Naturally, the exam hall erupted into complete batshit insanity.
The few poor souls of students who remained took shelter underneath various pieces of furniture. Those who departed were still running, trying to determine the perfect distance from which to start recording, and the TA’s were all bunkered down, forming a wall of shields with couch cushions, stray desks, and notebooks as the cleverest among them set up a duty watch rotation that before long required a standardized qualification process with formal watch turnover, ensuring at least 2 of their brightest were always awake, trying their damndest to look hard at work with accompanying sweat of brow, as all of America stood back in tear-struck awe and splendor and rendered a sharp salute, as sure as God loves apple pie that those brave boys would indeed one day find a way to blame this whole mess on China.
They would ultimately succeed in their efforts, though not after a tragic loss of life, most of it being from the absolute smackdown Opal’s bodyguard was laying down on everyone still inside the building.
Oops, that was a bit early.
Anyway, while we’re here, Opal, who was busy scrambling to once again regather all of Her Shit, looked at the all black leather adorned by her (assumed to be) killer, and recognized it as the garb of those of her ilk. Those who had dirty business to deal in the day.
At the moment, the assassin seemed to be killing any and absolutely everyone as they made their way to Opal. The sheer carnage of it all halted Opal’s higher reasoning from deducing this assassin was in actuality her dear Varin coming to her very unnecessary rescue.
Her death assured and her soul at peace, her thoughts went to her family. Of those who had passed, and those she’d now be leaving behind. In the rush of it all she even took a spare second to take one last look at Dante. Opal, sad that they never even got to breakfast, thought about how unfair the world really was.
Opal wasn’t perfect, mind you, but most would agree she was surely good enough, but soon all she’d actually be was a corpse. She wouldn’t graduate. She wouldn’t repair her fractured family. She couldn’t even ask this man out without getting him killed just for being in proximity to her.
Her family would never be okay again. Her father would never walk her down the aisle, and though he’d really been pushing her to give Jakob a chance, she could even hear his laugh right then and there, when she’d tell him that idea was, “bad for business.”
Nonetheless, this dream of him walking her down the aisle was a shared one. One that, though she was happy wouldn’t be a death march to an all too smug and tux-laden Jakob, was sad to see it disappear in its entirety.
Her mind jumped back to just earlier that morning, when Dante had helped her, and she couldn’t help but think what a waste.
Why didn’t someone like that show up before all this shit? She barely even knew the guy, but he seemed decent enough. Cute too. Even as he was just standing there dumbstruck, as if in shock.
That was when Opal noticed something quite horrid. She’d been waiting for the would be assassin to see her and just kill her already, but the fucker seemed all too happy with getting rid of any potential witnesses first.
And it was looking a whole lot like the very next witness would be Dante.
Opal, trapped between a life she never wanted, a reality all too painful to bear, and the loss of a love that never got its chance to begin, Opal got herself a little idea. A crazy idea. The kind of idea one has after a very serious, very depressing conversation at the doctor’s office.
It was good timing too, because Dante, still admiring Dr. Lichter’s best foot forward (thus far) into blood splatter impressionism rather than facing the hellscape around him, didn’t realize that the top enforcer, Opal’s beloved Varin, had a custom Colt 45 racked and square against his head.
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And let me be clear, that ‘beloved’ was not a setup for no love triangle who’s it gonna be bullshit. Sorry, if that’s your thing, but that ain’t me, and it sure as hell ain’t Dante and Opal. Varin has a few thousand years on Opal anyway. You’ll like him, he’s a chill guy.
So, anyway his finger’s on the trigger and he’s lined up this beautiful shot. I mean, you oughta get this on camera, this shot. Varin, whenever he’d later retell the story to his respective nephew, would always add a new angle with each successive telling.
And Dante, who always thought it best to consider things in halves whenever he shot the shit with his favorite uncle/brother/whatever in law, nodded his head emphatically, half of the vigor born out of that pure kind of brotherhood, like that pure kind of love that even if first forged in blood is, and only could be, well kept by choice, and the other half convinced that if he ever doubted Varin’s abilities, he’d be more than happy to provide one of his live demonstrations that would at one point convince Dante his brand new 4k resolution home theater with surround sound and haptic feedback would only ever find its true home Out There. Right past the front door. Beyond the confines of their humble home in this really not so far away land called The Fucking Trash.
The truth of it, I think, is still cool enough to kick it. It was a simple 2 target setup that to Varin’s continued annoyance, wouldn’t be revealed to have been a 3 target setup for much too long a time. This master shot, like any other of Varin’s, a master shotsmith, was always first envisioned with the last step of it in mind.
This one, I shit you not, was to end up taking care of a rather portly loose end that had managed to run his fat ass all the way to Brazil, where his Used-To-Be-Varin’s-But-Was-Now-Gumfrey’s prized heffer was still absolutely fucking crushing it, and kept winning evermore sluggish and evermore slothful, extremely illegal back alley slothslug races with What-Once-Was-Varin’s-But-Was-Too-Now-Gumfrey’s four thousand three hundred eighty four dollars and 68 cents in initial winnings every Sunday night for the past eight months. Varin could see it so clearly, and so with an insipid rage that he’d later let the ghost of haunt him for a few seconds every Sunday evening shower, he placed his gun back into his holster as he saw, clear as day and DEATH TO WHOSOEVER MAY DENY IT, the jaws of our industrious, ingenious Opal firmly clasped around the neck of our very dear Dante.
Two lone drops of blood smacked that dingy carpet, ringing the bells of a most unholy matrimony as the gods themselves stood from their chairs, shook hands, and congratulated each other on a job well done, before Gumfrey, who had actually just last Thursday died in a shock slothslug accident he absolutely had nothing to do with, your Honor, and fuck Varin for saying so, his words not mine, stumbled through the heavens, his arms carrying buckets and buckets of popcorn.
As the gods leaned their chairs back, the small screen through which they nudged every atom and tainted every decision expanded into a massive, entirely projected screen who’s light could sit still on the wide expanse of that very blackest sea, preparing to watch their favorite show, and laughing. Knowing full well that their buckets could have been self-filling, and the togas that they wore self-shit-cleaning, and they’d laugh in uproarious delight each time Gumfrey was sent out on each new task.
Before long he actually managed to get quite skinny, and then Leo, the most boisterous of the gods would throw his weight back on him just as they did his poor decisions the mornings after Gumfrey's blackouts as other gods in the background, some dying of laughter altogether, awaited Leo’s bold pronouncement to the entire congregation, their mouths watering and their arms, cocked back with buckets in hand, ready and waiting to commence the now famous Popcorn Showers that were said to have lasted for a whole trilogy, finally hearing Leo’s two special words with euphoric anticipation.
“FUCK GUMFREY!”
The gods in legion, having turned ravenous as they awaited The Call, and now, in this burgeoning moment they would be anticipating again all too soon, screamed with jolly belts of laughter, their jaws snapping, their eyes looking down in horrified reverence as they wished those lower mandibles godspeed, giving way to endless seas of meetings with a ground coated in those late fall leaves, the soil itself soaking up the words those sacred ivory boomerangs never dared speak, and of those lucky few who got to keep those lovely teeth, they screamed six times as hard, always, in solemn oath to their brothers and sisters, and best believe it ‘twas their word they did keep, and ROARED The Answer.
Not once, not twice, but times three:
“ME AND ALL MY HOMIES HATE GUMFREY!”
“ME AND ALL MY HOMIES HATE GUMFREY!”
“ME AND ALL MY HOMIES HATE GUMFREY!”
Fuck Gumfrey?
