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Sublime Awakenings	By : Kailean Category: Comics > Squee! Views: 1478 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Squee!, JTHM, or Invader Zim, nor any of the characters from these works. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Sublime Awakenings: Chapter 20

Squee stood, shelving DVD cases at Rob's from a dolly almost mechanically. It was like his body was on autopilot. After todays events, that would make sense. He had considered calling out of work, but staying at home with Shmee and his parents would have been even worse than pretending to be a normal, properly functioning part of society.

“Hey, Squee, come up here for a moment!” Rob's voice reverberated from the front of the store, probably because he was too lazy to walk twenty or thirty feet to find an employee.

When he made it to the front, he saw his boss, a bald man wearing a shirt that read: “You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps.”, standing next to a middle-aged woman with a large nose and salt and pepper hair who appeared to be quite angry. Great. This day just kept getting better and better. He briefly wondered if he had been a terrible person in a previous life as he approached. “Did you want something?”

“Yes, this woman says that an employee here matching your description rented a video to her mother.”

“It was supposed to be 'The Overpasses of Madison Parish', but it was ahorrifying..er..horror movie called 'Quiet Mountain' instead! I hope you're happy, my mother had a minor heart attack because of you!” The woman's face was red with anger.

Rob attempted to intervene. “Mama, I'm going to have to ask you to maintain a respectful tone with my employee. Why don't I give you the number for our complaint line?” Said line would keep her tied up in red tape for weeks before finally getting her absolutely nowhere.

“How about the number for your lawyer instead?!”

“Umm, I'm sorry? Is she alright?” Squee asked with weary concern.

“Oh, you will be sorry! Of course she's not alright! She is now afraid to check out videos, so I have to buy every movie she wants to watch! Even the ones she only watches once! Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is for me?! How much space all those videos take up in my apartment?! DO YOU?”

“No, but couldn't you just donate the ones she doesn't like-”

“What's your name?!” Cutting him off mid-sentence, she drew her face near to his name tag, nearly stabbing his chest with her nose. “Squee?! What kind of name is THAT?”

“The kind you can't use in a lawsuit.”

“What was that?”

“I said, it's the kind of name you get when your parents resent your existence.” He managed a, partly genuine, sad tone.

“Huh?” The woman's eyes softened ever so slightly in preparation to feel sympathy.

“Yes, my parents hate me so much that they call me “Squee”. And they had me unfairly committed. And ...and now that I'm out they make me wear a straight jacket that they had privately made, specifically to be painful, at night. I never get any sleep, but I have to work to pay for my food! So when I'm here I'm not always completely coherent. I'm..fake sniff..so sorry if I'm the one who mixed up the videos! Don't sue the store! Sue me! Sue ME! Prison is too good for me! The hot meals, the showers, the SLEEP!-”

“The butt-sex..”

Squee's dramatic speech instantly died, and he shot Letta, who was now standing in the entrance, a glare for making him break character. “Anyway, let me write down my name and address for you.”

“No. No, young man, that won't be necessary after all. Just try to stay more focused in the future. Good luck with your parents.” She turned and walked from the store, giving Letta an unsure look, as if the girl was loopier that Poop Loops, on her way.

“Wow. That went better than expected!” Rob announced. “Good job, Squee. Here, have a sticker.” The man pulled a pad of shinny, little star stickers from his pocket. “How about a blue one?” He peeled a blue sticker from the pad, sticking it to the teens forehead before he could decline the offer. “There!”

“Shouldn't you fire me or something?” Squee stared at him dumbly, absentmindedly peeling the sticker from his head. “I almost killed a costumer.”

“Fire you? Yes, you did, and I didn't even have to get you out of it! That really makes my day. Keep it up, and I'll give you a raise. Well, I have to go fill out some order forms.” With that, the creepy manager/owner retreated into his office.

Letta took a few steps closer to Squee. “Come on, you're taking a break.” Grabbing his arm, the young woman pulled him from the store, and down the walkway. “I need dinner. How about we have some suck-monkeys and pretzels.” It wasn't really a question, and she didn't think he would give an answer either way, so she continued to the nearest vendor a few stores down, ordering for them both.

“Your boss is completely crazy.” She informed as she placed a suck-money in one of his hands and a pretzel in the other.

The two began a slow stroll through the mall, headed nowhere in particular.

“Yeah. I guess he is. I seem to attract that. Maybe it's that “like attracts like” thing Vay was telling me about.” Squee attempted to sound casual, but it was getting harder to role with the punches. Sometimes it seemed like the whole world was off kilter like this, but he knew that wasn't true. At lest, it hadn't seemed true for most of the time he had been in the institution. Most, though definitely not all, of his infrequent outings with Brian and Letta had seemed normal enough. Was it him or the bear that attracted those things? He really wasn't sure at this point.

“Please, Squee. You're not that kind of crazy, and you didn't mean to hurt that woman's mother. And don't go getting all religious on me. I think working with a Wiccan is affecting your brain.”

Squee grip tightened slightly on his suck-monkey, and he rolled his eyes at girl dismissiveness. She wouldn't be saying that if she knew about the kind of day he had just endured. He was slightly annoyed, as always, that she was so judgmental of anyone who so much as considered a religious notion, but he was in no mood to start an argument about it. So, he did the next best thing. “Is that jealousy I sense? Don't worry sister; you will always be the Virgin Huntress to me.”

“Eww! Todd, why do you have to remind me of that? It was just a freaking kiss. And I was drunk. And Mindy broke up with me because of it. She thought I was bi! And why is that connected to the Mists of Avalon?”

“It was 'just' my first freaking kiss! And it was from a drunken lesbian, who I think of as a sister. I think you deserve to be reminded sometimes, because I'm always going to remember. It reminds me of the Great Rite in The Mists of Avalon because of the incestuousness of it and because I think you thought I was a girl, so you didn't even know who I was, but mostly just because I was reading it at the time. This particular reminder was brought to you by the campaign against religious discrimination. Plus, Wicca reminds me of the book too, so you kind of chose your own punishment with that one.”

Letta signed in frustration. He was so overreacting. “For the millionth time, I'm sorry I kissed you. But you did look like a girl! You were wearing make-up and everything. You make a pretty cute girl, by the way.”

“And whose fault was it that I was wearing make-up? I didn't put it on myself, and I seem to remember telling you and your friends that I didn't want to play dress-up at least ten times.”

“Mine, alright. But you should be more assertive. And you know I wasn't discriminating against Wiccans. I think all religions are equally stupid. I get enough of that stuff from Dad. It's always Jesus this and Jesus that. I don't know why he can't understand that not everyone has a spiritual hard on for some old, Jewish, dead guy. I don't find the idea of getting on my knees for some zombie that appealing, and I'm certainly not going to ingest his bodily...products...so that I too can know the joys of being undead.”

Near the end of her semi-rant, Squee felt his gag reflex convulse, making him choke on his suck-monkey. “Ack! Aaah!”

Letta gave his back a few hard smacks. “You okay?”

“I think I shallowed the straw. Did you have to say it like that?”

“Like what, Squeegee?”

“You know, like The Passion of Jeffrey Dahmer.”

“Ha! Yes. I did, actually. Did I ever tell you that one of my roommates freshman year was a Resurrectionist? Becoming undead was her dream. Jeffrey would have been all over that religion.”

“Resurrectionists? Do I even want to know what they are?” He asked in exasperation.

“Probably not, but I'll tell you anyway. Their kind of a Christian fringe group. They believe that Jesus was the first zombie, that the people he was supposed to have resurrected actually became zombies, and that he taught his disciples to raise the dead as well. They think that eating the body and blood of Christ, which has been passed down through the ages through every zombie, is the way to eternal life. Becoming a zombie makes you a living Saint. According to my old roommate, Amanda, they have some controlled means of making zombies, and members have to pass through many levels of initiation to be granted 'eternal life'. And, of course, the whole Christian belief about the dead being raised at the last judgment kind of feeds into that too.”

“That's sick.” He looked down distrustfully at his half eaten pretzel. “And now I feel kind of sick. Thanks a lot, Letta. You always tell me the most disgusting things. I think only Nny is worse. At least he has the excuse of being insane.” He chucked his remaining food into a passing trash can, heading back to Roc'in Rob's.

“Any time. At least you didn't have to live with one of them. You do look an unhealthy color, though. Maybe you should spend the night with me. I don't want you to have some kind of breakdown with your parents around.” She sounded only slightly regretful.

“And why would that be? I thought you didn't think I was that kind of crazy.”

“I don't, but it can't be a good idea to have a psychotic episode around people you hate. Unlike my dad, I do believe you when you say you hate them. Heck, I hate them too, and their not even my parents.”

“Thanks for believing me, I guess, but don't waste your energy hating them for me. I wish I could stop hating them. I really do.”

The usual twin bells rung as the duo passed through the motion detector, entering Rob's.

“See Squee, that proves your a good person. Those people tried their best to ruin your life, and you still don't want to hate them.”

“I'm not a good person. I still do hate them. And I want to stop because of the effect it has on me, not them. I don't want the karmic tie to them. And before you accuse me of being religious again, I just mean that hating them makes me attached to them. It gives them as big a chuck of my mental world as if I loved them, and that I don't want them to have. It also makes me unhappy. See? No mystical forces required.”

“Hey, Squee! You left without telling anyone!” Vayowen lightly chastised from the check-out.

“Yeah. Sorry. I really needed a break.”

“It's fine. Rob seems to think you deserve it as a reward. There was a call for you while you were out. That Johnny C. guy said to tell you that he needs to see you tonight. He said it was an emergency. Something to do with a bear..I think.”

“Bear..? Shit.”

“What is it?!”

“Nothing. I have to go. Right now. Sorry.” He turned to make a swift exit before she could question him further.

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Notes:

-"You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps." is a quote, but I don't have a source.
-You might have noticed that there are suck-monkeys AND brain-freezies in this world. I've decided that the mall sales suck-monkeys and the 24/7 sales brain-freezies.
-I made up the Resurrectionists. It seems like something that would happen in that universe. I may write a side story about them at some point.
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Sublime Awakenings