Part 4491

In which Marilyn finds herself caught between a rock and hard place, or, to be more precise, an old-school gloved heavy and one of the million incarnations of Groucho Marx. It’s a predicament of cosmic proportions, and, in the background a hatstand is observing. Both basic training and simple common sense have taught her never to trust a man in a cheap suit and black gloves. They never mean you any good especially if they’re holding a pistol. And yet the Groucho multiples are a danger in themselves, especially if you don’t know the secret word and can’t summon The Duck. With the Grouchos, you bet your life and there isn’t a sanity clause.

Part 401k

In which Marilyn, in a rare quiet moment, reflects on all that has been lost and the little that has been gained in the absurd and endless conflict between Apollonians and Dionysian, and how she had never wanted to be involved in the first place. With a grim and weary smile, she wonders how long she can confront the fray and the mountain of problems that are none of her making, and still operate in the fragmented disorientation of a non-linear multiverse, with its Howdy drops and wormholes, its glittering nothings and towering green Martians, its clear and constant dangers, its anomalies and paradoxes, its lost tribes and extinct species, its strings and complex membranes, idiot authorities and absence of orgasm, and its vast quadrants of damaged Earth realities, all plunging to the random and insectoid oblivion of the Nineteen Ways. Marilyn sighs deeply. Why does she even have to know about all this? Why is she even aware of the Nineteen Ways? She reaches for the Nembutal.