Free Book of Jim: Agnostic Parables and Dick Jokes From Lucifer's Paradise by Adam Spielman

rolled through the fence and onto the yard and Marco gave it a thumbs up.  The tank fired a shell and the house exploded.  The tank fired another shell and the house fell over.  Jim thought the third shell was probably gratuitous.
    “This isn’t funny,” he said.  “I was just taking some time off, man.  Is it a crime to get sad once in a while?  I had stuff in there.”
    The eyes of Marco shined.  “Was it the stuff of dreams, Jim?  The stuff of adventure?  Did it smell like the dead salt of acrid seas or the sour sweat of the jungle?  Was it a fist raised against winter and the hot blood of glory?”
    Jim swallowed.  “Uh, no.  It was, like, albums and stuff.”
    “Art thou yet a man?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Sign this.”
    “What is it?”
    “Sign it.”
    Jim signed it.
    “It’s settled, then.  We hoist sail at midday.”
    3
    So Jim sailed with Marco into the bleakness .  The waters were calm and shrouded.  Then they became choppy and the shroud began to lift and Jim beheld the dark wall of storm.
    “Is that where we’re going?” he said.
    Marco heaved the wheel of the ship.  “To the mountain behind it.”
    “Can’t we go around?”
    “There is only one way through the storm.  There is only one way up the mountain.”
    “What’s the point?  We’re already dead.”
    “That’s why they call it the Stupid Fucking Mountain.”  Marco steered the ship head on and into crush of the rising waves.  The ship climbed and crashed and climbed again.  “No man has a reason to climb it, yet all men must .  And after the climbing, in spite of all sanguinity, you find that the top is just another rock.”
    “So what’s the point, man?  What’s the difference between taking a nap and climbing a stupid fucking mountain?”
    “ The Stupid Fucking Mountain.”
    They came upon the storm and the storm came upon them.  Jim clung to a crossbeam.  Marco commanded the helm.  Waves and rains and winds of storm tossed the ship that moved through the bleakness . 
    Then the waters were calm again.  The crags of the base of the mountain rose out of the waters and climbed into the shroud of distance.  Jim looked long at the shroud.
    “How tall is it?” he said.
    “It’s never been measured.”  Marco dropped anchor and lowered the mainsail.  He cut loose a lifeboat that splashed down in the waters.  “And you wouldn’t be the first to try.  Just remember to keep going up.”
    “I really don’t feel like climbing it.”
    “You must climb it.”
    “Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna.”
    Marco gave Jim the thing that Jim had signed.  “Read the last paragraph,” he said.
    So Jim read,
    The undersigned hereby agrees that, upon failure to reach the peak of the Stupid Fucking Mountain in full compliance with the rules stated above, all freedoms shall be forfeit for one year and one day, during which period the undersigned shall be placed into the custody of lechers and psychotics and sadists.  The undersigned shall have experiences including, but not limited to: rape, torture, and mutilation.
    “You’re bluffing,” Jim said.
    The eyes of Marco shined.  “Then call it,” he said.
    Jim stepped into the lifeboat.
    4
    So Jim climbed up the Stupid Fucking Mountain.  It was also a big fucking mountain, and he climbed for many months.  His shoes wore out and his feet became hard.  His jeans and his T-shirt withered and his skin become rough.  His hands became strong.
    He thought, Man this sucks.
    Then a sound from the bleakness came to him.  He searched for it.  He found a young man who sat in a shallow cave and played a haggard guitar.  Blonde hair hid the edges of his face as he strummed with brutal sincerity.
    The young man looked up and moved the hair from his eyes.  Jim knew his eyes, just as he knew his sound.
    “Hi,” Cobain said.
    “Hey,” Jim said.  He stepped with caution, for he felt like a gazelle coming upon a lion.  “I, uh, heard you playing.”
    Cobain