| The bed was of rags and straw, the old man seemed | | | | gazing over the edge of the street, and he nailed them |
| to be an old soldier of some sort, perhaps from WWI, I | | | | to the wall as if to dry, and he had some already |
| guessed; he slumbered about his shanty, in Augsburg, | | | | drying, and now the rages, that I thought were rages, |
| West Germany, 1970. A year I will never forget, he | | | | were not rags, but some kind of substance, funny I |
| looked as if he had lived a long life, a hard lived life, and | | | | thought. I was now more curious. |
| now, in a word, a wake drunk, so I thought because of | | | | I noticed he was boiling something, it was that |
| his behavior. He had a haggard look to his bone | | | | substance, because he pulled some of them out, and |
| structure, charcoal and olive skin, huge shoulders, and | | | | chopped them also up, and a few he swallowed |
| tall, perhaps close to seven feet; an unsavory look, a | | | | whole. |
| villainous composure, eyes hard. Curiosity to him--so it | | | | After about thirty more minutes, it got to me, what he |
| seemed--was of a thing of the past, he paid little to no | | | | was boiling on that small gas stove. My instinct or |
| attention to me, or the people walking by, or standing | | | | sentries said they were something eatable that was |
| about waiting for buses, taxis and so forth: '...an old | | | | mysterious, so I walked across the street, looked |
| warrior,' I said to myself, indeed he must be; WWI, yes, | | | | closer and began to bethink --this was none of my |
| what else. | | | | business, or was it? Anyhow, my observations |
| It was1970, I was lost in the beautiful city of Augsburg, | | | | quickened as I approached, the old man's eyes had a |
| the streets I was not familiar with yet; I was assigned | | | | yellowish crust look to them, one I had never seen |
| to Reese Compound, US Military stock, the 1/36 | | | | before. |
| Artillery Unit, A Battery (I was twenty-two years old, a | | | | There seemed to be no danger as I now stood in |
| Private), and it was a weekend, and I was moseying | | | | front of the shanty. Accordingly I began to look at the |
| about. Being lost in a city was not a big thing to me | | | | wall, what was in the boiling pan, the hole behind the |
| back then; I could simply jump in a taxi and be back at | | | | table that held the little gas stove on top of it, in the |
| my unit in fifteen minutes any place in Augsburg. | | | | corner, and on the table where he was doing the |
| By this time, standing nearby this shanty of sorts, it | | | | chopping, where there was blood. Then seizing the |
| was early afternoon, Saturday to be exact. In my | | | | moment, I asked the old man if he knew what he was |
| confusion of where I was at, I saw a small creek, in a | | | | doing? |
| park close by, with a bridge that crossed it. I wanted to | | | | "Yes," he echoed, as if the sound came from his feet; |
| cross it, but got interested in the old man; nonetheless, I | | | | adding, "cooking leftover meat from the butcher shop |
| ventured beyond the old man's shanty to the park and | | | | across from my place." |
| onto the bridge, elbows on the bridge's wooded railing, | | | | I looked closer, into the boiling water, on the wall, on the |
| looking over towards the old man again, the old | | | | table, and what was hidden behind his coffee cup, |
| German war veteran, or so I supposed he was. He | | | | perhaps not hidden, but laying there. |
| was doing something: intimately each time I looked, I | | | | I held my mouth, for a moment closed my eyes, and |
| just did not concentrate on what. | | | | when I opened them, I confirmed indeed I was seeing |
| The old shanty had but three walls to it, the front open, | | | | right. An unholy sense came upon me, and I said as |
| not sure if he had sliding doors attached to the ceiling, | | | | nonchalantly as I could, "Sir, I hate to tell you, but you |
| but I was hoping he did, how else could he secure the | | | | are cooking some species of bats." (a species I had |
| place at night. In any case, I didn't cross the bridge, I | | | | never seen before.) |
| walked to the edge of the park, his shanty across the | | | | He looked deep into my eyes, as if holding me in a |
| street, sat on a tree stump, and pondered his business, | | | | trance, "I'm eating my food from my planet, it's |
| like a peeping tom, I suppose you could say. I watched | | | | traditional, ice-bats...!" so he said, his eyes deep dark as |
| him doing whatever he was doing; I simply could not | | | | the bats wings. I next took a moments rest, there on |
| get a clear picture of what he was doing. He mumbled | | | | the floor behind him was a heap of bats, dead. |
| to himself in some language, it didn't sound like German | | | | (--one thing never left my mind those ten months in |
| to me, and it wasn't English, or Spanish, I knew all three | | | | Augsburg, which was the name of the butcher shop |
| languages. | | | | next to the old man's shanty, "The Moiromma Special |
| The old man's cloths was like a scarecrows; perhaps | | | | Cuts." I would later on in life put two and two together, |
| he was 90-years old (a guess of course) not sure | | | | it was discovered (yet untold to the general public of |
| why I say ninety, but it just seemed so, wrinkled and all, | | | | earth) the adjacent solar system to Earth's, that there |
| but he was agile, and strong looking, he could have | | | | was a peculiar plant, among the so called 'Cadaverous |
| been younger or older. He then pulled these old looking | | | | Planets,' called Moiromma, where legends of Tangor, |
| rags out from behind a stove, a hole in the wall it | | | | Rognat, and Siren the Great were told, long told, long |
| seemed, where he kept them, and then he chopped | | | | ago. |
| them up, and I got a better look by standing up, and | | | | |