“If you look from Avigne to Omore, you can clearly see that Ontiganel is a valley.” That’s what they say. I thought it was so cool to quote it back then.

  Imagine this: In my shoe, there’s a pebble. It doesn’t keep me from walking, since it’s just a small stone, but it annoys me; it annoys me big time. So I decided to get rid of the pebble. Dropping four stacks, I address the man opposite of me.

  “There, take it, it’s ten million. So give me that stupid shit, and fuck off. Don’t ya dare come back to Ontiganel again!” The cheap fuck was trying to play me over, I could see it in his greasy eyes. Surely the next words he would say wouldn’t push me over the edge.

  “Ah, right now we get ten-thousand per pack…so this stuff is at least worth two hundred million. I brought along everything I had, just for you. You damn said you’d buy as much as possible. Usually I stay away from deals like that, but I thought I could make an exception with you; and now you pull off this…?!”

  I wasn’t having anymore of this. Bringing my fingers to his eyes got his men in tizzy, pulling out their steel; as if that would scare me.

  “Wahahaha, what ya gonna do, shoot me with ya fingers? Now you got me so afraid… Mayor.” Checking my surroundings, there seemed no way out. “Haha, no need to be scared, I know it isn’t all too easy to kill the mayor. So let’s settle this deal.

  “Which deal? You’re really a dumbo… Right ear!” Blam! His ear flew. The panic was delicious. “This ain’t no deal ya hear? You got two choices, either take the money and fuck off, or you tell me where to bury ya. Decide!” Squealing like a pig, the dark skinned monkey frantically looked around for my “back-up”. “Not like I want any of that shit for free. None of it is tax-payer money, all my own. That’s quite some for an official like me. Once again, choose! Disappear, or die! Make your choice.”

  It all went swimmingly, so I decided to finally get cleaned up. Styling my hair took more time than when I was young. How odd, one would think the more you have the more hassle, but hassle comes with age, not necessarily with how much you're given.

  “Never really wanted to kill those guys, but at least they’ll never sell that shit ever again; that’s for sure.”

  Horo entered from the ramp of the parking complex. Surely the clean up was complete. His words however were as nagging as always. “You did good, risking your life for such endeavors is something you should do.”

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  “As long as it’s my win. Anyway, those dealers may disappear, but it's not gonna be two weeks for the next gang or group to show up and replace what they had set up. This matter is definitely not solved yet.”

  “Sir, are you really taking this seriously? How I see it, it looks as though it is simply a stress relieving pass time. Not like a problem that a mayor should take care of by himself.”

  Horo was always a handful, but as we reach another stage in life, I find his youthful angst turning in another direction. We all act the same, but it’s directed in manners different then how they were originally expressed. Anytime I see it, it brings me to a melancholy. Perhaps that is too dramatic…

  “Horo, drugs are a serious issue…”

  “Declining tax receipts are a much more problematic issue! So please, don’t forget to attend the meeting this afternoon, rather than this vigilantism.”

  “Which meeting?” I asked, truly forgetting as they continue to schedule more and more after each other.

  “The one about the Ontiganel mountain region, the academy set to shut down.”

  “Ah…Horo, you’ll manage.”

  “Impossible, we’re still at an early stage of the negotiations, without the mayor present…”

  Pinching my brows I finally realized what Horo was trying to get me into again. “More back-room talk? That’s not a meeting.”

  “You have duties as mayor, much more important things than being a promoter to this Zodiac Palace. Don’t forget, this position is just one stage on your way to the top.”

  Bumping his shoulder, I walked off. “Yeah-yeah, how about you stop talking like a book…I’ve told ya time and again to speak naturally when no one’s around. If you talk so politely, you are no longer yourself.”

  “…”

  This pebble’s still in my shoe. Seems like I still haven’t yet identified it properly. It’s neither the dealers or our fiscal problems. It comes to me, but leaves as soon as it arrives…the problem. The feeling of the world turning on its head, who hit me?

  “Ah, haha, Otie, it’s you!”

  “Woah, who’s this old man?” Eurig, that golden boy asked as if we hadn’t had a not too similar encounter not long ago.

  “It’s me, you’re doing this deliberately now?” I had to get up from the shock. How could I be knocked up into the air twice, and it be from the same pair of boys?

  “Ah, the mayor!” Eurig finally remembered.

  That pebble in my shoe…

  “Hmm, old men like you shouldn’t be walkin’ all ditsy-like. That’s how stuff like this happens,” Otie said. That cheeky brat, he’s something alright.