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the hell am I supposed to get it off the roof?"
But Vodka doesn t answer. He s zoning zombie-minded and curling at the eyes, driving harder.
We destroy anyone/anything in our way, breaking through crowd and rubble, unstoppable. The
dark female cuts into him again, screaming at him, and again, but he doesn t feel it or seem to
care. His meat is dead, and all of his blood is resting on his lap.
Then there is Silence.
***
The Gremlin piles straight into the Silence, and everything clears.
No more crowd ahead, just quiet and deserted . . . The dark female s howls continue for a few
more seconds, then fade away, eaten. Even the engine sounds go away, we feel deaf. The car
razors into a wall, near the autocar graveyard - where I found the blue woman. I don t scream
before we hit, I let it come, I don t even bracing myself.
Vodka just didn t seem to care enough to hit the brakes.
***
I awake alone, Vodkaless. In the rain-molested autocar.
The Silence is gone too, traceless as it came, and another crowd of street people has filled the
area, gushing in as the Silence cleared the way. The pain starts in, from my forehead - broken
over the dashboard. Skin flaps from my shoulder, where the dark woman s nails screwed like
shanks.
I feel sick.
I have to get to Satan Burger.
***
The crowd is too BIG. There s more people here than there is space. Head-dizzy and grrrrr ing,
I can t even open the car door. I climb out of the collapsed window, to the roof. Vodka s living
corpse is up here. He s sitting there wet and soggy, like the street people, rocking-rocking, red-
stained clothes.
"I thought you were dead," I tell him.
"I wish it were possible," he tells me.
***
The street people wave-ripple in the storm. Miles, miles of ocean-crowd, rolling with patchy
colors, dissolving in the distance. They really seem like an ocean now. The car s roof is our
raft.
"We need to swim for it," I tell Vodka.
I can t hear his reply in the metal-clanking rain.
***
I lug-haul Vod off the raft. We go into the water sweaty smells from the water-people. He s
lunked over, drug-headed it seems, not swimming very well. I have to pull him so that he won t
drown.
The ocean people press tightly together, then roll-expand a little so we can move a few feet, then
they crash together again. Everyone is struggling to move but nobody s getting anywhere. We
get shoved back toward the raft, then forward across a building wall. A piece of the water claws
another gash into me. Blood drips through my fingers when I hold my face.
My breathing is weak. I m trying to stay above the water, trying to get some breath going. I find
Vodka s hand slipping from mine . . . he s getting away. The water behind me is moving back
toward the raft. My body is going forward. I stare Vodka in the eyes, examining his stone
expression. Then I let go.
The force wasn t even that great. I could ve kept us together easy. But I let him go.
Looking into his face, I didn t see Vodka in there at all. I saw an empty container. There was no
soul behind his eye-windows, just a calm brrrr noise. So I let him go, and the crowd swallowed
him up, another one of them. It doesn t take long before he gets to the distance, and I can t tell
which one of them he is anymore.
Vodka didn t seem to mind.
Scene 20
The Man Who Loves Everything
***
I flow a few miles, emptying into rivers, taken by the people-current toward Satan Burger, ignoring
the faces on the water surface. When I get there, the lot is brimming; persons climbing the steps
to get out of the people-ocean, some falling off. They re screaming insanities at each other.
Then a swish of thinking bleeds into my emotions, a grind-spinning view of the area above me, on
the hilltop.
And what I see is: Satan Burger is gone.
***
I swim to the steps for a closer look, but there are too many people, too many rage-frustrations
inside of me. The sickness gets stronger. I get claustrophobic.
I start climbing.
***
Halfway, I meet a familiar face. It s soggy in the rain and I m surprised I recognize him with my
acidy eyes.
"Satan," I call.
He notices me and squeezes in closer.
"What happened?" I scream over the insane ones before he reaches me.
The insane ones hand out jabs and tickles.
Satan Burger was destroyed," he yells, getting closer . . . His face is sooty and blood-cut, his nice
clothes are rip-sliced apart too. As ironic as it sounds, he looks like he s been to hell and back. I
can t even see his gay-pride button.
He shouts, "An earthquake hit, tore the whole building in half, into pieces."
I shout, "But there aren t any earthquakes in New Canada."
"It doesn t matter," he yells. "Child Earth did this, the little shit. He was pissed off that I was
stealing the souls of his new toys and sent an earthquake after me. I should ve never touched
the fucker."
"What do you mean, touched ?"
Still screaming: "I m responsible for putting breath in this planet s lungs. I touched it. I have the
touch of life, remember. I made it alive. I made almost every planet in this damned universe
alive, with my gay fucking hands."
The sense of the whole situation hits me, and I say it to myself: "Earth is a demon?"
***
"I m getting out of here," Satan yells. "I suggest you come with me."
"Go where?" A headache spikes me. "Where is there to go?"
"Through the walm," he says.
"That s crazy. You could end up anywhere. Even in a place without oxygen and die."
"I m willing to take the risk if you are." Satan grins darkly.
"Where is everyone else?" I ask.
"Who cares." Satan drops himself into the water crowd. "Come on, let s go before another
earthquake hits."
"Where are they?" I scream-ask again, but Satan gets carried away by the people current. He
lets the crowd take him. The distance between us is suddenly very BIG.
From the edge of the parking lot, he yells, "I ll see you in hell," which is the common thing for him
to say when departing. Sadly, it makes him laugh.
Then his body is gulped away from my sight.
***
I find another way up the steps, on a side path, and I m able to get up pretty quick, but on the
wrong side of the hill. This side is open, and I have to stop to breathe in some space. . . Then I
realize I need some time to sit. I find a rock underneath a demon-tree, who shelters me from
some of the irritating rain.
"He s right, Leaf," says a nearby voice.
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