GOOD DEEDS LAST A LIFETIME

Between 2015 and 2021 I wrote the alchemical fiction / short story based book BROTHERLY LIKE DOGS. No other work I ever created gave me so much joy and fulfillment. Soon I'll start its re-editing. I've prayed a lot for the writing vein, absent and affected by a lot of recent issues, to return. And it's 5am and I might now rest but I'm pleased I wrote an extra episode to be included in the complete edit.

This episode, is an example of my writing independent of influence, business, promises, profit or conditions. And you may have me writing like that for you, for your screenplays, ghost writing jobs, redacting articles, if proposals are decent and reasonable. It's a joy for me to write, releases my soul. And if I may advance my best skill to help you in service to your needs, it's a win-win situation. Let's go for it.

The siege of Lazarevo was a carnage.

Atop the tower, Ghiscard de Lusigny assured his position for days. The Serbian fellows were impressed with his sniper capability. He didn't flinched to down whatever wasn't Serbian, and rarely stopped to rest.

That day, he was however exhausted, and laid the gun by his side and tried to rest, laying his back on the hessian bags of coal piled up around the tower top. Almost having fallen asleep, he woke to the sound of heeled steps up the tower, that startled him to get up, look around with a dizzy head and adjust his glasses and grab his gun, but before that, a woman came up the tower and looked him from above.

She didn't looked that great, albeit the dowdy and pretense designer suit, she looked cheap head to toe, and looked at him with glassy dummy eyes and a know-it-all convince-them-all grin. Ghiscard didn't liked that from moment zero, and got up to face her.

- I am Beta Vojna, she spoke, and I'm looking for my sister Blina Martin who's staying somewhere in the village with her husband and four children. Do you know where they are? - and finished her sentence widening her untrustworthy grin.

First, he thought, I don't know these people, then, I don't know what a Beta Vojna is but sure looks like something I'd shoot immediately if I saw it down there, he kept thinking, and used his Franglish clever and stayed silent.

- Well – she continued grinning – I'm surprised you don't know them. The Balkan family – and spoke their surname with a slight 'Bal-kan' scornful smirk. The physics teachers couple. They have an older daughter and two twins and a younger daughter. You must have seen them around.

Ghiscard smelled the stench of evil and kept his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut.

The snake didn't enjoyed that, looked at Ghiscard with slight disappointment.

- Do you know who I am? My husband is down there and we got friends in the state and government – and Ghiscard glanced down the tower where, there by the corner of the block, was parked a large state vehicle and the husband in question was an Ustasha who looked from behind the tinted window with dark glasses like that guy in Argentina. - we are the largest landowners in this region.

Ghiscard refrained a just laughter and instead kept his closed face and finally spoke.

- Look, I don't even know what a Beta Vojna is, I don't care if you own the region or the planet, you're invading my place of work, you bothered my rest, I don't know you, or your husband, you're asking me things about people I don't know, and I got to go back to work anyway. So please can you let me be and leave me alone?

The woman raised her eyebrows and her eyes got buggier and her grin resumed to dry, pursed lips in silent hatred, like she was sucking on the sourest lemon. She grabbed Ghiscard by his arm and moved towards the limit of the tower.

- Do you see this all around? The town? The fields? The landscape? I own all of this. If you tell me where's my sister and the Balkan family, I'll give it to you, all of this will be yours.

Her despair was obvious to Ghiscard, as well as some shady plans there, and also a stench of mixed nervous sweat and foul breath from her. He really disliked that feeling of getting bribed for dodgy business. And she grabbed his arm as he had just become her property too. To which Ghiscard shooed her away not very politely, gesture that ellicited another facies of frustration from her, but he replied well.

- If you 'own' all of this, well I don't know upon how many corpses you climbed upon to obtain it. I spend my days up here shooting enemies but I got the decency to not step upon a corpse.

She advanced to him again, eyes raging in fury.

- Are you such a fool? Do you not want all this around that I'm offering you if you tell me where my sister and her family are?

Ghiscard asked himself 'Does she think I'm a prostitute? That I'm selling myself for whatever offer or amount? Them morals'.

- You're worse than a fool – he spoke – you're a talking snake. I defended all this around with my work and blood and effort and courage as an ally soldier for my fellow Serbians. This land belongs to them, and last, those who defended it, like me. But please explain me why are you so interested about privy info on other peoples' lives, why you insist to tempt and bribe me, or how can you offer me what is mine already as I worked day and night with blood and toil to defend this land and the lives who depend on it?

That was too much for the woman, who puffed with despise, and walked back downstairs. Whatever that was, Ghiscard hated all he heard, all he felt, all he perceived, and knew he had to take action quick.

Down there, the Ustasha was manoeuvering the car around so the wife would get in. She'd be crossing the road, with arrogance, in no time. He remembered his mate Ilarion yesterday had left some weapons under a tarp. He rushed to those and got out whatever he could get away with better, a missile cannon. Threw that over his shoulder and looking down, the devil had just left the tower, and hobbled furious towards the car. It was a large bathtub like the ones from the Kremlin and sure had a tank filled with gasoline. The cannon was hidden between bricks and coal bags. He waited for her to get in the car.

And for moments it was stopped, but as soon as the guy moved the wheel, Ghiscard had the cannon pointed at the fuel tank, blasted three big ones at them, causing down there a massive explosion, the vehicle on fire, two fascists on barbecue, and whoever was the Balkan family, they were safe from a bad one.

Ghiscard looked down with dismay at the fire and sighed, it reeked of sulphur like he had just detonated Satan back to get chained in Hell for 1000 years, and knew in his heart he must have done something completely right by the looks of it.

It was just two weeks later when Ghiscard was sleeping by the riverbed, he was awakened by a guy who walked from the river, dripping water, with white hospital breeches and a massive blood stain on his left thigh, and when they talked on how great if the war was finally over, they became brothers forever. The guy's name was Ezekiel Balkan, and not long after, when they were in Belgrade at an airfield, when a bombing fell from above, they hid in different places to be safe from the shelling.

Ghiscard ran into a dark cubicle and soon same cubicle was occupied by a Serbian woman who just like him was scared to death of the bombs falling over Belgrade and they stayed glued to eachother and dead quiet for their lives as the bombs fell. Two humans scared to death sharing ony silence and warmth and if any of us fvck up we're both fvcked up.

Hours passed, They only left when it stopped.

Only later Ghiscard found out, she was Carmenta, Ezekiel Balkan's older sister, who later became Ghiscard's wife.

Good deeds last a lifetime, and the soul can't be priced, bought or sold.