The Green-Walled Tower

April 19, 2013

The Best Franken-steak in the World

The laboratory had never looked so posh. Dr. Andrews hurried around, setting the table with gleaming cutlery and crystal. Under his breath, he hummed—to the tune of “Macho Man”—“Nobel, Nobel Prize. I’m going to win a Nobel Prize.”

An hour later, he was seated at the table with scientists and politicians from around the country. Waiters hired for the night brought in the meals, each featuring a huge steak that almost filled the plate. The gasps of surprise changed to exclamations of pleasure as they began to eat.

“I don’t know what the presentation you have for us is, Dr. Andrews,” one of them said, “but it’s going to be hard-pressed not to be upstaged by these steaks.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Dr. Andrews said with a smile, “because the presentation is the steaks. You see, I grew them myself.”

“I didn’t know you kept cows.”

“I don’t. I grew this meat right here in the lab.” Dr. Andrews stood up and a screen lowered behind him. “I have discovered a technique for growing pure muscle tissue quickly in controlled conditions.”

There were murmurs of surprise and a few of disgust. He caught the term ‘frankenmeat’.

“Is it safe?” someone asked.

“It’s completely unaltered beef,” he said. “The genetic structure is exact. Plus, I can grow just the meat and not the fat or bones, so it is better quality, healthier, and less expensive.

“This product is superior in every way,” he continued quickly. “If we were to only eat this type of meat, there would be no need for unhygienic feed lots: did you know that the majority of all antibiotics in the United States are fed to cows? Animal rights activists would be happier, plus it would be better on the environment: cows produce a ton of methane and a lot of water and resources are used to grow corn to feed cows for beef. This meat is also much cheaper: imagine buying the steaks you just ate at the store for 50 cents a pound.”

One of the politicians spoke up. “It sounds almost perfect. The thing is, it was grown in a lab. Who exactly do you expect to eat this?”

This is speculative fiction, but I’m curious: would you buy meat grown in a lab?

38 Comments | tags: beef, fiction, laboratory, manufactured, meat, science fiction | posted in Light

April 17, 2013

Canadianized Bees – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Canadianized Bees

“Mr. Prime Minister, I have disturbing reports from the Pickering Nuclear Plant. It’s bees, sir.”

“Dear God! You mean . . .”

“Yes, sir. Canadianized bees. They’re so huge they only drink maple sap, boring holes with their auger-like stingers.”

“Is there any good news?”

“They’re quite polite—they always ask before stinging someone. Almost no one says yes.”

“Should we warn the Americans?”

“The bees don’t really like heat. Some go to Florida for the winter, but most are heading north.”

* * *

Somewhere in Russia

“Sir, I’ve detected a mass of objects coming over the North Pole.”

“Is it the Americans?”

“Worse. Canadians.”

64 Comments | tags: bees, Canada, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, quirky, Russia | posted in Light

April 17, 2013

The Jailer’s Dilemma, Part 2 of 2

By David Stewart

(continued from Part 1)

Crowfeather was almost asleep when he heard a key turn in the lock of his cell. The door opened and an uncovered lantern shone light on the face of his father, the head jailer. The older man stepped aside from the door and motioned him out.

“Come on, son. I volunteered for the first watch tonight; no one else is around. You can leave and no one will stop you.”

Crowfeather stood up but did not approach the door. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “They will kill you.”

“It is my guilt to bear, son,” the jailer said. “Your crimes are because of me and although I tried to evade them with the name O’Keefe, I will always be Henry Robins: your father and a thief.”

“I have not seen you in many years,” Crowfeather persisted. “You are not to blame for everything I have done since then. You were right when you said that you did not teach me to counterfeit. I am a man now, father. I can stand on my feet, as you see.”

“If you will not go for justice, then go as a last gift to your father,” the jailer said. “Go and reform your ways. It took a ruined knee to teach me honesty, but it will not for you, I hope.” He tossed a small pouch to Crowfeather, which clinked as he caught it.

“Come with me then,” Crowfeather said, moving towards the door at last. “There is no reason why you should stay here to undergo punishment. Let us go together.”

The jailer was already shaking his head, a sad smile on his face. “I would just slow you down, and in any case, the guilt must be paid. Go and sin no more. I will stay.”

* * *

Crandell, the deputy jailer came in to take the second watch of the night and found the head jailer not at his post. He walked the corridors and saw that the last cell door was slightly ajar. Inside he found the head jailer, sitting alone on the stone bench.

“Where is the prisoner?” Crandell asked in alarm.

“He is gone. I let him go. He was my son.”

“You are mad, sir! This is treason. You will be put to death.”

“Even if they transfer his punishment to me, I will take it calmly,” O’Keefe said.

“Do not even say such things,” Crandell said. “I would glad kill you here with my sword before I let you go through something that terrible.”

“Do not do that,” O’Keefe said. “Then the guilt would pass to you, since it would be seen as the murder of an innocent man. No, let me do this: the guilt must be paid.”

* * *

A month later, in a city fifty miles away, a man walked into an inn looking for work.

“What your name?” the innkeeper asked, sizing the man up with a critical look.

“Gabriel Robins,” the man said. “I just came in from the hill country. I can do anything you need me to do. I’m just looking for some good, honest work.”

“Well, there’s plenty of that around here. You can get to work mucking out the stables, if you wish. Hey, if you’ve just come from the hills, you must not have heard the news about the king’s head jailer. They beheaded him a week or so ago after he released one of his prisoners. They say his face shone with joy right before the axe came down. Do you know what his last words were?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘May God bless him.’ Now what do you think of that?”

22 Comments | tags: father, fiction, justice, prison, prisoner, son | posted in Dusk

April 16, 2013

The Jailer’s Dilemma, Part 1 of 2

By David Stewart

“Sir, we just received a new prisoner. He’s under penalty of death.”

The head jailer Joseph O’Keefe nodded. “What’s his name?”

“They couldn’t find out his real name, but he calls himself Crowfeather. He—sir, are you okay?” The guard stepped forward, seeing the jailer sway suddenly, but O’Keefe waved him off.

“It’s just my knee.” He sat down, massaging his knee and not daring to look up in case his face betrayed anything. “Get out of here, would you. I’ll go check on the prisoner.”

The guard left and a moment later O’Keefe stood up and limped slowly down the dank stone corridor, all the way down to the Cells of the Condemned. He had never known it to take so long and his heart was pounding so painfully it felt as if his arteries were filled with acid.

Peering through iron bars, he saw the prisoner sitting in a pile of moldy straw. He did not see the baby that he had bounced on his knee or the little boy he had taken to market that first time. There was only a prisoner.

“Crowfeather?”

The prisoner looked up. “Yeah?”

“I like Gabriel Robins better.”

The prisoner was on his feet in an instant, his fists clenched. “How do you know that name?” O’Keefe looked at him steadily and watched as recognition grew on his face and the anger drained away from his expression. “Father. So this is where you ended up.”

“And this is where you ended up,” O’Keefe said. “What did they catch you doing?”

“Counterfeiting.”

A thrill of horror went down O’Keefe’s spine. “Counterfeiting!” he hissed. “Are you mad, boy? Do you know what the punishment is for that?”

The prisoner shrugged. “Death is death in the end, no matter how you get there.”

“I have witnessed many executions and not all deaths are created equal. Men would give all they had to choose their death; to avoid the one coming to you.”

The prisoner sat down again, shrugging in defiance. “So, did you come here to gloat? To say I was stupid? You taught me to do this, after all.”

“I never taught you to counterfeit!”

“No, you only taught me to steal, to pickpocket, to hold a crossbow to a man’s throat while our friends took his horse and everything he owned in the world. How is that much better?”

O’Keefe put his forehead against the wood of the door. His knee was throbbing.

“Father,” the prisoner said. “What happened that day at Hind’s Crossing, when the ambush went bad? You disappeared and we thought you were dead.”

There was a moment of silence before O’Keefe spoke. “After they counterattacked, I knocked one of the soldiers down with my staff. I thought he was out, but he crushed my knee with his mace. I killed him after that, but then fell into unconsciousness. After the fighting, when you and the lads had fled, I woke to find myself bandaged and lying on a stretcher. There were two groups of pilgrims in the party we ambushed and both thought I was part of the other one. They carried me with them, all the way to this city where I slowly healed, at least as much as possible. I changed my name and got a job as a jailer.”

“Why didn’t you try to find me?” the prisoner asked.

“It was too far for me to travel like this, and even if I had, I would have been a burden on you. I have found a better way, through my suffering.”

“When is the execution scheduled?” the prisoner asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Will you come to it, to see me?” For a moment, O’Keefe heard a touch of the boy he had known in the prisoner’s voice, the child looking up to his father for assurance and advice.

The jailer stifled a groan and punched his fist into the door. The physical pain seemed like a blessing compared the torture filling his mind. “How could I go? How could I watch them do that to my only son?”

“What will you do then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” O’Keefe turned and shuffled back down the long hall to the guard room. His knee was screaming at him by now, the pain shouting accusations.

The deputy jailer William Crandell was in the guard room when O’Keefe entered. They nodded at each other in professional acknowledgement.

“William, the new prisoner—do you know when the execution will be?”

“The counterfeiter? Yes, I just received the news. It will be in two days. They need time to fill and ready the cauldron.”

O’Keefe gave a quick nod and turned to hide his long, shuddering breath. He had only seen one execution that had involved that squat, black cauldron. The images were burned into his memory, and now his mind unwillingly combined the iron monstrosity with the tiny tin basin he had used to wash little Gabriel in front of the fireplace. The little boy had splashed and laughed, spilling water on the dirt floor. In O’Keefe’s mind, he could see the water thickening into oil around the small boy, the surface swelling and bursting in sickening pops as the oil began to boil.

(to be concluded in Part 2)

17 Comments | tags: father, fiction, justice, prison, prisoner, son | posted in Dusk

April 15, 2013

The Chronicles of the Moldlands: Forgotten Bagel

By David Stewart

Warning: While this is technically classified as Apocryphal History, some may consider it more in the genre of Horror because of its subject matter. If you have a phobia of mold, you’ve been warned. But read it anyway, since it’s a good laugh.

Life first sprang into being on the high plateau of Fridge, on the rising mounds of Forgotten Bagel. It was a primitive sort of life: growing, eating, spreading slowly, and happy just to discover the occasional half-buried blueberry. A filmy plastic covered the hills and so life was contained for a while.

The gods inhabited the Great House at that time, but soon there came the time of the Impromptu Vacation, and the gods departed from the house for the far country of Aruba. They never returned to the house again.

The civilization of Forgotten Bagel thrived until it had covered the hills and was straining to break the filmy bonds that constrained its expansion. It was the great explorer Schimmel Penicillium who led the first voyage to find the way out of the barrier. He came out into open air and into the strange land of Kitchen. He founded colonies wherever he found suitable ground and the Cillium Empire was formed. Schimmel claimed the title of Grand Mouchla and set up his capital in the caves of Bread Box, which were much more central than Forgotten Bagel. He assimilated the locals and for a while, the Cillium Empire grew like an infestation.

Try not to think of what this was originally

But there were areas of concern. Scouting spores returned to report a deep cavern of mystery named Trashbin that was filled with food and land of unimaginable richness, but was also inhabited by strange and wondrous monsters. Then there were the legends of the dark underworld known as Drain. The people of Drain were said to be dark and strong, with a touch that poisoned everything.

The Cillium Empire flourished and soon built foil mines and developed weapons and aircraft out of aluminum. So it was that the first Cillians landed in the wide basin of Sink and stood before the mighty entrance to the dark land of Drain.

Drain was wet and slick and the entrance was surrounded by slimy black fortifications. The Cillian forces were wary but approached with weapons at the ready. Still, they were not prepared for the onslaught that came. Suddenly millions of black Cladospores poured out, overwhelming the Cillians and capturing their aluminum aircraft and weapons.

The defeat caused panic throughout the Cillium Empire. The Grand Mouchla–at this time the great-grandson of Schimmel Penicillium–stationed guards around the borders of Sink. However, the Cladospores did not spread beyond the borders of Drain and slowly the panic subsided. Still, the Grand Mouchla did not like having such a potent threat so close to his empire.

Then one of the patrols came back with an interesting report. They observed water dripping from the dead waterfall of Tap. Some of the Cillian scientists conjectured that the Cladospores depended on this water and if they could totally shut off Tap, the Cladospores would die. The Cillians had recently discovered a cache of huge and terribly strong steel cables called Twist-Ties and now they undertook a project to bind these together and attach them to the upper portion of Tap, hoping to pull it closed.

After two generations, the grand project was finished and a long line of Twist-Ties was looped around the upper part of Tap and up to a hook above it. Cillian engineers winched the Tap up, but they quickly found that they were very mistaken about the workings of Tap and instead of shutting off the water, it began to gush out in a flood. The Cladospores were obliterated, washed down into the furthest recesses of Drain and a great threat to the Cillium Empire was gone. Some worried that this was only inundating the Cladospores with the resource that they needed most, but most agreed that while Tap was pouring forth water, the Cladospores would never again be able to emerge from Drain. And so, for a time, there was peace in the wide land of Kitchen.

13 Comments | tags: chronicles, civilization, creepy, fiction, kitchen, mold, quirky, short story | posted in Light

April 14, 2013

The Lotus Ocean – Visual Fiction

By David Stewart

Morning dawned on the world of green.

The inhabitants awoke from their verdant beds to find that the central ocean had been replenished, as it was every night.

“Dad, where does the ocean come from?” the boy asked his father as the family walked down one of the jade veins that radiated out from the center of the leaf.

“It comes from the sky,” the father said. “Every day it dries up and then is replaced during the cool of the night.” They reached the edge of the ocean, which towered above them, curving out of sight. They could see others gathering on the far side of the ocean, their forms skewed by the curved surface of the water.

The family drank, putting their mouths to the wall of water in front of them and drinking deeply. After several minutes, when all were refreshed, they began the climb back up the leaf to their home.

“Dad?” the boy asked. “What if the ocean stops being replenished?”

“Do you mean the legends, son?” the father asked. “The legends of terrible cold or burning heat? That is not likely to happen, but if it does, we will move to a different leaf. There are thousands of them, you know.

“What if it happens to all of them?”

The father only smiled and ruffled his son’s hair but the fear tightened inside him, the fear that he would admit to no one. It was the same fear that they all felt, in the private recesses of their minds if the night was long or the weather turned strange.

What if the ocean stops coming? What if extreme heat withers the leaf? What if cold freezes everything into an uninhabitable wasteland?

What if?

11 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Jeonju, Korea, lotus, photograph, visual fiction | posted in Visual Fiction

April 13, 2013

Story Accepted. One down, all to go.

By David Stewart

I found out yesterday that Bete Noire Magazine has accepted my short story “Bloody Neighbors” for publication in their January, 2014 issue. This is the first piece of original fiction that I’ve sold so I feel good about it.

My goal is finish editing all the stories I’ve set aside to submit and hopefully get a few more published in the next few months. After that, I’m going to start querying agents for my finished novel, as well as editing my other novels. Lately, most of my writing energy has been put towards stories for this blog, but I may have to shift the focus around a little. I will still be posting stories here regularly though, so don’t worry.

22 Comments | tags: accepted, Bete Noire, magazine, short story, submission, writing | posted in Uncategorized

April 12, 2013

In Your Dreams, Inc.

By David Stewart

People are weird. Their thoughts are weird and their dreams are even weirder. I should know—it’s my job.

Have you ever had one of those dreams that made perfect sense, even after you woke up? It was like someone was writing a movie and playing it out in your brain while you slept. It had production value. Of course, the next night, it’s usually back to some jumble of nonsense about teddy bears, an ominous-looking toaster, and your Grade 4 teacher driving a taxi.

Imagine you could dream those cool, complicated dream every night—chasing bad guys, flying around like Superman, and still waking up fresh as spring breeze? You can now, thanks to In Your Dreams, Inc. It’s popular, let me tell you. The guy who founded it is a multi-billionaire now. Not that I see much of that though—I’m just an extra.

Source

* * *

“Brad, here’s the script for the Harper drug-bust scenario.” Heather hands me a single sheet of paper.

“What is he this time, the drug lord or the cop?” I ask.

“Actually, he’s the briefcase. They carry him in, open him up, then test the drugs. When the cops show up, he’s thrown into the evidence locker for a while, then ends up as Exhibit B in the trial. That’s when he wakes up. Hey, I got you a speaking part this time.”

I look at the script and find my name. “‘I gotta go pee”? What kind of a line is that?”

Heather shrugs. “He wanted to throw a subliminal hint into the dream somewhere. He says he always wakes up with his bladder almost exploding and he wants to start waking up before that point. Don’t worry; everybody starts at the bottom. You do a couple ‘I gotta go pee’ gigs, then move on to ‘you got the drugs?’ or ‘the giant lemon bounced that way.’ Before you know it, you’re the guy explaining to the dreamer how he’s the only one who can save the planet. Baby steps, Brad.”

An hour later, I’ve gotten through makeup and am on the sound stage with the rest of the actors. Abraham Lincoln is the drug lord this time. I’ve worked on a few Sammy Harper dreams before and for some reason Abraham Lincoln always shows up somewhere. I was a giant Raggedy Andy in a tea party dream of his and sure enough, Lincoln was the one serving the tea.

“Places, everyone!” the director Kyle Dresden shouts. “Sammy Harper just fell asleep. We’re live in twenty minutes.”

We always do dreams live, while beaming them remotely into the dreamer’s brain. There is a huge screen set up at one end of the stage that shows us exactly what the dreamer is experiencing. That’s essential since dreamers rarely stick to the script, even ones they’ve helped write themselves. We always have to keep an eye on it while we’re acting.

In this scenario, I’m one of the drug dealers. I’ve got a bazooka—which is insane—but that’s Sammy Harper for you. Other drug dealers have AK-47s, elephant guns, and one has a tiger on a leash.

The blue “Dream On” light goes on and we advance towards the middle of the room. Abraham Lincoln is in front, holding the briefcase. The director signals the giant marshmallow Peeps to start jumping around in the background. The theme song to “Cheers” starts playing.

The actor playing Lincoln-as-a-drug-lord puts the briefcase on the table and opens it. The other gang leader samples the drugs inside. I look up at the dream screen and see that in the dream, the briefcase has grown wings and is flying around the room. I knew Sammy Harper couldn’t be content to just lie there as a briefcase and let everyone else have the action. The briefcase in the dream has now sprouted arms and is firing a Tommy gun at us.

This is where improv takes over. We all keep an eye on the screen to see where the briefcase is firing and when it gets near us, we fall back as if we’re shot. The customer is always right, after all.

The dream briefcase fires in my direction and I drop to the ground, writhing as if shot. I’m about to full-on die when I realize that I haven’t said my line yet. The first line of my career and the dreamer goes off script and kills me. Not this time. I let out a dying scream. “I gotta go pee!”

* * *

It’s 6am and I stumble through the door of my apartment and fall onto the bed without even undressing. I just want some nice black-screen sleep. I used to like my dreams, but now, I don’t want to remember a thing. It’s too much like work.

Source

13 Comments | tags: Abraham Lincoln, actor, crime, dreams, drugs, fiction, funny, job, quirky, science fiction, Superman | posted in Light

April 10, 2013

The Rust Queen – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

The Rust Queen

My favorite teacher was Miss Ferrous, but we just called her Rusty. She had a tattoo that said “Rust Queen” on her arm.

We once took a class trip to the junkyard. We shot rats with a shotgun and Rusty showed us how thermite could burn through an engine block. We collected all the cool-looking scraps and dragged them back to school, where Rusty showed us how to weld. I made a scrap-racer and named it The Rust Queen, after her.

Even today, it sits on my porch, a tribute to the best kindergarten teacher a boy could ever have.

57 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, junkyard, kindergarten, rust, teacher, teaching, thermite, welding | posted in Light

April 9, 2013

26 Questions You Always/Never Wondered About

By David Stewart

One of the things I love about Google is the suggestions it gives you when you start to type in the search bar. It gives a strange and sometimes disturbing look into what your fellow humans are searching for. So, I decided to start some questions and see what Google gave me. This isn’t an original idea, but what I did was type in “Is it true that…” and then each letter of the alphabet, one by one. I picked the best/most interesting/least racist question to answer.

Apparently what we’re really curious about is people dying or being gay.

A: Is it true that all triangles are isosceles?

→ No. No, it’s not true that all triangles have two angles the same. If this confuses you, click here and become much more confused.

B: Is it true that blondes have more fun?

→ I’m a brown-haired guy who has ridiculous amounts of fun (hiking, reading, role-playing). I don’t see how it’s possible for a blond version of me to have more fun, so I’m going to say no.

C: Is it true that celery is negative calories?

→ Yes, this is true. Celery has a lot of calories, but because of all the cellulose in it, we can’t digest it well. So, if you’re planning on starting an all-celery diet, make sure you slip in a bacon double cheeseburger ever few weeks, so you don’t waste away to nothing.

D: Is it true that Disneyland release cats at night?

→ This one intrigued me. From what I can see, there are tons of cats at Disneyland to keep the rodent population down. However, I doubt they are actually released and then collected every night, since cats tend to have a mind of their own. What’s more likely is that they just come out at night when it’s cooler and everyone else has gone home. A lot of places talk about them being feral, but since they are apparently groomed and fed, I don’t know what definition of “feral” they’re using.

E: Is it true that everyone can sing?

→ I guess it depends on your definition of “sing” but from experience, I’d say no.

F: Is it true that Facebook will shut down?

→ Ha! Yeah, poor guys just got tired of it all after a while. Considering they releasing a Facebook operating system for Android phones, I don’t think they’re going anywhere anytime soon.

G: Is it true that giraffes can’t make a sound?

→ Even if you don’t count this video of a giraffe definitely making a sound, giraffes do make noises. Apparently adult giraffes rarely make noises, but babies do, as you can see in this video.

H: Is it true that Hello Kitty is the devil?

→ Wow. Didn’t see that one coming. I’m going to go with no, since that’s crazy. But here is some of the history of the character.

I: Is it true that it’s the end of the world is 2012?

→ This endearingly terribly-worded question was number six on Google’s auto-complete list. I think we can all agree that this is no.

J: Is it true that jellyfish are immortal?

→ Since all the rest on the list were about Justin Bieber, I went with this one. There is one species of jellyfish called the immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis nutricula) that can go back to its infant form. So, it is theoretically possible for that type of jellyfish to live forever, although they usually get eaten or die of disease first. They should really call this the Benjamin Button fish.

Yeah…we’re going with the jellyfish one.

K: Is it true that kissing burns calories?

→If it doesn’t burn calories, then you’re doing it wrong. On the other hand, if you are burning enough calories to make a difference, then you’re doing it really, really right.

L: Is it true that lobsters are immortal?

→ Really, another immortal animal question? Actually, apparently lobsters don’t die of old age (although Red Lobster is making sure that this doesn’t become an issue). They also don’t stop growing; the biggest lobster ever caught was 20kg. (Seriously, check out that link).

M: Is it true that Macbooks don’t get viruses?

→ No, that’s not true, although if you’re a Mac user, you’ve probably never gotten one. Incidentally, if you are a Mac user that has gotten a virus on your computer, let me know. I love anecdotes.

N: Is it true that Nicolas Cage is dead?

→ If the next Ghost Rider movie features an actual Nicholas Cage ghost, complete with flaming skull, then we’ll know for sure.

O: Is it true that opposites attract?

→ Magnetically, yes. For people…what do you think? I think this is a place where a happy medium is best. I wouldn’t want to live with my clone or my alter-ego from bizarro world.

P: Is it true that Psy is dead?

→ All the “P” suggestions were about people dying, so I chose this one. I’m pretty sure we can all agree the answer is no. Still, can you imagine the funeral? 21 horse dance salute.

Q: Is it true that Queen Elizabeth is dying?

→ I find a lot of these are about dying. I guess we have a morbid curiosity. Considering the sources that claim this, I would say it is dubious, at least not any more than any other 86-year-old woman.

R: Is it true that redheads are going extinct?

→ Yeah, not likely. And if they do, we can just clone them again, a la Jurassic park. (Ginger Park: admit it, you’d watch that movie.)

S: Is it true that smart people talk to themselves?

→ I’m going to answer this one without appealing to the Internet and here’s my train of logic. I talk to myself. I think I’m smart. Ergo, smart people talk to themselves.

T: Is it true that the camera adds ten pounds?

→ If you’re carrying a ten pound camera, then yes.

U: Is it true that unicorns were mentioned in the Bible?

→ First of all, I’ve never read a Bible that had unicorns in it, but then, I have never read the King James Version. It does say “unicorns” in that version, but in the New International it says “wild ox” so I think we can say it comes down to an over-enthusiastic translation. Somehow, I’m guessing the original Hebrew word didn’t mean “horse with a spear in its forehead.”

V: Is it true that vegetarians live longer?

→ I’m not sure about now, but I’m sure that back when people had to kill mammoths to eat, they probably did. I’d rather fight a truculent cabbage than a stabbing/stomping hairy death machine any day.

W: Is it true that what goes around comes around?

→ Seriously, there are a lot of people asking this question? In my experience, it often does, but not always. What do you think?

X: Is it true that Xbox live is going to be free?

→ Ehh…who cares. You can look it up here if you have any interest.

Y: Is it true that you are thinking of me?

→ Yes. I’m thinking of you right now. So…what are you doing? (Yes, yes, BESIDES reading this post)

Z: Is it true that Zayn Malik smokes?

→ Considering I didn’t know who this was an hour ago, I don’t particularly care. Apparently he does.

So, there you have it. 26 answers, semi-answers, or dodging the question straight from the Green-Walled Tower. If you have your own “Is it true that…?” question for me, now is your chance. I’ll promise to answer it, unless it’s about Xbox Live or Zayn Malik smoking.