BOXED: WHEN YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE, YOU DIE IN THE GAME

Pence: madams, please hold for the President.

two first-ever-women-spacewalkers: no. *click*

President Bump: hello? they hung up on me. is my hair hanging good? good hair day? any lice, scum in there? is it maintaining the Mobius-strip flip? Masha, is that you? no, that's just YOU in a grey babushka wig!

Maria Butina: hey, once a spy, always a spy.

Rubikon: you got blood on your hands.

Bump: who the fuck are you? you got a meanness to you, i can sense it. game recognize game.

Rubikon: you caused The Honourable Elijah Cummings's death. his heart attack was caused by the stress YOU placed on everybody in the country trying their darndest to follow the law as they scoot your illegal ass out!

Bump: check my papers. i don't read. hey it isn't my fault, you coulda just waited for the Election. one heart attack i DIDN'T cause was the Washington Nationals, they are the Team of Destiny like i was, that's all cos of me, wouldn't have happened otherwise, I saved that manager's death, i heard he has a weak heart.

Rubikon: cos he didn't vote for you?

Bump: hey does this Storming of the Castle room that we did and i planned mean i can finally say i was in a war and you can lay off about the bone-spurs thing? hello? he left. get it?

Bump: see? i'm better than the Generals. be sure to take many pictures of the SCIF and post them on Instagram. i never go down there cos it smells like Lemon Pledge.

Trent Reznor: i'll build a wall and we can keep them on the other side...

Bump: right?

Laertus: from now on i'm ONLY drinking Modelo beer! and i don't even drink.

Dirg: i drink socially but i'm still antisocial.

Sondland: call me baby?

Taylor: call you maybe. as in never.

thr Berkut storm the castle. of something. turns out, it's the headquarters of Fire Force 8 from the Fire Force anime. this causes Putin to chuckle. nobody knows this---not even his mother---but Putin is a HARDCORE otaku. like he hides schoolgirl stuff under his pillow at night.

Doryce and Gladyce are wearing their matching 7 For All Mankind jeans as they forage at the in the Gourmet Grazing on the Green holding wine glasses on their tongues.

Doryce: getting on, dear?

Gladyce: sorry, dear. i had to be outside. i couldn't be in that Treehouse anymore with the orange mood lighting, it was too small a light, i kept tripping and stumbling over the house, too dark for my old eyes.

Doryce: you can never kill the mood. i do hope i find a brown cow in here, i've been meaning to tell that cow something. hey, where's the Icehouse music in the background?, i'm still not done with The Fridge.

Gladyce: people mislabel Icehouse, they think they're just a bunch of dirty Aussies in the outback, but they're actually more like refined New Zealanders.

Doryce: right, listen to their entire catalogue, they're actually more like Australian Spandau Ballet.

Ariana Grande is at the izakaya, waiting for her next boyfriend to show up so she can meet him and restart her life...

Gladyce holds in one hand a McRib from McDonald's and in her other a Sausage N Egg McMuffin from McDonalds. she chews slowly to capture each essence separately then mixes the two flavors together with her tongue.

Doryce: enjoying?

Gladyce: i've never had these two specific sandwiches together at the same time in the same meal. i'm savoring. these are strong scents, but there are stronger scents for our noses. cos they signal the special place only we can go to this time of year. meat is wafty, but i smell something stronger and more magical in those weeds. you smell it, too?

Doryce: starting to.

Doryce picks at a tuft, smells around at a few flowers, but zeroes in on something hidden in the deep roots. it's the sound of...

Doryce: PUMPKIN SPICE AIR FRESHENER! i'm getting two! they will be so cute for our new bathroom! and they'll constantly remind us.

Gladyce: oh jolly ho! i am so happy! we were DESPERATE for that good gas! we were using that godawful broken bottle of Poop Juice Potpourri with the bee-handle-stick missing, didn't clear the air at all! i was reduced to pouring the liquid into the toilet-bowl water before each flush! do you mind if i use the Pumpkin Spice Spray constantly?! like all the time? i want to spray it once every hour so our bathroom will have a permanent pie-stench on the walls.

Doryce: you go right ahead, babe. you poo like a girl. like a girl who is finally free to poo in society and the world. i want you to poo to your heart's content. i want you to poo a ton, until there's a metric ton of poo in there.

Gladyce: ready for our adventure, lover? send us to the nearest pasture clearing full of orange leaves, wooden talismen, and naked trees!

Bump: i still say it's so cool that you can just walk down any quaint village street through a line of people without a bodyguard.

Boris Johnson: well not now.

Bump: i had to languish as i made all the stone steps of the swirly staircase up to the last room high in the Tower to visit you here. what did you do?

Bojo: i was born to greatness. and i didn't do my homework. despite all ten of my fingers in these tight iron shackle heavy fingergloves, i'm still managing to write the UK Constitution onto this parchment here buried in the hay with the pigs rolling around on it. i don't need your help. i do but i don't. can you perchance ask the Negotiator to come in now? he's right behind that heavy door there.

Bump: i told him he was fired. he laughed at me with that unsettling Kawhi laugh. well, seems you have it all under control here, so easy peasy lemon squeezey. see ya see ya wouldn't want to be ya.

Bojo: that's difficult difficult lemon difficult in British. ah, The Queen, send her in!

Bump: hey queenie, you really need to install a StairMaster on this spiral staircase, you know?

The Queen: done? i'm NOT going down into those Catacombs and the weird goofy parchments in those cubbyholes! that place is dustier than ME!!!

Bojo: yes i am quite finished. what's the way, Madam? what's the way out of this, My Queen and Your Majesty?

The Queen: the only way is Essex.

Bojo: why didn't we do this a LONG time ago?

The Queen: cos i was watching The Only Way Is Essex. hey don't blame me, YOU people wanted Meghan Markle, it's HER fault nothing will ever get done as long as she's in this Castle house.

Bojo: as Queen. i still haven't met her, can you believe it? i mean what's the point of being PM then? first thing i do when i win reelection for my infinity term is i put the Thames into all the guardhouses.

The Queen: Bo, less flapping gums, more chewing Wrigley gum as you write. gum will be the only food you will ever eat again the rest of your life.

Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: oh how future sex will have the same problems as present sex. also, where are you from? where do you come from? and watch out for those Cuban women, they are armed. all those Cuban women are filled with irresistible salsa.

Bump: i envy them. those Cuban chicas. i'm NOT a bucket of bolts, that's what's scary...

Laertus: even though you look like Frankenstein. that's what you go as every Halloween, right sir? you have the perfect body for Frankenstein every year!

Eye: just need the green facepaint, already got the neck bolts. as i always say about The Munsters...

Dirg: so the new SVU cop's a Lebanese lesbian, right? i read that in the Lesbian Examiner.

Laertus: that was the PERFECT thing for them to do! perfect response! they have Liv's little fro-hellion kid think baseball is BORING---perfect timing---cos he wants to fucking DANCE!!! so he opts for and joins the ballet! and of course he's the only boy in the ballet class for miles! perfect response to Lara Spencer! you go, son! spread your thin-leotard-tight wings and fly!!!

Bump: see this troubles me, boys are being raised wacky these days. why isn't Bojo the Future King of England?

Blue Stan Lee makes his last call:

Stan: i have to go away for a while. to recharge. but Francis Ford, you hurt me, you really did. i'll be leaving with a sour taste in my mouth. we New York guys have to stick together.

Francis Ford Coppola: i'm sorry Stan, you're my friend for afterlife. i really don't want to make you cry. wow, this is the first time the world is seeing you cry, Stan. no. the world needs you to be forever happy and eternally hopeful and ovally optimistic. it's just they get me so mad! nobody saw The Rain People. that's what i wanted to do, FUCK the Godfather Sequels!!! they MADE me do them. like i'm some scadushe anime Dragon Suck My Balls sensei or whatever. and then i see on the big screen at my home theatre this black bitch who controls the weather!! nuh uh, no WAY, not in my house! i did that first, I controlled the rain first. no more of these millennial black bitches. i control the rain goddammit! Maria LaRosa PLEASE COME BACK. now i'm crying rain!

Rubikon joins the Red Circle Table and he seems to fit in, he slips in like butta, like a banana peel fueling a jet plane, like he was always there and always meant to be there and he's the perfect fit for it:

Rubikon: i like you, holmes.

Llywarch: well i'm glad SOMEONE does. at this table. i have friends in the other world, i straddle worlds.

Rubikon: like a sex machine no doubt, with those hooves of yours. Thanks, Algorithm. right? it should be Thanks, Algorithm instead of Thanks, Obama. Mandela Effect. what's up with Childish Gambino? right? he actually got up on a stage for one of these endless needless award shows and thanked not God but THE ALGORITHM!!! he thanked The Algorithm. *eyes widen* i mean...

Dirg: that Matthew McConaughey commercial tho…

Eye: Matthew is kind enough to join us right now. brought to you by KIND bars.

Matthew McConaughey emerges from out of a huge cloud of pink smoke. he drops to the road floor, stays motionless for a long minute, but then pops right back up again on his spurs and eats his ten-gallon cowboy hat with 20 little bites.

Matthew: unscathed. like a snake *hsssssss*

Eye: you are amazing! you are a miracle! how'd you survive all that?

Matthew: it's what i tell kids. not my kids but kids. only I, TV's Matthew McConaughey, can survive vaping. it's all bubblegum-flavored now as you can see. it's not for kids. it kills kids. more than low self-esteem kills kids. i survive and survive alone cos of my Texan accent. i have a Texan accent that when i say something, i can coerce ANYBODY to do ANYTHING.

Eye: 9 1/2 Weeks and go! wow!

Eye: as we all agree, there is NOTHING like soft-core! the way it's filmed, the saturation, you know you're in for a good story with your porn, it's porn with a purpose. filmed on a feathery lens, a travelogue of interspersed feasts for the eyes before you get down to the main course. i am ashamed i didn't value Zalman King enough to service him when he hit the big time with a feature. his wallet i mean, not there. patronize him---yuck! i hate that word! for all the pleasure Fox Mulder has given me for all the years of my life, it's only fair. we ALL owe Zalman a debt of gratitude!

Dirg: WELL THE FOOD SCENE HAPPENED! don't say that was a waste of food! it was the '80s, there was still food back then.

Gordon Ramsay: that scene inspired me to become a chef.

Laertus: i really loved this. there was something so sensuous and sumptuous about it. you're right, dear, it IS a travelogue! a wonderful free travelogue of New York City! The City in all its glory: the mess, the smells, the wafting sewer steam, the catcalling hardhatters, the weird squiggly things on sticks---delicacy food---the even weirder toys which run on air and magic, not batteries, clanking fair tabletops. and the nice scarf.

Dirg: watch it, that's weird Chinese food, they've taken over by now.

Eye: honestly my favorite part of the film is the kid farting the Jaws theme. Zalman really knows how to capture spontaneous human life. you're sensing my priorities. when he leaves her alone on that Ferris wheel eternally spinning up and down, that is a real nightmare i have of my eternity when i die. not funny. i got tips for days from this film! look, the food scene is sexy, but yeah, actually, it IS a waste of food! how did he get all that food?! it was all right there at his fingertips, ALL food and ANY food, anything he could imagine, all at his disposal. it's cool and all it just went on for WAY too long.

Dirg: you could tell Kim Basinger was starting to get sick of it around the part where the honey is shot in her mouth like cum. look at her face, it's starting to scrunch up. like Meg Ryan's face but annoyed. thank you, Kim, for teaching me the best place to masturbate is in a movie theatre. ah the '80s, back when there was still such a thing as high-stakes oil-painting for-profit profiteering, bargaining and lucrative secret double-dealing trading, hiding a painting under your long overcoat when you go eat out at a darkened indoor oyster pit. full of dames with pearls and Mobius scarves. and backstabbing friends/coworkers. when the girl is still hot crossdressing as a man and you want to fuck her as this new man, that still isn't gay, right?

Eye: that doesn't exist anymore. sadly. nobody does paintings anymore. Banksy has cornered the ENTIRE market these days. no French Lupin jewel-and-artwork heists anymore. at least not in Paris. it's a shame. imma start painting.

Laertus: dinner parties are where art critics REALLY let loose after a couple of wine glasses and tell their fellow-traveler critics how they REALLY feel about their biting criticism. with harsh jokes about their coworkers. i just love the panoply of The City at night, the energy, the Annie Lennox, the heartbeat, the streets lined with Broadway lights, everywhere hangs green French-ticklers in greasy packages with a French black model on the front showcasing her naked wares, it's all very human of sex and intimacy, of different people trying to come together to better understand each other.

Eye: but seriously, how DID the dude know the woman would take to his blindsiding out-of-the-blue S&M ways?

Dirg: S&M is not the same as being sadomasochistic. now me, personally, i'd report him to the cops, the cops are your friends. these high-strung Wall Street types MUST relieve pressure in some way. like a blood clot in the pan of the head. not good to keep it all in, all you're doing is selling other people's money, that's depressing the more you think too hard on it. you know Mickey Rourke in this is like what Lyle Lovett would have looked like if Lyle had been born normal. heart-shaped ass, every man needs a chick with a heartshaped ass.

Eye: and then, to the film's credit, we see PROOF of Kim's very heart-shaped ass! nice work, Show. Red Flag Warning: the guy may be fire, but if he "doesn't want to see your friends", get out now.

Laertus: yeah, the troubling aspects of "'80s rape", where it's not really rape, it's still party rape, or it's to teach the woman a lesson, for her own good, but it's not really rape, it's just pulling at her apron strings a bit tight, it's more about dominance...who wears the pants when the pants come off...sigh, oh well...and of course you need a Rolling Stone at the party to make this soft-core porn legitimate. then it becomes just arty.

Dirg: hey, as bad as it was, this was a TAMED-down watered-down version of the BOOK! the BOOK was dark as fuck! in the book the dude was basically a sociopath who forced the girl to commit armed robbery in an elevator just so he could get off. then he dumps her at a mental institution and she never sees him again. talk about just sex. the author committed suicide.

Eye: sigh, that makes me depressed. i'm gonna have to contact the Power Rangers on that one. there are too many magazines in the world. please, everybody, you don't have to kill yourselves to make your art legitimate.

Dirg: Kim was a little too proud to kick that mugger in the balls. and then of course that gets them off enough that they have sex in the sewer rain. i mean this couple was so hard-wired their wires had frayed, they couldn't get off anymore, they literally had to force muggers with wielding knives to run-chase after them in the night New York streets before they could erect again. speaking of scenes which lasted too long, that last scene…

Eye: right? the so-called watered-down ending. i mean it's sweet and gauzy and everything, but. he will count to 3...or was it 100?...and won't turn around till she comes back to him, knocks on his apartment door again, and the breakup never happened. it wasn't an insanely nonsensical lustful instinctual fling, it was lasting love. then Mickey Rourke counts...and waits...and turns around...and turns his head back so all we see is his apartment fern-ficus...and keeps counting...to 100...to 1000...to 1000000...

Madame Pons: TURN THE CAMERAS OFF! unless you're gonna look at this bed's ticking. wonderful ticking on this bed!

Sue Su: *head full of water* no wait. you want to see my cunt, fine, i'm lowering my pants. see? nothing there, there are no tattoos by my pussy.

the online audience crowd mob gasps in livestream.

Sue Su: nobody EVER looks at my eyes. see?

Sue's eyes have pink crystals in their pupils. which sparkle.

Madame Pons: oh Sue dear. you did that with surgery? you don't need to modify, you're perfect as you are. you are desirable and lovable. i know this cos i love you. bring it in everyone.

the three of them (Takahashi) group-hug.

Madame Pons: let's go home everybody. we're all too anxious in this world. i get so anxious whenever i scroll through my Instagram and see a million anxiety coaches.

Takahashi: good idea. i need to get away for awhile.

Dirg: HEY TAKAHASHI! hate to ruin the moment but let's go on the Wendy's Feast of Legends, just the two of us. all the levels, all the areas. we need to make up for lost time. catch down. we need a cleansing adventure.

Cotard: so...Scientology.

Dirg: Scientology?

Cotard: yeah. i wasn't sure at first, especially all the alien stuff, but the more i looked into it the more i realized about myself. i researched myself: i need to belong to something bigger than myself for me to feel anything inside. if it's just me, i'm doomed. with Scientology, i'm part of a group, i matter cos we're all working toward something big. i feel good about myself, i'm a cog in the cabal, you know? makes me feel like i'm worth it, like my choices and the croutons and citrus i eat will be recorded in time.

Dirg: i can't do this anymore. my life has become impossible to live. no more fastfooding only to video-game. solely to score high on a screen. where my daily life consists of two things and two things only: two desires i need to quelch: getting fried food down my piehole and masturbating to my Instagram. scrolling, jacking, and ingesting. i hate this but...…...fuck, okay, fine, i'll go back to school. Obec University here i come. college lectures again...yay?

Cotard: i figured you'd cave, so i went ahead and behind your back signed you up for 60 courses this upcoming semester. you gotta catch up, right? don't worry, i know you, they're all art classes, graphic novels you'll be penciling.

Dirg: the Melissa Maker A-ha "Take On Me" music-video graphic novel?

Cotard: no, the Mueller Report graphic novel.

Dirg: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Dirg: there's something about this time of year, it's hard to quit. McDonald's always introduces back the McRib this time of year, it's cool and apt and apropos. and on the app this year. it's the sandwich for the season. that rib pattie inbetween two orange leaves. and candy for dessert.

Bump: hey, yous coming with us? joining the rest of us on the field trip? gonna go around the neighborhood streets begging for candy? hey what are you wearing?

Dirg: *head spinning* me? o sir, this is just my...uh...British punk costume...yeah, i'm wearing it ironically, i'm making fun of that whole leftist culture. or is it rightist culture? it's all the same now. right? you proved that.

Bump: what? couldn't hear you, kid. i'm going to the cinema tonight. my handlers tell me i REALLY need to take the lesson from this clown film.

Dirg: Joker? cos Cancel Culture destroyed the world, that's why we have Joker.

Bump: no, Wrinkles The Clown.

Dirg looks off into the edge of the hills. as the last remaining bit of sun removes its bath on all the rolling paths. bike treads and children wandering are heard in the distance, chilly crisp red Elliott hood-sweaters everywhere, all in costume, whispering their secret candy loot, picking up for the first time a stray French-tickler in their white pillowcase bag, ungloved, cold, used, sticky like candy. green glow-sticks lose their luster trying to compete for trying to outshine the bold unquenchable night sky filled to the brim with stars. and emerging from below the city streets, wafting out onto the open air and into every nook and cranny and little square hole of every window of every house of every block in the entire network of neighborhoods encircling the College Proper: suburban sauce. every roof, every cloud, every road sign, staining every leaf of every tree. the heavy piquant stench of McRib is everywhere.