The Carnival of Screams and Sandwiches

PROLOGUE: "A Brief Misunderstanding with Reality"

When Milo Greene opened his eyes, he was not in his apartment anymore.

He wasn’t even sure he was in a world with walls, or floors, or gravity. The air buzzed with a syrupy static, thick and too sweet, like cotton candy spun from radio signals. Clouds the color of bruised peaches rolled lazily overhead, flashing neon lightning bolts with every rumble. Beneath him, the "ground" pulsated like a trampoline made of molten jelly.

“Okay,” Milo said, blinking. “Either I’m dead, or someone put LSD in my oatmeal.”

A shrill shriek answered him—from above. Milo craned his neck just in time to see a flying eyeball with bat wings zip past, giggling maniacally as it dropped a glittery dollop of something viscous onto his shoulder.

He screamed. The eyeball laughed harder.

That’s when he saw the others.

A rainbow shot across the sky—no, not a rainbow. A rainbow-vomiting cat. Its bulging eyes darted side to side, trailing a comet of color from its open mouth like a prismatic flamethrower. Nearby, a hamburger with shark teeth snarled and snapped at a limping, moaning hotdog. The hotdog had arms. And an eye patch.

“What is this place?” Milo muttered, backing away from a hula-dancing octopus with at least twelve eyes.

A voice answered from behind him. “You’re in the Realm of Unreason, bud. Welcome to the Freak Show.”

Milo spun around to find a skeleton in a top hat leaning against a tiny silver flying saucer that hovered lazily a few feet off the ground. The skeleton lit a cigarette, despite having no lips, and exhaled green smoke in the shape of screaming faces.

“I’m… dreaming, right?” Milo asked, clutching his head. “Or having a stroke?”

The skeleton chuckled. “That’s what they all say. The accountants, the poets, the gym teachers. But nope. This is realer than real, pal. You fell through a crack in logic.”

“What crack?! I was brushing my teeth and then—”

“Exactly. That’s the most common entry point.”

Suddenly, the sky tore open like wrapping paper. Out floated a giant cyclops covered in lime-green fur, waving at them like a deranged Muppet.

“THAT’S BOB,” the skeleton shouted over the wind. “DON’T MAKE EYE CONTACT. HE THINKS IT’S A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL.”

Bob grinned. The teeth were too perfect. Disturbingly so.

A pink squid skittered by on pogo sticks. A zebra with pupils spinning like slot machines galloped in circles, yelling “THE CIRCUS NEVER ENDS!” in an Australian accent.

Milo fell to his knees. “I don’t belong here. I’m just a guy. A boring, normal, exceedingly average guy!”

“Exactly,” said the skeleton. “Which is why you were selected.”

Milo looked up. “Selected?”

“You humans have been leaking nonsense into our dimension for centuries. Absurd memes. Bad sitcoms. TikTok dance trends. That one movie where butts talk. Our reality got infected. But it wasn’t until you uploaded that deepfake video of a pancake singing opera that the rupture happened.”

“That was a joke!” Milo cried.

“Yeah, well. The universe laughed so hard it broke a hole in its pants.”

With that, the skeleton whistled sharply. A fish with legs and a monocle waddled over, carrying a clipboard.

“You’re hereby summoned,” said the skeleton, “to stand trial for the crime of Surreal Saturation.”

A crowd had gathered. A dinosaur with a glowing tongue. A goat that spoke only in Morse code. A choir of ducks wearing judge wigs. And of course, the ever-watching Bob, who was now knitting what looked suspiciously like a wedding veil.

The fish banged a gavel made of ice cream.

“This court is in secession!” it declared.

“Session,” whispered the skeleton.

“Whatever!” barked the fish. “Let the hallucinations proceed!”

ACT ONE: The Trial of Milo Greene

Milo stood in a witness box made of melting breadsticks.

The prosecution was led by the hamburger. Its breath smelled of charred innocence.

“You have polluted the Order of the Absurd with deliberate irony,” it growled. “You mocked the chaos, and now you are the chaos!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Milo protested. “I just thought… people would laugh…”

“AND THEY DID,” thundered Bob, appearing on the stand as both a witness and, somehow, a groomsman.

ACT TWO: The Revelation of the Spaghetti Oracle

Just as the sentence was about to be declared—eternal mimehood—an ancient voice rumbled from the sky.

“Let the mortal speak to the Spaghetti Oracle.”

The clouds parted. A massive pile of sentient noodles descended, crowned in Parmesan lightning.

Milo approached.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

The Oracle shuddered. “Because your world tried to escape meaning by becoming funny. But absurdity is sacred here. It must be earned. You mocked it with memes. You weaponized whimsy. You turned randomness into revenue. You must repent.”

Milo sobbed. “How?”

The Oracle twirled.

“You must create something. Sincere. Strange. And not for likes.”

ACT THREE: Redemption by Zebra

With no choice left, Milo built a shrine of words. A poem about fear. A story about hope. A haiku about pickles and death.

The beings watched. The hamburger wept. The rainbow cat meowed in slow motion.

The sky turned gold. The skeleton gave him a thumbs-up and exploded into confetti.

Bob, satisfied, unraveled the veil.

The Oracle whispered, “You may go.”

Epilogue: Return to the Mundane

Milo awoke in his bathtub. Fully dressed. Clutching a fish wearing spectacles.

No one believed him.

But Milo never made another meme.

Instead, he painted the madness. He wrote the nonsense. He told stories nobody understood—and that was the point.

At night, he sometimes saw the clouds shimmer, and the faint sound of Bob’s wedding march played softly in the static of his TV.

And once, just once, a hamburger winked at him from his plate.