About how we borrowed a drill

Girls are funny creatures. The ones you don't care about at all won't let go of you. The ones you pin your hopes on, however, abandon you with admirable consistency.

That day, Irka and I wandered the streets of Prague. We wore frowns because two little sisters patiently trailed behind us, clinging to us like fungus to trees. And worst of all, we had no clue how to lose them.

Not for the first time, however, it turned out that improvisation, broken by makeshift methods, is the best of all arts. A tram had just arrived, and for lack of a better idea, we boarded it, taking strategic positions by the door. The little sisters stood nearby, watching us carefully. Irka winked at me a few times, or at least I thought he did.

When the tram stopped at the next stop, Irka remained motionless. However, when the door-closing signal sounded, he pushed me violently out onto the street and jumped out at the last moment.

The girls rushed to the windows, giving us desperate signals, and Irka performed a startled pantomime entitled, "What's the matter! Why aren't you getting off?"

Then, smiling, he waved after the departing tram.

"We're off!" he muttered, "Because we're ready to come running back from the next stop. "

We sailed off, satisfied.

And we spent a very pleasant evening wandering through the pubs of Prague.

At the crack of dawn, we returned to our cluttered studio apartment.

Because you should know, our lair was looking a bit unsavoury these days. A week ago, full of good intentions and fleeting enthusiasm, we decided to undertake a minor renovation. The results were such that after two hours of intense work, we managed to treat ourselves to a small post-battle landscape. Then we threw our tools in the corner and, with a pompous promise of "it'll be done tomorrow," went out into the city.

It didn't happen.

And with admirable patience, we endured the status quo for the next seven days.

So that morning, as soon as I opened a sleepy eye and looked around, I said,

"Enough of this good stuff, my faithful friend. We need to furnish ourselves a bit.

" "I don't want to," Irka yawned widely, "maybe tomorrow?

" "I don't want to, even more than you," I muttered, "but I'm tired of wading through paint."

It was the honest truth. We tripped over open paint cans a few times, and the result was something resembling a modern mural on the floor.

Irka grabbed a few beers from the store, and reluctantly, we got to work.

By evening, our nest was restored to a relatively usable state.

The next day, we made a few more touch-ups and, after making a few minor cosmetic adjustments, stood in silence and admired our work.

All that remained was to hang two pictures on the walls.

The pictures were my humble creation; quite subversive in themselves, they bore equally subversive titles: "Winter in Autumn" and "Indian Summer in the Middle of Spring."

However, a problem arose – we didn't have the right equipment on hand for drilling the walls.

"We'll have to borrow some," Irka muttered.

"Bah!" I replied, "we're at odds with the only person in the building who has anything resembling a drill. Do you still want to try it?"

It was the honest truth.

Relations with our neighbor, a certain Zdenek Blecharz who lived downstairs, had been somewhat strained for some time.

"We need to think about it," Irka said.

My friend's hesitation was entirely justified.

One night we were trying to fall asleep. The task, in itself the easiest under the sun, provided we happened to be sleepy and there was relative silence.

Well, that night, the silence was persistently disturbed by Blecharz and his bride. Some incomprehensible lust took hold of them, and they moaned and sighed in turn, while their bed creaked terribly.

We endured for a full two hours until, finally, at two in the morning, Irka slammed into the radiator with all his might.

The moans subsided for a moment, then erupted with redoubled force.

Irka waited another fifteen minutes and reached the window. He flung it open and yelled into the dark night:

"Be quiet, for God's sake! Control your sinful impulses and sleep!"

The Blecharz family held their nerve for a full ten minutes. The surrounding windows, meanwhile, glowed with lamplight, and people peered curiously from behind the parted curtains.

Then everything returned to normal: people drew their curtains tightly, and the Blecharz family began to creak in the night.

Irka opened the window and repeated his appeal once more:

"Sleep over there! How shameless are you rascals! You hear everything!

I have no idea if it worked, because I finally fell asleep.

And the next day we met Zdenek Blecharz on the stairs.

"You woke me up yesterday!" Irka began without any preamble. "Who was that screaming so loudly half the night?!

" "Yeah!" Blecharz pretended to be innocent.

"And you!" You were whining like crazy and your bed was creaking like crazy!

"At our place?!" Blecharz feigned righteous indignation. "It can't be! It's impossible! "

Irka's teeth gritted at such obstinacy, but he didn't say a word. He just waved his hand and ran down the stairs.

"Did you hear the rascal?" he asked me as we stepped out onto the street.

"I heard," I replied. "Are you panting for revenge?"

"Panting isn't enough," he said grimly, "I breathe it in like a dragon."

Revenge came that afternoon.

Irka turned on the water and waited until the bathtub was full to the brim. Then he plugged all the emergency drains and, smiling, watched as Blecharzów flooded.

Five minutes later, there was a knock on our door.

"Jiri!" Blecharz wrung his hands. "For God's sake! What's going on with you?!

"With us?" Irka asked, leaning comfortably against the doorframe. "Nothing's happening. Everything's perfectly fine!

" "And this water!" Zdenek used his hands to describe the scale of the disaster. "It's flooding me! Wallpapers, pictures, carpets! Everything's floating! You have a breakdown! There's a leak with you!

" "With us?!!" Irka feigned righteous indignation. "It can't be! Impossible!"

The retaliatory action was undeniably successful, but neighborly relations deteriorated significantly and rapidly.

And now I had to go to this guy by request.

"I'm coughing at him," Irka muttered as we descended the stairs.

"Nevertheless, try coughing less and being more polite and courteous," I advised.

Irka merely grunted in response. He was like that—when he got something stuck in his head, there was no way to talk him out of it or explain it. He knew better. I would have bet a fortune or something equally valuable that he was now dwelling on and examining Blecharz's brazen act from every angle. I was already knocking on the neighbor's door, and my friend still had a scowl on his face and was muttering something under his breath.

The door opened, and Zdenek stood on the threshold. He frowned menacingly at the sight of us, but before he could utter a single comment, I heard Irka's furious voice:

"You know what?! I don't need your drill at all! You can shove it somewhere, you rascal!"