Hypnerotomachiapet

(Despite popular demand, we bring you the confounding sequel to last fall's Vex, Further Vexed!)

At roughly two in the morning, Delmar Vex, the scientist known throughout every place in the world that makes regular use of 'discombobulate' as a noun, came to the astonishing and really quite overdue realization that he would never become the next 'American Idol.' Or the next 'Norwegian Idol.' Even the people at 'Trinidad y Tobagoan Idol' refused to return his calls. As a result, he embarked upon a time of soul-searching and identity-questing that, forty-five minutes later, resulted in him growing hair in unsightly and unlikely places for reasons not publishable in 'Reader's Digest.'

"I have been hexed!" Vex declared, for no other reason than he had to justify the title of the story somehow. Hexed he had been, and hairy he now was, so he stalked the back alleys of the city, and when the back alleys eluded him (Vex not being a very competent stalker), he stalked into the nearest White Castle and passed out.

Vex awoke within the dream, and, using techniques widely known amongst lucid dreamers, conjured up Kate Beckinsale, a hot tub filled with lime jello, and a surly parrot with mange. Ms. Beckinsale immediately sized up the situation, conjured her fist into Vex's chin, and then sped off in the disconcertingly mobile hot tub to a celebrity party in the La Brea Tar Pits.

"Ha, ha," said the surly parrot.

"Oh, surly parrot!" Vex wailed. "I have been hexed! Tell me who has done this heinous act, and how I might wreak my unstoppable and if-possible-tax-deductible vengeance and blame it on teenagers wearing big pants!"

"You hexed yourself, asshat!" the parrot replied, its voice eerily like that of Basil Rathbone. "Wake up and smell the cheese fries! Caw, I say, caw!"

Vex woke up, and saw, seated opposite himself in the White Castle, a hideous tentacled monster that was slobbering all over his booth table and had eaten all of his sliders.

He screamed, then woke up again, and saw, seated opposite himself in the White Castle, Tom Bosley, who was explaining how he could become stunningly and erotically rich by selling a bunch of crap that some mail-order guys have in a warehouse in Ass End, New Mexico.

Vex tried the whole scream and wake up thing again, on the theory that if he tried it enough times, Kate Beckinsale would turn up again, but it did not work. Tom Bosley was still seated across from him. The crumbs from Vex's sliders coated his mangy, sweat-pitted shirt.

"Next time, don't sit on the TiVo remote," said Bosley, who was doing his best to distract Vex from staring at his tentacles. "Especially the button marked 'Hex.' Anyone who does that is not part of the solution!"

Vex sneered, stood, swayed, and shimmied. "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the discombobulate!" he retorted. Bosley, unable to assail that kind of logic, was forced to say "Caw!" He then used his tentacles to extract three organs from places in Vex not publishable in 'Golf Digest' and juggle them, but nobody forced him to do that.

There's a lesson in this for all of us.

Despite having already experienced the worst day of scientific research in his life, and certainly the worst-case scenario in self-testing his line of anti-aging products made exclusively from Ho-Hos, Delmar Vex agreed to an evening of bar-hopping with his friend Shaedlo. He hoped his friend would be able to consult with him on a) how the hell his name was supposed to be pronounced, b) what to do with three extra eye-stalks, particularly the two that did not project from his scalp, and c) how to set up a system of animal testing that did not result in his getting jackrolled by bunnies and ferrets.

Shaedlo could not provide any assistance with these queries, as he had earlier that day been reduced to a fine red mist by a laser-beam-projecting cat toy pen thing that had inexplicably been overpowered by a factor of roughly one zillion. And though Vex had collected as much mist as he could, changed it to liquid, put it in a nearly-clean jelly jar, and taken it to the bar with him, he could not get it to pick up the tab. Thus, Vex was vexed.

But wait! What was that that Vex's keen eye-stalks perceived entering the bar? It walked like a man, smiled like a crocodile, talked like a rat on nitrous oxide, smelled like a mix of cheap vodka and Tang, and threw money around like Nolan Ryan with a fistful of nickels. Whoever it was, it proceeded to sit down next to Vex and order some incomprehensible form of drink that sounded as if it would inebriate, or at least disinfect, everyone in a twelve mile radius.

The stranger turned to regard Vex. Vex regarded the stranger.

"You know," said the stranger, "a little lemon juice will get those eyestalks right off."

"Oh," Vex answered. "Thanks."

The stranger nodded as his drink was set before him. Ignoring it completely, he picked up Shaedlo, drank him in a single gulp, and slapped the jelly jar back to the table.

"Finally," he said. "Someone made the damn drink right."

The stranger stood, nodded to Vex, and left.

Vex drummed his fingertips on the bar for ten minutes, wondering how he was going to explain this to Shaedlo's research group. Then, not knowing what else to do, he picked up the drink the stranger had bought and departed. If nothing else, he reasoned, the drink could unclog his sink, which was more than Shaedlo had ever been able to do.