Katie was drinking her coffee at the small bar inside the coffee shop. While similar to almost every coffee shop in America, it was actually quite different in that it didn't serve anything with a naked mermaid on the bag. As she sipped her coffee, Katie was carefully, and painstakingly searching her foggy, weighted mind for the right words before spilling her story to her friends.

Anxiously sitting next to Katie were Lisa and Jenny. Like most groups of female friends on a Sunday mid-morning in a coffee shop, Lisa and Jenny already knew every detail of the story that Katie hadn't told them yet, simply by being within the coffee shop and knowing that their friend was about to tell the story of her hangover. The scene, to any male, would have looked very similar to vultures being told that they had to wait exactly three minutes and seventeen seconds before they would be allowed to bite into that dead carcass that had been ripened by days in the sun. The scene, to a female, would have been quite normal. Due to this and the intoxicating qualities of women, most men would find that, within seconds, their opinion of the scene would probably match that of the women.

Lisa and Jenny were mere seconds from losing control and drooling.

“I don't remember much about last night.” Katie started, having decided that there was no way to make it sound like ships passing in the night, without it sounding like the captain's of those ships were drunk beyond reason and had managed to only pass each other while getting sucked into a hurricane.

“I was at the club, drinking with you two, and the next thing I knew, there was this random guy dancing with me.” She sipped her coffee again. “He was cute, and I can't remember what he was wearing.” Another sip. “I think he was funny, because I was laughing a lot. The next thing I really remember well was that he didn't have a room. He told the guy at the counter of the hotel to check the book again, and as he did the phone rang and someone canceled their reservation. It was all kind of lucky.” She paused, mostly to wish she hadn't use that word, because now the vultures were giggling.

Just plow on, Katie. She thought to herself.

“Anyways, I woke up this morning, rolled over, and he was getting out of bed, gave me a kiss, and was out the door before I could ask him his name.”

Jenny and Lisa laughed the noise making Katie's dehydrated brain scream in agony. She hid her painful grimace behind another sip of coffee. From this point on, the girls sent jabs and jibes at Katie, picking on her for her night indiscretion while secretly envying that they went home alone.

For this entire conversation, Random (Randy) Stranger, was sitting at the next table, directly in Katie's line of sight, drinking his own coffee, and listening to what she could remember. Sometimes this was his favorite part, sitting back and listening to how they couldn't remember him. She was looking directly at him at this point and never once recognized him.

Randy was an Abstract, from a huge family of Abstracts. His life was the stuff of stories, literally. Anytime any person had a story in which a random, nondescript person entered, the so-called “random stranger,” it was always Randy Stranger.

Always wasn't exactly true, though. It's always been Randy for the last 26 years. Before that it was his father, Randall, and before that it was his grandfather, whom Randy was named after.

Being an abstract isn't actually as taxing as you would think. If Randy didn't know that he was an Abstract, then he wouldn't even know he was doing anything. On the flip side of that coin, though, there are times when Randy just can't help himself, as in the case of Katie. Randy was a sucker for a redhead.

Randy flagged down the waitress who had brought over the giggling group of girl's coffee and asked that he pay their bill. After doing so, he stood up and left the cafe.

A couple minutes later, Katie had had enough of being giggled and metaphorically prodded at, and flagged over the waitress herself.

“I'd like the bill please.”

The waitress looked at her kind of confused. “Oh, I thought that you knew the gentleman,” she gestured at where Randy had been sitting. “He took care of your bill for you.”

The ladies all joined the woman in looking confused, as, in most cases, the condition is highly contagious. “Who took care of the bill?” Jenny asked, hoping for something more, and really juicy, to add to the story of the day.

Gesturing again, the waitress answered. “The random gentleman in the corner.”

 

Leaving the cafe, Randy did what he always did, and just walked. When he walked, he did it without care of destination, distance, plans for the day, cost of transport, or anything. The thing about being Random Stranger, was that everything happened to you. While Randy could, if pressed, control what was going to happen, he found that letting things happen was simply easier.

Walking down the street, Randy blended into the crowd almost too easily. He dressed in denim blue jeans, held up with an old brown belt, a blank, white t-shirt, and an old red flannel shirt that he left unbuttoned. His hair was usually combed with a slight part, but combing didn't really matter. Coming to a corner on the sidewalk, Randy just kept walking through the intersection. Cars honked and slammed on their brakes, and Randy generally ignored them as one would ignore the gust of wind from a rather irate fly that happened to be trying to kill you from the other side of the room because you accidentally sat on his mother. At least, the fly would think it was its mother, but at this point in the fly's cycle its mother is likely already dead. Flies are so stupid.

Randy got to the middle of the street and saw a quarter lying on the pavement. Picking it up, he hurriedly finished his previously lazy crossing of the street. Getting across he trotted over to the slanted parking spots with meters in front and waited. A lot of times, even when he wasn't actively controlling it, he could just tell when he was going to be needed. This time did not fail him.

An elderly lady was soon standing at the meter and searching fervently through her purse for a coin. It was actually so fervently that Randy was very sure that she was must know exactly what its like to look for a needle in a haystack. The sheer volume of items that she removed from the purse astounded him, leaving Randy with thoughts of how the woman did look slightly like Julie Andrews. If Julie Andrews had been about a foot shorter and preferred denim. Randy knew she wouldn't find her quarter. They never did. Tapping her on the shoulder, he held up the quarter.

The elderly woman, dressed in a simple outfit of ladies jeans and a tucked in button up shirt, started at the tap. Upon seeing the quarter, glowed as if seeing the Holy Grail and then she blushed, with a beautifully well practiced 'frail old woman' routine. “That's wonderful.” She motioned towards the purse. “I know I just put a handful of quarters in there, at least two rolls, I have no idea where they went. Thank you so much.” As she took the quarter and put it into the meter, her cell phone rang.

He smiled as she took the call, “No problem.” Starting to walk away, Randy had made it about ten feet before there was the snap of the woman folding her phone shut and then calling out to him.

“Sir! Sir!” He turned back around and met her half way. She looked slightly annoyed. “That was my husband on the line.” She looked slightly annoyed, as if her husband had called to say “I've got your rolls of quarters, did you need them?”

“He called to tell me that he wouldn't be able to make the show tonight,” at this she pulled out a pair of tickets. “They are for a play, 12 Angry Men, being held by the local college. Its supposed to be genius work.” She pushed the tickets towards him. “I'd like you to have them, sir. I'm sure you've got a beautiful young lady you could take with you.” She handed Randy the tickets, which he took (sails set, Randy never fought the direction the wind took him).

“Thank you,” he said. “I'll enjoy these so much. Thank you.” He shook her hand emphatically. He probably wouldn't even get to watch the whole show. He never did. Something always happened that yanked him into some other adventure. It was alright, though. He'd seen the movie with Jack Lemmon and that guy from the Patton movie.

As she started on her way, he called out to her this time. “You wouldn't happen to know the name of that guy from the Patton movie?”

She shook her head, “I can't seem to remember, sorry.”

“Nevermind.” He turned and started back off down the road so consumed with trying to remember the name of the guy from Patton that he paid absolutely no attention to where he was going. Randy Stranger never did.

 

Hysterically, and coincidentally, enough, if one were to take the time to describe Randy, they'd quickly note that he was an “every-man.” Someone who was the “common Joe,” and everyone could relate with. Upon occasion that he happened to be the horrible random stranger in your tale, he always stood up for what he believed in and never backed down from a fight, even if it was one in which he had drunkenly recalled your mother's more indecent acts of the previous night, in very crude and accurate detail. While later he would be apologetic for the fight and pain thereof, even the story would end with how he and you wound up all buddy-buddy and singing at the jukebox, he never actually apologized for besmirching your mother. He drank regularly and only smoked as the occasions demanded it, and fairly rarely, although it wasn't unheard of, was willing to partake in other mind altering substances.

Walking the street, still confused about the actors who might have partaken in the starring role of the movie Patton, Randy glanced upon who he could take to the show that night. Passing by a car repair shop, Randy happened upon a man smoking a cigarette, on what Randy could only assume was the man's break. Tapping the man on the shoulder, he asked if he could use his cellphone and then involuntarily flinched.

Being Random Stranger, each chance encounter had about a million ways that they could go. The final numbers showed that fifty percent of the time, the chance encounter would be to some varying degree into the negative. The math on this wasn't just a random figure, as Randy's brother, Perfect (Percy), had actually followed Randy around for a week collecting the data, before growing extremely bored with the act and deciding to calculate percentages over a “Big Beer” or eight in the Longbranch Bar and Grill in San Francisco, where they had been when this had taken place. Normally, math done under the duress of alcohol was suspect, but ,as anyone who's ever ran into Perfect Stranger would tell you, he rarely makes mistakes.

While his flinch did earn him the curious gaze of the man with the cigarette, Randy was happy to see that this encounter ended in the other, positive, fifty percent. Taking the man's phone, he dialed the number. When dialing the number, it doesn't actually matter what number Randy dials, as the friend he was calling always had the extreme luck of being on the other end of the line, unless of course, whatever Randy was going to ask him to join him for would end horribly. After two rings, Lucky Bastard picked up on the other end of the line.

Randy's lifestyle usually meant that he didn't have many friends. While describing him is easy, his being an Abstract means that not many people can remember him, his name (although, they always get it right) or anything about him, other than his being a place holder in whatever adventure/misadventure might have befallen them. This of course changes course when speaking of other Abstracts.

A lot of times, you'll hear a story about this “random stranger” who, in the end of the story, turned out to be a “lucky bastard.” This is very rarely the case. In all actuality, the person telling the story is very confused, or highly exaggerating. The man that is both a “lucky bastard,” and a “random stranger,” is two different people who happen to be very good friends, and, to the credit of the people telling the story, who happen to look very much alike. As two good friends are characteristically likely to do, Randy and Lucky tend to hang out a lot together at bars, strip clubs, office parties, and barber shops, to name a few.

“Rand the man! Hey, you wouldn't believe where I'm at right now.”

Randy rolled his eyes to the man with the cigarette, pointing at the phone, and then decided to ignore Lucky's opening statement.

“I've got tickets to a show, and wanted to know if you wanted to come along?”

As was characteristic of them both, Lucky also ignored Randy's question. “A bachelor party!” He yelled into the phone. “I was walking down the street, and a bunch of these guys fell out of a bar claiming they needed strippers. So, I just asked them to wait a second, dialed some random number, not yours of course, but the actual random, and boom, six strippers looking to make extra pay were in the bar right next door.” He stopped to yell something similar to a whoop, but muffled by something that Randy could only guess at, before coming back to the phone. “I tried inviting my brother, but...well, you know how that goes. I'm sure he's lost by now.”

“Poor Bastard.” Randy mumbled.

“So this show, I'll see you there. 8 o'clock right?”
Randy was about to fish for the ticket, but stopped himself short. If a guy named Lucky guesses 8 o'clock, then he's usually right. Randy also hushed his next statement, describing the where.

Randy's next gesture was to hang up the cellphone, as Lucky was no longer talking to him, although his words of “naughty” and “dirty girl” could be heard quite clearly.

Turning, he reached out to hand the phone back to the man with the cigarette. Taking the phone, the man nodded and turned to leave in the opposite direction of Randy. Randy, doing much the same, turned and started walking into the road. As math tends to do, the numbers quickly, and without remorse, swung to the other end of the spectrum as a small red car plowed into him. Randy flew into the air, with two thoughts running through his mind.

Shit that hurts...

and

Not again.

As Randy's head started to clear, he heard what the man with the cigarette was saying. “Yeah, this guy just handed me my phone back and 'Whammo!'”

Randy shook his head and got up, knowing full well that all he'd have to show were some bruises and an achy back. Standing as erect as said achy back would currently allow, Randy looked around for the car, which, while he remembered it being a small red car, he saw nothing akin to in the lot.

“Mother fucker...”

The guy with the phone dropped it into his pocket and ran to Randy's side. “Whoa! Whoa! Sit down you dumb bastard.”
“No, I'm Rand-”

“The ambulance will be here any second. I didn't get the guy's plates.

“Won't need an ambulance. Random strangers don't go to hospitals, that'd make for crappy story telling.” Randy looked in the direction that he thought the car must have headed and then looked back at the man. “No plates? Shit. I was hoping you'd be able to tell the story of how some random stranger hunted the prick down and beat him senseless.”

The man shifted gears during Randy's mumbling, as was evident on his face by the transition from concerned citizen to “dear God, this man's got brain damage.”

Randy waved his hands in front of the guy's face, “Woohoo...” Randy rolled his eyes. “Nevermind.” he dropped his hands and stepped closer to the guy. “Just remember, if they ask you, which they most likely will, that after the random stranger, who got hit by the small red car, knocked you on your ass, he stole your car.”

As the man slowly processed this, Randy punched him square in the jaw, the pain that shot through Randy's hand reverberated up his elbow and felt similar to what punching a brick with a blanket over it. Placement of the hit was perfect though, knocking the man back and down. A quick search for the keys and matching them to the correct car in the lot, and Randy was on his way just in time for him to avoid the ambulance.

 

Living arrangements were, as per expected, a rather touchy subject for Abstracts. It was rare, if not completely unheard of, to hear how some random stranger paid his rent on time, or how that lucky bastard down the street got an awesome deal on the mansion that just came on the market, without also having a name associated. As a matter of fact, the entire Abstract community stays in homes completely based on charity.

That being said, Randy drove the little Honda Accord he had taken off of the garage guy all over town, just waiting for “home” to become an option. The garage guy wasn't at all too keen on music, Randy noted, as he thumbed his way through the console, looking for anything to play. Finally, in the glove box, he found Queen's greatest hits, and popped that tape into the deck.

As Freddy Mercury regaled Randy about the prospects found in the eyes of fat bottomed girls, Randy continued to drive through the nameless city. In all fairness, Randy knew the city had a name, even the greatest of nameless cities were still called “Nameless City.” Randy, though, being an Abstract, an idea personified, rarely had any idea where he actually was. He would catch glimpses, even hear snippets of conversations mentioning which city he was occupying in that moment, but if the need arose, and someone was about to meet Random Stranger in Nashville, then Randy would be in Nashville, until the time arose that someone would need to meet Random Stranger in Chicago, or New York.

This same lack of familiarity with one's physical position was also inherent in Randy's concept of time. Randy had no idea how old he was, as did none of his friends. Randy remembered back an insanely huge amount of time, recounting when one man told the tale, in french, of the random stranger who gave the idea to actually storm the Bastille. It was all just sitting back and whining about revolution until that night, when that man in the funny shirt, holding the large pint of alcohol just shouted the idea above the crowd.

Randy did know that he hadn't always been around, that was just silly. Randy did have a father, who's name was similar, and therefore was in charge of the family business before Randy. That didn't stop him from being damned old.

The engine started smoking on the Accord about an hour into his trip, rolling to a stop in front of “Jim's Bacon and Egg Diner.” Leading Randy to the thought, Sometimes, home is where the stomach is.

Walking in, Randy saw a small, stereotypical diner. There was a bar near the grill with benches and a register, while the rest of the room was filled with low tables and booths, each white topped to match the walls and tile floor. On the tile floor, right next to the register was a “Floor is Wet” sign that just screamed at Randy.

Stepping up to the register, Randy slipped on the wet floor, as he had expected to, and collapsed onto the ground, getting slightly dazed as his head snapped down onto the tile. Holding his head, he sat up slowly, getting aid from the near waitress who could only be described as having once been very pretty. In her current look, she was very much so failing at turning back the rigors of time.

“Oh shit, shit shit shit! I told him that we should have dried that up with towels. Come sit down over here.” She led Randy to a booth and sat him down. Glancing over her shoulder, she turned back to Randy, “That your car too? The smoking on that just rolled in here?”

Randy nodded, rubbing the back of his head, “Not my lucky day today.”

She shook her head. “Not all that bad, I'll go grab you some dinner. On the house. Maybe you won't sue us then.”

Randy nodded again, wincing, “Sounds like a deal.”

As Julie walked away, as her name tag told him, he leaned back and nursed his skull gently with his hand. When Randy brought his head forward again, he wasn't sitting along at the booth. “Um, hello.”

The man sitting across from him was about middle-aged and balding. He wore a t-shirt and khaki pants, both looking a little worn. The man also wore small glasses on the edge of his nose. This man looked incredible like a bug that was begging to get squished. Having recently been given the bad news of his legs being removed by a bothersome child with a magnifying glass. The begging look could well have been a poorly aimed smugness though. Randy wasn't ever very good at interpreting smugness. Or bug impressions for that matter.

Pushing them up onto the bridge of his nose, he smiled at Randy. “You're Random Stranger?”

Randy's expression went from puzzlement mixed with a dash of pain, to one hundred percent puzzlement, forgetting that he'd hit his head at all. “You can't know that.”

“But I do.”

Ignoring the implications of this in a hope to throw the man off guard, Randy did what he'd gotten very good at over the years, and played the smooth card. “Alright, how can I help you?” he asked, picking up the menu and scanning through it.

The man, leaned back, the smooth card working perfectly. His eyes wide, he looked slightly panicky. “No, no. I'm here to help you. Me knowing who you are isn't a good thing.”

Randy tossed the menu back to where he picked it up off of the table and leaned in, jabbing pointedly at the man. “I know that, but how do you? I'm an Abstract. I roll off the conscious thought of the rest of humanity. You can't even look at me without wanting to forget about me. How do you even know I'm sitting here?”

This was more to what the man was expecting, and his panicky expression started to fade. “I'm Edward Hummel. There are actually a group of us.”

Randy was losing patience. “How, though? You can't know of us.”

The man leaned forward and quieted down. “Someone, I won't tell you who, is trying to kill you.”

Randy waved his hand at the man in front of him. “Well, that'll do it.”

Edward didn't stop. “We all have our own agendas. The person responsible for directing our attention to you told us to do with it what we will, but he explained that it didn't matter, because our just knowing would be enough to destroy you.”

Randy, silently, was enjoying a conversation, for the first time, with someone he wasn't supposed to be saving, pushing into traffic, or offering a dollar to. Aside from liking the conversation though, Randy was very upset by this news. “Why would anyone want to destroy me, hell, us? Half of my friends are quite happy with making your lives very happy.”

“I don't know.” Edward said as Julie had just brought Randy his plate and looked towards the new arrival.

Randy smiled at Julie. “This nice man just offered to help me fix my car.”

Julie smiled back, “Well, not such a bad day after all. His meal is on the house as well, then. I'll be right back.”

As she walked away, Edward leaned in. “Maybe that's why.”

“What do you mean?” Randy looked puzzled again. He hated looking puzzled. Someone was more than likely to talk about the stranger who spent a whole meal looking puzzled than they were to talk about the stranger who spent the whole day in a bordello getting everything as “on the house” as this meal.

“Your day to day life is godly. You can do anything, everything, good bad, using people daily as pawns or players to keep your existence going.” He pointed at Randy as though very much so wanting to poke out his eye. “Your very existence is based on people believing in you. Maybe this person just wants to see what its like to kill a god?”

Randy had never thought of himself as a god, believing that a god would more than likely have some sort of control over their fate. On the other hand, he knew he couldn't die unless he was known of, and he was capable, about fifty percent of the time, of controlling the outcome of whatever situation he would find himself in. Fifty percent of the time isn't a god. Randy tilted his head to the side contemplating, maybe a demigod then.

“That's just a dumb reason,” Randy said without really knowing what else to say.

Edward shrugged. “What is a good reason?” He shook his head, exasperated. “Either way, I came here to warn you.”
“How'd you find me? I don't ever have a clue where I am.”

Nodding, Edward reached across to Randy's plate and grabbed a piece of bacon. “The person who gave us all of this information also gave us your next three locations after the fact. This was the last one. I missed you at the garage, and before that at the cafe.”

Randy took a bite of the eggs, shaking his head. “So this 'person' wants us dead and knows where we are going to be? What the fuck am I supposed to do about this, Mr. Hummel?”

“How the hell should I know? Zap him with random beams or something. Shoot him with your Care Bear Stare? I'm just a man, you're the one they want.”

Above all else, at this point, Randy couldn't get over how delicious these eggs were. He jabbed his fork pointedly in Edward's direction. “I know what I'm going to do.”

“And...?” Edward asked.

“I'm going to ask for ketchup. I love ketchup. I'm going to leave a huge tip, too. Maybe she'll tell the story of the unlucky stranger who walked into Jim's Bacon and Eggs Diner and left her a huge tip.”

Edward rolled his eyes. “Are you always this difficult? What the hell are you going to do about the assassin?”

“Yes, I'm always this difficult, and as for the assassin, I'm going to ask for ketchup. To do anything else wouldn't do me much good. To have as much information as he's got, this assassin has to be an Abstract. If he's trying to kill us, he's committing suicide. I'd like to see how this is going to play out.”

Edward was now the one with puzzlement on his face. “So your answer to saving your life is to sit back and see what happens?”

Through another mouthful of eggs, Randy exclaimed, “Yes!” very loudly.

Julie showed up at this moment with another plate and set it down in front of Edward. Reaching across the table, Randy snatched up two of Edward's slices of bacon.

“Hey!” he exclaimed.

Randy held up one slice. “This is for taking mine.” He held up the other slice. “This is for the bad news. Consider it compensation. If I survive, I'll buy you a new slice of bacon.”

Edward grimaced and dove into his food.

 

When the meal had finished, Edward and Randy stood. Randy walked over and hugged and thanked Julie. Leaving the diner, Edward said goodbye and climbed into his car, a small sedan. Unexpectedly, Randy climbed into the passenger seat. “You can't expect me to walk wherever it is I'm heading.”

Edward was adamant against this, shaking his head like a rattle in a baby's crib. “No, they are trying to kill you. I'm not in the business of letting people get me killed.”

“Maybe you should have kept this bad news to yourself then?”

“Get out of my car.” Edward's face reddened.

Randy secured his seat-belt with the precision of an astronaut preparing his harness. “That better?”
“No! It's not fucking better! Get the fuck out of my car!”

Randy held up his hands, in an attempt to calm Edward down.

Thinking back, Randy had never seen an instance in which raising his hands calmed anyone down, yet he had had little reason to stop using the gesture.

“Don't worry about it, we're going to meet up with a friend of mine. His name is Lucky, and in my line of work, which isn't very work filled at all, anyone named Lucky, truly is.” Randy pointed at the road, “You going to get going, or am I going to have to take your car?”

“Take my car?” Edward was lost between understanding and anger.

“I've done worse for less. There was a time when I actually lied to the police about a car I stole just to get the reward money. Did you know that they never actually care who they give reward money to, as long as they get the thing the money was for?”

Edward put the car in drive and started out of the parking lot. “You make no sense, what the hell does that have to do with anything? What does anything you've said have to do with anything?” Edward hadn't realized it, but he was checking the mirrors about four times as much as he ever had. His paranoia getting the best of him.

“You can stop checking the mirrors. If they are going to kill me, it won't be by any direct means. Shooting me, or hitting me with a car probably wouldn't do it. So why try?” Randy was looking out of the passenger side window, seemingly more relaxed than he had been when he'd entered the diner.

“Nervousness.” Edward gave, as means of an excuse. “I tell you that someone is going to kill you, and you decide that going somewhere with me would be a fun idea.” He pulled up to the edge of the parking lot and waited for traffic to clear so he could pull out. “The idea of being right next to a man who's existence is going to end makes a guy jumpy.”

Edward took off.

“No, it makes you jumpy. It'd make some people want to help me, and it'd make a whole other bunch of people want to shoot me.” He thought back to some other numbers that Percy had shown him. “The majority of people, though, would probably just ignore it.”

Nearing the end of the street he turned on his blinker. “Just so you know,” Randy said, “driving with me can lead to some surprises...”

As they turned right, following the direction the prophetic blinker implied, the scene outside the car changed. The landscape was still that of a city, but the city was quite obviously different. It was older, and the buildings, at least in the area that they were, were made of brink instead of the more modern smooth walls that were what made up the city that they had just left.

Freaking out, Edward slammed on the brakes, crushing his rear bumper with the front bumper of the car that was right behind them.

“What the hell just happened?”

“I thought you said you knew all sorts of things about Abstracts?” Randy laughed. “I'm an Abstract, I go where I'm needed.” He shrugged. “When I'm in a car the trip is slightly more dramatic.” He through a thumb behind him, indicating the currently irate driver getting out of her car to come yell at him. “I'll take care of her.”

Randy got out and walked up to her. The fender bender wasn't very much, she had large blonde hair and really huge, “Tits.” Randy couldn't help himself. Lucky for him though, she hadn't heard. It was only a few minutes of exchange, before their voices died down altogether. Edward looked into the mirror to see what was transpiring and quickly took note of Randy's liplock with the big breasted blonde. He also took not that his hand was right up her shirt, playing most naughtily. Edward leaned on the horn, startling the couple.

Randy looked at Edward with daggers in his eyes, gave the blonde a fast kiss and then climbed back into the car. The look he was giving Edward was probably very similar to the look a man would give his sworn enemy right before killing him.

“Drive,” was all that Randy could say.

Edward was silent for the next mile or so, enjoying the fact that the scenery hadn't changed yet, before opening his mouth again. This wouldn't have been worthy of noting except that Edward actually believed that Randy had complete control over his randomness, and therefore, Edward held a realistic amount of respectful fear for what he believed to be a demigod in his passenger seat.

“So we traveled to some random city so you could make out with a random woman that rear ended my car?”

Randy, still slightly pissed at the making out getting cut off, shook his head, “Doubt it.”

Edward, forgetting his misplaced fearful respect, became exasperated again, which was becoming easier and easier the longer that he knew Randy. “What do you mean 'doubt it?'”

Randy, never being one to last too long on one moment, opened up again to the idea of talking to someone about being an Abstract, who wasn't actually an Abstract.

“If that was the only reason, I probably wouldn't still be here. I'm pretty sure that the only time I ever sit still, I'm asleep.” He looked away from Edward for a second, looking out the window, and pausing. After the second passed, he interrupted Edward just as he was going to speak. “Yeah, only when I'm asleep.”

“Then why are we still here?” Edward pressed on, wondering how long before he could doom the prospective assassination target to the sidewalk.

“How should I know?” Randy asked, matter of factly.

Edward slammed his hands on the wheel. “Who the hell else would know? You're the embodiment of an idea, not me.”

Edward suddenly knew what it felt like to be stared at as if he was an idiot. Randy's look couldn't have been mistaken for anything other than that.

“What's the point of being the most random person in existence if I know where or why I'm going to be somewhere? Hell, I've got an even better question for you: What's the reason to be alive if I know everything that's going to happen to me?”

It all started, very slowly, and very painstakingly if the mutation of expression on Edward's face was any indication, to form together into final understanding. “All of you Abstracts, you're just folks that this stuff happens to?”

Randy popped the chair back into the reclined position and pulled his forearm over his eyes. “Bingo, dipshit. Well, most of us anyways. I'm sure there's an Abstract or two out there that are the culmination of a slightly more structured idea.” He wiggled his hand at the last part of that sentence. “For the most part, though, yuppers.”

Edward shook his head, feeling both dumb and embarrassed at being admonished, and, like most people, kept his mouth quiet. That is until Randy made him scream.

Bolting upright, Randy threw his hands on to the dashboard. The fast paced action combined with the charge created by the tense situations combined with Edward's currently upset emotional base caused him to leap as well. Edward's leap wasn't proportionate to Randy's bouncing to the upright position, but his yelp of terror was. Startled, Edward did what most people would do, and slammed on the brakes. As he did so, he winced, remembering and waiting for the sound of his bumper being crumpled for the second time that day.

For the first time since he had found Randy, Edward was pleasantly surprised. There was no sound of squealing tires other than his own. There was no sound of crunching metal, popping plastics, or cursing motorists. Most of all, and to his fried nerve's fortune, there was no sudden jarring of his sedan from behind.

Edward, having gotten slightly tired of the unpredictable nature of being in Randy's presence much sooner than even he would have expected, exploded, as a means of trying to produce some sort of illusion that he had control over some situation.

“What the fuck was that about?”

Randy, as was purely his custom, ignored the urgency and strife that Edward put behind his exclamatory question.

“I need a hat.” Randy threw open the door and stepped from the car, walking towards the first door he saw, which just so happened to be a hat shop.

Edward, always a man of opportunity, saw his chance to bolt, took his foot off of the break, and pushed the gas pedal to the floor, hoping that the momentum of the car would shut the passenger door that Randy had left open.

And if it doesn't, then I never needed that door anyways.

As he pressed the pedal all the way down, the car sputtered and died. Edward started panicking, looking around the dash and trying to the turn the key over, again and again.

“No, no, no, no! This can't be happening, this isn't random at all, this is horrible, this is the worst thing ever.” The next few words were very loud expletives that got the several passerby to turn their heads.

“He's not the only one here.” Edward said, finally starting to fully grasp the world of the Abstracts.

 

“Ball cap.” Randy said to the cashier. “I haven't had a ball cap in years.” He reached past the man and picked up a brown fedora and put it on his head. “I used to wear one of these, back during prohibition.” He took it off and pointed at the tie in the band on the side. “I developed that. On accident. Al Capone had a normal band, wrapped right around his hat. A bullet went and shot my band off, and I didn't want to get noticed, so I tied it back on.” He put the hat back on the shelf. “Obviously didn't work. I went down to O'Doul's pub the next day and it's the talk of the town. 'Some random stranger just put a tie in the band.” Randy picked up a ball cap, with a NY on the front in the shape of the Yankee logo. “Then Capone started wearing it. Of course, I was also running work for the clerk's office that brought him down.” He put the ball cap back on the rack where he got it and then reached for another one.

“What about this one?”

The cap was a dark denim color, plain stitching, but the stitching was white to accentuate the fact that it was denim. The hat was mostly nondescript and would suit his needs as well as was plain enough to fit his simple lifestyle. He wouldn't wear it all the time. Only when the mood arose, as it had right now.

“That's sixteen ninety-nine.”

Randy's eyes went wide. “Seventeen bucks? I want to buy the hat, not have it dipped in gold.”

“You can always put it back.”
Randy looked around inconspicuously hoping that something very much his style would swoop in and get him the hat. Randy never carried money. When every moment in your life was about becoming part of someone else's story, money was rarely, if ever needed. When he needed food, food would be provided as someone told the story of that stranger who tripped into the tray table, stabbed his hand with a fork and got a free meal out of the deal. When he needed a cab, some stranger would hop in right after a guy through a twenty at the driver's face and then, drunkenly fell out of the cab right at the end of the cabby's shift. If Randy needed a hat, some random stranger would have one some raffle for a crappy hat that no one would ever have wanted, or some random stranger would have gotten one at some radio station give-away.

Or, as is the case on this specific day, Randy Stranger would run into his best friend at the hat shop and borrow a few extra bucks.

The door to the hat shop dinged, the electronic chime buzzing as if a wire was loose, or too much voltage was hitting the chime at once. Turning, Randy decided, not for the first time, that knowing Lucky Bastard really made Randy quite the lucky bastard.

“Got a twenty?”

Lucky, smiling ear to ear, as he always did, walked up to Randy and gave him a hard slap on the back. “Hey bitch, nope, no money, but I've got something better.”

Lucky stood about six feet tall, had chiseled features, and a goatee, which Randy believed actually made Lucky look somewhat evil.

Lucky held up a ticket after fishing around in his pocket outside. “Its a coupon for a free hat. I found it outside.”

Randy yanked it from his friend's hand and, to the cashier's dismay, shoved it at the cashier.

As the two friends walked towards the door, Lucky fished around in his pocket again. “By the way, found this on the way in here, too.” He pulled out a spark plug, slightly used and held it up as they walked out onto the street. “These don't normally come out I'm told, but its looking like it did.” He pointed with it in the direction of a high volume of curse words sitting in a car parked in the middle of the road. “He belong to you?”

Randy smiled for a minute, comprehending that Lucky's influence on the car probably meant that Randy should stay with Edward for a while longer, or maybe that Edward should stay with Randy. Or hell, maybe that Lucky should stay with Edward. Either way, it meant something.

Quickly losing his smile, he turned to Lucky, stopping him. “Actually, no, he belongs to us, more or less. He's a human who can talk to Abstracts.”
Lucky, for the first time in probably forty years, not counting that time he learned that the strippers who jumped out of the cake were holding keys to a Camaro and not a Hummer, stopped smiling (Luck comes in varying degrees). “How did he pull that off?”

Randy shrugged. “One of us, he won't say who, is telling everyone they can about us.” He looked back at the car, wondering if the word fuck said at just the right shrill frequency could shatter sedan windows. “He said they are trying to kill us.”

Lucky pushed past Randy, walked to the front of the sedan, and kicked the grill. The hood popped open as if the hatch had been released and held itself open. He reached in, and replaced the spark plug that had, as if by magic, wiggled itself free of its housing and cabling. Pulling his head back after several seconds of work, the hood, which had only stayed open without aid from a hood rod by sheer luck, fell down, missing Lucky's head by mere inches. By this time, Edward had stopped to take several breaths and contemplate who this person was who had fixed his car.

While Randy just stood back and watched, as was the custom when someone of Lucky's stature was around, Lucky climbed into the passenger seat that Randy had previously occupied.

Finally getting his voice back and under control, Edward looked at him, still gripping the steering wheel very tightly, and asked. “Who are you?”

“I'm Lucky, Lucky Bastard.” Lucky threw his hand in Edward's direction implying that he'd like to shake his hand. Missing the cue, Edward just stared at the outstretched hand.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me.” Edward said quietly.

Lucky retracted his hand and shook his head. “No, I'm Lucky Bastard. Fucking Kidding Me is a dick.”

Randy, enjoying the interaction, hopped into the back seat after reaching around through the open front passenger window to pop the lock.

“Here's the deal, Mr. Hummel. Your car stalled when Lucky came by, right when you were going to take off and leave me.” Edward moved to interrupt Randy, but Randy pressed forward. “No worries, I'd have left me too. The point I'm trying to make is that things don't happen around Lucky without reason. Your car stalling was a very lucky thing. That goes without question. We might not know why, but we will.”

Edward took his hands and rubbed his eyes, dragging his hands down his face, stretching it lengthwise as he tried, once again to shake away the crazy world that he'd entered of his own free will.

“Alright. Abstracts, got it. Lucky that we're all together in my car. Don't know why. It's kind of random, but lucky. Sounds like you guys fit the bill. What now?” While struggling with his sanity, he had come to the conclusion that pretending this was all actually part of everyday happenings for him was the only way that Edward would survive the next...how ever long it would take to play this out.

Lucky pointed out the window and smiled his chiseled smile. His teeth actually seemed to glint in the fading light. “Drive.”