"Psst! Mike! Look over here. Yeah, that's right." The whisper drew Mike Kovac's attention just as it was supposed to. Mike turned his head to glance across the church to make sure nobody else had heard his friend's whisper. No one had.

"What do you want, Ian? I'm kinda in the middle of my mother's funeral here!"

"You said that you had something to tell us!" He gestured almost frantically at himself and the two other men, Malcolm and David, who were with him. Like Ian, they were both muscular guys, with closed faces that gave away nothing. They must have known that they were going to be attending a funeral, yet that didn't change their decisions about their state of dress. Both wore almost identical T-shirts, one red, and the other one yellow, faded blue jeans, and while David had on comfortable-looking tennis shoes, Malcolm had barely bothered with his flip-flops.

"I didn't mean at the funeral! I meant afterwards! At the reception!" Mike's hissed whisper was too loud, and several mourners lifted up their tear-stained faces to glare briefly at Mike's rapidly lowering head.

"Aright, aright, I get the point." Ian mumbled his words before dropping his head like Mike's.

"Okay, so what's the big news?" The mourners had barely filed out of the church before Ian uttered the question.

Mike glanced around to make sure they were relatively alone before beginning. "As you know that was my mother's funeral we just attended, and while she wasn't much of a mother to me - didn't care much about anything except her newest boyfriend - she did happen to mention that I have one living relative left in the world. She's my Great Aunt Sophie and, according to my mom, she's never kept in touch with any of us, which is why I just found out about her. Apparently she had a fight a long time ago with my grandfather, a fight which ended with neither of them speaking to each other, and, with Sophie refusing to speak to anybody related to my grandfather. But it seems that she's had a change of heart, because just a couple of weeks ago, my mom received a letter from Sophie saying that she wants to meet her grand-nephew . . . me," he said in exasperation when all three of the others looked confused. Giving his head a quick shake, Mike continued. "My mom wasn't too happy about it, apparently she sided with her father, so she only told me about the letter a week ago."

"So?" Malcolm interrupted. "What's in it for us?"

"As I was telling you . . ." Mike shot a look at Malcolm, "my mom just told me about the letter last week, and it turns out . . . this old lady is rolling in money! She gives out $100 bills like they were pennies! And get this. I checked out the house two days ago when she wasn't home and it turns out she doesn't believe in banks. All of the cash is pushed to the back of her sock drawer. In the letter that she sent my mom, she wants to meet me, so I'm going over there Friday afternoon. I figure, I make sure the money's there for the taking, and then Saturday night, we go in for the kill!"

The three other guys looked at each other and then nodded their approval. "Sounds good to me!" Ian said.

The next Friday, Mike stood in front of the aging mansion in which his Great Aunt Sophie lived. He took a deep breath and then rang the doorbell. The door opened almost immediately by Sophie herself.

"Do I know you?" Sophie asked.

"Aunt Sophie, it's me! Mike Kovac! You had mentioned to my mother that you wanted to meet me!" Sophie's face broke out into a wide grin.

"Why, yes, Mike! I did want to meet you! Come in, come in!" She grabbed Mike's hand and pulled him into the house, then glanced quickly around the outside.

"Is anything the matter?" Mike asked.

"No, no, I don't think so. It's just that . . . well, last week I realized that my house had been broken into, so I'm a bit nervous. You can understand that, can't you?"

"Yeah, sure." Mike forced himself to keep a concerned look on his face. "Do you know who did it?"

"No, not yet, but I called the police, and they're working on it, they said."

"Aunt Sophie, if you don't mind my asking, how did you know that somebody had broken in?"

"Oh, one of the windows in the dining room was cracked open, and I always make it a policy to keep the windows firmly shut."

"Well, maybe you opened the window, and then forgot to close it all of the way."

Sophie gave Mike a hard look. "I never open the windows. Lets in mosquitoes, you see."

"I see." Mike mentally cursed himself for being so stupid. "So, I heard that you wanted to meet with me."

"Yes," she said. "How old are you Mike?"

"Seventeen."

"So you're still in school, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Do you still get into much trouble? I seem to remember reading in the newspaper a few weeks back that you got arrested for some reason or other, but you never went to jail. Is that right?"

Mike squirmed in his seat. "Yes, Aunt Sophie."

She narrowed her eyes a bit. "And why were you arrested?"

"The police accused me of breaking into a house."

"And did you?"

He averted his gaze, roaming his eyes across the rich wood that lined the walls. "No, ma'am."

There was a long silence. Then she gave a big yawn. "All right, Mike, it's been a pleasure to finally meet you, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to cut this reunion short. Have to take a nap, I've been a bit tired lately."

Mike jumped to his feet. "Of course. Would you like me to stay until you're settled in?"

She gave him a smile then, one full of warmth. "No, that's okay, dear. I'll be fine. Just be sure to lock the door on your way out." Mike nodded, then left the house.

The moon cast dark shadows over the huge trees that sheltered Sophie's home. Mike, Ian, and David crept silently along the side of the wall towards the back windows of the house. A block away, Malcolm sat patiently with the car motor on; if anything happened, he'd be ready.

When they got to the window, Ian slipped black gloves onto his hands and carefully placed them on the bottom of the window. Before he began, he glanced briefly at the others with him, then quickly pushed up the pane of glass.

Suddenly a loud alarm rebounded throughout the house, startling Ian enough to drop the heavy window onto Mike's hand, where he had been ready to climb in. Mike gave a shout of pain, and tugged frantically at his caught arm. Ian and David had already slipped away into the darkness, no doubt headed towards the running car, Mike thought bitterly.

Lights came on in various rooms of the house, and Mike worked even harder to pull his trapped hand away from the window. The light in the room next to the one he was caught in came on, and Mike's horrified thought that he was about to be caught gave him an extra burst of strength. His hand suddenly came free, and he whirled around, poised to run, but smacked head first into a thick chest.

"Well, well, well. What have we got here?" The police officer who had caught Mike held him easily as he struggled frantically. Finally, knowing the battle was over, the struggles ceased and the officer spun him around to clap on the handcuffs.

"You have the right to remain silent. If you choose not to honor this right, anything you do or say can and will be used against you in a court of law . . ."

"The court hearby sentences you to two years in prison. Bail set at $10,000." The judge's gavel came down with a thud on his final words. Mike hung his head and closed his eyes briefly at the fate that had caught up to him. Two years in prison. My God, I'm just a kid! His head snapped up as his lawyer that the state had given him clapped him sympathetically on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Mike. I did the best that I could."

"Yeah." The lawyer shuffled his papers awkwardly about the table for a few more minutes while making sure the court bailiff would take Mike away. What did he care? Mike thought. I'm just another case to him.

Five weeks later, Mike dropped down into his seat in the prison cafeteria, not caring that the watery vegetables slopped over onto the table. His mind kept going back to the previous morning when a guard passing by had handed him a week old newspaper, circling an announcement in a yellow marker.

The breeze of the night brought the odor of a putrid smell, rather like that of if a fish died and all of the other fish sent flowers, into the dungeon. A few good women hung shackled to the slimy wall. The door of the dungeon swung open, letting in the nauseating stench of the unwashed body of the guard. He sauntered down the ramp and faced the women. Slapping a crop against his leg, he paced slowly across the tiny cell.

"What a delight," he began, "to begin your torture today. You may look nice now, but in a few days, you won't be as pleasing to the eye," he cackled.

"What are you going to do to us?" one of the women whimpered.

"First," the guard smirked, "I will use," he paused, "the mnemonic device!"

None of the women looked impressed.

"And then," the guard continued, "I will make you eat . . . moo goo gai pan!"

Screams echoed throughout the dungeon as the last word was uttered. The guard nodded his satisfaction.

Scholars believe that there is
A God.
A powerful spirit that
Lives above
The trembling earth
Waving,
(So they would believe)
A type of magic wand,
Banishing the trouble that
Causes worry.
But like every
Superstition,
This one about
A God
In the Heavens,
Will fade away
Slowly,
As well it should

Version Two
Written September 17, 1999

I have no legs.
I am the one whose body sports stumps
To stand on
And who has been cut down to size.
They lay on the side,
Quivering with nerves not yet dead.

I have no arms.
Sleeves that hang are no longer pestered
By lanky bones with
Stretching flesh.
My nimble fingers lie limply
On a blood-soaked surface,
The are curved at the knuckles,
Although bloated at the bone.

I have no head.
No longer does the weight
Of stringy strands
Protrude around my lifeless eyes
That watched everything
Yet saw nothing.
I am blessed
With being deaf
And the world now passes me by.

There are those who say
That good always conquers evil
But nobody ever says
Who the mystical 'those' are.
Do they creep out from the shadows,
Like faceless creatures who
Give them mighty opinions
Then slip back into the wood-work?
Those that have this never-changing opinion
Always seem to critique the stories
That do have a happy ending,
Such as Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty
But I digress,
Because, after all, you're here for something else.

Once,
In a time which has been buried in the books,
Was a rabbit of the worst kind.
You know what I mean,
The hare that would have been better off
In a hot boiling pot
With cooked carrots and potatoes
And plenty of spices to season him.
But, just as the world must continue to turn,
Rabbits like these continue to be born.

And one day, this nasty hare
Boasted proudly of his track record,
Of the way he could run and jump
And win every competition he entered.
He challenged those around him,
This cocky little rabbit did.
No one took up his offer
Until a shy little voice from the back of the crowd
Calmly accepted the wager.

The crowd parted slowly
While the hare stood there dumbly,
His hairy jaw hanging open.
Finally, he snapped it closed
And began to laugh.
"Hah!" It's claimed he said,
But who can ever be sure,
Because, like I said before,
The exact accounts have been lost.

"Let us race," he commanded
And he sprinted to the starting line
While the tortoise (who had been the voice in the crowd)
Slowly dragged his heavy body to the line
As soon as he reached it,
The race began and soon the hare
Was out of sight while the tortoise
Had hardly begun moving.

After a few minutes (or maybe hours, nobody knows)
The rabbit had almost reached the end
And to prove his contempt for
The ridiculous race,
He yawned widely and laid down
On the grassy lawn, stretching his body out to the fullest
And he slept for a long time
Dreaming whatever it is rabbits dream
And while he slept,
The tortoise, with his stubby legs and heavy shell
Slowly gained on the rabbit until finally
He reached the end of the race and passed the line
Just as the hare woke up.

Unbelieveable! She broke me again! I realize that I'm not an easy New Year's Resolution to keep, but I'm not that hard either! I specifically remember when I was made. A couple of weeks before the great party with that ball dropping I was formed. At first, I was rather sketchy, as she didn't really know where to go with me, but as the hours passed, I was molded into what I am today - a fully-formed-ready-to-be-kept-never-to-be-broken New Year's Resolution. Then what does she do? Goes and breaks me. As if I were some promise that she made, instead of a resolution - a New Year's Resolution to be exact.

First, I was completely different. I was just a goal, an objective to use in case anybody asked what I was. I was "Start Eating Less." Then she figured out that I was too harsh, so she changed me into "Stop Eating Unhealthily." Then she got into a huge fight with her friend, and the stress from that broke me more quickly than a snappy comeback on a half-witted sitcom! But the food that broke me also made me, for while she was sitting at that table chompin' down on greasy fries and soggy pizza, I began to shape up, to unfold slowly like some jack-in-the-box that is videotaped in slow motion. I became what I am now. "The Resolution That Promises To Never Lose Its Temper."

Basically, it just meant that she wasn't going to let herself be pushed around by her friend. See, she had gotten so fed up with losing her temper and feeling angry all the time, that I was made to insure it didn't happen again. It's been about three weeks so far, and until that one moment the other day, she hadn't broken me once! She just didn't let herself be swayed into the camouflaged trap that her friend would set every time they started talking.

But then, yestereday, she was on the phone with her friend, which was probably why she let down her guard, and didn't see it coming until it was too late. That "friend" of hers made her take me, and snap me in two until I finally buckled under the pressure. I was broken for good. Oh, sure, she can tape me back up and polish my sides to make me look all new again, but it will never be the same. Once I'm broken, I can never be fully repaired.