I wrote this in November 1994.

SPOT RIDES THE SUBWAY... OR DOES HE?

by L. Moe Howard, or is that just a pseudonym in your pocket?

As the subway train reached the halfway point in the tunnel between Charles and Kendall stations, Spot felt reality phasing out around him. Or rather, he thought he felt that. He looked down at what appeared to be his paws. He could see the bones within them with his X-ray vision. Suddenly he realized that he didn't have X-ray vision, and ripped off the glasses with the red and white cardboard spirals. Spot's bones appeared to disappear! Was Spot still on the subway? Was he non-existent? Was reality just a cruel joke?

Somewhere, Spot thought he heard people laughing at him. At least that proved that Spot was still Spot, because if he were really someone else, the people wouldn't have been laughing at him. Feeling relieved that he was not a figment of someone else's imagination but rather of his own imagination, he closed his eyes and went to sleep on what might have been the subway. He was still asleep when it arrived in Wubba-Wubba Land.

Two furry, secondary-hued monsters gently dragged sleeping Spot from the subway. Then they wubba'd it. Spot woke up and screamed.

"Wubba-wubba-wubba-wubba!" chanted the monsters. Spot heard himself scream again. Did this mean he was screaming, or merely that he had been hypnotized into thinking that he was screaming when he was really at home relaxing in his Craftmatic Adjustable Bed? Spot felt like he felt perplexed, but ignored the feeling.

The wubba-ing monsters dissolved into video static, except that it smelled funny. Instantly, the subway train caught up with Spot. He thought he saw the driver steering the train directly at him, but he also thought he remembered that the cars couldn't possibly leave the tracks. Spot felt like he should be perplexed now, but he had already decided the perplexity was an illusion and so was not perplexed. He ignored the train as it ran over his hideously mangled body, and then he hopped away cheerfully.

Spot chased the train, yapping, as it receded into the distance far faster than Spot could recede. The train appeared to be getting farther away and then going over the horizon, but Spot knew that it was equally possible that the train was shrinking and then falling off the edge of the Earth, which was shaped like a mispronounced tortilla (rhyming with 'flotilla'.) Spot had an open mind, or so he believed.

There was a vague tingling sensation, and SNAPCRACKLEPOP noises, as Spot accidentally stepped on the third rail, which was positively charged. He jumped off and landed on the fourth rail, which was tentatively charged, and the blast of electric potential tossed him onto the nth rail, which was meta-real, as it was merely the Platonic essence of 'rail'ness, the Ur-rail. Spot felt almost confused as his fur sizzled. He ignored the pain, knowing that pain is illusory, as is evidenced by the fact that people can still feel their toes 'hurting' after their legs have been amputated. "After all," he thought, "the pain in my paws might merely be evidence that my legs have been amputated, so I needn't worry until such time as I'm given evidence that they really are on fire." He strolled off, the linoleum floor tiles melting underfoot, going sss-sss-sss.

Of course, he could not have known that he could have known the answer to all his problems. Poor Spot! He was too perceptive and open-minded to inhabit Reality. He cried as he denied his tongue the pleasure of being frozen to the icy turnstile he was pressing it to. But what did he know?

THE END

Copyright © 1994 James "Kibo" Parry