Page 185 of Nearly Roadkill
T.
END TOOBE ENTRY
To:Editor, They/Them magazine
From:D.I. Drew
Subject:The end?
Hi Asa,
This is where the story that everyone knows ends. Despite my conviction that someone must know what happened to Winc andScratch after that fateful day, I’ve failed to find a reliable source. That said, there’s one more installment of this tale.
Cheers,
D.I. Drew
NEARLYROADKILL: ENDNOTE
Dear Reader,
The whole world’s gone mad, I tell you, upside down. I am the storyteller become the story.
I set out to tell a story about the mad, crazy, queer, sexy love of (quoting Toobe here) “… two idiots who don’t know anything. One’s confused, and the other’s a ditz.” This love brought the Internet to its knees. End of story, right? The two of them escape through some back alleys in New York. Winc’s bleeding, but Scratch has got hir, and they’re limping off into the sunset. The End.
But no! There has been a plot twist… or three. So, here’s the rest of the story, brought to you by me, D.I. Drew, your friendly neighborhood nonbinary journalist. I’m the nerd behind the “Nearly Roadkill: Scratch and Winc” series, published here atThey/Themmagazine. I still have two huge questions: What happened to Winc after the big chase, and where are the lovebirds today?
There are no definitive answers to these questions. Every scholar I talk to today has their own theory, but back in 1995 after the shutdown, all the usual suspects went strangely silent on the subject. No one was talking. Not Toobe, not Jabba, not Scratch or Winc. The mainstream media covered the political story surrounding the Internet shutdown, but the love story of Scratch and Winc got lost in the process. Only the tabloids were talking—in their usual fashion.
I Was Winc’s Gay Lover!
Pregnant Transsexual Man Claims: It Was Me and Scratch and the Couple Next Door!
or
Scratch Becomes Luddite, Is Spotted Living in the Desert as a Bearded Lady
The following scenario is not proven fact, but it’s plausible. I’ve pieced it together from some of the more rational theories, blog posts, docs, chat logs, bulletin boards, and the few eyewitness accounts I found using the Freedom of Information Act.
Warning: it’s sad as all fuck.
NEARLY ROADKILL, THE EPILOGUE
Scratch is sitting in an ugly green hospital waiting room. The clock on the wall measures the seconds, going tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Down the hallway, through the swinging doors of an operating room, one harried ER surgeon, her nurse, and an altogether too tired anesthesiologist huddle over a patient.
“Damnit, we have to crack her open.”
In the waiting room, Toobe is seated next to Scratch. Toobe is back in his regular clothes but has kept the eyeliner.
Tick tick tick tick tick.
“Scalpel.”
“Scalpel.”
“Sponge.”
