“Put your hands where I can see them! You’re under arrest!”

The man spat the ear out on the ground and walked slowly towards the Officer.

“I’m serious now! Get those hands raised!”

The man continued walking.

“I’ll open fire! Don’t let it come to this!”

The man was a few feet away from the Officer now.

“This is your final warning! Drop to the ground RIGHT NOW —”

But it was too late. The man had the Officer’s gun and was pointing it at the desperately confused public defender. The man raised the gun to the Officer’s temple and held it there. The Officer’s sweat had mixed with his tears to make his whole face glisten with fear. His softly-spoken prayers were the only sounds in a sea of people and cars and buildings. The world was watching what the man would do.

He pulled the trigger. The sound was less a gunshot and more like the sound a Jack-in-the-Box makes. The Officer fell to the ground, grasping at what should have been the remains of his skull. But his head was fully intact. After a moment of grateful disbelief, he looked up at the gun and saw the last bit of confetti feathering towards the ground. At the tip of the gun was a small flag with “Deviance” written in clown letters. The Officer buried his head in shame, curled up into a fetal position, and disappeared. One of the older townspeople later said they saw a boy running through the crowd, laughing and carefree, tying the onlookers’ shoelaces together, and that the boy bore a striking resemblance to the Officer when he was a child.

At last, he spoke with such a strength of voice that all the townspeople could hear him and the echoes in the valley may have even carried over to the next town.

The man was moving toward the mountain. News of his exploits had traveled throughout the town in no time at all, as these things tend to do, and there was a general exodus from the office buildings; everyone was taking lunch at the same time. But the restaurants were closing, and the schools as well. All the parents were calling in to pick up their children anyway. And soon, the whole town was following this man up the side of the mountain to witness the things he would do.

The man had become ravenous. He had long ago abandoned all traces of human clothing, but he had just recently forsaken language. Grumblings and mumblings of odd animal contortions came from his mouth, but they seemed far more natural than English or French and the meaning of his sounds were clear not only to the people, but to the squirrels darting by, the birds perched on every branch, and even the pebbles vibrating on the ground as he passed. His posture had caved in on itself and he was making full use of the four limbs God or evolution had gifted him with. He was primal and pure. All looked towards him and shook their heads at the ignorance of their ancestors; thousands of years confusing deities with images of gold-clad, muscular bodies wearing satin robes and holding silver tridents, when this — this monstrosity of a man, with bloody foam around his mouth and a halo of swarming flies — was a true divinity.

The man was scaling trees with the dexterity of an over-caffeinated orangutan, charting the quickest path up the mountain. After a few miles, the man turned around and approached his followers. He said something in his otherworldly tongue that all the people understood. It was something to the effect of: “Follow me no further or I’ll eat your face.” He then continued up the mountain alone.

The disciples were left confused, cold, disappointed. Some talked of turning back, returning to work, to their homes, to their lives; they were loudly booed. After a spell, the Old Man rose from within their ranks and hobbled towards the front. He was shivering and kept opening and closing his mouth, wetting his instrument and summoning all of his feeble strength for a final expenditure of energy. At last, he spoke with such a strength of voice that all the townspeople could hear him and the echoes in the valley may have even carried over to the next town. He spoke that one word, and then he died.