Viktor Korobko - The Story of Life … and Not Just That

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MY FRIEND FROM BOMBAY

“There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.”

(Francis Drake)

One

Morning seeks us out. Through the curtains at the windows and our closed eyelids, it taps into our consciousness, awakening it from its slumber, charging the blood with the timeless call to “Go forth and multiply!” And it is precisely that – not the need to get up for work or go to the toilet – which rouses us from our dreams. Why? It’s hard to explain. Nature is just arranged that way; the species must survive and replenish its ranks. Some trees are for firewood, others are for growth. It has always been so, and I am sure that waking up to the world each day we discover it anew, pushing us to find someone in order to fulfil this prime objective of nature. But thanks to all the complexes we have burdened ourselves with (“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,” “career comes first” etc.), along with the distractions of football and boxing on TV, boozing, shopping and so on, the majority of civilised people can go through the day without doing the most important thing. And that is how civilisations perish – they become too…how can I put it…focused on aesthetics. On something shiny, perhaps even dazzling, and apparently much-needed – and meanwhile life presents an opportunity to the nomads and the Vandals, and they seize it.

And there you have it – the sacking of Rome.

How did I come to this conclusion? One summer, after a heavy night out, I fell asleep on a park bench. I was woken in the morning because my penis had filled with blood and was looking for satisfaction in the name of perpetuating the species – but I was totally unaware of my natural biological mission and thought it was just a call to relieve myself. I found a suitable tree, overgrown with rampant shrubbery, and, entering these refined beginnings of a wild forest, undid my flies, took out my “semiconductor”, which was hot and full of desire, and spurted through it.

Some believe that because of this natural law, people who were sentenced to death on the gallows in times gone by would ejaculate at the moment of hanging. You see, for a brief time, just nanoseconds, their cervical vertebrae were still supporting the whole body, fighting for the life of the whole… before succumbing – irrevocably – to the law of gravity. But in those moments, realising that the body was on the verge of extinction, the brain signalled to its reproductive organs, and the penis shot out its sperm in a last attempt to impregnate at least something!

Apparently, it was believed that where such drops of sperm fell, a mandrake would grow, and the root of this plant would bring its owners luck in any type of shady business – not to mention passion in the bedroom – if they carried it around with them and never parted with it!

Once again, the drive for reproduction gives rise to legends. Can you imagine the Rockefellers or the Rothschilds dragging a root around with them… or King Solomon?!

Anyway, just as the flow began to slacken, and my cock stopped burning with the desire for sex, my eyes fell on a scrap of newspaper from which a lad was staring out at me. A little boy. The spitting image of myself as a child. He was just slightly darker than me – not African, more Indian – bright eyes, brimming with natural intelligence, and with my features exactly, right down to the mole on his cheek! I tucked my penis away and picked up the scrap of newspaper. It was an article about kids who live on their own in the slums of Mumbai, doing whatever they can to survive, while nearby, relatively close, Indian billionaires play golf and spend millions on flashy weddings for their children. In general terms, the newspaper was trying to highlight the contrast to the reader. Contrasts always draw attention, and attention takes up time – and time is money, as the well-known saying goes. And you know why? Because while you are reading all sorts of drivel about contrasts, others are earning money, and it is highly likely that this is money you could have been making yourself if you had been concentrating on survival – but you, your thoughts were filled with emotions, you were visualising the contrast in a country you know next to nothing about… you gave away (voluntarily, mind) your time and the opportunity to earn during this time, to someone else – well, for example, the owner of that newspaper – not to mention the money you invested in that piece of paper!

Unable to tear my eyes away from the photograph of that boy, that’s when I came to this conclusion about our natural mission. Thoughts move rapidly, as everyone knows, and I remember my train of thoughts was as follows (if in broad terms I try to detail the main stages of the route):