..sequel to the next story.

As it turns out, it wasn't me the brown bears and the black ones were after, it was their long-since nemissary george, who, in their own alternate domain of reality, had been my brother - from their helicopter displays you can see their version of history; from their point of view, their helicopter displays show ours.  Rather than parachuting , or paratrooping one might say, down to the ground, they extended long-handed metal thugs - a thug, as you will, is a cross between a stud and a lug - down to the ground and walked on them much like stilts (much unlike, you might say, the way bricks don't).  The stilts, however, were ever-decreasing in diametre; diametre, here, means diametricality, as in, diametrical to the surface of the Earth; that is to say, they were ever-shrinking, as if being further enveloped in a swamp land sold to them by who appeared, in their version of reality, to be a legit Russian banker.

But back to the beginning - George, you might say - Or Will, well, the two are alternate names for the same well-been being - wore a brown Tanuki suit and often complained of metal frogs; the metal frogs, you see, would get in his craw.  The laser-zapping brown bears, so called because of their laser-zapping predilections, diliged to laser-zap George in the very craw of which he had once been so wary; so went his fortune.  But you can't take it with you, they say, but you are what you eat so maybe you can.

George was unhappy about this, and suc [sic] his girlfriend Raggedy-Anne on the brown and the black bears (the black bears, have you, were innocent, but all's fair in diligere and bellum, or was that bunkum and Bel-Air), but as she was made primarily of yarn and straw, all she could do was a little dance and draw, a draw which the black bears succeeded but to which the brown bears balked, as they did have the upper hand - or the upper paw, as the case may be.  Or upper paws, as each bear has two paws, if you only count the upper paws (otherwise 2 if you count the lower paws instead), which, often, can be rendered backwards as swap.

Alas, ineffective was little Raggedy-Anne forming a draw, or any other kind of fight or flight, for dolls cannot uphold flight, lest it be, mayhaps, a flight of fancy.  George ran down a water draining hole, leaving Anne behind, knowing that she would soon find her way back.. for it was not Anne that the cops or copters were after.  George, now, sits deep within his bunker underground, taping his tapestry back together, for Anne.. for Anne.. forever for Anne.  Oh, Annie.

this one doesn't have very much consistency to it.. but it's a first try.

I ate a cheeseburger, and while I was eating the cheeseburger, the burger part of it expanded giantly like a wet tongue, threatening to envelop me and have me for supper.  Its pickle juice, mayonnaise and mustard lapped off its swelled tongue like a makeshift saliva.  The tongue and bread together even appeared to speak, but what it said I could not gather. It was almost like the scent of faint memories, long gone and buried in the past.  Suddenly the cheeseburger grew antennae, all over its body.  They were not biological or makeshift, they were clearly blue-silver and mechanical; they protracted from segments.  To whom or what they communicated I don't know, but I could see it sensing its signal as its plethora of metal sandwich-antennae ebbed and flowed with time. I almost thought I saw a spark.  It's at this point that I noticed that I had completely let go of the culinary monster in fright, and the cheeseburger had been now standing in thin air.

Just as I was starting to anticipate what would happen next, a pink limousine pulled up next to the McDonald's playground, and out popped, not a tall blonde, but a tall, slender, blue Teletubby. The teletubby said, "eat thee not thou cheeseburger, for it hast been infested with the filth of man's laughter." Or maybe he said manslaughter.  I never really could tell...a tubby.  At that point I got fed up, I threw the entire cheeseburger hell ensemble onto the ground, at which point it splat; but, to my chagrin, its splatter quickly turned to greenery, that is, flora and fauna, right before my very eyes.  I'll never know what to make of it, but I'd rather some greenery in a place neverbefore than a diabolical, man-eating cheeseburger anyday.

The teletubby got very angry at this, at which point he summoned a handful of helicopters, out of which popped brown bears, and sometimes even black.  They bowed their heads and said, "hail mercy."  Why my adversaries are hailing mercy I don't know, but you just don't shun up an offer like that, so mercy I did give them.  I did, however, take a quick photoshoot and got one of the heads of one of the black bears.  The national enquirer, as it turns out, wasn't impressed.

I'm sitting on the toilet, half naked. The bathroom has two sinks, so it's a little larger than the average bathroom.

In Japan, a typical practical joke may go like this: you're sleeping soundly in your bed with your wife, when suddenly a whole team of people carrying machine guns, dressed up like Special Weapons and Tactics or something, busts into your bedroom, and they film the ensuing hilarity.

For consistency's sake, let's just say I'm an alternate universe.

This bathroom has a door to the outside, but it's normally kept locked. Today, 17 clowns find their way in from the outside, rushing in one-by-one, some of them doing a dance, some of them squeezing their ball noses, etc. Just when the 17th one is inside, comes the film crew.

I appear to notice the clowns and be completely unfazed. I rest my head on my hands toilsomely, looking downward. I say in my low, pathetic voice, "aaaaugh... I hate when this happens."

Mariella does "a little dance," and jumps delicately into an issue that she sees no avoidance of and no working around, now.
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"Alex, I know we've been flirting for a while now.. and I do flirt with a lot of guys, but I don't understand it.  With you.. I can't tell if you're serious or not."

She gives a questioning look, almost a pleading but in suspense.  Alex looks reflective – not so much coldly so, but almost afflicted.   He then decisively sits down next to her – closely next to her – and puts an arm around her.  Mariella seems shifty, but accepts it.  Alex looks at her directly.

"Mariella... I like you.  When I talk to you, I have to flirt.  I couldn't possibly do otherwise and still feel...alive. Because I do love you.  And I want you not just because you're a pretty woman, but for everything you are."

"But, you're not... the one."

Mariella doesn't seem to know how to take this, to Alex's own bemusement.  Alex quickly searches for a better way of putting it.

"Look, I know what women are after... and I just don't want to break your heart.  I want to tell you how it is."

Mariella then proceeds to give him an interesting and graceful, if not entirely innocent, speech about how life's too short, and if you'll settle for nothing but perfection in this world, you're just that more likely to get...nothing.

What happens next, she couldn't have anticipated.  Immediately Alex's eyes light up like flint sparks, he hugs her close and nuzzles his face against hers.. he sighs in relief and gives her a long, soft kiss on the cheek.  With *both* arms around her and still nuzzled against her face, he asks – viscerally and unthinkingly –, "Do you really mean that?"