Love, Life and The Old Stench of Luck

3. Push-ups-1

3. Push-upsUnder Sabienn’s concerned gaze, four teams of four were led to the arena. Each team had a coloured bib over the outside of their cloaks to identify themselves. There was a green, red, blue and white team. Stork stood nervously in his blue bib with Idiz, Kenzoo and Lefty.

Each team came with an attitude to the competition. Sabienn could see the green team of young Turr men bouncing on their toes and grabbing their noses in preparation. They kept touching knuckles in some collegiate display of ‘We’ve got this’ and bending in to whisper with each other in almost collusive huddles. To Sabienn, these guys would clearly be the winners because they had all the show and bravado of a committed and prepared unit.

Red team were men similar in build but weren’t giving anything away. They just stood there to attention under the gaze of their President, waggling their arms at the side.

White team on the end, in Sabienn’s opinion, bordered on weird. At that moment, they all went down on their knees to put their faith in something beyond. He couldn’t tell if it were a Green Moon, a Blue Moon, a Red Sun, or an entity of a native flavour, but for a few seconds they were sequestered away in a bubble of their own belief. When Sabienn saw this, suddenly his odds went from green to white. These boys look special.

Sabienn kept his last gaze for his brother. His team looked downright ordinary; all moving and scratching like some infected unit in need of skin medication. Stork appeared to be very wary of touching his ears in case they became unattached. The other three men, that they’d shared coffee with, seemed strangely confident.

Before all the teams were plates of eggs. Chicken eggs hard-boiled already peeled. Stork pushed himself forward to the table and faced his forty eggs. There wasn’t much more ceremony.

“Begin,” said a man at the side. Officials stood in front of each team to check for any fouls or penalties. Every egg had to be eaten.

Stork picked up his first egg quickly and slammed it into his gaping mouth. He swallowed water from a disposable cup at the side. As he was advised, Stork began to jump up on down on his toes and hold his nose to create as easy enough passage for the stuff to go down his tube. His bouncing became more pronounced to get the gift of gravity to assist the downward push.

Sabienn was impressed with his brother’s performance. He knew Stork was more the educated palate who appreciated the smells and taste of good food. His preference would be to savour but, as Sabienn saw, if he wanted to push food he could definitely rise to the occasion.

A glance at the red team made the odds shift for Sabienn. Their lead man was stuffing like a machine. He may not have had the initial pretentious show of the green group, but he was well into a routine of pushing, bouncing and drinking.

The first green man, for all the show of the pre-game entertainment, was struggling. He looked like he was having to contend with a stitch.

The opening mouth for the white team was next to woeful. He was pushing each egg casually without any external theatrics. As a result, he was running last.

The red man pushed his empty bowl forward, it was checked by a judge and their second man stepped up. A new bowl full of eggs was pushed in front of him.

Much to Sabienn’s delight, Stork was the second to finish and push his bowl forward. Looking thoroughly stuffed and woozy and ready to hurl his achievement, he took a backward step to let Idiz to the table. A new bowl arrived and the eating recommenced.

To Sabienn’s surprise, he saw that Idiz with all his talk of how long he dreamed of this moment, was absolutely hopeless. He looked like he was chewing each egg before it disappeared.

“What is going on here?” called Bray. Sitting next to his brother, Sabienn could sense that there was no logic to what he was watching.

“I know what they’re doing,” said Jank solemnly. “This is so hard to watch. You know the white team are called Galosh. They live out in the Black Zone. Needed special approval to attend. Clean living, helpful, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Strange brand of religion of a native flavour. They sure don’t deserve this.”

Now confused Sabienn and Bray looked at each other and sat quietly waiting for the result. The whole contest dragged out to over ten minutes to accommodate all stragglers.

The first team to push their fourth empty bowl across was the red team. They allowed themselves a little manly handshaking before standing back to attention before their President. Sabienn could see that nothing could wipe the smiles off their faces as they had just won a bucket of prime. And a pig.

As Sabienn watched on intently, the last green man swallowed his egg and claimed the number two place for his team. They undertook their usual annoying knuckle touches of a team high on their own performance but only able to manage second. By their antics and high-fives, it was the pig that they had come for.

The white team and Stork’s blue team were neck and neck for third. Under Sabienn’s watchful gaze, Idiz, Kenzoo and now Lefty had pulled out all stops to go as slow as they possibly could.

With a sense of achievement, the last man of the Galosh team pushed his bowl forward. The man with the white bib lifted his hands in glee to claim the last pig. A few seconds later, Lefty, the final man on the blue team popped the last portion of egg into his mouth and pushed his bowl forward to bring the whole strange contest to a close.

“No pig for Idiz,” said Bray, watching on bemused.

As soon as the words left Bray’s mouth, Idiz stood forward and pointed to the Galosh team. “Protest,” called Idiz. “I believe this white team has a human.”

An official at the side called over the public address. “A protest has been called. Ears check for Team White.”

Sabienn saw that the poor white team had only celebrated for a few seconds before the protest had been called. Now they were looking at one another in horror. An official rattled the headwear of the third mouth of the Galosh and some fake ears fell off.

“Team White disqualified,” called the official without emotion.

Two guards then appeared and grabbed hold of the third man in question who was now protesting for his life. He was led away, as promised by the statement of the ceremony, and taken to a back area behind the action. A quick gun shot was heard.

Stunned by the turn of events, Sabienn watched the face of Stork on the field. Stork’s face indicated that he had been affected by the fate of the harmless man. He then looked on in disgust at his team mates, Idiz, Kenzoo and Lefty who were offering each other high-fives and whoops of victory, mercifully leaving Stork on the outer. They were just a pack of pricks who just got a man killed to get a pig. Sabienn could see Stork couldn’t do anything as he desperately tried hard not to touch his own fake ears.

The officials moved in on the field and all the teams were led away to be replaced by the next team. Sabienn watched his brother walk and disappear somewhere in the backdrops of the arena. He stood to see if he could spot him but was patted on the leg by the disturbingly calm Jank. “Nothing you can do,” said Jank, stating the obvious. Sabienn sat back down again and continued to watch.

As the egg-eating contests progressed, the arena began to open up with more activities; each receiving its own special spotlight creating three rings of attraction. The eating contest became one of the three rings of attraction for the audience’s delight. High jumpers filled another ring. Weightlifters filled the last.

Sabienn’s interest still stayed with the eggs. In all there were five separate egg-eating contests each with four teams like Stork’s event. The last contest of egg-eaters had another protest. Officials arrived and found more fake ears. Another man was led sadly and against his will to the back area. Another shot was heard.

At the side of the action, Sabienn quickly viewed a member of the green team that had been in the race with Stork in the previous event. He was milling in the back area and held a small live piglet in a cage which he held to his chest with pride.

“Welcome to Luck,” said Jank matter-of-factly to Sabienn and Bray. He wiped his hands on his cloak sides removing the last vestiges of any sauce from his paws. “It is what it is. Would you like something to eat?”

Sabienn was disgusted by what he had seen but he knew Bray would have been affected. “No, we don’t want anything to eat,” called Bray savagely.

“I can’t force you,” said Jank politely. “But if you only knew where you were going, you’d reconsider.”

Numbly Sabienn faced the arena again.

“I’d urge you to stop thinking of escape,” said Jank calmly, as if reading Sabienn’s mind. “I’m still your best chance of survival.”

Desperately Sabienn searched the areas of the arena to see if he could see Stork. Within the seating section on the opposite side of the stadium, Sabienn saw a member of the red egg-eating team make his way to a woman who warmly kissed him on arrival. So the completed contestants are moving free. Where’s Stork?

“Keep your eyes out,” called Sabienn to Bray.

“Done,” Bray replied. Nothing was presenting to him either.

The tables remained as preparations were put in place for the next contest, the eating of pork ribs. It commenced with minimal fanfare.

This whole eating thing had to Sabienn been an intriguing distraction, a curiosity of another culture. But he was now viewing eight teams of four, stripping pork meat with their teeth. They were employing all sorts of techniques to get the most product down their throat.

“You won’t see the egg protest,” said Jank in a conciliatory manner. He spoke as if he believed this was what was bothering Sabienn. Sabienn viewed Jank’s verbal intrusion as if it were an alien speaking another language. Jank continued, “People take the ribs seriously.”

“This is way too much information,” said Sabienn sarcastically.

“More men challenge for ribs,” said Jank, ploughing on regardless.

Without interest he sat through another forced engorgement before his attention was drawn to a spotlight falling on a side wall of the arena. By the artificial handholds and footholds running up the fifteen-metre height of the vertical face, Sabienn deduced that this must be a speed climbing wall. Officials moved around in preparation at the bottom of the high flat surface.

“Where’s push-ups?” called Sabienn.

“That’s push-ups,” said Jank, indicating the climbing wall.

“That’s a climbing wall!” called Bray.

“In Luck, it’s push-ups,” said Jank, with disinterest. “You push up.”

Sabienn kept his eyes peeled for any sight of Deep.

A closer analysis of the climbing wall showed a very significant difference between this one and ones that he was familiar with back in Hayddland. There was a wall back at the Academy and Sabienn had indulged in the activity once before himself. He remembered that he recorded a very average nine minutes to the top to earn merits in physical fitness. But this wall was not the same.

The wall he was looking at here had no safety harnesses from the top to save someone a dangerous drop should they be dislodged. And the ground area was not a soft material. This was ankle breaking material if someone came to grief. As he looked up to the top, it was Sabienn’s belief that if someone fell from high enough and landed badly, they could easily be killed.

A commentator’s voice boomed through the stadium. “Presenting the Tower of Power. Push ups. Our surprise event. In honour of our Great President and his monumental work. We honour the Ramm Tower. Men will fight to the top or die trying.”