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I have reported many strange stories during my thirty-two years as a journalist, but none more strange than the story that I am about to tell you.
It all began when this magazine's former Stock Market Tipster, the late Prof. Christopher Muldowney, was declared bankrupt. Chris, a jovial and good-natured man, whose devout Buddhist beliefs forbade him from literally hurting a fly, was deeply depressed about his bankruptcy and decided in to commit suicide in the traditional stock market manner of launching himself from the 50th floor of a Wall Street building and landing on innocent passers-by below - four of whom died instantly. He always was stickler for etiquette and tradition, despite the fact that he lived in California and had to hitch hike penniless to New York for the purpose. May God bless you and those poor misfortunate people that you crushed to death, Chris. We love you and remember you fondly.
Anyway, our economics editor asked me to cover for Chris until a suitable replacement could be found. I was more than happy to oblige, as the job of Stock Market Tipster included "bonus payments" consisting of larges sums of cash stuffed into brown envelopes from corporations eager to see their faltering share prices bumped-up as the result of a positive buy recommendation. It also included all-expenses paid junkets to foreign countries to interview executives from up-and-coming businesses. It was with the promise of the latter that I jumped on the offer to cover for Chris's tragic demise.
"Where am I going to? London? Lichtenstein? The Bahamas? Monaco?" I excitedly asked the economics editor.
"To Tardonia," came the inauspicious reply.
"Where the fuck is that?" I asked.
"I have no idea. But wherever it is, that's where you're going," replied the economics editor, dropping a budget plane ticket, a map of Tardonia, and a mere $150 dollars in forward expenses into my desk.
"Some dude called Baron von Gimpmeister is in charge of some harebrained initiative to rebuild the economy of the Principality of Tardonia. It has something to do with the Internet, apparently. Go interview him, take some pictures, and write a story about it. See you when you get back."
Baron von Gimpmeister, it transpires, is the reclusive first cousin of Prince Gimpmeister, who is the ruler of the Principality of Tardonia.
For centuries, Tardonia's principle export was the leading brand of freak that still bares the royal family's name today. However, the emergence of the global market in the latter half of the twentieth century saw the gimp-infested countries of Canada and Australia come to dominate that marketplace, resulting in a sharp decline in both the economy of Tardonia and the personal fortunes of the Gimpmeister family. The attempts of the royal family to revive the economy by turning to the service industry in the form of international call centers proved disastrous, however, when they invested 87% of the principality's reserves in the purchase of fourteen million homing pigeons without first undertaking due diligence research into the latest new-fangled technologies, which would have, presumably, revealed the popularity of "It'll never catch on" technologies from the telegraph wire to digital communications satellites.
Today, the economy of Tardonia lies in ruin. Its population has been reduced to just 257 from its height of 1,288,877 during its 19th-century glory, making it the smallest country, by population, in Eastern Europe, and indeed, the world. (There are, of course, smaller countries on the planet, but most of them only 'exist' inside 10ft square padded cells or on militant households in the deep south of the United States; and none of them are officially recognized.) Its main method of transportation is horse and cart, as it doesn't have any modern infrastructure such as surfaced roads, bridges, or railways. Nor does it have any telecommunication system beyond the ones that the royal Gimpmeister family privately own and use to surf the Internet for free piglet porn and to make crank calls to other world leaders.
However, I expected that Tardonia would, at least, have an airport, since I held in my hand a ticket to land at one. But no, the instant we entered Tardonia's airspace, I was unceremoniously bundled into a parachute by two ungainly-looking hirsute East German women and thrown out of the aircraft at 5000ft. While I consider such treatment to be less than professional, they did, at least, have the kindness to warn me not to land in any of the old WW2 minefields, saying, as they thrust my suitcase into my arms and flung me out, that if I saw human skeletons and torn silk chutes below, I should avoid landing in that area.
At first glance then, Tardonia would seem an unlikely country to pin its hopes for economic revitalization on becoming a hub of Internet commerce. I hoped that all would become clear when I interviewed Baron von Gimpmeister about the details this unspecified initiative.
Though I was pleased not to land on a mine, I was nonetheless displeased to be ejected over an area of godforsaken wilderness and in such an undignified and discourteous manner - they will receive a stern letter of complaint. I was also displeased to have missed out on a spot of duty free shopping that I was looking forward to; even if, on the bright side, I did escape the bother of customs and baggage collection. Anyway, I removed my parachute, dusted myself off, and waved an angry fist at the sky trail of my lost contact with civilization as it disappeared beyond the clouds. Alas, there was no sign of life in any direction and I didn't have a clue where I was located on the map.
However, as I knew that Baron von Gimpmeister castle was in the north of Tardonia, I checked at my compass and started walking north across the eerily forsaken landscape until darkness descended and I came to rest under the shelter of a creepy willow tree by a trickling brook. I lamented how the landscape seemed, the further north I had traveled, to gloomily shift from being uninhabited to being strangely haunted. The willow seemed to whistle menacingly in the unnatural still of the late evening, while the brook, itself, seemed to flow with ominous silence. Filled with foreboding, I decided not to rest, even though I was exhausted and concerned about stumbling into a minefield in the dark. I walked north by the light of the maleficent moon for another four or five hours until I happened upon the semblance of a road.
I shone my flashlight each direction on the road, wondering which way to go, as the road traversed east to west and I was heading north. To my amazement, I saw a sign further ahead on the eastbound route and walked towards it. The sign simply read: "Town - East. Snake-filled Swamp - West." I decided that east looked the better option and began walking along the road in that direction.
I applauded myself for my wise decision as the road to the town was finally reached several hours after dawn had broken. The town, if one can really call it such, consisted of around a dozen Bavarian-style houses, a tavern, and a food store lining a single street. It is approached by passing the elegant spire of a Gothic Revival church that seems to have an impossibly large graveyard for such a small parish. I was in no mood for sightseeing and hurriedly made my way to the tavern.
You could have heard a pin drop as I opened the door wide and stepped into Ladr's Tavern - not because a stranger had appeared at the tavern’s door among clannish, stranger-shunning locals with a town secret to hide from the outside world, but because there were no locals in the tavern and a pin accidentally dropped from my lapel. In fact, there were no locals anywhere.
I picked my Pioneer Pin up and placed it back in my lapel, before walking to the bar counter and ringing a cowbell for attention.
After ringing the cowbell for about three hours, a burly, Lederhosen-wearing elderly man with white whiskers covering his face lumbered down the stairs in the far corner of the tavern.
"What fucking kept you, you pig-fucking peasant?" I politely inquired.
I was aghast when he rudely ignored my presence and turned left into what appeared to be the kitchen area.
Outraged at such poor levels of service in the Tardonian hospitality industry, I followed him into the kitchen to express my disapproval in no uncertain terms: "Cuntface, I've been ringing that fucking cowbell for three fucking hours with no attention at all! What is the meaning of this! You just wait until The Michelin Guide hears about this!"
He continued to ignore me and began plucking a chicken at the sink.
Now, in a vile temper, I walked up to him and grabbed his left shoulder with the intention of reprimanding him eye-to-eye for his discourtesy, whereupon he let out a terrible scream and jumped about a foot off the ground, before turning, crouching back against the kitchen sink, and screaming again.
I was rather taken aback by this distressful behavior. I monetarily felt a tinge of pity for the poor afflicted creature, which quickly dissipated when he grabbed the part-plucked chicken by its legs and began to swing it at me in a violent manner, yelling, "Murderer! Paid assassin! Anal rapist!"
I delivered a sharp single right hook to his lower jaw that promptly settled the disagreeable matter.
However, I quickly deduced that an unconscious tavern owner would not be able to assist me with either a bed to rest on or directions to Baron von Gimpmeister's castle. Logic dictated that said tavern owner should be immediately rendered conscious again. Not having any smelling salts for the purpose, I removed my left sock and held the offending garment under his nose. As I was doing so, I noticed, to my embarrassment, a sign hanging from a chain around his neck which read: "I'm Deaf."
Fortunately, however, the elderly tavern owner regained consciousness without regaining his memory of the confrontation that immediately preceded his loss of it.
"What happened," he asked, "Did I fall over again?"
"Yes, you did," I answered, "It was lucky for you that I wandered by and was able to help you."
"My name is Ladr. I'm deaf," he said, holding up the sign around his neck, "You'll have to write what you just said down for me to read. There is a slate and chalk on the table."
"Ah... yes, you rancid old coot, I forgot that you can't hear me," I said, retrieving the slate and chalk from the table.
"I need a bed for the night and a bath tub to wash in. How much do you charge?" I wrote.
"It’s $650 dollars for a nice room with a fireplace to heat the water for a hot tub. Can't do it any cheaper, I'm afraid. It's the height of the Tardonian tourist season and we're very busy - almost fully-booked."
"$650 dollars! You utter fleecing bastard! There is no one in this godforsaken shithole of a country! How could you be fully-booked? Is this how you reward a Good Samaritan who just a minute ago saved your life?" I exclaimed, before rephrasing my indignation in chalk as "I'll take it."
The next morning at the breakfast table...
"What does the Full Tardonia Breakfast consist of?" I wrote on the slate.
"A slice of toast."
"I don't like toast. What does the Continental Breakfast consist of?"
"A slice of toast."
"I'll pass on that. Is there anything on the menu that isn't toast?"
"Yes. The International Breakfast"
"What does that consist of?"
"A slice of bread, not toasted."
"Bring me that then."
"I'm sorry, sir, I can't."
"Why not?"
"We're out of bread."
"Do you know where I can hire a horse?"
"No."
"Is there any public transportation in this one-horse-town-without-a-horse?"
"Nope. There is a bus in the capital city, but that's 120 miles away and the bus stopped running about ten years' ago. There was a one-legged Rickshaw Runner by the name of Freud in the next town, but he lost his other leg and had to retire - tripped over a lucky horseshoe, busted his kneecap in half, and got infected with gangrene."
"Bummer. How far is Baron von Gimpmeister's castle from here?"
"It's about 180 miles northeast from here, but it's only 23 miles if you head northwest."
"I'll head northwest then."
"By the way, what are the people of Tardonia called? Tardicans, Tardish, Tardonians, Tardistanis, or Tardlanders?"
"We are called 'Tards."
Having turned left at the crossroads at the end of the town, I came to a granite humpbacked toll bridge with a wooden barrier that was manned by a hunchbacked midget with a ridiculous oversized Afro hairstyle that increased his visible mass by 40%.
"You have to pay a $15 dollar toll to cross my bridge," he said, presenting me with a bouquet of nettles, "Compliments of Brent's Bridges."
"And why should I pay a toll to cross your bridge?" I inquired, declining the bouquets.
"There is no other bridge for 14 miles."
"That may be the case, but as there is no river, I can simply walk around your bridge and continue onward with my journey."
"You can, I suppose, but you won't be able to tell people that you crossed the only granite humpbacked bridge in Tardonia that is owned by a genuine hunchbacked midget, will you?"
"I could still tell people that, swamp creature, if I had a notion to lie about such inconsequential trivia" I replied, walking around the bridge.
"To hell with you then, terrorist immigrant!" shouted Brent from the arch of the bridge, "An ox's tail on your firstborn and three blind heads on your second!"
At this juncture, I had already accepted that the Tardonian tourist industry was in urgent need of considerable improvement, so I took no further redundant offence at such dismal shenanigans. Low-spending backpackers are, I suspect, about as welcome here as another category 4 hurricane is in New Orleans.
After walking for seven hours along bad road through a never-ending sequence of dark foreboding forests, swamplands, mountains, low rolled mists, and gothic ruins (where, according to legend, mad monks, evil torturers, and demons once dwelled), I finally came in twilight to a long and tattered rope bridge that led to the high cliffs where Baron von Gimpmeister's castle was perched - not that I could see it through the evening mist and low light.
The rope bridge looked about as stable as a bowlegged tightrope walker or SoG on a straight line sobriety test, and I really didn't like the idea of venturing onto it and the high probability of falling into the bottomless abyss below. I regretted that I didn't bring Flynn or some equally disposable dolt along for the purpose of testing the bridge. But nevertheless, I said a prayer (psalm twenty-three), summoned courage, and crossed over to the darker side.
Perhaps it was the result of my frantic cardiac palpitations, but the atmosphere on the other side seemed to be unduly oppressive: dark, cold, and unnaturally still. I half-expected Lugosi’s caped vampire to appear before me with a gentlemanly greeting, or Boris Karloff’s squared-headed, neck-bolted monster to come stumbling out of the haunting trees, holding its aloft arms before it, and break the ill-boding silence with a sustained monotone grunt. Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death is a stroll in the park compared to this doomful, forbidding place.
I moved cautiously along the grim terrain that led me deeper into this inhospitable abyss. Ominously, the deeper I went, the more the heavens seemed to shy from view, as if either shamed by some terrible history or, portentously, complicit in some sinister conspiracy. My path ahead was now guided only by the faint beam from my fading torch - and, every five minutes or so, a flash from my Zippo as I lit another nerve-calming cigarette.
Suddenly, the heavens awoke and shook the ground with deafening thunder. Torrential rain poured down and lightning streaks shot across the black sky. I gazed up and saw the silhouette of Baron von Gimpmeister's starkly gothic castle atop a steep cliff. If this becomes any more camp, I thought, a proverbial prescient black cat will surely cross my path, quickly followed by Abbot & Costello fleeing from a homicidal bandage-covered Egyptian Mummy.
To escape the soaking rain, I moved hurriedly and less cautiously to the castle. Crossing the wooden drawbridge and then the cobbled courtyard, I approached the 20ft tall double oak doors, lifted the heavy iron circular doorknocker and banged it down onto the door.
The enormous door slowly creaked ajar. After a few moments, a head appeared in the opening followed by the rest of its body slowly shuffling around the giant door to complete the portrait.
"Good evening, Sir," it said.
"Good evening. I'm here to interview Baron von Gimpmeister. Is he available?"
"Whom shall I say is calling?"
"I'm T. D. Man from Biznews Magazine. He is expecting me," I replied, taking a business card from my jacket pocket and handing it to him.
The butler, a tall gaunt man in his mid-50s, took the card, closed the giant door behind me, and asked me to follow him into the library. As he walked at a snail's pace, by means of leaning on a crutch and dragging his lifeless right leg behind him, it took thirteen minutes to walk the seventy or so feet through the cathedral-like entrance hall of the castle to the library.
"Those are books," he said, pointing at the endless wall-to-ceiling rows of bookshelves filled with gold-gilded and leather-bound volumes that befit a grand library.
"Are they indeed?" I said with a mild sarcastic tone, while taking off my wet jacket.
"Yes."
"Can you bring me a coffee, please? I'll be sitting by the fire. Thanks."
"I will go find Baron von Gimpmeister and inform him that you are here," he answered, ignoring my request for a coffee and turning slowly toward the door.
"Great. See you in a couple of hours then," I replied, positioning myself into a comfortable Queen Anne chair by the open fire.
I put my feet onto the Chesterfield buttoned footstool and slouched back in my chair. Surveying as much of the vast library as the ample fire and flickering gas lights allowed, my eyes came to rest upon a portrait of Baron von Gimpmeister that hung above the ornately-chiseled stone fireplace. Just for a second there, I could have sworn that I saw its eye move, but it was most likely a trick of the light.
Moments later, Baron von Gimpmeister suddenly emerged from a hidden passageway behind a row of fake bookshelves to the side of the fireplace, and almost caused me to suffer a fatal cardiac arrest.
Before I could react, he was bounding toward me with is hand extended to shake mine, saying: "Welcome to Tardonia and Gimpmeister Castle, Mr. Man! I'm Baron von Gimpmeister. Doomsday, my butler, informed me that you were here. It is very nice of you to travel all this way."
"Nice to meet you, Baron," I replied, locking his hand into an iron grip handshake to regain the initiative, "I have to admit that your unconventional entrance startled me a little."
"Indeed," he replied, yanking his hand from my grip and retreating to the matching Queen Anne on the opposite side of the fireplace, "Indeed. Now, what is it that you want to interview me about my plans to use e-commerce to rebuild the economy of the Principality of Tardonia."
"Well, two questions to start with: Why were gimps Tardonia's biggest export and not Tards? And which service or product is your e-commerce plans centered on?"
"Gimps are property. Tards are not. What can't be owned can't be sold. Simple equation! Regarding your second question, e-gimps are the future. Real gimps made Tardonia great once, and virtual gimps will make Tardonia great once again. We have a valuable residual brand and the Internet allows us to exploit it for commercial gain once again, even if we don't actually have any real gimps left to sell - except the ones that I keep in the dungeons below. But we can't sell them, as they are the basis of this e-gimps initiative. One real gimp can register hundreds of nics, thereby creating hundreds of e-gimps. Each one can be sold to a careful owner who can simultaneously nurture and brutalize it. There are a growing number of gimp collectors on the Internet. Huge money can be made. Huge," enthused the Baron.
I knew at that precise moment that I was in the presence of a raving, and quite possibly homicidal, maniac - albeit a royal one. Prince Charles talking to his chrysanthemums couldn't compete with this guy in the Regal Lunacy stakes. E-gimps? Dungeons? What the hell was the schizoid raving on about I wondered. I decided it was wise to end the interview and leave before his madness took a disagreeably violent turn.
"Well, that certainly sounds like a brilliant business model. I'll certainly be giving it a hearty "Buy" recommendation. I only wish that I had the funds to invest in it myself. Anyway, it's getting late and I better be on my way. Thanks for the interview," I said, rising slowly from my seat so as not to alarm the loon with sudden movement and clutching my pencil in my fist in case I needed to use it at any moment as an improvised eye-stabbing self-defense weapon.
"No, stay a while," said Baron, "I don't often get visitors here. Besides, swarms of flesh-devouring bats fly around these cliffs after midnight. It isn't safe for you to leave now. Stay, and leave well-rested in the morning. Doomsday is bringing your coffee. However, I fear it will be cold by the time he finally gets here with it. I will give you a guided tour of the dungeons to observe my collection of the very best freaks of nature: Tardonia's last remaining gimps."
I pondered whether to take my chances with the swarms of flesh-devouring bats, or stay for cold coffee, a warm bed for the night, and a potentially entertaining tour of the dungeons. Even though it carried with it the disagreeable prospect of being savagely murdered by a lunatic, the latter option seemed the better one.
"That's very kind of you, Baron. I'm honored to be a guest of royalty."
We descended into the catacomb of the castle by means of a steep spiral stairwell that seemed to twist down into hell itself.
"These dungeons were originally built as torture chambers in the twelfth century. Back then, devising evermore complex ways to inflicting abysmal suffering on misfortunate human beings was considered to be the height of good taste, breeding, probity, and quality entertainment. In that sense, they were forerunners to Internet flaming forums, with said misfortunates serving the role now served by e-gimps," said Baron von Gimpmeister, as he opened the doors to the dungeons to reveal a long dimly lit dank passageway of coarse grey stone walls punctuated by austere columns supporting vaulted ceilings, "The labyrinthine passageways are lined with chamber doors ornamented with stone grotesques above the archway."
"Cheerful place," I observed, "The gargoyles, in particular, promote a general sense of well-being and effervescence."
"Ah, here comes the attention-seeking one to seek our attention, predictably enough. The beggarly critter is afflicted with Beavezoidal Syndrome," said the baron.
A midget walking on stilts appeared out of the shadows, holding before it a bookstore promotional cardboard cut-out of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein with the head of Bernstein removed and replaced its own hideously real visage.
"Hello, I'm Carl. Nice to meet you," it said, bending Bernstein's cardboard arm outward and upward at the elbow mark, as if it expected me to suspend disbelief and shake the cardboard hand.
Baron von Gimpmeister, sensing my discomfort at interacting with these pitiful creatures, adopted a faux Micheal Caine accent and asked the creature, "Ruprecht, do you want the genital cuff?"
An expression of unmitigated terror seized the creature's face, such that it instantly let loose of the cardboard cutout, jumped down from its stilts, and hobbled away as quickly as its two differently-sized bowlegs would allow, before sliding under a drainage gap on the far passageway wall and vanishing from view.
"I suspect that episode will result in yet another self-serving whine on his Blog about management abuse," said Baron von Gimpmeister, shaking his head.
"I see a pair of cat-like eyes staring out at us from the drain. He hasn't gone just yet," I observed.
"I'll tell Igor to release the cottonmouth water moccasin snakes into the drains," said Baron von Gimpmeister.
"It's freezing cold down here" I said, lighting a cigarette, "I thought hell was supposed to be hot."
"Indeed," said the baron, "In this chamber I keep a gimp by the name of Rotwanker. It's a wily old fox, but without the wiles."
"Do you mean two clever by three-quarters?" I asked.
"Indeed, a halfwit," said the baron, vaguely smiling at the brummagem joke, "Rotwanker is a ruthless disciplinarian who insists on spanking the bare bottoms of all sinners with an iron fist - but only if they are boys under the age of 13. And, in his case, he literally uses an iron fist, as he lost both of his hands in a violent confrontation with an air-conditioning extraction fan. He felt that it was sneering, somehow, at his modest manhood while he urinated onto an office yucca plant. I guess he just snapped. Bravely, he didn't give up the fight when both of his hands were discharged into the street below, like a mere coward would. Nope, he started to head-butt the fan."
"Bizzare."
"That, incidentally, explains the pyramid shape of his head. It's not an Australian genetic trait; as you might, otherwise, have assumed," added the baron.
"This might sound a tad crude, but how does he wipe his arse with no hands?" I asked.
"He's originally from Australia. They don't wipe. Their colonial masters didn't see any need to teach them skills that weren't directly related to sheep-shearing and pissing into large vats to make Fosters. Masturbation, however, does present some complex problems for him. But fortunately for him, as he doesn't have any problem-solving ability, SoG regularly falls over from the demon drink, allowing Rotwanker the opportunity to rub his groin against his face until ejaculation is achieved - which, at Rotwanker's age, is only on the rare occasions when his prostate gland in stimulated by an unconscious SoG mistakenly fingering his hemorrhoid-lined anus, while murmuring, 'Oh... Bunny... Bunny.'"
"Who is SoG and Bunny?" I asked.
"Bunny is the gimp in the chamber with the wall-to-ceiling mirrors that are covered in lipstick. It's further on down, next to the cell with the shit-smeared walls where Bumspud is locked up. She's forever complaining about the smell. Can't say I blame her. It gets really bad when Bumspud's gastrointestinal problems reoccur, or when he redecorates. SoG is the gimp in this chamber," said Baron von Gimpmeister, kicking the door open and firing a revolver at the ground.
Damn, I thought, this crazy motherfucker has a gun.
"Dance or die, Gimp. Dance or die! Dance like John Wayne's elderly sidekick Walter Brennan at a makeshift hoedown - or die. Dance!" shouted the baron at SoG, who was duly holding the hems of his habit and dancing like a fairground turkey on a hotplate.
"Dance like a good gimp should dance," said Baron von Gimpmeister, firing off another six rounds at SoG's feet.
"Anyway, it has been a charming evening, but I better get to bed. I have a long journey ahead of me tomorrow," I said.
"I haven't shown you Spambrain, the human cannonball, yet, or the world's only Siamese Gimps, Jock Spots and Mini-Moe," protested the baron, "At least let me show you my oldest gimp, Miss Cardtrick, before you can go to bed. It's more fun than being raped by one hundred big-boned dykes with hairy armpits and safer than being held in a headlock and force-feed arsenic with a sink plunger! Follow me, one last gimp to see!"
I wasn't sure if the lunatic was threatening me or just raving in the manner that lunatics rave, but I reached for my pencil again just to be on the safe side.
"Unfortunately, it is too dangerous to open the door to this gimp's chamber unless she is restrained in leg irons and fitted with a steel-grated face mask, but you can see her through the peephole. Have a peep," said the baron.
I lost several years' of life when my eyes were confronted by a withered haglike form of utter repugnancy in its late 90s wearing a pink bikini. I almost vomited when it stuck out its shriveled tongue in what the wretch misguidedly assumed was a sexually suggestive manner and said, "Come here, hunk, and creampie my diarrhea-scented asshole."
"She's a true pioneering gimp - always has been. Many of the Great Lies of the Internet originated with her, including such classics as 'Yes, that's my real pic' and 'I will transfer $31 million into your account from Nigeria.' She also starred in the original "My First Gangbang" back in 1934," enthused the baron, while waving away an imaginary fly.
"The word 'bizarre' suddenly seems so inadequate. Anyway, bed for me."
"Indeed. I'll have Igor show you to your room. Sleep well. In the morning, Doomsday will take you by coach and horses to the capital. Only the monkeys use the rope bridge. I'll bid you adieu and a safe journey."
"Thanks very kind of you. Thank you for the interview and for your immaculate hospitality," I said, expertly concealing my embarrassment and mild annoyance at being compared to a scrambling monkey, "By the way, is it my imagination or has that suit of armor been following us?"
"Oh, that's Danger. She's harmless. She just likes to keep a close eye on things while lurking in the background."
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