One Last Thing: Episode 1

Outside the sprawl of the Shop Apocalypse, a multi-leveled, multi-plexed, juggernaut of brand label armageddon, one man stands against the tidal wave of consumerism. His name is Grim Bison, officer of the Shop Apocalypse Patrol: Parking Lot Division. He wears a khaki S.A.P uniform with stream pressed lapels. He is the vision of an actual police officer, but it’s a costume he left behind many years ago, when the Shop Apocalypse was nothing more than 5 city blocks of demolished memories.  He was there the day the wrecking ball beat against the face of  his home and patrol and remembered it like his first prostate exam.

The last day of his patrol, Bison Square was deserted. Haunted ghost of a childhood past played in the wreckage of the present. Windows, once lit as if were an every lasting Christmas, were covered by thick scars of wood, nailed to her brick face. Not a soul stirred, save for the crowded press platform, where newshounds and vampires intermingled within a parameter of construction men in hard hats and monstrous equipment.

Flash bulbs burst as photographers snapped memories of pearly toothed vampires. All the evil that had befallen Bison square manifested on the stage. Each vampire wore wide plastic smiles and held shovels ready to dig into a chunk of manifest destiny. Newshounds scribbled notes to later praise the civil unrest on the Newspaper’s front page. Social gentrification was a boon, if you knew how to spin the story and sell the result. Grim stood witness across the street with a black top road of separation.

“So here is where it ends?”
Grim heard a voice and turned to find his father on a bench behind him. His old man sat with two ice cream cones in his hand, one he ate and the other he offered to Grim.
“Last day on the job, it can’t be considered a bribe.”

Grim’s father was a little person, sat upon the bench his feet couldn’t reach the ground. He was a small man but his face showed a presence of wisdom far beyond his child like body. The locals knew him as E.R. Bison Jr., named after his father, who was a famous Ring leader of “E.R. Bison’s, World Famous, Three Rings of Wonderment, Traveling Circus Show.”

E.R. Jr. spent a childhood in the circus and never acquired a taste for the nomadic life. He loved the circus for it’s bright colors and air of merriment. But he despised the gypsy travel, always on the move and pushed out of every town by doubtful locals. After the young E.R. Jr. gained a large pay off from his stint on the silver screen, as a citizen of Oz’s Munchkin land, he settled his line of the Bison family in the city square that would come to share his family name.

One last thing, it should be noted that E.R. Jr.’s choice to settle his family down enraged E.R. Sr.. The elder E.R. held a great love for his son and saw the boy’s departure as a slap in the face to his way of life. Bison men were known for their pride and none were better representations than son and father. They were stubborn men and family fights are often worse than strangers. E.R. Sr. went so far as to have a curse put over his son’s line of the family.

Grim was the first of his family to be born in the stable foundation of Bison Square and the first to be born of natural height. Where Grim’s height might have been a boon in other families, in a family from a long line of little people with tall shadows, his birth was seen as a curse. His name became Grim to mark his fate. Grim grew to be 5 feet tall, which was too tall for his siblings who used “giant” as a slur but not tall enough for the children at school who called him a shrimp. Though he found it hard to be Napoleon, when most of his agitators were of smaller stature.

But when on patrol, Grim presented a dash of dictator. The first and cursed, he held a strong connection for the welfare of Bison Square. His childhood was a first hand account of E.R. Jr’s hard work. People saw E.R. as a small man, but Grim watched him rebuilt the city square. People from all around the city would come to the tiny city hamlet and E.R. grew a odd community with help from the locals. As E.R.’s wealth grew, he bought up the local apartment buildings and invited circus friends to settle and preform in the streets. In time, Bison Square became a hang out for street performers and vendors. E.R. Jr. idea was to create a traveling show that never traveled and his misfortune was it had worked.

Bison Square became an entertainment land mark and, with it’s cheap rent and liberal air, drew in the young, hip, art crowd. The young, hip, art crowd had parents with money, who would visit their dead beat children and saw the economic value of the tiny city hamlet. E.R. Jr. had paved the way for Bison Square with well intentions. He built it brick by brick but, on the day the wrecking ball flew through the air, he saw the end of the cobble stone road was hell with a friendly sign that read “Shop Apocalypse Coming Soon”.

Scenes from One Last Thing

“The Fool’s Journey ends at the start, huh Dad?” Grim said.

Grim took a ice cream cone from his old man. He was on duty and the top brass were on the stage. But, as today was his last day and the top brass smiled at the shatters of his former home, he didn’t well care if they saw him take an unscheduled break.

“Don’t give me your mother’s mambo, jambo, tarot card crap. If I wanted to hear that I would be at home.”
“How is the new place?”
“It’s smaller than the trailer I grew up in and the apartment of drunk college kids think I’m a leprechaun. How do you think it is?”

E.R Jr. had recently moved to a condo on the lower east side. A tiny two bedroom walk up was the only place he could afford after the vampires in blood red ties bought his home from under him. They had unleashed gangs on Bison Square, in an effort to under appreciate the land value and bought Grim’s childhood home for a song. Grim kept a back log of surveillance video featuring tattooed dunderheads who took thick envelopes slid through limo windows. He submitted the videos as evidence, but the Chief had ignored all his inquired. The brass asshole was on the take.

“Are you still running with the Chief’s Daughter?” E.R. Jr. said.

The Chief had screwed Grim’s neighborhood. Grim courted his daughter. Turn about was fair play in the dominate game of men.

“Yeah, she is at home scanning the apartment for bugs.”
“She’s a paranoid one, huh?”
“Last week, she found one in the lamp and one in the bathroom.”
“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you, boy.”

As exclamation to the old man words, across the street, a golden shovel was thrust into the ground and the seal of fate was in place. Bison Square was dust but the name would live on in the Shop Apocalypse sign to designate it’s difference from the other Shop Apocalypse outlets found world wide. So are the ways of extinction as the name of cookie cutter communities acquire their names from the animals they eradicate from the land; communities like “Deer Creek” and “Beaver Bank” said “Goodbye Deer” or “Goodbye Beaver.”

Grim watched the stage for a little longer as hand shakes and compliments were doled around. Away from the hoopla and behind the backs of the hard hat men, he caught a glimpse of Paul and Winston, two neighborhood kids. Left with nothing else to do, they had grabbed shovels and used the long shafts as representation of their manhood as they fought like pornographic swordsman. Grim and his father weren’t the only ones from the old neighborhood present but in the face of progress no one cares about the indigenous people.

Grim got home that evening and found his small apartment empty, save for a small piece of pink paper. Cindy, his girlfriend, had left him a note. The paper held a hint of vanilla, a scent Cindy picked up on her stint as a strip club dancer. He read the note and sniffed the page, wishing for the after hit of stale tobacco and whiskey.

Dear Grim,

Found three more bugs today, I can’t live like this. I’m off to film a documentary in a place he will never find me. It’s not you, it’s him.

Love,
Cindy

Cindy left her father and Grim by default. That was Grim’s nutshell luck, he was always the innocent bystander in the game. Life, love, and luck, he failed all three. He told himself everything was for the best, as he slept with the note pressed under his nose.

Sometimes things worked out for the best and sometimes things worked out for the best and would lead to the next big failure. “Global Slaves”, Cindy’s in depth look at slave labor around the world became a darling of the Sundance Film Festival, a hit on internet movie streams, and featured as a 10 ten pick on “Shaman Bob’s Blog”. Shaman Bob found himself in the midts of his greatest failure as he rewatched the video cast through a flat web interface and projected on to a giant stone television.  He could clearly see the 50 foot screen from his vantage point on top of a Buddhist like temple, where a neon sign proclaimed it “The Chateau Plateau”, and the sound seamed to come form all around.

This landscape of mix-matched religious metaphors was not a place in reality but a virtual world within a virtual world. The name on the domain is ShamanBob.org and it can be found on the Wonder Web. Bob should know, he created the Wonder Web and built Shamanbob.org from the ground up, binary brick by binary brick. Here, in his domain of solitude, Bob could relax and find peace, thought solitude was in short supply as of late.

The Chateau Plateau

Bob’s Wonder Web was on the lips of every news outlet. It’s interface “Styx Shades”, a pair of hard wired glasses, was this Christmas season’s hot item. Wonder Web was marked as the next World Wide Web and included a fourth W to stand for the “World Wide Wonder Web”. Bob, as Wonder Web’s the sole creator, had intended it’s release to be free with the purchase of the trademarked Styx Shades. Intentions fall astray and he took long pulls from a bottle marked triple x to relive his shattered dreams. He noticed the time and changed the stone television from “Global Slaves” to “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” where the secret word of the day was “Nice”.

He could do that without the assistance of a remote control. The Wonder Web offered unlimited control over the world or domain, as each function of physics was run by an application from an unseen computer bank. In ShamanBob.org, Bob could do as he pleases without the restraints of logic or physics. He could raise a Buddhist temple from the ground, slap a neon sign on the top, and create a jug of triple X rotgut from thin air.  He could do as he pleased but even in a world of unlimited possibilities, gods were not infallible.

Bob’s ultimate frustration came in the form “The Man” and the Man could have been any head of the conglomerate machine, but Bob assumed he was an agent hired by a shadow boardroom. In the poker game of business, the chips are stacked against you. They had taken the dream of open connectivity and placed a price tag on the Wonder Web. Bob pitched futile fits but they had him by the balls in legalese.

Punctual as always, The Man appeared at the steps of the Chateau Plateau at 16:20 on the dot. He logged into the Wonder Web from one of the first 1000 prototype Styx Shades. Bob would never see The Man’s actual face, as all of Bob’s fan’s, or Shamites as they were known in the binary world, knew him as a Jpeg file of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs, the archetype savior of the Church of the Sub Genius.

Bob paid the Man little attention as he created a red carpet escalator up the Chateau Plato. Bob hid a file marked “Handi Tanks”, with a top Secret stamp on the cover, into a third party hard drive for safe keeping.

“I see you are getting the hang of my Wonder Web.” Bob nodded to the red carpet escalator as it evaporated into thin air.
“Well I have to get a head of the curve, before my kids get a hold of a pair Styx Shades and leave their old man in the dust.”

Bob hated the way that vampires would always try and relate to the common man. If Bob had kids, he would never mention how his children would grow up to be a better blood sucker. He would never infest their young minds with slanted logic. If he did, he couldn’t do it with the same straight face.

Bob was pissed but knew it was his own fault. He had been ignorant and thought he could control the corporate element. His intention was to selfproduce the shades under his own company and release the platform as open source code. The plan was perfect save for a lack of money and, like good men before him, he made a deal with the Vampires in blood red ties.

No one was to blame but himself. Bob had singed the papers to get a loan and opened the doors for corporate savages to rape his dream. His idea of open access became a per month charge and the price tag on a pair of Styx Shades tripled. His dream of cheap interface and free access was shattered. He didn’t want to mention what they did to the Handi Tanks. Shaman Bob saw it all, though he could do nothing to stop it and his rage was painted on his face.

“Why are you looking so glum, Bob” The Man said.

The Man found the small table with a tea pot and two cups laid out. Bob had changed the programing of the Tripple X jug to create a more regal impression.

“ You have a pretty good idea why I am so glum.” Bob said.
“Bob, stop acting like child. You still own 49% of the company. The Styx Shades are set to premier on Black Friday at the Shop Apocalypse. Smile, you’re a millionaire. That has to be nice? ”
“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You said the secret word.”

The Man looked into the distance and saw the face of the stone temple television.

“Funny”
“More ironic than funny.”
“Irony can be funny. Can’t it be both?”
“Bend your logic any way you want. That is your job right?”

And that was the logic of dealing with the tie clad vampires. They always held a two sided coin to relieve themselves of guilt and to help find their way to false redemption. Society didn’t help, churches offered confessionals for the most heinous acts. Murder say a hell Mary, theft say a hell Mary, bestial sodomy with under age baboons, say a hell Mary. Pray, knell, bob; their religion was as empty as their personal life. It was no wonder half the population was hooked on prescription pills.

The Man gave Bob a break down on all the things that he had no say in. He spoke of the evilness of man in a matter of fact tone. Children in the outskirts of humanity were hard at work with red hot soldering iron in their tiny hands. Children who had recently learned to tie their shoes worked for pennies on the dollar. This was reality and why Bob chose the Wonder Web.

In a moral reality, children should have been enthralled with Pee Wee’s Playhouse, while Bob held a soldering iron. But here in actual reality, he was a millionaire while children were taught about life in a society of hard knocks. Bob thought he should change the “Capitalism” page on Wiki to reflect this story.

“One last thing, Bob, The Shop Apocalypse: Bison Square would like you there for a demonstration and we have you booked on the next flight.” The Man said.
“Was that a question?”
“Do we ask questions?” The Man said. ” That was rhetorical. As I said before Bob, grow up and welcome to the real world. Have a pleasant shopping day.”

The Man disappeared from his seat and Bob was left in the Chateau Plato alone with his thoughts. Bob’s dream had fallen but he would have the last laugh and the last laugh would be egg on the face of The Man. If he wanted a demonstration, well Bob would give them a demonstration the Shop Apocalypse would not soon forget.

One Last Thing Cover Expanded

Wiki defines the Shop Apocalypse as multiple entries. One is the armageddon end of a brand label society as predicted by Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. The other Shop Apocalypse is what short sighted fools call a mall, which is like dubbing the Mall of America a “strip mall”. A comparison met with acute objection from Kip, the artificial intelligence who runs the Mall of America and often sends fan mail to the Shop Apocalypse. To say Kip wants to be the Shop Apocalypse is a stretch of the imagination, but he shows the same respect and reverence to the Uber empire of consumerism that Himler showed Hitler. At the end of the day, they run the world and have the constitution of German fascists.

Grim was not a fascist, though he liked to play one at work. In the years after the destruction of Bison Square, The Shop Apocalypse rose from the ashes and landed Grim on the same beat, reconverted into a large empty parking lot and devoid of delight. A job handed down from his boss who also happened to his ex-girlfriend’s father. The Chief had left the force to head the S.A.P. team and further ruin Grim’s life or so the conspiracy theories in Grim’s paranoid mind told him.

One last thing was certain, the parking lot was hell. Like prison, war, or cubical work, there were long stretches of inactivity. The occasional cart thief and shoplifter offered few chances to pass the time. Idol hands became the devil’s playground and Grim found time to ponder the ramifications of his work environment. He saw the Shop Apocalypse infused with the hallmarks of a 1984 esk state controlled society and he acted to enforce that image in the mind of the sleeping public. They had allowed the Shop Apocalypse to become their fate and Grim worked to show them every grisly detail.

He didn’t hate the population but conned the sheep for their reaction. They lived in a fictional world of market prices and illusions of freedom. The S and A googie shaped doors of the Shop Apocalypse were opened to the public but, inside the lines of private property, the security team was paid to enforced every square inch.

What ever label you placed on the Shop Apocalypse, reflected in Grim’s mirrored aviator glasses as he drove along the sea of parked cars, the product was another empire of monastic intent. Those at the top reigned down upon the population and gave them an appearance of freedom. However, if a protest broke out, each protester could be battered downtown for trespassing or, if the brass wanted to be real dicks, they would be sent for breaking and entering. The vampires in blood red ties controlled the distribution of debate free slavery. Citizens had no rights in between the walls of the Shop Apocalypse and conducted themselves at the mercy of a long list of rules and regulations, clearly printed on posters featuring the copy written, cartoon Four Horsemen of Savings.

Grim had not seen the posters or the disney-ified version of mass slaughter in a while as he was no longer allowed in the building. He had been busted out to the parking lot beat after a mishap with a Vampire, who smoked in a non-smoking section. Vampires were above the rules and regulations and the S.A.P. staff knew it, but the officers didn’t have to like it. Grim fought tooth and nail to vindicate the violation but, as the Chief took the brunt of the bullshit, Grim was busted out to the parking lot.

The Chief was also envious of Grim’s relationship with his daughter . She was the one to leave but he held her departure against Grim. the Chief was the one to bug their apartment on a daily biases but he looked at Grim through slacker colored glasses. She left to get away from the control of her overly controlling father and sent Grim post cards from where ever she was. The Chief read all of Grim’s mail and was green with jealousy.

Grim thought of the last post card, a picture of a crowded board walk with a cartoon balloon that said “Hey Mom and Dad, send money.” Grim loved the hilarity of a college students who couldn’t afford to go on vacations but did so anyway. It was a new time honored condition. In the new generation, the children were given free reign until past their 22nd year of life, a mile stone that far exceeded the years of generations past.

The first vacation Grim ever took was after his last day off the force and he didn’t have fun. Fresh from his split with both his calling and yearning, he was not in the mood for a sugar high from tiny umbrellas. When he wasn’t on beat, he felt useless and empty. You could take the cop out of his uniform but the ghost of his uniform never left. Along with his cop eyes that watched Paul and Winston walk away from the S shaped door with a empty cart.

He remembered the sword fighting perverts and had a gut feeling they were up to no good. He knew the pair had no shopping agenda and were cut loose from school to a parent-less house. Children of the new age, they had transcended beyond all legal stimuli. Television, video games, and frontal lobotomies no longer held any interest. They needed a real life kick in the pants and craved to experience life free from a broadcast medium. Their unlucky choice was to choose Grim’s domain and he trailed them in the S.A.P cart at a slow, medium, and governed pace. Paul looked back over his shoulder in an over the top way. He intended to be discreet and Winston nudged him in the ribs. They were a couple of mice about to spring Grim’s cat trap.

Grim could smell their pharamones but he lost sight of them as a Anon Juggernaut SUV backed out of its space without notice or care of the S.A.P. Cart. Grim slammed his foot against the metal break pedal and sent a fresh, hot cup of Starsucker coffee onto his lap. Black nylon pants, shrink wrapped to his legs, burned into his flesh like napalm. He howled in pain for the enjoyment of an apple cheeked child in the back window.

Grim shook his fist of parking lot authority at the absent minded driver, a soccer mom with a gaggle of screaming children as co pilots, and received laughter from the apple faced child, who was quick to point out Grim’s misfortune to the other children in the car. Five small faces jumped up to the window and watched Grim jump and curse around the interior of the S.A.P cart as the coffee seared his flesh. The little bastards went so far as to give the bird to a wounded officer.

“Kids have no respect these days.” Grim thought to himself through his aviator sunglasses.

NOFX said “there is no freedom like a shopping cart” and Paul could feel the freedom whip through his hair as the cart flew down the steep slope. Paul and Winston were dropouts from a liberal upbringing in the home of an anestigologist and a market researcher. Left as latchkey children of a forgotten generation, they turned to the only form of fun they could find. Stealing shopping carts and downhill joy rides. Once they lost Grim, they thought they were in the clear but, when the pair were half way down the hill, they hit the road spikes.

Road spikes were not S.A.P. standard issue but the old man who inventoried Police cars, back at Grim’s prior police station, could be sold on a weak story and a 100 dollar bill. Grim kept the spikes for instants like these. Nothing could better stop a stolen shopping cart and teach Einstein’s theory of relativity than a good set of road spikes. As proven when the pair of cart stealers learned an important lesson of gravity’s role in action and reaction. The spikes halted the forward progression and ejected the pair from the cart. They tumbled in a ball of skinned knees and skidded to a halt at the point of Grim’s shiny black boots. In shock, they laid sprawled on the ground, left to stair into their reflection.

“You boys think you are cute?” Grim said with a poker face.
“huh?” They said in unison.
“Do you, boys,” Grim said,” think you are cute?”
“Umm, No sir.” Winston said.
”Shut up. it was a rhetorical question.” Grim said. ”Now, I’m not a fuddy duddy. I understand how it is. Your parents are at work and masturbation has becomes a task not unlike homework. You hear tales on the playground of drugs that will give you the kicks you are looking for. You crave to experience something different. I was young once, I understand.”

The pair nodded in dazed confusion.

“You crave something strange to cure the mundane reality that is your pathetic teenage life. You want to tune in and drop out. You score a bit of Mary Jane from a kid in a leather jacket and you think this isn’t so bad. A week later, you are popping uppers and downers like penny candy. But even that is not enough. You can’t seem to kill the brain cells quick enough….”

“Grim” The Cheif’s gruff voice said over the radio strapped to Grim’s lapel. “I swear Grim, if you are in the back lot busting cart stealers, while reports and television cameras are sneaking into the building, I am going to have your ass on a golden platter.”

“…”

“Damn it, I swear if my daughter didn’t date and dump your ass, leaving me to with no choice but to feel sorry for your ass, I don’t know where you would be. I do know, your ass is about to be busted down to sweeping the parking lot. Do you have enought sun block to cover that pale Irish ass?”

Paul starts to giggle, Grim shoots him daggers, and Winston jabs him in the ribs.

“You got some homoerotic hang up, Chief? Or do you just like long monologues about my ass?”

“That’s the ticket, get cute with me, son.” The Chief said.

“Grim, don’t get him upset.” Mary’s cool, crisp voice interrupted the air waves. Grim couldn’t see her face, but knew her red pouty lips where outside the Cheif’s office, the only reason to go inside.” You know, it’s Black Friday and the truck with the Christmas shipment of Styx Shades is behind schedule. We are all a little on edge.”
“What the hell are Styx Shades?”
“Don’t you ever read the morning memos?”
“I secure the parking lot.”

Grim coiled the road spikes and placed them in the back of S.A.P Cart.

“Right… well, the Wonder Web is the new internet function to replace the World Wide Web.” Mary said.
“Wonder Web, I thought you said Styx Shades?”
“It’s called a base knowledge. I am creating a base of knowledge, so your small mind can follow the bread crumbs.”
“Right.”
“So, The Wonder Web is the new internet function and hopes to replace the World Wide Web.”
“The internet -what’s-it?”
“The internet, you have heard of the internet, right?”
“Sure, they got it on computers.”
“Good, you might have earned yourself a cookie.”
“Oh you gonna give me your cookie?”
“Down boy.”

“GRIM, IF YOU DON”T CUT THE SHIT….Oh God, I’m having a heart attack. This is the big one.”

“Settle down Chief, I’ll handle Grim.”
“Handle me rough, Sugar.”
“Moving on, computers can connect to the internet through many applications. Most people think the World Wide Web is the internet, but the internet is the highway and the World Wide Web is one function of the internet. One of many functions.”
“As police stations have many departments.”
“Exactly, in your police station metaphor, the Internet would be the police station and Patrol units would be the World Wide Web. Many people see patrol units as the face of the Police Station as many users view the World Wide Web as the face of the Internet.”

“O.K. but what is the Wonder Web?”
“The Wonder Web hopes to become the new face of the internet and is a fully integrated binary world. It holds the limitless possibilities of open source binary code on a three demetional plane. The mere thought can make a girl blush.”
“A real world?”
“No, a online world or worlds, but you can’t get there on a normal computer. You need a pair of Styx Shades and the first generation units come with free access to the Wonder Web for life. I got my pre-order in weeks ago.”
“So these Styx Shades are a hot ticket item?”

“You haven’t seen the commercial? The ad where two guys are on the shores of a dark moor covered in fog. One is dressed like a nerd and the other is dressed like the main character in “Accepted”.  During a big girly fist fight over who is a better operating system, a long thin boat drifts ashore. The Grim Reaper gives them each a pair of Styx Shades. Then the pair spout wings and ascend into Heaven.”

“I don’t watch television, I am a member of a movie by mail program.”
“You’re not missing much, it was pile of mix matched metaphors and marking slap stick. I was a bit revolted.”
“So hot ticket item, keep a look out for shoplifters in the parking lot or would you like me to scan for bombs?”
“Very funny. No, I don’t want you to look out for shop lifters or fictional bombs, because while you are in the food court playing “Smoky and the Bandit” with dead beat latchkey kids, the front doors look like a full blown comic book convention. Now get your ass over to the main lot and see what the hell that trailer bed is all about.”
“What trailer bed?”
“That is what we want to know.”
“10 4”

Grim flipped the switch and the small flashing red light of the SA security cart blinked into action. His led foot pounded the governor-free gas pedal and swerved towards the pair of pranksters, still sprawled on the ground, besides the toppled shopping cart.

“You kids want real kicks? Then get a job, Americans!” Grim said, as he waved his fist out the S.A.P Cart.

Grim screeched the S.A.P. cart to a halt besides the long trailer bed set up outside the property lines of the parking lot. The trailer bed was flat with two equal rows of work benches. At each bench sat a college aged student, who was dressed to appear much younger than they were with large pig tails, over sized kids clothing, and painted on rosy cheeks. The students worked feverishly to a keyboard Rumba beat, while a rather thin man in a black suit, red tie, and Dick Nixon mask marched up and down the aisles. The thin man wore a pair of glasses that made his eyes appear comically squinty and carried a long thin leather whip.

“Work harder… No work hard, get no lunch…. America needs clothing NOW…. You want Americans to freeze… Wally World no call on phone… you starve to death…” The thin man said as he cracked the whip.

Other students, dressed in blue smocks, ran from the trailer to the surrounding crowd and sold the clothing made on the work benches. People forked over wads of green bills for clothing that wouldn’t last more than a hour, however the other half of the crowd shot hand cameras and took snips for later YouTube videos to increase the value of the “protest memorabilia”.

The Shop Apocalypse has strict rules for the independent press. Only conservative news outlets and pre-approved journalists were allowed into the Shopping juggernaut. The left wing and humanist reporters were held behind the invisible lines of property. Left with nothing to report on inside, their camera lenses were also focused on the trailer bed.

Grim stepped past a number of the smock clad salesmen. The students shot him looks from their red cracked eyeballs but never broke character in his presence. He moved towards the thin man who appeared to be the leader and was ignored the whole time. The thin man went about his business . He looked over the shoulder of various workers and stopped to bellow out a screams to motivate their hands. As each of his pacing cycles ended, he would hit the tempo on the keyboard up a notch. Grim opted for a more direct approach. He climbed on top the trailer bed and tapped the thin man on the shoulder.

“You no touch me, Pig.” The thin man said, even before Grim’s finger was on his shoulder.. “You go away, you go away now.”
“I think, I’ll give the directions around here.”
“Not now… too much work to do…”
“All right, everybody stop what you are doing.”

Grim heard the whip crack and checked his body for the place of impact. He found none but could have sworn.

“Nobody stop. What the matter, Copper? You want them to go hungry?”
“Quit the accent, buddy.”
“What accent? You have accent.”
“All right, we have all had our laughs here. Now it’s time to wrap it up.”
“No Copper, you have your laugh, we have work to do. Now go away.”
“Listen Poncho,”
“My name is Bob, Shaman Bob.”

If Grim had read the morning memo, he would have known the thin man before him was none other than the creator and figure head of the Wonder Web and Styx Shades, but Grim spent his morning chasing cart thieves. At home, he only watched mockumentaries about rock bands, British science fiction shows, and anything that was not news. No news was good news and he didn’t even own a computer.

“All right Shaman.”
“It’s Bob, Shaman Bob.”
“All right Bob, Shaman Bob, I am going to call the police, real police, and they are going to bust the lot of you downtown. How will that look on your collage record?”

“Collage record? I no in school. I be Capitalist in reality, like real American. You outside your jurisdiction, Now go away.” Bob took a moment to look around at the students who had stopped working to watch his conversation with the S.A.P officer. The whip cracked out his actor’s rage. “Get back to work… all of you or you family starve!”

“Just what are you trying to prove here Bob, Shaman Bob?”
“Prove, I prove nothing. We take American Business model and succeed though hard work and slave labor.”
“Well Slave labor is illegal in America, so pack it up.”
“So Slave labor is illegal?”
“Yes.”
“But to sell slave labor goods in American shops is legal?”
“Yes.” Grim really didn’t like where this line of logic was heading.
“How’s that make since?”

Grim didn’t have an answer but he didn’t need one as a truck pulled into the parking lot. The sides of the truck had the image of a pair of sunglasses with the river Styx in the reflection. Normally trucks never used the front entrence and would deliver to the shipping bay out back, which made it quite strange when the truck pulled up to the front doors and parked.

“Grim, What the hell is that truck doing in the front lot? Oh my good lord, Grim I am laying this on you. Now get your ass to that truck and get it to the shipping bay.” The Chief’s voice said through the wakie talkie.

“Yeah, you go now Copper!” Shaman Bob said.

Grim jumped off the trailer bed and into the S.A.P cart. A led foot hit the governer free gas pedal and he took off towards the Styx Shades truck. He didn’t look back. If he had, he would have noticed Shaman Bob and his group of students packing up their stuff and hitting the road. What he did notice was the driver of the truck jump out of the front seat and run towards a black four door sedan. The sedan burned a thick patch of rubber out of the parking lot and Grim could feel it in his gut. There was something amiss.

As the Styx Shades truck exploded his inner turmoil became a nightmare come true. The fiery hand of God showed it self, toppled cars, and crushed innocent shoppers. Mayhem broke loose as the comic book convention sized crowd abruptly changed course from towards the front doors of the Shop Apocalypse, to away from the smoldering hole. Grim fought the tide of customers and heard the crack from the googie shaped sign, proped high above the door. In the aftermath of the bomb, the sign swayed and groaned as the supports gave way.

Grim heard the screaming apple cheeked child and saw the future of his bad luck. The same child who flipped him the bird was to be crushed. The child’s soccer mom was swept up in the crowd and he was left to cry on the asfalt. The child traded to be crushed over being trampled. Grim watched for a moment and let the thought of allowing karma to take the child’s life escape his mind. Grim chose the moral high ground, which he would normally do, and gave up the inner war. He fought against the tide of hysterical holiday shoppers to get the child.

Grim scooped the apple cheeked boy off the ground and ran away from the building as the shadow from the sign grew larger on the black top a head. He could feel the displacement of air and threw the child to the awaiting arms of his mother as the wild S crashed down upon his body.

Actions happens in flashes and, in the tick of a second hand, there Grim lay under the ruble. He wasn’t in a third world country or even close to the Gaza strip, but he had suffered at the hands of a political fate. He didn’t know the first thing about Styx Shades or Wonder Web, and has a Black Panther pamphlet knowledge of the Man. Yet, so was the nature of man. The tangled webs he weaves have repercussions and the nature of action and reaction are the ultimate truths. No man is above the laws of truth, even the innocent.

To be Continued….