Once I had a hammer mill, made it run… made it race against time. Once I had a hammer mill, now it’s gone. Brother, can you spare a… Oh, if I had a hammer mill…. I’d hammer in the mornin’ …
They say there’s a song for every occasion, every circumstance of life. Particularly the less pleasant circumstances (though most of those are country songs). Why do you suppose that is, eh? I mean, what is it about living in a small, damp, shaded area beneath a pancake-vendor’s cart that drives a person to song? Is it the persistent smell of rancid cooking oil? The muttered oaths of disgruntled customers, waiting in vain for a decent stack of jacks? The puddle of stagnant muck that is gradually leeching into my ragged clothes? Well… it’s hard to quantify the precise sources of creative inspiration. It pains me to tell you that, though the shadow of the wrecking ball is not yet upon her, our beloved Hammer Mill is not long for this world. Damn their eyes, those Madagascarian developers…. O defilers of our humble dreams! What kind of upscale tourists or well-pensioned retirees would want to make a new start upon the ruins of this sainted mill? Okay… so perhaps I’m overstating it a little bit. The place smells like a city bus. But… and this is important … it smells better than the bottom of that malodorous pancake stand! And after a few years, I’ve became used to the draftiness, the rusted machinery, the occasional cave-ins, the crumbling brick battlements. Yea, we even started to look forward to them. After all, it’s all just part of the squatter’s lot — living the 
dream, as it were, even if it more resembles a nightmare. (What… you can think of a better way to live? I’m listening. Speak louder!) I think the hardest part is watching Marvin (my personal robot assistant) fighting against more than five years of programming that keeps sending him up to the barricaded doorway, only to be turned back again. He’s got a number of routine Mill maintenance tasks filed away in his sophisticated electronic brain, and not being able to complete them makes his circuits smoke like a chimney. (I saw Mitch Macaphee lighting a cigar on one of Marvin’s red hot relay panels just yesterday. Matt and John sometimes warm their hands over the glow when the night air gets brisk.) Hmmm… well, maybe that’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is probably listening to Anti Lincoln make his dictatorial speeches to nobody. Even his low-rent junta generals have skipped town in search of more promising digs. All right, mister anti-president — it’s been three hours. Time to clam up. Jesus, do I miss those massive hammer mill walls! What recourse for the wrongly evicted? Well… there is one possibility, slight though it is. We’ve put a call in to Gung Ho, who’s currently deployed with his mercenaries someplace explosive (and profitable, no 
doubt). I figure he might know a guy who knows a guy… who’d be willing to drop a bomb on a guy before they get the wrecking ball in position. Hey, don’t look at me like that. Last chances are last chances, right? Anyway, so far no response from the Gungster. If you happen to run into him (and live to tell the tale), have him contact us at:
Just under the Flapjack Cart
Third vendor stall along
Colombo Market Square
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Or just have him dial “JOE FLAPJACK” on his cell phone- it will go right to me.
