THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 30

 

ZONE OF ENEMY #2: COUCH MAN

He’s in the shadows while you’re sprawled on your couch.

He’s lurking.

He’s watching.

But you are not the subject of his gaze.

In fact, he’s waiting for you to get up off your couch.

You’re blocking his view, friend.

And when you leave your couch to go to the gym or go grocery shopping or to attend a funeral or to live stream your walkthrough of a dying mall or to go to a restaurant or to go to a museum or to watch a movie inside a movie theater or to go watch a sporting event inside a stadium or to visit your neighbor’s spouse or to walk your dog or to worship inside a place of religion or to use that really well maintained restroom located on that newly renovated state college campus that gets all those wealthy alumni endowments or to purchase overpriced baseball cards at the baseball card store or to get riotously shitfaced at the neighborhood bar or when you leave for your shift at the cardboard box factory-

-whenever you leave your couch alone . . . there could be a kind of man lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce upon your couch.

This kind of man wears a mask of overfed normalcy. Plump cheeks. Trendy eyeliner. An empty smile that never affects his clear, bright liar’s eyes. He has an anodyne scent of soft, overcompensated living-something to do with venture capital perhaps-and one of his peculiar talents is his unflappable blandness of demeanor. Sure, his laugh is cringey and fake, but when was the last time you heard anybody genuinely give themselves over to laughter? All the comedians have degenerated into podgrifting conspiracy theorists, or desk-bound late night dinosaurs, or insufferable sketch comedy losers-so, of course, most laughter is forced, inauthentic, naught but a sputtering, gasping survival of a formerly vital impulse. So, no, the fakeness of this kind of man who lurks in shadows does nothing to arouse suspicion in a world long evacuated of true passion . . .

. . . save for the unholy lust inside this lurking man’s heart . . .

. . . a burning lust . . . that only your unprotected couch can satisfy!

I’ll spare you the glazey details.

But you’ll know when the Couch Man has struck.

He wants you to know.

But forewarned is forearmed.

If you wish to deter the Couch Man, you simply set up a pressure switch triggered explosive device. The Couch Man, as I said, is a product of wealth and soft living-he has no actual skills. He’ll be intimidated by the sight of you rigging up complex apparatus all over your couch. Sure, he might linger for a moment after you’ve left, licking his lips in frustration as he realizes his own weird lust lacks a certain spark, that he fears losing himself absolutely to his desire-a true sensualist would brave the bomb, would they not?

You have the “little death,” and then there’s the “Big Bang”-nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

But seriously, once everyone in the land has properly secured their couches against predation, this lamentable lurker shall no doubt skulk back to his empty rich man’s life. Maybe he’ll take up politics, or write a phony self-aggrandizing memoir, or he’ll have a “bad episode” at home involving his spouse’s favorite piece of furniture thus precipitating a truly tedious divorce process. 

So, secure your couches, be at peace, and pity not the Couch Man!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #37:

Yogi Berra teaching a symbolic logic course at a community college.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #1:

Push these two things together:

Pinhead says,”Your suffering will be legendary, even in hell."

Patrick Swayze says,”Pain don’t hurt.”

Come on, you video grifters, get on the stick!

Hell, even though I haven’t been able to find it, this one probably already exists somewhere out there on the online wastelands.

It’s kind of obvious when you think about it.

Sometimes obvious things are obvious . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #124:

NEW STUDY SUGGESTS PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC LINKED TO ROCK HARD ‘APERTURE STRETCHER’ BOWEL MOVEMENTS BEING PERCEIVED AS ‘TESTS FROM GOD.’

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#1)

(yaddayaddayaddaprocessprocessprocesshemhemhemhawhawhawtoingfroingtoingfroingtoingfroingblahblahblah)

. . . and then everybody turned into salt water taffy.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #23:

Theme of Finding Serenity Within Your Heart’s Dearest Dream of Avarice: Telescope by Pino Donaggio (Body Double OST)

Perhaps you’re an ace bouncer who’s been hired to clean up an out-of-control roadhouse.

You cruise the scene, noting how the bartender is dealing prescription painkillers on the sly; the corrupt security staff all have burglary and legbreaker debt collection side hustles; and the dance floor is little more than a meth-fuelled group grope on a good night.

But now you have seen what’s what.

Now you can bring forth the vision inside your heart:

There will be collared t-shirts with people’s names printed clearly over their hearts-otherwise, how will my people know themselves at depth?

There will be protracted martial arts battles as I take out the trash by kicking maximum ass all over the place.

There will be a handbook of employee conduct-truly, it shall be like unto a New Gospel.

There will be a love scene appropriate for an R-rated feature film between myself and someone who is certainly attractive but not in a way that makes me look less sexy than them so as to reinforce my Protagonist Status within this schema. 

And, of course, there shall be an end to meth-fuelled group gropes; and in their place shall be trendy line dances led by photogenic online influencers. 

I shall deliver this dream like a hard-boiled Santa Claus.

There must be order.

There shall be order.

But maybe you’re one of these phantom shitters.

One of these guys who lurks in the shadows within large naval vessels or complex institutions with lots of real estate.

You wear the de rigeur mask of respectability by day, all the while secretly scoping out your targets, assessing them for maximum theatricality.

And by night you sneak about, depositing your gifts in high traffic areas like the Worst Santa Claus of All Times.

You work from your gut.

There must be chaos.

There shall be chaos.

It could also be the case that you are a wealthy Libertarian fruitcake watching the big Thanksgiving parade on your wall-mounted array of wafer thin screens inside your bunker.

Your discreet drones give you many feeds, and you’ve been watching this particular parade for years.

A wonderful dream coalesces deep inside your heart:

There shall be explosions.

My robot bombs shall bring these gifts.

Like a vengeful Santa.

There shall be death and ruin.

It shall be Full Smoking Crater Protocol.

Big Gubmint shall have no dominion over my cute ass.

A fraudulent manifesto shall be published to bamboozle the authorities.

This crime shall go unsolved.

This crime shall change the politics and the culture and the economy and the everything for generations.

Conspiracies, misinformation, harsh laws, enhancements to the pre-existing police state, perhaps another one of those War on Terror type of deals to look productive or whatever.

And in the end, I will see an uptick in sales and installations of my branded range of home security systems in gated communities and so forth.

There shall be chaos, and then there shall be an orderly enhancement of my bank account as per my heart’s dream.

But the dream-whether it be of Order or Chaos or Both-needs intel, needs data, needs you to pay close attention.

And whether you work your way into a scheme intuitively or begin with the scheme and have that shape your observations over time or you’re just kinda fuckin’ nuts you still must scope out the terrain-local, global, cosmic-in all its particulars to ensure optimal execution.

You may even find that it’s the planning phase that satisfies you most as you are led around by your very heartstrings, ever tantalized by a vision of total completion.

It sounds like arduous, obsessive work, but there is often the sweetest serenity to be found in such an ordeal.

Even if the ultimate consummation leaves you emptied out-as, frankly, these things tend to do-the serenity phase shall return to you all throughout the rest of your life at the oddest moments in dreams and reveries, I promise you.

This is a Spirituality of Extreme Work Ethic that serves not a deity, but rather the dearest dream of avarice inside your own heart.

SOLAR TAKE #4:

I always imagined Cthulhu would sound like Robert Englund doing a seaweed choked variation of his Freddy Krueger voice. 

A phone rings in the night.

You haven’t had a landline since early childhood.

You’re not even sure it makes sense that you would know what such an archaic device would sound like, but you suppose you’ve osmotically derived the knowledge from old movies and TV shows and nostalgia grift videos on YouTube.

The phone rings and rings and rings.

You stumble through your tiny-ass apartment, still in a fog.

You hear your father’s placid yet passive aggressive voice, “I know it’s tough out there for your generation, but a little belt tightening won’t kill you. Just a little bit less avocado toast or what have you. You want to be renting your whole life? Look, I’m a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative. Tightening up your budget can go hand-in-hand with social justice and civil rights, I think.”

You track the sound to your kitchen area.

You flip the light switch.

An olde tyme rotary phone rings away upon the table that constitutes your breakfast nook.

You’re pretty sure, by this point, this is some kind of vivid dream, possibly brought on by an interaction between alcohol and medication, and, well, it’s kinda more lucid than your stress-racked waking work days, isn’t it?

You’ll take it.

You pick up the receiver.

A sludge-choked monster voice instructs you to carve an ominous monster statue to honor the magnificence of its malevolence.

You say, “Look, um, I can do that . . . but why don’t we just skip to burning the world down.”

The sludgy monster voice hems and haws-there’s an order which must be observed, rituals to honor, a celestial scheme which abides, therefore we can’t just-

“I rent, dude, I got nothing to lose.”

There’s a long pause on the monster’s end.

You are suddenly aware of how close your living space is, and not in a cozy way.

It next communicates with you by imbuing you with a rising, hysterical nova-like burning sensation welling up out of the pit of your stomach.

Soon enough, all is aflame, because you have become a great fire in the world.

And it feels fucking awesome!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #36:

The career politician anti-government conservative who spends over four decades in a political office who still gives anti-government speeches with a straight face to crowds of his dumbass supporters.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 29

 

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #123:

COPPOLA BOOKED TO DIRECT 700 SEAGAL STREAMERS TO PAY DOWN MEGALOPOLIS LOSSES.

THINGS NEVER SAID #23:

“Evil takes many forms . . . but it never takes the elevator because it’s trying to squeeze in every last bit of exercise it can by taking the stairs. Evil really got off on a fitness kick after getting exorcized by that priest dude awhile back, and whaddaya know? The program sorta took. Sure, Evil could stand to incorporate more resistance training, but it’s doin’ just fine for its age!”

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #22:

Battle Against WiFi Poltergeist Theme: Inga Rasen by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima (Streets of Rage 3 OST)

You gotta be careful with that public WiFi, friend.

Every coffee shop has the potential to become a battlefield.

Stay alert!

MONDAY'S THRESHOLD #5:

Channel surfing into the Deep A.M.

Screen has you.

You settle on some sort of Val Lewton homage.

A mysterious cat-eyed woman with a French accent sits in the office of a psychiatrist played by a Tom Conway impersonator.

“-even within my memories of that age of abundance . . . something stalked me. Or, perhaps, it was something I carried inside.”

“Why don’t you start at the very beginning?”

“It’s not that simple, Doctor. I’m not sure I remember how it truly began.”

“Then take me as far back as you can. Start there.”

The mysterious cat-eyed woman’s face fills the frame with serene intensity . . .

. . . but you know how slow those old Lewton pictures could be . . .

. . . you were already being lulled to sleep by the Conway impersonator’s voice . . .

. . . but the cat-eyed woman’s face brings a universe of free form associations into your dreaming brain mass . . .

1.Scatmambo (Vaporwave)/Scatman John

2. Overture/Miklos Rozsa (El Cid OST)

3. Overture/Masaharu Iwata,Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Hayato Matsuo (Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen SNES OST)

4. Press Start/Miki Higashino (Life Force NES OST)

5. Character Creation/Kevin Manthei (Wizardry 8 OST)

6. Title Theme/Hiroyuki Masuno (Shadowgate NES OST)

7. Bad Street/Mr. Twin Sister

8. Government Magic/Antibalas

9. Let Forever Be/The Chemical Brothers

10. Like A Dog/Jordana (audio from music video)

11. Vacation Bible School/Ray Stevens

12. Mad Puppet/Goblin (Profondo Rosso OST)

13. Sotto Voice/Yoko Shimomura (Parasite Eve OST)

14. Osamu’s Theme:Kyoko’s House/Phillip Glass and Kronos Quartet (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters OST)

15. Ice Cream Man/Bob Chance

16. Wrong Flavor/John Carpenter and Alan Howarth (Assault on Precinct 13)

17. I’m not feelin’ you . . ./Toshinori Yonekura

18. Strange Woman/Hiroyuki Masuno (Uninvited NES OST)

19. You’ve Come Far, Ness/Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka (Earthbound SNES OST)

20. Once More/Roy Acuff

21. Sleeping Faster/Lo-Fidelity Allstars

22. A Piece of Remain/Yoko Shimomura (Parasite Eve OST)

23. Stereo Nights/Takkyu Ishino

24. Love You Madly/Cake

25. Roppongi Area/Ryota Kozuka, Kenichi Tsuchiya, and Toshiki Konishi (Shin Megami Tensei IV OST)

26. Polymorphing/Chairlift

27. Brazil/Django Reinhardt

28. Journey to the Island/John Williams (Jurassic Park OST)

29. Maze Theme/Hiroyuki Masuno (Uninvited NES OST)

30. Freedom of Choice/Devo

31. I Don’t Like Your Band/Annie

32. Don’t Lose Your Head/INXS

33. Disco Is/Shintaro Sakamoto

34. Hurry Up Tomorrow/The Nu’rons

35. Cobra Stops the World/Suckadelic

36. Underwater Bombs/Jun Funahashi (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES OST)

37. Boss Battle/Miki Higashino (Life Force NES OST)

38. Death Dies/Goblin (Profondo Rosso OST)

39. Level Clear/Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros NES OST)

40. Kyrie/Yoko Shimomura (Parasite Eve OST)

41. Dancing Devil/Hiroyuki Masuno (Uninvited NES OST)

. . . you awake just in time to see the Tom Conway impersonator float off into the shadows.

Goddamnit.

This turned out to be another one of these “ectoplasmic head shrinker” flicks.

The last scene jumps ahead to the cat-eyed woman checking her mail.

There’s a bill from the phantom psychiatrist.

She shreds it to pieces with her claws.

Right on, sister!

I wouldn’t pay it, either.

SIDE OVER.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

THE NEW OBVIOUS #13:

Proust sure likes to write them sentences big.