THE NEW OBVIOUS #52:

The control panel has all these lights that blink to indicate various emergencies, policy fuck-ups, supply chain breakages, logistical lacunae, crop failures, fuel shortages, ammo depletions, security failures, enemy onslaughts, strangely beautiful toilet geysers, cyber attacks crashing the grid from sea to shining sea, Mom and Dad are fighting, nuclear missiles outgoing, Climate Inferno melting vital infrastructure, the President falls asleep during a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, Category 10 hurricane making landfall, pandemics, nuclear missiles incoming, your roommate taped over the last episode of Moonlighting so now you’ll never know how it ended, personnel loss, intense bouts of loneliness, apocalyptic accounting errors, deleterious debts coming due, and ecstatic breakdowns of the system.

Usually, the lights blink on at a reasonable pace such that you can stay on top of things, fix each problem as it comes, some days are hairier than others, but, overall, you maintain operations, your mission endures, the show goes on, you handle shit.

But one day . . . ALL of the lights start blinking.

At that point . . . you just walk away.

Hell, if ALL of the lights are blinking you likely already left your post awhile ago . . .

No judgment if that’s the case.

I totally relate.

THE NEW DREAM #60:

I’m watching a program about recent history

It’s all stuff I’ve lived through

I’m disappointed

Re-runs suck, but it’s something more than that

It’s really getting me down

I dunno why

I guess I thought it would have extra stuff

I’m bored and antsy and regretful over my wasted time

I’m about to find my anger

When I realize there was one crucial thing I learned from that program

Basically

Historians studied my era very carefully

And they gathered evidence

And they analyzed that evidence

And then they thought about their analysis

And then they had it all peer reviewed

Or something like that

And then they made the program

I just watched it

And the thing I learned was that usually when movies are made based on history the movies might be good or bad as entertainment, but they’re likely to get the uniforms wrong

Maybe not all the way wrong

But certain details get all fucked up

But in the case of my era

Well

The actual era got the uniforms wrong

And the movies got ‘em right

And the historians baffled at this, but could not explain it

And so my era expresses a certain mystery

And so I am stuck with a certain frustration

That I got this important thing wrong in the actual living of my era

And those bullshit cornball movies got it right

Not an easy thing to learn from a program

But it’s good to know

In case I ever film a historical re-enactment

SIMPLE PLEASURES #27:

Eating the little bag of chips early in the day . . . and then discovering that the sandwich is desperate to make a deal favorable to my terms in the evening because it has just been sitting out for hours and just wants to go home to the back of the refrigerator where it can properly complete its moldy life cycle.

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #27:

Send a box of microwave breakfast foods through the drive thru line to order their fast food doppelgangers.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 107

 

VENDETTA INSPECTOR

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #107:

The axiomatic shopping cart being interviewed for an oral history of Toastmasters.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #39:

NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy starring Sunsoft Batman.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #257:

FOLLOWING THE SIGNING OF THE IRAN DEAL-WIDELY SEEN AS A HUMILIATING DEFEAT FOR THE UNITED STATES-PRESIDENT TRUMP IS FACING GROWING PRESSURE TO REGISTER AS A FOREIGN AGENT LOBBYING ON BEHALF OF THE ECONOMIC INTERESTS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC.

THINGS NEVER SAID #61:

“I walked by the Beef Jerky store everyday. And every time I kept telling myself, I should stop in, but I got somewhere to be. Kept thinking I should go in there. But no I’m too busy. Never went in there. A lot of times I didn’t even have anywhere I absolutely had to be, just didn’t want the burden of having to keep the Beef Jerky store afloat. ‘Cause I buy plenty of Beef Jerky at the gas station. That should count for something. Like it’s the same product in different locations but the money all flows towards one pot, right? I’m sure that’s how it works. But for me the Beef Jerky is something that goes well with the gas station experience. When I’m hit with an all Beef Jerky deal . . . it just fills me with doubt. It causes me to question whether or not there’s danger in going with the All-Beef-Jerky-Approach. Like if I just spend all my money on Beef Jerky but then I can’t buy any gasoline. See, that can’t happen at the gas station, ‘cause I’ve got the two things right there, I can keep ‘em both in mind, and each in the correct proportion of headspace. If it’s all Beef Jerky in mind then the gas just gets crowded right out. Maybe they can’t sell gasoline inside the Beef Jerky store but maybe they could, like, have gas station decor as a theme. That might keep things in proportion. Maybe that could work.”

THE NEW DREAM #59:

I’m saving the world

By going through the breakfast rush drive thru line

Right as I’m handed my food bag

I start to roll forward

The vehicles behind me are eager to get to where I’ve just been

I pump brakes as I look inside food bag, to check and see if they got my order right

Sounds of squealing brakes’n’crunching metal all behind me

I nod in satisfaction at the correctness of my order, then drive on

I return to the same drivethru line the following morning

I’m the only one on it

I get my order, it’s correct, I’m on my way, shit goes by fast, how nice

Later, online, I watch a series of videos posted by people who got into some kind of chain collision on the drive thru line

Nothing too serious

No one died

One person had a panic attack, I guess

Costs for repairs not great, what can you do

But these people in these videos

They talk about how getting all wrecked up together really got ‘em all thinking about their dietary habits and such, how they wanted to eat healthier, get their steps in, do bicycle shit, burn less gasoline, contribute less to Climate Inferno and soulless corporations, think about their children’s futures, think about everyone’s futures

So, these wrecked up people started a kind of hang-out which becomes a kind of commune which ends up in the news as this creepy wife-swapping shit which ends in murder which ends in a popular true crime podgrift-

And I’m getting frustrated then angry then basically relieved that no one’s even aware of my role in this chain of madness-

And then I’m over it

Like how you get over things in life, even when you’re living some kind of dream

You shake it loose

The weird feeling the ice cream gives you in your head goes away

You see what you really accomplished

I wasn’t saving the world at all

I moved on from all that

And then, in the next phase, I became Batman-

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 106

F.A.Q. #32:

Q: What lies beyond the vending machines, the mobile device charging station, the waist level stand distributing a free weekly sales paper, and the hip little indie coffee shop that’ll be lucky to be in business six months from now?

A: The stygian depths where Behemoth and Leviathan dwell.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #256:

IN YET ANOTHER SIGN OF A WEAKENING ECONOMY, STATIONERY SALES ARE AT A COMPLETE STANDSTILL . . . A NEW STUDY PUBLISHED BY A THREAT ASSESSMENT THINK TANK DESCRIBES A DISTURBING INCREASE IN AMBUSH-STYLE BOSS BATTLE EVENTS DURING STAFF ROLLS. TRADITIONALLY, STAFF ROLLS ARE CONSIDERED A SAFE PLACE WHERE YOU NOD YOUR HEAD TO THE BUMPIN’ END TITLE THEME WHILST GLORYING IN YOUR HARD-WON VICTORY AGAINST ALL ENEMIES AND AGAINST ALL ODDS. ACCORDING TO THE STUDY, DURING THIS PAST YEAR ALONE STAFF ROLLS WERE INVADED BY TWELVE SECRET FINAL BATTLES; FIVE PLOT TWIST SHOWDOWNS WHERE YOUR QUESTGIVER TURNED OUT TO BE THE SECRET MASTERMIND OF YOUR ORDEALS; THREE BOSS RUSHES; AND ONE CURTAIN CALL IN WHICH FORMER ENEMIES WERE SUPPOSED TO BE CORDIAL PARTICIPANTS THAT SPARKED OFF INTO RENEWED HOSTILITIES DUE TO ACCUSATIONS OF OVER-RELIANCE ON SPAM ATTACKS DURING THE FINAL BATTLE. ADDING TO THE CONFUSION ARE MESSAGES PRODUCED BY A SECRET ORGANIZATION CALLING ITSELF ‘THE ATLANTEAN ARISTOCRACY’ WHO CLAIM TO BE ORCHESTRATING AMBUSH ATTACKS FROM BEHIND THE SCREEN. SKEPTICS OF A CONSPIRACY ACCUSE THE ATLANTEAN ARISTOCRACY OF EXPLOITING PERVASIVE ONLINE CONSPIRACY CULTURES TO ACHIEVE TROLLING GLORY. THE STUDY ITSELF MAKES NO ACCUSATIONS OF A CONSPIRACY, AND EXPLICITLY CITES “THE ONGOING QUEST FOR NOVELTY” AS THE LIKELY CAUSE . . . DONALD TRUMP-WHO IS, ALLEGEDLY, STILL THE U.S. PRESIDENT-FAILED TO RAISE EYEBROWS THIS WEEKEND AFTER HE ISSUED A LONGFORM SERIES OF TRUTH SOCIAL POSTS IN WHICH HE ADVOCATED FOR THE CANCELLATION OF MIDTERM ELECTIONS IN ORDER TO ”END WOKENESS AS WE KNOW IT,” AND DESCRIBED A NEW PROGRAM THAT WOULD IMPOSE AN AUTOMATIC LIFE SENTENCE UPON ANYONE REGISTERING AS A DEMOCRAT FOR THE FIRST TIME. TRUMP’S ONLINE POSTS THIS TIME AROUND GENERATED SURPRISINGLY LITTLE ENTHUSIASM FROM EITHER SUPPORTERS OR DETRACTORS. SOCIAL RESEARCHERS SUGGESTED THAT BOTH PRO-MAGA AND ANTI-MAGA VOTERS ALIKE HAVE REACHED A POINT WHERE THEY CAN NO LONGER LIVE IN DENIAL OF THE OVERALL FAILURE OF THE U.S. AS THE ECONOMY CONTINUES TO COLLAPSE, THE FOREVER WAR WITH IRAN ACCUMULATES MORE CIVILIAN VICTIMS, AND INDIVIDUAL AMERICANS RECKON WITH THEIR OWN CULPABILITY AS MINDLESS, AMORAL CONSUMER DRONES WHO THROW THEIR SUPPORT BEHIND WHATEVER CON ARTIST OFFERS THEM EMPTY NATIONALISTIC SLOGANS AND JUNK TRINKETS DESTINED FOR THE REEKING LANDFILL OF HISTORY . . . STOCKS ARE UP . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #106:

The axiomatic shopping cart that makes billions off of launching the Bowel Movement Cinematic Universe.