STARING OF STORS

Beautiful, automatic, beautifully automatic, & reveling, solo in the beauties of his variegated automaticities, Qert the Botic went from stor to stor, scanninggninnacs eachhcae oneeno.  His instruments spread amazingly like oriental fans & gathered & gauged & measured, & compared, & collated, & stored & redacted&enspressed & ceptulated & sussed, & intrapolated the faces, perstornalities & stormanamolies, MMSI parameters, SQs, & genetic trees of each sun.  Or sunlike thing.

Studying his script, Qert would Qert would then turn to the next stor, which like a small child before a photograph would perk up just then & smile‑‑beamish awkwardly, as Qert would put it (but was forced to store it, as they had given him thoughts, even words existing in glorious golden ik=mage files, but no means for speaking them.

There was no one to speak to in the universe, in any case. Qert deliberately suprapressed, by the way, a rather ingenious & complex modality whereby he might write words down.  He had figured this himself.  I think Qert was a genius, though there are those assholes who differ with me on this or that as the case may asshole be

whereupon Qert would flash the thing, & fold up his information & tash it in his spack & turn to the next stor, which would shift oafishly in its lil spaceseat & run its little finger under the collar it had donned for the occasion‑‑though Qert didn't care...what did it matter to Qert, huh, what though he (Qert) loved the little bastards that were bigger by him than far.  Huh?‑‑& sweat, sort‑of, whereupon SNAP! would quip, & another stor captured in that pack of holik=mages.

On Qert went, turning to stors, reading an mimeasurin, workin hard anda havin funs, & storing a whale off a lotta bon mots in this cute Leatherette Pak™ of his d‑noted IK=MAGE PHIALS.  He But turned, & there were ButStors, walls of 'em smiling obsequiously at that.  They each stors they each had a specifical special charactheuristic smile, which was a part of Qert's perceptivacs that did not fit into the ik=mage phile but which did (& this is important) fit into words.  He enjoyed describing the stors in personal & generally contemptuous terms.  He liked it.  He may have had a touch of botic bile‑‑I'm not disputing that.  But is this not too a characteris‑tic of genius, not what haat?

So there was getting to be a lot of dope on these stors stuck in Qert's ik=mage file zaway.

Expect might-you as-now, this staring of stors involved a lot of travel, & this travel involved unfathomable fathombs of time, or what passed as time through the time between the stors, which was the intraverx.  Qert's beautiful selfregardingly beautiful mind was so fashioned (as you & my mind(s)s are so‑fashioned, only so differently) as to cut so‑out between sostors, so to Qert he was not lying dormant dormant dormant for millennia, but was constantly active.  He even had a place for peace, but he didn't know that yet.

Yes the sense he had of his various components wearing out, discoloring, shifting tensile spengths & viscosities in a flash, was this time round part of Qert's roundsense of the intraverx.  It was just that the xrevrtna went like that, as you stepped from stor to stor, throwing up your skin, looking at the insides of these sundry stors, focusing their energy flows in timespan, so that what you end up tucking in your handy little pack, slung from your shoulder(so strangely different from the last time you popped the crystallization of a stor inside)'s this exquisite, perfectly‑made, endless I mean endless detailed model of the stor as it would exist many billenia hench.
THE AFTERTHOUGHT OF LANTHORN
or
THE ETERNAL SHAPE OF BEAUTY PERPLEXT

From one of those futures he developed a note.  He received a message, but it felt like he developed it.  At first it felt queer, but good.  Queer but good.  The note come in the digital fluorm of a skyroll, complex, indecipherable.  O but it felt legal, like a summons from long ago still in its puffless envelope.  Qert rose to the challenge and‑‑stopped between stops‑‑focused the full pattern of endlets billemnia onto the note.  It caught right fire it did, whereupin Qert leaned back, yes he did, & let me tell you, you might have felt the heat from Qert's big grin.  This botic was confident!  He was deluced; he was made for this sort of thing...

He fabricated the code‑‑meaning he reworked the code endlessly, in an intraverxic snuff onno time, & only but this once upin a time did the letters come right.  They went like this:

100.0101101001 V'BFOOTIY:EW SW'S, TIYE DEUWBSM JUB/,

100.0101101010 B'BFO‑TIY:RW SWAS, TOYE DRUWBS, JUBZ,

100.0101101011 BABF‑‑TOY:RE SEAS. TOUE FREUBS, QUBZ.

100.0101101100 BANF‑‑YOY:RE DEAS. YOUE FRIENS, QIBZ.

100.0101101101 BANG‑‑YOU:RE DEAS. YOUR FRIENS, QINZ.

100.0101101111 BANG‑‑YOU'RE DEAD. YOUR FRIEND, QINZ.

100.0101110000 NANH==UOIARE FESF/ YPUT GTIEMD. QOMZ/

100.0101110001 NSMH==UPIAIR FRSF/ UPIT GTORMF. WOMX/
and so on.  This doesn't make any sense.

But what's this string #100.0101101111?  For several hours Qert stand there, leaning over his intracomm.  His face had the eternal shape of Beauty Perplext, which was the only thing the poets of the antique, early stors wrote about wrote about wrote about & wrote.  About his face had this beauty as your dingy street has its beauty, briefly, when the pales of summer rain keep sweeping & sweeping in repetitive capes across, if as wishing the light fum the old lamp acrosshiff the windows where ipswill worp magic in the morning.  But the morning never comes‑‑you know?  Well, ol' Qert's suffused face was sfffused face was sfffsst with this aforementioned beauty, also known as this beauty, also known inside even in the tiny workings of the invisible guts of the smallest unborn child‑‑the one who was beaten nothingness in to by the force of perception you.

To speak plainly, the botic was puzzled because he couldn't make the signal.  I mean he couldn't make it out, he couldn't suss it, scan it, get it to cohere.  It stayed a drizzworld liquold in his weepy eyes & dissoilute in his reery tears & a fuzz in his fuff nophe.  He couldn't gestalt the patterns.  It was as if there were no patterns to gestalt, you know?  Here he was hearing perfect instructions from what might be the Perfect God, & all he was getting was that specifically mocking static that was built up over several storic nullinia as a sort of inside joke amongst the storic engineers, the storic engineers, who apparently saw laughter in the smoke I mean heard laughter in the static or felt those unseen babaies cry in the cosmic whisphs of that isolated street we spun on that swung away in space.

"Little else & little other than static, here," Qert tried to report‑‑but the very twust of his face, that untoward beauty, see, cramb‑dupt the signal, so he was sure they couldn't hear.  (& who also were they, & what was #100.0101101111 toom?)  Again bent he down in the static, then glanced up but briefly to grimace at the streetlamp over head which the Uthor of Olbing had not thought to put there before, & Qert called it (the lanthyrn) in his mind (the windwoo) the Afterthought Lanthorn (the rain), & thought to himself that this would make a good title ("The Eternal Shape of Beauty Perplext") for this piece, if piece it be, & then he looked down & made a sort of a gargoyle face, yes a gargoyle face he made out of the face of beauty tishade, & this gargoyle's face parenthesies (parenthesis mined!) mimed his difficulties with the cheap little plastic control knob with which he tried fruitlessly envein edly to TUNE IN THE GOD, the old gameshow, so Qert looks disgustingly like The Idiot of the Fable Adjusting His Radio To Hear The Voiceoveur Zufgod, eyebrows raised in hopeful inanity‑‑or hopefulnanity‑‑tongue sticking out, when Uthrhor Et hadn't even given him a tongue until now‑‑but there it is.  Know this: Is.

& Know This: Too.

& This: Too Too.

Part of that ugly face mayavben the reificiation of the static, which is a religious event if there other was ome, such that Qert the Idiot has these spokkles o static beatifically luminous round him like fine particles of a special snow.  The static's now falling in silver swoa round his ears, whirling in meaningfully articulated patterns round & round his stupid caulifloriberes, & he just can't make it out.  Yes, connections between levels alwrys bad.

"What do you make of it?"

"It look bad.  We put him in these scenes and‑‑"

"And he's still the young dolt.  Sad."

"Bad."

"He thinks he's talking to the very top god?"

"Well of course not.  He think he not talking to the very top God."

"Ah."

"There is this very big difference."

"Mm."

"I mean‑‑have you ever thought you were gnottalking to the very top God?"

"Never."

"Of course not!"

"I have never not thought I was talking aught to the very top God."

"Yes well, the point is he has lost the stor."

"But he doesn't remember‑‑he's not admitting to it."

"Yas.  Sad."

"Yas."

Pause.  Reflex.  Gauze.

"I did once think that I was talping off the very tock of God."  Pause.  "Or was it taking oolgh the veroy top of God?"

"That's vere diffrents, ver, butand by the way, what did you just say about 'gauze'?"

"This was narration."

"Narration, aye.  Then who be we?"

"We‑be static repartetion."

"Tou‑Touché!
EAT‑ONE‑EAT
or
THOUGHT‑PAST FLOWERS OF MY SELF

The one time a botic needs repairs is when he thinks he's in disrepair.  Qert Bottotic thought so.  "I felt woozy," he thought later thought, "and I felt a distinct weakness in my perambulatory mechanisms {nice phrase, that}.  I was conscious of moving, & there was this pain in my chest.  I limped & hobbled & pulled my way through empty space, a not‑nice phase that, & a difficulty in empty space.  I was to have difficulties in empty space, I understood, & here I was in fact having actual difficulties in intra space.  Nor did it fee like intra space, I thought, as I sighed.  Nor did I move in the manner you move through intra space.  No, I was definitely walking, semiconscious & sick & sick though I was.  I was limping, below my cute little limping legs was a black surface like velvet‑‑not vacuum of space but ordinary of floor, you see.  I must be still inside the stor, I say.  I how ever had a feverever & did could not assay.

"'Wow!' thought I later to myself.  'I had a real fever.  I had a real forehead with real sweatpores pouring forth their sweatpoor wares ro wores.  Big lesions of it schlep tacross mineyes, burning mynize, & I was shaking my head a lot to shake off the sweat & to clear it, & also because when you see movies of cowboys or soldiers sweating they always like shake off their sweat.  It is actors shaking off unactual sweat, but you always see it, in the movies, & it always moves,and you always move into the movie at that point, so I figure it must be some deep ik=magical point, some utterly deep ik=magical point & not just the ticks of a thousand actors (think: The Tix of a000 Actors) imitating thothers indemselves (thick: Intimading Thyuthers Emthomzelves!).  O I shook sweat.  So I mutofben an actor, shaking off sweat with a million little sweaty me's inside & tossed a side ndaridin down in those ol beamzoswet, right?

"'"Well, possibly," I past thought myself.  "But there was this fever station, I mean power station, I mean beaver staytium, I mean roadside inn, I mean motel, I mean EAT, I mean REPAIRS, it said, & I thought fever passed, 'Well, this was the place to get fixed, & so I walked in.  I walked right in, I walked right into heaven‑‑known from the title as the first false heaven or The Thirst False Heaven or REPAIRS or EAT or EAT‑ONE‑EAT‑‑& I walked right into this goddam trap with my eye zwide open.  I tell you, I was sick. I am aware of what the ultra‑unquoted narrator said up there‑‑about a botic never being sick except etcet‑‑& I urge you to think on how a narrator ain't no Uthor of Olbing, OK?  So I wouldn't know.  I was sick.  I mean to say I was sick.

"'"'"I was sick," thought‑past flowers of myself, whereupon the carpet I was walking on turned white, whereupon I went mad‑‑witch comeill tell you a botic snever due, others if not Uthor stell you that's only what a botic salways zis, so you can take it, sift it, sort it out your sordiself itut unthought."'"'"
THE CONCEPT OF MOVEMENT STARRING QERT
or
THE JOLLY WHITE DOCK OF THE K‑HEXATOLE

The first thing Qert noticed when he first fell into this sfirst of the Seven False Heavens was that he was aware that he was traveling!  That was enough to frighten any botic in this vast & botic‑ridden universe, but I remember tuning in to this awakening creature & noting his strange sense of wonder.  Qert noted he was flying through space.  He had velocitometers, but they weren't jooked up to his conscious mind, since only his servomechanisms acted while he moved, & slept, & so Qert had to dig in to the old, soft, goldish ik=mage files & describe to himself this new sensation, this new concept: the concept of movement.

He was a very young & egotistical botic, Qert, what though he'd existed for nunefallion xiers (wherefore most of this time was spent unconscious & gathering O that rarest dust, in mind), & he immediately & instinctively put himself at the center of the Comcept o Vlocity, so it came out rather like one of your dilmsklipts: ***The Concept of Movement*** skarring Qerk.  & he lookta roun din wonder, for he was indeed traveling, but not through empty space‑‑which might have bored him just as much as the old neurollow Tongue gov Cloir would be bored by the hollow‑molecule Spices of Arr‑‑but rather through a field of diaphanous webs that he felt against a big face he was projecting compulsively with all his considerable sleep‑might sleepmight sleepmight sleepmight into the illuminate/region space out hyarr.

***He was lost in a stor!***

Lookatim: swishing through cool web after cool web, still having trouble umpucing this movement business, this velocity game, the old travel modality, that inimitable speed trip, your basic spip spinnalidee, but he was somewhere noting he was in storic space (another new concept there, but one he'd writ of often of, fo netfo fo, & as the stors had told him of, for your stors be sorely frighted by your nexus‑entxus offo stoorroots spaceecaps) & somewhere zelse noting toooot that he was slowing down, he was being dragged down by these wonderful nets which felt less than a storflore thicks, he was decelerating, & the thoughts behind the brightly innoxent flace out there projected with such mighty‑might in splace were splacewore splacewor hurting what's left of his highflying botic head.

He was being brought in by something (for repairs?  was this home?  no one had saw fit to givim enaemory of home, so he could only guess from the ache you & I know so deeply well that this was home.  But it was not home.  That's another ache, & please understand our little guy that that he couldn't under standthat K?)‑‑actually being haulked in & dragged to a stop on his trip to the stors.

Cautiously, & with real fear this time, Qert the Botic stuffed his handy STOR‑PAK© back in his sash & zipped the sash & straightened his tunic & smoothed down his jair‑‑even to the point where this illusory‑blue sort‑of Superman‑hair looked, well, sort of tacky, know mussed you‑if, sort of Franzy Goto Oilywood, sort of 80's dorkish mush‑u‑no, sort of slick n sticky n all tacked down.  He was so awot wiph nervushness that the ether spangled up with presions of sweat, with presions o sweat, with pressions‑a presionza sweat, yessir‑‑& tried to look cool though he dint know how nor nor what nor was happening.

He was hauled in to a ship better left described than magimbel (this the space‑dream part imaginal), laid to rest on the Perfect Central Dot of a Perfect White Oval Dock, finest beams atingle with high emotions focused right on him (so:), talked down, synthecalmed, debebriefed, air brought autoin, & the most minuscule figures you ever saw walking towards him.

Keep mind‑in poor Qert's used to eyeballin' stors.  Whole stors.  Poor Qert's not used to small stuff like creagatores‑‑which is what he was in fact "seeing" at this time, smiling high as a dilly by this time time time, if you grant that the concept "seeing" has any validioty for some one‑‑such as this figure Qert here‑‑who donknow fully no what he's "seeing" "here."  He's uh pretty flipped out‑‑not only because of strangeness‑‑which might not always flip yout, y'know‑‑bu because he was straining not to remember stuff, like this stuff, which was however straining to enter his mind YAAAAAAA!

A‑yes, for ensamplee doesn't have to struggle with the concept of "walking," which might be expected to be expected to be expected to be rather radical for him.

But no.  To save dimensions of the plot, we note that Qert's major difficulty observing the creagatores walking across the perfectly smooth reflevitcelferective & rather jolly white dock (The Jolly White Dock of the K‑Hexatole, the storship we are in we are om) is his realization that he knows what the dock is & what walking is & what these goddam creatures are.  Now this upset zim, but we will let him rest & recover here byby assiduously not dezgribin gim...

The creagatores fall into seven pastel sociologically structured groups: Ule, Falbagom, Brees, Mneumnteem, Pempito, Naze, & Gra.  Dressed quite niftily, as Qertomself describes mumbling gina cup, they have a leader in gra yes a leader in gra, who smile familiarlies, & a bunch of workmen types in red who do not smile.  Qert sniffs.  'Stypical...

O‑Host, a grahored beautibot in a gragored suit (so that Qert knew it was false) smarmily directed some red‑tuniced muscular humanoid menrobuic types to strip off Qert's layerjings‑‑a thought what shock Qert to the end of no end of laughjing off his very sanes of self this time.  So he'd seem to be standin there stripped of his crystalry, his servsmachs, his bufflenims, his electriyins, STANDING THERE ON THE DOCK JUST AS NAKED & poorly FORKED AS THEY!‑‑only moreso‑‑muchuch moreso o!
THE HEAVEN OF LAYERS AT THE LEVEL OF SMILES

"My, what a handsome botic you are," thee falbagom angoles said.  They said it with variations, back & forth in time, & clever, wry, smug, condescending Qert couldn't help but notice that they flowed pempitos honey at him as he said it. He perceived they were working very hard at honeying him, at sweetening some message inside the message of his beauty they were humming hum.  He smiled beneath his first layer‑‑for this was a heaven of layers‑‑knowing they were trying to trip him, I mean trick him, into droopinis guards.

"OK, that 'snough," said the gra grill spargent, & the amgels spattered.  They spattered like white birdshit.  They splattered, like milkwhite shit.  They shattered like shit.  They smattered, but it didn't mattered.  "Drop your guard, Qert," he ord red.

& Qert, still with that dumb smuck snile on his flace, commence to peeling off the many onion heavenly layers that normally & supposedly always protect your botic.  From attack.  From intraversic fears.  From exottack.  From False Havens Evidently, that's "Heavenge Evidemptly."  He  p e e led  o ff  h is  l ayers like so much underwear, like a foolish man, a stupid man, a simpleton forsooth, who strips off the many layers of clothes he is wont to wear to cower his nupidmeff, smiling uncomprehendingly as the torturers grease up & sharpen up & juice up their wares yessure.

Mustobena potent enough message, enh Qert?  But Qert's gnot gnistening, the little sgnot, & the drill sergeant 'swhistling 'sternly through his nose nase as he step frowd to peel off the smile which‑‑now that Layer One hath been removed‑‑hang like a poor melodramatic stache from Q what's left off Qert's zupper ilp.

Sans smile, but still with that selfsame stupid stupidity huneyed on, Qert strips off Layer Two, the Layer Three, then Four Five Six Seventh Vector Seventh Vector Devector Senevth Sector Veneth Veight Eight Nine Xextor X Z‑Sec Dector Eff Ex Ex Ex‑Ex Ten Ben Ventor Bex, & so on, down through the intricacies which were made to make it impossible even for the goddam botic self to undress.  But the sergeant's working on it.

Now naturally Qert can't handle himself.  Correctly can't he hamber imzelf.  Truly can he naught deandle dimxulph.  He just keep umbressing, for these heavenly folkave flummoxim pretty good.  He's in deep trouble, he know, though would still be smiling if he still had Layer Two (that's the level of smiles) to cover him, for it won't be long till these brilliant marines er probin an pokin into his intimate depths.  Qert'll be fucked then; the gods themselves'll be in dutch at that out intrime, as the whole secrets of the botics & the entire premise of the novel‑‑not to mention some of the deep underlying depth psychology opurating in this outhor's mented mind‑‑will be unraveled.  Hell, we've write ourseols into a real hole, men.

"Rill‑hole, men!" shrooks the sergeant, & the "men"‑‑rather smaller, frailer, still‑white but frilly, rarthur silly, marines‑‑start unwrapping some of the layers so golly deep that even Qert's emergency subconscious memory files philes can't handle it, cannot ik=mage it, & have never seen the likes of a flay so flayso deep as this...
MODIFIED MORBIDITY

This word ik=mage...

Qert lay beneath the soft gauze of what‑would said to be hospital bed.  He would have smiled except his smile was dead.  Just about everything was dead in this stor, except for those few pulseform maintain by the Gentle Machines, which loved Qert endlessly‑‑right to the endless end of the goddam stor, layer upon layer of these fine things clickin in disrhymix & mixin the light colors of their lithe plasticaires unto the maintenance of those skeletal ashpex of life that lit there, right from the center, representing the heart, which is where Qert unsmiling lay.

But his soul was full of glee.  I'll have to tell you that, for it is not something which occurred "inside" the stor or which could thereby be measured there me measured there be me beasauredere.  That had to do with Qert's desire that he be perfectly protected in this stor.  It seems a little morbid, I guess, but I can't spend my time & energy‑‑such as it is‑‑explaining or apologizing for the morbidity of a stor made by a creature or thing or entity, none of it having yet been very well‑defined, who have somehow contracted with another, similar (hey‑‑for all practicalc purepose's identical) creature man ding or thing orthing thin gorthing to keep on shooting him, in universe after universe, just to see it can be done.  I can't keep apologauzing for what might strike your doubtless‑dis‑eas‑ed mind as "morbiod" or "eerie" or "creepoy" or whatever whatever, OK OK?

Let's say anyway it had a certain modified morbidity, inasmuch as Qert saw to it that anyone entering this stor was immediately & instantly & irredeemably on his deathbed, see, surrounded not by starry feys but by pulsating machines known as Starry Feys™ which kept just the minimal thing zalive.  This was Qert's little Deathbed Stor, the slangory Croakoerystoer, hor‑hor, & you can bet his real actual strongly‑pult‑zingheart was out there somewhere, in the storic anteroom no doubt, absolutely pulpshwing wiph glee, to thingk that no one (which was how, by contract, he was amnesiacly obliged to think of Qert in these his various ceptualorz) could possibly get to him to kill him here.

Yea, Qert was comfy in his bed & dying rather endlessly, & the machines thrulled him with love, all of which daccorded with the manner in which this strange stor had been set up, & worked on endlessly, by him.  He thought his friend Qinz would never think of this (this he thought between storts, whilst a workin' on stors, onstor, whenin he was allowed of course to think about Qinz as someone other than no one see) & wouldn't be able to kill him, & he, Qert, would win the stor & doudouble the score & jubble the score & bubble the scroer yousee.  Heh‑heh‑heh, is a reasonable simulacrum of what he dthought.

This botic Qinz sook one took at the Deathbed Stor & laughed.  He entered, lay sighing on his own deathbed in the absolute same circumstance as Qert‑‑which was by design‑‑& surely there was no way he could kill his friend in there.

No way?  He smiled his last smile, did Qinz (not accounted for in Qert's design, by the way).  I have tried my self purple trying to discern just where this fucking last smile comes from comes from fomes crum butIcan't.  I azzume it was just a flicker of joy so murderously great twa zallowed by the gods, who must've filliped a dollop of suspension as they'd often do for Qinz of the lores of storsics & made possible this laugh like a glint off the Towereeth of Speel as it glimps in the zun of Tangorpeantipe‑Eeoolipann) & gently pluck twono the servopumps from his arm‑‑which as you already expect was the white of the perfect death o the ghostly whale, perfect juiceless lifeless light, thin white, ghastly but eerily manic white, joyewhite in a sense, in a shape of white that grows without shape in a timeframe existent outside shape.  Pretty pale arm out of which he beautiful beautiful cord keeping him live.

Whereupon he dies & Qert inherits his ghostly smile discust tubuv, except that

&

things commence to die

&

things astart to die

&

one by one the pieces of this massive stor‑‑in which we gather (quickly gather!) that everything's connected‑‑die!

They die like this: d1e d2e d3e d4e d5e: nntnl thn nnmbnrs bnur.

Until the wave of death blossoms intverxal in‑‑to Qert lying on his bed in the center of the stor‑‑& he dies, sucked in by That Very Grin.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
THE DOCTORS' MILLENI ALREPORT
or
QERT NOR HERT NOR HURD

"You're a sick man, Mr. Botic," de Doctor D declared.

"Sick?  Man?" declaration queryqerg was not hert nor hurd, & he himself (Qert) was (Qert) was filled with nothing but this oleaginous greyish putrid sordolf half‑thought thought‑haph awareness that they had gotten his name wrong, but he could tell there was some External Force (actually it was the Internal Force of one of the Corek=mages of Qert's much‑tooted little nub, but he didn't know that & he didn't know that) that was making him forget imsef rapidly at‑that.

For by this time or that time they had fed him into a tube, & the tube had turned translaprent, so they could observe whilst Qert was sucked to the edges of the glass, that is sucked to the edges of the glass he was sucked inin & stretched more or less into a tuba shape.  A tuba shape.

There were reasons for this, as came out in that section call‑ed "Reasons for This" in the creamwhite document known as The Doctors' Milleni Alreport‑‑but this report, as its name implies, comes out once per millennia, this being a very healthy if unseemly universe 1) healthy seamy universe, 2) healthy seeming universe, 3) healthily steaming univlursh, 4) helph ebeaming woony verx, 5) wealthy xiimnimng goon‑oui‑worts, 6) helky‑sweeming soonin‑vorsch)‑‑& so Qert did not get to peruse it, at least not for a long a while, a long long whilst I de cide if he lasts that long.

I can tell you that, if I have him last that long, Qertillbe most enamored of the document, which given the time & the cutted‑idge enxporteesch of its priparatium was as you might given the c‑i e of its p expepct a massive & gorgeous multilinear affair.  It was the cream that got him‑‑that & his own tuba‑waped face TUBAWAPEDFACE!! right in the middle of the centremost cube of the clear lozewnge of liquid crystal living light at the heart of the huge structure which was despite its vast size & strucuture But The Size Of A Magazine, which is an impossible lie & paradox & lie & paradox & nya‑nya‑nya ha‑ha.  Nothing lasts forever‑‑what do you care.

Or then again, everything lasts forever, Qert was thinking (remember Qert?  Thinking?) as they examined him & worked on him.

They'd said he was a "man."  This is not what the botic thinks I am.  He may think he's a god.  He may think he's a workman.  He may thing he's some sort of erbodic angel wisping on the power of his Central Whim, also known as the Sintrol Whing, a.k.a. the Impkrul Rimg or the Pimkurl Ik=Mag=Ing.  But he sure as hevik don't think he am a mam.
LITTLE‑GNOME EDWISDOM

The vivisection begins.  They're chuckling & pulling out the ik=mages.  It's unusual to see a chuckle in this sector, as even mouths in the various Intraverx, stors, megastors, stor‑"cities," & heavens‑true & heavens‑false are a rarity, usually having been omitted like mouths omitted‑‑but these technicians, rather an awkward & frisky lot, I'd say, not only chuckle, they prance & shake their heads, the chuckle forming more or less as an imaginary radiant in the palefield of thought we know as the mouth area.  Nothing here, readers, but a big soft phoney upper "lip" exuding that magnetory call‑ed PHONINESS ah, & in the midst of it a liquid, animated sort of glowing grin of such wrong colors rong qulurs you'd swear this ik=mage (like this passage like this memory) comes from c. 1950 when your mother was just initially wriggling out of dearth unto the dazzle‑spacies of the sky out of Outher Burth.

& indeed, this is where all=mages come from.  This is little known.  Such knowledge is call edwisdom, little‑gnome.

They chortle their glee, & I will not get off on a tangent of chortles here, which can kill you with its glee, chortles being quite unlike chuckles despite the similarity of words, despite Looshe Carooll, despite all the little girls he slid the long lie of his camera upinto (lucky Loo!).  No, it's well worth avoiding avoiding digressiums on chortles, for the average intraverx‑brand chortle is well‑night big as a star, big as a blue giant of a star, big as an unusually tough & bullying blue giant of a hot hot fucking star‑‑not stor, but star, I say star, not stor, knotstor, noxtor, or or or or or 1‑5, & we don't want to get beat up & singed by a chortle here.  But chortle, by God, is just what they do.

& they pull out mage after mage from the ik=mage phylof Qert.  O!  Reader!  O, but I cry at this point, just to let you know I'm sincere, for not only smiles but sincerity have been long‑banned here, & this is why I'm in one of those kinda timewarp prisongs that wrap you up even before you commit your crime, ere your crime, to save on time, to get you jailed on time the judge told me as she capered & jortled with glee.

You ask about Jortled & Glee.  I am glad you asked.  Their act disbanded c. 199550.500150/4800.0 for Unauthorized Employ of Smiles Sincerity, "nor qualities to that effect," in the judge jolting ords (see ORDS c‑ords opening:K/Ords‑C).  They are in a prison, but not with me.  No, not with me.  No.  I spin round alone in mine crystal, I assume this be just like thee.

Anyway, those engineers they keep slixxing from our grax (see GRAX, SLIPFUM) pulling poor detruit Qoit's ik=mages out from his heart as it were (digression here *) with chortlers, etc., of glee, & not only with these rare emotions‑‑indicating proximity of God? indicating intensity of botsecting‑vent? indicating X?‑‑but with these enormous wooden calipers, the sort used for hauling nine‑by‑five feetpronts from the pool of their chemicals, really big thangs, rechoiring a lot of invisible paranoid servomechanisms to park em into action, & to haul what are really absurdly minuscule day=mages from the also‑small qert of Gut.

I can't explain the discrepancy in size, unless the fat, blunt‑tipped wooden tweezers zare some sort of weirdr dream sort of symbol of the excessive emotions (not to mention digressions: "Digressions") autoquipped in this while authorial seen here eer.  I can't explain the discrepancy in like size, but I'm sure you can if you just smuck you smirk with gryy, if you simply uk your erk with zee, if you only tuck your skirts whiff V, if you but ut yur ur with thyy, elkcuhc‑elkcuhc.

But underneath all the nonsense, you can see or perhaps feel, or goddam it at least imagine their heads shaking with something much deeper, much more an actual shaking, not of the head, not of the brain, not even of the ether of the brain, but of the illegal ik=mage of brain that is clear & deptht, pellucid, limpid & yet very keenly hued.  This inner self shake with a deep sincerity of admiration for the being who is being destroyed.  Always we see, in our works, this deep admiration for the thing we are they are torturing.  Thus it is in this case in is it, for these mage're like something never seen.  These are, or were intended, to be products of the gods, to be savored by their special eyes only, real eyes, not just imaginary allseeing godly‑tis, neither nur, I'd say...and even the owner & "maker" of those mages (this is Qert we are not speaking of of hear!) has never seenemeer.
So inside all their capering & their silly expressions, sounds, n' calipers as I so quaintly call them, behind all the authorial self‑ruff‑rentches of prisms & etcetera, we have porofound & true amtoinos, I'm straining to let you see, straining to erase through jiggling I guess my uh "personality" just for the instant long enough to let you see, see!, those ik=mages of life swaying with moved sincerity indepth at lay=mages just vivisected from our dear (Qert) heer, & they are humming om with admiration of these mages of life they've stolen from the death of the life of the world they inhere.

Too bad.  They go of course instantly blind‑‑which is what happens when you torture your babies, & which may explain all that capering up there, if anything explains the blindness & the torturing of babies & the capering up here, hear me‑‑here.

"I stared madly at the scalpel," Qert recall, "which wasn't really a scalpel, of course, but a sort of light beam, except that it was not a light beam either, but a manner of semantic dislocator, except that it was very grey.  Once you strip away enough layers you get grey.  But this wasn't a clear or clean grey, such as the beautiful cartoonist might ink across the dray.  No, it was dirty.  It looked greasy or dusty, possibly mildewed, probably soiled.

"And it must have affected my eyes, too, for everything had that paifnul soiled & mutsy look‑‑not healthy aging into beauteous ivory or gritty mechanisticality, no.  No, it was definitely something sick & painful, like that overexposed porno movie your father oersposed you to while he placed his penis in your tiny hand.  That hand wasn't dirty before.

"'My eyes weren't dirty before,' I commented to the doctororor.

"'No,' he said, oping up the last shell around my precious phial.  'The life's gone out.  The pain‑‑it's everything.'

"'Well put,' I grunted, & the file was pulled out.  & I thought this thought much too deeply aware: You've just plucked out the essence of me, the essence of Qert.  In this deep form, the thought occurred in the mere form of kinaesthetic movements‑‑I humped the thought & it humped me.  Down there at that depph we were one, entwangled qheought, but nextly the thought repeated itself a little closer to the surface, wherein it took the form of a gaudy lot of dream images like the ik=mage points that ik=mage points that hang on on like dew to the gravid sides of one of the cartoonisht's most pregnant plethic frames‑‑one of her fertility‑goddess frames to which your ik=mages your=mages attasch, & there the thought was a dream world I wander din.

"A dream world I wandered in.  & next it took the form of a very deep, guiltprone, deathridden subterranean thought that I was afraid to admit, & here the thought was a blackness all around like the mass that sits on your head as you wait, breathless for your torture, wait.

"And then it came froth as a real thought, except for a moment there was pain & I could not utter it.

"'You've just plucked out...'"

"Pardonme?  What's that, Qert?"

"'...the essence of Qaqaqaqa.'"

"Naw!" the scientist said, brightly but grimy.  "No‑‑we han't 'pulk‑tout your essence,' Qert.  You're still qaqaqaqa‑Qert.  Your eyes're clearing, aren't they Qert?  {And yes, my eyes'ere clearing & the goddam grime was going away!}  We've healed you, young botic, yes we did!  Your phile‑‑your precious 'essence of you'‑‑it was this."

"And he held up a bullet‑‑a god damned bullet in my gut!"
VOICES DIN & SLAND
or
EYES WHICH LOOKS ABSURD IN THIS WORDLESS WARD

The creagator scientists in that thin & sheetlike way‑‑more like the surface of Oceania roused by the sensual winds of one of those sensual Mediterranean‑stylish ultraseas that we seas that we seas that we all wallultra have‑‑& rip off rubber masks revealing momentary SKULLS that however (that however) dim dunward like exhausted wings wings & shake their heads until sparkling lifelight hair flails gaily round with the false speculated gaiety of science, & they rip off gloves revealing momentary BONES then they make a lot of shuffling (exhaustion) exhaustion noise as they turn to the sleeping figure of Qert in his creagator form & they sigh...

"He's totally withdrawn.  I'd call it mad if we but called things mad anymore.  Totally mad.  But I shan't call it that, except there's nothing we can do."

They pause & slide.  The room goes through a small dimensional slide, whereby first one end, then in acceleration the entire room stretcheth sidewise with a slidewrise bending‑of‑down, whipping the minds of the two docreagors in apsychoanalogous manner, giving 'em pause...

"Except dissect him."

"I beg your pardon."

"Sure.  No problem. No sweat.  Nothing to matter...er..."

"No‑‑I mean, why did you just say 'Except dissect him'?"

"I don't remember.  I was hoping you'd remember.  Must be dimensional slide."

Now one of these two gets all of a saudden to looking really tough & know‑it‑all‑‑you know: cocky, full of himself, acting out adolescent‑borne false bravado, literally sticking his tongue in his cheek, strutting, standing in exaggerated contraposto in a body's voice that says I am afraid of fantasy...

"Yea‑‑thassit.  Yup," he says in tones ringing with harmonics of the voice of the tones I just got done so painfooly describibing.  "Muss be onadem dimensnl slides!  Yea, that's it...that's it...that's it it it..."

They notice they're in the room with Qert.

"Who the fuck is that?"

Now the other one‑‑not the one who was looking like a punk a minute ago, which is a very common way of trying to "psychologically 'recover'" from imemsional slide, much noted in the heavy slide zones (O yea, them heavy slide zones you feel‑in‑yer heavy slibe bones, o yea o yea!)‑‑slaps the first one, well, in a low‑comedy, Three‑Stoopoogedy sorta manner, whopping him upside the head with the heel of a mighty, science‑elonggaaaated hand: WHOP!  WHOP!, he go.  WHOP!  WHOP!  WHOP! he crescendoze.  & WHOP1 WHOP2 WHOP3 he scientifically throes n' goes.  WHOPWHOPWHOP!  Slaps him well.

"That's Qert, you dummy‑‑Qert.  Qert!  Qert!  Qert!" with a sweaty capital WHOPN at eachnevery twerm.

"We'll have to dissect him."

"Vivisect, I believe you mean," sayeth one of them‑‑I have lost track which.  But they're both pretty peculiarly glad to be out of that lapse back there lapse back where lapseback air.

"I see.  We can dissect him later."

"Hahahahahaha!  Or put him back in his stor!"

"Hehehehehehe!  Except it might not work so well!"

"Huhuhu!  Look at him.  He doesn't even have any color left.  Can that happens?"

"U‑u‑u‑u‑u!  If it happen, yes.  Let me go to D{ayyac} to get some fine opalades for the cutting.  I mean for some really fine cutting, close & sweetly to the core, cutting right through those fat little cells, slicing it as it were right through their little smiles, their little hands wringing together, their organelloid hearts, the curses of their eyes, their eyebeams, their eyes, hyhyhyhy!"

"Boy, you sure rubbing your hands & beaming your own little 'organellic' eyes & crossing & recrossing your eyes‑‑which looks absurd in this wordless ward, by the by‑‑& also I cannot help but note crossing your legs giving scruze n' squeeze n' screws n' screes to your genitals‑‑& making you walk rather funny, way the way‑‑& as I said again rubbing your hands, the cells falling in Absolute Despair & also dryly to the floor which is liquid here (I just notice: we have a liquid floor!  Hey‑‑psst!  Hey!  Hey!  Pssst!  We have a..."

"Yes, I...)"

Voices din & Sland.

(None of which affects Qert.  He hears only the quiet dripping of the washwater, the orange‑red light of the darkroom wavering on the low roof, reflected off the big white trays of chemicals‑‑enormous trays, which lift like the skin of the sea revealing the handiwork of Uthor underneath.

This being Qert's theory, anyway.  He's developing sheet after sheet of the fine emulsion.  It shows things about the (surprisingly dark) interiors of these stors you would never expect‑‑things no sort of cosmic opalades could sever.  Now if you can see what's really going on under the forces of these stern stors, if you can just get all the data processed down here, with the darkroom timeclock ticking & letting off a humongous blazt of a buzz at intervals more regular than the periodic microstors & the acrid chemicals bringing out electrochemical memories in the subvoltages of your mind that you don't want or need any more than the False Heaven of the Broken Heart to bleed‑‑if you can only just manage to put the secrets together before that oplade comes cutting through the red vestige tadders of your consciousness, sending you doubtless up DOUBTLESS DOUBLOUPT to the False Heaven of the Saved or the Saaved or the Saaaved‑‑you can see the aesthetic by which this funny stor was put together, achoke on urlaughter & formless pain, you can see secrets they can never cut out, you can take off with your pure treasure with your egg of pleasure you can get free of this weightless feeling of wight in the False Heaven of the Endless Weight, OK?
(If you can get these pictures developed on time...

     ou can get these pictures developed o

 an get these pictures develope

      et these picture

  ese pictu

    e pi

     .)
PATTERNS ON THE PADS

Qert trying to forget all these delusions hunkers down in his special chair & tries to get to work.  He doesn't remember well his work, & when he looks up from his work he notices he's in a botic‑beaker, & that the hoards of the stoards are gawking at him.  There was something he was supposed to remember, but he has gone too far...

Qert couldn't help but notice that the faces outside the beaker were exceedingly grim.  One of those faces was his longlost Qinz, & when Qert, pink & giggling inside the vax of stimulant gasses & gasses & steam, bobbed his head & nodded farcically by way of saying h'lo, Qinz just redoubled his grimness, moving his hands over the surface of the bulb, trying to find a flaw or something.  Qert thought he saw a phlit swolling out of the corner of Qinz's eye or mouth (he missed that detail so I make it two detail details), as if his friend were saying "Shshsh!  Quiet!  Not now!" or somesuch, & he anxiously laid his head back...

Qinz was surrounded by blue technicians‑‑& it seemed to baby Qert that Baby Qert that these fellows were at once direblue & threateningly too‑thin.  Now did he like the way they were moving so quickly around the beaker, drawing an observable geometric pattern around the stolid Qinz.  & hey‑‑if Qinz looked serious, you can well imagine you can well how these faceless jokers looked.

They had no faces.  I have given the detail(s) zaway.

Still‑and‑yet‑though‑howver‑O, they were very likely bad technicians, possibly‑‑if I may "wing it," if you please; if I may "extrapolate" a mite here please; if I "might" please; if I "please"‑‑bad little technicians evenso, but they were dirty, anway, the way their fingers had some sort of marks or indentations in them, patterns on the pads that left dark greasy little spots on the heretofore pristine survax of the beaker‑ur.  An alarmed & tiny Qert (really tiny, like!) furriously rubrubbed frotted on the squure, & a blue face blew faceup tiny‑to‑him‑nere & laughed out rageously.

Had a face for a moment, here

thought Qert.

& meantime busy Qinz had gained a purchase on a crack in the surface of the bax, & like a coagulant blue liquid the Kruds strang their hangs onto the crack & were pulling‑‑some this way, some that, right along with the stronger & ostensibly more stronger Qinz‑‑& trying to crack the outer shell, the shell, & the glasses frurled in alarm yes‑they‑did, & Qert grew evermore alarmed, yers he ded, & it oqqurred to him that that phlit that that Qinz had had send might have a message in it‑‑& when I say might have a message in it I mean it might have a message in it other than the message Qert had thought that he'd sent that he said I meant.

So Qert pulls back.  He look like a baby in alarm.  He look like your second baby looked when you first busted his defenses with your arm.  He look like a baby looks when it finds out it's a baby in your world.

But he was none of these exactly things.  He was Qert Bottotic, using his servomechanisms yes to scan a phlit heregoes.

"{Lot if his.  Hurriedly made?  Deliberately obscure‑‑I hate that!‑‑or bad phlixion in the ether‑net nexus of the yure?  Sounds like hhhhsssssshshshshshhhhh} I'm gonna kill you really fast, this time, Qert.  We're on a new campaign to get you fast.  We figure the stors turn out better.  I figure the guilt will be no more.  I mean, I have thought long & hard‑‑while you were fucking sleeping between your term‑‑& decided the guilt I fell is a poison that comes from you, & I have, Qert, spoken to the gods regarding the possibility that this poison‑‑besides fucking up my killings & qillings of you, & thus interfering with my Professional Integrity‑‑may be infecting the stors you lay more & more, so that we are starting now to get these aborted monstrosities, these dead & distorted worlds, these partial & sick universes, borne doubtless from diseased ik=mage files defiled, if I may, by your own poisons, Qert‑‑that is, distorted in their essence by the poison of the guilt you are squirting to me whilst I try to pruify things by killing you, or squilling you, depends on which sector I am ing.
"So {hhhhsssshshshshhh!} the gos says to me, they says they says, 'Well hey, man, you might be right be right, ol' Qinz ol; boy‑‑& we mean to say that you're our boy.  But what do we do we do we do?'

"And likehhhshshshhh I says to the goigs, 'Hey well‑‑don wory, K?  Noq to freq.  No sweaq‑‑hey.  We've just gotta kill the fucker squick‑‑ere he gets to grow up in the worlds.'

"And like the gods man the gods says to me, 'Qinz.  We dig what you're sayin, K?  But like, we cut a deal with Qert, man.  It's like we have a deal.'  'And like what's the deal?' I says.  & they sort of like reply, 'Well, man, we can't give out detaildetail details of the deal or deals, you can comprehend that am I sure amman,' & what can I say so I says yes, & they says, 'But like, it was part of the bargain‑‑& we need to mean too emphasize herein that it's quite a CENTRAL part of the goddam heheh bargain, man, that (ahewm!) "The aforementioned Qert Bottotoci, who will as aforeshed function as botic in this lurl (legal talk‑‑mumb‑go‑jung‑bworurl), getsa to like spend endless childhoods after childhoods in the worlds of his own creating, stipulating & devolved upon the following stipulations...blah‑bleh‑bluh," you see.'

"And I like said, 'I see.'  & we sats real silent for a whiles.

"And what I'm tryin to say is, we all looked at some movies of the universes‑‑some of your best work, Qert, & it moved us to deep tears‑‑& these blue creatures you see (blue creatures you see on the outside of this dream) outside the beaker of this dreen are the results of these tears.  They are the tears.

"Because, Qert, man‑‑& I say this vivividly‑‑we thence looked at your most recent worlds.  Hhhhshshshhh‑‑what more can I shay, ol Qert ol boy advisedly?  Hhsshshshshsss‑‑we saw the Dead World & the Gob World & the Dud World & the Gub World & the Gobbet Woarld & the Egg Wurld & the Fucking Boxic World (clever‑clever, qute, self‑reflexive, mirriry, Qerl!) & the Blottic World & the Fug Gowoarl & the Guf Roarual & the Dot Blural‑‑pathetic stuff, Qert.  'Sathetic Smuff,' in the words of the words of the gods of the gods of worldshhsshshshhh.
"So we checked over your contract & in essence said fuck it, man.  'Cause you weren't like delivering the googs, you see?  You'd bruuched that suucher, we zided, long gago.  & while certain deep legal arraingements mush B‑made in the ultraviolemp depths of the Legalurld, it was thought safe & seemly & OK & meet heyhey that I‑‑ahem!‑‑like begin to cut you out sooner, hear?‑‑contract notwithstanding, Qerththththhhh..."

Blinking awake, Qert saw with alarm they were peeling back the outer shell.  Now he had death to greet him the instant he awoke, & an existence, it seemed, of nothing but sleep & the work‑creation & just one viv*d fl*sh of light, followed by infanticide‑‑of him!‑‑& not the chain of childhoods he'd envisioned‑‑& negotiated‑‑for himself.

Now it's true Qert remembered none of this‑‑none of what Qinz had said about contracts & gods & stors & universal deals.  & it's true that Qinz was that worst of scuggs, the deluded liar, whose lies sometimes swung round back at you & got true because he was so inverted‑miroir‑yee! wrong you shee.  So he couldn't utterly trust the total phlit.

But he did.

"YAAAA!" squeamed the Baby as they cut through the tubes.  The gasses started to run about, & Qert was vivid with tears.  He'd fool them a bit before he died‑‑this was his universe, after all, with the usual set of secret subrules meant to subvert his murderin' pal.

But after that‑‑after Qinz, who was perfect with murders in his soul, succeeded as he must, as even the structure of the universe suggeusts, in killing him‑‑Qert had a bone to piq with the goddam gaugs...
THE ONLY LEFT COHERIMP IN THESE
or
PHLIZZARDS OF PLASMA GASH

& so the beaker, & with it the stor, shatter xeplosively, with a shardic vengeance of very nasty‑looking pieces, their shape antemorphed through shaped charges set in their clear capillaries & their tendons of glass & in the sonic stomes on their essences deeper than bomes.

You can do that.  If you have enough technicians helping you, & Qert has this unprecedented following of tiny little engineers, bucktoothed & nerdy, who will spend milliards of chronocyclic internities shaping those nasty shards to Qert's perfection.  & these guys come up with ideas of their own as well.  I mean, these are not mere venturers.  These are not servomechanisms, if I may use the word {servomechanisms}.  These are tiny, sycophantic, slavering, obsequious, unctuous vuvid little weasels, but they have free will, & they worship Qert.  They worship Qert with their own peculiar energy, & it takes the form of living endless time doing drudgery for him, in order to make his stors what these {engineers} like to call "schitzofround," which means essentially really‑really‑reallyreally deep, insanely detailed, which is, or was, that which Qert's stors are or were noted for or fore or frore orefroar.

& like I say, the engineers come up with their own ideas, which is something you can perceptively digress into even as this latest stor explobes with the morbor of Qorp, such that the slashed & slattered pieces & the slassed ensghlitterd pietzes & the sashed inzijjurd pleeces of Qert & Qinz's's cow'ring bodies envel‑ope onean‑other in a shower o' towrin' fear.  "Fear.  That's how you end a stor.  Give 'em fear, lotsa fear."  ‑‑Qert Bottotic & th' Engineers o' Fear.  & whilst this is happening, you can notice‑‑underneath these blizzard‑like all‑gashing little nastards if I may of glass, which just keep raining down & whirling back up & reforming into various DEEP BLIZZARDS & variorous BEEP PLIZZARDS & forming again‑anew into yet‑other‑nouveau nations & barbaric "civilizations" if‑may of nastardalities, hee‑hee, so that you thing, what with one wind puf & the swelter of emotions & motions ong‑ga‑go like this, poor gravity will never have a chance & will neer get a purchase & this nightmare WILL NEVREND!‑‑the Severely Outré Wailing Sound.

Note severely outré waiwing swound.  That was invented by the tiny engineers abovallud edtoo who worshiqert, youwooal recaul, as a parallel to the exciting visual stuff & the shards flaying the essence right out of the twins up there.  Cut apart like that & their faces‑‑what's left of em‑‑deadbabybloated by the farting, I mean wailing, sounds, they do look like twins.  Their their bodies will be gone, soon.  Looks like some of those clever little designers figured a way to make the sound actually enhance the cutting, so the soundwaves are loosening up the flesh, so we have these billions of Perfect Blades‑‑tightgineered knives hones & calculated endlessly in the stoptime ormation of the stor‑‑hacking with euphoric zoundz into what must cut to them like butter.

Iiiiif we could get a microeye in there...

    oe

    oe

    oe

But we can't.  I tell you oel hell brokes louse when a stor ends‑‑& one of Qert's stors oer always designed like this to end so cataclysmically & with such apocalypse of thunder & with such sheer outblowing waves of antequantumenergy that no known recording device knowem too gnone has ever or will theorieticall and/or storically bable to write or crystallize or memzorize nor motherwise record the unstance of its happening.  It's just impossible, like trying to draw the cosmic primordial ylem (though that's not a goob comparisonb, as many artists have tried to draw or represent the ylem‑‑so this is even worse), so no one remembers, no one draws word‑pictures, no one paints, & god knows no machinery or memcrystal can tape or track or wire or in anywise record what happens when a Qertic stor blows.

It's not contractual.  Au contraire‑‑the gods have it in the storic contrax that they have all intraverxic rights to the image of the stors.  Only Qert‑‑together with those licey little engineers I hate alluding two‑‑has outfoxed them good‑and‑good with his Postexistence Terminator as he calls it as he thinks it as he dies.

For Qert's dying, no doubt about it.  More importantly‑‑& if I may, more friendlily‑‑Qinz dies too, & his gun is for a second the only left coherimp in these phlizzards of plasma gash, until it, too, too, too, too...

After which the two buddies emerge in a blue euphoric shower full of laughter which for just an instant cuts the edge...and then settles down‑ellipsis‑down...down, & then, jolly & naked like the two buoyant athletes they are, they towel emselves vigoprously as they step into the antechamber, where we've been before, wheryin every venture endsy entrue nends.

"Whew!" & "Gawd!" & "Woaw!" they intratwaing.  Shape, I mean Shake they their heads & move with nerve‑rapidity.  Now {somewhere in a hidden verge} the li'l engineers break open bottle after bottle of nerd champagne, which has its own tiny tacky appropriateness, given that this was The Bottle‑Surge or Stor de Bouteilles, asth Qert onaly now revealth.

"Haaaawwww!  Howdalike it?  Huh?  Huh?" screeches Qert, punching & pumping Qinz newly‑growm murderim garm.

"Whooooa!  Whoo‑AAA!" roars Qinz, throwing his head so farback back‑atroars.  "Bottles, man‑‑what's with the bottles man," & such like that.

They sure do luagh!  Luaghs envelop.  Yellowed emvelope luaghs.  They are licked & sealed in these envelopes of luaghs‑‑or at least this is how some of the gods' peculiar recording vices desee it, detellit.  Gods are very metaphorical.  Gods exist in clear envelopes thirteen feet high.  Some of them.  We rip the seal & it LUAGHS!  Golbutit LUAGHS!  It just LUAGHS! & LUAGHS! & LUAGHS! & like Qert & Qinz‑‑clearly hyysterical, their mutual celebration ultracorded in Shamebless Intimacy by frustrated, surprised, & stunned gods everywhere, aching with the need to store‑‑also flow many liquids, with many bubbles, the scweaming & the straight‑time & the edges washing dges shing ff, ff, ff...
THE BODY IN

Shshshsh!  The artist at work, laties & gendlemum, on his ulatest Extravaganzic Stor.

Just who looks at these stor, zanyhow?  I mean, who goes in to them?  Does anyone really live in them?  What are they here for?  This place is hard to find.  I never see never see anyone here, except for those little specks‑‑

Beg pardumb?

little teeny silver specks, like, that sort of, uh, form the outline, rather, of a beast, or form, or whatever.

Well, that clarifies.

That.  Shshshs, pleashshshe!  We enter the stori carea, or stormic arima‑‑so‑called because it is so called, I mean, so coloured, with the sweepings of stourm, for the pourtions of a stour that do not get incourporated into the stor, or unto the stor, or undue la slor, become like the sweepings of storm, take on the swume & the swuum & the coloration zweum of a goddam storm, man, & fill what we are wont to call the STORMIC ARENA, inwherech the leavings of the stor‑‑those stor portions never to be stord‑‑cut up some touches & act like a storm.

We enter the sotrmic or Storicke Arena in plush zeroless shopes, beautifully designed, not cheapjack, plusch solmic veneton encormanink plasthagoriasiaphic axakaxtic indoshkosho‑agozhnic shopes that flatter enflater our fleer, for our fleet due knot touch the ground, there being very little in the way o groun din here.

See, this vast & STORMIC area ARENA is a partually‑fuormed space.  It has just enough "stretch" (I like to say "stretch" & to hear myself say "'stretch'" & to say "say '"stretch"'" & to say) stretch of dimensions to fit a body in‑‑a body in without killing it‑‑the body in.

& even there herein he doesn't loop, I ming look, too goob, I meem good, what with that gas mask he has, making him look like a stork, or a stormstork, or a pigeon, or one of those glottal arpeggios what formulate themselps unto the thick, thick, hyperthickened atmosphaire of Laingdeneuwibough after Laingdeneuwibough Lain-gde-neuw-ibo-ugh under Laingdeneuwibough in Laingdeneuwibough of Lain-geg-eden-nen-enne-nba-wugh!, wherein vocals sculp, voiphls "sculpt" like they love to hearmzelves sculp, & they form structures muchlike whatever the fuck I was talking about up there.

O yeh‑‑Qert's fukkin face.

I think part of it comes from his desire to repulse.  I also think he is in a trance‑‑& your botic don' look pritty when he's in a trance.  Certainly Qert doesn't.  & indeed, he is also working with this recalcitrant material, this "protocoagulant ylem" (I love to hear myself stretch "proogoo anuplastulenk yoolyyem" mumem!), this highly toxic, stormworthy stuff, which some say is the very stuff of weaponry, the very power sortce, foromstampce, of the Vwah Greduxor, nthe selfsame nettles of the tanglenet, nthe absolute shuttles of the bangoplet.

It's that bad, that serious.  It's dangerous, lethal, & tragic stuff to work with.  I'd rather stick my psychic fingers in to heal the brain ein painoddix Pon than endure the inevitable, slow, morbid, deathly, suicidal, nightmarish twanging of the guitar springs of the disease known in circles of knome as storg.

Yea.  Qert's got storg, you can bep.  Andime arfraid to mention that one of the symbombs of storg is the tendency to work ever‑harder at your stor, locked timeless & wellnigh spaceless in that aremna of storng, more & more truly inspired, whilst that very pierce of inspiration pings deeper to your heart in fex you morean dmore.  Dmore.

We can't get sick.  We have our shopes‑‑our plusch solmic veneton encormanink plasthagoriasiaphic axakaxtic indoshkosho‑agozhnic shopes, remember?  So we can watch him (his muscles do look swollen, don't they?)‑‑those aren't muscles, those are dust (those aren't dust; that is death)‑‑death is dust, OK?  (OK, but I whisper hear the whisper of the stormic hush)‑‑Hush!  Not only can't we get sick, but Qert can ot e en s e us.

Is it his trance?

No.

Is it his storg?

Naw.

Is it our shopes?

Not altogether.  It haf to do more with saranwrappish warpage of the space.  He can't see us for his chopping at the plastor‑strace.  Ah‑‑you are thurprithed he useth chithel, ay?  He chisel off piece after piece of infinity till he gets him right well down unto the rhythmic nothing, that near nothing nesh we known as stor, poor storg!
MOLECULESMOL

In a move that would have been bold had it been made a thousand yur zago, Qert decided to use his latest stor to contact his father.  Intresting premise.

"Dearest Dad," Qert wrote.  Actually, he wrote Dear Daddums, but then delete the Qert‑wrote & then truend about again, his heart spinning on that perfect knot of glass your heart always spings on long nom nas on you feel the beauty of illusion truth of beauty sooth of same, & added the est & paused.  He sighed: whmph.

& just to think how all of this was being recorded!

"I've been sick lately," he wrote patiently on, etching queer words in the qveer of crystal that was the substratum of his stor.  "They've got me making stor after stor, & well, heck, Dad {"Daddums" ‑‑Ed.}, I've been starting to forget what I was doing.  In fact, I can't remember even now what I am doing, except that Qinz could show up anyplace anytime.

This fellow Qinz‑‑a botic like me, but Exxentially Different, you understand, Dad {whereas amatter fact, there was no Daddums to understand, inasmuck as botics don't have daddums.  ‑‑Zes.}‑‑shows up to kill me every time, in every stor.  I think it's a game, Pop.  {Read Daddums for lacunic lunar‑pop, pop pop pop!, whenas he was totally wrong; this was no game; nossir; not by the gods, nossir!  ‑‑Edzes.}  Anyway, I'm losing.  I'm all mixed up because I sincerely believbe that something went wrong with the mix {as it were, ‑‑Pop}, & it's gotten out of hand.  Hell, this letter may be part of a stor‑‑possibly my own ddead stor‑‑& not me working on creating stors at all, & so this Qinz'll show up any time like Dad{dumsed}ytime.

His father appeared blue in the cloud of his mind.  "Take comfort, son," he said, "and remember: son."

"Yes‑Dad‑I‑re member that," gasp sQert as the poet Phluorib put the lozenge back in its seal & the seal slipped herself O! so easily back into the painfoeld & the painfoeld slipped into something vague & purple plose & the infinisnesinil (acause 1) there 2) now 3) much 4) room for clicks anymore) click of the Vuor Reducer, making it moleculesmol.

This Phluorib mabe gextears witrh hiv hombs.  "Stop calling me Daddums, Qert.  You botics are poet‑mad.  But anyway, & as I was recalling, there were in fact these days‑‑before the killings, before the stors.  You had a father back then.  I mean, it wasn't all Qinz."  Qert nob knowigly.  (I must rewrite that letter to say Dear Qinz, he thought, then shook him out of it.  Poems were strong that way.)

"You had a shirt, I remember," Phluorib said, & here Qert's "face" (ha ha!) folds up rather like the lozngnto its com po nent parthsh with disapproval, on account of he don't like to be reminded of the poet's special access to it all.  I mean, it hurts‑‑even for a goddam verxtacurzic botic it hurURTs‑‑to think of all these special intimate things that a greaseball like Phluorib knows.

"Why are you such a 'greaseball'?" Qer tinquires, at wishbe hind his back a foil wall o vinfinite arabesphiligree ascend, convoolving oer his back so that suddenly Qert looks like a body bouncing on a waterbed of gold in the endguld husks of Waterwoad as if in the deepest sleep cutting free of concepts once for all.

The poe tignore zit.  He waxeth eloquent about Qertses shirt, which was loose & plain white, of an exquisite sentient silkaterial, not tailor cut at all, & really several times too big, inasmuch as big hag any meaning in the mentionless dimouph of the Zero Mouf, & somewhat unbottoned & I guessic showing the hard contours of Qert's tens‑edback to the sort advantage you recall in your Byroneams resemes e‑zeems

& like Qert spainfully ware that Phluorib's really veilpressing his (Qert's (ha ha! (ha ha!) ah ah) body) ah body, really just the halide sheathe of body which is the functional modality of bodies here in the Haulo Worgs, but evidently & neverthelesh much benamored by Phluoribteeheehee.

Being a poet, he can make it sound like the fucking shirt's symbolic, but mainly it's just another way to painfully show this uppity goddam bot, after all, that he's got access to full & naked views of his complete & vulnerable body, that he can set these those vulnerbilibees to motzium, that he can accelerate the aging of the body & stor it & its myriad gossameres liquidly back, liquidly back unto the liquid black that lies <beneath> behind that waterbed of noise discorting herz elf be hindim indimim.

Heasa greaseball, though, oblivious though he mough.  In fact, I think oblivity's a characteristic‑‑aqualality if you will, or even equalaliquilidiilty‑‑of greaseballs everywore.  But he is grey, glistening, walking a bit ahead of Qert, on to the next lozenge, is it were, & definitely oleogendic, soft, disgustin a jollyolly way...
ESOTERINGEERED LORES O PHYJIQS

Qert's early works were good‑‑they really were.  They were, in the words of critic‑o‑stors Nen Fegfchii, "brimful of brittle good moods, or, in the words of also‑stora‑critic Gyynyys Zaza, 'abristle with good moves, or, in the words of also‑stora‑criticOddonteezker Gim, "full of little rudes, or, in the words of also‑stora‑critic Beechee 3, 'felt with bitter ludes, or, in the words of also‑stora‑critic Gadja Ajdag, "gilt with glitter dudes, or, in the words of also‑stora‑critic Twolp nyimGim (no realation), 'atilt with flitter nudes, & or, in the words of also‑stora‑critic Oo‑1‑oO OOaOO, "alilt with jitterrunes."'"'"'"

Here's one such small move, or mood (or rude or lude or dudes) in runes: Qinz arrives at this broad, concave swamp sort of place.  It's colored a light blue, & up clutes you can see subtle variations in its color & texture‑‑variations not characteristic of swamp, which should give you a clue, as should the very heavy air which fills the cupped part of the swamp, & the soft sound of liquids, soft sounds of liquids, sounds of the liquids, siflids, ounds.

Everything about this place seems fishy, Qinz thinks.  Qinz is built to think the wrong sort of thoughts.  At the annual Botic Verxmas Party, Qinz ends conversations when he enters them.  He lies like grey fluid in a bag within them.  His words disrupt.  He's a killer‑‑what do you expect?  Then he just gives up.  & they always find him crying under the tinsel after the bash, curled & incredibly tiny, with his murderer's ability I say "murderer's ability" to get really small, with his knees pulled up & his arms around his knees & his still‑big, sniffy face against the softness of his arms just like the hurt child he will always be (& me) & have to be taken home aboard special transports.

& there are no transports home.

Might be this party is another stor.  Still, Qinz is right is Qinz right is is as he walk cautiously (but not cautiously enough, I'll bet!) not directly in but along the perimeter of the swamp but slowly spiraling in but curving a little more directly in but sniffing suspiciously as he goes in‑‑there is something awfully fishy here.  He's so damned scared Qert is gonna defeat him.
This is what givthe god spleasure, this ambility (of Qert's) to to to to flummox n hornswoggle Qinz (back in the early days, the early stors, wayways) & make him fear.  It's good, the gos say, that this Qert person‑‑preprogrammed & destined as he is to be be killed‑‑can create such a world of such distortive complexities that he scare the guy who's destined to kill him‑‑gol!

So they say.  Anyway, Qinz's holding the contractual "Big Ugly Gun" in one hand, & against the vast & intricate‑‑truly sleep‑imprussif‑‑texcheers of this swamp, he looks ridiculous.  His brown boots & space‑pants of leather look stupid, too‑‑as they would not, say, on the glo‑struts of a big old town, but which Qert has not created here, or the lo‑strux of a megafluorm, which Qert has not hinted here, or anywhere dry & ordinarily storestrial‑‑but Qert hashe naught oblig edhere‑‑& the duds looks stupider as old Qinz starts to think, & the gods rollick & laugh at the thought, glub, I am sinking oooo this swamp, glub o !

  o

   o

 o

o

  o

Which he does, & then it's arranged through certain esoteringeered lores o phyjiqs that we shall draw back from the scene of poor Qinz sinking (& firing his Gun!) & sinking in as the thought sinks in that‑‑while he's contractually like guaranteed to be able to kill Qert & thus posit him out of his world, positimouahisworld‑‑he shall be trapped & humiliated himself, poor guilt‑ridden bastard, to observe this swamp from high up.

The swamp from higher up: clouds.  Puzzled gouds.

The clouds DRAIN into THE FACE OF QERT, smiling beneficently, kindly, sillily‑‑just the face to put sinking Qinz off.

& Qinz sees it, yes he does: he sees the face all right, on his little uoto‑oye which Qert hasn't got but which 'nable Qinz, 'no 'natter what, to obtain a gosoye voo of everything that transpire in the story of the sorta‑stor (& come to think of it, does Qert know Qinz's got this thing?  Does Qert even know such a thing exists?  I don'k thin't so...).

So Qinz feels great humiliation, as he sink into the actual face of the artist, who hurts him all but endlessly with his kindness & his smiles, & the elongate, light‑blue distortiveness of that face, & the smoke puffs uph.

In case you were worried: the swamp does die.  Qert must die.  Hell, Qert has agreed to die‑‑again & again (agreed & died) again again‑‑& so he dies, the swamp drying & becoming rather like the brown scum on the surgfatch of cookied milch & wrapping itself tightly around the skeleton of Qinz‑‑Oyea, the skeleton of Qinz wrapped up in Qert.

God, you see all those Good Moves?  Doublegood Moves‑‑& if you stayed tuned in (as many people did stay tune edin to those early werks o Qurt), you could even watch a laconic crew of workmem drudging the swump‑‑or what's left of the swemp, which zembles wrust a small qoquum‑‑& lofting it up like a bundle on one of their swampcrane, swompcraines, swemmvkraighngnes, & plopping the dry little nigard down, & tearing it open, coughing ot the sust, & revealing the skeleton of Qinz.

"What's that gun he's got?"
POSSESSION OF FRIENDS ALLOWED

Yea, Bottotic's stors started out as small jokes, like those clear globes of fruit, crimson melons, & bunches of twitzors you used to plant in the wet garden, just where the verge of the boggy veer go bog‑‑where your mother says don't go.  The yellow lizards have DON'T KNOW written into them‑‑they display this on their backs as they make tonguelings ackyou.  

You yu-youyouyou-ou used to plant those Prince Drupert Dops right where they would take possession of friends, back when Possession of Friends was not only allowed at the first queer singes of dawn, but were welcomed, positively hooted in by the selfsame jolly‑russet son the son the sun that still burneth thine hair uninto qurls.  These are the fruits of lucination, prestoric folds.

All very light.  Only later came that hopeless romantic period, which the botic kept ascribing to the inspiration of the one May Beam‑‑a love known not to have ever subsisted outside her selfdrawn cosmic strip‑‑a portion of either Qert or his "friend" (also nonsubxixtents) Qinz, but in any event unreal...and when I say unreal I mean two or three soft dreambursts outer here is what I mean when I say real is just a dreamprod into here her he h...and the boxes {God spare us from his boxes!  ‑‑Ed.  Boxes.  ‑‑Ed. Boxes.  ‑‑Zed.  Boxezzedd oxes ded ded ded}

& of course the snowstorms & that qilly bip withe teef & the awful clackering, & the fluorescent Phluorib poet or what tweveree whass, & of course, after that, down a long expanse of time pseudo time in the forms of a hall of perefect back, the dead period of the deadness of the storness of the stors‑‑a time of qualities.
THE CUSTORMARY LOOPS

Again, once upon an hur Qert made a little stor, apparently harmless‑‑a mere divertissement‑‑in which the squeeging out of just one tear destroys the universe.  This be fore the stors came murder‑suicide device.  The aim was to capture Qinz within his own tears‑‑always the goal of lover friends, don't you see‑‑& to have him face the choice of scruzing the rest of that goddam tear out & be destroyed or of holding the cheer forever, dangling, on that cheek.  Qert bet Qinz would hold oubt.  He designed the stor as you would design a dream for a dream friend, see.  The tear would start time going in the customary loops, so his paloops could cry forever.

Qert could hardly sleep that night, his cheek pressed fresh against the rimey bluish sheets in the ICE would heslep within (Qert had to sleep in an ice world, in his custormary blue, so as not to create billions & billions of stors from the frostings of his sleep), his breath forming solid, eerie‑white statues of statues of white which were gently moved over‑‑by servomechanisms, I hasten twad, & not by living, semisentient technicians of any sort or kind‑‑to take their place on pedestals of clear glass with a queer gloss as of drear dross in a tear's toss unto merest moss, disc‑shaped pedestals, I say disc‑shaped pedestals, I say disc, shaped pedestals‑I‑say‑I say.

& when he did sleep, this excitable, because always a child outside his stors, Qert I say disc‑shaped pedestals thought (& NOT‑DREAMT‑‑OK?  OK?  OK?  OK?  OK?) of entering the stor in which his friend was caught, in the form of a precious tear‑‑which you see you would‑must understand. in the circuiages of time stor‑time stortime reduce that which was "Qinz" more & more into the tear, which was, you see, the imagistic fulcrum of the stor on a disc‑shaped pedestal‑‑where he, the Qert‑shape in the center of the stor, a red shape, just visiting (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!), might gently sigh & like touch that stor & inadvertently (because your to your stors'll always superise you) dissolve all his blood in his tear.

l his blood inis tear

   l his blood inistear
  lis bloodinistear

 alisblodinistir

lbldinstir

    lbltr

   albr

   alb

    l

   a

This happen here & also here & here & here.  Remember, that goddam tear's been round the loop o time for‑an‑ever MetaTime™.

It did their friendship, if you can call it that, no good, this teary stor.  It was dubbed "corny" by critics, & the selfsame thought must've occurred to Qinz as well, for of course he barely went round with this "self‑pitying, sappy, droopy, drippy, dreemy, sentimental stoeur‑without‑a‑coeure," as he later said he said, one time when he crushed out the tear out the tear out out, which smoked & dissolved the entire universe

whereupon Qinz‑‑this is inevitable, folks‑‑stands smoking & dripping at the same time right in front of the soft, sleeping Qert (!) whose excited breaths (!!) as he realize this is "real" come out now in the shape of red molten statues of aliens (!!!) which melt the disk‑shaped pedestals repeated heretofore & sits up astonied cries,

"Qinz!"

Qinz's fists loose just a little bit, & he starts to pace.  He is of course very nervous.  He is effecitually dead for the nonce, & mad as a demon at Qert.  Just think: Mad as a Demon at Qert.  Just think:

That set off the cycle of stors known as the Real or the True Murder Sories.  & just to think‑‑it all started with that goddam tear.
GUX

OK, first of the Real Murther Speries or the True: Fairy musics in the background.  An exceedingly light heaven, this.  The technician (some tubey swemm as‑may May Beam) who worked & worked & worked & worked on him & in him & on into him was him‑ or her‑ orself elongated to a degree that Qert's softly objective mind considered ridiculous.  Absurd, Qert thought.  It went against some principle.  Or principles.

He‑‑no she, it was definitely a she‑‑was pastel colored alzo.  Now that's absurd.  Looks uttertwo frail, uttertwo frail, to be fixing him, to be stickering her intensely‑lit (almost warsching grout that pastel‑‑haah) forearms‑‑for the forearms was all you could see‑‑into his Leaden Grouted Gux.

Yet she did it with gusto, refluxx Qert, & noticed that he was refluxxing with eerie calmy, aloof & distant, for they had his mind fixed up to a flat disk which rotated round & round.  It was from this that it was from that came forth from his that it was coming up the so‑called "fairy music" sup‑for‑thup.

"I like your amnesia," May beam, dit seem, din key & she moving in key, with the fairy music snow revealed to be utterling frorth like sweam from the lips of Qert as he rotated round & round.  "You have 95% amnesia, Qert."

"Qert," Qert qert leadenly.

"That's right," she said, leaning in‑‑which for this babe was one hell of a long lean in!‑‑to get a look at something golden in his guts.

"Looking for some‑uh!‑thing?"

"I think we can get you your friend 'Qinz' back," beammay, laughing, "if you want him back!" her voice muffoed from under the hood, speaking slowly, Qert rotating constantly, falling deeper inspirals of love with that pale & breathing trunk‑‑which he could not see breathing, and, having seen breathing, could not but help but start turning the slender breathing over & over in his mind, his mind roving over & over atat that so he couldsndent helps zimzelphls‑‑& with each turn she got more & more wonderful, & Qert did thought he thought, Verily, she is a creature of the fairest heaven.  Verily will she bring my memories back‑‑including this familiar‑sounding friend I have not got, have not got, have not got...

"Woops," she said, popping her head back out.  "Sound like your song is through, ol Qert."

Old, he thought, then smiled like an old botic & possibly the author died before finishing this sentence.

Or this notice of the author;s dying.

Or this one.

Or this.

It's lioke predicting the end of the world.  Sooner or later, you'll be right.  Now back to our story.
NIGHTMARE HURT THE EYES

What is this shit?  Now back to our story.  Start of new section.  Start.

"Hey‑‑Qert," come Qinz's voice, & Qert froze.  The lovesmake was hurting.  Make note: Smake hurting here, he thought automatically.  He felt his back muscles hardening, as if with the cold smakegraze.  You could tell it was the first hit of blue smake for the era, but the muscles were actually tightening in response to Qinz's weapon.

(My God!  But he hadn't even I mean Qert hadn't even thought to investiagte what kind of weapons they had here in Hexx!  & some of the universes had mean, nasty, sad, overpowering weapons just to see an ik=mage of would make your onions cry.  He was losing control. He Was Losing Control.  There Was NO Control.  NO CONtrol.  CONTrol.  CONTRol.  CONTROl.  O!)

He could hear Qinz breathing, & you had to admire the way Qinz somehow got a charge of hatred into even his breath.  What he did to Qert's name when he called it was a nightmare‑‑an actual nightmare of a ghastly brilliant blue, like the blue of some inconceivably poisonous dye, tinged with a red somewhere caught between somewhere caught between blood & rust and.  Nightmare hurt the eyes, was thought as the bullet said.

He was sipping very hauchagoglot‑‑made with plain water, pas de milq, known as "pas‑de‑milch hauchagoglot" in these parts, heavy with rougue midstummer slakey smake, but he reserved for future reverence the Question: What Parts Are We IN & how‑did‑the‑scenechange howditchng..?quick?‑‑& making hideous faces from the nightmare in the scene before the bullet hut (ruffle through your scrips..?quick?), but no one in the immediate vicinity, which is to say the immediate family, was noticing, possibly because the illusion was his, pozzibly because he could feel the bullet hit.

Fine think, he things.  I cleverly escape to this place, only to have the bullet cleverlier follow me & blast my back into clay wright hear...

Which it did.  Qinz's vullet hits the protective field of the back, & the protective f.o.t.b. tries like hell to pull Qert out of the fix, but it's clearly a qlearly an Interval Bullet‑‑Gog!‑‑& it hits right through to the very smuiff of whusch Qert tis mage, & he splats.

I mean, his back‑thing splatters like very wet, almost silty, virtually vet, clay clay clay clay & forms a small volcano‑shape where the bullet rivets right in, & the illusory Qert they had thought to have formed yet another life in the Hills o' Hexx turns briefly into a stor‑‑into the composte ik=mage'd stor he had posted immis hort, & the father in the scene goes "Huup!?" & never expresses himself again.

The entire "family (if we may)" falls into Qert's sudlyeqnergized ik=mage phials (your bullets'll do'll tha'll't: they'll takeover everything a'that for a' that a't), mouths wide open the whole time, & the small area around the small false false‑Qert (doubly false by the maqorz zinopes of "fooling" Qinz or at least his bullet X) BLOOWPS! into utter nothingness‑‑actually the warp & woof of Intraverse "Space (if‑famlay)," but a‑lookin' pretty "nonthin'" hyere as the original moqbody that Qinz shot croaks its shock & dies.

shot croaks its shock & dies.

& I mean really dies.  Qert was apparently loaded with deaths, ik=mages & representationages of death.  This was quite a novelty, & must be a function of his experimental ik=mage phile modality‑‑which the other botics‑‑certainly Qinz, we believe‑‑didn't have.  & judging from the grotesque thorws of ik=magery (ick ik=magery!) that flowwowpong Qertick's deaph, we won't be seeing very more of these newfanedaddled ik=mage file inserts in the near intravuture no.

For Qert goes into some mightyumgous throes!  He throws for example‑out spewters of bloog, filleps o' gutz, sillooz‑o'‑slime, grisly furrows o' smapeengfexted glyme.  He fill the goddam air with magnified ik=mages of What Death Means to the Body when you're in a body.

& Qinz is in a body.  He's in a body, too‑‑a moqbody‑‑isn't he? So are his henchbots, Quuf & Qet, & Quadiackinoawn & Qthee & Qo‑oQador, too & as well‑‑are they not?

Someone is not.

Yes, but they (the ones I mentioned) are‑‑not?

Yes they are.

So now what happens to thhem?

Well, the ultraik=mages of death throw off their bodies, reactivate boggy memories o' what 'slike, etc.  The sort of memories that cannot be repretsed, hidden, flinched from, run fum, nor in any way denied‑‑no, not even by habitants of the ultrainter‑verx‑‑not even by botics...not so long as they're bodies, heh.

So Qinz dies ha.  Seeing the ik=mage thrown out by Qert's death, Qinz's body creshes in its chups, falls away, wrenches into convulsions & dies heh

& inside, at the minuscule sweet diaphanous almost‑massless al‑most‑mass‑less controls, Qinz has time to croak only "Wha‑?," because you see he is stuck inside, hah

as similarly in this mess do bodies of Quff & Qumpany (even Qo‑oQador, yes).

Now I'll admit that somebody unwrittenun thus sceune is not in a body.  Someone is watching us.  Botics've always felt someone was waschgigng guss‑‑& they are right, or were right, ere they die(d)haha.  That someone doesn't die.

But pritineer everyone else diezoribly.

Make note, there is no:one to shay, ik=mage file ik=mage of death good doomsday device, released pon dydying, & even the note‑‑containing as she does, mass‑‑dies.

Now there has to be someone in the realm of existence to clean up this mesh.  But not for a while.
AIR OF TOOT
or
PILATE CORRECTION A
or
INCLUSION IN THEIR FOOLRY

The two botics made an early attempt to give up the game.  Together they wandered some of the lesser stors, feeling utterly safe there, feeling that they knew in their hearts that they really knew the gods couldn't find them‑‑not without what Qinz kept calling & calling "that chemicollusion" between them.

Qert was the wounded one, we must remember; we must remember, in order to excuse the rather pangy dark fucking goddam sonofabitch‑ing thought that he Qert thought when Qinz kept saying that, such that the thought ("Your collusion, you mean.") became as solid as the musical instruments they were walkin in in this airless mewsicle or, more precisely, instrumental world that Qert had hey in his private collection hey his primate connection ey his pilate correction A, & Qert, shame dove his own suspicions & inhurt of his friend, quietly puts the thought down amongst the myriad instruments & sails into a rap foiling like the spatial layers of a topogrophilupe.

Then Qinz turned with his usual neat formularity, his neat blue tunic at the heighth of a style in a stor of style in which the style height was perfectly high:

"These are the most exquisite musical instruments I have ever seen‑‑so narrow & intricately coiled.  & their colors!  They look like sweet, dark snakes or kolucobbras gathered in, not to strike, but to let their own beauty strike the colorless sun."

Upon hearing this, now Qert rolls his eyes to the hidden camera which was talping the filmic pisions of his mid, for future prilate miewing, & he draws a breath in that ragged qurly wray we have gowen too lubve, & he scratches his curly blo