Chapter One: Welcome to Budapest


It was one of those days.

The kind that sticks to you like a coat that’s too heavy for the weather.

The kind of day that makes the air well stagnantly in your collar, feeling so thick that you swear you could cut it with the wrong side of a knife.

This time it was different though.
I’ve never been a stranger to stifling heat, growing up in the sunny tropics made sure of that;

but now I was in
a new place.

Buildings older than the entire country of my birth stood tall, surrounding me as I listened to voices speaking in a language I could hardly comprehend, let alone fully understand-

so I just stood there, taking in the sights, the smells and the sounds…

Normal smells that one would come to expect from a thousand other cities around the globe;

Fast food and pizza

some schmuck selling kebabs on the corner

A wino in a reeking doorway, curling himself around his mid-morning sacrament.

There’s more to this air though, like the smell of dust; the kind you only pick up in books that’ve been left on the shelf for far too long; or a building cordoned off to generations.
The smell of spilled blood and revolutions; some lost and some won.


It was the smell of a city with one foot in the present, and the other firmly planted in a bygone era…

Welcome to Budapest.

Now, being an American abroad, especially in central to eastern Europe, can be a strange thing. If you’re not that bright, one might say it could even be a risky thing. Not everyone is a fan of the states, and justifiably so, especially since corporate globalization became something that we have all learned to live with.

It’s no longer about old business,
or socio-political ramifications.

Everyone’s favorite colors have been changing as we inch forward, and now the thing that rules the world is green.
Cash became the name of the game, wherever you are.

In some ways, I could say it was foul luck that drew me to the frenetic rat race of the next few months, but luck had nothing to do with it. I fell right into it when trouble came walking by in a green dress and a smile.

Everything predictably went to shit from there.
The rest of the exposition?

Irrelevant.


So here I stand, alone in this beautiful city as my home shifts and crumbles thousands of miles away.


This story begins, as most stories do, with a shaken hand and an introduction made in haste.

It was my first month here.

I came to Budapest to study medicine, but classes would not start for another month. (Many medical schools in the US have been disbanded for various ethical and legal violations at this point; Ref. “The Miami Surgical Academy Organ Harvesting Scandal of ‘24”.) Since arriving, I spent the days as most miscreants my age may have.

Wandering the city, taking snapshots and sitting around my flat listlessly…

Trying to unwind before the hustle.

I was finally getting acclimated to the city when a sudden realization struck me-

“Wait a moment,” I ecstatically proclaimed to nothing but stale smoke and dust bunnies, who listened intently.
I strummed an out of tune guitar, thinking to myself

“If I’m to take this anywhere with me, I’ll have to take public transportation.

If I’m going to take public transportation, this wonderful little piece of sonic engineering may get jostled;

something no instrument deserves.”

I promptly decided to get a case for the thing, and quickly found a shop where I could buy one nearby.

On my way to the shop though, right as I stumbled into the street, I was stopped by a young woman.

A young woman in a green dress.

A young woman in a green dress that, indeed, decided that she liked my guitar enough to mention it to me.

She didn’t have much of an accent, but I could tell she was taught English formally from the Anglo-lilt that hung upon her syllables.

Dark hair was tied in a loose bun, perched upon the top of her neck, softly grazing her shoulders. A small, upturned nose gave a mousiness to her doe-eyed olive features. Upon sharp collarbones clung a pair of narrow dress-straps, framing the waif of a girl in translucent emerald as she looked me over- an impish glint flashed across her eyes as she saw me struggling to think of something clever.

“Thanks, I like it quite a bit myself,” I replied.

“One of my roommates is a guitarist, we live right across from you!” She said enthusiastically, “We should all meet up some time- I’m Lillian by the way, do you have a name?”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Most people do,” I mused as I introduced myself, broken Hung-lish aside; “Living so close by should make that convenient enough. Do you have a phone number?”

A smirk crept its way into her smile as she said, “Most people do.”

“-and so stands my que-“

“Just tap on my window,” she said as she pointed to a purple curtain being wafted through an aged white windowpane; all cracking paint and pre-Soviet architecture; “Whenever you get a chance we’ll make some plans.”

-As an aside, it must be noted that there’s a strange scarcity of mobile phones among a large chunk of Hungary’s population in comparison to most other places I’ve been to.

Maybe it’s just my cultural bias, but I don’t feel like making plans with people should involve a god- damned reconnaissance mission.

Then again, sloth always has been my sin of choice.

As the afternoon turned to evening, I dragged my new case in tow. Heading back to my flat in the mixed fog of my own haziness and the cities metro-smog, I stumbled through the back allies and side streets, avoiding the bus as I rambled my way back.

The cities Eastern train station, Keleti Palyaudvar stood against the horizon with its cathedral-esque

buttresses; regal despite the fact a good portion of its once pristine stained-glass windows have long since been smashed in.

Steam poured out of the railyard and into the pedestrian paths alongside it as behemoth cargo movers shuffled between passenger cars. The traffic parted around the station, creating an oasis in front of its main entrance. In the marble arch traditional street performers- garbed in leather vests, scarves, chains and embroidery- sang, danced, and cracked their braided whips in the air while onlookers cheered.

Trains bringing people from all over the continent rolled into the city as babushka grandmothers loomed from

their apartment windows; supervising the whole ordeal while drinking strong coffee and smoking slim cigarettes.

After an hour and a half I finally got to Hernad Utca, where I walked to building twenty-seven…

trudged up the stairs…

…and finally got back to my flat.

Tired.

There I sat, waiting for inspiration until I fell asleep at my desk.

-----

The next day I woke up to a message from Mick; a kid I met at orientation when I first arrived.

Yoooooo
Meet @ Goat Herder 12pm?

Fuck. It’s already 11:30.

Rolling away from the wall I looked down into my apartment. The whole studio flat was about 20 to 30 square feet, but since the rooves were vaulted high, a plywood loft was bolted into the bare concrete walls. I slept on a mattress in the loft beside a small bookcase, well stocked with paperbacks, and a lamp.
Over the edge of the loft, open air.
My kitchen, dresser, bathroom and desk took up most of the floor space below.

I crawled out of bed and climbed the ladder down, fearing the fall but acknowledging the potential energy’s decrease with each step.

The floor was cold on my feet, and the walls were solid grey concrete all the way up to the ceiling. I pasted posters over every inch I could on each wall but one; which instead held a massive windowpane beside the front door, making the interior of my flat inauspiciously visible to my neighbors when the shutter was rolled up.


I pulled on pants and a coat, tumbling down the stairs and into the street.

The Goat Herder is a small café in Budapest, located conveniently near enough to both our schools’ campus and Keleti Palyaudvar.


Close enough to school to go to between classes and close enough to the station to escape into those immense tunnels beneath the city- to ride the rails through the darkness.
Within fifteen minutes from that café, you could be on the subway heading just about anywhere.

As walked up to the door I saw Mick sitting at a table by the window. Behind a quiche Lorraine, a glass of red wine, ham and chips, and an empty French press, he seemed not to mind that I was running a half an hour late.

“Morning chief,” I said, feigning apology.

“Mate,” Mick mumbled through a mouth full of French fries “when are you going to learn breakfast is the most important meal of the- “

“Yeah, yeah I know.”

The waitress came by for my order, and I asked for eggs benedict, a beer, Bacon and waffles, a double espresso and an order of crab Rangoon, chased down with a sour cherry yogurt with bananas.

In retrospect my eyes might have been larger than my stomach, but that’s never stopped me before. As me and Mick stuffed our faces we caught up on some current events- it wasn’t until after the third waffle the usual topic of trying to find dope came up. Mick’s lived in Budapest for about a year longer than I have; and as a genial well-off English kid he usually had his fingers in more than a few pies.

“So, any new information?” I asked him earnestly.

“Well,” he said as he chewed his Birmingham accent, “you know I’ve always been more of a platinum jack myself- “

“Come on man, you know I don’t touch that shit. Especially out here, who knows what they put in it. White powders. Sinister as fuck man.”

“I see your point, but you can really think because something grows out of the ground its really any different? They spray shit down with all sorts of chemicals mate, and wrap it up in cellophane and cram it in someone’s asshole.”

“Really? You’re saying all of the weed in Hungary has been smuggled in up somebodies’ asshole?”

“No don’t be daft; I’m just saying that there’s nothing you can buy on the street here that hasn’t been stepped on.” Mick stretched his skinny frame over the back of his chair, as if trying to touch his elbows behind his back.
“Can’t be naïve about it.”

“Something to be said about self-delusion though isn’t there?” I wryly pondered. “In the short term it’s usually pretty fun even if does bite you in the ass.”

-----

We left the Goat Herder after an hour or two and took the metro to Blaha Lujza where we thought we might find some trouble. They knew a Moroccan who lived near there, holed up in an abandoned dental office-cum-apartment, one of the many former state medical facilities that closed down when Hungary’s Minister Orban started cutting back on public healthcare spending a few years prior. Mick punched a number into the call box and we were up a stairwell and sitting in what used to be a waiting

room in no time. It looked relatively the same, except for the fact that on its pink plasticine walls a Hustler centerfold hung in the frame that most certainly once held a diagram of a molar.

They knocked on the interior office door, “Adam? You awake?”

A gangly fellow with a potbelly lurched out of the office door, looking back and forth as if there were far more people in the room with us. He had pajama pants, a tank top and a winter hat on, despite the fact we were inside.

“Hey! what’s good my brother?” Adam said, and beckoned us into his house / office / dental exam room.

He collapsed onto one of the pink vinyl monstrosities, lighting a cigarette as he reclined in the dental examination chair. A psychedelic paisley pashmina was wrapped around the overhead exam light with wire and what appeared to be Mardi-Gras beads. The light shone through the fabric, projecting streaks of orange and yellow into the room.

“So what do you need? Some more of the white stuff?”

“Nope,” Mick replied, “I’m actually hoping to introduce you to one of my buddies. He’s looking for some tree.”

“Ah, I wish I could help.”

“You don’t have any?” I asked.

“Just coke, molly, speed, you know?” He explained in a thick Moroccan patois, “Sometimes hash but no flower. Too hard to move across borders.”


Shit.

“Ah that’s a bummer man. Maybe another time. Let me know if you get any hash though.”

I gave Mick a look that I thought accurately displayed my dissatisfaction, and he nodded. As he purchased his drug of choice, I got up from my chair and began my exit. --however, Adam stopped me, and gave me a card.

Nothing was on it but a phone number.

No name, just white card stock and 12 inky black digits.

Me and my compatriot walked back downstairs, and went our separate ways. As I hopped on the train home, and I mulled over the disappointment of my previous meeting with Adam. It was no big deal of course, but it was slightly disheartening.

Surprises, however, abound.

Soon my mood shifted as I walked back down Hernad Utca as I recognized a familiar smell.

A certain, specific smell.

A certain specific canna-stink that’s hard not to notice, and even harder to forget. As I approached my apartment building, I fortuitously began to realize just where the smell was coming from…

Lilli’s window.

Rapping my knuckle against the sill, I waited outside until a bloated, bulbous man’s face popped up behind the glass. Quickly I was surrounded by the cigany who usually hung around my corner of Keleti.

I tried to get ahold of a nice flat near the school, but I only got halfway there. It sure was near the school, but nice wouldn’t be an apt word for it. The building was a crumbling façade that held the same shade of austere beauty as any other run-down block on the wrong side of the tracks; smack- dab in the middle of the Gypsy part of town.

Now, in Hungarian, Ciganyok means “untouchable”; a local pejorative to describe the cities more criminally inclined members of the Romani population.

Large populations of Roma families were native to the Carpathians before World War Two, and afterwards retuned to the region.

However, with each new regime, they suffered a new persecution of some degree. Nationalists stood in the political landscape, anti-everything post-Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the tepid scent of cold war on its breath, fascism casts long shadows alongside communism, still aching to maintain its hold. Socialists and Anarchists make more appearances than one would expect, ipso fact: there’s no such thing as a moderate party in Hungarian Parliament. Because of this, the gypsy population has gotten a bad rap.

Composing around 4% to 10% of Hungary’s population depending on the census, they’re by far Hungary’s most prevalent minority population… yet while more than 50% of Magyar children have access to grammar and secondary schools, only around 20% of the Roma population have access to that level of education. Only a third of them are able to attend high school, compared to the countries nationally lauded graduation statistic of 80% for the general population.

After noting these social constructs, it’s not terribly surprising to learn that over 87% of Hungary’s Roma population are unemployed-

Legally that is.

  • And that’s where the Ciganyok come into play.

When society closes all its doors to you, sometimes you have no choice but to make your own opportunities.

So, me and these three gypsies stood there on that sidewalk, under that windowsill, looking at this man with a face like a pink cauliflower while I waited for Lilli to show. I tried to speak with him, but he couldn’t understand my accent in Hungarian, nor I his in English.

Soon enough, she leaned out from behind the sheer violet curtains and popped her head out of the window, green eyes flashing in the sunlight.

“I’m glad you decided to come by.” She said as she stuck her pointed elbow against the flower box hanging underneath the sill.

“I’d say that these fellas feel the same.” I replied, nodding to the

pudgy track-suit entourage that seemed to be creeping ever closer.

“Never mind them, we live together!”

“Oh do you now? -and how do you know Lilli?” I turned, addressing the tall fellow in the blue tracksuit who stood beside me.
All he gave me in response was a string of unintelligible Hungarian slang, accompanied by raucous laughter and a toothy, yellow grin so janked it could star in an anti-smoking PSA.

Lilli laughed as she ducked back into the window. She disappeared for a moment before hopping into the street through a battered wooden side door streaked by time and weathered by inattendance.

“I used to date Istvan,” she said as she pointed to the guy in the white track-suit. “and these are his brothers.” She said as she nudged the Cauliflower faced man in the red tracksuit and the other fellow in blue.

“Ah and none of them beszelek angolul evidently?”

“Well my cousin does, and Zsombors wife speaks a little- “

Three more people poured out of the apartment.

“Christ, It’s like a clown car. How many- “

“What is ‘clowncar’?” Muttered the red tracksuit.

“-people live in that flat?”

“Well, it’s not technically all one flat… and plenty of people are in and out of here anyway.” Lilli explained. “We knocked out a few walls last year.”

“Is that what you do? Knock down walls?”

Lilli laughed, “Istvan used to work construction, but I paint and he works odd jobs. What do you do?”

“I do a little investigating here and there, but most of the time I just deal with school bullshit.”

“Ah, so you’re just nosey, aren’t you?”

“Something like that.” I said sheepishly, wishing I said something with a bit more panache.

Riveting details of this girls’ domestic situation aside, I decided it was time to scram… and ask a few questions
about that delicious smell creeping from the apartment. Room was getting scarce on the corner, and I was far more interested in her company than

her compatriots. Istvan decided to join us, which I initially thought would be a pain in my ass but ended up being a double-edged sword.

We sat down at an Istanbul Kebab and started to discuss the city, most of all why I decided to come here from sunny Miami of all places. Istvan spoke close to no English, and seemed insistent upon calling me ‘brother’ despite the fact I met him not more than fifteen minutes ago.

Overt hospitality may not be suspicious in every case, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel the mark of something right now. Regardless, I’d hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that gift horse smells like he might have an eighth of loose bud hidden away in his coat pocket.

Finally, he managed to put together a magic string of English words as Lilli chuckled behind her hands-
“You smoke weed my brother?” he enquired under his breath through a mouth full of Gyro.

I weighed my options with the trustworthiness of his white track suit, deciding how many of my cards I could let this guy see before getting a chance to have a more private conversation with his present ex-girlfriend / current roommate.
I wondered what the reason was for their enigmatic living situation.

Before I could reply to Istvan’s question Lilli interjected.

“He probably won’t be able to understand your reply in English, but I’ll play translator.” She said as she leaned against me in our side of the booth, to Istvan’s chagrin.

“Igen,” I said to Istvan.

“I most certainly do- translate that.” I then told Lilli, noticing as the amount of chair space spanning between her hips and mine gradually shrank.

Istvan looked more pleased now. “Good brother!” He beamed, tahini hanging off his chin.

Lilli turned to me, leaning in close enough for me to feel her breath on my neck, and whispered in my ear “We’re actually planning on going to pick up a few grams now, do you want to come? This guy is Zsombors friend, he runs stuff between here and Amsterdam.”

“Well I’ve been looking for just that kind of connection since I got






















here!” I replied, “-and I haven’t got shit planned for the rest of the day. Let’s get to it.”

-and get to it we did.

-----

Two hours later, we met by the Danube with a few other Ciganyok. We got off the metro and walked towards the docks behind Vaci Utca.

It seemed that the waterfront in Budapest could be best described as the point where the city itself poured into the Danube. No true shore was in sight, docks jutted out of the twenty-first century asphalt layered atop seventeenth century cobblestone which in turn stooped down to kiss the river water.

The urban tendrils of the sidewalk and villamos lapped over the cement barriers and into the river; all under the apathetic gaze of the waterfront. Luminescent windows stared unwaveringly, looking out from the hotels and bistros like eyes, curtains hanging in their frames like cataracts.

Once we got to the docks, Istvan climbed down into a dingy, crowded houseboat and went below deck.
He quickly popped back up with a price.
For about 2500 Forint, or around 10 bucks a gram, I managed to get rid of most of my walking around money in exchange for a hefty mound of salad. While it most definitely spent some time wrapped up in a cellophane brick, there was no denying it: this was what they referred to in scientific circles as “some sticky- icky shit”.

Lilli and Istvan were visibly surprised by the quantity I got for myself. The fact I purchased close to a half ounce was apparently unusual for somebody who wasn’t interested in distribution and was only pursuing casual recreation… call it a cultural difference.


However, once Lilli, Istvan and I lit up the first joint of the Dutch product it wasn’t long before my suspicion of the present bystanders in athleticwear overshadowed my proclivity for herbal intoxicants.

It wasn’t long before the goons that Istvan and Zsombor rolled with fed into my already innate paranoia and I had to split, heading home on my own.

Something rubs me the wrong way about track suits, a form of neoprene disregard for presentation, stigmatized by generations of screen captures and mob documentaries. How jogging apparel and a gold chain became the unofficial uniform for organized crime on an international level is beyond me, but then again, I lack the constitution for either.

As I wandered through my thoughts I turned down streets absentmindedly. My THC-addled mind was echoing narratives, grabbing at pieces of fact and myth to create a story not far removed from my subconscious self-recognition… Eyes stare glazed, picking apart

the wrinkles in my shirt.

Faces on the street,
slightly distorted

vaguely

alien-

each holding memories
so evident

yet false indeed-

-but why are we compelled to examine them? It could be argued that stories are important despite their truth or falsity rather than because of them.

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Is paranoia really an affliction, or simply caution stripped of rationale and dressed up in extremes of narrative?

gdfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Stories have lives of their own.

I make them up all the time.

Sometimes it’s about an interesting scar on a strangers’ forehead, or a wild fantasy with no connection to or inspiration from reality whatsoever. Regardless of the tales origin, the more you tell a story the more real it tends to become.

As a child, I would sit in rooms and stare out of windows, lost in my own head because I didn’t particularly connect well with my constituents. Then I became a liar, and everyone loved the little boy who could take you to a new place, if not for just a moment, just for the conversation.

Lies though, are predestined to crumble.

When creating a fiction, details elude the storyteller in the future, because no true memory was ever involved… and as those lies expired so did my trust. My trust in others, theirs in me, and the full spectrum of trust that pervades all the redundant social contracts we abide by.

However, once I realized the time for falsity and a time for truth existed, standing in direct juxtaposition, I began to write.

Nobody loves those who lie in tongues for long, but those who lie onto a page are authors.

(This does not however make
them good authors.)

So, as I walked I built a world. In what is collectively recognized as the “real” world, there’s mundanity, apathy, and disgust sitting right alongside love and compassion, suspended in moments of supreme beauty.

Serendipity may be existent, but that doesn’t make it fate.

I wish I had the faith to believe there was more to it, but I can’t.

That’s what lies are for.

Beautiful, tiny lies scratched onto cocktail napkins and receipts, until they eventually find their way into narratives that are hummed, read and sung.

To be heard and seen.

To be exorcised for hours into a twenty first century typewriter that was downloaded for ninety-nine cents.

Not about a person, or a lesson, but a memory. A gilded portrait of a day, and time, and soul- far from where they are today.

Suspended in a moment.

After a significant amount of fumbling I found my keys and unlocked the front door of my flat. As I stumbled in through the doorway, I could hardly remember my walk home. Mick’s reference to “sprayed down” cannabis burrowed through my mind as I felt waves of tactile sensations wash over me, making me consider the purity of the joint I smoked earlier. Was there a surprise inside I wasn’t told about?

I poured myself into my desk and began to scratch down my thoughts.

So, I sat in my run down flat and wrote. Sitting for hours at the false machine, I took my memories and stretched them wide enough to fill the pages of fiction-

-because eventually after so many stories; that world of altruism and romance,
fate and beauty,
horror and villainy,
will take on a life of its own…

…and why settle for having one place outside your door when infinite worlds can be conjured within it?

-----

Three days passed before I realized just what was askew.

Even then, it wasn’t until Lilli arrived on my doorstep with a peculiar delivery that I knew exactly what I got myself into…

But I digress.

It was a Sunday.

Before she came calling that day, I was at my landlords’ house. Sitting in a cluttered kitchen across from the elderly couple, I talked to Zoltan and Judith. They were extremely kind, helpful-
and most importantly they certainly knew how to put together a Sunday roast.

In Hungary, Sunday is treated with a formal reverence-
It’s a day for food, company, and arguably most importantly, Palinka; a fruit based liquor with moonshine-grade levels of alcohol content. (Usually around eighty-five to ninety percent ethanol.)

Judith made her own from black cherries, and it was fantastic.

As many Hungarian and Transylvanian families had specific recipes passed down from generation to generation, drinking somebodies offered Palinka comes with a hearty amount of expectation; and refusing a shot is rarely an option, at risk of offending the host.

stared intently as the clear booze swirled in the aperitif glass. Zoltan took a large roasted duck’s leg off of the table and gestured to the generous spread of caramelized red cabbage, mashed potatoes, paprikash, roast duck and Goulash.

“Drink more!” He said exhuberantly, “Judith made this special.”

Judith nodded emphatically. “Nagyon Jo!” she said, “Egeseg kisfiu.” To my understanding that meant “It’s very good, here’s to your health kid.”

I thanked her as she poured another round of Palinka for the three of us. Turning the spigot at the base of a copper pot-still, she filled a mason jar with the heady brew, which quickly started sweating as water condensed on the icy glass.

The smell of alcohol and the sour tang of cherries filled the air the moment it left the spout.


Glasses full, glasses empty. Repeat.

Soon enough I was close to drunk despite the fact I ate a considerable portion of my weight in duck and potatoes- but Judith was still going strong.

Sometimes the quality and quantity of Hungarian cuisine can be overwhelmingly decadent… but that’s rarely a bad thing.

The conversation became interesting however, once Judith mentioned than she knew Lilli and Istvan. She forewarned me in Hungarian, which Zoltan translated:

“Istvan and his family are trouble, they’re involved with a bit of black market business and are ‘the kind of Ciganyok’ who have spent more time in prison than out of it.”

If only my landlords, as well meaning as they were, knew the circumstances in which me and Istvan met. The fact he was involved in smuggling wasn’t terribly surprising since he was essentially a dealers’ concierge, but my question was how the hell my geriatric landlords knew him.

“What about Lilli?” I asked hopefully, wondering if they could give me any pertinent information.
Unfortunately, neither of them knew her… which I took as a good sign.

They continued to warn me about gypsies, revealing their own prejudices without truly intending to. However, despite their cultural biases their point was clear:

The inhabitants of that house on the corner were trouble.

Sounds like a good time to me.

Judith and Zoltan went on to try to teach me a few more phrases in Hungarian while we moved on from the main course to coffee and plum pudding. At this point the Palinka was already doing its work; making the syllables considerably more difficult to form in my palette than usual.
Finno-Uralic languages are already considered to be some of the most difficult in the world, and being half shit-faced certainly didn’t make learning them any easier… it did however make it a lot more fun.

After forty-five more minutes of small talk, I felt that it was time to go. As I got up from their kitchen table, I nearly knocked over one of the hundreds of stacks of books, knick-knacks and paperwork Zoltan and Judith have used to line their cramped halls. I hugged them both and ducked my head to exit through the iron and glass front door; a gated archway that was clearly built at a time when people were significantly smaller.

I descended three flights of stairs out onto the street, where I was immediately hit by a new wave of humidity and sound.

My plans to go to the castle district quickly disintegrated… The air felt like it was ready to burst, as if a storm was just seconds away from erupting. The clouds hung heavy, grey and luminous. They defiantly blocked the shining sun with a miasma of rain yet to fall.


There are those days of summer that bake you alive, with that big yellow pilot light in the sky showing us that the oven is cooking; while on other occasions, such as today, the earth and sky wind up to land a blow. To rain down its heavy hands upon mankind, seemingly punishing us for the gall to think we’re the ones making our daily plans.

As I climbed the stairs to my flat and turned the key over in its lock, I felt the first raindrops begin to fall. Nature always has her own plans.

I rummaged through my desk and pulled out a little number I rolled up earlier. I sparked it up and took a long drag.

For a moment, I considered the fact that delusional souls have been documented as claiming their feelings can control the weather… what if they were right, and the deluded were correct all along?
It’d just be a damn shame if they can’t control their emotions.

In the same way, gravel will crunch under your tires, but the moment you hit the road you’ll just come to a standstill. Lost in the sea of the impatient, hurrying up to wait some more.
It’s the life of convenience we lead that causes us to inconvenience ourselves.

My train of thought was soon interrupted by a frantic banging on the door. I quickly extinguished the joint and ran to my medicine cabinet to spray some cologne around.

I sheepishly made my way to the front door, and took a deep breath before reaching for the handle. As I opened the door I saw Lilli there, soaking wet in the rain with a troubled expression on her face.

“Holy shit! Get in here;” I exclaimed, fumbling through my shirt pocket to discover and re-ignite the joint. “Let me get you a towel.”

“Thanks,” Lilli said as she began to squeeze the water out of her hair. “Listen, I wish I could say I came here to hang,”

“I’m sensing a but here?”

“I need your help.”

“Listen, I don’t want to be rude Lil, but we’ve only met this week…”

“I know, just look at this. It’s an emergency.”

Lilli reached into her purse and pulled out a small box. “This was dropped off at my place this morning.” She said as she gingerly unwrapped the tissue paper- “I’m sorry to bring you into all of this, you’re just the only person who I can think of that would look into something, and I can’t call the cops.”

“What do you mean can’t call the cops?” I inquired, now silently freaking out about the boxes possible contents; I I’m never one for surprises, especially those described as emergencies.

“You said you investigate things yes?”

“I mean…”

Lilli opened the box and laid out its contents on my kitchen counter, displaying a blood spattered, but otherwise familiar, business card with no name on it…
It looked a lot like Adams, with just 12 black numbers on its stark white background, now streaked with crimson.

Nervously I clenched my teeth, which caused the tip of my joint to twitch between my lips, like some sort of bad-mojo antenna.

Beside the card was a wad of tissue paper which Lilli was staring at with silent intensity. As I unwrapped it and felt something cold and clammy, I almost immediately dropped it. As whatever-it-was -inside-the-tissue bounced off my countertop and onto the floor

Lilli screamed.

It was a severed thumb with a label zip-tied around its bony stump.

The paper tag was caked in clotted blood.

On the back side of the label, scrawled in ballpoint was a simple phrase-

“Maga a kovetkezo.”

Translation:

“You’re next.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN:

REDACTED Vol. 2/5

Released by Dead Horse Publishing
2021 ed.

Next Chapter: Chapter Two: The Fucking Thumb