The employees were running the customers to the exits like cowboys wrangling cattle to the slaughter. I stood gaping at the Hammock Man raging while others scampered to the shelves to grab soup cans to jolt or shock the great beast using a food-knocking technique. I smoked at the cigarette rack, choking up blood.
There were signs that fanatics had adopted the Hammock Man, a perverted version of the River Walker. Eunuchs acknowledged their ritual use of entrails was grotesque and possibly illegal, but they also use catfish heads and spend hours engaged in toe-sucking circles. Honoring the great sign of nipple piercing, thorns from a rose bush were used in a snoozing ritual. There were factions unaware that their icon worship was being done in a manner comprehensible to no one.
A storm of ridiculed garbage pokers, oblivious to their role in the story of the River Walker, created an ironic configuration incapable of representing their point of view. Righteousness was juxtaposed against values failing to provide satisfaction. The complexity of the River Walker, a multifaceted yet somehow simple-minded gump-like fellow, confused worshippers writhing on the ground.
Reverence for the River Walker was unwarranted.
Nevertheless, the Walker gained more followers as word of mouth spread. From
there, the man walking rivers gained a social media presence as factions
developed over time and schisms fractured loyalties. As the legend of the River Walker grew
in the minds of the world, sacred rituals were developed, or they simply evolved without conscious direction or intention. Rituals required etiquette, especially rules for sects
of fans doubling as casualty gawkers. However, the development of a banishing
chamber for those shunned made the River Walker unhappy. His condemnation carried
no weight among his own flock, though. They continued torturing doubters by
performing spoken-word poetry.
The River Walker began lashing out, killing
an abusive follower in a violent blitzkrieg. What had seemed like school-aged meddling was actually a mass of obsessive robotic undulations. Everyone the River Walker touched
became locked in a closet closed to reality. The distortions from the panic variations
were blocking the existential exit. Blessed
are you, said the Walker. The flock calmed. After years offshore, there was
nothing he hadn’t seen before.
The theory of small-town slow drivers was part of an obligation the River Walker felt toward city-dwellers, to warn them of the inevitability of slowness. Community exile occurred because of a bizarre theory about gravity and the speed limit. It’s a warped story about fascinating strangers coming to town for tattoos. A vehicle parked in front of town hall had a guy sitting in it holding a shotgun. In the end, there was a hitchhiker who caught a flight on a pterodactyl.
