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Published: August 26th 2006
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Chapter I.
I boarded the bus in Asuncion after a fond farewell with only a few tears left on the dirty pavement of the bus station floor. It was no time to be sad; I was swept in some unknown torrent which had been pulling me towards Tim for some Time. Tim, my fair friend whose adventures make mine look like child’s play. Tim, whose own sick sidelong glance always peers into the heart of something. Tim, who sat clutching a soft blue jar as blood leaked from the neck of the sheep that hung from a tree. It arrived that morning, very much alive and full of soft wool and strong meat. We tied it to the post as a sadistic yet satisfying feeling melted in my mind. But i knew, even if wasn't my knife that landed the lethal blow, death comes to us all, so we might as well enjoy our asado on a gloomy Sunday morning. I'll spare you the bitter yet beautifully intricate work that the farmer performed. The slow peeling of the skin. The smell of intestines wading in a bucket. But I can describe the sight of a fully skinned and headless sheep
strung from the porch. The tendons were white and the meat a savory red brown. Flies collected in swarms. Chickens pecked at the slowly dripping puddles of blood. I did not judge, and ask you the same, because when you have traveled 30 kms on a dust filled bus as everyone stares and whispers in Guarani, you know that reality has been suspended, sent to the office, their mom called, and given a severe spanking. They let you know subtly, yet thoroughly, that their way supercedes your own, and you become a log floating along in their sopa of life. And moreover, as that log, you cannot try to change the tides. The only way to survive, to make it to the end, is to float. And if you're floating and not fighting, that is when the thoughts form.
Chapter II
As the blood slowly drained from the sheep, so my body did the same. I sat slumped over a hole as liquid evacuated my body time and time again. My ass felt like a school child during the Cuban missile crisis. I’m sick of hiding under the desk, just let me get on with my life.
And
miraculously it did. Somehow I survived the intestinal scare, and salted Asado with a side of Sopa Paraguaya was my prize. I savored every second of that meat.
(Chapter III
As the others sat circled speaking Guarani and eating sheep, I floated away with my enchanted thoughts of Sanja Punta. Some memories stick out more than others. The first time I laid my machete to soft wood. The sweet sounding thunk and chips flying in the air with each swing. It felt like the first time I swung ice axes into the frozen waterfalls of Wisconsin.
The feeling of 50 killer bees crawling on your bare flesh. Like someone tickling your feet after an orgasm. It feels ok, even good, but you just want it to stop.
Then
The shrill pain as they sting your flesh incessantly.
And the morbid focus you feel when shaking them off.
These moments, these snippets and more I remembered as some sheep still slowly cooked over the coals.)
Chapter IV
As the moon rose later that night, Tim and I pulled out chairs onto his porch under the spot still blotched with the blood of the sheep, and turned the
world on its head. Flipped, like the shining moon face in the Southern hemisphere, or the body of the sheep that hours ago hung in the same spot. Because only out here, only away from hogar can home really be a topic of such fascination. So we sat on our rockers and discussed the land we left and what life to lead. We shared sick insights into the cancer of consumption, as well as our longing for the grease of capitalism. We laughed about best friends and blondes, then shouted into the wind at the insanity of war.
On these nights, the water of wisdom flowed freely from the well and we drank it quietly and contentedly. We harped on the follies of man, learned in observation, and from the fits of our own lives. We traded stories as Sampras and Agassi did shots. Each interchange, each volley more smooth and powerful than the last. Then the words began to die, as our eyes drooped, so we ended our day. I rolled my foam mat over his concrete floor and placed his pillow on an empty sack, awaiting the ox carts that would illuminate in the soft light, when
the sun would shine us awake. And the rhytmic drip drop of the light rain that night reminded me faintly of sheep's blood, sending me into a nice sleep.
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