Peter was really excited.
“Quite an academic and intellectual. You can see that for many years he has been instructing himself in the noble art of enduring alcohol. The kind of man I'd like to be when I grow up.”
“Then something happened,” the professor continued: “The fungus transmitted its properties to the tobacco plant. Some of those tobacco crops from ancient Thailand were exported to China, and these corrupt shoots ended up in almost all tobacco plantations.”
A new pause interrupted that condensed history class. The old professor was delighted with Jackie's cup in his hand.
“The physical change was barely imperceptible. Glazed eyes. Weak pulse. Skin in a state of putrefaction. In short, the normal physical state of a smoker. No one could tell the change. But some people did start to notice something. The great medical professionals intervened. They held many conferences, great symposia, and after all these talks throughout the world, after living at everyone's expense, they agreed on one opinion: it was a serious worldwide case of conjunctivitis. Hips!
The teacher's free hand came between the cup and his mouth. The hiccups had hit him hard.
“But the truth was much more terrifying. Hips! Smokers began to be dominated by the fungus-zombie-tabaco.”
“Excuse me Professor,” said Peter, “do you mean to tell me that no medical professional at that time detected the real root of the problem?”
“Well, at that time it was very difficult to find honest doctors. I told you those were bad times. They were either dishonest or stupid. The most common phrase in the medical profession at the time, ‘That's just a virus. You'll be cured,’ has gone down in history. Hips! On the other hand, there was the maladjusted social class of the Politicians, who received succulent sums for doing nothing. Well, if they were good for anything, for talking.”
“Unbelievable. How bad the world was!”
“After all,” continued the old professor with a crisp blur between small, uncontrolled burps and various hiccups, “that disease only attacked the outcasts of society. Hips! Smokers. People who were sick and without resources. All their money was spent on the illegal substance. It was then that the great demographic debacle happened, and at the beginning of the 21st century the majority of smokers began to die. Their bodies, apparently lifeless, were deposited in areas called cemeteries.”
“What is a cemetery?” Corinne asked innocently.
“She will not like the answer.”
“A place where the dead were buried, guy,” replied the professor calmly, who still did not recognize a woman in the figure of Corinne.
“Bury?” replied Corinne visibly upset. “Like plants? Didn't they burn them like now?”
“No, they didn't burn them.”
“How disgusting! But where did they bury them?”
“In the earth or in small vaults, something like small houses.”
“Don't go on, don't go on, professor. I feel like vomiting.”
“What delicate boys there are these days. Well, as I was saying, Hips! a few years went by like that. Smokers died and were buried; they died and were buried and so on...”
Corinne put on stone-faced expression before all that talk, the last words of the old professor were impressing her very much.
“Luckily, in historical journalism class they already explained to us beforehand the old legends of the ‘burial’ rite. How barbaric.”
“Well, as I was saying,” the old professor continued animatedly, moving his eyes in a nystagmic way, “inside the lifeless bodies, the Zombie Fungus continued to generate new spores. These were transmitted at an alarmingly fast rate between the buried bodies of the cemeteries. Above all, in those lifeless bodies full of tobacco, which favored the growth of the fungus, since the combination of nicotine and strontium boosted the fusion. The prevailing humidity underground favored the effect called Buried Steam Pot, with which the disaster was, Hips! served at the table.”
“And then, one day, the worst happened...” he made a theatrical stop. “The smokers came back to life. And an immense horde, led by Patrick Swuaize, Nat King Cole and Errol Flyn, among many others, came back to life wanting to smoke everything and everyone.”
“Horrible, Patrick Swuaize!”
Unfortunately, that wonderful history talk ended after Jackie Danyels' sixth cup. The old professor collapsed irreparably on his table, from the corner of his lips began to regurgitate small slimy slime, and his body, almost at the edge of the ethyl coma, also began to emit small noises similar to snoring.
“These academic types bore me to death, they think only of drinking and studying.”
“But what do you say, Corinne, a man of great wisdom and knowledge like the professor? Six glasses of whiskey. He must be very wise to put up with so much. Do you know that in order to be accepted into the former Oxford-Cambridge University, applicants must undergo severe drunkenness tests?”
“Huh! What was the point of burying people? What nausea has come over me.” C’mon Peter. Mortally boring I am. Besides, he hasn't looked at my tits once. What a nerve.”
Interview with Clown President of the Top Section
“Thank you so much for having us, Great Clown.”
The Great Clown from Above had a huge smile. He wore a huge white, bulging pair of trousers that came big to him. To prevent him from dropping it, he had it securely fastened with red elastic straps, although to the misfortune of Peter and Corinne, the Great Clown was not wearing his usual red nose on that occasion, which he only wore in public.
“Oh, oh, oh, boy, stop treating me with so much respect. I'm just a clown.”
Corinne couldn't focus the lens well; she was very nervous. Her friends would die of envy when they knew she had met the Great Clown from Above.
“Of course, sir,” Peter apologized.
“Just call me, Clown Smith. We reserved the word ‘sir’ for the elderly.”
“Of course, Clown Smith.”
“Awesome. You want a lollipop?”
Corinne accepted the great multicolored lollipop.
“I remember the history classes where they put us in exciting documentaries. After the end of the great plague of smokers, the world got deserted. Only 25% of the population survived. The sectors with the most smokers were swept from the planet: lawyers, politicians, computer scientists, construction workers, taxi drivers and the unemployed. Curiously, within the circus sector, very healthy people, the clowns survived. They represented the lowest rate of smokers. After the great crisis, the clowns of the world joined forces and thanks to them we are still here.”
“How would you define the replacement of the Clowns to the old rulers?”
Sitting behind his table, a big smile was drawn on the face of the Great Clown from Above.
“Oh, boy. Very simple, very simple, very simple. Look at that simple explanation, because clowns never say the ugly thing.”
“And that's Clown Smith?” Peter knew the answer. Everyone knew it. They taught it in schools from an early age. It was repeated by all the clowns at their rallies. The clown-like mantra for excellence. Even so, being able to ask a great clown leader that question filled him with pride.
“Very simple, boy. We never say what is not true.”
“How could they get organized so quickly after the