PART XIV - The Van

Linda closed the van door. Paisley reclined on the foam mattress. Linda asked, "What do you want to do now?"

"I dunno."

"Want to go eat?"

"Sure."

"What?"

"Dunno."

"Do you have any preference for anything?"

"Not really."

Linda looked at her. This girl made air look brilliant. "Want to fuck?"

"Yeah."

The van rolled its headlights. "Why do I have to listen to this shit?"

"Well," said the alternator, "that's what you get for letting them stay around. We told you to dive off that embankment, but would you listen?.."

"Sure, you woulda loved that too. You would have been melded together with the starter motor."

The alternator and the starter motor shuddered. Neither could stand the other's bathroom habits.

"I need something to distract myself..."

"Don't look at me," said the engine management computer. "I'm sick of Tetris!"

"We could roll off that cliff..." submitted the tires.

"Hey, the rest of us wanted to live, and only kill the bozos inside."

"A life that isn't crippled, I might add," added the front bumper.

"I know!" said the shock absorber. "We could start bouncing!"

"Great, then we'll look like we have the hiccups."

The oil pan salivated.

"Hey, Linda accidentally left a Gwar CD in the deck," said the stereo. "I could start that at max."

"Wait a minute... I think I've got gas," said the engine.

"Would you leave your gastronomical problems out of the discussion?" asked the transmission.

"Yeah, and don't send it out here either," protested the tailpipe.

"I don't know which is worse," said the van, "the people or my parts."

Part XIII - Perpetual Motion and a Semi-Automatic Gearshift

Guido jumped his remote control Lamborghini over an electronic engineering text book just as a message dropped into the room through the PMS (Pneumatic Messaging System... what the hell did you think we meant?) and landed at his feet. Opening the tube, he pulled out a scroll with a wax seal. He placed the seal on his mantle over the fireplace with the figurines of the buffalo and the musk ox, and unfurled the scroll.

"God damn, anothah small claimsa case! I'm startin’ to feel like-a Wopner an' his barrel a' legal sea monkies!"

Glancing further down the page he came to the legal eagles of Skippy and the representative of the Dark One as TBA.

"TBA? What da hell is dat? Some kinda disease?"

Upon skimming the charges, he couldn't help but fall to the floor in a fit of inexorable laughter. ISO was not pleased, as this wasted several feet of otherwise useful audiotape.

Time kept moving around and around and around and around and around and around and...

Your ugly phone rings...

It rings again...

Answer it you idiot!

"Hi there, for a mere three thousand dollars you too can learn of the Plot to End All Plots, Schemes, Conspiracies, Stories, and Narratives. Bury money today, and..."

Never mind. Hang it up.

"No! Don't hang up! We've also got a special offer on bamboo steamers, ginsu knives, and Ed McMahon! Act now, and Billy Bob Shakespeare will put you in his next play! There's no time to spend wisely! Get off your duff and into the stuff!"

Now he's got you. We told you to hang up.

"You too can lose up to 3000 pounds and your watch if you act now! It's never too late to get started on the career of someone else’s choice. Have your parents shipped to Sudan! Get homeless people to do your homework cheap! Send Cheque or Money Order..."

"Ordah, ordah in da court! Dis 'ere's a cease an d'sist ordah, so shaddap!"

"Just call us back at our 1-900 number and for just a dollar a minute we'll put you on hold for up to three hours and force you to donate hundreds of criminal organisations, such as the United Way, and laugh at the IRS when they come to your door after we turn you inside out for tax fraud. Call anytime, anywhere, and anybody. Operators are buried up to the neck. Don't delay, or its a five yard penalty. Call 1-900-478-8743. Do it today, don't delay or it's your dismay when we charge you anyway."

Now he's rapping! Hang up the damn phone you fool!

"First ten callers get their heads blown CLEAN OFF by Stormin' Normin'. While supplies last, first come first pregnant, some states may not apply, only in Wisconsin on a thursday. Have a nice light year."

<CLICK>

Oh sure... Now it's too late!

Weren't you paying attention? Its never too late to start someone else's family.

PART XII - Love at First Sight... But Where'd He Go?

Raquel looked out her window at the rain and sighed. Her dark red hair cascaded down her shoulders as she watched water fall, fall, fall like her spirits. It was an empty world she saw. All intellect, with no passion, no soul, no raison d'etre.
Her analyst said she needed to get laid. He had a predatory light in his eye when he said it; she stopped seeing him, and blocked him off her phone. Now she had no one to talk to in this city, this dirty crush of humanity with no humanity.
She had robbed herself of the only link to society she had. Now the self-pity started to tear at her thoughts. She was hopeless. A social misrepresentation of a human being. The crush of depression bore down on her like a physical weight, like millions of years of sediment slowly crushing the bones of her psyche to oblivion.
A fizzle sounded behind her, and she smelled smoke of a pungent, sweet odour. Turning around, she saw an American Indian dressed in flowered shirt and ornate beads, and a tall thin man carrying a book of sheet music. They were smoking out of a small clay pipe.
Raquel jumped up and backed to the wall. "Who... who are you?"
"Pardon us ma'am," said the Music Man. "We're just trying to escape inter-cosmic evil. Uhh, where's your back door?"
The Indian was looking into her eyes. They were the deepest eyes she had ever seen, misted inside and out.
Music Man pulled on his friend's arm. "We're in a hurry, Moon Runner. Let's get outta here before someone tries to kill us again, I need another drink, and give me that damn pipe."
They were gone. She ran after them, but they had disappeared. She dropped to her knees. "Gone..."

PART XI – The Dark One Snickers

"Soon, it will all be mine, now that that pesky Queen is out of the way. Now, where did that medicine man get to?.."

Looking on the world, the Dark One received a shock. The Phoenix had arisen, young and renewed.

"Of all the rotten... That feather brain is back!! The prophecy bodes ill in this matter..."

Then he spied Moon and Music on the Plains of Abraham, obstructing a re-enactment of the historic battle. Pounding his fist on the table, they appeared in front of him and fell to the floor from their previously useful positions.

Moon Runner looked up. "Oh shit. Music Man, we're in trouble."

"Why? Who's dat dude?"

"I am the Dark One. At last, I have you, Hendrix. No more power chords for you, you drugged out hippie!"

"There's got to be some kinda way outta here..."

"I know that tune," Music Man said.

"Yes," said the Dark One. "And it isn't even his own. He borrowed it from Dylan."

"Yes, but it's remembered as mine... I think..."

"Not for long." The Dark One snickered, an iridescently radiant snicker.

A door flung open and in jumped - the Secret Assassin! He strode across the room, plopped a subpoena on the Dark One's Desk, and disappeared as quick as he arrived.

"Damn he's quick. What the hell is this nonsense?"

"Your calling?" quipped Moon Runner.

"Sued for libel... SMALL CLAIMS COURT! Who's the barrister... SKIPPY!! Why I'll..."

Music Man whispered, "Let's kiss that sky again, shall we?"

"As you say Kimo-Sabe." They vanished. Somewhere, a computer tabulator kept track of this.

"... A billion torments shall be his... Now where did they go?"

Part X - Leagues of Practically Useless Information

Sheckkie Leibowitz stared at Rorschach's Inkblots, and his mind swam in the sea of dreams. This irritated the Inkblots to no end.

"Yo, snap out of it, dude!"

"Wha, wha? Oh, sorry. What were you guys up to?"

"Other than listening to you quote Faust, not a whole heap. Now snap out of it will ya!"

"Faust?"

"Yeah, you know, the play? Skip it. Seriously, you gotta meet this chick, she's perfect for you..."

"Oi vay, you sound like my Grandmother. So what's her name?"

"Yopu the Seriously Underrated."

"She sounds under age too."

"Funny, that's what the red wood tree said, too. But look, you want a good evening, this girl is it! Personality? She's got nine of them."

"Nine?!"

"Yeah," said one of the other Inkblots. "She keeps eight of them in a jar of cherry juice."

"Sounds like a sticky situation."

"Only if you're an animal tamer."

"Does she put out?"

"What are we describing here, a person or an automatic teller machine - of course she puts out!"

"So, she's not Jewish then?"

"Sure, I think number six is."

"Three and four are ancient Sumerian," said the third Inkblot.

"And Number Nine is a Red Daemon Cultist. Seriously, it's a wild evening."

"Just spectating would be," said Sheckkie. "So, why's she underrated?"

"Y'see, the thing is, she's been set up with all the wrong guys so far. First there was this old fart named Zeke..."

"Couldn't understand why she didn't want to stay in a mineshaft," explained the fourth Inkblot.

"... Then there was this Anaconda..."

"She just doesn't like it when people put the squeeze on her."

"... The Nameless One..."

"She figured if he wouldn't tell her his name, he wasn't likely to commit."

"Besides, she was using her Thomas More personality at the time - too much religion and stuff in the way," put in number two Inkblot.

"Okay," said Sheckkie, "she's had bad luck. What's she look like?"

"What do you want her to look like?"

"Huh?"

"She's a shape shifter."

"Huh?!?"

"I told you she was underrated..."