Into The Jungle

«— Hm? Howdy. — Learn to react to a phone for once, damn you. I had to pull your brother out of bed and take him to the supplier, but in... damn you, Marg, everything slipped so surprisingly smoothly in the end that I’m even not in the mood to teach you common sense. When you’re back, dash immediately to the office, Tilda’ve lifted the whole Gaurs affair from the year before last...» A kid at the arch pedestal — quite a youngster, yesterday's boy, one who should kick balls and ride on the railings — a pile of rags and flaxen with slimy-flowing clods of hair. Morning is agile and stuffy with a wheeze somewhere in the throat. He craves to drink to the blunt satiety and pull Oga's large-weighty curls into fleeting light braids. Dawn, spilled like chocolate powder, burns nostrils with smell spicy, thick and tart to tickling. «— Mmm? Still? Ain’t it be easier to blame everything on his employers and let them deal with their own deserter? — The exact thing you would have done. But considering that in this early hours you are chilling out somewhere, judging by the sounds, in the region of the third South-West, I use your absence wisely. Wait. Listen, are you aware that your brother really has become a better cook?» The kid is younger than Oga, thin to the bone and weak to the knees to the hem of the column. The kid is dirty to dull gray and barkingly choking in a maybe fever. Kid smells hunger so thickly and frankly that Marglen almost — almost — wants to tear the look off. «— I am flattered that you’ve understood your mistakes, but there is no need to react so emotionally, Marg». The kid howls, diving his head into his knees and shuddering-bouncing with his tousled hair, knees and shaky-brittle hands in crimson ulcers. Hands run off to the chest, barely Marglen makes a step to the kid. Marglen chuckles and throws a reconciled grin on his lips. Marglen is patient, Marglen is calm, Marglen is mockingly intrigued; mockingly-slightly-condescending — at the edges of the eyes and at the tips of the lips. Marglen knowingly-condescendingly giggles, knowingly-condescendingly whistles the regular radio hit and bends the stalks in front of kid’s vertex and face, tickling his throat and nose — with selected jokes and stalks. Hands at the kid’s chest slow down to triumph pushing Marglen’s own chest. Morning throws wet dust with quick handfuls in the eyes and flickers with colored cotton clouds. «— Marg? — Mmm? — I’m trying to follow your thinking process, and I am terrified of each and every conclusion that come to my mind. Your brother says there will be potato casserole for lunch tomorrow if you find not rotten vegetables on the way». «— Marg? Someday your plans will be hurling over my health like a concrete roller». The clouds along the edge are almost as ethereal mauve as the inlay over Marglen’s bed or the amethysts in Tilda’s medallion. Like an old father's shirt, that exact one, bumpy from blood peel and wet from thin-slippery ichor. How... The boy is noisily squishing his nose and whispering enthusiastically-gratefully to tears, brushing tears with his fists: «Nai... Nai...ga. And... And you... how...?». Triumph in Marglen’s chest presses assertively and irreversibly.