Wednesday wasn't special, pretty much all of the calendar was blank. It had just been one of those... wait, this was for last year! Didn't matter, the nice sounding lady on the phone asked him if he would honor a meeting of her friends at their temple downtown for discussion, a buffet, and an open bar on Wednesday and he said yes and... it was Wednesday, right?
The Pouch was feeling pretty hungry and was sure hoping that buffet was all you could eat legitimately, not all the shame you can bear under the withering, judgmental eyes of the easily filled. If The Pouch was anything, it wasn't easily filled. The open bar thing also sounded great but could go wrong. Sure, all you can drink, as long as you can drink two. The Pouch didn't even know how many he could drink.
Hoping for the best, he dusted himself off and made sure he wasn't packing anything inappropriate for what the caller, was her name Unis?, called a very light service. The Pouch was feeling interested in hearing some new stuff, but also it was pretty hard to tell if he was asleep, as long as he didn't start snoring, and assuming that the open bar started after the service, this likely wouldn't be a problem.
After a quick subway ride, and a few autographs written to bagladies, The Pouch stood before the opaque glass edifice of... there was the sign... he's pretty much spaced the name... The Unified Union of Unisus Fellowship. That was sort of a mouthful... a good reminder for The Pouch to open up and take out the piece of gum he'd been working on for a bit. He stuck it on the back of the sign, just in case he wanted it later.
Inside was all open space and a really good smell, like a new phase of existence smell, if that was a thing when you got a new phase of existence from the dealer. His rapturous looking around was disturbed by the familiar voice from the phone.
"Mr. Pouch? Hello, It's me, Unis, from the phone."
The Pouch turned around to see a woman much younger than he expected, both from her antiquated name and from her very elderly sounding voice. Her hair was white, but the not-old white that the kids were sporting these days. She wore a V necked robe that was rounded into a U that mostly covered her up. Quickly looking around, it seemed like everyone was wearing a very similar garb.
"Hi, I'm... yeah. Hi. Should I wear a robe?"
"That's not necessary, Mr. Pouch," she said with a slight grin that was maybe a little playful or maybe a little devious. Either way could be cool once everyone started unwinding at the open bar. "This way.., " she said, leading him further into the... lobby? The architecture was definitely weird. There didn't seem to be any rooms or any sort of dividers between any of the spaces, space, really.
"While we are classified as a new faith, I assure you that our teachings go back to the earliest moments of the cosmos, and reference a multitude of ancient human metaphors and understandings. Here, are some of our pamphlets." Unis motioned her hand to a small table top covered in brightly colored imagery.
"Oh great," The Pouch said, "I love comic books."
"Well... sort of... we don't believe in panels, for example, but the information is presented in a visual format that does represent sequential time. Actually, let me grab that one back from you. There. That's one we can talk about... later."
"Um, when do we eat?" The Pouch asked.
"After. First we have our service, a special rite in your honor."
Unis lead The Pouch further into the complex. Ahead, he could already see a large amphitheater, leading down at least three stories to a small, round stage. As Unis lead him down the many stairs, The Pouch noticed that everyone was wearing the same robe. They were pretty nice robes.
"Hey, any chance I could get one of those robes?", The Pouch asked.
"Maybe after the... um... ceremony." Unis said.
There were really a lot of steps leading down and The Pouch was feeling a little winded by the time they got down to the stage. Unis motioned him to sit in one of the front row seats and disappeared into the crowd before he could ask her any questions. The amphitheater filled up surprisingly fast and quietly. A couple times, he tried to make small talk with the people sitting around him but got little more than polite smiles in return.
A large, tubular screen lowered towards the stage and everyone fell silent. The room darkened, only slightly and everyone took off their robes and everyone was naked. It sure seemed like everyone had some clothes on underneath, like the way a judge will wear the black robes of his or her office over a smart outfit. The Pouch looked around a little but felt really awkward and so mainly focused on the screen where some programming began, words accompanying the booming voice emerging from hidden speakers.
"The Oneness", the narrator boomed, quickly echoed by the the whole of the congregation. "We are all one, together" again repeated by the crowd. "The circle, without sides, without angles, is the symbol of the Oneness. The square, the box, the enclosing division, this is the anti-symbol." On the screen, a number of squares rotated the circle before moving inside it and forming a sort of human shape, square head, five squares as an upper and lower torso, a few squares to form each arm and leg. This figure then moved quickly, the circle shattering. The Pouch began to feel a little nervous, feeling the vibe of the room heating up a bit. "We cannot allow the agents of division to shatter the unity!" Suddenly, a spot light shone down on The Pouch as he heard a seemingly communal grunt as everyone stood and lurched towards him.
The Pouch, possessing that lightening intuition shared by all superheroes, leapt to the stage as scores of hands grasped at him. Never all that good at math or estimating anything in general, The Pouch guessed that there were hundreds of angry naked... at this point he was just going to call them cultists, they were the ones who broke the standards of civility by designating him as the Adversary of their religion. Looking around, things looked pretty grim. All of the stairs up and out of the amphitheater were thronged with nude cultists. The Pouch shuddered briefly considering all the inadvertent touching that was unavoidable when practicing nudity on this scale.
Unwisely spending a few moments on regret, The Pouch reassessed his dedication to operating as a solo hero. If he was on some sort of superteam, he could call for backup. Heck, if he was on a superteam he probably would have some superpals with him right now and they could enact some sort of pre-planned maneuver like "BLUE 84" or something with a better code name. Now, he was alone facing this murderous mob. Who would even care if they succeeded in their desire to literally tear him pouch from pouch? Would Mary Sew cry? How much would she cry?
The first of the mob crawled up onto the stage, snapping The Pouch out of his reverie. Looking around for anything resembling a weapon, The Pouch saw only the screen above him. It was a little high for him to jump but... several assailants ran crazily towards him. The Pouch jumped just enough to dodge the charging cultists, so blind in their hatred that they all collided, hard. From atop the pile of those who would destroy him, The Pouch was able to jump just high enough to reach the lower edge of the screen. The inside of the cyclical screen was a network of support struts and wiring. The Pouch hoisted himself up and started climbing through the web of metal supports.
He was, in his estimation, half way up the length of the crawlspace inside the cyclical screen when he felt it begin moving. The inner workings sprang to life, folding in unexpectedly in places as the screen began retracting up towards the impossibly high ceiling. Clearly they were trying to crush him, or at the least get him up into whatever storage room regularly housed this enormous screen, probably close quarters and less chance of escape. For all he knew, there was already a crack team of naked assassins waiting up there for him. These were the moments of cold, hard decision making in which heroes steel themselves against the dire prospects before them and come up with a plan to overcome the incalculable odds against them. This was the moment when The Pouch reached for a handhold, missed it, started falling, grabbed a loose cord, continued falling, fell out of the bottom of the screen assemblage, fell towards the nude and angry crowd, then felt the jolt run through all of his pouches as he reached the bottom of the cord he was still holding and swung out towards the now empty seats higher up in the amphitheater and let go and went tumbling into a bunch of empty seats.
The Pouch scrambled to his feet and took off running. The lobby of the building was completely empty and no one impeded his progress towards the doors and out into the street. Finding himself suddenly back in the normal world, fully clothed pedestrians, skateboarders, honking traffic, dogs on leashes shitting freely upon the sidewalk... the shock caused The Pouch to pause briefly, appreciating just being alive. He heard the ruckus behind him, however, and he swiftly hailed a cab and got in. He told the driver his address and settled in, watching the mass of naked people running behind them fade away in the rear view mirror. Man... some Wednesdays just suck...
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