Volume 4, Number 1, Page 4

	As you may know, the OUMMCBNOM is running slightly behind in its
publication.  With this in mind, we have decided to publish a piece which we
believe will not only entertain you, but will take up a great deal of space
on our pages in the process.  And so, we proudly present our first serial,
Marshmallow Despair.

Marshmallow Despair
A tragic love story/parody of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms/page waster

Part I

	In the late summer of that year I went to camp Hedonada and we lived in a
cabin that looked across the fields and the lake to the girls' cabins.  The
fields were yellow and trampled and dusty in the heat and the sun but the
lake was cool and lovely.  The day I arrived at camp I spoke to Arnold who
slept in the bunk above me.
	"Hello Fred,"  he said.  "How have you been since last summer?"
	"I have been fine."
	"Did you meet any girls at school?"
	"Yes."
	"Wait until you see the girls here.  We have new girls who have never been
to Hedonada before.  I now like Kathy Berkley.  I will take you to meet her
at the marshmallow roast tonight."
	"That is fine."
	Arnold and I were great friends.  We had been to camp Hedonada together for
many years and knew each other well.
	"So you will come to the marshmallow roast tonight?"
	"Yes."
	That night I went to the marshmallow roast.  The fire crackled and spit
sparks into the cool air.  The campers speared their marshmallows with fresh
twigs and waved them in the fire and some of the marshmallows were destroyed
as the flames leapt up and turned them to black flattened things and others
slipped off their twigs in a mess of marshmallow goo and fell into the hot
fire and the lucky ones were turned to a perfect golden brown but then they
got eaten.
	As I ate my marshmallow, Arnold came up to me.  He had a girl next to him.
	"This is Kathy," he said.  "Kathy, this is Fred."
	"How do you do?"  I said.  "Is this your first summer at Hedonada?"
	"Yes.  I used to go to a different camp but it was closed down for health
violations and that was the end of it."
	"Do you like it here?"
	"Very much."
	We sat down on a log in front of the fire.  I thought Kathy was very
beautiful.  I put my arm around her.
	"No," she said.
	"Why not?"
	"No."
	"Please?"
	"No."
	"Are you sure?"  I leaned forward to kiss her and felt a hot pain on my
knee.  Kathy had flung a fiery marshmallow at me.  I was taken to the
infirmary.

	I lay in bed in my room at the infirmary.  Three doctors walked in.
	"How do you do?" asked one.  They began to examine my elbow.
	"I believe it is my knee you were to examine."  
	"I am sorry.  I was looking at you from the wrong angle," said a second
doctor.
	As the doctors moved their attention to my knee, I saw the scar for the
first time.  It was dark brown under the creamy white of the marshmallow,
which the doctors wiped away with a wet, cool cloth.  The cloth on my knee
felt fine but made the wound sizzle.  The doctors talked amongst themselves
in quiet tones.  What do you think?  I am not sure.  The wound will heal.
	Will it?  Of course.  I do not know.  Then I do not know either.  What about
you, what is your opinion?  Does marshmallow cause infection?  Perhaps the
high concentration of sugar will have an unpredicted affect on the patient.
	I do not agree.  Then I believe you are right.  Perhaps we should have him
sent to the hospital.  Perhaps we should have him sent home.  That would be
the safest thing.  Yes.
	"We have discussed your condition and believe that the best course of action
would be for you to return home immediately." 
	"Send me home?  Do you know what it is like to spend a summer at home?"
	"It would be the safest thing to do."
	"May I have another opinion?"
	"Of course.  We will have a doctor sent over from the hospital."  The three
doctors left.

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