the millennium papers | words

The One Who Does laid on his back, feeling the heat of the cure seize hold of his spine and shoot currents of boisterous electric ripples through his body. He could feel his very organs shift and congeal into something different, transforming, morphing him into some bizarro form of himself, where all the angles and formulas are just a bit off, just a few shades away from the norm. He could feel that he was preparing for the ride, his skin seeping further into his body until he consisted not of skin and bones and veins and blood, but one solid, tight, pulsating, electric form. God he was in heaven.

The air was thick with mischievous designs, as if all of nature was aware that something unnatural was afoot. He watched the sky’s colors surge and swirl under the moon as it hung fat and pregnant in the wild night. An orchestra of stars danced around their moon’s muse as he was the only poor fool around who was witnessing this sumptuous feast.

"Man," he thought, "Van Gogh must have been a fucking realist."

His ears slowly filled with the clink of crystal and the bubbled giggles of a raucous social affair as the noise drifted towards the heaven’s sky. He propped his head as he spied the group gibbering and clamoring on under the swirling night.

"Of course," he thought, "that’s where I left those two."

He joined the others, standing on planks made of glued toothpicks and swilling their cheap booze and pickled clam juice. They smoked their rancid cigars while chatting up half naked blondes and Jamaican princesses.

The first of the two turned with a look that said, "here we go...now we’re on the way," obviously in reference to their present company. He had that old look in his eye that the others knew so well. It was that starry, crazed, distant stare that bored into your soul and challenged you to come follow him upon his journey, upon his troubling quest. There was no other like this one, born in a land that bred its natives to explore new frontiers of mysticism and embrace demonic orgies of revolutionary dogmas and tenets. He was the one who dragged the others along on this ever dangerous path, on their viscous pursuit of the unnatural and bizarre. He was the cosmic voice of the unexplored, ever with an uncharted water to sail, ever with an untested boundary to push. He was their shaman, their spiritual guide, their light in the dark, bleak night. He was The One Who Dreams.

As these three made sinister advances on the women by their side, one would have never thought that just a few short moments before this tranquil scene they were in heated battle, fighting for their lives. Before these beauties showed, our three were surrounded by gathering hordes of blood crazed vagabonds who relentlessly tore at their souls in an effort to drag them back into the Realm of the Blind.

This land is populated by mountains of lifeless, quivering drones who swallow pills of tranquility and numbing obedience under the strict observation of the ruling class. Once, every so often, a group like the one assembled under this star crazed sky escapes the Realm of the Blind. This group of three ran from the bleak world, submerging themselves in the dripping tastes and scents and beauty of nature as it is meant to be seen. Sure, they may have had help getting here, help truly ripping the blinders from their eyes, exposing their pale and fragile eyes to the heat of the stare. A little push here, a tug there, a small decision to take the leap, lick the honey, shed the world, and follow Alice down her hole...but fuck, they don’t seem to mind this path and its consequences. That worry is for the dawn, the night, this night is theirs. However, there are many, many who find this journey unacceptable.

Thus the mob.

This group was pursued along their quest by ones who have failed to see the light. Their call is to apprehend those who have escaped the Realm of the Blind, seeking out the refugees, dragging them back to their world, and torturing the poor fools who succumb to this fate. It is the same for all who are caught. White hot flesh is torn from the fallen and then cured in molten jars of bubbling pig’s fat. Their eyes are then scalded with this sick concoction, forever linking the group through this sick blinding ritual, a perpetual ring of the fallen and the newly enslaved. There was no way in hell these three were ever going back there.

They narrowly escaped the sightless crazed mob by beating them back with their spent cans of beer and cigarettes butts. It had seemed hopeless for the three right up until the end, until the desperation had reached an apex and action was imperative, essential to their survival. As the mob drew close, The One Who Does reached back and threw the thunder from his chest as he began yelling Swahili obscenities while yanking his trusty Zippo from his pouch and waving the flame wildly at anyone in his path.

"Jaloopilin KAAAA! BLAJONNN KAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" he cried.

He didn’t think it was going to work at first, but he could tell he was working that old black magic he had learned on the streets of Haiti where he was apprentice to a 400 year old Albino warlock. He could tell by the glazed look that swept over the scarred faces of the ravenous hordes. The three beat the masses down until they were cowering under their feet, scurrying over blades of grass and fighting with the worms and toads for morsels of food.

Oh what a sweet victory!

But that was all behind them. Things were better now. After all, the princesses were Jamaican.

Everything was going just fine as the conversation began to turn towards exotic fruits, the merits of eating snails, and different uses of baking soda when the third dove from the safe haven of the holy planks into the sea of grass, thick with the plotting masses. He stood triumphantly and stared down the other two while they clung to their women in an effort to stave off his anticipated declaration of either war or Roman orgies with said fruit. Either of which the two were not yet ready.

He staggered back and scowled at the others with raised brow and crooked grin. There was no call to this action, no reason for this advance. It was an unprovoked, unanticipated move. But he was the one with the history of the movement on his side. He was the one who knew, who was in perpetual communication with the Masters who were the stars to these drifting explorers, the guides to these wandering nomads. Only he could ascertain whether the actions of the group were pure, in line with the distant, hazed, opaque oasis that awaited them at the end of their long quest. He had spent years studying the Great Men who had braved this way before, who had fought the lions to suckle the Athena’s breast. He stood his life in homage to these giants, their complete pupil, their wanting disciple. He was The One Who Thinks.

He eyed the other two with a frantic, certain, wild stare and staggered back to take full wind before he crowed...

"WHAT is our path gentlemen!?! WHERE exactly is the charted course???"

Breathing a sigh of relief the other two dove from their heights to conspire on their next course of action while The One Who Does was gaining gradual acceptance of the Roman orgy, although the fruit was out of the question. While they gathered to plot, The One Who Dreams leered at the women left to huddle on their corroding planks while a maniacal, toothless smile spread over his pale face. He quietly drew the hatchet from his cloak.

"Jesus Man!!" cried The One Who Does, "Where did you acquire such weaponry?? Why didn’t you use this on those blood sucking Bastards earlier?"

"Saving this for when the shit really starts to happen. Christ man, can’t you feel it? These three can’t be trusted, Jamaican princesses or not. I don’t even think that’s a real blonde."

At that moment The One Who Thinks felt the very air shift as some large, possibly deadly device passed from overhead.

"My God, get down man! The damn natives are after us again!!"

They dove to the ground, taking some pleasure in smashing the bastards who were hiding in the blades of grass, plotting and awaiting their chance. They gathered their weaponry, One with his hatchet, One with his cans, and One preparing the next round of incantations.

"There’s only one way out of here man. We’ve gotta sacrifice the women. These primitive bastards want blood and will stop at nothing until they get it."

"Do we have to sacrifice all three?"

"I think it’s the only fair thing to do."

"Where’s that damn hatchet? I’ll do this job." The One Who Thinks was determined.

"FUCK!! They’re gone!" cried The One Who Dreams. The planks were now empty, strewn with the hastily discarded jars of clam juice the women were sucking down. "Must have jumped ship, tried to swim to safety. No doubt they will soon join the legions of the scarred."

"We’re done for now!"

"We may just have some trickery left up our sleeves, if only I knew where I left the pigs."

"Jesus man, get the fuck over here!!"

"Have you found the goddamned pigs?"

"Just get over here now, man!"

"Just tell me if you have the pigs, the time is soon approaching when they will prove to be invaluable!"

The other two watched as The One Who Dreams was arguing with what appeared to be a quaking bush over the use of pigs in some sort of defensive arrangement, while the bush was attempting to lure him over to its domain.

They were all coming a bit unglued.

"We’ve gotta make our move now! The damned bush either has the pigs we need, or knows where we can find them. It started stuttering there and I couldn’t make out the end."

There are certain statements that, when presented in a certain way, cannot be argued against. They made their count in order to synchronize their movements, then made a dash towards the bush. All three felt the whiz of poison arrows pass overhead and narrowly miss their worried, sweating brows. They made a dive for the talkative bush and quickly covered themselves in pine needles and decaying leaves.

To their horror they gazed at the bush as a lone, half naked figure slowly took shape, quietly crouched, garbed in a ripped pair of old boxers, quickly coloring his skin a shade of purple possibly with a broken eye-liner pencil, possibly discarded by the fleeing blondes. He was quickly biting his nails and nervously shooting glances at the littered scene of battle. The bloodshot eyes, the matted hair, the purple hide...this was one in the heat of things, knee deep in the conflict, fighting for the very souls and conscience of those around him. You could watch as his eyes swept the scene in constant calculation of position and movement of the clash. He was determined to see this thing through to the end. He was ready to risk all in the pursuit of triumph. He was prepared to take this battle to the next level, to constantly push the enemy to up the ante until either he and his men were limp and spent with defeat, or the opposition quivered with the realization that never before had it encountered one who was so determined to defy the rules, to risk all in the hope of pulling out a victory, sacrificing as many as necessary to see the end, to hold the trophy, to raise a victorious, bloody fist. He was The One Who Leads.

"Jesus man, where in the hell did you come from? I thought our number was three, but four is strong! Those fucking savages are done in for sure!"

The One Who Leads eyed the three with a long stare as he paused in his effort to camouflage his nakedness, gently resting the cracked pencil by his side.

"I fought those blind hordes for as long as I could, somehow I got separated from you three. That’s when I realized that it’s the clothes that they smell. So I dove here in the bush and stripped myself to the bone. They fanned out to search for me, but I quickly dove into the creek and went under to throw off their scent. When I surfaced they were gone. I couldn’t find my clothes, so I used this pencil to color my skin. Gotta maintain some body warmth."

"Good thinking."

"When I spied you three I wasn’t sure if you were truly yourselves, or if you were just the clowns in disguise."

Until this point, The One Who Thinks was eyeing the plain before him for signs of trouble. At this first mention of the clowns, he shifted his attention to The One Who Leads.

"No man, the goddamned clowns are the least of our worries. It’s the mongrel savages that are the issue here. They’ve already killed off the Jamaicans, but I think the blondes were part of the whole damned thing. They’re the ones we’ve gotta best."

The One Who Leads reached over and violently seized the cuff of the other’s shirt.

"Jesus man, listen to me! You think those natives were tough?? The clowns are the ones to fear! They travel in hordes of all sizes. I’ve seen some as tall as 15 feet, and others as low as a few inches. All of them are lethal strong and skilled in every type of martial art imaginable. They carry an arsenal of weaponry which they’ve stolen from the Army’s most advanced research facilities. They have fangs of steel and they’re all hopped up on smoking oregano and snorting heroin. They smell their victims from miles away and then set upon them with lightening speed, gnawing on their tongues with reckless abandon. We don’t want to fuck with these bastards!"

The three sat in stunned silence while the fourth recounted story after story of the gruesome atrocities committed by the evil clowns. They came to a consensus that the only course of action when presented with this bunch is to run like frightened schoolgirls in the opposite direction. The One Who Leads quickly took stock of their present situation and decided now was the time to move.

"We’re vulnerable here, men. We’re low on supplies and I need a new goddamn pencil. We need to make our way back to the huts and restock before we encounter any more situations which may prove to be damaging."

"Excellent notion," snapped The One Who Does, "we can call for re-inforcements and line our defensives. Besides, I need find my list of incantations."

"I need my pigs!" The One Who Dreams spoke up. "Everything will be fine with the pigs."

Although the merit of this statement was called into question, it apparently fit the situation and all agreed that the pigs were key to the success of their endeavor.

"Right, we’re off then." The One Who Leads began the long march across the plains when a dead, solemn cry chilled his soul and drove the stench of fear through his skull. He turned to see The One Who Thinks pale and shaken as he stared off into the glow of a distant lantern, hanging across the far plain.

"Jesus, what is that?" he shuddered.

The sound of a weak and aged accordion drifted through the night’s air and found their trembling ears. The four turned to see a small, even tiny car circling the light, rhythmically drifting in and out of the lantern’s dim view. The car was streaked with bright swirls of color, brilliant yellows and reds, with large and childish pictures of daisies painted on the sides. There was a giant horn attached to the driver’s door which a languid, pale hand slowly caressed with sharpened nail.

The One Who Dreams threw up.

A choked, petrified hiss escaped the tightened chest and strangled throat of The One Who Thinks.

"the clowns..."

They couldn’t move, but stood there and gazed at the circling car as the sound, smell, and sight of the cool summer’s night drifted from their senses. The quiet din of the nearby brook, the delicate breeze spotted with the scent of newly cut grass and the nearby honeysuckle, the littered gaze of the moon’s light...the realization that these wonders truly exist was soon eclipsed by the hypnotizing drift of the dwarfed car, into and out of, into and out of, into and out of the lantern’s shadow. The four focused on that craggled hand, it’s withered grip as it casually stroked the grotesque horn, the veins just visible beneath the pale paint.

They were broken from the spell as they watched with a binding mixture of fear and horror as the car applied its sickly howling brakes and rolled to a stop in full view of the lanterns light. The One Who Dreams again threw up as the hand reached for the door’s handle and it swung open.

They would have preferred to gouge their eyes from their sockets then witness the assembly of this evil crew. The first stepped from the driver’s wheel and leered across the far plains into the souls of the stricken four. It’s eyes were red with hate while withered tears streaked down its face leaving rivers of a dark and rotting hide beneath the false paint. It grinned at the four with a realization that they were his. The hunt was over. The prey no longer held the status of that which can escape, that which knows a chance still remains to escape the lion’s jaws. They were food, and it knew this because it read the signs in the eyes of the four. They stopped breathing, they stopped thinking, they stopped knowing they should run and hide and pray for the very gods to storm from the heavens and save them from their horrid fate. They stopped believing they had a choice in the matter. They were in the grip of the fear, in the grip of the spell of the beast who stared at them across the far and distant plains with his yellow and sharpened teeth, his pale and razored nails, his yellow and failing wig. And he had friends.

Statues, the four watched as the second door swung wide spilling cracked and bloody skulls, yellow and aborted fetuses, bone dry syringes onto the pavement. The giant towered 20 feet if an inch. He stretched his hands towards the stars which scattered to avoid his claw and summoned the demons awaiting his call. His very breath could change the direction of the birds in the air or the insects in the grass, depending on the direction of his gasp, but this seemed a conscious choice rather than a necessity as the four couldn’t recall any of the these things engaged in as human a feature as breathing.

They continued to climb from the tiny vehicle in droves, each more sinister than the last, until the entire crew was assembled, forty in all. It seemed as if these rolling wheels were not as much a mere car as they were the very gates of hell itself, driving around this placid little square looking for its next corpse. Lined up as they were, the forty began the long trek across the plains, setting upon their four victims with an elegant, graceful deliberation. No one was going anywhere.

The four, for their part, stood as Medusa’s prey, stone silent and frozen in their stance. Not a conscious thought had passed through their feeble minds from the minute they locked eyes with the first. The overwhelming emotion they knew was fear. They stood submerged in an ocean of yellow, blinding fear as wave after wave swept them and pulled them further into its depths. All they could see, all they could hear, all they could smell, speak, or taste was fear. They were nothing else. And the clowns drew closer.

They would have sat in this passive, doe eyed stance right until the last moment, right until those hated, evil claws set upon their plump and virgin throats if The One Who Dreams hadn’t truly lost his shit. His mind just shut down completely and he fell to the cold floor making a muffled thump. And The One Who Leads heard this thump. The spell was broken for just a moment, but in that moment he knew that there was some serious damage that was about to ensue if something was not done. In that moment he knew that he needed to do it. In that moment he filled his lungs with the hot breath of this dreaded night and screamed...

"LET’S GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!!"

The other two snapped from the monsters’ gaze and drew their attention to the lifeless body of The One Who Dreams and the frantic scowl of The One Who Leads. The two weren’t just fully up to speed yet and they continued to observe this strange scene while the approaching forty beckoned them back to the mindless slumber with their Siren’s call.

"JESUS!! LET’S GET FUCKING OUTTA HERE!!!"

The spell was broken and the three conscious ones knew something had to be done.

"Let’s make a run for the bush!"

"No, man. Nothing but a river on the other side. We’d be caged for sure."

"What then man, they’re getting closer!" The One Who Thinks was frantic as he turned his stare towards the progress of the treacherous clowns.

"We have to make a run for it. We may just be able to make our way across the other side of the plain back to the Safe Haven."

"We’ll have to carry this one." The body of The One Who Dreams still lay unconscious at their feet.

The two reached for their companion as they called for the help of the third, but The One Who Thinks had fallen back in the spell of the beasts upon his very glance in their direction.

"Christ man, let’s go!!"

Broken from their spell again, the three set across the plain towards their Safe Haven with the forth bounding on their backs. Ravenous, carnivorous, murderous clowns closing in on their heels. The three, one half-naked with his skin a sickly purple, toting the slumped and lifeless body of the fourth, running as if Hades had unleashed the very Hounds of Hell nipping at their souls.

What a scene.

They threw a hasty glance over their shoulders and saw the clowns growing ever closer, although it appeared as if their pace did not increase. They seemed to keep their same casual, knowing saunter when their movement was watched, but as soon as the three turned again towards their distant haven and their painfully slow progress, the clowns seemed to grow nearer by bounds. Christ, they weren’t going to make it and they felt it. The One Who Dreams weighed upon their strained and aching backs nearly as heavy as the understanding that their inevitable grisly end drew closer. They were all three deep in sweat mingled with the ungodly exertion of their desperate run, the unholy fate that drew down upon them, and the still far distance of their dear haven.

They threw a final shot over their backs and faltered as they witnessed with a riotous dread that the clowns were finally upon them. They saw the lead one with the rotting flesh of aged victims dripping from his fangs. They could smell the pungent air that escaped his maddening, grinning mouth. The tall one, with his demons in stride, lunged his giant arms for The One Who Dreams, capitalizing on what little resistance an unconscious victim would provide. This was it. There was no other time. The three collapsed in a heap of quivering, breathless flesh, with the sleeping fourth safely tucked beneath them. The forty drew in close to take the first luscious, fat nip from their prey.

The One Who Thinks summoned the last of what courage had long since fled, and leered at the circling hordes with a sardonic, blase air, as if the prospect of his long and merciless and deliberate demise did not interest him any more that the weak summer reads of his grade school career. The One Who Leads had snapped completely and stood in a blind rage with jutting lip, wide eyes, sputtering madly in a loud voice while spit flew from his snarling trap. The One Who Dreams lay, black to the world, in the remnants of his own vomit and bile. The One Who Does lost his ability to form any sort of rational thought, and began muttering slowly to himself, in garbled quiet breath, the spells which he knew stood no chance against the clowns wizardry.

Surely this crew was lost.

The forty drew their ranks close as they salivated at the thought of these four in their maws. The hunt was over. Their escape futile. Their defenses withered. The end was here.

And the forty waited.

Our four were in such a state now that they had no realization what was about to happen to them. They had lost all sense and were in such rages of naked abandon. The clowns, they wanted the realization, they wanted the knowledge. They were patient and they would wait. They would wait until the adrenaline ebbed, until the tirades ceased, until the clouds parted and the knowledge returned. They wanted the understanding to be there. They wanted these four to know their fate, to be awake and clear as they started to tear and sear and claw the flesh from their bones and suckle their dripping hides. That was what these clowns wanted. That’s why they were insane. So they stood, and they waited, and the four (at least the three conscious ones) ranted like the mad. And then it was over...

A thunderous roar filled the night air as a giant of towering height streaked forth from the dark mist of the plains. He flew with a speed of no mortal man, his massive stride punctuated by the pump of his mighty arms. His eyes, reddened in the rage of a frothing madman, angered in the hate of crazed warrior, burned with a heat that wilted his opponents with its very glare. He ran towards our four, armed with nothing but his giant’s fists, streaked with the glare of the sun at his back. He was The One Who Saves.

He ran up to the three as the fourth, The One Who Dreams, was slowly pulling himself back from the land of the dead.

"Jesus, where have you guys been???" The One Who Saves knew nothing of the earlier battles of these four.

"Man, we have seen some serious shit tonight. Were the fuck have you been??"

At this a look of doubt grew over The One Who Saves. Where had he been? Jesus...

"I don’t know! Where have you been?" That was the best way to answer this type of inquisition.

"Wait!! Christ!! Where are the clowns??" The One Who Does knew something just wasn’t floating with this scene.

"The what?"

"Fuck, we were chased by these fucking clowns with snarling teeth and blood stained jaws and there were forty of them and they chased us." The One Who Thinks was beginning to realize that this perhaps was sounding all a little too strange.

"Well I was just looking for you four." The One Who Saves had long forgotten the reason for his search.

"Enough!! Obviously he scarred off those bastards before they closed in. Let’s get out of here, before those clown fuckers have a chance to regroup." The One Who Leads wasn’t about to take any more chances.

"Wait..." The One Who Dreams stared distantly off into the earth as if he were searching for some lost notion or thought that had escaped him. The rest waited expectantly for the conclusion to be reached. "I know!" He found it. "I drove."

"We drove here??"

"Ya, it’s a brilliant chariot with giant silver steeds and room for all. Quickly we must be off!!" The One Who Dreams set off with a determined stride.

"Horses??"

"Well, he was going on about pigs earlier."

"Jesus, we may be in trouble here."

The five of them made their long way over the plains, The One Who Dreams leading them on to the last known residence of his ride. A blanket of silence fell upon this group as they all drifted off into their own musings of the night’s events. Their frantic pulses ebbed as the rhythmic, quiet pilgrimage seeped into their somber unconscious. They walked, some absorbed in their own random thoughts, some just simply watching the tired earth drift underneath their unhurried gait, some forgetting the destination, the point of departure, and the purpose behind this trek. They were just walking.

As the long night began to stretch as an eternity before this group, their front man, The One Who Dreams, spied a lone shape taking form before him.

"There she is."

They all spied the object of his focus. A giant craft took shape before them, stammering and whining in the breath of the surrounding trees. They did indeed see the steeds, tired and disheveled as they looked, one could plainly see the strength and power that surged forth from the constraints of their harness. This craft subsisted as much on the unfettered devotion of The One Who Dreams as on the mixture of booze and amphetamines that fueled these animals’ stamina. She was a lovely craft.

"All right men, there’s room for all, so don’t cram. We’ll be aboard and then be off. This baby will deliver us from these most ungodly scenes of this unhallowed night." The One Who Dreams clearly had defined his purpose here in this stage of the game.

"Besides, we must reach the pigs before all becomes fuzzled and lost again."

"Riiiight."

As they approached their transport, they could discern a new shape, a man perched deliberately atop the craft, one arm casually slung underneath his head, the other indifferently resting beside his worn garb. He was clearly operating of his own volition as he stretched his arm to the heavens and casually burned a hole in the waning moon with his lighted cigarette. It was obvious this activity had been of interest to him for a time now, as the moon crumbled and dripped of this slow and constant assault. He didn’t care. He was the one that operated under his own directive, he abided his own rules. It was clear to all that man’s laws simply did not apply here. The others, the great ones, Einstein, Newton, Galileo were simply wrong in their estimation, their theories. They could have never foreseen that one such as this would one day walk the Earth, a man that withstood the tempest of life through nothing but his own will, his own strength. He would have nothing of the rest, he would have nothing of the torrent, he would not recognize the bedlam that surrounded him. His existence was not based in the laws of nature, in the joining of a man and woman, he existed because he decided it so. It was his resolve. They knew nothing of his past, they knew him only as this man, they knew only to call him Paul.

"Whassah?" he inquired to the rest.

"Why the fuck are you here??" This was too much for The One Who Thinks, this constant addition to the fold.

"Habit."

"Are you the last, are we now complete??" This had to be driven to fulfillment for them all. This must be it.

"Yep."

"Fine." The One Who Dreams intoned as he stood with his grip around the beasts’ harness. "Let’s be off then."

And that would be the end of it.

The group, once fragmented and wandering, was now complete and whole with united purpose, at a count of six. The One Who Dreams proudly let his craft fill with its passengers as he took his place at the helm.

"What do you call this thing?"

"This is the ‘vette. She’s a beaut,"

He started his craft and pulled from the lot, as the group continued to find their footing. They quietly reflected on the night’s happenings as they moved through the city’s streets. The horror of the clowns seemed largely an unlikely event. The faces of the Jamaicans were now a distant and opaque memory. The idea that magical incantations were at one time spewed in an act of self-defense was now a tad comical. My God what time was it? Who’s got a cigarette? Where the fuck are my clothes? These questions and more began to seep into our heros’ clouded and rambling minds as they left their journey and began to settle back into their forgotten lives. A silence fell upon them as the view of their desired reality began to float away from them. Tomorrow’s thoughts returned to them as they inadvertently, unexpectedly, and without giving much thought to it, began to put their blinders back on. Damn.

The time drifted by as they continued to move through the dark streets. What now? Where are we going? I’m getting hungry. Someone yawned.

The One Who Leads was growing uncomfortable with this unwarranted turn the night had taken. This just wasn’t right. Things weren’t supposed to end like this. Something had to be done. He spied his companions as they grew irritable, began checking their watches, and calculating a way to drift off from the group into their waiting beds. Then, just then, he remembered.

"FUCK! I nearly forgot!"

The rest turned to him as he produced a small vile from some unseen pocket.

"This is our last hope. This is the last of our brew. Just one drop, just a little taste, just one more go and we will again grow triumphant in our battle. I have the resolve! I have the will to see this thing to the end! Where are you all? Where are you in lineup? There is no gray, no room for indecision. You’re either with me or you’re against me. You either commit, or you run home and hide your head under the fucking covers that will be your tomb!" He held the vile with its pale contents for all to see as the car drifted to a stop. "This," he eyed the bottle with a mischievous gleam, "this is our path."

There was no choice. This was the one who led. The others knew his path too well with all its horrors and joys and treacherous turns. There was no choice.

They passed it around as The One Who Dreams whipped the stallions to a frothing glory as he pushed his craft through the wild streets.

"Hit the overdrive!!!" he screamed.

The craft bucked as The One Who Does flipped the glowing switch which pushed the ship to its limits.

All the natives filed from their dank dwellings to pay homage to this craft filled with the immortal ones. They formed long lines as the craft passed, eyes deadend and bleak, clad in vestiges of gray rags and bound with the chains of indifference. Our group, our heros sped by the hoards, shucking off this tired realm with cackling laughter and howls of pure ecstasy.

As the dawn slowly rose her new light on this fractured land, there were six men, six gods, who refused the chains that were presented them. This moment, this place, this thought, this time they were free.

The end.