The Two Acquaintances

He can see birds with his eyes closed which is something that is far from possible in real life. But no, 

these are not just ordinary birds for in their hands there are forks and they have cloven hooves. 

Although strange, it is as if he has heard of their kind once or may have seen them in their animated form. But how did he get here? And what is this place? Why is he lying on this hard rocky ground? He is 

even having a hard time standing up for it feels like the side that was in contact with the ground had been roasted for hours.

He finally stands up and looks around only to find out he is stranded in the middle of nowhere. A place rather freakish for there is nothing but smog everywhere, so thick that he can only see things from a 

negligible distance, and the birds with forks keep passing over his head frequently from time to time. He 

glances at the slightly hot rocky layer under his feet and surprisingly he happens to catch a glimpse of 

several photos that are lying on the ground facing downwards. He picks one up and recognizes it is a picture of a nude woman. Nice! He picks up another one, it’s another nude woman with an apple in her hand. As he tries to reach down for the third time he realizes there is a cell phone in his left hand, it is his smart phone, He can use it to get help! But as he unlocks it he comes across a nude picture on the screen he quickly removes it and goes to his contacts list. He finds there is only one number, he calls and waits for the phone to ring… Yes! It is ringing but the ringing sound is coming from right behind him not 

very far, in fact it only takes him about nine footsteps before he reaches a man lying down on his back facing up as he was. 

But instead of being surrounded by nude pictures he is surrounded by dead naked women. All the corpses’ heads have been cut off. When he looks at the man’s right hand he catches a glimpse of a knife 

with dry blood on it. The spooky whistles made by the wind blowing around makes him feel as though he is a character in a horror movie and this would be the part where the character is about to be introduced to the predator, normally characterized by a heavy dark string sounds playing in the background. 

“Askies ouboetie” he tries to wake him up. “Hello?” he tries for the second time and the man opens his eyes slowly with small frequent blinks. He lies looking up for a while, looking puzzled at the winged creatures flying with forks in their hands and cloven hooves. He finally makes an effort to get up on his feet, but he 

is struggling to do so and his facial expression is an accurate emphasis of how excruciating the pain he is experiencing is. Staggering a little, he finally makes it. Suddenly something passes right between them with the speed of lightning, something bleating like a goat. Could it have been a goat travelling at such high speed? They could not see what it is, all they felt 

was the warm strong wind blowing it left behind, like when a vehicle travelling at a high speed passes close to a woman wearing a dress and the dress gets blown off, but the woman quickly holds the dress 

to prevent exposure. Again it passes right behind him at the fastest speed that by the time he turns 

around it had long gone, his heart rate is increasing. 

There again they can hear it bleating from a distance eventually the bleat keeps getting closer and louder, closer and louder, closer and louder. Wait… it is even becoming deeper like a toy running out of a battery power? Closer, louder and deeper, closer, louder and deeper until… Facing the direction in which the bleat is coming from they brace themselves for whatever beast is going to appear raging in the thick dense smog. They stand with the fear of the unknown, their fear is great and instant and the smell of it goes from their bodies to their nostrils. Their hearts are beating hard against their ribs as though they are trying to break out, they stand with the mixed emotions that bring them to the 

sensational feeling of their stomachs twisting and churning bowls of burning substances that make them feel nauseous. What type of the beast is the one bleating behind the smog? What is its meaning? Is this really happening? Is this not what happens in horror movies and not in real life? 

With confused faces they slowly move backwards as they behold a young brunette appearing in the smog. Behold her wet hair covering her shadowed face, her head slightly bent to the front and her ears

long like those of a rabbit. Her wet white wedding dress cut short to a negligible distance above her knees. Behold a little girl with horns pointing sideways from her shoulders outwards, her arms hanging

stretched down towards her furry knees, wait…the fur runs down her legs to what looks like cloven hooves? 

The horny shouldered brunette comes to a stop in front of them, she stands for a while not uttering a word but looking at them behind the shadow of her long wet hair. She stretches her arm towards them 

holding something bleeding in her hand. The blood is coming through the spaces between her fingers dripping down to the ground like water droplets from a leaking tap. She slowly unfolds the hand and they behold a tongue that seems to have been cut off a person. Their eye sight slightly becomes blurry as though they are about to pass out, horny shouldered brunette points a finger at them and with a 

chopped and screwed deep voice she says “Behowd dee bimshtone fire!”. Eventually the whole place is on fire, burning them as they fall to lie down on their backs crying out loud for help, “We are burning!”. 

The brunette comes and looks at him closely in the eyes. “What’s wrong? Wake up!” She is shaking him shouting “Wake up!” He jumps out of bed to stand on his feet in oxygen depth… “Are you having one of 

your nightmares again? I could hear you crying from my room downstairs”, says his mother. “No its fine

ma, you can go back to sleep”, he says while still catching his breath. His mother goes back to her room, 

he sits on his bed and grabs his smartphone, starts deleting what from this angle we vividly with no doubt see as nude pictures. Meanwhile his acquaintance on the other side also wakes up and walks towards the window and looks outside to see five police cars parked in front of his house. The kitchen door bursts open and then a hundred footsteps moving around the house, he quickly grabs his knife and wipes it with female bra, with indecisive gesture showing fear and panic here and there he hides the knife under his bed and the bra under the mattress. The footsteps are coming for his door, it bursts open “Freeze!” one of the policemen says pointing a gun at him.

His stomach feels heavy and his knees feel weak, he regrets what he has become. He thinks about how he got here: He started off as a child watching ex-rated adult movies with his friends and looking at 

nude pictures. Now he is 

sitting behind the bars serving a life sentence. He used to dream of being an exceptional civil engineer 

that he would construct the roads, bridges and the walls of the tallest buildings in the cities and earn him millions, but instead he constructed the walls that will cost him his future.