I kept seeing the expression "The Cake is a Lie" without having any idea what it meant. When I finally looked it up on , this came pouring right out of me.

To me, this reads as comedy just as easily as drama.

Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim and if anyone in that show needs a reality check, it's Gaz.

The Cake is a Lie

Gaz is sitting in her chair, playing one of her games, just as she has always done. She is much older now, so that means she can play her games more expertly than ever.

Sometimes she just gets in the mood to visit old friends, so this is one of the older games she's playing now. It had a female character like they all should have, just like they all would have if the video game industry wasn't secretly controlled by MEN. This one was a little different from most games, though; it didn't involve kicking or punching and the gun took you through portals. It wasn't long before Gaz once more saw the writing on the wall: The Cake is a Lie! She not only beat the game, it was her fastest time yet!

At the old familiar feeling of triumph Gaz took a deep breath, but this sent a coughing fit kicking through her chest. She immediately set the game down on the foot of the bed so she wouldn't drop it, and pushed her wheelchair up to the night stand at the head of her bed to get her tissues.

It had been hard work teaching everyone in this place that they had better not bother her with stupid things when she was involved in a video game. Unfortunately, everybody here was so stupid that they learned things too well; nobody was nearby when she need- WANTED! wanted someone to do something for her.

When her coughing finally subsided, Gaz rolled up the soiled, sticky tissue and tossed it at the garbage can next to the night stand. It bounced off the edge and fell to the floor. She frowned, but only because this was one more thing she could no longer do as well as she used to. Next time she would just drop the tissue where she was. One of the nurses would pick it up for her; that's why they were here after all.

She was coughing like this more and more often lately, which had to mean that the stupid doctor wasn't doing his job. Clearing her throat, Gaz now cursed the entire medical profession under her breath. They thought they knew more these days when actually they knew LESS.

A sudden loud burst of laughter hit her from behind like a shove. She sneered with irritation. All the other stupid old ladies were down the hall playing stupid games together. They weren't even playing video games; they needed other people to play with them. And what could they do if they had no other people? They never thought about that, did they?

She grabbed her teeth from the night stand so she could better shout, "Shut up right now you stupid morons before I come down there and doom you all!" The only reply she got was another burst of that idiotic laughter. Gaz just KNEW they were laughing at her, they always laughed at her. Stupid, useless old biddies. The sooner they died the better. Gaz pushed her chair closer to the hall door and slammed it to keep out their stupid laughter.

With the stupid outside world once again shut out where it belonged, Gaz now turned her wheelchair around and faced into her tiny room. All she wanted was her bed, her night table, and her dresser with the television on it, which was a good thing because she had no space for anything else. The other door, the one that was still partly open, led to her bathroom. Her nose wrinkled. Did it always smell like this in here? She was definitely going to chew the nurses out for that.

Clenching her fists, she suddenly realized her hands were hurting, and hurting more today than yesterday. The last time she saw him, her doctor asked her if playing video games every waking minute was a good idea, and if she hadn't been in a wheelchair and if he hadn't been hiding behind his desk when he said that, she would have doomed him for such a stupid question. She caught herself wondering if the day would come when she couldn't play her... no. No. She refused to even think about it. Just the thought was unbearable.

She now looked past the bed and dresser to gaze out her window at the deserted parking lot and the brick wall across the street. It had been over forty years ago but she was still mad at them, mad at them all. If anyone had been destined for a brilliant career in video game development it was her, but she had been in it for only a month or so. It was their fault of course, those idiots. She didn't know at the time that those would be her final days in her rightful career, but she could still remember the events as clearly as if they had all happened only yesterday.

She had gotten a great job at the top video game company right out of college, so she could certainly have done it. The other people on her team all thought they were better than she was, just because they had been working there longer. But she had showed them.

When they began bugging her, why, she just did what she usually did when people annoyed her. That's what she had been doing ever since she was a baby, and every single time she did it, everyone blamed the idiot who had bugged her and saw more evidence that she was strong and tough and cool.

After that, she had been called away to some stupid last-minute private meeting, during which she kept right on doing what they were paying her to do, think about video game design. When the meeting finally ended they had given her a paycheck double the usual amount. She knew what that meant; she wasn't stupid. It hadn't taken them long to realize Gaz Won't Take Crap and this had to be the raise that came along with her promotion.

The following Monday the locks on her office door didn't work and the stubborn jackasses refused to call someone to fix it for her because they claimed they were too busy "interviewing." She took the bull by the horns and simply kicked her own door open. Not long after that the police had showed up for some reason, and much to her surprise teamed up to put her in a chokehold and thrown her out! She promptly took the company to court to get her job back, but her former employers decided to be childish enough to do the same thing and they took HER to court! In the resulting pandemonium the stupid judge got so confused, he gave HER the Restraining Order.

What was even stranger, despite all her considerable video game skills, she had somehow never gotten another job in video game development, the only job she had ever felt like doing. How dare they! Gaz had always been able to get anything she wanted just by demanding it; why wasn't it working all of a sudden? Someone had to PAY!

When none of the other video game companies would give her a job with them, she threatened Dib until he began asking questions where she had applied. They were all nothing but spineless cowardly liars, but maybe they'd tell the truth if they saw someone else asking the questions.

Dib came back saying something about her being blacklisted for criminal assault, but she should have known he'd be too socially inept to get to the real reason. Leave it to a freak like Dib to come up with something so paranoid. She never did figure it all out, but people were weird anyway. She'd known THAT from Day One.

She then found out that that one of the more absurd requirements of employment was that you actually had to be nice to people. Even in those stupid hamburger places, you had to be nice to even the stupidest customers. She had hated those jobs anyway. Some time later, a long time later in fact, Gaz somehow got a job as a beta tester. She couldn't remember exactly how, but that had only mattered at the time. It didn't pay much, minimum wage actually, but finally she could sit at home by herself playing video games, AND get paid for it. That was one in the eye for all those idiots who kept telling her no one ever got a job doing both!

That had been a long time ago now; Gaz looked at the calendar on the wall and sighed. Her father would be dead ten years next Thursday, so he wouldn't be visiting again today. Ever since that Russian idiot had been the first to make cold fusion a workable energy source, things had been going steadily downhill. Her father had lost his fortune trying to find how to run cold fusion more cheaply and more efficiently.

Dib? Dib hadn't bothered to come over to this wing to see her since she grabbed his tie and yanked him close enough to punch him in the face because he dared to bring her a pizza after it had cooled off too much for her liking. Hurrying toward the door, he said he couldn't run as fast these days as he used to... but that was no excuse for bringing his little baby sister cold pizza.

When was that, anyway? Last month? Or was it more like last year? Never mind. Dib was so useless it didn't even matter if he didn't visit. Cold pizza indeed.

She drummed her fingers in her lap, bored again. What to do, what to do, what to do now? Gaz wondered. Oh well, might as well play another game...

The End!

(A/N) Ever wonder why I write about this subject so much? It's because so few other people ever tap its rich potential!

Winks at Maran Zelde, MissMune, tere moto the sentry, ManosHands, and ZimsMostLoyalServant! ;-)