Laura's Dream

However, the Hare Krishnas’ taut nerves picked up his derogatory comment. Their tolerance was already stretched to the limit; their pacifism had been used up. Their nerves were so finely tuned that they could have picked up even an ant’s whisper. Therefore, upon hearing this insolent comment, all four picked up their heads. "Why don't you just go to hell, you asshole?” said the tall Hindu boy. “What's your problem, dude?” the bald guy growled as he turned back, and facing the boy he made a threatening step. The sobbing girl, who was the most emotional among them, swiped up her bag, which lay right in front of her, and impetuously hit the man on the back of his head. “Fuck you,” she shouted, but then afraid of retaliation, retreated briskly. The man’s bald head fell forward slightly from the unexpected force. Then his hefty body tensed up like a drawn bow and he spun toward her. The girl, in response, took a few more retreating steps. The bald man puffed up his body. Snarling, his eyes flashing, he strode toward his retreating assailant. He must have been a wrestler, a boxer, or something like that, for as soon he got into target range, without hesitation he competently launched his furious right fist forward. Fate, however, sometimes matches up skilled warriors in unusual situations. The girl, judging from her adroit retreat, must have been in similar situations before this ominous tangle. Seeing his large hammer hurtling toward her, she ducked nimbly, letting that bony mallet rush over her head, and with a practiced spin she got behind the bulky man. His fist missing its target, it flew unfettered toward the onlookers. Now right in the trajectory of the wrestler’s sledgehammer was a spectator who had just put his nose up front through two of his friends’ shoulders. Unfortunately for him, the wrestler’s huge fist, propelled by its inertia, crashed into his well-shaped nose. Breaking and tearing everything in its way, it rendered that unfortunate man unconscious, and he fell. His friends leaned over him and checked to see if there remained any life in that ill-timed snoop. Luckily, he survived and came to after a few minutes of undisturbed sleep. Massaging his nape, hesitantly he sat up. Dazed, he wiped his bloody nose with a wide swipe while he grumbled some curse to destiny. “Why must this happen to me, and why now, when I just had an expensive nose job. Damn it, there goes my medical insurance money,” he cried with a nasal twang, as his nose blew a red bubble. “Five thousand dollars, oh my God, five thousand dollars.” With trembling fingers, he gently tapped his crooked nose. Finally he stood up and showed himself to a young friend, who grinned at him unrestrained. “What do you think, is it all right?” He pointed to his lacerated nose, which was strangely curved to the right. “Don’t worry about it. Nature will repair it,” the friend smiled derisively. “Now you’ve done it,” lamented the fat Hindu boy. “Shut the fuck up, it’s your fault,” the bald ruffian yelled back in his bass voice and kicked at the boy’s drum. It banged and flew in a wide arc over the surrounding idlers. Losing altitude, it crashed into the throng, hopping off the heads of the densely packed spectators. Then it began a rolling dance, banging, thumping, and puffing with various sounds before a shaggy hobo caught it in his hands. “Look at me, I’m Michael Jackson,” he shouted and earnestly began to pummel his new toy’s artificial skin with his filthy fingers. In the meantime, the argument between the ruffian and the pious brothers continued. “You don’t have the right to do that,” mouthed the taller Hindu girl. “Fucking jerk,” said the other Hindu boy when he’d certified that their drum was a loss. “Take your shitty religion somewhere else,” responded the tough guy less indulgently. However, those were the last intelligible words he produced that night, for the two Hindu boys couldn’t hold back their pent-up anger and frustration, and like a pair of hunting dogs alerted by their master’s whistle, jumped on him. They hung on him like wolves on a stag fighting for their last meal. They scratched and clawed and bit and kicked him. The big fellow, in pure self-defense, blindly began to distribute mighty blows all around, of which a certain share fell upon the pious comrades, but most of them landed on sluggish bystanders who didn't jump or duck fast enough. He twirled and shook his body desperately to repel his uninvited ticks. But all his activities were ineffective, for high spirits and ingenuity didn’t abandon the pious assembly, and again and again they attacked him. The Hindu nuns, seeing their mates getting the upper hand on the party pooper, faithfully rushed to assist. While the two Hindu monks pummeled his face and clawed his eyes, their female compatriots meticulously began to work on his groin and kidneys. They pounded him with high spirits and intrepidity, as if he were a mortal enemy. It’s amazing to see how a mighty water buffalo is hunted down by a team of hungry lionesses who are well accustomed to each other. Teamwork surely is the best invention of the inferior, for the huge, man was finally brought down by the holy alliance’s coordinated effort, like a tireless lumberjack who fell the mighty oak through his ceaseless and well-aimed chop-chop. They wrestled the chap to the ground: he the giant Pharisee. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” snickered the tall girl. The beefy lout, realizing his lost superiority, rolled himself into a ball. Yet the Hindus spiritedly continued their battering of the fallen agnostic. And he, by now having lost all of his self-confidence, and self-esteem, shrieked shamelessly like a girl. Yet the bald-headed monks with six white dots on their heads optimistically did their hiding. How his deep, masculine voice altered into that girlish squeal was another strange matter that only a laryngologist could have accounted for, but he screamed with a high pitch at the top of his lungs. At that moment, as though on cue, or as if on the mark of a conductor, like a wakening earthquake, the street began to rumble and the domesticated multitude set off to clash too. It started with a small gathering of teenagers. Watching the monks trounce the large tyrant seemed to unbolt their appetite for a brawl. First they capriciously began to harass the people around them. “I spit on your religion,” said a fat punk with a deep voice. And he spat on a spectator who was seemingly praying for the departed peace to return. “I spit on your fashion,” said another hooligan, and spat on the shoe of a stylish bystander. These timid people didn’t retaliate, so the rest of the kids seemed to think this would be good, safe entertainment for them also, and they began to spit on bystanders too. The ladies shrieked in horror at this new novelty, while the men received this disgusting game with timorous indignation. A nearby community of vagrants intently watched the kids’ unique invention. When they saw that there was no retaliation for their insults, they joined the game, perhaps with the unspoken philosophy that this way they could take back some stolen dignity from the selfish society that had abandoned and neglected them. So they too began to distribute some fat, sticky spittle that may have contained some unmentionable ingredients. “I spit on your elegance,” slurred a tattered man to a well-dressed woman. Then he hacked and sprayed his thick saliva all over her frilly blouse. The resulting tan splotch produced an unpleasant, abstract illustration on her pristine bodice. “Oh my God,” shrieked the woman, and in her astonishment she gave such a cuff to the giggling hobo that his toothless, elastic lips pursed and twisted to one side of his face, instantly releasing the remaining sludge from his mouth. His saliva, mixed with chewing tobacco, some of his own blood, and perhaps a lonesome tooth of his, spattered onto a nearby lady's well-formed