...

I'm lost. And yet I keep finding myself. I find myself, and then I'm lost. I lose myself, and then there I am. Now here I am, in the tense hearing between Trump and Zelensky. J.D. Vance, his head swollen up like a balloon, full of joy, void of comprehending, he's about to point a finger and ask Big Z if he ever thanked Donald Trump. I could stop it. But I don't. Now I'm at the screening of Aliens vs Terminator. I have my Aliens vs Terminator hat on, and my Aliens vs Terminator novelty tie. I have a pinwheel lollipop, but, no, I don't have a pinwheel lollipop. J.D. Vance has my pinwheel lollipop. He's licking my pinwheel lollipop and smiling at me. Through the whole movie he licks and smiles. When I finally bring myself to look away, I see the movie has ended. The theater is empty. I could have stopped this. But I didn't. Many lives come and go. Outrages and folly pass. I can never bring myself to intervene. I'm letting go. It isn't sad in any way. It feels good to let go. I'm blinking out of existence. Slowly, the metaphysical scan lines are losing my data. Then the sound of a loud crunch brought me back. J.D. Vance. Smiling. Eating potato chips. Putting his fingers just a bit too deep into his mouth with every chip. Wiping his greasy, salty fingers on his rayon suit. "Are you the last?" I asked. He balled up the empty bag and tossed it aside. Licking at the clumps of super-saturated oily, salty potato cludged up in between his teeth. I closed my eyes. But time did not pass. It was me and J.D. at the end of the world. I could escape into myself. For any amount of time I could disappear into blissful nirvana, but as soon as I opened my eyes again, J.D. "Where do we go from here?" I asked. "We?" He said. "You," he pointed at my chest, "you can go now. You're no longer needed." Why are his pant legs riding so high up his knees. He dug in between his teeth with his fingernail. "Do you know what comes after?" I asked. "I win." He said. "I always win, Bonky. I am the spirit of stolen victory. I only have this face now because that was the last mean cruel, condescending face you saw. But I can take on many faces. Maybe this one will suit you." He hid his face in his hands and pulled them away. "Bonky," I said. "That's, right," Bonky said, and the camera pans around us in a dramatic circle at 1.5x speed. It's dynamic and equally not at all dynamic - we're just kind of sitting there chatting. "Now we've reduced the irreducible down to one point of reference." "Why?" But before I even asked it, I knew. "Because only I know," Bonky peered at me with his fucking rat bitch eyes - hate that guy - "only I know what can get you to restart the wheel." "I've trained myself to release every pain, every hate, every fear, every sin," I said, "I'm free." "Oh, there's a thing," Bonky nodded at me askance, knowingly. "There's definitely a thing." "Impossible." I said, and shut my eyes. But I could feel him on the other side. I could see his shape without seeing him. Dark and nebulous, moving about in uncertain ways, toying with my childish attempt at evasion. When I opened my eyes, his face was right up against mine. "Redhorse," he said. "GOD FUCKING DAMNIT," I said, and the whole horrible world rushed back upon me, and I was back on the wheel of suffering. At the very bottom of the wheel, looking up at the cosmic oceans of time unfolding like a worker's last moments in a fireworks factory. And Bonky had turned into Redhorse, and Redhorse said, "Dude, really. Just let it go." But I couldn't move. I was paralyzed in rage. "I'm not mad. You're not mad. You're just being stupid and pathetic." I heard my teeth squealing. "It was just a fucking stupid passing joke. I didn't injure you, you're not injured, you're unharmed. The only loss of standing you experienced was in your own stupid head." I vibrate with rage. "I'm out of here. Be alone with your pathetic anger and let it bar you from becoming arahat - I don't care! I've moved on! I don't think about you! Ever! Leave me out of this bizarre humiliation ritual!" But Bonky cannot move on. Bonky lives forever in the moment of anger.