The End of an Era

(Curtains open. Stage is empty except for a single chair. Chair is turned backwards. Harry walks out.)

Harry (To audience): Well, this is pretty pretentious, isn't it? A chair turned backwards, as if it's supposed to mean something. It doesn't. It means nothing.

(Harry dumps gasoline on chair, lights a match, and the chair starts a flamin'.)

Harry: This is pretty pretentious, too, isn't it? Me putting on a one-man show on my last night in Los Angeles. Pretending as if I achieved something in Hollywood. I didn't. I slept with the theater manager so that she would let me put on this performance. I don't deserve it.

(Harry dumps gasoline on himself, lights a match, but... Wolverine enters from stage left.)

Wolverine: Hey, Harry. Whadderya doin'?

Harry: What does it look like? I'm putting on a pretentious show. You know those ones where people talk about feelings and stuff.

Wolverine: Sounds like crap to me. You think you know about feelings? How 'bout wakin' up with a body full of adamantium and no memory of your past? Try that one on fer size, kid.

Harry: Gosh, Mr. Wolverine. That does sound mighty painful.

Wolverine: Shaddup! Painful shmainful. Stop talkin' about feelings and start talkin' 'bout what yer gonna do with yer life!

Harry: Well, I was thinking of enrolling in grad school next year...

Wolverine: Shaddup! Don't you realize there won't be a next year if Magneto gets his way?

Harry: There won't be?

Wolverine: Nope. The whole world will be made out of metal, including yer feelings!

Harry: Huh? I didn't think Magneto had the power to create any more metal than already exists...

Wolverine: Shaddup or I'll pulverize ya!

(Harry cowers in fear, crying like a little girl).

Wolverine: Wait a sec. What's that smell? Smells like caramel coloring...

Harry (sighs): It is. I dumped Diet Coke on myself, not gasoline...

Wolverine: So yer sad little show wasn't even real?

Harry: No. It was just the beginning of a long monologue where I talked about my emotional path through the past few months in Los Angeles. The "gasoline" was meant to symbolize...

Wolverine: Shaddup!

Harry: Yes, sir.

(Curtains close.)

Voiceover: The theater later burned down after Harry forgot about the burning chair. Harry jumped aboard a plane to Nicaragua before the theater owner could track him down. In Nicaragua, Harry lived amongst the locals, known only as "El Blanco." No one from his former life knew how to find him, and he was forgotten to all.

Forgotten, that is, until word hit that all Central American mines had been stripped of their metal...

Harry (screaming, as overhead camera spins progressively farther away): MAGNETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(To be continued in Ultimate X-Men 11...)