He rocked his head back and forth, slightly. I watched him playing chess with no one in particular, and his wife came in with some tea. The fire cast warmth upon us, but sparingly, as if conserving bait. Drink in every detail of this man, Hugo had told me. He is a man of most remarkable intent, and should not be judged in passing. I have seen his secret passion, and it is indeed something to behold. Although, and here he leaned close to my ear to exclude any stranger, it is not a passion which I would in any way encourage. Amusing, perhaps, but it will lead to nothing but trouble. Mark my words. And he slid into a little sleep, there on the park bench in the sun, with his cap on his head and his tongue in his mouth. I removed the serviette from his hand, soft with melted ice cream, and threw it in the bin. In the newspaper that day there was an article which caught my eye. 'Miracle Man Survives Plane Disaster' it said, and went on to explain the story of a young Indian who was the sole survivor of a massive crash in the Atlantic. What was even more remarkable, though, was the fact that this was his third disaster in as many weeks - he had survived the sinking of a car ferry in Indonesia the week before, and a train wreck in England the week before that. One might imagine that this would be enough to dissuade most travellers, but not this man. I actually met him years later, at a book reading in Toronto, where he was promoting the volume he had written about his adventures. In conversation he was lively and enthusiastic when recounting his intrepid voyages, but confessed that he had had enough of the nomadic lifestyle and wanted to settle down in some quiet rural setting, perhaps become a farmer. When I questioned him about the accidents, he replied that since the Atlantic crash he hadn't had even so much as a delayed flight. I wanted to indulge his discourse some more, but he was unfortunately subsumed into the business at hand and I heard no further from him.
The wine was warm and soothing, and the crackle of logs quickly dimmed my mind. The window panes were perfectly loose, creating the classic rattle of a hundred prairie tales, and little whistles came gushing down the chimney to warn us of the world. I felt for a moment as if I had been transposed into an unviewed segment of a distant dream, the waiting of a place for events to come and capture them. Presently he stirred, I swirled my glass in hand, and his wife had gone to bed. It was entirely night. The game was over, I realised, and looking up I noticed he was gone. The fire crackled, and I felt quite comfortable in that room. There was much of wooden nature there, the shelves, the mantel, the table and chairs, the floor with rugs upon, and I saw light outside. I moved to the window, and therein I spied a movement, and it was he who moved. The lights of his car swept across the garden, through the trees and along the face of the house, into my brain and then past, out into the open of the road and away. A brief burst of frozen pellets struck the pane and I recoiled in sudden fright, but it was a mild affront. The sky was reluctant to pour down on this night, and although it was cold the wind seemed warm and calming. I wondered why he had disappeared in so abrupt a manner, without word or warning. He had taken his car into the dark, at an unsociable hour, probably with a draught too much of the wine in his belly. I knew that this was the thing of which Hugo had warned me.
In that room there hung a huge moose, or at least the head thereof, and it squandered its gaze upon me. I rocked back and forth upon my heels. The whistles came, and went. His room, for it was certainly his, and not his wife's, who generally liked to accede to his taste, probably for the sake of the peace, was nicely balanced with books on one side and paintings and trophies on the other and a comfortable array of furnishing in between. I was ready to go. I sat down upon the chair, and it rocked beneath me - which was odd, as it was not by any means a rocking chair. I stood up again, firmed it with my hand, and resat. It still seemed to be moving beneath me. I put it down to the drug, and began to ponder my surroundings. (I later learned that there had actually been a small tremor at that moment, a quaking of the earth itself, which amused me somewhat in retrospect, but at the time I merely passed over the event as a quirk of mind.)
I admitted to myself that I liked this house; it had an excellent location, and even with the view obscured it presented a peculiar character which appealed to me in a fashion beyond my logic. It also lacked a television, which is always a plus in my book. I began to browse the shelves, and discovered an ancient-looking tome with grey bindings and a fine covering of dust on the pages between the upper prominences of the covers. I blew it clean, and pulled off some structures of fur with my fingers. Upon opening, I discovered that it was a book of unknown purpose, handwritten in a strange script, somewhat uneven in the distribution of its text - many pages were crammed to the brink with tinily scrawled and almost indecipherable words, and others were populated with a bare handful, in a large hand, and easily read. Fascination took a part of me, and I had to use it; I returned to my chair.
It seemed to me that all things conspired to create an atmosphere of mystery at that moment; the inclement weather, the vibrant earth, the vanishing host, the ancient book. I expected great things from this reading, but alas it was not to be. In fact, as far as I can recollect, the book turned out to be nothing more than a collection of recipes regarding the use of eggs and tomatoes, and it was not long before it and the wine lured me to a state of unwary sleep. I remained in such repose until a ghastly hour, somewhere between three and the dawn, when the sound of a slamming door and shuffling feet roused my dimpled mind. I felt driven like some mad round object, and peered between droopy lids at the return of the sodden night rider. He disposed of his hat and coat, and made his way towards the remains of the fire. He refilled his glass and sat back in his favourite chair without a word. Then, leaning forward slightly, he coughed a modest cough and said, "Would you like a fresh drop?"
I politely declined and informed him that it would probably be better if I made my way to bed, which I duly set out to do. He nodded his accord, remarked that I looked somewhat drowsy, and that he would see me in the morning, bright and early. I failed to register any coherent response.
The following day was indeed a bright one, although I emerged into it at a time other then early, and in a state barely rising. Nevertheless, I was greeted with excellent toast and marmalade, accompanied by coffee. Nina was an hostess of the very best kind, always proud of her kitchen and the fare produced therein, and strived to ensure that any guest was never found wanting. She was also a proficient knitter, and produced a wide array of hearty tea-cosies for the village. A leaf fluttered by the window, briefly, and a large crow stooped above the poplar tree. I noticed that his Fiesta was gone, but he would surely return before lunchtime. I resolved to make the most of my sojourn in this idyllic spot, and presently endowed myself with firm boots and a good stick and set off into the landscape as well as any countryman could. It was not long before I entered the woods, which I appreciated with the trees of it, and soon even the slight smear of humanity in the preceding distance was entirely lost to me. I discovered a tree which provided apples, and of these I removed two, ate the first and saved the second for later.
There were many caves in these hills, and I had explored several in the past; this was apparently a region in which many people of dubious repute, bandits and political exiles, and others who wished to remain undetected, concealed themselves in the expectance of a more favourable moment for their return. Generally though, and to the benefit of all things, people were exceptional by their presence. I moved about as such an exception, and the nature about seemed unperturbed. No kidnappings, protests, marches or riots were evident. The chemical worked only in living cells. And it may well be that adventurers from the Greek islands had once come here to skin a golden goat, or to be converted and stolen, and many other sunridden tales which one cannot always have time for, but such was not of concern to me. I saw strata and locusts, and then the Earth moved round and turned its face to the night once more. I stretched myself home accordingly.
It was a bizarre sight, I must admit, and Hugo had not misled me with his warning; I happened to be dawdling along the motorway at a modest velocity when I noticed some commotion in my rear view mirror. Several cars were blaring their horns, and swerving about like startled nuts, and then from their midst emerged a small grey Fiesta as if it had the legions of hell stuck up its tailpipe, and in the driving seat sat a withered old man with bushy white eyebrows, eyeballs bloodshot and bulging, and a wrinkly nose precariously perched above the most voracious and extravagant whooping laugh I have ever seen, a chasm in itself, and indeed it was he, an utterly transmogrified paragon of fossilised insanity, careering down the road like a Promethean Fire. He cackled hysterically, whirling from lane to lane, revelling in his ludicrous speed as a man possessed, an utterly incongruous sight in such a condition, in such a position, so much so that I very nearly lost control myself and narrowly avoided hitting a low bridge sign. As I straightened myself out, he was already over the brink of the next hill, with a trail of confusion wavering in his wake.
I drove through a pile of tomatoes, which went squelch beneath me, and I dodged a fridge which had similarly toppled. Several shirts and a wave of trousers flailed along a lay-by, and a line of reflective triangles sprouted up from the asphalt alongside shocked voyagers leaning back in a state of twitch on their spines. I decided to maintain my merry way, as there were no words to console a witness of such a spectacle. The wine was a moot point, I considered. Occasionally I find myself desiring ice-cream for no particular ice-cream, reason being the best thing for a craving. On this day however, I did not. Instead I felt the need for a furry steering wheel. It was a warm day, and fur was generally not suited to the purpose, but this is why I usually walk. When the weather becomes particularly warm, there are so many people on the motorway that they all turn off their engines and walk their cars along beneath the sun. Everyone walks, and this is a holiday. For miles along the road, no movement - a river of trapped vehicles in the heat. An occasional spurt of five or six metres, then stop. I myself have never participated in such an activity, I merely observed it from the hilltops. It is a good thing to have the option of avoiding popular trends, for it saves no end of time, but my thoughts were constantly being truncated by the need to avoid fresh detritus - a tambourine here, a foldable gym there, then a smattering of dailies, magazines and frozen fish, followed by a swathe of neatly packaged latex dummies, a couple of dehydrated rabbits and a bathroom plunger. If this was not great trouble, I mused, then I had no grasp of what was. I continued along the road until I spied my signpost peeping out from beneath a lilac dress, and I took the turning shortly thereafter.
There are many roads in the countryside, but many of them are incomplete, and have been for as long as I can remember. There is a man in charge of this, and he has a sweaty blue striped shirt. His belly is round and profound, his face dark and wrinkled, his eyes wary and wet. He makes sure that there is always a sufficient amount of construction underway in the region to satisfy the quota. This means he will get money from the government, to continue the construction. He sets a new quota every year, and gets more money to meet it. If a road is in danger of being finished, he orders a new set of guard rails, a new bypass and a new set of white lines. His name is Francesco the Mud, for reasons beyond my knowledge, and he is extremely good at his job. I am one of those who disapprove of what he is doing in the name of infrastructure, but there is little to be done about it. Quotas are the invincible edge of bureaucracy, and cannot, under any circumstances, be tampered with. I discovered this when I tried to protest against the apparent inefficiency of Francesco's charges, but this inefficiency quickly paled in comparison to that of the offices of public service - after being bandied about for several weeks from one functionary to the next, each one denying any authority or responsibility in the matter, and none of them whatsoever interested in resolving or investigating my complaint, I was eventually demoralised into a state of impotent apathy. So it goes, and the more it went the more I realised that my lines of popsicle sticks across the path of devastation were a far more effective and eloquent form of protest. I began wearing hats with corkscrews dangling from the brim, and drinking beer from my fist. At night, I sat on my porch and whistled a tune to the wind, along with the crickets and the frogs. After a while, the authorities issued an order which forbade the local retailers from selling me any item which contained popsicle sticks, so I began to buy them wholesale, at a discounted price. They soon caught on to my ploy however, and extended the order to include wholesalers and manufacturers, so I was forced to carve the sticks myself from whatever firewood and lumber I found lying about in the garden. Although these sticks were not of the same high quality as the manufactured kind, because I am a poor sort of craftsman, they served my purpose well and irritated Francesco the Mud even more because many of his workers were put on sick leave to have small splinters removed from their fingers. It was at this point that a series of barrage balloons were floated around the perimeter of my house, apparently because a rumour was spread to the effect that I was carving some form of aerial bombardment device to facilitate the dispersion of my infernal splinters. I have no idea who could have come up with such an absurd notion, but it amused me to think I was such a problem for the quota.
The balloons themselves were fat, brown and ugly, much like Francesco himself, and they interfered with my view of the mountains, so in a moment of inspiration I resolved to contrive their downfall and also to facilitate the dispersion of my infernal splinters in one fell swoop, so to speak. I began carving a catapult, and with the assistance of some components from a broken washing machine it came into being as a new tool in my struggle for a better environment, a beacon of trounce in a sea of Wellington Swill. It was a difficult beast to handle, but after many laborious hours I finally managed to turn it into a workable contraption, and trundled it into position at an optimum range for the dispatch of the first balloon. I secured the arm in the dangerous catch, loaded the basket with a veritable horde of infernal splinters and lined up the trajectory as well as I could. I gauged the wind, its direction and velocity, compensated for torque and elasticity, recalibrated the arm with the extra load and began the countdown.