Month: May 2026

Joseph O’Malone was in search of something “sticky”.
Really, he wanted to spend some time doing something that he could market to himself as “life worth living”.
Sure, lots of people around him thought of Joseph as mellow. That was just a word that Joseph couldn’t really feel.

Here he was, burning the Michelin tires, crossing a great distance. Over the course of this journey, he would camp in the middle of open fields, in a forest, in a cave, on a beach, and stuff that was natural like that.

Lucky Joseph, he could look up at the night sky. Except when he was in a cave. On all other nights, he could look up at the night sky, listen to the maudlin cry of the whippoorwill, or the hum of the silence of the world, see the mauve vibrations. Joseph didn’t know that the color mauve was the French word for the mallow plant, which itself was that color. And still, the sky was of a beauty that he couldn’t buy for all the bitcoin in the world.

Driving from Michigan to Michoacán was indeed very far. And yet, not since he was in the womb had Joseph felt wrapped in the world like a tortilla.

“Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”

Kevan Khachartourian breathed in through his mouth and out through his nose and stepped into the New Spitfire Grill. A sign inside, written in Russian, proclaimed “Welcome to Primorskii Banquet Hall!”

Kevan himself was Armenian, born in Iran, and his parents had scooped him up and fled the country in 1979. Since then, they had run this restaurant in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He sighed. Time to hurry up and get ready before the Russians arrived.

There were bags of walnuts to shall and crush and puree. There were bottles of wine to chill. Georgian wine. Kevan was not Georgian. But all the Russians really cared about was that one walnut and pomegranate and chicken dish, which they believed was Georgian, not Persian.

Both Russia and Iran had colonized Georgia. Persia had grabbed bits of Georgia from 1555. Sadly for them, since Muslims are not supposed to touch that famous wine. The Russians took over in 1801, ostensibly to protect the Georgian Christians from the Shiite Islamic empire, but also to get drunk on the wine.

There was a knock on the door, and the sound of someone talking twice as loud as they needed to. Kevan opened, bowing and smiling, wearing a ridiculous fez with a tassel.

“Dobryy Vecher!” he proclaimed to the customers, also talking twice as loud as anyone needed to.

The Russians always filled the restaurant on Saturday nights. They had no concept of current events or geography. Kevan’s father had put a world map on the wall in the 1980s and had not bothered to change it. Maybe the Russians thought there was still a Soviet Union, like on the map. If he informed him of the fall of the old U.S.S.R., they might become quite irate. Or, to the contrary, if he told them about Putin’s plans to reconquer everything….

At least there was one good thing about the Russians. Now that they felt they had really made it in America, they tipped well. This was a skill that was completely unnecessary back where they were from. All Kevan had to do was pretend to be one nationality pretending to be another nationality, and they would reward him for it.

Kevan supposed it could be worse. If another person died from a nut allergy, it would be bad for business. The whole thing had been hushed up by the community. Something along the lines of, he could not eat nuts, he was not really Russian. Kevan dreamed of getting out of this place. Running away to Portland, Oregon, or even to Portland, Maine. It didn’t matter.

Why do fires blaze all over merry England? No, it’s not a celebration. It’s those damned Vikings again! They’ve been threatening to do this for a long time, but now it’s 1016 and they finally did it.

Saint Blithe would never have let this happen. She was all right. But we didn’t make her the Queen. That would have been too easy. That would have been a blessing. The way God Blessed Texas.

We did not have Saint Blithe in charge because we chose her relative, Æthelred the Unready. Can you imagine going on a date with Æthelred the Unready? Hey, Æthelred, I’m in the mood, did you bring protection?
No, woe is me, I am unready!

Because of the strength of its leadership, England did get fucked by the Vikings, who were led by Cnut. Cnut would fuck anything.

Anyway, Saint Blithe lived out her life in the quiet, blasé precincts of Norfolk. Her son did even more all right. He was named Saint Warstan, and he could talk to animals. Imagine, everybody else was fussing and fighting, and this dude was good vibes only with lambs and pigs. Don’t ask me, it’s the Catholic Church that can verify what the animals told him and vice versa.

But, in Vatican documents recently declassified, we see the following parable:

L: “Saint Warstan?”

W: “Yes, Leonardo di Capria,” for that was what he called his friend, the billy goat.

L:“I just wanted you to know something.”

W: “You go first.

L: “Oh my gawd, you’re so nice. No, you.”

W: “You’re the best, shaggiest, softest friend I ever had.”

L: “You’re the Goat.”

W: “Well, obviously, you’re the Goat.”

L: “Stop. I’m dead.”

W: “Leonardo, why do humans fight?”

L: “Saint Warstan, with the exception of you and your family, all the humans I know are sheep fuckers. And as a goat, I hold space for them but in a rich sort of simultaneous paradox, I just can’t with them.”

W: “Nor could I. I talk to those sheep all the time. They’re always so traumatized.:

L: “Do you think we should be worried about this King Cnut guy?”

W: “Can’t be any worse than the last Viking invader, King Svein Forkbeard.”

L: “Well, that sounds like a terrible human being. But a good wrestling name.”

W: “Time for my afternoon nap. No. More. Politics.”

L: “Gosh, you’re the best human ever.”

And they napped until the cows came home.