Chapter 01 – Death

“Damn it” I murmured as I was running with all strength left in my legs. Damn everything that brought me up into this situation. Panting heavily, I turned to another road, which was going to take me to Kensington road, I think. You would be laughing your ass off, if you saw a man running as fast as Usain Bolt in navy blue slim fit double-breasted Scabal suit on, with white shirt and brownish goat-skin Testoni shoes at 3 a.m in the morning. Not exact clothing for a morning run, aint it? It was dark all around, most of the streetlights dimmed. But if you were somebody who went out to have a cigarette after waking up from a nightmare, then maybe. Maybe your eyes could detect golden “thing” in my right hand. For a moment though. My hands were going up and down so fast that I could sense that it was in my hands but could not see its shape or figure in whole.

My hair was up to my shoulder so it was hard to see what was in front of me as I was running. A moment my vision was covered with hair and next one clear as sky. It was dark all around so it didn’t matter much. I just did not have to stop. Turning back few times, I made sure that nobody was following me. Nevertheless, I increased my pace a bit more.

Less than hundred meters and I was already on near the park at the end of Pitt street that I was on. I stopped for a moment and looked at road sign that was directly under the streetlight. “Kensington Rd.” was written on it. “I have almost made it” went through my mind. Under illumination of the streetlight I waited for a few seconds for my eyes to adapt to darkness. I checked out my surroundings and nobody was following me.

I almost had a hard stroke when my mobile phone vibrated. It was in left side pocket of trouser, so I slipped my left hand into it to get phone while checking out right and left to take precaution. I took it out and instead of number a name was written on blazing screen of my Vertu. “Juanito” was written on it. I pressed green button and took the phone up to my left ear.

[Juan]: Is that you?

[Me]: Yea, let’s get the fuck out of here. Misinformation bro, it was a trap.

I heard engine starting few houses away from me. Just to be sure, I looked at car before running towards it. Front lights turned on, and a bright smile came to my face. I was looking at a brand new 2014 model white Mercedes Benz CLS 6.5 AMG. I began to run while car began to drive towards me. It stopped and I got in through the front left door.

[Juan]: What happened?

[Me]: Let’s get the hell out of here. I will tell you on the way… Somebody fucked us. Fucked us back in the ass… I’m gonna find that motherfuck and…

I was looking at my right hand. Golden Browning pistol that saved my life. God bless it. Without it, I would be dead long ago. It had different designs on it, which gave an aggressive and seductive look to it. I was in love with this toy of mine. I loved it more than Katie. I took out the charger and there was no bullet left. I am one lucky son of a dead bitch.

[Juan]: Drink this!

I put gun in between my legs and took bottle of water from Juan’s left hand. There was less than half of a bottle of water left but I was damn thirsty and it was right on spot as I glutted down all of cold water that was left in bottle.

I turned to face Juan with a big smile. He was laughing too when I felt heavy burden of last 27 years of my life on my body in a moment. Juan was looking at me too, but with a sinister smile on his face. I knew him from moment one for last 10 years of my stay in Melbourne. I had never seen him smiling like that.

[Me]: What the?

My eyes closed and I drifted away into sleep.

I didn’t know whether it was a dream or reminiscence of past. It was all real though. I was inside Omar’s house with Ryu the Japanese, Juanito the Colombian, Me the bloody soviets, Kamal the Indonesian, Joffrey the Ozzy and our host and my best friend Omar the South African. It was in early December of 2004, around two months after death of my father and mother.

I was born in Soviet Union. Grew up in 90s when everything was in chaos and people of post-soviet countries lived with jungle rules. I learned to steal very early. Hard times, but sweet times. None of my buddies, including me had enough money to buy ice-creams so we were stealing watermelons from back of Zil trucks and exchanging them to ice-creams. I’m still proud of that because I was the one who came up with the idea and it was the first time I brought people together to make a crew. My crew.

My father was not an angel either. I was stealing watermelons while he was stealing tons of metals and chemicals to sell. That was how we got well-off and went to live in a better neighborhood. In October of 2004 my parents died in car crash and left me with 150000 american greenbacks and a house back in my country. Money was enough to cover my university studies, accommodation and other expenses in Australia up to end of my studies so I was not worried about financial problems for a time but was at a loss because of losing them early in my life.

Anyway Ryu, Juanito, Kamal and Omar were smoking pot while Joffrey and I were drinking beer. All of us were 18, from today’s perspective – KIDS. That week Omar called all of us earlier on to get together to watch a movie. It was going to change our lives he had told if I’m not mistaken. “Blow” was the name of movie starring Johnnie Depp based on true story. Nice movie, and I recommend it to everyone. At the end, screenshots of real-life counterparts of movie character’s were shown. I can not remember name of the main guy, but when his picture came on Omar screamed at us. “You see the fucker!?”.

[Omar]: He aint a bad-ass mother fucker like him.

He was pointing at me while talking to others.

[Omar]: You guys saw how he beat the shit out of those mean looking wogs.

A week ago, I did really beat the shit out of lebo’s near a club. They tried to harras my girlfriend, Katie. Bad for them, as I was a black belt judoka. By age 17, I was already 2nd place in European championship.

[Omar]: I’m a bad motherfucker myself!

[Joffrey]: Fuck me, Omar. Come on, what you wanna say? Don’t talk riddles, most of us are high and rest is drunk.

[Omar]: We going to sell pot!

[Me]: Good money in it?

[Ryu]: Ya man! We don mas.

[Me]: What’s he saying?

[Omar]: We have calculated everything and there is no dealer in or around our uni. Look around fellas, lots of students living around but no dealer. Juanito is a motherfucking Colombian. He knows all this shit!

It was first time in my life when I joined a group where I was acting as an arm rather than head. Back to topic, we were successful. In last 9 years, almost all of us had around 10 million dollars worth of cash.

Cold water splashed on my head. I opened my eyes and slowly came to sense. Water was dripping from my head down to my shoulders, chest and spine. I tried to move but my hands were bound together by a rope from behind while my legs were restrained with chains. I was sitting on a stool. Turned my head right and left in fast motion to break my neck as if a professional chiropractic neck adjuster did it. Cracking noises could be heard from a good distance away.

[Ryu]: Wazzap, soviets?

I could see all of them. My “friends” were the ones who were standing in front of me. For a long time I searched for killers of Omar. Most probably these pricks whom I called friends had done him too.

[Me]: You guys killed Omar?

[Joffrey]: You were too slow to understand bro.

[Ryu]: We were told that we could live off well if you and Omar departed…

[Me]: Who? Are you guys fucking crazy? We are friends!

[Juan]: We were…I talked with bikie gangs. Both of you were too bloody in your dealings. People want peace.

[Me]: And you believed them? They are going to chop you off into pieces.

[Kamal]: They won’t, they promised.

[Me]: Fuck me! You dumbfucks!

[Joffrey]: We leaving Juanito. You finish him.

[Juan]: A’right!

They exited through a big door. We were inside a farm. Voices that were coming from behind were of pigs.

[Juan]: You see this!? It’s your gun! I will use it to kill you and later on machine will chop you off to pieces and will feed you to pigs.

[Me]: Juanito…

[Juan]: Shut up you fucking pigshit! I had told you before that you were a pigshit… You will become one…

[Me]: WHY?!!!

[Juan]: Because…Because… Because of Katie. I love her. You are not worthy. She deserves someone better than you. ME!!! MOTHERFUCKER!

He moved his face up to me…

[Juan]: You hearing me!!! SHE DESERVES ME!!!

He turned back and made two steps and without looking at me made the first shot. Bullet went out of pistol and got into my right shoulder. Pain was felt in every single nerve cell that was in my body but I still smiled. Juanito was a pussy. He will be one till the end of his life. He couldn’t even face me.

His turned back to check me out but instead got gruesome features on his face as he saw me smiling. I had a big grin on my face. I liked Katie a lot, but I did not love her. I had no sister or brother. My parents were dead. My life was a cemetery. I was long dead. There was nothing or nobody that I loved except the golden Browning pistol. It was in Juanito’s hand aimed at me.

His finger pressed onto trigger one more time. Everything was in slow motion. I saw the bullet coming out of gun. Shockwave that occurred as bullet went out of gone was clearly visible in my eyes. Bullet went into my chest. Everything went blank. It must be what they call Death!

Next: 02 - Memories