Zophar’s Leftover, Layover, Hangover

Zophar Shankelstein slumped into the cracked vinyl seat of Gate 17B at O’Hare International Airport, his head throbbing like a giant squid crushing the moon, he was in the middle of a hangover-fueled misadventure. The fake neon glow of a pretzel stand flickered in his peripheral vision, mocking and challenging his queasy stomach. It was April 10, 2025, and Zophar was halfway through the worst layover of his life—a seven-hour stopover that felt like a cruel cosmic prank.... Listen for the rest of the story

Bart Masterson Beacon of Time: A Hollywood Hero’s Alien Odyssey

Promise: Your attention span can be increased by reading to this story.

This story was developed by the A21 coalition in association with Woman's Day magazine and the ITT Corporation.

The brain is a complicated quantum device that is connected to other quantum devices using subspace communications that are not accessible from our membrane. Bart Masterson existed in most variations of the 20th-century Earth experience.

His life is a candle by which we can read the truth of our existence and improve our attention span. Your attention span consists of the linear arc of mean power distribution from the cortex divided by the entanglement state of the neuron function.

The attention span is topological in its nature. A hill, a valley, and a bowl are all instances of symbolism. One can sit quietly, constricting one's lower chakra. This will increase your attention. The span is an extent, stretch, reach, or spread between two limits.

This is the nature of human existence. For reasons concealed by Earth's Moon, the creators utilized an American celebrity of the 20th century as a focus nexus for the coherence of subspace transmission by means of articulated expression. This spreads like a virus, like life.

Bart Masterson was that articulated expression.

Bart Masterson was Hollywood's go-to western hero throughout the 1950s, starring in such blockbusters as "It Never Rains Cabbage," "The Fire Called Them," "It Touched Me," and the comedy western "3 Ways to the Booby Hatch." He was the ubiquitous lawman gone rogue with a heart of gold in most of his films and just as often could be counted on to be a showrunner with his electric charisma, his Amazonian-like good looks, his jungle dancing, and his mysterious card tricks that lit the screen on fire in an age where computer-enhanced images were only a dream.

Bart had an unusually long attention span, and he often competed in feats of mental strength, which were performed during stage tours of North America where he wowed audiences by remembering numbers of unfathomable complexity and length. It was during one of these shows that he infamously beheaded a girl in a card trick gone wrong.

It was 1947, and the young girl had come on stage to assist Bart in the "Spades-a-Plenty" trick when an accident with the explosive charges hidden in the deck occurred. The young girl's head was blown clean off, and Bart had to get a pardon from the governor to leave Alabama.

Ever one for going deep into character, he killed a man in 1952 with a six-shooter while preparing for a role. The man was a taxi driver who had bumped into his leg while he crossed the street in Manhattan. Bart shot him in the face three times and urinated on his pants.

Charges were dropped as it was proven that the driver was, in fact, an illegal alien, and Bart Masterson was deep in character development. Bart maintained that the alien in question was sent by Control-Control to limit the growth of our nation and prevent the beacon of time from becoming a reality.

No one knew what to make of this, but he managed to spin it into something good with his Beacon-of-Time alarm clock infomercials. The special clock that he called the Beacon of Time made use of a lightbulb attached to the alarm circuit and had the ability to wake a person with light.

The alarm clock is credited with the economic success of the United States following the Second World War. Millions were sold by his sponsored TV and radio programs, and the circuitry inside the device also delivered other communications from Control-Control in the form of subsonic sound patterns.

His psychic abilities are credited to his father's choice of Lucky Strike toasted tobacco and a series of mysterious abductions during the conception period. After spending a year with an unidentified Indian tribe in the West, he came back four inches taller and filled with a vision for the future. He called it the Final Solution solution, cryptically telling the foreign press that the state of Alaska and its native people were problematic to Earth joining the federation of planets.

He preached a message of universal love, but he truly hated the state of Alaska. Bart could recite hours of inspirational poetry that he claimed came to him at the behest of his extraterrestrial friends and associates. It was his wish and dream that his life would become a candle, meaning "Welcome," to our space friends. I believe that with the events of his eventual death, he achieved this wish. His life became a lens that held to focus our collective attention spans.

He came to prominence during his 1944 portrayal of Bart Masters in "Six-Gun Gorilla at Far Point Station." He was attracted to the role because of the similarity of his name and the lead human character's name, an event that he claimed legitimized his desire to be an actor and seemed to be Mother Fate offering her big fat tit to him once again.

It should be noted that Bart was a tireless advocate of breastfeeding, and these activities consumed much of his free time during this period. Bart believed that God was speaking to men through women's breasts, and he fought hard for acceptance of the idea that breast milk was the fountain of truth.

His landmark film was the 1955 Fotzenberg directed "They Came for Our Women." It was the first major western to directly address the burgeoning UFO phenomenon. Bart played Conwright McCoy, the likable town sheriff who dispensed justice with kind-hearted enthusiasm.

Conwright McCoy was just as likely to holster a small guitar as he was a gun. The town became troubled when young virginal girls started to break their legs unexpectedly after unidentified flying objects and strange-looking craft were seen over their school. The girls' chests were expanding while they recovered from the alien leg syndrome. Transmissions from their chests to the town's menfolk were causing societal trouble and marital strife.

The film is not without controversy; some schools in Montana refused to show it because of the extended use of alien sexuality and spiritual blackface during Sheriff McCoy's dream sequences. Fotzenberg pointed out that the highly sexualized aliens were portrayed exactly as they appeared to Bart and that any controversy is evidence of the failings of the human mind more than a lack of accurate portrayal. "If we had told you the full truth about Bart's visions, you truly would have shat a brick. You people could not handle a real attention span," he said.

The director is quick to defend, stating, "It is not up to us; Bart was communicating with some powerful forces at that time. Whatever he came up with is surely approved by higher forces than those of Earthmen." The director held no ill will, yet he never directed another western. Fotzenberg moved on to a series of Disney live-action educational films and had a surprising late-career comeback working as a royal ascended assistant to Otto Preminger on "Skidoo" in 1968.

Gathered in the town square, mothers, fathers, and uncles of the afflicted gathered to demand justice. Bart won the Academy Award for General Excellence that year. It was the first time American audiences experienced a hero cowboy who fought with music as much as brawn. The movie takes off in earnest after discovering that the young girls are not what they seem.

This becomes evident as they hang around the saloon and do business with the menfolk. During these exploits under a full blue moon, cracks appeared in their skin, and the audience noticed the girls were wearing costumes.

They are simian cyborgs in disguise, sent to teach the menfolk a lesson about how nature and roles develop over time. The lovemaking causes crystals to appear in the town square, each topping the other, making a crystal totem, which, unknown to the townsfolk, is a phallic beacon inviting the second stage of the invasion.

A secondary story focuses on the town librarian and her unending sadness caused by her short attention span after receiving a magical pocket computer from the space folk that offered nearly endless yet inane entertainment. It was called the "dopamine mirror circuit" and looked like a modern iPhone.

The scene on Boulder Rock, where the mothership is conducting a duel of light and sound with the brave sheriff, is one of cinema's most unfathomable touchstones. The scene remains just as odd and electric today, taking up the better part of two reels and featuring, rare for the '50s, full-frontal nudity and hypnotic visual patterns and music. The director credited the entire last half of the movie as coming directly from the mind of Bart Masterson, and it is said that no one can remember what happened or how that portion of the film was created.

In the initial town square scene, the juxtaposition of carrots and human legs snapping becomes an intoxicating blend of realism and the absurd. Later analysis indicates the use of binaural beats present in all foley effects, and many papers have been written over the fact that every sound heard is part of a carefully constructed musical weapon designed to deliver messages directly into the subconscious of the viewer.

"We just showed up with the cast, lights, and film, and Bart pretty much held court," said legendary director Aden Fotzenberg. "I tried to fight it for the first six months of filming, but by that point, we were so over budget and had so little to show for it that I just kind of threw in the towel and told Bart to go for it. To this day, I can't really explain what happened out there, but the truth is on film. I've been a believer ever since."

Go for it he did. Under Bart's leadership, the crew worked more or less day and night, finishing the film two weeks later. Fotzenberg and the rest of the cast call the event the Desert Miracle and audiences fall into a quiet trance while watching, their attention spans being entirely consumed by what they are witnessing.

Bart's career was riding high after "They Came for Our Women," and marketing deals made him a very rich man. He was the official spokesperson for the Cali-Fame line of men's clothing and regularly appeared on the Jack Benny program pitching his Rinsoline brand of detergent and soap, which he created after consulting the Nordic Space Brothers of Venusia who resided under his ranch in New Mexico.

1955's "They Came for Our Women" is a unique film that watches the audience as much as the audience watches it. It is one of the few examples of the Return Gaze of the screen, where the meaning of that statement is palpably felt and absorbed mentally by the audience.

Watching TCFOW, one immediately can sense the fourth look penetrating their inner gland. It's like a third eye opens inside your pituitary gland and can see the darkness for what it really is: a total lack of light inside of the brain. Thankfully, the feeling subsides after one averts their gaze and gathers their wits.

That articulation of images brings us, the viewer, and our activity, be it popcorn or self-pleasure, into the position of being destabilized and put at risk. When the scopic drive is brought into focus, the viewer becomes the object of that look. The early scenes with Bart playing guitar to the diseased and criminal orphan gang put us directly in the position of being a judge and juror of our own internalized hate and fear, as we both want to watch Bart dispose of the problematic gang. At the same time, we also want justice for the mistreated orphans.

From their perspective, the bacteria in our guts are most responsible for our desire to hear him sing again. The sound activates our internal glands via sonic exposure to its unique rhythms, secreting a honey-like mana in our intestines. This establishes a com-link with the other world. Audiences are left in a stone-solid stupor and remain monk-like and motionless; their attention spans frozen like solid light.

Bart abruptly left the acting world after this film, never returning.

He returned to some notoriety after his film career when he turned his mind, work, and considerable fortune from his children's cereal empire into a place for like-minded people to ascend to the second state of light.

This was done via AMWAY speaking engagements and local mall appearances where he played songs from his movies and sold Attention Span Pep Pills, which could give anyone Bart's famous thousand-yard stare while also fighting lumbago, distress of the throat, restless leg syndrome, among other afflictions.

After that, in the 1990s, there were a few returns to the small screen, most consisting of his financial manipulations of the Beanie Baby market on televised shopping programs, where he used his time to talk up the Beanie Baby bubble as well as to proselytize for converts to come to visit or live in his energy garden down in the swampland of Florida. Bart had divided up thousands of acres of Florida desert into a unique blend of UFO cult, Ponzi scheme, and wellness center devoted to what he called touch therapy.

He considers the film "They Came for Our Women" to be a feminist masterpiece, and he hopes that it can also be viewed in schools to stop bullying and put an end to all racial disadvantages suffered by anyone, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, anyhow. Bart was famous for saying that if his films helped even one person, then that proved he was a genius.

It is a film that is a must-view for anyone interested in the power of visual entertainment. It has a charm and a hammer-to-head immediacy that is lacking from other movies. Perhaps that is why Bart Masterson never made another film. There is no way audiences could ever develop the attention spans needed for additional films.

The mind is like a train set, and that film and my life are the end of the line, the last piece of track found half chewed up by a dog or covered in mysterious goo.

His final words to close family and friends were delivered from the side of his deathbed in 2004, which was affixed to the basket of a hot air balloon. The basket was designed to hang over 50 feet below the lifting envelope, which allowed the whole structure to be lit aflame, giving him the Viking burial in the sky of Earth that he desired.

It is not known if this was a suicide attempt or not because many have faith that Bart's visions were sacrosanct and that if he did indeed take off alive, he must have sensed his impending death psychically and likely would have died anyway.

He lifted off and was set to blaze with a mixture of thermite, compressed napalm, and Greek fire of his own design. Things quickly went sideways due to a foul wind from the east.

The unfortunate wind conditions meant that this whole conflagration was doomed to crash an hour after launch. The pyre was still burning bright when it crashed into the Taylor Complex in Alaska, burning more than 6.38 million acres of land and destroying the last of the Pinquat culture that called the Alaskan wilderness home.

Bart would have been pleased. You should now cover your eyes and lift your arms above your head. Feel the energy flow through your body. Perhaps Bart's greatest gift to the world has yet to be delivered. You are the vessel, and your actions in future will deliver the final revelation of his life.

As a side note, listening to this story has increased your attention span to three times its previous duration. In appreciation of this gift, we ask that you share Bart’s life story with others.

Mars - an odd coworker

It was late afternoon when I joined my friends at the small house halfway up the hill. I’d been sitting in my office, lost in thought, when the phone rang. It was Ed, his voice crackling through the line. “What’s this I hear about you roaming around the North American continent last week?” he asked.

I leaned back in my chair. “What’d you hear?”

“They tell me you and your boss took a business trip down South,” he said.

“That’s right,” I confirmed.

“Well, go on then,” he pressed.

I started to explain, but my words stumbled out in a mess—barely nine of them before I trailed off. “It was… terrible,” I muttered, and then, suddenly, inspiration struck. “I’d like to welcome you to Mars.”

Ed laughed. “Mars? What are you on about?”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I continued, playing along, “tonight we’re taking a quick trip to the Red Planet. A strange place of sand dragons, rusty plains, and people in flowing robes—like kimono dragons, but angrier. It’s home, and we love it.”

“Home?” Ed chuckled. “You’re losing it.”

“Picture this,” I said. “You step off the ship, gather your belongings, and exit to the left. Out there’s the Polynesian Resort—flowers, earthy vibes, a little slice of Hawaii. Except it’s not. It’s Mars. Sand everywhere. Sandinistas, even.”

“Sandinistas?” Ed echoed, confused.

“Yeah, man,” I went on. “Mars has caverns, tunnels—like my Slurpee cup. Two straws at the bottom, right? One’s got a hairline crack, so the suction’s shot. Just like Mars. Compromised. Maybe an asteroid hit it, or some treaty meeting went south.”

“You’re comparing Mars to a broken Slurpee?” Ed asked, incredulous.

“Exactly,” I said. “And get this: Mars is a planet for men. Built by men. We don’t need women taking our jobs. For centuries, Mars men have stayed home—cooking, raising kids, washing dishes—while our wives went out to earn a living. But now these new Mars women want to flip the script. I won’t stand for it. A man belongs in the home.”

Ed snorted. “You’re unhinged. Mars isn’t even a place to raise a family—it’s cold as hell.”

“True,” I admitted. “It’s a red planet, sure. A suffocating, demanding octopus of power. Evil, even. But it’s ours. No chewing gum allowed, though—Singapore rules apply. We’d frown on that hard.”

“Frown on gum?” Ed laughed again. “You’re a riot. Hey, speaking of Mars, you hear about that jelly donut the rover found back in 2014?”

“Yeah,” I said, shifting gears. “NASA’s stumped. One photo, no donut. Next week, bam—jelly donut. Pineapple Island, they called it. Maybe the rover kicked it up. White and red, flipped upside down. Freaky stuff.”

“Freaky’s right,” Ed agreed. “So, what’s your deal with Mars, anyway?”

“I’m obsessed,” I confessed. “I even snagged Mars@AOL.com years ago. I host meetings—second Wednesday of every month, room 22B. Teacher’s lounge by day, Mars club by night. Refreshments if you’re lucky. I just want to talk about it—what Mars means, what it could be. You should come.”

“Maybe I will,” Ed said. “You’re weird, but I like it.”

“Stop by anytime,” I added. “Bring something to share. We’ll talk Mars ‘til the moons rise—Fear and Chaos, orbiting like thugs around a kingpin. It’s a wild planet, Ed. Wild.”

He hung up, still chuckling, and I leaned back, staring out the window. The day was fading, but in my mind, I was already on the Red Planet, sand under my feet, dreaming of tunnels and donuts and a world turned upside down.

TITFOS presents: Top10 Unnerving Health Symptoms

Top 10 list of unusual health symptoms dives into the strangest ways your body can signal something’s up. Imagine waking up to a metallic taste that won’t quit rusting, or feeling like your skin’s crawling with invisible army ants. 

How about remote controllable hiccups that last for days, or a sudden inability to smell things that aren’t there—like phantom smoke or flowers?

Check yourself often for these symptoms.

The Snow Job Conspiracy

The Snow Job Conspiracy

It was March 14, 2025, and snow was falling outside the tinted windows of the titfos-mega7 corporate headquarters. From the dashboard of his sleek office, Agent 0-M stared at the flurry, mesmerized. "Hey, it’s snowing," he muttered to himself. "It looks like snow." But as he watched, a strange realization hit him—it didn’t just feel like snow. It felt like money. Cold, crisp, and piling up fast.

The intercom crackled. "Sir, we’re doubling the promotion budget," came the voice of his assistant, Big Flora. "The Snow Jet line is ready to launch: Snow Jet Mobile, Snow Jet Coaster, Snow Jet Toboggan, and the jingle—Baby, I’m gliding, gliding your Snow Jet Co, go, Snow Jet’s riding with wind, go, go, go! It’s no snow job, sir. Kids will want to play in this storm."

Agent 0-M smirked. This wasn’t just a toy campaign—it was a cover. For years, he’d been a special agent, legitimate and discreet, the best in the game. His brain patterns, his knowledge, his experience—all recorded on a reel of tape stored in a secret vault. Electronically preserved, he was more than human now. And this snow? This money? It was the key to something bigger.

The phone rang. "Agent 0-M, it’s time to talk," said a voice, low and urgent. "Movies in the park tonight. Reverse field. Don’t get trapped unarmed—fat chance of that, right?" The line went dead. He knew the drill: action depended on his skills. Command control gave him the edge—complete control of… well, something. He just had to figure out what was out there.

---

Later, under a flickering projector at the drive-in, Agent 0-M met his contact: a jittery man named Tufts de Leon, who claimed to be searching for the fountain of youth. "Boogie, boogie!" Tufts giggled nervously, shivering in the cold. "Since being on this cruise—er, mission—I feel ancient. Big Flora said you were into banks, not toys!"

"Focus," Agent 0-M snapped. "What’s the play?"

Tufts held up a monocle, inspecting a baseball. "Three hundred. Twenty-nine. One-three. That’s the code. Step on this picture of your chisel—the new heel—and it’s sweet. But if you don’t…" He mimed a throat-slashing gesture. "It’ll cut your head off."

Agent 0-M frowned. "You’re a stupid little fool, Tufts. What’s this got to do with the Snow Jet Co.?"

"Everything!" Tufts whispered. "The corporate radio types, the real count balls—they’re funding it. Frank’s dead—monster mash munchbuckets, child pride killers, Al Minerva, Mitt Romney the baker, jack of vampires—all part of it. They squat on the boot, big rats in top tanks, making the toilet stink. Boys’ blood on their hands, Cheetos with red wine. It’s a conspiracy, man!"

The projector flickered, showing grainy footage of Hitler’s brain. Agent 0-M rubbed his temples—he felt like he had two heads. "Help me," he muttered, recalling an old-time commercial. "TV Guide by the pool, a hundred young women, no spark plugs. Soda with no ice. We’re running out of gas here."

---

Back at headquarters, the Snow Jet campaign rolled out. Billboards screamed: The excitement is just for you! Kids clamored for the toys, oblivious to the truth. Agent 0-M dug deeper, analyzing the budget. The money wasn’t just for promotion—it was funneled into a ground-to-air missile station. The Snow Jet Co. wasn’t a toy company. It was a front.

"Now I’m willing to dance with you," he said to the shadowy figure on the phone, piecing it together. "Texas time. Session’s up." He hung up, staring at a catalog of old women’s underwear—searching for the perfect hit, the perfect cover. Food, breath, coverage, straps. PMI. Capital proof, made of time and lasting.

The snow kept falling, but it wasn’t snow. It was money, power, and a plot to control… something. "Boogie right there," he chuckled darkly. "Three! Three!" The dance had begun, and Agent 0-M was ready to glide, glide, go.

---

The Snow

Planes Trains and Other Conveyances by William Chad Bowers

part of the ONSUG Central episode 3-11-25

Read on Substack

Link to Substack Audio
Link to Overnightscape Undground - Central Show 3-11-25

Empirical Praecognita

 

1897 first indication revealed

ghosting faire exiled

3 waiting behind bowling house

penmen fearing implications

repeater lost time in mind travel

whispers thread cracked tides

children laughing empty rooms

luera heard inside radio, felt

camphor dancing in vial 1927

statue fountain missing

marble hands absent water

1970 the field collapse

word thought action effect

echoes split the old gate

lanterns fail to light

laughter hides the pain

the devils blood

is obvious

The Bomb Bomb Chronicles: A Tale of Dystopia’s End and Utopia’s Echo

In a distant realm, within the reaches of Dark Stone Control, there existed a kingdom shrouded in a perpetually lumpy, gravy-like malaise. The dualistic nature of equal and opposite reflections caused a feedback loop-based hallucination in the bicameral minds of the people. They felt that they were living in the universe rather than being the universe itself.

Its name was Dystopia, a place where dreams collapsed into pools of liquid mercury and powered huge rectifiers attached to tall, noble antennae structures that broadcasted a horrid and continual funeral dirge played by an unskilled piper.

Hope was becoming a distant memory, as were any illusions of sanity. The people no longer considered themselves living, breathing animals; they no longer had any desire to mate and produce offspring. Instead, they chose to lose themselves in symbolic gestures that would inevitably be remembered by no one as their bloodlines came to an end.

Even though these choices made them substantially more discontented, melancholic, and sullen, they proclaimed to each other that they were gallant heroes fighting against thought crimes committed by their dead ancestors. They had all become the shadow of Don Quixote of La Mancha. Lost in symbols, they had forgotten that the symbols were only tools for sharing ideas and not the actual ideas themselves.

The markets of Dystopia were filled with nothing but bobbleheads and mood-flattening drugs. The people of Dystopia became blinded by surface-level abstractions and were no longer capable of seeing beyond in-group and out-group thinking. They fantasized that vengeance could arc towards justice, rather than death.

They claimed to have left the old, higher-power-based religions behind but had merely replaced them with a worse religion—a religion based on intersectional conflicts of power between each other. It prevented them from seeing and understanding nuanced ideas; instead, they only saw themselves as individual gods, involved in endless conflict with one another. To add fuel to the fire, they decided that optics were more important than substance.

They hoped to create a preeminent, sacrosanct authority to apply a tyrannical boot to each other's throats, and somehow, in doing this, they could enforce the absolute equality afforded by the obliteration of individual identity. It would require everyone to monitor and report each other for any infraction, no matter how slight. It would require complete submission.

Even the artists had given up; instead of creativity, they worshiped the idea of becoming team players supporting the corrupt agenda of a powerful elite who filled their heads with flattering lies and spare change.

It told them that they were noble and good for believing in nothing, and it worked. It told them that their inane ravings and scrawls were the true measure of beauty and meaning. All were equal; no one thing was better than any other thing. It made art easy, but it was a Pyrrhic victory for all.

In short, it was all a load of nonsense.

Once, Dystopia had been a flawed yet more vibrant kingdom, a melting pot of all cultures and individuals, who were seen as equals under one creator. But the kingdom spiraled into hell as the power and authority were removed from local peoples, then moved ever further away, and finally concentrated into the hands of a global one percent who could afford to exempt themselves from the common madness—but not, as it turned out, from the ultimate coming "Bomb Bomb."

Amidst this gloom, there lived a wise old owl named Aurelius. He loved Tootsie Roll Pops and was once revered among the creatures of Dystopia for his knowledge and foresight. Over the last decade, his intellectual outlook had been reclassified as problematic.

One day, as he perched atop a dying oak tree, a young rabbit named Luna approached him, her eyes filled with despair.

"Oh, wise Aurelius," Luna said, "why has our kingdom fallen into such darkness? Is there no hope left for us?"

Aurelius gazed at Luna with solemn eyes before responding, "Long ago, our ancestors traded the beauty of our kingdom for avarice and pride. But all is not lost, young one. For even in the darkest of times, there exists a glimmer of light. For what does it profit to gain the whole world, yet lose the essence of one's very soul? You have blinded all from beauty and grace and poisoned your hearts with this insect-like cultural embrace."

With those words, Aurelius embarked on a journey across Dystopia, seeking allies among the creatures of the land.

It was disappointing to the wise owl. He searched and explored, but no one was willing to stand up and help. He made loud noises and posted clever memes, but after a long search, he settled on a branch and made peace with the idea that these people did not want to be saved. They had no desire to live, nor the will to be inspired.

He flew back to his castle on Witch Mountain and turned to the fail-safe that he had prepared with the aid of the sky people who had come down to visit him long before the famous Tootsie Roll commercial had been filmed.

They had come down in wheels within wheels made of light, and they had given him a great power called the "Bomb Bomb."

He pulled the shoebox-sized Bomb Bomb out from under his bed and placed it on the counter in his kitchen. He drank some mouse milk from the fridge and then approached the shoebox, removed the lid, and revealed the large red button inside. He reminisced briefly on the death of the Enlightenment.

Aurelius made a long sweeping gesture with his wing and pronounced the word "ONE," then he made an upward swinging gesture and said "TWO," then he fluttered all of his feathers with a mighty shake of his body and said "THREE." At that, he pushed the button, and the Bomb Bomb worked its atomic magic.

It instantly converted the kingdom of Dystopia and a few hundred additional miles into a sphere of thermonuclear energy that reached an average uniform temperature of 212 million degrees Fahrenheit.

The temperature and pressure not only extinguished all life within the sphere—and, by and by, the former kingdom—but also caused the complete and total disintegration of every molecule and atom inside its blast radius.

And so, the darkness that had gripped Dystopia for so long receded, replaced by the warm glow of a new dawn over the bowl-shaped hole left on the planet.

In the end, Dystopia was transformed into a place of total harmony.

A few hundred million years later, the rats became people and formed a new city called Utopia. In Utopia, everything was free. The people got fat and were then fed to the giant birds that ruled the world. There was no Bomb Bomb to save the day this time. Thankfully, the nearby star that the rats called the Sun provided a rich and relatively free energy gradient upon which life could surf, and mercifully, it was this very Sun that gave its life to end the horror show of the Bird and Rat Utopia. The Sun's core had depleted its hydrogen fuel and had begun to burn its remaining helium for fuel; this caused it to expand beyond and through the orbit of the Earth, which was the stage upon which Utopia played.

It became a red giant and then unfolded like a flower, much like a female mammal's nether regions, becoming a lovely planetary nebula. It was only after this transition that the best thing of all time happened.

The Anunnaki mothership had flown close enough to appreciate the beauty of this nebula, and it inspired one of the sky-god children on board to reconstitute what had once been the solar system in which this all played out. Upon doing so, the great wise owl Aurelius was reborn in the form of a human child.

"To what purpose am I here?" asked the wise young owl. In answer to this, the celestial master child named Chris, who was responsible for all of this mess, provided a reclining chair called a recliner, a 25-inch Zenith television with a Space Command remote control, and a Sony Betamax machine with a video that started to play as the owl took his comfortable seat.

The video instructed him on what was expected of him. He was to enjoy something called the American Dream. He was told that he was a child living in a place called the United States of America, and he lived in a year called 1977, in a month called December. His job was to live a mortal life inside of this simulation. His purpose was to observe and participate in the events that were to unfold.

He would know nothing of his purpose, but he would be rewarded with some manner of treat after his eventual death. "It'll be fine," the child told him, "but at times, you will feel scared, alone, and hopeless." On a cheery note, before he left, Chris said, "I hope you like video games; it will help you pass the time as you watch things fall apart. Try to take notes and see if you can come up with any conclusions about all of this."

With that, the owl went to Sears and used the Sears credit card provided by Chris to purchase a Sears Tele-Games Video Arcade system and the game cartridges Air-Sea Battle, Combat, Surround, and Video Olympics.

He enjoyed it and many future game systems. He lived until his and millions of other people's deaths from a series of Bomb Bombs late in the year 2026. Up until the moment he died, Aurelius thought of himself as an owl, brought to Earth by Chris to witness not only the MOS Technologies 6502 microprocessor and its fruits but also as a foundational part of this story and a signpost at the end of this tale. The signpost was made of wood and firmly planted into the ground; around the post lay scattered a pile consisting of rocks of varying sizes.

It read: "Alan Watts was also once an owl. He too was brought to this version of Earth by Chris in order to be mentioned in this next sentence." The text on the sign continued: "He said, 'The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple, and yet everyone rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.'" It was a long sign and contained a good deal of text. It went on, as these things tend to do. It read, "That is to say, 'I look at the color of your hair and the shape of your eyebrow, and I understand that that is the point. God, Guru, and the Self are one.'" And then, at the bottom of the sign, in bold letters, it read, "DO NOT THROW ROCKS AT THIS SIGN!"

Dracula Says...

Dracula at the pet store

"I need a bat-friendly cage, I’m Dracula"

Dracula filing taxes

"These deductions are a real pain in the neck, I’m Dracula"

Dracula at the beach

"No sunscreen needed, I’m Dracula"

Dracula at a karaoke night

"I’ll sink my teeth into this song, I’m Dracula"

Dracula in art class

"I prefer painting in red, I’m Dracula"

Dracula at the library

"Got any books on eternal life? I’m Dracula"

Dracula applying for a job "Hi I'm Dracula"

Dracula getting his car washed "I'm here about the car, I'm Dracula"

Dracula working in the Coal mine "my lungs are as dark as my soul", I’m Dracula”

Dracula playing the action game ConnectFour "pretty sneaky sis, Dracula lose again"

Dracula at cocktail party "Hi I'm Dracula"

Dracula hosting a vegan cooking show

"Today’s blood-free beet soup is a scream, I’m Dracula"

Dracula riding a unicycle in a clown parade

"Watch me juggle these garlic bulbs, I’m Dracula"

-

Friends,

Dracula reminds you to stand clear of the closing Doors.

Elevator safety is everyone’s business.