all of which is JUST NOT NICE!