Hi, and welcome to Pulp Decameron. Pulp Decameron is a creative writing journal for Philip Sandifer. This first entry is the table of contents. If you want the latest story, just scroll past it.

( Contents )

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

I climbed the mountain to prove my love to you. But the monestary at the top was so inviting.

They tell me I should give up worldly attachments. That they cause suffering.

They don't ask me to have sex with their goats.

"Sir, you can't bring that water bottle on the plane."

"It's not a water bottle. It's prescription medicine for my poisonous snake."

After she moved on, I gathered up all of my dog's heartworm medication. I wasn't trying to OD. I just wanted to make sure I'd never hurt that way again.

I will write a pulp today.

( Annotations )

Someone suggested we meet every crime with a just response. We discussed the idea, to get at its heart. This would not be the measured justices of imprisonment and reform, which are not so much justice as social reform masquerading as justice. Nor the flacidness of "an eye for an eye,' which suggests that justice is nothing more than reciprocity. We sought a pure justice - a justice of principles. No mere retalliation. Instead, we would take all actions to their logical end. A murderer would see everyone he loved killed. And not just killed, but killed in front of him, and tortured first. A limitless justice - all encompassing in its reach. A justice that went beyond the mere justice of man, and even the divine justice of the hereafter. A justice that struck with the force of creation itself. A justice accountable to nothing. A justice that lay beyond its own reach. It was monstrous. It was more than monstrous.

But once we had thought the idea, the problem became clear. The only just response to its conception was its implementation.

On paper, it sounded perfect. Infinite lives. The ability to live forever, no matter what.

In practice, he found it quite the opposite. An eternity spent running up to the edge of the cliff and jumping. An eternity of never quite making it. Infinite lives, he realized, came at the price of infinite deaths.

"Open your heart to me," she said. But it didn't seem like a good idea if she wasn't willing to do the same.

Because love's like a game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Only with scalpels. And under general anesthesia.

When I went into class, the quad was full of picketers, arranged into groups and angrily shouting at each other. I paused to read some of the signs: "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel" on one side, and "Stop the genocide" on the other. Uncomfortable as I was with every position offered, I went inside.

When I came back, all that remained of the protest was one of our occasional fundamental preachers arguing with some guys in yarmulkes.

I biked home, trying to find a lesson in any of this.

Anybody can become king of the jungle gym by pushing other people off.

It takes a special sort to become king of the jungle gym by electrifying it.

"I don't believe in Santa Claus!"

"Well if Santa isn't real, who got you that dog?"

"You did, Mommy!"

"And what makes you think that?"

"It has rabies."

...a tangled forest of buttons, hooks, and zippers each leading to some new alcove of flesh to touch, and all the while our own skin being mapped out. Two continents emerging together, fumbling towards some greater purpose, each one barely knowing its own map, little yet having room for another...

Everybody thought that since I didn't leave a note, it must have been an accident. They assumed I was into that autoerotic asphyxiation shit.

I just didn't want to use up more of the rain forest on a piece of paper.

Have you considered what duck porn would be?

I mean, ducks don't generally wear clothes. And it's not like a plucked duck is sexy to ducks. You don't see ducks flocking to the supermarket to mate with the meat counter.

The way I figure it, duck porn features ducks wearing clothes.

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What is the worst crime you've committed?

I didn't know they were there until I moved the television. They were piled up underneath, collecting for years. Hundreds of them. You like to imagine when you find something like this that they went peacefully, but there was no way to even pretend. Nothing to do but sweep them all away.

Every time they fell down a pit, that's where they landed. A massive pile of dead plumbers.

Tomorrow is another day.

( Annotations )

I always found the naming of the card game war unusual. The game is far less likely to incite bloody violence than, say, Egyptian ratscrew (A game that doesn't really get started til someone loses a finger). The existence of a high-card wins scenario is no more warlike than poker, or for that matter, bridge (Another oddly named game, but that is, I suppose, another genre). And sure, there's that bit where multiple cards are laid down, but I've seen Saving Private Ryan. I know it's not the same thing at all.

Perhaps it's that the game is inevitable. By which I mean that the outcome is decided as soon as the cards are dealt. There's no skill, and you might as well play with the deck upside down for all the suspense. The side that wins is the one with God, or at least with the luck of the draw, on their side.

They warn us in medical school against leaving things in patients. Gauze and sponges and other things that can cause serious long-term complications. It's the classic malpractice suit, and it's drilled into our heads again and again.

Nobody warned me about leaving my heart inside a patient. But there it is inside her, beating away.

They say you only hurt the ones you love.

I must love myself very much.

( Annotations )