IV. The Mind-Stench

The closed casket wind of October's portal between the living and the dead scattered a few scurrying sensitive heads along the sidewalks of Belmont Avenue, Chicago's darkest artery; therefore the straights, the bashfully bald, egocentric and sensate would soon be seeking out their precious headwear. The elucidator of the eerie's wise compatriots walked nearby at a regular pace with hair tied back, dreadlocks or reddened frostbite on the domes. Prim sought out arcane information regarding a troubling revenant, and he was sure to find out everything that he needed to know, with all due discretion of course, at the Mad Habadasher. The Victorian style gold calligraphy script on the shop window wryly advertised, Mad Habadasher: undead toppers for the living, you have to earn the undertaker's hat. He took a draw on his cigar and shifted his dark eyes toward the empty white velvet fob. It was clear that a recent browser didn't belong in Chi-town. A wandering, babbling Frenchman with pockets too deep, arms exceeding their reach, cemetery gray skin, moldering spots of decay and a penchant for subversive advertisements in the weeklies had procured it for the usual price of sale. The mad haberdasher tightened a silver bind on her shiny, black latex corset and pointed out direction and time with s long, sharp, red nail. He wasn't hard to find, a foul, repressive mind-stench gave him a trail. Back up in top of the world North Country, this red-winged seraphim was known for selfishly trolling for fame through food found in a lame coffee house dumpster and a penchant for killing off Creatives. "I knew it was you, right away. If one has to wear a hat, it should match your coat." Removing the poser's leper-skin pillbox hat from his head, the revenant's host gave up the ghost high into the halo of a vapor light leaving only stylish shoes, exuberant pants and pirates' long coat behind. Satisfied with his success and hardened Chicago Goth sensibility, Prim proclaimed, "I am a fallen star. I never wear a hat."