Randy hid from the police in his ragged clothes, breathing heavily as he rested against the cool bricks.
The police were everywhere, raiding the crime-riddled neighborhood for drug lords and all the innocents. All the shaggy, raggedy people… Horrible… While he was hiding in that alleyway, minding his own business, they had come. Thousands of unit cars, chasing them into great cages against the wall, against the world, until most of them had gone away until he was the only homeless man left in the entire alley.
He had seen horrible things… Horrible, horrible indescribable crimes, things that he despised, he hated, he wished that somehow he could get away from it all, away from everything, into that pocket of deep hate, into that pocket of the world where nothing... Where there was nothing… Where he could relax by himself… Relax… Forever and ever, sit back and relax… Back forever… Back to a time when there was nothing...
Nothing…Nothing….
A potshot rang across the earth, as bullets fired from thousands of machine guns, from the police, from every man in a blue uniform, and someone screamed and yelled in agonizing pain and agonizing fury.
"Goddamn them…", Randy muttered to himself, leaning against the wall to blend into the shadows, "Damn them..."
Nearby, there was a nice subway. Full of hot nice food, but nobody would let him in. The police would beat him up if they ever saw him. Then kick him into tiny pieces, leaving him pale and shrunken, and toss him away after riddling him with holes. Sinking into the sewer for crimes he didn't do.
He sighed and listened for footsteps, sirens, and tires screaming out onto the street, potshots, or anything. But he was fine, for now, they were getting nets, and more policemen perhaps.
He could ask Frank to give him some shelter at his place. But he lived in Boulevard CT, in the alleyway, a depressing place where all those shelter-less people gathered in flocks, just moving around in a circle on the street. All until someone called the cops until the cameras glared forth, and then a siren rang and a whistle screamed like a dying lamb. And then, he'd never get any sleep. And then, he'd run and run and run back and forth trapped underneath those great guns, nearly dead, half alive.
Hmmm…
No, no.
Maybe Kriya, but the police had also raided their area.
Nowhere left to run for him...
The whine of the siren echoed and blasted through the air. He jumped a little, frightened, and landed on the ground dazed.
Wait... what the hell was it?... He heard the raid siren again. Heavy boots crunched against the soft pavement. They were coming!
"Goddamn it!"
No, not him, not him, not him, not them, no… no... Who to go to? Who? Who?!.
There was a siren, approaching soon… Quick… Quick...
George's place, but that was in a rich neighborhood, where they had tents and families, and that would seem too strange…
As he thought to himself in the miserable rain, a downpour of mist rained upon his ragged cap, and he shrieked as the water hit his skin.
"George, F-", the shriek of a siren hit his ears and he ran out of the alley, hating the police, wishing that, one way or another, they would all die to someone like Tankman, maybe Ultraman. The stupid government, their police forces, their stupid shields, and guns.
Bob exited the hospital at 9:00 AM and paid half of the fee with most of the remaining money that he had stashed for his retirement.
But, he smiled. The clean air, he sighed in, letting the burdens of money drop from his shoulders. Finally, after all these years, with no hope, nothing to want. Finally, finally, finally. That wishful air filling his soul, his empty stomach groveling before some mighty king… Finally! Finally! Finally!
Forkman, a new pseudonym, a new name for him to fight with. To crush the skulls of dead, broken men. To drive away all of the stupid idiotic people. To kill all the deadness in society…
Bob rested his feet upon the park bench, rested his head on the metal bars, and napped in the soft sun. No more worries about money. The hospital was gone. They were all gone. The years of studying business and economy. The years of worrying about money and income.
All gone. All gone. All gone. He was to survive and walk as a new person. Forkman. Forkman. Forkman…That great strengthening, booze-drinking, man-eating Forkman….
Sleeping…. Napping… In a great fiery abyss… Where all was stupidity…. And he remembered nothing, and he saw nothing…
He woke up to a family of four staring at him and a sun eclipsed by a cloud. On that strange bench, in the middle of nowhere…
He stood up, tired, woozy, drunk in peace, and calm. He sighed and walked home. He felt a bit funny, a bit empty, a bit guilty, but very content. Happy with his place in the world. His freedom…
Bob visited the art exhibition at night, staring at the interesting paintings. He stared at a great painting, "The remembrance of strange things", containing a fantastically cosmic eye that 'continuously stared into the soul and formed unease in the heart'. He stared at it again, peering into the soul of the strange eye, looking at the same painting again and again. He remembered something in that soulless eye, that strange amalgamation, that strange stupidity… The singular eye, wide and red, was the catalyst for everything. The swollen beauty of veins that twirled around a white bulb.
He had drawn in the years before, drawing by himself on paper, until he worked for a paper company. Sitting in a lonely chair, listening to the endless whine of lasers skimming the infinite papers. Sales reports, bar graphs, all scrawled in illegible lettering until his eyes grew red and dim, so he could grope blindly for the next sheet, write and write strangely, scrawl across the infinite caverns, across the stupidity of himself… Where he could envision himself… Envision the world… See the stupidity rushing across everything…
He had once a great canvas hidden in the basement of his home. In it, there was a single drop of paint, a single stroke of color. A figure lay hidden deep within a chaotic rush of color and lines going across the bare canvas in a beautiful image of Everything.
Years and years, but where had it gone? He hadn't painted on that canvas. It had been rotting away forever in a warehouse somewhere.
But, he didn't need to worry about painting. The stupid wiggling brushes, the rough canvas that stretched out colors without a meaning…The soft blue that erupted through the world… He would become the three-pronged man, Forkman… The fantastic greatness that spoke from all.
The quiet valley was filled with deer that nibbled on the wild grass. Around him, trees grew from the earthen walls of the forest, and vines curled around the strong stumps. It was an oasis of rotting beauty, and there was nobody. Nobody at all.
Bob sat on the grass, on a homemade bench, in his homemade shed, where he had been living for the past few years. A few logs stacked themselves together in a zigzag pattern until they formed a crumbling pyre. There was a lightbulb at the top, flickering and buzzing, and a cloud of bugs that were fried alive at the touch of the glass.
He held three forks. One shoddily carved from wood, one made of metal, and one drawn on a piece of paper. The metal one was cold, rusty, overused, bent in many places. The wooden one had splintered, frayed at the handle, was freshly carved, and could be easily broken. The piece of paper had a burnt mark, a streak, that stretched down it quickly until it dimmed.
He held the metal spoon, and he could feel it enveloping him. He could feel the weight of gravity fade away, a burden fading from his shoulders. And then, he stepped forward and felt the grass bend beneath his worn soles. He crouched down, picked up a pebble, and violently crushed it in his fist. It split open, revealing a mixture of quartz smashed against lime chalk.
He checked the radio for something in the news. CNN, NPR, Local News Channels, Police Radios. There was quiet all over, static sometimes, and a mixture of calm, soothing voices, talking about politics, fast cars, and more.
No bank robberies, no crime, nothing in the city. It was a quiet place, for quiet people, and quiet things happened. Crickets buzzed and chirped, and cicadas reverberated throughout the neighborhood as heat rippled in the forgotten place… Where the water ran and fell across the wet ground, and all was silent.
But tomorrow, he would fight crime. Tomorrow… Soon, he would retire from the years of hard work…
He sat in the shade of his strange wooden home, of his wooden world, where fire ran amok and screeched forth from the glorious sun.