In September of 1977 a cyclonic breeze picked up the trailing outer tendrils of an errant wisp of my mustache and gently draped it over the northern aspect of the Indian sub-continent. A few whiskery bushels landed outside a discotheque just south of Delhi, where they were discovered by a small band of slightly tipsy Sikhs. Overcome with a desire to meet the man capable of producing such long and glorious facial hair, this intrepid band of buzzed Punjabi’s resolved to follow my mustache to its terminus on my upper lip. They didn’t make it.
They crossed the Great Thar Desert in northern Rajasthan, hopped the border into Pakistan, then turned north, pursuing the slender bristles ever upwards towards the mighty Karakorum. One by one they gave up and went home until only one remained. He surmounted one ice shrouded ridge after another, at times gripping my mustache to haul himself up steep snow slopes and relying on its strong and valiant strands to guide him through blizzard conditions. He displayed remarkable tenacity and determination. Perhaps he would have followed those princely facial locks all the way to the follicles that birthed them, had a mighty avalanche not thundered down from the high Himalaya, burying him near the Afghan border.
He almost found me. He came closest thus far. But for now I remain alone; Sole steward, producer, and caretaker of the trans-Eurasian mustache. Protector of its secrets of immortality and infinite wisdom.
In 1211 a group of Mongol warriors lost their way while returning from the bloody and triumphant defeat of Jin Dynasty soldiers at Badger Pass. These servants of Genghis Khan stumbled across a huge, wind-swept tangle of the trans-Eurasian mustache, and they quickly hobbled their horses beside it and burrowed in, seeking shelter in its voluminous embrace.
During the night the mustache grew around them. It blew to and fro, closing the passages by which they had entered and creating a labyrinth of twisting tunnels, dead ends, and huge, vacuous spaces. Cathedrals of dark, whiskery softness, as black as night and silently echo-less. When Kahn’s soldiers awoke in that inky quiet they panicked. They attempted to hack their way out with their swords, but that only angered the trans-Eurasian mustache. It fought back, entangling them.
Even today, great swaths of my mustache blow across the high plateau of central Asia, still riddled with the desiccated remains of those soldiers. To anger the trans-Eurasian mustache is most unwise.
It is a sad admission, but the westward tending tendrils of the trans-Eurasian mustache are considerably less advanced. For centuries, expansion past Constantinople proved difficult, as my bushy, chestnut whiskers were cut back by the great fire of 406, and again during the Nika riots of 532.
Some say the riots that erupted that fateful January at the Hippodrome were the result of Emperor Justinian’s unfair and excessive taxation, but the truth is far more banal. A young chariot racer for the Greens, and another for the Blues, had that day taken to comparing their mustaches. And fine facial sproutings did both men have, but neither could possibly compare to the exquisite undulations of the trans-Eurasian mustache. They resolved to settle the matter via their sport of choice, and took to the track in a head to head chariot race.
At that fateful moment the furthest reaches of the western lying trans-Eurasian mustache chose to creep vine-like across the rutted belly of the hippodrome, sprawling over the track as the men raced. They were both fine charioteers, deft with their horses and instruments, but upon seeing the opulent twists of the trans-Eurasian mustache they became so enamored that they lost control. Green and Blue swerved against one another and chariots, men, and horses gained flight, rocketing into the crowd and killing a young couple -only teenagers- who had donned disguises and met in secret among the crowds to make out and rub each other all over. The young lady belonged to a family of prominent Greens, and her suitor to an equally prosperous clan of Blues.
Of course each side blamed the other and rioting broke out. As Constantinople burned, so too did the trans-Eurasian mustache. A group of peasants heaved its burning end into the sea where it has remained ever since, growing ever downward.
The politically minded of Constantinople turned the crowds against the unpopular Justinian, but it was the trans-Eurasian mustache that really caused the riots.
Tales of the mustache spread, and though its westward wanderings ended in the swirling depths of the black sea, word of its majesty reached westward to Venice inspiring one Niccolo Polo to journey eastward. He reached Constantinople in 1260, bound and determined to find the trans-Eurasian mustache. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t stumble across its hirsute meanderings until somewhere on the central Asian plateau, where he found a huge mass of hair clogged with the bodies and bones of a Mongol hoard. He followed my mustache East, away from me, eventually finding his way to the palaces of Kublai Khan, grand son of Genghis.
In the palace he wined and dined and made love to one of Khan’s young consorts, unknowingly impregnating her. She bore a daughter.
In 1275 young Marco Polo, son of Niccolo, began his own voyage east, eventaully reaching Kublai Khan’s palaces in Shangdu. Upon arrival he became smitten with a young girl, and over the coming weeks he unwittingly seduced and bedded his own half sister. She became pregnant (the Polo’s were a virile bunch) and bore a son.
This son represented a massive departure from the normal state of Polo genealogy. He was a raving and jabbering idiot. A big, foolish ball of inbred stupidity best suited for staring at the sun until blind. He was expelled from Khan’s residences for attempting to gnaw off the leg of a young horse, and he wandered south. Somehow the fool managed to breed, and his ancestors continued south, eventually settling in Punjab, and in the mid 16th century adopting the faith of the Sikhs. Generations of new genetic material nullified the inbred stupidity of that original bastard Polo, but did little to stifle the latent tenacity and willingness to explore that so defined the bloodline.
One young descendent, who of course had no idea of his lineage, left Punjab in 1977, moved to Delhi, and in defiance of his religion, spent his nights dancing and drinking in the local discotheques. One night he stumbled outside with a group of friends and happened across a few errant strands of the trans-Eurasian mustache.
He was a tenacious one, as his antiquated antecedents had also been. He almost made it. When I saw him approaching the base of the mountain I’ve for centuries called home, I immediately recognized him as a Polo. In a panic, I knocked loose a large cornice, triggering an Avalanche, burying him, ending the lineage that began with Niccolo Polo in 1261, and once more protecting the secret of my whiskery greatness. For I am the sole steward, producer, and caretaker of the Trans-Eurasian mustache. Adieu.
Shameful Little Pieces 