where are the hungry birds, the morning creatures starved for the mother's stomach worms and bile? where do you hide and lurk about in this time and age? i'm curious. what makes your clock tick? what tells your body that it's time to retire it's orgones from this everlasting state, this emacitating hellish home? Dare you tread boredom more the less loathing upon these endless halls of the under world. step up. bend over. pour the very depths of your soul(?) (with agony mind you) the terrible hell that caused your stomach to spill here in the first place!

by Chuck Palahniuk

Printed in Playboy magazine
March 2004

Inhale.

Take in as much air as you can.

This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer. So listen as fast as you can.

Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl in town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and whirled about as did her body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones would never understand Cass. To the men she was simply a sex machine and they didn't care whether she was crazy or not. And Cass danced and flirted, kissed the men, but except for an instance or two, when it came time to make it with Cass, Cass had somehow slipped away, eluded the men.