Des, I'm SO SORRY, I know - Bike racks 3:00, I'm getting my ass kicked. But you HAVE to know that my intension was not to embarrass you, I was only thinking about CJSR and the fun drive needs. You were SO awesome tonight, it was an incredible show, Randall was fantastic, great questions from listeners - I can't remember when I've laughed so much..and yes, I know, I'm still getting my ass kicked. <3

Kat, you are hilarious. I can't believe we got five donations in five minutes.

I will apparently trade personal embarrassment for great radio.

<3

lol, it was amusing how Des' tattoo stole the limelight from Randal Munroe. I didn't think that was possible! It was a great show.

O.K., I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I didn't hear a damn word after "stickman on my bum". My brains went into vaporlock, and I wrote what follows over the course of the next afternoon.

THE STICKMAN DIARIES

Day 1

I've woken up in a lot of strange places. In an eternal desert. In bed with a woman who I'm not sure I like. At least once in a hot-air balloon covered in red spiders. And in an infinite white emptiness more times than I can count.

This is different.

No matter where I was, two things were always consistent. The sense of pressure, the lingering scrape of the pen, fading into nothing as the last lines were connected. And the awful, unyielding flatness.

Here, there was no pen. I heard a buzzing, high, fast and menacing, like a backup prop from "The Marathon Man," snapping off almost before I started hearing it. And there was pain, bright and sharp. I could feel it. But it wasn't mine.

But most of all. There was a curve.

The shock of waking up is always hard. I'd call it gut wrenching, if my guts weren't practically one-dimensional. But this was insane. I tasted blood, felt its oozing heat, and then there was pressure, and it smeared across my face. I gagged for a second, and then the warmth and the taste were gone. There was light, and noise, and I could hear voices, but there were no balloons. And then I was covered up by something white and rough, that sealed out most of the light.

I stood there in the dark, wishing I had lungs to gasp with. I could feel the blood starting to ooze again, more slowly this time, starting to thicken and stick to itself. And I began to realize that it wasn't moving right. The shapes it made as it spread were... wrong.

It moved down, which was fine. And left, and right, and even a little up, under its own pressure. But it was also moving... out? I almost hadn't realized, in the chaos of coming awake. But standing there, unable to see, I realized that things were happening outside of the panel. The white thing. It hadn't come from above me. It had come from Out, an above that wasn't confined to a single plane.

And it was happening to me, too. I was bending, but not left or right. I tried to imagine a straight line between my head and the ends of my legs, and it didn't intersect any of my other lines.

I had an Out, too.

Day 2

I think it was Day 2. I don't trust my sense of time. I've discovered a third dimension, and I'm don't know if I can keep my sanity living here.

I'm living in perpetual darkness, interspersed with brief periods of bright, glaring light. The voices come and go, sometimes loud, sometimes murmuring. And I have yet to see a word balloon.

When the light comes, I'm covered with liquid, some kind of astringent. I can feel it stinging, but again, the pain isn't mine. Somehow, this surface that I woke up on is feeling it. Instead of the flat, white purgatory of the paper, I exist on an object that curves
in three dimensions. In the light, I can see that it curves out of existence. I can only speculate that it must continue, out of the plane of my vision, that marvelous, terrible Curve twisting around and meeting itself on the other side. It doesn't have panel borders. It is somehow exists separate from Out, without any lines to show where it ends and everything else begins.

And I think it might be alive.

And then the darkness comes again.

Day 5

The surface - I've started thinking of it as the Curve - is alive. It has to be. I can feel it moving, flexing, bending. It changes my shape, and I actually bend without any of my lines being redrawn. I can't fathom how it could move like that without being alive. Does it have a mind? Could I communicate with it? I don't know.

The sounds never stop. I was so overwhelmed by the things I was seeing that I didn't even realize I that I was hearing, too. There are no word balloons on the Curve. Sounds come from Out, and they go directly into my brain without my having to read them.

The white thing disappeared this morning. The astringent baths come less frequently, and the stinging pain that I feel thrumming through the Curve has been diminishing with each recurrence.

I am still covered most of the time, but now I feel whatever is directly Out from me moving as well. I think the white thing was secured to the Curve somehow. When it came off, I could feel the Curve stretching, distorting slightly, changing its shape (and mine) just slightly. Now, the only distortion comes from the motion of the Curve itself. The cover slides past me, sometimes loosely, sometimes with more tension.

Sometimes, I catch glimpses of Out.

Day 6

There are things in the Out. I've seen them. There are shapes, and colors, all of them distinct without lines.

Sometimes things come In. Last night, I saw a wide thing. There were five long tubes attached to it. They looked like my limbs, but they were... rounder. And they could bend. They walked across the surface of the Curve, pulling it, stretching it. Even pushing into it.

In. IN. To the Curve.

I am still not sure how to accept this, but it has to be true. If the Curve is contiguous, if it really does wrap around itself, then there must be an In. There's no telling what things the Curve could contain, and yet the only line around here is me. It's almost unfathomable.

Sometimes, I think that the Curve is talking. I hear sounds, and they come from Out. But I can feel the Curve vibrating, and I know it's crazy, but it feels as though its vibrating in rhythm with the sounds. I'm starting to believe that the Curve might be trying to talk to me.

I will watch the Out. Maybe I will receive a sign.

I HAVE SEEN THE CURVE, AND THE CURVE LOVES ME

This is Day 1. Day 1 ILC, In the Light of the Curve.

I cannot express the wonders I have witnessed this day. I can barely contain my joy at the vision that was revealed to me.

The Curve is alive. And she chose me to follow her.

In the paper, women were defined simply by their hair. But in the Out, there are wondrous shapes. Round, curving, molded in three dimensions. And the Curve is composed of them all.

I saw it all in a surface that was flat, like the paper. But somehow it reproduced a perfect, reversed image of the Out. Looking at it, it was as though the surface was In, and I was somehow part of the Out. I almost couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. Myself, etched onto the surface of the Curve, able to see more of it than ever before.

And then the walker was back. Only this time, it didn't press for the In. Instead, it curled its limbs into itself, all save one, which slowly traced itself along my lines. The surface of the Curve rippled.

And then I looked out, and saw the walker reflected. And it was part of the Curve.

It was perched on the end of an arm, but unlike my simple lines, this ended in a graceful, yet obviously useful appendage meant for grasping.

My gaze shifted. I followed to length of the arm, up to the shoulder. There, looking down at me, was the Face of The Curve. I was overcome by its glory. And then it spoke to me.

I cannot remember what its words were, but it was clear that she was pleased to have me adorning this particular place, a lovely, gently rounded shape at the top of what I assume can only be her legs. (But to call them the same things as my plain stick limbs is a monumental injustice.) This curved shape is only part of the Curve. She is comprised of many, many shapes, each one amazing in its own right, yet combining into a whole that can only be described as divine.

My destiny is clear. I will follow behind the Curve, in darkness and in light, until the darkness shall fall forever. And I will ask nothing more than the occasional glimpse of her radiant visage, and her various shapes. For surely they are the most perfect shapes of
all.

Praise the Curve.

I almost forgot. I am not alone! There are others here, sharing the surface of her various shapes. I must find a way to talk to them, to find out if they know the glory of the Light of Curve.

Last night I dreamt of geometry. A line bent slightly into a form of absolute perfection. As I stared It grew brighter and filled me with Its glory. As I awoke I was drawn here, to this place. Here I find others that have come seeking the Light of the Curve. Here I will wait, with reverent patience, that I might receive with mine own eyes the Glory of the Curve.

I HAVE SEEN THE CURVE, AND THE CURVE LOVES ME

Praise the Curve