"Come on, we're late," calls the Fairy.

"Late for what?" asks Puddin'.

"the Fairy Dance Party," replies the Fairy as he hurries along. "If we get there too late, they'll lock the doors and then no Fairy Dance Party for us."

"Oh, I like parties." Puddin' tries his best to keep up with the Fairy.

When they get to the party its lots of fun and there are lots of Fairies and other people danding and having a really good time. Puddin' dances like he's a good dancer and at the end of the party they give him a trophy for dancing the most fun. They invite him for a special After Fairy Dance Party Celebration.

At the After Party, which is much more sudbued than the Real Party, Puddin' sits on the couch next to one of the Fairies. "Check it out," the Fairy leans over and opens a small Fairy Box revealing neon colored gum drops.

"What are they?' asks Puddin'.

"Just eat one, you'll see."

It tastes sweet and delicious, but as soon as Puddin' swallows it, time starts speeding up dramatically. Everything around him becomes a confusing blur, and all of a sudden he is left in the middle of a vast wasteland of desert, his skin old and parched, a long grey beard on his face. The After Party is nowhere to be found.

"Wow," mutters Puddin'.

Puddin' wanders for days until he finds a small village of animals that were once Bald Eagles, but had evolved into very pretty Dinosaurs.

"Hi," says Puddin' to the first Bald Eagle Dinosaur he sees. Its a purple and red one.

"What's up?" asks the Bald Eagle Dinosaur.

Puddin' and the Dinosaurs get along famously. Forever.

"What are you doing lying down like that?" she asks.

"I'm dying," he replies.

"Really? Or are you exagerating?"

"No..." he rolls around groaning for a moment, holding his stomach. "I'm pretty sure this is it."

"Does it hurt?"

"Kind of."

"Then how do you know you're dying?'

"It just... I mean, it hurts. Just not like I expected it to."

"Oh. Cool."

"Yeah, not really."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She looks at her wrist and realizes she left her watch at home. "I'm sorry, but I got to get going. Do you need me to call an ambulance?"

"No, I think I'll be okay. I'd rather die without a big fuss and all the extra expense."

"Sure. Um. Bye." She walks away.

"Wait," he moans, but she's already gone. He wishes he'd asked her to say goodbye to his parents. He wishes he had done something with his life. He wishes he hadn't drank all those cleaning supplies.

His Spirit Guide magically appears next to him. "I totally had a chance with her, Guido. I think she could have been the one."

"No she wasn't," says Guido as he spreads out the body bag. "I saw her holding hands with some guy at the food court the other day. And she's a little old for you."

But he doesn't care what Guido says. She was probably the one.

WEEKEND COMICS!
*******************

No, you are meat

Roboctopus has taken all the food out of the kitchen and put it in a big pile in the middle of the backyard.

As the small animals and birds approach the pile, wondering what wonderful thing could have happend to bring them so much delicious-smelling nourishment, Roboctopus snatches them up.



"...but, Roboctopus," Potato stutters. "Hurting things is wrong." Patti nods her head slowly.

"I don't think you kids are letting the cosmic flow of the world filter through your senses," Roboctopus says as he twists the head off a squirell. "You have to let it pass through you like a river, or a beautiful stream in the Springtime. I just don't think you're doing that."

"We did a skit about hurting people in school," says Patti. "Do you want us to show it to you? Maybe you could learn."

"We are all one entity, one Everything," he says as he grabs a small bird and squeezes it tight with his tentacles. "One Big Circle of Interconnectivity."

"Okay, so I'll be the bully," says Patti. "And Potato, you're the kid with the lunch money."

"Don't take my lunch money, Bully!" yells Potato. Roboctopus pins the bird to the ground with a large kitchen knife.

"You're ugly and I'll hit you!" yells Patti as she pretends to hit him. Potato falls to the ground and pretends to cry. "Oh," says Patti. "Now I understand why it's wrong to hurt people. The End."

"Potato, Patti," Roboctopus says. "We are all one spiritual entity, one being, One. I am you, you are me, we are we. Understand?" The kids nod. "So if we are all One, which we are, it doesn't matter what we do to others. Watch."

He snatches a small cute off the ground and lights it on fire. It runs in circles, screaming in pain as it's fur burns to ash and it's skin bubbles. The cute's legs give out and it collapses in a twitching mess on the grass as the fire quickly eats away at what's left.



"See, I don't feel anything," explains Roboctopus. "You guys look fine. What's the problem?"

"But... the skit..." mutters Potato. The two kids study the mutilated corpses littered around their backyard.

"Can we have a funeral, Roboctopus?" asks Patti.

Roboctopus agrees, and while Patti and Potato dig a mass grave, he makes sandwiches from the meat he's killed.

"No, Roboctopus!" yells Potato. "That's for the funeral. We have to bury it and say something nice."

"A good sandwich is a good sandwich, kids." His robot teeth slide away, allowing him to drop the sandwich into his metal head.

A large Hippo wanders into the backyard and begins eating from the food pile.



Roboctopus instantly lunges at the Hippo, wrapping his tentacles tightly around it's face. "Hide yourselves!" He shouts at the kids. Potato and Patti jump into the hole they've been working on. They peer over the edge to watch the Hippo buck and stomp around the yard with their best friend gripping to it's head.

After a little while, when most of the fence is torn down and the food pile has been smooshed into paste, the Hippo calms down. Just as it stops to take a breath, Roboctopus grabs it by its nostrils and pulls up. The Hippo howls and lunges forward, smashing itself against the Oak Tree. The Tree cracks and topples over, crashing into the House.

Roboctopus sits on the Hippo's head, whispering quietly into it's ear. The Hippo breathes heavily as it listens. Roboctopus climbs down and approaches the kids.

"It's time for me to go on my Journies, kids," he tells them as they huddle in the partially-dug grave. The Hippo stands quietly behind them.

"Will we ever see you again?" they ask.

"Of course," he says. "In your hearts. I am your hearts. We are love. No Lifelong Hippo Journey can ever take that away from us."

"But..." asks Potato. "What do we do about the yard? And the house?"

"Breathe deeply," he replies. "Worry only complicates. Relax and all will Be."

The kids both clammer out of the hole and hug their friend, asking him not to leave them. He hugs them tightly with his tentacles, then pushes them gently away.

"Goodbye." He climbs back onto the Hippo and whips it while pulling hard on it's ears. With a loud Hippo howl, they stomp away into the Horizon.

After waving until Roboctopus is long out of view, the kids continue with their funeral. Once the grave is filled with all the animal parts they can find, a small cute wanders up to the edge and looks down at the remains of his friends and family. Potato looks over to Patti. She nods. "It's what he'd want us to do," she tells him. Potato raises the shovel over his head and brings it down hard on the cute.

Roboctopus was wrong, though. The kids had never felt more pain than in that crushing moment.

Left is doing a funny little dance.

"No," says Right. "You are shuffling your feet too much."

"You ennunciate too much," says Left.

"Even so, you're still shuffling too much," says Right.

"How am I supposed to concentrate wtih you pronouncing every vowel and consanant like that?"

"Fine, I won't talk anymore." Right pretends to zip up his lips.

Left dances his funny dance for a few minutes, still shuffling just as much.

"It's not working," says Right.

"You messed me up!" shouts Left as he falls down. "You interrupted!"

"Okay, it's my turn." Right begins dancing. He does a very bad job, shuffling his feet even more than Left.

"We're sorry," comes a voice from the Speakerbox on the wall. "We just can't let you leave yet. Your two-step doesn't have enough splatter. Work on that."

Right and Left sit, deflated.

"We'll never do it right," mumbles Left.

"Yes we will," whispers Right. "I believe in you."

"When you say the 's' in yes, it hurts my ears."

I want to know what it's like to look out from my dog's eyes. It seems as if Hondo watches everything from a half-drunken superior stupor. Every now and then he gets excited, but mostly he just half-listens to everything as he wanders around or sleeps. He's been dulled by age. By the end of our walk today, he could barely lift his legs to piss on the mailboxes. I wonder if he cares that he's old and can't jump down half the stairs anymore. I wonder if he remembers how I used to chase him around the house. I wonder what Hondo thinks when he looks at me.

I once made a short movie in which I wouldn't Hondo in when it was cold out. I just opened the door and stood in the way with my video camera. He becomes very irrate and barks at me. I think it's one of my funniest movies.

Now he's old. When he dies, I'll bury him in the backyard next to the shed. That's where we burried Cindy Sue about two weeks ago. My mom called me at work and said, "Cindy Sue died." I told my boss I had to go home and might not come back. On the way to my mom's house a sad song came on the radio and I cried.



I dug a hole, ate a burrito, and carefully placed the body of my friend in the ground. She was a sweet dog.

I got back to work in time to finish editing a commercial where a man, while skydiving, yells about the deals you'll find at a local car dealership. His parachute doesn't open and he lands on a car.

But a happy song cuts in and he jumps up out of the car, not hurt at all. He finishes what he was saying about the really great deals, and the commercial ends with a close up shot of his enormous smiling face.

I'm going to make a commercial in which my brother and my mom and my girlfriend and my dogs and all my friends never die or get old. Everything in this commercial only gets better and better. We grow more attractive, healthier, funnier, smarter, and simply more alive in every way.

At the end of the commercial we'll say it was becuase we bought a used car from the local car dealership. He forgave our past credit histories, and had a really great sale with no payments until next year.

We'll close with a shot of me hugging my dog.

Next time you need to trade in your car, you'll know where to go.

WEEKEND COMICS





There's also a new link we added for www.squetch.com. Check out the music video for "Everyone's Had More Sex Than Me." This guy's amazing.

Ten-year old Lilly wanted to build a monument, a Wonder of the World to be visited by tourists forever.

She cried herself to bed every night and would only drink her beverages with an Alka Seltzer tablet in it. She liked how the bubbles felt swishing through her braces.

Her voice was seldom used, but not her pogo stick. Her pogo stick was always used.

"Tolbert Wigsby and the Tree of Hearts"

CHAPTER ONE

Mr. Happy Puppet Head is sick. I listen at night as he bobbles through the hallways, breathing heavily through his mouth as his nose drips steadily, soaking his mustache. He hasn't eaten or drank anything in the past two days.

I wake up to the sound of my roomate vommiting in the backyard. I grab a glass of water and run outside. I find him hunched over a pool of partially-digested milk, the empty gallon jug lies a few feet away. "Oh, Mr. Happy Puppet Head..." I kneel down offering him the glass of water. He cringes away.

"Milk is supposed to be healthy," he moans.

I'm about to tell him why and when milk is healthy when I hear a twig break from the other side of the fence. My ears perk up and I can hear the rustling of courderoy slippers on grass.

"He's sick," says an old-man voice from the other side. It's Old Man Wigsby from next door.

"We know," I say. "Mr. Happy Puppet Head, maybe you should go lie down."

"I don't want to go inside," he says.

"Do you want a cup of tea?"

"No."

"That tea stuff's not gonna do nobody no good," says the voice from the other side of the fence. "Never has, never will. What he needs is soup. Thousand Year Old Soup. From a wizard'."



Mr. Happy Puppet Head starts throwing up again, but this time nothing comes out. When he's finished he lies panting on the grass.

"Thousand Year Old Soup," says Mr. Wigsby. "From a wizard."

I pick up Mr. Happy Puppet Head and carry him inside.

"I know a wizard!" calls the old man from behind the fence. "I'll take you there, no problem! I don't mind. Promise."

I close the door behind me. I'm in no mood to talk to people if they're interested in talking crazy.

CHAPTER TWO.

The next morning Mr. Happy Puppet Head is even sicker. His eyes are glazed and his mustache is drooping pretty badly. "We've got to get you to a doctor," I tell him. I touch my hand to his furry red forehead and it's burning hot.

"No doctors," he coughs. "I'll... doctors..." Mr. Happy Puppet Head moans and burrows his head deeper into the pillows.

I look out the window and Old Man Wigsby is standing there looking in at us. "Can I help you?" I ask the old man.

"I aint doing nothing!" yells the old man.

"Excuse me, but he has to sleep now" I begin to lower the Venetian Blinds.

"Hold it!" Old Man Wigsby sticks his cane into the window and holds the blinds up. I try to close the window, but it won't close all the way with the cane stuck in it. "Hold it! I said hold it!"

"Wizard soup..." Mr. Happy Puppet Head moans. "Wizard..."

"I don't think that's a good idea," I say. The old man has gotten his cane stuck in the blinds and is shaking it violently in an attempt to extricate it.

Mr. Happy Puppet Head rolls out of bed and lands at my feet. With a wild look in his eyes he starts biting at my feet. I can barely feel his soft plastc teeth through my rubber boots. "Wizard soup!" he yells hoarsly. "Wizard soup!"

Old Man Wigsby yanks on his cane, pulling the blinds to the floor.

"I hate her more than anyone!" Mr. Wigsby yells at us through the open window. "But thousand Year Soup is the best thing. Best damn thing there is." His face gets real serious. "He's dying."

"I think he's just sick," I say. "He'll be okay."

"I'm dying!" yells Mr. Happy Puppet Head, his mouth full of my boot.

I watch him chewing at my feet, a puddle of puppet drool forming around me.

"I'll take you to her, but I'll warn you, she stole my heart and never gave it back." He points to a scar on his chest. "I'll take you in my car. I have a car." And he turns and slowly walks over to his promised automobile.

CHAPTER THREE

We don't get further than fifteen minutes out on the highway before the car breaks down. First it just stops working, then something bursts from under the car, dark blue liquid spilling out.

"How much further are we?" I ask, my unconsious friend cradled in my arms.

"Five, six hours," He sratches his stomach. "I don't know."

"Is that by car or walking?"

"What are you asking me like that for?" he shouts at me. "That tone of voice! So grating!"



I turn and walk back to where I see a southbound bus stop just about a hundred yards away.

"Wait!" the old man yells. "Hold it a second!" I keep walking.

I don't turn around until I sit on the bench at the bus stop. When I do, I see him hobbling ever so slowly into the middle of the street. The first five cars see him and veer around, but the sixth is a large motor home that clearly doesn't see the tiny man until they are almost on top of him.

The RV slams on its breaks and stops inches from him. "Come on," he waves to me. "I got us a ride!"

Mr. Happy Puppet Head coughs up a large chunk of bright green mucus on me. I get up and walk towards the waiting transportation.

CHAPTER FOUR

Pearl is a very nice lady who's older than Tolbert by a few years and can't stand for any of us to talk to her. "I can't concentrate on the road," she says slowly when Tolbert trys to tell her about the wizard and the Soup.

So we ride north in a silence punctuated by Tolbert commenting on the weather or the drive with Pearl silencing him calmly.

After about six hours we start to see small signs by the side of the road advertising the wizard. "Wizard," one says, with an arrow pointing down the road. "Thousand Year Old Soup," says another. The countryside is much more mountainous up here. Pictureseque. Very nice.

"Thanks for driving us, Pearl," I try to say when she drops us off at the entrance to the Wizard's place, but she slams her door and drives away before I can finish.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Tolbert Wigsby," says the old Wizard woman. "I'm not giving your heart back." She's as old a woman as I can imagine. Wrinkled and shriveled and wizened and crooked and haggard, etc.

"I didn't come for my heart!" he yells. "We came for the soup. He's sick."

"I'm still not giving your heart back."

"But I'm doing a good deed!" Tolbert waves his stick to emphasize and knocks over a glass vase. He doesn't seem to notice. "Those were the rules. I don't do a good deed and you take my heart, I do a good deed you give it back."

The Wizard sighs. "The Rules were you had until the flower lost all its petals or you'd lose it forever. That was seventy years ago."

"Fine, just give him the soup or whatever you have or not I don't care." He turns and stomps outside.

"Follow me," the Wizard tells me.

CHAPTER SIX




The Thousand Year Old Soup is in the back room of her strange Wizard Store. Big cauldron of gross looking stuff.


"Go at it," she tell us as she dumps a bucket of what looks like mud into the mixture.

I hold Mr. Happy Puppet Head above it, hoping the stench will wake him, but he's sound asleep. Then my hands slip and I drop him into the Soup.

He wakes up yelling, but chokes on the soup. I reach to pull him out, but the Wizard shakes her head at me.

I let him flop around. He swallows a lot of the muck before he finally pulls himself out.

"Damn," he says. "I feel great."

CHAPTER SEVEN

As we leave, the Wizard tells us about how she burried Tolbert's heart in the back when the petals fell off the flower.

"I don't understand what you're talking about," I tell her, and pay her the five dollars for using her soup.



In back of the Wizard's Store is a big expanse of rolling green hills. In the middle of one not too far away is a tree. On the tree, growing like fruit, are throbbing human hearts.

We pick one for Tolbert and he examines it thoughtfully.

"Is your mustache shorter?" I ask Mr. Happy Puppet Head. "It looks like how you used to wear it a few years ago."

"I guess so," he peers down at it. "I also feel... optimistic. I guess I'm younger now." We watch as Tolbert holds the pumping muscle his own heart spawned. "Hey, you mind if I take a few?" Mr. Happy Pupet Head asks him. "I've never had human heart before."



Tolbert doesn't mind at all. We somehow get home and cook up Grilled Human Heart. It's delicious.