It's 5:00 am. Oh look, a royal pains marathon.

I once thought you were the symptom of a broken heart

Or melancholy echoes of a happy soul trough a broken mind

I know better than that now, and I’m sure that amuses you

But it actually comforts me

You may be grinning as you pound the drums behind my eyes

For I have deemed you as but a constant companion in my travels

Who must occasionally remind me your still there

I was just calling to say that I’m fine with that

Just please keep it down, I eventually need to sleep.

The Enigma of Dr. Elmo, The Traveling Lobotomy Salesman

It was almost as if those knocks on the door of his first client’s house gave birth to him, his childhood and adolescence passing in a few reverberating raps on a plastic/aluminum alloy construct painted to look like old wood. Puberty and early adulthood fell like a silk shroud cast away from a radiant temptress as the door creaked hesitantly open. And then, like an angel or a radioactive priest, Dr. Elmo the Traveling Lobotomy Salesman broke into a Cheshire grin and offered the single greatest product the world had ever seen.

The most beautiful thing about the Do-it-yourself lobotomy kit was that it practically sold itself. Never the less, Dr. Elmo peddled his device it like a musician plays his instrument. His pitch was a carefully rehearsed symphony that left anyone who heard it speechless with tears running down their cheeks. The price tag, by no means cheap but certainly affordable, meant nothing after Dr. Elmo had spoke his ballad. No one visited by Dr. Elmo shut the door without a Lobotomy Kit for every member of the household. In this respect, Dr. Elmo was as much a salesman as he was a doctor, since he really didn’t need to work at all to reduce his inventory. Perhaps he reveled in the selling process, or maybe it was somehow a crucial element of what made the kit itself so effective. No one knows for sure one way or another.

Assembly was a breeze. It required no paint, bolts or screws, glue or batteries. It had no instruction manual. Absolutely anyone could put the thing together. The color scheme was tailor made to compliment any household’s existing decoration, and the design was ergonomic and sheik. Once you put it together all you had to do was put it on (one size fits all) and press the only button it had. PRESTO! Flawless results! No further hassle! Guaranteed to work on the first try or your money back! Not a single kit was ever returned of course. In fact once you used it you never took it off. This was fine, since it was also the perfect fashion accessory. All your friends and family wanted one, and all your friends and family could have one! As it so happened, all your friends and family eventually would have one (also guaranteed or your money back).

Most fads are unavoidable as far as hearing about them goes. The news will sing the praises or raise it’s eyebrows over any craze or fashion that gets even close to as popular as Dr. Elmo’s product did. The funny thing was that not even Oprah spoke of it. Where it not for the fact that “everyone was doing it” in a very literal sense, you’d never even know it existed. This probably owed to the nature and effects of the kit, but this is only speculation. Once assembled the device was capable of multiple applications. Though seeing as how you only needed to use it once per person this seemed a tad redundant.

The Do-it-Yourself Lobotomy kit only began getting any kind of media attention when it was being casually mentioned during arguments over which plummeted first; the value of currency, national employment figures or the overall profits of every conceivable industry. The truth of course is that the entire world economy collapsed within a matter of years, slowed only by Dr. Elmo’s refusal to set up a mail order service. The panicked mainstream news frenzy that usually accompanies some sort of disaster was noticeably less powerful this time around. Whether this was because the stations had lost most of their workers or because nightly viewership was so low that the producers saw little point in fueling the invisible fires was never really clear. The military was mobilized on paper, but not only were forces insufficient, but not a single living soul could actually find Dr. Elmo. It was if he only existed when he showed up at your door to take your money and give you his fantastic device. A few theorized he was but a hallucination and that the device either showed up in your home or perhaps the world had built it in a trance and tricked themselves into believing it came from somewhere else.

Phantom or not, the world Dr. Elmo had created by the time he got to Emily Stein’s house was a utopia like no science fiction writer could have imagined. Corporate control had been relinquished, every war had ended, and though the trains didn’t run on time there was no need for them to run at all anyway. No one starved because no one ate. Television was never boring because no one watched it. Nature thrived because no one left the house to destroy it, let alone look at it. Politics were meaningless, poverty was nonexistent, and because it wasn’t produced any more fine art was no longer a parody of itself. The new world order was built on the single biggest selling point of the Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy Kit: once you used it, there was no need to worry about anything else ever again.


…

Emily Stein opened the door already weeping, as Dr. Elmo’s gaze jumped from his feet to her begging eyes. He smiled as he had so many times before and asked Emily if he could take a moment of her time. Though she had never heard his pitch, she had spent the last few years of her life waiting to hang on every word of it. It was as if his tongue was dancing as he relayed the infamous lines that everyone knew but no one could repeat. After a few minutes, he stopped and awaited Emily’s answer. Instead of saying yes she simply sobbed and thrust the wad of cash she had been saving into his chest. Dr. Elmo smiled and told Emily she would not regret her decision.

But as he opened his bag to grab Emily’s Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy kit he paused, then closed it. Dr. Elmo then told Emily that he regretted to inform her that he was currently out of stock, but that he would let her know as soon as he got another shipment. He then tipped his hat, turned around and walked away, never to be seen again.

Emily now cried tears of horror and utter torment, as she convulsed on her front stoop. She was now the most intelligent person on the face of the planet.

Dear James Lee (open letter)

My name is Dan, and despite my not liking mainstream "news" sources, I tuned into CNN today around 4:30 pm to follow your exploits. As i suspected, the coverage was less than desirable, the "live footage" consisted of the same aerial shots of the Discovery Channel building and some green fatigue clad bomb squad tech running as fast as one can with 100+ pounds of crap strapped to his body. The pundit sounded a lot like a broken record, simply repeating the same limited information on the situation every two minutes and talking to "experts", who while providing interesting insight on aspects of negotiation techniques and whatnot, provided no actual information on you or your three hostages. needless to say i was disappointed but not surprised at CNN's coverage. but hey, its news, baby.

Eventually, a high ranking police official came to the mic podium placed somewhere on the streets of Silver Spring and informed me (and the public) that you had been shot. He went on to say you were in custody and that he knew nothing of your condition. he actually repeated this about 15 times in response to reporter's inquiries on your state of being. I found this amusing.

I have, however since discovered that you are, in fact, no longer with us. I personally don't like to see anyone die needlessly, so I find your death disappointing, albeit not surprising. I hope you rest well in whatever afterlife (or lack thereof) you chose during your tenure on this ailing planet.

The reason i am writing you is in regards to your actions today, or at least what i understand of them. CNN said you had a manifesto and that you were a radical environmentalist. naturally, they only mentioned a few contrived blurbs about how you wanted to halt people from breeding and making "filthy babies", and preceded to show pictures of your myspace (the pundit called it your facebook). trough minimal searching on the google, i have found and read your manifesto, which was actually only two and a half pages long (but you knew that already). I found it interesting. You had alot of good (if not impractical) ideas on what we could do to help save this planet. You even mentioned a book that i so happen to own a copy of. perhaps now I'll be a bit more inspired to read it. I'm sort of bad with reading books in a timely manner as it were.

I will continue to study today's events as details become available, but until then I would like to tell you that I will not forget you. I in no way condone the methods you used or solutions you proposed to save the planet, but in the end we had very similar concerns. Human kind is quickly destroying this planet piece by piece through pollution, terraforming, draining resources and overpopulation. I can relate to your discontent with "fake peace movements" as well, although in a much different way. Again, waiving a gun around in the Discovery Channel building with hostages was not a good way to get your message out. Endangering the lives of others is not only ethically wrong, it's also a great way to get shot (as you are intimately aware).

I know how this is going to go down though. In the tombs of history, you will be remembered as a crazy homeless Asian man, and not as someone who's legitimate concern for the future of our planet drove him to drastic actions. While I can never get behind your methods or solutions for bettering this planet, I do get behind your desire for change. You may have been discoraged by the peace and environmental movements of our present day, but I would like to let you know that I think there are many among this species that really do want to see this world become a better place, and will continue to fight for it.

My real moral of the story here is that we as a people should not be so quick to dismiss the ideals, ideas and passions of people just because we don't agree with all of them or because we don't get behind the actions that stemmed from them. If we're going to stand together and make any kind of change in this world, we need to sit down and actually talk to people that many times will have different views and ideas on things. We may not be able to see completely eye to eye, but at least if we try to understand one another we may be able to come to respect each other for our differences. In my opinion, a good majority of the world population want generally the same kinds of things, just in very different ways. its by identifying the different ways of saying the same thing that can help unify those who wish to change this world. But if we continue to be set in our ways and dismiss people as being "unreachable" or "crazy", we're not going to go too far. I feel as though the events of today will come to illustrate this more and more as the story progresses.

So to you James Lee, I wish you only the best in your post-mortal endeavors, and thank you for not actually hurting anyone.

Cheers,

Dan Ellis