Hedgehog-Shattering Speed
by: Robert Zimmerman

…and he informed me that I had a long, healthy life ahead of me. Of course, I knew that was a lie. When a doctor says, “You’re in good shape,” he really means, “Holy crap, man, you’re going to die!” I informed Peter that I was on to him and he gave me a disbelieving stare… and then he even gave me a sugar-free lollipop and sent me on my way. It was all part of his scheme to kill me faster and, somehow, inherit my fortune and collection of assorted doll heads and torsos. I could see it in his eyes.

Since I knew I only had one day to live, I pondered what I should do as I walked towards my home in zigzag patterns across the busy highway. Many people were honking and shouting at me but I couldn’t hear any of them since their voices passed by so quickly. I took it to mean my fly was open. That happens quite a bit. As soon as I reached down to zip up, a police car skidded to a halt in front of me as I was, at the time, walking against traffic. The man got out of his car, walked over to me, tilted his glasses down, and asked, “Does this uniform make me look fat?” I told him it didn’t and he started walking back to his car… and then I muttered that it made him look morbidly obese, not just fat. Before I knew it, he had spun around and was empting round after round from his two nickel-plated 45’s into my ascending and transverse colons.

He should’ve been aiming for my spleen, though, since that’s the only part of my body that I cannot regenerate but he didn’t know that. I walked towards him and tapped him on the head. It apparently scared him into shock because he fell over and shivered like a baboon stuck in the snow with half a pair of pants and some pliers. As I walked away, I chuckled, “Amateur.” Then I heard a gunshot and got to see what it looked like to have a bullet pass through your eye.

Well, I got home and, after several lead-laden bowel movements and, quite literally, explosive gas attacks, thought about what I really wanted to do. I decided that I would tell people all of the things I had previously been too afraid to say. That… didn’t turn out too well. One man even cut me up into several pieces with a chainsaw and sent my appendages to several disease-stricken countries. I still need to get my left nostril back from that Leper in Djibouti…

Anyway, I got to the point where I had one person left – Emerald. I went up to her and poured my guts out. She was disgusted, so I reingested them and continued to tell her how I felt about her. When I was done, she too gave me a disbelieving look and, unfortunately, kicked me in the spleen with hedgehog-shattering speed. Once again, I poured my guts out.

I woke up in the hospital and saw Peter. He told me a long story about how everything was fine except my spleen and left nostril, since one was shattered and the other mysteriously missing. We had a long talk…and, in the end, he informed me that I had a long, healthy life ahead of me. Of course, I knew that was a lie…