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

now Dirg isn't much of an athlete of course. in fact he can't remember ever running this hard. he's never had a cause worthy of spinning his legs like the Flash.

Dirg: i could have sworn i tripped over a stone step in one of the university's many scenic winding cases spinning over lush backgreens and frozen topiary. but it turns out my legs aren't long enough for that. i am pooped. and naked and alone. and scared. this is not a good situation to be in friendless. it's getting dark. of course it's always dark here under the shimmer canopy. there's never the dawn.

soon a trail of echoes breaks the eerie silence. something is approaching. it must be horrible cos the noise won't stop. it's Laertus.

Laertus: *huffing and shuffling* for the record, not your friend. i just want an audience with the master as well. by the stone well. and i hate when it gets too quiet.

Dirg: i know. i need to be in an environment which is constantly chiming in with beeps and whistles. or i don't feel i'm alive and matter in the grand scheme of things. i have to be one of the buttonpushers.

Laertus: that really took everything out of me. like i'm out of juice for the year. i promised myself when i was in bed this morning staring at the ceiling i wouldn't take any white caffeine pills, i know they're bad for me. i take one and my mind begins to congeal into a blob i don't recognize, my brain turns into a foreign object inside my head. it's staring me down, starting to control me without me and that's scary. but i think i distractedly took a pill while slurping down my morning peas in a rush to get over here. it's become second-nature to me now: pain, head trauma, pill, headache goes away in like three hours.

Dirg: *hypnotically* take the white pill, Laertus. you still won't be white. you have peas for breakfast? oh yeah, we'll get to that later. i feel you, buddy. last Wednesday was pure hell. first of all the construction...

Laertus: really disruptive. doing it in May, too, over finals month. how do they expect us to survive in the real world?

Dirg: i don't go to college here i just attend cons here. i live with my mother.

Laertus: i thought you were a cool class-dodger. so smart you didn't need to attend lectures. i looked up to you. anyway, all that construction noise rumbling the earth and for what? to spoil the natural beauty of Obec Woods? to despoil the fruits of god with the fruits of man? all of this merely for another lane of highway!? a frontage road?! what is the world coming to!

Dirg: you do NOT want to see my frontage. i always will wear a big white T shirt and white shorts. hopefully there's less congestion. but of course you can never get rid of congestion, you only divert it.

Laertus: my stomach is starting to hurt. roiling in a soup of sick. that's the tradeoff. pick your poison. clear eyes but ruined appetite. throw up everything you eat.

Dirg: you would have anyway, it's the college caf. were you exhausted after finishing your work? i know i was. online blogging is hard.

Laertus: they just had to assign TWO episodes of Steven Universe on that one Monday in May. double-duty is hard on the joints. and of course one of the episodes is THE episode answering the question posed at the beginning of the series. i won't give away my identity. so of course after reading all the online reviews and reddit and the Steven Universe wikia, every section has 1000 comments and relinks and backlinks to other comments and animators' twitters and secret tumblrs with more secret answers which lead to more secret questions and comments. by the time i got done with MY own personal review of the episode, it was midnight! on the next day! screwed up my entire schedule for the week. i had to rethink a webcomic series i was planning, even contemplating scrapping the whole thing and taking a month's vacation, that's how insane that last StevenBomb before the hiatus was! rearrange rendered or be rendered restless.

Dirg: and rudderless. yes yes yes to all. i'm still working on my review. having writer's block. i'm not ashamed to admit that to a fellow adult. i stare at the blank page and it gets depressing. so i haven't exactly been over to my site for a while, been days. haven't been around. my page is taking a pause. and it didn't help my sadness---man enough to disclose---that they canceled the JusticeLeagueActionBomb they were planning. i spent all last two weeks writing reviews for those last episodes of the series. 7 SEVEN reviews in all! 14 HOURS OF WORK TOTAL. Cartoon Network really loves to screw with its adult viewers.

Laertus: Justice League Action, the remaining episodes are online. i normally don't do that, i like to give them numbers, i believe in karma, but i had to throw a basket of bombs on my plans.

in Dubai, the android Genie Bouchard is in silk bed with her lovers LeBron James and DeMar DeRozan. she undoes her bun string but her hair remains in a perfect bun shape. inside the cage of the bun lies one strawberry which she plucks and sucks. she plucks the little tiny leaves off the strawberry stem and pushes them hard into under her nailbed. her fingernails turn strawberry, the tips of her fingers glisten in tye-dye acid wash with one bubble, the leaves dance tinily on the head of her pointer-fingernail, leap off in a swan dive, and the invisible carriage cage keeping her hair up in a bun is revealed. it is three swirls of wood atop her crown.

Bouchard: i feel so free. here. i can go see a movie. i know we're all gearing up for the French Open but quite frankly i feel safer here than in Paris. we are up so high here there is no need for drugs. only love.

LeBron: love is drugs.

Bouchard: you are quite wise, LeBron. that's why you're my first boy. in this little threesome. oh threesome is such a dirty word, it's a meeting of the minds, a summit where we're all trying to get up. LeBron and DeMar, perfect. DeMar, honey, you must learn from LeBron. you're the kid of this outfit, my second boy, the younger brother, you choke everytime LeBron is around. now while of course choking is good for me, not so good out there on the court. you must learn to be assertive, not let any psychological block impede your progress, milk your mission, sever your success. if someone's got a whammy on you, you will get no whammy from this mammy, this mammy will whammy the whammier. that's how it works in nature: attitude is an aphrodisiac, success smells. there is only one solution. one cure which i've seen work before with my own two eyes you must trust me. DeMar must confront his greatest fear. and fuck him. DeMar DeRozan, you must fuck LeBron James. that's how you get the demons out, you must fuck them out yoself by fucking the demon himself. it's the only way. come on, DeMar, get on top of Lebron for once. now see? doesn't that feel good and new? on that top tip of the totem pole. start bouncing.

DeMar meekly follows orders without saying a word. he's always been good at that.

Bouchard rolls her back up back inside herself and removes her bedsheets with a whip and crack up into the air in a flying flash. and she is present in all her glory, in nothing but her smile.

Bouchard: now you two gentlemen continue to problemsolve while i catch some last-minute tv *click*

she sees Charles Barkley smiling in the Warriors' locker room. he doesn't reveal a whiff of his customary anger on his visage. he is not invited to the Golden State celebration room after the Finals. he politely knocks on the door. no answer. he politely bangs on the door. no response despite his brandishing his TNT badge. he breaks down the door in the quietest way possible. he casually walks up to Draymond Green who's barking into his lime-green towel and before Draymond has a comeback on his lips he's staring down the barrel of a mustached mouth. Chuck, leaving his mouth closed and smirking widely, looks into Dray's eyes and suckerpunches squarely Dray's mouth, in the soft area above the jaw. no bones broken, just a message sent.

Bouchard: *hand over mouth* oh my, now see this is hot to me. i know it's a bit gauche but would you fellas mind a foursome? the question is if I can take a foursome. i'm not one for stretching. would you mind, Charles? Charles my galloping knight swooping in.

Charles: it was an open fist. NBD. i like his mother. i'm not part of any goon squad. not goonin' it up. those days are over, in the NBA we're all playful. just took'n his heart that's all. well.....................okay. it's been awhile. i've only ever had pad women.

Bouchard: your actions speak to me more than your words which i can't understand. yes. yes? oh good. goodie that you're coming. joining in with us fun. our tribe. speaking of sock............oh my, i was so invested in this scene i didn't notice all the boys on the team in the lockerroom had their naked butts turned to me the whole time. my team boys. you have the key, Chuck? the riddle key? nevermind i'll buzz you in, shouldn't be too difficult to buzz over that bald head of yours. that's sexy, not the bald head.

Charles joins the three in bed...

...but not before coming over with a few goodies. Chuck takes the John Brown's Boat over the living water packing living food. and a mapleboard to suck and cut. real cedar one. and bean dip as lube of course. he's not one to grumblebrag but it takes awhile to detour through the City of Broad Shoulders, watch for the shark relief in that lake, in stark relief fuck a Siberian mouse for practice, and land at King's Landing for the private jet. which has since been renamed Queen's Landing after Genie rose to #1.

...LeBron and Charles are old friends by way of Jordan so that's not uncomfortable. even when they move the bed to Jordan.

LeBron, influenced by all around him, makes a last-second buzzerbeater shot right through Genie's hoop.

Bouchard: HE SHOOTS! HE SCORES! HE HITS! taking notes, DeRozan? swish, no basket! now that would have conceived a baby in me, my biological clock was ticking if i had remained human, i was running out of vulva. as it is, i'm all space and holes and made of tin, i was a one-shot deal, i'm a specimen. so it remains just another legendary fuck from the King. i am not royalty, i am not sad over this, i am crying real tears. i will never have wedding eyes. anyway, hey i'm the perfect underground sports mistress aye? all of us living in our various leagues are perfect for each other!

the boys reach Alan Bored's abode. planted on a stretch of country land out of a scene from The Halloween Tree. it's as you'd imagine. located in the backest of backwoods for this forward-thinking progressive writer, at least when it comes to linework.

the house is made of tin hinges and is the hauntiest of haunted mansions. it's The Haunted Mansion if Ub Iwerks had penciled the blueprint plans.

the duo reaches the steps of the brown porch and ascend into the long neverending corridor which never collapses beyond into a point. there's just enough light to see the jaws of the portraits of oil hung on either side. in the center sleeps an old gold screen from a Roman Catholic confessional, latticed and fluted and capped atop its spikes with fleurs-de-lis of brass. a voice sounds from behind the barrier.

voice: HALT! who goes there?! venture no further into this mouth of hell. the pont is closed. i'm watching you. didn't you see the sign outside? nevermind the dog watch the owner. tho i don't have a dog.

Laertus: it's him. has to be. who else would be so weird as an acclaimed author? *demonstrably raising his finger up then down* sir, you have abandoned your sacred duty. why have you exited? why did you forsake your audience? why did you exodus Exodus College? that is egregious and elitist, at least be egalitarian when you walk out cool and detached. you didn't do that to Harvard Pudding Club. you have this day committed a sin. there was a sin committed on the floors of the symposium! for shame, your symposium of sin!

voice: i can't take you con freaks anymore. you literally gave me a heart attack. my doctors say i'm otherwise perfectly healthy in body and brain for my age.

Laertus: it's him. has to be. i recognize that voice anywhere. actually i don't. the thing is, you hardly talk for youtube vids nobody knows what you sound like. i didn't realize you were British till today!

but the voice isn't British. it doesn't have a British accent. it is the voice of Robert Mueller.