nano novel...progressing...

When Sven turned back to the matter at hand, he nearly panicked when he saw just how far away Mark had managed to stumble . He had no idea just where the drunk wanted to go, but he certainly was going there in quite a hurry. Even though the man was so drunk that he was obvioiusly stumbling, and as he watch, nearly fell no less than three time as he made his way down to the intersection of Bland and Bold, Sven nearly lost sight of him due to the sheer distance the man had managed to mightily aquire as he tried for whatever his destination was.

Sven had no choice but to jog along after the bumbling Mark, mildly surprised that such a large man could move so fast in the matter of a few moments.  He changed his jog into a liberal sprint, and when he saw Mark lean heavily against a lamp post, charged forward in a full out run.

He arrived breathless, and gasped as he bent over to lean his elbows on his knees. With the might of his will, he firmly told his quivering belly to settle, and listened as he heard Mark gasping beside him.

“Come back.” Sven wheezed, then remembered, as a whisper of a warning in his mind somehow buzzed loudly between his ears, just who it was he was talking to, and squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re drunk. Come back to the house.” He amended, hoping that the possibly gay Mark wouldn’t take his slip as any sort of invitation, as the words he just spoke sounded way far worse now that they were spoken aloud than they were in his slightly alcohol influenced brain.

“No. Not until I find her.” Mark wheezed.

“You don even know where she is, idiot.” Sven wheezed, finding himself relieved that Mark hadn’t cued in on his ever more embarrassing unintentional innuendoes. He supposed the man was far more drunk than either of them relized, which made getting him back to the house safely ever more important. No one would want to deal with a drunk in public, and it was, afterall a crime, to be seen in such a state outside the home.

Sven’s mind conjured up the image of the drunk City Mayor, Mr. Ian Woon, as he was often video taped before elections. Technically, while it was a violation, just folks like himself and Mark, who hadn’t enough influence to could get away with it, wouldn’t. He mentally shrugged the thought away, and darted his eyes about searchingly for the blue uniforms of the law.

“She’s at the hospital.”Mark wheezed stubbornly.

The street past the intersection held a large crowd of people. Sven picked out several hefting large rectangular signs aloft with some sort of message scrawled in messy letters. As they milled about, he also saw the round brown colored domes that flapped weakly against the breese, domes which he knew should not be there. Shiny blue plastic tarps draped precariously from one dome in particular, and threatened to fly completely aloft in the sudden gust, rather like an unimpressive, though flassid, balloon.

Amongst the crowd, he could see, here and there, the blue uniforms of the police.

“well, which hospital? Huh. Tell me that, yeah?” Sven huffed, and straighted up. His lower back made an audible pop, and he rubbed the area idly with both of his hands as he turned his gaze to Mark.

Mark chewed on his lower lip.

“You don’t know do you.”Sven stated. “ Lets go before…”

“Doesn’t matter.” Mark said so low that Sven stopped to try and catch the words.

“It does and you know it.” Sven pressed, and reached for the heavy shoulder, intending to guide the man back to his home. The chubby hands just batted his grip away.

“Newspaper. Just need a newspaper.” Mark said, and stepped along once again.

“The newspaper is back at the house.” Sven said, “Come on.”

“Nuh uh. Too far..”Mark replied, and stubbled unsteadily on his feet. Sven did his mighty best to intercept the man, and better yet, redirect his momentum by swiping at a shoulder. To his horror, he missed his target by a rather large margin. He glanced over as Mark caught his balance, the landed his shoulder hard against a rickety fence composed of what appeared to be rotten and termite infested wooden planks no one had bother to cover with a layer of paint. Mark leaned against one arm that he placed on the next fence, a handy low brick wall sort of a barrier, and pushed off to lurch toward the crowd.:”Newspapers are always at the library.”

“Too far? What?”

“uh huh.” Mark said. “Halfway there now anyway. May as well continue, yeah?”

Sven looked at the crowd down there at the intersection, and scraped his mind for the location a said library. He suppsed the city did have one, but he had never actually visited one since his childhood. He eyed one of the scribbled messeges the protestors carried, and noticed something about “Government”, “money”, and “the rest of us.” Whatever that meant, he hadn’t a single clue.

Could the fabled library truly be in that direction? It was a government institution, but would it be a worthy enough of a location for protestors to gather and generally make  a nuisance of themselves by barring anyone from entering the building?

Sven shrugged and schlogged after the drunken man. He supposed it didn’t matter all that much. His task now was to keep Mark from getting arrested for either being stupid enough to be seen drunk in public, or perhaps doing something incredibly stupid while being seen stupidly drunk in public.

One of the guys dressed in dark blue looked their way and Sven felt his heart hammer hard against his ribs. He darted his eyes about and saw a rather large and box metal dumpster which looked as though someone couldn’t decide what color to paint it. He shoved Mark into that alley and darted in himself. He had to dance his feet away from a funky smelling puddle of unknow origin which occupied the place he had planned to squat . Mark banged against the pink side of the metal box, and as it rung out hollowly, he rolled to face him with fisted hands. Sven let his eyes widen, and lifted his open hands to pat the empty air in front of him. He tried his best not to look at the many suspicious yellow patches on the dumpster. This close, the crusty forms of matter were easier to see, and were certainly not composed of mere paint.

“What was that for?”

“The fuzz.” Sven said, and leaned as far as he dared towards the street. He darted his eyes as best he could around the corner, and saw. Well. Not much really. A rather large, boxy, brown colored truck pulled up at the curb and nicely blocked his view of the crowd gathered down the way. He couldn’t tell if his quick maneuver worked or not. “One’s coming this way, yeah.”

“So?”

“so? YYou all saucy like you are. “

“No I’m not.”

“Yeah you are. What you wanna get arrested?”

Mark went quiet for several minute, and Sven looked back at the man with narrowed eyes. Mark still had his hands fisted, but instead of aiming his glare his way, the man instead stared at the ground with such intensity, it was as though he could cause the ground to burst into flames with only his drunken fury at his disposal. Several minutes later, Mark looked his way again, and the man’s eyebrows skewed upwards in such a way, Sven was greatly reminded of how a kicked puppy would look like.

“No.”

The corners of Mark’s mouth pulled downward, and by the drawn out “o” sound graced the air, the bottom lip puffed out in a petulant sort of frown. As Sven watched, Mark tucked his hands behind his back, and even kicked at a stray rock with one of his feet. The childish move caused the rotund drunken man to loose his balance, and he toppled back to bang against the red splotch this time.

“So listen to me, yeah?” Sven said. “We either go back to the house..”

“Nu uh.”

“Right. Or you follow me”

“Why?”

Sven rolled his eyes at the whiney tone he heard in Mark’s voice.

“”Cause I’m not drunk, idiot.”

“Yeah you are.”

“Two whiskey drinks do nothing for me, mate.” Sven snapped, and took in a large steady breath. “Now. Are you gonna listen? I could just let you get to dry out in a brick box. With a larger friend you’ll likely meet there, by a name like Bubba.”

“Fine. Mate.”

Sven turned his attention to the alley itself. As he expected, it was cluttered with all sorts of garbage bins.There were odd structures that stretched from one alley wall to another, rather like covered walkways. He supposed those were intended to keep those who chould afford it off the dirty filth of the alley floor as they tossed out their refuse like everyone else did. He vaguely recalled that those doors up there were attached to some really exclusive places that carried a hefty price tag along with them.

One old and rusted round shaped tin had fallen over down the way, and spilled it’s contents about the uneaven attempt of a pavement.  A scruffy looking mutt of a dog, so skinny that it’s ribs jutted out snuffled about the dark colored plastic bags. Beyond that, Sven saw a square of sunlight which he supposed lead to the next street over.

“This way.” Sven said with far more confidence than he actually felt. He heard the crunching footsteps of Mark behind him, and fought the urge to constantly glance back to be sure that the fat man was actually following him. He eased by the stringy dog, and watched as the filthy creature slinked away behind them. Rather than nipping at their heel like Sven feared the beast would likely do, the thing instead stood and froze all movements some ways away and watched with wide brown eyes.

Sven turned away and carefully approached the end of the alley, swinting his eyes against the sudden onslaught of bright cheery sunlight. It seemed to stab painfully into his brain like a lance or something just as sharp and pointy.

The next street was in just as bad condition as the alley he currently peered out from. It barely wide enough to let a single car pass by, but Sven darted his eye in both directions anyway by long habit. A few people dressed in rather torn garments squatted hiere and there, looking for all the world as though the place were serving as their livingroom as they amicallly chatted with one another, or ignored their surrounding all together in favor of other pursuit that Sven was quite sure he didn’t want to recall ever seeing.

He had thought his city was a rather prosperous place, but this area clearly displayed the contrary.

He saw no blue police uniforms meandering about the narrow place, and stepped forward to better see in the street continued on in the direction that Mark had wanted to go.

He certainly didn’t wish to remain in this place for any longer than he had to. As the large tubby form of Mark saundered to stand beside him, he admitted to himself the library idea did not seem all that appealing either.

“Whoa.” Mark remarked.rather loudly “ didn’t know this place existed.”

Sven cringed at the noise. Mark’s voice echoed off the walls, returning to his ears several times. As several faces turned their way, he took a firm hold of one of Mark’s rather round shoulders. He nearly shoved the man along, hopefully towards their supposed destination.

“Wasn’t that a blond girl back there?” Mark slurred, half turning about in spite of Sven’s efforts. The girl in question if that was what it was, hunkered down further into her long coat, which was so caked in muck that Sven found it difficult to decide what color it once was.  

“Not every blond girl is going to be her.” Sven responded, and grasping the other shoulder he  forcefully muscling the man along.

ooo

They arrived together and gazed upon the shattered glass of the twind door that was the entrance of the drab rectangular building. At the very top of the doors, directly abouve the threash hold, a word was printed in bold white letters in a space that seemed to be designed for that very purpose. The dark glass up there was shattered as badly as the doors below, and as a result, It read

bray

“It says “Bray”. This is not the library, mate.” Mark helpfully pointed out. “you lied to me.”

“oh shut it.”Sven said.

Within the darkened interior, Sven saw the shaodows shapes of several domed tents, and made out many  toppled tables with some difficulty. A sudden gust brought his attention to the many open books lay strewn on the tile of the floor, for their  torn pages flapping about like so many leaves in  the breese.

Sven shrugged his shoulders at the mess, and looked over at Mark. At the moment, the man was clumsily fingering a large jagged section of glass somehow nestled in the doors

“You remember where the newspapers are supposed to be?” Sven asked in a low voice by the man’s ear. Mark winced and quickly removed his hand from the broken glass. As he looked at Sven, he stuck one forefinger into his mouth, and mumbled an intelligent sounding

“Uh huh.”

The finger looked rather red when the man removed it from his mouth to consider it with all the concentration he could muster in his drunken state. Sven saw a thin line of dribbling red form on nearly two of the sensitive pads, which confirmed his suspicions. Mark had managed to cut himself.

Sven let one corner of his mouth pull upwards, and darted his eyes behind them. The crowd was gathered at the sidewalk, and there were no less than six officers busying themselves by attempting to herd them back with outstretched arms.

Sven jusdged that to be enough of a distraction, and, while not exactily boldly slipping past the doors like he imagined a burglar would, he diid get inside. Each step he took crunched loudly, and he lducked his head low as he creeped his way along. He didn’t know why he bothered, but it just felt like the right thing to do.

It was supposed to be a library, and at the time, it felt like he was intruding in a place he should not really be in.

He nearly jumped a foot in the air at the crashing sound behind him, and quickly lifted his arms to cover his face. Tiny shards of glass scraped against his bare arms, and he hissed at the sting they left behind. He lowered them tentatively in the silence that followed, and scowled at Marks beeming proud face.

“Door makes a better door now. “ The man said, and stepped the rest of the way through the now glassless door. Sven eyed the brick the man tossed aside, and as it thunked dully against the tile, he watched as the man assumed an air of someone who had just accomplished something grand and noble. Mark took a moment to glance about like a overlarge, and in Sven’s opinion, highly deranged toddler, then whistled loudly with his lips pursed out as he turned in a slow circle.