>From: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: "Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: For Jerry

>Date: 22 February, 2002 02:02 AM

Jerry:

so at night I abducted my little daughter Simone and took her to the Moon ... on the radiator. I have special telekinetic abilities on the Moon. by the power of my thought I can make the head of a match stand on the tip of a needle, and I can keep it there for as long as I want. I mean, until I wake up, and then it's much more difficult just like being alone again without my little Simone, only with my radiator potentially going in reverse.

R.

P.S. buddy, up till now I don't know whether the radiator, which I fly on at nights, does not belong to Johnny. perhaps this kind of radiators should have registration license plates.

>From: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Essence of life

>Date: 23 February, 2002 06:59 AM

Rastislav:

Only now I'm realizing how petty are the problems I have with that radiator as opposed to the problems you have with the dimwitted human herd in your struggle to win the beloved little being with who you share common spirit. We could claim, though, that this world is cruel and merciless and properly adapt a strategy of survival to it, but it won't matter to the world anyway. During my entire life I have never succeeded in bringing any essence of life into this world, which would live for more than 4 minutes. Thus the problems of a similar kind are, so to say, next to unknown to me.

Take care.

Johnny

>From: "Me“ < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: editor < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Return of Camil´s Short Poems as undeliverable

>Date: 23 February, 2002 9:17 PM

>Attachment

>From: Gaspar < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>To: Johnny < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

>Subject: Life of a traveler

>Date: 28 February, 2002 5:11 PM

Hello Johnny:

I'm still in the southern part of our big ball, or quasi-geoid, as it is sometimes jokingly called. But I'm tired of being here. Boredom is eating me up and I've got a headache. After returning from tropical Tonga all kinds of microbes have attacked me here in damp Auckland. I am lying on a mattress and thinking how to kill the oncoming day. I still want to take look at the North Island. I've got to go away. I can't stay anywhere for too long.

Gaspar

>Attachment

A FEW DAYS ON THE DESERT´S EDGE

by Peter Gaspar

In a remote antique shop of a town Ojala in northern Mexico I bought myself a detailed map of forests, which I subsequently studied in my hotel room, and a few days later I set out for a rough mountainous countryside in the north with a high probability of brown bears living there. Would I be lucky to hunt down at least one? I strongly hoped that I would. I drew up a plan. During my preparation I wrote everything down into my notebook. Later I will prepare a report for the wealthy sponsors living east in the Atlantic City.

I set up a small mountain climbers' tent with a round entrance near a stream. I camouflaged my immediate environment with tree branches, fern and camouflage net. I made a dam in the stream and caught a basketful of fish for my own need as well as bait for a trap. There was a narrow canyon near my campsite in the thick forest, where bears definitely come to drink water, or maybe they even have their dens there.

First few days I spent wandering around my neighborhood, holding a map in my hands, checking its contents and marking with a pencil the obvious differences against the reality. Naturally, I was also looking for a most suitable place where I could place the trap. I spent Wednesday morning lying in a thicket where I was practically all buried in moss. Only my head covered by a green cap and double-barrel rifle were sticking out. When I started becoming uncomfortable by the wetness of moss penetrating my pants, I squirmed and suddenly felt a hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned on the left side, put the rifle butt under my chin, then aimed it at the bear's neck and shoved the barrel into its fur. I did not fire though, because the big beast stood up on its hind legs and fell backwards like a cut down tree. When the bear braced up its energy, it ran away zigzagging like a rabbit. I reacted the same way. I crawled up on the top of a needle rock, where I spent half of the day sitting and trembling with fear. I was constantly feeling the bear's smelly snout on my bare neck. Several times I recited all prayers I could remember.

Later I realized that what had happened was something unusual, perhaps supernatural. The bear had run away. I really had a tremendous luck. I have never heard of something like that, nor read about it, nor had a hunch that something like that could ever happen.

Great, in the evening I carefully described the event in detail, and later I will include it in the third finished chapter of the book I am preparing, although I have been convinced for some time that there is nothing to improvise on in the third chapter. Next day I returned to the place and cautiously followed the tracks until they disappeared in rocky debris. I pondered upon several new options of hunting and set my mind on trying to catch that unusual bear alive in order to study what caused its strange behavior. I am going to trap it in a pit, put it to sleep, and I will get a few Mexicans to help me transport it to a railway station. It will probably be quite a backbreaker.

The evening has set in and I still did not have my weapons and backpack with hunting equipment for setting up traps ready. It was enough just to gather the things together, put them into the backpack, and then place it next to my sleeping cot made of dry leaves and army cover with a lining. I slept a little and in the morning before sunrise I instinctively jumped up on my legs resolved to start the day swiftly. I believe the way one starts the day, so it will continue and bring corresponding results to one’s efforts during that day. I hit my head against a protruding rock and fell unconscious for several hours. I did not come around until the afternoon with fever and buzzing in my head. Bugs were crawling into my ears and I had a nest of ants in one of my boots. In short, my day did not turn out right. I had to rest for a few days until the effects of my brain concussion somewhat went away.

Three days later I finally could begin carrying out my plan. At noon I started heading south through a brushwood penetrated by thin beams of light in which dust was floating and fragments of pine needles slowly falling to the ground were shimmering. Further to the south a semi-desert extended, which was overgrown by cacti, gray grass and secluded trees with thick bark and roundish pulpous leaves at the ends of their short branches. Some time ago I read somewhere that a multitude of poisonous snakes lives in this area. So when I got past the woods, I slowed down making careful steps while keeping in mind the words from a book called Bible about the human heel and head of a snake. A while later I changed my direction to cross the sand dunes toward bears in the nearest woods. Blasted by dry air blowing from somewhere in the middle of the desert the waves of sand were undulating over the rocky soil of the dunes’ troughs containing myriads of holes that were most likely hiding places of rattle snakes, poisonous vipers and spiders of all sizes.

Behind the last knoll of sand the woods appeared again. At first, the woods were dry and thin, but the deeper I went into them, the more of dark green color there was, and soggy leaves were lying in the pits. Eventually I got to a narrow ravine with an abundant spring of water flowing out of a rock that glittered like silver. Nearby, there was a crooked tree with a hollow which was split in half and burnt out by lightning. A splendid place for camping. I set up my tent, made a comfortable sleeping cot out of dry leaves, prepared wood for fire, and shortly before the sunset I walked through the vicinity that gave me the feeling of peace and home. A cool breeze creeping over the fallen leaves among whispering bushes was stealing into the woods. Occasionally, it also blew from the treetops, which I think were also giving out mysterious and ominous sounds.

At the moment the day was over and night set in, I noticed a round shining white object deep in the tree’s hollow. I stepped out of my comfortable hideaway between two rocks. Again it seemed to me that the trees were rustling, branches cracking and telling me something, and pinecones falling to the ground in an interesting rhythm. I went up to the tree and gazed at a precious stone shining among the rotten leaves at the bottom of the tree hollow. I carefully cleaned up the stone with my trembling hands. This filled me with excitement. I could not sleep all night. I was thinking of the opal fever that took place in the Lightning Ridge two years ago. Are another immense adventure or perhaps even wealth and fame awaiting me?

The trees were rustling all night long and the pine cones were falling down. The bear lives somewhere in the vicinity, which I was not even thinking about at this time. I smiled to myself amidst beautiful recollections of Australia, how I used to travel by stagecoaches, dry hills drilled with holes of opal mines, starry sky over a deserted continent and small stones wrapped in dirty knotted shreds of cloth sewn onto pants. In a bar in Adelaide I got to know a group of jolly sailors, and together we set out for Coober Peddy and later Lightning Ridge, where we established three mines several miles north of a settlement.

I was directing the mining operations from atop a tower in a central location. In my free time I was measuring the elevation of hills and granularity of soil, because according to the latest scientific findings it was possible to determine the location of opal deposits at least approximately. We were working hard for several months. But let us go back to Mexico to the edge of a desert Bolsón de Mapimi, where I accidentally came across the gem of an uncommon quality while hunting the bear. A few days later I mined other magnificent pieces from the rocky soil. They were hidden in several deposits about three feet underground. I quickly wrote a report to the sponsors and a short article to a trade magazine. I did not devote too much care to the style and grammar of the text. I knocked it off by copying entire passages from some of my older articles, switched the words around here and there and inserted effective phrases to create an impression that I was the one who had caught the bear. In the end I added several unlikely details that my constant opponents will probably try to refute.

Then I enthusiastically got to my work. I had an army shovel in my backpack, small axe with a saw inside its handle, measuring tape, notebooks for recording measurements and three screens for sieving and washing the soil. First I marked the spots where I would start digging. Then I marked the lines for digging with peeled wooden stakes. The following days I was systematically digging through the vicinity and hiding the gems representing a great wealth in a rocky crevice towards the desert, which was about half a mile where they were found. I walked around the wide vicinity three times a day to make sure there was no intruder nearby while I was making sketches. Later when I have more time, I will make a detailed large scale map. I have also been recording temperature, wind direction and velocity and air humidity since even these details, useless at first sight, may prove helpful in future. After a hard day in the evening before dusk, I was reading a book Moby Dick, but I could not concentrate on it and I did not even get to the third chapter. It was a pity although it is a great book. Four weeks later, I had a circular land area with a thousand-yard radius thoroughly combed through and soil up to three feet deep went through my sieving screens. The time came for me to cover my tracks and split. I covered the holes, burnt the stakes, packed up and started heading through the desert towards the town.

A figure of a man wearing a bear fur coat flashed behind a red dune. It would suffice for him to put a bear’s head on top and the mystery of a strange bear would be solved. I plunged into the sand overpowered by a bad feeling.