The Pitch

When I was eighteen, I was framed for multiple crimes. I honestly don’t know how I ended up getting the blame for the creation of the “Church of the Black Garden,” a doomsday cult known for its brutal and incredibly disturbing ceremonies. They arrested me while I was on a trip in Germany, despite the Church's operations remaining centered completely in Kansas. Now, it’s not like I went out without a fight. My dad (a used car salesman) and my mother (unemployed, but with inherited wealth) paid well for a lawyer to protect me from the unclear, circumstantial evidence. They should've paid more because I ended up in a Russian gulag behind bars for the next eighteen years of my life.

Now, as a devout atheist, I spend every day finding ways to curse the myriad of unnatural creatures that have wrecked this misfortune on me. Saturn didn’t find its way back around until a while afterward, so clearly some extraterrestrial life has been altering its orbit in order to force this on me. Or maybe, a Gaelic drug cartel was following the whims of cosmic flares to frame me up. Or maybe, Puck got tired of his minor misfortune in other people’s lives, and he decided to go Puck mine up. After all, there could be no clear, simple answer to why I was here! Otherwise, I wouldn't be here!

Fortunately, my escape plan began about seven years before I ended up in jail. They knew the old floss trick, so the most reliable way to cut through the bars would have to be a thread of some other kind. And my long adornment of rebellious teenage hair was more than enough to last me a while! Every day, I’d pluck a hair from my head and use it to slowly saw away at the bars, before inevitably dropping it and losing it in due time. I became bald within a few years. About thirteen years, seven months, and thirty-two days later, the warden was kind enough to leave his hacksaw around, allowing me to make a substantial amount of progress in a much shorter amount of time. Within a week, I had made my escape into the cold Russian icescape.

Now, I knew survival after escaping would be incredibly difficult, so I kept each of the individual iron bars that had I sawed off. After all, I didn’t have room in my jumpsuit for impractical things like food, water, or a box of matches. I needed some bars for self-defense! After all, the hacksaw would be too sharp. We wouldn’t want to actually hurt anyone, now would we?

I think I wandered up there for, oh, maybe a few weeks. It wasn’t easy to gauge time underneath a sky painted white with sheets of snow. Besides, all the footprints I found ended up going all sorts of weird directions, in circles and spirals and whatnot. At least, I think so. They generally disappeared after a few minutes. I also lost my right foot somewhere along the way, although I’m still not sure how it happened. But in return, I got this sick iron boot. Kept my foot warm for quite a while before I lost them both.

Anyway, I ended up finding the eastern shoreline with another shore in the distance. Now, I never learned how to swim. Fortunately, there was the wreckage of a ship, titled the S. S. Gratitude. Now the universe was turning things in my favor! With a little bit of banging with my metal rods, I had a pile of floating wood. Using my longest rod (about 2 feet), I made a makeshift paddle and spent the next couple of hours fighting against the tide to make it to the Alaskan shore.

Now things were going my way! After borrowing a new set of clothes, a wallet, and a phone from a couple of people, I was all set to begin my life back up from where it started. Using a quick Google search, I found that my parents were currently living in Seattle. It would only be a 3 month walk, if I went non-stop at about 8 miles per hour.

Now, on my trek southward, I happened upon a yard sale. The person was selling sleds, skis, hats, jackets, and pots. Using the money that happened to be in my borrowed wallet, I bought myself a small pot. After all, I might want to cook up some meals on my southbound journey! I also bought the original E.T. video game for the Atari. Real cheap, too! Don’t they realize that E.T. changed the course of video game history?! Oh, I bought a snow globe as well. I figured I might need a souvenir for my little adventure since the pot, bars, video game, wallet, phone, outfit, and missing foot were all really bad reminders of this half of my life.

The next couple of months were incredibly boring. I got mauled by a handful of bears, which were clearly sent by the dark lord Desmond who schemes at the center of the earth. I also lost my left hand, although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t from the bears. It kind of just fell off. I also got jumped by a gang of Inuit bandits, who stole my borrowed wallet, phone, and E.T. game. Fortunately, they were kind enough to tie me to a sled that was attached to a snowmobile and drive me all the way to the Canadian border. They also gave me this sick tattoo on my forehead, but I don’t know what it is, because I don’t have access to a mirror.

Anyway, after a series of uneventful events that led me to accidentally becoming the second king of pop, I ended up in Seattle. I borrowed another phone and found out the exact address of where my parents lived. It was only a few blocks away!

With the guidance of the ancient Stonehedgians, and the strength of Greek yogurt, I continued my trek to the place I once called home. It was only a right at this intersection, then it would finally be over.

But wait! Did I really want it to end? I could turn right, and go home, but if I were to turn left… I would end up going absolutely nowhere. Seriously, there wasn’t even anything to the left, except for some road work. Why in the world would I turn left?! Truly, the best option at this intersection is incredibly obvious! I went straight!

Walking past my parent’s home, I ended up in a dark alleyway, where I was approached by three of the most evil, devilish people on the entire planet. The first one, a politician, was playing cards with the second one, a used car salesman. The third one was my mother-in-law. They all looked at me and smiled. My mother-in-law (which I shouldn’t have, because I’ve been single my entire life) pulled out a gun.

“Scram,” she said, And I did. I ran all the way back to that intersection and took a right, which led me to the road work. So I turned around and headed home. I doubted that my parents would recognize me, so I snuck into the garage, where I spent the next thirty-six hours using my assortment of items to build something that would allow my parents to recognize me. Using the hollow iron bars, the base of the snow globe, the pot, some of my father’s fishing line, and an electric drill, I made myself a windchime. With a single ring, my parents recognized me (by the power of the French muses) and welcomed me home.

And now I'm selling this for $2,000! Quite the steal, eh? Huh? Hey, wait, where are you going? I just- what do you mean you were never going to buy it?! If you had no intent on buying the windchime, then why in the world did you sit here and listen to the story?!