The ugliness thinned over the years and the cruelty just ran out of gas.
The mutants had long since cashed in on notoriety and the ride was nearly over. 90's pop culture society had latched onto them with brand-name splendor and never let go. They didn't fight it. They had nothing better to do other than wait tables and fix deli orders. A few careers lifted their leprous heads now and then but never enough to satisfy, only enough to tease. Chris had gotten a fellowship at some thinning state school in Nebraska where his parents had settled after the factory closed. He would write every so often telling everyone of midwest stoned adventures and when a school hacker downloaded his entire file of letters and posted them all over the web rumors began to circulate. It was only a matter of time after that. His letters had everybody's names and addresses included and stories were being told and retold, word of mouth turning us into dorm room traditions and household names.
"The mutants" were the poster children for college insanity and literary prostitution. Chris had to resign his position at the school and go to the mattresses at some motel in Greensville, Arkansas. Rob met him there a week later with hardcopies of old journal notes, some personal things and three ounces of Jauch weed. A month later they emerged with a novel, of all things, and a book of poetry. Cliff and Ryan held up a 7-11 in Fremont and caught a plane to Eastern Europe. Scott was found drunk and naked somewhere in Greece, the location is still being argued about by art critics everywhere. He had heard the news and decided the only thing to do was to derail. He was right, as usual. He just realized it first. Nobody could find Alan, despite weeks of paging, and the crippled gang decided to go without an accountant.
It was concluded that Missouri was the only decent location for a literary revolution and they all settled in Columbia. With Ryan's obsessive collection of all that had gone on over the electronic years they had four books of poetry and several short stories - some with endings and some without. They were all published as is by a cutthroat bookhouse in St. Louis. They were also pasted in fragments across the internet, with sound clips and photographs. These horrible photographs, engineered by Rob and captioned by Chris, these images became cliché's for the disgusted over the next decade and single handedly began a new school of art: Total Depravity.
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