CONGRATS SMACKER
So this thing is a Congrats Smacker.
Swings the Smacker about lazily.
Looks like an oversized novelty fly swatter that you would buy at the Stuckey’s gift shop.
Passes the Smacker close by the face a few times.
I’m impressed.
Brings it up in a two handed grip.
It’s heavy as hell, yet somehow swings easy.
Fences with it like a swashbuckler.
And when you do swing it you can feel the damage you’re about to inflict.
Pantomimes bringing it down like an executioner’s ax on the back of someone’s neck.
Very satisfying.
Holds it upright before the torso, one-handed, ceremonial, other hand makes a mock salute.
Maybe too satisfying?
Spins ‘round and ‘round and ‘round with the Smacker out like some scything blade thing.
Like what I mean, I guess, is that it’s really only supposed to be used in certain situations against certain targets.
But it just swings so easy, uhh, it’s really hard, y’know, to abstain from off-label uses?
Yeah . . .
Look at it go!
Bam! The gleaming structures of the financial district go down in fractured ruins of glass, twisted steel, and broken concrete.
Wa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!
Oh, that action works so easy . . . yeah . . . as you can see I’ve broken all my action figures, and flatscreens, and smashed the books all to shit, knocked down all the walls and the ceiling and ripped up the floor and foundation and wrecked all the sewage pipes which is why there’s all these arcs of liquid shit fountaining all over, and you see how the neighbors are in pieces out there ‘cause they’re trying to come on the property and I had to shut that down-and that brought on all the cops and the SWAT teams and I had to shut that down-and then you’ve got all the National Guardsmen and I had to shut that down-so then they send in the regular Army, and then they send in the telekinetics, and then they sicced the wizards on me-I just shut it all down, and then, and then they brought in the negotiators, and the reverse child psychologists, and the pretty lady with the machine that lets her enter my mind so she can speak directly to my inner child, and then other nations started to take an interest in my action, so they start deploying drones and robot attack dogs and online influencers-gotta shut all that down, just swat it all into submission-but then someone launches a giant cyber attack which takes down the entire power grid, but my Congrats Swatter is totally offline so I’m good.
You may have noticed that there’s a bit of a wind blowing so there’s this, uh, like, uh, a tornado?
Made of all the book pages?
Yeah, like, uh, Nature’s really gettin’ at my ass for wielding all this power, I guess.
Fair enough.
But, like . . . this Congrats Smacker isn’t just supposed to be a general use weapon, you’re supposed to employ it for a specific purpose.
This is all explained in a lavishly illustrated instruction manual.
I’ll just read the relevant passage for you.
I quote:
“In the course of your days, you may, in the fullness of time, find that you have achieved all of your dreams. All of the people gather to praise and congratulate you. This should be your finest moment . . . so why do you feel such emptiness? ‘Tis a mystery, isn’t it? Well, no philosopher or theologian or soothsayer can truly answer why you feel such emptiness . . . but Congrats Smacker Manufacturers Consortium United has a tool which embodies a sublime methodology that can clear away the symptoms! The tool is Congrats Smacker. Swing the tool to clear away the chattering masses that, in their foolishness, presume to know the Mind of Victory-your mind-and thereby clear the path before you that you may march forward to ever more total triumphs and ever more severe expositions of supra-genius! Did not the rock fall from space to clear away the decadent dinosaurs of yore? Did not homo sapiens learn cunning rhetorics of coordination to outflank the stolid neanderthals of yesteryear? Have we not-in all our chemical genius-persecuted the noisome stinging bees to the point of final death that we may recreate ourselves out-of-doors in a peace free of pricks? Let Congrats Smacker be your weapon of Ultra Expedited Evolutionary Paradigmatic Change-nay, Transformation! All orders must fall. In the ruins of every fall stands the True Final Champeen, ready to will the New Era into existence. With Congrats Smacker in hand, you can battle your way to the Top Spot, by battering away the trifling fools who would dare to confine you and your glories in a prison of praise-for are they not daring to render you and your works comprehensible and thereby limited when you know yourself to be limitless by such specious pronouncements?! With Congrats Smacker in hand you can bash and bash away every last tiny-brained fan who would presume to parasitize your visionary vitality to the pathetic purpose of pretending to proximity to the Prime Mover-you, Dear Purchaser, you!!! Settle not for the comforts of a supine fan base-just smack it all away, drop the space rock upon the doofus dinosaurs, let your assassin’s hands speak lemniscates round and round and round the grunting neanderthals, write the formulas of chemical violence to bestill the last of those oh-so-bumbling bees, BE THE OLYMPIAN EMBODIMENT OF THE WILL AND WORKS OF AN UNRELENTINGLY OBLITERATIVE NEW ERA!!!!! SMACK, SMACK, AND SMACK AGAIN UNTIL ALL THE IDIOTIC CHATTERINGS OF NONSENSICAL NONENTITIES CEASES FOREVER!!!! SMACK AND SMACK AND SMACK . . . ‘TIL THE SUBLIME MOMENT IN WHICH THE SMACKING BECOMES THE ONLY PRAISE YOU’LL EVER SEEK OR NEED . . .”
Not gonna lie: not sure what the fuck that’s all supposed to mean . . . but it’s kinda inspirational, right?
And then, uh, after the text you get some diagrams and illustrations.
I mean . . . I think . . . you’re supposed to use Congrats Smacker if you’re already some kinda great person or whatever.
I don’t know if I measure up to all that, though, so, like I said, I did the whole off label use thing . . . I can live with that.
Looks up.
Huh . . . I wonder if I could smack away that big space rock . . . or am I just another dinosaur guy?
Looks down and around at all the rubble’n’ruins.
Hmm . . . things are quiet now. That might get to me. Might have to try smacking the quiet.
Regards the Congrats Smacker somewhat grumpily, face scrunching up like “trying to be into this,” face scrunching down like “not really into it,” already getting bored with the new toy.
7 out of 10.
A tornado of pages attacks, gets smacked into defeat, the pages flash igniting from some fearsome friction.
Ha! There it goes. Nature’s a loser. Ha, haaa . . .
Swings it about this way and that. It starts to just feel like a novelty oversized fly swatter again.
Really . . . it’s just like everything else. Buildings. Money. Soldiers. Books. Neighbors. Dogs. Cats. Criminals. Politicians. Viruses. You. Me. Them. People. Ghosts . . . just mass produced junk.
Stares at the smacker real hard.
You think you’re special?! Is that what you think?! I’ll just buy another Smacker and smack you with it! How do you like that?!? Smack you, Smacker! HAW! HAW! HAW!
Idly smacks self under the chin, goes flying into space, maybe even destroys the big rock . . .
