GOD SAVE THE ESTEEM
Episode 38: Highland Lassie

Then:

October 31st 2009.

"Ding dong! Huhuhuh."

A grim figure of staring, corpse-faced doom opened the door, and on top of that Daria had painted her face like a skull.

"How terrifying. Beavis, Butt-head, and Stewart, together at my house."

"I'm Beavis," said Butt-head in a Metallica shirt. "Uh… 'heh heh'."

"And I'm Butt-head," said Beavis in an AC/DC shirt. "Kick or treat?"

There was an expectant pause. Butt-head solemnly picked his nose.

"Hurry up and come in before the neighbours see you."

Inside was a seething, toxic mess of delinquents, young and old, headbanging and chest-bumping and binge drinking as the sounds of Black Flag and Misfits filled the house. Most of them seemed to have come dressed as themselves. In the middle, Hellion Wheels and Jake the Snake had gone as the most terrifying costume possible, people in suits.

"Whoa! This party kicks ass!"

"Heheheheh, parties are cool! You, like, get to drink a lot and eat all the crap and eheheheh get really hyper and then trash the place…" Beavis searched for a way to fully get the glory across. "It's like being at home… except you're at someone else's house."

Stewart not-so-quietly fled the house, much to Daria's relief. Now she just had to get rid of the other two, preferably before

"Uhhh, hey, Daria, why aren't you cool like these guys? Huhuhuhuh."

too late.

"If I was as cool, and I use this term to describe my family under protest, then my family would seem less cool because it can't be cool if people like me do it."

The lads digested this. Looks of horror began to creep across their faces, men who'd just stared into the abyss.

"Daria, you better not ever start liking Pantera or I'll kick your ass! I mean it! AAAAA!""

"Whoa!" Butt-head had lost track of what was being said just ten seconds ago. "What are those things in the water?"

"They're called apples, Butt-head."

Daria continued to rack her brains for a way out, while her parents announced it was time to tell scary stories.

"I've got one!" said her dad. "It was a dark, grim, moonlight night – a boy was out camping with his father…"

"I got a better one!" said Quinn, headbutting her own dad aside. ("Way to go, Killer!") "So there was this vampire, right? And it lived in a castle it was totally a fatcat fascist, and then… then it atesomeone! So they were dead!" She shone a torch under her face. "THE END!"

"Can we have the abridged version next time?" asked Daria.

"Mum, Dad! Daria's oppressing me!"

"I got a story, hehe." Beavis took the torch and shone it through his ears. "Okay, like, um, once upon a time there was this dude and he had, like, two sons… No! Three sons! And then, like, the dude met this lady, and she has three beautiful daughters… and then heheheh they get married and live together, and… hehehehehe… stuff happens…"

Butt-head took the torch and hit Beavis with it. "That's that show The Breeder Bunch, dillwad! What's scary about that?"

"It's, like, living in the same house as three hot chicks and you can't, like, do it with them, because they're, like, your sisters," explained Beavis.

"Oh yeah," said Butt-Head, worried. "That is scary."

That was it. It was time for the big guns.

"I've got a scary story," said Daria.

"Oh my god, I just realised something needs fixing at the other end of the house!" said Jake, halfway out of the lounge before he'd finished speaking.

"It was on a Halloween night, much like this one. A number of cool rebels had gathered to party and challenge the Man's alcohol age limit and noise pollution laws." Daria shone a torch under her face, illuminating the skull make-up. "And that was their mistake. Because by all gathering in one place, the rebels had meant the Man could finish them all in one fell swoop-"

"BARRICADE THE DOOR!" bellowed Quinn. "GO GO GO!"

"They tried to barricade the door but it wouldn't work-"

"OH SHIT!"

"-because what they didn't know was that the Man had already infiltrated the house."

Suspicious silence fell (broken by a "huh huh she said 'in' and then she said 'Phil'" "hehehehehe in Phil'").

"There was no sign. The disguise was perfect. He could have been anywhere – anyone. They had no idea where, or when, he'd strike. They just had to sit, and wait, and fret, for the moment when-" Daria locked eyes on Butt-head. "They'd be gassed."

"Huhuhuhuh. Gas. Hey, Beavis, pull my finger."

"THEY'RE ATTACKING NOW!" screamed Quinn. "GET THEM!"

Best Halloween ever, thought Daria as the party descended into violence chaos. Well, mildly serviceable anyway.

Now:

It had been almost two years but Highland still looked the same, and that was a source of great sadness for Daria. Worse, she knew, it would still smell the same, especially around the back of Burger World.

"Now I know it's not easy for you girls, going back to an old town," said her father. "Especially not for you, Daria, right?"

"Snake, dear, we only have to do that speech when we're moving somewhere new."

"Better safe than sorry, Hellion, that's what I always say!" Jake frowned, realising that wasn't very punk at all. "Er, I mean, that's what I rarely say! Because I'm a rebel! I don't care if I live or DIE!" Frown, wibble. "Hellion, did I take my pills this-"

"Yes, Snake."

The whole car ride to Highland had been like this.

They'd stopped at a sleazy motel on the way. Filthy, pipes leaking, the outside seedy and slick with discarded condoms, the walls thin and the sound of sordid liaisons filling the night, and Daria's parents and sister in other rooms: she wished she was still there.

"Why did we have to come back to Highland anyway?" groused Quinn. "Why couldn't the Abernathy's have had their anniversary party at the Zon? That's far more kickass than anything here!"

"They live in Highland," said Daria.

"So?"

"There's no sensible discussion that can be had if you respond like that. Well played, Quinn; I take my hat off to you."

Quinn stared at the empty space above Daria's head. "Mum, Dad! Daria's hallucinating!"

"Damn it! I knew someone had been in my stash!"

As soon as they'd arrived at yet another sleazy motel and unpacked, Daria headed off – she could meet up with the family later at night, when the Abernathy's' silver anniversary party kicked off. Or, alternatively, she could get 'lost' on her way to the club. (She was leaning towards the latter)

This area of town was rough, but that was true of half the town. And the other half was just boring. The rough parts always had the more interesting idiots anyway. Lawndale was better than Highland in that respect, it was almost all boring area and still full of interesting idiots. This was one of three reasons she didn't miss Highland, the other two being "because Highland is shit" and "because Highland is really shit".

That said, being back here after so long, after having no contact with any of the people she'd known for the first fifteen years of her life, seeing the old Maxi Mart and the familiar gang tags, she felt something. Something that ached. It was the desire to find something and laugh at it.

"Hey. Bitch."

And lo and behold, the world had given her Todd Ianuzzi, King Shit of the Turd Mountain that was Highland's criminal underworld.

"Give me your-"

"If you don't say please, you won't get anything in life," said Daria, walking on and not bothering to look.

"You stupid cunt, don't you understand what's-"

Daria turned round and looked at him, letting him see her face. "You still owe my mother three hundred dollars in legal fees."

Todd turned pale and, with great care, put his switchblade away.

So you can go home again, it's just you don't really want to.

Lawndale was quiet now, dry and lifeless. On the Morgendorffer house, a black flag drooped forlornly from its post, as if weeping over the rusting, abandoned line of beer cans. At the high school, ten of the Maleficent Eleven just stared ahead in class, eyes blank and mouths drooling; Spanish, IT, Science, even Maths and Geography went undisrupted and unstopped. Across the town, non-vandalised posters for a football game marked the buildings like neon wounds.

Jane was fucking bored. Yearswith no real friends outside of Tom, and yet now she couldn't stand the absence of Daria; even if Tom had still been at Lawndale and they could've snarked through class, she'd have found herself pausing for Daria's contributions.

(That would still be better than what actually happened, which was her being sarcastic to thin air. Ms Onepu had taken Jane to the nurse, giving her terrified warnings about how if she was "feeling… ill", they'd be able to help her and it'd all be alright)

Add in the social ostracisation and constant background hatred that she'd been facing for a year now, and subtract any amusing incidents and arson attacks, and she'd actually had to study. Even now, at home, she found herself thinking of doing homework.

The door rang. Trent woke up from his place at the kitchen table, a forgotten bowl of Cheerios dead in their milk.

"Someone's at the door, Janey."

"It's probably someone unbelievable boring," said Jane.

Trent opened the door and looked at Amy Barksdale.

"Whoa. You look different without your jacket, Daria."

"Daria? I thought you were out until mblblbbl hi"

"Hi Jane," said Amy. "I know this is last minute, but I need an extra cameraman as soon as humanly possible to go out into dark, forbidding woods where local crims dump corpses so I can look for ravenously violent Bigfoots and film them. Of all the times for a guy to find Jesus… Anyway, I was going to ask Daria to help out but the house is quiet, so I figure everyone's outta town. I called her up and she said you've got experience with a camera and that, quote, I can't leave her on her own in Lawndale, I just can't, that would be inhumane, please take her somewhere interesting unquote."

Jane realised that her biggest TV idol was asking her to hang out with her and do crazy, famous, TV-appearing stuff. Many emotions ran through her, and she expressed them with an eloquent "mblmblbmblb get my stuff".

Amy waited patiently as the girl fled. Trent stared at her, suspicious.

"You're not Daria," he said, slowly.

Jane came back, an overnight bag packed implausibly fast. "mblbmblmbl thanks"

"Excellent! Daria asked if I could do something for Tom but, eh, he seemed… busy."

("NO MERCY!" screamed Tom; "NONE GIVEN!"thundered Pat, and the Halo deathmatch began again)

"So is it really so boring here that Daria would rather I took you to be almost killed and eaten?"

Jane forced herself to regain the power of human speech. "Pretty boring," she gritted out.

"Ah, you'll feel sorry if something cool happens and you missed it."

A tumbleweed blew through Dega Street.

She remembered these old streets. She'd walked them every third day to go to the library. She'd had an adult library card and everything. And there was that time with the walkathon. And the time she'd gone to the Thanksgiving parade as a pilgrim because she'd lost a bet with Quinn.

And then, oh dear Lord in heaven, there was the muddy backlot where… where…

Daria passed by and saw Beavis and Butt-head mud wrestling in bikinis. She shut her eyes and still saw it.

Slowly, with great care, she took out her phone, started recording, and sent it to Quinn.

Five seconds later: RIIIING. "EWWWWWW!"

And up there, wasn't that the spot where the car had broken down and the idiots had tried to change their tyre so her mother would, ahem, score with them? (How long was Beavis in hospital that time?) And there was a dog turd on the sidewalk, which made her think of them too.

She wondered how Beavis and Butt-head were getting on, though not much. And then everyone else in school, except for Stewart of course. She wondered about Earl, and Martin, and Dean, and Kimberly she thought her name was, and…

Er…

Ah…

Daria paused. "Hmm. I think I feel a philosophical epiphany coming on. I hope Jane's having a more fun time."

The traffic was backed up for at least two miles and the honking filled eternity.

"I don't know about you, but I can't help but think if I leave the car to pee before anyone else does, I lose," said Amy.

Well I do NOW, thought Jane.

There was someone down there, someone… well, sniffing glue, oh dear, but she was pretty sure they'd been in her Spanish class. What was their name? Jamie? No, that wasn't it, that was someone else. Hurm.

Cautiously, she slowed down so they'd see her. They didn't notice.

"Hey."

"Grunt."

Oh.

Well, she couldn't remember him talking to her back in ninth grade either, so this shouldn't be too big a deal, but she'd always sort of thought that even though she barely noticed anyone, they had an idea who she was. Even if it was the weird chick. She got quite a few disparaging looks and insults and notes stuck to her back, so people had noticed her.

"Hey!" the familiar stranger said. "Don't I know you? Oh, hey, Cassandra. Ugly jacket, girl."

I wish I was with Jane.

"You're listening to TP40, the station that brings you the hippest, best-selling tracks of this week!"

"The radio's broken, I can't change the channel!" screamed Amy. "Dear Lord, I can't change the channel!"

She'd prided herself on walking alone, ignoring the herd, and not caring to look back, and while she knew that meant she'd have no real ties to the old hometown, she'd never expected to want any. Returning to Highland for a bit was a sobering experience. It was only when Daria could see it and remember that she realised how little ties she had to the place, how few people would have been bothered she'd left.

Her first fifteen years of life almost didn't exist, like everything had been scrubbed and forgotten as soon as she'd moved to Lawndale. Wasn't that a bad thing?

"I spend just two days without Tom and Jane, and I go all maudlin," she said to herself. "And I start talking to myself too. That could be a problem. There's only room for five Stacy's."

She kept walking. The houses around her looked the same as she remembered; maybe the colours had been cleaned up and improved, a bit of gloss to cover the grubbiness. Maybe that's why she was feeling like that. If Highland looked different, if some of the buildings had been replaced, if the long-promised renovations had finally happened, then she could ignore the place as irrelevant to her modern life. But like this, it reminded her of old times and that was sucking her in.

"I am going to feel like this for weeks unless I take action. And I think I know what that action needs to be."

Todd had been on edge since that Daria bitch had turned up. He'd tried to smack up to calm himself but it wasn't working – images of Hellion Wheels turned the high bad. He thought he'd gotten away with it when she'd moved. He thought that was it, she wouldn't remember the legal fees.

Why was she coming back for him now? Was it a rep thing? No, couldn't be: how'd people in Maryland know about it? Just straight up revenge?

He needed to get out of town. She wouldn't find him if he was out of town.

And that's how he drove past Helen and Jake.

"Hey isn't that THAT FUCKER OWES ME THREE HUNDRED CHASE HIM!"

"Remember that time that kid at school died?"

"Ohhh yeah, yeah!" Beavis attempted to remember something. "Who was that?"

Butt-head devoted all mental power to this issue. "Uhhhhhh…." In his head, something fluttered and then fell, like a dying pigeon. "Hmmm."

"Was it Stewart?"

"No. Stewart's still alive. We saw him yesterday."

"Uhh, we did? Heheh. I usually don't notice." Beavis scratched his butt thoughtfully. "I know Daria killed herself, I remember that! Heheheh."

"Uh, she didn't kill herself, she just moved away."

"Ohhhh!"

The doorbell rang. Beavis went up to open the door after it rang a fourth time, helped by an admonishment to answer the door or continue to be a fartknocker. The lad opened the door and saw Daria.

"AAAAAA! Butt-head, Daria's back from the grave!"

"Huhuhuhuh. You dumbass. That's not Daria's ghost, that's… uhhh… some girl that just looks like her, and stuff…" Deep within, a brain cell clicked. "Whoa! That girl looks like Daria! And so did Daria! Huhuh."

"Hi guys." Daria put her hands in her pocket to avoid unhygienic contact. "It's been a long time."

"Huhuhuh. Long." A crafty expression came on Butt-head's face. "Hey, Daria. Because you've been away, Beavis has been crying-"

"I've not been crying, buttmunch!"

"I believe you, Beavis."

"Huh huh. She wants you, dude."

"Ohhh! Errr, heheh, um…" Conflicting emotions rolled around Beavis' eyes. "Uh, no offence, Daria, but, ummm… We gotta have, uhhhh, standards and practices, right? Heheh. No offence, um." Pause. "Say, didn't you, like, move? So why are you, like, not somewhere else?"

"You know how people like to meet people they know, so they can fondly remember their childhood days? It's like that, except I hope to kill any interest I ever had in these days, ever."

The two lads stared at her, brains blank and mouths opened.

Ah, I feel like being generous. "Hey, guys. I send fondly. Like fondle."

"Huhhhhh… Oh yeah." Butt-head started to laugh. "That was cool!"

"Hey, hey, Butt-head, Jersey Shore's back on! Maybe we'll see some boobs this time!"

I see two big ones right now, thought Daria, but felt it would be too distracting to say out loud. "What the hell. As long as I can be sarcastic."

"Uhhh, not really. But we're gonna call everyone in it a dumbass, you can, like, watch and stuff."

Todd was maxing over 100mph and the Morgendorffers had fallen behind, but they could still track him. He had to get out. He had to.

He had to take a risk. Like…

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a freight train coming down tracks.

He jumped that and made it, he'd be free. He would. No way they'd follow.

He accelerated…

A few miles back, the Morgendorffers were turning round: "damn it, I don't know where he'll be going, let's just go back and we'll play it by ear if we see him," said Helen.

"Yeah, we don't want to be 'bread heads' or nothing," laughed Jake. "Let's go OH MY GOD LOOK BEHIND US I THINK A TRAIN DERAILED WHAT'S THAT WEIRD GREEN SMOKE COMING OUT?"

"Whoa! They arrested Snooki?"

"She was peeing in the gene pool," said Daria.

There was a long silence, before Butt-head chuckled "she sounds like that kid that went to the dentist on Youtube."

Daria sat, waiting – and then Whatsername on the show said Thingy had been arrested for "being drunk and being an idiot!", and Beavis asked if you could be arrested for being an idiot. Now was her chance.

"Don't worry, I won't snitch on you guys."

"Uhhhh, this isn't quite working out, Daria," said Butt-head apologetically.

"Yeah, heheh, you just, errrr, don't quite get the, um, the nuances and the… er…"

"Penises," experimented Daria.

"Huh huh huh huh huh huh"/"Heh heh heh heh heh"

I miss Jane. "I'm going to the bathroom."

Soon after she left, a News 7 special report about a major disaster cut into the TV.

"Damn it, Beavis, change it back!"

"I didn't do this!" protested Beavis, worried at the back of his mind that there must be some guy with a hook for a hand phoning from inside the house like in that thing.

"The situation here is positively apocalyptic! A freight train has derailed, causing a potentially TOXIC gas leak!" ("Huh huh huh") "As a precaution, a twenty-block radius of North Highland is currently being evacuated!"

Sirens and trucks and men pounding on doors filled the house, but sadly Beavis and Butt-head were unable to make the phenomenal mental leap between this and the events happening on the magic picture thing. Daria could have intervened but she was in Butt-head's bathroom, and that occupied all of her senses. Especially her smell.

"My god," she said, looking at the toilet. "It's full of stars."

There was no toilet paper. This explained much.

One look at the seat and it was decided: "If boys can pee standing up, it can't be that difficult. Jane will never believe this…"

Jane and Amy walked as one into the truck stop bathroom, and as one they walked right back out and over to the nearest tall patch of grass.

Daria came down to the fading sound of sirens (I wonder how Earl is doing these days?) and Beavis asking "What does apopalicktic mean?".

"Uhhh, I think it means, like, when it's the end of the world? Like in that movie?"

"Oh. So that means it's the apocaclipse now."

"I'm curious, what movie do you mean?" asked Daria.

"Uhhhh… hmmm. That one with all those really cool explosions and, like, stuff getting broken? But not that other one with the cool explosions."

Daria was going to write this conversation off – it wouldn't be the first time – until Beavis said they should go check the apocalypse out. And that confused her. It was entirely possible they had seen part of a film and had confused it with the news (the police had to be called in after they'd seen Red Dawn), but if there was a movie on, why did they want to go outside? Wouldn't the fresh air make them sick?

She tagged along as Beavis and Butt-head left the house (but not the smell of the house, which was far greater in size) and noticed that Highland was quiet. Too quiet. The quiet you get from a place being abandoned, or at a parent-teacher night when Ms Onepu tried to think of something positive to say about Quinn.

"Uhhh, where is everybody?"

Butt-head thought hard (okay, soft). "Oh yeah, I think part of the end of the world is that everybody's dead?" He considered the death of everyone he'd ever known. "Huh huh."

"Hehheheh… ummm… are wedead?"

"I'd never be so lucky," said Daria.

Beavis stared at her. "Uh, heheh, are we sure Daria isn't de-"

"Okay. As the man who was fed up said to the other man, I'm fed up. What happened when I was in the bathroom-" She waited for the laughing to stop ("she had to pee"). "What, precisely, happened?"

"Huh, uh, this news guy came on, and, huhuhuh, he said everyone was gonna die because someone had made a really bad fart. Huhuhuhuhuhuh!"

"Butt-head, that can't be true. For one thing, only two people in this state can fart that badly and I'd have been at ground zero."

"Hey, Daria, you're smart," said Beavis. "If everybody's dead and we're not, ehehehe, what are we supposed to do? Uhh, heh. Because the end of the world looks boring right now."

"Dumbass!" said Butt-head. "If everybody's dead and we're not, we can do anything! Nobody can tell us what not to do!"

"I can," said Daria.

"Damn it, Daria, you're starting to piss me off."

"I just said I can, I didn't say I will," said Daria. "But I draw the line at repopulating the Earth."

"Uhhh, don't be stupid, we need chicks for that."

Oh screw it."Hey, you know what would be cool? Going to the Maxi Mart and drinking all the really cold slurpies in one go. With big scoops of ice cream."

"WHOA!"

With North Highland cordoned off and Daria at the wrong end of that cordon, her parents needed to be calm and rational. So it was a pity that Jake and Helen were, quite literally, trying to headbutt their way through the police barricades.

"It ain't budging, Hellion!"

Animal intelligence flared in her mind. "Let's jump over the barriers instead!"

They did.

"Awww, they haven't changed a bit," said one officer fondly.

Beavis and Butt-head screamed in unfathomable pain as the ice-cream headaches struck them down. Daria smiled, her job complete.

"I can never get away with this sort of thing at Lawndale," she told them.

"huh huh thiIIIINGAAAUUUUU"

Calmly, she drank a spare slurpie in front of them, making sure to bend down near their ears when it reached the death-rattle point of only a mere drop in the bottom.

"And now that's out of the way, if I have this right: the town has been evacuated because of a gas leak."

"Hehehehe gas"

"Huhuhuh leak"

"Thank you. And you've decided to remain in a potential toxic hazard and pig out on stolen food because you don't understand what's happened." She sighed. "I see. So, dare I ask what you intend to do next?"

"It's the end of the world, so, like, I can do anything…" Beavis' eyes lit up. "So I'm gonna use every toilet in town! I may not even flush! Heheheheh!"

"You flushed before?" she said, surprised. "Anyway, what then?"

"We're gonna read all the porn because nobody can tell us we're too young," said Butt-head proudly.

"And then?"

"Uhhhh…" Beavis' mind jumped into first gear. "Go home?"

"Dillhole, it's the end of the world, we can stay any home we want!" Butt-head considered who he knew the names of. "Let's go live at Stewart's house."

Daria's conscience made a feeble kick. "No." Needing an excuse: "You should stay at a cooler house."

"Hey! Ourhouse is pretty cool!" said Butt-head, forgetting what he'd said just three seconds before. "And then we wouldn't have to, y'know, move all our stuff."

Daria felt like headbutting God for this. I hope Jane is doing better.

The woods are, like most woods, severely lacking in safe shelter from a huge fucking rainstorm that kicked in, complete with howling winds, just as you were too far from the car to run back.

"Your job is losing some of its glory and mystique," Jane told Amy.

"Oh, now you speak up. Pbbt, this is nothing. You should've been at Port Niranda in Australia with those seagull flocks getting irritable bowel syndrome all at the same time…"

"Oh yeah, you won an award for that 'looking up' shot."

"It's a shit business."

Beavis and Butt-head were halfway to their house when they saw another house with an open door and decided to go there instead. As Butt-head put it, if the door was open, they wouldn't have to do anything to go in.

"Anyway, they'll all be dead, so they can't tell us off if we, uhhh… I dunno."

"Heheheheh not even flush."

"This is the limits of your imagination in the face of limitless options, is it?" asked Daria.

"No," said Butt-head. "This is a house."

"Heheheh, dumbass."

"If the apocalypse really happened, you would really do this. There's only thing sadder than this and that's that I'm following you willingly. Again!"

"Huhuh, Daria wants us."

"That's it," said Daria, walking away. "I'm going to the one place I know you won't be. The school."

"Ohhh yeah, eheh, I knew I forgot something this week…"

After Daria left, Helen and Jake zoomed post on a "borrowed" motorbike ("WE'RE COMING DARIA!"). Beavis and Butt-head stared in shock.

"Oh yeah. After the apoca…acopa… uhhh, end of the world, people get to wear leather and have really cool cars and bikes and, huhuhuh, burn things and stuff…"

Deep within, a collection of brain cells struggled to make an A-to-B connection.

At the makeshift camp, Quinn stood in a sulk next to the police, while Mr Van Driessen said: "Now Quinn, I know we're all frustrated and that we'd like to take our anger out, but the policemen are just doing their jobs. It's really not nice to compare them to the Third Reich, mmm'kay?"

"m' sorry," she muttered, scowling at the ground.

"That's better. Doesn't it feel good to improve your karma?"

"No."

Highland High looked mostly the same, but they'd changed the flag and sign. They looked better now, but in a way that made the flag look fake. Apart from that, same old dull concrete, same old graffiti, same old broken window where someone had made Earl sit detention when his favourite TV show was on.

"Daria? Daria Morgandorpler?"

The speaker was someone she remembered but couldn't quite name, so it was handy when the figure identified herself as Cassandra. Lanky she was, with willowy hair and small glasses. Daria vaguely remembered that she liked art.

"Oh. Hi. There's a gas leak up north, best not go very far."

"I know," said Cassandra. "I thought I'd take a photo of it, to document the solitude and melancholy of an abandoned landscape."

Daria waited for the punchline, which never came. Been around Jane too long. "Speaking of melancholy, I was spending time near Beavis and Butt-head."

"They are such tragic souls," agreed Cassandra. "How are enjoying the trip home?"

"Well, it's funny: I started to feel bothered that I had no ties to this place, no real fond memories I cared about or people I cared about. I felt I had missed something. But Beavis and Butt-head, god bless them, helped put that all in perspective. They reminded me that I didn't like this place and the people in it – present company excluded, maybe – and I shouldn't feel bad about being selective. You don't have to keep baggage if you don't want, and I don't want to feel beholden to this place when I've come into my own elsewhere."

"Oh," said Cassandra. "I do apologise, I didn't catch any of that. I was worried about that glow over there, is that a fire?"

"Beavis is back there," said Daria, the only answer she needed. "I think I'll keep going south. Uh, has Earl got out of juvie hall yet?"

"He went back in," said Cassandra. "He's out next week. If you found Mr Van Driessen, I think he'd let you sign Earl's 'welcome back' card."

"Nah, I don't care that much."

"YEAH FFFFIREEEEE!" masturbated Beavis. "heheheheheh! So, um, now we've set the ground floor of Stewart's house on fire, should we do the first floor?"

"Course, dumbass!"

When the first propane tank exploded, Helen and Jake u-turned on the bike and sped towards the fires. So great was their desire to find their daughter and make sure she was safe, they drove right past her when she was walking in broad daylight.

Daria started to count. She'd made it to eight before the bike stopped and came back towards her.

Jane and Amy crouched behind trees, the camera trained on the gathering of Bigfoots. Who then started to talk and hand packages of drugs over.

"Oh god damn it, it's just criminals in suits again," said Amy in disgust. "Fourth time this year! What a waste of time."

"What if we just edit the film to cut that bit?" asked Jane.

"…Jane, you just saved this month's paycheque. I'm glad Daria recommended you."

She blushed. I hope you're having a good time for this, amiga.

"ONE MORE TIME!" roared Jake. "NINETY NINE BOTTLES SMASHED ON A GUY'S HEAD-"

"NINETY NINE BOTTLES OF BEER!"answered the club of punks.

"This is no fun," grated Daria but nobody heard her.

Meanwhile, back in Lawndale:

"Bro, remember Daria whistled the blow or whatever on that grade-cheating and Oakwood's running-back was suspended?" a battered Joey asked Mack. "I think they're still pissed about it."

"Jumped by 'mysterious hooded strangers', right?" Mack growled. "Thanks, Daria. Well, you're the third so far and someone's been posting threatening messages on the Lions' Facebook page. They're getting out of hand. I think it's clear what we have to do."

And that's why the captain of the Oakwood Taproots was sent a video clip of every Lion mooning the camera and singing "Oompa loompa dupity bo, why don't you try to come at me bro?".

"This game will be a major social event," Tori told Sandi and Ruby Montag, "and that means we have a chance to finally show up Cindy. We each try to grab a player for a date that day, and then we work together – no, hear me out, Sandi – we work together to ensure wherever she goes, we're rubbing it in. We'll gether this time!"

Meanwhile, a football player was asking Cindy "hey, wanna go out after the game?" (he was the third one so far).

"I'm sorry, Janet, I know you had plans," said O'Neill apologetically, "but we desperately need someone from the faculty to be at the game to watch over things…"

Stacy looked at her five separate invites and events for the next day, and started to number crunch.

"With the police all at Lawndale High, the rest of the town will be vulnerable to our attack! And when the Google-Eyes vigilante comes to save it, even she will be no match for the Gentlemen Thug, Drive-By-Night, and the Masked Mugger working together! Ahahahaha!"

"I wonder if I have enough beer for tomorrow?" asked the sports bar owner.

On the Sunday evening, the Morgendorffers' arrival home was interrupted by a State Police detour. In the distance, smoke could be seen rising above the town; helicopters were thundering overhead in formation; the radio was saying something about Guard Commander Hinz and State Police Superintendent Rawles arriving in town for emergency coordination and a meeting with the mayor.

"Awww, we go away for a few days and then something cool happens!" grumbled Quinn.

Daria stared at the distant chaos, mouth agape. Maybe I am beholden, in some important way, to Highland, and I bring that everywhere I go. Even when I'm not here. Can I escape blame for this?

She looked down at the leftover snacks from a lunch break. Oh look. Hersheys.

Something exploded in town.

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Beavis and Butt-head's new episodes take place in the present day. This series is set in the present day. How could I not do this?

Scenes and some dialogue have been lifted from (in order) the tenth issue of the B&B comic, episode Babes R Us, the Ghosts 'N Stuff commentary from Drones, Crying, a Jersey Shore 'review', and Doomsday. Incidents she remembers are also from B&B episodes and comics.

When Amy was at Port Niranda, she had to ask if you'd ever ever felt like this.

MEANWHILE, SIDEWAYS IN TIME…

Daria melted the face of the last Barbie, and announced to the class: "And that is what a single atom bomb would do if dropped on Highland County."

In the back, a student threw up.

"Daria Morgendorffer!" snapped Mrs Dickie. "That was… that was the sickest science report I've ever had the misfortune to witness! How could you do such a thing?"

The punk smirked. "I read a book on it, bitch."

"DAN-DANNA-DAN-DANNA-DAN-DANANANA!" chanted Beavis and Butt-head at the back ("hehehehehe ffffffire").

"Well, you'll have to read another, young lady! Because you're doing another report and…" The teacher noticed the young delinquents and the idea for a particularly nasty punishment came to her. "…and you'll be doing it with Beavis and Butt-head. And it has to be a report on something… nice."

"Oh you are fucking with me."

"Whoa!" said Butt-head. "We get to work with Dire Daria!"

"Hehehe! You think Daria could, y'know, beat up Pantera?"

"Uhhhh… maybe. Huhuhuh."

"Alright," growled Daria. "Have you two developed the ability to fucking think?"

Beavis and Butt-head paused to consider this. If thought bubbles existed like in comics, theirs would be blank grey and making the sound of a stalling engine.

"Ask a dumbass question. Just give me some ideas."

"Heheheh, hey Daria, I bet if you set another car on fffffire, a lot of scientific stuff would happen!" said Beavis, hopefully.

"You could, huhuhuh, headbutt someone to, like, report on fizzies or something?"

"If we dye our hair too, can we be in your gang? Hehehehe-"

"That'd be cool! Huhuhuhuh!"

"I think we need to establish some ground rules." Daria headbutted them both. "One, shut the fuck up unless I tell you to speak."

Daria's cool, thought Butt-head.

"Second, stay on topic or…" A thought came to her. "Hmmm. I think I have an idea for a 'nice' project…"

Butt-head stared at the words, which read 'Smash the Fascist State'. "Uhhhh… sm-smass-ach the… faaa-skist-"

"This show sucks, Daria! Change it! Heheeh."

"And that," Daria told the class, "seems to be that. But watch what happens when we try positive reinforcement." She took out a bag of pure sugar and held it in front of Beavis. "What does that sentence say, Beavis?"

His eyes burned with concentration and he began to sweat like a dying man in a desert. "Sm-sm-sm-smaaaaaaaaaa…"

"COME ON!"

"Smaaaasshhhh the…. The…" terror. "Aahhhh! I'm not gonna make it!"

"COME ON BEAVIS, SUGAR!"

"F-F-F-" He summoned every scrap of willpower. "faaaaasssshiiiistt staaaaattteeeee!" He collapsed, utterly spent.

"Huhuhuh. Dumbass."

"Good work, Beavis. Have some sugar. Anyway, that seems to answer the question: does positive reinforcement have a beneficial impact on- oh what the fuck is this, why is he pulling his shirt over his he-"