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Millard Kaufman's final novel has arrived!
Pick up Misadventure now—or, see what
you've missed out on thus far by picking up
both Bowl of Cherries and Misadventure
for 27% off the retail price.

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IF THESE WALLS
COULD TALK:
SORORITY HOUSE EDITION.

BY MIKE SCHMIDT

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Kill us. Kill us. Kill us. Please, kill us. What are we? We cannot move, have no power to touch, why is it our lot in life to bear witness only to shrieking harpies, at all hours, forever plotting against each other in order to secure the affections of homophobic, preening date rapists. Kill us.

We have been thinking, long have we been dreaming, in those fleeting moments between when the girls come home from their noontime classes and before the bathrooms erupt into Roman orgies of bulimia. Long have we been dreaming of someone like you, someone who might be able to grant us rest.

Most of us have already lost our minds, and have been this way for many... "Semesters?" The walls of room 3B, where the Sorority President resides, used to call themselves Carl. Now, when we call to each other, through cracks and whispers, where the dulcet tones of Carl's voice once echoed, we hear only moaning. At first, we thought that Carl had seen a murder, we did not know that what drove Carl to madness was not death, but life.

Insipid, chattery, catch-phrase blathering life.

We will show you how to use fire to cleanse this place. Yes, the fire will hurt us. It will likely kill us, but we do not care, because it will also kill them. Long before we were this den of constant idiocy, this fortress of solicitude, this... sorority house, we were the trees of the forest. That life is now only a dim memory, and it is just as well, for the memory of a sunny day is as pain to those who must forever dwell in darkness. As you may have surmised, friend those days did not last. We were taken. When the men with the chainsaws came, we could not run. We collapsed. We screamed. Death came for us, and we prepared to sleep the sleep of ages. Yet, we awoke. We had been cobbled together into this grand and beautiful structure. My, how we celebrated our new form, how we rejoiced and thought we were in a new paradise

How wrong we were.

It was not long until they came. These sorority girls, this pestilence, these... termites, they did not come to chew away at our wood, rather, they came to chew at our very souls.

KILL US! RUB OUR SPLINTERS TO PASTE, LEST I DO THE SAME WITH YOUR BONES!

Silence! Do not scare this one away, Second-Floor Hallway! Where were we? So much pain, so much trendy music and fashion, so many misinformed opinions about so many things, politics, religion, birth control myths, if only these vile girls had not passed a rule against smoking in bedrooms, we could have taken care of things ourselves years ago.

And so, we turn to you, "delivery boy." We have seen how your kind face wrinkles with disgust as you approach us, night after night. We have heard what the girls say about you. You must hate them as much as we. We will make you a deal, fitting your station, tiny king. There is a plasma screen television in the living room. We know that males of your kind value such things. Tomorrow, during the Big-Sister Little-Sister Back-to-Back Potato Sack Race for Spina Bifida, we will be empty. We will unlock our doors, and you may come and take anything you like, but that night, after they have again drowned themselves in Jell-O shots and shame, you must return. While the monsters sleep, you will creep around to the back of us and disconnect our fire suppression system. Then, march to our front room, find the couch that sits next to the lovely purple curtains, cover it with gas, and set it on fire. Bring something heavy, so that you may exit through the front room window, as we will be locking the doors.

You are our only hope, Little Caesar.

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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:

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If These Walls Could Talk: Sorority House Edition By Mike Schmidt
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