CLUELESS--A short story

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Edited by GrammarGeek

The thunderbolt of truth struck me square in the dead center of my forehead, sending me into several small seizures, each lasting no longer than several seconds. It feels looser now; I’m trying to catch my breath but find it electrocuted right out of my grasp as another bolt of noetic lightning struck me smack-dab in the center of my third eye no more than little longer than a mere minute after the first. I’ve stopped convulsing by now, but that’s the least of my worries or preoccupations by now; my entire forehead—skin, muscles, tendons, lipids, nerves, skull plates, you get the picture—has unhinged itself, allowing me to expose the coolest corner of my cortex, the PFC to the world around me. I’m sorta shocked, sorta not; it’s been three days.

Last thing I remember, I’m approaching a swirling ruby red chrysanthemum dotted with emerald-green T’s and crossed with glistening sapphire-blue eyes What was this? Why was this? How? WHO? WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.... I shot straight through the swirling chrysanthemum straight toward that sacred space. I cashed in my ticket; it’s time to take the ride.

Words are impossible to think of, let alone comprehend or hold in one place for very long before returning to the darkness from whence it came. My mind is as clean as an empty room, dry as a desert, hollow as a bamboo stick, lost for words and devoid of conviction. The only object in this entire universe I have so much of a glimmer of power over is my breath, my life-mark, the steady center of attention through all states of being, both altered and altruistic. I can’t move my body by this point; I’m slowly sliding through a slippery sea of raw unrefined honey. Dramas. Every other aspect of my mortal consciousness is gone, gone with the wind. There are no rules in this peculiar place I now find myself staggering around in. Fear and shock struck harsh and hard against me, attempting to distract me from the work of visual art which was all I could sense for eons around. Just as quickly as they came up they went right out. I was in no state of mind for such stupidity. I had been here before, this space of self surrounding me. I'm not dying; immortals never do. They just take really long dirt naps after their bodies give up on them. Their souls, now freed from the flesh wandering aimlessly around the Andromeda galaxy until such a time when their name finally gets chosen by the resurrection committee to be reincarnated as another person, at which point God, upon looking over the paperwork, should just snap his fingers and make it all work out fair, square, cheap, and efficiently (God’s will is the only thing capable of initiating the reincarnation process—if he’s not on board, then you aren’t going to be getting a new birthday body anytime soon! Enjoy your stay, you heretical fools who doubt my words. I laugh and sail onward down into the depths, figures form and fade away faster than I can keep track of them. Sensory stimuli shoots straight through me and away from me, leaving me with little, if not nothing at all to work with or on concerning my life-force and me. They’re just noise, I tell myself. They’re barriers between who I am and what I SHOULD be; moderation is a magical number around which one may be able to view their old habits with a new pair of spectacles.

Through the mist, seven wires, each one adorned with a color of the rainbow, began vibrating in unison before me in a manner similar to waves. They began as straight lines. Arising from within me the carrier wave, with its ever-so-constantly increasing pitch became the wave of interest for the rainbow lines to synchronize with. At first the oscillations could be kept track of with my gaze. As the pitch and rhythm began to rise and increase intensity so too did the oscillations of the lines. They kept getting faster and faster and faster still, becoming blurs of motion before me. Everything went still and died down and went black for all of three seconds.

What the hell? Why did it just die down? Is that just it------OH MY SWEDISH JESUS TACCOCOCOCOFOHFHODHOCH DOIUDGIUHJOIFGOF(P*(*GO(G

The screen splintered into thousands of millions of glistening sharp shreds and the foot of God kicked me into deep space. Stars sparkled around me as I drifted around hyperspace surrounded by checkered spiraling multicolored DNA strands. All of life, the universe, and everything else orbited me. Galileo was dead wrong—I'm the real center of the universe

My good humor was cut short by the appearance of three entities which assumed the form of what I could only remotely pseudo-accurately describe as the visages of Frylock, Meatwad, and Master Shake with a touch more claymation. The voices were dead on with the characters of the show. To say I was awestruck would be an understatement; I s**t myself with glee.

I called out with my mind to the Aqua Teens before me. I asked them if they may be able to say hello. I greeted them with a sunny disposition and an open heart, ecstatic that I was meeting my childhood superheroes. They noticed me and turned around to face me.

Their faces were NOTHING close to how I imagined them to be in real life. Instead of seeing the friendly faces I had seen on the TV there was instead nothing. No eyes, mouth, or any other facial features were seen; only completely blank faces. I didn't know what to make of this occurrence. Could it really be that I had learned my morals and Freudian psychology from a LIE?

I asked them what had happened to their faces. The following conversation went a little like this:


Frylock: Well....ummm...you see...we sorta lost our faces a while back.

Me: Well...how exactly did you lose them?

Frylock: I'd rather not say...

Shake: SHUT UP, FRY HOLE. Since your dung-ass doesn't have the testosterone to tell him, I guess I’ll have to do the talking from here on out! Ya see, we were investigating a case of missing panties on a local college campus and we, and by we, I of course mean mostly myself, were getting close to pinning the culprit. These two dumbos over here were being a bunch of sissies who didn’t wanna get their hands dirty, or wet, for that matter of fact!

Frylock: SHUT UP, SHAKE!

Shake: Did I let you talk? HMMMMM? NO, I didn't so let me tell the good human what happened. So you see we were closing in on the creep's quarters, about to subdue this pervert and gain the respect and love of every sorority on campus, when SUDDENLY we were ambushed by a crack team of MUTANT FACE-EATING VAMPIRES. I fought most of them off with my super-awesome shake powers, but I could not keep them all at bay. They just kept on coming. Eventually Marcula appeared and told us that he would evict us if we kept hurting his children. With no other choice, we surrendered our faces to the vampire menace and scurried on to bust the panty raider, only to realize that without eyes, we couldn't see him. I spewed shake juice all over the room to subdue him but it was too late; we’d entered a broom closet by mistake and the janitor was PISSED at us.

Me: Is that what really happened?

Meatwad: Nah. Shake's just joshing ya. We ain't never worked on no mystery like that. Hell, we ain't never solved a single mystery in the past eleven years. We lent our faces to the network so they could make the next season of our show and they said they would take us home afterward. I might have not have a brain but I don't think this is our home. It's really....dark here…cold, too. I can't see nothin' special as far as I can see and I miss my dolls. They ain't nowhere to be found.

Me: That's sad. Do you guys know how to find your way home? How long have you been here for?
Frylock: *Sigh* we don't know how damn long we've been here. We can't see anything. How long have you been here for?

Me: Just a few minutes. First I was in front of these vibrating strings, next thing I know, my forehead just sorta kind cracked itself wide open and then I was sailing through space and then I got spat out here and ran into you guys.

Shake: WAIT WAIT WAIT. Do you know where we are?

Me: Ummmmmmm outer space?

Meatwad: What's—uh—Where’s that at?

Me: I have no clue. Haven’t you heard of these things called maps, though? They’re pretty good with that kinda stuff; just don’t buy anything "Master Shake" tries to sell you—nine-to-one chance he’s ripping you off.

Meatwad: Hey, you just popped out of a portal. Wouldn’t it be possible for you to help us get home?

Me: I don't think so. Y’all are just figments of my imagination, or something such as that; I can’t take those kinds of things back with me.

Meatwad: Soooooo you're telling us you can't get us out of here?

Me: Yeaaaaaaaaaahhhhh...sorrrry….


The Aqua Teens didn't like the sound of that. Space froze over right as I shut my trap. Everything stood still and the temperature plummeted to just about absolute zero. In clear defiance of the laws of physics I averted the flash-freezing by doing jumping jacks as fast as I could, jacked then I—BORROWED--a great big battle hammer, floated off to Alpha Centauri, and relieved myself in it. This section of space didn't like that, not one little bit. It doesn't like to be peed on so nonchalantly by the likes of a race so mindlessly self-destructive as our own. Shivering, I chucked the hammer straight into the star, which then proceeded to violently explode into a great big gas ball and burn out in a matter of milliseconds instead of millennia. The freeze passed away; space warmed back up again to normal and Alpha Centauri began to blow up big, enveloping us along with a great big eighth of the known galaxy as the stars began to prepare grand finales all their own.

Shooting straight at me in a red race car bearing the insignia 2Wycked, wearing purple sweatpants and a secondhand wife-beater stained yellow from years of never washing it, was none other than his majesty Carl Brutananadilewski. He was cruising at a good 300 kilometers to the kilowatt hour and came to a complete stop in front of me, kinematics be damned (hyperspace has no respect for the laws of physics).
"Get in if you wanna live," Carl barked up at me in his greasy New Jersey accent. He looked like a registered sex offender, probably was one, too, according to a coworker, but hey, I’m not interested in getting involved with the wildly frustrating world of professional-grade shit-slinging; responsibility is the name of the game. I’m not going to rustle any feathers this early in the rat race; I just need a ride out of here NOW; it’s starting to get way too strange for my tastes. I swung in through the passenger door, making sure it was closed tight, and shook the hand of the man who calls himself Carl. The Carl of my fantasies. The Carl who taught me how to be cool.

"This is gonna be a bumpy ride, kid. I hope you got your diapy on ‘cause we're going twelve times the speed of light. OH YEAH BABY! TONIGHT!"

"Twelve times the speed of WHAT?!"

No response came from Carl as he punched in the coordinates for Melon Shakers into his Galactic Positioning System (GPS) and slammed his foot on the accelerator. Instantly pushed back into my seat by the force of blastoff, space and time began to stand still once more as we broke through light speed in several seconds. We were going so dang fast that nothing seemed to move at all around us. I tried to speak but couldn't hear my own words. By the time they left my throat, the sound waves drifted far away behind us.

Wweeeeewwwwooooowweeeeewwooooo

An African-American pig dressed up as a police officer riding a hyper-cycle, red and blue sirens set to full blast and full brightness, was right on our tail; he motioned for us to pull over (apparently the speed limit in hyperspace is eleven times the speed of light in order to not trip up some string theory mumbo jumbo) for almost ten whole minutes. When Carl saw him, his face grew blood-red. He opened his center console to reveal a half-gallon jug almost overflowing with a cantankerous cocktail consisting of equal parts Ipecac and Jack Daniel's as well as a couple handfuls of yaupon leaves (for taste, of course), and ordered me to chug it all down and send the stuff sailing his way. Not wanting to upset my host, ride, and lifelong role model, I chugged it all down in a couple minutes like it was no big deal. Unfortunately, it sure felt like a big deal and my stomach didn't like it, not one little bit. It came back up as quickly as I chugged it down. With every ounce of strength in myself, I cocked my head outside the window, pie-hole pointing straight at him. He wasn't even moving; hell, I didn’t think he even noticed or cared to notice yet. With a heave and a ho, a baby-barf green jet of super-acidic vomit shot straight out of my mouth and right into his eyes. The shock and force of impact, as well as presence of badly stored chems were too much for the pig to handle; he lost control of his space mobile and spiraled out of control, vanishing in a twinkle of star dust, hopefully destined to never meet me again (or at all).

After the piggy disappeared from sight something odd began to happen. Sparks of every single color of the Azerbaijani flag started to erupt all around the surfaces of 2Wycked. A flash of Azerbaijani flag colors swallowed us whole and next thing I knew we were parked across three handicapped parking spots in front of Melon Shakers. Carl attached an expired handicapped parking pass, told me to stay in the car to make sure no one didn't tow his car away, and shuffled into Melon Shakers, keys still in the ignition switch, looking badass and ready to rock and roll the streets.

All alone in 2Wycked I let the gnawing curiosities building up within me be recognized and realized (to some extent, anyways), and started to inspect every nook and cranny of the place, letting no little detail go unnoticed. The car reeked of cheap beer and vomit. Inside his glove compartment was a brick of rainbow-colored sugary flakes that was constantly changing color. Starving, I started going ham on the brick, eating more and more and more until a golden cube manifested itself smack-dab in the middle of my lap. Save for a small circle on top, the golden cube seemed just about impenetrable, let alone profitable. I slid my thumb over the round gray button—the thumbprint scanned the cube, and with a click and a clank it opened up. Sitting in the box were the faces of the Aqua Teens. Somehow, someway Carl had liberated the faces from the producers of ATHF and had hidden them in a parallel universe. The only way to bring them back into this universe was to eat more and more space sugar until all of my problems found themselves resolved by themselves. I asked the navigation system to take me back to the Aqua Teens ASAP.

"I'm sorry, but ‘Aqua Teens’ cannot be found in this segment of the universe. Please use an actual location or I will have to send you back to your body sooner than you’d want to go back," spoke that ominously emotionless feminine voice.

I was beginning to think my monetary encounter with the Aqua Teens may have been but a figment of my imagination. Without a way to objectively affirm my subjective experience, I had no definitive way to tell if I had indeed interacted with them. So as long as my mind had come across a place or person in person occurring at least one or more times throughout their past, it is possible to be able to teleport there so as long as the spellcaster could keep their eyes on the prize without letting themselves be led astray towards death, doom, and decay. If I consider something to be real, then it IS real until someone may be able to disprove my statement.
I spied out of the corner of my eye an information transfer system complete with a brain-safe Extrasensory USB Cognitive Information Transfer Device (EUCITD) Hmmmmm.... if the computer couldn’t locate them using Carl’s hippocampi, perhaps it could with mine….

I snatched-up the EUCITD from beneath the steering wheel, jammed the Neurgonomic USB cables as deep into my hippocampi as they could safely go, waited around for a few minutes whilst the database was updated (A LOT). Five full minutes later, all seemed well; I felt safe enough to make one last trip to that buried-away branch of the old Milky Way….

OH GOD—OH MY—JUST—OH MY GOD! It was way too much to handle. The world before me melted back into voxels comingled with multicolored pixels, read off my location to the on-board navigation system and…and…WOW! I’m back, baby! Back again stranded and stuck on a remotely familiar parsec standing strong in silent tribute to the millions upon billions of unsung victims found myself back in a familiar parsec of hyperspace. Standing right outside my window were THE AQUA TEENS.

Overcome with joy, I figured that my hard work deserved a teeny-tiny bite of the rainbow-colored rage rocks, and helped myself to a generous dose of the love stuff. Right before I left, I (thankfully) remembered to try to give them their faces back. Meatwad’s and Frylock shot straight up out of the box and plopped themselves back onto their rightful masters. Meanwhile, Master Shake’s face ran away, joined the Peace Corps and was never heard from again. Frylock and Meatwad were ecstatic and high-fived me. I got out of the car and confided to them that I had had enough of an adventure for the time being and would like to go home.

"We gotchu, brutha," Frylock assured me. "Join hands with us and keep that sacred sugar sailing round da circle! If we follow the instructions well, a giant chicken will appear in the skies above us and take you all the way back home on its magical, meaty, beastly back."

“Wait! Whoa whoa whoa! Where’s this chicken gonna drop at?” I’m pretty worried about these logistical snafus, now; I’m pretty damn sure that chickens can’t fly well at all, or even if they could repel/guard against others, those military-grade beaks and razor-sharp claws of theirs could kill a crocodile. That is of course only viable if they also knew how to put their tools to good use when the fat’s in the fire and time is ticking down to the wire."

Standing in a triangle formation with Frylock and Meatwad, hands locked in hands (Master Shake had started cursing and being a total sourpuss on account of his face going AWOL and had no idea how interdimensional space travel worked; when asked if he wanted to help, he got mad and started throwing things all over the place, so we did the logical thing and had him taken away to the Funny Farm Insane Asylum downtown, where he may one day learn to be what no one else could ever dream of ever being: normal), with our hands joined together across 180 degrees of friendship, brotherly love, and full of that humble sense of pride which only ownership or co-ownership began chanting that suspiciously stupid mantra in unison over and over again until a blinding burst of white heaven-sent light hooked its cue-cane around my waist and dragged me off back to that oh-so-special place of mine where the Really "Wild" Things are…

Selah

BUMP