Conversation · Coupris Kineema

The lieutenant's breath catches in his chest.

You crossed a line. This will not be forgotten.

"Not going to happen, you fascist prick."

"Huh?" The sound bubbles out of him, even to his own surprise.

Look at that! His eyes dilate. That's joy, my man. You wouldn't be able to tell, but his glasses just magnify it.

"Okay, cop-man! Can do, will do!"

"DJ Mesh out."

"Wait! Can you send me any Speedfreaks merch?"

"I can understand why you'd ask, our shit's hot. Think we gave the last of it away at our last live show, but -- what's your address anyway?"

"Send it to the Whirling-in-Rags, in Martinaise."

"That I can do. Whirling-in-Rags, Martinaise. Got it."

Even if a package arrives, how will it get to you if it hasn't got your name on it?

"Wait! Don't you need to know my name?"

"I don't want to know, man. I like leaving it to the imagination. Now, anything else?"

"Thank you!"

"Hey, don't thank me yet! Again, I don't think we got anything left, but, well... Anything else?"

"I'm staying in a shack by the coast, in a small fishing village near Martinaise."

"Uh, I'm gonna need better than 'streetless shack' if you can get that for me."

"I don't really know my address..."

"That's, uh... Well, have you got any address I can send shit to, man?"

"I'm just thinking of the children."

"It's not a conspiracy theory, it's logic. The lesser races, still fresh and DRIPPING from the proto-slime, can't beat us outright -- so they resort to impossibly devious schemes."

The lieutenant stares at you, his jaw clenched. A vein strains on his temple.

"You know, it'd be one thing if you were just crazy. Like, I could forgive you then. I know lots of crazy people."

"But you're just fucking hateful. And I got no time for that shit. Anything else you need, or can I hang up?"

"Sure! Forced radio. Can't tune out. You'd make a killing on ads!"

"Speedfreaks FM is elective listening, man. We don't want to force the people to adopt our thinking. That's fascist bullshit."

"No, I was just asking -- and dreaming up a bold new money making scheme."

"Right, well -- no, we don't force radio into peoples heads. Don't know how you'd even do that, man."

"Was there anything else you need to know?"

"No, that wasn't my fascist line, that was my ultraliberal one. I can do the fascist one if you want."

"You're a fucking wild man. Sure, let's hear it."

"Okay, the fascist thing was me calling you an enemy of the state for force-pumping filth into children, thus corrupting traditional values."

The radio host doesn't try to contain his laughter. "Oh, man, I love it! You're great. No, we didn't do anything like that. Wouldn't know how to -- we just played it on air like normal people."

"Now, was there anything else you wanted to ask?"

"Yeah, like that. Maybe it was part of your civic duty, you were just testing it out for the government."

"We ain't testing anything out for the Man, unless it's how many bricks you need to break all of his windows."

"That wasn't a threat, by the way. Just a figure of speech, I'm a spoken word guy. Now, is there anything else you needed?"

"Yeah. Like a new way to equalize people, getting them all on the same station. A great tool for Communism."

"Right on, brother. We gotta make sure everybody tunes into this sonic revolution!"

"But we didn't, like, force it into people's brains. Got no idea how to do that, short of them just tuning in on their favourite radio receiving device."

"I understand. Thank you for clearing that up."

"My pleasure, comrade cop. Is there anything else you needed?"

"Okay. I'd recommend looking into it, though. For the revolution."

"Revolution-brain-broadcast. Got it. Yeah, we'll look into it."

"Was there anything else you wanted to ask?"

"Do people like it?"

"They're lovin' it, man! The requests keep coming in for more."

"I really think it's the future of music, I do. Fuckin', like, stinkcore, or something. Shit's so nasty, those stinkwaves come up like soundwaves, you know what I mean?"

This is preposterous. Neither sound nor scent work anything as he's describing. What does he even mean?

"Sure, man. I'm young, cool, and with it."

"Very cool, man, I'm dead serious when I say, Flacio is going to make it big in this world."

"I don't have any idea what you mean."

"Doesn't matter. Listen, I'm dead serious when I say, Flacio is going to make it big in this world."

"Okay... But what is the song called?"

"Yeah, that is the song. 'An Asshole Is A Mouth For Shit (And I'm Puking).'"

"I'm guessing that's the song."

"It ain't just a song! It's the shit-hot new single from DJ Flacio that's shredding up the sonic waves."

"An Asshole Is A Mouth For Shit (And I'm Puking)?"

"An Asshole Is A Mouth For Shit (And I'm Puking)!"