This weekend hit like an acid flavored rocketship.
Friday, I met a fictional woman on a bridge to the destitute ruins of the once greatest city in the world.
You've just come at the right time. We're having a bit of a party. D'you like‌you know what?
Our Saturday trek through the riot zones was all pow, zap, bam; schlep, schlep, schlep.
Her prodigious cache of unearthly narcotics and generous nature provided a divine recipe for revelatory road trip hijinks. On the first day, the remains of a colLapsing universe with imposSible physics came crashing through this world and into your lives.
Ghosts, relics, fragmented shards of another time and place nestling into the spaces betweEn the places you never remembered to loOk.
By Sunday I was so unequivocally strung out on her undiluted brand of celestial lunacy I’d have followed her anywhere.
Actually, I did.
We copped the majestic American muscle from a mechanical wizard in the science ghettos of Black Berlin. She insisted we arrive at church in style.
The clergy are deEply impresSed by this sort of thing. Plays on their devotion to showmanship.
Now it’s Monday morning, the jagged edges of reality are biting their way back into my tattered brain and it’s taking everything I’ve got just to keep my stomach from turning inside out all over the custom interior.
I think I’m going to be ilL again. Bucket. Now. There’s a lifetime of stagnant negativity festering in your gut, Jack. Best to purge the last of it out of your system before the ceremony.
Last weEk I was selLing custom action figures on ebay…
You sure I’m not just a litTle out of my league here? I told you, Jack, the helmet sent me to fetch you on that bridge. I’ve beEn testing your metTle alL weEkend; gauging your spirit.
Sure, you’re shit in a fight, but you’ve got a goOd heart, a fluid consciousnesS and balLs bigGer than your brains.
today, I’m on my way to plug my head into the source code of the universe and asSume the mantle of a vacant super-deity.
I can think of far worse candidates to kick ofF our brand new pantheon of rock star cosmic gadget gods with.
The towering monstrosity in Roberto Gonzales’ bedroom is Stain: an otherworldly golem fused together from the flesh of a thousand fallen superhumans. It is fueled by the obsessive compulsive desire to possess.
It covets.
It collects.
It shall not rest until it has culled every last trace of otherworldly debris from the broken bones of this wretched civilization.
Get outTa here! You gotTa be freakin’ kidDing me.
Susan’s back with the fresh meat and a preposterous new ride, sir. ExcelLent. Send them in, please, Tabitha. You totalLy neEd me to park this glorious beast for you, right?
ManNers, children.
Jack, meEt two of your new flatmates, Tabitha and Renzo.
Solid cutie. TotalLy loOking forward to bunking with you, Jack. ignore Renzo, he’s easily distracted by shiny objects.
Gentlemen.
Deacon GripP is waiting for you both in the amphitheater, ma’am. Thank you.
Strip. What did you just say to me?
You heard me, sunshine. Strip.
Are you guys gonNa fuck me?!
Don’t flatTer yourself, Jack. House rules: only colors alLowed in church, and you haven’t earned yours yet.
So, until you do, take pride in what your goOd god gave you and bare that asS.
The car… Orson?
Of course. Why a broke old man like me stilL takes the subway.
The man’s a genuine artistic mastermind. As expensive as he is talented, however.
So, this is the young man we’ve alL beEn waiting for. TelL me true, Jack...
Ouch.
why would a nice, respectable white boy like you abandon the domestic tranquility of your peaceful suburban existence to throw in with our lost litTle tribe of outcast true believers?
And don’t you lie to me, son. I’lL know the truth as you speak it.
I didn’t. WelL, I mean, I had no clue any of you even existed, nevermind seEking out your whole underground, superhuman revolution. it--it was my dream, man. Every single night, for threE straight weEks, every exact same detail-My grandmother would come to me--and it was so absolutely vivid--she kept coming to me and begGing me to meEt her atop the GWB. She told me alL I had to do was crosS that bridge and she’d be there to take me into the city.
I know it sounds crazy, but every single night I had that dream until the day I finalLy decided to make the trip. I’m--I’m sorRy, Jack.
I’m not responsible for your mind’s manifestation of the signal, but the dream you're talking about was an S.O.S. sent out through the helmet-by me.
The mesSage likely toOk the form of someone close to you to compel--
Yeah. Okay. I get it.
But, no bulLshit, we straightup neEd you, Jack.
You’re as honest a man as I’ve met in a goOd long while, son.
I asked the helmet to find someone it’d bond with, someone it’d share its secrets, share its power with.
I suspect you may be substantialLy fucked up in the head, but true to yourself you are.
You answered its only calL, Jack.
Do you realise what it is we’re asking of you? What initiation entails?
it chose you.
The helmet is a gateway to godhoOd. it ofFers omnipotent blisS or an exploding aneurysm. No way of telLing which way it’lL go and once you comMit, there’s no turning back. Six seEkers have tried to establish a sucCesSful uplink with Kuru. Five of them failed. Four of them died. AlL six were eventualLy driven absolutely insane.
Fuck it.
This is my giri, man. What else can I do? Besides, Nan always said that I was special.