The epidemic that started because of The Pusher, the one who pushes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a night. It was a nighttime-like dream. Imagine you are a cow standing in a field of grass, and you are sleeping. In your sleep you dream of eating the field\u2019s grass. You dream of waking up and just eating all the grass that\u2019s there to be munched on. You, as cow, are not prepared for the terror of being pushed over, by some random pusher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And like the cow\u2019s dream, no one in the city was ready for the reign of The Pusher, the specter of pushing down. First it was simple things that were pushed. Loosened bricks, car steering wheels belonging to cars in the town dump, pet goats, sandwiches in the display cases of all-night convenience stores, things in a closet, empty scuba tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then worse pushings were reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elderly cats, vintage car batteries, bananas near the registers in all-night convenience stores, decks of playing cards, professional wrestlers\u2019 likenesses in wax museums, model cars, stacks of paper, gun racks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People began suspecting the guy with a beak, Beakman. His beak made him seem like he had something to hide. Like for one, was it real? Or was it some sort of really great prosthetic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beakman made the argument that he\u2019d never thought of pushing anything, especially not the statue that looked like a girl walking through a mirror but was really a statue fitted with panes of frosted glass held together by a gunmetal frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People agreed, it was not yet something that had been pushed, over at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then that night, the pusher struck again, pushing over the statue Beakman had named.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat a thrilling coincidence,\u201d Beakman had said, hearing the news of the statue\u2019s pushing. The facts of its being pushed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah, because you did it,\u201d the police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beakman responded with indignation and bemusement. \u201cIs that how this works? You can just accuse me of something without evidence? What if I\u2019m in fact the vigilante crime fighter who\u2019s been leaving those tied-up criminals with pecked up faces on the steps of the police station? Wouldn\u2019t you feel bad about taking me off the streets?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMaybe for a day, maybe for two days, we\u2019d feel bad,\u201d the police said and meant to arrest Beakman.
Beakman squawked and ran from them, from their shiny police handcuffs before they could cuff him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGet him, men! Get him so we can cuff him like we\u2019d planned,\u201d cried the police sergeant. They chased Beakman up to a rooftop. A helicopter gave air support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The police closed in for the arrest, for the cuffing of a perp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then a rocket propelled hand tore across the sky and collided with the side of the helicopter, which was sent spiraling downward with its pilot crying, \u201cMayday!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stunned police were all pushed off the rooftop to certain death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beakman could see amid the shadows their killer, who\u2019d previously been stepping in and out of the shadows to push.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAh, The Pusher, my old nemesis. You\u2019re in serious trouble for murdering all those people, all those police.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d The Pusher said, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m not real sure what I was thinking just now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cProbably something about wanting to murder people?\u201d Beakman posited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah…\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matt Rowan<\/strong> is a Chicagoan of sorts. He is keeper of Untoward Magazine<\/em> and he has a short story collection, Why God Why<\/em>, due out by way of Love Symbol Press sometime soon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The epidemic that started because of The Pusher, the one who pushes. It was a night. It was a nighttime-like dream. Imagine you are a cow standing in a field of grass, and you are sleeping. In your sleep you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[22183],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}