Life would never be the same again, he knew
that.
What a rich history the German city of Munich has. If we
swing back to November 1923, we would find a very young Adolf
Hitler, a baby-ish thirty-four, and thousands of his fellow
national socialists raising hell, killing cops etc.
All the gang was there. Göring. Hess. And so on.
Hitler was found guilty of treason and sent to the can for five
years where he would write the best-seller Mein
Kampf, Chas Smith’s inspiration, ninety
years later, for an issue of Stab.
Five years after Hitler’s release, the nat socialists then
embarked on an ambitious program to rule the world while ceding the
Pacific, including Australia and the USA, to the Japanese
Empire.
It ended with a bang etc.
In this short clip, taken from the Eisbach’s Rapid Jam held on July 28, a
naked man attempts to dance down a rail into the water, and into
considerable glory, but a horrible slip, suggesting terrific damage
to gonads, ensures a wild
response from spectators and competitors.
Did you know the joint is crowded? That localism is a thing?
That Kelly Slater got told to go home by an arch local known as the
House Meister? And so on?
And have you ever wondered what it be like to have your balls
sliced off by a medical pro? Here’s a short story in the style of
Ernest Hemingway about a man, a doctor and a knife.
He stood there in the stark white room, the cold linoleum floor
beneath his bare feet. The light was harsh, unforgiving, casting
sharp shadows on the walls. There was no need for words; the
doctor’s eyes said it all. This was it. This was the moment he had
dreaded, the moment he had fought against in his mind, but now it
was real, and there was no turning back.
He thought back to the days before, to the days of youth and
virility, when life was a dance of endless possibilities. He had
felt invincible then, with dreams of conquest and glory in his
heart. But life had a way of humbling a man, of bringing him to his
knees, and now he stood there, stripped of his former self, ready
to face the blade.
The doctor moved closer, his face expressionless, his hands
steady. He had performed this procedure countless times before, and
to him, it was just another day at the office. But to the man
standing there, it was everything. It was a loss of identity, of
purpose, of what it meant to be a man.
He closed his eyes, trying to summon the courage to go through
with it. He thought of his loved ones, of the woman he had left
behind, of the children he had never had. Would they understand?
Would they still love him, accept him, with this part of him taken
away?
The room seemed to close in on him, the walls pressing against
his chest. He took a deep breath, trying to calm the tremor in his
hands. This was a choice he had made, he reminded himself. A choice
to live, to survive, to escape the clutches of a disease that
threatened to consume him.
The doctor’s voice cut through the silence, his words crisp and
matter-of-fact. There was no room for sentimentality here, no time
for second-guessing. It was time to face the truth, to confront the
reality of his situation. He nodded, his throat dry, his heart
pounding like a war drum in his chest.
And then it was done. The blade had done its work, and he was
forever changed. He felt a strange mix of relief and emptiness, as
if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders but had been
replaced by an unfillable void.
He dressed silently, the doctor already moving on to the next
patient, the next life to be altered. As he stepped out into the
world, he felt a strange detachment from it all. The people on the
streets seemed like ghosts, their voices distant and
indistinct.
He walked, not knowing where he was going, not caring. The sun
was setting, casting long shadows across the pavement. He thought
of all the other men who had faced the same choice, the same fate,
and he felt a kinship with them, a brotherhood of sacrifice.
Life would never be the same again, he knew that. But as he
walked into the fading light, he felt a glimmer of hope, a spark of
something new. He was still a man, still a human being, and though
a part of him was gone, he was still alive, still breathing, still
fighting. And in the end, that was all that mattered.
