Look at the picture. See the crusted scab of Solar hanging in the molten nickel sky of Venom. See the scorched hills of the ruined olive groves. See the corduroy road of skeletons leading up to our staked out precipice. See the two pigs and the monitor lizard in their tiger striped battle garb. See! The ape on his knees before them. Oh friends friends brothers and friends half of you I had hoped to never see again. Hoped against hope I did. Time however is a bitch and has brought me back to this wonderful conclave of morons and sinners and killers.

When this happened we small band of brothers were ordered to silence: never more shall we converse the foul deeds of this useless day. And for twenty years have I kept that order: twenty years of night sweats! Twenty years of shaking in shame when asked by my wife what did I do on Venom? Twenty years of imposed tyranny from an officer I never saw in my life! Can you believe that? And what's worse is that I kept that oath. Had Fox McCloud never opened his mouth on the Phil Hawks show I would have followed Wilks and Sambor and taken this story to the grave.

Of course there was the temptation. Upon flying through the great beyond I would have greeted the great eternal gate and shoved that son of a bitch open with both hands. I would have strolled into the great yawning anteroom of whatever mead hall of whatever cosmic thunderer awaits me. I would have given the mighty Goddess of war the double guns and barked at the God of Art and Beauty to kiss my big piggy thighs. And Wilks, Sambor, and I would have thought back to this story and laughed and laughed and laughed. The story would be my relic and the total silence around it my reliquary.

But oh friends that Fox Moloch-cloud...! Bright eyed hero-whore to our planets! Savior of us all! He decided he wanted to talk about his deeds. He needed, almost pathologically- sexually!- yearned, for the warmth of limelight and he opened his trap. Behold the vulpine! Behold his clenching of his combat knife Gram in his teeth! Behold him plunging into the slimy darkness of Hell Bunker 6 with a song on the tip of his tongue and a blaster in his hand! Behold him cornering Andrew Oikonny in the control room and sending a single hyper-heated bolt of purifying energy through him. Behold his ruptured heart gone supernova and showering the technological tenticles of his now deceased Andross with the last ichor of hate! Hallelujah and amen amen and thricemore amen the nemesis is defeated. The crowd then all applauded and everyone got a new hovercar: o! O! O blessed be Fox McCloud!

I saw him put on that interview. I saw Hawks stare and smile and nod at the false savior. I looked down at my hand and saw the beer can in it now fifty million miles away on the great plain of my recliner armrest. My wife Helen drying and redrying the same spot on the popcorn bowl with an embroidered towel. It has a little cat on it with some flowers- Macbethian Lillies. I cried. A great howl came from within me. I raged and stormed and leapt! I flew across the room and grabbed hold of that infernal box and cast it out the window! The neighborhood heard it! This great defenestration of Beecher avenue! A clarion call to all us sleepers now awakened!

Not really. I just said something rude to the TV and was pissy the rest of the day. I like the other version of the story better.

To you my comrades, my trench lovers, my tank riders- to you I am now in debt. My fellow knights. Gathered veterans of the Four-Oh-Second. I bring to you all today the story of of Andrew Oikonny. I fear you will consider this all grand lies and nonsense. I can only present this in defense: I was there. I stand with my soul naked to you o my fellow destroyed hearts and testify that I was present and a witness. May my soul, my commission as a Cornerian officer, and my legacy be forever tainted if none of this is true.

We caught Andrew Oikonny. We gave him a drumhead court martial. We sentenced him to death. It took three minutes. He fell to his knees and wept and gibbered as we laughed. We then executed him. We then disposed of him. Blessings to all bipedal animals, all creatures great and small.

And in the end it didn't matter. I will tell you about this great nothingness now. The castle on the hill is cardboard and the sky is paper and celophane and every night every god forsaken night I wake up crying for no reason and my wife holds me as I sob and god damn you to hell, Fox McCloud.