like a copper penny. And it ran down the street like a waterslide into the sewers.
The street was bleeding.
He saw the man in the Girl Scout uniform.
Waking up.
The man opened his eyes. He was at least forty or maybe even a young fifty. But his eyes were innocent. And he was happy. He yawned and rubbed away the sleep like a baby. Then, he stood and began to skip down the street, kicking blood puddles all over his bare legs. The man kept whistling a song. Blue Moon. He bent down to tie his shoes near the bushes. Whistling. And tying. And whistling. And tying.
Until two hands reached out and grabbed him.
The man let out a bloodcurdling scream. When Christopher saw who pulled the man into the bushes, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was the man himself.
They looked like identical twins. But the other man wasn’t wearing a Girl Scout uniform. He wore glasses that were missing a frame. And a whistle around his neck. He was bald and his hair was too thin to comb over, but he did it anyway. As the balding man ripped off the Girl Scout man’s uniform, Christopher finally understood the words he was screaming.
“GET ME OUT OF HERE! PLEASE!”
Christopher saw another man jogging down the street. Out of nowhere, a car turned the corner and ran into him, knocking the man into the grass. The car screeched to a halt. The car door opened to reveal that the person driving the car was the man himself. He held a flask. When he saw what he had done to himself, the driver ran back into his car and drove away. Then, the man who got hit with the car dusted himself off and stood up. He jogged back into the street. Out of nowhere, the same car turned the corner and ran into him.
“PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!”
Christopher looked around his neighborhood. Everywhere he turned, he saw people hurting themselves. Over and over again. He saw a man cheating on his wife with one of their neighbors. The man and woman were kissing, their arms intertwined like candles melted into each other. They couldn’t stop kissing.
“PLEASE! PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP!” the couple shouted, blood running from their lips.
The screams pounded Christopher’s mind. It felt as if someone had put earphones on his head and turned up the volume to 10. Then 11. Then 12. Up and up and up to infinity. He felt like his brain was cooking. It was beyond a fever. It was beyond a headache. It was beyond any pain he knew possible. Because it wasn’t his pain. It was the world’s pain. And there was no end to it. Christopher’s mind raced for answers inside all of this madness.
I was here for six days.
Christopher looked across the bleeding landscape. The mailbox people fanned through the neighborhood. Climbing chimneys. Gutters. Cable lines. Breaking glass and doors while the deer sniffed the bloody ground. Sniffing for him in the shadows. He heard screaming in the house next door.
“Stop! Don’t hit me, Mom!” a woman said to herself over and over in a little girl’s voice.
“Spare the rod! Spoil the child!” she replied in her mom’s voice as she pulled off her belt.
Christopher felt the woman’s shrieks as she hit herself over and over. The belt connecting with flesh. Christopher calmed his mind as much as he could. He pushed the screams out of his ears and thought quickly.
You have to get the key.
You have to kill the hissing lady.
You have to save the nice man.
He searched his mind for the nice man, but the screams came back, louder than before. Just when he thought his mind would crack in half, there was a great silence. It looked as if someone pushed the OFF button on the street. Every person went limp like a robot at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Every mailbox person. Every deer. Christopher stood, perched on the roof of his house. Waiting. Not breathing.
Something is coming.
What is it?
Suddenly, a familiar sound broke the spell. An ice cream truck was coming down the street. The truck was playing a song, but the little music box sounded warped. Like an old record left out in the sun.
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the people
The monkey thought that it was a joke
Pop! goes the weasel.
The truck drove closer and closer. The doors of the houses opened, and little children started walking outside. Rubbing their eyes like moles. Squinting in the moonlight. The little children