there's a rumble in the grass of the lawn of the circle table with all the guests around at Melbourne's estate. which is unusual, normally the pastures are quite pastoral. so microscopic you can see the individual yellow seeds jumping up and down on the blades of grass like Mexican jumping beans. soon it reaches a Jurassic Park crescendo baseball-fever on the cricket pitch.
it's Melbourne racing with a purpose past his outer edge hedge and into the main pavilion of plants that looks like a well-manicured golf course just starting to breed its seeds. each footstep he makes makes a print in the soft soil.
Doryce: he looks like a new man staring at us as he walks steadily towards us.
Gladyce: he's marching into a new phase of his life.
Melbourne: it's not that i'm transitioning to another life, i'm entering my first one.
Madame Pons: hey, witches!
she hugs her new friends and in the tradition gives a peck at their tits.
Madame Pons: when did you get to town?! and how did you know i'd be here? in this specific town.
Gladyce: what matters, love, is for us to hear you talking like that. it brings such bushies to our faces! you're realizing that you have a town now. and it's not your hometown.
Doryce: you're needed here, love. your love is fierce and will be the secret stalwart when this town goes through the crisis. i've seen it. you will be the anchor when the waters rise. the Academy will always exist. in some place. maybe not bodily but it will exst in the known realms at one point in time or another. it will be there to greet you and guide you when you are ready. or when your next life is ready. and it will be like you never left. even if you've never enrolled.
Gladyce: thank you for saving my love, love.
Madame Pons: i can't tell you what your words mean to me! words are powerful. like spells. the right words at the right time can change a life. like magic. you get the feeling that you lived your entire life to be at this precise moment to hear these exact words so the decision can be made for you. i'm blaming you if all of this goes to pearshaped hell and i end up dead or work at Lush one year too long past retirement. *laughing*
Doryce: hehe, death is funny. well it's better than being alone, take it from me that is shit that tastes like pears. that's why we chant the words, incant our spells, use our throats like an instrument front to back palate like Dee Bradley Baker, who has a humongous forehead cos like Nietzsche he holds more human knowledge than the rest of us like a cranial canteen. so we got a few specks to spare, moments to mess, while we wait for the mooring of the ship to take place. the process takes awhile, it's stationed in the middle pool of two huge icebergs on either end to keep it in place and prevent it from drifting off. like bumpercars!
Melbourne: hello, my friends, so gladly to see your smiling faces this eve! you, there, couple on top of the roof, please come down and join us.
Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande: no we good.
Melbourne: okay it's just that it's a fluted roof, you might slide down and break the gold chain on your ankles. friends, Ancient Romans, and worldmen, don't do the van Gogh thing with your ears i know you are all artists in your way. my honey is with child! wait that sounded porn. i mean my bride will bust a baby! i'm gonna continue in this world!
Taki: wait, we're getting married, too?
Melbourne: yeah that's how it works. fuck, torn condom which acts like the Trojan Horse, i become the Trojan Man, sperm, egg, baby, forced wedding so the baby will survive, poppin mcmuffin. i got a shotgun in the back...
Taki: i knew it.
Melbourne: just kidding. hey Tres Leches! i was just talking about you! devil, eh? have you secured the bib on all the garden hoses?
Tres Leches: si senor. i'm off now to my second job. got a job for a very special senor.
Melbourne: please one and all! join me for a celebration around the circle! i'm gonna be a Papa Smurf! we will be serving NON-alcoholic vodka!
Taki: so basically water.
Melbourne: i will prepare Taki's bedroom in the central suite upstairs. if it's one thing i know it's preparing mattresses. i'll sprinkle the sheets with rosepetals and spread a liberal amount of tempura-batter tonic all throughout each line of sheet to each four corner like a thick slice of rye bread.
Melbourne raises his arms into the air in a certain way.
Melbourne: COME AND KNOCK ON OUR DOOR
Ariana: so it's just so sad about Mac Miller. are you listening to me?
Pete: babe i'm using your laptop foldin thing to write my first SNL script of the season. or maybe ever, none of my stuff gets onair. at least i'm not like that guy writer who had an affair with Cecily then was never heard from again, disappeared away, secreted like he was Fan Bingbing.
Ariana: it's just as well, they say such hateful hurtful things about me online i don't want to look at a computer. normally my assistant is my filter, i had no idea what the truth was! is twitter really this vile?
Pete: i'm working hard on this skit script about this guy who wants wheat toast instead of white toast even though he's from the projects. i need to be funny right now in my set mind and not think of sad things.
Ariana: they're blaming me for Mac's death! saying if i didn't break up with him for you he'd have had a reason to live and keep continuing and going. that's not fair!
Pete: well we were cheating on him. maybe if it was a clean break he would have reconsidered.
Ariana: no, he'd still not have me. cheating is not why people break up, the cheating is a symptom of a larger problem. everyone's yearning for something out there they don't already own.
Pete: i thought he was black for the longest...which is weird cos we come from the same social strata...............in fact, now that i think about it and view his pic online, he LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE ME!!! WAIT HOLD UP, this whole thing, THIS ENTIRE THING, you with me, you are only with me cos i look like Mac Miller!
Ariana: let's not speak upon it no mo..........but yes it's some sort of deep-seeded way for me to preserve his memory but let's stop talking.........don't look at me with your sad autoimmune-deficiency puppy-dog eyes like that! it's so sad how much he drank.
Pete: i'm all for drinking the koolaid, just not the Grape Koolaid, that stuff sticks to your ribs. looking back, we were both of that generation that missed McDonaldland growing up. the white urban neighborhoods were decimated and McDonald's changed its tactics just as we were born. we were yearning for something missing in our lives. we both missed out on the grandeurous glory that is Grimace.
Ariana: who's got the keys to the Lorne Lambo this week?
Pete: Premiere Week we got Ariana Grande as host and Ariana Grande as the musical guest.
at the MSNBC Studios:
Katy Tur: so we're all just waiting for Mueller to show up at this studio...
Gordon Chang: i like your blouse, Katy.
Katy: hey buddy! my eyes are up here. i don't like that you wear glasses! do you ever get confused for Gordon Ramsay? y'know, cos you're both Gordon?
Gordon Chang: uh, no, can't say that i have. we don't all look alike.
Katy: i'm sorry, Gordy, but it seems we only meet when there's a nuclear disaster about to lemon. i wish we could meet under different cheerier circumstances. like a banquet hall just after the bell lights up and you push me out of the way of the falling radiator water full of radiation from the heavy grey two-ton square air-conditioner above so i don't get wet but you get wet but at least the banquet potatoes don't get wet and you slip on the slick basketball court but say you were just trying to prove gravity exists and you save the day and i pull out the joke cuecards i had in my dress pockets that i was gonna use to break the banquet ice.
Gordon: ...
Gordon: i'm sorry, Katy, i promise not to show up the next time i'm scheduled so there won't be any more bad news. i will do that, too. i've been known to do that.
Katy: sorry, i'm known as the awkward one here at MSNBC...
Katy: ...
Katy: are you upset?
Gordon: i am not upset. but i thought there was something between us. like we had that taboo racemixing Future War 198x romance thing going.
President Bump is conducting a very important interview locked in one of the many rooms upstairs in the mansion of Melbourne's plantation. the padlock has been painted over and there's a black sheet hung up on the far wall and it very much looks like a hostage video.
Bump: i get the distinct impression that this room smells of death and avocado toast. so, Jack Dorsey, we don't have much in common, you not in my bloc, but i get you cos you're a CEO. i envy your scruffy beard and Casual Fridays and Casual Days and general laissez-faire business practices. you look like some quinoa guy who ran a bike shop on a cliff in San Francisco, a shipshape shop with no cars allowed and the only way to get to the shop is a narrow road that only fits one bike tire. when you get to the shop you see billions and billions of bike frame structures mounted on the wall like endangered mongoose heads but no tires. you look like you'd rather be out surfing than here. which is why i offered pre-interview for you to go out surfing with me as a way to break the melted ice. i even flew out my Bermuda shorts so you wouldn't have to see my legs.
Dorsey: *awkward silence* yeah i don't want to ignite the wave of controversy. it's like with twitter. this was meant to be a forum to cheerily discuss K-pop with those in remote caves around the world. but you have to be smart with it like any technology. you have to know that when you're having a conversation that is slowly circling your eyes with toxic bubbles---and you so want to keep typing cos hacking is an addiction---that *dramatically* this is a conversation you walk away from...
Bump: like the twitter thing just fell into your lap or you hit it with the nose of your board when you were surfing one day at night. you're like those boring golf champions we have now, frathouse-boy ciphers with no personality who only eat meat and remain anonymous. don't mock me, i see that arch tattoo that covers the length of your pipecleaner arm, it's a violin symbol, don't play your tiny violin at me!
Dorsey: *awkward silence*
Bump: *ringing in* sorry, bud, gotta take this, business you know. gotta walk away from this conversation, it was getting too toxic. shit, i'm gonna have to do a twoway here. i CAN think of two things in my head at once. put em on speakerphone. how can i be on speakerphone but you aren't? okay Rod, thank you. for plugging in the cable rod. okay, questions from the audience. go.
Laertus stands up, looking like a mouse in a sea of humanity.
Laertus: sir, have you seen Future War 198x?
Bump on big screen: sure. i think. i have a tape of my nanny. watching it together with me when i was a tot. eating tater tots. these things take time, allow me to ease the tensions.
Dirg: don't take the bait, sir, you don't have to prove that you're a real fan to him. i know deep in my seated heart that you are a nerd.
Laertus: that anime classic spells out in stark fashion the destruction and horror of a World War III. the speed at which the Earth disintegrates is brutal and seared a lasting slice of salmon on my brain. i NEVER want to see that happen in real life! it was so realistic, the animation is so human, the justifications are so profoundly potent, that it really wouldn't take a lot to see a series of unfortunate events like this which would decimate three-quarters of the population and leave the rest of the Earthlings to walk across barren deserts like alien preachers. the mouth-flap movements are so good i felt i was watching a documentary by Ken Burns about war burns. i cried, they were still able to play the piano so well at the party knowing a nuke was the next guest come and knock on our door with cherry pie. that takes concentration. it's a chain of events that seems so cold and calculating and callous and yet so confidently clear. like this is what humans WOULD do to each other, they'd know it was stupid but do it anyway. they'd fight aboard a leaking red-colored inside submarine because they want so badly to hold the shiny two keys. let's PLEASE confine this sort of thing to the celluloid of imagination. let's not let the anime community give you any ideas!
Bump: ...
Laertus: do you know what an honor flight is? that's what you have to think about years down the road when you make your decisions now. make it a priority to give Melbourne an honor flight one day. it's a simple question: what kind of society do we want to live in? we must build it for ourselves. will it be built upon the totems of all people regardless of their chromosome config? or will we let lazy laxy laws define our energy, pen in our colorful constitutions, react to illness with our knees rather than try to solve it, as if the country was sick with cold and everything had a catch.
a donkey strolls across the stage, no one chases after it.
Bump: okay okay enough i get it. is that for the Dems?
Laertus: for the circus. these things take time, allow them to ratchet up the tensions.
Bump: so i've set up Kavanaugh and his accuser inches from each other. only the one buzzer red button between them. all on the same table. each contestant has five minutes to buzz in. if you win the car you have to pay the insurance. if no one answers in the five minutes, i get the car to break the ice of the awkward silence. one-time appearance fee, no refunds, i don't want to be late for the sex crimes on the Law & Order: SVU two-hour season premiere, i love that show. we'll use drone cameras if they both touch hands at the same time. i was wrong i can admit this. i was waiting for Saturday to occur before the massacre. i was waiting for October to happen before the surprise. calendars are slow.
Bump: i asked for a female to do the inquisition but The Pope refused. i love women popes.
Senator Grassley: *smoking grass* what do we call them? these men who have legs and arms and hair but aren't men? aliens?
Agent Scully: ... ... ... women.
Grassley: first question: who was the first MeToo...
Bump: *buzzers in* George Washington, he had bad teeth like Elton John and all Elton Johns. and allow me to do the pre-interview now and break the ice with some standup. wow, haven't done standup since college.
the Senate courtroom becomes a tapestry room. the lights dim and the spotlight trains. the law room is a ballroom.
Bump: so i like to fire people from job interviews...
stony silence from the audience and crowd
Bump: *passes the mic* here's my friend Rod Rosenstein! we were chuckle buddies on the comedy circuit together in the early '90s in L.A. when everyone drank and no one gave a shit.
polite clapping
Rod: *takes the mic* i used to play football...
audience and crowd: *stony silence* no way you played football. you look like the quintessential nerd.
only one person in the crowd laughs. Kawhi Leonard, and he laughs very strangely. like someone who has never laughed before in his life, doesn't know how to laugh.
First Take ESPN studio:
Stephen A Smith: now you see there! that is not a normal laugh! there is something wrong with this brother, check Kawhi for the nuts and bolts, brother's an android. that is a robot boy learning how to laugh for the first time from an exercise program. if it walks like a duck, and laughs like a duck, it ain't no damn mongoose.
Molly Q claps in Stephen A's face.
Stephen: oh, i get it, you black now huh.
Max Kellerman: i love you, Qerim. uh, Molly Rose. you're like those girls who take a few weeks off and don't tell nobody nothing and everyone wonders what happened to them and they come back with a ring on their finger and the whole wedding was so secret not even People Magazine nor MAGA knew where it was. and you never speak of it again, you are simply a baller's wife and never talk about your marriage. you don't mention his name when asked if you have a boyfriend, you stay in stony silence. now that's TRULY being a baller!!!
Molly Q: *wearing yellow lipstick* i gots the moves.
Max: and we're like those dudes who take a few weeks off and suddenly reappear magically in New York City, our poor parents back home in Connecticut having no idea where we disappeared to. Stephen A and i did it to be closer to you, Molly.
outside the Senate hearing, The Pope checks her phone alone by the three stone steps to the banquet hall. a parakeet perches on the lap of her shoulder. she finds out Rod has been fired and begins to cry.
Kavanaugh: i swear i never touched a woman. a woman never touched me. not even my wife. Renate? that was a real club. Renate Club, Debate Club. the only friend i ever had was when i was a tot, a girl named Talky Tina.
Bump: imma look into that. yeah, bro, but you did mention in your papers that you wouldn't watch the new Twilight Zone cos it was from that GET OUT guy who isn't our voting bloc. don't worry, i blacked that out for you.
in the back of the MSNBC Studios, Avenatti is practicing on the heavy bag with no punching gloves just his fists. he even headbutts it cos he can with his artificial bald. he hits the bag so hard it becomes a speed bag. which rips open and out pops a plastic baggie of shaving cream and razor shivs.
Mueller: slow down, my apprentice, you're burning the wick at both ends. and cameras don't have candles inside them anymore. you look like you're on speed, in the eyes. why are you on tv so much? i need you rested soon. to box for me.
Avenatti: the Dems need a fighter in kind, they've forgotten how to fight dirty in their quest to be the civil one. i do my most damage with my headbutt, people don't realize how lethal a headbutt can be. i go on tv a lot cos i want to earn my SAG card the way Bump earned his running for President. do you think i have a chance?
Mueller: afraid not. you're not old enough. you ned to be Biden's age to make an impact in Hollywood.
at the table, a blue sad fish with dead eyes is swimming struggling in the confined water glass which scares poor Gladyce half to death. she blushes brokenly into her chest and screams AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO. Doryce comforts her with a hug of the pelvis. Gladyce's eyes are bloodshot with fear.
Gladyce: I'M TERRIFIED OF FISH!!!
Doryce: we'll get through this, babe, i'm with you every step of the way. i will cure you with my love.
in the mistress bedroom:
Melbourne: you know about my dream, right, wifey?
Taki: sure. it's the linchpin. the key to uncovering where the bodies are if we ever decipher the symbolism of it.
Melbourne: no bodies, mannequins.
Taki: this dream is your block. to achieving a happy life.
Melbourne: not so fast. we are going too fast in our Formula 1 car to see the forest or the trees. there's a gap in my memory, i have the recurring dream where i'm up in the air in my airrace plane and i only have a POV view of the cockpit. a set of hands are on the steering wheel. well you've allowed me to fill in the gaps and i can see more out now, get a broader view. i can see my head in this larger frame slumped over on the stick. provides context. but the plane is not careening out of control.
Taki: you're unconscious? fascinating. what would that experience be? being unconscious in your own dream.
Melbourne: no, i'm sleeping, and dreaming a dream within a dream. it's of an angel in white with her hands up in a certain way. at least i always thought it was an angel. it is difficult to make her out at first she's so bright, just a ball of radiating white light, she looks like one of my all-white mannequins with their arms bent up at the broken joints. but my eyes focus and adjust and i begin to make out her white negligee. and then her face. her face is..............YOUR FACE! you're in my bedroom just as you are now, except standing up with your nonswollen arms up. you're staring at me directly in a POV view angle.
Taki: knew it. it's your gun trained on me. i got my hands up. i figured you out and you mad.
Melbourne: the airrace plane chugs along in the sky, giving out white smoke but never black. it's your steady hand, YOU'RE the one driving. you're in back of me in the back seat but you're no passenger, your hands come across my shoulders in a vise grip doing the steering of the plane with my head blocking your view, you can't see the controls or tiny clocks. but you don't panic, you're nice and easy and instinctive with the sky's road of clouds. the plane stays upright and turns and curves and completes the course. do you happen to catch the letters on the sidepaneling of the plane?
Taki: yes. they're a Spanish company, right?
Melbourne: wrong. it's Mexican. the side of my dream plane says TRES LECHES.
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