Wet Clinging Garments ~

            “All I remember is that I want to go home, I want to go to my house, I want to see my wife and daughter.”

            William wasn’t quite sure what the man was asking, surely he was delirious and hadn’t the slightest clue what he was saying.

            “Did you hear me?” shouted Wilson, and then coughed; he could recognize familiar signposts long side the road.

            “I heard you Deputy, you’ll be alright, don’t worry,” reassured William, and by this time was wondering what he had gotten himself into to deserve the ramblings of a semi conscious, recently accused murderer.

            “You think so?” he laughed. “There won’t be a one of us after tonight, my friend.”

            William eyed the road but kept one eye, ostensibly on his passenger. “You sound pretty sure about that?”

            Wilson groaned a yes.

            The real dilemma was the sideshow witnessed on so many moonless nights when he thought himself completely out of his mind, but knew that he wasn’t crazy. It would have been better for his sanity as well. Nevertheless he asked the deputy this—

            “What if I told you that I believed you, that I know exactly what you’re talking about?” He paused. “What would you say to that?”

            “I’d say don’t fuck with me boy!”

            William shook his head in disagreement, and said pleasantly, “Why would I want to do that?” His eyes fixed on the road, and then darted back again into the rearview mirror where the reflection of the brooding deputy met his gaze.

            “Yeah?”

            “I’ve not only seen the horrors you spoke of, I’ve also been inside their spaceship.” He laughed, the car skidding perilously at the edge of a ravine.

            “Explain? What did they look like?”

            “It’s funny, I don’t remember, like you, I only remember snippets of the event and the details are fuzzy. I hardly believe it myself,” he said reaching for a cigarette.

            “I don’t believe you,” came the reply.

            William struck a match, and gave birth to the cigarette, he fiddled with between fingers. “Why not?” He scratched his head. “Jesus, this dam rain is really coming down.”

             Wilson noted, smugly. “But all that won’t matter after tonight, after tonight nothing will matter.”

            William nervously laughed, his inner voice was still telling him that he wasn’t human any longer, he was merely a fabrication planted there for something special. Although he wasn’t frightened, not in the least, he was numb to the whole idea, the whole idea that he too had lost his marbles, and was completely over the top, crazy. And the voices joined in.

            Take the deputy home, William, they sang. Take him to his daughter.

            “But she’s dead,” he said out loud.

            “Huh?” asked the Deputy, the young grad student was speaking to him.

            But he wasn’t speaking to him; William was engrossed in conversation within himself. And looked as though he wasn’t going to stop there exhibiting what the experts define as schizophrenic behavior.

            Even so, the wounded, Deputy Wilson persuaded the man to drive by his home for old time sake, even though he was in no condition to force him to do so. He was already on the verge of death, and it would had been welcomed except that he wanted to die where his wife had been hideously slain within the same illusion, within the same bloodied bubble of life. And it was his pitiful bubble that was bound to pop and spill all over the tile floors with the rest him following close behind. It was just a matter of time before it all caught up with him, before it all came crashing down upon his head like bloodied garments. And even with miraculous discovery of Whole Blood and I.V. bags that the professors had courageously suffered to help him survive at least another few hours, if he was lucky. As it was with the ping of the rain and the revs of the car that ferried them aloft, he garnered enough strength to asked for a ride home—

            “Please,” he said. “I fear I am going to die to before you reach Grim Hospital.”

            “What’d you say Deputy?” asked Orbus, confused with voices, cavorting in his head.

            “It shouldn’t take long son,” he said, in a hushed tone.

            “What?”