XV.

Scambot: I’m sorry it’s so predictable for me to be wondering what the fuck is going on.

Ophunji: Why concern yourself with trivia? Clamhead!! The world opens itself for you, and still you fumfer and caw? Oh, my small Scambot... allow me!, to explain:

(Ophunji serenades Scambot with a ballad about the future, coded in arcane Ophunji-speak.)

Inclement hobo
Statewide hobo
Untrammeled hobo
In stars: din-din

Then, orange rowboat
Planetwide din.
Outlandish hobo!
Pin, pin.

“This is explaining?” thinks Scambot.

But, then. Then, Ophunji puts the craft on autopilot and comes close to look deep into Scambot’s eyes, and suddenly Scambot understands...everything: the rowboat, the din-din, the din; all is plain, right, this is pure, crystal-clear awareness. He gapes in wonder.

Sins of childhood
Sins of faith
As of piled wood
As waif is wraith

Frozen hobo
On a whim
Death planet logo
I spy big pins

Ophunji, bleary and demented from the excitement of the moment (and years of cough syrup abuse), has his eyes on Scambot’s legs (“pins” as he calls them), which aren’t big at all - they’re spindly little spikes of nothing. I mean, you’ve seen them, right?

Can’t go no higher
Don’t have no hope
Intrepid whiner
Got no rope

This fluckin’ hobo
This fluckin’ kid
I speak of childhood!
What you did!

Ophunji begins to spin with great fervor. Scambot slowly loses consciousness - why?

Oh, oh
Planet logo
No, no, no, no, no
Stone’s throw from no-go

Aii! Aii!
Who let you try nuts?
You’ll never know.
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho.

Nuts. The peanuts Scambot ate at the Quiet Children’s rehearsal space. They were drugged and planted there by Ophunji. Scambot passes out and crumples to the floor.

An image crystallizes in his unconscious mind. A suppressed memory, appearing in a small spotlit area in the darkness. It floats, blurring and unblurring.

A woman’s face.
“Emmy.

Not Emmy?

I know we were together. But all I can remember now are - shadows, flashes. A broken chair. A guy standing with his hands on his hips with flames shooting out of his - what is that about? An argument - I said something wrong, and you made me get out of your car on the freeway. I remember how the light looked. I walked.

There was an empty Sun Chips bag that I was kicking - one time it caught a breeze and floated for, like, seven seconds. Which was cool. And, and we had a fight about you messing with some Korn cassettes I had. I was a Korn fan? Why did I give you such grief?

Ami!
That was your name! Am-”
SLAP!

Scambot is brought to by a white-coated lackey of Ophunji’s. He’s been strapped to a chair in an underwater lab. The lackey puts a printout in his hand: a bullet-pointed timeline listing the highlights of Ophunji’s experimentation with his consciousness. He reads, aghast and trying to grasp it all, as the lab fills with white-coated technicians bustling, and crooning while they bustle, as if they were seven dwarves rather than somewhere up to 50 technicians.

A key question in the study of human consciousness is whether its structure is unitary or distributed, ie., whether it has local serial or distributed parallel access to the contents of the working memory.

Are we conscious of one thing at a time, with attentional scanning over the contents of the stream of consciousness, or are we able to monitor a broad range of neural signals simultaneously?

Ophunji bursts into the lab wearing a rhinestone-encrusted red tuxedo and matching top hat, and high-kicks menacingly as he sings about the glory he intuits in the world-to-be, gaining in fervor (and eyebrows) as he sings.

Demons dangling squarely from a tree.
Wombat but-a-yearning to be free.
Facial tics inflaming entropy.
Bricolage and opals on the floor.
Iridescent panthers maiming four.
Fantasy fish, ticks forevermore...
Life is too small to hold them all.
Burning, flucking falling to the ground.
Rats who gathered, vibing to the sound of burning, flucking falling to the ground.
Pismo Beach, a raft, a windy day
Cosmo came and cars were blown away
Infants, screaming, laughed as if to say:
Life is too small to hold them all.
Sticks from trees that fall in gutter mud.
Cooking shows with vats retaining blood then bursting with a gratifying thud.
I, ‘midst crows and peacocks, sipping wine
You, effective hobo, strength’ning spine
Flapping, flucking, foot and foot entwine Life is too small to hold them all.

Ophunji has again come to within inches of Scambot, and again seems entranced by Scambot’s legs. He intones, zoning out on his own mantra-like lyric:

I and I entwined. I and I entwined. I and I entwined.
I and I entwined. I and I entwined. I and I entwined.

Ophunji’s dream: once he’s fully occupied Scambot’s consciousness, he will establish a romantic relationship with himself, essentially, which would ultimately lead to sexual congress between the two Ophunjis. This is the glory he seeks.

Scambot is beginning to glean this aspect of things, and it gives him pause. Ophunji delivers the final line a half-inch away from Scambot’s nose.

Life is too small.

He chonks a scary looking metal helmet over Scambot’s skull, says “POOOOOF!,” and Scambot passes out again.