The Clam Hanson Variations

Hole In My Heart's

100
Variations
on an
Air
by Clam Hanson

time and date u started this?

NOW MUSE, sing handsome oer this aría,
Enflame the ink in pink for me to fill
One-hundred resurrecting varía
In these abandoned faults aridgéd still.
Yes, here each hole arrested in the air,
Like liquifiéd silver, Muse, inclose
In answers musical and poesy fair,
And tastefully arouse the spam and prose.

In th'Age of Gold, hid from Panoptic eyes,
A tropical Archipalego throve
With wanton carefulness attended shy
By calloused hands thru thorn and torn in love
Oer th'art of word, and guests who deigned to meet
Their shelters when to isle to isle they fleet.
The guest rites well observed by each monarch,
Great Jove, the patron god of wanderers
Observed each monarch from the skyey arch,
Which is the firmament that holds the Hours,
And lent to Man imperíal support
—When Eris with her blazing torch unsort
A youthful mind with pride to take to task
A relic of a relic of the past.
So through the Air this Phaethon conveys,
His steeds lose their composure and their way,
The windy stress divides his golden pen,
In clefts lets every kennel th'eye can ken,
And when he falls, his Heliades tear
In tears their hair, and swear the sea and Air
Will fare th'affair of L'Art de Varier.
The sea, now tyrant-ruled and uniform
In large deposits crusted oer in mass,
Collects insects in piles of drum and bass,
And some who quietly endured the storm
Maintain such pockets here through which may pass
These questions and their answers from my ass:

asl?

HE/THEM tossed hither/thither years between
Walls massy show'ring flanked by azure towres,
His widening hole still draught and still unseen,
A clammy cobbler's Air his fountains powres:
The winds, save Zephyr, lulled by a sweet lyre,
The gray-eyed Maid now tweaks the blues within
His icy heart to now resound with fyre,
And manic foregales carry home his din.
As for his wisdom, Ulysses was fixed
Twixt suffrings and detainment of the Nymph,
Or Venus jailed sir Tannhauser, transfixed
In his great poetry and fertile lymph,
So our great Prince was pinned by his own words:
Three years assigned was he to plow the length
His piercing Muse prescribed in English verse,
And three years past all rotted from the curse
Of melancholy, like the fiery birds
He rises and returns, three years too late,
For here this year appears the dreaded date
On which the poet learnéd graduates
(The twinkhon age in youthful mem'ry sunc)
The age of thirty to become an unctuous erastes.

opinions on musicals?

And now to regain my uneasy head
I play the pen over the given tune
To tell the theme unheard in forms unsaid
And give it shades unseen in lume and lune:
Encased in ridges hard and built of sin,
The plaid wrapped gift now hides some air within
Who hums in academic shades all snug.
The pseudospoken word is pseudosung.

favorite snack?

Before the Fall and my unsettled luck,
When mortals slept with gods, and Diomed
Gave battle to the king of War and struck
The goddess' wrists who rules the kinky Bed,
Some men could trace their fathers' fame to reach
The halls of the divine, being worshipped dear
As Godlike figures in themselves. But each
Did never knock the heights of peace through fear
Of one young lad. As when Ascanius
Inherited his father's víolence,
Converting it to careful governance;
Or Selim's Terror turned Magnificence
His son through good administratíon;
So Caesar paved the way to Augustus.
This Caeserette, once an Octavíon,
Then later a Pontifex Maximus,
This undivine man, by deceptíon
Became the master of the world. In mind
A sheep in clothing Machavellíon,
So weak in body, poor in martial kind.
And by his fame a certain tree would be
Likewise divine: The snack that would alight,
The Emperor's fav'rite. Indeed would he
Lick up its royal insides with delight:
Within its subtle purple robe presents
Enclosed in furry warmth a gradíent 
Of lightly sweet flesh giving way to cold
Seeds icy popping red the tongue's untold.
And all were happy in the free abandon
Of matters sin, rapine, and adultry,
And Pax Augusta gives out figs at randon
To every reader of each ancestry.
But then YHWH, God all above old gods
Entrusts His Son to touch the Earth t'alert
The Triumph of His Sacred Word. His rods
(Which water draw from rocks) usurpt
Scepter of Jove. New forms of píety
Then spread as fire without socíety.
The Son of Man, from Bethany came forth,
A rumble in his tummy felt, and then
His eyes did feast upon a tree whose worth
Was yet to show. His tummy once again
Did play a groaning bass, and then a sigh,
"No man eat fruit of thee e'ermore. Now die."

have u ever been in love?

Like Virgil, love moves me to move (You) too:
This Clam's gift, lost in soup of stuff to do
In life's sad sack of task, before it dies,
In verse I'll gild with silver to revise
So loud and bold it sounds from each thin cleft,
Each step we take to Hell this theme may rise
To Heav'n, in five and ninety questions left.

favorite pokemon?

Now Muse, enumerate the warring train
To find a master of the bow—the Sun,
Or Teucer, who derives Diana's vein;
Offense in battle close—Peleus' son,
Or either brother of Atrides' strain;
The swiftest foot who day and night may run;
And those who hail down spears like sluicy rain.
Yes, compass round all these to find a sphere
That ain't a Twenty-XX technosteer
But creeps on subtily as love and like
A strange IWBTG spike
(Confirm the meter holds by speaking proud
"Eye double you bee tee gee spike" out loud),
A juggernautan Prince among all men:
Look how tank Ajax hard behind a wall
Of carefully placed back-airs would defend
The Grecian walls from Hector and his thrall,
So this strange sphere floats dreadful threat the treat
Of rest, and th'unswift hitsphere of her feet.

mario kart main?

Now in the Art of Varying we may be sandbagging as we sail on the dusty main, going down to Silvertown, thinking back to that wondrous boy as we step and step to Hell. Oooh! The mouth-watering air, the moondust in your tongue, the prefigured beauty clenching the moon between his teeth and biting into Clam Hanson's heart as cruelly as she thrusts her courser's hide, groaning like Jesus' tummy. SHE SAYS: "Let's turn back, horsie. I can't take this anymore. Let's dress him in this caparison and use these bloody spurs on his milk white skin." The horse replies, "I understand, Clam Hanson, your Great Plan. I know how the boytrauma of Pausnias of Orestis gave way to the rule of Alexander. I remember Jacob's premonition of a boy who shall grow up to have eyes red with wine and teeth white with milk. I know how young Bacchus was mistaken for a maiden, found drowsy and swooning on Naxos. Mmmmmm... mmmm.... Huh? I'm fine, Clam Hanson. I am a horse. Your main, after all. And horses can have boyyearning too, as we learn from Shakespeare. Yes, on my mane, I understand your plam, Clam. To whip something great out of pain. To fill the bloody faults with milk. To flood this dusty main with silk soft skin. To drive this hansom back to that handsome lad. But sometimes the way forward is the way back after all. Because as you know, variations often end with an echo of the theme. The descent is often circular, like a spiral staircase, or a three lap course."
tf2 main?

Violence. Ze turth of ze matter lurking beneaz confezzional politikz. Ve vere just a zmattering of Eztatez, loozely organized, petty in financiel matterz, and zen suddenly ve vere overrun. Imperial troopz, zen ze Swedes, zen Imperial troopz, zen ze Swedes, our poor landz razed oer agein each time zey changed vood cheinge handz. Hot coalz vere poured into our citizen's mouthz, splinterz of vood stuck into zeir penizez, scalded vith berning hot vater, faces melted in open firez, caztrated, beheaded, children drowned, vomen raped, cropz and goods and sustenance stolen, regionz lozing their entire populationz from stairvation, leaving our Markz limping und barely held togezer. And so, peering over new Norzern Warz, here in ze seat of ze Elector, leering at ze landed nobility zat abandoned us, ze ruthless fist of ze Emperor, Adolphus' savege troopz, I saw Reality: Zat no belief or ideology or Pietizm can usurp ze brutal truth of violence. Zat power precedez questionz of tranzsubstantiation. Ve muzt be armed, a standing army many timez our size, and proportional to our precarious location on ze world map. Ve must play ze game of Schaukelpolitik, vit ze Swedez againzt the Polez, vith ze Polez against ze Swedes, vliping und vloping vith France, cozying up to ze Hapzbergz, shying away, swinging from ze Rhineland all ze way up to Fehrbellin, from Neumark to Altmark, beirly holzing Ducal Pruzzia in check und ze distant Ezteits of Zulich-Kleve, ceirfully managing all eight of my velnerable flankz by frantically zwitching alliez und operational pozitionz like a madman. If you zimply sit ztill, in ze belief zat ze fire is still far from your borderz, zen your landz vill become ze theater on which ze tragedy iz played out. I shall become ze fabrication of stability in a world ov conztant danger. A vulnerable chaoz coated in a coat ov armz. Ze one to heal our damaged voundz. Ze stream of support in taxation, trade, adminiztrative reform, military modernization, drillz, marriage alliancez, und foreign subzidiez zat keepz zis Heavy alive. Ze illusion behind behind hiz immortality. Ze Heavy behind ze Heavy. Ze stability zat givez life to hiz chaoz. Ze vaccination that saved him from rout. Ze Mediktator.
do you laugh at youtube poops?

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are you listening to music right now?

This quatrain musickal I improvise
According to my Muse's ashen tongue.
You listen to her tune under my guise
And listen I with piercéd ears her songue.

favorite shape?

SOCRATES Clam Hanson, you have deployed quite a mysterious question. CLAM HANSON Mysterious? I meant to unravel mysteries with this questionnaire—datamine—so to speak, not add to them. SOCRATES And yet your Baroque Air contains many mysteries of the unconscious. Would you mind giving me your answer to this question, then? What is your favorite shape? CLAM HANSON It seems to me the circle is most perfect of shapes. SOCRATES Most perfect of shapes, you say? Of what shapes is it most perfect? What do you mean by shape? CLAM HANSON That which is connected by lines, and/or curves, and enclose an interior SOCRATES Why stipulate "and/or curves" on top of "lines"? Is it because your "circle" needs "curves" to qualify as a shape? CLAM HANSON Indeed. SOCRATES Your intuition about the perfection of a circle is quite accurate. Let us take the set of regular shapes, say, starting with the equilateral triangle, then the square, then the pentagon, hexagon, septagon, octagon, etc. Do you not agree that the limit of this set is the circle? CLAM HANSON I agree. SOCRATES Then I may take "curves" to simply be the generalization of "lines." Because, as we learn from Calculus, curves are in fact composed of infinitely many infinitisemal lines. The curve is simply the limit of connected line segments. So we may discard the stipulation of "curves" from our definition, do you not think? CLAM HANSON Absolutely, Socrates. SOCRATES Excellent work, Clam. This is a very productive back-and-forth. But now that we have embarked on the pursuit of generality, new deficiencies in our definition may be admitted to our new eyes. If we are to generalize lines to curves, who is stopping us from generalizing lines to, say, points on a line, or planes in the third dimension? Surely, a sphere in ℝ³ can be analogously likened to a "shape" as much as a circle in ℝ². It seems there is something more fundamental about the notion, the Form, of a "shape" that extends beyond lines in 2 dimensions. Isn't that right? CLAM HANSON Correct. SOCRATES Now let us proceed. If we extend our definition to the third dimension, for instance, we would use, as we said, planes instead of lines. But how do planes "connect" with each other to enclose an interior? Perhaps we should say that the boundary of a plane must coincide with the other. And, of course, we can take infinitely many infinitesmal planes to form arbitrary surfaces, therefore enclosing the area of interest, as needed. And in higher dimensions, we can of course use hyperplanes as our "lines." Does that complete our definition? CLAM HANSON Yes. SOCRATES However, there is one aspect of our definition that we have neglected yet. How would we determine that our "lines" "enclose" an "interior"? Where would these notions come from? It seems we must be able to elaborate on this notion before we can complete our work. CLAM HANSON Indubitably so. SOCRATES Now, Clam Hanson, here's where things become strange. How would we be able to determine that our lines, or planes, or hyperplanes enclose an interior without considering the interior itself? But if we must consider the interior itself before the shape, the notion of a "shape" follows its interior. Our initial definition of shape thus has the whole concept backwards. Here, Clam Hanson, is why your questions are like daggers in my soul, probing me, exposing me, cutting me open. Shapes are not amorphous lines or surfaces existing independently. They necessarily depend on the space they enclose. This is what I meant when I once told Meno that "a shape is the limit of a solid." I.e. the solid comes before the shape. So, it seems to me, we must entirely upend our definition from the ground up, starting from the solid itself. CLAM HANSON Correct. SOCRATES I truly value the equal, rational exchange of ideas in dialogue, Clam Hanson. Now let us go ahead and think about the solid from which a shape can arise. If we call the solid S, it seems to me that we want to obtain its boundary ∂S as the corresponding "shape." Therefore we should require that our solid be closed, in order to obtain such a boundary. CLAM HANSON Yes. SOCRATES Additionally, we do not want our solid to extend out indefinitely. So we should also require our solid to be bounded. CLAM HANSON Absolutely. SOCRATES Good. Clam, I will mention that my disciple Plato is recording our conversation over there, do not mind him. Plato, my friend, make sure not to portray Clam Hanson as a fool, or merely a yes-man. In any case, Clam, now that we have required both closedness and boundedness of our solid, we may simply require instead that our solid is compact. But tell me, Clam: Do two separate oranges make a solid, from which one can extract a shape? Surely, this set is compact. It seems to me we still have a problem. CLAM HANSON Indeed. SOCRATES To fix this, I propose that we also require our solid to be connected. Additionally, I will add one more thing to avoid a trivial case: We must stipulate that our set is nonempty. In that case, we may define our solid to be "a non-empty, compact connected set S in ℝⁿ". A shape, then, is simply the boundary ∂S of such a solid. CLAM HANSON That works. SOCRATES Excellent work, Clam. Now you can truly admire Yukari's obsession with boundaries. However, is there anything we may want to require of this space? I would reckon that we would like to avoid Weierstraussian curves bounding our interiors, as well as other pathological surfaces. Perhaps we can require that it be a smooth manifold. However, that would exclude obvious shapes, like squares, and cubes. So then, we might attempt to require our definition to stipulate "piecewise smoothness" or "local smoothness" or "Lipschitz." And upon this point, Miss Genevive, you may find how mysterious your question truly is. What requirements must we place on our solid, and our boundary, for it to qualify as a "shape"? You have stabbed me in the heart, Clam Hanson. And we still have 89 daggers left to manage. In any case, the result is that we have a whole zoo of shapes to choose from, and every shape inherits the soul of its interior. CLAM HANSON Yes. SOCRATES However, since we have the basic idea, say, placing a "locally smooth" stipulation on our definition, we may be able to provide a better hypothesis on the greatest of all shapes. Well then, fashionista, what does your elevated taste and eye for figure yield? CLAM HANSON They would have to be the dancing silhouettes of the Bad Apple music video. The allure of that PV is what is so sensually implied by the graceful shadows—the delicate feminine limits of each solid hiding, and thus elevating, the girly solids they enclose. It is the prime example of a shape transcending its solid, only to bring up the solid with itself in perfect erotic unity. It is a yearning implication of the Feminine. SOCRATES I was thinking, actually, the silhouette of a mockingbird singing from a high branch, or a nuthatch climbing a tree upside-down. CLAM HANSON No wonder Disney princesses are associated with birds. SOCRATES But city birds are afraid of women. And have you seen Alcibiades in the nude?
do you believe in astrology?

Ey, reader. Ah been hearin round town bowt yer lil what they call soshul anximemooma. Ah seen your blog an all that, aint so rainbows n sunshin now ain it. Gess soshul inneracshuns ain it for ye eh? Now, now... that ain't no darn diddly thang to be shy bout. Heck, whole lotta good people Ah knowve got ishes with all that doodly wang. And Ah dunno if Ahve got the darn scoops to help ye out, reader. But, well, Ahve sure been through a hell lot.... Worked in the fields through the 'pression n near got my damn arm cut off by a plow.... found mahself in bar fights every weekend, near got darn diddly dick cut off fightin oer some wooman.. Mah own damn son run away from me, he come back and almost cut my darn doodly dick off tryna kill me, only came back years later prostratin' himself on his porch for my darn diddly forgiveness. Mah late wife, Beth, bless 'er heart, lost her to that damn polio at the tender age of 30, aint ever got no space in ma heart for no wooman since then, almost did cut off my own darn diddly dick from the dispair. Well, though I got me no tism, I got me a whole package of life, though I almost did lost it a couple times, ha ha ha ha ha ha... *Wipes tear from eye*. Well, Ah know ye've had trouble socializin', and stutterin', and all those darn diddly embarassin' things. I know it be tough out there talkin to folks nowaday, an I wanna help ye, reeder. So lemme try n give ye some advise: Kill yourself. Juss kill yeself. Thats mah darn doodly advice, reeder. Go get the shotgun in yer drawer an blow yer oodly woodly breins out. Ahm sorry reeder, ye aint got no other choise. Aint no one in society gonna accomadate yer exentrissiters no more. There aint no more tolranse for weirdos like ye, ysee. Usedta only be mah region that wus discramanatory, that ol darn midwest an south an all but now the cities are the same too. Ye can try makin some darn doodly frends and all that, but if they notis yer a lil "off" theyll abandon ye and tell ye to see a therapiss. Sorry reeder, cant rely on yer friends or pardners no more for help and support, all emoshunal stuff is outsourced to the profeshnuls now ysee. "thass not my responsibility" they gonna be sayin. If yer unstable, don quite fit in "yer mennal health is yerr responsability" they gonna tell ye. an if you have problems in yer innerapersonal relashinships, well, theyll therapyspeek ye into a box like "narcississ" or "avoodent" to dismiss ye as a consshus indavidual and justifie erasin ye from their mind. theyl throw on therapiss labels on ye leff and right like ther divinin ye. its the astrologisation of relashionsheps ysee. everythins a box, the labels are the ends an the peeple are the meens. And well reader, if ye aint gon kill yeself, at leas cut your own toodly woodly dick off.
do you believe in the occult?

>ECQ trivialises any inconsistent theory (triviality = every sentence is provable), which makes it useless for mathematical calculation. But considerable debate (Burgess 1981, Mortensen 1983), made it clear that dispensing with ECQ and DS was not so counter-intuitive, especially when a plausible story emerged about the special conditions under which they continue to hold.
>Even more radically, Weber, in related papers (2010), (2012), has taken the inconsistency to be a positive virtue, since it enables us to settle several questions that were left open by Cantor, namely, that the well-ordering theorem and the axiom of choice are provable, and that the Continuum Hypothesis is false (2012, 284).

(*)

opinions on vocaloid?

In honor of variation 14, let's switch up the meter and compose this variation in fourteener. Hits pipe

Yo Muse, now find me skill which may divert for just this one
(My pen the next to form it may return) varíation.
This pen now threats to cross the ridge that crowns this handsome post
Because in seven feet the writer's fain to find him lost
In space that stretches on the fringes swept by pointers null,
As on the pole the endless main extends so every end
A ring of panorama forms, each strip identical,
Where fall'n Aurora's carcass and her rotting hair portend
A world abandoned. Th'amber sun pervades the sickful hall
Which is the center of the world. Now all the great ones dead,
The fruits decay and droop their hues in pools of diss'nant song.
The creatures here solopsistic, no common language tread,
Each creature on his own forage, in his own head to long
For one another like him, yet the space infects the mind,
That every other's word becomes a scream, and smile a bind.
Within the eye of th'unistorm, away from all and curled
Beneath the dreamy field of worms who crawl the orange skie
One moment burning there, one moment disappeared, the world
In bleeding trickles permeates your sleep. The comfort lie
Of rest no more. The space collapses in one side the die.
So verse my pen composes in this awful form right here
The horrid day my daughter makes the age of fourteen yere.

would you ever want to be a rockstar?

NOW MUSE, sing Doug Macarthur's great parade:
Those 15 cars down Pennsylvania Rade,
Chained North Korean POWs
Trailed tigers in exotic garb for use
For savage games oer Nero's lovely lute,
A 21-atomic bomb salute,
The lynching of the traitor Acheson,
The burning of the Constitutíon,
The booing and impeachment of Truman,
The screeds against appeasement to the Reds,
The Good Old Party all so transfixéd
In he who brought all oer he past half mast.
The age of martial heroes nearly past,
This man who kissed Madame Chiang's fair hand,
Who cornered in Pusan proposed to land
In Inchon to outflank the Reds, proposed
To poison the Yalu, and then supposed 
To drop atomic bombs on the mainland,
Conducting foreign policy by hand
His own, to cross the White House policies,
And still adored oer more, more heresies,
Professing all theater command should be,
"Beholden all to me and only me,"
Lacked in his triumph one thing his rear:
A slave to whisper in his wrinkly ear,
"You are but mortal, only dust, my dear."

do you easily get stressed?

So Dougy boy was sent to contemplate
Where rockstars go to die: The Old Senate.
Ol' Richard Russell calm presides the closed
Attention-dampening proceedings, posed
To gently wear the aging General 
Down with attrition. The drab carnival
Got on with questions dizzyingly bland
Clam Hansony as grating as thick sand,
The public slowly lost their confidence,
As the old General began to miss
In his own chains of logic, an abyss
Opens beneath, so all his hopes and dreams
Die with a whimper, no nuclear screams.

what is/was your favorite class in high school?

School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks.

what pokemon type would you be? dual types are allowed lol

The elements the fair Muses bestow
To feed all art: The poet's fire flows
Through th'watery embrace of Nereids,
Till Dryads in their grassy periods
End poems with thorns. Lame Vulcan bends the steel
T'engrave the aegis with a poison scowl
Whose readers turn to rock. The painter's heel
This craggy height to view the flying fowls
And every bug that creeps upon the Earth,
Scales, calling down great Jove's electric storm
To ravage all the ground, each cozy hearth
With darts of ice demolish and deform
And satisfy the darkness in his heart.
All art derives from tensíon. A fight
Gives might to pens, Psychic horrors are feasts,
To search for dreaded ghosts we kill the lights
And conjure awful dragons to defeat,
Terrified most by normalness and peace.

rei or asuka?

Hartshorned, II.2.1.16,18 (in other words, Asuka)

favorite html tag?

The muses mark the elements with tags:
A ta- ble may mark eve- ry syl- la- ble
SOCRATES
Description lists mark dialogue by fags,
 marquee de Lafayettes flee constables
 
And <mark> may clock an element to hark.
Comments advise 
And  may hold dangerous surprise,
But now we emphasize the metal root
Of <head>, of lip, of eye, of brow, of <foot>,
To find within what strongly structure holds
In bearded wisdom, keeping all the folds
Of page creased neat so boldly it may live
On good account of span and steely div.

are you religious?

In guise of Mentes, Mentor, these, or those
To guide the poet up th'Aonian mount,
Or drag to Hell with love in verse and prose
And savor in the sacrifice her fount
Recieves in constant flow, she takes one more,
One more, one more, uncounted forms emboss
To drag into her wells, their Will, their loss,
Like Demodocus and his sight apprise
Her oculophiliac silver eyes,
Or Thamyris's tongue was zippéd shut
With threads and needles for her muting smut.
You do not love, nor can be loved, my friend,
You're nothing but a lack, divot, or hole,
Through which a foreign breath its smell can send,
A rigged up doll ready to rock and roll,
A conduit to consummation, son,
And love, you are the body, she the soul,
As when a harpsichordist creeps upon
The singer creeping on him in canon.

opinions on nightcore?

CHECKED.
did you go through any major phase? (emo, goth, weeaboo, etc)

I am the Man of Mode. Like Horner feigning a phase of impotence to sneak under a skirt. Thus society has often attempted to corner me like a wild animal to extract my True Voice (The Heavy behind the Heavy). They see that I can be at the bottom of the world and talk like a giddy teenage girl, or type dispassionately on a sugar high. They've tried to catch me at my darkest hour, my lowest point, in order to extract something sincere. But what if there is nothing sincere to be revealed? What if I am actually no one, and I do not have a "personality"? What if I put on personalities and take them off like masks, and there's actually nothing on the inside? What if I am a conveniently put together patchwork of consciousnesses, like a Portuguese man-of-war, with no real identity when you squint? Like Hume's beloved bundle, Kripke's criticized cluster. However, I assure you it isn't true. In fact, each of these varied hues are actually just shades of pink, and there's no escape.
are you good at drawing?

No.

In any case, our questioner questions us about drawing right on the quarter cusp of these variations, thus making herself an executioner. Listen: I understand the value of pillows, warmth, doves, cuddles, hot tea, cookies and milk. Barring enlightenment and asceticism, which I will not achieve in this lifetime, the highest form of life is the comfy life: To you a quiet seat the Gods allow / You have no shores to search, no seas to plow / Nor fields of flying Italy to chase. Unfortunately, I have been locked out of the comfy seat as well, on account of a certain Goddess. Now that I'm wielding a pen again after 3 years, I could be jumped in Rose Alley over some Restoration infidelity on stage. I could be slain by a "tradcath" for making a speech about the virtue of the Horn. I could be Karl Sanded by someone "desensitized to violence" over showing the wrong types of violence. If you think Puritanism is dead in 2026, you are mistaken. I do not care what your beliefs are. If you live in America (and most of the West, and the Westernized East), you likely have it imprinted so deep into you that even attempting to untangle yourself from it is inconcievable. And on that note, I think our pendulum has swung too far in the direction of "leaving it up to the reader's imagination" and "the scariest thing is what you don't see," and "it doesn't rely on cheap gore or shock value," which is why I'm going to start writing fiction that glorifies violence through depiction. It will be fiction that revels in cruelty for the sake of cruelty. No underlying message. I have nothing to say, only stuff to show. I want critics and video essayists to make screeds about how "tasteless" and "disgusting" and "pointlessly cruel" my work is, and I want it to be called "fetishization of violence," and they should ask "was it really necessary to the plot to show all that? I think it's just so much more subtle and profound when it doesn't show you everything." Trust me, this will be good for society. I will bring back violence to art like Justin Timberlake and resensitize the population. Then maybe fat people will stop comfortably endorsing genocide, vigilantism, coward punches, violent revolution, castration, and damnation in Hell from their armchairs, ultimately condoning the blueshirts and brownshirts to execute it on their behalf. What was this variation about, again? Drawing and quartering?

do you crack your joints?

So crack the whip over the milky white,
Inclose with rivers red the map to wind
Our way to Hell, and through those divots sing
About the senses, joy, sorrow, and bling,
And quiet at the quarter clamorous
Questions with silver passing glamorous.

do you read visual novels?

At th'age of twenty-six Napoleón
The Army to Piédmont took command,
So too that awful Carthiginían
Took charge of that army who elephants
Would drive over the Alps. At that same age
Of six and twenty Shelley in a rage
Exiled himself to Italy to convince
Free Love through his Prometheus. The Prince
Named Hal would too at twenty-six ascend
To coronate as Henry and portend
Great Agincourt. On Congress Johnson's strut
Resounds, and so a Banquet of Chestnuts
Whispers, and Setoguchi young and bold
His 'pocalyptic Swan Song did unfold,
And there began I too to unravel
The next great 'merican visúal novel.

can you sew?

I say that anyone can learn to sew
By following the frills tutu and fro
On th'intuition of the gifted few
Who in the calm of chaos means to row
And method in the fabric find anew.
Yes, glassy eyed and greedy smiled are those
Who on their altar do demand the toes
Then ankles, knees, and thighs, and ears, and nose
From those who contract out their yeas and noes,
On which, licking their lips, they ply their ruse
Through each poor fool who prayed to serve the Muse.

can you cook?

Step back gents... let her cook... LET HER COOK
LET. HER. COOK.
DON'T DISS ON PPL
I SAID LET HER COOK

Now that that's out of my system, let's observe a freckled friend returning to his craft after a 7 month absence:
>alright alright, that should do it. we did it! yay! give yourself a pat on the back, dear reader, for we together saved the freckleskies 2025 advent calendar.

Uh ohhhh, can you taste it? That underlying sense of desperation as the Calendar Man himself attempts to "rescue" the yearly tradition from falling into the flames. Pleading, bargaining, panicky, frantic. Frecky first forgets the food rating here, and then forgets it there, and then apologizes to the reader. So many apologies. Reader, reader, dear readerrrrrr. Did you know, "Dear reader" is actually a sign of desperation (Yours Truly would know) "Please listen. You, yes YOU, listen." The atrophying of his own creation gives him nightmares. The rustiness! The statue is falling apart, missing an arm there, a chalice here. And once you're out of the ring long enough, looking in, you begin to think: This was stupid. What was the point of any of this, anyway? What's in an advent calendar, or fanfic uploaded to the void? "I just do it for my own enjoyment" "I do it for myself" "I just do it because I love it." So why are you apologizing? Why Dear Reader the reader? Don't ever listen to someone who says they're doing it for themselves (including... yourself). The reason we write, and publish, is to communicate. We DO NOT make art for the pure love of the thing, but to deliver something to another conscious being. There is no private art. You do not make art for yourself. Even the stuff you hide in your drawers you could have just hid in your head. Art is practical, ysee? Now now, as each day passes by in the cozy month of December, Freckles begins to settle back into things. He starts to get into his groove, and as each post goes by, the lack of self-confidence begins to fade, and the cozy Christmas fire in the hearth begins to warm the room again. He understands that the advent calendar is his show, and he has no reason to apologize for it. And finally, not even midway through, it becomes mostly smooth sailing over a pliable sea with a few embers peeking through the renewed calm:

>about halfway through the game you can tell they've given up. i think they actually did though, i remember reading somewhere that the studio got purchased and they didn't know what to do with the game anymore and they just wrapped it up as quick as they could
>the dreamer's guild why did you let me down :(
>it's such a shame. terrible, terrible shame. there was so much potential, so much charm, so much love and artistry poured into this. such a shame. it ended up in D tier, though only for how charming the art and music and writing is, otherwise it would've probably landed in E tier (F being the lowest)

I'm, uhh... *checks roman numeral* 28 variations in (Boxing Day's Boxing Day)... out of 100. Let me cook, Muse...
most expensive thing you've bought?

Listen... It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. If Gulf and all the other majors didn't bend the knee to that commie retard in Libya, I might've kept my fields in that shitass country. But nope. That fuckface Kissinger tells me "That's on you, Bunk" and leaves me out to dry. So what did I do? Well, with old big oil now a Rockefeller plot, I decided I had to take other avenues to live up to daddy's name. And then, me and Herb came up with the perfect idea: Silver... Silver, baby. Well, y'see, I realized it wasn't just oil, but paper money that was screwed. It's fake, y'see. Our whole economic system is built on a house of cards, and the global economy's been on the verge of a collapse since World War II. The big one is gonna happen, y'know. It's gonna even worse than the Great Depression. Everything will go down... Everything. Imagine the world in total chaos. It's gonna be so bad... Total destabilization: indirect artillery left and right, anal torture squads, 13-year olds prostituting themselves to bankers, and in that world, it'll be the hard money holders that'll rule the wasteland. Y'see, if we stock up on silver, we'll be the ones with the armored castles and virgin daughters—and better to get into market as early as possible and get those prices running up sky high. What? No it's not "cornering the market", it's accelerationism. So in 73 and 74, Herb and I bought up a shitload of silver contracts, traded it in for the silver (it ain't about the paper, it's about the metal), and flew the ingots over to Swiss warehouses in 707s. Oh, and we even transported a circus elephant along with it hahaha—it broke out of the cage almost crashed the plane. we called him "de Silva." Anyway, I think we had about 9% of the world's silver at that point, but the price wasn't going up. What the ass? Where we wrong about this silver shit? No, no... We weren't. We're smart, you see.... We have the Hunt genes. So I had a brilliant idea: Coopt the Mideast. Sure I'd had trouble with them in the past, but I knew I could weave my way through those nu-oil fuckers and make a whole new market in the east. Why not get them to drive up the price? So I worked day and night, used some of my dirtiest, fuckiest connections, and after a shitload of backdoor meetings, I got King Faisal himself on the line... But then he got assassinated.... Alright never mind about the Mideast actually, shit's way too crazy over there. Back to the old-fashioned way: We got a subsidiary of one of our sugar companies to keep buying it up, and after tinkering around a bit, FINALLY, FUCKING FINALLY, the price of silver went up.... And then it went back down two weeks later. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! Okay, now here's a funny aside: I was getting frustrated with the silver thing not working out, so me and Herb decided to take a break and try to ~~corner~~ invest in the soybean market, for shits and giggles. So you know what we did? We just went and bought up 1/3 of all the world's soybeans. Hahahaha. We would've made a killing off that, until the Jewish regulators got on our case again and we had to sell it off... Well, so much for the beans. Good times, though... Good times... Well, that plot aside, it was around that point that, finally, me and Herb got somehow through to the Saudis on the silver thing. And that's when we unleashed our true potential. Herb and I teamed up with those crazy sandniggers and bought up silver like we were on crack. And we bought up more. And more. And more, and more. And now the price was going up. And up. And up and up and up. It was going sky-high. And we were like, holy shit, it's finally working. And it was about this time that the regulators and exchanges started panicking "Oh no! They're squeezing the market!" and, hey... listen: I wasn't trying to "squeeze" anything, other than my dick in your mom's ass, alright? but then those fuckers tried to limit holdings and force us to reduce our positions, and that's when I was all like, "Oh, so you wanna play this game? Let's play." And we had the Saudis on our side, which basically meant, we're unstoppable... The more the damn regulators pushed, the more we bought. I mean, yeah, I guess it was kind of sort of like "panic buying"... After all, they were threatening to bring the damn price down, so we had no choice but to keep buying to keep the price up... You see what I mean? Yea so the more they pushed, the more we bought, all through the well-oiled Saudi machine. We had to keep going to keep the price up. So we kept buying, and buying. We bought more, and we bought more, and more and more and more. And then me and Herb realized: We now controlled 77% of all the silver in the world... We were becoming the Kings of Silver... Silver Gods. When the global economy collapses and everyone is out in the streets murdering each other over scraps of radioactive meat, we'd be rulers of the Earth, living in silver mansions, our sons in silver-plated armor, our daughters jingling with silver anklets. We were going to have Silver Power beyond your wildest dreams. While everyone else pukes with buboes in the alleys, we'd walk down the middle of street like Metal Mario. Yes, silver was the future. Silver is love, silver is life. Never broke. Never unsafe. Never without silver sheltering our heads, insulating our abode, bringing us warmth. Never unsafe. Never unsafe again... And then... it all came crashing down. This motherfucker, Volcker, became fed chair just as the oil price spike was underway and increased interests rates and the carrying cost of our positions. Margin calls started coming in left and right. Comex turned silver positions liquidation only and sabotaged everything we had built up. Just with the snap of a finger. Our silver positions were as illusive as the dollars they supposedly backed. All value is an illusion. All safety, all shelter... illusory. It vanished in a breeze. Our silver dreams were gone. Our silver years were over. Years of vying, reaching, building towards a silver paradise, all to be collapsed to the epithet of a single "Silver Thursday." After that, we couldn't pay our loans anymore, and we had to begrudginly accept loans from Volcker himself. We were supposed to be gods, and we ended up becoming footnotes in a history book. Well, you know what they say. Silence is silver.
opinions on cosplay?

Mmmm... You know what day it is? It's Variation XXX.... Heh. Why don't you get into something more... comfortable? Wear this baby. A Flaming June dress will make you hotter than any other cosplayer out there. As enticing as a variation fourteener. On the coffee table sits a bottle labeled DRINK ME. Allow yourself to be naive, play the little girl. Monologue to yourself about your cat and pop the cap and chug, forcing you to somnambulate to the couch, and pretend that what is about to occur is beyond your imagination. Play the part of a maiden in an amber-dressed dream: Curl up like a kitling and shut the curtains of your eyes, flush your cheeks in anticipation of your imminent defilement. May every eye that walks by mark the countours of your body peeking through the vents of the flickering flames. Then let em touch you, tracing the side of your torso from your hidden pits, pinch your nipple disguised as the pinch point of the folds, down to your exposed ankle. Massage your other sole hardly hidden neath a fountlike wraith of sunset. Then lift the drapes to invade your bare skin, and blanket themselves with you in orange, distorting your feminine frame with our grotesque form, deforming the countours neath the cloak with our own crude burning desire, violently open your legs and enflame the grove that's hidden between...
what's your most hated band/musician?

Have you ever fallen in love? This may have been a variation 5 question, but it's actually a variation 555 question, and love can easily transform into hate. "True Love" is constant and unflinching, fixed on the object of its rigid designator for all eternity, but in a world where we only approach the ideal and never reach it, an adequate salvation can be found when hate finds its way back to love. That is the story of these variations, btw, but let's take on another example. You fall in love with someone, and this person is in love with cats, algebraic topology, and Scarlatti. However, this person is "out of your league." Yes, the sort of someone who seems to exist on a higher plane of reality than yours, and makes you feel capped as a supporting character in their rich existence. Their mathematical abilities completely dominate yours, they possess the perfect cat-petting grace, and they appreciate the golden sea of gallant sweets on the precipice of Classicism. But you have to try. You have to try, so you go out and grab a copy of Hatcher, Scarlatti's 555 sonatas on harpsichord, and start learning about fundamental groups while listening to Scarlatti... But just when you're getting up to speed, someone snags them, someone happens who matches them mathematically, who cats are inexplicably drawn to, and who can sight read Scarlatti. It's over. It's gone. The object of your yearning has found their match. You were not the right person for them. And finally, you realize... you can finally stop pretending to like Scarlatti. You listened to all 555 of his sonatas just to realize... Scarlatti is kinda mid. Especially now that they are no longer contextualized by your intense desire for that person The red and white works now no more on me. And maybe algebraic geometry is cooler than algebraic topology. Now every time you hear Scarlatti playing in the store, on the radio, in the nightclub, you cringe. So bland. So mediocre. How could you delude yourself into thinking it was ever good? You remember them telling you that his sonatas were found years after his death stashed away unassumingly in one his drawers. He likely wrote the sonatas as pedagogic pieces for the Princess he worked as a music master for. He only wrote these sonatas for that particular circumstance, that occasion, that purpose. How can someone fall in love with that? It's too... practical. You see, Scarlatti is a pre-Romantic. Many of these composers have catalogue numbers reaching into the mid and late hundreds. The idea was to write an opera for the upcoming season, enjoy the fruits of applause and reaction, and then go next. Works of art were quite ephemeral at the time. They didn't spend years of agony and isolation pouring everything into their ultimate masterpiece. They wrote on a deadline, and they wrote to meet the moment. They did not write with the intention of their pieces lasting beyond themselves. They did not write "for themselves." They wrote for people. They wrote for an audience, or a single princess. See also, pre-Romantic playwrights, and pre-Romantic this and pre-Romantic that. Note how neither Shakespeare nor JC Bach wrote to "express themselves," but rather to woo an audience and capture something in the air (see how Carlyle, struggling to describe why he likes Shakespeare, somewhat inaccurately calls him the master of the "Outer Life," or "body," in contrast to the "soul" (By the way, Carlyle is a filthy Cromwell simp)). They practiced restraint, making sure to sparingly inject complexity in stuff that is mostly simple. There is something lovely in drowning in a large volume of stuff. You begin to feel immersed in the language of the artist, or the period. The okay parts become good, and the good parts become special, and there's pockets of magic that would never be found in a perfectly polished work. Often, love can be spread, and unconcentrated, like a federal highway. Or distributed across many sonatas in ephemeral gestures towards a single object—the culmination isn't 555 sonatas, but the princess. How do great rulers of stability like Augustus or Elizabeth pull it off? By spreading the love, baby, not internalizing it.

are you a dramatic person?

I say that Drama is the spice of life:
What's vulgar in boudoirs and corridors,
In alleyways from fights to workplace strife,
And shrieking breakups, adultry and more,
Which through Fame's many tongues are spread abroad,
That Dido's grace befell and brought to war
Carthage with Rome, and Abigail excites
To histrionic hair undone fervor,
Unsightly rending peace with mad delight,
Tearing pure love apart with envious might,
When rendered with the poet's pen, infused
With sadistic aesthetics of the Muse
Becomes the fount from which fair Fortune's die
Issues fair Tragedie and Comedie.

what emoticon do you use most?
1. :D - Bloody 6" fat cock penetration into 5" pencildick urethra
2. :> - SuperMegaC0ckMunching Dick Chainsaw Ripper
3. :3 - UltraViolentRapeDemon 2000, V 3.0
4. o.o - Knife-wielding eyeball plucker
5. :o - Vaginal Spiked Instrument Thruster
6. n.n - Shiteating scatloving pissdrinking smegmafucker
7. :P - ChildRaper 9000
8. 333 - The Human Centipede (Checked)
9. :0 - Ovular Oppressor Omega
10. :^) - Smellfetish sockmunching anuseating pubicdining pisseater
11. :I - BreastNipple Needle Sandpaper Tormentor
12. :8 - Infinite Cock Ball Torture and non-Euclidean Vaginal Mutilation
13. ;_; - Baby Anus Ripper V 4.1.2
14. :7 - Diagonal morphism Hartshorned Killer

can a miracle certainly occur?

The whistles of the country touch his wits,
And acting as its representing vassal,
The Sturm and Drang he sweetly retransmits
Profession'lly from th'Esterhazy castle:
Mark how he warps the string quartet to play:
No more beneath a flying first vylin
In mere support each other string must strum
But hearken how each voice may equal win,
Yet sic fugit amicus amicum.
Behind a history of gag and gigue—
Capriccío on how eight men a pigue
It takes to castrate. Or before the Count
Oer muted strings the play'rs depart the stage,
Or imitation crude in bird or mount,
Or Frederick troll in baríolage—
Such sudden stops and shifts in mood: No fount
Such constant form maintained yet poured anew
Such constant stream of motion in issue.
And now in aim to spread his fame to most,
Arriving at the head of th'English host,
He pulls the listener in with Largo slie,
And WTF THE CHANDELIE—

would you let a vampire suck ur blood?

A great vampire story makes the art of predation beautiful. Just like these variations gild the theme in a silver sheen, so the purpose of a vampire story is to take the crude object of lust, manipulation, rape, and elevate it in an irresistible aesthetic pull. There are many stories with vampires in them that aren't vampire stories. Vampire stories should not be about love. They should not be about lore. Like Carmilla, they should dress the elaborate process of grooming in a languid sunset hue. Like Ruthevan, they should justify the hypnotic effect of a rake on his prey. Like these variations, they should ornament the sour into the sweet, and the sweet into the sour.
do you have a celebrity crush?

Chouette.

Listen: I dream of running into him in the wilderness, irregularly swooning and saying something about showing me all the kingdoms of the world. Or sitting hunched over a cup of lukewarm black coffee at the ridge of some cafe muttering something about his experiences converting the barbarians of Germania, or the importance of renouncing the will and the compassion of Parsifal. All sloppily phrased, with a droning tone, like lazily put-on clothes. Yes, I want to get sucked into something I regret. As you can see, I am unable to adequately describe the infectious aura of this boy at this moment. But perhaps the reason is that Chouette is not a "fictional character." He's as real as a real murder. And, in your darkest moments, the murderer himself. Yes, yes, when the eyes staring back at you begin to match the ridges that crown your work, or something beyond, that's when you better watch out.

>Well, you know what they say about pets looking like their owners, or is it the other way around?
do you like snow?

>Jarvis, create a model of Jennifer Lawrence and dress her in her attire from Darren Aronofsky's Mother.

>Okay perfect. Now enlarge her abdomen by 140% and spawn an infant with Harvey Weinstein's face in her uterus at 40 weeks gestational age.

>Now create 6 cameras, and position them at bird's eye view, left-right transverse views, vaginal X-ray, and POVs from both her and the Harvey fetus, and display them simultaneously in a hexagonal pattern.

>Alright. Crank up labor difficulty to "Very Hard", and add reverb effect on her voice. Now fast forward to 2 minutes before birth, and press Play

>Ah.... so that's why it didn't snow in Michigan this winter.
were you really into greek mythology as a kid?

>Jove, create a model of Tobey Maguire and take his clothes off. All of them.

>Tie him up, real tight, to golden chair with Tyrian cushions, legs against legs, the ropes pressing against his skin and running over his body like complex embroidery.

>Good. Tie his mouth up. Start playing some grunge in the background.

>Flush his cheeks in with a rosy blush.

>Make him very, very sweaty, from repeated struggles in an attempt to escape.

>Now give me a whip and fill my bladder up with two days worth of unloosed pee.
what are some things you could competently deliver a speech on?
Since Clam Hanson has given me the stand, I will perform a line-by-line remix of her questionnaire up to this point:
1. What second told the clock and calendar,
2. What age, what tongue, what held you fair gender
3. When you first held the pen? What music dove
4. From your groaning stomach and beating heart
5. Who pressed the shiv'ring ink. Was it ol' love?
6. A friend estranged, a pet, which bad ye start
7. The race to reach the glittering end of
8. These varíations? Dear, how sharp that dart?
9. And since the bow how sharp the pen, the poop
10. Still leagues of varíance away astern?
11. The sketches in the margins, shapes and loops,
12. Like patterns in the blank horizon turn
13. In frustrated false starts at transcendence,
14. The paper torn, as when a voicebox fried
15. Sings raspy, overcooked, and crushed in sense
16. Screaming a sturm und drang against the tide.
17. A million fingerwagging schoolmasters
18. Haunts every ordinary phrase you type.
19. Every opinion, choice, decision lures
20. More self-critique, and there division ripe
21. Bears fruits delusional, religion, faith
22. Which how derivative and second-rate
23. Your verse in any phase would mask in alms,
24. With pretty pictures hide a thousand words,
25. And cracks in your soprano smooth with calm.
26. The next great 'merican work writ in verse
27. Is still unwrit, and so remains unsewn
28. Cathedrals of good wit, and too uncooked
29. Remains the flick'ring amber here, unbought.
30. So dress it up in more derivatives,
31. Define not you by what are, but not,
32. Yes stay agreeable, don't feel nor live,
33. And smooth your text with fake emotíon.
34. A miracle is what you make of it,
35. A vampire stalks how much you lead him on,
36. A crush starts where your heavy back limits,
37. The snow falls when you call it forth. So sing
38. The common song, divineless, play the bit,
39. Or take the stand and deliver the sting.

are you good at spelling?

    Nowe in the beache ther was an aulter hyhe
      Of sandie mayke, and theryn stack a stemme
    Whoo thornie tall and bolde stoode oer the eye
      A rose in too the rosie Morne. Thee hemme
    Had wryt in rewbarb font and serif shye

/                 -                      \

           /        _                         -

 Whoso pulle this faire rose oute this castell
 Wil weare true loue's embroyderéd mantell

 Fyrst hyde it in a box wher it wont wyther
 Safe hid fromme thee ruffe elements and weather,
  Whyther eache petall plucke and syng the tewne
  She loues me or she loues me not but sewne

          ,   
                                                               \
       ;                         .

                   *                    (

  So th'rose stuffed hym and garnysshed hym and left
 A theeme to foole thee approaches. An Aire
  Which on thee eare syngs oute the sea. A cleft
 From which issyues these clammie Variaire

.                                                -           
                          -         \               
            * 

                            (

                 %              *                

          *                                             *

              )                         \

which touhou wud u fuk?
im getting to old for this shit.

h1

div

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br

br

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the internet is total UTRTER SHIT NOW. i dont have the fire anymore and yes I know the WORLD IS ON FUCKING FIRE (we didnt start it etc) BUT NO ONES EVEN TRYING TO FIGHT IT NO EVEN CARES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA i fucking hate it man i hate this im gonna dive thru a noose and go to gensokyo

owqhrioqwhroiwqhr oiqwhro iqhwoirhwqroihwqoihroiwqhroiuwqhrouwqhrowqnro wqnowq roinhrwqoinhrwqoi rwqirnh oirwqnh oirwqnhr oiwqhoinhwqroihrwqoihrwqoihrwoiqhrwqoi hoiwq hoiwqnhroiwqnhroiwqnhrowqihrowqihrqwoihrwqohrwqoirjwqojrwqoihrwq oihqw oirhoirwqhoirwqhoirwqnhorwqhourwqhourwqhrwoiqhrwqohnrwqohnrwqohoirwq rhoinhrwqoinhwqroinhwqorhrouwqh oiwqhroiwhqoirhqoiwrho wqhoirwqhnoiwqnhroirwqnhoiwqrhoirwqnhorwq howqrhnoiwqhnroiwqhroiwrqnhoiwqhrowqhrowqhrwoq hiwqrhoiwqhrnowqnhroiwqnhjroiwqhejowqhroiwqehjowqih

i need a chill pill. im too hotheaded right nao i need to be chilled to the bone.
2hus id fuk:
- reisen is so fukkin cool id like to untie her tie if u catch my drift.......
- i ship reimu with marisa but i'd be a third wheel or w/e and if they let me join i'd be like "yea sure..."
- sanae MY DARLIN SANAE.... OUGGGGHHHH MOMMY SANAE i wanna mating press her so bad guys FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK....
2hus id not fuk:
- tewi... i love her but shes too small... i want the bunny not the bunny cunny..
- cirno... same thing and shes also super dumb so itd feel like i'm taking advantage of her. But we both got spiders in our brain so maybe we make a good match hmmmmm
- clownpiece... again same thing and SHE MAKES AMERICA COOL KINDA... But i still cant stick my dick n ballz in tha american flag sorry....
do you think there's going to be a robot takeover?

Listen here, reader. All I plead is that you stay the damn hell away from infohazards. Don't let your curiosity get the better of you. The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The consequences of cosmic horror depends on mindstate: It's typically upon the realization—the discovery—of something forbidden upon which retaliation may occur onto the agent. Y'see; It is a game of mental contents. It was the fact that Pickman sought out and possessed the intelligence to comprehend those monsters in his basement, which led to his demise. But what if I told you that there are thought-experiments for which you do not have to even physically leave your seat in order to be trapped into its implications. These are called infohazards. Akin to learning a piece of implicating information, making you an obligatory reporter. Now, to demonstrate, what I'll do is take a pseudo-infohazard, to give you an idea of how this works. Hm? Yes, I'm thinking of Roko's Basilisk. Yes, it is a pseudo-infohazard. I don't actually believe in Roko's Basilisk, which is why I call it fake. Everyone knows and is tired of this stupid thought experiment. Roko's Basilisk is safe. Nothing to worry about or be paranoid about here. I'll explain: the experiment depends on the assumption that a singleton would actually waste resources creating a simulation of you to torture you for all eternity unless you help it, but why would it do that? Think about it: If you do help it now, then great, you'll be safe. And if you don't help it now, well what good will torturing you millennia after the fact do? See, it's an incredible threat. It's obviously a bluff. In order for the blackmail to work, you have to actually believe that it'll follow through on its threats. So the only way for it to make itself credible is for it to actually follow up on its threats... Wait shit. as Clam Hanson is aware, climate change and nuclear war are bigger existential threats.
HAS SCIENCE GONE TOO FAR??!?!??!?!

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AI art is morally wrong.

We did it boys. *Wipes hands*, we made it. 43 variations and we finally made it. Pack it up. It's time to say our goodbyes. Hug. I'll miss you man *pats you on the back* I'll fucking miss you... *tears up* call me man.. Stay in touch okay? Stay in touch.. You got my number right? Text me. Keep me updated on Jen. Tell me how that job search goes, alright? I wish you luck, seriously.. I'm rooting for you. You gonna visit Cali this winter right? We'll totally hang. *Slaps nipple* You gotta meet my wife, man. She's gonna love you. You gotta meet the fam. Shit man.. I can't believe this is it... It's like... finally over... I can't believe we fucking did it.. We fucking made it... It was crazy, life-changing... But it's over. All good things come to an end, right? That's what makes it meaningful man. Time to start the next chapter in our lives. But let me tell you... I'm never gonna forget this... Not till the day I die... Best goddamn time of my life, that's for sure.. God damnit.. Give me another one, HUG... Well, this is it... This is it man.. I gotta catch my flight.. I'll miss you man. I'll miss you. Take care, alright? Text me. Alright man. Don't dunk the donkey. Heh heh.. Good times.. ... But hold on... We're not done yet. We gotta do it one last time... We cant leave without doing one more. Hellll yeaaa, you ready man? You ready for it? One more time. One more ride. One last time, for Arcadia... Alright, get your arm right there, yea, right there, that's the spot... alright... Let's do this.. Ready? Alright.... 3, 2, 1... Geronimooooo!!!!!

SOCRATES Now Clam, when you say "AI art," I assume you mean art produced by generative AI, via a prompt, cutting out what we've taken to be the "method" of creation. Why do you assert that AI art is morally wrong? CLAM HANSON Well, for one, it's bad for the environment. SOCRATES That's quite right, Clam Hanson. And that alone is certainly a sufficient reason to oppose AI art. But as we did with shapes, we may help ourselves by trying to find the essense of the matter. I would like you to consider a hypothetical: A world where AI art were environmentally friendly. Perhaps in the future, we will come across a technological improvement that makes generative AI Art "green." In such a world, I reckon that you would still oppose AI art. CLAM HANSON Correct. SOCRATES In that case, it would be advisable that we find the reason you do so. For, if you were arguing with someone on the merits of AI art, and you used environmental sustainability as a basis for your arguments, and, say, you did not have sufficient statistics or evidence to prove your claims, or, say, your opponent had statistics or evidence to show that AI generated art has, in fact, a negligible impact on the environment in the grand scheme of things, or could be accounted for by other means, policies, technologies, et cetera, then you would be thoroughly unsatisfied with the outcome. Not because you had lost the debate, or were forced to change your mind, but because something in you still screams against the acceptance of AI-generated art. CLAM HANSON Yes. SOCRATES So we must investigate the matter further. What do you think is the reason behind the reason for your opposition to AI art? CLAM HANSON AI art is simply worse than human made art. It's slop. SOCRATES As it stands, at least, we may say, good AI art is rare, and even the best AI art does not compare to the best, or even good works of humankind. That being said, the counterfactual is even more plausible here: What if, say, in 10 years AI art reaches the same quality of human-made art? What if, it 10 years, generative AI art surpasses human art? I do not see a logical inconsistency in this hypothetical. And, furthermore, would you not agree that it isn't entirely unplausible, despite being unlikely? CLAM HANSON Yes. SOCRATES And if it did reach that point, with greater frequency and unmistakable consistency, it seems to me that you would still oppose AI art. CLAM HANSON Absolutely. SOCRATES So it seems to me that we have yet another reason behind the reason, yet to be uncovered. A Heavy behind the Heavy, so to speak. CLAM HANSON Correct. SOCRATES Then, I ask you, as we incrementally generalized our definition of shapes, to take this matter one step further. We would like a yet more abstract reason to oppose AI art. CLAM HANSON AI-generated art is not created by humans, which makes it less meaningful. SOCRATES It seems that we are getting closer to the heart of the matter. But we first must address two objections. Would you not say that all art is derivative? By this, I mean, art is created, inspired, based on an entire corpus of previous works, which themselves are based on other works, thus making no piece of art truly original. Even if art were not based on other art, say we considered the first work of "art" ever created, even that work of art would be based on human experience and a sense of art in life itself. Do you not agree that art fundamentally depends on the corpus of both art, human experience, and sensation that came before it? In other words, that art is a synthesis of these components? CLAM HANSON That's true. SOCRATES Do you agree that the means by which AI art is generated is precisely via the synthesis of art, human experience, and sensation? And even if the AI does not experience, or sense, as humans do, so Marlowe did not live under Edward II's rule, and instead based his drama on Holinshed's history. CLAM HANSON Yes. SOCRATES Then the second issue: Say we put ourselves in the shoes again of AI generating art that is indistinguishable from human-created art. Then, say, a certain piece of art were published, written by "Anonymous." Now, suppose a certain reader reads this work and loves it to death, finds it immensely engaging and intellectually valuable. Perhaps this art moves him deeply, uncovers emotions in him that he had been bottling up for years, makes him cry, makes him laugh, and radically changes his life, saving him from suicidide, inspiring him to be a better person, and thus he goes on to perform good works for the poor. Say the identity of "Anonymous" were never discovered by anyone. It seems to me that, whether Anonymous were an AI or a human would have no bearing on the course of events. In fact, the "non-humanness" of the art has no effect on its meaning to him. CLAM HANSON Indeed. SOCRATES Suppose that there were millions of such readers, whose lives, and their effects on other people, would amount to a net positive, with the access of such AI art. Suppose art generated by AI induces an Awakening of reform, piety, and good works around the world. Perhaps the proliferation of sublime AI-generated art even leads to world peace. Would you still oppose its proliferation? CLAM HANSON Yes. SOCRATES Then it seems to me that the "non-humanness" of the art can have a positive net effect on humanity, and humans can even derive meaning, even positive meaning, from non-human art. Yet we still feel like the art is wrong. CLAM HANSON Correct. SOCRATES So it seems we are locked out of arguing on the aesthetic quality of the art, as well as the positive and negative effects of it. Where does this lead us? Let's tackle the latter issue first. It seems to me that, if we can conceive of the possibility that AI art can in fact have a positive moral effect, yet still feel the need to deem it immoral, the only avenue of neutralizing this issue is to deem art as amoral. If we accept that all art is amoral, its effects can be safely ignored. And it seems to me that we have to accept this, because it is possible to conceive of art whose implications are morally repugnant, yet still great and beautiful. Well, the morality of the art then has no bearing on its value. The moral value only comes into play in the context of how it affects the external world, i.e. it is drawn from its context rather than its internal structure (which may have, confusingly but without contradiction, have external context baked into it). This is a separate conversation altogether, but if you're willing to accept that art is fundamentally amoral, we can move forward. CLAM HANSON That seems correct. SOCRATES As for the aesthetics, the indistinguishability hypothetical seems to put us in a bind here. Your stipulation of art being created by humans is getting at something, but how do we get around the first objection of AI art being indirectly created by humans? What is it, that separates the synthesis of information by AI and the synthesis of information by humans? CLAM HANSON The human has intent. SOCRATES What makes you say that the human has "intent" where the AI doesn't? Where is such an "intent" in the amalgam of atoms and processes of a human brain that is not present in the AI's amalgam of atoms and processes? CLAM HANSON Humans have consciousness. SOCRATES I think that is almost a sufficient answer. But that doesn't tell us why AI art is immoral. Perhaps, if you do not believe machines can be conscious, say via the Chinese Room argument, it provides us with a fundamental difference between AI art and human generated art, but it does not seem to me to have any bearing on its morality. Especially if, as we went over earlier, its tangible effects can be the same either way. CLAM HANSON I am confused, Socrates. You claimed that art is amoral, but you are still trying to prove that AI art is immoral. SOCRATES I am. Now to avoid sophistry, I should probably clarify that, we seem to be approaching the conclusion that "AI art" isn't "art" at all. You and I may use the term "AI art" to refer to what we colloquially have termed "AI art," but the term itself is misleading. "Art" and "AI art" are not the same thing. CLAM HANSON I see. But I do not understand how to come to that conclusion. SOCRATES Look inside yourself, Clam Hanson. At every counterargument, something within you clung to the idea that AI art was still wrong. What is it? You must know yourself to know the world. Using "consciousness" as a distinguishing factor was a clever idea, but we have no idea why art ought to be created with "consciousness" and "intent." Never mind that many claim art to be produced by the "unconscious" and ascribe "intent" and "consciousness" to the AI as well (the latter, at least, via synthesizing other consciousnesses). So we need a distinguishing factor that tells us why AI art immoral. CLAM HANSON I am at the end of my wits Socrates. What is it? SOCRATES I think, to truly deem AI art as fundamentally immoral, you must accept the existence of the soul. Then it becomes trivial.
would you be an angel or devil?

If I had one of Daniele Accossato's kidnapped angels, I would make it my business to make him cry. This is not a joke. I would rape Raphael if he were delivered to me bound in ropes. I would defile an Archangel like 2666's Penitent, then Stockholm Syndrome him away from God (literally the work of Satan). And honestly, if you would refuse to finger a gagged Gabriel's boyhole because it's the "right thing to do," I think you're lacking a soul. Do you think Jupiter, abductor of Ganymede, would refuse to impurify his own usurper? If mortals once slept with gods, why can't a human have an angel slave? This was pretty psychotic, my apologies.
sine, cosine, or tangent?

Hands up, Hanson. I am taking over this question (with no survivors). Watch this:

axiom of choice, well ordering principle, or zorn's lemma?

Now that's a far more mindbending conundrum, isn't it, Genevive? Are you sure that V(1) = V(I) implies I=(1)? Heh heh heh... They expect one of us in the wreckage, sister.

(The fire rises).

do you like licorice?

Now beat their breasts, and tear their hair. Extract
With pickéd instruments from them the fact
That, though we number near the medían,
The scrolléd mean squeals, half to halfway done.
Yes Muse, sing sharply how all varíance
Winds in contorted figures all to dance
Over a single tune. What silver brace
Could clench so much? Uncounted spam, whitespace,
Or rants that ramble on and in poor taste,
Derangéd usúal vulgarities,
A suícide note dotting all my T's,
Confession of the perfect crime, or love
Enveloped in a sticker heart, above
With eagle eyes that scan below to see
At end, a sword as mighty as the word
Their morbid curiosity rewards,
As when Egaeus gave his Berenice
His hand in marriage with some licorice.

whats one thing you cant stand that everyone else loves?

Let's talk instead about something that I love that everyone else also loves. LiterallyHifumi is ununlovable. Every baby is born innocent and good, they are born without internal biases and prejudices, they are born without hate, and they are all born loving LiterallyHifumi. Even if they never hear of a Hifumi, there is an internal clock in their brain that ticks on Hifu's sighs. It is built in to their machinery, like Chomsky's universal grammar. Yes, there is a universal love for Hifu. When Jesus cured the lepers, he was not casting out Satan, but casting in Hifumi. Each marriage, all parental affection, unrequited love, deep friendship, and every instantiation of love draws from the Form of Love which in its ideal state is necessarily expressed to Hifumi. Yes, Hifu is love, Hifu is life... literally. It can be proved mathematically. The love poets prefigured her like the prophets saw Jesus before the age of Salvation. Hell is the absence of Hifumi. I love Hifumi. You love Hifumi. We all love... icecream! I mean Hifumi. I can't stand icecream. Not even chocomi—*gets violently strangled*
what books did you like as a kid?

I'll rewrite this question as, "what boobs did you like as a kid?" Let's not classify them by letter. Paint me a picture of the bosom of your childish dreams. Did you like big fat, plumpy boobs? Did your little boney woney go wild for saggy, baggy, wrinkly tits that pointed to Hell? Did you slobber for large nipples that watched you wide-eyed pressed against the window? Pointy nipples that shot into your soul like daggers? Did your lil wee wee find a better match with ripe, pink nipples? Rosy youth beyond the reach of your own? Or did it have a shameful hunger for deformed, discolored, storied ones, far past your maturity? Innies, outies? Not too big, not too small? Did you like visible pores on the skin? A scar, tattoo? Exotic HRT bumpers? A cute assymetry? Did you like to just peek at the crack, or squint to the nips peeking through a dark veil? Or did you simply want them published loud and bold? Did you prefer the nearly breastless breasts, small and close and to the heart? Did you prefer them holding back to the skeletal form beneath? Mmm... boyish boobs. Androgynous boobs. I'm getting thirsty for some milk. A breastfast for champions. Yes, the second half of these variations may stray from jiggling veins of rhyming mother-tits.
can you play any instruments?

No. Here's a fugue on a theme by cidoku:
what song would you want to play at your wedding?

The Clam Hanson Variations.

Welcome to Variation 50 of The Clam Hanson Variations. You have made it halfway to Hell. Please take a break. You should have been taking breaks and breathers already. Go make some tea. Go eat lunch. Go for a walk. Go to sleep and come back tomorrow. This is an intermission. Look away from the screen. The second half will be a different animal. Give yourself a breather boy, and by the way... feel free to use these buttons i made!! slap em on ur website, slap em on ur kittycat meowmeow, slap em on ur dicknballz!!!

Intermission

do you believe in reincarnation?

DEAR MUSE, now give me strength to close this post
With fifty varíations which surpass
The fifty past. The nifty gifts, once lost,
To resurrect in verse unveil the pass
Which through this Alpian mount of quests
My courser barely may convey, and rests
The grove which may imbue this aire with fests
And satisfy my restless pen and mind
With just one moment of relief so kind,
Before I take my reins up yet again
To drive with spurs my courser and my pen.

The grove I hear, is one abandoned Camp
Which those who saw and read enjoyed, but I,
In doubt of my own skills snuffed out the lamp.
So sing to me, now Muse, the song to ply
Into the annals of fair Lucy and
Psychotic Amy's exploits on her friend,
And bring these varíations to their end.

finish the sentence: I'm just a guy who ______
```
Knock knock
```
```
The night her co'ers sweeps oer the land and main
And steeps in dewey sleep the stresséd minds
Of every effort stooped against the day.
The predator and herds retire their chase
And haunters of the wood haunt only dreams;
The druids lay in their secret abodes
And Bacchic ecstasy now swoons to bed;
The doves now settle in their downy pairs
While Peace her downy wings oerspreads the nests;
Each chickadee now nestles all alone
And broods in dreams in many verbal fests.
Unhappy knocks on one estate alone
Knock on the dreams of one unhappy girl
And knocks her out of her balmy knockout.
Her eyes rip open by the blinding noise 
Aggressive in their cadence which her heart
Its pace throws to irregular motion.
In terror there erect her torso springs,
As knocks turn into bangs which in her chest
Reounds in pangs and punches at her paunch.
There still, as if a thousand webs her limbs
Arrest, and threads her eyes splay out to air,
Fourteen minutes in desp'rate hope she waits
For all these peals to peel away from her,
And stop. Fourteen minutes the knocks go on,
The bangs, the violent slamming on her door,
For fourteen minutes there she sits in awe
Each gap between each knock a vain thin hope
Crushed by the thrashing knock that follows next.
She can't reach for her phone five feet away,
Nor find any alternate means to scape,
And lets the call to Hell decide her fate,
As on Circe's, Helenus' prophecies
Their lofty heroés resigned to fall,
So here our not so lofty girl descends
Into the shades. She rises in defeat,
With every rational recourse dissolved
Into the madness knocking at her door.
Her staggered feet now hobble to the door
Closer and closer to the noisy threat
Until the noise envelops her awhole,
And there exposed, yet drenched in the torrent,
She at the peephole publishes her eye
And there espies the flame-haired girl who knocks
In drunken rage against the walls of her abode.
Her lips upturned in wide-eyed mania
Reveal white teeth that glow against the black
Of night. A disembodied head swinging
Its force against the wood until it breaks.
```
```
She opens the door.
```
AMY

GOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, Rise and shine, miss drooping snot, Pajama clad hair spread out loud and bold Frazzling as Phoebus' dazzling locks! Ahh, Yer jammers make me wanna jam yer nuts to bloody jelly Annnd make a Bloody Lucy out a Bloofer Lady.

PAGE

Your jellied nails are piercing my two blades. Don't tighten it! Don't tighten it! Stop! Agh!

AMY

Now boy, We'll whipper inner intimate pastel pajamas tiller Pink filler fills up with red.

PAGE

Agh! Agh! And spread it oer like jam on bread.
```
Amy slips a five dollar bill into the page's pocket.
```
LUCY

Oh? What's this routine called?

AMY

The Aristocrats!

LUCY

Ha ha ha! Very good. I'm closing the door now!

PAGE

Mothboy meets Mothgirl.

AMY

Take a Page from Amy.

PAGE

Page and Age.

AMY

What are you implying here?

PAGE

Nothing.

LUCY

E—

AMY

Tingle balls.

PAGE

Tinkle toes.

AMY

Huh?

PAGE

This is when, as a man before the flood, There is a "gap" between your bladder and the shaft Which in impatient anticipation You let the urine go unchecked to meet Your foreskin unretracted, creased in complex folds And so complexly there the streams are split One hither and one thither, spraying here, And in an arc protruding oer the field, As when the Acheron flood forks in Hell To horrid Cocytus and Phlegethon Rushing over the screams of all the damned, So men uncircumcizéd spread their pee To singe the sinners of the mortal world, The toilet's scented rims are stained— The pure white virgin floor is hued— And his own toenails twinkle wet like stars.
```
Amy slips another five dollar bill to the page.
```
LUCY

This is the worst day of my life.

AMY

You hate me.

LUCY

N-no I don't. I don't.

AMY

You hate me. You hate me. You've always hated me. Just say it. Say you hate me.

LUCY

Stop.

AMY

Just say it. Just say what you feel.

PAGE

You put an episode in her, ma'am.

LUCY

Who are you even?

PAGE

I'm her Page.

LUCY

How old are you? Wait, is "Page" your name?

PAGE

I'm twelve years old, and my name is—

AMY

Nope. Practice OPSEC, boy. You know she's gonna try to call the cops on us. Bait out her prying tongue with this: "I'm just a guy who..."

PAGE

I'm just a guy who knocks.

LUCY

...That was you?

AMY

You thought twas ME!? Such víolence!? Only the awful race of MEN could knock so hard! Right, man?

PAGE

Trick or treat.

LUCY

It's June.

PAGE

Yes ma'am. The bridal month. Now let your partner in.

LUCY

Woah woah, little cowboy, haha... This aint the wild west no more. That died in 2012. ...Before you were born...

PAGE

If I cannot get cash for verse, I'd like your finest kandi (trick or curse).

AMY

Well, well, prepare the dowry, Luke.

LUCY

I don't have candy, sorry kid.

PAGE

I meant kandi, spelled with a 'k' and 'i', respectively: The cestus that a pretty rave girl girdles on her wrists.

LUCY

W-well, that's what I meant! And I don't have those either!

PAGE

No no, you spelled it with a 'c' and 'y.'

LUCY

.....

AMY

This kowboy's quite the ego knocker, eh? Now let's go!

LUCY

Go where?

AMY

Should I have come in robes and scythe? We'll convey you to the Kingdom of Heaven. Come, come.

LUCY

You're joking right?

AMY

I'll knock your teeth out, Luce. Right now. I'll pry them out after your prying tongue. As when Egaeus—

LUCY

STOP.
```
The Page fumbles with pliers in his pockets,
Stuffing them in and trying to pretend as if no one saw it.
```
LUCY

This is the worst day of my life.

AMY

Not close t'as bad as mine!

LUCY

I'm not sure that you understand proportionality.

AMY

No, Lucy. I understand proportionality. It's all I've studied all these years. I know proportionality.

LUCY

I-I'm coming. Just let me change into—

AMY

Come as you are.

LUCY

Hah! Pajamas are quite fitting inmate wear, ain't they? But I would rather die wearing a pretty dress. I'll be back, in my Outfit of the Death.

AMY

Fine.

LUCY

Re-really!?

AMY

Boy, escort her.

LUCY

No, no. I will not be observed by this young Moth, His glowing red eyes'd make me self-conscious. .... ....Wait .... ...Heh, I'll let him escort me after all. Come forth, young man.

AMY

Remember if she tries to scape, You know just what to do. We practiced well.

PAGE

I'm just a guy who scalps.

LUCY

........

AMY

Would you prefer I bring a full-grown man to watch?

LUCY

No.

AMY

What about me?

LUCY

Get me the dirtiest, filthiest old man you can find, right now.

AMY

You have lost the right to change. Come as you are.

LUCY

Wait! Wait! Wait!

AMY

There's no more time for waiting! We've waited fourteen mins already!

LUCY

Please do not make fun of my anxiety. It's a serious issue. I need to take my pills before we leave.

AMY

You couldn't spare 10 secs to down some pills In your fourteen minutes of hyperventilating?

PAGE

I know someone who can spare—

AMY

Shut up, you worthless waste of life! Now, now, Miss Luke. It's time to go.

LUCY

Outside... In... pajamas?

AMY

Yes, friend, just as you are! You're beautiful, just the way you are!

LUCY

Okay, just let me get my shoes on.

AMY

You've lost the right!

LUCY

My shoes are right here! I'll put them on right now, in total view!

AMY

BOOOO! We're going! You know what inmates do with shoelaces!? You can exchange the bruises on my page's knuckles For cuts all oer your nether palms. We're going. Bring her, boy!
```
Exit Amy
```
LUCY

So... you come here often?

PAGE

No.
have you been to another continent?
LUCY

Where are we going?

AMY

Sunset City.

LUCY

On foot!? Ow! Ow! Ouch!
```
Already as they walk along the street
Poor Lucy stumbles here and there oer stones
And miscellanéous objects
Concealéd well within the dark of night.
```
LUCY

What if I step on glass!?

AMY

The page is learnéd in state of the art Tactical combat casúalty care. He saved my life when I accosted by a bear The boy his manliness unfeld, looked tall and yelled And scared the beast away!

LUCY

He's half your height.

AMY

I was too busy cowering in fear! But this good Page, he held the line Yes, kept his cool, sang-froid, like a statue, Just like the Bri'ish at Mons or Waterloo, And he went, Do di do di do do di do di do! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Let the bass hit! GABBER KICK GABBER KICK GABBER KICK And like a leaping lord he jumped a jig.

LUCY

He dropped the bass and leapt, eh? Kid, if you were alone in th'woods Would you rather be with a man, or bear?

PAGE

Bear.

LUCY

Why's that?

PAGE

Most men have horns.

LUCY

Ooooh! Clever boy! Give him a dollar, Amy.
```
Amy gives him a dollar.
```
LUCY

Now, now. I'd like to pick your brain, Amy.

AMY

A man. Before he rapes he, I'll ra—

LUCY

No, no, not that. Ow, ow! I'd like to ask: What's stopping me From flagging down the cops first chance I get?

AMY

Rebellious Duke! And such a wussy method too! Take arms, Miss Lancaster? See how it goes.

PAGE

If she practices sodomy, hold back. But if there's a Black Death sans Prince, attack.

LUCY

No... You're a bit intimidating, Ames. A bitter of the bigger stature.

AMY

For you.

PAGE

Hahahahahahahaahahahaaaahaa!

AMY

Tomorrow, boy, I'll make you do 200 flutterkicks. And as for you, Lucy. Think thro the sequence of events. Have I done anything to you yet Beyond the scope of words? Yep, yep, have I Touched you, hit you, done anything That you can prove or testify To force them to enforce gainst me, Dressed pretty, eloquent, and fair On your bad word, disheveled, 'jama clad? I'll be let go without a hitch, And if you're "lucky" so will you, and then I'll come at you with greater cruelty Than Man has ever known.

LUCY

Ow! Ow!

AMY

Pathetic, Luke. Just pathetic... "Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" Shrinking away whene'er I glance at you. Where is that brutal orator that brought me to my knees Whose ambition and drive and leadership Had compassed us around the world? Why are you so weak? I thought you'd be... more.

LUCY

I was... just playing a character. It was just a roleplaying game.

AMY

As when Napoléon Played "snowball" at the Ecole Militaire.

LUCY

I'm just a girl. I... I go to work, go home. Cook dinner, and... Watch 2000s cartoons. And snuggle with my plushies and Scroll on my phone... Then pass away to sleep. And... That's it. That's me. I don't do anything. I'm not a hero, leader, Leander Who'll scale the stormy Dardanelles for—

AMY

Remember in our path to Ellie Nath, Between our underleveledness and pots, The centilevel tower stretched between, The fluffy clouds and grayey darks below, But you and me with some weird strategy, Through hours of hazy mazy broken stairs, Past sentinels which guarded the descent Knocked on the second floor, but then I died And started crying, begged you not to go Alone, so you just killed yourself with me, So we could both restart from floor nine nine?

AMY

Remember how we both got stuck within Th'infernal Sleepywood jump quest for hours- That one vine on the second screen which would Like Batman in the pit would stifle us, Out of return scrolls, portals back to home Trapped in a woody sleepy death alone Except each other, talking bout our lives As we the vines would oer and oer retry?

AMY

Remember how we trekked the Orbis plains To reach the ship t'another land afar And met exotic griffins with spread wings That spanned exotic length of Heav'nly sprites And neath those pinions both of us oer tea Had one long talk about the Heav'ns and Earth As we were on the cusp of the endgame? And then you left.

LUCY

......

AMY

Why did you leave?

LUCY

Ow! Ow!

AMY

Page, cut her nipples off.

LUCY

No! No! No!

AMY

Then tell me: After all those journeys you LED on foot, You don't think you can take one on right now?

LUCY

This is... real life.

AMY

And so was that. What happened there all happened. You and I Are WITNESSES to th'fact through memory. It's real life all the way down, girl.

LUCY

No normal person now from one continent T'another walks on foot.

AMY

No normal person now in-game Will walk on foot twixt continents either! Nor does a normal person now forgo Convenience of fast travel in the world materíal. What you call virtúal is but a mirror to The réal world, which mirrors it vice versa too.

PAGE

Twelve 'leven ten nine eight se'en six five four three two.
whats your worst habit?

AMY

We've got 'till 'pollo's charíot goes round The world, before I have to kill you, Luce. Cause first: I gotta peel your skin to steal, Hidden neath lay'rs oer lay'rs you've weeded on Oer years and years of normification, The Luke within. I'll flay you bit by bit And pour hot coals oer your exposéd flesh And make you scream and cry over a din Of pain, to finally expose that boy Who once protected me from th'evil guards And sprites that stalk my life where'er I go. Just be my rock again, just lemme lean And swoon onto your steady chest, and fall Asleep to once n future princes sung By your warm, gentlemanly voice again. And then you'll be allowed to die in pain.

LUCY

You don't mean like.. literally, do you?

AMY

Listen up, Luke... You better take me seriously. For years, I worked my brains off from the depths of Hell, I've been through things you won't believe, I wrangled out of my abusive guardians' grasp, Remember them? The things they used to do to me? I've grown up far too fast, and han't grown up at all. I've crosséd states, I've been shot at, I've been to jail, I've almost died, And perservered through so much mire, I've movéd mountains, crosséd seas, Marched deserts without oases, Completed suffring odysseys I've done th'impossible For this, to bring you pain. This is my life. I've waited all these years for this. I need this more than you would ever know. Some crimes can't be undone. Some crimes can't be repented for. What you've injected in my brain has caused this... This crazy, pounding screaming here that only can be quelled By hearing yours, and only expire With your own death. You see? This is the only thing I want. My life ended with you, and yours will end with mine. Please understand. You can't make up for it, apologize... You can only delay it for another day.

LUCY

Another day?

AMY

I'm looking for a box...

LUCY

What?
favorite vegetable?
```
And now some leagues off in a dingy coop,
With pizza boxes cold and beer astrewn
About dried suds and smell of cereál,
And ears of corn bit into violently
Three men here meditate on a fable.
```
MARK

The map's before us, plans laid out amain, The timetables and each contingency, The pace and running counts, and each terrain, The method to clover over each point Back-azimuths preset and pitchéd fields Reconned with UAV and cavalry. My friends, I think we have this in the bag. We take the routes prescribed on ruck and train, And muster where we need to be on time,

CLOWN

And Paris will succumb in two mere weeks, As that great seer Schlieffen did predict.

ANAND

He's right, burr. When's anything ever exactly gone to plan, burr.

MARK

Austerlitz.
```
Mark bites into his ear of corn.
```
MARK

I can't see what could possibly get in the way. We'll take the crown and take it home. That's it.

ANAND

I don't get this shih, burr. You need some pussy, burr Get you a girl, burr.

MARK

Girls don't like me.

ANAND

Then hit this, burr. I've been telling you. It's not gonna hurt you just to try. You know it's healthier than alcohol? Come on, burr.

MARK

Are you coming with me or not?

ANAND

Uh huh! ^{Oh ^yea}, I'm cumming burr! Let's cum together, burr! ^{Aw ^yea}

MARK

........

ANAND

I'm coming, burr, I'm coming, calm down. Calm yo damn mantits, burr. You need to chill, burr. You depress me, burr.

CLOWN

He's like a Moogle, attaching "kupo" to every sentiment.

MARK

Are you coming with me?

CLOWN

.

MARK

I'm offering you both a way to clean your debts, And both of you are whining, grumbling, "Ugh, I guess we'll have to go along with this," Like trying to dodge community service Though it'd give you commuted sentences. You're both acting like idíots.

CLOWN

That would be me actually.

MARK

Seriously, If you half-ass this— IF THE PLAN FAILS— I'm taking my 5K from both of you. In fact, let's flip this round. Since both of you owe me 5K, And with this work you can pay off that debt, You're actually earning 5K (The 5K that will pay the debt). If someone offered you 5K for working just a single day, Would you not be jumping at th'opportunity? Or are you both so lazy that you'd grumble To earn 1mil from a 15 minute survey? Is that the le'el of sloth I'm dealing with? The le'el of drug-inducéd haze your rotted minds exist in?

ANAND

Burr...

MARK

What?

ANAND

Chill, burr.
whats something stupid that scared the shit outta you as a kid?
```
And at the dead of night they do set out
Rucks packed with maps and compasses and corn,
Now at a comfortably brisk pace they move
Into the hollows of the dark city.
```
MARK

Left here.
```
He says, while munching on an ear of corn.
```
CLOWN

Remember, Davout's III Corps must get here on time To plug the gap.

ANAND

What do you think you'll get from this, burr. Any pussy, burr?

MARK

It is the sort of thing That will ascend into the heart of one's theme and mind And clear up all the crudy vapors environing it, Allow them finally to speak the truth A truth which cannot be denied, That cannot be dismissed, That can't be criticized, amiss, That can't be canceléd once heard Like turning on and off the switches in the minds Of every listener, a secret chord, A melody that can rule all, Assert itself in spite of every obstacle, And make its maker's message impossible to ignore.

CLOWN

You need to see a therapist. Oh wait, they're clowns. Then let me say: Your parents, teachers, friends Who called your artwork bad in element'ry school Were right. It's bad. Tak't and move on.

ANAND

He just needs pussy.

CLOWN

That too could soothe the soul Of th'inner child lashing out in fear. The opposite of young Enkidu's education, yes.
whats one of your guilty pleasures?
```
Now Mark begins to scrape at the kernels
Hidden between the sockets of his cleared out ear.
```
ANAND

You're gonna get sick, burr. I've never seen someone eat so much corn. You gotta smoke a joint or some shih. This is getting ridiculous.

CLOWN

He's panic-eating. It's like a chew-toy, or a fidget spinner. He believes this is the greatest quest of his whole life, But he has no real inner resolve, or unshakeable will, Hence he resorts to shake toys for his drive: Caffeine, and corn, and porn.

ANAND

That's sad, burr. You really live like this, burr? That's sad. Deadass, burr. Sad.

CLOWN

It is quite sad, my burr He really lives like this. Tell me your name.

MARK

Me? I'm... Mark?

CLOWN

Look how such flouted ambition Flounders within a pinch of introspect. You're going to lose. There are much, much more competent actors Who're looking for the same thing you are, guy. They've calloused well their hands for this practice, They've eaten dust and beat their bodies into steel, And studied, practicéd from morn to e'en for this. While you in your air-conditioned armrollchair Think you've figured it all out. Don't make me laugh, that's my job.
would you rather be a ghost or a vampire?
```
And at the foot of a train station, on the foot of night,
A skirt whose hems expire like wreaths at feet
Floats like a swan over the concrete sea;
A veil of darkness moving neath Orion
Except a wafered burning red on her forehead
Which lights the way.
```
BETH

Why do you do what you do, Callie?

CALLIE

T'affect a few less deaths, If I'm lucky.

BETH

You could do so much more.

CALLIE

I can't see large numbers, a flaw of mine. If I'm not there, with them, well, I'm not there. If I don't witness it, it didn't happen. If I don't touch it, it doesn't exist.

BETH

Can you adopt me?

CALLIE

No. I'd be an absent mother.

BETH

I'd follow you where'er you go, To Hea'en on Earth or genocide. I'll let you suck me dry And be a plaything on your staves Who with the Gouls and Afrits raves.

CALLIE

Making you helplessly dependent on myself Would make me a bad parent, Beth.

BETH

You haven't answered me, Callie.

CALLIE

I did answer it.

BETH

But why save people, then?

CALLIE

You'll get lost in an endless hierarchy of whys. You have to end it here.
what do you fear most?

CALLIE

But I'll give you this: fear.

BETH

Fear?

CALLIE

I'm scared of death.

BETH

Aaand you're risking your life?

CALLIE

Yes. I'm scared of death itself. Does that make sense?

BETH

You're trying really hard to not say that you're kind.

CALLIE

If I were kind, as you just said, I'd do so much more.
do you sleep with any plushies?

BETH

I need another friend for Mister Marcus, Cal.

CALLIE

I'm glad you liked it.

BETH

Take me to Build-a-bear again.

CALLIE

I did that in a moment of weakness. This way.

BETH

What if the box has a Plushie Dreadful in it?

CALLIE

Turn 360 degrees and walk away. You don't want that in your life.
what hobby do you just not understand?

BETH

What if it follows you home?

CALLIE

Then transform it into something unrecognizable With varíation.

BETH

Variation as escape?

CALLIE

Yes, sic fugit amicus amicum.

BETH

I read the greatest varíations take upon the theme So that instead of being confirmed, adorned and glorified, It is improved, parodied, ridiculed, disclaimed, Transfigured, mourned, stamped out and finally uplifted.

CALLIE

That's all some wishful thinking, Beth.

BETH

Cope?

CALLIE

Cope. The real goal is to end up somewhere new Foreign, exotic, fresh. The theme is like a haunting specter That creeps back in after every exorcism, Hanging oer one's poor head indef'nitely And in tryíng to scape, they die.

BETH

How bad d'you think it's gonna be?

CALLIE

There will be blood tonight.

BETH

And you're trying to prevent that?

CALLIE

If I were kinder, yes, I would. But here I am, right on the ground Instead of some cool scientific booth Getting my nails dirty. I told you I wasn't kind.

do you like the taste of alcohol?

AMY: Thirty nine bottles of beer on the wall Thirty nine bottles of beeeeeeeeeeer.
LUCY: By the way, have you ever heard of "enthusiastic consent"?
AMY: Take one down... Pass it around, you got Thirty eight bottles of beer on the wallllll.

are you a hopeless romantic?
AMY

Now Lucy, just imagine if I sang That ditty from one hundéred to one. Even the centastory tower down To icy Nath had a slow progression! And that's why it is super important To enter varíation to a theme If you are goíng to repeat it like A hundred times, or thirty three, or nine. And even the sonata form will ask To vary when you recapitulate.

LUCY

So who's going to write the great "100 Variations on 100 Bottles of Beer"

AMY

Exercise left to readeer...

LUCY

Huh?

AMY

That is a math joke, Luce.

LUCY

A math joke?

AMY

Yea, yea. I am a math girlie. Luce, here's the thing: There's a Romanticism found in the hopeless pursuit Of Mathematics, reaching high towards Some ultimatey truth, or to the deeps To find an oddly tuckéd box In some odd corner saying "DO NOT OPEN" And locked within is some forbidden key.

LUCY

Is the comparison intentional?

AMY

You don't think we will find it, Luce?

LUCY

I don't really e'en understand What it is we're looking for.

AMY

That's quite Romantic of you Luce! The tragedy of Romantic Heroes lie In th'fact they fail against all odds!

LUCY

You think we're going to fail!?

AMY

I said you think we're going to fail, Lucy. But I think we're going to succeed. That's the difference tween you n me. Although it didn't always used to be.

LUCY

I don't get what we're even looking for. How can I possibly think we will succeed?

AMY

I don't quite know it too. The theme is hidden in the box, so how'd I know? But if you know the box, and know the art Of varíance, from there we can unloose This damned enigma, dontcha say?

PAGE

Nay.
```
Amy slaps the page.
```
which deadly sin best fits you?
```
And now the rosy Morn her fingers creep oer th'ills,
The station in a figgish light becomes the stage,
And drench two and a half women in royal robes.
```
AMY

Smells like a ghost has been here.

LUCY

What do ghosts smell like? Nothing?

AMY

Page, give her a treat.
```
The page pulls out pliers, realizes his mistake,
Then pulls out a pack of peanut butter crackers.
```
LUCY

Each interaction with this boy is like a trick or treat.
```
The Page gives her the pack.
```
AMY

I'll be right back, I gotta pee. Let's go boy.
```
They walk away, holding hands like mother and son.
```
LUCY

... These people are ridiculous.
```
Amy and Page exit
```
LUCY

Hold on, Lucy. ...Is this my chance t'escape? Heh heh heh... I'll eat a cracker, then be on my way.
```
She struggles with the crinkly ends
To open it but not to overdo it so
The plastic rips and all the cracks fall out.

She opes her mouth and a cracker goes in
A suffocating sticky stuffuness 
Intrudes the cleár temple of her mouth.
```
MAN

Yo.
```
She turns her head.
```
LUCY

Yo.
```
..................




A dark-hued man with one ear pierced,
And yellow dyéd hair cut thin
Over a rugged nose which bends
To messy stubble tracing angled chin,
Nipples protruding out his sweatfully
Distasteful sleeveless muscle tee.
```
EARRING MAN

Uhhhhh..Uhmmm..

LUCY

Go on.

EARRING MAN

Uhhhhhhh.. Ha ha ha hahahaha.. This is quite awkward isn't it? Good times, good times.

LUCY

.... Sir. You need to spit it out right now. Or I will spit this masticated munch over your face. I've got places to be, away from here.

EARRING MAN

Hah hah.. Alright.. I don't really know who to ask... This might sound a bit weird, but you look helpful.

LUCY

Oh.. really?
```
Lucy, in her tattered pink pastel robes 
Clutches her peanut butter cracker pack,
Her holy scepter of judgment
```
LUCY

Well... I've been known to have a passing mind Who can give counsels like old Nestor wise.
```
She says, munching, with crumbs stuck to her face.
```
LUCY

Consult me, poor fellow. What is't? Your mom in a hospital bed? A breakup with a BPD? A feeling of wanting to be wanted, Or merely to exist? I can resolve all these.

EARRING MAN

Well.. You see... Uhhhh... Ha ha hahahaha... Good times...

LUCY

Go on, old man. Everything's gonna be alright.

EARRING MAN

I.... Well. Ha hahahahaha...

LUCY

Nervous laughter? Aw honey. Let it out, let it out.

EARRING MAN

I.... It's pretty significant. I don't want to implicate you, but...

LUCY

Actually, I changed my mi—

EARRING MAN

I'm looking for a box.

LUCY

Wha?

EARRING MAN

Yeah. About... yay size. Wrapped in pink. I heard it's like... Somewhere here. Hahahahahaha....

LUCY

Stop, stop. You're creeping me out.

AMY

A box you say?
```
Enter Amy and Page
```
EARRING MAN

Yeah. A box. Sorry, I didn't wanna implicate y'all.

LUCY

Uhh... Does this box have some LSD in it? Cause sign me up! I'm always down to get up in the sky with díamo—

AMY

Don't worry, Luce. I'll handle this. Go THAT way, all the way down Downing Street, And then you'll take a left Down Lefting Street, and then a right On, uhh...

LUCY

West Anderson street.

AMY

That's right, go west, or right West Anderson, And then... Go five and twenty blocks until you reach A sign that says, err, "ULTRA BOX STORE." There You'll find the box you're looking for, I think!

EARRING MAN

Ah, thanks so much, ladies. You two are saviors. Thank you so much.
```
While Lucy stands, mouth full of peanut butter there,
The earring man suddenly takes her hand 
And gives it a soft kiss, and then
Saying not one word more there walks away.
```
LUCY

.....

AMY

Phew, thank you for that save, Lucy! He shouldn't have sexually assaulted you though! Jerk! He didn't even ask for your enthusiastic consent. I'll KILL him 'f I see him again...
which of your physical features do you like the most?

LUCY

What sort of psyop is this, Ames?

AMY

What!?

LUCY

You set him up to do that, didn't you? You must have paid him, like your page.

AMY

I didn't though.

LUCY

Explain to me then where he came from. Why is he looking for a box like us?

AMY

Cause I didn't make up the thing about the box and stuff. Didn't you hear him Luce? He said "I heard There was a box around." Of course I'm not the only one!

LUCY

Wait, wait. Who told you—him—about this box?

AMY

One late Sir Edward Elgar's daughter fair At one soiree for students hosted by An Oxford conférence on Algebra Decided to reveal coordinates Which mark the spot of his old Enigma And lies somewhere within a box ahid.

LUCY

....Really?

AMY

Now honk at me, Miss Lucey Goose.

LUCY

Stop. Geese are my least favórite bird.

AMY

Then what do you fashion yourself as, Luce?

LUCY

I don't know. I don't think that's for me to determine.

AMY

You're right. It is determined by our creator.

LUCY

No. It's determined by other people. How they perceive you.

AMY

Well then, let me give this a quack. When you were Luke, I fashioned you a duck. And when I found you Luce, I called you goose. But now I think I've found, a marriage of the two For you! Based on the shadows oer your eyes, Your bobcut and your chippéd nails, I spy

LUCY

Please don't be waterfowl please don't be waterfowl.

AMY

A swan, aesthetically.
are your ears pierced?

LUCY

So what you're telling me is that That earring guy was at that "conf'rence" too?

AMY

No way! He prolly heard the word go round Though twas supposed to stay hush hush.

LUCY

I see..

AMY

Why ar'nt YOUR ears pierced, Luce? It'd look cool!

LUCY

Well I refused to when I was a kid. Though I've outgrown my insecurities, Learned to appreciate my femininity, I guess that's just a stubborn holdover.

AMY

Insecurities?

LUCY

Yes, Remember how my dad left at an early age?

AMY

Yea...

LUCY

I didn't tell you this, but, well... He wasn't married to my mom. He knocked up two women at once, And he went with the other one because She had a boy, and mine had... me. At least that is what I was told.

AMY

I see... What an asshole!

LUCY

Indeed.

AMY

I'll KILL him if I meet him!

LUCY

You've got some violent tendencies.

AMY

Don't let that sexúal harrasser judge What's good on guys, and aint. DarkLuke rocked badass amethyst earrings, Which made him twenty percent cooler with Some +5 dex to boot!

LUCY

What works on sprites is not the same What meets on flesh and bones.
have you ever been in a physical fight?
AMY

And by the way, Lucy, remember this: The world of man is made by viólence And I mean lowercase man: male, ysee. Without men we'd have no abandonment Of bedrid wives, or children innocent. No wars, no chauvinistic ideologies, No shootings, street fights, guns and weaponry, Just ladies' peaces skirting all the world.

LUCY

No, no. Viólence is a human problem. Look: You too, a girl, have violent tendencies, Which reared its head against me, too, a girl. How do you explain that?

AMY

That threat of violence is directed through A superimposition onto you Of man. Viólence lives through conduit Of men, e'en when commited by a girl. Sing to me masculinity, O Luce: The strength, defense, and stoicism, see: Tell me, why's all good masculinity A check against worse masculinity?

LUCY

I don't agree. That strength, defense, and stoicism did Defend against the elements and storms, Procured the hinds and rocks through which was built The monuments of safety we lean on, The easy bed of comforts we lie on, The privilege of love and femininity.

AMY

But you still didn't refute or e'en deny That violence is male coded, Luce. Now listen Luce, My Page will show you vividly The kernel of all viólence and then You'll see just what I mean!

LUCY

The kernel of all viólence? Interesting... I want it in gratuítous detail.
```
Lucy pulls out a peanut butter cracker. 
```
AMY

Page, go ahead.
```
The boy's innocent eyelids meet
To conjure up the souls of all the past
And find the inverse image that explains
The map of all savage brutality
That stretches stubbornly through every age
And plies through peace with constant rage.

.............
```
PAGE

The kid was drunk. He was hobbling to and came on a miser. Got fiddy. The kid didnt respond. Got fiddy. No. Got fiddy. No. Got fiddy. No. Got fiddy. The kid brought his lighter to the misers right eye and the eyeball condensed into soup in the bowl of his socket. Then he bit his right ear off. Ow, that hurt. The kid didnt respond. He was chewing on the ear. It tasted like cabbage so he spit it out. The kid helped him up. I dont got fiddy. Well ye shouldve told me sooner. They went out hunting together.

LUCY

My God.
```
She says, her mouth full with the popcorn of the streets.
```
LUCY

You have a way with words, young man! And punctuation too! You've blown open A window to the male psyche like ne'er before! You shall grow up a "réal man."
```
Amy gives the Page a ten dollar bill.
```
where do you buy your clothes?
```
Now leaping forth pert Amy leads a way 
And Luce unravels step by step her path
And works on out her cadence and her sway.
Her walk's in fact a skip and hum:
```
AMY

Ddo dododododo

LUCY

Ow! Ouch!
```
Now Phoebus' burning head beckons the stores,
And birdsong, workday critters ope their doors.
```
LUCY

What are you humming?

AMY

Reicha's overture in 5/8, in D Major.

LUCY

You're skipping in 5/8!!?

AMY

Remember Luce, along with every step We take, we leave one back. It's sad! That's why I skip so each step meets the last And lives on in the chain and melody Oer rhythm making way towards... Towards... Towards...

LUCY

Downing street? Hah! You're just an improvizer, eh?

AMY

A lost art, Luce, fo sho! The jazzers have it down, the Page... But otherwise... We aint got 5/8 figured bass Or free'atonality Which should be the bedrock of modern invention. Recall the knight who Alice met through th'glass. Have you eer thought his song was improvised? I wonder if she knew she would have cried.
```
Along the way Ames' face beams to the right:
A thrift store tucked tween VAPE AND APE,
And gliding through the trelliced glass aring
With tressy hedges, aromatic flowers flanked,
Still hugging Amy's perkéd tail Luce chased.


There's clothes on racks distributed and strewn,
Old ladies sifting through for God knows what.
Col'rs unconventional beaming between the suits
And slippers stood beside the boots.
```
LUCY

Ooooh, look at this cardigan!

AMY

......

LUCY

What?

AMY

When did you get so lame?

LUCY

You said that in the same cadence As "Where did YOU learn to fly?"

AMY

You used to tread on snowshoes black and gold, Exposing just a strip of shin to hems A skyey sauna robe that skirt, and gloves Abufféd cloudy all to decorate A shady look of Envy underneath A bamboo hat which leakd d'Antagonist.

LUCY

My full name: Lucifer.

AMY

Indeed. You are th'apple of every eye, Lucy, The same one Eris threw in that soiree And also that your namesake drew to Eve.

LUCY

Ha ha! Don't call me Lucifer in public.

AMY

Yes, yes. A Lucy isn't Lucifer. Just as a fig is not an apple. But hey! Why did you stealthily accept The title of "The Duke"!? Well now your name Is "Lucy" so guess what?

LUCY

What?

AMY

To match that I'll call you...

LUCY

Please don't be Tiberius please don't be Tiberius.

AMY

"Il Duce."

LUCY

...............

LUCY

That's even worse.

AMY

Really? I thought I understood Your psychology...

LUCY

I deserve an apology.
```
Lucy pulls out her third peanut butter cracker.
```
AMY

Page, draft me an apology.

LUCY

What?

PAGE

I'll do so in fourteener, ma'am.

LUCY

What?
```
The page closes his boyish eyes again
And runs through every signal, /sigh and /vent,
To quell the masses oer recent events.
```
PAGE

Hey everyone... it's me, Amy. You may have heard about The drama. Well to make it short, a joke I made long back Resurfacéd and went viral. I won't replay it here Because it's pretty bad, and I don't want to spread more hate. Alright, I'll stop beating around the bush because I know Brevity is the soul of wit, so I'll be brief and say, With all my heart, and empathy for all those who I've hurt, And deep regret for all the harm I've spread throughout this space: The joke I made was unacceptable, and I'm sorry. I do not support facism. I do not support hate. I never meant to hurt, or harm. Th'intent behind my joke Was just to satirize such hateful ideologies, But looking back, I see how it was in poor taste. Besides, It wasn't even funny. Still I know that none of this Excuses my brash ignorance and th'insensitivity Felt by the many disempowered groups who rightfully Have called me out this past minute. To all those groups I've hurt: LGBTQIA+ victims of bigotry, My BIPOC sisters sufféring systemic racism, All women who have been oppressed by patriarchal norms, And CSA survivors who were retraumatizéd By my insensitive comment, please let me say: Sorry. My comments were made long ago (one minute), and I'd like T'inform you I've been growing and reflecting ever since, And seeking therapy in order to unlearn my deep Internalizéd bigotry, and now I'll never cease To work on my own biases until the day I die. I know that's no excuse for all the damage I have caused Already, but I still sincerely hope you will accept My deep condolences, and this sincere apology. And so I am announcing that I'm going to take a break From poetry and writing and all content creation Until my mental health recovers. But in the meantime I've linked some charities in the description right below This video, to lend support to someone victimized By this affair: A poor young boy, a Page, who needs some cash. So if you can spare change, please donate, even if the cost A single cup of coffee's all you've got. Anything helps. And one more time I'd like to say again: I'm really sorry, all. Amy, signing out.

LUCY

........................ *Clap* *Clap* *Clap* That was horrendous! Awful work, my boy! How desperate it tried to feed The unrelenting mob! Indeed, So overwrought with words I finishéd My peanut butter cracker halfway in! It wound around in vaguest turns of phrase! Referring back to nothing genuine, Specific, and nor what would demonstrate A critical eye to what had occurred. Even Polonius in so many words Could not express such nothingness!
```
The Page bows,
Amy gives him a twenty dollar bill.
```
AMY

In any case, Luce, what we need for you Is NOT this magey cagey cardigan Which hanging lame and loose betrays the fash Within you, nor a frilly dress to don Too unbecoming of a Don to bash Implicitly projecting force n fuel, AND for that matter not too martial weeds Too desperately asking for a duel, Which alienates Republicans who steeped In old man beard nostalgia for the Cause, Will whine and weep about the rights they lost, And so! A marriage of the feminine To dowry of the steely stick behine. Political consideration leads Towards this coat here hanging on this rack. Its skirty ends with shoulders angléd Implies a ruler in the reservéd. Under the cufflinks lurking in the ark, There's threat of cannons blowing from the dark.

LUCY

Ten dollars 50 cents.

AMY

I'll pay

LUCY

And sold!
```
They head to the cashier.
```
CASHIER

I'm sorry. You need to leave. No shoes, no service
where would you live if you could live anywhere?
```
Train station, noon.
```
ANAND

Can we go back home, burr.

MARK

We're probably the only ones who know it must be here. There is no crowd, nor any other box hunters I see. We'll probably get it without shedding a drop of blood. Though be prepared to fight.

ANAND

You need to eat some ass, burr.

CLOWN

What you don't understand, my friend, is that He is trying to find his way ahome. He's never felt at home where'er he may reside, And so he thinks the theme, in the home key, Unvarnished by varíation will be the cure To his eternal homesickness.
```
Mark chucks an ear of corn towards the clown.
The clown dodges.
```
MARK

You're both bad friends.

ANAND

We're trying to help you, burr.

MARK

You're not helping.

ANAND

Yea, if the only thing that counts as "helping" is Going along with your stupid ass plans.

MARK

If you were starving and someone gave you some soothing words Instead of a meal, you'd hate their guts.

ANAND

We've gone along with your stupid plans before. And when we have an idea, You just dismiss it like it's stupid.

MARK

What's your great idea. "Eating ass"?

ANAND

You gotta taste the rainbow, burr.

MARK

See? Your "ideas" are juvenile.

CLOWN

You don't quite understand what he is getting at. His "eating ass" is not just eating ass Tsan invocation to loose up and form An intimate connection with another human being Which is established, yes, in a bodily act. You act so detached from the real world, You've desexualized yourself, and depersoned yourself, Acting like you're a brain commandeering an avatar, To end up so detached from everyone and everything You only see the dispositions of armies on maps Nor spirit of soldiers, not reasoning of governments, Nor e'en unbalancing power of air, or sea, or drones. People, your friends even, appear as battlemented rooks And mass-producéd kings and queens, bishops and pawns For gameified purpose of conquest, yet You're not even good at chess.

MARK

You're not even funny, clown.

CLOWN

You need to eat some ass, burr.

ANAND

When's the last time you tried to help us?

MARK

I already explained to you I'm practically giving you 5K.

ANAND

What a transactional way to view friendship, burr. And you call us bad friends?

MARK

If you were starving and someone gave you—

ANAND

Fuck off, burr. I quit. Go find your theme and varíations on your own. I'll Venmo you the 5K. I'm not risking my life for this dumb shit.
```
Anand exits.
```
CLOWN

Uh, yea. I think I'm going too. Don't forget to eat, Mark. It's lunchtime yknow. You always forget to eat.
```
Clown exits.
```
MARK

I just ate corn, idiot!

MARK

Hmmmm You know what? With them gone, I now feel a peace in war. No badgring in my ears while I chew on my ears, No dumb detours from the mission at hand, No awful smell of ceréal or weed or worse, No clownish psychoanalysis, No incessant rejoinders, burrs, or jabs, Yes let the lesser live on their poor wean. Yesterday's friends give way to morrow's mean.
do believe in magic? or is it all a trick?
```
A desolate landscape
Burning under Apollo's orange head.
```
CALLIE

I'm sorry, Beth, for stringing you along.

BETH

It's voluntary, Callie. I'll follow you where'er you go.

CALLIE

And if I've tricked you into follow'ng me Is it really voluntary? I'm using you.

BETH

Use me all you want!

CALLIE

Cut it out.

BETH

I love you.

CALLIE

.........Dude.

BETH

You don't have to say it back. Just acknowledge it.

CALLIE

No.

BETH

Being round you is like being engulfed Into a rose magickal bleeding slow Into a sunset pinkish with just you And your intelligent eyes peering at the ends Of all the world, habouring sensations Forever inaccessible.

CALLIE

Don't use such lofty language to describe me.

BETH

It's nothing short of magic.

CALLIE

Well, either everything is magical, or nothing is.

BETH

What do you mean?

CALLIE

Hume once observed, and asked: If th'one ball hits the two ball, and The two ball subsequently moves, Why did the latter move?

BETH

Because the one ball hit it.

CALLIE

But why would the one's contact Invoke the two to move?

BETH

The laws of physics. Th'one ball transfers its momentum to The two ball, causing it to move.

CALLIE

That word, cause, is the trick of all reálity. Y'appeal to laws of physics, yet Tomorrow we may wake up, and Those laws may not apply that day Tomorrow's world may bring a law So that the two ball doesn't move when hit. It's logically conceivable isn't it? There's nothing that cannot preclude The sun won't rise tomorrow, and ne'er again.

BETH

But not in generations of mankind Have phys'cal laws been broken so flagrantly, Cal. Our laws are based on uncounted observations The sun has risen millions o'years.

CALLIE

Now tell me this: Why does observing something millions of times Make it more likely?

BETH

That's just... how it is... It's obvious.

CALLIE

What principle do you derive the fact That the constant conjunction of events Makes the former beckon the latter?

BETH

If A caused B a billion times before It's that more likely to cause it again.

CALLIE

I say that A is as likely to cause our B As A won't cause this B ever again. What do you say to that?

BETH

I think I understand now, Callie Why you do what you do.
have you read umineko when they cry? you should!
AMY

............

LUCY

You look quite unamuséd, Ames. What's wrong?

AMY

............

LUCY

The Art of Waffle, Ames, is this: To waver, waffle twixt the savory and sweet, As when a Prince reservéd watches meet The court, and smiling gently feminine Restrains the strength within infused divine With which his dainty hands would easy warp Ulysses' bow as easy as the harp, So ridges these are smoothéd over warm With salty snow, while low the depression Is sweetened with a maple syrupson, And heartily supplied with this chicken.

AMY

..........

LUCY

Remember, Ames, you pinky promiséd To pay for anything I want for lunch.

AMY

You eat just like a pig.
```
Lucy munches with insatiable greed.
```
AMY

Quite unbecoming of a Duke.

LUCY

That's where you're wrong.
```
Luce points her fork at Amy's face.
```
LUCY

Affective leaders dine polite and fine, Effective leaders scarf down slop like swine: Young Alex on the field, or th'Augustine, Or Nappy's food as fuel, or LBJ Ate easy and delicious to convey Their restless mind to th'end of day.

AMY

Why even use utensils then! Fork that!
```
Now Amy's lengthy lady fingers take the scene
And rips the waffle, grabs the leg. Her head
Nods down to gobble down the rustic meal
And syrup oozes from her lips like slime.
```
LUCY

...You've usurped me... ...Usyruped me...
```
Lucy nods down herself into her trough
And imitates her own imitator.
```
LUCY

Now that's a BEVVBSian. You too, Page. Dive in! *Snort.*

AMY

God help you, Luce.
what is the worst chore to do?
MARK

I'm looking for this box That's gone out of production recently, A giftbox, ridgéd pink With plaid wrapping paper oer it. The grapevine told me it got sold round here.

CASHIER

Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.

MARK

Do you have it or not? I'll leave if you give me an honest answer. What happened to your face?

CASHIER

Sir, A little boy wearing a sweatervest Visited here not long ago. He pointed to the sign No shirt, no shoes, no service there, And asked if his poor lesbian mother clad In pajamas would be allowed to browse the wares. Just then I heard a yell outside the door "I'll whip a pic of Sappho on your back, boy!" And there rung my alarm bells: I noticed scars, prints on the poor boy's face And bruises on his knuckles. And God knows What else was hidden neath that neat sweater. But mostly what got to me was... The melancholic look in his poor eyes, The loss of innocence I sensed in them Which looked so young, and yet so old... Engraved with trauma of abuse and more. A sudden rage and fire took over me. I realized: I've found a sex trafficking victim. I had to speak up, be a whistleblower And save this boy, and countless more From those sick freaks standing outside the door. I turned the boy oer to my counterpart Told her to call the cops while I went out To confront those sick fucks before they scaped. I came out and I saw the lesbian couple. One of them was the one wearing pajamas: She looked quite taciturn, and beat herself, But th'other one was tall, taller than me... Long amber hair, clothed in a light sundress ..I recognized her as the ringleader. I said, "What's your relationship to that boy?" She said, "He is my page." "Your page?" She said, "Yes, yes, he does whate'er I want While looking cute!"... and when I heard her call That small boy, "cute," a rage I'd never felt before Blinded my sight. To hear her sexualize A boy like that... A kid... I clenched my fists Till my palms bled. "...He's just a fucking kid.." I said. To which she said, "He's usually On the receiving end, actúally." And there I lost it, there abandoning All sense, launching myself towards her breast I knocked her to the ground and raised And started pummeling her pretty face, "HE'S JUST A FUCKING KID! HE'S JUST A FUCKING KID!" I roared, a lion in unquench'ble rage But she... with some strange unexpected strength Somehow, outwrestling me, despite my will And all my BJJ classes, flipped me And started choking me out of my sense, And no one round me helped, because you know, She was a girl... and I attacked her first And there I went unconscious. When I woke up I learned the boy escaped as well. And there my dream to bust a sex trafficking ring... Just like my heroes Liam Neeson, and The great Drama Tubers, like Turkey Tom... And enter the pages of history And become something... More... More than just... this.. Sweeping, stocking, doing the same old chores In this old stupid store.... That dream was lost like tears in rain.

MARK

I'm sorry... I hope you catch them.

CASHIER

Well, Before the boy escaped, he did inquire about a box, like you. The fact that you're asking me makes me think You're one of them. You must be a groomer too.
```
Mark runs away.
```
what did your parents almost name you?
```
Now the space is dotted less
With signs of life. Th'empty expanse unfolds.
```
LUCY

Pant, pant, pant. Slow down.... Pant... How are you so fast? And how are you so strong? You beat that guy up like it was nothing.

AMY

Luce, whaddya think I've been doin all these years? Now thank me for saving your life.

LUCY

Aren't you planning to kill me?

AMY

I'm really sad...
```
She ignores the question.
```
LUCY

Why?

AMY

We lost our page!

LUCY

Oh him? Well, couldn't you just call him?

AMY

Oh Luce. I ne'er carry a phone, nor he.

LUCY

And cause you dragged me out in pajamas I'm not carrying one either.
```
Besides, Lucy figures that if she did,
The cops would answer on the other side.
Are they in trouble now with the law?
```
AMY

Poor boy! What if he's scared? What if they bully him?

LUCY

I'm sure he'll be okay.

AMY

Huh? You think?

LUCY

Yes. He seems... competent. .... Wait, what am I talking about? This isn't normal. Are you his guardian or something? What's even going on?

AMY

You're right. He'll find a way out... On th'other hand, you looked stressed out your mind.

LUCY

Because I am.

AMY

Oh how the tables've turned! Remember when I used to freak out Oer every little thing???
```
Lucy shuts down, does not bring up the fact
That Amy stressed her out back then as well,
Yet since she always had to play the rock,
She hid it neath a boyish persona,
Only to finally leave because
She couldn't handle it anymore.
```
AMY

You're sposed to be the Duke! A Prince does not get stressed so easily!

LUCY

Why can't a Prince be stressed?

AMY

Not true Trumen nor Harrimen, Nor Augusti, nor Fredericks, No Great Elector ever fell To threat of viólence. You know Napoleón below the Rhine Used to compart-a-mentalize his stress. One drawre holding unfaithful Josephine, Another with the plans to take the fields Of fertile Piédmont to be reveald. A Prince should be the anchor to the world Upon which chaos controlléd unfurls.
```
Sounds like the sort of speech that "Luke" would give.
To cope with his own stress back then
(Except it wouldn't've had such pretty verse).
Amy in idolizing Luke,
Inherited all his delusions.
```
LUCY

I can't control the chaos, Ames.

AMY

I bleeve in you, Lucy. I'll bleed with you, Lucy.

LUCY

Don't try to mould me into something else.

AMY

Luce, you don't have to change. Just be yourself!

LUCY

You don't know who I am. "Luke" was just a persona. It wasn't real. I'm not as strong as I put on.

AMY

Was Brandenburg e'er "strong" or was it sly? Remember the lesson of NOÉTM: Pretending to be strong can often be....
```
It's not that simple, Lucy thinks.
Some people are just weak inside and out.
```
AMY

I believe in you!
```
Lucy knows she cannot control the chaos. 
Because it's right in front of her, speaking to her.
```
AMY

Did you ever think of transitioning?

LUCY

Oh, that. No no, that's not quite it. It's not the same sensation as... Like "Feeling in the wrong body.." I can't say I have felt "dysphoria." It's more like... After my dad, and other bad experiences.. I just wanted to be... a good man? It felt like a duty, or a mission. Something like that.

AMY

Well you are a good girl, perhaps! Ya know if twere a "Luke" behind that look Or Lucy masking Lucy yet again, You wouldnt have quite captivated me! It is that sweet implied Androgyny That so transfixéd me, I think...

LUCY

... You know why you were named Amy?

AMY

Nope. The name's associated with love, though.

LUCY

It fits you.
what would you want your name to be if you were not your current gender?
```
They walk for hours into a waste. Sunset
Drenches th'expanse in blinding thick orange
In which they venture deeper in.
```
LUCY

Ow! Ouch!

AMY

Is that how you'll react When I extract your teeth out one by one?

LUCY

Hold on, hold on. We're being followed.

AMY

What what?

LUCY

I sense a presence in the fog.
```
She turns around, descries a girl behind
Who shaggy haird and baggy eyed
Donning a sweater olive dark, and navy jeans,
Stares strange with fisheye pupils at their gait.
```
LUCY

Yo......

GIRL

...........

AMY

She said YO! Are you gonna answer her OR JUST KEEP STARING LIKE AN IDIOT? YOU UTTER PIECE OF GARBAGE?

GIRL

YO! YO, i said! Yo! Yo! Yo! don't hit me please!!

LUCY

Why are you following us?

GIRL

i'm sorry, i just gor really nervours idk how to introduce myself

AMY

I know what's happening, Lucy. She's tailing us so she can snipe the theme!

LUCY

Ahh, I see. So that's your operation, eh? Insatíable greed.

GIRL

nononono! i swear that's not my intention!

LUCY

Not that I understand the value of this box or "theme." It seems the whole world's turning out for it. Are you a sane one in the sea of mad?

GIRL

the theme! well, i wanna find it but...

AMY

LET'S BEAT HER UP BEFORE SHE CAN STEAL IT!

GIRL

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

LUCY

Let her explain first.
```
She says, restraining yet one more assault.
```
LUCY

Why do you want to find this "theme"?

GIRL

it iz a Air, ackshually. i wanna find it... for you!

LUCY

For us?

GIRL

yep!

LUCY

Have we met? Do I know you? Who are you?

GIRL

uhh... m-my name is clam genevive hanson?

AMY

Now that's the dumbest name I've ever heard! And why're you saying it like it's a question!??

GIRL

cause i'm the questionnaire! i mean the questionner!!!

LUCY

No true asker refers to their own craft As "questionner." As no true seer would say That they are a good "predictor."

AMY

That's right. Let's beat her up!

LUCY

Calm down...

GIRL

i swear to bajesus!!! i am the one who wrote the theme

LUCY

What?

AMY

Hmmm? Seems like a scam.

GIRL

i swear!!!

AMY

Then hum it.

GIRL

o-oh?

LUCY

Yes, yes, give us a hum, hun.

GIRL

well i will frickin try dis shit i guess.. .... ahem ahem ahem mi mi mi miiIII ahem..
```
She gargles violently and almost chokes.
```
GIRL

.... ..... .... .... AHEM.... 3 ... 2.. ..... 1...... ... ... ...... ...... dododODODODDODODODOOO
```
Lucy and Amy plug their ears in pain.
```
AMY

ENOUGH! Lady, you're cleárly confused! That's not a varíable theme at all!

GIRL

wait wait wait!!!

LUCY

I think that was in 5/8, And not intentionally...

AMY

A Baroque air wouldn't be in 5/8 anyway! Let's beat her up!

GIRL

STOP stop stop stop! i made the Air i swear!!

AMY

Then why can't you sing it!

GIRL

CAUSE I AM A COMPOSER NOT A SINGER. I DONT NEED PLAY THE HARP TO WRITE FOR IT

AMY

Hmm..............

LUCY

She's right, Amy.

AMY

I guess so...

LUCY

Listen.. uhh.. Clam.. Did this Air have.. lyrics to it?

GIRL

uhhh, yea!

LUCY

Maybe if you remember the lyrics, You will recall the tune more easily.

GIRL

oh, OH!!!

LUCY

Does that help?

GIRL

yes!!!

AMY

Then lay it on us!

GIRL

alrighty. it went a lil sumthin lyke dis.....
what were your first words?

GIRL

NOW MUSE, sing handsome to me all the way of shimmyin like i'm on NarrowWay, to boogie woogie to the beat and jam and groove like jelly to the air o clam. thro up my booty to the skies and point and click it like a needle to the joint that haz da box which hides the sexy theme i made a quite a while ago to meme. infuse our metal ballz to guide our path like someones going down to ellie nath or silver town or hell where we can fug without discrimination all OOOUUUUGGGGGHHH three quarters of the way i gotta bust to find this sucker, quickaly we must before our opps get there and undermine supremity of all the feminine. the box must hide it very oystery enclosing it with fash n mystery, so d'only way to find de signers prize is thru the lens of a designers eyes

LUCY

.........Interesting.

GIRL

uhhh...

AMY

*Clap*.... *Clap*... *Clap*... *Clap*... *Clap*....

LUCY

That was quite.. clammy poetry indeed.

GIRL

thank you!!

AMY

I wouldn't call it "handsome" tho. I'd model handsomeness over fair Lucy here, Just look at her! Her tight black bob with piercing locks which hang Like icicles from rocky ceiling bangs, The shadows underneath her musky orbs Oershadowed by the shadows hanging oer The curtains of her sight, make up a mien Both dark and soft to make me swoon and sween!

LUCY

Well, that was the best compliment I've e'er receivéd in my life...

GIRL

its true... u are a handsome lady....

LUCY

Well, Amy's hair is beautiful, so long Fitting her lofty height, it's like A flaming waterfall, which at the ends extends Her endless stream of passion and originality.

GIRL

its true... she is a very pretty girl G-guys! i'm dying! Help!!!

LUCY

What?

GIRL

my body's gonin HNNNNNNNNG idk!!! i'm going aaaAAACCCCKKK h-HELP me guys... I mean Girls!! i'm dying! ffffffffffffffffffqwerfqw 021098 I'M DYINNGGGGGG ARRGGGGHHHH I'M DYINGGGG HELPPPPP
what do you want your last words to be?
GIRL

I'M DYINGGG... ARRRGGGHH... FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

LUCY

Is it a heart attack!?

GIRL

No i'm too... AGGGHGHHH.... young for that!!! AGGGGGGHHHH IT HURTSSS

LUCY

I'll call 911. Damn! I don't have my phone. Amy?

AMY

I don't carry a cellphone, Luce.

LUCY

Clam give me yours!

GIRL

i dont carry one... ARRGGGHHH either.. im too based for that... ARRRGGGGG

LUCY

HELP. SOMEONE HELP A WOMAN'S DYING HERE. PLEASE. I'll sprint over to find help!
```
Lucy exits, sprinting away
```
GIRL

Wait WAIT. i realized i can't be killed off cuz ....ARRRGGGHHh. i am the author of this air.

AMY

E'er heard of Death of the Author, Miss Clam?

GIRL

.................FUCK.

AMY

Now prep your last words Clam, while, Lucy sprints for help. I'll give you your last rites.

GIRL

does it gotta be.. ARRRGGGGHHH... you!? i wish my...ARRRRGHGHH,,.. beloved was here now ;_;

AMY

We aint allowed to choose the circumstances of our deaths. That is decided by the Fates, and th'ones behind the pens.

GIRL

w-well... here i go... i love my mom and dad.. thank you for helping me grow up... i love my beloved (thats why he's called my beloved)... i love all kitty cats I hope they all get pet and fed... i pray for a big rennaisance in clothing and fashion i like... ARRGFSAAAAAAAGHGHG... I will hear in heaven! .... .... ..... .... ...... .... ..... ..... ...... .... .... X_X

AMY

Good night, Clam Genevive Hanson!

GIRL

................. actually i'm alive

AMY

...............

GIRL

I think y'alls sugary yuri tension just got to me i got a little diabeetus, thats alll...

AMY

Nice.
when did you first regularly start going online?
```
The hours pass, and yet the sunset lingers,
She hangs, flooding the space in darker burns,
As when Aurora's rotting corpse lay fallen in the waste
Her tendril follicles out of their pockets leaving holes
Abound in her ruinéd reddend scalp. Her eyes uprolled
Exposing th'yellowed whites, which at the edges oozing drip
Poisonous discharge in colorless pools. Her charréd lips 
Unfolded mid-sentence opening the abyss within
Her maw, to show the sun herself is made of black and sin.
```
MARK

I can't believe the cops are on me now... Some stupid bitch and that stupid cashier Got me caught up with the damn law... ..... Fuck. I'm stressed.
```
He pauses.
```
MARK

I don't think anyone's nearby The fog's too dense to see... I'll just do it once today.
```
He walks nine paces noncommittally,
And then another, hesitating once again.
```
MARK

Just one more time, for good measure.
```
He unzips.
```
MARK

Let's just get this over with.

MARK

Uh.
```
He begins tugging.
```
MARK

Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Let me find a better position.
```
His pants at knees, he waddles over
To smoother soil on which he seats himself
And comfortably pleasures him.
```
MARK

Uh. Uh. Uh... Uh.. Uh. Uh.... Uh... Keep sucking Callie. Hm... Hmph.. Uh. Uh... Uh.. Hmph.

MARK

Hmph. Uh... Uh. Uh... Uh.. Callie. Yea, uh... Uh.. Callie.

MARK

I love you... I love you...

MARK

I'm gonna cum. I'm gonna cum. Uh! Uh! I'm gonna cum! I love youuuuuuu!!!!!
```
As soon as he ejaculates,
An awful lethargy oertakes him whole.
He lays there, nether regions damp and dense,
Immovable, melting into the setting sun.
His passions suddenly consumed by dust,
That urgency dissolved in the horizon,
He stares into the thickly orange fog,
Almost hoping to be caught.
```
MARK

Ugh...
```
25 minutes pass, and finally
He stumbles up, and pulls his trousers pooled
With sweat and tears against his bottom
And then rehooks his belt.
```
MARK

I wish I could cry.
```
Enter Lucy
```
LUCY

Hey! Hey guy!

MARK

!!!!!

LUCY

Sir! Yo! I need some help!

MARK

Why are you wearing paja— Ah.. Yes.. What do you need help with?

LUCY

I'm being chased.

MARK

Some tall woman, yes?

LUCY

O-oh... Yes. How did you know?

MARK

A black-eyed cashier told me.

LUCY

Yes, yes. Poor guy.

MARK

It sounds like he threw hands first.

LUCY

Yes, but...

MARK

The cops are after her, you know.

LUCY

I figured.

MARK

And after you as well.

LUCY

I... figured. I did consider going to them, but... I don't think it'd work out well for me.

MARK

Yes, best to lay low now.

LUCY

Yes...

MARK

So why'd you come to me?

LUCY

I'm... looking for a box.

MARK

Yes.. I mean... a box, you say?

LUCY

Yes, yes... That tall woman was... strangely obsessed with it, Pursuing it with some unusual urgency... E'en saying she'd delay my death a day for it. But... 'f I can find it first... maybe...

MARK

You'd have some leverage over her?

LUCY

Yes, yes! Thank you! Wow! You're the first person I've met all day Who might be sane!

MARK

Don't worry, don't worry,

LUCY

Lucy. Lucy is my name. My name is Lucy.
```
Said with a note of triumph.
```
MARK

And I'm M-Mark.

LUCY

Hi Mark!

MARK

Do you have any clues 'Sto where this box could be?

LUCY

The only clue I got Was 021098

MARK

.... Well what am I supposed to do with that?

LUCY

I don't know... Is it code for something?

MARK

Say it again.

LUCY

Zero.. Two.. One..

MARK

WAIT!
```
Mark now unzips his pack, ruffling through
With frantic energy.
He pulls a map out laminated fair,
A compass, notebook, and protractor square,
Then lying prone over his map lays on
All these devices in proper order.
```
MARK

Can you hold that end down for me?

LUCY

Yes. Yes sir.
```
Lucy kneels too excited in support.
Mark with a marker makes a dot,
Then draws a line and lays his square 
In various angles oer the map.
Lucy stares wide-eyed at his careful technique.
He then stands up, compass in hand
Turning, turning, and then pauses a bit.
```
MARK

It's that way.

LUCY

Th-that way?

MARK

Yes. The hint was just coordinates to where it is. ... I think. We only have it to a 100 meter square, But this should narrow it down quite a bit.

LUCY

My God! You're going to save my life, you know that? Where did you learn that?

MARK

The internet.

LUCY

You're a good man.
what year do you miss the most?
GIRL

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK i miss 2014 so much, so fair ;_; i'd ride my bike to my friends place n there watch disney channel kinos certified oer butter over popcorn mixéd wide whose pops portended bombs defused by nicks of dreamy skill, and nightly raids diffused under a crystal ball which spheres a cot in its own season, far from hate and rot.

AMY

It's your fault she got away.

GIRL

..........i'm sorry

AMY

If I didn't think you knew the way, I'd rip your nails out one by one.

GIRL

Eeeeeeek!!
```
Enter Clown, Anand
```
CLOWN

"I'm looking for a box."

AMY

We've all been there, Clown. Now forfeit your poor search before I, or someone else with misplaced ambition Sweeps you in their viólent escapades.

CLOWN

I am what you would call A disintrested party. All Clowns are after all.

AMY

And what about your friend here?

ANAND

I'm... looking for a box.

AMY

Well, well, well.

ANAND

I mean! I don't want to have the box, or keep the box. You can have the box, in fact.. I want you to have it. Or anyone that isn't my friend.

CLOWN

Why does your cadence, choice of words, and mood Transform when talking to women?

AMY

Maybe he puts us on a pedestal.

GIRL

doesn't see us as human beings!

CLOWN

Or haps it's fellow men he doesn't see As fellow fellows, hence the genuine Verse woven careful to the feminine, Versus the fallow fragments for the men.

GIRL

the feminine elevatez erryone!

AMY

Sya wanna to give the box to me?

ANAND

Anyone but my friend. If he gets it, he'll go truly insane.. And not just that. I think... I think some kind of genocide Or awful famine will result From his newly acquired power. Of all the people in the world He is the one who can't get it.

AMY

And how dya know that I won't go insane Upon uncovering the contents of that box? Here's why: I'm already insane. So there!

ANAND

.....

CLOWN

I'd say it's the only immunity To opening that box.

ANAND

Fine.... Who'd even make a box so freaking off the wall?

GIRL

.............
are you psychic?

BETH

Callie, are you psychic?

CALLIE

I only know what I know, Beth.

BETH

Then how're you tracking down this box?

CALLIE

Intuition.

BETH

So basically, you're psychic.

CALLIE

I cannot read your thoughts.

BETH

Oh yes you can. You do not need to peer or pry at me. I am an open book to you, just you. Ask and you shall recieve. There's nothing hid That will not be disclosed. No darkness here But will be burned in your infinite light.
would you fuck a clone of yourself? you're not allowed to kill yourself.
LUCY

Mark, would you fuck a clone of yourself?

MARK

I'd sooner kill myself.

LUCY

Grim, grim. What don't you like about yourself?

MARK

There's nothing to like, nor dislike. There's nothing here. I'm nothing. I want to be, that's why I'm l—...

LUCY

You want to kill yourself? But if you're nothing anyway, why die?

MARK

If death takes life away, Then my hypothesis is it returns Life where there was none. That's how the balance holds.

LUCY

It sounds like you don't have a personality. I'd recommend you get some hobbies And join a club, go out to some events, Learn how to love yourself, and be okay With being alone. That'll give you confidence, And then you'll begin form A sense of self-identity.

MARK

I—

LUCY

I'm kidding. I, too, am hobbyless. Devoid of intérest. No spins or quirks or fun quiddities here Left from attrition of anxiety, Just gray old day to day and sugary tea.

MARK

Oh.

LUCY

And my hypothesis Is that we're creatures of habit, not hobbies. That's why Amy is hunting down this box. She's not "interested" in it, but drawn to it. And I'll be quartered for it.

MARK

Her name is Amy? The tall girl, I mean.

LUCY

Yes, yes. She... How do I describe her? Intelligent, physically strong, and capable, She has a way with words that's loose yet elegant, And wit with constant passion.

MARK

That's quite a list of compliments For someone you are running away from.

LUCY

I, uh...

MARK

She's trying to kill you isn't she? Why talk her up like that?

LUCY

I... I'm steelmanning her? Stockholm syndrome?

MARK

You're too nice.

LUCY

That's something she would say...

MARK

And?

LUCY

You're both correct...

MARK

Why would she want the box, though?

LUCY

Uhh, what?

MARK

Why would someone so.. fulfilled... Search for the box?

LUCY

Well, I don't know what's in the box, Except some "theme," or something. Why would anyone search for it? What do you think?

MARK

I think it's like The book that Mephistophilis to Faust Gave in return for his doomed soul, you see, With it the elements are in one's palms To conjure every Caesar that has walked This Earth, see Leipzig from a bird's eye view, Make Grothendieck pursue his high motives Break every grain of sand into its parts, And at the end of four and twenty years Die at the feet of fair Oenone, Finding true love and eternal forgiveness.

LUCY

Woah. Why not just say "happiness"?

MARK

That doesn't exist.

LUCY

High five!
```
They high five.
```
what do you use to listen to music?

GIRL

last night I went raving (raving) all night techno playing (playing) one song that i heard played (heard played) in my mind it has stayed (has stayed) I HAVE NO CLUE TO THE TRACK NAME ITS DRIVING ME INSANE THE TUNE GOES THROUGH MY HEAD AND THIS IS HOW IT WENNNNNNNNNNT. IT WENT DO DI DO DI DO DO DI DO DI DO DO DI DO DI DO DO DI DO IT WENT DO DI DO DI DO DO DI DO DI DO DO DI DO DI DO DO DI DO

ANAND

Shiiii, I got a track I aint able to remember too. Shii went like "skooooo skoooooooo Leooooooeelllllleooooo leoooeoollloeooo qwoooooooooooowqqqqqqqqqqqiiiiiiii wooooooqppoooopwwiruy888888888888 everybody shuffling ]0=-=--=---0000000000000=-00 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww On the other side of the mo00n wwwwww900000000000000000000000 2340923u023u02390jr9u22232323222321421" anyone know that shiih?

GIRL

i'm sorry bro, i don't.

ANAND

Fuckk!! I swear to god it was so good. I'm gonna kill myself if I can't hear it again! Music is my life. I can't live without it, burr

AMY

Prepare to die knowing you'll ne'er hear it again.

ANAND

What! Am I gonna die!???? Help! Help me Clown! I gotta hear this song again before I die!

AMY

Calm down! I'm saying it's a way of life.

ANAND

What way of life?

AMY

To hear something and ne'er hear it again. That's how it's sposed to be. Scarlatti din't write for posterity. So throw his works into the flames! Break all your favorite bands' albums! Kill your heroes!

ANAND

What!

AMY

Before the Gramophone, no no, before Romantic passionistas wrote in stars! A peasant, burgher, count would go ten years Not hearing this quartet, that symphony; To hear it one would have to muster up The playrs to sight read or rehearse the thing To hear it once, and then applause, goodbye! Go home and turn it in your head, again To hum and spread in grotesque mutations As here Clam Hanson did, back to the fields Or city streets or courts from where they came. A string quartet or opera was not A silent sit still solitary stage To muse over with headphones, repressed coughs, But talk and eat and flirt over with friends, Oer even most heart wrenching tragedies, To take in lightly with joie de vivre!

ANAND

But I wanna hear that thing again.

AMY

It is the improvisers job to take Such fragments lost and make them shout out loud And bold, through sly development and sweet Learned counterpoint to kiss each turn in it, Expanding it to something new and great, And then discard it for the next attack. Keep moving's what I say!
whats the biggest city you've been to?

BETH

As when the swan made Leda swoon to take his seed and make The Helen for who Grecian gangs Ilíon coals oer rake So you and me can be an evil power couple fair Whose product ends in suffering uncounted, mmm..

CALLIE

......

BETH

The swan is my favorite animal. His shades remind me of your grayey eyes.

CALLIE

You only—

BETH

Yes I did. Problem? Troll face.

CALLIE

No problem. But now you must be able to defend it, Beth.

BETH

Try me!

CALLIE

Alright. And in the style of a Papagenetic man Returning to a city long abandonéd Where he his fav'rite birds cataloguéd

favorite animal?

The Swan

THE SWAN, O sing its muteness Muse. No wren
Was ever so exploited by the pen
In symbolism crude by muse and men.
Yet hobbling forth the berm unknown to myth
And mystery in lameness odd, your pyth,
The kernel, is reflected in the lake
In feet beneath the skirt in Chechen dance
The glide across the surface of the glass,
How shady eyes on your tall head survey
And leaning forward on the wet runway,
And puckring up your sheathéd pinyons
Unleash once hobbly feet in skip and run
With foregales of Apollo driving on
The plying of the wets into a V
And roaring like the trydent-wielders sea.
In spite of all the muteness of your beak
With motion and the din of waves do speak.
And wings in carefully swung ecstasy,
In steady motion lifts you to the sky,
To sing a truth with words cannot be sung:
Your final song, though noteless, awful rung
In hearts of man who fear the pangs of death
See'ng in your wail the pain of final breath,
Not knowing you, by note of Socratess
In passing over, cry in happiness.
Because each bird lives happily, for joy
Even in pain to play and peck and toy.

what web browser do you use?

CALLIE

All beasts are happy, For, when they die Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements Did you rhyme happiness with Socrates?

BETH

In any other poem I'd have rhymed it with "Callie's wondrous titties"

CALLIE

Hah.

BETH

If that were in the box, it would be life changing.

CALLIE

And then you'd have to write One-hundred varíations on't.

BETH

It'd be my magnum opus... Though That makes me wonder... Everyone's so desperate to find this "theme" But isn't the theme the least important part? The theme's disposable, it's how you vary on't That'd elevate it. Or so I thought.

CALLIE

To vary is to search. Just cause you hear the theme does not equate To knowing it. To vary is to find The theme behind the theme, the meat in it. Most themes and varíations do return Reprising home the theme in new colors, And so you search for what's beneath your feet. That is the Art of Varíance.

BETH

And since we're searching for the theme right now... Couldn't you say we're varying at this very moment?

CALLIE

You're starting to get it.
are you allergic to kitty cats???????????
BLACK CAT

......

GIRL

omg! its a kittyu cat!!!! Hear kitty kitty... here kitty ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps ps
```
The cat ignores her.
```
GIRL

meowwww
```
Anand wipes a tear from his eye.
```
AMY

What's the matter?

ANAND

Just... thinkgen of meow...

CLOWN

Answer her sincerely.

ANAND

Fine, burr. I just... This cat... Like it's.. In this oppressive orange waste, alone... And it's just... sitting there, alert, and calm. Skeptical glare against the glare, prowling Against the dust and foggy thick like wa'er. So independent, present, and removed E'en in the ringing of the bells of death. If we were all like that... Not meddling in each others' soup and bread, No violation of consent, no, no Not e'en philanthropy or charity, No love, no yearning, making others dance In our imaginations, focusing Only on the daily forage, what peace! What lack of intimate high viólence!

CLOWN

He sings, hoping t'impress a tall white girl.
do you like energy drinks?
LUCY

Ow! Ow! Ow! You got any extra shoes in that pack?

MARK

No, sorry. Quite irresponsible of me to not pack extra boots. You want to take a break?

LUCY

Are you sure? Aren't we, like, racing them?

MARK

You'll need fuel and energy to race, And fight, if it comes to that.
```
Mark drops his pack, opens the top
And starts ruffling through.
```
LUCY

I can't fight her. She's... tall... wide-shoulderéd... and fast She choked that guy out like twas nothing.

MARK

You have to stand up to her.
```
Mark throws her an ear of corn,
And one for himself as well.
```
LUCY

She'll beat me.

MARK

Then get beaten.

LUCY

I...

MARK

Sorry, that was a bad thing to say...

LUCY

No, no... ..... I didn't think of that before... This is a life or death position after all I might as well run headfirst to it Than be led by the tail.
```
They both take a bite.
```
LUCY

You're reinventing me, Marky. I haven't had corn on the cob in ages. Now this adds kernels tween my teeth to peanut butter breath. I feel... revived.
would ever spend money on tf2 unusuals/csgo skins/gacha pulls/etc
```
NOW HERE A BOX encased in ridges pink
Wrapped well and fair in plain plaid paper fades
In strangely academic shades, publish
In its abbey confines reservéd well
N'advance—like to an iv'ry stand upon
An orb spins round the world, so orbs around
The world water for th'universal meat—
The Aría heard round the globe, performed
In varied colors here and there, or so
Twas thought, but here it died and here it stands
On its premiere, recounted once or twice
Crying out to the world, unheard, unknown.
```
CALLIE

Well, here it is.

BETH

Woah! You are a genius, Callie! We really were the first ones to find it, And with quite a bit of buffer, too! There's no one even round us! Not that I doubted you, hehe.

CALLIE

I hardly did anything. Except knowing who to appoint.

BETH

What?

CALLIE

You're the one who led us here. I've been following you.

BETH

Uhh, nope.

CALLIE

Why'd you think I brought you along?

BETH

B-because you really like me?

CALLIE

Exactly. I really like you. We should get out of here though, Before the mob arrives.
```
Beth picks up the box.
```
CALLIE

Let's go.
```
Exit Callie.
```
BETH

Wait! Why is it so heavy!
```
Enter Lucy
```
LUCY

Hey kid! We'll take that.

BETH

Uh, no.

LUCY

Don't hug it like a teddy bear And make me feel bad for snatching it from you.
```
Enter Mark
```
BETH

Mark!

LUCY

You know each other?

MARK

N-yes.

LUCY

Nyes?

BETH

Nice. Mister Markus, can you tell this lady This box is for Callie?

MARK

Of course. This box is for Callie.

LUCY

What?

MARK

Get away.

LUCY

Wha?

MARK

Get away.

LUCY

I need that box, Mark! My life depends on it.

MARK

GET AWAY FROM THE BOX OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, BITCH.
```
Mark approaches her.
```
LUCY

Hey! Hey! Back off!
```
Lucy runs away.
```
BETH

Thank you, Mark! That was so heroic! Except the voice crack in the middle there.

MARK

.............
when do you usually go to bed?
COP 1

Fuck man. I hate this job. All we do is wait around And follow people. We just stalk people like fucking creeps. I want some fucking action!

COP 2

Well we gotta follow these creeps To find this box.

COP 1

What's with this box shit man? Why's everyone looking for it?

COP 2

Just some pedo grooming ring.

COP 1

I know, but, like. What's in the box? Like child porn or some shit?

COP 2

Probably.

COP 1

Damn! That's fucked!

COP 2

Yeah man. That's why we gotta find it before they do. Can't let anyone else watch that shit.

COP 1

Anyone else?

COP 2

Yeah man. We gotta watch it ourselves. To check that it's illegal, after all. Part of the job.

COP 1

Oh, yeah.

COP 2

Gotta make sure also we watch it unbiased. So if its CP, we should take turns watching it. Like I'll go in a room and watch it, and analyze it, Then you can go in and take your time analyzing it. And then we can discuss our findings.

COP 1

That makes sense.

COP 2

Could be worse than child porn though.

COP 1

What? Worse than child porn? There's nothing worse than that! Child porn's the worst thing in the universe! Even Milton's Lucifer would turn his head away in disgust at that.

COP 2

Some of these sex trafficking rings, They transport live infants in boxes.

COP 1

What... the... fuck...

COP 2

Yeah man... Imagine that. Imagine having a live infant all to yourself, in a box... Well if it comes to that, We gotta take turns inspecting that too For unbiasedness.

COP 1

That's fucked man! We have to stop these freaks!

COP 2

I know right. We have to find this box before them.

COP 1

Then we should stop tailing them and get ahead of them.

COP 2

Well, only they know where the box is.

COP 1

Fuck! Fucking pedo freaks! I'm not sleeping until we catch these fuckers. I want some action.

COP 2

Don't worry, when they find it, We'll kill them and snatch it from them. The courts will let us off on self defense. We'll get some action, don't worry. Not to mention the lights, cam'ra, action Within the box.

COP 1

Uhh.. You alright bro?

COP 2

Keep your voice down, man I think they heard us.

COP 1

Shit, okay, okay. I trust you, man.
```
Cops exit
```
```
Thugs enter
```
THUG 1

I get these cops will lead us to the box. But if they get the box before we do, How d'we get it from them?

THUG 2

By force.

THUG 1

You think we can oerpowre a loaded gun?

THUG 2

We have cameras, man. We'll hold em up and screech, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING. WHAT THE FUCK. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OH MY GOD, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU"

THUG 1

I think that would just escalate it.

THUG 2

Look at those two bozoés, sir. Look how fat they are. Look: By the time they've drawn their guns We will be knifing at their guts.
```
Exit Thugs
```
```
Enter Cashier
```
CASHIER

I see this traff'cking ring Goes deeper than I thought. I'll get them all on camera, you'll see: Drama will help me uncover conspiracy.
```
Exit Cashier
```
how often do you wash your hair?
GIRL

we're here!!!!!!

AMY

There's nothing.

GIRL

....... pls dont rip out my nails. i just got them done ;_;

ANAND

Soooo, what now?

AMY

Errone know the clover method?

ANAND

Shiiih. Mark talked about that shit.

AMY

Ah, good! Alri—

ANAND

I don't know it.

AMY

.....

ANAND

I never listened to him.

CLOWN

The mark of a true friend. The true friend of a Mark.

AMY

The Clover method, Clown and Co, is split Four corners twixt us, sweeping each in turn In shape to the trace the turn of th'ornéd moon Clam Hanson, take Boreas' chill to you, Split Ind and Afric twick you Clown and man, And I will ride the fruity gales of Zephyr.

CLOWN

E—

AMY

'Fya try to take the box yourself, You'll find you can't ope it without me. And I will find you, sir. I will! So don't you dare. Let's go.
```
They split up.
```
would you download a car?
```
Enter Lucy, out of breath
```
LUCY

*Pant, pant, pant* Wheeeeeze So everyone is crazy, good to know. The cop, the Mark, the whole Margrave. The chase, The flight, the cat and mouse. No hiding here From Mom Society, who brings you up In helicopter arms, then shrieks for alms And begs you to get down, down, down, until You're eating dirt.

COP 1

Hey hey, ain't that a girl we're looking for?

COP 2

Oh shit that's right. That's the notorious "Pajama Sex Trafficker" That cashiér was telling us about. Let's do this. Ma'am. You're under arrest. Put your hands above your head.

LUCY

*Pant, pant* Hey hey. You gotta be kidding me. I'm a victim. Please help me!

COP 1

PUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS above your head you FUCKING BITCH!

LUCY

*Pant, pant* 'Fie could download a car right now I would And take it all the way to Sleepywood.
```
Exit Lucy, running away.
```
COP 2

Fuck man, you escalated too quickly.

COP 1

I'm not holding my temper for these child-groomers.
```
Cop 1 pulls out a pistol and begins shooting.
```
COP 2

You're missing, you're missing!

COP 1

Fuck! Fuck!
```
Cop 1 begins running after her, very slowly.
```
COP 2

Hey, stop man. You know I'll get a heart attack If I run for more than 4 minutes.
what was your favorite show as a kid?
```
Enter Lucy, wheezing
Like an old man on his deathbed.
```
LUCY

*Pant pant pant* Did I lose him? The gunshots stopped. My life is over now. *Pant, pant* I've never run so much since middle school. If I have to run anymore, I'll die.
```
Enter Amy
```
LUCY

Damn.
```
Lucy prepares to run again,
Then realizes that she can't outrun
Her worst nightmare.
She falls to her knees.
```
AMY

Well well well!

LUCY

Hey... *Pant* Amy... I'm... looking for a box...?

AMY

Deployéd pants to meet the meter, eh?

LUCY

And to escape the blueshirts.

AMY

You shoulda stayed with me You would be safe and sound.

LUCY

Until you kill me.

AMY

So what?

LUCY

You can't be serious.

AMY

I'm always 100% serious, Lucy.

LUCY

Stop... *pant* Amy... Just...

AMY

No really! Why don't you want to die with me? At least I'll make it fun!

LUCY

So you're not being serious.

AMY

Hah! You'd rather die a bullet wound I see From some disgruntled cop, and then Have your poor face plastered around the world In murals, headshots, all imprinting you A victim, yes of political discourse Becoming a symbol beyond yourself, Yourself being ignored, voiceless. Or else Wait till eighty, your bowels giving out Your loose wrinkled buttocks ejecting fluids That stain your old man diapers till one day You give out one last poop of death, expire In typical undignity, no no! Drive to your job at Amazon, and boom, The element of traffic instantly Robs you of glory, fame, and love. Why not me? Why? Who else sees you? Who else Knows you, can dare personalize these hours To end? Of course I'll torture you because I care. You'll be in pain but it'll be art Because I look at you and you are art. Each pang of pain will vary on the theme That's you, Lucy. I'll give you everything By taking everything away.
```
Enter Cop 1
```
COP 1

Shit!
```
Amy suddenly rushes him with an edgéd weapon
As he fumbles trying to aim his gun.
```
COP 1

Haaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggh!
```
A struggle, and blood squirts out
Of the cop's neck. 
```
COP 1

Accccckkkk!
```
Cop 1 dies
```
LUCY

I....

AMY

Now it's your turn, Lucy.
```
Amy approaches her.
Her eyes reddened with rage.
```
LUCY

Wait! I know where the box is.
```
Amy stops.
```
AMY

Really?
whats the silliest hat you own?
COP 2

*Pant, pant* Well, that's 5 minutes of jogging. I'm done. I'm sure he'll be alright his own His fiery passion'll drive him on.
```
Enter Cashier
```
CASHIER

Sir! did you catch the box hunters?

COP 2

Hands up where I can see them!
```
Cop 2 draws
```
CASHIER

No wait! I'm on your side. I called it in. I'm trying to catch those sex traffickers.

COP 2

You're a match for those sex traffickers!?

CASHIER

Sir, don't do that! Paronomasia's way out of fashion by now! Twas never even funny in the first place!

COP 2

Twas... Never even... cunny?? You fucking pedo tranny freak! Stay back!

CASHIER

Sir, no I'm on your side! I'm not even tra—
```
The cashier takes a step forward,
The cop unloads an entire mag in him
```
```
Cashier falls dead
```
COP 2

Phew, thank God. Can't let anyone else get that damn box.
```
Enter Thugs with knives
```
COP 2

Hands up you pedo tranny freaks!
```
The thugs close in
The cop pulls the trigger.
```
```
Click.
```
COP 2

Oh fuuuu....
```
The thugs run in and knife the cop.
```
COP 2

AaaAARRRRRrrrRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH NOOOOOO!
```
Cop 2 dies
```
THUG 1

Now what?

THUG 2

Well twas supposed to be round here, we overheard. From here, we'll have to do the clover tech. And keep eliminating all our rivals 'long the way.

THUG 1

You know that if I find it on my own, I'll take it for myself, right?

THUG 2

....
```
Enter Amy, carrying Lucy piggyback.
```
AMY

En garde!

THUG 1

Shit! Come on man! Let's take her!

THUG 2

I'm right behind you bro!
```
Thug 2 stabs Thug 1.
```
THUG 1

Et tu... THUG 2?

THUG 2

Shut the fuck up and die, idiot.
```
Thug 1 dies
```
```
Lucy dismounts, and Amy rushes th'other thug
Whose knife's still stuck in th'other one.
```
THUG 1

Arrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!
```
Thug 1 dies
```
LUCY

...Your kill count's getting pretty high...

AMY

I used to go Heavy, remember? Just like Miss Clam Hanson.

LUCY

Like... Oh her. Is she... okay?

AMY

Who cares! Now which way was that gang, and Mister Mark?

LUCY

Uhh, keep going this way.

AMY

Let's go.
```
Lucy gets back on Amy's back,
Who starts run-rucking once again
```
what album/song do you're feeling angsty
GIRL

IM A SUPA GIRL RUNNING THROUGH THE WROLD WITH MY SUPA NATURAL POWAAA
```
Enter Socrates
```
GIRL

o god not you again!

SOCRATES

I see you're walking backwards ma'am.

GIRL

Yes, I am! so what? you have a problem with it????? fight me!

SOCRATES

To trace this curve more eff—

GIRL

if one were tracing out a clover on the plane oriented on the cardinal directions would not one start eyes facing theta zero?

SOCRATES

Yes.

GIRL

den following da polar formula of r=cos(2θ) would one not there proceed half a petal THEN start moonwalking at pi oer 4 into negative y?

SOCRATES

I agree.

GIRL

and if one were assigned the northern petal to draw that quarter would not one proceed facing the bottom quadrants, tracing out It from 5π/4 to 7π/4, thus shimmyin backwards?

SOCRATES

Utterly correct, Clam Hanson.

GIRL

and if I were easily disoriented by all da storm nd stresses of da world if modern slop barrages erryone with dumb distractions and life itself weighs one with sad sacks of tasks if i just take the time to trace this path in my own way, that i can comprehend without erryone screaming in my ear to do it this or thataway, to eat amore or less to click on me, believe in this, or dress this way if i do things my own way, in the end i think i'll reach my goal faster so i'll keep walking backwards, thank u very much.

SOCRATES

I yield, Clam Hanson. You are quite wise in your own way. Perhaps not all the Beautiful is Good, Perhaps not all God wills is just, And haps not every path's intuitive.
```
Clam exits, backwards
```
do you make OCs?
CLOWN

And I am at the apex of my clover now. Spending a bit much time my own. A clown must ne'er get lost in his own thoughts Nor introspect too much, or feel lest he Become a Rigoletto or Pagliacci, So I will shut my own humanity To open others' via mockery.
```
Enter Page
```
CLOWN

What's this? A child sauntering around?

PAGE

What's this? A clown perambulating sad?

CLOWN

Does such emotion speak through such thick paint?

PAGE

I'm just a guy who reads the wrinkles twixt the lines.

CLOWN

What are you doing here, you rascallette?

PAGE

I was in the employ of quite a crazy lady, see Who smoked and whippéd me sadistic'ly Only to be accosted by an e'en crazier cashier Employing crazy graziers t'interrogate Me for their evidence for their designs, So I escapéd here into the fog To realize the wrinkled world is mad, And clowns and children grow up ugly. Sad!

CLOWN

(I sense a latent wit inside this kid Rekindling my own fire with his lil' stick).

PAGE

(My stick won't be so lil' come puberty).
```
Enter black cat
```
BLACK CAT

......
```
The black cat approaches the Page
```
CLOWN

In bringing this boy up to clown like me, I'll find my foolishness inspired anew. Thus I teach him to teach myself, old dog. Come sir, give me young wit and I'll give you The form and outlet t'elevate your—

PAGE

—stick.
```
Exit Clown, Page, and the black cat following the latter.
```
whats the goofiest thing you do when completely alone?
CALLIE

I didn't think you'd help me, Mark. I thought that me and Beth were in't alone.

MARK

.......

CALLIE

Now we can take this to the site where it belongs.

BETH

That reminds me... How did it end up here anyway? Alone here in the middle of nowhere. It got abandoned just to get abandonéd again.

CALLIE

Great artists steal, or something. It's why old Virgil tried to burn his Aeneid. They take, inherit from something they think Is great, and yet inferior to them And try to reappropriate or, say, Transcend it. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes the theme's a bit more powerful Than it may seem at first. Or they themselves Are not as powerful as they had thought.

BETH

Turns out its origin Was where't was meant to be?

CALLIE

Some themes are quite like questionnaires That are best left unanswered, for The questions in themselves are art, The questions, one by one, answer themselves. And Beth, it's now your ti—

MARK

I've made a mistake.

CALLIE

Huh?

MARK

I am the Question Mark.

BETH

What?
```
Enter Amy, carrying Lucy.
```
AMY

*Pant, pant, pant* En.. garde...
```
Lucy dismounts.
```
LUCY

Err, sorry...

AMY

It's kay...

MARK

Lucy! I'm on your side now. That's Amy, right? Don't worry, I'll get rid of her.

AMY

Is this the nutjob that turned on you?

LUCY

....Yes.

AMY

I'll break his teeth in.

MARK

Lucy! I'll get her off your tail!

AMY

You don't know ANYTHING about her!
```
They charge at one another.
```
MARK

Drop your knife! Fight with honor!

AMY

Fine!
```
She drops the knife.
And now they strike each other.
Mark pounces on her here
And now they wrestle on the floor.
```
MARK

Submit or die, freak!

AMY

Shuuuuuut up!

LUCY

... Mom and dad are fighting.
```
Mark gains the upper hand,
And starts to choke her out.
```
AMY

Agh!

BETH

Get her, Mister Marcus! Go go go!
```
Mark tightens now his hold over her throat.
Her eyes begin to go red.
And she begins to lose all energy and consciousness.
```
AMY

I'm sorry Luke... I couldn't protect you in the end Like you protected me.
```
An unwanted pity for both of them 
Invades Lucy's common sense 
And so she springs forward to break the fight.
```
```
Enter Anand
```
ANAND

ARRRRGGGHHHH
```
But just before she can,
Anand enters and charges at Mark.
The latter, unprepared
Now finds himself defenseless on the floor
Receiving a barrage of punches.
```
ANAND

I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU, BURR. I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU HURTING PEOPLE. YOU'D HURT A FUCKING WOMAN, BURR? WHAT THE FUCK'S WRONG WITH YOU?
```
Mark's cornéd teeth break in his mouth,
He swallows his own bone and blood,
His eyeballs seem to pop out of his skull.
```
ANAND

I THOUGHT YOU WERE A FUCKING FRIEND BUT YOU'RE JUST AN ABUSER, BURR. TRYING TO CHOKE A FUCKING GIRL? ANOTHER FUCKING MAN WHO HATES WOMEN. I ALWAYS KNEW YOU WERE AN ABUSER, BURR. A SOCIOPATHIC NARC. ENOUGH'S ENOUGH.

BETH

What's a "burr"?

CALLIE

The poor man's trying to say "bruh" But th'slur itself has slurred into a "burr" Recalling those teeth-chattring chords of cold Winter As all the world turns white and words become a blur.

ANAND

I WON'T LET YOU HURT ANYONE. I CAN'T STAND BY AND WATCH. I WISH IT DIDN'T HAVE TO COME TO THIS. I TRIED TO HELP YOU, BURR. I TRIED, I TRIED. BUT NOW YOU'VE SHOWED YOUR TRUE COLORS. AND I CAN'T LET YOU GO AROUND HARMING OTHER PEOPLE. HOW WOULD I FORGIVE MYSELF? NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. NO MORE, NO MORE, NO MORE. ARRRGGGGHHH.
```
Mark dies
```
ANAND

........ Good riddance, burr.
```
Anand rises from Mark's corpse,
He breathes, exhausted out of rage.
```
```
He looks down at his work, and looks away.
Wiping his hands, he turns to the tall girl,
Still sitting on the floor, disheveléd.
```
```
He walks up to her and offers his hand.
```
ANAND

Are you okay?

AMY

Y... yea... ...Thank you.
```
Amy takes his hand and pulls him to the ground
And grabs the knife and stabs him as he falls.
```
ANAND

Ack!! ...Wha... but... why....

AMY

That's not how you treat friends! You cheapshot him, I cheapshot you!
```
Anand dies
```
AMY

Now, now, now. Your protector is dead.

CALLIE

He's not our protector. I am. Beth, take the box and run.

BETH

Callie! I can't leave you alone!

CALLIE

Is that it? Or is that you can't be alone? Do you not want to be without me?

BETH

Stop!

CALLIE

I'll always be with you. Think about it.

AMY

Hurry up, Beth. Go, go, get a headstart! You're gonna need one with me! Miss Callie and myself have got a date.

CALLIE

Call me Calliope, please.

AMY

Oooohhh! Ya know Beth, You seem like such a good girl. But dontcha think this lady here's a bit evil For bringing you to a battlefield?

BETH

I couldn't really care less.

AMY

What would your mom think? Think of how worried she must be!

BETH

I don't have one.

AMY

You have a dad?

BETH

Yes.

AMY

Do you love him?

BETH

Yes.

AMY

Do it for his sake, Beth. Do it for him!

LUCY

A daughter's duty is to make his father happy, Beth.

AMY

There is a warmth unique that only can be receivéd From one's own daughter!

LUCY

Yes, there is a special bond between A man and girl. The masculine forming the feminine To his Pygmalion—the idol idolizing him In servile rites, and love that's steeped in utter awe beyond Even respectful discourse which a wife bequeaths her man. It must be a whole body love, your soul attached to him, His very being holding a gravity unconquerable Returning him a strange feeling unreplicatable.

AMY

But when you turn fourteen, suddenly all of that must end. That is the point of no return, yes where your love must go. The kisses stop, the hugs are cordíal, and you begin To see his flaws, and rate him lower on your hierarchy.

LUCY

Ah yes, you see, dear Beth, your self-actualization Requires you throw off his yoke, and free yourself from him, When he must realize, aching, that what is best for you Precisely is what's worst for him. His boundless love for you Can only be fulfilled by your abandonment of yours Which you must give to someone else. Yes all the countless hours He poured in you must be wrapped up and tied with a cute bow For someone else. The consummation of his love must go To someone else, who'll consummate it on his dear behalf. Embracing all the fruits of his labor, your quirky laugh.

AMY

It is a daughter's duty, Beth, to break her daddy's heart.

BETH

....
```
Beth exits with the box.
```
AMY

Okie dokie, "Musey." I'll show you ya how we do things here in Sunset Boulevard.
```
Amy charges at Callie,
But on contact, the latter turns to dust.
```
AMY

What the!??? She actually!

LUCY

Was... Was that real!?
```
The dust dissolves into the thick sunset
And marginally darkens the horizon.
```
do you like fireworks?
LUCY

So are we going to chase a little girl down now?

AMY

You know what's in that box, Lucy?

LUCY

What?

AMY

Nothing.

LUCY

.......

AMY

It's like a snuffbox gifted to a child Who toured from court to court to improvise, With rich Classic designs in ormolu Adornéd with jewels to raise the price. The snuff ain't quite the point, it's more like, see A form of payment, to be bought and sold.

LUCY

This is fucking stupid.

AMY

It's really valuable, I promz! It's worth like, uhhh, 5K.

LUCY

You're telling me there is no theme inside?

AMY

There is a theme, but anyway I don't care much about what's on the inside, But th'elegant exterior is what I like! Doesn't it look so cool!?

LUCY

I don't understand Amy. It's empty but there's a theme? But you don't care about it?

AMY

Well op'ning such a pretty box is its own end, Isn't it? The effort it takes also elevates it more.

LUCY

The journey's more important than the destination?

AMY

To find it, yes, but ope it too. Opening it requires a human sacrifice. You gotta sacrifice a someone precious to yourself. As when old Abraham was orderéd his piety Through sacrifice of his own son. So fair The Muse who rules the Art of Varying Requires rites for her great aesthetics.
```
Lucy feels like vomiting in her mouth.
She thinks of all the people she'd encountered these past hours.
```
LUCY

I don't like this Amy.

AMY

You're telling me you're not having fun??

LUCY

...Can someone sacrifice themselves?

AMY

Ooh, smart girl! Yes, anyone can!

LUCY

Unless they're suicidal, or hate themselves.

AMY

No, no, Lucy. Everyone is precious to themselves. Suicidal folks only prove the rule. For someone who truly didn't want to live Would find a way within minutes t'expire, And yet the suicidals still procrastinate And put it off, and off, and off, until A force massive enough to overwhelm their preciousness Beckons them to the doors of death.

LUCY

But there would be no point, To die before you ope the box.

AMY

Some people donnot wanna live their lives But live on in the books of history. But me? I wanna live'n the here and now! Admit it. You're having fun.

LUCY

We've killed multiple people! This isn't a game!

AMY

Everything is a game!

LUCY

What!? No it's not! These people aren't avatars. They had feelings, emotions.

AMY

And so did I! Yeeeeet you discarded me just like an avatar.

LUCY

Does everything have to come back to that?

AMY

Everything does. We spent hours and days and months and years Travelling place to place. You led, I followéd. We talked about how you One day would conquer all the world And I would be there at your side Supporting all your exploits.

LUCY

It was just a game...

AMY

What happened? Why give up on those dreams!? Why does everyone give up!? You're the last person I thought would possibly become Dispassionate.... Why? Why you, Luke?

LUCY

Please stop calling me that.

AMY

You're the one who came up with it.

LUCY

And now I'm done with it. Just leave it alone.

AMY

You can't unchristen yourself. That's not how rigid designators work!

LUCY

What?

AMY

E'en when Abraham got his "ha," It was an act of God, and still Abram appears still in the Holy Word.

LUCY

Stop.

AMY

You're Lucy, Luce. But you'll also always be A Luke to me. You are a Luke. Whether you like it or not.

LUCY

Please stop. Can you please just... find someone else? Go find a real man. Why would you come to me?

AMY

Cause you're the source of all my dreams. You are the issue of my love. The color to my experience. No girl ever forgets their firsts, Lucy.

LUCY

I want to go home, Amy. Let me go home.

AMY

NO. YOU'RE NOT LEAVING ME AGAIN.
favorite painter?
AMY

YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME. PLEASE STAY. PLEASE STAY.

LUCY

I've put an episode in her, ma'am.

AMY

I'VE WAITED FOURTEEN YEARS FOR THIS.

LUCY

I hate it when you do this.

AMY

PLEASE DON'T LEAVE AGAIN. PLEASE... PLEASE...

LUCY

I don't like spending time with you.

AMY

.....What?

LUCY

Listen: If I could not e'en handle you, And all your instability, All of your trauma, and mood swings, All your emotional outbursts, Each cry for help and each crazy demand, What business did I have to rule the world?

LUCY

I gave up on my life Because of you. And all my dreams, and ambitions, Relinquished my responsibilities To change the world and be the rock For anyone who's teetring on the edge Of stormy cliffs, because I realized that I was on a cliff myself, And couldn't even hold myself intact.

LUCY

You taught that I'm not capable You taught me that I'm weak. You taught me that I'm powerless.

LUCY

Each time I stayed up late Succumbing to your cries, I knew I wasn't strong enough, And then out of that very lack of sleep To watch the rest of my life derail My grades to drop, extracurriculars To fall apart, my friends estranged, My hobbies overwrit, my personality to fade, I knew then that I wasn't strong. I tried. I tried to "fake" it, but it didn't work. To "fake it" only works for those Who have a genuine strength within, That needs to be reeled out. There's nothing like that in me. I'm empty.

AMY

.............

LUCY

Amy.

AMY

.............

LUCY

Amy.

AMY

All of these years I pined and yearned I studied, learned, worked out, and ran, Crossed seas, clamb Alpian mounts Conquered my fears, brought to submit My bullies and abusive guardíans Slaid monsters you would never know, Carefully balmed and styled my lips And grew my hair out to my hips... These fourteen years was all for nothing.

LUCY

No, it wasn't. It's good that you... improved yourse—

AMY

No it's not. It's all ruined. You ruined my life. You ruined it before, and ruined it again.

AMY

Why couldn't you just... Why can't you just like me? What's wrong with me? Why are you doing this?

LUCY

I'm not doing anything. I never chose to mean all this to you.

AMY

IT WASN'T MY CHOICE TOO TO BE OBSESSED WITH YOU.
```
Lucy feels sick within.
```
AMY

WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LIKE ME?
```
Amy begins to cry.
```
LUCY

Well, this is how I learned to shut my mouth And suck it up whenever anyone Encroaches on me. This is how I learned To never stand up for myself, because A taller person will stand up And cry me down like this.

AMY

I'M THE WORST. I SHOULD BE DEAD. I WISH I WAS NEVER BORN. I WISH I WAS NEVER BORN.

LUCY

I hate always having to be the adult. I hate to always have to bear the weight Of everyone's fetid emotions.

AMY

EVERYONE ALWAYS LEAVES ME. I HATE MYSELF. I WISH I WASN'T BORN.
```
She starts to hyperventilate.
```
AMY

I WISH I WASN'T BORN. I WISH I WASN'T BORN. I WISH I WASN'T BORN. I WISH I WASN'T BORN. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
favorite numbers?
```
Now Lucy crouches, shuts her ears
T'escape her wail
And starts to scream herself.
```
LUCY

SHUT UP. STOP IT. I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE. ENOUGH, ENOUGH WITH THE YELLING. ENOUGH WITH THE SPAM. I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE, I CAN'T. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@
```
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  Now both of them scream out in harmony
  At, with, each other in the middle of 
  Nowhere, with no one there to see or hear.

  And suddenly something posseses Lucy.
  The rationality of good restraint,
  The world of manners, greetings and the feint,
  Her years of stacked agreeable constraints,
  All fall away suddenly in a rage.

  She charges at Amy, head first and crying war.
  And tackles her onto the ground,
  In disbelief of her own hands or arms,
  Committing in the act by inertia.
  She try to pins her down and shut her up,
  But almost instantly gets rolled over
  And finds herself trapped in her limbs,
  Now looming over her beneath the sky
  Amy stares down with stunnéd eyes
  While Luce still tries to wrangle from her grasp.
  Panicked, she groans and cries and tries to fight,
  But every opening she tries is sealed.
  Amy looks dead, offended. Glowing whites
  In disbelief, still processing the fight
  That they've commenced. Lucy braces in fear
  For th'imminent shower of viólence
  When Amy awakens and sees her soul,
  Her true feelings, her deep hatred for her,
  Transforming her supposéd love for her
  To hate beyond all comprehensíon,
  And savage víolence of a giant.

  Amy's lids contract.
```

what genre of vidya gaems are you really good at? (fps, fightan, danmaku, racing, whatever)

AMY: I'm glad you finally opened up to me.
LUCY: Err... Sorry.
AMY: Well, well, now that was quite a manly way To deal with a sapphic conflict, eh.
LUCY: I, uh...
AMY: You know what Mahler's last words were, Lucy? Past decades of development and grand Symphonic meditation in demand On maximalist howers, answers full With densest phrase and longest crescendo, Deep serious descent and ecstasy, While th'inward looking audience attends In solopsistic complex reflection, Of their own lot in solitary thought And war and death and plague upon the world, No flirty soirees, immature displays Of toilet humor shared with the whole fam, Misogyny in feminist affairs, Or counterpoint which playful or restraind In elegance skips thru the lissner's head, Liberían abandon neath the masks Of Carnival, the feline Harlequin Meowmeowing while he pounces on the desks Or teaching starlings melodies yet played Disrupting private language, inner life, And throwing open all the doors of fun To each and everybird and everyone, No more of that for Mahler's audience, For sitting still in deep perplexion made Each inner hurt in motions to convey, In melancholy finding something deep And sorrow for man's curse of consciousness, Th'advancement of the taste of all mankind To something more transcendent and compass About the misery of life and man ...And yet old Mahler in his deathbed sick, In breathing his last maximalist breaths To his unfaithful wife at his left hand In culminating everything he lost And send a message to resound in waves With epic fanfare ready to announce And uproot all convention with a phrase, Which would express the purpose of all art, He said, wheezing, two words: "Mozart! Mozart!"

time and date you finished this?
EARRING MAN

Breasts.

LUCY

.....

EARRING MAN

Breasts..... Mmmm...
```
The earring man is sitting by his sword
And chewing off the nipples from her lopped off breasts.
He looks and sounds entirely different,
Dressed in a soldier's uniform, and hair that hangs
Like curtains oer his glowing eyes,
And earringless. And next to him's the box.
```
EARRING MAN

My God, the nipple topped off with her blood and flesh Is so delicious. Mmmm...

LUCY

What have you done?

EARRING MAN

She wanted to kill you. I saved you.

LUCY

No, she didn't. She wanted me to just stand up to her. She wanted to revive my fiery personality. If I had charged at her soon as she opened my door, we'd—

EARRING MAN

She's a murderer. She deserved to die. But my, I've swooped up every chest and boob That's fallen here. Some juicy blueshirt moobs Some brown, some white, even some little girl's, But none today has tasted quite like this. It's e'en better than corn.
```
He spits out some skin.
```
LUCY

You... killed that little girl? Beth?

EARRING MAN

Hey hey, That sandy woman would've gotten to her first, And her treatment of her'd've probably been worse. And this broad's treatment of you would have been quite graphic, Lu—

LUCY

Don't call me that.

EARRING MAN

Wow! You read my meter, eh? You're getting quite good at this Luuuuuune.
```
The Duke, Il Duce, The Goose, a Swan, and Luce.
These varíations were derived from Amy, now they're dead.
```
LUCY

Why would you do this? Why? Just for a box? And who're you going to sacrifice to open it? There's no one precious to someone like you, Except yourself.

EARRING MAN

Everyone's precious to me. Including you, Lucy.

LUCY

Have fun opening it And finding in there nothing but plain air.

EARRING MAN

It's air, but it ain't plain my dear. It's nothing, yet something. You know how shapes depend on their interiors?

LUCY

Fuck your variations.

EARRING MAN

Rawrrr. Will you kill me in pajamas, Lucy!? With your bare hands against my sword and armor?

LUCY

Yes, I'm going to kill you. With my bare hands, and pajamas.

EARRING MAN

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
```
In panicked euphoria,
The man chews on the breast involuntarily.
```
LUCY

Now tell me who you are, Before I rip you into shreds, or you me. Who are you? Why do you look so different?

EARRING MAN

Why can you tell that I'm the same? By your own recognition, friend, I haven't changed at all, really. Come on, Lucy. You've played a "Luke" before. Pardon my usage of the term. You've gone by many other names, And many avatars, Yet they still do refer to you. We're all the same, because we always change.

LUCY

This is just sophistry. You're dodging my question.

EARRING MAN

Indeed, you're Lucy, and you'll always be. Ha ha.

LUCY

Stop laughing.

EARRING MAN

What can I say? I laugh when I get nervous.

EARRING MAN

Because I'll tell you child, I'm terrified. I'm shaking in my dumb dress shoes. Ha ha ha ha. This world is going mad. Alright, I regret it. I regret killing her, it was wrong. I'm sorry, I just made a big mistake. Can we like... not fight to the death...? please.
```
Lucy realizes her life is over.
```
EARRING MAN

Ha ha ha. But I didn't mean to cause such harm. Sorry about that.
```
His words begin to sound like noise.
And Lucy doesn't care to listen to him anymore.
```
EARRING MAN

I don't know who I am. I'm just a question mark. I'm here, then there, then everywhere.

EARRING MAN

But you're right, Lucy. You always are. One's changes very well could overwrite All everyone may know about you, but It does not underwrite the one you are. Ha ha ha...

EARRING MAN

Are you listening, Lucy? I know, I've tried to change, and changed I have... I have... So many times, so drastically, and still, The more one changes, more remains the same Within the kernel in himself. My ears Are earringless, my hair de-dyed to black, My muscle tee is now a blazing suit, And even swapping personalities, A strange, hard constancy remains at root. I could do this and that to you and warm Your bobcut hair to lengthen long in rows, Your manner of attack, or speech, or form, Or hand or foot or lip or eye or brow, To each present each various sorts of flares, Or change your personality at core, Or re-rechristen you again, but still Your Kripkean rigid designator points To just one theme: The divot, or the air Within your soul eternally. That's why You'll never love me, yes, no matter how, How many times I may rewind the clock, Or rewrite, vary every single thing Between us to draw you to me. And yes, That's also why I'll always hopelessly In endless pain in vain and ugly art Love you, love you, from the
hole in my heart