Spanish Inquisition Gari People

During the days of the Spanish Inquisition conquistadores used to chase people, subject them to on-the-spot heresy trials and then execute them. A group of maybe a dozen helmeted soldiers on horseback would run down a hapless alleged heretic in an aqueduct somewhere, surround him menacingly, read from a Bible or something, and then kill him with their swords. I solemnly reenact this tradition by eating little people made from jelly-filled rolls of gari (picked ginger) out of a little dollhouse while listening to pertinent quotes about predestination being read to me from the gospel of John and other sources. The gari-people and and the dollhouse all look like they're based on designs from an old Final Fantasy game.

When I bite into the rolls a sickly-sweet red jelly leaks out, reminding me of the blood of the people killed during the Inquisition. It's not very appetizing, but I feel like I have to complete the ritual out of respect for the victims.

Hercules 3:16

I wonder what the passage "Hercules lit up his cigarette. Go, Hercules, go!" looks like in the English Standard Version of the Bible. I should look it up.

chipped canine

I have badly chipped my right canine tooth. It's now about 3mm shorter than the left one.

David Jonhouse/sleep paralysis/Congressman Forbes...

I'm watching the episode of The Simpsons with the Rugrats crossover. You know the one. Suddenly a guy I used to know in high school is standing there in the room with me. I seem to recall that his name was...David Jonhouse? I tell him that it's funny that he's there, because I had just recently had a dream about a guy from high school whose name I had forgotten, but I think it was actually him.

He's digging in his wallet for cash to give me, as a belated birthday present. He hands me a twenty dollar bill and continues to fish out ones, and puts them on the table in front of me. I hand the twenty back to him, saying "No, no, keep it....or else tell me when your birthday is so I can give you something in return.."

Then David Jonhouse walks out of the room without saying a word. I assume he's looking for the bathroom. I follow him out into the hall, and before I can stop him he walks into my sister's room. I hear yelling, and I run into the room to see that he is attacking Nina. I jump onto Jonhouse's back, attempting to dig my heel in and snap his spine. He yells but is not seriously injured.

I pin Dave's arms behind his back as if I'm going to handcuff him. He drops something from his hand. It's one of my They Might Be Giants shotglasses, full of tequila. I pick it up with my free hand and march him out of the room. Then I knock him in the forehead with the blunt end of the shotglass, and threaten him--

"You know what I'm going to do to you?"

"Oww! No..."

"I'm going to tie you up, blindfold you, gag you--"

"Gag?"

"Yeah. And I'm going to leave you in the garage...and that's all."

I place special emphasis on the last part, to make him understand that I intend to leave him there to starve to death. This makes him start to weep pathetically. In reality, although this guy scares me, I still feel bad for him and I'm already thinking about calling the cops to come pick him up.

"That's why you don't fuck with my sister," I say, hitting him again with the shotglass.

* * * *

I'm watching Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within while browsing websites dedicated to UFOs and conspiracy junk. Then I wake up in my bed, totally paralyzed. I struggle to yell out or move my arms, but my body is completely unresponsive. I start to hear the muffled chattering of voices all around me, speaking in some unfamiliar tongue. Then the sounds fade away, my mobility returns, and I sit up in bed.

* * * *

Congressman Steve Forbes is appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Stewart is very old, or perhaps wearing makeup, because he is mostly bald, with scraggly white hair where there is hair remaining.

Forbes is in the middle of a rant about how bad grammar is one of his pet peeves. After a minute of two of listening to this, Stewart interrupts him and asks him about how he was recently the object of a "T-1 censure" from the House of Representatives because a young girl was able to accurately describe his genitalia as resembling a "small elephant's head." The audience turns angry and starts booing Forbes when they hear this.

Forbes, caught off guard, looks terrified for a moment, then turns contrite and says, "Well, the truth is I acted like an A-1 jerk."

* * * *

I'm watching a video of Genesis performing "No Reply at All" in front of a live TV studio audience in 1981. The camera pans over the audience, and it's a weird collection of sketchy looking people, all male, mostly in their 20s and 30s, some with thick Coke-bottle glasses, some with big ugly scars, some with eyepatches. They look like the sort of audience you'd see in a Mad magazine cartoon, or a gang of post-apocalyptic marauders. One of the scarier-looking guys stands up during the performance and shoots a young man in a military dress uniform who is sitting near the front row, an off-duty US Marine. Later, I'm reading a Internet message board thread about the incident where some troll is badgering the deceased man's grieving mother, asking why he wasn't serving in Iraq at the time instead of being at the Genesis show.

* * * *

I'm at work in the shadow-universe call center. I ask a senior specialist (a floor supervisor) for help with something. She's a cute, bespectacled girl in her mid-20s, tall and voluptuous with sandy blonde hair. She comes over and clumsily sits down in a chair near me. She invites me to take some candy from a bowl she's holding, then leans in close to me and puts her arms around my neck.

* * * *

Dad asks me to join the church that the rest of my family has joined, saying that "We get a discount there."

White Debbie my love/the Staunton

I have an ongoing romance with White Debbie from Sealab 2021. She is pregnant with my child, and we travel through time together like "Doc" Brown and Clara Clayton in Back to the Future Part III. But there are many suitors competing for Debbie's affection in different centuries, and at times I think she is unfaithful, which makes me jealous.

* * * *

I have a new motorcycle, classic-styled with chrome, dark red and white trim. It's called "the Staunton," and I ride it around on the waterfront at sunset, zooming between boats over the narrow wooden planks. I zip past the open dining area of a tavern on the pier, and as I'm going by, Bender, I guy I know who happens to be sitting at a table there, mischeviously tries to snatch the striped scarf that I'm wearing. He fails to catch it, but then I narrowly avoid hitting a small boat that's lying on its side just in front of me.

magenta beam

As I lie in bed, I am suddenly struck by a harsh but not-quite-painful tingling sensation, as if my brain was being boiled or agitated somehow by a beam shot into it from somewhere outside. It seemed to be magenta in color (even though I didn't actually see anything), with a wavelength of somewhere between one and five millimeters. It lasted for about four seconds and then went away.

it's not plaque

Someone is telling me that plaque is not the real cause of tooth decay.

Elvis considers his options

A bald, middle-aged, chain smoking man with a long, gray, ratty moustache has been stalking and terrorizing me (me, Elvis Costello circa 1994) for months, watching my every move and coercing me to steal things for him with threats and beatings. It has got to the point where every time I leave the house, day or night, I pretty much expect him to appear and beat the shit out of me. I think that he might be a well-known engineer at a recording studio a couple blocks from where I live, but I have no proof. Besides, I'm not at all confident that I could provide a description of the man good enough for someone to spot him before he finds me and kills me.

Right now I'm in the frozen foods section of the supermarket, mentally berating myself for not turning the tables on the man before it got this far. Knowing that it's only a matter of minutes before he finds me again, I fight my terror to crank the wheels in my brain and try to come up with a way to defend myself.

It occurs to me that I should be carrying a weapon. I made a feeble attempt to fight the man once or twice before, and it just ended with me being beaten especially badly. Still, I'm convinced that a well-chosen weapon used with maximum viciousness is my best chance at neutralizing him.

I'm in luck: someone has left a pair of scissors sitting in the freezer case. I pick them up and conceal them in my pocket, blades open, with a hand tightly wrapped around the handle.

I imagine how it will go down. I will lash out with the scissors as soon as my stalker is within range, and he will block with his arm, causing the blade to make contact on his wrist. At this point I can use my free hand to shut the blades on his wrist, bracing with all available leverage to try to sever his hand, or at least a major artery, causing blood to go everywhere.

Then I realize that it will appear to the witnesses in the store that I attacked a strange man without provocation, and then I'll be prosecuted for assault.

I imagine a different scenario. I make a quick jab at the man to surprise him, and while he's momentarily stunned I run away, calling out for help. The man then walks up behind me and slashes my throat with a straight razor.