By Joel Schneier

Billy spins the ball in between his hands.  He bends, raises the ball, then thrusts himself in the air with his legs.  He catapults the ball in the air. 

The ball arcs and then comes back to the Earth.  It lands ten feet from the basket.

"Damn!" shouts Billy.

"You missed," says Nelson.

"I know."

"And you know what that means."

"Yeah, I know."

Nelson unfolds his arm and reaches over to the side of him where there is a string hanging as if from nowhere.  He pulls the string and there is a whistling sound. 

Billy has enough time to look straight up in the air and see an anvil come crashing down on him.

"Alright, boys, lift the anvil off of him and get that pancake outta here," Nelson says directed at three large and dumb looking boys.  They lift the anvil up and then one of them picks up the pancaked Billy and throws him off of the court.

"NEXT!" yells Nelson looking over at a long line of other kids.

This is Nelson’s World.  A world where he gets to extract revenge upon every person who ever picked on him . . . which is pretty much everyone he knows. 

Of course it’s a dream, but that doesn’t matter.  Since this story only concerns Nelson’s dream world there’s no point in drifting elsewhere.

The next kid in line picks up the basketball and carries it all the way to the other end of the court.  This kid, just like the other, tries to make the shot in the other hoop but falls about ten feet short, too.  And once again Nelson pulls the string the causes an anvil to flatten this kid too.  Nelson’s been doing this throughout the entire dream.

"You know what?" Nelson says to the line of soon to be pancakes, "I’m getting a little bored of basketball.  Why don’t we play golf?"

All of the kids in the line let out a loud and depressing "AWWWWWWW."

Nelson’s dream version of golf is pretty simple:  Try to golf the ball into the hole before you’re devoured by a ferocious lion.

As they’re walking over to the golf course a few of the kids start talking to one another. 

"Why does Nelson always put us through this?" says a kid named Jeff, "It’s not our faults that our real life characters always beat up on Nelson."

"Yeah," says a kid named Ryan, "We’re not those kids.  We’re just Nelson’s subconscious recreations of them.  If I were out in the real world then I wouldn’t be so mean to him.  Why can’t he realize that?"

They quickly stopped conspiring because Nelson walked by them and gave them evil glares.  He points at the Jeff kid.  "You’re up first."

Jeff was handed a club and a ball.  As he was getting ready to tee off the two big, dumb looking kids wheeled over a big cage that had a vicious lion in it.  The lion winked at Jeff.

"Now, as soon as your ball reaches the ground the lion will be released.  So, GO!" roared Nelson.

Jeff swung and hit the ball and then took off as fast as he could go.  When the ball hit the ground the lion was released and ran after Jeff. 

The ball was ten feet away when the lion pounced on Jeff and swallowed him whole.  The lion the picked his teeth with a tooth pick and walked back over to the cage.  If you listened close enough then you could hear the hallowed sounds of Jeff’s cries.

"Ryan," said Nelson, "You’re up."

Ryan, who really didn’t want to be devoured challenged Nelson, "Wait!  Why don’t you try?"

Nelson giggled.  "Do you think I have a death wish or something?  This is my dream, why would I do that?"

"Well, you don’t have to do it with the lion.  I mean . . . ummm . . . I just wanted to see your golfing skills."

Nelson raised an eyebrow.

"You must have chosen golf for a reason.  I was just guessing that you did because you suck at it."

"I DO NOT SUCK AT GOLF!"

"Okay.  Then prove it."

 "I would . . . but I don’t want to."

"Yes you do."

 "No I don’t."

 "Yes you do."

"No I don’t."

"Yes you do."

"No I don’t."

 "Yes you do."

 "No I don’t."

 "No you don’t."

 "Yes I do."

"No you don’t."

"Yes I do."

"No you don’t."

"Look, when I say I do, then I mean I do.  Now give me the club."

"Okay, you’re the boss."

Nelson grabbed the club away from Ryan and tossed a ball on the ground.  "FORE!" He swung at the ball and it went sailing high in the air and dropped right into the hole . . . and then it bounced out.

"Awww.  That’s still better then any of you morons can do!"

Ryan was standing right next to the lion’s cage door.  He had his finger ready to unlock the door.  He winked at Nelson, "Oh, I know," and unleashed the lion.

A few seconds later Nelson’s dream was over.

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