Editor’s Note: The gripping conclusion to this story. Did you read the whole thing? I don’t believe it. I sure as hell didn’t.
I came to in a haze. I was lying on hot asphalt, my face toward the sky, but my newly returned vision obscured by hot breath and saliva. I wearily slid back to find the source of my moistening. I was greeted with the dopey face of a spritely pit bull puppy. I rose to my feet and attempted to quell his exuberance.
“Down boy. Girl. Pit bull baby, just. Come on.”
As he paced happily around my feet, I started to become aware of my surroundings.
Champagne waterfalls spilled serenely over dark chocolate cliffs. A thin haze pervaded the air all around. I stood in the middle of a valley among the cliffs. Trees draped with gigantic chains and covered in leaves of gold cast shadows along the blacktop. I should make clear that the leaves were not golden, but actual gold. Also the cliffs: actual chocolate. And why the fuck is the ground asphalt just everywhere?
My gaze caught a line of white paint along the ground, which I began to follow. A boundary of some sort. It made a right angle and shot to the left. Following it further, I began to hear distant giggling. As I moved closer, the laughter mixed with a low droning pulse that built steadily with a crescendo. Past a small thicket of trees, which, I can’t stress enough, were growing from pavement, I saw shimmering metal. I quickly ducked behind a tree trunk and peered, like a bitch.
Looking down the length of the line I saw the first point of its interruption: an enormous steel pole atop which was, of course, a basketball hoop. Racist. Underneath gathered a gaggle of ghetto girls. Wearing what essentially amounted to dental floss and broken dreams, the girls were shaking what their mommas forced on them to the now clearly audible bass thumping just a little louder than the Homeowner’s Association would appreciate.
I only peeled my eyes away from the T&A parade when a man slid a credit through one of the girl’s asses. That statement does not bear repeating. The suddenly present feminist in me propelled me from my hiding place to object.
“Hey now you just wait a gosh darn mi–”
The rest of my protest squeaked inaudibly from my throat as I was yanked violently to the ground, a hand clasped over my mouth. I peered up from under my brow to its owner: Carson Daly.
“Be quiet. If they catch you over here, we’re through before we’ve started.”
He pulled me to my feet, quelling my next attempt to speak with an alarmingly soft finger to my lips. I had a feeling it was gonna get gay real quick.
We hustled through a thicket of gold leaf trees, keeping low to the ground. A few feet past the last sapling, we ducked behind a decommissioned hot tub. I took in Carson’s late 90′s face.
“What is this, I don’t even” was all I could muster.
“Listen and listen closely. We are in an alternate universe. The Profaniverse. It’s the oasis for all things offensive, the fortress of filth, the source of all smut. Many years ago it was created to horde all of the world’s dirty, innuendo laden, scantily clad garbage. Here it could breed and grow, slowly leaking into the world rap video by rap video. It is the brainchild of its fearless leader. The one man who produces enough skank to warrant an entire alternate universe.”
I waited on eggshells. But not literally, on account of the pavement.
Carson paused, then delivered the blow: “David Banner.”
My testicles rescinded into my body in that way they do when its super cold and you forgot pants. And you’re a boy. I figured that was implied. Carson continued in his increasingly attractive tenor.
“The Filth started infiltrating the real world, slowly but surely. A little N.W.A. here, a little Naughty by Nature there. But it didn’t take long before it grew. More and more of the Filth was showing up every month, then every week, then almost every day. I was tasked with leading the resistance in our universe. I used TRL to promote anti-Filth. N*SYNC, Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, whatever bubblegum pop we could pump out to fight the Filth. But it wasn’t enough. We needed to cut it at its source.”
Carson’s eyes dropped and he let out an exasperated sigh. I could see it pained him to continue. Or maybe he was just out of breath. He had been babbling for fucking ever.
“That’s when I was sent here. My strength in sanitary entertainment was enough to hold off the Filth. It still made it out in phases, but I did well to keep it mostly at bay. At least for a short time. Then, R. came. He was nearly as powerful as David, with even less to lose. He was David’s right hand man, his top general, his enforcer. He quickly became too much to handle. The guy could fly for Heaven’s sake! The Filth began to pour out into our universe, soaking the airwaves, dripping all over the youth of the world all nasty and gross. I was powerless to stop it.”
Carson was staring at his feet now, sullen, defeated. Suddenly, he snapped back to reality, his eyes lighting up, his tale taking a turn.
“That was until something changed. R. changed. I can never be sure exactly what caused it, but he disappeared back to our universe for a stretch and when he came back, he wasn’t the same. I overheard something about lawyers and possibly jail, but no details. After that, he was different. He began to subvert David, cleaning things up like the FCC behind his back. By the time David caught on, R.’s plan was in motion. In one fell swoop, like the reverse of Pandora’s box, R. enveloped all of the Filth and dragged it screaming into its prison. A closet.”
I stared slack-jawed.
“You’re fisting me, right?”
“No. No, fists are both right here.”
He showed me his fists. Such supple skin.
Carson went on.
“Once he trapped the Filth in the closet, R. returned to our universe. R. created his ‘Trapped in the Closet’ saga to to tell his story, albeit layered in the sparkling metaphors only R. is capable of producing.”
My face contorted at his compliment. Carson ignored it.
“He, and rightly all of us, believed that we were safe. Little did we know David’s cunning. He lay in wait, gaining strength each passing day. He planted the golden trees, poured the asphalt earth, and forged his whorish minions. Finally, somehow, he got to R.’s creation. He rigged it so that once someone watched it start to finish, a portal to the Filth’s universe would open. The saga being so long, it went quite some time unwatched. Sure, people saw the beginning and a few went further than that, but no one ever reached the end. Not even R. himself. Until you.”
I vomited. Not a lot, but enough to be pretty noticeable. You can’t really hide throwing up very well. Carson’s face became grave. Sexy and grave.
“The same portal in R.’s theater that brought you here is now a gaping maw of darkness, spewing a torrent of the vile Filth into our reality.”
Carson cast his eyes to the ground. I followed his lead and stared down. My mind began to drift, wondering how miserable it would be if shirts were only made of blacktop when Carson spoke again. His voice had an excitement to it. A really fuckable excitement.
“All is not lost. Hope springs eternal. Come. We must hurry!”
Gripping my wrist with a fierce yet loving tension, Carson and I headed away into the distance.
After a great deal of running, wheezing, semi-jogging, sitting, hacking, and a bit more running, we arrived at the mouth of a great cave situated to the West of the furthest champagne fall.
I stared in awe at its magnificence as Carson skittered around a corner and out of sight. My ears caught a rustling and some faint murmuring from the place to which he had disappeared. A few seconds passed before Carson popped his perfectly formed head around the corner. His hot, dirty body followed after, but he was not alone. Behind him trailed…it couldn’t be…
R.
In a blazing white suit, R. stood before me, somehow not high from the peyote and frogs. In fact, I just now noticed that, since coming here, I wasn’t either. Nice side effect, I reasoned.
“Sup, Nigga?” R. said to me, failing to observe the irony and blatant racism of his greeting.
“Forgive him.” Carson sexed. “He sometimes has trouble fighting the influence of the Filth in this world.”
R. looked closer to a child fighting the urge to steal candy from a 7-11 than a powerful flying R&B artist or whatever he normally was. He fiddled with his fingers before dashing off into the cave.
“Come on motherfuckers!” he yelled, like an asshole.
Carson and I, clearly trusting this daffy loon, followed suit. Reaching the back of the cave, I was greeted with an astounding sight.
Glistening with a trickle of sunlight that managed to sneak its way through the cracks in the cave ceiling was a grandiose crag of ice. Set in its center, frozen with their last gleaming expressions, were four men.
Slackjawed, I took in the scene.
“The Wiggles” Carson confirmed. “They are the great antithesis to David Banner. Clean, caring, loving, and pastel like it’s nobody’s business. Which it isn’t.”
“How do we get them out?”
Carson’s eyes locked on mine. I came.
“You’ll see.”
Over his shoulder I saw R. taking a ceremonial stance before the great structure. He kneeled before the monolith, muttering under his breath. Rising from his knees, I heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper being lowered. So this is how it’s gonna be?
R. proceeded to pee just all over the ice. My first thought was ‘Wow, that’s how we work in a pissing on things joke?’ which, yes, it is. Then I thought ‘There’s no way one guy can pee enough to melt all of that ice.’
And I was right. It wasn’t the sheer amount of urine that did it. As R.’s flow struck the frigid ice, the entire mass began to glow. A searing light filled the cave, blinding hot white crashing over every inch of surface. I shielded my eyes from the pain. Once it had finally died down, I peeled my lids open to see all four Wiggles standing proudly before me.
Carson stepped from behind to my side. He looked them over proudly.
“It’s time.”
We stood before a great looming castle. How did we get there? We walked, you jerk, but that’s boring to read, okay? God. You’re such a dick.
The castle’s size was only outdone by its extravagance. Its facade shimmered as millions of diamonds coated its surface. The moat ran rife with Cirroc. All of the towers were penises. It was something.
“How do we get in?” I asked the group.
The first Wiggle, the Red One, turned to me, his head cocked to the side like a curious puppy. With no warning, his eyes turned ink black and his mouth snapped open, wider than his jaw like a snake’s. A shriek like all of the strangled cries of the damned wretched from his throat and, with a flash and a bang, we stood in David Banner’s throne room.
“Wh– What, can we. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”
I shot glances back and forth among my companions.
“Why did we walk from the cave? It took like 4 hours! Why d– I hate you guys.”
Across the room, David Banner had risen from his throne of platinum. His pupils sat lonely in his eyes like a lone star in the void of space. His satin thong left little to the imagination. He was visibly aroused. His crown of fingers sat atop a corn-rowed head of jet black hair. The bones in his animal fur robe jangled with his movements.
He laughed a hearty, sultry, super disgusting laugh.
“So. You think you can save the day?” He looked across our fellowship. “As we speak, the Filth is pouring into your universe, soaking everything with its nasty jizzy film. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing will stop me now, you cum guzzling dumpster sluts!”
“That’s a bit rude, I’d have to say” I mumbled to no one in particular.
David took a few steps toward us. The Wiggles, silent so far, matched his movements, the two entities now only paces apart.
“But even so. If it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get.”
David ripped an enormous staff from a stand to his left. It was, as expected, a penis. Wielding it above his head, his arms shook with fury and his eyes glowed with fiery rage.
The Wiggles clapped in unison, producing instruments before them: an acoustic guitar, a tambourine, a recorder, and a stuffed Build-a-Bear. Not technically an instrument, I know. We were fucked.
The two sides stood unblinking. I could hear Carson’s heart pumping his red hot blood through his body, pulsing like a big throbbing c–. No matter.
David made the first move. Raising his penis staff to its apex, he thundered “Hey, girl! I’m trying to GET YOUR PUSSY WET!!!”
With a great swoop, he slammed the staff’s end into the chamber floor. A shockwave shot from the impact site, knocking me off my feet and out of consciousness. As my mind became cloudy, I heard the Wiggles break into a fading chorus of “Willaby Wallaby Woo.” The last words I heard were sung: ‘An elephant sat on you.” Then everything went black.
Epilogue
I awoke on a deep shag carpet that smelled strongly of gin and regret. Sitting up, I tried to orient myself. As my vision focused I realized I was back in R.’s theater. Alone.
I knew I was alone because R.’s prostrate body lay next to me. Donned in his white suit, his glassy eyes stared blankly, unmoving.
In his hand lay a Polaroid picture. I took it from his lifeless grip. It was a shot of David Banner’s throne room. In the center a pair of dark legs in leopard skin I knew to be David’s stuck out from underneath a mammoth object: an elephant’s ass. An elephant had actually sat on David.
Rising to my feet I surveyed the room. Apart from R.’s body, nothing seemed out of place. Check that: one thing. At the foot of the projector sat a set of film reels. I quickly gathered them up and took them out to the backyard.
On a patch of patio outside, I piled the reels on one another and, using a nearby grill lighter, set them ablaze. As I gazed into the flames tears began to well in my eyes. Unzipping my pants, I unleashed a torrent of urine onto the fire like it was a 14 year old girl’s tear streaked face. R. would have been proud.
Sparing the details of my return travel, suffice it to say, there were syringes involved.
Once back in my house, I slumped down into my faux leather couch, finally able to relax. Clicking on the television I was met with the sounds of an awards show.
“Of course, the Grammys are tonight” I thought out loud because I live alone.
The crowd on screen seemed eager as the presenter unfurled an envelope.
“And the winner for Performer of the Year goes to…The Wiggles!”
As the camera panned to the audience, I saw that nearly everyone was adorned with pastel turtlenecks, fake plastic smiles plastered on their faces. The men of the hour strode gleefully to the podium, ‘Willaby Wallaby Woo’ drifting through the house speakers in the background.
The presenter’s voice trailed off as I began to get dizzy.
“This is the Wiggles sixteenth Performer of the Year Award.”
Oh no. I’ve made a terrible mistake.
THE END
I remember back when Gym Class Heroes really started taking off. It was something new and unique for mainstream music. There wasn’t too much live music hip hop on the radio. Then, more recently, I got to see Jay-Z’s tour after he released Blueprint III and he played with a 9-piece band.
