When I awoke in the morning, my back ached.  I heard a lot of flies buzzing to my left.  One of those al Shabaab chaps was frozen dead, but his throat had somehow got cut.  Now the filth flies were laying eggs to feed on him.  Soon he would be a platform of maggots.  My guess is they would pass on his hard-froze bits.  

Above me, I heard birdsong.  I was still in the ravine’s cool shadow, but I could tell the sun was heating the rim.  I had taken quite a tumble after my freefall.  The same was true of my companion to my left, Mr Fly.  

Leaving him behind, I made my way up the wall of the ravine.  As I clambered over the rim, I heard a familiar voice. “Hello, fool.”

It was Bart’s voice.  Next to her, I heard Fielding laughing at me.  Beyond them, I made out a horror of horrors.  At a small portable table with a sun umbrella to make it comfy, I saw Woland and Behemoth.  Woland was devouring a platter of fresh fruits as he chatted with Behemoth.  Behemoth had a large bottle of Russian Standard vodka.  When he saw me, he pulled herring a chest cooled by dry ice.  He shouted “Fish, Crocky”. 

Now I asked you, would any cat with a lick of sense refuse fresh herring in an African morning?  You don’t get a lot of Baltic herring to eat when you’re in Africa.  With caution, I made my way over to the table.    Woland’s maid Hella, a real looker if not for the bulging purple scar on her neck, began cutting the herring into kitty-sized bites for me.  

Bart followed behind me.  She was wearing her pith helmet.  Fielding was again wearing her spiked German helmet, with a chunk of frozen flesh hanging from the spike.

I couldn’t help myself.  I demanded to know why Fielding and Bart were in Somalia. I knew better than to make any demands on Woland and Behemoth.  Hella was always obliging.  She once told me she had never refused a man an amorous service, but, unlike Lucky, she also sucked every drop of blood out of whomever she screwed. 

Hella would say, “There’s always a price.  TANSTAFL: there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.  You want bukkake? You owe your blood.  You want anal? You owe your blood.  You want the old in-out? You owe your blood.  You just want kissies on your nipples or stinky feet? You still owe your blood.”  I didn’t want to make demands on Bella either.  She was over 200 years old, looked barely 20, and was. still making collections, a venerable Dracula, but sans penis.

Bart took no offence.  In way of an explanation, I got a lecture on how I was family.  She and Fielding felt a special duty to protect me since I was, to quote Roberta, “too stupid, slow, and weak” to care for myself.  I was the Love Machine, not a warrior.  Once Bart and Fielding had figured out that I was in Somalia during a drunken Skype call from Wolverine, they wheedled my future location from him, a task made simple by his being a braggart.  It’s easiest if you get him to tell you in Attic Greek so that he can show off his Eton education. 

Bart then got on Zoom to talk to Irascible.  Telling him that she and Fielding decided to attack their recent bout of ennui with a cobra hunt, she got him to arrange a flight to Mogadishu.  From there they found some khat merchants taking a trip to replenish supplies.  One of their preferred harvest areas was within range of the al Shabaab clowns.  

After ditching the Khat fiends, Bart and Fielding did start hunting cobras. One cool thing about Somalia is it has 3 species of spitting cobras and assorted other snakes that are fun to kill.  Cobra hunts keep cats sharp for combat.  Fielding bragged, “Bart and I also got a nice supply of venom to use on pesky terrorists. Cobras like to stare a big game, but they’re slow.

Take a careful look down at that bozo in the ravine.  Bart slashed his pretty neck.  I emptied an ampule of cobra venom into the wound.  Behemoth, a real gent, came over to give him a hard kick in the tuchas. 

There was another hoyden I took a chunk of titty meat out of when I rammed her.  I think she was trying to save a wife beater.

“Everybody save the al Sha-boobs got into a shelter good ole Woland made.  I think he had Hella dig it out.  She digs faster than an army of gophers.”
Woland grinned at these kind words.  ‘You know, Crocky, any real Russian loves what Lucky and those Jews did last night.  I loved that they did it without the high casualties that the average Russian views as essential to anything we do.  You can’t build so much as a copula in Russia without doing in a few Russians.  In the old days, Stalin killed them in droves to maintain the motherland’s work ethic. What Russian doesn’t enjoy scenes where even pretend Russians are obliterating a foe? 

Behemoth and I just had to see it done to comprehend the beautiful possibility of it.  Thank the gods Putin was too busy sucking up to that fraud Caligula to commence an African operation.  Those two wankers would have botched it for sure.  Not our gal Lucky and her killer Jews. If only they were Russians.”   Woland’s eyes began to mist.  He turned his gaze from me.

He ate what looked like a varenyky.  Food is the best medicine.  Or is it sleep?

I noticed Behemoth celebrating with a large shot of vodka that was chasing a large piece of Schmaltz herring.  I was feeling a wee bit bitter. I had already eaten all my fresh herring.  

Was there more?  If there was, that cheapskate drunkard Behemoth wasn’t offering it.   

Behemoth looked about at the frozen bodies as the strong sun beat down.  “You do realise that getting out of here may be dicey? A raiding party of these nasty Somalis are coming back.  If you ask me, they’re going to blame you for this mess, especially since Woland, Hella, and I must run.  There is so much bad to do in this world and so little time.”

“You all aren’t going to give us a ride out?”

“Why would we?  You were told to stay alive and she would find you.”

I protested, “She didn’t say find me here.”

Behemoth had another blast of vodka, rolled his eyes, then told me, “Come, come. It was a conversational implicature. And to think I thought you a philosopher.  She meant here.”

“Then she should have said so.  I think she meant any here.”  

“Then,” roared Behemoth, “stay here and ask her.

“We’re heading out and want to learn whether Lucky is a woman of her word.”

Bart and Fielding were unimpressed.  Fielding went on a tirade.   “He’ll leave when we tell him to. We don’t need a freakin’ ride.  We can all walk to Kampala.  Weak white guys Stanley did it.  He even managed to find the kook Livingston.   So, go when you want, assholes.”

I could have killed my two gals.  Let them walk to Kampala.  I wanted a ride. But it was too late.  Woland and his entourage vanished.  As did my cooler of Baltic herring.  To think anybody thinks the world is just!  Where do such addled souls live?

In the distance, Bart and Fielding were conferring.  As Bart explained it to me, they were working out how many al Sha-bah-bahs they’d have to put down before they got spooked and ran.  Bart also started working out tactics.

When I asked what I might do, Fielding insulted me.  “Why don’t you find yourself an aid station and relax whilst we work out your salvation?  You do recall Martinez Creek, don’t you?”  What luck!  I could feign outrage and hide out until the coast was clear.