One sad day

[--Ed.]

Kenneth Mulvey is leaving his post as fiction editor. I don't even know how long he's been on board, maybe more than two years. He's read a lot of fiction in that time and selected some really fine pieces.

Good help is hard to find, especially when you're asking people to do it for free. I've tried out a lot of co-editors, and a lot of them have left in less than three months. It might not be that stimulating an environment. Kenneth was good help and good people.

Which seems like a good time to say how much I appreciate all of my editors. Without those guys, there's no way Thieves Jargon would be able to keep up at the pace that it does. Everybody buy Mooney and Baumer and Riverbed a beer next time you see them.

Replacing Kenneth will be guest editor Steve Young. Buy him a beer, too.

[ylarivera]

word.

[baumerworld]

Mulvey
1.
Mulvey lived in a cave. That wasn’t a good place for him. He moved. He did not like the cave. Someone died in there. He hoped it wasn’t him. He thought about this very hard and it still made him upset. Mulvey didn’t like the cave. A cave is a place for bears. Bears don’t live in trees. Tigers live in trees. Mulvey thought he maybe wanted to be a tiger. A big oomp was in the background during all of this. Everyone looked at the oomp. No one paid attention to Mulvey. Mulvey tried to juggle. He could not juggle. The oomp laughed. Everyone laughed. Mulvey thought they were laughing at him. Only the oomp was laughing at him. Everyone else was laughing at the oomp. Mulvey enjoyed it. He tried to juggle again and again could not juggle. No one laughed. Mulvey thought everyone had got sick of him. Mulvey left the room. No one noticed. They watched the oomp do a handstand. Everyone clapped.
2.
Someone sent Mulvey a box. Inside was a donkey and a note. The note said, “This donkey is very good at falling in pools.” Mulvey took the donkey out of the box. It fell in the pool. Mulvey did not know what to do. Mulvey did not even know there was a pool there to fall into. The donkey could not swim. Everyone was concerned the donkey would die. Mulvey could not swim either. The donkey died. Everyone blamed Mulvey. The oomp was eating a bag of chips. This made everyone hungry. They ran to the supermarket, but the oomp had bought all the chips. Mulvey was at the supermarket too. He was buying milk. Everyone threw eggs at him. Some of the people even stopped liking the oomp. They thought, “I wish the oomp had died instead of the donkey.” They also wished Mulvey had died instead of the donkey, but they didn’t know Mulvey’s name. The oomp did not like these thoughts. He picked the donkey out of the pool. The oomp picked up the note that had come with the donkey. He said, “Hmmph.” Then he took out a pencil and erased the part about falling into pools and instead wrote, “This donkey is a very good swimmer. Please let it fall into pools. It likes to fall into pools.” When the oomp was done writing the note he dropped the donkey into the pool. It began to swim. Mulvey was still at the supermarket. The manager had given him a mop. He was cleaning up eggshells. Back at the pool the oomp did another handstand. Everyone clapped.
3.
Mulvey got a letter. It said, “Oh hello again. So much has happened since we last talked. I am singing opera. No, I’m not. I had you fooled though. Imagine if I sung opera. I don’t even know what I would do with myself. Maybe I would touch myself onstage and people would say, ‘Oh my,’ and then all the music notes would get jangled.”
Mulvey did not like this letter. He put it back in the mailbox. The oomp saw Mulvey put the letter in the mailbox. He was hiding in the bushes across the street. Everyone was curious of what the oomp would do. A squirrel ran into the street. The oomp jumped out of the bushes and the squirrel turned into a leaf right before a car ran it over. Everyone said to each other, “Did you just see that? The oomp saved that squirrel’s life.” The squirrel did not like being a leaf. The oomp did not care. He looked in Mulvey’s mailbox. He saw the letter. He took it out and replaced it with two more.
The next day Mulvey opened his mailbox and saw the letter had duplicated. He took out the two letters. The oomp was across the street. The leaf was still in the road. Mulvey read the two letters. He did not like these letters. He put them back in the mailbox. Mulvey saw the leaf in the road and went to pick it up. The oomp did not want Mulvey touching the leaf. He turned the leaf into a donkey swimming in a swimming pool. Mulvey fell in and began to drown. The oomp threw his head to Mulvey. When it reached Mulvey it was a life preserver. Everyone was confused. They didn’t understand how the oomp’s head could be a life preserver. There was awkward silence, but the oomp brought them back. He did a handstand. Everyone went crazy.
Epilogue.
Mulvey buried his mailbox. He was getting too many letters. He did not like reading them all and putting them back in the mailbox. The oomp went on tour. People got tired of his act. He married Drew Barrymore. They had a kid. The photos sold for only $700 to Ok! Magazine. People did not care about celebrity babies anymore. The oomp and Drew Barrymore got divorced.

RIP MULVEY