Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Dieting

Vitamins for breakfast,
Vitamins for lunch,
Vitamins for dinner,
Vitamins a bunch!

Vitamins for a midnight snack,
Vitamins for brunch,
Vitamins for every meal,
So many vitamins to munch!

Thor the hypochondriac
Developed this routine
To combat influenza, colds,
Lung cancer, and gangrene.

She went along religiously
With her regimented days,
A life of work and vitamins,
Never any time for play.

Call of Duty

Thor slithered down the hall on his stomach wearing nothing but his skivvies and a grimace. The green shag carpet painted an angry red rug burn onto his face, torso, and limbs. Thor scarcely noticed, though, so focused was he on the task at hand.

He had a mission. He had a duty. He had...a calling.

Literally, someone was calling; the phone was ringing on the opposite side of the house, and Thor had to reach it before the ringing stopped and the potential contents of the call were lost forever. Thor was determined to prevent that disaster, no matter how much skin he had to sacrifice in the process. And so, he continued his trek down the hallway, leaving a trail of aggravated epithelial cells in his wake.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Career Day

Thor was broke; she had no money
To pay the bills or feed her bunny.

She'd been unemployed for years,
All the while shopping for careers.

She had some ideas about where she'd like to work,
But along each career path, disaster lurked.

Baking was hot, and butchering too bloody,
Construction exhausting, and gardening muddy.

She could not drive a tractor or deliver the mail.
At every-day jobs, Thor was doomed to fail.

She brainstormed and pondered until she had the answer:
Thor would become a belly dancer!

Her days were then filled with bright colors and laughter
And music and jewels and joy ever after.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Thor the non-overachiever

Thor's thinking off the top of her head today, guilted into action by a more prolific colleague, so excuse her for coming into the office like this. Forgive her for the lack of pants. Try not to stare at the way her hair shines in the light, like a baby seal after a tanker accident. Whatever you do, do not breathe through your nose, because surely you will discover that Thor not only subsists on a diet of beans and sausage, but she also does not shower.

Ever.

Thor thought that today was the day she was going to show 'em, and it turns out she did show 'em, but what they saw was a pantsless, frantic Thor, sobbing, a sausage in her left hand.

Can she go home now?

Please?

Monday, May 16, 2011

Thor Dreams

Thor was normal. He awoke with the sun on Monday morning, padded to the bathroom in his boring black slippers and plaid flannel bathrobe in shades of hunter green and navy. He did his business, hopped in and out of the shower, toweled off, brushed his teeth, shaved his stubble, ran mousse through is still damp hair, donned a stuffy gray business suit, fed the cat (a tomcat named Tom), and headed out the door.

He grabbed a cup of coffee and a blueberry bagel from the same old coffee shop and picked up the daily newspaper at a little stand along his unchanging route to work. Thor worked in a tall, brown building that housed offices and offices and cubicles and cubicles. He clocked his nine to five doing who knows what insignificant collection of tedious tasks (Thor barely knew what his own job entailed), with only a quick mid-day bite to eat at his desk to break up the drudgery.

After work, Thor departed through the same door and embarked on the same dull course he had traversed that morning (and every weekday morning since he’d moved to the city many years prior). After a bland evening meal at an unexciting restaurant (the same one he would patronize for the next four nights and again the following workweek), Thor continued home. He unlocked the outer and inner doors to his building, climbed the three flights of stairs (the elevator had been out of service for thirteen months) to the plain white two-bedroom apartment he had all to himself. He thrust the key into the lock and wiggled and wriggled and fiddled and jiggled it until the tumblers finally gave way and conceded to grant him entry. He made a mental note to contact maintenance about replacing the lock. He wouldn’t ever get around to it.

Thor removed his shoes at the door and progressed to the tiny kitchen, poured himself a glass of Jack, and settled on the right side of the sofa in the living/dining room to view the evening news, absently stroking Tom as he relaxed on Thor’s lap. And then it was bed time. And then it was Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday and Friday. Every. Single. Day. It was all the same.

Weekends offered no reprieve. Laundry on Saturday morning after sleeping in until precisely 8:30 and breakfasting on Cornflakes with 2% milk from the same local grocery store, the only one Thor had ever shopped in…every Sunday afternoon. After laundry came lunch (an egg salad sandwich, a dill pickle spear, a handful of croutons, and a glass of 2% milk). Then it was nap time.

Then it was time for Thor to realize that his normal life was a giant load of crap.

***

Thor jolted awake. It was still Sunday night, and Thor had been dreaming. He was 86 years old and living in a rest home, where his ungrateful children had deposited him when they couldn’t handle his senility any longer. He was a cantankerous old coot and a huge pain in the poor nursing staff’s exhausted asses. He had been a pain in his children’s asses too until they stopped visiting the previous summer because he told them to stop visiting, insisting that they were all the illegitimate offspring of his allegedly cheating late wife, and he wouldn’t tolerate their pestilential involvement in his life anymore. The kids all looked exactly like him.

Thor was, at 86, just as he had been at 43 and at 21 and at 10: a bit batty. He had never suffered the tragically mundane existence of his dreams. Quite the opposite, in fact, though most days he had no idea. Thor had been a globe-trotting multi-billionaire with numerous impressive Ivy League degrees in fields entirely unrelated to his meal ticket--acting in his earlier years, then politics--both of which gained him world renown, neither of which he could quite recall.

Thor painstakingly lifted the telephone receiver and dialed his long-deceased wife’s old cell number, leaning way in to see the buttons. The phone on his nightstand was an antique, retained only for decoration. There was no telephone line to his room.

“Goodnight, Patricia, you cheating whore. I love you,” Thor crooned to no one in particular.

“Your wife is dead, you demented asshole!” his roommate, Dave, growled from the next bed.

But Thor had already drifted off into his dreamland of mind-numbing, monotonous normalcy.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Thor Needs a Drink

Most of the time, Thor didn't care. About anything or anyone, anywhere. It's not that she didn't want to care--she just couldn't. She didn't know how. In fact, she didn't know how to know how.

Thor had very little awareness of her own existence, let alone that of anybody else. Most of the time, she simply assumed she did not exist.

Now, this was not such an outlandish outlook. Thor had her reasons, or rather, the lack of reasoning. And for this reason, she could only conclude the aforementioned conclusion: Thor did not exist.

Sometimes, Thor liked to experiment with her nonexistence. She would sit all alone in her pitch-dark padded room and scream at the top of her lungs. No one answered. Thor did not exist. She would beat with both fists on the padded door with the teeny tiny window. The door didn't budge. Thor did not exist. She would hold her breath until she was about to burst, but she didn't die, because she did not exist.

When Thor revived after passing out from asphyxia for the 33rd time, she realized something about herself. She did exist. Because Thor was ape-shit crazy, which she understood in these rare moments of clarity, her existence was a very pitiful one. Thor was depressed. Thor needed a drink.

She stood and strode calmly across the padded room to the padded door with the teeny tiny window to the outside world, turned the knob, and walked out, leaving her nonexistence alone in the dark.

"Good morning, Thor," her mother called brightly as Thor entered the kitchen.

"Do we have any chicken juice?" Thor asked.

"No, honey..." Thor's mom replied hesitantly, her smile frozen in place as she mourned life before Thor.

"I'm going out," Thor announced, and she whipped around and stomped back to her room.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Thor Struggles With Omniscience

Thor awoke with a yawn and stretched languidly as she wiped the sleep gunk from her eyes with her left hand. The new drugs were working--she had finally gotten a decent night's sleep. Thor felt refreshed. Thor felt relaxed. Thor felt rejuvenated. Thor felt rested.

Thor felt alarmed!

It was happening again. The narration. Thor's life was unfolding before her as a series of events with complex angles even she could scarcely identify. How was it that this person or persons unknown could know? How could they know what she was doing, what she was thinking, what she was feeling? Could the narrators see her? Hear her? Smell her? Clearly they could read her mind, her hopelessly twisted, helplessly demented mind. Perhaps this said more about their mental states than hers, but nonetheless, off topic...

Thor was frightened. And quite peeved. Who was this all-seeing, all-knowing being telling her story? How did he/she/it/they know that she stretched languidly upon waking? Maybe she wanted to stretch...linguini! Did anyone ever consider that possibility? No. They just orchestrated Thor's comings and goings and doings and sayings on a whim.

Thor knew she would have to take action, to rebel against the self-appointed gods of her universe. No more would she laze through her days as a complacent marionette. She would seize control of her surroundings to protect her livelihood from these intrusive oppressors. She would rise up. She would defend. She would take her little yellow pill and forget this whole mess, and all would be well in her world.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Thor's Success

Thor failed. At everything he did, he failed. Day in, day out, fail fail fail. Fail.

It wasn't for lack of trying. Oh no, Thor tried very hard at everything he did in life. Tried...and failed.

Thor's friends and family defined him by his failures, defined him as a failure. At least, if he had friends or family, they would've defined him as a failure. Thor was a failure. But as was his custom, Thor failed to realize the facts of his failure, and so, Thor continued to fail.

One day, after years and years of fails and fails, Thor worked up the courage to confront himself. "Self," Thor said, "I've been noticing something lately, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Have you done something different with your hair?"

Once again, Thor failed. Confused, he shook his head at himself in response to the query. Then, just when he thought all was lost, Thor answered himself in one audacious leap.

"Thor, you fail!" he shouted.

Thor paused, then began to giggle in victory.

He failed to fail to realize his failure, and by failing to fail, Thor achieved something new, something wondrous beyond his wildest dreams: success! The sweet success of failing to fail...

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Scandal

F*^#!

Thor's earlobes were swollen with rage as he stood in the doorway surveying the damage. The maid would be sorry she'd ever been born. She cleaned EVERYTHING. Where were Thor's dirty socks? His half-eated orange? His gum wrappers? His hodgepodge of stolen bicycle parts? His peanut shells? His...life?

Gone, that's where it all was. Gone with the wind. Gone with the evening trash. Thor was ruined. He wept. And then he ordered Chinese.

Tomorrow, the maid would pay.

Thortastic!

The neglect burns Thor. It's as though someone has sliced her clean to the bone and rubbed habaneros over the wound. It hurts to be forgotten. Thor feels completely unnecessary. But she's not, is she? I need Thor. You need Thor. Do you hear me? YOU NEED THOR.

She just doesn't have much interesting to say right now.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Thor drives...in Illinois, apparently


Thor thought

These were strange times for Thor, unlike the other times, which were not strange. These were times where Thor's very warped sense of reality was being challenged by stability, and she didn't like it one bit.

She wore pants instead of not pants. She whispered rather than screamed to herself as she walked down the street. She met a kind man and did not immediately fantasize about plunging her fist into his chest and pulling out whatever vital organ she could grab.

It seemed so odd, this new normal.

It was a Tuesday and she had yet to bite her toenails. Someone held open the door and she said thank you. The phone rang and she did not answer it with a belch. She did not eat her own dandruff. She did not sniff the other occupants of the elevator. She smiled and ate dinner with a fork and chatted about the lousy weather.

Oh, to be not normal again. How Thor craved it. How lost she was.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Thor in Love

No, dammit. It wasn't OK. Thor had suffered liars before, bought that whole bit about the moon's cheesiness and the fairy who collects teeth (which, let's face it, is just repulsive), but now this man was looking her in the eye and telling her how beautiful she was(!), and Thor had finally had enough. She pulled out her switchblade and plunged it into his gut. He fell to the ground, the bouquet of roses going down with him, and Thor felt the deepest satisfaction she'd ever known.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Thor is a puzzle

Jesus, what a pain. Another amputation. They were routine by now for Thor -- first the thumb, then the big toe, an ear, an elbow. Now they wanted to carve out the belly button, just go at it with an ice cream scoop, and Thor no longer had the energy to object. Take it, she said. Take it all. So pop went the navel, and Thor left the office without the knot in her stomach.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Thor on the couch

Never had it crossed Thor's mind that it would come to this: a quiet existence on a sagging, soggy couch, a three-day-old burrito for breakfast, those congratulatory letters piling up beside her, bullshit, every single one of them. There had been no award. She concocted that story as a joke, figuring her buddies would know better, would laugh or roll their eyes or make that pshaw noise she found so fake. Pshaw. Who says that? Pshaw to the woman on the couch, sweaty, smelling, something questionable oozing from somewhere unknown. So wet. Pshaw, the Nobel Peace Prize? Pshaw all over you idiots! Thor realized she'd befriended a band of morons and then she realized something worse, that those idiots who loved her would leave her when they found out about her lie. Pshaw. Thor was the moron. So she retired to the couch with a bottle of Sailor Jerry and her burrito, and she got up to get the mail, and she lay there as the phone rang, again and again, wondering how long it would take until she was more ooze than woman, wondering when her trophy would finally arrive.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

"Stand and streeetch toward the ceiling;
Bend and streeetch--touch your toes.
Open up your mouth wide;
Touch your tongue to your nose.

Flap your arms like a chicken;
Arch your back like a cat.
Hum 'The Star Spangled Banner;'
Rinse and repeat that."

Thor yawned his way through his morning routine without missing a beat. Soon he would trudge to the kitchen for his usual breakfast of two bean and cheese burritos and a mango. He glanced at his clock, which read (as it always did) 6:02. Thor smiled lovingly in the general direction of the malfunctional time piece before pulling his tube socks up just below the knees and hitching his tan paisley boxers into place a little too high up with a magnificent set of rainbow striped suspenders. And he was off...

Thor skipped down the street
Exuding confidence with every step,
His face awash with the giddy ignorance
Of the socially inept.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Thor is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S...

Black boots, black pants, black sweatshirt, black stocking cap, black mittens--not gloves, but mittens, by personal preference--and Thor was set. He tiptoed down the hall, pausing at four second intervals to look and listen. With every stop he flung his arms out in front of him and lifted his left foot about seven inches off the floor. He then stuck his tongue out to taste the surrounding air. He was getting closer...

THUMP!

Thor froze. Someone was definitely onto him. He flattened himself against the wall and held his breath. He was so close. He could practically feel the rubbery banana in his hands, smell its intoxicating sweetness, and taste the yummy mush. With a burst of courage from deep inside his rumbling stomach, Thor ran forward and seized the banana hanging from the ceiling at the end of the hallway. He smashed it open against his forehead and then proceeded to massage the fruit into his scalp. Damn! Foiled again...and Thor was so very hungry.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Thor, Dear, Just Answer the Phone

"TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR! HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE..."

Thor forced his index fingers deeper into his ears and shouted his favorite song at the top of his lungs, but it did little to drown out the malicious ringing of the cordless phone an inch from his face. Thor dared not move, even to chuck the offending article across the room, for fear of hitting the talk button. For nearly two minutes, Thor and the telephone had been sequestered under Thor's bed--hiding from Thor's mother on the other end of the ringing.

Just when Thor was about to expire from overexertion, the phone fell silent suddenly. Thor breathed a sigh of relief, withdrew his throbbing fingers from his ears, and picked up the phone at last. Just then there was a knock at the door. Thor started to cry.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

All Thor Wants for Christmas is a Box of Benadryl

AAACHOOcoughcoughcoughAAACHOO!

"Ouch!" Thor exclaimed in pained frustration after giving her nightstand--formerly buried beneath a sizeable heap of soiled tissues until the latest round of sneezing, in which the precarious assembly caught a draft--an angry kick. As the Christmas season drew ever nearer, festivity was in the air, and Thor was allergic.

Deck the halls with jolly old Saint Nicholas away in a manger up on the housetop laughing all the way, let Earth receive her king and a happy new year. Blah, blah, blah. Go to hell in a handbag, Thor thought.

She stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the shower, full-blast hot, hoping the steam might provide the relief Vicky's offensive-smelling vapor rub had not, thus far. Steadying herself on the sink, Thor braved a glance in the looking glass and found a demented Christmasesquity looking back. The violent Rudolph-red nose between livid cheeks...nature's candy stripe. Then the green mucus practically flowing from the nostrils...

Disgusted, disheartened, and just generally depressed, Thor abandoned the shower idea and returned to bed, where she started right in on a new tissue mountain.

"Christmas blows," Thor muttered miserably, and for the million and oneth time, she blew her nose.

Monday, November 26, 2007

But Thor didn't die

Thor once told the story of how he almost died, and it was the scariest story we'd ever heard, so scary that after Mom had tucked us in bed, kissed our foreheads and flipped the switch, one of us would hiss "Don't take the eggs from the chicken!" to the other, and we'd both lie there, quivering, unable to fall asleep with the images that hovered over our beds: The trail of yellow slime dripping from Thor's mouth. A woman in a tattered blue bathrobe, a frying pan held high over her head. A squawking hen beating her wings, feathers flying everywhere. Thor had almost died!