Dogboy's Xombytes

The smell of death still lingered; it clung upon the walls, as if its sickly dew had now possessed the building's soul in hopes of gaining title to some ecto-plasmic squatter's right. The mattress lay still unmolested, since the coroner's “ghouls” heaved Anton Zarkov's rotting, week-old corpse away.

As the suns reflection off the unmolested snow greets early shoppers eyes along the avenue, a battered city snow plow scrapes the concrete, leaving in its wake the familiar pockmarked street which is Devon.

During a March 23, 2008 Chicago Blackhawk home game, Kelsey Conway sits in the upper deck of the United Center with her father and three sisters. It is Kelsey's 10th birthday, and this game was her birthday wish. Kelsey's three sisters, 12 year-old-twins Mandy and Emily, and Coleen the oldest at 14, all with long blonde hair resembling a cheer-leading squad, are dressed in their own white Blackhawk jerseys, complete with their heroes' names and numbers on the back.

It's been 5 months since the state's new smoking ban has been in effect in Illinois. Stale beer and cheap cologne now fill the porous woodwork of taverns once subjected to the sickly, stagnant dew of nicotine clouds, and domineering presence of the tobacco-tainted aura of a day whose time has past. One might be compelled to ask, is this the new order of the day? Or is it just the calm before the storm?

As the December sun sets upon the Gulf of Mexico, the white sands of Clearwater Beach take on a pinkish hue at the Tiki-bar of the Beach Resort Hotel. The northbound traffic on the Sand Key bridge, which spans the inter coastal harbor, slows to a snails pace as drivers fend off piercing rays of sun, and squint to cut it's blinding glare. The gulf waves along the empty beach advance, and then retreat, as gulls and egrets rush to pounce on it's expectorate. A gust of wind sprays mists of salty air upon my lips as I eye the carcass of a sea bass washed up along the shore, I spit, then smile and think... at least I'm not in jail.