translated from English to Russian and back to English, by Ivan Vlachko

I am a poor man, an artist no one wants. I work hard all year long only for one single day. A single day of failure, Halloween.

My name is Piianko, my trade is that of a designer. I fabricate All Souls costumes for the Ameri-Dress Quality Costume Company, a skill I learned from a peasant named Yuri on the streets of Bohemia. My honesty compels me to tell you this - my costumes are the best costumes in all of the world! Yes! But you would not know that to look at the urchins who walk the streets. All dressed in the popular fineries of Sponge Bob Pantsquare or Whoozamacallit Whatcha-whoozie!. But I am only joking. Perhaps you feel my jocularity is inappropriate. Bah!

Let me explain. I will start from the middle, work my way back to the beginning, and then end again at the middle. My costumes are misunderstood. They are not easily-digestible modern cartoon characters, but reflections of humanity itself! For example, my nephew once requested I costume him as a fear-inspiring wampyre. I agreed, but secretly dressed him as man's inate refusal to accept finality.

"What is this strange costume, dear Uncle Piianko? Surely it is not a fear-inspiring wampyre!" the boy whined as I finished hot-gluing the last of the sour grapes to the dildo.

"Why do you taunt me so, child?" I screamed at him. With that, my cheeks reddened and I tore the entire costume from his body, grapes and field mice flying into a dank heap in the corner! I covered my face and began to sob as the boy threw packages of pop rocks at my back and called me foul names such as "doodybum". My taunting never ends - even from my own flesh and blood! Who can blame them? I despise even myself! I despise my hair, my uvula!

I remain in this business merely out of rancor. Does this disturb you? But again I am only joking! Let my bosses fire me! I was not conceived into this world to manually remove eye holes from the face of Powerpuff Girls. I am so much more!

No, I have been decieving you. In truth I am merely the lowly administrative assistant.

Oh-ho! Did you believe that? Another lie! I apologize. This is my downfall, I suppose, that I hate you. My only love is that of costuming. Listen...

Last week I stumbled upon my most brilliant costume idea yet - RAGE! It was all too perfect! Children reeking of the emotion, accepting Jolly Ranchers from nauseated housewives! Rage! How could it fail? It already has. And here is how I did it.

Late at night, when I was supposed to be hemming the capes for the new Teen Titans line, I walked into the fabric department where I stole away the most delicious piece of black carpeting from the floor behind a filing cabinet. To the carpeting I affixed seven dying carp which I had handily filched from the tank at China Buffet during my lunch period. I then challenged a square of cheesecloth to a duel, after which I stapled my index finger (accidentally, but what a stroke of genius!) to my other index finger. Standing back, I was too excited to contain myself and I came all over my work apron.

I slept there that night, leaning against a three hole punch. My dreams were fevered, and in them I concocted a plan to show my boss this garment first thing in the morning. Surely it would make me rich. Rich! Imagine it! Why, with riches I could be rich! Then I could finally enact revenge upon the Ameri-Dress Quality Costume Company. Yes, I could purchase them outright and replace their flammable Scooby Doo masks with real quality costumes such as our societal enslavement to symbols, or the fear of human intimacy. I could also fire Laura, the receptionist who once spurned my romantic advances when I asked if she would join me in sitting in the machine room until the heat became so unbearable we had to scratch bloody lines in each other's backs just to keep from screaming. The wench will pay!

The next morning I awoke and splashed my face with oil from the boiler. I wanted to be as foul as possible when I approached my boss. It pleased me.

As I turned the knob on M. MacDougal's office door, I began to have second thoughts. Surely he would laugh. Lighting his cigar, he would nonchalantly dismiss me, as Laura teabagged him below his massive oak desk, mocking me.

I turned the knob back halfway in preparation to leave before I suddenly remembered that I am a genius. Yes, it is they who are wrong! I turned the knob 3/4 back the other way. Then I remembered the haunting laugh of my dreams. Why, what if MacDougal really did laugh that way? Certainly I would break down into hysterics! Certainly I would laugh so hard myself that he would wonder of my sanity and fire me on the spot! No, I must be firm. I must walk straight into MacDougal's office and demand that I be made president of the company immediately! I turned the knob halfway back to where it had been just before I turned it 3/4 of the way from the halfway mark of it's original position.

Suddenly, the door opened.

"You there! What business do you have playing with my knob? Sit down!"

"M. MacDougal sir, I am sorry for stealing Snackwell cookies from the lunchroom cabinets." Oh! This was not how I had planned to begin!

"Oh ho! So it is you who is the lo-fat cookie pilferer then!"

"No, I mean, yes! I am on a diet! But also I am a genius!" I stammered.

"A genius, eh? Well then, perhaps the genius can explain to me how he did not see the printed label on the box which clearly read 'Donna's Cookies'? Eh, Donna? Eh, genius, eh? Eh? AH HA! Oh! Genius!"

And then he began to laugh. A bellowing, deep, cantankerous howl that wound up inside of him like a giant metal toy. I stood there for several minutes with my hands over my ears, tears streaming down both my cheeks while he continued, his whole body convulsing. Finally, I turned and fled his office, accidentally leaving my masterpiece "rage" behind me in a heap on the floor. I hurried home with hands still covering my ears, knocking my elbows against street signs as I ran.

It is in this foul, depressed mood that I come to you now. Covered in oil, the cursed laughter of my boss still ringing in my ears, my masterpiece lost forever. Surely I have been fired over the cookie incident, and my costume remains unknown!

Now I must find a new company, a new assembly line to join. So I have finally decided to start my own. Tomorrow I shall return to M. MacDougal and ask if I might borrow several hundred thousand dollars as an advance to put him out of business. Perhaps he will aquiesce, feeling badly for driving me from his office yesterday morning, as well he should!

But what name for my company? I have settled on that of "Harold Williamson". Dearest Harold Williamson, my downstairs neighbor, blind from birth, deaf in one ear, retarded, missing both his arms. Harold, the only man in this world who has ever let me costume him, the only man who has ever treated me with respect! Harold, soon you will be a company at the very top of the Fortune 500, it's a shame you won't understand what that means.

I fear I must end here. Next year, children will collect your candy robed in my seething self-hated and disgust for all women. I promise you this as a promise! A promise indeed! Goodbye.