Lost Time Incident

February 17, 2003

Sucker Punch Theatre

The flight to New Delhi was long, but not without its perils. I had wanted to arrive in the city well-rested, knowing that in only a few days I would be testing my fighting skills against some of the world's most deadly martial arts practitioners. However, somewhere on the same flight as me was a ninja, and ninjas are all, without exception, bastards.

You think you've had rough flights before? Maybe a young mother and her baby sat behind you and the baby didn't stop crying for four hours? Maybe some young brat wouldn't stop kicking your seat? Maybe you hadn't known a woman's touch for the eight years you've been turning your body into a killing machine and you got a seat near the bathroom and you can hear two young, beautiful people in the stall getting it on like wildcats?

That's nothing.

The worst flight you could have is one where you keep getting hit by goddamned peanuts every ten minutes, on the minute, and you can't tell where they're coming from. Sometimes it hits the back of your head, sometimes the front. Once, I caught a ricochet coming off the window and it landed in my ear.

Now, I know they only give one, maybe two packets of peanuts to travelers. Unless this ninja had connections, or was a member of the flight crew, I don't know where all those honey-roasted projectiles were coming from. It's a long flight and by the end, I had enough peanuts to immediately befriend a small squad of beggars outside the airport.

Which I did. They managed to give me decent directions towards the secret underground arena I was to be fighting in. They were also able to recommend a bar to spend time in, which I also took advantage of. Should you ever find yourself in New Delhi, I highly recommend the street urchins. Just incredible.

"We're both here for the tournament," said this man with an eyepatch who said his name was Ernst. Or Ernest. The bar was a bit loud. The man was a bit big. He was grizzly sized. Said he was a wrestler. I had no reason to doubt him.

His companion was a skinny man, stringy hair, probably in his thirties but looked older. Probably a drug abuser. Liked to play with a knife he had, the handle carved to look like a naked fat woman. While I talked with Ernst, he was amusing himself by cutting in half every fly that alighted at our table. His name was Reg.

"Competition this year looks fierce," said Reg. He was Australian. "Except for you, of course. You look like dogshit."

While Ernst and Reg laughed, I bought the next round. "I didn't get much sleep," I admitted. "But I'll do okay, thanks."

"There's a leper fighter, we've heard," said Ernst. "No shit, a real leper. Turns out that their limbs don't fall off like in the jokes."

"That's correct," I said. Reg chopped another fly in half. "They get lesions on their limbs and the surrounding area goes numb. The proper name for leprosy is Hansen's Disease."

"This guy's limbs'll fall off," said Reg, "if I have anything to say about it."

The weather was hot outside and there were more animals in the streets than I was used to. Maybe it was the lukewarm drinks available or maybe it was just my lack of sleep catching up to me, but I wasn't enjoying the company of these two men and decided to take my leave.

"If you'll excuse me," I said, getting up from the table, "I'm going to go scout out the arena, then look for a place to spend the night."

Those were the last words I remember speaking before Ernst moved faster than I could follow and hit me in the side of the head. It took me quite a bit of time to hit the ground, I remember. There was plenty of time for reflection.

My legs lifted off the ground and I found myself wondering what had happened to my beloved childhood cat, Ginger. Had she been put down? If she had, shouldn't I remember crying about it? Had she run off?

My body slid along the top of a neighboring table while I thought about the years I had spent learning such deadly and diverse fighting styles as the Huddled Monkey Irate Bite and the Twin Fingered Air Sorcery Strike. I had journeyed to this strange city, far from people I considered my friends, and for what? For the chance to compete, sure, but also to injure people who had done me no wrong.

I had a good life, I decided, the bulk of me smashing through the flimsy wooden wall of the drinking establishment. I was content with who I was and I realized at that moment, tumbling through the garbage and narrowly avoiding a yellow-furred dog, that I didn't need to fight anybody.

The sky above was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen in my life. It was as if my heart had been encased in modeling clay, but the clay had dried out and come off and all that was left to do was a bit of sweeping to straighten things up.

As it was, months later I heard news that I was better off not attending the tournament. I'd taken up gardening by that time and was enjoying the slow life when a friend told me that some damn kid no one had ever heard of ended up winning. The kid was taking time away from his studies in an elementary school, if you can believe it. Some kung-fu prodigy. Sent over twenty fighters to the hospital, my friend said. He didn't know if that peanut-flinging ninja was among them.

I practiced a combination weed-pull/submission hold on some Redroot Pigweed and smiled to myself. That would have been nice. That would have made my day.

Posted by Michael at February 17, 2003 10:32 PM