Parkly

Once upon a summer day

The lands of the north are famous not only for beautiful landscapes, lush forests and breathtaking views, but also the cold. Out of the twelve months that we call a year, eleven are spent either experiencing winter or in anticipation of it. That one month, though. During that one month the gods of skies bless the meager people with warmth. As you, dear reader, could guess. People go somewhat crazy when these precious few days of heat are upon them. Our story today takes place on one such day. An ordinary Wednesday in a city park.

Bright.

Was the first thought, that came into Johannes’ mind.

Why is it bright?

He had to put all his energy into cracking his eyes open. Blinking, he slowly managed to get a full view of his surroundings.

A park. There’s the wood patch and the pond is right behind it. Why am I here? What is that noise? Holy hellfire my neck hurts!

With the grace of an injured sloth he got on all fours. After the first few attempts at standing he succumbed and started crawling.

Circling around the tree against which he had just awoken, a table came to view. Lounging about it were, what appeared to be, more or less inebriated group of people. Someone had brought a huge speaker with wheels on it, which was loudly blasting music. Johannes focused on two people in particular. Pasca and Late were deep in a heated discussion with three guys. Straining his ears, he attempted to listen in on the topic. Most was inaudible, but “Perkele” and “Saatana” with a few “Vittu” mixed in was all he was able to make out.

Johannes leaned against the tree to gain some purchase. Few deep breaths and a herculean effort was made. With all his might, he pushed. Beads of sweat began to run down his face. It paid off. Now he was standing up right. He started off towards the group with baby steps.

He was able to observe the situation more clearly as he got closer. Pasca was full on arguing with the three men. Late seemed a mix of boredom and enjoyment. Clearly he hadn’t made up his mind whether the discussion was the oratory equivalent of a Super Bowl or just an utter waste of air. Late turned his head towards Johannes and looked at him long and hard.

“Beer?” Late eventually said as Johannes stopped right behind them.

“Hell yes,” Johannes replied and grabbed a warm can of local malt beverage from him. He downed half of it on first gulp.

“Well?” Late inquired further reaching towards the case hidden under his seat.

“Yes,” Johannes said, drained he rest of the can, threw it away and took a new one. He sat down on the ground, noticed an almost empty liqueur bottle and let out an audible sigh. Pasca noticed this and turned his head towards Johannes.

“Look who decided to wake up,” he said with a grin. “Coffee?”

Johannes nodded curtly, Pasca took a small plastic pouch from his pocket and discreetly handed it over.

“You slept like three hours,” he continued without pause.

“You missed the hamster guy,” Late cut in.

Johannes looked at him with an inquisitive face, “The what?”

“You tell him,” Late said nodding to Pasca.

As if filled with vigor Pasca straightened in his chair, completely dropping the previous conversation he had with the strangers and turned slightly towards Johannes. “This hippie looking dude just appeared out of nowhere. M**********r just had a leather vest, no shirt, very faded jeans, cowboy boots and the biggest f*****g stetson you’ve ever seen.”

Johannes raised an eyebrow as he poured some of the white powder from the baggie on the top of his hand. “Was he a biker or something,” he asked.

“F**k no,” Pasca answered, “More like a superhero inside his personal world. I guess he hadn’t seen a sober morning in a year.”

“More like decade or some s**t,” Late said.

“F*****g junkie that guy,” Pasca continued, “I couldn’t understand half of what the melon jaw was saying. Cool dude, just fucked up five ways from Sunday.”

Johannes blocked one nostril, sniffed up the powder on his hand and threw his head back. First a slight burn right at the nose, a rush and a peculiar feeling of energy. “Thanks,” he said as he handed the baggie back to Pasca who flashed it to Late with a quizzical look. Late shook his head, not saying a word. Pasca proceeded to fix a line for himself. Johannes was licking the back of his hand to save every precious crystalline rock.

“Anyway, where was I,” Pasca asked.

“Hippie, fucked up and a hamster,” said Johannes.

“Oh yeah, yeah. So he sat down right there,” Pasca motioned to his side with his head. “Constant stream of nonsense. That m**********r just did not shut the f**k up. He also kept fiddling something in his vest pocket, picking something and placing it in his chest pocket. We wondered what the hell is this guys problem? Like seriously.”

Pasca sniffed his line and proceeded to suck the back of his hand.

“He had a lump on his chest,” Late said, “and it was moving. First I thought I was tripping balls and just seeing things.”

“The dude had his hamster with him in his chest pocket. He was constantly feeding it seeds or something,” Pasca continued. “Yeah, there really are some weird people on this Earth.”

Johannes finished his beer, crumbled the can and looked at Late. “Please?”

Without reply, Late reached down and threw him a new one.

“Thanks,” Johannes said, “How much beer do we have left?”

Late made a short check, “Not enough.”

“On the topic of beer,” Pasca said, “Hand me one, will you?”

Author's Note

Challenge: The story must have hamster involved in the middle. A character is greedy throughout most of the story.
Limit: 1000 words
English is not my first language. This is the first time I've tried writing a lot of dialogue. Please let me know how it went.