It happened three years ago. Nobody has been able to explain it. But I'd rather begin at the beginning. Before he died.

       We had a little petanque club with about 35 members. When we started the club there were only about a dozen members, but as  people heard about us or came by and saw how much we amused ourselves, more and more joined us. We played twice a week, summer and winter, in all kind of weather. As time went by we grew quite competent at the game. We began to play tournaments against other clubs, but they had more experience and were superior to us. We lost most of the games, but when we did win a game we really enjoyed it.
       There was in one of the clubs we played tournaments against an unpleasant guy, boasting and swaggering, but at the same time a very competent player. He was a fantastic shooter. Whenever an opponent had placed his boule perfectly close to the jack, he shot it away. That would have been all right if he did not at the same time shout and boast of his own competence and call us amateurs who had rather stay at home and play cards. The others in his team tried to moderate him but he was regardless of them. The height of insolence was reached one day when he hit one of our players in the eye, furious at being defeated by him. We claimed to have him expelled of their club, but they would not do that because they needed him. He was sentenced to quarantine for a couple of months during which he would have to  excercise alone.
       When we left their club on that day I saw that he had forgotten his boules on the course in all the excitement. I did not draw his attention to it. Big idiot!

       About a week later our chairman came into the club, pale and shocked.
       - Have you heard it?
       We stared at him. What had happened?
       Then he told:
       That guy from the other club had been excercising one evening when one of his boules suddenly had exploded and killed him. Our chairman wanted everybody in our club to have their boules examined, because if such a thing could happen in the other club it could happen in ours, too. He did not want to be responsible etc.
       We had him calmed down at last, and he continued.
       The police had come and looked for clues, but there were only microscopic pieces left of the boule and, as a matter of fact, of the guy, too. The incident was considered absolutely incomprehensible.
       Inquiries were made to the factory in France who denied every possibility that their boules should be explosive. They were furious at the suspicion, and the case was developping into a diplomatic dilemma. In the end, though, it was transferred to the archive of unsolved cases.
       Then we forgot it.
       That is, I did not forget it.

One of these days I was tidying my kitchen cupboards. I found the remnants of a roll of marzipan which must have been lying there since Christmas. I was about to take a bite of it when it suddenly occurred to me what it was. I am not quite aware of how dangerous it is to keep such stuff, but I ought to have disposed of it long ago.
      I rode on my bicycle into a nearby forest when darkness had fallen and digged it into the earth. I do not hope that someone will come digging right there with a spade. The guy who lent me the drill to make the hole in the boule has moved to Australia, so I think I am safe.

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Drawing: Jesper