I'LL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN

learned:

* these people need Dr. House.

* it's pronounced po-TAH-to.

* i never conceived of putting whole tomatoes into a salad till i went to an Olive Garden. lo and behold, the cherry tomato! will wonders never cease. thank god for Olive Garden in our lives over the years teaching us things like the importance of family and that things can be neverending.

* teenagers need to rebel, it's part of growing up. they will never call their parents to let them know what they're up to. cos the parents got them that phone that isn't a phone and only takes pictures.

* please, i'm telling you, i speak from experience: pills are evil.

* this is like if Seinfeld were a horror flick.

* this is like if Paranormal Activity were a sitcom.

* that handyman is supposed to be Jesus, huh?

* it's comforting to know that Sonic the Hedgehog is there. and that he's achieved Super Saiyan.

* CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

* i find that the most malleable clay is Golem clay.

* this is a warning to all parents: thin ceilings affect us all.

* you can tell the father was a pastor in a previous life.

* that little boy will be scarred for life.............from his grandmother.

* poor girl just wanted to sleep. stupid daylight saving stole an hour from her.

* it's more fun outside anyway. on the grass. nature. hey whatever happened to lawn darts anyway?

* i'm not sure what Super Saiyan Sonic did to save the day. but i'm sure he did. he's so fast you can never see what he's doing.

* the ending: i envy those people. i wish i could take my nap now.

* what is a nightmare really? other than your brain's way of scaring the shit out of you.

* why do all birthday parties end up being traumatic?

* to those who thought this was boring and stupid: i offer you the cherry tomato. let your imagination run wild.

WARNING!!! DO NOT CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.

forget what you have just seen and have a happy weekend

TMIT: I SLEPT FOR A BILLION YEARS, MINUS ONE HOUR FOR DAYLIGHT SAVINGS

St. Patrick is my favorite saint...

1. have you ever been so loud having sex that housemates/neighbors commented or complained? complained no, but they commented. on messageboards. i guess that made them feel better. i was sorry about it, sometimes i lose myself and become an animal. they wanted to throw us out, but it was just me living there.

2. ever had kids or parents bust in on you in the middle of full-on sex? no, but my parents once did bust in on me right in the middle of me watching a particularly awkward scene of my anime show.

3. ever sucked on someone's toes? licked their feet? your request or theirs? yes. yes. neither. which was weird.

4. describe your typical sexual romp. a) playful and tame b) introduction of outfits and toys c) love shocking your partner................by trying new things d) missionary, lube, sleep:

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

except with lube.

also there was this one time where i wrecked the trailer of my Optimus Prime...

5. speaking of lube, what is your favorite lube for sex and why? i'm not gonna say butter. margarine. cos it's less fat. but y'know i was chatting with mom and she told me she was watching a PBS talk which outlined that it's not fat you have to be concerned with, it's sugar. of course the one giving the lecture was Willy Wonka so take that with a grain of sugar.

BONUS: what are you looking forward to this week? not springing forward again.

ALSO, THIS, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK



CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

AGENT EINSTEIN

learned:

* Vault Boy skips along with his dunce hat on.
homeless monsters by the side of the road: at least he gets to go to school.

* narrator: an empty mind is....................what you have.
Vault Boy: yes? and?
narrator: that's it.

* Vault Boy enters the code.
Vault Boy: well whaddaya know? the password was PASSWORD.

* computer: enter password.
Vault Boy: what is the password?
computer: your name.
Vault Boy: A-HA! tricked ya! *enters VAULT BOY*
computer: error. enter your real name.
Vault Boy: A-HA! tricked ya again! *enters YOUR REAL NAME*

* the door slides open and out rolls Rosie the Robot.
Rosie: you ain't Mr. J! where's Mr. J?!
Vault Boy: there was a nuclear holocaust. everyone is dead.
Rosie: *oily robot tears* oh Mr. J. well not everyone is dead. here, try this tea.
Vault Boy: don't mind if i do *gulps down the entire teacup*
Rosie flashes a menacing smile.
Rosie (robotic laughter): heh heh heh heh

* in the lab, Vault Boy fashions himself a spiffy new state-of-the-art four-barreled gun.
Vault Boy looks directly at the camera.
Vault Boy: Nerf.

* narrator: note that the S stands for Superman....i mean, Safety. couldn't get that trademark lifted.

* Vault Boy (reading): the big books have the big words.

* Vault Boy (swaying left and right): i'm riding the bus like a good boy.

* Vault Boy: brother, can i use your blood?
fallen soldier: yes, brother, anything for the cause.
Vault Boy: thank you. after the war, i'm gonna be a vampire...

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. i'm gonna go sleep now for a billion years...

BABELITY

the house. is a shack. the house is situated in the middle. dead middle. a house of no end. creepily creeping. of pasta. it has dilapidated over time but it still holds up. it's gray with white paneling charred on the sides. parked by a cruel rope a horse has broken free from its pole made slanty by a surreptitious Cotard. Codrus would have been the better rhyme, but that's not how life is. an airplane softly buzzes overhead. this house has one room, where the table lies. it looks like a grand oak table long and proud but it's a collegial round white circle upon further notice. nobody makes it this far to observe it deeply. the family is heaving breakfast as always. the woman is wearing a purple frock of silver fleurs-de-lis, her hair happily shaggy, curling by the dying sun. she smiles cos she has every right to smile genuine and warm and snickery. her two sons pull each other by the hair. as normal. Cotard, the good son, eyes dainty, the one who isn't done learning. and Codrus, Goofus, eyes droopy, the one who stopped learning miles ago. the tablecloth is the ol' dusty beige curtain. the mother tried to fight the light for awhile but said fuck it one day and just let it all in. there's a mirror, the only glass, with wireframe steamed with punk that hangs around the sidetop above the table, gothily reflecting. near the center of the table one candle with a fire base holds a wax flame atop alight. Fuerza is setting up the table, one fork, an alpha, one spoon, another alpha, and a knife that is a scissors of blades of two butter knives.

Fuerza: it's getting cold.

she pours the coffee into the orange juice. on the menu today: bread brilliantly toasted, eggs scrambled with creme fraiche folded into chives, salted duck egg, steak after a loss, and necktops on punji sticks. nachos and hot-buttered popcorn on the cob for the show. baby Imzhan injures his tiny peepee trying to open the pink bacon case then promptly falls asleep on the floor. black and tan for dessert.

Fuerza: welp, only for mama. *ah* delicious digestif. i deserve this. i'm your typical SAHM who drinks a little bit too much afternoon wine cooler with her Oprah.

Codrus: you can keep her. way too much hardship being both a black and a woman. how do they do it? is it meant to be this hard? extra hard? double hardship? pain pouring out perfecting pouts and popping pills. you can't think of the meaning, your brain is just a blob of fat, you have to feel the meaning.

Fuerza: don't make me look bad in front of the other mothers. you're bad enough. you illiterate ill-raised ingrate. you have to learn. you HAVE to learn. that's the way it is. a hater has to sleep some time, that's when i intrude, inside a dream quickly forgotten, in the mellow moments, and plant a quiet red flower that creeps up through the concrete. that's when you use your noodle, in the silence of sleep. now finish your noodles. slurp them up with a slurping sound to let me know you like them. noise, am i right? that's the way it is, son. it's kinda just perfect, though, huh?

Cotard: yes, mama. unfortunately netflix only has Jerry Springer, still waiting on those Oprah repeats to upload. perhaps in the next Eight Days of Eighties. i talked to that woman again on instagram. you know the one.

Codrus: leave her in the dust. not worth the trouble. never worth it. bitches, please. harlots only hatch headaches.

Cotard: well i didn't talk to her actually. i don't know what to do. we had been cordial. she wears a bison hat.

Codrus puts his hand-ears to his ear-sides.

Cotard: no, Street Fighter Bison. beautiful german lady. it was international women's day. i forgot to wish it to her. first. i used her space to wish it to you, Fuerza, with a yellow heart.

Fuerza: awwwww, like a good mijo. i'm sure she understood.

Cotard: she stoned me. answered everyone but me. i wished her HIWD but it might as well have been hi or Happy Iraq War Day, i wasn't gonna get a reply. we had been okay, now it's awkward. her next pic came up. tennis ball in bernard's mouth. i love tennis. i love dogs. do i unfollow? do i like to see if she's blocked me? do i ignore her for the rest of time? this indecision will haunt me and hit me, there is no moratorium, there'll just be peaceless silence all across the plains. i'll forever feel morbidly misaligned moving again.

Fuerza: wait, let me see that thing. i'm not mad about the gram, but i told you to stop playing these video games. they only lead to ruin. i don't get it. there's already magic all around. i see a plumber but i don't see the crack anywhere. never trust a man with pointy ears. and these carnal combat games with the ninjas where you can't see their faces. Mask. and i'm not talking about the video games. pleasure is a privilege. your home will be your graveyard. the only glass in this house is that mirror over there.

Codrus traps his brother in a rear naked choke and gives him an indian burn on his shoulder and a noogie on his noggin.

Codrus: yeah, bro, grams in moderation. bye mom! we can walk to school. we'll look both ways.

Fuerza: wait, mister! you, bad seed, i have a feeling i won't be seeing you for some time. give your mama a kiss on the mouth for old time's sake. you've got some detention in you, i can see it. finish your oatmeal and your errand before you go. i'd tell you to complete your homework but what's the point. you, prodigal son, since we are here on Bridge Street with those poor sealions barking on the pier, have some local cuisine, some french sourdough bread, some oysters kilpatrick, some green goddess dressing, that's my specialty. eat up and feed it to those poor barking animals out there. i hope their food supply hasn't been wiped out. my sea is somber. nature is in algal bloom. they just had to move faster, didn't they? couldn't wait for the next ice age. stupid man! i wonder about my decision sometimes.

Codrus (outer monologue): i love being around trash, being in it, within it. i love taking out the trash every morning. whenever i do it, i always feel empty inside, like all the nastiness has gone out of the house, it's clean and cleansed and colonic. come over here, i'll show you, give you the master tour. heh, watch your step. yeah. coming out here to the front porch. overcast today. so we just move the rocking chair here over to the side to reveal the hole in the loose plank there, see? we remove the plank to reveal the hole. this hole with all the hands coming out of it. the Wat Rong Khun hands. the hands are white and black and green. i don't mind the hands so much as the voices that get in your head. and dump and close the plank and done. voices over. what's that red? my hand is bleeding. huh, didn't notice. i love taking out the trash.

Fuerza: don't have time to wash, son, you're late.

the boys finish their oatmeal. the oatmeal is really gray moondust. Codrus gulps down the last of his milk by eating the cow out back. Cotard declines and becomes a vegan right then and there on the spot. Codrus bites into a bloody knife while eating his porridge, dug into the sand with viginti inscribed on its dulled sterling blade.

Cotard: i'm at a loss.

Fuerza: there's not enough money. you're gonna have to split that fin for hot lunch today.

Codrus: *Nelson haha* i'm gonna eat your lunch.

Fuerza: gotta fight, mijo. if you don't stand up to the bully in the family, the cycle never ends. but i love your animal spirit. so i've stashed some hidden goods in your backpack, some frozen custard in your thermos and fish sticks in your DuckTales lunchbox. i left a little motivational meme on a yellow postit, don't open it til lunch when you'll need a positive positing pickmeup. a mother's love works so much better than 5 Hour Energy. don't tell Codrus. Codrus, you'll forget your Duck Hunt lunchbox. now off you go, two, shuffle forth. i want to eat my oysters kilpatrick in peace.

Codrus: kirkpatrick?

Fuerza: either way, it's such a lovely name. oysters rockefeller? not so much.

Free Willy jumps onto the table and onto the silver platter.

Fuerza (softly and with a sly eye): did you bring your swim trunks for the pool, mijo? and extra towels?

Cotard (mouthing mutter): si, mama.

Codrus: bye mom! i feel like i'm in a cage in here.

Cotard: women's day. huh. oh wait, i forgot to do one thing.

Cotard reels himself around the table to find a baby girl toddling underneath on a damp towel. he kisses both her cheeks and hugs her, and the two kids are off. Fuerza picks up the two cats which have leaped onto the table and holds them with her arms outstretched so she can get a good look at their faces. and bodies.

Fuerza: i'm never gonna have grandkids. so you are my fur grandbabies.

she takes a sip of her coffee from her chipped All Hearts mug and licks the cats on their faces which the cats turn to decline with a meow-cry.

Fuerza gets up and checks herself out in the mirror. instead of showing her her image the mirror begins drawing a sketch of her in pencil. first the outline...

the boys reenter frantically.

Cotard: oh, almost forgot, it's picture day! need moar money.

Fuerza: what am i, a cash register? the spaghetti's getting cold and less thick. fuck me. shit that, i'll take your picture right here. gotta save you. gather round, tight circle, let's go.

Fuerza collects her two sons Cotard and Codrus around her wide arms and fits them into the frame. she holds up the camera with her outstretched hand in front of their three faces and gets in one good shot that just makes the portrait dimensions. the flash-lamp goes off in an explosion of smoke.

Fuerza: this is the very first photograph.

Codrus: not only that, it's the very first selfie.

Cotard: what's a selfie?

Fuerza: the end of introspection and the beginning of fear.

there is shitloads of traffic this morning. the boys have to do a bit of dodgy dodging and fancy footwork and pretty parkour to manuever past the sunday drivers. Codrus stays on the yellow dotted dividing line and lets all the cars crash into him.

Cotard (halfheartedly): don't do it. numbnuts. do you want to be an exquisite corpse?

Codrus: i dunno, i want to feel again. i still feel like i'm in a cage, even here.

Fuerza can be seen on her front porch, waving wildly hi and bye with a spaghetti spatula in her hands, one with a heart on each tong organization.

Fuerza: come on, i hear the bell ring. vamonos. i'll hold up the traffic. one flash of my tits and they're putty in my hand. just go. they know me at the faculty, tell them i signed the permission slip in spirit. facu.

Cotard: come on, bro, get up, i'll carry you. why is your bookbag so heavy?

Codrus: got my boombox in there.

the boys open a door and are at the property line of the schoolyard.

Cotard (sniffs): we're here.

Codrus (sniffs): and i'm still in my cage.

the asphalt is black and colored brightly in white chalk, divided up into hopscotch rectangles and squares. and would-be jocks. the kickball field is indistinguishable from a baseball diamond. the tetherball circles house a big harmful steel metal pole drilled down into its center with the yellow volleyballs' cruel ropes tightly bound all around the pole that all you see is light-red string. the morning announcements are lately made through the loudspeakers blaring all across the hilly area.

Cotard: you know, we always hear the announcements but we can never find where the school loudspeakers are located.

Codrus: it's magic, like Hogwarts.

a girl is shyly leaning against the brick handball wallcourt. Sid, Rumi, and Glidden are thumbing marbles at their circle. except it's not quite a circle.

Codrus (pushing Cotard): wait, hold up, i wanna scare them. i'm gonna hide in the bushes. imma b a pirate. watch this.

Codrus cuts himself on the serrated leaves of the overgrown ivies hanging out of the encircling chain-link fence of pentagons.

Cotard (Isabella singsong): what'cha doin'? are you guys having hot lunch today? i only got 5 dollars, can't get the supreme pizza.

Sid (face lights up): hi, my friend. i think it's enough for a chili dog. the price always goes up.

Glidden (face droops): not enough for a Chicago-style hot dog, though. i brought my sadbrownsack lunch today. i feel like such an outcast. i'm thinking of leaving. dying my hair pink.

Rumi (face drops): my mom made me two pieces of bread with spaghetti in the middle. and a note. awwww. i'll keep that private amongst the two of us.

Cotard: that reminds me, i forgot to thank my mom this morning.

Sid: you'll have another chance, my brother. oh look! (lights up) up in the sky! it's a bird! it's a missing plane! it's...........no, it's a bird, a green bird.

Codrus as the green bird flies around erratically and does a loop-de-loop perching himself on Cotard's shoulder. Codrus poofs back into a man, a boyman, flips Cotard over WWF wrestling-style and cradles Cotard in swaddling towels, tapping his nose, babying him with babytalk, and feeding him pruned prunes.

Codrus: mama said. what's up, guys? how's tricks how's tricks? ready for hot lunch at high noon? it's Wednesday. love Wednesdays. what d'y'all have for lunch? hey is that a circle or a pentagram?

Cotard: pentagon.

Sid (droops): oh it's you. your head is big. your hat is too small.

Codrus (shoves Sid against the fence, following a pattern of marking): what'd you call me?! do you know who i am? who do you think you are? how dare you call me fat and stupid! (flips baseball cap backwards and turns the ring on his finger around) enter my ring. here's my finger in your eye. taste my gold.

Codrus shoots Sid's face. the other two are too scared to intervene so they go by the bystandard standard.

Codrus: look at that honey over there. that girl is prime meat. i'm gonna make her mine. i'm gonna smash that dime into pieces.

Sid (starts to cry): please don't be so coarse. my sensitive ears can't take it!

Codrus: awwww. should be. that girl is our future. without her, we are forced to become famous. are you jealous? did you want her for yourself? but you didn't have the words? didn't have the style? weren't a part of the world enough to be worldly? you imagined her as your future wife, your lady, your eighty, baking her pies and kissing her on the sill. and a little birdie would come and cover your hole. pathetic boy with your newfangled mini tv in your hand. that won't get you anywhere. are you still breathing?

Sid (struggling): yes, thanks to you. what do you want? everyone has a price. candy? gum? rummage through my rumpled pockets and in my socks, you can eat my whole load.

Codrus: not me. i can't be bought.

Sid: i'll trade you two mini KitKats for a Twix.

Codrus: bad deal, kid. Always Be Candying. always open with Whatchamacallit, close on nerds. you gotta know how to negotiate like me. gotta run your personal life like a business. i won't destroy you this time. you've got gumption, little man, think i'll keep you around, turn you. it's nice having someone around.

Sid: i refuse. j'accuse. i have my clique, get yours.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

Codrus steams back up, clenches his throat, and one-punches Sid through the wall. except Cotard saves Sid at the last minute as the handball wall crumbles in a heap of ashes and dirt brick. the girl luckily had since left, disappeared, never uttering a word, and was never heard from again.

Codrus: throw another one in the pile. *ah* i feel better.

Cotard: remember what mama said?

did you remember to forget?

no, i forgot to remember.

Codrus: i know, channel your rage positively. with music.

Codrus plops his heavy rainbow boombox in front of his captive audience, blows on the tape cassette, blows on the right tapedeck painted red and pushes PLAY.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

Codrus: what you think? how u like? just some fat beats i've been working on.

Cotard (chanting): remix! remix! remix! re...sorry.

Codrus: well, if you insist...

Codrus hurries up and flips over the cassette and flips to the left tapedeck, not painted.

CLICK HERE FOR THE B-SIDE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

Cotard: tuneful. you have us at a deficit. you have surpassed Mozart and Kanye. you are the Kubrick of painters, the Escobar of apostles.

Codrus: that is called music. see? forget those wenches, this is what gets us high. what's that in your hand, weird kid?

Rumi: my dice. i was saving them in my palm for later. my deadbeat dad gave them to me. i treasure them. i cherish the chance. as a surprise for the guys.

Codrus twirls his finger.

Codrus: look again. carefully this time. comb through the lines of your palm.

the two die have transformed into two pieces of the Stones.

Rumi: no thanks, man. i just say no.

Sid: i DARE to...

Codrus: yeah, yeah, we get it. (swallows the two rocks himself) it's the greatest things, you never have to think again, just take two and call me in the morning. i can lie back on this tin trash can, let my arms and legs dangle, and look up to the sky. zone out. fruit and veg. oh look, up in the sky! it's the green bird. what am i doing up there?

the Cowboy Bebop "Green Bird" song plays on the loudspeakers.

also on the loudspeakers:
Chris Rock: welcome to the Oscars! (and then Chris Rock walks off the stage and boycotts the rest of the show.)

the green bird lands on Codrus's gigantic head. Codrus has a starry look in his eyes and pets the bird's plumage.

Codrus: prettie birdie. i'm jealous. i can never get it as good as you, bro. mine is always a copy, yours always seems like a real animal. *pet pet pet stroke stroke stroke* so where did the Stones come from, anyway?

the bell rings. the hot-lunch truck lumbers its way into the schoolyard, busting its tire trying to get over the hump. it churns out that creaky racist ice-cream-truck song. the truck is adorned with bad bunting, truffles, and crosscountry miniflags. the sidedoors open and it's quite a spread: dogs, pizza, AND chicken! the last embers of sunlight bounce off the driver's bald head. a plume of smoke escapes from the other door window.

MEANWHILE, DURING LUNCH

Codrus (in Colonel Sanders twang): man oh man that chemistry is hard. did you get the fillup box? are you filling up?

the three would-be surfers are having their lunch together. but they're not eating any pizza. they are merely smelling the aroma from the truck. they manipulate the stink lines of the pizza wafting in the light summer breeze on this misty day and form three slices of invisible pizza which they eat.

the three bums: we've had our fill.

Codrus: you're eating air, brahs. hey bro, aren't you hot in that thing?

Cotard: i've grown comfortable in my coat, thank you. it's animal-free. i'm accustomed to it now. i smell the pizza, too. it's surprisingly plain. you didn't get the supreme?

the three bums: no, cheese pizza is the best. just cheese and bread. gooey and gentle. starch and simple. burning on the roof of your mouth where your voice is. everyone loves pizza. even vegans. especially vegans. you can smell the cheese. you smell the essence of it. it's like that old ditty goes, some folk music refrain i heard once before Codrus invented music:

the cheese stands alone

Cotard is drawing the smoke towards himself. he directs the smell lines from the truck oven to form a rainbow spinning wheel that turns into a spoke of cheese. it is real cheese, it's corporeal, he can hold it in his hand.

the three bums: how's the pizza taste?

Cotard: i'm tasting the pizza right now. but it's not a circle of pizza pi. i bite into it and i only taste the cheese. it's not pizza made of cheese, it's cheese. it tastes weird. foreign.

the three bums: lucky. at least you get to see it. we don't.

Cotard: not yet. you'll get there. maybe i'll die or something. what are you guys doing after school?

the three bums in unison: finding our loves!

Cotard (bashfully): girls?

Sid (blushes): in bed!

Rumi: i'm thinking of taking up surfing. there's a star i want to bank on.

Glidden: girls? i've never thought about that. not once. the galaxy is so full.

Cotard: you have all the space in the world.

everyone starts laughing uncontrollably for no reason and can't stop.

Codrus: what's so funny.

Wolf comes sloppily in.

Codrus: you look like you ate a dozen corndogs. none of that chili shit, just plain hot dog, liberal. and why were you absent yesterday? you were the scuttlebutt of this whole joke of a school.

Wolf: why are you guys still here? it's a half-day. my mom took me to In-N-Out Burger. got me some animal fries. i went back home and i watched Looney Tunes at 1PM. i never get to do that. they were so mysterious and awesome. then i got bored and came back here. nobody's in the house, my folks are at my little brother's teeball game and the place gets lonely and cavernous. i can't do spelling in spooky. look, here's a picture of my baby bro on my instagram.

Codrus: that's that baby with the raised fist. he's flicking the world off.

Wolf: nah, he's giving the world inspiration, hope, he's gesturing to them YOU CAN DO IT! scroll, scroll, stroll. look at that beautiful woman with her beautiful expression, her beautiful pizza-slice wedge-shaped mouth, her lips like a quacking frog, her eyes lovingly raised up to her sick black cat. that's the most beautiful picture i will ever see. i think it's great we're all connected. i go on suicide-prevention boards all the time. i cry when i see threads where no one is answering.

hello? is anybody there? i know it's a tuesday afternoon but i need to talk to someone. now. it's all a lie. i can't do this anymore. it's just words. there's no meaning. i don't feel well. for four weeks. roughest spell yet.

i make sure to answer. i think of their mother. i never leave a thread bare. always by a hair's breadth. by the skin of my teeth hidden by my bushy beard.

Codrus: yeah it's weird that a fifth-grader like you already has a full beard. have you heard the new Pablo? the new Baleen?

Wolf: love Baleen. i saved him from sacrificing himself to his sadness, killing his kin.

Codrus (low bellowing voice): no you didn't. he killed his kind. he didn't just suicide himself, he became a suicide bomber. you see it, don't you? you see his funeral playing out right now? his griefstricken mother veiled in patchy hexagonal black, morose mouth hidden, at the foot of the pew, unable to sit up? to die is one thing, but to bring shame to the family is eternal, to sow dishonor deadens the deity.

Wolf: how can you be so cruel? where's your soul?

Codrus: i'll trade you my thermos of klit liquor and my empty cornhusk for one of them things. my spaghetti comes with the egg on top. NBD. it's just another reality, an alternate dimension, one as real as the one you know.

Wolf: just because you can doesn't mean you should. that's mean, not meaning. i'm still human. this isn't a game, even though it's set up like a game.

Codrus: i've always wanted to master Go. ha ha. heh. heh heh. so where did the Stones come from?

Cotard: they came from you. your imagination.

Codrus (flustered): no, that can't be. no more tricks, facades, false doors. this is the REALITY! this is the ENDING!

Cotard: they come from where the wild things are. where they go. they are Calvinball, which we play at recess now instead of kickball. they are Mister Rogers. they are The X-Files mythology. they are Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac which i'm allowing him to finish now. i healed him. there is no justice. except in art. finish the art before helping the family. there is no room for forgiveness nor lost ideas. we are all at our core completionists. it's all made up.

Codrus (getting more and more heated): that can't be. after everything. it's a beautiful day in the culled n' sacked hood? every level up. every book. eating snakemeal. drinking every secret potion and using the excess as aftershave. eau de Ebert's comet. bitchin brews. every incantation. learning how to fight from Bruce Lee, Mugen, Jin, and Conor McGregor. secretly hating my mother to gain more eyesight.

Cotard: you need not insight, brother, but outsight.

Codrus: transform into the green bird! do it now! right now! i order you!

Cotard: if it keeps peace in the family, our house in order. i can't do it like mama's bird all big and yellow.

*poof*

Codrus (smiles): where's your stash? under the bed? i've checked there a dozen and once times. never could i find it. i know you're a druggie like me. you're no better than me. you fool mom but you're my inspiration.

Cotard (as the bird singing): it's me, brother. all of me. i make the sign of the cross in my mind. i don't do drugs. i've never touched the Stones. don't have the stomach for it. got a weak stomach. a fat flabby stomach.

Codrus (falls back and hits his head on the surface of the moon): *scratches the top of his head* *scratches the back of his head* *on the blood bubble blister on the back of his neck* new blood. i'm barely able to search my neck now my head's so massive. all i see is my own head. the dome. not outside. i don't see the horizon. the stars are my eyes. i can't touch my spine.

you have to understand: all of this has been going on while Codrus is still cradling Cotard in his arms.

Codrus (looking up at the baby): what is the meaning?

Cotard kisses Codrus on the mouth.

Cotard (meekly): there is no meaning. that is the meaning.

Codrus starts to snicker to himself. it grows. it develops into a full-blown wicked guffaw. and he grows. Codrus closes his eyes and laughs and laughs and laughs and takes his two fists, clasps them together, and punches his stomach to laugh more. he doubles over in rision.

the circle is as tight as it will ever be.

there is no meaning                              that is the meaning

there is no Big Bang. Codrus is sitting in a pool of his own filth. he tries to sit up and fit himself into a bathtub. Codrus drinks of his own bathwater but the bathwater dissolves Codrus into sugar. there is no Big Bang. instead, Codrus's head explodes and fills the galaxy.

out of the white ash, Codrus emerges. Codrus is a baby.

and he cries.

Codrus cries for all of eternity. his nose fills with snot.

a pitiful yearning woeful cry full of pain and desperation and uncertainty, wanting a woman

wanting a mommy

unable ever to see the man

on the first eternity, he cries for all the injustices that were electrocuted away

on the second eternity, he fills all the rivers, streams and bogs, but not the lakes, with his tears. the new worlds are filled with his sadness. that is why water is always salty

on the third eternity, he moans and wails with the Thom Yorke falsetto

and on the fourth eternity, not the final one but the clinching one, he cries for the collective burden of being alive in an unfair universe, for every thing who has lived or will ever live, stuck in boxes, stuck in shitty childhoods, branded with skin, dying of darkness, chasing smart and sexy, riddled with unknown diseases, hollowed-out and hungry, fashion victims, crooning against culture, body-shapers and circular boxes, circle boxes where you store the latest hats that Codrus wants to try on. like a baby. a baby that fights to go forward, fights back. babysoft skin made rough by rite. the milk that becomes the lotion that becomes the comet. hardened work. man-u-all. the baby brought into a strange environment with no light to count on, no teacher to stay with. why? why? why? sobbing in space.

Codrus cries forever.

AND ON THE LOUDSPEAKERS, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK, THIS

Fin(n and Rey)

TMIT: THIS BUD'S FOR US ALL

R.I.P. Bud Collins, without you i'd still be into baseball. and i'd still be wearing bermuda shorts.

1. have you ever devoted an entire day to sex and sexual activity (with breaks for eating)? planned or spontaneous? any kinky fun? i took a break for eating and the food was so good i forgot about the orgy. Taco Bell.

2. have you had simultaneous sex with two or more in a private residence? know them well or a setup casj encounter? this begs the question: is the Playboy Mansion grotto private or public?

3. have you gone out in public wearing an anal plug or vibrator device? YES, MY PENIS, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

sometimes i forget to plug it in before i leave my meditation chamber. my cyberbrain's been scattered lately.

4. have you ever fantasized about or practiced orgasm control/denial? it's called edging. but you can only do it if you're edgy. only Chris Rock can do it, only Lenny Bruce, Steven Wright, Bill Hicks, and Hannibal Buress. Jim Gaffigan can't do it................................................................................Jim Gaffigan can only do it with a hot pocket.

5. do you like to be called dirty names during sex? what names get you off the best? you dirty bird, you pulchritudinous phoenix, your plumage is so pretty, so hot, i wanna feed you my worms, burn baby burn

BONUS: the confessional is open---confess anything you want, sexual or not: i do want to get something off my chest. all this butter.

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

KEEP PLUGGING AWAY

learned:

* Vault Boy: doctor! do not saw off my leg with a cartoony bendy saw!
doctor: why not? it's infected.
Vault Boy: the Smurf Village is growing on it!

* Vault Boy: the radiation made me grow two legs. i now have three legs. that makes it harder for me to run. let me take some more radiation so i can grow an even four legs.

* doctor: what are you putting in your body, Vault Boy?
Vault Boy: some of those grilled hot dogs from Burger King.
doctor: Burger King hot dogs? take some more radiation, it's healthier. and drink plenty of water.
Vault Boy: a doctor once told me that our bodies are mostly water. that's why i stay away from water, i don't want to drown.

* doctor: that crab has grown. crab is a good source of protein. the more it grows, the more protein it has.
Vault Boy: the crab ate me before i could eat it.
doctor: now you know how the crab feels. the crab has always wanted to eat vault boys but never had a big enough mouth to do it.

* Vault Boy: i just put my foot in my mouth...

* doctor: ever try hula-hooping to stay in shape?
Vault Boy: my priest tells me all that gyrating is the path to Satan.

* doctor: okay, Vault Boy, you have to run this obstacle course as fast as you can. if you don't, you die.
Vault Boy: i've always wanted to be on American Gladiators.

R.I.P. Hawk

* doctor: Vault Boy! that yellow puddle you're waist-deep in is not a swimming pool!
Vault Boy: is the water yellow from radiation?
doctor: no, that's not radiation...

* narrator: hey, guys!
doctor: hi there! where have you been?
narrator: auditioned for BoJack Horseman's next season...

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend

CIRCLE ROOT

where am i going? how can i know if i've gotten there? what defines definition? what if there are no details? what if it's all just the curtain? if it keeps going forever, when does it stop? will you be there with me? not at the end but in the beginning? will you be there to hold my hand through the darkness? i'm scared. my tongue shivers. i do not deserve this. yet i was granted this. i squandered it all in a chat room. i thought it was paper, not wrapping paper. i am weak. i am nothing without you. come to me. please. push my dust along not with a broom but with a panhandle.

Codrus: how long has it been? a billion years?

Cotard: or a second. it's the same thing. i think we miss our station.

Codrus: i am inside the train with you, the dining car, with the one cracked window. the napkins are the drapes and we eat the flowers in the bowl. you are sitting next to me. it's a nice spring day outside, there's a chill in the water and sprites in the sky.

Cotard: i need you by my side. with every line we divert from a new creation is born. we must accept all lines, we can draw anything but we often do not. it's just cos we haven't tried before. a conclusion starts the conversation. a picture is just a picture.

Codrus: if only it was as simple as dying. but it never is. it continues. life is a school. lives are a fool. we are caught in a withering whirlwind. i see it now. i see the circle closing in. getting tighter. taking away our breath. crushed by complexity. we can only joke.

Cotard: mama sees it, too. but she is a woman. women are different. o woman i know not of. their legs are branches and their breasts the birch. she opens for her offspring, feeding them her long flaxenseed hair. she isn't the hole, she's not the circle, she is the cycle.

Codrus: did you feel that? the bump. all of my rectangles, all of my dark rooms, they're connected front to back in one long neverending train, all of reality is train cars. we're ascending...

Cotard: we're descending. we're going up until there is no more track. then we have no other option but to go down. it's not a train, it's a roller coaster.

Codrus: black mountain. black snow. black lake. it was always night. the light makes this clear.

Cotard: i visited Moby today. he told me he was a renaissance man. wore many hats. worked as a waiter at a Gaston theme restaurant. worked as a cameraman for CNN. he was offering me the job.

Codrus: did you take it? that's a lot of commitment.

Cotard: i'm wearing the conductor hat ain't i? i broke the golden lever on my first day on the job. turned it to COMPLICATEDNESS while i was cleaning it and it severed right off. like a lopped torso.

(turnaround)

Codrus: it would look better on me. rookie mistake. you noob. i used the jagged end of the broken lever, fashioned it into a harpoon. speared Moby. he took me on a nantucket sleighride. told me i had done this to him before. i didn't remember. he rushed me along until i recognized the shack. i don't know it was the shack, i am only able to remember things. i saw the famous hill. but it was different. the ocean was milk. i tried to pick a piece of wave, i tried to eat the water, but it dribbled out. the milk tasted like my blood. i took out one of my all of them Red Strings of Fate and dropped a line, plumbed the depths of the sea and something bit. i realed it in. it was a plum. Moby caught the Grand Oak in his giant maw. he delicately pushed it out with his tongue and replanted it in the watertable. the fellas were dining on broccoli spears with their heads cut off and a loaf of burnt toast divided equally amongst them. you asked if i could see, remember? then you said, "here's rijstevlaai in your eye!" the last thing i saw was Cigarette Smoking Man enjoying his Manchester tart. but i do remember one thing: i tried to swim in the ocean like a proper human living on a planet, but the ocean was one big white whale, with thistles for teeth. Moby plucked the mouth to form his sweeper. he returned to work on time at the pizza place. he put on his belt with the greased rag and the spraybottle hanged. i saw him as i entered the shack, he was in the corner looking at the Raya dating app on his watch. i asked him what was new on urbandictionary. he kicked my dick.

Cotard: the whale is Atalan. i bumped heads with him and Kenyatta, three-way bump, triangle. it's all come full circle. we shared a private moment. it was beautiful.

Codrus: nothing's private anymore. it's all just human. it's all pie in the sky. it's all sky. the pie is a lie. because there is no truth. i can do anything with a thought. it's all so, already. it's not eternal, it's endless. it's effervescent but not bubbly. it's an ale for an ailment but it's never the apple. it's always cider, never juice. i race as fast as i can, sometimes with my feet, sometimes with my wings, but then i remember that i'm on a hamster wheel. there is cruelty in the circle. what did Moby want?

Cotard: he and the guys were having lunch. there is only one spot in the parking lot for the company van, the back of the last train car. have you been there?

Codrus: when i was applying for the job. there is but one step to get you onto the last car. it is shaped like a slice of pizza. it's made of glass. i was so close.

Cotard: i didn't get in the first time. but then i remembered. i saw my mom. and i saw my wife. i stepped onto it and voila! i was hired.

Codrus: i would kill for a 9-to-5. i need structure. i couldn't remember. there wasn't a thing there. i never had parents. never had anyone. i made it all up. we are all self-contained boxes. but we all need someone to deliver us.

Cotard: it's not a pizza slice, it's a wedge of cheese. the key is: you must contemplate your future while simultaneously remembering where you came from. that is how to live life. i broke the glass and i broke the glass of Sid's phone. he was finally free.

Codrus: your aunts are slaves. tech is trite. the train is the trip. your aunts are funny. they're trying to keep up with all the new alien pop culture. they're editing all the wikis of the worlds. they told me yesterday they hadn't seen the history sections. i had never heard of this before. each page has a history block, but at the top of the block there's a separate link to a more extensive history of the history. they have yet to clear their history.

Cotard: once they were happy with the Kardashians.

Codrus: look at me. i'm the once and future king. look at what i have transformed. i'm not a bird, i'm a man. a green man. i'm hunched over. i have a weird face. two tails. spiral spine. i eat my own kind only because i haven't discovered pizza. i never digest so they stay with me. i breathe out of my heart. i see with my mind. diphallia. one eye. but my entire head is that one eye. webbed fingers and toes. i have one finger and one toe. and a stylish hat.

Cotard: i wish for that, too. we all do. there must be someentity more. it's so damn lonely.

Codrus: i tried to write down the music in my soul. i took a pencil but it flamed out. the ashes permanently stuck to the page. that's not what i intended to write. that's not what i meant.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

Cotard: Fuerza tells me her dreams. she dreams of her sons. and she dreams of women. she dreams of women for her sons. she showed me the jacket she got in the mail, fashioning it off for me, twirling around, showing off the logo on the patch. she contributes to all the wildlife funds and federations, save the rainforest, protect bears, keep the streams stock of fish.

Codrus: finally a worthy cause. i'm finna send money. if i can ever locate their website. type the right letters. words don't have power, letters do. computers have made things so complicated. i'd be easier to go jump in a lake and encircle the fish and hug them and save them that way.

Cotard: she dreams of me on the bed. but i'm not her boy anymore, i have a beard. my feet reach the other end of the headboard. but i still sleep the same way. i still dirty my blanket. just last night i woke up to find the portrait of my dad had been knocked over my nightstand. not the way to start your morning. that's not a good sign. the hanger i use for all eight of my trackpants finally broke today. trackpants fell everywhere. all over the floor. in a misshapen mound. in a messy pile. a clump. a lump. not a good sign. i hung them up on my second hanger full of pants but that broke, too. too much lean. these are not good signs.

Codrus: let me guess, she told you that it was okay. that these things happen. that it was their time. and then she took out the glider from the hangar. i see her flying.

Cotard: si. she told me she saw my wife playing the electric violin alongside Josh Groban. she told me she loves animals. she's always loved the animals...

Daniella Monet: and how do you two know each other?

Codrus: and then your cats bit you hello.

Cotard: i don't get it. i'm safe and sound in my bed. in my room, snug and tucked in. is this the real life? is this still the train car? is this another dream? when will all the dreams hit dirt? how do i know? how can i stretch further? i was never a person. i've never experienced that ache. i never connected to love. i left everyone confused and dazed. i muddied up the waters. i made sure to make my business a blur. i never sat down and thought about it, all these years as a monk. my sister left this afternoon and i forgot to wish her well. say goodbye.

Codrus: i don't want to be me. i don't want to be this race, this face, this body, long ears, small butt, or big butt, a pear, this skin color, this sex, this orientation, this species, an asp, four letters, or a number, this set of predetermined factors set loose into a determineless universe, ripe and random, rarin' to go nowhere. this box of flesh and water. does the hurt haunt or does it just hover? when was the last time i laughed involuntarily? loud out. we've only just scratched the skeleton. this box. this one box. i want to be..................other

Fuerza: shit just got real. this is your real room, mijo. you're in it. i'm touching you. it's late at night. my mind is absent. i'm disorientated and disoriented. i'm babbling. but i heard a sound and i knew it was you. oh shit,

I FORGOT TO TURN OFF THE LIGHTS AGAIN, DIDN'T I? I LEFT THEM ON, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

Fuerza falls off the step and Cotard catches her in his arms.

TMIT: DiSNAPRIO

Oscars postgame learned:

* they don't call him Leap-year Leo for nothing.

* Leo's story proves that if you keep plugging away as my dad always used to say, keep struggling, pushing through, against all odds, against all memes, when everything is against you, when it's impossible, when everyone has given up, year after year, disappointment after disappointment, Heisenberg will be defeated.

* come on, humanity, we must see ourselves as one or we will perish. if rock paper scissors can do it............besides, that whole thing where paper defeats rock by covering it is ridiculous.

* i had the greatest pee afterwards. i held in that coffee for five frickin' hours.

* Leo was not middle-fingering the Academy. doesn't everyone hold their things like that?

* CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

* i love Rey's tats............Daisy Ridley's star tats on her foot.

* Stacey Dash had to dash.

* i know a real-life Mad Max scenario would be horrifying, but it would also be kinda cool.

* The Force Awakens's new marketing campaign: it's Mad Max: Fury Road in space!

* it was always the three of them, it was always that trio, as far back as you can remember, it was always the good ol' droid gang of C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8.

* is Andy Serkis playing Gollum, or is Gollum playing Andy Serkis?

* my hair was like The Weeknd's for the past four months...

* if Captain Planet can't do it, if Al Gore can't do it, if Cigarette Smoking Man can't do it, maybe Leo can save the planet.

* y'know my favorite part of each Oscars is when they show five-second clips of all the foreign and animated shorts and docs. they are always vastly more interesting than the major films. i always see a style of storytelling there i've never seen before. if only i had the time to actually watch all this great indie stuff.

* can't wait to see that new Ali G movie.

* Louis C.K. is everyone's sober uncle.

* Inarritu is jealous of Michael Keaton right now.

* oh, Room, not The Room...

* Saoirse like inertia

* come on, humanity. if Suge Knight and Vanilla Ice can make up...

* Priyanka just broke my twitter.

* next year go for the greatest troll of all time and broadcast the Technical Awards instead.

* what an upset! Leo won!

1. tell us your top 3 flaws and shortcomings: i'm late for dinner, i've never won an Oscar, and i secretly hate baseball.

2. who do you look up to the most professionally? Sasha Grey sexually? Sasha Grey

3. how do you like to be comforted when you're sad or upset? a) hug/acknowledge my struggle/sit quietly with me b) talk therapy/advise/uplift c) leave me the fuck alone/wallow/misery d) work out, be active to distract myself and up the endorphin and dopamine

endorphin and dopamine don't mix, it's like oil and water, oil and vinegar, sandwich and sand, coffee and beer, Hell Dust and iced-tea mix, mania and depression. you start to get into an x-and-shrooms hippie flip situation. this is the advice of my health-care professional. my health-care professional is Dr. Steve Brule.

4. which parent do you identify with the most? Sasha Grey. mom made dinner, dad and i tossed around the baseball once then he was my tennis partner. i love them both with equal passion, i can't choose, that's like asking me to decide between endorphin and dopamine. my serotonin levels are dropping...

bonus: if you had to choose one thing you were most passionate about, what would it be and why? my parents, equally. and i guess i like to write. but i can never find the time to make it good. i wish there were 48 hours in a day. i wish Steph Curry's long shots counted as 4 points. and for my last wish i wish for more wishes. yeah, that's good, that's good, this is gonna be a good story...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

MARK TWAIN

learned:

* Happy St. Paddy's Day!

* narrator: got your rabbit's foot?
Vault Boy: no. bye.

* narrator: life is fragile.
Vault Boy: in the postapocalyptic world?
narrator: in general. it's a coin flip. go ask Harvey Dent. or Alice.
Vault Boy: in my case, the coin never flipped.

* narrator: luck is a mystery.
Vault Boy: no, it actually makes total sense in this random universe.

* Vault Boy shoots the giant fly in the eye. no effect.
narrator: didn't your mother tell you you catch more flies with honey than bullets?
Vault Boy: is Lady Luck my mom?

* Vault Boy: the magic bullet theory. makes total sense now.

* Vault Boy: oh my glob! i got a shitton of bottlecaps! what are they worth?!
narrator: whatever Alan Greenspan says they're worth.

* a handsome desperado in a cowboy hat and duster valiantly saves Vault Boy's life with his gun.
narrator: well that was lucky.
Vault Boy: not really. that was my father. we're estranged. as you can see, he left again.

* narrator: your misfortune can become someone else's fortune.
Vault Boy: i'm happy for her........................................is she hot?

* narrator: Vault Boy! the black cat! it crossed your path!
Vault Boy: no, i crossed ITS path. it hissed and ran away like a cat out of hell.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy Oscars (copyright encircled c)

THROW THE STONE, HIDE THE HAND

Cotard: what if...............it was all a dream?...............................just kidding.

Codrus: you're not far off.

a train comes barreling towards the two seekers. unnatural. with Soul Train bounciness and smoke a new color no one has ever seen before.

Cotard grabs Moby's scope and looks out beyond the horizon into the deepest space. clouds are forming. the sky is the perfect Grey. he checks his watch for the scores:

there are no games being played today

Cotard: i don't need to check the weather. not digitally. i can rely on my Godgiven abilities. my face feels the raindrops before a computer ever could.

you can see the thunder crackling down in trifurcated tridents. the sound of the lightning booms and brays.

Codrus: oh don't bring pops into this. relie is more like it. i will be better. i am different. aren't you sick of waking up each day not knowing what the fuck you're doing? the big questions always swallow up the little ones. chili dog with jalapeno or green hot dog (green cos it's rancid), bowling alley or boudoir, gum or gun, job or joke, purpose or puff. no more. it finally ends here after eons of eternal inefficiency and ineffability. no more shouting at the wind, cursing the clouds, crying cracking till ducts turn to dust and go arid. and the silence, that silence which crushes ear canals and fills them with concrete cerumen. it's enough to make one burn the wood he was created with, shun that scalpel of a whittle, whistle into our coffins and lick the insides of our empty cornhusks when we're done eating, pasting them all over our bodies and replanting ourselves into the soil so that we might be grown again. this time we will get all the answers. mystery is one thing but this is murder. the questions were never meant to be answered until i came along and found the teachers' manual.

Cotard (takes a long breath which rifts into the universe and gives it a much-needed release): few! i need a break. i need to laugh.

Codrus: it's like those infomercials on tv. the annoying ones that replay every break. doesn't it seem like every week there's a new product? that's cos these products have exactly a one-week shelf life. if they don't hook you within that one week it's on to the next thing. all the paper orders turn over and split and the trucks haul something else next week. like your truth, you have it, you make it a product, and it instantly starts to lose value. you crack the truth and it falls and encircles your pan like a runny egg. it coalesces nicely and begins to harden. you smile as you sip up all the yellow gunk. but there was a bit of shell hidden in the white of the egg you never noticed as you downed it. your nose goes runny and you don't know why.

Codrus takes the Willow Curve and applies it around his hamsa. it doesn't work. it doesn't relieve any of his pain.

Willow from the movie Willow pops his head out, takes a look around cutely, surveys and succumbs, sees that his time has come and gone, and with dignity and pride dances out of frame on his own two small feet.

Codrus: relive. that's a good sign. my energy is different.

Cotard: wrong shape. that has to be it. i mean if you can't trust a Ted you must trust a Chuck.

Imzhan takes a piece of uncooked bacon out of his pink case and snaps the case back without noticing he caught his penis in the middle. much pain. Codrus takes out a knife, his Miracle Blade, and halves into a hardboiled egg. the crumbly yellows falls to each side, leaving one half fallow. right down the middle. he gingerly puts the knife into his mouth, where the yellow has stuck on, and tongues it clean. despite his best efforts he ever so slightly nicks his teeth and grazes his throat and he starts bleeding internally. gold. Codrus then plants a crop of wheat and with a wave of his hamsa it turns to oafs of bread. he digs into the bread, burrows a hole inside, and rests. the three praying bums are wondering where the rain is coming from when they first spot the Grand Oak, it was hiding behind the clouds, no, it was hiding in plain sight as a cloud, the top fluffiness forms the leaves and the mighty trunk shows itself in the night sky, massive and metallic and gray.

Codrus: the Grand Oak. i've always had a thing for her. you shall be mine.

Codrus plants a flag in the surface of the new moon. he tries to behold his insignia on it but it can never materialize into any other color but white. no, that's not white, that's that indescribable color, a white mixed with a little black. he looks at his prized possession, the two stone tablets, still wet, the new Commandments, but all of his inscribed laws have been deleted with the click of a button. all that remains is

Error ∞0∞

and punk stone is freedom---Kurdt

and YOUR VIEW HERE.

Codrus goes for the scope but it's taken. Sid, Glidden, and Rumi are holding it together, silently, invisibly. Codrus closes his eyes and opens them again. inscribed on the bifurcated stone is now just one line that spills across both tablets:

MAGRIPPALFCOSTERTIVMFECIT

he takes the pole out of the flag and it turns into a penis which he places to his mouth.

Codrus: this microphone isn't phallic, it is in fact my penis. see? no more tricks, just crystal-clear crib notes from now on. i will make reality great again!

Josh Groban snatches the mic before Codrus can bloviate.

Codrus: i prefer command.

Josh Groban: *tap tap* is this thing on? why can't i sing? i can only speak? how ghastly is that! i can't live like this, what's the point of speech if it doesn't eventually become song? 

Codrus: i gave you aphonia, dear boy, everyone knows that. 

Codrus is holding with one hand while drawing lines in the sand with the finger of his other. 

Codrus: H.G. Wells, Big Wars, i got the expansion pack.

the three remove Josh from the divine retribution of Codrus's strangling grip and massage the poor boy's neck back to health, shining his precious pipes with gold oil. they sense the ripples in the atmosphere and guide swaying outer-space rhythms back into their new instruments. they all play their dither instruments, which are a combination of the zither and their dongs. eventually they get the original 

SONG BACK, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

Josh Groban: i love that song. i still can't sing! maybe i just need to give my voice a rest.

at the football field Carl Sagan is explaining the cost-efficiency ratio of the onside kick. he loses his chalk in the grass. Codrus removes Sagan's football helmet and dons it himself.

Codrus: we can't see your face, professor. it's distracting to just hear a voice. only i have a head big enough to befit this helmet. please, go on.

Carl Sagan: what is a catch?

Codrus removes the right pole of the field-goal uprights which were once the moon flagpole. it forms into a trident. Codrus smiles devilishly. the top of the trident is a blivet. he inserts the blivet into his mouth to form his new dentures. he smiles gregariously and shows off his pearly whites. he plays the blivet denture harmonica with his tongue. the bleeding in his gums is gone. nicks nipped.

Codrus: it can't end, i won't let it end. i will temper the tempest of time. secure the sea of space.

Cotard: but mon frere, the ending gives it a beginning. breath is born of burden. it's within the limit that we are able to perceive the unlimited, within limits of course, out there, the truth, always just out of reach, beyond our scratching fingertips. sex is science. the notes leave but the nougat remains. we forget the lyrics but not the feel. music is melody. i was getting tired of that new-age off-beat trash rock with the screaming. deliberately disharmonic and off-kilter, off-rhythm and out of sync. if you're not gonna do something nice do nothing at all. i'm all for guttural, and garage, but not gutter. i crave the simplicity of silence. otherwise it's just one big giant gooseegg we've laid. death describes destiny. life lines love. my coat is catholic with a cut c. the top line is, we are here to be rekt. for all of us there must be a reckoning.

Codrus is about to turn the microphone into his middle finger to give Cotard a universal flick-off but Wolf stops him, putting his hairy palm over the god's finger.

Wolf: ain't nobody tryna see that. that is legit rude, man.

Codrus: i really want to punch you right now.

the two cats crawl up into Cotard's lap, flanking him each side, licking his face to oblivion. MEANWHILE Codrus places Cotard on his lap and spanks him.

Cotard (licking his cats back): my chili homedogs! i love you both! my beautiful kittycats! my beautiful beautiful kittycat family! i give up love of myself so i can give it to you two equally. no, no, don't go over to that multicolored bridge, stay here, always stay here with pop.

Codrus takes out the left pole of the uprights (it's all one pole, just bifurcated), and uses it to repair the broken golden lever of the last train car. the train zooms right into the tunnel.

Fuerza: all my friends are dying. friendless Fuerza. everyone's getting old. it's depressing. sure Monica is monied and Mary is a man, but Nancy broke her noggin and Patricia has pnemonia. i can't visit them all, the roads are blocked. i get so many offers for money. i give to St. Jude's but there are as many cancer charities as atoms. have i done enough? did i give up too soon? i would make the call but the lady on the phone was rude. you waste more energy being nasty than being nice. takes more breaths. Miss Fuerza if you're nasty. where's my food? i slaved over a hot stove all these years, you should feed me now. you can learn a thing or pi from me, mijo.

Codrus: there's a clock on the stove. yes, you were telling me these past two thousand years about the difference between men and women. and the races. and genders. and cultures. and animals. which makes no sense cos we all have the same alien DNA.

Fuerza: it's complicated but we are all different. we must be treated as such.

Cotard: we are all brothers and sisters but i only have one sister. i made the hardboiled eggs for the week and she ate them all on Wednesday. that's a lot of work and i did it to save time. to no avail. but she deserves to eat well. she deserves whatever she desires.

Codrus: can't we all just get on? with it?

Codrus transforms into Oprah Winfrey.

Codrus: wow, this is different. but the same. i have a sudden craving for bread, stress-free bread that i can eat daily and not gain weight. i suddenly care deeply about my weight.

Cotard: you're gonna carry that weight. it's impossible to understand someone if you aren't them. you can't make policies for them. write for them. you can't understand the vile prejudices and sadistic slander they've endured until you take a long sniff of their shoes. outside of the bowling alley. a whiff so hard it's wet.

Codrus: i know, that's why i'm doing this. i'm not doing this for my mental health. i see now. i see how all commercials these days are mildly misandric and anti-white. well who cares?! suck it up! you had centuries to grow and now you're dying. front of house ain't free no mo', privilege has a price that persists.

Codrus frames his face with his two hands forming a curve with his fingers under his chin.

Codrus: this is how women do it, right?

a man in a long studious red robe peers out from the horizon. ascetic and able. his mind is on fire, literally. he has a monk's mustache but a playboy's puss. keeps the dirty jokes to himself and his son. Scorpio scofflaw sexuality. harnessing hormones with homo erectus. made of salt, not clay. he carries the first edition of his book and a typewriter suitcase. he is the Master of the World. he takes one look at Cotard and nods his head. he is gone before Cotard can thank him.

Cotard (under his lips): thanks, dad.

the Grand Oak from whence all blessings flow, as well as the upside-down rain, starts spraying milk. Codrus collects the sacred milk into a baby bottle and forces Cotard to suck it down.

Codrus: look at me when you're sucking. look at my eyes. there, there, baby, pop will take care of everything. you look upon my huge face of presence as a baby does his parent's face, as if it is the very face of God *hahahahahahahahahaha*

Cotard (chugging): i don't care how uncomfortable this is, this milk is SOOOOOOOO good.

the milk turns to red.

Codrus: wine. right on cue.

Cotard: no, darker. soy sauce.

Codrus: got it. i'm multicultural, baby. AZN, right?

Cotard: no, blood. congealed dark blood.

a phoenix flaps its ashing wings, leaving feathers everywhere.

the blood drips alongside Codrus's arm, the side where there should be no vein but there is.

Codrus: ah, it is red. this means i'm an Indian now. i may dispense with the pleasantries and not wear the headdress or do the mouth thing. i'll keep the hatchet though, got some ratchet to cut. i feel their plight, i'm in their feet. something to do with baseball. football. sportsball?..........................you know, i think i'll just stick with being Oprah for now, the most powerful being in the universe.

Cigarette Smoking Man (after a puff): take it from the most dangerous being in the universe, what you are doing is folly. the people out there don't believe in God. they believe in Steven Universe.

Codrus: behold! no, seriously, look. look at Moby's final train car with the one triangular step in the back. wha? it's not there anymore, heh heh. what happened to it, heh heh. it's on the back of the train scalding towards you for the past two thousand years.

the wheels on the train do go round and round but they are rimy with frost.

Cotard: that reminds me of a rhyme. the wheels on the bus go round and round. round and round. that's it. round and round, perfect rhyme. perfect round.

Cotard takes a coin minted from 100% the Stones out of his invisible frock and places it on the railroad track.

Cotard: i hate handling money. i can do this cos i'm the richest being in the universe.

the train hits the coin on the track and explodes. but the train reverts and turns into an elephant. the coin turns into a mouse and scares the giant grey powerful pachyderm with the tail in front. the elephant elechants and turns into the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. then the train turns into a tardigrade and the coin turns into a tardigrade and the two butt heads. then they bump uglies.

then the train turns into the Starship Enterprise...

Cotard: where no one has gone before...

Codrus: man, man, not one.

they're in a flying fortress which acts as the stage. the soundstage to a taping of The Cosby Show. the first-season theme plays. the Statue of David is there amongst the tall houseplants, the real David, not a model. David slices himself down the middle leaving only his bottom half. Codrus tries on the Cosby sweater but it itches horribly. rash. hives. hides. Cotard plays Dr. Huxtable's friend from the gym. see, Dr. Huxtable is hiding his potato chips and pudding pops from Clair in his space room downstairs. the Starship Enterprise is a model that hangs on a wire in the room. the contraband is stashed in a compartment that is accessed by opening up the head of the ship. the room is lit with stars.

*canned laughter*

Cotard: i suppose i'll take it. so why are we in this weird room, Dr. Huxtable? and you still owe me ten reps.

Codrus: shhhh, keep it down, man *canned laughter* i'm tryna lose weight here, man. i'm hiding this food from Phylicia Rashad. she still thinks i eat ten rice cakes a day. Ahmad Rashad and i have a deal, as long as i get my food, we're cool, ya catch my drift? *canned laughter*

Cotard: mmm, mmm, mmm, i'm a man of the cloth, but mmm mmm mmm that Lisa Bonet. *whoo! sound* makes me want to pick up a galactic guitar.

Codrus drops to his knees on stage.

Codrus (wearily): i'm losing a lot of blood.

Cotard: see that blood out there? from the tree? that's your blood eviscerating all across the cosmos. *canned laughter*

Cotard opens his mouth and *canned laughter* emits out.

Codrus: when does it stop being funny?

Cotard: you tell me.

Codrus: it doesn't. never will. i answered my own question. people will always need a laugh. no matter what. no matter if it's hearty or heinous.

Codrus collapses in a heap. a pile of puddles.

Codrus (disembodied voice): see? you can never win. who's on that train? it's you, dear Cotard. it was you this whole time. i've won. done like dinner. you were late. you are not steering this train. you are riding it. and you don't know where it is going. you don't know its final destination. the tickets have all been tore up. the train just keeps going going going going. crazy. forever. never stopping. never resting. no explanation, no answers, cos there is no conductor. he's too busy with other matters. rather like hell, or heaven, same thing. as for me on the other side, i have seen the other side. i have seen the other side of the Big Bang. i have seen the end which is the beginning which is the end. admittedly very scary without a time machine. i have created new worlds where there are no humans, just globs of goo with eyes and their brains in their butts. my outer space is green, not black. like the comics. i've invented the blanet, which is a planet with its own blanket to keep warm.

Cotard (trying to ease the tension) (to himself): how very Swedish of you. are you sure you don't mean yanket?

Codrus: the universe is my own etch-a-sketch, it's my puzzle and i have the whimsy puzzle piece that is shaped like the infinity symbol.

Cotard: the key word being like.

Codrus: sure, it's nice when you're riding a train on a warm romantic afternoon and you stick your head out and the breeze nicks your lip and catches your breath. but now you are entering a tunnel. a tunnel of interminable length, width, heighth, soundth, and depth. and that other dimension. you will not reach your terminal. you will ride the black. there is no lightning. this is the fate of you and your old guard. this is you, you in the darkness for all of eternity.

YOU ARE DERANGED, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK