TFW CH3 SACRILEGE

Nearly Lost You   by Screaming Trees 

I turned around to tell Big Bryan to help me get Joey out of the little truck, but he wasn’t there.  He was probably attending to Tellesco, who was still up in the cab of the broken semi trailer tractor.  It was a good thing that the fuel was located away from the engine, in double-walled tanks.  The red light from under the tractor faded, but I could still feel the heat of it on the backs of my jeans.

I leaned in the little truck and said, “Joseph!  Are you hurt?”

His eyes came back to the front and he said, “Yeah, I’m hurt that you almost ran me down…”

Bastard.  Still cracking jokes.

I pulled him out and dragged him away from the little truck.  I set him down on his side near the sage brush.

I crawled back into the little truck and put her in gear, and tried to back her out.  The weight of the truck was on the wrong rear wheel.  The wheel with power only spun and made a small dust cloud.

Shit.

We would have to push her out of the ditch by hand.  She was hung up against the tree that had stopped her.

I got back up and out from the passenger side door and went to go see how Bryan was doing with Tellesco.

Tellesco peered down from his high perch in the semi and said, “You guys didn't get me fries?”

I thought, Hah?  Where's Bryan?

I rounded the front of the semi and saw a flashlight shining about in the cement-block structure.  Bryan was inside the power station?

I went to check it out.

“Bryan!” I said, and he whipped the torch's light over at my face. 

He said, “Will!  Watch where you’re going!  There's live wires on the ground!”

All I could see now was a big blue dot in front of my eyes.  Fucker had blinded me, so I stopped in my tracks. I said, “What the hell you doing in here?”

Bryan said, “This big truck is kinda smashed up, I mean, the windshield is gone and there’s bricks and stuff in the cab.  But the engine is still running.  No steam or anything!”

Huh.

I considered the little truck I had just pulled Joey out of, and how it had been running all night with it’s tiny fuel tank.

I thought of those two large men and Joey and me, all trying to fit into the little cab.

Yeah, right.

Four men in a tiny boat.

Someone would have to sit in the bed.  Probably two of us.

My vision began to clear a bit.  I said, “Bryan.  What are you thinking?”

He said, “I’m thinking that this truck is our new ride.”

I would have to agree.  I didn't say anything about the Glinty, but he was sure to be following us.  I had no idea what he intended to do, but that didn't matter.  We just needed to get away from here, and fast.  And, for gawd’s sake, far away from the desert dunes.  That was where I had once visited his cabin in the desert.  Fuck that shit.

He had fallen from the sky, from the moon.

Shit was about to erupt.  Time to bail, baby.

That was when I heard the moan of someone behind me.

Hah?

I said, “…Bryan…  Someone’s behind me…  Gimme your flashlight…”

He held the light down to the ground and stepped over wires and cables and busted switch boards and huge relays strewn about.  He came up to me and cupped the light in his hand. 

He said, “…where?”

I turned around and he let the light loose.  On the ground at the end of the tar lied a man in uniform.

No, not a police officer.  It was the guy who had been driving this truck.  He moaned again, lying on his back, and he put a hand up to his head.  He winced.  Then his eyes opened and he looked over, into the light.

He said, “Please don’t hit me anymore.”

Hah?

I went over to him and knelt down on one knee.  I said, “What happened to you?”

He shielded his eyes from Bryan’s flashlight and said, “I think I got attacked.  Can you help me?”

I said, “Of course.  Anything broken?”

He moved about a bit, and said, “I don’t think so, I just feel all banged up.”

I said, “Let’s get you up.”

He sat up with my help and said, “Do you have any water?”

Ya know, in the desert, it’s important to always keep yourself properly hydrated.  I just shook my head.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I have some in my rig. Please, I have dust in my mouth.”

I said, “Ok, hold on.”

Bryan took the flashlight from directly out of the man’s face and sat down on his haunches.  He said, “What’s your name?”

The man looked fearful and said, “Your voice changed.  Wha…”

Bryan said, “Now don’t panic.  Me and my friend will help you.  You can call me Bryan.”

In the off-glow of the flashlight shining on the ground, the man’s face eased up a bit. He said, “I’m Patrick Til-bury.  You can call me Pat.”

I left them two and went back to Tellesco. He was like a big kid.  A really big kid, strong kid.  He was a bit stunned.  I think it wasn't from the straight shot of Bryan’s fist.  It might have had more to do with the whole situation.

It was a bit much for a young, pampered rich kid to take in. 

Tellesco just might have had enough.

Time to take a mental break.

I climbed up into the black, broken truck and slid across the bench seat to him.  He looked up from his hands and said, “Got my fries?”

I said, “Tellesco, you need to get out of this cab here.”

He looked out the busted windshield.

Ahead, from where we sat up high in the semi without a rig, the barren desertscape beyond was lit by bright red light shining down from the moon overhead. 

Desolate, without compassion.  Hatred, almost.  The moon had no worries.  War had begun, and she knew it.

She had given birth to a tiny blue spark, and that was the return of the Glinty.

Dark times lay ahead for us all.

Sacrilege   by YeahYeah Yeahs 

I turned back from where he stared and said, “You know, Sean is still waiting for us.”

Tellesco looked at me and said, “Sean.  Sean…”

I looked to where Big Bryan was, with that utility worker.  Bryan wasn't there anymore.

Then I saw the big, white utility truck that was smashed halfway into the cement structure. The brake lights flashed on, and they went out.

The big truck began to pull itself away from the hole it had created.  Bricks and other things fell down upon its snub nose of a hood, and the truck sped up a bit.  As it came away, the roof of the building slunk down.

As the truck cleared free of the structure, the roof caved in.

I looked back to Tellesco and said, “Sean.  He’s waiting for you.  He wants to give you a big hug.”

Tellesco’s eyes widened.  He said, “Shut the fuck up Mr. Will.”

He pushed me away and un-clicked his seat belt.

I hopped down from the semi just as Bryan climbed up onto the roof of the big truck and began to push bricks off.

Tellesco followed me to the utility truck.  He said, “Where is Mr. Joseph?”

I  said, “Over here.  Follow me.”

Joey lied on the ground where I had dragged him minutes before.  Tellesco bent down and grabbed him up, and he cradled him in his arms like a baby.  Joey looked up and said, “Mama?”

Tellesco began to laugh.

It was good to hear that.

I think that Tellesco, at that moment, took a step back from the cliff.

That mattered.

You recall, he was a king.

It mattered quite a hell of a lot.

We just didn't know why, at that point.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

Touch Me I’m Going To Scream   by My Morning Jacket 

.

TFW WAR CH2 MARTYR

La Vie En Rose  by Louis Armstrong  

WAR

CHAPTER

2

MARTYR

Big Bryan had said, “Will.  I came back for you guys.  You are why I came back here.  You are why I have been in jail all this time.  You did all this.  You’ve started a war.  So, what is the next step in your plan?”

The Glinty was coming down the trail, and I knew it was him.  I just didn't know what this meant.  But I found that I had a clue.

It had something to do with Sean, who was acting all weird now.

Of course, I didn't know how weird he had become.

But I would soon find out.

War had begun, in that desolate desert megalopolis of Fuckno.

We carried Tellesco together and dragged him up into the cab.  For once, he wasn't sitting bitch.  We slid him over the wide bench seat, across to the other side against the passenger door.  He was groggy from his fight with the Purple Robes, from the cold breath of a girl new to death, and a solid punch to his head from another large man: Big Bryan.

But he would wake the hell up.  Things would be getting pretty clear to him now, and to us all.

An old cowboy ghost was riding a carriage hearse with Catherine wheels towards us, drawn by a mighty black horse with a mane of blue flames.  The horse was called Mayhem.

Mayhem awaited us all.

I sat down next to Tellesco and Big Bryan got behind the steering wheel of the semi rig.

He looked at the dials and said, “She’s getting hot.  She ain't long for this world.  But she has some life left.”

He pushed the triple shift button down low and set her in reverse, and then he pressed her petal towards the mettle with a delicate touch, and we moved away from the mess in front of her grill.

The black semi rig was connected to the cars all piled up in front of her, all smashed by her, and the ones in front were connected to her grill.  He pressed down more on the accelerator, and the eight wheels behind us (two huge tires on each end of the two axles) well, they began to hum and then squeal on the tar driveway.

Bryan took her out of gear, and put her into low first.  He chugged her forward and the smashed pile of cars in front of us howled with broken metal pain.

He sped forth a bit and then swung the gear back into reverse while the momentum of the car pile kept going forth.  When he did this, the front end of the semi rig tore away and hung against the pile of smashed metal before us.

He floored the her petal and her bumper came away as well,  hanging there on the pile, and one end of the bumper dragged a car with it out of the wreck.

He stopped the semi, drove forth a bit and the sound was like the shriek from a newborn.

He stomped on the brake petal, held down the clutch and gunned the engine.  He looked over to me and said, “Duck down.  Something heavy might come this way.”

I did, and he stared straight ahead with the engine roaring with higher howls and coolant and oil dumping out on the ground.

Then he let the clutch go and the rear wheels shrieked, digging into the tar.

The semi lurched us back.  We both went forward.  I hit the foot well and Bryan hit the steering wheel.

The semi broke free of the car in front with the sound of metal rivets busting and pinging the cars in front of us.

Free at last.

I looked over Tellesco who said, “Who’s banging pans?”

Over his slumped shoulders the tiny blue spark below the foothills had disappeared. 

Mayhem and the Glinty were heading towards us.

We needed to collect Joey (whom I called Joseph back then, and whom I refer to as The Lion Man).

The truck swung herself to the right as we went back and we swung left inside the cab.  Tellesco fell over on top of me and Bryan shouted.

He said, “Steady!”

Tellesco pushed himself off of me as we spun around.  He said, “Sorry Mr. Will.  I feel dizzy..."

Bryan whipped the wheel around and put that old iron bitch into gear.  We were now heading back out down the driveway toward the old country lane.

We didn't have much life left in this old rig, but she was ready to give up her last breath for us.

Just like my first car, Matilda.

Bryan said, “Which way?”

I said, “Hah?”

He said, “Left or right?  Where is Joey?”

I said, “Turn right!  Head south!  He’s near a power station!”

Bryan entered the old country lane and we were going to Joey.

We were going to collect him.

Red Eyed And Blue   by Wilco  

Tellesco said, “How do I be a King?”  He was murmuring to himself.

I looked back behind us, out of the high, narrow glass in the rear wall of the cab.  There was no sign of the Glinty coming our way.  Yet.

I don’t know if I felt relief or disappointment.  I just knew that what I felt most was hesitation.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go forth with any of this.

The future was uncertain, and it was like standing on a precipice before a deep chasm.

Hell, I had lost my little bag of white powder.

I’d dropped it in the pool of scorching-hot oil and boiling coolant from the black beast we now rode.

Amazing, the power the powder had held over me.

I actually wanted to go back and try to retrieve it.  I remembered that it was me; I had poured it out.  What was I thinking?

I should have kept it and then I would still have it.  It would give me courage now, when I needed it most.

I would---

Bryan stomped the brakes and turned us on a dime.  A tiny red light on the power station building marked out target.

We sped forward without headlamps or even a front end, down the small driveway to the structure.

Indeed, the semi rig was bare on the front end, showing her tits.

Bryan stomped and locked her brakes, and we skidded until we stopped.  He opened the door and climbed out and hopped down to the tar.  He left the motor running because it might not start again.



I followed him down.  Tellesco muttered behind me, “I want chili fries and a Coke.”

The structure was lit from overhead by the red light from the moon above, and it was a mess. Something had happened to it.  The ass end of a huge truck stuck out from the side, and a single red light bulb glowed from the door nearby the hole.

The red light bulb was protected by a tiny metal cage about it, and it was probably powered by battery.  We didn't know that almost everything in Fuckno was powered now by batteries.  We didn't know that Joey had caused everything in the huge desert city to go dark when he smashed that white-painted utility truck into this power station.


We didn't know that he was a hero.




I looked around.

Our little truck was gone.

Joey had flown the coop.

Hah?

Joey?

He had fucked us?

I couldn't believe it.

Our escape vehicle was fucking gone.

Like my powder was.

I screamed.  I roared.  I was pissed.  I said, “FUCK!”

The semi rig's engine started to shudder.  It began to make loud, metallic grinding noises and the ground rumbled from it.  Then the radiator whistled like a chorus of birds. 

Big Bryan pulled me away from the front of the semi just when all of her hot breath burst out in a spray of high temperature steam and we rolled onto the side of the little tar driveway.

The huge beast shuddered and howled and screamed.  The windows and glass blew out from the cab.  With a mighty CLANG the air in the desert was silent again.

The engine had melted into a solid chunk of iron.

It glowed red, beneath the chassis, from where we lied in the dirt.  Steam hissed and sputtered and died down.  I could see the red glow of the engine.

All was lost.

We were alone.

Tellesco tottered up in the cab and said, “Where's my fries?”

He looked down at us in the waning light of the red glow from the engine beneath and the moon overhead.

He said, “Did you at least remember my Coke?”

The ringing in my ears dissipated a bit, and I thought I heard the whinny from a horse.

I pushed Big Bryan off me and sat up.

I listened.

It was a voice.

I got up on my knees and slapped Bryan on the arm.

He looked around.  He heard it too.

It said, “Weeeee-ill...”

I got up on my boots and went closer.

There, on the side of the tar, against a tree, was a small truck.  The engine was still humming.

Joey.

I ran over to the truck and looked in the side window.

I said, “Joseph!  You didn’t bail on us!”

He said, “Fuck no.”

I said, “Why you down over here?”

He said, “You guys trying to run me over.  Fuckers.”

We had almost killed him?

Joey said, “Weeee-ill.  I’m kinda fucked up.”

I said, “Joseph!  You gonna be OK.”

He said, “ I don’t know about that, but whatever you do, don’t stall the engine.”

Then he leaned over passed out.

Huh.

Dude didn’t bail after all.

How about that?

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

No Deliverance   by Toadies 

TFW WAR CH 1

The red moon above shined her lovely light over the quiet desertscape.  In the foothills, the night birds competed with bats for the errant flying insects.

The Sierra mountains stood solemn and majestic with their white crowns, as a herald for their beauty, and a wall to my home: The East.

Big Bryan struggled to pull Tellesco McGlinty up off the ground.  Tellesco, you as may recall, preferred to be called, “No One.” 

The weight of a dead person, or one who is unconscious, is heavy indeed.  It’s like lifting up a large bag of sand and trying to carry an armful of marbles. 

The connection to the Earth is mostly gravitational, but here, it was more than that.

Tellesco (No One) did not want to leave this place.  He dozed, perhaps intentionally, or not, because he could not leave the drowned mansion.  He had kin down below, in the graves beneath the behemoth, in the cellar.

He was their King.

King McGlinty.

Bryan said, “Will!  Come give me a hand with this big brute!”

I could not take my eyes off the red moon above.  I had never seen such a thing.  The moon rode high and huge in the night sky, and she looked as angry as the deep red flames of the kiln in the fires of Hephaestus himself.

Over the red-lit nightscape of the desert, I saw a blue spark appear.

And then I heard the sound a horse makes when it is about to jump over a fence.

Mayhem had come,

…and the Glinty had returned.

THE

RETURN

 OF

THE

GLINTY

Country Heroes   by Hank Williams III  

Indeed.

“Will!  We need to get the fuck out of here!”  Bryan was in a panicked state.

Do Not Panic.

I watched the tiny blue spark float down from above, from a desert cabin on the moon, and I felt the shivers.

Forces were at work about which I had no clue.

The spark landed below the foothills, closer to us than the mountains.  A bright light flared, like an errant meteorite coming to home. 

And then the night was deep red again.

You know, my friend, I would later discover where it had landed.  But that is at the end of these chapters, and I will tell you when the time is ready.  It’s quite soon.

(Hint: there once stood a cabin in the desert, with a garage behind.  A lock held by rust.  That location was a nexus.)

I turned back to Bryan and looked down at the wet bag of cement we knew as Tellesco (No One).

I knelt down and slapped Tellesco across the face.

His eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes.  He sat up, he looked me right in the eye, and his eyes teared up.  He said, “Why did you slap me, Mr. Will?”

He looked hurt.  It wasn't from the hard smack of my hand.  It had gone deeper.

I said, “Stop being a pussy.  Sean wouldn’t like to see you behaving like this.”

Well, I tell you mister, that made Tellesco get right the fuck up.  He brushed the dirt off his back and got in my face. 

He said, “Don’t talk about me and Sean like that.”

I held my ground.  He was very large, and I thought he might punch the life out of me.

That was one of those moments when you have a decision to make.

Cut bait or fish?

Fight or flee?

Stand your ground or run to the hills?

Do you know, I found that I had no choice.  I couldn’t believe it.  I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to run.

I said, “You better get ready then.  It’s going to get nasty.  Are you up for that?”

Tellesco’s eyes faltered.  He looked away for a bit.

I said, “Did you hear me?!  Are you up for this?!”

He stepped back and looked down.

Now listen.  Whenever you look into another man’s eyes, the first one to look down is the pussy.  Never, ever look down when another man looks you right in the eye.

No matter what.

You can smile, you can wink if you have the balls, or you can look past him, eyes still straight ahead.

Never look down when another man looks at you.

I grabbed him by the burnt leather jacket and pulled him close to me.

He swung his head forward, looking down at me.  Fucking huge bastard he was.

I said, “You need to be a king here.  You need to stand your ground.”

Behind me, the light from a long trail of blue fire blazed down an old western trail where long-forgotten cowboy ghosts floated about.

The huge horse galloped forth, with a bright blue mane of fire, hauling a black hearse-carriage behind it.

Atop the old, dusty carriage sat a man holding the reins in one hand, and a shot gun in the other.

His eyeglasses were broken.

One lens had been shot in half when the bullet entered his brain and killed him ages ago.

The Glinty had returned.

Tellesco turned from what he saw behind me and whispered, “I will follow you, wherever you will go.  How do I be a King?”

That was the essence.

That is what a leader asks himself every day.

The answer exists in every single decision that you make.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

 Slave to the Moon   by Nighthawks

.

TFW CH 34 Lines Drawn In The Desert

From Can To Can’t   by From Reel To Real  

I followed Big Bryan to his stolen, big black rig that was rumbling against a pile of smashed-up vehicles against its front grill.  He was carrying the huge man Tellesco over his shoulders, you know.

I felt like I had a savior. 

Finally.

I just didn’t know that I was supposed to contribute.

As we rounded the huge mess of smashed metal, he pointed at the front of the rig.

It steamed from the top and also spurted various liquids all about on the ground.

He said, “Will, I fucked this bitch up.  I think we have another twenty minutes before she gives up the ghost.  I don’t know what we can do after that happens, before her heart melts.”  Then he set Tellesco down on the grass nearby.

I said,” Hah? Her heart melts?  What d’ya mean by that?”  I wasn’t thinking right because I was in panic mode.

Never Panic.

He pulled his hand back from the cab door handle and turned around and he looked me right in the eye.

He said, “Will.  I came back for you guys.  You guys are why I came back here.  You are why I have been in jail all this time.  You did all of this, here.  You started a war.  So what is the next step in the plan?”

I stepped back.

I remembered all that we had been through, and it had been kinda harsh.

I didn’t have a solid answer for all of his attempt to come back here and save us and all that shit.  All I could think of was Joseph, the Little Lion Man who had run off.

I found my self saying the following words, “I have no clue.”

My friend, I saw him lose all faith in me.

It was a flicker in his eyes.

I can’t even begin to describe how that felt, so I won’t.

Big Bryan said, “No clue at all?”

I shook my head. 

And then I reached down into the hidden inside pocket of my leather jacket and brought out the last remnant of my desert dust, in a tiny bag with a straw inside, and I whispered to him, “Maybe we can find out a way.”

I held it up.

I thought:

We could do a line of the white powder.  It would make everything better.  Everything had always made sense when we had done it.

I had been saving it for such an occasion.

Or course, you know that was a lie.  I simply hadn’t had enough time to snort a line from it, all the way back from when we were at the Hostibal and then we’d lost Sean.

He looked at it and said, “That’s all you got?”

I shook my head. 

I said, “Dude, no. I can get more.  Let’s do this.  A welcome back home present.  I can get more.”

I opened it up, and the straw fell out and down onto the tar.  I dropped to my knees and grabbed for it, and my fingers scratched around for it in the widening puddle of hot oil and radiator coolant, mixing as they had in the engine of my Matilda.

I had rebuilt Matilda with my bare hands.  I had given her a new heart.  I had bored her out and thrust my gleaming crankshaft in deep, and when she was finally roaring, I killed her in my lust for a tig bittied bitch.

It was a bit much to remember all of that.  I stopped fumbling for the straw.

I found mettle, somewhere down on my knees in hot liquid from a broken-hearted big rig that was willing to give her last breath up for us.

Big Bryan had come back for us.

I felt like shit.

I looked over at the bag of desert dust I’d dropped.

I had dropped it, scrambling around for the straw.

I did not make any sense at all anymore, even to myself.

Drop a bag of my savior to scramble for a straw?

I snatched the bag up and got off my knees.

Tellesco opened his eyes and said, “Whew.  Where am I?”

I looked right up into Big Bryan’s eyes, and I said, “O.K.  I get it.  I fucking get it.”

I turned the bag over, upside down, and I shook out its contents.

I looked down at the mixture of the white powder in the oil and coolant, and felt sad.

Comedown was a bitch.  You love your addiction, and you hate to see her leave you, for even an instant.

But that look in Bryan’s eyes…

I had failed him.

I had failed all of my friends.

I had failed myself.

I had failed my little sisters.

I was supposed to protect them and take them away from that ugly, mean megalopolis.

Failure.

For a moment, I recovered.

I looked back up into Big Bryan’s eyes and said, “OK.   Let’s go get Joseph.”

Ya know, that ugly look in Big Bryan’s eyes went away just as quick.  He whispered to me, “You just burned your last line, huh.  You just dumped that shit down.”

I shook my head.  I said, “It won’t be long before I’m looking for more.”

He said, “That's how it goes with recovery.  But you took the first step, Will.”

He clapped my arm, the hurt one.  I winced.

He said, “I got your back.”

Fuck.

I was afraid he’d say that.

It meant that I had stepped up.

I guess I would have a hard time ahead.

I guess all of us would as well.

But,

what he’d said,

well,

It meant something.

I meant that we might have a chance if we fought in this war.



It's just that none of us had a clue what that would mean at all.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

B3   by Placebo  

The Fuckno Wars CH 33 Elucidation

Can’t Play Dead    by The Heavy   

I watched the ghost girl with my friend Tellesco, called No One by we salty men.  It gave me the fucking willies.  I hate ghosts.  Don’t you?

She touched his face and spoke to him in quiet tones.  I could see her lips move, but there was nothing I could hear from her.

Fuck that.

Big Bryan pulled me away from the frosty back yard and pointed over a mound of smashed cars in front of a huge tractor trailer that hummed.

It was painted as black as the day I was born, just the way I like my coffee.  No sugar, baby.

He said, “We gonna go now.  I’m fucked up.’

I said, “You sure?”

He nodded, and his eyes faltered for a second.  He said, “I’m sure that I am fucked up.”

I said, “We need to get Joseph.  We can’t leave him behind.”

His eyes opened wide, and he said, “Joey?  I didn’t see him! Where is he?”

I pointed beyond the big black rig.  I said, “He might be down the street.  He took off.  But he might be waiting for us down at the power station by the side of the road.  We got a little truck.”

Big Bryan adjusted his tie, which means that he got his shit together.  He shouted orders.  He took control of this fucked up evening.  He grabbed Tellesco by the collar and pulled his face to his own.  He screamed.

“Tellesco!  We gonna get Joey now!”

Tellesco wiped the tears from his eyes and growled.  He said, “No.  We going back inside this place and down.”

Big Bryan shook his head.  “You want a ride outta here, then you come with me.  Now.”

Tellesco looked down at the little, glowing blue image of a girl pasted upon the surface of reality, and he said, “Then fuck you, Sir Bryan.”

Big Bryan swung his meaty hand at Tellesco’s head and Tellesco fell to the ground.  He knelt and grabbed Tellesco by a leg and an arm, and pulled him over his shoulders.

You know, when two large men fight before you, it is quite a sight to behold.

I stepped back in the shadows with the little blue ghosts girl, and watched Bryan carry Tellesco off to the big rig.

Bryan shouted back, “Will!  Get your ass in gear!”

I complied.

Bread and Butter   by Hugo

Joey the Little Lion Man lied on the ground by the demolished power station with dirt in his scratches.  The ground does not make for a soft bed. 

His eyes rolled and he looked up into the light.  He saw two of these tiny red lights.  Then they became one; a single entity.

He pressed his hands up to the back of his head, and the small, embedded rocks on his palms rubbed against the dirt in his bloody hair.

The lights blinked at the side of a building he remembered, from earlier.  It was coming back to him.  He eased up onto his side, and looked about.  The world spun a bit, but he was coming to his senses.

What the hell was going on?  He saw the building with a huge truck inserted into it’s side like an un-welcomed intrusion.  Truck rape on a structure.

He looked to the side and saw a man lying there, unconscious.

What had happened?  What had he done?

Why did his leather smell like burnt steak?

Always mind your leather.

Bad things had occurred.  He looked up past the red emergency light of the busted building, and saw the red moon sailing high in the black sea above like the surface of the deepest ocean, glinting with sparkles of far off stars and worlds.

There is only one world with life on it.

The Little Lion Man remembered.

He would not leave anyone behind.

He had work to do.

The tiny truck rumbled quietly, parked on the side of the access road, under some trees.  He knew that his friends would never bail on him,

…as he had done.

He needed to save his friends.

It was all they had left, at this lowest point in their lives.

It was all he had, himself.

It was all he had ever truly had, you know.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out