~~somewhere in Fresno~~
A lone figure sits in a dimly lit room, huddled over a computer screen, digging and scratching his forehead. The rough topography of the lunar map of his face scrunches up, his pocked brow crinkling with deep lines. He is drenched with sweat, his grimy old t-shirt stained with salt rings around his neck, back and armpits.
Y2K scratches at an eczema patch on his head, crusting up dead skin beneath his dirty fingernails. He accidently pops a whitehead, oozing puss onto his fingertip. He looks at the disgusting digit and sniffs it. “Hmm, dippin’ sauce.” He purrs, jamming the finger into his mouth, giving it a deep slurping suck. Content, he turns his attention back to his writing.
“…and you’re not funny. You are Jay. And stuff.
‘Happy Holidays Maggot.” He types. He clicks on a laughing smiley face. “There.” Y2K says happily. “No, wait a minute, the coup de grâce.” He snickers, and adds another smiley, this one flipping a double bird. “I’m not a legend of smack for nothing.”
He tilts back on the rear legs of his folding chair, hovering his hand over the computer mouse. He moves the arrow over the proper icon. “Take this Gay in Phoenix.” He pauses a moment, “Damn” he muses, “I should have used that in the post. Whitey would love it!” The chair Y2K sits in creaks, the legs groaning under his shifted weight. There is a loud ‘crack’ like a gunshot at the same moment he presses down on the mouse and…
…time and reality suddenly shift…
~~somewhere in Italy, at the turn of the 19th century~~
On the corner of a cobblestone street that is slickened with rain, sits a humble curio shoppe. Through the front window, the embers of a fireplace glow, giving the only source of warmth to a figure sitting at a large wooden table. The old man is cradling his head in his gnarled, calloused hands, shaking it slowly back and forth.
“Why…” he sighs. “why..Y2nocchio, why you gotta’ be this way?” Jaypetto, the town cobbler and sometime puppeteer pushes his glasses up on his nose, squinting with tired frustration. On the other side of the room, a quite animated marionette struggles against his strings, yanking at them and spitting curses. His once colorful costume is dingy and coated with dust and what looks like dried mud.
“Jus’ look at you.” Jaypetto says sadly. “Once upon a time, you was a’funny, you make the people laugh and clap’a they hands. And now…” he says softly. The puppet belches up sawdust all over his ratty bow tie. The old man shakes his head again. “…now, they just throw tomatoes at you and call you stupid.”
“LOL-LOL-LOL!” Y2nocchio hiccups with a spastic staccato. The puppet jams one gloved hand into the pocket of his shorts and whips out a photograph with a snap. He holds it up to Jaypetto and the puppeteer gasps. It is a picture of a cock-eyed man, posing in front of an oddly stained mirror. He is naked except for an over-sized pair of feminine panties and there is a bright flash of light in the glass. “Y2nocchio! Where’a you get such a horrible thing?” Jaypetto cries. The foul puppet turns the picture to his face, and sniffs it deeply. His eyes close, an expression of ecstasy curl his wooden lips. The marionette jams the picture into the front of his shorts and begins rubbing himself. “Blasphemy!” the old man wails, snatching the picture from Y2nocchio. He throws it into the fireplace, the embers popping. The puppet lurches on his strings, snapping them.
Oddly, the picture refuses to burn. “Such a thing, so horrible a thing as that, it’a never goes away.” Jaypetto intones with a curse. He turns on the puppet, grasping a chisel from the tabletop. “So Y2nochhio, you want to be like a real boy.” The old man grabs the marionette and lifts him up. The puppet bites down on Jaypetto’s hand. “Hey, that’s a the one I create you with, you little a’bastard!” The puppeteer slams the squirming wooden boy down on the table. He begins hammering Y2nocchio’s face, over and over, blistering and pitting it repeatedly. He presses the chisel down squarely into the center of Y2noccio’s forehead. “Tranquility base,” Jaypetto smiles, “the Eagle has a’landed!” He bangs it down and a large wooden divot flips into the air. The old man carries the dazed puppet to the front door, sets him down and gives him a soft boot to the pants. Jaypetto reaches for a small black, moth-eaten long-coat and tosses it at the puppet, knocking him on his ass.
“Where you going, its’a gonna’ be cold. And the people and the place, they notta’ nice to each other.”
Y2nocchio picks himself off, dusting loose strings off himself. “LOL-LOL-LOL!” he titters.
“What the hell that even mean?” Jaypetto asks.
The puppet flips him the middle fingers of each hand.
“All a’ these years Y2nocchio, you not learn a damn thing, you retarded little puppet.” says the saddened Jaypetto.
The puppet staggers down the street like a drunk stinking on cheap beer, staggering over his own strings. It shoots one more bird back at the old man and trips over a loose cobblestone. His nose hits the street with a loud crack and…
…time and reality shift back…
…click, submit. Y2K tumbles backwards, banging his head on the floor. “Fucksticks!” he yelps.
He picks himself off, and dusts at his t-shirt, plucking loose a couple of stray threads. The stringy threads fall to the floor at his feet. “Fuckin’ shitty Home Depot giveaway.” He mumbles, picking at the shirt. He passes in front of his bathroom and catches his sight in the mirror. The glass is riddled with odd white spots. He chips a couple of them loose and they drift like nasty protein snowflakes to the sink. “The fuck?” he says, examining the mine-field of his forehead. The crater at the center appears to be twice the size it was before. “What the hell.” He shrugs, as who the hell would notice it anyway. He slinks into his bedroom, and enters the closet, shutting the door behind him. There is a couple of thumps and a rustle. “So safe in here.” Y2K coos. “But I must come out of it sometime!”
The door bursts open and Y2K prances out, wearing a black, moth-eaten long raincoat. He picks a grungy looking cassette from a stack, and snaps it into a battered-looking tape deck. He turns up the volume knob, and cheesy strains of synthesizer fill the room with a disco back beat.
“You go Donna Summer.” Y2K says, beginning to dance.
“Sittin' here eatin' my heart out waitin', waitin' for some lover to call…” he sings, and gyrates back into his bathroom. He plucks a camera up from the sink counter. The song builds, and Y2K opens the coat with a snap, dropping to the pee-stained tile. “Hot stuff!” he roars in sing-song. He is naked from acne-scarred head to fungus-crusted toe, with the exception of a pair of stretched out, blotted women’s panties. “I want to be like Mike!”
He thrusts his butt at the mirror.
“I need some Hot Stuff!” he squeals, and presses the shutter control.
*flash*
The End
