THE [INCOMPLETE] INTERVIEWS WITH A BODYSNATCHER
#1
INTERVIEWER: Why don’t you start by telling us a bit about yourself?
CHET: This is Chet, he is twenty six, he is very wealthy, women love him—it’s the best.
INTERVIEWER: How about you?... The one in control.
CHET: My name is [alien noise]. Chet here is my thirty-second sentient being, Earth is my twenty-second planet. It’s been a great flubendorf.
INTERVIEWER: What was that?
CHET: Flubendorf. It’s like your studying abroad. But see my klom-klorm works for the fleeban, so my friends and I are free to have a bit of fun with it... Our next competition is a real squeem.
INTERVIEWER: Competition? So there is a prize.
CHET: Not one you can hold, but one you can feel…in your heef... This is going to be the most difficult and by far the least enjoyable. Which just makes victory that much more crim.
INTERVIEWER: What is the objective?
CHET: There are two parts: find the worst human, then inhabit that human longer than the others inhabit theirs.
INTERVIEWER: What do you mean by the worst human?
CHET: Oh, I don’t know… Pathetic, worthless, meek, inconsequential, lame… You know last week, we inhabited an entire Formula 1 race. The time before that we tried out futbol, or soccer as you call it. Another time we all inhabited the cast of an ensemble pornographic film. (Laughs) But not the whole cast, just some of them, so that there was no way of knowing who was who. It was fucking insane! But now...this next one… Well shit... But I don’t need to worry about that yet. Because for now, I am Chet!
INTERVIEWER: Would you please try to briefly explain the assimilation process? At what level do you merge with the host? Are you each permanently affected by the other?
CHET: The best way I can explain it is that the host is a vehicle...a car, and I am the driver. I am accelerating, braking, steering, and so on. Yet I am not in complete control. See each car has strengths and weaknesses that limit or liberate the driver.
INTERVIEWER: Sorry... Would you mind explaining it without metaphor?
CHET: Yeah... Look. I don’t take complete control. Their personalities and desires and fears and shlum are all still their. I just control what you call free will. They say that is the only way to truly experience the human condition.
INTERVIEWER: Have you found your next host?
#2
INTERVIEWER: Why don’t you start by telling us a bit about yourself?
BILL: A bit about myself... What do you want to know?
INTERVIEWER: Just... Maybe start with your name, age, where you live—that sort of thing...
BILL: Sure... My name is Bill. I am twenty three. I live with my parents. I dropped out of college. I’m currently unemployed. And I hate myself... Is that good?
INTERVIEWER: You’re a writer correct?
BILL: I spend a lot of time writing. Does that make me a writer? Who am I to say?
INTERVIEWER: Why don’t you take us through a day in your life?
BILL: Why? Look—what is this about again? What’s the point?
INTERVIEWER: It’s a... It’s a mosaic-exploration of the human condition.
BILL: An exercise in futility. You came to the right person. Every day is pretty much the same, at least they all start the same… I crawl out of my hole, urinate, pour myself a bowl of cold mush and add some kind of fruit. Typically by the time I’m through with breakfast my back ache will have set in. This isn’t just any back pain either. These are some ornery, stubborn, Old Testament back pains. They typically put me to the floor for the better part of a half hour. Eventually my self-pity outweighs the pain, so I will start writing... I begin every session by re-reading the previous day’s work—a very discouraging and time consuming activity. Once I’m through with that, I’ll try to actually write some new pages. I will flounder for an eternity, writing and deleting, carving and razing, painting and burning. It is a laborious and sometimes indomitable battle. But on the occasions that I do push through, I usually don’t do so until just before sunset… I never miss a sunset. This is really the only time I will leave the house. I will walk to the water and watch the night roll in.
INTERVIEWER: Is there a particular reason why you do that?
BILL: Why? Why does the hyena cackle? Why does the shrew prey upon the bug?... The sunset… Well, aside from the apparent aesthetic beauty, the sun setting is... It’s a reminder—a reminder that no matter how beautiful and splendid the event may be, it is still the usher for an absolute and unforgiving darkness. Day after day, this transformation—this metamorphosis—is undertaken; night shakes itself free of the oppressive and enslaving brightness. The light—day—suggests lies that reinforce the fallacies of humanity; the glorification of a consciousness supported solely by fallible sensory information… Night lays bare those truths that even darkness can not mask.
INTERVIEWER: Did you write that?
BILL: No... I said it—just now.
INTERVIEWER: Would you be open to sharing some of your writing with us?
BILL: I’d prefer not to.
INTERVIEWER: Why?
BILL: Because I do not want my clumsy, inaccurate verbal-affectation to hinder the deeper human truths I attempt to explore and reveal with my prose... I write because I want to remove my thoughts from my physical self—I want my ideas to have their own solitary existence...
#4
INTERVIEWER: You look different—Bill looks different.
BILL: I fuckin’ hope so.
INTERVIEWER: Why do you say that?
BILL: You met Bill right?
INTERVIEWER: Would you say he is the worst of the humans in your competition?
BILL: Absolutely. Bill is the most hopeless and insignificant being on this planet. In fact he is the lowest being I have ever come into contact with.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think you can endure?
BILL: Well I’m off to a great start. Three of those other blooples already dropped out—a coal miner, a prison guard and a single mother of five; all peeble-rimps compared to Bill.
INTERVIEWER: That means Bill is worse?
BILL: Yes... We took turns as each other’s nominations and it was unanimous, Bill is the by far the most difficult to inhabit.
INTERVIEWER: Why?
BILL: Well no one could really explain it... Well, actually, one flimble said something pretty good. What was it?... Oh, he said—uh—the translation would be something like Bill is a black-hole of masochistic introspection—fuck see I would’ve never said some bullshit like that before Bill.
INTERVIEWER: Has your assimilation been changed at all by Bill’s tendencies?
BILL: Definitely not.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think you have affected him?
BILL: No... No one really seems to care about this guy—at all. I mean it sounds like I’m being a real plibber, but I’m serious.
INTERVIEWER: Have you continued to write?
BILL: I, uh, I read some of his writing—and I saw the way he ritualized that shit. No, I packed it all up in a box and shoved it in the closet. But! But! I did save one sample... Here... (*Laughing*) “With the trepidation of a child seeking companionship, I venture into the void. Into the black, into the depth, there it is; nothing. Endless and complete, whole and vast. Deeper into my self, deeper into my soul. In all of us, it is there. It is what we do not see, what we cannot understand, it is inevitable and consuming. Blank. Empty. Everything." (Laughs) What a real jimbleflorp man.
INTERVIEWER: Have you been watching the sunsets?
BILL: What?... No... No.
#5
INTERVIEWER: So... It has been two weeks since assimilation. How has it been?
BILL: Have you ever spoken with someone who seriously considered suicide? Like really considered it, not just sarcastically, but really, truly gave it some thought.
INTERVIEWER: Is Bill suicidal?
BILL: What? No... Just a random thought.
INTERVIEWER: How is Bill?
BILL: How is Bill or how am I?... Well I guess it makes no difference. If I’m being totally honest here. I think I’ve lost sight of it all. Of who’s who, who’s thoughts are which. It’s freaking me the fuck out if I’m being totally honest.
INTERVIEWER: What’s changed?
BILL: Last time we did this, you asked if I had been writing... For a while I wasn’t, but it didn’t take long to realize writing is all Bill has. Without it, he is nothing.
INTERVIEWER: Have you started writing?
BILL: No. Well, I did try once—it didn’t go well… But I did reopen the box. And I’ve been reading a lot.
INTERVIEWER: Has your opinion on Bill’s writing changed?
BILL: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: In what way?
BILL: It pains me to say it, and when I say it, don’t think it means my opinion of Bill as a person has changed, it hasn’t—he is still every bit the dismal, odious sack he always was. But, his writing… I don’t know, I’m too... (*He stands*) I’m sorry. (*He exits*)
#6
[Awaiting transcripts...]