I spent the entire evening shopping for clothes and trying the local food. I had brought nothing here, not even boxer shorts—except those on my ass—and the situation was kind of urgent. Incidentally, the experience wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. Generally, I despise shopping because I never know what I want, but in this hot weather, one doesn’t need much. If I followed the local customs, I wouldn’t even need half of what I bought because people on the island didn’t bother putting on anything except a pair of shorts. However, I was a northerner and wanted to stick to northern fashion, so I equipped myself with many shirts, T-shirts, underwear, and a spare pair of pants. Most of my clothes had local motifs stamped on them, like palms, flowers, yachts, lonely beaches, and bitches on lonely beaches. I looked like a clown in them and felt like a clown, but here, in Tutuila, it meant elegant dressing.

As for the food, the situation was a bit more complicated. I didn’t know what the local menu had been like before the Indian invasion, but these days, it was so spicy and hot that every time I tried it, I breathed like a dragon—spitting fire and ketchup everywhere around me. I had my doubts about the quality of the food too. Local Indians ate just everything, including rats, polecats, a specific kind of cockroach, and even palm worms—the last they considered a delicacy.

After a few unsuccessful experiments and a lot of wandering around the streets hungry, I made my peace with the children’s menu—the food they fed their kids before they became old enough to eat “normal” stuff. It wasn’t so spicy, and it was less extravagant. Everybody looked at me weirdly when I ordered it, but I didn’t care—it was a matter of survival. I also found a cute little restaurant near my hotel where they served Korean meals. It was weird, too, but it looked safer. However, I mostly relied on the cooking gondola in my room—the 3D food printer. It spewed pretty decent sandwiches and snacks.

Early the following day, I went to a dedicated marketplace behind the yacht port to meet another urgent need of mine. I had to buy a weapon. The merchants there were predominantly Chinese, offering semi-legal or illegal pieces in open carts on the streets. I definitely needed a gun because, after the turbulence of the previous day, I felt unsafe. Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend much because I didn’t know how long I would stay on the island and how much I would need for food and accommodation. I was in a true dilemma—good positron pieces were too expensive, but the cheaper guns were unreliable.

I wandered for almost two hours around the place, and it was fascinating. There was quite a variety of interesting weapons, including old alien technologies, which I wasn’t going to buy but was curious to see. Except for the famous positron guns, the rest were more exotic than efficient. They aimed for specific alien organs, which people didn’t have, and I wondered why the merchants were selling them here, but then I figured it was probably because of the weapon collectors. They were everywhere around!

Eventually, I decided on a gun whose trademark consisted of three totally unreadable Chinese symbols. Although I wasn’t sure about its efficiency, I got it because it was cheap enough. The merchant assured me it could blow up a man to a thousand pieces, but it looked rather funny and promised to blow me into pieces if I had the recklessness to use it. Nevertheless, I paid for the thing, and since my weapon’s permit wasn’t valid here, I hoped that in a situation with the authorities, the police would consider my little “toy” to be just that—a toy.

In fact, I felt even more insecure after I bought it. As everywhere else on Earth, villains here used positron guns, too, which would evaporate your heart or brain in a split second and leave an empty cavity in its place. I was only going to enrage my enemies if I shot at them with my funny terrestrial gadget, but I had no choice. I had to at least pretend I was dangerous so I could buy a few minutes before they killed me.

After getting so improperly armed, I returned to my hotel and tried to dig out something about Greenspace and its weird activities in the region. I didn’t find too much. Aside from their ordinary deals like smuggling rare animals and exotic meat from endangered species, lately, they had started buying up ammonia in trade hubs worldwide, one of which was located here on the island of Ofu, as Peularia had informed me. Nobody knew for sure why they were doing it. According to some people, they were trying to make explosives and methamphetamine out of the ammonia through Birch reduction, but there was no hard evidence to support that claim. I kept surfing the Internet but couldn’t find anything interesting about Menelaus’ project either. There were only speculations. Between other things, however, I learned about the upcoming auction for Britain.

It turned out that the preparations for the event were in full swing, and everything was almost ready. Many people had tried to reason with Ranganathan about it, but obviously, no one succeeded, so it was happening. For now, two bidders had expressed readiness to participate in the game. One was an Indian corporation, behind which the Indian Central Bank stood, while the other was a Chinese conglomerate of firms. Even though China disintegrated nearly eight years ago, Chinese companies were still powerful enough and held half of the world’s currency reserves. Naturally, Ranganathan supported the Indian corporation, but the competition was going to be a nail-biter, and nobody really knew what would happen. And the most funny thing was that if the Indians won, nothing, in fact, would change so much. Britain had fallen into the Indian sphere of influence over a decade ago, and already two-thirds of its population were Indian emigrants anyway.

After I hit a dead end with Menelaus and Greenspace, I tried some geography, and at some point, I finally managed to find something interesting related to my case. I was just studying the map of Tutuila when I unexpectedly noticed a tiny island named Swains, located some four hundred and fifty kilometers north. It was the exact spot where the spitting champion from the harbor advised me to carry my fake stuff. In fact, the place wasn’t so much of an island but more of a coral reef—part of the Pirate Territories in the former Indonesia—and it hosted a docking station. It was the only one in the region, by the way. As I thought about it, I suddenly remembered that Menelaus’ firm was making cargo trips between these stations and the CSS, which made me wonder why the captain of Mountain Cougar mentioned Swains with such respect. Obviously, there was something special about it!

“The arrival of my Greenland friends on Tutuila just can’t be a coincidence, then!” I thought, still puzzled. “There must be a good reason because otherwise, they wouldn’t have risked their lives coming here. Maybe they are trying to build on Menelaus’ project! All the more, Bjornson has the means to do so with her contacts, knowledge of chemistry, and her obvious alliance with Sengupta now.”

Somewhere around noon, when the heat in my room became devastating, and I got terribly tired and sleepy from all the reading, I decided it was time to move on. After considering the situation, I realized that speculating would take me nowhere and that I needed help. I quickly put on one of my brand-new shirts—the one with the sexy mermaid riding a motorcycle—and hopped into a pair of jeans, ready to roll.

When I stepped out of my hotel, the sun immediately hammered into my forehead at its full power and made me stop, hesitant. I looked around for a shadowy street, but there was no escape from the heat because it was lunchtime. Despite everything, I recklessly strolled for a while, following no particular direction, but after ten more minutes, I already wanted to shoot myself in the head. However, with the weird device in my pocket, I feared I would only suffer more. Fortunately, I soon saw a car rental agency and briskly walked into the office to pay for their cheapest vehicle—an ancient Ford Laser GLXi with a tank full of fuel. My idea was to leave the concrete capital of American Samoa, at least for a few hours and hit the beautiful province. I filled out all the forms and arranged the formalities, and shortly after, I was already driving on Route 001 to Fagaitua Bay, where the house of Inspector Gzundis was. At least her business card in my pocket said so.

As soon as I left Pago Pago, things got a lot better. I rolled down all the windows, and the air was breathable again. A quarter of an hour later, my car unexpectedly started coughing, and I saw a tiny streak of smoke coming out of its radiator, but it kept moving. It made me feel sorry for being so stingy and not choosing a better vehicle for my money. This one wasn’t even automatic, and it ran on gas because the model was from the early 2000s.

Incidentally, the road I took was somewhat weird and hard to follow. They had obviously patched the sections together instead of building them as a whole, and the transitions weren’t very smooth. Because of that, I had to reduce the speed further, and then my Ford performed significantly better. The slower pace also allowed me to enjoy the scenery more, and as a result, I noticed a couple of burning huts in the villages near the road. This time, though, no ideas of helping anyone flashed across my mind. Some half an hour later, after an incidental radiator refill with water, I reached my destination successfully, as the primitive navigation system informed me, and I stopped the car. I tucked it under the shadow of a tree for a well-earned rest and stepped outside to look around the area.

A magnificent bay stretched out before my eyes, with the town of Fagaitua in the distance and Alega Beach beneath my feet. The terrain seemed strangely terraced and resembled an Asian rice field. A little down the slope ahead of me, I saw a beautiful, lonely house perched on a small hillock where Inspector Gzundis presumably lived. No other properties were around, and a narrow, paved path led toward it between the heavy shadows of old fig trees. On both sides, there were lines of low-growing flowering shrubs. The place seemed very nice and peaceful. I slowly walked down, thinking about what it would be like if I lived here. I wondered whether I would be the same Murphy—one who did nothing else but get himself into trouble—or someone completely different. The tranquility almost made me believe the atmosphere here could change me. A few minutes later, still daydreaming, I crossed the carefully trimmed front lawn of the house and pushed the bell button beside the massive, red oak door. Then I waited.

At first, nothing happened, and I thought Gzundis wasn’t home. Perhaps it was a stupid idea, and I should’ve called her instead of coming right away because good manners demanded it, if nothing else. I could’ve used the landline in my hotel room, but I didn’t do it. And I didn’t know why. Maybe I was just hoping to surprise the inspector and her charming assistant in the middle of something. They were both so beautiful, and I couldn’t get the scene I witnessed in the hotel lobby bar out of my head. I even fantasized a little about it while driving.

I stood there for a couple of minutes, to no avail. Then I turned around, disappointed, and wondered whether to head back to Pago Pago or wait in the car. Still hesitating, I had just taken a few steps back when I sensed someone’s presence behind the large wooden door. It was a weird sensation: I didn’t hear any noise or notice any other sign, but I felt something changed in a strange, transcendental way. Then, the door suddenly opened, and Nereidi appeared in the doorway. I looked at her and caught my breath, stunned.

The girl had her long brown hair loose, and the breeze was scattering it across her beautiful face while her green eyes looked at me mystifyingly from behind. Her smile was somehow secretive but enchanting. On her tall, slender body, she wore a short white dress the length of a long T-shirt, and its fabric was so delicate that it was almost transparent. The girl had nothing else underneath.

We looked at each other silently for a few seconds, and then she smiled again, turning around and leaving the door open behind her. As she walked inside, her silhouette seemed to float in the semi-darkness, and the whiteness of the dress made her look like a ghost from an erotic dream. She was barefoot and stepping on her toes, barely touching the floor.

I remained in the doorway, hypnotized, and didn’t dare move. After a while, Nereidi turned her head back to see if I was following—she did it pretty much like people would look at a puppy—and her eyes urged me to come inside. In a state of trance, I slowly stepped in without thinking—my head was floating in a cloud of white smoke, and my feet were moving automatically. I had totally lost control over myself.

We walked through a long hallway, and various rooms passed by me on both sides. The air was cool and fragrant, but strangely enough, none of the rooms had a door attached. Even the bathrooms and toilets were doorless! I had never seen a place like this before. At its end, the hallway poured into a large living room, which seemed even weirder. It was partly open to the outside environment, and it was fascinating. It had just one solid wall and a ceiling, and instead of this, on my left and right, white curtains were gently waving in the breeze. The wall in front of me was missing, too, and its absence framed the restless ocean behind in a magnificent way. To a point, the premises resembled a porch, but it was actually part of the house.

“Come on in, Mr. Mellrow!” I heard Gzundis’s voice as soon as we entered. She stood upright by a large, movable table in the middle of the space, with her back to me. She wore fluorescent orange overalls. “Have a seat over here, on the couch. I didn’t know you were coming; otherwise, I would’ve dressed more appropriately.”

“Oh, please, don’t worry!” I mumbled, almost inarticulately. “I was driving by and wanted to see you for a moment.”

I slowly walked to the couch to take a sit but stopped, surprised when I passed the table, looking at it in terror. Peularia had elbow-length rubber gloves on, and her arms were sunk deeply into something on the counter that looked too much like a dead body. It was actually hard to identify it as such, but it just couldn’t be anything else.

“Would you like something to drink?” The inspector asked me without looking up. “Tea, coffee, fresh juice? Nereidi will serve you!”

I turned my head to the Indian, and she smiled innocently. When the curtains waved and the bright sunlight flooded the room, her white dress virtually disappeared, leaving her naked before my eyes. She had small, dark nipples and a little tattoo around her belly button. Her crotch area was bald.

“I could have a cup of… coffee, I guess!” I faltered, confused. I really needed one to focus on something and stop staring at Nereidi.

“Of course! I hope I’m not bothering you with my work here!” the inspector continued. “It’s not easy to live in paradise, you know. It’s always so peaceful; sometimes, you have to push things a little to get some… well, some fun!”

I sat silently on the couch and looked at the movable table again. The thing on it was about a meter and a half long and skinned. Weirdly enough, there was no smell in the room. At first, I had embraced the idea it was a training corpse or something—for autopsies—but after what Peularia said, I wasn’t so sure anymore. It could easily be an actual human being if you presumed the man’s legs and arms were chopped.

“I hope you didn’t kill this thing personally to have some fun,” I mumbled in a hollow voice, still trying to pick up some distinctive idea about the flesh on the table.

Gzundis suddenly raised her head and sharply pushed her protective glasses aside. They swiveled to the right of her face.

“But I did!” She fixed her grayish eyes on me with a deadpan expression. Her look was cold and remote, making the skin on my back crawl. Then she suddenly laughed quite vocally. “Oh, I’m just joking. You should’ve seen your face! Don’t worry, this is a goat!”

She adjusted her glasses back onto her nose and dug into the corpse unabashed. She left me in complete darkness regarding which part of my question she was joking about: about killing the creature personally, about it being for fun, or about both.

“So what brought you here, Mr. Mellrow?” The inspector asked a few seconds later, still absorbed in her work. “How can I help you?”

I looked around the room, uncertain, and at first, I said nothing. I just didn’t know where to start because I didn’t know whether I could trust the woman. Eventually, I decided I could. She was probably the most trustworthy person on this island, at least of all the people I had met so far. For what it’s worth, she didn’t arrest me or turn me back to Greenland, even though she had a good reason to do so.

“I need your help, Miss Gzundis,” I started hesitantly. “You know, I’m trying to find someone here, and since you gave me your business card yesterday, I thought—”

Peularia promptly stopped her work and pushed her glasses aside again, but she did it slowly this time.

“You promised me you wouldn’t investigate murders here, Mr. Mellrow!” She reminded me coldly.

“And I’m not!” I said evasively. “The thing is, I kind of have no options right now. I’m unable to go home because things are extremely complicated there.”

“You mean you’re unable to go because the police want you?”

“Well, not exactly.” I smiled sourly. I actually didn’t like her assumption, but at the same time, I didn’t want to bring up my Chinese problem either. I had great difficulties explaining it all to her. “I need to find a woman who can shed some light on the prospects of another woman inheriting DuPont’s business back home. It could be a possible motive for the other woman to murder the guy, and knowing it would help me a lot. Afterward, I could return to Greenland and be out of your hair.”

“Is she a legitimate successor—the other woman?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure. That’s the real problem. She might be Menelaus’ wife but actually uses a false identity.”

“You know, I should admit that I don’t quite understand your story here, Mr. Mellrow.” The inspector shook her head reproachfully. “It sounds ridiculous to me. In particular, I don’t understand the whole ‘might be’ part. Is this other woman the guy’s wife or not, after all? And besides, inheriting is a very straightforward process, and she can’t be an heir under a false name. So, why would she use it, then?”

“You see, their marriage falls under Mars’ legislation. It may not be valid here on Earth, but at the same time, the woman has a relationship with a man who is almost certainly involved in Menelaus’ murder. So, it makes me think she pushes his buttons, trying to change the situation about the inheritance.”

“How could she change something so strictly described in the law?” Gzundis refused to accept my theory.

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out. It’s complicated, as I said,” I mumbled unconvincingly. My explanation was surely idiotic, and I knew it, but unfortunately, I couldn’t give the inspector a better one. Besides, my hands were tied here without her help.

“Yes. It is complicated, I can see,” Peularia replied thoughtfully. “Who is the woman you’re looking for?”

“Her name is Bobby Bjornson. She was Menelaus’ assistant or something like that. The other woman—the maybe wife—is Sharon Vorderbruggen, Sharon Alebruggen, or any other Sharon for that matter—she tends to change her names too often. The guy who helps her is Marty Cork. He was DuPont’s chauffeur.”

“How certain are you about these names?”

“Bjornson has a record with the GBI, so her name is real. The GBI is the Greenland Bureau of Investigations, you know,” I explained. “As for Cork, my source of information is pretty reliable; I’m almost certain about it.”

Gzundis looked at me for about twenty seconds without saying anything. Her eyes examined me very closely.

“Well, I could probably do this favor to you,” she spoke at last, slowly removing her glasses and putting them on the table, “although I don’t think it’s a good idea to encourage you to keep doing what you do. And it’s not good, mostly for your own safety! You would better return to Greenland instead before you get into serious trouble here.”

At this point, Nereidi quietly entered the room, carrying a plate with a cup of coffee and a brownie. She slowly walked to me as if hovering above the floor and kneeled to put the plate on the little coffee table beside me. While rising back up, she unexpectedly leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek; her lips barely touched my skin. The girl smelled of gardenia. Then she hurried to her boss, standing behind her, cuddling, but all the while, she kept eye contact with me.

“You know, even though I would love to do that, I just can’t go back to Greenland, Miss Gzundis,” I said, totally stupefied by the girl’s gesture. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m in serious trouble both here and there because, you see, I’m kind of wanted by the Chinese mafia in Nuuk, and they’ll probably kill me. The only way to fix this is to find at least some of these three guys I talked about.”

The entire time, Peularia had been listening to me with her gloved hands still raised over the corpse, ready for work, but now she slowly lowered them. Nereidi’s hands promptly moved to her boss’ belly, and her lips gently kissed the inspector’s shoulder. Both women were looking at me fixedly, and it felt insane because I couldn’t concentrate at all.

“From the very beginning, I knew something was terribly wrong about your case!” Peularia admitted it after a while, still showing no reaction to her assistant’s cuddling. “In fact, it was why I didn’t order your escort back to Greenland, as professional ethics demanded. I’ve been a PI too—at the beginning of my career—and I know that things can get messy quite easily when you work alone.”

“When I started this case, Miss Gzundis, it looked like a very simple job. I didn’t think, even for a moment, that I would be involved in a murder case. However, some of the guys I mentioned knew I would, and they worked very hard to make it happen!”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Peularia turned her head slightly to give Nereidi a kiss. “The tip I received about you came from a woman, if that helps you. She said you were wanted by the police in Greenland and were coming here to hide. Then she hung up. I checked it up, and of course, I checked up on you too, and when I learned you were a PI who wasn’t exactly wanted by the police but rather a witness to a murder, I knew it was just a case gone wrong.”

“You’re a very bright woman, Miss Gzundis,” I muttered quietly, trying not to look fixedly at what her assistant was doing to her. “What was the voice like? Was it high-pitched, low-pitched, or what?”

The inspector looked at me, not understanding.

“High-pitched or low-pitched compared to what? You obviously differentiate between the women’s voices, but I have heard only one of them. So, it was neither the first nor the second.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I admitted thoughtfully. Sharon’s voice was a bit lower, but just a tiny bit, and Peularia couldn’t know the difference. “By the way, whoever warned you about my arrival also warned a guy named Sengupta? Do you know him? He seems to be a local man.”

Gzundis gave me another dubious look. Her assistant’s left leg embraced her thigh from behind, and the girl’s lips were on her boss’ neck.

“Of course I do. It’s a common Indian male name here. In fact, I may know quite a few!” the inspector said.

“No, I mean a Sengupta who can afford to buy a limo as big as a submarine.” I desperately tried to stare at the corpse on the table.

“Then, I assume you’re talking about Chandrakant Sengupta.”

“Yes! That’s the one, I think.”

“And what did he tell you?” Peularia slowly removed her left glove, stretching her hand to caress Nereidi’s thigh. When her arm went up, it bared her assistant’s buttocks for a moment, but it didn’t matter because the girl had been virtually naked even before that. Anyway, it made me look aside, embarrassed.

“Well, he “invited” me in his limo to talk,” I finger-quoted the word, “and I think his idea was to warn me not to mess with him. I just wondered why he thought I would do that and whether I should worry about it.”

Gzundis pulled her hand back and started taking off her other glove. Nereidi’s orphaned thigh tried to follow, seeking contact. She had gorgeous legs.

“Oh, you’d better be worried, Mr. Mellrow!” Peularia looked at me meaningfully. “Formally, he’s the CEO and owner of ‘Sengupta Transports Limited,’ but his company and its entire business are merely a cover. In fact, he’s the boss of the South Pacific branch of the Indian mafia. But you know what just occurred to me? With your Chinese friends back in Greenland and this one here, you can brag about being wanted by half the crime syndicates in the world! It’s quite an achievement, isn’t it?”

The inspector laughed vocally at her own joke. Nereidi laughed, too, but her voice was almost on the verge of ultrasound. I barely heard an undistinguished bubbling mixed with the sound of the ocean coming from the outside. I wouldn’t have known at all if she hadn’t moved her mouth.

“And what exactly is the specialty of the Indian mafia here, Inspector?” I couldn’t react to the joke because I suddenly realized it was true, and I was scared. “What’s their business?”

“Oh, it varies! It’s mostly gambling, female flesh, and drugs, as everywhere else in the world, but there’s also illegal garbage disposal and a few other things. Many islands hereabout are dumps, you know, and the last thing is very profitable. Why are you asking, by the way?”

“I wondered whether it could have something to do with the ammonia fuss. You said the entire region was crazy about it.”

Gzundis looked pensively at me for a few moments, but then she shook her head.

“No, I don’t think so. Sengupta is not that kind of person.” She slowly turned around and gently ruffled Nereidi’s hair. “You should understand that Indians are not strictly business-oriented, Mr. Mellrow. Unlike the Chinese, they’re not all about money. Money is merely a means for them to seek beauty and pleasure in life. If you ask me, the guy just wants respect, and the chemical madness is not his thing. Do you actually know what the meaning of his name is?”

“No, I don’t!” I answered hollowly, wondering what this all actually meant. Was it a show intended for me or just for them to spur their excitement?

“Chandrakant means ‘beloved by the moon.’ Isn’t that beautiful? Both Indians and Indian names are very poetic, Mr. Mellrow!” Gzundis tenderly drew Nereidi’s head closer to her and kissed her in the mouth. It took much longer this time, and I had to watch the game of their tongues for a while.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed it,” I mumbled vaguely, thinking about the whirlpool of “poetry” I had witnessed on the harbor. I said that rather impulsively because I had to say something. I just couldn’t stay there and watch the two women silently!

“His name also means ‘a lucky guy’.” When the kiss was over, Peularia explained absentmindedly because her thoughts were already on Nereidi’s body. She was helping her assistant lose her dress, and it fell to the floor at their feet, leaving the girl naked. “But ‘there’s not much luck around a lucky guy,’ Indians also say,” the inspector continued. “Translated to your situation, I guess you should find someone else’s back to climb on. Do you understand what I mean?”

I made a gesture to confirm that I did, which no one saw.

“Years ago, things were all different here; there were almost no Indians around.” I heard Gzundis’s dreamy voice go on. “It wasn’t so hot back then, and the island was just a little bit bigger, but it was also more boring. And then they came along and changed everything! Fagaitua now climbs twenty centimeters up the hills every single year, and they repair parts of Route 001 every two months.”

This time, I didn’t bother answering. Suddenly, I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say because it was ridiculous to discuss climate change while watching two gorgeous women getting undressed and slowly preparing to have sex. Peularia lovingly caressed Nereidi’s face with the back of her left hand, and the fingers of her other hand became entangled with her assistant’s fingers.

“They’ve really changed absolutely everything! Nothing is the same anymore!” The inspector kept talking without looking at me. “So if you have no further questions, Mr. Mellrow, I think it’s time for you to go now. Nereidi and I intend to take a bath and utilize our lunch break. I’ll check on the guys you want me to and let you know accordingly. Meanwhile, I wish you a nice day!”

I awkwardly stood up. With smooth movements, as if swimming underwater, the assistant unbuttoned Peularia’s overalls. Neither woman was paying attention to me anymore, and I think they wouldn’t have even noticed if I had stayed there watching them. I didn’t want to, however, because I felt redundant. About three minutes later, after passing by all the doorless rooms and bathrooms in this weird house, I quietly stepped outside onto the front lawn.

The heat immediately slapped me across the face. The air felt like hot soup, and the contrast was immensely shocking. I thoughtfully looked at the ocean, still under the influence of the scene I had just witnessed. The water splashed restlessly at the foot of the steep terrain on top of which the house was perched. While watching it and recalling Peularia’s words, I suddenly realized why the shore resembled an Asian rice field on my way here. It wasn’t deliberate. Now that I knew the facts, I could see how Alega Beach had shrunk many times, climbing up the hills after the ocean repeatedly bit chunks of it. The island was racing against the clock for its survival! The only problem was that its struggle was simply doomed to fail.

I slowly turned around, sweating profoundly, and dizzily walked up toward my car. I hoped my crappy Ford had gathered enough strength in the shadow to take me back to Pago Pago safely because I myself had none. The extreme weather and the hot scene in the house had sucked me dry completely, and as it turned out, Indians were responsible for both of those things. It was pretty funny because, back in Greenland, we usually blamed the Chinese for everything.

©2016 S.T. Fargo
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!
(www.stfargo.com)