The Bug

A State of Unrest

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07:25h, 23rd of August, in the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand & Eleven, in the Annoyingly Slow or Occasionally Overly Fast Van of Seb O’Neil

Seb has always enjoyed driving home after a long night at work, because the sun rises exactly as his commute home enters the more heavily wooded roads. He likes to practice his hand at poetry by describing the phenomena of a red sky in different ways as he putts down the road in his ancient van - it was white at some point, it’s more of a sheet-metal color now. Putts is also a bit of a mischaracterization, as he - Seb - feels he’s going somewhere near FTL speed due to extreme overstimulation of his optic nerve. His commute from Philly to the Lebanon-area takes him about an hour 40: the extra time because he’s a slow driver - though he prefers the term safe or cautious. He also enjoys giving space to his more, shall we say, quirky thoughts, and just sort of letting them roll over him like waves. He thinks the sunrise looks like he’s sitting in a nearly empty container of Kool-Aid - no that one’s no good… Audiobooks and podcasts are a frequent feature of his drives as well, but sometimes he leaves the car quiet to stew on his thoughts. He thinks it’s like driving away from a raging forest fire - that one’s not bad. Why is the I in “child” an eye sound and then in “children” it’s an ill sound? It’s like the world’s largest red exit sign is behind him. No that one won’t work; exit signs are sometimes green. He likes driving. Why isn’t a toothbrush called a teethbrush? He’s thinking of better poetic descriptions when he notices, in his incredibly vast peripheral vision, a rabbit dart out of the woods along his right side. Another reason he loves the drive home in the morning, the wildlife has yet to be disturbed. He ruminates once again over how much he loves his job, and how great the night shift is, as he has never been much of a people person. There’s way too many forms of the word chap: you’ve got chap like those weird western pant things, chap like a friend or a boy, chap like lips, chap like an animal’s lower jaw or jowl, chap like cracked skin, chap like a gentleman, and who knows how many other uses. He was always bullied growing up, on account of his eyes, which stick an actual inch out from his face - just about as far out as his moderately sized nose. In Scottish, chap can mean “a knock” or, like, the verb “to knock”. His nose looks like a prize strawberry. People either avoid him or do their very best to keep conversation to a minimum. When they do converse with him, it is painfully obvious that they try to avoid looking him in the eyes, or saying anything that will cause him any degree of shock or surprise. He figures they - the approachee - think it will lead to their own inevitable fainting, or both eyes falling out of their - his own - sockets and bouncing around like superballs. His massive eyes also move at every so slightly different intervals, which creates a whole other set of visual problems - one of them being a rare and unlabeled form of dyslexia where he will sometimes flip the front of a word or number to the back. Not usually an issue except for speed limits. As he looks out the window again he realizes that the rabbit is actually keeping pace with him, which is shocking as he is going at least 45 in a 55 zone - he’s always been a slower driver, on account of having an extra inch of visual field. The few coworkers he does have quietly refer to him as Bugsy, which they assure him is because of his prodigious basketball skills - throwing trash into receptacles, he guessed - and not at all because of his ocular condition. He neglected to tell them the player’s name is Muggsy Bogues, not Bugsy Mogues. He’s pretty sure the nickname wasn’t actually supposed to insinuate the sports player, he’s reasonably sure. He doesn’t mind the nicknames and ostracizing, honestly, he prefers it - he’s never been a people person, really, it’s fine with him. Chap could also technically refer to “chapter” or “chaplain”, but he figures that one’s a bit of a stretch. Asides from the nicknames and the constant honks he receives, he actually enjoys having such a panoramic view of life. People never realize how far his peripheral vision actually extends, which means he is accidentally privy to a lot of things not intended to be shared with him. His life is in wide-screen basically. “Unusual” has three u’s. That’s so many u’s. Too many u’s one word. He basically has the vision of a goldfish. Now the rabbit has darted off into the woods at 40 miles an hour - he imagines a high speed collision with a sizable oak tree - and he has entered the more wooded area of his commute. Usufruct also has three u’s - still feels like a lot. It’s a beautiful scene, the dawn light through the trees, but now the sun feels like machine gun fire in his eyes - like a strobe light aimed right into his widescreen visual field. Why does the d in fridge disappear when it’s spelled out as refrigerator? Now that he’s almost home he feels a brief panic that his drive is almost over, and he won’t have the safe environment of the van to continue weaving elegant poetry and consider baffling truths. Then he remembers that he lives alone, in the woods, alone. And he forgot to water his plants again.

02:42h, 9th of July, in the Year of Our Lord 2012, in Phil-Tech Laboratories, Upper Levels, Doing Menial Tasks and Humming Non-Existent Songs Off-Key

Why doesn’t the plural of thousand or million have an s when it has a number in front of it? Like thousands of birds verses two-thousand birds? Why isn’t it two-thousands or three-millions, as it is with three ounces? Even though his own home was an absolute train wreck - like, you would have thought a rabid pack of hoarders had been squatting there illegally for a few decades - still, surprisingly, Seb didn’t mind cleaning, he maybe even enjoyed it. It was another solace of thought for him in a busy, bustling world that he didn’t feel part of, nor did he want to - honestly. He was perfectly content to stay apart from the world, absolutely at ease with the separation - scouts honor - and his cleaning job gave him plenty of time to just sort of mull over the universe and all it’s strange inner workings. He always felt that he asked the big questions, the questions no one else was stopping to ask - the questions we should be asking. Living in such an acrid environment, you would’ve thought he would just sort of like, exude stench, but actually Seb was also very hygienic and smelled as though his daily commute consisted of frolicking through several meadows of wildflowers and pine groves - though he never used cologne or car air fresheners or even laundry detergent. Phlegm has got to be the worst case of a word being unnecessarily complicated to spell - shouldn’t it just be flem? He didn’t even mind cleaning the bathrooms, which were beyond disreputable, didn’t mind at all - plus he got paid $8.00 an hour, which is a whole .75¢ over minimum! Why does the dollar sign come before the numbers, when everything else comes after, like o’clock or ° or lbs? Plus it’s not like you say dollars eight twenty-five? Sure he worked up the courage to ask for that raise for a good 7 months, but now that he had it, he knew he could never slack off - not even for a minute - because his boss paid him so well, they valued him - they said so! - , and he didn’t want to let them down. If he slacked off it was basically stealing from his kind and caring bosses. ...Why does the \backslash\ even exist, you only ever use the /forwardslash/?... There’s a time to lean and a time to clean! as the old saying goes, and ole Seb O’Neil never leans. He even felt he would get antsy if he tried to do nothing while on the clock, he would feel like he was robbing his boss, since he was paying him after all. He much preferred to work the whole shift in a constant state of motion, it made time pass by that much quicker and it wasn’t hard on his back at all, honest! He didn’t even mind the small menial tasks that they left taped to their office doors for him to do - more things to keep moving! He liked seeing if he could get a single piece of gum to last him the entire shift, as he had a propensity to swallow gum for some inexplicable reason. It was like a compulsion, really, he just got into a mindless space of work where he would be polishing a coworkers shoes they left for him on their desk, and then forget about the gum and suddenly - down the hatch, so to speak; down being the gum and the hatch being his epiglottis. He was doing swell this shift however, he hadn’t swallowed a single piece of gum yet and it was approaching his one five minute break of the shift, at 0300h.

After his 3&½ minute break (he felt every second of that post-ampersand ½) he couldn’t sit still anymore, so it was back to work. Nearly every office door had a totally non-obligatory sticky-note posted on it, and he had only knocked out about half thus far. He was getting into his groove - still had the gum - and was finding mental capacity for poetry. He always felt his poetic impulses were particularly keen around the more crepuscular hours, though he also felt they weren’t exactly dull in any lighting.

Polishing Shoes,

Black and Brown Hues.

Shiny and Smooth From Heel to Toe

Always in Two’s

Never Alone

~

Loving You

in Black and White Hues.

Soft and Smooth From Head to Toe

Everyone Else Always in Two’s

Something I’ll Never Know

That one isn’t too bad, have to jot it down later…

Seb’s growing affinity for entertaining wild thoughts and falling into rabbit holes of inner monologue has always caused him to lose track of what would probably have been masterpiece poems, undoubtedly. It was around this time that a sort of generic looking scientist grunt - like the ones you see in highly specific and overly watermarked images on Shutterstock - came up to him to tell him an emergency had ensued in the lower levels and he must vacate the office, and to please take his polishing supplies with him. No further explanation was given by the cookie-cutter scientist and Seb was left with a barely functioning Broca’s area, cerebrally, and an absence of gum in his mouth. In retrospect, Seb realizes the man looked more like a Halloween pop-up store ad for their latest doctor costume.

15:42h, 3rd of September, in the Fear of Our Horde 2012, in the Disgusting House of One Clinically Depressed Seb O’Neil

Unbeknownst to Seb, unemployment could run out toward the end of the year because it had like a set amount - apparently. Had he known this, he wouldn’t have bought nearly so many DVD copies of 2012 the movie, or that incredibly expensive smart printer. After suffering a 10.0 Richter scale level job loss, and the ensuing crippling depression, Bugsy (he had taken to adopting his not-so-kindly-bestowed nickname [although Bugsy was taken, so it ended up being something like bugzzzy55 {a fitting adjustment in retrospect}] as an online moniker) had become a feverish consumer of conspiracy theories and out-of-the-way ideas. His wandering thoughts and daydreams had all become hyper-focused on these ludacris ideas and he had become, without even intending or realizing it, a full-blown conspiracy theorist. He had plans to like, emerge, into the previously eschewed outside world to pass out 2012 DVD’s and sort of promulgate his thoughts to anyone who would listen, because, as he knew, the end was indeed nigh. He was also aware that “the kids these days just don’t read” and so a movie was the best form of a tract he could manage, but he had no way to make his own, so he settled for the 2009 cinematic train wreck of 2012 as a sort of “gets the point across” type method. He didn’t fully agree with the movies ideas of “how it would go down”, but again - it was his best option since they agreed on the year. The smart printer was an “investment” so he could print out things for his conspiracy boards, and he did actually use it a few times. It has some type of fancy internet connection so it can wirelessly print web pages (just about the only thing he prints). Being an avid consumer of the more edifying online forums, Bugsy found numerous discussions and web pages worth printing out for later review. Did you know that the earth is actually a flat floating disk that sits on one layer of water and under another: That’s why when you look at the stars they sort of like twinkle, because they’re actually shining through water. He had also bought an unnecessary amount of spicy sweet chili Doritos, as he pretty much subsisted on their nearly negative nutritional value. Sustenance was the last of his concerns nowadays, since the end was so very nigh, but he knew he needed at least some protein, so he smeared peanut butter onto these contrarian Doritos to accomplish the task of surviving another day. That and the disgusting orange Gelatein snack, which was an edible protein gelatin that had the consistency of thick mucus and the taste of an athlete’s fungal foot that was shoved the entire way up a horse’s ass. Yet here he was, in his very gross house full of accumulated garbage, eating both of these snack just to keep his clicking finger working so he could scroll and read more about the ~truth~ of things. He has also become a plant guy, sort of. He owns at least three plants, and they are all still alive. Did you know that the sun is actually cold? That’s why at the height of summer in July, the earth is farthest from the sun, and at the peak of winter in January it’s closest - the sun is actually cooling the planet. At this point, Seb is just trying to hold on long enough to see the glorious end and subsequent return of the aliens who fertilized the planet through panspermia. He had tried for a while to reintegrate into society after his job loss, but he couldn’t find another job anywhere since he had no discernible skills. Plus any job he did acquire he was quickly fired from for disseminating conspiracy theories about the higher-ups to the lower-downs at the proverbial water cooler, an apparently unforgivable clerical error. At one point he had even tried hoofing it on the streets of Philadelphia, shining shoes for a mere .99¢, but due to a grievous unseen grammatical error, his hand-made sign had read 99$ and no one ever stopped - to this day he doesn’t realize his mistake. Did you know that giants are real? Yes it’s true. Not only are there many modern reports - including a terrifying mall encounter with a giant disguised as a mall cop - but there is also proof ~inside~ the flat earth disk we live on. If you dig down far enough, you will encounter the giant’s caves at the core, and if you continue digging you will surface in the underwater Atlantis world where the ancient merpeople still reside to this day. It’s true, scouts honor (Seb was never a scout, but take that for what it’s worth). Two of Seb’s plants don’t even really rely on him because they eat the flies that have accumulated in his house, so really he has no business being called a plant guy.

04:51h, During One of the J Months, in the Year of Our Lord 2013, in the Home of a New Man

There are a minimal amount of dirty dishes in the sink. The trashcan is half full, with two full bags sitting next to the front door. There’s a box of 2012 DVD’s in the corner - the box says BUrN on it in mostly capital letters. Scattered sections of various newspapers with circled job listings sit on the counter, as well as the leather-inlaid coffee table. Two cups sit on the coffee table, one half full the other with the piss-ends, as they say. There’s an exotic plant in a non-exotic pot that had helped keep the flies at bay, when there were flies. There’s at least 6 different circular stains from previously left out cold beverages, all now cleaned up. The kitchen table has an open loaf of multigrain bread and one of those dishes of open butter with the lid on it. The two trash bags by the door are filled with nothing but purple bagged Doritos and orange flavored protein gelatin. Outside the front door is a raging fire of garbage and dross. Growing out the window above the kitchen sink, and subsequently down the siding onto the porch, is the vine of one of Seb’s flytrap plants. It has not taken well to the lack of flies, so it seems to be seeking food outside. On the couch is an open DVD case for one of the various Jillian Michaels exercise videos - the disk isn’t in it. Also on the couch is one of those TV remotes with massive buttons on it that could be read across the room. For someone with incredibly vast eyes, Seb has a hard time focusing his vision to read. On the wall to the right of the front door, above the two trash bags, is a piece of cardboard taped to the wall that functions as a corkboard. It - the “corkboard” - features a sticky note shaped like pizza that has something illegible - perhaps even unintelligible - scribbled on it, with what looks like a phone number underneath. Slightly to the right of the pizza sticky note is a large section of pinned up newspaper snippets also featuring job listings. The entire place has the poignant smell of bleach and the kind of flowery room-spray that merely melds together with whatever smell preceded it. It sort of smells like an unused coffin.

Seb is outside, tending the fire. Standing there with bulging glazed eyes - looking more through the fire than at it - is what he is actually doing, noticing the glint off of his address on the porch support. The flames light up his front in a very cinematic way, as he stands motionlessly gazing through the orange-Green flames. Green flames only ever mean you’re burning things you shouldn’t be. The trash pile reaches to about Seb’s waist, perhaps his solar plexus, and the flames reach much higher. Every now and then something makes a sort of sad pop sound and goes skittering off to the side - Seb never even flinches. Most noticeable in the roaring blaze is the stack of five boxes; the boxes having all burned away, revealing dozens and dozens of 2012 DVD’s, melting away into the ash. They are potentially the source of most of the pops, though he - Seb - isn’t even sure what all’s in there, honestly. It’s 100% all things you shouldn’t burn though, and he knows that. After his deep dive into conspiracy theories - some of which he still clings to - he’s become convinced the ozone and the earth will be just fine. In Seb’s left hand is a laptop, which he promptly lobs casually into the flames. The place he picked for the fire wasn’t given much thought, as it’s directly out his front door about 15ft, hence being able to read the reflective 2342 on the porch. Seb feels like a new man, and yet he feels hollow inside. After December ended and January began, Seb suffered extreme anxiety about why the end of the world was late. Come mid January, he had started to wrestle with having been wrong about everything, but he couldn’t accept it. He plunged into an even darker place and plumbed the very depths of the World Wide Web in search for the answer, finding only more conspiracies and falsities. After completely removing himself from society for 3 months and only ordering things to his house, he had reached the bottom of his very craggy descent.

Enter June - the month that is. He decided he would never again be fooled by “nut jobs on the internet” and so he decided to make a conflagration, both symbolic and cathartic, of all his darkest moments. He felt like a new man, and yet he felt empty. He had several job interviews lined up and had amply prepared for his reintegration into society. His first job interview is tomorrow at Noon with a restaurant called Forkable Food, where he would work overnight cleaning the kitchen and dining area. Wednesday he has an interview with a place called Two Morrow’s Investing for a janitorial position and Thursday he has an interview with a place called Spooky Nook where he would also be functioning in a janitorial capacity. Seb’s questionable sanity was held in check by the thin thread of hope that he could reintegrate into the working class - get a job that is. Return to being a full-fledged tax paying citizen. Losing his job at Phil-Tech was a devastating blow, and he worried he wouldn’t be able to find a job ever again, or least not one as nice. They gave him all those nice sticky notes with tasks on them, and eight dollars an hour after all. The only job that ever made him happier was being a shoe shiner, except that he never had customers. It was more the idea that enticed him, really.

06:??h, 4th of July, in the Year of Our Lord 2013, in the Van of a New Man

After an extensive and nearly exhaustive in-person interview, Seb was finally hired at Two Morrows Investing. Mr. Terry was sort of like a hard boiled egg. Seb imagined if he - Mr. Terry - cracked open, it would reveal a buttery biscuit floating in syrup. He - Seb - really felt like a new man now that he had a job again, he was back to his old contemplative and poetic self, more or less. Just this morning, prior to his embarking, he’d written what he felt was his best acrostic poem yet. Seb was halfway on his 40 minute commute - 50 minutes with his pacing - to work. He looks out the passenger side window and sees a large 10ft-by-6ft hand painted sign that reads “God hates your witchcraft” in aggressive all-caps. He’s worked there not-quite-a-month, and he is enjoying it immensely, though it took some adjusting to working a 7am-5pm job, since he’s always been a night shift person. Mr. Terry was constantly sending him home early though since there really wasn’t that much to do, except sort of wait on Mr. Terry. Seb has no idea what witchcraft is implied by the sign, but he thinks he probably agrees.

Being at work on a typical schedule meant that he had to interact with “Mr. Terry’‘ on a very regular basis, something he was entirely unprepared for. Plus, his recent life was conducted entirely online and in niche forums where social interaction was easy because it was tied to a specific topic that everyone had in common; none of that existed here. He didn’t mind working every holiday or even the lower pay of the job, he was really just happy to be here, as he told Mr. Terry every time. The office was so warm it made the tips of his ears red, and dried out his bulging eyes. Mr. Terry had the impression that Seb was perpetually crying because of how thankful he was to have the job - the charm of this idea wore off very quickly. Seb found himself floundering and never knowing what to say around Mr. Terry. The little boy that sat on\under the desk was the most unnerving person Seb had ever seen, personally. It was like a horror rendition of JFK jr. under the Resolute. He really does like receiving his paychecks in the funny little envelopes that have the window in them, because at PhilTech it was all direct deposit and that had confused him a little. He put himself in the position of the envelope during a drive home and wrote this short poem:

Tiny windows with letters inside;

little envelopes sent worldwide.

Seb was still driving the archaic old ruin that he called his van, and since it sat in the yard while he spiraled toward rock-bottom, it took on a sort of mottled look with patches of rust and darker streaks of dirt. Since working at Two Morrows and closely encountering his own social ineptitude, Seb had begun to believe the internet as a whole was bad, so he cut it out of his life almost entirely - and he never felt better. Now on his left was a small restaurant that marked the beginning of a dead-zone, cell service-wise, and so his audiobook briefly paused. He had about 10 minutes until the dead-zone would end and The Divine Comedy would start playing again. His mind began to wander freely as he contemplated the complexities of life.

The thought suddenly hit Seb, in the way of many bricks: He suddenly thought about how well his teeth fit together. And what if they didn’t, how uncomfortable that would be. Or maybe they don’t really fit together in an optimal sort of way, perhaps he’s just used to the way they like -sit- together. And if they were in optimal-type fitting positions, not gradually but like in an immediate sort of way, perhaps he would feel so comfortable - just like, elated - that it would be beyond description. A transcendent experience maybe. Maybe. Oh. oh. Now he can’t not think about his teeth and how they sit and his tongue and how it rests. But as he drove mindlessly toward his place of work, he passed a car with a unique color he was unable to describe but he knew exactly what color it was.

When he was in his dark times, getting tangled in the Web and slowly becoming more and more of a recluse, he recalls one particular day where he was wandering through the maze of boxes in his house - some filled with 2012 DVD’s others with protein gelatin - when he had tripped on a discarded bit of red string from his conspiracy theory linkage board, like in the movies, and so he fell into a huge mess of the cardboard boxes and trash, and because of this he’d ruined his carved out pathways in the cardboard forest and gotten lost in his own little labyrinth, so he was forced to actually crawl over boxes - all of his paths now being DVD-strewn and consumable-littered - to find his way back to the tiny corner that was at least slightly cleaner, where his laptop was sitting plugged in and running and his large flattened cardboard box was tapped up to the wall, displaying his ever-growing conspiracy linkage, and so but he couldn’t see the pale blue-ish light of conspiracy corner because it was day time and the discarded red string he had tripped on was somehow caught on his darkening curtains curtain rod, brining all of them down off the one window and consequently illuminating the living space he typically preferred to have dark in blinding white flash of sudden solar exposure, and so he was crawling near-blind through disgusting trash and food he never really even knew was there because of the darkness-situation, and as he crawled hand over foot or whatever the saying is, he came across half of this mustard and mayonnaise sandwich he had made god only knows how long ago, sitting on a Dixie brand paper-type plate with a flower bordered outside, and the sandwich, it had molded so thoroughly that the still extant half could’ve easily been mistaken for like a bar of Irish Spring soap, and that weird faint green-blue sandwich had sort of ~appeared~ right at nose level as he crawled and he basically locked eyes with it on a level playing field and the smell about knocked him on his ass and that weird Irish Spring sandwich mold was the exact color of the car he had just passed.

07:??h, 4th of July, in the Year of Our Lord 2013, in the Life of an O’Neil

At about the speed moss grows, Seb turns his lumbering grey-white-rust colored van to the right at the intersection. He is going an incalculable 15 MPH as he turns, probably wouldn’t even register on a speed gun. The horse and buggies move quicker. There was one occasion where Seb was actually passed by an uppity young Amish man, who was probably courting someone and attempted an impressive maneuver, as men sometimes do. As he makes his creeping right turn, an undercover cop - one of those personal vehicles with lights slapped on the dashboard, and bulky mirrors added to the sides, and a conspicuous antennae to the hood - one of those kinds of cops pulls behind him from the gas station that was on the corner.

The police officer follows Seb for approximately one minute before engaging the aforementioned slap-dash-lights and signaling Seb to pull off the road, the cop’s car taking the mid-road position to close the kill zone. As soon as the red and blue LED’s engage, Seb begins to sweat; not because he hates being pulled over, but because he is already cutting it close in terms of arrival time and tardiness. Mr. Terry made it perfectly translucent that he held a tolerance level of zilch in terms of lateness and call-offs. Seb is visually reddening and glistening with the first signs of an anxious sweat, so he lunges for the glove box in order to preemptively get out his information for the kind officer who is still very much sitting in his car.

The still seated officer, who for all appearances seems to be taking his sweet time, very clearly and completely witnesses this sudden expenditure of energy in reaching for the glovebox; a sight which doesn’t comfort him much with how he feels this encounter will play out. Seb is actually forming beads of sweat down his back now, not to speak of his forehead. The cop emerges from his car in a take-me-to-your-leader type of way. Seb checks his side mirror and widens his already wide eyes and maybe also shrieks a little. The officer is immense - truly a sight to behold - quite probably over seven feet tall. The “objects in mirror” trickery makes it much worse, giving the effect of an encroaching giant that might just as easily crush Seb inside the van as ask for his license. Seb has been compulsively checking his Casio calculator-watch (worn on the inner wrist in the military style of WWI). This constant time-piece consultation also doesn’t bode well for the Goliath officer, so as he emerges from the car, so too does his gun emerge from its holster.

Sweating and anxious about all the wrong things, Seb holds his drivers license and registration against the steering wheel, with both hands at a trim ten and two. The officer who had fully drawn a bead on Seb’s head slowly shuffled toward the car, but - breaking protocol - doesn’t yell for Seb to do anything in particular with his upper extremities. And so he reaches Seb’s already fully rolled down (crank) window and Seb turns to give a reassuring smile to the officer in hopes of speeding this interaction right along, but is presently looking down the gaping black hole of a state issued police firearm. Seb’s worried eyes impossibly widen just a hair more and this sight frightens the officer. The two stand and sit in this condition for probably 15 painful seconds before the also wide-eyed officer gruffly requests the expected documents, gun still trained carefully at Seb but now slightly lowered. At this point Seb - more resembling a black moor goldfish than a human - extends the wrinkled documents that he had gripped in his crippling, vice-like, claws.

The documents are carefully and unconsciously forked over to the looming shadow of the officer. The gun slowly makes its way back into the very visible holster, which sits attached to the officer’s hip, next to a menacing coil of something cord-like. The officer glances down at the documents and promptly points out in a deep rumble that the registration is out of date. Seb had completely forgotten that his van had sat in the yard for a while and was past renewing the registration and probably inspection too. Seb feels a flash of terror wash over him in warm flushing tones, but not because his registration is out of date. Rather, because of his realization that he has five minutes to get to work and has 15 minutes left in his commute. The officer hands him back the documents and says a bunch of deep, authoritative, and threatening commands that do not at all register in Seb’s mind. As soon as the officer is squeezed back into his undercover truck, Seb turns his signal on and pulls out onto the road with the chirping squeal of an overly ambitious acceleration.

Seb speeds the rest of the way to work and arrives at Two Morrows Investing 7 minutes late, despite his efforts. As Seb explodes out of the car as if shot from a gun, he sees a note taped to the front door of Mr. Terry’s Office. Seb had not forgotten that it was the Fourth of July, and figured it was merely the notice for customers that he was closed today. He was not wrong, but also he was wrong. At the top of the sheet of paper read the words “CLOSED FOR 4TH”. As Seb read the sign, he tried the door to find it locked. He cupped his huge eyes and peered into the office window, nose making complete contact with the glass and leaving a large smear of grease. Inside sat Mr. Terry, napping in his chair.

Upon hearing the door tried, Mr. Terry wakes up, sees Seb at the window, and begins to make his way to the door. Seb felt relief spread through his body slowly, realizing the routine that had quickly become so familiar, that he had come to rely on, was about to begin again. Mr. Terry oozes up to the door and smiles congenially toward Seb, then points toward the conspicuous note taped to the door. At the bottom of the note that read “CLOSED FOR 4TH” was a tiny addendum that read “SEB: NO LONGER NEED YOUR SERVICES THANK YOU”. Seb blinks numerous times in succession one after the other in a row. Mr. Terry slides a paycheck sized envelope under the door, gives a single hand wave, then turns on his heel to once again nap in his large warm chair.

Mr. Terry had actually only hired Seb to clean the building in a sort of once and done fashion, as it had never once been done before. Once Seb had finished the systematic deep clean, he kept him on a little longer as he was useful for small, menial-type work. The incessant crying alone would’ve been enough to get Seb fired but the tears were falling from a face that resembled a praying mantis, and that really didn’t sit well with Mr. Terry at all. Seb is still standing with his hand on the door handle, ready to open it and enter his place of work. It slowly begins to click that he no longer has a job, no longer has a job… doesn’t have… a job… That’s when he breaks down crying. He has actually broken down and collapsed against the door, and is projectile crying in a way only describable as cartoon.

00:00h, December, in the Year of Our Lord 2013, in the Playground of a 24 Hour McDonalds

“Shit. Shitshitshitshit.” It was less an exclamation and more a conclusion, as Seb’s hand had planted firmly into a dirty diaper in the corner of the dark tunnel he was crawling through. He could hardly see since it was dark and he was gazing out of a pair of purloined swimming goggles he lifted from a dollar store. He flung the diaper behind him and wiped his hand off on his pants, then continued crawling through the first of many child-sized tunnels. As he emerges from the first tube like a bug-eyed hamster, he is met with the next obstacle: a series of horizontal padded cylinders he’s got to crawl under, over, and between (lord willing). After the horizontal cylinders, there were laterally hung cylinders that swung like punching bags. This whole section of the play land was effectively a car wash for children, but instead of getting clean, you got the rotavirus. Seb squeezes between two of the horizontal padded cylinders and becomes lodged at the waist due to having on three pairs of pants and a Texas sized belt buckle. His hands scrape the sticky playmat material, desperate for purchase, but getting firstfuls of grime instead.

Seb was probably the only homeless person who in fact owned a home, he just couldn’t get back to it and didn’t really want to. His hideous van was finally put out of its misery when he neglected to return to it for a week, having been impounded and promptly smooshed by the giant car juicer. He had quickly adapted to the life of a homeless person, case and point being the three pairs of pants. Realizing the rigmarole he was in, he began taking pants off while squeezed in the playland obstacle like a jammed laminator. Removing the pants led to the reaffirmation of the poopy diaper smell, now fully perpetrating the playland. Having successfully removed all pants, Seb slid through like sausage. Plopping out the other side, he reapplied each layer of pantaloons. Assuming the crawling position, he started navigating the lateral punching bags. He had seriously underestimated the weight of the obstacles and found this to be more of a workout then he bargained for.

Aside from the many pants, he’s wearing a burnt-pink sweater from what looks like a college rowing team, indefinitely borrowed from the plastic body of a window mannequin. Concealed underneath the pink-red sweater are several more sweaters, a t-shirt, an undershirt, and a fake shark tooth necklace with a safety deposit box key on it (the key’s not his). He looks like a soft shell crab, recently molted in other words. Concealed in the dozens of pockets he has are several kinds of sauces, some pre-wrapped utensils, five chapsticks, six mini blistex, and a million napkins. He’s wearing three pairs of socks on one foot, and two on the other. He smells like cat piss and spoon cooked black tar.

Being homeless, Seb wasn’t eating well, so it is much more likely that he had arms as strong as well-cooked pasta. He never ate very well when he had a job and a home, so to lose both of those comforts meant that he ate horribly; either dollar menu items or literal garbage. He rarely came into money because when he sat with a sign on the curbs, people would avoid him like the plague. This was probably more so due to his intense eye-contact: few people can hold the gaze of Seb “Bugsy” O’Neil. So he was often dining on garbage, with a dash of trash. Restaurants were so wasteful - especially buffet’s - that eating out of the garbage was hardly different than taking it out of the chafers, if you knew where to eat.

The next section of playland was a sort of tower that required you to move up to the next level by climbing up through holes, or half floors, until at the top where the next tunnel led you over to a slide. This appeared easy enough but Seb was met with the same problem as the car wash section; he was simply too adult sized. After getting stuck a second time in a circular opening the size of a steering wheel, he swore off any more drop offs of this nature. The drugs were in an envelope that the McDonalds employee had stuck in the fencing near the ball pit. Trouble was that when Seb went to grab them, he accidentally pushed them through into the ball pit, which was the end of the playland run with no way in but the slide.

Rock bottom, as it turns out, is a mobile thing; capable of relocating to a yet lower position at any given moment. It’s really more like numerous cliff ledges that one hit’s on their perpetual descent. Seb has realized that just when he feels he couldn’t possibly get any lower, he proceeds to get in fact much lower. After losing his job with Mr. Terry, he stayed slumped up against the building for 3 hours without moving. He was eventually picked up (literally) by the police who had been called by Mr. Terry, and deposited into a tiny overnight cell in the station. During the duration of his stay, he never uttered a word; it was as if he wasn’t actually present: no one home but all the lights were left on, type deal. He was guided through the motions of leaving the cell the next morning, and dumped outside noiselessly. He walked down the street mindlessly, with no clear goal in mind, until his feet began to hurt.

Eventually he tripped over an incredibly long receipt and fell face first onto the ground, making no effort to catch himself. He laid there for a long time until he was once again picked up (literally) by the authorities and dropped into a cell for what was effectively an adult time-out. This sort of mindless existence persisted for a few days before he was eventually taken to a local hospital instead of a cell, where they did their best to care for him. Through an accidental bag swap however, Seb was given an IV of Dilaudid instead of fluids. He was then quickly discharged as the nurses saw him perk right up and start speaking. From this moment on, Seb’s life steadily declined from rock bottom to rock bottom; exhibit A being the playland debacle.

The tunnel to the slide stank like baby farts and chicken nuggets, and there was toddler vomit on the siding. Seb made it through and prepared for his first time down a slide in well over 40 years. It wasn’t nearly as fun as he remembers. He pushed off and didn’t budge an inch, so he skidded down on his ass like a cat wiping itself on carpet. On his way down, he passed through at least two smears of dipping sauces. He would much rather smell barbecue than anything else the playland had to offer. Finally in the ball pit, Seb began feeling around the mysterious depths for the envelope. He felt like he was suffocating in a bathtub of tapioca pudding.

After he had been discharged from the hospital, he came down off the Dilaudid but it was too late, he was hooked. Before long, Seb had made the seedy relationships necessary to acquire illegal substances, all in attempts to get back that weightless blissful feeling. His current plug used the playland as a drop zone for everybody, but Seb was thinking something along the lines of never again. As his illegal intake steadily increased and his weight steadily dropped, Seb’s freakishly bulging eyes began to itch and dry out and look more like red beet eggs. That’s why he wore the swimming goggles; he filled them with contact solution (also stolen) and that helped his eyes immensely. For anyone with ordinary eyes, looking at the world through water filled goggles would be a milky blur, but with Seb’s eyes it worked and he could see just fine (“just fine” being a subjective standard here).

As he futzes around the ball pit, he can feel every saccade of his eyes, swishing around in the contact solution. His eyes are still incredibly red, but through the blue-tinted goggles, they just look dark. His hand happens upon something that feels like it could be the envelope, but as the object comes into view he realizes it’s a medium fry carton. He begins grumbling to himself as he tosses the red carton aside. Crawling and feeling his was through the ball pit, he locates two more fry cartons, a Monsters Inc. toy, and another dirty diaper (thankfully, only pissed in). His head is barely above surface level in the cesspool of plastic balls. With the goggles, he makes quite a sight. Finally, as he is about to give up the search for fear of encountering another soiled Pamper, he locates the envelope. As it would happen however, it wasn’t fully sealed and all the contents have ended up on the bottom of the ball pit. The newest rock bottom Seb finds himself on is ingesting the single ball pit pill he was able to locate, blowing it off desperately before popping it into his mouth.

??:??h, In the Year of Our Lord 2018, At the World’s Most Conspicuously Busy Shoe Shine Shop

The small shop on 105 North Town Road was exponentially busier than any other on the street, as it always was. It would seem, incredibly, that everyone in Lancaster needed their shoes shined. Seb was more than happy, just elated actually, to shine every single pair himself. He had no employees, so he kind of had to. The line at the door is annoyingly long, but customers hardly complain, since Seb shines every pair himself and does an absolutely bang-up job. He imagines this is how celebrities feel, with people lining up to see them and interact in minimal and superficial ways. Except that Seb is popular partially because he ain’t superficial, he’s real - he’s genuine - and the customers love talking to him and being around him. Each customer is getting their own personal session with Seb and the bonus is having refulgent shoes that could crash a plane.

“Ah Seb, Seb, Seb - what would I do without ya. Look at these black leather babies, Seb - look how they shine!”

“Oh I’m just happy to help, just out here doing what I enjoy, ya know? Chewin the fat with the public, ya know?”

“Chew a lotta fat do ya? Ha ha but seriously, Seb - don’t you go nowhere, hear? I dunno what I’d do without ya, see?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Vince - wouldn’t dream of it.”

Vince was the kind of man that appeared abrasive on the first interaction, but if you could win him over he was the nicest man you’d meet. As Seb was finishing Vince’s shoes and shaking his hand, Vince handed him an expensive watch.

“Listen, I wantcha to have this - for everything you done. You been there for me, Seb, and I don’t forget my friends.”

“You really didn’t have to - but thank you.”

“Don’t you go nowhere - I mean it. These people need you here, Seb - You’re the only thing holding this city together, see?”

“Well I don’t know about that, but thank you again, Vince - means a lot.”

An extremely attractive woman is next in line - just exactly the type that Seb always imagined he’d settle down with - and she’s holding a sharp looking pair of brown dress shoes. Seb feels slightly nervous about serving such a beautiful customer, but he of course refocuses and goes to work on the shoes while conversing with the lovely lady. Turns out, not only is she exactly Seb’s type, but her personality is witty, smart, and sweet. Seb can’t help but think of poetry to describe her. He finds himself staring by the end of the shoe shining and is jolted out of it as she picks up the shoes.

“I have never - I’m serious, never - had my shoes shined before: not by me, not by anyone. And I feel - honest to God, I do - I feel as though I am now alive. As if I actually hadn’t lived until I had my shoes shined. But in all seriousness, talking with you has made my day. I wasn’t feeling very joyful lately, but you’ve made me smile. You have brought me out of death, Seb - truly. I thank God for you.”

“Oh come now, Miss, don’t mention it. I do what I feel I was made to do. It’s my passion, ya know? I just love people and love shining shoes: and I thank the Lord it’s come together for me to do both things at once.”

“My name’s Beatrice by the way, but my friends call me B. ”

“Well then, if I have your permission Miss, I’ll call you B. My friends have called me a lot of things, but Seb will do just fine.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow? - are you open tomorrow?”

“Well I think your shoes will be just fine for at least a few days, Miss B, but I am in fact open everyday - except Sundays.”

“Well maybe I’ll bring my father’s shoes by; he’s a Navy veteren and would love to see his old uniform shoes shine again - you’ll make both our days.”

“I’d be happy to - I’ll see you tomorrow then, Miss B, looking forward to it.”

As she walks away, Seb’s heart begins to beat again and he breathes for the first time in 15 minutes. He thinks maybe he’s in love. As she walks away, he thinks ahead to tomorrow and seeing her again and he smiles. Now the next fella in line looks gruff - a sort of bouncer look to him - and has his log-sized arms crossed in front of him. Seb nods his way, assuming the man wants a simple shine to the shoes he has on, and goes to work. After about 10 minutes, the sheen is unearthly - perhaps even Holy - and the man speaks for the first time.

“Now I’m not a talker.”

“Sure.”

“But what you done here - this is fine work, O’Neil. Fine work.”

“I thank you, sir.”

That was the end of the conversation, but it felt more gratifying than a lot of the other compliments he’s received. As Seb was swelling with pride in his work, he turned to the next customer, who happened to be Johnny Cash. He didn’t say much, but he was undoubtedly pleased with his shoes. Seb had done famous people’s shoes before, but Johnny Cash was a whole new level of fame. As he waved off the Man in Black, he turned to see a grinning and slimy looking man wearing very bland and cloudy toed shoes. The man was physically dripping with green ooze and appeared to slide over to Seb in the fashion of a slug. As Seb began shining his dripping shoes, the man started talking about Seb’s business - about stuff like advertising and magazines.

“Not important - listen, people talk Seb, and this place is the talk. The talk of the town. Everyone in Lancaster knows about Monet’s. You need to capitalize on this momentum: market, advertise, sales, discounts, investments! You’ve got something special going on here, Seb.”

“Well, I’ve never been in it for the money. It’s not about that. It’s about people, ya know? Just being there for them. Shining shoes? That’s sort of a side job - one I’m passionate about, don’t get me wrong - but not my priority. It’s not about the money for me.”

“Right, well, they all say that at first Sebby - but wait till you see the potential. You’ll want to cash in like all the rest. I mean look at these kicks! They’re shining at 300 watts!”

“I thank you sir, I’m glad you appreciate the work I do. But really, I don’t need any advertising or marketing - thank you.”

“Here’s my card. You keep that, and if you change your mind - you call me before anyone else. You’ll get offers from other scummy lowlifes wanting to cash in on you - not me. I want to help you succeed.”

“Alright, thank you. I’ll keep this.”

“You take care now.”

The man morphed into a slug and began to float off in a westernly direction. Seb turned around and found a regular customer of his eagerly awaiting him. She was usually very chipper and always a joy to talk to, but something seemed to be bothering her today. While the shoes become shinier and shinier, Sam talks and cries and dumps, while Seb patiently listens.

“I just don’t know what to do, Seb. He’s never spoken to me like this before? I just don’t know how much more I can take… I’m worried our marriage is falling apart.”

“Listen, Sam, it’s not you. I bet he beats himself up afterward thinking - no knowing - he should apologize, but he’s too prideful. Give him some space, maybe it’s just something with work. He’ll come around.”

“You think so? You don’t think it’s something I did?

“Absolutely not, I know it’s not you. How long have you been coming to my shop?”

“Oh I dunno… maybe 3 or 4 years now, I suppose.”

“So I know you, and I know Greg - he’s not an angry man and he’s always treated you good - it’s probably something else; something with work.”

“I guess you’re right… Goodness, Seb, I don’t know what I did before your shop. You’re so helpful and kind - and just look at these shoes! This ought to be enough to bring Greg out of his funk.”

“I’m always here if you need me.”

Another happy customer. As Seb turns to help the next customer, he sees it is his dead mother - who should still be actively decomposing in a cemetery somewhere - and he is absolutely overjoyed to see her.

“Ma? What’re you doing here - you’re dead.”

“That’s right Seb, but this is important.”

“What’s important, Ma?”

“I wanted to tell you that I’m proud of you - so very proud.”

The two of them hug and begin crying, and as Seb pulls her out of the hug, they are standing in his old house where he grew up. She smiles at him and tells him how she’s heard about this little business of his and how well he’s doing, so she’d felt she needed to tell him that she’s proud. She didn’t have much time to tell him growing up because she had to work three jobs to provide for them, but Seb doesn’t hold it against her at all. She tells him she’s proud and that she has to go, and walks away. Seb turns to find himself back in the shop and his next customer is awaiting him with a smile. It’s B, and she gives him the most radiant smile he’s ever seen - it’s so beautiful it makes him feel warm all over. As the feeling floods over him, he wakes up from his first ever Somnium trip to find himself next to a dumpster in a back alley and his pants thoroughly pissed.

0026h, In the Year of Our Lord 2018, Seb Scrounging Around Lancaster City

After his first hit of Somnium, Seb was hooked. Addiction did not look pretty on anyone, but a skinny old man that resembled a bug when sober was an especially frightening sight. Somnium wasn’t expensive, but it was hard to find plugs that had it because it was always “out of stock”. Seb is currently huddled around a stereotypical barrel fire, in a back alley mostly populated with the dregs of society (along with most of society’s litter). Seb had been asking around (and also yelling slurred inanities) to see if anyone had any remy, but he was coming up dry (his drug search anyway - his lower lip was well wetted with spittle and definitely not dry). Seb consumed whatever illicit materials he could get his grubby hands on, which currently is alcohol (hence such slurred inanities as “zleep on my pheet!” being yelled way too often).

He had heard from an old man wearing mostly different bags (sleeping bag, trash bag, grocery bag, etc) that someone else over in Ephrata had heard of a guy who knew how to get some stuff from some other guy who was somewhere here in Lancaster. It was all very murky, but any chance Seb saw to get more remy, he jumped at it. He had taken to calling it remy since that was how most of the people referred to it (the name stemming from R.E.M. sleep). Standing around the barrel fire with him was the man wearing bags (real name, John Hampton or something), a woman cradling a bundle of god-knows-what like a baby, a man that resembled Bigfoot, and a kid wearing mostly camoflauge who (judging by facial expression) had seen a ghost.

The man who resembled Bigfoot and the man wearing bags (who smelled fiercely of urine) were in the middle of a strange conversation about what it meant to be inside - like indoors - while Seb listened and occasionally interjected dunken nonsense.

“But can you really be considered inside a pavilion, like a park one with picnic tables?”

“Well, no I guess not - that’s under.”

“Exactly. So then is it walls that make it inside?”

“Uh yeah, I guess so?”

“Ahh - but what about a porta-potty? That has four walls and a roof, but it doesn’t feel like being inside - like when you say ‘I’m going inside’”

“Uh.”

“So then maybe it’s the permanence of the structure, hm? Maybe it can’t be portable?”

“Sure, maybe - I don’t know.”

“But what about mobile homes and campers then? They’re portable but they feel like being inside.”

“Why are we talking about this.”

“Myecanevenknowwit”

“So what is it that makes being inside feel like being inside, hmm? Is it the furniture? Is it the use of the space? Is it size?”

“I don’t really care honestly.”

“Mayname iz geril bowun en eye no cunfoo. Hay, Yewhgahmore uh more uh…. mremry?”

“What’s he saying?”

“I don’t know, he’s pretty drunk.”

“Listen fella, if you’re looking for more sleep pills - try the tunnel near the train station.”

“Tumnnel?”

“Uh yeah. So anyway, what about outside, hm? Another hard to define idea. What is outside?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Tumnells... where?”

“Do you like God?”

“What?”

“Do you believe in God? I’m in seminary school and we’re studying stigmata and I’m pretty sure I have them.”

“I’m tired. Maybe we can not talk at all for a while.”

“Oh come on, we can have edifying conversations here - we’re all people. Just because we’re homeless doesn’t mean we don’t have complex thought! We’re still people dammit!”

“Can you shut the fuck up, jesus. I’m just tired.”

As the conversation fizzles out, all participating parties (and the non-participatory) are left huddled around a barrel, gazing down into the orange-yellow flames in silence. The fire makes Seb’s massive begoggled eyes shine like god’s own wrath. All the layers he’s wearing make him look like a buoy, or a Weeble Wobble. The flames keep licking up the sides of the barrel, like they’re trying to get out. Seb begins swatting at nothing in what looks like mock slow motion. Something smells terrible. The woman begins cooing and babbling to the unidentifiable bundle. Seb takes a big swipe at the nonexistent shapes he’s seeing, and ends up falling straight backwards off the milk crate he’s sitting on and hits his head, passing out on impact.

The man wearing bags checks a few of Seb’s pockets and finds nothing worth bothering with (quite a lot of napkins, sauces, and some ancient looking blistex though). As he’s checking the pockets, someone sneezes loudly and scares him off. When Seb comes to, it’s light out and his head feels like maybe someone used it to chop wood. Groggily, he reaches for the nearest thing to pull himself up, which happens to be the barrel the fire was in. Several sounds proceed as Seb makes contact with the barrel: There’s an audible hiss as his finger grabs the lip of the barrel (the fire wasn’t out more than 20 minutes, so the bottom of the barrel was filled with glowing hot coals), and a howl, and then a rather forceful “fuck me!” through barred teeth (you could hear the spit flying). The man wearing bags (he came back at some point post-sneeze after getting so cold his feet felt like hooves) starts laughing at Seb in a deep guttural laugh that sounds like a lawn mower starting (he starts coughing violently too which adds a whole gargling aspect that was not nice). The kid who looks haunted might be crying, or choking. Nobody seems to care regardless.

As all of this is occurring, a prim young girl is squeamishly walking up to the area. She sticks out like a nice rural girl in a back alley homeless squat - which is exactly what and where she is - so nearly all eyes are on her. She’s got a small backpack on that looks handmade, and has a two-handed grip on several pamphlets or tracts. While she approaches the group of six or seven people, she says some type of rosy greeting nobody acknowledges, and then starts into some spiel about her church. Seb seems to be the only person vaguely attending to the girl. After she gets to the part where there’s a sort ask of interest, nobody says anything. At this point the girl gets mildly angry with the group, and Seb gets mildly angry with the girl.

“You can’t just live in sin all your lives! God loves you and he wants what’s best for you - He wants to forgive you - you just have to turn to Him.”

“What do you know about life?”

“Just because I’m young doesn’t mean my opinions are invalid.”

“I followed God like a good Christian all my life, and I still ended up here - is this what God’s plan is? Is this where he wants me?”

“No! God wants what’s best for you, which is not a life of sin - he didn’t put you here, you put yourself here.”

“Ohoho - so it’s all our fault that we’re where we are even though God is in control of everything?”

“Well no - I mean yes, but it’s complicated.”

“What’s best for me is to be a millionaire, but God didn’t give me that - what gives?”

“Well he wants what’s best for you but it’s also what’s best for his plan and sometimes tha-“

“So gods selfish then? It’s all about his plan, he doesn’t care about me?”

“No! No no, he loves you and wan-“

“Listen little girl, you don’t understand, alright? None of us are interested in whatever you’re selling here.”

“Well… I… I’ll just leave these here with you in case you change your mind. Can I at least pray for you?”

“What you don’t have money or clothes or anything for us? Just a prayer?”

“Okay, I’ll just be going…”

“Yeah, probably best.”

Seb stuffs the garden-variety stack of condescending and shallow tracts (all laminated to an absolute sheen) into his puffy coat pocket. Upon inserting his hand into the pocket however, he finds a somnium packet he didn’t account for (they’re fairly small). All of the other alley occupants have maintained a countenance of complete “don’t give a shit”. Seb slinks back to a corner of the alley next to a dumpster with a tarp pinned up to it, and slumps into a pile of newspapers. He pops open the Listerine Strip-esq packet and slides the strip under his tongue, quickly drifting off to sleep. Ever since he started using somnium, his dreams without using had been the same (and really weird too). He has the sensation of swirling around, like someone stirred a bowl of water he was in, and then he realizes he’s floating with hundreds of other bodies - all screaming and wailing and frightfully nude - and then eventually he slams into a familiar looking lady as he’s swirling, but he can never remember who it is. Needless to say, this awful recurring dream has made somnium much more appealing.

The way somnium works is a slow dissolving strip that sits under the tongue. It sends you into a deep sleep that lasts not quite, but almost exactly seven hours, and regulates your dreams as it dissolves with a steady dose of serotonin, dopamine, DMT, and god knows what else. Due to the nature of a dream-state, these seven hours compound and amount to what feels like weeks in the dream. This is part of the addictive aspect of somnium, as a single hit seems to last so long it’s harder to leave the dream behind. Seb has become completely enamored with the life of the dream (more specifically a certain someone he met in his initial dream), and upon finding this extra somnium packet, he just about swallows his tongue with excitement.

In the shoe shop Seb successfully started, a handsome, non-bugeyed Seb closes up after another wildly successful night. A faint knock can be heard at the window as he polishes a countertop to an almost refulgent quality. Glancing up, he sees Beatrice - the literal girl of his dreams - as she smiles and waves, beckoning him toward himself. A smile spreads across his ruggedly handsome face the closer he gets to the door. Unlocking it and greeting her, she enters the shop to ask if he would maybe want to grab a coffee - er no, it’s way too late for that - maybe some food or ice cream? Seb kindly smiles through her stutters and says he’d love to, just let him finish closing out the register and then they can grab some churros from a little food truck he knows is open late.

For the past 2 years or so Seb has been living the unenviable life of a drug addicted homeless man which is why he looks like a Torbalan. He spent almost 3 years in jail after being found with a gun (not his) and already having a felony on his record (was his). He’s still not sure where the gun came from - he was shot out on heroin and then did some meth (the odd guy that was setting up his rig called it a speedball, which sounded fun), then next thing he remembers he woke up (not sober, mind you - just conscious) with a gun in his lap in an abandon-looking trap house surrounded by cops. When they went to arrest him he apparently was reciting an old Italian poem in a bad cockney British accent.

0900, In the Year of Our Lord 2018, Re-Employed: Making A Drop

The tunnel is lit by the distinct perpetual jiggle of a 35mph headlight. The motorcycle is populated by a strange insect sitting in the sidecar (which looks more like a rolled up frying pan - the sidecar does), and glued to the captain’s seat is a hulking block of marble, chiseled to the unforgiving form of an ancient Neanderthal. The sound is so unbearably loud that the Muscle is actually wearing the conspicuous, grey, noise-cancelling headphones that you usually see elderly men wear to weed whack the yard. Bugsy has his swimming goggles strapped on the side of his oddly-shaped head, to cover the ear that is closest to the engine. It doesn’t make a difference.

The Bug was supposed to drive but the Muscle said he was driving this time, and after a few minutes in the tin can of a sidecar, Seb could see why he hates it so much. One of his hands is pressing the goggle lens over his ear to the point of not only giving him a headache, but numbing his jowel too. The other hand has a finger buried so deep into his ear that he’s got earwax on the second knuckle. His vision might be flickering, though it could be the headlights. With the size of his eyes and the depth of his finger, it’s possible he’s touching his optic nerve. It’s making him gag, how deep his finger is. With the friendly addition of an occasional bump in the tunnel, Bugsy is beginning to think maybe this wasn’t an excellent decision.

The Muscle navigates the motorcycle-sidecar combo through the damp tunnel at relatively high speeds, arriving at their destination after a bit less than an hour. The commute felt more akin to a purgatorial eternity to Bugsy. Their destination was a few miles away from where the tunnel actually terminated (concluding with a rather menacing mouth of jagged fencing, concrete medians and traffic cones). The unbearable roar of the engine in the tunnel dulled to a light auditory assault once they exited. There weren’t many heads to turn once they got out to the street, but the heads that were out whirled around like whiplash, pinching several nerves, glares blazing.

The destination was an old abandoned house somewhere out on Kingston Avenue. Seb is quickly realizing he wasn’t as familiar with Philadelphia as he thought. It turns out working there and commuting home didn’t afford him much in the way of sightseeing. After dismounting the motorcycle, Seb is more or less (it was more) shoved toward the house with the drugs in a shoebox. The shoebox smells strongly of whipped cream and chocolate, and it rattles in a way that would tell anyone listening that it isn’t shoes.

The old building has two stories and looks like every movie’s trap house. It gives off distinctly haunted vibes. Seven out of the eight visible windows have been broken in by unknown objects. The fenestrated face of the building is a good candidate for the “before” shot in a home improvement show, or maybe a horror movie. It’s possible the unknown objects were bullets, but the holes seem more the size and shape of a fully grown human head. Seb mounts the stairs and shakily arrives at the front door, if it could be called a door. It looks not exactly, but almost entirely like garbage.

He raps his fist against the decrepit wooden slab that putatively functions as a door. Coincidentally enough, a similar action preceded a cop kicking in the door a few months back - hence the shambles it is in now. Through this gesture he summons what visibly resembles the ghost that haunts the house: pale, white, not-quite-but-almost-translucent skin, gaping mouth. It is in actuality a man on the worse end of active addiction. The gaping mouth is unrelated to his very active addiction but is a result of seeing (or at least he thinks he is seeing) a large grasshopper knocking on the door. People do not knock on this door, let alone insects.

Down at the overgrown curb, The Muscle leans against a motorcycle sidecar and looks on in either fascination or horror as Seb knocks on the “door”.

The ghost of a man who answered the unusual summons sort of vaguely gestures for Seb to come in, as he is unsure of how to react and even less sure Seb actually exists. His mouth is still pretty wide open. Seb enters with his box of confectionery odored drugs and places them on what may or may not be a dining room table. The whole scene looks like an apocalyptic potluck. Seb is at a loss for how to leave the building - should he shake hands, give a wave, or just walk out? - so he sort of bows and tips a hat he isn’t wearing.

At the curb, the Muscle witnesses every painful gesture through a head-sized hole in the front window. He decides he likes The Bug, in a way that a child would like a bug.

Seb limps back down the dilapidated steps and gets two urges at the same time; one is to run away and the other is to skip away. He is both thrilled and terrified at the prospect of having completed his first drop. When he makes it down to the curb, The Muscle asks where the money is, to which Seb replies with a curt about-face. Somewhere between the knocking on the door and the return without pay, The Muscle realized employing Seb was perhaps not the best idea. He’s not sure, but he’s beginning to think that it may have been the worst idea.

1000, In the Year of Our Lord 2018, Re-Employed and Relapsed

If you were to walk down any city street within a 15 mile radius of a somewhat major city, you would see at least one, likely more, poor souls laid out on sleeping pills, consuming a false reality at their own peril. The majority of them will be physically laid out, atrophying and lounging incoherently in all manner of uncomfortable positions. A select few will be mentally laid out, still moving in slight and minor ways as a reaction to their movements in the dream. Very rarely you will see some poor soul, slung out on somnium, who maintains total physical control and dexterity, acting out some of the exact actions they are taking in their dream. The area of Kensington Avenue in Philly is an area where you will see dozens upon dozens of the inert and immobile sort of sleeper, an occasional twitcher, and one single drug-addicted man who maintains almost complete physical movement, despite being deep in a somnium-induced sleep.

“Hey, honey?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I’m gonna head over to the shop quick; I think I left my phone there.”

“It’s on the dresser upstairs, dear.”

“Ah, thank you, love.”

“What ever would you do without me?”

“I really don’t know… probably starve and cry.”

“In that order?”

“Not necessarily. Probably in tandem.”

“As tantalizing as that sounds, I think I’ll just stick around and keep you company.”

“Oh good, contrary to what you may think, I’m hideous when I cry.”

“Nonsense, dear. You’re always hideous.”

“I love you too.”

Seb kisses Beatrice playfully on the side of her head, and makes his way upstairs. Their relationship is picturesque, in a way only Hollywood can craft. The kind of relationship never seen outside the beginning of movies, before the bell-curve wreaks havoc on the lives of the unsuspecting couples. Beatrice, affectionately called B, has fallen head-over-heels in love with Seb. He is of course entirely unaware that she has no real choice, as she is nothing more than a somnium-addicts wildest fantasy of being loved by an attractive female. The difference between Seb’s dreamscape and every other sleeper is that Seb has fantasized about a relationship - a perfect relationship - whereas other sleepers have focused on more physical aspects of said relationships. As he has progressively been using more and more somnium, their ‘relationship’ has ‘grown’ and ‘blossomed’ into a fully realized and thriving marriage.

Unfortunately for Seb, this is not his waking reality and his job slinging drugs has not blossomed in the least. When he wakes up from a trip it feels like he’s drifting off into a nightmare. He walks upstairs to retrieve his elusive cellphone (an archaic looking flip phone the likes of which are only seen being snapped in half in the movies after a single use). Entering his stylishly-but-not-ostentatiously decorated bedroom he spots his cellphone on the dresser. As he reaches out for it and his perfectly manicured fingers wrap around its brick-like shape, his hand slowly transforms into an age-cracked and filthy thing, emaciated and yellow with nails longer than a stick of gum. Under the hand of age spots and dirt, the cellphone morphs into an empty and soggy cough medicine box. The dresser becomes an olid grimy dumpster with unspeakable scents exuding - just oozing out. The beautifully yet reservedly decorated bedroom peels back, revealing a deplorable back alley of trash and dead things.

By now Seb is used to this somewhat abrupt transition back into hell, and his standard response is to fumble for another packet of somnium. In the event of there being none on hand, he remains wherever he woke, shutting his eyes tight, and he hums a tune to himself as he begins to cry (the tune is always the same one; Home On the Range by god only knows who). This time Seb is fresh out of somnium, so as his fingers wrap around the soggy cardboard that was a cellphone moments before, he screws his eyes shut, lays down onto his side and begins to sing his song to himself,

Home, home on the range.

Where the deer and the antelope play.

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word.

And the sky’s are not cloudy all day.

A few people peep down the alleyway, intrigued by bad singing, but none take any real interest, as the sight of an uncouth homeless man laying in an alley is commonplace. It occurs to Seb that perhaps he would be better off spending his few free moments of getting high, in the safety of somewhere not so open. Ironically, it’s as this thought flicks across his mind that a disheveled man wearing mostly bags hobbles into the alley to kindly relieve Seb of any and everything in his pockets. The ferocity and vigor of the beat down that ensues is less than whole-hearted, as the bag man is weak and Seb is mostly uninterested in being alive. The mugging looks like someone trying to force clothes into a suitcase - the suitcase being Seb, who was just sort of pushed on forcefully. When the bag man realized Seb was low hanging fruit, he checked his pockets thoroughly, finding nothing noteworthy but taking everything that wasn’t a napkin.

About 75 minutes later two more men come walking down the alley toward the place where Seb is laying; same position, still singing. The Toolbelt wearing man gives Seb a nudge with his foot, and when he doesn’t stir, gives him a stirring rousal in the ribs with the same foot (a much better example of a proper beat down). The bigger man hauls Seb back to the mouth of the alley like a sack of potatoes. He is dumped into the sidecar and then the muscle mounts the motorcycle, with the toolbelt climbing on behind and attempting to wrap his arms around the immense girth of such a colossal man. The toolbelt man looked like one of those Halloween decorations of a witch that ran into a telephone pole, but the pole was an imposing wall of man.