From the mind of Ooh the Sloth of Pax Acidus

[Sykonee]

PLANET OF THE RAVERS: PART 1 - PLANET RAVULON

My name is SonicBoy Wellbutrin. I am from the planet Ravulon. Ravulon is a tribal society divided into rave clans. Everyday we wake up around noon and we try to be as natural and loving as possible. We eat fruit for breakfast, vegetables over rice for lunch, and of course a healthy assortment of the finest chemicals for dinner. When we are properly intoxicated, we gather to groove our bodies to blissy beats until shortly after dawn when we pass out naked in puppy piles.

It was the numerous alienz who visit our planet who dubbed us ravers, the generic term for people from the planet Ravulon. It is a tag we have adopted with pride. We are not a sophisticated space traveling race, but we are known for being cosmologically happy. But for a long while I wasn’t happy at all. Why? Well, this is my story...

One night at age 15 while tripping on space tryptamines, I had a revelation and started to become a very sick and tired little Ravulon being- a hummingbird suffocating in a jar of honey. I grew strangely inwards, unable to communicate my need for escape. The space pillz, the month-long parties, and the inconsequential philosophies of the bubble-blowing candy raver girls no longer fulfilled me spiritually. I started experiencing shortness of breath and total serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline depletion. I felt dizzy, cold, sickly, ugly, and worthless.

Since this was all so confusing and new to me, I decided to experience a different way of life. I took an extended chill-out from parties, dancing, and creating art. I undertook a study of Ravulon alternative lifestyles, but I did not like what I found, which was nothing. Everyone was happy but me. I felt I would do anything to explore the universe and get away from my friends for a while.

My clan members laughed at me for this, refusing to take my whims seriously. They ignored my pleas for challenge, change and adventure. Adventure for them was debating which hair color was more natural looking.

“Green is way more natural because it is the same color as chlorophyll-based life forms and dog puke...”

“No, no, blue is more natural because it is the same shade as the sky...”

“No green because…”

“No purple because that's the color of peace, and peace is love and love is all…”

It was driving me to doldrums.

I was not ecstatically blissful at the start of each new day. My mood would often go as limp as my cock and I would eventually become forlorn no matter how many space pillz I popped. I often found myself going home by 9 p.m. to read books or play video games. I was feeling worse than I could have ever imagined possible. Friends would smile strangely, feigning sympathy.

"Don't you want to stay with us and party until you die?"

I didn't. I sought to be dull. I have no reason why.

"There is no fun in that!" my fellow ravers would scream at me and attempt to spit zero-gee juice down my throat. Instead of playful retaliation, I would slink away and poke around the basement trying to find something to fix. I was weary of zero-gee juice anyway. It made me feel all sleepy and hungry and horny. Sex was boring. Sex was all too typical. You plopped yourself inside and then you came. What a waste of time. What I wanted was a life with life and death consequences and personal growth.

My friends unanimously decided that I needed to seek professional help. I relented but the alien mind doctors were of little aid. They told me to take new mindfuck drugs, find an older homosexual lover, write poetry, and most importantly, ‘try to recapture the vibe’. When I heard this advice, it was all I could not to hurl my lunch upon the floor. Recapture what vibe? To me, it was all a cruel charade. The only vibe I felt was telling me to slash my own throat open.

When I had lost all hope, I went to the local bridge to throw myself into the deep waters and unto my death. With tears of desperation in my eyes, I climbed the rusty wrought iron beast and out onto the ledge. A single tear dripped from my eye when I thought of the pain and suffering that I could not tolerate anymore. Just before I took that last step into oblivion, I noticed a man sitting not ten feet away from me.

He was a tourist, presumably from the Klusteron Beta colony. He was high on blue rabbit eckies and humming softly and sweetly to himself. He was rather far into his 30s yet looked remarkably healthy and well-adjusted. I wasn't surprised when he tried to talk me out of my fate.

"Don't jump boy, you have so much to live for!"

"How do you know? Are you psychic or something?"

"No, I just know it, that's all. I've read all the latest self-help books and shit."

"Those books are for knobs. You lamer tourists are always telling us to read those. I used to devour fashion and music magazines. Now I only read books that make me feel more depressed, like history texts on intergalactic culture.”

"Ha ha. You're an odd little raver. What's wrong, did someone steal your glow stick?"

Now normally I wouldn’t talk to aliens. They were always too in awe of us or too comatose from our chemical cocktails. They would normally just smile and say something like Groovy baby or I'll give you a hundred credits for a blow job. But I felt bad for being mean to this particular lamer. He looked so calm and normal to me. And we do have a reputation to uphold as the most party crazy beings in the universe.

"No, nobody stole my glow stick. I just keep it up my ass sometimes for safekeeping. What are you doing up here anyway? Are you going to hang yourself from that string?"

"No. I'm fishing."

"Wow. What's that?"

"It's when you dip a baited string in water and try to catch a sea creature."

"Oh."

"What are you doing up here?"

"Oh nothing... fishing I guess."

"But you don't have a pole!"

"Err, well actually, you were right. I'm up here to kill myself."

"Suicide? But this bridge is not nearly high enough..."

"Yeah but I can't swim. I decided that drowning was the most horrific way to die and so it will make the proper artistic statement and all."

"What? You live on a planet of sandy beaches and you can't swim?"

"No, none of us can. Ravers are terrified of water. We disappear down there sometimes. Plus nobody ever taught us. We got lots of big fish in there as well. My philosophy is: if I don't eat them, they won't eat me."

"Ravers are so weird. I should have gone to some other planet. I haven't had the urge to dance or be stupid in years..."

"Well why didn't you then?"

"Ravulon is dirt cheap, for a beach planet anyway. And I wanted to be by myself. Your planet is nearly empty compared to most."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You only have 100,000 people."

"Well, how many people does your planet have?"

"Fifty-billion.”

"Wow, that's a lot I guess. But I'm not very good with numbers."

"I bet you don't feel very good at anything right now."

"No I don't. That's why I want to kill myself. Nice talking to you though. I never talked with an alien before, just danced and fucked. I'll have to make a point of it in my future lives."

"Look kid, I don't claim to know a lot about your culture, but I think before you kill yourself you should at least go talk with your birth givers."

"Who?"

"Your parents. You know, the two people that fucked and then nine months later you popped out."

"Oh them. Why should I talk to them?"

"Never mind."

"No really. Why should I talk to them?"

"Listen, just go talk to them and get their opinion on the matter. That’s all..."

Confused, I said goodbye to the strange man and went home. The very next day I went to find my parents to ask their opinions on life and death. After considerable trouble I found them.

Luckily they were still alive and kicking it on a nearby retirement moon. Like many ravers their age, they were on partial life support. Nonetheless, they didn't give me much solace. Word had it that Mom and Pop were crispy bacon, permanently spun out from bad space pillz.

My dad was lying in bed wearing a red and white striped fuzzy top hat, as was fashionable in his heyday. My mom was walking around butt-naked and looking utterly like the living dead on holiday with her tits all sagging and wrinkly. I am so glad old people are separated from the young at age 30 on Ravulon. At the time, it was the only part of the culture I still had any respect for.

I asked them about my life and what to do with it. “Capitalist Alpha,” my old man managed to speak to me before passing out from the effort, "Capitalist Alpha has golden toilets. You must go there and shit upon them."

Eureka! Finally a challenge! At last an adventure! What could be more exciting than a great quest to see another planet? The man at the bridge was right. My parents seemed to hold the key to meaning in my life. I had suddenly found a way out from the meaningless cycle of life. But I didn’t know anything about Capitola Alpha. What would await me there?

Well I tried to get more details out of mom and dad but to no avail. Word on the street was that shortly after my birth my parents unwillingly fried their brains on some ultra dodgy space pillz called experiMental mindFuckerz. They were brought in from the alien labz. I hadn’t seen them in eleven years since I turned 5. This was not unusual on Ravulon. Kids just kind of raised themselves by looking after one another.

I must admit that looking at my parents lying there slovering all over themselves made me feel proud of them. 'Scientists' is what they’d call them on other planets. Communists. Evolutionists. People open to new ideas. People who worked for the good of the future. My father had been an explorer of outer and inner space, a psychedelic astro-neuro-naut. He had led a valiant life and taken his accidental overdose not just for himself but for all raverkind as well.

Anyway, it was becoming increasingly apparent to me that if I continued to do nothing that I would potentially reside on Ravulon my whole life. I might not even end up as enviable as my parents. This fate was unacceptable to me. Death was vastly preferable. I was beginning to feel what most people call vanity. I wanted to make a name for myself.

If my father had traveled as a youth, then I would follow in his footsteps. I too would go to Capitalist Alpha and sing songs of joy and space travel. Maybe my old man had been there to sign a big recording contract? Or as an Ambassador. Was there an Ambassador? Maybe I could become the first one! SonicBoy Wellbutrin, Planet Ravulon Ambassador to Capitalist Alpha! I liked that title. But how would I get there? Ravulon has never manufactured its own space travel devices. Most likely, I thought, I would have to hitch a ride with a visiting alien, a perhaps a missionary from Religio Praya, or some Capitolan alienz. Ravulon typically had more visiting alienz than citizenz!

AusLamerz, (derogatory slang for anyone from outside the Ravulon system), visited Ravulon mainly to do business deals and have sex. The better part of our economy was dance music and space pillz. We were known in the galaxy as a planet of Dionysians and artists. Dionysus was the Capitolan god of Wine. The AusLamers bought our dance tracks and space pillz in exchange for such necessities as food, local transports, disco balls, laser lights, and the like.

We raverz are not a lazy people, we are actually quite good at what we do. Our dance clubz are reputed to be the finest in the galaxy. Many of our deejayz refuse to leave our planet due to our extremely vibey parties. I was looking for any excuse to get out. I talked to every AusLamer I met. I got many offers for sex but no offers to take me to another planet.

Finally one day I had a conversation that changed my life. Just when I was about to give up hope and accept my fate as the number one unhappy child of the universe, I heard about this one planet called Capitola Iota. It was a Capitolan planet colony with a large population of neo-raverz. Kidz dreaming of traveling to Ravulon and start a rave clan. This gave me a sense of hope in my desperate inner being.

I found out about Capitola Iota one day while I was slumming around the resort beaches with some vacationing Capitolans on the party island of Eos. They were hipper than most of the others tourists I had guided before. They knew all the latest record releases. They seemed smarter, more confident, and generally more soul-satisfied than most alienz. What’s more they seemed useful.

There were three boys named Jazz, Tofer, and Pseudo. They were accompanied by three unfamiliar raver girls so high on space pillz I didn't catch their names. These gentlemen were no doubt future leaders of their planet. I dreamed I could assist them, perhaps showing them the Ravulon attractions or serving them food. Most alienz bored me but this group impressed me with their loquacious nature. It was mostly stuff about the Laws of the Marketplace. They also discussed colossal cities with more banks than discos. This also intrigued me. On Ravulon we only had one bank and it was mostly for import/export crowd. We had a supercomputer for a government and left everything financial to it. Since I knew nothing about Capitola Iota, I asked them to tell me a little about it.

The alienz said that Capitola Iota was a 115,000 year old experimental Capitolan commercial arts colony. It sounded alluring. They told me it had a reputation as a party planet throughout the entire Capitalist system. It was legal to take ecstasy there and the LSD was reputed to be amongst the finest in the known universe. However despite these advantages, it was on of the only Capitalist colony that had never gained tremendous wealth.

Jazz told me that almost all the alienz from the Capitolan system who visited Ravulon were from Capitalist Iota. It was the only Ravulon groupie planet in the whole system. The rest were supposedly too into their finances to take the time to travel here. Ravulon was cosmically speaking ‘out of the way’ as he put it.

"On Capitalist Iota," Topher told me, "There are positions opening every day for new disc jockey apprentices and lighting specialists."

I could not determine the extent of their technical knowledge of turntablism, but their taste in space pillz was exquisite and well trained. I became so intent on showing them a good time I forgot about suicide and almost started enjoying my life again. At every opportunity I probed my new friends with questions relating to Capitolan culture.

“What are the core beliefs of the Capitolan culture?” I asked.

“Capitolans believe in free enterprise and might makes right,” Pseudo said.

”What about discos and fucking?” I asked.

“Capitolans don’t have time for that between analyzing stock reports.”

One fine Saturday morning while snorting bumps of star trail mix I asked them if they believed in rave as way of life.

"No, we believe in rave as a way of fun and profit," they answered back.

It was then I came out of my rave closet.

"I believe rave is boring me to death. I believe better things, or at least different things, lie beyond the stars. I want to explore. I would, in fact, give anything to get off this planet."

They were stunned at my confession.

"You should stay here and party until you die," Pseudo told me. "We have seen the universe and it is full of us uptight and money-hungry alienz. You should count your lucky stars that your leaders are all spun out and don't care if you take drugs all day and fuck each other. That is what we all have brains and genitals for, no? Why question Zeus's will?"

"Who is Zeus?" I asked them.

They laughed at me. “How can you know about Dionysus and not about Zeus?” they ridiculed. I felt stupid. So over a few cold glasses of poppy pus soda they told me of their mythic gods of Zeus and Apollo. And they talked of Capitalist Alpha, the golden planet of forbidden wealth.

"I have heard of that place," I told them. "My father was there as a youth to sign a record deal."

”Space bollocks,” Said Jazz doubtingly. It was plain my new friends flat out didn't believe me.

“Not even Capitalist Iotans are allowed to visit Capitalist Alpha.”

“Why not?” I asked them.

“Because they would be considered as vagrants and beggars.”

“My dad told me he was there!” I stated only half believing myself.

"You are so full of shit that if I fucked your ass poop would shoot out of your mouth," Tofer said.

Jazz confirmed. "No raver has ever been to Capitalist Alpha. It’s impossible to even conjecture."

I felt violated. I felt stupid. Maybe my dad was just a sad mental case who swallowed one too many space pillz.

“So where does Ravulon fit in the greater scheme of things?” I asked them.

“Ravulon is actually unlikely branch of Pathetika Rho, they told me. It is technically an area disputed by the Captolans and the Religio Prayans but not disputed very much as there in nothing of value there. It is more like a no man’s land… a total cultural void if you exclude this one place called Paris that’s actually quite nice.

“It was my chance not to believe them for a change.”

"You are so full of shit your eyes used to be blue,” I commented.

"How's that?"

"My people were not originally from a Capitolan industrialized world," I corrected them. "My people are useless at stuff like that. It's not in our gene pool or something. Rumor has it we sprung from psilocybin mushrooms."

"Well, Pathetika Rho was not exactly as industrialized world," Tofer told me chuckling. "Pathetika Rho is actually the most backwards planet in the whole galaxy. Astrographically, Pathetika Rho was located somewhere inside the Capitalist system, but they never really got going. Everyone felt sorry for them, like a retarded cousin. We tried to help them a few times but it was always a disaster and we ended up destroying everything on Earth in the hopes they would evolve into proper enlightened beings.”

I was intrigued.

“If we are a colony of Pathetika Rho, well then what ever happened to it, then?" I asked. “Is it still there?”

“No one knows. No one has bothered documenting any evidence about the people at all, except in ridicule. It is after all the worst planet in the galaxy. Maybe even the worst planet in ANY galaxy. The people there are strange and completely useless. Pathetika is the third planet from an ugly yellow star. They have the worst of everything imaginable. It is unbelievably bad. We have a saying on Capitalist Iota that the only good thing that ever came out of Pathetika Rho was the Ravulon Party colony. The rest of that planet wasn’t worth a transport load of bloody pig testicles."

Topher had a different opinion.

“Oh, Rho is probably still out there, I bet. But it's likely all radioactive- filled with disease, misery, and processed government cheese food. All the cities have probably been shelled with megaton nuclear warheads and most of the people are either dead or mutated into black and green spotted arachnids. That’s what eventually happens to most planets with no bloody economy or culture to speak of... they kill each other in a fit of greed. But enough about that place. As you know Ravulon has a long history. It goes back well beyond even our own.”

“Yeah I know,” I replied. “And it’s beginning to bore me. I like need a challenge or something. Taking drugs and dancing all day just doesn’t cut it any more.”

I hung out with the Capitolan Iotians for weeks until they ran out of money and had to get home. We spent most of the time in the clubs where we went through packets and packets of blue nebulas and Zero-G-Juice. When we didn’t talk about music we talked about Capitalist Iota. It made me want to go there so badly. And I was beginning learning a lot.

They taught me about industrialized societies and tariff agreements. They told me of planets with very low club to dancer ratios, and about industrialized cities with pill clubs that were empty on weekdays. This only confirmed my will to do something with my life besides party and pander to the whims of the AusLamer tourists for spending money. I felt I had much to experience.

"This is all so intriguing," I announced after a club night one morning. "I must accompany you back to Capitalist Iota."

But they laughed at me again. They told me I wouldn't last a week there on my own. They told me not only wouldn't I be welcome, but that I would probably get picked up and thrown in ‘juvenile detention.’ They told me I wasn't even old enough to get into the good clubs. And they told me a single space pill would cost a whole week's salary.

I couldn't believe it. It sounded so intriguing. I didn't care. I wanted to see it anyway. I figured they underestimated my will to adapt and to explore. Sure it sounded strange, but that was part of the allure.

"You must take me back with you or I will die!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Jazz laughed at me. "You know how much a round-trip ticket costs to Iota? 40 thousand neodrachmas. I had to work two shifts for a whole year to pay for this ride. Sorry SonicBoy, no can do..."

After hearing this news I was mentally bass-spun and felt doubly reassured that I needed to experience this other way of life. I immediately started thinking about the bridge again and eagerly anticipating the salty taste in the back of my throat as the salt water started to fill my lungs.

“Listen up!” I yelled. “Now I know that my people do not have a reputation as being independent hard workers. Yes we rarely do anything unless motivated by the muses of Art. But I rationalize that delving into another culture is in fact a type of Art, err, Anthropology. It’s the universal quest to see where one comes from.”

They weren’t impressed by my speech. “Go to the library and read about the universe and then you won’t want to see it anymore,” Jazz told me before he and his friends left to go back home.

”Library?” I asked them. “What the fuck is a library?”

To be continued...