Roboctopus went into the children't parents room and knocked over a lamp. He knocked over the nightstand and rifled through the papers in the top drawers. He tore up the paperback book their mom had been reading. He ripped off the bedsheets and threw them out the window, as well as the pillows, but the mattress got jammed halfway and he spent a lot of time trying to shove it out.

Roboctopus flailed his tentacles against the walls until the framed pictures crashed to the ground. He emptied all of their hygeine products into the tub and left the hot water on. The tub filled over and spilled onto the floor. He tried to flush the towels down the toilet.

Roboctopus took took all of the medicines and hid them in a secret compartment in his robot head. Later that night, he slipped most of them to Potato and Patti while they slept. It was easy, since he drugged them to sleep in the first place.

They didn't have to go to school for a week after that. Which meant lots of time to have fun with their best secret half-robot, half-octopus friend who lives in their back yard ever.

The two children cheered for Roboctopus. But quietly so their parents didn't wonder why they were so happy when their stomachs had to be pumped so often.

The real giant monster has a poem.

"It's called, 'IN THE FUTURE,'" he says.

"Time travel machines will grow on trees,
While Machine Gun bushes blow in the breeze.

Blenders are tubers,
Grown underground,
And Racecars sprout up,
Bright red and round.

Lightbulbs grow fresh
For Children to pluck,
Lazer Guns flourish
With some Rain and some Luck.

I wish I lived in the Future,
Where it all grows on Trees,
'Cause working's for suckers,
And it all grows on Trees."

"I'm from the Future," says the mechanical giant monster.

"Yeah?" asks real monster. "What's it like?"

Mechanical giant monster shrugs its shoulders. "It's, I mean, I come here all the time. It's nice to get away from so much Future. You know?"

A butterfly flits by in the gentle breeze. They both watch it, amazed at the elegant and simple beauty of the world.

Do you have too many children?

Don't be embarassed, everyone does.

The time is for now to sign up for The Midnight Mailman Show Summer Camp!

It'll be a week full of fun and sun in our backyard. Your kids will learn the value of sleeping in beds they've dug themselves, start campfires with things they find in trashcans and other people's garages, and arts and crafts, also with things found around our neighborhood.

It won't cost you much at all. And you'll get all those noisy bundles of genetic lineage out of your hair for a week or so.

You trust us completely with your genetic lineage. You trust us completely. Give us your money and offspring.

Space is limited. Apply now.

...because I know you're interested in a page from my sketchbook.

The Forever Night Story, part THE END.

Our eyes have gotten used to the dark.

Where before people were pretending everything was normal, going to work, school, baseball games, the world steadily got colder and colder, and more and more broken as giants wandered around smashing and eating things.

Ours is the last house left as far as we can see down the street, which isn't very far. There's no more electricity and no moon. Just the stars.


"We're out of booze," says Mr. Happy Puppet Head.

"Maybe we can find some," I say. But I don't want any.

Then we hear a loud clanging banging sound. It's the Marching Band. We peer out the window, listening as they approach. With Bermuda and Steve, the two-headed naked monster leading the group, they head straight for our front door.

The doorbell rings. We open the door.

"The Midnight Mailman," says Steve. "Mr. Happy Puppet Head."

"Come inside, it's cold," I say, opening the door wider for the small band of Marching Band to enter.

"Our sense of purpose keeps us warm," says Steve. I glance down at their exposed monster genitals, and they don't look too unhappy exposed to the weather as they are.

I shiver and wrap my cape tighter around my shoulders.

"We want you to join our marching band," says Bermuda. "It's fun. You guys'll like it. Promise."

"Nah," says Mr. Happy Puppet Head.

"Oh," I say, watching my floating red friend retreat back into the house as he sucks on his empty hip flask. "I guess not," I tell the rag-tag bunch of cold misfits on my doorstep. "Sorry."

"I don't think you understand how important this is," Steve tells me. Behind him one of his band members, a middle-aged woman who was playing a toy saxophone, grows quickly into a giant, eats the man playing the Chinese wok, and stomps away.

"We need you, you need us," continues Steve.

"I don't think I can without Mr. Happy Puppet Head," I tell them. "Good luck," I say as I try to close the door. But Steve puts a big blue monster hand against the door and holds it open.

"I don't think you were listening, we need all the people we can get, and you need all the help you can get." There are only three band-mates behind Bermuda and Steve. None of them are holding real instruments. There's a rake, a pez dispenser, and an empty roll of packing tape.

"I don't..." I look back into the house, hoping Mr. Happy Puppet Head will come back to help me. I turn back to Bermuda and Steve to find that Bermuda has turned into a Giant, with a regular sized Steve for a right side. Bermuda roars happily before toppling over, since it's hard to balance on only one giant leg. But then Steve turns into a giant, and they can once again stand upright with no problems. They eat the remaining three bandmates, and stomp away.

I close the door. "They're gone Mr. Happy Puppet Head," I call.

I fall over because the house shakes something awful. Dust falls from the ceiling and the furniture all flips over. I run to the back of the house and there is no back of the house, no walls or kitchen or anything. Just a giant Mr. Happy Puppet Head eating the picket fence.

"What're you doing, Mr. Happy Puppet Head?" I ask. But he just keeps eating. He looks happier than I've seen him for a long time.

I watch him eating and chomping away at our backyard and house. I shiver from cold.

But then I'm not so cold anymore, and eating the backyard sounds like a very good idea. That tree I used to like to sit under looks delicious. Like a big piece of gummy tree candy. My teeth itch to bite into it. And then it isn't so big a tree after all, and I can pick it up easily.

Wow.

This is great.

Eat eat eat. Chomp chomp chomp.

Friend Puppet Head, we go stomp. We go stomp. Fun. Stomp. Great.

"Are you going to join?" asks Frederick with the horn on his head.

"Nah, I don't play anything," she replies.

"They say you don't have to know how," says Frederick. "Steve told me to just bang on something, like a tin can or cardboard."

"I don't know..." she looks down at her hooves. "I just don't get it. The whole thing. A stupid marching band isn't going to stop the giants or make the sun come out."

"I don't think that's the idea."

"Why don't we build some giant-traps?" she asks. "Then they'd stop smashing things if we could stop them from smashing things."

"No," he says. "The idea is to build community solidarity, for us to march through the streets banging on anything we can find and yelling in order to make our voices heard. That's what Steve and Bermuda said..."

"Maybe we could dig a big hole and cover it," she says, getting excited about the idea. "Like a tiger trap. Maybe put some spikes at the bottom so whatever falls in gets spiked dead."

"No, I think this marching band idea is better."

"Fine," she says. "Can I borrow your shovel?"

"Woa..." he says.

"Fred? Can I borrow it?"

"I feel kind of funny..."

Frederick starts growing really big. "Wait!" she yells up at her smiling friend as he steadily gains altitude. "Are you... Where's your shovel?"

But Frederick stomps away into the night, laughing like a little kid, without saying goodbye. He pulls a telephone pole out of the ground as he leaves, wires going everywhere, and catches someone's yard on fire.

Her first thought is "I should help put that fire out." Her second thought is, "No, I need to dig a hole to trap the giants." Her third thought, as she quickly digs the hole with her new giant-hands is, "This dirt is good. I'll eat lots of it." Which she does, quickly eating all the lawns on that particular street (the lawn wich was set fire to tasting the best). She has no more thoughts other that what fun it is to eat buildings, trees, cars, and tiny people.

Giants are everywhere. More keep appearing all the time. People taller than skyscrapers jumping around, laughing as they destroy everything, eating people and cars and buildings and whatever they can find. The ground shakes constantly from their walking around.

Howie the little girl and her pet old man head have had to stay inside for a long time, longer than they've ever had to before. Her parents are scared they'll get hurt by the giants, so aren't allowed to leave the house, not for school, not for playing in the front yard, nothing.



If they could go outside for adventures, it might make up for the fact that the sun hasn't come out for so long. But as it is, the two friends are about as miserable as they could be.

The house shakes as a giant skips by in front of her window, and all the books and toys from the shelves clatter to the floor. Howie sighs as she gently places her pet old man head on the bed as she leans down to clean up the mess.

"What if the sun never comes out again?" Howie asks her friend. "What if it's dark forever and ever and we can never go outside ever again?" She hadn't wanted to ask, but she did. Asking made it a possibility. Head stares up at the ceiling. "You're right," she says, turning back to putting things on the shelves. "Sorry."

As she continues organizing her belongings, she realizes that her room has gotten a lot smaller. Or rather, that she's gotten a lot bigger. She has trouble picking up the books with her enormous hands, and her head starts to brush against the ceiling.

Howie looks back at Head, now the size of a small car, just as her tiny bed collapses under his weight.

A slow smile creeps across her face. Looking at the scattering of books in her palm, she wonders why she had wanted to put them in the bookshelf. She wonders why she wanted a bookshelf. Then she forgets these questions as she tosses the books into her mouth and swallows them whole.

Smashing a hole through the wall, Howie the giant girl and her pet giant old man head step outside into the sub-freezing night. She gets tangled in the branches of a tree for a moment, before quickly growing much taller than the tree, and then eating the tree.

Their freedom is sweet, sweet like the taste of cars and trees and buildings, which they both now have a very strong hankering for.

Grabbing a chunk of her childhood home for a light snack, Howie and Head stomp off into the darkness, their darkness.

A NEW MOVIE!

It's the long-awaited debut of Mr. Children-for-Hands.

Thank you for your patience.

It's been almost two weeks and still no sun. It's dark all the time and keeps getting colder and colder. But suprisingly everything has been pretty normal. People still go to work in the mornings, food is still aplenty in the local groceries, and I keep checking the mailbox in front of my house for exciting packages I have no reason to expect.

Everything's the same except for the constant darkness and coldness. And there are giants walking around everywhere eating trees and people and smashing things.

So here we are filming a brand new Educati-FUN video entitled "Being Safe in the Everlasting Darkness is Good"

So me and Mr. Happy Puppet Head have decided that there are several ways to keep yourself safe in this wasteland of freezing night, and still have fun.

First thing is to ARM YOURSELF HEAVILY. It's dark, so that means all the scary things have come out. The giants are just the most obvious ones. Grab a stick or a baseball bat with a nail in it or some sort of gun that shoots things dead. If you are alone, lash violently out at any sort of movement you see. Maybe give a little scream, too. If you are with a friend or companion, your first instinct might be to ask "should I make that thing dead?" before killing. Don't. Just make it dead.

Secondly, KEEP WARM. Beach parties are out. No more skinny-dipping in the lake, you sexy teenagers. Driving with the top down? no. Setting fires to keep warm? yes. Burn anything you can get your hands on, starting with the photo albums. Your family is dead and you should move on. If they aren't dead, you might as well get a head start on that mourning.

Mr. Happy Puppet Head would now like to say something special to you.

Go ahead Mr. Happy Puppet Head.

"I just think..." he blinks slowly, taking his time. "I just think that maybe eternal night isn't so bad. I stole this portable cassete tape player yesterday during one of those night-riots, and no one even got me in trouble. Now I can listen to my favorite jams all the time."

He clicks on the tape player and smoothe jazz blares from the headphones wrapped around his furry red head. His eyelids droop as he stares off into space.

See kids...

And then the earth shakes and the video camera falls over. We look up to see an enormous foot descending from the sky.



With lightning quick reflexes I leap out of the way. I grab for Mr. Happy Puppet Head, but he jerks backwards away from me.

The giant's foot comes down with a crash on top of my friend. I fall onto my back, and from the ground I can see the giant as he exits the scene, each step taking him several hundred yards away.

I lie on the ground, too scared to see what I hope didn't happen.

Mr. Happy Puppet Head?

Nothing.

Mr. Happy Puppet Head?

He still doesn't answer. I don't think I can stand back up if he doesn't answer.

I hear him groan. I sit up and see him lying on the ground. He rolls over and looks at me with glazed eyes for a moment before realizing his tape player has been smashed.

"God dammit!" he yells. He floats up to his normal height and throws his dangling headphones to the ground.

Watch out for giants, kids. They'll smash you and your things and your best friends like it's nothing. And you can't do anything about it.

Except maybe setting Giant Traps. Let me know if any of you know how to do that.

so sorry, kids. we've been having technical difficulties. we feel terrible, but there are new episodes ready and on the way.

tommorow, i promise.