So I thought I'd try my hand at one of these vignettes.
WARNING: Extremely dark story ahead.
===
Kalash toyed with his machete, staring at the hapless chimpanzee sitting in it's cage. Kalash was very hungry. Kalash often didn't eat, no he didn't. Kalash could see the chimp look at him. Kalash would teach the chimpanzee for looking at him. How dare it look at him. If it looked at him again he would eat him alive! And then that would teach the insolent creature. And then he would make an example out of it's mother. Kalash would... he would...
"Boyy! Com heeya. I haav sumding for yiu. Queek! Harri up! Harri up I sead!" Kalash scrambled to the Colonel. He hoped the Colonel had what he needed. "Ya wint ta geet ya ficks?" Kalash nodded. "Ya noh waht ya gaht ta doo thein?" Kalash nodded profusely, desperately. "Ya noh waht, ayema gib ya a leetle taysta ya? Ya ken git moah wehn ya com bakk. Dohn dissahpint, o' imma kaht ya lig ov, ya herrd chiyeld?" Kalash nodded.
He ran back to where he had been standing before, gathering his machete and his AK-47. It was a rusty old rifle, much older than Kalash was. It was his favourite, his only friend. Sometimes Kalash could hear it talking back to him at night. It said it liked it when he fed it blood. It especially liked the blood of women. It told him so. It had rewarded him last time he fed it. It told him how to be with a woman. He had enjoyed the screams the last time. His AK had helped him along the whole time. It made her so... cooperative.
Kalash ran back to the Colonel, who used a razorblade to prepare the powder. At the Colonel's direction, Kalash snorted the whole mixture. "Whet is iht?" Kalash asked in his squeaky voice. It hadn't broken yet. He was only 10. Probably. He wasn't sure. Kalash went to look up at the Colonel, but was greeted with a stiff punch to the nose. Kalash went reeling from the strike. "Yuu trai'eeng ta quistion me!?". Kalash shook his head as he stumbled to his feet. "Ehts iboga. Ihnd sum otha tingz." Kalash glanced behind himself and once again that damn chimp caught his eye. He swore he caught it smiling, or sneering. "Da fuq ehr ya luking eht!?" He shrieked at it. It continued to look down, with tears rolling down it's cheeks. "Fiking pussi boi" Kalash muttered at the wretched animal.
Kalash trekked along the trail to the northwest. As he travelled deeper and deeper into the jungle he was flanked by the roots of great primeval foliage which, despite their stillness, seemed to erupt from the forest floor. He could hear the cackles of the monkeys and the constant chirp of insects, along with the shrieks of birds in the canopy above. He had disdain for all of them, like he had disdain for most living things. Kalash didn't feel much other than anger now. He had what they called a "cold heart". He had had that ever since a year-and-a-half before. The rebels who call themselves God's African Liberation Army had come to his village at that time. His mother tried to run away with Kalash and his sister. His father too tried to run but was gunned down. Eventually they caught his mother too, hiding in the jungle. When she raised her arms to defend herself, they severed them from her body. She was pregnant when they dismembered her. That was when they took Kalash and his sister. They forced Kalash to defile his own sister. That night, as he inhaled the embers of his childhood village and slit the throat of his only sister, tears had streamed down his face. But now he knows why they did it, and he thanked them for it. They made him strong, cold, a bad man. His mother, his father, his sister, they died because they were weak, unable to do God's work. That night the GALA had given him some medicine to soothe the pain. Now he used it all the time, even when he felt no pain. But at least it was like feeling something.
The darkness engulfed Kalash as he wandered amongst the fronds of the jungle. Why was he so cold? Kalash's body began to sweat and he trembled uncontrollably. His lips quivered and some froth crowded his mouth. Colours flickered ahead in the darkness, the shape of leopard's spots. They flickered yellow and green, tinged with pink and orange respectively. Kalash held his hand up to one, and as he went to grasp it it turned into a snake and wrapped around his arm. The snake raised it's head up to him and spoke, in a voice he had heard before: "It's just a snake. Go on touch it. Well look at that, he likes you. Go ahead. You know how you make friends with snakes? You kiss them". Kalash had never heard a snake speak in a Belgian accent before. He had heard snakes which sounded Angolan. Once he even spoke to a snake that was Zambian. Kalash shared a lot in common with snakes. They understood why he liked killing.
Kalash woke up to the sight of a ceiling fan. He didn't like ceiling fans. He had only seen one ceiling fan before. In the Belgian's little room in the building of God. "What is your name, little one?" a sweet sounding voice inquired. Kalash sat up, and saw a pretty woman sitting by a table. She was probably in her mid-20s, with high cheekbones, long herringbone braids and a complexion of milk chocolate, significantly lighter than his own. "He's awake?" sounded a deep voice from the next room. "Keep an eye on him" the deep voice warned. "You worry too much". "Oh no I don't, you saw what that boy was carrying on him. We shouldn't have even let him in the house. You know what those country boys are like! They're all on drugs, running with the warlords". The woman wandered into the next room to continue the discussion. Kalash got up and looked around the room. It was a nice little apartment, with yellow wallpaper and stainless steel furnishings. It was a typical young professional home in Lumumbaville. There in front of the television and the couches was a coffee table. On the coffee table lay a couple of books. Kalash didn't know what they were on, given that he couldn't read them. But sitting on the coffee table was his gun. Kalash walked over to it and picked it up. As he turned around he saw the woman looking at him, terrified. She yelled out to the man in the other room. "Antoine!". A man rushed into the room. He was a bit older than the woman. Darker-skinned, like Kalash. His eyes went wide as he realised that Kalash was pointing the gun right at him. Kalash fired twice, both times hitting the man in the chest. He dropped to the floor, convulsing, blood seeping out of his chest, gasping for air to fill his punctured lungs. The woman screamed. Kalash yelled and shepherded her into the next room. It was a bedroom. Photographs in frames dotted the room, on the walls, the dresser, the bedside table. A smiling young couple. How different they looked now. Kalash forced the women on the bed and stripped her. At first she screamed when he raped her. That quickly stopped when Kalash bludgeoned her in the back of the head with the butt of his AK. Kalash had his way three times that day. The last time, in the evening, his AK started talking to him again. blood. blood. thats what he needs. As Kalash was about to finish, he put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Kalash spent the rest of that night rummaging through the refrigerator and watching cartoons. The didn't really understand all that much that was going on, but he liked the colours. The best one was Well, Just You Wait!. Kalash thought it was funny how Zayat the Hare constantly made a fool out of the wolf Volk. Although he also thought Volk was a pussy and he wished the hippopotamus would just kill him already. Once the cartoons finished, another program came on. This program wasn't very interesting, it was just some woman sitting at a desk talking. She looked like she would feel good, but Kalash wasn't interested in what he had to say. He got up to gather more food from the fridge, but left the television on in case something interesting happens, like if the lady gets naked. After all, why else would anyone watch this show?
"In other news, an earthquake in the Himalayan region has led to emergency response by India, which has sent in military engineers as well as food and medical equipment to assist victims in Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. [pause] Major medical advances have been reported from the Soviet Union, where Russian scientists have successfully created the world's first cloned pig. It is believed that pig clones will be utilised to ensure the very safest organs only are used for xenotransplantation. [pause] Closer to home now, Umkhonto we Sizwe forces have entered Pretoria. As we speak, they are pushing closer to the Palace of Justice, having overrun Fort Klapperkop and demolished the Voortrekker Monument.
The next day Kalash felt terrible. He was shivering again, he was very cold. He also itched terribly, as if there were lice all over his bodies. He tore his arm raw in places with his fingernails. It was infuriating. He took much of his angst out on the body of the man which still lay on the ground, stomping and kicking it furiously. He fired off his gun into the air. The bullets drilled into the ceiling and disappeared. He heard screams but he couldn't have cared less. An hour later, a crash at the door was followed by a loud bang and a flash of light. Kalash had no idea what was happening, his senses overwhelmed by the light and the noise. Before he knew it, Kalash was pinned on the ground by heavily-armed men in helmets and taken away.
Fabrice was an old man now, or at least he felt it at the age of 45. Yet he had the tired look of a man turning 60. Having seen combat will do that to you. Not just the stress of it all, but the realisation of what men will do to each other when they have the chance. But now he was a musician. He had always loved the saxophone, and it was his pleasure to play it at Le Jacobin. It was the fanciest nightspot in Lumumbaville, frequented by the elites of the vibrant, dynamic young city, as well as foreign dignitaries from the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Indonesia, Korea and Iran. Fabrice liked to think that music brought all those people together. But in reality he knew it was the same old politics. At least it looked a bit more civilised though. Oh well. The young waitress brought out his coffee. "Thank you my dear" he said with a grandfatherly tone. A bulletin caught his attention over the cafe's radio. "In response to the sexual assault and murder of a Lumumbaville woman, as well as the murder of her husband by a member of the Angola-based God's Army for the Liberation of Africa terrorist group, the Democratic Social Republic of the Congo has declared Operation Leopard, a punitive expedition into Angolan territory to root out the terrorist hideouts. The announcement has been met with open hostility from the Angolan government, which has announced that any so-called violation of Angolan territory would be considered an act of war and be met with the full force of the Angolan military. 15 minutes ago we got word that our MiG fighter jets were scrambled to counter American-made Angolan warplanes which invaded Congolese airspace. We are awaiting responses from the Angolan stooges' masters, South Africa and the United States, as well as from our fraternal comrades in Eastern Europe, Asia and Somalia. The criminal at the heart of this story was identified by tattoos across his back, signifying his allegiance to the Luanda-backed bandits. Fabrice shook his head. It's always the same. These boys are always the same. Why couldn't they be like him? Why couldn't they make something of himself. Fabrice had made it out of that life. He glanced up again at the handsome waitress. A sole thought crossed his mind in that moment. It's lucky she didn't meet me twenty years ago.
WARNING: Extremely dark story ahead.
===
Kalash toyed with his machete, staring at the hapless chimpanzee sitting in it's cage. Kalash was very hungry. Kalash often didn't eat, no he didn't. Kalash could see the chimp look at him. Kalash would teach the chimpanzee for looking at him. How dare it look at him. If it looked at him again he would eat him alive! And then that would teach the insolent creature. And then he would make an example out of it's mother. Kalash would... he would...
"Boyy! Com heeya. I haav sumding for yiu. Queek! Harri up! Harri up I sead!" Kalash scrambled to the Colonel. He hoped the Colonel had what he needed. "Ya wint ta geet ya ficks?" Kalash nodded. "Ya noh waht ya gaht ta doo thein?" Kalash nodded profusely, desperately. "Ya noh waht, ayema gib ya a leetle taysta ya? Ya ken git moah wehn ya com bakk. Dohn dissahpint, o' imma kaht ya lig ov, ya herrd chiyeld?" Kalash nodded.
He ran back to where he had been standing before, gathering his machete and his AK-47. It was a rusty old rifle, much older than Kalash was. It was his favourite, his only friend. Sometimes Kalash could hear it talking back to him at night. It said it liked it when he fed it blood. It especially liked the blood of women. It told him so. It had rewarded him last time he fed it. It told him how to be with a woman. He had enjoyed the screams the last time. His AK had helped him along the whole time. It made her so... cooperative.
Kalash ran back to the Colonel, who used a razorblade to prepare the powder. At the Colonel's direction, Kalash snorted the whole mixture. "Whet is iht?" Kalash asked in his squeaky voice. It hadn't broken yet. He was only 10. Probably. He wasn't sure. Kalash went to look up at the Colonel, but was greeted with a stiff punch to the nose. Kalash went reeling from the strike. "Yuu trai'eeng ta quistion me!?". Kalash shook his head as he stumbled to his feet. "Ehts iboga. Ihnd sum otha tingz." Kalash glanced behind himself and once again that damn chimp caught his eye. He swore he caught it smiling, or sneering. "Da fuq ehr ya luking eht!?" He shrieked at it. It continued to look down, with tears rolling down it's cheeks. "Fiking pussi boi" Kalash muttered at the wretched animal.
Kalash trekked along the trail to the northwest. As he travelled deeper and deeper into the jungle he was flanked by the roots of great primeval foliage which, despite their stillness, seemed to erupt from the forest floor. He could hear the cackles of the monkeys and the constant chirp of insects, along with the shrieks of birds in the canopy above. He had disdain for all of them, like he had disdain for most living things. Kalash didn't feel much other than anger now. He had what they called a "cold heart". He had had that ever since a year-and-a-half before. The rebels who call themselves God's African Liberation Army had come to his village at that time. His mother tried to run away with Kalash and his sister. His father too tried to run but was gunned down. Eventually they caught his mother too, hiding in the jungle. When she raised her arms to defend herself, they severed them from her body. She was pregnant when they dismembered her. That was when they took Kalash and his sister. They forced Kalash to defile his own sister. That night, as he inhaled the embers of his childhood village and slit the throat of his only sister, tears had streamed down his face. But now he knows why they did it, and he thanked them for it. They made him strong, cold, a bad man. His mother, his father, his sister, they died because they were weak, unable to do God's work. That night the GALA had given him some medicine to soothe the pain. Now he used it all the time, even when he felt no pain. But at least it was like feeling something.
The darkness engulfed Kalash as he wandered amongst the fronds of the jungle. Why was he so cold? Kalash's body began to sweat and he trembled uncontrollably. His lips quivered and some froth crowded his mouth. Colours flickered ahead in the darkness, the shape of leopard's spots. They flickered yellow and green, tinged with pink and orange respectively. Kalash held his hand up to one, and as he went to grasp it it turned into a snake and wrapped around his arm. The snake raised it's head up to him and spoke, in a voice he had heard before: "It's just a snake. Go on touch it. Well look at that, he likes you. Go ahead. You know how you make friends with snakes? You kiss them". Kalash had never heard a snake speak in a Belgian accent before. He had heard snakes which sounded Angolan. Once he even spoke to a snake that was Zambian. Kalash shared a lot in common with snakes. They understood why he liked killing.
Kalash woke up to the sight of a ceiling fan. He didn't like ceiling fans. He had only seen one ceiling fan before. In the Belgian's little room in the building of God. "What is your name, little one?" a sweet sounding voice inquired. Kalash sat up, and saw a pretty woman sitting by a table. She was probably in her mid-20s, with high cheekbones, long herringbone braids and a complexion of milk chocolate, significantly lighter than his own. "He's awake?" sounded a deep voice from the next room. "Keep an eye on him" the deep voice warned. "You worry too much". "Oh no I don't, you saw what that boy was carrying on him. We shouldn't have even let him in the house. You know what those country boys are like! They're all on drugs, running with the warlords". The woman wandered into the next room to continue the discussion. Kalash got up and looked around the room. It was a nice little apartment, with yellow wallpaper and stainless steel furnishings. It was a typical young professional home in Lumumbaville. There in front of the television and the couches was a coffee table. On the coffee table lay a couple of books. Kalash didn't know what they were on, given that he couldn't read them. But sitting on the coffee table was his gun. Kalash walked over to it and picked it up. As he turned around he saw the woman looking at him, terrified. She yelled out to the man in the other room. "Antoine!". A man rushed into the room. He was a bit older than the woman. Darker-skinned, like Kalash. His eyes went wide as he realised that Kalash was pointing the gun right at him. Kalash fired twice, both times hitting the man in the chest. He dropped to the floor, convulsing, blood seeping out of his chest, gasping for air to fill his punctured lungs. The woman screamed. Kalash yelled and shepherded her into the next room. It was a bedroom. Photographs in frames dotted the room, on the walls, the dresser, the bedside table. A smiling young couple. How different they looked now. Kalash forced the women on the bed and stripped her. At first she screamed when he raped her. That quickly stopped when Kalash bludgeoned her in the back of the head with the butt of his AK. Kalash had his way three times that day. The last time, in the evening, his AK started talking to him again. blood. blood. thats what he needs. As Kalash was about to finish, he put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Kalash spent the rest of that night rummaging through the refrigerator and watching cartoons. The didn't really understand all that much that was going on, but he liked the colours. The best one was Well, Just You Wait!. Kalash thought it was funny how Zayat the Hare constantly made a fool out of the wolf Volk. Although he also thought Volk was a pussy and he wished the hippopotamus would just kill him already. Once the cartoons finished, another program came on. This program wasn't very interesting, it was just some woman sitting at a desk talking. She looked like she would feel good, but Kalash wasn't interested in what he had to say. He got up to gather more food from the fridge, but left the television on in case something interesting happens, like if the lady gets naked. After all, why else would anyone watch this show?
"In other news, an earthquake in the Himalayan region has led to emergency response by India, which has sent in military engineers as well as food and medical equipment to assist victims in Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. [pause] Major medical advances have been reported from the Soviet Union, where Russian scientists have successfully created the world's first cloned pig. It is believed that pig clones will be utilised to ensure the very safest organs only are used for xenotransplantation. [pause] Closer to home now, Umkhonto we Sizwe forces have entered Pretoria. As we speak, they are pushing closer to the Palace of Justice, having overrun Fort Klapperkop and demolished the Voortrekker Monument.
The next day Kalash felt terrible. He was shivering again, he was very cold. He also itched terribly, as if there were lice all over his bodies. He tore his arm raw in places with his fingernails. It was infuriating. He took much of his angst out on the body of the man which still lay on the ground, stomping and kicking it furiously. He fired off his gun into the air. The bullets drilled into the ceiling and disappeared. He heard screams but he couldn't have cared less. An hour later, a crash at the door was followed by a loud bang and a flash of light. Kalash had no idea what was happening, his senses overwhelmed by the light and the noise. Before he knew it, Kalash was pinned on the ground by heavily-armed men in helmets and taken away.
Fabrice was an old man now, or at least he felt it at the age of 45. Yet he had the tired look of a man turning 60. Having seen combat will do that to you. Not just the stress of it all, but the realisation of what men will do to each other when they have the chance. But now he was a musician. He had always loved the saxophone, and it was his pleasure to play it at Le Jacobin. It was the fanciest nightspot in Lumumbaville, frequented by the elites of the vibrant, dynamic young city, as well as foreign dignitaries from the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Indonesia, Korea and Iran. Fabrice liked to think that music brought all those people together. But in reality he knew it was the same old politics. At least it looked a bit more civilised though. Oh well. The young waitress brought out his coffee. "Thank you my dear" he said with a grandfatherly tone. A bulletin caught his attention over the cafe's radio. "In response to the sexual assault and murder of a Lumumbaville woman, as well as the murder of her husband by a member of the Angola-based God's Army for the Liberation of Africa terrorist group, the Democratic Social Republic of the Congo has declared Operation Leopard, a punitive expedition into Angolan territory to root out the terrorist hideouts. The announcement has been met with open hostility from the Angolan government, which has announced that any so-called violation of Angolan territory would be considered an act of war and be met with the full force of the Angolan military. 15 minutes ago we got word that our MiG fighter jets were scrambled to counter American-made Angolan warplanes which invaded Congolese airspace. We are awaiting responses from the Angolan stooges' masters, South Africa and the United States, as well as from our fraternal comrades in Eastern Europe, Asia and Somalia. The criminal at the heart of this story was identified by tattoos across his back, signifying his allegiance to the Luanda-backed bandits. Fabrice shook his head. It's always the same. These boys are always the same. Why couldn't they be like him? Why couldn't they make something of himself. Fabrice had made it out of that life. He glanced up again at the handsome waitress. A sole thought crossed his mind in that moment. It's lucky she didn't meet me twenty years ago.
