“I Have Been Waiting So Long For My Prime Rib & Chicken Sizzlin’ Skillet, I Have Been Able To Read 7 Wikipedia Articles Chosen At Random.” (Infinite Monkeys)

“I Have Been Waiting So Long For My Prime Rib & Chicken Sizzlin’ Skillet, I Have Been Able To Read 7 Wikipedia Articles Chosen At Random.”

I really think that this is ridiculous, don’t you honey?  I mean, I have now just finished my seventh Wikipedia article at random, reading on my phone like a sucker, stuck in this booth and wondering if I should get a second refill of my diet Coke ™ before my food even arrives.

There is only so much a man can take, reading about Wyoming Highway 37 beginning at US Route 14A just east of Lovell, and continuing through the National Recreational Area and the Pryor Mountains  Wild Horse Range before crossing into Montana where it ends at a place called “Barry’s Landing,” and I am about at that point.

The point where I can’t take anymore, I mean. 

Look, that elderly couple? The ones who weren’t even out of their car as we walked across the parking lot and who you said were startled when I accidentally hit the ‘alarm’ button instead of the ‘lock’ button on the keys? They have their food.

You don’t suppose it was because we didn’t order appetizers, do you? Because I am trying to cut down, and the fact that my prime rib and juicy grilled seasoned chicken breast comes sizzling with fire-roasted peppers and onions alone makes it enough of a meal, even before I consider the sides of hash browns loaded with diced bacon and melted Cheddar cheese.

Don’t try to tell me it’s that some of the articles were short.  It’s not my fault that the entire entry for Ghafasi is only one sentence noting the town’s province and what Taounate it lies in, in Morocco.  They average out, after all, and I spent more than an average length of time learning that Rusty Hilger was picked 143^rd in the 1985 NFL draft by the Los Angeles  Raiders, later becoming the only Raider rookie quarterback to play in a regular season game as well as the only Raider rookie quarterback to ever throw a touchdown pass. 

Maybe I looked so attentively at my phone, trying to figure out how to pronounce the family “Raphitomidae,” in case I ever was called on to discuss the gastropod mollusk from that family referred to in the Latin as “Pseudodaphnella intaminata,” that our waitress thought we should not be disturbed?  But if that’s the case, how come those two intense young men in the glasses, who have been quietly debating whether the cop knew the killer all along, without interruption, got their plates, heaped high with French fries and some sort of BLT-ish sandwiches?

Well, I couldn’t help but overhear them, and also to wonder why someone would order, at a restaurant, something that’s so easy to make at home?

But would it have killed our server to simply ask me if I could be bothered to have her put down the skillet, with its tortillas and pico de gallo sauce on the side, even though I was clearly engrossed in discovering that a ‘discrete group’ is a group G equipped with discrete topology, a mathematical concept that can help one understand the Bohr compactification or the theory of Lie groups in group cohomology?

No, I do not myself understand the Bohr compactification, and I doubt I ever will, the way my stomach is rumbling!

Plus, my diet Coke ™ is all watery from the ice melting.

See, now that group of girls, the busty ones? They weren’t even seated until after we placed our orders, but there they are, all with salads, obviously trying to show each other how they are sticking to their diets.

I wasn’t noticing their breasts.  I was just saying that they are busty.

I think you look fine.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt you, either, to pay some attention to me.  I saw you looking away when I relayed to you that the third single from Taylor Dayne’s second album, “I’ll Be Your Shelter,” was a departure from Dayne’s dance roots into a more pop/rock, mid-tempo type of song but still was marked by the intense vocals for which she had become known.

No, see? If you had been listening you’d know the song was “I’ll Be Your Shelter,” while the album was “Can’t Fight Fate.”  That’s my point!

I’m not just hungry.  But I am very hungry. I can’t even see our waitress anymore. Do you think maybe she went home? I’m not sure a server can leave when one of her tables is still waiting for their food. But all these other waitstaff don’t look like the ones walking around when we first were seated.

You can say that if you want, but even if I had been more focused on the fact that the Sulawesi Cuckoo is often known as the “Sulawesi Hawk-Cuckoo” even though it appears unrelated to other hawk-cuckoos than I was on simple courtesies like making sure you were not too cold or loaning you my sweatshirt, I’m pretty sure I’d have noticed if there had been a waiter like that, with his hair all… so…, when we were seated.

Ugh. My diet Coke ™ is almost pure water, now.  I should check my email.

All These Things Happened On My Birthday (250=1)

All These Things Happened On My Birthday:

In 475 AD, Emperor Zeno fled Constantinople, surrendering control of the Byzantine Empire to Basiliscus. That much we know.  What we don’t know is what Basiliscus’ favorite song was . Basiliscus almost certainly had a favorite song: do you suppose that favorite songs arose only in the modern era?

As he stands on the steps of Constantinople’s capital, Basiliscus, holding up a spear, perhaps, bloodied but proud, his hair the kind of noble mess that only ancient gladiatorial rulers in metal chest plates can pull off, Basiliscus gazes out onto the streets, littered with bodies and starting to darken as the sun begins to set, far off in the West, where the Mediterranean Sea will appear to redden with the blood of his conquest.

His soldiers are securing the city.  They are going door to door in places, rooting out troops loyal to Zeno, scaring some of the populace and reassuring others.  Merchants are cowering within their shops, hoping that some of their wares survive the inevitable looting tonight.

Already, his personal guard is starting a bonfire.  Basiliscus can smell the burning wood torn off of some homes, and soon the smell of meat on spits will join it and the city will be alight with twenty-foot tall waves of celebratory flames.

And he is humming, almost unconsciously, a song, a little ditty about Anastasius and Diane, perhaps. His reign is going to last only until next August. Let him enjoy the moment.
_____________________________________________________________

In 250=1 I write stories that are exactly 250 words long, including the title. I've written lots of them; here's a list.

Like short stories? Check out the collection of them in Just Exactly How Life Looks: 

The short stories here will introduce unforgettable people living remarkable lives. Cowboys wander in a timeless desert. Scientists meet in secret to plot a new way to get attention, and money, from people. A man and his would-be lover try to find lions on safari, and more. The people and places in this book spring to life fully-formed and full of anxiety and imagination. They worry about the time they have had and the time they have left. They bury their loved ones and look for new friends. They talk and laugh and hope and cry and die, while their friends and family and enemies and Gods watch them, seeing, in their faces and actions and fears, a portrait of just exactly how life looks.

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Things I Think Are True About North Dakota. (Infinite Monkeys)

Things I Think Are True About North Dakota.

North Dakota was the 31^st state, probably.  It has two senators in the U.S. Senate, almost certainly. It is located North of every other Dakota in the world, hence the name. If you tried to drive across North Dakota without stopping it would take you five hours but you wouldn’t get to stop at Wall Drug, which is not in North Dakota, now that I think about it.

I didn’t say

Don't mess with Texas... and the cheap car insurance you Texans can now get easily.

Everything's bigger in Texas! Steaks are the size of hubcaps, cooked on grills the size of Chevrolets, served by waitresses who are 10 feet tall... this sounds like kind of a cool movie, doesn't it? Even insurance premiums are bigger in Texas. Why, once I saw an insurance premium SO BIG it blotted out the sun and people thought there was an eclipse!

Of course, that's NOT a good thing. Who wants to pay more for car insurance than they have to? Not me, not you, not those 10-foot-tall waitresses. Life is hard enough for them, don't you think? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find nice shoes when you're ten foot tall? No, neither do I.

But no matter how tall you are, you can easily find cheap car insurance in Texas, just by clicking that link and providing a few basic pieces of information.  The service has been helping Texans find cheaper insurance since 2001, which is a really long time, since even the YEARS are bigger in Texas.

Car insurance is a must.  Even if your state doesn't require it (although many do) you're foolish not to have it, but like many things you HAVE to do, you'd rather pay as little as possible for it, and by clicking that link you'll get free quotes for the cheapest car insurance around.

Because did I mention FREE? I can't believe I didn't bring it up 'til now.  And when things are free in Texas, they (you guessed it) are more free than anywhere else. No, I don't know how that works, just roll with it, will you?

So click that link, get your free quote, get your car insurance for less, and then you'll have more money to tip that waitress, which is important because never tick off a 10-foot tall waitress with sore feet.

If anything, this post is even more aggressively anticommercial than my usual ones, judging by how many pictures of kittens it doesn't have. (An IWSG Post)

This is an IWSG post.  For more about the Insecure Writers Support Group, click this link.

I have been writing now, 'officially', as it were, for... 


9 YEARS.

I only just realized how long it's been since I started writing again, and it's been 9 years, which surprised me because it honestly doesn't seem that long.

I began writing in grade school, as probably all writers did. Or did they? I think every writer I've ever read about began with stories they wrote early on in their life not because they were assigned to do that, but just because they liked to tell stories.

My first story ever was one called "Starhounds," and it was a Star Wars ripoff, in the sense that if you took the "Star Wars" script and replaced "Rebel Alliance" everywhere it appears with "Starhounds," you would have my story.  I'm pretty sure my villain was still called "Darth Vader."

The public reception to "Starhounds" was not encouraging, as shown by this ACTUAL RE-ENACTMENT:

The first issue of "Indie Writers Monthly" is available, and free!

Click here to get it on Amazon today!

About The Author (Infinite Monkeys)

About The Author:

Jim had, quite literally, done nothing in his life other than finish his novel, a simple (if starkly boring) existence that led to this author bio on the inside of the back cover of the book that would go on to be a best seller:

About the author: Jim wrote this novel.

Jim, seeing this in black and white for the first time when his advanced copies arrived, felt as though it was wrong and the wrongness leapt at him from the dustcover, stared at him in black and white, again, quite literally.

About the author: Jim wrote this novel.

The truth, it is said, hurts, but this (unlike other things in this story) is not literal. 

The Language of Nythos (by Phillip Leon)

The Language of Nythos
by Phillip Leon

Dampness. Darkness. Silence. Silence most, above anything else. The great tree rose above Leo, tall and strong, silence radiating from it. Towering above him as though threatening to squash him with its might. A long, broken branch leaned close to the ground. With a deep breath, Leo slowly climbed up the branch.

He grabbed a nearby branch and pulled himself up to a growth on the tree. Spotting a rope he had tied to another limb, he grabbed it and swung up to a higher place on the unbelievably tall tree.

“Huh? Leo, is that you? Oh, hi!” a small, strong voice said.

“Hey Rocko!” Leo hated to use his full name, Rockobockotolo.

“Wactha here for today, Leo?”

“Oh, just the view,” Leo said as he fingered the smooth, red amulet around his neck.

With a flutter of wings, Rocko landed on Leo’s shoulder. “Yeah, its pretty nice up here.”

Leo rubbed the hoktie’s tiny head as he purred softly. But he was interrupted as from behind him came a cry of “Leo!” and five small, extremely agile black shapes pounced on his head.

This Week On Mars They Found A Rock. (Infinite Monkeys)

This Week On Mars They Found A Rock.

This week they found a rock on Mars, which itself isn’t so unlikely Buzz supposed, the entire planet is rocks, really but it was what the rock did that was so amazing to everyone, or maybe it was not so much what the rock did that was amazing but it was what everyone else did, or did not do, that made the rock seem so amazing.

DON'T HAVE
TIME TO READ THIS
ALL NOW? CLICK HERE
TO GO TO SCRIBD AND
DOWNLOAD A COPY FOR FREE.
(you can also get a copy at the end of the story.

Thinking Man stories are a new category for me. They are scifi stories loosely based on or inspired by great sci-fi stories of the past.  This is the first of them.

There are humans, and there are Codes, who are... human? Or not? What would you call a person who was born of a 28-day-old adult clone and had their personality implanted via computer program? Rick would call that person "Lila," and would be in love with her, maybe. Which is where the problem really begins...

The Thinking Man’s Blade Runner.

Uploading. 9%

The sound of explosions, behind him. He ignored them.

2 Frogs (Infinite Monkeys)

2 Frogs

            That’s so jeely.

             So what? Said the first frog.

So jeely, said the second frog.  It’s a word I’m trying to invent.

What does a frog want to invent a word for? Asked the first frog.

I will tell you why I want to invent it once I know what it means, said the second frog.  I can’t tell you why I want to invent it until I know what it does.

            Whuh stuttered the first frog.

I mean if it is a great word that really catches on and lots of people use it then I want to invent it so that I can get rich off royalties…

That’s not how words…

...the second frog continued: but suppose it’s an evil word? Then I must want to invent it because I am up to no good.  I’m a bad frog. Maybe an evil frog, maybe.

But…

Then again maybe I have just realized that there is a thing or action or emotion in this world that exists but has never been accurately described, and jeely is the word that will let people know what it is they have been looking at, the second frog said.

Or doing or feeling, the second frog added, after a pause. And then that would mean that I want to invent a word to help people better understand their world.

They sat in silence for a moment. A dragonfly flew by.

Well? Asked the first frog.  Which is it?

The second frog told him: How should I know?

Q: Do I want readers, or do I want to write? A: I'M GOING WITH JERKSTORE! (ISWG)

Hey, before getting to the post, a plug: If you are a writer, I am going to pay you to write. Click the "WE PAY FOR STORIES" tab for details, but the gist of it is: send me your story, poem, etc. and I will PAY you. MONEY. 

Now, on to the post. 

This is an Insecure Writers Support Group Post.  Find out more about that group of fine (if insecure) writers by clicking here.

Alex Cavanaugh, who lives inside the Internet and has no corporeal existence, the other day exchanged tweets with me.  (You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here, and that way you will never miss out on my trenchant insights into how the pizza I am eating for breakfast tastes.)(Hint: DELICIOUS).


Alex noted that I'd signed up for the A-to-Z challenge this year, and asked if I was ready for "short posts and lots of comments."

I responded that I'd try to keep the posts short-ish, and Alex said:

hoc nunc est, quod tunc erat, et nunc… et nunc… et nunc…(Infinite Monkeys)

What happens when you destroy the world and everything in it to make yourself a god? You get sad, that's what.And then you have to fix things, which is easier and harder than you might realize, even though you are omniscient.

No time to read the story now? Download a hard copy for free from Scribd by clicking this link.

hoc nunc est, quod tunc erat, et nunc… et nunc… et nunc…

It took only seconds after Dendrion had blown up the Earth for him to miss it.

Where You Are (Infinite Monkeys)

Where You Are

Where we are is never where we are, which is obvious when you think about all the different ways we are moving.

The Conglomeration (Horror)

PSST! Don't have time to read this all right now?
Click this link to get a download on Scribd, or page down for a pop-up window with a .pdf to read/print for free!



Ridalfo is worried, now, that it will get out.

How secure can his basement be? After all?

Less Successful Sequels To Classic Toys (Infinite Monkeys)

October, by Liam Konemann (Short Stories)

OCTOBER

 By Liam Konemann

When October creeps up, it brings summer with it. It gets too hot to sleep and we strip ourselves naked, kick the covers all the way down to the end of the bed as late night crosses over into early morning. Our bodies glisten with sweat and it plasters us to the fitted sheet’s blue cotton, leaving damp stains wherever we lay a palm or ankle. The air-conditioner is broken and even the coldest setting gives us nothing but hot air churning above our heads and that low, mechanical death rattle. We spend hours caught adrift in that place between wakefulness and sleep, until finally in the heat-sodden delirium she reaches out to me and whispers, “take me to the river”.

                We’re driving down the highway with the windows down, because she said she wants to be able to smell it when the air changes.  Lyza flicks through radio stations, skipping over Top 40 and Indie Rock and Country music until she lands on a song she remembers from her childhood. She turns the radio up and tilts her head back as she finds her place, eyes closed tight underneath those huge sunglasses. She sings along loudly, not quite word-perfect but close enough to convince me that she once knew all the lyrics. Her hand floats out the window as we hit Ballina, palm surfing the currents of salt-soaked air. There are kids riding their bikes on the dirt shoulder of the highway, and Lyza wonders aloud where their parents are. I shrug, flick on my indicator to change lanes and say, “Anywhere. Home, probably. The RSL.”

“But they should be watching them,” she says.

She turns around in her seat to watch as the kids veer off and slip down a track beside the river.

When they disappear amongst the trees, she looks back at me.

“Shouldn’t they?” She asks.

Lyza was raised upper-middle-class in an inner-city suburb with one neat, ballerina sister, the both of them private-school educated, both A-standard students. A life full of hyphens. Her childhood was neat hedges, smooth footpaths and bright Jacaranda trees that showered you with purple flowers in the Spring. She can’t fathom an upbringing like mine, didn’t have days when her skin was fifty percent mud and grazes, and she never dug for bloodworms with bare hands peppered by mosquito bites. To her, my childhood is as foreign and idyllic as an Enid Blyton story.

She’s looking at me with raised eyebrows and open mouth, her mind conjuring images of abductions or gruesome bicycle accidents.

I tell her, “Things are safer here.”

The late afternoon sun hits us as we cross the last bridge, gold rays melting into the Clarence River like toffee on a hot day. Lyza sleeps, the wind scattering her fringe across her forehead. I follow the curve of the river past houses and cane fields, a memory on each corner and in the branches of every tree. There, the edge of that field, that’s where I kissed that girl. The first girl. And there by the upturned tinny is where I smoked my first and last cigarette, pilfered from my mate’s old man and gravel-rough on fifteen year-old lungs. The road is old and uneven, and Lyza jolts awake as one of the car’s wheels dips briefly into a pothole.

“Are we there?” She asks, mouth stretching around a yawn.

I dip my head to one side, the bastard offspring of a nod and a shrug.

“Just about.”

She hums, stretches and settles back into her seat. The air filtering through her window is cane-sweet and mud-heavy, and it cycles through the air-conditioning over and over like my favourite song playing on repeat.

We pass the tiny general store and the ANZAC monument, and Lyza cranes her neck to see over the coffee trees as we pull up in front of the house. I turn the car off, grip the steering wheel a moment too long.

“This is it?” She asks.

I nod. “This is it.”

She tilts her head back to take in the slanted tin roof, its sharp edges jutting towards us. If I look over her shoulder I can see flaking white paint and the corner of my mother’s bedroom window peeking through the trees. She glances back at me and raises her eyebrows.

“So are we going in?”

I push the car door open and lead her around to the side of the house, up the stairs to the back door. The door creaks open under my palm, the ancient fly screen sagging in the middle. Mum never did lock the bloody door. We duck into the gloomy house, almost colliding with the dining table. It’s always closer than I remember it being.

“Stay here,” I tell Lyza.

She stands in the sunlight cast by the open door as I cross the dark room, sidestepping around aging, mismatched furniture to reach the window. I tug open the curtains and let the daylight flood in, the dust particles caught floating in its pool. Lyza wanders into the centre of the room, shoes scuffing on the worn floorboards. She turns in a tight circle, eyes roving over the faded couch and once-white walls as she breathes in the smell of dirt and damp.

“So this is where you grew up,” she says.

I almost tell her that I’m still growing up, not quite thirty and not quite mature yet, but instead I shrug, nod and say, “My childhood home in all its glory.”

She ducks out of the room and down the hallway and I follow her, watching as she lingers in the doorway of each room. When she reaches the end of the hall she turns and walks halfway back to me. She stops and leans against a doorjamb, fingers running over the dulled paint. Lyza tilts her head towards the room.

“This one?” she asks.

I nod. She pushes off the door frame and steps into my old bedroom, running a palm over one warped wall. Lyza sits on the bed pressed up against one corner, the dust-heavy covers wrinkling and dipping beneath her. I hover in the hall, unwilling to enter quite that far into my own past. She takes her shoes and socks off and curls her knees up to her chest, feet resting on the edge of the bed. I go to say something about the state of the house, to tell her that dirty shoeprints won’t make all that much of a difference, but I change my mind at the last moment and swallow my words instead. She pats the space beside her and waves for me to come in.

“Scared of a little dirt?” she teases.

“Scared that bed’s going to collapse, more like,” I say.

She smiles, tilts her head and waits. I shake my head and laugh even though it isn’t funny.

Crossing over the threshold and into the room doesn’t feel the way I thought it would. The floor in here creaks just the same as it does in the hall, and the air is just as stale. It doesn’t seem like a profound homecoming, like the return of the prodigal son. I just feel like an overly tall child, standing in a forgotten room in an abandoned house. For a moment, I see myself from a different angle and I wonder how it is that I could have run for so long and moved so little. I sit on the bed and lean into my girlfriend, and she rubs a hand over my back as I stare blankly out the window. It’s closed. When I left it was open behind me, too far above the ground for me to pull it shut after I had tumbled out into the long grass. I pushed my bag out first and then clambered after it, the night air cool on my skin. In the other bedrooms, my mother and my brothers and sister slept on. I always assumed that if and when I came home, they’d still be there fast asleep, not missing me at all. Never even noticing I’d been gone weeks or months or years. Life, of course, moves on whether you pay attention to it or not. My siblings grew up and scattered to the wind and in the gap between their visits my mother died suddenly, a stroke, with no one to find her crumpled and vacant on the bathroom floor. And the house was closed for business.

Lyza strokes the back of my neck, her fingers playing with the ends of my hair. She presses her lips to my temple and whispers something that sounds both pointless and meaningful, even though I can’t make out the words. I’m not crying, I don’t think, but something tickles my cheek and when I reach up to swipe at it the tips of my fingers come away damp. Lyza turns my head towards her and kisses my lips, breathes the life back into me. When she pulls back she puts her hand in mine and murmurs, “The river. Show me the river.”

It always seems to call out to me, from across state borders and highways and chicken-wire fences. I hear it, and I feel it pulling me back like some kind of Siren, like I’m writing a new Odyssey. Creeks and estuaries flow into creeks and estuaries and I follow them, always making my home somewhere in sight of the water as if I belong to it. As if it belongs to me. It’s the smell that hits first, then the taste of the air. Somehow rotting, fresh and salty all at the same time, like the doorway of a fishmonger’s. I need it. I use it to clear the dust and petrol fumes out of my head. I lead Lyza to the banks, both of us barefoot as we stand ankle deep in the dark mud. It’s dusk, and mosquitos buzz around our elbows and knees, tapping into our veins before flying off fatter than before. The water laps up over our feet and Lyza lets go of my hand, bends forward to inspect the guppies swimming back and forth in silver clouds. She stands up, tucks her hair behind her ears and smiles at me.

“I like it here,” she says.

I breathe out, dig my toes further into the mud and laugh even though this isn’t funny either.

“I feel safer here,” I say.

*************************************

Liam Konemann is a young Australian writer who wandered off one day and found himself in the most expensive city in the world. He currently lives in East London, and can be found online at @Liam_Konemann.

Want to get paid for writing? Click the "We Pay For Stories" tab up top there for details!

What Else You GOD? (Infinite Monkeys)

What Else You God?

We have an opening in music.

 Doing what?

Making sure a cool song starts as someone sit down in their car.

Doesn't sound important. I was thinking finance.

Hmm.  It’s a recession, you know. Not much out there.  Let me check.

…

 You could be see a penny pick it up--

Ech. Nothing higher up?

Best I could do would be, uh, let me see, well, there's finding money in coat pockets.

Seriously? What about, like, dragons, piles of gold and silver and a lair?

If you are thinking about nonhuman the best I could do would be a leprechaun.

Pot of gold?

Cereal mascot.

I didn’t even think they were real.

They’re not. That’s the point.

…

You’re not, either.

Well, not yet, and not if this is the best you’ve got.

We’re under the gun here, you know. I don’t think you can afford to be picky.  How long is it since someone has worshipped you? Or even believed in you?

Too long. I know. I know. I was just… hoping…

For what? For thunder and lightning? For healing the sick? For inspiring works of art? Do you know how quickly those posts get snapped up, if they even open up?

Look, it’s not my fault I’m unemployed.

As I recall, you free-lanced it—

I have heard this quite enough…

… by trying to convince people to make things other than diamonds, gold, and silver valuable, and you being the god of new precious stones and metals.

Look…

What was it again? Aluminum?

Tin, actually. Just tin.

I could get you in with broken mirrors.

Switch teams?

It’s been done before.

I… don’t… I mean, I need the work, yeah, but it seems a little outside my… uh…

Starts today.

Does it offer benefits?

 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Also: the pirate really has nothing to do with this promo.  But he is fierce.

This woman is in her underwear, and high heels, and sitting on a dresser! That is unusual!

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Speaking of people who won't always  be happy: Meet Bumpy, who was there the night his sister's fiance drowned, but he was too drunk to remember what happened. Now she blames him, and blames everyone, and so while his sister tries desperately to prove that the death wasn't an accident, Bumpy moves on to Las Vegas where he stumbles into happiness... if he can recognize it.

That's Up So Down, a dramatic, heart-wrenching look at a family falling apart.  You can buy it on Amazon for just $0.99 by clicking here! 

This is a post in which a dialogue between two characters is set to the side of a woman holding a gun and showing a significant amount of her boobs, but not so much as to make it NSFW.

Temporary Anne: If ever a woman was misnamed, it is this one: The woman who first saw the gates of hell opening for her years ago, and avoided them by killing the man who tried to save her and casting him down in her stead.  Now, she roams the earth, stealing souls at the bidding of Mephistopheles, avoiding her own fate... for now.

Temporary Anne is a gothic horror classic that will haunt your nightmares.  

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