WPCA - Welcome to Hell, Enjoy Your Stay Prt 2

He walked. He was glum. He was down. Demon was scraping dirt bottom, and he was certain somewhere, out there, somebody was about ready to lend him a hand with a pickaxe, a shovel and a backhoe to reach China in the next couple hours because Lord knows that with all the crazy antics going about he wouldn't get there of his own motivation or free will.

Looking about, Demon noticed a couple kids, maybe five years old, wrapped up in fur and rags. What a sad state of affairs. Homeless children. He looked away.

"Can you spare some change, kind sir?"

Was that...was that a normal human being asking for money? No, wait, was that a normal human being actually paying attention? You mean this entire world wasn't just full of NPC's!? How utterly crazy! Then Demon looked and felt the world sinking away. He was expecting bums. He was expecting homeless. He was expecting the raggedy kind of guy who hadn't showered in the past year with clothes in tatters and the weight of the world on that man's shoulders just to get by and survive. What he got instead though, well, that nearly sent him over the edge.

But then, the edge had this massively deep chasm that looked mighty hungry, and Demon didn't quite feel like feeding it. Not yet anyway.

"I, uh," Demon began.

There were two men. They were dressed in sharp pin-strip business suits. One had a saxophone. The other had a guitar. They didn't look down on their luck at all.

"What, you don't got no money to spare?"

"You two don't even look homeless," Demon started to say.

"WHAT!? I haven't showered in five months, my girlfriend kicked me out, I live in,...in filth! And you say I DON'T look homeless!? What kind of world are you living in? Reverso Land?"

"Well, actually, funny thing," Demon started to respond with.

"Maybe he wants us, to you know, play something," the kid with the guitar said.

"Oh, OH!"

"Well, I'm SaxDude," said the one with the saxophone, "And he's Geetarkid."

"Uh-huh, yeah."

Then they launched into a tune. It was jazzy, it had a twinge of Spanish to it. It sounded classical. The guy with the saxophone started to croon. He sang, loud and hard. He sang about his girlfriend never putting out. He sang about his girl kicking him out. He sang about how he didn't have any money about. He even sang about how his buddy with the guitar was in the same sinking boat. But most of all, he sang, played the saxophone, and moonwalked at the same time. It was pretty good, so Demon thought. In fact, it was spectacular. Why this duo hadn't been picked up to play concerts yet was something couldn't quite understand. Then he realized that their suits, upon closer inspection, where actually made from skunk fur.

And when he thought about it, they really did smell like they hadn't bathed in a long time. And now that he was really looking really closely, they weren't fully grown men with a guitar and a saxophone. They were five year olds with a box with elastic bands strummed across it and a duck bill. And the kid was wailing and blowing into his duck bill while moonwalking and shaking his skinny all about the sidewalk. Boogying like it was the 19-somethings.

"MAH BABY, SHE DUN WANT ME IN HER PANTS NO MORE!" he screamed. And it was the kind of ear-infection-inducing scream you hear from five year olds at the check-out who keep pulling their mothers arm trying to get her to buy that pack of gum for the dollar something in that tantrum voice what reached areas of vocal cord dominion that only Maria Carey could get to. Are they really singing that? Am I really seeing this? I'm not drunk, am I? Demon thought. He put his hand to his mouth, breathing into it and smelling it. Not enough toothpaste was what he decided on. Could've used the Listerine.

"What that... You're kids!" Demon cried at last when the illusion ended.

Both kids stopped, looked at each other. Then...

"AMNESIA DUST!" the one with the duck bill cried throwing a bottle of talcum powder in Demon's face before running away through the streets, dodging oncoming cars while screaming "FOR LIFE INSURANCE!"

Standing dumbstruck a moment, Demon shook his head. He didn't need a coffee to clear his head, he needed a shot of something strong to make him forget. This city was giving him the creeps.

---

Demon wandered the streets despondently. The proverbial badass was feeling more like he was the only sane person left, thus making him less of a badass and more of the resident nerd. After all, when you're the only person left with smarts, you're definitely the nerd.

The plants, strangely enough, were singing. On in particular on a windowsill was talking about the finer points of weed consumption, and what kind of sprays to use to get rid of them. Demon's face sank when his brain came around to the idea of a talking plant. In fact, it broke right in half. It shattered to the point where it became so messed up, one half was still sinking into the lower abyss of a frown while the other side seemed to have its own gravity and was trying to separate.

Slapping himself, he walked up to this animate thing.

"What are you?"

"Why, I'm flowerpot!"

"Well, I can see you are a flower in a pot."

"No, no; one word -- flowerpot!"

He felt that ripping sensation on his face again.

"And why is it that you can talk?"

"I could always talk! I was once a member of parliament."

"I can see that happening."

Then he noticed the bottle next to the flower in a pot named flowerpot.

"What's the bottle for?"

"Oh, that's Poison Ablaze! It's good for getting rid of all that high quality weed that tries to strangle my roots."

Demon picked up the bottle and read the label. Poison Ablaze: we're not sure what it does, but damn is it somewhat entertaining! ... Entertaining? There were warnings all over the bottle for how poisonous this stuff was. Choking hazard. Poison hazard. Inflammatory hazard. Incendiary hazard. Explosive hazard. He was trying to find what it wasn't a hazard to. The ingredients were a long string of names he couldn't read except for the part about being made with weapons grade uranium.

"What...what kind of substance is this fuck anyway?"

"It's Poison Ablaze!" cried flowerpot.

"Yeah, yeah. I think I'm gonna keep this a while."

The flowerpot began to protest but Demon was already off. Already he was wondering what else might pop out to brutally rape the remainder of his sanity. Oh, wait, he was the proverbial badass -- what need did he have for sanity?