shuck && jive. these guys. they r in this WORLD like ghosts, drifting thru the hazy crowds, $$$ && fans && SMOKE && COPS && SHERM. shadows everywhere. these dudes b legends or clowns? they never done a wack track but I see them jus WEIRD. but whatever they r, they’re ON STAGE, && the mob is WILD. the bodyguards barely keepin it all back. every time the beat DROPS, it’s like a robotic future vision, man. they claim to have kidnapped a alien n taught it how to produce. i seen pictures. he green and skinny and got a elf hat on. ppl say it’s not real n then why add that lil dumbass elf hat?
SHERM - that EMBALMING FLUID - that WET. so STICKY n UGH but man. im relaxed. n it crazy out that gate fr…
a million cigs lit at once, && somewhere there’s this one cop, like — “u gotta do this for real, bros.” shuck, LAUGHING, thinks it’s all a setup for a vid till those handcuffs start 2 DIG in && he’s like, wait… IS THIS REAL?
CUT to back of the SQUAD CAR && these dudes r like — damn, this car is SICK. mirror-shine interior, && the cop’s in the rearview, just starin back, sayin “serious, bros, yall paid us good 2 FAKE THIS. whole thing’s a SHOW.” && there’s this other cop, older, lookin at ‘em like, “that name. shuck && jive? my 13 y/o loves u guys but like… y’all Black, && that’s kinda… RACIST, right?”
jive, in his seat, smirks, “waive ur right 2 the answer, officer.” cop laughs. yeah.
shuck sits up, “man… we just heard that shii on a cartoon. shuck and jive was a chicken n a rooster, a cartoon… or something. bro. we shoot bullets at the crowd and they try and catch em. I sold a stack of ‘um one dollar bill to a fan, of money, n for every dollar from me I just get 100 back. n then he sell that for 200, bro. we ain’t have family. i killed the devil n i didn’t need to brag n nothin, it was for Christ Almighty out Lord, damn BRO light that skizzo… yeezzzur.”
they roll past the flashing lights && fading crowd, && in walks the pit bull guy, 6’8’’ && BIGGER THAN LIFE. dude looks like a WALL, && his dogs r like mini bulldozers on chains. guy says, “yo, got some tax tips 4 ya.” shuck’s like, “man we tryna stay legal. we cashing it all in like the white boys do.” pit bull dude laughs, “then u gotta go OCEANOGRAPHY on it, offshore accounts && untraceable islands, right down 2 under the sea.” jive just NODS, like he gets it. but u know he don’t. pit bull guy tossin tax evasion tips like candy. surreal. “man i don’t fuck wit the caribbean… i give you money n i want double it back or nothing. double or nothing.” PITBULL laughs n laughs n damn. ugly ass…
CUT TO them recalling the time jive CUT OFF HIS TOE on a hotel room floor just 2 get a famous rapper 2 LISTEN. guy was paranoid, locked doors && windows. so jive’s like, “gotta get his attention.” next thing, toe’s GONE, lying in a ziplock bag under the guy’s door with a note “PRESS PLAY.” && yeah, he played the track && yeah, he never called back. so they laugh bout it now, but back then it was serious — one less toe && STILL no record deal. a scammed up game. house always wins at the sino.
BACK 2 the car, a cop says, “ur lucky u got 2 me after those satanic rappers pulled u out 2 that desert, buried y’all ALIVE.” shuck n jive just nod, like yeah, they REMEMBER. “so we’re buried, right? n here comes THIS COP, like the HAND OF GOD, shovel in hand. got us out. dude’s a legend.” they still owe him big time, but even that feels made up by now. old trauma, turned into campfire ghost stories in their own heads.
then there’s the bank job. they’re reminiscing how they got into a bank with a live SNAKE, walking in like, “it’s a snake or it’s a gun, u pick.” tellers losing it, hands in the air, && jive’s like “put $$$ in the bag or the snake’s comin over the counter.” && the snake’s just chillin, coiled like it knows its own power. it’s how legends are born, in real life but it FEELS like fiction.
scene’s switching up, reality is in tatters, && they’re both just STARIN at each other, wondering how the HELL any of it is real…
Epilogue
Official Report #420999.01 - SWAT Division, City Police Department Date: [REDACTED] Time: 0300 hours Filed by: Chief Inspector Reginald T. Colfax
Incident Summary On the above-mentioned date and time, SWAT officers executed a raid on an unregistered gathering at the abandoned estate on 19th & Broadview. Reports indicated a gathering of high-profile individuals, including self-identified “tech billionaires,” music producers, and licensed/unlicensed dental professionals (pending verification of credentials). Preliminary intelligence suggested potential illegal substance distribution, unlawful assembly, and activities deemed "ritually disturbing."
Observation and Preliminary Findings Upon forced entry, officers encountered an immediate barrier of dense smoke and dim lighting conditions. Attendees were observed participating in synchronized movements resembling interpretive dance, with metallic objects being struck rhythmically. Sounds of clanging, percussion, and intermittent vocalizations echoed through the property, creating what has been described by officers as a “distorted symphony.” The subjects appeared engaged in trance-like states, showing minimal awareness of law enforcement presence.
In a prepared statement, Chief Inspector Colfax addressed the public, expressing concern over the behavioral and psychological trends observed. Colfax commented:
“It starts with… you know, first it’s prank phone calls and then it’s truancy and various forms of systemic, unconscious theft in our school systems. PCP is so rampant that it is now a ‘ritual’ or rite of passage to… remove one’s… Sorry. This is a very disturbing concept but they… They… scoop… cavitate… tear… stab out each other’s eyeballs…”
What began as a tactical entry has since developed into… a phantasmagoria? It’s difficult to parse the sequence of events, as sounds overlap && morph—billionaires are clanging on metallic bars, exhaling choked breaths in time w/ a beat so primal, so … unsettling it feels like it could swallow the air itself. the SWAT officers stumble as if in slow motion, swaying against flashes of strobe && a mind-bending wave of triple reverb. Officers report a sensation of bending reality as if their very souls are…
an alert—officers receiving audio hallucinations thru the coms; calls && chatter twist into pulses of sound feedback, disorienting us to a point where time melts like old film under a flickering light, warping the timeline of our entry, fracturing w/ every distorted word. they hear reggae bass lines, conspiracy podcasts, && snippets of asmr dental visits like some fractured narrative pieced together by the world’s worst DJ. officers find themselves lost_in corridors, endless rooms where walls stretch && echo, floors seem to _sink, && billionaires chant w/ abandon about startup prophecy.
one officer: “i felt like i was the trip. like i’d become the hallucination of someone else… like i was being perceived by them as some kind of … shadow? no, like an imprint. yeah… yeah, like i wasn’t there but a shape of me was. u had 2 b there.”
this whole thing? a dream. shuck && jive are ghosts slipping thru SWAT ranks, fooling the suits&& bending reality like this was a live broadcast of hell. u had techies, dentists, music suits all in some freak show dance-off, slamming pipes && chanting about margins, pro bono cleanings, && endgame philosophies that left everyone spinning. u could feel the weight of it, the primal pulse from an ancient nerve, like if the cavemen had wifi && stock options.
so get this… u got these dentists—yeah, i said dentists—and they’re not just there, they’re like the core of this whole twisted mess. white coats stained w/ something dark, staring blank-eyed && grinning wide. they’re holding their little tools, u know, like those thin curved hooks && those mirrors-on-a-stick that always look like they were invented in some medieval torture chamber.
they're not just fixing teeth, nah. they’re probing the air, tapping at invisible cavities in reality itself, like they’re excavating the room, trying to dig their way thru some unseen layer of existence. it’s almost like they’re saying: there's rot, but it's not in ur teeth, it’s in the walls, the fabric of the world. god help u if they ever find it. their eyes roll back && they whisper, almost chanting, about "deep cleanings of the soul," talking in riddles about cavitation && extraction, like they’re trying to pull demons outta ur gums.
one dude’s in the middle of the floor, on his back, pointing to his mouth, begging the other dentists to “get it out, get it out.” his legs are kicking like he’s swimming upstream in a river of molasses. and the dentists are circling, tools gleaming under that low, low light, grinning wide. and it’s like… they know something the rest of us don’t. like, what’s hiding in that dude’s molar? something cosmic? something that shouldn’t be?
and they’re talking bout the root canals—not the procedure, no, they’re like dead serious, talking bout the root canal as if it’s a place, a destination, an underworld passage thru which something else might come back.
"ya see, it starts in the nerves, spreads to the marrow, then digs deep, carves out a canal. and u follow that canal, find the rot, && if ur brave enough, if ur mad enough, u yank it out. u take it whole." …it’s not even clear if they’re talking bout teeth anymore.
there’s a dude in the corner, one of those tech bros, && his face is just frozen, locked in some eternal grin, eyes wide like he’s seeing something beyond. a dentist is over him, holding one of those drill whines in his ear, mumbling bout infinite recursion && scaling the cavity, like if they just drilled deep enough, they’d break thru the skull, tap into the next layer, whatever that might be. and it’s not even about fixing teeth anymore; nah, it’s like they’re performing some kind of ritual surgery on the fabric of perception itself. the techie’s just nodding, drooling, his pupils blown wide like black holes sucking in the room.
dentists standing over billionaires, billionaires standing over dentists, && in the middle of it all u got shuck && jive, not even phased, slipping between em like they were made of smoke. && i swear, one of those dentists handed Jive a tooth extractor, and instead of using it on someone’s mouth, he points it at an officer and clicks it, like it was a remote control, && the officer just stops. dead in his tracks. frozen.
all the while the sound—clanging && tapping && murmuring—keeps growing, spreading thru the halls like echoes of a nightmare, && the SWAT guys are tripping over their own boots, disoriented, slipping further into the twisted gravity of it all. the billionaires are throwing imaginary money, screaming about _series A funding for the astral plane* && it’s all teeth, cash, && madness
and then, just like that, it’s over.
&&& and above em, floating like some kinda lost spirit, the dead untitled skeletated man’s watching, drifting thru the sky, catching fragments of the judge’s mumbling, seeing the cops scribbling the press report, the whole thing unfolding in a haze. there are moments where he is in his home and it all feels like it had been a bad dream &&& that’s exactly what it becomes as he is rejected from reality and pulped down into a brackish stew #&& he decides, having forgotten &&&/or generally drawn into a right then && there, to follow them—he laughs as they disappear, and thinks: yeah, maybe. &&& he thought of that film SOMEBODY’S WATCHING OVER ME &&& the great big parade at the end &&& as an owl landed on shuck’s arm many years ago he laughed &&& laughed &&&