English / 09.09.2019 / 4264

Brasileiro. Chapter II

Nikolay Mokhov, author from the Dark Side of Business

Part I. Vaeroy

Chapter II. The travelers’ club

Brasileiro had spent a long time washing himself off in the shower. The smell of fish refused to go away. The man was desperately rinsing his nose — it felt as if some invisible particles somehow got there. In the end, he gave up, dressed up in something clean and set off to greet his guests. Today there was a real celebration — a young woman finally arrived in the house where he lived.

When he was younger, he wouldn’t have even looked at a girl with even a hint of cellulitis. Nowadays, he had visions of a big rough female butt in the mornings

Vaeroy was an island of single men. The issue with sex was prevailing. In the beginning, when Brasileiro was at a bar and spotted a girl, he instantly began shooting his shot (**).
His kind neighbors stopped him. Using broken English, they explained that the girl was the only daughter of the island’s only policeman. It could have ended badly — the aborigines didn’t approve of their local women fooling around with foreign gentlemen.

Today’s beauty was a newcomer. That was good — perhaps, there was a chance at something happening… An older comrade once told Brasileiro:

— You chose the life of a sailor... What women do you expect? You know what they say about Arkhangelsk? Anguish, plank and codfish. That’s what’s waiting for you. Women aren’t waiting for you. Don’t even bother.

Brasileiro didn’t hope for anything. Five years ago, he left his hometown. He thought that he was looking to find adventures. Turns out — he was looking to find himself. And now, this Odyssey had brought him onto an island which no one needs, an island, which has the sole purpose of hiding fugitives, who would then prepare codfish…

From the heading

Superstar of Conversational Writing

Oh! Were you expecting something? That’s odd. So many people gathered, and nothing’s happening. No-thing. Absolutely nothing. Can you imagine it? You might have thought we’d have a new text for you here, maybe even a story. One with elements of philosophical and theological discussion, one filled with real stories and adapted for practical use. So many expectations, and here I am, unprepared. I didn’t write a single word. It’s embarrassing, really. Well, don’t you worry. We’ll find something to “snack on”. I can’t promise a real feast of the mind, but there will be some food for thought. Like a diligent housewife who wasn’t expecting guests, I’ll have to come up with something on the spot. That’s not a problem. I just have to find the first Word. The second one will find itself. And before you know it, we’ll have enough for some salad and a couple sandwiches. It’s no Christmas dinner, sure, but if you pull out that bottle you have stashed away…

Brasileiro

His fingers were freezing from the cold. Gauntlets over the gloves, winter boots… None of this protected him from the harsh wind. The arctic ocean is nearby. Is that where the wind is blowing from?

— Brasileiro, why did you get distracted? Hook it up... — commanded the crew chief. He was making sure that the workers were quick at hanging the fish to dry.

Brasileiro looked at the cod with hatred. Cod, cod, cod... Those who never lived in northern Europe would not understand the significance of this fish. It would be shocking to find out that in the second half of the 20th century, there were three times when Iceland was ready to start a war with England over codfish.

Don’t You Worry, Dear, You’re Tripping

There are hallucinations that we join in on. And there are those that we walk past. And there are people who hallucinate, but don’t want to share their world — we call them schizophrenics. Schizophrenics are outsiders in our hallucinogenic world. We’re not going to talk about them today. We’re going to talk about the leaders of the hallucinogenic world.

Babylonian Squabbles

Once again I wondered: why is it so difficult to understand other people? Recently, we had a heated discussion in our chat. One of our readers pondered: what motivates young people these days to join power structures where there is “no place for individualism”? Someone suggested they could be compared to Batman: “Being afraid of bats, he decided to become one of them. So did these people: being afraid of the authorities, they decided to become them.” Someone else had a counter question, “How successful would they be had they not decided to join these structures?”