The Hightower Gang Blog

For once The One was not at his local Bierstube getting drunk. Without going into details, a minor dispute had risen between him and the bartender regarding disgorgement on the bar counter. Instead he was home in his own living room getting drunk. Director had gone to Bratislava on a business trip in connection with his "logistics company", and would not be back until the next day. He had even locked the door to the BDSM cellar and taken the keys with him! Hence, The One was left alone with nothing but himself, horrendous amounts of beer and way too much time on his hands. Needless to say, he was bored out of his mind.

Recently Director had bought a new lap top. Since he had no need for two computers, he had given his old one to The One out of charity (or to avoid having to drag his lap top to a recycle station). The One had accepted the lap top with genuine gratefulness, as it happened very seldom that someone actually gave him something. In lack of better things to do, he started surfing the Internet, chugging beer like there was no tomorrow.

By chance he stumbled upon a Norwegian Internet forum for amateur musicians and bands. Downing a bottle of strong ale, he decided to mess around a bit with the haughty know-it-alls of the forum (despite the omnipresence in Norwegian society of the creativity-killing Law of Jante, young Norwegians had a self-confidence that in no way stood up to their actual abilities; everybody who could play three chords on the guitar regarded themselves experts). He registered on the forum, before writing a lengthy and very scathing rant about the horrendous arrogance of the Norwegian music industry. He totally blasted every single one of the artists of the country, especially the female ones, which he claimed had used their pussy power rather than their talent to get a recording deal (as all Norwegian female artists were as interesting as a bottle of cola). If it was one thing he loved, then it was creating lots and lots of havoc with his superior verbal skills - and especially on the Internet, since nobody there had the balls to physically confront him.

Discovering that his bottle of strong ale was empty, he decided to get another beer in the fridge. He whistled merrily when walking into the kitchen. He discovered that he needed to pee, the urge being almost intolerable. With a moan he hauled out his giant member and peed in the kitchen sink. While peeing, he opened the fridge door and took out a 0,5 liter bottle of barley wine, opened it with his left testicle (!) and drank from it in big man sips. Since the beer type barley wine was at least as strong as wine (hence the name), the alcohol got to his head awfully fast.

"A beer fer meee, an' a beer ferrrr me lassie," The One sang in an odd hybrid of Scottish and Irish with a hint of Cornish in it.

The big, drunk man staggered through the doorway and into the living room. He put the bottle of barley wine down and pressed the F5 button, updating the forum page. Not surprisingly he had got lots of angered replies to his topic. The replies demonstrated that none of the forum members knew what orthography was; the replies were riddled with blatant typos, grammatical errors and other linguistically unpalatable phenomena. The One chuckled when reading the replies, which all branded him 'a bitter, delusional loser who did not get laid', 'a despicable prick who was jealous on his far more talented colleagues', or simply crude, juvenile name-calling. One reply consisted of nothing but "DIE!", followed by what had to be twenty exclamation marks.

He then wrote another lengthy, ill-focused harangue that was so defamatory that it could scare the horns off a cow. He concluded this verbal deluge of slanderous, anti-social atrocities by writing that actually liking Norwegian rock was a sign of severe mental illness that only lobotomy could cure. He also insinuated that a great portion of Norwegians had already been lobotomized from this illness, explaining the unlikely popularity of those bland, boring and overrated rock artists and groups. Upon seeing his published reply, he burst out in a roaring laughter, banging his knees with his big man hands.

Discovering that his bottle of barley wine was empty, he decided to get another beer in the fridge. He whistled merrily when lurching into the kitchen. He discovered that he needed to pee, the urge being almost intolerable. With a moan he hauled out his giant member and peed out the kitchen window and into the garden. An old couple passing by on the street fled in disgust while cursing in Austrian German. While peeing, he opened the fridge door and took out a bottle of strong, dark, lovely ale, opened it with his nose (!!) and drank from it in big man sips.

"A beer for me and a beer for my elk," The One muttered in broken German, having downed half the bottle of the very strong ale. Then he burst out in a roaring laughter, before shadow-boxing with the wall for a couple of minutes. The shadow won.

The big, drunk man plodded careeningly through the doorway and into the living room. He sat down by the table and noticed to his amusement that more replies had come to his post. Now they were even more aggressive, with nothing but name-calling, crude insults, threats and rattling with sabres. Not one solid, coherent argument was there at all. Nobody was able to state in a polite, civilized manner that The One was wrong in his vilification of the Norwegian music industry. As a brilliant reply, The One suggested removing the hands and vocal chords of every fourth musician or singer - leaving the gates open for people who actually possessed musical skills. He then wrote that the same process should be done with anyone affiliated with the hip-hop and rap genre - what those spoiled, criminal, drug addict brats spouted out was not even real music, he wrote.

"Oh, I am so utterly evil..." The One said to himself, before bursting out in the laughter of a hopping mad man. He then stared at his empty bottle of beer. - "Aw, drats! Not again! They make those beer bottles way too small!!"

He whistled merrily when trudging into the kitchen. He discovered that he needed to pee, the urge being almost intolerable. With a moan (and a loud belch) he hauled out his giant member and peed into a nearby plastic bucket. While peeing, he opened the fridge door and took out a bottle of Fürstenberg lager, opened it with his pinkie (!!) and drank from it in big man sips.

"Ahhh! Forest juice!" he exclaimed with an ecstatic look on his ridiculously masculine face. Then he opened another bottle of Fürstenberger since he had already downed the first one. This bottle he nearly swallowed.

The big, drunk man meandered through the doorway and into the living room, swerving violently from side to side - he had not even bothered to put his giant member back into his pants. He fell into the couch with a bawl, nearly orally impaling himself on the beer bottle. Getting up in a sitting position, he noticed that he had got a private message from one of the moderators. He was commanded to immediately stop "trolling the forum", as the moderator put it, or there would be consequences.

To put it mildly, The One was not intimidated by the moderator's feeble threats - he merely flipped off the lap top screen while roaring something totally unintelligible, even to himself. He put the bottle to the mouth and sucked beer out of it like a calf would suck milk from its mother cow. He let out a loud burp, before writing a vile, derogatory reply back to the moderator. Then he started a new topic where he advised every teenager musician to commit suicide, even writing in detail how it could be carried out as efficient as possible. He then started a topic about the necessary extermination of rappers with an IQ lower than their shoe size - according to himself that would effectively wipe out the lot, paving the way for REAL musicians.

Giggling of his cunning mind, he sucked the last drop out of the beer bottle. He hiccuped, burped and let a long, loud and really smelly fart. Nearly crapping his pants, he got up, prompting to get another bottle of beer. He half fell, half staggered into the kitchen, accidentally stumbling in the plastic bucket of urine, flipping it over. With a loud, thundering roar he fell to the floor with a deafening bang. He was bathed in lukewarm piss.

"Rææææh, piece of crrrrap!!" he roared. He tried to get up, but his hands slipped in the urine. He rolled over with another loud roar and eventually managed to balance himself up on his feet again. He discovered that he needed to pee, the urge being almost intolerable. Since his member was already hanging freely out of his pants, he simply let go of his urine where he was standing. Urine beamed across the kitchen and hit the oven and every pan and cauldron there - the leftovers from his dinner was effectively marinated by the warm, ill-smelling liquid.

Since his clothes were soaked in urine, he took them off and simply flung them out the window - he would wash them the next morning, if he remembered it. A little girl riding a bike let out a gasp of disgust, particularly when The One's trousers hit the fence and splashed urine all over her. Crying annoyingly loudly, she biked away from there as fast as her juvenile legs could turn the pedals. The One burst into a roaring laughter, before letting out an ear-piercing primal scream that in his wasted head sounded like the coolest rock and roll growl ever heard. He opened the fridge and took out an 0,5 liter can of some Czech beer he was too drunk to decipher the name of. Trying to open it, he found himself unable to. With lots of cursing and swearing, he eventually took a pencil and drilled a hole in the can. He goffled the entire can in a matter of seconds.

The big, drunk man had to get down on his knees and crawl through the doorway and into the living room. He struggled his way into the couch, making enough roaring noises to wake the dead (thank Heavens the nearest neighbors lived a street away!). Closing one eye to avoid seeing double, he discovered that he had got a new private message. The moderator informed him that he had been banned from the forum. The moderator wrote that he would consider lifting the ban if The One apologized and took back everything he had written.

The One then started typing macabre and extremely graphic death threats in a reply to the private message. His wasted condition made writing very difficult, it took him forever to finish the fifteen-or-so lines of libelous, sickening, nefarious obscenities.

Afterwards he laughed out in triumph, before noticing that he was once again beerless. Standing up, he immediately fell over the table and hit the floor with amazing impact. The table flipped over, sending the lap top down on the soft carpet - rendering it unharmed. The One got up and careened sideways through the doorway and into the kitchen. He slipped in the now cold urine and fell out through the window headfirst, an animalic roar of another world protruding through his lips. Scaring the living daylights out of an elderly lady and a little boy, The One landed on the frozen grass. His stark naked man body made the lady gasp in dismay.

"Oh no!" the little child cried with big eyes. - "Eins is wasted again!"

"Come with me, child," the elderly lady said and pulled the kid with her. - "Don't look at that horrid, stuporous swine!"

The One burst out in a roaring laughter, before getting the urge to pee once again. Since he was outside, lying down and already naked, he simply let go of his urine. Feeling the comforting warmth of the urine seep under him (he was lying on his stomach), he felt another, much less comfortable urge.

"Ræææhh!!" he roared, before vomiting violently. People stared out of every window in the street, and people already out on the street fled the area in horror. The troll was loose again, they all whispered to each other with the calmness so characteristic of Austrians.

When Director came back the next morning, he promised a very hung-over The One never to lock the door to the BDSM cellar again. He had now experienced that a bored The One was one of the most dangerous animals that walked the Earth.

A new day began as the Sun finally protruded through the obfuscating veil of darkness and foul weather. The horrible blizzard had finally settled and left behind nothing but a deafening silence. Once again the village of Dreare was encapsulated in the calm and quiet serenity of a cold winter's day. The only sound was the usual murmur of the sea, and the loud, intrusive snoring of Nigel and Ayn.

Nigel was situated upside-down lying with his feet on the table of his hut, while Ayn was sleeping with his Negro ass in the air with his face half-way into an empty pitcher. Obviously the pitcher was stolen from the tavern last night, when Ayn and Nigel functioned as bartenders for nobody but themselves (the other patrons quickly left the tavern, insulted and annoyed over being cut off in a most inhumane fashion).

The two alcoholics-in-spe were mercilessly stirred from their sleep when the police officer of the village pounded at their door. Severely disoriented, the two got up, staggered up the steep ladder and opened the doors.

"Oh dear, it's the police!" Nigel exclaimed with horror on his face. - "Did we do something heinous last night?!" Nigel burst out in tears and panic. - "If I'm being arrested for my seemingly racist utterings, I must say something in my defense! I don't hate non-white people, I'm scared shit-less of them! I feel sheer terror and panic every time I see those awful, 'orrible races! I really suffer from xenophobia in the word's exact definition! I have a genuine phobia for xenos-- I mean strangers!"

The police officer stared blankly at Nigel for a few seconds, before turning to Ayn:

"Ayn, your friend Marty might be alive after all. Some Inuits spotted a guy matching Marty's description being carried over to Kate's place by Kate herself."

"Kate?" Ayn asked. - "Who's that?"

"One of our... eccentric villagers," the police officer said with a slightly amused look on his face. - "She isn't quite right in the head. Ever since she came her ten years ago, she's been living all alone in that house. She never speaks to anyone and, oddly, do all of her shopping on the other side of the Bering strait instead of in the village less than a kilometer away. She is very, very strange. And morbidly obese."

"Is... Marty safe with her?" Ayn asked, slightly worried. - "I mean... She isn't dangerous, is she?"

"I'd better bring my tranquilizer gun just in case..."

The police officer, Ayn and Nigel left the boat and drove over to Kate's house. The road ended a couple of hundred meters from her house, so they had to walk the rest of the way. Despite having housed a mentally unbalanced woman for ten years, the house appeared to be in mint condition. It even had the roof and all four walls intact, totally contradicting what most people believed of mentally ill people living alone in gloomy, isolated areas.

"Listen!" the police officer said. Distant roaring and singing from inside the house could be heard.

"That sounds just like Marty!" Ayn burst out with a short laugh. - "Seems like he's having a good time, though."

"Judging by Kate's nature, he could might as well roar and sing of agony rather than pleasure," the police officer said, before getting a look of nausea on his face. - "Who on Earth would go to bed with a morbidly obese woman?"

"Who on Earth would go to bed with Marty?" Ayn asked.

The three walked over to the main entrance. The police officer rang the door bell.

"Open up, it's the police!" he shouted.

Lots of commotion and staggering were heard from inside. An unreasonably long passage of time went by before somebody finally opened the door. It was Zoe. She was so drunk that she crawled. She gazed up on the three guests with a cross-eyed stare and let out a powerful hiccup.

"Marty?" Ayn shouted. Marty's unintelligible roaring could clearly be heard from the inside.

Upon entering the living room, the three men flinched with a disturbingly synchronized cry of surprise. There had to be at least one thousand cans of beer within the confines of the room, empty as well as unopened. To the three men's disgust, there was also crap on the carpet, the stench ripping out hairs of their noses. Marty lay in the middle of the pile of beer cans, clutching on to yet another can of beer in the chain of God knows how many. He let out a burp, before vomiting straight up in the air. The fountain of puke reached all the way to the ceiling and lasted exactly nine seconds. Completely unaffected by this extroversion of stomach contents, he drank vigorously from his can of beer.

"You call THAT having a good time?!" the police officer exclaimed in disbelief. - "The time he's having ain't good at all, it's the worst time had I have ever seen!"

"Everything's relative, even time," Ayn said. - "At least Marty looks happy."

"He looks more dead than happy," the police officer dryly remarked. - "Well, the case is solved and my work here is done. I would say we all deserve a beer now."

"More drinking?" Nigel exclaimed with a painful look on his face. - "I've drunk enough for the rest of 2010 by now!"

"You guys drink way too much," the police officer said and opened one of the beer cans and took a sip from it. - "It is in fact possible to enjoy alcohol without drinking oneself into a stupor." He smacked his lips. - "Ah, that's damn good beer! Russians sure know how to make beer, although they fail completely at politics!"

"I wonder how they make beer in Eastern Russia with all the tundra and ice," Ayn said while opening a can of premium Russian beer.

"I assume there is summer there, even in the Eastern-most parts of Russia," Nigel said, deciding to join his friends on another drinking binge despite his frail, hung over condition.

"Cheers to all of us for the successful rediscovery of Marty!" Ayn loudly proclaimed. Marty let out a roar before vomiting once again, the geyser of liquid and bile hitting the exact same spot in the ceiling that the preceding one did - the precision was uncanny.

Zoe came crawling back to the living room, having vomited very messily over the entire entrance. A trail of bodily fluids followed her small, but well-trained body. Letting out a roar, she helped herself to the horrendous amounts of beer in the room, grabbing a can with swift, greedy movements suspiciously well-performed for coming from such a blottoed individual.

"Rææææh!!" she roared, having long since lost the ability to articulate herself in other ways than the most crude and primal ones.

Since the police officer, Ayn and Nigel consumed beer in overly generous amounts, the party soon descended into another infamous Hightower Booze-up of mythical proportions. Russian beer was way stronger than the average mainstream American beer brands, and all of them drank the beer as they would have drunk water. Needless to say, the beer very soon got to their heads. The police officer suddenly found himself unable to stand up, Ayn had apparently lost the ability to look with more than one eye at the time - and Nigel was essentially on another planet, regressed into the blissful, rose-red state of an infant, deprived of all reason, responsibility and self-awareness. Marty and Zoe were deprived of virtually all signs of intelligent life - and life in its most physical, vital sense (Marty barely had a pulse).

"What the Hell is going on here?!" a powerful female voice suddenly thundered. The wasted apes stared in wonder at Kate, who stood tall, fat and menacing in the doorway, armed with a shotgun. - "Who the Hell are you guys and what are you doing in my house?!"

Despite their hammered condition, all of them froze in genuine fear.

--

The situation was super-dire and maxi-serious. Nigel burst into tears of the immensely dangerous situation, Ayn simply let go of his bowel control, the police officer was too drunk to do anything but glare at the barrel of the shotgun, Marty burst into a lament totally deprived of dignity - and Zoe simply opened another can of beer.

"Father, not only did you deceive me and crap on a perfectly good carpet," Kate said with a dramatic voice. - "But now you've gone and invited all of your despicable friends into my house. There are beer cans, vomit and shit everywhere now! You've ruined my home, father!"

"What the fuck does she mean by father?" Ayn asked while taking off his soiled pants. Kate let out a cry of disgust as the pants fell down on the carpet, rendering it dirtier than it already was. - "Does Farty Marty have the ability to sire an offspring? OUR Marty?" Ayn burst into a squealing laughter that made Kate hold to her ear.

The police officer saw this chance as an opportunity to play hero. He ran towards Kate, but Kate quickly stepped aside, sending him on a plummet over her kitchen table, breaking her finest china. She let out another cry of contempt as the continued wrecking of her home... continued.

"You are now officially dead!" she cried. - "I'm gonna shoot all of you because of Marty's stupidity!"

"Awww, way to go, you communist egoist!" Ayn cried in contempt.

"Oh no!!" Nigel cried. - "Now we're gonna diiiiie!! Oh no, oh no, oh no!! I am tooooo young to diiiie!!" He burst into an ear-piercing falsetto scream of despair that once again made Kate hold to her ears, nearly dropping her shotgun. This time, however the police officer lay unconscious on the floor, half buried in broken china.

"No!" Marty suddenly cried, standing up on his feet. - "Leave them out of this! I don't care if you shoot me, just let them go!"

Everybody stared in wild disbelief at Marty. For the first time since the creation of the universe Marty actually committed an act of self sacrifice, an act he would gain nothing in doing. Kate glared at him.

"I am to blame for this, not them!" Marty cried. - "I've made you, I've turned you into what you are! My friends had nothing to do with it (obviously)! They're perfectly innocent! Let them go, I beg you! Please!"

Marty went down on his knees and begged for the mercy of his friends. When Kate just stood there contemplating, he got up again:

"Come on! Shoot me if it gives you any pleasure! I've been such a lousy father and such a lousy person my entire adult life. I've always backed away from any responsibilities, anything concerning adulthood. I've done nothing but drinking, smoking and being a great nuisance to the society. If there's anyone in this room that deserves to be put down, then that person is me."

Kate stood for another nerve-shattering seconds, before a smile formed on her obese face:

"Marty, you've always been a coward and a coward you'll always be. Now I'm gonna shoot all of your friends first, and then I'm gonna shoot you. I think I'll start with the gay captain..."

"Gay, meee?!" Nigel burst out, greatly offended. - "Just because I have a tremendous singing voice everybody assumes I'm gay..."

Suddenly an ear-piercing battle cry was heard. Kate just managed to let out a flat 'huh?' before she was overrun by a rabid (North-)Irishman armed with a self-made spear. Like a predator he went straight for her carotid artery and was going to cut it wide open when Zoe screamed out "no!!". Kate had been deprived of her weapon as effectively as any member of the special forces could have done it, hence she was no longer a threat to anything but her own arteries.

"Wolf!" Zoe burst out, staggering towards Wolf and hugged him. - "I thought you were dead!"

"Humans can normally survive only a couple of minutes in cold, freezing water," Wolf said with his in-character narrator voice. - "Luckily I'm a former member of the British Special Forces, so I'm in no way normal. The ordeals I've been through the last couple of days are nothing compared to the shit I went through the first year of the Forces."

"You got to us in the nick of time," Ayn said, as grateful as any saved person could be. - "Kate was just about to shoot us all!"

"I really doubt she would have done it," Wolf said with a clever smile, taking up the shotgun, opening it. - "See? No bullets. The gun wasn't even loaded! Any fool with a minimum of gun training can see that, even from outside the shotgun!"

"Oh, really..." Ayn said, before all of them glared at Marty. - "Any fool...?"

Marty suddenly felt very embarrassed.

"You're a goddamn drama queen, Marty!" Nigel burst out in a very theatrical manner, his over-acting making any soap opera star run for their money. - "You knew all along that the gun wasn't loaded! You just decided to make a self-gaining, heroic appearance out of it! Bah! I know you too well, Marty the 'Un-Man' Manx!"

With his head bent in shame, Marty was hazed out of the living room, sentenced to the cruel and unusual punishment of walking all the 1000 meters back to the village. For a man possessing Marty's infamous laziness, this was equal to riding the lightning.
 
--

An hour later all of them (Marty included) were enjoying some well-deserved beer. The police officer had been sent to the nearest hospital, while Kate had been sent to the nearest real police station, awaiting her impending trial for kidnapping, illegal possession of a firearm and general anti-social behavior.

As part of the punishment Marty had to buy one round for his friends - for an egoistic tightwad like him that was equal to cutting off a limb of his body. He cried like a baby when seeing that his money bought beers for somebody else than him. Even Wolf drank beer, now that he was done with this week's work.

"It's good that Zoe managed to muddle through the rest of the episode without my experience to guide her," Wolf said and chuckled. Zoe rolled her eyes and shook her head. - "It's good that you've learned from this episode, Zoe, since we're going to Petropavlovsk on the other side of the strait next week to film the next episode!"

"Yeah, I wish you good luck on that one," Zoe said with a wide smile on her face. - "I'm sure you manage to muddle through with your own experience to guide you." She giggled.

"What?" Wolf asked flatly, a dark shadow emerging on his (North-)Irish face.

"As of today, I am no longer Zoe the camerawoman," Zoe said. - "I quit."

Wolf looked like someone just took a crap at his mother's tomb while vilifying his catholic faith.

"Zoe, you have signed a contract," he said with a deep, raspy voice. - "Violations of it will sue you back to the stone age! You will pay for this until you're as old as Stonehenge!"

"Yes, Wolf, we did have a contract," Zoe said with an even wider smile on her face. - "I remember the day I signed it. On this very day it's exactly three years ago. Of course, that means that it expired at noon today..."

"What?!"

"I'm no longer your camerawoman. I'm finally free again! No more reckless adventures to the farthest corners of the world! No more mindless stunts or consumption of the vilest beings! No more the victim of your (North-)Irish whims and caprices! No more Wolf Drylls! I'm free!"

Zoe burst out in a crazy, giggling laughter. Wolf downed the rest of his beer, banged the empty glass in the table and got up.

"You will hear from my lawyer..." he said.

"Tell him to shove my expired contract up his ass!" Zoe yelled out, still laughing like crazy.

Wolf left the tavern in such an anger that he tore the doors straight off its hinges, much to the dismay of the ancient bartender.

"So, Zoe..." Marty asked, his pride chemically restored after having downed seven beers in less than half an hour. - "What you're gonna do with your restored freedom?"

"I don't know..." Zoe said. - "I kinda like you guys... And I kinda like being drunk... It's way funnier than being a camerawoman, I can tell you that..." She then leaned back and let out a relaxed sigh. - "Do you need company on your travels across the world? I basically fear nothing and I don't ever get seasick!"

"Well, it's considered bad luck having a woman aboard a ship," Nigel said.

"Nigel..." Ayn said in a joking manner. - "First, your vessel ain't no ship! Second, we already have a woman aboard:  YOU!"

Both Ayn, Marty and Zoe, their new boat mate, burst into laughter. Even Nigel had to laugh, his laughter being the most feminine of them all.

Suddenly Nigel got an expression of horror on his face, pointing with a shivering, shaking hand at Ayn.

"Oh no!!" he cried in a manic falsetto. - "An awful, 'orrible Negroe!!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Nigel..." Ayn muttered and buried his face in his chocolate-brown hands. While Nigel was suffering the panic attack of the century, Marty and Zoe were scolding him mercilessly for his xenophobic, Dalek-like behavior.

When Marty awoke from his cowardly fainting, Kate stood over him with a fresh pint of lager and a cigarette. The cigarette yearned after being lit, the pint yearned after being drunk. Still shell-shocked after finding out that he, Marty the 'Un-Man' Manx, had sired an offspring, he sat up with trembling hands. Kate sat down next to him in the couch while Marty goffled the beer down his insatiable throat.

"I never knew I had a daughter," he said with amazement on his face. - "Nobody ever told me."

"That's because your mother never visited you in prison," Kate said. - "And because I was adopted when your mother was deemed completely unable to raise a child. No children should ever get children of their own. She was only fifteen years of age. That was young, even at a time where a 20-year-old woman was regarded as an outcast if she hadn't brought at least two children to the world. I was adopted by a wealthy oil refinery owner who traveled all around the world. His wife was very occupied with eating. Of course, being the wife of a multimillionaire, she didn't have to do anything at all. Hence, she made the most delicious and tasty food. Being constantly on the move, I never got any friends. I was eternally hungry. I ate to fill the gaping void that my foster parents created inside of me."

While Marty was more occupied with the unacceptable drought in his glass, Kate burst into tears and embarked upon a long-winded story about her awful childhood, her lonely teenage years as an overweight, suicidal weirdo, and her staggering path into adulthood. Her story was so incredibly, unbearably long and totally pointless. She would embark on countless digressions away from the main theme, and would even go back in the story's chronology to make another pointless digression.

When hearing her tell her story, Marty was then dead sure that she really had to be his own, biological daughter, born from semen and an egg cell. The story was so horribly boring to listen to, that he could not have told it better himself.

"And here I sit, 40 years of complete loneliness later," Kate said, wiping the tears off her bloated, obese face - even her tears were obese. - "Oh daddy, you should have been there for me!" She burst into another crying fit, her huge body shaking of her violent sobbing. In fact, the whole room was shaking of her tremendous size. - "You should have been my father, Marty, not just the runaway convict who knocked mom up!"

Marty, completely unable to interest himself in other people than himself, was lost for words and action. His ineptitude as a social being had always filled him with great sadness and melancholy - and was one of the reasons he could not stand going through life sober. He was paralyzed by his own inferiority complex. Not in a million years would he figure out what to do. Should he put his arm around her or defecate on the floor? Judging that his wee, weak arms would never reach around that gigantic body, he instead got up, unzipped his pants and bent down on the floor in a squatting position. Kate stopped her crying and looked at him with big eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a high-pitched voice of curiosity.

"I'm being your father," Marty said with sad, soulful eyes and crapped on the floor.

--

As the lights were turned on with blinding efficiency, Christine cuddled together with a violent shriek. Her appearance was even more hideous than it had been in the verdant light of the night vision goggles. She had filth and blood all over her body and on her face, and her once white nurse uniform was now brown with dirt and blood. Ursula and Justine were also in a dire condition - they were covered with old semen and saliva. They looked like they had not been fed intravenously for weeks, being thin, gaunt and downright anorectic. Director shuddered with disgust when seeing the horrid state of his flat mates.

"Directooor!!" Christine cried with an ear-piercing, guttural scream, looking and sounding completely mad. - "You're back! You're back! He's back, he's back!"

"Yes, I am back, Christine, Justine and Ursula!" Director said, taking his gun in his hand. - "And I thirst for revenge for what you have done to me!"

"Pleeaase, haven't we suffered enough?!" Christine cried and burst into crazy, giggling laughter. - "We've been locked inside this cellar for more than a month now!" She giggled and rocked back and forth on the floor, for some reason hiding her hands and feet inside her uniform. - "A customer... A customer didn't wanna pay us! He left us in here! The two of us and the two hanging ones! The hanging ones!"

"Oh my..." Director muttered, before he burst into laughter himself - except that this was laughter of true evil, an evil that only unfair suffering can bring into life. - "How have you survived?"

"The two of us..." Christine muttered while rocking together back and forth on the floor. - "The two of us survived... Only because of the two of us..."

"What do you mean, the two of us?"

Christine then popped open her nurse uniform, revealing the bloody, infected stumps of what had once been two legs. Director nearly popped his eyes right out of his socket, gazing with amazement at the hideous sight. Christine had cut off and eaten her own legs, all the way up to the knee. Being a nurse, she obviously had basic knowledge of the human anatomy, and where to cut to avoid severing the main arteries. In addition, she had also bit off all of her fingers, leaving behind ghastly digital remains, the bones even sticking out through the blackened wounds.

"But what about Justine and Ursula?" Director asked with a disturbing calmness in his voice. - "How have they been fed?"

In the corner left to Christine, several bags of liquid nutrition were situated. They were squeezed bone dry, having been emptied at least two weeks ago - before Christine had become insane enough to devour body parts off her own person. Director chuckled, his face shining of genuine happiness. A nastier revenge he would not have come up with himself, not in a million years. Director limped out of the cellar, not needing his gun anymore (Christine was certainly not going to attack him).

Upon returning, he brought a wheelbarrow with him. He then pushed another secret button on the brick wall behind Christine, opening a secret passage out in the backyard. Upon seeing this, Christine let out a scream that nearly caused Director permanent hearing damage. He lifted her up into the wheelbarrow (a human is significantly lighter without legs) and wheeled her into the garden.

"Where are you taking us?" Christine asked.

"To Irene..." Director said, chuckling. He stopped by the concrete floor in the garden.

"Well?" Christine asked, turning her head back and forth. - "Where is she? Where is she standing? Where is Irene?"

Director pointed discretely with a finger down on the concrete floor. Christine looked down upon it and burst into laughter. Crazy, mad, scary laughter. Slowly the laughter turned into crying. Horrible, awful crying that would have driven a normal person within hearing distance insane. Luckily, Director was a sociopath damaged from the absurd cruelties of life, so he did not even move his eyebrows.

He then wheeled Christine towards her own car. Without a word, he dumped her into the trunk, closed it and started the car. Suppressing an evil laughter (as that would have made the police suspicious), he drove out of the village and embarked upon the motorway.

Driving for more than an hour, he found a cozy residence that was fairly isolated. Director quickly figured out that nobody was home - his training as a petty criminal in Thailand (on his spare time) had not been in vain. The lock to the garage gate was easily pick-locked. From the wall Director took the sharpest knife he could find, heading for the trunk with a humming sound.

"Christiiiine, I hope you'll enjoy my failsafe device..." he said in a singing tone after having opened the trunk.

--

Even though Wolf Drylls' hard (North-)Irish upbringing had rendered him an insensitive prick, he was indeed a survival expert. Being his camerawoman for three years, Zoe had learned a few tricks from her master and full-time mentor. With her own bare hands she had attacked a reindeer just before nightfall on the day that Wolf fell into the rapids. It had been one Hell of a struggle, but she had finally managed to kill the deer by clawing her fingers into its skull through its eye sockets. It was horrendously gory, but the deer did eventually die.

Inside a cave she had made a campfire and a bed of evergreen branches and moss. She had used the fat from the deer as fuel to the fire - it had burnt all night without her having to fuel it all the time. She had skinned the deer with impressive efficiency and precision - she had even used its hide as a duvet to keep herself warm.

She had filmed it all with her camera, deciding to get in front of the camera now that Wolf was gone. With some luck, the episode could be finished in that way - if the producers ever wanted to release it due to the grisly death of the show's megalomaniac host.

Now, after a very consummate breakfast of premium deer meat, Zoe was ready to face another day in the unforgiving Alaskan winter. Despite the fact that the Sun was very low in the sky, she managed to find her north and south. Luckily last night's blizzard had calmed. Only a breeze was left from yesterday's symphony of nature's megalomania.

Grateful for being alive, she did not however thank God for it. She thanked herself, since she had done it all with her own hands and her superior human brain. No fictional deity had helped her along the way. Had she let her life into God's hands, she would have been dead before she even got away from the rapids and the broken log bridge.

Zoe smiled in triumph when she came to a bay. She had reached the coast, where the possibility for finding people was at its biggest. Most people did live by the coast, as Wolf had stated so eloquently in virtually every episode of his show. Although he was a world-class expert in shameless boasting, he knew what he was talking about. Even though he was most likely dead, Zoe still was angry with him for refusing her entrance to his cave. She knew for certain that he was never going to be let into HER personal cave. Not again.

As she was thinking with disgust on Wolf's naked person, she spotted smoke in the far distance. With great curiosity she walked along the bay's rugged shoreline, making sure to spot for bears along the dense forest of pines and spruces. Finally she was going to get away from this awful nightmare!

Director was stirred from his sleep. Despite the contents of his dream, he had not soiled his bed. The obvious reason was that his little fellow was still too ravaged to soil anything. The very serious wounds from the failsafe device of the chastity belt still needed many weeks to fully heal. After all, the surgery to remove the chastity belt nearly resulted in neutering him. Luckily the surgeons finally managed to remove the awful contraption after nearly 20 hours of hard, painstakingly accurate work. Even the most hardened of them had to bend over and vomit when they saw what was underneath.

He was in a haze for the first week, being too shocked and traumatized to be able to function. Every time he looked at his groin, he lost his consciousness. The tube sticking out of his bandaged private area was enough to give him a panick attack only sedatives and morphine could heal. It was not until three weeks later that it was safe to remove the catheter. Being supported by two nurses (luckily male) Director took his first pee in weeks. It felt like somebody pulled a barbed wire through his urethra, he cried like a baby.

Now the pain was not so bad anymore - but the doctors and surgeons were still uncertain whether Director's penis would ever function normally again. They had not seen a penis so damaged in their entire 30 years as medically trained.

They told him everything when he was lucid enough to understand human language. He had been found in the hallway, having passed out in his own vomit. He was alone, so Christine must have fled the house to avoid raising suspicion. Where she was now, he had no clue about. One thing was certain: he knew where Irene was. As Director said to The One in his dream, she was concealed in concrete out in the backyard. There she would remain forever, serving as an archaeological puzzle five thousand years into the future.

"Director?" a voice sounded. Director looked up, gazing at his doctor. For two months now, this doctor had been his best and only friend in the Hell he had been through. - "Your penis seemed to have healed enough for you to go home. I will write you a prescription of some painkillers and sedatives that will take the edge of the pain. Then you will come back here in two weeks and have your stitches removed. A nurse will come by your house every day to change the bandages."

Director nodded with a frail smile, grateful for the generosity of the hospital. Of course, his wealth awarded him the best treatment money could buy - literally. He stood up, grabbed his crutch and gave the doctor a hug. Then he smiled politely and staggered out of the room he had spent two months in.

Not only did he get flowers and chocolate when he was discharged, a taxi was also parked conveniently outside the hospital's main entrance - a parade of brass musicians and cheer-leaders even praised Director's name when he left the hospital.

"I wonder how much money I really paid the hospital," Director muttered as they drove by a retinue of carpenters and scaffoldings on the older parts of the hospital. It even appeared as if a statue was being raised, a statue built in Director's likeness. - "Oh, nevermind. Take me to Bruck an der Leitha, driver!"

The taxi driver (which bore an uncanny resemblance to Fritz Wepper of the TV show Derrick) nodded quickly with a wink.

--

Contrary to the sacred beliefs of Joe Average, free beer was no different from any other beer - the effects were exactly the same. Having goffled 22 pints each of the poor bartender's finest lager, Nigel and Ayn were really hammered. They had long since lost the ability to articulate themselves, their dialog consisting mostly of ambiguous grunts and ill-focused sign language and waving with arms. The other patrons had repositioned to the far end of the premises, terrified over the voracious chugging.

"My dear friends!" the bartender announced on the verge of crying. - "The storm has now miraculously passed away! Now you can finally head home for your dear families!"

The patrons got up and started leaving the tavern - despite the fact that the storm was nowhere near its end.

"Now your dear friends will escort you out," the bartender said and pointed at three random patrons, who looked like someone had pointed a gun at them. - "Oh yes, your dear friends will even carry you all the way to your boat! If not, they will never get another drop in here..." His voice sounded so ominous that the patrons instantly grabbed Nigel and Ayn and escorted them out, pale to the bone.

Being too drunk to talk and make resistance, Nigel and Ayn were carried like sacks of potatoes through the horrendous blizzard. Their three "friends" carried them aboard the little vessel, found the key to the huts, unlocked the door and simply pushed the two down the steep stairs. They landed with such an impact that the rocking of the boat made half the ice slide off it and into the sea.

After having closed the doors, the patrons left and headed straight back to the tavern. There they met a locked door. Inside, the bartender sat crying in a dark corner, drinking mouthfuls from a bottle of whisky.

--

The island was no bigger than the confines of a small village. It consisted mostly of rocks, a small cove and a forest which sheltered the house from the weather. Kate's island was now Marty's new prison of eternity - he would never get off the island, not as long as Kate lived. However, judging by her obese appearance, it looked like she could drop dead from merely walking up a flight of stairs.

"Why have you kidnapped me?" Marty asked as the two sat in the living room, Marty with a beer and a smoke in his hands.

"I've already told you," Kate said with her pleasant voice. - "You're a rapist and a tax fraud criminal. You have escaped the law for 40 years. Now the law has come to you."

"Are you a police woman?"

"Heavens, no!" Kate giggled. - "I've followed you for quite some time, ever since I found out about you last summer, when the social worked revealed you." She then got up and walked over to Marty. - "I came to Norway, along with my mother, but then you had already fled. I spent the next months tracking you down, finally finding you here. Luckily this is where I live, so it was definitely luck!"

With a confused look on his face, Marty lit another cigarette. He understood little of what the crazy fatso was talking about.

"What about beer, cigarettes and other vital necessities?" Marty asked. - "Sooner or later you're gonna have to get off this island. What happens to me then?"

Kate giggled.

"Marty, get up," she said. - "Follow me."

The two walked down in the dark cellar. Kate clapped with her hands and the vast area was illuminated. Rows and rows of beer and food reached all the way from floor to ceiling, from one end of the room to the other. Marty dropped his jaw seeing all this alcohol at once.

"H-how did you afford all this lovely beer?" he asked. - "It must have cost a fortune!"

"In Norway it would have," Kate said. - "Remember that Russia's only a stone's throw away. There beer is cheaper than water, and so is food and cigarettes! You see, Marty, I've been planning this for quite some time..."

"Oh, dear Lord..." Marty muttered, suddenly dead serious. - "I'm never gonna get out of here, am I?" Kate shook her head. - "Oh no! I'm never gonna see Nigel and Ayn again!"

"The world's biggest egoist isn't able to miss anyone," Kate said, the pleasantness amplifying the stingy dimension of her words. - "You've got what you wanted. Free beer, free cigarettes. Nothing but yourself to think of. No work. No trouble with the law. Only me, the monster you created."

Marty's face suddenly got pale. His cigarette fell out of his mouth. He stared at Kate in disbelief. For a moment his imagination must have played him a nasty trick. He thought he saw a little bit of himself in the eyes of the morbidly obese woman.

"C-created?" he asked. - "H-how on Earth..."

"I was born in 1970," Kate said. - "On Isle of Man. I was the daughter of an underage girl who had been raped by the leader of the communist party of Man." She grabbed Marty's damp, shivering hands. - "Marty, you are my father!"

A long, loud fart then burst out through Marty's sphincter. Then his eyes crossed and he fainted.

--

The house looked just like it did when Director left. He tipped the taxi driver overly generous and limped through the garden. He chuckled when looking at the concrete tomb in the backyard, the permanent home of poor, stupid, angst-ridden Irene. Unlocking the door, he entered the house.

There was an ominous silence inside. When he turned on the lights, he was met by a disturbingly tidy kitchen and living room. In a vase on the kitchen table there were however half a dozen of dead flowers.

Feeling as safe as a frightened zebra on the African savannah at night, Director opened a secret hole in the wooden floor and took out a loaded gun. Despite his dire condition, he was still going to make sure he had the upper hand of this messed-up situation. He put the crutch resting against the kitchen counter and moved as stealthy as his condition allowed him to.

Nobody was in the living room. A lack of personhood was also noticeable in the bathroom. There was not a soul in neither of the bathrooms. Then there was really only one option left. The cellar.

Director slowly felt his way to the secret button on the large poster of the T-boner statue on the wall by the living room door (it was situated at the star of the Heineken logo on the beer can which the statue had in its right pocket). A door knob with a lock in it came out. Director took out his key and put it inside. It fitted. Apparently Christine had not had the locks changed in his absence.

Holding the gun out in an erection-like manner (over-compensating for the presumed loss of his own potency), he slowly entered the dark, cold cellar. His footsteps were so quiet that he did not even hear them himself (and his hearing was very acute).

Upon entering the big cellar room, he realized that the only way to turn on the lights was clapping one's hands. He also realized that he was not able to clap his hands with only one hand. Not willing to risk dropping his own, bullet-driven safeguard device, he slowly withdrew from the cellar.

Back up in the relative safety of the upper floor, he went into his room and started scouring through his things (surprised that Christine had not sold them, burnt them or dumped them in the Leitha river in his absence). From under his bed he drew a huge box with the logo of his now defunct Helmwood inc. company.

The box was crammed with all kinds of artifacts; Helmwood Herbal Tea, Helmwood Spiked Shoes, the first (and only) edition of the Helmwood Magazine, Helmwood Cucumber Peelers, Helmwood Bottle Openers. And, at last, Helmwood Night Vision Goggles. Director smiled for himself.

Now armed with night vision goggles that made him look like Buffalo Bill in "Silence of the Lambs", Director again entered the cellar. He saw everything there was, albeit in an eerie, greenish light. In the big cellar room he saw Justine and Ursula hang. Judging by the snoring coming from them, they were asleep. He saw shapes of ball gags on both of them, along with specks of saliva dripping from their mouths. Justine still had her chastity belt on - and, judging by the Hell it was getting his own belt off, it would be on her until the day her body rottened away from it.

In the far end of the room there was a third body. It was crouched together on the floor in a fetal position, also asleep. Director limped silently across the cold concrete floor to take a closer look at the person. It was Christine, her S-shaped pendant around her neck being a dead give-away. She looked filthy and haggard, looking like she had spent her entire life inside a very filthy cave.

Now feeling safe that nobody would suddenly pop up out of nowhere, Director went to the other side of the room where the S&M drawer was. Putting the gun down on the drawer and taking off his goggles, he let a deep breath of relief, before clapping his hands loudly together.

Marty opened his eyes, disoriented. The first thing he saw was a fresh pint of lager that stood on the night table beside the bed he was lying in. The pint was accompanied by a cigarette and some salty biscuits with Cheddar cheese. Marty scratched the back of his head, but welcomed the free beer and smoke with open arms. He did however leave the biscuits untouched. The pint disappeared down his throat in a matter of seconds. Lighting his smoke, he inspected the room.

The room was pleasantly decorated and sparsely illuminated. Outside the wind was howling mercilessly, a snowstorm brewing. The old man got up and staggered towards the door in his usual meandering way, his gait being incurably crippled from decades of hard drinking. He actually felt that home in that place that he let a loud fart. It sounded as if a gun went off. The stench afterwards was so foul that Marty nodded giggling of approval over his superior skills as a master of farts. Flatulence was indeed a most noble science.

"All I need now is another pint and a newspaper," he murmured while walking across a semi-dark hallway. He entered a living room that was just as pleasantly decorated. There, on the living room table, was another pint (but no newspaper). Still, Marty stared with big eyes on this mysterious convenience. - "Well, I'll be damned! There you are, little fellow! Come to good, old Marty..."

He grasped the pint and goffled it so fast that he nearly swallowed the glass as well. No matter where he was, he could tell that he was the guest of civilized people - people that even put out beers for him to drink. Deciding to wait for the owner of the house to return from wherever he was, Marty opened the fridge and dropped his jaw. The fridge was crammed with beer cans, there had to be at least fifty of them.

"Good Lord, Marty!" he exclaimed. - "This miracle calls for a celebration!" He also noticed that there was an abundance of eggs, bacon and tomato beans in the fridge, and bread in the bread box. - "I think I'll make myself an English breakfast while I wait!"

To inaugurate the kitchen, he released a chain of thundering little farts that sounded just like slap bass riffs. He giggled crazily over the odd sounds coming from his old, frail body. He opened another can of beer and drank from it vigorously, before melting butter in the frying pan. While the bacon was sizzling along with the butter, he opened a can of tomato beans and poured into another pan. He then cracked five eggs into the frying pan while humming merrily. The pleasant smell of food finally managed to overpower the awful, sulfurous odor of an old man's flatulence.

Afterwards Marty descended on the food like a starving wolf - he had not eaten in at least 24 hours. He munched, snarfed and moaned while enjoying his food. Sets of long and loud farts protruded through his sphincter every five seconds - he burst into giggle fits of their sound, their wet quality and the ghastly smell they generated.

"Enjoying my food, Marty?" a voice suddenly sounded. Marty, eating with his hands like a savage, nearly bit his fingers off. He turned around with his face covered with food and stared at a woman. She appeared to be around 40, was tall and very fat, and with gigantic boobs - she had to weigh at least 150 kilos.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry!" Marty exclaimed, wiping the food off his face. - "I woke up here, I saw pints appearing in the strangest places, and I simply forgot my manners!"

"It's OK, Marty," the woman said with a pleasant voice. - "The food and the beer is meant for you."

"Where am I?" Marty asked, finishing the dismal vestiges of a once consummate meal.

"You're on Kate's island," the woman said. - "I am Kate, and this is my island."

"How do you know my name?"

"I know you, Marty. Your reputation has finally caught up with you."

Marty's blank stare indicated that he understood nothing.

"Isle of Man, 1970," Kate said. Those ominous words sent shivers down Marty's communist spine. Now he understood everything. - "You had your way with an underage girl, impregnated her and was put behind bars. You escaped from prison and went to Norway hiding as a stowaway on a tug boat. Fast-forward 39 years. A social worker is lured by your charm, but very disappointed of your sexual performance, or lack thereof. She discovers your dark past and intricate tax evasion. Once again you escape from the authorities. But now, Marty, in 2010, 40 years after you thought you could get away, you have met your Nemesis."

All those words she said with the same pleasant tone in her voice. The pleasantness could however not soften the harsh truth of her utterings.

"Oh my dear Lord...!" Marty muttered, feeling like crawling into a dark corner and snuff it. - "W-what are you going to do? Are you gonna turn me in?"

"Why would I do that, Marty?" Kate asked with a wide smile on her obese face. - "You're already in prison, Marty! Here, with me, on my island! For the rest of your life!"

Marty let out an odd gulping sound as the horrible truth came to him. There was a horrible storm outside, he was marrooned on an island with an obese, insane woman - and nobody knew where he was, himself included.

--

The sudden onset of a snowstorm made it impossible to locate anyone or anything. Not even being able to locate their own hands, Nigel, Ayn and the police officer could do nothing but call of the search and return to the village. The three entered the tavern with sad faces. The ancient bartender and the few patrons of the tavern immediately understood what the outcome of the search was.

"Nobody can survive outside in such foul weather," the police officer said. - "Your friend is long dead now." After giving the surprisingly blunt matter-of-fact delivery, the police officer then left the tavern, taking with him two small bags of crisps.

"Well, then, Nigel, then all we can do is wait," Ayn said and sat down by the bar counter. - "Wait and hope."

"Yeah..." Nigel said. - "Two pints of lager while we wait, please."

The ancient bartender, still surprised over the obvious act of theft from the police officer, tapped two pints of lovely, refreshing and invigorating lager and handed them over, along with a small bowl of complimentary crisps.

Suddenly the weather took a nasty turn for the worse. The wind hit the building with such force that the door was flung wide-open. The bartender huffed and puffed while creaking his way over to the wind-hole. With all of his strength he managed to lock the doors safely.

"I'd better go and check on my boat," Nigel said, getting up.

"No!" the bartender said. - "You can't go outside in this awful snowstorm! You'll be blown to bits and pieces!"

"But so will my boat, if I don't fasten it tighter!" Nigel cried.

"Your boat ain't going nowhere, and neither are you," the bartender said. - "We've already lost one soul here today, and that's enough for such a small village."

"But..." Nigel said.

"The beer's on the house," the bartender promptly said. - "As long as you promise not to go outside."

Nigel went back to the bar counter like a tethered ball bouncing back to its pole. Taking his lager, he downed it in less than ten seconds.

"Hand me another free beer, please," Nigel said.

"What? B-but... I only meant the first beer, not all the beer!" the bartender cried.

"When referring to 'the beer' it's ambiguous whether you mean the substance or a unit of beer," Nigel said with the stoic appearance of an educated man - after all, he used to be a professor in history at the University of Leeds until he lost his marbles. - "You clearly said that the beer is on the house, and I'm taking advantage of that ambiguity. If you however say 'THAT beer is on the house', you would be absolutely sure that nobody interprets otherwise than you giving only one beer away for free."

The bartender stood there with an empty stare for a few seconds, before letting out a deep sigh. The professor had, not surprisingly, beaten the bartender in a battle of applied science - and linguistics was, after all, science.

"You win," the older-than-time man said and started tapping the second in a long line of free beers to Nigel - and Ayn too, since the bartender did not specify that the beer was free only for Nigel.

--

Having suffered a textbook example of humiliation, The One was finally allowed back into his room again for the evening. The mocking laughter of Clara followed him all the way to his room. He landed in his bed and fell asleep, completely exhausted. As soon as he fell asleep, he entered the frightening abyss of his own mind. In all the horror, anguish, lust and anger there arose an angel in silver lining, bearing an eerie resemblance to a female version of Director.

"Huh?" The One muttered.

"One..." the dickless, divine Director-angel said, the words floating mid-air. - "You must come back to my house in the village... I am deeply troubled... I'm in pain... They're trying to kill me... Ireeene is already dead..."

"Huh?" The One muttered again, not understanding squat.

"She's forever encapsuled in concreeeete..."

"Huh?"

"She will be perfectly preserved even after one million years have passed byyy..."

"What the Hell are you talking about? What's happened to Irene? And what's happened to YOU, you irresistible hermaphrodite?"

"I'm inside your dream, Ony..."

The One paused for a moment. Then a wide smile formed on his face.

"Now I know what this is! It's a lucid dream! I can do whatever I want without consequences!"

"What? No, you need to listen to me, One! This isn't the time for pleasure! This is the time for listening! You must come to my aid at once!"

Sadly, the Director angel spoke to deaf ears, as The One had already got his big man hands on a pint of cool, premium lager, perfect as only a fantasy can be. Laughing crazily he snapped his fingers, and Director's own mother suddenly appeared naked on the floor, spreading her legs, lying giggling on her back.

"H-how dare you, One?" Director cried. - "My own mother!"

"As if you hadn't been there already, you vile, perverted swine..." The One said with a cold voice, before penetrating the very same opening into which Director last emptied his near-bursting tanks.

"Wait a minute..." Director suddenly thought. - "This isn't The One's dream! How could it be? He doesn't know what's happened lately! He's been away for quite some time!" An awful revelation came to him. - "That means... That means that this is MY dream! And The One is having his way with my mother... But... Hold on... If this is a lucid dream, then I myself can do whatever I want!"

Filled with feelings that had been mercilessly repressed for months, he approached his now lonely mother. His cock stood out, straight as an arrow, and slightly curved upwards. Floating through the air he finally entered the woman that no other woman could hold a candle to.

His own mother.

The first thing that went through Nigel and Ayn's minds when they awoke in the morning was Marty. The two got up and met in the narrow hallway between their huts. Terror shone upon their visages and tremors of fear lingered upon their hands. Not daring to go up on deck, they listened for any sounds. It was dead quiet, except for the usual murmur of the sea.

"I-is he up there?" Nigel asked with a shivering falsetto voice.

"Only one way to tell, Nigel," Ayn said and slowly unlocked and opened the door. He cast a glimpse out on deck. - "He isn't there. But I can see footprints in the snow, so he must have been here during the night."

"Oh my God, I hope we haven't killed that poor sod!" Nigel exclaimed in a very teary and swashbuckling fashion, before jumping up on deck, hopping about nervously. - "What were we thinking? Letting an old man of poor health spend the night outside in sub-zero temperatures!"

"Now, relax, Nigel," Ayn said. - "People here are friendly and easy-going. I'm sure one of his drinking buddies invited him with them home. Nobody is so callous and heartless that they would throw an old man out in the snow."

"Except us!" Nigel cried manically. - "Weee are the ones who are callous and heartless! We deserve to be put behind bars for the rest of our liiives!"

"Calm down, Nigel, you're hysteric," Ayn said, grabbing Nigel's trembling shoulders. - "Things aren't as bad as they appear. Let's go and look for him. He's probably at the tavern as we speak, drinking, smoking and farting while occupying the only newspaper."

"Then let's find 'im!" Nigel cried in a very theatrical fashion. - "Allons-y!"

The hopping mad Jack Sparrow-look-a-like somersaulted down on the quay and ran to the tavern, Ayn having trouble catching up with him. Inside, the ancient bartender had just opened the doors and was nearly run down by the crazy captain.

"What's all this, then, Nigel and Ayn?" the bartender asked with raised eyebrows.

"Have you seen our dear friend Marty here today?" Nigel asked, kneeling down on the floor before the perplexed old man. - "Pleeease tell me you've seen 'im!"

"I have not seen Marty in here today," the bartender asked. - "I opened one minute ago. But he was here last night, drinking like there was no tomorrow."

"...and?" Nigel asked, still kneeling on the floor, folding his shaking hands together.

"I threw him out at closing time. He was tremendously inebriated, he could barely stand. He kept on murmuring about the same, old stories he tells every time he's here. I assumed he was sleeping with you guys."

"He... never came home last night," Ayn quickly said, before Nigel could burst out the truth. - "We're worried for him. He's an old, frail man and was badly dressed for the weather."

"In that case I suggest you call the police," the bartender said with a stern voice. - "They can send out rescue troops to look for him. This area is pretty vast, so, depending on his walking abilities, he could be anywhere by now."

"Let's do that!" Nigel cried, startling the bartender. - "We must find a phone!"

"I have a phone right here," the bartender said. Before Nigel could grasp it, Ayn took the phone (Nigel was in no state to call the police).

Being an ex-penguin of action, Ayn promptly called the Dreare police - which happened to be located in the neighbor building. Hence, it only took thirty seconds before the only police officer in the village came into the tavern.

"We must go and check every house in the village immediately!" the police officer said with a deep, Superman-like voice.

"All the houses?" Ayn asked. - "Wouldn't that take hours?"

"Are you kidding, there are only ten houses in the village!" the police officer said and laughed merrily. Oddly, all four of them laughed merrily, despite the gravity of the situation. Wiping their laughter tears off their faces, the four went in either direction, heading for a house.

Two minutes later they met outside the tavern.

"Marty ain't here anymore," the police officer said. - "Let's get into my car and check the vicinity."

"I have a tavern, a post office, a gym and a grocery store to mend, so I'm staying here," the bartender said.

Thus Nigel, Ayn and the police officer got into the huge SUV police car and drove out of the village.

--

Zoe had aged at least ten years during the passing of the night. While Wolf looked annoyingly refreshed, she looked like she had fought an entire army of polar bear warriors with nothing but a twig and a butter knife. Not having slept a second, she had barely managed to feed the fire enough for herself to survive the biting cold. Now she shook, shivered and twisted her body in anguish, her teeth rattling. Wolf, on the other hand whistled and sang merrily.

"Our great Lord has kept his vigil at the fire tonight," he said. - "Thanks to Him, we have both survived the night."

"Thanks to him?!" Zoe exclaimed with a frail, weak voice.

"Let's both thank Him for giving us another day of wonderful life," Wolf said and went down on his knees. - "Oh Lord, I praise thee! Thou art wonderful! Thou art my savior!" Then he glared at Zoe. - "I don't see you praise the Lord, Zoe!"

"Huh? But I'm not religious!"

"You will go down on your knees and praise Him, Zoe, or I'll make sure you get a job in front of the camera naked, rather than behind it wearing clothes!"

At first Zoe hesitated, but when she saw the foam coming out through Wolf's teeth, she quickly went down on her knees and started praising the Lord so zealously that the most devoted nun could not have done it better.

Five minutes of devoted praising later the two got up. Zoe turned the camera on and Wolf cleared his throat while making sure his hairdo was alright:

"After a night out in the dangerous Arctic wilderness it's time for me to move on. Bears and other ferocious predators roam these areas, making it very unwise to be two nights in the same place. I have to find a stream. That stream will turn into a river, and where there are rivers, there are people and my way out of here."

By an amazing convenience a little, frozen stream appeared in the desperately barren valley. The two followed the stream for something that seemed like forever (Wolf even prompting Zoe to turn off the camera to save the batteries). At last the stream widened into a river. The river had such strong currents that it had not frozen in the low temperatures. Wolf nodded to Zoe, and she turned the camera on:

"The rivers of Alaska are notorious for their treacherous rapids and undertows. A couple of years ago not far from here a Swedish Ten Sing choir got lost after their bus broke down. They tried to cross a river to get to a lodge on the other side of it, but they were mercilessly dragged away with the current every single one of them. It's futile trying to cross such strong currents. The only way is to find some log to use as a bridge. If the currents don't kill you, the freezing water will."

Soon they happened to find a log - a rather rotten and moldy log, but still a log. Wolf lifted it, looking at the goey, slimy snails and maggots under it:

"Snails and maggots will provide me with lots of proteins, which is crucial for survival. Here you'll just have to take what you can get."

Before the disgusted eyes of Zoe, Wolf ate the snails and maggots with great appetite.

"This log looks like my rescue to get across this river," Wolf said, while Zoe was shaking her head frantically behind the camera. Completely blanking her out, Wolf began fighting the log. After a brief struggle, he managed to balance it across the five-meter-wide abyss of foaming rapids. - "These logs are usually too slippery to walk on. Therefore it's better to use ropes and other remedies to make sure you don't fall off the log. I'm gonna use the ropes of my backpack as a safety rope, tying it around my feet and arms. In that way, I'll be sure not to slip nor fall."

He then tied the ropes around his limbs, using surprisingly simple knots.

"These knots are very solid and will never come undone!" he said, before climbing onto the log. Again Zoe shook her head frantically behind the camera, even whispering 'no!'. - "When crossing a river, you should always--"

Suddenly the knots did come undone, sending Wolf plummeting into the breath-taking (and life-taking) rapids. Zoe let out a shriek before she turned off the camera.

"Wolf!!" she cried, running downstream to see if he reappeared in the end of the rapids. She stood by the river-bed, shivering of fear. At last, something did emerge in the water. It were the ropes of Wolf's backpack - and the backpack itself. - "Oh no! Wolf! Are you there?! I'm never gonna get out of here without you! Woooolf!"

--

While Zoe was busy crying 'wolf', The One finally awoke from the massive dose of sedatives he had been forcefully given. To his dismay he found himself in restrains, tied to a bed like he was the little girl in "The Exorcist". Letting out a roar of terror, he started rattling and rocking the bed like a mad gorilla. It did not take long before five male nurses, two armed security guards and a nurse of indeterminable age entered the room.

"Eins, be quiet, or I'm going to have to sedate you," the nurse said with her creepy, Austrian accent and her forceful, genuinely female voice. Her stunning body and well-sized bosom made her appearance even more menacing. She looked like a Saxon Amazon with her long, wavy, blond hair, ready to inflict mayhem upon The One's poor, mortal person.

"What is this?!" The One cried in horror and surprise. - "Why am I tied up like this?! Who are you?!"

"My name is unimportant," the tall, well-shaped woman said. - "You are tied up for your own and other's safety. And you will be tied up until you cooperate."

"What do you mean, cooperate?" The One asked.

"You will attend Clara's drawing class, and you will draw exactly what she tells you to."

"In your dreams, Xena..."

When the woman took out a syringe the size of a full-grown lynx, The One shrieked 'nooo!', frightened to the bone.

"You will also apologize to Clara and doctor Kluge in front of the entire drawing class," the woman said. When The One objected, she took out a syringe double the size of the last one.

"Alright!" The One said. - "Anything you say, just get me out of here! And stop sedating me all the time!"

The male nurses freed The One from the intricate, code-locked restrains. The big man was then lifted up like an eiderdown and given back his clothes. The ginger root was also removed from his arsehole, having tormented him for hours and hours. Looking like he had spent an ocean of time in Hell, he got dressed, before being push-followed out of the torture chamber and into the hallway of the psych ward.

In the drawing room were Clara, doctor Kluge and at least fifty patients. The One was pushed and shoved all the way up to the front desk and the blackboard. With his head bent in shame, he knelt down before Clara, who shone of nauseating womanly self-pride. Doctor Kluge shone in an equally triumphant way.

"I apologize from the bottom of my hearts-- I mean heart, for my heinous and unacceptable behavior, my perfect, venerable Queen Clara," The One said while weeping in shame. Clara was so haughty that she was almost levitating. - "I am nothing but a humble patient, your inferior by a million. Can you ever forgive me, Your Highness, you infallible deity?"

Clara savored the moment like only a woman getting an apology was able to, before breathing in, a wide smile forming on her divine face.

"Yes, I forgive you, patient," she said. - "You may now kiss my deity feet."

The One then kissed all of her ten, naked toes, before kissing the sole of both of her feet. Then he turned to doctor Kluge, who appeared to be tall as a mountain before him:

"A thousand pardons won't suffice to express my bottomless remorse for my vile, disgusting conduct, you noble, hard-working man of honor. Can you ever release my poor soul from the chamber of justified torment in which it is trapped?"

"I forgive you, patient," the doctor said. - "Remember that you were, are and will always be a mentally ill patient. Nothing else."

"I will remember," The One said.

"Very well. You may now drink my holy urine."

Doctor Kluge then unzipped his pants, took out his soldier of potency and pointed it at The One's gaping mouth. A beam of urine flowed down The One's throat, making his eyes water. Not before the last drop of piss left the doctor's urethra was The One allowed to close his mouth again.

"Patient, we have now received your apologies," doctor Kluge said, zipping his pants. - "You may now commence the drawing class with Clara."

Clara nodded in great confidence, giggling of her immense arousal and rush of well-being. The One got up and was about to go to the nearest chair, when Clara grabbed his arm.

"Wait a minute, Eins," she said. - "Today you will be my personal blackboard. You will take off all your clothes and stand with your back against the wall."

The One sighed, before taking off all his clothes. The clothes were taken by one of the male nurses and put inside a coffin of lead locked with heavy-duty iron chains. Then The One was hand-cuffed to the blackboard, facing the crowd. Now fifty mentally ill people of both genders and all ages stared right at his gigantic, completely unprotected flesh warrior.

"Now the session starts," Clara said, took a pencil and wrote the word 'INFERIOR' on The One's forehead.

Wolf and Zoe had now found a place to spend the night. Before the camera the (North-)Irish survival expert had dug a cave in the snow and clad it with the hide of another dead (perfectly preserved) animal. He had also lit a fire using nothing but flint-stone, dry grass and some twigs:

"Normally you should never go to sleep inside a snow cave. Not only do you risk freezing to death from the low temperatures, you also risk having the entire cave fall over you. A couple of years ago in a typical area like this, a group of Taiwanese mountain hikers fell asleep inside a cave just like this one, and they never woke up again. That's why you should always put a hide between you and the snow, so that it stops the snow from absorbing your body heat. The fire will also keep you warm, although you would normally not have the ability to light a fire in a cave like this."

Wolf then made a quick nod with his head and Zoe turned off the camera. She put it down in the bag and sat down with Wolf by the fire. Wolf was now grilling the meat from the dead moose further up the valley, it smelled surprisingly good. Having not eaten all day, Zoe was famished. Wolf, on the other hand quickly consumed all the meat before her starving, staring eyes.

"Don't I get some?" Zoe asked.

"First rule of nature: If you want something, you gotta catch it yourself. Nature doesn't give anything away for free."

"But I'm hungry!"

"Well, I'm sure there's another moose cadavre lying around here somewhere."

"Oh, nevermind..."

Wolf yawned and decided to go to sleep inside the warm, comfortable cave. Zoe followed him, but was met by a wall of hands.

"Where do you think you're going?" Wolf asked with a sternness in his voice that could only come from a (North-)Irishman.

"What? Am I not allowed into the cave?"

"This cave is built for just one. Me."

"Am I supposed to sleep outside and die of hypothermia?!"

"The fire's still burning. You can crutch together before it and keep it warm for me during the night. But don't fall asleep, 'cause that will kill us both."

Letting out a disgruntled moan, Zoe knelt down before the fire while Wolf lay down in his one-man cave of egoism. While Wolf was snoring like a chipped tractor, Zoe kept awake all night feeding the fire with whatever twigs she could find in the frozen landscape.

--

Meanwhile Marty and Ayn had gone to bed in their respective beds, sound asleep from a day of hard, honest work. They had locked the entrance to the inside of the boat, so that only the cold outside deck was available if a certain Manx egoist should return from his binge drinking and binge farting.

Marty did in fact just then come staggering along the quay. Moments before he had been mercilessly thrown out of the tavern since it was closing time. Although the bartender had earned enough from Marty's drinking to buy an entire chain of hotels, Marty still had not earned at least a night inside the premises.

"God, I'm so drunk..." Marty muttered, before blowing chunks in the snow, holding to his aching stomach. - "Dear Lord, that was unexpected!" He shivered like crazy, his teeth rattling like the tail of a rattle snake. - "God, I'm so cold..."

He staggered along the quay and luckily managed to locate Nigel's boat. The fact that he was banned from the boat, he had completely forgotten. It did happen several hours ago, and one could not expect a drunk to remember events from a distant, mythical past.

It was so cold outside that even the sounds were partially frozen. Every sound sounded just as dead and lifeless as the world of Stephen King's Langoliers (a world that time had left behind, only to be eaten by the Langoliers) - or, to use a real-world comparison; every sound sounded just as dead and lifeless as Metallica's 1988 album "...And Justice For All" (apparently justice for all except the bass lines of Jason Newsted, which were completely over-powered by the rhythm guitar riffs of James Hetfield).

It was so cold outside that even time itself appeared to have frozen slightly. It felt like time was not moving at all, that it had came to a complete hault. Marty felt it like that, as he was banging on the door to the huts of Nigel's boat. Pounding and scratching on the door like a wild animal, Marty shivered so badly that he accidentally wet himself. He then started to feel numb, and soon lost all sensation of his feet.

"Dear Lord, have mercy on a poor, stupid communist..." he muttered, before he fell on the ice-cold, snow-covered deck.

While Marty was busy losing his body heat and consciousness, Nigel and Ayn were sleeping like babies in their cave of mutual egoism. To under-exaggerate to the extreme, Marty had now tasted his own medicine.

--

Around six in the morning The One woke up, feeling very refreshed. This feeling of refreshment and general well-being was brutally interrupted when he realized where he was. He was in a mental asylum and nobody took him seriously - he was not even trusted an axe, people being afraid that his talking nose would reappear again and tell him to chop off the left hand of every red-haired child in the Vienna region.

Letting out a disgruntled moan, he buried himself under his warm duvet, making his own cave of safety and shameless self-pity. Soon, however, sweat forced him out of bed and into his clothes. Hungry after not having eaten for more than twelve hours, he intended to check if breakfast was soon to be served.

Letting out another disgruntled moan, The One realized the door was locked. So, there he was, locked inside a room like an inmate of some prison. Not even was it locked, it also appeared like there was an iron bar on the other side of the door, just like the doors of a medieval dungeon.

"What is this shit?!" The One roared, banging his powerful, dangerous man fists on the door. - "Lemme out!! I want food!! I'm hungry!!"

Only the cold, unnatural silence of the building was heard. Then, seconds later, footsteps were heard. A set of keys were rattling on the other side of the door. At least five locks were opened, and the giant dungeon gate bar was removed. The door was opened. Outside stood four male nurses, an armed security guard - and, oddly, doctor Kluge.

"You're going to be sedated now, Eins," the doctor said with a cold smile on his face. - "For your own and other's safety." He then took out a syringe the size of a child's left hand (which The One had not chopped off with an axe yet). - "Seize the patient, bitte."

The One had hands laid upon his person and the venom injected into his big man veins. The drugs were powerful enough to calm half a dozen of rabid elephants. Soon everything went hazy and he was filled with a rush of calm and well-being. The doctor smiled confidently as the big, powerful man warrior was now conveniently unconscious.

"Put the patient in solitary confinement," doctor Kluge said. - "He is too dangerous to be with other people at the moment."

The One was now locked inside a mental cave of chemically induced unconsciousness - and a physical cave of concrete and 24-hour surveillance by camera. For his own and especially other's safety.

Wolf and Zoe were on the top of a mountain, having just started filming the episode "Survival in Alaska - Human Versus Nature with Wolf Drylls". As the standard procedure was of every episode, they had been dropped off by helicopter as far away from civilization as possible, with nothing but the clothes they wore, a knife and a flint-stone ignition set to make sparks for fires. Zoe had been filming since they were both sent down from the helicopter on a rope, Wolf having descended in an impressive, but completely reckless manner.

"We're now on top of the area's biggest mountain," Wolf said to the camera, Zoe filming with a smile of excitement on her face. - "The locals call it "Mount Doom" after the mountain of the famous Lord of the Rings trilogy. That mountain was originally a gateway to Hell itself, but, as you can see, there's not much volcanic activity going on around here. The area does in fact look just like Hell after all the fires have burnt out, just before Judgment Day in the far future."

Wolf then scree-walked down the snow-clad mountain-side, this method being the quickest way to get off a mountain according to himself. Since temperatures rose the nearer one came to sea level, this strategy was a mighty important one. He also used the position of the Sun to determine which way to go - going westwards towards the coast was most effective, since most people lived in coastal areas. When they reached the top of a big, ominous glacier, Wolf made a hault:

"A couple of years ago, in the same area we're in now, a couple of Japanese tourists got lost. They came across a glacier just like this one. Being inexperienced glacier-walkers, they fell down a crack in the ice and was never heard from again. Glacier cracks are usually covered by fresh snow, making them impossible to detect. Therefore one should always walk with a stick and feel one's way through this hostile and dangerous landscape."

The two commenced their perilous journey across the glacier. At one occasion Wolf nearly fell into a crack, but managed to get out of there with nothing but his knife and vast amounts of luck. At last they reached the end of the glacier and entered a valley with large spots without snow:

"When stranded out in a desolate, unforgiving landscape like this, finding food and water can be very hard. The few bodies of water here are always frozen, and the snow can be too contaminated to be safely ingested. A couple of years ago a Russian professional mountain hiker came across snow just like this one in a similar valley. He ate the snow to get water, and only hours later he died in horrible pain from a bowel infection. Always boil or filter water before you drink it!"

Zoe gave Wolf thumbs up from behind the camera and the two continued their way through the barren valley of ice and lethal, snow-bound bacteria. Suddenly they stumbled upon a cadavre of a moose. Wolf crouched down beside it:

"The earliest humans on the African savannah were actually not that good hunters. We were more like opportunists, scavengers, paying attention to the movements of vultures, since they would lead us to a fresh kill. Up here, however, there are no vultures, so we have no indications on whether we can eat deceased animals or not. The temperatures, however, can easily preserve dead beings for years."

Wolf then cut off a slice of the dead animal and ate it with great appetite. Zoe gagged, barely managing to hold the camera steady. Wolf cut some meat to have with him and then got up:

"For all we know, this moose might have been dead for three hours - or three years. A couple of years ago, in an area similar to this one, the bodies of a Canadian couple were found. Although the 30-year-old couple looked like they had just died, food that had expired in the late 50's were found in their rucksacks - and their passports show that they were born in the late 1920's. There are also stories of people victims of plane crashes that have survived for more than a year in places like this, but only because they had to resort to cannibalism. The bodies of their friends was however safe to consume for months and months after their death."

Wolf then continued his journey through the valley, whistling merrily, while Zoe was feeling sick to the very marrow of her bones.

--

While being confined to his room, The One thought about women in general. It was no doubt that only the fact that women had vaginas prevented them from being burnt at the stake. If a man had acted the way most women did, they would have been skinned alive before the age of fifteen. Women's many antics had made the world into the boiling cauldron of hate and suffering that it was today.

Women talked, talked, talked and talked. They spewed out endless bouts of shameless word masturbation, even though most of the time they had nothing important to say at all. While men talked only to exchange vital information, women just talked because they loved to hear their own voices. Being with any woman was like being with a radio, there was noise coming from it at all times. Women was all talk and no action. If the world was run by women, not a single little stool would ever have been built.

Like any other hopelessly self-absorbed creatures, women never thought about how their gushing torrent of verbal rain hurt the people around them. They always blurted out eloquently how men were the big, bad Satan of the world, how men were the scourge of the civilized world, and how bad men were at listening and reading women's infallible, intricate mind. A woman could give out hints ridiculously subtle and then burst into a state of unreasonable hysteria when the man did not understand. A man acting like this would result in shunning - it was not acceptable behavior, not even in the most primitive tribes of the world.

A woman stunned into silence was the most enjoyable thing to watch. From being a haughty, arrogant, provoking and condescending divinity, the woman was essentially reduced to a completely useless pile of flesh and bones. Women were like child soldiers - too little wit, too big weapons. If you took the weapon away from the child, it was no longer a soldier, only a child. And most toy cars were more dangerous than children.

Nothing stopped an oppressive, know-it-all arsehole like a swift, brutal and effective rape. The One giggled of joy while imagining the vilest atrocities being performed on Clara. If it was up to The One, every single woman in the world should be raped at least three times. Then they would learn to shut up and think before they talk. A woman who acted was way more attractive than a woman who just talked and never acted. Nothing was as futile as words, because words could amount to absolutely nothing. That was the core truth of the world, an eternally important meme, a norm that should be followed by anyone.

Letting out a disturbingly creepy laughter, The One lay down in his bed. If it was not for the absolute ban on consumption of alcoholic beverages, The One would have converted into Islam ages ago. Feeling like a god, aroused of his own ingenious mind, he fell asleep, despite it being only 1730 in the afternoon.

--

Hours of hard, manual labor had turned the former wreck into a decent boat. Nigel and Ayn wiped the sweat off their faces and stretched their aching backs. Nigel's thumb was now swollen and at least double its size - needless to say, he would not be able to play guitar for a while (not that he mastered it anyway). Ayn gently slid down the mast and gathered with Nigel on the concrete quay to watch the impressive sight from a distance. It was pleasing to watch.

"Now she finally looks like a boat again," Nigel said. Then he held to his growling, roaring stomach. - "Now I am so hungry I could start chewing bodyparts off my own person."

"Then we'd better grab a bite," Ayn said. - "Let's go to the tavern again. I bet that lazy-ass, nihilistic communist still sits there passing wind and dreadfully boring stories."

Nigel chuckled of amusement. The two walked across the quay and into the tiny village. There was not a soul in sight, everybody being too smart to be outside in the ghastly, sub-zero temperatures. The howling wind cast a warning that everybody should go, go, gooooo inside and not come out again before sometime in late May.

The tavern was warm and pleasant, a fire burning in the wood oven. The same patrons from yesterday had gathered there and nearly every booth was taken. The only booth that still had room for two more people, was the one in which a certain beardy, long-haired, Manx Marxist was sitting. Nigel and Ayn sighed and sat down with Marty, a pint in every hand.

"Well, hi there, gents!" Marty exclaimed in his mirth. He goffled a third of his pint, smoked half his cigarette and let a fart that lasted nearly ten seconds. - "I thought you detested my company, but now you come crawling back, begging for an apology for your scathing insults!"

"Hah! Baloney!" Ayn said. - "An apology you'll never get! Not even if the world's coming to an end! While you were busy being a big, beardy, farting child, the two of us have repaired the boat! One more night in that condition, and it would have sunk like a stone!"

"Finally you've fixed that boat!" Marty exclaimed. - "It was a real mess! And to think that this British couple actually stayed a night in that semi-floating abomination! You, Nigel, a captain, should know better than to let your ship deteriorate in that heinous manner!"

"Gah! And YOU talk about letting things deteriorate!" Nigel exclaimed in a theatrical falsetto. - "Look at yourself! Look at how you're letting your own body and mind deteriorate! You are the deteriorist of the century, Marty! It's a miracle you're still alive after all those years of binge drinking, chain smoking and... and chain farting!"

Right then Marty let out a chain of five short farts, in addition to one final, long sixth fart that lasted nearly seven seconds. The awful stench spread through the entire premises, all the nostrils in the room vibrating like piano strings.

"Mmmm, that was a real man fart," Marty said merrily and goffled the rest of his beer.

"A maaan?!" Nigel exclaimed with a powerful vibrato falsetto. - "You are not a maaan, Marty! You're a farting machine! If you were an animal, you would have been put down ages ago to save you from yourself! A whimp, maybe. A traitor, definitely. But a man you're not, Marty!" Nigel and Ayn then got up. - "You don't need to come back to the boat tonight, Marty the Un-Man Maaanx!"

Nigel and Ayn left the tavern, leaving behind their four untouched pints. Marty shrugged it all off, blaming it on everything else than himself, being completely unable to take responsibility for his actions. He seized the pints with mindless greed and started goffling them. Not in a million years would he share anything with anyone - again being the complete antithesis to communism, where everybody had to share everything with everyone.

The next morning Marty, Nigel and Ayn woke up disturbingly simultaneously. Neither of them remembered how last night ended, or the hours leading to its inevitable end. The three did however discover a letter lying at the table in the main lounge of the boat. Marty opened it and read out loud:

"Dear Marty, Nigel and Ayn,
Zoe and I have already left, since we're going to the Dreare glacier and need to take advantage of the few hours of daylight up here. We thank you kindly for your generous hospitality and give you a complimentary DVD of the first season of our show,

yours faithfully,
Edward James "Wolf" Drylls (esq.)."

The DVD showed Wolf standing in the middle of a forest, resting his foot on a recently deceased grizzly bear, even showing thumbs up for the camera while winking. Marty looked with mild disbelief at both the DVD and the letter. Nigel and Ayn were equally discombobulated.

"Who on Earth is this noble, white Wolf Drylls?" Nigel asked. - "Has he been in my boat tonight? Did we invite him?"

"Yes, and apparently all of us are oblivious to it," Ayn said, scratching the back of his Negroe head. - "Do any of you have any recollections what-so-ever what we did last night?" There was a deafening silence, only interrupted by the murmur of the sea. - "Nothing? Nada? Pas du tout?"

"What happens in the kingdom of Wastedor, stays in Wastedor," Marty theatrically proclaimed, before opening a can of premium Alaskan beer. - "Anyone up for some English breakfast at the nearby tavern?"

"Well, we're completely out of food here, so why not?" Ayn asked rhetorically and put on a winter's coat.

The three walked (read: staggered) off the boat and crossed the concrete quay heading for the village's only tavern. It was an omni-function building, with the tavern, the store, the laundry and the post office all merged into one. Built to last at least a century of hostile weather, the three-story building loomed majestically in the otherwise ragged, frozen, wind-torn landscape.

Inside the premises the party from last night had long since met its necessary demise, as there was not a single soul left there save the bartender. He was busy connecting a keg of beer to one of the taps. Seeing his regular customers, he got up and greeted them with a wide smile on his face.

"Lemme guess," he said. - "Three English breakfasts, three cups of coffee and three pints of lager?"

"Why on Earth, yes!" Marty exclaimed with big, bulgy eyes. - "That's exactly what we want! H-how on Earth did you know?"

"You've come here every day for a week," the bartender said. - "And you eat exactly the same for breakfast every day!"

Neither Marty, Nigel nor Ayn could deny this brazenly obvious fact. The three sat down in a nearby booth, where today's newspaper was conveniently present. Before anyone else could react, Marty grabbed the newspaper with egocentric avarice. He let a long, loud fart that was effectively amplified through the leather on the booth seats. Nigel was so startled that he let out a manic falsetto cry, while Ayn was just annoyed.

"Hold your wind, mate!" Ayn said, his face twisted in disgust from the awful stench. - "It's beyond my comprehension how such a putrid odor could come from a living human being..."

Marty chuckled while letting another fart. As the bartender came with the coffee and the pints, Marty let out a long, loud moan of relief, his tummy having settled for the moment. He grabbed his pint, opened his mouth and let the beer flow down his esophagus without swallowing once. Even though he had done this a trillion times before, Nigel and Ayn became just as impressed every time they witnessed it.

"It's beyond my comprehension how one single human being can drink that much so quickly..." Ayn muttered and took a far more modest sip from his pint.

"Oh no!!" Nigel suddenly cried, pointing with a shaking finger on an ancient, elderly Eskimo couple. - "More of those awful, 'orrible Eskimos!"

"And it's certainly beyond my comprehension how a human being could be so xenophobic..." Ayn muttered and took a sip from his cup of coffee.

The three got their English breakfasts and immediately started to indulge of the overly generous amounts of food on their big plates. Marty ate fast and voraciously, the meal being the first time in 24 hours that he ate anything at all. He devoured the food so fast the he accidentally ate his napkin as well - and he did not even notice it. Nigel and Ayn were equally famished, so their meals also tended to disappear within the blink of an eye.

Soon the three were done eating. Marty had another pint for dessert. At precisely eleven o'clock Nigel and Ayn got up, deciding to leave the tavern. Marty, however, remained aseat, drinking from his third pint.

"Where are you gents going?" he asked.

"I'm gonna have my boat fixed," Nigel said. - "It's in an unacceptable state after our Pan-Pacific crossing." Their perilous journey was a textbook example of man's hubris and stupidity combined - sheer, utter madness.

"And I'm gonna defend him from the "awful, 'orrible savages" of the village," Ayn said. - "And I'm gonna help him with the repairs, of course."

"What, so you're just gonna leave me in here all alone?" Marty asked with a childish frown on his now bearded face. He had also got back his classic mullet of white hair.

"You could come and help us you too," Ayn said. - "But since you're allergic to work and any kind of responsibility, you would be as helpful as gangrene. So, enjoy your beers, M."

Then he and Nigel left the tavern, Marty sitting behind. He lit a cigarette, let out a long fart that made the windows vibrate, before ordering his fourth pint. Then he read the newspaper one more time just so that no one else could not read it.

--

While Marty was busy goffling pints, puffing smoke and passing wind, Nigel and Ayn had been at the carpenter's house and bought materials to repair the boat. Now they were fully occupied with the necessary repairs, repairs that had been delayed embarrassingly long. Nigel repaired the masts while Ayn replaced the old, torn canvas with new un-torn. The quiet murmur of the sea was constantly interrupted by deafening bangs of a hammer hitting a nail.

"I really wonder how a die-hard communist as Marty can detest labor that much," Ayn said. - "According to the memes of communism, one should do what lies within one's abilities and get what lies within one's needs. Marty is perfectly able to do a decent day's worth of work, and he really needs a good, old spanking on his lazy, alcohol-drenched buttocks!"

"Sort of proves the point, doesn't it?" Nigel asked rhetorically. - "Marty doesn't do anything despite his ability to, and he gets only what he in no way needs. That just proves the incurably flawed nature of that awful social experiment. People don't get what they deserve, they just get things."

Suddenly Nigel hit his thumb with the hammer. He let out an ear-piercing falsetto scream with an impressive vibrato. His hammer fell down on deck, centimeters away from hitting Ayn's head.

"Hey!" Ayn cried. - "Careful up there! Are you trying to off me?"

"Oh, the pain is unbearable!" Nigel cried in a theatrical falsetto, his thumb hurting like Hell. - "Shoot me in the back o' me neck to spare me from the horrendous, excruciating pain!"

"Blow on it, you big cissy," Ayn said, still feeling shellshocked after nearly having his skull cracked open.

Nigel came sliding down from the top of the mast and grabbed the hammer. To Ayn's perplexity he started to blow frantically on the hammer. He huffed and puffed like he was a wolf about to blow down a house.

"What... are you doing?" Ayn asked.

"Big fat nothing happens!" Nigel cried. - "My thumb still hurts despite me emptying my lungs on the hammer!"

"Why the Hell do you think that blowing on the hammer would help? You must blow on your hurt thumb, you git!"

"Oh... Well, it's counter-intuitive! That's what it is! Just like the phrase 'Hair of the dog that bit you'!"

"Give me the hammer!" Ayn muttered and snatched it out of Nigel's hands. - "You are hereby declared too stupid to handle such a dangerous weapon. You stay down here and mend the sails, and I will go up in the mast and nail it together again."

Then the situation met its necessary mirror image, with Ayn being on top of the mast and Nigel down on deck preparing the canvas.

--

The art sessions took place at five o'clock every afternoon and were led by a stunning Austrian woman in her late 40's. The first thing The One noticed went entering the room, was that she bore an uncanny similatiry to Director's mother Beate. Both had blond, curly hair, perfect bodies - and even that same wide-eyed smile.

"Servus!" the woman said. - "I am Clara! And you must be Eins!" The One nodded, not being surprised over being recognized by a perfect stranger. After all, he had a rather unique physique. She looked at his body, visibly impressed. - "Oh, you have such big... hands! You must be doing manual labor!"

"I used to," The One said. - "I worked as a lumberjack in the forests of Western Canada, but I lost my job when the company went bankrupt. Then I moved to Norway, planning on studying my way out of more of that hard, back-breaking and tedious slave labor. You see where it got m--..."

To The One's surprise, Clara just nodded indifferently and pushed him down to an empty place to sit and draw. He was in no way offended, since he was now regarded as "mentally ill", meaning that his words were now as unreliable as the weather of the Northern Atlantic. Now he was in the same group of the society as the drug addicts, he was a pariah, an untouchable, a freak. Judged merely by his illness rather than his abilities, his future appeared pitch black.

"Now we will start the session," Clara said. Now every inch of her body detested The One. Luckily he possessed the vital male ability to maintain a poker face despite one's inner turmoil. While on the outside he appeared neutral and indifferent, on the inside he was infuriated. - "Today we will deal with the ephemeral nature of life. So, today we will all draw an ephemera!"

'Is she fucking kidding?' The One thought, rolling his eyes.

"And, since life also has a sacred status in our human society, it needs to be protected," Clara continued. - "Hence, our ephemera will be holding an umbrella in its hands!"

"What?" The One asked flatly. - "Flies don't have hands! They can't hold on to anything! Especially not items thousand times larger than they are!"

Clara took a deep breath and smiled condescendingly. With her back straight and an overly confident look on her face, she walked slowly and nonchalantly over to The One.

"You shouldn't let logic and sense stop your imagination, hon," she said, padding The One on his shoulder. - "But, if you want, you can always draw a flying nose holding an umbrella instead, if it makes more sense to you."

Shocked, The One got up and promptly left the room. Furiously offended he burst through the corridors, heading for doctor Kluge's office. With an angered look on his overly masculine face, he burst into the doctor's office without knocking. There Kluge had a very teary session with a severely traumatized rape victim. The young teenage girl let out a scream as the biggest man in Austria entered the office with noise and roaring.

"What kind of behavior is this, Eins?" Kluge asked and cast a look at the shaking teenage girl, who lay in a pile of anguish on the floor behind the mahogany desk.

"You broke the patient-doctor confidensiality, you git!" The One roared, banging his huge man fists in the desk. The teenage girl wet herself out of fear, making Kluge's nostrils vibrate of disgust. - "You've told everyone about my hallucinations, haven't you?! Even Clara at the art sessions!!"

"Now, calm down, Eins," Kluge said, just as four male nurses and a security guard entered the office. - "As colleagues of mine, they are required to know about the condition of our patients." The One was so angry that his mouth foamed. - "I suggest you go to your room now, or we will have to sedate you."

With the company of the male nurses and the security guard, The One was gently escorted out of the office. Back sat Kluge and let a deep sigh. He looked at the nervous wreck lying in a pond of urine on the floor of his office, and pushed a button at his intercom box.

"Helga, I need a cleaning lady in here. And perhaps a wheelchair too."