The Paper(cut) Chase
by Melhi & Heath
Melhi and Heath carry the story forward:
Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 10:17:10 PST
and the saga continues....
el and Heath put the final touches on their creation and gaze out the window, laughing at the reaction of the serfs who've just discovered it.
"They look like little medieval ants!" Heath laughs.
"Yeah, they do..." Mel sighed. Her thoughts drifted back to the events of the last several days... or was it weeks? Who could tell? Yes, she thought, they look small, but so did the paper cuts that got us here... She squirmed uncomfortably as it all came flooding back.....
>"Mel! Heath!" I cried. >They went on kissing. >"Here, catch!" >They ignored me. > >I tossed the weather-beaten copy (VG at best, now) toward them, but >neither noticed. The pages flew open, managing to hit both of their >adjoining hands and cut both of them. > >"Davi3d?" They finally noticed me. "But you look so old!" > >"Yes, I've come from the future. And the future is bleak! But you >can still change it! Don't forget them! Don't forget the Monkees!" > >(Mel? Heath? The MBF is in your court now! Have fun!)
"Where were we?" Heath whispered.
Mel giggled at how silly Heath looked in the glow of the purple mist, then fell back into his arms. Luckily Heath caught her since it's a long way down from the top car.
They were somewhat oblivious to the "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey" floating up. But the cow jumping over the Moon (Keith Moon, WHO else?) was not and did feast ravenously upon the bounty from below.
"Heath?" Mel interrupted.
"Yes...yes..yes..."
"Oh, cut that out... I feel...strange... lightheaded, y'know?"
"Me too..."
"We're bleeding, I think," Mel whispered woozily which is an incredibly awkward thing to do and so, she decided to whisper some other way next time.
The world swung crazily around them... Heath grabbed for the remote...realizing the listers below were merely shaking the Ferris wheel to get their attention. He hit the "Start" button, which had been cleverly disguised as a "Begin" button to prevent others from controlling the Ferris wheel... however the crayon letters had melted somewhat in the sun and no one could tell what button is what anymore, anyway. Luckily, there were only two buttons and the other was unmarked to protect its net anonymity. This made it easier for Heath to decide which button to push.
"...and you are not it," Heath pushed the other button. The machinery creaked into action, screeching and whining, complaining bitterly about having been disturbed just when it had found its comfy spot. The Ferris wheel cars lurched violently as the top car began its slow descent to the blood soaked ground. Mel and Heath felt the seat drop out from under them.
"Davi3d's cartoon powers must have rubbed off on us," Heath mused. Mel and Heath floated upward...
"What's up?" they asked the cow.
"You," the cow answered.
They continued their rise, hand in hand, toward the long dark tunnel and the light beyond it. As they entered the tunnel, they embraced.
"Are you ready for forever?" Heath asked.
"Are you proposing again?" Mel answered, knowing how it made Heath anxious when she offered him only questions but no answers.
"It's a little late for that, now," Heath whispered. "Oh Mel, there were so many things we were going to do together... this can't be the end."
"Tell me all your thoughts on god," Mel asked, as children often do.
"Wrong group, Mel, besides, you're probably the only person who actually likes that song."
"Sorry," Mel held Heath tenderly and sobbed softly on the puff of mist now serving as his shoulder. So many happy dreams they'd never share... so many wasted moments over their lives. So many "I love you"s left unwhispered. Somewhere below, a picnicking family packed up their lunch, mistaking her tears for the first sprinkles of a warm spring rain and somewhere not far from there, a rabbit scratched furiously at a flea inhabiting its left ear, but that was totally unrelated so we probably shoulda left that part out.
"PATOOEY!!!" The tunnel spit the couple into the dazzeling white.
"May I help you?" an obviously synthesized voice called out from behind the glare.
"Is this Heaven?" Heath asked.
"Next tunnel to your right," a small, buggish, grey humanoid stepped from behind a film projector. "They should really mark the celestial paths more clearly. Would you like to hitch a ride over?"
Mel and Heath, dumbfounded at the sight of the alien, nodded eagerly. They were thrilled for the chance to converse with one of the critters they'd read about in many a freaky tabloid over the years.
The ship hung silently in space for a moment, guaranteeing that it would never be mentioned in the opening lines of a Dr. Who novelization. Realizing this, the tiny captain flipped a switch, causing the craft to wobble noisily through hyperspace instead, and immediately a new Dr. Who book was slated for a fall release.
"Might I interest you in a genetic experiment?" the captain asked.
"Um... no thanks." Mel answered quickly but politely.
"Perhaps one of you would like to mate with one of our crew." Heath considered this for a moment, mostly to tease Mel, then declined, flashing a mischievous grin at Mel who considered flashing him back, but thought the hermaphrodidic alien whatchamathing might mistake this for a "yes".
"Would you like to design a crop circle to smurf with the minds of the locals?"
"Yes!" both Heath and Mel answered. "Sorry, there isn't time, we're here!" The alien grabbed at several knobs, frantically pushing and pulling them; his giant insect-like eyes bulged even more as he seemed to be losing control of the ship. Mel and Heath clutched at each other in terror. Wasn't it bad enough they'd died once? Did they have to be mangled in a soon to be denied by many goverment agencies crash, too?
"Gotcha!!!" the alien laughed. "Ship drives itself, these are just here for our own amusement." Heath and Mel took turns punching the alien in what would be its stomach if it were human, but was, oddly enough, its pituitary gland. The ship continued up the long tunnel, the sound of trumpets filled the cabin, squishing the passengers and crew against the fake levers and knobs on the console.
"Want me to wait awhile in case the big guy sends you the other way? Beats falling, you know." Heath and Mel thought of the ramifications of there being a higher power, and the many religious morals and such they'd violated in the last months of their lives and decided this just might be a good idea. Immediately upon exiting the ship, Mel recognized god, but details of how she had been introduced to him have been censored by congress, a parents group and a coffee klatsch at the nursing home who have nothing else with which to occupy their time.
"Is it true you are an athiest and rightly so?" Mel asked the glowing white figure in flowing white robes, perched upon an alabaster throne behind the pearly white gates.
"Why are you talking to the statue?" asked a little old guy who looked remarkably not at all like George Burns.
Heath nearly fell over laughing and pointing at Mel. Mel shot him a glance that could kill, if it weren't for the fact that Heath had already died.
"Well, I've been wrong about everything else, I just thought that maybe the stereotype was right after all."
The old man morphed smoothly, becoming the epitomy of masculine youth... young and male. He was dark complected, but lightly so. He was at once, every race and no race. He was slender, and might have been considered femine if not for the long sinewy toned muscles rippling strongly beneath his flesh. "Oh and about your question... yes I am an athiest and rightly so...being the highest power, what higher power would I place my faith in? Hmm?"
"Makes sense," Mel said, "but what do we do now? So far the eye candy is nice, but what else is there to do around this dump?"
The deity smiled, morphed into something more pleasing to Heath's eye, realized it couldn't talk because a high quality bootleg CD has no mouth, and the CD player was in the shop. It transformed into a mind-numbingly beautiful woman instead.
"Drat." Mel whispered.
"Splat" said the drop of drool which had just completed its journey from Heath's mouth to the glittering white marble floor beneath them.
"You cannot stay here." the deity said.
"I knew it," Heath muttered. "So what's our punishment gonna be? An eternity of endless traffic jams? A forever filled with bad re-runs of early FOX programming? Oh no... not a perpetual parade of 80s pop pablum??? Anything but that!!! Please, god, I beg you!!!!"
"Get up off your knees, silly." The deity was now a young child of questionable gender. "You have to go back to Earth..."
"NOOOOO!!!! Not that! Please!!! We'll atone!!!" Mel interupted.
"Yeah, I know it's a disgustingly smelly sphere and I'd rather be anywhere else, myself, but you must go back... you have an important task ahead of you."
"Oh shoot, it was our turn to clean the jacuzzi, wasn't it?" Heath asked.
"You must make sure no one forgets," the wrinkled old crone hissed ominously.
"Could you maintain one visage for awhile, please?" Mel asked, getting somewhat annoyed at the way god was amusing itself.
The deity morphed into something more comfortable. Heath could not resist.
"OH NO!!! Not the Comfy chair!!!!!" he screamed as he sunk into the depths of its inviting cushions.
The deity morphed again and Heath found himself sitting upon the back of the first man they'd encountered. He waited for the expected bad joke of "ride me big boy" but it didn't come. Instead, Heath was shrugged off like so many gnats and admonished for daring to sit upon the creator of everything everywhere (well everywhere except that little dark patch of moss over in the corner of the universe and everything but the statue... both of which were created by Phil Graven... a pompous ass of an artist whose work god had banned among the mortals just because he didn't like the guy's snooty attitude.)
"As I was saying, you must remember."
"Remember who?" Heath asked.
"Not the Who, no one will ever forget them... not with Keith hovering about in the night skies for the rest of time. You must remember what the catalyst was that brought you here."
"The Catalyst... yeah, that was the name of the alien's ship, wasn't it." Mel said, matter of factly.
"Yes, but... that's not what I mean." God was growning more impatient... and the impatiens set off the petunias rather nicely.
"You must remember what started the chain of events which led to your demise."
"Give us a clue," Heath begged.
"OK, what do all the listers have in common?"
Heath scratched his head, not because he was thinking, it just itched. "That's easy," he said, "we all have computer access."
God sighed wearily, "You got me there, but there's one more thing you all have in common... you MUST remember and you must help assure that the rest of the world remembers, too!"
Mel thought; being quite unaccustomed to this activity, she found it painful and not worth the trouble... "I know!"
"YES???" God shouted hopefully.
"We all have toes!"
"No no no..."
A sad look crossed Mel's face; it was rough sailing around the bridge of the nose because it was lowered and the operator wasn't paying attention, but finally, it made it to the other side. "Which lister is toeless?" Mel asked out of a mix of genuine concern and morbid curiosity.
"None of the listers is toeless! That's not the point."
"Well, I was right then!" Mel said triumphantly, high-fiving Heath.
"Cut that out!!! Why are all of you on the list? You remember, don't you?"
"Of course we do," Heath smiled.
God signaled his relief, which signaled back.
Mel and Heath each took a deep breath and recited in unison, "Because we are all a bunch of bored and lonely pathetic loser geeks with no lives, real time friends, futures or freedom from parental support and we like to amuse our little selves and share it with others who have also been shunned by society."
God pondered this... they had a point, after all, and were actually on the right track, now. "And you are this way, because...."
"Oh I should know this... I'm gonna remember this and kick myself for it later." Mel said.
"It's on the tip of my tongue." Heath said, as he pried the little longhaired Addams family reject off his tongue. "Not much of a celebrity guest for our story, is it? Oh well, you get who you can afford."
"I must send you back... try to remember... pass along the deadly MBF and keep the legend alive!"
"Whatever! See ya!" Heath called as the UFO opened its hatch for the demised duo.
"Where to?" the captain snickered.
"Earth, actually." Heath answered.
"Wow, you two must have REALLY smurfed up down there!"
The alien asked the computer to travel backward in time to compensate for the 6 weeks the duo had been dead in Earth time. The ship complied, swinging back through the centuries.
"What's this?" Heath asked, peeling a blood-soaked crumpled pamphlet from his leg.
"A Spring MBF... hey, didn't god mention that thing?" Mel answered.
Heath rolled down the window to have a smoke and leafed through the book.
"Who are these hairless hasbeens?" he asked. "They look familiar."
"Lemme see!" Mel snatched the book from Heath's hand, but it slipped from her fingers and flew out the window.
"Good going, Mel! We were supposed to pass that on to other listers and you just tossed it out over 13th century cyber-earth. No one will be here for at least a decade or two!"
Flash forward or backward, depending on which continuity line makes you more comfortable:
Mid 1990s... a group of early pioneering listers have just arrived from AMM to help build a home in the new listworld.
Beads of sweat glisten on the brow of a young energetic Brad as he tosses the first shovel of cyberdirt into the listwinds. The happy little assemblage applauds him and powers up the equipment to get some real work done.
Zan, Torka and Eva work the controls of the bulldozer, since it operates on a triple foil system and requires evil triplets to operate it. Tami is already painting the scenery surrounding what will be the new club house. Davi3d, young and spry and blissfully unaware of his bleak future is eyeing the cows in the pasture across the street, resisting the urge to moo in their general direction.
"Stop that thing!" Davi3d cries.
The evil triplets turn their keys simultaneously.
"What is it?" Eva asks, eyeing the black and white and red all over MBF.
"Is it something we can recycle?" Zan giggles.
"Last one to get it is a rotten Kirshner!!" Torka squeals.
The triplets dive from the bull dozer before realizing they haven't built and filled the swimming pool yet. Two beautiful swan dives and a cannonball just wasted as they land on the hard dirt with a thud, another thud and finally, a splat as the third triplet lands on the other two. They scramble into the hole, clawing their way toward their prize. Eva reaches for it and is brushed away by Torka, who is brushed away by Zan... who is brushed away by Torka... finally, Tami walks over, reaches into the fray and picks up the curiosity from their not so near in cyberspace, but not so distant overall future.
"OW!!!" she yells. (Meanwhile, in another time, on a really nice considering how many miles it has on it alien ship, Mel and Heath's matching wounds heal, leaving a guitar shaped scar on each of them.) Blood begins spurting from Tami's finger and falls to the ground, mixing with Brad's fallen sweat beads and the tears of the triplets who are now weeping because they are all rotten Kirshners.
"Wrong group, ladies," Brad hollers... "Oh what the heck... talk about whatever you want." The list was never on-topic again.
A mailer daemon casts his long shadow over the whole of the list domain... lightening snakes out from around his darkened form. His thunderous words strike fear into the hearts of the young listers...
"Returned as undeliverable... please send again."
Tami, Torka, Zan and Eva, share a brain for the first time in evil mind-sharing history. In so doing, they not only start a tradition of chat echos, but since this state renders them somewhat exceedingly brilliant and even more dangerous, they are able to deduce the entire MBF curse from just those 6 words given them by the mailer daemon along with the full explanation which someone had scrawled over the ads in the back. They vow to tell no one of their find, knowing no one would believe them.
Zan, Torka and Eva wisely avoid Tami for three days thereafter, fearing she might casually hand the cursed tome to one of them and in an absentminded trusting moment, be themselves ripped to shreds.
Flash back or forward or sideways to where this story began:
The ship is now cruising over medieval England... Mel and Heath have just drawn a "Kilroy was Here" cartoon into some unsuspecting farmer's wheat field.
"Look at that little serf down there! Poor guy!" Heath laughs, pointing to the field below. Mel shakes her head to rid herself of the memories. As they lean out of the ship, a long forgotten Monkees button falls from Mel's jacket pocket... it catches on the wind and spins about, rising and falling until it finally comes to rest against one of the pillars of Stonehenge.
Flash Forward to 25th century.
A startled archaelogist finds a Monkees button buried in the earth against a pillar of Stonehenge. This proves the existence of the Monkee gods without a doubt!
James looks down and grins, "Good, now they'll all leave me alone and I can practice turning myself into oatmeal." Finally the ship pulls out of the time corridors and into the realm shared by both real and cyberspace.
"Ah crud!" the alien shouts, "I've only shaved five minutes off the amount of time you were gone. How are you supposed to go back when you've been dead so long?"
"That's easy!" Heath says enthusiastically. He whispers in the alien's ear... or rather, whatever it is that's in the place an ear would be on a human... the alien is at first flattered, but after a moment, decides he'd rather be offended and smacks Heath.
Finally, Heath just tells him the plan.
"And that really works?" the alien asks. "Sadly, yes," the couple answers.
Twenty minutes later, a shrill scream is heard across list-world as Heath and Mel suddenly appear in Nick's shower. The sight of Nick in those neon orange Hooter's girl tights with no doohinky to speak of was more than Heath could stand.
Mel gapes at the cheap gaudy Ken-doll-version of Nick, horrified, looking him up and down and up again. Gee, she muses, those wonderbras really DO work!
"How on EARTH did we do that to the timeline????" Heath asks, but his mind is already calculating the ramifications of what this might have done to his own anatomy... the anatomies of formerly well-adjusted males everywhere. It is more than he can bear (but significantly less than he hopes he can still bare, of course.)
"Ice cubes, Heath," Nick assures him, but it's too late, Heath is out cold...not cold like Nick's um... you know... but cold nonetheless.
Mel breaks her gaze (vowing to glue it back together another time) and rushes to the window; something is different... but what? She has a sudden urge to talk with Tami about the early days of the list. She wakes Heath, tells him he's intact at least a thousand times cuz no guy hears the first 999 times or so you reassure him of something like that. Finally, he takes her word for it and, careful not to look at Nick again, he follows her out of the condo to help her search for Tami.