Beaufort and Fneaur had been living alone in a cabin in the mountains. Fneaur was born there and Beaufort wanted to raise her there until she was done growing, at least considering height. It took a few months for Beaufort to make arrangements for the move into a large nearby city, meanwhile Fneaur got a bit bigger then anticipated.
Beaufort: Fneaur, today we are moving to the city.
Fneaur: Yeah you told me already.
Beaufort: Well today its happening.
Beaufort and Fneaur watched from a distance as the moving firm people where gently placing theyre furniture inside a truck.
Fneaur: The moving guys smell like coffee and sweat.
Beaufort: Yeah even i notice that. But its not so easy to find a bunch of these guys that wont hurt the furniture, some of this stuff is from the 18th century you know.
Beaufort nodded towards a worn old wooden sofa being lifted unto the truck. The fabric covering the top looked modern.
Fneaur was smelling a large beetle making its way across the stone tiles outside of the cabin. After some careful investigation she ate it.
Beaufort: Tasty?
Fneaur: Yeah sure, kind of like...
Fneaur chewed carefully mumbling something incoherent.
Fneaur: Kind of like sparrow, only smaller and without the beak. Dont want that anyway so im good.
Beaufort: It tastes like a bird?
Fneaur: Well sort of. Birds taste more like berries and what ever they are fed. I guess this beetle eats berry juice or something. I think i prefer sparrows though, not the beak though, hate that, need to put it in the back of the mouth to crack it and it doesnt always work out.
Beaufort scratched Fneaur on the neck and sat down on a hand carved wooden chair while lighting a cigarette. Fneaur moved to sit by his right side. Morning light was beaming in from southwest behind them, slowly dissipating the autumn dew from grass that was still green. Fneaur smelled the grass and scratched at it some and then she walked in circles on the spot and slumped to the ground.
Beaufort: I can get a blanked for you there.
Fneaur stretched out.
Fneaur: Yes please!
The day waned as Beaufort and Fneaur watched the careful movers load two trucks full of furniture, cutlery, tools, paintings, carpentry materials, books and sculptures. When the trucks was all full they approached one of the trucks containing an elderly man and a young man that looked related by blood.
The older man: Thats it, all ready to go. Id hate to see you leave, but i guess if you need to go you need to go.
Beaufort: Yeah ive got plans to put into motion in the city, but i recon ill be back here in a few years.
The older man: What will you be doing in the city?
Beaufort: Oh places to see, people to uuh...
Beaufort made a pause and tapped his chin.
Beaufort: People to talk to, things to write, that kind of thing.
The older man: Id be pleased to see you by our house one of these weekends. Make sure you call before you come though, i might be out hunting or if its in the summer i might be out fishing or maybe something else.
Beaufort: Ok Johnny, how about i give you a call in the spring and we will set something up?
Johnny: Ok Beau that is settled.
Beaufort took Johnnys wrinkled hand in his and gave it a firm squeeze. Fneaur barked twice.
Johnny: Bye Fneaur, Bye Beau!
The younger man waved a goodbye.
Beaufort: Bye Johnny!
Fneaur waggled her tail as Beaufort waved until the trucks disappeared among the pine trees down the road.
Beaufort went inside the cabin while Fneaur paced impatiently among varying kinds of planted bushes outside. Soon Beaufort came out with a large backpack and swung it unto his back.
Beaufort: Lets go my friend, we have four days of walking to do before we get to the city.
Fneaur: Oh yeah the forest, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh boy, oh boy this is gonna be fun.
As Beaufort and Fneaur walked off in a steady pace light flickered inside the cabin. In a few minutes flames was seen inside. When the sun rose the next morning only the mortar of the stove remained among smoldering ruins. Soon a family of foxes settled into the old basement of the cabin. Many years after that drifters chased the foxes out and slept there during the long harsh period of the "resource wars" of 2017 to 2025. In 2027 two trucks came rolling up the hill...
Beaufort kneed beside Fneaur who was still wagging her tail as she had been doing all day. He poured water unto a small pit in a boulder and Fneaur drank. Beaufort sat down on the boulder and rolled himself joint of the finest weed there was around. He slowly blew the smoke towards Fneaur who sat very close and she inhaled through the nose.
Fneaur: Its not prepared adequately, though the strength of taste and effect is there. Meaning this is some good shit, even though its not adequately dry.
Beaufort: You are picky.
Fneaur: Im good, im real good. I taste things humans will never experience.
Beaufort: I know my friend, and im glad. I want you to enjoy your form and what it can give you.
Fneaur: You better lead the way from here, i cant see shit.
It was getting dark, the sun was nowhere to be seen and only a dim, indirect light was filtering through the atmosphere through the fir trees.
Beaufort: You get so captured in the moment.
Beaufort patted Fneaur on the head.
Beaufort: We need rest, we will sleep here. You stay while i make the fire.
In the days to come Beaufort and Fneaur walked through quiet forests, skipping over boulders and small streams along the way. Fneaur chased a squirrel a little to wildly and cut her paw and Beaufort ran out of sausages so they had to make due with rice and fruit, otherwise there was no troubles along the way. They took a bus from the suburbs into the city on the fourth day and they arrived outside of a big bank at around supper time.
Beaufort: This is a bank.
Fneaur: Whats that?
Beaufort: Well its actually a very important, yet misunderstood institution of the later modern society. In this place transactions are made from one account to another and...
Fneaur: What is an account?
Beaufort: Its good that you are asking questions. An account is simply and allocated number to wich assets denominated in currency are tied.
Fneaur: What the fuck are you talking about?
Beaufort: Well you see when people trade stuff in moder day society, everything is valued in currency.
Fneaur: Ok so what is this stuff called "currency"?
Beaufort: Well, its numbers in a database.
Fneaur: What is a database?
Beuafort: Its kind of like a piece of paper with words or numbers on it, but its in a computer instead of on a paper. A database is simply a collection of such non physical paper that is inside a computer.
Fneaur: So whats it for?
Beaufort: You mean...
They where interrupted by two a cops who stopped by on the sidewalk.
The bigger cop: Sir are you aware you are talking to a dog?
Beuafort: Yes
Beuafort answered calmly and in a civil manner. The smaller cop was looking around as if searching for somebody.
The bigger cop: Are you here with someone who are taking care of you or something?
Beaufort: Look, the dog likes the sound of my voice so im just sort of thinking out aloud. I was not aware that i was disturbing anybody, i apologize if i was and i will stop. Its just a habit of mine you now, im not fucked up in the head.
Both cops settled down a bit.
The bigger cop: Ok but sorta keep it down or something or go sit by the bench over there.
The cop motioned to a dirty bench down the street.
Beaufort: Sure man no problemo.
The cops walked off silently. Fneaurs ears went up and homed in on the conversation the two cops began as they thought Beuafort could not here them.
Fneaur: They are insulting your intelligence.
Beaufort: I know. They are insulting their own intelligence as well, inderectly.
Fneaur: Yeah.
Beaufort took up the conversation with Fneaur, but more quietly this time.
Beaufor: So currency are tied to accounts, a certain amount. Its not really money as you have seen in my pockets, only if its withdrawn from an ATM. Currency gets there through transactions from one account to another. Governments decides when and how much currency to create. The more they create of it, the more gets around, the less its worth. Thats one of the ways how governments cheat their population out of their work.
Fneaur: What?
Beafort: Yes i know, its weird and fucked up, but thats how it works. Now im going in here and opening up an account. Ill use some paper money to transfer it to an account.
Fneaur: I cant reach the buttons on the ATM thingie so i cant fetch that for you, so you handle all the transactioning thingie.
Beaufort: Yeah.
After Beaufort opened an account and placed some money in it, they walked off to a small hotell in the center of the city and Beuafort made arrangement to rent a room for a week. Beuafort unpacked is backpack and they both had a nap.
Beaufort: We are going to see a friend.
Beuafort was brushing Fneaurs fur.
Fneaur: Ok, what for?
Beuafort: Well ive known her since before you where born. Not quite sure what she is up to these days. We will see what we can find out.
As Beaufort and fneur got out of the hotell the movements and lights of entertainment had lit up the city. People where walking the streets talking excitedly to each other about the coming entertainment they where going to enjoy. As Fneur heard all the conversations in the vicinity, a thought was moving through her head.
Fneaur: I dont quite understand this... She began saying in an uncertain way.
Beaufort: Whats on your mind?
Fneaur: People seem to crave for someone else to entertain them, either with content someone else already made up, or events they cannot forsee or understand. This thing called "cinema", or this "party" everyone seem to be buzzing about. What is it for? What does it mean?
Beaufort: Thats a pretty big question, i think you will be wiser to the answer as time goes along. But ill try to answer your question in portions. You see to modern people entertainment is a big thing. Thats what they have been told, thats what they know, thats what they do. Its one thing to enjoy something, but entertainment is something else.
Beaufort and Fneaur took a buss to the area close to the university. They had to ask around for an adress but soon they found the place they where looking for. Pretty much an average apartment building built in the seventies. They went in and found the apartment and rang the door.
Fneaur: Fumes of ethanol is evaporating through the cracks in the door.
Beuafort: Oh i see, she is back to drinking.
The door opened. A tired woman holding a glass of red wine opened.
Tired Woman: Hey whats cooking?
Beuafort: Hey Peepod! Its me Beaufort!
The tired woman squinted at Beaufort and then down at Fneaur.
Peepod: Yeap its you. And you got yourself a dog i see. Whats her name?
Beaufort: Fneaur.
Peepod: Thats a strange name, but she is lovely!
Fneaur laied down on her side to invite Peepod to scratch her belly and so she did.
Beuafort: How about we come in?
Beuafort could feel the reek of alchohol that fneaur was talking about from inside.
Peepod: Well my man is sleeping so we better be a bit quite and not listen to Black Sabbath so loud, but a little bit of volume and red wine he can take before being disturbed from his wonderous empire of fog and shadow.
Beaufort: Wonderfull.
Beuafort and Fneaur entered into a living room through a hallway that went passed the kitchen where all the smell where coming from. All open surfaces had empty alchol containers of warying kinds distributed on them. Beuafort and Peepod sat down on a soft couch. Fneaur slowly went around smelling things on the floor. Peepod put away the cheap wine she had been drinking and fetched another more expensive kind that Beaufort had never seen before, and then she put on "Hole in the sky" by Black Sabbath.
Beaufort: So what have you been up to the last four years?
Peepod: Been slouching at the university, trying not to kill my students while working on a, by now very tedious assupmtion i had three years ago.
She said it without much enjoyment. But Beaufort had to make sure.
Beaufort: Any fun?
Peepod: In the beginning it was, kind of i guess. Now im pretty lost i think. Its all the stuff with the you know... Oh they just want it to be boring, they cant handle it if it gets exciting.
Beaufort: Yeah maybe i understand.
Peepod: When i got bored i tried to change the thesis but it was too late, i had been working on it for too long. You know its not so complicated what i want to say, i can do it in like ten pages, but im not allowed too. I need to explain all the method and have all the boring bits and pieces.
Beaufort: Not to get you down or anything, but thats pretty much why i didnt try to get in for post grad.
Peepod: Yeah i know we talked about that three years ago. How about you then, what have you been up to. I know you went into the woods.
Beaufort: Yeah i found a nice little village and i had some friends there since before and i managed to get a few more there. But i felt like there was a couple of things i had to do here in the city so i got rid of the place. There was another reason for me to get out of that place, but thats a complicated bit. Anyway ive got another place there off the beaten path that im moving back into in a while. Just thought id settle things here before... uh.
Beaufort fell silent.
Peepod: Before what?
Beaufort: I dont want to lie to you.
Peepod: Then dont.
Beaufort: Then lets just talk about that later.
Peepod: When?
Beaufort: Later is a better time, just trust me.
Peepod: Ok sure.
Peepod poured herself a third glass of wine and she filled up Beauforts who only have had two sips.
