SKYCLOCK

Jan is standing frontally against the scaffolding at Missy's original cradle Friends' Hangar. Her lower body technicians are just finishing up on a knee-area scale cleanse. As fellow mixed-species with vastly different results they love hanging out and catching up during hygiene. Jan answers back from a more refined point of view despite the brutality and horror of her appearance. She has been tempered by a traditional Jan-and-kids lifestyle as a busy working mom in the outer chanks. Missy stands at the top of the scaffolding speaking directly into Jan's nostrils with her mind only.

and then they found themselves stumbling around in hissing rubble and my uncle said whut is my family's vittle stop a terrorist no it's the Jan's who are the terrorists

the past is a tawdry and ignorant place

well i wouldn't know i've been on Hopinna-Skipita so long it's all the same to me

so you think our perception of the past is largely dependent on brain chemistry

no more like dependent on whether or not yor on drugs

so you're on that

whut whut's the alternative is there now an exit ramp

no or else how would pharmsupply survive how would they save our lives then

if they thought of cures for everything

correct we would not be healthier we would be dead

because pharmsupply would be dead

no because they would cut their losses and take care of their own only

can i take care of my own only

no

that's a tough fact for me today

do you know the parable of Mthyuh flies on her own as first K

of course but what is it

she invented flight in that moment and she turned her arm in a gesture of nobility and inclusion and it blocked out exactly one half of the sun and the stripe across the lands created The Crack and The Crack created time and it was time the Mthyuh got some vittles jack

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

by Phyllis [trans.]

Paroxysms of sincerity

Jan Jansdaad is driving along and thinking what if I lost this hooptie. What if anything happened to it at all. We'd be on our way to the next lower rung of economic class hell... 

Wait a minute. I'm back. All the while La Chama must have been leading me towards a hole to The Crack. She knew I'd have to return, at least for a moment, just to see. I see I've been to pharmsupply-- I've got a live bag of hopinaskippina. I'm headed home, for whomever I find there. But what about my daughter-- will she take my place? I just wish we could be all together and safe with descent health insurance. 

Then there is a prick near the dew claw. Lloyd? You're drawing my blood. 

Not at all, Mrs. Jansdaad. I'm just cuddling here next to you while you nap. 

Jan? 

I know, Mom. He's from pharmsupply just like daddy said. 

Now wait just a minute, ladies. 

You're only here to steal our genes and spy.

Oh I'd say it's been quite a lot more than that. I can take you back. Get you reformatted. You'll be an in-between type, like La Chama. Small enough to fit in human structures. Strong enough to

To power one of your slave K's with my brain, as your slave. 

It's not like that anymore. We're finding new ways to

To use our natural bodily processes for the greater appetite. Our suffering is inconsequential. 

Ok, you know what, you guys? I am getting really sick and tired of walking around with a completely open heart to each of you as persons, and you know I kind of feel like that Begging Rajah, with so much, so much to give, and... no hands. You just scheme to cover up or push your strong identities. What about my purpose? Who am I?

Both Mrs. Jansdaad and Lloyd avert their eyes and tighten their lips. One concept they can agree on is the adorability of Jan and her paroxysms of sincerity.

Daughter of La Chama

Jan arrives home with scales covering 98% of her body, unable to even get the key out of her purse much less use it in the lock. Her fingers were claws.

We should never have mingled with their species. 

She kicks the door by way of knocking, gouging it with her toe claws. For Jan, as he opens the door, the sight of his wife at first presents as deja vous. Then horror, then caring. 

Oh baby look at you please come in... [looks at door] What...?

I should have paid cash for Hopinaskipina. It's not as painful as they say. 

God you look like the Daughter of La Chama. Let me hide my shiny coins!

Heh that's cute Jan. How am I going to make dinner. 

You're so old fashioned. Let me do it for once. 

[Jan sighs and shakes her head, which causes the sounds of knuckles popping.]

No second shingles shot

Jan liked watching a little tv in the afternoon, or rather she didn't like it, but she was hypnotized by it when her husband Jan had it on, which was most of the time, because it soothed his nerves. She kept it on mute when he wasn't in the room, but then he'd start to notice there was something off, and he'd come back and take the mute off, and that would inevitably be when they were having commercials. The commercials were even more transfixing because of their special audio qualities, which had been outlawed for a while, and then they just seemed to creep back in. The volume and frequency alterations were probably still illegal, but someone was lying about it. Then it would take years of legislation or court processes to get them to stop doing it again even though it never stopped being illegal, and it never stopped being wrong. Only lying had stopped being wrong. The acceptance of and mass participation in lying and religion was the most brilliant social phenomenon of the moment. 

Jan would be out in the hooptie to pick up a prescription, and she'd try to read or imagine the faces of the other drivers. The ones in the nicer cars seemed to be gloating. They'd have a wry smile. The guys in the elevated trucks and campers were smiling too, but it was a mean smile. Minorities in crappy cars often seemed pissed off or trying really hard, squinting, to get around. They would be getting tailgated by a guy in a jacked-up 450 with a mean smile. Jan imagined how she looked to other drivers. I look like a freak. I look like a birth defective person with a caved-in head and a flabby, skinny white neck who is trying to cover it all up with a big fluffy beret, a cowl sweater, and giant over-the-glasses sunglasses. I give them all a target to look down on, except the minorities, who don't seem to be paying attention. 

The pharmpro is grotesquely obese. His eyes are enormous behind thick glasses. Do you know if Pharmsupply covers the Hopinaskipina vaccine. Let him check. Not. Ok. Rather, it isn't okay, but is it this poor man's fault? Wouldn't shingles itself be much more costly? Not if you die. Right. Shit I am speaking aloud. It's just a thought experiment, doctor, says Jan. I mean pharmpro. I know you don't run the health system. Jan remembers back to her days with the pharmpro boyfriend. I know what they do to get shiv for themselves and how they cover it up. This man has a generous smile. What does he make, 120? 150k? I want what he's having. Jan gives the pharmacist a little wink. That behavior and lots else is why, in her personal opinion, she can only be regarded as total freak material. 

The riots at the Mthyuh Preservation Society were on the radio. I should have been there. Had I known, were I more well connected. Of course I know we can't live without the Filter of Loathing. But it's all we have to unfocus on. It's a symbol of our systemic bastardization from society, whatever that is now. They could use a few good old fashioned fleke oaths to start getting their stewardship straight. But most are bought off by Pharmsupply blah blah. It would be fun just to get out. Next time the filter is down I will try and get in with radicals. Maybe even Jan would come along. Who am I kidding. How would I make him stonecakes in the hooptie. They are his life. Baby we've got to get to Highchank and stand up for the original shiv. They have stonecakes. Might work. 

Then the chant, with another not infrequent para-informational MPS interruption came on. The chant is accompanied by a distillation of all the free world's favorite music remastered to praise La Chama. Apply brake now. Stop in the moment. All future days are at the state's discretion. I am entitled to the following poisons and schedules. It was annoying how they read the schedules like circus barkers, in thrilling growls and whispers. 

Hystadelic Rejoinder

Sylvia: I don't want to put away dishes with you while you're in your underwear.

Tom (turning toward her in grey boxer-briefs with a sauce pan in one hand and a rat's tail shivknife sharpener in the other): I want to open up some opportunities for you. To talk about what you saw. I know I was all wrapped up in my time experiment, and nothing registered. Not time. Not even horror.

Sylvia: Time lies, you know. It's a liar. Put on some baggy pants and we'll talk.

While waiting, Sylvia stands absentmindedly pressing what seems like her taint against the back of a faux-Rococo dining room chair. It boasts a darkly varnished hardwood patina, and it's downright cocky about its Shorn Crushed Red borganna brusquely shielding all the parts on which one might normally leave prints. Bare-flesh contact with wood, tile, lead causes Sylvia to auto-hypnotize and occasionally seizure. Even through knits, that kind of pressure triggers a not unpleasant hystadelic rejoinder.

Since that first week when Tom began trying to explain his "announcement" about his "Pax on Us" goddess coming to save the middle chanks, it had been over. Now crime was their bond. Tom's agreement with Collie was so strong, the power of his surrender so profound, that they could only dance with the beckoning animal that kept them stepping on. Tom singlemindedly distribute shivplate, stone compasses, Hopinaskipina for his corporment sponsors until his ears bled for lack of Filter of Loathing. Everything was dephallocentri-size now.

Tom: I'm back.

Sylvia (opening her eyes): Oh.

Tom: Are you calm? Why don't you sit on that for a moment.

Sylvia (lowering slowly, bracing herself on the borgana armpads): It was a bird.... It was obscene. You never believed me; no one did, and I lost my job. Now our whole county can't leave, and our essential compositions have shifted dramatically from gaseous to chemical.

[FLASHBACK: Going over the conversation in his mind, Tom recalls a strobe light of important snippets, a bucket of chicken, Patron shots. He squints, and spits. All he can see is her lips talking. What he hears makes him want to make her stop.]

"...one wing, but like a cape. You could say pleathery. White veins...

"...I thought I saw it again last week, but high up. It looked like a letter K. Going backwards. Flying with its legs spread eagle.

"Are you listening, Tom?"

In Search of a Paradigm

If they were all the same price, what did it matter?

Tom and Sylvia sat in the waiting room at Pharm-Supply browsing through old catalogues. Way beyond lipsticks, the most curious pages were the symptom and scripting breakdowns for the shivtropics. Their real reason was to see about breaking Peggy out or smuggling a box of No-Shiv in to her.

CLXXIV. Blyway
Neurodigm. You have many interests which you focus on intensely. You are never happy because you are never satisfied with what you are focused on or else why would you be so focused on it. And why focus on anything anyway. In the big picture, you are a rat sniffing from flower to flower for no reason. Are you a victim of neurodigm?

XXVIII. Same-E
Hopinaskipina. Everything seems fine until all the sudden you have to break your healthy rthyum and engage in uncharacteristic behavior. Consequences include loss of productivity and increased stress factor for coworshippers. Signs of disease-specific denial: "had to let my hair down," "just needed to get away," "fuck you; get out of my face." Ask your shiv priest about your doctor. Then, stop your hopinaskipina.

CC. Rock o' Mthyuh
Blight. Something in the air. You're not the only one who's being affected. But not everyone has the nut to do something about it. You stay right in the head because you owe it to your family, for the safety of whom you are like a lioness. You take your Pro-Labique Pharmashiv whenever and wherever you need it: for protection, for peace of mind. You are not a sick one trying to get well; you are a potentially deadly protector of children. Keep taking Pro-Labique. Don't let them down ever again. If you do, do you really deserve to live?