Hey Spacejerk

Silent Treatment

Hey Spacejerk,

I wouldn't have thought you capable of subtle psychological warfare, but if you've learned, you learned well. Almost had me there, with your total silence. Well guess what? I'm stronger than your little mind games.

I've come to the conclusion that you had to have existed at some point. There are simply too many memories that intersect with other peoples' experiences of you, and I've taken to writing them all down in chronological order. I remember Gaz has repeatedly acknowledged your existence and even the fact that you're an alien. Other kids at Skool mocked you. Ms. Bitters loathed you openly, same as the rest of us students. I can't have populated this whole world with hallucinations. If I could do that, I certainly would have hallucinated myself a perceptive friend who saw through you.

Whether you continue to exist or not isn't something I can verify at this point since I still haven't heard a word from you. Who knows, maybe I'm blaming you for nothing. Maybe one of your stupid experiments ate your face off. That would be great.

No it wouldn't, actually. This is so stupid, Zim. How has it come to the point where I'd prefer you to be alive and screaming instead of dead and no longer a threat to the planet?

Well. That's easy to answer, actually. Next-level social isolation, and of course, Dad. He finally gave up waiting for me to change my mind. I woke up yesterday, locked into a mobility hoverchair. Two straps on each limb, two on my torso, two on my head. The chair must be remote controlled because, though I never saw someone steering, it hovered me out of the house and into the Colledge where I was already enrolled in a course (big surprise) called Applications of Scientific Knowledge For The Greater Good of Mankind.

A speaker set in the chair explained to the teacher (in Dad's voice) that I'd been in a terrible accident and would not be very responsive, but that my brain was perfectly active and required the class as mental exercise to keep it elastic and learning until the day Dad could structure me some new mecha body. The teacher, of course, was thrilled to have the son of Professor Membrane in class. The students were less than thrilled and there was immediately a circle of empty desks on every side of me.

That isn't the worst of it, though. I thought there was just a special mechanism to hold my jaw shut as part of the chair. You know, so my jaw doesn't dangle open from "the horrible accident"? Even though we both know the real reason he wants my jaw shut. But it wasn't part of the chair. Dad wired my jaw shut, Zim. For real. I can't talk anymore. And I can't write "Help, my Dad is imprisoning his full-grown son" in class because I can't move. You know, when I got home, Gaz just smirked at me?

At least he left me some pain meds for the completely illegal jaw surgery he did on me without consent. Guess he's only mostly cold-hearted monster.

I was released from the chair once I got back to my room. I don't know how, Zim, but I have to get out of here. If you weren't actively trying to destroy my homeworld, and if I was sure you were still out there, I'd actually consider asking you for help at this point. Nobody else would believe me, and even if you don't care, I know there's some twisted sense of ownership over my demise buried in you. If I could, I might just call on that.

Where are you?

-Dib