“Land on that building there,” Monday said when they arrived in New York and were hovering over the Bronx. The white van that had been enhanced by Friday and flown by the five investigators from Texas was a sight from the street below and many people stopped to stare. Some people marveled at the flying van, but most looked upset or scared by the sudden appearance of it descending on a building.
“We didn’t think this through,” Thursday said as a crowd gathered in front of the building. “If Sunday is here already, inside the restaurant, surely this is making him nervous…”
“Sunday doesn’t fear a crowd of common people,” Monday said. “He would be delighted to have them to use to do his bidding.”
“These black people wouldn’t trust Sunday and do his bidding,” Thursday protested. “Not if he still has the face from last week.”
“Well, let’s get downstairs to the restaurant to meet him in case he decides to leave,” Saturday said and they all got out of the van and ran to a door on the roof. They took a staircase down to a fried chicken restaurant and instantly spotted Sunday sitting in a corner next to the large window overlooking the street. Sunday’s back was in a corner and when he saw the five undercover investigators, he stood.
“Welcome!” he said enthusiastically, his head almost hitting the ceiling. “Sit, sit, I already ordered chicken and there’ll be plenty.”
The five investigators cautiously took seats at the table around Sunday and though there were other people in the restaurant, no one seemed to be paying attention to Sunday or what was going on at his table.
“What is all this?” Tuesday asked when they were settled and eyeing the large frame of Sunday with alert skepticism. “You knew we were all working for the Order?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Sunday said and sat.
His face was moving and morphing in the uncanny way that Thursday had seen before. Maybe he was a white man with fat pink cheeks and reddish brown hair that was short and nicely styled, or he had jet black hair and a meth-Hitler intensity complete with the tiny mustache on his lip, or he was the man Kurt Graham, with dark brown skin, black hair like a helmet and a stiff moustache across his top lip. Thursday wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him, if the lack of sleep from the past week was weakening his grasp on reality.
“But I am the Idiot God!” Thursday screamed and slammed a fist on the table. Everyone in the restaurant, including Sunday, startled at the noise and all eyes were on him as he stood.
“I am the chaos at the center…” he continued but Sunday stood again and interrupted him.
“Surely we’re not doing this here, in a chicken joint? You can’t just skip to the end, there’s a whole chase planned that culminates in an elephant and a hot air balloon. I have these notes to throw at you as you all chase me through the streets,” Sunday pulled crumpled paper from the pockets of his fancy coat, “they’re insults to egg you all on.”
“Fuck that,” Thursday said, “you ran me all around Houston with these idiots, and you ruined that word by the way. These morons who didn’t even know we were all undercover…”
“You didn’t know either,” Saturday said.
“Yeah, but I’m the point of view character, if I had revealed that, there wouldn’t have been a journey…”
“Was there a journey?” Friday asked. “We just ended up right where we started.”
“The food is much better here,” Tuesday said with a mouth full of chicken.
“Of course there was a journey,” Thursday said. “Why are you all still talking? I’m forcing the showdown with Sunday, you all should be set pieces now.”
“Because we have drama still to play,” Sunday said and his face was Kurt Graham. “There are actions we must enact for your proper catharsis. For instance, I must reveal that I was the man in the backroom of the deli who recruited you all…”
“No, we’re doing this now,” Thursday insisted. “I’m done with this farce and now I’m ready to be rid of you and your Idiots forever. You’re here, I’m here, let’s do whatever we’re going to do. I guess I have to kill you? If I don’t you’ll continue to be a threat to all that I oversee.”
“If you’re sure you’re ready to dispense with the fantasy,” Sunday said and snapped his fingers.
Thursday was shocked that the scene around him, the table in front of him and all of the Idiot days except for Sunday, had disappeared. He and Sunday were suddenly standing in an expanse of white and Thursday was angry.
“You thought me an impotent threat,” Sunday said, “just a man with a changing face who wanted to rule in the aftermath of chaos. But I am more than that Thursday. Or, I should call you by your chosen name. Azalaan. The name you took when you usurped the previous ruler of the chaos. It was inspired, Azalaan, your journey through dreams and to the center of all things, but it was not the journey that you perceived it to be. You were severely injured, hanging between life and death, and you conquered the darkest regions of your subconscious while you were in a coma, clinging to life. But the thing you found, the thing that sustained you until your body was better, was a twisted thing, Azalaan. You call yourself a God. You have lost your grip on reality. This was all your own convoluted way to see and understand that you have lost control.”
“So none of this is real?” Azalaan asked skeptically, his voice sounding suspiciously like the voice of Sunday.
“Oh, you have definitely found your way from New York to Texas and back, but you’ve been alone and it’s only been a few days. You did manage to kidnap a young lady, but that’s how law enforcement sees it because she’s white and only eighteen. You caused a panic in Houston when you showed up there talking about Beyonce being assassinated and mass shooting duels, and then you stole that van and drove back here. It’s been a very eventful few days.”
Azalaan chuckled incredulously.
“So it’s all just been me running around like an idiot since I met Marlow Charles in that bar?”
“Well, it had already intensified by then, but you’ve had a healthy imagination your whole life haven’t you? And it made it hard for you to live with your mother, and pretty much everyone else you’ve known since you left her house. You can’t stand real people who care about you and threaten the reality you create for yourself. Your imagination squeezes them out. That fall down the stairs ramped it all up.”
Azalaan’s chuckle intensified into hysterical laughter that made him double over.
Most everyone that was inside the chicken restaurant in the Bronx had left as Azalaan stood screaming at no one. The police found him laughing in a ball on the floor of the restaurant.
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