Roger, why is the bridge green?!

[Freeky]

You know that bridge, where Alvernon turns into River? It's green. FUCKING GREEN. i don't know why it suddenly stood out to me. But I was in the car today and it was raining, after failure and disappointment happened, and when we crossed the bridge I noticed it was green. I was like, "WTF? Why is it green?? That doesn't look like a healthy color, WTF is going on?!"

I was in panic mode (well, maybe panic mode. Probably not real panic, because what have I got to get worked up over, honestly?) for, oh, maybe about a second or two. Not long at all. But then I noticed how absolutely hideous this whole place is. It's like a huge cloud of death and dessication just rolled over this place, but it's always been this way. Everything looks wilted, gnarled, and dying or already dead. Have you noticed that?

And you know how in some places, people try to plant grass and shit, to make it look more inviting? Have you noticed that whatever indigenous tree or plant is there looks for some reason even worse, like they're bent double in agony from how hard people are trying to pretend that everything is OK? I mean, this one business I passed, it had some particularly lush winter rye, and the mesquite tree that was there looked exactly, EXACTLY like someone trying to crawl away amidst death throes. Have you seen that tree?

I mean, at least where people try to make desert concrete look pretty with rocks and gravel or just leave it plain, they at least have the decency of knowing that 'pretty' and 'lush' do no generally crop up when people talk about the desert. The trees in these plots, have you noticed that there's more than a little bit of a militant look to them? The way the limbs and things look just like their neighbors', and they are all standing up very straight without a bend in the trunks anywhere? And they're all in a straight line and everything, or they're planted to look like they grew there naturally, but it's still a bit too something to be perfectly natural? Have you noticed?


Have you?

-Mistress Freeky loves you all,
until her dying breath.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I was in panic mode (well, maybe panic mode. Probably not real panic, because what have I got to get worked up over, honestly?) for, oh, maybe about a second or two. Not long at all. But then I noticed how absolutely hideous this whole place is. It's like a huge cloud of death and dessication just rolled over this place, but it's always been this way. Everything looks wilted, gnarled, and dying or already dead. Have you noticed that?

Every day of my life.

It's a filthy baby-shit-yellow hellhole, and the only difference between this place and Picachu is that Picachu is more HONEST about the burned out houses, burned out neighborhoods, and burned out lives.  This is like something out of a Stephen King novel, one of the early ones, and it's making us all crazy.  This town eats lives, and it ruins everything that touches it.

And some bright boy at City Hall decided a coat of green paint would make it all better...while our children's school class sizes grow and grow and grow, and the whole horrible machine clatters to a stop with a whine and a shriek of teeth breaking off of the cogs.

"Smash The Machine", we said.  Well, it's smashed, it smashed itself.

Is everyone happy now?  We must be, because this is what we wanted.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Fucking awesome!

And out of the ashes....

[Freeky]

We aren't meant to live in a desert, Roger. I think that's it. The sun bakes everything, drying it out and fossilizing it, and then the wind - oh, the wind - it beats the everliving snot out of what's been dried up, turning it to dust, and then spreading the dust everywhere with force. And then those creatures still alive and not (yet) dried out have to deal with the dust and rocks and shit and noxious fumes that get blown into our faces every time the winds blows, and that happens more than people think, because there's nothing but road here that is easily traveled along, and moving cars create a breeze.

And you know, I think the reason this place makes people crazy, why this town ruins the people who live here, is because of all the broken hopes, shattered dreams that line the gutter, buried under the exhaust fumes of all the cars that pass by, all the dust that gets blown around, beneath the piss and blood of these battered, drug crazed psychopaths we call Tucson's citizens. They're still here, and we can feel it, but there's nothing we can do, or at least nothing we think we can do, and we spiral and corkscrew through our existence here in mild horror, though we hide it well. Most of the time, anyway.

Do you know, you people who've never been to this town, that it smells weird when it rains? I don't know for certain, but I have a theory about why that is. When it does rain, it hardly ever does enough to actually wash anything away. When it does that kind of rain, its like adding water to a dried out pile of shit. That smell, it's the hopes and dreams that have been lying in the gutter for who knows how long, coming back to remind us that they're still there, still mourning for their lost chance at realization. Still broken, still shattered, and still waiting for us to join them there in the gutter.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

We aren't meant to live in a desert, Roger. I think that's it.

Everyone lives in the desert, Freeky, and nobody lives anywhere else.  Or The City.  One or the other, I can't remember.

And you know, I think the reason this place makes people crazy, why this town ruins the people who live here, is because of all the broken hopes, shattered dreams that line the gutter, buried under the exhaust fumes of all the cars that pass by, all the dust that gets blown around, beneath the piss and blood of these battered, drug crazed psychopaths we call Tucson's citizens. They're still here, and we can feel it, but there's nothing we can do, or at least nothing we think we can do, and we spiral and corkscrew through our existence here in mild horror, though we hide it well. Most of the time, anyway.

But the night, oh Freeky the night, that's a different story, yes?  When the sun goes down and the night comes up and you can almost remember what Saturday night was, back when The King still reigned in Memphis and Vegas and Johnny Cash still flipped off the hypocrites in Nashville, and all you needed was a car with no top and a willing member of the sex of your choice and maybe a pack of cigs.

Back when we were Kings and Queens of more than this wreckage of a City.  Back before the power failed.

Do you know, you people who've never been to this town, that it smells weird when it rains? I don't know for certain, but I have a theory about why that is. When it does rain, it hardly ever does enough to actually wash anything away. When it does that kind of rain, its like adding water to a dried out pile of shit. That smell, it's the hopes and dreams that have been lying in the gutter for who knows how long, coming back to remind us that they're still there, still mourning for their lost chance at realization. Still broken, still shattered, and still waiting for us to join them there in the gutter.

Reconstituted shit is still shit.

[Freeky]

I'm not at all acquainted with night. I've been kept Safe^TM for all my life, and night is definitely not Safe^TM

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm not at all acquainted with night. I've been kept Safe^TM for all my life, and night is definitely not Safe^TM

There's no point in being safe.  We as a population were safe, we did what we were told, and what did it get us?  Where's my jetpack, Freeky?  Where's my goddamn flying car?  Where's my space colonies?  WHAT IS THIS USELESS PIECE OF SHIT THEY HAVE GIVEN US INSTEAD OF THE FUTURE THEY PROMISED? 

Well, I'll tell you.  6,750,000,000 people on Earth.  245 are born a minute.  102 die in the same amount of time.  Do the math.

I now return you to the horrible future they built around you while you watched TV.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

And I was thinking about moving back there.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And I was thinking about moving back there.

To Tucson?  Why not?  If you don't, it will move back to you.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

And I was thinking about moving back there.

To Tucson?  Why not?  If you don't, it will move back to you.

Call me crazy, but the sun-baked remains of half a million people's dashed hopes and dreams sounds like a vacation in Rome during the height of the Empire's collapse. Which is somehow appealing to me these days.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And I was thinking about moving back there.

To Tucson?  Why not?  If you don't, it will move back to you.

Call me crazy, but the sun-baked remains of half a million people's dashed hopes and dreams sounds like a vacation in Rome during the height of the Empire's collapse. Which is somehow appealing to me these days.

That's exactly what it's like, if the Roman empire was lightly dusted in coyote shit.

[Freeky]

I had a thought, maybe yesterday, maybe a couple days ago.  I was looking over towards those small mountains west of Tucson, and thinking of how a person can't get any farther, because it just drops off into the ocean right there. Now, my parents frequently go to this place called "California", but I don't know about that, because there'd be an ocean in the way. I think you're right. People never leave here. They just like to pretend.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I had a thought, maybe yesterday, maybe a couple days ago.  I was looking over towards those small mountains west of Tucson, and thinking of how a person can't get any farther, because it just drops off into the ocean right there. Now, my parents frequently go to this place called "California", but I don't know about that, because there'd be an ocean in the way. I think you're right. People never leave here. They just like to pretend.

I left. I wandered north 7 years ago to a land called Wyoming. But there is a mountain on the Southern edge of the town I live in now, and on a clear Summer day it seems like there is a dingy haze peeking over the mountain from the other side, and I can almost smell the fragrant odors of sun-bleached concrete and overcooked Mexican food. Sometimes I wonder if for these past 7 years, all I've really accomplished is to find a hidden suburb.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I had a thought, maybe yesterday, maybe a couple days ago.  I was looking over towards those small mountains west of Tucson, and thinking of how a person can't get any farther, because it just drops off into the ocean right there. Now, my parents frequently go to this place called "California", but I don't know about that, because there'd be an ocean in the way. I think you're right. People never leave here. They just like to pretend.

I left. I wandered north 7 years ago to a land called Wyoming. But there is a mountain on the Southern edge of the town I live in now, and on a clear Summer day it seems like there is a dingy haze peeking over the mountain from the other side, and I can almost smell the fragrant odors of sun-bleached concrete and overcooked Mexican food. Sometimes I wonder if for these past 7 years, all I've really accomplished is to find a hidden suburb.

World loops back around.  You're actually in Vail.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I had a thought, maybe yesterday, maybe a couple days ago.  I was looking over towards those small mountains west of Tucson, and thinking of how a person can't get any farther, because it just drops off into the ocean right there. Now, my parents frequently go to this place called "California", but I don't know about that, because there'd be an ocean in the way. I think you're right. People never leave here. They just like to pretend.

I left. I wandered north 7 years ago to a land called Wyoming. But there is a mountain on the Southern edge of the town I live in now, and on a clear Summer day it seems like there is a dingy haze peeking over the mountain from the other side, and I can almost smell the fragrant odors of sun-bleached concrete and overcooked Mexican food. Sometimes I wonder if for these past 7 years, all I've really accomplished is to find a hidden suburb.

World loops back around.  You're actually in Vail.

Really?

Wait... Vail? So when it gets really cold here and all that white shit covers everything, it's actually...

oh, god.