And the winner is…
The reception hall is glutted with garbage, held together in a contiguous mound by sludge and shit. The canvas of flies covering it is sickening to behold. It is rotting and crawling with maggots and vermin and the stench is automatic vomit. The contagiously diseased and leprous hobble and crawl in, parts of their bodies falling off behind them, and writhe in lung-racked fevers, hacking out gloms of their infections all over the floor, making it slippery and malignant to the touch, even in shoes.
After bringing the retching convulsions of his wrung-out guts under control, having nothing left to puke, Andrew Plumb, wearing a tuxedo, reaches over to grab Welsh Losser and begins choking him to death.
But no sooner than the Welsh Losser Plumb has vanquished twitches the death leg, going ekh-ekh-ekh from a crushed trachea, than another Welsh Losser walks into the hall, all bumbly-rolly, round-headed and red-faced, laughing in his famous rasp, making non-sequitur jokes everyone has suddenly started to laugh at, and going nyug-nyag-nyaooo…
Losser is unaffected by the sickening stench because he has no sense of smell.
The body of the dead Losser has vanished, as if it had all been a hallucination. What has Plumb got to do to kill this fucking Losser and get him out of the core of his misery?
Huge sick deformed greasy-winged birds break through the waste mound and shove it to the sides. Infected slime drips from their beaks as they straggle toward and begin to devour the flesh and rip out the spines of the rotting people on the floor, still alive and churning in anguish in the aisles. Now there is room for viewing the Promethean Award ceremony.
The air is tense. In their seats, hideous abnormalities shake with nerve-racked anticipation, some choking and keeling over in perhaps death from the moment’s phenomenal pressure.
And this year’s Promethean Award for Best Writer goes to… (suspenseful drum roll)… Welsh Losser!!! (triumphant trumpet blare)…
Nyug-nyag-nyaooo…
Plumb’s in complete shock. How is this possible… why… how?!?
Welsh Losser is already clutching the coveted prize, a statuette of a writhing Prometheus chained to a rock while passing a burning torch down to mankind, awarded by the All-Ukrainian State Arts Authority of Ukraine, second only to the Nobel Prize for Literature in world significance for writers.
Plumb rises toward Losser and hisses:
But it’s for complete self-published shit! This fucking award was fixed!
Losser counters:
You’ve got nothing on me, Plumb. Published is published. You should consider yourself lucky for even being nominated, seeing as you didn’t have the brains to publish anything at all. Nyag. I can’t believe you still have the gall to walk around this town calling yourself a writer – hoo-hoooo… nyig-nyeg-nya… nyug-nyug-nyug…
Plumb wastes no breath on rejoinders but lunges toward Losser, who somehow ends up being nimble and fast. He darts stage left and up fire exit stairs, bursting through the door at the top and onto the roof. As if to taunt Plumb, Losser waits for him at the roof’s edge, laughs – nyug-nyag-nyaooo – and throws himself off the building. Plumb, too, goes over the building and is immediately lifted aloft by the old airbrushed flying-carpet photo of Welsh Losser, whom Plumb had rescued from a stinking beer bottle Welsh Losser had stuck it in some episodes ago.
Plumb gives Losser chase over the ancient Rus capital through the night sky as Losser pulls farther and farther ahead, riding his new airbrushed flying-carpet photo of himself; same expensive-looking watch as the old one, but no suit jacket – none required, as the new Losser now likes to show off his photo-shopped broader shoulders and simultaneously trimmer waist. The new Losser image is clearly younger, faster, stronger than the pathetic counterpart huffing to keep up but increasingly falling behind, struggling nobly and loyally to keep airborne the swank dashing stiff-haired figure of the tuxedoed Plumb. But to no avail. From way ahead Plumb hears the mocking rasp-laugh of Welsh Losser, whose confidence is so great, he doesn’t even bother turning around to measure his advantage.
Now Losser takes a sharp breakneck turn down from the prestigious heights of Kyiv’s Pechersk District into the rut of the main Khreshchatyk thoroughfare where he hovers over European Square, between Ukrainian House and the Dnipro Hotel, waiting for Plumb to close the gap, and as he does, Losser suddenly speeds toward the Philharmonic on Volodymyrsky Ascent, from whose domed roof he catapults over a hill of trees and plunges down into the edge of Mariyinsky Park.
Woo-hoooo!!! he exclaims, waiting for the old Losser carpet carrying Plumb to track the familiar voice and catch up. And it finally does, breathing hard, streaming sweat, clutching its chest, chugging in fits and starts toward the new Losser carpet. But just as it begins to pull close, with Plumb set to jump Welsh Losser, Welsh Losser tears away, swooping and whooping madly under the Friendship Rainbow arched over the Great Promenade and in no time he’s just a tiny action figure on a postage stamp floating and flitting over the Dnipro River.
Sitting on the old Losser photo, come to rest on the curving observation wall that contains the Great Promenade high above the Dnipro, Plumb watches helplessly as Losser flies back and forth between the middle of the river and Trukhaniv Island, as if mocking Plumb’s old refuge and home.
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo, he exclaims over and over again on his new Welsh Losser carpet from mid-river.
Meanwhile, the old Welsh Losser carpet under Plumb lies on the wall, stretched out, deflated and exhausted, between hard-drawn breaths apologizing to Plumb – I’m… I’m… sorry… just… couldn’t… keep up… just couldn’t… do it… Forgive me… forgive…
But Plumb isn’t listening. His rage and venom rise as he continues to peer out toward the river. The new Welsh Losser carpet is lighting Welsh Losser from below, making him clearly visible floating above the Dnipro in the night. Now his carpet’s a stage, and on it, with the Promethean award raised high in his left hand, Welsh Losser’s doing a sort of jig, and in taunting singsong calling back to Plumb:
It’s mine, Plumb – mine! I’m better than you, Plumb, I beat you, I won, nyug-ha, I’m better than you, Plumb… I’m better than you…!!!
Don’t worry, Plumb says to the old Welsh Losser carpet, which is completely heartbroken and distraught, I’ve got a plan…
Filed by Jack Step, August 23, 2013