Pink Streak The Pink Streak in the hair, wink if you care, refused to acknowledge the Tattoo, woo-hoo, woo-hoo. It deemed itself more original: "I'm a riot," it said. "Tattoo's just an unruly mob." And the Pierced Nipple declined a conversation with the Pierced Ear. "Please!" it said. "A pierced ear may be more visible, but the nipple pierced is coy, really really cool." Thus the Pink Streak and the Pierced Nipple vowed to never acknowledge the Tattoo, the Pierced Ear, or any other fashion nobodies on or off the Google bus. "What would there be to say?" asked the Pink Streak. "Fuckin' ..." began the Pierced Nipple, as he began every sentence, then stopped. He couldn't think of the word for what was "fuckin'," his vocabulary being rather limited. A philosopher standing nearby was listening to their conversation. He was a collector of strange notions and bizarre ideas, among other things; and the new generation, the Millennials, interested him greatly—almost as much as the Islamic State. "You can learn much from obnoxious people and from evil ones too," he had once told himself. The philosopher had only a small scar on his thumb from an accident he once had peeling a peach. He was grateful that the knife hadn't gone straight through his thumb. And he had so little hair on his head that he wouldn't dare streak it even if it were possible to do so. Of their peer assessments he said, "That's fine with me. These are arrogant young people full of themselves." Arrogance, he knew, could lead to a person's downfall. "I am nothing, the void," he told himself, "and I prefer it that way." Then, having a kind of revelation, he stated outloud: "Being humble, I will never know humiliation; And the mighty may not always be so. Moreover, being so will not always be so; Mighty only mighty may be. And beauty's field is soon plowed under, once said the Master." The Pink Streak and the Pierced Nipple were not impressed: "Hey, dude," said the Pink Streak, "shut the fuck up!" "Not cool," said the Pierced Nipple, his eyes daggers, his voice icy cold. Our philosopher wondered seriously which was worse: The Millennials or the Islamic State. The former killed mind and language, the latter only the body. He would think about it on his next walk to Muir woods across the Bay.
	By Louis Martin