9
It wouldn’t be over. Never. That’s how it is different from all other wars, be it punching mugs in a surge of hostilities between two neighborhoods or an imperialistic world war of any number decimating the numbers of humans in this world—sooner or later they end, unlike this war. This one knows no stop. Ever. Because it is the war of sexes.
I am entirely with you in the opinion that it is a hell of a lot of an uphill job to dig any plausible underlying reason for such a bizarre warfare or to bring to light its basic moving force, or to discern and unravel the complexity of its cause and effects.
Still and yet, it is there, the indefinite and infinite war of sexes.
Why? Hard to say, might be out of habit acquired in the workings of the warring Maya—gore on teeth and talons of everyone fighting everyone else.
You may deny, discard my blabber, and decorate your walls with portraits of Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi yet deep in your heart you know that I am right. Just as I knew before sharing it with you…
Irreconcilable war of sexes. Adversaries resort to cunning detour maneuvers, concealing their movements, defrauding each other, disguising their intentions, poking for weak spots, jumping from the rear, assaulting the flanks, launching open attacks to overturn the resistance of opposing force, penetrate the strongholds, take prisoners, and finally —
‘I beg your pardon, could you tell if the POW’s are used for perverted purposes, please?’
‘Yep, at times it happens but if it’s what you’ve popped up here, kid, then X-rated pulp fiction is on another shelf. So get the fuck out of here! Make sure I’ll never see your map around!’
– disengage to regroup, make truce to renew their stock of ammunition, mobilize reserves, enhance their motivation and clench each other in the next of battles!
Whichever changes might the warfare methods see, whatever new trends and innovations refurnish dangles in the parade uniform, there sticks out, stable and firm, indisputable fact – this war is inescapably there, it knows no end…
Like in any war of other sorts, in WoS we also meet civilians not subject to conscription for their age or health considerations. We also may see refusenik-weaklings advocating for unisex as well as fallen or unknown heroes, mean traitors, and deserters tearing their insignia off in panicky run, profiteers selling most advanced and second-hand weaponry, turn-coats, and those ardently desiring revenge… no, not even by means of the spectral analyses could we account for all birds of different feather tinges in their heated battles as demands of them their great Mother-Nature…
(And—I pray!—let’s ignore, mournfully, the LGBT internal hostilities (they keep to no war conventions whatsoever!). The topic by its slipperiness calls for special preparation, a mindset screwed up differently, and familiarity with multi-volume works on their folklore, rites and rituals, which is beyond the limits of our modest discourse. Yet, we have all reasonable grounds to suppose that in their peripheral (as of yet) pinching scrambles war stays war, it can’t change its spots or nature smelly of pollution. Period.)
The entire picture grows even more complicated and aggravated by the undeniable fact that within sexes we do not find the cohesion to be expected of individuals trained for fighting to achieve common goals in the theater of operations. Damn, no! Each one remains a freelancer with their eye peeled for a game to their liking. Everyone for themselves and let old Nick grab the hindmost, as advised by the time-honored adage (conceivably of Celtic origin if you ask me).
(What?! Who’s back there mumbled under their their nose “As if cluster-fucking were not a united act.”? Hey, kid! You’ve been told to leave! Get lost at once together with your stubborn ass!)
When we scrutinize the matter attentively, with proper zoom in to details, the tendency to confirm one’s supremacy over any other one’s, even belonging to the same sex, is hard to overlook. Noteworthy, that a fighter of the same primary sexual characteristics as yours is not your warranted comrade-in-arms and ally but sooner, with unscrupulous willingness, would sleep with your enemy – your personal individual counterpart in the current confrontation. A saddening yet irrefutable fact…
And at this point we draw closer to some stuff completely unapproachable for its complexity. Some inexplicably incomprehensible anomaly. Something that brings you to white heat by its elusive hazy nature. Yes, you might have guessed already, it’s said about the shamefully chaotic deviation from the established order of things in the reliable and stable system. However, a serious researcher is not supposed to omit presenting it, at least in a brief outline.
Voluntary surrender. The suicidal idiocy of humble coming to your enemy with a wide earthenware dish in hands to present your foe with your head fried to tender and peppered with exotic spice. Technically, a pretty tricky stunt it is yet metaphorically easy as falling off a log.
A phenomenon of the order that hardly deserves anything better than to be named with a four-letter term, which is applied to brand it, ineffaceably.
“L” for blah, “O” for blah-blah, “V” for something else, and “E”… well, Ella Fitzgerald can rehearse you better here…
* * *
Being a vigilant sort of a guy, V since long (he was sixteen then or something about) learned of Secret Weapon in possession of the fair sex, besides the standard armament from the list in the arsenal of their sex which is quite visible. The one thing he did not know though was if all of them were equipped with the SW. He’d rather prefer they were not, after a couple of encounteres when he was targeted directly.
Geez! Just recollection of the aftershock still gave him creeps. The intelligence on SW, whose effect he learned firsthand was never shared by him. Something stopped him on the very brink of a disclosure. Always.
How to put it more or less intelligibly? Well, it’s, like a sudden sway fills her face with a clot of condensed loveliness accumulated by their sex since the times of Nefertiti till the current calendar day (strange as it seems, none of Miss Americas ever added a jot to that quintessence of beauty by their scrape-groom-polished sugar-babish charm) and she shoots the radiant beam from her joyous eyes full of assured winner’s happiness.
In short, she bangs you with a ball lightning. Boy, o boy! It is some Big Bang!.
Love at first sight, huh? Now V knew the trick in detail.
Fortunately, he happened to be of love-proof type. Even when banged, shell-shocked, confused, overwhelmed by delighted admiration, he withstood manly and took the second look. Which served him rescuing antidote.
Still, thanks for the jolt, babe. It was a close call, I swear.
(It’s interesting to note, that individuals of V’s sexual affiliation never used anything like SW on him. Saving their balls? Or was he not a kosher game for them? Okay, forget it, it’s just an aside.)
However, what is to be is not to be given a slip to. Nah. The Supreme Court of the cheesed off stars at a session in full force delivered their verdict. V got sentenced to lifelong love.
No SW was used to imprison him. The girl he fell in love with (though the poor chap didn’t even guess it) looked cool, indifferent, introvert. Later, the ice was broken, melted, brought to the boiling point. Intense rolling, jumping, the lid blown away, all usual sorts of thing.
He never admitted loving her, not even when eye-to-eye with himself. Without witnesses. Naively, he called it “liking”.
‘Yes, I like her. Definitely. No use of denying.’
Damn fool! You can’t deceive yourself! Which, by the by, no one can do for all their argumentative skills. It’s easy, of course, not to give a bean, especially when trained in self-cheating, press the lie into this or that vacant metastasis and forget about it for the entire incubation period, and then there would be no time to give it a second thought, there would crop up other problems, progressing…
He did his best in earnest, no shirking in his endeavor to shed off the uncalled-for “liking”, he did try to overcome the lingering spell. Radically and consistently applied he strong drinks, hot sluts, and Irish luck gambling.
The mixed up potion stalled and, despite his covert support, proved its ineffectiveness. He knew that he was in love. And so was she because he was loved in return.
Ha! Really? Ho-ho-ho!
Yes, yes, yes, yes! She told him that herself.
The day was pleasant, tame and thoughtful, full of the soft sunshine. They stood on the platform in a railway station. She smiled at him and said:
‘Remember me as I am right now, when I love you. Let it be you recollection of me, wherein I’m in love with you and haven’t turned yet a bad nasty bitch.’
‘You? Bad? That’s im-pos-sible!’
‘No incantations work when you’re not a witch.’
The rest is history. They split. His life turned zombie’s half-existence. Or, maybe, retarded waiting in the stagnated limbo queue, neither life nor death.
Then there was another railway station platform some place in the middle of nowhere. And black night all around. He got it – no way to stand it any more. And he collected the number erased from the memory long ago. Collected without a hitch, automatically.
His voice betrayed him, yet he managed to hiss the incantation thru his vocal cords. For the first time in his life he did it:
‘I-love-you.’
Immediately, he fell into a scathing-hot whirlpool of shame, understanding how useless was that belated yell of the helpless enchanted soul doomed to indefinite bondage. And there was also rage at the fucking shithead, himself. And also, a feeble hope that he was not heard—behind his back an endless drag freight train thundered heavily over the rail junctions. He rang off.
Still later, his buddy Lex shared, avoiding the eye contact, that in opinion of his, V’s, ex-girlfriend, he, V, was the unsurpassable champion in sex.
That’s how she sent—care of his friend—the antidote he needed so badly…
* * *
10
‘Wanna get out of here?’
‘The place is nice, actually, but… say it again? Is it a one-night stand invitation, huh?’
‘Depends… maybe a challenge, sporty?’
‘Whose field?’
‘Quick to pick the clue makes Jack a welcome mate’.
‘Yummy Jenny makes even dull Jack witty’.
‘Jennys are not after stand-upper apps, a Tom vibrating with dedication, strong, steady, and reliable suits them better’.
‘Then I’m your man full of vibes and throbbing in advance.’
‘Slow down, Charlie! Don’t spill your zest before the final whistle, that’s not cricket.’
‘I’m with you for 100 per cent. Test drives is the must when dealing with cats from a sack’.
‘Not down that road, Danny! Talking cars don’t turn me on’.
’And what else is there? Occupying Mars? Agricultural commodities in stock? Ha! I know! How about carrot-grating combined with bean-counting?
’Much warmer, Johnny. Actually, I pull for linguistics. Body language, phonetic approach, you know… By the by, Benny, your that ‘carrot-grating’ sounded convincingly, and at beans counting you licked your lips in time.’
‘For the record, sweetheart, I’m more of a manual jobber, hauling ashes, you know, rowing along a rolling river… suchlike stuff gives a delicious feel of strenuous joy to my sinewy frame’.
‘Muscle exertion? Something you can safely count on by my side, brawny Larry.’
Disgusting honks of failure indicated GAME OVER!. Black X within red tire popped up and froze smack bang in the screen center.
V shook his head in the manner of a cook whose hands are too greasy to shoo a brazen fly off the forehead, and dealt a loud spank his knee. Surprisingly, no smudge of fat soiled his pants leg fabric, but nevertheless, none of them felt much pleased by so rush a gesture, both the knee and his right palm did not approve of the whipping slap. In gesture of determination, he dropped his Samsung into the pocket, and leaned abruptly onto the chair back.
‘Sh-shucks!’ commented V. ‘Too soon. I haven’t got into my usual groove and stuff, you know.’
‘May happen to anybody, especially after such a stress. Don’t blame yourself,’ soothingly stroke Lia the dent in his sniffling ego.
‘Awesome kind of you,’ agreed V. ‘What’s the score?’
‘Home won 2 : 1, in three sets. The final game stats attests high sensitivity of your reflexes, and quick penetration the opponents psyche. Yet all the tries at guessing the guy’s name, which this time was “Frankie”, slipped.’
‘Screw Frankie!’ V couldn’t abate his disappointment. ‘Excuse my French.’
For over an hour they fiddled at computer games to give he thugs, who broke into his apartment time enough to get it that V was not anywhere around. The stratagem increased V’s chances to skip the unwelcome guests whose visit was not meant to have a friendly chat, obviously.
Meanwhile, Lia provided him with black sunglasses, and procured a shoulder-length wig of blonde curls. She also added a trendy female jacket in the bargain. Yet, they still dawdled on playing for time, better be safe than sorry…
Once upon a time, at the dawn of Computer Games Industry (some really dark times they were, kid), CGI assumed the stance of catering for vagaries of taste in any odd ball rolling down the road, forking in whatever direction their brains were tilted or screwed to, anything at all to satisfy milkable gamesters.
Arcade games, huh? Wow! Geehooo! Remember? how we were…? Sorry, kid, you was not even projected then…
Yeah, the sweet naive times of Jumping Mario. Mamas and Papas zip-zapped their Tetras, Candy Crash and other hooey hooking the guys fixed on active recreation. All went clippety-click bouncing in between pre-liquid tube monitors and towering PC boxes. Mario jumped high and sprightly before to land his ass onto a prickly cactus. To bolster their deflated self-assessment, young people pressed Pause-Button and plunged into conceiving generation of millennials. Demography, benevolent and happy, smiled on them, folks braced up for getting over to the next level of the jumping bugger.
However, CGI kept rolling out products for intellectual freaks too, for those snobs fucked in the brains differentially, each to their personal depth. (Well, if you’re one of those take it easy and receive sincerely felt respect, bro, ’cause I’m also an erudite shithead, to certain extent.)
To make it more graspable for dummies, just recollect shipment of goods across the Universe to trade for I’m-fucked-if-I-know-what gizmos produced at manufactures of alien motherfuckers. Load it all, back home egg-heads will tell what’s what, how and where to apply the stuff in phials with flashy marks Cov-19.
The stardust loving peddlers were clippety-clicking their computer keyboards to choose the navigation route thru asteroid belts, skirting around sudden comets that whooshed by. They rode the crests of huge gravitational waves, those seasoned space-dogs, fucking mules trafficking in the endless loops of warped time God-knows what cargoes in their space ships bays, if you get it what I’m about… Yeah, we do have heard the clattering hoofs under our adventurous asses…
In the dead advanced parlance of managerial humanoids this approach—anything-for-anyone—was called “bifurcation of resources and capacities for a wider coverage and satisfaction of consumer demand”, however, we’re for the more straightforward term posed by Belgium economists – “bisexual production process”.
And when there arrived the up-curve of New Wave with New Line unleashed and whipping, giant strides were taken to meet the hyped interests of 6D Hotly Motley Market and, alongside shoot-bang-strip-fuck and other blooming products for wankers of any orientation, you still could come across games based not on the keyboard used as means to hit a short-cut only but for the players to compete in clue duels, like, bandying words with ChatGPT or keeping negotiations with unfriendly aliens orbiting the world, or persuading XIX century public to invest into the NASA’s Apollo program and so forth, the sky’s the limit.
And just one of those step-into-the-bugger’s-boots games became the accomplice in V and Lia’s killing the time.
“In Heat” (so the game’s name), by its developers prospect, assisted players in mastering and enhancing the skillful use of all their digits and thumbs (occasionally), giving also the opportunity to maintain a well-oiled command of their spelling.
The simplified version of In Heat (whose modification rigidly culled 8 levels, leaving just initial two) have already been recommended for use at high schools in both Southern and Northern Americas (in Utah and Pennsylvania states still remains banned though, as well in the state of Meta in Columbia).
The Ministries of Education in both China and Russia (alphabetically) consider possible use of In Heat pirated version (the doctored application package downloaded at xyzz.org.asm).
The Russian Parliament (aka Duma) created Special Commission on Reproduction of Expedient Education Reforms. There are certain indications that SCREER is inclined to believe that, after all, In Heat could be experimentally allowed and introduced. However, (emphasized the Commission) under condition of extracting from school computer keyboards the character buttons for «Х», «П», and «Е», coupled with issuing a secretive directive to school authorities to also disable zero and exclamation mark in keyboard layouts. Just in case…
’Well,’said V, ‘Seems, like, it’s time to shove off.’
‘Hope, they won’t seize you.’ Lia’s eager response showed she was still supportive of the conversation. ‘Are you not hungry, eh? They came, like, before the lunchtime?.’
‘Thank you for asking,’ answered V scratching in the back of his head,‘After three sets In Heat no one would mind a romantic snack.’
* * *
11
…from all the sides… it squeezes… crimps from everywhere… narrow net of scathing slashes… searing bandage of not a single gap… here… there… at every spot…
…crushing… squishing… yet without the unyielding hardness of blacksmith vice’s crunching bite… no… like a noose plowing into frail flesh ever deeper as the ratchet pulls on… dissects the sinews… reaches to the bone… nah!. this pain sways… scorches… turns the inside out… it’s streaming!. this here pain…
…why… me… what for?.
…huh? what’s that? who’s there?. there’s no room for anything but this pain… no “me” could ever be crammed in here… in this sea of all-devouring tongues of fire… the flame snarls… slices with its fiery fangs… frets the sores anew tears gaping wounds ever deeper… so beastly cruel this pain is… tortures from everywhere…
…none… nothing… not a thing can ever be out there… no space for anything… no room to allow for even a needle point… no “me” can possibly be around here… the place belongs to pain… only pain… nothing but pain…
…yet who?. who’s destined to suffer the unbearable?. whose nerves turned to ashes and tatters shriek in the mute agony?. if not for me there would be no pain… the tiniest bubble of conscience jitters… pops in the choppy ripples of torment… hunkers down under the swishing hits of whip tearing the skin off from the bared flesh… the executioner is way too trained… does not allow the bubble to burst and find its rest in the blissful death…
…o woeful… pitiful… beaten… flatten to the last extreme… to the final edge… tiny bubble… what for?. why me?.
…whoami?.
* * *
12
It didn’t take V more than a couple of minutes to persuade himself that the trick was not beyond his potency and, after all, his lips could be trained into the mien of a kinda distended puffy brim in a rubber funnel for colon lavage procedure. Just don’t let them gape too wide. The flexibility of lips and close attention to their toeing the right shape line will make of you that glamorous celebrity… sh-shucks! What’s the doll’s name?. the one of same-sized bosom and behind… only at different altitude from the floor level… when standing… eh? Whatever.
Still, as a man of exceptional valor and perseverance, V snapped his fingers, twice, to spur up the belated recollection. It didn’t help. Could this blonde wig have influenced the habitual speed of his mind operation?
Besides, it must be taken into account that currently his stream of conscience was rolling along the issue of chromosome mutations—yes, really, in a couple of generations stuck in the environment of the cow-like thick-lipped beauty queens, that particular shape will become the predominant tool in the struggle for life and all the fairy tales will get fucked up overall because no Prince Charming would ever manage bringing Sleeping Beauty back from those therapeutic funnels with the most hottest of his kisses at her puffy rims… eh? Whatever.
V’s melancholy sign entwined with the hiss of the opening elevator door.
On the way down between the four reciprocally perpendicular walls, some self-proud jock midst the company of fellow travelers, thickening at each level, revved up all the vocabulary and punctuation from his body language signaling full speed how deeply hooked he was by the curls and half-inch gibbosity of V’s lips.
As a girl of chastity, V ignored the scumbag’s flirting, however, while crossing the lobby he vigilantly marked the weeny, involuntary change that somehow emerged in his gait. Completely inexplicable circular rotations popped up in his, usually quite purposeful and straightforward, stride. Unnatural zap additions. Like, a person brought their car to the garage to have the spark-plugs cleaned but they added a flywheel there too, screwed it in under the hood, the blonde bitch would never get it what’s what all the same.
Quite naturally, the situation brought up to his memory the lost and never found scholastic treatise from the darkest streak in the Dark Ages whose author was staunchly driving home (in Latin) the postulate of garments influence on our modus vivendi at large, which starts to match the rags donned, the modus does.
Yeah, exactly! Bonifacius of Accise it was! A monk from the order of Half-Barefoot Versacceans…
Anyway, he felt alleviated five minutes later by the row of garbage containers lined in a nook of some project’s backyard, while cramming the wig and sunglasses into a general purpose shoulder bag also farmed out to him by Lia.
The influence of the girl’s jacket on his sub-conscience he could keep under his control successfully (fortunately, unisex was triumphantly back into the current vogue).
Taking use of the convenient occasion, he relieved himself physically too, onto the back side of the left-end garbage container in the row and, having zipped up his pant’s fly, on he walked with the feeling of deep rehabilitation of his masculinity, our broad-shouldered V.
In that, much more self-assured and dignified manner, he returned to the sidewalk, and joined the stream of busily flowing crowd, where each one marched to their destination, presumably. Only V and a negligible number of vagabond loiterers had no particular place to steer to. They just kept walking in the waves of pedestrians. And that served a good therapy measure too letting V bring his walking style back to normal.
Way ahead starboard he spotted an islet of green and crossed the road at the traffic lights to seek safe harbor in the hood greens. An empty bench seat in a quiet side alley became V’s mooring pier.
With his back squeezed into the longitudinal spars of wooden beams used in the classical bench construction, the legs (also his) full length out, and the heels firmly planted in the well-trodden sand surface of the walk, he threw his palms up and interlocked the digits. The resulting contraption was slowly lowered behind his head to accommodate its back within that ad-hoc bandage collar.
It was time to take a breather and plumb the shit he got into, which (it was beginning to dawn on him) was a really deep one – three professionals would hardly be dispatched to perform a piddling trifle, a suchlike mismanagement would contradict the usual logistics at their walk in life…
Yeah, the fortune was, as always, on his side and presently he’s relaxing on a bench with his elbows stuck up above his head instead of lying in a puddle of coagulating blood till they arrive to collect the eyesore and zip it up in the body bag.
Miraculously slipped he away and the trap slammed in vain after Lex’ alert, at the very last moment, on the phone…
The call, by the by, was the craziest bend in all this mess because Lex got pinched two days before…
Some quagmire of bizarre inconsistencies and no data whatsoever, not a slightest clue, like, go and crack a Sudoku with all the squares in the puzzle left empty… Still and yet, thanks to Lex, V’s still alive, by the skin of his teeth, and basking in this frivolous posture on the bench…
Then followed two hours at Lia’s place letting the dust settle. Another lucky strike, yes, except for those lost games… But what’s the catch? Why was his orderly well-regulated lifestyle derailed so brutally?
V took his phone out and for one whole minute kept watching the only number in the list of received calls, before to swipe it stealthily.
‘Yeah,’ the thick narcissistic drawl of a deep bass protracted to relish its rolling resonance from the personal innards. Miles away from the Lex’ hasty falsetto.
‘May I talk to Mr. Taylor please?’
‘Wrong number, pardner,’ responded the peals of thunder from a dark heavy cloud closing in to choke a frog in the don’t-mess-with-Texas manner, and hung up.
It was that notorious moment when neither deductive nor inductive, nor prepositional, nor any other one from the herd of knubby logics would do any good to syllogistically solidify the dim picture where Lex gives him a call by the wrong-numbered phone which he had picked thru the cage bars in a blockbuster Western from the dumb Sheriff’s pocket. and then returns it cunningly:
‘Look! Look! Sheriff! The thing dropped outta your pocket on the floor!’
In a fit of irritated consternation, V shoved his Samsung back into its stall forgetful that the stallion hadn’t chewed a single oat grain for two days at a stretch. Which spacey attitude could only be excused by the maverick air that started to twirl in his mind a moment before:
Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie…
Now his task was finding a solution to the effing complicated mystery of whose puzzle pieces he had none but a single phone call from his friend that saved his life.
As a long-standing practitioner of thinking, V knew perfectly well that, first and foremost, you shouldn’t strain yourself at that business, at thinking. Excessive sweating is unacceptable here, it is counterproductive.
Whenever aspiring for an unprecedented discovery in any branch of common knowledge, arm yourself with humble patience. Leave all kinds of veni-vidi-vici to kid-entertaining Harry Potters and grown-ups-beguiling foxy fuhrers, when you are after your purpose in earnest…
Patient waiting and nothing else remained there for him to do…
However, waiting is not so easy an action as it might seem to an idle bystander. For a discovery of any kind, for nailing down a sufficient explanation for an incomprehensible phenomenon or even for making just one solely right decision you have to spend an enormous amount of time before its consummation. You are not the actor to produce the find, your job is to give it some time for finding you. Hence, you have to wait while it is catching on.
Your role is that of a fisherman awaiting for the catch to strike. Just a split sec before there was nothing whatsoe… strikes! yep! gosh! but it was so simple!.
Your humble waiting served the bait because with a bare hook you won’t catch anything but the fuck, right? Except for a gaping tin can, maybe, or a ruined shoe with water falling thru the holes…
Wait, wait, and wait – that’s what you have to, and also to be ready for the moment when all of a sudden it sparks up, like, the light within the electric bulb and be grateful it was not an apple this time to swipe across your pate…
Where from?!
Perhaps from your waiting, for all I know. Don’t ask me, I was not waiting on the topic “whence”…
And, pray, do not rub my nose into united efforts at “brain-storming”. A bunch of egg-head freaks spread their pea-cock tails before each other to show off the crumbs they gobbled from the books of others who did their time in waiting for the revelation…
They are a knot of kids on a raft midst summer pool convincing earnestly each other what a lake lawyer or carp was caught once by their uncle Pete, the brain-stormers are…
Much more productive is a meeting of Amero-Americans on the bison skins spread over the floor in their tepee whose forefathers never suspected they were American citizens without even Green Cards before there appeared the sails full of the wind of avarice in search for routes towards the fabulous treasures of India, when—“the land!” croaked the crow-nest spotting the huge hindrance of a new continent across the further progress.
They are the real champions of waiting before the right decision emerges, the pipe stuffed with thoughtful care circles the council sitting before it would finally strike… Hey! Dozing Bison! You’ve been sucking at it for too long already, pass the pipe, elder!.
Something from without the tepee walls yanked V up from his meditation depths. Back on the surface, he once again became available to the calls of the world around. But who was the yanker? Huh?
The penetrating stimulus, which woke V up from his state of concentrated waiting, was the mute look full of kind comprehension that beamed at him from a pair of beautiful brown eyes beseeching his response.
There was no collar with the owner’s number or GPS tracker around the puppy’s neck. Seeing that V was back at last, the dog dropped belly-first onto the walk, right opposite V, and smiled. Another stray vagabond just like V was calling for his attention. The only difference between the two was a couple of virtual wallets with crypt currencies stashed in the Cloud for a rainy day.
The puppy stuck out its flat leaf of tongue enjoying the calm sun and warm sand to stretch upon.