Gladyce: sometimes, dear, you must stop traveling, sit down, and from the vantage point of your butt analyze this crazy world. over a spot or a whole cheetah of tea.
Doryce: splendid idea, love. well okay. just tell me where to drop you. my dogs are barking. and my feet hurt. where are we?
Gladyce: somewhere on a green isle, i can sense the magic in the air. but in my condition if i breathe too deeply i'll suck all the magic out. observe but never tamper.
Bama: we played Don't Step In It in my dorm when the RAs went to sleep.
Doryce: don't ruin the mood with how the world ended, love, but god bless you. that is why cats own me.
Bama: i gotcha. why don't we go to that bale of hay over there? with the devil trident sticking out.
Gladyce: oh how quaint. the cafes here are actually the owner's tiny homes under thatched roof. what adds to the homey appeal. i'm famished for a cruffin.
Bama: vocab.
Doryce: croissant and muffin? shoulda been mussant, that's about as French-sounding as a word can get.
the maitre'd is of course Conor McGregor.
Bama: i fight you.
Conor: slacks off, mate. one more for the kit. i see you already have your shirt off.
Bama: i do it for the ladies. these old ladies right here. i'm proud to be their slave chosen from a million online people on a magic dating website. *hugs them*
Doryce blushes first, then Gladyce. Conor blushes all the time cos he's a ginger.
Doryce: what are you doing here, beef-wellington-cake?
Conor: hiding out...........er...........i mean having a real job. cruffins are native to my land. they grow on trees here. literally.
Gladyce: Crumlin.
Conor: hey old lady that's not cool. not a cool nickname for Dublin. Dublin is not crummy. just going through a hard time like everyone else. when they changed the Lucky Charms marshmallows the people took it hard. and to wash down your crumbs?
Gladyce: *scanning the long thin tea menu* that Gorilla Decaf sounds good.
Doryce: yeah that caught my eye of course. let me drink the gorilla!
Conor: tis coffee that tho.
our crones: we need to wake up.
Bama: college is keeping me woke. oh for me anything that isn't PURPLE KOOL-AID!!! purple Kool-Aid powder is the devil!
Conor: two apes, no grape, got it.
Doryce: and for you, dear? you can come out of hiding. i've got something to show you.
Emma Gonzalez skulks out of a bush and sits down her pack.
Emma: uh, i guess i'll try the Green Mountain Dark Magic. my first coffee.
Gladyce: that's the spirit, love, literally. be firsty. and fisty. never be afraid of magic, it belongs to you, you earned it, it will always guide you away from this place of drudgery and law.
Emma: i was walking with no shoes on and DeRozan came up to me and handed me his vintage Olympic Project for Human Rights patch. it goes well with the other skateboarding stickers on my backpack. if i could only sew it on. i like retro things!
DeRozan: yeah it was the only thing i knew from my father. he slipped it in an envelope with the rent check and mysteriously disappeared after that. that was back when the Olympics were still a real phenomenon, in the three-channel age, when the whole world literally was watching it cos there was literally nothing else to watch.
crones and Emma: you scared us. don't sneak up on people like that.
DeRozan: come on.
Emma: now we have one channel which connects us to everyone in the world, twitter.
Gladyce: where'd you come from?
DeRozan: we all come from Africa. i was retracing the steps of the fighters who came before me. to see if i can regain my fight. the trials that fateful Games were held in a beautiful yet dark stretch of heavy woods, it was like the track and fields magically sprang up from the ancient trails of a Grimm tale. gothic turns and high-jumps into branches. as in the branches would cradle your attempt at the height of your jump, smothering your record. the more i wandered around those woods, the more time i had to think, and the more depressed i got. athletes have a lot of time on their hands. you could have gotten lost in those woods.
Doryce: and they say nature is a great cleanser. Emma dear, let me fit you for your crown.
Doryce bends the Sword of Saad and branches it over Emma's head gently. like a crown of thorns. except without thorns. just branches.
Doryce: there. perfect fit, princess. it's a good thing you shaved your head. you look like Jesus Janis Joplin! have you been talking to anyone important?
Emma: a few elected officials. whom i have no idea how they got elected. by people. one thought i was applying for a job and suggested the summer after graduation i intern for NRAtv. parents just don't understand.
Gladyce: keep hammering the boat. and best try your luck with foreign dignitaries, they're nicer and will be more amenable to your cause. the adults are terrified of you. you're a rising constituency they can't control. don't ever let them control you. people are terrified of growing old. growing out of favor, a new generation squelching all their power and norms and long-held customs they thought would stand the test of time. the rings of power become stones they can't fit their fingers through anymore, they can't control where those slight fingers will catch the wind. 1000-year rules gone in the blink of an eye, ideas thought certain crowded by a scary mob of strange new bodies with their own take on things, every things. the mores the oldies wanted more of melted into a moribund morass of money. they feel their bones turn to dust, and their business with them. and their religions are laughed at, their churches burnt to the ground. replaced. not with a thought but with a system of computer spells. to mobilize by you to create their own nation and own nationalism of that nation. the frightened fogies are made to feel worthless and ordinary and out-of-date. the keys to the banks are push-button. so out of-touch they can't touch anyone anymore. take it from a dottery old bat, daughtery, that's why old people are always so curmudgeonly toward kids.
Conor takes his French leave.
Nunberg storms in like a bull. luckily all the china has been cleared and shipped off to China.
Nunberg approaches Emma scarily.
Nunberg: got any of the good stuff, youth? it's not for me, it's for the Boss. without it he gets unstable.
Emma: pssshaw. just cos i'm a young person? bye.
DeRozan: no. bye, Felicio. i'm off to join the new Black Panther movement in Wakanda.
Nunberg: can i borrow your motorcycle gloves?
Nunberg asks Steven Spielberg at the next table.
Nunberg: got any green goods?
Spielberg slips his hand in his jacket pocket and pulls out a wad of cash.
Nunberg: that'll work, too. money for pot.
Spielberg: what, just cos i'm Jewish? i mean you happened to get lucky this time cos it was me but still.
President Bump arrives on a Harley hog wearing tight jeans and drinking a Jack Daniels.
Bump: i got this from her husband.
he points at Emma with a gun-shaped finger. the finger tansforms into a watergun which squirts water on top of Emma's head. a white flower sprouts out from under the hardsoil concrete of Emma's head encircled by her crown. Emma smiles.
Bump: you are a voting bloc. i blocked from my twitter. come on, where my mood-stabilizers? slip them under the hotel door in an envelope. for DD.
Nunberg: Stormy's tits?
Bump: no that's my alias.
Nunberg: first thing in the morning. i just need to calm down. i'm not always on trial despite how my last name sounds. i'm not crazy this is just how i am.
Bump: yeah, me, too.
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