FOR A SUN: UGLY IN THE STREETS

Madchen is driving Hartwin home on this drizzly foggy night. or day. on her beat-up used hovercar. she takes the chance to wrap him up all snuggle in a heavy woven blue blanket in the passenger seat. with just his eyes showing.

Hartwin: come on, mom.

Madchen: now you can't answer your phone.

*ring*

Hartwin: how'd you know?

Madchen: kids today. mother's sixth sense. both.

Hartwin: *on the phone* yes. okay, bud. gotta turn the car around, mom. Lieu needs me back at the station. in a kerfuffle with Bump.

Madchen: i really hate that guy. at least it's not a scuffle. are you sure we can handle him? do you want me to turn this car around!?

Hartwin: yes.

Madchen: *deep sigh* you really gotta get off your phone, dear. it's poison. the work i do has cemented my resentment. i mean it sucks to have to be the center of attention at every stop you go to cos you have to film there. and it's a pain when one minute of film takes one hour to download to insta. i thought we were living in the future. i know i do this so that others can see the world without having to rid their beds. the less fortunate, those that can't buy a ticket to Italy, the cripples, the insane. i get flooded with hate comments that i post too much but it's not about my vanity! anyway i think i enjoyed that bit of country way more than you.

she touches his forehead.

Hartwin: i don't have a fever. and i'm not faking it. i'm really hot under here.

Madchen (smiles): i know.

---------------------------------------------

Lieu is still sleeping on the hood of his Gundam. Bump tiptoes in exaggerated big long strides like a Looney Tunes character and sticks a stick of dynamite in the cab. Lieu is jostled just in time to pick it up and throw it out to explode in the sky.

Lieu: what is your deal, my brotha!?

Bump: what? i thought it would be like fireworks. great gag in cartoons.

Lieu: start living in the real world, man!

Bump: why? the world sucks. i'll be back tomorrow. with some friends. i want to start something.

Lieu: please don't appropriate our culture. we're real people, not magic. that Michael song is for us. please quell your rich boredom somewhere else. i'm trying to catch some z's. and have some 'za. *buzz* hello? Hart? i need ya back here, bud. please sleep with me...

_____________________________

Lieu: *jostled*...is it time?

Hartwin: not yet. you'll know. finally got some sleep, huh. i envy you. it's the most beautiful thing on earth.

Lieu: that dude rustles my jimmies. spontaneity works in art, not politics.

Hartwin: what is the deal with your wheels? i mean Gundams aren't supposed to have headlights and tailpipes.

Lieu: hey man you do you. no way in hell i'm undergoing that procedure and having my back sliced open and ventilated for that vagina system.

Hartwin: you wish. alaya vijnana. spirit in the machine. very conscious. very consequential. you'd like it if you'd give it a chance. it's our only key to winning.

Lieu: get another skeleton key, boy. i've seen you naked. you got a pristine back.

Hartwin: *shaking his head* my skin wasn't dark enough for the procedure to take, a scientific fact as hard as that is to comprehend.

Lieu: nah, explains history perfectly my olive-skinned brother from another wed mother. pigmentation problems, complexion complications, the monster in the melanin. but you don't want to hear me drone on.

Hartwin: i do. it is my business. tea?

Hartwin sleeps right next to Lieu that night on the cold marble floor of the forum, still wearing his mother's garb to keep him warm.

____________________________

*ring*

Bump: yes?

Codrus: what did i tell you, boy!? do you understand nuance?

Bump: uh, what?

Codrus: i saw what you did at that citadel.

Bump: how?

Codrus: i see all. and i see the future. i'm worried about that place. there's a strong stench of leadership over there. intoxicating inspiration. but i'll handle it. i got my guys on it, ready to blow themselves up and blame the other guys. you don't do anything except prepare for the next debate.

Bump: but boss, i got no more debates. wouldn't do them even if i got 'em. got 'em, heeheeheehee. i already won. i know yous told me to hunt for lackeys but nobody wants to be my surrogate unless i promise them drugs.

Codrus: the first part. phase one. i do not have such problems. yes you clearly have too much time on your hands. again i say: prepare for the debate.

-----------------------------------

there's a raucous rumbling in the hall for the Democratic debate. Penyelamat, the little man in soul charge of the big party, stirs up the faithful when he steps on stage. at first no one recognizes him cos he's not known for public appearances. secondly they don't see him cos he's two feet tall, three feet with the Kaiser mustache. and yet he commands a room hushed. the spotlight misses him as Penye rolls onto the center of the auditorium and with the help of a high chair on which his long chartreuse gown gets hooked, he begins:

crowd: PENYE! PENYE! PENYE!

Penye raises his arm but no one sees that.

Penye: thank you. thank you. ENOUGH! i mean enough with this politics of fear, waged by weak strongmen. am i right or do i need a bigger mic? sure they make fun of us and think they're finally having their turn, after centuries of a PC noose tied around our bullshit. they're finally getting their way, which is a way older than time. they can say what they really think. so i guess humanity is that fucked, huh? a true free unguarded human is a low mouthbreather apparently. why curse under your breath when you can now mouth your breath? and that's cool. and funny. and what everyone actually wants. well, we'll see if there's enough of them come November. there's a couple more terrorist attacks to go...

crowd: PENYE! PENYE! PENYE!

Penye: thank you. thank you. wait, hello? *taptaptap* my mic wasn't on this entire time!............here's Hilary and Bernie, folks!

Hilary entrances to a tepid response but the crowd gets more ginned up when they see her newly-minted running mate the Pope glamorously stroll across the hall in a matching blue pantsuit that somehow only the Pope can make sexy. lewd imaginations start to boil on just how the two historic ladies finally sealed the deal. wolfwhistles and catcalls follow, which is unusual in a Democratic rally.

Hilary: yous guys. thank you. hey you know what they say, the greatest ability is availability, heehee!

Bernie is nowhere to be seen.

Hilary locked Bernie in the bathroom. Bernie struggles desperately to open the door, rustling the stuck deadbolt and turning the knob furiously until his arthritis catches up to him. he raps on the door but the cheap glass dulls any sound from coming out.

Bernie: help! HELP! I NEED TO DEBATE! IT'S ALL I GOT! yous bastards! if i'm not on tv people on the street constantly try to help me up cos they genuinely think i'm a nursing-home grandpa who wandered outside and got struck by lightning. damn having to go too often. and of course this happens on the day i run out of pills. if i'm President i'll fix all that!

Penye: well, seems Bernie's a no-show. Hilary wins!!! Hilary/Pope 2016!!! she's our delegate. i'm with her. cos no way in hell could i survive a campaign, i'd get run over by my own bus!

crowd: POPE PUSSY! POPE PUSSY! POPE PUSSY!

Wolf: Anderson? it's Wolf here at CNN Headquarters. where are you?

Anderson: lost my mic. got run over by a woman in the crowd.

Wolf: you got bumrushed? was she smaller than you?

Anderson: yes.

Wolf *heavy sigh* get a quote, you dolt...............................joining us now is one of the three Senators from Texas. sir your state has just seceded from the union. how do you feel?

Senator: yyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww! HASHTAG TEXIT BAYBEE! but now y'all can we please change the state flag? it looks too similar.

Anderson: oh lookie here, we got Snoop Dogg! care to comment on the passing of Bono?

Snoop: hey man leave me alone i'm with my kids. i mean the dude is a genius, no Prince but a lower-tier genuis, musical legend, was a legend, that's so hard to say, the world is emptier without him, no it's empty, he steered us right, always, he was always the world's beacon, a member of the cult of life. last couple of albums were rubbish, but you know. i don't think artists were ever meant to have 30-year careers. you will hit a wall and run out of ideas, trust. one good album and you're set, ya feel me? i mean i boxed Mike Tyson, ya dig? what can i say? he's Bono. he's Beezy. fam who are you again? you bussin' me out cos you have a young face but old peoples hair. Bono. man. anyone ever find out what color Bono's eyes were?

_____________________________

Bump: *on the phone with the papers* yeah i love this new thing on the gram, Fight Night. this is my distraction, not into pro sports. i like playground sports. been around for years apparently this Fight Night, still going strong. that one channel with videos of filmed fights. all sorts of melees, brawls, football fights, schoolyard bully revenge plots, girl on girl, bar fisticuffs which spill out into the night, quarrels over quotients, upheavals after elections, absolute altercations from Russia that are no doubt Absolut-fueled, riveting riots, scintillating skirmishes, fucking free-for-alls, race wars. heehee. so much fun to watch. love it, it's people taking back their countries, taking back their authority, their agency. if you can't fight in this world someone will fight for you. and to you. eh, it's mostly harmless. they lighten things up from time to time with a video of training-academy follies. bloopers which caused accidental deaths. tell you what if our armies were more cutthroat like these vids we'd never lose. i like all their vids, gotta keep this stuff viable and viral. like a virus. gotta bring fear back into the equation.

____________________________

Matthew Chris: *on MSNBC* i love basketball. i do. have you ever seen basketball? it's this thing where's there's a ball which is really a pumpkin. people say my face is a pumpkin. so much action. i love action, i can't sit still, i always have to be moving, talking, i can't stop myself from talking. i've never had a conversation in my life. if i do nothing for more than a millisecond i become twitchy like Chris Hayes. take it from my wife. the wife of a man with two first names. there's this guy, the supastar, James, and he throws down the giant peach into the basket, dunks it at the last millisecond and he wins everything, did you see The Finals?, and the entire building comes down around him. not just to worship at his feet, i mean the building physically comes down around him. what a spectacle. sport, nature's war. and there's this other guy, the other supastar, who until last night i thought was white. he didn't win for once. that's the real America, folks. anyway........................joining us now are some hooligans:

hooligans with the Icelandic flag dyed into their long scraggly beards: we won! we did it! against all odds! it finally happened! after a century of futility! normality has returned! we're taking it back! we're coming back! we're Vikings and we're gonna invade all your countries again!!! EMPIRE!!!

Matthew Chris: it's just sports, dude. i don't get it, you have two good hands and you don't use them. painful watching that field out there. like grass growing. cripples dribbling a white ball that's probably cocaine.

_________________________________

Hartwin: *on the phone with the underground papers* yes. still here. i know it's late. you're welcome. i'll sleep when i'm dead. the greatest ability is availability. not mine. got it off wiki. Fight Night? i know of it. disgusting. painful to watch. no, hurtful to watch. dreadful. ghastly. putrid. everything that's wrong with life. the greatest fighter is the one who doesn't fight, the boxer who whiffs and his opponent surrenders. here you have filmed fights, real fights which spill blood of fellow humanity. the crowd around is more interested in filming these fights than helping the combatants. they stand there idly with their stupid cameraphones as one guy, the nerd invariably, gets pummeled to death. there still isn't a good use for phones. they cheer on the angry bullies from the sidelines, bait them, the bystander effect in horrible reverse. the comments are full of praise: these are real men, this is how a man should act, manhood has been diluted and sapped of all its strength by the liberals. modern society is not man society. the other has permeated and globalized. they revel in this brazen show of force, this tipping point, this rejection of elite experts and the return to solving with salt and finishing with fists. why think when you can end? and to top it all off, to break the mood, they mix in a vid of sexually-explicit lesbian half-porn stars and big-breasted nymphos who enjoy choking and rough sex from their manly men. cos of course only hot models would enter a bed with a fighter. and of course the unimpeachable link between sex and violence must always continue or we have no country, no society. i'll give them points for showing non-heteronormative sex but i'm just kidding.

Lieu: *head pops out* bro hate to interrupt when you're on a hot streak but can this wait till breakfast? i'm so tired i can't get to sleep.

a huge explosion rocks the forum, shaking the temple walls and running through the barracks like a wavy missile. no infernos hold on the recent retrofitting but their small world is on fire.

Lieu: now that's too hot.

Hartwin: told ya. i'm starving like the motherfucking dickens but let's check it out. ready? time to


SQUAD OUT! CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK


Lieu: i swear these niggas gonna get paid for interrupting my z's. i won't let zed get shafted again! say i won't.