Lard in his hospital bed. Suddenly, he starts up, shocked by what he’s seeing on the TV. He narrates the action out loud as it unfolds:
Hey! What’s this? A wild-looking man with stiff hair wearing nothing but a loincloth made of what looks like sack and glossy shreds of the Kyiv Poster has just run up behind Losser and dropped and tightened a noose around his neck. Losser’s automatic reflexes spring his arms back in an attempt to wrest the wild man’s grip from around his neck, but the latter appears too crazed and physically powerful, the way insane people are powerful, and with seeming ease manages to hold Losser in his choking grip while fending off the puny interviewer who is helpless trying to pull the wild man off.
Say, is this really happening, or is this some kind of set piece like they do on reality TV? No, no, it’s really happening! And where do I know that assailant from? Hey – isn’t that the same loon who shot me in the ass at the opera? It is, it is!!!
But wait, there’s more. A carpet that looks like a giant blown-up airbrushed photo of the old Welsh Losser – the Welsh Losser I knew – has jumped on and is smothering another carpet, which is a giant blown-up airbrushed photo of the new Welsh Losser – the one on TV right now getting strangled by that wild animal boy – which had swept into the studio in an apparent attempt to save Losser from this diabolical fate.
But wait! That’s not all! The camera has suddenly brought into focus some sort of huge, shapeless glob, who’s got the other end of the long rope around Welsh Losser’s neck tied around its waist! Say, hey!!! Isn’t that the same creature that tried climbing up my butt some episodes ago calling itself my ego – and I blasted it right the hell out of my asshole? It’s the same, the same, the very same!
It would be an understatement to call all of this unbelievable, folks…
Now that shapeless glob is crawling with amazing and deft rapidity up the side of the TV picture tube; we have the camera panning after him; he is balanced precariously on a crossbeam running under the studio’s pitched ceiling; cut to action taking place down on the studio floor; the stiff-haired wild man has Welsh Losser in a monstrously powerful chokehold, the latter is making choking sounds, turning beet-red; more studio hands have jumped onto the set to tear the wild man away, but to no avail; meanwhile, it is all the old Welsh Losser photo-carpet can do to keep the new Welsh Losser photo-carpet down, although the latter is slowly beginning to turn the tide of its battle and flip the old Welsh Losser carpet-photo over on its back. Camera cuts to the wild man, who just then looks up at the rafters and shouts to the glob: Now!!!
Laughing, the glob leaps over the side of the crossbeam and plummets like a sack of cement to the studio floor. As the glob falls down, Losser is hoisted up, up by the neck out of his chair; he’s twitching his legs in the air; one studio hand jumps up to grab him by the legs to try to pull him down, but Losser is still grounded over the other side of the crossbeam by the laughing glob – and… oh!!! – I swear I just heard something snap…
This is really more than unbelievable, this is really too much… and now, there is a flurry across the studio floor, the cameras seem to panic, swinging, flailing and blurring to-and-fro, up and down, unable to capture the moment, but now the frame finally settles and it looks like the glob has untied himself from the rope, the near-naked stiff-haired wild man has run off with the photo-carpets, and Welsh Losser is laid out with the rope still around his neck on the floor…
Lard falls asleep…
He wakes up…
It’s not so bad here, he says, speaking calmly to himself. The food’s about as bad as in an American hospital. I can drink the orange juice and eat a few things, like the macaroni in the thin gravy sometimes, the apple pie, the ice cream.
Well, that’s good, Lard, good that you’re enjoying your stay. Maybe I can help you enjoy it even more.
Josh Davies! Well – what a pleasant surprise! Haven’t seen you in ages. What brings you here? Gee, that’s really great of you to visit.
Well, as they say, I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by. In the Bible it says it’s a Christian duty to visit the sick.
Hey, that’s really great. You’ve perked up my spirits already. Oh, sure, just take that pillow off the chair there and make yourself comfortable. We’ll shoot the breeze, catch up on old times, see where the cards have fallen, take the ol’… say, Josh, I said why don’t you go ahead and make yourself comfortable… why are you walking over to me with that pillow? These two I’ve got under my head are just fine – believe me, I’m quite comfortable – thanks, thanks a million, but… Josh… Josh…
Oh, that’s all fine and dandy, Lard, but believe you me, based on my experience, no one can ever be quite comfortable enough. Did you ever see “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”? Well, Lard, I’m taking you with me. Now, there you go, Lard… that a boy… there you go…
Josh… Josh… no, Josh, no… mmm… mmm…mmm…
Filed by Jack Step, August 24, 2013