On my way home from work today, I ran into a particular fellow who is an acquaintance of mine. He's tangentially involved in the "theater scene," sort of, and is well known for his, uh . . . "proclivity" for . . . erm . . . well . . . "drinking." He's basically someone that whenever he comes up in conversation, you can hear the scare quotes. And this is me saying this.

I didn't see him at first, because he was across the street from me, but I soon heard, "Skot! Skot!" and looked over to behold him skittering across the busy street like an agitated chicken, dodging angry, bleating cars. Presently he arrived at my side of the street and stared at me liquidly with kelp-colored eyes.

"What are you doing?" he asked, weirdly emphasising the last word, as if he had caught me doing something shamefully illicit. I looked at myself briefly to make sure I wasn't absentmindedly wandering around with my cock hanging out or something before answering. "Just walking home!" I said, too heartily. Like when you bellow at crazy people as if they were somehow hard of hearing, or maybe just particularly immune to bonhomie. He blinked languidly. I said, "And you?" He fixed me with a strange grin. "I'm vandalizing the neighborhood!" he hissed, and produced some stickers. "Want a sticker?"

Boy, do I! I totally didn't scream in my head. In truth, I was rattled. He looked terrible. He didn't seem quite in charge of his body, as if he were receiving somatic instructions from Altair, and there was perhaps some signal degradation. His skin tone also was of a queer hue, as if he had been built out of some strange filler ingredient that you see on junk food labels, like carageenan or guar gum. His hands shook slightly as he unpeeled some stickers to give me, and for some reason I noticed his palms were weirdly, shockingly pink; the color of Bazooka gum, or certain dogs' assholes.

We made some more vaguely comprehensible small talk about various shows around town, but I was preoccupied with the thought that normally, this fellow was legendary for being almost impossible to get in touch with. Friends have traded stories of unbelievable frustrations about this guy, all revolving around his incredible talent for being extraordinarily elusive when it comes to contacting him. Then, today, I'm innocently walking home, and he all but crawls out of a manhole and grabs my leg.

This is really the wrong image I need to take with me as I go to sleep. Walking home happily, and then being clawed by some strange thing erupting from the nether depths. "I'm made of guar gum and beet greens!" he is going to shriek in my dreams, this alarming, hungry C.H.U.D.

"Want a sticker?"

Boy, do I!