$25.00
A HAPIN PENTER**
## **"Me Own" — C60**
### *The Complete Story That Ate All The Other Stories Today And Then Claimed It Was Hungry*
I am writing this from inside the sentence.
Not near the sentence.
Not beside the sentence.
Inside.
The letters are my furniture.
The commas are my windows.
The periods are tiny black doors that open into rooms where I have already been.
My name is **A HAPIN PENTER**.
Some call me narrator.
Some call me unreliable.
Some call me a man who should not be trusted with a pencil.
All are correct.
I own the story.
The story owns me.
Therefore:
**ME OWN.**
C60.
Stamped.
Approved.
Rejected.
Approved again.
---
I found all the other stories today floating in a bucket.
The bucket contained:
* NIE SAND walking backward through forests.
* RED ALL trying to fold a light year into a pocket.
* OAK OWNS drowning in salt while writing with wet paper.
* HAMMER striking invisible anvils.
* ERRY CANT cutting pieces out of reality.
* ALA ACK AN reviewing a movie that reviewed itself.
* RE A ENTIRE operating the insect tongue factory.
* "No Limit" C90 making noises nobody requested.
I poured them together.
The result screamed.
I called it:
**Breakfast.**
---
The first thing that happened was Pluto fell into my kitchen.
Not the planet.
The idea of the planet.
A cold idea.
A round idea.
An idea wearing a tiny hat.
Inside Pluto was the lake.
Inside the lake was the factory.
Inside the factory was the movie theater.
Inside the movie theater was a review of the factory.
Inside the review was me.
I waved at myself.
Myself waved back incorrectly.
---
The insects arrived carrying paperwork.
They always do.
Nobody fears an insect with paperwork.
They fear an insect with confidence.
The ants brought maps.
The beetles brought rulers.
The roaches brought old receipts from places they claimed they had never visited.
The spiders brought a graph.
It was terrible.
```text
TODAY'S STORY PROBLEMS
Too Much Sense
|
|
|
|
Too Much Everything
############################
```
I approved it immediately.
---
Then came the great identification problem.
A bug entered my office.
It had six legs.
Probably.
Maybe seven.
One leg was arguing with another leg about history.
I asked:
"What are you?"
The bug replied:
"What are YOU?"
A classic mistake.
Never interview a mysterious insect before coffee.
---
So I wrote the official note:
> We’re willing to take a look at any picture put in front of us, but we can’t always provide a proper ID. We don’t want to give the wrong information, so for infestation cases we usually recommend running a specimen by a urban pest specialist (called Urban IPM Extension Entomologists) working at a local university to confirm the ID. The National Pesticide Information Center, a collaboration between Oregon State and the EPA, has a really easy to use website which will help you find these sorts of local experts. The website can be found here, and we’d be more than happy to help you navigate it through email.
The factory workers applauded.
The beetles took notes.
The roaches requested a copy.
---
Then I wrote the secret message underneath:
> Seriously…just ask us, and we’ll walk you through it anonymously. We’ll never mention your name in public. It’s what we’re here for.
The sentence floated upward.
The ceiling accepted it.
The ceiling became a mailbox.
The mailbox became Tuesday.
Tuesday apologized.
---
My office became a language factory.
The walls spoke backwards.
Forward:
> "Everything belongs somewhere."
Backward:
> "erehwemos sgnoleb gnihtyrevE."
Factory language:
> **"Mek tal vorrin osh kaa."**
Translation:
> *The lost thing remembers the shelf it never stood upon.*
---
I made a chart.
Nobody asked.
```text
A HAPIN PENTER'S CONTROL PANEL
Reality ########
Dream ####################
Confusion #############################
Insects ##################
Coffee #
Reason (missing)
```
Reason filed a complaint.
I misplaced the complaint inside a dream.
The dream is now legally responsible.
---
Then ALA ACK AN arrived with the movie.
The movie had no screen.
Only a backstage.
Behind the backstage was another backstage.
Behind that:
A smaller movie.
Behind that:
A tiny version of me reviewing everything.
I reviewed myself.
I gave myself four stars.
I argued with the review.
I lost.
---
HAMMER brought the C20 anvil.
OAK OWNS brought the C40 notebook.
ERRY CANT brought C20 scissors.
RE A ENTIRE brought C60 paperwork.
I brought the title.
**ME OWN.**
We combined everything.
The machine screamed.
> brrrrrrrkkkkk.
The machine produced a new language.
---
## THE FINAL BACKWARDS LANGUAGE
Forward:
> "The story is finished."
Backward:
> "dehsinif si yrots eht."
Factory version:
> **"Torr vel ahn shikka men."**
Meaning:
> "The story has only changed rooms."
---
At the end, I discovered the most horrible truth.
I was not telling the story.
The story was telling me.
Every time I wrote a sentence, it grew another mouth.
Every time I deleted a word, the word opened a door.
Every time I explained something, something else became impossible.
So I stopped explaining.
I became a footnote.
The footnote became a lake.
The lake became a factory.
The factory became a movie.
The movie became a review.
The review became a story.
Edition of 1, numbered.