Going Sane In A Crazy World
by Matt Garner

Chapter 6
When Worlds Collide

"Heheh... Oh man, that was great..."

"D-did you see the look on Zim's face? It was priceless!"

Still giggling away in that way that only really close siblings with an inside-joke can do (Any of my readers with siblings should be able to know what I'm talking about), the Almighty Tallest made their way into the guest reception room of the Defective Head Meat Institute. Standing in front of the large pale pink desk in the center of the big off-white colored waiting room were two humans who resembled the Dib boy in an odd way. Not that the Tallest even noticed. They were both too busy snickering like idiots. Besides, all humans looked the same anyway.

"Rrrrrrgh... C'mon, Dad! It's time for lunch! I crave pizza!" Gaz opened her eyes wide, revealing odd hypnotic red swirls where there should have been deep brown irises. "The pig commands me... I must have peeet-zzzzaaaaa..."

Leaning over the desk and writing something, Professor Membrane darted his left hand out and shook a reproachful gloved finger at his daughter. "Now, now, Gaz! Have patience!" he admonished, "I just have to sign out for both of us..."

Gaz sighed bitterly, watching her father shake his finger at her knees. "Sign out for 'both of us'...?" she groaned, "Dad, I can sign out for myself. I'm 23 #$in' years old, you know..."

Brow knitted in frustration, the Professor stood up to remind Gaz of the consequences of speaking in such a disrespectful manner to one's father. He put one hand his hip and shook his finger while looking down at... Gaz's knees? He double-blinked curiously, then scrolled his thickly-bespectacled eyes upward to see an angry-looking woman standing where an 11-year-old girl should have been.

"SO YOU ARE!" he shouted in amazed recognition, "MY! How time FLIES!" A quick slap to his own forehead helped to show just how thoroughly shocked the man was.

"Hehehe... And... And... The look on that kid's face was so funny!"

"Oh, you mean... What's his name... Dib? HAHA!"

One of Gaz's dark violet/black eyebrows arched upward.

"Hey," she grunted, "Did one of those guys just mention Dib?"

"Hmm?"

The Professor scratched his balding head curiously. Faster than greased lightning (Ever tried to grease lightning? It's tough work!), the angry-looking woman pointed a thin claw-like finger over his shoulder. Professor Membrane whirled around quickly for a glimpse of whoever it was that his daughter had overheard.

"Heh... I know... That insane smile! HAHA!"

"And to think Zim's stuck with him for the rest of his life! HAHAAA!"

Hmm... Odd. How, exactly, did this charming couple know about Dib and his friend... Zim, was it? Perhaps... Yes, that was it. They were probably relatives of Zim's in some way. After all, they both did have the same large, round eyes and strange... Green... Skin...

Wait a minute... Why did these two strangers seem so familiar?

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!" Professor Membrane stated calmly, both hands clenched firmly on the sides of his head in abject fear. The Tallest gawked blankly at the shrieking man. Gaz merely stood there, looking angry as always, with nothing to show for her surprise but a raised eyebrow. The secretary at the desk looked up from a Happy Noodle Boy comic long enough to blow a bubble with her gum. She then returned to her comic.

"Can we... Help you?" Red inquired, holding out a claw and narrowing an eye in confusion.

"KEEP AWAY FROM ME! KEEP AWAY!" answered the Professor while staggering backward like a drunkard.

"Hey, pal," Purple scoffed, "Whatsamatter? Ain'tcha never seen a lady before?" He then swivelled his hips and posed in a way that MIGHT seem flirty had it been a real human woman. Instead, it was a 6-foot-tall alien who resembled a mutant cockroach, so the effect was more than slightly disconcerting.

The Professor continued to flail about until finally collapsing into Gaz's arms. Grunting against her father's weight, Gaz growled "#$, Dad! Calm down..."

"CALM DOWN?" he shrieked, "CALM DOWN?"

"GAZ!" Professor Membrane leaped out of his daughter's arms, then grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't you know what those two... 'PEOPLE' ARE?"

Gaz started to say "Yeah. More Irken freaks. Whoopty-shi--" but she was interrupted.

"They're... They're alien MONSTERS! Monsters from another world who want to subject us to horrible, painful experiments and plant freaky devices in our skulls... SKULLS, I TELL YOU!"

The secretary looked up from her comic book again. The Tallest failed miserably to look offended.

"I don't know WHAT you're talking about, you rude, rude man!" Purple whined while batting his wrist around in an attempt to look feminine. The result was laughable.

"We are two perfectly normal Earthling tarantulas!" Red announced loudly (and proudly) while holding his arms out high above his head. Purple punched him in the ribs. Red corrected himself by quickly adding "Humans! I mean humans!", after which he socked his twin brother in the jaw.

"LIES!" Membrane shrieked, "All filthy, FILTHY LIES!" Had his face been visible, rather than constantly shrouded by his upturned collar, one would be able to see that he was now foaming at the mouth. Gaz groaned and the secretary calmly pressed a button under her desk. "You're here to perform unspeakable tests on us! Just like LAST time!"

"You're crazy" explained Red.

A vein ticking away sickeningly in his forehead, Membrane shrieked "Crazy? Crazy am I? Well does THIS sound familiar?" He then performed a surprisingly good imitation of Red's nasal voice and said "'We shall have him for a Kellzonian scan!'"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence (broken only by what sounded like heavy footsteps hurrying along a distant corridor) as both of the Tallest stared, uncomprehending, at the scientist. Purple with his antennae darting up and down and his bottom jaw jutting out; Red with his eyes narrowed and teeth overlapping his bottom lip. Membrane glared back at the two aliens with an insane blend of fear and hatred in his eyes. Gaz wished she was eating pizza somewhere. Finally, one of them spoke up.

"Ohhhhhh..." Purple droned, recollection shining in his misty violet eyes. He pointed slowly at Membrane. "So YOU were that weird big-eyed kid! Wow, how long ago was that? 30-odd years or more?"

Red intelligently remarked "Heh... weird..."

A low, female sigh hissed through the air. Gaz glared at her father and muttered "Dad... I'm going to regret asking, but WHAT'S going on here?"

"I'm GLAD you asked, Gaz! You see, when I was a mere adorable big-eyed child of, perhaps, 7 years, give or take, I was visited in the night by four incredibly strange aliens..." It was obvious that Dib picked up his irritating rambling habits from his dad. "...They broke out into an argument over who would have the honor of abducting me, and it was THESE very same creatures who kidnapped me and ran a Kellzonian scan, one of the most horrifyingly painful procedures in the known universe, on me! The long-term results were actually beneficial to some degree as it caused my mental capacities to soar through the proverbial roof... However, much of my childhood slowly sank into a locked portion of my subconscious and was presumably forgotten until just now, as the sight of my former kidnappers seems to have unlocked some fragments of my broken memory!" He took one more look at the Tallest, then collapsed to the ground, screaming in fear.

Gaz couldn't believe this. It was the dumbest thing she had ever heard in her life. Impossibly convoluted, too. It was like something written by a really bad comedy writer who just didn't have the time to plan out a story and was just writing more for a cheap laugh than a real plot anyway. You know, like something really awful you'd read on the internet while waiting for something good to come on TV. She shook her head and looked down at her dad.

"Do you actually expect me to believe that?"

Membrane stopped flailing around long enough to say "Yes, actually, I do." Then he returned to flopping about like an idiot.

Just about that time, a team of white-coated thugs burst into the room and asked loudly where the "crazy, freakin', loony" was. Without a word, the secretary pointed to the Professor, then returned to the world of her comic book. As the thugs grabbed Membrane and carried him off, he began bellowing "NO! NO! I won't be silenced! The end is near! Don't you understand? Soylent green is people! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLLLLLLLE..."

Gaz, Red, and Purple all watched in stunned silence as the once-revered supergenius was carted away into the hallowed halls of the Laughing Academy. After a beat, they looked at each other for a few moments until Red cleared his throat.

"Well," he said, "We'll just be going now."

Purple nodded and the two Tallest turned to leave, but froze in terror as they heard a cold, spite-filled female voice rasp "Hey..."

The secretary looked up for a moment and stared at Gaz.

Gaz nodded in the direction of the tall aliens. "They're crazy too."

Suddenly, the white-coats returned and dragged two struggling super-evolved Irkens into the asylum.

Gaz smiled deviously at the sounds of the alien's voices shrieking "NO! LEAVE US ALONE! WE'RE NOT CRAZY! HELP! CURSE YOU, GAZ CASIL! CURSE YOUUUUUU!" A chuckle rolled in her throat and, after a little crack of her knuckles, she produced her father's car-keys from her pocket and headed out the door.

"Idiots..." she snickered.

"NO! I'm not crazy! You can't do this to me! I'm Professor Membrane! I'm famous!"

"Uh-huh. Whatever you say, pal..."

The two thugs "escorting" the Professor to his new room chuckled deeply.

"Sad, isn't it Steve?"

"Yeah, Frank... But ya' know... It's kinda' refreshing too. I mean after a hard day's work at the Funny Farm... I go home and see my wife and kids... And I think 'hey, my family may act kinda' weird sometimes... But at least they ain't nuts!'"

"Hmm. Deep."

"Hhhyyyyeeeeeep..."

Professor Membrane struggled with all his might, but to no avail. Maybe because he was in a straitjacket and had no chance to use his arms at all. Nevertheless, he continued to protest and demand to be set free up until they reached his cell.

"Okay, 'Professor...'" mocked Frank, expressing each of the quotation marks in his line by jerking his fingers up and down as is the fashion, "Here's your new 'apartment'! Say 'hi' to your new 'roomies' for us!" Once he was done speaking, he did the finger wiggle a couple more times just for the heck of it.

"I'M TELLING YOU, I--" But before he could finish, the Professor was shoved into a padded room and the door was quickly locked behind him. Membrane sighed wearily as the sound of footsteps and derisive laughter boomed down the hallway. Oh well... he reasoned, things will be sorted out soon enough... And besides, at least now things can't get any worse...

He sighed again and looked around the room as best he could while on the floor. Odd... It was the middle of the day, and the room DID have windows, but everything was strangely dark. Almost as if a dark presence was strangling the very light out of the sky. He could barely even see more than 2 inches in front of his face.

Suddenly, a pair of booted feet stepped right up in front of him and the Professor felt two hands from behind prop him up to a sitting position. Gradually, the room was filled with an unhealthy purple light and within a few seconds, the Professor was finally able to see into the room well enough to see his new roommates.

Pepito stood before him, arms crossed behind his back, and staring down where the Professor sat.

"Hello, Todd," he wheezed as a demonic smile slowly crept across his face, "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

In the darkness, a tall, lanky figure leaned over from behind Membrane. Soon, a waxy face with wide, staring eyes was hanging upside down before him.

"Hi, Squeeeeeee..." Johnny droned, "I misssssed yoooooooo..."

The Professor simply... squeaked.

THE END...?