May 2013 | By: The Scrutable Scribe
The Giant Paper Eating Ghost Cow of Serangan Island
Cow shit happens, as they say. It happens all over the place on Serangan, in fact I don't think I've ever seen as much cow poop in one place as this island, purportedly famed for its turtles (why?). Yes, there is more of the flat, brown sticky article here than you could shake trail boss Gil Favor from the 60's cowboy series "Rawhide" at. But where, I beseech you gentle reader, were the friggin' cows? I inadvertently took the long option last Saturday night (not entirely my fault, I declare, but we'll get to that) ran, jogged, staggered, walked and stumbled like a bastard all over this feces splattered, sandy fly spot for two hours plus, and never saw or heard anything even remotely bovine. No cow bells or anything howling at the full moon with horns.
What do they do with them? Is there some kind of island cow repository where everybody drops Bessie off for the night? A corral, is it? I've rarely ever seen more than three cows together anywhere on the Island of the Dogs, or the whole of Indonesia for that matter so I doubt whether they're a-musterin' them little doggies somewhere on the Serangan Ponderosa then havin' Hop Sing cook up a mess o' viddles to eat with Hoss, Little Joe and Pa by the fire of an evenin'. Sorry, back in the 60's again and definitely off paper. Let's let sleeping cows lie, wherever they are, and get on with the run.
Labia announced the good intentions (and you know what's paved with those) of three runs for our consideration: a short of 45 minutes, a medium of an hour, a long of an hour and a half and a live hare to liven things up. And we were off! And off! And Off! And off! In fact it was at least ten minutes before we saw a shred of paper or hide or hair of the hare. "I know it's dark" I thought, "but this is a bit questionable". We finally spotted him dangling a "short" sign on a tree trunk and he gestured to our enquiries of "medium?" towards the causeway. It wasn't long before we were following paper down rocks on the side of said jalan to the grand spectacle of… yes, that's right, absolutely no paper anywhere, none, it was away with the cows and all downhill from there for such a flat location. We tried several directions – the only one we didn't try was the inlet – and finally tracked down the precious kertas about 200 mts dead ahead.
Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic run: a big fat moon poked its head out of some towering cumuli and glowed down on us sweaty bastards, as promised. And also as promised it was a very different Serangan run around and adjacent bodies of water the size of which were pleasantly unusual for most hashes. We got a couple of "Stairway to Heaven" vistas with the full moon on the water, and some surprisingly tall trees for land not that long ago reclaimed. It's just that the paper was, well, erratic. There was none to guide us on cross paths or tee junctions, then suddenly a shitload of it would appear path-side randomly as if the hare were suffering intermittent epileptic fits. Also, I'm afraid red spray paint on a green background in a colour sapping full moon = equals Whaddya, whaddya?
I'm going with the theory that there's only one giant but phantom cow on Serangan that has a touch of diaorrhea and dietary habits that include hash paper and turtles (well, you never see any there, do you, for all their heralded existence? It's not as if they're lurching around like Komodo dragons on Komodo). And why not, the Hindu religion allows for much more colourful entities. If you ask me it's more likely than turtles on Serangan.
Back at the turtle ranch (never saw any there either), the circle was underway as we limped in; and the beer was exquisite! Somebody should put that stuff in bottles, they'd make a fortune. Labia toasted (not roasted) the hare, deservedly, then defiled, iced and generally was not gentle with a couple of virgins, but where was his beery, soggy bush this week? Perhaps a cow ate it. R.A. Wooden Eye took up the gauntlet and meted out further punishment to the hapless duo of possibly French vierge, and other offenders. Hamersley hasher Voodoo told an Alzheimer's joke which many of us could relate to and Jangle Balls could not be there. Instead Proffessori Janglio Ballsio taught us some culture with an operatic "Finicule Finicula" ("I like to sticka my dicka betweena the pickets, inna my backa yard, it getta me hard", pure poetry) and of course "O Solo Mio", ("somebody blow mio"). In other words, it was the usual tasteful and decorous behavior expected, except it was later and a bit past our bed times. This of course led to a venue which can only be described as "The Fat and Griddle" for a glass of warm milk and a hot water bottle.
Goodnight all.
On on.
