Auditing Thax Phrod: Do Not Attempt To Itemize This Story

Thax Phrod believed three things with absolute certainty:

1. The IRS is just Scientology for numbers people.
2. No one alive truly understands what a deductible is—not even the IRS.
3. If you ignore your taxes long enough, they’ll go away. (Spoiler alert: they don’t.)

It was April 15th, 11:58 PM, and Thax was two minutes away from either filing his taxes or faking his own death and moving to Croatia.

His apartment looked like a paper mill had exploded inside a Taco Bell. Crumpled receipts blanketed every surface. A half-eaten burrito sat next to a bottle labeled “Taxpayer’s Regret,” a home-brewed cocktail of bourbon, tears, and a splash of expired NyQuil… okay, more than just a splash.

The only source of light was his laptop screen—glowing and judging—and the flickering flame of a scented candle called “Denial is a River.”

His browser had 22 tabs open, including:

- “How to do taxes when you have no idea what you’re doing”

- “Are late fees negotiable with the government”

- “TurboTax for emotionally unstable freelancers”

- “If I fake my death will my mom have to pay my taxes for me”

Mom. She would know what to do.

In a last-ditch moment of desperation, Thax opened his phone and dialed his mom’s number.

She had helped him file his taxes every year since his first job. He still remembered his first refund–$143.27–and how it made all of the grease-stained clothes, eternal smell of cooked beef, and emotional distress of working the night shift at McDonalds during the summer of 2009 worth every penny.

But last year, after he tried to deduct an air fryer as a “medical device,” she was over it. She snapped at him:

“Thax. You’re thirty-six. You don’t need a CPA. You need a therapist and life skills.”

This year, his mom blocked him for the entire month of April.

He was alone.

Accepting his fate, Thax cracked his knuckles and began typing his name into Form 1040.

T-H-A-X-P-H-R-O-D.

Hm. This wasn’t too bad. Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

Then the screen flickered.

The cursor froze.

The form… twitched?

Letters rearranged themselves. Numbers started spinning. The air around the laptop turned cold, and a low hum filled the room—like a fax machine slowly realizing it’s obsolete.

Suddenly, a creature began to crawl out of the screen, flickering and groaning, like an injured rabbit begging you to put it out of its misery. Its body was made of tax codes, refund disclaimers, and line items that seemed to multiply the more you looked at them.

“YOU HAVE SUMMONED ME,” it thundered, in a voice that sounded like a spreadsheet crashing mid-save.

Thax screamed and hurled the nearest object at it: a stapler.

It hit the form square in the deductions box.

The creature absorbed the stapler... then spit out a paperclip and whispered: “Underreported.”

Thax bolted for the door—but the form snapped, firing a stream of staples like tiny missiles.

One grazed his hoodie. Another pinned his sock to the floor. Then two stapled him to the wall by the sleeves, just as the walls around him began morphing into endless rows of beige cubicles.

The flickering fluorescent lights buzzed louder. The air now smelled like burnt toner and decades-old coffee. Thax was immobilized—heart pounding, hoodie pinned—when the staples suddenly vanished.

Footsteps echoed through the cubicle maze.

From the shadows emerged a figure in a tight-fitting suit with a haunted expression. His face was pale, sleep-deprived, and held the quiet rage of someone who’d been asked to explain a 1099 to a gig worker one too many times.

His name tag read:

CRAIG PENNALTY – Senior Agent of Fiscal Doom

He adjusted his glasses—which had no lenses—and muttered, “Thax Phrod. You dare file at the last possible minute?”

“I… technically started last week,” Thax desperately pleaded, “but then I had to watch four hours of YouTube videos explaining what a ‘Schedule C’ is, and.. and.. I blacked out reading about capital gains.. and… I woke up watching tutorials on how to make those fancy pancakes that look like cartoon characters.”

Craig sneered. “You think this is a game?”

“No, sir. It’s a deeply flawed system weaponized to punish confusion.”

Craig cracked his neck. “Good. You understand.”

He snapped his fingers.

From the ceiling descended a massive wheel, cobbled together from shredded W-2s, broken calculators, and the tears of small business owners.

“The Wheel of (Mis)Fortune”, with segments written in Comic Sans, read:

• $300 Fine and Mild Shame

• Refund, but in Kohl’s Cash

• Eternal Audit

• Forced to Explain Crypto on a First Date

• We Owe You $6.32 (But at What Cost?)

• Summon Ghosts of Taxes Past

• You Get a Refund but Your Ex Gets the Same Amount Out of Spite

• All Receipts Must Be Submitted in Interpretive Dance

• One-Time Forgiveness, But You Owe the State of South Dakota Forever

Craig gave it a ceremonial spin. It let out ear-piercing creaks and squeaks as it spun, amenable to a fork scratching a plate or nails on a chalkboard.

The wheel slowed.

Tick… tick… tick…

Was he awaiting his fate or listening to the time run out on his stopwatch of life?

The wheel stopped.

It landed on:

✅ “We Owe You $6.32 (But at What Cost?)”

Thax blinked. “Wait… I’m getting a refund?”

Craig frowned. “That… that can’t be correct.”

A filing cabinet caught fire in the distance. A TurboTax pop-up screamed. A ghost of an H&R Block intern rose from the floor and was immediately dragged back down by unpaid student debt.

The IRS dimension began to shake. Cubicles tipped. Fluorescent lights exploded one by one. A printer jammed itself out of existence.

W-2s and the dust from old bookshelves and filing cabinets began swirling around him. His visibility was almost zero inside of this tax tornado. But Thax could still see the flickering, monstrous form that brought him here.

Thax clutched the form. “Am I free?!”

Craig roared from a distance, his voice filling the room like a god as lighting crackled and thunder rumbled, “NO ONE is EVER free.”

The monstrous form screamed, “Go Thax, while you still can! Just promise me you won’t end up here next year.”

Craig’s hand came from above, reaching for the form and Thax Phrod.

"I.. I promise... but, but what about you?"

"I'll be okay. I deal with this every year."

Then, the form peeled Thax’s hands off his shoulders and shoved him through the vortex of what was now W-2s, stapled paperwork, and vaguely threatening letters.

“Save yourself, Thax Phrod.”

The Morning After

Thax woke up, face-down on his keyboard, with a receipt stuck to his cheek and a single line of drool pooled on the space bar.

His laptop blinked:

✅ Filing Complete. Refund Approved. Amount: $6.32

He opened his bank app.

Balance: $0.17

+ Pending deposit: $6.32

– Monthly overdraft fee: $35.00

He exhaled, exhausted, broke, and somehow… victorious.

Then his phone buzzed.

New email:

From: [email protected]

Subject: URGENT: We Have Questions About Your Return

Thax stared at the screen.

A single tear rolled down his face. He whispered the only name that might be able save him:

“…Mom?”