The following is a true excerpt of the life of a great man and close personal friend of mine.
It was a dark and stormy night. A woman was in the process of a long and painful labor in a hospital that was probably run down and crappy. Or maybe it was at home. Look, I don’t know everything about this dude’s life, just, like, I’m trying to say he’s poor, ok? Anyway, his mom was enjoying the tail end of what I can only assume was a six month pregnancy following a solid one month of marriage. So, there she was, squatting in the rain, with only a cardboard box as shelter. Where was the dad? Drunk, probably.
Some hours later, the world was a worse place. A baby, weighing 15 pounds, most of it in hair, slithered out of the greasy afterbirth. That was the day my friend, who we’ll call Fartman for the sake of anonymity, graced this hellhole we call Earth. Before you chastise my vulgarity or immaturity, know that it is a legitimate nickname of his. For clarification, it’s pronounced Fart-min, not Fart-man. Y’know, like how a country would be called Ice-lind, not Ice-land.
Little baby Fartman, despite being super poor, grew up with some semblance of happiness. His parents would come to have a second son, which we’ll refer to as Keegan. I respect anonymity, and would never publicly slander or libel, just for future reference. As Fartman grew older and attended grade school, he found he was an intelligent, satisfied lad. Despite the lifestyle and intellect of his younger brother, Fartman had hope. However, this could not continue for long.
Fartman was never meant to remain content, the universe would not have it. An interloper was thrown into the mix. A Boy by the same censored first name. A Boy who would eventually come to take over that first name in each of Fartman’s friend groups. This Boy, like a vampire, sucked the vim from Fartman’s very core. A Boy with a plan for our young Fartman. A plan that includes space. Fartman was tricked, betrayed by this new boy who claimed to be a friend. Worse than this betrayal, even, was the blindness that came alongside it. To this day, Fartman’s vision remains obfuscated, blocked by the charisma of the Boy. But that’s all exposition, a small backstory for our plucky hero.
It was around eighth grade year, possibly a year before or after, that our unfortunate protagonist was gifted his birthright. Gifted is perhaps to be seen in an ironic light, as lycanthropic family trees often are. Yes, he was a werewolf, a creature of the night. It began simply enough, as is common, with an interest in wolves. This is not an uncommon trait, mind you, even in the world of the natural. The trait itself is not under trial here, no, not so much as the extent of the trait. This dude loved wolves, like he super loved wolves. If you were to go onto his Facebook, wolves would probably be his only liked page, that’s just how goddamn hard he loved wolves.
Following the wolf love came the moon obsession. If you were to ask this dude what phase of the moon it was going to be that night, he would tell you. Then he’d tell you when the last and next full moons were. Then he’d probably tell you about the next super moon and how he plans on spending six consecutive hours staring at it. Fartman went mad bonkers for that sky cheese. The phases of the month would affect what little personality he had. During new moons, he found himself depressed with a perpetual longing. Conversely, the closer the moon got to full, the more uppity and restless Mr. Fartman seemed to become. Fartman’s puberty was nearing its completion, with the times of the month changing his hormones and attitude like he was a woman or something. Gross.
The final nail in the coffin, which maybe would be a better idiom if we were talking about vampires, but we’re not so shut up, came one fateful night deep in the summer of 2010. This excerpt has been adapted into third person following a heartbreaking confession from the man himself.
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Young master Fartman had just snuck out of his room onto the driveway, despite being completely afraid of it. Being half-dog in temperament, Fartman was naturally afraid of cars, up to and including wheels, car horns, and driveways. To this very day he still doesn’t know how to drive one. He lied down on the ground and let the moonlight engulf him. He couldn’t help but think how unfair it was that his parents wouldn’t let him out of the house this late simply because of how badly his brother Keegan acted. His parents would always give them the exact same short leash, no matter how well Fartman behaved.
As he reflected upon this truth, his naturally pensive temper turned sour. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t! Pensiveness turned to contempt. Contempt turned to anger. Anger turned to fury. And fury, as we all know too well, begets regret. Fartman’s body convulsed on the sidewalk, like an epileptic in a washing machine. Hair sprouted from places it usually didn’t. I mean places like his back and neck, not his balls. Those were like a jungle already. His teeth sharpened into fangs. Werewolf fangs, not vampire fangs, just to clarify. His hands formed paws and his nails sharpened into claws. His knees turned backward like how dog knees are and it probably hurt a lot. If he were circumcised, which he wasn’t, that would probably have been reversed, too. His new, repulsive form completed, he stood on two hobbled legs and howled a bloodcurdling wail at the moon, then licked his chops.
The next morning, the light of daybreak brought Fartman to consciousness. He was lying naked on his own lawn, but this time it was different from usual. He had no recollection about how he had gotten there. He noticed his hands were coated in two thick layers of blood, both fresh and dried. It was only now that he noticed the mass that laid next to him. The very sight caused him to retch up his midnight meal. Chunks of meat and gristle poured from Fartman’s mouth onto the yard. He gingerly reached out his hand and rolled the hunk of man onto what was left of his back. He instantly recognized the face. It was his next door neighbor. He was a survivalist freak who rarely left the house, only coming out to poop in his own lawn. Fartman realized he must have caught his neighbor mid-shit and attacked. It was then that a scream from indoors broke Fartman’s train of thought.
Fartman’s mother ran outside, yelling for him to come inside. That something was wrong with Keegan. Fartman’s now empty stomach churned with dread. Fartman ran inside and went straight to the bathroom. He cleaned his battered and bloodied body and took a long look into the mirror. What stared back he no longer recognized. Fartman let out a gurgling howl of anger then punched the mirror with hate and disgust. Then he washed his hands again because he was acting stupid and got them bloody. Again.
Now calmed and draped in a towel, Fartman climbed the staircase and walked down the hall to his brother’s door. The door was mostly open and he could see his own mother crying, clutching Keegan. In a corner, his father Talon was slowly shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe the sight staring him in the face, screaming at his eyeballs. Keegan was being propped up in his bed, stained red. He was alive, but barely. Someone, something had snuck into his room at night and had broken all of his fingers.
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After this horrific event of somehow sneaking into his brother’s room, despite having dog hands with no thumbs, Fartman turned a new leaf. He scheduled to have himself neutered, like a bad dog, for the greater good. His mother, having been a werewolf for several years, had her own uterus carved out like a pumpkin after Keegan’s birth for the same purpose. Luckily, the only supernatural abilities Keegan had was an aversion to light and strange attraction to anime characters. He told all of his friends that he needed surgery for an inflamed testicle, but one boy, the Boy, saw through his lie. The Boy was no ordinary child, but a seed of the devil, send with the one and only intent of influencing Fartman’s miserable lie. Using the fine art of seduction, the Boy convinced our hero to call off the neutering. The Boy had something that Fartman couldn’t resist. Not a thing, but a who. A Girl, with whom Fartman became immediately infatuated.
From this event, two main lasting effects can be observed. One is a sexual maturity in the mind of Fartman. As he grew, he realized he was a class-A furry. Not that I’ saying anything is particularly wrong with that, just that he totally is one. Along with this realization came one of opposite personal feeling. He suffered from an extreme aversion to even the thought of anal sex, claiming the act of “poopdicking” as he called it was immoral and Satanic. The second notable change, funnily enough, is a sexual immaturity of the mind. He became obsessed with this Girl, wanted no one but her. Well, to be honest there was a time when he had the hots for my older sister, but we don’t like to talk about that. But other than that, no one. He had never even had a kiss and might die that way. This Girl pervaded his soul, his very being. Exactly as she was designed to do. The Boy had a specific life plan for Fartman, and he would be damned if he didn’t use everything in his arsenal to try to control him. No, seriously, he would literally be damned if that happened, being from Hell and all.
So finally we reach modern day, or more specifically, 2014. Fartman as well as the Boy are now experiencing their college lives. Funnily enough, they both attend the same university. Odd how that happens, isn’t it? Fartman, when not distracted by the Girl, spends most of his time studying to become an astronaut. After all, where in the rulebook does it say a dog can’t be an astronaut? Luckily enough, no more killings have been officially proven, though there was a mysterious case of a dead homeless man that just so happened to be found the night after Fartman slept on a park bench, after a failed attempt to seduce the Girl. The Boy remains ever vigilant, distracting Fartman with a relationship that cannot be, and pushing him ever closer to a career as a cosmonaut. But why? What would happen to the world if a werewolf went into space, with the moon clearly visible at all times? God help us all…
-William Best, Contributor