DISPATCHES FROM A LIFE

By James Erwin

LIGHTS DOWN AND UP.

Arlen: She had drops of Jupiter in her hair. By drops of Jupiter, I mean drops of supercondensed liquid hydrogen, at a temperature of 20,000 degrees Kelvin and a pressure of four million atmospheres. The merest shake of her head would release enough energy to topple the World Trade Center, which she did repeatedly between 1977 and 1982. Finally, her parents stopped driving her to New York City.

Chris: Dr. Galbraith was also the first to exploit this new use for human stem cells, seeding his vagina with pluripotent blastocyst tissue that, two months later, erupted forth into a ring of razor-sharp incisors. Dr. Galbraith, or "Miz Vaginia Dentatia Galbraith" as the geek show posters dubbed him, enjoyed several years of fame before he began experiencing severe pain and bleeding from his vagina. At first, he thought that his vagina was rejecting the foreign tissue, or perhaps that he was "howling at the full moon," as his mother dubbed it. Instead, it developed that he was shedding his baby teeth. As his new happy-clam teeth grew in crooked, it became necessary for him to wear vaginal braces, which made it very difficult to floss, or to shred and sever the penises of men who failed to respect the power and mystery of femininity in the vagina.

Arlen: She was one in a million girls. By one in a million, I mean that if one were to establish a statistical baseline for physical attractiveness among females, called "five", and with a standard deviation of two units of attractiveness, which I will call "George Sands", and therefore a variance running from one to nine George Sands, she was a staggering five sigmas above baseline, the statistical equivalent of finding FIFTEEN George Sands lying naked on a beach in the Mediterranean. This goes to show that statistics is for pimply geek-ass fucks, because I wouldn’t fuck one George Sand with her own dick.

Chris: Dr. Galbraith not only loved first-person accounts of the Jacquerie, but also the annual Dr. Who marathon that marked the end of Purim at his grandfather’s house. This was not due to any actual emotional investment in the scientific romance of the Gallifreyan adventurer and his intrepid companions. Nor was it due to any great love for his extended family. As a matter of fact, Dr. Galbraith’s grandfather was dead, and his house had been invaded by Daghestani refugees, followers of the assassinated General Georghou Tardis. During the Dr. Who marathon, they would listen keenly for the sound of their lost hero’s name… (whisper) TARDIS… TARDIS… TARDIS. While the reeking goatherd savages would keen and wail and slice their forearms just to feel something, Dr. Galbraith would sneak upstairs to the room containing the mummified corpse of his grandfather and masturbate softly. With his vagina.

Arlen: This old man, he played three, he played knick-knack on my knee. By playing knick-knack on my knee, I mean… (reading further) Oh. Oh, sweet Jesus. I can’t read that.

Chris: Let me see that. (reads) Oh my God.

Michelle: Hey! Hey! I met a German!

Arlen: Fuck off! No way!

Chris: Everyone knows Germans aren’t real! They’re made up to scare kids!

Michelle: No! He was a tourist! I met him in the mall!

Chris: Fuck that, dude! I met SANTA CLAUS in the mall!

Arlen: My name’s Gustav von Gustaverschlossel! I’m going to eat some weinerkraut!

Chris: My name’s Franz Stangl! I’m going to run Treblinka!

Paul: Hey, Dr. Galbraith. What’s wrong?

Michelle: Chris and Arlen said there’s no such thing as a German. They laughed at me.

Paul: Now, Dr. Galbraith. Don’t be sad. The joke’s on them! We’re all Germans!

Michelle: All of us?

Paul: Yes! Our parents came here to Buenos Aires to escape prosecution after World War Two!

Michelle: Wow! It’s like a magical fairy tale!

Arlen (stepping back onstage): By like a magical fairy tale, I mean The End.

"Dispatches from a Life" debuted September 6, 2002, performed by Arlen Lawson, Chris Stangl, Michelle Thompson, Paul Rust.

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