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Today i got a call from my mom, wherein she told me that she had cancer. The good news is that it was taken out, and that she no longer has cancer. So she lived with the knowledge of having cancer for about four days. I think that would've probably killed me.

The whole situation has prompted me to quit smoking, to write more, to exercise more and to be less of an asshole.

I'd fill you in on what's been going on since Jabbercomix was put into an induced coma last april, but chances are that if you're reading this blog/comic you probably talk to me on a semi-regular basis anyway and such writing would be redundant (and, admittedly, not very interesting to begin with). I've learned some valuable things, unlearned some valuable things and stayed the same in nearly all respects.

I've got sort of a blank slate here, on which i can do nearly anything. I plan on doing some writing-from-life (cringe), some storytelling, some lying, some stealing, drawing, cartooning and neglecting.

I'll start off with something i wrote last week, about the earth's last ten seconds. It's called "The Blood in the Observer's Mouth"

An Observer sits in his pod, miles above. He will see it all happen. He will see it all stop happening. He will have no one to tell.

Stephen looked in the mirror and saw something that he didn’t like. The wheels stopped turning. The DOW dropped 6.02x10²³ points. That’s a lot of points.
Fish fluttered their fins in the fish tank, dimly aware that something bad was about to happen.
The milk in the fridge was one second away from being expired, according to the time stamp that arbitrarily numbered its days.
Across the hall, a girl went to sleep on the couch, fully clothed. She’d been so tired lately and finally falling asleep was a blessing. Her television tried desperately to get her to dial the number on the screen.
Cats yowled and copulated in the alley between the building and the other building. The sound disturbed the cats and the other cats. The chill in the air disturbed them all.
A centipede crawled across someone’s floor, and stopped for a second, primal fear gripping its core, proving once and for all that bugs feel feelings too, ya know.
The earth gave a slight shake. Atomic clocks went from precisely accurate to abysmally wrong. "Wrong" itself threw in the towel and ceased to be a concept. Normal clocks stopped. 4 out of every ten people on the planet smelled burning feathers. No feathers were burning.
A dentist opens his college yearbook. The pages are all blank. He knows where the pictures go, knows all the names by heart, such that he did not need to open the book in the first place. But it is blank now and he considers, for a brief moment, the possibility that he had lost his mind long ago.
Stephen, unable to look away from the mirror, tried to scream, punching his reflection as hard as he could. His hand shattered. Bones, flesh, fingernails fell in shards into the sink.
A cancer patient makes a full, momentary recovery
The girl across the hall wakes from what seemed like hours of sleep. It has only been three seconds.
The earth gave a greater shake. The earth screamed. The people screamed. The fish screamed. The milk screamed. Stephen wondered where the super glue was. The cats screamed. The dentist tried to scream, but his voice would not come. The television went dark. The sound slowed until it was too low for human ears. Right in the middle of the word “extra”. The girl across the hall screamed.
A flash, like you see in movies. Clouds boiling away, landmines going off on their own accord. Anything to escape what was about to happen. The sun swung from the east to the west in the blink of an eye, then back to the east again. Then due north. It settled just out of view under the western horizon to catch its breath.
The city experienced a sudden loss of cabin pressure. The cats screamed louder. Their fur singed. Their flesh singed.
Stephen could not find the glue. The television stammered, looking for something to say. The girl suddenly ceased to exist. The fish rocketed toward the ceiling. The milk became a pale blue. The dentist found his voice.
The yearbook’s pages were re-filled, but with the preceding year. Small metal objects began to fall out of the sky. Nuts, bolts, screws. They became progressively larger. Padlocks now. Mufflers.
Stephen’s heart stopped. The fish fell back into their tank, their bodies broken by the ceiling. The milk fell through a hole in the floor. It got off easy.
Engine Blocks. Furnaces. Oil Derricks. The junk of the previous generation, falling such to make the water levels rise. To cause typhoons under the correct conditions.
Train cars now, Diesel Submarines. Cranes, Girders. Bits of ships.
Everyone took a deep breath. No one knew why.
Another flash. The cancer patient becomes terminal once more. The dentist looks at his feet for the last time. Stephen closes his eyes.
The television suddenly remembers all the important things it has been wanting to say for years. “I love you. You are special and I love you. I will love you forever. I will never, ever stop loving you. I love you, I love you, I love - ”. It is cut short. Things happen. Long overdue apologies are never spoken. people trade thoughts with their closest friends, their worst enemies, their long dead pets. The judge bangs the gavel. Things end.

From space, the earth appeared to stretch in all directions. Then it stretched in no direction at all. Then the Observer blinked and it was gone. Gone forever, gone from the past and the future. Gone from the space it no longer occupies, from the schedule to which it no longer adheres.
The Observer tasted blood in his mouth only to inexplicably realize, an instant later, that it wasn’t his own and that there was far too much of it.


I hope that was enjoyable, or unsettling or didn't make you want to murder me. Until next time...