Charging the flash

The bloody memory of Montezuma’s worst defeat was etched into Tezcatlipoca’s consciousness.

As next morning’s mist habitually rolled across the lake’s surface it hinted at a scale of carnage only apparent once the morning sun came up one hour later. A spear here, a helmet there. Next a bare torso, its severed head bobbing awkwardly some metres away.

The Lord of the Smoking Mirror had walked the gangplanks so gallantly and patriotically defended many times. Asleep, awake. In this world or the next. It didn’t matter which and didn’t change the outcome, the balance of power that shifted that day forcing the occult to bury itself deeper while the world began its ill-fated love affair with Christianity.

Planks awash with blood. The army – his army – that had been cut down as the Spanish horses galloped through the water (charging the flash) laid six deep in some places. Conquistador casualties had only been high at the beginning of the battle until Cortes himself had appeared and confused some who’d thought he was a god. Thus the acolytes were torn apart for their divided loyalties and Tezcatlipoca himself would gladly have smote the emperor had it been wise to but the calendar wheel had already foretold what path the stars and planets would take and who was he (even he) to question.

Women had come in canoes to silently lay wreaths while others tossed blooms into the water. Multicoloured petals mingled with the blue blood and white pelicans with bright orange bills came to paddle quietly and fish. Even the giant seabirds, the cormorants and albatrosses, found carrion (flesh) on which to feast.

Fish also began to pick clean the bones and rats brave enough to swim found food for themselves for weeks.

The vultures of that day still occupied Tezcatlipoca’s imagination. Silhouettes like black paper aeroplanes circling in their thousands. It was impossible nowadays to see such carnage and receive so many new souls. First he would retrieve the mask and recruit Jimmy. Then he would begin all over again.

Guanajuato’s hills strewn with secret caves and steep, shady overhangs were now strewn with ornate and significant art. These were talismanic drawings that his Excellency the giver of life and death had spent the whole night drawing. Noone could hex him here. Not now.

He began to feel invincible and needed a woman, several women in fact.

The Skies Fall

CHAP·TER ONE ·NTOMBI

forever a·go

The sky transitioned from a frigid burning red on the horizon into an early night lavender. It seasoned the air with oncoming rain, and a nine-degree chill of winter. Tonight the onset of storms brought on by each winter appeared less severe than last year. And as with every winter, someone was bound to leave Botswana’s population, to become one of those missing people, one of those who had ‘angered the ancestors. . . .’ It was said that the storms were an act of retribution on mankind.  In comparison to the storms, death was far kinder; at least it left a body behind, while the raging storms left nothing but destroyed homes, turning our quiet town Palapye into something that resembled historical ruins.          

My brother stared at the warm glow of the sun twinkling into twilight, trying his best to drive faster against its death. The car before us had its taillight blinking at us, the plate number was 666.

“Death is winking at us,” I whispered, cringing and hating myself for my impulsivity.

“Don’t worry Ems it will all be fine.” Jon’s face had frozen in fear for a second; it was difficult for him to get over my strange talks sometimes.

“How can the officials bloody set a curfew at sunset? It’s ludicrous.” He whizzed in between slow-moving cars, hooting at every opportunity.

“They’re trying to be on the safe side. You know how fickle these storms are, how indefinite their timing is.”

He gave me a hard-steeled look with dark inhumane eyes. I instantly took back my words.

“It could be you one day.” His voice, spine-chilling, carried intimidating maturity. “It could be Mum, or Tshidi.” Tshidi short for Matshidiso was my twin sister older than me by just two minutes. Apparently that made her old enough to consider herself on the same maturity level as my brother who was twenty-one years old in third year of Medicine.

I couldn’t tell him my thoughts on the storms. I knew I was wrong, but the idea of it happening to me seemed far-fetched. It was too abstract to consider it happening in my periphery, for me to suddenly go missing with no trace. But death caused by the storms was statistically almost as common as drunk driving in Botswana.

“It could be Dad too,” I whispered, then immediately regretted bringing up the topic, which only provoked Jon’s bad temper. Dad was overlooking a building project his architecture firm was working on in the city of Gaborone. It had been three weeks since we last saw him.

“God would be punishing him rightly for leaving his family and putting business before them.”

“Where do you think all those people go?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders, his eyes trained inwardly. “Maybe they’re still there.”

I wanted to ask where, but he was looking at the skies, the heavy, grey clouds closing in on our town as if they carried more than turbulent rains. He grumbled something incomprehensible and sped faster into the falling night, reminded yet again that he wouldn’t be able to turn back if the curfew caught him. Lightning touched the land delicately in the far distance; nature was beautiful and harmless at times, when quiet, until I heard the crack of thunder.

“Dammit!” Jon slammed the brakes early enough to avoid hitting the car before him, the last in a long line of traffic.

Far ahead men in neon lime jackets skirted in-between cars, checking cargo as if we were crossing the border. Only the long stretch of road, with nothing more entertaining than trees, separated the two towns of Palapye and Serowe. Palapye lay at the central-eastern edge of Botswana. Grams lived in Serowe and tonight her ‘inconsequential’ maid decided not to pitch, and I was entrusted to keep her company for the weekend.

“Safety-Shmafety. You’d think they do this on purpose.” Jon looked at his watch and hit his steering wheel. It was quarter to seven, fifteen minutes before pure night.

“They won’t let you through to come back,” I said, rather smugly.

“I can’t leave mum and Tshidi back home alone.”

“You’re leaving me and Grams alone,” I countered.

“Your mother is pregnant. Has been for a year and a month; you can be an irritating scatterbrain at times. Honestly Ntombi,” he harrumphed and turned the engine off.

Mum had pulled the plug on the doctors, no more waiting and experimenting or drawing samples from her amniotic fluid. No more sticking needles into the home of her baby. No more questions without endless answers. Thirteen months was only four months away from nine. What really put us off was that mum and Tshidi were comfortable with the situation giving each other serenity and support. The prayers, incense candles and herbal teas Tshidi made turned our home into quite a tension within the family. I understood in many ways why dad stays away long. I know Jon’s anger only concealed his fear for my mother’s life.

“Try and place yourself in her shoes.” I spoke up, “Would you honestly save your life in exchange for the death of your child?” he bit his lip and squinted his eyes in thought.

“Mum’s word is not science. She can’t prove that having a caesarean will ultimately kill the baby. She can’t.” He emphasised, trying to convince himself.

“But would you take that risk?” I fiddled with the cabinet before me. “Mothers have this natural connection to their babies . . .  perhaps it’s that instinct telling her it’s safe. Probably it’s not time yet.”

“Yeah, I remember that story she used tell us about carrying you two,” he ran his hand through his buzz cut hair that complemented his strong jaw and brown dark skin gotten from dad. “You two were born in a little over ten months because you were too busy arguing on who should go first. . . but that’s just fantasy Em.”

“Tshidi nicked me and won the fight, simultaneously giving me this birthmark by my wrist.” Jon laughed, but it didn’t touch his eyes. I traced my hand along the oval birth-mark.

“It was just bedtime stories. This. . .  is insane. Sometimes I think we’re losing her.” he stared again at the storms as if it would be better that they were behind the long pregnancy.

“You’re the only one born in nine months though.” I added to brighten him up.

 That morning Mum had nudged me, pulling my little toes to wake me up. She was carrying a breakfast tray that smelled of sunny-side up eggs, crispy garlic toast, and juicy bacon. I knew she wanted something. It was nice how she didn’t just command it. She wanted me to go stay with Grams and Jon was forced to drive me there.

Jon immediately got out of the car. “Stay put. I’m sure we know someone in this line to give you a lift.”

I knew at that point stores and streets were being evacuated by the authorities. I suppose beggars looked forward to this time, for of course they had shelter and protection. Usually medics, soldiers and police lived in strong makeshift structures in each town, city and village of Botswana, spreading themselves to attend immediately to accidents, to save those who were in danger.

I sighed at my failure to calm Jonathan down, and leaned against the car seat. I wished for once that people would consider what I said, instead of taking me for granted. I listened to the radio warning people to get into their houses. Anyone caught driving past seven o’clock got the same attention as speeding drivers, except the charge was higher – that’s if you made it out alive. Police couldn’t be on the roads when the storms began, risking their lives just to watch any illegal traffic, but the Chinese electronic traffic counters recorded the number plates of cars.

When I arrived at Grams’ late that evening, the weather had picked up, looking gloomier than other days. The trees in the large yard trembled in the wind so violently that it seemed they might be uprooted. I wondered, if I peeled the grey skies back and threw in a sun, would it seem less gloomy? I was upset about being trapped at Grams’ home, for the winds were warring outside over something supernatural we didn’t understand. 

   Grams was by the window, trying to wheel herself outside to protect her garden. I stopped her several times.

“Look at that, this blithering rain is treading down my poor plants. They won’t survive till tomorrow.” Grams treated her plants as humans.

“It’s dangerous to stare out the window.” I approached, trying to pull back her wheelchair, but she had locked it in place.

“That was a superstitious tale I told you girls when you were five; I’m surprised you still remember it. We couldn’t stand by the window for days, afraid that lightning would break it down and take us with it,” she laughed, running her frail fingers across the arms of the wheelchair. Her skin had browned, with the lines of wrinkles finely drawn across her face deepening each time she smiled. “But it’s stormy out tonight; I don’t understand what stupid idiot would still be out there. Villages are sometimes dangerous to live in, so unprotected and open to the wilderness. Being in the house does not completely protect you from the danger. Yes, lightning can still take lives.”

I realized then that perhaps Grams was afraid of thunder and rain. Usually she kept the fire running in the fireplace. I supposed the warmth soothed her nerves. “I saw that in the news, Grams. People have died; this weather has been running for several nights. When Jonathan was driving me over police squads were lined out on the road forcing people to turn back. Forcing them to go back home. This is the only reason I hate winter. every winter this has to happen.”

“Then how did you get here?” Grams turned to me, her face pale.

“The Vilakazis gave me a lift, because Jon had to go back home. I feel like the authorities are hiding something from us.”

“When you can’t show the proof of how people are going missing, except by this weather, then they have to give a standard answer. They are not hiding anything, but trying to protect us. You know how wild it gets when the storms begin.”

I had never forgotten. Our neighbour last year was home alone, his family still visiting friends in Mahalapye. The next morning he was gone. I realised then that people who tended to live alone or were out in the storms just disappeared. We knew the storms killed them, but what happened to those who were supposed to be safe in their houses?

“If you don’t need anything, I better get a head start on the guest room,” I said to Grams.

“Oh, don’t forget that I will set the fire in the open pit tomorrow, so you should be up early to discard any rubbish you find in that room.” Her eyes, hazel with bright gold, sparked to life, adrift in her own thoughts.

“Grams, you should stop doing that, it pollutes the air and other people plus the environment suffer from your actions. Don’t they have some law governing that?”

“In Botswana?” she scoffed. “I haven’t heard of any, and no one seems to be complaining.”

“Grams!”

“Honey, relax. I have long considered that. This is safe fire, there are chemicals created to allow safe backyard burning that kill the pollutants before they are released into the air. So, my little environmentalist, do not worry about that. One would swear you never broke the law before. Life is breaking the law sometimes,” she said distantly.

“What chemicals? I haven’t heard of any.”

“Thank your trustworthy grandmother. Now, I thought you were getting to the guest room.” She waved me away, and turned back to study the weather with a worried expression.

The guest room was also a computer room. It was too bad I couldn’t switch it on to listen to music, for I had forgotten my iPod.  Clothes, which required ironing, were strewn all over the bed. A large mahogany dressing table was backed against the wall and several boxes were crammed to the far corner taped with black tape. Board games were hidden behind several layers of canvas paintings so some pieces were lost and spread on the floor. I shoved the ironing board out of the way.  The helper was supposed to have packed it, but I supposed that was her distasteful way of ‘resigning’. Some books were piled against the wall, ready to topple over. I carried several of them, and decided to put them in Grams’ room, which was surprisingly left open. As children we were never allowed in her room, but I doubted the rule still applied now. I placed the books on the chest of drawers filled with video tapes. She kept it locked since when we were little; to us the chest of drawers was the inaccessible beast. We had fun trying to find ways to get it open.

Smoke was filtering out of the fireplace; Grams must have forgotten to open the damper to allow the smoke to travel up and out of the chimney. But the smoke smelled like incense—sweet and perfumed. It reminded me of the sweet taste of birches that seasoned the forest air behind our house in Palapye. This scent was always present each time the weather was this wild, the source of it just had never occurred to me until now when I peeked into the fire. Hidden in the flames was a leather bound book.

   “Ntombi?”

   “Nothing!” I panicked and jumped when Grams appeared at the doorway. “I mean I was uh. . .bringing in some of your books and uh . . . was just warming myself at the fire.” I stood up, wiping at my knees, trying to hide the anxiety of being caught. “Grams, why didn’t you open the damper? The smoke is filling up the place.”

   “Oh.” Her eyes turned towards the fireplace, curiosity and worry flickered in them. “It’s scented wood. The smoke is harmless; it’s very beneficial for my health.”

   “I should take some for Mum tomorrow,”

   “Well honey, I’ve run out of it and Woolworths has run out of stock.”

   “Oh well, I will check them to find out when they will have it in stock.”

   “Don’t put yourself to such trouble honey, besides I’m really superstitious about your mother and that pregnancy. Forget about the firewood, and get back to cleaning the guest room.” She pushed me out of the room, and I saw how hasty she was about it. When I returned, her bedroom door was locked.

Grams stayed up late in the lounge, reading a novel by the flickering candlelight. The electricity was shut down before the winds began. Each time I crossed the hallway I realized her eyes were still trained on the same page. She would look back towards the curtains and bite her lips. She finally disappeared into her room, and though the violent winds were still busy outside I was still cleaning into the early hours of morning. That’s when I heard it.

   Someone was screaming.

Their voice was high-pitched, stretched into the raucous sky. Thin lines of shooting stars crawled towards the ground, landing as the forms of several men. I hesitated, then grabbed the candle and pressed my face against the window. The clothes the forms wore were made of night. They were staring and scanning the house that stood alone on open land, and immediately scattered when thunder struck. Some disappeared into a blur of speed, others walked, untouched by the power of the wind, towards the little house whose fence had been wrecked.

Hastily others appeared, carrying passed-out neighbours from our village. I saw the Vilakazi boy, who was conscious unlike others, but rattled and frightened. I swallowed thickly, still watching, unable to think or help. The man who was dragging the Vilakazi boy by the leg stopped, picked him up and clamped his throat. The boy flailed in struggle. When he tried to scream again, his voice was snatched, taken, no longer able to sing in fright. I jumped when the window before me fogged. I hadn’t realized I was breathing that hard out of fear. The fog quickly disappeared to reveal an entity standing on the other side.

I fell over, frozen by the calm expression of its white eyes, iris absent but with bright red pupils dilating and constricting. It turned its eyes further away from me, scanning the room, taking interest in its features. I could hear my heart thrashing at my chest; my throat was choked, incapable of screaming, yet I could feel the cold rush of adrenaline thrilling under my skin. The creature’s nostrils were pinched together, but it looked human, though the way it stared around idly and its dark skin gave it an ethereal air. It lifted its leg up and stepped into the house through the large window as if it were an invisible obstacle. I gawked.

   God, please save me.

It picked up a novel resting on the edge of the table and perused it, uninterested, grunting as it dropped it on the floor. It teased the candle’s fire, smiling at the sensation, and knocked it over. Oh God. The candle ignited a small fire on the carpet, stretching out to reach me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything but watch. I prayed that it wouldn’t sense Grams. Better be only one of us. I knew my life was over when it picked me up.

Through the window I could see the rest fly into the sky, poor Vilakazi in tears. But it dropped with me to the ground. It snorted in a manner that told me the air had a contaminant, an unforeseen irritant. I knew it was dying. All I could smell was the wood fragrance spiralling through the house. I knew that I could live, but I saw its expression. It wouldn’t die in vain. God please don’t let me die with it. Please! A sharp pain cut through the side of my body like acid searing into my flesh. I yelped, but my voice was snapped and hidden elsewhere. Bright light stretched from the being’s fingers like long swords into my skin. It stung like electricity.

Nightwatchman

“That is your gift,” she said.

“What?” I asked

“Being able to sit and do nothing.”

“I’m good at doing nothing? Or not good at doing anything?”

“Don’t twist my words.”

“Ok.”

She kissed me on the cheek, I turned to try and steal one on the lips but she was already gone into the kitchen. When she returned with a plate of meat paste sandwiches (crusts cut off) and a pot of tea, I had to wonder if it was maybe my birthday.

“Is there a special occasion dear,” I asked?

“No, I’m just happy darling. Shouldn’t we open these windows and maybe put the cricket on? I’ll take the dog and then you won’t have to worry.”

I started to think that early retirement might not be such a bad idea after all and toyed with the idea of grabbing a book to read while the cricket was on, or perhaps I could just think about putting pen to paper on my memoirs? I reached for another sandwich.

It was a beautiful day to walk the dog with a breeze coming across the hills from the east, straight from the sea. Arthur, a Springer Spaniel, would love it and want to run off and chase rabbits and pheasants, real or imaginary. We couldn’t quite see the coast from our bungalow’s French windows but the horizon hinted at it beyond the facing neighbours’ farm. I didn’t want to question why Peggy was so energetic today she had always been like that from time to time ever since we met. This Peggy was much preferable to the one who also had ‘moods.’ When I suspected she would think about our son who had died young. Just then the phone rang, and I picked it up expecting to hear from our daughter.

“Hello darling,” I said.

“It’s not darling I’m afraid,” a rather clinical voice put paid to my frivolity. “And I think you know who this is and why we’re calling. How is retirement suiting you?”

A chill ran down my spine and my heart started to race. I slammed the phone down, flushing. Was it possible? After all these years. I wished now that I could have taken Arthur for a turn down the hill into the village, and a pint or two. I could run after Peggy? But then she’d know something was wrong. I wrote a note about quickly dashing to the shops and left it in the porch where we kept spare keys in a cut-glass bowl.

The pub, and any ensuing row with Peggy, would be small potatoes compared to the plan I now had to put in place and fast. The plan to save our lives. If I was being watched, they would also know where Peggy was. We would have to disappear in plain sight. Leaving the house and going for a drink to clear my head would be a very predictable reaction to the phone call and wouldn’t look out of place to the watchers. I closed the French windows, locked the front door and went down the hill towards the village.

As soon as Peggy let Arthur off the lead he tore into the nearest ditch and scrambled up the far bank through the nettles and the hedge to emerge out of her reach in a newly ploughed field. She started to call him but knew it was in vain so early in the walk. He could be gone for hours. He was already miles away entering a copse at the top of the field. Pheasants rattled as they were flushed from cover. Her heart sank.

Also watching Arthur’s progress was a slightly anxious man in camouflage who had no doubt that a Springer Spaniel could smell him a mile away. “Fuck off dog,” he said out loud. Harold had been in Iraq and Afghanistan so the dog didn’t pose a threat exactly but he would have to kill it if it was going to give away his hiding place and he liked dogs. He would more likely kill its owner but Harold didn’t see the paradox.

The escape and evasion plan had been in place for years but had never been put to the test. I walked into the pub and ducked to avoid hitting my head on the horse brasses that hung over the medieval lintel.

“Hello John,” the landlord greeted me. A nice lad who’d moved here with his young wife and daughter. You could tell that the wife was bored and restless, always making eyes at men who came into the pub. She was attractive in a very village-pub way and he, the husband, seemed oblivious to all the attention she got. I couldn’t see her, though. “Usual?”

“Please, thanks. Have you got any of those pasties?” They came from Cornwall and sometimes got a bulk load in if they’d done a family trip home.

“I think there’s a few left in the back. You want one for lunch? Should I warm it up?”

“No I’ve got a few friends coming and wanted to help Peggy with the food. I need five or six I think.”

I downed my pint, ordered another, and glanced around. No watchers in the boozer but it was impossible to see much of the street through the low-slung bay windows and bubbled glass.

“Cheers,” I paid for the pints and pasties in cash trying to remember if I was going to need coins or notes later. Maybe I should have swiped.

As I closed the door of the pub behind me I thought I saw a flash of light, like light on a glass lens, from the edge of the trees in the field above. It was enough to confirm my suspicions.

In the shop I bought toilet roll, juice, bottled water, crisps, cheese, chocolate, apples and bread. And a paper. To them it would have looked like a normal weekend top-up. As an afterthought I threw in a lucky dip for Wednesday’s Lottery and a can of beans. The beans tipped me over the balance of normal (shit) and Beryl raised an eyebrow.

“I’m half expecting the grandkids and neither of us really wants to cook.” I said as nonchalantly as possible.

“I know the feeling John dear. How’s Peggy?”

“Fine, thank you. She’s just gone into the fields to walk Arthur.”

“Yes I thought I saw him a few minutes ago.”

“Oh really? Where was that?” Me, feigning disinterest.

“That copse. The one behind Robin Hood’s Hut.”

That one where the sun caught the movement of a lens I thought. “Well, it’s a beautiful day maybe I’ll go and join them. Thanks Beryl, give our love to Bill.”

There’s a path back to the cottage through the churchyard and along a different lane that runs next to an old mill stream. I hoped I would bump into Peggy and Arthur on this path as I quickened my pace towards the house. I reached the back door only to be disappointed that Arthur wasn’t there to greet me panting with wet fur and bramble twigs knotted into the hairs under his belly. I imagined Peggy running up behind him calling his name, worried that he might get run over by a car because she hadn’t been able to get the lead back on. No sign of Peggy either. I left my shoes by the back door out of habit and went inside straight to the front porch where I found my note unread. I scrumpled it up and chewed it before swallowing. Next I cleaned my teeth, first turning the cricket back on and opening the French windows. It was the Channel 4 coverage which I liked. The shopping went into a sort of duffel-type travel bag I had for weekends away if I travelled with work, along with a few things I thought Peggy would need and a bottle of wine and a half bottle of whiskey. We were going to need a drink before the end of this night. I carefully went back outside to the back door of the garage – no sign of movement in the treeline above the field – and put the bag on the back seat of the car. I didn’t want to have to stop and open the boot if we needed the contents while we were driving. Chances were that we wouldn’t be stopping much. The asbestos-built garage had caught the heat of the afternoon and smelled of lawn mowers and oil. Perhaps I’d be gardening later if I hadn’t had that phone call. Then it occurred to me that maybe I should do a spot of gardening and I dug out my gloves and pruning shears.  I also put out our little table and chairs with a bird book and a pair of binoculars. England lost two wickets in the first two balls after tea. There was talk of putting in a nightwatchman.

Advice

There are a lot of successful, famous people who like to give advice on how to live your life and be successful and rich and happy like them. As if being successful and rich wasn’t enough in itself they also have to be smug and condescending. The advice is greeting card philosophical bullshit like don’t give up, have fun, and do something you love. The same type of advice offered in a hundred self-help books – the power of positive thinking and other such horse shit. I would say that for 99% of people on planet Earth this is all-but impossible and in fact only serves to perpetuate the rich-poor gap. The global media machine is constantly telling us how terrible our lives are and how miserable we should be based on the fact that we don’t have six or eight figure salaries or our own Caribbean islands. How do we even have the gall to get up in the morning and face the world?

This type of advice is all shit as I can testify. Do something you love. Be yourself. Don’t give up. So I love writing (or I thought I did) and became a self-published author. In fact I thought I was being published with the help of the British Arts Council but it boiled down to being self-published as a POD author with the dreadful carrot-and-stick masochistic machine that was Youwriteon.com and then became NewGenerationPublishing (whose first author killed himself, I think, perhaps not surprisingly). Are my family and friends proud of me and happy that I finally became a writer? Are they fuck. Have I had any success at all in terms of people buying books and me getting paid? None. Have nasty people who’ve never met me and never had the pain of writing a book for ten or more years slated my efforts on a worldwide forum as if we are somehow old enemies. Does Amazon allow you to delete such thoughtless and unsettling reviews? No they don’t. My family (many of whom think I live in Bolivia, not Botswana) are simply embarrassed that my books are self-published and not published by one of the giant three publishers who dictate what middle-class people (adults and children alike) should read. To make a difference and share my love of writing and all things bookish with other people I started my own publishing company – more embarrassment for my family. What’s he doing? Why don’t you go back to the restaurant (where I worked after school over twenty years ago) you enjoyed that…yes, Mum I did but. Even my dad once called me all the way from Greece to tell me that he had indeed read all of my books but he didn’t like any of them. In order to try and raise money for said publishing company I have further alienated myself from family and friends by asking for money. Rich people, potential investors, in Botswana have all turned their backs preferring to watch me fail and starve in place of enjoying shared success having injected a small amount of capital to help me print books.

To sum up should you follow your dreams and turn your hobby into a passion, into a business. No, you shouldn’t. Humility is not earned it is taught. And I have been beaten down by so many that it is time to bow out of the ring. I will travel the world as the penniless philosopher I have always been and always will be, earning my crust as I go by working in bars and restaurants. Maybe my family were right? Maybe I’ll write a book about it one day?

Expat or Tezcatlipoca's Mask

Tezcatlipoca had just made love to a nun and the irony was not lost on him. The chapel had been perfectly decorated with candles throughout and the crucifix loomed large both above the bed and around her neck at the center of a long string of wooden beads. Her hair had been done in a bun when he removed the habit’s headdress and then tumbled down her milky white shoulders as he drew her nearer and gently bit into her novice’s nipples. For that’s what they were, she can’t have been older than twenty.

He had taken the form of a French prince and chosen the brothel on the banks of the Seine as a retreat worthy enough of his somewhat eclectic needs. Whores, and many of them, opera and wine. At home he was losing a battle. The useless emperor Montezuma vexed him, his military losses were now spiritual losses for Tezcatlipoca whose enemies had gained ground in the netherworld.

As requested his nuns (there were enough for a nunnery) had left their lady hair unshaved and he picked one of the nearest, lifted her scented petticoat and buried his head deep into that most holy of places, a sanctuary denied him when he took his throne as King of the underworld and Lord of the Smoking Mirror.

They needn’t have asked if he wanted more wine and couldn’t on account of their vows of silence, his goblet was kept full even as he drained it. Tonight it was only claret, another reason to choose France. He had no hankering for the crude alcohol of his patria. The nun on whom he had bestowed the favor of burying his beard between her legs was now offering an alternative that pleased him and meant that she would fellate him whilst there would be little or no wine drinking as she spread her legs and pushed her buttocks towards his face. Tezcatlipoca’s long tongue devoured what was on offer and his loins thus stirred he called back the novice so that he could conquer her once more. She carefully sat across him while the other nun sat up, still facing away from their lord and the two were inclined, not to kiss exactly, but to touch breasts as each took their own pleasure.

“Ladies, I am lost for words.” He said in his best French as they had all finished. “You have humbled a royal Prince. I am now but a lowly pauper, a mere slave to your rare beauty and exceptional talents. Let it please you all to take what is owed from my purse. Now go. I will be gone by the time you are dressed.”

He took half from a round loaf of bread and pushed inside it two roasted quails. His took his horse and left the nunnery’s gates behind him. He needed to think.

Having eaten and drank more of the claret his mind’s wheels began to turn with the oiling.