But first it’s time
For some hot, mulled wine…
The hot mulled wine Mr. Welsh Losser has brought over from his farmhouse in a thermos to the antique furniture restoration workshop is so pleasant, any guilt that Zippy Zamazda feels about taking a break at Mr. Losser’s friendly suggestion quickly melts into yielding, sagging insouciance.
Zippy smiles like a dumb animal and swoons into an old armchair, sinking deep into the seat cushion, and Mr. Losser takes his place on a cat-torn couch that forms a right angle with the chair, their hot beverages set on a small end table conveniently between the two.
“So, nyugets, tell me again, Zippy: What was that déjà vu-like memory you’d mentioned to me the other day… what was it? Something about walking into a Gothic cathedral in Kyiv, where someone, whom I remind you of, was playing the big pipe organ, and then you came up to me, I mean, haargh, the guy who reminds you of me, and began asking him for a job…”
“Um, oh… no, Mr. Losser, I realize that’s all just something my mind created, that it comes from this nightmare I’ve had, and I’d forgotten all about it, really, until meeting you, here in Kansas. And then it all just started coming back to me, I don’t know why, even though I don’t want it to…”
“Ah, well, grumpits, that’s just the way these things happen, Zippy, to all of us. And there’s really nothing we can do about them, except pay them no mind. Believe me, this bad memory of something that never happened will go away in time. Just keep restoring that furniture – har-argh-ahh… Although, it is a curious thing: We were in Kyiv at the same time, and yet our paths never crossed. Don’t you find that odd? I mean, it may be the capital of a large European country, but’s it’s also kind of a regional, post-Soviet jerkwater, harum-bargi; wouldn’t you agree?”
But in the instant, Zippy is not all that certain; he hesitates: “Aaahh, yes… I mean, yes… um…”
Provoked to cruelty, Welsh Losser exclaims:
“And lest I forget, there was that horrifying detail about you wearing some sort of cow’s hide… with horns… that you couldn’t get off your head! And as you humbly approached me for possible employment, which request, as you can see, I have graciously and charitably honored, nyug-nyarg, you also pleaded with me to get the cow’s head off your head, accusing me of being the one to have put it on your head in the first place!
“With all due respect, Sir, I… my feeling about the accusation, whenever I suffer this false memory, is that it isn’t an accusation, but more like the possibility of… of a… suggestion…”
“Yeah, RIGHT! Wait – now! That ain’t all! Because get this! I had my goons put the cowhide on your head by force as part of a PR stunt and ad campaign for a male potency product I was endorsing called Bovine Milk Balls! The tagline: ‘Guaranteed to make a Man feel like a Horse!’ And that was in exchange for promising to make you the chief editor of the Kyiv Poster and What’s Off magazine, both!”
Welsh Losser laughs a big, slurpy laugh, spittle flying, mucus-gurgling and gravelly. He throws back his mulled wine and slams the emptied glass mug on the end table. His small, pink lips, glistening unwiped, are pursed in the shape of mockery, and he smacks them straight at Zippy.
“Aah… I kill me…” Losser dabs wet pink cheeks with a green hanky and blows his nose.
Zippy blinks behind his thick, black-framed glasses as though computing by how much he has just been cut down and hurt.
But it begins to dawn upon Zippy that maybe all of this isn’t just a memory of a frightening nightmare he’d once had, stirred up by recent random associations from the depths of his subconscious, as Welsh Losser has just filled in details Zippy had never communicated to his employer, and now the new, formerly missing, details are painting a picture before Zippy that is looking decreasingly imagined and increasingly historical and true.
And then there’s something about Mr. Losser’s raspy voice, the strong and needlessly insulting hint of insinuation in it; and then the liberties he has suddenly taken, with his words, with his actions…
A scalding wave of hatred, stimulated by the wine, ripples across Zippy’s face, but so quickly, even the keenest observer of body language would likely deduce that it was merely an involuntary spasm of face muscles.
But Welsh Losser catches it. The very second Zippy’s upper lip curls into a snarl, like a dog’s, Welsh Losser shudders, and mentally backs off.
“I… I seem to remember… no… no… I do remember seeking you out, Mr. Losser…”
“Oh, ah, hurumfablokomakurumpitz, ah…” Welsh Losser is nervous, his voice, shaky…
“I had a cow’s head on; one that you had forced over my own head, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t take it off, but it would just tighten and tighten around my neck, and all you did was play the church organ, and wouldn’t help me… at all…”
Welsh Losser remains silent. He reasons in his frantic brain that it is best to begin breathing calmly and master his fear, so that he can challenge the moment and force it to pass.
“I had no window into the world around me, except through the eyeholes cut out in your cowhide, and my glasses were still on. I couldn’t even take them off!”
“Oh-ho-ho” – Losser is still uncomfortable; he continues to back off and cower.
But then…
“Nyugets!”
The shrinking feeling goes away. The slow, deep breathing helped, just like the pamphlet for PR executives, which he’d plagiarized back in Kyiv and tried to sell on Amazon Kindle, advised. Welsh Losser shakes off his, quite frankly, embarrassing fear of Zippy like yesterday’s crusts de turd.
“Well, Zippy, ahargh, like I said, pay no further attention to such thoughts and memories of bad dreams that haunt us and sometimes seem more real than the reality we actually live in itself.
“And cheer up, son! Because very soon now, I will be introducing you to a promising young fellow, whom I would like you to take under your wing, as an apprentice, so to speak, to guide, to mold, to teach, and to turn into a great and highly reputable antique furniture restorer, like yourself!”
The unforeseen surprise of the shocking news suddenly puts Zippy into his own state of fright.
“Touche…” Welsh Losser says, smirking.
“But… but-but, Mr. Losser! I am in no way prepared, or… or… capable, I mean… I feel I’m far from good enough at all of this to take on someone as… an apprentice! Oh… oh… please, Mr. Losser! I… I…”
“Nonsense, my boy. You’ll be just fine.”
“But… but…”
Welsh Losser, tired of all this – and this, after treating his underling to his own recipe of hot and spicy mulled wine, the piquant and tantalizing secrets of which he’d inherited from his Grammy Nelson just before she died – glances at the prized and cherished watch on his wrist – yes, the very one that had helped make him famous as a PR executive back in Kyiv all those years ago – and shouts:
“Oh, no, Zippy! Quick! Get up, GET UP!!!”
Zippy jumps out of his seat, farts, loses consciousness, and drops to the floor, but not before striking his forehead against the edge of the end table.
“Aga – I figured it was about that time. Perfectly played.” Welsh Losser sneers. “Good thing he didn’t break his glasses, nyu-a-a-a…”
He heads for the door, opens it, and turns off the lights.
“Eh, he’ll be all right.”
He closes the door behind him, and locks it with a key – the only one to that door that there is.
“I’m in control here, nyug-nya… And anyway, now that that’s done, the moment to perform the THIRD TASK is upon me – and I shall not fail… for, how can I?”
Filed by One Who Shall Remain Unnamed, March 3, 2026