Impulse Control: Lacking

It was impulse and desperation that led me to proposition Pim to protect me.

There had not been a single disappearance in the district but four.  Four was four too many.  And more than that, it meant that whatever took men was maybe four closer to taking me.  I did not want to know what happened to those men, not personally.

I skulked down the street I tried to keep my eyes averted while waiting to cross the road; people like to stare at men who are unescorted and it's always made me uncomfortable.  They watch but always stand a bit apart from me, just in case my woman came and thought another was making a claim.

When the shadow bathed me in a breath of cool, I looked to my left because it was different.  What was casting the shadow made me stop breathing.  

I think it was my sudden stillness that caught her attention, like a wolf or a weasel detects a rabbit freezing.  I could smell her suddenly, the moment I was no longer lost in my desire to be unnoticed.  She was more than carrying the perfume of spice, leather and sin; she was those things.  Her skin had no shine to it, a matte reflection of sunlight that suggested suede, making the shine of her eyes all the more noticeable.  irises were a sunlit finely aged cognac or a red tea. . . but she was not so tame as tea, which had to be why she had reminded me of hard liquor.  There was the impression of bold bronze scales around those eyes, coy copper flecks around the scales, the warmth of sienna in her skin.  

And then she spoke, ruining the momentary shock that comes with registering their inhuman qualities.  The voice was low in tone, shedding scorn and boredom the way an Akita sheds fur: in massive quantities.   "What do you want, human?"

"Safety and freedom, Spicer.  Want a job?"  It was out of my mouth before I could consider the fact that I was looking to vent and had found a creature that would probably kill me for it.

The Spicer only looked at me.  She did not stare at me, she did not snarl at me.  All she had to do was look with no change of expression in her surreal features and I was nearly undone with fear.  When a person lashes out at you, your normal reaction is to be angry or afraid.  Correction: The human reaction is fear and anger.

She was not human.  She did not react as a human did.

". . . Perhaps."  There was a sense of finality in the tone, the Spicer choosing now to tilt her head slightly to the right.  The slight angle change highlighted her features, the light bouncing off of the scales around her jaw and cheekbone that peeked out from behind the shadowy hair.

"'P-Perhaps?'"  I had maybe done something interesting to her.  I wasn't certain that was a healthy thing.  And to look so directly at her without quickly averting my gaze was distracting.  It was hard to take all of her in, to hold her in my mind.

"Perhaps."  The tone was surprisingly businesslike.  Looking over her shoulder, to the old sign for the barber behind her made it easier to focus on what she said and on not shaking with reaction.  "I will consider your request and compensation I will require in return for my services."

"W-what?"

"Do all of your kind have that stumble-stutter in their speech or is it just you?"  The Akita was stalking back into her tone and I was too shocked and, honestly, disturbed by her agreement to fight back.  Any other woman would be too concerned with landing little ol' me to consider insulting me.  The Spicer, clearly, did not care.  At all.

It was equal parts frightening and reassuring.

Just like that, the Spicer started walking away.  I wondered briefly about what sound those large, taloned feet would make but the sounds of commerce were too loud.  I waited until she was out of earshot before muttering, "And just how will I even find you again?" while knowing my tone reeked of unmanly sulk.

The Spicer paused on the sidewalk and half turned, the sweep of her tail making a sinuous sine curve of spine and appendage.  "Don't worry, human.  I will find you."  I saw her lips move and I should never have been able to hear her.  Regardless of what the natural world and I thought, the Spicer and her voice had a different opinion.  It was as if she were breathing the words over my shoulder.

She probably saw my eyes widen and my skin drain of color, compliments of the heaped servings of shock she had served me over the course of the past few minutes.  The Spicer turned and kept going to. . . wherever it was she had a mind to go. God himself would likely not stop the likes of that one.

What had I done?

Pound of Flesh

"A girl after my own heart."

She gave a light laugh, the sound shivering around me.

"Of course I'm after your heart.  They're tasty."

It was always difficult to tell if Pim was making a joke of it or not.  There was no obvious evidence that she was serious but one could never be certain.  So many men disappeared these days and I was not keen to be one of them.  That was why I employed her.

'The enemy of my enemy. . . '  And Spicers were just about everyone's enemy, maybe because we didn't understand them.  They were frightening, you never quite knew what they would do.  You never quite knew what they were capable of.  And no one certainly understood half of why they did what they did.

But I knew for certain that I would rather not die or disappear or whatever it was that was happening.  So I employed Pim.  That was months ago and I can still remember the chill that skittered down my spine while I tried to convince Pim to work for me.  How does one convince a Spicer to work for you. . ?  No one knew what they valued, not really.  But we both had known what I had wanted.  I had wanted safety. I had wanted freedom.  And I had been willing to bargain with a Spicer in an attempt to get it, though Pim warned me that there was a possibility that she was not a fool-proof protection (and that I was quite a fool).

"We should probably leave soon, shouldn't we?"  I wanted my freedom, but here I was at an evening tea party.  The tea parties were open to men and to the more elite of our smaller society.  Getting in was difficult for women.  For men, the hard part was getting out.

The look she gave me in response to my question told me beyond a doubt that the Spicer was female.  Only females can manage an expression that informed me that I was so daft that she was surprised I could breathe without detailed instruction.

Of course, Pim had emphathically informed me that I seem to be incapable of following instructions.  I couldn't say she's wrong; neither could my mother.

War Dance of the Weasel

The cadence of the chopper blades broke the silence.  

There should have been sirens, there had been sirens but the mechanical wails that were drowning out the wails of panicked people had long since run down.  Batteries only last so long.  Horror only lasts so long.

And then came the silence, gravid with the weight of the waiting.

The San Fran Shake had shamed the planet's 1906 attempt, opening the ground in great bites, swallowing heritage homes, main roads, valuable art and priceless lives. The bridge supports slept beneath the water now, the metal cables reaching skyward like revealed ribs of a massive carcass.  Only recently had the dust and smoke cleared enough to allow for the air support people could distantly hear.

Taylor had been waiting, directing on the authority of something that was not even human.  In the middle of the madness, the Precinct-patrols were unable to contain the mass panic.  The best she and what able-bodied Donned could do was to assess and organize the willing.  After all, if people were bent on losing their minds, there wasn't much to be done about it except stay out of their way.  

The individuals with the devices on their hands had done their best to conserve power, but three days of heavy usage was too much.  Two days ago, Seattle had told all precinct-patrollers that Taylor was the Region Commander and had essentially left her to it.

Taylor had no idea why.

Unlike the Precinct-patrol personnel, the Donned, Taylor was untrained in any of these things.  Why Seattle had put her under Disaster Response when Taylor wasn't even rostered with the elite group was no small mystery.  But the command structure and the voice that had cut through crackling city speakers had been quite clear: Donned were to clear their actions and receive orders from Taylor Forge.  So either Taylor said something or did something or none of them would be permitted to act.

What had happened here was far, far beyond a single person or even an elite group of people.   So Taylor had spoken with what available personnel there were in a brief meeting through the comms HUD on the hand devices.  These people were trained.  But it was like anyone taking a first aid course; just because you were trained and knew how didn't mean you were prepared to implement that training.

It had been easy for Taylor to give much of the power associated with leadership away.  The woman hadn't wanted it in the first place, certainly hadn't needed it either.  She, like everyone else, was in just as much shock by what had happened.  The ground was supposed to be solid, steady, the thing that never failed you even when childhood dreams and life partners did.

She was just as prone to the nightmares, when she slept at all.

Don't die.

It would not be long now.  The waiting was nearly over.

And then there would be war.  Taylor had no idea what it was, but something had changed.  The moment she had emerged from the remains of her small apartment building, she could almost smell it.  It was more than the smell of smoke that signaled fire eating up worldly possessions, more than the gritty dust clogging her eyes and nose.

The breaking of the silence was just one more thing that whispered to Taylor.  Things had changed.  And so had she.

Time-blind

I swear I'm doing things in my corner.  Not all of them are writing or particularly creative. . . unless you want to include work that means I get to purchase foodstuffs which means I get to bake or cook. . . 

In which case, I suppose I sort of am being creative.

I'm also being creative with my packing.  You see, I'm traveling halfway across the world in less than a week to participate in a wedding.  This takes a fair bit of energy, both the preparations for travel and sorting my workload so my office partner/boss doesn't drown while I am away.  I have a nice boss.  I don't want her to drown in invoices.

What I'm getting to is this: I will soon be a number of timezones away from where I currently am and may not get an opportunity to update in as regular a fashion as I might wish.  I will try, that is certain (Oh god, there are so many little drafts running around here).  But I'm also going to be all over my home state for 2.5 weeks.  In this time, I will probably be able to mostly adjust to the timezone.

Aaaaand then I will leave and go back to Australia, thereby starting the sleep disturbance process all over again.  

I will effectively be time-blind for the next few weeks.

Here.  Have a draft image related to something Justin is working on!

. . . oh god.  This was forever ago.  I'm so sorry.  Please, please don't gouge out your eyes.  There are so many delicious books to read.

Jamie's Giant Veg Rösti, Poached Eggs, Spinach & Peas

When I said I was spooked by cooking, I wasn't kidding.  It doesn't mean that I don't do it though.  I just. . . do little things!  Like this one.  It's a bit labor intensive so you'd need a bit of time to set-up.  But so deliciously worth it.

Jamie's recipe includes some good tips where the eggs and the potatoes are concerned and that was fortunate for me.  They're things I think you learn as you get further along in cooking.  I'm still sort of getting there.  Therefore!  Useful!  There's even a video of someone doing the recipe if you want a really detailed briefing.

Jamie's Giant Veg Rösti, Poached Eggs, Spinach & Peas

Ingredients:

• 600g potatoes
• 3 large carrots
• sea salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 a lemon
• extra virgin olive oil
• 100g frozen peas
• 100g baby spinach
• 4 large eggs
• 50g feta cheese

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).  
2. Peel the potatoes and carrots, then coarsely grate them in a food processor or by hand on a box grater.  Add a good pinch of salt, toss ad scrunch it all together, then leave for 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, mix the mustard, a good squeeze of lemon juice and a couple of lugs of extra virgin olive oil with a small pinch of salt and pepper in a medium bowl.  Set aside.
4. Drizzle a really good lug of olive oil into a large bowl and add a good pinch of pepper.  Handful by handful, squeeze the potato and carrot mixture to get rid of the excess salty liquid, then sprinkle into the bowl.  
5. Toss in the oil and pepper until well mixed, then evenly scatter it over a large oiled baking tray (roughly 30cm x 40cm).
6. Roast for around 35 minutes, or until golden on top and super-crispy around the edges.
7. Meanwhile, blanch the peas for a minute in a large pan of boiling salted water, then scoop out, add to the bowl of dressing and pile the spinach on top.
8. Just before your rösti is ready, with the water gently simmering, crack in the eggs, poach to your liking, then carefully remove with a slotted spoon.  
9. Serve the rösti with the eggs on top.  Quickly toss the salad together to dress it and scatter in piles on the rösti.
10. Crumble over the feta cheese and serve.

TIP: Poached eggs can be a little finicky.  Use the freshest eggs you can.  But seriously?  Don't worry that much.  It's all tasty!

Source: http://www2.woolworthsonline.com.au/Shop/PrintRecipe/3041

Color Recognition

I love listening to people talk.  

I've come to find that not everyone thinks the same way.  When I was seven, I explained that I loved my Uncle Justin's voice; it was a smoky blue.  

My mother peered at me with a confused expression and asked in her orange, roughed-up tone, "What on earth does that mean?"  

I didn't know what she didn't understand, so I just blinked back with my own puzzled expression.  I had tried very hard to find the right word to describe the kind of blue.  I had even gone to a big book for it.  It had sounded right.

I'm older now and realise that not everyone can get a sense of colors from hearing people talk.  I don't mention it to people because it'll generally just confuse them, the way it did my poor mother.  Granted, my high school English teachers thought I was extremely clever with poetry.  

This was a stroke of luck because I needed a good grade to escape that prison of an institution.  

I can suppress it to some extent when I have to.  The city can be a riot of tones, colors, shapes.  It's brilliant for inspirational purposes but unfortunately I've never been able to use the knack to actually make music.  I'm not bitter about it; just a bit put out.  Musicians who make it big get fame and fortune.  And probably all of the really good food.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  Listening to people talk and colors.

There's one minor advantage that I have, sensing colors where sound is involved.  The same sounds tend to evoke the same array of colors and . . . well, they aren't images.  I can't call them images.  Dashes, bursts, jagged and gyrating lines. . ?  It all depends on the situation for me.  Find someone else who has the same 'condition' (like what we have is an illness; it's not), you'll be told different colors.  At least, this is from what I've read.  I've never met another person like me, though we're something like four to ten percent of the population, depending on what you read and who you ask.  Somehow, you're far more likely to come across a left-handed person.

Or maybe, like me, people just don't think saying, "That woman's tone is super pink and fritzy" is a very good conversation starter.  I certainly never told the medical officer about it at any point; we get enough pych screening as is, thank you.

But it's those very same qualities - the colors, the movement - that allows me to identify people's voices more accurately.  I don't have to see your mouth moving to know it's you.  I hear you and, after a fashion, I'll still see you.  Just not a you that you know about.

Keep that in mind, kids.  It might be important, later on in my story.

Colder. You're getting colder.

Life got a little complicated somewhere along the way.

I mean, you have simple things to consider simply to stay alive and that's naturally at the top of the list. Physiological things according to some guy named Maslow.  I need to breathe, I need to eat, I need water (or something stronger these days), I need to sleep, I need shelter.  

Arguably, I need sex too, but the good Lord hasn't seen fit to end that dry spell either.  Points to Maslow for putting that at the most basic level of requirements, though.  He knows the way to a girl's heart.  If I had stopped at the bottom of the pyramid, life would have likely been way more simple.  

I am coming undone because of that heart that Maslow might have had, but he's a bit dead to claim it.  Not because I'm in love or anything so fortunate as that.  But rather, physically I am coming undone because of my heart.  My heart of gold.

I am hanging on for dear life myself these days and I'm terrified of looking down.  Each time they bleed me, I feel myself cool a bit more, I feel the fingers of apathy start creeping in.  It was never like that when I pricked myself, knicked myself, scored myself.  Maybe they're taking too much.  Maybe it's simply too often.

Maybe I always gave too little.

I've lived a life where I don't even know the rules of my self, let alone anything else.  I always assumed that no one would find me out, that it would be okay, that I would live a life of beautiful obscurity in the Court.

I thought very, very wrong.

And I am getting very, very cold.

Apple Crumble Loaf

I bet you all thought I was kidding about the recipe part.

Hah.  Joke's on you!  I actually bake.  I enjoy it.  It's like. . . effort with visible, potentially delicious results.  Better yet, no one has died as a result of my experimentation!  But to be clear, I tend to do a recipe generally the way it tells me to and, if I like it okay, then I'll modify it a bit.  

But I am also a girl and I'm prone to changing my mind about this rule.  It's not really a rule so much as a basic template that I choose to follow in baking.  Conversely?  Cooking scares me.  Bit of a shame, considering I'm a death knell to people's diets and waistlines.  One of my co-workers says that I'm slowly killing him.

He also seems to think it's a delicious death, so I suppose that's okay.

For reference, I'll post to you what I did and also post the place where I got the recipe!  That way I'm not taking credit from anyone who seriously deserves it and I don't muddle the recipe up with a bunch of confusing talk.

Apple Crumble Loaf

Ingredients:

• 140g of butter, cut into small pieces, plus extra for the tin
• 250g self raising whole wheat flour (don't worry, my fellow Americans.  I'll give you a recipe for self-raising flour!)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 70g light brown sugar
• 70g raw sugar
• 100g raisins
• 3 large eggs
• 3 apples, peeled, cored and shopped
• 4 tablespoons milk (US tablespoons.  In Australian tablespoons, this is 5 tablespoons)

For the crumble topping:

• 2 rounded tablespoons plain flour (2.5-3 Tablespoons Australian)
• 50g butter
• 50g brown sugar

Loaf method:

1. Heat oven to 160C/140C fan-forced (this is 320F/285F fan-forced).  Line the base of a loaf tin with baking paper.
2. Tip the flower and spice into a food processor and add the butter.  Pulse until you have fine crumbs and then mix in the sugar.  
3. Pour mixture into a large mixing bowl and then stir in raisins, eggs, apples and milk.  Mix well until combined.
4. Pour into tin and then smooth top.

Crumble method:

1. To make the topping, rub the flour, butter and sugar through your fingers to make a rough crumble.  Feel free to add more flour until it reaches a consistency you're happy with here, I tinkered a bit because I had no nuts.  I may have added more flour than this, but I wanted to err on the side of caution for recipe notation.
2. Sprinkle evenly over the cake mixture and bake for 50-55 minutes, until firm to the touch and a fine skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
3. Cool in tin for 15 minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack.
4. Attempt in vain to not devour the entire lot.

Original recipe source: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2198652/apple-crumble-loaf

I fully intend to wander their site and see what other little delicious gems I can find!

Bonus:  Self-Raising Flour

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

And just like that, you have a cup of self-raising flour!  It's useful to make a bunch at once if you're a bakeaholic and then use it as you need it.

G

Did you know
that I write my 'G's the way you used to?
Of course you would not because
it's a curve-and-stick way of chasing your ghost.

Did you know
that I was suffocating beneath the weight of my smile
when they told me of how they said it was okay
for you to go now?

You are gone and one day
I'll go too.

G

~*~*~*~

Whelp.  That was a bit creepy.

Moving on!  Because. . . that's all that's all there is, right?

Cans and Cannots

She used to smell of L L.A.M.B.  Now she smells of cigarettes.

I don't like it.

To be fair, it isn't socially acceptable to comment on the smell of co-workers.  I don't even know if the others have noticed the change or can guess its cause.  It's a shortcoming of everyone else in my opinion, not noticing that sort of sensory input.  There are so many stories that are so much more clear when you take into account little cues like that.  It makes life more interesting.  Or at least more like a livable soap opera.

Person A normally smells like 1a, 1b, 1c depending on the day.  Because who doesn't like playing with pretty perfumes?  Person B normally smells like 1b and. . . well, at a stretch maybe 1a.  1a was the initial smell until they took up smoking again and then the normal scent became 1b.

Then person A starts smelling like B1b.  Instant drama!

Except all my other instincts, my other senses have taken an instant dislike to person B.  They had before this happened.  Sure, he pays me some mind and that's all well and good (I'm cute).  But there's always that red flag in my mind, warning me off, saying that all isn't what it appears to be from my perspective here.  Even if anyone else notices, it's a ShouldNot to speak of it to the person in question.  

Most people aren't good at pinpointing the cues.  The body language that tells them everything they'd every need to know.  At best, they may be left with a vague feeling of uneasiness that they can't justify. When people can't logically justify a thing, they have an alarming tendency to dismiss it.  I've never really understood this; isn't that how the entire species managed to survive this long?  Those little instincts that tell them that going to that quiet watering hole is a terrible plan?  It's obvious that they listened often enough then to see the creature in the water eat the unwary.  So why to so many dismiss it now?  

She will have no warning.  She will miss the breadcrumbs leading her to the right conclusion.  The people will listen to the notion that it is a ShouldNot and shroud themselves in silence.

But I'm only the office dog.  I Cannot tell her.  I Can only watch and offer my pelt for the tear-streams when it all folds like a lamb giving up on life before the fox.

Awkward

"Well, this is awkward."  Zachary stared at his friend from a bare few feet away.  Between them was the elephant in the room.

"This?  This is not awkward.  Wearing the same dress as your flavor-of-the-moment girlfriend is awkward.  Finding you in bed with the instructor?  That's awkward.  Finding you standing over a dead body?  Is most definitely not awkward."  The voice started as a low hiss and then moved up the scale in both pitch and volume, ending in a shrill of half-shriek.  It was true.  There were many unsaid things between them, and a dead body to boot.

Zachary nodded along with Taylor's assessment, the crumpled form that he'd not mentioned leaking blood across the worn coarse-woolen carpet.  He didn't seem at all guilty nor phased by the corpse or by Taylor's emotional distress.  This in itself was unusual because Taylor knew that Zachary was about as likely to punch someone in the face over an insult as he was to laugh it off.  She had yet to figure out if the schedule was relating to alternating days, phases or the moon, or what letters the name of the day was comprised of.

"It followed me home."

"It follo-what?"  Taylor spluttered in parroting Zachary, her thought processes trundling to a smoking halt.  Even as she stared at him.  It was said so frankly, so deadpan that she was half waiting for camera crew to burst from the broom closet and for him to tell her that she'd been pranked, punked, whatever.

Taylor could only hope this was a nightmare, some half-vision mingled of a dream, cobbled together with clues her subconscious had noticed the past week.  Because how does a corpse follow you home?  Either it was a zombie. . . or the person it had been when it still housed a spark had followed him and taken a wrong turn into Zachary's fist, landing the stranger a spot in the morgue.

This was far, far beyond anything the word 'awkward' was able to cover.

Turn All the Lights On

It was too dark by more than half for the inhabitants.  But that was the way of things when there are creatures that ate the light.  In the wake of the initial event, the world had gone mad, shattered itself into more manageable pieces, broken populations and their gods in pieces much smaller than half.  A number of people had called them The End Days.

But Days simply became a foreign concept.  There was only a slight change in the sky's luminosity, a sensuous undulation of the sky's skirts from a murderous maroon to a deceptively soft violet.  Like the promise of a predawn that would die aborning, for the shafts of light would never come.

Eleora shivered on the worn floor of her home, arms wrapped around her torso; where there was so little light, there was also little warmth.  Her mother still prayed to an altar shielded carefully, pleading for any god that would answer to bring back Their Light.  The place of worship was ardently protected lest the Gobblers found a sliver of light somehow escaping and know that there was a delectable thing inside the structure.  When she was little, she prayed with her mother; the girl had long since abandoned that fervent hope by now and those gilded memories of blue skies.  They were gone and nothing had been found that could bring them back.  

Not even humans were safe.  The light in living eyes was enough to draw notice.  That was why people emerged outdoors only with thin blindfolds of muslin to draw the curtain on their humanity.  When. . .if Eleora survived to be of age, she would stow her muslin blindfold of plain, stout material and don a cheesecloth one instead.  It was enough to deflect the eye light, but enough to give the impression of her eyes, a daringly attractive feature.  With the world being cooler, one could not look at body shape with people layering their clothing.  Fashion was always a thing to adapt quickly.

Eleora was practicing with the cheesecloth blindfold in preparation.  She would be seventeen before long, according to the Morse Machine.  The little machine shivered with information to all households in their area, updated daily.  Who sent the messages and how, Eleora didn't quite know; the best she knew is that learning the code had been part of their school studies these past years.

One week.  One week to turn seventeen.

Seven Days.  In a world where Days were a unit of measure all but forgotten, dreamed of, hoped for, despaired of.

And on the Seventh Day . . .  

It's All in the Look

I'm highly prized but fragile.  That's generally how it's termed.  It comes from the fact my Kindling is linked with glass.  You would normally find that most Kindlers are fond of wood, maybe clay.  GlassSmithing with the aim of grabbing power isn't really a time honored tradition any more.

Not since the Fall.  I can't say I mind.

I do mind my dress, however.  Marcus dressed me himself, made sure my hair was placed appropriately, that the family ownership tattoos were displayed to their best effect.  When I noted that I would be trussed up like a pheasant, I wasn't aware of how right I would be.  Apparently Marcus has decided to play on my impression of being fragile by incorporating feathers into my clothing.  'His little bird' he called me, fluffing my likewise brown hair.

It'll be hell to get the feathers out of my hair later.  Marcus doesn't really think about that as much as he thinks about the image I present for his family.  But that's what I'm for.  Against my shadow-paled skin, the brown and russet feathers look almost tawny, edged with gold.  That might, in part, be because I look in the reflections of polished brass.

I try to not look in glass mirrors.  I'm scared of what might look back.

*~*~* ON THE FALL *~*~*

Ah, the Fall. The night terror that the nobility like to lord over us with.  Not that it didn't happen.  There's too much evidence, too many accounts that show you that it did. . . right?  Well, here's the big secret.  Here's the thing that the nobility, the benevolent ruling class never mentioned to the masses.

The Kindlers and Keepers are figureheads.  They have no power, not since The Fall.

That's right.  It's all a lie.

And then there's me.  I'm Stella and I'm a grand secret.  Marcus says I'm a Glass Kindler based on a pile of dusty books that haven't seen the light of day for ages.  I'm not so sure.  I don't even know what I do, let alone how to classify myself.  All I know is that it gives me some headaches that I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemies.

Given that I belong to a noble family, I have a few enemies.  By default.  Some people inherit pretty necklaces or massive debt.  I inherited enemies of Marcus' family.

. . . Hurrah.

Marketing Moonlight

You could say that the little store cost her and arm and a leg.  And maybe a measure of her pride.  But Mallory would just tell you it was worth it, that her remaining pride had latched onto the store the way a tree graft catches onto its new home in the winter.  Gradually, slowly at first.  When spring comes, the newcomer takes or it does not.

The court with its plethora of little shops had unexpectedly welcomed her, even the unusual man who spoke to the streets.  The homeopathic shop of goods had flourished in the mishmash of ancient cobblestone and unique ventures just when Mallory had been certain she would have to file for bankruptcy.  Running this little business used to keep her up at all hours; now it was the very thing that let her sleep easy.

The shop had kitschy little dream catchers hanging over its doorway inside, the web glistening in the shadows; really, not many people noticed them there and that was just how she liked it.  They were meant to catch dead dreams and moonlight, not the attention of patrons.  The people would never notice their dreams departing or, if they did, they would probably welcome it.  Dead dreams were a burden in themselves, always present but never with a chance of fulfillment.  Some days the little dream catcher would jangle as the last customer left, desperate to be relieved of the burden itself.  Those would lead to busy nights.

The stories normally say that eye of newt and puppy-dog tails went into cauldrons; Mallory didn't like that side of the business.  Not only was it messy and would never come out of her wood floors that still needed a good waxing to seal them, it was generally frowned upon.  So Mallory turned her talents to goods of a different sort.  It was a stroke of fortune that cosmetics and homeopathic goods were not as strictly regulated as medications.  People didn't ask questions so long as you labeled it 'hand-made' or 'animal cruelty free.' 

Thankfully things were never labeled 'human-made.'  It would get a bit more awkward then.

Her craft room was equipped with a few feeble light sources if she were particularly intent on a project, though she used these only when absolutely required.  A number of her ingredients were 'shy' of harsh light and were prone to sublimation before they were affixed to the appropriate material or suspended in the right mixture of materials.  There was nothing more troublesome than sublimated materials because the gas would just glow and hang in the room for days.  You couldn't have customers catching glimpses of that; they would be convinced the area was radioactive or something of the sort.

That sort of talk was terrible for business.

Marketing moonlight was one of the wisest courses of action Mallory had taken in some time, the woman playing with a short curl as she looked up at the rows of little jars.  And it was so amazingly varied a resource!  Of course, this presented a different set of challenges.  The moonlight that spilled from a wet moon was different than the light of a full moon that was different from the light of a blue moon. . . and so on.  Each had different material requirements, each had different properties.

Each was suited for a different sort of client.  Mallory made it her business to know the difference.

Looking Back is Always Strange

When I was younger, I spent many Saturday mornings on the floor of the living room, watching the TV.  This was a normal enough pasttime for kids in my age group (somewhere between 7 and 13 years).  But this is me and this is specifically me looking back at my childhood and being more than a little puzzled.

I spent Saturday mornings watching QVC or the Home Shopping Network (Clearly I was not the one in control of the TV).

But more than this, I got excited about it.  "Only three hundred left!  A limited quantity!" and it was this amazing thing.  You'd watch the numbers climb and think, deep down that it wasn't likely, it was an underdog sort of chance, but that they could do it.  They could sell out.

. . . Oh my god, what the hell was I so excited about?

Maybe this is why I don't often recall my childhood.  Because I recall at strange times (like at work today) and there's this moment of ". . . what?"  Surely there's no way I was ever so excited over so strange a thing!  But no.  I know that I remember rightly.  I must have used up so much of my excitement when I was a kid because I don't get that riveted now.

Unless you want me to talk about Brandon Sanderson and his ability to world build.

. . . You don't want that.  I sound like a girl having a massive crush.  Just of the literary sort.

So.  Maybe I do still get excited about things.  My strangeness hasn't decreased; just changed.

Keeper and Kindler

Tap.  Tap tap tap tap tap.

“God, can you stop that?”

“What?”  He looks up from his rhythmic tapping at the piece of fractured glass, messy brown hair nearly obscuring the equally brown eyes.  Based on coloration, he wasn't the least bit remarkable.

Me?  I know better.  Behind those eyes is a personality as inquisitive as a cat and with all the survival tendencies of a lemming.  Thankfully, Marcus has the intellect to back up that curiosity or else he would be liable to drive me completely insane.  Because he was gifted in the manner of science, I could rationalize suffering him to live.

Most times.  It by no means completely allayed my desire to punch him in the face sometimes.  Like now.

“Marcus,” I began, my thin patience fraying at the edges of his name.  “I still have a splitting headache from the last go.”

“Oh.”  There’s a slow blink, the idea that what had been going on being sufficient to give me a migraine being integrated into whatever else went on in there.  He turned his attention back to the glass fragment, spider-webbed with minute fractures.

Tap.  Tap tap.

I take a deep, bracing breath.  And then two, just to convince myself that I really am trying.

Tap tap ta-

"Marcus!"  The force in my voice causes the fractures to glow briefly and catch ghostfire in some areas.  Even that much gets a response from my pounding skull, the pressure ratcheting up a few notches.  It also causes Marcus to drop the glass and sit back from the scarred wooden table a little, laughing incredulously.

"Brilliant, Stella!  You can still commit that much energy, even after today!"  Marcus' tone is excited and pleased.  Sometimes it's hard to remember that he's my Keeper.  But then Marcus will go and do things like this and it sort of serves as a reminder.  We balance the line, Keeper and confidante.  Kindler and . . . well, whatever else I am to Marcus.  I might be little more than a source of first-hand information for what it's like to be what I am.  But I've chosen to trust Marcus.

Sometimes I question that, just the way I question the stylish network of necklaces and bracelets I was placed in by his family when I was made a gift to him years ago.

"Yea, great."  My voice sounds grouchy even to me as I press my fingertips to my temples.  The hard work was done for today.  But tomorrow was the Month Summit.

Tomorrow I would be stuffed like a trussed pheasant into a dress and shown off, an expensive piece of a wealthy family.  I sort of prefer the headache.

Raspberry Bliss

It was happening again.  That thing.

Taylor heaved a shuddering breath, staring up at the once-plain wall of her apartment.  It had been a splash of deep red, an accent wall to stand against the nearly-white of the rest.  

The rich red is submerged now, slashed viciously with repeated impressions of color that have melted like ice cream on the fourth of July but with a more coherent result.  Well, if the images of smudged skies, broken buildings and zig-zagged bright lines melding into each other could be considered 'coherent.'  Standing as close as she is, the woman can see that it had to have been one of her large, flat brushes she'd been using.  Normally, they were used exclusively for priming canvas; she'd be cleaning those brushes for a week judging by the mess here.

Too bad Taylor didn't remember doing any of this; she lived alone.  It had to be her painting these impromptu murals.  The episodes had been easing off.  There hadn't been any sort of stretch of time she couldn't account for in. . . ages.  Or so she had thought.  Sadly, right here there was some rather colorful evidence that maybe she had been wrong to have some hope.

She likened it to a desk.  It was like having a series of drawers. . . you normally knew what was in the top drawer (because you used it all the time) and the bottom drawer (where you can put the Big Stuff).  People normally can't recall what's in the middle drawer, a kind of unloved-middle-child of a drawer.

And then some bastard comes along and upends all of the drawers and doesn't bother to tell you.  That's what's happened here, except it was no drawer.  It was Taylor's ability to recall.  There wasn't even the luxury of denial here; the paint was thick and congealed beneath the woman's short fingernails, spattered over her shirt, smeared in her short and dark hair.  

It was Taylor who did the deed, no doubt of it.

It was also Taylor who shakes her head in disgust and turns on the ball of a bare foot to go looking for her wall roller and a pail of paint in the color the accent wall was supposed to be.  Raspberry Bliss.

If she ever wanted to give up her current occupation, Taylor had no doubt that she would have a bright future as an interior painter.  The last half year had given her enough practice to learn the ins and outs, such as to forget priming it.  There was no need these days, layers of disturbing paintings buried between shallow graves of her chosen accent color.  Corpses of color, stacked on on top of the other as Taylor had neither the time nor the urge to strip the wall back to its base.

Jeoff had called her fucked up.  Taylor hadn't been able to refute that, generally because of things like this.  Still, people in her section of the Academy were closely monitored mentally and physically and the check-ups hadn't found anything.  Then again, the questionnaires never specifically queried this.

'How often do you wake up and find you've had some sort of impromptu art fest in your living room?  Please circle: Never      Occasionally       Sometimes      Often       Always'

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me about before we finish, Ms. Forge?"

There never is.  

Ears for Secrets

Some people think it started with the whispers of a wailing, naked girl in the front yard.  The reports are always of a white sheet trailing like a half-forgotten thought behind her, modesty discarded in desperation.  Other people think it started with the pale face staring out of the third story window, dark eyes round with solemn fright.  The keepers, the visitors. . . everyone has seen flashes, ripples on the walls like a great beast breathing.  And like any half sane person, they make themselves believe that their imagination has developed a sudden penchant for pranking. They don't want to believe that the whispered threats to scratch images on the insides of their eyelids are real.

Three floors, eighteen rooms, twelve hallways and a seductive number of square feet for any and every hopeful owner.  That is what it breaks down to on paper for the fiscally-motivated.

The halls of the old house have always creaked, a quiet sigh of settling in for a long journey through time.  Wood is often like that, planed into exacting lines but relaxing into more suitable ones for a site, worn in by the pounding of uncounted pairs of feet up and down the halls, across the rooms, through the doors.  It’s true that the imagination has a way of tricking you, but the sound of small feet pounding up and down hallways above your head, faint music from elsewhere in the building, of muted conversations through the wall are all quite real.

I would certainly know all about that.

I have seen that woman stagger through the halls a thousand times, clutching the sheets to herself as she makes her way towards the broad front doors.  I have seen the little boy’s pale face stare out of the dark shadows in the corner of that room that he huddles in.  Then there are the uncertain looks from people who have felt that breath of unnaturally cold air across their cheeks, a phantom kiss from something begging to be acknowledged.  I have seen misty faces contorted in rage, I have seen them on the cusp of that crucial moment when their passion pulls the trigger on their gun.  Blood cannot be scrubbed clean from unwaxed wooden floors; it can only be covered with ornate rugs.  Forgetting is the harshest insult to them and in this place, they will not let you forget.

"The walls have ears" is possibly the largest comfort. At least something will listen to their secret confessions though there is no priest present at the time of their passing.  The floorboards, the walls. . . these things absorb the laughter and the blood and the rage, hold them inside themselves.

People say that being full of rage leaves you empty, that anger and sadness can eat you from the inside.  I am not empty, not in the least.  I am filled with the tread of feet, the creak of settling wood, the sighing echoes that drift from my water-stained walls.

I am Linden Manor.

Nanna's Purse

I was stuck staring at the aluminum can of air freshener on the table while enduring a team meeting.  "Spring and Renewal" it promised, swirling blue and pink vines around the print.  You'd think that I would be focused more intently on the meeting.  The truth of the matter is that I was there merely as a courtesy, the sort of thing to foster the illusion of "team."  I'm not seen by them as much more than a minion of the outdoors and in a dead-end job.  So while I was here for the tea and cookies and to keep me from screaming "equal rights," that was the end of it.

Spring and renewal, really?  I have spent more than a little time up to my elbows in fresh soil and I can tell you there is nothing enticing about it to the average person.  Spring and renewal is a thing that rises from the soil and the earth; dead things.  You could become mystical about it and say it was the circle of life but really it has to do with nutrients.

At least when you work in the greenhouse, which is where I belong when business meetings aren't in.  It's about as unglamorous as you get I'm not one for complaining; in reality, I'm quite happy with what I do even if it won't exactly get me a date.  Guys seem to count it against you if you have dirt under your nails and staining your skin.  My skin is a bit ruddy to begin with from all the sun, but the soil definitely doesn't help things.  Glancing down at my hands now, I can see that my trimmed nails had brought along some of the glass houses for a ride.

"Macey.  Macey, did you hear me?"

The voice is slightly nasal and heavy with condescension, pushing me out of the more idle thoughts.  When I tear my eyes from my overly-fascinating nail-beds and upwards, the shift manager is staring down the laminated, peeling table at me.  Here at Nanna's Nursery, we don't put our money into nice tables; we save that for lining Nanna's tapestry-patterned purse.

"Sir?"

"I said. . . you have a performance review with Nanna tomorrow at four p.m."

Ah.  That would explain why everyone else at the table is staring down towards this end.  Something more interesting than the tea and cookies just happened.  Let us be honest, no one likes to be involved in company 'team meetings.'  For Nanna's Nursery it's no different in that regard.  We have all personally met 'Nanna' at one time or another.  When you think of grandmothers you probably think of fresh-baked cookies, hearty home-cooked meals and hugs brimming with love and acceptance.  Kindly old ladies who remember The Good Ol' Days.

This Nanna is none of those things.  This woman makes the unblinking eyes of any star National Geographic predator look dewy and sweet.  I'm including sharks in this.  Despite the apparent age that a title like 'Nanna' bestows, you would never call her 'Old Bat' or 'Tough Old Bird' or anything like that.  While she may be substantially older than myself or anyone else sitting at this table, there is something vital about her.

Sometimes she reminds me of the soil; sometimes 'Nanna' reminds me of the dead things in the damp ground in sterile Styrofoam containers beneath my hands and the potential energy there.  Hidden but humming, just waiting for the right set of circumstances to be spun out by the universe before it shows itself.

Having a meeting with management on such short notice just fills people with the instinctive dread that comes with being abruptly informed that you'll be talking to the higher-ups.  You fear for your job.      

Having a meeting with 'Nanna' is somehow so. . . so much worse.

Hostage Situation

She heaved a deep sigh, watching the note next to the fireplace as it fluttered like a broken butterfly.  It was too far to read even if the words echoed in her mind as she played with the sealed mason jar.

Give up the ghost.

She would not.  She could not.

Her Heart of Gold: Glitter

They were coming again.

Time used to run sweet like molasses, as timeless as halcyon summer days.  Now it's like tar; darker and certainly more sickly, devoid of the fresh notes that sometimes come with living.

She picks her head up slowly from where she sits, the hands folded in her lap as limp as her rarely washed hair.  Tani has not been 'living' for some time, shut up in the low-lit room.  The concrete walls were halfheartedly painted a dusty blue color in some misguided attempt to be 'calming.'  All it really does is remind her of the sky when it was veiled by early morning mists.

The TV is her only company in the room except for her scheduled visitations, blaring from the top corner.  The woman is well aware that it's purposefully kept out of reach; they didn't want her cutting herself on the screen if she managed to destroy another television in a fit of desperate outrage.  She stays opposite of it, able to watch but as far from it as she can possibly get from both the television and the door.  Tani can honestly say that there is more in her life that makes her sad than makes her angry, but the television is one of those few things that brings her utter despair late at night.  Maybe they were convinced that she would eventually see she was helping make 'beautiful relationships.'

All she could see is them whoring out happily ever afters.

It was all because of simple bad luck that she had come to be here, Tani knew that.  And that run of bad luck would probably last until the end of her life, whenever it was decided that would be.  There's only a breath of fear as she contemplates her mortality, knowing that it was entirely dependent on how long she was profitable.  It seemed that the Board had recently been struck by the idea that she was a finite resource.

Finite resources, rare resources meant higher prices.  Even the advertisement warns the people about how unique their product is.  'Their' product.

The TV is sneaking into her thoughts again, the softly insistent violins drawing her attention.  The aim of the advertisement was to be 'tasteful' and it was, considering the subject matter.   She supposed she should be grateful that they hadn't turned it into an infomercial for the early mornings, extolling the product yielded from her veins, forged into wedding bands that may as well be bars.  There was inherent artistry with black and white filming, using the climbing of the chords to reach a crescendo of sound. . . all overlapped with the use of words that were emotionally charged.  Where diamonds were supposed to last 'forever' and cost only two months' salary, this set of commercials, accented with soft yellow in key areas never made note of the cost.

If you wanted to know the monetary cost, it would be too high for you.  In a world where so many people were falling apart (and so were their marriages), this was a commodity that would make anyone wistful.  Instead of a 'forever' this commercial promised you a relationship that would last, make the time remaining irrelevant for the individuals purchasing the jewelry.  It was a guaranteed until death do you part, without the possibility of murder for insurance purposes.

She had been here long enough that the sun shadows had faded from her skin.  The once ruddy complexion had begun to blanch under the abrupt lack.  Tani's dark eyes pull back into focus, tracking the scars of various whites and pink that litter her hands, threads of unwilling donation.  Moving the hands stretched some scars, made others wrinkle.  Each one had its own personality indelibly added to her flesh..  She remembered them.

Every.  Single.  One.

Her Heart of Gold: Glow

According to the sluggishly ticking clock hanging above the door to the store, it's five o'clock.  But the young woman pulling down the protective grating knows that the clock, like many things out there, is brimming with accidental lies.  Her mobile phone is attuned to the atomic clock and that claims the clock shaved off an extra quarter of an hour.  Time had gotten away from her again with the clock attempting to thieve what she had missed.

Her understated black heels are a clicking counterpoint to the clock. The weak February light that streams between the tightly packed buildings looming over the little shop glints off of her bronze name tag.  She is convinced that no one reads it, let alone remembers what is imprinted by the precise stamping machine.  The shop is one of glass and glittering items; compared to the precious stones and metal encased in the elegant cabinetry, she knows that she and her uniform do not stand out in the least.  To do that was to detract from the wares and it wasn't her that the clients were shopping for; this shop was not for that.

But now is after-hours.

The young woman, her hair neatly pinned back in a bun that resembles a knot of wood with its coloration and shape, gives the glass cases a final spritz and polish to prepare them for the morning.  The shop was painstakingly decorated in such a way as to encourage the perception of sufficient space, cleaned regularly to welcome customers.  In the Court Quarter of the city, most of the shops shared the same dimensions and similar window shapes; any way a business could find to stand out was of critical advantage.

The rooms sequestered behind the 'Employees Only' sign are a hybrid of a workshop and a makeshift break room that could easily support a person staying for a few nights.  This was often the case for a small jewelry shop that had a small range of clientele which would make unusual demands.  It was better for the business owner to make small repairs in-house rather than send out for services he and his trained associate could provide.  Like the tastefully tiled area of the shop which welcomed customers, the back areas were cleaned regularly.  Unlike the determinedly welcoming place beyond the nondescript door, break area managed to amass the sort of clutter that comes with living rather than urging to purchase.

The working desk, the sofa and the small table between were findings rescued from the verges on trash day.  It results in a weathered and mismatched appearance very much at odds with the shop and breathes of different personality.  The desk is cluttered, the couch welcoming with an extra pillow nestled on top of a folded woolen blanket, and the little round dining room table in between them was hosting a pile of mail.

Most of the mail was to her employer but one on the top was addressed differently.  The girl looks down at it, carefully manicured fingers reaching out to cover the name until only her nickname peered out at her. 'Tani.'  She can take a moment to marvel at the way the pearly robin's egg blue of the envelope made the natural tan of her hands stand out, accentuated the manicure that was mandatory in this sort of shop.

"Finally," she breathes, her thoughtful expression clearing into a pleased half-smile.  It was the letter she had waited years for, the engraved invitation more than one mutual friend had made affectionate bets about.  Her fingertips drag to the top left corner of the envelope before she flips it over.  On the back were clear instructions to RSVP before August.

Tani turns away from the table, pausing to use it to steady herself as she steps out of her heels.  The floor feels unforgivingly cold through the leggings but after the shoes it's a relief.  It wouldn't take her long to change into more comfortable clothing before she settled in at the work station.  Nice professional clothing for reasonable price was difficult to come by so she saw no reason to put her uniform at risk.

Once Tani takes the time to change clothing and grab a snack, she settles herself at the workstation both she and her employer used to make repairs to pieces brought to them by clients.  Rarely would they work with things to make unique pieces.  As she scans the board in front of the desk to decide on which instrument to begin with, she rubs her fingertips together.

In the end, she drags out a weighty hunk of metal that has a pair of straight and shallow troughs in it.  It was like iron beneath her now-warm fingertips.  It was made of a dense metal, as weathered as any grandmother's finest cast-iron skillet.  Like the rough-hewn marble work surface that was actually a salvaged off-cut, the heavy mold was also a rescue.  Her employer had no more need of it but Tani saw no reason to dispose of it.  It, like the battered desk and couch, had been given another chance.

Consideringly, she plucks one of their steak knives from the kitchen from its secret spot beneath the desk organizer, turning it over in her hands as she stares at the mold. The metal blade glints with a strange warmth beneath the glow of the old yellow bulb that hangs above the table.  

With a quirked smile, she twists the instrument so that the metallic shark teeth meet her skin and presses it roughly into the meaty part of the palm.  To make sure, she folds her fingers around the sleek steel.  The smile morphs almost instantly to a pained hiss as the flesh parts but as she pulls the sharp implement from her hand, she can only hope the shallow gouges were enough.

Welling from her palm are not the bright red of blood but steaming droplets of glowing metal.  It lights her brown eyes strangely in the small space, promises to catch fire to anything unprepared for it ferociously.  Tani knew that it would cool quickly in the air, turning her hand so it was palm down above the marble and deliberately pressing a thumb into the softness near the teeth-marks of the knife to encourage more flow.

The key was to bleed her gold into a straight line without spattering it and that takes concentration.  This was the best gift she could think to give them.  Her friends would need bands for their vows.  They were only starting and had about as much as any young married couple would have. . . so Tani would provide.  It would take time to process the gold into her desired shape, repeatedly subjecting it to heat and pressure until it was the right size for the intended, to polish it appropriately.  

Tani had until August.  She had time.

*~*~*

Book Reviews in Brief: Part One

Let it not be said that my little Kobo Touch doesn't get a good workout.  In fact, it's been used so constantly that I sometimes fear the little device is near the end of its life. . . sometimes he rebuffs my advances to turn him on.  Repeatedly.

Girls hate to be ignored.  

So eventually the Kobo flickers up, grudgingly.  I suspect he knows that if he doesn't put out, he can get out.  I would move on and find another reader.  Sadly, sometimes it has to fall by the wayside because life just insists on being dealt with.  But, with winter thundering down in the form of storms and nights that hover haltingly above zero, it's come back as part of my evening and weekend routine.  It keeps me warm and curled up in a comfy place.  Or would be, were it not for my chosen reading material.

I've recently finished The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey and have moved on to Bird Box by Josh Malerman.  I know, right?  Not exactly idea stuff to read right before going to sleep.  Particularly Josh Malerman's book. . . But each of the books are teaching me by example.  And I really do like that.

M.R. Carey's descriptions strike me as more poetic in some places.  They evoke strong imagery for me.  It means that when he uses science in his book to back up what goes on, it catches me by surprise and makes me more appreciative.  You see, my original degree is a biology degree.  So when someone brings me literature that uses something that is at least plausible at a stretch, I become excited.  Someone has done some homework!  Just how much homework?  You'd have to read it to know for sure.  Me?  I'm more than a little tempted to do a bit of digging for myself and see how well he covered himself in science (I'd admittedly a bit rusty and the fun part about science is that we continuously edit it).

Personally, I find M.R. Carey's approach to be one of the more challenging (and also one of the most increasingly popular).  It gives great flexibility but there's not much space for being lazy there.  He pulls this off because each of the characters has, to me, a unique voice.  I never really forget whose eyes I'm seeing through.

Josh Malerman's novel, on the other hand, is more sparse.  But the sparseness, to me, serves a function.  I could attribute it to any number of things, from the narrator's viewpoint to it simply being how Mr. Malerman writes.  However, Josh Malerman's book has its strength in what is not shown and that is quite different to The Girl With All the Gifts, which in my opinion has strength in measured reveal, using more than one viewpoint to widen the reader's understanding of the world and what goes on.

Two different books, two different subject matters, two different approaches.  One's strength is in well-paced reveal.  The other is extremely talented on not giving you anything and letting what I think of as instinctive imagination do the work (Instinctive imagination: The part of you that probably worked fabulously well when humans were still struggling tribes, huddled around the fire and scared of anything that moved in the dark).  And between them?  A lot of space to learn and experiment.  If you want to learn a little more about what to do to creep people out, I think I can suggest Josh Malerman's Bird Box.  I'm about halfway through and seriously had to not stop just anywhere before going to bed.

I am a grown-ass woman.  And I couldn't go to bed because this book was at a point where I was sufficiently creeped out that I had to continue the trip until I found a spot that wasn't the sort of thing that could trigger nightmares.  It's like the literary opposite of "are we there yet?"  I've never had a book do that to me before. . . but to be fair, this is the first time I've read something that seems to be dedicated solely to the gift of sleepless nights.

. . . I'll let you know how that goes!


Edit:

Wanna peek at the books I'm babbling about?  I'll make it easier!

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Getting Lost in a Good Book

New sunlight streams through the glass window, a scant eight minutes and some odd seconds old.  It manages to batter its way through the grime-coated glass, providing a slant for motes to swirl along on their way to the tiles.  When the unwary motes finally elect settle, they would be camouflaged by the color of the tiles but not by the grout that bound them all together.  The grout is what betrays the floor as being far older than the sunlight, carrying the patina of countless footsteps.

The walls that the sunlight creeps along each cycle are likewise weathered.  Warm and gentle the sun may seem just now, seasons of it have scorched the white walls and wooden shelving.  Should the furniture ever be moved, the pieces would leave behind shadows of their shadows.  It was a silent testament of how long they had stood sentry, carefully cradling books of all sorts on any surface that might be worth holding them inside the shop.

Some footsteps -most footsteps- have been human, though it has been some days since any had paced along the corridors of the shop defined by the windows and walls.  It was those guilty footsteps, caked with winter mud, summer sands that have brought age more quickly to the commonly-traveled lanes inside the shop, searching for their literary soul mate of the moment.  

Scattered with the motes and evidence of hard wear and weather are light, glinting strands of orange and cream fur.  This is the result of the current sole resident of the shop, a shaggy ginger tom.  The evidence of him is strewn widely through the repository that is brimming with books of various size, color and subject matter.  Though not remarkably large for a bookstore or for people, the area is more than large enough for him, plush pink paws traipsing lazily over the most settled of dust motes.  He has spent much of his time here, and much of his time other places.  But for the now, the ginger tom is here, shepherding the slates of sunlight across the floor.

The shop's front door claims that they would be open Monday through Saturday, eight o'clock sharp to a dull six o'clock evening time.  Despite these promises the door remains locked on a sunny Tuesday, but that is of no surprise to the ginger tom.  He has lounged in the silence for three days without Old Ray coming to refresh his water or scrap dish, with the odd interruption of people trying to open a door that is sealed to them.  "On vacation," the humans would say.

"Not so," the ginger tom would retort with a laughing twitch of his tail.  But no one notices the twitch.

Many days had Old Ray spent with his books, enjoying the thrill of the hunt as he stalked this edition or that to add to his collection.  This is what drew the ginger tom at first, made the tom acknowledge Old Ray.  Old Ray understood the hunt.  And though he understood nothing else, that in itself was enough.  Likewise, the ginger tom never understood Old Ray and how he could surrender the prey he had so tenaciously brought to his home.  And surrender he did, with the ring of the old register and a smile at the people who made the purchase.

But Old Ray had not set the register to ring for days.  The ginger tom paced by a half open book that had tumbled heedless to the floor, pausing in his leisurely locomotion.  Sniffing at the crinkled pages, folded beneath the heavy binding like a multitude of broken wings.  The last place where Old Ray's scent of spice, his favorite cologne lingered, both on the pages and on the tom's extended whiskers.  The knowledge of what happened to Old Ray was there.  Scent, soul and somebody lost along the vellum-filled volumes.  They took bits of time from people, bits of their hearts.  And eventually. . . possibly one day. . .  their whole selves.

Many people's stories end with abrupt lines like 'cause of death: Car accident.'  Others listed in familiar obituaries that the tom often lounged on are more like 'quietly, surrounded by loved ones.'   Old Ray's would be something different, a secret from the people who could not feel the warm breezes wafting through the shop's pages and ruffled the silver hairs on the ginger tom who would shortly go his own way.  Once he was done shepherding the shop's sunlight.

"And he was never heard from again."

Little Lambs

Mary may have had a little lamb, but not all lambs are white.  Some are mottled like Blue Heelers (a point of irony if you know what heelers are for.  Sort of a reversal of the wolf in sheep's clothing), some are tawny like wheat ready for thrushing.

Some are like soot, set to grow into black sheep.

Here we have just such a one.  Either willfully or unwillfully abandoned by the mother, the result is still the same.  We had a young lamb without a mother.  Alyce and Suzie call him 'Woolie.'

Peachy McCrockPot: The Early Days

I call him 'Peachy McCrockPot.' 

It's mostly because I wholly believe we should all have at least a rough idea of where we're going in life. 

The other lamb kept on premises is a plain, nondescript white among sheep-kind.  This is probably just a ruse, to be quite honest.  The nondescript sheep had been unfortunately singled out some weeks ago from the same herd as Peachy McCrockPot by an excitable dog.  You see, when dogs get excited about sheep, they tend to bark. . . or to want to hug the sheep.  

With their teeth.

Obviously, the older lamb survived the experience, probably because whatever canine exercising his wiles had no idea what to do with a sheep once he caught it around the throat (how we managed to transport and keep the animal alive is something of a story in itself).  End result?  Two sheep on premises.  Yet again we have a naming inconsistency between the Alyce/Suzie faction and myself.  They call him 'Lucky' which is true enough.  I call him Colonel WoolyBritches on account of the expression that he had when he realised we had finally effectively fenced him (for the time being).

There's scientific evidence suggesting that sheep can feel rage.  Seeing that expression as we walked away?  I can believe it.  So never quite believe that lambs are docile and sweet.  Just because they don't have much in the way of defense capability doesn't mean that they aren't capable of more than meekness.

We might just be harboring the ruminant incarnation of Hitler.

And as for Peachy?  Don't worry about him.  He's growing into a bona fide bruiser of a ram.  All the better for my crock pot.