BP/META: Pointless Posting Man: The Great RACCtastrophe

[Tim Munn]

Boring Publications Presents...

Pointless Posting Man

The Great RACCtastrophe


"It's all so blank," lamented Pointless Posting Man, "I don't know how
much longer this can last!"

He paces back and forth, the pain in his brain is driving him insane.
He has come up with the fabled Post With a Point.  But the newsgroups
are down.  It must be the work of the Radical Librarians!, raced
Pointless Posting Man's thoughts in an endless circle.  Life is tough,
then you come up with the Post With a Point that ties it all together,
then you post it!  No such luck here.  The internet is dead.  Dead.

The Pointless Posting Signal!  How it beeps!  No, no.  Just more
dismal hope for Pointless Posting Man.  Dang.  He droops a little, his
underpants helmet sagging wearily over his brow.  He pushes the helmet
up, it falls back down.  The elastic has gone out, the result of his
constant preparedness.  It sags again.  He opens the flap; he's a one-
eyed ogre.  RAWR.

"How much longer?" he weakly asks.  He fervently taps the refresh
button.  Still no internet.  Still no internet goers giddily reading
the Post With a Point.  The Post-Phone rings.  It's Librarian Man.

"Have you seen the internet?"

"No, I haven't," Pointless Posting Man responds.

"I could have sworn, it was here a moment ago."

"You sound tired, perhaps confused.  Maybe you should get some rest."

"This work against the Radical Librarians, it never stops."

"I know old friend.  Please, get some rest."

"Yes, yes.  Rest.  Good night, pork chop."

"Pork chop?!  Why, you must have me confused for the meat section!"

Pointless Posting Man paces back and forth, punching fist to palm.
The Radical Librarians.  It must be!  Only they could hassle Librarian
Man to such heinous ends!  He is startled by a knock at the door.
Someone is at the door.  Someone.  He opens the door to dazzling
bright light.  Almost snow-blind.  In the middle of summer.

His eyes adjust to terrible sights.  The landscape, lifting itself in
the air.  Lifting, lifting until it is ten, twenty, thirty feet in the
air.  Everything; home, shrubbery, child-- Ice Cream Man even!--
lifted up as if by the hand of God.  Just... there.  Ice Cream Man and
child yipe for Pointless Posting Man's help.

He raises outstretched hands to them, willing them into his grasp.  So
hard, so hard.  They cry out again.  His power was to create the Post
With a Point.  He's completed that task.  He is done.  His arms lower
slightly, and again Ice Cream Man and child call out for him.  Again
his hands go out, a false smile curling at lips edge.  I can't, he
mouths to them.  The child cries, receiving little solace from Ice
Cream Man's ice cream head.

Ice Cream Man melts onto Pointless Posting Man's shoes.  He still
stands there, still waiting for the girl to somehow figure out how to
fall into his arms.  He does not notice the smoke rising from his
feet.  Not at first.  He sees the whisps playing whispfully in front
of him.  Fire.  Athlete's Foot.  Burn.

He looks momentarily down, before noticing a peculiarity.  The black
whisps were not smoke.  No, they were something more dreadfully
horrendous.  They were words.  Namely: Ice Cream Man.

"Ice Cream Man..." he looks up to the child, "Ice Cream Man!"

She stops crying, asking for Ice Cream Man.

"He's here!  He's here!" Pointless Posting Man says enthusiastically.

But in a brief moment, the words I C E C R E A M M A N tear apart.  A
low cry trickles to Pointless Posting Man's ear.  A look of horror
comes to him as what is left of those words seem to phase out of
existence.  The girl begins screaming, as similar events start all
around them.

"Where?" Pointless Posting Man whispers.  But in a millisecond, the
word is caught up, even before Pointless Posting Man has any idea what
that really means.  The word rips completely apart, and just phases
away.  Pointless Posting Man takes a step from his stoop, reaching out
for the girl, again with a smile.

"Don't cry!  It'll be alright!  I'll save you!"

The house across the street goes in a large boom.  The words
describing it floating about aimlessly.  It would have made for great
word padding, thought a distressed Pointless Posting Man.  He shakes
his head slightly.  Poof, there they go.  He looks back to the girl,
the only thing left in the neighborhood besides himself and his home.
He reaches out again.

"I can't.  I can't," he cries.

She sniffles.  "It's okay, mister man, sir.  I'll be going now."

There she goes, but Pointless Posting Man doesn't look.  He doesn't
look again for a good ten minutes.  He looks again.  Looking.  His
house still stands.  The door has disappeared.  Inside, a few trinkets
and knick-knacks here and there are gone.  All the knives and forks in
the kitchen are gone.  The internet is back.  He is disturbed by the
message on the screen.

The kitchen sink does the job.  Send it to Waste Management Man, he
almost laughs.  Who knows if Waste Management Man is still real?  Who
knows where he flushed the vomit to?  He laughs.  He feels he might be
going crazy.  He steps outside, again raising his arms.  A thunder
echoes throughout the whitespace.  The words 'Lightning Bolt' appear
in the sky, racing down towards him.  They stop just above, out of
reach.  He sees the outline of another man.

"Ice Cream Man?" Pointless Posting Man mistakenly asks.  He is scolded
with a K I C K in the butt.  No, not Ice Cream Man!  This man wears a
turban on his head.  This man!  The leader of the Radical Librarians!
"Vlad the Reader!  You fiend!"

"Fiend or foe?  HA!  How can I be so surprised that you would be the
last 'hero' left!  HA!"

"Your reign of terror ends here, Vlad!" Pointless Posting Man vows,
waving a fist in the air.

"Terror, you say?  What terror!" The word appears behind Vlad,
stalking him almost impatiently.  Vlad smiles a bit, and terror
moodily floats away.  The two glare at each other furiously.  The
match ends only when Vlad breaks the silence.

"I must make a confession, Pointless Posting Man-"

"Tell me none of your lies, Devil!"

"How sad.  Of you and for me.  My words are much more true than you
know, Pointless Posting Man.  Each and every thought, had it not been
for this turban.  The God-awful thing!  It makes my head look huge!
But, because of it, I'm able to use my words coherently.  My
disability, my greatest ability." Vlad looks thoughtfully into the
vast whiteness.  He turns a moment later, a sullen look on his face.

"I confess, a great well of emotion rising up in him, "I confess that
I took it too far.  Too far.  I wanted the words, all of them.  I was
greedy.  I wanted them all for myself.  All for myself.  All the time
in the library.  Librarian Man, he, he was my friend.  I wanted what
he had.  I wanted his words.  The turban in the lost and found was the
start.  My hunger and ability grew from there.  I sold my soul,
Pointless Posting Man, to the LIBRARY."

A library simultaneously appeared and disappeared, if that were
possible, floating above them, then not.  Vlad, himself floating,
falls to a heap, the turban tumbling to his side.  Pointless Posting
Man looks to it, then to Vlad.  There is great fear in Vlad's eyes.
Pointless Posting Man bends to toss the turban away, Vlad wincing in
pain.  Pointless Posting Man moves to tend to the fallen leader of the
Radical Librarians.

"N-n-no," Vlad pushes Pointless Posting Man away, after a few moments
he stops trying.  He weakly utters his own name.  A child's writing
book comes into reality.  Vlad Reading is scrawled across the cover in
a child's hand.  He sighs deeply, opening the book.  It contained his
correspondence to the outside world from the time he learned to write,
until he found the turban, that allowed him coherent speech for the
first time.  'I take it all back, O God!, I take it all back!'

He tried, tried, tried to write something about the sky.  Pointless
Posting Man had asked Vlad to take the turban, he shunning it
thoroughly.  Vlad's mind was deteriorating.  The words, the
handwriting.  Vlad gives a final 'Wauwooweewoo' before smoke starts
rising off his body.  He silently laughs, madness in his eyes.

Several hours pass, the clock without the hour hand says.  Then the
clock itself.  Pointless Posting Man looks up.

"The sky.  Spirit in the sky."

Spirit, from the way it looks, probably not.  Something in the sky,
most definitely.  It looks like tiny ants.  Pointless Posting Man
thinks about it for a while.  He comes to a realization.  The
Internet!  That has the answers!  But, there it sits, staring moodily
at him.  That message.  That message.  This was not the Post With a
Point.  This wasn't even Vlad's nefarious doing.  This is too much.
This is too far beyond Vlad's peak abilities.  The little green person
indicating connection was active.

"Let's do this."

Success, that terrible thing!  Pointless Posting Man couldn't believe
he just did that.  What if the Library Cops were real?  Well, if he
was able to get out of this mess, that would be an incredible Post
With a Point.  Outside now, Pointless Posting Man looks up.

"Ant Thing in the sky-" fuzzy ant-looking things scurried high above,
looking down; a haze blurred them in the whitespace, some had
appendages, some had wings; no, better yet, some in the rippling mass
were vowels.  Pointless Posting Man laughs at it, thinking to pick up
the turban.  Even if it fries my brains into thinking I'm an animal in
the zoo, I'll beat this thing!  The turban is a snug fit.  Pointless
Posting Man smiles at its comfortability.  He raises his hands,
outstretched, to the sky, to the rippling mass of consonants and
vowels.

"Words in the sky, I'm gonna beat you!"

A buzzing noise fills the whitespace.  The letters begin an eerie
funnel down to Pointless Posting Man.  "Dang."

A second later, he's floating.  A peaceful smile on his face.  He
looks down, to the whitespace where his house once was.  He laughs,
realizing horrificly: "It's all so blank."

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There are no more words to describe Pointless Posting Man.



Copyright 8.8.2011 by Tim Munn
written 2:14 a.m. - 4:18 a.m.