Prayers to Sheos, Part Seven   [Editor's note: It's at least partially your fault. You encourage him].

Image courtesy of Darren Hester

    There was blood on the ground and a crowd gathered up ahead of me when I came into the market in Tijuana. Sadly, the first thing that came to mind toward what was going on: Rabies had taken it upon himself to slaughter another goat in sacrifice to the little dangly bits that camped out inside pumpkins. This usually remained a Halloween sacrifice, but there happened to be a lot of vegetables in the market. If a pumpkin was in the vicinity, it could serve as a trigger for something entirely unexpected.
    I parted the crowd as best I could and fought for a place near the central point of interest; however, instead of finding Rabies' ugly mug covered in blood and pumpkin innards, there was a human covered with a white sheet. I guess I should have known better. Blood spilled out from under the sheet and made its way along side a number of shoes, as if it was trying to escape the scene without anyone noticing. It was doing a good job, too. People didn't seem to mind leaving footprints in the stream as they went on their way, buying up tough fabrics printed with different designs of the same set of colors.
    I called out for Rabies, but of course, nothing was taking. If he was there, I would have known it. Call it a sixth sense, or maybe even a curse. In any case, I was linked to my own kind, and none of them, it seemed, were setting foot one in Mexico that day.

Dear Sheos,     I blame you. Natalie

Nata-head,
    Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Heaven forbid you blame your unhealthy interest in Phillip K. Dick on anyone else, let alone yourself. But you're an atheist; what the hell are you doing praying to me in the first place? Weirdo.
    Oh, and by the way, I didn't make those popcorn flavored jellybeans. I just happened to suggest it to the guys that did. All right? Not my fault.
    The sun beat down on me but I didn't mind so much. I had been stuck in a plane for nearly half a day. Traveling seemed to be the theme for me, and it felt good to break that chain with a nice relaxing rest on a bench where no one else bothered to sit. All I needed was a tall glass of ice water and a large umbrella, and I would be set.
    Across the way a public phone rang. The shrill Brrrrrring! of the bell cast a cloud of annoyance over me. These public phones weren't supposed to ring like this, but they always did around me. What's more, they never brought anything more than confusion when I answered them. I guess I had my reasons to not like public phones, but it was never enough to make the damn things lay off.
    I got up and picked up the receiver.
    "Sheos?" The voice was thick, a note so low you'd feel your ears shaking as you tried to piece together the message it carried. "I know it's you."
    "Great," I said. "You got a talent for knowing the people you're calling. That'll take you pretty far."
    "Always with the snide remarks," the voice growled. "Do you know who I am?"
    "Sure," I said, and it was true. Back when I was in the care of Rev. Worley, we had ourselves a regular cast of nuts hanging around the sanatorium. [Editor's Note: He is still in the sanatorium. This is his delusion.] This one had been a leader of a small country, or so went his story. His name was General Krogg, and his bag was the molestation of the children in his country. According to him, the more pain a person was forced to suffer with as a child, the stronger he or she would become as an adult. He claimed his logic to be infallible, but he wasn't strong enough to keep it going. He wasn't a true pedophile, he used to say. It seems what made a child stronger in the end, made an older man suicidal. He committed himself to the ward, which was far away from his country. He told all his people he was going on vacation. So, yeah, I knew who he was. "Hold your thoughts a sec, will you?"

Dear Sheos,     Is craziness a condition brought about by other people, or is it pre-existing? Insomnia

Sambo,
    I'd like to think there are pre-existing triggers within your little mindworks, and that other people are the mechanisms that fire those triggers if they're allowed to. The idea that there's any one true answer is probably as outdated as the fashions of the 50's. But don't fret. The fact that you're questioning things like this means that you're looking out for it, so that should keep you safe. Either that, or the paranoia will drive you insane.
    See, it all works out in the end.
    "Now where were we?" I asked. The noise that came back at me was enough to make dolphins cry.
    "You listen here," Krogg boomed. "I will not be pushed to the side like some ingrate!"
    "Shake your business and pour it," I said into the receiver. "I got people to meet, Krogg."
    "Exactly," he said. I could see him smile without having to see him. His words were soaked in some kind of greasy satisfaction. "You have people to meet, but you're all alone. Isn't that right? Where is your friend Sheos?"
    "You got him?" The question wasn't needed, since the answer was so obvious, but I asked anyway.
    "Yes," Krogg affirmed. "In fact, I'm looking at him as we speak."
    I could picture Krogg and Rabies in some darkened room, Rabies was chained to the floor and spotlighted under a naked light bulb. Two guards flanked either side of him. They'd poke him with their batons if he said something the General didn't like -- and the General didn't strike me as the kind of guy that liked much of anything.
    "That's too bad," I said. "So why are you bringing me into this?"
    "It was brought to my attention that you are a being that holds immense powers within you."
    "So, you watch TV. What's it to me what you know?"
    "Someone such as yourself could prove quite useful to the right military faction."
    I rubbed the sides of my forehead to dull away the pain that was setting in. I had gotten offers like this before; none from the US Government, who thought I was as crazy as the doctors prescribed me, but every once in a while a faction or up-and-coming regime would go out of their way to contact me, making offers of wealth, fame, and high influence on the world in which they would have considerable sway.
    It was the tanker that got them interested.
    In retrospect, I probably should have swallowed my anger all those years ago, but Rabies has an unfortunate way of getting my temper to rise. He's a bastard -- anyone that's been around him for more than two minutes could tell you that. The problem is that we've known each other for a long time, and he knows my buttons. This is not one of those love-hate deals. I don't say these bad things with a touch of affection for the jerk. The problem is that he just keeps hanging around, and the longer he stays, the more shit I seemed to get pulled into.
    And I know what you're thinking: If he's such a pain, why am I in Tijuana?
    I haven't gotten around to figuring that one yet. Maybe it's because he's not human and we stick close for the same reasons people living abroad will seek out their own kind for comfort. Maybe I have an addiction to trouble. No one knows for sure, and more to the point, no one probably cares, until it explodes in their faces.

Dear Sheos,     What are you the god of, exactly? Curiouser and Curiouser, Killing cats

    Hold off, will you? I'm trying to have a flashback.
    It started as a debate over the continued existence of James Earl Jones. Rabies was under the impression that the man was dead, while I had just seen him advertising for Verizon not too long ago and was laying my money on the idea that his heart was still pumping. We were inside a Sam's Club when the conversation had begun, and by the time we were in the parking lot, we were screaming at each other. The argument I could have overlooked, but when he rammed my Achilles' heel with the front of the shopping cart, I decided he needed to die, or at least feel a whole lot of pain. First there was a punch, followed by a few kicks, probably a knee or two. After a spot of close struggle, he pushed me away and brought up the topic of cabbage. He had to have known it would set me off. He probably didn't count on it being so...destructive. It started with us brandishing our choice of weapons.
    Mine, a crowbar.
    Rabies, a machete.
    They couldn't explain how the people were pushed away from us, or how the tanker truck of gasoline had gone from a nearby gas station to the middle of the Sam's Club parking lot, but when the firefighters had hosed everything down to a manageable blaze, they found us, clothes burning, still pounding the shit out of each other. For some reason they only made mention of me in the news following the incident. This brought with it a slight fame, which was forgotten by the press rather quickly—an act I'm sure higher powers had a hand in—but stayed constant among the people that had witnessed that day first hand and chosen me as their personal god.
Speaking of which:

Dear Sheos,     How does Lucifer smell? Like sulfur? Walley

Walley,
    To you, he smells like whatever would cause you to think of your innermost want. I don't know if he understands this; I suspect that he does. It's very likely that this was a side effect from the way he smelled in Heaven. The smell works on a sort of subliminal level.
    To me, he smells like a gas leak. That odd metallic taste hovers over him like stale belch. It didn't always used to be like that, and it's gotten better since he left Hell. In the old days, in the White City, he was everything that would have brought a human joy, and even us gods could smell it, and it made us just a little bit happier, though half of us didn't want to admit this.
    But that's the past, and not so important anymore.
    "You have been quiet for some time," Krogg said.
    "What's your version of the game?" I replied.
    "Come work for me," said Krogg. "Do it, or Rabies will die."
    "Promises, promises," I spoke, then hung up on him. If he thought he could waste Rabies, then he'd have one hell of a time doing it. It's hard to kill a god, almost impossible, which got me to believing that something more was up. Something that was bound to give me one hell of a headache. Better to end it quickly, if possible, rather than waiting for trouble to swell.
    The last prayer gave me an idea.
    I called up Lucifer's apartment in South Korea. When I had left it, the place had been burglarized and Lucifer had vanished. It was a shot in the dark that he might come back, but I took it. Low and behold, the fallen one picked up the line.
    "Did you know my apartment was broken into?"

    I told him I did.

    "I mean, the things I had are easy to replace, but it's what they stole that really bugs me. Travel guides, pictures, my alarm clock. The next day, I woke up and made myself some coffee. Then I hopped in the shower and was like: 'What the hell? My goddamn shampoo?' I mean how depraved do you have to be to steal a bottle of shampoo?"
    I was on the verge of mouthing off, "Luci, you reap what you sow," but i kept my trap shut on that topic. Instead, I asked him: "Where did you run off to?"
    "Belial," Lucifer said. "He came up to try and reason with me, again."
    "Hasn't stopped yet, has he?"
    "I'd be worried if he did." replied Lucifer. "So what's going on with you?"
    I told him about Rabies and his new friend, the General. "Think you could find where Krogg's got him?"
    "Shouldn't be a problem. I still have a few contacts."
    "I'll owe you a taco for this one," I promised. "Ship it to you priority class first thing in the morning."
    "How about you just enjoy one for me and I'll hit you up for a favor later down the line."
    I took that bargain and put the phone back in its cradle. Across the way, the emergency crews -- or whoever was in charge of that kind of thing in Mexico -- had gotten the body cleared off the sidewalk. Now, just beyond that scene was another one, where I saw a dog eating a dead dog. All the sudden, Tijuana didn't seem like a very safe place for anyone or anything, and I couldn't say I was compelled to stay much longer. The question was, where would I go?

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