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“By the way,” Mr. Grimes said, “I know you got some
weird thing about beauty and art. The newspapers is always
sayin’ somethin’ about you thinkin’ of yerself as an artist.
But do you really think those fucked up corpses you leave
behind is some kinda artwork?”
I wasn’t sure if Mr. Grimes was supposed to understand
my work. Should a dream know it’s a dream? Might that
have been what caused us to wake up in the first place? I
imagine a true dream, free and wandering, should know
precisely nothing about itself—should it be so greedy as
to possess a self. Humanity’s true calling is to exchange
all of its pointless knowledge for wonder, and Mr. Grimes
followed his dark curiosity wherever it lead him—even
when it caused him to be temporarily hijacked for a higher
purpose. No, the daemon bus driver was far too busy chasing
his darkest visions to grasp the purpose behind my work. He
could only see its spectacle.
“Pearls before swine, Mr. Grimes,” I said, not wanting
my host to think me unaware of his jabs.
“Actually,” Mr. Grimes added, “I got a kick out of those
guys you made into the big snake swallowin’ itself. That
was some funny—” he stopped, straining his small eyes at
something close to the road.
Moving through the nearby trees, sketched in fog, were
four wisps of women. They were clad only in nightclothes,
loping through rough thickets, helping one another along,
exuding a despair that seemed to roil the fog outlining them.
Their collective gaze fixed upon the nearby wakeless city,
and I could hear secrets whispering them onward. Soon they
were gone, swallowed by the forest. It was clear where they
were headed.
“What do ya think they’re up to?” Mr. Grimes retracted
his gaze, bringing something warm and wicked back with it.
I could feel his hunger burning deep within the secret killing
machines of the bus. Whatever the killer’s dark curiosity
would have done to the women, I was certain it would’ve
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