“No.”
Arel sighed heavily.
Nikto laughed, bowing his head over the paper and reading it: “Twelve days, three hours.”
“What?”
“This paper. Document,” Nikto handed it to Arel. Arel indifferently took the sheet:
“Ahhhh…” he said, “it was Enriki who gave me that. The decree. He grunted scornfully. Those freaks imposed a fine!”
“You’re taking time, it’s dangerous.” Arel cocked his head:
“What do you suggest?! To give you away?!” He asked in exasperation. Nikto looked down, handing Arel a clogged cigarette:
“Hold on.”
Arel literally snatched it from Nikto’s fingers.
“Why did they set such a deadline?” Nikto asked. “Why such strange numbers, twelve days, three hours?”
Arel blew smoke, and handed the jamb back to Nikto: “Will you?”
Nikto nodded.
“They are morons,” Arel continued, “for me their stupid orders mean nothing. Twelve days, thirteen days, a week. I don’t give a shit… shi-i-i- t…”
“It just sounds so cool – twelve days, three hours, they should have written twelve minutes, three seconds!”
“Yes, fucked up,” agreed Arel, taking the cigarette again and taking a deep drag.
“They first demanded for a week or something,” he continued after a while, when he blew smoke. “Then they realized that it was pointless, they wrote this demand. Knowing fully well that this was pointless. They just supposedly do everything according to the law. First warning, second, third. Then a fine.”
“And what next is the law? Nikto asked. “When these twelve days end?” “Next? Guard is next, Nik…”
Nikto shook his head.
“I have a finale in the “Lower” Coliseum.” “I know.”
“It sucks…” Nikto returned to his bag.
“It’s jamming me so much, oh!” Arel leaned back on the pillows. He crouched into a lump, and covered himself with a blanket:
“Why is shit always happening to me, Nik? Will you explain me? Why am I always a laughing stock? Why do stories go about me, not you, not Lis, not Enriki, it’s me who always gets into a stupid position!”
“Don’t talk nonsense, you are just high a little, that's all.”
“Aha! And why didn’t they manage to comb out my horse properly? All combed out, and mine skims like cattle!”
Nikto laughed:
“If it weren’t so cold in the winter in the stable, they wouldn’t have become so overgrown with wool.”
“Yeah…”
“Is your stomach alright?” “Nah…”
Chapter five
Good weed. Lis and Squint-Eye talk about love
“Hi, Alis,” Squint-Eye went down the stairs to the hall and sat at the end of the table in Arel’s place. Leaning with his elbows on the countertop, he laid his chin on his hands with his palms open up:
“What are you doing?”
“Hello,” Lis muttered distantly, on the table in front of him lay a deck of cards.
“I thought everybody were already on a picnic.”
“They are,” Lis nodded and thoughtfully picked up the cards in his hands.
“Why don't you go?”
“I'll go now…” Slowly, as if reluctantly, Lis began to shuffle the deck. All the first half of the day he spent with Tol, until he ran away to
organize his lamb barbecue. When Lis was leaving, Asa, the dumb Asa, asked him:
“What bothers you so much?” She noticed it!
“Nothing!” He brushed off.
And she looked at him very seriously, and said, as he thought, a little regretfully:
“I would like to help you.”
He got angry. Probably not even on her, but on himself, for really wanting to share this with someone.
“It's all right, Asa.”
“Well, as you know,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders. She didn’t insist.
