Besides eating, the thing he did most consistently and with the most fervor was dread.

To the point of tedium, he would remind people that he had once met William McKinley – as if that, and not the family he was raising, was his life’s greatest accomplishment.

Here, at least, he was safe from being murdered by the government.  He could, of course, be murdered by one of the ratlike autochthons of the planet, but that was not very likely.

Although dead and in cryonic suspension, Herb Asher was having his own problems.

One singular story of Diderot’s heedlessness about himself has often been told before, but we shall be none the worse in an egoistic world for hearing it told again. There came to him one morning a young man, bringing a manuscript in his hand. He begged Diderot to do him the favour of reading it, and to make any remarks he might think useful on the margin. Diderot found it to be a bitter satire upon his own person and writings. On the young man’s return, Diderot asked him his grounds for making such an attack. “I am without bread,” the satirist answered, “and I hoped you might perhaps give me a few crowns not to print it.” Diderot at once forgot everything in pity for the starving scribbler. “I will tell you a way of making more than that by it. The brother of the Duke of Orleans is one of the pious, and he hates me. Dedicate your satire to him, get it bound with his arms on the cover; take it to him some fine morning, and you will certainly get assistance from him.” “But I don’t know the prince, and the dedicatory epistle embarrasses me.” “Sit down,” said Diderot, “and I will write one for you.” The dedication was written, the author carried it to the prince, and received a handsome fee.

(From Diderot and the Encyclopaedists by John Morley)

Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, floating on a scented breeze.

An elderly bearded man, an exceedingly hairy old man, struggled with two popeyed arachnids who sought, apparently, to decapitate him.  “Get your fucking mandibles off me!” the elderly man shouted, flailing about.

Since I am at my parents’ house I am once again participating in their lengthy project of cleaning out the many boxes of mixed-up papers in their basement, and once again I found some of my old writing from when I was a kid

Including a “timeline” I wrote when I was 12 attempting to fix the continuity of a series of stories I was writing that I hadn’t planned out well enough

And a story with this killer opening:

You know all those monsters?  That your parents said would come and get you if you misbehaved?

ZorgBorgs, cantrips, fefofums, Goblins, Gremlos, and cracklepuss?  Well, they’re all true.

Sample of 10-year-old Rob’s descriptive prose stylings:

There were Zorgborgs everywhere.  They were terrifying, with scaled skin like something out of a video game; claws like huge slicing blades.

The heroes of the ZorgBorg story explore a mysterious building:

They passed by a room where they could hear one of Bach’s fugue’s playing, one where there were over 80 dogs, and one where there were a bunch of people saying “Bill the conqueror forever”!