Halloween Repaintance

The bus departed a few seconds after I'd sat my bruised ass down on a spare bench near the back. The bus was packed full of pastor-looking blokes in suits, prune-like older women in dresses buttoned up to their pointy chins and one or two fellas who I'm sure I'd seen on a shooting range or three back in the good old days when Apartheid was in full force and blacks were kept in check (by the righteous bullet and holy noose). Speaking of blacks, not one in sight on this bus. Except for the bus driver. Back home in the land of the living, this would have been a comforting and familiar sight ... here in the grey environment of Purgatory, it was nothing short of chilling. Where the hell was he taking us?

As if reading my mind, the driver, in a distinctly Nigerian accent, spoke over the bus intercom, telling us that we were going to be purged of our Halloween offenses. I was about to protest -- after all, my reputation as the bloke who attacked poor innocent kids with paintballs sticks like jam to a blanket, but how many times must I explain that those kids had it coming -- but then I had a sudden mental image of the Third Leg and bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood.

The bus lurched forward and we seemed to shoot through time and space -- if there is such a thing in the nether-regions -- and suddenly I was being expelled from the bus and onto a dark street in a suburb which looked a hell of a lot like my old home turf.

I caught my reflection in the tinted window of a car that had pulled up beside me ... it was not the reflection of the fearsome Paintball Pete who put the fear of Jesus into little satanists celebrating the devil's birthday. I was a little satanist! All dressed up in a little devil costume and holding a packet of sweets in one hand and a rotten egg in another. It was enough to make my spirit bowels turn to water.

As I stood there, mouth hanging open like a stupid retard, a paintball flew through the air, aimed right at my gaping jaw. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. It smacked into my face with a splattering thud -- goddam, those frozen paintballs can pack a punch! I'd never been on the receiving end of one of these beauties, until tonight that is. Then another, and another, and on and on it went until I thought my face would simply explode like a rotten egg smacking into the side of an atheist parent's head.

It wasn't fun. At one point I tried to throw my rotten egg at the driver of the car -- he looked familiar, even through the haze of paint caking my eyes -- but I couldn't do a damn thing to fight back. So much for fighting the good fight!

At last, when I was reduced to a whimpering, paintball splattered, face-bruised (even more than my ass) repentant, and calling out to God for mercy like a school girl, the paintball onslaught ceased and I was left alone in the dark street for what seemed like an eternity before the bus picked me up. I don't even want to know what the other passengers must have gone through, but suffice to say that a good few hell-fire preachers on board looked like the fire had been blown out their asses for a change. And some of those spinster sisters looked like fire had been blown up theirs.

Please, for the love of God, pray that I get out of here before I have to work as the garden slave of a Sudanese prince ... or worse ...