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with Charlton Heston April 14th, 2003 Dear Diary, Today I killed a man with my own damned hands. I was on the city bus when the murder transpired. I had just travelled to the public library to rent a copy of The Ten Commandments. The events that followed led naturally to the murder, and I do not fault myself for it. I am positive anyone would have done the same thing if put in my position. What happened was this: I suddenly felt the urge to kill a man with my bare hands. The lust sometimes comes over me— as I am sure it does us all— and I find it best not to argue with the kill-lust, but rather feed the hunger as one would a pet of some kind. Reaching over to the man next to me, I lightly placed my hand atop his shoulder, and with the other hand holding The Ten Commandments attempted a friendly wave. "Hello, hippie," I said chummily. "Petitioned your government to abolish guns lately? Me too—we're all hippie friends here. There's nothing to be frightened of." "Um hey," said the man. "Say aren't you Cha—", and then I damned well killed him, pummeling him in the neck with The Ten Commandments until he was dead. I laughed a hearty baritone laugh, with my hands atop my hips. "I'm Charlton damned Heston!" I yelled to everyone on the bus. "And I just killed a man with my own damned hands, you filthy hippies!" Ha HA! They didn't have much to say about that! May 4th, 2003 Dear Diary, Today I went to the hospital to have an entire liter of dark, viscuous fluid evacuated from my brain. I found this to be sensationally interesting news, but my wife Margaret was very troubled by it. Out of respect to her, I did not share my excitement— not only to be out of the house, but in a really big hospital with many interesting machines around me. At first I suspected hippies were to blame for the fluid—or worse still, filthy hippies— but my doctor assured me the fluid had nothing at all to do with those dirty foul-smelling urchins. Rather, it appeared that my brain had, as the young people say, "hemhorraged." With typical Heston wit, I jokingly asked my doctor if my "hemhorraged" brain could perhaps be inspected by the imminent Dr. Zaius. Then I laughed a manly baritone laugh with my hands atop my hips! My doctor replied that Dr. Zaius did not work at this hospital, and then gave me a very confused and worried look. Shocked, I asked my doctor if he had never seen Planet of the Apes. He told me that he had "caught a few minutes of it" on television once, but had turned it off because he hates "old movies," and he thought "the apes looked fake." And so, with typical Heston wit, I attempted to murder him. After I had been sedated and roped down, I was forced under duress to promise my doctor I would not ever again throw myself at him in an attempt to tear out his hippie throat. I remained suspicious, however. Why would he lie about not liking The Planet of the Apes? It made no sense. I immediately suspected my doctor of being a homosexual, dear diary, and suspect it still. At any rate, everyone was quite upset about the hemhorrage, especially my wife Margaret. The doctor told me my whole brain would probably turn to fluid soon, that it would drain out of my ears, and that my entire skull would eventually cave into my vacant head. Worried, I asked him if that could affect my acting career. He said it that yes, it might, as I would be dead. I pulled the man aside and asked him, in all seriousness, to give the news to me straight, with no sugar coating: were the hippies to blame for this? Sensing how he would answer, I grabbed a scruffy-haired male nurse by the neck to thrash him to death for the conspiracy. But my doctor said no, he had already explained that hippies had nothing to do with it, and he pleaded with me to put the orderly down, which I grudgingly did. When the tests came back later in the afternoon, it was discovered that the fluid taken out of my brain had in fact been common pork gravy. My doctor was flummoxed, and queried me as to how I could possibly have gotten such a large amount of pork dripping inside the casings of my skull. I explained to him that my wife Margaret had cooked a delicious ham the other night. So hungry had I been, I had eaten the entire damned thing up in ten seconds. The doctor waited patiently, then after several minutes mentioned that this explained nothing as to how I had managed to get twenty ounces of gravy into my brain, and I remembered I had not finished the story. I continued. Moments after having eaten the delicious ham, you see, I heard an odd beeping noise from behind me, and looked around in horror to see my wife Margaret pulling gravy out of the microwave. There had been delicious gravy for my ham the whole time -- and in my impatience I had missed it! So upset had I been that, later that night, I had snuck downstairs and poured the gravy directly into my ears and sinuses with a funnel. The doctor discharged me soon after. The young doctors of today simply can’t treat illnesses like they could when I was a child, dear diary. In my day, the doctor would have forced a ham into my sinuses to chase the gravy. Suffice to say, I have since begun investigations into my doctor being a homosexual. More on this later, diary. June 15th 2003 Dear Diary, Today I took a walk with my wife Margaret. It was a beautiful day, and as I had already emptied my daily round of ammunition at the tree in our backyard with my elephant rifle, we agreed to take a nice walk upon the path that runs through the orchard a few acres from our home. This sounded like a splendid idea, and so my wife Margaret filled a picnic basket with egg salad sandwiches and the medication that stops my skin from melting spiders out its pores, and off we went. It was a wonderfully sunny day, and my wife Margaret and I enjoyed some of the many sights of the quaint New England countryside. We saw a family of finches building a nest in the crack of an old wooden fence and I shot them. We saw a goose feeding its goslings in a small pool of water by an abandoned river mill and I shot them all to Hades. We saw a dog chasing a cat up a tree, and I shot the dog to death but missed the cat. We saw a small boy flying a kite near the river mill. My wife Margaret stopped me from shooting the boy, so I reluctantly shot at a bush instead. The
path soon bent alongside a small brook. At this point we were forced
to stop walking momentarily, because in my excitement to shoot a deer
lapping at the brook, I excreted in my pants and almost shot my wife
Margaret. However, my wife soon cleaned my unfortunateness up, and a
few minutes walk later we were at the orchard. To my delight, I immediately spied an entire field of trees just like the one I used to visit as a child. "Margaret!” I called. “Come and look!” Lying on the ground– and in the tree itself! -- were hundreds of small red petrified skulls, just as I remembered from my childhood. “These,” I said, holding the skull up to Margaret, who reached for the pills, “are the skulls of Native Americans! Look how bloody and red they are!” I explained to my wife how I used to come to a tree just like this one as a child, and how I would collect the small skulls if the red savage. “And don’t think me a brute, Margaret,” I whispered with a wink, “but I’ve even on occasion eaten the skulls. The Native American’s brains are sweet and tender! You must try one!” Well, diary, you will not believe it, but apparently these cursed little red things are not skulls at all, but rather some damned thing called an "apple." Also, they have not been placed atop the trees by Republicans, as I had previously thought, but grow on the tree naturally. I asked Margaret why on Earth they would do a thing like this. She said that there were seeds in the apples, and that this was how the tree reproduced. Sweet Lord in Heaven, diary! If I had known that all those damned things I’d eaten as a child weren't the petrified skulls of Native Americans, but the cursed semen-casings of some miserable tree, I’d never have touched them in the first place! At least I still have my bananas. July 8th, 2003 Dear Diary, The other day a good friend gave me a delightful piece of news! I had just gone outside to have my daily five hour chat with good Mister Mailbox— what a grand fellow— when he surprised me with a letter in his mouth. “Why Mister Mailbox,” I exclaimed, patting him on the head. “You’ve outdone yourself! This is mail from somewhere on present-day Earth! Why, it could be from anyone.” At this point my wife Margaret had to come outside and calm me down, since the neighbours were beginning to complain. (Someday, diary, I intend to shoot my neighbours, as they have been nothing but a nuisance since I moved in last year. If a man wishes to have a simple conversation with a good friend, on his own property, and firing a scarce minimum of rifle shots at passing cars, then who are my neighbours to complain? At any rate, I will shoot them in the chest soon.) It turns out, diary, that the mail was from my dear friends at the National Rifle Association. I was so very pleased that I immediately grabbed my semi-automatic machine gun off of the wall of my study and fired a celebratory magazine into the walls and ceiling. It seemed that the New England chapter of the National Rifle Association was having a fundraiser at the local Hilton, and they wished me to give an introductory speech! I immediately had my wife Margaret send my tuxedo to the cleaners. I hurriedly brought my old typewriter out from under my bed and began drafting what was to be my introductory speech. This was what I intended to say at the fundraiser:
Now, the letter had explicitly stated that I should send a copy of my speech to the NRA branch office, so that it could be perused before the fundraiser. Remembering this, I dutifully put a copy of the speech into an envelope, and I attached stamps to the envelope. I then placed the envelope atop my table and patiently stared at it, waiting for it to disappear. Three hours later, my wife Margaret explained that letters were supposed to be placed into some manner of mail receptacle, and that she would place the letter into the receptacle for me when she went on her nightly jog. This was a relief, as the letter had only partially disappeared. One week later, my wife and myself arrived at the Hilton for the fundraiser, and were confronted by a homosexual. The homosexual informed me that he was in charge of the fundraiser, and that he was pleased that we had made it. I told him quite firmly that he had better not give me any homosexual rings, since I would not wear them and anyway did not believe in their powers. He paused at this and pretended to ignore me. He then explained that some members of the NRA had made a few small changes to my speech, and he handed me an envelope that contained a sheaf of cue cards. This did not trouble me much, as I had infinite trust in the judgement of the NRA. No doubt they wished to insert a comma or two where grammar dictated. I am not the world’s best grammarian, after all! I am also not a homosexual. That night, the fundraiser started with much fanfare, and I was introduced to a cheering crowd. As I approached the podium, I took the sheaf of cue cards from the inner pocket of my tuxedo. And, diary, I felt a chill run up my very spine as I looked in horror at my mangled speech! Every word had been changed. All of my wise entreaties to kill cats and disallow hippies to paw through our garbage had been removed. Instead, a series of banal greetings replaced my words, with silly information about gun safety and firearm regulation programs. Bah and more bah! When I wish to regulate my guns, I will elect a mincing Democrat to the White House! Until then, however, keep your laws off my gun! I quickly tore the cue cards to pieces in anger. When I reached the podium, I gave a completely impromptu speech, which went as follows:
At this point I began kicking the air with a series of furious karate kicks. Now, I might be an elderly gentleman, but I tell you – those kicks were very very high in the air! After my impressive martial arts display, I took out my graphite-based Luger .45 carbine alloy pistol and waved it around for the crowd to appreciate. When they began to upturn tables and hide for cover, I began to suspect something was wrong. As it turns out, diary, I had walked into the wrong auditorium! Not two doors down, in a similar looking auditorium, the NRA Flesh-Exploding Hollow-Tipped Bullet Jamboree was getting underway without me. Well, I must have looked quite the fool, parading my graphite Luger around the Women Dealing With Menopause convention! The security guards that tackled me to the ground certainly looked surprised, at any rate. My wife Margaret has since made me promise that I never leave her sight again when we go outside. I agreed to this, under the conditions that I still be allowed to have my daily talks with Mister Mailbox. Margaret reluctantly agreed, and so everyone seems to be happy. Alright then. I’m off to kill my neighbours!
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