"The graduating class is in for a world of hurt. Never mind that their beloved science-fair-models of our solar system will no longer include Pluto—each and every one of these kids, upon leaving this fabled institution, will need to reckon with their abysmal SAT scores..... Remember, hitting the rock between classes is one thing, being a full-time crackhead is quite another. You think you can just walk out those doors and go create your own unified theory explaining everything in the universe? Go on—good luck!"

Shift the unbeliever’s weight to their left buttock. Bend left leg behind and pull the unbeliever’s upper body forward, using nylon ropes or 2-inch link chains (wear gloves so as not to pinch or burn hands). Minimize “vomit hazard” by clearing unbeliever’s throat of any objects that may have been lodged there during capture or processing.

When Cleopatra determined that her apple had been both genetically modified and irradiated, she may have compared it to a summer’s day. Or she may have compared it to Uranus: holding the apple on its side, she may have noted how both the stem and the opposing, bark-like nub of the seed core are not unlike the abnormally tilted axis of said planet. She may have recalled, too, that at the time of Voyager 2’s passage, Uranus’ south pole was pointed almost directly at the sun, as if engaged in this egregious mix of metaphors as a show of disrespect: mooning, as it were, the sun.

Cleopatra had not planned to leave her post at the Higher Institute of Sciences and Technology of Mozambique. But, then, neither had she planned on Mozambique President Samora Moisés Machel’s plane crashing in the Lebombo Mountains. Nor could she ever have imagined that Machel would not number among the ten survivors. Certainly, she reasoned, no one among the survivors would have believed, that exactly eight weeks shy of the 20th anniversary of Machel’s death, the very solar system would be reduced to eight planets.

Van Gogh himself had admitted to finding few things more invigorating in art than a sense of mastery. Why then, wondered Mary Oliver, did she feel only doubt and a dull sense of déjà vu, as if she were repeating herself. Draining a bottle of Ravenswood merlot, she swatted her cat from the stack of mail and returned to her letter to her dear friend, Senator Hillary Clinton: “My robes, Hillary. Once a clear and accessible metaphor for wisdom, tonight my robes suggest only mothballs and Marlboro Reds. . . .”