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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!