ight mode, sir! e guests were terri ed! ey nearly pillaged the bar! And they slipped away through that door. Should we follow them?” “Not without arms. Call security. Bring straightjackets and duct tape.” Was this Huxley's vision? Were we going to have to escape? We ventured just far enough to peek down the hallway – but were careful not to lose eyes on that exit. ese passages resembled the blocky, purple labyrinth of Squid Game - adding only to the heightened sense that we were going to inadvertently stumble into a shakedown. Maybe we’d have to Hansel and Gretel our way out. Just then, Ford popped from around a corner. He was alarmed to
”When does the ball stop?” Ford asked. “Put it all on 17… I don’t trust these computer games.” I had to pull him aside as Huxley kept tinker- ing with the numbers. “Dude… do we even… talk about what just happened back there? When it comes right down to it, if you’re com- pletely tripping balls and you walk into a room of people and they all leave –” “I won a dollar,” Huxley said. He went on to pump it to $20 and walked away with a little card. Running on fumes and still thrown from the disco, we returned the way we’d come, through the south door, and across the Promenade. Breeze, the bright open daiquiri bar, seemed the best place to
nd us alarmed. “Did they follow us? Did they lock the door?” We returned and huddled together right outside the entrance back to the funhouse of horrors. But there was no way we could reappear now, aer the scene we’d just
land. We were parched. ree waters. e bar- tender looked us over then asked, unprompted, “Do you want some shots?” ere was a long pause. Huxley and I ex- changed exasper- ated glances. is was the moment of true defeat. “...
made. We’d have to make it out at full speed, past the discotek, down the volcano, through the subway and back to the slots, if we picked all the right exits. Realistically, we'd never make it further than the hot dog stand before getting tackled. We were Russian dolls. In a lucid nightmare. e only real option was to navigate this giant purple hedge maze. It was an eerie traverse. No other people on this abandoned oor. Not a soul. It was a mausoleum. A oor between oors. We walked by an empty bar or two – all these passages and rooms, all closed, all silent, all dimly lit. e escape path eventually led us past a life- sized purple zebra sipping from a Long Island iced-tea yard stein that looked like a bong at rst glance. A small, random escalator brought us back onto the casino oor. “Are we still trying to get some food? Time’s running out,” Huxley said. Ford pulled out his phone but we were still too plastered to make it work. Where was O e Strip Steakhouse? Exasperated, Huxley sat down to play digital roulette. “I feel compelled to just put it all on the line… What number?”
Yes. Fine.” ey served us 1800 Blanco in tall laboratory test tubes. Was it protocol? Or did they only bring them out for the freaks? It was time to stop. Cross-eyed and turned around we eventually determined – by way of the huge entrance – we could re-enter the Fla- mingo right here, right now, and go to that taxi line we know exists, I told them. We debated in cross-eyed oblivion. Not when we’re this close – Have we given up on the steak? Should we just eat at this huge candy emporium? Out came the resin vapes for a few rips. row in the towel? Go back and order room service? No… we would trek on. Ford led us to the end of the promenade, where there was “denitely rideshare.” But the path ended unexpectedly at the ferris wheel. ere was no way around it, no road for an Uber. e structure hung menacingly overhead, dominating my atten- tion; meanwhile the impulse to keel over onto the cement, right here, was nearly overpower- ing. It took everything in me to stay upright. When I looked, the other two had auras like lion's manes. Huxley had pulled up the Linq’s Uber/Ly station on the GPS, so we followed him into
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