Foreword

WARNING!

CONTAINS SCENES OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

Greetings and salutations, dear reader!  It is absolutely AWESOME to be with you again and I want you to know that even if we’ve never met in person, you are having a positive impact on my life, right now, at this very moment.  That is how wonderful you are to me, especially my returning readers.  I wish blessings on you from my God and yours (if you have one).  I genuinely believe that your mere existence makes this world a better place.  

Now onto the violence.

This book does have violence in it.  My returning readers already understand this extremely well.  I am Russell A. Mebane, the Dolphin Killer, the writer who made a pack of small dogs murder an old woman.  If any of these claims make you nauseous or light-headed then please, stop reading now, delete this book from your account, and never speak of it again.  

At this point, I would like to elucidate on a small tradition some may not have noticed.  Whenever I write a short story collection, I try to order the stories from the lightest to the darkest in tone, to make it easier for new readers to get into.  I tried to do this in “Squirrels & Puppies,” but I didn’t realize that the squirrel sex in the first story was such a heavy subject.  “Flowers & Kittens”, I’ll admit, was a little more random in order.  This time, however, I’ve ordered the stories more successfully from light to dark.  This time I took into account how many characters are killed and/or assaulted, how they’re killed and/or assaulted, and their species.  Call me racist, but I think human deaths are darker than animal deaths.  If you disagree with the order, write a review and tell me how you would’ve ordered the stories.  Thank you again for being with me.  

Enjoy the book!