Proper Tribute (08-25-2011)

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. He’s going to be able to tell the difference.”

Galil of the Dark never took his eyes off of the altar and the small crab scuttling along it. “Is a crab really so different from a human female virgin, Vals?”

“Yes!”

Galil raised one eyebrow, glancing at him. “Yes, but is it really different?”

Vals threw his hands up, his bushel of grapes coming dangerously close to falling out of his fruit hat. He’d already crushed a lost apple all over his ceremonial robes, leaving the knitted skulls smelling of juice. “Yes, it is! Ever since you’ve come to power, your radical changes have been driving the other worshippers mad! First, you replace our cowls with fruit hats, then you move lunch breaks to one instead of twelve, then you have half of our baseball team buried alive, and now you’re trying to switch our time-honored sacrifices with a crustacean! You’re a madman!”

Galil raised his eyebrow a little higher, to the point where it looked like his scalp had stretched as far as it could go. “Am I?”

Vals drew his ceremonial broken beer bottle, it’s gem encrusted razor edges glittering in the moonlight. “Stop answering my questions with more questions! It does nothing to further the conversation, and you know the punishment for being a bad conversationalist. Not even you are beyond our sacred laws.”

He raised his eyebrow so far up that he split the skin on his forehead, blood pouring down his face and into his unblinking eyes. “Aren’t I?”

Two guards appeared on either side of Galil, their sweaters adorned with hand-knitted skulls. The yarn tickled Galil’s arms, and he smiled despite the fact that he was going to spend the rest of his life coaching a ragtag team of competitive 52 Pick-Up players, helping them overcome their troubled, inner -city lives and preparing them to become tomorrow’s serial killers and prostitutes.

Vals turned back to the altar, seeing smoke starting to billow out from under it. It formed a human skull as it floated over the table, its maw opening and releasing three giant balloon animals: snake, giraffe, and pony. The balloon animals glared at Vals, and he fell to his knees, averting his eyes from their holy gaze.

The snake wrapped around the crab, lifting it up for the giraffe to see. It squeaked as it nodded its approval, but the pony was the most difficult to impress. After a long pause, it nodded as well, the snake putting the crab back on the altar. Vals watched in shock as the god slid closer to the crab, an otherworldly voice spilling out from its three animal wills at once.

“So, I sit beside you in math class. I was wondering if you could help me with my homework.”

The crab scuttled a few steps the other way, then stopped. The forgotten god of a thousand dead worlds kept pace with it, a clawed tentacle slipping out of its eye socket to scratch the back of its head. “So, the Dimension of Shivering Dead is having a sock hop. I think they’re stupid, but if you were gonna go or something, well, I’m just saying I’ll be there too. Even if they’re stupid.”

Vals was in awe. “He uses the chosen words, the ancient techniques of union passed down before the world was born. No woman in all of creation can resist such smoothness!”

Galil smirked so hard he looked like he’d developed a brain disorder. “Can’t they?”

Vals stabbed Galil in the face and genitals with the broken beer bottle for an hour straight, never taking his eyes off the God as he worked.

“Did you know that the Japanese call cartoons something else? They call them anime.”

Vals wept openly at seeing the spectral being use the human language with such charm and care, every phrase weakening the creatures resolve to stay away from him.

“Once I was in a fight with like, two dudes at once, and I totally won! I can bench about fifty-five right now, so it’s really no wonder. I’ve also been in Kendo classes for two months now, and the instructor says I’m already three-quarters deadly. I should be completely deadly way before anyone else.”

He turned away, lest he be seduced by the God’s terrifying power.