Chapter 17

The purple commode knows no limit, and the violets flow gently in the breeze.

"Too much manipulation of time and space can have some pretty silly consequences."

-The Secrets of the Universe

Let’s get rid of the preliminaries.

Girdy squinted, shrugged, and all around spasmed. He stared at Wes and cried out, "I just can’t get over it! Your chapter was the worst piece of literature I’ve read since Joel’s play (1)! It is the epitome of ridiculousness!"

"Is not," Wes said confidently, assured his argument would win.

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

Surprisingly, for one more time there was an inerring logic in Girdy’s argument that made Wes reconsider. This, unfortunately, was to be the last time in this great story that such an event was to take place. (Editorial Note: Because of recent complaints which have come to my attention, namely those of Girdy’s self-over-glorification, many of you readers will be pleased with the next development in the story.)

Girdy could stand it no longer. He fell to the floor. "Not there! That’s no place for a chalice!" he screamed as all life left his body.

Dave fainted.

Dan left.

Wes cackled.

Micah shrugged.

Joel denied he was the Spider.

"YOU THREE ARE GUILTY!!! YOU ARE CONDEMNED TO SPEND A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME WITH THE FIFTY WOMEN OF YOUR CHOICE!!!"

"No!!!" screamed Joel. "I’ll take your Bible class again, Dr. Matson. Just don’t send me to such eternal punishment!"

"WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME DOCTOR AND PROFESSOR?" Matson asked, "I AM AN ALIEN MASTERMIND. I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO ANY EARTH INSTITUTIONS, AND I DO NOT KNOW ANY OF YOU."

"Ah, yes, master, thank you for shedding this great light of knowledge on us," Wes winked. "And thank you as well for not judging I, your humble servant guilty."

"NO, REALLY, I DON’T KNO---"

"Shut up!" shouted Wes.

The whole group was amazed that Wes had told Dr. Matson to shut up.

"No, you shut up" screamed Wes.

"Kiss my rear!" yelled Wes.

At this point, the room realized Wes was talking to himself. They promptly stopped paying attention to him and placed him on their "ignore" option.

Micah pulled Jake aside. "Hey, man, we’re buddies, right? Can I have Girdy’s women since he’s dead?"

"Uhhh, I don’t know, I’ll have to talk to Joe," muttered Jake, amazed someone was actually talking to him.

Joel pulled Dr. Matson aside. "Hey, man we’re enemies, right? Can I give Micah my women since I want them so badly and that would hurt me so very much?"

"UHHH, WELL, I GUESS SO…" muttered Matson.

"Your mom!" roared Wes.

"Hey!" Joel shouted. "Micah, is it possible that Girdy has somehow used his Tai Quan Ouchi powers to enter Wes’ mind and destroy it?"

Micah walked away from the bullet-ridden corpse of Nick. "I’ve finally killed the lousy… What? Oh, yes, I suppose that’s possible. Look, I’m surrounded by imbeciles," Micah frowned.

"How does that prove anything?" Joel questioned, remaining, despite all he had been through, confused by irrelevance.

"I heard that! I’m not an imbecile!" Wes or Girdy cried.

"You are too!" Wes or Girdy replied.

"Gosh, I’m fat!" Wes or Girdy noticed. (Chances are this one was Girdy, folks.)

"Girdy, get out of there, you can’t possibly defeat Wes before you have to write one hundred twenty-two lines."

"You’ve got a point," Girdy said, returning once more to his body.

Wes ran to the closest computer terminal, downloaded Crowd Control, and locked Girdy out of the ship’s computer.

"Oh, by the way, sorry about skipping class, Dr. Matson," Micah remarked.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" Matson ran from the room.

"How rude!" Joel stammered. "And I didn’t even get to tell him my new Baroque joke (2). Hey! I just rhymed!"

The rest of the group (which by now is entirely composed of Girdy, Micah, and Wes) disregarded Joel. This, they would later say, was done for the good of humanity.

"So, just what was it like inside Wes’ mind?" Micah asked.

"I don’t even want to remember it. It was scarier than you playing ping pong, scarier than me writing a chapter only to glorify myself, scarier than Joel on the Playstation, scarier than Dave in a theological argument, scarier than..."

"We get it," Joel cut in.

"I really don’t wish I could feel your pain," Micah responded.

Girdy misheard. "Thanks."

Wes, embarrassed that Girdy would describe his mind this way, ran to the computer, forgetting he had already barred Girdy from it. He pondered for a little while, realized he’d forgotten the password for Crowd Control, and got into what looked like the C drive.

That done, Wes continued in his task. He thought he was deleting Crowd Control, but in fact, he was actually uploading all files on the ship's computer to his own computer. In order to do this, the ship’s computer had to upgrade his inferior CPU to have enough drive space and memory to handle this massive amount of information.

Meanwhile the enraged Matson, running for his life, vowed to take revenge on the earthlings.

"But how?" he wondered. Then it struck him. He would go back in time and land on earth before any of these students ever came to Milligan. He would then pose as a friendly, innocent Bible professor, and use his position to indoctrinate, and manipulate these infuriating earthlings. Cackling to himself, Matson climbed into a time machine and speed away on his unspeakably evil mission.