Bodytasm by Jeremy Moran

Greetings family, friends, well-wishers, skanks. It is imperative that you take notes upon the following. All of it will be on the exam. If you do not pass the exam, you will only get a small slice of cake at the end of the year gathering. This is a night for umlauts, good friends, for we shall be changing the way our lives are pronounced tonight.

Yet, how have our lives been pronounced up to this point? How do we define them? I, personally, define a good life as a working oven, fourteen inflatable balloon elephants, a twelve-foot of yarn, and two sips of Calvinist Ale: one in the morning and one in the mid-morning. I have been accused, by my more old-fashioned, way-of-the-world parents, of asking too much from the ninety-five elves that live within the clouds, weaving cookies with cloud-fluff and baking sweaters with raindrops. In a way, perhaps this is true. Perhaps only an 11.9-foot of yarn would be less greedy. There are those starving for their share of the yarn out there. I rarely think of them. But, then again, I rarely care to.

I believe that this may be a symptom of a cancerous, yet common, cold what has plagued me throughout my life. From the moment I punched my way out of the spicy, lobstery primordial soup that seeped throughout the innards of my mother, I always felt as if unwelcome company had trailed me, attempting to ride the coattails of my success as a cobbler of decent-enough brownies. I am referring to, of course, my humanic organs: The bloodthirsty heart, the wily lungs, the cunning kidneys, the wicked rectum. The list goes on, of course, as there are more and more of these devious creatures using my body as a Trojan, ready to pop out at any moment and cause me slight annoyance at the great pain they intend to inflict. They are leeches, really, grabbing onto the magnificent feather boa I was wearing at the time of my own crowning and subsequent expulsion from the leathery, flinty, well-worn paper sack that was the uterus.

From that moment on, they have attempted to control my actions and decide my decisions. The heart, in particular, is an arrogant little prick. It sits upon the high horse, whom I have christened “Peter,” believing that it has the right to pump the blood that just wants to run around free in my veins. It hath imposed a work ethic on my blood, taking away its valuable free time by forcing it to march in lock-step towards the Heart Almighty! O Fortunata! Bless us, the blessed ones, for we are TRULY blessed for knowing the Heart Almighty! It gives us the power to breathe its illustrious air! It gives us the strength to open Aunt Hornice’s sacred jar of pickled roast! And it gives us the strength to watch the film Next Friday at frequent intervals upon this summer canoe ride that other folks call “Life” in order to laugh as though we have never laughed before!

The blood truly is the victim in all of this, I cannot stress enough. Anytime it senses an escape, be it through a cycling accident or during my morning ritual of toast spread with jam, cheese, and a freshly cut pound of my own flesh, it immediately rushes forth through the new cavity on a madcap, Three Stooges-like dash towards freedom. Aye, but sadly, the heart has a secret weapon: Crafty, yet clever, agents called “platelets” who pop out of nowhere, as if they had been hiding in a Trojan all their own, and trap the blood in an iron-clad prison woven out of red netting. The blood, dejected, sadly marches back to solemnly toil upon the heart’s fascistic rule. And this, my friends, may in fact be the great tragedy of human life.

Yet, life is not all about getting solemnized up the arse by sadness and tragedy. There are smiles along the way. They are initiated by the one organ that truly is on our side: The Brain. This organ, named in the year of our Lord, Eighteen-Ought-Berry-Blast, after the dog companion of Inspector Gadget, guides us through life. It points out helpful hints on our journey towards the nirvana that we all seek. These hints include but are not limited to: How to walk, how to dress, and how to properly sing “The Ballad of Maxwell Demon.” The brain is the proverbial hand upon all of our backs, patting us on when we prove our worth and slapping us on when we deserve to be scorned. It is the parental figure to end all parental figures, making our own parents look like homeless circus freaks. In fact, it is the brain itself that caused one human, named Horace Tyrone Xavier III, to create the umlaut itself.

In closing, we may never be able to force the American public to make love to their umlauts, but at least we will be noble in our attempts to do so. Somehow, somewhere, the Umlaut King will dance with joy when he hears of our gratitude. He will call his Queen over and they will share a kiss to break through the Great Wall. This, in turn, will free the elves that were trapped and they will join their ninety-five brothers and sisters in the sky on their own personal quest for the wondrous wonderment known as “Peace.”