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TSJ#22
By Max Zero
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12.00pm - First Call
“All I want is everything,” says Max Zero, putting down his beer, leaning back in his seat and grinning like a smug bastard. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Everything isn’t as great as it sounds,” replies Doctor Skin, wondering why the hell his glass is empty. “This one time, I achieved complete omnipotence and had total control of all time and space. I ruled over everything.”
“So what happened?”
“It got really boring, really quickly.” Skin turns and glances out the large front window of the bar. Looking out onto J Street, there’s always something to see, always something different.
“Wearing your heart on your sleeve is so uncool,” says Max in a dull monotone. Thoughtfully draining his glass, he slides the empty vessel across the table to Skin. “Your round.”
“Fair enough,” says Skin, picking up both glasses and heading for the bar. Walking across the room, he briefly wonders how he got here and what he’s supposed to be doing. But all such thoughts are quickly forgotten after the crisis at the bar.
“What do you mean, you’re out of peanuts?” cries Skin piercingly. Once again, violence is inevitable.
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1.00pm - A Matter Of Digestion
“You’re really going to eat the whole thing?” asks Skin, staring at the large plate of food in front of Max with faint disgust.
“’Course,” says Max, grabbing another large forkful.
“What is it anyway?”
Max stops eating long enough for a closer look at the pile in front of him and a little contemplation. “Some sort of potato, I think. That bit there is definitely some sort of cheese.”
“Terrible,” sneers Skin, grabbing another handful of pretzels and talking with his mouth full. “Absolutely terrible.”
“What? I gotta fill the stomach with something. Besides, you aren’t slow at getting into the pretzels.”
“These pretzels are a snack, flawlessly salted in perfect compliment to the alcohol. Maybe not as good as peanuts, but good enough. What you have there is not a snack. It is a meal.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So this is a drinking session and that is going to soak up all the booze.”
“Huh?”
“Eating’s cheating.”
“No way, Doc. The way I figure it, there’s a bloody good chance I’ll be throwing up sometime in the next 22 hours, and I wanna make sure I’ve got something to throw up, you dig?”
“I don’t want to listen to you anymore,” says Skin dismissively. “You have absolutely nothing worthwhile to say.”
“Shit, once I got so fucked up on gin I was throwing up bile. That was fucking horrible.”
“Not listening any more.”
“It was green and yellow and tasted like battery acid. Left a feeling in the back of the throat like I’d swallowed a motherfuckin’ sword.”
“That’s nice,” says Skin, staring into his beer. “That’s lovely.”
“That’s right,” says Max, chewing his food happily.
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2.00pm - Arriba, Arsehole!
“Fuck me,” whines Max, looking dubiously at the shot glass in front of him. “Where the hell did all this bloody tequila come from?”
“This bottle,” says skin, holding up that bottle.
“Ah.” Max picks the glass up, drains it without a second thought, chokes back the shock and lets Skin refill his glass. “Well. That’s all right then.”
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3.00pm - Calling Earth Prime
Skin has disappeared into the toilet, and sitting alone at the table, Max has only just noticed the old comic sitting on the empty seat next to him. Instantly curious, he picks it up and starts to flick through it.
He’s taking a break from the tequila for a while, but Max has still got a good shine on. His fingertips feel ultra-sensitive and there’s a nice buzzing between his ears that reverberates down to his stomach.
As Max flicks through the comic, strange impulses fire in his brain and he starts to get a bit emotional. He remembers reading the same comic book years ago, back when he was a kid.
Closing his eyes, its like he’s still there in his room, surrounded by long-lost toys, the smell of the past heavy in the air. Nostalgia overwhelms, pulsing through a lifetime’s worth of memories. Everything starts to connect.
“What’s the matter with you?” asks Doctor Skin, sitting back down at their table. “You look like shit. Not losing it already?”
Max wipes away a non-existent tear. “I’m all right.”
“Huh. Well, you wouldn’t believe what happened to me in the toilet, man. Ended up in some dimension where they only discovered rock and roll seven years ago. Bunch of creepy fuckers.”
“Great,” says Max, his voice little more than a croak. He reaches for the comic again, but it’s vanished from the table.
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4.00pm - Drinking Games
“Is this necessary, Doc?”
“Is anything necessary, Max?”
“In what sense?”
“Would you prefer a philosophical answer?”
“Do I look like I need more bloody philosophy in my life?”
“What do you need, Max?”
“Who says I need anything?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Don’t you?”
“Do you want a philosophical answer?”
“Was that repetition?”
“Of course not…. Fuck.”
“Gotcha.”
“Fuck.” Doctor Skin takes the glass full of white port and drinks it quickly, taking care not to smell it because he fucking hates white port. Slamming the glass back down he suddenly remembers why he’s here, but he’s just as quickly forgotten again. He reaches for the bottle.
“Right!” he says with a grin, filling his glass, ready for more. “Best seven out of nine?”
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5.00pm - Full Of It
Doctor Skin’s smile melts faster than an ice cube in a blast furnace. “Oh shit,” he groans, “not again.”
As Skin slides slowly down his seat and under the table, Max turns to look at the new arrival at the bar, the man who has turned Skin’s world upside down.
“Don’t know him,” says Max. Turning back around, he finds Skin hiding behind a saltshaker. “Who is he?”
“One of my nemesises.”
“That’s not a word.”
“It is now.”
Max glances back at the man in the black 18th-century undertakers coat. “Who is he?”
“He’s my enemy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Professor Scorpio,” says the man in question, striding across the room and taking a seat opposite skin without invitation. “A man of wealth and taste.”
“That’s debatable,” says Skin gloomily. Leaning back in his seat, Scorpio grins, showing yellow, decaying teeth.
“Want a beer?” asks Max.
“White wine. Dry.” Professor Scorpio doesn’t take his eyes off Skin and Max signals to the bartender.
Doctor Skin sighs. “All right. Let's get it over with. How do you want to do it? Shall we start with bashing each others faces in?”
Scorpio shakes his head. “No. I’ve been warned. One more fight and I’m banned from here. And I like this bar. No, I’m afraid it’ll have to be an argument.”
“Great,” says Skin with little enthusiasm.
“’Scuse me,” interjects Max as the waiter, a five-dimensional imp on working holiday, deposits wine and beer for all. “I’m a bit lost. What is this all about?”
Professor Scorpio makes a point of rolling his eyes before replying in a swift voice. “He is me and I am him which puts us into constant battle to co-exist in the same place at the same time. Conflict is absolutely essential, right on down to the quantum level. We must fight, because we have to. It's as simple as that.”
Max picks up his beer. “Oh. Okay.”
“Besides,” says Scorpio, looking back at Skin, “aggravation, confrontation and violent resolution is what fan fiction is all about.”
“Oh come on,” says Skin, smashing his fist down on the table. “That’s a gross simplification. That could be extended to any kind of fiction, in any kind of media.”
“True, but such methodology is evidence of an immature perspective, a childish approach to storytelling.”
“You say that likes it’s a bad thing. Keeping things simplistic keeps it mildly accessible. Just like all the classics, the simplest stories are the best.”
“Gilgamesh was a loser,” says Max Zero.
Professor Scorpio ignores him. “Simple? You call this simple? A convoluted continuity holding tight within one head, while falling flaccid in the world outside? Monotonous characters with little originality, contrived situations with no reflection in reality!”
Doctor Skin finishes his beer before answering. “So? At least that one head gets a kick out of it. Christ, what is the fascination with recognition? So you can make money out of it? Is that the main negative point? Stupid, pitiful remuneration?”
“Of course not. Even I wouldn’t go that far. But no, the main problem is a lack of audience. You might have the best ideas in the world, but if you don’t share them, they’re useless. And don’t try that ultra-cult argument. Have a conversation, for God’s sake.”
“Audience is by-product. Certainly, the more the better, but it ain’t essential. It’s the fun of it, that’s what you never understood, Scorpio. Doing it just because its fun.”
“I wonder if they’ve got any Clash on the jukebox,” says Max.
“But it doesn’t even use other people’s creations, the retarded cornerstone of fan-fiction. The use of established creations may provide the cheapest of thrills, but its got to be better than this: Two characters nobody cares about talking absolute shit!”
“Isn’t that the reflection on reality you were after? The mundane carries through to the fiction. It's just another tool.”
Max Zero turns to the reader. “This is getting too fucking post-modern for my tastes. I’m off to the bar.”
He leaves them there, locked in beautifully pointless argument. Striking up a conversation with the bartender who looks like an escapee from Arkham Asylum, (complete with straightjacket), he ignores the bickering coming from the other side of the bar, finding that a lot easier than it looks.
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6.00pm - At A Loose End
The brain is in cruise mode now. Pleasantly sloshed, just the right side of coherent, and the only problem Max really has is whether he’s saying all this out loud or not.
He glances at Skin, but his drinking buddy hasn’t seen shit. Ever since Scorpio went to the toilet and vanished off the face of the planet, Skin has been staring off into the distance, an annoyingly whimsical look on his face.
“Big thoughts, huh?” says Max, catching Skin’s attention, but getting no further than a dull gaze. “Nature of the universe, maybe? Perhaps some more fictional post-bollocks? How about what happens when we die?”
Skin blinks once before replying, the slight motion taking an extraordinary thirteen seconds to perform. “Actually, I was thinking about the rugby.”
Deep down inside Max, something that isn’t really all that important breaks down into a gibbering wreck, dragging most of Max’s psyche down to its own pitiful level. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“But…”
“Did you get your car back?” asks Max, changing the subject with all the subtlety of a motherfuckin’ atom bomb. “From those Pirate guys?”
“Heh,” sneers Doctor Skin. “Pirates are cool.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“A highly tenuous yes. I’ve been having a bit of trouble with linear time recently.”
“Who hasn’t?”
Skin starts rubbing his hands together slowly. “Nice guys, those Kinky Space Pirates.”
“To be honest,” admits Max, “I never really got the deal with those fellas. ‘Everybody is Mr. Action’? What the fuck is all that about?”
“Confusion is part of the deal.”
“I met Doug Strange once. He’s got a head like a dog.”
“Different Strange. The one I dealt with had silver eyes.”
“How many of these fuckers are there?”
“How many do you need there to be?”
“Are we playing that stupid bloody game again?”
“The universe needs confusion, Max. It needs anarchy and weirdness and strange people or it will stagnate. Change might mean the local store is all out of milk, but that just means you have to go out and milk a fucking cow. Its like reality is the biggest ham sandwich in the universe, and God likes his mustard!”
“Heh,” smirks Max. “Your metaphors might be shot to hell, but there’s those big thoughts I was after…”
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7.00pm - Long Distance
The cigarette machine is making fun of him again. “Your selection is unavailable,” it drones in a monotonous voice, “which is for the best, as smoking causes deformities in babies.”
“Stupid fucking thing!” curses Max, resisting the urge to kick the machine. He’s seen its automatic defences before, and he doesn’t want anything inserted anywhere. “Give me what I asked for!”
“Your selection is unavailable,” it repeats through the unusually moist and fleshy mouthpiece just below the coin slot, “which is just as well, because smoking kills six thousand bartenders a year.”
When the bar had first installed these sentient vending machines, Max had thought it had sounded completely dodgy, but he took no pleasure in finding his predictions correct.
“Can I have another brand then? How about those Lucky Apples?”
“Your money has already been forwarded to the child cancer foundation. Which is good, as you would only have us-“
“Give it a fucking rest, would you? Max moans, turning away from the machine to answer the phone that has started ringing in his jacket pocket. “Hello?”
“Hey, what are you up to?”
“Hey Kyle. Nuthin’ much. Having a few drinks down the local.”
“Aw yeah? Which bar are you at?”
“Beats me, dude. I think its Grendel’s bar, but I can’t be sure. It keeps changing.”
“No worries. I’ll find you. I’ve just got this thing to take care of, then I’ll come join you.”
“Yeah? What are you doin’?”
“Saving the universe.”
“What? Again?”
“Yeah. Hey, hang on a second, Max.”
“Sure.”
On the other side of the universe, Kyle puts Max on hold, tucks the phone away in the back pocket of his jeans, ducks the Parademon’s clumsy lunge and kicks it in the armoured forehead. It goes down with a bemused look on its face and an outraged grunt.
Kyle is starting to wonder how desperate Kid Oblivion must be getting if he’s stealing cheap labour from Darkseid. Picking up the unconscious alien’s energy trident, he hits the trail again.
He hadn’t had a chance to catch the name of the planet before being dumped in the wormhole that deposited him here. The briefing the Men From G.O.D. had given him had been frustratingly vague and increasingly surreal, with little in the way of cold, hard facts.
Kyle doesn’t know the name of the planet, but since he’s been here he’s come to the conclusion that it’s a pretty fucking groovy place. The sky is a shade of purple not found anywhere on Earth, and the clouds are shaped like huge, black pine trees drift in an odd zigzag pattern through the impossible hue.
Unsurprisingly, the planet appears to be inhabited, although Kyle isn’t totally sure. The natives appear to exist in several dimensions more than Kyle, and even though he only catches glimpses of them that look like more dark jagged lines, he can’t shake the feeling that they’re laughing at him.
But it is the planet itself he likes most. There are no features, no landscape. No mountains, road, hills, trees or rivers. There is nothing, just the smooth, red surface of the planet, stretching out in every direction. But the monotony of the view is compensated by the fact that the surface of this world is soft and pliable, and walking on it is like bouncing on a trampoline.
As Kyle follows Kid Oblivion’s trail, each step he takes bounces him higher into the air, until he is bouncing along at speed, enthusiastically howling as he gets higher and higher. As he hits the ground again and flies thirty metres up into the air, Kyle feels cocky enough to throw in a few somersaults for good measure, but stops when the curry he had for breakfast starts crawling up his throat.
Swallowing hard, Kyle presses on, and soon catches sight of Kid Oblivion’s starship, a huge golden pyramid hovering slightly above the ground, slowly rotating. Kyle groans when he sees the last of Oblivion’s cronies waiting for him. He hates beating these guys up. They look exactly like Donald Duck’s nephews.
“Fuck it!” he cries as he hurtles back up into the air. “Puny ducks! Kyle smash!”
Coming down from on high, he kicks Huey right in the beak. The duck goes down as Kyle flips backward and smashes Duey over the head with the blunt end of his trident. He spins in mid-air, looking for Louie, and takes a duck foot in the face.
Feeling like his jaw has been pushed around to the wrong side of his head, Kyle falls down onto his back, bounces back up and comes at Louie, with visions of roast duck burning in his mind.
Fighting back the temptation to kill, he settles for punching Louie in the gut, Kyle’s fist hitting the plump stomach hard. Louie goes down, rolling around on the ground and wheezing like an asthmatic steam train. Kyle leaves him there, stepping inside the pyramid.
The corridor inside the ship is dark, and Kyle waits for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Reaching for the strawberry flavoured gum in his pocket, he finds his phone and suddenly remembers his interrupted conversation.
“Oh shit!” he says, stabbing some random buttons on the phone. “Max? You still there?”
“I’m still here,” says Max, live from J Street. “I don’t have much choice.”
“Huh?”
“The cigarette machine is eating my foot.”
“Huh?”
“Everything’s gone a bit Cronenberg. Okay, I’m free now.”
“Great.” Kyle starts moving down the corridor. His eyes have adjusted to the dim light and he can see a faint glow down the end of the hallway. Chewing his gum, he heads towards the light. “I should be done here soon, mate. I’ll catch up with you later on.”
“Cool. I ain’t going nowhere for a while.”
Kyle grins as he reaches the end of the corridor and enters the control room. “Later,” he says, cutting the connection and dropping the phone back into his pocket.
Kid Oblivion has his back to him, but Kyle knows he has seen him. In the center of the disappointingly retro control room, an object with too many angles hovers above a map of the universe.
“You’re too late again, Kyle,” says Kid Oblivion in a predictably monotone, turning to look at him with an expression of pure apathy. “The Ace of Stars is mine. Its time to start everything over again, old friend.”
“That’s okay,” says Kyle, grinning as he slips a large ball bearing into the palm of his left hand. “This universe ain’t doing nuthin’ for me.”
Back on J Street, Max doesn’t spare a second thought for Kyle’s troubles as he sits down at the booth, sliding Skin’s cigarettes across the table. “Next time, get your own fucking smokes.”
“Good Lord. What happened to your shoe? It looks like motherfuckin’ Jaws has been chewing down on it.”
“Doesn’t matter. Sounds like reality is about to be destroyed again anyway.”
“Meet the new gods,” says an unconcerned Skin. “Same as the old gods.”
“Yeah,” says Max, sipping his beer. Feeling strange movement in his gut and bubbles in his brain, he starts to wonder whether he should be slowing down…
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8.00pm - All Reason Is Lost
“Zero!” cries Skin, slapping Max on the back with slightly more force than necessary and catching the new bartender’s third eye. “Have another beer!”
“I’ll have two!” shouts Max, caught up in the moment.
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9:00pm - Gratuitous Quoting
“Fuck!” says Skin, looking up from the floor with a look of complete shock. “I’ve fallen off my chair, Brian!”
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10.00pm - Future Bleeding Now
Somehow Skin has convinced him that it’s his turn to get the drinks in, and Max leans against the bar as he waits for the bartender to fetch a couple of inordinately dry martinis. Glancing up at the television, it takes him a minute for his inebriated mind to get to grips with the action on the screen.
Once he does, it doesn’t take him long to realise he’s watching the news, but like no news he’s ever seen. Strange events flash past, with unfamiliar people mugging to the camera. Then the date appears up on screen, and Max realizes he’s watching news from the future, some ten years down the line.
Fascinated, he tries to make sense of it all, but it’s totally beyond him. He can’t keep track, and he’s got a horrible feeling its got nothing to do with his intoxication.
And then the sports news comes on, and Max suddenly finds it easier to follow. Results come up on the screen and Max starts searching for a pen, no doubt in his mind that any such results could be incredibly useful sometime in the future.
He finds a black magic marker inside one of his pockets just as the bartender with a head like an Easter Island statue returns with the immaculate martinis, and Max takes the time to pay and tip the man. By the time he’s done, the future news has vanished from the screen, replaced by the sight of a young man in long underwear and glasses leaping out from behind a curtain and putting another man into a headlock.
“Tsk,” moans Max, picking up the drinks and headed back towards his booth. “Typical.”
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11.00pm - Up And Down On The Spot
A band that wasn’t there a few seconds ago suddenly flares into life, and a crowd of dancers also appear out of nowhere, already hyped up and ready to roll.
“Yes!” cries Skin, standing up suddenly and getting out of the booth clumsily, pushing Max’s legs aside and stumbling over his feet. “Yes!”
Max watches him as he dives into the throng. He briefly considers joining Skin, but there’s another boulder in his gut and he isn’t going anywhere.
Skin doesn’t care. Up on the dance floor, lost in the beat and the heat of the crowd, all his worries fall away. He feels like he’s shedding another skin, and he can’t wait to see the results of the change.
Bouncing up and down, he loses all the crap that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. All the tiny pieces of paranoia, all the nervousness of the new, all the concerns for the future, all lost as he dances alone in the crowd.
Down in the booth, Max sips his drink as he falls in the opposite direction. Over-thinking everything, he builds up the tiniest indiscretions into full-blown psychosis. Nuggets of uncertainty get bigger by the second until he feels ready to explode, ready to fall into the ground, letting it swallow him up.
He just wants to vanish, get away from everything. J Street has everything to offer, but he’s seen it all before. He needs something new to get him going again, he needs to see something he’s never seen before.
He just wants something to happen.
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12.00am - Something Happens
“I’m telling you,” whispers Skin in Max’s ear, “you better lose that fuckin’ self-pity or I’m gonna smash your fuckin’ face in.”
Max turns to Skin and puts on his best look of utter disdain. “You and whose army?”
Skin is about to reply when a young Asian man with a bright pink Mohawk runs into the bar, leaps into the air, flips over, lands on their table and punches Skin right in the nose.
“Vengeance is mine!” screams Skin’s attacker, somersaulting backward and falling back into a defensive position in the middle of the room.
“Oooooowwww!” moans Skin, clutching his shattered nose. “Faaaaaarrrrrrk!”
“Hah!” laughs Max, knocking some more beer back. “Good shot!”
The Asian man points an accusing finger at Skin. “For my family’s honour! For the honour of all men everywhere! You! Must! Die!”
“Christ,” moans Skin, grabbing a handkerchief from his pocket and holding it to his nose. “Give me a second, would you?”
“Never!”
Skin’s latest enemy dives forward, reaching for Skin’s throat, but Skin kicks the table with his knees. Max just manages to rescue his beer as the tabletop flies up, blocking the lunge.
“Jesus!” moans Max as Skin gets to his feet. “Who is this guy anyway?”
“Shin-Tzu Sing,” says Skin as he cracks his knuckles in the most ostentatious manner possible. “Kung-Fu King!”
“What?” cries Max in total disbelief. “Another fuckin’ nemesis? How many do you need?”
Shin-Tzu steps up to Skin and aims several blows at his head. Skin dodges each one without moving his feet, before catching Shin-Tzu with a solid uppercut. The Kung-Fu King’s eyes cross as he staggers back and Skin has enough time to turn and wink at Max. “Always room for one more.”
And then it’s all on. With Skin’s punch adding to his rage, Shin-Tzu grabs an ashtray from the nearest table and hurls it at Skin’s face. Skin ducks and the ashtray bounces harmlessly off the wall as Skin leaps forward, kicking out at Shin-Tzu.
Shin-Tzu ducks, drops to one knee and kicks Skin’s legs out from beneath him. Skin falls forward, lands on the palms of his hands and flips back over, using the force of his manoeuvre to drive his fist into Shin-Tzu’s gut.
Skin doesn’t let his opponent catch his breath, and grabs him in a headlock. Shin-Tzu takes a moment to get his shit together, before taking a deep breath, grabbing hold of Skin’s hair and yanking hard.
Screaming like a little girl, Skin lets him free and frantically scans the bar for a mirror, desperate to see the damage inflicted on his carefully prepared haircut.
Taking advantage of Skin’s vanity, Shin-Tzu kicks him in the back of his knees. Skin goes down like a sack of shit, his head bouncing off the floor. Shin-Tzu leaps on his back and starts stamping hard on Skin’s spine.
Max turns away from the fighting as the waitress with a face that looks like it was sculpted out of ice wanders past. “Hey! Hey, can I get some more beer?”
“Sure, honey,” says the waitress as she moves back to the bar, skirting around the fight with practiced ease.
Down on the floor, Skin has decided enough is enough, grabs hold of Shin-Tzu’s foot in mid-stomp, and twists it around. Off balance, the Kung-Fu King staggers back, and Skin jumps to his feet, and, with a quick shove into the small of his back, pops his spine back into place.
Undeterred, Shin-Tzu spins around, picking up a barstool and bringing it down on the top of Skin’s head with a hollow thumping sound. Skin staggers back, before leaping at the King, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him high. Shin-Tzu isn’t having that, and kicks Skin in the balls.
“Here you go,” says the waitress, handing Max an ice-cold beer.
“Aw, fucking wonderful,” says Max genuinely, taking the beer and gesturing vaguely at the fight. “Sorry about my friend. Can’t take him anywhere.”
The waitress smiles and shrugs in a way that has Max instantly falling totally and irredeemably in love with her. “Eh. Seen it all before.”
Max watches her depart and knowing he doesn’t have a hope in hell, sips his perfect beer and turns back to the fight.
It's completely broken down in the time Max has been looking away, and the two men stand in the middle of the room, punching the crap out of each other. Blood and sweat fly, and nothing gets resolved.
“Hang on!” cries Skin, stopping the fight with a raised hand. “Doesn’t this all seem... well… stupid?”
“Stupid?” cries Shin-Tzu Sing, his voice breaking in incredulity, “I’m fighting for honour and justice, and you call this stupid? What kind of man are you? What sort of-“
“Aw,” moans Skin, picking up Shin-Tzu and lifting him up over his head in one fluid motion. “Tell your story walkin’, pal.”
Skin throws the Kung-Fu King out throw the large window at the front of the bar. As Shin-Tzu smashes through the glass, he begins to fade away, and the only thing hitting the pavement outside is broken glass.
“Well!” says Skin, slapping his hands together and taking a seat beside Max. “That’s that!”
“Took you long enough to figure out the bloody score,” mutters Max under his breath.
Skin catches the waitress’ eye and gets a smile out of her. “Hey, I’m a slow learner.”
“Feel better now?”
“Good enough to beat you at a game of pool,” says Skin confidentially.
Max can’t help grinning as he finishes his beer. “You never learn, do you?”
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1.00am - Leave The Rest To God
Doctor Skin watches helplessly as he sinks the black again. He turns to Max, who stands up and bows, grinning smugly.
“Better luck next time, Jake.”
“Best five out of seven?” asks Skin, already knowing the answer.
Max doesn’t bother replying this time, and walks away. Skin watches him wander back through to the main bar, and shakes his head in total bewilderment. “How the hell does he keep on doing that?”
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2.00am - Too Fucking Bright
As the hour hits, the bar changes again. Patrons vanish into limbo, the décor suddenly turns into a retro nightmare and the staff piss off to another universe, while the next shift slide in, straight from Valhalla. Max tries to concentrate, but it’s all getting a bit much again, and without a word, he stands and heads for the door, desperate for some fresh air.
Stepping out into the J Street night, Max can barely see a thing in the bright sunlight. The street is almost deserted at this late hour, but the sun beaming in from some parallel Earth is still high in the sky.
“Christ,” moans Max quietly, searching his jacket pockets for the sunglasses he could’ve sworn he had a few hours ago.
“Hot enough for ya?” asks the Mystery Pilgrim, lying in a doorway next to the bar, somehow managing to grin without a face.
“What is it with this bloody place anyway?” moans Max, taking a seat beside the Pilgrim on the sidewalk. “Is the entire street scared of the dark or something?”
The Mystery Pilgrim shrugs. “The sun never sets on J Street.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t always like this? Was it?”
“Don’t ask me, man. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”
Max just lets it ride, leans his head back against the wall behind him and takes a few deep breaths. The buzzing in his head is reaching biblical proportions, but he’s got a handle on it now, and rides it out.
Once his thoughts have stopped acting like a David Lynch movie, he opens his eyes, unsurprised to find the Mystery Pilgrim has vanished, and even less surprised to find the change in his pocket has also disappeared. Knowledge, not matter how inconsequential, always has a price.
Max stands up as three bright-green buses full of apes with human masks on speed past, spewing out diesel fumes that Max finds strangely nostalgic.
Breathing in his own past, Max wanders back inside the bar, ready to go on.
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3.00am - Here Be Dragoons
The white sand of the beach stretches out ahead of Doctor Skin, going on forever, shining in the bright sun. Skin doesn’t mind, he’s got a bottle of wine that never seems to run out, there is a pleasant breeze blowing in off the ocean, and he’s got nothing better to do, so he walks along the beach, one step at a time.
There’s music in the air, a song on the breeze that Skin can never quite hear. Catching odd notes, the song is incredibly familiar, but he still can’t place it.
Occasionally swigging from the bottle, his thoughts flow like the waves breaking right next to him. Building and building, only to fall down under their own weight, into nothing. Happily drunk, he ignores his past and plans for the future he knows is inevitable.
One foot after the other, he keeps on going.
Time passes, but Skin has no idea how long. The sun stays fixed directly above him, his bottle is still full and he isn’t feeling tired.
“Could be minutes,” whispers Skin as he drinks some more. “Could be years.”
He spots something half-buried in the sand. Stopping, he knells down to pick it up and finds an old paperback book, the pages torn, the cover faded. Only just able to make it out, Skin reads the title of the book out loud.
“’The Adventures of AoAMimic and Una Persson in the House of Mystery’?”
No sooner has he read the title than the book dissolves in his hand, tiny pieces of paper falling through his fingers.
“Shit,” swears Skin quietly. He briefly considers getting off the beach, but huge rocks with vicious jagged edges line the sand, cutting off all escape from the infinite beach.
So Skin keeps on going.
For a while longer Skin thinks he’s alone, but as he looks out to the sea, he can see something far off in the distance. At first he assumes they’re just seagulls, circling over the ocean, but then he gets some perspectives sorted out and realizes that if they’re birds, they’re very, very big birds.
He keeps an eye on them for a little longer, but they show no sign of coming any closer, and Skin’s alcohol-fried short-term memory soon disposes of them for good.
He keeps on going.
Suddenly, there’s the briefest burst of ultra-paranoia and Skin buries his head in his hands and walks along blind, certain that all his sins have come back on him and that he is trapped here on this beach, cursed to walk this monotonous journey until the end of time. And the worst thing is, he knows he deserves it.
“I’m lost,” he moans, “and I’m not sure I should be found.”
“That depends on who would be looking for you,” says an impossibly deep voice that seems to be coming from right behind Skin’s ear. Skin’s shock is instantly drowned beneath feelings of relief. The monotony is over.
Skin stops walking, spins around and opens his eyes. There is nobody there, just the same empty beach spreading out in either direction, the ocean to his left, and a giant red dragon on the rocks to his right.
“Ah,” says Skin as he struggles to think of something clever to say. Taking a mouthful of wine, he settles for the simplest response. “Hello.”
The dragon is lying low on the rocks, its long, forked tail flicking lazily in the air behind it. The dragon leans forward, its head with teeth the size of Skin’s arm stopping just short of his face.
“You don’t belong here,” says the dragon, not bothering to speak and sending its message directly into Skin’s head.
“Story of my life,” sighs Skin. He knows he should be more scared, but there just doesn’t seem to be much point. Besides, the dragon has surprisingly sweet breath.
“Well done,” says the dragon, and Skin realizes it’s grinning at him. It pulls back and sits up straight, and Skin sees it properly for the first time. Incredibly tall, the dragon is covered with bright red scales flecked with silver and gold, with golden fins and a gleaming white horn behind the bright red eyes.
“I like the horn,” says Skin, catching the dragon’s infectious grin.
“Thank you,” says the dragon politely. “But you really do not belong here. How did you get here, anyway?”
“Beats me,” shrugs Skin. “I went for a slash and while I was washing my hands in the bathroom I realized that the splashing water sounded just like down on the beach when I was a kid and I ended up in this place.”
“This is not a place.”
“Whatever, here I am.”
“Yes,” says the dragon as it shakes his head and chuckles, the laughter sounding like planets colliding. “The toilet. Of course.”
Something about the dragon is getting through to Skin, and he is starting to feel a lot better. “Still, gotta admit, I could learn to like this place. Nice beach, good vibe. I never get tired and my wine never runs out. Reckon I could handle it a bit longer.
The dragon leans in close again. “You do not belong here.”
“So you keep saying.”
“You can’t stay. You can’t ride the night winds. Not yet.”
Doctor Skin has no idea what the dragon is talking about, so decides to bluff. “Says who?”
The dragon calls his bluff. Standing back up, the dragon’s red leather wings spread wide. As they spread further and further, they become too wide for Skin to take in, stretching out across the sky. The wings soon block the sun out, and everything goes black.
Skin tries to hold his head together as the world drops out from beneath him, turns back around again and gives him a good slapping. He clutches the bottle to his chest and hums the oldest song he knows as the darkness around him sucks away part of his soul. Left with no choice, he gives in to the void and it begins to seep into him, tearing him apart.
And just as he feels lost to oblivion, he hears the beating of wings, coming closer. He feels something pull him forward, and he’s back on the beach, down on his knees. The bottle drops from his hand and the wine empties away into the ocean.
“See what I mean?” says the dragon with just a hint of smugness.
“Damn,” says Skin. “That was pretty fucked up.”
“You’re holding onto this place through sheer force of will, but it can’t last. Nothing ever lasts.”
“Yeah,” says Skin, getting back to his feet. “But nothing really ends either, does it?”
The dragon doesn’t reply, but its smile grows minutely wider.
“So can you get me home?”
“Easy,” says the dragon, and before Skin can react, it lunges forward and hooks a claw into Skin’s head. It doesn’t hurt, the dragon’s touch far too precise to damage flesh.
“Cool,” he moans as the dragon tries to find the right keys to his perception. “I’m the king of the world.”
And then the dragon opens all the locks, and Doctor Skin feels the world collapse around him again, the dragon’s voice echoing in his head as he takes the sharp shortcut home.
“Nothing ever ends, but you have to move on. Sooner or later.”
And Skin’s beginning to think it’s right, because the journey home suddenly stretches out forever, on and on into eternity.
“Nice light show,” says Skin, managing to sneer as his face gets wiped across all of existence, “but it’s still not as good as ‘2001’.”
And even infinity has its limits, and Doctor Skin suddenly finds himself walking towards the toilet exit. After all that, he muses, he’s still stuck in this fucking bar.
Skin doesn’t break stride and walks through the door, resisting the urge to turn back.
)+(
4.00am - Keep It Simple, Stupid
Doctor Skin clears away the glasses, sweeping them onto the floor and drawing helpful diagrams in the spilt beer. “Look, it’s really easy. Can you follow me?”
“Follow you?” asks Max in total disbelief. “I can barely fuckin’ stand! I ain’t following you anywhere, man.”
“Just pay attention,” says Skin impatiently, taping the table. “Look, all I’m trying to say is that the place you live in has a definite impact on the people that live there. They surrender part of their identity to their surroundings; they bind their ego to their homes. And your home pushes back, laying down psychic lattices that can be broken, or can be strengthened. Let yourself go, that’s all you gotta do. Make friends with your town! Let the city show you what to do! You dig?”
“Fuck no. You lost me at psychic lattices. For God’s sake, put it in a way I can understand, dude!”
Skin gets into a bit of heavy pondering before responding. “Judge Dredd.”
“Judge Dredd?”
“Judge Dredd is Mega-City One.”
Max nods, the reference good enough. “Fuck with him, he’ll kill ya. Fuck with his city, he’ll kill your city.”
“You following me now?”
“Not really,” confesses Max. “I just really fucking love Judge Dredd. What was your original point, anyway?”
Doctor Skin realizes his original point is little more than a distant memory. “Shit. Too clever-clever again.”
“Har!” laughs Max, standing up. He’s thirsty again. “Too clever by half!”
)+(
5.00am - Doctor Skin Is Getting Loud Again
“Dance!” screams Doctor Skin, standing up on his table for emphasis. “Dance! Dance to the music! Dance like you mean it!”
Max has seen it all before and slides out of the booth in one smooth motion, heading toward the bar, Skin’s shrill voice taunting him.
“All I wanted was some sense of wonder! Is that too much to fucking ask?”
Max makes it to the bar just as his knees take a vacation, and he falls onto a barstool, his head resting on the bar’s surface.
“This life ain’t so special!” hollers Skin. “Needs more violence! And speed!”
“Get you anything, pal?” asks the pile of red dirt lying on the bar beside Max. “I mix a mean martini.”
“Speed like the road-runner! Fast enough for any-damn-thing! Then I’ll get the story I need! All the stories I need!”
“No thank you,” replies Max, talking into his elbow. “Think I’ll just sit here. For a while.”
“I got no right to be hostile! It’s been a life of privilege for me! Doesn’t that make you want to puke?”
“Suit yourself,” says the dirt, sliding away down the bar, leaving a spotless surface behind it.
“All I want is some love! I can always use more!”
Max takes a deep breath. He wants to go home, but he’s not going anywhere. For a while longer.
“I’m in Hell!” cries Skin, reaching a crescendo. “How did I get here?”
)+(
6.00pm - My Palomar
“Blub blib blab blub blub blub blub blb blb bld,” says Max Zero softly as he stares off into the distance.
“Blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb blb,” says Doctor Skin from somewhere under the table.
)+(
7.00am - Come On, Put It In The Right Place
“Christ,” whispers Max, getting to his feet and swaying unsteadily. He’s starting to feel really bad now, his stomach rolling around, his head fuzzed beyond compare.
Slowly, carefully, he picks up his glass and sips his beer, but its gone toxic on him and he spits the mouthful back into the glass.
Slumped in his seat, Doctor Skin laughs at Max’s discomfort and pours himself another shot of absinthe, ready for any more dragons that may appear.
)+(
8.00am - Better Than You
Max has got his shit down now. After a few deep breaths, he pulled together enough to call in a favour from OzBat, and had the 5-D Imp skip between universes and pick up some supplies.
Now, Max munches happily on a steak and cheese Jimmy’s Pie from his old home town, pausing between bites to drink some lemonade and wash down a couple of aspirin.
“I love my pie!” cries Max, spraying crumbs all over the table. Skin wipes them away and tries to come up with a good comeback, but his tongue feels like it’s the size of Germany.
“Don’t look at me like that,” says Max, catching Skin’s look of distaste. “I’m tryin’ to avoid a hangover of biblical proportions.”
Skin manages to get to grips with his tongue. “It was your idea to have a twenty-three hour drinking session.”
“Maybe. But you didn’t hesitate to volunteer your services.”
Skin shrugs. “I had nothing better to do.”
Max grins. “Who does?”
)+(
9.00am - Once More
Dreaming of sleep, Max glances around the bar. The other people in the room are lost in their own little worlds, and Max is suddenly filled with the urge to go and talk to them, to see what they’re thinking, to see what they know.
“Why don’t you?” asks the woman sitting next to him, whispering into his ear.
“Because I probably should mind my own fucking business,” replies Max, before realising the woman hadn’t been sitting next to him a moment ago. He looks at her, but can’t get a fix on her, can’t figure out what she looks like. Her features, clothing and hair are in a constant state of flux, she’s sliding between faces like she’s made of water.
“Neat trick,” says Max, catching a glimpse of the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. “I’m Max.”
The woman nods, her short dark hair flowing out into long blond curls. “I know who you are. I’m Agent L.O.V.E.”
“Excuse me?” asks Max, not sure he’s heard that right.
“You!” screams Skin, returning from the bar, his arms laden with a staggering variety of drinks.
“Don’t tell me,” says Max wearily. “Another nemesis?”
“Come on then!” cries Skin, dropping his drinks with a loud crash and raising his fists. “Lets go!”
Agent L.O.V.E. turns to Max with a sigh. “Is he always this melodramatic?”
Max shrugs. “Most of the time.”
“I will not be a victim!” hollers Skin, diving forward at Agent L.O.V.E. But she makes him look an idiot by slipping out of her seat in one swift move, and Skin crashes into the table, sliding in the spilt beer and falling down onto his arse.
“Do you want to fight?” asks Agent L.O.V.E., stepping out of the booth. “Is that what you really want?”
Skin staggers to his feet, fire in his eyes and an insane grin on his face. “Yes. It’s what I want. It’s what I need.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” says Agent L.O.V.E. sweetly, stepping forward and punching Skin in the face, wiping the grin away and sending him tumbling back across the bar, falling into a crowd of mildly irate penguins.
“That’s more like it!” screams Skin hysterically, picking up one of the penguins and throwing it at Agent L.O.V.E. She catches the dazed bird easily and lets it go, just as Skin steps up and kicks her in the stomach.
“Hey!” says Max, suddenly concerned. “You can’t hit girls! That ain’t right!”
Agent L.O.V.E. smiles at Max as she comes back at Skin, head butting him and sending him staggering back. “Don’t worry. I’m not a girl. I’m an anthrologicalectoplasmic entity.”
“Oh,” says Max. “Well, okay then.”
She turns back to face Skin, who is charging at her, screaming incoherently. Stepping aside, she trips him up, but Skin rolls with the fall, gets to his feet and swings a boot at her face. She catches it, twists his ankle and sweeps his other leg out from underneath him. Falling at her feet, he punches her in the back of her knee and she tumbles down beside him.
Crawling across the floor, they kick and punch each other at close range, neither able to get the upper hand, neither able to get any kind of advantage.
“Fuck’s sake!” screams Max, standing over them. Halting their fight for a moment, Doctor Skin and Agent L.O.V.E. stare up at him.
Looking down at them, Max feels nothing but pity. “Is this it? Is this how it always has to go? Fighting for no reason, causing pain for no purpose? Shit, it doesn’t even make any kind of thematic sense! Just a couple of hours ago, Skin, you were ready to give it all up, but now you’re down there in the dirt, lost in hatred! Stand up, both of you!”
Agent L.O.V.E. gets to her feet first and raises a quizzical eyebrow.
“Hey!” moans Skin, “that’s my expression!”
“Oh, shut up,” says Max. “You talk and talk, but you don’t say anything. You fight, but it don’t mean shit. You carry on like this, but nothing gets accomplished. You never learn. You switch your whole personality from moment to moment, you never stick with anything!”
“So?” sneers Skin.
“So? So you can’t carry on like this. Something has got to change! Something has got to give. I never thought it would turn out like this. I thought it would all be different. I… I thought we could be better than this…”
Agent L.O.V.E. steps forward and whispers into Max’s ear. “You thought wrong.”
Then she turns and punches Doctor Skin in the throat.
)+(
10.00am - Is That It?
“Everybody has got a little inside them,” says Agent L.O.V.E., sitting in Max’s lap and sipping her martini. “Some people spend their entire lives trying to deny it, but it’s a waste of time.”
On the other side of the table, Doctor Skin gives up trying to stop the flow of blood from his nose and looks at his arm in puzzlement as it starts beeping.
“My arm is making a funny noise,” he wheezes through shattered teeth.
“It’s your watch, dickhead,” says Max, realising what it means. “We made it.”
“What you talkin’ about, fool?”
“Time’s up! Ha! And you said I wouldn’t make it!”
“That’s twenty-three hours?” ponders Skin. “Damn, that went fast.”
“You reckon? Felt like forever to me.”
“You wanna know about forever?” asks Kyle, walking into the bar on the arm of an exceptionally beautiful woman. “I can tell you all about that.”
“Kristine!” cries Skin indignantly. “Where have you been?”
Kristine kisses Kyle on the cheek before taking her arm away and sitting down beside Skin. “I had things to do. Are you all right?”
“Do I look like I’m all right?” moans Skin, pointing at his various wounds pathetically. “Look at me! I’m a mess when you’re not around to take care of me. I’m no use on my own!”
“Come on,” whispers Kristine, grabbing Skin by the hand and standing up. “I’ll take care of you.”
She doesn’t look back as she leads him out of the bar, but Skin still has time to turn back and wave cheerfully. “Bye, Max! See you next time!”
“Later,” says Max absently turning back to Kyle as his friend slips into Skin’s spot. “I thought you was supposed to be off saving the universe?”
“Done and done,” says Kyle smugly, nodding at Agent L.O.V.E. “Hey, darlin’. My name’s Kyle, but you can call m-“
“I know who you are,” says Agent L.O.V.E. frostily.
Kyle takes the hint and turns back to Max. “Yeah, so I beat the shit out of the bad guy, blew up his spaceship, fell into a dimensional hole, ended up at the end of the time, met up with some people I hadn’t seen in ages and got a ride back with Skin’s missus. Piece of piss.”
“Mmm…” says Max, not really listening. “Your round, is it?”
“Fair enough,” says Kyle, away to the bar without a second thought.
Leaning back in his seat, Max decides that he can go on for a bit longer. He feels like shit, but he also feels strong. He feels like he’s fallen through the fires of hell, only to have all his sins burned away and come out the other side a better man. Now, he knows he can last for some time more. He can carry on. For a while.
He catches Agent L.O.V.E. staring at him with eyes that shift colours between blinks. “Can you stick with one shape?”
Agent L.O.V.E. smiles enigmatically. “I can stick with any shape you want.”
“Really?”
“Really. What do you want?”
Max smiles. All he wants is everything.
THE END.
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