Cool Sheep Island

I was bored, so I bought a submarine. It was pretty awesome at first but it got boring. There isn't a whole lot going on in the ocean. It's mostly water. And it's dark.

I just fucking drove the submarine around and was pissed off and bored. I saw some whales and fish and dolphins and stingrays and stuff. And I saw a sunken ship. I mean, I think it was a sunken ship anyway. It could have been something else. The windows in submarines totally suck ass and you can't really see that good.

I saw some other submarines in the ocean but they were stupid, like nerd submarines doing dumb science stuff. I called them up on the submarine radio and was like, "Yo dudes, let's have a submarine race," and they were like, "Yeah, we can't race right now… we're sort of busy conducting a super important study of lobster anatomy," and so on. It was garbage. Fuck those dudes.

So I drove the submarine around looking for some action, but I couldn't find shit. It was pretty fucking lame. At first I was just bored but then I got all like gloomy and depressed.

To cheer myself up, I ate a few grape popsicles. But the inside of the submarine was hot and the popsicles were melty. Popsicle juice got all over my fingers and made all the submarine controls sticky and gross.

So I was pissed. And bored. And sticky with popsicle juice. It was a pretty bogus scenario from top to bottom.

I couldn't wash my hands or anything. There was no sink in the submarine. And steering was a real bastard. All the buttons kept sticking. The button that controlled the periscope got totally stuck, and I couldn't fix it. So that shit was just up all the time. I felt like a total loser.

Eventually I just lost control of the submarine. I was kind of scared but only for a second. I played it off real cool.

Fortunately I crashed into a small island. I wasn't hurt or nothing. The island was really sandy. The submarine got kind of banged up in the crash, but it still worked okay, thank God.

Since I was crashed on the island, I figured I'd explore and shit. As it turns out, the island was pretty bad ass. There weren't any people, there was just lots of sheep. But they were awesome sheep with orange wool. And they all wore black wayfarer sunglasses.

The island was full of palm trees, but instead of coconuts they were full of delicious pizza. And not just cheese pizza either. The pizza was loaded with fucking glorious toppings like cabbage and bacon or my personal favorite: olive, cilantro, and meatball pizza. It was pretty sweet.

After gorging myself on pizza until my gut was about to burst, I sat down to catch my breath, and I heard this noise that sounded like a river, right? So I went to check it out. And fucking sure enough I found a river, but instead of water, it was full of hot coffee! So I went over to the coffee river and drank a whole bunch.

All in all I thought the island was pretty cool. It put me in an amazingly upbeat mood. Seriously, I was so stoked that I wandered around with my hands in my pockets and whistled. I love whistling, but I only do it when I'm upbeat, you know? So if I'm whistling, you know it's legit.

So I was walking around and eating a slice of cherry and pineapple pizza. Oh, and I was also drinking a strawberry Nesquik because I never go anywhere without that shit – it's some fucking supremely tasty business.

Anyway, so I was eating pizza and wandering around on the island when I came across a Cyclops. It was the first non-sheep life form I'd run into on the island, and, dude, the Cyclops was huge like a monster truck. He was sitting on a faded green couch and playing Sega Genesis on a crummy little UHF television. Meanwhile, orange sheep with sunglasses were wandering around and munching on pizza. And I could hear the sound of the nearby coffee river. The scene was so bizarre that it staggered me for a moment. I mean, it was pretty fucked up but awesome at the same time.

Well, after I got my shit together, I eyeballed the Cyclops for a while. Dude didn't notice me – he was playing some Eternal Champions. That game is sort of fucking weak if you ask me. I mean, the play control is bunk. But the characters are admittedly sweet. And they have nasty back-stories. Like the detective dude with the grappling hook. He's awesome. I'm a sucker for that kind of shit.

Anyway, I was pretty envious. I mean, wandering around on the island and eating from pizza trees and drinking from the coffee river was cool and all, but I wanted to play me some video games.

At first I was sketched out 'cause the Cyclops was enormous and scary. But I figured anyone that plays Sega Genesis and lives on an island with cool orange sheep must be a pretty cool dude even if he's a Cyclops, so I wandered on over and was like, "Hey Cyclops, how you doing?"

The Cyclops paused his game and turned towards me. "Hey," he said. The dude stood up and looked me over in this stern, suspicious way. His giant Cyclops eyeball was all over me. The thing was massive like a bowling ball. And it wasn't colored like a normal human eye – it was splatter painted like a Jackson Pollock.

"You here alone?" asked the sketchy Cyclops.

"Uh, yeeaah?" I said as I took a few steps backward.

"Hmm…" the Cyclops said menacingly. He stroked his chin thoughtfully and glared at me. It reminded me of being a kid and asking my old man for five bucks. I half expected him to tell me to rake the lawn or shovel the fucking driveway.

The Cyclops blinked his giant eye and took a step in my direction. I suddenly noticed all the orange sheep had stopped eating pizza – they were looking at me. "Well," continued the Cyclops, "you aren't like one of those dickheads that goes around stealing sheep, are you? 'Cause all the sheep on this island are mine. If I catch you trying to steal one, I'll bite your head off."

"Uh… naaaaaaw, dude – I'm just here hanging out. You know, eating pizza and drinking coffee and what not. I ain't into fuckin' with people's sheep."

The Cyclops was visibly relieved to hear this. He took a deep breath, wiped his forehead, and said, "Oh, cool. Well, in that case, you wanna play video games?"

And I said, "Hell yeah!"

So the Cyclops made some room for me on the couch. It was pretty easy 'cause the couch was monster truck size just like the Cyclops.

We played fuckin' Streets of Rage 2. That game kicks ass. I hadn't played in years, but it came back to me pretty fast. I offered the Cyclops some strawberry Nesquik – he wasn't down at first, but I told him he had to at least taste the shit if we were gonna hang out. The Cyclops tried it, and after that he was hooked 'cause its crazy delicious.

We played straight through fucking Streets of Rage 2 like a pair of pros. It took a few hours, and after that we took a break. My fucking hand was killing me. The Genesis controller hurt my fingers. Those old-school video games really take a lot of fucking finger movement shit and that stuff is tiring as all hell. Plus the controllers are stiff. Your finger nubs get all raw. But it's worth it.

Anyway, we moved to a pair of beach chairs and drained some beers. It was about 3:30 in the morning.

"Holy shit," I said. "It's fucking late."

"Yeah. You're welcome to crash on my couch if you want."

"Nice. Yeah, I'll probably do that and split first thing tomorrow."

"Cool. Hey man, I'm glad you made it to my island 'cause, fuck, it's been like forever since I had anyone to play Streets of Rage with. Sometimes I play with the sheep, but they are fucking terrible at video games."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, man, they don't do nothing but, like, eat pizza and wear sunglasses – it's pretty fucking boring."

"Seriously. Still, you got a pretty sweet island though, dude. I'm envious; I wish we had, like, pizza trees and coffee rivers in Boston."

I saluted the Cyclops with my beer and we did a toast, finished our beers out, and the Cyclops said, "Wanna do a shot?" and I said, "Fuck yeah."

So me and the Cyclops got trashed and hung out until it started to get light outside.

"Shit, man," said the Cyclops. "It's like tomorrow already."

"Yup," I said while finishing off the last dregs of the alcohol. "And we're outta booze."

"Fuck. Well, I'm dead. I'm gonna crash."

"Okay," I said. "I'll probably be gone before you get up, so thanks for the hospitality and the beer and shit."

"Hey man, no problem. Anytime you wanna chill here you're welcome to, you know? Just don't steal no fucking sheep."

"Right on, bro. No sweat. Hey, if you're ever in Boston give me a shout – we can play video games or watch a fight or whatever."

"Sounds good, man."

"Peace out."

"Night."

So the Cyclops headed off to crash in his cave, and I lay down on the couch and fell asleep almost instantly.

I woke up about two hours later. I just can't sleep easy when I'm not in my own bed, you know?

The sun was high and hot. The orange sheep wandered around without a care in the world. I was sweaty. And it wasn't good sweat. It was sour beer sweat merged with the stink of an old, disgusting couch. And there was the imprint of a zipper, from one of the couch cushions, on my face. I felt like shit.

My memory was speckled like the egg of some stupid colorful bird, and I could feel the seeds of a raging hangover lurking in the back of my brain. I somehow tore myself from the couch and headed back to the submarine. On my way, I managed to choke down a few slices of pizza and suck back about a gallon of the coffee river.

Fortunately the submarine didn't give me any trouble, and I was able to clean up most of the sticky popsicle juice with ocean water. Except the periscope – it was totally fucking stuck.

The trip home took forever. I got lost for a while. Fortunately the worst part of my hangover didn't arrive till I got home. Seconds after crossing the threshold of my apartment I leapt into the toilet and barfed my brains out. Shit was brutal. I wasn't normal again for like two days.

About a week later, I sold the submarine. I mean, driving a submarine isn't as fun as it sounds. After the first 30 minutes or so it's just boring, boring, boring. Since I didn't have ocean transportation, I had no way to visit the Cyclops' island. That was kind of a drag. And I felt sort of guilty.

A few months later I got an email from the Cyclops. It was some pretty normal email shit like, "Hey, what's up? I'm hangin' out w/ the sheep and playin' video games, etc., etc.."

At first I was pretty psyched because the Cyclops was a cool dude, and I dug the island with the pizza trees and coffee rivers, but at the same time it'd been a while so my memory of hanging out on the island was a bit sour. I mean, even good can be rendered shitty when remembered through pukey hangover haze, you know? Bottom line is I was sketched out by the Cyclops' email. All I remembered was the crummy hangover and the boring ocean voyage.

I replied about a week later with some bogus apology for replying so late. It was a pretty half-assed email, and I felt like a douche literally seconds after I sent it. The Cyclops never replied. This bummed me out, but only for a little while. That's how it goes sometimes.

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LYNCH 2009