"Teaching Experience at St. Benedict College, Bangkok, Thailand" by Kink Bundy

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"Cancel Culture" by Kim Cancer

This is not a story. This is not literature.
This is a spit in the face.
A kick in the nuts. A punch in the tit.
A shooting spree,
of consonants and vowels, aimed at snowflakes.

This is to be loathed. This is to cause anger.
This is to be deleted, blocked, downvoted, canceled and hated.
Demonetized
by coding corpses in Silicon Valley

It is my hope a Twitter Mob forms,
curses my name, relegates me to Louis CK status.

This is my penis and I take it out
a dark web palm reader for the snowflakes.
This is my penis and I take it out
to piss on the face of all Boomers, Gen Xers
and especially the Millennials and Gen Z

You who have grown with smartphones akin to limbs,
priapic pineal glands, ophthalmic screens…

You who have “emotional support animals”
I hope your emotional support animal
mauls you to death like an Alaskan grizzly bear
and you fucking die like that execrable Australian crocodile cunt

You who have “safe spaces”
I want to rig your safe spaces
with prepositions, adverbial pipe bombs
and laugh as they explode like an Ariana Grande concert

Yes, YOU, you snowflakes…

You who have transformed young America
into a coddled wasteland
of mock outrage, moaning prudes

You who subscribe to video game streams on YouTube
You who pay punk ass PewDiePie his millions
while the greatest living poet in America works as a janitor!

You who fight over bathrooms
You who bastardize legitimate arguments,
shame those who marched
shame those who righteously died

You who vote Republican and Democrat
You who watch CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News
You who wish to silence creators
You who are triggered
You who can’t take a joke
You who can’t fathom opposing views
You who Yelp, write online reviews
in braille
You who protest Bill Burr, Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle

You, you snowflakes: I want to reach into your toilets
to smear myself in your shit
and kick at your cunts and balls as you whine online about my blackface

I want to punch your nose
paint myself in your blood and attack your colleges
with wadded up copies of The Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer

I want to hack Spotify
replace every playlist with Public Enemy on a continuous loop
and blast 2 Live Crew
from loudspeakers down every boulevard in Northern California

I want to hog-tie conservatives, make them watch gay porn
I want to hog-tie liberals, make them watch monster truck rallies

Because your phone can block
Your phone can delete
But energy cannot be destroyed

And ART, speech, thought
Are the purest form of energy
The very flesh of emotion…

Currency both malefic and supernal!

And now, snowflakes
now I tie your noose
I grind my knife to your throat
I aim my AK at your temples
Just to tell you this:

Sticks and stones can break my bones
But words will always nourish me…

Let there be commerce!

"The War Against Obesity" by Kim Cancer

An addendum to the novel “Taliban Telemarketer” by Kim Cancer…

“The War Against Obesity”

Next America had far too many obese.

The obesity crisis had worsened throughout the 2000s and 2010s, particularly so in the late 2010s when being “overweight” became socially acceptable, normalized.

The phrase “Fat Shaming” had entered the lexicon.

Large, “plus-size” women, men on the covers of fashion magazines.

After the brief Civil War 2 concluded, when the US National Debt was consolidated by FRED Corps***, “FREDicare for all”, “FREDicare” comprehensive medical coverage plans were implemented and covered the entirety of Next America’s legal citizens (those Class A, B, C - though not Class D).

FREDicare provided basic care, vision, dental, with much of the services handled by cost-efficient AI, BOT…

*** Who is FRED?

What was known about FRED: FRED is a council of major corporations founded by the former “Federal Reserve Bank” and a collective of international mega-corps.

The collective pooled resources to purchase the United States of America’s colossal $125 trillion national debt and maneuvered to annex Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, the UK, Ireland, and Greenland into one awesome nation...

FRED had no visible leader. No known CEO.

The closest visible thing to FRED leadership was the President of Next America, a series of drooling, stammering borderline mentally retarded caricatures, normally chosen from a shit-battery of homeless schizophrenics and loudmouth borderline narcissists, all of whom were raped, beaten, tortured, tarred and feathered routinely on Fucking News STREAMS…

The most popular STREAM for a time was Meet the Fucking Press, an audience driven poll program, featuring survey choices of methods to humiliate and physically, mentally batter the President.

The series finale STREAM having the President believe his term to be mercifully over, and when leaving the White House, hopping, skipping, and singing “Hall-LAY-LOO-YAH”!

The President, a filthy, toothless, raggedy dressed homeless CW2 veteran, was mauled to death and eaten by a genetically revived breed of saber-tooth tiger (infused/possessed by the ghost of Panzram) the tiger dropped via flying drone, onto the White House south lawn…

Following the indignation of PETA for allowing the tiger to possibly be put in harm’s way, and disappointing STREAM, sagging Presidential approval ratings, BIGFOOT, the Sasquatch, the yeti, who’d been flushed from the woods due to deforestation, was installed as Vice President, and then finally took the oath of office, and being 9 feet tall, BIGFOOT was rarely the object of ridicule.

In fact, BIGFOOT became perhaps the most popular President. EVER. The Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, and Washington Monument all torn down and replaced with statues of BIGFOOT in various reflective poses…

FRED: Its meetings were held biannually in the massive, heavily fortified super-exclusive Fuck You Resort 2, located on the shores of beachfront Arizona, no media or pictography allowed.

While the innerworkings of FRED remained murky, and the public was largely apathetic, mollified by VR, many of FRED’s initiatives became clear.

Its first was to reduce the girth of Next America’s waistlines…

A government program, a national initiative, called “Shut the Fuck Up and Shape Up!” was launched.

Its First Phase: The Children.

Next America’s children mostly attended school VR, occasionally being led to social events, testing, in armored school buses…

Next America’s children were henceforth required compulsory training (either by VR or IRL) in martial arts, street fighting, Judo, boxing, wrestling, MMA classes, beginning in kindergarten, and were required to engage in physical combat activity, painted camouflage and sent on random urban hyena, baboon spear hunts for a minimum of 3 hours daily…

Morbidly obese children quarantined, processed into “fat farms”, re-education centers, forced into beehive structures, connected by suction wiring, their diets adjusted, and instructed by Tooth Fairy Dahmer BOTS to wrestle small chimps and bears, participate in hand to hand combat, CrossFit, compliance calisthenics…

The Second Phase: “Act Against Obesity Normalization”

An act of legislature that banned images of the morbidly obese in media, except for circumstances in which obesity is discussed as a health issue or the obese were being violently attacked by hierarchical dominant muscular alpha males, rabid animals (usually hyena, baboon, tiger, mountain lion) and/or verbally assaulted, viciously pranked (usually punched in the stomach by surprise robotic arms or chairs pulled out from behind, Fucking Pranking and Punching Fat People in the Stomach STREAM being immensely popular for a time)...

The Third Phase: “Disappeared”

Final Solution to the obesity crisis. The “Fuck Obesity Act” legislation, in which the morbidly obese were given, by legal decree, one year to become non-morbidly obese.

However, no punishment for non-compliance was announced or even mentioned…

(Mental health, monitored by brain chip/neural networking, and physical health, monitored by face rec scans, body scans, was data-maintained by FRED social stability apparatus; measurements comprised an undisclosed portion of one’s Class distinction.)

((Morbid obesity itself was no longer tracked simply by BMI, but instead by a complex, opaque computational algorithm, computed by AI tracker security sky cams and bee-sized roving drones, capable of scanning, ascertaining confirmation of morbid obesity in split seconds.))

Since FRED Corps’ first major action upon taking control of Next America was to legalize all acts of physical non-sexual violence (w/the exception of violence against the Class A and rape of the President) the population, knowing FRED Corps’ insouciance, if not penchant for violence, and their creation of the wildly popular STREAMS like The Fucking Torture Channel, was abuzz on CHITTER with conjecture over what the punishment for morbid obesity would exactly be…

As the compliance date neared, many obese turned themselves in to authorities, and were shipped to concentration camps, where they were forced into military exercises, laborious physical exercise, hard labor, strenuously rigid dietary regimes, self-criticism struggle sessions and MMA training, with the obese pitted against one another in random grappling, fistfights and kickfights…

(The kickfight being a razor wire cage fight where the combatants’ arms are chained behind the back and only combatants’ legs are used to kick at one another- biting, headbutting allowed/encouraged)

PROTEST: SJW obese, unhappy with the decree, fought back, organized a mass rally, a protest, resembling an old school gay pride parade, where the obese nationwide marched (of course not for too long, many panting, wheezing along parade routes, so several rode on floats, or in mobility carts, scooters, Segways).

The obese in only underwear, their bouncy, flabby bellies, flopping, jiggling; their thunder thighs rippling; the obese amassed, taunting police BOTS, picketing the FRED Corp shadowy skyscraper in downtown NNYC; the obese guzzling Coca Cola and blasting, singing and dancing to Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me”.

Little did the obese at the rally know that each and every one of their faces were logged via biometric face scan...

The obese were branded by FRED AI as “fucking recalcitrant” and targeted for disposal.

The few Class A in the protests found their Class distinctions immediately lowered to Class C.

The protesting obese, in days following, arrested in mass.

Police BOTS, squadrons of bounty hunter dog cyborgs hunted the obese, ambushing them outside all-you-can-eat buffets, WWE wrestling matches, Walmart, Next America southern states particularly targeted…

Trailers, mobile homes, apartments, houses raided; obese beaten, dragged through streets, piled into transport vehicles, maglev trains, flying robots; obese plucked up and flown away by aerial octopus attack drones...

Def Leppard’s “Photograph” played, at ear splitting volumes, in continuous loops by and inside each transport vehicle…

The captured obese amassed, brought to the concentration camps with the voluntary obese...

However, as opposed to the volunteers, who were given some leeway, some freedoms (the freedom to watch baseball especially enjoyed, especially the ceremonial opening 1st inning 30-second fistfight between opposing teams’ managers, and the volunteer obese really took a shining to the Fucking Rock Stars Smashing Guitars STREAM) but those rebellious, captured obese were afforded far harsher conditions.

They were tethered, chained to exercise bikes, treadmills, stair climbers, hot yoga confinement cells, forced into motion for hours on end, lashed with electrical cords, wet towels by the volunteers, fed only via intravenous tubes, and administered involuntary, invasive liposuctions, vomit inductions and iced saline water, White Claw enemas.

Many of the obese were unable to endure. They wheezed, plunged from the exercise equipment. Many had heart attacks.

But they were not allowed to die.

They’d instantly be resuscitated by roving medi-BOT, plopped right back onto the exercise equipment, forced to resume calorie burning motion.

(The few unable to be resuscitated obese had their body parts harvested for scientific study or private sale; the pale skin obese in particular fetching a hefty sum, sold at auction to wealthy patrons in Asiatic countries...)

Roughly 2 years after the initial decree, the obesity crisis was considered solved. The obese who survived the camps released, though kept on probation, bodyfat monitoring regimen…

But there remained an active obese insurgency. Obese hiding out underground, in bunkers; obese guerrilla, Class D, off-grid muckers.

The muckers would pop up here, there and attack FRED property, police BOT, hijack food delivery vehicles, highly coordinated armed robberies of restaurants, grocery stores…

However, ironically, since many were unable to eat as frequently, due to their renegade status, they lost most of the flab they’d fought so fiercely to protect and were no longer in danger of simple persecution for being illegal obese.

They were still routinely punished, though, and ultimately terminated for attacking Class A, FRED property.

Many of those on Fucking Torture or Fucking Execution STREAM were obese or former obese who’d turned to anti-FRED, anti-Class A banditry…

"Taliban Telemarketer" by Kim Cancer

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"White Buddha: Portrait of an ESL Teacher in China" by Kim Cancer

CLICK HERE to download the fresh eBook from the lovely Kim Cancer!

"Green Tea Bitch: Jiangxi" by Newamba Flamingo

Green Tea Bitch: Jiangxi

1.
softcore porn
feet bunched up, icy fingers
last Lantern Festival…
last feast, fireball cupboards
granny’s building leap,
granny’s red pockets, grandpa’s tree bark

red face reunions,
way boned
tiger chair hot pot
hot water dunks
television torture tactics...

LITTLE LEI FENGS
PIG EARS FOR THE WILLING
MORNING READINGS
KITES, KNIFINGS, KAIFENGS
GAS CANISTER KITCHEN FETISHES

smokestacks to backbeats, word is on the street…

chemical plant cuckold
chemical plant cuckold
anthrax laced long underwear
chemical plant cuckold
dark market of caged animals…
coalitions of the willing…

coalitions of telemarketers,
coalitions of wedding strippers,
airing of grievances
tractor pull aneurysms.

2.

new guards, counter martyrs,
counter counterrevolutionaries
curbside counter qipao epilepsy
mahjong social justice warriors
hand-washing laundry in shapes,
coldest water, slurping fetus soup
back back back alley
cigarette sonogram…

bureaus, ministry of smiling turtle shit
networks of ayis: poker face
pale face
voluntary tarot card confessions,
sperm shot parabolas,
Sichuan, malatang
planes to Phuket
coin operated engines
smiling tiger
selfie stick death duels,

a hostage and a crisis

a house and a car

down payments
to lost generations
down payments
pension funds
down payments
public defecation

dancing spastic
dancing on graves at the public square

3.

en…
100 kilometers an hour
building blocks: laodong
labor camps,
promises, Angkor Wat
promises, forty year plan
outbursts, sajiaos,
deepest sympathies
vinegar comb-over
teeth in public toilets
teeth in buried trains
bricks for the kangaroo
algorithmic iterating intelligence
Uncle Ganbei
Uncle Guizhou
Uncle Gansu!
one belt
shaven head depression,
young girls held at knife-point
babies burning in Hangzhou…

4.

ai-yah!
she paints her face white
wielding umbrellas like a terrorist
she paints her face white
stashing mink coats
flashing household registrations
she bites her tongue
metallic taste of blood and duck meat…

and the Audi,
he meditates on Cambodia,
gunshots and gonorrhea,
bar girls and Buddhas,
beer and guanxi…

she bites her tongue
her father’s hemorrhoids
her mother’s bunions
skyscrapers scraping haze, pencils,
rubbers and whiteouts
the symbolism of slanted roofs
the middle school girls in communal showers

she clenches her teeth
her slow-moving reckoning
her menstruating at the Gala
her red gown cameo
her Paris trip postponed
her wet bowel movements
her gym class in unison

AI – OH, LAOGONG!

Robocalls, robocops, facial recognition
Backslap gambling debts
Loansharking,
promised wife in infrared
Her infrastructures of suffering
Waltzing, caustic, the burning tires
vomiting salutes, public tantrums
Her elevated boots with pomp, tassels
Hassles, expired passports,
kicks to the groin
period painted couplets, calligraphy
dunce caps, iron rice bowl mafia,
carpet jackets screaming in horror
scratching hammers, scratching sickles
carpet jackets
mimicking chalkboards, fortune tellers at bus stops,
triangle hats, counterfeits,
Baidu toxic vegetable butt grease

ai-oh!

“No, we won’t go to your parents’ house this New Year’s”
“No, we can’t see her this New Year’s”

…. And I birthed your suckling pig

44 kilometers an hour

On ramp, on light, engine check light,
no yielding, no tolls
trolls
multi-level marketing
mandates of heaven,
mannequin fistfights
clotheslining bitches at banquets
minstrel shows on demand…

His knuckles turn yellow

red light horizons and xiao sans
Shanghai housing prices and
fucked up mufflers and brake pads
maxi-pads, exposed wiring
Xanax and smoke signals,
carrier pigeons in V formations
55 prisoners
in blue jumpsuits, burning alive
in the blackest of lighter factories …

FINGER PINCHING NIGHT SWEATS…
DOG SHIT DRUNK
KTV ED SHEERAN IMPOSTERS
DOG SHIT DRUNK
DOG FARTS
DOG MEATS
DOG FESTIVAL DOG WHITE DOG LEFT
DOG SQUEAMISH COUNTERFEIT PAINTINGS
DOG OF NOTHING…

“I HARE A DREAMS”

His knuckles turn orange
Disappearing into overcast sunsets
Paint chips, coughing walls, cigarette symphonies,
rice riot buffet line skirmishes, kung fu chicken
kung fu led poisoning
one hundred years of hungry escalators
gutter oil diarrhea canals and
Firecrackers of cow ass,
hongbao for the whore
his ballerina, brass knuckles and a bloody nose
taking her beating,
like a pedophile in prison

JIANGXI: VIVIAN AND TONYA
SOMA, SOOOOMA, SOOOOOOMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAA

Oh, LAOGONG,
those long lines and awkward stares, the VIP hospital cards
Chopstick funeral pyres, deleted and we chant moments
those crowded subways, unwashed masses pushing forth
their Famine pangs and fang fang halitosis,
flat noses, snorting, the frog like creatures…

Oh, LAOGONG!

88 kilometers an hour
Head on collisions with ghosts
Honking at swine
Bodies in the river
Hurling bottles at strangers,
Bodies with their addictions
mobile apps
slashing sprees impromptu
static cling silver
imaginary shopping malls…
oh, their first class faggot renderings of Van Gogh
oh, their suffocated toddlers in filthy bathwater…
GOING GOING GOING THE FUCK BACK TO HENAN
AI- OH,
their maids washing tea cups with toilet brushes

Oh, Laopao,
You Green Tea Bitch,
that toothless trucker we overtake
His meth dreams of California
His mansion in Vancouver
His millionaire schemes
His black children’s torrents
of basketball, tattoos, English education
the death penalty and mumble rap
registered drug users
NEVER BROKE AGAIN
Oh, Laopao…

Come to…
bucktooth ballerina grabbing for the wheel

Oh, SHUI GE,
the windshield’s cracked
Kamikaze, somersaults in green canals
Algae the rear view, triple axles and sirens
sewer smells, lumps of coal, lumps of ketamine,
four old uteruses, tarantula Louis CK-like handjobs
Feeble attempts at curing cancer…

Pao pao pao pao pao pao pao PAO!!!!!!!!!

MEI NU
her mediations contemplated solace

TCManpire,
his vulture dick endless administrative detentions

A NEW RED DAWN, A FRIENDLY LION

A NEVERENDING DREAM

"What Happens to Rejected Demos Sent to Record Companies?" by Newamba Flamingo

2004

Hamlet was a rosy-cheeked, slender, tall and handsome young man, nearing college graduation.

As a youngster he’d been interested in the performing arts, trying his hand at acting, singing, and rapping, but never had much success beyond community theater and school talent shows, eventually losing interest and giving up on it in his early teens.

Told he resembled a young Ashton Kutcher, a frat brother scored him some low-level modelling work for a local restaurant and clothing store and a gig as a dancing extra in the background of a Spanish language variety show, clapping his hands red and smiling and laughing on command, take after take.

Through this show he became chummy with a producer, a chunky 30-ish lady, who wore lots of make-up, and always called him “sweetie.”

She had a cousin, a VP at a record label, also a chunky 30-ish lady with ample make-up (perhaps tattooed on) and this lady had as well taken a liking to Hamlet.

She recruited Hamlet to do an internship at her record label, which had recently scored a major distribution deal following its spawning of a series of pop and hip hop stars.

Hamlet accepted the position, eager to soak up its perks, such as free entry to nightclub VIP sections, concerts, meeting famous people and getting free CDs and merch (some of which he could maybe sell on eBay).

His duties at the record label included the usual gopher tasks, fetching coffee, making xerox copies, answering phones.

The most exciting work he initially had was being posted to the front desk, filling in for the secretary.

There he’d not only answer calls, but register visitors, many of which were uninvited artists who’d show up to the front door of the label’s office and immediately begin singing, dancing, rapping, strumming a guitar at Hamlet or whomever was manning the front desk or happened to be in the lobby.

Such encounters required dispatching security, sometimes with the assistance of label staff, Hamlet too a couple times, literally dragging or pushing the aspiring artists into the street, guitar in hand, rapping, singing as the door slammed in his or her face.

They’d sometimes be in tears, confessing to having taken a bus for 10 hours, with no money for a return ticket.

But they’d always be told the same thing. Hire a manager and send us an official demo, registered mail.

Not every aspiring superstar showed up at the door or had a manager send their demo. Many demos were in fact mailed to the label, directly from the artists themselves, often crude home recordings, but sometimes high quality, professional looking CDs, tapes, and occasionally vinyl, accompanied by press kits and merch.

The label’s official policy, such as that of many large, successful record companies, was not to listen to any “unsolicited” demo, that is, one sent directly by an artist and not a reputable manager, lawyer, or industry insider.

However, the label’s top A&R department was always hungry for the next superstar who could emerge from nowhere, and, would in fact have any demo received via mail screened and any promising material forwarded to the head honchos for further review.

But screening these demos was no simple task. Thousands were received weekly. Huge piles stacking up in the corner of the low-level A&R execs’ offices.

Screening the demos was tedious, extremely so, sorting through the piles, hearing endless hours of things resembling Tourette’s syndrome sufferers, banshees, bathroom recordings, out of key singing, animal sounds, horrid wannabe rappers and boy bands, and so on.

Only maybe one of fifty demos were at all decent, only one of a hundred actually good.

After careful, painful screening, the demos were filtered into two final heaps.

One heap being the “promising” pile that’d be forwarded on to higher level A&R or label personnel. The other heap being the “pass” pile that’d be destroyed, either by shredder or smashed up with a blunt object before thrown into the garbage.

The reason for destroying the demos was simple. It was to avoid lawsuits, so that no artist could claim they sent their song to the record label and then a similar song comes out later that sounds the same.

If somehow that did happen, coincidentally or otherwise (this being the music business!), the record label wanted no proof of the demo being in its possession.

So here’s where Hamlet came in. The label execs had been quite pleased with him. He was a hard-working, punctual, and polite young man. But most of all, he was calm, patient. They never once saw him get riled up about anything.

Not the weekly intrusions of wannabe Jay Z(s) and Beyoncés bursting into the office, singing, dancing and rapping, or even the daily explosive, screaming, every so often physical, intra-office arguments between rival departments, or high decibel phone calls from outraged parents’ groups, pushy managers; nobody and nothing got under the kid’s skin...

Perhaps it was Hamlet’s upbringing, always watching zombie movies with his older sister, but never having any nightmares like his classmates would.

Or maybe it was seeing his parents in violent confrontations, his father once holding a knife to his mother’s neck in the kitchen, before Hamlet’s sister chased their father away, wildly swinging at him with a frying pan, Hamlet standing nearby, calmly watching, head tilted, as the drama ensued…

After his parents’ divorce, Hamlet was diagnosed as “depressed” due to his apathy about the divorce and lack of motivation in school. He’d been on Zoloft since his early teens.

Though he’d been addicted to violent video games, gangsta rap, death metal and horror movies, pretty much since he remembered, he never got into fights or disciplinary issues at school, not even when people teased him about his name. It never fazed him.

He was always remaining aloof, quiet, and maintained a B to C average, was a reserve on the high school basketball team, had a group of casual friends, a couple girlfriends, and later got into a state college.

He never became too close with anyone, however, perhaps because of his demeanor, being so emotionless.

Like one time he and classmates drove by a fallen motorcyclist, head split open, on the side of the road. Everyone gagged, a girl threw up out the window as they passed by slowly, rubbernecking. But Hamlet glanced at it and wasn’t affected in the least…

His only real tick was his bizarre hatred of the band Alice in Chains. He claimed that anytime he heard their music he’d have bad luck, and he was always storming out of the room or shutting off MTV or the radio if they were on.

(Although he actually liked their music he’d once confided to the goth girl sitting next to him in study hall.)

Aside from that, the only other time anyone saw Hamlet affected was when a serial rapist was loose in the neighborhood and had raped an 11-year-old girl, in the daytime, in a thicket of bushes only a couple blocks from Hamlet’s house.

Hamlet spent the next few days and nights, clutching a baseball bat, roaming his mom’s house, looking eagerly out his windows, at times sitting on the front porch, scowling, hoping for a meeting with the perp…

Due to his steely resolve, A&R staff figured he’d be the perfect person to take on the task of filtering the demos – and destroying the unwanted ones. Most interns and lower level staff dreaded doing so, but Hamlet took it on with no complaints, and was to be hired as full-time, paid staff after graduation.

Soon enough, each week, he was taking the rejected “pass” pile onto the balcony outside the A&R office and smashing them up with a sledgehammer. The press kits and paper materials he’d feed to the office document shredder.

One afternoon, Raya, a spunky college girl, newly arrived intern, who was always trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to make conversation with Hamlet, stopped by the balcony, slid open the glass door, smiled and asked him, half-jokingly, nervously giggling: “Doesn’t it bother you, smashing up all those demos? Literally destroying and crushing all those people’s hopes and dreams?”

Hamlet, resting the hammer on his shoulder as he readied up another pile, just shrugged.

She continued, her tone sobering, and she pointed a particular demo out: “Oh, I like totally remember her. That girl called here the other day, crying and freaking out, saying she’d like sent us her baby photos, along with her demos. She was all begging us to mail them back to her.”

Hamlet peered down for a second at the demo in question, a cute teenage Puerto Rican girl in a pink halter top and black miniskirt, sticking her tongue out on its cover.

“I remember that,” he said. “Pictures already been shredded. Lawsuits, you know…”

Then he adjusted his goggles and resumed bashing the demos, mostly CDs, and the crunching sounds they made as they split apart were quieter than Raya expected.

Seeing his stern, unflinching face as he took aim at the Puerto Rican girl’s CD, Raya forgot her smile, slowly backed away, and didn’t talk much to him afterwards.

A few years later, as file-sharing bit further and further into profits, the label went bankrupt.

Hamlet got a job in administration at the local school district and later went on to become a high school principal.