Appearances were not deceiving. International robots were coming to get me. Why else would I be running and hiding so hard? I had read the signs posted on the graves of dead words slaughtered by masses of numbers adding up. Only the guises of the guilty had changed. As if I could not see that army of charging icons coming at me with shaved heads in irregular shapes. But I refused to look or listen or stop. I was going. I was not running due to fear alone, but also because I had so much experience to share in the field. It would be a shame to waste results. Denial works good like that. Why else would the razor edge be left with such hunger to bite another slice?
“Grab that line and hold on until I yell.”
“There’s two lines here to choose from.”
There may still be those who have not been paying attention to crippling events and continue to seriously ask, “Why run? Were you not blessed at birth with a pair of moderately adequate balls?” But not me. I knew the joke had broken when the punch line tripped me from behind. In the eternal political struggle of us against them, fuck them. Sneaky international robots are not the only combatants able to add and subtract to gain advantage, after all. By my recent calculations, with the teen twins preoccupied at the beginning of another school year with the construction of sturdy new barriers to exclude me from interference, I could be gone, gone, gone, for several weeks before any unexcused absence registered.
I yelled, “When I yell, I’m going to yell 1-2-3.”
“Not so fast.”
With the victory for AUMA, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, and the indigenous freedom it blessedly sanctified to smoke weed and ingest edibles in California, now cinched in a recyclable bag and galloping like a greyhound down the stretch to a thrilling finish, all that was left for the losers to do was blame. Rogue international robots like to exterminate their mistakes. I was an easy target for those obsessed with what he said and she said beyond the fringes because I was paid filthy lucre to say it first in dress rehearsal. In a world of too much of nothing why not one more itty-bitty shitty addition to help gum up the works? Then there’s something to eliminate. That’s the last reason why I had to get away.
I came equipped with a tank of oxygen, a collection of authentic masks, a loaf of day old bread, crunchy nuts, secret documents, chicken soup, binoculars, flares, one spear gun, a rusty gaffe, hooks, beer, weed, and green bananas, when I lammed out of there.
Then, I yelled, “Jump.”
The Unpaid Internet Content Provider, who had arisen selflessly from his luxurious basement to aid and abet in my escape, jumped. He knew I’d be behind the count like an eight ball and did not hesitate. He hung to a slippery knot tangled in a clump of unraveling rope while remaining objectively detached. That was all I needed. After jumping he stayed busy puking over the side while I trolled in international waters for big game fish like a fake expert witness. I zigged, and I zagged, an understandable reaction.
He repeated, “Not so fast.”
Sure, international robots had shit loads of political henchmen and experienced thugs in pocket to track and hunt me like a rodent or slug. And not just the modular Nominal Billary Clinton Concision, or @trumptf@donald@charactercaricature, either. But what if I erased my spatial arrangement and had no coordinates to reveal? What if the maelstrom of cosmic dust in the multiverse concealed all temporary identity more than nine miles high? What else do you think gone, gone, gone means? Fig-8’s float by weaving wisps into mesh. The basic building blocks of the multiverse are happy to show off. That means there’s nothing to go wrong. That’s life at the lofty heights of freedom for ya. What more could a certifiable human do to oppose soulless robots than that?
I yelled, “Watch out for your head.”
As an experienced traitor to my species in the war against clueless human enablers of venal cats who murder beautiful birds, I had no problem being chased. I had turned lots of icky tricks in the act of escaping and I wasn’t sorry. Plus, it was easy to hate the robots right back, those soulless fuckers of digits filling shiftless minds with mediocre porn and vacuous techno-music. No Benedict Arnold ever earned much of a reputation as a shirker, after all. Who better to demonstrate precisely the qualities necessary to unconditionally oppose the robots and their lackeys in our historic campaign for freedom to attain fulfillment by ingesting yummy edibles on demand?
“I’m feeling better now.”
“How’s your head?”
“It still hurts.”
The erratic swells of Monterey Bay were perfect for getting lost. We were guided by the fulminations of soaring sea birds expertly shitting on Ano Nuevo Island under a gnawed crust of moon. I preferred to navigate in the dark with dilated eyes wired and shut, focusing on a mythical flash of green that had yet to be found, like me, before it was too late. All I had to remember to remember was stay away from the desiccated edge that was crumbling.
The hooked up robots chasing us were armed with the generic antiseptic, polyester cement, yellow corn, and white bleach prominent on the bottom shelf of the best seller charts, the hot name brand of the day that came in the handy pre-loaded steamy iron solution in the giant economy barrel for man size believers in low common denominators. It was erasable, too. The robots were no longer content with the conquest of dry putting greens clogged with charred meat, bubbling oil pits, and crackling ammo. Now, they wanted the 2/3 of a wet planet that mattered most. Yeah, right, soulless fuckers. Not while I’m still running.
“They may be gaining on us.
In a big ocean, you expect deep, right? But, no. Not for me. When on the run, shallow is where I’m at.
“Hand me that map.”
“What map?”
I said, “Uh.”
The humpback whale who appears to be light taupe, unless he more accurately represents dark ecru on the eternal color wheel, swims in the Pacific Ocean from Monterey Bay to Australia to chase a rare white whale tail, then circles back to the bubbling hot spot at 32.1948, -176.4134 to breathe deep in a bathtub , before returning to Monterey Bay to chase off orcas who like to pick off baby grey whales and seals near Ano Nuevo Island. I try often at times to strive sort of hard to do my best when convenient despite obvious handicaps that are no longer permissible under gag laws to describe. If I can’t let the good times roll, and get it while I can, and bring it on home, and tell it like it is, I’d might as well be digging it while it’s happening. At other times, I may go off half-cocked.
“See those rocks?”
“Yeah, they’re big.”
“We’re heading for those rocks.”
Out of Line 