HAMZ MUSINGS: BLOODY COMPACT (Short Fiction)
BLOODY COMPACT (Short Fiction)
By Hamz
On one of those when friends decided to act like bums and ladies refused to come over to your place because they were clairvoyant enough to suss you’d be up to no good if they stepped in, I found myself in a shoddy, sordid pigsty of a bar run by an apology of a lady who was as fat as one could be without bursting.
The stale air hung heavy with the thick odour of smelly armpits, the unpleasant combination of the reek of cheap beer and month-old tobaccos and the fetid, stomach-churning smell of something quite in distinct semblance to the stench of horny male goats. The faulty speakers screeched and blared out ancient music, like loud-mouthed implacable vermins throwing tantrums. Every now and then, a brawl broke out and the fighters, languid from their excessive intake of beer, were thrown out, but not before their pockets were searched and the little money they had, stolen. The ladies, well versed in the ways of sin and incorrigible in the path of carnality wiggled their waists, igniting fleshly temptations and eliciting slaps on their butts from all sides. Old men, especially.
In a corner with a bottle of water before me, I sat thinking about how sudden things were going south for me. Life hadn’t been treating me particularly fairly. So, I was there no more than a quarter of a half hour when a moustachioed man, as big as a horse standing on it’s two hind legs, sauntered over to me. He was clad in black overalls and squashed atop his dome-shaped was head a long black hat, long enough to conveniently hide a child. He stopped abruptly in front of me, a condescending sneer pulling at the corners of his thick lips, his great shoulders smugly set and his chest puffed out in an irritating level of utter disrespect.
‘You’re Hamz, right?’, he asked in a dark voice, shoving a black finger that was as fat as a banana right in my face.
‘What is it to you if I am?’, I replied roughly, slapping his finger off and glowering at him. I found his nose funny anyway.
He smiled suddenly in a hideous manner, dragged a chair and flopped into it with all the self-control of a sack of grain, still smiling at me, showing all of his teeth that were the size of miniature shovels.
‘Mali’s the name’, he announced, digging his hands that both lacked middle fingers into his chest.
With a disinterested wave of my hand, I said I didn’t care if he was Togo and that if he didn’t have anything to say, he might as well go take a dive in a fish pond. He looked hurt. I looked happy.
‘Three days ago’, he began, fiercely digging his thick index finger into his small nostrils, ‘Cassie broke up with you, Am I correct?’
‘How’s that news?’, I retorted heatedly, ‘The whole school heard about that.’
He snorted, closed his eyes a little while and inhaled slowly, then tapped the front of his forehead and continued. ‘And a couple of days before that, three lecturers of yours said they’d make your life miserable, right?’
My eyes narrowed suspiciously and I sat up and bellowed, ‘Who in the hell are you? Prophet TB Mali or what? Linda Imali?’
He slowly took off his hat and placed it on the table with a grin- ‘I’ll take that as a yes’.
I stood up to leave but immediately had a change of heart. If this big, black ape of a swine knew things about me, it wouldn’t be wise leaving before he was done talking.
‘And right now’, he continued smiling, ‘Your account is screaming red and your life’s not much fun.’
‘Who’ re you?’, I demanded, suddenly bridled that he knew quite a lot of true things about me. ‘It is your father’s life’, I said, pointing. towards his nose that was as long and thin as a stiletto heel, ‘whose life isn’t much fun. Who the bloody hell are you anyways?’
He ignored the question like he never heard and went on, staring at me and my finger with evil, dark eyes above the peak of his hat, ‘I’ve got a proposal for you.’
‘I said who’re you, you haggard owl?’, I demanded again, banging my table so hard that my bottle of water flew off.
‘And I said I’ve got a proposal for you’, he replied with sinister calm and shone his eyes at me, pressing his enormous lips together into a paper-thin line. ‘You ready to listen?’
I calmed down and said I was ready to and he brought out a piece of paper that was as long and light as an ashawo’s curtain then laid it on the table, caressing it lovingly.
‘This is the proposal’, he began, poking a finger at the paper. ‘I want…uhhhm, your soul. Just sign here and your problems are over. By this time tomorrow Mr. Hamz, your problems would be over’.
A salesman couldn’t have been more convincing. This brother could sell sand to an Arab.
For what could have been a minute, I stared at him, wondering what joblessness and drunkenness could do to a man. And all the while, he stared back at me, never blinking.
‘You want what? Are you high on…?’
‘Signnnnnn hiaaaaa’, he snarled viciously at me, his eyes popping, his shovel teeth bared and his tongue slowly flicking out like an octopus’ tentacle, touching the tip of his nose.
I picked up the pen involuntarily, squinted to read the crabby prints and with shaky fingers, scribbled a large scrawl of a signature on it. He examined it, gave me a long, dirty stare, shoved a finger into my forehead and shouted in my ears, ‘NICE DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU!’. With that, he slowly stood up and tore away, bumping through the throng of old drunks, sending them flying off and landing on their backs and bums.
– –
I woke up the next day and what I saw very nearly gave me a heart attack- Cassie had given me 23 missed calls and sent 5 messages. If there was something Cassie never did, it was calling more than thrice. But here it was- 23 calls, 5 messages. Holy cow! Chickens must’ve grown teeth. As I lay in bed marvelling, reading the messages, I heard a bang on the door. I grunted and opened and there was Cassie, resplendent in beauty, wearing a short, filmy gown that immediately stirred a flaming lust in me and created a bulge in my boxers. We looked down at the bulge together and smiled. The next thing I knew was that we’d taken some Tramadol…
And we started doing it in circles, on the kitchen sink, in the passage, on the bathroom storage, on the chair, and back on the bed, moaning, she screaming every filthy four-letter word and thrashing violently. There were moments I thought I was wrestling with a tigress.
As I lay limp still breathing heavily, I got a message. With feeble hands, I picked up my phone and my glazed eyes shot open. It was a bank alert. The amount of money I saw stopped my heartbeat cold. Some random guy had paid in huge cash. Boy, was I mad with joy.
If signing one paper gave me such good tidings, I was ready to sign a full note.
Do I need to tell you that my lecturers, including the bald bastard who told me to get rid of my hair apologised to me, with each one saying, “I’m sorry for acting like a large African ass. Mr Hamz, forgive my indiscretion.”?
Life was sweet until…
– –
I ran into Mr Mali a couple of months later.
‘How’s life been?’, he asked, smiling. His teeth had grown to full-sized shovels now.
I told him with childlike glee that my girlfriend was still acting all loyal regardless of the fact that I had three fuck-mates; that random guys were paying dough into my account and that my lecturers were giving me preferential treatment and whether, did he have any more papers I could sign? He shook his head.
‘We need to talk. ASAP’, he said in a raspy voice, pulling his stiletto heel nose.
‘Really?’, I asked, smiling eagerly to which he replied, ‘Yes’. I went with him to a corner, expecting more papers.
‘Remember that paper I made you sign?’, he asked with a banal look in his eyes. I nodded.
‘Well, you sold your soul to the Devil’
I shrugged indifferently and said I knew that and that I was ready to sell my spirit, my head, my shoulders, my knees and my toes, everything to him.
‘Uhm…’, he drawled, dragging his long, scraggly beards, ‘Well, pay back time is come and I’m here to collect’
Before I could utter a word of protest, he brought out a battle axe, cracked open my shoulders and chopped off my arms. I screamed in horror as I saw my hands falling to the ground, wiggling. I began to call for help, screaming wildly, rolling on the ground.
He squatted to my level, slapped me hard on the ears and whispered, ‘Where do you think you are, boy?’. I looked about and the worst type of fear enveloped me. There was a raging inferno everywhere.
‘We, my good friend’, he guffawed, ‘are now together and we’ll look for other mugus. Agreed?’
I nodded dumbly, whimpering.
"
‘But first’, he poked a finger in my chest, ‘You’re going to be here for the next ten thousand years’
I gasped in horror and it was only then I realised that I’d died, was now in hell and was going to be there for quite a while.
The End.
Story Written by Hamz.(Inspired by Von Goethe’s Faust).
©HamzWrites
By Hamz
On one of those when friends decided to act like bums and ladies refused to come over to your place because they were clairvoyant enough to suss you’d be up to no good if they stepped in, I found myself in a shoddy, sordid pigsty of a bar run by an apology of a lady who was as fat as one could be without bursting.
The stale air hung heavy with the thick odour of smelly armpits, the unpleasant combination of the reek of cheap beer and month-old tobaccos and the fetid, stomach-churning smell of something quite in distinct semblance to the stench of horny male goats. The faulty speakers screeched and blared out ancient music, like loud-mouthed implacable vermins throwing tantrums. Every now and then, a brawl broke out and the fighters, languid from their excessive intake of beer, were thrown out, but not before their pockets were searched and the little money they had, stolen. The ladies, well versed in the ways of sin and incorrigible in the path of carnality wiggled their waists, igniting fleshly temptations and eliciting slaps on their butts from all sides. Old men, especially.
In a corner with a bottle of water before me, I sat thinking about how sudden things were going south for me. Life hadn’t been treating me particularly fairly. So, I was there no more than a quarter of a half hour when a moustachioed man, as big as a horse standing on it’s two hind legs, sauntered over to me. He was clad in black overalls and squashed atop his dome-shaped was head a long black hat, long enough to conveniently hide a child. He stopped abruptly in front of me, a condescending sneer pulling at the corners of his thick lips, his great shoulders smugly set and his chest puffed out in an irritating level of utter disrespect.
‘You’re Hamz, right?’, he asked in a dark voice, shoving a black finger that was as fat as a banana right in my face.
‘What is it to you if I am?’, I replied roughly, slapping his finger off and glowering at him. I found his nose funny anyway.
He smiled suddenly in a hideous manner, dragged a chair and flopped into it with all the self-control of a sack of grain, still smiling at me, showing all of his teeth that were the size of miniature shovels.
‘Mali’s the name’, he announced, digging his hands that both lacked middle fingers into his chest.
With a disinterested wave of my hand, I said I didn’t care if he was Togo and that if he didn’t have anything to say, he might as well go take a dive in a fish pond. He looked hurt. I looked happy.
‘Three days ago’, he began, fiercely digging his thick index finger into his small nostrils, ‘Cassie broke up with you, Am I correct?’
‘How’s that news?’, I retorted heatedly, ‘The whole school heard about that.’
He snorted, closed his eyes a little while and inhaled slowly, then tapped the front of his forehead and continued. ‘And a couple of days before that, three lecturers of yours said they’d make your life miserable, right?’
My eyes narrowed suspiciously and I sat up and bellowed, ‘Who in the hell are you? Prophet TB Mali or what? Linda Imali?’
He slowly took off his hat and placed it on the table with a grin- ‘I’ll take that as a yes’.
I stood up to leave but immediately had a change of heart. If this big, black ape of a swine knew things about me, it wouldn’t be wise leaving before he was done talking.
‘And right now’, he continued smiling, ‘Your account is screaming red and your life’s not much fun.’
‘Who’ re you?’, I demanded, suddenly bridled that he knew quite a lot of true things about me. ‘It is your father’s life’, I said, pointing. towards his nose that was as long and thin as a stiletto heel, ‘whose life isn’t much fun. Who the bloody hell are you anyways?’
He ignored the question like he never heard and went on, staring at me and my finger with evil, dark eyes above the peak of his hat, ‘I’ve got a proposal for you.’
‘I said who’re you, you haggard owl?’, I demanded again, banging my table so hard that my bottle of water flew off.
‘And I said I’ve got a proposal for you’, he replied with sinister calm and shone his eyes at me, pressing his enormous lips together into a paper-thin line. ‘You ready to listen?’
I calmed down and said I was ready to and he brought out a piece of paper that was as long and light as an ashawo’s curtain then laid it on the table, caressing it lovingly.
‘This is the proposal’, he began, poking a finger at the paper. ‘I want…uhhhm, your soul. Just sign here and your problems are over. By this time tomorrow Mr. Hamz, your problems would be over’.
A salesman couldn’t have been more convincing. This brother could sell sand to an Arab.
For what could have been a minute, I stared at him, wondering what joblessness and drunkenness could do to a man. And all the while, he stared back at me, never blinking.
‘You want what? Are you high on…?’
‘Signnnnnn hiaaaaa’, he snarled viciously at me, his eyes popping, his shovel teeth bared and his tongue slowly flicking out like an octopus’ tentacle, touching the tip of his nose.
I picked up the pen involuntarily, squinted to read the crabby prints and with shaky fingers, scribbled a large scrawl of a signature on it. He examined it, gave me a long, dirty stare, shoved a finger into my forehead and shouted in my ears, ‘NICE DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU!’. With that, he slowly stood up and tore away, bumping through the throng of old drunks, sending them flying off and landing on their backs and bums.
– –
I woke up the next day and what I saw very nearly gave me a heart attack- Cassie had given me 23 missed calls and sent 5 messages. If there was something Cassie never did, it was calling more than thrice. But here it was- 23 calls, 5 messages. Holy cow! Chickens must’ve grown teeth. As I lay in bed marvelling, reading the messages, I heard a bang on the door. I grunted and opened and there was Cassie, resplendent in beauty, wearing a short, filmy gown that immediately stirred a flaming lust in me and created a bulge in my boxers. We looked down at the bulge together and smiled. The next thing I knew was that we’d taken some Tramadol…
And we started doing it in circles, on the kitchen sink, in the passage, on the bathroom storage, on the chair, and back on the bed, moaning, she screaming every filthy four-letter word and thrashing violently. There were moments I thought I was wrestling with a tigress.
As I lay limp still breathing heavily, I got a message. With feeble hands, I picked up my phone and my glazed eyes shot open. It was a bank alert. The amount of money I saw stopped my heartbeat cold. Some random guy had paid in huge cash. Boy, was I mad with joy.
If signing one paper gave me such good tidings, I was ready to sign a full note.
Do I need to tell you that my lecturers, including the bald bastard who told me to get rid of my hair apologised to me, with each one saying, “I’m sorry for acting like a large African ass. Mr Hamz, forgive my indiscretion.”?
Life was sweet until…
– –
I ran into Mr Mali a couple of months later.
‘How’s life been?’, he asked, smiling. His teeth had grown to full-sized shovels now.
I told him with childlike glee that my girlfriend was still acting all loyal regardless of the fact that I had three fuck-mates; that random guys were paying dough into my account and that my lecturers were giving me preferential treatment and whether, did he have any more papers I could sign? He shook his head.
‘We need to talk. ASAP’, he said in a raspy voice, pulling his stiletto heel nose.
‘Really?’, I asked, smiling eagerly to which he replied, ‘Yes’. I went with him to a corner, expecting more papers.
‘Remember that paper I made you sign?’, he asked with a banal look in his eyes. I nodded.
‘Well, you sold your soul to the Devil’
I shrugged indifferently and said I knew that and that I was ready to sell my spirit, my head, my shoulders, my knees and my toes, everything to him.
‘Uhm…’, he drawled, dragging his long, scraggly beards, ‘Well, pay back time is come and I’m here to collect’
Before I could utter a word of protest, he brought out a battle axe, cracked open my shoulders and chopped off my arms. I screamed in horror as I saw my hands falling to the ground, wiggling. I began to call for help, screaming wildly, rolling on the ground.
He squatted to my level, slapped me hard on the ears and whispered, ‘Where do you think you are, boy?’. I looked about and the worst type of fear enveloped me. There was a raging inferno everywhere.
‘We, my good friend’, he guffawed, ‘are now together and we’ll look for other mugus. Agreed?’
I nodded dumbly, whimpering.
"
‘But first’, he poked a finger in my chest, ‘You’re going to be here for the next ten thousand years’
I gasped in horror and it was only then I realised that I’d died, was now in hell and was going to be there for quite a while.
The End.
Story Written by Hamz.(Inspired by Von Goethe’s Faust).
©HamzWrites
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