They said, “Never lose that sense of humor,”
so I never lost it,
I held on to it in a deathly clinch,
tighter than the python
which ate my inner child;
pressed it against my chest,
so that it sand and rose with my breathing,
and I never lost it,
I never lost it,
not even when the cosmic rays hit.
not Cosmic Ray,
the guy who sold you herb
until the medical profession
put him out of business
(And he’s still bitter,
but mellow,
since it appears he’s got quite
a stash to get through.
so let’s not worry about him.)
no, I mean “cosmic rays”,
the strange stuff, still undefined,
used by unreliable narrators everywhere
to effect transformations;
I mean, nobody believes the real sorcery behind
my transformation,
so why not just throw some 1950s pseudoscience twaddle at
it,
and call it a day; but
I was talking about my sense of humor.
“Never lose it,” they said,
and I never did,
not even when my entire molecular structure
melted,
which I’m quite sure is impossible,
but since even my breakfast cereal
comes with a little screen
showing me twelve impossible things just
before I can eat breakfast,
and claiming they’re all true,
and each one worse than the last –
I’m not too worried about what’s “possible”
anymore.
I became this
Thing,
this creature out of Jungian myth,
or perhaps Reichian Orgone;
I never could tell the two apart,
except that one talked about monsters and Freud
liked him,
and the other talked about sex,
and Freud always felt a little uncomfortable,
and maybe just a little bit turned on,
I’m just saying.
“Never lose your sense of humor”; oh,
I can’t lose my sense of humor,
it’s twisted,
and misshapen
and beautiful
and horrifying,
and it’s not always funny,
this curious mutant thing,
living in my curious mutant body,
in this curiously mutated time.
I have never lost my sense of humor,
although I will admit
that most people find it
a little disturbing;
but that’s okay.
I mean, isn’t only a little disturbing
better than what you’re used to?
“Pleasure is the absence of pain”, opined Heinlein,
and if so,
I’ve hopefully granted you about four minutes of the former,
and you’re welcome.
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities and create things. Every year, I put on Evil Expo, the Greatest Place in the World to be a Villain. I also write a lot of fantasy and science fiction.. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.
