The Dark Side of Thinking

One of the reasons Think-A-Holic Lounge has so few customers in the afternoon isn't because most people are at work during those hours. That might be a good reason anywhere else but the Lounge is not located in real time or real space.

No, the real reason this cosmic watering hole has only a handful of regulars in the afternoon is because of an anomaly that often occurs there and always without warning. It's a powerful vortex that tries to split struggling authors into two people, one of them a failure who gives up writing altogether because of abysmal book sales and the other a wide-eyed fool who continues to court and even suck up to the publishing gnomes of Bad Apple City who have been known to chew up new authors and spit them out without even tasting them.

I got caught in the vortex, myself, last night just before last call (see pic). As you can see, I was way over my limit of think-a-hol and deluded into believing that I was Michael Casher — the real McCoy — and not merely Jonco Bugos, his reflection and alter ego. Anyway, I got caught in this powerful vortex last night and, even though it nearly split me in two, it couldn't even begin to wipe the shit-eating grin off my face. Over the years I gradually became immune to its effects and, in fact, each time it tries to split me in two, it only squeezes another book out of me.