By Gary Lim
Senior Tavern Correspondent
VANCOUVER (B.C.) – Onlookers watched in stunned silence as what began as a jovial bar room anecdote by one Steven Miller, 22, took off on a strange dark tangent last Thursday night.
Long-time server at Abernethy’s Pub and Grill, Sharleen Halcord told The Peak that Miller had been a long time patron of the establishment. “He was a real good customer. Every Thursday night he and his friends would be in that corner booth.”
But the usual party-hardy atmosphere of the pub was shattered when an anecdote by Miller took a dark and jarring twist. Second year UBC law student Tanvir Singh was there, here is his chilling first-hand account.
“I was sitting at the table next to them waiting for my boys to show up, they were laughing, drinking, and basically bro-ing the fuck down. They were that kind of drunk where you talk shit, but are still sober enough to be somewhat coherent. Man, you should’ve heard what they were going off about. ‘What deadly animal would you replace an arm with’, ‘Which famous historical figure would you most likely punch in the face?’, ‘Given that our individual consciousnesses are part of the universe, then what does it mean that we are the universe experiencing itself?’
“But then the conversation somehow turned to the topic of summer break and then camping. So they’re swapping camping stories when that one guy [Miller] who had been relatively quiet up to that point decides to start talking.
At first I was only half listening, he was talking about going camping with his family. Then he started talking about ‘the compound’ and the leader the ‘Great and powerful Dave’. From his tone they probably thought he was joking. Then he started chanting.
‘Blessed be to the Great Dave, he who hath brought tamed the lightning in sky and leashed it to the fence of barb-ed wire to protect us from the outsiders.’
‘Blessed be to the Great Dave who hath provided us with the nourishing gruel to grow strong, but not too strong. Blessed be to the Great Da-’ and so on.”
And he just kept going, he was obviously pretty passionate about the whole thing because at this point he was at a near-shout. The bar was dead silent now. A couple of people laughed to try break the tension and he just glared them down.”
The RCMP are still looking for David Shamborski, alias “The Great Dave”, any information on his whereabouts that leads to his capture could fetch a reward of up to $10,000.
