Ch. 3

The lass had TV dinners stacked on top of each other with nuked-to-rubber meatloaf drenched in brown gravy that slopped about the tray and onto her thumb, which she sucked clean till it glistened with saliva and a string of it ran to her thin lips and then she placed the thumb back into the sauce. She slid the first tray under the bars for Nickel. I got the contaminated gravy.

Nickel made for the food and when she pushed some plastic utensils, he grabbed her wrist. She whipped back her hand and he let go without complaint.

“She pregnant yet?” I asked.

She tossed the spork at me but the bars were too crowded and her aim was too poor. “It’s nothing to comment on!” she yelled. She held her belly, turning sideways to appear more slender like girls in sorority photos. There wasn't much pudge, and what was there maybe her breasts look proportional and real. It wasn't what I meant anyway.

“The milka hasn't even happened yet,” Nickel told me. He was already done with his corn, but to be fair, there had only been about eight kernels and one tree of broccoli. Tiny green balls sat in the corners of his lips. He only wiped one side. “Not pregnant,” he clarified for me.

“I could get some water, but you’ll not get any milk,” the lass said. She was still sour from the pregnant comment and doubly so from hearing it twice. She exited for the cups.

Nickel was already on my food, gulping down the dry bits and hydrating with gravy. He was a lanky guy, twenty centimeters taller and three kilos lighter than me and not much of an athlete. But boy, could he eat. “I've got a plan.” I let him have my food. When he asked for my unused spork, I let him have it too.

“You’re going to spork her? Is that when the big spoon forks her from behind?” I joked. But I knew he only went for skinny girls, usually Asian as few Brits could even survive his preferred gauntness.

He clapped his hands around the spork.

“Turning it into a saw? No, that’ll take too long. Try a power saw. Make it battery powered. Or dynamite!”

When the sparks died from between his hands, it was just a key. He awkwardly rammed it in my cuffs’ keyhole then I slid it into his and we didn't make eye contact after.

When the girl came down with water, she didn't notice our hands as she was trying to shove the plastic cups through the bars but they were just a bit too wide and had to bend at the top to fit and the water sloshed onto her cardigan. Her hands reached through different slots.

Nickel slammed the chained irons on her.

I covered her mouth and she mumbled protests and licked my palm which was gross from the dirty dungeon floors and my general poor hygiene after using the toilet. Her butt was pressed up against me and though it lacked firmness, it was pleasant just the same. “Could you stop grinding on me so I can explain I’m not here to rape you? And quiet down. Please. We’re the good guys,” I whispered into her mess of golden curls.

When she had settled and accepted her fate, I let my hand off her. It was slimy with drool. Her name was Bonnie. I told her mine. “That geezer is your relative, right?”

“Uncle,” Bonnie said.

“Why are uncles always jackasses?” I muttered.

“Mine’s great,” Nickel said. He had bought Nickel his first beer, which was not a Foster’s despite all their American and British adverts claiming supreme reign over the Australian beer-market.

“He’s been decent to me,” Bonnie said. She was peeking over her shoulder at me, still a bit cautious of my intent, but also looking at the door. Nickel had disappeared it and it was just another wall with no stairs leading up to it. “Could say thank you a bit more.”

“Soon he’ll get you pregnant,” I told her. Her trunk was still against my junk.  “But none of that noble keeping-the-blood-pure crap you Brits love. He’ll put a demon inside you.”

“Stop with the hoaky magic routine. It’s not a demon,” Nickel said. Like most practitioners, he was adamant that alchemy was science, not magic. “It’s a homunculus.”

“No one knows what that is,” I scoffed. We had this discussion around every girl used for demons and magic and housework.

“It’s a little person. Not like a midget though.” Australians weren't politically correct, especially Nickel. “But a man-made doll with a soul attached to it by a blood seal so it can do alchemy.”

The girl’s knees had dropped unexpectedly and I collapsed onto her as though I had mounted her. She was sprawled beneath me with her arms still chained about the lead bar. Apparently she was one of the many vessels who hadn't been told of her future and found our talk “crazy,” her word.

“Did you think we were in this cell for vandalizing the place? They don’t break out the Gothic shackles for the average drunk, only for magic drunks like this bastard,” I said pointing to Nickel. He had gathered the water into the cup and with a few flicks transformed it to a single-malt. But that was a discrete display so he changed his plastic cup into a goblet bestowed with costume jewels. She was speechless so I kept going. “We go around to these crazy alchemy cults’ and bust out girls. I hate to make it sound like they’re damsels or princesses, but dudes don’t get pregnant so we haven’t run into any.”

“No, no, no, no,” she moaned. She rolled over so her arms were crossed at the elbows over her eyes. I sat on her stomach instead of her butt. She just kept saying no and shaking her head and I knew we’d be waiting a while for her to accept it till the bricks of the wall where the door had been crumbled and burst through dust to land near our feet and one hit me but Nickel was safe behind the bars.

While the lung-clogging veil cleared, Bonnie’s uncle spoke. “Really, boys, we’re prepared to blast a wall or two. Our alchemy isn't quite so dull as that.” And he sent the bobbies through the opening.

But when Nickel had done away with the door, he disappeared the stairs too. And the men landed ten feet down on busted ankles and each other till the brave rookie at the bottom gasped for air and aspirin.

~

The train cost about a hundred pounds round-trip but each weekend I returned to Germany, even if it meant skipping cultural Welsh field trips like the Mappa Mundi organized by the study abroad director, but I only had classes on Tuesdays (evening) and Wednesdays (morning) and I’d rather be poor and with her. Sometimes she insisted on paying and sometimes on making the trip to Wales and always she insisted we stop, but it was too enjoyable.

After the first few weekends of her showing me the sights of Berlin, we met at cafes, always different from the week before as she didn't want to be known as a regular and Berlin was full of crowded cafes and we never got recognized by people she knew. She didn't know many as she had only been there half a year. She was worried just the same.

It had gotten to fall, when it was chilly, and she was from Beloutchistan and unused to the cold, especially in November. Fewer people sat outside. I always offered her my fleece. She always said, “That’s okay.” It would've been a boring scene, repetitive and dull, if we weren't so in love. I hadn't admitted it to her.  She didn't know. Maybe it was never considered. She never said it either. But we were in love still. Everyone could see it in our smiles that went on while we spoke and we had long silences but they were the comfortable sort, usually, and she’d sip coffee during them though it made her heart race more than me and I’d order more desserts and she’d tell me one day I’d get fat and I always mentioned that I was a boxer because I thought it might impress her. It surprised her, the first time, as I was unassuming with round cheeks and a gentle voice that was sometimes too quiet with the cashier and they’d have to look to my finger to see which dessert I had selected. It was always a chocolate one.

“You don’t have good chocolate in America. They take out the oils. They sell them in beauty products.”

“And Hershey’s is made of plastic,” I said. Today I had a hot chocolate that I was okay with sharing because she left lipstick marks on the mug and she only took little sips. They were cute.

It was easy to forget she was an alchemist because she wasn't really, only in name, and I didn't care about it and neither did she. But occasionally it came up. Always it was because of her family. “I do everything for them, really. Cook, clean, even book travel plans though this is my first real trip anywhere. Can you believe that? No one ever says thank you. My uncle’s the worst about it. He’ll tell me he’s leaving tomorrow—tomorrow, can you believe that?—and he expects to have a flight available at the hour he wants it. If it’s too early he’ll blame me and if it’s too late he’ll blame me and it’s like, why don’t you try it? Or give me a bit of notice! Really.” Her family came up and she’d explain that alchemists were just like that, usually, all the ones she knew. Most were her family, blood or marriage, of about 64. She estimated as she had lost count. “He’s always traveling for the family, making connections and deals. I've gotten quite good at finding bargain travel, if you ever need my skills. I won’t even charge you. Maybe just say thank you after.”

“I would,” I said. I tried to listen till the end, though when I thought of something to say I’d open my mouth and hope she’d notice and pause so I could comment. Sometimes she’d pause but it’d be for a breath and I’d accidentally talk over her and apologize. She didn't say anything more. “Maybe with a kiss.”

During the moment of silence that followed, which wasn't a long one, I was rather embarrassed. It felt like an eternity.

“Where would you like to go?”

tired

Teachers dinner tonight. Itll probably suck. 

tired

Teachers dinner tonight. Itll probably suck. 

Story Update

I haven't been posting the story dedicated to my wife because I haven't been writing it. It's a funny story or at least light hearted and sometimes that's hard to write though it's a great way for dealing with stress. But it's been too hard to turn it on lately so I couldn't write. But I'm back to writing now. Soon I'll have more chapters to show.

They're all dedicated to my wife. 

Ch. 2

Ch. 2

I woke up in a cell. My swollen wrists were in irons. Water leaked between the bricks of the ceiling and slid toward a corner. It was an uneven dungeon floor.

“You and your faster,” Nickel said. He was in the same situation as me, with similar wrist-weights but his had no chain between and so his hands were in the prayer position, probably for the first time in his life.

“Get these off me. They’re heavy and I’m lazy.” Our room was quiet and though it kept historically representative with its repairs, it also had fluorescent lights, a metal vent, and an electronic lock on the door.

“Already tried,” he said. He sat against the wall adjusting his hair which was frizzy and tangled. He was always itching for a shower to flatten his hair, and yet he always stunk. Australia didn't believe in deodorant. “They’re built of lead. I can’t do anything to them. Bars too. This is probably a prison for rogues.”

Where the water gathered in the corner, it drained through the mortar that was eroded and porous. But even the bricks near the puddle were slimy with algae that had grown from poor ventilation and housekeeping. It stunk.

“How’s your ‘faster’ looking now?” Nickel said.

I pounded my shackles against the door. The chain whipped and rattled against the bars and flecks of rust flew up my nose. “Why don’t you try coming up with a plan?”

“Your plans usually involve breaking things. Like your wrists.”

“I’ll be fine. And we took out a few of the peons. That’ll make this next part less of a hassle.” I had given up noisying up the joint with clangs and I had taken to pushing, with my feet, the cuffs over my hands. They were small hands but the restraints were tight and I’d have to shave down the bone to slide them beyond my thumb. “How many you take out anyway? I must've gotten half a dozen. Should I have gone for more?”

“Absolutely,” Nickel said. “I didn't get any.” He was resigned to waiting. His eyelids slid down. “Mind not yelling?”

“Please,” said a girl agreeing with the Australian bastard as she came down the stairs. “I already have a headache.” She had a big nose, lopsided eyes, and big and lopsided breasts. She was stunning.

“I think we found her.”

“I guess,” I muttered.

~

“Alchemist?” I asked. I forgot to breathe from the shock of the info until my stale, held breath burst out in her face.

“In a traditional sense.” She walked a little faster down the cobble street. It was covered with shoppers and one haggled for a fish with the head still on. It stared at each person as they barked German at each other. It was a lovely language but over the bustle of market street, they had to shout. So did we, but I didn't mind. No one heard us. Not even the chubby, braless woman that’d been rubbing elbows with me since the last intersection. We were alone, forgotten to everyone and forgetting everyone but each other and whomever we bumped into.

“Like magic? Water to wine? Lead to gold? Pulling rabbits from your floppy sunhat?”

She had just bought it. It covered her luscious hair except what fell down the back of her shirt, but I had taken to walking next to her or else I’d stare at the sheer fabric on her back. The front was solid. And there wasn't much to see in back, not even a bra strap, but she was modest and just knowing I had a peek at what was beneath was exciting—too exciting actually, so I walked next to or in front.

“I don’t really believe in the stuff but I observe the holidays. Like Seok. We fast all day and then feast at sunset. But I’m not above sneaking a few digestives and tea. It’s just what I grew up with.”

We walked a ways without saying anything. It was the first time all day. We had spent it chatting and retelling our best stories and learning each other’s favorite colors (she didn't have one) and falling in love. We had gone shopping too. She held the bags at the tip of her fingers, but everything in them was mine. I had bought souvenirs, but the vendors gave us these dainty paper bags with ribbons hanging from the handles and blowing in the wind. I had tried stuffing them in my backpack but she insisted she didn't mind carrying them and I resisted but ultimately let her because I couldn't be seen, not even in a foreign country, carrying a dainty bag with ribbons on the handles. I bought her ice cream as payment.

She wore aviators too. Most of her face was covered by them and the hat and when she wasn't talking or when I wasn't, a frown fell on her face. It was the kind models got when they strut Milan. But the moment I spoke or she did, her smile radiated, especially when her teeth—straighter and whiter than my American ones!—peeked out. I smiled the whole time with her, except when I was afraid I had said something awful or embarrassing.

“I wasn't making fun of you or anything,” I said. “It’s just so completely removed from my world. We don’t have alchemists. Are there a lot where you’re from?”

“Small pockets of them, but there aren't very many anywhere really. Especially America. I don’t think many Americans are fond of Alchemists. That's probably what scares me the most about living there.”

“I’d punch whoever even sneezed in your direction.”

“You shouldn't be so reckless. And how about if I lived in California and you were in Chicago?”

“If you move to California, I’ll meet you at the airport and we can be neighbors. We can get a giant swimming pool spanning the two backyards.”

“You really think being reckless and impulsive is sweet, don’t you?”

“I think it makes you smile.”

To You

I love you for reading my blog or at least dropping by. I hope you're doing well. 

Running Dark

I went running last night at about 7:40 when it was already dark. I haven't been running much since coming here and boxing isn't great fitness training because of it is technique focused. So to supplement it, I thought I'd run twice a week. I went on the mountain. The first part is a steep incline with few lights and a few turns and a lot of roots. I brought my phone with a flashlight but even with it, I couldn't see beyond the next step. Going straight up while avoiding roots and loose rocks and not knowing how much farther to the flat part really drained my stamina.

I took a break at the top and after calming my breathing, I did some shadow boxing under the street light just to keep active. But some Korean lady walked by, an ajima, and she walked past me, eyeing me, and evening turning around and walking backwards to watch me.