She was at ground level—at ground zero for The Day the World Went Mad. The stress was getting to her and there was no pot—not a reefer—anywhere in sight. Donna Herford was a hard pushing control freak in the workplace, a real on point kind of person. In a structured setting she could operate under what most people considered ‘high pressure’ far beyond expectations.

But when Roger Westinghouse tore Milford’s face off up in the special projects room at the offices at Blue Unicorn Enterprises, in the cube like ground scraper above and behind her, her world had crumbled. The stress was in her now. And for Donna, when the stress was in her, if she could not get her pot then the tinnitus started—the ringing in her ears from that Pantera Concert so long ago. The ringing in her inner ear was back, and was made constant by noises that got through—for all of the terrible noise of the world was getting through, as she held Mary Ellen Basque’s hand—fat Mary Ellen ‘Bowl’ waddling in her clogs as Donna stumbled in her brand new pumps.

Mason Burges, her slacker administration assistant—-secretary with a dick is more like it—was following them, the skin on his hands cooking off on the steaming commercial coffee pot that he was cradling like a priest presenting a thousand year old relic to the Pope.

“I ought to kill you you hipster bitch!” came his mantra of doom, with three steps and three breaths taken between each and every recitation of her possible fate.

They were halfway across the patio to the street, people stepping out of there way, traffic oblivious, Mason continuing his rant at a zombie pace behind them, when Mary Ellen stopped and tugged her hand, pointing behind them, over Mason’s shoulders. It was their douche bag security guard—who, with her tinnitus coming on strong would have to forgo a name, at least in her mind—was walking stiff legged toward them, his eyes looked maniacally on her, slapping the black metallic telescopic baton into his open hand as he chanted, “I ought to give you a baton shampoo you hipster bitch!”

She wanted to collapse and; to quit right then, but had to forge on, could not leave Mary Ellen to this and could not huddle in one place when her ears were ringing out in any case. She tugged Mary Ellen and yelled over the din in her head, “Come on girl, let’s cross the street!”

Off they lurched together, forming a cadence of sort, Mary Ellen mumbling comfortingly to herself, “Let’s cross the street!”

Relieved that her partner in this panic—this burst of temporary insanity that overtook the employees of Blue Unicorn Enterprises on this quiet overcast early autumn day—Donna permitted herself a few glances over her shoulder, and over her shorter companion’s red head of hair. The security guard was chanting his “I ought to give you a wood shampoo you hipster bitch!” in shorter intervals and with greater urgency than Mason, and was moving with a quicker step.

They were already to the street, she knew when her pump teetered on the curb, but the traffic was just beginning to roll. For some reason Mary Allen was pulling her into the street. She yanked back hard as a mail truck rumbled by. “Mary Ellen, lets walk up the street away from them while we wait for traffic to stop.”

Mary Ellen did not even look her way, was no longer apparently concerned with the lurching men behind her, but was staring with a dreamy intensity at the far side of the streets, across 4 lanes of rushing traffic, and chanting, each chant accompanied by a tug on Donna’s arm, “Let’s cross the street!”

“Let’s cross the street!” chanted Mary Ellen as she tugged the harder on Donna’s arm.

“Let’s cross the street!” and she tugged the harder at Donna’s interlaced left hand.

And the security guard was approaching, chanting on a 2-beat, “I ought to give you a baton shampoo you hipster bitch!”

And Mason was closing in behind him, “I ought to pour this down your throat you hipster bitch!”

Donna freed her hand from Mary Ellen’s just as a city bus ripped by at forty MPH and Mary Ellen turned into a redheaded slice of marshmallow pizza and something warm and gooey splashed across Donna’s face as the voices behind her chanted, “I ought to give you a wood shampoo—ought to pour this down your throat—you hipster bitch!”

Traffic had slowed in a slinky fashion—thanks to Mary Ellen—as her body fell from the bus grille to smack the pavement every so moistly.

Donna ripped off her right pump and threw it at Mason, it bouncing harmlessly from his sloshing coffee pot. She then kicked the left shoe at the quick stepping security guard who was chanting “I ought to give you a baton shampoo Hipster Bitch!”

And she was off running round the back of the bus skipping between cars in a world gone mad.

As she bounded toward the curb, her ear ringing nearly drowning out the noise of the world thanks to her exertion, she saw a syringe in the gutter and gingerly pranced over it.