Magnum Stripes

Vagabond Lake and the Triumph of Elias James

Every homeless person in America drank out of the same body of water and peed right back into it. On the shores were cabins, stacked high like discount silver dollar pancakes. Mossy molasses poured out from between their darkwood panels and slumbered down to the ground where they formed the centerpieces of vast insect oases. The night sky was filled with a collage of mismatched lavender and crimson crusts. Droning clouds labored on by, stretching and scraping themselves across the restless palette like wasted, withering slaves.

If there ever was a time for fire this was it. Gasoline Fred liked to immolate effigies of abstract commercial symbols. The McDonalds clown. The Starbucks goddess. The Apple apple. He lived off of eggs and tadpoles and, every once in a while, a delicatessen turtle. A beggar had once told him, "beware the cautionary tales that everyone tells. they are often as mythical as they are myth." He didn't know what that meant, but every day another part of him started to believe it.

There were canines in all shapes and sizes. Fiesty chihuahahas barked and bit the wounds of those stumbling across the sand. Golden retrievers shadowed their owners, loyal and grand, yet irreparably forlorn. Sweet pitbulls tore out each other's necks. Sheepdogs circled around waiting to herd whatever into the pits. The pits were dark and deep and funneled their contents into a place that few things ever returned from.

On the pier stood a man with a vision and a paintbrush and he recast the world in new shades of emotion and logic. Animals and plants and funguses from beyond all become one kind of living thing. Optical disillusions stopped being visible. Everything glowed and glew.

Then the sun returned.