The battle on the moss hill

Gray predator watches over the hill, which an iron pipe is splitting away the sharp grey smoke.

The man looks around, kicking the decayed tree branch. Leaning over and turning upside down the old brown spruce needles and cones with the rifle tube, observing his ‘’job’’, grumbles something and slowly walks toward the hill.

‘’- Hey, Zhiobaras! Stop wandering around there!!!! Lock of our car has been completely shot down !!! Help me to unlock it!”- The throat voice broke the silence of peaceful woods,-’’- Do you talk to wolves? Damn you: something is wrong: it’s not possible to open the trunk….’’

‘’Three doggies are already out of the scent: I found their cave. Three less now. There will be no one who can reap down the village goats and scare our drunker, - Zhiobaras approached his friend, who worked angry on the baggage lock.

‘’"O, yes," - friend spitted in frustration, " You had made an excellent service to a villager. They should thank you for the rescue of their goats and cow hides and udders. What about a wolf?… Have you released the beast? … Damn, no way... do we have something iron-like for this devil lock?’’

‘’"Well, what the smoke is here... Even my eyes are on fire: from the fumes of these burning tires all forest’s aurochs maybe turning out their hooves..’’ - Zhiobaras put his rifle on the stump and then got into the car’s cabin for a wild. ‘’Domas, lets try with this ‘’ - He has pulled out some tool from under the rubber mat. - The lock will need to be replaced anyway. Come on ... One, two ...

   Very soon the lock was broken and two men started loading cardboard boxes with plastic cans on a forest trail…

     ‘’ How's our Jorge there? Will we finish before evening? Ivan already called this morning…

     ‘’ That Russian is impatient.’’

    ‘’ So, he is. The eyes of our Jorge are darkened for all week: he is not able to see the trail through the drunkenness and our business can be ruined soon.’’

    ‘’Don’t worry: look, the tires reek of, so everything is fine: our drunker is in place. Let's go -Everything needs to be end this evening: I have urgent appointments in the city.’’

Men entered the bunker.

    Long time ago the brethren of the forest were close together in a bunker, hiding themselves from all manner of enemies: their own’ and the strangers’. But each era dictates its own rules. The fighting ideals, human blood, destinies and drama were absorbed into the moss of the forest, streamed away with the springs, sank into logs of rotten hoppers. New time brought new people and new ideals…

   The grog was in full swing. The stinging vapor caused the respectable abode of guerrillas. The pipe chimney produced clouds of smoke that was spreading wildly in the woods, deterring swarms of mosquito and nosy animals…

   Jorge, the local drunkard, was fueled the firebox and watched the pressure gauge. Worn and disheveled, in half of his age, a man appeared like a broken old man among scattered around old plastic beer bottles, cans, unknown kinds of debris, rags and fag-ends….

   ‘’Well, as we can see, t you are in a good mood, dearest Jorge…. But you are late, very late, so you will be paid less for it. You had swear you’ll finish all your job tonight.’’

    ‘’Don’t tell me that, Dome, and please understand me: my heart has been hurt and I couldn't do otherwise. My old friend Monce did not repay the debt and I had to teach him some lessons with a rod...After he paid me back Euro 15, I was forced to regret him a little bit.’’

   ‘’ And the police?’’, - Domas suspiciously stared his eyes at the whining drunkard.

   ‘’ God damn you, people! How you could think about it! I am an honest person! Monce just been nursed for a few days and then brought 5 EU more. Police were not been involved into our business.‘’

   Zhobaras  approached the boiling cauldron…’’- Well, you say, the debt of your friend is gone through your both throats.. Look, we wish that you wouldn't have any of your crappy friends here. And be sure for our ruined business, it would happen through your drunk adventures, you and your Monce will pay for it. I hope you understand how…

    A clear liquid flowed softly into the plastic container…

    ‘’ Trust me, Zhobaras… My friend is quite like a coffin,- ‘’Drunkard trembled….He was clearly afraid of losing his successful position: drink for free and get paid for it. ‘’ Sometimes I need his company: he always brings to me good snacks from the villagers’’.

   Tree men began filling huge plastic cans with the home made vodka.

   Soon all works of packages were competed.

    ’Jorge, stop trembling and help us’’. Zhobaras and Domas went out from the bunker.

    Jorge followed them carrying heavy boxes …

   No one can sense that they are followed by the framed glimpse of the wolf.

   ‘’ Men, leave the gun for at least one night, please.. ‘’- Jorge timidly began his request. ‘’ Last night I saw a wolf,  and an animal was walking around not so friendly’’. The rifle would be very helpful, in otherwise one day your poor Jorge will be eaten and the vodka will be licked by the wolfs...’’

   ‘’I agree, - Domas finished to load his car with the boxes of illegal ‘’fire water’’. ‘’Zhobaras shot three dogies’’.

   ‘’ Don’t worry, I will finish with the wolf’’,- Zhobaras closed doors of a loaded car . ‘’I will do it by myself. The rifle is registered in my name and is spotless. I don't want to have any business with the cops. I have a wife and children. ‘’

    ‘’What about my salary? Monce could bring some cigarettes ‘’,-Jorge prayerfully looks at both of her "employers".

     ’You has been told: no more friends tonight! Brew our grog and wait: I will bring some food and cigarettes tonight. I must rush – I have an important appointment with the Russian buyer this afternoon ‘’.

‘’ And a gun?...’’

‘’ We will not leave you any rifle! You are not like a partisan at all. Deal with some lynxes and elks to avoid touching you and wait for me tonight. I promise you your salary and wolf’s death’’

   ‘’ Don’t drink to much!’’ - care disappeared over the trees.

    Jorge was left alone in the guerrilla mainland. He took a couple of cups of vodka and felt into a heavy drunk sleep.

     The wolf began to wait. She felt: He will come back and will be alone.

      Long hours in the forest begin to count… Rain clouds darkened the evening and the bunker.

Soon the rain sighed in the forest's tops. The drops of rain currents were distracting by the wind gusts and whipped the forest’s trails…

     The wolf lifted chops: two dazzling beams of light cut the rain.

     The roar of the iron box choked off in the darkness, and He, the one whose wolf was waiting, got closer... closer, gliding over the miry trail, leaving the light behind.

      ‘’The devil does bring me to that Jorge in such weather…,- Hey, are you there! Jorge, come get some feed!’’- The rain gusts slapped Zhobaras’s scream into the chimney of the bunker. ‘’Come outside - I have no time! Wake up your flesh, otherwise you will get just cigarette porridge!!! ‘’

      Wolf knows: the Creature inside the bunker will not get out. He sleeps like a cold rusty pipe. He is filled with sweet dreams and lulled by rain’s songs.

      Now or never. The wet wolf's nape has bristled like a hedgehog's spines.. The beast's throat suffocated by a silent howl.

    He fell down on the slippery, rain-soaked mosses off the sudden leaping of the beast.

     ‘’Jorgeeeeeeee!!!!’’

   The hill with the chimney is silent.

   Trapped in the fight the gun has been lost. The man and the wolf began to slide down along the bunker’s lid down to the hill’s foot.

    ‘’Jorgeee!!!!- Zhobaras began to choke through his own screaming . Man grabbed the predator's muzzle with the hope to break the animal's neck. The blood begins to stream over harmed hands.

    ‘’ I'll kill you anyway, werewolf...Jorge!!!! Where you have gone, drunk idiot!!! ‘’ The hopeless Scream merges with the roar of the beast. Wolf furiously dragged Zhiobaras under heavy weight through the wet cold grass.

   ‘’Now I recognize you’’,- A scalding perception lanced through his body like a fiery, hot poker.’’Your offspring is where you came from… I'll send you back to the beginning again...’’the man tried desperately to kill the wolf by the power of his hands. Strained muscle fibres were weakened by meaningless effort. The final battle for the physical existence of the present. The road to the unknown beyond.

    ‘’Why did you shoot them??? - the eyes of the animal painfully screamed straight to the face of the bleeding pray.-What is the point of depriving a life which cannot make you satiate? Why the evil, that accompanies you,  breaks the vessel of my destiny here, in visible reality, and beyond any reality?’’

  The man suddenly loosens the muscles of his right hand, the other's fingers squeezing the wolf’s snout. He was exhausted by desperate opposition to pain and death.

The strong white wolf's fangs got into the neck's arteries, full of blood and fear – the sources of evil, that fed the weightless human soul of her prey. Now, this elixir of life is flowing out, dyeing with the bright purple animal nostrils, victim's neck, hands, his brownish hair, soaked in rain and dirt.

   ‘’Are you vengeance for the cubs I shot? ...- asks the glazing Zhobaras gaze.- Are you better now?’’

    ‘’ No, but your offspring remain healthy and untouched, and you have meaninglessly interrupted my life because of your low profile, a benefit that does no good to you, your children, or your herd at last... I've been looking for you for a long, long time...’’

    ‘’So, you know me’’,- Zhobaras gestured with the last drops of blood.

    ‘’ Yes,- the soul of the wolf cried,- We know each other from beyond being our present. I don't understand the ways of ONLY ONE why our fates are constantly bound so fatalistically. All I know is that three parts of myself, that have begun to breathe, physically have been destroyed by you more than once...Why?’’

   ‘’ Do you want to know?’’

   ‘’ Yes’’.

   ‘’ Will you forgive me?’’

To forgive is a strange feeling: no words exist to pronounce this phrase, no thoughts exist to describe this feeling. It's a spontaneous sensation and it comes at the last critical minute when any revenge becomes void, when the last moments of life become holy, when you realize that you are stepping into the outline of material tangible life with the former enemy of your life: another space, another being …

  ‘’Will you follow me to Our Beginning?’’

   ‘’Yes, I will’’, - wolf’s fangs left Zhobara’s throat.

A metal blade lighted up int the hands of a dying man . The knife. The wolf many times saw this glowing piece of metal in the hands of two-legged creatures. Her relatives knew how to escape the stab of this tool. But now the wolf needed that stab. It was necessary for both forgiveness and passing out together. The deadly Enemy on the threshold of some incomprehensible beginning turned into a part of her, her hope.

  ‘’Let’s go’’..

  ‘’Yes, let’s go’’.

   And the stinging pain is caused her underside of abdomen. The knife blade has cut through the internal organs. ‘’I turn into something weightless, bright and pure... I will see myself that I do not remember...I will see those I once lost, but who have always been and will be with me… ‘’

The forest begins to murmur prayerfully to the man and the beast. The rain accompanied the music of the trees and washed two stagnant bodies with the holy and pure water at the foot of the hill.

   The storm was raging. The fumes of burned tires dissipated. Became to be cold inside the bunker. Jorge trembling from a hangover and angry at the whole world for his fate, due to the delay of his         ‘’companions’’, opened the damper. It was quite hard to open the soaked lid. Jorge crawled out from the cold bunker with the hope that his employer Zhobaras will appear very soon with the full bag of cigarettes, lard and bread. But God had refused Jorge’s such banal earthly wonders.

    ‘’Lord!!!!! - suddenly Jorge started screaming out in the storm !!! - My Lord! A drenched polyethylene bag with cheap cigarettes and cold-smoked bacon wrapped near the breathless wolf and human bodies. The bread, transformed into a liquid mass, flowed into the I total blood clan .. Jorge didn't care about cigarettes or pre-packaged fat already. Both the grog in the bunker and Monces' debt suddenly disappeared from consciousness.

     ‘’ The wolf slaughtered  Zhobaras!!! Zhobaras has been slaughtered by the wolf!!!

   Jorge ran, slipping down along the soggy forest path ruts, ran...run vomiting, cursing, screaming. The rain was beating the village drunkards with sharp icy water gusts. He ran and ran as far away as possible  from the abode of guerrillas. desecrated by meanness, away away from two stagnant bodies in a blood clan, a fight no one will understand ...