#9 -28

“I’m sorry but you are the fall-guy... I had to divert their attention away from me so... they think you have it,” she said with a look of cunning remorse.
“What is the stash?” I asked believing she’d give me the honest truth.
”It’s the final formula to change reality into a figmented frolic where nothing is real but real enough to lure the
Pigments, who are us, into a state of pure pleasure.
Of course the Figments need this formula to finalize their program.” she said.
“I didn’t know about it... BB never said anything to me. So... BB initiated it and now it’s a threat?”
“Yeah, and now he, Gino and the foundation of OLK are living in that world and are seldom seen. This is what the Figments are counting on. They need the component to ensure their existence. Without it, reality will dominate,” she said.
“But how could it be possible to wipe out reality?”
“You’ve seen what OLK can do with the software, you were there. The world is connected with technology...via virtual-net, internet and pleasure-net. By these means there would be a global agenda to reform, then erase
reality,” she said.
“But I don’t see a problem with that...most people already spend half their lives in a state of
subconsciousness which is a mild form of figmentation.”

“That’s true enough, but if the Figments get their figmented hands on it, they will also have the power and that power could eliminate mankind if they so wished,” she stated.
“You mean like creating negative forces to kill us?” I asked knowing very well I didn’t need to.
“No time to chit-chat... we have to get the component and destroy it,” she said.


Environmental Tantrums
Clops was still repeating, ‘infinity is now’ then I realized we were still standing where we first cracked the seal on the silver box.
“That was incredible,” I said.
Clops said, “No... that was Dr. Doesit... did you find the lingerie headgear?”
“Just about...Powder has hidden it in the bathroom. I or I should say, we were about to get it when I woke up.”
”Let’s get Powder and powder up in the powder room,”said Clops, blinking his swollen red eye. He looked at me like I was going to say something, so I didn’t.
As the old ranch style outer spring door made its usual smack-mack-ack behind us. The diner looked exactly like my Dr. Doesit vision. Powder came bouncing over and before she could say anything I told her not to say anything but to follow us to the bathroom. The patrons were busily eating their fuzzy green fish and not one head bobbed up as we passed between the booths. We scurried behind the drapes then I said, “Powder, let’s get the component you stashed inside your x-boyfriends lingerie headgear.”
“How did you find out?” she asked.
“Compliments of Dr. Doesit’s mystery concoction,” said Clops.
“What’s wrong with your eye?” Powder asked Clops.
“I was abandoned as a child and raised by a loving couple of cicada,” he said.
She just smiled and said, “Oh... I see.”
My curiosity got the best of me so I asked Powder about the lingerie headgear and she just said, “Do you wanna use up your ninth life?”
I presumed that that was not a warning but a threat so I winked at her trying to soften her up.
“Let’s move on,” Clops whispered, “I hear someone coming.”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh and the three of us stumbled onto the light blue tiled floor. There was the now dry but sticky coffee stain with footprints tracking through it which lead to the moon.

#8

In my state I felt a bit ogreish but I’m sure Clops was used to it.

We sat down and I asked for the usual, out of habit. Clops was fumbling inside his pocket, so I told him his water pistol gag wouldn’t work this time.
“No, no, I’ve got some paper for rubbings,” he said, pulling out a roll of creamy toilet paper and a 4B lead pencil. He put the pencil in his mouth and began rubbing the tabletop with the paper.
“Clops...what are you doing?” I asked.
“Making a rubbing,” he answered.
“Rubbing doesn’t mean polishing... you have to use the pencil...here give it to me before you hurt yourself.”
Powder puffed out a deep breath. “What’s wrong with you guys...I smell a Dr. Doesit.”
Clops frowned and blurted out, “It’s prescriptive... we needed it to discover where Sai stashed his stash.”
Powder was called to the kitchen so she spun around and said, “You should be careful, there are Figments everywhere and they’re looking for you, Sai.”
You know I really don’t like being a paranoid but it seemed that now would be the best time. As I glanced around the room I could swear I was in the midst of a dark and murderous circus of unbelievables.
Clops was making some very strange noises and when I turned to look at him, my eyes ran across the tabletop.
Someone had removed the table top philosophy. Then I saw Clops’ good eye twitching and tears sliding down his cheek.
“Pull yourself together man,” I said, “It wasn’t like it was a hyroglith though you’re looking somewhat like a hydroglith.”
“We have to talk to Powder, she knows what we need to know,” I said while thinking about the lingerie headgear.
Clops leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Someone once told me that I look like a cicada after I’ve cried...do I?
”Well, Clops... now that you mention it, you kind of do,” I replied.
He was about to turn on the faucet again but there was a commotion in the kitchen that stunted his sensitivity.
I could hear the cook screaming, “This fuzzy green fish is a specialty!”
Everyone in the place spit what they had in their mouths out onto their tables. Then I heard Powder say, “Haven’t you noticed the unfathomable reek in here.”
“It may be smelly but this is the only restaurant that serves this delicacy,” said the cook.
Everyone resumed and consumed the rest of their fish when they heard ‘delicacy’.

Powder came rushing out of the kitchen looking very
fed up. She ripped off her apron and threw it at the
disturbed masked man. He grabbed it and began
beating it with the flyswatter while shouting, “I am not
a heterosexual.”
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. So we followed her like a couple of price tags not yet clipped from her tight but nicely formed jeans.
Clops said to me, “Good thing I have only one eye... with two it would be too much.”
Understanding perfectly well what he was talking about, I closed my good right eye and said, “I know what you mean.”
Before we had reached the door, the rough lookers who went to the bathroom earlier came rushing through the drapes.
“There he is, let’s get him,” and they bolted towards us.
Clops yelled, “Get going, I’ll stop them.” He turned around, stretched out his elastic orangutan arms and flung both of them back over some tables into the drapes.
Powder and I ran down the street around a tight corner, in through a back alley right behind the Slixx.
“We’ve got to get into the bathroom... that’s where I’ve hidden the stash,” she said.
“You’ve hidden it...but I’m supposed to have hidden it, haven’t I?”