after olivia escaped from the dictator, she wanted to relax.
she rented a cottage on the outskirts of the wilderness.
she liked to look out the window at the grass.
beyond the grass was the desert, and a few mudholes.
a hippo named the colonel lived in the biggest mudhole.
olivia was warned never to disturb or approach he colonel.
because he was the fiercest beast in the southern hemisphere.
olivia spent a week reading the memoirs of empress josephine.
inevitably, she grew bored and sauntered down to the mudhole.
the colonel was sitting there, with a supremely indifferent air.
a little boy wearing a fedora sat on his back.
he was the last descendant of a tribe of vikings.
who had terrorized the countryside in king herod’s time.
olivia offered the boy one of her hand rolled cheroots.
and a light, which he accepted with casually mperial politesse.
they smoked for a while in silence under the clouds.
do you come here often? olivia finally asked the boy.
only every sixth day after the full moon, he replied.
if you do not mind my asking, olivia began tentatively -
oh, you may ask me anything at all you like.
they covers a great deal of territory, does it not?
territory is what we have a great deal of here.
you seem something of a sage for one so young.
there is no youth or age here in the mudhole.
is this beast actually as ferocious as he is reputed?
why do you not pat his nose and find out?
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