THE LEMONLIME

the Pope: does the Pope shit in the woods? i mean is the Pope Catholic? yes and yes. Everyone Poops, it's what connects all genders, sexes, races, classes, and orientations together into one religion of humanity. the human is the only class we all take. the homework there is brutal. never stop learning. until the aliens come. we are all part of the human race, though some are annoying human marathoners and others prefer to walk. sometimes you are forced by a bull or a bear to move finally, whether it's Pamplona or a Wall Street window. or Jordan inspires you to lace em up one last time. or Cutler inspires you to quit smoking. sometimes the bear eats you and sometimes...well most of the time the bear eats you...

crowd: PREACHER!

the Pope: ...but you make yourself the best person you can be with the thickest skin so when you get et that bear has the hardest time digesting your old bones.

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Mickey Bump: i'm not gonna lie. i'm not gonna lie to you folks, i'm getting scared. i'm slipping. and i'm not talking about my poll numbers. i saw a greasy sickly moon last night, it was unreal, it was like the moon had been spray-painted with salmonella food coloring.

crowd (wearily): it was the Blood Moon, you dunce. don't you read the papers?

Bump: no, it wanted to be amber but it was chartreuse, i'm not red/yellow-colorblind but i admit it's all green to me. it's a sign. an omen. i have a lot of energy, bless my beloved parents for that, but even i'm in need of a Fox News sabbatical. i can't do this anymore...but i can't stop. the future is bleak...but i must continue...for her...my beloved...she was there for me when my parents were on separate business trips. i must codify all this bleakness for you folks so i become a symbol upon which you design your final choices. we all must make hard choices, but it's the final choice that counts. i'm scared...not of all the shootings...but of the zombies we're becoming. we have nothing to fear but fear of the unknown itself. the eternal fear of the unknown...

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Uvula: so i ran into my first love at a monastery...

Fuerza: what did i always tell you, mijo, bars are for bangin', church is for hangin'.

Uvula:...and you were there all goofy-lookin' with your wide-eyed grin and teeth that had only ever chewed greasy fast-food processed meat, you were eager to cleanse your body and soul with the bodywrap of nature. i had sworn to myself i'd never fall in love or get married but attraction seems to come from the stars. and i was sick of living with animals. i remember it as if it were yesterday...

*Lost flashback sound prompt*

Cotard: yes, it's all coming back to me now. i was brushing my teeth in front of the monastery mirror naked like you do, checking out my flabby six-pack, okay twelve-pack, realizing i had this bangin' bod for nothing, especially not banging. that got me depressed. i tried to pray but it was never quiet enough, no matter how far away i got from the other rowdy monks i could never quiet the voices in my head. then i had sex for the first time.

Uvula: um, let me tell it. so i broke the ice with talking about travel and how precious that was to me, the ability to move anywhere at any time when the seas got rough, usually by sea.

*the flashback is in full effect now, no more disembodied narration*

Cotard: yeah, i've always wanted to travel...no, that's not true, i'm just saying that to impress you. i never gave it much thought actually till now that you've brought it up. i was always in my own world, lived in my head, traveled in all that empty space up there....huh, yeah that would be pretty awesome to travel...like i see in those travel magazines...imagine writing for one of those magazines...globe-trotting and getting paid for it! that's a dream come true! i'd live like that for free! what the fuck am i doing in a monastery!? i need to get out there! i am so fucked!

Uvula (laughing): you're funny. and good-looking.

Cotard: i know, i'm funny-looking. wait, i'm good?

Uvula: yeah i think so. you're harmless, which is a change of pace from what i've been dealing with my whole life.

Cotard: what's your ex-boyfriend's name?

Uvula: society. do you mind if i kiss you?

Cotard: i don't think.

Uvula kisses Cotard's finger and sniffs around his face.

Uvula: we'll see how the night goes, mister, and you might get a suck.

Cotard: i suck at this. i can't relate to people. i need a screen. i don't know how to sex. i think i'm a porn addict.

Uvula: oh god, please tell me you didn't look at any of those Fappening pictures. what a destruction of privacy. this is what i'm saying. this is why i live in a cave. society is doomed. a lack of decency demands secrecy. no courtesy=cages, we block ourselves from each other cos the other thinks the other is a wild bear ready to pounce all the time. we don't talk anymore, we evade. and now that you've seen your favorite silver-screen stars naked, they can be thrown away like the tissue you used to see them, right? i'm sure you don't want to know their position on global warming or the pipeline after your pipes got warmed and cleaned. ashes to ashes, dust to dust, commodity to commodity. and this is me we're talking about, i despise celebrities. for the first time i felt sorry for them, something other than envy. were they ever human? were they people? did they live?

Cotard: the high life. but that's just it, it's life high, not life sober. i understand what you're saying and it's affected me. i'm starting to like you for more than your body. i don't know what it is but i feel good. i feel that i'm good. i'm a good person, damnit, no matter what anyone says about me, even me. i dunno but there's an innate sense of nobility in me, i want to do the right thing, i don't want to fall into the morally-bankrupt, relativistic morass everyone else is wading in. somehow that's lazy. it's easy to be bad, hard to be good, and harder to do good when you're hard all the time. i want to do good, be good, respect everyone, lift up the downtrodden, but i don't want to lead.

Uvula (getting misty): that's the sign of the best leaders. i feel you, i'm the same way, it doesn't come from us, it comes from before, it's our parents' genes spilling onto our tongues whenever we eat and drink and pee and poo, we leave a certain smell around us, the odor of our descendants, and we pray to Christ or Uma that they were good, didn't kill anybody illegitimately or had any illegitimate babies they threw away. then when we talk, we speak with our lineage lining our tongues, we can't help but be who we are, and we pray everyday on a stone or a scapular, a monastic or a layman's scapular, that we will never end up a psychopath, or worse, a sociopath.

the two hug, crashing noses.

Cotard: yes, yes, it's okay, it's gonna be okay, we're gonna be okay, we're gonna make it, but i'm not sure how'd we do alone caged in our own thoughts. praying all the time was getting boring for me, i never want to be comfortable again. the debate must always be fierce and opposite, we must not be afraid of the dark, the only way to break the mold is to break out of the mold. we humans must talk with one another, exchange not expunge, connect not contain, conversate not eliminate. we must build, always build, build up others, be a LeBron, we must form the human chain which holds up the weight of the wrecking ball.

Uvula: so no more porn? look at me, look at my face, touch me but not in that way, hold me, feel me, i am skin and bones and blood like you, when i bleed i bleed purple cos i'm of a royal lineage.

Cotard: you're royalty? what's Kate Middleton really like?

Uvula: no, i'm of woman, all women. my veins are your veins, i'll get them on my legs later, yours will clog with cholesterol later. i'm not an image on a screen to be deleted, a video to be hidden. i'm not a gif, i'm a gift.

Cotard: same. i mean i agree. sorry for the internet speak.

Uvula: there's nothing sexier than a feminist man. i feel close to you.

Cotard: we're still touching noses.

Uvula: butterfly kiss?

Cotard: i'm sure they do.

the two humans disrobe. Cotard is naked except for his belt which hangs around his penis. Uvula leaves her hoodie on.

Cotard: i'm a novice. beginner-level. naughty noob. where do i place this? is this the part where i pull your hair? eating cum, when does that discussion take place? is this where i call you bitch? all five holes at once?

Uvula: must be the deep web. you have a hole in your head. never call me bitch. or witch. unless it's Halloween and i'm in costume. or it's not Halloween and we're role-playing. let me take the lead, i saw two grizzly bears doing it once one morning just outside my cave entrance, i picked up a few pointers, that's a scene that permanently burns into your psyche. getting on all fours comes naturally for me. oh, and before we begin, think of this as vespers and

SAVE A PRAYER FOR ME, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

Cotard: you can borrow all my extra prayers, don't tell Boss Abbot but i've been slacking in the vespers department, i don't do it anymore, i get sleepy after dinner, i go to my cell and watch movies instead.

Cotard inserts awkwardly and starts moving up-and-down before getting more into the flow sideways up-and-down. he slaps his own ass the whole time.

Uvula: i hope this doesn't hurt.

Cotard: i think it's supposed to hurt good. are you feeling anything? am i ravishing you yet?

Uvula: i think so. or maybe it's just gas. i drank too much of your lakewater. you should really get that swill tested.

Cotard: no plumber is willing to climb all the way up here. where's Mario when you need him? or Marcio? that agua is prolly riddled with bacteria.

Uvula fake-moans.

Cotard: i don't think i'm cumming from this.

Uvula: that's a good thing. look at the waterfall over there, it'll induce you.

Cotard: you're right, it's working. it's all the same system of pipes, right? pee, cum, poo, liquids, fluid, we're all water, we fly through the fluidity of space, we're all connected through infrastructure. i think i'm cumming. nature calls, and the calling to nature. i'm coming, nature!

Cotard races to the tip of the waterfall that spills into the lake and cums into the rushing spray of the falls. his o face is obscured.

Uvula: ohhhhhhhkay. how was it for you?

Cotard: i feel at one with the universe.

Uvula: so hot. tingling waves rolling across my body. it's the hot flashes, i get hot flashes.

Cotard: have a drink. oh yeah, right. wait, i've got the perfect thing. where's my robe? i've got deep pockets.

Cotard takes out two mugs and two cans from his robepockets. with a devilish grin and tongue gently bit, he pours out the two cans of LeBron's Mix Sprite into one overflowing mug and tosses the other mug into the lake.

Cotard: hide the evidence, first thing you learn in the monastery. this is very special, this Sprite is very rare, a pain in the ass to get, the nearest store that carries it is next to the only plumber store in town. but this is a special occasion, this calls for something special, you're worth it, the mutual laying of the foundation for a friendship of fire. virgins no more. 40 is just a number.

the two sip from the same rim.

Uvula: awww, you're cute. and better, sweet. you deserve a treat. don't worry, i won't tell the Abbot you should be drinking wine instead.

Cotard: you're a top bird. the bee's knees.

Uvula: you really are good-looking you know.

Cotard: thank you. no one has ever said that to me before. not even my mom.

*sound prompt, back to the present reality*

Bridge and the rest of the crew are stunned into rapt attention, eating their pasteis de nata with mouths agape. mama Fuerza dips hers circularly in the egg yolk collecting collectively on the one communal plate and closes her agape mouth to eat.

Uvula: after that we kinda drifted apart. actually the Abbot was jealous of our love and banned me from the monastery forever. the last time i saw you you were swigging the fuck outta that lakewater. i returned to my becoming the Animal Queen. anyway, i just want you to know you were so much more to me than a one-night stand.

Cotard holds Uvula's hoodied head tight in his embrace, making the sign of the cross on her forehead.

Cotard: bless you, my child.

Uvula (losing oxygen): .......................

Cotard:.......sorry.

he hugs her properly.

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Wolf is still in his daughter's room. he slept in her bed.

Cub (getting back from junior college): you haven't moved a muscle. does this mean i can have my own apartment?

Wolf (yawning): um, ask your mother.

Cub: i would but you're always hogging my instagram.

Wolf: hey have you ever noticed that no big news happens on the weekends? if there's a monumental event, it always waits for the weekdays to happen, it wants to make sure everyone has sobered up and is paying attention. who's this boy? he's everywhere on the internets. is he a meme or something? see? i'm learning the internet leet speak.

Cub: just don't start using bae unless you're referring to mom. this boy has become a symbol of hope, a nonpolitical all-inclusive one. his pictures have been plastered all over the world. who knows? maybe some other planets, too. he is such the face of innocence. his cheeks are rosy, he smiles and gives the thumbs up, he's wearing the jersey of his favorite soccer player that week. his feed is all about soccer, the beautiful game, his shoe collection, his attempts at the Rooney bicycle kick, and his adulation of his older brother who taught him the game. he's a lake of calm in our modern waterfall of rushing. he's a moment savored instead of a moment branded. and rebranded.

Wolf: that thumbs up of his and his utterly genuine smile make me happy. feel-good. a good feel. vibing. i wish i were a kid again.

Cub: i wish i had kids.

Wolf: i'm pregnant.

Cub: what?

Wolf: i'm pregnant with purpose. i know what i must do. i must save the world, i must protect the kids like him from the bad-seed kids.

Cub: so you're gonna start reporting on good news?

Wolf: no, our ratings would go in the gutter.