But before he could do any more damage, a burly construction
worker jumped into the vehicle and switched off the ignition.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, psycho?” he screamed
into Izzy’s face, a cigarette bobbing between his lips.
The young man grabbed the cigarette and thrust his foot into the
chest of the construction worker. The man barely budged. He pulled
Izzy out of the Caterpillar by the scruff of his T-shirt and tossed him
on the ground with a sickening crunch. Colin and Bennie ran over to
the rescue, jumping on the back of the helmeted man, holding him
down. This gave Izzy a chance to limp into Undergrounds. Like Roy
before him, he carried the world on his small shoulders, and a single
cigarette.
Once again he found Leona where no one expected, this time in
a pool of blood, wiping dust from her eyes. Izzy tossed the butt into
the corner. There was no sense trying to destroy Undergrounds with
a single cigarette.
“What are you doing here?” Izzy yelled through a cloud of milky
particles.
“I should ask you the same question,” she replied.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood. I’ll help you out of here.”
“I’ve lost a lot of everything. Go away. Tell Roy it’s all his.
Everything. Just leave me here for a little longer. This was the only
home I ever had.”
She was probably about to express other sentimental notions,
even perhaps to ask for forgiveness. She might have even allowed
herself to be led out at that point, having abandoned any big ideas,
realized that she could still have gone with them, that they might
forgive her.
But the damaged wall had set free a power cable and severed it.
It was on this that Izzy’s cigarette had landed and initiated a small
electric fire, one that might have been controllable had it not been for
the stockpile of non-dairy creamer which the Hell Doradonians had
never bothered to clean up. Clouds of flammable milk-substitute
exploded in a burst of flames, showering powdery fire everywhere,
painting the walls in a white-hot light.
Izzy’s ancient clothes, impregnated with ancient dirt and grit,
offered protection from the initial blast, though his acne was
peppered with tiny burning particles of fake milk. He tore the
burning T-shirt from his body. The last vestige of his past. The stalled
wheel of his life creaked clockwise. What a shame for it to end now!
ABYSSINIA
360
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