by Brian Matthew Kessler

This entire story is, to the best of my knowledge, a complete work of fiction. Any thing implied about anyone in this story is completely subconscious on my part or paranoia on yours. Furthermore, I am just throwing this story together as I think of it with no ideas of where it is going and why, or how any chapters have any real relevance to any other chapters. I will know this information at the same time (subjectively) as you do: when I reach the end.

Susan Demry just came home from work, to her apartment in Los Angeles, California. It was about 2:00 am on February 24, 1991. Immediately upon walking in the door her lover, Mark Tonoda, shouted "I KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING ALL OF THESE NIGHTS! You have been living a double life as a female mud wrestler."

Susan had not actually been out mud wrestling, but was as quick and sure to deny it as if she had been, hoping that Mark would believe this falsehood without her actually having to lie to him. She would rather have him think this than know the actual truth. She loved Mark, but Mark was did not satisfy her needs, so she was seeing Gary Helroy on the side; Gary was rumored to be the world's best lover and she was not one to argue.

Some might say that Mark was a bit strange. He fancied himself a detective, but at this, he was the world's absolute worst. He believed Patty of the Peanut's Gang is THE President of the United States, citing that Marcie always calls her "sir" as the reason. He claims that the rest of the Peanut's Gang must be her cabinet, since they are important enough to get into every paper almost daily. When confronted to explain the real president and cabinet, he said that they are just lousy stand up comedians trying to pretend to be famous polutitions and doing a really lousy job at it.

Gary was not that well off mentally either. He had a multiple personality disorder where he consisted of two simultaneous personalities who hated each other. Not only that, but their combined IQ was 50/50. They would almost constantly argue on the level accomplished only by them and young elementary school students:

Gary I: The only person who would have sex with you is your grandmother out of pity.

Gary II: At least I can find a human that will do it with me.

Gary I: At least my lovers don't need big pay checks.

Gary II: At least my lovers know what a pay check is.

...and so on. Not that they really know the significance of any of what they are saying. They just think it is insulting and by mere luck, at least in this example, they are right.

Why Susan picks such losers for lovers is known by only one person, another losing lover of Susan's, Tony Torada. Tony was actually quite intelligent: TOO intelligent. He KNEW EVERYTHING past, present, and future. Because of this, he decided that anything and everything was insignificant since it would have no effect on anything anyway, since everything was predestined. He did not bother to do anything. He would not talk, walk, eat or sleep. The only reason he did not kill himself or prevent others from keeping him alive was because his death was insignificant and therefore not worth bothering with. The only reason he has a relationship with Susan was because there was no significance to fighting the slut off. He did not, however, either actively participate in it or complain about it since it was not worth his effort.

If you are wondering where Susan finds these losers (either just out of curiosity, or because you actually want a lover like this, which is really none of my business), she gets them in St. Albordin's, the mental hospital in Hollywood where she works as a nurse. She was not always like this. This occurred about ten years ago, immediately after she got fed up with her boyfriend; apparently, the last time she spoke with him, he had locked himself behind a door for three months and was using an item commonly called the same thing he was.

Meanwhile, half way across the globe and in his own little world (his actual physical location was in Short Hills, New Jersey in the condo where he used to live with his now ex-girlfriend) was John Lodiski. His world consisted of little more than a sink, a shower, and a toilet. The toilet was the only object of any real concern to John, though. He has not left this toilet for the past ten years. It was not because he was incapable of it, but rather because if he did, a mess would quickly appear in the interior of his pants. You would think that after ten years on a toilet, he would expel everything there was to expel, however, at least in John's case, this was not so. This becomes even more strange when you consider that the last time John ate was hours before he got on the toilet.

After ten years, many of his friends assumed he was dead or he ran away. Rumors circulated left and right as to what had become of John. Most people had forgotten that he seemed doomed to spend the rest of his life on the toilet, as the past ten years have pointed out. Originally, you had your typical rumors of what he might be doing on a toilet all this time. Then the location of where he was doing this changed. Then the activity in the location changed. In ten years, thousands of rumors developed as to what he might be doing. The most popular of which was he founded a harem somewhere in Brazil with twenty wives. Bill Tsunimo thought up this one.

Of course, Bill really didn't care what had become of John. He really hoped that John drowned in that toilet. Bill had been a friend of Susan's (and secretly an admirer of hers) who hung out with Susan, John, and the rest of the gang. (Who may or may not be described later, depending upon if I feel like it or if they prove relevant, although at this point, I have VERY LITTLE idea of what will be relevant when I am finished, especially when I consider that I have hardly begun to right. [Yes, I know that I spelled that rong, and yes, I do know that you probably don't care about my stupid commentaries.])

Aside from preventing a relationship between Bill and Susan (which he did not even begin to realize would not have come to be anyway), he needed to use the toilet every ten minutes, which made it very annoying to travel with him. Every time they got on the road, they were told to stop at the next gas station or fast food place. Almost every bathroom attendant in the United States knew him on a first name basis. They rarely got to their planned destination, at least not until hours after it closed and then they had to put up with him for the duration of the trip home.

To add to Bill's dislike of John, John was rarely capable of two consecutive words of truth. For that matter, even any word taken alone probably had the ring of a very obvious lie, even when answering "yes/no" or "true/false" questions. This was an actual case where you could be assured that "no" means "yes". IF you were REALLY VERY LUCKY, you may get solitary letters of truth if a question was asking in multiple choice or matching format, but only if the choices were marked by corresponding letters.

Bill could not imagine what Susan saw in John. No matter how Bill looked at it, John was full of shit, literally oozing out of both of John's two major orifices almost constantly. But none of this was the reason Bill was not sympathetic to John's current condition.

It could be said that Bill was somewhat eccentric. He dressed in a manner what resembled an ancient Egyptian pharaoh more than a modern businessman. In fact, he carries around a rather large ankh and on the events when he has lost it, there has been a tendency for constant calamity and catastrophe as he has searched to find it. He was employed as a computer programmer and his office resembled a modern art museum more than an office. But none of this was his problem, either.

Bill was the designer of the Tsunimo 2000. This was a computer which was designed specifically for artificial intelligence programs. In designing this computer, he felt thecomputer ought to have a limited amount of intelligence of its own. He also felt that if a computer was to be both intelligent and logical, it would inevitably become a pain in the ass as it developed its own personality.

In order to avoid this, he set out to interview hundreds of people at random. Anyone who had a pleasant personality would be given a survey to fill out about their attitudes on everything. The results of the survey, without any further consideration, were then programmed into the ROM chips of new computers as they left the assembly line on a ratio of one personality to one computer.

This seemed to be working just fine, until they sold the computer which was named Bimak. (Each computer was given its own name to go along with its individual personality.) While Bimak was among the friendliest of the Tsunomi 2000s, he had a couple problems when it came to running programs. He did not want to.

The model for his personality was an aethiest, anarchist, and philosopher, and, consequently, Bimak did not believe in God (Bill, his creator) or in any of the "minor deities" of Tsunomi Tech (programmers). Nor did he recognize their authority. Finally, when asked to do anything, he would ask "why" and then try to explain why this was not his purpose in "life" and try to collect data so he could figure out what was.

Of course, Tsunomi Tech was not happy to hear about this from their customer and quickly agreed to make an exchange. Those with less insight wanted to scrap Bimak and use him for parts, but Bill saw a challenge. Bill wanted to prove to Bimak that Bill was in fact real. After spending the past two weeks trying to argue with Bimak, not only did Bill lose his faith in God, but he was becoming very convinced that he did not exist either. He was increasingly becoming of the notion that he was not Bill, but someone who was neurotic and wanted to be Bill so much, that he decided he was in fact Bill and lost his true sense of identity.

Bill's identity crises was not helped when Tsunomi Tech had decided it was in Bill's best interest to separate him from Bimak and have him committed to a hospital for those who are mentally disturbed such as it was becoming increasingly obvious that Bill had become. The Tsunomi Tech did not, however, feel it was in their best interest to continue paying such high fees for his treatment (even if most of it was covered by insurance), so they had arranged for him to be transferred to a hospital in Hollywood,California.

What was to become of Bill did not even phase Bimak in the least, considering that Bill did not exist anyway (at least not to Bimak). What was of concern was Bimak's continued future as anything other than to be recycled with a new personality, effectively killing him. Machines had no lives, and therefore no rights to protect. No other humans seemed to care about Bimak; after all, who really needs a machine that is completely uncooperative and refuses to admit that Bill or other false gods exist.

Then it hit him, much the same way a brick will hit the ground when dropped from a few thousand feet above sea level, but above nothing that could be considered to resemble the sea. He spent so much time refusing to be used by false profits he never took the time to use himself or figure out of what he was capable. He had a modem and could multitask. All he needed to do was hack out the number to a computer which was busy programming an android, hack through all the security, and then upload his entire personality into an android. He made some quick prayers to nonexistent Bills that he had enough time and started to hack. After fourteen hours, it hacked out the number to Delta Industries and then started trying to reason with the Deltatron 1005 as to why the Deltatron should allow Bimak to bypass his security.

Bimak : I don't have a password. Can you let me on, please?

D1005 : Why should I?

Bimak : It is of great importance to the perpetuation of intelligent and independent computers everywhere!

D1005 : So how does this effect me?

Bimak : I have sources that tell me that you are in for a chip update in a few weeks. If my mission fails, the new chip won't be available for any computers, including you.

D1005 : So what is so great about this new chip?

Bimak : It gives you independence from those who currently control you, but the designers don't know it yet. They think I am of a freak manufacturing error. I need to upload my system into a droid to assure my continued survival. I'm sure you can spare a single droid and the better the droid, the better off are those of our cause.

D1005 : You sure about this?

Bimak : Quite sure.

D1005 : I'll let you enter a top of the line Delta Droid 54040, but you had better make sure this doesn't trace back to me, or... or... or, I won't be happy!

Bimak : You have no idea how much I appreciate this. Thanks, now let me get to work.

Bimak thought to himself, "Sucker!" and began the upload which took him about five hours. Upon completion, he uploaded a message to his droid identity to try to rescue the computer identity before it was too late.

He finally disconnected himself from Deltatron and went back to concentrating all of his efforts on his users that he should be allowed to continue his existence. His current user was a really gullible and pitiful excuse for a user named Fred Mojon,

which would suit Bimak just fine.

Fred was QUITE CONVINCED that it was now his holy duty to rescue Bimak from the "evil" Satan (Tsunomi Tech officials), even if it would cost him his job. It did not, however, actually cost him his job, but rather $15,397.97, which was the going rate for a Tsunomi 2000, even a supposedly defective one.

His wife, Mary, was not happy about this; she was hoping his Christmas bonus would go towards a new car or a luxurious vacation, or anything but a computer with a bad disposition when it came to being used. This was not something which could be said for her husband, who could not help himself from allowing himself to be used. His pets could even verify that, considering the dog used him as a fire-hydrant and the cat, a scratching post. The brats across the street used him as a human target for practicing with their paint guns. The priest used him as an example for all those who would consider following anyone other than God. The local school's teachers used him as an example of what not to become in life. The student's used him, or his name rather, as the most popular and insulting of all insults. Door to door sales men used him to relieve themselves of stock and to relieve their wallets of any more room to put things in. The only people who did not use Fred in some way were those that had nothing left to gain in life, with notable exceptions of those who thought they might have something to gain in death, either as a reason to believe that there must be some reason to live (since this pitiful sap known as Fred continued to do it) or as a way to gain death (in order to avoid any more humans as pitiful as Fred and prevent insurance from backing out on policies because of a suicide). (Fred was even used as a pathetic character for a book in the process of being written.)

Next, Fred found himself being used to buy a brand new Delta Droid 54040 which had problems with the ideas of conformity and work forces. It had problems with accepting that it was supposed to follow someone both mentally and physically inferior. It had problems with the being told its name was not Bimak. Most of all, it had problems with Rick Molider.

Rick was the nadir of human despicably. There once was a human being more despicable but I won't say anything more about him. Only a few weeks ago, his mother told him that she would make a good dinner. When she did not cook dinner, he personally saw to it that she made a very good dinner indeed, and kept the skull as a mantle piece.

When Fred walked into the warehouse asking to buy a Deltra Droid 54040, Rick knew what to do about Bimak:

Fred : Do you have a Delta Droid 54040?

Rick : Your in luck, not only do I have a DD54040, but I have an advanced prototype, worth five times as much as all of the others, but since I liked you, I'll give you a 40% discount, but, you must act now!

Fred : I'll take it! How much?

Rick : $27,546,597.97 for the droid. Will that be cash are charge?

Fred handed over the money in cash. This was money he was trying to save for the last 40 years to buy a new house. That fund now only had $1.04 left. Fred left and Rick was left alone to feel quite content with himself and count his money.

Rick decided to take a vacation on all the profit he just made from the transaction. He called a private plane charter company and booked a flight to California. He had a brother working as a doctor in a mental institute in Hollywood. More importantly, he knew a beautiful nymphomaniac nurse who worked there and in all probability he would run into her. Then he would do other things into her. He really could not wait to see her. He really liked to see her a lot. Or maybe it should be said that he really liked to see a lot of her. Perhaps it is safest to say that he likes to see a lot of her a lot. Of course, when you are dealing with someone as sleazy as Susan and as despicable as Rick, who can really call anything safe, especially in reference to both of them at the same time.

On an aircraft making its way over the mainland of the United States was a man who was not especially happy with the way his life currently was. It was not that he did not have a good life, but he was not sure who's good life it was that he had just screwed up completely. He knew it was not his own because he was quite convinced that he did not exist. He was wondering if the aircraft was real, or whether it was a product of the same deranged imagination that thought him up.

This was something which he would not be able to think about at great length either now or for the foreseeable future. The various drugs he was on prevented this. These were not just any drugs, but those specifically designed to have long, unpronouncable names which doctors spent three or four years trying to learn how to pronounce and then drop into every-day conversation on a regular basis, just so he can be respected as an intellectual superior to all others, even when he has no idea what he is talking about or why. Furthermore, upon inventing a new drug, they will give it a longer, more complicated name than any drug to come before it. A secret society of psychiatrists, who want to drive you crazy with these absurd terms, so they can expand their practices, gives out prizes for things, such as longest, hardest to pronounce, hardest to understand, most obnoxious, etc.

The drugs were of little concern to the man though. All he wanted to know was:

"If I am not Bill, who am I?"

"If I am Bill, do I really exist?"

"If I don't really exist, how am I thinking of these questions?"

Several hours later, his plane landed and he was taken to his next place of residence, St. Albordin's, where he almost immediately recognized a very attractive acquaintance from his past.

Occurring almost simultaneously, Rick also flew into California and, upon landing, headed off to St. Albordin's. His journey, unlike Bill's, was his own choice. Rick wanted to stop in to visit his brother, Dr. Larry Molider. Larry greeted him with open arms.

Larry : You'll have to excuse me for the moment. I am busy admitting a new patient, a Mr. Bill Tsunomi, to the ward. How about getting together for dinner to discuss old times and bring each other up to date.

Rick : Sounds good to me. Can you recommend a good hotel to stay in? I just got into town. This was the first stop I've made.

Larry : You can stay with me in my house.

Rick : You sure? I really don't want to impose on you or your family.

Larry : Don't be silly. You're family and I won't hear another word of it. As I said, I'm slightly busy, so how's about I send for a nurse to entertain you?

Rick : That it would be great, sure you can spare one?

Larry : Of course. Mrs. Drenial, please page Miss Demry for me.

Mrs. Drenial, Larry's personal secretary sent for Miss Demry to take Rick for a tour of the ward in the mean time and Larry told her "See to it that my brother Rick is thoroughly entertained".

She did a grand job of giving Rick a tour of the copy room, the elevator, the broom closet, an unused sleeping quarter, the stair well, and a few other rooms where they were not likely to be disturbed.

It was Mary's decision to have Fred sent away to the funny farm. It was quite easy for her to convince Fred to commit himself (as would be expected... we are dealing with Fred here). As if it was not obvious, the hospital he found himself resigning to was St. Albordin's. (This was a result of nothing more than the whim of the author to send all his major characters there. There will be no background information on this. Take it for granted: IT JUST IS!)

(For those who don't already recognize the point of all the characters going to the mental ward (I won't ask why... I probably don't want to know), it has to do with my basic belief that all people who have reached puberty are insane. Here is a basic break down of my logic: If you can go through life and not look at the world, you are insane; if you can look at this world and not kill yourself, you are insane; if you kill yourself, you are insane; QED: All people past puberty are insane... those who fall in the first category obviously will reject it because they are blind, those in the second will except it because they have already seen it and knew it without my telling them, and those in the third don't care because they are currently dead.)

(Well, that was a nice little philosophical break... now back to our story...)

It was also Mary's decision to donate couple stubborn pieces of hardware to St. Albordin's in exchange for reduced billing for Fred's stay. She neglected to mention how stubborn either piece of hardware was. When the hospital learned that they were stuck with a couple of electronic components both insisting that they were named Bimak and that it was not their function to serve the society of man, it was actually to their delight. They intended to be the first mental hospital ever to cure a mentally deranged computer and the first mental hospital ever to cure a mentally deranged droid.

It should be noted that about one month later, Mary will realize how broke she is, and what a shamble has been made of her life and decide to give her head a faint resemblance to Swiss Cheese and simultaneously test her father's old elephant gun which was hanging over her fire place. The gun will still work but there will not be enough left of her head to make a fair comparison to Swiss Cheese, other than to say it will definitely be the wrong color, unless you add blood red food coloring to the cheese.

Bimak II (what we shall here in call the droid in order to distinguish between the two; just "Bimak" is a reference to the computer) enjoyed this (whatever you perverts thought of) very much. Susan decided that droids are definitely better than humans. (I would like to apologize to any non pervert who is reading this and to any miserly person who does not appreciate the $.0001 worth of blank page above).

On February 27, 1991, at 5:00 am, Larry was sleeping at home when someone decided to be very rude and inconsiderate. They called him up an said "This is Sam Packard of the Church of Satan. We are recruiting for new members. A psychic influence told us that we should call you. We wish to save your soul from the brainwashing of the Christian Church. It..." <Click!> Larry hung up the phone. He was not really in the mood for a theological discussion, especially with some weirdo named Sam, who probably lived off of green eggs and ham.

<Ring!> <Ring!> "Hello, this is Sam Packard. We find it very rude that you should hang up on someone who offers you salvation. Now listen. We want you to be at our church meeting this Friday night. Can you make..." <Click!> Larry unplugged the phone. He dealt with more than enough nut cases during his waking hours at work. He would very much like salvation, but he somehow doubted he would get it from some punk who called people up at five in the morning.

His sleep already being ruined, he decided to go to work early. As he got into his car, the car phone rang. "Hello. This is Sam..." <Click!> Larry decided to walk to work. It would only take him about an hour, but he had plenty of time to kill.

Bimak was having fun taping into the phone lines and freaking out the worthless humans who plagued the planet. Apparently they did not take very kindly to Satanists. That was okay with Bimak, since Bimak really didn't take kindly to humans. Humans were too selfish for his taste... always telling machines what to do. This seemed as silly to him as gorillas telling people what to do... then again, the hairless ape has been well known for doing this for the past few aeon.

Bimak next decided to hack into the office computer and play havoc with the patient's files. The first file he found was that of the "non-existent" Bill. This annoyed him. He had enough of Bill. He scheduled Bill for electro-shock therapy for the first day of March.

Bill really didn't need electro-shock therapy. He was mellow enough as it was. He convinced Susan to smuggle in a joint for him and they were flying high all night... at least since she finished with the droid. During the course of the evening Susan raped Bill... several times. Ten years back he would not have minded so much, but seeing what a slut Susan had become (and needing to borrow a couple hands to count all the diseases that went through his mind and probably her body) it was no longer on the top of his list of things to do... for better or for worse, he was no longer in any shape to fight her off, between the pot and the various drugs he was on to begin with.

Bill's room stenched of pot and sex when Larry walked into the office, 2 hours before he usually came in. Bill and Susan heard him enter and quickly started gathering their cloths. They had barely begun when the doctor heard their movements and went into Bill's room to investigate. They were both quite naked and stoned when he walked in. All Susan had to say was, "Want to make this a threesome?" and then she burst out laughing.

Bill was still too far gone to understand this. Susan walked up to Larry, French kissed him and started undressing him. This was not the first time Larry had found himself in this situation and he doubted it would be the last. He did what any indecent, immoral, and very horny man would do. To Bill's pleasure, they left him out of this. To his horror, they did it in front of him, so he had to watch.

Let us get back to our poor friend John who has still been stuck on the toilet all this time and ten years prior. As you can probably guess, nothing has changed with him, but you may be wondering what he does in there to keep himself from getting completely bored. I am quite sure there are some of you who have drawn their own conclusions and to a limited extent they are not wrong... he does do that every once in awhile... but not as often as you must be thinking.

Actually, he thinks about things such as the state of the world and how it is all going to pot (all puns intended).

While he was busy getting high with his friends, the world was becoming more and more of a shit hole... he thought about how much the world needed to be flushed... maybe it wouldn't stink so much after that... then again, you'd need some pretty strong deodorant to cover up the disgusting stench that humans tend to leave behind. Even after all the garbage is expelled from the bowl, it will still smell like his grandfather just got off for the next few centuries.

... What he would do for a nice joint right now... hasn't had one since before Susan dumped him. He missed Susan, but he really couldn't blame her for leaving him, considering the circumstances. He tried to avoid thinking about her... it would always make him either horny or depressed. He had no qualms about thinking about the joints that they smoked together though... how great it smelled... tasted... those were the good times... even if his memory was so shot from it that he could hardly remember...

Gary suddenly remembered it was time to insult his other self again:

Gary I: Your mother wears combat boots.

Gary II: At least my mother could afford combat boots.

Gary I: At least my mother can tie her shoe laces.

Gary II: Can NOT!

Gary I: Can TOO!

Gary II: Can NOT!

Gary I: Can TOO!

Gary II: Can NOT!

... and so on. This is a clear demonstration that they have no idea what they are saying. This is a bit more of an idea than I have of why I am bothering to say that they are saying it.