Planetary Plagues, etc.

Reginald stopped by for an unscheduled visit and brought with him his magic pouch. As he rang my bell, I awoke from a drunken slumber and inquired, "What time is it?"

He replied with slurred enunciation: "It is pre-plague Renaissance. I know it is your favourite."

It is... He opened his magic pouch and indeed there was no time at all but those times that are our favourites--and in times like these one must really be outside! And then we were in an empty battlefield with no one but our ghosts. Like teenagers we traveled there by bicycle. We waited for the fight but there was no one there to fight us. Ah, it's just a field, then. So we rode on but not before losing our accents.

"What happened to your accent, Reg?" I asked.

"What happened to yours!?"

"I'm not sure... I do not know my voice at all... But to think of my accent frightens me."

"Let's bike on."

We rode to the university where wild Tropicália music crackled and pulsed and wasps buzzed about unemptied rubbish bins and I grew fearful of the plague while Reginald munched a bagel and played kitten with his cock. What was this plague I feared? I looked around and saw people who were advertisements and whose teeth were like dentures because they were so white and so straight. Is this style without substance or substance without style? Or is it neither and none? Ah, listen to their voices... Their accents are strong and false... As was mine--but now it's gone and I am left with a rubble of phonemes with which I must build my new Babel. But let's not build Babel again--it always falls down--let's come up with something simpler, something sturdier, something a little more like Lascaux.

In the distance I gazed at a girl with wild, red hair. I know her. I danced with her once in a Dublin bar. She is better than most but that's not much. I quickly realized she wasn't my Nicevenn when she professed to be a follower of Acca Dacca. I shan't strike up a conversation. Our orbits have briefly crossed and sentimentality is known to kill a planet and turn it to a moon.

We must leave this place before we die--Franny was right--there is no knowledge here--only horny professors with patches on their sleeves. There you are, my bicycle, my steed. We shall go home now in total darkness. Though there are no lights in the park we can get by with echolocation and a little bit of luck. It's all we need. Who cares if we die because this is a good way to go--speeding down a hill, towards a set of headlights, drawing me in like gravity.