Whatever Happened to Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson?

Is He Still Raw-Dogging Megyn Kelly, Laura Ingraham, and Lindsey Graham In His Twitter Basement? And Does Anyone In The Palace Really Care?

Chapter 19

Earlier this morning, the author suffered a some sort of health emergency, but Materex says it’s nothing to worry about, a trifling inconvenience.

For years, the author was notorious for his religious devotion to decay and decrepitude. He routinely went for days without sleep, subsisting on beer, cigarettes, marijuana, and an occasional bag of pretzels, as if he were still a student at the university.

Many of his close friends had either died or abandoned all hope of creative self-destruction by the second year of graduate school. Some had settled down to respectable jobs within months of taking their degrees, and they gradually lost track of one another as the author drifted between periods of work and no work in various capacities, in numerous states. Others had simply grown tired of each other’s jokes.

The author was lying when he implied he had worked as a journalist for the past 25 years. He seldom lasted a full twelve months in any position, since his views were so strange and stridently expressed that he was told Please find more suitable employment by one boss after another. The author was the kind of guy whose attitudes and opinions did more damage to any organization’s security and morale than his contributions were worth.

He remains among the least dependable of all Palace residents, waking or sleeping. He has not once participated in the preprogrammed afternoon jog or the weekly Sunday volleyball or croquet tournaments. He seldom strays from his VDT, and his sole contact with the day-to-day lives and times of the general population has increasingly been Bambina Broccoli’s sporadic visits to his chambers, which — she has told every survivor at least twice — should be used as the Palace recycling center.

“You wouldn’t believe the mess,” she told Rhoda Rome just this morning, “It’s a miracle he can think at all.”

Therefore, it isn’t particularly surprising the author was unaware of Wayne Trout’s death. Since the First Annual Safety-In-Numbers Ball, the author hasn’t once appeared at the bar in the Civic Auditorium. If he had even attempted to follow the program of daily activity as other residents do, he would have seen news of Trout’s death during the 9 AM update seven or eight weeks ago.

Granted, this announcement was made only once, but that’s the kind of guy Wayne was. After all, there are still four people in the Palace who have never even heard of Wayne Bo Trout, and probably never will.

***

Right now the author is heavily sedated, and it’s no use disturbing him. In fact, if Materex knew the reader were in this room, there is no telling what might happen. Nevertheless, rest assured that once the author is fully recovered and capable of conveying a comprehensible history in a coherent manner, he will rejoin you.

It won’t do any good to loiter in the hall. Sam and Dave have orders to boggle anyone attempting to enter this flat. Time’s a’wasting, although time is one thing there is plenty of. There are five clocks for every remote selector in the Palace and all continuously display the hour, minute, second, month, and day in military format.

And yet, while you dawdled with this paragraph, other readers have finished with an interstellar message you haven’t yet dreamed of and are moving on to the dissolution of Wayne’s marriage to the former Isolde Schiene. There’s no telling what else you might have missed.

Idleness is not permitted in the Palace, wayward reader, so catch up with the others before Materex mistakes you for the ghost of Fast Ed the Bartender, draws a bead on your coordinates, and poaches both your unimportant brains.

—30—

Epilog In Media Res

It occurs to me that some straggler might want to read all of Trout’s Tale in its God-given order, assuming I live long enough to publish all of it. I guess I could start another stack and publish it in order there, but where’s the fun in that?

Instead, what I’ve currently decided to do is add this epilog as an index to previous posts in the order in which they were not written, but in the most recent order they have appeared in the Hall of Records. Links will become active as new URLs are generated.

Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions.

Trout’s Tale thus far…

Frontal Matter And Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33