Hitchhikers Redux

by Dennis Mahagin

I was about to call it a night, 
when my Macbook channeled 
Jack Kerouac, on brass knuckle 
Blackberry, updating his web log 
from an outpost on Antares: 

"It's like desert, where nothin's as near as it appears," 
said Jack, "or that Time shooting craps, with Pascal 
when I was but a greenhorn, fresh out of stratosphere... 
I watched him press his Hard Way bets while I built up 
my bank, until Double Fours blew me out of that game 
like pink particle dust from a sunflower super nova!”

On chat platform, I scrambled to answer Kerouac 
with my cheesy 3 - D Pulsar Avatar of Milky Way 
Bar, typing on a wing-shaped keypad, just as fast 
as my fingers could fly: 

"Well other than that, how have you 
been getting along, Master Kerouac?" 

"Oh man, with gravity in a hermetic 
vacuum it's nothing but zoom-zoom… 
zoom – zoom - ZOOM!" 

"Are you an angel now, Jack?" 

"Heavens no! But yesterday in fact, I did catch a 
glimpse of Neal's snow-white chin whiskers in the 
Katherine Wheel sparks of a Haley's Sleigh Ride. 
And man what a gas... What a GAS!" 

"So it's true, we're not all alone in a vast 
coal-black, frigidly-indifferent universe?" 

"Nah, man. Just very, very Self Centered. That's all... 
Remember: Even the most gaping, galloping Big Sur 
fault line cannot stand up against a heartfelt rope 
skip rhyme—" 

"And all addictions, fratricide, and bad 
tattoos have been spawned by boredom?" 

"Where did you get that one, kid?" 

"It is written: On the sweating wall 
of the Cow Trough Pisser ... Club 
Satyricon, Portland Ora - Gone 
circa Twenty Forty Six…" 

"It's not half-bad." 

"Anyway, I think this post is gonna draw 
a whole lot of freaking Web hits, Jack!" 

"That's cool, kid—now, dig, 
I gotta fly, but I just might 
—be back." 

"Well then ... Until Zen?" 

"You're catchin' on, Dad ...You 
really are comin' along  just fine." 

(first published in Unlikely Stories)