TWELVE: SCRUNCHYFACE THE ECONORAPTER

When Cyclops returned from surgery war it was revealed that he was now a she, and instead of one simple eye above her nose, she now had forty eyes scattered over all facets and curves of her head.

There was the home door, and that was the first door, and that was the first place, and that was the end of the race. That was the place of return and of rest and of arms and hands and welcome.

In the house of Cyclops there were doors and windows and there was a dark room and there were empty bags of potato chips, many of them in the darkness, in their wrinkles, and also a person, and also the only person there.

The only person was Scrunchyface. He hadn’t shaved for years, and you could barely see his ears.

Scrunchyface was listening in the talking TV turn-on room, but in the light of listening there was some light for seeing too, and in the light for seeing too he could see over the wrinkles of discarded potato chip bags that Cyclops was now very different.

In between the TV and the whiskers and the wrinkle of plastic bags, Scrunchyface could see things about Cyclops, he could see things about his roommate in between all the other distracts. Scrunchyface could see that Cyclops was a changed man. He could see that Cyclops was a no man. He could almost tell that Cyclops was a woman.

His hair was curly his dress was long his eyes were lashes her voice was song. Cyclops was no longer a his, he was a her. Scrunchyface’s mind, well-conditioned by decades of serious TV viewing, could take swell trips, could wander like a wonder, and it wondered if in fact, if it was true, that if there was now a hair forest where once was a swingeroo.

“You are a woman,” said Scrunchyface, so obvious and true.

“And also surprising is that you have forty eyesings,” he said with his face, scrunchy as ever, and never was it said that these words won’t stick to her like glue.

“I have been to surgery war,” said Cyclops. “I have seen the terror at the darkest deep base center of humankind, and maybe I lost some human, and maybe I lost some mind. I am changed, yes, but that is what happens when you serve in surgery war, you can’t help but scar, you must carry them far.”

"I've been changed a little too, just like you, but not quite so whew," said Scrunchyface, washed in the flush of the TV screen, and if you were there you would find it so true that of these two old friends, who was even looking or listening to who.

“Your clothes aren’t very stylish for a girl’s stylish clothes,” Scrunchyface said, and he had so much to compare her to, he had so much TV to make the pictures for him, of comparisons bright and dim. “Your hair still looks like a guy’s hair.”

Cyclops knew that, in fact, her military surgery issue gown was not exactly striking, but she also thought that her own natural complements would come out thru the sundress camouflage, but she realizes it isn’t so, but she thinks it isn’t so.

“How are things on TV, are they good enough for ye?” Cyclops thinks to ask, and asks to think, and he really means it too, but Scrunchyface sure is watching.

“Like I said, when you were a guy like a Fred,” said Scrunchyface with his whole man face, “I have been changed too. I have been changed by TV. I am no longer Scrunchyface the Philosorapter. I am now Scrunchyface the Econorapter.”

“That is good, as good as wood, as good as it could,” Cyclops says, because change is good, even if he doesn’t really believe so.

She leans slightly toward the TV as if in leaning she could see a Dingy, could see a Dingy who would remember he, who would remember she from the TV. But she doesn’t see one, and she doesn’t open her mouth.

Cyclops doesn’t even want to ask Scrunchyface about the exploits of Dingy Bahsome, even tho the Econorapter should really know his share, as much time as he has spent in front of the screen with bright and blare. Cyclops wants to know, she wants the inside to and fro, but she doesn’t want to ask that guy. It’s probably best to just creep out and get her hair done.