Dear diary,
Then, right at the instant when my pirating starts to feel truly enjoyable, I turn my head and look at the other side of the town within which I happen to be engaging in daring adventures with bravado and flamboyance, and I notice that the entire world has gone up in flames.
“Wow, so this must be the fire baptism that Jesus was talking about,” I remark aloud.
“It’s more beautiful than I imagined,” sez the damsel whose legs are spread because we are copulating. “Shall we finish up here, so that we can go have a look around?”
“I’ll finish when you finish,” I say.
So we both reach our finish line in tandem and then leave the secluded grotto where we have been spending this afternoon.
“Look, the royal palace is burning up as well,” I point to the right.
“Oh no! poor Daddy!” cries the damsel, because her father is the king.
I dash inside the palace and drag out the charred corpse of a very fat man. “I tried to save him,” I say. Then I take the crown from his head and put it on my own. “Perfect fit,” I remark. Then I add: “Don’t worry — this type of thing is happening all over the world.” And the shot cuts to a panorama of the landscape, revealing that everyone and everything everywhere is, in fact, combusting.
“Will you be OK if I wander around and talk to some people,” I ask my companion. “I just want to exchange a few words with some of the locals; but I won’t do it unless I know that you’ll be safe — I don’t want you to die.”
“I’m fine,” sez the damsel, regaining aplomb as she realizes how much better her life shall be now that her parents are dead; “go ahead and stroll around. I’ll do the same. We can meet back at the grotto, whenever you thirst for my embrace.”
“It’s a deal,” we have another quickie and then part ways.
First I visit the hotdog vendor. “Hi there,” I grab a dog as if I own the place, put it in a bun and spoon on some relish, and the man does not stop me. Then, referring to the phenomenon of universal immolation surrounding us, I remark: “Well, it’s a hot one.”
The vendor smiles and quips: “Do you mean the day or the dog.”
We share a laugh. Then I use the standalone sink that is three paces away to wash my hands with soap and warm water; and I dry them thoroughly, using the fluffy white towel that is hanging in midair. I now extend my arm to the hotdog vendor and we shake hands and part ways.
§
I come to an old brown house. “Ah shit! it’s my old brown house in Eagan,” I say. The house is burning with the rest of the world. I smile brightly.
After a few moments, I walk away. When I reach the six-lane highway that runs thru all my writings, I begin to hitchhike. The first vehicle to stop is a…
I don’t wanna talk about hitchhiking. Now I visit a diner. You can tell that the place is open, because there are people sitting on the stools at the counter, and the soda jerk is serving them; and there are also two-parent families with their children — one boy and one girl — sitting in the cushioned leather booths; moreover, the front wall of the establishment tumbled over and is now just rubble with a gaping hole because the fire destroyed it. I enter and sit down at my favorite booth.
“Sir, we are dining,” sez the father of the family that was occupying the booth that I just sat down in.
“I can see that,” I say. “Is there a problem with me joining you this evening?”
The father is dumbstruck. Finally he answers: “I guess that’s OK.”
“Good,” I say. Then I hold out my hand and announce: “I’m Bryan Ray, the famous author. And you are...?”
The father remembers his manners and quickly begins to introduce me to his family. He tells me their names, and I promptly forget them. Soon they all die because they’re melted by the flames. So I finish their meals, and then I leave.
“That was nice. I’m glad they ordered stuff that I like,” I say while patting my tummy.
I now meet up with the princess at our usual grotto; and, after our tryst, I continue aimlessly ambling. (“See you soon!” I say. She winks back: “See you soon!”)
I arrive at an auto repair shop. “Is this the place I crashed into when I was driving recklessly in my car with Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism*?” I shout. [*See chapters 7-11 of Not Novel 12.]
The mechanics all stare at me. I hear a tool drop and clang on the concrete floor.
“I’m just kidding,” I say, waving my hand as if to erase my previous speech from the air; “Tell me what you guys are working on today.” I crouch down next to the burning automobile that the team is standing around.
“Well, here we got a truck that caught fire earlier in the day, and we’re all trying to put out the flames, so that the gasoline tank doesn’t explode,” explains the head mechanic, after a lengthy pause.
“Guys… brethren,” I say, “I’m gonna let you in on a secret. This forest fire that you see here is impossible to stop. It has obviously jumped its bounds and is raging far beyond the nighttime woods. You might as well sell all your wrenches and your stupid little ball caps that you all wear sideways and backwards so stylishly, and go tie millstones around your necks and jump in the ocean. — I’m a pirate, so I’ll get your loot no matter where you try to run and hide yourselves. If you choose the sea, it’ll make things that much easier. Are we on the same page?”
So eventually I trick this team of employees into telling me their credit card numbers, which I write down in my detective’s notepad. Then I use their accounts to buy and have delivered to each of their girlfriends huge gaudy headdresses in the wrong size. This causes all of the repair shop’s workforce’s significant others to suppose that their male counterparts are having affairs with comically larger-headed floozies: for all the women guess that these gifts were intended for their respective rivals but ended up being sent to their own home addresses by mistake. The reason I do this is that it gives me a will to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment