I HEAR THEY'RE THROWING A PARADE DOWN OBEC WOODS: THE GOD

Dirg is from Obec Woods. Obec Woods is a huge sprawling metropolis of trees in the deep suburb of Carmel. it used to be called Carmel Valley but the valley overtook the city until there was no sign of life other than humanless nature. when i say metropolis, consider there are 100 trees to every car parked along a log. in fact there are no cars, just trees everywhere obstructing views and urban beliefs and making it hard not to stop and take awe of the palatial palace of palms.

Dirg is the biggest nerd in the universe. he's the second to tell you so after his internet page of his homemade webcomic. he wears it on his sleeve along with his big bleeding conservative heart. no PC words for this description, he's not a geek, he's a Cartoon-Network-loving virgin who built his own basement out of the clouds in his head. often you will find him at various cons and video-game-store openings dressed as little as possible. he secretly loves being naked in public and takes cosplaying as his one societal excuse to wear just shorts barefoot and be a karate master from a nostalgic forgotten '80s cartridge.

his body doesn't warrant being out in the open like this, he has never worked out, his chest muscles are his nipples, his hair is unkempt and uncombed and full of sand since birth and still in a moptop, the same moptop he came out of as a baby.

Dirg: but, stupid narrator god voice from above which doesn't exist, this is my only chance to be a hero. in real life society has beaten me to a pulp where i'm afraid to show my screenname in public. it's an out-of-body experience when i'm nude in public, i tend to get through it by pretending to be my avatar.

Laertus: who are you talking to?

Dirg: oh shush you, you're always dressed to the nines in your ninja gear all covered up with bandages can't see your face over that sash around the bunion on your nose. you know we geeks are all crazy in the head. that's why we don't function and are dateless and take it out on the world with our fanfictions and youtube comment-section diatribes which are so long and ranty that it requires two TWO of those buttons you push to expand the angry letter you just penned in type. and are recruited to incel.

Laertus: i worked for Intel for a month before they had to do a background check by law and found my name attached to a terrorist group. i had nothing to do with this, it was an honest mistake, but that was the greatest misprint of all time. which is strange cos i'm not a Gary. that's just the point, it's your avatar with all the courage, not you.

Dirg: you'll be hearing a lot about me in the coming years...

Laertus: if you last that long. you have a lot of strange obsessions which you can't let go of which will spell your early death. hanging onto things is a recipe for a young person getting a heart attack. up-to-the-minute minutiae and irrevelance cast as importance but really iodine for the wound of worthlessness. and when you perish precariously, i shall take the stage. and the audience will get to know me better. not as the understudy, as the overstudied.

President Bump: what's with all the orange sanddunes? where are we?

Kim: we're in my home town, in South Korea. i changed the time zones so it's always lunch! my foot is in the middle of the line, like your golden spike. we're at your Nobel Prize ceremony. they held it here as not per usual cos you're here.

Bump: oh yeah forgot, i'm distracted a lot. that wasn't me btw, the sex harassment thing. it's those Hollywood artists who think they have free reign, they're creative about it i admire them for that. so lemme pick your brain in that large square head of yours. how did you suddenly come to the realization that the Korean War should end. why now? why me?

Kim: coupla things. first i wanted to get out of this black dress-shirt bodysuit thing i wear. it always looks like i'm continuously going to dinner. my shirt is so long it's a robe.

Bump: you look like a man. from the changing room of a Men's Wearhouse.

Kim: second i heard you have access to Stormy Daniels. that's like the ultimate American white woman. i want to fuck her. can you make that happen? i'll make the war go away.

Bump drops dynamite all over the unified Korean Peninsula, sinking it to the bottom of the ocean.

Kim, hopping on one of his flying missiles in time and floating precariously in the clouds: not cool, man.

Bump, floating in open water: oh yeah forgot, i pushed the button accidentally. trying to set up a second strawman twitter account. for purchases. hey, you started it. the button was on time-delay, the time zones screwed it up. this is appropriate, right? Nobel invented dynamite. this is a celebration!

Kim: for presidents like us, yes. despite everything, you did free those slaves.

Bump: see? it's not all so bad. it wasn't a total destruction of the New World Order, more a totaling and tower-building. i did some good things. the economy i made, the war i inherited. i'm not looking for an award...actually i am cos i want to go to the ceremony and have Kanye interrupt me. look at it this way: everything i did, EVERYTHING, was to avoid having Melania see anything, to spare her feelings, isn't that romantic?

Tom Brady approaches Stormy Daniels in the parking lot buried in the back as she's strapping her baby in.

Brady: would be a shame if anything happened to her.

Stormy Daniels: *puzzled doubletake* Tom Brady? what do you mean?

she frights at his hand pulling in his red pocket. she shields herself and her child with a baggie of Granny apple slices.

Brady: protection.

he pulls out a roll of his baby photos. pictures of his kids, not him.

Brady: they grow up so fast. cherish them while they're still young and tiny-doll and prim princess and don't talk back.

Stormy: *flushed face, winking, guard let down again* oh, mine's a biter like her mamma.

suddenly a grey sedan bumrushes into the parking lot taking out the Jersey barrier and the stone statue by the bank and gym known as Monty Pylon, crashing into Stormy's minivan. everyone is shaken but uninjured, at least physically.

Mike Pence in black cap and dark sunglasses: *flustered* shit. shallup Mike. i always jump the gun. pull the trigger too fast. i gotta learn to be patient. i screwed up the plan.

Brady: *on the phone* not cool, Mickey. this will make me seem like i'm associated with you again when i never was. get Bill to do your dirty work.

Bump: i can never understand what he's saying. you're the boxoffice. hey man, how are you? tough loss. has Pence planted the red MAGA hat in your locker yet after the big game? i autographed it personally or maybe Jared did. i mean whoops how's your wife? i like your wife. whoopee. it's weird, where did all those red caps go after the election? an environmentally-sound landfill?

Rudy Giuliani waddling up a long skinny paper cigar: they're at the Red Sox game. on the baseball players' heads squawk

Bump: i'm Batman. you're The Penguin.

the two nerds bumble over the long winding stone staircase guarded by an ivory winged beast. an exodus is spilling out from the mouth of the university's mining gate, which is a gigantic drillbit from a mecha robot. a throng of Japanese businessmen with flashing cameras leave as a boat of lime-green-haired influencers crash in.

Dirg: is that an angel or a gargoyle?

Laertus: same thing. there he is!

in the dingy auditorium lecture hall, in all his glory, stands the author, the creator, the man himself, dressed like a garbage-man who's homeless, in drab olivegreen overcoat and hair so wildly out-of-place it's lace and from an uncombed socket you'd think he was pretending to be an avatar of the galloping prince paradigm swooping in to save the day from the world.

Laertus: *raining raising hands* Alan Bored! do you speak? Donald Glover is the most versatile talented man of our generation.

Alan Bored: too violent for my spilled blood.

Dirg: come on! your cartoons are meant to be as bloody bloody as possible, that's what art is supposed to be, a safe space for our most illegal impulses and terrible tendencies. don't try to pretend you're a saint of the British Order, let it all out. we live in an MSG MAGA world now, give in to your sins. for the record, when it comes to my darkest desires, i still draw my female heroines with the biggest boobs possible and will continue in the loving tradition.

Laertus: what are you doing? what are you saying?

Dirg: you have to be tough online, you can't be another Dem, you have to be edgy and alt-right and whatever the vogue is now, you have to go against the grain, the flow. call for people's heads and foster immorality. tell it like it REALLY is. bait and cut down in the name of freedom. that's the only way to pile up followers and youtube likes.

Laertus: bullwash. sir, your comics are misogynistic and derivative, and dare i say plagiaristic. your so-called heroine is copied chapter and verse from Nimona. chapter and curse.

Bored: i was doing my take on it. the tough-guy take on it. they're not comics i do, they're graphic novelas. and they're more of a diegesis than outright art.

Laertus: die! it's so blatant. if it was on page 85 and there was an inking mistake i'd call myself out for pedantry. but it's on the cover! she has the same sword that looks a little too hairy for my tastes.

Bored's throat begins to clamp up, it closes and he can't swallow.

Bored: *breathing heavily inside his trembling mind* oh god. are you one of those otakus who will never be satisfied unless every continuity error is addressed? my tonsils are tensing up dry. art is not meant to be continuous. i gotta get out of here. i was supposed to join the Monty Python panel, what's left of it, and audition for the new Monty Python on the CW in front of everyone at this thing. is that running late? can't take it no more i gotta get out of here, the fluted walls are closing in on me. my socks are getting tight. i can't taste a thing anymore, not even the air.

Laertus: how's my mindtrick ninja nimono taste on your buds, bud? Noelle Stevenson is in a committed relationship with fellow inker Molly Ostertag. does that threaten you? does that threaten your old world order? why won't you answer my several questions?

Dirg: *pointing up* for the record, i look at lesbian roommate situations online. WeLiveTogether.

Bored: was an answerable question ever thrown in there? i can't...

Bored bolts out the locked cafeteria-style pushbar folding-in doors and runs away in a frantic panic. he says goodbye in his mind. he falls down the gray steps leaving a trail of trimmed twig in his wake.

Dirg makes sure to follow him out first.