Bricks

Chapter 7: Tax Evasion

In the short time I was sequestered in the brick box, it began to cascade down drink in icy torrents. My head is still spinning, but all my swooping mind can concentrate on is lighting my feet aflame to get as abroad as possible. Distance, distance, distance. Before my spinning cerebellum can catch up, I'm out of the neighborhood and on the main road. The frosty deluge splashes in waves into my vision spheres, but I'm leading not with these eyes of flesh, but with my heart of... also flesh but more importantly soul. Which is good, because I have absolutely no clue where I am or even what direction I'm heading in. My senses are jangled beyond earthly recognition, and frankly I'm surprised my legs have even taken me so far. But mostly I feel the pain of non tangible substance, that which lights the ribs to rebel against their mortal container.

I'm not sure I can go much longer. I finally take a castward glance at my surroundings and grasp that I appear to be in some kind of warehouse district. The streets echo with their inimical silence, but a single warehouse seems to emit an amiable glow between the rough hewn panels of corrugated steel. It pulses and dances like a jellyfish having a stroke: Red, blue, purple, green. I hold up a trembling hand against the freezing rivulets and stumble into the beckoning rays.

As I draw nearer, I can feel the ground begin to quiver rhythmically. Boom, boom, boom. Rattling my ribcage and soupish brain. I stumble closer, and soon I can hear a distinct bassline pushing itself lavishly and incessantly into my hearing tubes. I lean my small, icy fingers into the steel siding and peer around the corner. The light pours out like undulating fluid onto the pavement, with a single figure bathed in light solemnly guarding the opening to the building. My eyes start at it (it?)'s feet and work my way up. I take in the huge amaranthine bottom extremities, the spotted cerulean fur, the large, cartoonish paws crossed securely across the fluffy chest, and finally, the wide eyed fox head with a large white grin. A furry.

The pulsing colors cast off the plastic synthetic fibers of the fursuit, as it stands just out of the way of the pounding tide. Dear god. Of all the people to stumble into, why couldn't it have been a biker gang?

But I'm trembling with cold and exhaustion, drenched head to freezing toes, and this situation couldn't get any weirder. I casually trip forward. I remember the girl scouts manual I carried with me as a brownie, before my father made me quit to spend more time at home with the bricks. Approach the animal slowly and cautiously.

"Uh... he-hey there," I offer as cheerfully as I can muster when I approach the sleekish hound. "How's the weather?" Oh my god. The fox gapes at me with what I project to be shock through the round cartoonish eyes of the fursuit.

"What are you doing out here at midnight?" he says in a deep and husky voice. "Are you ok?"

"Oh, just out for an evening stroll," I say wateryly.

"Uh, do you want to come inside?" The fox asks. I peer around him.

At first my strained orbs can see nothing but bright flashes of color. But when they adjust, I'm treated to a scene straight out of Beastars. Dozens or maybe even hundreds of furries are partying raucously across a makeshift dance floor. Not one but three disco balls are suspended from the I beams, with spotlights of constantly changing color spinning with wild abandon around the warehouse. On a platform at the back, a rainbow unicorn furry with sewn-on tattoos and giant sunglasses DJs with a giant pair of headphones over one of the fursuit's ears.

I turn to look back at the fox.

"Sure. Thanks."

I stumble inside wearily and shakenly only to be greeted with the endless, soulless stares of furries on all sides. They part for me as I pass through them, tongues and ears perked with interest. A sparkly purple dragon complete with spiky tail comes up to me as I cower against a wall, blinded by the lights and shaken by the pounding bass.