FOREWORD
Have you ever had those nights when you just lie awake and wish that you were crazy? I
sure have. Wouldn't life be nice if all the friends and demons in your head were real? Wouldn't
it be fun? I'm sure we've all wished for something more at some point in our time. Adventure.
Emotion. Meaning. Sometimes I think that the crazy ones have got the right idea.
Installment 1
"If you don't let go of your fantasies, Dib, then how can we help you?"
A rasping moan slunk through the air, swirling a wet redness through the stagnant
warmth of the beige office. It hung like milk in water, dissolving softly like a red scarf of silk. It
rippled with the tiny explosions of an unknown current, the sporadic springs that leap from the
spaces between river stones. Quickly, it was no longer a scarf but so many ethereal crowns, the
fine haloes of the urbane goddesses circling him in a diaphanous ring. Did they have pity for
him?
"Talk to me, Dib, I need to know what you're feeling."
"Fuck you."
"I don't think it's hostility towards me you're feeling, Dib, I understand why you're
upset. It's okay to be upset, Dib, but-"
"Fuck," the boy allowed the word to hang in the air a moment for effect, "you."
"Dib, I believe that we should get back to the point. Your father brought you to me
because he cares about you-"
"Then where is he?" he asked.
"Excuse me?"
"Where is my father, who loves me so much?" Dib's fingers fluttered coldly on an arm
of smooth cherry. The high, small window breathed hotly past his face, stepping through the
black, back lit vertical blinds to become the warm barrier between them. He pinned a narrowed
gaze through the yellow sunlight encased in dust, through the framed glass of a patronizing stare
cast at him through unfocused orbs. One could be dumb when they wished to be.
"Do you want to talk about your father, Dib?" asked the level, calming voice, with a
slight, false chirp of non-aggression.
"No," he scoffed. The sound rolled from his throat and caught in his teeth.
The sunlight sighed sympathetically and drew another breath of the spare and intentional
office through the teeth of its dark blinds.
"What would you like to talk about, Dib?" It was still asked in the same tone of voice,
high and tight.
The boy huffed with a breath of laughter. "Nothing. You're wasting my time. I'm
wasting yours. I've got better things to do than sit here and be interrogated by-" The breath of
the light strewn through the window caught in its throat and Dib's eyes darted to see its gasping.
The yellow sunlight wheezed and shuddered, wracking the sun with an asthmatic tremor. It
extended its hand in a frail, fatalistic gesture and its granules fell quickly to the floor. "Shit!"
Dib swung his small frame onto the back of the chair with a whirl of his trench coat and
sprung off like a lizard, landing in a roll which ended at the door. He caught his feet and with a
quick twist emerged into the slated streets. The shadows were prosthetics to the gray buildings,
like smooth, blue plastic to replace missing bones. What light that shone down upon their
hollow faces and the gleam of their square, black eyes was thin and sad.
"What did ZIM do to the sun?" His irises thinned to points and his jaw hung boneless.
"Oh, I didn't do anything to the sun, Dib," called a high, smug voice, "I just moved the
Earth!"
Dib whirled to face a small green alien with a black toupee, laughing with throaty,
hysterical menace. He stood as tall as Dib, taking the appearance of a green child with no ears
and lacking a digit in his long, black gloves. Pleased with himself, apparently, he set his fists at
his waist and waited for the inevitable reaction from the human boy. "ZIM," said Dib with
expectant spite, not surprised by the presence of the alien at all but never less occupied by it, "so
what's your evil plan this time? What do you plan to accomplish by freezing us to death?"
The alien narrowed one purple eye, the other growing wide. "You die," he responded to
the obvious question. He shook his head and waved his hand in dismissing exasperation. "You
humans... especially you Dib, you're stupidity makes me almost feel sorry for you. I'm sure
you'll find it a beneficial experience being a slave to an obviously superior race. Don't worry,"
He patted Dib on the head and smirked. "you can be my pet."
Dib's teeth pierced easily through the patronizing hand set upon him.
"Oh! Good God! Security! Security, help!"
There was a bewildered murmur from the rooms down the hall, secretaries and waiting
patients struck dumb by the sudden outburst. The were whispers of "Oh, my God! Oh, my
God!" and the creak of bodies being lifted from chairs as they scurried to peer down the hall with
eager caution. Behind a pane of reinforced glass, a secretary punched the emergency call button
on the phone, the expression in her still, gray eyes as though she were looking at something left
dead on the road.
Security skidded into place at the door of the doctor's office with a squeak of polished
uniform shoes. With a few misplaced kicks the door flapped inward, fanning before the vision of
a boy face-down in spit and blood on top of the desk and a psychiatrist, crouched and thoughtful,
head lain against it from her sitting place on the floor.
"What the Hell?" There was the soft "phlink" of rough hands rushed hastily to guns.
"Uh-oh fuck!" The plump, middle-aged men swept in with swift and efficient violence,
wrenching the boy's head from the desk to toss his skinny frame to the floor. It was like they
tried to break a green switch, a foot in his back and the other grinding his unconscious face into
the hardwood, fingers clutched in his hair, the other hand scuffling with the handcuffs. Dib was
limp and surely would have found more injury had he not been.
With her good hand, Doctor Morado palmed the frame of her glasses and released them
upon the bridge of her nose. Without taking her eyes from the boy on the floor, her hand drifted
with stiffness but a lack of hurry to find the bloody paper weight, a contemporary piece of glass,
two fluid-like figures set apart by distance running together at the base. "Hm." The doctor was
surprised that, in spite of its impact with Dib's head, it was intact.
After Dib had been trussed up and dragged down the hall, a security guard came back to
give the doctor a furtive peer. He snaked his head around the doorframe, thick hands set next to
a black belt looped through leather pockets and a gun holster. He was bold with adrenaline, yet
suddenly awkward with the notion of what he should do with the "victim". Maybe, had she been
crying, he could have tossed a woolen blanket around her shoulder like they do on television, he
could have said, "It's okay. We got 'em ma'am." and would have been very pleased with
himself for it. However, the woman simply stood like psychiatrists stand, back straight, hands
crossed lightly in front of her, one in the claw of a spasm and laying jagged and wet upon the
other white and calm. She was on the drawing line of shadow cast from the dark yellow light of
her tiny window, eyes draped down upon the sticky paperweight sitting in the mess.
"Ma'am?"
The doctor looked up with the vapor of bewilderment as though she had been caught in
the middle of a book. "Yes, Steve?" She made a point to call everyone by name.
The man's thick lips pinched into a deep frown, defining the cleft in his chin. "Are you
all right ma'am? Your hand-"
"Oh." She flicked her bloody arm as though dismissing and fly and with a tone almost
like embarrassment said, "Yes. Thank you. I'll just take myself down to the ER." In spite of
this, her eyes rolled back down to the desk and she stood without the obvious intent of moving.
"Ma'am?" the guard called nervously.
"Yes, Steve."
"What happened?"
"Hm." The doctor frowned. She tipped her head towards man in the doorway and
shifting her weight over the dishevelment of the desk, placed a finger upon the head of each
abstract figure. She slid a white gaze into the hall, then, eyes suddenly rippling, leaned towards
him with the slow exaggeration of conspiracy. "ZIM," she whispered, "ZIM's back. Dib is
having the Invader fits again."
"Class," announced the old woman, a lank spider with glasses, "normally I would ask
you if you wanted to use your last Crazy Card, but considering the rabid little worm child bit
me," her eyes narrowed, voice grating, "I'm making the decision for you." From her bony hand,
the blinking collar was clapped around Dib's neck and then Ms. Bitters tossed him into the floor.
"Wait!" he pleaded, "But, ZIM!" The skool children only gawked with vague annoyance and
slight alarm. Dib's small breath of protest was yanked into a gurgle as his collar was plucked up
by large hands.
The whitecoat chuckled, "So, you're at it again, little boy!"
"Him again? The big head kid," said the other, "I thought they said they were going to
cut that big head open and get in there and fix it?"
"What?" Dib shrilled.
"Nuthin'"
"You- you're talking about cutting my head open!"
The whitecoats blinked in tandem and answered simply, "Yes."
The hideous floor swung beneath Dib as they toted him towards the rough orifice in the
wall which they had burst through. "My head's not even big!" The boy fought to crane up his
head to implore to the numb, disinterest of his skoolmates. "It's not big!" He grabbed another
boy by the ears. "You! Do you think my head's big?" The seized boy shied away from the hiss
of his breath and Dib's bared teeth.
"Whoa. Hey, hey now! Let's not kill anyone before we get you tied up, eh?" The
whitecoats stepped into the murk of the empty hall.
As he slipped through the ragged threshold of the classroom, Dib was fixed with the sated
amusement in ZIM's crisp eyes. The alien slowly leaned in towards him, blotting the sick
fluorescent light from the human boy's face. ZIM observed him mildly for a moment, met his
gaze with a temperate constancy and slowly smiled. "'See ya', Dib."
POSTSCRIPT
I really didn't want to make this thing a multiple part deal, but I can't force my poor I-wish-I-
were-crazy head to write any more right now. So, please stay tuned to what will probably be the
second and last installment. Thanks.
Waffles
Have you ever had those nights when you just lie awake and wish that you were crazy? I
sure have. Wouldn't life be nice if all the friends and demons in your head were real? Wouldn't
it be fun? I'm sure we've all wished for something more at some point in our time. Adventure.
Emotion. Meaning. Sometimes I think that the crazy ones have got the right idea.
Installment 1
"If you don't let go of your fantasies, Dib, then how can we help you?"
A rasping moan slunk through the air, swirling a wet redness through the stagnant
warmth of the beige office. It hung like milk in water, dissolving softly like a red scarf of silk. It
rippled with the tiny explosions of an unknown current, the sporadic springs that leap from the
spaces between river stones. Quickly, it was no longer a scarf but so many ethereal crowns, the
fine haloes of the urbane goddesses circling him in a diaphanous ring. Did they have pity for
him?
"Talk to me, Dib, I need to know what you're feeling."
"Fuck you."
"I don't think it's hostility towards me you're feeling, Dib, I understand why you're
upset. It's okay to be upset, Dib, but-"
"Fuck," the boy allowed the word to hang in the air a moment for effect, "you."
"Dib, I believe that we should get back to the point. Your father brought you to me
because he cares about you-"
"Then where is he?" he asked.
"Excuse me?"
"Where is my father, who loves me so much?" Dib's fingers fluttered coldly on an arm
of smooth cherry. The high, small window breathed hotly past his face, stepping through the
black, back lit vertical blinds to become the warm barrier between them. He pinned a narrowed
gaze through the yellow sunlight encased in dust, through the framed glass of a patronizing stare
cast at him through unfocused orbs. One could be dumb when they wished to be.
"Do you want to talk about your father, Dib?" asked the level, calming voice, with a
slight, false chirp of non-aggression.
"No," he scoffed. The sound rolled from his throat and caught in his teeth.
The sunlight sighed sympathetically and drew another breath of the spare and intentional
office through the teeth of its dark blinds.
"What would you like to talk about, Dib?" It was still asked in the same tone of voice,
high and tight.
The boy huffed with a breath of laughter. "Nothing. You're wasting my time. I'm
wasting yours. I've got better things to do than sit here and be interrogated by-" The breath of
the light strewn through the window caught in its throat and Dib's eyes darted to see its gasping.
The yellow sunlight wheezed and shuddered, wracking the sun with an asthmatic tremor. It
extended its hand in a frail, fatalistic gesture and its granules fell quickly to the floor. "Shit!"
Dib swung his small frame onto the back of the chair with a whirl of his trench coat and
sprung off like a lizard, landing in a roll which ended at the door. He caught his feet and with a
quick twist emerged into the slated streets. The shadows were prosthetics to the gray buildings,
like smooth, blue plastic to replace missing bones. What light that shone down upon their
hollow faces and the gleam of their square, black eyes was thin and sad.
"What did ZIM do to the sun?" His irises thinned to points and his jaw hung boneless.
"Oh, I didn't do anything to the sun, Dib," called a high, smug voice, "I just moved the
Earth!"
Dib whirled to face a small green alien with a black toupee, laughing with throaty,
hysterical menace. He stood as tall as Dib, taking the appearance of a green child with no ears
and lacking a digit in his long, black gloves. Pleased with himself, apparently, he set his fists at
his waist and waited for the inevitable reaction from the human boy. "ZIM," said Dib with
expectant spite, not surprised by the presence of the alien at all but never less occupied by it, "so
what's your evil plan this time? What do you plan to accomplish by freezing us to death?"
The alien narrowed one purple eye, the other growing wide. "You die," he responded to
the obvious question. He shook his head and waved his hand in dismissing exasperation. "You
humans... especially you Dib, you're stupidity makes me almost feel sorry for you. I'm sure
you'll find it a beneficial experience being a slave to an obviously superior race. Don't worry,"
He patted Dib on the head and smirked. "you can be my pet."
Dib's teeth pierced easily through the patronizing hand set upon him.
"Oh! Good God! Security! Security, help!"
There was a bewildered murmur from the rooms down the hall, secretaries and waiting
patients struck dumb by the sudden outburst. The were whispers of "Oh, my God! Oh, my
God!" and the creak of bodies being lifted from chairs as they scurried to peer down the hall with
eager caution. Behind a pane of reinforced glass, a secretary punched the emergency call button
on the phone, the expression in her still, gray eyes as though she were looking at something left
dead on the road.
Security skidded into place at the door of the doctor's office with a squeak of polished
uniform shoes. With a few misplaced kicks the door flapped inward, fanning before the vision of
a boy face-down in spit and blood on top of the desk and a psychiatrist, crouched and thoughtful,
head lain against it from her sitting place on the floor.
"What the Hell?" There was the soft "phlink" of rough hands rushed hastily to guns.
"Uh-oh fuck!" The plump, middle-aged men swept in with swift and efficient violence,
wrenching the boy's head from the desk to toss his skinny frame to the floor. It was like they
tried to break a green switch, a foot in his back and the other grinding his unconscious face into
the hardwood, fingers clutched in his hair, the other hand scuffling with the handcuffs. Dib was
limp and surely would have found more injury had he not been.
With her good hand, Doctor Morado palmed the frame of her glasses and released them
upon the bridge of her nose. Without taking her eyes from the boy on the floor, her hand drifted
with stiffness but a lack of hurry to find the bloody paper weight, a contemporary piece of glass,
two fluid-like figures set apart by distance running together at the base. "Hm." The doctor was
surprised that, in spite of its impact with Dib's head, it was intact.
After Dib had been trussed up and dragged down the hall, a security guard came back to
give the doctor a furtive peer. He snaked his head around the doorframe, thick hands set next to
a black belt looped through leather pockets and a gun holster. He was bold with adrenaline, yet
suddenly awkward with the notion of what he should do with the "victim". Maybe, had she been
crying, he could have tossed a woolen blanket around her shoulder like they do on television, he
could have said, "It's okay. We got 'em ma'am." and would have been very pleased with
himself for it. However, the woman simply stood like psychiatrists stand, back straight, hands
crossed lightly in front of her, one in the claw of a spasm and laying jagged and wet upon the
other white and calm. She was on the drawing line of shadow cast from the dark yellow light of
her tiny window, eyes draped down upon the sticky paperweight sitting in the mess.
"Ma'am?"
The doctor looked up with the vapor of bewilderment as though she had been caught in
the middle of a book. "Yes, Steve?" She made a point to call everyone by name.
The man's thick lips pinched into a deep frown, defining the cleft in his chin. "Are you
all right ma'am? Your hand-"
"Oh." She flicked her bloody arm as though dismissing and fly and with a tone almost
like embarrassment said, "Yes. Thank you. I'll just take myself down to the ER." In spite of
this, her eyes rolled back down to the desk and she stood without the obvious intent of moving.
"Ma'am?" the guard called nervously.
"Yes, Steve."
"What happened?"
"Hm." The doctor frowned. She tipped her head towards man in the doorway and
shifting her weight over the dishevelment of the desk, placed a finger upon the head of each
abstract figure. She slid a white gaze into the hall, then, eyes suddenly rippling, leaned towards
him with the slow exaggeration of conspiracy. "ZIM," she whispered, "ZIM's back. Dib is
having the Invader fits again."
"Class," announced the old woman, a lank spider with glasses, "normally I would ask
you if you wanted to use your last Crazy Card, but considering the rabid little worm child bit
me," her eyes narrowed, voice grating, "I'm making the decision for you." From her bony hand,
the blinking collar was clapped around Dib's neck and then Ms. Bitters tossed him into the floor.
"Wait!" he pleaded, "But, ZIM!" The skool children only gawked with vague annoyance and
slight alarm. Dib's small breath of protest was yanked into a gurgle as his collar was plucked up
by large hands.
The whitecoat chuckled, "So, you're at it again, little boy!"
"Him again? The big head kid," said the other, "I thought they said they were going to
cut that big head open and get in there and fix it?"
"What?" Dib shrilled.
"Nuthin'"
"You- you're talking about cutting my head open!"
The whitecoats blinked in tandem and answered simply, "Yes."
The hideous floor swung beneath Dib as they toted him towards the rough orifice in the
wall which they had burst through. "My head's not even big!" The boy fought to crane up his
head to implore to the numb, disinterest of his skoolmates. "It's not big!" He grabbed another
boy by the ears. "You! Do you think my head's big?" The seized boy shied away from the hiss
of his breath and Dib's bared teeth.
"Whoa. Hey, hey now! Let's not kill anyone before we get you tied up, eh?" The
whitecoats stepped into the murk of the empty hall.
As he slipped through the ragged threshold of the classroom, Dib was fixed with the sated
amusement in ZIM's crisp eyes. The alien slowly leaned in towards him, blotting the sick
fluorescent light from the human boy's face. ZIM observed him mildly for a moment, met his
gaze with a temperate constancy and slowly smiled. "'See ya', Dib."
POSTSCRIPT
I really didn't want to make this thing a multiple part deal, but I can't force my poor I-wish-I-
were-crazy head to write any more right now. So, please stay tuned to what will probably be the
second and last installment. Thanks.
Waffles