Xylene, Toluene, Urethane

 He sat across from her in the predawn darkness watching her drawing slender girls.

"Why do you like drawing girls?" he asked her.

"I have this idea," she said, her short eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "I want to draw myself, but I think I'm not good enough. I'm missing something. I need to practice more, so I draw these girls, because I am a girl, also."

"What are you missing?" he asked. "What do you need to practice?"

"Well," she said, putting down her pen, "see, there's this certain awareness I have of this true form of self." She looked up from her drawing, her eyes dark as ink. "I mean myself and it is not something that I could bear to live with daily, and although I am not afraid of being vulnerable to anything," she paused, fiddling with the port in her chest, "I am most afraid of someone other than myself learning my purer form of self because then I am afraid that they would be able to cripple my identity."

He nodded, settling back on the couch. Watching her made his heart hurt.

"Anyway," she continued, "I need more practice. I guess mostly with the colors. The colors aren't right."

Catharanthus Roseus

Abbey looked at herself in the hospital mirror and frowned. "Why do I lose all the hair on my head, but it still grows so thick on my legs?"

"At least you still have your eyebrows," her sister teased.

"For now," Abbey sighed. "Did you see the girl that was in my last room?"

Kat walked to were Abbey was sitting and rubbed her palm over her sister's smooth pate. "Today's the last day, then we get to go."

"You get to go," Abbey laughed darkly. "I'll be back in two days for another round of chemo before the surgery."

"And then you'll be done, and then we can go home," Kat added, ignoring Abbey's pessimism.

"No," Abbey said, looking into her own reflection. "Sometimes, I feel like it's too depressing to talk about all that. It's too much to talk about going home, about things being over, whatever."

Kat opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped herself. The two sisters shared a long silence, each lost in their own thoughts. At last, Kat bent down and kissed her older sister softly on the lips. "I love you," she told her.

"I love you, also," Abbey said, turning her head to bury her face in her sister's long black hair.

Strawberries

Tomo peeked over the low hedge of rosemary that divided the garden, screwing up his eyes as he searched for Miya among the cabbages and radish tops. She was there, somewhere, he was sure of it.

"Miya," he whispered into the garden. "Where are you?"

A plump bee buzzed past Tomo's nose, pollen falling from its fuzzy body like pixie dust, and Tomo sneezed.

"Shhhhhh!" Miya hissed from under the hedge. "You'll wake them!"

Tomo went to his hands and knees and scrambled under the hedge with Miya. "I was looking for you," he said, "why didn't you answer me?"

Miya pursed her pink lips and scowled at Tomo. "Shush!" she told him, her voice soft as rose petals.

"Why?" Tomo asked, annoyed with his friend.

Miya gestured silently toward a smallish bed near the hedge where dozens of tiny, ruby red strawberries lay in the warm sun. "Strawberries sleep all day long," she whispered.

2022

I took some time away from writing in 2021 and most of 2020. I think I'm back now and I'll be posting more or less daily, though we'll see how long that lasts. Here's to a healthy, prosperous year in 2022.

Katsu

I’m sitting in Daddy’s lap. We’re in the front seat of a stolen car, parked in the lot of a rundown Hawaiian fast food place about a mile from the ocean. It’s been just us for the past thirty-six hours, since the attack on the compound where my handlers had kept me locked up for as long as I can remember. For most of the last thirty-six hours, Daddy and I have been on the run, bouncing from safe house to safe house, always just one step ahead of what feels like a never ending stream of assassins hell bent on removing my blackened soul from my genetically engineered little body.

This is the first chance we’ve had to rest since the attack. Neither of us has slept. I’m fucking exhausted, but Daddy doesn’t appear to feel the strain of all the running and killing. He doesn’t seem tired, but neither does he seem at ease. I’m everything to him, he’s told me this a hundred million times before, but it wasn’t until just a few hours ago that this abstract concept was able to finally form itself into something that made sense to me. I really am everything to him. The things I’ve seen him do in the last day or so have been… disturbingly intense. I’ve never known anyone capable of such violence, not even myself - and I’m pretty fucking hardcore.

In some ways, this knowledge, this reality that I mean so much to another human - or whatever we are - is a little intimidating. I know that I’m valuable to the government, and I know that 7713 is fond of using me as a fuck doll, but this thing with Daddy is different. There’s no judgement, there’s no expectation. It’s just me and him. There’s nothing else in all the universe. I mean everything to him. I am everything to him. It’s intimidating, but it’s also amazing. I’ve never been as happy as I am right now at this very moment as we trace the edge of oblivion together.

I take a bite of katsu chicken and remove the bandage from Daddy’s eye. The cloth is completely soaked through with blood.

“Well,” I say to him, examining the gory hole where his eye was earlier in the day, “it looks pretty fucked up. It’s still bleeding. And that was the only pair of panties that I had.” I hold up the blood soaked rag that was once my favorite lingerie. As I look at his face, I can feel his cock throbbing against my sex, like there’s a python trying to burst through the fabric of his pants. I feel my cheeks flush and turn my eyes down so that I don’t have to look him in the eye, but when I look down I see the wet spot I’ve left on Daddy’s clothes and I just blush even harder.

“Why isn’t it healing,” I mumble, trying to change the subject away from how badly I want him to fuck me.

"It takes a lot to heal up," he says. "I haven’t slept and I haven’t been eating. My body is having a harder time fixing up all the holes that they’ve been putting in me." I can feel his eye on me, caressing my skin with his desire. It feels so good I want to scream. 

I look into Daddy’s face and run my fingertips over his stubbly, scarred chin. The moment our skin makes contact, I’m suddenly riding on top of that amazing feeling that I get whenever we touch. I press my nails into his flesh and brush my thumb over his lips. It’s like someone has turned the volume knob on life up a notch. An electric serpent slithers out of the bottom of my skull, twisting itself around my spine and winding its way down into the hot space in between my legs. I give a shiver, leaning in toward Daddy’s face. The heat of his breath washes over me, making my head feel light, as if I’ve taken a hit of pure oxygen. My tenuous grip on reality is deteriorating. The temptation to just give in, to let it carry me away like a pebble in a tsunami, is so strong. I know in my heart that I’ll never be able to resist it. I start to let go.

In the moment when I’m about to give in, Daddy catches me and pulls me back from the edge. "Ride it," he tells me. "Don’t give in, don’t let it take you away. Control it, direct it and it will come back ten times as strong."

I bite my lip and do as he tells me. We’ve been working on this since the attack, mostly out of necessity. We’ve been in such close contact, we’re touching almost constantly. It’s incredibly hard to fight killer android assassins when I’m having a mental orgasm (which is almost always tied to an inconveniently strong physical one). Daddy’s instructions are simple, and I’m able to follow them - sometimes. Other times, I just want to give in. I want to be carried away. I want to die in his arms. I just want to melt into his skin, soak into his body, and be a part of him.

This is the first time that I’ve had the freedom to experiment with controlling the rush that comes whenever we touch while not dodging a hail of bullets or narrowly escaping some sort of exploding projectile. I push my fingers into the wild tangle of ecstasy that is flowing all around us. The blue-white surge tickles my fingertips and buzzes in my palms, up my forearms and into my breasts so that it feels like my tits are being licked by a god made of carbonated electricity. I straddle this thing, this primal delirious thing, and my body lights up like my veins are filled with neon. I let myself sink into the flow, let myself become a part of it so that I’m not being carried by it, but I am it.

My lips are pressed against Daddy’s. His hands are on me, all over me, hot and wonderful. My nails are ripping into his shoulders, his teeth are biting and teasing my nipples. The world has exploded into a white hot nothingness with us at the center of everything, a singularity made up of all things and all time. I cry out in pain as he enters me, then shudder uncontrollably as he begins fucking me. My body goes limp as I come, but Daddy doesn’t stop. I bury my face in his chest, my fists pressed against his body, dying over and over until I’m convinced that I’ll never ever wake up from this dream. Just then, when I’ve accepted my new life in a heaven I never believed existed, I feel Daddy thrust into me and explode.

When my vision clears, I look up to see Daddy looking at my face, his one-eyed expression soft and warm. Pookie, he whispers, caressing my hair.

“Daddy,” I mutter, pushing myself upright. My brain feels fuzzy. My hands are hot. My whole body is hot. But my hands are hot with a wet heat. 

“Oh my fuck,” I scream. I jerk my arms back, ripping the arm-length blades from Daddy’s torso. Blood gushes from the wounds, spurting out across my naked body. “Oh fuck,” I stammer. I must have lost control in the heat of the moment. That’s never happened before. I didn’t even know it could happen. “I’m sorry, oh, Daddy! I’m sorry. I… I didn’t… oh no, are you…?”

"I’m fine," he laughs unconvincingly. "But I’m losing a lot of blood. I need to sleep. Maybe something to eat. I'll just take a short nap."

“Food, ok, I can get you food,” I proclaim, though I really have no idea how I’d do that.

No, it’s fine. Just put those things away and let me sleep, he tells me.

I take a deep breath to calm my mind and the blades retract. I feel a mix of embarrassment and horror. I can’t believe I stabbed him during sex. My mind skitters down a rabbit hole and I shiver with horror as I imagine this happening while I’m with 7713. He can’t heal up like Daddy. He would die. 

I turn my attention back to Daddy, eying the wounds on his body. “I don’t know,” I say futilely. Aside from the gaping holes that I put in him, his eye still looks bad and he’s peppered with half-healed bullet holes.

"I’m fine," he tells me again, but the more he says it, the more worried it makes me. I kiss his lips, but he doesn’t kiss me back.

“Daddy?” I slap his face, but he doesn’t respond. “Daddy? 835! Wake up!” I’m suddenly choked with fear. “Oh, Daddy! Don’t do this, wake up! You need to stay awake!” I jam my fingers against his neck and find a slow pulse. “For fuck’s sake,” I swear, climbing from Daddy’s lap. As I do so, Daddy’s seed dribbles down the inside of my thighs in a thick, sticky mess. I can’t help but feel a pang of regret that it isn’t inside me anymore, as if a really beautiful moment has come and gone. I wonder drearily if we’ll ever have another moment like this again.

Ghosts

Mila narrowed her eyes and glared across the table. "She's a baby," she said. "She's only three years old."

"I'm not!" Chloe whined. "I'm ten years old! I'm ten!"

Mila grinned sardonically, her white teeth shining. "She's a baby," she said at last.

Chloe grimaced but Mila didn't notice. She reached across the low table and snatched a small white ghost from the air, then popped it into her mouth and rolled her eyes. "She's only three," she crooned. "She's a tiny baby, I can't even understand what she's saying."

Chloe reached for a ghost but the tiny spirit wriggled between her fingers and flitted away. Mila picked another ghost from the air, effortlessly, and pushed it into her mouth, staring at Chloe as she chewed. "Baby," she muttered around a mouthful of ghosts. 

New Year 2021

 Jaime woke with a start, sweat beading on her forehead. She looked out into the darkness and screwed up her eyes as she tried to remember the dream that had woken her up. After a moment, she let her head fall back down to her pillow, then fumbled under the covers until she found her phone, hidden deep in the folds of her sheets. She squinted at the glowing screen as she held it up to her face.

January 1, 2021

2:45 AM

She dropped her phone as she felt herself teetering on the edge of sleep. "What a weird dream," she whispered to herself. "It's like a whole year passed by..." The words tumbled from her mouth slowly, falling into her pillow and then sinking away forever. After a moment, she was asleep again.

New Year 2019

"Good New Year, Brother," Camillus said as he entered the room. "May the blessings of the One True God be upon you this glorious year, the year of our Lord and Savior J. Blackshear, two thousand and nineteen."

"Good New Year," Cato replied turning from the window to greet his young friend.

"What's the matter?" Camillus asked, eyeing Cato. "You don't seem very happy for the New Year."

"I'm fine," Cato lied. "It's just early, that's all."

Camillus walked across the room to where Cato was sitting at a small window that looked out into the courtyard where other monks were beginning to gather for their morning rituals.

"Everyone's getting ready," Camillus said, nudging Cato. "Let's go out to the courtyard. I don't want to start the New Year off by being late to the first prayer of the day."

"I'll be out soon," Cato said. "You can go on without me."

"What's on your mind, Brother?" Camillus asked. "I can tell that something is weighing on your thoughts."

"It's nothing," Cato said, slouching in his chair.

"Come on," Camillus proded. "Just tell me."

Cato gave the young monk a wary glance and then let out a long sigh. "It's just... it's just that I've been thinking," he said.

"About what?" Camillus asked.
"About a lot of things," Cato said. "I mean... like the New Year, for example, and the morning rituals, and the prayers, and everything."

"It's good to think about these things, Brother," Camillus said. "It's good to think about the One True God and it's good to think about our Lord and Savior J. Blackshear. Thinking about God brings you closer to God."

"I don't feel that way," Cato said. "Like when I think about J. Blackshear, I can't help but feel this odd skepticism rising up inside me. I mean, like can all the stories about him really be true? Did he even ever really exist? He was born more than two thousand years ago. How can we be sure of anything that happened that long ago?"

"Of course he existed," Camillus scoffed. "If J. Blackshear wasn't real, then how has the Word of God been passed down through the ages? J. Blackshear is the Flesh of God, and his writings are the Word of God. If they weren't, then God wouldn't have let them spread so far and wide."

"Yeah, I get your point," Cato said, "but don't you remember what we learned last week from Brother Julius? The writings attributed to J. Blackshear weren't even put into a collection until hundreds of years after he died. How do we even know that these writings are actually his? How do we know these are his words? And then I was reading something the other night and it was about other writings that some historians think may have been written by J. Blackshear... and these writings are... well, they're vulgar. There is sex, violence, satire, and even blasphemy." He paused for a moment to catch his breath. "What I'm trying to say is, what if J. Blackshear was just some guy, like just some writer... maybe not even a particularly good writer, but then over time writings and ideas that weren't his got attributed to him and then it just sort of took on a life of its own and now, two thousand and nineteen years later, we're talking about this guy who was just a normal guy as if he's some sort of holy being."

Camillus stood staring at Cato, his mouth hanging wide open, his eyes unblinking.

"I mean, it could be true right?" Cato asked. "Two thousand years is a really long time. Who knows, maybe this has even happened before, you know? Like maybe there have been other people in the past and they were just normal people, maybe not even very godly people, or maybe they were just having delusions of grandeur, but then as time passed this whole cult grew up around them and then they end up being worshipped like a god, but they're just a normal person."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," Camillus said, his voice a raspy whisper. "How could you even think this?"

"It's just a thought," Cato said. "I mean, I don't know, it's just that some of the things in the Good Book are so hard to believe. It's like, if all that stuff really used to happen, then why doesn't it still happen? You know what I'm talking about, right? Like all the miracles and stuff. Why don't we still have miracles? Like why doesn't J. Blackshear appear to us and do miracles and stuff?"

"I see miracles every day!" Camillus snapped. "You would see them too, if you weren't so busy saying all these horrible things!"

"When have you seen a miracle?" Cato asked, his eyes lighting up.

"Well, yesterday," Camillus replied. "I went to the Fumart with Brother Fred and there was a parking space right in the front row. It was a miracle."

"Oh," Cato said, his mouth turning to a frown. "That's not exactly a miracle."

"It was!" Camillus shouted. "It was a miracle! It was a blessing from J. Blackshear. You just don't see it because your soul has been tainted by these untruisms." He glared at Cato for a few tense moments. "Anyway, I don't want to be late for the morning prayer. I'm leaving now. I'll pray to J. Blackshear to watch over your misguided soul and bring you back to the Light."

Holiday Freebies

During November and December, you'll be able to get free copies of Crump (11/12-11/16), Crump Too (11/26-11/30), and Psalms of the Apocalypse (12/22-12/26) on Amazon Kindle.

Each of these books will only be free for the five-day window listed by each title above, so make sure you get in there and get your copies during those short windows or else you're out of luck.

Once you get your copies, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW. 

Crump Freebies

A couple of announcements:

FIRST, Crump, the lowest-rated, and most hated thing that I've ever written is FREE on Amazon Kindle through 8/17. Get a copy today!

SECOND, Crump 2 will be out soon! In fact, you can PRE-ORDER the next installment of Crump now. But while you're waiting for the epic follow-up to come out, get your ass on Amazon and get a FREE copy of the first book!

FINALLY, if you want some free Crump stickers (highly collectible), check out the freebies page.

White Collar

I've really been wanting to put out a science fiction graphic novel, but I've got too much on my plate already. As a compromise, I'm going to start publishing infrequent workplace comic strips.

Space Force

Donald Spacewalker maneuvered his space fighter alongside the massive capital ship USS Trump, the fastest, strongest, hugest ship in the entire US Space Force. Donald was part of an elite group of space fighter pilots tasked with protecting the space realm from attack from the Dems, an evil band of space losers headed by the whacko nut job Nan-si Pulossi. The pirates were a constant headache to the Space Force, harassing the mission of the fifth branch with annoying, yet ultimately impotent attacks.

But the true enemy of the Space Force was the Klinton Intergalactic Initiative, a deep state conglomerate that wanted nothing more than to bring down the Axis of Freedom that Donald had personally assembled from the greatest powers on the planet. He chuckled to himself as he thought about his diplomatic prowess. Not only was he the greatest space fighter pilot in the history of the Space Force, but he was also the most accomplished diplomat the world had ever known. Thanks to Donald, the US had joined forces with North Korea and Russia, put some sick burns on the failing European Union, and created a lasting peace that benefited the entire solar system.

"Donald!" came a frantic voice over his space communicator, breaking his nostalgic revelry. "Donald, come in! It's an emergency that only you can solve with your great brain and amazing skills!"

"I'm here," Donald replied. "What's up?"

"We've just intercepted some Klinton emails," the voice said over the space communicator.

"Emails?" Donald spat. "Looks like she's up to it again. Won't that nasty woman ever learn her lesson?"

"I've space-tweeted everything at you," the voice told him. "Godspeed you Donald Spacewalker!"

Tweets flashed across Donald's space console. It was worse than he thought. Those damnable Klintons! He looked at his console where he had taped up a holographic space photo of the beautiful Princess Ivanka. "This one's for you, you smoking hot piece of ass," he said, winking at the photo.

Without another thought, he punched the throttle and his space fighter zipped around the USS Trump, twirling in a beautiful display of ultimate spacemanship. As he came around the big part of the ship where there were a lot of guns and stuff, he saw them: a small band of weak and pathetic Klinton space fighters. Donald shot straight into the cluster of fighters with the sort of bravado and skill that no other human being could ever hope to match. The other space fighters scattered as he fired his space guns - PEW PEW PEW -- PEW PEW PEW!

The Klinton space fighters exploded all around Donald, but they fought desperately to take him down. His space fighter moved like a lion, or like a space tiger or something, cutting through the weak, sad Klinton space fighters. After a few punishing moments, the Klinton space fighters gave up and started to run, but Donald wasn't going to let them off that easy. He gave chase, easily catching them because his space fighter was the fastest and most best space fighter ever. He shot them down, one after the other, PEW PEW PEW -- PEW PEW PEW -- PEW PEW PEW!

"Don't mess with the Space Force!" Donald crowed triumphantly.

Based on a true story.

Tsujigiri

Ryūzō sat with his legs folded under his body looking at the sword in the waning light. It was beautiful - more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. He narrowed his gaze as the last of the Sun's rays washed over the striking-edge of the blade, dousing the room in a flash of light, as if the sword's spirit were filling the room.

Beside him, Genpachi gasped. "Amazing..." he whispered under his breath.

Ryūzō nodded silently. Amazing was just the word. The old bladesmith, the man that had served Ryūzō's family for generations, had achieved perfection with this sword. It was no wonder that he had died so suddenly after the blade had been forged. There was nothing left in this life for him to do, now, no greater feat for him to achieve.

"What will you do now?" Genpachi asked softly.

Ryūzō reached out and took the sword in his hands, but said nothing. Even in the deepening darkness, the blade glowed like it was made of pale fire. He ran his thumb along the broad side of the blade. It felt alive under the tip of his finger as if it were touching him back.

"You have to test it," Genpachi said, breaking the silence.

Ryūzō turned to look at his friend. "Yeah," he said. "You're right. But it's dark already. We can go out tomorrow and test it in the fields."

"Why wait?" Genpachi asked. "Darkness is the perfect time to test a new sword. It's at night that all the ogres, demons, and foxes come out, disguised as humans. You can try the sword against some of them. It would be silly to use it on bamboo and melons! A sword like this should be put to use killing ogres, not cutting plants."

"Hmmm," Ryūzō said, eyeing the blade. "I suppose you're right."

"Of course I am," Genpachi said confidently. "I've seen my uncle do it when he has a new sword."

"Alright," Ryūzō said. "Let's go."

Ryūzō sheathed the sword and the two boys went out into the night. The moon hung low in the sky, a silver sliver casting a faint glow on the empty streets. They walked toward the center of the town, to where Genpachi was sure there would be more kami than on the outskirts where they had come from. After cutting up and down a few allies, the finally came across what appeared to be a young woman in a colorful yukata.

"There," Genpachi hissed. "There's one!"

"That's a woman," Ryūzō said, squinting in the darkness.

"Why would there be a woman out at night, alone, with nobody to watch over her?" Genpachi asked. "That's not a woman, it's probably a fox out looking for someone to trick."

"Ah," Ryūzō said. "I see your point."

He strode toward the fox and called out: "Fox! Stop where you are."

The woman turned around, a surprised look on her face.

"I am Ogasawara Ryūzō!" he said, puffing out his chest. "I have a new sword that I need to test, and  since I see that you are up to no good, I have decided to test it on you!"

The woman looked at the boy, a confused look on her face, but before she could reply, Ryūzō drew the sword and, with a flash like a bolt of lightning, made a single, fluid cut. She stared at the boy in horror for a brief moment before her head toppled from her neck and landed with a thud at Ryūzō's feet. A fountain of blood sprayed into the air and then her body crumbled to the ground. Ryūzō stifled a satisfied grin and re-sheathed the sword.

"Wow!" Gepnachi whooped, running up behind his friend. "I've never seen such a cut before!"

"It was like the sword had a life of its own," Ryūzō said. "It went through the fox like nothing, like it was moving through the air."

"You have to try another one, something more difficult," Genpachi told him. "The body, this time. Let's find an ogre. Killing foxes is easy. Let's find an ogre next!"

The boys ran down the alley and turned at the first intersection they came to. As the rounded the corner, they crashed into a large, roughly dressed man.

"Out of my way!" the man spat, swatting at the boys.

"An orgre!" Genpachi squeeled.

"What did you call me?" the man growled.

"Ogre!" Ryūzō announced. "I am Ogasawara Ryūzō! I have a new sword that I need to test, and since I see that you are up to no good, I have decided to test it on you!"

The man screwed up his face, staring at the boy in confusion, but before he could do anything else, Ryūzō drew his sword and, with one fluid movement, brought it across the ogre's large belly. The ogre stumbled back for a couple steps, his mouth chewing silent words before his torso separated from his lower body and fell to the ground with a loud, wet thud. The ogre's massive hands grabbed at where the lower half of his body should have been, tangling themselves in his own stinking intestines, as his eyes darted about wildly. After a moment, he gave a violent shiver, and then seemed to die suddenly.

"Incredible!" Genpachi said, running over to look at the dead ogre.

Ryūzō held the blade out in front of him, examining it closely. "It went through the ogre like it was nothing," he said. "It was even easier than with the fox. It was like the blade was being drawn through him, like it wanted to kill the ogre itself!"

"So cool!" Genpachi said, staring at the sword. "A sword like this needs a name! What will you name it?"

Ryūzō looked at the glade, glimmering scarlet in the night. This wasn't just any sword, he realized. It must have its own soul. It must be alive. "Onikiri," he said at last.

"Onikiri," Genpachi repeated.

The two boys looked at each other, then nodded somberly, feeling that they had just entered into a silent pact with the sword.

"No more testing," Genpachi told Ryūzō after a moment. "It's time we put Onikiri into service."

"I agree," Ryūzō told his friend. "Let's rid this town of ogres and foxes. I don't care if it takes all night!"

Ryūzō sheathed Onikiri and the boys took off together, running as fast as they could.

Zero Tolerance

"Please!" she cried. "Please, no! Please don't!"

"M'am, if you don't let go of the child, we'll have to take her by force," the officer told her, taking a step toward the mother and her wailing toddler.

"Please!" she cried, clutching her daughter to her breasts. "You can't take her from me! You don't know what we've been through! Please don't!" She fell to her knees, her arms around her child, tears streaming down her face. "Please let us stay together, please don't take my baby."

"Hold her down, Armando," the officer told his partner.

The two men descended on the woman. They were large men with strong arms and rough hands. One of them applied pressure to the woman's wrist, easily breaking her grip, then twisted her arm behind her back. The woman shrieked in terror as pain shot up through her arm and shoulder.

"NO!" she screamed in desperation. "DON'T TAKE MY BABY!"

The other officer dug his boot into the woman's thigh as he jerked the crying child from her free arm.

"POR EL AMOR DE DIOS!" the woman screeched, "NO!"

The officer holding the woman down wrenched her other arm behind her back and then handcuffed her. She tried to get to her feet, but the officer yanked her down so that she fell flat on her face.

"No, no, no..." she sobbed into the dirt. "Please... no..."

"Armando, you keep an eye on her," the officer told his partner over the sounds of the child crying. "I'm going to put the kid in the truck."

"Alright," Armando said, putting a boot between the woman's shoulders to hold her down.

The woman listened in defeat as the sound of her crying daughter faded into the distance. Her body shuddered as she cried, the pain in her heart overwhelming like a black fire burning deep inside her chest. The sounds of her daughter's cries became softer and softer. After a few moments, she couldn't hear her child at all. She held her breath, straining desperately for any sound of her baby, but all she could hear was the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. She felt a wave of panic wash over her.

"Armando, please," she whispered in Spanish. "Please don't let them take my baby."

"What did you think would happen?" the officer snapped in English. "You broke the law. You came into this country and broke the law, and you were stupid enough to bring your kid with you."

"I had no choice," the woman choked, "I had to come, and I couldn't leave my baby. Please, Armando, please let us go. I will take her back to Mexico, and I will never try to cross again, I promise! I swear on my own life, on the life of my daughter, we will never come back! But please, please don't take her from me."

"That ain't gonna happy, lady," Armando said flatly. "We've got laws in this country, and it's our job to enforce them."

"Please," the woman cried, desperation and panic coloring her voice. "Please, Mr. Armando, please just let us go and we will never come back. Please don't take her from me. I can't bear it. I can't be without my baby." She paused for a moment, fighting the feeling that she was going to collapse in on herself. "We are just a mother and her child," the woman said after a moment. "How could you take a child from its mother? How could this be a law? How could you do something so terrible as this?"

"We're just following orders," the officer said.

House Flippers

The two perennial complaints about California real estate are that it's both too expensive and in short supply. This objective, observable reality fits neatly into the established dogma of economics; as supply dwindles, prices inevitably rise. Likewise, the expense and supply narrative fits neatly into the polarized ideology of American politics, with each end of the spectrum shaping an emotional, sometimes compelling argument from a very narrow set of "facts". But economists, politicians, and talking heads, in general, all fail to understand both the broader picture and the ugly details of the housing situation in California. The powers that be seem incapable of wrapping their heads around the systemic inequity of profit-oriented cash buyers over families financing a home to live in, and the solutions that politicians propose completely miss the mark. In other words, house flippers are fucking up the housing market in California and everyone trying to "fix" the problem is only making it worse.

There are two big schools of thought, aligning more or less with political religiosity, on how to address housing costs in California. The reaction on the left is to build "affordable" housing. Democrats, and others that have a vested interest in pandering to the working poor, like to push the idea that California is inherently too expensive for anyone to live in without giving any reason for the high prices save for some vague dog whistling about one-percenters. And this makes sense because making promises to subsidize the largest item in most familys' budgets is a winning strategy. But in effect, low-income housing institutionalizes poverty, creating ghettos where poorer people are shoved into and forgotten. Low-income housing doesn't address the root cause of why housing is so expensive in the first place, and it necessarily segregates society into groups of haves and have-nots - a move with far-reaching implications that affect a person from birth to death (public schooling, criminal and police activity, food scarcity, job opportunities, infrastructure, mental and standard healthcare, etc).

On the other hand, the reaction on the right is to slash regulations so that, or so the argument goes, housing can be built quicker and more economically. Republicans and others with a vested interest in the financing of massive real estate developments (commercial and residential) like to pretend that there are literally zero properties for sale and that the only solution is a mad building spree on every square inch of land in the entire state - especially lands with some environmental significance. As with the Democrats, this is a move that panders to a specific voting block and does nothing to address the root cause of high housing costs. First and foremost, there is always housing on the market. There exists NO large city with exactly ZERO houses, condos, townhomes, or multiplexes on the market. Secondly, ignoring environmental and zoning regulations is a short-sighted move with long-term costs likely to outweigh any short-term economic gains. Examples that come to mind include building developments on floodplains, in regions prone to drought and fire, or entire cities below sea level.

The problem isn't that there aren't enough homes on the market, nor is the problem that the real value of homes is out of reach of the average Californian. The problem in California real estate is speculation and house flipping. The problem in California real estate is that cash buyers with no intention of living in the homes they purchase are taking homes from families, doing a nominal amount of superficial work on the home, and then putting the homes back on the market at super-inflated prices. The market should be able to correct for this, right? Prices are too high, a surplus exists, so that should drive prices down. The reason that the market is failing to stop this sort of behavior is that there is a critical mass of flippers that are doing this; they're over-paying for properties and then over-pricing them when they put them back on the market. In essence, flippers have created a sort of monopolistic hive of assholes that, while not necessarily colluding together, are still fucking everything up for the rest of us.

I'll give my own anecdotal experience as an example. I spent nearly two years looking for a home for my family. It was incredible to watch the market heat up, with prices rising literally by the week, far outpacing our own income growth - because who the fuck has an income that grows with each passing day? I would lose every bid that I made, sometimes by bidders that would come in at over $100k over asking. It was insane. But the most unbelievable part came when, one to six months later, I would see the same houses back on the market, freshly painted and with a price tag $50k to $150k over what the home had been bought for only a few months before. In some cases, houses would literally sell for twice the price they had gone for less than six months before.

The reason I had so much trouble buying a house wasn't that inventories were low, in fact, as I've already said, there are always homes for sale. Nor was the reason that I don't make enough money. Our household income is far above average, even in California. I have few expenses and a healthy amount of savings. I could easily afford a home that was reasonably priced. The reason I had so much trouble buying a house was that flippers, with tons of cash, would swoop in and pick up properties, give them a paint job and a granite countertop, and then dump them back on the market at an astronomical price that I couldn't afford... but that another cash buyer would gladly pay to repeat the flipping process again on the same property. The home buying process is set up to favor people with cash, people that will over-pay, and people that are well connected in the industry - in other words, the market is set up to reward speculation and disadvantage real home buyers.

At one point, I was talking to a real estate agent at a house showing and I started to complain to him about cash buyers scooping up reasonably priced homes and flipping them for insane prices. His advice to me was something along the lines of "you can be angry at the market and never get a home, or you can go with the market and make some good money by buying and selling properties". He was completely missing the point. I'm not a house flipper. I didn't want to flip a fucking house. I wanted a place to live in, where my kids could run around in the yard and develop fond memories of their childhood. I wanted a home, not an investment. But in this country, in this state, in this market, it seems that everyone has been hard-wired to look for a get-rich-quick scheme. Everyone is hustling to cash in, and those that are cashing in are ruining it for the rest of us by exploiting weaknesses in the bidding process and driving up prices.

In our current system, we have a perverted dichotomy of both unrestricted capitalism and heavy-handed, ineffective government intervention which ends up simply institutionalizing poverty and not addressing the root causes of the problem. Liberals want to shove all the poor people into projects while conservatives want to milk every last penny from this state's natural bounty and fuck the consequences. Meanwhile, economists are sitting back, twiddling their thumbs, assuring everyone that the market will find an equilibrium, ignoring the human factor that's running the train straight off a cliff.

If we want to fix the cost of housing in California, or anywhere else, then we need to end the practice of house flipping. Homes should be bought by families that intend to live in them, not by assholes that are only looking to turn a profit.