According to numerous websites entitled 'How to Write a Novel', this is what I'm supposed to do first... summarize the whole thing with one brief sentence.
Here goes...
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The Nonplussed - a brief, one sentence summary of what's going on, and why, and how.
At a time (the year 2042) when the entirety of humanity is in the process of going collectively insane, by an infinitesimally unlikely chance a stable wormhole is created at the Larger Hadron Collider, which opens a gateway to another universe occupied solely by an alien entity known to itself as Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger, who proceeds to enter our universe via the LHC wormhole and, manifesting itself as a petulant 8 year old boy, immediately demands LUNCHEON and subsequently is assigned a guardian who, after witnessing and enduring many destructive and deadly tantrums and tirades, finally uncovers Cannibalus's universe-consuming purpose, an idea at which an insane homo sapiens of course balks... that of being consumed by a peurile extra dimensional entity identifying itself as Cannibalus the Starvling, so humanity is thusly challenged to battle through its own state of collective insanity in order to effectively confront and ultimately thwart the plans of an infantile, seemingly all-powerful alien from another universe to consume the entire infinitude of the multiverse - beginning with the Earth.
There, I did it. That was one sentence, and it was relatively brief. I'm not done yet, though.
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Firstly, we have the universe. Our universe. Like countless other universes which help to comprise the unending foreverness of the multiverse, our universe was observed into being from an infinite sea of wildly fluctuating quantum wave functions by the ubiquitous preconscious potential, the living substrate which underlies, supports, defines, and purposes all of the phenomena comprising the entirety of existence.
Conditions can vary wildly from universe to universe - some, like ours, have physical laws and dimensions of space-time which are conducive to the natural development of life, and many others don't. Our universe is the only universe out of the multiverse which is fundamentally flawed, however. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, singularities and wormholes, particle-wave duality, the uncertainty principle, superposition, the light speed barrier, quantum gravity, the accelerating expansion of space-time, the precariously balanced, more natural and universe-erasing state of false vacuum upon which our universe constantly teeters yet never collapses - all of these are the real, observable defects of our inherently flawed continuum, where the story takes place.
All universes - an infinity of them - exist inside a state of perfection except ours, because the idea of perfection can't exist without contrast to give it meaning. That's us... we're the contrast. An entire sacrificial universe. It's just the way it has to be, always has been, and always will be. It's necessary. Do you understand? Our universe is the ultimate epitome of the concept of 'accidentally on purpose'. It's ncessary chaos... blameless and offensive.
This is existence, without beginning or end - waveforms collapsing, universes emerging, evolving, thriving, decaying, dying, reborn, infinitely and almost perfectly, the ubiquitous preconsciousness observing it all into existence, always and constantly, forever... yet making the necessary unconscious mistake every few thousand eons that gives rise to our universe, over and over, an infinite number of times. A mistake which propagates eternally through the multiverse like a mutation, bestowing the necessary gift of variation upon an Existence ideally based upon perfection.
Since our universe is flawed, wormholes are allowed to exist. Wormholes, put simply, are flaws in the fabric of our space-time. Flaws, as in... cracks. Or holes, or leaks. If a porthole on a submarine is cracked, water leaks in. If a viewport on a spaceship is cracked, air leaks out. If space-time is cracked, things can leak out of our universe and into the... outside. What's outside of a universe? The inside of another universe. Or, conversely, things can leak into our universe from an outside universe, and into ours.
Only through our universe, the flawed universe, can information be exchanged between universes. Throughout the infinite eons, our universe has been utilized as a kind of telephone exchange system many many many thousands of millions of billions of times, its matter sacrificed for compression into quadrillions upon quadrillions of singularities in order to provide links for outside universes to one another, and for linking parts of the inside of our universe to other inside parts for the purpose of facilitating connections among universes through our universe by sidestepping the light speed barrier (yet another annoying flaw inherent only to our universe).
As I've said, all universes must die eventually, including ours, which means that eventually this universal exchange system also must end eventually with the death of our universe. With each reformation of our flawed universe, life again arises and developes the capability to break space-time, allowing the passage of information among the infinite universes of the multiverse, and the whole cycle repeats.
Right now, in our universe, it's about 14 and a half billion years since the most recent big bang, and life has finally developed to a point that it can break space-time, but only by the most unlikeliest of chances... we're talking quantum probabilities which are so unlikely they have always only ever been theoretical. By some googleplex to 1 probability, a stable wormhole is created at the Larger Hadron Collider on Earth, and by an even unliklier probability, this wormhole happens to link our universe to The Far Flung Hunger, a universe consisting solely of a consciousness consisting of collapsed quantum fluctuations known to itself as Cannibalus The Starvling. CTS's universe had already run through its entire process, from finish to start (time runs backward in his universe relative to ours), but CTS is stopping it from finally Unbeginning again. CTS was once a life form of this reverse universe, but became a flawed consciousness megaeons ago via exposure to a previous version of our universe via the wormhole flaws. CTS, having been driven insane by an understanding of the flaws of our space-time, was able to imbed his consciousness into the space-time of his own universe, thereby halting the unbirth of his own universe right at the moment of its Big Crunch. By holding it there, frozen in time, CTS defies the First Unbirth of his home space-time continuum by continuing to uncontinue and uncontinue and uncontinue, over and over, unnaturally... waiting for eons upon uncounted eons until he can once more access our universe and consume it, with all of its inherent flaws, transforming his consciousness - and by associated connection - the remaining fabric of his own universe into a brand new universe. A living, beautifully flawed universe, with his own consciousness at the helm and able to create wormholes as a simple property of the laws of physics. which he'd be able to invent or deinvent on a whim, according to his purposes. Think a selfish, bratty, petulant two year old with an effective god complex, and with a grudge against the entirety of existence. Thus CTS plans to unmake the multiverse so that it can undie and be redeathed as single, uncountable, infinite hims... mostly by throwing destructive, deadly tantrums when he doesn't get his way.
A fast and furious story filled with action and intrigue. Oh. It will all end in tears for everyone.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Old backup 27
Trump's War
• 2016 Donald Trump is elected president of the United States.
• 2017 President Trump provokes the Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Jung Il beyond his endurance.
• 2018 Kim Jong Il declares war on the United States.
• President Trump orders *cough* an unconditional surrender *cough cough* of all US forces to *cough* North Korea.
• 2019 Kim Jong Il can endure no further humiliation and launches a nuclear attack upon the south pole, weakening the western ice shelf substantially.
• One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over the Ganges River on laundry day, killing hundreds of thousands of Indians.
• India retaliates with a nuclear attack against Pakistan. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Israel launches a nuclear attack against Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over Berlin.
• Pakistan launches a full scale nuclear attack against India, Israel, Turkey, and South Korea.
• Turkey launches a nuclear attack against Pakistan and North Korea. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over Pripyat, Ukraine.
• Ukraine launches a nuclear attack against Turkey and North Korea. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates over Damascus.
• Egypt invades Israel.
• Etc...
• Peace in the Middle East.
• President Trump declares victory and an end to the War on Terror.
• 2020 Temperatures drop worldwide by 5°F.
• 2021 President Trump assumes 'emergency powers'.
• 2022
• 2016 Donald Trump is elected president of the United States.
• 2017 President Trump provokes the Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Jung Il beyond his endurance.
• 2018 Kim Jong Il declares war on the United States.
• President Trump orders *cough* an unconditional surrender *cough cough* of all US forces to *cough* North Korea.
• 2019 Kim Jong Il can endure no further humiliation and launches a nuclear attack upon the south pole, weakening the western ice shelf substantially.
• One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over the Ganges River on laundry day, killing hundreds of thousands of Indians.
• India retaliates with a nuclear attack against Pakistan. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Israel launches a nuclear attack against Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over Berlin.
• Pakistan launches a full scale nuclear attack against India, Israel, Turkey, and South Korea.
• Turkey launches a nuclear attack against Pakistan and North Korea. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates directly over Pripyat, Ukraine.
• Ukraine launches a nuclear attack against Turkey and North Korea. One missile's guidance system malfunctions and detonates over Damascus.
• Egypt invades Israel.
• Etc...
• Peace in the Middle East.
• President Trump declares victory and an end to the War on Terror.
• 2020 Temperatures drop worldwide by 5°F.
• 2021 President Trump assumes 'emergency powers'.
• 2022
Jim Witt
Protagonist
Name: Jim Witt
Race: caucasian male
DOB: December 31st, 1971
Occupation: moonshine runner and Sheriff of Podunk County, Georgia and former army Lieutenant Colonel.
Jim Witt, the only child of Vera and Hank Witt, was born on December 31st, 1971 in the small town of Fireworks, Georgia. His parents divorced in 1987 when he was 15, and his mother remarried in 1988 to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade of the United States Army. Yes, the same Frank Slade from the movie 'Scent of a Woman', which was based on his own autobiography, 'Stench of a Wombat - A True Story'.
His father Hank Witt was a bootlegger and moonshine runner, known for his specific brand of moonshine, Smokin' Hank's Double Rectified. As a boy, Jim spent summers with his father, who taught him everything about distilling spirits, as he expected the boy to take over 'the family business' when he turned 16.
Jim graduated from Sam Pewitt High School in June, 1989 and attended Southeast Georgia Community College in nearby Mt. Tolerance, Georgia where he studied basic curriculum until 1992.
In1993 Frank Slade, Jim's stepfather, was demonstrating an exercise in hand-eye coordination and rapid fire multiple grenade tossing to a group of new recruits by juggling six live hand grenades and taking shots of Smokin' Hank's Double Rectified for each grenade that he dropped (Frank was a long time customer of Hank Witt). Unbeknownst to Frank at the time, one of the six grenades he was juggling had lost its pin, and it exploded when it was at the height of its arc, about fifteen feet above his head. Luckily for Frank, most of the shrapnel exploded outward and not downward, but as he had been looking up when it happened, the shock liquefied his eyeballs, blinding him instantly. Frank had believed that teaching hand-eye coordination to new recruits was an invaluable lesson, and that his drunken rapid fire multiple grenade tossing method of instruction was superior, the reason being that if you could learn to juggle hand grenades while drunk, just think how many people you could kill if you were sober.
Frank wiggled out of a court martial and was honorably discharged.
It was due to an encounter with Marine recruiters at a McDonalds in Atlanta, where Jim was recognized as the stepson of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade and belittled with questions and assumptions of whether or not he planned on continuing the step-family tradition of drunkards juggling explosives, which made up his mind to join the Army. He gave both Marine recruiters the double bird and headed to the nearest Army recruiting office and joined, right then and there.
He scored in the top tenth of a percent on his ASVAB and was fast-tracked through college for his bachelor's degree and placed in officer training school.
Blah blah blah something else happens.
Geez I gotta do this shit for another dozen characters.
Name: Jim Witt
Race: caucasian male
DOB: December 31st, 1971
Occupation: moonshine runner and Sheriff of Podunk County, Georgia and former army Lieutenant Colonel.
Jim Witt, the only child of Vera and Hank Witt, was born on December 31st, 1971 in the small town of Fireworks, Georgia. His parents divorced in 1987 when he was 15, and his mother remarried in 1988 to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade of the United States Army. Yes, the same Frank Slade from the movie 'Scent of a Woman', which was based on his own autobiography, 'Stench of a Wombat - A True Story'.
His father Hank Witt was a bootlegger and moonshine runner, known for his specific brand of moonshine, Smokin' Hank's Double Rectified. As a boy, Jim spent summers with his father, who taught him everything about distilling spirits, as he expected the boy to take over 'the family business' when he turned 16.
Jim graduated from Sam Pewitt High School in June, 1989 and attended Southeast Georgia Community College in nearby Mt. Tolerance, Georgia where he studied basic curriculum until 1992.
In1993 Frank Slade, Jim's stepfather, was demonstrating an exercise in hand-eye coordination and rapid fire multiple grenade tossing to a group of new recruits by juggling six live hand grenades and taking shots of Smokin' Hank's Double Rectified for each grenade that he dropped (Frank was a long time customer of Hank Witt). Unbeknownst to Frank at the time, one of the six grenades he was juggling had lost its pin, and it exploded when it was at the height of its arc, about fifteen feet above his head. Luckily for Frank, most of the shrapnel exploded outward and not downward, but as he had been looking up when it happened, the shock liquefied his eyeballs, blinding him instantly. Frank had believed that teaching hand-eye coordination to new recruits was an invaluable lesson, and that his drunken rapid fire multiple grenade tossing method of instruction was superior, the reason being that if you could learn to juggle hand grenades while drunk, just think how many people you could kill if you were sober.
Frank wiggled out of a court martial and was honorably discharged.
It was due to an encounter with Marine recruiters at a McDonalds in Atlanta, where Jim was recognized as the stepson of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade and belittled with questions and assumptions of whether or not he planned on continuing the step-family tradition of drunkards juggling explosives, which made up his mind to join the Army. He gave both Marine recruiters the double bird and headed to the nearest Army recruiting office and joined, right then and there.
He scored in the top tenth of a percent on his ASVAB and was fast-tracked through college for his bachelor's degree and placed in officer training school.
Blah blah blah something else happens.
Geez I gotta do this shit for another dozen characters.
Susannah
Protagonist
Name: Susannah 'SuperSuze' Wagner
Race: caucasian female
DOB: March 25th, 2027
Occupation: Apparatchik Chick for the SCSG Coordinated Information Apparatchik
Discovered as an infant on the doorstep of Madame Maybell's House of Well Repute and Orphanage by Madame Maybell, Jim Witt, Walks Carefully on Eggshells Like a Bear (Navajo Russian agent), and Deputy Buckeye Buck, among other caring residents of Fireworks, Georgia. Upon entering puberty she instantly became The Most Beautiful Woman Ever, totally innocent, completely naive, playful, a living saint, and the foremost secret agent of the Apparatchik Chicks, an elite, all female battalion of the intelligence gathering arm of the Soviet Confederate State of Georgia, the Coordinated Information Apparatchik, or the CIA. She is the epitome of innocence and beauty, perfectly motivated, independent, with an inherent ability to execute any unrighteous order completely, but righteously, and in complete ignorance of any outside will to manipulate her. She's a baffling enigma to Cannibalus the Starveling - they are equals in maturity, but polar opposites in awareness of the states of their respective moralities. She's unaware of her perfection, Cannibalus is supremely aware of its own selfish Hunger. She's 14 years old.
Name: Susannah 'SuperSuze' Wagner
Race: caucasian female
DOB: March 25th, 2027
Occupation: Apparatchik Chick for the SCSG Coordinated Information Apparatchik
Discovered as an infant on the doorstep of Madame Maybell's House of Well Repute and Orphanage by Madame Maybell, Jim Witt, Walks Carefully on Eggshells Like a Bear (Navajo Russian agent), and Deputy Buckeye Buck, among other caring residents of Fireworks, Georgia. Upon entering puberty she instantly became The Most Beautiful Woman Ever, totally innocent, completely naive, playful, a living saint, and the foremost secret agent of the Apparatchik Chicks, an elite, all female battalion of the intelligence gathering arm of the Soviet Confederate State of Georgia, the Coordinated Information Apparatchik, or the CIA. She is the epitome of innocence and beauty, perfectly motivated, independent, with an inherent ability to execute any unrighteous order completely, but righteously, and in complete ignorance of any outside will to manipulate her. She's a baffling enigma to Cannibalus the Starveling - they are equals in maturity, but polar opposites in awareness of the states of their respective moralities. She's unaware of her perfection, Cannibalus is supremely aware of its own selfish Hunger. She's 14 years old.
Two Parrots
Protagonist
Name: Twit and Twerp
Race: African male and female
DOB:
Occupations: experimental subjects in genetic research
Two genetically engineered, highly intelligent African gray parrots who escape the lab and fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Austin, Texas and wind up living with Dreyfuss Marlowe and Todd Trilby. They make money for rent on the drag by doing parrot tricks, with Dreyfuss or Todd attending them. They are always arguing and frequently come to blows with one another, but they share a deep empathy for Dreyfuss and his plight. It's their idea that Todd should use DMT as a method for exploring other dimensions. They're both 7 years old.
Name: Twit and Twerp
Race: African male and female
DOB:
Occupations: experimental subjects in genetic research
Two genetically engineered, highly intelligent African gray parrots who escape the lab and fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Austin, Texas and wind up living with Dreyfuss Marlowe and Todd Trilby. They make money for rent on the drag by doing parrot tricks, with Dreyfuss or Todd attending them. They are always arguing and frequently come to blows with one another, but they share a deep empathy for Dreyfuss and his plight. It's their idea that Todd should use DMT as a method for exploring other dimensions. They're both 7 years old.
Marion Joseph
Protagonist
Name: Marion Joseph
Race: caucasian male
DOB: October 20th, 2015
Occupation: assistant manager
Heart of gold, terminally shy, spectacularly good looking to himself with no other redeeming qualities to himself, selfish altruist, opiate addict, total slave to the demon Ignatius - his heroin dealer, severely optimistic agnostic, drug seeker, truth seeker, friend seeker, purpose seeker, redemption seeker, completely lost, 26 years old.
Marion Joseph was born in Austin, Texas. His parents were killed when he was a few months old and he was raised by his grandparents, Jim and Esther Joseph.
Name: Marion Joseph
Race: caucasian male
DOB: October 20th, 2015
Occupation: assistant manager
Heart of gold, terminally shy, spectacularly good looking to himself with no other redeeming qualities to himself, selfish altruist, opiate addict, total slave to the demon Ignatius - his heroin dealer, severely optimistic agnostic, drug seeker, truth seeker, friend seeker, purpose seeker, redemption seeker, completely lost, 26 years old.
Marion Joseph was born in Austin, Texas. His parents were killed when he was a few months old and he was raised by his grandparents, Jim and Esther Joseph.
Early Character List
Dramatis Personae Non Grata
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Pivotal characters
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Dempsey Witt
Dreyfuss Marlowe
Svetlana 'SuperSvet' Hicks
Dickjackson Jones
Bobbie Kay Rudolph
Purl Asheblaque
Charnala
Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger
DickJackson Jones - First half Aborigine/half Irish Inuit astronaut, commander of The Flying Turtle, an advanced SSTO spaceplane prototype based on the X-33 VentureStar, equipped with the first practical EM drive
Roger Dodger - Kiss ass white boy and pilot of The Flying Turtle, first white boy left on Mars
Ramona Tostada - First female Mexican astronaut (later remanded to zeroth) and mission specialist aboard The Flying Turtle, Two Dog Night Light operator
Charles 'Charlie' Caoutchouc-Jambes - French Vietnamese rubber tycoon and astronaut tourist aboard The Flying Turtle
Pinot Noir - Chinese peasant and homebrew inventor of the Long March Bottlerocket
Skyler Montgomery - American physicist and inventor of the Two Dog Night Light, aka moonbeam, brrr-beam, lunar laser, looneybeam, crazylaser, ice box beam, a lasing heat sink aka freeze ray
Mung Bean - British physicist and winner of the Nobel Food Prize for splitting the ham-burger
Thaddeus Thomas - Amish inventor of the Pulverizorator, the ultimate farming implement
Sabathius Malachi - Amish usurper of the Pulverizorator, repurposed as the Ultimate Death Dealer for the SCSG
Ferlin Goolsby - President of the United States of America and Baja, California
Terri Peterson - Secretary of Defense
Terd Burgleson - White House press secretary
John 'Rocketman' Elton - NASA administrator
Sargent Schneider Schnitzkies - drill sargeant, US Army
Captain Killian Gore - Captain of the USS Donald Trump aircraft carrier carrier, US Navy
Little Big Junior - American AM radio talk show personality, founder of the Little Big Brother Tea Party party
Walks Carefully On Eggshells Like A Bear - Russian female double agent adopted by Navajos at birth
Pyotor the Awesome - Tsar of the Soviet Confederate State of Georgia, aka Ivan the Awful
Generalissimus Nathanial Warbottom - reluctant Lord Marshal of the SCSG armed forces
Olivier Bustier - Engagé Volontaire in the French Foreign Legion and sole survivor of the Gay Bomb
Dempsey 'Dim' Witt - moonshine bootlegger and Commissar General of the SCSG Coordinated Information Apparatus
Svetlana 'SuperSvet' Hicks - special agent of the Apparatchik Chicks
Apparatchik Chicks - elite all-female SCSG battalion of the Coordinated Information Apparatus
Stardog - lead singer for Stardog Champion, a Seattle based band from American annexed Baja, California
Dreyfus Marlowe - convenience store clerk and heroin addict with a heart of gold from Austin, Texas
Todd Trilby - Pothead psychonaut, Dreyfus's best friend, aka Toddmonsah, Monstah Boy, Monstobulouse
Ignatius - demon from w and Dreyfus Marlowe's heroin dealer and tormentor
Purl Ashblaque - gunslinging grunge wizard, summoned via DMT by Toddmonsah to battle Ignatius
Charnala - former gunslinger turned witch and Purl Asheblaque's sworn enemy
Mrs. Bojangles - Canadian high school algebra teacher and cast iron bitch
Ricardo 'Dick' Cabeza de Queso - 2 cheese smuggler and Ramona Tostada's older brother
Twit and Twat - two highly intelligent African Grey Parrots constantly bumbling into Deus ex Machinas
Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling - Dark Lord and Emperor of the Infinite Realm of the Far Flung Hunger
Ash - Praetor to Cannibalus the Starvling
Xdfhitef - 'The Stupidest Genius', an alien demigod exiled from the 13th dimension, aka the devil, Lucifer, Satanw Satan ae$
Ball - just the cutest kitten, ever.
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Pivotal characters
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Dempsey Witt
Dreyfuss Marlowe
Svetlana 'SuperSvet' Hicks
Dickjackson Jones
Bobbie Kay Rudolph
Purl Asheblaque
Charnala
Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger
DickJackson Jones - First half Aborigine/half Irish Inuit astronaut, commander of The Flying Turtle, an advanced SSTO spaceplane prototype based on the X-33 VentureStar, equipped with the first practical EM drive
Roger Dodger - Kiss ass white boy and pilot of The Flying Turtle, first white boy left on Mars
Ramona Tostada - First female Mexican astronaut (later remanded to zeroth) and mission specialist aboard The Flying Turtle, Two Dog Night Light operator
Charles 'Charlie' Caoutchouc-Jambes - French Vietnamese rubber tycoon and astronaut tourist aboard The Flying Turtle
Pinot Noir - Chinese peasant and homebrew inventor of the Long March Bottlerocket
Skyler Montgomery - American physicist and inventor of the Two Dog Night Light, aka moonbeam, brrr-beam, lunar laser, looneybeam, crazylaser, ice box beam, a lasing heat sink aka freeze ray
Mung Bean - British physicist and winner of the Nobel Food Prize for splitting the ham-burger
Thaddeus Thomas - Amish inventor of the Pulverizorator, the ultimate farming implement
Sabathius Malachi - Amish usurper of the Pulverizorator, repurposed as the Ultimate Death Dealer for the SCSG
Ferlin Goolsby - President of the United States of America and Baja, California
Terri Peterson - Secretary of Defense
Terd Burgleson - White House press secretary
John 'Rocketman' Elton - NASA administrator
Sargent Schneider Schnitzkies - drill sargeant, US Army
Captain Killian Gore - Captain of the USS Donald Trump aircraft carrier carrier, US Navy
Little Big Junior - American AM radio talk show personality, founder of the Little Big Brother Tea Party party
Walks Carefully On Eggshells Like A Bear - Russian female double agent adopted by Navajos at birth
Pyotor the Awesome - Tsar of the Soviet Confederate State of Georgia, aka Ivan the Awful
Generalissimus Nathanial Warbottom - reluctant Lord Marshal of the SCSG armed forces
Olivier Bustier - Engagé Volontaire in the French Foreign Legion and sole survivor of the Gay Bomb
Dempsey 'Dim' Witt - moonshine bootlegger and Commissar General of the SCSG Coordinated Information Apparatus
Svetlana 'SuperSvet' Hicks - special agent of the Apparatchik Chicks
Apparatchik Chicks - elite all-female SCSG battalion of the Coordinated Information Apparatus
Stardog - lead singer for Stardog Champion, a Seattle based band from American annexed Baja, California
Dreyfus Marlowe - convenience store clerk and heroin addict with a heart of gold from Austin, Texas
Todd Trilby - Pothead psychonaut, Dreyfus's best friend, aka Toddmonsah, Monstah Boy, Monstobulouse
Ignatius - demon from w and Dreyfus Marlowe's heroin dealer and tormentor
Purl Ashblaque - gunslinging grunge wizard, summoned via DMT by Toddmonsah to battle Ignatius
Charnala - former gunslinger turned witch and Purl Asheblaque's sworn enemy
Mrs. Bojangles - Canadian high school algebra teacher and cast iron bitch
Ricardo 'Dick' Cabeza de Queso - 2 cheese smuggler and Ramona Tostada's older brother
Twit and Twat - two highly intelligent African Grey Parrots constantly bumbling into Deus ex Machinas
Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling - Dark Lord and Emperor of the Infinite Realm of the Far Flung Hunger
Ash - Praetor to Cannibalus the Starvling
Xdfhitef - 'The Stupidest Genius', an alien demigod exiled from the 13th dimension, aka the devil, Lucifer, Satanw Satan ae$
Ball - just the cutest kitten, ever.
Little Big Junior
Little Big Junior
Antagonist:
Race:
Occupation: political talk show personality
Purpose:
Justification:
Insanely popular purveyor of lies, slander, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. Instrumental in getting Ferlin Goolsby elected president. President Goolsby's personal advisor.
Antagonist:
Race:
Occupation: political talk show personality
Purpose:
Justification:
Insanely popular purveyor of lies, slander, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. Instrumental in getting Ferlin Goolsby elected president. President Goolsby's personal advisor.
Killian Gore
Killian Gore
Antagonist.
Race:
Occupation: captain of the aircraft carrier carrier USS Donald Trump.
Purpose:
Justification:
A supreme asshole, much like General MacArthur.
Antagonist.
Race:
Occupation: captain of the aircraft carrier carrier USS Donald Trump.
Purpose:
Justification:
A supreme asshole, much like General MacArthur.
Charnala
Charnala
Antagonist.
Race: Hispanic female
Occupation: former gunslinging grunge witch, now Praetor for Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger
Purpose: to destroy Purl Asheblaque
Justification: unrequited love
Antagonist.
Race: Hispanic female
Occupation: former gunslinging grunge witch, now Praetor for Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger
Purpose: to destroy Purl Asheblaque
Justification: unrequited love
Cannibalus
Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger
Antagonist.
Race: N/A
Occupation: consumer of everything
Purpose: to consume
Justification: hunger
Self-appointed Emperor of the Realm of the Far Flung Hunger. An incredibly ancient transcendent consciousness that ages backwards according to the laws of its universe and relative to ours. According to our perception of time, it used to be extremely wise but it has unlearned its wisdom over the eons as it shrank younger. It has undone evil through incalculable good throughout its indeterminable existence, and has unplodded around incalculable periods of apathy, and is now ending the beginning of the ending of its purpose by serving incalculable evil as an infantile Thing, and naturally unplodding footlong torward it's own unbirth. However, exposed to our timelike universe through the accidental opening of the rift by Bobby Kay Rudolph, its natural purpose is twisted. It becomes a Starvling for the stolen ownership of its reducted existence, which it suddenly perceives as given from it in reverse across the eons, as if it were stolen to it. As a result of this unlogic captured perversely from our universe, its natural unconscious yearning for the moment at which it will be finally be perfectly unborn from hell and resurrected to heaven is perverted into a hunger for birth which can never be satiated, and according to our perception, it becomes a perfectly insane creature and therefore perfectly evil, relative to us.
Antagonist.
Race: N/A
Occupation: consumer of everything
Purpose: to consume
Justification: hunger
Self-appointed Emperor of the Realm of the Far Flung Hunger. An incredibly ancient transcendent consciousness that ages backwards according to the laws of its universe and relative to ours. According to our perception of time, it used to be extremely wise but it has unlearned its wisdom over the eons as it shrank younger. It has undone evil through incalculable good throughout its indeterminable existence, and has unplodded around incalculable periods of apathy, and is now ending the beginning of the ending of its purpose by serving incalculable evil as an infantile Thing, and naturally unplodding footlong torward it's own unbirth. However, exposed to our timelike universe through the accidental opening of the rift by Bobby Kay Rudolph, its natural purpose is twisted. It becomes a Starvling for the stolen ownership of its reducted existence, which it suddenly perceives as given from it in reverse across the eons, as if it were stolen to it. As a result of this unlogic captured perversely from our universe, its natural unconscious yearning for the moment at which it will be finally be perfectly unborn from hell and resurrected to heaven is perverted into a hunger for birth which can never be satiated, and according to our perception, it becomes a perfectly insane creature and therefore perfectly evil, relative to us.
Skyler Montgomery
Skyler Montgomery, under presidential ordering and bossing around, invented the Two Dog Night Light, the most powerful laser ever, that freezes anything it's pointed at. Popularly called the Brrrrr-Beam. A freeze ray, okay? An elite crack team of astronauts are tasked with launching the Two Dog Night Light into orbit and firing the damn thing at the moon, to cool down the moon. To cool down the moon. Logic suggests that a cooler moon means less moon heat, and less global warming. See the sad state of affairs inherited 50 years hence from the Trump administration?
Meanwhile, Marion Joseph, a heroin addict with a heart of gold and a miserable cashier at an In-n-Out-Quickie-Chick-Kum-n-Go chicken burger gas station condum supply franchise in Austin, Texas is tormented daily by Ignatius, his heroin dealer, who also happens to be a bona fide demon from hell! Poor Marion.
Purl Asheblaque, a lone gunslinging grunge wizard, roams the empty wastes between dimensions throughout eternity, waiting for a worthy cause to defend, or maybe just the odd heroin dealing demon to slay.
Oh yeah. The newly annexed state of Baja California isn't thrilled to be the USA's brand new red headed step child.
Georgia secedes as the Soviet Confederate State of Georgia and emerges as a brand new superpower, and American Civil War part two ensues.
During all of this insanity, DickJackson Jones - the commander of the moon laser shuttle - calls bullshit and hauls ass to Mars with the ice box laser. He's got terrible migraines and keeps dreaming about Mars. Smoke signals of peace, poofing out of Olympus Mons. Gotta get to Mars, post haste.
Oh shit. I forgot about Bobby Kay Rudolph, the American physicist who opened up a doorway to a really bad place, by being really drunk and then smashing anti-martinis together at light speed in the Great Big Giant Hadron Collider. Enter Cannibalus the Starvling, Dark Lord and Emperor of the Infinite Realm of the Far Flung Hunger. Oh boy, the universe might be truly ef'd now.
Wait, there's more. The there's a button on Mars that resets the universe from scratch by collapsing the precarious balance of reality by tipsing torward the more natural state of a false vacuum. And Purl Asheblaque still has to duke it out with Ignatius. Oh shit, yeah... and Monstah Boy has the DMT trip that not only summons the gunslinging grunge wizard, but also forms a dimensional rift into the Far Flung Hunger that's stuck whirling at light speed in the Hadron Collider.
And what about Cannibalus the Starvling? He's got it in for us, REAL BAD.
Holy shit. How's it all gonna turn out?
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention the most important characters... two highly intelligent African Gray Parrots, Twit and Twat, who are constantly bumbling their way through the storyline via Deus ex Machina.
The are shitloads more characters, like Mung Bean for instance, the British astrophysicist who won the Nobel Food Prize for splitting the ham-burger.
But I don't wanna give it all away.
Meanwhile, Marion Joseph, a heroin addict with a heart of gold and a miserable cashier at an In-n-Out-Quickie-Chick-Kum-n-Go chicken burger gas station condum supply franchise in Austin, Texas is tormented daily by Ignatius, his heroin dealer, who also happens to be a bona fide demon from hell! Poor Marion.
Purl Asheblaque, a lone gunslinging grunge wizard, roams the empty wastes between dimensions throughout eternity, waiting for a worthy cause to defend, or maybe just the odd heroin dealing demon to slay.
Oh yeah. The newly annexed state of Baja California isn't thrilled to be the USA's brand new red headed step child.
Georgia secedes as the Soviet Confederate State of Georgia and emerges as a brand new superpower, and American Civil War part two ensues.
During all of this insanity, DickJackson Jones - the commander of the moon laser shuttle - calls bullshit and hauls ass to Mars with the ice box laser. He's got terrible migraines and keeps dreaming about Mars. Smoke signals of peace, poofing out of Olympus Mons. Gotta get to Mars, post haste.
Oh shit. I forgot about Bobby Kay Rudolph, the American physicist who opened up a doorway to a really bad place, by being really drunk and then smashing anti-martinis together at light speed in the Great Big Giant Hadron Collider. Enter Cannibalus the Starvling, Dark Lord and Emperor of the Infinite Realm of the Far Flung Hunger. Oh boy, the universe might be truly ef'd now.
Wait, there's more. The there's a button on Mars that resets the universe from scratch by collapsing the precarious balance of reality by tipsing torward the more natural state of a false vacuum. And Purl Asheblaque still has to duke it out with Ignatius. Oh shit, yeah... and Monstah Boy has the DMT trip that not only summons the gunslinging grunge wizard, but also forms a dimensional rift into the Far Flung Hunger that's stuck whirling at light speed in the Hadron Collider.
And what about Cannibalus the Starvling? He's got it in for us, REAL BAD.
Holy shit. How's it all gonna turn out?
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention the most important characters... two highly intelligent African Gray Parrots, Twit and Twat, who are constantly bumbling their way through the storyline via Deus ex Machina.
The are shitloads more characters, like Mung Bean for instance, the British astrophysicist who won the Nobel Food Prize for splitting the ham-burger.
But I don't wanna give it all away.
Cannibalus and The Dark Lord
"But I'm STARVELING! You promised me that if I stepped through this trans-dimensional rift that there would be LUNCHEON! You promised..."
Cannibals the Starveling sneered, and added...
"...Sir!"
The Dark Lord smirked, knowing THAT one was bound to get Ash's goat, and right there in the goat catcher. Ash HATED to be called Sir!
Ash drew in a deep breath, laden with oxygen and brimstone. He paused in his hammering. This 'Praetor to the Dark Lord' bullshit is more like babysitting! Ash thought to himself. He'd never imagined that he would have to actually, and for real! sigh the unsighable sigh... but he had to do it, right then, and so he did it. He Sighed the Unsighable Sigh, and the Sighing of it shattered a couple of universes somewhere, unfortunately. However, Ash was not one to be nonplussed by a few quadrillion slayed souls, or even the little baby bitchlings of a supposedly all powerful dark lord from some place or of another dimension.
"Look, I know that you're an 'All Powerful Dark Lord' (finger quotes) from the eleventeenth dimension and everything, or something..." Ash vociferated, "...but could you please just manage to shut down your forward tubes for just one or maybe a hundred minutes? I mean, is that a 'Dark Lord' (finger quotes) thing, that you have to yammer incessantly about little baby bullshits? Don't dark lords ever just shut the fuck up, too? Geez!"
Silencio! And after an interminable moment, the sound of hammering resumes.
That put the hammer to that whiney little shit, Ash mused to himself. Whiney little dark lord bitch prince will never understand the semantics, never mind the the pendantics of... of, you know! Putting up with spoiled little extra-dimensional shits!
With that, Ash resumed the more serious task of bunglebaiting, while Cannibalus the Starvling fumed in silence like a little girl. Like a spoiled little princess... like a Dark Princess, pissed off and planning... pissed off and planning. Like a little girly boy.
Cannibals the Starveling sneered, and added...
"...Sir!"
The Dark Lord smirked, knowing THAT one was bound to get Ash's goat, and right there in the goat catcher. Ash HATED to be called Sir!
Ash drew in a deep breath, laden with oxygen and brimstone. He paused in his hammering. This 'Praetor to the Dark Lord' bullshit is more like babysitting! Ash thought to himself. He'd never imagined that he would have to actually, and for real! sigh the unsighable sigh... but he had to do it, right then, and so he did it. He Sighed the Unsighable Sigh, and the Sighing of it shattered a couple of universes somewhere, unfortunately. However, Ash was not one to be nonplussed by a few quadrillion slayed souls, or even the little baby bitchlings of a supposedly all powerful dark lord from some place or of another dimension.
"Look, I know that you're an 'All Powerful Dark Lord' (finger quotes) from the eleventeenth dimension and everything, or something..." Ash vociferated, "...but could you please just manage to shut down your forward tubes for just one or maybe a hundred minutes? I mean, is that a 'Dark Lord' (finger quotes) thing, that you have to yammer incessantly about little baby bullshits? Don't dark lords ever just shut the fuck up, too? Geez!"
Silencio! And after an interminable moment, the sound of hammering resumes.
That put the hammer to that whiney little shit, Ash mused to himself. Whiney little dark lord bitch prince will never understand the semantics, never mind the the pendantics of... of, you know! Putting up with spoiled little extra-dimensional shits!
With that, Ash resumed the more serious task of bunglebaiting, while Cannibalus the Starvling fumed in silence like a little girl. Like a spoiled little princess... like a Dark Princess, pissed off and planning... pissed off and planning. Like a little girly boy.
Questions
1. Why does Dickjackson Jones get headaches, and why are they associated with dreams of Mars? Why does dreaming of the eruption of Olympus Mons elicit feelings of peace and relief from his headaches? Why headaches, why dreams of Mars, why is he compelled to get to Mars by stealing the Flying Turtle, and why are those things important as a major plot fulcrum? How does Dickjackson Jones's situation relate to the appearance of Cannibalus the Starvling? And what the heck is up with Olympus Mons? Why is it erupting smoke rings into space that are visible from Earth?
2. What's the relationship dynamic between Susannah Hicks and Cannibalus the Starvling? Why are they important to each other? What effect does Susannah's purity and innocence have on Cannibalus, and what effect does Cannibalus's completely self centered and ego-driven alien psychosis have on Susannah? How and why is Susannah integral to, and the main force, responsible for both the ultimate defeat of Cannibalus, and also the resulting human tragedy?
3. What the heck is the human tragedy, and why was it not only unavoidable, but inevitable? Necessary, even?
4. What was the nature of the falling out between Ferlin Goolsby and Dempsey Witt when they were serving together in the army during the war of 2018? Why is Dempsey plagued with guilt, and suicidal? Why did Ferlin become a psychotic power monger?
5. What's the story with Bobby Kay Rudolph? Why is she using the Larger Hadron Collider to smash martini molecules together at light speed? It's she trying to open a dimensional doorway, or is she just drunk?
6. Why does the demon Ignatius choose Dreyfuss to torment? What's special about Dreyfuss?
7. Why the heck do those two African gray parrots, Twhit and Twhat, come from and why are they so intelligent? What role do they play in the scheme of things? Why do they seek out Dreyfuss and become his roommates?
8. The big question.
Why are Dickjackson Jones, Susannah Hicks, Dempsey Witt, Bobby Kay Rudolph, Dreyfuss Marlowe, and Twhit and Twhat tied together by fate, and how do they come together to defeat Cannibalus the Starvling?
2. What's the relationship dynamic between Susannah Hicks and Cannibalus the Starvling? Why are they important to each other? What effect does Susannah's purity and innocence have on Cannibalus, and what effect does Cannibalus's completely self centered and ego-driven alien psychosis have on Susannah? How and why is Susannah integral to, and the main force, responsible for both the ultimate defeat of Cannibalus, and also the resulting human tragedy?
3. What the heck is the human tragedy, and why was it not only unavoidable, but inevitable? Necessary, even?
4. What was the nature of the falling out between Ferlin Goolsby and Dempsey Witt when they were serving together in the army during the war of 2018? Why is Dempsey plagued with guilt, and suicidal? Why did Ferlin become a psychotic power monger?
5. What's the story with Bobby Kay Rudolph? Why is she using the Larger Hadron Collider to smash martini molecules together at light speed? It's she trying to open a dimensional doorway, or is she just drunk?
6. Why does the demon Ignatius choose Dreyfuss to torment? What's special about Dreyfuss?
7. Why the heck do those two African gray parrots, Twhit and Twhat, come from and why are they so intelligent? What role do they play in the scheme of things? Why do they seek out Dreyfuss and become his roommates?
8. The big question.
Why are Dickjackson Jones, Susannah Hicks, Dempsey Witt, Bobby Kay Rudolph, Dreyfuss Marlowe, and Twhit and Twhat tied together by fate, and how do they come together to defeat Cannibalus the Starvling?
More questions
Why does the demon Ignatius choose Dreyfuss to torment? What's special about Dreyfuss?
Ignatius has one ceaseless, unwavering purpose - to relieve his own suffering by inflicting it upon a living creature; preferably a thinking, feeling, self aware and intelligent being capable of complex thoughts and emotions. The universe is filled with such creatures, and Dreyfuss Marlowe happens to be his current project/victim. Ignatius is also attached to Cannibalus, or more accurately, slaved to him. Cannibalus is to Ignatius as Ignatius is to Dreyfuss, except that Ignatius is an evil shit snacker, while Dreyfuss is a junkie with a heart of gold. That's why Ignatius chooses Dreyfuss in particular to torment, because Dreyfuss is already physically corrupted, and Ignatius wants to corrupt his heart and mind.
Old Dreyfuss Withdrawals
Dreyfuss passed by numerous houses throughout the development as he struggled to stay upright despite the mortal agony inflicted by Ignatius. With an uncannily separate part of his awareness which was removed from the suffering, he was eventually able to form a coherent thought.
Why should their lives be any different from mine? I grew up in a house, too. Maybe not a fancy house like that one, but still, a house filled with love and family, and anchored to something good, even if there was some bad also mixed into it.
As he walked and pondered he discovered an almost oblivious awareness of his own withdrawals within himself, and he stumbled, and fell across a brand new thought. It didn't matter if there was more bad than good, or more good than bad, he suddenly realized. The good underneath was still there, undeniable and real, and the simple fact of even a miniscule presence of the good, if he looked at it and concentrated on it hard enough, made for such a laughingly, obviously unfair game for the bad!
The epiphany of the realization was so funny that Dreyfuss laughed out loud, and then immediately dropped to his knees, felled by the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life, right at the bottom of the gut. It was far worse than a mortal agony... it was an immortal agony. A never ending agony. A pain meant to inspire infinite despair, he knew... but he couldn't stop laughing, and with each guffaw, the incredible, indescribably mind blowing torment increased by an order of magnitude, over and over. And over, again and again... and then, right in the middle of an endless ocean of pain, a fact of the universe which had only always ever been, and always would ever be forever, Dreyfuss had another epiphany. The pain he was feeling, the endless agony... it didn't wasn't in his gut, it was in his balls... and it didn't even belong to him at all! It belonged to that..n that demonic drug dealer, that... that motherfucker, Ignatius!
Suddenly Dreyfuss went from infinite agony to pure relief. Oh his knees he wept tears of joy, and suddenly understood with a clarity of understanding that only comes from viewing the structure of the universe through the eyes of the universe, that even if that little shit Cannibalus pulled off his magick trick and crammed the Earth into a gaping, transdimensional maw of ever unsatisfied starvling, that it wouldn't matter because the opposite of an eternal starvation had always been an eternal satisfaction, and he knew that to be a Truth. He knew it... he knew it!
Then Dreyfuss felt the pathetic remains of the physical withdrawals from demon heroin begin to break apart, like a thin coating of congealed bacon grease after a couple of seconds n the microwave, and underneath it he could see in his minds eye a vast volume of clear, transparent water. Clear, but somehow still a vibrant blue... then he caught a glimpse of the eternity underneath. Dreyfuss was confused for a bare naked second, until he realized that he wasn't looking down into the water... he was looking up, through it and into a pristine sky.
Joy suffused his being and he felt the essence of his self rising like an impossible express elevator, up and up and up, impossibly fast... and on the way up, Dreyfuss caught a clear glimpse of Ignatius, as quick as a still-frame but as clear as a photograph. Ignatius was clutching his crotch, his face contorted in agony. Dreyfuss could even hear a faint, diminutive scream that dopplered away into a quick oblivion as the demon fell, way way down and into hell, which sounded exactly like...
"OW, MY BAAAaaaaalls....... . . . . ."
As he rose, faster and faster, Dreyfuss felt his awareness begin to shatter quietly, as it fell upward and into a vast, gray bliss. He was surprised to experience no fear at all, only peace... and as he was finally near the end of his coming apart, the last thing Dreyfuss perceived was the voice of Purl Ashblaque, the gun-slinging grunge wizard, whispering an old Pearl Jam tune that used to be, way back when from before, and maybe after, too...
"Ooooh... yeah, I'm still ALIVE."
Then Dreyfuss felt the soft walls of infinity enclose him, and a final memory of the pain that killed his body was what finally returned him to his his spirit, like an old friend coming home from the war.
Why should their lives be any different from mine? I grew up in a house, too. Maybe not a fancy house like that one, but still, a house filled with love and family, and anchored to something good, even if there was some bad also mixed into it.
As he walked and pondered he discovered an almost oblivious awareness of his own withdrawals within himself, and he stumbled, and fell across a brand new thought. It didn't matter if there was more bad than good, or more good than bad, he suddenly realized. The good underneath was still there, undeniable and real, and the simple fact of even a miniscule presence of the good, if he looked at it and concentrated on it hard enough, made for such a laughingly, obviously unfair game for the bad!
The epiphany of the realization was so funny that Dreyfuss laughed out loud, and then immediately dropped to his knees, felled by the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life, right at the bottom of the gut. It was far worse than a mortal agony... it was an immortal agony. A never ending agony. A pain meant to inspire infinite despair, he knew... but he couldn't stop laughing, and with each guffaw, the incredible, indescribably mind blowing torment increased by an order of magnitude, over and over. And over, again and again... and then, right in the middle of an endless ocean of pain, a fact of the universe which had only always ever been, and always would ever be forever, Dreyfuss had another epiphany. The pain he was feeling, the endless agony... it didn't wasn't in his gut, it was in his balls... and it didn't even belong to him at all! It belonged to that..n that demonic drug dealer, that... that motherfucker, Ignatius!
Suddenly Dreyfuss went from infinite agony to pure relief. Oh his knees he wept tears of joy, and suddenly understood with a clarity of understanding that only comes from viewing the structure of the universe through the eyes of the universe, that even if that little shit Cannibalus pulled off his magick trick and crammed the Earth into a gaping, transdimensional maw of ever unsatisfied starvling, that it wouldn't matter because the opposite of an eternal starvation had always been an eternal satisfaction, and he knew that to be a Truth. He knew it... he knew it!
Then Dreyfuss felt the pathetic remains of the physical withdrawals from demon heroin begin to break apart, like a thin coating of congealed bacon grease after a couple of seconds n the microwave, and underneath it he could see in his minds eye a vast volume of clear, transparent water. Clear, but somehow still a vibrant blue... then he caught a glimpse of the eternity underneath. Dreyfuss was confused for a bare naked second, until he realized that he wasn't looking down into the water... he was looking up, through it and into a pristine sky.
Joy suffused his being and he felt the essence of his self rising like an impossible express elevator, up and up and up, impossibly fast... and on the way up, Dreyfuss caught a clear glimpse of Ignatius, as quick as a still-frame but as clear as a photograph. Ignatius was clutching his crotch, his face contorted in agony. Dreyfuss could even hear a faint, diminutive scream that dopplered away into a quick oblivion as the demon fell, way way down and into hell, which sounded exactly like...
"OW, MY BAAAaaaaalls....... . . . . ."
As he rose, faster and faster, Dreyfuss felt his awareness begin to shatter quietly, as it fell upward and into a vast, gray bliss. He was surprised to experience no fear at all, only peace... and as he was finally near the end of his coming apart, the last thing Dreyfuss perceived was the voice of Purl Ashblaque, the gun-slinging grunge wizard, whispering an old Pearl Jam tune that used to be, way back when from before, and maybe after, too...
"Ooooh... yeah, I'm still ALIVE."
Then Dreyfuss felt the soft walls of infinity enclose him, and a final memory of the pain that killed his body was what finally returned him to his his spirit, like an old friend coming home from the war.
Your Fear
Generalissimus Nathanial Warbottom, supreme high commander of the armed forces of The Confederate Counties of the State of Soviet Georgia, waited patiently on the sidelines of the Mt. Tolerance High School football field as engineers and technicians hurried to ready one of the almost thirty year old surveillance drones for its first operational test.
.
.
.
You want to be freed? You want your fear to be taken from you?
Yes. That's what we want.
Where shall I put it? Your fear?
That's your job, isn't it? That's not up to us. You take the fear, you dispose of it! That was the job description.
But it's yours, it's your fear. You have to say something. You can't disown it, you can only allow it to be taken.
Put it anywhere! We don't care!
You don't care where I put it?
No! Just put it away. Far away!
Ok. You're sure? You don't care where I put your fear?
No, we don't care. What are you, frikin' stupid?
You surrender it, then? That's the general consensus?
Yes, we surrender our fear!
Surrender your fear.
Yes!
I put it back in your heart, then! Oh boy... Oh my goodness, that's hilarious! Thank you for that.
No. No...
.
.
.
.
.
.
You want to be freed? You want your fear to be taken from you?
Yes. That's what we want.
Where shall I put it? Your fear?
That's your job, isn't it? That's not up to us. You take the fear, you dispose of it! That was the job description.
But it's yours, it's your fear. You have to say something. You can't disown it, you can only allow it to be taken.
Put it anywhere! We don't care!
You don't care where I put it?
No! Just put it away. Far away!
Ok. You're sure? You don't care where I put your fear?
No, we don't care. What are you, frikin' stupid?
You surrender it, then? That's the general consensus?
Yes, we surrender our fear!
Surrender your fear.
Yes!
I put it back in your heart, then! Oh boy... Oh my goodness, that's hilarious! Thank you for that.
No. No...
.
.
.
Thaddeus Thomas
Thaddeus Thomas is an Amish inventor and the designer of an absolutely gargantuous piece of agricultural machinery - an all in one combine harvester, sprayer, baler, disc harrow, thresher, subsoiler, cultivator, swather, tedder, and cultipacker - proposed as 'the ultimate farming implement' and dubbed the Agriculturizerator. Thaddeus submits his blueprints to the US patent office.
The Agriculturizerator measures roughly 30 meters across the business end, 45 meters in length, and rises to a height of 15 meters - about 3 square acres of machinery, or the approximate equivalent to 1.5 square city blocks. Its function is to scour the Earth, processing raw material at the front end, and excreting harvested crops out the back, with everything happening inside of it as it lumbers slowly across the landscape. It takes one 'growing season' to traverse its own length of 45 meters, resulting in about 3 square acres of crops each 'season'.
Thaddeus constructs a 1/10th scale working prototype, approximately 10 ft wide, 15 ft long and 5 ft high as a proof of concept for demonstration purposes to help secure funding for the full size Agriculturizerator. Although the mini-agrizator performs beautifully, investors balk at the 60 billion dollar development costs. As a last ditch effort, Thaddeus attempts to secure government funding and is laughed off of Capitol Hill.
Sabathius Malachi -
(back story of Sabathius and his motivations as they relate to Thaddeus not quite figured out yet, but I do know one thing, Sabathius is an evil bastard)
He urges Thaddeus to pitch his machine as a Weapon of Mass Creation, reasoning that since war is always going to be inevitable, adding a capability for warfare on a massive scale to the front end of the Agriculturizerator would revolutionize warfare in a positive manner by generating an entirely new system of justification - both politically and morally - for the unavoidable and naturally occurring state of warfare which defines our condition as a species, and with a built in bonus of getting to turn your enemy into thousands of tons of groceries at the end of it.
Of course, Thaddeus doesn't buy into this line of bullshit, and Sabathius pitches the idea himself. President Goolsby is convinced by Sabathius that a division of Agriculturizerators could be used to completely pulverize Atlanta, the capitol of the insurgency. So he gets his greasy hands on it, renames it the Pulverizerator, puts it into full production, and then proceeds to raze Atlanta to the ground. Afterward he tosses the 60 billion dollar bill for the Pulverizorator on what used to be Atlanta's doorstep, which totally pisses off Jim Witt by the way. President Goolsby will find out later the hard way that he never should have pissed off a suicidal 70 year old war hero without a single shit left to give. It's gonna be pretty cool, that reckoning.
The Agriculturizerator measures roughly 30 meters across the business end, 45 meters in length, and rises to a height of 15 meters - about 3 square acres of machinery, or the approximate equivalent to 1.5 square city blocks. Its function is to scour the Earth, processing raw material at the front end, and excreting harvested crops out the back, with everything happening inside of it as it lumbers slowly across the landscape. It takes one 'growing season' to traverse its own length of 45 meters, resulting in about 3 square acres of crops each 'season'.
Thaddeus constructs a 1/10th scale working prototype, approximately 10 ft wide, 15 ft long and 5 ft high as a proof of concept for demonstration purposes to help secure funding for the full size Agriculturizerator. Although the mini-agrizator performs beautifully, investors balk at the 60 billion dollar development costs. As a last ditch effort, Thaddeus attempts to secure government funding and is laughed off of Capitol Hill.
Sabathius Malachi -
(back story of Sabathius and his motivations as they relate to Thaddeus not quite figured out yet, but I do know one thing, Sabathius is an evil bastard)
He urges Thaddeus to pitch his machine as a Weapon of Mass Creation, reasoning that since war is always going to be inevitable, adding a capability for warfare on a massive scale to the front end of the Agriculturizerator would revolutionize warfare in a positive manner by generating an entirely new system of justification - both politically and morally - for the unavoidable and naturally occurring state of warfare which defines our condition as a species, and with a built in bonus of getting to turn your enemy into thousands of tons of groceries at the end of it.
Of course, Thaddeus doesn't buy into this line of bullshit, and Sabathius pitches the idea himself. President Goolsby is convinced by Sabathius that a division of Agriculturizerators could be used to completely pulverize Atlanta, the capitol of the insurgency. So he gets his greasy hands on it, renames it the Pulverizerator, puts it into full production, and then proceeds to raze Atlanta to the ground. Afterward he tosses the 60 billion dollar bill for the Pulverizorator on what used to be Atlanta's doorstep, which totally pisses off Jim Witt by the way. President Goolsby will find out later the hard way that he never should have pissed off a suicidal 70 year old war hero without a single shit left to give. It's gonna be pretty cool, that reckoning.
Jim and Ferlin
Jim Witt and Ferlin Goolsby are the same age and grew up together as best friends in Fireworks, Georgia. Both possessed genius levels of intelligence, but were otherwise polar opposites. Ferlin was sensible, calm, slow to anger and quick to forgive, while Jim was self centered, impulsive, and always on the defense.
Jim, inspired by the awesomeness of his stepfather's 1987 drunken grenade juggling mishap, joined the army right out of high school in 1989, against the better judgement of his best friend Ferlin. It wasn't until 1991 when Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade's autobiography, 'Stench of a Wombat', was made into the academy award winning movie, 'Scent of a Woman', that after watching it Ferlin was sufficiently inspired to join up, too. So it was that Dempsey and Ferlin were both motivated to become soldiers by the same source, but according to different ideologies... Jim thought grenade juggling was badass and wanted to imitate his drunken, badass stepfather, while Ferlin thought grenade juggling was criminally reckless, and was determined to set a better example against Jim's drunken, badass stepfather.
Jim and Ferlin both entered offer training school at the same time, and they both excelled, due to their competitive natures and the effectiveness of their uniquely contrasting methods. They were both set to graduate with honors, but due to a drunken grenade juggling mishap the night before graduation Ferlin was expelled, and would have been dishonorably discharged, if not for the precedent set by Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, which was his main defense during his court martial. Jim went on to graduate with honors, Ferlin was demoted to regular grunt, Jim became his commanding officer, and that was the beginning of the end to their friendship. That was 1995. By 2018 they are bitter enemies.
Now... starting with the North Korean War of 2018 and ending with the complete nuclear annihilation of the Middle East within a few days, what is it that causes Jim - by that time a Lieutenant Colonel - to be dishonorably discharged, and how is it that Staff Sargent Goolsby was responsible?
Jim, inspired by the awesomeness of his stepfather's 1987 drunken grenade juggling mishap, joined the army right out of high school in 1989, against the better judgement of his best friend Ferlin. It wasn't until 1991 when Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade's autobiography, 'Stench of a Wombat', was made into the academy award winning movie, 'Scent of a Woman', that after watching it Ferlin was sufficiently inspired to join up, too. So it was that Dempsey and Ferlin were both motivated to become soldiers by the same source, but according to different ideologies... Jim thought grenade juggling was badass and wanted to imitate his drunken, badass stepfather, while Ferlin thought grenade juggling was criminally reckless, and was determined to set a better example against Jim's drunken, badass stepfather.
Jim and Ferlin both entered offer training school at the same time, and they both excelled, due to their competitive natures and the effectiveness of their uniquely contrasting methods. They were both set to graduate with honors, but due to a drunken grenade juggling mishap the night before graduation Ferlin was expelled, and would have been dishonorably discharged, if not for the precedent set by Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, which was his main defense during his court martial. Jim went on to graduate with honors, Ferlin was demoted to regular grunt, Jim became his commanding officer, and that was the beginning of the end to their friendship. That was 1995. By 2018 they are bitter enemies.
Now... starting with the North Korean War of 2018 and ending with the complete nuclear annihilation of the Middle East within a few days, what is it that causes Jim - by that time a Lieutenant Colonel - to be dishonorably discharged, and how is it that Staff Sargent Goolsby was responsible?
Twit and Twerp
Twhit and Twhat are two African grey parrots... twins for all practical purposes, as they are both clones of the same generic source material engineered for enhanced intelligence. In addition to possessing intelligence far beyond that of natural African grey parrots, Twhit and Twhat both have a complex system of electrodes implanted in the avian equivalent of the neo-cortex, which is the seat of intelligence and self awareness in humans and highly evolved animals. These electrodes predict and anticipate neural firing patterns indicative of intelligence, based on a parrot's natural intelligence combined with models of the synaptic firing of simian and human neurons, which describe a basic foundation for intelligent thought. All of these electrodes are connected to a central processing chip designed to reinforce patterns of intelligent activity in the neural pathways of the avian neocortex. The result is a parrot with a level of intelligence and self awareness equal to that of a human. However, if the intelligence augmenting implant of electrodes is damaged, destroyed or otherwise removed from the avian neocortex, the result can be extremely unpredictable, and is almost always undesirable.
Marions Struggle
Sometimes after coming down from Ignatius's golden powder, Marion would fall into a really deep funk, a terrorizing funk which trapped him inside of a meaningless infinity. There was no escape from this funk, for the knowledge of an infinity of awareness, and the unknowledge of an infinity of oblivion was unthinkable, and those were the only two choices. It was as if hell were hidden inside of every moment, waiting to be discovered.
Marion knew all about this fear of forever, or so he'd thought. He had experienced it many times, when he'd allowed himself to dwell on his own despair. Comfort was the only cure, but comfort came only from surrendering to the idea of a benevolent omnipotence which carried you through times of trouble while shouldering the burden of the knowledge of infinity. Marion used to be able to find that comfort when he needed it, but the demon's needle had completely erased it.
That was it. The next time Ignatius appeared with his golden powder, Marion was going to kick him in the balls. Screw the threats, screw the promises, screw the hell of withdrawals! He was done. If kicking a demon in the balls was was a comfortable thing to do, then by God, he was gonna do it. Screw that guy.
Then Marion had a world view shattering epiphany... "Comfort is just another kind of knowledge," he said out loud to himself.
"Oh man, fuck that guy!"
Marion knew all about this fear of forever, or so he'd thought. He had experienced it many times, when he'd allowed himself to dwell on his own despair. Comfort was the only cure, but comfort came only from surrendering to the idea of a benevolent omnipotence which carried you through times of trouble while shouldering the burden of the knowledge of infinity. Marion used to be able to find that comfort when he needed it, but the demon's needle had completely erased it.
That was it. The next time Ignatius appeared with his golden powder, Marion was going to kick him in the balls. Screw the threats, screw the promises, screw the hell of withdrawals! He was done. If kicking a demon in the balls was was a comfortable thing to do, then by God, he was gonna do it. Screw that guy.
Then Marion had a world view shattering epiphany... "Comfort is just another kind of knowledge," he said out loud to himself.
"Oh man, fuck that guy!"
Early Summary
The Nonplussed - a basic summary of what's going on, and why, and how.
At a time (the year 2042) when the entirety of humanity is in the process of going collectively insane, by an infinitesimally unlikely chance a stable wormhole is created at the Larger Hadron Collider which opens a gateway to another universe occupied solely by an alien entity known to itself as Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger. Cannibalus enters our universe via the LHC wormhole and, manifesting itself as a petulant 8 year old boy, immediately demands LUNCHEON. Cannibalus is assigned a guardian who, after witnessing and enduring many destructive and deadly tantrums and tirades, finally uncovers Cannibalus's universe-consuming purpose. An insane homo sapiens of course balks at the idea of being consumed by a peurile extra dimensional entity identifying itself as Cannibalus the Starvling, and must battle through its own state of collective insanity in order to effectively confront and ultimately thwart the plans of an infantile, seemingly all-powerful alien from another universe to consume the entire infinitude of the multiverse - beginning with the Earth.
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Here's a more in depth thingie pertaining to the above one.
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Firstly, we have the universe. Our universe. Like countless other universes which help to comprise the unending foreverness of the multiverse, our universe was observed into being from an infinite sea of wildly fluctuating quantum wave functions by the ubiquitous preconscious potential, the living substrate which underlies, supports, defines, and purposes all of the phenomena comprising the entirety of existence.
Conditions can vary wildly from universe to universe - some, like ours, have physical laws and dimensions of space-time which are conducive to the natural development of life, and many others don't. Our universe is the only universe out of the multiverse which is fundamentally flawed, however. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, singularities and wormholes, particle-wave duality, the uncertainty principle, superposition, the light speed barrier, quantum gravity, the accelerating expansion of space-time, the precariously balanced, more natural and universe-erasing state of false vacuum upon which our universe constantly teeters yet never collapses - all of these are the real, observable defects of our inherently flawed continuum, where the story takes place.
All universes - an infinity of them - exist inside a state of perfection except ours, because the idea of perfection can't exist without contrast to give it meaning. That's us... we're the contrast. An entire sacrificial universe. It's just the way it has to be, always has been, and always will be. It's necessary. Do you understand? Our universe is the ultimate epitome of the concept of 'accidentally on purpose'. It's ncessary chaos... blameless and offensive.
This is existence, without beginning or end - waveforms collapsing, universes emerging, evolving, thriving, decaying, dying, reborn, infinitely and almost perfectly, the ubiquitous preconsciousness observing it all into existence, always and constantly, forever... yet making the necessary unconscious mistake every few thousand eons that gives rise to our universe, over and over, an infinite number of times. A mistake which propagates eternally through the multiverse like a mutation, bestowing the necessary gift of variation upon an Existence ideally based upon perfection.
Since our universe is flawed, wormholes are allowed to exist. Wormholes, put simply, are flaws in the fabric of our space-time. Flaws, as in... cracks. Or holes, or leaks. If a porthole on a submarine is cracked, water leaks in. If a viewport on a spaceship is cracked, air leaks out. If space-time is cracked, things can leak out of our universe and into the... outside. What's outside of a universe? The inside of another universe. Or, conversely, things can leak into our universe from an outside universe, and into ours.
Only through our universe, the flawed universe, can information be exchanged between universes. Throughout the infinite eons, our universe has been utilized as a kind of telephone exchange system many many many thousands of millions of billions of times, its matter sacrificed for compression into quadrillions upon quadrillions of singularities in order to provide links for outside universes to one another, and for linking parts of the inside of our universe to other inside parts for the purpose of facilitating connections among universes through our universe by sidestepping the light speed barrier (yet another annoying flaw inherent only to our universe).
As I've said, all universes must die eventually, including ours, which means that eventually this universal exchange system also must end eventually with the death of our universe. With each reformation of our flawed universe, life again arises and developes the capability to break space-time, allowing the passage of information among the infinite universes of the multiverse, and the whole cycle repeats.
Right now, in our universe, it's about 14 and a half billion years since the most recent big bang, and life has finally developed to a point that it can break space-time, but only by the most unlikeliest of chances... we're talking quantum probabilities which are so unlikely they have always only ever been theoretical. By some googleplex to 1 probability, a stable wormhole is created at the Larger Hadron Collider on Earth, and by an even unliklier probability, this wormhole happens to link our universe to The Far Flung Hunger, a universe consisting solely of a consciousness consisting of collapsed quantum fluctuations known to itself as Cannibalus The Starvling. CTS's universe had already run through its entire process, from finish to start (time runs backward in his universe relative to ours), but CTS is stopping it from finally Unbeginning again. CTS was once a life form of this reverse universe, but became a flawed consciousness megaeons ago via exposure to a previous version of our universe via the wormhole flaws. CTS, having been driven insane by an understanding of the flaws of our space-time, was able to imbed his consciousness into the space-time of his own universe, thereby halting the unbirth of his own universe right at the moment of its Big Crunch. By holding it there, frozen in time, CTS defies the First Unbirth of his home space-time continuum by continuing to uncontinue and uncontinue and uncontinue, over and over, unnaturally... waiting for eons upon uncounted eons until he can once more access our universe and consume it, with all of its inherent flaws, transforming his consciousness - and by associated connection - the remaining fabric of his own universe into a brand new universe. A living, beautifully flawed universe, with his own consciousness at the helm and able to create wormholes as a simple property of the laws of physics. which he'd be able to invent or deinvent on a whim, according to his purposes. Think a selfish, bratty, petulant two year old with an effective god complex, and with a grudge against the entirety of existence. Thus CTS plans to unmake the multiverse so that it can undie and be redeathed as single, uncountable, infinite hims... mostly by throwing destructive, deadly tantrums when he doesn't get his way.
At a time (the year 2042) when the entirety of humanity is in the process of going collectively insane, by an infinitesimally unlikely chance a stable wormhole is created at the Larger Hadron Collider which opens a gateway to another universe occupied solely by an alien entity known to itself as Emperor Cannibalus the Starvling of the Far Flung Hunger. Cannibalus enters our universe via the LHC wormhole and, manifesting itself as a petulant 8 year old boy, immediately demands LUNCHEON. Cannibalus is assigned a guardian who, after witnessing and enduring many destructive and deadly tantrums and tirades, finally uncovers Cannibalus's universe-consuming purpose. An insane homo sapiens of course balks at the idea of being consumed by a peurile extra dimensional entity identifying itself as Cannibalus the Starvling, and must battle through its own state of collective insanity in order to effectively confront and ultimately thwart the plans of an infantile, seemingly all-powerful alien from another universe to consume the entire infinitude of the multiverse - beginning with the Earth.
.
.
.
Here's a more in depth thingie pertaining to the above one.
.
.
.
Firstly, we have the universe. Our universe. Like countless other universes which help to comprise the unending foreverness of the multiverse, our universe was observed into being from an infinite sea of wildly fluctuating quantum wave functions by the ubiquitous preconscious potential, the living substrate which underlies, supports, defines, and purposes all of the phenomena comprising the entirety of existence.
Conditions can vary wildly from universe to universe - some, like ours, have physical laws and dimensions of space-time which are conducive to the natural development of life, and many others don't. Our universe is the only universe out of the multiverse which is fundamentally flawed, however. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, singularities and wormholes, particle-wave duality, the uncertainty principle, superposition, the light speed barrier, quantum gravity, the accelerating expansion of space-time, the precariously balanced, more natural and universe-erasing state of false vacuum upon which our universe constantly teeters yet never collapses - all of these are the real, observable defects of our inherently flawed continuum, where the story takes place.
All universes - an infinity of them - exist inside a state of perfection except ours, because the idea of perfection can't exist without contrast to give it meaning. That's us... we're the contrast. An entire sacrificial universe. It's just the way it has to be, always has been, and always will be. It's necessary. Do you understand? Our universe is the ultimate epitome of the concept of 'accidentally on purpose'. It's ncessary chaos... blameless and offensive.
This is existence, without beginning or end - waveforms collapsing, universes emerging, evolving, thriving, decaying, dying, reborn, infinitely and almost perfectly, the ubiquitous preconsciousness observing it all into existence, always and constantly, forever... yet making the necessary unconscious mistake every few thousand eons that gives rise to our universe, over and over, an infinite number of times. A mistake which propagates eternally through the multiverse like a mutation, bestowing the necessary gift of variation upon an Existence ideally based upon perfection.
Since our universe is flawed, wormholes are allowed to exist. Wormholes, put simply, are flaws in the fabric of our space-time. Flaws, as in... cracks. Or holes, or leaks. If a porthole on a submarine is cracked, water leaks in. If a viewport on a spaceship is cracked, air leaks out. If space-time is cracked, things can leak out of our universe and into the... outside. What's outside of a universe? The inside of another universe. Or, conversely, things can leak into our universe from an outside universe, and into ours.
Only through our universe, the flawed universe, can information be exchanged between universes. Throughout the infinite eons, our universe has been utilized as a kind of telephone exchange system many many many thousands of millions of billions of times, its matter sacrificed for compression into quadrillions upon quadrillions of singularities in order to provide links for outside universes to one another, and for linking parts of the inside of our universe to other inside parts for the purpose of facilitating connections among universes through our universe by sidestepping the light speed barrier (yet another annoying flaw inherent only to our universe).
As I've said, all universes must die eventually, including ours, which means that eventually this universal exchange system also must end eventually with the death of our universe. With each reformation of our flawed universe, life again arises and developes the capability to break space-time, allowing the passage of information among the infinite universes of the multiverse, and the whole cycle repeats.
Right now, in our universe, it's about 14 and a half billion years since the most recent big bang, and life has finally developed to a point that it can break space-time, but only by the most unlikeliest of chances... we're talking quantum probabilities which are so unlikely they have always only ever been theoretical. By some googleplex to 1 probability, a stable wormhole is created at the Larger Hadron Collider on Earth, and by an even unliklier probability, this wormhole happens to link our universe to The Far Flung Hunger, a universe consisting solely of a consciousness consisting of collapsed quantum fluctuations known to itself as Cannibalus The Starvling. CTS's universe had already run through its entire process, from finish to start (time runs backward in his universe relative to ours), but CTS is stopping it from finally Unbeginning again. CTS was once a life form of this reverse universe, but became a flawed consciousness megaeons ago via exposure to a previous version of our universe via the wormhole flaws. CTS, having been driven insane by an understanding of the flaws of our space-time, was able to imbed his consciousness into the space-time of his own universe, thereby halting the unbirth of his own universe right at the moment of its Big Crunch. By holding it there, frozen in time, CTS defies the First Unbirth of his home space-time continuum by continuing to uncontinue and uncontinue and uncontinue, over and over, unnaturally... waiting for eons upon uncounted eons until he can once more access our universe and consume it, with all of its inherent flaws, transforming his consciousness - and by associated connection - the remaining fabric of his own universe into a brand new universe. A living, beautifully flawed universe, with his own consciousness at the helm and able to create wormholes as a simple property of the laws of physics. which he'd be able to invent or deinvent on a whim, according to his purposes. Think a selfish, bratty, petulant two year old with an effective god complex, and with a grudge against the entirety of existence. Thus CTS plans to unmake the multiverse so that it can undie and be redeathed as single, uncountable, infinite hims... mostly by throwing destructive, deadly tantrums when he doesn't get his way.
Notes and Thoughts
Notes and thoughts
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Mayonnaise makes me puke coat hangers. I am an enemy of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is camel shit by another name. If mayonnaise were alive, I would murder it in the first degree with fire. Mayonnaise has a stupid name. Mayonnaise should be chucked onto a neuron star.
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Army - there is a ground army, which consists of military assets located inside the borders of Soviet Georgia at the time of its secession from the United States.
Air force - there is a skeleton of an Air Force, centered around two operational Air Force bases at the time of Soviet Georgia's secession from the United States - Robbins AFB and Moody AFB. The few functional assets are extremely outdated and in various states of disrepair. Soviet Georgia's functional Air Force consists mainly of hundreds of automated drones which were discovered in relatively good condition after having been sequestered for 20 years in a warehouse on the grounds of the long defunct Dobbins Air Reserve Base.
Navy - Soviet Georgia has no Navy to speak of. Georgia's sole major Naval Base, the Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay, was completely inundated in 2021 as a result of the worldwide six meter rise in sea levels. All surviving United States naval assets were relocated to other bases, and Kings Bay was completely written off.
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Spray bottle filled with vinegar for spraying dogs
Apple magic trick, up down smash
Gap tooth spit trick
Hey everybody, here's Mr. Mouth
Empty Shelf - The Search for Food
Dumpster diving for dollar bills
Mountain of register receipts collapsing
Bickering with Barriers
My teeth are on fire
Is this all? I was so afraid. I always pictured it as being so much worse, and with so much more suffering. This is more like something from a book.... I can do this. I mean, I can die like this. What a relief.... Thank you.
Boogers have absolutely no smell, whatsoever.
I wasn't born, I was congealed.
Shit Box from HELL
Go ahead, gourd head.
She absquatulated with the plutonium!
Drugs had scorched away all his motivation, leaving him with a tired battle against withdrawals.
Lock ze derls, and hope zey don't have ze blastels!
Dreyfuss borrowed a broom from the store where he works. He remembers to return it a month later. At 1:30 am he marches in with the broom, shouting, "I have returned to your final resting place, to use! I mean, I return now the broom for you to it's final resting place! I mean. I now turn this broom to you, I mean return, this broom for you, for to use at this place, until we all shall finally rest in peace!" He was really drunk. Dramatically... "Now I must away with me. Our metropolis is in the clutches of mudman. I mean a mudmin. A madman! And I mean to save it along with you guys too, for you!" Then he leaves and actually has to save the city from a very angry little boy.
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Mayonnaise makes me puke coat hangers. I am an enemy of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is camel shit by another name. If mayonnaise were alive, I would murder it in the first degree with fire. Mayonnaise has a stupid name. Mayonnaise should be chucked onto a neuron star.
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Army - there is a ground army, which consists of military assets located inside the borders of Soviet Georgia at the time of its secession from the United States.
Air force - there is a skeleton of an Air Force, centered around two operational Air Force bases at the time of Soviet Georgia's secession from the United States - Robbins AFB and Moody AFB. The few functional assets are extremely outdated and in various states of disrepair. Soviet Georgia's functional Air Force consists mainly of hundreds of automated drones which were discovered in relatively good condition after having been sequestered for 20 years in a warehouse on the grounds of the long defunct Dobbins Air Reserve Base.
Navy - Soviet Georgia has no Navy to speak of. Georgia's sole major Naval Base, the Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay, was completely inundated in 2021 as a result of the worldwide six meter rise in sea levels. All surviving United States naval assets were relocated to other bases, and Kings Bay was completely written off.
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.
Spray bottle filled with vinegar for spraying dogs
Apple magic trick, up down smash
Gap tooth spit trick
Hey everybody, here's Mr. Mouth
Empty Shelf - The Search for Food
Dumpster diving for dollar bills
Mountain of register receipts collapsing
Bickering with Barriers
My teeth are on fire
Is this all? I was so afraid. I always pictured it as being so much worse, and with so much more suffering. This is more like something from a book.... I can do this. I mean, I can die like this. What a relief.... Thank you.
Boogers have absolutely no smell, whatsoever.
I wasn't born, I was congealed.
Shit Box from HELL
Go ahead, gourd head.
She absquatulated with the plutonium!
Drugs had scorched away all his motivation, leaving him with a tired battle against withdrawals.
Lock ze derls, and hope zey don't have ze blastels!
Dreyfuss borrowed a broom from the store where he works. He remembers to return it a month later. At 1:30 am he marches in with the broom, shouting, "I have returned to your final resting place, to use! I mean, I return now the broom for you to it's final resting place! I mean. I now turn this broom to you, I mean return, this broom for you, for to use at this place, until we all shall finally rest in peace!" He was really drunk. Dramatically... "Now I must away with me. Our metropolis is in the clutches of mudman. I mean a mudmin. A madman! And I mean to save it along with you guys too, for you!" Then he leaves and actually has to save the city from a very angry little boy.
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Jim Witt and Ferlin Goolsby go way back. They were both the same branch of the military and served together. They were once friends, buddies, comrades in arms, but there was a falling out. I haven't figured out the details yet, but it was this situation which led to Jims' dishonorable discharge and the source of his shame which makes him a constant suicide in progress. Jim became a sheriff/moonshine runner and Ferlin became President.
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Jim's Hangover
Sheriff Jim Witt was supposed to wake up dead on New Year's Day, but he didn't... he only woke up wishing he was dead, which was pretty much exactly the opposite of what he'd been going for.
The night of December 31st, 2041 had been just another Saturday night for Jim and he'd celebrated the new year by doing what he always did on a Saturday night... he got stupid drunk on 190 proof double rectified moonshine and tried to kill himself. A weekly suicidal drinking binge had been his tradition ever since he'd been forced to resign his commission from the army. Over the past 20 or so years he had actually come close to punching his own clock on more than one occasion, but invariably he would wind up blacking out before getting down to the brass tacks of it... oh, and it didn't help that Sheriff Jim Witt of Podunk Country, Georgia, was also a hopelessly cheerful drunk, which only made for bad suicide vibes every time. If it wasn't for the fact that he had a county to sheriff and a moonshine route to drive, Jim would have chosen to stay drunk all the time.
For as long as he could remember, all Jim had ever wanted to be was a soldier. It didn't even matter to him what branch of the army... driver, pilot, machine gunner, secret agent, nuclear bomb commander, starship trooper, latrine digger... whatever. His stepfather had been an army soldier, as had his stepfathers stepfather, and his stepfathers stepfathers stepfather before him... on and on in an unbroken line of stepfathers for almost three or four generations. It was more than his step-family's lineage that Jim felt responsible for as his stepfathers only stepson. It was a chain.... a family chain forged upon the guilt of forgotten promises, tempered with the memories of a traumatic childhood, and finally bound together by the cold-welded links of modern tradition.
Jim had been inspired to join the army when he was 26, after watching his stepfather slowly devolve into an intolerable asshole after a drunken mishap involving a hand grenade juggling incident.
Not only was Jim not dead, but the inside of his noggin felt like it was getting scrubbed vigorously with a brillo pad, and simply trying to think was nearly impressible, what with shouldering a devastating, planet-sized hangover - which was just about exactly the opposite of what he'd been expecting that Sunday morning.
He came to buried underneath an avalanche of murky confusion with absolutely no idea who he was, where he was, or why the silent depths of sweet oblivion had felt it necessary that he should be vomited back into existence. There was no identity, no ego, no perception, no nothing. For Jim Witt, the entirety of his being during those first moments of non-oblivion consisted merely of a familiar sense of resignation, accompanied by mild disappointment. No biggie... just a kind of 'all encompassing 'oh well'.
After passing out again and immediately bouncing right back to suffocating (I don't think the suffocating part was mentioned earlier, so... yeah, suffocating) underneath an avalanche of murky confusion, Jim became aware of a cold, hard surface pressing uncomfortably against his entire body. He couldn't begin to fathom what it might be, which made the inside of his brain itch like the image of a madman's head fungus. He could feel the cold, hard 'whatever it was' trying to squash his eyeball as it pushed against the side of his face, just pressing and pressing, like some kind of giant, really bad spatula.
A kong, drawn out gasping, choking, suffocating, and drowning noise, like that of a dying, pathetic creature, issued forth from Jim's throat as a perfectly causal reaction to some insanity-spanning horror that most likely lurked just beneath his conscious memory. No doubt about it... it was definitely like some kind of fucked up Jack-in-the-box.
No likey, he thought. He said it out loud - 'No likey no likey no likey' - and then he shouted - 'ME DEFINITELY NO LIKEY!' He awoke suddenly as if from a nightmare, and the murky confusion transmogrified into a conscious thing. 'What the heck happened, and what the heck is this crap that's happening!' he screamed inside his own head. Then he passed out again.
::: Exposition :::
Consciousness came crashing into his noggin like a forty car pileup.
::: Exposition :::
Well, there was the cold, slick thing he had cradled like a teddy bear against the declivity near the top of his chest, with the long end of it pushed up snugly under his chin. 'Huh', he thought, feeling vaguely repulsed. 'What's this thing?' Although he held it like a teddy bear, it definitely wasn't comforting like a teddy bear ought to be. No, this thing was... could be... comforting, yeah. But not like teddy bear comfort... more like a 'Smite Thine Enemies' kind of comfort.
What the hell? he thought. Never mind, I don't wanna know.
He'd been more and more of a mind to do something about the problem of, you know... WAKING UP once and for all, but he never seemed to get around to it because he keep passing out at the crucial moment.
::: Exposition on suicide and plans for suicide and screwing up his own suicide :::
What he'd gotten instead was the grandmother of all hangovers. No, it's was the grandfather... Whoops, it was the step-granddaddy of all hangovers.
The inside of his mouth was dry and his lips were spit-welded. They made a moist 'pop' as they came unstuck. He tried to build up a little saliva by smacking his tongue and lips together, which made a nasty noise, like a dog snacking on its own nether regions.
'Tastes like a dogs butthole.' Jim muttered.
He tried to inhale through his nose and was greeted with the smell of snotty, freshly snored boogers. His eyes were gummed up and crusted over. Jim was definitely disappointed. He'd chickened out again. If he was really serious about blowing his brains out, really, he was gonna have to man up and do it sober.
Jim's head was full of this... this all encompassing, everywhere kind of nausea... Ubiquitous, Jim thought to himself as he heaved and pulsated while trying to catch his breath. Ubiquitous. He'd learned that word some twenty years ago from some science fiction novel that he'd been reading, and at the time he'd thought it a pretty damn cool word. Ubiquitous - meaning ever present, abundant, all over the place, filling the nooks and crannies, just all over everything. The boogers in my nose are ubiquitous, he mused as he threw up all over the kitchen floor. The ubiquitous vomit covered the kitchen floor.
Jim thought of all the ubiquitous things in his life that he hated. The ubiquitous waking up that happened every day was the worst... then there was the ubiquitous hangover, followed by the ubiquitous passage of time. Inside of that was the ubiquitous dread, from which he observed and followed his own ubiquitous habits, every day, ubiquitously. Oh, how he hated that word. If was just so... pretentious! And ubiquitous!
Scenes in order and Character introductions
Scenes, in order, and appearances of characters
1. New year's day, 2062. Sheriff Dempsey Witt wakes up completely hung over and hugging his service revolver, but still alive after another failed drunken suicide attempt. Disappointed, he staggers to his feet and dons his uniform, (possibly does something else here) then goes outside to load x barrels of moonshine into the bed of the pickup. He encounters the alcoholic dog, Mighty Whitey, which is just as hungover and ornery as Dempsey, and hell bent on taking off a piece of Dempsey's ass. Dempsey outwits the dog (somehow) and loads the moonshine and proceeds to Madam Maybelle's house of well repute to drop off the hootch so Deputy Buckeye Buck can see to its distribution. Susannah 'SuperSuze' Hicks and her entourage are playing secret agent and come rushing out of Madam Maybelle's and 'confiscate' the entire load of moonshine, leaving Dem astounded. Den and Buckeye go inside and sit at the bar and watch the news.
News items:
Imminent launch of the two dog night light
The Flying Turtle, first ship equipped with an EM drive maiden voyage
Annexation of Baja California announced
Georgia has graciously volunteered to foot the new defense budget of 6 trillion dollars
Dem and Buck and everyone at the bar go apeshit. A spy for President Goolsby is there who knows Dems history. He sees their reactions and leaves hurriedly. (later on when things have developed beyond the point of no return they present a single, very fancily printed 2 trillion dollar bill to President Goolsby, absolving Georgia from all debt and backed up by the Space Bank. Eventually... when Space Banks become a real thing, that is, so just hold onto that 2 trillion dollar bill until then, President Goolsby, because it's... it's like a railroad bond. It'll be worth quintillions someday when there's a such a thing as Space Banks. And then the unanimous middle fingers go up and Georgia officially secedes)
2.
Walks Carefully On Eggshells Like A Bear. A Navajo Indian who flunked out of secret agent school. He is drunk in the corner of the saloon and lifts his head when Dim and Buckeye start yelling about the news on the CRTV. He thinks about a lot of stuff in his drunken stupor (dunno what yet. His back story probably). He makes a decision, gets up, staggers over to the bar, and is the first to suggest the secession of Georgia from the US, and proposes a new Navajo Confederacy. He's smart, but the more he talks, the more his upbringing influences his drunken speech, until the Navajo lifestyle he's describing sounds like a communist state. He's laughed off and thrown roughly out of the saloon.
3.
Peter. Another drunk in another corner of the saloon has been paying attention with half an ear ever since Dim and Buckeye came in. This is Peter, and he's a secret true communist. An autistic outcast, extremely intelligent, but almost a psychopath in his inability to read and understand the emotions of others. He's not without empathy though, he just doesn't perceive what other people are feeling. His thoughts reflect this. He has been treated cruelty his entire life because southern country hicks can be cruel assholes. Therefore, and because he's autistic, he has a black and white idea of wrong and right, and he gets an idea... just a pipe dream, really... for the perfect utopia, with him as the new Tsar. Better than Marx's. A true equality, in black and white. Pure. Nobody has ever listened to him before about anything because he's an asshole. He doesn't know this about himself. But the time is ripe for a revolution in Georgia, and folks are just about ready to listen to anyone and consider anything. Peter gets up and discretely follows Walks On Eggshells etc. out of the saloon.
4.
Susanna 'SuperSuze' Hicks. Adopted as a baby, her origins are unclear. Fourteen years old and completely naive and with no idea at all that she's just grown into the hottest woman who has ever lived, EVER. She's just started high school in podunk south Georgia. Through elementary and junior high she's gathered a reputation as a tattle tale, only because she has a knack for finding things out. What to do with the info? Tell, tell, tell! She's got the genes of a secret agent, because unbeknownst to her, her REAL mom was/is? one (a Russian one), like Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill. There's a story there... Susanna is following a couple of kids in her class who wanna get it on. Susanna doesn't realize this, she takes all clues and cues out of context. She's innocent. She's playing spy, she's SuperSuze. She's gonna report to headquarters on these naughty kiddos. Then she sees them just about to have sex. She doesn't understand, but she knows that the game just got serious! She blackmails the couple into giving her information pertaining to her mission. Flustered and discombobulated by this, the guy shouts out this thing (dunno what yet) that he saw, and that's the secret info, please don't tell on us, and SuperSuze leaves them alone, satisfied with a mission well completed. (The info she has seems innocuous, but it's something important. Dunno what yet. When she tattles it though, that's what gets her noticed. Her path to the Apparatchik. She eventually gets baptized and becomes Svetlana, the SuperSvet. The Awesomest of All Apparatchik Chicks. Lots more about her, she's a main character.
5.
Something going on in the fucking White House, with President Goolsby and the press secretary and the secretary of defense. Some preliminary shit about pissed off Georgia. A small item,Mr President, about one Thaddeus Thomas, an Amish inventor, and a14 year old girl from South Georgia named Susanna Hicks, possibly something of import, but most likely just blown out of proportion. Oh yeah, there's also this issue of pissed off Georgia, speaking of Georgia. They're talking about seceding? Heh. Appease them with a fortieth mortgage on the air they breathe, that'll shut em up. A press conference about the launch of the Flying Turtle, stopping global warming by freezing the moon with the cooling laser, the insane genius of it, because sunlit surface of the moon is 200 degrees F, and all reflecting down onto the Earth. Terd Burgleson, the press secretary, handles it. Terri Peterson, secretary of defense, realized something possibly maybe important concerning the Amish guys and the Georgian girl... Nah.
6.
Dickjackson Jones, astronaut and Commander of the Flying Turtle. He suffers with the awfullest cluster headaches. He's Big, he's Black, and he's Tough, so he's able to hide it when he's suffering with suicide headaches. It's actually a superhuman ability, but he doesn't know that about himself, that his ability to mask agony that would have absolutely everybody else writhing on the floor and screaming like an animal isn't normal. He copes because he has hope, hope that comes from a recurring dream about Mars. About Olympus Mons, an inactive volcano for billions of years, erupting very gently and blowing 'smoke signals of peace' out into space from the caldera. Walks On Eggshells has similar dreams, later on. For now though, the Flying Turtle is on the launch pad, counting down, and Dickjackson is in command cool as a cucumber, and right in the middle of the worst headache of his life, ever. It's the mildest of a new category of headaches to come, though. This poor guy... he's gonna be the most tortured character in the entire story... but he's Dickjackson Jones, and he's one cool negro. Aborigine, actually. Half Aborigine actually, and half Inuit/Black Irish/pure blood Aryan. There's a lot going on here, with Roger and Ramona and Charles that I'll figure out later. For now It's the widely publicized launch of the Two Dog Night Light. A lot more shit about this...
7.
Dreyfuss Marlowe is walking home from work and encounters Ignatius (demon) for the first time while trying to score pain pills.
:::aside:::
Ignatius's appearance is related to the opening of the dimensional gateway to the Far Flung Hunger, which happened at the Larger Hadron Collider at the equator near the base of the space elevator.
1. New year's day, 2062. Sheriff Dempsey Witt wakes up completely hung over and hugging his service revolver, but still alive after another failed drunken suicide attempt. Disappointed, he staggers to his feet and dons his uniform, (possibly does something else here) then goes outside to load x barrels of moonshine into the bed of the pickup. He encounters the alcoholic dog, Mighty Whitey, which is just as hungover and ornery as Dempsey, and hell bent on taking off a piece of Dempsey's ass. Dempsey outwits the dog (somehow) and loads the moonshine and proceeds to Madam Maybelle's house of well repute to drop off the hootch so Deputy Buckeye Buck can see to its distribution. Susannah 'SuperSuze' Hicks and her entourage are playing secret agent and come rushing out of Madam Maybelle's and 'confiscate' the entire load of moonshine, leaving Dem astounded. Den and Buckeye go inside and sit at the bar and watch the news.
News items:
Imminent launch of the two dog night light
The Flying Turtle, first ship equipped with an EM drive maiden voyage
Annexation of Baja California announced
Georgia has graciously volunteered to foot the new defense budget of 6 trillion dollars
Dem and Buck and everyone at the bar go apeshit. A spy for President Goolsby is there who knows Dems history. He sees their reactions and leaves hurriedly. (later on when things have developed beyond the point of no return they present a single, very fancily printed 2 trillion dollar bill to President Goolsby, absolving Georgia from all debt and backed up by the Space Bank. Eventually... when Space Banks become a real thing, that is, so just hold onto that 2 trillion dollar bill until then, President Goolsby, because it's... it's like a railroad bond. It'll be worth quintillions someday when there's a such a thing as Space Banks. And then the unanimous middle fingers go up and Georgia officially secedes)
2.
Walks Carefully On Eggshells Like A Bear. A Navajo Indian who flunked out of secret agent school. He is drunk in the corner of the saloon and lifts his head when Dim and Buckeye start yelling about the news on the CRTV. He thinks about a lot of stuff in his drunken stupor (dunno what yet. His back story probably). He makes a decision, gets up, staggers over to the bar, and is the first to suggest the secession of Georgia from the US, and proposes a new Navajo Confederacy. He's smart, but the more he talks, the more his upbringing influences his drunken speech, until the Navajo lifestyle he's describing sounds like a communist state. He's laughed off and thrown roughly out of the saloon.
3.
Peter. Another drunk in another corner of the saloon has been paying attention with half an ear ever since Dim and Buckeye came in. This is Peter, and he's a secret true communist. An autistic outcast, extremely intelligent, but almost a psychopath in his inability to read and understand the emotions of others. He's not without empathy though, he just doesn't perceive what other people are feeling. His thoughts reflect this. He has been treated cruelty his entire life because southern country hicks can be cruel assholes. Therefore, and because he's autistic, he has a black and white idea of wrong and right, and he gets an idea... just a pipe dream, really... for the perfect utopia, with him as the new Tsar. Better than Marx's. A true equality, in black and white. Pure. Nobody has ever listened to him before about anything because he's an asshole. He doesn't know this about himself. But the time is ripe for a revolution in Georgia, and folks are just about ready to listen to anyone and consider anything. Peter gets up and discretely follows Walks On Eggshells etc. out of the saloon.
4.
Susanna 'SuperSuze' Hicks. Adopted as a baby, her origins are unclear. Fourteen years old and completely naive and with no idea at all that she's just grown into the hottest woman who has ever lived, EVER. She's just started high school in podunk south Georgia. Through elementary and junior high she's gathered a reputation as a tattle tale, only because she has a knack for finding things out. What to do with the info? Tell, tell, tell! She's got the genes of a secret agent, because unbeknownst to her, her REAL mom was/is? one (a Russian one), like Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill. There's a story there... Susanna is following a couple of kids in her class who wanna get it on. Susanna doesn't realize this, she takes all clues and cues out of context. She's innocent. She's playing spy, she's SuperSuze. She's gonna report to headquarters on these naughty kiddos. Then she sees them just about to have sex. She doesn't understand, but she knows that the game just got serious! She blackmails the couple into giving her information pertaining to her mission. Flustered and discombobulated by this, the guy shouts out this thing (dunno what yet) that he saw, and that's the secret info, please don't tell on us, and SuperSuze leaves them alone, satisfied with a mission well completed. (The info she has seems innocuous, but it's something important. Dunno what yet. When she tattles it though, that's what gets her noticed. Her path to the Apparatchik. She eventually gets baptized and becomes Svetlana, the SuperSvet. The Awesomest of All Apparatchik Chicks. Lots more about her, she's a main character.
5.
Something going on in the fucking White House, with President Goolsby and the press secretary and the secretary of defense. Some preliminary shit about pissed off Georgia. A small item,Mr President, about one Thaddeus Thomas, an Amish inventor, and a14 year old girl from South Georgia named Susanna Hicks, possibly something of import, but most likely just blown out of proportion. Oh yeah, there's also this issue of pissed off Georgia, speaking of Georgia. They're talking about seceding? Heh. Appease them with a fortieth mortgage on the air they breathe, that'll shut em up. A press conference about the launch of the Flying Turtle, stopping global warming by freezing the moon with the cooling laser, the insane genius of it, because sunlit surface of the moon is 200 degrees F, and all reflecting down onto the Earth. Terd Burgleson, the press secretary, handles it. Terri Peterson, secretary of defense, realized something possibly maybe important concerning the Amish guys and the Georgian girl... Nah.
6.
Dickjackson Jones, astronaut and Commander of the Flying Turtle. He suffers with the awfullest cluster headaches. He's Big, he's Black, and he's Tough, so he's able to hide it when he's suffering with suicide headaches. It's actually a superhuman ability, but he doesn't know that about himself, that his ability to mask agony that would have absolutely everybody else writhing on the floor and screaming like an animal isn't normal. He copes because he has hope, hope that comes from a recurring dream about Mars. About Olympus Mons, an inactive volcano for billions of years, erupting very gently and blowing 'smoke signals of peace' out into space from the caldera. Walks On Eggshells has similar dreams, later on. For now though, the Flying Turtle is on the launch pad, counting down, and Dickjackson is in command cool as a cucumber, and right in the middle of the worst headache of his life, ever. It's the mildest of a new category of headaches to come, though. This poor guy... he's gonna be the most tortured character in the entire story... but he's Dickjackson Jones, and he's one cool negro. Aborigine, actually. Half Aborigine actually, and half Inuit/Black Irish/pure blood Aryan. There's a lot going on here, with Roger and Ramona and Charles that I'll figure out later. For now It's the widely publicized launch of the Two Dog Night Light. A lot more shit about this...
7.
Dreyfuss Marlowe is walking home from work and encounters Ignatius (demon) for the first time while trying to score pain pills.
:::aside:::
Ignatius's appearance is related to the opening of the dimensional gateway to the Far Flung Hunger, which happened at the Larger Hadron Collider at the equator near the base of the space elevator.
Jim and Mighty Whitey and Moonshine
Smell. Check. Touch? Ubiquitous pain... Check.
"THAT GAWDAM DOG!" Jim suddenly hollered out loud, as murky details of the night before came back to him. The sound of his own voice was like an inside-out kick to the head, and his hands jerked up reflexively to his face. He could feel the skin of his eyelids pulsing against his palms as his eyeballs tried to make a run for it.
Maybe you're just so retarded hung over that you forgot to open your eyes, he thought. He tried to open them and discovered that they were stuck fast. He could feel something dry and crusty rubbing against his palms.
"What's this hairy hogwash??" he whisper-shouted as he scurried backwards on his ass and hands across the kitchen linoleum, reaching frantically for some kind of stable purchase. He finally backed up forcibly against the fridge, which he'd left open the night before after a drunken search for sustenance. The impact jolted a jar of pickles that he'd left perched precariously on the rack above. It fell over, spilling green vinegary liquid all over his head and onto his face, immediately dissolving the dried crusty muck sealing his eyes shut. They flickered open.
"I can see!" Jim exulted, and then the pickle juice was all over his eyeballs.
"I'M BLIND!" he screamed. He scrambled to his feet, one hand furiously trying to punch out the fire in his eyes while the other groped around blindly for something to put out the fire that didn't involve smothering it to death with punches to the face.
Jim abruptly recognized the kitchen sink with his thrusting, outstretched hand. "WATER!" he exclaimed breathlessly, and he immediately put both of his hands to the task of making water happen in the sink.... but what happened instead of water was just bad luck. His frantic, jerking hands happened upon the jar of methanol that he'd carefully extracted from the latest batch of hootch the night before, which he'd reserved for some future project involving that gawtdam dog and left safely in the sink to await its purpose. However, being blind, hung over, eyeballs on fire and desperate for relief, Jim completely failed to remember to put the two and two of the previous night together. Instead, he latched onto that jar of methanol, thinking it was cool, precious, fire-quenching water. He upended it upon his upturned face and directly into his pickle juiced, on fire eyes.
The pain was so tremendous that the nerves conducting it from his eyes to his brain actually backed up like a traffic jam. Fully five seconds transpired as he stood there, immersed in a kind of un-feeling... much like what you get when you touch something so hot that your brain freaks out for a second and tries to think that it's freezing. Five seconds of a rapturous, expectant, kind of hot-cold-numb limbo transpired for Jim as he stood there in his kitchen with an upturned jar of methanol held over his hopefully expectant, pain wracked face. Then the traffic jam of nerve endings became a pileup that just kept piling up and piling up and piling up, until it was a 7:00 AM rush hour traffic massacre of pain, pointing with pointy, painful, on fire points that piled up and piled up, pointing right into his eyeballs from every direction, and every direction was ON FIRE!
Jim SHRIEKED, which finally woke up the gawtdam dog.
Dempsey Witt - Dem to folks who knew him, Dim to his friends - was taking the scenic route to work today. It was a fine, almost spring morning in southern Georgia in January. The January dandelions were letting go, the January honeysuckle was in the air, and the smell of springtime in January was almost blowing in the wind, as fine as nostril wine, in the back country of southern Georgia.
'Almost is all you need,' Dim sang out loud to the tune of a hundred year old Beatles song that was squeaking out of the old dashboard sat-radio. 'Oh, and you know what else?' Dim continued out loud, 'Almost only counts in horseshoes, thermonuclear war, and 180 proof distilled spirits!' The proof - no pun intended - was the almost full load of almost 100% pure grain alcohol in the bed of the pickup, and also proof that Dim was in a pretty good mood that morning, for a dilapidated old bootlegger. He hardly even noticed any of the potholes as he bullied the old Ford Electric down the well neglected oil roads of southern Georgia, Podunk county, USA - well neglected in the upkeep, but well familiar in the driving of. That's the way that the oil roads of back country USA had been for the last hundred years, and Dem was sixty-six years old and could vouch personally for a bunch of those years. 'Oil roads were made for runnin' moonshine,' his dad used to say. They were the arteries and veins of it - and right now, Dim was the beating heart that was pumping the vital hooch to the vital organs. If Dim was the heart that pumped the hooch (or mule kick, as his dad used to to call it), then Sheriff Buckeye Buck was definitely the liver that did the processing. Sheriff Buck was the organ that filtered the 'lectric honey (as his mom used to call it) - that Dim delivered, so that it was provisioned fairly and according to the Law of the Land (county), according to Buckeye Buck that is, who was the hooch accountant... no, the County Liver...
Yeah, there ya go! That's the analogy I was looking for!
That's what Dempsey Witt was thinking that morning as he trundled over those ragged oil road potholes. In case you hadn't already figured it out, work for Dempsey Witt was running moonshine, and the running of it was work for Dempsey Witt. Dim, as he was known to his friends; Dem to just folks, and for the last 25 years, he'd almost forgotten a life that had ever been any different. Later on he'd maybe think about how strange all of that seemed in retrospect, once understood from a point of view outside of his world of rural Georgia and right after the universe had exploded in his face; but whatever future that was gonna be, Dempsey Witt had no idea of it right then. He had hooch to deliver today, and not some time hence.
So! As I was telling, it was a fine, spring-like January morning in Southern Georgia that Dempsey Witt, Dim to his friends, Dem to just folks - he always liked to make that clear - pulled his old hooch laden Ford 'Lectric into the front yard of Madame Maybell's House of Well Repute and Oasis, at right about 7:00 AM. Dim cut the juice, then reached under the dashboard and fumbled around until he'd found the heavy toggle that switched the Ford's power from 'battery' to 'solar'. That was a rigged up feature, not common to that particular model, by the way. Nobody in economically devastated Georgia could afford a charge at a fillin station since 2041, when
.
.
Etc Exposition, history
.
.
After a medium-sized while, the front door of Madame Maybell's cracked open by just a smidge, and an amplified caterwaul issued forth -
"BEELZEBUB IS A PRETTY GOOD GUY!"
(this is their secret back n forth)
Dim rolled down his window and hollered back -
"AS FAR AS DEMONS GO!"
And again, from the crack in the door -
"BUT HIS BROTHER BAAL..."
"LORD DON'T HE WAIL!" Dim yelled, close to cracking up. And again, from the crack in the door -
"AND BAPHOMET..."
And then both of them together, "IS JUST PLAIN PSYCHO!"
The front door to Madame Maybell's House of Well Repute and Oasis slammed open and half a dozen shotgun barrels poked out, pointing in all directions, like some kind of Looney Tunes ensemble.
"We gotcher dead to rights!" came the challenge.
Dim stepped out of the cab of the truck and walked around to the back. "Dead to rights?" he yelled, as he fiddled with the tailgate latch. "You don't even know what that means, you asshole!" Dim yanked the latch up and down furiously about a dozen times, but it wouldn't open. He slapped the tailgate in frustration and yelled to Sheriff Buck. "Gitcher fat ass down here and help me unload these kegs of moonshine!"
Sheriff Buckeye Buck of Podunk county, state of Georgia, USA, lumbered out onto the front porch of Madame Maybell's. "Shut up you dimwit," he hissed, his eyes shifting left and right as he leveraged his considerable bulk down the front porch steps. "What if I was posing as myself as an undercover cop? You don't know who might be hollerin' out the door, hiding in the nooks and crannies and alcoves! Great Godahmighty, son!"
Dim gave the latch of the tailgate one last, exasperated yank and decided to just skip the damn thing. He clambered up over it and into the bed of the pickup and shouted back, "First off, I'm old enough to be YOUR pappy, SON!" Heh, Dim chuckled and thought, I sure get a kick out of myself, don't I? "And nextly, concerning your cornfed paranoia, well... there wouldn't never be no problem of an undercover cop to begin with, would there, you thick country bumpkin! Because you'da justa been POSING as one!" Dim manhandled one of the big aluminum kegs toward the back of the truck. "Kinda like how you're constantly posing as the Sheriff of Podunk county," he added, "when you're really just the Hooch Man for every back-woods whore house and broken down saloon in all of southern Georgia!" Oh boy, Dim laughed down into his chin, he was sure hot today.
Suddenly six girls with shotguns, ranging from about ten to fourteen years of age, burst out of the open door of Madame Maybell's and went charging around where Sherrif Buckeye stood on the steps, like rapids around a boulder, and very nearly sending him tumbling. "You girls... you girls! Dammit, you girls!" blubbered the Sheriff.
Dim looked up from wrestling with the aluminum keg, just as one of the older girls - about thirteen years old, by the look of her - leapt up effortlessly into the bed of his pickup and offered him her shotgun. "Sir, would you mind keepin' a hold of this for me, just for a bit, til me and the girls is done here?" She said.
Dim stared wordlessly at the girl with his mouth hanging open. In all of his sixty-six years, this was probably the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was about 5' without an inch to spare, with dark brown hair that went down to her unusually broad shoulders. She was wearing a tank top, on the front of which was printed the image of a fur covered monster that was lifting up the fur fom it's midsection and pointing to a set of well chiseled abs. 'THE ABDOMINAL SNOWMAN' was printed underneath, in large letters. A long, brown summer skirt decorated with paisleys and flowers flowed down from her waist to her ankles, almost covering the pair of well worn sandals that she wore on her small feet. The girl was obviously in great shape, Dim could tell; simply by observing her arms and shoulders, which were smooth and well defined. She was simply the epitome of youthful exuberance.
"Sir, please? Time's a-runnin' out, and we gotta get this evidence to... to..." The girl looked around frantically for a second, as if she were trying to locate... " to where it's supposed to be!" she suddenly shouted. "And right quick! Please, zillions of lives are at stake!" She gave the outstretched shotgun an impatient shake, and Dim took it from her. Then the girl smiled a smile that could have gone down in history, if history had been paying attention. History was busy somewhere else though apparently, so only Dim saw that smile... that heart wrecking, ship breaking smile.
"Thank you sir!" she said, and then to the others waiting below...
"Girls! Let's get to it! You know what to do!" And with a tchika-tchika THUNK, one of em had jimmied the tailgate latch that Dim had been struggling with, and then it was down, and all six of the shotgun girls immediately began unloading the barrels of moonshine and rolling them up to the front porch of Madame Maybe's. "Were rollin' over and turnin' states evidence!" shouted one of the younger girls amidst the flurry of activity. Another, older girl shouted, "Shut UP! This is a black op, STUPID," to the younger one who had just blabbed about turning states evidence, whatever that meant.
Dim watched it all with his jaw hanging open. What the heck had just happened? he thought to himself. That smile, from that girl, the beautiful girl... It had poleaxed him! Suddenly Dim was overcome with a feeling of paternal love for her, whoever she was. He knew right then and there that he would die to save her, to protect her... What the heck is happening, Dim stuttered inside his own head. That girl had smiled the most perfectest smile in all of the history of the human race, and... she'd had no idea! How could she have? She was still existing inside of the perfect naivety of unspoilt innocence!
Dim was sure, more sure than he'd ever been in his life about anything, that this girl, who had just smiled that miraculous smile, had no idea that she was the most beautiful newborn woman who had ever just crossed over from childhood, through puberty, and into young adulthood. She just didn't know it. Amazing!
"Lookit em go," commented Buckeye Buck with a smile, as he finally made his way over to where Dim stood stupidly in the bed of the old electric Ford pickup, now empty of 7 and a half barrels of the bestest moonshine in all of southern Georgia. "They're something, ain't they?" Buckeye laughed. "A tad excitable though, but that's youth. Didja see how I almost broke my neck, with all of them tadpoles scurrying past me down the steps? Lordamercy! Dim? Dim, you awake in there?"
Dim came to with a start. "Uh... yeah." He dug around in his pocket for a second, as if he'd lost something, and then his hand just kind of settled there.
Sheriff Buck's eyes narrowed. "Now, Dim, you ain't been at the hooch this early on a Sunday morning, I know you ain't, cause you and me both know that I'd hafta... heh." He'd meant it as a joke, but after he'd said it, it didn't seem like one. Sheriff Buck glanced down furtively at his dusty boots, then up again at Dim, waiting to see how he'd take it.
Dim shook his head in annoyance, as if he were trying to rid it of an infestation of fleas. "What?" he barked, and then noticed Sheriff Buckeye standing right there, leaning against the side of the truck, and looking up at him with the most retarded look of questioning suspicion that Dim had ever seen. It was the look of an ignorant hick, stupid and glazed, Dim thought. For a couple of seconds as he looked down at the Sheriff, he was filled with disgust at the sight of him - 'What a stupid bottom feeder... how do I even know this backwoods inbred hillbilly?' - And then he'd snapped out of it, and saw his friend Bucky again. Sheriff Buckeye Buck. Dim called him Bucky. Young and dumb, yeah, but with a lot more smarts than anyone would ever know, unless they knew him as a friend. Dim felt ashamed for thinking those things about his friend. He'd been discombobulated by the girl's smile, that's all.
Dim recovered his composure and resumed his pocket digging, producing a pack of smokes and a lighter. He casually popped a cigarette out of the pack and put it between his lips, then cupped the lighter flame with both hands and inhaled deeply. "That's real funny," - cough, chuckle - "I guess Boss Hog just caught me red handed being human," Dim said as he exhaled a lungful of smoke.
The import of the moment hadn't been lost on Sheriff Buckeye, though. He'd seen that look of contempt cross over his friend's features, just for a second. With all of the years that they'd known each other and run hooch together, he'd always known that Dim had looked down on him with a certain measure of contempt... an ashamed and we'll hidden contempt, but still there, nevertheless. It's why Buckeye Buck had maneuvered himself in the lofty position of Sheriff of Podunk county, after all. He'd done it for the good opinion of Dempsey Witt, because Dempsey and Buck's dear departed dad, Billy Buck, went way back... back to a time when the Sheriff's name was Witt, and when Buckeye was what you hollered at the scamp that always getting under his dad's heels...
"Was that a gaggle of gun toting girlies I just seen blow through here and carry off a truckload of South Georgia White Lightning, slicker'n goose shit?" Dim suddenly blurted, in an attempt to preempt the gathering mood.
Sheriff Buck relaxed visibly and laughed. "Heh! That's my secret service in training. Ain't they somethin'? A tad bit rambunctious, but that's just young'uns being young and playin' purtend, as young'uns ought ta."
Dim suddenly remembered the shotgun that he'd been holding the whole time, that the girl with the bedazzling smile had asked him to hang onto. He lifted it up for a closer examination. He tested the heft. He released the pump action and opened the chamber, revealing a bona fide12 gauge slug resting within. He turned it over and examined the stock, which had 'Mossberg' printed on one side, and 'SuperSuze', in very stylized, curlicue letters on the other. He stared at incredulously as he realized that he was holding it as a favor, just for a bit, for a 13 year old girl with a bedazzling smile playing secret agent with a half dozen prepubescent girls, also armed with shotguns, who had, for all he really knew at all, just made off with eight kegs of South Georgia White Lightning!
"Say, what the hell..."
"Sir! Commandant... I mean, commander, I mean... I mean, sir!"
Dim spun around and there she was, standing right there in the bed of the pickup and saluting smartly, and smiling a smile that could crack the Earth in two, if it wanted. Dim just stood there, held captive by that smile. He was alarmed... extremely alarmed, and also completely discombobulated. How the hell had she done that? How had she clambered up into the bed of the pickup like that without making a sound? How had she just appeared like that? And how long had she been standing there? And why the hell had she called him Commandant?? Just how the hell could she have known that...
"Mission accomplished, sir!"
.
.
.
"Thanks for holding onto my gun, sir! Oh.. and, mission accomplished! I'm special agent Susanna 'SuperSuze' Hicks, by the way! Nice to meetcha, and thanks again for holding my Mossberg for me! Bye!" She saluted crisply, then leapt from the bed of the truck and was gone.
"THAT GAWDAM DOG!" Jim suddenly hollered out loud, as murky details of the night before came back to him. The sound of his own voice was like an inside-out kick to the head, and his hands jerked up reflexively to his face. He could feel the skin of his eyelids pulsing against his palms as his eyeballs tried to make a run for it.
Maybe you're just so retarded hung over that you forgot to open your eyes, he thought. He tried to open them and discovered that they were stuck fast. He could feel something dry and crusty rubbing against his palms.
"What's this hairy hogwash??" he whisper-shouted as he scurried backwards on his ass and hands across the kitchen linoleum, reaching frantically for some kind of stable purchase. He finally backed up forcibly against the fridge, which he'd left open the night before after a drunken search for sustenance. The impact jolted a jar of pickles that he'd left perched precariously on the rack above. It fell over, spilling green vinegary liquid all over his head and onto his face, immediately dissolving the dried crusty muck sealing his eyes shut. They flickered open.
"I can see!" Jim exulted, and then the pickle juice was all over his eyeballs.
"I'M BLIND!" he screamed. He scrambled to his feet, one hand furiously trying to punch out the fire in his eyes while the other groped around blindly for something to put out the fire that didn't involve smothering it to death with punches to the face.
Jim abruptly recognized the kitchen sink with his thrusting, outstretched hand. "WATER!" he exclaimed breathlessly, and he immediately put both of his hands to the task of making water happen in the sink.... but what happened instead of water was just bad luck. His frantic, jerking hands happened upon the jar of methanol that he'd carefully extracted from the latest batch of hootch the night before, which he'd reserved for some future project involving that gawtdam dog and left safely in the sink to await its purpose. However, being blind, hung over, eyeballs on fire and desperate for relief, Jim completely failed to remember to put the two and two of the previous night together. Instead, he latched onto that jar of methanol, thinking it was cool, precious, fire-quenching water. He upended it upon his upturned face and directly into his pickle juiced, on fire eyes.
The pain was so tremendous that the nerves conducting it from his eyes to his brain actually backed up like a traffic jam. Fully five seconds transpired as he stood there, immersed in a kind of un-feeling... much like what you get when you touch something so hot that your brain freaks out for a second and tries to think that it's freezing. Five seconds of a rapturous, expectant, kind of hot-cold-numb limbo transpired for Jim as he stood there in his kitchen with an upturned jar of methanol held over his hopefully expectant, pain wracked face. Then the traffic jam of nerve endings became a pileup that just kept piling up and piling up and piling up, until it was a 7:00 AM rush hour traffic massacre of pain, pointing with pointy, painful, on fire points that piled up and piled up, pointing right into his eyeballs from every direction, and every direction was ON FIRE!
Jim SHRIEKED, which finally woke up the gawtdam dog.
Dempsey Witt - Dem to folks who knew him, Dim to his friends - was taking the scenic route to work today. It was a fine, almost spring morning in southern Georgia in January. The January dandelions were letting go, the January honeysuckle was in the air, and the smell of springtime in January was almost blowing in the wind, as fine as nostril wine, in the back country of southern Georgia.
'Almost is all you need,' Dim sang out loud to the tune of a hundred year old Beatles song that was squeaking out of the old dashboard sat-radio. 'Oh, and you know what else?' Dim continued out loud, 'Almost only counts in horseshoes, thermonuclear war, and 180 proof distilled spirits!' The proof - no pun intended - was the almost full load of almost 100% pure grain alcohol in the bed of the pickup, and also proof that Dim was in a pretty good mood that morning, for a dilapidated old bootlegger. He hardly even noticed any of the potholes as he bullied the old Ford Electric down the well neglected oil roads of southern Georgia, Podunk county, USA - well neglected in the upkeep, but well familiar in the driving of. That's the way that the oil roads of back country USA had been for the last hundred years, and Dem was sixty-six years old and could vouch personally for a bunch of those years. 'Oil roads were made for runnin' moonshine,' his dad used to say. They were the arteries and veins of it - and right now, Dim was the beating heart that was pumping the vital hooch to the vital organs. If Dim was the heart that pumped the hooch (or mule kick, as his dad used to to call it), then Sheriff Buckeye Buck was definitely the liver that did the processing. Sheriff Buck was the organ that filtered the 'lectric honey (as his mom used to call it) - that Dim delivered, so that it was provisioned fairly and according to the Law of the Land (county), according to Buckeye Buck that is, who was the hooch accountant... no, the County Liver...
Yeah, there ya go! That's the analogy I was looking for!
That's what Dempsey Witt was thinking that morning as he trundled over those ragged oil road potholes. In case you hadn't already figured it out, work for Dempsey Witt was running moonshine, and the running of it was work for Dempsey Witt. Dim, as he was known to his friends; Dem to just folks, and for the last 25 years, he'd almost forgotten a life that had ever been any different. Later on he'd maybe think about how strange all of that seemed in retrospect, once understood from a point of view outside of his world of rural Georgia and right after the universe had exploded in his face; but whatever future that was gonna be, Dempsey Witt had no idea of it right then. He had hooch to deliver today, and not some time hence.
So! As I was telling, it was a fine, spring-like January morning in Southern Georgia that Dempsey Witt, Dim to his friends, Dem to just folks - he always liked to make that clear - pulled his old hooch laden Ford 'Lectric into the front yard of Madame Maybell's House of Well Repute and Oasis, at right about 7:00 AM. Dim cut the juice, then reached under the dashboard and fumbled around until he'd found the heavy toggle that switched the Ford's power from 'battery' to 'solar'. That was a rigged up feature, not common to that particular model, by the way. Nobody in economically devastated Georgia could afford a charge at a fillin station since 2041, when
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Etc Exposition, history
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After a medium-sized while, the front door of Madame Maybell's cracked open by just a smidge, and an amplified caterwaul issued forth -
"BEELZEBUB IS A PRETTY GOOD GUY!"
(this is their secret back n forth)
Dim rolled down his window and hollered back -
"AS FAR AS DEMONS GO!"
And again, from the crack in the door -
"BUT HIS BROTHER BAAL..."
"LORD DON'T HE WAIL!" Dim yelled, close to cracking up. And again, from the crack in the door -
"AND BAPHOMET..."
And then both of them together, "IS JUST PLAIN PSYCHO!"
The front door to Madame Maybell's House of Well Repute and Oasis slammed open and half a dozen shotgun barrels poked out, pointing in all directions, like some kind of Looney Tunes ensemble.
"We gotcher dead to rights!" came the challenge.
Dim stepped out of the cab of the truck and walked around to the back. "Dead to rights?" he yelled, as he fiddled with the tailgate latch. "You don't even know what that means, you asshole!" Dim yanked the latch up and down furiously about a dozen times, but it wouldn't open. He slapped the tailgate in frustration and yelled to Sheriff Buck. "Gitcher fat ass down here and help me unload these kegs of moonshine!"
Sheriff Buckeye Buck of Podunk county, state of Georgia, USA, lumbered out onto the front porch of Madame Maybell's. "Shut up you dimwit," he hissed, his eyes shifting left and right as he leveraged his considerable bulk down the front porch steps. "What if I was posing as myself as an undercover cop? You don't know who might be hollerin' out the door, hiding in the nooks and crannies and alcoves! Great Godahmighty, son!"
Dim gave the latch of the tailgate one last, exasperated yank and decided to just skip the damn thing. He clambered up over it and into the bed of the pickup and shouted back, "First off, I'm old enough to be YOUR pappy, SON!" Heh, Dim chuckled and thought, I sure get a kick out of myself, don't I? "And nextly, concerning your cornfed paranoia, well... there wouldn't never be no problem of an undercover cop to begin with, would there, you thick country bumpkin! Because you'da justa been POSING as one!" Dim manhandled one of the big aluminum kegs toward the back of the truck. "Kinda like how you're constantly posing as the Sheriff of Podunk county," he added, "when you're really just the Hooch Man for every back-woods whore house and broken down saloon in all of southern Georgia!" Oh boy, Dim laughed down into his chin, he was sure hot today.
Suddenly six girls with shotguns, ranging from about ten to fourteen years of age, burst out of the open door of Madame Maybell's and went charging around where Sherrif Buckeye stood on the steps, like rapids around a boulder, and very nearly sending him tumbling. "You girls... you girls! Dammit, you girls!" blubbered the Sheriff.
Dim looked up from wrestling with the aluminum keg, just as one of the older girls - about thirteen years old, by the look of her - leapt up effortlessly into the bed of his pickup and offered him her shotgun. "Sir, would you mind keepin' a hold of this for me, just for a bit, til me and the girls is done here?" She said.
Dim stared wordlessly at the girl with his mouth hanging open. In all of his sixty-six years, this was probably the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was about 5' without an inch to spare, with dark brown hair that went down to her unusually broad shoulders. She was wearing a tank top, on the front of which was printed the image of a fur covered monster that was lifting up the fur fom it's midsection and pointing to a set of well chiseled abs. 'THE ABDOMINAL SNOWMAN' was printed underneath, in large letters. A long, brown summer skirt decorated with paisleys and flowers flowed down from her waist to her ankles, almost covering the pair of well worn sandals that she wore on her small feet. The girl was obviously in great shape, Dim could tell; simply by observing her arms and shoulders, which were smooth and well defined. She was simply the epitome of youthful exuberance.
"Sir, please? Time's a-runnin' out, and we gotta get this evidence to... to..." The girl looked around frantically for a second, as if she were trying to locate... " to where it's supposed to be!" she suddenly shouted. "And right quick! Please, zillions of lives are at stake!" She gave the outstretched shotgun an impatient shake, and Dim took it from her. Then the girl smiled a smile that could have gone down in history, if history had been paying attention. History was busy somewhere else though apparently, so only Dim saw that smile... that heart wrecking, ship breaking smile.
"Thank you sir!" she said, and then to the others waiting below...
"Girls! Let's get to it! You know what to do!" And with a tchika-tchika THUNK, one of em had jimmied the tailgate latch that Dim had been struggling with, and then it was down, and all six of the shotgun girls immediately began unloading the barrels of moonshine and rolling them up to the front porch of Madame Maybe's. "Were rollin' over and turnin' states evidence!" shouted one of the younger girls amidst the flurry of activity. Another, older girl shouted, "Shut UP! This is a black op, STUPID," to the younger one who had just blabbed about turning states evidence, whatever that meant.
Dim watched it all with his jaw hanging open. What the heck had just happened? he thought to himself. That smile, from that girl, the beautiful girl... It had poleaxed him! Suddenly Dim was overcome with a feeling of paternal love for her, whoever she was. He knew right then and there that he would die to save her, to protect her... What the heck is happening, Dim stuttered inside his own head. That girl had smiled the most perfectest smile in all of the history of the human race, and... she'd had no idea! How could she have? She was still existing inside of the perfect naivety of unspoilt innocence!
Dim was sure, more sure than he'd ever been in his life about anything, that this girl, who had just smiled that miraculous smile, had no idea that she was the most beautiful newborn woman who had ever just crossed over from childhood, through puberty, and into young adulthood. She just didn't know it. Amazing!
"Lookit em go," commented Buckeye Buck with a smile, as he finally made his way over to where Dim stood stupidly in the bed of the old electric Ford pickup, now empty of 7 and a half barrels of the bestest moonshine in all of southern Georgia. "They're something, ain't they?" Buckeye laughed. "A tad excitable though, but that's youth. Didja see how I almost broke my neck, with all of them tadpoles scurrying past me down the steps? Lordamercy! Dim? Dim, you awake in there?"
Dim came to with a start. "Uh... yeah." He dug around in his pocket for a second, as if he'd lost something, and then his hand just kind of settled there.
Sheriff Buck's eyes narrowed. "Now, Dim, you ain't been at the hooch this early on a Sunday morning, I know you ain't, cause you and me both know that I'd hafta... heh." He'd meant it as a joke, but after he'd said it, it didn't seem like one. Sheriff Buck glanced down furtively at his dusty boots, then up again at Dim, waiting to see how he'd take it.
Dim shook his head in annoyance, as if he were trying to rid it of an infestation of fleas. "What?" he barked, and then noticed Sheriff Buckeye standing right there, leaning against the side of the truck, and looking up at him with the most retarded look of questioning suspicion that Dim had ever seen. It was the look of an ignorant hick, stupid and glazed, Dim thought. For a couple of seconds as he looked down at the Sheriff, he was filled with disgust at the sight of him - 'What a stupid bottom feeder... how do I even know this backwoods inbred hillbilly?' - And then he'd snapped out of it, and saw his friend Bucky again. Sheriff Buckeye Buck. Dim called him Bucky. Young and dumb, yeah, but with a lot more smarts than anyone would ever know, unless they knew him as a friend. Dim felt ashamed for thinking those things about his friend. He'd been discombobulated by the girl's smile, that's all.
Dim recovered his composure and resumed his pocket digging, producing a pack of smokes and a lighter. He casually popped a cigarette out of the pack and put it between his lips, then cupped the lighter flame with both hands and inhaled deeply. "That's real funny," - cough, chuckle - "I guess Boss Hog just caught me red handed being human," Dim said as he exhaled a lungful of smoke.
The import of the moment hadn't been lost on Sheriff Buckeye, though. He'd seen that look of contempt cross over his friend's features, just for a second. With all of the years that they'd known each other and run hooch together, he'd always known that Dim had looked down on him with a certain measure of contempt... an ashamed and we'll hidden contempt, but still there, nevertheless. It's why Buckeye Buck had maneuvered himself in the lofty position of Sheriff of Podunk county, after all. He'd done it for the good opinion of Dempsey Witt, because Dempsey and Buck's dear departed dad, Billy Buck, went way back... back to a time when the Sheriff's name was Witt, and when Buckeye was what you hollered at the scamp that always getting under his dad's heels...
"Was that a gaggle of gun toting girlies I just seen blow through here and carry off a truckload of South Georgia White Lightning, slicker'n goose shit?" Dim suddenly blurted, in an attempt to preempt the gathering mood.
Sheriff Buck relaxed visibly and laughed. "Heh! That's my secret service in training. Ain't they somethin'? A tad bit rambunctious, but that's just young'uns being young and playin' purtend, as young'uns ought ta."
Dim suddenly remembered the shotgun that he'd been holding the whole time, that the girl with the bedazzling smile had asked him to hang onto. He lifted it up for a closer examination. He tested the heft. He released the pump action and opened the chamber, revealing a bona fide12 gauge slug resting within. He turned it over and examined the stock, which had 'Mossberg' printed on one side, and 'SuperSuze', in very stylized, curlicue letters on the other. He stared at incredulously as he realized that he was holding it as a favor, just for a bit, for a 13 year old girl with a bedazzling smile playing secret agent with a half dozen prepubescent girls, also armed with shotguns, who had, for all he really knew at all, just made off with eight kegs of South Georgia White Lightning!
"Say, what the hell..."
"Sir! Commandant... I mean, commander, I mean... I mean, sir!"
Dim spun around and there she was, standing right there in the bed of the pickup and saluting smartly, and smiling a smile that could crack the Earth in two, if it wanted. Dim just stood there, held captive by that smile. He was alarmed... extremely alarmed, and also completely discombobulated. How the hell had she done that? How had she clambered up into the bed of the pickup like that without making a sound? How had she just appeared like that? And how long had she been standing there? And why the hell had she called him Commandant?? Just how the hell could she have known that...
"Mission accomplished, sir!"
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"Thanks for holding onto my gun, sir! Oh.. and, mission accomplished! I'm special agent Susanna 'SuperSuze' Hicks, by the way! Nice to meetcha, and thanks again for holding my Mossberg for me! Bye!" She saluted crisply, then leapt from the bed of the truck and was gone.
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