Katsucon 2055

2055 was a bastard of a year, as most years were, but 2055 held a vendetta for ever happening. Perhaps assuming that we’d all be dead by the time it came around, it hated us for managing to pry oblivion from its fondling hands. Coil after coil of steaming innards flowed from the gaping hole residing between the two and the five, shrouding humanity in its unrelenting stench. We sat there and took the heroic load like the abused bathrooms at a Fogo de Chão steakhouse.

It didn’t want us much like we didn’t want it, but yet here we were and the one saving grace was that my favorite anime convention was being moved from its standard location at a resort & convention center in Maryland to the massive garbage vortex floating aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch was prime real estate now, holding both the world’s largest Kohl’s Mega Store and the world’s largest vape plume, people came from all over the world to relax in the filth and buy a few pairs of khaki pants.

I’d been preparing my costume for Katsucon for the last decade. I was going to be Chumlee from the show Pawn Stars, and had spent every waking moment adhering to the physical and mental decline that would render me a believable doppelganger. I couldn’t wait for people to take their pictures and post them to uninterested friends and family who would be forced to in turn offer empty adoration. I could fart on command on swallow a pigeon whole, an entire life of failure and regret had culminated in this singular moment of possible redemption. Salvation by way of pants shitting on a floating paradise of refuse, bonded together by neglected dreams.

The Kardashians were the featured guest that year and it really ruined my entire outlook on the whole thing. They had no business being there and weren’t willing to suffer for their costume like I was. I petitioned the event coordinator and posted several duster fueled and inadequate rants into the barren dirt that composed my social media following. In the end I drank myself to death, or close to it, but a part of me knew that I had to fulfill the obligation that no one else cared about, to cosplay Chumlee at Katsucon 2055. After a lengthy hospital stint, I emerged more grotesque than ever and decided to change my cosplay to that baby from the show Dinosaurs, because I looked enough like him and the diaper meant I could go the entire day without hitting the bathrooms.

I could sense the presence of the Kardashians but it couldn’t ruin the beauty of that floating rotted island. The smell of decaying meat was in there and I got a pretzel from Auntie Anne’s to pacify the hunger that accompanied the visions of deceased sea life. I watched a pelican choking to death on a Pokémon ball and ended up taking a boomerang of the whole thing. I took a few pictures with fans of the show Dinosaurs, but mostly drank quietly from my gasoline canister of vodka.

Eventually I waddled over to the Kardashian exhibit, ready to lob insults and potentially a rotten cantaloupe if the drink asked me to. I heard someone announce their arrival over the loudspeaker that was just a massive Beats by Dre conch shell and I waited to see what their pathetic costume was.

I felt the sound of pure, unbridled anguish fill the air. Crying, groaning, indigestion and other unclassifiable guttural noises. The smell of burnt flesh accompanied the noises and eventually vomit as I looked around and saw several people indulge in their nausea.

The entire family was welded together into a singular barely sentient creature for season one hundred and six of Keeping up with the Kardashians. The unveiling of the creature was meant to generate excitement for the focal plot line of their newest endeavor Keeping up with the Kardashian. The new show would document the trials and tribulations of being welded together for the purpose of ratings and generation of pointless content. I vomited too, like the rest of the crowd and left the event more sad than I was when I arrived.

I guess they were willing to suffer more than any of us could ever imagine and I longed for that suffering.