A SubGenius Bedtime Story
(originally published in
"Bob's" Big Book of Fables for Sleepy-Heads,
Simon & Schuster, 1943)
Once upon a time!
Care Dog was strolling along on a bright, sunny Summer's day. Sweet-hearted fellow that he was, he enjoyed the beautiful singing of the birds and the comforting buzz of the bees. He was on the road through Sweet-Wood Forest, with Care-A-Lot town far behind him, when quite suddenly he happened upon Pee Bear, who was sitting right in the middle of the road. That rascally Pee Bear was picking fat gray ticks off of his feces-encrusted sphinctor area, and popping them into his mouth, chewing them with a look of glee.
"Pee Bear! You shouldn't be picking ticks off your fanny and eating them!" scolded Care Dog, who was naturally concerned for the health of all the animals in the forest.
"Go fuck yourself ragged, Care Dog... with a big dick, with BIG RED STRAPS!" cursed Pee Bear, who seemed to be in quite a nasty mood. "These fucking shit-ticks are driving me crazy!" He bent over to gnaw feverishly at his own rectum. Urgent little whines of relief mingled with yelps of pain.
"B-but Pee Bear!" said Care Dog, his feelings hurt. "Those ticks are all covered with your poo-poo! They could be carrying a terrible disease! Why, you might die from eating them!"
Pee Bear stopped his butt-chewing then, and looked up at Care Dog with an expression of pure hate.
"Me and everything else in this forest is half dead already, you stupid sap! Look around you, Care Dog! This whole forest is dying, the humans of Realworld Land did it, and there isn't a Jesus-fucking thing anybody's gonna do about it. You and all your precious fellow Cute-A-Lots, and me, and everything else that lives in this forest, we're all going to die. Nothing can stop the living hell on earth that's coming -- not all the rainbows and hearts and flowers and unicorns, and pretty little tick-less baby-faced simpering liberal goody-two-shoes TV stars like you, in the universe! These festering mutated ticks on my anus -- they're but the barest glimpse of the suffering in store for you! Yes, even you, Care Dog! Your "Loving God" is about to abandon you, and your world -- and mine! -- to a fate unimagined in your most unspeakable nightmares. And for what? For nothing! So don't give me your sappy sweetie-weetie CRAP, you pathetic eunuch of a cutesy-putesy pile of shit!!! Now leave me alone and let me deal with this horrible itching in peace! -- if there is such a thing as peace in this fucked world."
Care Dog was stricken! He didn't know what to say. He knew that Pee Bear only needed a little love and understanding -- but the tormented Bear of the Bathrooms looked as if he would strike him if he said a word!
What was Care Dog to do?
But then, upon seeing the big tears welling up in the eyes of the poor Canine of Kindness, Pee Bear got a crafty look in his eye. He hung his head and apologized.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Care Dog. Can you forgive me? I'm just been in such a bad mood lately, what with these ticks and vermin eating away at my poor asshole." He smiled his sweetest sad smile at Care Dog, and shuffled his feet bashfully to show that he was sorry.
Care Dog wiped the tears away and looked up hopefully, "You... you really mean it, Pee Bear?"
"Sure, Care Dog. In fact, why don't you come closer? There's a present I'd like to give you."
Trustingly, Care Dog walked towards Pee Bear. In his childlike innocence, he hadn't even noticed that that wily Bear had extended his huge, hideous bear dick from its furry sheath. Its pointed tip glistened with a quivering drop of anticipatory "gleet." The hairy base of it writhed with fleas.
Care Dog sniffed the air. "Say, do you smell something dead, Pee Bear?" (Care Dog quickly dismissed the ridiculous, primitive urge that always made him want to find any dead thing and roll around on it. That wasn't the kind of thing that polite dogs did!)
Then he saw that Pee Bear wore a very strange expression. Why was he looking at Care Dog so intently?
"We're a long way from Care-A-Lot Town, Care Dog."
* * *
Care Dog awoke some time later in great pain, lying on the forest
floor. He was alone. Night was close, and it was raining -- a bitter, oily,
dirty-looking rain which seemed to burn his skin as it soaked through his
bloody fur. It stung his wounds dreadfully.
He didn't even try to get up and find shelter. He simply lay there, staring off into the forest, shivering with cold and agony.
Yet there were no tears in his big brown eyes... eyes that had once been soft. Now his eyes were hard.
"What Pee Bear said was true," he said aloud to himself in an emotionless voice. "It is I who was the liar. My life was a lie."
He waited to die.
But after awhile, some humans found him. Instead of nursing his wounds, however, they threw him into a truck full of other injured and dying animals who had strayed too far from Care-A-Lot Town. All were taken to a frightful human city and locked into tiny, cramped cages inside an enormous room which held cages full of animals as far as Care Dog could see. The vast room echoed with the animals' howls of agony and despair.
After a few days, when the cages were full of the animals' own poop, they were brought out and herded into a dark chamber. There, they were slowly asphyxiated as the air was gradually withdrawn. Their panic, and the violence of their death-throes, only made the humans laugh all the louder.
Care Dog alone was spared; but he was sent to the laboratory of a giant cosmetics firm where men in white suits vivisected him alive over a period of weeks, testing chemicals by direct application to his raw, exposed organs. He was attached to machines that kept him alive. When his body finally died, they used a new machine which could keep his brain alive indefinitely, perhaps even forever. It was hailed as a tremendous medical breakthrough, but Care Dog didn't know he was famous -- for he could neither hear nor see nor smell nor feel, but could only hurt.
And they all lived ever after.
So when you go to sleep, say a special prayer. Pray that "Bob" Dobbs will rise soon from the grave, punish the evildoers and pull the plug on the machine that still keeps Care Dog's brain alive in endless, sleepless pain and horror to this very day.
THE END