Dave goes to the bar. He has a beer every Tuesdays and two beers on Mondays. Sometimes he takes a beer on Thursdays too but never on Friday because that’s when Lena is working. She cries a lot when she talks about her life. Granted, she gives him free drinks so he’s obliged to listen.

Dave’s work takes him deep into the forest where this old man lives. The old man lives in a run down milk farm but the cows are long gone. There’s sheep and some horses grazing on his land but they’re not his. Dave helps fix the fences that constantly break even though it’s not part of his job. Dave sometimes have to stay the night to make sure the old man doesn’t put something in his mouth and suffocate. The old man pays him fairly well for this and he was decent to Dave but they didn’t speak much anyhow. The old man kept his business to himself. The only thing that bothered Dave was how the house smelled. He much preferred the old, rundown, barn. On stormy nights the house creaked. The old man had a tendency to howl when he was asleep and Dave walked into his bedroom sometimes to make sure he wasn’t turning into a wolf, which was also one of the old man’s fears. Sometimes the old man forgot that he didn’t have any cows anymore and accused Dave of stealing the milk. A stern talking often solved the issue and the old man was usually very regretful afterwards and made his signature dish as repentance: porridge, pork and green beans. It was delicious. The old man was keen to keep Dave around because he was a good worker. Dave was only a good worker because he afforded himself a couple beers every so often, at least so he said.

In truth, he preferred the animals over the old man and he would take every opportunity that he could to pet them. Dave liked animals because they were never mean or boring, but most of all, they were quiet. Dave didn’t talk much either, if he could help it. All in all, he liked his simple little life. Maybe one day he would do more important things, something only he could do. Then he would never have to talk to anyone again, or so he dreamed.

The toaster on the windshield (that I’ve had for years) suddenly shot the bread sideways. A net that was attached to the toaster caught the bread. I don’t know why I thought that was an interesting observation, but it was somehow strange to me… On the street the police was dressed in blue and had helmets but instead of batons they had big axes strapped to their belts that bumped against their legs as they walked. I suppose it was to hack at criminals, perhaps to throw at them? It was a big axe, though and I couldn’t imagine it flying very far. Do the firemen wear pistols instead? The firemen kills fires, I guess that makes sense…

There were some bars and hookers downtown. The hookers ran the bars and there were some gangsters but the gangsters didn’t bother the hookers and instead they killed each other over the scraps in the city; the liquor stores and shopping centers. I wasn’t entirely sure why the gangsters didn’t bother the hookers but the hookers shot liquor out of their breasts when they danced. It wasn’t very strong liquor but I thought it was noteworthy.

According to the news a dog named Jasper was president. He barked at the questions at the interviewer and he growled if they didn’t give him a treat every so often. He was a good dog so nobody complained much. The TV screen in front of me was round and big and flat, like a mirror. I felt like I’ve seen TV’s that were square but I wasn’t sure. There was also a bit more color than I remembered…

At least my piss is still yellow and my shit is brown. That I remember clearly.

“Shit, I’m sick of this,” he said, shivering by the campfire. His ship lay moored on the small harbour in a dead village with no one in sight; with burned down buildings and probably some dead bodies too somewhere. It was warmer on the ship, of course, but the voice of his comrade’s shrieks drove him crazy so he opted to stay on land.

He tossed the butt of his last cigarette into the fire, it went up in flames with a pleasant smell, or so he imagined. He crumpled the empty package and tossed it in too, The plastic burnt first, then the cardboard. He looked at his friends, who were also shivering.

They shook their heads. “I’m out,” his friends said.

The mist was heavy but the fog was eaten by their campfire and they could see each other, and the ground around them, clearly. It felt safe that way. The light from the fire gave a murky, sort of sickly glow to the air, mostly green and yellow but there were also other colors.

A wounded cry echoed from the ship, sounding like a broken trumpet coming out from the doorway. “Who left the door open?” he said, patting his rifle by his side. It felt safer that way.

His friends shrugged. All of this was of course tolerable if they just had some more cigarettes to smoke.