With the taste of sweet vom still burning my tongue, I came upon a large and decayed mansion, of the Mc variety. Here was a place for solitude, for contemplation. I found my fear of recapture leave my body, replaced with a sense of ease. There was something about this place. I stood on the front porch a while, admiring the relatively intact structure of this 20th century domicile. 

Inside I found my inner peace redouble as I came to admire the furnishings within. A tattered black and orange curtain swayed limply in the breeze from a broken window. From one lamp sprang a marble tail, thick and smooth. From an open closet I could see several blue dress shirts, some still in good condition. There was a soothing familiarity to these sights which brought a stupid grin to my face. For a moment I thought maybe I had inserted the serotonin vial into my spine applicator this morning, but I then remembered the clear blue of the estrogen vial.

​Wandering slowly in my state of bliss, I stepped out into the backyard. A fence separated the dead grass here from the more unruly vegetation outside it. A red wagon was parked against it. Out there on the porch, leaning against a striped pillar, was a young man, pale and gaunt, smoking a cigarette. Stubble adorned his face and dark circles lay under his eyes, which were a cold blue. His hair was thick and black and it swayed along with the smoke circling his head. He was dressed all in black and had a couple body modifications on his ear and wrist- the kind you could only get in the city. 

"Hi," was all I found myself saying. The shock of seeing someone from the place I had fled this far out into the country barely registered. 

"Hey,' he said. "How'd you find this place?"

"No idea." I admitted. "How long have you been here?

"Some months, now."

"Wow."

We both stood in calm silence for a while. Before I knew it we were watching the sun set against the green horizon. Suddenly I remembered the question on my mind.

"...Do you know anything about this place? This house? Why it all feels so familiar?"

The man in black flashed me a knowing smile. He dropped his cigarette but didn't turn his gaze from the sunset. Neither did I.

"Everyone I've seen come here knew who this place once belonged to. Almost instantly. They've all moved on of course, but then again, they were never big fans of Garfield."

He glanced at my confused expression and continued, suddenly seeming impatient with me.

"This house used to belong to Jim Davis."

When I heard those words it all made sense. The decorations within the house, though in disrepair, all bore the features of a certain fat and lazy cat. I was now sure that if I had gone upstairs I would have found a bedframe with those cute ears and large sleepy eyes. Who would ever think to have such a bed custom-built other than Jim Davis, creator of Garfield?

You might think this revelation would have pleased me. Yet somehow it filled me with fear and dread. This was wrong, so wrong. Jim Davis was not dead. This I now knew despite how many years had passed since I had seen a Garfield strip. I also knew that he was in pain. Terrible pain. I shouldn't have come to his mansion. The site of such beauty was a trick, and it had worked.

Bounding over the fence before us leaped a dark figure against the sinister orange glow of the setting sun. The man in black ran inside and disappeared. When the figure approached the porch I saw who it was and froze. It was Stanley.

"You fucking killed Michael, Riese. I'm taking you back."

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In my hubris I deigned to pull that bag behind me for hours, until the city had well and truly disappeared over the horizon- and with it my fear of being recaptured. When I could take no more I emptied it out on the ground and had myself a post-feast feast- my favorite kind! The noodles were as slimy as the day they had been cooked for way too fucking long, which was yesterday. After a post-post-feast feast nap I packed up the remaining leftovers and some of my favorite commemorative Nixon plates and continued on my journey.

It wasn't until that evening that I stumbled upon my first trace of human life since the city. There in the distance, seeming for all the world to be no more than an idyllic scene painted against an infinite flat canvas of blue sky, rested a farmhouse and a barn belonging to Bryan the Wise.

He greeted me with the friendly fervor of an aging Hunter S. Thompson- yes, that's right, he let loose a volley of buckshot from his rifle. 

"Dance, monkey!" he cried out from the porch of his farmhouse.

After jiggling erotically for a few tense minutes the old man yelled for me to follow him and retreated into his home. Once I was inside and surrounded by the intoxicating musk of rotting wood and delicious pig shit, I found him in the corner by an old gramophone, listening to a song on wax cylinder which I recognized as being one of George Butterworth's, cheating liar of a man that he was.

"Shorty had those Apple Bottom Jeans, Boots with the fur..." he sang along with Bastard Butterworth, and I couldn't help but snap my fingers to the tune he carried with such solemn reverence.

"What the hell?" he cried, turning around, "What are you doing here? You're that chimp-like woman that can't twerk, aren't you?" I drew my breath to answer but he pressed a wrinkled finger to my lips. "No, hush- don't answer that. Since you're here, I suppose I might as well make the necessary introductions: my name is old man, and these are my daughters: Cosby, Stills, and Nash."

With this three women in their mid-to-late thirties descended the staircase behind me. I spun around to meet each of their gazes. Stills had the presence and demeanor of an ethereal bisexual who I was sure I'd have to read many more volumes of Foucault and Woolf to impress. Nash, meanwhile, with her quiff haircut and piercing eyes, seemed to hint that she wouldn't mind strapping me into the hip lifter they use on fallen cows and going to town on me with a prod, though that may have just been my hopeful imagination going a bit wild. I didn't meet Cosby's gaze, however, as I thought her name a rather tasteless joke I'd rather her father hadn't made. I was soon after introduced to a fourth daughter named Young, who was nineteen. Before finding her attractive I tried to figure out whether it would be appropriate, but realized I had forgotten my own age. Anyway all the women were all quite handsome, including Cosby I would assume.

After a dinner of beef I was cast out of Bryan's delightfully musky farmhouse and shown to a bed of hay in the barn. I kept waiting for Bryan to leave as I prefer to sleep in the nude, but he kept coming back in to tell me about that episode of Family Guy where Brian the dog died and how much he related to that character and how sad he was when he learned their names were spelled differently.

"Get out of here old man!" I yelled in a raspy voice, "I am very tired and I am trying to sleep naked on your pile of hay now! I don't want you to see my butt so please stop talking about Brian the dog from Family Guy and leave!"

At this Bryan the Wise seemed crestfallen, and he apologized profusely as he left, shutting the heavy barn doors behind him. I took off my shirt and skirt but left my underwear on so as not to be scratched there by the hay. I lay down and took my rest as it came, which was surprisingly quickly. It was cut short, however, by the muffled sound of low whispered tones and the bang of the heavy barn doors as Nash kicked them open. 

​There, dressed like a soft butch lingerie ad, were Stills, Nash, and Cosby. After pausing for a second, I laid back against the hay and turned my back to them, muttering something about how I was getting too straight for this shit. Stills wouldn't let me return to my slumber, though. She shook me by the shoulder and my eyes fluttered open lazily. There I saw her standing above me, in her sports bra and her boyshort underwear, with her curly hair cascading down toward me, coming within inches of my face. Her lip quivered slightly as she noticed my shifted attention and affectionless gaze. She pulled her arm back, tensing up, and bit her lip as she prepared to ask something of me.

​"Uh, Riese? My sisters and I were wondering... uh..."

"Yeah?" I asked curiously.

"...Would you wanna play Mario Party 3 with us? Young doesn't wanna play and we don't wanna play with CPU Donkey Kong because he cheats like a motherfucker."

I resisted the urge to tell her that CPU Donkey Kong is actually really easy and I could totally beat him because I've played Mario Party a whole bunch of times and I'm really good at video games, I mean REALLY good at video games, like better than Dream and that's not just a joke or something I'm making up because it makes for a good story I actually really am incredibly good at video games for real and this is real life, and instead followed her and her sisters to the playroom. Nash won by three stars but I won the Mini-Game star.

The next morning I thanked Bryan the Wise for his hospitality and waved goodbye as I walked off. Once I was a dozen yards away I yelled, "MINI-GAME STAR BITCH!" and ran away, laughing deliriously like a child until I collapsed in the grass and threw up on myself a little.

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