Floating above his crumpled, bleeding body, he saw that the Platypus was there to greet him. His confusion was relieved by the presence of this spiritual entity.

"What happened?" Luminary asked. "How... I mean, why...?"

"What do you remember?" asked the Platypus.

"Um... I guess I remember Planet X... And Target... Where's A. Nonymous? Where's Archon?"

"No... Remember after that," said the Platypus.

"After? I... oh. Oh. Now I see. Is that over yet? Please tell me it's over!" Luminary pleaded.

"Yes, it's over. Do you remember what happened?"

"Well..." Luminary began. "It was something like this:"

It was a fine day outside and Luminary Coremaster sped down the street on his hydraulic pogo stick, crushing small automobiles and singing a little tune as he went. Suddenly, from behind a parked hovercraft, an old lady wearing blue flower-printed titanium battle armor leapt to a fighting stance atop her atomic-powered Yugo.

"Holy frijolie, it's Mrs. Hutchenson!" spat Luminary, who owed her 25 cents change from a lemonade stand he had as a small child when she had nothing but a half-dollar.

"Get ready to rumble, dearie!" shouted Mrs. Hutchenson as she readied her grenade gattling gun on her shoulder and hooked up the optical laser site jack to her helmet.

"Zoiks!" Luminary shouted as he leapt out of the way. But it was too late! Soon a shower of grenades came hailing down upon him like too many food crumbs spewing from the mouth of a hungry Dom DeLouise! It seemed as if all hope were lost!

"That's not how it happened."

"Huh?" Luminary stammered.

"My friend, that's not what happened," the Platypus said again.

"What? But, of course it was! It's kooky!" Luminary reiterated.

"Luminary, you are blocking out the truth. Think harder." said the Platypus.

"But, it's wacky! It's spiffy! It's the hip new craze that's sweeping the na---"

"Luminary!" the Platypus shouted. "Stop it!"

"Sorry."

"Now. Do you remember the people involved?"

"Kind of. I remember there was a girl." said Luminary.

"What was her name?" asked the Platypus.

"I... I can't remember! I don't even remember what color her hair was. I think we had some good times, but who knows. Did I ever meet her in person? Or did we hang out for years? I just don't know. Who can say?"

Perhaps the hula-dancing man with yellow bangs could help me out. I hear that he does his karoke act every Tuesday night, except holidays, for hordes of Italian tourists who just can't seem to get enough of it. He also enjoys romping through strawberry patches in a giraffe costume with his wife Carlotta. However, Carlotta sometimes has a battle between her id and her psyche by the sea. Her brain will scream, "Crayons and spit! Crayons and spit!" until it collapses upon itself.

"Is that important?" asked the Platypus.

"Um... I'm not sure! Probably not. But... Look at my body! It's horrid! All crushed and bleeding, yuck. Not mutilated, but just... dead." Luminary gagged.

"There, there. We'll get to the bottom of this." comforted the Platypus. "Do you remember a place?"

"Why, yes! I remember... The City!" said Luminary.

I was walking down the street, careful not to step on the broken glass or homeless people strewn about. I quickly pulled out my identification and fed it to a passing 3-B (Big Brother Bot) before it could arrest and subsequently annihilate me. I stepped into the tube and keyed my seventeen-digit pass code and was instantly whisked away to my flat, a small room barely big enough for a fold-out couch. Suddenly the wall lit up with the image of my section commander, demanding to know why I had left work 37 seconds early today. "It's a conspiracy!" I shouted back. "Well, just call me the Warren Commission," he retorted, as the laser turret in the corner turned to face me. Suddenly the tip began to glow, and instantly---

"That's not how it happened either," said the Platypus.

"Are you sure? It seems recent to me," said Luminary. "I remember freeing the animals! Oh, the horrid experiments they were once subjected to!"

"Nonetheless, this is not the reason," said the Platypus. "What else can you remember? Can you remember other people? Friends, perhaps?"

"Yes! I remember Mr. Pube. He was a good friend. I also remember Null, another good comrade. And Murray Headroom was also very cool. In fact..."

Let me tell you about the time that Yacub earned the nickname "Mr. Stringy". It was a brisk November -Q and everybody from the Santa Barbara BBS world was there! Bob Blaylock was there as usual, impressing the ladies with his Geiger counter, and Zeylan showed up in secret, dressed as Winston Churchill. Everybody giggled when the shaky, pubescent voice announced "Mr. Churchill, your large pepperoni with extra mushrooms is ready, sir," over the intercom. So anyway, Mike Swanson wasbusy fencing with Buccaneer, an event that kept endingswiftly for Mike's sake, and even The Sneezing Lion was there to juggle some of the 5-megabyte hard disks that Math Blaster had pulled out of archaic equipment for our amusement. I joined in, playing a silly medieval tune on my accordion while the Philosophical Wombat belted out bagpipe accompaniment.

Suddenly, Mr. Pube, in true Tarintino fashion, showed up in his slick tailored black suit and whipped out a .45! He began firing into the crowd, to our amazement, but quickly quelled our nerves upon explaining that they were football jocks from the local high school.

It suddenly occurred to Code Zero, that naughty little scamp, to disturb the sleeping Swagman who resided in the corner, mumbling things every now and then about tacos and the undergarments of someone named Bliss. Code Zero rallied together JSK, the ghost of Palmer Young, and Yacub, and the four proceeded to throw small anchovies at the snoring Swagman. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Swagman was clutching his favorite prosthetic breast implant in hand during his slumber, and upon being woken up, thrust it forward in a startled motion, shouting, "She said she was 18!" Yacub was so close that the implant smashed into his face, exploding in a spray of silicon goo! The resulting photo taken by Colin Campbell, of Yacub with strands of slippery goo oozing down his face, earned him the whimsical nickname "Mr. Stringy"!

As the -Q dragged on into the night, a drunken Dark Doctor X burst into the restaurant, looking something like a country music star, with his western hat, black overcoat, and long strands of dirty blond hair. "I need a woman!" he shouted to the all-male remainders of the group. Mike Swanson stopped crazy-gluing Bob Blaylock's hat to the ceiling, and shot JSK a nervous glance. In turn, JSK handed me a vintage 1960's oscilloscope and said, "Have fun, I'm outta here!" and took off. Norbus and Murray Headroom put away their chess set and inched toward the door. Even Zeylan was seen to pull down his derby, raise the collar of his overcoat, and adjust his bald wig and false nose.

"I'm calling you out!" DDX shouted to the small country-style doll bolted to the wall. Receiving no response, he pulled out a shotgun and blew it to smithereens. "Who's next?" he shouted, as if anyone would respond.

Like a bolt of lightning from the corner of the room, Mr. Pube was suddenly on DDX, "like flies on a rib roast" as Aidan would later be quoted as saying. "Drop it!" shouted Mr. Pube, as he cocked his pistol. DDX swerved around to retaliate, but it was too late! Mr. Pube fired a clean shot right through DDX's skull, but in turn DDX fell and misfired the shotgun right at me!

I flew back against the wall, knocking down some of the country home-town plates tacked to it. "Lume!" shouted someone through the haze. "Are you okay?" My vision blurred a sticky red color, and my chest felt like an anvil had been dropped on it. I managed to barf up some bloody phlegm in response, and promptly---

"Died!" shouted Luminary. "That's it, then! That's how I died!"

"Eh... Not quite, my friend," replied the Platypus.

"What?" said Luminary. "No, that has to be it! It's all so clear to me now!"

"Is it as clear as the previous scenarios?" asked the Platypus.

"Wha...? Oh," said Luminary.

"So, my friend," said the Platypus. "What else do you remember?"

"There were others... It was hard to be friends with many of them, though. Some of them had strange motives. Or mental problems or something. But most of them were nice people. I think I took it all too seriously. I was lonely in that place. Where was I, anyway?"

"That's what we're trying to determine," said the Platypus. "Do you remember a time?"

"But, it was weird! Everything changed suddenly. My whole life was shattered. Suddenly the days of Target and Planet X were gone. I tried to keep up, but it was too expensive and the time delay was too long. So I resorted to snail mail..."

"Snail what?" asked the Platypus.

"I'm not sure, actually," answered Luminary. "That was strange... A reaction from another time."

"Please continue."

"So we wrote, but the letters became less and less frequent... Only A. Nonymous-- I mean, Omnipresent Being, kept up the communication. I was cut off from my reality. I became seriously depressed. I changed, even now I can never go back to the way I was!"

"Yes, go on," said the Platypus.

"But even then, even after that reality stopped, it continued somehow. But it stopped. I'm confused," said Luminary.

"I know," said the Platypus.

"But... What happened to me? I'm scared!" Luminary began to cry. "Where was I? What was that all about?"

"I'm sorry, I truly am," said the Platypus.

"You must know what's going on!" shouted Luminary in tears. "You have to know! Tell me the truth!"

"Well," the Platypus said, "how can I put this so you could understand... it was... a clerical error."

"Wha... what?" sniffed Luminary.

"I'm truly sorry, we all are, really," said the Platypus.

"A clerical error?" said Luminary.

"If there's any way we can make it up to you---"

"A clerical error?" repeated Luminary. "What do you mean, a clerical error? What are you talking about?"

"Please, listen," said the Platypus. "Everything has been rectified, I've worked hard to correct this problem. I can assure you that nothing like this will happen again---"

"So you're saying that my death was a clerical error?" said Luminary. "A cosmic mistake or something?"

"Oh, no," said the Platypus. "Your death was unavoidable. I'm saying that the past six years were the error."

"WHAT?!"

"Again, I'm terribly sorry about this. You, ah... Were simply not supposed to... I mean, you weren't really..."

"I wasn't supposed to what?"

"Well, listen," said the Platypus. "Everything's fixed now. You'll feel better, I promise. Your life will fade away... A memory of the past rather than a proper existence... Do you see?"

"No," said Luminary. Luminary's crumpled body on the ground began to glow a dull red.

"You'll understand. Your reality will become a memory of something greater. A bigger picture of sorts," said the Platypus.

"Did I really die, then?" asked Luminary. The glow on Luminary's body intensified to an orange, then yellow.

"Oh, yes," said the Platypus. "You were most definitely killed off."

"By what?" asked Luminary. The body began to glow white hot as licks of flame enveloped it.

"You'll know soon enough," said the Platypus.

"So... but... um," said Luminary. "Do I even get to say goodbye to everybody?" Luminary's body was a blinding pyre of heat.

"Well," said the Platypus. "We don't normally allow that sort of thing. I'm sure you can understand."

"Yeah," said Luminary. The heat subsided and Luminary's charred shell began to crumble, turning to ash in the wind.

"But, ah... Considering the circumstances," said the Platypus, "I think it would be okay. Just this once."

"Really?" asked Luminary. The last remnants of Luminary's ashes flittered away in the breeze, leaving no marks upon the ground.

"Sure," said the Platypus. "But you can do that a little later. Come now, we have to go."

"I know," said Luminary. "For there is much work to be done."