Orlando
Orlando
I love you
Orlando!

Kevin had been dreaming about this day for 20 years. He was almost there. If he could have, Kevin would have made time his bitch and he would already be at his destination. Instead, he was in the back of a yellow taxi with poor air-conditioning. His suitcase kept him company in the humid heat. Kevin would be chatting away with the taxi driver if it weren't for the fact that the taxi driver didn't speak English and Kevin wasn't the chatty type. The cab stopped abruptly as the light turned red. Red. That took Kevin back…

He was nineteen again, and on his mission in Uganda – oh how he hated that place – he'd been there for barely two days when a native man had been murdered in front of him. The blood splattering his face, warm, sticky, the essence of life. Mortal life, that is. Well, mortal life if you believe in all that shit, which Kevin sort of did, but he always had that nagging feeling in the back of his mind. There was just something a little…off about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

He snapped back into the present. His legs shook with excitement, and butterflies were having an orgy in his stomach. On the horizon was his location – glistening and shimmering like an oasis in the middle of the desert. The African desert. The Ugandan African desert…

Kevin was yelling at his mission companion about something inconsequential. Poor Arnold, Kevin had initially treated him like shit – for the latter half their first year together, Kevin had spent every waking minute trying to make it up to him. It took Arnold making Kevin his best man for Kevin to feel finally forgiven. Nabalungi looked stunning in her dress. This is why he had been sent to Uganda – Kevin was meant to witness Arnold and Nabalungi's wedding vows, first dance as man and woman. And later, he would be there for their first child.

The taxi parked near the back of the massive ocean of tar that was the parking lot. Kevin paid the driver and took his bag and started walking. With each step Kevin took, he got closer and closer to his destination. With each step, the hot black of the parking lot slowly melded into the hot sand of Uganda – the sun's harsh rays beating down upon him.

Heavenly Father why do you let bad things happen?
More to the point why do you let bad things happen to me?

For all of his life, Kevin just wanted to serve his mission in Orlando, Florida. But here he was in the ass-crack of the world – fuckin' Uganda. People were getting shot in the face, clits were getting cut off (Way-oh!), the natives were flipping God off every chance they got. Oh yeah, and his mission companion is a fucking idiot! Plus there's that damn mission leader who is so far in the closet he's getting rammed by Mr. Tumnus while some man-ox stoodwatching. Kevin's anger built as he wandered lost, in the desert. Eventually he would stumble across the bus stop and pass out from the heat. Then he would have that Spooky Mormon Hell dream…

Kevin pinched himself to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. He wasn't, he was wide awake, and there, just right across the street, was Disney World – the first stop on his month-long Orlando vacation. It was everything he had dreamed it would be, and more.

Your bright lights
Your big dreams

The Magic Kingdom's gates stood open and eager to accept children both young and young at heart. Kevin took a moment to breathe in the air – the scent of funnel cakes drifted up into his nostrils and mixed with smells of cotton candy and the sea-salt air. A man in a Mickey Mouse costume waved to Kevin who lit up like the Empire State Building at night. Kevin noticed he wasn't just smiling, he was beaming. Had the sun been just right, he could have blinded small children blocks away. Kevin's eyes scanned the horizon, and each ride stood out like a giant flashing sign reading "RIDE ME!" "NO, RIDE ME!" "KEVIN, RIDE ME FIRST!" Laughter and cries of excitement flooded Kevin's ears. It was a palpable palette of human ecstasy.

He stepped into the road, his eyes full of hope and joy – This is it. This is his Paradise Planet. For the first time in a long time, Kevin was completely and utterly at peace. The world was his oyster, and he was going to own it.

He never saw that bus coming.

Your promises
You couldn't keep

Blood dripped from the crack in Kevin's skull and flowed into his eyes, clouding his vision.

Orlando
Orlando

The screams were now of panic – but they weren't Kevin's screams, he didn't make a single sound. As the darkness creeped in, Kevin slowly turned his head and saw the man in the Mickey costume calling 9-1-1. Sleeping Beauty's castle poked up like a modern-day Tower of Babel. A ragged breath slipped from Kevin's lips.

I loved you
Orlando.

The paramedics pronounced him dead on arrival.

Now I'm just a guy
Who will die
And never go back to
You