Ind e-Pen XXXV
By Pixel at August 29, 2004 at 4:20 am. Filed in ind e-pen The Ind e-Pen
+++vol+1+++BT+35+++
Introduction
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Something I didn’t realize about school starting and summer ending: that my summer is going to end. Which means no more late nights watching movies, no more hanging out with my friends, no more not having responsibilities, no more… wait. I’m going back to college, not the Marines! Wow, what was I thinking? Summer over? Summer’s just begun (which is really confusing, seeing as it’s going to start getting cold in three to five months).
By the way, this e-mail is dedicated to the T-1 crowd at IUP. You guys got community of the year while I was there, let’s see if you can do a repeat without myself or the Mark fellow (speaking of which, I’m sure people would like to hear some of those stories. Anyone willing to share?).
Philosopher’s Stone
Thanks to all of the people that voted and suggested ideas. In the end, it was a tie between Sesame Street and the Men in Black, So I decided to go with the one I already had written. It’s what happens when only one fifth of the population votes, you know?
Hmm… I can’t help but wonder if I should make some sort of connection here.
Oh, yeah: everyone who’s going to school is now Back in school.
Good luck with that.
Back to School
That reminds me of this one time I decided to go to school in Pennsylvania. See, I decided relatively early on that I would rather drive an ungodly amount of time and have my car available throughout the semester than fly there and be left at the whim of public transportation. Of course, I made this decision before I actually drove there.
Ideally, I was supposed to have someone help me drive (I didn’t think this out to well. I suppose they’d take care of the pedals and I’d hold the wheel?), but as January drew near, more and more people chickened out and left me to die (thanks mom and dad!).
But when I realized that nobody would go with me, I decided to make the most of it (no, I didn’t drive naked, but now I wish I’d thought of it. It would have made the drive-thrus that much more interesting).
I made three CDs and copied the lyrics to a bunch of songs and poems that I wanted to memorize. Then, if I had any time, I figured, I’d listen to the radio a bit, make a few phone calls, and perhaps do some introspection. After all, if other people think I’m interesting, surely there is something that would entertain me for several hours? Besides, I could spend the time figuring myself out.
It turned out that I had nothing to say to myself. And 34 hours alone (21 of those were straight driving), is not a good recipe for being happy with oneself. In the end, I started hating myself and going crazy (yeah, the CD/memorizing/listening/calling people ideas went awry after about two states).
I got to the point where I started talking as much as I could just to drown myself out (my logic went out in Missouri… along with my sense of direction, which is why I ended up going through Kentucky for some reason).
At the end of the trip, I had gone to hell and back enough times that I didn’t resemble myself anymore. It’s probably for the best though. I mean, who would really want to resemble someone who would willingly lock himself in a Honda for a day and a half?
Needless to say, except for the impromptu trip to Texas and back (28 hours to, about 36 back), and the hella-long trip home, I never ever did that again. And I don’t plan to, either.
Well, maybe if I have nothing to do in school…
A Small Quiz:
1: Do you think T-1 is going to win community of the year two years in a row?
2: Are you more likely to buy something if a cute youngster is selling it?
What about if a cute member of the opposite sex is selling it?
3: If I went to and fro four times, and each time changed me irreversibly from who I was before, does that mean that I’m back to where I was, or am I some sort of third thing?
Ind e-Pen XXXIV (part 2)
By Pixel at August 21, 2004 at 2:40 pm. Filed in ind e-penThe Ind e-Pen
+++vol+1+++BT+34+++
Introduction
================
Sorry about the two part thing. The computer wouldn’t let me send more than one megabyte in stuff. Anyway, here’s the rest:
(Lights dim, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is with Freud yet again.)
Freud: We have been having these daily talks for just about four years now, correct?
Pixel: Actually, we’ve had fortnightly talks for four months. And that’s only like six sessions.
Freud: Really? Well… um… the time just…. flew by, did it not?
Pixel: Oh, Yeah. We had a blast!
Freud: Yes. A blast…
Pixel: Ah… memories. Like, remember that one time we were trying to prevent me from not being born by getting my parents to go out (after I had inadvertently gotten my mom to fall in love with me and thus prevented my parents from even meeting)?
Freud: That never happened! That was the plot to the hit 1985 movie Back to the Future!
Pixel: Oh, Doc, you and your crazy inventions!
Freud: Oh, never mind… Hey, I have an excellent idea! Why don’t you lay down facing somewhere else and not look in my general direction for the rest of the hour?
Pixel: Ooh, why? Is this some sort of new psycho-mological test that you want to try?
Freud: Okay. Sure, of course it is. Why not?
Pixel: Okay… what do I have to do then?
Freud: Just talk. Keep yourself busy, pretend, as hard as you can, that I’m not even here…
(Lights focus on Pixel. Freud exits, taking his bag lunch with him)
Pixel: Oh, okay. I have a monologue? Wow. Nobody’s ever trusted me with a monologue before. Thanks Doc. I mean, I’ve done a few soliloquies before, but the director of this (beep)damn play always cuts them short before any of the audience gets to hear my wit.
Not that I think there’s an audience or anything, I mean, I don’t want to sound crazy, like I’m hearing voices or whatever. No, I know that nobody’s actually seeing me, because I know that nobody actually goes to see plays. If you people in the audience agree with me, you should clap.
That was odd.
Umm… Mee mee mee mee mo?
So, anyway…. school’s about to end and there’s all of this pressure from all of my classes. Everyone is all like, “for the last time, you’re not even registered in this class!”
And they keep leaving me out of group discussions and telling me that the papers I turn in are inappropriate, off topic, and inferior. As if they could judge that better than I could… Oh, well. Maybe I should quit turning in the same paper and write something new? But it’s so difficult to think of something that applies to every class I’m in
Also, I had that dream again. The finals-time dream where you dream that there was a class that you forgot to show up to all semester and now you have to cram for the final? Perhaps you’ve had that too, Doc?
Wait, Doc, what school did you go to? Did you even go to school? Doc, are you there? Doc…. wow, I must be pretending really well, I don’t see him or his lunch anywhere! Oh, this guy’s good.
(Lights dim, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is sitting with Lithium, for the last time.)
Pixel: Some day we will live in a nation where there won’t be any difference between the whites, and the coloreds, and the delicates…
Lithium: Wait, are you talking about laundry?
Pixel: Wow, I didn’t expect to see you in this again today, how’ve you been?
Lithium: I’m in town for my grandmother’s funeral, but right now I’m just going to college, just hanging around and such.
Pixel: Why don’t you come around more often?
Lithium: I’m not sure, perhaps I will.
Pixel: Wanna hear my new joke?
Lithium: A new joke? I don’t remember the old ones.
Pixel: Hey, is the day over? It is for your grandmother! Hahaha!
Lithium: Now I remember…
Pixel: Hahaha! See, it’s funny because she’s dead and no one else makes fun of her for it! Hahaha!
Lithium Yeah… So, what were you saying about laundry?
Pixel: Have you ever wondered about the whole failure to describe a race by colors?
Lithium: You mean like White, Black, Red, Yellow?
Pixel: Yeah, like Asians came to America and became Indians… can Yellow just switch to Red?
Lithium: I’m sure people are going to think that’s racist…
Pixel: And when the White Europeans mixed with the Red Indians, why didn’t they have Pink Mestizos? Why Brown?
Lithium: You realize you can only say that because you’re not white.
Pixel: Yeah… I know, but don’t these colors seem odd to you?
Lithium: I’m sure they seemed even odder to the people that were categorized as them.
Pixel: Like the Native Americans?
Lithium: Actually, I think they’re back to being American Indians.
Pixel: Really? How’d they get them all to agree to that?
Lithium: That’s the point: they didn’t. Nobody asked them. That’s the problem with the system.
Pixel: And I hear that Texas eliminated all of the Indian Casinos in the state.
Lithium: Can they do that?
Pixel They can do whatever they want as long as the people don’t realize what’s going on and protest.
Lithium: Oh, Americans are lazy, unorganized, and uncooperative.
Pixel Aren’t you American?
Lithium Aren’t you going to shut up? No, I was saying: We complain about politicians, but we don’t vote. We complain about gas prices, then buy a gas-guzzling SUV to drive to work in. We complain about traffic, but nobody carpools. It’s annoying. And I think I know why people’s cars get worse and worse mileage as time goes on.
Pixel: Isn’t it putting cheap gas in the tank?
Lithium: Yes, what they don’t tell you, though, is that mixing gasses of different quantities has the effect of dulling it.
Pixel: Like Lava Lamps, right?
Lithium: Yes, eventually they mix, while milk eventually dilutes.
Pixel: So you’re saying that if a person were to keep going to the same station then all of this would be averted?
Lithium: Or, they could wait until the car ran completely out of gasoline…
Pixel Don’t they tell you to not do that?
Lithium They being the very people that would benefit if you had to buy a new car…
Pixel Massive conspiracy?
Lithium Is there ever any other kind?
Pixel Like Shakespeare.
Lithium You don’t like Shakespeare?
Pixel Does anybody? I mean really? It’s difficult to understand, its out of date, and yet it’s still so popular…
Lithium Because the stories are of humanity. They transcend the ages.
Pixel: “Layeth the Smacketh Downeth.”
Lithium: Why do you always wait until we’re out in front of the audience before you say things that I can’t understand?
Pixel: I come to you seeking counsel. You should be proud.
Lithium: Yeah, I hear that a lot from you… why? And what do you mean by “Layeth the Smacketh Downeth?”
Pixel: I was thinking that Shakespearen English is simpler than we think.
Lithium: You mean Renaissance English? What do you think it is?
Pixel: Well, I think it’s some sort of Medieval Lisp.
Lithium: Lispeth?
Pixel: Aye, a Lisp. Soeth, ifeth youeth justeth addeth eth toeth everythingeth, youeth geteth Oldeth Englisheth.
Lithium: I didn’t understand a word of that.
Pixel: But it sounded Shakespearean didn’t it?
Lithium: No.
Pixel: … Ohh ‘kay….
Lithium Sorry, I didn’t mean to disagree with you. I just didn’t know where you were going with that.
Pixel: Yeah, but you never quite know where a person is going to end up…
Lithium: Like what do you have in mind?
Pixel: I was just thinking about something I heard today… that a councilor saw Wade–
Lithium: Cowboy guy?
Pixel: Yeah, anyway, she saw him on the news posing for an S&M Shot.
Lithium: Which one? Sam or Max?
Pixel: That’s what I thought too, but then she laughed at me… I don’t think it’s either.
Lithium It’s okay, she’s short anyway.
Pixel What does that have to do with anything?
Lithium: It’s just that while you were talking I noticed how tall you were and… well… it’s just that height variations are annoying things in nature.
Pixel: Yeah, our cheerleaders are all different heights…. what’s up with that?
Lithium: Well, it all started quite some time ago, back during the Cold World War.
Pixel: Aah, the Cold World War… was that the one with the Russians and the Soviets fighting as one?
Lithium: Yes. They made up height variations to scare people. The United States didn’t know what to do.
Pixel As well they wouldn’t. You don’t expect to fight people whose uniforms don’t fit right.
Lithium Exactly. You know, I finally finished reading an encyclopedia?
Pixel Did you?
Lithium Yeah. The only problem is that it’s a 1988 one
Pixel So you’re still in the Cold World War?
Lithium Yup.
Pixel: I’ll keep that in mind. So, how about this internet, eh?
Lithium: This what?
Pixel: This internet.
Lithium: Oh, sorry. I thought you said this Pigmy Marmoset.
Pixel: No problem. I thought you said Cumquat.
Lithium: Why’d you think that?
Pixel: No reason (Pixel’s cell phone rings. Low at first, then it gets louder until everyone except for Pixel is staring at it. It should look like it wasn’t intentional. As soon as the cell phone stops ringing, Pixel checks to see who called)
Lithium: I was thinking, you know how cell phones just popped out of nowhere one year?
Pixel: Yeah, that was an interesting year. I wonder why they popped out all of a sudden?
Lithium: I was thinking that perhaps they’re set up so that years later they could control us with mere signals and wrong numbers–
Pixel: What’s the difference between Pea Soup and Roast Beef?
Lithium: –and then jack up the price to get rich too.
Pixel: Anyone can Roast Beef.
Lithium: Are you listening to me?
Pixel: No, I was just noticing that I got a call from Letter Three.
Lithium It’s too late, you’re under their spell… So, how is Rachele?
Pixel: Don’t say her name! Use her code name!
Lithium: You mean Rochellie?
Pixel: Yeah. Anyway, you know what’s crazy about her? She lives on Golden Eagle and right after her house the road closes. (It’s probably for the best if “915 346 4972″ appears somewhere during this conversation)
Lithium: Closes? What is it? Broken?
Pixel: That’s what I thought, but then I realized that it was right after Rochellie’s house. Coincidence? I think not.
Lithium It seems like a coincidence to me. I mean, what if the construction workers didn’t want to make it longer because there are no houses after hers?
Pixel Meh. That’s just an excuse.
Lithium: And just what is the difference between an excuse and a reason?
Pixel: A reason is a justification… an excuse is given afterwards…. wait… I don’t know, tell me.
Lithium: Imagine, for instance, that you’re going to start a rival play “Because you guys have a monopoly.”
Pixel: That’s definitely an excuse, anyone who believes it should be shot.
Lithium: Precisely. Whereas a counter play is justified by a reason. We were forced to do this. Instead of doing it because we were angry.
Pixel Is there any reason you bring this up?
Lithium Not really. Well, okay. Yeah, I’m going away now.
Pixel You mean for good?
Lithium: Yeah…
Pixel What for?
Lithium Well, you know how I’ve been doing my pre-practice practice?
Pixel Like when you cleared up that guy’s soar throat by cutting it open and pouring bleach in it?
Lithium He never actually let me do it, you know… Anyway, I have to go study to start my regular practice now.
Pixel: And since I’m the focus of this play…
Lithium: You could write me asking for ideas.
Pixel: Yeah… but I think it’d be safer to do what Ebert did.
Lithium: It won’t be the same.
Pixel: You’re telling me… but it’s worth a shot.
Lithium: So…
(Lights dim, Lithium fades away, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is with Socrates, yet again.)
Pixel: Mr. Socrates, sir?
Socrates: Yes Queer-boy?
Pixel: I have a question for you. In your dialogues, you never make a reference to the afterlife as religious proof. Does this mean that you’re atheist?
Socrates: In your conversations you never make a reference to explosive diarrhea, does that mean I should watch my feet?
Pixel: First of all, I make constant references to explosive diarrhea. And second, yes.
Socrates: Eew.
Pixel: So, anyway, how was your summer?
Socrates: It was alright. I filmed a mockumentary for VH1, I was an extra in the movie “Gigli.” Oh, and I was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens…
Pixel: I thought that “Gigli” had been filmed in 2002.
Socrates: Actually I wasn’t an extra so much as the guy who yelled “You Suck!” during the credits. You should hear it.
Pixel: Yeah, but then I’d have to stay through the whole movie…
Socrates: Yeah… The film editor said that nobody was actually going to see the movie. He put the movie on Kazaa on a T3 connection, but instead of people downloading it, they sent him hate mail.
Pixel: Seriously now? And what was the mockumentary about?
Socrates: Your life.
Pixel: My Life??
Socrates: Yeah. I play the young you.
Pixel: But you have a two foot beard! You’re 70 years old!
Socrates: The director said that nobody would notice.
Pixel: If you’re the young me, who’s the old me?
Socrates: Well, the teenage version of you was played by Hush Puppy from Lamb Chop’s Play Along, and the adult yous were the Olsen Twins.
Pixel Whaa–? (lights shimmer)
Socrates: Wow, how’d you do that? That was cool.
Pixel: I’m not sure, I’m just a character in a play, it’s not like this is really happening.
Socrates: A character in a play? What are you talking about? You’re as real as me and Johnny Depp!
Pixel: Now, when you say Johnny Depp, are you thinking of the Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp or of the Edward Scissorhands Johnny Depp?
Socrates: I was thinking more along the lines of Nightmare on Elm Street and Sleepy Hollow.
Pixel: I don’t know, I didn’t really like him in Sleepy Hollow. And Christina Ricci just keeps looking worse and worse in every movie.
Socrates: Yeah, I’m just glad that I never have to see her again.
Pixel: How do you mean?
Socrates: I’m just never going to go see any of her movies… Because during the summer I WAS SENTENCED TO DEATH!!!
Pixel: Jeesh. Bitter much? Calm down. It’s not like it’s life or death or anything… I swear, some people’s children…
Socrates: What was that?
Pixel: I said you’re suffering from Grumpy Pulse Syndrome.
Socrates: Oh.
Pixel: So why were you sentenced to die?
Socrates: Oh, because I corrupted the youth, walked out on my civic duty, flashed the king, and acted treasonous. Plus, the man is out to get me.
Pixel: Doesn’t that bite? Like last week when I got pulled over because I was going ten miles over the speed limit… What’s up with that??
Socrates: I don’t think that you can compare the two…
Pixel: Sure I can. By the way, have you seen Alien vs. Predator?
Socrates: You have trouble sticking to one subject, don’t you?
Pixel: How do you mean?
Socrates: It’s just that most of these conversations only make sense if you look at them as collections of random thoughts.
Pixel: Except for Freud.
Socrates: Screw Freud.
Pixel: It’s a good fight, but the Aliens win in the end.
Socrates: Oh, gee. Thanks… for ruining the movie for me.
Pixel: You’re welcome. Unless you’re being sarcastic, in which case, let Freud screw you.
Socrates: I don’t think either of us has the time, the patience, or the gross inhumanity for that.
Pixel: Yeah, I probably don’t, but you’re Greek.
Socrates: And what exactly does that have to do with anything?
Pixel: Did you know that Amazon women used to remove their right breast to handle bows better?
Socrates: First of all, what?? Second, the Amazons were a myth. And third, your mom was an Amazon.
Pixel: Primus, Secundus, Teritus.
Socrates: What?
Pixel: You should get your hearing checked. I was merely saying I, II, and III in Latin.
Socrates: Wait.. What’s Latin?
Pixel: You know, for a Greek guy, you’re horribly under cultured…
Socrates: I hate you.
Pixel: Join the club. We meet in Village Inn on Fridays from 2 to 4 .
Socrates: There’s a club that hates you? And you’re in it?
Pixel: Oh, yeah. I’m the secretary.
Socrates What?? Don’t they realize that you’re the reason they have a club?
Pixel Yeah, I don’t think they like me very much. I guess I’m just not good at keeping track of money…
Socrates: I thought you said that you were the secretary.
Pixel: Nah, former New Mexican candidate for governor Tony Sanchez is the secretary.
Socrates: You know, he can sue you for slander for that…
Pixel: Nah, me and him are tight: we exchanged brownie recipes. Besides, I’m taking Gingerbread men to the next meeting.
Socrates: Gingerbread men? That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.
Pixel: Then you obviously haven’t heard Tony Sanchez’s brownie recipe. Oh, man… if there were such a thing as a flaming brownie, his would be it.
Socrates: Okay, he can definitely sue you for slander for that.
Pixel: If he did, it would only be because he wanted to impress me. He has the hots for me, you know?
Socrates: He’s gay?
Pixel: Nope, he just thinks that I’m a butch girl named Rowena.
Socrates: I can’t believe that you disguised yourself in order to join a club of people that hate you.
Pixel: That’s the thing, I didn’t. He’s just so hard of hearing that when I introduced myself, he thought that I’d said “Rowena.” Then he went off on how beautiful of a name it was, so I couldn’t just correct him. Besides… I like getting flowers every once in a while…
Socrates: I can already feel my migraines coming back… can we please talk about something else?
Pixel: Like the perceptual inequalities in the grand unified theory when applied to thermodynamics and the Wernicke’s area’s processes?
Socrates: You enjoy making these conversations the longest hours of my life, don’t you?
Pixel: They really seem unequal.
Socrates: So how’s the semester going?
Pixel: Great! I finally found out what smelled so bad everywhere I went on campus. It turns out that someone had put a skunk in my backpack last year. I just found it today.
Socrates: (guffaws for a full thirty seconds) Sorry, I’d forgotten all about that.
Pixel: Oh… I see. It’s okay. You should see how I’m going to pay you back for that…
Socrates: How? You’ve already gotten me birthday and Christmas presents. I know, I checked.
Pixel: I thought you’d like monogrammed pencils…
Socrates: They say “suck.”
Pixel: I meant them to say “Sock”
Socrates: Ignoring the gross personal affront of calling me Sock, what were you going to do with the underwear that says “Pixel + Socrates = Loving” on the crotch?
Pixel: That was a typo.
Socrates: A Typo?? What did you mean for them to say?
Pixel: Socrates times Pixel minus Loving
Socrates: What’s that supposed to mean?
Pixel: It makes sense if you take into account that I put it on the crotch.
Socrates: And yet you claim to be straight.
Pixel: Like a Slinky.
Socrates: You know, in my day, I had a wife and three kids and I still had to tell all the young men that I wasn’t gay.
Pixel: I bet you had to beat off all the boys with a stick.
Socrates: I was working to prove that I wasn’t gay.
Pixel: So you say you’re not gay? That’s funny, because we think you are…
Socrates: Who’s we?
Pixel: Oh, there’s people… believe me… there are people…
Socrates: Who are you kidding, you don’t know any real people.
Pixel: … and they’re all like, “is he, or isn’t he?”… and I tell them, “I don’t know, but his togas are awfully revealing…”
Socrates: I haven’t worn a toga since August… and that was only because you talked me into it!!
Pixel: I said, “I just went with him so that people wouldn’t think he was crazy… It’s bad enough he died 3,000 years ago, I wouldn’t want people to think he was weird…
Socrates: Your toga was made out of Mickey Mouse bed sheets!!
Pixel: “But I’m not always going to be there for him… someday he’s going to do something embarrassing and gay and I won’t be there to stop it…”
Socrates: Why do I always feel like I’m the only sane person in an insane asylum when I’m with you?
Pixel: Probably because you’re insane. So, what are you going to be for Halloween?
Socrates: An old Greek philosopher named Socrates.
Pixel: Who are you kidding? You couldn’t pull that off.
Socrates: I don’t feel like dressing up. It’s not worth the effort.
Pixel: You’re not worth the effort.
Socrates: Listen. You can’t keep zoning out on me and then getting offended when you realize I’m finished talking.
Pixel: .. No, you’re finished talking!
Socrates: So… Anyway, I’m guessing that you are going to dress up?
Pixel: Like a wolf in a sheep ball!
Socrates: Like a what??
Pixel: Sorry, it was a slip of the tong, I meant cheap.
Socrates: So you’re going to go as a wolf?
Pixel: What? What are you talking about? It was just another way of saying “yes.” No, I’m going like an undercover cow in a rancher’s barbeque!
Socrates: What??
Pixel: Sorry, I haven’t had lunch yet.
Socrates: So you’re going to dress up as a cow?
Pixel: Huh? What are you talking about? I was just saying “sure” again. Dressing as a cow. yeah, like that wouldn’t be an udder failure!
Socrates: That was horrible.
Pixel: Not as bad as your mom was last night!
Socrates: You’ve never met my mother. And even if you had, she wouldn’t even talk to you. She has a thing against gay people.
Pixel: I take it that you don’t talk to her much?
Socrates: Yeah, well, anyway, you never said what you were going to dress up as.
Pixel: Well, I don’t have an idea, per se, but I did buy a cool-looking trench coat at Hot Topic that I want to wear.
Socrates: So let’s see if I’ve got this straight–
Pixel: –you can’t get anything straight–
Socrates: –you’re just going to wear new clothes instead of actually trying to dress as something in particular.
Pixel: Oh, no, I’ll dress up as something in particular. Something so original that no one has ever seen it before…
Socrates: Because you made it up to suit what you would have worn anyway?
Pixel: Basically
Socrates: What happens when Halloween passes and you begin wearing your outfit regularly?
Pixel: Same thing that happened when I dressed up as a cow last year.
Socrates: Wait. You actually dressed up as a cow?
Pixel: Seriously, no bull.
Socrates: What happened then?
Pixel: What do you mean, when?
Socrates: When you started dressing like a cow!
Pixel: Are you feeling okay?
Socrates: Quiet you.
Pixel: Quiet who?
Socrates: Just… shut up.
Pixel: You can’t tell me that! You’re not my gynecologist!
Socrates: You don’t have a gynecologist!
Pixel: Yeah, I know…. but it’s not for lack of trying.
Socrates: Gynecologists are for women.
Pixel: You know, I never knew you were so closed-minded.
Socrates: I’m not! I really am not. I do pay attention and listen… when I’m talking to sane and intelligent people!
Pixel: Ooh, do I detect some conflict? Who is it that you don’t consider sane and intellije… integli…. eentell… smart?
Socrates: You!
Pixel: Oh. First you blast my halloween outfit… then you accidentally let out that you might possibly think that maybe I’m not as cute, funny, and smart as you once thought I was…
Socrates: Oh. First you steal me from my time, then you constantly berate and undermine me, then you exasperate me beyond the point of all human tolerance–
Pixel: –that’s not true! My future self put up with me for twice as long as you have!
Socrates: –actually, the rest of the week you were talking to the mirror. I just didn’t have the heart to tell you.
Pixel: He did get pretty repetitive after a while… I just thought he was adamant about his games of “Shadow…” And I should have known when he claimed he knew how to play the piccolo…
Socrates: Besides, before he left he put a bomb in your car and cut the brakes.
Pixel: Nah, why would anyone do that? Let alone to themselves…
Socrates: I don’t know. All I know is that he accidentally cut the main wire to the bomb.
Pixel: How do you know that?
Socrates: Oh, I started learning how to make bombs after our third conversation.
Pixel: Oh, okay. Wait, wasn’t that the one where you kept muttering about how hot I was?
Socrates: I don’t think I ever said that. You probably misheard me.
Pixel: Oh, I don’t see how that’s possible: icky old man falling in love with me makes much more sense than my ears not working right.
Socrates: You conceited ass…
Pixel: I didn’t think you’d notice. I have been working out, thank you.
Socrates: Grr…. I’d better get that Anarchist’s Cookbook out again…
Pixel: Are you going to make me dinner?
Socrates: Sure. A very special… cyanine dinner.
Pixel: Oh, I’m allergic to cyanine, can you make it arsenic instead?
Socrates: You know, sometimes I don’t know if you’re stupid posing as intelligent or smart pretending to be a stupid poser…
Pixel: Oh, I wish. One of these days I hope to be good enough to pretend to be a poser.
Socrates: And one of these days I hope to keep a straight face long enough to let you try.
Pixel: That reminds me of a joke…
Socrates: Everything reminds you of a joke!
Pixel: Yeah. just like that time…
Socrates: You’re not going to finish that one either, are you?
Pixel: You know what you’re problem is? You skipped senile old man and went straight to crotchety.
Socrates: And because of you I’ll be skipping steps all the way to the grave.
Pixel: Actually, that’s not quite true. From what I understand, you’re going to die from some sort of Heimlich maneuver.
Socrates: What’s the Heimlich maneuver?
Pixel: Here, let me show you.
Socrates: Good God no!
Pixel: You don’t want me holding you from behind while pushing forcefully on your chest to dislodge anything that may be stuck in your throat?
Socrates: You don’t pick up many girls, do you?
Pixel: Are you hitting on me?
Socrates: Never.
Pixel: Hmm…
Socrates: Okay, I’m going to go now.
Pixel: Hmm!…
Socrates: Fine… what?
Pixel: I noticed that when I offered to give you the Hemlock, you said (and I quote) “Hell No!”
Socrates: No, I didn’t! It was twenty seconds ago, how could you already forget? What I said was “Oh God, Nay!”
Pixel: Well, see, that’s the thing: weren’t the Greeks pamphleistic?
Socrates: We had a lot of pamphlets?
Pixel: No, I mean, didn’t you worship a lot of DDTs?
Socrates: We worshiped insect repellant?
Pixel: Was he your main God?
Socrates: Huh? No! If you had done any amount of research on me, you would know that I was never a religious guy.
Pixel: Didn’t you say that you were in the Apology?
Socrates: Yeah, probably. I said a lot of stuff. If I had known that Plato was taking dictation, I would have thought before I talked. Or at least left out the analogy of philosophy to getting a hysterectomy.
Pixel: I know exactly what you mean. Like this one time, I accidentally put a tape recorder in your mom’s bathroom. I cried for weeks!
Socrates: I think I’ve figured out why none of your friends invite you to their homes.
Pixel: Really? Why? I’ve always thought that it was because nobody wanted me to accidentally break their windows or bathroom doors again.
Socrates: That could contribute to it too. Anyway, I wanted to ask you one last thing before I went away forever.
Pixel: Sure. I’ll let you write a small biography on me for a 25% cut.
Socrates: You know, no matter how many times you repeat that, nobody is going to accept.
Pixel: Wait a goobenswab! You never said you were going away forever. What happened? You don’t have a crush on me anymore?
Socrates: You know, Freud would call that a projection. I just can’t continue having meaningless conversations with you… I’d rather drink hemlock and die. Besides, the play’s going to end soon.
Pixel: They’re not meaningless, it’s interesting philosophy…
Socrates: Same difference.
Pixel: Yeah, I guess you really have overstayed your welcome. Oh, well. So what did you want to say?
Socrates: I just wanted to thank you for easing my mind. I thought that I had missed something. Bill and Ted made the future seem so cool last time.
Pixel: You’re welcome. I told you that I was awesome.
Socrates: Yeah… And I was going to ask you one last philosophical question before I left and you had to destroy this stage.
Pixel: (yeah, like I’d do that).
Socrates: What would you say that courage is?
Pixel: Well… just off the top of my head, I’d have to say “n. ability to conquer fear or despair.”
Socrates: How does that make any sense?
Pixel: How doesn’t it?
Socrates: Is it that you’re stupid, ignorant, and dumb, or is your answer wrong?
Pixel: Umm… yes.
Socrates: See, I could continue berating you and proving that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but you seem to do that just fine by yourself.
Pixel: I don’t get it. That’s a horrible definition for courage.
Socrates: Okay, I’m going to go now…
Pixel: Well, old weird guy, do stop by again some time, neh?
Socrates: No! What’s wrong with you??? Just… goodbye! (Socrates exits)
Pixel: Well, that’s funny… I’m his ride home. Hmm… Oh, well. I guess he really didn’t want to hear about my gerbils hoarding nuts point. I mean, all I was going to say was that the meaning of life is…
(Lights dim, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is sitting with Freud for the last time.)
Freud: Well, Mr. Styx, I have–
Pixel: That’s actually Professor Styx.
Freud: Really? What do you teach?
Pixel: What do you mean?
Freud: Well, generally, the title of ‘professor’ is reserved for those who teach, usually at the university level.
Pixel: What? Are you sure? Isn’t that just the Spanish phrase for “one who is awesome?”
Freud: Don’t you speak Spanish?
Pixel: Not all the time.
Freud: I am fairly certain that I am right. In any case, I still have to tell you my diagnosis of you.
Pixel: ‘Diagnosis,’ eh? ‘Professor,’ eh? ‘Of,’ eh? Do you have a dictionary that I can borrow?
Freud: Yes, I think I do. But do you not care what I have to say? (Freud brings out a dictionary, Pixel peruses it)
Pixel: Oh, I care, I care. So, what were you saying about your toupee?
Freud: I said no such thing! I was just mentioning how you might have a deficit in your attention span.
Pixel: Yeah, I do think we should go ride bikes.
Freud: Also, you seem to have the delusional belief that you are grand.
Pixel: Okay, you ride your bike, I’ll follow you in the Benz.
Freud: Also, I think you might have a form of erotomania. A rare disorder in which–
Pixel: I know what erotomania is!
Freud: Do you, really?
Pixel: Yes. And no, Doctor Freud, I will not sleep with you! … at least not right now…
Freud: Boy, am I glad I never replaced the tapes on the tape recorder.
Pixel: Wait. What does that mean? You didn’t have tape recorders in your time, did you? Does that mean that you’re in my present?
Freud: Does it matter?
Pixel: It does now that you brought up tape recorders.
Freud: Oh. Um. I mean, what tape recorders? What’s a tape recorder?
Pixel: Oh, no. You’re not going to pull that one off again. You’re not my orthodontist!
Freud: Alright. I take it you are not happy with my diagnosis.
Pixel: What diagnosis? Why are you hitting on me?
Freud: See, now that is what Socrates would call projection.
Pixel: A-ha! I found ‘professor’ in your dictionary! “One who is awesome.”
Freud: Let me see that. (It really is there) Huh. That doesn’t seem right…
Pixel: Well, I guess that’s how it is when you’re wrong. By the way, here’s your X-acto knife and tape. (hands him an x-acto knife and tape)
Freud: Wait. My what?
Pixel: Oh, my, look at the time. I have to go, I’ll see you later, Doc! (Stands up, brushing dictionary bits of paper off himself)
Freud: Wait, did you cut up my dictionary? This was a first edition!
Pixel: Hmm… I see… and how long have you had this anger problem?
Freud: I have no anger problem!
Pixel: Oh, that’s just because you’re in love with your mother. Next!
(Lights dim, Freud exits, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is wearing a baseball cap backwards, with kid clothing, and is operating a lemonade stand. Young Freud enters, dressed in much the same way.)
Young Pixel: Hello there, would you like to buy some lemonade? It’s only fifty schillings!
Young Freud: Sure. Lemonade sounds like it could hit the spot. But I am one schilling short, do you believe that you might be able to help me out with the change? It might make us life-long buddies and build a camaraderie that you would eventually describe as priceless.
Young Pixel: Hmm… what was your name again?
Young Freud: Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Young Pixel: Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Young Freud: It is a proud name. My two older half-brothers like it…, what’s yours?
Young Pixel: Young Pixel.
Young Freud: Wait, don’t you just mean “Pixel?”
Young Pixel: Not if I want to sell a lot of friggin’ lemonade, I don’t.
Young Freud: I see… So, can you please lend me those two cents?
Young Pixel: Excuse me? Um… Well, about that… I’ll only give you the money if you do a few things for me.
Young Freud: Okay, like what?
Young Pixel: Well, how about if you admit that you hate your parents on tape.
Young Freud: But I love them!
Young Pixel: Okay, just your dad then. But you have to say that you loooove your mom.
Young Freud: Okay, I hate my dad and love my mom.
Young Pixel: And, um, you’re scared that your dad is going to castrate you.
Young Freud: I am?
Young Pixel: Yes, very much so.
Young Freud: But I’m really not…
Young Pixel: Oh, that’s only a third of you. There’s probably another part of you that wants to just give me the 48 cents and walk away, too.
Young Freud: You know, this is the kind of childhood memory that would traumatize me.
Young Pixel: Which is why you should repress it. In fact, forget I ever existed. If you don’t, you might end up bad… you should see what I did to Machiavelli.
Young Freud: You just don’t want to give me two cents, do you?
Young Pixel: Oh, you’re a sharp one, you must be caught in the anal stage.
Young Freud: The what?
Young Pixel: I’m sorry, did I say something?
Young Freud: Okay, okay, I’ll do without the lemonade. Keep it. Yikes. You’ve got more problems than anyone I’ve ever met. (Freud exits)
Young Pixel: That’s funny. That’s the same thing the first guy who owned this stand said…
(Enter Albus Dumbledore, dressed in ’80s punk, possibly with a mullet)
Young Pixel: Hello there, sir, would you like some purple lemonade? It’s only one Silver Sickle per cubic ounce!
Young Albus Dumbledore: Purple Lemonade? That seems eerily cheap. What’s the fishizzle?
Young Pixel: I accidentally killed a dragon, and decided to make a load of galleons by selling it piece by piece.
Young Dumbledore: How does that make anything cheaper? And how did you accidentally kill a dragon?
Young Pixel: It drank some bad lemonade… possibly from another lemonade stand.
Young Dumbledore: In that case, give me three cups.
Young Pixel: That would be… um… twelve sickles.
Young Dumbledore: Twelve? I have a wristwatch and a pair of socks, if you’d like to barter. (he puts them on the counter. Why he is carrying extra socks, we’ll never know)
Young Pixel: Sorry, but if I don’t make this money, I’m going to have to file for Chapter 13.
Young Dumbledore: “Personal Bankruptcy with regular income and limited debt allowing a payment plan of 3-5 years?”
Young Pixel: Yeah, why?
Young Dumbledore: You obviously don’t have regular income and… how old are you anyway, Patty?
Young Pixel: Um, my name’s not Patty. I’m a young boy, ages 8 to 12. How old are you?
Young Dumbledore: About 132.
Young Pixel: What?? Really? If that’s how old you are in a flashback, how old are you in the future??
Young Dumbledore: Oh, you know, Patty, you know…
Young Pixel: I’M NOT PATTY!!
Dumbledore: That’s just what Young Tom Riddle said when I first met her.
Young Pixel: Oh, I hate riddles… is it a duck?
Dumbledore: No, no, no… Okay yes. But he’s also Prince Voldemort.
Young Pixel: Prince?
Dumbledore: Yep, called himself a lord of some sort for a while. Since he vanished a few Halloweens ago, I just call him Prince again.
Young Pixel: No, no, Prince just turned himself into a symbol, whether he’s bad enough to vanish another story…
Dumbledore: Hmm… you’re not a wizard, are you, Patty?
Young Pixel: No, I’m a level two rogue, they don’t let me have wizards anymore…
Dumbledore: Never mind… (Dumbledore walks off, leaving the socks and wristwatch on the counter)
(Enter Young Lithium, not much is changed from earlier)
Young Pixel: Hey would you like to buy a glass of lemonade? It’s lemonalicious!
Young Lithium: No, thanks, but would you like to buy a glass of lemonade from me?
Young Pixel: What? You have a lemonade stand too?
Young Lithium: Yup. And I see you’re charging 50 cents for yours. Mine is only 49 cents!
Young Pixel: What?? You must be losing money with that!
Young Lithium: Nope. I’ve got a sponsor.
Young Pixel: A sponsor? Who?
Young Lithium: The nice people from the Little Store. They give me all of my sugar, bottled water, glasses, and ice for free.
Young Pixel: What?? They told me that they’d sold them all to pay their debts to the mob!
Young Lithium: Ha ha ha! Yeah, they told me about that…
Young Pixel: Yeah, well, whatever, my lemons are still better than yours.
Young Lithium: Really? They seem pretty bruised and of sub par quality.
Young Pixel: Yeah, well the next shipment should be better…
Young Lithium: Is your supplier Old Lady Styx, by any chance?
Young Pixel: Yeah… why?
Young Lithium: Oh, no reason. It’s just that she’s my supplier, and she sympathizes with my cause. She thinks you have a monopoly on the business, and now she’s giving me your lemons.
Young Pixel: … My mom told you that? I knew I should have given her a discount!
Young Lithium: Yeah. And she cut your allowance, too.
Young Pixel: Oh, now that just whomps. How am I going to buy soda pop? How, I ask you, how?
Young Lithium: Poot if I care. I just came by to tell you I told the health department on you, I’m charging less, and my stand has a better location.
Young Pixel: Where’s your stand?
Young Lithium: Between your stand and the road.
Young Pixel: Wow. You’d think I would have seen that earlier…
Young Lithium: You might as well give up now. You’re not going to win.
Young Pixel: What are you talking about? I’ll crush you like a bug. You just watch. I just haven’t been serious before. Now everyone is going to come to my stand.
Young Lithium Excuses, excuses.
Young Pixel I ask for no excuses, this is a reason. A perfectly logical and simple reason. No one is going to like your lemonade, no one! And furthermore… can I have a glass? I’m kind of thirsty.
Young Lithium: What??
Young Pixel: I like my business and all, but a good deal is a good deal…
(Young Lithium stares at him for a bit longer, then leaves. Enter Socrates, with a much shorter beard. Possibly bright red.)
Young Pixel: Hey, ugly, not-yet-wise stone-cutter, would you like some lemonade? It’s only fifty drachmae!
Young Socrates: Lemonade? Oh, my, yes! Lemonade is quite good. The true form of perfection if I do say so myself.
Young Pixel: Yikes… He’s said three sentences and I’m already confused.
Young Socrates: I’m afraid that was four sentences.
Young Pixel: Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. “Oh, my, yes!” — no verb.
Young Socrates: And you’d be the expert?
Young Pixel: Oh, yeah.. I mean, if there’s anybody that can teach something completely useless and unverifiable, it’s me! Or possibly Dr. Wayne Dyer.
Young Socrates: Who?
Young Pixel: Exactly.
Young Socrates: So. Well, where did you get this stand?
Young Pixel: Well, there was this young, walking, talking beaver that had mistakenly built a lemonade stand in front of an active volcano. In the meantime, I had accidentally built a dam in a river behind a hot, hot construction site. So we did an even swap. I moved my dam to the volcano and he moved his stand to the river.
Young Socrates: Doesn’t that deal seem a bit one-sided?
Young Pixel: No, not really. The construction site was really hot.
Young Socrates: Right. So, what’s the deal with the wristwatch and socks?
Young Pixel: So I can tell when the dragon starts to smell bad.
Young Socrates: Oh.
Young Pixel: Yeah, I tried hiding it inside the stand of my competitor, but he noticed.
Young Socrates: You mean the guy with the ridiculously low prices? How do you compete? I mean, have you actually sold any lemonade?
Young Pixel: No, not yet. Every time I’m about to make a sale I end up talking to the people so long that they leave.
Young Socrates: Isn’t that bad for business?
Young Pixel: Yes. Yes, it is. Wow, I should rethink my “talk and/or walk” plan.
Young Socrates: Yes, you should. Now can I have some lemonade. Here’s my fifty–
Young Pixel: I guess it all goes back to my troubled youth as a cobbler…
Young Socrates: You don’t understand, I want to buy some–
Young Pixel In the end, it made more sense to let her just think I was going to pay her back for her lemons.
Young Socrates No, no. Look, here’s the money, I’m going to take some lemonade…
Young Pixel What are you doing? Why are you touching my stand? This is for paying customers only. Git, boy, git!
Young Socrates Oh, bother… (exit Socrates)
Young Pixel: That’s weird. I can’t help but feel that this is important for my future somehow… I mean, four people in a row just came by and none of them wanted any lemonade.
(Enter Attractive Stranger)
Young Pixel: Here comes a rather obtuse looking fellow. Maybe I could con him into buying some of my lemonade.
Attractive Stranger: I heard that.
Young Pixel: Who goes there? And would you like some lemonade? … um, it might help you with that faint smell of pedicure and hot coals.
Sexy, Sexy Stranger: Lemonade? You don’t recognize me? No, of course you don’t; I’m you.
Young Pixel: Me? Now that’s as silly as Macaulay Culkin ever becoming unpopular. If you’re really me, then when am I going to–
Damn Cute Stranger: Oh, I’m beginning to think that it’s never going to happen. Maybe if you stopped eating paint chips.
Young Pixel: Okay, say I believe you, does that mean that you’re going to buy some lemonade from me?
Future Pixel: Oh, god no. I know what you did to that lemonade. Besides, I already bought some from your competitor. If I were you, though, I’d watch out. Just wait until the ATF, FDA, DEA, NAACP, and MADD hear about it.
Young Pixel: The Who?
Regular Pixel: Yeah, that’s about how popular you will become around here.
Young Pixel: What?
73¤!¿: No, he’s on second.
Young Pixel: Huh? Never mind. Okay fine, if you’re really me, what am I thinking?
73¤!¿: Oh, that’s low. She’s your mom too, you know. Alright, fine, fine, I’ll stop.
Young Pixel: So… did you come back in time to give me a terrible warning about the future? Is there some sort of futuristic device that I need now? Or are you just going to give me some lame advice?
73¤!¿: Oh, neither. I just came back to hang out.
Young Pixel: What? Why??
73¤!¿: Oh, it’s just that I was so bored in my regular time, there was this really creepy guy in a black suit all up on me… and besides, I ran out of money to pay my regular friends.
Young Pixel: Money to pay your friends? What kind of friends are these?
73¤!¿: Oh, you’ll find out. Which reminds me: don’t sell any lemonade to the kids in your class.
Young Pixel: Too late.
73¤!¿: What? No it isn’t, you just want to do it anyway.
Young Pixel: To-may-to, to-mah-to.
73¤!¿: You pronounced those the same… never mind, it’s your life.
Young Pixel: Damn straight. So, wanna play backgammon?
73¤!¿: I never learned how.
Young Pixel: I’ll teach you.
73¤!¿: Okay.
(Exit 73¤!¿, Young Pixel removes backwards hat. Back in the psychologist’s office, Pixel is laying on the couch when the Man in Black enters)
Pixel: So that’s my life. All I remember, all I am, all…. oh, hello.
MiB: Hello Mr. Styx. We understand that you’ve recently participated in a series of strange encounters
Pixel: Who’s we?
MiB: I represent people of, shall we say, importance…
Pixel: You mean like LL Cool J? Is he with you? Can I see him?
MiB: We do not know of whom you are speaking, but we can assure you, we hold vast more power than he does.
Pixel: You mean you’re like his mom? He respects her. Man, I’ve never seen a man front so much for someone, seriously….
MiB: No, we have never heard of Elell Cool Jay. Our representative is of greater galactic importance. Regardless, it is imperative for you to trust us and tell us what you have seen.
Pixel: I trust you, but do you trust me?
MiB: I am afraid I do not understand.
Pixel: Check this out: you turn around and let yourself fall and I’ll catch you.
MiB: We do not have time for this.
Pixel: How do you expect me to trust someone who has no time for me? You remind me of my late parents.
MiB: Your parents are not deceased.
Pixel: Really? *phew* am I glad to hear that. Why would you think they were deceased, though?
MiB: The term ‘late’ usually refers to a deceased person.
Pixel: Man, am I glad I was on time to my Bar Mitzvah then!
MiB: You are not Jewish.
Pixel: Yeah, I guess I am generous and optimistic. Thanks! So, I’ll see you later, then?
MiB: No, I am afraid we cannot leave yet. You have not told us what you have seen.
Pixel: When?
MiB: When you encountered the time/space/reality anomalies.
Pixel: What T/S/R A’s?
MiB: Mr. Styx, you are making this exceedingly difficult and you must understand that my benefactors will not like that.
Pixel: Ooh, you used a singular proverb, good for you! We remember when we first did that.
MiB: I’m sorry?
Pixel: Oh, don’t apologize, using English correctly is the first step to rehabilitation.
MiB: Rehabilitation? Of what?
Pixel: Of seeing a temporal anomaly, which you’ve obviously seen.
MiB: No, I am sorry. Those anomalies don’t exist, neither one of us has ever seen one before.
Pixel: Aw, damn, I worked you back to denial… Well, whatever.
MiB: Mr. Styx, you have two coins in your pocket.
Pixel: No I don’t.
MiB: Yes. I’m certain that you do. Take them out now.
Pixel: No I don’t. If I do, what type are they?
MiB: One is one of your U.S. Quarter Dollars and the other is what you call a dime. Please take them out now.
Pixel: Well, hot dog, you were right. You should take that on Vegas, you could make some serious bank.
MiB: Give me one of the coins.
Pixel: A coin trick? Oh, cool. Here you go.
(the coin shimmers, then fades away. Use magic if you have to)
MiB: No one on Earth will ever see that coin again.
Pixel: That’s a nice trick, I’ve seen better, though. Like this one time, I saw this guy push a coin in his back, then spit it out of his mouth, it was great! Can you do that?
MiB: No, I’m afraid I can’t. The point was to teach you a lesson.
Pixel: A pretty crappy lesson if you couldn’t spit out the coin. What was I supposed to be learning, anyway? Fractions? I hate fractions. I’m sorry if I didn’t learn them right.
MiB: (taps a hand to his ear) I can’t seem to get through to him, he’s been brainwashed well. I don’t think we have anything to fear. Hm. (looks at Pixel) This may take a while…
Pixel: So… can I have my coin back?
MiB: What? No. No one on Earth will ever see that coin again. I told you that.
Pixel: I didn’t think you were serious. That was just a trick. I need that coin to buy some Jolly Ranchers today.
MiB: The point was to teach you how foolish it would be to not cooperate with us.
Pixel: That’s a jolly good lesson there, but… Well, I just thought that I wasn’t going to be paying for it. I mean, I know you can teach fractions really well, but, can’t you do it without making us poor college students poor…
MiB: You are not in college.
Pixel: Not right now, but you just wait for my classes tomorrow.
MiB: Tomorrow is Sunday.
Pixel: What, you have something better to do on a Sunday? You can’t wait for my classes?
MiB: (obviously trying to segue out of this conversation) So… How about that weather?
Pixel: It’s good…. Great, even. Great enough to wait 24 hours to see my classes start.
MiB: My information was that you do not go to school.
Pixel: What kind of a teacher has bad information like that… Seriously.
MiB: I AM NOT A TEACHER!!!
Pixel: Yeah, and you suck at Fractions too.
MiB: Listen, if you want your wife to keep her pretty face, you will not tell anyone about the anomalies that you experienced.
Pixel: Hmm… Listen, I don’t have a wife. Maybe you meant to go teach someone else? Are you a Jehovah’s Witness?
MiB: No!
Pixel: Good, I didn’t want to have to go into the Witness Protection Program.
MiB: You are Pixel Q. Styx, right?
Pixel: No, I’m Fox Mulder, have you met my lovely sidekick Superman?
MiB: Don’t toy with me. Well, seeing as it’s obvious that no one would listen to you anyway, I think I shall leave.
Pixel: No, wait! Don’t you want to stay and watch I Love Lucy?
MiB: I’m afraid that would prove to be impossible. Not only do you not have cable, but your television is broken.
Pixel: Oh, no it’s not. You just have to wait for it to heat up, it’s like a Fierro.
MiB: It is nothing like a Fierro, it is missing a bulb. It will not work.
Pixel: There you go with your pessimistic impatience again. It’ll work. Trust me, I know. You just have to wait for it to warm up. Not too much, though, or else it’ll heat up and stop working again. So we can see the first ten minutes of I Love Lucy, then catch the highlights at nine.
MiB: It is nine twenty right now, your television does not work, and you do not have cable.
Pixel: How can you live being wrong all the time?
MiB: We are never incorrect. We will leave now.
Pixel: You suck at exits, you know that?
MiB: I know more than you can imagine.
Pixel: Including the winning lottery numbers? Because I can imagine those.
MiB: Goodbye Mr. Styx. (He fades away)
Pixel: Damn. What is it with everyone fading away around me? This could be really annoying, you know?
Voice from Backstage: We know, we know.
Pixel: Well, as long as you know. I’d hate for my story to not be known.
A Small Quiz:
Cheers to my Animal friend for playing the sympathy card and winning this week’s free Pix Capacitor… Jeers to my Animal friend for converting the sympathy card into a ‘give me moneys’ card.
This Week’s Questions:
1: Are you going to steal my play, give it to a director and act it somewhere without giving me due credit? Can I get free tickets?
2: Have you voted for next season’s Philosopher’s Stone yet? The poll closes on Wednesday.
3: If you had a Thrifty Nickel stand that one of your friends had stolen and painted for me, and I asked you for it because I wanted to set it up in the local college’s student union to distribute my viewspapers, would you give it to me? Assume you’re Rachele Ann Amos (May 25, 1984) of 646 Golden Eagle Chaparral, NM 88081. Telephone number (915) 346 4972 (915 DINGY PAL)
Quick P.S. www.phonespelling.com sucks.
Double-P.S. Rachele, question three could refer to anyone!! But what if I give you a dollar and tell everyone to not not prank-call you?
Triple-P.S. Usually I wouldn’t reprint this kind of stuff, but odds are nobody else is going to read this play besides you guys, soo…
Ind e-Pen XXXIV (part 1)
By Pixel at August 21, 2004 at 2:30 pm. Filed in ind e-pen The Ind e-Pen
+++vol+1+++BT+34+++
Introduction
================
School starts in three days. Which means that this Tuesday, I’m going to have a full load (18 hours) plus a class on deception that I’m going to show up for as long as I can, a website that I need to set up before the third week of school, a 300+ page compilation of everything I’ve ever written to compile, several viewspapers to put out, and a letter to write to New Mexico representative Stevan Pearce. Oh, yeah, and this e-mail. One of these days, I’m going to end up stretching myself out too much. It’ll probably happen sometime in October. October whomps. Anyway, here’s part 1 of my 83-page play. It’s really just stuff I’ve written over the past five years put into play form, but Shh!!
Conversations (a Hideously Long One Act Play)
Dumbledore (M, late 130s) Freud (M, 50-83)
Letter 4 (15-26) Lithium (17-27)
Man in Black (M, 30-70) Pixel (M, 14-24)
73¤!¿ (M, 23-33) Socrates (M, late 60s)
Voice of B. B. L. o. T. P.-D.
Throughout this entire play, Pixel should remain on stage. Unless, of course, the director chooses to replace him halfway through for no particular reason. Between each conversation that has a rickety segue, I suggest a half-naked girl walking across the stage holding numerically increasing prime numbers to distract the audience. Hey, it worked for Reagan.
(At a famous psychologist’s office. Basically, it’s just a couch and a chair. To save time, leave all the props and the three major actors on stage at once, but have the lighting tell you where to focus.)
Pixel: (on the phone) No, I love you more. I love you more. No, I love you more. Okay, I really have to go now. He’s giving me that look again. Alright. Okay, on the count of three we hang up. One. Two. Three. You didn’t hang up either! Okay, One… Two… Three… You still didn’t hang up! Wait, what was that?
FINE!! Screw you then!
(hangs up)
Freud: Your girlfriend?
Pixel: My grandfather.
Freud: I see… and are you closer with him than, say, your mother, or your sister, or your daughter?
Pixel: Okay, you’re creeping me out here. I don’t have a sister and I’m fairly certain I don’t have a daughter.
Freud: You don’t need to have a daughter to have fantasies about your mother. Believe me, I know.
Pixel: Too much information there, Siggy. I just came here to get one of my dreams analyzed.
Freud: I am afraid I cannot just… ‘analyze’ your dreams for you. First I must know of every incestuous thought you have ever held.
Pixel: What?
Freud: It is part of the psychoanalytic procedure.
Pixel: Oh. Well, in that case, I always wanted to kill my brother and marry the cute girl across the street.
Freud: And is the ‘cute girl across the street’ yourself?
Pixel: What?? No! She’s my old kindergarten teacher.
Freud: Who obviously held a motherly figure in your life, which is why you love her so.
Pixel: Okay, stop relating everything to my mother. Now I won’t be able to call her without–
Freud: Without thinking incestuous thoughts?? At last, a breakthrough!
Pixel: As I was saying– without telling her how weird my psychologist is. Dude, you have problems.
Freud: Oh. Still repressing your homosexual tendencies, I see?
Pixel: Why does everyone keep saying that? Can we just analyze my dream so that I can go home?
Freud: (writing a note to himself)
… remarkably anal retentive…
Pixel: Okay, are you listening?
Freud: Huh? Yes, sure, whatever … seems unsure of reality…
Pixel: So there I am, right? I’m in ancient Greek garb, looking at my wife, who has everything clean for me, just how I like it, but I’m still mad. Probably because she has Steven Tyler’s new face and Drew Carey’s old body.
Just then my dad shows up with my mom and I start to feel this insane jealousy. I want to kill him because he’s taking my woman, but I’m afraid he’s going to slice off my rod, so instead I start immitating him.
One third of me wants food and sex, one third of me wants me to donate money to needy children, and one third is trying to mediate between the other two… Then I wake up. So, what do you think that means?
Freud: It means nothing. Possibly that you like cookies or something equally unimportant.
Pixel: What??? Are you serious?
Freud: Yes, but luckily our time is up. We must continue this next time. …
He dreams in Greek garb?
(Lights dim, Freud goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is sitting in another seat in front of park bench with a chessboard, reading a Pix Capacitor, chuckling to himself. Lithium enters, sits on the other side and they begin to play. Throughout all of this, they should be playing a game of what seems like Chess, but eventually the audience will realize that they’re not moving any of the pieces in their intended way)
Pixel: Good day sir… Or is it? I mean, how do you know that it even is a day?
Lithium: How do I?
Pixel: One would think, “common sense,” but that would be wrong
Lithium Dreadfully wrong.
Pixel The day is an illusion cast over us to blind us from the truth.
Lithium: Yeah, for instance, how do you know that what we really see isn’t just the night in disguise?
Pixel: Intriguing, really.
Lithium: Quite.
Pixel: One would almost assume that night would be day too, but it wouldn’t.
Lithium: For in reality there is no day. Only night.
Pixel: Yes. I see. My, my, that is intriguing.
Lithium: Then the sun is only a feigned association with the day and has no real leitmotif to it.
Pixel leitmotif?
Lithium It’s German. I’d tell you what it means, but you wouldn’t understand it.
Pixel Oh. Okay. No leitmotif then, none at all…
Lithium Hey, have you heard my theory about cereal boxes?
Pixel: No, I don’t think I have. Tell me Sir.
Lithium. Well, okay, let’s say that you were in a grocery store and you were buying “Frosted Flakes.” Picture that.
Pixel: “Lucky Charms,” I’d never buy “Frosted Flakes.” Ugh.
Lithium Okay, “Lucky Charms.” Which box would you get? Front, Middle or Back?
Pixel: Middle. Why?
Lithium Okay… yeah. That’s good. See, because the ones in the back are the oldest, and the ones in front are the ones that kids always grab, play with, and throw around.
Pixel: Oh.
Lithium Just a test: Can you name all the “Lucky Charms?”
Pixel Yeah: Harps, Scars, and Horseshoes, Clovers, and Glue Noons, Pot’s Told, and Rainbows, and the Red Baboons.
Lithium. … Close enough…
Pixel: I always wondered why they would ever sing something so awful to kids
Lithium: um… I’m sure there are worse things to sing to them.
Pixel: like the Barney song?
Lithium: First, it has a name, and second… what twisted variation of that do you know?
Pixel: The part where he’s telling the kids that he loves them and they love him
Lithium: Oh. What? Why?
Pixel: Psychological reaffirmation by a purple dinosaur who probably wants them in a naughty no-no way? That’s pretty bad.
Lithium: It’s fantasy. It’s just not the same world as what you’re living in. Come to think of it, I don’t think the real world is the same world you’re living in.
Pixel: What’s that supposed to mean?
Lithium: That you’re Charles Manson’s twisted diabolical love-child with way too much time on his hands.
Pixel But time is inanimate, how could I hold it in my hands?
Lithium Poorly. And besides, it’s a figure of speech, the temporal dimension isn’t in your power… yet.
Pixel: That reminds me of a theory of mine. Okay, how many dementias are there?
Lithium: 15, the last one’s an olive.
Pixel: No, seriously how many?
Lithium: 3?
Pixel: At our level, yes, but I theorize that our level is the third most complicated one.
Lithium: How so?
Pixel: See, we live in the third dimension, right?
Lithium Fourth, they say now.
Pixel: Even better. How many third dimensional universes can you fit in a fourth dimensional universe?
Lithium an infinite amount, I guess… after all, they don’t take up any time, right?
Pixel: Exactly. My theory is that the same thing holds true for other, lesser, dimensions.
Lithium: Because they have no depth?
Pixel: Yes. And since they don’t, we wouldn’t be able to perceive them, although we would be able to affect them.
Lithium: Just by passing through them?
Pixel: But their universe is so big that the odds are we wouldn’t hit any life, just like our universe.
Lithium: And in each 2-universe, there’d be an infinite amount of 1-universes?
Pixel: That the 2s couldn’t perceive. I think that 5-people are, at this very moment, affecting our universe, but since we’re so remote, we can’t feel them, only see their affects.
Lithium: Like black holes and Eminem?
Pixel: Exactly.
Lithium: Wow, that’s pretty cool. Of course, it’s unlikely that life is even possible in the second dimension. That what we’re really passing through is just meaningless divisions of our own universe.
Pixel: How self-centered of you. Your dimension isn’t so cool as to be the only one that harbors life.
Lithium: Oh, what are you talking about? I’m just saying that your theory is essentially saying the same as: this apple (pulls an apple out of nowhere) has a million divisions in it.
Pixel … go on…
Lithium: Don’t you get it? I could say it has four or four billion. As long as I’m drawing the lines arbitrarily, it doesn’t affect anything. It’s just looking at things differently.
Pixel: Well I’m just suggesting that there’s a better way of viewing things.
Lithium: By suggesting a worse way?
Pixel: Shut up. I’m human, I make mistakes.
Lithium: Two separate thoughts, I assume.
Pixel And how!
Lithium Yeah. How, I’ll never know.
Pixel What’s that supposed to mean?
Lithium Nothing. It’s just that sometimes, I think that you’re the missing link.
Pixel Well, you found me!
Lithium Let me put it this way: what makes humans different from other animals?
Pixel: I don’t know, tell me.
Lithium: Guess.
Pixel: A bigger trachea, to produce a surfeit of different sounds?
Lithium: No, no, I’m sure other species can produce more sounds than us. No, what I think separates us from other animals is our ability to pick our nose.
Pixel: What??
Lithium: Think about it, what other animal can pick their nose? Monkeys can’t, their fingers are too chubby.
Pixel: Even new world monkeys?
Lithium Especially new world monkeys. Their fingers are far too big.
Pixel: Makes sense. (he tries to pick his nose, only to realize that his finger is too big)
Lithium So the only reason that we rule the world–
Pixel: –is our adaptation to, um…
Lithium –the Nose Picking Problem.
Pixel: I wish I had a thesaurus.
Lithium To look up nose-picking?
Pixel: No, I stopped listening to you ages ago. I mean on my computer. How often are you typing something when you come across an adjective that you’ve already used?
Lithium I’ve never had that problem
Pixel: But if you did, you’d be really annoyed, right?
Lithium Oh, like you have no idea.
Pixel I’ve just grown tired of my Microsoft Word having a substandard thesaurus and a non-existent dictionary. If someone offered a computer dictionary/thesaurus program for like ten bucks, I would so buy it.
Lithium You’re just trying to get me to make one, aren’t you?
Pixel: Pleeeeaaase???
Lithium (sighs) no. I don’t have that kind of time, and besides ten bucks? After how you stiffed me on my $10 Gray’s Anatomy book?
Pixel Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Sorry.
Lithium It’s okay, it was actually Letter 4’s book.
Pixel: Speaking of which, how is s/he?
Lithium I don’t know. I only really ever see her/him when you’re around. I’m starting to think that it’s because s/he’s just a figment of your imagination.
Pixel See, now that is just silly…
(Lights dim, Lithium goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is sitting up on the psychologist couch, engrossed in a story. Freud looks tired and irritated)
Pixel: So there I was, with Tim and all of his friends, right? when it occurred to me that I didn’t really like Tim. I didn’t see how anyone could, he was a jerk. So I said, “Who here really likes Tim? I mean seriously?”
Freud Excuse me, who are you?
Pixel: There was absolute silence for about a minute after that, and I began to feel bad, right? So I jumped in and tried to save the situation, “Well, I like Tim. I mean, what’s wrong with you people?”
Freud And how did they react?
Pixel: Good, I think. Considering that by then Tim was crying like a baby.
Freud: And how did this make you feel?
Pixel: Like a grown up? … I don’t know, I left as soon as I realized that they were out of mango juice.
Freud: They served mango juice?
Pixel: No, that’s why I left… Aren’t you listening to me?
Freud: Why do you ask that? Do you think that nobody listens to you?
Pixel: Is this one of those games where everyone asks questions?
Freud: What sort of games?
Pixel: What do you mean, “what sort of games?”
Freud: Ha! I won, you repeated what I said!
Pixel: Dang.
Freud: I apologize, that was out of character for me.
Pixel: Seriously… wow. Where did that come from?
Freud Let us move on. Who is this Tim character? Is he the same one who was playing chess with you?
Pixel Playing what? Oh, you could see that?
Freud I was there the entire time, was I not?
Pixel: Hmm. I guess you were.
Freud Let us analyze this dream–
Pixel: True story
Freud True story? I’m sorry, I’m not the kind of neurologist that analyzes real life or normal people.
Pixel: Neurologist? Okay… well, maybe I was asleep then.
Freud: Alright. Now, remember, we must analyze these in every perspective imaginable whether it be biological or–
Pixel: sociological?
Freud: –or psychological.
Pixel: Or meteorological…
Freud: Well, yes, I suppose we could see how it affected the rain.
Pixel: Sorry, I panicked.
Freud: It is okay, I understand.
Pixel: So I’m normal right?
Freud: Well, actually, I am fairly certain that you have delusions of grandeur. Which is to say that it does not matter what I say now, you will just hear what you want to hear.
Pixel: Yes, I do want some lemonade, thanks for asking. But I resent the allegation that I’m gay. That’s just not right.
Freud: Well, I can see where this is going to go. Besides, our time is almost up, is there anything else you want to say before you go?
Pixel: Yeah, why is it that I’m always the one to go?
Freud: Because this is my office.
Pixel: That’s what my Ob/Gyn said.
Freud … your gynecologist?
Pixel: Sorry, I panicked.
Freud: Not as much as the Ob/Gyn did, I assure you.
(Lights dim, Freud goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is back next to Lithium. It’s as if we never left them.)
Pixel Ooh ooh! I have another theory!
Lithium: What is it?
Pixel: Why is it that I always keep spewing out all these cool theories, but whenever you try, yours always sound so…
Lithium: cheap?
Pixel Yes.
Lithium Because you’re the main character!
(both look out at the audience for a beat, turning back to face each other at a perfectly in sync moment)
I mean crazy. It’s because you’re crazy.
Pixel: Well, my theory was that I was smarter than you.
Lithium: You wish.
Pixel: Do I?
Lithium Yeah. Do you remember when we were in MESA?
Pixel Do I ever… yikes
Lithium Remember when we were in Station’s Quest?
Pixel that test-type event where the task was to go around and answer questions?
Lithium Exactly. Remember how our first year we got third place?
Pixel Then the second year we only got fourth place. Yeah… I remember…
Lithium: Why did we get 3rd place in Stations Quest then and only 4th the next year?
Pixel Because we had one less member, and only me and you knew what to expect.
Lithium No, you’re taking the easy way out. The real reason that we lost was because the questions were so easy.
(…)
Pixel: Could you explain that?
Lithium: Well, smart people can’t dumben themselves down to regular people, it’s even harder than stupid people smarting themselves up to our level.
Pixel: Is dumben even a word?
Lithium: It is now.
Pixel: So, the reason we lost is because we’re too smart for them?
Lithium: Colloquially, yes.
(he used that word wrong)
Pixel: So in all due probability, the people who did win are…
Lithium: Losers.
Pixel: Definitely. Hey, would you like some Dr. Pepper?
Lithium Sure.
(Pixel goes to leave the stage, only to return seconds later with a perplexed look in his eye… yes eye… singular… probably his right eye.)
Pixel: Question: what did that last, Station’s Quest bit have to do with my theory about me being smarter?
Lithium: I don’t know. I grew bored with trying to convince you. Conceited people never give up their illusions.
Pixel: Yeah, I guess I really am that cool… But what’s with the bad hair comment?
Lithium: Sure, okay. Whatever.
Pixel: (hahahaha!) Hey, what makes people laugh?
Lithium: Seriously?
Pixel: (sober as a judge) No.
Lithium: Radiation in your throat makes you squeak, thus producing a “laugh”
Pixel: Told you I was smarter than you. (Laughs, squeaks, laughs. Pause)
Lithium: Are you going to tell me what your theory is on people laughing?
Pixel: Yes.
Lithium: Okay…
(here you should play some recorded static for several seconds, all the while, Pixel should be moving his lips. As Pixel nears the end of his lip moving, Letter 4 should enter)
Pixel: Wow, is it that time already? Okay, I would now like to be the very first person to introduce Letter 4 to the public.
Lithium: You took that from me! I was going to do that!
Pixel: Ha ha! Anyway, people! You will now meet Letter 4!
Letter 4: Hello.
Pixel: Shh! Not yet, let us introduce you first!
Lithium: Ladies!–
Pixel: –And Gentlemen!
Lithium: We,
Pixel: –I being Pixel–
Lithium: –and he being Lithium–
Pixel: Would like–
Lithium: –to introduce–
Pixel: The one and–
Lithium: –only! The–
Pixel: –majestic!
Letter 4 Hello.
Pixel: Shh!
Lithium: –who has magical powers–
Pixel: –and once French kissed a wildebeest–
Lithium –and lives in a pineapple under the sea–
Pixel: –the one of a kind–
Lithium: –but still unique–
Pixel: –completely original–
Letter 4 Hello?
Pixel Shh!
Letter 4 Nevermind… (walks off)
Lithium: The powerful!
Pixel: The only!
Lithium: Hey, she left!
Pixel: Well, what do you know…
Lithium: Seems as though we took too long.
Pixel: And we didn’t introduce her properly either!
Lithium: Plus we wasted a perfectly good minute of the audience’s life.
Pixel: All while I could have been discussing my super-great theory about stopping time!
Lithium: I, too, had a great theory. Mine was on how cones affect the space-time continuum.
Pixel Tsk, tsk, tsk. Maybe next time…
Lithium: Speaking of which, want to hear my theory of cones?
Pixel: Sure, if we have the time.
(they do… obviously… I mean, this is only page 14, right?)
Lithium: Okay then. Einstein suggested that gravity was like a bowling ball on a bed, pulling everything toward it and affecting the space-time continuum. Why a bowling ball? Why a sphere at all? And why is it that Einstein only ever used spheres?
Pixel: You’ve told me this before.
Lithium: Shh, for the audience!
Pixel: Oh okay…
Lithium: Got it?
Pixel: Yeah, yeah…
Lithium: Alright…
Pixel: (it dawns on him) “I don’t know, why did he only use spheres?”
Lithium: I think that he wasn’t sure of his theory, so he only used one shape. If he had been really sure, he’d have used all of the most complicated shapes. I ask: what would a giant cone do if it struck his “Space/time Continuum?”
Pixel: You think it’d pierce the bed? I mean, “space\time” continuum. Should we make this into a new project?
Lithium: Sure. Tear the space-time continuum. Great idea. No, we won’t be able to test it. We just have to be content with being right. Like usual. So, what were you saying earlier about stopping time?
Pixel: Oh, yeah. Okay, we think that “pace-time” is one thing, right? What would happen to time if we stopped going through space?
Lithium: We’d have to stop the universe from expanding, though, wouldn’t we? It’s impossible…
Pixel: Is it? But I’m not proposing that, I’m saying that since the universe is expanding outward…
Lithium: To go to the center!
Pixel: That’s it! That way we don’t move and time doesn’t pass.
Lithium: For us.
Pixel: Yeah.
Lithium: And how long have you had this idea?
Pixel: oh, before we started the play, actually…
(arguing like an old married couple)
Lithium: Why would you wait until now to tell me this? You know how much I want to stop time!
Pixel: I’m sorry… I didn’t think you’d mind. Do we have to discuss this here?
Lithium: If you’d just once be considerate, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Pixel: Why are you always embarrassing me?
Lithium: I swear, sometimes I think that you just don’t care about me anymore.
Pixel: That’s not true, you know that.
Lithium: No, I don’t know that, and that’s the problem!
Pixel: Can’t we talk about this later?
(the rest of this argument fades to muffled whispers. If you like, you can throw out random words like “in bed,” “that whore,” and “smallest I’ve ever seen.” Be careful not to be crude, being offensive might give you lots of laughs, but it might also make people not find any of the rest of the play funny. Oh, and now back to Lithium and Pixel, who seem to have cleared up their argument as Letter 4 entered. By the way, Letter 4 enters. S/he also whispers something to Pixel, who in turn makes odd hand gestures to Lithium. The audience should be able to pick out “I want to go swimming and dancing the Macarena” from Pixel’s movements, but it still, somehow makes sense to Lithium)
Pixel: Well, Letter 4 came back, and
Lithium: –she has a theory:
(Letter 4 pauses, unsure as to whether they had introduced her properly)
Pixel: Say it!
Letter 4 My theory is about this play.
Pixel: Uh huh…
Lithium: Go on…
Letter 4 I theorize that you guys are making everything up and that none of it is true.
Pixel: Yes…
Letter 4 That’s it.
Pixel: That’s it?
Lithium: That’s the most inane twattle I’ve ever heard.
Pixel: THAT’S IT! You lose your Ice Cream privileges!
(Letter 4, bowing her head in shame, walks off stage)
Lithium: Now that that’s cleared up, I have this thing that I have to do for my Plato class.
Pixel You have a Plato class? That must be the most awesome class in the World! Have you made anything good?
Lithium No, no, Plato, Play-toh. We discuss philosophy and all that good junk. And they asked us today what courage is. We talked about it for an hour, but now I want to know what the average lay-man thinks about it. … huh. That’s odd, I thought you’d challenge my assertion that you were a layman.
Pixel What? No, I can admit it. I really am a clay man. I mean, I’ve been thinking about it since you told me about your class.
Lithium Okay, seriously though. What is courage? Is courage some sort of virtue?
Pixel Yes
Lithium We could all argue yes, though not with the conclusive proof that Socrates (SO-Krayts) would probably want us to. Thus, out of respect for the fact that he’s an old, dead, Greek Guy, we will argue yes without conclusive proof.
To wit: Any competent speaker of English would have to agree that a Virtue is
generally desirable, and that Courage is one such desirable virtue. It’s just what those words mean. As Ullian B. Quine said in his book The World Wide Web of Belief, “much fallibility would suck.“
Thus, assuming that the whole of Courage is within Virtue, we are left to ponder how Wisdom and Foolishness fit in here. Since my class has already tried this, I’ll save the effort and just leave them out.
Pixel What do wisdom and foolishness have to do with anything?
Lithium I don’t remember anymore, but my class brought it up. I think we were talking about whether it was wise or foolish to be courageous, then we gave situations that made it look the opposite of whatever way we argued. It was really annoying.
Pixel Well, now. I can’t imagine why bringing up random things is annoying. It reminds me of the late president Reagan…
Lithium Never mind what I think of courage. What do you think it is?
(Lights focus on Pixel as he walks over to a booth and sits down, Lithium goes motionless, Socrates enters.)
Pixel I think you complicated it too much. No, courage is a simple matter. Courage is n. The quality of mind that enables one to face danger with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.
Socrates: Is it that you’re stupid and ignorant, or is your answer wrong?
Pixel: Umm… Yes.
Socrates: Well? Which is it?
Pixel: Actually, I think that courage is just the act of being courageous.
Socrates: How does that answer the question?
Pixel: How doesn’t it? I guess, the only thing we can do is what the Supreme Court did with pornography, say “I know it when I see it.”
Socrates: That’s terrible. That would mean that you were the know all and see all of courage.
Pixel: Yes. Yes, I am.
Socrates: And you’re not even that good at talking!
Pixel: What are you taaalking about? I’m an excellent speaker. Ask my good friend– (he gestures to Lithium) — Letter 4!
(Letter 4 enters)
Socrates: Wow. I didn’t see that one coming.
Pixel: So, what do you think it is, Socrates?
Socrates: It’s a knick-knack.
Letter 4: A knack for what?
Socrates: I said knick-knack. For procuring orgasms and booze.
Letter 4: (laughs)
Socrates: Hmm… I thought that it was rather rude myself. But then again, many rude things are funny.
Letter 4: (laughs)
Pixel: You mean like ‘What’s 18 inches long and can keep a woman screaming all night?’
Letter 4: (laughs)
Socrates: What?
Letter 4: (laughs)
Pixel: ‘Crib death.’
(Letter 4 stops laughing, looks at Pixel in disgust, and walks off)
Socrates: Hey… s/he left. Perhaps you should not quit your day job?
Pixel: As a comedian?
Socrates: … Um. So. Um. We had agreed that oratory was a producer of pleasure?
Pixel: Yes.
Socrates: (sigh) You’re new at this, aren’t you? In a philosophic debate, you question everything I say. You don’t even agree with things that seem obvious. If I say that the sky is blue, you point out that it isn’t when it’s raining, or at night, or whenever Rush Limbaugh cuts one.
Pixel: Your fly is open.
Socrates: Were you waiting to say that?
Pixel: What kind of a guy do you think I am?
Socrates: That’s a good question. Now ask me if I’m a truck driver.
Pixel: Okay.
Are you a truck driver?
Socrates No.
Pixel Oh.
(…)
Socrates: Is it better to suffer an injustice, or to commit it?
Pixel: Wouldn’t it depend on the particular injustice?
Socrates: Would it?
Pixel: Yeah. Aren’t you happy with my answer?
Socrates: Oh, no… I’m quite satisfied. Just answer me one last question: (dramatic music)
Do these pants make my butt look big?
Pixel: Yes.
Socrates: Oh, poo.
Pixel: Do you end all your arguments like that?
Socrates: Why not? That’s how I end all my food… Isn’t it?
Pixel: Touché.
Socrates: I’d rather not.
Pixel: Oh, poo.
(Lights dim, Socrates goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is sitting up on the psychologist couch. Freud looks eager and curious)
Freud: Today I would like to try something new. As a former student of Jean Charcot, who was a student of Mesmer, who was a student of Santa Claus, I have become well-trained in the arts of hypnosis. I would like to try them now.
Pixel: Wait. First of all, I’m not a fool. I know that Mesmer isn’t real. Second, it’s not rad to say ‘hip’nosis anymore. If anything, call it ‘chill’nosis.
Freud: Well, if you don’t mind, I would still like to write it up as ‘hypnosis.’
Pixel: As long as I don’t have to tell any of the other kids that I know such a big fuddy-duddy as you, pops.
Freud: Yes. Well, we will discuss that later. Now, I would really like to get started and see just what is in your subconscious.
Pixel: You sure you’re up to it? The last person that delved too far into that, me, never woke up.
Freud: You are awake right now!
Pixel: Yeah… that’s what he wants you to think.
Freud: In any case, I would like you to make yourself comfortable. Just sip some lemonade (hands him some lemonade out of nowhere) and concentrate on an arbitrary object in this room, say this bong over here.
Pixel: What? A bong? Why do you have a bong in your room? And why can’t I concentrate on that picture of Brooke Burke instead?
Freud: Actually, the bong belongs to my daughter, Anna. She uses it for school.
Pixel: You have a daughter?
Freud: Sure, why would I not?
Pixel: Oh, no reason….
Freud: Fair enough. Now concentrate on anything you wish, whether it be Max Ernst’s La Toilette de la mariée or Playboy’s Miss November 1981: Shannon Tweed.
Pixel: Well, I’ve made my choice.
Freud: And I dare not ask what–
Pixel: Shannon Tweed on Marie’s Toilet.
Freud: Actually, Ernst’s title translates to “Attirement of the Bride.”
Pixel: Is she taking a bathroom break?
Freud: No, no, ‘toilette’ means–
Pixel: zzzzzzzzzz…
Freud: Oh… You are falling into a deep, deep sleep.
Pixel: zzznozzzzzzduhzzz…
Freud: I want you to think of any problems you have had. Possibly in your childhood, which you had repressed until now.
Pixel: Sure, buddy. Processing…
Freud: Wait, are you hypnotized?
Pixel: Si señor.
Freud: Excuse me. So have you thought of any childhood trauma yet?
Pixel: Yes. I needed to decide between Brooke Burke, a bong, a toilet, and a playmate.
Freud: That will not do. Can you remember anything earlier?
Pixel: Yes. You said ‘hypnosis.’ It rather embarrassed me.
Freud: I am talking about earlier, as in grade school.
Pixel (in a British accent) Oh, I cannot remember that, sir.
Freud: Why the British accent?
Pixel: Sorry, I panicked.
Freud It is okay. Can you think back to your youth. Age 10. Can you remember that?
Pixel: I am ten.
Freud: What are you doing?
Pixel: Sitting in a chair, answering your questions.
Freud: No, I mean, can you think of a specific incident from when you were ten?
Pixel: Yes, yes I can.
Freud: What is happening? Is your mother or father there? Are they doing anything to you?
Pixel: No… well, I’m trying to get rid of some bad lemonade…
Freud: Bad lemonade? No, that’s happening right now!
Pixel: Yes, I remember Sigisimund Schlomo Freud yelled at me, obviously due to his own feelings of sexual inferiority.
Freud: Never mind. I think that this test is over.
Pixel: Well, if you don’t even know, how am I supposed to tell?
Freud: When I count to five, you will wake up and feel refreshed.
Pixel: I like being refreshed.
Freud: Also, your head will hurt and you’ll have to be nice to me forever.
Pixel: My head will be nice and I will have to hurt you forever, check.
Freud: Oh. Sigh. 1… 2… 3… 4… 5!
Pixel: Five more minutes, mom, please? I don’t want to go to school!
Freud: You do not have to go to school…
Pixel: Thanks mom. G’nite… zzz
Freud: Gah! Never mind, I have other things to do, you just stay here and sleep then!
Pixel: zzzz… No, daddy, No!
Freud: Alas! A dream! Keep going…
Pixel: I don’t wanna go to Boy Scouts!!
Freud: Oh, never mind–
Pixel: –they molest me there!
Freud: Gee Willicker! I knew it!
Pixel: Then, when they’re through molesting me, they ignore me!
Freud: That must be the origin of his malfunctions! I have got it! Dreams reveal inner traumas or desires!
Pixel: They’re always molesting me with their “solve this equation” and “kill this deer” No, Daddy! No!
Freud: Wait, does he even knows what ‘molest’ means?
Pixel: They molest me so bad… often sexually
Freud: This explains so much… His total lack of regard for psychology, his fear of authority, his weirdness…
Pixel: It makes me so afraid of authority, daddy! And nobody cares what I think! And the big pink elephants are out to get me!! Don’t make me go, please??
Freud: Oh, my, this seems so important. Why did it not come up before?
Pixel: I’ll never tell anyone about it again, Daddy, I swear it. I’ll forget! I will!
Freud: Ah ha! This memory must have been repressed! It must be the reasons behind his dysfunctions right now, and he didn’t even know it!
Pixel: Yikes, Doc! You could wake the dead with that voice… it sounds like you’re strangling ducks or something…
Freud: It doesn’t matter anyway. I have made a huge breakthrough!
Pixel: Oh, that’s cool. Me too. Only it was more like just a weird dream than a huge breakthrough…
I dreamt that I was you!
(Lights dim, Freud goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is with Lithium yet again. It might be a few months after the last time we saw them)
Lithium Remember Hiroshima?
Pixel I wasn’t alive yet
Lithium No, but a lot of people were. And a lot of those people were from Japan.
Pixel And Japan makes most of the things that we buy, so?
Lithium So… Shouldn’t Japan be angrier about things than it seems? I think they’re just biding their time.
Pixel: So you think they’re planning on making themselves indispensable then dispensing themselves?
Lithium: No, I think they’re planning on putting microscopic bombs on every product we buy from them.
Pixel: Why would they do something like that? What if we caught them? Wouldn’t that be bad for them?
Lithium: What part of microscopic confuses you? There’s so many microscopic parts in any given product, and Americans are so lazy that we’d never find them!
Pixel: And these microscopic bombs are all going to detonate at the same time?
Lithium: When Japan tells them to.
Pixel: And many small bombs,
Lithium: Make one big bomb….
Pixel: Yikes, xenophobia.
Lithium: Yeah, but with good cause, Japan is very powerful now and doesn’t like us much.
Pixel: So that’s why they’ve started working so hard to be the best?
Lithium: Yeah.
Pixel: Scary.
Lithium: No kidding.
(Interference should pervade the rest of this. Make it look as natural as possible. It shouldn’t seem like it is part of the play.)
Pixel: How–if—–funny–even if—the world–sporks———NO I WILL NOT BANANA!!
Lithium: …
Pixel: I think–people’ll– like it
Lithium: …
Pixel: Yeah, I know, it’s crude
Lithium: …
Pixel: But if my theory is correct
Lithium: …
Pixel: but if it is…
Lithium: …
Pixel: exactly.
Lithium: …
Pixel: Like——–cut—-off?
Lithium: We’re sorry, we’re experiencing some technical difficulties, please stand by.
(Pixel and Lithium look up at the roof, hopefully toward the techies. They get the heads-up and they both look at the audience, then at each other before continuing)
Lithium: Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, Pinky & the Brain what do they have in common?
Pixel: They wanted to take over the world?
Lithium: Yes, and how did they do it?
Pixel: With force?
Lithium: Yes.
Pixel: But that’s not the way, is it?
Lithium: Nope, in order to take over the world, you have to control the toilet paper industry.
Pixel ?
Lithium: No toilet paper, no life
Pixel: So that’s why they failed?
Lithium: And why we’ll succeed.
Pixel: Granted, toilet paper is important, but what if people just ignored us and started using banana leaves?
Lithium: If you had the choice between freedom to clean yourself with banana leaves or being enslaved, but having some nice two-ply toilet paper, what would you choose?
Pixel: Good point. (pause)
Lithium: It’s about time you conceded a point.
Pixel: What are you talking about? I let you win all the time!
Lithium: First of all, you don’t let me win. I win out of my own abilities. Like yesterday when we talked about my theory of cones. I won that one!
Pixel: That’s not true, I didn’t argue because it was too silly. Cones are top heavy, they wouldn’t land on the mattress with the sharp part down. Duh… And that wasn’t yesterday. I went back in time yesterday.
Lithium: Wait. Yesterday? How is that possible? Doesn’t time dictate that you cannot use another temporal reference when dealing with time? And anyway, you were bowling yesterday.
Pixel: No I wasn’t… wait… oooh… I see how it is.
Lithium: Go ahead.
Pixel: Anyway, I told myself that the words ñ?que gük are going to be important, and to remember them—
Lithium: Niak Guook? What’s that?
Pixel: See that’s the thing! I don’t know! I taught myself, but since I already knew it when I taught it to myself, I couldn’t come up with it. And since I couldn’t think it up, then who did?
Lithium Someone else.
Pixel: Yeah, I was thinking that too, but who else? If I already know it and they learn from me?
Lithium: In other words, if you did the impossible, then it would be impossible?
Pixel: Yeah… but when you put it that way…
Lithium: What other way would you like for me to put it? Time travel simply isn’t possible.
Pixel: Sure it is. I remember once, as a kid, I ran into a future version of myself. He’s the reason I don’t eat at Taco Bell anymore.
Lithium: He told you not to eat there?
Pixel: No, I saw Demolition Man right after that.
Lithium: That reminds me. You know how the country won several thousands of dollars off Tobacco companies, right?
Pixel: Yeah, because they misled us. Because tobacco kills.
Lithium: But not for several years of doing it.
Pixel: True.
Lithium: Well high cholesterol kills too. Excess meat usually causes heart disease, and heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.
Pixel: What are you saying?
Lithium: That we should do the same to McDonald’s and KFC, they’ve misled us for years.
Pixel: But it’s not addictive, and you need several years before it catches up to you. You can stop.
Lithium: Can you? Some of those meals are exquisite, I don’t think I could give it up, and if it is addictive, then shouldn’t we get the same settlement? Tobacco had a warning label for many years, but fast food hasn’t. We could become rich!
Pixel: Isn’t that what Bill Maher advocates all the time?
Lithium: Bill Maher? Who listens to him?
Pixel: I happen to think he has very interesting ideas.
Lithium: Hasn’t he died yet? He’s like 90 or something, right?
Pixel: I think he’s 56, actually.
Lithium: Oh. 56. That reminds me. Have you ever eaten a saltine?
Pixel: You mean a cracker?
Lithium: Yeah. How do they make all of the holes in crackers?
Pixel: Postal workers?
Lithium: But they’re all the same size.
Pixel: Machines?
Lithium: But crackers crack.
Pixel: That’s why they’re yeast when they go in.
Lithium: Yeast expands, so all the holes wouldn’t be the same size.
Pixel: Special yeast that doesn’t expand?
Lithium: Okay, but why do they call them saltines? Can’t they just be salt crackers?
Pixel: It’s for people whose doctor said “No Salt” that way they can eat the crackers and die.
Lithium: See, now you’re not being very reasonable…
Pixel: What if I called myself a reasonatine?
Lithium: You suck and coming up with words.
Pixel: Example.
Lithium: ñaque gûük, reasonatine?
Pixel: You think that those words are bad? What about the word microwave?
Lithium: What’s wrong with microwave?
Pixel: Micro means small right? And waves is waves?
Lithium: (Pause) Are you asking me?
Pixel: (Pensive) I suppose so.
Lithium: Well, then yes.
Pixel: To the first part or the second part?
Lithium: The first.
Pixel: Oh, okay, anyway I was saying how people who discover things have no imagination.
Lithium: Telephone… light-bulb… automobile.
Pixel: light, bulb? Bulb that contains light. Auto mobile? Movable auto. Telephone? Fake telepathy.
Lithium: So you’re saying that if you invented something, you’d call it something special, rather than just naming it by what it does?
Pixel: Oh, yeah…
Lithium: And what do you propose calling a Microwave?
Pixel: Corn-popper-maker-doer-thingie.
Lithium: See, that’s why no married couples ask us for our opinion on their kids’ names.
Pixel: What are you talking about? They ask me all the time. Actually, they’re probably only asking me the time, but still, I never stop suggesting alternative names for their stupid little tykes.
Lithium: Do you call them that?
Pixel: to their faces?
Lithium: Yeah.
Pixel: Oh, yeah. Stupid friggin’ tykes… that’s why they should all have names like Moron #1 and Moron # 14.
Lithium: Ah… kids… with their stuff and their things.
Pixel: And their incessant stupid questions…
Lithium: Yeah, like “Why does the sun go away at night?”
Pixel: Because it rotates around the earth and it has to go under it at times, duh.
Lithium: No, the reason that the sun goes away at night is that it is afraid of the dark.
Pixel: A little known fact.
Lithium: But so true.
Pixel: You know I was afraid of the dark when I was a young child?
Lithium You don’t say…
Pixel No, really. I was. Wait. No, that was my bother. I was afraid of dogs… No, wait, that was him too. Maybe I was just afraid of heights?
Lithium Well then, stay away from Colorado.
Pixel Oh, like I’d go there anyway. You know what they’re like…
Lithium Yeah, with their…
Pixel and their…
Lithium Wait. What’s wrong with Colorado?
Pixel: Beats me. People kinda stayed away from making fun of it after Columbine… So nobody picks on it anymore. Hmm. I wonder… which is the least picked on of the fifty states?
Lithium hmm…
Pixel: You know how we all make fun of Texas for being so cowboyish and Florida for being so old…
Lithium: And Alaska for being so cold. And Hawaii for being so new.
Pixel: And Wyoming for being so populated, phew! and New Jersey for being so raw.
Lithium: And Louisiana for Mardi Gras. And California for being about to sink.
Pixel: I guess it would have to be Vermont. Don’t cha think?
Lithium: Yeah, I was thinking Massachusetts, or one of those.
Pixel: So that settles it. One of those it is.
(Lights dim, Lithium goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is with Socrates yet again. They seem to be going to Brunch)
Pixel: So tell me, Sock–
Socrates: — don’t call me Sock–
Pixel: — don’t you just hate white people??
Socrates: No, I don’t. What kind of a question was that? What kind of a journalist are you?
Pixel: the kind that asks the biting questions America wants to hear, and also the kind that has his own play.
Socrates: And would you say that you’re a good journalist?
Pixel: I would say that I’m a cute boy, but… well, I never said I was much of a journalist.
Socrates: And as a good journalist you would also be a good person? Possessing good qualities?
Pixel: Are you even listening to me? You know, I’m not agreeing with you here…
Socrates: Since you fairy boy have these qualities, would you say that you can teach them?
Pixel: I would say a lot of things. Yeah, I’d probably say that; right after someone said, “what should I do with this extra hundred-dollar bill?”
Socrates: Well, if you say you can teach virtue, my oh, so wise sir peanuts for brains, you must obviously know what virtue is, right? wrong
Pixel: Hey, what are you muttering there? Why are you covering your mouth like that?
Socrates: Oh, you’re as observant as you are wise moron. But loser please, you have yet to answer my question idiot, what is virtue, pray tell?
Pixel: … Yeah. Um, Okay. I’d have to go with Nietzsche’s interpretation and say that it’s just something the weak created to protect themselves from the strong.
Socrates: Ah, doodyhead, but what of the fact that there are a lot of “weak” people like you! but very few “strong” people not like you, Tweak. Could not the collective “weak” overpower the few “strong”? … Dubya
Pixel: Hey, I heard that!
Socrates: Heard what? Flippin’ Crybaby
Pixel: That–that “Dubya” remark!
Socrates: And you object to the strongest letter in the alphabet?
Pixel: The strongest letter?
Socrates: It’s twice ‘U’. (and sixteen times ‘you’)
Pixel: Oh.
Socrates: Much stronger than that too.
Pixel: So, anyway. I was going to make an unrelated remark as to how squirrels hoard a lot of nuts. I think I was going to tie that in to virtue, but now I’m just going to claim that nature makes us want more than what we can have.
Socrates: That is a very interesting yet stupid point, too bad it’s wrong.
You’re making me spin in my grave here pillow-biter.
Pixel: But, just because there are a lot of weak people doesn’t mean that they’re good at organization or even realizing that they can be more powerful together. Damn chocolate pirate…
Socrates: real subtle… dork Well, unless the collective group was of exceptional demerit, then eventually someone would realize what was going on, right?
Pixel Uh…
Socrates Exactly.
Pixel: Hey, Socrates, have you ever lost an argument?
Socrates: (to self) friggin’ Parmenides can take his Zeno and Grumble, grumble, Grumble.
Pixel: Wait a minute… did you actually say “grumble, grumble, grumble?”
Socrates: Nah, something must have been lost in the translation… Anyway, yes, I have lost an argument. A long time ago. In my youth…
Pixel: Cute. A flashback.
Socrates: It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times… I was a hot young stud muffin straight out of the Academy–
Pixel: –I thought that the Academy started after you died–
Socrates: –and I ran into this really old guy that doubted my theory of forms.
Pixel: Your theory of whazzat?
Socrates: He told me that it was impossible because by my theory, assuming his basic rules of non-identity, would be wrong. Infinitely so, in fact.
Pixel: Can we, like, get to the point sometime soon? Or at least an explanation.
Socrates: So he’s like, “all is one.” and I was like… oh, screw it; it’s too confusing to go on.
Pixel: And you lived happily ever after because you didn’t let it get to you. The end.
Socrates: Huh? No! That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! No, I came up with a much better argument. But by then it was too late: he had died… probably. I mean I just came up with it right now.
Pixel: Go on… Oh, sorry– But Socrates, what could possibly be better than “all is one”?
Socrates: Easy: “all is none.”
Pixel: You know, sometimes explanations can help…
Socrates: Well, okay, assume that everything was just some sort of Matrixy type thing.
Pixel: m’kay, assumption granted.
Socrates: And as such, we are all a part of a greater entity?
Pixel: I assume that the assumption would hold.
Socrates: So then, wouldn’t everything just be an illusion of something bigger? Wouldn’t everything just be the same thing?
Pixel: Well, okay, I can see that.
Socrates: Now assume that everything was an illusion, much like a mirage in a desert as seen by a cobbler wearing bad shoes and eating salt-laden pastries.
Pixel: Yeah, okay, sure.
Socrates: So you agree that All is None?
Pixel: Huh? Wait. Wait a sec, I didn’t agree to that!
Socrates: Well you granted my assumption, didn’t you?
Pixel: Yeah, to see where you would go with it!
Socrates: Well, now you know. Hey, that’s what happens when you make assumptions.
Pixel: Oh, bother. We’ll continue this later.
Socrates: Yeah, we’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s head.
Pixel: Don’t you mean tail?
Socrates: Hey, it’s only tails fifty percent of the time.
Pixel: … I hate you…
(Lights dim, Socrates exits, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is alone. Dumbledore enters.)
Pixel: Good day everybody. In order to round out this play, we have decided to throw in the only other person that we were missing. So now, please give a warm welcome to Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore!
Dumbledore: Are you quite through?
Pixel: Yes, sorry, I get excited fairly easily. Okay, Professor, first question: why and how do you always seem to twinkle your eye at Harry Potter?
Dumbledore: Excuse me? I don’t twinkle my eye at anyone! You’re probably referring to my Glaucoma. I hear that it makes my eye shine if you look at it from the right angle.
Pixel: So you don’t twinkle?
Dumbledore: No, I don’t.
Pixel: Okay then. Next question: what’s it like being older than indoor plumbing?
Dumbledore: Well, it took me nearly fifty years to finally get used to it, and then, when I finally thought I knew everything there was to know about toilets, they introduced cable television.
Pixel: Wait. What does that have to do with anything?
Dumbledore: Oh, you’d be surprised…
Pixel: Well, then. On the books and movies: which one does the actual story better justice?
Dumbledore: Probably The Fellowship of the Ring, I didn’t like the “liberties” in the sense that throwing poop on Michelangelo’s David is a liberty that they used in the Two Towers.
Pixel: I’m sorry, I was talking about the Harry Potter series.
Dumbledore: Oh, I know Patty. I know… (twinkle)
Pixel: My name’s not Patty.
Dumbledore: That’s exactly what Harry Potter said to me when I first met her.
Pixel: Okay then. Let’s see.. Okay, who do you think does a better job of portraying you in the Harry Potter movies, the late and legendary sir Richard Harris, or the retarded, ugly, water-basket impostor Michael Gambon?
Dumbledore: Can I choose young Daniel Radcliffe?
Pixel: But he doesn’t play you in any movie!
Dumbledore: Now, now. Don’t be naïve, young Patty.
Pixel: I’M NOT PATTY!!
Dumbledore: You’re fairly impatient aren’t you? And also fairly short. Plus, you smell bad.
Pixel: Huh? Oh… I get it. You did research! You know all about my Pixatic Method!
Dumbledore: My dear boy, you do seem to be fond of naming things after yourself, don’t you Patty? (twinkle)
Pixel: … I’ll be, er, going now…
(Lights dim, Dumbledore exits, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is back with Freud)
Freud: Seeing as our exploits in hypnosis didn’t quite work out, I have decided to try something new and innovative.
Pixel: What hypnosis? When did we do that? Was I awake for that?
Freud: Well, no, but that is pretty much the point of hypnosis.
Pixel: That’s a pretty stupid point if you ask me.
Freud: You do not understand–
Pixel: Understand what? I suppose you’re going to tell me that I have to be asleep for that too.
Freud: Never mind, there was no hypnosis. However, I would still like to try this new thing.
Pixel: Does it require me being asleep for it to work?
Freud: Quite the reverse.
Pixel: It requires me to work for it to be asleep? What is it, a congressman?
Freud: No, no. It is merely you laying down on the couch and saying whatever comes to your mind, regardless of whether you think it be too trivial or embarrassing.
Pixel: I think I saw the Candid Camera where they did that… didn’t all of those people wind up committing suicide?
Freud: You just made that up.
Pixel: No, seriously, Candid Camera was a great show in its time.
Freud: Just… lay down.
Pixel: Okay. Hey Doc, when’s the last time you went to the bathroom?
Freud: What? What do you mean?
Pixel: I mean, is that an inkblot on your pants or are you… is that an inkblot on your pants?
Freud: Yes, my daughter Anna spilt it on them this morning whilst she was drawing a cartoon.
Pixel: You have a daughter?
Freud: You’ve already asked me that. Why would you think that I would not?
Pixel: Oh, no reason.
Freud: Is it not strange, though, that both her drawing and this stain resemble the male genitalia?
Pixel: Really? How? All I see is Bill Watterson French kissing J.K. Rowling.
Freud: You do? And what do you see in this picture over here?
Pixel: An empty bottle of Aquafina.
Freud: That’s just what she wants you to see. You have to look deeper.
Pixel: I can’t. It’s 2-dimensional… So. What was that new thing you wanted to try again?
Freud: Basically, I say a word to start you off, then you let your mind freely associate it with whatever you happen to be thinking, regardless of whether you think it’s–
Pixel: too trivial or embarrassing. Got it. Ready?
Freud: Yes. And remember, nothing you say is wrong… Home.
Pixel: Depot. Office. Max. Mighty. Mouse. Mickey. Mantle. Piece. Hair. Brush. Tooth. Timmy. Allen. Wrench. Sigmund’s Mom. Sex. Bathroom. Crap. Toni Morrison. Beloved. Red Heart, red heart. Horseshoes. Nike. Child Labor. Chocolate. Milk. Death. Sleep. Hamlet. Home… Was that okay?
Freud: No, no, that was wrong.
(Lights dim, Freud goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is with with Lithium, yet again.)
Lithium: You know how you can tell how old a tree is by counting its rings?
Pixel: Is that grammatically correct?
Lithium: Sure it is, why wouldn’t it be?
Pixel: Okay… well then yes.
Lithium: Why wouldn’t it be yes?
Pixel: I guess it would.
Lithium: Yeah… anyway, you can do that with humans too.
Pixel: Humans two? Me? Or are you saying that if you cut us in half you can see how old we are?
Lithium: No, just count the lines in your finger prints.
Pixel But aren’t we born with the same fingerprints we die with? New lines aren’t added, are they?
Lithium Well, no, but it’s not an exact science.
Pixel So basically, if you count them, you’ll only be right once? Couldn’t you just guess and get better results?
Lithium Depends on what you mean by better.
Pixel More accurate.
Lithium Well then yes. I thought you meant higher.
Pixel Oh.
Lithium It’s a common mistake, don’t beat yourself up for it.
Pixel I’m sorry, I guess I just didn’t understand.
Lithium It’s okay. Just fill up my car with gas and we’ll be fine.
Pixel Why do you keep saying that?
Lithium Well, it’s just that gas is so–
Pixel: You know how gas prices just keep going up because we’re over-exploiting our natural oils?
Lithium: Y– (nods, but is cut off).
Pixel: Well, nature doesn’t make cycles that don’t go anywhere. It’s adaptation, it’s evolution, it’s common sense.
Lithium: Like–
Pixel: Like the Krebs cycle, the Calvin cycle, and the bicycle… they’re circular.
Lithium: and…
Pixel: And there’s never a step without a reason. So there must be oils for a reason.
Lithium: Like…
Pixel: Well trees rot and form oils, the oils slowly sink to the center of the earth, the core burns the oils and releases nutrients to the topsoil, thereby making more trees.
Lithium: So…
Pixel: So if we take away the natural oils, then the core has nothing to burn, the soils don’t get nutrients, the core burns out, and we are left with one dead earth… spooky huh?
Lithium I’m speechless.
(Enter Letter 4 for some reason. Lithium looks at Pixel. Pixel nods and looks away.)
Lithium: Did they ever send monkeys into space?
Pixel: (Looks at Letter 4)
Letter 4: (Ignores him)
Lithium: Oh, come on, I have a final for my AP Teacher’s Aid next period, and if I don’t get it right I’ll flunk and be back here next year.
Letter 4: (Playingly) No, okay, no.
Lithium: Ooh… but did they? Oh, come on…
(Letter 4 gets up and walks off)
Pixel Those conversations always end up with Letter 4 walking off. I wonder why s/he puts up with it.
Lithium Maybe it’s boring backstage?
Pixel It’d have to be, to come out and talk to you.
Lithium It was worth a shot.
Pixel What was? You didn’t do anything!
Lithium Well, if s/he’d given me a bit more time…
Pixel Then you’d do nothing longer?
Lithium Never mind. What did you want to say again?
Pixel: People who are addicted to–
Lithium: to cigarettes?
Pixel: Yeah. Hey, you do check your e-mail.
(they switch sides on the chess board around and continue playing)
Lithium: Go ahead.
Pixel: Anyway, they say that they feel an urge to smoke and they can postpone it but can’t stop doing it.
Lithium: That sounds remarkably similar to…
Pixel: sleep.
Lithium: And eating food.
Pixel: And drinking.
Lithium So is it an addiction?
Pixel Who knows? I mean, they all follow the same paths as addictions: if we don’t sleep we get groggy and cranky, and if we try to not do it at all, we start going crazy and losing normal processes. And if you don’t drink you start getting thirsty. And have you seen what starving kids’ll do to your lunchbox if you don’t watch it? Exactly.
Lithium But our parents eat, drink, and sleep too!
Pixel Yeah, but there are women addicted to crank that pass it on to their kids too.
Lithium Crank?
Pixel I’m sure it’s a drug somewhere…
Lithium: Hey, speaking of e-mail, do you remember our Speed of Light theory?
Pixel: The one that we published?
Lithium: Yeah, I think. Did you know that some big-shot scientists are making money off it?
Pixel: ?
Lithium: On Yahoo! If you go to the technology section and type in Speed of Light, you’ll find OUR theory, but with other words and other people.
Pixel: Odd, I thought that we invented it.
Lithium: We did, and if we take the thing to the people, then we could be like really famous, and possibly win the Nobel Prize.
Pixel Whoa. What theory was that again?
Lithium I don’t remember, but it must have been brilliant…
Pixel: Have you ever heard of Murphy’s Law?
Lithium: Yes.
Pixel: How anything you expect will come out wrong?
Lithium: Wasn’t it, –If anything can be expected, it will fail?–
Pixel: I don’t know… something about irony though.
Lithium: Like you thought that you could just start talking about something you didn’t research and not be caught.
Pixel: Well, I expected to do a little better.
Lithium: We always do.
Pixel: Hence Murphy’s Law.
Lithium: Reminds me of Silver’s Law: “If Murphy’s law can go wrong, it will.”
Pixel: Who’s Silver?
Lithium: The Lone Ranger’s horse.
Pixel: Oh.
(…)
Lithium: The origin of Wind…
(silence)
Pixel: … Is there any particular reason you said that?
Lithium: Well…I think so. Oh, yeah! Can a person forget how to ride a bike?
Pixel: ?
Lithium: Umm… yeah… is it possible to forget? They always say, “It’s like riding a bike–”
Pixel: –”you never forget.” Yeah… I wonder.
Lithium: Perhaps in a few hundred years….
Pixel: We should test it.
Lithium: And let it go horribly wrong, like last project?
Pixel What was the last project?
Lithium Don’t you remember? It’s the reason you don’t go to Kansas anymore? Damned Temps…
Pixel (dumbfounded) Yes. Damned Tents.
Lithium Did you just say tents?
Pixel Yeah, I changed it.
Lithium What? You can’t just change it?
Pixel Of Course I can. How many things can you name that never change?
Lithium: … None. Everything changes.
Pixel: Including the big things in life.
Lithium: Especially the big things.
Pixel Like the moon?
Lithium Oh, gosh. What do you mean?
Pixel: Just, that the moon could easily be getting bigger and brighter… like it has.
Lithium: Due to the gravitational pull of the Earth on the moon?
Pixel: Due to the gravitational pull of the moon on the earth.
Lithium You’re not an astronomy major, right?
Pixel Nope.
Lithium You were biology, right?
Pixel Nope.
Lithium Psychology?
Pixel A little bit.
Lithium Huh. So are you more of a nature guy, or a nurture guy?
Pixel I don’t know. I was born believing in nature over nurture, but my parents raised me the other way, soo…
Lithium: Let me put it this way: can the events of childhood determine what a person becomes?
Pixel: Like, “is it the parenting or the genes?”
Lithium: Yeah… if two clones are raised in totally different environments… would they end up the same?
Pixel: Well if they were shy…
Lithium: You could also become shy because of your environment.
Pixel: Well then, it would make sense–
Lithium: –that both could contribute… if only we could test it…
Pixel but aren’t people testing it every day?
Lithium Obviously not well enough. I mean, if I had a test every day, I’d have the answer right now for sure!
Pixel I do concur, I concur. Like with women. If I had to go through that every month, I’d have found a way to make it bearable by now.
Lithium Um. Don’t you think that’s a bit different?
Pixel: No, not really. Okay, look at it this way: most people agree that men and women have it about the same.
Lithium: Of course, one benefit in a woman usually equals one benefit in a man.
Pixel: What about pregnancy, most people can’t find a male equivalent to child birth.
Lithium: And you did?
Pixel: Yes. Let’s look at the available evidence: first, women get knocked up, which is usually not an altogether awful experience.
Lithium Yeah, then they spend nine moody months eating whatever they want.
Pixel Right. After which they have anywhere from six minutes to 28 hours of blistering, horrible, horrible pain that I would not wish on anyone.
Lithium Okay. Fair enough. What do men have equivalent to this?
Pixel I should think it’s fairly obvious. Men have to have Adam’s Apples.
Lithium: What?! That’s not fair at all, though! Men have Adam’s Apples their entire lives… it’s horrible!
Pixel: I know… but I think that it evens out with the small 9 months of carrying a child, being able to eat freely and look overweight for a reason… Wow. Actually no. Men have it worse!
Lithium We should complain.
Pixel After the game, after the game…
(They switch sides again)
Lithium: …Wind Origin…
(…)
Pixel: Okay, I give… what’s new?
Lithium: Well, where does wind originate? If you followed it back to where it started, what would you find?
Pixel: A regular pot o’ gold.
Lithium: Would it be a big fan operated by a guy named Hal? Or would you just walk back around the (gestures walking around a flat world) world?
Pixel: That would be pretty interesting to find out.
Lithium: Or maybe a giant dog wagging it’s tail…
(Lights dim, Lithium goes motionless, when the lights turn on again, Pixel is sitting alone.)
Pixel: Hey all. And now our new speaker: A Blue Lump of Talking Play-Doh®.
(busts out with a huge lump of animated clay)
Play-Doh: Hey, I just flew in and boy, are my arms tired!–
Pixel: –You live in my pocket–
Play-Doh: –Because I was flapping my arms, see? So now my arms are tired of flapping.
Pixel: Oh, dear… This is worse than that interview with the Vampire. Well, actually not really: that guy really bit. No pun intended.
Play-Doh: Because I was flapping my arms, see? So now my arms are tired of flapping.
Pixel: It’s like we’re not even trying anymore. Why couldn’t we just keep Dumbledore? He was cool. Except that he smelled like a cabbage and he kept calling me Patty.
Play-Doh: I was flapping them all through the plane ride here. Really annoyed the elderly paraplegic on my right, nearly killed the paranoid schizophrenic on my left…
Pixel: Hmm. And what about Socrates? He seemed far less senile than I would have expected. He even stopped calling me “queer-boy” after a while.
Play-Doh: Especially when my wing fell off on his lap …
Pixel: Oh, well. Hey, at least no one’s going to miss this Play-Doh, right?
Play-Doh: … and it said “this Hanta virus will kill him off.”
Pixel: Are you still here?
Play-Doh: What can I say? My body parts are rude… All of them…
Pixel: Wow. I thought you’d have become a temporal loophole by now. That’s what my Play-Doh always turned into anyway…
Play-Doh: Temporal loophole, eh? I don’t think Plato does that.
. . . I mean Play-Doh.
Pixel: Either way, you’re just a big lump of clay. I figured that by now you’d make something of yourself. No pun intended.
Play-Doh: Speaking of rude body parts and temporal loopholes, can you introduce me to that Letter 4? S/he sure is a cutie.
Pixel: Now tell me, how hard is it to make a flower out of Play-Doh? (grabs the Play-Doh)
Play-Doh: HEY! You said we’d just talk! You didn’t say anything about manhandling me!
Pixel: That’s odd. That’s the same thing that Dumbledore said when he got here. Hmm… This looks more like a tortilla.
Play-Doh: Get your fu– (muffled) fucking hands off me!!
Pixel: Okay, now it looks more like the abstract concept of obsession. Let’s see. If what I twist this?
Play-Doh: (muffled) Patty?
Pixel: STOP CALLING ME PATTY!!! (goes nuts on the Play-Doh)
Play-Doh: (sound of Play-Doh altering the universe and creating a time vortex nine years into the future. In other words a “poof!”)
Pixel: Wow. What’s that? Who goes there? Speak, you scalawag!
Strange Guy Who Walked Through the Vortex while You weren’t Looking: Ah, the Pixel Brand of Humor, imitation with a long-since passed expiration date… oh, how I missed thee.
Pixel: Huh? Who are you? Why are you mocking me? And why do you smell faintly of urine and corn chips?
Strange Guy: You don’t recognize me? No, of course you don’t; I’m you.
Pixel: Me? Do you honestly think I’ll buy a hen n’ cow story like that? … If you’re really me, what number am I thinking of?
73¤!¿: You’re not. My arrival made you wonder what the Play-doh that you ate this morning is going to do when it passes through your system.
Pixel: Lucky guess. Okay, so what’s going to happen to it?
73¤!¿: The ancient Anasazi will think that the Gods really hate them.
Pixel: So… are you going to give me some sort of futuristic gift or are you just doing the invaluable advice bit?
73¤!¿: Neither. I came back to play pranks on you. I figure I’ll start with posting naked pictures of you on the school website, burning holes in strategic parts of all of your clothes, painting your car a flaming purple color, maybe telling off your teachers. You know, all the basics.
Pixel: What? Why?? Why would you do that?
73¤!¿: Because when I was you, a future me came back in time and almost did that to me. I swore vengeance, and you know how good I am at swearing. So now that I have the chance, I’m paying myself back for me.
Pixel: Oh. Okay. I guess that makes sense. But you can’t expect me to not get back at you. I’ll get my vengeance dang it, I swear it!
73¤!¿: What are you going to do? Go back in time and mess up my life??
Pixel: Maybe I will… (with one hand he balls up some Play-Doh behind his back.)
73¤!¿: Anyway, I also wanted to stop you from doing something that’s been bothering me since I was you. Something that you’re going to do that could kill us both.
Pixel: Hee-Ya, you Jackanapes!! (He throws the ball at him as hard as he can)
73¤!¿: Oh, dear. Not this! [the ball hits him and proceeds to cover him up like that mirror covered up Neo in the first Matrix (right before he busted out into the real world). Then, when just a big blue lump is left, it all fizzles and pops out of existence, killing 73¤!¿ in the process.]
Pixel: Wait a minute. Did I just kill myself? Or was that suicide? It should be.
Obviously I knew what I was getting into. Speaking of which, what the hell was I thinking?
It actually bites a little. Knowing exactly how and when I’m going to die. It really ticks me off too. I’m starting to severely hate my killer. It’s self-loathing taken to an odd extreme, I admit, but it’s a natural extreme none-the-less. I wonder if there’s a way to fix it all. Hmm… This could turn out to be bad for me… What do I do? I guess I should just never travel through time ever again…
I could, however, just go back in time early enough (like right before I killed myself) and tell myself to not kill me. Of course, then I’d have to wait around for that time vortex to open up again…
I should go back in time and stop me from killing myself. I think I will, actually.
Alright. It’s decided! I’m going to go back in time and warn myself!
And while I’m at it, I’ll get back at him by playing as many pranks as I can think up. I think I’ll start with the basics… Vengeance, you know… I’m such a jerk.
Ind e-Pen XXXIII
By Pixel at August 14, 2004 at 5:24 pm. Filed in ind e-pen The Ind e-Pen
+++vol+1+++BT+33+++
Introduction
================
There’s a storm advisory in my area (between the kitchen and the living room), and I’m watching lightning flail all over the sky like a fifteen year-old getting to third base with Sarah Hughes.
Whoa.
Olympic humor.
That’s new.
I guess we’re going to have to get used to it, though, because let’s face it: the Olympics are here. And they’ll probably stay here until at least Sunday. Then they’ll take a short hiatus and come back in 2008 for another two weeks. So get ready for Olympic mayhem!
Whoa, thunder.
Rain.
Man, I really shouldn’t have hung my clothes on the line tonight…
Anyway, here’s an e-mail. Perhaps next week I’ll attach one of these projects (specifically the 90-page play). Perhaps..
The Saddest Things in the World:
- reading fan fiction
- writing fan fiction (although Slash is still cool)
- rewriting fan fiction
- eating alone.
- sitting in front of an empty plate.
- sitting alone, in front of an empty plate, contemplating your next fan fiction story.
- getting a friend to ask out someone because you’re too afraid to do it yourself.
- having that friend be your mother.
- having her bribe them to do it.
- having them take the money, meeting you, then standing you up.
- having that be your best relationship.
- having a diary
- having a livejournal
- being a Butt (http://www.livejournal.com/users/gorzo88/)
- giving Butt’s journal undue publicity in the hopes that he would update it so that you’d have something to read.
- having a weekly e-mail
- having a viewspaper
- emo music
- ha ha, get it? Emo music IS sad…
- not getting it.
- not getting it, but faking a laugh because you think everyone else got it.
Little White Lies (rated from smallest to largest)
- That dress looks fine on you
- I didn’t notice any strange looks
- you don’t have anything on your butt
- I no speaka any english
- I hope you do well
- I’ll be home in an hour
- Butt’s not here
- It was like that when I got here
- I like your parents
- Your dad likes being the catcher
- He’s gay
- I’m gay
- You’re gay.
- I’ll watch your kids while you’re away
- He killed your father
- I didn’t crash your car
- Your son is AB+, I remember distinctly
- I didn’t know he was out of prison
- I have your mortgage payment right here
- That is your kid
- I took the pill
- I’m a virgin
- I don’t have an STD
- I like your paper
A Small Quiz:
Congrats to Butt who responds quicker than Sonic the Hedgehog and the Flash’s love-child on speed. This makes it a Turkey for Butt, three times in a row that he’s beat out everyone else. I’ll wait until he’s offline to send this e-mail, but everyone has to hurry and respond! For the good of the city!!
This Week’s Questions:
1: Can you think of something sadder than anything on my list?
2: What’s the worst little white lie you’ve ever told?
3: If you received a 90-page e-mail, how much would you read?
Ind e-Pen XXXII
By Pixel at August 7, 2004 at 12:36 pm. Filed in ind e-pen The Ind e-Pen
+++vol+1+++BT+31+++
Introduction
================
There are tadpoles in my pool. Tadpoles in my pool! If there was ever a sign of not cleaning something after a rainstorm, it’s tadpoles. They look like itty-bitty sperm (though, technically, larger than life-sized sperm), and I can’t clean my pool now, it’ll kill them! And I can’t kill them, because it will bring back all the horrible images of my friend’s mother’s English friend Joe’s vasectomy! Not that I was there, but my imagination does run away with me sometimes. Oh, well, maybe if I just wait long enough, they’ll leap frog it out of here? One can dream, right?
Polling.
Wow. Last week, when I told everyone about the poll that I created, I didn’t quite expect every person that voted (four of you), to also explain why my choices were silly and suggest other, less silly, choices.
So I’m redoing the poll (effectively forcing everyone to revote). Instead of the answer choices that I didn’t want to do anyway, I’ll put in some of your suggestions. Also, the Grim Reaper. Because he sounds like fun. And, of course, some female choices (seeing as how the Philosopher’s Stone has been a Sausage Fest for a while now). It seems that the fictional Pixel, like his real life counterpart, does not talk to any women.
Hm. That’s kind of sad. I think I’ll go lay down for a while.
One craZy little boy.
Guess what I found? I found a 3-page story that I wrote when I was 13. Wanna read it? Okay, here goes. It’s called The Raccoon.
==========
The Raccoon
Dÿn Stygean was walking through the woods one warm December night. It’s hot, he thought that it was too hot to be -12°C but… who knows? As he skipped along he thought that he saw a small animal, and since he liked animals, he went to go pet it. As he neared it, he saw that it was a raccoon with a small hole in his head.
Dÿn stopped playing with it after around fifteen minutes, when he realized that it was not moving. He inspected the hole and saw that a 9mm gun made it. This made him quite mad, HOW COULD ANYONE do THIS!? He mentally shouted. His sadness quickly turned to rage as he saw that the trees thinned out just ahead to a red building. Well, he thought, IF they didn’t do it; then they must know who killed this poor defenseless creature.
As he made his way there, he thought of the bible, “Didn’t it say, ‘if thou doth findeth thyne deadeth animal, then thou shalt kill thyne’s killer?’” he seemed to remember. After thinking this, Dÿn knew that it was HIS responsibility to kill the person. Driven by his blind rage, Dÿn took out his tools of destruction and walked up to the building. Armed to the teeth (quite literally) he ignored the sign in front: “Saint Beverly’s Private school for the hearing impaired.”
Once inside, he saw a lady turned around facing an odd T.V. that had a bunch of letters being typed on it. He didn’t understand why so, walking up to the desk, he called out, “Hey lady!” She ignored him. Now Dÿn is relatively hard to anger, but he didn’t like being ignored. To cool himself down, he decided to ask about the raccoon, “Hey lady. Didja see who killed that raccoon in the forest?”
She ignored him again.
He started beating the desk, in an effort to draw her attention. Finally, she turned around and started moving her hands and mumbling words. Dÿn was smart enough to know that she was flipping him off in other languages, so he (losing his cool), took out his pump-action, double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun and blew her to tiny pieces. He proceeded to walk around the building.
He encountered several other people that all somehow pissed him off and he… killed them all. “Well, that was pointless,” he said. “Why do I always do this? I’m gonna run out of people to frame… Jonesborough, Littleton, umm… I forgot, but… they’ll start to notice soon.” It seemed that his good intentions always ended badly.
He went downstairs and walked out–
–straight into a bunch of police cars.
“STOP! POLICE!” He stopped, after all, they had said please. He looked around and saw that they all had small guns, guns small enough to… in fact, 9MMs! THEY COULD HAVE KILLED IT! He thought.
“Raccoon killers,” he mumbled as he reached for his rocket launcher. They fired at him, which only made him mad. Oddly enough, he killed all of them and didn’t get shot a single time… weird.
Leaving the scene of the crime, he went on to an elementary school…
* * *
Detective Paul Henricson was shocked by what he saw. He saw at least twenty cop cars go up in flames. I was supposed to back them up. I can’t believe it. Thank you Dunkin’ Donuts! he thought. He saw the suspect walk calmly away without a scratch, and, thinking that there might be cops trapped in the flaming cars, or the flaming building, he ran to go check.
He found that they had all died. He mourned for their extra-crispy, Kentucky fried souls. “D–N RACCOON KILLERS!!! WHO KILLED IT!?!” he heard from all the way across the town. He arrived there just in time to see the suspect walk out of a flaming gun shop. “I BET HE SOLD THAT GUN TO THAT KILLER!!” the suspect said.
Paul was too scared to shoot at the suspect (who was walking toward an elementary school) and instead thought of a plan. He went to a nearby bench and thought for a while. Well, I could do that, but I’d have to die… oh, well, it’s been a slice!
He ran up to the elementary building, preparing to go in. He took one last moment to savor life… when, he saw a bunch of kids walking around. This gave him an idea, “HEY KID! YEAH, YOU! THE ONE WITH THE BLUE SHIRT!” he yelled.
A small ten-year-old boy in a red shirt came up and said, “Who, me?”
“Yeah, you…” Smart, he thought. Then he whispered something in his ear. He took out his bullet-less 9mm and gave it to him.
“I get to… keep this?” he asked, incredulously.
“Yeah, just do what I told you.”
“Okay,” and he ran up to the school, which was now shaking under large amounts of bullets being pounded into it.
Paul waited…
And waited…
And waited…
Then, he heard, “I KILLED THE RACCOON!!”
Paul waited…
And waited…
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
And waited…
* * *
CRA-KA-BOOM!!
The entirety of Orange ceased to exist. The sound was heard thoughtout the nation. If anybody cared, it didn’t seem like it. This didn’t even make the news! Mostly, because all of the people that lived there were either stupid, old, cranky, boring, greedy, and/or annoying. And although most people are like that, no one wanted to hear it.
Miraculously, Dÿn survived. He was blown clear to New Mexico and landed in a pillow factory…
* * *
Somewhere in New Mexico:
I hate raccoons, hate them. Oh, look! There’s one!
POW!
I wish I had a better gun, d–n 9mm. I need more firepower. I’ve just about killed all the raccoons that I’ve seen. Now for deer.
He he.
…
…
…
I wonder who’s following me?
==========
Yeah… I recommend you not look too far into that. Other than how I was such a master of the obsurd and ironic at such a young age. Or something equally untrue.
A Small Quiz:
Last week, I said, “[Nikki's] answer to question three was so vulgar and mean-spirited that it made me alternately cry and chortle for two whole weeks. I’ll see if you can figure that one out.” I suppose Butt *couldn’t* figure that one out, so I’ll explain it. Nikki’s answer said “I’m too lazy to be creative right now Carlos. Make up an answer for me.”
But the answer that I made up for her was so vulgar and mean-spirited that I alternately cried and chortled for two whole weeks… all of which took place last week. Get it, Butt? *sigh* Nevermind.
This Week’s Questions:
1: Who are you going to vote for?
2: What about in this year’s election?
b. If I ran, would you vote for me?
c. For the Philosopher’s Stone election, I mean.
3: When did you write your first story? Is it better than mine?
- Dear Pixel, age 23, (1)
- MosesZD: Luckily, I don’t have that problem. I don’t like myself. I’m a tool. I’d love to do whatever I could to...
- Back to Square Zero (1)
- Alethea B: For someone as smart and talented as you, you sell yourself short sometimes. I loved this.
- Alethea B: For someone as smart and talented as you, you sell yourself short sometimes. I loved this.
- Street Smarts vs. Book Smarts (part 1 of 2) (10)
- Pixel:
I worry about you, Lyra. What are you, 11? 12? This Web site might not be for you. - Lyra: get a life
!!! like seriusly u wrote like 8000000 paragraphs !!!!!!!! 
[i hav an idea] GET...
- Pixel:
- New Decade Resolutions (2)
- Pixel: I know! Seriously. But I/we must!
- Two Top Ten Lists… sort of
- It is not the case that it is both To Be and Not To Be
- Dear Pixel, age 23,
- February, the month of Pencil & Paper III
- February, the month of Pencil & Paper II
- Spring 2010 Schedule
- February, the month of Pencil & Paper
- ashley awesome
- Confusion of Ideas
- Instant drawing
- Nerdgasm
- scott (caveat emptor)
- since i’ve been loving you
- The Photo Tells the Story
August, 2004
You are looking at posts that were written in the month of August in the year 2004.
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