There once was this Coyote who fell in love with Toad. A simple Toad no one could see, she hid in the mud by the roads and byways and highways of man near a city built on the edges of infinity and reason. She holed herself off and hid in a tiny mud hole and never saw the light of day, as she only came out when the moon was full. Seeing as she was Toad, and had a hold of those first magics she lived an ever such a long time and so she just came out once every moon, when she would shake off that mud and grime and go bathe in the radiant spring that was not too far away from the passage of man and his comings and goings along that road towards the city built on the edges of reason and infinity.

But I digress, because there was this old fool of a coyote who had seen Toad from afar, and one night when the moon was full and the men folk who lived in the village not very far away hid themselves in fear that the wildthings would come and gobble them all up. It was just such a night that that wily ol’ critter wound his way right around Toad’s hole and sure enough she came splattering her mud clean near everywhere, not least of which was coyote’s muzzle, and slippery and slimy with mud… and sure as the wind is quick it was love at first sight for that incorrigible old dog.

Maybe it was the way her taut amphibious skin glistened under her jewel like warts. Maybe it was the way her tongue darted artfully out of her large and beautiful lips to glance at a wandering dragonfly that stretched his wings one last time before becoming a snack. Maybe it was her muscular legs all extended and sweet with a slime only a few men could ever understand. Even that coyote couldn’t explain it, and within him grew a lust unlike one he had ever known before (and granted, that old man had known lusts, but this time it was different, somehow) and may never experience again for a Toad, a simple ordinary Toad.

Where others saw warts, he saw jewels of wisdom. Where others saw rudeness, he found civility and charm. Where others saw shallowness, he found depth and precision. Where others saw cruelty, he found wisdom and kindness.

It happened that first night, for under the moon’s rays Toad’s beauty did shine. It was caught up and revealed so bewitchingly sublime. As Toad bathed in the radiant pond underneath dear Luna’s gaze, Her old ugly skin shed, and pure radiant unadulterated beauty shone and burst through her mud induced cocoon of protection that she cast aside once a month. Coyote couldn’t contain himself, and rushed ahead to greet his one true altogether love for ever after, amen.

As he approached Toad swam away towards the opposite shore, and ran as quickly and as spritely as she could around the pond in such a way as to avoid coming into contact with Coyote and eventually she found her way back into her hidey hole next to the byways and highways of men. There to build another coat of mud and stones to hide the glory of Toad from the world. As was her duty to protect another piece of the great mystery from the world, for Toad was that mystery.

But Coyote, being the rascally old man he, had caught a glimpse of her and knew he had to know Toad, in a rather biblical sense, and set about his skills to woo the fair maid from her place of refuge.

“Toad,” He cried out,” Toad, I already seen ya in that pond over there, and I saw how pretty you were once your skin was washed away. There is no reason to hide from me, I won’t tell anyone about your gift… honest. After all I love you”

Though Toad could tell by Coyote’s voice he was being sincere, she knew better than to trust strangers. After all strangers were the leading cause of Toad deaths in the last 50 generations according to the Toad Information Network (T.I.N. : The nightly croaking choruses of toads and frogs who exchange vital survival information through a vast network of croak-master generals, silence keepers, and cantors).

“I can’t trust you that easily Coyote,” she said in her most dignified lady Toad cadence,” Many folk have seen me, and given me that selfsame oath, but none have lived until morning’s light. Only my true love would ever be able to survive the ordeal. Maybe you will be the first.”

And with a chuckle Toad fell asleep in her burrow, while coyote pondered for a moment over what the toad had said.

As the night wore on Coyote ringed himself about Toad’s hole and decided to capture a bit of sleep while he could, since he believed he may have a better chance of convincing Toad of his sincerity if he were to protect her through the night. As the stars shone overhead, coyote counted them as modern man proverbially counts sheep and gradually found a moment of slumber before the first trial began, only thinking to himself that the very stars that dotted the skies simply paled in comparison to the radiance that was Toad.

Swift lightning poured from a cloudless sky and darted all about where coyote lay, great sizzling fireworks of wonder and awe gushing from nowhere and dancing all about coyote as he lay perfectly still and unmolested in anyway. Snoring ever so slightly, and not once stirring from his rest.
As the firestorm stopped with a sizzle and a poof, Toad hiccupped in her sleep and coyote’s ear followed the noise.

The night moved along and the moon rolled across the sky, when along the road rose a swarm of dust as the footsteps of man charged and tromped. Carrying a large bell and huge cisterns of water as they ran towards a bright fire atop many building of the nearby village in the distance. Screams and shouts of terror filled the entire township as more men and women filled the road and shielded their eyes from the massive blaze. Many brave men and women fought valiantly against the flames… and lost. The city that once stood on the edge of reason and infinity was now nothing more than rubble for an archeologist to sift through in a far and unknown future. A scourge of refuges took to the road as their nomadic ancestors before them had done, and with little in the way of possessions and a few head of cattle, the scattered remains jostle by in a hopeless shuffle, and Toad sneezed and though none of the other noises had moved coyote, her sneeze perked his ear and in his sleep he whispered, “Bless you.”

As the rays of the sun were just peaking over the horizon, a peddler traveling along the road in search of the village that had previously burned down, stumbled across the sleeping coyote and demanded that he be told what had happened to the once great city that was here just days before. Coyote, who could not speak the tongue of man (and the man who could not speak the language of beasts) found himself at a quandary and realized that if he didn’t do something to protect himself he would probably end up as another pelt among the peddler’s wares to be sold in the next town he happened to wander across.

As Coyote pondered his fate, Toad chose at that time to wander out of her hole to see what the commotion she had heard was about, not knowing that the peddler’s boot heel was nary 3 inches from her little Toad hole. As she emerged, coyote peered down in horror as he was about to witness his one true love’s demise and took that very moment to bite deeply into the webbing on the peddler’s hand intending to bite the peddler just hard enough so as to cause the man to stumble.

Coyote’s fangs found an easy target that day, and dug deeply and smoothly into the peddler’s flesh. Like a knife through warm butter they snuck their way through clean to the other side. Coyote clung to the hand as he felt his eyes bulging clean out of their sockets for the man had begun to choke him in an effort to free himself from Coyote’s strong and painfully powerful jaws. He writhed and he clawed at the man with all of his might. His fur got tattered and shredded, and still Coyote clung on for dear life and the peddler lost hold of Coyote’s throat and as his grip was loosened, that tricky old dog clamored up the man’s head and found his way to stand over Toad so as not to let any harm befall her.

With hackles raised and his fangs bared and bloodied, Coyote snarled and chased that peddler off and down the road, and Toad crawled back into her tiny little Toad hole and waited patiently for her true love, Coyote to return.

It took twenty eight days for Coyote to come back to Toad’s little hole along a road soon to be forgotten by men, twenty eight days for the peddler to be chased so few and far between that he actually decided to give up peddling and write stories instead, but that is a tale for another day.

That Coyote he returned, a little more ragged for wear, and tired, and man was he thirsty. You try running for twenty eight days straight and see how you fare. But twenty eight days or hellfire, high water, lightning, disasters, thirst nor peddlers didn’t matter much to the heart of coyote, and his heart rang true for every single trial and tribulation he had faced in order to win Toad’s affection was as honest as the truth could ever be.

Coyote slumped in front of the Toad hole and called out to his love, and crooned softly to his beloved as he waited for moonrise, when his star shine Toad of beauty and wonder would emerge and he would once again be reunited with his heart’s desire. As daylight crept slowly into the west and darkness filled the night with stars of every shape and size, slowly the moon rolled across the heavens.

Ever so daintily, Toad emerged from her hole and motioned for Coyote to stand back as she slung mud this way and that, to reveal a glistening morsel of purest purity, beauty and glamour unbeknownst to man or beast, before or hence. As she shone in purest form of symmetry and divinity, coyote’s eyes filled with wonder as he drew her up into his arms and greeted her with a soulful kiss.

As muzzle touched light there was an implosion of sorts… a sudden knowingness, an inertia where two souls become one in a way few will ever know and many folk are often fooled into believing is something that happens through biblical relations, but it goes far deeper than that.

As their lips parted, and a string of drool stretched infinitely between their lips, coyote stood and walked away never to return to his true love again.
I often asked that Old Fool why he never returned to that little toad hole on the edge of infinity and reason and he would only shake his head in dismay and let me know that he’d rather have the beautiful memory than the pain that would eventually follow.

In the end he knew he was a coyote, who was born to roam the hills with not much in his hide other than a good dose of Fuck you and a smile to keep him company. While she was a toad, a star wrapped in mud to hide her glory from thieves that didn’t even know a treasure laid at their feet.
Different worlds that though lovely and miraculous to have ever found one another along the great wanderings of sun, moon and stars along the eons and rivers of time were in fact quite divergent and polar opposites and tantamount to destruction for either one of them if they dared tarry to long in one another’s world.

That Coyote told me Toad knew this too, after all she was strong in that great mystery tied to the enigmas and wrapped in stories told on the lips of wolf, bear, eagle and man, but I often wonder if that coyote just made excuses to hide the ache left in his heart after his dance with Toad was over.

Some say a coyote howls to thank the moon for her light, while I am left wondering if his lonesome cry is for love unrealized and the emptiness that followed.

Eugene wasn’t always an Ogre; as a matter of fact we were in elementary school together.
Eugene Piroskie was a lover, not a fighter. In fact it was his love that turned him into an Ogre,
After all Eugene was a Poet.

When we were about 12 years old I had already gone through a very rough year, but believe you me, Eugene had one rougher. For when we were twelve and the puberty fairy decided to make a visit, she was most kind to yours truly, but alas this was not the case for dear Eugene. While I caused the lasses to swoon, poor dear sweet Eugene was left to pine over one Shelly Neusbaum. A young woman of particular beauty (she already had a C cup) who knew he existed and thought him far too hideous to even to consider as a human being.

Eugene was rather hideous actually. I can’t say I blame the poor girl. I mean after all she was a rather attractive young lady who could do far better than Eugene Piroskie. He wasn’t much to look at before puberty struck him down, but afterwards was living proof of the sense of humor of the divine comedy of life.

His hair had always been a matted tangle of corn hued straw, so that much hadn’t changed, of course now it kind of drifted away from his forehead which had become rather pronounced and rather pointed. His Eyes began to pop forward and with the slightly green tint his skin appeared to have under the fluorescent lighting at our school the children began calling him Kermit. Like most boys our age his voice began to croak and squeak, unlike the rest of us, it never got any better.

During classes he would get the hall pass under some obviously false pretense and the teachers usually gave it to him without much fuss, I imagine it was only so they didn’t have to look at him for the entire period. With a hall pass in one hand with his notebook in the other hand and proceed to find his was to Shelly Neusbaum’s locker. With his spiral notebook and trusty mechanical pencil he crafted exquisite letters of his undying love.
Poems of passion for her soul, Exquisite soliloquies dedicated to her beauty, Ballads and arias of her poise and grace.

She was never impressed that all of his double entendres rhymed rhythmically or that he understood the proper use of free verse and punctual delivery of a haiku.

Instead she was disgusted by his form and allowed her revulsion to be excruciatingly and painfully obvious to anyone who could hear her screaming at the foolish ugly oaf that poor Eugene the soon to be Ogre was.

That never deterred Eugene from delivering his mail of passion to Shelly. Each day he would get one of those old wooden hall passes, to make a stop at her locker with his old beat up spiral notebook full of shreds of previously ripped notes falling from its edges. Shelly in turn would wait until the end of the week and return all of his notes in a fury that would end with him in tears as he grasped at the confetti of love notes that rained upon him as she flung it towards him in a rage.

Shelly contracted leukemia while we were in the seventh grade and it was announced that she wouldn’t be returning that school year. Eugene almost cried himself to death that day under the jungle gym dome out in the playground. As soon as he heard the news he hid himself underneath them and no amount of coercion would budge him for the rest of the day. When the final bell rang I gathered him up and we walked home together.

We wandered down Desdemona drive and Eugene made sure to stop and place one of his poems into Shelly’s mailbox. He kept that up for the next 7 months that Shelly was in the hospital, and even when we went to Shelly’s funeral, Eugene had a poem in hand to place within her coffin.

It was the last piece he ever wrote.

I don’t think Eugene ever really recovered from the blow of Shelly’s death; He never went after another girl in all the years I knew him. Up until our last year in school he even kept a photo of Shelly in his locker. After he left school he moved into a rickety old apartment complex over on the edge of Highland Park called Fredrick Square, and there began to proceed to live out his life as an Ogre.

Now being an Ogre is probably as hard as you can imagine. Why no one really wants to have anything to do with them, much less hire them.

What with Eugene’s depression, disposition, design and demeanor it was an amazing thing that he was allowed to live in normal society. But Like I said before (and if I didn’t, I meant to) Eugene had come from wealthy people. So his Dad had pulled a few strings and cashed in on a couple of annuities and low and behold old’ Eugene was set for life, so long as he agreed to be a good son and have a short life. He would never having to worry about a thing until he made the rational decision that he had had enough and would be willing to do the honorable thing for himself and his family and commit suicide. After all he was rather hideous (even his mother agreed to that point and never had told him otherwise) and the idea of the bloodline continuing through such an abomination was rather unthinkable. What would they think over at the country club?

So Eugene did the honorable thing and moved into that studio (see exceptionally small) apartment just like his family desired of him to do, and with his allowance never once had to walk outside those doors back into the world ever again. His door only opened if the person who had knocked knew the secret knocking password, and only 3 people knew it; Eugene, myself and the pizza delivery guy.

About the only thing that kept Eugene sane was the little creek that was snuggled within the small apartment complex. He could enjoy its simple beauty in the early morning hours when none of the other residents were about.

Every night way past two or three in the morning, Eugene would find his way to the bridge and stand over it feeding the ducklings that gathered there in the spring and feeding the mallards in the fall. He would stare transfixed into the muddy trickle of water as over time the other wildlife began to appear.

Right after high school I would sometimes visit Eugene and we’d sit on that old paint flaking bridge of green and dangle our legs over the edge and smoke a few cigarettes as the mud from one shore got shuffled across to the otherside without so much as a word between us. We never needed to speak or explain anything to one another. I understood that he was an Ogre, and he knew I was his friend and that was good enough for both of us.

As time passed my life moved onward and Eugene became more of an Ogre.

Those eyes which at one time were popping forward were now full on bug eyed monsters which almost sat upon stalks. His hair had developed into a dreadlocked nightmarish mane with sections of decaying pizza crusts and odd bits of various toppings matted within and through the shrubbery of hair. His skin had greened even deeper due to a lack of vitamin D, and he knew… yes he knew, deep down in his poor desperate heart that he was now the Ogre he always had dreaded to become.

One night close to Halloween he had wandered out to the stream a bit earlier than normal and a young girl by the name of Sarah who lived in the unit adjacent to his own, had seen him from her bedroom window. The poor child pissed all over herself in fright and wouldn’t stop screaming until her mother called the police.

Eugene was handcuffed and detained until the Apartment manager came over to clear up the matter about Eugene with the police. When they released him he ran to his apartment howling and trembling with fear along the way. Eugene changed his knock codes with the pizza guy the next day and refused to answer the door for anyone but dominos from that day onward.

I tried so many times to get him to talk with me that first week my knuckles were purple and blue, but it didn’t matter to Eugene. The rancid and battered old ogre that he had become bellowed out warnings to go away and leave him alone. As time passed I listened to him and did just that.

It had been many years since I thought about Eugene; that is until I received a letter from him Thursday last. The envelope was soiled with what appeared to be cockroach droppings and coffee stains. It then wriggled in my hand, which sent those creepy kinds of goosebumps running around the nape of my neck. I opened it at arm’s length with a shake only to find a solitary fat cockroach of indiscriminate origin scurrying across my hardwood floors. With revulsion I stomped it to death quickly and read the letter which was just as disgusting as the envelope had been. In eloquent penmanship it read simply…

My oldest friend,
My kingdom is in danger and I could use your assistance.
Please make haste
Eugene Piroskie
The Ogre
PS: three long, three short, one long, one short, three long and two kicks

I arrived sometime after sunset and tried to make my way to his door, but the odor was overpowering. It was a rancid smell far worse than anything I had ever experienced before in my life. Far worse than the back seat right next to a chemical toilet on a grey Hound bus, and I would imagine twice the stench of your average paper mill.

As I moved closer towards the Ogre’s cave, my eyes watered as the odors engraved themselves within my nostrils. Oxygen became sparse and I coughed and sputtered my way towards that poorly painted white door that was covered in all kinds of bright yellow postings explaining how the property had been condemned. I tucked my nose and mouth under my faded black Henley and progressed a bit further along the way to Eugene’s door. As I stood less than twenty feet I noticed them. Running up and around the doorframe, into and out of his apartment, scampering up the trellis full of decaying ivy and overgrown weeds. Scurrying under the door and through a crack in the windowsill. Cockroaches… hundreds and thousands and perhaps even millions upon trillions of cockroaches.

As I grew closer I could hear the chattering of their mandibles, the solid thumping of their marching feet and the swishing of their wings as they dragged them along behind them.
I could go no further, my repulsion had exceeded its limit and yet here my old friend Eugene had need of my help. Since I could go no further without vomiting I did the only thing I could manage and cupped my hand to my still covered mouth and yelled out.

“Long, long, long, short, short, short, long, short, long, long, long, kick, kick”

The weathered door popped open with a scattering of cockroaches that took to air and scurried about on the ground, the sides of the door, the door itself and even wandering up towards the ceiling and the broken light fixture. Besides the roaches also fell out the tattered remains of various empty pizza boxes in various states of decay that rolled onto the front porch in a soft wave of crawling bugs and what appeared to be makeshift buildings constructed of the remains of pizza boxes as well.

I was beckoned into the darkness of Eugene’s apartment with a curling green finger that bodiless appeared from the opening in the doorway. As I moved closer the cockroaches parted before me as if I were Moses crossing the Red Sea, the door opened further and I was blinded by an enormous brilliance and found that I could no longer stand nor see.

While I lay sprawled upon the ground, I felt the wretched little cockroaches gathering about me as if I were a part of some Lilliputian mockery; they hefted me up underneath their undulating bodies and carried me away.

My sight came back slowly but the fear that had gripped me left me unable to move as I stared in horror and awe at the utopia that unfolded about me.

To my left on a book shelf hung over the front door were cockroaches who were dressed in Samurai armor fighting to the death with cockroaches in the full livery of Arthurian Knights. There was a chorus of these majestic creatures on the coffee table playing the flight of the valkyries upon their wings while enormous queen sized cockroaches rode mice as steeds in a reenactment of the Opera to the scores of cockroaches that clung about the room.

There was a one eyed Cockroach that sat up a throne to the left of the TV, and about him fluttered two miniature black dragonflies that seemed to caw instead of hum, and there was a cockroach whose clothes were pied that did pratfalls for one and all.

Above all of this and myself loomed the Ogre, my friend Eugene who was leaning down to me with a smile. He lifted me from the floor and set me into a chair not far from where I had been resting and proceeded to tell me of all that had occurred since last we spoke all those years ago.

Watching little Sarah soil herself due to fear had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back as far as Eugene was concerned, and so decided to take his family’s advice and put an end to his life once and for all.

He made one final trip to the outside world and bought a few boxes of rat poison, some cranberry juice and a couple of liters of cheap cherry vodka. When he got home that evening he pulled out the crystal punch bowl his mother had given him for Christmas a few years before he graduated High School (in her defense Eugene’s mother had her assistant buy the gift for Eugene, telling her nothing about whom the gift was for or what the receiver might have preferred (which was actually only a few G.I. Joe figures he was missing from his collection) and mixed himself a large punchbowl full of cherry flavored vodka, strychnine, and cranberry juice.

Though Eugene was a rather tall man, he was still rather scrawny, and as such only managed to drink enough of this deadly potion to have a brief encounter with the supernatural world.

“I had a Vision” he exclaimed quite rationally,“ There she was gliding on clouds strapped to her feet like a pair of roller skates and she was smiling this time, she was coming into my waiting arms.”

“Who?”

He rolled his eyes at me just like we used to do back in high school. That snotty kid way that says get a grip. Exasperatedly he hissed “Shelly”

He hadn’t forgotten her, how could he.

“Ah” I lowered my head to hide my shock at what had become of Eugene.
He was greener than before… Lord of the Rings Orcish green. Those childhood acne scars had become thorny protrusions and puss filled craters. His head had become bony and his entire body was patchily covered with a fibre kind of like yellow mohair.

He rambled on endlessly about hearing Shelly’s voice keeping him company as he stood upon death’s door that night.

Shelly told him that she would send him friends to help ease his pain, to relieve the suffering of his exile in this modern world. For all of his love and devotion he would become a God himself, but it would cost him.

When he asked of the cost, she only told him that he must become that which he was destined to become. That task which he had been bred for, the role in which he had been born for.
It was the will of God, for Eugene was born to be an Ogre. Not just any Ogre, but the Ogre to the keepers of the next story. The next sentient people to riddle planet Earth, the cockroaches
Eugene explained it all to me and as he spoke those little cockroaches reenacted an episode of the Love Boat on a bar of soap that floated ontop of the scummy water that resided in the backed up bar sink set into the kitchen countertop. These Cockroaches of imminent intelligence swarmed from one cardboard building to the next, I heard whistles and saw Taxis, Police-roaches and cockroach politicians.
There were Cockroach hotdog stands, and a couple of cockroach Starbucks and even a little cockroach arena where they had cockroach ice skaters competing in a kind cockroach Olympics whose medals were made from beer bottle tops.

There was a rundown coffee shop for cockroaches having an open mic session, and there was even a cockroach abortion clinic with a group of cockroach protesters picketing out front.

They had fighting, sex, drugs, love, happiness, pain, misery and joy… and they definitely had stories too.

“Can you believe they want to tear this all down?” Eugene Moaned.

I shook my head and tried to keep a calm face as I pulled my phone from my blazer’s breast pocket.

Eugene looked at me expectantly as I dialed the number.

“Hello, ACLU?”

Eugene smiled and calmly stretched himself over his roach encrusted divan and lifted his gaze toward the shrine to Shelly Neusbaum that overflowed along the foldable table. The table was covered in multi-colored melted wax, various animal skulls and piles of dead cockroaches.

“I’m afraid not, you’ve reached Briar Grove psychiatric facility,” spoke the skeptical sounding woman on the phone.

“Oh good,” I spoke,” I’m so glad I dialed the right place. I have a friend over here that could use your assistance. It seems he is having a bit of a problem with his landlord.”