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Edited on Wed May-07-08 10:47 PM by ocelot
and as he opened the lid of the large black garbage bin to throw the sacks of garbage into it, he glimpsed a flicker of light at the bottom of the bin; his curiosity aroused, he leaned over the bin, and suddenly he fell -- no, he was drawn into the bin by an unseen force, and the lid slammed shut above him and the glimmering thing that had caught his eye disappeared, and at the very instant he expected to fall on his face on the bottom of the foul-smelling trash bin he realized that it had no bottom and he continued to fall and fall and fall through a featureless, soundless void for what seemed like hours but without accelerating, and finally he landed, not very hard, face down and spread-eagled, on what felt strangely like shag carpeting. He didn't move at all -- he wasn't sure if he could -- while he wondered whether he had just had a stroke or had gone mad; and after a little while he realized that there was a faint light in whatever place he had landed in, so he turned his head to the side and opened his eyes one at a time and saw that he had, in fact, landed on shag carpeting and that it was a sort of '70s avocado green. He thought he might have a bit of rug burn on his cheek but otherwise he felt no pain. Still, not knowing where he was or how he got there, he remained prone and motionless until he heard a strange far away sound. At first he didn't recognize it as music, but then he realized that it was music, after a fashion -- an eerie, deep, crackling voice was singing. It was singing "Love Me Tender." How odd, Tim thought. Apparently I am lying face down on green shag carpeting and a walrus with tonsillitis is singing an Elvis song...I really shouldn't mix absinthe with blotter acid. The voice became louder, as if the singer were approaching, and now Tim heard a shuffling sound, exactly the sound that a legless mutant would make as it dragged itself across shag carpeting. Tim began to be afraid. Slowly, carefully, he rolled over. Now he could see the same bilious green carpeting on the walls and ceiling, and in the corner of the room was a small fake waterfall. The room looked oddly familiar. The voice and the shuffling grew louder; then it stopped. Tim realized someone was in the room with him. A man -- or something -- was standing at the bottom of a carpet-covered stairway. He, or it, was dressed in a spangled white suit with a high collar, a gold belt and a cape, but it just barely had the shape of a man, bloated and gelatinous; worse, where his head should have been there was nothing but a writhing mass of tentacles above a toothless mouth. The mouth began to move again, and now it was singing "Burning Love." The thing reached for Tim with an arm that looked like a leprous elephant's trunk, and started singing, raspily like the rustling of dead bones, "Take my hand, take my whole life, too, 'cause I can't help wanting to ASSIMILATE YOOOOOUUU!" As the thing stuffed Tim feet first into its mouth with its alien elephant arms, sucking him down into its vast, slimy maw, Tim at last recognized his surroundings: the Jungle Room at Graceland! His final thought as the last of him disappeared into the huge mouth was, I'm being eaten by dead Elvis; I can't fucking believe it."
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