The Weird Insights of a Scobberlotcher

Forty-two Sounds Bright Patent Black

Had to be one of two things. Might've been the folding chair itself. Seemed unlikely though. Or it might've been the chair's precise position in the universe. Just the right spot to pick up some kind of otherworldly transmission. So, maybe the chair acted as a kind of conductor? Or amplifier? But if it was, it was a pretty cunning design. Just looked like a cheap folding metal chair. Thin frame. Cracked, fading green vinyl back and seat. Negligible padding. Max seating capacity somewhere well south of 250 pounds. Which might've been o.k. fifty years ago. But if that's what it really was, its broadcast strength was simply amazing. The signal was flooding into my body again, infusing me delightfully. But this time it didn't just stop there. It reached the base of my spine then surged up along the vertebra, poured into my brain, found my horse and buggy synaesthesia, plugged itself in and electrified it with 220.

I saw it first. A burst of light. Like someone suddenly pointing a flashlight directly at my eyes in a darkened room. Then I felt it. Crystalline, sparkling cold all around. And finally I saw it. A multifaceted diamond spinning in empty space in front of me. I reached out with my mind's arm, plucked it from the void, held it in an upturned palm and stared at it in awe. Huge. The thing had more carats than Bugs Bunny. Must have been the size of a football. Yet it weighed nothing. Light as a feather in outer space. Then I saw a series of sounds winging their way toward it through the void. Muddled but with sharp edges. They struck one of the facets and it began to vibrate. Then the diamond absorbed the vibrations into itself, converting them into liquid ripples of tinier and tinier wavelengths until they reached its heart where they were converted into an intense stream of light. The beam was refracted and projected out another facet where its colors were dispersed, then re-focused into a hologram. It was a figure, roughly human shaped, made of forest fiery smoke with famished flames of pink and orange licking and flaring at its core. It twirled in a silent rage then beat its fists against thick black prison bars that somehow resisted. Then it abruptly stopped and vanished. Poof. Oh my God, what a vision! It was fucking awesome! Made any of my mind's previous productions look like Steamboat Willie. Don't know how they ever dragged the gypsy away from this place after closing.

Then it happened again. More inbound sounds, even more insistent this time, again swallowed whole. But now, when the apparition was regurgitated, it didn't twirl. It wrapped its smoky little fingers around the bars, opened an aperture where a mouth should be and shouted silently. Looked loud. And angry. Erupted through the bars then belched out into a chain of sinister black boxes strung on barbed wire. I inspected them one by one as they lurched by.

'HEY - MAN - I'M - TALKING - TO - YOU - WHAT - THE -FUCK - IS - GOING - ON - HERE.'

Oh, right, my guest. One of the Boyz. I'd completely forgotten about him sitting right across the card table from me. Realized I'd have to learn to control that 'distant look of revery' shit in front of customers. Treat it more like a heads up display. Or a 'heads in' display. Anyway, I focused fully on my... no, wait, not my guest. On the accused. Cause that's exactly what he looked like now from my vantage point. I was a judge looking down from my bench, way down, at the accused. Only I was a hanging judge cause I already knew the fucker was guilty. So this is what it was like for the gypsy. Wow! O.k., buddy, your turn. Where would you like the gavel?

"Look, we have some time to kill here. Indulge me. Let me read your cards for you. Tell you your fortune."