Me Head

Lost Pet Notice

by Berck Nash

  The Pen has vanished. Not just any pen, my pen, The Purple Pen. When I was inaugurated here at GTE*, I was assigned an occasionally functional computer on a table shared with a color printer. And my pen, The Purple Pen. The purple pen must have been banished to hell, its soul wishing it had found Jesus. Perhaps it's been reincarnated as a color printer. At first I thought the first color printer committed mitosis because there's two of them now.

  Closer inspection revealed differences in model numbers that couldn't have occurred as a result of background radiation. Therefore, it must have reproduced sexually, but I'm not sure who the father is--he's nowhere to be found. The new color printer is substantially older than the original one. If this bothers you, then you should reconsider your prejudicial conceptions about the linear nature of time. If this does not bother you, then I would like you to find my missing pen. I mean, extract the essence of The Purple Pen from that bastard color printer. There is a reward for the return of the essence of my pen to me. If you can return the essence in its original container, preferably with a bit of ink left, then please contact me at PurpulPIN4me@aol.com.

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*Don't let them fool you with crap about vertical horizons, that's what happens when CEOs get trashed and pass out on the beach. They look out over the water, and see that the horizon now appears to be vertical. In a fit of existential brilliance CEO alpha groans to CEO beta, "let's merge. We'll call our new company 'Verizon'** in memory of the day the horizon was rotated 90 degrees clockwise."

  "No, it's counter clockwise," CEO beta mutters back playing with her hands trying to remember which way a clock moves.

  "You passed out the other way," explained CEO alpha, proud of his superior grasp of spatial relationships.

  "Huh?"

  "Nevermind."