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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon.
Rating: NC-17
Author: Witch1 (
Copyright: 1997
The Melrose Centre Files, 90210
Broken Knee Cap, Wyoming
The grainy black and white images flickered across the computer screen as he sat in the roach-ridden, flea-infested, pizza, donut and bubble-gum filled motel room. There, on the screen, was a four year old version of himself--or perhaps just a kid actor who looked a bit like him--building the prototype of his first true invention for The Centre. He heard Sydney's voice reassuring and praising him. In the shadows, lurking like some malevolent alien-vampire-X Files kind of nightmare almost as nasty as the leech-man, but without the dripping slime, was Mr. Raines.
"Ah, Sydney," Raines was saying, "you were right about this one--he will be our prize!"
"Yes, " Sydney answered in his cultivated accent, "he has surpassed all the others already--except of course for the Gump boy, but that's an unfair comparison. And today we have his first creation for us-- behold--the world's first Hot-Dogger!"
Jarod winced in empathy as a blue-white spark jolted the boy in the DSA and there was the sound of crackling electricity and a small puff of smoke. The hot dog exploded.
"Of course, it still needs a little work--" Sydney explained.
"Hey, look!" the young Jarod exclaimed happily, "my hand's on fire! Cool!"
"As soon as it's perfected, call QVC," Raines whispered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre Dry Cleaning and Child Exploitation Company,
Blue Cove, Delaware
Miss Parker strode into the room, her high heels clicking like the crazed teeth in one of those sets of fake dentures. "Brootsy, " she hissed, "I'm bored, Boy Toy--light my fire!"
Broots hopped to his feet, extending a cigarette lighter toward the brunette amazon in the micro-mini skirt. "Yes, Miss Parker," he gulped like a frightened trout.
"That's not what I mean, you brainless cretin!" she barked. "Let's do it!" She grabbed the hapless Broots, who, like almost everyone else in the place had no first name, and slammed him against the copy machine conveniently placed, for reasons soon to become clear, immediately behind them. "I've got the hots for you, Lover Boy," Miss Parker snarled, pulling him on top of her as she mounted the machine and lay on her back. Broots fumbled for the scale setting, jabbing the button frantically while Parker unzipped his pants, taking the machine all the way down to a full sixty-four percent reduction. "God, those Dilbert boxer shorts drive me wild with passion--re- directed passion, of course, since it's clearly really Jarod I want to do this with, but of course that would kill the show," she growled.
She jerked the helplessly thrashing Broots inside her and began working him like a kid works a popsickle. "I'm close, Brootsy baby", she howled, "do it to me!"
Broots panicked for a moment, terrified he would be unable to satisfy the maniacal, sex-crazed Parker, but at the last possible instant he saw the first copy slowly exuding from the machine. Triumphantly he held it so that she could see it. "Look, " he exclaimed with a calmness he did not feel, "your butt is really, really small, Miss Parker! You are soooo thin! Look at how thin your thighs are!"
"Oh, yes, Brootsy baby, yes--nobody does me like you do!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pork Rapids, Wisconsin
Jarod returned to his rat-infested, bed-bug filled room with another four six-packs of Miller Lite--his latest obsession--a box of Slim Jims, a pizza and "Tits Of Steel", the newest in the series of exercise videos he was currently analyzing. He paused to shoot a Pez directly into his throat with one practiced motion: he'd given up sucking them and moved to main-lining months before. With an audible sigh of relief he checked the VCR--yes, it had been taping Bay Watch while he was out. He'd finally managed to program the damned thing-- yet more proof of us innate genius. Soon the Packers game would be on- -he couldn't resist a slightly smug smile. Once again he had a perfect evening to look forward to, thanks to his vastly superior intellect.
He had been busy solving a mystery, and, now that little Johnny Johnson's Hot Wheels had been returned and it's ten year old thief was doing hard time for his crime, Jarod knew his job there was done. Tomorrow he would leave, taking only the shiny aluminum case containing the DSA reader and abandoning, for some bizarre reason, everything else he owned once again (except perhaps for the Bay Watch tapes) , to move on to his next adventure, to righting all of life's wrongs. But increasingly his thoughts kept returning to Blue Cove and the old rowdy gang he had left behind. He wondered what they were doing at that moment . . .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre Dry Cleaning and Child Exploitation Company, Blue Cove, Delaware
Miss Parker strode into Sydney's office unannounced, her high heels clicking like the yapping of a demented poodle. "Sydney", she growled, "you were more of a father to me than my real father. Only you understood that I was an innocent young girl, subjected to scenes of untold violence, forced to participate in unspeakable experiments, made to wear really goofy clothes. You have a first name, Sydney, a first name! Of course, on this show that means you have no last name . . . but you have no idea how that turns me on--a real first name! Take me, Sydney, do me now, we have nothing to lose, and only ratings to gain!"
He pushed her down on his desk roughly. "Ah, Meez Parker, I have my leettle vays of making you cooperate mit de experiments, yah?" he murmured in a really bad German accent.
"Hold it, Syd, " Parker hissed. "I though you had that British/prep school/patrician accent thing going on?"
"Of course, my dear," he responded, "we mustn't slip out of character as so often happens in bad fan fiction, must we?"
"Tell me what I want to hear, Sydney", she yipped, "even though of course I really wish it were Jarod saying it, that big lug! Tell me, Sydney, tell me!"
"You're a perfect size two, Miss Parker," Sydney said soothingly, "and Heather Locklear and Courtney Cox are a size four--they're cows compared to you, Miss Parker."
"Oh, yes, Sydney baby, yes-- nobody does me like you do!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre Dry Cleaning and Child Exploitation Company, Blue Cove, Delaware
Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder strode into the dry- cleaners wearing heavy overcoats in spite of the eighty degree summer heat. They had driven at tax payers' expense all the way from DC to solve a mystery, to answer a question that could no longer be denied, to put to rest, once and for all, the central issue of their lives.
"And if they tell me they can't find my shirts again, Scully," Mulder was saying, "somehow I promise I'll tie them into a massive conspiracy, global in scope, to cover up the evidence of UFOs."
"There must be a logical explanation for their disappearance, Mulder, something supported by science, " Scully explained patiently. "We both know shirts just don't disappear during the dry cleaning process. If they did, you would be shirtless in every episode and millions of innocent women would be much happier than they are now."
"How do we know that, Scully? Just because Skinner threatened to kick us out of the FBI if we drove all the way to Delaware to find my shirts? Who pressured Skinner, Scully--who knows the truth?" he paused and looked soulfully into the her green eyes. "Admit it, you like Skinner best. "
"No", Scully explained patiently, "I like you best, Mulder--but I can't really show it because it might hurt the ratings."
"That's another part of it, Scully--don't you see? Look at us, we're two of the best-looking people on TV, but week after week goes by and we don't get laid--"
A tall, dark man came out from behind the big racks of hanging clothes. Mulder recognized him instantly and drew his gun in one fluid motion, pointing it at him with both hands.
"Cuff him, Scully! It's Krychek, that evil alien-sucking weasel!"
"No, it isn't, Mulder," Scully explained patiently. "I'd recognize Krychek and that's not him."
"Why can't you ever just agree with me, Scully?" Mulder demanded. "Week after week, show after show--just once I'd like to hear you say, 'Yes, Mulder, you're right, Mulder, of course, anything you say, Mulder . . . But no--not you--why is that, Scully?"
"You mean like why if I picked the dead alien out of the dry ice and traded it for you the night they shot Deep Throat do I still not believe in UFOs? If I did or if I ever agreed with you there would be no show, Mulder," Scully explained patiently.
"Up yours, Mulder," Krychek hissed malevolently.
But Mulder was distracted for an instant as a very shapely young women entered the dry cleaners wearing a tight swim suit and carrying a bunch of identical suits over her arm.
"We're Federal Agents!" Mulder shouted. "You can get in line in front of us but only if you have six pieces or less!"
"That's OK," she explained cheerfully, "I can wait--I don't have to get back to watch the Bay for a bit, plus I need to wiggle very, very slowly out of the suit I'm wearing, which of course needs to be dry cleaned, too." She tugged one shoulder strap down her arm, beginning the almost painfully slow process and, for Mulder and Krychek, it then seemed that time stood still for exactly nine minutes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, outside the building . . .
Jarod stood alone on a grassy knoll, staring down at the building below him. A large truck full of dry-cleaning wheezed up to the loading dock, bringing back fond memories of childhood tortures and the smell of dry-cleaning fluid. He had tried to stay away, but this was the only home he had ever known. Sure, it had been a tough way to grow up--being subjected to brutal experiments, forced to endure endless simulations, listening to that damned accent of Sydney's. But there had been good times, too . . . He remembered shooting Sydney in the foot while pretending to be Squeaky Frome; watching the rabbits copulate with Miss Parker; blowing up the lab--how many times? He thought back fondly on the hours he'd spent designing the GMC Pacer and the Betamax, and the moment of pure inspiration in the shared bathroom at The Centre when he had conceived scented toilet paper --those had been the days!
And with time too he had come to believe that Sydney was right: he didn't belong out in the world with ordinary people. He was truly different and superior--his obsessions with sex, beer, pizza and televised football certainly proved that. He belonged back at The Centre, where his special skills were appreciated, he could help out with the dry cleaning when it was busy and where he'd never have to pay for cable again.
And then there was Miss Parker. God only knows he had tried to forget her with other women--over and over, again and again, in lots of positions, sometimes five or six times a day--and yet she remained always in his fantasies. Her hair, her voice, her short skirts. The way she emasculated him with her insults. 'Ah,' he thought, 'I wonder what that old rowdy crowd is doing right now?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, in another part of the building . . .
Sydney poured himself another glass of Chivas, splashing some onto the carpeting in Mr. Parker's office as he did. It was Dress Down Day at The Centre and was wearing only a toga.
"This is an Intervention, Syd," Miss Parker snarled, wearing only a towel. "We're here to do something about your drinking."
"I drink because I blame myself for my brother's condition, " he explained.
"What are you, some kind of an idiot? It was an accident, Sydney-- just because I was giving you a blow job while also giving your brother Jacob a hand job and you lost control of the car doesn't make us responsible or anything!" Miss Parker snarled sarcastically.
Sydney looked at them: Mr. Parker in a pair of long baggy shorts and a Mega Death tee shirt; Mr. Raines in his hospital gown and Brootes wearing what appeared to be a black plastic garbage bag with holes cut in it for his head and arms. And of course the formidable Miss Parker, who was retouching her eye-liner with a trowel. He poured himself another drink.
Brootes looked down at the spreading puddle of spilt scotch and saw it was getting alarmingly close to the relic which always made him tingle: The Centre--and Jarod's--finest achievement, from the days when they had worked together for the good of all mankind. There had been many shining inventions: Microwave Popcorn, SansaBelt Pants; the Snooze Alarm, the TV remote control, Soap-on-a-Rope; padded toilet seats, Green Bay Packer Cheesehead hats, lawn flamingos, refrigerator magnets. But only one had been preserved for posterity in it's own glass case: the world's first Leisure Suit. A tear came to his eye and somehow he stumbled, ripping the hose off Mr. Raines oxygen tank. The room was suddenly filled with hissing oxygen.
"Well, that tops off a perfect day!" Miss Parker snarled sarcastically, flicking the ash from her cigarette onto the scotch- soaked carpet. The office immediately burst into flames.
To Jarod on the hill above The Centre it at first seemed the sky itself had opened up, although later he realized that as luck would have it a pigeon pooped on him just before The Centre blew up in a spectacular burst of dry-cleaning-fluid-fed flames. He staggered backwards, pondering the implications, getting slightly turned on by the fire and, as fire trucks began arriving, the flashing lights and sirens. It took a few moments, but due to his genius at analyzing a situation, he eventually realized this meant they were all dead and he no longer need be on the run. He could choose any profession he wanted and dedicate his life to it, at last. His brain was filled with the hopes and dreams of a young boy. Surgeon, scientist; used car salesman, 7-11 clerk--so many ways he could benefit mankind, so many goals from his youth. Screwing Miss Parker was out, he realized, but he'd had so many other aspirations: he recalled his fascination with Podiatry during his foot fetish period, then his equally compelling obsession with Proctology during a time he still blushed to recall.
But then it came to him, in a blinding flash of insight: he would pitch his life story as a TV show! He'd make millions and spend the rest of his life hanging around the pool with bimbos, drinking! THAT would be a worthy and satisfying calling, he knew. And yet, as he descended the grassy knoll to the sound of sirens wailing behind him, he had one further sudden awareness: the pilot would sell a lot better if he made himself the twice-divorced single dad of cute, smartass twins and if he could cast Tori Spelling as his tracker. With any luck, he might even get The X Files old time slot.
The End
Rating: NC-17
Author: Witch1 (
Copyright: 1997
The Melrose Centre Files, 90210
Broken Knee Cap, Wyoming
The grainy black and white images flickered across the computer screen as he sat in the roach-ridden, flea-infested, pizza, donut and bubble-gum filled motel room. There, on the screen, was a four year old version of himself--or perhaps just a kid actor who looked a bit like him--building the prototype of his first true invention for The Centre. He heard Sydney's voice reassuring and praising him. In the shadows, lurking like some malevolent alien-vampire-X Files kind of nightmare almost as nasty as the leech-man, but without the dripping slime, was Mr. Raines.
"Ah, Sydney," Raines was saying, "you were right about this one--he will be our prize!"
"Yes, " Sydney answered in his cultivated accent, "he has surpassed all the others already--except of course for the Gump boy, but that's an unfair comparison. And today we have his first creation for us-- behold--the world's first Hot-Dogger!"
Jarod winced in empathy as a blue-white spark jolted the boy in the DSA and there was the sound of crackling electricity and a small puff of smoke. The hot dog exploded.
"Of course, it still needs a little work--" Sydney explained.
"Hey, look!" the young Jarod exclaimed happily, "my hand's on fire! Cool!"
"As soon as it's perfected, call QVC," Raines whispered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre Dry Cleaning and Child Exploitation Company,
Blue Cove, Delaware
Miss Parker strode into the room, her high heels clicking like the crazed teeth in one of those sets of fake dentures. "Brootsy, " she hissed, "I'm bored, Boy Toy--light my fire!"
Broots hopped to his feet, extending a cigarette lighter toward the brunette amazon in the micro-mini skirt. "Yes, Miss Parker," he gulped like a frightened trout.
"That's not what I mean, you brainless cretin!" she barked. "Let's do it!" She grabbed the hapless Broots, who, like almost everyone else in the place had no first name, and slammed him against the copy machine conveniently placed, for reasons soon to become clear, immediately behind them. "I've got the hots for you, Lover Boy," Miss Parker snarled, pulling him on top of her as she mounted the machine and lay on her back. Broots fumbled for the scale setting, jabbing the button frantically while Parker unzipped his pants, taking the machine all the way down to a full sixty-four percent reduction. "God, those Dilbert boxer shorts drive me wild with passion--re- directed passion, of course, since it's clearly really Jarod I want to do this with, but of course that would kill the show," she growled.
She jerked the helplessly thrashing Broots inside her and began working him like a kid works a popsickle. "I'm close, Brootsy baby", she howled, "do it to me!"
Broots panicked for a moment, terrified he would be unable to satisfy the maniacal, sex-crazed Parker, but at the last possible instant he saw the first copy slowly exuding from the machine. Triumphantly he held it so that she could see it. "Look, " he exclaimed with a calmness he did not feel, "your butt is really, really small, Miss Parker! You are soooo thin! Look at how thin your thighs are!"
"Oh, yes, Brootsy baby, yes--nobody does me like you do!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pork Rapids, Wisconsin
Jarod returned to his rat-infested, bed-bug filled room with another four six-packs of Miller Lite--his latest obsession--a box of Slim Jims, a pizza and "Tits Of Steel", the newest in the series of exercise videos he was currently analyzing. He paused to shoot a Pez directly into his throat with one practiced motion: he'd given up sucking them and moved to main-lining months before. With an audible sigh of relief he checked the VCR--yes, it had been taping Bay Watch while he was out. He'd finally managed to program the damned thing-- yet more proof of us innate genius. Soon the Packers game would be on- -he couldn't resist a slightly smug smile. Once again he had a perfect evening to look forward to, thanks to his vastly superior intellect.
He had been busy solving a mystery, and, now that little Johnny Johnson's Hot Wheels had been returned and it's ten year old thief was doing hard time for his crime, Jarod knew his job there was done. Tomorrow he would leave, taking only the shiny aluminum case containing the DSA reader and abandoning, for some bizarre reason, everything else he owned once again (except perhaps for the Bay Watch tapes) , to move on to his next adventure, to righting all of life's wrongs. But increasingly his thoughts kept returning to Blue Cove and the old rowdy gang he had left behind. He wondered what they were doing at that moment . . .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre Dry Cleaning and Child Exploitation Company, Blue Cove, Delaware
Miss Parker strode into Sydney's office unannounced, her high heels clicking like the yapping of a demented poodle. "Sydney", she growled, "you were more of a father to me than my real father. Only you understood that I was an innocent young girl, subjected to scenes of untold violence, forced to participate in unspeakable experiments, made to wear really goofy clothes. You have a first name, Sydney, a first name! Of course, on this show that means you have no last name . . . but you have no idea how that turns me on--a real first name! Take me, Sydney, do me now, we have nothing to lose, and only ratings to gain!"
He pushed her down on his desk roughly. "Ah, Meez Parker, I have my leettle vays of making you cooperate mit de experiments, yah?" he murmured in a really bad German accent.
"Hold it, Syd, " Parker hissed. "I though you had that British/prep school/patrician accent thing going on?"
"Of course, my dear," he responded, "we mustn't slip out of character as so often happens in bad fan fiction, must we?"
"Tell me what I want to hear, Sydney", she yipped, "even though of course I really wish it were Jarod saying it, that big lug! Tell me, Sydney, tell me!"
"You're a perfect size two, Miss Parker," Sydney said soothingly, "and Heather Locklear and Courtney Cox are a size four--they're cows compared to you, Miss Parker."
"Oh, yes, Sydney baby, yes-- nobody does me like you do!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Centre Dry Cleaning and Child Exploitation Company, Blue Cove, Delaware
Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder strode into the dry- cleaners wearing heavy overcoats in spite of the eighty degree summer heat. They had driven at tax payers' expense all the way from DC to solve a mystery, to answer a question that could no longer be denied, to put to rest, once and for all, the central issue of their lives.
"And if they tell me they can't find my shirts again, Scully," Mulder was saying, "somehow I promise I'll tie them into a massive conspiracy, global in scope, to cover up the evidence of UFOs."
"There must be a logical explanation for their disappearance, Mulder, something supported by science, " Scully explained patiently. "We both know shirts just don't disappear during the dry cleaning process. If they did, you would be shirtless in every episode and millions of innocent women would be much happier than they are now."
"How do we know that, Scully? Just because Skinner threatened to kick us out of the FBI if we drove all the way to Delaware to find my shirts? Who pressured Skinner, Scully--who knows the truth?" he paused and looked soulfully into the her green eyes. "Admit it, you like Skinner best. "
"No", Scully explained patiently, "I like you best, Mulder--but I can't really show it because it might hurt the ratings."
"That's another part of it, Scully--don't you see? Look at us, we're two of the best-looking people on TV, but week after week goes by and we don't get laid--"
A tall, dark man came out from behind the big racks of hanging clothes. Mulder recognized him instantly and drew his gun in one fluid motion, pointing it at him with both hands.
"Cuff him, Scully! It's Krychek, that evil alien-sucking weasel!"
"No, it isn't, Mulder," Scully explained patiently. "I'd recognize Krychek and that's not him."
"Why can't you ever just agree with me, Scully?" Mulder demanded. "Week after week, show after show--just once I'd like to hear you say, 'Yes, Mulder, you're right, Mulder, of course, anything you say, Mulder . . . But no--not you--why is that, Scully?"
"You mean like why if I picked the dead alien out of the dry ice and traded it for you the night they shot Deep Throat do I still not believe in UFOs? If I did or if I ever agreed with you there would be no show, Mulder," Scully explained patiently.
"Up yours, Mulder," Krychek hissed malevolently.
But Mulder was distracted for an instant as a very shapely young women entered the dry cleaners wearing a tight swim suit and carrying a bunch of identical suits over her arm.
"We're Federal Agents!" Mulder shouted. "You can get in line in front of us but only if you have six pieces or less!"
"That's OK," she explained cheerfully, "I can wait--I don't have to get back to watch the Bay for a bit, plus I need to wiggle very, very slowly out of the suit I'm wearing, which of course needs to be dry cleaned, too." She tugged one shoulder strap down her arm, beginning the almost painfully slow process and, for Mulder and Krychek, it then seemed that time stood still for exactly nine minutes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, outside the building . . .
Jarod stood alone on a grassy knoll, staring down at the building below him. A large truck full of dry-cleaning wheezed up to the loading dock, bringing back fond memories of childhood tortures and the smell of dry-cleaning fluid. He had tried to stay away, but this was the only home he had ever known. Sure, it had been a tough way to grow up--being subjected to brutal experiments, forced to endure endless simulations, listening to that damned accent of Sydney's. But there had been good times, too . . . He remembered shooting Sydney in the foot while pretending to be Squeaky Frome; watching the rabbits copulate with Miss Parker; blowing up the lab--how many times? He thought back fondly on the hours he'd spent designing the GMC Pacer and the Betamax, and the moment of pure inspiration in the shared bathroom at The Centre when he had conceived scented toilet paper --those had been the days!
And with time too he had come to believe that Sydney was right: he didn't belong out in the world with ordinary people. He was truly different and superior--his obsessions with sex, beer, pizza and televised football certainly proved that. He belonged back at The Centre, where his special skills were appreciated, he could help out with the dry cleaning when it was busy and where he'd never have to pay for cable again.
And then there was Miss Parker. God only knows he had tried to forget her with other women--over and over, again and again, in lots of positions, sometimes five or six times a day--and yet she remained always in his fantasies. Her hair, her voice, her short skirts. The way she emasculated him with her insults. 'Ah,' he thought, 'I wonder what that old rowdy crowd is doing right now?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, in another part of the building . . .
Sydney poured himself another glass of Chivas, splashing some onto the carpeting in Mr. Parker's office as he did. It was Dress Down Day at The Centre and was wearing only a toga.
"This is an Intervention, Syd," Miss Parker snarled, wearing only a towel. "We're here to do something about your drinking."
"I drink because I blame myself for my brother's condition, " he explained.
"What are you, some kind of an idiot? It was an accident, Sydney-- just because I was giving you a blow job while also giving your brother Jacob a hand job and you lost control of the car doesn't make us responsible or anything!" Miss Parker snarled sarcastically.
Sydney looked at them: Mr. Parker in a pair of long baggy shorts and a Mega Death tee shirt; Mr. Raines in his hospital gown and Brootes wearing what appeared to be a black plastic garbage bag with holes cut in it for his head and arms. And of course the formidable Miss Parker, who was retouching her eye-liner with a trowel. He poured himself another drink.
Brootes looked down at the spreading puddle of spilt scotch and saw it was getting alarmingly close to the relic which always made him tingle: The Centre--and Jarod's--finest achievement, from the days when they had worked together for the good of all mankind. There had been many shining inventions: Microwave Popcorn, SansaBelt Pants; the Snooze Alarm, the TV remote control, Soap-on-a-Rope; padded toilet seats, Green Bay Packer Cheesehead hats, lawn flamingos, refrigerator magnets. But only one had been preserved for posterity in it's own glass case: the world's first Leisure Suit. A tear came to his eye and somehow he stumbled, ripping the hose off Mr. Raines oxygen tank. The room was suddenly filled with hissing oxygen.
"Well, that tops off a perfect day!" Miss Parker snarled sarcastically, flicking the ash from her cigarette onto the scotch- soaked carpet. The office immediately burst into flames.
To Jarod on the hill above The Centre it at first seemed the sky itself had opened up, although later he realized that as luck would have it a pigeon pooped on him just before The Centre blew up in a spectacular burst of dry-cleaning-fluid-fed flames. He staggered backwards, pondering the implications, getting slightly turned on by the fire and, as fire trucks began arriving, the flashing lights and sirens. It took a few moments, but due to his genius at analyzing a situation, he eventually realized this meant they were all dead and he no longer need be on the run. He could choose any profession he wanted and dedicate his life to it, at last. His brain was filled with the hopes and dreams of a young boy. Surgeon, scientist; used car salesman, 7-11 clerk--so many ways he could benefit mankind, so many goals from his youth. Screwing Miss Parker was out, he realized, but he'd had so many other aspirations: he recalled his fascination with Podiatry during his foot fetish period, then his equally compelling obsession with Proctology during a time he still blushed to recall.
But then it came to him, in a blinding flash of insight: he would pitch his life story as a TV show! He'd make millions and spend the rest of his life hanging around the pool with bimbos, drinking! THAT would be a worthy and satisfying calling, he knew. And yet, as he descended the grassy knoll to the sound of sirens wailing behind him, he had one further sudden awareness: the pilot would sell a lot better if he made himself the twice-divorced single dad of cute, smartass twins and if he could cast Tori Spelling as his tracker. With any luck, he might even get The X Files old time slot.
The End
