Matt Sullivan

It was yet another bank holiday weekend here in Ireland. We're endowed with nearly one a month during the summer and autumn -- though not as plentiful as some of our European neighbours; Austria, for example, has 13 in total (it's a wonder Ms. K. ever left) -- and it is a typical weekend for Irish people to get married, and so it was with my good friend Dan.

Last week was primarily a week of submissions, in that I dispatched a handful of stories for potential publication and am now playing the waiting game to see if any of them pass with flying colours.

The Coyote and Chloe Smells have left home and travelled somewhere deep underground to that secret Editor's Vault, where all lonely and hopeful scripts go under scrutiny for that mysterious and arcane Review Process. Many fail and lie wasted on the immense Heap of Rejectedness; the chosen few end up in The Land of the Published.

I was walking to my Abode Under The Bridge on Tuesday evening, and I passed by a boarded up shop-front. It was scrawled with graffiti, and right in the middle of it were the words CHLOE SMELLS, written bold and proud.

I've had enough -- it's time declared a war on Bloatâ„¢. I've recently come to discover, you see, that I am an avid practitioner of Bloatâ„¢; so much so that I feel I have a claim on the vile technique, and have decided to copyright it. I know others suffer from the same affliction, but I think I may have a monopoly on the technique.

It has been a while since I posted anything and I'm hard pressed to explain the strange acceleration in the the space-time continuum that magically spirited away an entire week. I have a blurred memory of far too many meetings, presentations, and two full days spent wearing a suit (which is the most time I have spent in a suit in about five years). The weekend also mysteriously vanished -- and now it's Tuesday.