At WacDonald’s, the fast-food counter inside the store, Edgar Allan Poe sat over a tray of fries and contemplated a stain on his black waistcoat.
He had not intended to shop.
The Butthole Superstore had a way of drawing people through its doors and into departments that seemed personally designed to trouble them.
“Ah,” he murmured.
“The raven stains…forevermore.”
Two young men at the next table were discussing the Big Booty Hoes aisle with the gravity of explorers planning an expedition.
One promised they would be there shortly.
The other grinned and said, “Nevermore…
barbecue.”
Poe looked at his meal.
He had spent a lifetime finding darkness in ordinary things.
This place was making the task embarrassingly easy.
He left the food court and followed a sign marked CLOTHING CONFUSION.
A shirt on a rack said SIZE: ONE SOUL DEEP.
Poe could not decide whether it was a joke or a threat.
Then he saw the armored golem in red boxing gloves.
“Edgar!” someone shouted across the aisle.
Poe turned.
The golem turned.
Two shoppers turned too, though neither of them was called Edgar.
“It seems fate reclaims me,” Poe said, mostly to himself.
Astrid and Bubble Gurl pushed through the crowd.
“Edgar, keep up!
We’re…” Astrid stopped when Poe raised a hand and the golem raised a glove.
“This is going to be a problem.”
“She looks extra dramatic today,” Poe muttered about Astrid.
“Maybe it’s retrograde,” Bubble Gurl offered.
The golem punched the air once, pleased by the way the new glove squeaked.
“This is the best aisle.”
The two young men from WacDonald’s arrived in front of a display of profoundly unnecessary garments.
One spotted the golem and asked his friend, “Where’s Edgar, man?”
The golem pointed to himself.
“I, Edgar.”
“Dude.”
They inspected the helmet, the gloves, and Poe approaching from behind.
“No wonder we couldn’t find you, man.
Why are you wearing disguises?”
Edgar paused.
This question deserved a sophisticated answer.
He had taken a pill that made answers arrive more readily, and the store offered the perfect audience for one.
“I contain,” he said, spreading both boxing gloves, “multitudes.”
It was a strangely literary thing for the golem to say.
Poe narrowed his eyes.
Somewhere down the corridor, a clock chimed thirteen times.
Miriam arrived, took one look at Poe and Edgar standing side by side, and stopped smiling.
“Nobody say either name until I understand what this building is doing.”
“Edgar?” said Astrid.
The nearest fluorescent light flickered.