Lately, Brick appears missing. It seems like Amethyst has him falling off of cliffs. When reached for comment, all he could mutter was "Shock me awake, tear me apart..." I guess it's only falling in love because he hit the ground.

...And so time passed and minutes begat hours, hours begat days, days begat weeks. Time flowed seamlessly into a crimson spiral emptying down the drain of existence...

...And the award for most unnecessarily morbid opening sentence goes to...

...as Brick's world became more and more sullied by the complexities of the reality collapsing around him. 

To say that his life became complicated by the presence of Amethyst would be an understatement of Gulliverian proportions...

Are you sure you're using that adjective correctly? I thought Gulliver was the guy who smashed watermelons...

That's Gallagher.

The guy who plays Piper Perabo's boss on Covert Affairs?

No, that's Peter Gallagher.

You mean the lead guitarist of Oasis?

Ugh... that's Noel Gallagher.

Oh, the author of London Calling!

No, that's Noël Coward... or the Clash (minus the !)

Huh...

As we were saying, Brick's world was totally thrown out of orbit by the enigmatic Amethyst. Her entrancing glances at him in the hallway were as brief as the flap of a hummingbird's wing but they devastated him like a supernova. It was inexplicable. She was but one of several attractive women working at the office. She was just one woman amidst millions of women that he' see within the city limits. Just one woman amongst 3-4 billion on Earth.

And yet she dominated his limited attention span. There had been others of course. A singer songwriter, an actress and a humanitarian among them. But here was this producer who had flat out ejected him and yet there still seemed to be a bond, as malleable as a cloud, as stable as chaos itself. It was disarming, this influence Amethyst had on our unlucky protagonist. Despite his insistence on renouncing her, Brick was unable to rid her from his mind. I mean, how could you remove a thought once it has taken root in one's mind, huh, Christopher Nolan? hmmm?

There was no resentment for this one sided love affair either. The mere sight of her lifted his spirits into the magenta tinted sky only to drop him to earth like a human meteorite. She was the Louise de La Vallière to his Vicomte de Bragelonne, the key to his destruction disguised in a humbly beautiful vessel.

There was a caveat, an exception, a dread that lurked beneath the surface. Pterodactyl had warned Brick about Amethyst and that warning proved to be coming true. Much like the aforementioned Vallière, Amethyst's attention was dominated by another man's love.

What has become of this once mighty blog? We're talking about love instead of a faux rock band... the horror, the horror.

And it was this cold hard fact that disintegrated Brick's very being, leaving a hollow cavity in Brick's chest.

You mean like that Green Day video?

Except there was no stray heart here. Brick began to fade in and out between the world of Amethyst's misleading charms and a deeper, darker world that was familiar and estranged simultaneously. Although on the outside Brick seemed his usual goofy self, if one were to take a closer look, he appeared missing.

That moment you run into the person responsible for hiring you and you don't recognize them. Them: "The coldest blood runs through my veins... You know my name!"

As Brick raised his drool-covered face from the soft memory foam mouse pad on his work desk, he realized it was morning already. Hours had gone by since his humiliating encounter with Amethyst and his subsequent... oh guitar picks! Brick couldn't seem to remember what happened after that. As a matter of fact, neither can we. Huh?

Seriously though...it feels like a major character, an antagonist that has bothered Brick for years, has suddenly been stripped from our memories. Yes, we are totally freaking out over this total mind****.  Back to the story. Brick, having completely lost 13 hours of his life with no recollection why, did what anyone normal clueless video editor would do... he went to the restroom.

Now as fascinating as a trip to the water closet can be, this little episode is all about what happened after Brick exited the can. Down the hall, around the corner of the block of cubicles occupied by one of the non-video-editing  departments, Brick saw his boss talking to a familiar looking businessman. As he got closer, the sunglass aficionado with the slicked hairdo became clearer. Brick politely greeted his boss, hoping to not attract attention to his wrinkled clothing. The boss man immediately surrendered attention to the mysterious figure who was now approaching our protagonist.

"Remember me?" asked the man with the crooked Cheshire cat grin.

"Um," said Brick, suddenly reduced to the vulnerable state of childhood, "I don't remember your name but your face is very familiar to me.

Brick's boss chuckled as the young video editor made a total fool of himself. The smiling man simply replied:

"My name is G Mod And I'm the one who got you this job in the first place."

"Yes," Brick said, his face mortified beyond believability, "G Mod. That is a very familiar name... I apologize. I'm very grateful for this opportunity..."

"I'm sure you are. Run along now, Brick."

The humiliated former leader of the band MFUJ walked into the next room while the bigwigs talked.

"He seems to not remember you, G Mod," said the giant boss man.

"Hmmm... it seems like everything is as it should be."

Unaware of the sinister conversation going on the other side, Brick returned to his desk to find an irate Eugene Pterodactyl standing there, fuming like a mofo.

"Where have you been?"

"Mr. Pterodactyl? I...uh..."

"Uh is not an answer."

"I was in the restroom."

"I see," said the flaming red haired host who was once voted most despicable host of the year by every 

publication known to man, "So you were in the restroom for the last 72 hours?"

"Well, no, that would be insane."

"Oh, so then you just purposefully didn't make the precious promo for my show?"

"Well, I was working..."

"What the hell do they pay you for, you insignificant insect's dropping?" asked the irate host in a baritone squeal.

"My great taste in music?"

"You ridiculous waste of air. If it weren't for the fact that no one wants to work in the promo department besides you and your loser ilk, I'd smash your skull against the pavement, you stone ugly bastard!"

"Sir, I'm not sure..."

"Yes, exactly. You're not sure of anything. What the hell kind of life are you leading? Are you just drifting by, a barnacle attached to me?"

Brick, already tired of this conversation, mumbles, "I don't know, you tell me."

"Of all the insolent... you maggot!"

Pterodactyl grasped Brick with his meaty hooks and slammed him against the wall.

"Get your act together or you'll be nothing but a stain on my fist."

"Yes, sir."

Pterodactyl, not satisfied, leans in with a snarl, "And stay away from Amethyst, you junkless amateur. She's MINE!"

"Amethyst?" brick asked with naive ignorance.

"Yes, you moron," continued the mad TV personality, "When will you realize how little value you have in this world. Do you think you even matter? Don't confuse my speaking with you right now to my acknowledgement of you meaning anything to me or this station. You are the most useless piece of garbage I've ever laid eyes on. Do you think Amethyst likes you? She's nice to everyone in that coquettish way of hers. You don't know anything about where she comes from or who she really is. She wouldn't care about you even if you paid her a million dollars to. Stop wasting your time thinking about her."

Pterodactyl released Brick and stormed off, as characters tend to do when they're done for the day.

Brick, stunned from the day's events, wondered how he could ever get any work done.

Brick: "If you try the best you can, if you try the best you can...Dinosaurs roaming the Earth." How is that for optimism? Or is that Jurassic Park IV? I'm confused.

"Brick?" Amethyst asked with the faintest tone of concern imaginable.

"Hmm..." mumbled the clearly overwhelmed video editor.

"Are you ok?"

"Uh, sure, everything with me is... normal."

"Normal, huh?" she asked with her lips freshly adorned with light red lipstick, her eyes shadowy with 

mascara. "Added drool to our definition of normal, have we? Nice..."

Brick, to his perpetual humiliation, discovered the dry streak of saliva originating from the side of his chapped lips.

"Huh..." he refocuses his attention on Amethyst who achieved of new attractiveness by adding a little bit of make-up...

Editors Note: We'd like to assure our female readers, if there are any, that you are beautiful just as you are and don't have to purchase expensive and environmentally unfriendly cosmetics to try to attract attention....And there goes our chance of getting a sponsor...

"Where are you going, all gussied up and whatnot."

"To a bar for a little get-together..." she replied, her mind obviously already there.

"Right..." Brick replied, his heart sinking a bit further into the abyss.

Amethyst exited with a standard "Have a good weekend" as Brick tried to piece together how things went so wrong for him.

Outside the tower shined brightly as souls circled around it like hazy fireflies in the summer sky. Brick began feeling blinded from within, a searing, savage pain that pulsed and ended as quickly as it began.

"Mind troubles?" asked the vile G mod as he spun around in a swivel chair across from Brick's desk.

"I don't have time for you..." Brick began saying as he attempted to rise out of his chair, before stumbling back into his chair.

"Awww...what's the matter, Brick? Health got you down? Or is it the latest in your series of women who don't give a damn if you live or die? What happened to not caring? To your Private hell?"  

Gripping his head, "I don't know, G mod. I guess I just care too damn much to let go completely, huh?"

"You're headed for a fall, my friend, " said the devil to the Brick. "Your eyes are distracted by a pretty gem and you don't even see that the floor is falling out from beneath  you."

"You're a....you're a..."

"C'mon, Brick. Use your words. You wrote a whole book, after all. By the way, when are you planning on publishing it? I'm sure the world is dying to read your insights on Vampire Werewolves from Mars."

"Ugh..." Brick exclaimed as he clutched his head for dear life.

"How does it feel to work so hard to achieve so little? Like that song you tried recording recently. Take Me Alive, was it?"

"Provocative title," G Mod continued, "too bad it's a mess. Got anything to say for yourself?"

"If you try the best you can... if you try the best you can.... The best you can is good enough."

"Yeah, and dinosaurs are roaming the Earth."

With that, Brick's head slowly lowered to his desk and he slipped away from consciousness.

"You're never going to get promoted if you sleep on the job. You know the big fish eat the little ones... oh well, I'll go get a burger or something. I'm out of here."

C'mon, baby. Don't Fear the G Mod. All our time is done, here but now it's gone...

It was a late night at the office, which, at the promo department where Brick worked, meant 6:30. Yes, it was one of those all-nighters that we all hear about, but pray that we never have to experience firsthand. The industrial strength fluorescent lights burned brightly above Brick's screen-exhausted eyes. How many times can you render a 45 second promo? If the editing software keeps freezing,  then we'll have to say a bunch.

Now it goes without saying that a long day of editing takes its toll on the mind of a man. When you live 45 seconds at a time, you tend you lose a grasp on the big picture. Especially if you're trapped in a private hell of you own creation like resident complainer, Brick. Last time we saw our disgraced guitarist, he was speaking to G Mod in Alice in Chains lyrics. Now, well, at least he was getting some work done. (Yes, it is exactly this in depth detail that has made this workplace plotline so popular, we think).

"****! I got the wrong text graphic..." Brick slurred after hours perfecting the perfect promo (the holy grail for Masters of Ephemera). "All that work for nothing." In this the distance he heard the faint sound of a hotel bell followed by a sneeze that rumbled like so much uncaged thunder. Although he felt the uncouth stare of the wily G mod upon him, he could tell that he was not to be found.

The emotionally drained promo maestro leaned back in his chair and out of the corner of his eye spotted the lovely jewel of an assistant producer, Amethyst, sitting at an empty cubicle, earbuds in her ears, an expression o her face that came close to the appearance of a woman pleasuring herself to maximum levels of ecstasy. Brick surely thought that he might be hallucinating after ten hours of editing a promo about  the history of intercourse movie that was premiering the following weekend. Why they would broadcast such an unapologetically explicit feature during the Saturday morning cartoon timeslot was a mystery best left unsolved.

Brick removed the ragged foam headphones from his neck and walked up to the clearly satisfied and independent Amethyst. Just as he reached the cubicle where she was sitting, he saw her body spasm slightly before releasing back to her normal state. She opened her eyes with a grin of sly bliss. Her eyes shined brightly before fading to normal.

"You okay, Amy?" Brick asked in a half perturbed monotone.

"Brick, you're still here..." she droned on distractedly, "huh."

"You seem, content."      

 "Yeah..." she said, quietly yearning for the release offered by a timely cigarette. "I just listened to my favorite
song. I must have listened to it two hundred times this week... but it gets me off everytime. is that weird?"

"No..." Brick said as he glanced at Amethyst's mp3 player, only to see it set to infinite repeat on ELO's Mr. Blue Sky, "...or maybe.... Seriously? ELO?"

"It's the bass line... It makes me... shiver."

"Okay..."

"What are you still doing here?" She asked now that she completely un-aroused.

"Editing the sexy promo."

"Ah... the Saturday morning special."

"Yeah... What were they thinking?"

"I think it was a scheduling mishap."

"Well, I sure as hell am not going to re-do the promo now. It'll go on the air, errors and all."

"That's wreckless."

"Don't you mean reckless?"

"Yeah, women love having their spelling corrected by ugly dudes."

"Hmmm..."Brick mumbled, stifling back the self-loathing that swelled inside him.

There was a moment of awkward silence that was interrupted by Amethyst's next train of thought.

"Everyone else left already."

"Yeah. So is there any reason you decided to stay so late, other than listening to ELO?"

"Well, " she started, her brow beginning to wrinkle with worry,"I was worried about running into Eugene."

"The Pterodactyl swooping in for the kill?"

"Sort of. I've never seen him as angry as he has been lately. The completion of that new broadcasting tower has him on edge."

"That big tower of stone reaching high into the sky is a broadcasting tower?"

"That's what I've heard."

"Who builds communications equipment out of stone?"

"I don't know. I heard something abut it coming from an old Mayan or Babylonian design."

"Oh yeah, the masters of modern communications equipment," Brick remarked with painfully obvious.

As is usually the case when two characters are alone in a building afterhours, the lights began to flicker in an unsettling way. Hey, can't mess with a classic. Am I right? M'i'right?

"Aw jeez..." mumbled Brick, "What fresh hell is this?"

"Huh," Amethyst commented. "It reminds me of a rave i went to a few years ago."

"Wow, I really don't know anything about you."

"Nope, you really don't, do ya?" She said as she got up to investigate the cause of the weirdness.

Brick, his interest in Amethyst shaken by his complete ignorance of her back-story. Wait do we even know her full back-story? Aw, never mind. Almost as soon as the flickering began, it had already subsided. Yeah, you know where this is going.

'What's going on?" Brick asked as he approached the door leading to "the other side".

He turned to look, but Amethyst as gone. All that was left was the door with bright light pouring in underneath. Without a moment's hesitating he turned the doorknob and the light consumed him. When his iris' adjusted to the sudden influx of illumination.

The "other side", as it was always referred to, was nothing more than a storage room. Within the large storage containers were pieces from his past his ld bandana, his first guitar, the Tigerman costume, and the camera equipment that filmed the material for the promos he became so adequate at making over the last few months.

As confusion drained his face of that ridiculous pink color, Brick heard a scream. It came from the next room. He dashed round the corner only to find himself surrounded by glass replicas of the entire company.

"What the ****?" he pondered as he examined the lifelike replica of John Slate. The facsimile was so precise, it was hard to tell that it was a fake. "No way..."

The glass Slate's vacant stare turned into a sharp glare as his translucent hand grasped Brick around the throat.

"Traitor!"

"Ugh..." Brick struggled.

"It's all your fault. Everyone is gone...because of you!"

"I... ugh..."

"It was supposed to be ME! I was the favorite! Fortune was supposed to favor me!"

"Slate..is that... you?"

"Hello, brother," said the sculpture, it's glass arms burning with dragon tattoos from the late MFUJ vocalist's memory.

Brick's struggle to get free finally succeeded. he grabbed a nearby wrench and shattered he sentient glass being. All of the other figures shattered from the impact until brick was alone standing over the shattered features.

"How could you do this? "Amethyst murmured as she approached Brick from behind. "We were so close... Brick?"

The walls of reality began to collapse and where once there was the claustrophobic glass fragment event, there was the familiar confines of the cubicle where promos were made daily. Amethyst was standing over Brick with a great deal of concern. Despite the earlier presumption that G Mod had disappeared, Brick felt his icy claws scratch his back.

"I offer you a taste of things to come," whispered the malevolent G Mod, sending a cold numbness down Brick's spine. "Fear me!"

Two years of making this blog? Wow. Let's see if things have picked up for our main protagonist, Brick... What's the song for this entry? Private hell? Oh, well, it sounds like something you can really dance to.

If you've paid attention even remotely to the strange tales contained within the hallowed ephemeral walls of this ol' blog.... Why a blog has walls that defy the laws of the physical universe, we will never know.... then you already know that Brick is not one for the happy emotions. He is what one might call a total buzzkill, a friendless loser stuck in a downward spiral of increasingly mundane things to whine about. Well, If you think this is true, then, well, I can't really argue with you since that's a fair assessment. What can I say, Brick is as thick as a brick.

Nice Jethro Tull allusion.  

We would be remiss if were to tell you that things were going to get better now for the sake of being arbitrary. There are no happy endings here. And there might not be any more Happy Endings on ABC soon either.

Focus.

Haunted by the disillusionment that his friend, frenemy and rival (Tigerman, Shadow and Slate, respectively) were merely extensions of his own mind and not, in fact, the members of his long suffering rock band, Mike's F'd Up Journey. And by long suffering, we are implying that anyone who has listened to their music has suffered terrible side effects for long periods of time afterwards.

At this very moment, Brick was assembling yet another pointless promo while the rest of his department is filling their lungs with mists of carcinogens on the sidewalk below. If loneliness was his modus operandi, self-loathing was his fuel (not sure that makes a lot of sense, bro). No one has gotten as far in life by despising themselves as much since Turk Nobaic, the famous janitor who swept a million floors while shouting how much he hated himself and all that he had failed at.

The Boss was at a weekly meeting for him and all the other people who actually mattered.  Pterodactyl was trolling for wenches or whatever it was that got the jerk off.

Really classy.

And of course Amethyst was out filming a segment for a new show. She was not the first woman brick had cared for and been rejected by. Nor was she he one that he had cared the most for, but the pain was still real. That whiny, self-pitying kind of pain that was both universal and lame.  

His brow was covered in beads of saline weakness, undeserved sweat for the type of task he was accomplishing.

Right beside him, as usual, was the specter of G Mod, the ne time manager of MFUJ, and now Brick's Dostoevskian devil. he was smirking a crimson half-moon.

"All alone again, eh, Brick?"

"Lately I'm beside myself / pretending, unconcerned..."

"Oh, you're no fun. What happened to that gem girl. What's-her-face? Amethyst? And what happened to that other woman you were in love with? The one who made the cold shoulder seem dignified..."

"Give away a love / and then remove another too / painted words adorn the walls / echoing untrue / I feel cold..."

"You feel cold? I feel absolutely bored talking to you when you're like this. What happened to that fiery temper that I liked to crush into a powder? Promise me you'll put up a fight next time."

"Promises abound / You'll rarely find it to begin..."

"Ah, get a hold yourself... It ain't that bad! What am I saying?"

Brick finally stood up and faced G Mod.

"I excuse myself / I'm used to my little cell..."

"No! Don't you dare.."

"I amuse myself in my very own private hell!"

"...dare."

And so the next hour passed in silence, G Mod retreated in defeat. He couldn't fight someone who was already down. he'd have to build him back up first. 

The less we love a woman, the more interested she will be in us. That woman's gonna break your heart.

As part of a cruel contractual obligation, Amethyst, everyone's favorite female producer... hmmm? Why did we point out her gender when we wouldn't have done that when talking about a male producer? Damn being politically correct is hard. Where were we? Oh yeah. Amethyst's contract required her to do ridiculous survey shows once in a while to fill the chasms that tended to form between programs and commercials, the real bread and butter of the network. The following are excerpts from a recent survey of the male employees.

Amethyst: A famous poet said once that the less we love a woman, the more interested she is in us. Is that true?

Jacques Ombre: Yes. Hmmm? You want more? Ok. Yes, it's true. Happy?

Slate: *****es be crazy.

Señor Tigre: I, for one, fall in love very easily, but the ladies, ahhh, they don't love me at all. But I still have the sexiest voice among extended cable voice over actors. So there. Call me?

Boss: The love you take is equal to the love you make.

Eugene Pterodactyl: Love? Who the **** cares about that pansy*** bull****? Where's my coffee, Amethyst?

Company Lawyer: The more you love a woman, the faster she gets a restraining order against you. Or so I've been told.

Company Janitor: Who can resist a man in a one piece jumpsuit? *starts crying* Everyone! I'm soooo alooone!

Random Businessman: Am I on the wrong floor? I came to speak with HR.

Social Media Guru: The more you love a woman , the more she will like your satus updates. That's what mother always said.

Brick: I don't know, Amethyst. That all depends.

Amethyst: On what?

Brick: Do you like me?

Amethyst refused to answer but her cold indifference spoke volumes.

Brick: Well, I guess we can say that the opposite is definitely true. Can I go now?

Amethyst turned off the camera and Brick went back to join his fellow Masters of Ephemera. If there's one thing that is always certain at a television station, it's that there are always more ****ing promos to be made. Everything else, including joy, is nothing more than an obstacle in the way.

The day you get any recognition for a promo well done is the day that never comes. Them's the breaks, kid. Really? We're saying "them's the breaks" now? Why do we even bother anymore?

And so hours were spent crafting the perfect promo. It had everything. Severely outdated graphics, poorly synchronized midi music in the background, nonsensical transitions from one topic to the next...and Gary Busey. He only appeared in individual frames in between clips as some sort of subliminal nightmare of Buddy Holly story past.

Brick finished his final edit (after dozens of critiques by the far less talented but much more opinionated and pony-tailed, John Slate) and exported the media.

The rest of the crew had long gone for their hourly pilgrimage to the sidewalk in front of the building in order to fill their systems full of nicotine. As it was processing, Brick saw Amethyst walk slowly towards his desk, lost in thought.

"Hey..." she said in an unusual monotone, trying to suppress her inner turmoil.

"Yo. I'm pretty much done with the promo... I'll send it to ingest as soon as..."

"Yeah... it's only going to air once, I don't see the point."

"That' what I was saying, but Slate was making a big deal about us grabbing as many viewers as possible, at all times."

"That guy is crazy," Amethyst stated bluntly, leaning against the table, staring at the swirling chaos of the floor tiles beneath her feet.

"I knew it! I thought I was the only one. That ignoramus acts as if he's the second coming of... of... I don't know any famous people who made commercials. I'm sorry, I just don't. That information is not in my repertoire."

Amethyst ignored his stupidity. An email was sent to Brick almost immediately after he delivered the promo via FTP.

"Promo has been received and put on the air? What? I didn't even have a chance to turn the TV on... there goes the last few hours of my life."

'Do you ever feel like this isn't even real?" Amethyst asked, struggling not to relive her earlier ordeal.

Brick, still reeling from his visions of G Mod, who was haunting him like a sunglass adorned devil, concealed his true feelings behind a façade of simpleminded naiveté, "you know, it's hard to say."  

"Thanks for the chat, " Amethyst sneered in disappointment, "no wonder you're called Brick. It's like talking to a wall. you can be so dense..."

"I'm sorry... yeah, sometimes it does feel a bit unreal."

Amethyst looked at him for a moment. Her eyes were dulled and lacked their usual spark of life. She searched his expression for a bit before disappearing into her office again, just as the trio of misfits returned from their umpteenth smoking break. In the moments that followed the stink of tobacco in the room, Brick wondered about Amethyst and about the delicate illusion of reality that kept everything around him from imploding.