It was very dark outside. This was because it was night. It was very dark inside. This was because the lights were off, which was because there was no power, which was because Mark Thompson had decided to buy a new car stereo instead of paying the power bill. Since Mark Thompson was not at home, however, and was instead at a startlingly well-lit nightclub in Miami, it matters little that not only was his house dark but also being eaten at a prodigious rate by termites. Mark had not been there for four years. It showed.
He was at the nightclub's bar, drinking a double shot of Scotch whiskey. He had already drunk all the rootbeer the place had, so now he was switching to something else. He had so far had twelve doubles of Scotch whiskey, and there was a three-headed blonde woman with six breasts standing in front of, to the left of, and to the right of him. She was explaining to him how she had been fired at her old job because the peanuts were missing. Now she was complaining to the bartender. Mark ordered another double Scotch whiskey from a red and black blur over to his left.
"Right away," said the blur. In moments, another glass was at the bar in front of Mark. He grabbed it and drank it in one swallow. The blonde woman was now asking him if he wanted to dance. He grabbed the one of her on the right, said, "Yesh," and fell face first onto the floor. His glass flew from his grip and hit a six foot, nine inch tall mafia hit man named Bennie "The Blade" Mancuso squarely between the legs. Bennie keeled over in pain and said something to the effect of, "My nuts you'll eat knife for my nutsouch you creepdammit underouchstand ballsouchslime-?!"
Suddenly, the roof of the nightclub was torn off. A huge spacecraft loomed above, rays of penetrating green light shone in all directions. A loud speaker came on, and said, "The worms will surrender from Atlantic City, live and without any fuss or we'll blow your goddam tourists right into nice, four course steak dinners, free of charge when you board the ship right now unless you want my pizza to be hot and fresh, yes, two-for-the-price-of-now. End of message you fucking idiot I can't be-SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" There was a loud click, and a noise a lot like someone's face being crammed into the open end of a blender.
In the spaceship hovering above, it quickly became apparent that not only had the wrong translation been employed, but also that a radio broadcast had somehow been spliced into the message. Top Froon Bundy O'Crotch-Hair was so enraged that he was stuffing Middlefroon Wyatt Slouchbutt's face into the open end of a running blender, while the Middlefroon's tentacles waved about in abject panic. Finally, Slouchbutt was able to extribate himself from the blender, his face now lacerated beyond any hope of recapturing the deep lumpy ugliness that had formerly marked it. O'Crotch-Hair was far from finished, however. He assailed Middlefroon Wyatt Slouchbutt with a series of indefensible blows which Slouchbutt somehow managed to deflect. A general melee ensued aboard the craft, involving many froons beating, biting, shooting, setting on fire, and otherwise maiming and killing lots of other froons. It was during this melee that Mark Thompson managed, by a weird freak occurrence that might have occurred once only in the history and future of all time, to pop three detox pills and awaken. As he did so, a hatch slammed open on the bottom of the still glowing spacecraft, and a middle-sized octopus thing fell out and landed in the middle of the dancefloor. There was a young woman there who was busily dancing to the rhythm of the song although there had been no music for about five minutes now. She grabbed the octopus thing and whirled it around in time with the nonexistent music. Meanwhile, she introduced herself as Marcie Gutt and proclaimed that she had had thirteen vodka martinis and forty three lines of cocain before dancing this time, and so was really prepared to have a wildly good time. All the while, she had been whirling the confused creature around. This, combined with the woman's breath, was too much for Top Froon Bundy O'Crotch-Hair to withstand, and he let fly from all seven of his stomachs his lunch, which spread from his gaping mouth in a multi-colored spiral which quickly encrusted itself on anyone near the dancefloor. O'Crotch-Hair took a deep breath and puked once again, this time with emphasis. Marcie Gutt became displeased with this and soon hurled the Top Froon aside. The creature flew in a lazy arc across the dancefloor to impact with a resounding thud onto the face of Bennie "The Blade" Mancuso, who was having amost unfortunate evening, now to be finally brought to a lovely ending as he accidentally cut off his own nose in attempting to remove the enraged, puke-dripping, smelly, otherworldly octo-yukk from his face.
It was at this moment that Mark chose to make his escape. He knew that the froons were here for him. Probably, he reflected, something to do with those earlobes. He raced outside and leapt into his car.

It was two days later that he finally managed to get an appointment with Buzz Q. Whipp, a businessman from Houston who was one of Mark's most prolific clients. Whipp sat behind a huge mahogany desk, smoking three cuban cigars and chewing two packs of Big Red chewing gum. He had monsterous lips, lips so massive that they could support an industry all their own, such as farming. His nose was almost as huge. It jutted forth from his face like an angry shark looking for a stupid lacerated human being to eat. He wore a hige double-breasted suit, and, as Mark entered his office, he was just stuffing an authentic Sparrowbutt watch back into his pocket.
"Hello, Mr Waffles," said Whipp, in a friendly sort of way that said get to the point now you goddam asshole of a worthless piece of donkey dung or I'll boil your balls in flaming acid for a week. Whipp always called everyone "Mr Waffles." It was one of his more endearing traits.
Faced with such a pleasant greeting, Mark could but reply in kind. "The froons are after me again."
"Okay. I'll have them killed."
"No, Mr Whipp," repied Mark, gesturing with both hands. "You do not understand. They nearly got me last week. I had to run for my life. I do not enjoy that." The emphasis on the last sentence reminded Mark of a gangster movie he had once seen on the Disney Channel. It pleased him that he could replicate the tone of voice so well.
"Okay, look. I got the lobes. You got the boat. What more is there?"
"Fine, Mr Whipp. I'll just be leaving." Mark spat these words with the hatred of a slug in a salt factory.

It was midnight, and Mark Thompson was stalking alone along the street, following a vague but huge outline of a man. The man was Buzz Q. Whipp, and Mark had been hired by an extreme right-wing peace activist terrorist front to kill him. It would be a pleasure. Mark had tracked Whipp for three weeks now. The man was hard to keep up with. He was always moving around: from the ranch outside of Houston, to the Hoarhouse for People Into Kinky Sexual Acts With Lighter Fluid and Large Bladed Weapons, in Gainesville, from the Cuban Cigar Exhibition Emporium in Waco to the West German Institute for Lies, Deception, and Shameful Capitalistic Subversions in Kiev, the man moved and Mark had to keep up with him.
Well, here he was, in Cairo, were Whipp had just left Hussein's House of Camel Fondling and was now headed back to his hotel. Mark pulled out his gun and crept up on Whipp. Suddenly, the man turned, a giant triple-barreled person-scatterer clutched in one fist. "Ha, ha, Mr Waffles, heard ya coming-!" he said.
Mark stepped out of the shadows. "It's me, you weed."
Whipp was so astounded that he fell backwards, wheezing, and clutching at the person-scatterer, which then began to go off. As he fell, he shot himself sixteen times through the torso. Mark collected Whipp's ID papers and walked the twenty-three miles back to his car.

Mark sat alone on the hood of his car, reading an old copy of Kate Chopin's The Awakening. He was quaffing a root beer and listening to his old Who tapes. Life was great and so was Lisa Meldingturtles, who would be along in an hour or so to talk about Lithuanian politics. Not only were there women and cars, but politics as well. And root beer. Best of all, baseball season would open in a week. Mark smiled and hummed along with Pinball Wizard.

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