Operator: Thank you for calling Papa Jerry’s. What can I get for you today?
McCarthy: A pie of average size with blood-red medallions atop a lava-like layer of bubblings that reaches in vain for the stony burnt crust.
Operator: Beg your pardon?
McCarthy: Medium pepperoni.
Operator: Will this be delivery or pickup?
McCarthy: Depends on the position of the godless sun by which men have come to tell time and therefore by which time has come to tell men of that which has come to pass and may yet come to pass since time is a smoke-darkened nexus of chimes and ticks that only reveals its full allotment after the fall of the final stroke.
Operator: Uh . . .
McCarthy: What time is it?
Operator: 10:32.
McCarthy: Delivery, then. I dare not venture forth into the nameless night from which nothing save wolves emerge as emissaries of a void beyond reckoning.
Operator: Can I get your address?
McCarthy: I live at the intersection of nihilistic despair and aesthetic idealism.
Operator: Is that a house or an apartment?
McCarthy: House.
Operator: Can I get a name for the order?
McCarthy: Cormac.
Operator: Kermit?
McCarthy: Cormac.
Operator: Like the frog?
McCarthy: Sure. Like the frog.
Operator: Would you like to try our Spicy Garlic Fun Sticks for $3.99?
McCarthy: Negative. Eternally negative.
Operator: And how would you like to pay?
McCarthy: With my soul and with the souls of all who face the icy blackness of the world in its final turning with the stubborn-stoic hope of a deaf-mute monk who hears God’s silence and responds in kind.
Operator: We take cash and credit.
McCarthy: Credit.
Operator: Okay, Kermit. The time is now 10:33. Your order is guaranteed in thirty minutes or it will be free. Thank you for calling Papa Jerry’s.
McCarthy: Thank you for being Papa Jerry’s. I salute your courage.
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