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Careening across an empty freeway in the dead of night is not the best way to wake up. It could be worse, I guess, but it’s hard to describe the shock and confusion of screeching tires, and the echoes of a thud that you heard in your sleep.
When the driver of the vehicle is an old man, who you suspect might be as drunk as you are, starts screaming “Tiger! Tiger!” you are thrown further into panic as you shake off the beer and the slumber and begin to work out where it is that you are, and what exactly just happened.
**
Last Friday I found myself waking up in such a manner. I had fallen asleep in the back of a taxi and was awoken by the aforementioned thud and screech. I was quickly sobered as I tried to get a grasp on the situation, but the driver’s continuous Blakean riff was drowning out my thoughts.
Had we really just hit a tiger?
I thought about it and as my head cleared I realized that the most likely possibility was that we’d just hit a person. We were, after all, just coming into a residential area.
I sprang into action: leaping out of the taxi and running back towards the place where I’d awoken; where we’d begun the skid across the still deserted highway.
There was indeed a body on the road, but it was neither the shape of a person nor a tiger. It was shorter, rounder and had giant white tusks gleaming in the light of the moon.
A wild boar. Still alive.
I was running towards the animal when I realized what it was, and stopped dead in my tracks. Expecting to see a wounded person, I was shocked and horrified to see an animal that was bigger than me, thrashing around pitifully. Its legs were making running motions, but its body seemed paralysed. There was no life in its eyes; no grunting or yelping from its mouth.
The taxi driver soon followed me, staggering drunkenly. He began pointing and shouting at the animal. I didn’t understand much of what he said, but I did understand one thing: “Kill it!” Soon that was all he was saying. “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”
I looked at the poor giant beast and wondered if it stood a chance. Perhaps killing it was the merciful thing to do. It didn’t look like it was even fully alive, and it couldn’t exactly be happy with its predicament. Its legs were slowing and its head slumping towards the tarmac. If we left it would it get up and run back to freedom or just die a slow death? Most likely it would be hit by one of the next vehicles to come flying along the dark road – killing it and endangering the lives of other people.
I walked around the boar and contemplated finishing it off. I needed a weapon – something quick and humane. I scanned my memories for a Bear Grylles-style method of dispatch, but all I could think of was Lord of the Flies, and I’d left my best spears at home. Besides, it looked like it was dying pretty fast, and I didn’t really think my services were required. I didn’t want to cause it extra suffering – to be the asshole who gave it a kick in the head as it headed for the piggy gates.
Checking if it was still alive, I leaned down close and tried to listen for the sound of breathing. Its legs had more or less stopped moving by this point, and my drunkenness was returning just enough to make this procedure seem necessary, and nowhere near as needlessly dangerous as it seems in retrospect.
I listened and could hear only the faintest heaving. The driver was still screaming “Kill it! Kill it!” and so I tried to appease him by choking the boar, but alas, its mighty neck was too big for my girly little arms. I gave it a squeeze and it snorted, sending the driver running back to his taxi and leaving me expecting the monster to rise and smite me with its bulk and tusks. It was, after all, probably double my weight.
But that snort, I believe, was the pig’s way of saying “Leave me to die in peace, you insensitive drunken clod.” It wanted to be choked to death on a highway about as much as it wanted to be hit by a drunk driver. The best I could do for it, I decided, was to help it off the road, where it might miraculously recover and wander back to the forest.
The taxi driver seemed pretty enthused by the idea of dragging the beast off the road. I found that a little disturbing, but he genuinely did seem to grin with pleasure when I mimed the dragging action. I wondered whether he was thinking about coming back and slathering it with kimchi. I wouldn’t entirely blame him – it was a lot of meat.
Together we somehow hauled the beast into a patch of sparse bushes and left it to die. It didn’t look so monstrous lying there. Its mighty bulk seemed withered and tame in amongst the shrubs, and even its tusks were dimmed out of the light of the moon. Perhaps when the driver offered his Blakean uttering he was referring to himself or his vehicle, and not the beast. This was no unnatural terror of the night; it was a mere pig lost in the middle of the road.
**
Five minutes later we were outside my apartment, stopped under a streetlight. I was wondering to myself whether my drunkenness had caused me to hallucinate the entire adventure. Perhaps I’d simply fallen asleep in the cab and dreamt it.
When we stepped out, though, and looked at the front of the vehicle in the full glare of the light, we saw the impact the boar had made. It looked as though two cars had collided head on. The car had shown more signs of damage than the goddamn boar.
**
The following morning I woke up and pushed aside my hangover. I took my motorcycle and drove back to the place where we’d left the boar. The bushes were flattened where its body had been, but like the end of any good monster story, the beast was gone.
Glad you’re still with us, David. If the boar had been a little more alive, you might be seriously injured yourself. They are mean and dangerous fuckers, those pigs.
And yeah, they take out cars and yeah, they are very hard to kill.
“. . . even its tusks were dimmed out of the light of the moon.” Nice.
Thank you.
The weird thing – and I didn’t mention this in the story – is that this was the first wild boar I’d seen in Korea (saw one in Arizona a couple years back). However, in the following 24 hrs I saw two more! To saw that they’re spreading as a pest is an understatement. Campgrounds have been shut down and warnings in the paper. They’re like a plague.
Last year there was a movie came out about a giant man-eating pig, and then wild boars started invading downtown Seoul! They were attacking people. Crazy bastards.
How do these things happen to you??
I don’t think I know anyone else who has run into a wild boar.
I’m glad you weren’t hurt. That could’ve been a disaster.
I love the that the taxi driver called it a ‘tiger’ – reminds me of seeing a group of Korean tourists at the Melbourne zoo who pointed and shouted ‘Monkey! Monkey!’ every time they saw a Koala.
Ahaha! Monkey? I can believe that… You should try going to an aquarium. They refer to EVERYTHING as “fish.” A shark is a fish. A crab is a fish. A skate is a fish.
I don’t know why but for my entire life interesting things have always happened to me. Not necessarily good things or bad things, but interesting. Reminds me of the ancient Chinese curse that Hunter S. Thompson referred to: “May you live in interesting times.”
Mercy! Oh mercy! PMSL! And this is the second time, since I PMSL when you posted the abbreviated form on Facebook. Thanks for expanding on the tale. Gets funnier every time.
Tiger Tiger, burning bright.
Hang on a minute, that’s not right!
What confounded tusk and eye!
And missing stripy symmetry!
Kill it! Kill it! Easy said!
Can’t we just assume it’s good as dead?
I’m not doing your butcher’s work for free
If you’re planning to serve it with kimchi.
BTW did he charge you for the ride?
Haha, great poem. I just pissed myself laughing, too.
And yes, he charged me. I’ve been in a couple of car crashes in Korea and I always get charged for the ride.
Better than getting charged by a boar…
Hahah! But seriously, how sweet of you to to be concerned enough to lean into hear his breath. And the image of you trying to strangle the poor thing is a hoot.
Tiger!! Tiger!! Kill it!! Kill it!! Interesting that the one responsible for the crash is the one shouting instructions to you.
Uche – you’re the man. 🙂
This post? It’s the milk!
Thank you sincerely. I’m glad that “the milk” has been used to describe anything I’ve made. That’s a real honour.
And yes, the taxi driver was a real character. Probably a nicer guy than most of the taxi drivers around here… but a little psycho to be sure.
>>I realized that the most likely possibility was that we’d just hit a person.<<
That must have been horrifying.
Mad props to you for having the huevos to drag the boar back into the brush. Wounded or not, I’m sure there was some real risk involved there. Or are they pretty common/harmless there?
So true about the body of the killer disappearing. A horrifying turn in even the cheesiest of slasher flicks.
I’m going to entertain myself today with visions/delusions of the boar relaxing comfortably in some cave while female boars feed him bunches of grapes and attend to his boarly needs, maybe while he watches the World Cup.
Good on ya for taking a little action and doing the right thing.
It didn’t seem as scary at the time as it perhaps should’ve. Looking back I realise that these are extremely dangerous animals. I’ve seen a couple of YouTube videos of Korean boars and they are huge – and aggressive. If he’d stood up and charged me I’d have been in a lot of trouble.
They’re starting to become a real pest here. That was the first I’d seen, but they’ve been in the news frequently as their population is exploding. They’re even making their way into the middle of cities and attacking people! There was a horror film (a pretty good one) last year about a wild boar that ate people.
Chivalrous bow @Dana 🙂
Joe, good point I forgot to mention. David, that must have been an absolutely heart-thudding moment when you thought it might be a person. I’ve been in a car that hit a young man. We were on a highway, and he inexplicably dashed across the road, and there is nothing the driver could have done. This was in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and we were in real danger of being lynched, but half of the crowd that gathered took our side that it was not the driver’s fault, and then the police arrived, so we didn’t become additional victims. But I’ll never forget looking at his obviously collapsed ribs. The blood oozing from places it shouldn’t be. He survived, but in critical condition for at least a month, at which point I moved from Nigeria to the US. I’ve lost contact with those involved, so I don’t even know if he eventually made it 🙁
Jesus, that’s absolutely horrifying. I’ve fortunately never been in that situation, although in Korea you see it every day. They have the highest rate of traffic fatalities in the OECD. A big problem is hit-and-runs. I removed a paragraph of digression from this story that mentioned my surprise that the driver stopped. In Korea if you hit a person you just keep going. It’s very, very sad.
I hope that guy did make it. It sounds like he was a fighter if he held on for a month after injuries like that.
I didn’t want to cause it extra suffering – to be the asshole who gave it a kick in the head as it headed for the piggy gates.
Hahahahahah. That’s really a funny mental image. As, honestly, is the one of you on your knees with your hands around the boar’s neck, choking it while being really upset about it.
Friend of mine was chased up a tree by a wild boar once. Like Don says, they’re nasty.
Thank you, kind sir. I liked that sentence. It was a real concern, though… I don’t like seeing an animal suffer and I did have a certain compulsion to put it out of its misery. I just didn’t want to make matters worse. It seemed too big to kill with anything handy.
This is why I keep my old Swiss Army knife sharp and handy. You never know when you’ll come across a throat that needs slitting.
“You never know when you’ll come across a throat that needs slitting.”
That is very true.
Whoa!
Crazy story.
Wild boars I hear are more
dangerous than Tigers
even.
crazy huh?
The tusks.
They look faster than tigers, too. I wouldn’t want to run into either of them on a dark night.
The husband and I went hiking in Halawa Valley on the island of Molokai once. His dad walked us down through the taro patches, through a gate, right up to the beginning of the jungle path. Then he said, “have fun!”
“You’re not coming with us?”
“Nope. Keep note of good climbing trees. Boar comes, up you go. I’ll wait here.”
Thanks, Dad.
Haha, oh lord that made me laugh. What a guy. At least he gave you some good advice, though. I hear up is the way to go.
All true. Boars are the bears of the jungle. But unlike bears, they can’t climb.
Mean bastards.
We really shouldn’t say these things online… if a boar reads this he’ll go get climbing lessons and then we’re screwed.
I’m safe in the upper midwest! We have no boars. They’re your problem, man. We have really aggressive mosquitoes and turtles, but I think that’s a different angry animal union.
You could probably escape a turtle by climbing a tree. Mosquitoes are evil, though. Evil!
Poorly written. Who decides to publish this stuff?
Here’s an example.
The taxi driver seemed pretty enthused by the idea of dragging the beast off the road. I found that a little disturbing, but he genuinely did seem to grin with pleasure when I mimed the dragging action.
So, we’ve got a driver “pretty” enthused, something a “little” disturbing and someone who “did seem” to grin with pleasure. That’s some weak language. Not to mention that there’s no need to tell us he grinned “with pleasure” anyway, whether or not he seemed to. The grin says it all.
Good luck teaching the kids.
Josh
would you like me to check with the maitre ‘d and see if I can get you a refund?
In my own writing, I look back at pages long locked down in the chase, and see all these scattered gems of sheer absolute brilliance. Unfortunately, they’re leaded with large bricks of adobe…dung and straw, baked too long in the sun .
The only thing that keeps me going is the sense that other writers struggle also to replace those adobe bricks with more gems, as I constantly do…and the conceit that the ratio of gemstone to adobe is gradually improving.
As such, I may suggest, Josh, that you read for the gems instead?
Cool it, Shakespeare.
This isn’t a workshop.
Your lack of subtlety is a far lazier than an instance of “pretty.” Don’t be a boor.
He could get advice like yours from an undergraduate class. Man up.
Agree. Completely.
while blowing smoke and perfume up someone’s ass isn’t very useful to them, neither is this kind of take-down commentary.
I am all for calling out under-performing text, but one needn’t be spittle-flecked while doing it.
What? No props for the pun?
Completely missed it as I was busy sharpening my tusks to gore him.
Awesome puns.
Josh… get a life!
The style of this piece was conversational. It sounded to me like he was writing in a manner similar to the way he’d speak, which is a pretty common literary tactic. I thought it was effective- like he just got in from the incident and was recounting it over a beer. Far from distracting, I found his style to be entirely engaging.
Yeah, you beat me to that, Joe. Clearly we have all varieties of style here at TNB. And there is nothing wrong with the “overheard in a bar” style. David was just telling a story. It’s a good one. It’s hard to credit that any of Josh’s quibbles spoil the piece, and if anything, its manner of telling just makes it the more engaging.
I agree, guys. It’s perfect for the style in which it was written: blog-like and conversational. “…did seem to”, for example, is a common spoken phrase in Scottish English dialect(s), in which this was told. I would argue that the words under attack above add to the storytelling effect. Kind of like ending a sentence with the preposition “to”. It’s linguistically defensible (rather than prescriptive). Just saying.
David, you keep writing. I will read every damn word of it.
Josh wasn’t paying attention in class when “style” was discussed. His loss.
Thanks for reading, Josh. You seem like a real charmer.
Poor boar… I know they’re dangerous but I hate to think of any animal suffering in that way. I’m glad you weren’t hurt because the situation could have turned nastier than it already was.
Years ago I was travelling with a friend at night, on the outskirts of Sydney. It was very dark – a moonless night – and we hit something with an almighty thud! Shocked by the noise and the fact we had hit something, it took us a few seconds before we got out of the car expecting to find a person. There was nothing there… Did we imagine it? The dent in the front panel confirmed we had indeed hit something, but we couldn’t find anything in the surrounding bushes or on the roadside. Only conclusion we could come to, was that it had been a kangaroo and it must have bounced, jumped, or leaped away before we got out of the car.
I think I’d have rather confronted an injured kangaroo than a wild boar though…
Oh, that must have been horrible. I wonder how it was doing after that little bump. I hope it recovered. I’ve heard, though, that when you hit a kangaroo it often does more damage to the vehicle than the vehicle does to the kangaroo.
I’m reminded of the time a high school friend hit a large wild turkey with his Hoopty. I watched from the car as he grabed a knive, trapsed to the woods nearby and put the big bird out of pain Rambo style.
Sorry, I just laughed a bit when you said “Rambo style.” Doing anything “Rambo style” makes it a little cool. I’m glad he did the right thing, though. I struggled to put a mouse out of its misery several years ago when I found one squealing in my parents’ house.
I love this story man, but feel bad that a mighty beast had to perish for it to arise.
I was always stunned by the lack of wildlife in Korea…people there ooh and ahh over a chipmunk as if it’s some rare Amazonian specimen.
I’d like to think I would have been able to drunkenly slay the swine…as you say, Lord of the Flies style…yes…sharpen a stick at both ends…
Haha, just the other day I saw a caged chipmunk and people were “oohing” and “aahing” over it. They really don’t get to see animals much.
I used to feel the same way about Korean wildlife – that it didn’t exist. I went hiking every week for a year and never saw anything bigger than a squirrel. But then I bought my motorcycle and drove off into the middle of nowhere. In the past week I’ve seen two dead wild boar and a venomous snake. A while back I saw a couple of deer, too. It takes a lot of effort because these animals really don’t want to be found. If they are – they’re eaten. No joke.
Up at the DMZ there’s a mini “accidental paradise” where the war-ravaged area is left untouched by people. There are tigers and all sorts of animals there. They live among the landmines and barbed wire. If war breaks out they’re fucked.
I wrote about that once, not sure if you ever read this one:
A Walk in the Woods in The Age of Loneliness
It makes me particularly bummed b/c there were once some mighty beasts roaming that corner of the earth.
Yeah man, I read that one. Very cool, and I liked the photo, too. You take that?
HOOT! David, I riff-giggled at you trying to choke the wild boar! Well writ, that—-and all the rest of this bizarre story.
I always enjoy reading your comments, too, like this goofy ‘ . . . just the other day I saw a caged chipmunk and people were “oohing” and “aahing” over it. They really don’t get to see animals much.’ You do that Scottish (and English) ironic wit thing, its simple understatement that I often miss (as dear Rodent has found out to his sorrow).
I now permanently possess the image of you tryna choke a wild boar. HOOT!
I’m guessing you’re preparing a book with chapters on things that go bump in the night—-mostly on the road, but also in a ghosty house. Fascinating, isn’t it, how stuff that you hear or see at night is way weirder than it would be in the daytime (boar-thuds exempted, natch)?
You got it – I do love the art of understatement. I don’t think I even realised it until you just said it, though.
My life is one long series of weird, crazy adventures. I used to try and write books but now I just pen my stories so that one day I’ll remember them, when I eventually have the time to spend writing something substantial.
Now that you say I’ve placed the image in your mind of my choking a boar, I do wonder what someone might have thought had they actually witnessed the event… Poor bastard would be scarred for life.
Yo, David, is there a comment maximum limit? I’ve begun this one three times, and halfway through, it just zings off into a TNB dustpile. Gone. Fizz. Overactive Comment Robot.
Here’s one more try. Re writing your experiences in order to remember them, excellent idea whether for a book or not. What’s your take on what you find to be your recurring subjects or themes? I’m just realising it in my own writing which I’d thought was wide-ranging in subjects and themes and folks. Turns out, though, that it’s not wide-ranging. And my style, which I’d also thought wide-ranging, is narrow-ranging.
Love your marrying scary-weird with wit, David. Makes me freaked and then laff-comforted throughout your stories. Nice, that.
I believe that following their World Cup exit on Friday, the overly-active Korean netizens used their nation’s powerful internet capabilities to destroy the internet. That’s why you can’t post comments and I struggle to get on Facebook.
My recurring themes? Intoxicants. Recently I’ve begun to play down the role alcohol plays in my life, but it’s always there. I don’t want to sound like Bukowski or Hunter Thompson, so I try and edit that down, but it’s always a factor. That and general weird crazy coincidence. I tend to enjoy writers who write about coincidence – Paul Auster, for one. And Simon Smithson.
I personally think you have an engaging style and I love your stories. And that’s probably worth something… It really does take a lot to get me interested. I have much less time for reading now, and I only read stuff I really dig.
Ah, yes, David. Of course the K-netizens had to blur our World Cup sensibilities.
Now that you mention alcohol as a recurring theme in your writings, yes, of course, but somehow it never feels like a strong element. Maybe I’m missing a subtlety, one of my unfortunate talents. Alcohol explains your weird “take” on experiences, though. Kind of a hallucino-narrative. Now I’m curious to read a piece of yours that was written without alcohol’s influence. Would it have the same weirdness…..and wit…..and nightmare quality?
Wow, David. I am totally gobsmacked and humbled by your response to my writing. It has the wonderful effect of making me shut up! 😉
Don’t laugh at the K-netizens. I seriously pity Uruguay for having the audacity to beat them. Their websites are going to take a terrible hit in the coming days and weeks.
I never write drunk these days. I used to, but I’m a sleepy drunk now. I tend to lose my energy and don’t think about writing. But interesting stuff happens to me after a few drinks. Or at least it puts an interesting perspective on things.
Hmm… Looking back through my TNB archive, I realise that most of my work centres around being drunk, or at least the things I see whilst drunk.
As for the “nightmarish quality”… My mum tells me that when I was a kid I used to say that going shopping with her was “the end of the world” and so on… I think I’ve always had that sort of “we’re doomed!” outlook on life. It’s neither better nor worse since coming to Korea.
David, absolutely the word is don’t mess with K’ers—-they’re all K-netizens with awesome powers. But, hey, what about NK? Have they ramped down their SK threats bcuz they’re busy watching the World Cup?
I think your view of shopping with your Mom is perfectly correct. Egad! Who wants to shop with a Mom, or any woman, for that matter? YAK! When my kid was 3 he willfully wandered out of the little changing room where I was trying on the 18th dress. I ran after him, at last finding him heading down the escalator towards the toy department.
Re your worldview from birth, it resembles dear Rodent’s view—-and I think it’s kind of a man thing. Men have to clean up the nasty world messes that their male forebears have created, and they have to do it bcuz they usually are trying to support a wife and kids for a few years, so they do anything they can to get money. Bottom line is that males may have a less than bright view of the world, politics, and humankind. I enjoy the “jaded view” outlook if it’s offered with some droll humour, even though I don’t actually feel the jaded view. Dear Rodent says that pessimists—-more often than optimists—-have smiles on their faces bcuz they’re more often surprised by positive outcomes.
I’ve always denied the charge of being a pessimist with the old pessimist war cry: “I’m a realist!” The fact is, I tend to be optimistic about the future, negative about the present, and always view the past with rosy glasses. I think more than anything I like the way pessimists talk, from a purely poetic point of view. I’m always attracted to damning put-downs and harsh words. I think it take a fine grasp of the language to do that without simply sounding like an asshole.
The N. Koreans seem to have come back to politics now that their foray into football has died off. They actually showed the 7-0 defeat on live TV… Bad choice. Now they’re talking about boosting their nuclear arms and whatnot. But it’s all rhetoric, I think. The real danger was weeks ago when tensions were at an all time high. Now they’re just back to normal bullshit.
And yes, I still act like a child when anyone tries to make me go shopping. I really don’t know why, but it drives me crazy. I have patience, but not enough. I’ll never understand the fun that comes from trying on a million dresses. I literally buy the first thing I see, then buy another, different, one if it doesn’t fit.
“I tend to be optimistic about the future, negative about the present, and always view the past with rosy glasses”—–can’t get my heid around that, David, but it sounds attractive.
Glad the NK scare’s back to bullshit.
Re the World Cup, can’t they just award every participating team/nation a big fat gold cup for showing up, kinda like some schools do? And, of course, appropriate awards for nice outfits and clean hands and fingernails?
That whole trying on clothes thing. I do yearn for the practicality of buying something and then returning it if it doesn’t fit, but since 99% of the stuff I like looks horrid on me……well, you do the math.
If they gave medals or cups to every single team, then how would Scottish people celebrate? All we have is the glory that comes with watching England fail. Don’t take that away from us!
And yes, it would be nice if there could be a happy medium with shopping. I don’t mind walking about… but I just can’t take the standing around that inevitably comes with it. If we could combine shopping, with, say, paintball, I’d be happy. It’s the lack of action that gets me. If I want to do absolutely nothing, I’ll do it at home or on a beach or in a forest or something. Not while lots of people are milling around me.
” . . . how would Scottish people celebrate? All we have is the glory that comes with watching England fail. Don’t take that away from us!”—–quite right, David. What was I thinking.
I’m still tryna suss the differences between Scots and English folk. It’s fun and tricky bcuz actually *understanding* them becomes difficult as I listen to native Darlington speakers and transplants from Scotland. I didn’t need a translator back in the east midlands, but venturing north makes the phonological compass go haywire.
Scots either look like (and prolly sound like) you and Rodent, or else they favour my old ginger boyfriend from the States. Re the English, the males get #1 haircuts and look like rugby beasts.
I am rather more impressed by the Scottish uni system which apparently the USAmerican one is fashioned after (a thorough mix of fields vs early specialising).
And it looks like Scottish kings were even weirder than English royalty, plus Scots routinely assassinated their kingfolk, whereas the English had to be slightly more civil. Dunno why, really.
Scots are usually pretty tall, and there are a lot of gingers. I was always the shortest of my friends… but now I’m in Korea I’m actually the tallest in most rooms. Strange.
The language can be a bit challenging. I pretty much speak without an accent now. I meet Scots and they ask where I’m from. I say Scotland and they roll their eyes the way I did when every person in California thought they’d claim to be from Scotland because their great-great-great-great grandfather “owned a castle.” Yeah…
But now I struggle a little with the words. My mum sent over a teatowel emblazoned with various obscure Scots words. I honestly struggled to pronounce some of them…
The Scottish uni system is pretty good, although they let people like me sneak through, so they should probably tighten it up a bit. The key is to let Scots study for free, and charge the English a fortune to cover the difference.
Definitely the English should be charged for Scots’ education. Prob, though, as we’ve witnessed recently, is that the English have decided to quit letting Scots run England (Gordo, Blair). I had thought that football and cricket would be enough for the English, now that they’ve illegalised fox-hunting. But, no, they need to try English leadership, even preferring a mad-twinning of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. David Cameron got the multi-nod prolly bcuz he looks like Goethe. That old reverence for the George kings, no doubt.
I wish I could say that we Scots did a guid job of leading England for the past decade… but… well… There you go. We could chalk it up to subterfuge. Good luck to them with the English duo. That’s not going to end any better, I’m sure.
Re your being amongst the tallest in Korea, David, in Taiwan I felt like a female Sun MingMing, though I’m averagely short at 5 foot 3 inches, in the USA.
And re the new English leaders, I totally agree with you.
I did…from my days in Suwon.
I only went to Suwon to see Everland. They have a liger…
I once finished off a bird because it was full of maggots and suffering. I drowned it. It was awful and I’ll never do that again. It thrashed like you wouldn’t believe. Finishing off that boar would have been harder than it looked, I’ll bet.
How do things like this happen to you? Hey…did it have a clown glove on one hand?
“full of maggots and suffering” Wow. That is truly Biblical grade zeugma. Props! 🙂 I may have to steal it for a poem or somat, if you don’t get to it first 😉
Only if I can steal “Biblical grade zeugma”!
Deal!
>>I once finished off a bird because it was full of maggots and suffering.<<
When I saw this comment on the main page, I thought “finished off” meant “ate.” While my heart goes out to the wee bird, I’m relieved that my initial interpretation was way off.
You haven’t experienced life until you’ve tasted a larva-filled bird. Mm-mm. Maggots.
take my advice and don’t try it. You’ll be coughing up feathers for a week. People look at you very funny on the subway when you do that.
Mouth-watering… As though you’d eat it any other way.
OK, Joe, we’re wave-lengthly together on this issue of Erika Rae eating the bird. From now on, please check with me before you post comments so I don’t look like an idiot repeating yours. And give me a hint as to how I can catch up on 430 TNB posts before tomorrow. Your latest one’s on my Read Right Now list. I love to laugh, and you always manage to get guffaws outa me. Might be that unruly, unleashed legal mind of yours.
You drowned it? Wow. I guess that’s a decent way to do it. I always thought a suffering bird needed its neck snapped.
Things like this happen to me for reasons I’ll never understand. I’m a magnet for weird shit.
But no clown gloves. Sorry.
Drowning that bird was cowardly. Snapping its neck would have been the decent thing to do, but it was too direct…too hands on. Drowning it gave me a buffer – something else (water) to do the dirty work for me. An extra layer of insulation from the matter at hand. I am deeply ashamed I chose that route.
On the other hand, at least I “washed” that maggot bird before I ate it.
At least you killed it. Better than letting it suffer.
Dude. You have no idea how bad it was. There were so many maggots, that the sheer mass of them were moving its wings in a kind of feeding frenzy constant tremor. OK. Enough. I am going to throw up now.
You know what time it is in Korea? Lunchtime. Yeah…
But seriously, that is awful. I can’t believe it was that bad. Nature is a cruel bitch.
OMG, Erika Rae, at first I thought you meant you ATE it!
Thank god the beast was no longer there. It’s the perfect conclusion in that it tells us so much about ourselves, where each of us imagine it going. What kind of person are you if you thought heaven? Or bacon? Ghost-tusk? Recovered? Summarily eaten by python? Since I assumed it reared up on two legs, shambled into the nearest town, and immediately landed the Marlon Brando role in the community theater production of On The Waterfront, you can only imagine who that makes me.
Hey, I thought for sure at first this was a review of one of my favorite sci-fi books ever, “Tiger! Tiger!” by Alfred Bester. At least it was great when I was 13. Maybe it’s awful now. And, of course, I had no idea if he intended the nod to Blake or not. Good stuff.
Haha, I’d laughed hard at the image of a boar shuffling away to pursue its acting career. I personally think that it took a job as a taxi driver and spends its time running down people as a form of brutal revenge.
I’ve never read that sci-fi book. It’s a great name, though.
Sean, wow. That Bester book was an all-time favorite of my teen years too. I haven’t looked at it since I was in my thirties, I think, but it read well enough then. I might even have it around, out in the barn. After England vs Germany I’ll go look, and if I find it I’ll report whether it still reads well or not.
“Always a good day somewhere, Sir.”
It went through a title change somewhere along the way, but I can’t remember whether the first title was “The Stars My Destination,” or whether that was the second title. And I’m too lazy to google it.
I think he did mean to nod Blake’s way, though.
Continuing to hijack David’s comment thread….
From Wikipedia:
“The Stars My Destination (1956)
Bester’s next novel was outlined while he was living in England and mostly written when he was living in Rome. The Stars My Destination (aka Tiger, Tiger) had its origins in a newspaper clipping that Bester found about Poon Lim, a shipwrecked World War II sailor on a raft, who had drifted unrescued in the Pacific for a world record 133 days because passing ships thought he was a lure to bring them within torpedo range of a hidden submarine. From that germ grew the story of Gully Foyle, seeking revenge for his abandonment and causing havoc all about him: a science fiction re-telling of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo with teleportation added to the mix. It has been described as an ancestor of cyberpunk.
As had occurred with The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination was originally serialized in Galaxy. It ran in four parts (October 1956 through January 1957) and the book was published later in 1957. Though repeatedly voted in polls the “Best Science Fiction Novel of All Time’, The Stars My Destination would prove to be Bester’s last novel for 19 years. A radio adaptation was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1991.”
Yes! Repeatedly voted “Best Science Fiction Novel of All Time,” and perhaps an ancestor of cyberpunk. Those are serious credentials. No wonder it stuck with us, Sean.
I hope it’s really out in the barn.
Nice work on the research, Don. Gully Foyle! By all means find that old copy and let me know how it is. I might have to secure my own now. Too random a meme not to follow up on. Best ever? Wow, I’ve never heard anything even remotely close to that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard Tiger! Tiger! mentioned, ever, by anyone, in any context. Very strange. I can see the cyberpunk origins/Gibson link, though.
Found it!
Found it and read it. Damn, it’s a terrific story. No wonder it stuck with me for more than half a century.
Now, having looked up the synopsis on Wikipedia, I must read it!
wow, this is so crazy. the most people hit in NJ are deer, which are pretty big but far less exciting than wild boar.
oops, i said “pretty big.” i guess i’m a poor writer too.
it’s called narrative voice, josh. look it up. and of course you don’t have a link to show anything for yourself.
I’ve seen a couple of cars that have run into deer… They really were a mess afterward. Anything of that size or weight tends to make the front of the vehicle crumple, which is pretty scary.
I’m surprised you didn’t drag it to a local market and try to sell it per pound. Could have made a few bucks of that sucker.
Yes, I really was slow on the uptake. This was my first foray into the realm of dispatching edible animals.
Sorry I’m so late.
Been away being chased by anarchists wearing baklavas and watching the Mounties ride after the window-smashers and the car burners.
Got guests too, now, and then we’re off again!
I will NEVER catch up!
let this be a lesson to you, never, ever leave your best spear at home.
Oh god, it sounds like you’ve been having quite the Canadian adventure. It seems like you guys are always travelling.
And yes, I’ll never again leave home without a trusty spear.
And I’m getting back to comments (for now – much chaos on my horizon) just in time to read about your adventures. I have seen many strange and unbelievable things in my time, Irene, but the mental image I have of excessively polite but stern men in red serge riding down on hordes of Greek-pastry-wearing anarchists eclipses them all. I hope you took pictures.
“Anarchists wearing baklavas…”
Now, that’s a completely refreshing thing to hear. My grandma always said that you will catch more flies with honey, than with vinegar.
I once beheaded a mouse that I couldn’t extricate from a glue trap – horrible things, those. I cannot imagine trying to do the same for a boar (although your reference to it being a lot of meat… hmm… lunch isn’t for about another two hours, dammit).
Really liked, “This was no unnatural terror of the night; it was a mere pig lost in the middle of the road.” Funny how often that is true of the things we fear or revere.
Exactly. Our minds paint situations in ways that are often without much logic. Fact is, if we take the time to consider, the beast is all too often a mere pig in the road.
And yeah, I used to get stuck with the mousetraps when I went home. My mum and my brothers couldn’t handle it… They are nasty little things. They always splat the brains everywhere, and often leave the mouse squirming about for hours.
It is a kind of mind warp though…
as a reward for being randomly chosen by the universe to be the instrument of death for some hapless creature, and in your blind-sided state performing the deed poorly…
…you then have to “do it the favor” of re-attempting the task, this time more efficiently.
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“It didn’t look so monstrous lying there.”
Oh, man. I’m so glad I’ve never really had to mercy kill anything. Except Aslan, that one time.
And believe me, he struggled.
Probably best to be drunk, you know?
Absolutely. A mercy kill should always be made whilst intoxicated.
So thats what you sound like? Nothing like what I expected. Accent is all over the place? Thought you were Scottish. 😉
Aye, laddie. That’s mah voice.
[…] where I constantly feared being shot, and in Korea where there always lingered the threat of war, wild boar, and the world’s most aggressive […]