Prayers to Sheos
Send Sheos your questions, complaints, rants, cries for help, or miscellania at sheos@susurrusmagazine.com. He will lie to you and give you bad advice.        The publishers would like to insist the opionions expressed in this article are false, and that no one agrees with Sheos. Ever.

       The bats died down after a while, but we could still hear them chittering just outside the door. The Rev held his ear up to the heavy planks of wood.

       “How are we going to get out of here?” he asked.

       I didn’t have an answer for him, so I turned toward Rabies, who was sitting on a rusty, musty cot chained to the wall.

       “I’ve been working on that,” said Rabies. “Before you guys showed up, I’d been digging a tunnel out of the room. I just don’t know where it’s going to lead us.”

       “What have you been using to dig?” I asked.

       He went over to the sink and reached a hand into the basin. When it came out, Rabies had his fingers wrapped around a detached faucet. The metal that made up the thing was bent all to hell. Rabies tossed the faucet to me.

       “I think I’ve put in my digging time,” he said. “I think you can take over from here.”

       I tossed the faucet toward the Rev, but his hand wouldn’t close around the thing and it dropped to the ground with a clank. The Rev tried flexing his fingers, but they’d only move about halfway what they were supposed to.

       “This isn’t good,” he said, but I wasn’t up for the drama de la Rev, so I picked up the faucet and asked rabies to guide me toward the dig site.

       The best way to get yourself out of a rut is to destroy your current habits and trends. So, basically, if you’re not taking drugs, go ahead and start, and if you are taking drugs, take more. The idea is to kick start yourself into a better, more inspired person by bringing the old you as close to death as possible. I hear Russian roulette is also a noteworthy prescription for this dilemma, but the results are none-too-consistent, so don’t quote me on that…

       Using a detached faucet to carve a hole in a stone wall was like trying crack a boulder in half with an armchair, but I kept at it until the silver metal had been worn down to nothing. After that, I just started using my own hands, which actually worked out a little bit better. Every punch cleared an inch inside the tiny crawlspace, and by the eighth blow, I had a hand thrust into open air. I opened up the exit wide enough to fit a body through and called for the Rev and Rabies to come and join me.

       The sting on my knuckles made me happy that I was surrounded by darkness at the moment. The rough meat, blood, and grime covering my hands could go without my attention for a little while longer.

       The space where I now found myself was small. And cramped. Too small to be an elevator shaft, but that’s the only thing I could liken it to. Possibly an air duct. In any case, we were lucky enough to find ourselves at the ground floor of wherever we were.

       I felt along the wall and was nearly surprised to find a tiny door, behind which I could hear the crooning of a viola, a harpsichord, and an oboe.

       The Rev was the first one out of the small tunnel I had finished.

       “Where have we found ourselves?” he asked, squeezing up next to me.

       “I’m just about to find out.” I pushed on the doors and light broke into the small space, the blaze of illumination blinding me to what waited for us beyond.

       Vote? Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve pretty much vowed never to vote for anyone that doesn’t advocate the killing of yellow cats and morning birds that sing outside my window. Also, they must revert for national politics back to a feudal system, with most of the land going to farmers, writers, and dentists. You tell me when a candidate comes along with those values, and then I’ll tell you to screw off, because no one will care about voting on that day.

       Registering what was held inside took about as much time comprehend as it took my eyes to adjust. There was music, and it was coming from a live band that resided on the farthest end of the ballroom. The Rev, Rabies, and I exited from what we would see was a dumbwaiter after having surveyed the surroundings.

       As the three of us stood together in the face of this new setting, a roomful of dancers, minglers, and other variously titled partygoers all turned in our direction and waited for us to make some kind of sound or announcement. Each of these people was wearing a flamboyant mask which was rimmed with feathers, lace, and jewels. The eyes to these masks were black and the noses protruded out like branches. They were all in formal wear, women in long flowing gowns, men in nicely tailored suits.

       Involuntarily, I clenched my fists at my sides. The wounds on my knuckles were still open and stinging; it had never taken this long for my body to heal itself. I pushed thoughts of discomfort out of my head, while other voices in there broke through.

Bos,

       I don’t know what I’d do if a winter wonderland ever settled on the globe. If you have any bright suggestions, please feel free to send them my way.

As for how I can go on ignoring what will ultimately lead to your downfall, I can say only this: Have you ever actually read anything about me? Fucking weirdo.

       “Who’s in charge of this soiree?” I asked, but the crowd wasn’t talking. The music had stopped, and without the right tune to push them along, it seemed they were destined to be still as mannequins. Had I not seen them turn to stare at us all, I would have thought they actually were statues.

       “I don’t think they like you,” Rabies said.

       “Huh,” the Rev chimed in, “imagine that.”

       I stepped away from my counterparts and walked toward one of the ladies standing in a yellow, southern belle dress. Reaching a finger out to poke her shoulder, I wasn’t all that surprised when the fabric of her dress and the skin underneath it turned to smoke at my touch.

       “It’s not real,” I said. “They’re not real.”

       One of the men next to the lady turned at me and punched me in the jaw, sending me flying back toward Rabies, the Rev, and the dumbwaiter.

       From the floor I saw the man smile form underneath his long, pointy nose.

       “Not all of us are illusions,” he said, and with that, he stepped back into the crowd and vanished from sight. “The trick is finding out which ones pose a threat.”

       Before, that might not have been such a big deal, but my knuckles were still burning raw, the throbbing on my jaw wouldn’t go away, and as I faced a ballroom full of enemies, I felt the slightest bit uneasy for the first time in a long while.

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