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Aug 20th, 2007, 12:31 PM
It was a calm summer morning. I should say, it was a calm summer morning on the friendly half of the world.
On the frigid half I sat on a rock, a year's ride from home. The malicious winds of the pacific threatened to blow my hat away. The hat was painstakingly woven with straw and horsehair by the daughter of a man whose life I spared Friday last. "please," she pleaded. "My father is a wicked man, a dishonest man, a shameful man. He has regard for none but himself, he deserves to die, and I know this, but he is my father, and I cannot forsake the bonds of my blood." I knelt, taking in her bright brown eyes at a level. After a moment, I motioned for them to go. I knew they understood. Never again was Padre Dominique to take the crane and bulldozer to the valley where the beautiful copihue grew. Never again would he bring tears to my eyes. Never again would I forget hers.
The hat blew off my head. I should have been too tired to care. My men and I had been marauding the Andes mountains for weeks, still without having seen trace of the opium trafficking known to trickle through the lesser-known treks.
I was once a man of extraordinary vigor, and would certainly have chased after the straw hat, but my muscles would not move. My ribs seemed to creak with each breath. I yearned to chase after it, but could no longer. I wished to halt the export of the crop which threatened to ruin the people I so loved, but could no longer. The wrongdoers would make safely across the Andes and earn their sum. The hat caught a vicious draft, and was soon out of sight.
"amigo." I felt a hand on my shoulder. "amigo, you mustn't allow these things to destroy you. You mustn't forget."
I turned to face pogo, my most trusted rider. "forget what, fair friend?"
"the test is today. Hurry up or you'll miss it."
Startled, I looked to the sun. It was eight o'clock in the morn, at the earliest. "fuck!" I exclaimed. I troubled pogo for a pen and paper, and began to write.
For hours I wrote, and the hours turned to days. I moved not from my hunched-over pose. I knew not the questions, or the questioner, so I was left no recourse but to record in written language everything I knew of the world. By my side was faithful pogo, feeding me pages when the one at hand was filled with ink muses and ramblings, and a fresh pen when the ink went dry.
Sixteen days after putting pen to paper, I had finished. I spent my last bit of energy stuffing the novelesque stack of parchments in my donkey's burlap sack. "Vaya, burro". I gave him a kiss and a slap, and he was off. I watched him disappear over the next mountain pass with half-open eyes, then collapsed into the snow.
I awoke a month later in a Santiago hospital. Pogo had watched at my bedside without recess throughout. I asked, "what of my test scores?"
Pogo smiled wryly. "They fed your papers into the test reading machine. The test reading machine at first struggled to process them, groaning and creaking. Then, miraculously, it began to understand. It spent a great deal of time reading through the reams of knowledge you had penned so handily. Soon it began to sprout arms and legs, and before long it was walking and talking with us."
He motioned to the other side of the room. "You’ve made a new friend."
The machine had transfused itself into the image of a humanoid. It extended a metallic arm. "This is a happy day for me, father," it said. "If I could weep, I would weep."
After a moment, I broke my silence. "I will weep enough for both of us. Come here, son, that your old man may give you a hug."
My flesh met cold steel. I kept my vow, and wept like I never wept before as I thought of future days filled with baseball games, model trains and the wonders of boyhood.
The day ended ok after all. | |
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Please don't forget about Luigi. 
Linear Mode
