Hank Has A Weird Day

Hank jumped back, just in time to avoid being hit by the Beamer as it sped out off the parking lot.

"DUMBASS!" he screamed. "Go back to St. Louis, you yuppie shit!"

"Yeah!" Vinnie echoed. "Go back to St. Louis. The East Side is for real men."

They stared as the car sped off and out of sight.

"You better run!" Hank shouted at last at the now long gone car. He paused a second before turning back to Vinnie and picking up where he was when he had been interrupted.

"I swear to you its true. I have made it with every stripper in that club," he said nodding toward the club they were heading to.

"Wow." was all Vinnie could muster. One thing Hank liked about Vinnie was that he was stupid. The truth is, Hank had difficulty getting lap dances, even waving twenties and fifties around. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do once they entered the club and all the strippers didn't jump on him like he was the greatest stud ever. But that was all solved when a hole in time and space ripped open right below him and he fell several thousand years into the future.

He didn't so much hit ground as regain his balance. He found himself standing where he had been, only instead of Vinnie and a parking lot full of cars, he was surrounded by several hundred people.

"The hell just happened?"

The moment Hank opened his mouth, the entire crowd dropped to the ground. At first, Hank ducked too, but it slowly dawned on him that these people where groveling to him. Then he also noticed that every woman in the crowd was dressed, just barely, like a stripper. The men all wore the same clothes too. In fact, they were all wearing the exact same t-shirt and jeans hank was wearing. That is all except the two closest to him, he seemed to be wearing very poorly made suits. It was these two who stood up first.

"Hail to you. oh Hank," the first one said.

"Umm, okay. Hail to you too. And by the way, who are you?"

"I am the serling," he replied. "And this," he continued indicating the suited man to his right, "is the dumbass."

"O," Hank replied at first. "Kay," he added some time later. In the intervening time, he had been trying very hard to figure out what was going on. Finally, he gave up and asked.

At first, the serling seemed puzzled. Then he seemed to start to understand.

"Of course. You wish to test us. You wish to see if we know how Emperor Vinnie brought the true faith to the world."

"Emperor Vinnie?"

Without a word, the serling pointed to a giant picture of Hank's slackjawed, erstwhile sidekick.

"What the hell is going on? Vinnie? This isn't funny!"

"After you fell into the sacred vortex, which brought you here to us" the serling continued. "Emperor Vinnie was driven to overthrow the false governments and profane religions and claim his rightful place as ruler. He did this not for his own glory, but to bring the true faith to the world. His destruction of the faithless is celebrated. The famine and economic collapse are remembered as just punishment, a cleansing purification through mortification."

Hank was lost. He stared at the giant picture of Vinnie as the serling kept using words Hank had never heard of, leaving him ever more confused as the explanation continued.

"Okay. Enough!" Hank finally yelled, causing a visible trembling amongst the crowd. The serling nodded.

"Of course," the serling responded. "We are wasting time, and must perform the ceremony of ceremonies."

"The what?" Hank asked, not noticing that the dumbass had slipped away.

"The ceremony of ceremonies." the serling repeated. "Your sacred elevation."

Hank was just about ready to seriously consider losing his mind when he heard the engine rev. He looked just in time to see the dumbass bearing down on him in a beamer, much like the one that had almost hit him a few minutes ago a few thousand years ago. Only this time, he didn't have time to step out of the way.

The crowd cheered as Hanks body flipped over the car and landed broken on the ground. And it was time for the serling to perform his sacred duty. He turned to the crowd, lit a cigarette and paused briefly.

"Submitted for your approval," he began. "The one true god, Hank. Brought to the future by his followers, he has just been released from this world to the next, as prophesied in the sacred books. Just another sacred ceremony, performed in, the Twilight Zone."