March 11, 2008

I had been at the DLF compound for about 20 minutes before I was thinking I should have taken my chances with the knife welding maniac.

Karl was off being “deprogrammed” of married life and they left me to wander around their farm and interact with other members, sort of like a really boring choose your own adventure novel. And when I decided I had enough and tried to hide in a barn, they came and found me to talk about their silly beliefs. The nebulous and vague cause attracted all types of agendas; people who professed to truly not believe in the practice of marriage, people who couldn’t get married and were bitter other people were happy and, of course, September 12 conspiracists.

I hoped I wouldn’t have to stay too much longer. If I had any idea where I was, I might have started walking, but I felt bad about leaving Karl here at the farm. Come to think of it, farm might be a misnomer, because in the course of running and hiding throughout the day, I didn’t see anything growing. They derived all their sustenance from Denny’s to-go orders.

Around dinner time, Karl finally turned up. He was very excited.

“I had sex with the redhead!”

“What?”

Karl told me as part of the deprogramming he mentioned he might return to his marriage and she insisted on doing it to nullify the sacrament or whatever.

“Uh, I guess way to go, bro.” We had an awkward high five.

“Yeah, and she’s a lesbian!” Karl seemed really happy about this fact.

“No!”

“Seriously, she’s in love with some girl, but there was something about time travel.”

I figured he’d misheard, but when we were sitting around a picnic table eating Denny’s a little later, I asked her and sure enough, there was time travel involved.

We were sitting with Kate and let’s call them Crazy Persons 1 through 3 when her eyes got a distant far away look.

“Just after I graduated law school, our Shaman Schriss Babler showed me a portal that let me journey into the past,” Kate said wistfully. “There in the Middle Ages I eyed a fair maiden who I fell in love with, a fair maiden named Kaila. Alas, our love was not meant to be, for fear the whole space time continuum would crumble like soda bread.”

“Long distance relationships are tough, anyway,” I offered.

She snapped out of her reverie and glared at me. “Shut up and eat your Denny’s.”

“Funny you should mention that, I once went to a Denny’s,” Karl said. We all turned to look at him and after several moments of watching Buffalo Chicken Sandwich sauce drip down his chin, we realized that was the end of the story.

Kate looked at me again. “Tell your retarded friend I’m going to punch him in the stomach.”

We ate in silence for several more minutes when I decided to ask another question.

“What’s the deal with the Denny’s? Are they underwriting you guys?”

Crazy Person 1 or 2, I can’t be sure, threw his meal up in the air and screamed “He knows too much!”

Several hands grabbed me and held me on the picnic table. Kate looked down at me.

“You just had to be too smart for your own good, didn’t you? Now we’ll have to kill you.”

Karl started crying.

“And kill him too, he’s probably going to go back to his wife anyway,” she said.

I tried to get a word in, “Listen, I think we’re being a little hasty here and I think you’ve misread the state of my friend’s marriage.”

They didn’t listen and dragged us both to a field. They didn’t want to just kill us the easy way, so they dressed us up as bride and groom and were going to light us on fire like a wedding cake candle. Karl, obviously, was the bride. A crying bride, at that.

“Pat! I don’t want to die! Tell them who your dad is!”

I elbowed him hard in the side. Kate jumped close to Karl's face.

“Who’s his father?”

Karl sniffled. “Senator Flair, Senator Ric Flair.”

This made Kate very happy. She decided I could stay as a political prisoner. Karl, however, was still set to die.

“Now listen, I’ll only be your political prisoner if Karl lives.”

Kate thought about this and agreed. Who said you can’t negotiate with terrorists?

“But you two have to promise not to run away.”

I looked at her and held my hand up.

“I promise we won’t run.”