The Hunt — Chapter VI: Girls Can’t Hunt

This is a serial story told over many chapters. To see the first chapter click here. To see the previous chapter click here.

Kirill inspected his fingers, which had turned bright red. Gently blowing warm air, he slowly rubbed his hands together. When he could freely move each of his fingers, he cracked his knuckles and quietly chuckled to himself.

After he had turned back around to face Fedir, Kirill squinted and momentarily covered his eyes. The sun was out, and its harsh glare glistened in the endless sea of white. Kirill patiently massaged his eyes with his palms before recommencing the deliberate march towards the forest.

Confused, Alena chased after them and shouted:

- I’m serious. I’m going with you.

Fedir shook his head and replied without a backward glance:

- Are you kidding? Why would we let you come along? You’re a girl.

Alena paused as she quickly shifted her eyes from Kirill to Fedir to the ground and then back again.

- What’s wrong with being a girl?

-Where do I start? Girls are weak, stupid, ugly, annoying, dumb… and they smell bad! We couldn’t even use you as bait for the tig–

Alena stopped Fedir before he could finish, clocking him square in the jaw with a clenched fist. Fedir toppled over onto his back. Startled, Alena stammered a muffled apology and hastily bowed to both boys in turn.

Kirill, meanwhile, had collapsed in the snow he was laughing so hard. Finally, he ambled back to Fedir, who was violently scraping at the frozen earth with his sword, and helped him up. Then Kirill calmly turned to Alena and taking her aside, quietly told her:

- Don’t worry about it. In spite of his golden locks and his delicate frame, he is a lot tougher than he appears. All the whining and moaning is just his way of showing his respect for you.

Nodding, Alena bowed to Kirill again and softly replied:

- Thank you!

- As for our little hunt, you are welcome to come along if you want. Just don’t expect a fun carefree adventure. My father, after all, was considered the fiercest and bravest of all the hunters in our village before the tiger killed him. It’s possible that we might not make it back home again.

To be continued…

- Carlos de la Gringa

TES Artist of the Week VI

Once upon a time, I was reading a book, a collection of short stories. I didn’t know who the author was, but the title and the cover looked promising. In the first short story, a little girl says, “I like you Bukowski. Tell me a story!”

“Well, all right. Jump here on my legs. So… There is this little girl. Alone. In a forest. With an old man…”

The mother comes over, “Bukowski!!! Hands off of my daughter, you pervert!”

All the other stories are about this author who pretends that he is constantly writing in his smoky apartment. The protagonist turns out to be a drunken womanizer, involved in the most terribly sordid love affairs with fat women, middle-aged hags and young prostitutes. This lazy guy, who find himself in the midst of all these crazy adventures, gambles on horse races and spends his money as fast as he can drink it. It soon becomes hard to believe that the “unknown” writer, Henry Chanaski, protagonist of all the stories, is anyone other than Bukowski himself.

So you’re probably wondering what’s so interesting about this guy? Well, it’s amazing how his brilliant short stories are capable of teaching the fundamental truths of everyday life through the tales of the scum of the earth.

I know that I’m a little bit late with this, but nevertheless I am pleased to present as the 6^th TES Artist of the Week, American poet, novelist, and short story writer, Charles Bukowski! As an active writer during the second part of the twentieth century, Bukowski was particularly famous for his satirical poetry and his peculiar style of short stories. He rose to international fame quickly and nowadays is considered a pillar of postmodern literature. Sad as it is to say of an author of his caliber, however, he was never able to achieve the same level of recognition in his own country, most likely a result of working for underground magazines. It should also be mentioned that he was especially critical of the lingering influences of Puritanism in American society.

He has always been a great inspiration for us, here at Tales of Extraordinary Sanity, who are trying to achieve a fraction of what he did during his lifetime. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you, Charles Bukowski!

- Simone la Cuercha 

Ed. If you would like to read some of Charles Bukowski’s writings, look here.

So What Exactly is TES?

…continued from This is not a blog.

“But then what are you guys trying to do, Mr. la Cuercha?”

You know… Tales of Extraordinary Sanity is a project that started in a smoky pub in upstate New York.

“But there are no smoky pubs in upstate New York…”

Hey, who’s telling the story here?! As I was saying, Mr. de la Gringa and I were in a smoky pub in the Communist Independent Republic of Upstate New York. It was about two months ago. After a (few) drink(s) we had the brilliant idea of starting a magazine. Since we’re lazy pieces of s**t, we needed a good motivation to keep writing on a regular basis. But how? With a daily magazine, of course! That’s why TES is published every day at 7:00pm – when we don’t lose completely the sense of time watching Spanish, Portuguese and Italian s**t on YouTube. But how is it possible to keep going with a daily publication? I have no idea. But by writing bullshit, with no shame, exactly as I am doing right now with this interview, we have managed to pull it off – so far – even if our imagination wants to divorce us. …she’s asking for the house and child custody.

TES is an honest reflection on those experiences that everybody is familiar with but is just too afraid to talk about, an experiment to push the boundaries of society further. Every article must be on the edge. Every article must be irreverent, aggressive, funny and honest. Why? Because we want to hit that really delicate point, the limit between being comical and being offensive – or just plain crazy. Because that’s where our readers are most ticklish!

- Simone la Cuercha

This is not a blog

Today we are going to conduct our first ever made-up interview here on Tales of Extraordinary Sanity with  writer: Simone la Cuercha. Enjoy!

What is Tales of Extraordinary Sanity? Almost a month has passed since launch day, the first day of spring, the second time that the Earth stood still – the first was when they decided to release that film adaptation of Blue Moon. Yes, you know what movie I’m talking about. But after two weeks nothing seems to have changed. 

We  are still here, prisoners to the same questions. Who are we? What are we doing? Is Simone’s English ever going to get better? Will we still focus on Carlos’ thirst for crazy erotic movies with animals and household appliances? Or will we learn to write about other topics? Does the Master of Extraordinary approve what we’re doing?  Is he watching us right now? And who is this guy, anyways? A man, a machine, a god? Where are we going with all of this? Why the name Tales of Extraordinary Sanity in the first place? These are all legitimate questions. But Lady Justice and I don’t get along very well, so we only have time for one question this time around:

“Mr la Cuercha, what is Tales of Extraordinary Sanity?”

Thanks for your question Johnny. Unfortunately I don’t really know how to answer it. But one thing is for sure. I can tell you what TES is not. TES is not a blog. I have always rejected the concept of blogging. I don’t doubt that it may have been a wonderful idea at the beginning of the naughts. But let’s have a look at what blogging really means nowadays: a lame imitation of the more sincere and honorable LiveJournal. Blogging in this day and age in a majority of cases means writing about the mundane bullshit of everyday life. It means obnoxiously promoting one’s “individuality”. The average blogger only uses this space to write  about things that 100 years ago would have been written in secret diaries. Let’s be honest. Nobody wants to read about about some random person’s personal life. We already have facebook for sticking our nose in other people’s business. This is exactly what TES is NOT. A space for blabbering on about the banalities of our irrelevant everyday little “adventures”.

“But then what are you guys trying to do, Mr la Cuercha?”

…to be continued.

- Simone la Cuercha