Name: ZH3 Hash #1107: The French Revolution of 1848
Location: Restaurant Swaad
Hares: Smoking Cock
RA: Weapon of Ass Destruction
Attendance: 19 hashers + 1 Canine
Scribe: D.E.Floured
As I came round I could see stars behind the silhouettes of treetops. It was night. Where was I?
Close to my right a voice. “Can you move your toes?”
The voice said it was Just Ottmar. A figure helped me to my feet and told me we had to keep moving — despite the sheet ice — otherwise eagles would trail us. Or the eagles would catch the rabbits. What rabbits? Which eagles? Nothing seemed to make sense. I was cold. My head hurt. I didn’t know where I was. The man insisted we run.
I stumbled on the uneven and slippery path as he ran effortlessly. He kept mentioning flowers. I couldn’t see any. He seemed worried about not losing a flower in his hair. I could make out lines, what looked like insignia on his bodysuit. Military? It was dark, my head hurt, my spine hurt, I was in an unfamiliar forest without flowers and an imposing soldier was worried about his hair. I decided to keep quiet and obey. I don’t know how long we ran. Later, at the tree-line I saw the movement of lights, then figures. Ottmar called a signal as we approached. We were nearing a city.
It seemed to be a paramilitary commando. Outlines of a score of people, interspersed in pairs or trios at irregular intervals along a road, some holding muted flashlights. Parachutists perhaps. Parachuted into the forest, where they must have stowed their equipment. Only one was carrying a rucksack. The rest, wrapped head-to-toe in material so one could only see eyes, were unarmed. They had a dog with them, and hadn’t been looking for us, so I think they were hunting the rabbits. Or one rabbit’s flowers.
I was jostled into the middle of the group. Behind me someone spoke ominously about widows, a naked and wasted body, and chalk outlines. A silhouette shouted menacingly that there were “no criminals in Tsvitzerlan.” They were vigilantes!
A gang of vigilantes, hunting in the peri-urban region of whatever settlement lay ahead of us, hunting and murdering the families of the seditious and the insouciant. My life was obviously endangered every second I spent among this militia. Despite my disorientation I had to escape. I tried to run. Vision blurry and feet unsteady I attempted to flee down the paths branching from their route. Yet whenever I started in one direction, the pack would double-back or change course. I tried a few times, they persisted; and insisted “Be near, be near!” I cannot remember how long this continued, nor do I understand why they did not kill me on the spot. Only that we ran until weariness overcame my entire body.
Next in my recollections is the gang standing in a clearing. They were angry. They were discussing supplies, they were meant to restock with super-dense, nutritious energy and multivitamin rations. This was the rendezvous where an agent had been supposed meet them. In their hunger and thirst they cursed the name of ‘mimi’ their treacherous ally. The only hint of provender was shitty beer. And yet — on this coldest of nights — the beer was warm, so ‘meme’ must have been here recently. Growing evermore vociferous the vigilantes repeated the syllables: mee-mee, měi-měi, měi-méi.
In a flash of lucidity amid the cacophony and the throbbing at the base of my skull I realised they were shouting mèi mei (妹妹) and that their collaborator was surely the younger sister of a vigilante.
At that moment I felt dizzy and cold. I lay down. I may have slept.
At some point in the night there was food — baguettes and a variety of rather nice cheeses — combined with the macabre celebration of the capture of their prey, Carlos and LAM. I don’t know where they found the food, yet this night’s hunt had evidently yielded a protesting hispaniard and a subdued visitor by way of Hanoi.
A ringleader made a mocking lunge-pose and drank some kind of hallucinatory from a special glass, while the vigilantes chanted. They forced Carlos to do the same, while shouting oaths and curses. Then LAM was made to follow suit. Subsequently each of the vigilantes took the mixture to their lips in turn. Through the crowd of bodies it seemed as if with every sip the draght changed color: at times the glass was yellowish, then appeared to be blue, then redder. Until I was made to drink. The lukewarm fuzzy foam stuck to my palate and I swallowed the bitter substance with difficulty. My head spun. The cold wind seemed to cut deeper. I became dizzy. I lay down.
The next thing I know, I woke up in here.
As dictated by D. E. Floured, from the Triemlispital on February 22nd, 2018.
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