MAN WITH THE POX

(Speed-blagh: can I finish this post before the inimitable Zhang and Kessler finish playing their rocke-band song?)

The man wailed, moaned, complained.

"WAAAAAAAAAGH!" he roared. "WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAILLLLLURRGH!" His discontent was evident.

But whatever might have provoked such an emotion?

"They have taken my dog!" he complained, momentarily articulate. "They beat him, rubbed his nose in spit - disgusting! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAFFFUNCHHERGH!"

His articulacy lapses. Nonetheless, the problem is clear; the answer, likewise. The dog must be found, recovered, returned to his owner. Thereby will the anguish ebb, and something like blissful quiet return to the region.

So we go forth; and what do we find? Naught but skeletons, beating some pagan rhythm with their own bones!

"This is entirely the wrong song," my companion complains. "Aren't you wandering off-topic a mite?"

Her words fail to daunt.

We come before a great and terrible iron door: its face spiked and lined with poison. "Only those devoid of the blood of the Americas may enter here and live," it reads; and I shrink back, alarmed.

"Why does this concern you?" my companion asks. "Your blood is of the wintry steppes of Mother Russia; you need fear not!"

"But - all my friends are Indians!" I reply.

She boxes my ear gently. "Enough of that. Inward and onward!"

The door is opened; the dog is found. We take it in our arms and return it -

- silence, at last!

(Could I finish before they? Yes - very barely!)