The Blog

Two empty cement bags took Billy's body in.

I corded the yielding coffin with a length of rope and dragged it along through the snowfall.

When we reached the water spring, the dogs from the nearby yards set on a mournful howl.

"He died young, but free! And you, dogs you have always been and that's what you’ll remain!"

Our procession left the village, then I dragged on for another hundred meters, down the slope.

In between the stone walls of a ruin dropped was it – no iron breaker could crash the ground in the wintertime Yezznaggomer.

See you, Billy!

I am guilty before you which is dead sure.

So intelligent I am when it’s too late, when all the smarts are of no use, when you will not run up, clapping your ears, will never lean your paws on my shoulders, and never will you rub your forehead against my palm to get a pat…

Yet all that comes later, but at first…

No, not now… I cannot today.

Eehh, Billy…

* * *

Bottle #32: ~ O, Sport! You Be Life’s Ought! ~

The breath shoots out in sharp whizzes in time with the crazed breakneck run.

The mind is turned off, not needed, nothin' to do for it right now, the receptors-muscles-body act-react faster than the speed of thought in this mad dash through the jungle’s thickets – dodging a branch popped athwart the way here, jumping over the trunk of a rotten windbreak there, hopping up past a treacherous bump.

He’s darting for his dear life.

Who’s he? Forget! Only his instincts matter right now – to flee, get away, escape.

Well-trained they are, the instincts, the relay baton gift from his forerunners in the endlessly rotating generations of ancestors for millions upon millions years.

Those too clumsy for the race did not add to the heirloom – squashed, torn, killed, blocked off from adding to the gene pool…

So, run, Nobody, run!

Shshihk!. And the trees around went rolling topsy-turvily. BUT?. Wha-at?.

Thundering pulse-throbs, harsh wheeze-groans, the sinews strained to hop up for running on…

But what's this thick net? Unbreakable wrap all around? What the…?

A scolding heat-splash in the surge of panic and the sound of one more run, not his, scurrying ever closer, clapping moistly at the drenched jungle soil of the rain season…

A pair of legs pop up in his vision field. Barefoot. Brown. He’s arching his neck to see what’s above those knees…

With a thundering discharge, the blindingly black lightning crackles across the crown of his skull…

Run over…

A creepy rumble from the invisible, distant horizon rolls nearer in stirred indistinct clusters of sound rotating tardily… some croaking of a pterodactyl… no… human speech, reaching over-slowly, the syllables drag on for years through the darkness in the closed eyes, through this pain in the crown but, strangely, not in its usual spot—the back of the head…

"Wwrreerr… aamm… I-i?"

"Coming to senses, Kenty? Attaboy! Come on! Wake up! We don't have no time."

Thru the gap in the squint of the too heavy eyelids, a blur of a face cranes over, vaguely. Incipient heat in the cheeks from the restrained regular slaps in the face…

"An’… you… who… are?"

"Much closer to the matter in hand. Well done." The naked torso turns sideways to present the forearm, where, spurning any snazzy vignettes, full of calm self-confident simplicity, stands: “UF-1”.

"Athos? But you’re swallowed by the greenshit… UF-2 told me."

"Firstly, no shit but slime and, secondly, that has not happened yet, so take my friendly advice – no frigging flashforwards. Mind firmly, since I'm still alive – you haven't met Chris yet, don't count on no virtuality, bro. Any try to buck a wall and you’ll adorn it like a sloppily clapped sticker until they scrape you off."

"Ouch… My head's a-crack already."

"Because the habit is not there yet. It’ll develop. Just no fucking up with the back of your head again, it's against the rules. When caught, you’ll get it from Them in full. Inexorably."

"They again? And where is our Parthos?"

"But where else could he be? On the Champs-Еlysеes, our Parthos-boy… Have a look!" The UltraFucker Number One nodded over his shoulder at the full naked, if not for the loincloth, body stretched out in serene prostration on the sand of the floor by the blank wall in a spacious cell if not a cavern.

"He also fucked up the back of his head?"

"Nopes. The guy’s got high with lilies. Right now, he's in the middle of his interview with Bolon Yokte or, if lucky enough, with Awilix herself."

"What FUCKING… (ouch, my head!.)… LILIES?!."

"Stop yelling, I can hear… Water lilies, when applied properly, take you on high cooler than peyote, you know.

Welcome to Mesoamerica, dude! Okay, we’re cutting out the official inauguration… They’ll presently bring us equipment and stuff. When it is full moon these here Mayas have an olamalistli match, never called off nor postponed. The main thing about the event is to avoid losing."

"Why us?"

"We are prisoners of war, haven’t you guessed yet? A kinda guest team.

The locals are all pros, hefty bulls and well trained for the game. The rules are simple – never let the ball touch the ground, same as in volleyball, however, no net. Besides, no touching the ball with your hand, neither is kicking allowed…"

"What the fu… what then to play with?"

"Use anything that remains there – a hip, a shoulder, may be your head, which is strongly inadvisable though because the balls are up to 7 kilos.