I guess you could blame the end of the world on the guy who sells flowers on the corner of Rock Island & 12th. $5 a bunch. Velenzuelan gentleman in his 50’s maybe 60’s. I barely noticed as he lost his mind over a period of time. It was funny at first, he’d have little conversations with the flowers and then for a while he’d just sing to them but that gave birth to the screams. He just walks up and down the street screaming at the heavens or flowers or what have you. In fact he’s been screaming for so long now that nothing but spittle and blood come out, no sound.
I bought a bunch of pink azaleas from him about a year ago. They died a week later revealing a slip of paper in one of the flowers. It was an address of an abandoned church. We found the devil inside, he was in the basement folding meat. He looked like he could use some fresh air, so we asked him where he wanted to go. He said he wanted to fall in love, so we took him to the roller skating rink. He said his hearts desire was, “To fall in love with whatever I cannot devour.” The whole thing was a huge damn mess, 57 people died, you probably heard about it on the news.
After the dust settled, a couple days later the devil married an ancient machine that he’d ‘found’ at a nuclear power plant. Actually the baby is due any day now. May god or whatever have mercy on our miserable souls.
