Paco gripped the gold medal tightly in his right hand. It fit perfectly. It had always been meant for him, since before time existed, and after, and in-between. He placed it between his teeth and bit on it, like they always did on the movies. It tasted metallic. He bit harder. Ooh, that felt good, deep down to the nerves. He felt his left-most incisor crack, and the exposed tooth innard was sweet against his tongue, but he had to bite in, bite in hard, bite in until he really reached the essence, the very thing that they always did, something good would happen, it had to. His incisor snapped in twain and the disconnected bit flew across the room and clattered against the wall, but Paco had to bite, he had to, he had to. He bit again and again and again, applying pressure, pressure, pressure, until his canines and incisors and molars and premolars no longer were and his gums bled until he vomited half-digested blood and his medal was stitched with little tooth depressions, but then, HE KNEW THE MAGIC.

     Thurston happened by.

     “Hi,” he said.

     “Hi,” said Paco, with his new teeth, 37% titanium but totally natural looking.

     “What’s up?” asked Thurston. He was bored. Paco would probably amuse him.

     “Check out this new SuperFun SitStation 2938 Mark 37 Revision 3.7 Service Pack 4 Hot Patch 3 I just got,” said Paco.

     “Hot Patch 3?” said Thurston, impressed. “I didn’t know they had released that already.”

     “Oh, they released it all right,” said Paco. “They released it IN A GREAT GUSHING MOTION.”

     Thurston nodded.

     Paco inserted his chewed medal into the Fun Slot IX Enhanced DPR Edition. Beams of color shot from the front of the square SitStation, bouncing off the ceiling and the carpet and into Thurston’s eyes, where they never came back out.

     “Wowee,” said Thurston, falling over backwards into a stack of pillows, which rebounded against the weight and shot him through the fogged ceiling and then walls of the second floor, through a few low cumulus clouds and out through the thin upper atmosphere and out into the Van Allen belts and into the stellar particle stream and beyond the sun, over towards the biggest planet in the area, called Steve’s Place. There are lots of little balloons over there, little compared to Steve’s Place anyway, quite huge compared to Thurston.

     Paco was there too. “I thought they fixed this bug,” he said, disappointed. Maybe Thurston wouldn’t think he was ultra-hip anymore. It had to hurt his esteem at least a little. And that would be bad. For some reason that Paco had never figured out.

     The cloudtops were made of super-chilled hydrogen and nitrogen, whorling in brown and white and beige and tan and taupe. Paco and Thurston fell through one of them. It refroze their mint-flavoured ice cream bar. Paco took a bite.

     “That tastes fucking fantastic,” said Paco.

     Thurston nodded. “Each bite makes my penis just that much more erect,” said Thurston in a humorous type of way.

     Paco giggled. “You naughty little boy!” he said.

     Thurston looked insulted. “I’m not a boy,” he said.

     “I’ve got a SitStation Mark 37 Revision 3.7,” said Paco.

     “True,” said Thurston respectfully.

     They tumbled more or less horizontally into a balloon that was about the size of three Paco & Thurstons. They burst through its thin carboniforant skin and mint-flavoured ice cream bars tumbled out. Paco and Thurston impaled into the remaining mint-flavoured ICBs and lay there in silent bliss, occasionally turning their head slightly and filling their perpetually-empty stomachs.

     “That’s my brain you’re eating,” said the balloon.

     “And tasty it is,” said Paco.

     “You’re making me stupider with each bite.”

     “You should have gotten out of our way,” said Thurston. “How much stupider could you possibly be?”

     The balloon’s lower lip stuck out poutingly. “You just don’t care about me at all, do you,” it said, blubbering.

     “No,” said Paco.

     Pure hydrochloric acid shot from its eye sockets and onto Paco and Thurston. Paco and Thurston’s bodies melted away, making the ice cream bars all the more delicious.

     “Holy sweet shit these are good,” said Paco.

     “You’re mother fucking god damn clit-sucking cunt-eating big-cock-ing asshole-izing, nigger kike spic wop nip cracker they are,” said Thurston.

     The balloon caterwauled all the more.

     “Shut up,” said Paco.

     “You’re KILLING ME,” moaned the balloon.

     “Is there any way to make you shut your yap?” asked Thurston.

     This stymied the balloon.

     “Heh,” said Paco, eating another handful of delicious acified bar.

     Another balloon, larger, floated over.

     “I’m this balloon’s mother,” it said, “and I find what you’re doing to my spawn very distasteful.”

     “If you could eat you wouldn’t,” said Thurston, with a mouth full of minty.

     “You are both very rude,” said the mother.

     The spawn seemed to have been reduced to a level below speech, because it no longer said anything.

     “You won’t like what happens if you keep eating,” said the mother.

     Paco moved his thumb and fingers together and apart in a silent yakking motion. Thurston snickered. The mother balloon floated away. Unnoticed by Paco and Thurston’s semi-incorporeal forms, the spawn was sinking lower and lower, deeper and deeper into the thick atmosphere of Steve’s Place.

* * * * * ** ** * * * * * * * * ** ** *

     “Something’s happening,” said Thurston.

     “Yeah, the commercials are on,” said Paco, smirking.

     “No, I mean,” said Thurston, looking at the view. He and Paco were sitting on Paco’s leather couch, sunk deep into its plush stuffing and relishing the slickness of the cured cowhide. On the view, a woman was dancing and her breasts were bouncing up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down .......

     Paco rose his eyebrows. “Yeah?” he said.

     “You got any more of these whipped truffles?” asked Thurston.

     “Yeah, sure,” said Paco. “They’re in the kitchen.”

     “Kitchen?” said Thurston. “What’s that?”

     Paco pondered the question. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “Come on, we’ll lead a reconnaissance out into--------- THE BEYONDLANDS.” He pointed out the window, where a vast smoking wasteland that glowed slightly awaited. The old pine tree was ablaze. A five-legged dog with skin coming off in layers and reddened eyeballs coughed up its own small intestines, then swallowed them again and chewed on a giant fly with eight pairs of wings, fifty-seven million faceted eyes, and 493 strands of GNA, each more twisted than the last. It snowed pure death and the sun cried blood red tears of ultra pain and terrible affliction of the hands which caused endlessly festering boils and pus that tasted and smelled exactly like feces.

     Thurston leapt out of the couch and through the window, which was safety glass and didn’t make any shards at all, in fact it turned into cotton candy. Paco followed. Thurston immediately gained the power to shoot things with his eyes and Paco gained the power to crush or stretch anything with his hands and now they both could fly. They both soared into the sky, far above the Hell Clouds and towards the sky fortresses manned by the androids who had made it all possible.

     “I forgot to save my game,” said Thurston regretfully.

     “We didn’t get that far anyway,” said Paco.

     “Yeah but still,” said Thurston.

     Paco flew in front of Thurston and farted.

     “OOH, THAT STINKS,” said Thurston.

     “If you light a match,” said Paco.

     They landed on the outer platform of Sky Fortress #48-40-D. It was a massive hunk of metal, over two hundred feet tall and wide, with spikes and antennae and dishes and jets and bars and rails everywhere. The sun barely glinted off of the tarnished surface, though, and the whole place looked a little out of joint.

     “Fuck me,” said Paco, “the androids ran out of power. I forgot they couldn’t make their own cow feces.”

     “Holy shit in a bucket of less holy shit,” said Thurston. “I guess everything is okay after all.”

     “Son of a cocking dick sucking faggot of the third generation eating a woman’s ass with a dallop of cunt juice,” said Paco. “See this button here?” He pointed to a tiny itty bitty green button that was hidden behind 23 safety boxes.

     “Ya,” said Thurston.

     Paco flipped, broke, and twisted all the boxes until finally he had exposed the button. “Enjoy,” said Paco.

     He pushed the button, and a candy cane appeared in his other hand. “Mmm, candy,” he said, sucking on the cane, in and out, in and out.

     Thurston pushed it too and a candy cane appeared in his hand. “Good cane,” he said.

     Down below, a one-winged vulture ate itself and contracted cancer of each and every organ and also cancer of each cancer, until finally it exploded, a cancerous bomb.

     “Mmm,” said Thurston, “cancer.”

* * * * ** ** * * ** * * * * * * ** * ***
** * * * ** * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * *
* * * * ** ** * * * * * * * * ** **** *

     “Yeah,” said Paco, licking his lips. “Cancer.”

* * ** * * ** * * * * * ** * * * * * ** **
*** * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * ** * **
* * ** * ** * * * ** * * * * * * **

     Then, they went to the old quarry.