How I became an Outlaw in Peru, a short story
Chapter two:
My relentless search for Carlos the Janitor

I will now relate the second Chapter of our story, the first stage of my search for Carlos the Janitor, incompetent handyman and murderer of my one true love.

As the only child to have survived the blast, due solely I believe, to Sister Marie sacrificing herself to save me (and not just leaning down to smack me again, as others have so spitefully insinuated), the responsibility to seek vengeance for the Sisters of Perpetual Longing fell to me. I was so young, so scared, but a white hot fire burned inside me, knowing that someone as beautiful and wonderful as Sister Marie could be taken from me due to the incompetence of an illiterate Bolivian janitor. My blood boiled.
Revenge would be mine.
So, I girded my loins and prepared for my journey (luckily, the aged gardener, Mr McWeevil, was able to explain what 'girding my loins' actually meant, and I did no permanent damage to myself).
I was ready to engage upon my quest.
Oh, what a proud sight, the surviving sisters, all standing, sitting in wheelchairs or in the care of stretcher bearers, forming a guard of honour to send me on my way!
I recall the Mother Superior, covered in bandages, wisps of smoke still curling from her beard.
I could have wept at the love and forgiveness on display that morning.
"You must go forth and smite our enemies!" said Mother Superior, in her best baritone, to which the surviving sisters yelled "Yeah!", "Kill that M***er F***er!", "Bust some caps!" and "Whut? I can't hear you dear, the explosion, you know?"
To the stamping of their hobnailed boots, I set off upon the journey which would consume the rest of my life.
The search for Carlos the Janitor.

The intervening years were full of hardship and heartbreak, as soon after I left the remains of the convent, I fell in with the 'Great Pacozoni' a musician, shyster and sometime stage magician, who claimed to be decended from an illicit rendezvous between a Prussian Count and a Latvian streetfighter. Or perhaps it was a Latvian Countess and a Prussian streetfighter? But I digress.
My time with the 'Great Pacozoni' was frequently dangerous, due mainly to the fact that we always seemed to be running away from somebody, normally a group of somebodies, in fact, to shouts of 'Stop thief!'
This was an interesting time in my life, but at night, all I could see in my dreams was Sister Marie's sweet face, and hear her beautiful voice, begging for vengeance.
I still had to find Carlos Velasquez, the Janitor, and exact revenge for my lost love.
Stealing, er loaning a rather significant sum from the 'Great Pacozoni', I took my leave and and found passage on a tramp steamer bound for South America.

To be continued.........................................