The real reason why I think I hate them is because they are drawn to me in the same way that they are drawn to bug zappers. You know, those things with the blue lights that lure the creepy crawlies to their unwilling deaths, those stupid brainless insects. My own inner luminescence acts like a magnet to the pointless twerps. So, occasionally, I will get a few spatterings of insectile remains upon my nicely ironed neon yellow super suit. Every time I would try to go out to the small lake outside our secret base in the majestic Grande Kloopta mountain range in southern New Hampshire (though I don’t know why I like to go to the lake, I can’t swim for fear of electrocuting myself), I would be bombarded with mosquitoes and various other ickies that strafe me and then zap themselves into oblivion all over me. You can’t imagine my dry-cleaning bills!

But all that won’t come in until later. The problem now was more curious.

My noodle-brained partner and I were watching the news and keeping up with current events, as we tend to do most of the time since we are superheroes after all, when a story came on the news about the weather. Spaggy, that’s my partner, hates the weather no matter what’s going on. I rather enjoy it, especially when it’s bright and sunshiny because that helps me recharge my own inner energy. Other times, I usually don’t even notice it. It’s always sunshiny wherever I go. That’s just part of who I am; or at least who I became.

The newscaster was an old man who should have retired a long time ago and kept slurring his words and mincing the American language. There’s nothing like hearing your native language shoved in a blender with a pitchfork and whipped up on frappe! The old man was commenting on the weather and Spag-man was looking quite depressed as usual. If I wasn’t around him all the time, I think he would never even get out of bed in the morning. But I understand that it’s hard to be happy with spaghetti sauce running through your veins.

"It’s very difficult to understand why the weather is the way it is," the news announcer said. "First it does one thing and then it does something else."

"How observative," Spag-man muttered.

"Weather is predickable," the anchorman continued as though he hadn’t heard Spag-man, which he hadn’t. "Or rather, UN-predickable. Nobody knows where it will strike next. Not that weather goes on strike, it just…."

Spag-man and I both sighed at this verbal homicide. My partner was about to change the channel out of sheer frustration when we heard our names butchered.

"If only Ever-Spaghetti Guy and Fluorescent Joe would get off their high and mighty ponies and find out why we have weather, maybe we can all sleep at night without worrying whether the weather will … what was I saying? Oh, yes, without worrying whether it will rain cats and dogs or just fish and chips."

Click.

Spag-man clicked it off so fast I thought we had a power drain, which tends to happen when I’m around. "If that idiot thinks we are going to go chasing after weather, he’s nuts," Spag-man said.

"I think he’s already nuts," I replied. "Besides, I think he’s right."

I dodged a comic book he had been reading. "Don’t tell me you understood what that senile old bat said."

"Spaggy, friend, even I have noticed the weather lately. It’s completely erratic and the weather forecasters have been wrong nine out of ten days the last few months. Aren’t you curious why?"

"I already know why," he answered. "They are always wrong because they are idiots."

I sighed. This was not going to be easy. "When was the last time you heard of a hurricane in the middle of the Yukon?"

"There were four or five just in the last three months."

"And when did you hear about them before that?"

He stopped with his mouth open ready to speak, but nothing came out. Soon, he closed it. "I don’t know. But I’m sure they must have had them there and we just never heard about them."

"At the northern end of the Rocky Mountains in Canada?"

Again, the words got stuck in his throat. When he closed his mouth this time, he kept it shut.

"These things are happening all over the world. Maybe we should go find out what’s causing all this strange weather."

Spag-man let out a big sigh as only he could. "You go, I’ll take a nap in case anything turns up here."

"Spag-man, I’m serious!" I tried my hardest to look angry, but it’s rather hard when I’m just so happy all the time. I don’t think anything has ever gotten me down since I became Effervescent Fluorescent Boy. There was that worm thing, but I really was only mildly upset at that and not for very long. So, as hard as I tried, I just ended up busting a gut right there at how silly the whole situation was and how silly I must have looked with my best anger face, which wasn’t very good, I’ll tell you!

And Eveready Spaghetti Boy just sighed and rolled his eyes at me.

"I really don’t want to go hunting down the evil and terrible Weather Monster! I would really rather just take a . . . "

But he couldn’t finish because suddenly he was outside and trailing along behind me as I flew through the air holding on tightly to his hand. Since he didn’t put up much of a struggle, I can only guess that it took him a while to figure out what had just happened. Or maybe he just decided that if I was going to play it like that, then he was going to make it as hard as possible on me. He does that.

I really had no idea where I was headed, but since he who was supposedly "Ever Ready" was not stopping me, I figured we were probably on the right track at least. Either that or he just wanted me to fail so he could point and laugh at me. He does that, too.

* * * * * * * * *

As it turns out, the flaming imbecile took us to Washington D.C. I would have told him he was going in the wrong direction, but he wasn’t. And he didn’t even know it! That’s what really ticked me off.

So, I just hung there limply, letting him drag me along. It really was a good thing that we arrived at the capital; my arm was almost coming out of the socket. Florey set me down on the steps of the White House and I rubbed my sore shoulder. We walked in and a lady asked us if we wanted a tour. We shook our heads and I, of course, sighed. Yes, I felt sure I was going to do that a lot in this damn story, as well.

One of the advisers walked in the room and recognized us, being the superheroes that we are, and walked over to welcome us "in this time of confusing crisis." Sigh!

"We would like to see the president, please."

"I’m sorry," the adviser said, "the president is not here. But you can talk to the guy who didn’t win the election but claims he did anyway and is living in the president’s house."

"I guess that will have to do."

He took us to an office that had "G.Q. Bush" on the front.

"I thought it was G.W. Bush," I said.

"It is, but there aren’t any W’s left here now. Um . . . freak accident?"

We nodded, knowingly. "So, why the Q?"

"We looked at the keyboard and the nearest things were the Q and the E and the S and the A, and so we decided on G.Q. because it sounds more suave than G.E." And he gave a little laugh, which was not followed by two more laughs.

Florey said, "What’s wrong with G.E.?"

I growled at him.

Eventually the moron stopped laughing and we followed him through more rooms until we came upon another room that looked exactly like a room we hadn’t been in before. The guy was not here, either.

But he was in the next room where we could not go. So we waited in the waiting room, Florey flirting shamelessly with the secretary, until the Bush came out. Florey and I stared at him and barely contained a laugh.

"Good morning, friends," he said. "I’m glad you came to help us out with this problem in this most . . . um . . . problematic . . . time."

Florey and I both sighed. My partner (and I use that term loosely) walked up to him and grabbed his hand amiably and damn near shook the man’s arm off. "No problem, chief! We just heard about it on the news and came right over to see if you had any leads."

"No."

We blinked, waiting for more that was obviously never going to come along. "Do you have any information at all that can help us?" I asked.

"Nope!"

"Nothing at all."

"Not a thing!"

We nodded, making mental notes never to visit this brain-curdled joke again.

"Oh, there is one thing."

And then we waited again . . . until I said, "YES??"

"Oh . . . well," he said, stumbling over his spittle, "well, there was that thing about the weather. I was going to ask you two if you knew anything about it."

We blinked again. "What about it?"

"Oh, just that it’s doing crazy things. Well, the weather does crazy things anyway, but we thought that this was a bit too crazy for our liking. I mean . . . hell, it was raining fish and chips over in England earlier."

This caught our divided attention. "Excuse me, sir," Florey said, "did you say fish and chips?"

"Is it lunch already? Well, I guess I’ll have fish and chips but I was hoping for some steak or shrimp or something. But my mommy says I need you two to find out why the weather is acting funnily. It hasn’t acted this strange since my daddy dropped the bomb on . . . oh, wait, I ain’t supposed to talk about that. Forget it, just go find out where the weather is, OK?"

We blinked and nodded. As we turned to leave, unsure where to go, the strange boyish man stopped us.

"Oh, and this might help you, too. The resident warlock told me that you would be coming here and said to tell you that . . . well, darn, I forgot what it was he said to say. Something about saying something like I should tell you something about South America. Yeah, OK, so go there."

He turned to leave, calling for his rubber ducky. And we left, completely baffled.

As we traveled to South America near the speed of light, we pondered on where to go exactly and what to do when we got there. South America is a big place. Oh, sure, maybe not as big as Mick Jagger’s lips or Dolly Parton’s . . . well, Dolly Parton! But it’s big, I tell ya!

And then Florey had to go and do just what I knew he would . . . I somehow always know when he’s going to say something stupid. It’s usually right after he opens his mouth.

"What about that special compass you had for finding that guy that we were looking for before? The one that pointed straight to him instead of toward true north?"

I sighed. "I didn’t bring it with me," I said.

"I’ll bet you did!"

I knew he was right, I always had exactly what we needed. I don’t even know where the hell I keep all this stuff. It’s a curse, I’ve decided. It’s possibly that same curse that made me put up with the luminescent dimwit without smacking him so hard he splattered on the concrete many miles below us.

So I swallowed my anger, yet again, and reached in my super suit and pulled out the accursed compass. Sure enough, it pointed almost directly south of us. I sighed. I was beginning to think I exhaled more air than I inhaled . . . sighing was making me dizzy.

Somewhere over Venezuela, the compass starting spinning around. So we followed it, circling until we landed. After retching our guts out from the dizziness, we staggered over to the nearest man and asked him if anything strange had been going on. And he answered me in gibberish!

I knew then that the answer to our problems lay in the most unexpected place . . . Outer Space!

* * * * * * * * *

I stopped Spag-man from beating the poor guy (I later learned that he thought the "Jupiterian man" was swearing at him or telling him to go stick his tentacles in his tertiary digestion chamber . . . which reminds me . . . one day I’m going to have to ask him where he learned to speak Jupiterian) and explained that he had replied in Spanish that he hadn’t a clue what we were talking about. After calming the man for several minutes, which was not an easy task as I’m so damn hyper myself, I finally asked him, in Spanish, if anything strange had been going on lately. And after all that to-do, the answer was a simple, "NO!"

Actually, it was more like, "No, you stupid freaks! Go away with your flying pajamas, you moronic American toilet waste!"

But all I told Spag-man was that he said "no."

"It took all that just to say 'no'?" he asked.

"Um . . . yes? It was a very emphatic ‘no!’"

"Huh! This language is hard."

We proceeded to move on through the crowded park, swatting away flying pests (which one could classify us as, I suppose), until we finally found a man cringing to himself on a park bench, eyes darting to and fro (I’ve always wanted to say that!) and clutching a flyswatter protectively against his chest. It was rather gunked up with ick and I noticed that the ground in front of him was littered with many flying insects, mostly tiny moths.

He stared at us at the same time his eyes were darting. It was a fascinating trick, one I hoped to learn, thinking it would be great to attract girls . . . or scare people with, not sure.

Anyway, I questioned him in Spanish, but for the sake of the story and the millions of American readers (HAH! Millions . . . hehehahaha . . . what a laugh . . . hahaha, hohohohehe hah . . . WHEW! . . . I’m ok, now...) for the sake of the readers, I will tell you all this in English . . . sorry, American. We don’t speak English here. Just like the Australians don’t speak English, they speak Australian. When was the last time an Englishman "scoped out the Sheilas"? When have you ever heard of American women "noticing the gents"? We’re Americans, folks, we don’t do that here. We just "ogle the merchandise"! Yes, that’s the tactful American, hard at work!

So, here it is . . . in tactful American!

"Yo, bro, wattup?" I said.

Wait, that’s not American, either. I am actually fluent in Ebonics, as well.

"Excuse me, sir," I said. The man jumped at the sound of my voice. I kept my distance. "Have you noticed anything strange going on lately?" I felt silly asking him this, as I thought he was something strange going on lately.

He nodded and pointed toward the mass of insect innards on the ground in front of him. Then he resumed his cringing and darting.

"There are too many insects?" I asked, not quite understanding what this portended.

"The butterflies!" he moaned. "The damn butterflies! They’re trying to take over the world. They’re going to kill us all . . . kill us ALLLLLL!!"

I nodded sagely. This may have surprised me if I had not seen alien frogs and killer worms. I was still skeptical about Spag-man’s bunnies from Hell.

"And what do these butterflies want with our world?"

"They want it for themselves. They think we are simply a nuisance. They want us dead, DEAD! ALLLLL of us! Then they will take over the world for themselves."

"Uh huh. And how do they plan on doing this?"

"I don’t know," he admitted, darting his eyes again and slapping two more of the tiny moths that came up to him.

I nodded again. "How do you know any of this?"

He glared at me. "I heard them! I was washing dishes in a restaurant where I work, and I was listening to the radio. I was listening to that great classical Spanish mariachi music when suddenly the station changed all by itself. I looked over and saw a bunch of little tiny butterflies huddled around the radio... and do you know what they were listening to?"

I shook my head very slowly, afraid of what I was going to hear.

"The news!" he whispered.

I stifled my shock. "No!"

"Yes!"

"The bastards!"

"That’s what I said! But sure enough, they were listening to the world news report. So I went over and shooed them all away and changed the station back to that great mariachi guitar, and as soon as I got back to the sink, they were back. They changed the station back to the news. We went through that for almost an hour. My boss yelled at me for not getting the dishes washed and when I explained it to him he fired me."

"Because of the butterflies?"

"Oh, yeah! My boss was mean, so I don’t really care about that. But what frightens me . . ." he leaned closer, "is that I heard the butterflies talking about it!"

He straightened up with a snap and a crack of the flyswatter on the arm of the bench. His eyes darted furiously, as if they were being rattled separately from his head, rolled like dice on a craps table.

I nodded again. "And just what was it they were saying?"

He whirled on me again and fixed me with a hideous stare. "They said that the conditions were right . . . to take over the world!"

"Uh huh . . . . And how did you hear them?"

"Because," he said, "I’m part insect!"

At this, he jumped up with a squish and ran around the park swinging his flyswatter at nothing that we could see and making an annoying "bzbzbbzbzzzzzzz" sound out of his mouth.

I nodded again and told Eveready Spaghetti Boy that it was time to leave.

* * * * * * * * *

And I was all too glad!

When Effervescent Fluorescent Boy translated for me the conversation he had with the weird man, I almost lost my lunch from laughing so hard. Or I would have if I had eaten anything. It was then that we decided to contact our scientist contact in the Bureau, Dr. Ivan Dippdenschitt.

Ivan was a good-natured man, short, roundish and quite tan. His spectacles hung on a chain down to his chest and swung back and forth across his yellow Hawaiian shirt. His balding head bobbed up and down as he listened to our story and finally, when we were done, he kept bobbing his head up and down and mumbling to himself. Just as I was about to beat some sense back into him, he snapped his head up and said, "Did you see them?"

Florey and I glanced at each other, both undoubtedly thinking that the man was talking about the little elephants that just went scuttling up the wall. Actually, nobody could say what Florey was thinking. He was probably thinking about sunflowers and dancing with cuddly kittens again. Or maybe he thought this was somehow linked to those damn interstellar frogs of his.

"See what, Doc?"

"The butterflies! They are very tiny, only about a quarter inch from wingtip to wingtip. They are mainly a bright crimson color with cobalt blue spots. The adults have some gray speckling on their wings, as well. The antennae are about twice as long as their entire body."

"I’m sorry, Doc, but how could you possibly fit all those colors on a quarter inch body?"

"Tiny paintbrushes! These butterflies are called The Tiny Kiki-Mingi Butterflies of Venezuela! They are named after the scientists that discovered them."

I nodded sagely. This may have surprised me if I had not seen killer bunnies from Hell who wanted my Belgium waffles and a unicorn that came out of nowhere. Unfortunately, after the worm incident, I couldn’t even be skeptical about Florey’s interstellar frogs! That was upsetting.

"These are exactly as you described as the man described them to be," the doctor said. We blinked a few times before we figured out what he meant. "The highly organized behavior, the interest and attraction to common radios, alarm clocks, or a walkman. We often wondered why, but to find out that it is to get the current news . . . this is amazing!"

"Um, excuse me, sir," I interrupted his musings, "but how long have you people known about these things?"

"Oh, only about three years or so. We are pretty sure that their life span is more than two years. Actually their mating ritual is quite . . . ."

"DOC!" He stopped and stared at me as if he had just now noticed I was there. "Are they dangerous?"

He gave a short, forced chuckle. "Well, it’s so hard to hell, I mean tell. Our research is only on its demon, I mean maiden voyage, heh. We wouldn’t want to be slaughtered mercilessly . . . I mean, we wouldn’t want to jump to, uh . . . conclusions."

"So," Florey said, "in your opinion, are they really dangerous?"

"Well . . . That’s such a broad term. Define ‘dangerous’."

I grabbed a leather-bound unabridged version of the dictionary (in large print, his eyes are not that good) and THUNKED him on the top of the head with it. "That definition!"

"Oh," he mumbled, staggering back to his feet, "well, by that definition . . . um . . . yes!"

"They ARE?" Florey looked so put out. He threw his arms up in complete exasperation. "Why didn’t you do something about it when you found out how dangerous they are?"

"Well," Dr. Ivan mumbled lamely, "they hadn’t really done anything to hurt anyone yet. It was really just a potential danger, not anything concrete."

We stared at him in astonished silence for a while. Then, suddenly, we were staring at him in complete shock for a bit.

Finally, I nodded as if expecting that inane answer all along. "Yes . . . and do you have a real explanation for this?"

"Yes," he said in a hoarse whisper that may have come from someone who just saw their own death. He walked slowly up to me and peered up at me with his eyes dancing funny jigs around in their sockets and I thought I was going to get dizzy just staring into them. Finally, he whispered, "Chaaaaooooos!"

Lightning and thunder crashed outside the window!

Which was especially frightening, since we were four stories below ground.

* * * * * * * * *

I was rather curious about this phenomenon, as any effervescent superhero would be, but I saw that Spaggy-Boy was in a tizzy; or rather he would have been if he hadn’t been so petrified. He looked like he was about to drop a load of spaghetti into his super suit or tinkle some sauce down his leg. But I was so frightened that for the first time in my new life, I actually kept my mouth shut.

"Have you ever heard of Chaos Theory?" asked Dr. Dippdenschitt.

"YES!" I yelled. Then I realized . . . "No!"

"It isn’t ‘E equals MC squared,’ is it?" Spaggy asked.

"Um, no."

"Good, because I hate that one."

"Um . . . sure. Anyway, it’s the theory that one tiny little action will start a chain reaction of events that will eventually change the rest of the world. If this one little X-factor were slightly different, then the entire world would go in a completely different direction. For example, hypothetically speaking, if Jimmy Hoffa hadn’t been abducted by aliens, then maybe we would have the real president living in the White House today."

How do you disagree with logic like that?

And suddenly I realized that I understood. "So," I said (and I could feel Spag-man getting ready to sigh), "like, my father had a mint when he took my mom on her first date and that may be the only reason she didn’t leave right then, and now they are married and then they had a beautiful bouncy baby boy (that’s me) who grew up to be abducted by frogs and then met a great friend while rock climbing (that’s him) and suddenly we both touched the mystical Cube of Rubic and became the superheroes we are today to rid the world of crime and injustice! All because my father had a mint!"

Spag-man sighed heavily.

"Yeah, something like that. Anyway, that’s sort of along the lines of what we thought these things might do. You see, butterflies . . . ."

And he turned to the blackboard behind him, launching into a great tirade of scientific and mathematical genius about air displacement that made me want to throttle him severely. It was then that I realized just how Spag-man feels sometimes when someone much smarter than him shows it. Only, with my pasta-loving partner, that was all the time because a lot of people are smarter than him.

When he was all done, several hours later, we woke up from the sudden silence and watched him stare at us expectantly. We only nodded.

"Well, to make a long story short . . ."

"Too late!"

". . . put in layman’s terms, a butterfly flapping its wings in Venezuela causes a monsoon in Indonesia!"

Spag-man’s eyes widened as the knowledge invaded his brain. It was quite frightening.

"Or," he said, "a hurricane in the Yukon!"

"Now you have it!"

I grabbed the good doctor’s hand and thanked him so profusely that he was sore from the shoulder down for a week.

We headed back to Venezuela and landed in the park that we had left many hours ago. We walked up to a woman who was glancing nervously around her and wielding a rolled up newspaper. We obviously frightened her (as we tend to do sometimes; wouldn’t you be frightened if two guys walked up to you, one wearing a drab squiggly designed suit with a maroon liquidy cape and the other in a bright yellow suit with a wave of electricity flapping behind him? I know I would, if I weren’t one of those guys!) and she turned to us ready to bash us with her paper.

"Are you two crazy?" she asked.

"No, ma’am." I answered. Spag-man couldn’t speak Spanish, so I had to translate for him.

"Then why are you dressed like superheroes?"

"Because we are superheroes." She laughed at this. I translated for Spaggy and he sighed, as I knew he would. "Could you tell us," I resumed, "have the butterflies been acting strange lately?" We needed confirmation because we didn’t really trust that wacko we talked to earlier. The other man on the bench in the park was suspect, too.

She stared hard at me and raised the paper she wielded in her tightly clenched hand. "What do you know about the butterflies? Are you with them? Do you control them? Do they control you? Are you spies?"

I felt sure we were getting somewhere. Then I translated what she was saying for Spag-man . . . that was a mistake. Because he answered her. He told her 'no'. That very emphatic 'no' that he had learned how to say in Spanish so recently. And she proceeded to beat us with the slimy paper roll until I grabbed her by the wrist to stop her.

"What did I say?" Spag-man asked.

"Never mind," I said, "just don’t ever tell anyone 'no' again." I turned back to the woman. "Now, where are the butterflies concentrated?"

"In the center of the park," she said.

"Over there?" I asked, and pointed with the same hand that I held her wrist with, completely forgetting to let go of her wrist, the result being that I ended up ripping her arm completely off!

I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later!

So, I put it back on and Spag-man spackled it up with old spaghetti sauce. The mold should prevent any infection. Yeah . . . . So we quickly left for the center of the park.

When we got there, we stopped and looked around and noticed that there were no more humans around. Just a bunch of tiny little butterflies flying around us as if they were curious. Soon they backed off and we felt a commanding presence behind us. We turned and looked up at the largest butterfly we had ever seen! It stood over three stories tall, floating only a few feet off the ground. The colors all swirled together, like many tiny drops of maroon, cobalt and some cloudy gray speckled in somehow.

Upon second look, we noticed that it was not one butterfly at all, but a massive swarm of butterflies all huddled together in the shape of a much larger butterfly. They were all fluttering and floating in unison and looked very convincingly like one giant butterfly, complete with the overlong antennae.

Welcome, a voice sounded in our heads. I knew that Spag-man was hearing it, too, just by the look on his face. I was extremely excited now; there was a swarm of intelligent butterflies communicating with me through telepathy. What a great world we live in!

* * * * * * * * *

I knew Florey was experiencing the same thing I was just by the damnable grin on his face. Wasn’t there anything that could keep that boy down? Well, I wasn’t that happy about the whole thing. These damn bugs knew our language and they knew telepathy. I can’t use telepathy. I wish I could, but I can’t. And that meant, to me, that these things had to die!

I understand that you are asking questions about the Tiny Kiki-Mingi Butterflies of Venezuela, the butterfly composite said . . . or . . . telepathed . . . or something like that. If you wish to know something, you may simply ask Me.

"Which one are you?" I asked.

I am Me, I am the All, I am the One, I am . . . and here I think it paused for effect, I am . . . the Butterfly! At this, the composite wings flapped and created such a gust of wind that we were blown completely out of the park.

Florey and I sat up and looked at each other in astonishment. After a moment, my partner (again, used loosely) created such a serious looking face that I was almost frightened that he had been demonically possessed. He looked at me with that stern face and said the strangest and most heroic thing I have ever heard him say.

"I know what I must do, now," he said. "Spag-man, I need a motorcycle helmet!"

I stared at him for a few minutes not daring to blink in case the demon should suddenly jump out of Florey and attack me. I eventually determined it wasn’t going to, so I ended up staring at Florey just for the sheer sake of it. After a few minutes of that I opened my mouth to speak and then, after a few moments of that, I became worried that something might try to fly into it. So I closed it. All the while Florey continued to stare at me with that same determined look of one who was walking willingly to his own execution. So, I thought it best to just get it over with.

I fished around in my super suit hearing various clanging and clashing and grabbing a few things that I didn’t mean to grab until I found what I was looking for. I pulled out a nice motorcycle helmet, complete with full faceplate, yellow with airbrushed lightning streaks across it. On the back, in airbrushed lightning bolts, it read "Wild Child," a name I thought fitting. In fact, I wondered if I hadn’t had this made specifically for Florey in some helmet factory in my pants.

I should have to check that out!

He took the helmet from me and started to walk back, his steps filled with that same determination I saw in his face. I was more scared of my partner than I was of the damn butterflies. Which really makes sense when you think about, but it really wouldn’t if you knew these butterflies. I mean, these things were intelligent and while they hadn’t done anything too terrible just yet, like Dr. Dippdenschitt said earlier, it was the potential for global disaster that really . . . oh, never mind!

"Wait a sec, bro," I called. Florey turned. "What do you plan on doing?"

"Kill them!" Man, was I frightened! I thought he would actually do it, too. Yank out a knife and just butcher them all in cold blood. No, not my Florey!

"How?" I asked. "By ramming them with your head?"

"No, other way around."

I blinked. I knew better than to ask Effervescent Fluorescent Boy for a detailed explanation. He would probably never shut up. "Ok," I said, "but I want to talk to them first, get some answers."

He stared at me. Then he cackled like a psychotic hyena. The shrill sound pierced my eardrums and caused me to twitch. "Oh, sure," he said, laughing hysterically, "go ahead, pal. I’m sorry I was being such a Gloomy Gus! It’s not like this is going to kill me or anything. Sheesh . . . what a load off! I’m ok, really."

I watched him leave feeling relieved that Florey was back to his old self. Yet, somehow, I felt strangely depressed, as well.

We arrived back at the clearing where the Butterfly seemed to have grown in size. I glanced around and noticed that there were no more butterflies flittering around. They had all joined "The One." This time, it looked rather impatient, even angry. Florey was standing about fifty feet away from it, simply staring at it. I noticed that the motorcycle helmet was nowhere in sight.

I walked forward prepared with questions. But the Butterfly started in before I had a chance to speak.

I laughed. Florey just smiled. I said, "We know that you have been . . . ."

"Um, sorry. As I was saying, we know that You have been changing the weather patterns across the world. What we don’t understand is why."

I need not explain Myself to you. But since it doesn’t matter, as you will shortly be dead, I will sate your curiosity. Let it be said that I am a fair and just ruler. I raised my eyebrows at this and tried not to laugh. I am changing the weather throughout the world to clear off the majority of the lower life forms, such as humans, who may provide problems and threats to my global empire.

I nodded. "Uh huh," I said, "and do you have a real explanation for this?"

It seemed to turn toward me and frown. I’m not sure how it frowned, maybe it was my imagination, but it didn’t seem too happy to me.

This surprised me. I was afraid of what it would say . . . or telepath . . . or something. And then it did something nobody could have guessed.

All of the butterflies flapped their wings at different intervals creating a multitude of sounds that, by themselves, would be taken for simple flapping, but put together it made a sound that was possibly . . . a Voice!

And the Voice said, with the reverberation of a million voices and the intensity of an earthquake, "I AM A GOOOOOODDD!!!"

We could do nothing but stare at this awesome display of power. We couldn’t have been more shocked than if we actually got front row tickets to a Pearl Jam concert! And then Florey piped up for the first time.

"That’s what Julius Caesar said."

I looked at him. "It is?"

"Well," he said, "he didn’t actually say it, he believed it. See, he thought he was immortal just because he was an emperor, and . . . ."

"Oh, right, sorry."

"No," Florey said. "I think it’s time for us to destroy You. You may be able to change the weather worldwide, but you’re still an insect!"

At this, he walked forward and pulled the helmet from his super suit and strapped it to his head, pulling the faceplate down. I realized that was important.

And I watched in horror as Florey turned himself on and shined so brightly that I couldn’t see his body anymore, just a massive ball of extremely bright light. And the Butterfly said . . . or tele, oh never mind! It spoke, ok? Anyway, it said "Ooh, pretty light!" And then it broke apart and all the little quarter inch Tiny Kiki-Mingi Butterflies of Venezuela broke themselves apart upon my brave and, now, icky partner. It was quite a terrible and fascinating display.

I just wish I had my video camera.

* * * * * * * * *

It felt like I was being shot with rubber bullets as the Tiny Kiki-Mingi Butterflies of Venezuela became Massive Spots of Mush on My Super Suit. It felt like it lasted for hours, but I knew it could only have been minutes. Eventually I got so clumped up with mush that Spaggy later told me that he could barely see me OR my inner glow anymore.

But I still got all the butterflies splattered on me, which was my ultimate goal. Boy, was I stupid!

After all the bugs had splattered on me, I guess I lost consciousness. I felt the last smack on my chest and felt myself falling toward the ground. I just don’t remember landing. But the next thing I saw was Spag-man standing over me, staring at me worriedly. He looked rather strange through the tinted faceplate of the helmet, at least the part that wasn’t completely smeared with bug juice.

I slowly sat up (Spag-man wasn’t helping me at all; I think he was afraid to touch me and I really couldn’t blame him) and took the helmet off. I stared at him dizzily and asked him something about whether it worked. I think he nodded.

I got up and he backed off a couple steps. I looked at myself.

"Yeah," I said. "I need to take a shower and get my suit cleaned."

Spag-man nodded and we began to fly home. I let the helmet drop to the ground below and heard a quick scream of pain. Poor girl!

THE END

Written by: twitch
Nominal Collaborator: Clarence Shellito II
President played by: Some Guy Who Isn't Really The President
Dr. Ivan Dippdenschitt played by: Neil N. Roberts
Voice of The Butterfly: Cathy R. Pillar
Old Man on the Bench Played by: The Bee Yonder
Poor Girl played by: Clarence’s Cat, Boots
"Long Story Short" line: Clue (The Movie)
Author's Gargoyle Lamp on His Desk Purchased on Sale at the Local Meijer's Store