How Come There's Never Been A Weapon Of Mass Destruction On A Wheaties Box?

It's a decent question...

In the beginning there was darkness. Which is a good thing because that way I don't have to describe it to you. No fumbling metaphorical references to bewilder and cause panic. Just darkness. Simple as that, shit-heads.

The universe serves as a constant reminder that in between the lights there is a mass of nothingness that, conveniently for me, is dark. No description necessary. There's millions of light years of darkness out there separating everything. Dividing us from some secret after life that is rumored to be hidden somewhere in all that blank nothingness. Either that or countless worlds inhabited by lizard people and one eyed bird-men that have yet to discover how fantastically delightful the human brain tastes with ketchup. They have yet to discover the wonders of ketchup as well, but what the hell else are you going to put on brains? It's simple food math people.

So you've got these bright lights floating around in all that darkness. One, in particular, is surrounded by countless mechanical devices that enable folks in Thailand to watch American Gladiators. This particular ball of light is called Earth, which (if you ask me), is a rather pathetic name for a planet. You'd think we could have come up with something better than EARTH. Maybe something like SUPERTRON, or VARANOVA or something. But no. Just Earth. We're just Earthlings. I foresee us being a rather popular target for interstellar warlords. It's like invading a country called 'The Free Republic of Fluffy Teddies'. They're laughing at us right now. So far they've found it so debilitating that they have yet to act. But that'll wear off. Maybe after we've been assimilated they'll change the name of the planet to something cool. Like Guitar Wolf. But that's the way things are. That's the way they've always been. No matter what creationist tale you champion there's one constant. In the beginning there was darkness. And the beauty of that truth is that I don't have to describe it to you. Lucky me.

I have often watched the sky and wondered where all the voices go after they've talked themselves out. Perhaps they fade down here on earth. Maybe they continue upwards into that darkness like some unknown weapon of massive sonic destruction. Imagine that. You're sitting on your front porch on some far distant planet when it's unexpectedly bombarded by a million voices talking about nothing at all. There sheer magnitude of the mundane ripping your world to shreds and moving on to claim other worlds. Who knows. If sound travels at the speed of sound then think of how destructive we ourselves might be, given the fact that for countless ages we've been talking, screaming, and wailing hysterically on the Price Is Right. The audio from that show alone could have wiped out Andromeda for all we know. Those lights up there take their sweet time getting to us. Maybe all those lights have burned out. If that's the case then you already know what the universe looks like, as I've previously pointed out.

For all you scientists out there I realize that sound dissipates. It bounces of things and it's wave form straightens as it hitch-hikes through the air. But that's the beauty of fiction. I can say whatever I want and there's nothing you can do about it, cabbage heads. Hell, the Christian Coalition does it to you guys ever ten minutes. Between the two of you I could make a truck load of money in one night at the MGM Grand. WORLD SCIENTIST VS THE CHRISTIAN COALITION. Now that's a fight to the death worth watching. Knowing my luck they'd just stand on either side of the ring yelling at each other. You never know. Some Chaos Math genius might try to bite an ear off to prove a point. That point being 'an ear for an ear', I would suspect.

The point of all this is that you never can tell what's out there in all that darkness. Some extremely unromantic figure in a dark alley way that represents all the badness of the world. 'For the love of god, don't go down there!' they say. So everyone does. It's just the way the game is played. Stupidity's been running a boot camp outside of town for quite sometime now. There's an army of mall-rats with their shit eating grins turned upside-down. Way, way upside-down. It should come as no surprise to you that you yourself might be a graduate of that rotten academy. Some of us have even risen to the ranks of the super stupid. A posting of the utmost honor and regard, few are skilled enough to hold office for long. But there are some that have pulled it off. Vink Lippy wasn't one of them.

If there was one thing Vink hated it was his name. Vink Lippy. That's what happens when your mother has a speech impediment. Your birth certificate says 'Vincent Libby'. Your mom can't pronounce it so she called you Vink instead of Vince. 'Libby', of course, came out as Lippy. So instead of Vince Libby everyone calls you Vink Lippy because when you're four years old you don't know that your retarded mother is pronouncing your name wrong. You think the world of her and, as far as you're concerned, your name is VINK. Just for a moment ponder the adolescent possibilities of that name. DINK LIPPY. The LIPSTER. LIPPY DINK. LIMPY. And Vink's all time favorite: LIMPY DINKSTER. It's his favorite because the last person who ever called Vink 'Limpy Dinkster' was found in the woods missing his eye balls. There's reason to believe that really gay names can produce tough kids. Going one stop further down the Freudian highway we come to Psychoville. Population 2. Vink Lippy and Seymour Kuntz.

Vink was not an ordinary kid growing up. By ordinary I mean 'just like everyone else'. He didn't rush out and buy purple pants just because everyone was wearing purple pants. Some people might consider such actions courageous. Others might just beat you up because you're wearing flared cords that your tongue twisted mother bought for you at fields. But things like that are just tiny numbers in the massive equation of life. Every life has a moment in it when the answer to each of our equations is revealed. Due to the years of constant torture he was subjected to, Vink's came after he was arrested for a double homicide. The two unlucky winners being the last person that ever called him 'Limpy Dinkster' and his mother. And, in a bizarre way, maybe the answers to their equations came to them while Vink was plunging their plumbing with a Christmas carving knife. Who knows. Could be.

So Vincent Libby was taken into custody by the police and held until his trial. He was discovered sitting at the kitchen table with the knife in his hands, rolling eye balls around in a big metal bowl. The arresting officer was later quoted as saying 'the young man we arrested this afternoon was both lucid and quite aware of his actions. When asked to surrender his weapon he turned to the officer and asked him - how come there's never been a weapon of mass destruction on a wheaties box?-. Following this statement he placed the knife on the table and allowed the officer to handcuff him. It was the strangest and most grotesque thing I've seen in nineteen years on the force'. So they took Vink out to a car and sped him to the station. After word of the murders got out, a mob came down to the jail and started demanding that Vink be hung. Everyone, that is, except for the parents of the kid that Vink had killed. They just stood at the bottom of the jailhouse stairs with blank expressions on their faces wondering what had happened. 'What' is a useless thing to ask most of the time when what you really need to know is 'why'. That's the problem with 'why'. Most of the time it just takes the fun out of being part of a blood thirsty mob.

So, the days past and the trial eventually started. Vink was represented by an idiot who used single syllable words to describe to other idiots that Vink was a troubled young man that should be helped and not hurt. The prosecution, on the other hand, was convinced that they were faced with the makings of the serial killer of the century. They thought Vink would just kill again as soon as he was released. One of the prosecutors even likened Vink to Michael Myers from Halloween saying that he was altogether evil and existed only to take human life without remorse. He might have been right. Then again, during all those long days of deliberation, there was only one person in the whole world Vink wanted to kill. And that was the prosecutor. That 'why' word keeps popping up, doesn't it.

At long last the trial came to a close and Mr. Lippy was found guilty of two murders, both in the second degree. He was sentenced to two years in a juvenile facility and another thirty years in an adult prison. So, without a word, Vink did what he was told and went from the court house to a kiddy jail way out in the woods (kind of like a camp with bars and without sexy camp councilor chicks). And during his time there no one besides two guards and a court appointed shrink spoke to him. And during that time Vink said only fourteen words. 'How come there's never been a weapon of mass destruction on a wheaties box, hu? The hu? doesn't count. It ain't no word.

Vink's short stint in the kiddy lock-up was rather uneventful as prison terms go. Though filled with a variety of so called bad-asses, no one dared look at or talk to Vink. Because when you're in Juvie for stealing a car and carrying a gun that you're not man enough to use when you pull it out, you find young men that have brutally hacked up two people and removed their eye balls rather frightening. It doesn't matter if they're skinny little freaks that look like they couldn't hurt a fly if they wanted to. You're just plain fucking scared silly of them. The reason? Because everyone has to sleep some time. And, more importantly, the horrible truth about yourself has finally been revealed. The fact that you walk around acting tough and carrying as gun doesn't mean a damn thing. The fact that you've been in numerous street fights and jails doesn't mean a damn thing. Next to someone that has the ability to remove human eye balls and roll them around in a huge metal bowl you're just a big fucking disappointment in the super-bad-ass scheme of things. Because you could never bring yourself to do it. And that kid, that skinny little kid with the funny pants, was smiling when he did. For the first time in your life you figure out what wrong and right actually are. Even though you've grown up in a place that could be hell disguised as some suburban war zone you just don't have the same darkness in your eyes as that kid does. And, frankly, you hope that you never do. So you put on your purple pants and you just walk away. Because picking on him isn't an option anymore. Funny how shit turns out, hu?

The shrink at the kiddy prison tried her best to get through to Vink. But in those two short years she couldn't get anything out of him besides his fourteen favorite words. In her report to the Child Welfare Board she wrote 'Vincent is most likely a highly intelligent individual who's potential was never fully exploited or encouraged. Mr. Whatley has searched his quarters on several occasions while Vincent has been in session with me and has discovered reading materials that far surpass the intellect of the young men commonly found in an institution such as this. Though I firmly believe that Vincent does suffer from a number of psychological disorders, I must admit that I feel his actions were the result of pressures that had been building inside of him for quite some time. My failure to make any contact with him during the past two years places me in a difficult situation. It is therefore my recommendation that Vincent be transferred to a maximum security institution for further evaluation and therapy. Placing him in a normal prison will only further his condition and may result in a complete disassociation with society and reality, rendering him quite capable of repeating his actions without conscious thought.'

Unfortunately the court didn't see eye to eye with the good doctor. Instead they decided to extend Vink's sentence to fourty five years. So, the day after his eighteenth birthday, Vink was taken from the kiddy prison and transferred to the BIG HOUSE (though to look at him I don't think you would have noticed anything but indifference). To be quite honest with you, Vink had spent the entire time floating around the universe in all that darkness that I haven't been describing. Screaming at the top of his lungs and blowing up planets with his favorite words. Those being xenophobia and tits.

So that's the way it went for Vink. He spent his entire adult life locked in a small room reading books. And though some might consider that heaven, I can assure you that it didn't mean anything to Vink. As far as Vink was concerned he wasn't even in prison. He was flying around the universe blowing up planets with his favorite words, free as a bird. From time to time he'd go outside for a while, or down to the cafeteria to eat. And, once in a very long while, he'd be taken to another small room to watch a little TV. His favorite show was Star Trek. He liked the fact that the Enterprise just flew around the universe, kind of like him. It was the only time he smiled. And, quite often, the only time he cried.

It's times like these that one looks at a life and poses some stern questions. Questions like 'what's all this been about then?' and 'who really cares if I'm here or not anyway?' These were questions that Vink didn't require answers for. As far as he was concerned both of those questions were easily answered. And those answers were simply this: nothing in particular and no one whatsoever. Mankind has grappled with these questions, and others, for thousands of years. No one has ever come up with anything concrete though. The reason for this? Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that not knowing is the whole point of being. Maybe being is what you make it. And what you make it depends entirely on what you consider 'making it'. Vink's idea of 'making it' was floating around the universe spewing words of destruction. As far as he's concerned everybody just talks too much. There's just not enough doing. And that, my little friends, is the difference between questions and answers. Talking and doing. So maybe that's why things are the way they are. Because we're so busy talking that we never get around to the doing. To illustrate this point I urge you to kill a couple of people and roll their eye balls around in a big metal bowl. Though crude, it's an effective demonstration of doing . Kind of like a science experiment. I don't see what the big deal is. People conduct that experiment every day. You just never hear about it because everyone's so busy talking about doing something about it. But I digress.

On the morning of Vink's sixty third birthday he was lying in bed doing a little clean up. He had recently returned from decimating parts of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster to finish a little business closer to home. He was currently screaming at Alderbaran on his way to the Hyades and the Pleiades. He was dressed in normal people clothes for the first time in fourty seven years. They were given to him by the Salvation Army. The reason he was wearing a faded beige suit and shoes the were one size too big was because he was being released. He had served his sentence quietly and peacefully and was no longer considered a threat to society. He was a withered old man. He was the only secular sixty three year old virgin in the entire world. Everyone who had anything to do with his original case file was dead. Even the purple pants crew. So Vincent Libby was released. He walked through a large metal door and stepped into a world that he had no idea how to fit into to. He had two hundred and thirty two dollars in his pocket and a one way bus ticket to his home town (where he would be a parolee for many years to follow). But instead of going home Vink decided to use a little of his money and trade his ticket in for a one way fare to Florida. He didn't know why he wanted to go to Florida, it just seemed like the thing to do. So that's what he did. He went to Florida. Eventually you will too.

So Vink got on a bus and woke up two days later as it rolled into Miami. Vink decided to check into a cheap motel by the beach and spent two days just sitting in his room destroying planets. Old habits die hard. On the third day he decided to take a walk and wandered into a convenience store to get some magazines to read. One of them was Omni. He also purchased a chocolate bar and a lottery ticket. By the fourth day Vink was left with only fourteen dollars, just enough to get breakfast and lunch. He was also kicked out of the motel. So he just sat on a bench and flew around the universe for hours on end, prompting various bus drivers to pull over for no reason whatsoever. On the morning of the fifth day Vink was still sitting on that bench. Sadly, it was there that his adventures on this silly globe came to an end.

When some kids realized they weren't poking some old man sleeping, but rather some old man that was dead, the police were called and Vink's body was taken to the morgue. Having no family, his possessions were placed in a box, as was his body. Most of his pristine organs were harvested for science, coincidentally after they found out he was a 'fugitive' that had broken his parole. His belongings, on the other hand, were simply thrown away. What no one knew was that the lottery ticket he had bought two days before was worth just under thirty five million dollars. That's the irony of one life, I suppose. But Vink didn't care. He was flying around the universe destroying planets again. Just like he'd never been alive. Just like it had all be a dream during some universal sleep. So that's the way doing closes out. By itself on a bus bench in Miami.

In the end there is only darkness, just like in the beginning. Luckily for me I don't have to describe it for you. It is what it is. And maybe that's the whole point. Maybe not knowing is the gift given us, not intellect or speculation or faith. Maybe you should just float around the universe for a while and blow-up some planets with all those useless nouns and verbs you've been tricking yourself with. Maybe we should just grind everything to a halt and not think so damn much for a change instead. Second star to the right and straight on till morning.

Nighty-night.