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The Hogs of Entropy 0804
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ooooo ooooo .oooooo. oooooooooooo HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #804
`888' `888' d8P' `Y8b `888' `8
888 888 888 888 888 "The Idiot Game"
888ooooo888 888 888 888oooo8
888 888 888 888 888 " by Mogel and Nybar
888 888 `88b d88' 888 o 9/1/99
o888o o888o `Y8bood8P' o888ooooood8
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It was 4:00 AM at The Gemini Diner, Manhattan. A night like any
other. There was a booth in the back, with two customers... both with
unassuming demeanors and unassuming looks on their unassumed faces. One of
them men was slim, but muscular, with a tan and a mustache. The other, a
more stocky old man with a small white beard and a lazy left eye. Their
names were James and Dean. They ate 3-day-old shrimp. They did not
complain. Except tonight.
"How have you been?" asked James, fiddling with his mustache.
"Oh, you know. It's always a vacation for me," Dean responded,
almost instinctually.
"Is that so..." James gulped some more shrimp. "If that's true,
how can you possibly explain always having sand on your shoes and a tan?!"
Awkward silence.
"Cat got your tongue, DOES IT?"
"If I'm silent, it's because I'm opposed to the American concept
that one must speak before thinking."
"...but then, you've always been an idiot."
"What?"
"Nothing."
The two fell silent, eating their shrimp. It was Dean who broke
the silence this time.
"There's an old joke," he said, munching his shrimp. "In every
generation someone is born who is identical to someone from the preceding
generation."
"Oh--" replied James, unfazed. "--that isn't a very funny joke."
"It's an old joke, jokes didn't have to be funny in the olden days.
Just quizzical."
At this, the table fell into silence again. Eventually all the
shrimp was consumed, even that shrimp which was 4 days old. Someone
ordered coffee. Someone brought coffee. Once again it was Dean who broke
the silence.
"You know, if there are identicals in each generation, there should
also be opposites. Doesn't the idea have a little bit of charm--old and
senile versus young and lucid, strong versus weak... Perhaps the opposites,
if they meet, must destroy each other."
"Why would they destroy each other?"
"Because they're naturally opposed, of course..."
"But maybe they get juiced by their differences, boy."
"I'm not juiced by the differences between us."
They had been in the diner for almost 6 hours now. Manhattan is not
France. A waiter approached. As he came closer, it became apparent that
this waiter only had one leg. The two men found this peculiar.
"Excuse me, sir. I couldn't help but notice you two arguing. I'd
like to offer my services."
"Services?"
"Yes, you see, I'm not just a waiter. In fact, I'm a very
successful armchair psychologist. I'd like to psychoanalyze you two."
"Uhh... Okay, just give me more shrimp," Dean said. He then coughed.
He coughed a lot.
"Will you expect a better tip?" James asked, rather obnoxiously.
"No, sir. This is my hobby."
"SHRIMP!"
"Right away!" The waiter hobbled off to get more shrimp and the
two men gave each other strange look. A look of uncomfortability.
Suddenly, they realized that the acoustics of the room--it was cleverly
designed in such a way so that every word they uttered could be overheard
standing at any other location in the diner.
"This place was built by a genius!"
"God, you're an idiot."
"It takes one to know one!!"
"I rest my case."
"Why are you so abusive?"
"Could you please be slightly less stupid?"
Before this delightful exchange could continue its path, the waiter
returned with his gratuitous hobble. He carried with him enormous
amounts of 5-day-old shrimp. He prepared to limp back to the kitchen when
Dean jovially entreated him.
"Sit, sit. For somehow two forces of nature have met, and we're in
opposition. A moderator such as yourself would be most welcome. Ah, how
often does conflict on such an esoteric plane occur in these modern times?"
The waiter began to sit when James' voice, especially acerbic in
contrast with Dean's drawl, pierced him.
"Get back to the kitchen, cripple. There's no conflict between the
two of us, and we especially don't need to be psychoanalyzed, moderated, or
anything! I've known this man for going on 15 years, since he was a teen.
We meet in this diner once every year, and nothing bad has ever come of it!"
Meanwhile, the waiter had politely but firmly sat down. The initial
act of sitting was a reaction to the way James spit out 'cripple', but the
reason he kept sitting was the intensely interesting (to his trained mind)
fact he'd just heard.
"So you say you've been meeting here once a year for fifteen
years..." the waiter/psychoanalyst started, drawing neutral-affirmative
responses from both parties who, willing or not, fell into the role of the
psychoanalyzed. "...and nothing has ever come of it. Now, that's your
problem right there."
"Exactly!" shouted Dean.
"James, your hostile, reactionary nature probably relates to your
inability to have a single satisfying sexual relationship. This is just a
guess."
"What the fuck?"
"I think he's right," Dean chirped.
"Dean," the waiter said, putting his hand on Dean's shoulder, "You
obviously have some serious abandonment issues."
Dean's eyes became teary.
"Do you believe this happy horse shit?" James blurted out.
"You're obviously just projecting..." the waiter said.
"Yeah, too true, too true," said Dean, again.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE." Highly offended, the waiter stood up,
wrote out their bill, and hobbled away.
"Um.. why were you so rude? That man was trying to HELP us through
our differences."
"Don't worry," James said, stuffing his face full of shrimp,
"There's a thin line between Thank You and Fuck You."
This was the last straw. Dean threw the shrimp on the floor and
jumped onto the table... and this was the last thing he'd remember, until
the vertigo, and the vomiting, and the hospital, and that sweet nurse
named Marcy whom he fucked in the bathroom. James's perspective on the
events was a tad different, though. James clearly remembers someone
getting tossed into the piranha tank. Chances are it was Dean, since it
was he who ended up in the hospital.
Several mornings later, Dean awoke.
"Wake up...." said Marcy, with the cutest of smiles.
"Why hello there!" he perked up.
"How're you feeling this morning?"
"Much better, thanks."
"How did you end up in this hospital anyway?" she asked in total
ernest.
"Well, it has to do with a friend of mine named James. Me and him
have a sort of love-hate relationship, I guess you could say."
"Ah, strong emotions."
"Yep."
"That usually happens when you find a part of you in that person."
"Heh. I'm sure there is *some* duality in us... but it's hard to
tell."
"How come?"
"Well, basically... he's an idiot."
"NO! YOU'RE THE IDIOT!!!!" James screamed, bursting into the room.
Meanwhile--in a different, but related, story--there was what
humans would describe as a 'bar', existing in a dimension beyond
comprehension or description. Here, two post-material, (for they come
_after_ all that we call matter and energy), entities play a game of chess,
though they of course don't use a board, preferring a direct mental
exchange.
For those interested in chess, the opening was a very advanced
form of the Caro-Kann defence, played completely perfectly, not from memory
but via a method even more shocking. The beings are possessed of such raw
processor power that they can perfectly solve chess from move one each time
they play. A straight game between two experienced players in this dimension
will always end in a draw, which is why measures have to be taken to spice
things up. The standard 'spice' is multi-tasking.
Today--(what a meaningless term "today" is in the context of what
I am speaking about, but it will suffice)--, the two players are both
mentally manipulating entire universes and dueling with the opposed
dichotomies. From quark to supernova, nothing was left untouched in this
all consuming war-game.
The game is, at the moment, drawing to a head, with white playing
very sharply and tactically and black acquiring small positional advantages
as he meets all the threats.
On a dark roadway, a traffic light switches from red to green.
"FUCK YOU!" shouts Dean.
"Okay, I will fuck you. As a matter of fact, you're already
fucked," replies James with an evil smirk on his face. He pulls out a
knife, terrifyingly sharp. "You're fucked good, son." James lunges at
Dean with the knife!
White has just made a brilliant tactical shot, effortlessly and
fluidly switching his forces to the queenside, where he hopes to promote a
passed pawn. Black must strive for equality; he does have the advantage of
2 bishops going for him, though.
Dean barely catches James's wrist with his right hand, in time to
avert his own death, but a small ribbon of blood still runs down his
throat. He punches James with all his might with his left hand, causing
them both to go tumbling from the bed. They both lay here for a split
second, dazed. James is the first to react, he plunges the knife into the
nearest available spot in Dean's body, his stomach. Blood gushes out like
wine.
White is searching for a winning line, black will need a miracle
to pull off a draw, but for some reason the entity laughs...
Before expiring, Dean reaches under the bed. A shiny black gun,
trigger pulled, and then both die as hospital attendants finally rush in...
The game is over, another draw. 'Good Game' equivalents are
exchanged, and drinks are ordered. If you're too evenly matched for a game
to be fun sober, try getting drunk and then playing again, I always say.
Realities are destroyed and re-created as the entities 'drink' deeply.
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Epilogue:
In the middle of an african jungle, an intelligent monkey
approaches a set of turntables. They are scratching up a phrase all by
themselves. The monkey sits transfixed. "Ih-ih-ih-ih, -i-i-i-i-i, ih-ih,
cah, cah, cahahaha, called, th-th-th--" after a long, very good scratch,
the full, original phrase finally plays. "It's called RADIOACTIVE FLESH,
the latest and the last."
The monkey gibbers fearfully at this, and kicks the turn tables
over. They break, and all existence ends.
Meanwhile, on a dark roadway, a traffic light switches from green
to red.
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[ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! HOE #804 - BY: MOGEL AND NYBAR - 9/1/99 ]
