The Algorithm of Chaos

The dog instantly jumped up on all of its four.

‘Well, lets look for a nearby hot-dog vendor’.

V rose from the bench and left the common whistling softly “Bury Me Not On The Lone Praire”. Where the hell the tune clung to him from?

The shaggy pup tap-tapped its short paws close behind tattooing the asphalt with earnest determination.

* * *

13

‘You’re alone?’ V seemed surprised.

‘I invited her but she gave me a look not-in-the-mood, you know. Besides, she’s obviously sore at you for giving her up so readily and she thinks you deserve a kinda correctional quarantine. It was written in her face’.

‘I never promised her a rose island. And as if I had a choice! You, girls, fell for each other at first sight! How are they getting on, Toto and your Aunt?’

‘Brilliantly. Toto of her own accord brings Sylvia her spectacles and remote control while Auntie has a gossip who listens to and backs up her endless yarn with polite whines in proper places, a kinda “atagirl!” or “well, I never!”’

‘Good news. I was reluctant to keep Toto at my lodging in that fish-tank apartment block. The naughty kids in the open galleries and stuff.’

‘O, kids would love her’.

‘Yeah, sure, it’s just I didn’t want to stick out. “The Mister with that lovely pup”? No, thanks, I’d rather stay a face in the crowd. The last but not least of it, I hate being responsible for anyone besides myself. Letting down a person who counts on you? Or even putting them at risk? Nah, not in my line. And you know what? Toto has more of personality in her than lot’s of guys I've met around.’

‘Characteristically, you saved your weightiest reason for the end. Still, life if too unpredictable for any split-hair logic. And making your decision you forgot to ask Toto if she agrees to it. Anyway, it’s too late now and Sylvia will never give Toto back. Relax, the coast is clear, no responsibilities in sight’.

Askance, V looked at Leya seated by his side. While talking she watched a toddler who chased a sizable bright ball along the walk, two escapees from the woman pushing a baby carriage. She passed by the pair on the bench without seeing them, too absorbed in following each step, not too steady, of her responsibility who kept grabbing-and-dropping the naughty ball. She passed by, not seeing another pair of faces in the crowd enjoying a nice peaceful day in the common. Lovers? Hardly, no arm outstretched to touch, to stake off the treasure sitting by. A married couple? Miles away! Together, married people get benefit of nature only in the backyard, their or their friends’, at the scheduled barbecue. So, a pair of friends, siblings, business partners the lady passed by.

V liked the look of her face, calm as this here warm and slightly pensive day assured of its beauty shared to all able to see and feel. Yes, beauty was undeniably there, in her face of matte skin in the soft transparent shadow of her hair made lighter by the rays of the sun descending towards the evening behind their bench. V felt pleasure and gratitude. He knew he owed her one. As big as life. Why, it was life itself he owed her!. She’s saved his life and knew it as well as he did. Still, she didn’t press for anything, and that’s why he was grateful. First, V had to check how the land lies, why he was after and by who. Discovery yet not occurred, he still had to wait.

The lodging he found was cheap and unpretentious, one-room on the third floor of a motel-like affair with elementary facilities. One of his crypt-stashes, the first he was starting with way back, turned out to be hacked—access denied, and when he bore into thru a slipshod substitution with a notebook from a nearby junk shop (he did miss his PC but shipping a similar equipment to his present place would look more conspicuous then keeping Toto) and in the README.md file left there by the conceited looter he found the message “Fuck you, sucker!” in block letters.

V reacted with a shrug of understanding. Yep, bro, that’s life and this is the world we’re living it. Today you’re riding high and mighty, make sure to accumulate a plum sum for the day I come to fleece you. For now though, he delayed tracing the the cocky upstart (using VPN, huh? I like your naivety, bro, no shit, I do) and zeroing in on the asshole’s cloud assets. The postponement was also the result of his addiction denied by him and labeled a harmless whim, which still was too time-consuming for an innocent hobby.

Yes, the 2ic’s friendly gift turned a Trojan Horse (invented by Ulysses, not the guys at Kaspersky Laboratories at the dawn of computer virology). V positively addicted to following thoughts of strangers both funny or dull, stupidly pathetic, gross—all kinds of sorts and of any nation, from an Amazonian fish trapper to an accountant in a Shanghai bank—he could read their thoughts thanks to the in-build translator certainly present in the software processing the raw data they angle out of the noosphere. Translation were done at a deeper than purely linguistic level from languages both present and extinct. You hardly can imagine a thinker contemplating in English the latest tax introduced by the Pharaoh Treasury for the war against the fucking Assyrians (excuse my French but so stands in the transcript).

They were nor marshaled in distinct trains, the thought were not, you had to suss them out from entangled knots and bunches, scrappy fragments, and whatnots, that waited for V to unravel them and compile into a coherent picture which undertaking fitted well his mindset, hence – addiction…

But now V was enjoying other things – a pleasurable day and nice-looking girl by his side. She felt his fleeting glance and turned her head to meet his eyes. They’d surely make a fine team.

‘The other day,’ said Leya, ‘I saw your friend in the elevator. The one I’ve learned your name from. He doesn’t know me, went out at your floor. I heard from my landing the new tenant told him they know nothing of you.’

The ever-present puzzle for V these days. Another piece to it.

‘Thank you, Leya,’ said V, ‘you’re a priceless treasure’.

His hand reached for her shoulder to press it tenderly. V was appalled, he never thought of such a move, his hand gave him no notice of its intentions. Some arrogant insubordination… And one more puzzle for V.

* * *

14

…if only were I blessed with a son!. A scion begotten of my loins, a heir to my desultory thoughts…

my most dedicated parenting would make of him a paragon of prowess and impeccability…

alas! the household’s more like a chicken coop a-cackling, laughing, screaming at each other. All they: the venerable matron Dona Catalina as barren as the dismal infertile lands around, yoked in one wedlock with myself, and my sister, an inveterate widow of high morals and stingy tongue, and my relieving comforter and support in these days of my declining faculties, my only child, the freebie juicy fruit from that blonde in Lisbon, my war trophy in the campaign for making the Peninsula one whole state…

…the Portuguese were simply going thru motions, resisting to the subjugation with the lassitude of a whore sprawled on the hay in barn by a brawny yokel. ‘Get off me, bastard! No! Don’t! Never before I pull my skirt up!’ Which unwillingness to fight for their freedom allowed more time for our fiery affair. O, she was a hot bitch, my fair lady of Lisbon! And cute too, managing to hand me, in due time, the basket with a baby, my natural daughter, Do?a Isabel, the load thereof. Yes, 20 years on Trinity Sunday… As shrill as the rest of them in this bedlam including her maid, Maria…

How could possibly a man of my meager means at this most precarious in the world history age provide for a funny farm of this sort? Yet, keeping to holy truth, they know their distaff trade, at times only their skillful needlework wards hunger off this old house’s threshold. Sewing all day long when Providence sends a client…

…he’d turn a man of valor with my advice and guidance, my ungotten son. Mark well, boy! Two trades surpass any other among all the earthly professions by the gallantry of their nature. Soldier, the first and upmost. Soldier, whose ultimate end is to give peace to people. Soldier, who pays for that gain with the blood from his wounds, with the lost limbs of his, perhaps, with his own life. To bring peace for people is his duty, the goal of his chivalrous vocation. Overcoming all the hardships, duress, impediments thrown in his way.

Scholar comes second. It is he who gives light to mankind, teaches them, enhances comfort obtainable in their lives, puts news powers within their reach, while himself paying the harsh price for advancement by his unceasing toil, and sleepless nights, and scanty meals, till he himself dies in his tracks. Soldier and Scholar are truest characters who cater for the human beings.

In both the code of honor is verily noble, a not surprising fact though because each Spaniard is a descendant of this or that glorious knight. Be it a peddler or a vagrant barber they’d always claim a hero of the Reconquista among the roots in their family tree if not a cook of Charlemagne’s…

…at present, the duties of knight grew less in number than they had used to be. Serve God, my son, and serve your King. As simple as that. Even if the throne is seated by an asshole stuck to the place firmer than a jar applied by a physician to his patient’s side. The ken about salutary benefits of heated suction was there since the times of yore. Serve him in earnest as I served that old fart Philip, retarded moron…

…what a great plan conceived I in the years of captivity! Not only the port fortress together with the viceroy Hassan-Pasha's palace but half of Moor lands could be regained. Given the numbers of the Christian slaves, prisoners of war for the most part, among the city population, you needed one dark night to leave a shipload of weapons on the shore. The accomplishment of the God-inspired plan would be on us, the prisoners. I did send King a thoroughly detailed petition with a Christian ransomed thru the monks Redemptorists. No response, however, by the suggested means and signals…

Five years in the bondage five attempts to escape. Two times the vicious viceroy ordered to throw the noose about my neck. Pasha was screaming thru foam at his mouth, half-chocked on his own threats. I’m still alive. What had stopped him? God’s will and my knightly deportment of not caring a fig. Three years in chains before the monks brought 1000 ducats demanded by him for my freedom. It took me four years more to pay back the sum to my relatives and good people donating for the ransom. Yet I was always sure of my good luck, if not this time then at the next attempt I’d surely break out.

Because I was the fortune’s favorite of which my quality there are no doubts, and through the all trials was I confident and trusted that whatever is is right…

…any predicament sent us by stars is to make tastier the pending lucky outcome. Am I happy? Yes! Because I know exactly what is happiness. You don’t need gold nor glinting stones to be happy. Dark wine, white cheese, a loaf of soft bread, a phial of ink to make a company to your quill, and, of course, a couple of sheets of paper ain’t too much of a load, huh? Add also a guitar and you’re all set to go after your daily share of happiness. Start out in the morning to a mature tree among the vastitude of arid hills and fields in our La Mancha and there under the lisping whisper of its rustling leaves watch the growth and wane of one more happy day in your life…

…my luck it was to keep me riding the crest of the tidal wave at any period in a man’s life. As a lithe youth with fluffy growth in my jowl and upper lip, I took to turning out verses praised by my friends and University instructors. Which one? Where were we then? Alcala? Or Salamanca? Whatever. We moved too often, our family was always on the run. My father, God have mercy on him, had skillful hand at leach application, and at improving gentleman’s good looks by close shave, which virtues kept him afloat in his life of a constant fugitive from debts and creditors, poor soul. Anyway, they were just unwit lacing, my verses were, no better than the bosh turnout by present laureates to the applaud of their friends and mentors. In certain matters we, people, are incorrigible for ever…

…a year of treading the Naples’ poorly paved streets and those of the Eternal City in service of Cardinal Acquaviva, after my escape over there necessitated by a chance duel in Madrid, before it struck, my star hour. The pivotal moment that decided the fate of all the Christendom. Ottomans went out to make Europe their own domain.

I enrolled the ranks of the Holy League, and I did not miss out the sea battle on which depended the future of the World. Two hundred-and-a-half our ships carried 26,000 men to discover the enemy in the Gulf of Lepanto on that sunny October morning. Turkish vessels were much more numerous.

From early in the morning I was tremendously out of sorts, burning with fever. Captain of Marquessa, on whose board was I a private soldier, sternly ordered me keep to the safety of my cabin, yet my most exhortative protestations mitigated his attitude and he considered a good riddance to appoint me the commander of a small felucca manned with a crew of twelve.

It was a glorious day. Cannons roared from both sides sending the powder smoke in the azure sky over the greenish brine ruffled by the wind inconstant to any of the quarters. My men were all experienced sailors and they pulled with might and main. We neared the flagship in the right squadron of the adversary fleet and rammed her through the ores bristling out on the starboard. Up flew iron crooks of grapples to claw the gunwale overhead, two light ladders sprung up from our felucca to the mammoth galley. And off we were to board her! The indomitable dozen under my command!

What followed must needs employ a score of Homers to relate the fiery uproar of scrambling confrontation, the clangs of swords in deadly tumult. Two arquebus shots in my chest somehow stayed unheeded. The world was spinning on the point of my sword. A stray cannonball made my left arm useless, but I went on hacking my way forward to cut down the royal standard of Egypt floating over the ship. The flag fell down onto the waves, the galley crew cried surrender, half thousand of them perished in the battle.

When the great day was supervened upon by falling night, everyone in the victorious Holy League fleet knew already – the day was won due to the wisdom of their generalissimo and gallantry of a 23-year-old soldier. The two wounds in the chest oozed blood for two more years, my left arm remained a withered vine ever since hanging around from its shoulder. No way to play a guitar any more…

Yes, I was too proud then, too young, too unaware to get it that any struggle you enter, you enter for defeat, and there is no other outcome. Time, The Grim Umpire, sees to ineluctability of your defeat…

So what now? Besides being happy on sunny days? Ha! Here enters the greatest treasure you can expect of human life – freedom! Nothing is comparable to being free.

So, now I live on both free and happy. More than that! As a self-styled scholar I fill my days with learning and soon enough I’m going to check the qualities of absolute freedom delivered to anyone by benevolent Mr. Death. Who else can fetch you a higher degree of freedom? You get free of your debts, maladies, outworn carcass, saggy skin in senile spots. You leave all that behind as well as hunger, wars, the fear of death. All’s over. Ain’t it the sweetest gift in life?.