Brain Hammer

Sub Specie Aeternitatis
Episode 4 of 5
The Mile-High Club

Paul is talking to Karens A through C and I’ve kinda got KarenD all to myself and she starts telling me some crazy shit, yo. I’m only half following it, though, at least at first. I’ve reprogramed big chunks of my frontal lobes to run a simulation of myself and I intermittently put the simulation in control of my chatting with KarenD while I eavesdrop on what Paul is talkin’ about with the other Karens.

Karens B through D are going to be bridesmaids in KarenA’s wedding. I almost gag to hear Paul ask “what kind of bridesmaid’s dresses are you wearing and what color?”

Aparently KarenD was running a simulation of herself while talking to me, because she suddenly raises her voice and speaks over her shoulder to answer Paul’s question.

“If chrome is a color then the answer is ‘chrome’ and if a thong can be a kind of bridesmaid’s dress then the answer is ‘thong.’”

This Karen is the best Karen.

It seems KarenD had a pretty remarkable initiation into the mile high club. I’m still not getting a lot of the details in the first part of her story because I’m busy trying to deactivate my simulation of myself and I accidentally trigger a simulation of myself simulating myself simulating myself. . . and the temporary infinite regress crashing my frontal lobes is a little distracting. I finally get my lobes under control (which is damn tricky since the frontal lobes pretty much are the seat of executive control, so I’m controlling control which requires getting the control of control under control. . .)

Slaughterhouse Paul: Duuuuude! Infinite regress?

Slaughterhouse Pete: Ahhhhhhh! Yes. Thanks.

And that snaps me out of it.

KarenD now has my full attention. And just in time too, for the, um, climax of her story.

“He let it fly all over my face and tits and though it was pitch dark in the crashing airplane’s bathroom (the power having failed utterly) I could see his junk ‘cuz the picoreactors in his cum’s nanobots made the goo glow green. I felt the hot protein on my skin get hotter and dig deep into my tissues as the ‘bots sought out my synapses. Seconds before impact, the ‘bots found their targets and ignited a temporal lobe seizure, the kind that induces intense religious ecstasy. I ground my clit on his shoe and screamed and came and realized that I was God driving this machine of meat, nay, this entire fucking airplane, into an explosive unification with very fabric of eternity.”

“Nice, Care-end. But how’d you survive?”

“Time-Release Time-Capsules. You know, time-travel pills? The plane crash actually takes place in the future about a year from now. I’m released from that future at just the right moment and I bail out three years into the past, that is, two years into our past. But now I’m fated to repeat the final three years of my life over and over.”

“Like boot stamping on a human face?”

“Yes. Like a boot.”

“Nice.”

Paul starts layin’ some shit on the chicks about how “spiritual” he is. I bust his balls, but I’m smart/lucky enough to do it telepathically.

Slaughterhouse Pete: Dude. You’re “spiritual”? I thought you were made of meat. Now I find out you’re an ethereal matrix of vibrations from the UltraVoid? And you make fun of me for consorting with the ElderGods?

Slaughterhouse Paul: Wake up, DumbAss. I am softening the chicks up to do some God Bombs with us.

Slaughterhouse Pete: Um, I think they’re already softened up for some God Bombs. I can’t believe you didn’t catch any of KarenD’s story.

Slaughterhouse Paul: I can’t believe you just said “um” telepathically.

—

Next episode: God Bombs

Sub Specie Aeternitatis
Episode 3 of 5
Karen and Karen and Karen and Karen

We got the girls’ names and it turned out they were all named Karen. They called each other Karen and at one point one of them told a story about the other three by referring to them as “Karen and Karen and Karen.” She was all like “Karen was all like ‘whatever,’”and “Karen told Karen to go tell Karen. . .” and “Karen Karen Karen Karen Karen.”

Slaughterhouse Paul: “Semantic saturation” is what you call the evaporation of meaning induced by the repetition or a word or phrase.

Slaughterhouse Pete: Semantic saturation. Semantic saturation. Semantic saturation. Semantic saturation. Semantic saturation. Semantic saturation.

Slaughterhouse Paul: Dude. Shut the fuck up.

I’m not sure how they managed to tell each other apart but I was going to need to devise some kinda system. I thought of assigning numerical designations (e.g. Karen1, Karen2,. . .) but I was worried that that would make them sound like a bunch of fembots or something and, you know, they may not dig that sort of thing. (But personally - and Paul telepathically agrees with me on this - fembots are way hot.)

So I give them the alphabetical designations KarenA, KarenB, KarenC, and KarenD, but instead of pronouncing their names as, for instance “Care-n-See” and “Care-n-Be,” I would say “Care-Enc” and “Care-Enb.”

Slaughterhouse Paul: Amazingly, the Karens seem not to find that totally obnoxious.

Slaughterhouse Pete: I, too, am amazed.

All four of the Karens turn out to be pretty cool chicks and we learn some pretty far-out stuff about them.

3.1. KarenA: Ninja Brain Strings

I could tell you that KarenA is a super bad-ass ninja assassin from the future, but that would be only part of the story. See, all of the bad-ass future ninjas have built in self-destruct devices in case of untimely capture, like cyanide capsules in their molars and whatnot. But what makes KarenA a super bad-ass future ninja assassin are her brain strings. You heard me right. Those cords of twine dangling from her forehead are attached directly to her frontal lobes and a mere flick of the wrist will auto-lobotomize KarenA. And that’s not all. KarenA will sit there in front of you and play with her brain strings, just kind of taunting you. It’s almost like she is saying to you “go ahead, I dare you: make a try for the brain-strings, Suckah.” Oh yeah, and she’s nice too.

3.2. KarenB: Raised by Feral Dolphins

KarenB alleges she was raised by feral dolphins. The kindly bottle-noses taught her to communicate with high pitched squeals. We prompt for a demonstration and she’s pretty convincing. Nikolai (eyes still on the TeeVee) throws a fish from behind the bar and KarenB catches it in her mouth and eats it in a few quick gulps. But it ain’t all smiles and free fish with this aquatic chicky-poo. Nikolai (eyes are still glued to the television), gestures with a fish, pointing it at us and says “She can seriously fuck your shit up with some under-water kung-fu. If, at any time, you find yourself swimming in KarenB’s vicinity, beware of your blow-hole.” (Amazingly, these very words seem perfectly synchronized with the lips of the silent actor on the television.) Nikolai’s wrist flicks and another fish goes ballistic. As the fish traces its aerial arc, Nikolai’s pursed lips whistle bomb Doppler. On the television I recognize the scene from Dr. Strangelove wherein a cowboy bombardier descends astride an A-Bomb. The synchronized fish missile flies right into KarenB’s sexy snapping mouth.

3.3. KarenC: Totalitarian Footwear

Orwell once described the future of the human race in terms of a boot stomping on a human face over and over again for ever and ever. And this could just as easily apply to KarenC except she’s got better boots than anyone in a crappy old Orwell novel. As far as I can tell, KarenC is really sweet (if by sweet you mean “will taze your ass” and by “taze” you mean “literally electrocute you with a tazer.”)

KarenC’s quote of the evening? “Do you like electricity? Then you will frappe your pantaloons over this little smidgen of ionized atmosphere,” said as she teasingly jabs at Paul with her tazer. Paul pretends to pretend to be afraid of the tazer. The Karens may be falling for Paul’s act but I know better. Though Paul’s mostly a tough cookie, the dude is seriously electrophobic.

3.4. KarenD: Her Voice Violated My Ear-hole.

And I liked it.

—

Next episode: The Mile-High Club

Sub Specie Aeternitatis
Episode 2 of 5
The Five-Second Rule

The very moment Paul and I enter Nikolai's we spot these four hot chicks laughin' it up at the bar. None other than Nikolai himself is tending bar tonight and he's totally got their full attention. He pours four perfect shots without ever taking his eyes off the television. Spills not a drop. Some old movie is on and the sound is turned off so Nikolai can supply, like, his own dialog and sound effects and shit.

The Rule is this: if you see someone you like, or think you might like, or even think you might think you might like, then you must approach them and chat them up in five seconds or less. This prevents you from seeming the wuss. He who hesitates is wussed. The Five-Second Rule has no exceptions. Do not worry about what you are going to talk about. A dumbass on the fly is better than a hung-up genius. The latter's quest for just the perfect thing to say is only going to yield the perfect excuse for not saying anything at all. Of course, a genius on the fly trumps both. Enter the Slaughterhouses.

Slaughterhouse Pete (telepathically, natch): So, like, Marxism and stuff?

Slaughterhouse Paul: Roger that.

Paul jumps in with both feet by just flat-out askin' the chicks “so, are you like Marxists or what?” and the chicks are like “Marxism is an utterly sterile conceptualization of class relations” (which is pretty hot) and Paul is like “actually, the whole notion of class relations needs to be transcended” and a bunch of other shit and they were all like “oh my God!” and “your inferences are totally spurious!” and “your strings of non sequitors are egregious beyond all credibility!” but they were digging on us anyway, or at least, they were digging on Paul.

Paul is real slick. He talks me up to the chicks:

“Gifted in the various DarkArts. Once made time move sideways just by thinking about it. Will twist a knife of pure pleasure right into the guts of your belief system, so watch out if you are not into that sorta thing.”

Though Paul flatters me, his graciousness is ultimately designed to make him appear the better man.

I try to one-up him.

“You could call him a Narco-Transcendentalist or a Super-Luminal Smear Algorithm. You could call him The Uncounted Carb or the Terror that Ravaged a Thousand Alphabets. You might refer to him as the Courage of the Teardrop or the Friend of the Aether. You might describe him as any of these things but what would you have really said? Something really really nice, that's what.”

Slaughterhouse Paul: Nice try. Wuss.

Slaughterhouse Pete: Bah!

—
Next episode: Karen and Karen and Karen and Karen

Sub Specie Aeternitatis
Episode 1 of 5
Contact

I'm getting all ready and set to hit the bar tonight with my EvilTwin, Slaughterhouse Paul. Nikolai's rocks with the hotties.

There's only one shitter in our apartment. I lose the coin toss, so Paul gets it first. I'm all like, “Thanks a lot, Stinky!”

I don't wear cologne for anyone's benefit but my own. Tiny dabs in just the right places really do it for me. The inside of my own nose smells so good now. It drives me quite mad.

I wear full-contact contact lenses. I have to punch myself twice in the face to put them in.

The procedure for putting in my third-eye contact lens is much more delicate. I have to fold my fingers up into the fifth dimension to even reach the storage case. Since it's got two more dimensions than my fingers do, it seems, like, fucking enormous. I sweat with concentration to flip open the top. The tricky part involves pushing simultaneously in two directions each perpendicular to my finger's x-, y-, and z-axes. It's another spaghetti snarl altogether to fumble with the hyper-saline and get the hyper-lens to stay on my third-cornea without third-blinking.

Paul is also wearing a third-eye contact lens so we can communicate telepathically. Which is cool.

Slaughterhouse Paul: Testing 1,2,3. Testing.

Slaughterhouse Pete: What's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?

Slaughterhouse Paul: That they are the opposite sex.

Yay! Telepathy.

—

Next episode: The Five-Second Rule

Bone Sorrow

“You're the DJ at the big party. What do you play?”

I am the bonesaw wha-wha DJ.

I've got my bonesaw hooked up to a wha-wha peddle and as I saw into the skull of Buck Nood, his amplified screams set my Marshall stacks on fire. During bathroom breaks I play a backwards recording of Zepplin's “Livin’ Lovin’ Maid” at twice the normal speed.

I remember one of my favorite surgical rotations was with a bunch of hot-shot Japanese neurosurgeons who would like to sing karaoke while they worked. You should have seen Dr. Yamamoto - that mother fucker would have a bone saw in one hand and a microphone in the other, doing a balls-out Bowie impersonation while kicking up clouds of skull-dust. Anyway, one night the patient on the table was none other than Buck Nood of Suede Playboy fame, and his anesthesia wore off right in the middle of a pretty tricky maneuver involving a vascular accident in his inferior temporal cortex. Nood sits right up - his brains half out of his head - and grabs the mic right out of Doc Yamamoto’s hand. Though all the surgeons were wearing masks, they were still visibly drop-jawed as Nood belted out a heartfelt rendition of Zepplin’s “Livin’ Lovin’ Maid”. At the end of the song, Nood laid back down, refusing an encore and demanding the completion of the operation. “Always leave ‘em wantin’ more” he muttered as the new dose of gas kicked in.

The anesthetic cocktail that all patients receive when they go under general anesthetic includes, in addition to the anesthetic proper (for the pain and the consciousness), a paralytic (to prevent you from sitting up and singing “Livin’ Lovin’ Maid”), and an amnestic (so that if you do sit up and sing “Livin’ Lovin’ Maid,” you won’t remember it). Well, it seems that not only did Buck Nood’s dose of anesthetic and paralytic turn out to be too low, but so was the amnestic. He remembers the surgical karaoke and he and his lawyers cry “malpractice”. Yamamoto is sufficiently high on the food chain to not have to take the fall, and I wind up getting shit-canned instead.

Back in med-school, when we were practicing using the bone saw on cadavers, the old joke, and truth of the matter, was that super-heated human bone-dust smells just like Cool Ranch Doritos. Years later, even after I was bounced out from practicing medicine, I would still visit the operating theater, sitting in the back, hugging myself, rocking back and forth, and laugh and laugh, all the while as I chomp away at a big big bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

And now I am the bonesaw wha-wha DJ. And though Nood still has a few screams left in him, and though the crowd is wild for an encore, I duck out the back of the club to head home for the night.

“Always leave ‘em wantin’ more.”

Ice Face, Pt. 2. (Episode 4 in the Chronicles of the American Nihilist Council.)

(ep 1, ep 2, ep 3.)

Fade-in. White light. Blue sky. Crazy man.

Going in or out of consciousness is always cinematic, I find. The fade-ins and fade-outs. The washes and wipes. I’ve had enough experience to be an authority on this topic. I’ve been knocked out by blows to the head at least a dozen times. I’ve had major surgeries on four occasions. I’ve only fainted once before.

I can tell by the length of his beard that The Wiz has been up here for a while.

Most of his brunette beard is frosted with white ice. His moustache is wet with what looks like a mixture of blood and quicksilver. I’m hoping the blood is from one of my punches. But when I figure out how long I must have been unconscious and what the quicksilver really is, it’s pretty clear that the nosebleed was self-inflicted.

I’m in a sort of cocoon. I’m bound tight from shoulders to toes in sleeping bag and rope. I can manage only a squirm. I rub my legs together and judging by length of leg-stubble, I figure I must have been unconscious for several days.

The Wiz has ground micro-meteorites with a mortar and pestle and snorted the resultant moon-dust. He’s out of his mind on space junk. “Hallo Spaceboy,” I say, “Save any for me?”

He starts talking but more to himself than to me. Suits me. It’s all gibberish any way: “Since I’ve started my experiments, I’ve come to realize that the micrometeorites contain dark matter, that is, non-baryonic dark matter composed of WIMPS: Weakly Interacting Massive Particles.” The way he says it, I can hear the capitalization.

“So, you’re all hopped-up on WIMPs? Figures,” I say. He lumbers toward my cocoon and kicks me in the head. Fade out.

Fade in. One of my arms is out of the cocoon but I’m still immobilized. My ice-numbed arm is pinned under The Wiz’s knee. He’s delirious. Sharpening my ice axe. Insisting on the need for amputation. “There’s actually nothing wrong with my hand,” I say. “I knew you would say that,” he says. “The hand is making you say that. The hand is infected with baryonic dark matter composed of MACHOs: Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects. And that’s why it has to go.”

Sharpened or not, an ice-axe is a poor choice for surgery. Ice-numbed or not, the sawing is hideous. Hideous or not I can’t help but sing “Ma-cho ma-cho hand” but it’s a half-assed warble and not the defiant absurdity I was aiming for. Then, for the second time in my life, I faint.