PART LXXXIII - Granite Dust Ain't No Deli Sandwich

Lickin' Linda Lovelace was attacked by Exhaustion.

"Lawrence, Lawrence, get this madman off me!"

Lawrence rolled his eyes individually down an alley and kicked the interloper's brains out. They ended up in the delicatessen mentioned last part. Not to be anti-semitic, of course; just disgusting. Thought you'd like to know. But we digress, eh?

"Sandwich?" offered Linda.

"No - sand in my eye."

"You picked a fine alley to roll them in with all the garbage back there. I can't believe the wasted food in these places."

"BELIEVE!!!" screamed Jerry Rhombus from an overhead television. "You too can be one of the chosen millions to be raped and pillaged by our ministry. Remember that our God is publicly funded and can't exist without out your generous financial and rhetorical support."

[ELLIPSIS'S INSERTION: THAT GOD IS PUBLIC DOMAIN.]

"God, somebody change the damn Chanel," said Linda, "My nostrils are killing me."

"ATCHOOOOOO" sneezed Lawrence.

"BLESS YOU!! My children of the future will be the most prosperous in our mutually beneficial afterlife..."

"Change the fucking channel!" Screamed a man at the back of the deli as a tomato and bacon sandwich hit the monitor.

The sandwich dropped on Lawrence's head and the channel changed.

"Ohhhhh Ambra... Mmmmm yeah baby"

"My god Linda they have cable."

Linda and Lawrence glanced at the group of children sitting cross-legged on the floor with their eyes glued to the screen.

"UH... UH... Do you like taking me that way John?"

"Ohhh YES Ambra YES!"

"Fine," cut in a man in a suit," will that be SX, DX, or clock doubled?"

"Fuckin' commercials," said an anonymous man in the back.

"Is there anything out there that can make a good story these days?!?"

The New Messiah shook his head. Nothing came out. `I know who can,' he thought, `but they won't help me. They keep writing this stupid plot.'

CWBorysowich looked at his partner and asked, "I did?"

"Did what?"

"Looked at you?"

"When?"

"Before."

"Statement, my point."

"Got a life?" asked CWB.

"What kind?"

"Recently?"

"How recent?"

"In the wake of your ancestors or have you still got that conscience?"

"Nonsense,"said KDA," point to me. My serve: where's the Old Messiah?"

"Isn't he at your place?"

"When did he go there?"

"Didn't you take him?"

"Did somebody tell you that?"

"That you took him like Ambra?"

"Who?"

"You don't know Ambra?"

"Should I?"

"Do you have her number?"

"On me?"

"What's on you?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Didn't you mention it?"

"Wasn't that in passing?"

"What did you pass?"

"Do you know someone who's interested?"

"Should somebody be?"

"Shouldn't that be the principal of the thing?"

"When did you get principals?"

"What, did I leave a school lying around?"

"Lie in school often?"

"How would they notice?"

"Did you post a notice to tell them?"

"Would they have read it?"

"Can they even read?"

"Can they read cans?"

"You were going to post a can?"

"Would Canada Post take a can?"

"Do you have a can they want?"

"Do they have to go?"

"Who's leaving?"

"Did a door open?"

"You didn't jam it?"

"What flavour?"

"Are raspberries in season?"

"Are the seasons changing?"

"When will you ever change?"

"When will you ever stabilise?"

"Have you stabilised already?"

"Stabilised what?"

"Can't you stabilize anything?"

"Why are you so critical?"

"Wasn't your father a critic?"

"Wasn't family supposed to be off limits?"

"Your family went out of bounds?"

"Didn't you tie them up right?"

"Don't you have the rope?"

"How often?"

"Are you tired of this?"

"Do you want to give up?"

"With two points already, can't you give up?"

"But is any lead sufficient?"

"Wouldn't you still win?"

"Is winning the point?"

"Are you expecting a point with that stupid question?"

"Derrogatory, match point. Good game."

"You thought so?"

"Are we going to go through all this again?"

"Didn't you already get match point?"

"Then why are you asking more questions?"

"Weren't you asking the questions?"

"Which particular questions?"

"Are you denying the questions?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Are you paranoid?"

"Wouldn't you be?"

"Since this isn't for a point, why should I be?"

"If this is pointless, why are we doing it?"

"You haven't done pointless things before?"

"When?"

"Anytime before?"

"Before time?"

"Do you think it possible?"

"Is anything impossible?"

"Even if everything is possible, is it not pointless?"

"Doesn't that depend on the score?"

"Can we stop if this doesn't affect the score anymore?"

"Do you think we can?"

"Is it a matter of belief?"

"What does Rev. Rhombus say?"

"BELIEVE!!!!"

"That was a great show Rev.!" squeaked Nick the noose.

"IT WAS, WASN'T IT?" bellowed the Reverend.

"Uh, sir, we're off the air."

"OH! Sorry, boys, got carried away."

`Try harder,' thought the observer.

"How much did we raise today boys?"

"8.6 billion dollars, sir." screeched one of the other members of the congregation.

"Ahh, an amount even Sturmgosse would be proud of..."

PART LXXXII - Particle Physics would be cool if it was bigger!

"I can't see it!!!"

"Bring over that flashlight Beepo."

"This one?"

"Uhh, Yeah Rudolf will do - how did we end up with a reindeer?"

"There it is over there... Bring the nose in a little closer... I think I know what it is... Justa little closer... And a bit closer... A bit OH SHIT!!"

"Way to go Bob - you lost the reindeer in that vortex."

"I almost had it."

"What - what did you almost have?" inquisitioned Beepo.

"Get these Spanish priests out of my face, you clown. I almost had the real forged signature of DaVinci."

"God Damn it Bob," Neils glanced apologetically to the Spanish Priests, "We're out one reindeer because of a friggin signature. Have you lost touch with surreality? If we don't clean up this clump of disjointed time and space, it will tear apart the fabric of my patch work quilt."

"So buy an electric blanket. Anyway, Santa can fly in and rescue the damn reindeer. I asked for a flashlight, anyway. You guys have no sense of proportion."

"Hey I've got no depth perception either," piped in Beepo.

"How can I forget. I still haven't fixed that hot water heater yet," protested Neils.

Bob looked at Neils, then at Beepo, then back at Neils. He shook his head.

"Anyway, I want an Adam smasher set up here right away."

"Don't you mean an atom smasher?"

"If I did, I would have said so."

Beepo started shaking. "But... but Adam is my friend!"

"He's road kill! Pulverise the sucker so I can fix my tools."

Niels looked at Bob, then Beepo, and shook his head.

"You guys are weird."

"Big news coming from a guy in a jockey outfit."

At this point, KDAmery walked into the scene and faced the camera. "As you can see, our quantum mechanics are getting on each others nerves. It was sort of inevitable, when you think about it. I mean, the space time continuum looks like refuse from a delicatessen, and Beepo's chugging Minute Maid by the litre under high pressure. Only a matter of time (puns intended) before a muon wrench gets stuffed in the works. We'd love to show you the rest of this, but hey, we're perverse. Catch ya later."

PART LXXXI - Evrythin's Basicly OK, Eh? Pt. II

Back of a bar, sometime before closing. The CD changer was skipping over ultimately forgettable tunes, and the ceiling fans stuttered. A bar tender cleaned glasses he had cleaned half a dozen times already. Sitting in the back, nursing an hours old drink on the brink of death. Hang in there. We all have to die, but hang in there as long as you can.

He started to speak. No one listening.

"Y'know, evrythin's still basicly OK, y'no? It is, really, see if it ain't. I mean, sure, the universe jus' collapsed into a tool shed, but it's, like, no big deal, cus its a small world anyway. `Sides, we should all try'n get closer, anyway, right?

"Ain'tchoo listenin?

"I mean, shit man, its not like machines have taken over or nuthin. They're not that good yet, y'no? I mean, shit, if engineers're so fuckin brilliant, why do we need technicians?"

Yopu the barmaid came by and asked, "You finished with that?"

He clutched the glass. "Don'tchoo try'n take'im b'fore his time! Don'tchoo try it!"

"Sorry." She backed off.

"I mean, hell, he ain't dead yet." Takes a sip. The drink is on life support now. A strong breeze could evaporate the last of the alcohol. Our narrator doesn't want to hear this.

"It's OK. Evrythin's OK, y'no, cus the frogs 'n toads 'n salamanders are in charge. Amphibian government, man, its great fer the rainy season in Peru, right? Right. Not that we wanna discriminalate 'gainst the left. They's just misGuidoed, man, it's not like they're tryna drive us inta the ground're nuthin, cept in Ontario. 'Sides, evryone needs two sides. Otherwise we'd all fall over, y'no?

"I mean, rock'n roll'll never die, cus a sax players the president. It's cool.

"Basicly OK."

He takes another sip, notices the drink has bit the dust. Throws the glass into the mirror behind the bar.

"Nothin's OK anymore!"

PART LXXX - PLASTIC PEOPLE

Our Shrink sat in his office. Stella the Mannequin from Macy's lay on his couch staring at the ceiling with her arms outstretched in an unnatural pose.

"So what do you think of the Cleveland Indians this year?"

The Mannequin lay on the couch without moving.

"Do you still think that your sister is dead?"

The mannequin rolled off of the couch and thudded on the floor causing an arm to fall off. Our Shrink's secretary ran into the office, excused herself and entered the office to join the Shrink and the broken mannequin.

"Is she going to be OK Doctor?"

"No...I'm afraid she's a mannequin depressive."

A large, scruffy man with a tangled beard and a tattered bandana lounged against a Marshall Stack, painstakingly sewing a thread of Mylar up his left forearm. He thought the dragon's back scales were coming along nicely, despite the discolouration from the dirty needle he'd used the previous week. When he came to the end of the spool, he looked at his watch.

"Damnit, where is that hippie?! Sound check's almost over!"

"Hey, frogbreath! There's some mean bitch out front lookin' for ya!"

"Wha's she look like?"

"She's wearin' these robes and shit. Looks real good in sandals."

"Oh cripes, it's the missus. Look, stall her, man."

"Where ya goin?"

"Anywhere but here." Zeus ducked under the stage and beat feet, cursing whenever he banged his head on a support.

Headlines in the Metropolitan Monomaniac's entertainment section: "Hendrix misses another appearance," and, "Stage blown away by angry fan."

Zeus narrowly escaped the light show. Hospitals were flooded with the casualties. Never get in the way of a goddess during PMS. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, ha! Whoever said that never pissed off Hera.

"Shit, now I gotta think up another disguise."

Zeus sat on the outskirts of Memphis with his pet salamander Tonka.

"So, whaddaya think?"

"Look, the roadie thing's still cool. You just gotta stay around other roadies and keep a low profile."

"Oh, yeah. News flash, slime ball, I just did that and Cleveland Auditorium got flambe'ed."

"Uh huh. You think getting that girl pregnant with twin lambs was keeping a low profile?"

"Hey, I was disguised as a bison..."

"No no no no no. No raping, pillaging, or even stock fraud. Stick to the recreational embroidery, and let the chicks come to you. C'mon, you know how Hera is about family values."

"Hmmm, ya got a point. But that takes half the fun away."

"It doesn't have to. Change into some hot-bod and the groupie girls'll be all over ya. Hell, if ya grow yer hair long and dye it three colours, they'll think you're a musician."

"That or a friend of Kyle's. And can we come up with something a bit sportier for my schtick?"

"Like?"

"I don't know - something the gals would want to hear about."

"Like, `Makeup Artist?'"

"Naah, Hera would pick up on that one in a pico-second."

"Okay, handle the FX."

"Too obvious."

"Hey, if you wanna get babe attention, you're going to get her attention. Deal with it."

"Yeah, but I don't wanna get Hera's attention. She's on that Permanent Menstrual Syndrome and I'm supposed to be laying low remember?"

"Then why're ya asking for a babe-getter image? You know that's like blood in a shark tank."

"Good point. Maybe I should just make myself look like Zeke."

"Who?"

"We're looking for Zeke," said one of the sisters at the front of the procession.

"What for? He's just a senile old man. How can he live in this mine?"

The Sisters of Merciless Food entered the room that used to be Zeke's sitting room. The old fire pit was empty, not touched for possibly months.

"Where could he have gone?" asked the short sister.

The rocks awoke.

"I dunno," said the sister in charge. "Maybe he's in the old man's room."

"Well he'd better hurry back. Our hedgehog casserole is getting cold, and the yak fat is curdling."

The rocks would have salivated, had that been their style.

"Yeah, and our poison ivy salad is going limp."

"Like the boys in Jonseytown?"

"Kinda."

"Why don't we just come back another time. This place is really spooky. Besides, I want to get back and have some more of that Leek Jelly we made."

The rocks pounced. They started to chew, but then the taste of the casserole hit. In an instant, the Sisters of Merciless Food had been ejected in a spontaneous volcanic eruption, their remains scattered over the parking lot of Chez Quickies: poetic justice for a bunch of undergraduate chefs that considered making chocolate chip & ginseng rolls.

From here for the next bit we're editing on CWBorysowich's BIG screen TV, which is large on size and small on resolution. So if the plot seems over blown and under-focused, that's why.

Time is a conspiracy of the watchmakers (go figure).

If we can have TV for the blind, why can't we have stereo for the deaf?

"You been listening to pop radio? We already do."

Where did all the clowns go?

Never mind clowns, here come the Cleveland Browns!

Next hit movie: The Violence of the Shams.

All of the French maids at Chez Quickies came out in force to clean up the parking lot before their president, Francois Mitterand, stopped in for a visit. He liked the job they did, and sold them all cars with faulty wiring. A month later came the biggest case of tragic spontaneous explosions ever known, and there were no maids left to clean it up, either.

Hey, you didn't think we could have the Plot to End ALL Plots without a few fatalities, didja?

Speaking of which, you should all realize that, when this monstrosity is finished, there will be no more plots. Ever. No stories, conspiracies, schemes, or intelligence work. So enjoy this stuff while it lasts.

And, when we're done, we're going to convert it into a microdot. That way, you won't have to read this gigantic thing. It'll look like this: .

PART LXXIX - There is an Accident on the Highway of Life

The unfortunate subject of this case study has, until very recently, led a hopelessly normal life. This all changed last Thursday, when he went to lunch at Butterworth's, on the ninetieth floor of the Rockefeller building. He was preoccupied with the effects of a new tax upon his hobby of collecting rare stamps in holograph when he tripped on the strap of a woman's handbag, crashing into a table and spilling wine on the surprised patrons. All would have been fine, except Jinxy D. Axi Dent-Prone, our subject, made the mistake of apologizing for the way one woman's dress allowed her no modesty when wet. Her husband took offense and struck Jinxy in the jaw, knocking him onto a desert cart. The cart rolled through the swinging doors into the kitchen where he was dumped into the garbage chute and slid down 5 floors. Upon dropping into the garbage elevator, he promptly attempted to find an escape route. He managed to force the doors open and staggered out into a freshly cleaned office area. A VP took one look at him and the smell made him heave his lunch consisting of oysters and yogurt on Jinxy's shoes. Jinxy then made a run for it into an area that was under renovation and he fell three floors into a pile of insulation.

A workman nearby flicked away a cigarette butt, which landed on Jinxy and scorched a small, round welt on his forearm. Jinxy flung himself off the insulation in pain. He ran through an open door while searching for a First Aid kit, and slipped on a puddle of lubricant. As he reached the end of the hall (thinking that he really should find out what kind of lubricant this was and use it in his car), a workman opened a door leading into an air shaft. Dent-Prone slid into him; our subject's jacket caught on a pipe, which saved him from falling eighty four stories to his death in the sub-basement, as the workman did. Jinxy did slide down another four floors before he caught on another pipe. His jacket ripped, and he fell to a landing one floor below. Jinxy limped out of the service shaft towards the elevator, thinking of the implications this afternoon had for his clothing budget. Thus preoccupied, he did not notice the elevator malfunction, which caused it to stop one floor below his own. As he stepped in, it started upwards; Dent-Prone was whisked up thirteen floors on the roof of the elevator. It stopped at the penthouse office of Stürmgosse Smith before plummeting to the ground floor for Mr. Smith's trip to the masseuse. Jinxy climbed through the emergency hatch as a beautiful young woman entered. He was unsure how to answer to her question, "What are you doing?"

"Uh, I'm here to fix the drapes."

"We have blinds."

"That's okay, I'll make the bill out in braille."

The elevator then malfunctioned again, flying up to the penthouse. As a result, Jinxy fell from the elevator ceiling, and the young woman received serious bruising to her inner thighs (rape charges are pending.) The elevator then ceased functioning altogether, and has taken to dispersing pacifist literature to smart bombs.

The woman ran from the elevator screaming profanities. Jinxy left as well, looking for an unobtrusive way to get out of this place. Walking down a narrow corridor, he entered one of the rooms and was promptly hit in the eye with a rubber band.

"Collateral damage!" screamed The Manual "Kant," aiming another elastic at Johnny Dint, who had just pegged off David Wont. Covering his eye with his hand, Jinxy ducked back out into the hall and was smashed in the head by the mail cart, which pushed him across the building. He was dropped into a trolley which carried him down to the mail room on the third floor. A conveyor belt pulled him up and he landed on the desk of one of the sorters who pushed him to the floor.

"This is a restricted area, sir!" the sorter yelled.

"Yeah yeah, and I'm only PG." Jinxy dragged himself out of the room and walked through the door across the way. It was the stairs. Jinxy caught his breath a moment while staring down them when a man came barreling through, knocking him flat. Jinxy was flung into the spiral stair well and proceeded to tumble to the lobby. Two large security guards, standing at the bottom, lost control of their coffee and donuts when he plowed into their ankles. "Watch where you're rollin', asshole!" they growled as they threw Jinxy out onto the sidewalk where his left hand met the bottom of some woman's spike high heeled shoe.

While he lay on the ground dazed, Lassie, the imaginary dog (now deceased) came along and urinated on his face, which snapped him back to reality. He picked himself off the ground and crawled into a cab. Jinxy told the cab to take him to his apartment in the center of town.

The driver considered it odd that Jinxy addressed the car directly, but decided not mention it.

Once they arrived on his street, Jinxy realized that there was no money in his pockets. "Is it alright if I run upstairs and get some cash?"

The cabbie turned and said, "What?"

"Look out!"

"What?"

The driver turned back to the road in time to widen his eyes at the chemical truck backing out in front of him. The vehicles collided, spilling an unidentified radioactive substance all over the street as the taxi skidded into a fire hydrant. A gyser exploded under the car, flipping it over and drowning the driver. Jinxy floated out of the cab, thinking, 'At least I don't have to pay for the ride!' The water carried him into an open storm sewer, which carried him ten miles through some now radioactive sludge to the river outside of town. Immediately after surfacing, Jinxy was hit on the head by The Good Ship Hash Pipe, piloted by Gordie Leadfoot.

He awoke on shore to find a three hundred pound woman who had fallen in love with him at first sight giving him mouth to mouth. Jinxy took one look at her and screamed, shattering both her eardrums and attracting the attention of two cops. Being unable to get any coherent answers out of either of them, the cops tried to haul Jinxy and the fat woman off to the station. The woman went berserk and killed both cops with a bear hug.

In the confusion, Jinxy wandered off, suffering from amnesia. He now thought he was a Neo-nazi torture warden about to put a whole city to it's death. Contriving individual tortures for each person in the populous took him fifteen seconds (Jinxy, in his new identity of Uber Storm Fuhrer Gerhardt Von Gruesome, had the imagination of three deities, if nothing else).

A piece of bubble gum got stuck on Jinxy's shoe, tripping him into a newspaper box. Having discovered the necessary materials for his first torture, J. picked the colour comics out of the box and snatched up a nearby skateboard. Skating down the street, he spied his first victim. Before he could administer a lethal paper cut, however, a wheel from a 747 fell from the sky and struck the back of the skateboard, catapulting Jinxy 35 feet in the air and landing him in an open dumpster seconds before a garbage truck came to empty it.

Tumbling into the truck's dark chamber, J. was then compacted into several cubic meters of rotting restaurant garbage. Hours later, sandwiched amongst rotting tangerines and green Limburger cheese, the truck launched it's contents into the local dump. Jinxy crawled out and scared the two attendants to death. Climbing over their bodies, he wondered who he was. Oh yes, William T. Rockefeller, richest man on earth. He made a deranged beeline for the Rockefeller building, intending to take possession back from his simpering sister and buy up Ravensgate.

When he fought his way into the boardroom past security and secretary, five board members passed out, one crashing through a window and plummeting to her death 90 floors below. A cool summer breeze lightly rustled the papers on the table and flattened the remaining twenty board members to the back wall, who applauded the death of Rockefeller's simpering sister. Jinxy was about to sit down when the T2001 walked in and had a slight malfunction, which caused the shootings of the remaining board members and several wall panels before it shorted out completely. Crawling out from under the table, Jinxy heard a large crash echo from below the open window. The building started to shake. Looking down from the window, J. saw three bus loads of Japanese tourists crashed into the lobby by their Chinese drivers. Subsequently, the building's base started to crumble (there's Italian building for ya)..

Jinxy fell out the broken window only to land on a misdirected hang glider. This would not have saved him either if it weren't for the strong updraft caused by the burning buses, which got the hang glider safely to the roof of a shorter building. Stepping off the hang glider, Jinxy walked over a skylight and fell into the Ramada Inn's indoor swimming pool. The water instantly turned an indescribable grey-brown colour (the Ramada is suing, claiming that the pool has to be replaced entirely), and two swimmers lapsed into comas from toxic shock syndrome. Slipping into the men's change room, Jinxy discovered the showers had been filled with purple dye by some juvenile prankster at the practical joke convention being held in the hotel.

J. wandered out of the shower after getting dressed and into the hotel lobby only to have a baseball bat meet his head from a crazed junkie that had decided to hijack the lobby.

"Take this lobby to Cuba!" the junkie screamed as a SWAT team swatted him.

When he regained consciousness, J. found himself in one of the hotel rooms in bed with a Cocker spaniel and a marriage license sitting on the night stand to Fifi. There was a pounding on the door. "Open up! Police!" The door burst open and in rushed the LAPD and other assorted racist scum, along with the SPCA and a noose borrowed from Our Brothers of Perpetual Strangulation.

Thinking quickly for a change, J. threw the dog at the lynch mob, causing a total of thirteen near-fatal concussions. However, this attracted the attention of the Goddess of Spaniels, who became so incensed that she grabbed a statue of J. (which, much like a voodoo doll, contained his soul) and stepped on it. Now very short and very wide, J. waddled out of the room into the arms of Lickin Linda Lovelace the... pocket mortician(?), who immediately broke his arm by riding on it with Lawrence the Arabian. Waddling as fast as he could to escape, J. failed to notice an open man hole (in a hotel?), and he fell into a mess of over-ripe banana peels. Squishing his way out, J. was subsequently punted into another time zone by a passing subway.

And then Ravensgate collapsed in on itself, and Jinxy's day took a turn for the worse.