well clear. One read NO MORE JOKERS in English. The other repeated the message in Vietnamese.
The assistant took out a book of matches and began to fumble at it. On his third attempt he got one to light, singeing his fingers in the process. "Yi!" he yelped, and flipped the match away.
Crowd and journalists caught their breath. The burning match happened to land in the clear puddle surrounding the monk. The gasoline went up in a whoosh .
For a moment the monk was obscured by an orange wash of fire. Then the flame shot upward away from him in a mushroom cloud, to surround the figure of a man hanging in midair, two meters above the monk. For a moment it blazed like a saint's full-body halo in a pre-Renaissance religious painting. Then it collapsed inward, to outline momentarily the head and limbs and body of the man.
Then it vanished.
"Ahh," the floating figure said, stretching its arms, "I needed that." He was a small man for an overt Occidental, not much bigger than the Vietnamese norm, with a narrow clever face and red hair. He wore an orange sweatsuit and athletic shoes.
His cheeks pink with seeming sunburn, the monk was staring upward at the interloper. "What is the meaning of this?" the assistant demanded.
"The meaning of this is, I'm denying your pal his cheap theatrics. Get him out of here and get him a shower."
"But - "
"Hit the road, Junior, before I scorch your tuchus." He sent a squirt of fire to the pavement at the acolyte's sandaled feet. The assistant jumped. Then he grabbed the monk by a skinny biceps and hauled him upright. With the supreme moment passed into anticlimax, flaming death didn't look so appealing any more; the monk allowed himself to be led away without protest.
The flying man settled into the pool of gas from which he had sucked the flame. A jet of fire from his fingertips reignited it. When it burned off, he was still standing there, arms akimbo, grinning like a fox.
"Jumpin' Jack Flash at your service," he told the assembled media. "Normally, as a good libertarian, I wouldn't dream of interfering with our little friend's right to light up anything he damn well pleased, himself included. But today I decided to make an exception, just to piss you people off."
The crowd was standing well back away from all this. The journalists grumbled among themselves. A couple shook their fists at the interloper.
"What about allegations that Vietnam is being overrun by jokers?" a British reporter shouted. The flying ace was, after all, a semi-official spokesman for the government of the Republic of Free Vietnam. He was rumored to be like this with its President. Perhaps anticlimax could be partly redeemed in embarrassing questions.
"If you brought all the jokers in the world here, they wouldn't make up five percent of the population," JJ said. "Get real."
"What about the way wealthy American jokers are dominating the economy?" asked a woman reporter for Frontline .
"At least now there's an economy to dominate," Flash said. "Even if that were true, which of course it isn't."
He cocked his head at her. "Didn't I see you do a feature a couple years ago, about how America was shortchanging her jokers? Now they come over here, and you bitch because they've got it too good. Make up your damn mind , lady - "
He broke off because some of the reporters and the mob were trying to crane past the parked BMP, at something going on in the streets of the joker district. JJ Flash frowned. He wasn't used to being upstaged. He rose ten feet in the air and turned around.
An astounding cavalcade was approaching down the broad street of the former Chinese quarter. To the skirl of chants, chimes, and pipes, came a bevy of maidens of celestial beauty, hung about with flowers, and trinkets of ivory and gold: the sort of Indian gaud usually attendant upon Indian gods. So celestial was their beauty, in fact, that their bare lotus feet failed to touch the pavement as they walked.
Next up were a band of youths, boys and
The assistant took out a book of matches and began to fumble at it. On his third attempt he got one to light, singeing his fingers in the process. "Yi!" he yelped, and flipped the match away.
Crowd and journalists caught their breath. The burning match happened to land in the clear puddle surrounding the monk. The gasoline went up in a whoosh .
For a moment the monk was obscured by an orange wash of fire. Then the flame shot upward away from him in a mushroom cloud, to surround the figure of a man hanging in midair, two meters above the monk. For a moment it blazed like a saint's full-body halo in a pre-Renaissance religious painting. Then it collapsed inward, to outline momentarily the head and limbs and body of the man.
Then it vanished.
"Ahh," the floating figure said, stretching its arms, "I needed that." He was a small man for an overt Occidental, not much bigger than the Vietnamese norm, with a narrow clever face and red hair. He wore an orange sweatsuit and athletic shoes.
His cheeks pink with seeming sunburn, the monk was staring upward at the interloper. "What is the meaning of this?" the assistant demanded.
"The meaning of this is, I'm denying your pal his cheap theatrics. Get him out of here and get him a shower."
"But - "
"Hit the road, Junior, before I scorch your tuchus." He sent a squirt of fire to the pavement at the acolyte's sandaled feet. The assistant jumped. Then he grabbed the monk by a skinny biceps and hauled him upright. With the supreme moment passed into anticlimax, flaming death didn't look so appealing any more; the monk allowed himself to be led away without protest.
The flying man settled into the pool of gas from which he had sucked the flame. A jet of fire from his fingertips reignited it. When it burned off, he was still standing there, arms akimbo, grinning like a fox.
"Jumpin' Jack Flash at your service," he told the assembled media. "Normally, as a good libertarian, I wouldn't dream of interfering with our little friend's right to light up anything he damn well pleased, himself included. But today I decided to make an exception, just to piss you people off."
The crowd was standing well back away from all this. The journalists grumbled among themselves. A couple shook their fists at the interloper.
"What about allegations that Vietnam is being overrun by jokers?" a British reporter shouted. The flying ace was, after all, a semi-official spokesman for the government of the Republic of Free Vietnam. He was rumored to be like this with its President. Perhaps anticlimax could be partly redeemed in embarrassing questions.
"If you brought all the jokers in the world here, they wouldn't make up five percent of the population," JJ said. "Get real."
"What about the way wealthy American jokers are dominating the economy?" asked a woman reporter for Frontline .
"At least now there's an economy to dominate," Flash said. "Even if that were true, which of course it isn't."
He cocked his head at her. "Didn't I see you do a feature a couple years ago, about how America was shortchanging her jokers? Now they come over here, and you bitch because they've got it too good. Make up your damn mind , lady - "
He broke off because some of the reporters and the mob were trying to crane past the parked BMP, at something going on in the streets of the joker district. JJ Flash frowned. He wasn't used to being upstaged. He rose ten feet in the air and turned around.
An astounding cavalcade was approaching down the broad street of the former Chinese quarter. To the skirl of chants, chimes, and pipes, came a bevy of maidens of celestial beauty, hung about with flowers, and trinkets of ivory and gold: the sort of Indian gaud usually attendant upon Indian gods. So celestial was their beauty, in fact, that their bare lotus feet failed to touch the pavement as they walked.
Next up were a band of youths, boys and
Similar Books
