The Bad Boys' Soft Boys' Lonely Hearts Club - The Full Package

The Deux Ex Pasta

"Ugh, I feel like I got hit by a bus," he whispers, not quite opening his eyes yet. "Wait, am I dead? Am I in heaven? And why is my neck wet?"

"Worse," I say. "You're in a side-plot."

"Jesus?" he asks. "Did you just lick my neck?"

The void shakes with a rude "ahem," making Hayden open his eyes slowly.

"Ah, it's this dream again," whispers Hayden, closing his eyes again. His hand moves slowly towards his pants and... unzips them. "Do that thing you do with your hips, but faster this time. Last time I woke up before the big bang."

"I said, ahem!" repeats the void, this time making Hayden jump up, shaking me off.

"What the hell is happening?" asks Hayden, pulling his pants up. "Where are we? When are we?"

"The question you should be asking," says the voice in a sarcastic voice, "is who am I!"

"Who am I?" I ask, standing up from the dirty void floor. Many dead screams litter it. "I know who I am."

"No, no, no, you nincompoops!" yells the voice, shaking the void. "Who am I!"

"I think the voice is trying to ask us who we really are," says Hayden. "Like, what makes us, us. What makes a human, human. Who are we, if not featherless bipeds, souls piloting a meat prison? A blip in time and space, brother. That's what we are."

"What you are is a couple of dumbasses," says the voice without skipping a beat.

The void unfurls itself in front of us like a fine Persian carpet, and just about as colorful. What was once darkness and emptiness turns into an endless sky full of clouds, with a floor of shimmering crystal. Corinthian columns, old, broken, and decayed surround us. Why are there always Corinthian columns? Would they kill them to add a few ionic columns? Disgraceful.

And in front of us sits a throne, as most standing thrones are generally uncomfortable, with...ah, goddamit! Is that Lee sitting on it?

Okay, what kind of sick prank is this? Very elaborated, too, given the school has no budget. She even has a pink wig on.

"Lee?" I ask. "The hell is going on?"

Lee shoves her pink locks behind her while crossing her legs in a very un-Lee fashion. Actually showing feelings, for once. "It was a rhetorical question, idiot. I'm not this Lee person. My name is Farfallah, and I'm the goddess of this world!"

"I always knew God was a woman," says Hayden. "Only a girl God could create something as useful as a platypus. They lay eggs and sweat milk. They're a walking brunch machine!"

Pink-haired Lee laughs condescendingly, using the back of her hand to cover her mouth in that really condescending way. "I'm not the God of your world, son of Adam, but of mine."

"My dad's name is Chuck," says Hayden.

I swear I can hear the last shred of Lee's patience break away as she sulks into her throne. "Let me try this again. Hi, hello."

"Sup," I say. Maybe if I annoy her enough, she will drop the charade and let us go our merry way.

"Yes, hi," she says, rubbing her temples. "Look, you guys? Are dead. Finito. Caput. Zlitch. Nada."

"I don't feel dead," says Hayden. "And I know death. One time, me and my pops were playing ice hockey on the lake, which is kinda weird since we don't get snow here, but he insisted it was fine, and it was not fine, brother. Not fine at all. And then the ice broke and I kinda drowned for like 15 min and was, like, technically dead, and I know it sounds weird, but death kinda smells like fried chicken, and-"