Eric Vargas's Blog

Dawn Bomb

From the latest offensive, Frogfoot drops cluster munitions. 

Taking Level IV Plates Overseas

Much has been written on this and there is much misinformation. The law is as follows:

§ 123.17 Exemption for personal protective gear.

(a)-(e) [Reserved]

(f) Port Directors of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shall permit U.S. persons to export temporarily from the United States without a license one set of body armor covered by U.S. Munitions List Category X(a)(1), which may include one helmet covered by U.S. Munitions List Category X(a)(6), or one set of chemical agent protective gear covered by U.S. Munitions List Category XIV(f)(4).

Category X(a)(1) reads as follows:

(a) Personal protective equipment, as follows:

(1) Body armor providing a protection level equal to or greater than NIJ Type IV;

Hence level IV plates are legal is brought for yourself, declared at customs and brought back to the US.

Leaving Ukraine After Leaving The Legion

There is some scuttlebutt going around from various individuals online claiming that volunteers in the legion are not being allowed to leave the country. From personal experience this is false. In order to leave the country you myst first terminate your contract and state this explicitly to the border guards. Do not go awol from your unit and then expect to be able to cross.

The Mere Tide P87

Passing a gambling tent a voice pierced the electric and alluring beep and chime of the slot machines and they about faced to see a flaxen genitrix in tank top hard by a vendor of cotton candy and who demanded Andy heel. He groaned a shucked protest but obeyed. Allie in worried tow, Dachni behind. The mother regarded this addition to her spawn with disgust from behind aviation glasses that twinned the child back.

Excuse you I have to talk to my son in private.

Private means byed yeself.

Arent you a walking dictionary.

Dachni squinted at the streams of bodies which round them flowed. Theys jess the shitted a folks here.

Just go somewhere.

She pulled Andy out of earshot though still in sight through the gaps in the perambulations of fairgoers and she could see the wagging finger, the snarl. Through the open flap of the tented den a man hurrahed to a jackpot jingle ringing out over the monody of the vapid sounded from a hundred flashing machines like bioluminescent displays of certain insects in heat to attract pollinators with pockets of tokens. To be deposited down aluminum chutes to a sterile womb that only infrequently birthed returns out their strongboxes. She moved from this discord near enough to her friend to catch a vague euphemistic cautioning against the sin of venery, a denunciation of deviations from the human species and the familial shame and terminus such a liaison would bring. A surge of animosity towards matronage made Dachni rethink her own rethinking towards that porcelain idol that had regarded all with the same contemptuous apathy from rocking chair. The mother finished her harangue and Andy shuffled over with a gaze upon crushed litter.

Im not allowed to hang out with you anymore.

Dachni shoved past him. You fucking bitch. Dachni grabbed the bossed longhorn glam of her plate buckle. Wettis ta fuckin matter with ye?

A backhand scored a ruddy blush across her temples and Dachni rammed her fist into the woman’s stomach. Her enemy however was an athlete and the response was a battery that did not cease unto the intervention of the law. A plainclothes who shoved the mother back.

What the hell are you doing? Do you know who that is? Do you have any idea the kind of lioness shit you will be dipped in if this makes the rounds?

The mother checked her hair that it had not been displaced and with low eye roll that her nails had not suffered blemish. I was defending myself.

Andy helped Dachni to her feet.

Dont touch that little shit.

Andy didnt let go her hand.

The officer put himself between the mother and the child. Youd better hope that lizardly asshole goes the legal route because were not getting involved.

A deputy approached the scene of the fray. We will though Ms. Leyland please dont concern yourself.

Stay out of this, said the cop.

My jurisdiction, retorted the deputy.

Im first on scene.

Excuse me gentleman I need to take my children home.

The deputy doffed his hat. Go right on ahead Ms. Leyland.

Leyland reached around the officer and snatched Andy by the ear and dragged him into the crowds.

Dachni would have pursued but a hand barred her.

Let it be lambkin.

Actually Ill be citing her for disturbing the peace and detaining her until Judge Gunning can schedule a hearing.

You moose toothed country fuck you will not.

The officer ordered the child to stay by his side and the deputy issued a countermandment. Dachni didnt move. The deputy moved to apprehend her and the cop drew his stunner and fired and the deputy shrieked and fell over like plywood. Dachni kicked him hard in the eye. The cop swung her around.

Im going to pretend I didnt see that if you come without hassle.

The deputy groaned and Dachni turned and kicked him again in his teeth.

The cop sighed heavily. His head sank and he turned around. Get it out of your system.

He led her to the police trailer in the center of the fair where officers breaked on coffee exuded a casual contempt for all things civilian. A medic was brought over to minister her wounds but she fended him away with an animal mewl and convulsive flailing and went to hide under a radio table between coolers.

Going ons in the fair came through in a squawky chatter. Curt reports bracketed by static. Brawls or fiascoes of drunkenness. A preacher whose spirit had come to encompass the kingdom trying to baptize the goats, his sermon to convert his parish to pescetarianism. As one dies so doeth the other they all have the same breath and there is no advantage of man over beast. No no advantage at all. Have you ever slathered a thick wad of Turner’s Spicy Brand Chili over the mild and tangy anus of a shoat and simply marveled at the sublime majesty of the cosmos over. Butt sex over. Roger butt sex over and out.

The trailer was a fifty by fifteen cubit mobile headquarters that for the purpose of shaming the budget of the shrievalty was deployed in open configuration. Scatterguns were locked in a steel mesh cabinet. A radar array hummed on its spinning support. Outsider the trailer armored suits were on display. The Pb-91 standard issue IRACS or Integrated Riot Carapace Armored Suit can withstand a 9x47mm round, features thermal regulating, shock and concussive dampening, a shoulder mounted canister launcher and a networked helmet with configurable heads up display and sync to the A-18 model assault rifle. The armorer exhibited stun guns, stun batons, the L62v.0, fondly referred to as the voiler amongst its users, that superheats moisture in the skin. Handcuffs for men, EM interrupters for machines. The Mk33f grenade capable of generating an electromagnetic pulse that can disable androids with up to an LIII hardened rating. There was a range for drone flying and a virtual range where small arms loaded with blanks could be discharged at dummy criminals. The range master barking orders like an officer of a musket line. Brown Bess or some other wife.

A boy pointed to a cage by the sheriff’s station where the workers from earlier that morning had resumed their incarceration in a cage like specimens awaiting shipment. Are they under arrest?

Theyre serving sentence.

Huh. He revolved around his arm still aloft, mindful of his ice cream, and settled his pointer on Dachni. So why isnt she in there?

Their guide studied the little stowaway who tried to make herself smaller. He muttered something under his breath. He searched out a cop on break. Nothings parallel forever right Karsel?

Yessir.

Karsel.

Chief?

Take over for me.

Yessir.

The Mere Tide P86

They ate at the table of a ramen hawker alongside gamming gals infiltrated the festivities from all over the county. A brazen platoon of commercial fornicators suborning husbands and bachelors even in these daylight hours with stagy emphasis of bosom. Wearing each a mauve string on those fingers reserved for the nuptial band.

In the dim rooms of a freakshow tent whole shelves of the stillborn preserved in jars of formaldehyde. Giant heads, limbs like charred branches dredged from lagoons or compost pits. Things without sight or hearing, so poorly made as to beg species. Things haloed by organs developed outside the body. How was it they were come by? So many convinced to sell their dead. Another room held hairy siamese twins whats hair could be combed for extra. The thing sat as if patient for some promised inauguration into the proper ranks of men. The owner of these horrors wafted a comb before them.

Only a dollar. Only a dollar if you dare.

Outside Andy asked if she would accompany him on a tractor ride.

Children clutching balloons strolled by, their faces vaguely feline from the painting of artists.

Do you want to go for a ride?

She looked at Andy. Whatever gits the fuck away from here.

An avuncular apiarist of ragmatical years boosted the handbound chain of children into the trailer. Dachni and Allie and Andy. They took their seats on hay bales and the apiarist shut up the tailgate and mounted the tractor and shifted into gear and let his foot sink on the pedal. The transmission had long had a leak and the tractor lurched and the passengers jerked forward. Andy caught Dachni and Allie flew off.

Andy moved into the newly vacated space between them. You ok?

Why wouldnt be?

Im not ok! cried Allie.

You all ok back there?

Were fine.

They rumbled down blue corridors of fence tape, the fat tires chumbling up the mud with its sinuous treads. Allie grim faced and chewing Dachni’s plaits with a goatly furiousness. Even in the favorable light of midday the fair seemed harbored of a malignancy and the pilot would say it was the deviancy of the patrons unleashed from domestic considerations into the bridled orgasm of the carnival which is the mask of man’s lust for wickedness. A vagabond phantasmagoria of the abhorrent deoderized by the accompaniment of more innocent attractions that could be driven away should the outrages transgress taste for man does yearn within his loins to encounter the perverse in order that he may at once satiate appetite and conscience. For the exile of the other is the affirmation of the self, likewise the destruction, and Dachni listening did well recall in many the satisfaction of a latent taste for the benignly grotesque and beyond the dim suspicion of kinship more to the exhibits than the voyeurs thereof she worried herself might a day be curated to some sideshow that the denizens of just such a town might pay for the pleasure of loathing her.

The county league is coming up.

Dachni looked at Andy. He was almost blond. In the twilight of boyishness, beginning to possess the manner of speaking of one thing to broach another. He adjusted his bill hat and squinted at the thin line of woods in the north.

Whats those?

Its when the towns get their baseball teams to play against each other. We didnt have it last year. So its Matraple, Boyce, Igdao, Harter, Amodibunce, and Bluemont. Amodibunce won year before last. Theyre stacked but I think its pretty much done. Boyce is out and Igdao is probably out.

Why?

Theyre a lot farther east of us.

So?

So they caught the plemena.

Hows yer reck onta war?

Andy assumed a martial air almost unconsciously. I guess well have to give them the kick whenever everyone’s ready. You know they dropped the recruitment age to fifteen?

Dachni had not known.

It cant be much of a war if theyre going to send schoolers in.

Prolly et wont be.

Ill enlist. Im not scared. You wouldnt want to go in would you?

Dachni shrugged. Hassint gived no word to it. But theyd hafta give somethin fer it.

I wont do it for the money. Im just. Im just sick of hearing about them. Every day you know? How theyre always shooting at us across the border. Or misdropping bombs. You heard about Yaffet?

Never heard of a yaffet.

Yaffet was a pilot flying along the border and some rusky flew too close and their planes collided. He landed north of the border and they put him in prison saying he violated their airspace.

Thass bad fer him.

Do you like living around here?

Dachni looked at the pinched earnest face of her interrogator. Ets not worst.

They tilted right with the tractor’s turn.

Do you think youd want to live here?

She didnt know.

Haybox is pretty good at pitching.

He is.

This Japanese cripple came through and showed him how to pitch. He’d been gnawed on by a shark. What he said anyways. He gave us the bat and the mitts. Except for Sherm. He had his own mitts. Do you want to come over?

Oaerr where?

To my house.

Fored whut?

I dont know. Hang out. Watch a movie.

Tonight?

Sure.

Caint not tonight.

Tomorrow then. Or you know later this week.

Ok. Jess say ta when.

When.

Dziwna Kapliczka P4

In the next minute the hospital staff was pulling extra gurneys from storage and placing them in the wards with enough space for a skinny man could squeeze through if he went gut sucked. The rooms full the halls were lined and wheelchairs were positioned as a backstop for overflow. A quartermaster was setup on each floor for the prejudiced distribution of supplies. Behind each desk were big linen baskets overstuffed with tall mounds of bandages or tourniquets or stockinettes or rolls of cast tape or cast paddigns. Pallets of antiseptics were brought up from the basement and the bottles were removed and the pallets covered first in linen then in blankets and leaned against walls fore surely there would be use. Stacks of EKGs were presynched to the master server and left in stacks of forty in each room. The pharmacy was oped and the pharmicists stood ready with tandem runners at their command. The front desk was converted to triage and the lobby chairs were stowed and extra cots were setup in grid.

All this was accomplished in seventeen minutes but the ambulances did not arrive for nearly a half hour. But hundreds were arriving. By car or transit or shod. A mass havoc bowling through the doors in a clamor of confusion and blood. Janda heard this permeate through his feet and him on the third floor. A muffled undertone of terror and pain like noises rumored to be heard when standing above the hollows in the earth rumored to connect to the pits of hell. Janda was at the nurse’s desk requisitioning autoinjectors when the elevator first pinged. He looked with others towards the sound with dark foreboding.

When the doors opened a man wet in blood and born under the arm seat of two nurses and followed by three men shouting at their hinds appeared.

We need a bed!

303! shouted Janda rushing to make a quick appraisal of the wound.

They gnawed his fucking foot off! said one of the man’s friends.

Janda pulled backed the blood heavy bottom of the man’s jean leggings. The friend had told truth. The forefoot was mostly gone though the metatarsals remained albeit fleshless. The foot proper hung by a skinflap from the posterior of the leg. The achilles tendon was dangling like a angler’s bait and enough calf was missing that Janda could see the tibia. The man was palefaced and blood was leaking out of his wound. A belt had been cinched tight to his thigh offcenter. He loosened and repositioned and retightened it on the inside of the thigh.

Take him to 301-I mean 303. Get this thing, he tugged at the belt, off and put on an esmach.

There mores on our ass, said one of the bearers and as he spoke the doors to the stairwell opened and folk bypassing the lobby queue came pouring in.

Janda flashed a look at the elevators. The numbers in the lintels were illuminated 5, 3, 1. The up arrow of the rightmost hall lantern illuminated. He ran to the elevator. The elevator chimed just as he slid to it. As the doors opened blood freckled his front. The patient was a tall bearded brawler and he must not have understood what had happened for he backed into a corner and then he began the panic that would end his life. He held his hand to his neck and he fended the physician’s assistant who was now trying to see what had happened. He shoved the man back cursing at him and he was becoming unsteady on his feet and the blood was dropping on the floor and he slipped and went to the floor.

Let me see let me see.

But the patient was thrashing in sacrificial terror, raging against the red light and now pummeling his restrainer. Janda tackled the big man to the floor.

Calm down, calm down.

But the big man was dying and he flailed. Janda was trying to see the wound. An avulsion in his neck below the ear, a small nick in the carotid. The doors shut. A down arrow appeared in the

Calm down, we can fix this but you have to hold still.

He wasnt bleeding before! screamed the assistant. He fucking looked at me. I told him to keep his head straight! Stop moving goddamn you!

Get me a clamp! Run!

The assistant was hugging the dying man’s legs together and when he let go the man began kicking himself clockwise in that bloodstained space.An elbow caught Janda in the face. The assistant sprawled back down.

Stop moving youre making it worse!

A gargled invective of bubbling froth was sputtering into Janda’s ears. Hands grabbed at his hands. The man’s face swung and he could see pupils constricted to pinholes. The face averted again and in the doing the jugular nick tore wide and blood sputtered as thought out a spile.

The elevator chimed and the doors parted to reveal a theophany of hell or else a passable pantomine surmised in the lower regions where confusion reigns and hope fails eternal. A bedlam of misery. Men running. Men bleeding, voming shitting blood. Everywhere the dead lay as they had fallen and those who were knocked down were rampled underfoot and the wounded staggered and sloughed, some of the wounded articulating dumbly the strange gait of bustards and others who held the stumps of arms or legs and others tottering hunchbacked where they had been gutshot and some hemmoraghing all at once great gouts of blood that splashed in gothic fleuorons on the floor. The cots were gone. The triage station was overrun. In this welkin were some who wore the garb of doctors but they were lost and none could ultimately bestead these victims brought to murderous excitement mayhaps by some faultyvaccine for the rabid that had imbrued in the nerves the degenerative chaos it sought to forefend. A stench of human nidor assaulted the nostrils and there were men tangled together in violence and a man holding in his arms the limp forms of his children and men striking each other with fists, chairs, pipes, a woman cored with a boxcutter and her intestines uncoiling like a rope and a blind man kneeling dwelt upon a maze of vomit as though some portent might be divined in that awful purge and everywhere in this monstrous bedlam were the forces of order confounded by the imminence of death, their features gurn and gored and raising their shrieks and two old laicy orisoning for an intercession in this this fraction of a froth fleck that is the killing of this world.

Dziwna Kapliczka P3

They continued through the parking lot. Janda looked over at the ambulance dock. EMTs and paramedics loitering, smoking cigarettes. They seemed at ease. He spat. As they came under the canopied dropoff a sedan pulled up and a man with a was helped out of the rear seats. He was taken underarm and they could see the compound fracture, a tibia, bulging his jeans. Musial rushed to assist.

We got it, said a younger likeness of the man.

It was an accident, said the wounded man holding up hands holding hankerchiefs. I fell from a ladder. They gave me brandy! They gave me brandy Im ok.

Do you still have any left on you? asked Janda.

Drank the whole bottle, said the old man with a wink. First time the lady has let me take that much of a drink all year. It was worth it! It was worth it! Ill break the left next week!

The old man laughed.

Janda shook his head and smiled. Come on in. Best sheets in the house.

Through the pair of sliding doors into the waiting area Janda had cause more for to resent his recall. There were thereabouts of thirty people waiting, some injured but most sick and he grabbed Musial by the sleeve.

Were not half full.

Musial was walking towards the receptionist desk. More on the way, he said.

Listen I need to go home.

You didnt seem in a hurry.

Listen I live in Dziesiąta, the wind is blowing eastward.

If you cared you would have been there already. Hello Bozena.

We need you in Husk 2 .

Is Jankowski there too?

No he was moved to 6.

Thanks.

Is that you Janda?

Janda admitted that it was.

Husk 4. Radiology.

I know.

He turned towards the elevators.

Hold up.

What?

The daycrew is coming in but I cant reach Woźniak, Duda, Kackza, and Ryba. Do you have their personal cells?

I dont keep up with them.

Tak tak. Youre with Gniewek. Go up. Are you sober?

Hes sober.

Im sober.

Ok go.

In radiology he checked in with the nurse on file. Zabłocki.

Nice to have you back, he said sliding over a data slave. Five patients waiting. All uploaded. Heres your fluroscope. Scan them gallant. Hold up. Are you sober?

He made a quick survey of his rooms in the husk. He had three patients in from Barnowice across town and two more from Majdanek. Those from Barnowice had come from brawls and had greensticks, fractured hands, broken ribs but the fourth had a spiral fracture of the femur and the fifth was comminuted.

This last man was in his early twenties. Janda flipped through his file. Lets take a look. He stood over the man where he lay in his cot studying the realtime image on the fluroscope’s monitor. His scapula was crushed and the clavicle had separated from the acromion.

How did this happen?

A car accident, said the youngster’s girlfriend who sat at his bedside. We were driving for coffee and all of a sudden this crazy man jumps into our lane. Max had to swerve to avoid him and we hit a lightpole.

What happened to the man?

He ran off. I dont know.

I should have ran him over, said the youngster breathing hard.

No doubt.

Janda flipped through his file. You were admitted at 11:43.

Something like that.

Hm.

What time did this happen?

About 9:30. They were taking us to another hospital but then we turned around. There was a fire or something.

The one by Garbarska?

No this was different.

Rowdy night.

You said it.

By Janda’s thinking a liquid cast was necessary to reset the wound and said so. A nurse brought a topographic cast. A pudgy metal like malleable as dough. They administered an anaesthetic and sat the boy up and molded the cast against the dark purple stain on his chest. When this was done Janda unspooled a long wire with a needle anode at the end. He inserted it into the cast and ran a current into the metal. Instantly the cast began to trill and bobble, spikes and sinks, each movement adjusting each fragment of bone into place until the proper shape of the bones had been restored.

They eased the man back supine.

Janda pulled up a roller stool and flipped out a prescription pad from his pocket and began scribbling.

Convalesce for two to four months. He ripped off the top page of the pad and handed it to the girlfriend. This is for Indodrate. Itll speed up the healing process by providing a binding calcium, itll form hollow lattice bridges between the breaks that the body can naturally fill.

Thank you.

Thanks doc.

My duty everyday.

He performed the same procedure on the fourth man’s femur.

How did this happen?

Dogs.

Dog?

They chased me out of an alley and I slipped and landed on a bit of piping. Must have hit it just right.

Janda studied the man. He lay motionless staring up and his breathing was of that steady pace of one trying to evade pain. His right leg was an ugly bruise but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

Did they attack you?

No. They ran right past. I thought they were after me. I guess not.

About what time did this happen?

I dont know. Nine, nine thirty?

You were admitted at 10:48.

Yeah. You know these roads are really awful.

They seem alright to me.

Or your drivers cant drive. I swear they hit every pothole on the ride over.

Janda!

Janda turned towards the doorway. Gniewek was leaning in.

Janda! Ja-there you are. Gniewek swung into the room.

Tak?

Code 4.

4 why?

Its a flood out there. MD says were to prepare for maximum occupancy and probably overmax.

Christ now what?

Muckup on the highway. Meatboxes inbound.

A muckup?

Gniewek was already back in the hall. I dont know the details, he yelled, his voice growing more distant, but its bad. Ten minutes.

The Dreamer

And so at last the dreamer having failed slept and woke of his dream and because no voice thundered out the tattered lighted chords nor whispered windwise through the whited gloom cried he forsake me evermore and in one thrust of his curved horn gored one third the world of them that were born.

Dziwna Kapliczka P2

Fifteen minutes later Janda was being interviewed by a police sergeant in paramilitary getup. In his drunk vision he saw him. The roughshod jackboot, the black trousers, the blue paramilitary jacket under the black vest. Toolbelt with pistol. His nametag read Jaraszkiewicz. He wore a blue beret. His left arm was a barebone augment. He had expected such a creature as him and he had drunk as much as possible to ease the interview. He volunteered what he knew of the foul dishevelment that had importuned him unawares filthy to the rings.

Describe them, said the sergeant.

They were…looked expensive. Not taken care of but valuable. They had gems. Ruby, malachite, emeralds. I think they were gold, some silver.

How many did you count?

A few on each finger.

Anything else?

No.

You work at nr 5 down the street?

Yes.

What is your speciality?

I am a radiologist.

Dayshift?

Yes. Third floor. Thats where radiology is.

Thank you.

Is that all?

Thats all.

Are there Russians you know…he wafted his drink to indicate the general surroundings, roaming.

I dont think so.

What happened on the bridge? At Garbarska?

Fire. They got it under control a few minutes ago.

Really.

Im not a liar.

Outside was a circular lightning of police lights. Cruisers screamed down their sirens wailing as though after a tied silver tongue. The sergeant moved on. He ordered a full bottle of Sabiur, that classy liquor disdained by men and began to drink straight from the bottle. After a while he set his head on the bar. Sirens woke him. There was an uneasy air in the pub. He looked out the window and saw a silhouette sprint past. His phone vibrated against his thigh. He took it out. Five missed calls. Thirteen texts. Some of the calls were from numbers, others from words. He turned his phone off. When he woke a third time the bar was all but empty and it not midnight. He ordered another drink. The fourth time he raised his head from the cool wetness of the bar it was to gaze into the angry face of Musial.

Janda looked his colleague up and down. He was still in scrubs and blood was down his front. To be anywhere but here. He thought of what to say but no words came out.

Is your phone off? demanded Musial.

No.

Three hours Janda. Youre on call until three hours after shift.

When…when…

Get up weve been recalled.

Im off. Its…its shit…when is it? He pulled out his phone to look but it was off.

Its past 23:00.

Thats more than three hours.

Bartender. Give me some szybkie.

The bartender got a blister packet from the shelf and tossed it. Musial caught the packet and pushed two capsules through the foil.

Take them.

Janda had both his hands flat on the bar and his head was hanging in the space betwixt them. Im off.

Youre either coming to the hospital as an employee or a fucking patient.

Im not-

Janda was unaccountably on the floor. His jaw aching. He started to get up and this time he saw the fist, the uppercut. Blood spurted out of his lip.

Yeah, yeah, said Musial. You coming.

Janda spat blood.

Are you coming?

Fuck. Janda began to murmur.

Tired off dealing with your shit. Going to box some knowl-

Janda held up his hand. Fucks sake I said Im coming.

Back to the hospital and brisk.

Its been fucking hectic, said Musial. Everyone decided to lose their minds on the same night. And it isnt even friday.

Were not a burn center.

What?

I said were not a burn center. Why arent they going to Samodzielny?

It wasnt the fire. Its riots. The athiest thrust.

The fucking…are you serious? Wheres my car.

Janda turned to depart but Musial was a wrestler and he arm dragged him back and hazed him forward.

What time did the game start? In Sao Paulo?

This isnt soccer hooligans. Take the Szybkie. Take this seriously.

Janda searched his pockets for the capsules. He pulled out two blue glowing capsules covered in lint. He popped them dry. A grotesque sobriety overcame him. He shuddered violently and his fingers flexed like a dying spider’s.

Goddamn.

Dont use the lords name in vain.

I hate that feeling.

Clarity?

Sobriety.

For the haze had drained away and all was in a state of unnatural clearness and his vision sharp equally at the center and the edge.

What about Nr 4?

Theyre on diversion.

What about Wiejski?

Diversion.

Walęga?

Diversion.

Night of grudges.

You tell me. All I know is were about to palm the flood.

Why do we care about fisticuffing hooligans.

Why do we care about washed out punks who need a bottle of shampoo emptied in their ass? Hurry up. I dont care about your problems. Tak? You took a job. You do it.

Yes they hired a machine. I cannot feel. Excellent.

I dont know what your problem is.

Sullen the voice that gave the reply. You dont care anyways.

Exactly right. Whatever they are check them at the door.

What do you think Ive been doing?

No one knows what the fuck youve been doing.

I bet.

Musial arrested him by the shoulder. They walked the way back in grudging silence. Prudent as he was Musial paused at the crosswalk to look both ways and good he did for two cars went racing past and a police cruiser followed leaving a blaring ring in the ears.

They hustled across. In the parking lot Musial said: I dont know what heinous shit you have on the dyrektor that he hasnt fired you yet but I swear if you continue in this godless fuckabouts I will make sure you retire with a tyre iron. Understood?

Janda was eying empty spaces in the parking lot. Whatever.

What is it?

Janda looked at Musial. What?

Your problem.

It doesnt matter.

Answer me.

I dont have to. And if Maslak wants me gone he can tell me himself.

Im going to reccomend he does.

Do what suits you.

Dziwna kapliczka

And again the Lord betook Eshaim to speak.8 And Eshaim went down, neither went up anymore.9 Then was there a tamarisk of brimstone sprung even into the bowels of the city.10 And nitre imbued its roots and they afflicted the great houses of the city and of the governor and the priests and behold foulness thickened the roots.11 And the Lord gazed upon the countenance of the earth saying, Behold that evil which prevaileth even unto the end of sight.12 And them that heard were shriven to the knee even upon that ground.13 Then a third of men were smote with a grippe frenzy to know not their kin nor anyone nor spare even the suckling.14 And another third were astonished in their hearts and tooketh up the sword that they might slay by the edge thereof the mad.15 And the Lord spoke a halt into the pinion which doth change the sun and also the engine whereby it moves.16 And darkness swayed the counter of the earth and the space wherein dawn was barred was three days.17 And the night prolonged was exceedingly dark.18 And men named the darkness ichabod and abyss.19

He stood on the roof in the cold and the wind and he watched the sun dissolve like a tungsten platelet into the horizon, its faint shine slipping through the city. He sucked his cigarette down to the filter and exhaled a thick blue smog and let the stub fall and with the heel of his shoe scraped out the its faint light.

The nightshift was already on its rounds when he came downstairs. He nodded to Pakulnis, to Dowgiałło, to Balasas. He went to the locker room and opened his locker and stripped out of his scrubs and hung them up and changed.

Gliński walked in. Look whos last out again, he said.

I wanted a cigarette.

They havent outlawed in car smoking yet.

Yet.

Yes. Still though.

I hate the smell of smoke in leather. Its like sitting in a chemical factory.

Tak tak. Heading home to the harpy? he asked.

Unless god strikes me dead. Pray he does.

I see. I too would prefer to view neon through the belled bottom of colored glass. Dont take Postvide, there was an accident. The lanes are jammed to hell.

Janda shut his locker and pressed his head against the thin vents. Cold metal. Shit.

I know.

What happened?

Gliński shut his locker. I didnt bother to find out. I saw that it was bad and not over. 88.5 should have updates. I have to get on though. Lublin is a city that likes to die at night.

Janda didnt check the radio. He took the elevator down to ground and looking not left not right escaped through the sliding doors of Lublin General. Ambulances were in the circle and ambulances were in the dock. He raised a reluctant hand to those who waved and head down he kept on through the parking lot. His car was towards the back and when he came to the driver side he stared at the scratched handle a full minute before turning away.

He followed the crosswalk traffic across the four lanes of busy road and walked lonely soul among his austere countrymen to Brzydki Mędrzec. He pushed through the overstickered door into a small L of an atrium and pulled open a second door that let him into the darkened confines of the pub. He foudn himself a seat the bar and the barman did not see his held up finger. He crossed his arms on the bar and hugged his elbows and stared at an amorphous globule of drink squatting before him shouldering a sliding morph of neon light in perpetual dawn or twilight. At his right were two men seated deep in stupurous talk. They were an old man and a man growing old and this latter allowed that he was not a coward.

I was never tested, said the man farther away. That doesnt make you a coward. Lucky.

Thats the trick, said the other man. A man goes his whole life waiting for that chance to prove himself. Hes got the film on repeat, watched it a million times before, finally he finds that the moment has never come. He has never accomplished the manly act. That proves that ah for whatever faults and foolishness thats in me when the meats in the fryer he comes through. Do you know why?

Why?

Because its in his head and he watches it so much that he doesnt recognize the moment when it does come. You have to search for it in the world. Now there are those who crave the spectacle of witnessed action out of vanity or the need to prove something but there are others who want it for redemption. And very often this is prior to an evil act. They think yes I will be selfish this once because I must or I cant resist and when they have done whatever chicanery they do the guilt makes them say let me make up for this somehow, anyhow, and I will do it. Of course most conjure up any excuse they can to weasel out of this bargain but every once in a while some damn nit will take that expiatory plunge. I dont believe it having never seen it, and it does not justify the initial wrong, but maybe it happens and maybe more good than ill is brought about.

Do you think so? That its better or worse. I mean suppose all men did one wrong action and then spent a lifetime trying to make up for it, not that they try to undo the first wrong, but that being humbled by their own guilt strive to live a beneficial life. Towards others. Do you think in that case that those first injustices are in a manner justified because they lead to an exponential multiplication of good?

Good god, said the man laughing, look around you.

No no I meant it as a for instance.

Gaah, I dont nkow, growled the older man refilling his tumbler. Ill tell you this for what its worth. I ripped out my rearview mirror.

The men laughed and the older one winked and they both drank.

The barman hoved up before him. Have you been helped yet?

Stolichnaya.

The barman’s face darkened. Someone behind him tched in warning but Janda didnt look to see who it was.

We dont carry that piss, said the barman.

You dont carry Stoli-oh. Give me, his eyes ran across the bottles on the backwall, Futile Greeks.

The barman grunted and turned aroudn and got the bottle from the shelf and poured a glass full and dropped in the ice like coins and slid the glass to him on a coaster.

Remember, nothing out of Kalinigrad.

Ok.

Ask for it again and Ill put you out on your ass.

I said I wont.

The barman stalked off but before Janda had taken his first drink another leaned towards him.

Youre a fan of the dagestai.

Janda looked down and jumped off his stool. Jesus what the fuck are you. He had spilled some of the drink on his hand and he shook the droplets off like holy water. What had perched at his elbow was a frightening scrap of walleyed heretic. A wrinkled face that housed rusty teeth, thats brows were like borebrushes and him in his sooty overfrock and breeches and cracked leather shoes filthy enough that his person clothes and all might have been used to clean the bores of howitzers.

Janda retook his stool. Move back a little, he said.

The sleeves of the heretic’s overfrock were long enough that they hooded the foreknuckles of his fingers and as he withdrew the cuffs pulled back to reveal gnarled fingers kept straight by rings that belonged on a richer man.

What do you want, said Janda.

Ill tell you this, said the man producing a flask from an inner pocket and operating the cap lever took a covert swig and smiled a sly wricken smile.

Theyve unnatural gods. Evil gods. They say the little one worships a cannibal.

I dont follow politics, said Janda and took at last a draught of the heavy ale.

Weve our own queer gods, continued the heretic. He raised his hand and let it fall upon the bar obliterating the spill of alcohol. He pointed at where the spill had been and smiled and then he sucked the colored wetness from his palm blade.

I think we can manage them.

You there shitstain! The barman was lumbering down. Who the fuck let you in here?

The heretic grinned and skittered towards the exit.

Thats right get out of here.

Barkeep! shouted a man from a table.

What?

Unmute the TV for me.

Janda looked up at the television. A female reporter was standing on a rail bridge overlooking a block totally afire. Twists of fire were raining down and smoke was rising out of a collection of warehouses and even in the night it could be told the smoke was not black. The camera panned down into a gravel lot where fire crews hosed the flames and drones zoomed into the fire squelching their agents.

The bartender pointed a remote at the television and the woman’s voice was suddenly audible.

…Garbarska where firefighters are hard at working suppressing a warehouse fire. Four people have been killed and an unconfirmed number injured. I am told they are being taken to the 3rd Military Clinical Hospital…

That isnt you is it? said the younger man.

I work at Samodzielna Stacja Medyczna nr 5, muttered Janda watching.

…have aired the possibility that the fire is due to the actions of Russian saboteurs. Already paladins of Porzadek Poszukiwaczy are in helicopters searching for them. The Metropolitan advises that the saboteurs are highly trained heavily armed and that all citizens are to report any sucpicious persons to the police immediately.

You hear that? said the older man.

I heard it, said the barman.

A suspicious man. Was that not a suspicious man?

He was.

What are you waiting for for god’s sake?

The barman sighed and pulled a cellphone out of his backpocket.