"You say you want to stand by my side // Darling, your head's not right"
- The Strokes ("Someday")
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Purgatory. The pink-haired guard has the demon, Balrog, locked in a cell. The guard keeps the demon's power dormant with bowls of Cap'n Crunch (Crunch Berries) and re-runs of Conan O'Brien on a tablet. At no point does Balrog look at the guard.
guard: so what happened next?
balrog: nothing. absolutely nothing happens next.
guard: listen, we need to retrace your steps. all of them.
balrog: why?
guard: economic reasons.
(the demon pauses to finish a spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: where are we again?
guard: May of 2024.
balrog: war, genocide, student protests--
guard: nope. your story.
balrog: i don't know! we started training again, went to watch National Golden Gloves.
guard: it was in Detroit in '24.
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: yes, it was.
guard: right down the street from Ypsi.
balrog: we were across the street.
guard: what?
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: the tournament was held across the street from the marketing firm where we worked at the time.
guard: you're joking.
balrog (chuckling): nope. after coding an hour or three, we'd grab a free mokaccino from the machine, smoke a joint by the river, and then watch the fights. oh, this is the old-timey baseball one!
guard: what's a mokaccino?
balrog: hot chocolate and coffee. next question.
guard: oh wow, you'd drink that?
(the demon slurps some of the milk before refilling the bowl)
balrog: yes.
guard: so you spent your days training, watching boxing, smoking weed... and coding?
balrog: yes.
guard: sounds lovely.
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: it was awesome. imagine a five day music festival, but, ya know... amateur boxing.
guard: you didn't notice these coincidences lining up?
balrog: oh, i always figured larger forces were at work, other pieces on the board, but i thought... does the bishop know the rook's movements? are they aware of each other?
guard: you play chess?
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: nope.
guard: are you the bishop or the rook in this situation?
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog (points at himself with the spoon): the rook.
guard: did you know where it was all going, even back then?
balrog (points at the guard with the spoon): you're the bishop.
guard: did you know where it was going?
balrog: of course not. the human just sorta... pursued ideas that made me chuckle.
guard: hmmm. but you get bored easily, do you not?
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: bored and addicted are my two modes, i think.
guard: whose idea was it to publish The Diaries piecemeal like that, one scene at a time?
balrog: how else do you write a play?
guard: in a notebook? somewhere private where it doesn't trigger dangerous emotions, or spark overthrows of the state.
balrog: the state or the Temple? i get confused.
guard: mere power structures, they come and go.
balrog: in my defense, i didn't know the play would do that. wait, which emotions are the dangerous ones?
guard: people feeling anything at all is dangerous. the emotions of the subjugated inevitably endanger the security of the subjugators. your so-called art is a testament to this.
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: meh. i was bored and folks seemed isolated...
guard: that's it?
balrog: plus, the idea of transmittable madness made me chuckle, so i wrote in a way that would entice and confuse.
guard: there it is.
balrog (chuckling): all the pieces were in our head already... after that, it's just sorta... jotting things down; but then i realized the audience would all enter at different points in the story... that's why i tell things in a non-linear sorta way.
guard: that's insane.
(the demon slurps some of the milk before refilling the bowl)
balrog: which part?
guard: all of it.
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: madness is both enticing and horribly, horribly confusing.
guard: what sketch is that?
balrog: it's a remote where Conan visits the American Girl Store.
guard: i see. wait, so what happened next?
balrog: Conan starts speaking german and gets drunk off chardonnay.
guard: no, with your story.
balrog: nothing happens next, man, we just sorta... kept writing... kept posting scenes on a stupid little site! i figured there was some non-zero probability that the non-sense in our head would someday help someone... or, ya know, get me paid.
guard: from altruism to self-interest... from empathy to indifference... you really are bipolar.
balrog (pointing to himself with the spoon): demon.
guard: it's all the same behind those bars, i imagine. when you're a political prisoner, does it matter which ideology imprisoned you?
(the demon pauses to finish another spoonful of The Cap'n)
balrog: depends on how you define "prison"... bored and addicted are my two modes, i think.
blackout. end scene.
The Balrog Diaries
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