Sometimes Its easier to be scared then to face your fear. Just like sometimes its easier to give up then to try. But in the words of our Mike Vahsen (but not exactly) we could have everything we want if the thought of that didn't scare the shit out of us.

This is a peice of work from a brand new artist Jennie that has just contacted me. I makes me happy to see new people standing around the vent. She writes beautiful stories and has much to say so check her out at http://storiesonthefly.tumblr.com/ and enjoy-

To Be Eaten By A Dinosaur

By Jennie Cano



Carl’s insomnia was triggered again after a visit to the museum of natural history. Despite the triceratops being a vegetarian, he took one look at the bones of one and all those old fears came flooding back. Is a dinosaur going to eat me in my sleep tonight? he wondered.
When Carl was seven, his father left home to serve as doctor for an archaeological team on some obscure island off the coast of Africa. He never returned. Feeling that he was too young to handle the truth- that his father had fallen in love with an anthropologist- his mother told little Carl that daddy decided to spend his life feeding starving dinosaurs. It was quite the heroic effort! Sacrificing his life and everyone he loved to make sure dinosaurs didn’t end up extinct for good. This story made Carl quite popular on the playground for a while. However, after not receiving a letter from his father for over a year, Carl and his friends speculated that something bad must have happened. He must have been eaten by a dinosaur.
At the time of the museum visit, Carl was fifteen years old. Eight years had passed since the disappearance of his father. Carl watched all of his friends follow in their father’s footsteps. Thomas, who already owned a flask with his name inscribed on it, was turning into a lush just like his dad. In fact, the flask was a gift from his dad on Thomas’s twelfth birthday. Ramon was writing a book on the hygienic habits of poodles similar to his father who published three volumes on the purpose of ear hair in Angora cats. I’m going to end up like my dad too, Carl thought. I am going to be eaten by a dinosaur.
“You do know that dinosaurs are extinct,” the school counselor, Mrs. Raven, told him from behind her desk.
“So?” Carl said, nervously looking out the window. “Do you mind if I draw the blinds? You know, in case one passes and sees me..”
“Did you hear what I said?” Mrs. Raven asked.
“Your optimism is really… sweet,” Carl replied, turning the wand and watching the slits of light disappear on the window.
“Have you been sleeping, son?”
“God, no.” He returned to his seat. He opened his mouth to say more, but a loud thump startled him from overhead. “Oh God…”
“Sorry. Mr. Pearl has his class do jumping jacks before exams..” Mrs. Raven watched Carl recoil in the chair and tremble. “Carl, are you okay?” She received no response so she continued. “You know, the best way to get rid of a fear is to confront it.”
“You want me to confront a dinosaur? Are you out of your mind???” he screeched.
“Well, like I said, dinosaurs are extinct, so you can’t really confront one but they have this electronic exhibit down at the zoo and…”
The thumping continued overhead until Carl was sure he would have an aneurysm. Unable to stand it, he leaped from his chair and darted out the door. He ran from school all the way home until he was safely in bed and curled in a ball under his bed sheets.
“Confront your fears,” Mrs. Raven had said. This statement spun around and around in Carl’s head until before he knew it, he was in the kitchen asking his mother if he could visit that same obscure island in Africa where his father went.
“Sure,” his mother said. “But your father isn’t there anymore.”
“But that’s where the dinosaurs are, right?”
“Yes,” she replied, thinking he meant dinosaur bones.
“Wait.. do you know where dad is?”
“I don’t.”
So Carl purchased a plane ticket using his mother’s credit card and flew to the coast of Africa. Once there, he traveled by boat to the obscure dinosaur island, the island being obscure- not the alleged dinosaurs. Carl stepped off the boat and took a look around. Disappointment set in quickly. There were tall trees, but there were no brachiosauruses beneath them nibbling on leaves. A group of scientists and other intellectuals had set up camp in the sand but there were no velociraptors viciously encircling them. What kind of wimpy dinosaur island was this? he wondered. Maybe I have to go further inland.
Carl spent a day getting lost in the jungle until he finally stumbled across a small village full of huts. There he met a tribe of half-naked Africans. They warmed to him quickly and within hours he was sitting around a fire in a loin cloth watching the tribes-people dance. Little did Carl know, he was being watched through the doorway of one of the huts.
To attract him, Simone decided to wear a headpiece made from the jaw of a spinosaurus along with a mask made of shell to add an air of mystery. As she shook her hips before him, Carl stared at the humongous crocodile-like skull atop her head. He was both horrified and aroused.
“Who are you?” he stuttered.
“I am anthropologist from France. I am Simone.”
The fire blazed behind her. She peeled off her mask, revealing the only pair of eyes Carl had ever wanted to know. He fell in love immediately and subsequently fell over and puked until he passed out from exhaustion. It was the most sleep he’d gotten in over a month.
He awoke the next day in the medicine hut. An old white dude that looked eerily like Carl was mixing herbs in a clay bowl.
“You okay, son?” he asked.
“No,” Carl grumbled. “I fell in love last night. It nearly killed me. I’d rather get eaten by a dinosaur.”
The old man laughed. “You and me both, kid.”

Art By James Corbett