They drifted through the crumbling buildings. Every now and then Mitzi would spot a trashcan full of flames that glowed showing only hands warming themselves. He felt the time nearing when he would meet the awesome Mr. Katz… they couldn’t be more than a few miles away…
He was beginning to feel his eyelids slowly set towards their lowly partners against his cheeks, when out of the corner of his eyes waved a white man full of vigor and liveliness in front of a semi-developed building. There were electric lights within, the only mark of civilization besides his monotonous headlights, that illuminated this charismatic figure and cast his shadow clear across the street onto the chaos beyond.
“This must be it,” announced a weary Mitzi.
Many of the crew members had long since fallen asleep, except for Dogbert and Virgil. The rest awakened with a start and began to rub their eyes and focus on the scene outside.
The white man was dressed in a home-made get up consisting of intricately sewn parts that resembled a quilt. He motioned for the van to come nearer and to park in a spot clear of rubble, which Mitzi presumed was a faux-parking space. The travelers descended from their battered Mark III one by one, exhausted from their mini battle. Mitzi was the last to exit from the driver’s seat, turning the engine off and placing the key in his pocket; this shouldn’t take long, he thought.
“Welcome!” said the white man dressed in his fitted quilt.
“Where is Katz?” asked Mitzi bluntly; this was not the time for a formal greeting. His mission was clearer than ever: Get Katz and get the hell out of this god-forsaken place.
“Ah. You wish to speak to Katz. He resides within…”
The quilted man beckoned Mitzi come nearer to him so that he could see his face. The electric lights, a blessing and a curse, dilated Matt’s pupils and blinded him for a moment. Shading his face, he asked:
“How far?”
The man’s face showed that of a young man’s; no wrinkles, barely a scruffy fledgling beard. But he was gaunt and white. The sun couldn’t reach far into this place the buildings had so toppled on one another. But that fluorescent fake, man-made light again! How it does no pigment good, from the deepest of ebony, to the most chocolate Mexican, to the whitest of ivory of Europe. God, forsake this place, Mitzi thought.
“A twenty minute walk.” Deeper into the disarray he would have to go…
They began their walk, with Dogbert and Virgil trailing behind, and behind those two fools were the pilgrims. They clutched their books so tightly it seemed they might meld with the holy Word, but it was artificial – only a bunch of nouns those books were without verbal association. In fact, all the buildings, the near-dead, dead, and dying homeless men, their metal trash cans full of fire, the fluorescent lights, Dogbert and Virgil, the pilgrims themselves – all were just a disassociated bunch of nouns cramped into the same space at the same time. None of them really knew each other. The homeless man strayed far behind in search of food. He would doubtless find a morsel in this wasteland.
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