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He mounted his Don stallion and charged full gallop through the prairie. He saw a dentist. He unsheathed his sword - and here are two dentists. One has only legs and another only arms and a head. For this was the way he chopped a dentist. He kept charging. He saw a lawyer. He chopped him diagonally. One piece had an arm and a head, another - the rest of the lawyer. For this was the way he chopped a lawyer. He kept charging. He saw a bankster. He chopped him vertically. One half had an arm and a leg, the other - the rest of the bankster. For this was the way he chopped a bankster.
That is a dim-remembered story of the old time entombed. I don't think you will be surprised when I reveal the thing which brought the Cossack down. It was horilka. One morning, when he woke from troubled dreams, he found himself tightly bound with ropes. Three evil things set on the lawn before him: a dentist, a lawyer, and a bankster. His Don stallion was nowhere to see. How he got in this situation he could not recall. All he remembered was horilka. A lot of horilka.
The dentist had on his forehead a big bulging bruise that awfully resembled a wart. In all he looked much like a toad. He was keenly studying prisoner's sword. Holding it close to his goggled eyes, almost sniffing it with his flat nose, almost kissing it with his thick lips. It was easy to guess what caused Toad's scrutiny: the engraving SS-Sturmbrigade Dostojewski on the blade.
When the captive looked at the lawyer, that one grinned baring two rows of sharp little teeth. He had at least fifty of those. This, together with the stretched forward upper jaw and snout, made him look very much like a possum. On his lap the Possum held a rabbit which he petted on its long ears.
The bankster was a marabou. For his nose looked like the beak of the scavenger stork, Adam's apple resembled a gular sack, and rare hair on the bald head were like feathers. Spotted skin added to similarity. All these were external signs of a powerful intellect bordering on a genius. In his hand Marabou had a baseball bat. On the back of his hand he had a tattoo of Trotsky.
When the dentist noticed that Cossack had awaken, he gleefully looked at him and, aiming to intimidate the captive, clunked his golden teeth. So violently that sparks flew out of his mouth. The dentist hoped that the prisoner will start whimpering. Instead he only met a steely look of the blue eyes.
The prisoner was not going to whimper. In high school he read the book Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol about ill-fated Cossack uprising against the tyranny of Rzeczpospolita. One of the fallen heroes of the book did not utter a single sound when Polish executioners broke his bones. This is what he readied himself for since the high school. He was not going to whimper.
The steely look of the blue eyes so unnerved the dentist that he dropped prisoner's sword from his sticky fingers and - while remaining sitting on the ground - started backing off from the bound captive with jerky pushes of his short bandy legs. He moved several yards like that until the bankster stopped the retreat with a kick in dentist's ass.
The bankster despised the dentist rightfully regarding him a manual worker. The childish attempt to scare the Cossack by teeth clanking annoyed him greatly. The bankster had a better opinion of the lawyer. That one at least had some intellect. His plan to sue the Cossack for reckless endangerment was far more viable. But this could not achieve the end goal which was to force the Cossack to whimper. For that one had to break his spirit. The bankster considered using enhanced interrogation techniques. But first he did his homework. He read all relevant books he could find in all libraries of the world. Nikolai Gogol's Taras Bulba did not escape his scrutiny. Apart from intellect Marabou had wisdom which let him learn from the mistakes of the others. He wisely concluded that enhanced interrogation techniques will not avail. In looks the bankster was like a marabou, his character was that of a donkey: thoroughly stubborn. The initial mishap did not force him to abandon the eternal goal of spiritual decossacking. He turned to natural sciences. Years of intensive studies went by and Marabou concluded that natural sciences are of no more use than enhanced interrogation techniques. He lost his hair. But his character remained the same. With the same zeal he steeped himself into the study of the occult. A decade he pondered over quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. At last he had on his desk a forbidden book by sages of Ahnenerbe. Here he found the banned knowledge which set him within an arm's reach from his eternal goal. With greatest awe he read these telling words: The Spirit lives in Blood. Next moment something appeared to burst open before him: a wonderful inner light illuminated his soul. An ingenious solution to the eternal problem had condensed within his brain. Years of alchemical studies had paid for. Finally, he had the technology that will work. The technology was serological decossacking.
The bankster left alone the dentist, turned to the lawyer and said: "Forgive me, my friend, nothing personal." Only after a second of hesitation the scared lawyer grasped that the bankster was speaking not to him but to the rabbit that was sitting on his lap. Marabou grabbed the rabbit by its hinder legs, swung it few times till it stopped jerking, and hit it with the baseball bat on the head. The rabbit drooped. The bankster handed the stunned rabbit back to the lawyer who took it by its hinder legs and held it far away from his body in extended arms. The dentist fetched a large plastic bag under the rabbit. Marabou picked up prisoner's sword and slashed rabbit's throat.
That was a distinguished weapon which had on it the blood of the Light Brigade. For Tennyson had lied. The Cossacks did not reel from the sabre stroke. The prisoner himself had slaughtered two of the tommies. One of them he chopped in two halves. The other he just slightly wounded. The Tommy begged for his pathetic life. The Cossack granted it. Nonetheless the hemophilic offspring of sickly English lords died of blood loss. Now Marabou used this honorable sword to slaughter a rodent.
Rabbit's blood ran into the bag. First in a stream, then by droplets. Finally, even the droplets ceased. The bankster poured the blood from the bag into a graduated cylinder and reckoned the volume. It was 110 milliliters. He poured rabbit's blood back into the bag. Now Marabou took a needle with a tube attached to it and stuck it into the vein of the prisoner. He put the lose end of the tube into the graduated cylinder. When the blood level reached 110 milliliters, bankster pulled the needle out of captive's arm.
At this time the evil things chose to take a lunch break. Marabou pecked out rabbit's eyes. Possum drank Cossack's blood from the graduated cylinder. Toad sat opposite the prisoner eating pineapple compote. He was awfully fond of pineapple compote.
The prisoner had no clue what all this meant. At first, he thought that the execution of the rabbit was devised to scare him into treason. Perhaps, Marabou wanted to learn the transmission codes of the SS-Sturmbrigade Dostojewski, or the password for the YouTube account of Baron Ungern. But the blood ritual left the prisoner dumbfounded. He wondered what will happen next.
Next the prisoner saw how Marabou hooked up the plastic bag filled with rabbit blood to a tree branch that stretched right above. At this moment the prisoner noticed a tube attached to the bag, and at the end of the tube he saw a needle. Now he knew what was going to happen next. Yes, Marabou plunged the needle into his vein. Driven by gravity rabbit blood started entering captive's cardiovascular system. With the first drops of this blood the prisoner noted that a new and nasty feeling started growing within his soul. The feeling that he never felt before. Yet he knew something about it. Perhaps, from books...
He was six years old. He slowly walked along the country road away from the campsite where he stayed with his family for a summer vacation. From behind the trees came a strange sound he never heard before. It must have been some animal for it somewhat resembled horse neighing. But it was surely not a horse. Even less could it be a cow or a sheep. So, what was it? Ah! That's Eeyore - for this was the sound was like - the donkey from Winnie-the-Pooh, the first book he had read. He went towards the sound to check his guess and beyond the trees on a lawn he saw a grey creature much alike the one in the pictures from the Pooh book. That was the first time he matched his bookish knowledge with real world. Something most people can never do. Now this new nasty feeling dazzled him the same way as the strange sound back in childhood. Sure, he read of it. Saw it in distorted faces of his enemies, and most recently in the rabbit. The feeling was fear.
More rabbit blood entered prisoner's cardiovascular system. The blood that carried in it the gene of cowardice. At low concentration of rabbit blood, the fear was a nasty annoyance. At high concentration it became a sovereign master. The prisoner has melted to his inmost soul, has trembled throughout his every fiber, and all that was fixed and steadfast has quaked within him. He started whimpering. He betrayed to his captors the transmission codes of the SS-Sturmbrigade Dostojewski. He gave away the password for the YouTube account of Baron Ungern.
The dentist giggled mockingly. The lawyer derisively whistled at the prisoner. Only Marabou was serene and primal. For he was above all that. And he was the only of the three who knew the gate to serological decossacking. The dentist, this manual laborer, who understood nothing of higher things, could not have hoped to repeat the procedure on his own. The lawyer could have imagined that he could. But Marabou withdrew from him the crucial part: the necessary cabbalistic spells.
A few months later Marabou published an article on his breakthrough in British journal Nature. Sickly English lords, much pleased that the Light Brigade was finally avenged, helped him to secure a publication in this prestigious academic outlet. The article had a thousand references, including Nikolai Gogol's Taras Bulba and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. Only the forbidden book by the sages of Ahnenerbe was missing from the reference list. Not because Marabou was vain and wanted all credit to himself. But because he knew that with such reference, he will never get his paper published.
Marabou titled the draft of the paper Serological Decossacking. On the second thought he reasoned that this title is too bold for the pencil-neck academic community. And politically incorrect. He changed it for Behavior correction by blood replacement therapy. Marabou emphasized that it is important to first withdraw some blood from the patient before transfusing an equal amount of rabbit blood. Otherwise increased blood volume can increase blood pressure what can jeopardize patient's wellbeing. This was necessary to satisfy the strict Nature journal guidelines for experiments with human subjects. Marabou also stressed that it is sufficient to use the blood one can get from a single rabbit, about 100 milliliters, to achieve behavior correction in a single patient. One should not slaughter two or three rabbits, for this will be unnecessary cruelty to animals.
The paper was a huge success. For dentists, lawyers, and banksters during their outdoor recreation occasionally saw people climbing rocks without ropes. At ski resorts some folks passed them by at highway speeds. The most hard-bitten hooligans even base-jumped from sky-scrappers. All these offended the sense of net worth of the dentists, lawyers, and banksters. So far, one could do little with the offenders. Now one could decossack them serologically. Sorry, administer behavior correction by blood replacement therapy. Also, I confess that I slandered the dentists, lawyers, and banksters, when said that they are impelled by selfish motives. In truth they are very kind-hearted and caring people. They only wish that the offenders did not hurt themselves in their reckless dangerous activities.
In few years, Marabou got a Nobel Prize in Medicine. The citation read: For betterment of mankind.
The decossacked prisoner remembers nothing of his ordeal. What stays with him is an irrational fear of toads and possums and a weird sympathy for rabbits. A few weeks ago, while visiting the San Diego Zoo he had a panic attack when he saw a marabou stork.
The Don stallion was lucky. After the evil trinity bound the drunken Cossack, the dentist tried to mount his fat ass on the horse. The stallion threw him off. This is how the Toad got his wart. He could get more damage hadn't he dampen the fall with his webbed paws. The Don stallion ran till he made it to Virginia Range in the State of Nevada. There he joined Mustangs, who are the Cossacks among the horses.
Fritz Kafka
April,3 2020
