There is a hidden book store that can be found in every city on the continent. In Calgary, it can be found in the basement of a pizza shop in Brentwood. Tell the owner that you’re from the health department. When he asks what department, say mental health. He’ll laugh, but he’ll also unlock a door at the back of the kitchen which leads to a long, steep, rickety staircase that descends deeper into the ground than should be possible. At the bottom you’ll find a small, strange shop and a man named Eddie Decae.
The shop specializes in the works of the homeless insane, with sheafs of scrawled mythologies from across North America: The blue lady of Florida, Chicago’s gangster computer gods, and Calgary’s They are described in intimate detail in the unreadable ramblings. Decae sells these sheafs for a dollar a page, and it’s worth it if you have the time to eke what meaning can be distilled from them. However, there is a shortcut to knowledge.
Behind the counter, Decae keeps a bookshelf with over a hundred notebooks, diaries, clipboards, little boxes of index cards and the like. All have been prepared by acolytes and seekers and all describe the roadside horrors and urban attractions that we who favour the night enjoy. Decae will let you have one of these, but for a price: You must prepare one of your own. If you don’t, you will find yourself unable to read anything. The words will swim before your eyes and sort themselves into paragraphs of the filthiest invective.Previous Page: 107 - The Soup
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