Ask Zorbax
This week it’s Zorbax’s turn!! 
Your questions answered by Zorbax XII the Dread, Scourge of the Centurions, the Marked One, the Fate of Our Race, the Nine-Armed, the Center of the Four Suns, the Great Uncle, the Ragged Spear-Tip, the Many-Eyed, the Terrorlord of Ragg, Primus Pilus of Zangan.
Dear Zorbax,
Where have you been? I’ve been writing and writing. Anyway, here’s my problem. I hate talking on the phone, but don’t really know how to get off when friends call just to chat. I often end up making them angry, and then I feel sad. How do I get off the phone without alienating my buddies?
Philip
Albuquerque, NM
Dear Puny Human,
Even now, Zorbax’s bejeweled fingers clutch at your feebly shining sun, and his mighty heel hovers above your flimsy cities. A great shadow will fall across the land, a shadow to terrify man and animal alike, a shadow to drive you into your homes, your livestock into their barns, and your souls into the deep recesses of your being. An all-devouring, all-blackening shadow that will stretch across your putrescent world like a great flood, invading every cave and crag, every mountain and monastery, every home and haven. Crouch to avoid it and it will surge over you like a vast ocean of snakes; climb for safety and the shadow swoops down like a murder of crows. There is no avoidance, no evasion, no shelter. There is only foul, stinking blackness made more foul by the scraps and leavings of your ragged souls. Thanks for writing.
Dear Zorbax,
I don’t usually write for help like this, but I can’t really ask anyone else. I am having some troubles with my wife. We have been married for twenty-five years and I am kind of bored. I don’t really like to be with her any more. But I don’t want to get divorced. How can I make things better?
Carl
Carson City, NV
Dear Puny Human,
Zorbax the Ever-Growing, the Belly and Mind, the Whale and the Wave. Zorbax!—the proud note of the French Horn. Zorbax!—the cry of the prey-bound falcon. Zorbax!—the hail of souls against the walls of the world. Zorbax has arrived. He rises from the depths of your swamps, your sewers, your fresh- and salt-water marshes. He descends from your trash piles, your slag heaps, your high rises. Zorbax is under the tongue of the crocodile and in the throat of the egret. He nourishes and wastes, raises and razes. When the walls of your cities and crumbling, when your pitiful machines collapse into a desperate tangle, when the sound of the sky raining fire is a reprieve from the howls of your neighbors, then will you know that Zorbax no longer sleeps.
Dear Zorbax,
Is it Ok to pass notes in class? Ms. Smithins said it’s not Ok but I think it is because when you pass notes you don’t talk.
James
Ms. Smithins Third Grade Class
Philo City, NH
Dear Puny Human,
Zorbax. Zorbax has teeth like the cold at the poles of your world. He has breath like the the heat in the core of your planet. His hands grasp sea and sky and what his eyes see is what his eyes destroy. Zorbax is here and when Zorbax strikes he will be like a great, dark column in the center of your world. And you will be drawn to him; or ye shall be repulsed by him. And those that are drawn to him will be sucked in by a powerful feeling; and those that are repulsed by him shall be worried and made miserable by his legion followers, the wolves and weasels, vultures and Bull Sharks. And those that are drawn to him shall travel from moon to moon, from star to star, undergoing the unspeakable rapture of our dread lord Zorbax. Just remember: keep reaching for that rainbow. No one can can stop you if you keep your eye on the prize and work to make your dreams come true.
Zorbax has spoken.
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