GINGER BREAD: MONASTERY MONSTER

there had been rumblings for awhile now. strange sightings here and there night and day round town. except this was the smallest villages of a town, the last vestige of venal before the time-skip, a town tight as a timpani tiptoe drum, a place of purple purveyance. this was a village, a city-state, an area at the very edge of the universe, the nonleading edge of town. where anything went, cos its residents had long been forgotten.

it was a people as pure as the driven grass and needing to be led. they were brand new, new to law, new to order, new to religion, new to god. they were at the mercy of the etching teachings of the next entity who showed any signs of being above them who happened to stroll down into town at this very moment.

these stirrings were causing quite a concern among the inhabitants. they were terrified of getting sick. cos they knew once they got sick, once they got stung, pierced, bitten, it was all over, they were done for, they would get sick, get sicker, and die and there was nothing anybody could do about it. they were always too nervous to think clearly, always looking over their shoulder, suspicious of their fellow wandering neighbor, wondering what was up the sleeve of the town tailor. always waiting for the worst to happen, for a blight to befall the village and wipe out existence at any moment. thus, they were frightened to death of strangers to their town, even tho they knew in the back of their heads that the term savior meant different things to different people.

they knew they needed help. just not what kind. what of.

the people were hard to distinguish from each other, the men wore brown bonnets and the womenfolk wore the brown pants in the symbiotic relationship. only the tailor wore the cut trousers, secretly behind closed doors and closed pubs. and closed suds. this stranger first presented himself as a messy homeless man, no socks, bruised callouses, dirty, meticulously unkempt, cantankerous, irascible, ready to throw down with any villager at any time, especially around 3AM. a shadow, a ninja, no one saw his face but knew it was filthy, muddy mouth, and the swear words which came of it, too. he was a blight, he was THE blight all by himself, his hair was like a caveman's, and he always wore that dirty rotten rainbow Pink Floyd black T-shirt, the only one in existence where the prism was facing backwards and actually produced a rainbow of black.

townsfolk: *waving fistbumps* GET OUTTA HERE! NEVER COME BACK! LEAVE OUR ACCURSED VILLAGE AND CURE US OF DEATH!!!

the man spoke in precise English tho it was roughly-spoken.

man: who are you? why are you here? what is this place? i have come here because i need to be here. i don't know why. you speak of a cure for death? it's all in the mind, it's all in the way you think. you must align, when the vibrations of your brain align with the vibrations in your heart.

townsfolk: we see you skulking around all our caves and stone walls, you're scaring the raccoons! you knock all the crushed beer cans on our streets, sweep them away with your legkick, causing a commotion and loud noise in the middle of the night when we're sleeping avoiding death. we should have you arrested for public indecency and public urination and public intoxication and loitering because you don't drink and we don't have a jail. what can you offer us all the others who came and went and failed here couldn't?

man: i'm a man of the cloth. i know my cloth is torn and ripped at the moment, i'll get a better shirt. please, all i want to do is help. not cos it helps me. let me lead you, i want to be a sheep someday.

all the townsfolk can smell is the air of death permeating the provinces of their little home. a 12-year-old girl with blonde hair steps out of the mob crowd and places her sweet-smelling delicate hand in his. the crowd gasps in horror.

girl: finally i found you, been waiting all my life for love. you are the man of my dreams, which is to say i shall be your acolyte, sir.

town: IT'S HAPPENING!!! it's already started! the novitiate program! he's pressing our young, reelin' them in like fetid fish, he's an influencer!

man: please, my dear, put on my shirt off my back, wear that until we can get you fitted for a proper robe. let's get you in from the cold, both colds.

the girl curtsies in front of him.

girl: how shall i address you, my lord? i just mean *she's red-faced* like for official purposes.

man: please, call me Cotard.

girl: and how shall you address me?

Cotard: i was thinking Velvetta as a name for you...i got inspired from the sensation of touching your hand just now...

Velvetta shoots a puzzled look at her new holy father.

Cotard: i know, it's cheesy...sorry for being a dad with the dad jokes.

President Bump attends the D-Day Ceremonies:

Bump at the mic: i'm so glad all of yous got together and defeated the Nazis. hey you think all that Naziism stuff could be revived nowadays? how would that look today? asking for a friend. okay, i'm gonna spend the rest of this trip holed up in my hotel room curtains drawn watching Beaches with some Urban Bourbon Ben + Jerry's ice cream staining my bed.

Mueller steps up to the mic back at home for a speech which lasts 3 seconds:

Mueller: impeach the motherfucker. thank you.

Wolf: sir, what did you think...?

Mueller: *hand up* no questions...well, okay, for you, Wolf, one.

Wolf: what finally made you speak? like this. in your heavy New York accent?

Mueller: it was that Jim Carrey Twitter cartoon caricature of me, that convinced me, that really hit me deep-hard. finally spurned me to action.

at the French Open:

Laertus: go Jo! Jo Konta, Johanna.

Jo: me?

Laertus: no, the other Jo, the other British Jo, the Jo from not around there. i have a soft spot for her, she's doing it for the suicides!

Dirg: come on, Maddy! do it, Maddie! it's Madison's tourney, tunament, tournie to lose, she has no excuses now, prove your worth, Madison Keys. she's related to and can put in a good word for me with Alicia Keys, right?

Gladyce: i love the wisdom of the French. they started this Grand Slam a day early on Sunday cos they knew there'd be one day cancelled cos of rain, they're sages and presages, sagacious fortunetellering prescients. precious. we got a plant in there directing weather. got one in Britain, too, steering the Brexit thing.

Doryce: the only way to save Theresa May is to make her a witch, she's been wanting that all her life, she's got the look, she's got the chops, but i'll leave the final decision to the wave of the spellhand of Jill at Home Country headquarters. Motherland. the French just always want to be special, that's why they're the only ones holding on to the no-tiebreak tradition, they MUST have their tradition, it's in the song!

Gladyce: after Notre Dame, they're doing any and all things to get their traditional identity back. they're desperate, they'll go WAY back if they have to.

Tiger Woods: WHAT THE FUCK. i mean i STILL have to work at Buffalo Wild Wings. i can't get out of my contract at B-Dubs cos of the TERRIBLE decision to move the PGA Championship, what were they thinking! this tournament got ZERO views this year cos they were competing with B-Ball. come on, even I know that! they weren't gonna win!

Bald Bull: turrible.

Bump: no one, and i mean NO ONE, will be watching the Women's World Cup, cancel it right now days before it starts. unless it's beach soccer, if you know what i mean saying, wink wink.

Pence: no bikinis.

at the hospital, Alex Trebek is hanging on by a thread, a prayer, a science, and a salt line. he is tired and sleeping, not his usual alive self. he is growing colder than the room. or the non-touch of a Jeopardy! signaling button.

Holzhauer and Ken Jennings are by his side, conversing. there is a mystery person in shadow sitting in the corner of the room by the plant.

Holzhauer: i've got a solution. it's a holistic heal. in a way.

Ken Jennings's hair glows gold.

Ken Jennings: yeah, sure you do, smartass! Alluka isn't real, dumbass! you and your cartoon cures. stop grinning, you look like a woodchuck. don't play me, bro, i invented you before you were born. as long as you meet my demands, Shug, we can work together to save him.

Dirg: that whole Holzhauer thing was suspicious. it was odd, it was off. why did he bet so low on Final Jeopardy? it was like he was trying to lose, he threw the game. like a Vegas gambler in trouble with the mob. if you're gonna go out, why not go down with the ship and bet it all? bet the farm, bet the bank, go out with a bang, all in, blow your entire wad.

Laertus: you're just jealous that the two super strongmen of Jeopardy were eventually bested by women.

Eye Luggage: anime roundup, go.

Laertus: what the fuck was Kisame thinking!!? instead of having a family with the babe ninja who has a thing for you, you kill this girl?!! for what, tradition?!! NO tradition is worth that! i don't care what the theatre says! the Titans from Attack on Titan apparently drink sweet black tea. i never pictured that they would need to drink or eat at all till now.

Dirg: Leorio from Hunter x Hunter talked openly on mic about masturbation. jackin' it. playing with oneself, he didn't play himself. you don't see this sort of thing mentioned in anime much, direct confirmation and acknowledgement of its viewership, but in Leorio's case it's okay cos he's a doctor, it's healthy for him.

Laertus: Leorio was named after me.

Eye: Being There.

Laertus: the strangest movie i've ever seen. seriously. and i don't mean special effects or character paint or anything, i mean this is the strangest PLOT to a movie i've ever seen. first of all, the title doesn't do it justice, there's GOTTA be a better title than that. here's one off the top of my head which sums up this movie:

Life Is A State Of Mind

the first half, it's going well, i can relate, i live my life structured strictly through the mores and vagaries of television, too, i perceive like Chauncey. i wonder how many gardens were sold after this film?

Dirg: Wonder Showzen.

Laertus: speaking of, love the New York '70s urban look of all the tenements, and the music, it was a very poppy jazzy Sesame Street hood projects sound. that all worked, the gang calling him honky was a bit awkward and forced but it was okay. Brent Spiner patterned his Data performance on Chauncey, they look alike. but here's where it gets bonkers and goes off the ski rails. it veers offtrack when it suddenly wades into politics. like why would Chauncey suddenly enter the Washington, D.C. stream and be up there palling it around with the President? what would motivate that? it makes a sharp right into politics. or maybe left. the script makes this hard turn into the political realm for no reason, it's INSANELY forced, obviously the writer wanted to make a political statement, but why? Chauncey was meant to free the other inmates from the other popular '70s picture One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Dirg: i don't mean to make fun of a disability, but it would have been better if Chauncey got run over by that limo and the movie ended there. oh Shirley MacLaine!!!...

Laertus: don't get me started on her!

Dirg: Shirley MacLaine has always been a bitch on every set she's ever been on, starting with her very first job as a pixie-cut ingenue. she gets along with no one, and believes in aliens, she rips others to shreds, sleeps with three men in one day, and i love her, i absolutely am in love with her. she's not a prima donna, she's an actress, she's the true definition of an actress. she's a real woman, i would love to have fucked her in the '70s when she was hot. i want to be her illegitimate child whom she abandons at the house to make more Hollywood movies.

Laertus: i mean that masturbation scene? i don't use this word often---for obvious reasons---but that was CRINGE!!! i mean as forced as can fucking be, it is embarrassing and truly difficult to watch, it made me genuinely uncomfortable. Shirley MacLaine rubbing one out on that large wooden raised bedroom post, i mean come on! this is ridiculous! it was so out of-place, they just suddenly start talking about masturbation! i did like the meditation on death in bed, tho. and of course the ending is Chauncey is revealed to be Jesus as he walks on water, do they really want Jesus portrayed as being that simple?

Dirg: Peter Sellers would have won the Oscar if not for that blooper-reel tacked on at the end which broke the illusion of the Chauncey character. can't have any cracks in the autistic armor. broke the fourth wall and that wall bled buckets for the audience. after that of course, the blooper-reel became a Hollywood staple. this proves real Americans want comedy, only the elites want drama. we want to laugh when we go to a theater, not be all serious.

there's a tap at the door.

Doryce: hey! so you okay here at the Treehouse? you'll watch over it while we're gone on our continuous many diverse and varied time-consuming and seemingly-random adventures? i moved the cinder block.

Dirg: cinder block?

Doryce: there was a cinder block lying there on the front lawn. it's Dirg we're talking about here, the entire world wants to take that cinder block and crash the Treehouse front window. you know how many want a crack at you? i moved it to the back lawn.

Dirg: great. that doesn't help. the gardeners will just get me from the back.

Laertus: great. threat. great threat.

Cotard holds Velvetta by the hand as they stroll up the paved circular embankment to the tailor's. he is not so much washed but his arms and legs gleam with his new inner light. his hair is kempt in a pontyatil covered by the hood he wears. he wears a black non-torn shirt of Syd Barrett on the front and a magic sparkly purple fortune-ball emoji on the back. he wears brown pants instead of brown short cargs. he wears sandals on his barefoot feet.

Cotard: ring ring! postman!

townsfolk person counter-clerk: this is the tailor's.

Cotard: no i'm delivering the mail, i'm the tailor. and btw this town also needs a regular trash-man, this town stinks! is her robe ready and done yet?

an angry swirl emanates from the church, rumbling the doors, nixing the naves, shattering the glass of all the windows, turning the white glass stained. a perfect erect ninja-star swirl of furious fire, egregious electricity, sadistic spark, salacious sparks, disturbing decadence. air whooshes into the open church like never before, allowing all the scared townsfolk to peep inside. and behold their new sacred.

the man inside the church holds the hand of a 12-year-old girl with red hair.

Cotard: no. no. NO. god mama no.

Cotard turns to the town, inside the tailor's and outside, the crowd outside moves in a swarm, swallowing up poor Scott Van Pelt---glassesless, sucking his thumb, holding his Linus blanket clinging onto it for dear life by the fingertips---in its center.

Cotard: you were right. you have a problem. you have a town bum. but it's not me.