(cups of the epiphany)

He had driven this way this morning, but had not noticed the Dairy Queen set back in a hollow in the trees. It had little importance, then. The neatness of the apartments that studded this region was contrasted with the awful lack of pride apparent here. The clearing before the Dairy Queen was badly littered with paper cups. They were every which way on the ground. Yet, over there, no more than ten feet away, was a large receptacle with a bold label "THROW YOUR TRASH HERE."

He nearly fell flat on his face getting out of the van. His mind was fried but he could pass judgement on what he saw, now almost at eye level. "Damn slobs," Marcus muttered getting once again upright, dragging himself toward the counter. "What kind of people live around here?" he wondered stepping over paper debris as he staggered toward this oasis before him. Better not be a frigging mirage.

"Yes sir. May I help you?"

"What's the coldest wettest thing you have?"

"Mister Misty."

"What's that?"

"Its a slurry of super sub zero frozen flavored ice beads that you drink through a fat straw. Like a drink, but much colder. Cool ya down."

"O.K. I'll take one. Lemon's fine," as the flavors were pointed out.

Marcus paid , his hands barely able to unfold from the lawn mower grip shape into which they had petrified, and carefully side stepped the unsightly trash at his feet as he sucked that big suck he so desperately needed. That over sized straw yielded to his all out unmeasured inhaling effort as the gush of super-cooled sugared ice hit his throat in a powerful stream and his head simply exploded.

"Ahhhhggggggggghhhhh. Aggggrrrrrrhhhhhhh."

He swaggered left and right with his hands to his head ripping at the bursting of the arteries in his temples which were flowing with concentrated and blinding agony, as if a pile driver tipped with a giant ice pick was spiking his head. The antihistamines, the heat, the parchment were all gone. Now there was nothing but pain. Pain and staggering. Pain and staggering and a calm voice within saying, "Do my work and I'll smite your enemies."

Once this hallucination passed, as the pain grudgingly let go, Marcus was not sure which one - of the many paper cups on the ground - was his.

"Ha. They all do that," the dumb ass soda jerk taunted.

Marcus just cocked one eye up to barely open one salt sealed eyelid and rasped "What work? What work?" as the soda jerk just laughed.

All his slit eye saw were three lame children, holding hands, trying to navigate the road crossing. "Nobody ever helps them," an inner voice said, sounding curiously like Gabby. Still holding his forehead in his right hand, Marcus limped to the children and guided them across the street and saw them away safely. The pain was gone. The salt was gone. The thirst was gone. And he didn't know it yet, but, the damned lawn was gone too!

Cosmic forces were at work. The God of Moses was raging. At that very moment the radio announced the newly enacted lawn watering ban with severe penalties to any who disobeyed. Universal celestial forces, greater in might than any preceptor, and granting no quarter to mice were laying waste to devil grass. Ha ha ha ha ha. Die!

Each week that followed, Marcus, like a priest giving benediction, held his hand aloft and did the Sanctus Sanctus gesture of blessing the dead - the very dead lawn. Green went to yellow. Yellow turned to brown. Brown blew away over bare clay which simply cracked in gaping dust bowl dead lawnlessness. "I smite you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Grass Eating Ghost!" he yelled with delight each week, over the expanse of shattered clay pottery once called a lawn.

Marcus Macaluso will take care of the kids, somehow. Don't mess with the Lord of Ices. And miss on you pister if you mess with his boy. The covenant was sealed.