They spent the money on food and water. A feast to enjoy. Chips, salsa, beer, coke, hot dogs, chili, soup. They put it on a grand picnic table and ate with real forks and real spoons. After they stuffed themselves, they collapsed on the benches.
Randy napped in a sleeping bag. George biked around the neighborhood. It continued like this for the day. They enjoyed the sun, the sky, the neighborhood, and the soft clatter of the train on the rails.
He was alone with his thoughts, in the silence of the neighborhood, with the loneliness of fall leaves and summer days. He no longer had his ragged clothes, his unshaven and dirty appearance. But he was still a bit ashamed, ever since he'd lost his job. Perhaps he would never recover, driving around the strange world…
The stupidity of himself weighing down the strangeness. The inconsistency. Where he hated himself. How he had dreamed and thought of something anew. Something great. He had traveled in a broken, run-down, car.
Then there was no car. Then there was no home. Nowhere to sleep. When he was out of willpower and hope, he'd sold himself for a couple of dollars.
For a whole year, he'd seen the police… Nearly gone… Wearing those black hoods, hunting people down with their bats, shooting fire forth from metal machinery. All while drinking those hot cans of soup, living a normal life. He had gotten used to it, even as it'd grown worse and worse, and he was forced to wander forever.
But it wasn't the police. It was their fault. Both his and Randy's stupidity and their weaknesses had made them homeless. It was their problems, their inability to make money as the government had wanted, their low intelligence, their addiction to life, they want to hold on to a thread of wonder and excitement and wear themselves out partying to the death. Randy had refused to believe that, rambling insanity about the police.
He continued in his rambling thoughts in the silent world. The plastic bulbs tangled in trees lit blue and red, and the traffic rumbled through as usual. The clouds faded away as the moon rose and glittered.
It had been years…
Bob sat on the bench, watching the people that walked by, and looking for the robber, while he held his fork at ready.
He kept awake by whistling. When he got tired of whistling, he snapped his fingers. When he couldn't snap his fingers, he tapped his feet. When he couldn't tap his feet, he fell asleep. Snoring on the cold metal, the street lamps flickering in the night.
The trees wavered, and only one person walked the streets.
With ragged clothes, riding a bike, and fresh awake from a nap, the wheels on his bike wobbled. He muttered about the police, the society… There was a strange leap in his walk, as Randy nodded and smiled… Loved the night and its corners…
From the squeak-squawk of the wheels, Bob woke up. His eyes fluttered open, and he stared at the man biking in front of him.
With his ragged brown hair, ragged clothes, tall enough to fit what he had thought of… God… God… He could see the resemblance… The strange exactness in frame and shape…
The man sped past him. He jumped off the bench, and ran forward, calling out various names, yelling out something unintelligible to the man.
But, he, with a fork in hand, overcame the bike and its owner, running faster than he'd ever tried. He barely wheezed and caught the man by the shoulder. A hand pushed him away.
"Stop! Stop! I told you to stop!"
The man murmured something to himself
The bike swiftly turned left. Muffled, furious yells echoed through the neighborhood.
"Go away! I don't have any money on me! Or food! Just go away… What are you doing following me… I don't have anything alright! So, go away! "
"But you look like him!" He ran around a fire hydrant, "Come back! Come back! Stop! I want to talk!"
"I'm only biking, minding my own business. Please go away, I'm asking politely."
"Come back! Come back!"
The bike chain clattered to the ground. He felt bolts split apart, a bike wheel launched itself onto the road.
The bike gave a sharp swerve and hit a signpost. The middle-aged man flew through the air, sharply went up, and floated there for a while before slowly going down.
"I'm thinking… I'm thinking...", the man murmured under his breath.
He dropped to the sidewalk, lifting the bike parts onto the sidewalk invisibly.
"You think that's funny? Almost killing me, breaking my new bike!", he pointed toward him. His face was grim.
Bob backed away, holding his fork with one hand, and trying to stop his other hand from twitching, and his entire body from nervously shaking.
"Stop this! Stop it! Come down slowly!"
"Explain this! Look at this mess!", the man pointed to the bike. Then walked toward him, staring at him from afar.
"Come down slowly! Please, please! I just need this. Please don't give a fight. I'll pay for the bike afterward. I'll do anything. Please just come down!", he shivered, his frail figure shrinking.
"I'm not going to the police station, dammit! I'm not dumb! They kicked me out of my place, raided my home, made everything so stupidly dangerous!", the man strode toward him, "Revenge? What was in their stupid minds? They were all these titchy gerbils to me…"
A great shadowy object flew toward him and hit him with a truckload of force. As it collided with his chest, his skull, his entire body, he felt weird, with the fork strangely loose in his hand.
Chemicals in his head mixed in strange ways, and an explosion of purple and yellow laughed their way to his brain until he was laughing… Until he was the purple and yellow in the jigsaw of strangeness... The existence of a universe was devoid of sound and meaning… Exploding into his existence… Like a strange power… Men that handled their selves and talked in strange language… Drinking their meat like it was wine… From bread and water spilled the red blood of the cross... And dead things crawled with young arms…
And a web of infinite lives, frayed and snapped before him.
He heard the sound of a car alarm, like an explosion of red sound, raw and loose, running across the world.
Fell asleep on the ground, into darkness, blacked-out…