Burns has become concerned about his skin. There are lines forming along his eyes, smile marks on his cheeks. They are light, but he can see them setting, like cracks in concrete.

From the TV glow and the glossy pages of US Weekly, Ryan Seacrest's face looks smooth and unworried.

"Why all this concern, all this effort, over Ryan Seacrest?" It is the internal voice, his superego or conscience, whatever, the awareness he carries around like a backpack full of Bibles. Unfortunately, it speaks, has always spoken, in the voice of Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes. Burns is reflective, and he has been using, or hearing, or channeling this voice since he was a child. He wishes it wasn't Klink, but he could no more change this than the scars on his knees or the fillings in his teeth. "Is that what you wish?" Klink asks, "to be Ryan Seacrest?"