nabµf #6 of 29

Young Pixel’s mom wanted to educate him in her Catholic faith.

“Young Pixel,” she said, anachronistically, “I want to educate you in my Catholic faith.”

“Okay, mommy,” Young Pixel responded, “I have a question!”

“Anything,” she responded.

“What does ‘virgin’ mean?” And so Young Pixel’s mom decided to send him to the local Catholic church for indoctrination.

Young Pixel arrived, unsure of what to expect. Luckily, the nice nuns at the Catholic church took good care of him.

They let him read the children’s Bibles for a little while before taking him aside.

“Tell me,” the nice little nun said to Young Pixel. “Do your mommy and daddy go to church every Sunday?”

Young Pixel, whose mommy and daddy did not go to church every Sunday, said no. But they did want him to go every Thursday so that he could learn Catholicism, he added sullenly.

“Oh, no! Your mommy and daddy are going to suffer eternal torment and burn in hell for all time! I feel so sorry for you. You have to convince them to come to church, or else you don’t love them!”

Young Pixel clasped his rosary to his chest and sat, ashamed and terrified for the rest of the hour.

When his mommy came to pick him up, he explained how urgent it was to go to church and how God said she was unlovable if she didn’t.

She looked away from the road to Pixel to correct him, but went off a cliff instead.

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nabµf #5 of 29

Young Pixel was invited to his neighbor’s house to see a movie. Young Pixel liked movies. He especially liked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Young Pixel said yes.When he arrived at his neighbor’s house, he was told they were going to see “Child’s Play 2.”

Pixel was thrilled! Finally, there was going to be a movie aimed at his demographic. He was tired of not understanding other movies because everyone talked too fast. And, he didn’t want to say anything because people would laugh at him, but he thought that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was pretty scary at times. Sometimes they would hit the bad guys pretty hard: maybe they needed medical attention?

What a way to die: due to internal injuries received while fighting a turtle. Pixel shuddered. Well, at least this movie wouldn’t be so bad. And it was about a doll, too, or so his neighbor told him.

His neighbor put the movie in the VCR and Pixel stared at the screen, eyes wide open in horror.

The rest of the movie passed in a shuddering fit as scene after hopeful scene turned terrible for the characters. Who would have thought that a toy factory could be so evil?

That night, Pixel had a dream that he was racing away from a giant Chucky doll with the ninja turtles by his side. Then Leonardo grew hungry and the Ninja Turtles ate Young Pixel.

Young Pixel would have woken up screaming if he had ever woken up again.

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nabµf #4 of 29

Young Pixel hadn’t yet spoken his first word and his parents were worried. They knew he wasn’t mute because his nightly screams would often wake the neighbors. His parents would run into his room and fret over what possible nightmare could scare a child so.

Young Pixel, however, just hadn’t learned how to say “gotcha!” yet, so his parents mistook his giggling for the dying throws of an asthmatic chain-smoker with asbestos poisoning (this still happens).

Perhaps Young Pixel was just slow? And yet whenever he wanted something, he would point at it. He chuckled knowingly at Dennis Miller jokes and even converted some old paperclips into a cold fusion chamber with an optional cappuccino-maker. So his parents knew that there was potential for some intelligence in their son.

From Young Pixel’s point of view, there was no need to talk. He could obtain everything he needed without speaking a word and besides, people develop higher expectations when they know you can do something. Just look at when Young Pixel learned how to go to the bathroom by himself: all of a sudden, he was expected to just go to the bathroom on his own! He couldn’t have a day off or anything!

Soon, though, ninjas broke into his house and killed his father. His mother took her sons, looked at his Pixel’s brother and said, “Shh! They’ll kill us if we make a single sound!”

To which Young Pixel replied, “what am I, chopped liver??”

And soon he was.

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nabµf #11 of 29

Scene: Mayra and friend Brian are in a car, driving to the lyric opera (or some other equally mind-expanding snoozefest like a museum or an abortion clinic)

Mayra is talking about how graduate school is going, Brian is listening intently. Mayra looks down and sees a miniature journal.

It seems odd to her because Brian doesn’t seem the kind to write down his thoughts. It is presumed he has no hands.

“I didn’t know you had a journal.”

“That? Oh, no, that’s just something I found in a theatre. I think it belongs to the next Unabomber. Half of it is written in code.”

Mayra starts leafing through it. She flips through the coded section and her mind’s gears start processing the new information: the handwriting looks… familiar, the notebook looks… familiar and the philosophy and non-sequiturs look… familiar. But how can she be sure?

She flips to the last page and reads something written in a different style handwriting and different pen:

“Pixel,
write to me, I love you,
your cousin
Claudia Q. Styx
…
Oh, and if one of your friends named Mayra finds this, she should know to give it back to you, because the overwhelming coincidence of it all at least deserves a blog post.”

Then an e-mail address.

Mayra, having graduated at the top of her class and being, by all accounts, really smart, figures it out.

“Yeah, sounds crazy. So, where are we eating?”

Somewhere, 100 miles away, Pixel’s ears are ringing—it’s cancer.

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nabµf #3 of 29

Young Pixel stares down the desolate stretch of desert, wondering when his next customer will arrive.

Young Pixel is angry. He is also hot. So he fishes in his pocket for a quarter and buys a glass of lemonade from himself.

He feels mildly cheated, but cannot explain why.

A man in a three-piece suit walks by, but is too busy holding his suit together to buy any lemonade.

Nevertheless, it is exceedingly awkward for the both of them: Young Pixel had stared at his silhouette for the past six minutes, hoping he’d come down the road and buy some lemonade and the man in the suit had been steadily keeping his eye on the road and refusing to make eye contact.

And they both knew it.

Young Pixel grew even more angry.

The man walks by and Pixel stares down the road for the next forty-five minutes as cars drive by and nobody stops to buy any lemonade.

“This business venture is rapidly proving itself to be a bad idea.” Young Pixel remarks to nobody in particular.

Nobody in particular replies, but Young Pixel is too distracted to listen to even the most random personification of an idiom.

There! In the distance, a figure approaches, with a gun and an empty sack out. For five minutes, Young Pixel stares at this would-be robber. Then, deciding he doesn’t owe his life to his lemonade stand, he runs away down the road.

The ground opens up and swallows him whole. Nobody in particular is sad.

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