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And so it was that we see our Hero as he initially heads out from the
Cantina where he had been having his ice cold Root Beer. He knew that
just ahead of him, in the unruly jungle that was his destination, was
an awful presence. That of a drug lord, intent on peddling his deadly
wares on the poor and unfortunate of this world. You know, bankers,
computer geeks, the odd high school drop out. But he was not going to
be dominated by someone whose only threat on him was the possibility
of an excruciating painful torture session possibly lasting weeks, a
cheap bullet that would end it all, and the loss of all his Canadian
Tire money. He'd been saving that money for months now and was almost
ready to buy the Bar BQ. But that didn't matter now, he had a mission.
As he entered the jungle, intent on his mission, he couldn't help but
notice that this jungle was similar, yet so dissimilar to where he had
taken his training, only months earlier. That experience was still so
fresh in mind he could almost smell the flowers in the Display
pavilion and hear the attendant at the gift shop of the Muttart
Conservatory.
But that also didn't matter now, he was on the hunt.
As he had learned in his training, stay on the path! It was almost
second nature to him now, having ventured off once in his training and
been sternly cautioned by the chubby security guard in the Tropical
Pyramid. He didn't want that experience again! He would stay on the
path.
And it paid off, just like it always did, for there, spotted with his
eagle- eyed vision, was the guard house. And it didn't take a Ph.D. to
figure out what was going to be in there - Guards! Because it was a
guard house. And he knew that regardless of what he thought, these
were probably well fed guards so they wouldn't fall for any of his
banana peel tactics. He'd have to be even more clever than his normal
cleverness. But how many?
Again, his training paid off, as he thought about how he had practiced
peering over the toilet stalls when no one else was around. He'd
employ that technique here. So he needed some height. Well, when in
the jungle climb like a jungle bunny. He didn't really know if there
were such things as jungle bunnies, but in his mind he had kind of a
cute twisted one in his mind, not unlike the one of Monty Python fame.
And what do jungle bunnies climb, when they climb? You got it, palm
trees. But being of a round nature and not overly tall at that, he
looked for assistance
As was usual for any hero in a seedy short story like this, just the
right tool was found to avail him at just the right time -- an old saw
horse.
So up he scampered. Well, scampered might be too energetic a word. By
the time he had gotten up the sawhorse and grabbed on to the lowest
branch he was sweating like a dog in a Chinese restaurant.
Three!
There were three, you could count them on one hand, like it was less
than a handful of guards. He could handle this. He hoped. He thought
back to an image that haunted his imagination. It looked just like an
old sheet of plywood lying on the ground. But he knew better. It was a
coffin-top, it had to be.
The sign beside it, next to the lake told him that the person they had
buried here was named, it looked like ... , Pish. Had there been
others that gone here before him, and were now under him? It was a
chilling thought. Which is especially disconcerting when you consider
the +32 heat that he was sweating in.
But back to our Hero. After getting his breath back, reorienting
himself and wiping his brow several times, he looked around and
realized that these people were prepared. They had a truck. All he had
was a little BMX bike that he was using (stole it, really!) from a
handicapped boy he had encountered on the road a few miles back.
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