Cup #9: Emanuel

This is Emanuel. Emanuel was a paperboy in a small, quiet southern California neighborhood. Every day he would go out on his bicycle and toss papers at the houses on the unnaturally dangerous and busy street, full of kids rolling tires, stray babies rushing down the sidewalk in runaway carriages, and men carrying a giant sheet of glass that could never seem to decide where they should put it.

On one Halloween many years ago, Emanuel was delivering papers as fast as he could so that he could get home and prepare his costume to go trick-or-treating with his friends. In his haste, Emanuel accidentally hit a large dirt mound and ramped off of it, landing in the yard of an old gothic church and crashing his bike into the side of a fire-spitting gargoyle statue. Emanuel's bike was ruined, and he was so scared and panicked that he ran blindly towards the sidewalk, where a giant green monster arm came out of a storm drain and grabbed him. Poor Emanuel died from fright.

Emanuel now haunts the very grounds he died on, floating around just in front of the porch of the old church. He mostly minds his own business, but any time a paperboy rides by, he will not pass up the opportunity to chase after him (without going out of the yard) and scream his signature howl, which sounds more or less like a small dog passing gas.