Chapter 10 — Tribute
And thus begins Chapter Ten.
Now, children.
The descent began.
And naturally,
it began exactly how the ascent had begun.
Joint.
Smoke.
Pass.
Car to bike.
Bike to car.
The council sighs.
The ancient mobile exchange program had resumed.
Children.
Somewhere between Kodaikanal and home,
we had apparently developed an entire logistics network based on two moving vehicles and absolutely no concern for how ridiculous we looked.
Carlos rolled onward.
The Duke kept pace.
Hands appeared through windows.
Joints transferred.
Smoke moved.
Road continued.
And for a while,
everything was easy.
Too easy.
The council becomes suspicious.
Because eventually
the border.
The council grows quiet.
Children.
This was the part we had been lucky with on the way in.
State border.
Police.
Checking.
Rules.
Consequences.
All the things Old Nuo preferred existing abstractly.
Coming to Kodaikanal?
No issue.
No inspection.
We slipped through.
The council nods.
Blessed by administrative neglect.
Coming back?
Not so blessed.
Wing and I were in the back.
Doing something profoundly unfortunate at exactly the wrong time.
Crushing pot.
The council freezes.
Children.
Perfect timing.
Absolutely surgical.
We looked ahead.
Saw law enforcement.
And both of us experienced the same realization at once.
Oh.
The council leans forward.
Panic.
Immediate.
No time.
No plan.
No elegant concealment strategy.
We simply
dropped it.
The council pauses.
Dropped what?
All of it.
On the seat.
The council erupts.
CHILDREN.
There it was.
Evidence.
Not hidden.
Not tucked away.
Not accidentally obscure.
On.
The.
Seat.
We stared at it.
Then at the police.
Then back at it.
The council watches the vehicle creep forward.
Too late.
An officer approached.
Looked inside.
His eyes moved.
And children
he saw the seat.
The council falls silent.
We all had the same thought.
Busted.
No ambiguity.
No optimism.
No:
maybe he didn’t notice.
He noticed.
He looked directly toward it.
Then demanded we open the door.
The council collectively panics.
Inside Carlos,
four brains began malfunctioning.
Fear.
Confusion.
Regret.
The whole expedition flashing before us.
The Mushroom Quest.
The villa.
The wrong mountain.
The stars.
The fact that perhaps we should have spent more time learning practical survival skills and less time staring at ants.
The council nods.
Fair.
The door opened.
The officer reached in.
The council leans forward.
And then
children
this absolute legend
swiped the pot away.
The council pauses.
Away?
Away.
With his hand.
Dismissed.
Ignored.
Gone from administrative importance.
The council cannot process this.
He wasn’t interested in it.
No.
His focus moved elsewhere.
Down.
Toward the floor.
The council slowly turns.
Children.
Do you remember?
The bottle.
The half finished catastrophe.
The orange betrayal.
Wing’s great failure.
Chekhov’s Bacardi.
The council gasps.
It had waited.
All this time.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Beneath our feet.
Until finally
its moment.
The officer pointed.
Alcohol.
The council blinks.
Apparently,
transporting it across the border was the problem he actually cared about.
He took the bottle.
Declared it couldn’t be carried through.
And we,
still mentally recovering from the fact that the weed had apparently been downgraded to background scenery,
responded with immense enthusiasm.
“Keep it.”
The council erupts.
PLEASE.
TAKE IT.
Children.
Never in human history has unwanted orange Bacardi been surrendered with such gratitude.
The officer kept the bottle.
Door closed.
And
that was it.
The council pauses.
That’s it?
That’s it.
No grand interrogation.
No disaster.
No tragic end to the Fourth Wandering.
The orange sewage left our possession,
and we were waved onward.
The council falls silent.
Carlos moved.
Slowly at first.
Everyone still stunned.
No one spoke.
The Duke continued nearby.
The border receded behind us.
Children.
For several seconds,
the entire car existed in a state of collective disbelief.
Did that just happen?
Surely not.
But yes.
The pot on the seat?
Ignored.
The orange Bacardi?
Confiscated.
The council looks toward Wing.
Children.
Wing.
The man who had failed the sacred Lemon Bacardi mission.
The man who returned holding orange sewage.
The man whose incompetence had been mocked for the entire trip.
Had,
through sheer accidental foresight,
provided us with the perfect sacrificial offering.
The council rises.
THE REDEMPTION ARC.
Someone looked at someone else.
Eyes met.
Then another.
And another.
Four faces slowly arriving at the exact same impossible conclusion.
Then
laughter.
The council erupts with us.
Not polite laughter.
Not chuckling.
Children.
The kind that explodes out of you after fear has nowhere else to go.
Disbelief.
Relief.
Absurdity.
Wing laughing.
Me laughing.
Paul laughing.
Kosmo laughing.
The whole car shaking with it.
Somewhere on the Duke,
someone probably understood what had happened from our expressions alone.
The council nods.
And there it was.
Wing’s redemption.
Children.
Earlier,
he had returned from the liquor shop holding Orange Bacardi
and been judged harshly.
Correctly.
The council agrees.
Lemon had been requested.
Orange had been delivered.
A betrayal.
A failure.
A stain upon logistics.
But history is long.
And sometimes,
children,
incompetence merely has delayed utility.
The council applauds.
That vile orange bottle had sat unwanted on Carlos’s floor.
Half finished.
Mocked.
Ignored.
Waiting for purpose.
And at the border,
it finally found one.
Not as alcohol.
As tribute.
A distraction.
A sacrificial artifact.
The council grows solemn.
Orange Sewage had paid back its price in gold.
Children.
Not literally.
But spiritually?
Absolutely.
Wing had been redeemed.
Not because he became competent.
Let us not rewrite history too aggressively.
But because his mistake acquired meaning.
The council nods.
Perhaps all failures simply require better timing.
Probably not.
Do not build philosophy around this.
Still
we laughed.
Hard.
For miles.
Every now and then,
someone would calm down.
Then look at Wing.
Or remember the officer brushing away the pot.
And it would begin again.
The council joins in.
The whole thing was absurd.
Terrifying in the moment.
Hilarious once behind us.
Which,
children,
is the basic operating principle of approximately half the Wanderings.
The council nods.
Danger first.
Comedy once survival is confirmed.
Carlos continued homeward.
The Duke beside us.
Kodaikanal shrinking behind.
And one artifact no longer travelled with the party.
The orange bottle.
Gone.
Its purpose fulfilled.
Its arc complete.
The council lowers its head respectfully.
Farewell,
Orange Sewage.
You tasted terrible.
You disappointed us.
You were everything we did not ask for.
And yet,
when destiny called
you answered.
Thus concludes Chapter Ten.
The Border.
The Seat.
The Officer Who Had Different Priorities.
And The Redemption Of Wing’s Incompetence.
Children.
Sometimes Chekhov leaves a gun on the wall.
Sometimes he leaves half a bottle of orange Bacardi on the floor of Carlos.
And when the final act arrives
you take whatever miracle you can get.
