Monk of the Winding Death

"So, you think you'll win this time?

" "Fuck you.

" "Don't you remember what happened to your last car?" he burst into laughter.

"Fuck you," I said. "Yeah, my car burned up on the Winding Death when I went flying out of the corner, possessed by some strange delusion. But hey, there are no rules in this competition; it's just who gets there first. I spent the whole fucking year trying to bounce back, working like a dog, all just to buy a new car and race for Glory again. That's not an empty promise. Glory is a rather large, beautifully cut diamond, and it's also the reward for defeating the current Monk of the Winding Death. Currently, that title is held by Devil. He's the one I'm supposed to race against. Needless to say, I was the last Monk, and I stopped being one when I lost my car. Now I'm going to reclaim the title that belongs to me.

But let's get this one down. I was born in a backwater town everyone calls the Curse because of the longest-running radiation sickness there. Fortunately, nature didn't grant me deformed limbs or other disabilities. The radiation from the last war took its toll on almost everyone, and the birth of a healthy child was so rare that the family in which this miracle occurred was usually quickly deprived of it by jealous neighbors. For this reason, my father wouldn't let anyone touch me except my mother and my brothers for the first six months of my life. He always carried a gun with him, and according to family legend, he once killed two men with deformed heads for daring to look at me and rummage through their bags. Later, it turned out they didn't have the expected weapons, just some sweets, which they most likely wanted to offer me. If you think Dad was punished in any way for his mistake, you're probably crazy.

I had three brothers. The first, Gnome, has stunted hands, which doesn't stop him from being the best water dealer I know. Getting clean, inactive water, as they say these days, is a difficult feat. The second, called Petro, repairs our vehicles and is therefore one of the most respected residents of the Curse, despite his head resembling a large ball that someone slowly roasted over a fire. The third was the village idiot with modest telekinetic abilities, which ultimately led to his death. Once, laughing foolishly, he lifted a paint jug and threw it at a group of drunken men knocking down some moonshine in the street. In their minds, ravaged by alcohol and radiation sickness, this was reason enough to bury him to death. They didn't enjoy their triumph for long. Father, in a fit of rage, caught them one by one and slit their throats. I barely remember my mother; she died two years after my birth, giving birth to a daughter who still lived two days. Strange, apparently she had no visible mutations; something must have gone wrong inside her.

I grew up peacefully, occasionally fighting with my brothers and other boys, but I didn't think about what I would do in the future until Petro took me to a duel at the old racetrack called the Winding Death, which is our temple and the place where we fight for the dignity of a Monk. That's when I learned who a Monk was, how to become one, and what its privileges were. A Monk watches over the Winding Death and is the high priest protecting us from evil. Every villager has the honor and duty of paying him tribute, and everyone does so without a murmur so as not to offend the gods. After that trip, I knew who I would be in the future. When I told him, Petro simply tapped his forehead expressively. I also remember a man who was the Monk at the time and who held that position for a very long time, defeating many opponents, some younger than himself. He had the saddest eyes I'd ever seen, long, flowing hair, and the name Max. I don't know how he came to be here; he never spoke of his past, and even though we welcomed him into our village community, he always lived on the sidelines. Some of his opponents called him crazy, and it was clear they had old scores to settle.

As he grew older and his hair began to turn white, it seemed someone would finally replace him as the Monk, but things turned out differently. One day, he took his vehicle and, accelerating with full tanks of fuel, jumped off the highest embankment on the track. The entire village went to watch the burning remains of his car. Thus, Max departed undefeated. I never dared to exchange a single word with him, but he forever remained my ideal of the lonely, lost, yet undefeated driver.

There's another reason Monk is the most important man in the village. He, along with ten men assigned to that task, oversees the extraction of crude oil. The Winding Death Track is simply the surrounding field beneath which the deposit lies. Fuel is everything to us. It's our currency, allows us to move, and in winter protects us from frost. The deposit is large enough that it should last us a very long time.

When I finally decided to earn the title of Monk in the future, I had to prepare thoroughly. I began studying. First, reading and writing, then I focused on all the available books on engines. It wasn't easy. All the materials date back to before the war, and firstly, they are very rare. Secondly, everyone jealously guards their books, and there's no question of borrowing them, let alone buying them. Petro was a great help. He was a mechanic himself, so he knew all the ins and outs of internal combustion engine construction. First, I'd follow him around and watch him work on the repair, then I started asking him about the technical details, until I ended up walking around with a stack of notes, writing down his every word, including crude drawings of the individual parts. Day after day, month after month, I drilled into myself the knowledge necessary to build my own vehicle.

My first car barely reached 20 kilometers per hour, squealed with every turn, and finally fell apart after a week of testing and modifications. Undeterred by this failure, I continued experimenting. Cars racing on the Winding Death don't have to be fast. The most important thing is a combination of good weaponry and enough speed to avoid the numerous pits and craters along the race course. And there are plenty of them. All because the only thing that matters is winning. That is, until one of the candidates for the Monk position arrived in what looked like a giant cannon on wheels. It moved like nothing, and anyone would have sworn he'd lose. But that wasn't the case. After the start was announced, before his rival could even move, he swung the barrel toward his opponent and fired. When the dust settled, a huge crater was visible where the other vehicle had been parked, and parts were lying everywhere. The gun owner slowly moved off and, undisturbed by anyone, barely rolling along, calmly made it to the finish line. We were so surprised by this turn of events that we didn't know what to do. Finally, my father called a village meeting and we decided that we could only fire after both vehicles had passed at least fifty meters from the starting point. We were afraid that increasingly heavier guns would enter the race and fire at each other right from the start. But that wasn't the point. This was supposed to be a race, not a training ground. From then on, the vehicles were more heavily armed than before, but they could still drive. It often happened that a small, fast car would beat a barely moving, enormous tank, even though the latter was firing everything it could in every direction.

I will remember my first race for the rest of my life. I didn't start out right away with my former Monk; that would have been pointless. Five of my friends, who were also building their own vehicles, and I organized a small race around the Curse. When I think back to my then-current vehicle, I can't help but smile with embarrassment. It had four wheels and a pretty good engine, but the bodywork was made from old fuel or oil drums, and my racing car stank for miles, which, incidentally, was the cause of my downfall. We agreed that the winner would be the first to arrive after ten laps of the village, and any "non-racing" measures were only permitted with regard to vehicles. Simply put, we couldn't kill each other. If something happened to one of us, the offender was to care for the injured person until they recovered.

We were supposedly friends, but everyone was desperate to win and kept a close eye on their cars. The night before the race, I stepped out of my garage for a quick bite to eat, and one of my dear friends took advantage of my carelessness and stole one of my wheels. (Wheels, especially tires, are very difficult to come by; no one in the village makes them; we buy them in a city five hundred kilometers away.) The situation was hopeless. I had no spares and wasn't sure what to do next. Chance came to my rescue. Petro happened to come to see my car, and when he learned what had happened, he laughed at my stupidity, went to his garage, and lent me a brand new wheel for the duration of the race. My joy knew no bounds.

Unfortunately, the race itself didn't quite reach its planned finish. None of the cars were good enough to complete the full ten laps of the village. We declared the winner the guy whose car broke down last. Unfortunately, it wasn't me. After four laps, I was third, but I lost consciousness from the stench of the bodywork mixed with exhaust fumes that somehow managed to get into the cockpit. I only remember the straight before a rather sharp corner, when I lost touch with the world. I opened my eyes in my father's arms, and beside me stood the wrecked wreckage of my car. In the accident, I broke my right arm, which temporarily sidelined me from all racing, and Petro had reason to mock me until the brace was removed.

I raced more and more often, because in addition to learning about vehicle construction, I also had to learn to drive properly. I started winning. Over time, I became the best driver in the village. All my old friends couldn't accept the idea that I was better than them, and I increasingly had to face attempts on my life. I became more cautious, built myself a workshop on the edge of the village and hardly ever left it. I have nothing against the residents of Przekleństwo; they quickly appreciated my knowledge of engines, coming to me more and more often with broken-down vehicles. These repairs allowed me to live a relatively comfortable life and continually upgrade my car. I was preparing to compete for the title of Monk. The reigning monk was well aware of this and wouldn't sell me fuel, rightly reasoning that without gas, I wouldn't threaten his position. This didn't help him much. I always managed to buy it by sending a family member.

During the race, I tore his car to pieces, and he himself burned inside his car. At the age of twenty-eight, my life's dream came true. I became the most important person in the village called Curse. Now I had everything.

I continued running my workshop, extracting and refining fuel, and I didn't have to worry about a thing. I had such confidence in my driving skills that I wasn't afraid of any duel. Besides, no villager was better than me, and strangers rarely appeared, and even more rarely won a race. I felt invincible; it was unthinkable that anyone could threaten me. I drove less and less, and more and more often I was seen completely intoxicated (not just from alcohol).

I paid a heavy price for this. The price of power.

One day, Devil arrived. Of course, I was drunk and high on some weed. He challenged me to a duel, but I laughed him off, so confident was I of winning. We arranged to meet in seven days. I don't remember what he looked like when I first saw him, but the next day he came back to repeat his challenge. By then, I was sober enough to even acknowledge it. His visit didn't last long, but I still managed to get a good look at him. He was an exceptionally thin, tall man wearing black leather pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of a strange zombie with a caption that, in our language, meant "iron maiden." His thin, also black hair, which he had likely grown for half his life with little success, fell unfettered to his shoulders. His face, with its terribly pale complexion, looked as thin as his frame. Sunken cheeks, dark, impenetrable eyes, and practically bluish lips. He looked as if he were barely more alive than the creature on his T-shirt. Despite his fragility, he seemed a serious man who knew what he wanted. That was the first time I was scared. Even though I had a terrible hangover, his eyes pierced me. He crucified me with his gaze. In a quiet, calm voice, devoid of any emotion, he repeated his challenge and, without waiting for my answer, simply left. The next meeting wasn't until just before the race, but that was the first time I was scared. Looking into his eyes, I understood that he wanted to become a Monk just as much as I once did.

I started to get scared. I had seven days to get back into the shape I'd been in before. Subconsciously, I felt it wasn't enough. Far too little. The closer to the race, the more convinced I was of defeat. Even though I'd trained twelve hours a day, I felt all my effort was unnecessary; I'd simply woken up too late from my playful lethargy. A week of intense training. A week of abstinence. A week of starvation, my entire body craving nothing but ALCOHOL and DRUGS. Gods, how I suffered. At night, I'd fall apart into tiny pieces, only to be painfully stitched back together with the bluntest needle in the world. And in the morning, another training session. The days were easier to get through because I had something to do; for a while, I could forget about my body's needs, but the nights, yes, the nights were the worst. Soaked in sweat, I'd thrash around the bed, the remnants of my conscious mind begging for the blessing of sleep and rest. Just thinking about those times makes me nauseous.

Finally, what had to come arrived: race day. To calm my tremors, I fired off a barrel of our stuff and greeted Devil. He kept looking me straight in the eye. I don't know, maybe he was trying to unnerve me, or maybe he couldn't look at anyone any other way and was completely unaware of the aura of cold and death he exuded. In any case, if he wanted to annoy me, he succeeded brilliantly. Son of a bitch! Every time I looked at him, I literally pissed myself in my pants.

I probably only felt it when I got behind the wheel of my car. Then complete peace descended upon me; I knew I was in my element. My mind was occupied only with driving. Steering wheel, gas, brake, and clutch. Now it was just me and my car. Yes, that was my element, at least it used to be. I felt that now drugs and alcohol had taken over. I had to lose, even though I wanted to win. Winning meant a continued life of luxury; losing meant the bottom.

I started the engine, placed my hands on the steering wheel, and gripped it tightly. I felt the immense power of the vehicle slowly filling my being. Now I needed its power so I could return it in the race for a more prosperous life. I promised myself I would change, stop drinking, quit drugs, be a normal person. I was ready to pray to any deity who would promise me to keep what I had.

At the judge's signal, both cars, with the mighty roar of their massive engines, moved forward. Now I was no longer just the driver; I had become a strange creature with a human brain, eyes, and hearing, but with wheels instead of hands, a throttle and brake instead of legs. I had to feel the entire car to have even a chance in this mad race. A chance, perhaps not even of winning, but of surviving.

We were neck and neck. After fifty meters, Devil opened fire with his side gun. A sudden left turn (he was coming from that direction), a prolonged groan of sheet metal, and I damaged his side so much that the weapon was useless. I don't remember the entire race exactly, but I know that halfway through, I started having some furious hallucinations. Brief flashes appeared before my eyes, sometimes picturing the smashed front of the car, sometimes a woman's face. I didn't even associate her with anyone in particular, but the driving was getting worse and worse. There were moments when I didn't know if what I was seeing was real or just a mirage. When I saw a huge tongue of flames shooting out from under the hood, I ripped my hands off the steering wheel and, in panic, shielded my face with them. The vehicle, out of control, lurched violently over a bump and flew straight into a huge tree. I realized then that it was just an illusion, but in the air I had no control, and I watched helplessly as my magnificent car, even more so, bounced off that tree and somersaulted to a stop in the ditch. That was the end. I felt a tremendous pain that couldn't be pinpointed; you could say it was the bruised body and the helpless wheels spinning silently in the air. I felt crushed and shattered, like the car lying in the ditch, which was actually a part of me. I slowly climbed out of the car and moved to a safe distance. Then the car slowly began to burn. A fire broke out somewhere near the engine and spread quickly. I knew it was just a machine, but looking at it, I saw the immense suffering contained in that piece of metal; its expression conveyed far more than if I were crying now. The fuel tanks exploded, and I felt terribly guilty about losing. It wasn't just me who lost, that pile of scrap lying in the ditch lost too, and the worst part was that it was my fault. If someone else had been in my shoes, they might have won, but I failed.

And again, just like before, all I had left was my little workshop on the edge of the village. I lost my position and the title that meant everything to me. But it wasn't even about position; it was about finally tasting a terrible defeat, made all the more profound by the fact that I was the only one to blame; I couldn't blame anyone for my fall. Even that poor car gave it its all.

I drank for a week. Yes. I can admit it now. I drank, even drank heavily, and dwelled on the race, focusing especially on the final seconds of my ride. When I finally sobered up enough to think clearly, I decided it was time to reclaim what I'd lost. I reopened my workshop and slowly began to think about assembling a new car. I stopped drinking, stopped taking drugs, though it was incredibly difficult. Delusions and hallucinations appeared quite frequently at first, then less and less frequently, until finally they stopped altogether. Slowly, slowly, I was getting back on track. I became calmer and more relaxed. It wasn't easy to upset me, and before that, drunken fights had been a daily (or rather, nightly) occurrence. It might seem strange to you, but I even regained the trust of the people from the Curse. I learned to appreciate every good thing, woke up early enough to see the sunrise every day, and I swear, it's probably the most beautiful sight on Earth. I've become a much happier person.

And now I'm standing on this track again, ready to race, and I see that thin, black-clad figure. I look straight into those black eyes, but they don't scare me like they used to. I'll tell you a secret: I don't care about winning at all. It was the people from the village who persuaded me to run. They said it was a disgrace that a stranger was a Monk. I'm doing this solely for them. I think that's why I feel so light and calm. I know I'm not fighting just for myself; dozens of people from our village are behind me. Maybe that's the whole point of life? To finally do something for someone else, not just for myself? I don't know. It's time to start, I have to get in the car, start the engine, and go for the lost title. Wish me luck, and I promise I'll be a good Monk.