A Story with Alternative Titles and Endings!

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1. (P.J.): The vehicle swerved into oncoming traffic, as Pepe tried to evade the police on his tail. He zigged and zagged between cars, nearly avoiding hitting an 18-wheeler that jackknifed and blocked the police cars. "Good!", thought Pepe. He should have waited until nighttime to deface that statue at the park. But he was still high from the adrenaline of his previous seditious act: he had streaked across the field at the elementary school just that morning. "God! Who knew being part of the resistance would be so exciting!"                                                                                                     
2. (Heidi): A small alley with a conveniently placed dumpster afforded him the perfect opportunity to quickly tuck his smart for two coupe out of view of the main street.  Now free of his police tail, Pepe’s sigh of relief was cut short when he spied two brown doe eyes peeping at him from inside the dumpster.  “Hello?” he queried cautiously.  A hooded slim figure vaulted out of the dumpster in one graceful movement, all the more impressive since she was holding a slightly wilted sack of kale, several artichokes, and a bunch of carrots in one arm. “You are the Pepe, of the resistance, right?  You are a legend!  My twitter feeds just went crazy with pics of your statue defacement and early morning streaking,” she exclaimed in a voice both sultry and eager.   Pepe paused, wondering if her food waste activism was for real and he could safely invite her to join in his third subversive performance of the day, or if she was a sneaky evil spy of the corporations placed to ensnare him.                                                                                           
3. (Seamus): Pepe drank a cool drink of lemonade and surveyed the more than delicate situation. The sack laden nameless girl by the dumpster stared at him wistfully and motionless. He longed to believe her but experience had deadened his heart. He wished he remembered the time before the reign of.. he still couldn't say the name. Still he decided they must press on. Instinctively he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her towards the chain fence blocking the alley entrance. He grabbed the sack and pushed her and the sack over the 6' fence. The marauding dogs and gaunt skeletal humans scattered and strewn against his now flaring snarling face and flailing limbs. She was completely taken by surprise but went along with it, she had no choice at all and didn't really want a choice. Tiny droplets of hissing acidic green rain began to fall. The sky thundered as if a warning or even a promise of impending doom. Pepe stopped in his tracks, mouth ajar. An army of one eyed genetically modified part man part mutant zombies stood between him and the place with the last sack of non GMO seed in the whole world.He looked at the girl.To his horror, her smiling face revealed her true colors. She held out her hand and carefully opened the sack. Pepe felt so queasy, how could things get worse?                                                    
4. (Dimitri): Pepe felt time dripping slowly. He watched with terror and disbelief as the nameless girl pulled the severed and mutilated head of a Siberian gnome from the sack. “What sort of devilry is this?”, he mumbled. The girl appeared nonchalant to the army of genetically modified humanoid zombies, who had already noticed them and were starting to wade closer. Pepe clutched the handle of his axe and steeled himself for an uneven fight and an unenviable death. The girl lifted up the severed gnome head and, to his utter amazement, the zombie army dispersed with horrifying shrieks and piercing wails. “What sort of devilry is this?”, Pepe murmured  again. He turned and looked at the girl, who just smiled at him as she was putting the head back in the sack. 
   
   
   With the immediate danger gone, fear swept through him like wildfire, paralyzing him. His resolve wavered. He knew there would be dangers ahead but had never quite imagined something like this. He could turn back. Let someone else figure out how to save the world. But who?... Ever since the unstable, narcissistic, and sociopathic emperor had taken power, the world has been sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss. Pestilence and pollution reigned everywhere. The water, the soil, the very air had turned toxic and poisonous. Every day, humanity faced a new and more terribly calamity brought about by short-sighted avarice and callousness. It seems that mankind had no other recourse but to surrender to a slow death. Yet, beyond the barren hills in the horizon, lay a faint glimmer of hope. The last sack of non-GMO seed could enable a small patch of earth to come back to life. Perhaps  people can start eating real food again, breathe a drought of fresh air. An independent community could rise, and maybe that was all that’s needed to rekindle hope, and, who knows, some day maybe even… freedom.
   
   
   The waves of fear subsided and he felts his strength surging in again. He looked at the girl and they exchanged a conspiratorial smile. Now he knew that she was on his side, and she was not quite as helpless as he had made her out to be. Together, they took a step towards danger, and hope.                                               
5. (Gavin): Pepe and the nameless girl continued their journey westward. They sought out the safety of wilderness areas at high elevation. Occasionally they would peer down from a mountainous perch and watch the army of genetically modified humanoid zombies spreading through the land along highways and byways, like a colony of ants expanding into new territory, clearing everything in its path. As the weeks passed into months the two companions became increasingly attuned. Although the nameless girl did not speak or understand language, and was disinterested in Pepe’s attempts to teach her some words, they nevertheless seemed to communicate on a primal, instinctive level. This was especially evident when they were hunting and gathering food. They intuitively know each other’s whereabouts and predicted each other’s actions. And each was equally adept at the kill, Pepe with his axe, the nameless girl with her long spear. As Pepe’s world increasingly became non-verbal he wondered if he would lose his humanity. All societies spoke languages. Language was innate to the human species. Even deafness could not deter this basic human instinct. Yet the nameless girl did not speak and did not sign. Pepe believed that language enabled humanity to become the dominant species. But this dominance created a world of environmental degradation and mass extinctions. Was language responsible for the prevalence of hierarchical human societies characterized by manipulation, exploitation and ultimately tyranny. Perhaps the world would function better without the duplicitousness inherent in language. Still, he longed to hear stories. He wanted to tell the nameless girl his story. He wanted to tell her the one about the priest and the rabbi. But most of all he wanted to hear her story. Where did she come from? Were there more like her? And what was the story with that severed Siberian gnome’s head that she carried in her sack, which sent the zombies fleeing in terror? The two companions looked down at the little settlement etched out of the forest in a secluded little valley. Pepe became overwhelmed by feelings of fear and excitement. He looked at the nameless girl. She pulled the head of the Siberian gnome from her sack and smiled at him mischievously.                                                                                                                       
6. (Vivien): The nameless girl pulled the head of the Siberian gnome from the sack. This caught Pepe by surprise. Not the stench – he was used to that by now. Cleanliness rituals of past life were a distant memory, living as he did with the nameless girl, his fierce and silent companion, wildly, feral. But the fetid Siberian gnome’s head: now swinging free, clumps of grimy hair peeling off, the appalling texture of the skin, the eyes just sockets with a bit of shiny glop at their core – it still shocked. Even decrepit the Gnome retained a malevolent expression: don’t stare at ME: I’ll get you. Well, it had staved off some enemies – that was for certain. Perhaps the gnome was a creepy sort of friend. The nameless girl surely thought so. Throughout their time together she had protected the sack. She now began to quietly explore the glade, picking up leaves, twigs, rocks. When Pepe arose to help she gestured him to stay well back. She chose objects with care, and moved rhythmically, as in a ritual, almost a dance. He left her alone. He stared at the sky. He fell into a half-sleeping state, dream and memories drugging him. These trance states happened quite frequently now. A smell of smoke jerked him back to consciousness. She waved him forward, smiling enigmatically: the head now sat in the center of an elaborate wreath made from the leaves and branches, rock surrounding making a circular hearth. Clearly a shrine of sorts. What next? She had indeed lit a fire, off to the side, and approached, a flaming branch in her hand. Now that Bijou was finally about to sacrifice the loathsome thing Pepe found he was a bit sorry – perhaps Ilfonse was really was a talisman, a magical object that had kept them safe from all the GMO zombies scouring the countryside. Bijou - waking from his daze he found he couldn’t just think of her as Nameless Girl. Bijou. The Siberian gnome now seemed to be called Ilfonse. Why? Was it a last attempt to hang tight to language, to thought, to the trappings – not of civilization, that was clearly a bit of a lie, but of the wondrous things that language does – metaphor, jokes, tales – and yes, names. Bijou, Ilfonse. As usual, thinking too much. Now what was happening? Bijou took a sharp stone arrow and carved off a hunk of Ilfonse’s cheek. She divided it and skewered it onto two sticks. She plunged these into the fire – what was left of grease and skin spat and singed. She handed Pepe one stick. The other she held to her mouth. She bit down on the flesh. Grabbing his hand she held the other to Pepe’s mouth. Her meaning was clear. Eat him!                                                                                               
7. (Elena): Hesitantly, Pepe bit down and began chewing the fetid meat. The fire had masked the worst of the smell and singed off the grimy hair of the gnome. As he chewed, the smoke from the fire started to gather thickly, and he began to get light-headed. From afar, the sound of drumming was approaching as if tribes of the ancient past were reawakening in their graves. Pepe closed his eyes and saw himself and Bijou walking through dense forest brush. The night was growing near and they seemed to be lost. Pepe was staring to panic, but Bijou walked on without fear and beckoned him to follow her.Suddenly, a great horned owl appeared on a branch in front of them. Pepe could not tell whether it had been sitting there and he just noticed it, or whether it materialized from thin air. The owl’s yellow eyes followed the pair. In the owl’s talons was a piece of indescript charred-looking flesh. Pepe looked closer.. could it be? He recognized the grimy hair and loathsome texture of the gnome. As if hearing his silent question, the owl gave him a wink and proceeded to take a bite of the rank meat. Bijou stood there as if transfixed, gazing intently at the large bird. Silent as ever, the feral girl nonetheless seemed to be communicating with the owl. The bird listened, then chortled and gave Pepe another wink. Then, the owl spoke in so rarely heard these days human words: - You shall travel northwards, across the river and towards the mountain. Your next guide will help you find what you’re looking for. A feather I am giving you will protect you on your journey from the GMO zombies. - How will a single feather protect us? - thought Pepe, confused.  - You will see, said the owl, dropped a large feather and flew away.                                                                Pepe awoke next to the fire, startled with the lucidity and vividness of the dream. The fire was out, the sun was rising over the horizon, and Bijou was already up and gathering her few belongings into her knapsack. The stone arrows, the fire board, the blanket, the medicinal mushrooms. Pepe thought how much better she was adapted to life in the wilderness than he, even after all these years. Having grown up within civilization, crumbling as it already was, was surely more of an impairment than an advantage in the current situation. Bijou turned to him, as if saying, what are you waiting for? Let’s get ready to go. In her hand she held a large owl feather, with which she was pointing north.                                                                                                                             
8. (Barry): Perhaps it was the effect of the bad meat, or perhaps he was seeing, for the first time, a more expansive reality, but Pepe began to hear the sacred ancestors speaking to him, and he heard Bijou say, “Hurry up, we must go this way… North!” “You can talk again? How?” screamed an incredulous Pepe. “You can think? Or at least maybe follow instructions?” countered a sardonic Bijou. The owl (who had flitted to a closer tree) and Bijou began to communicate with each other in a strange unknown language. Pepe said, “Now owls can talk… in several languages? What are you saying to each other?” Bijou and the owl shook their heads at each other as if to say, “He’s human, we must be patient.” The Owl signaled, “But does he think you’re human?” However Bijou and Pepe were already gone from sight. They had just crossed a river when Pepe said, “What are GMO zombies?”, but Bijou was silent again and watched a path along the ground. The sacred ancestors started a frightening wailing. Pepe asked, “Are those the GMO zombies calling out?” But Bijou was ignoring him. She realized their time could be better spent toward making progress, rather than with useless conversation. She continued to hold out the feather as if it was a divining rod, and took a more north-westerly direction. They came to a thick forest which Pepe thought he might have seen in his earlier vision. The wailing got louder. He wondered if the noise was coming from his ancestors or the zombies. Soon he wished it really was one of those groups for ahead on a path stood a furry creature. The creature began to peel off its fur, fully revealing itself to Pepe’s horror!