I AM -- round VII: [WE ARE] THE CHILDREN

by Joseph Martin Kronheim

7.  There are only so many old women to go around--and precisely one less, now that Hansel and Gretel took out that crazy old witch and ate all her candy (rotten little brats!).  Our old woman gave up--a total wash.  And she lost, too, boy!  Big time!  I can't say I pity her all that much--or even at all; nightly spankings and chronically empty tummies sort of rob the soul of charity.  Anyway, so many of us there were and what with things so tight and all, well, you can guess what happened next, starving as we were, weak a pathetic as she was.  Of course, it wasn't long before we had to find the next old lady, and who more likely than one with the means to eat not only various insects and pests (which we'd been doing for years, 'til, of course, we'd cleaned 'em all out (only so much room in that daggone shoe!)), but also cats and dogs and a goat.  A goat!  She had a cow left, and a horse, of course, but we got to her before she got them.  But she was bent on ending things on her own terms.  Determined, she was, and put up a good fight, too, but, well, we were many, we were hungry, we were young and quick; and now we are the Children who killed the Old Lady.  Her cow was delicious, by the way, and we're quite looking forward to the horse.  Italian minute-steaks comin' up!  She spoiled, of course; we couldn't afford refrigeration.

6.    I am the Old Lady who swallowed the flea due to an error in transcription.

5.    It is late in the evening of January 3, 1898.  There's an unsuspecting horse over at the end of Piazza Carlo Alberto.  We're in Torino, such a pretty place, really, but where that jerk and intruder, Friedrich freaking Nietzsche, has just aggravated another political upheaval.  In some crazed fit (and in his final twitching throes of death he claimed he was defending the horse, which he absurdly believed was getting whipped at the time -- well, I was there, and there was no horse-whipping!), the man, mustache and all, hurled himself against the horse, arms tight around its neck, all the while screaming, "God is dead! God is dead!  It's left to me to defend this poor, innocent--"  But he was cut short.  Idiot.  I just couldn't take it anymore.  I jumped into the fray, sinking my mandibles deep.  Yes, it was me.  I am the flea that ate that jerk Friedrich Nietzsche's brain.

4:    I am that jerk Friedrich Nietzsche, who killed the Almighty Force with a stroke of his pen. Gott ist tot.

3:    I am the almighty FORCE of a beer-gutted man's fist, crumpling the Gatorade bottle on his obnoxiously over-sized, synophrys-suffering forehead. What a bum!

2:    I am the Gatorade bottle, thrown by D, that kills the English teacher.

1:    I am the English teacher.

I AM -- round VI: THE OLD LADY

I am the Old Lady who swallowed the flea due to an error in transcription.

I AM -- round V: THE FLEA

inside Nietzsche's now-dead head

It is late in the evening of January 3, 1898.  There's an unsuspecting horse over at the end of Piazza Carlo Alberto.  We're in Torino, such a pretty place, really, but where that jerk and intruder, Friedrich freaking Nietzsche, has just aggravated another political upheaval.  In some crazed fit (and in his final twitching throes of death he claimed he was defending the horse, which he absurdly believed was getting whipped at the time -- well, I was there, and there was no horse-whipping!), the man, mustache and all, hurled himself against the horse, arms tight around its neck, all the while screaming, "God is dead! God is dead!  It's left to me to defend this poor, innocent--"  But he was cut short.  Idiot.  I just couldn't take it anymore.  I jumped into the fray, sinking my mandibles deep.  Yes, it was me.  I am the flea that ate that jerk Friedrich Nietzsche's brain.

I AM -- round IV: THAT JERK FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

It's unlikely that I'll be able to keep up with
illustrations for the I AM; these crappy little
doodles are surprisingly demanding.  Any
such contributions you care to make, please
send to my email.

I am that jerk Friedrich Nietzsche, who killed the Almighty Force with a stroke of his pen. 


Gott ist tot.

I AM -- round III: THE ALMIGHTY FORCE

I am the almighty FORCE of a beer-gutted man's fist, crumpling the Gatorade bottle on his obnoxiously over-sized, synophrys-suffering forehead. What a bum!

I AM -- round II: THE GATORADE BOTTLE

I am the Gatorade bottle, thrown by D, that kills the English teacher.

I AM -- round I: THE TEACHER

I am the English teacher.






Unsure how to proceed?  Kill the English teacher thusly: "I am the _________ that kills the English teacher."  And it never hurts to creatively narrate the events surrounding the killing.  Click "COMMENTS" below and enter your suggested sentence.

I AM -- a new, and for now experimental, feature

Some of you may be familiar already with the "I AM" game that I operated once upon a time at my long-defunct website, www.hectorjepsen.com (the results of which I re-posted last fall here, at www.josephcenter.blogspot.com).  The game worked quite well then, as the website was intended strictly for my students, with whom I was in constant contact and who received extra class credit as motivator to their participation in the game.  Obviously, now, I have no such incentive to offer.

As I see it, the game will have to go differently this time, as the blogger environment has its own intrinsic advantages and limitations.  Like before, I hope the results of the game will demonstrate a majority of user content, but I expect to make my own contributions, at least in the beginning, to keep the ball rolling in event of the unavoidable lull.

So, tomorrow I will post the first round of "I AM."  If you have an idea for killing this first "I," make a comment with you sentence, prose, or poem that does the deed.  (Old rules apply -- briefly: you must kill the leading "I" specifically and directly, collateral damage notwithstanding, and please avoid use or abuse that would render this feature anything beyond "family friendly.")  Once I have a sufficient number of applicants, I will look over the comments specific to this first round and put up the winner for the next, which will then take comments for its killing.

I don't know if that made sense.

Hopefully it will in practice.  If you have comments or questions, you know what to do.

by Frank ver Beck

For those of you too lazy to click to the other blog, here are rounds 30-38 from my SASA days (some of my favorites, by the way) to help get you started:

30: I am Lord Dark Helmet, and transform my ship, the Spaceball 1, into a giant maid. Using the ship's giant space vacuum, I vacuum out all the air, thus eliminating that almighty wind.


31: I am Lord Dark Helmet (I found need for a second introduction), and I am bewildered. Did anyone else know I was played by that jacka**, Rick Moranis! Oh my gosh, I had no idea. Well, I'm pretty much drowning in an overwhelming depression right now. I'm going to go take a bath with my toaster. Farewell cruel world!

P.S Rick Moranis sucks eggs!

32: I am Recall Man, able to spy defects in a single glance! That toaster of Dark Helmet's was from China and was riddled with lead. I leapt to the ship, crashed through the window, and instantly melted the toaster to a molten blob!

33: I am Recall Man's pack rat brother. I watched him melt the toaster; the blob interested me, so I took it. Later that night, Recall Man stopped by to take a look at my collection. He brushed the dust off the toaster blob and enough of that lead puffed into the air, entered his blood stream via his lungs and nasal lining, and killed him.

34: I am Angry Biscuithead. I roast any syrup or jelly that gets in front of me with my evil Fart-Ray/Giggety-Goo-Goo Gun. So far every brand has tried to stop me, but they will never get me, for I am hiding in my Mr. Center costume. I look like a man, but I'm really a turtle. No one will never know my secret identity, not even the maple syrup. Since I have no one that can level up to me, I have decided to eat myself, become a chicken with three heads, and peck that pack rat brother of Recall Man to death. So I do.

35: I am Colonel Sanders, and *YUMMMMY* them biscuits sure is lookin’ some good eatin'. I saw that ol' angry Biscuithead and shoved him straight into the oven, yee haw—goin' to cooks him up good with some of my gravy.

36: I am a slew of angry chickens. The Colonel had it coming after killing our fathers, and their fathers, and their second cousins’ fathers. We pecked out his eyes and deep fried his brain, which was good chopped up into one of his Famous Bowls.

37: I am the SUV. Stupid chickens, they never learn. They tried to cross the street again, and they got in my way. Stupid birds. How am I supposed to get the stains off my tires?

38: I am a very inconveniently placed (for the SUV) thumbtack, that just happens to be upright and consequently pops the front right tire. The resulting crash becomes a horrific 13-car pileup. The SUV is sorrowfully totaled.

***

Special thanks to Ray Cromar for introducing me to this game and its brilliance
at the Noni factory floor in American Fork, Utah, five and a half years ago.