The History of the world- Part3 Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013- Taken from our lives as fiction

        

 The History of the world- Part3

Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013- Taken from our lives as fiction

                                           

 VIII

The crowds gave out a golden gleam of resplendent light, from the summer sun, as it was high in the sky and the main street of the underworld was filled with passing strangers, spectators, agitators, enthusiasts and just about every lonely bachelor from the city that came through in congregations. I sat in the Crocodile bar, which is only several doors down from the Cosy Cavern on the main strip, enjoying this lazy afternoon, eating roast chicken and shish kebabs as I sat out on the main strip of the underworld, carefully watching the ongoing stream of customers that passed me by every minute while I devoured my food as hastily as I could. After several hours of lounging, I came to the Crowfoot Pub, which is just immediately located off the main street, it’s basically your first right turn once you have come to the end of the street itself.

The rooms in the Crowfoot Pub are slightly smaller than the lavishly decorated, almost uniquely designed rooms at the Castle Court inn, but the rooms come with their private bathroom, instead of the public bathrooms shared by each guest at the Castle Court inn. I spent several hours, soaking up in the bathtub, eat chocolate cake in the bath, read the paper on the bed and went for a brief nap. The board and rent was paid for by the Master himself, something almost completely unheard of up until now, and the staff were ordered to give me anything I requested, for it was all a huge juicy offer from the master as a means of enticing me to agree to his little plan. But yet again I could see no logical reason for the offer given, since there was nothing special about me and I had no special relationship with Mr. Andrecovich. The room smelt of pine, the curtains were dark and gaudy, but room was still immaculately clean and tidy in every way. Facing my bed, there was a great, freshly varnished closet that contained inside, several thick cotton made dressing gowns, along with a few complimentary pairs of trousers, complete with tie and jacket. All these treats bestowed before me, made me have serious doubts to the cost of Mr. Andrecovich’s generosity. I phoned reception and ordered them to have my trousers finely steamed and pressed and to have my old clothes washed in the laundrette. So they sent a young gangly, pimple faced, anaemic looking bellboy up to me, for my request and I simply set him packing, when he started to insult me on the smell and the slime that came off my clothes, and all I could respond and say was that I hadn’t changed my clothes for over three months at least. But maybe I was exaggerating, I can’t remember.

That night, that surreal neon vision, called the underworld came out of the woodwork and a bunch of bachelors came too. They were so noisy and simply irritating in their carousing game, chasing after the girls at the Crowfoot pub to which they had no success but cold shoulders and bloody noses, so I had decided to go and spend my time some place else, at least for the moment anyway. I wandered up to the Crocodile bar, for another nights lament and ordered a shot of rum and a shot of vodka mixed with lemonade and sat completely transfixed on the sights of a small of column of old rural gentlemen that stood in line by the bar counter, while watching a football game on the television. These men were gaunt and pale in appearance, they were certainly dishevelled and they bore a certain toxic yellow resemblance with that of a dying creature with liver failure. Their eyes moved in a single movement, in unison and in complete attraction to a young beautiful barmaid, complete with pigtails that moved up and down the bar in sequence delivering drinks to customers, but as usual she was apathetic, sullen faced and indignant to the eye piercing glances made by the sickly sight of this old country congregation. I sat alone, in the half empty bar nibbling bits of peanuts from a bowl, while I downed several pints of lager and drank back three more shots of vodka and lemonade. I sat facing the glazed window and occasionally glanced out into the lonely dark t see a few hidden faces that shuffled up and down the main street like a deadening beat that hammered out a dying song that seemed to be coming to a brief and quickening end.

“Don’t worry sir, the drinks are on us, we have a special bar tab for you, courtesy of the boss himself and its privilege for us to be serving an esteemed guest of the lord Mr.Andrecovich”, said the barman while lifting up a pair of pint glasses on my table.

“Thank you very much”, I said to the stocky shaven headed barman who smiled and offered me a cigarette, to which I declined and thanked him anyway.

“Well stay as long as you like and maybe later you can come and have a drink with me round back if you like, when I am not too busy.”

“No thanks, I think I’ll have an easy night tonight, I have a bit of business to tend to in the morning, want to get up bright an early tomorrow”, I said with a smile and a wink and the barman chucked and wandered back to his post by the bar where he continued once again to watch the big football match, that everyone was transfixed on so intently.

I spent another hour in the bar, in my pensive mood of silence and solitude. But I was thinking, vigorously within my mind on what I would do with regards to the master’s decision made. I had decided not on the spur of the moment but over the course of the night that I would face the master; thank him for the offer and refuse it, simply on the grounds that I was not healthy enough for such strenuous work with a legal team. To be honest I secretly hated this man, for his immense corruption, his sheer audacity to manipulate and exploit the common people like myself and to do so with a smile and an anecdote, this made me shiver and fume with anger, because secretly and maybe all too rightly I had planned to seek action on whatever way I could possibly seek action, to have the master arrested and exposed. But it was obvious that the master was all-powerful and unstoppable when it came to mere hermits and solitary vigilantes like myself.

I said goodnight to that every amiable barman, stepped out into the warm moist balmy summer air and began my journey back to the Crowfoot pub. On my journey I was disturbed to see the sight of the same gaunt old men, the rural types that had had been drooling over the barmaid, stepping into a couple of vacant bins that were lying at the side of one of the side streets. These men were sharing their “bins” together, for two men took up one bin and each one of them was scantly clad in their night gowns, while they all bade each other a good night sleep, I watched them slowly and diligently close their big steel, four wheeled bins over and they all disappeared beneath as they went to sleep and all I could do was watched as bewildered as ever to the sight of these strange, definitely weird individuals. In all my time in the underworld, I had never seen such destitution or such strangeness before tonight.

I walked the final stretch of my journey beneath the moon, with its silver bough and magnificent beauty, it accompanied and courted me right through the journey, right through every step as I slowly walked and watched several couples giggling and joking to one another as they strolled with each other hand in hand, bellow the stars which were their compass, to their midnight destination.

Yes, I would have to confront, Mr.Andrecovich and speak my mind, for this was all an act of conscience to me, a great act of conscience, since I was just an individual facing this great and mighty system which I opposed only in my conscience, but also in spirit and flesh and blood, hoping to overcome this great corruption which had enslaved the lives of so many.

                                                               IX

I woke up at seven or around half past, to be precise and I felt the old sleepless ailments were still there, harboured deep within my psyche. I slept for several hours, with a crooked posture in the bed, lying as stiff as ever and then wandered down to the buffet room to get an early, complimentary breakfast, which included an assortment of fried foods, fine European bread and a miscellaneous collection of fruit juices which were mixed and made into smoothies for the guests. I lounged in the dinning room for over an hour, reading the morning paper while relaxing and taking an occasional sip on a cup of coffee. Then at twenty-five minutes to twelve, Mr. Andrecovich’s butler arrived, early, to escort me once again over to his master’s grand summerhouse, so as to finalise and make known my decision on his offer. The butler simply smiled and called me to follow him, he was equally as shy as he was courteous and polite and while he walked hi I noticed that his back was bent and he seemed to have been completely stooped over with a camels hump on his back.

I asked whether or not his back caused him any trouble or whether any of his back discs were dislocated, he simply stated that his back was bent from all the bowing and genuflecting that was required on a daily basis before the master so to please and appease his magnanimous taste for power. I simply laughed and rebuked him for his sheer lack of individuality in the face of such demeaning work.

We walked through the streets, turned right and walked further, down to the end of the cobbled side street where we saw the eloquent presence of the master’s summer domain once again. He led me through the door and into the grand spacious and picturesque hall. The hall was not filled with darkness this time round, but flooded with light that shone through the windows and illuminated the wooden doors, the window frames and the press doors of the butlers pantry. The butler stood aside and waited at the door to the main living room, while I walked through the butlers pantry into the main living room, feeling slightly apprehensive and yet feeling some level of determination to confront this man. I still did not know what I could say to this man, I mean what could I possibly do if this man had penetrated the police network with a river of bribes and shares, contacts and connections. How could I stand against such a force, a prevailing force that could annihilate me if he wanted to?

Upon my arrival into the main living room or throne room of the master’s summer house, I was left to my own device, to my own thoughts, since the there was not a single soul to be seen. The throne was vacant, without a king, the host and the guests were nowhere to be seen and the butler had gone off to continue his daily chores for his master. I quickly reeled through several of Mr. Andrecovich’s books, glancing through the great variety of books that made up the master’s impressive library for information. I heard a door slam, and quickly spun round to see Mr. Andrecovich standing firmly, right beside his own self constructed throne, to see him wearing a fine navy dinner jacket with the creases ironed out and with a red rose placed through his pocket. Slowly and as confident as ever, he came towards me, with a growing smile upon his face.

“So did you sleep well last night?”

“Yes, had a great night, a quite night, had a few drinks, went for a stroll under the stars and the moon, enjoyed the warm summer air and of course enjoyed the warm beds, the hospitality, the free food and the buffet breakfast given at the Crowfoot.”

“I knew you would. That is why I have made you an offer you can’t refuse in a million years.”

“We’ll I thank you for your hospitality and your kindness, but I am just gonna cut to the chase and ask you the meaning for all of this?”

“What are you implying?”

“I want you to confess, the real reason for your extravagant offer including, the salary the generosity and the free accommodation. You are a criminal, a crime lord with an empire, a business success you may be, but at your roots you are no more a king than the three-legged dog on the streets. You only bribe your way through life and now you are bribing me with offers, simply because you want something, far more important from me, than I from you. I don’t know what it but surely you can tell me what you really want from me?”

I interrogated him and tried with all my more bravely spoken words; to advocate my own feelings towards this smothering personality that I had loathed from the start and I simply wanted to confront the master of superficiality.

“ Well now you’re starting to learn and it shouldn’t have taken you long to figure that out. But I want to know is whether you will let my offer slip on the premise of your knowledge. Of course I want to use you, that is the way life works and I think that you too want to use me, everyone in the world tries their best to advance their own position as best they can, that is the meaning of life.”

“Corruption is not the meaning to my life.”

“Oh not corruption, it’s the use of power, and how it can be used effectively against financial boundaries and business rivals. You have never been in the game like I have, I have been in it for over twenty years to make me what I am today and I am a king, I have achieved so much in such a short space of time, I own the great Versailles of the underworld, I don’t sleep in a bin at night like some people do but in a palace.

You have no reason to accuse me with your moral fallacies, you yourself are a failure, a bad husband, a washed up alcoholic and failed barrister. The law is no longer with you, you deserted your profession long ago, you came to the underworld, you spent every button of your state given welfare and you found your own escape route, from the cancer, from the past, your wife and your complete inability to connect with the rest of mankind.”

“You are like the devil in the wilderness tempting Christ, hoping to take my solemn dignity, my integrity and God given virtue for the kingdoms of the world, for power and position on this earth. All that I hate in this life, is the common corruption of the rich man, the business man and the celebrities who avail of the law, because of their position, who embrace the double standards of the world, that can determine freedom for the common unimportant man or slavery. I know in my very mind that you only wanted my services simply so you could have me represent you in court, so that you could corrupt and inflict the final tragic nail to coffin of a legal system that has long since perished from the amending legislation proposed by corrupt politicians who are bribed and influenced my scum such as yourself. You knew from the start, from the papers, from the information that your little spies had given you that I was once a fine barrister, with an impeccable records for success, for accuracy to detail with a fine command in the courtroom and you must have known that I was involved in the Kershaw case, yes you must remember the great drug barren off the ellenbrook estate, who this over tolerant state tried to save by giving him manslaughter for the murder of his wife. I fought tooth and nail for a murder conviction and I had convinced the court with the obvious samples to adduce the truth that Kershaw had organised and planned an entire cocaine operation off the south coast itself. Kershaw was saved from doing seriously hard labour or hard time at all, simply because he had connections with the O’Connor family, who are a local mafia who have their fingers in too many pies and their claws in too much dirty money. Kershaw escaped justice simply because he was well connected with several corrupt police officers and connected with the O’Connor’s. Now that is the indictable offence, the man only serves three years after a sentence for twelve and legend has it and it is a pretty accurate myth for words, that he was operating, his little drug routine within the prison, under the very noses of the guards or perhaps with the full knowledge of the force, who mostly likely acquiesced with a few payments fro their pockets. Now after such travesties, with the rising rate of crime being attributed to young offenders, which is rising every year through this new millennia, I had to retire from the profession, for I was a sick man, I was sick with the toxic fumes of human corruption, the stench of a long since deceased democracy and the growing little oligarchies of men like Kershaw, Derek O’Connor and yourself, Mr. Andrecovich. You are all the same to me. You wanted me to represent your legal team and deal with your legal affairs. It was by chance that I came to the underworld, but it was purely your own will that brought me to Beth and to yourself. I will not come down to your level of understanding, I will not be bought, I am going to leave now, I am not going to come back. If I had the chance I would take the first given opportunity to go to the police to have you hauled in, but as you say yourself, you practically own the police, since you are one of their more prominent and important shareholders, so what chance have I got in stopping you?”

His face went bright red with rage, he did not speak immediately but held his tongue, raised his eyebrows up and then he merely bore a cunning grin or determination and confidence.

“Yes your right, you’re the first honest man I have ever met. You might just be the only honest man left in the city. I don’t know any man that abides by the law any more, I don’t know any man that even believes in the tenets of democracy, which the men in Brussels themselves declared had died long ago since the days of the Treaty of London. You might be incorruptible, but it does not make you indestructible to the power of force. You see when you limit yourself to such moral laws and don’t lie down with the law of the superior powers, you open yourself up to absolute destruction, on the behalf of the man you oppose. Now a days, for the likes of you it is a valuable lesson for you to pay protection money to your local lord, even my family once paid protection money, simply to abide with the street code and the laws of my country. If you are not part of a gang, if you are not well connected or involved with some power or force in the land, then you are alone, you are an individual and you allow yourself to be crushed by the sheer number you oppose. Men like you are crusaders, you are the last remaining morsels and crumbs of the old system, the old morality that believed in civil obedience and community virtues, and every time a crusader rises up in the land, the gallant nobles put them down. It was only a matter of time before history would return us, the masters to power. All life has returned to our feet, to be taken and controlled like the modern serfdoms, like the Indian caste system, the old European Monarchies, the communist tyrants of Russia and the old feudal nobility. It was only a matter of time before the old democracy fell, because it was too naïve in its liberal ethos, it gave power to the criminals, it did not do enough for the very pillars of society which you obviously believe the family to be one of. Democracy helped to make the war torn countries rich and such wealth and technology ennobled the minds of the great businessmen, the plutocrats who overtime came to become the real lords and rulers of the land and so the “great” public transformed to become the serfs, simply because they failed to oppose their flawed governments, to criticize their lawmakers, the men of Brussels, the democratic ethos, to condemn the worlds celebrities which became the great opium for the world and of course the businessmen themselves. Democracy’s blunders stand on top of each other to form the very funeral pyre, which it rots upon. Consumerism became the official religion of the land and the people like blind lambs for the slaughter followed hand and foot into the fold of slaughter and it takes one lone wolf like yourself to question me, to inspire revolt in the ranks, but the truth is that they the public would never listen to you, because they love their addictions, their fantasy world of Hollywood demi-gods, their luxury world of technology and consumerism. We offer them wealth and comfort, we offer them more products and gadgets than their forefathers ever could have and they don’t even realise, they never realise themselves that they don’t actually need these stupid toys, these ornaments and computers, they don’t realise that they themselves have the only computer and the only possession worth having. That is of course the human mind; the human mind that excels above all the animals, that dominates and exceeds that formulates and creates. The human mind, that Shangri-La of eternity, which the philosophers the theologians and the great thinkers embraced, they knew that the mind gave life its worth and meaning and I know myself that all technology is a mockery of man’s one worthy utility, which is the mind as I have stated, the true creative force. All society itself has moved away from God and nature, from the mind to the gadget, from the glory of power to the morality of slavery and democracy made this happen, but finally in the last twenty years we have witnessed an age-old shift, a schism and a change in the spirit of society. The old weak and inefficient lawmakers who once coerced with the democrats, have finally kicked the bucket, for the new generations that are rising are becoming masters, masters of power and will. For they are like me, they are my friends and co-rulers and they have prescribed this passive almost semi-secret law of autonomy, a will to business and self-mastery over the masses. In time, all Europe will succumb to the power of the masters and man will return once more to the feudal system and we shall belike the nations of Africa, Asia and south America, we will return to force and power, to the table of power and dictatorship. Man’s alpha males will have their day and mind will be used to its absolute perfection by the powerful and man will return to nature once more, for the master will have his right to be a member of the greater race, while all the others embrace their fate as “lesser men”. That I believe is the way of nature and its ethics. You know too that we have finally crushed feminism once and for all to return the real natural right of men to rule over women, for he is physically superior and his domination is one of his natural aims in life. The modern world, its fashions and its business has for the past fifty years given women a false image to prescribe to, instead of becoming intellectuals and morally right individuals, they sought to be like us, to be wild, to be decadent, to indulge and abandon their old traditions and scruples altogether.

We gave them hopeless role models, we made them into sexual objects, we brainwashed them, us men of power, we all wanted to make money, so we made an industry out of women, that has existed since the dawn of man, but never has it been so prolific and successful as it has over the last fifty years. A woman’s self-proclaimed liberation really spelt out her own destruction, because she became the very object of male gratification that she sub-consciously hated in her own very core. The media became the gospel of the land, because it offered luxuries, it offered cheap comforts, gags and nonsensical lies and it helped to secure and proclaim the official scientific state governed consensus of what the average “modern” woman should be like and look like. One by one they too helped to remove the old virtues and values of democracy and the subordination of women for the rights of business and child rearing is another sign of the old return to the feudal age, except such business has never been achieved in history and I am one of the great pioneers in the foundation of the new world, that has come with a business bang not at the stock markets but in the very cities streets and in the minds of the people.

Now all I have said must surely be enough to convince you of the honest truth and you must surely know that you are in the deep end, that you are hopelessly ill-equipped for the times, since your crusade will fail. You may be one of the last men who uses his mind as effectively as he should, but you are a damn sentimentalist and one of the old adherents of the dead democracy and for that you are to be placed under arrest, close scrutiny under my command and you will be detained until I have determined what I will do with you.” 

Suddenly there stood before me two brute henchmen that literally lifted me by the arms and held me up by the sheer force off their arms as they dragged me on the ground and away from the throne of the master himself. All I could see was the face of the master, who laughed and laughed with the tears literally streaming down his face while they dragged me off.

“I will stop you, I will, if I have to do it myself, I will” I shouted before I left the room.

“Get rid off him, knock him out, shut him up, will you”, shouted the master and that was the last thing I remember before they knocked me out.

Then darkness came.

                                                                          X

It could have been day, it could have been night, it was hard to tell, for when I first awoke from my seemingly eternal slumber, I could only see a dim shade of light amid a blackened room. I sat upright in the bed I emerged from, and with a blinding daze I could see that I was alone, with a single candle by my right hand side to give me guidance. The creaking sounds of someone walking on a wooden floor could be heard above. It appeared to be some sort of cabin, for the very material of the room was made, with thick wooden boards throughout. At the edges of the rooms, at the furthest reaches of my sight I could see many beds that lay, with dirty sheets and torn mattresses all laid in contingency beside one another. The room was silent except for the occasional movement up above. I walked forward through the black confines of my unknown surroundings and searched through the darkness, moving my hands up and down the wall in sheer blindness trying desperately to find a light switch and after several minutes of searching, the switch finally came on. I could see that the light revealed a stairwell leading up out of the cabin.

Then I heard a voice and spotted a small scrawny man of about twenty-one or two, emerging from a corner of the room, tugging at my trousers, trying to tell me about something. His skin was covered with dirt and his body was covered with about a million bruises and his eyes looked mad with anticipation as if he were trying to warn me or prevent me from escaping.

“Hey don’t leave. They are watching you, they are at the top of the stairs, they don’t leave their slaves unmonitored”, said the young man trying to wrestle me to the nearest bed.

“Hey did you say slave? What do you mean, I am not going to allow these psychos make me a slave, I have to kill the master,” I uttered in desperation.

“Kill him, are you nuts, nobody can kill him, he’s unreachable, untouchable and anyway he has his own private army of henchmen. He has absolute power and dominion over the supposed forces of authority around here.”

“Well, since there’s no law in town, there’s got to be a vigilante to enforce the law in a land of chaos.”

“Yes you said it, chaos rules here”, said the young man while we both sat beside each other on the bed while facing the stairwell door, glancing inconsistently to see whether or not the others were watching us while we spoke.

“Well I have to kill him, because there’s no sense of justice here and his crimes are irredeemable. He put me here, simply because I confronted him and refused one of his corrupt offers.”

“Oh you refused an offer? You sound crazy to me. No one rejects him; every man around here wants to do business with him. He’s the richest man in the city maybe the entire country, for all I know. He draws a lot of water in this area and he will decide whether they put a bullet in the back of your head or not!”

“Look I know what I am doing, I have already calculated the risks a thousand times in my head already. I am going to try an escape this mad dungeon and I think I know someone who will help me, someone with inside information and resources that will be essential so I can kill the bastard!”

“Hey you can’t escape here, they will come with chains if you are not careful. This is the meanest vilest place in the underworld. It’s where all the enemies of the master are thrown. Escape is apparently futile. You are on your hour of recuperation while all the others are out in the back for their hour of exercise. You should relax while you can, because this is your only time to do so”, the young man sat beside me attentively listening to me speak as I told him who I was and why I was brought here, my entire story and my reasons for wanting escape.

“Well”, he said empathically, “it’s not going to be easy, but if you want I will help you make a run for it at the very least.”

“Oh thank you….hmm… what’s your name.”

“Eric, Eric Somers. I used to work as a barman up at the Headless horseman’s gentleman’s club over a year ago and they accused me of talking money out of the till. Truth is that I was simply depositing some excess cash, which I had stored up in my pockets from over the working week and I was just about to refill the till, when my supervisor Mr. Muller spotted me and attributed my actions to the current disappearance of funds from the safe and the till. He would not take my word for it, but simply threw one colossal accusation upon another on me and even took the word of that stingy, feckless Romanian, Dauper who was fork tongued from the start. He was the one I am certain, which was taking money from the till, he stitched me up, he framed me. He told my boss multiple lies one after another and had turned the other staff members against me. When the local staff tribunal came around a week later, all evidence was admissible for my conviction and they concluded that the Romanian’s word was evidence enough, since they did not have to waste anymore time on my case, since I was not indispensable to the management itself. My supervisor hated me from the start, he was waiting for his golden opportunity to have me sacked and maybe even arrested. After a weeks wasted effort, I was knocked out and thrown into this prison, which I believe is located bellow the black hole nightclub.”

His words were a terrible confirmation of my overwhelming fears that had told me that this was indeed the black hole, the most abominable place in the entire underworld, where the unwanted, the forgotten, the stragglers and the very enemies of the underworld were thrown and buried away. This claustrophobic prison, housed over fifty men, through many different chambers on many different levels, and each man was tied hand and foot, completely bound to his bed and was watched by an ominous force that kept each slave in check. I had made a brave decision, to leave and escape the horror before it became to much to bare and too late for any hope whatsoever.

“So now you must know what you face, what lies in store for you and us and you must decide what is best for your survival. Some slaves have not seen the light of day for many weeks while others are exercised, we rot away, to fester and languish in the depths of the underworld to the close supervision of the malicious guards that often leave the door open just to see whether we will try to make a run to freedom. But their cruelty does not surprise me anymore, they may taunt us, but we hope one day to rebel against them, to overcome them and strangle them with our chains, to kill the masters, the guards and the authorities. We could kill them off with our sheer force of numbers since we outnumber them, but such talk is frivolous around here, no such rebellion could ever occur with the tight lease they keep on us”, said the young man while gazing into my eyes with a look of sheer desperation and contempt for his jailers.

“Yes well now you know why I want to kill the king, he pulls every string in town, so I must defeat the puppet master, cut the strings that dangle all above our heads and let the puppets, the slaves and the stragglers become freemen”, I said as I stood beside the bed, while watching cautiously to see whether anyone was coming or not.

“Well you are not tied or bound to anything. Maybe you could try and make a lucky run for it. What have got to loose? I think such a man like you could lead a rebellion against the authorities if there ever was one. I think that someone must be looking out for you, because I think its rather strange that you haven’t been tied or chained already, Then again it is your first day here so, maybe they haven’t had the time to chain you yet.”

“Well this is my first and my last day here,” as I spoke to the young boy as I grabbed what few clothes there were on the bed and with a mighty rush forward, like a gust of wind, I ran towards the door with my young accomplice before me.

At the top of the stairs there was a huge kitchen and an empty fireplace, with several goons standing idle by the fireplace beside to men who sat attentively at a table playing poker while smoking cigarettes. I stood face to face with the men, who were very slow to react to the sight of two prisoners on the verge of making the first and probably last escape from the bowels of the black hole. These men, these wide and muscular men, came towards me, shouting orders to each other to go around the table on either side so that they could trap us from both sides and hold us down. I looked at the poker beside the fire, grabbed it hastily and swung it with all my force in an act of sheer rage and confusion into the stomach of the man that came before me, and walked forward to dodge and duck the swinging fist of another big bearded goon that came close to trap me beside the fire place. I swung the poker into his stomach and again into his chest and watched the two men before me fall to the floor. A third man came before me with a knife, he was a young man of a about twenty four, he hesitated several times, stood and watched my every movement around the table and suddenly he leapt up onto the table and tried with his long scrawny arms to thrust his knife into my chest, but luckily at that instance, my new accomplice and I both with all our strength together pushed back the table against the presses facing the door. With a bang the young man fell back and he smacked his head against the chair that faced the door and toppled over at the side of the table.

One of the two remaining guards slowly paced towards me with a large black belt like suspender, which was wrapped carefully and tightly around his right fist.

“Like a dog I’ll drive you back. You’re a feisty little pup, I’ll teach you how to behave, you’ve knocked my boys out, but I’ll whip back to your corner”, laughed the big burly giant that came towards me and my young accomplice, while we now stood nervously beside the front entrance to the black hole. He swung his belt forward, only narrowly missing my face, while I frantically tried to avoid getting a nasty lashing off the horrid sadistic beast we both faced. I grabbed the wooden chair before me and pushed it against him, in a grand effort to try and push him back against the wall while my accomplice tried desperately to assist me in the exhausting game of ducking and dodging as we played cat and mouse trying to avoid the whip and the sheer force of his stature. Suddenly I noticed my young accomplice straining with all his force while trying to hold the guard down with both his arms around the guards back, then when the time was right I gave the man a quick blow to the head, with a chair, just to stun him and to knock him out. But the blow given drew blood all over the floor and it made me wonder whether or not the guard was dead or just simply lying in a state of concussion on the kitchen floor. Both of us smiled and searched the room to see what clothes, food and other provisions we could find lying about or in the adjoining room.

We didn’t spent long searching for provisions, because we made it our mission simply to survive and escape this horrible place once and for all.

The guards were all unconscious and the room was dead quite, so we knew that the time was right for our departure to a safe place somewhere close by with someone we could trust to evade our arrest by the authorities.

“Lets leave the underworld for good and go to the farthest reaches of the country and the city, so no one can find us or arrest us at anytime at all”, said the young man who was fully clothed before me at the entrance to the street, in the clothes of one of the guards who he had stripped and robbed before we left. I could not condone the theft, but I could not condemn him either for the hatred he harboured for all the cruelty and violence these guards gave out to him over the past few months alone.

“Yes”, I replied, “Lets leave the country and the city behind. But I still have to kill the master of the underworld, Mr.Andrecovich, I swore a sacred oath to myself that I would kill him. I hate him, for the sheer scale of his corruption, his network and his charm. He tried to by me out and that insults me so very much, because when I worked as a barrister I did every thing I could within my power and ability so to rid the city and the system of it patent faults and its corruption. Now I think my last act before I die, is to kill the master, either with a gun of some sort or a crossbow, because I used to practice archery as a child and I was excellent at aiming and targeting objects at great distance.”

“I cant see how anyone would help you, they would have to be mad, to work against the master, he has the police, the army and the politicians in his pocket. Do you know somebody who will protect you, shelter you and assist you in this audacious plan of yours?”

“Yes”, I said smiling while we both walked very briskly up through the cobbled main street to the entrance of the Cosy Cavern and stopped for a moment’s breath.

“Yes I do, and I will go and get them now. I know that I can count on her, she’s crazy about me and I reckon she that she left the door open for both you and I. I fit wasn’t for her we would still be festering in that damn cabin like the lice off a dogs back waiting in vain for our non-existent release. She did us both a favour so I want to ask her for one final favour and perhaps to I might help her in any way I possibly can. For all we know she might have had to do a favour for a guard, but then again the guards knew noting of our release its obvious, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is”

“Well”, I said to the young man before we parted ways forever, goodbye Eric, I wish you all the luck in the world, I hope you find what your searching for. By the way where do you plan on going with nothing but only the stolen shirt on your back?”

“Well I have family living in Hamburg, so I hope to catch the train this evening there and I will pay the fare with the money I have in my bank account. I hope for a safe journey and I ask you once again to come with me, will you not reconsider you’re decision and come stay with me?”

“No, I cant I’m sorry I have to do this. I will lay low for a day or two with my friend. She will keep me safe, from the master and his goons. I wish you the best and I hope your life in Hamburg shall be a happy one. Au revoir.”

I waved goodbye to my briefly acquainted friend watching him slowly going forward, to occasionally turn back, wave and smile his final farewell to me as he walked up past the ringlady - who was whipping frantically to an audience of male devotees and

Scantily clad in her typical burlesque attire to usher and herd the men to one side for her complete control and amusement- past the very entrance to the underworld I could just barley catch a glimpse of him walking slowly up the winding stairs and out of the underworld.

I could only imagine Beth, to be the one and only person with the capabilities, the charm, the devilry and the ability to seduce her way through the guards and perhaps even the master himself, all for the chance of rescuing me from prison. It was not just some random inclination of the heart, but the absolute truth that Beth was insanely in love with me – why I do not know- but I could use such admiration as the basis for her help and any help she would give me in the future. Basically I needed her to help me kill the master, and Beth was a lady with inside knowledge on the motives devious master of the underworld.