The place was packed, because of the Fourth. "Why does nobody listen? Eve and I went out to eat lunch at Loew's Steaks. "Weren't you listening?" said the guy, suddenly exasperated.
Below it was a pair of denim shorts that were too small. So the John in the photo was wearing a shirt featuring John wearing the photo of John wearing that shirt created a recursion that presumably continued for infinity. John was in the process of placing his garish American flag cowboy hat back atop his head his outfit included a T-shirt featuring a photo of himself in which he was wearing the same hat and T-shirt he wore in real life. Behind me, a window air conditioner was making a noise like it was being dragged down a gravel road. Only two of the four kitchen chairs matched. In general, I'm not sure either we or the apartment made for a reassuring first impression. The "here" she referred to was our apartment, which was small enough that the table we were sitting around overlapped the borders of the kitchenette, dining room, and living room. The victim seemed to not feel this at all and in general was clearly unaware of the creature's presence. Under the creature, I could see a sliver of the man's exposed, pink brain, surrounded by blood-matted hair. Around its purple body was a ring of several eyes that twitched back and forth as if scanning the room, each moving and blinking at different intervals. The creature's legs were wrapped tightly around the man's face, one running under his nose like a mustache. It kind of looked like somebody had glued half a dozen fat centipedes to one of Prince's codpieces. It had six long, black segmented legs, covered in bristles. The parasite, or whatever word you'd use to describe the creature attached to the dude's head, had a body about the size of two fists, its sleek carapace a vivid purple. It was chewing away more of his skull, I guess-it had already made quite a hole up there. The parasite made soft grinding noises like an inmate surreptitiously sawing through prison bars. The guy was now looking at us expectantly, like he was waiting for us to reply to whatever his invisible wife had just said. He was now sitting at my kitchen table with me, Amy, and the empty chair, John leaning on the counter and fidgeting with the red, white, and blue novelty cowboy hat in his hands. He had shown up at my apartment two minutes ago saying he'd been dropped off by the police, who apparently hadn't stuck around to explain. The man appeared to be in his early fifties and had the kind of sad, droopy features that made him look like God hadn't finished inflating him. John, Amy, and I exchanged glances, none of us quite sure what to do. He nodded to the chair next to him, where absolutely no one was sitting, then waited in silence like he was letting his "wife" speak.
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