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have any water?”
    â€œThe water’s cut off. It’ll come back soon. I have some marijuana.”
    â€œMarijuana? Are you with the government or the opposition?”
    â€œI’m with your mother’s cunt.”
    â€œPlease! Is the place safe?”
    He lit a joint and offered it to me. I took a drag and examined him. He looked suspicious. He smoked the rest of the joint and tuned a radio beside him to a station that was playing a song in a strange language. It sounded like some African religious beat.
    â€œAre you foreign?”
    â€œCan’t you tell by my accent? I’m speaking your language, man! But you can’t speak my language, because I was in the hole before you. But you’ll speak the language of the next person who falls in.”
    â€œAh, man. I hate the way you talk.”
    He looked away, leaned his tortoise-like neck forward, and lit another candle. I could see the place more clearly now. There was a dead body. I examined it in the candlelight, a bitter taste in my mouth. It was the body of a soldier, and there was an old rifle nearby. His legs were lacerated, possibly by some sharp piece of shrapnel. He looked like a soldier from ancient times.
    â€œIt’s true, it’s a Russian soldier.”
    He’d read my thoughts, and on his face there was an artificial smile.
    â€œAnd what was he doing in our country? Was he working at the embassy?”
    â€œHe fell in the forest during the winter war between Russia and Finland.”
    â€œYou really are mad.”
    â€œListen, I don’t have time for the likes of you. I wanted to be polite with you, but now you’re starting to get on my nerves. I’m in a shitty mood today.”
    I began to examine the hole. It was like a well. Its walls were of damp mud, but the pores in the mud gave off a sharp, acrid smell. Maybe the smell of flowers! I lifted up the candle to try to see how deep the hole was. At the mouth, the lights in the park were visible.
    â€œDo you believe in God?” he asked me in his disgusting voice.
    â€œWe’re always in his care. Pray to him, man, to spare us the disasters of life.”
    He rounded his hands into the shape of a megaphone and started to shout hysterically, “O Lord of Miracles, Almighty One, Omniscient One, God, Great One, send down a giraffe or a monkey as long as it’s a hundred eighty centimeters tall! Make something other than a human fall in the hole! Make a dry tree fall in the hole! Throw us four snakes so we can make a rope out of them!”
    As if the craziness of this tortoise-like old man was what I needed! I humored him with his sarcastic prayer and said that if another man fell down the hole it would be easy to get out of it, because it wasn’t deep.
    â€œYou’re right, and here’s a third man!” he said, pointing at the Russian soldier.
    â€œBut he’s dead.”
    â€œDead here, but not in another hole.”
    The old man suddenly pulled out a knife. I watched him warily, in case he attacked me. He crawled on his knees toward the body of the soldier and started cutting out chunks of flesh and eating them. He paid no attention to me, as if I didn’t exist.
    2
    That night I had picked up my revolver before heading out to the shop. I’d closed the place down months before, when the killing and looting started to spread across the capital. I would drop by the shop now and then when it was hard to get food or water from any of the shops near our house. The economy had quickly collapsed, and things had grown even worse due to the strikes. There were signs of an uprising, and chaos spread in the wake of the government’s resignation. The first protests began in the capital, and within a few days panic and violence swept the country. Bands of people occupied all the government buildings. They formed interim committees and attempted to govern. However, things suddenly turned sour again. People said that it