This is an excerpt from The Spectacular Simon Burchwood, the new novel from writer Scott Semegran

I tried to call Jessica several times but she never answered her phone or returned my calls. She was really starting to piss me off. I mean, who the hell did she think she was, wanting to move to Dallas and take our kids? It was all a goddamn mess. It's true. And I'm sure Sammie and little Jessica didn't appreciate it either. All of their little friends were here in Austin. Their school was here. Their life was here. Their father was here. I imagined that they would have no interest in moving to Dallas away from everything they knew. But, then again, kids have no choice in the matter. They will do what they're fucking told to do and my kids were no different. They were good kids. It's true.

After getting the go ahead from my supervisor Rod, I realized I had one thing to do before leaving town. I had to go see my doctor. Weird, huh? Well, not really. I'm getting old, you know? It's true. This slightly pudgy, slightly balding "Adonis" isn't going to stay beautiful forever. Ha! Besides, everyone needs to go see their doctor every once and a while. It is a goddamn moral imperative. I made the appointment a couple of months ago after realizing I hadn't seen my doctor in quite some time, maybe before all my divorce bullshit. I had been compiling a list of ailments and weird goings-on with my body and health in general and I felt I really needed to discuss them with Dr. Todd, especially before leaving town. I call him Dr. Todd because his last name is so unruly and filled with dozens of unnecessary consonants that I'm not even going to waste precious keyboard strokes trying to spell it out for you. Just trust me, his last name is a goddamn Polish disaster. It's true. But Dr. Todd is a kind man with a caring way about him and I rather enjoy talking to him, even though I'm sure he will be examining my nutsack or prodding his finger in my poop shoot at some point today. Great. Just great.

Here, in no particular order, was the list of things that were bothering me over the last few years: constipation, left eye twitch, hemorrhoids, upset stomach, random headaches, weight gain, hair loss, weird dreams (duh!), knee pain, seasonal allergies, lower back pain, etcetera, so on and so forth. It was a pretty goddamn long list of ailments and nuisances but they were things that were really bothering me. I mean, especially for a writer, having distractions of the bodily nature can really put a damper on your creative spirit and literary output. Nothing is worse than a raging case of hemorrhoids to ruin a marathon writing session. You can't sit down for more than 15 goddamn minutes at a time when you have burning blisters poking out your asshole. It's true.

Anyway, I drove over to Dr. Todd's office. I pulled my car into the office building parking lot and parked in the back. The building was a pretty nondescript place tucked away behind a group of these massive oak trees in a decent part of town. Dr. Todd had his office here for years before I became his patient and I'm sure it would be here for years to come. On the outside, the building looked like one huge metal and glass box but on the inside, it was an elaborate maze of offices connected by a serpentine hallway that zigged and zagged in no justifiable way. If I didn't already know where his office was then it would be damn near impossible to find. I wondered if that was on purpose. Doctors do some sneaky shit like that sometimes. It's true.

I found his office after walking through the maze of hallways and entered quietly, standing next to the front desk. A nurse was sitting there, busy with something. She wore pink scrubs that had Winnie the Pooh and Tigger on them and her hair was long and blonde and styled in a way that reminded me of the TV sitcom moms from the 1980s. She didn't seem to notice me and I stood there for what seemed like a goddamn eternity while she scribbled on some forms on a clipboard. They must have been pretty goddamn important forms because she was carefully and intently filling in the boxes and checking other boxes and crossing her t's and dotting her i's and examining the hell out of that paperwork. Time really seems to stand still when you're waiting unnoticed for something. It's true. I decided to stop the madness and tap on the desk so she would notice me. I think I startled her. She about jumped out of her goddamn seat.

"Oh! I didn't see you there," she said, straightening herself, fixing her 1980s hairdo.

It was the day before the end of the world, at least that's what the news media and the ancient Mayans believed. No one really knew what was going to happen at the end but it was going to happen, goddamn it. And no one cared about the details of how it was going to happen. The end was the end. The end. End. It just seemed so final.

A couple of years ago, I made a pact with my two best friends, Nolan and Jacob (I'm using codenames, by the way). We decided that we would spend the last night before the end of the world partying in my garage. We compiled a list of required items for the party: keg of beer, carton of cigarettes, liter of vodka, liter of spiced rum, mixers, ounce of weed, a pipe, a ten pound brisket, our favorite barbeque sauce, etc. And we agreed that if our lives were in a certain state by the time the world was going to end, then the three of us would convene in my garage, no matter what, and drink and smoke and eat ourselves silly.

And as luck would have it (if there was any luck left at all before the world was going to end), our lives were already ruined. So the party was on!

New York, New York.  Before I knew it, I could see the sprawling metropolis from the airplane window spreading across the surface of the earth like a cancer.  But what a beautiful cancer!  The plane descended from the sky like a comet from God and I could feel the anxiety and excitement well up in me and throb in the pit of my stomach.  All of my dreams were finally coming to light, finally coming to fruition right before my eyes.  So many wonderful things were about to happen.  Besides my literary debut at the Barnes & Noble flagship store, I was supposed to meet my editor and her staff for the first time.  Through the entire goddamn publishing process, I never had a chance to meet them face to face.  It's true.  Everything was done over the phone and through snail mail and e-mail, from the initial submission to the first, second, and third revisions to the galley.  In case you didn't know, the galley is the first typeset version of the book that the publisher sends to the author for final revisions and approval.  Anyway, it was a long distance affair from start to finish.  Initially, I often wondered what my editor looked like, if she was attractive or not, a blonde or a brunette, thin or full-figured, lusty or prudish, with a fair or dark complexion (don't you think of these things?).  We spoke for quite some time without really knowing what each other looked like.  Of course, she eventually had the advantage because I had to send a photo of myself for publicity reasons (of course).  But I had the burning desire to find out what she looked like so I did some research and found a picture of her on the Internet.  I mean, it's pretty difficult forming a relationship with someone if you have no idea what they look like.  It's true.  How do you think all these women who write to prisoners actually get the courage to marry one of those bastard convicts?  At least with a photo, you know what you are getting into.  And when I found her picture, I was actually quite surprised to see that she didn't look anything like I had imagined.  From the sound of her voice, I had imagined a tall woman who looked and carried herself like Susan Sarandon, the movie actress.  You know, on the phone she seemed very smart and cunning and manipulative, logical yet emotional, and oddly attractive.  But what I discovered was that my editor looked more like Aretha Franklin.  I'm not kidding.  From the sound of her voice, I had no idea that she was an African-American woman with a hefty frame and not a typical inflection in her voice that would have given her skin tone and heritage away.  It's true.  It's really strange how your mind can mold images for you from clues and tidbits of information it takes in.  I guess you could say that my thoughts of her looking like Susan Sarandon could give some insight into what I think and like about women in general, what, considering that I really like Susan Sarandon's goddamn movies and all.  But it's also interesting how your mind can mislead you like that.  It's very interesting indeed.  Not that it changed how we dealt with each other or anything.  I mean, I'm not a racist or anything.  It was just a tiny revelation.  That's all.

I woke up this morning, just like yesterday morning, with my face in a pile of vomit.  I say a pile because when I sat up, the viscous mound rose four inches from the floor with a silhouette of my nose and face etched in its side.  No liquid whatsoever, just a lumpy mass, a nice likeness of me too.  But the smell, it was the smell of death. And do you know what death smells like?  It smells like regurgitated Jack Daniels.

My cat woke me up from my intoxicated slumber, licking my face after I first heard him nibbling at the pile.  He purred as he licked, sniffing then purring, purring then nibbling, like it was grilled salmon.  My first instinct was to scold him for eating the vomit.  Then I thought, 'what's the difference? At least the floor is clean.'  He finished the entire pile before I could get up and swat him.  He sprinted a short ways, laid down on the linoleum floor, and took a nap.

I told my friend Joel about the pile of vomit over drinks after my shift at the bar.  Of course, he knew why there was a pile of vomit in the first place considering he was with me the night before.  We were drinking whiskey at our usual pace, which is, as much as possible with no pace at all.  And even though he wasn't in my apartment with me when I fell asleep, he could visualize the scenario.  He had been there before as well.

"He ate the whole thing?" Joel asked.

This is a work of fiction, even though names, characters, incidents, and places are similar to real life. There really is a Mia Ryan and there really is a cat named Angel-Boy, though we actually call him Angey-Butt since he doesn't have a tail and all you see is his... well, you get the picture. I'm not aware of any ant named Anthony, though, and any resemblance to any ants with that name, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2003 S. E. Semegran
Illustrations by Scott

For Mia

Mia Ryan was a precocious little girl, with big brown eyes and curly brown hair, who lived in the heart of Austin in the middle of the big state of Texas. And Angel-Boy was her fearless companion, a little black cat with magic mittens and a stumpy tail. Mia and Angel-Boy liked to throw quaint tea parties, using her mother's fine china to serve the tea and baking miniature cupcakes to feed her guests. And her guest list always included her illustrious court of multi-colored bears. Everyone would sit around Mia's roundtable, wearing bibs and pointy party hats, telling stories and sipping sweet tea.

Angel-Boy, looking a little bewildered, asked Mia, "Can I have my four-morsels cat food instead of cupcakes? I do not like sweets. They make my paws sticky and my fur fall out."

"How rude, Angel-Boy," Mia replied.

The special day had arrived. I pulled into the parking lot, found a spot in the front, and ran in the party store. In an effort to save time, I had a concise list of supplies I needed to purchase: 12 napkins, 12 paper plates, one table cloth, and 12 gift bags, all with a particular Disney character on them. You know, the mouse? I also had to purchase six rubber balloons and one Mylar balloon to be blown up into a festive balloon bouquet, weighted down by a festive balloon bouquet weight. You know, because of last time? You don't know? Well, it's best you didn't know at this point. I was on a mission.

I found all the stuff on my list and waited at the balloon counter for the balloon girl to blow up my daughter's balloon bouquet. You see, it was my daughter's birthday, the most special day of all days of the year. Except for maybe Christmas or Halloween, a kid's birthday is the epitome of everything a kid deems magical: candy, cake, attention, ice cream, gifts, more attention, friends, fun, even more attention. It's the end-all, be-all of a kid's existence. And it was my duty to make sure it all went down in the most magical of ways. Shit, the pressure was getting to me. I only had a couple of hours before go-time. And I had to get all of the mouse-themed party supplies to the other mouse-themed place: Chester E. Cheddar's Pizzeria and Party House. I could only hope they served beer there. At ten o'clock in the morning, I already needed a pint, or three.

Simple question. "If you hate this job so much, why are you still here?"

"I have no fucking idea!  I really don't!  Like it would be better somewhere else, huh?"

Exactly.  Like it would be better somewhere else.  I worked for three different restaurants in the past year and I hated each one with a passion.  Slinging food to the swines that came into those places bred a misanthropic hatred that was dangerous.  Extremely dangerous!  But I discovered quickly that I was one of many who flocked to this type of work.  A haven for what seemed like lost souls or, to put it more plainly, misguided creative types.  I was only one of millions caught in the trap, caught in the cycle of daily cash and short work days, caught in high stress and low self-esteem, engulfed in an environment of service and self-destruction.  I thought that I needed it.  I thought it fueled my creative fire, to say the least.  It did more than that.  My entire world caught fire.

I filled the coffee machine hopper with coffee, poured the water in the reservoir, and turned the machine on. I woke up a little earlier than usual and fought the urge to try to go back to sleep. So I got up, making sure not to wake the kids, and headed downstairs. After five minutes of staring into space, I snapped out of it while the coffee machine wheezed and hissed and dripped the last of its fresh batch into the carafe. I poured myself a cup and walked to the front of the house, peeling open the curtains and standing in the window, sipping my coffee.

I was mulling a list of chores through my head, things to do around the house. Looking at the lawn through the window, I knew I was going to have to bust out some lawn equipment in the next couple of hours and manicure the shaggy grass. I knew I was going to have to cut down some dead bushes in the backyard. I knew I was going to have to do a number of other mundane tasks on my mental chores list. I knew this. But I continued to sip my coffee slowly and didn't move.

My daughters and I walked to the mailbox with hurried optimism. Sophia, my 6-year-old, ran in front, the mailbox key clinking on the keychain she grasped tightly in her little hand. My 8-year-old, Mia, held my hand and smiled at me while we walked.

"Do you think they'll be there, daddy?" Mia asked.

"I have a good feeling they will be."

"I sure hope so, daddy."

"Me too."

Sophia was already around the corner and running full-throttle for the mailbox, her little fists pumping, her little feet scurrying.

"Sophia is excited too, daddy."

"I can see that."

At the mailbox, Sophia inserted the key and opened the door. Plunging her hand in the mailbox, she pulled out a smallish cardboard box and placed it on the ground. She marveled at it like it was a treasure chest, an ancient lockbox filled with valuable things. Mia knelt next to it, placing her ear on top, closing her eyes as she listened.

"Do you think they know where they are?" Mia asked me.