Shindig

Tina’s text arrived right on time even if the message itself was bad. Just the opposite of her last message. But the timing was perfect now. Pierre was resisting the urge to close the books he was studying and take a beer anyhow. The message from Tina could be even better than beer. The last two he had in his small fridge, he drank with Boris last time he was in. That was when Tina’s texted him for the first time.

Last two of her messages were better than any beer.

Computer guys have a funny name for the formal content of the message. Body. Exactly how Boris would call it. The new message’s body keyword was ‘Boris’. And that cannot be good especially if the body of her first message, the one that arrived in bad time, had not much of a text but image of herself laying on the beach in bikini. Selfshot. A selfie. Greetings from sunny Hvar. It may as well say ‘hot greeting.’

Beautiful message in one context, strange in other, inappropriate in yet another.

When the Viber photo message arrived, the phone was on the couch next to Boris who was playing some first person shooter. Splash. His girlfriend bikini selfie on his friend’s phone. The message chime was still echoing in the air when Pierre entered the room from his ensuite, the only advantage of his small dorm room. The dim screen lit the room that was on that late summer evening faintly illuminated only by the TV screen. Boris was distant as he usually was. “Headshot,” harsh male voice announced from the screen.

“You have a new message. Half-naked girl. Why I am not surprised!” He said indifferently.

“Yeah, right,” said Pierre taking his phone and tucking it in his pocket not bothering to look. He was too familiar with Boris’ bad sense of humor. “Hey, we are out of beers. Would you like to go out to have another one in Exit? We may even get lucky that they have a concert tonight, I think the Explosive factory reunion concert is today,” he said glancing at his G-Shock. “And Tina is in that conference anyhow so I imagine you wouldn’t have anything better to do anyway.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky with the hottie that just texted you,” Boris said rising to his feet. “This may be more interesting than any beer. And beer has a bad influence on my concentration. There are always better things to do than drinking beer, anyway. I’ll just go to my studio.”

“Ok. But I still don’t get why you didn’t come with her. Three days on sunny Hvar, man.”

“I have a project to complete,” said Boris already on the door.

“You are crazy man.”

The message with so-so timing was: “Boris is crazy. Come to his studio asap. Bring umbrella.” No bikinis this time. Nothing remotely kinky to occupy his thoughts. Not even a happy birthday wish. He wondered if anyone of his new friends actually knows it’s his birthday today. He is less than a year in Osijek, suitable little college city to the east of Croatia. Last birthday he celebrated in Paris, with Fabian. And Fabian is away from town.

He replied instantly. “R U there?” No replies.

That first message from Tina really could be just what it was saying it was. A greeting card. But he was not famous for straightforward interpretations of anything that could remotely have sexual connotation. While seeing Boris out, he took his phone out of his pocket. He couldn’t believe his eyes, but he was ready to take a bullet: ‘Thank you, you hottie on the beach. Have a nice time! Your boyfriend says hi. Just told him how crazy he was.”

Reply flashed immediately. She was a fast mobile typist. “Don’t let him lurk. I have hotter stuff 4 your eyes only.”

There he stood still and didn’t reply at all.

The screen flickered after some minute. He was still standing with his mobile in his hands, undecided what to do. Text. “Chicken. This chick is 2 much 4U?”

“I am waiting here,” he replied.

The screen flickered again. Photo. If it were a movie, MPAA would surely rate it with NC-17. Sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse…. Maybe all at once. Those female graduate students are surely wild when they are on the loose.

“I like the absence of the tan lines. Wish I was there to help you rub the sunblock in.”

There was no way out now. Anybody with hands on that message thread would have no doubts what it represents. A fling.

He turned the vibrate on the phone and lay down. Something was telling him that it is better to clear his head than to drink beer. Minutes later, he fired the phone up. No new messages, but that last one set the sleepless night on fire. He didn’t have any intentions to steal his friend’s girlfriend, nor to have an affair behind his back. He was aware, whatsoever, that this was exactly what he was doing.

He ran down the stairs of the dorm carrying his 8 kilos fixie bike on his shoulder. Where the hell should I find an umbrella now and why would I need one anyway? They are both crazy, Boris and his scholarly girlfriend.

Tina’s best friend Ana lives near. She friended him on Facebook a few weeks ago when four of them went on a double date; Boris and Tina, Fabian and Ana. Four of them met Pierre somewhere along the way, and they insisted that he should join them, so he jumped in Boris’ old Ford S-Max he was using to carry stuff for his “projects.” It was raining that night, and Ana was the only one ready with an umbrella. After the night out, she was so kind to escort him to dorm admittance, so that he doesn’t get soaked wet.

“I live few blocks away. On Vijenac Ivana Mestrovica. You should come sometime with Fabian. He often speaks of you. I am surprised how we never met before,” she said while big raindrops were hammering her yellow umbrella. They were staying in front of the dorm’s building B. The S-Max with the other three was parked at the curb in front of the main building. Pierre looked behind his shoulders at the big car which rain wipers were moving rhythmically. He was not able to see anybody in the car, but he knew they were looking right at two of them.

“I am not surprised he hid you. He never mentioned you are so pretty,” Pierre said.

“And he did mention you are le séducteur” she said laughing.

“Le séducteur, Is that what they are calling me behind my back?” Pierre laughed. “Well, a dreamy friar and a crazy artist. Make a joke in front of a girl and all of a sudden you are a beau that is trying to do something inappropriate. If it is so, how come they end up with beautiful girls and I am the one that’s left in the rain?”

“You should step in if you don’t want to get soaked. My umbrella is broken. It can snap anytime.” Ana said, inspecting the umbrella ribs with her index finger.

Pierre glanced up, “you shouldn’t touch the umbrella from the inside while it is raining. But I expected more creativity from a journalist than a shaky story on broken umbrella.” He said smiling. “However, thanks for chaperoning me.”

“You’re welcome, le séducteur.”

Fabian was the first friend he had when he got to Croatia to finish his studies in philosophy. They met in Faculté de Philosophie of Institut Catolique de Paris where Fabian was finishing his second year, and Pierre was getting his B.A. degree. Fabian was one of those rare but fabulous people whose dream was to join the order of friar preachers. Pierre saw how Ana frowned when he called Fabian a dreamy friar. Fabian told him that she hates when they are mocking her to be a “friar’s girlfriend.” She was probably the only thing in between him and the white habit. He imagined that this could be a pressure for her.

Notification from Facebook Messenger caused a buzz in his wide trousers’ pocket. Ana. “I am on number 47. Second floor. Why would you need my umbrella? To fix it :) It is already fixed by a gentleman I met the other day.”

“I cannot believe you are still holding to that story,” he typed standing right there, in front of 47. He got his bike chained at the stand in front of a building and ran up the few stair flights. The second door to the left of the second floor has her name, “Ana Iskra” on a white sticker. Those Croatians usually lament about how poor they are comparing to a more westerner Europeans, but it was almost impossible to see college students afford their own apartments in France or Germany.

He pressed the button with a bell icon. An old-fashioned doorbell rang inside. The sound of a key unlocking the doors racketed through the corridor. Ana opened the door wearing a blue jersey. Her dark hair loose. Her legs bare.

“Hey, I need your umbrella,” he said.

“I was not aware that you were so impressed by our little moment under an umbrella. It meant nothing you know,” she scoffed.

“It is nice to see you too,” Pierre murmured. Nice dress, by the way. I am the fan of Les Tricolores myself.

“Your friend purchased this for me. He thought I would look sexy in it,” she said without a smile.

“And he was damn right. The cock looks good on you.”

Ana frowned. “Word games, that is all you boys know,” she said leaning to get something behind still semi-closed apartment door. “Here it is. The umbrella.”

“Hey, I am sorry for bothering you. Tina asked for it,” he said taking it.

“I know all about your word games with phone, Pierre.” Ana said looking him in the eyes.

Pierre winced. “It was nothing, really,” he said suddenly feeling his cheeks starting to blush.

“I know it wasn’t. Just another game, eh?”

“I wouldn’t call it a game but, yes, you may be right. I am sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me. Apologize to Boris. He is that guy who fixed your fancy fixie while you are messing with his girlfriend behind his back,” she said scornfully.

“You are right. I was a jerk, and I will apologize to Boris. Tina is probably a nice girl, what should I know. But I do not plan to stay between the two of them. If they have problems, they should resolve them without me. Thanks for this,” Pierre uttered raising the umbrella. “Tell Fabian I said hello,” he said while taking a step towards the stairs.

“I will if I see him. I don’t think that would be possible during his first year of novitiate.

He stopped and turned around. “I didn’t realize that…”

Ana was on the brink of tears. “That the boys with white hoods finally had taken him? Well, they had,” she said pressing her palm at the edge of the right eye.

Pierre stepped one and a half step back. “Well, if that’s true, I don’t think he would mind if you get a bike ride with that beau, friend of his?” He was now almost on the doorstep while she was staying behind it. She released the door so that it opened completely with no obstacles on the way, revealing a yellow cruiser bike aside the coat hanger.

“Ah boy. I knew you are umbrella girl! You have a collection here,” he said, already one step into the apartment.

“Hey, weren’t you supposed to go to the Boris’ place? I gave you what you want, now go,” she said pushing him out using one of the umbrellas from the hanger.

“I think that french cock of yours is ready to get out. I can tell that because his eyes are widening,” said Pierre with wide smile looking curiously at the french football emblem on her chest.

“You perv,” she said covering her front. “It is chilly in the hallway and I have nothing underneath. Stay away.” She waved him back using the umbrella as a sword.

“En garde,” Pierre said assuming the swordsmen position.

“Well, D’artagnan, you better lead the horse out, and I am going to dress up and powder my nose,” she said showing the bike with her ‘sword.’

Pierre bowed graciously lowering his ‘sword’. “À votre service.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were approaching Boris’ studio. What he was calling a studio was actually a basement room in an old building uptown. Once storage of his grandfather’s bike repair workshop, it laid unoccupied for nearly a decade as his dad, who gave up being a repairman for a much more lucrative position of a schoolteacher, wasn’t using it. He was leasing the first-floor shop to a hairdresser studio, and eventually sold it. The basement depot remained vacant few more years until Boris finally occupied it for his affairs. Boris completed his B.A. in visual arts and then switched to major in electronics. His studio became a harbor for multiple mad projects. Men of future, he was saying, will live online and what he is doing is just make them aware of their embeddedness. He was successful in what he was doing whatever that was. His latest art installation was accepted by the Moscow’s Museum of Modern Art for their Affluence Art exhibition. The installation consisted of a flying drone that carries a tablet computer that generates graphics which the drone then projects at the exhibition hall walls. When the drone’s batteries are about to be exhausted, it lands on special bedplate where a robotic hand takes care of the drone being properly charged. The robotic hand is also programmed to change the drone’s battery once a year, so with 5 batteries at hand, the robotic duo can operate 5 full years unmanned. Boris was not completely satisfied with this work because it didn’t allow much human intervention. Therefore, he was working on what he called, a version 2 of the installation. The version which will make the produced artwork depend on a human that interacts with the installation. What makes the art admirable is people’s spirit be it in or out of the machine is yet another puzzling of Boris’ sayings Pierre dearly remembered. This guy was a remarkable artist, technician, and a philosopher in the same time. It’s not every day that you meet someone like Boris. True uomo universale.

S-Max was not parked on crammed parking lot in front of Boris’ building when Pierre and Ana chained their bikes at rusty iron bars of a basement window. The shop that once belonged to Boris’ grandfather was open. It was selling pyrotechnics. The last time Pierre was here, he could swear it was fishing gear shop. General interest in fishing obviously dropped and, with fall and Christmas time ahead, pyrotechnics started to look lucrative. Pierre jumped over the iron fence. “Boris, are you there?” He cried beating ribbed aluminum plated door with the palm of his left hand while holding the umbrella in his right.

Ana stood at the top of cellar stairs still unsure if it was a good call to come here. She bowed trying to see in through textured blurry window glass. It looked like someone is watching a TV inside. Brief flickers and changes of the light intensity lightened the glass from the inside.

“No one answers, but I am almost sure that someone is in there,” Boris said trying vainly, same as Ana, to grasp anything behind the blurry glass. “Oh, wait, I have a message from Tina.” he squinted to read the time from the phone he took out of his pocket to read time. Sometimes he completely forgets that he has a G-Shock on his wrist. He broke it by loosing a small spring when changing a battery. Boris saw the watch lying dead on his desk and had spare parts and some spare time to repair it. Pierre read aloud the message on his phone: “Don’t enter at main door! Hey, it says ‘don’t enter at main door.” Pierre stood there in front of the closed basement door with the phone in one and umbrella in another hand hesitant what to do now. Beep of new message echoed and he read it immediately. “There is a shaft in the backroom of the shop. “Hey, there is a shaft in the backroom of the shop, he called out waving the phone.”

Ana crossed her hands. “I heard you for the first time, you read it aloud, you know,” she said patronizingly.

Pierre climbed up the few stairs. It was late early fall afternoon, but relatively cold. Not many people were on the street.

“Ok, so we are supposed to get inside and ask Mr. Pyro-shop owner, to gently allow us to use his backroom basement entrance,” said Pierre baffled.

Ana lifted her eyebrows. “Or I can get in and ask Mr. Pyro-shop owner to explain to me how to use some of his big rockets while you are sneaking in the back and trying to get in the basement.”

“He has some pretty mean rockets in there, be careful,” Pierre said.

“Deal,” she said walking toward the shop’s entrance. “Walk around for a while and then come in!” She circled her finger pointing down the street.

Pierre did just that, he took a quick stroll around the block and then got back in front of the shop taking the big umbrella all along the way. He checked his phone for a few times, but there were no new messages from Tina. He wondered what might be going on. Are Tina and Boris in some kind of danger? Why Ana and him shouldn’t enter at the main entrance? And, what the umbrella is for?

When he got into the shop, both of the salesmen were occupied with customers. One with a young family of three, that being a dad, a mom and a little boy, that were purchasing boxed fireworks set for a junior’s birthday. Those sets cost a small fortune and the salesman clad in a red polo shirt with yellow emblem presenting rocket on a stick on his chest was just explaining to the young dad why one that costs almost twice more is a better choice for their upcoming party. Born salesman he was. The other customer was Ana. She was such a good actor. Didn’t even wink when Pierre came in. She was completely occupying the attention of the other red-clad salesman with her questions on how the rocket should be properly handled in order not to burst too early.

Pierre had a ready answer to a rising eyebrow of a salesman that was working with the young family. “Just looking,” he said and swiftly vanished behind the big shelf, crammed with firecrackers of different sizes and colors, entering the backroom. He looked back, but none of the salesmen seemed to be paying any attention.

It took him several seconds to realize that the backroom, equally crammed with goods of different colors and shapes, was not storing pyrotechnics, but a surprisingly, fishing gear. Yellow, red, and green little tubes in boxes on shelves were not firecrackers but fish baits, small metallic and plastic fish used for catching bigger fish. Equally, blue, brown, and black big sticks were not rockets but telescopic fishing rods. All in all, the owner is apparently yet to finally decide what will be his main business. The free market will tell.

Pierre shrugged, trying to discover a shaft on the hard wooden flooring. It seemed like there is not any. It may be concealed during redecoration of the place, although the battered wooden floor looked like no bigger intervention has been made on it since the seventies. Finally, he noticed a discrepancy in the flooring woodwork. While the long wooden planks were laid in a zigzag manner, so that one plank was always ending at the half of the nearing plank, the planks below big broad advertising stalk in the corner were all ending side by side forming what seemed like a shaft lid. He stepped towards the stalk, coming really near as he was reading the lettering on big advertisement placard pitched over the stalk. On the placard, a woman and man stood behind there, fishing from the bank of a foamy, fast current. As the city lay in the center of the big valley, that two dozen million year ago used to be a Pannonian sea, these kind of rivers were not flowing in perimeter of several hundred kilometers. But the ad surely looked inviting and thus justifying its purpose. The slogan said, “Coarse Fishermen do it on the riverbank.” That was supposed to be funny, but it actually was one more sexist commercial unprosecuted. His foot rested on the shaft. He felt the flooring squeaking and moving a bit. He looked down. A thin line of light was dividing the shaft from the hard floor. Bingo! He had found the basement entrance.

There was no much time for thinking. One of the salesmen could enter any moment wondering what Pierre may be doing alone in the unlit part of the store that is obviously not being used. He quickly seized the stalk and drew it aside. The stalk was made of aluminum barrels and it was very light, so he managed to step behind it and quickly pull it back over swiftly. He was now in the narrow triangle space in the corner of the room, completely concealed by advertising banner canvas spread to his right. He squatted leaning on the umbrella like an old man would lean on his walking stick. Two holes and a hollow witnessed that there was once a lever there. He tried to pry the shaft with the umbrella tip, but it wouldn’t budge. The gap aside the hatch was too narrow for it as well as two boltholes once used to anchor the lever. He will need to find a better tool to hook the hatch. He stood up, again using the umbrella as backer. An idea came to his mind. He peered out. There was still no one on the site. Distant voice murmur from the front room showed that customers were steadily coming in. The shop owner decision to switch to pyrotechnics may not be a bad idea after all.

He got through between the advertising banner and the shelf with fishing rods almost knocking the stalk with Ana’s bulky umbrella.

Is he going to fell into a trap? Pierre suddenly wondered. Was Boris planning some retaliation and Pierre, as naive as he is, is rushing into it? This ‘craziness’ Tina mentioned in her parturient note must have been related to something deeply continental, something that resembles more to Sartre’s love letters to Simone de Beavoir than to analytical essays of O.H. Green, which tediously wonders if love is an emotion. Pierre was acquainted with Boris enough to know that he is in love with that girl and what himself, Pierre, had done to their relationship was stupid, even terrible. It doesn’t really matter that she asked for it_. Pierre just hoped that his friendship with Boris would survive this whole episode. Boris and Fabian were his real friends, and things that may be going on between their girlfriends and him should not put that relationship into jeopardy. If Boris decides to stay home working on his mad inventions and doesn’t go with his girlfriend to a trip, that is his problem, same as Fabian’s problem as he decided to go to and be a priest instead of being with Ana. But if he immediately takes advantage of their foolishness, he is not helping at all. And, as they say, he is here to help, indeed.

He wondered how the fishing rods were assembled while looking around the room to find something he may use to pry the hatch. Boxes with hooks, coils with threads of different thickness and colors, reels and rods of various sizes piled on the shelves around him. Everything was there. But how should he assemble it? Ah, there you go. What seemed to be a functional fishing rod, assembled for demonstration obviously, was anchored in a rack at opposite end of the room, next to the door to the front room. He quickly acquired the rod and in a blink of an eye, he was back behind the ad stalk trying to hook the hatch. There was not much room for operating the fishing rod there, but he figured it out by reeling of one and a half meter of the line. He maneuvered the tiny hook solely by holding the thin line in his hands. The fishing rod he left reclined against the wall. The hook attached to the line was the simple, single one, so it slid very easy through the narrow gap between the hatch and the floor. After few tries, he managed to hook the hatch. He crouched, rolled up the coil, and strained the line so that the hook remains engaged. Then he firmly pulled the line up; careful not to break it. The hatch opened with a discreet squeak. Discrete light from below illuminated his small shelter. The indistinguishable rustle of some minute machinery echoed.

“Hey, what’s going on here? Where’s that lad?” Harsh voice burned out, maybe from cigarettes and liquor, muttered from the other side of the banner. Pierre immediately felt a bit of hot urine irrecoverably slipped in his underpants. Struggling with the immense force of fear that suddenly tethered his legs; he stepped down, trying to secure his foot on the cranky wooden ladder step while still holding the fishing rod. He pulled the rod to release the hook, but it wouldn’t unhook. The rod bend strongly, showing its potential to bear with much bigger fish than it was advertised for. He released the rod feeling immediate punch in the nose. His warm blood splattered the advertising banner that leaned toward him covering his head. “Merde,” he said while losing balance as his other leg was missing the step. While falling down, he quickly caught the stalk which the advertising banner was stretched on. The next second he was hanging through the hatch with his nose bleeding down his face. The fishing rod slid past him and slammed to the floor below. The fishhook, now loosened, swiftly took off following the thin greenish strained fishline. It found its new prey in Pierre’s G-Shock securing strongly between the watch resin strap and Pierre’s soft wrist tissue. Pierre released the grip of his left hand with a husky moan. He managed to catch the ladder with his right hand which helped him only to abate his descend down the ladder to the gray concrete floor. He landed with loud “Ouch!” grabbing his left wrist with his right hand to ease the pain the hook caused. Sudden rumbling sound above his head signaled him to cover his head. Yellow umbrella fell with its spike first, right on his bare, slightly bloody knuckles, clenched above his head. Another “Oouuuch!” was all he could say.

“Je suis finalement allé fou,” he murmured trying to avoid yet another flying umbrella. But this one refused to fell down. It started to circulate above his head instead, obviously challenging the laws of gravity. The umbrella’s yellow canopy was spinning like crazy keeping it airborne above his head. Wild flashes of color painted the room walls frantically. “What the hell is that?”

The flashes of the light became less intensive, and he was now able to discern more of the room’s interior. What seemed like a flying umbrella was actually a miniature drone. The drone was less aggressive now. It was levitating, almost without any move a meter to Pierre’s left. Carrousel of pictures were changing rapidly on the wall in front of the drone. Some of the pictures were nothing but smudges of teal, violet, and pink. The others were more articulate shapes, a violet triangle most often repeated. Yet other pictures were real photographs. Eiffel tower, an umbrella, a watch, a round shaped logo of the Universitas Catholica Parisiensis, Tina on the beach, Boris and Pierre playing Tekken, Tina sitting on the chair with her arms tied… “Ce que l’enfer? Boris, this is not funny at all,” Pierre said revolving around trying to discern if there is anybody in the room.

“Boris, where are you? Tina, has he done you any harm?” He was not sure if anyone was actually in there as the drone projections, now again in wild abstract colors, were making it very hard to see much in the, otherwise, dark room.

“There he is, a thief, shoot him,” the harsh voice sounded roughly from the shaft. Pierre looked up. A man with a long two barrel fowling piece was on the brink of a shaft, kneeling.

Pierre wanted to flee but his legs were not listening. “Aujourd’hui tout le monde est fou.” Suddenly, the projector on the drone went off. The room stayed in complete darkness lit only with dim light from the shaft and the blurred basement window. The drone dashed near his head like a fierce fly. At the same time, a loud bang ripped his ears echoing through the room, and what seemed like an eternal moment filled with sudden burst of glittering light. “Il est fini. Je suis mort.”

A whole eternity passed. He remained standing and in silence. With his arms covering his bowed head he resembled a boxer fighter who is giving a clear sign that he had enough.

“It is over, mon ami, you are saved,” a familiar voice broke the silence. Pierre loosened his guard a bit and squinted in the direction of the voice. A tall figure clad in a white robe with white hood stood right in front of him. Pierre was not able to discern the man’s features as his head was slightly bowed with his arms hidden in wide sleeves.

“Who are you? Where am I?” Asked Pierre weary.

“I am…” the figure in white robe muttered but was interrupted by the squeak of the front door.

“Surprise,” yet another familiar voice cried entering through the basement door. There were more figures behind him. More voices and music, a tune he learned to play on the accordion when he was little boy.

“Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques Dormez-vous, dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines, Ding ding dong, ding ding dong.”

Series of surprises struck Pierre that evening, one by one. They let him wash and change his clothes as his shirt was bloody from the injuries he received in the wild chase. It surprised him how the wounds made by the fishing hook were small, now seen in the bright light. Almost indiscernible.

But the first big surprise though, was that Fabian didn’t forget his birthday, and made him laugh. Not that he didn’t forget about his birthday, but he even managed to get out of the monastery with the white dominican habit which was not a recommended practice for young postulant as they still were not accepted into the novitiate and thus not clad in the habit.

Everyone was there, on a shindig in Boris’ cellar. Boris has completed version two of his installation. It was now capable of human interaction. Pierre was his first lab rat, carrying little sensors in the casing of his G-shock. The device transmitted data about Pierre’s heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and who knows what else through the antenna in Ana’s umbrella to the drone who then, used his artificial artistic skills to draw fantastic images and project it to the wall. The post avant-garde crew in Moscow exhibition will surely love this as well as a mass producer Boris is already negotiating the production of the machinery. At the moment, Pierre thought he was playing games behind Boris’ back but it actually was vice versa and that was a surprise of his own kind.

Tina was there at the shindig also. She never messaged Pierre with her nudie selfies. That was the third big surprise that struck him. This was all Boris’ deed. He rigged Pierre’s phone by changing his, Boris name, in the phonebook to Tina’s. The rest is a bit of photoshop and lots of imaginations. Boris and Fabian made a bet that Pierre will not resist the temptation to try to seduce both of their girlfriends. They were right. Pierre didn’t manage to conclude who won the bet. He was drinking beer and talking with Fabian about their days in Paris when he received a text message that will get him to host his last surprise. He didn’t take a look at it immediately but when he went to the bathroom to urinate. The guys from the above, who Boris called the red clad pyro/fishing gear shop owners, were making a really good Belgian blonde ale and witbier. They both enjoyed to participate in a big prank for a Frenchman Pierre who happened to drink a few of Belgian beers before and could sincerely find no complain to their brew. One of them, Zorin, had a two-barreled hunting rifle and it was his idea to shoot a blank from the hatch. Boris gave them a device, a microphone that distorted the voice, making it sound harsh and vicious. “It was such a good prank man; I almost burst into a laugh when I said shoot this guy , luckily this device makes one’s voice sound so harsh, almost like a casket of a cold bitter beer. By the way, do you think we put too many hops in the ale? It tastes more American than Belgian, eh?” Zorin asked Pierre. “I think it is ok man; please excuse me as I really need to take a leak,” Pierre smiled.

Boris and him didn’t have much time nor space to have a word in private this evening. Pierre was unsure if Boris is expecting his apology. After the course of the events became explained by four of his friends who were jumping in the word of each other and at the same time resisting too much laughter, Pierre was unsure if he should apologize at all or to expect Boris to apologize to him for using him as a lab rat for his odd and inexpedient experiments. They seemed to both decide to take it as men and not discuss it at all which suited Pierre fine. He astonishingly admitted that the surprise indeed knew no bounds when he glanced at the screen of his mobile phone. New message from Tina. And this was indeed from Tina as Boris, as meticulous as he was, fixed his phone back by changing back the phonebook entries to match actual people with their phone contacts.

Pierre read the message on his way out from the toilet raising his forefinger to Zorin giving him sign that he currently does not have time for chatting about beers and ales of the world. “Ana and me had our own bet,” the message read. “I said that she would not resist your charms. Guess what. I am winning.” A wink smiley face consisting of a semicolon and the right parenthesis ended the short message. He looked around and found the same wink on Tina’s actual face. She was standing with Ana in the corner of the room, next to crammed shelf on top which Boris put his inartful drone. The two girls were probably talking about him. He didn’t care. He needed to clear his head. He went out and set on an iron fence. The wind was blowing mildly but enough to make leaves rustle. The basement door behind him creaked. He didn’t turn.

“Here he is, catch him,” a harsh masculine voice said. Pierre wondered how he didn’t recognize that this was an artificially enhanced voice in the first place. It is funny how fear and excitement can change one’s senses. Boris is a genius indeed. People will love to interact with his gadgets believing that their internal lives, artificially ruffled, are indeed rich enough to create an art.

Pierre turned around to face the last surprise of this exciting evening.