Slub Glub and Willowmina both looked up to where the oddball’s finger was pointed, but saw only a grey, smoggy sky. “I don’t see anything,” Slub Glub remarked.
“Ain’t that the truth, kittens. God is dead.”
“God?” Willowmina inquired, unfamiliar with the concept.
“The Powers That Be. The Man Upstairs.”
“He’s dead?” Willowmina asked, crestfallen that they might have finally come close to the source of their problems, only to find the perpetrator deceased.
“Well, that’s what the newspapers say.”
“And this is all his doing?”
The beach-nik twirled his fingers mysteriously. “Ha. Deep, baby. You’re spiritual. I can dig it.”
“Um, how can we talk to this god?” Willowmina asked.
Right then a man and a woman emerged from a nearby sand dune and rushed to Willowmina’s side, pushing the young man in the turtleneck sweater out of the way. Evidently they had been lurking surreptitiously, waiting for just such an opportunity. “We can help you, my child,” the man said. He wore a tie and a button down shirt with slacks, somewhat overdressed for a day at the beach. His companion was a matronly lady in a yellow frock and caked layers of makeup. She put her arm around Slub Glub.
“Have you heard The Word, my son, about the Mystical Potentate of Time and Space?” she said to him.
“Would he be the one that brought these people to the beach, driving the crabs into the water, and so on and so on?” Willowmina interjected.
“Of course,” the man said paternally to her. “He’s responsible for all things.”
“Then we’ve got to talk to him!” Willowmina said, and without a word the man and woman dragged her and Slub Glub away from the beach, and into the dark city streets.
To be continued.
Table of Contents: “Slub Glub in the Weird World of the Weeping Willows”
Get the graphic novel from Eraserhead Press.
Illustration & text copyright (c) Andrew Goldfarb