“C ongratulations,” the Pillar says. “You can brag now that you went to war.”
“Why isn’t it hurting?” I stare at my bleeding arm.
“It’s just a scratch.” He is smiling broadly. “You’re not really hit. Let’s see if there is music in this car. Take the wheel.”
I take the wheel with my right hand because I can’t move my left arm.
Then Pink Floyd plays on the radio. Comfortably Numb is the song.
The Pillar tucks the cigar back into his mouth and continues driving like a tourist on safari watching the wildlife. I’m stunned at his ability to avoid bullets and missiles.
All until a tank bangs into our Jeep from the side.
As the Jeep rolls over, half of it under the tank already, I realize how much I’m drugged now. I need that coconut.
The world upside down doesn’t look much different from the normal world. Or maybe that’s how all fields of war look.
I lie on my back, listening to men jumping out of their Jeeps. They pull me up, grab me by my hands, never mind my achy, screaming left arm, and pull me toward their leader. The Pillar is pulled next to me.
We stop at one point and are ordered to raise our injured heads to stare at their leader.
I see a well-built man with a long scar on his right cheek sitting on top of the tank. He is overly sunburned. And of all things, he has his legs crossed, and he is smoking a hookah atop of a mushroom in the middle of this war.
“What is a girl like you doing here in Mushroomland?” he says in a most foreign accent.
“I—” My eyelids droop as I am trying to stay awake. “I’m looking for the Executioner.”
The man stops smoking. “Is that so?” He rubs his chin. “And why would you be looking for him?”
“I need his coconut drink to survive the Mushroom Trail.” I can’t believe we’re talking with all this mess of killing still going on all around us.
“You walked the Mushroom Trail?” He doesn’t laugh or show emotion. I’ve rarely met a man I am so afraid of. He’s exuding a vague sinister personality I haven’t seen before.
“It’s a long story,” I say. “Please lead me too the Executioner.”
“You know what they say about the Executioner?” He pulls out a Magnum .45, loads it, and then points it at me. “That you can meet him only once. You know why?”
I start to realize I am talking to the Executioner himself.
“Because you only look at me once, and then you have to die.” The Executioner aims his pistol at me with a smirk on his face. This time I think it’s real.
“Wait.” The Pillar wakes up from his fall. “Don’t shoot the girl. It’s me.”
The Executioner slowly turns his head. The Pillar is covered in dust, so it makes sense not to recognize him right away. But why would he recognize the Pillar in the first place? I am confused.
“Carter Chrysalis Cocoon Pillar!” The Executioner squints at the professor. “Is that you?”
“In the flesh.” The Pillar tucks what’s left of his cigar in his mouth.
I am baffled. I’m Alice’s all lost and delirious thoughts mixed in a bag of mushrooms and M&M’s.
The Executioner gets off his mushroom and stares at the Pillar with wonder. It might be my mistake, but the look in his eyes is that of a man fascinated with the Pillar. “Is that really you, Pillardo?”
Pillardo?
The Pillar mumbles something in Columbian, and the two men embrace like old friends.
“You know him?” Sorry, but I have to ask. I mean, what the mushy mushrooms is going on?
“Know him?” The Executioner raises an eyebrow. “Who doesn’t know Senor Pillardo, the most legendary drug lord of all time?”