The Archfornicator of Canterbury

34 Adrift on the river

The banks of Rio Puta were quite steep. This was the result of a geographical quirk that took place millions of years ago. Back then, the basin of Lake Waycanbayck formed the crater of a huge volcano. The volcano spewed hot liquid magma, which flowed in a canyon created by a fissure in the bedrock. When the volcano became inactive and the magma cooled down, rainwater began to fill the crater. At some point, the crater overflowed and water started to run along the magma channel. Slowly but surely, the magma was eroded away, leaving nothing but the channel in the rock which lay just below the surface of most of Bulimia.

This fascinating natural phenomenon was of no consolation to Jack Back, who was helplessly drifting towards the ocean, carried by the flow of Rio Puta. He'd lost most of the "Mr Borge" disguise, with only half a moustache still stuck to his upper lip. He'd been able to grab and hold on to a piece of driftwood, which gave him some extra buoyance.

The water was freezing. The piece of rock he had in his pocket provided some warmth to his nether regions, for which he was grateful. Other parts of his body weren't doing nearly as well. His face had turned a shade of blue, and he was starting to lose feeling in his toes. His Kung Fu training only went so far in fighting hypothermia.

Jack was drifting in and out of consciousness, thinking in his more lucid moments that if he fell asleep and let go of the driftwood, he definitely would not make it. He was aware of the cold, but could no longer feel it. I'm too old for this shit, he thought.

Suddenly, he hit something. The impact made him lose his grip on the piece of wood. His brain tried to send his hands an order to get back to grabbing the wood, but to no avail. He sunk under the surface and passed out.

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