The Archfornicator of Canterbury

30 Leaving through Verlaine

The Tourist Board of Bulimia puts out every other year a glossy four-page brochure describing the joys and delights awaiting a tourist, should he or she happen to choose Bulimia as a holiday destination. Apart from those with a compulsion to visit every country on the planet, however, very few tourists ever came to Bulimia. Even the country point collectors tended to be satisfied with just a stamp in their passport.

The brochure was due to be revised the following year, and given that the front page featured a large photo of the Cathedral, it was probably for the better. For every revision, the tourist board tried to find a new set of three tourists to interview about their experiences in Bulimia, which restaurants they'd recommend, and so on. The board would probably consider themselves lucky if they could find three tourists among whom they did not have to include Jack Back.

Jack was sitting in a bar in Verlaine, a sleepy town at the Transvestitian border, idly leafing through the Tourist Board's brochure. He noted without much interest that Lake Waycanbayck was a popular holiday destination among sports fishermen and that the lake was famous for its large pikes. He wasn't much of a fisherman himself.

The pack of local cigarettes that Jack had bought when he finally gave in to his nicotine addiction was almost empty. The brand was called Trovator. The label had a picture of a yak herder in traditional outfit blowing on a horn, along with a greeting from the Surgeon General. Apparently the Surgeon General didn't recommend smoking Trovators. Jack knew what he meant. The filterless Trovators tasted like yak shit and probably also contained quite a bit of it. Jack fished the last cigarette out of the pack and lit up.

Jack was trying hard to get rid of the wad of Bulimian rallods that was burning a hole in his pocket, as he'd somehow managed to drop his Zippo in the pocket without putting it out first. He'd considered his options, and very few of them mandated staying in Bulimia. Jack was more than happy to leave the sorry excuse for a country behind him, hopefully forever. The only thing in Bulimia that he did not positively loathe was Suzy. He missed already her lithe body, her supple wrists, her perfectly round ...

The waitress woke Jack up from his daydream.

"Would you like another coffee Sir."

"Yes please. And this time hold the yak's milk."

"Very well Sir."

The other thing that was burning a hole in his pocket was the mysterious object he'd risked his life to obtain. It was warm to the touch, glowed faintly in the dark, emanated a low-frequency hum and small birds would occasionally fall out of the sky whenever he took it out of his pocket, but in all other respects it was just like an ordinary rock.

He wasn't any closer to understanding what the rock was. It had to have a purpose, that much he knew. The Company wouldn't have sent him to get it otherwise. Well, whatever it was, he'd definitely hang onto it, if only to have a bargaining chip when the time came. He knew it would. The Company was not given to letting loose ends hang, and Jack knew first hand just how good they were at tracking people down eventually.

The events that took place in Nuevo Saunabad were enough to prove that he was holding the key to some puzzle that Richard Black and whoever was pulling his strings wouldn't want him to solve. Jack didn't mind that. He wasn't into solving puzzles. What he did mind was the fact that he would have probably been gunned down if he'd been less careful. He had a kind of a personal guideline not to stay in the employ of anyone who was in the habit of having him shot.

The waitress arrived with a fresh mug of coffee. Jack smiled and gave her a five-rallod note.

"Keep the change. Buy yourself something nice."

"Thank you kind Sir. You are very generous."

"Don't go spending it all at once."

"No Sir."

Jack took a sip and looked at his watch. The border would be open for another fifteen minutes. It was time to travel. He took another sip and headed for the bathroom.

The Archfornicator of Canterbury by Olli-Pekka Rinta-Koski
is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.