Intro - Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 - Ch. 9 - Ch. 10 - Ch. 11 - Ch. 12 - Ch. 13

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The End

This Moron

I was dozing contentedly as we drove along a lonesome stretch of highway, across the flat brown center of the Mexican plateau, when Borowski woke me up abruptly with a sharp jab to my ribs.

"What the hell?  Can't sleep?"

She glared at me.  "Of course you can sleep.  You can sleep all you want.  But pull over and let me drive."

"All right," I muttered.  I pulled over and stepped out of the driver's side door.  Borowski maneuvered her nubile young form from the passenger's side into the driver's seat.  The impatient senorita started driving before I was fully back in the car, which was especially annoying because she'd locked the door and I had to pull myself in through the window.

"Slow down!"  I shouted, my head and shoulders in the car, my legs dragging uselessly behind me.

"Get out!" She screamed.  The car was gathering speed.

"Slow down!"  I shouted again.

"Get out!"  She repeated.  "Those insights are mine--mine!"  And she laughed one of those laughs that starts out like a normal laugh, but grows into something big and terrifying, and ultimately makes you realize you're not dealing with the romantic lead, but the villain.

"Slow down!"  I shouted once more.

"Out!"  She shrieked.  "Out!  Out!   Out!"  And she began whacking my head with her right arm while steering with her left.  It was just another testament to her incredible dexterity.  But I was almost halfway in by now, and despite her dexterity she wasn't very strong.  I almost certainly would have made it if she hadn't slammed on the brakes.

Fortunately, she was one of those villains-with-a-heart-of-gold that you read about sometimes, and the sight of me lying in a broken bloody heap in her rear-view mirror must have awakened some compassion in her.  She drove back, helped me into the passenger seat, and drove the rest of the way to Asininas.

It was another four days of driving.  Every evening we stopped at a motel, which probably would have been a lot of fun, and might have even led to nudity and sexual content, if only she didn't keep forgetting to help me out of the car.

We didn't talk much while she drove.

At last one afternoon we pulled into the parking lot of the Asininas Holiday Inn.  Once again she forgot to help me out of the car, but the joke was on her: I had almost healed.  I could practically walk.

By the time I had crawled into the lobby, there was no longer any sign of Borowski.  I began dragging myself toward the front desk, when I was suddenly transfixed by an extraordinary sight.

Two beefy men had entered the lobby, and strode past me toward the desk.  Both of them were wearing taffeta gowns, one a pearly pink, the other a playful yellow.  Their faces were concealed by taffeta ski masks.  They were speaking in some strange but vaguely familiar language, not quite English, but certainly not Spanish.  I listened intently.  At last I knew what it was:

Pig Latin.

And the moment I realized they were speaking Pig Latin, I knew who they were.

Los Idiotos.

"Idiotos!"  I cried.  "Idiotos!   I am an idiot, and I have travelled many miles, and many years, and have suffered many injuries, and witnessed several deaths, and survived numerous car wrecks, and persevered through a variety of adventures, and endured erratic shifts in narrative style, and all of this have I gladly gone through for this one purpose: to know the full magnificent truth of your Asinine Prophecy!"

They stared at me in silence.  The desk clerk retreated into a back room.  The other guests headed quickly for the exits.  The two men approached me slowly, their taffeta rustling gently.

"What do you know of the prophecy?"  One asked.

"I know the first Seven Insights," I said, "and the Ninth.  But I never got the Eighth."

The men were only a few feet in front of me.  They stopped.   I struggled with all my might to stand upright.

"You don't have to capitalize," Pink Taffeta said.   "Didn't anyone tell you that?"

"Yes," I grunted,"I'm sorry, I forgot."

"And what's all this about getting the ninth before the eighth," said Yellow.  "How could they give you the ninth before the eighth?  Nine comes after eight.  Not before it.  That doesn't make any sense.  You had seven insights, you got another one: that was the eighth."

"I know," I grunted.  I had dragged myself over to the wall and was using it to prop myself up.  "The eighth insight I got was actually the ninth."

The Idiotos looked at one another.

"It was the ninth insight of the manuscript," I explained, pulling myself halfway up, "but it was the eighth one I'd received."

The Idiotos stared back at me, uncomprehending.  I had succeeded in pulling myself up completely by now, although without the wall I surely would have collapsed to the floor.

"I just need the eighth insight," I said.  "The eighth insight of the manuscript, which will, technically, be the ninth insight I've received."

Yellow Taffeta shook his head.  "There is no ninth insight," he said.

"Tell me the eighth insight," I growled.

"You already got the eighth," said Pink.

"No," I snarled, "I got the ninth.  Not the eighth, the ninth.  The one about everything making sense after you get the eighth."

"Of course it makes sense after you get the eighth," said Yellow.  "It's the last one.  If it didn't make sense after the last insight, they wouldn't be very good insights, would they?"

"I don't think so," Pink Taffeta added rhetorically.

"No," Yellow said.  "They certainly wouldn't."

"Not in the least," Pink observed.

"Tell me," I said, "Or God help me, I'll kill you both!"

"I'd like to see you try," Pink said.

"Come and get us," Yellow taunted.  They turned and returned to the desk.  Pink rang the bell.  The clerk returned nervously from the back room and checked them in, eyeing me suspiciously all the while.

"I'll kill you!"  I roared, and I lunged forward.   And I fell and struck my head against the terra cotta floor.

I awoke in some kind of charity hospital, where I was given a few days to recover before being handed a pair of crutches and asked to remove myself from their care.  I hobbled out to the beach, where I lived for several weeks on seaweed and palm fronds.  At last I awoke one morning to find that my legs had healed completely.  I joined a crew of yong tourists, most of them American college students, drinking recklessly at one of the many outdoor cafes.  I followed them back to their cruise ship at the end of the day and passed myself off as one of them.

There was a free buffet that night, and I ate voraciously.  It had been a long time since I'd tasted so much solid food, and my stomach wasn't prepared for it.  I struggled out to the deck and vomited over the railing.  When I was through, I was suddenly aware of a presence beside me.

It was a beautiful young, bronze-skinned, auburn-haired woman in a short denim miniskirt and a bright orange bikini top.  She was looking at me sympathetically, sipping a Pina Colada.

"Are you all right?" she asked.  There was real concern in her voice, and compassion in her dark, bewitching eyes--eyes that shone the way something dark and bewitching might shine on the deck of a ship on a starry night with a full moon.

"No," I said.  "I'm not all right."  And in a sudden outpouring of all my exhausted grief, I told her my whole sad tale.

She listened with the patience of an angel, assuming angels are mostly patient, but sometimes take to playing with their straws and chewing on their ice.  She was silent for a moment when I finished, then looked into my eyes with gentle sympathy and said, "We're sailing through crystal blue Carribbean waters, there's a live band playing jazz and swing, we've got big frozen tropical drinks, dolphins are leaping along the bow, the moonlight is sparkling over the water, the stars are glistening in the sky, and everyone around you is young, and happy, and beautiful, and you're not happy because you can't find the eighth insight?"

And suddenly I realized that that was the eighth insight,  that it had to be the eighth insight, and if it wasn't, by God, it was good enough for me.

And I asked her to dance.

We were married three weeks later, and on our honeymoon she confessed that she was an obscenely wealthy heiress who'd been waiting to marry someone who didn't know she was loaded, and therefore loved her for who she was, or at least for her fabulous breasts.  

And just as I was kicking my heels, she told me no, really, she'd given all her money away already, but that her father owned a produce center in New Hampshire and she was pretty sure she could get me a gig as a watermelon packer. 

Apparently she'd given all her money to her brother, who'd been unfairly disinherited, and had been struggling to make ends meet as an accordion repair guy.

- The End -