…And the Traveler has enough roles and scenes…
Chapter 3. Don’t youget smart with me – show mewith your finger where it is
Just kidding… Here’s one you might know
The Arctic Ocean… The weather is windy, snowy, and the sky hangs cloudy 100 yards above. A Chukchi man bobs in a kayak on the lead-colored waves. He sits hunched up over the water, fishing for something that has no compass to migrate to Sochi or Turkey.
All of a sudden, the water gets all rough and bubbling, and a US submarine comes up and swings a hatch open. The captain climbs out, wearing a black coat, produces a phrasebook, and starts saying “I’m a second-rank captain, and who are you?” in the dialects of Extreme North peoples. The Chukchi squints at him shortsightedly and, trying in vain to lift his head up, something he’d never done because he’d never had to, looks at him askance like a regular Russian pop singer and asks him, in perfect English, the same question geologists ask when someone comes upon them on the third day of their search for oil in bottle crates.
“What the f – do you want, soldier?”
The captain replies, bewildered, trying to speak English as well as the Chukchi, “Would Sir Chukchi be so kind as to tell me the way to God-blessed America?”
The Chukchi says, “Course south-southeast, 250 miles, and be careful with those jars near the shore.” The flabbergasted captain gloomily climbs down into the hatch and vanishes out of sight. The Chukchi keeps right on fishing for something that had gotten too hot in the tropics and, if the horoscopes can be trusted, returned to cool down to make a good snack for your beer.
The water gets bubbling and foaming again, and a Russian submarine comes up, swaying heavily.
A boatswain climbs out on all fours, feeling no pain, and shouts down the hatch, “C’mon, thaz not a problem – we donneed no compass ta figure it out! We ‘ad two liters o’ spirit that woulda gone to waste otherwise!” Then he looks at the Eskimo and, trying to focus his eyes on him, cries in a hoarse bass voice, “Hey, Chukchi, which way do we take to Murmansk?” The Chukchi replies, “South-west-west, 560 kilometers, but be careful not to tip that submarine over when you go down.” And the boatswain yells at him angrily, “Doncha get smart with me, you snip – show me with ya finger where it is!”
So, what’s stalking at a glance?
It’s evening… Yet another Hero, as crazy about reading fantasy novels as all morons and losers are, staggers back to his little cozy den in the five-story condo he likes so much, to fall into anabiosis until the pure, good, and just event – the publication of a new remake that depicts him as the Great and Powerful throughout – happens.
In the meantime, the powers of darkness in the persons of a budding criminal nicknamed Lisper (sentenced for rowdy behavior to three years suspended) and a couple of other young and gifted good-for-nothings, stopped by the condo’s entrance hall, looking for something soft and pliant to train their adolescent psyche.
Scenarios:
1. Hero didn’t spot Lisper until he was all in Hero’s face. Hero’s right hand hurriedly went searching for the mouse and hurriedly clicked the left button that wasn’t there, and the absence of a screen sight to aim through made talking to these people a tad harder for the powerful magician.
The day’s last thing saved on the hard drive was a blurry, dirty 50 Hz palm closing the world shut before turning it upside down. So he couldn’t see the young yet promising judo champion who ran up the stairs behind him and confidently set about knotting the young and gifted good-for-nothings into a macramé pattern.