Join My Cult - Original Falcon Press

“Harold.”
“Fine. Harold.”
The boy chases a thoughtful mouthful of potatoes with Coke before
continuing. “From there, it’s easy. If the mechanism of perception were
to change drastically, don’t you think you would find its construct similarly
warped? Would not the form it takes be entirely foreign?”
“Sure, maybe. I would really like to talk about something else,
please.”
“No!” He pounds the table ineffectually with a babyfat fist. The steam
engine sound in the background ceases abruptly, and he continues in
hushed tones, as if he is trying to contain great anger. “You have to
decide, Doctor. Do you think there are no dangers in this new world of
yours? You have to choose, now. Now.”
It’s night. Thick fog. I’m in a car. Back seat. I think it’s Jesus driving.
Light of the panels illuminate his vestments in red.
“There’s someone else in the car,” a form next to me says immediately.
His tone is matter-of-fact, as though my appearance were the solution
to a tedious math problem. I squint through the smoke and can just
make out a wiry, sharp-faced youth squatting on the seat cushion.
“You know who it is?” Jesus asks from up front. The third occupant is
clearly unmoved.
“Nah.” He turns towards me casually. “Who are you? What are you
doing in our car?”
“I am Doctor Harold Fine. I’m a psychiatrist.”
“506. I’d shake, but I’m holding a gun on you.” And Jesus kills the
lights and the engine and we glide to a stop.
It’s very quiet for awhile.
“New plan, “ Jesus notes. “First, we figure out who the teleporting
weirdo is, then we blow up the place.”
506 grunts and turns back to me. “Why don’t you start us off.”
The bullets, the bullets. Bullets in a box, thousands in a factory, and
some are duds. Choose the duds. Decide he’s loaded duds. “I am nonlocal,
I think. Becoming. I keep opening my eyes on all these people,
places, these people. Everyone wants to talk about physics, I think.”
“Fuck physics. Let’s talk place.”
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