Bang

"Would you like some cancer with that?" It's nine in the morning and I'm getting tired of this.

Everyday is exactly the same and I end up in this endless TV show.

I tell the waitress, "No."

I'm in a strip club at the end of the world. I'm staring at a large, circular stage. Above the stage, dancers are crouched in cages – eight of them.

When the music starts, the dancers drop from the cages onto the dance floor and strip for my amusement.

I clap along with the music that has nothing to do with naked women.

The song sounds like it might be called "Let me give you a Squirrel" and the women are grinding on each other to the beat.

Sweat hits me in the face and the dancers begin looking nervous. A puff of smoke billows out from above the stage and the dancers are frozen in liquid nitro and become statuettes that will soon be auctioned off to Japanese businessmen.

I grow so tired of this, everyday.

Everyday is the end of the world.

A woman sits down next to me and says "I wish I sold crack for a living."

I ask her why and she replies "Why not?"

I laugh at this and she tells me that she's a bartender here.

I ask her if it makes good money and she opens her mouth, revealing a large set of fangs, and answers "I don't need money."

The thought of this woman tearing a large hole in my jugular crosses my mind, but then I remember that I'm a dignitary at the end of the world and the thought passes.

"You're a dignitary aren't you?" She asks, confirming my thoughts.

"Yes, I'm here on behalf of America."

"What's America?"

"It's a country that was once in the world, before it ended."

"Um. Was it nice?"

"Do you know any countries that are nice?"

"Don't be a smart ass." She says as a tongue flashes across her lips and I remind myself that this woman lives on people juice.

I get up and walk to the door, but before I leave I order a beer from the bar.

There's no open container law at the end of the world.

I walk outside and realize the vampire is following me and whisper "Oh, Jesus."

Jesus is standing near the door talking to a hooker, and hears this. He's in a foul mood and I understand why.

"What the fuck do you want?"

I whisper "Amen." And assume this ends the conversation.

Outside I'm reminded that there is no sun at the end of the world and light a candle to walk with.

I'm going to another bar.

The Oredorium is the bar at the very end of the world and I decide to go there.

On the edge of reality, it teeters on stilts and many a drunk has fallen into the void.

In fact, there's a sign that reads "WARNING: VOID" posted in front of the end of the world, proper.

In the bar I sit next to Santa Claus and he's bitching up a storm about some martini he didn't receive. I tell Santa "Easy, pal."

"Don't fucking easy me, pal. OK? I've been waiting here for twenty minutes for a fucking drink and the Easter Bunny is over there talking to my bitch. Now, if I want to get the courage to smack that fuck, I'm going to need that martini!"

He's drunk again.

I order another beer, tilt the rest of the one I was drinking, and then wander over to the jukebox.

I look at the tracks and can't even understand what language the songs are scribed in.

I randomly hit a button and Kurt Cobain begins babbling about his lack of a gun.

An alien taps me on the shoulder and says "I'm here to give you syphilis." I laugh at this until I realize he's holding a hypodermic needle. He's tall and has a large, orange head with midnight eyes.

I pull out my gun and shoot him in the face.

Through the smoking hole in his head I see the bartender produce another beer. I reach through the hole and grab it, before the body has a chance to drop.

Death is like a punch in the face here and not everyone who dies stays dead.

Take Jesus. He's been killed so many times that lately he's just been offing himself for sport.

"I can't die, man." I remember him telling me once. "It's like...shit! It takes all the fun out of life."

I told him "I know what you mean." Even though I didn't.

I realize Elvis is playing Gin down the bar and I sit next to him and ask him if he has a smoke.

He tells me "No." in a low voice and I realize he's losing again.

And to Richard Nixon, no less.

"How's things, Dick?" I ask Nixon.

"So, you're still the ambassador for America, right?"

I tell him "Yes."

He replies "Tell me, Axl – what's America's interest in the end of the world?"

I tell him "They're real religious these days. You're a Quaker, don't you remember religion?"

"Wasn't that all that bullshit about Jesus being the Son of God?"

"Yes."

"Well, there's the son of God." I follow his finger and Jesus is at a corner table drinking shots out of a Drano bottle.

Jesus raises his glass "To passion!"

Nixon looks me in the eye, winks and says "Where's your messiah now?"

I get up and Nixon grabs me by my jacket.

"What the hell, we're playing a game!" Elvis screams.

Nixon pulls me down to him and says "If you go back, tell them that aliens have been running the world since 1945."

"Really?"

"No. But, tell them anyway."

There are aliens, but they don't start running the world until the very end. They live a town over and John Wayne is firing at them through an open window.

Lennon and Lenin are sitting at the bar playing a game:

"You're Lenin!"

"No, you're Lennon!"

"No, you're Lenin!" and so forth.

I think they're lovers.

I have to send some sort of report back towards the beginning of the world, to around 2000 and I'm having trouble thinking of anything to report.

Would they like to know that America collapsed in 2064 and that religion was rendered obscure when Voyager came back with the meaning of life taped to its nose cone? That God is a peanut butter sandwich that acquired divinity through osmosis with his own ridiculousness and looped the Universe into a donut, only to create it billions of years in the past? That Neil Diamond is going to come back in a really, really big way?

Probably not, and that's why I'm sending the transmission.

Hell, it's my job.

I walk to the void and stare out and watch the big bang envelope the sky and realize that the Hotpocket is the only worth while man-made invention.

This confuses me; I transmit my letter, and step out into the void.