Randy & Kyle vs Evil

RANDY & KYLE vs EVIL

By:  randy gillis

I was sitting at my wheel in my little pottery shop working on the (as of this writing) elusive moon jar, listening to Simon on the radio (because what other station offers Blue Oyster Cult and Tiffany in the same music block), and just being happy.  It's a little cinder block building nestled in the deep woods of Montgomery County, and my escape from all that troubles me in the world.  Well, almost all.  Sometimes my gay demon Kyle pops up from hell to hang out and bug me.

Come on now, we all have our demons.  I’m just thankful that I got the gay one as opposed to say, the ‘God hates fags’ demon because frankly they’re a dime a dozen in these parts, smelly, and a bit repetitious, and I've always preferred the path less traveled.  It helps that Kyle looks enough like a sunburned Harrison Ford with a 10 point rack to make him tolerable.

It was a beautiful day, the shop door was open to allow a nice breeze to circulate, and I was approaching something very close to a proper moon jar.  Kyle was going on about how his support group in hell just doesn’t understand him when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement.



I turned to the open door (right beside my wheel), and looked down as a python, or maybe it was an anaconda (okay, it was a black snake but it was at least ‘OMFG are you kidding me’ feet long) had crossed the threshold and was working its way into the shop.

The first casualty was the moon jar as I jumped up, catching the top of the jar with my wide swinging leg as I tripped over the power cord and fell into Kyle’s arms.  To be fair, the jar only had a few minutes left to live anyway as I had knocked it off balance and was desperately trying to salvage something out of it. 

The serpent froze from all the commotion (or it could have been the screaming).  Kyle dropped me immediately and started his climb up the closest set of shelves.  I asked him why he was running as I had always assumed that demons and snakes must be pretty tight.  He said there were no snakes in hell as they tended to upset the unicorns.

I looked back and the snake was still frozen in place.  For a second I hoped maybe it had had a heart attack and died but I remembered that evil has no heart so, I jumped up as I was way too close to being eye level with pure, agonizing death (I know black snakes aren’t poisonous, but that meant very little at this particular moment).  I literally started throwing myself against every wall in the shop, desperately looking for a weapon to do battle with the beast when I suddenly realized that to kill this snake would mean to get close to this snake, so that’s off the table.  Kyle’s helpful hint was for me to ‘shoo it out the door’. 

I saw a long-handled shop broom sitting in the corner just screaming to be used for something heroic just once, so, I dove for it like an arthritic Indiana Jones, stepping into a spare bucket full of water I keep around for just such occasions.  So, now I’m scared AND wet and getting pissed.  I whip around with broom in hand to the still motionless predator and, with all the moxie I could muster, screamed, “Die you bastard!”

Not a flinch. The harbinger of pestilence remained motionless across the threshold of my doorway, probably because as opposed to the Sigourney Weaver from Alien that I was shooting for, the scream escaped my lips, riding on an octave closer to Julie Andrews at the beginning of Victor/Victoria.  At least Kyle gave me a thumbs up.

I decided against a full on charge as my legs were a bit on the rubbery side, so, I started a slow approach with the end of the broom on the floor and pushed as far away from my body as a muscle spasming arm would allow.  I got to within about 6 inches and….IT  REARED  UP  AT  ME!  Two and a half feet of this snake were now in the air and my genitalia were no longer alone in my underwear.  Kyle’s screaming added the perfect touch.

I used my free hand to fumble with my I-phone to try and Google ‘black snake’ as I was almost positive that they were incapable of this kind of maneuver, but I dropped it into my slip bucket.  This was no ordinary black snake.  It was obviously some sort of black snake/cobra hybrid that’s escaped from some mad taxidermist's lab (and these woods be thick with them) and is now in my shop.

I raised the end of the broom slightly in hopes of maybe pushing it just enough to allow me to close the door.  IT  STRUCK  THE  END  OF  MY  BROOM……TWICE!!  With a force strong enough to be felt in the handle of the broom and  the inner depths of my soul.  The last thing I remember before everything went completely black was trying to get saved, which is no small feat for an atheist, and Kyle screaming “It’s crawling inside!”

I’m not sure how long I was out, but when I came to, I was alone in the shop.  No snake, no Kyle, just Tiffany on the radio singing 'I think we're alone now'.  I have no idea what happened, but based on Kyle’s last words, I’m considering having an x-ray.