Page 12 - Billy Graham in Heaven

The Four Lane into the Brain
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buzzing about the possibility that laser pistols would soon be over-the-counter legal. The pistols made assault rifles quaint and were great for self defense. Recently a lunatic had shown the gun’s potential by slicing in half everyone in a crowded New York City Burger King in ten seconds flat. The killing was fairly clean. The laser beams fused arteries which prevented messy bleeding.
Disappointed, Jake left the café and walked a mile to his home, alone. The thrill of victory began to evaporate. This was one of Jake’s main traits: without warning he might change suddenly from an elated, heroic optimism — at one with all in a world full of meaning — to a depressed pessimism, an isolated buffoon in a silly universe.
Jake was fast falling into the bottomless void. “I’m useless,” he thought, “not producing anything or helping anyone. If it wasn’t for my trust fund I’d be real dead, brain dead, or living on the street. I’ll probably grow old alone and die in private agony with no one there to administer last-morphine rites.”
He felt like the end of a Bugs Bunny cartoon where the viewing circle gets smaller and smaller until last words appear: “That’s all folks.” The sun plunged down.
“Avoid the void,” Jake silently demanded. He pretended to grab the sides of the closing cartoon circle, pushed it back and stuck his head through.
“You can’t close on me yet,” Jake thought, tensing his jaw muscle. This changed his face from a perky harmless cute to the haunted desperation of a hungry wolf. “I’ve got a date with Newt tomorrow!” Newt Lazarus was Jake’s best male friend.
Jake rallied enough to take a chance and call the