"Thumbs Down, Bro"

by Christina McCarthy



The line went on for hours. Hundreds of children lined up side by side as their skin boiled from the summer sun.

Anthony was getting anxious as they approached the top of the mount. Super Speed. The most outrageous water slide in the state of Arizona. It took you down faster than any loopy slide in the park, with the sharpest turns and steepest drops.

"Hey, Chubbs, relax," Greg said to Anthony.

"I can't help it; we've been waiting all week for this, and it's so hot I want to be in the pool already," Anthony said.

"I am actually a bit nervous about it."

"Why? You're retarded. It's going to be sick."

"Well, hate to be the one to share this with you, but I am quite a bit more aerodynamic than you," said Greg. Anthony rolled his eyes and moved ahead in line.

Greg continued, "Maybe I will just wait until you go and when you land in the water you can give me a thumbs up or down so I can decide if I want to go through with it."

"Yeah, okay, whatever you want."

Before long, Anthony was next up. Greg gave him a quick reminder to give him a signal before Anthony jumped into the tube slide head-first. Greg took a few moments to look around. He hadn't realized how high up he was. The view unnerved him.

"Holy shit!" he heard a girl scream from below. He leaned over the rail to see the pool filling with blood and he went into panic mode. He ran down the metal spiral staircase past the crowded line feeling nauseous from the speed and fear. His heart was beating in his throat and he thought he was going to puke. Ever since he was little he was known to be a nervous vomiter.

When he finally go to the pool, Anthony had been taken out but there was a crowd around him filled with panic. He must have hit his head on the bottom. The paramedics tended to him and Greg couldn't see his body. The entire water park seemed to freeze around the scene. Once you drowned out the shaky voices crying for help, the park was silent.

The seconds seemed like hours. A voice yelled out, "He's breathing!" Then there was a loud splash in the bloody pool. Greg looked over to see... Anthony, naked, bringing his head out from under the red pool water.

"What the fuck!" Anthony yelled. "First my trunks get stuck on base bolt in a turn, now the water is like toxic?"

Anthony climbed out of the pool, reaching for a towel, as Greg's stomach turned in shock at the red and relief at his friend. Anthony wrapped the towel around himself.

"Thumbs down bro, all the way."

"The Great Four Guardians"

by Christopher K.

[Circa 2009. End punctuation by Christopher K. -- ed. ]

Everyone thinks gods are a myth but...

They would be wrong.

When God created the World via the Big Bang Effect and the first Act of Evil took place, with Adam and Eve eating the Forbidden Fruit placed by a Fallen Angel named Lucifer who wanted all the power to himself: God created men known as Guardians.

Crafted to assist him in the defeat of Lucifer, they each carried one of the elements that made God who He was: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Darkness, Chaos, Twilight, Balance, Nature, Existence, Cosmos, and Ultima.

Each person had a mate to reproduce with so with every new child the element would pass to the kid as well. What was the point? To keep Lucifer and his minions in check and the world safe. Back to the main issue...

These four kids were children of Guardians and soon figured out they were needed to carry on their father's work: Zane Eison Hatake of Fire, Blaze Eison Hatake of Fire, Alister Rizon of Light, and Getsu Fuhuma of Existence.

These four would one day be known as The Great Four. In 1583 they discovered that they each had a symbolic relationship with one another. The great war in Japan in the early Edo period took place in the year 1611 and ended in 1614.

The Great Four fought in that war to prevent an evil Warlord named Kazwki Ino-moto and his 10,000 troops from taking over Kyoto. The Great Four only had 500 in total to help the cause. Even though outnumbered severely.... They still had their powers which they mastered but unfortunatly the Warlord also had a gift. Power of Darkness he had.

The result? Total destruction... of the Warlord's men!!! As for the Great Four against Kaz.. A dead draw.

But legend says Guardians permanently never die.. will they return? If so, is this still a myth?! or True? you choose! end?

[300 film is released in 2007; Last Airbender film is released in 2010. -- ed.]

The Mask

"The Mask"
by Delia Taylor

“I'm tired of this crap... You said you would stop. I don't think I can do this anymore!” she exclaimed.

“But it's for our own daughter, Jullian! Why can't you understand that? She needs this, we need this! Don't you want to keep our baby girl alive?”

Jullian sat in her chair and stared at Paul as if she'd never met him before.

“I think you're addicted to it, Paul. What about last week, huh? When you drew all that damn attention and almost got your face on NY 12?”

Jullian stood up and walked away from the table with Katherine in her arms. Paul grabbed her. This was how things had gotten. Ever since Katherine developed her disease, their lives had turned into endless bickering, constant cursing, and the ever-frequent “Why don't you act like the man in the family?”

“Maybe someday I will,” Paul would always answer. Jullian never expected him to make good on his word the way he did.

*

Two months after receiving Katherine's diagnosis, Paul woke up, took a long look at his slowly fading baby girl, and knew that he'd chosen the right path. He put on a black mask and got his gun out of his sock drawer.

He reminded himself of how it would go. First, he'd tell his wife, “I just need to clear my head.” Then he'd drive off to the nearest Commerce Bank. And it wouldn't be for the free pens or the red lollipops.

*

Jullian stood in the door frame crying off her makeup.

“You can't do this, Paul!” she cried. Paul was used to this. He was done yelling, done fighting a battle he couldn't win. “But don't you see how much better Katherine's gotten lately? She's smiling again, Jullian. I haven't seen her smile in so long. I'd forgotten what it looked like...”

“But that doesn't give you the right to keep breaking the law!”

Paul wrapped his arms around her waist, like he did when they were in high school. “To me it does,” he said.

He kissed her on her cheek once like he used to. He patted Katherine's head. He looked in his wallet, which had grown in size since he'd... switched professions.

He grabbed his keys and took the black mask—it was his shelter, the assurance that he'd have enough to pay for his daughter's medicine. It was the thing that filled him with adrenaline and kept his heart beating at an unnatural pace, in unnatural places, late at night.

He put the mask on and suddenly had a very clear conscience.