March 2013 | By: The Scrutable Scribe
Fan bloody tastic, however…
As we approached Wooden Eye for an early lowdown on the run, he looked like the quintessential hare-after-having-a spot-of-trouble-setting one. Pouring beer on his bleeding wounds (shameful waste) he was muddier and wetter than a shag (the bird I mean, but then again…) hash paper stuck all over him, limping like Long John Silver with a broken leg to the keg and back. "It's a bit slippery out there" he let on. "Well, I imagine so", I thought eyeing his injuries, poor bugger.
It had certainly been a bit wet on the way up the mountain. Sweet humping Jesus did it piss down, the Jalan Raya was like a raging river. I was expecting to see white water rafters go by flicking water at the Taruna with oars and yelling "Boom boom" as they bounced off obstacles like bemos, warungs and the odd wading Ibu. But I knew, or at suspected, there was a good chance of the whole thing rolling down the mountain and out to sea leaving us and Kelusa out of the danger zone.
"It's socked in big time'' intoned my glass-half-empty co-pilot." glowering out the side window. "O, ye of little faith" I said again, which is what you do when you repeat yourself. As it turned out I was luckily right and we weren't urinated upon laughingly by the holy host for the duration of the whole shebang.
Before I am once again tempted by the Siren Digression, let me say here and now that this was a spectacular run: mist shrouded, richly verdant valleys and mature padis, great jungle sections, gigantic bamboo and majestically massive trees, deep gorges setting the pulse aflutter as we noticed them in unexpected proximity, winding country jalans, it was insistently, consistently fascinating; one of those runs in which you just have to stop dead every so often and look around because it's criminal to be constantly staring at mud and filthy hash shoes when surrounded by such beauty. There was just enough difficult navigation up narrow rocky footholds to make it adventuresome and some deep river crossings in water cold enough to send the voice up a register or two.
That was the good news. The bad news is the short was possibly 20 to 30 minutes longer than advertised (not that I gave a stiffy, but there were those that did); 30 odd hashers were lost in translation on last week's paper and ended up in the Tunnel of Poo on the long (no mr. scribe it was the short), which was three hours for some. Many of these gave up and returned to the car park in the back of a hired truck. A couple with several tiny children in tow all without footwear of any traction whatsoever with whom Spook, (the adult in the room, jungle, rice padi, in these matters) pleaded not to go on the run, went missing in the wilds until 8pm or so. Cane Rat also did the disappearing trick, finally materializing at the keg at about the same time.
It was for this reason that the circle went on so long, not at all because some of us are piss artists and couldn't stand to leave until the last drop was gone. There were Taffy jokes aplenty and manic performances such as Jangle Ball's "Rindecella and the Sugly Isters" bedtime story. It will remain an enduring hash mystery how at least one of the hares avoided the ice. Names have been changed to protect the guilty (Irtual Verection) but it is suspected that this newly minted Welshman was culpable in these heinous acts. We may never know the truth. One thing's for sure: if they give out hash Purple Hearts, Wooden Eye should get the Victoria Cross. Let's hope it's not posthumously.
On on
