This one time it was all 'wall staring' and climbing back into my brain, and oh, wow, a peanut!, and then it was all Chilli plant and billions of butter containers and that one spider web and papers that didn't tell you anything even though they were covered in words.
It was all this and more.
Then it wasn't.
And I said, I said: "But where do they all go? All those little formations that have to be kept squeaky clean and rounded nice and current and amazingly hilarious?"
And they replied: "In earnest, Cerri, we have no idea what you're talking about. Have another drink."
I made a face to let them know I couldn't possibly, but I accepted. I held the face. I drank around and through and during this face.
It was a blast.
And in the morning I sat down on the pavement squares and ate a cupcake. I jumped hopscotch. Ran to the transportation device and held my breath for what seemed like eternity. I carried a yellow balloon, which turned out to be a stray cat, which fell asleep in my arms so I took a photograph. I called it Vincent.
When it woke up it told me its name was 'certainly not Vincent' and that 'I should be ashamed to suggest such a thing, why wasn't I? Did I have some mental deficiency? Was I under some magical spell, like I had eaten too much Catnip?'
I said: "Vincent, I am no cat."
To which Vincent replied: "Well you should be."
I thought about this. Vincent meowed. I almost tripped over an uneven surface in the ground but a man wearing a jester hat and a long green coat grabbed my arm.
"I'm sorry," I said, rather embarrassed, "It's my cat, Vincent. He's a terrible directional navigator."
The man smiled kindly down at me. "My cat is just as terrible."
"Oh!" I exclaimed in glee while Vincent glared in his cat way at me, "What an exciting coincidence!"
And it was, until I realised he was holding a decaf coffee mug. I laughed in a haughty, 'higher up than thou' way, and I said, "Elderly gentleman, I decline!" then ran off, leaving him wrapped up in a cloud of indignation because he was only (apparently) twenty-six.
"That was rude, even for a lowly human such as yourself," Vincent purred. He seemed to be enjoying the running so I stopped, out of breath and sweating more than a delicate female should.
"If I am to be conversing with the opposite sex, I need to make sure they are well caffeinated for the conversations we take part in and I just can't, Vincent, I just can't allow fakeness of any sort into my life."
Vincent licked one of my stick-on fingernails smugly.
"These are for recreational purposes," I said defensively, "where everything is fake."
"I see."
"I'm tired of you seeing," I declared and made to drop him on the ground but he clung to my shirt and hissed.
I sighed. Vincent meowed in protest. "Human, you must carry me to the end of the city."
"Because?"
"I have family there."
"Oh, you do?"
We walked into a beauty salon and I paid for Vincent to have an entire makeover, which consisted of an overall trim, a shampoo and rinse in 'Unconditionally Lavender', and a bright pink Mohawk.
The beautician called Schmoo pulled me aside and said in a velvety smooth voice that I would not associate with an exotic Indian man: "That was not Unconditionally Lavender as it said on the bottle, I am afraid." He looked anything but. "It was Rashers of Rose."
I gave him a pitiful look, signifying that I was a dedicated pet owner and if my beloved cat wanted Lavender scented fur, then, by god, he would have Lavender scented fur. Schmoo nodded in a business-like way, and I read another whole magazine devoted to bikini waxing while Vincent went through his correction process.
I wouldn't say I came out scarred for life at all I had just read, but I was a changed person. These things changed you.
I might even attend a church and sing a hymm about sheep. Sleep with one eye open. Pour my soup into a bowl before heating. Open my umbrellas outside. Buy an umbrella.
"You are entirely dramatic," Vincent said, "And I hate you. Everything you are I despise."
"Catums," I said gaily, "Shoosh."
Me and Vincent weren't ever going to see eye-to-eye; he was far too small. We would never agree on everything, or even anything. We would never share food or laugh about old times.
But I can honestly say that we will be friends for life.
"Human," Vincent clawed my ankle, "I used your handbag as a latrine."
There certainly was a large amount of pee in my bag, that fact could not be denied. But what really got me about this situation as I looked down into the topaz liquid vibrating with all the streetwalkers hurrying by, was the appalling matter of a cat using the word latrine.
Saturday, 19 March 2016
Friday, 11 March 2016
Can we make it up as we go?
The suffering of Gregory Oswald.
"How gay it is to be out here," Harriet said admiringly. She had traipsed all the way from Little Totten- a magical place that made the best cherry pies in the entire universe- just to sit on this very bench. However, when she had started her journey, she had been terribly certain of finding company alongside this bench.
She did not.
The sun had watched her as it rose high into the sky, sitting alone and forlorn on the bowing, thick planks, sometimes muttering to herself, other times singing softly or calling out to various insects for attention. Once or twice she had even attempted conversation with the cat as it rolled around on the sunny concrete, but they had been rare occasions, after which she had sank back into her pot instantly, afraid that it would leap up and nibble on her chilli pods.
The sun had watched and smiled to itself, interested in such a way that only those with an infinity of entertainment options can be.
Then Gregory had arrived.
He had trudged up, leapt up, sprang forth, into Harriet's world of frosty midnight conversations with sluggishly slow snails about star signs and wellingtons, sweltering hot days consisting of edging her way around under the umbrella to gain maximum sun while sobbing drearily in mourning for her harvested children, and mindless drooling at the big tree standing tall and leafy just outside the green fence. How handsome that tree was! She had no idea whatsoever as to what it could be or if it had a name, but it looked considerably male- what with all that lusciously masculine, peeling bark and glossed sturdy branches reaching up to the heavens!- and Harriet had been entranced since the day she set eyes upon it.
"Say, what's so fascinatingly gay about that tree then, eh?" came a voice to her left and Harriet started out of her impossible, possibly naive, fantasy which boasted lavish weddings that included church bells and cake made to look like flowers with bees on, and she turned to clap eyes on a cactus.
"What?" she said hastily, "I wasn't oogling."
The cactus smiled as it looked at the tree. "Well now, there's nothing wrong with an oogle."
"You're male!" Harriet accused in an accusatory voice. "You're the spitting image!"
"You could be slightly off..."
"I am never off!" Harriet said the words like a jab and raised her leaves and branches and red chillies as high as she could.
"Ahhh, the Thai Chilli," said the cactus pleasantly and in the faraway tone of one in deep thought, "what a pleasure it is to meet one at last."
Harriet looked down at the cactus plant in disgust, "I beg your-"
"Halt! Aaaaand, needles into the air, switch!" the cactus yelled suddenly.
"Oh!" Harriet cried.
"Do excuse me, TC, I was in the army," he said promptly, and Harriet said: "The army!" as if he had just told her he never shed his dead leaves.
"Seven years, just. Broke my old Mam's heart, but I said 'Sweetpea (she is a sweetpea, actually, from her aunt's cousin side, he told Harriet later, and Harriet had unsuccessfully replied, suuuuure she is, have you noticed everyone foreign or made up into the family tree is always from the aunt's side?, due to the cactus talking over her in a brisk manner), you don't have to worry about me, I will be back before the little ones start shelling' but I wasn't and she died a tragic death that is still unclear to this very day."
Harried looked appalled. "Gosh! What a tragedy you have suffered!"
The cactus nodded, still staring straight ahead as if his call to attention was still in motion, and Harriet gazed appreciatively at his straight posture. His short, green, spiky stems were just resplendent in all their silken little glory. How she would like to touch one.
"I have suffered such a tragedy," the cactus continued, unaware or just accepting of her fixated nature. "But I have kept an optimistic view and it is this, this! above all else, lady, that has kept me going throughout the days."
"Are you telling me that your mother is named after her own design?" Harriet demanded.
The cactus turned finally. "Am I saying which to?"
Harriet rustled her leaves impatiently. She may have leaned down closer, or it may have just been the breeze, but, certainly, there was movement and it was hers. "Are you spouting off stories about your mum called Sweetpea-"
"If you will kindly shut it, you will come to the furry notion that I have said no such thing."
The cactus gave her a level stare. He was trying to remember if he had, actually, told this fine excuse for a chilli plant his parental background and after two electric seconds he decided, no, he had not.
"I'm psychic," one of Harriet's leaves waved in front of his face with a swish and she swayed in the sun with authentic agility. "One of my many gifts. Now, tell me about your mother."
"Hold up there! Prove it!"
"Yes- what?" Harriet stopped being agile to show authentic confusion. Her leaves fluttered slowly and her head drooped a little.
The cactus smiled in a satisfied, cactus-kind-of-way: tight-lipped and without much movement. "Answer me this question correctly and I will forever be in confidence of all your decisions!" he cleared his throat as if he did this at every hour of every day and rumbled: "What is my name?"
The cactus was smug on the inside. He was almost bursting with the knowledge that she would say his name was 'cactus', and then he would burst out with laughter, right in her face, because she would be wrong and he loved seeing people so unsure about what they were so sure about.
Harriet gave a short shriek of laughter that made a bird take flight from the grass. It was probably meant to be a snort, it was so short and not at all very high-pitched, but it worked also as a shriek and it sounded better when she described it to her own ears. How maddeningly childish this cactus was! It was a pleasure to have him entertain in such an earnest manner. She should ask him to stay.
The cactus's demeanor faltered. "Yes?"
"Your name is Gregory Oswald and your mother is a sweetpea and she's called a sweetpea and it's all from your aunt's cousin's side- which is awfully tragic in itself, there being a cousin from your aunt and so on- and it's all set in stone so I don't even have to ask you because I know you will say yes, so welcome, Gregory, to The Bench!"
Gregory watched her many stems spread out wide in a welcoming gesture. He thought about sitting beside this psychic for all eternity, knitting and singing and wearing snail-shell hats and looking through acorn binoculars at that damn (yet stunning) tree and swapping steamy mugs of FertilizeThis! while listening to clams debate from the ocean-side on wireless radio. Had it come to this already?
"I- I am- oh!" he suddenly remembered, "You're Harriet the Psychic!"
"Yes!" she beamed.
He laughed and she did not care for the loud, hooting, caw that she heard. "I was always under the assumption- that is, I heard on the wireless, not that the base had it often, nor did we indulge when we could!- but I remember it being 'Harriet the Sidekick' and I wondered, rightly as I must have, where the hero was."
Harriet stared. She was insulted. Not only was she now stuck alongside a cactus who thought she was second best in some radio drama, there was absolutely no way she would be able to 'accidentally' knock his terrifying, corded spike-straightener off the bench into a bucket of innocently maneuvered rainwater.
(--____0)v
"How gay it is to be out here," Harriet said admiringly. She had traipsed all the way from Little Totten- a magical place that made the best cherry pies in the entire universe- just to sit on this very bench. However, when she had started her journey, she had been terribly certain of finding company alongside this bench.
She did not.
The sun had watched her as it rose high into the sky, sitting alone and forlorn on the bowing, thick planks, sometimes muttering to herself, other times singing softly or calling out to various insects for attention. Once or twice she had even attempted conversation with the cat as it rolled around on the sunny concrete, but they had been rare occasions, after which she had sank back into her pot instantly, afraid that it would leap up and nibble on her chilli pods.
The sun had watched and smiled to itself, interested in such a way that only those with an infinity of entertainment options can be.
Then Gregory had arrived.
He had trudged up, leapt up, sprang forth, into Harriet's world of frosty midnight conversations with sluggishly slow snails about star signs and wellingtons, sweltering hot days consisting of edging her way around under the umbrella to gain maximum sun while sobbing drearily in mourning for her harvested children, and mindless drooling at the big tree standing tall and leafy just outside the green fence. How handsome that tree was! She had no idea whatsoever as to what it could be or if it had a name, but it looked considerably male- what with all that lusciously masculine, peeling bark and glossed sturdy branches reaching up to the heavens!- and Harriet had been entranced since the day she set eyes upon it.
"Say, what's so fascinatingly gay about that tree then, eh?" came a voice to her left and Harriet started out of her impossible, possibly naive, fantasy which boasted lavish weddings that included church bells and cake made to look like flowers with bees on, and she turned to clap eyes on a cactus.
"What?" she said hastily, "I wasn't oogling."
The cactus smiled as it looked at the tree. "Well now, there's nothing wrong with an oogle."
"You're male!" Harriet accused in an accusatory voice. "You're the spitting image!"
"You could be slightly off..."
"I am never off!" Harriet said the words like a jab and raised her leaves and branches and red chillies as high as she could.
"Ahhh, the Thai Chilli," said the cactus pleasantly and in the faraway tone of one in deep thought, "what a pleasure it is to meet one at last."
Harriet looked down at the cactus plant in disgust, "I beg your-"
"Halt! Aaaaand, needles into the air, switch!" the cactus yelled suddenly.
"Oh!" Harriet cried.
"Do excuse me, TC, I was in the army," he said promptly, and Harriet said: "The army!" as if he had just told her he never shed his dead leaves.
"Seven years, just. Broke my old Mam's heart, but I said 'Sweetpea (she is a sweetpea, actually, from her aunt's cousin side, he told Harriet later, and Harriet had unsuccessfully replied, suuuuure she is, have you noticed everyone foreign or made up into the family tree is always from the aunt's side?, due to the cactus talking over her in a brisk manner), you don't have to worry about me, I will be back before the little ones start shelling' but I wasn't and she died a tragic death that is still unclear to this very day."
Harried looked appalled. "Gosh! What a tragedy you have suffered!"
The cactus nodded, still staring straight ahead as if his call to attention was still in motion, and Harriet gazed appreciatively at his straight posture. His short, green, spiky stems were just resplendent in all their silken little glory. How she would like to touch one.
"I have suffered such a tragedy," the cactus continued, unaware or just accepting of her fixated nature. "But I have kept an optimistic view and it is this, this! above all else, lady, that has kept me going throughout the days."
"Are you telling me that your mother is named after her own design?" Harriet demanded.
The cactus turned finally. "Am I saying which to?"
Harriet rustled her leaves impatiently. She may have leaned down closer, or it may have just been the breeze, but, certainly, there was movement and it was hers. "Are you spouting off stories about your mum called Sweetpea-"
"If you will kindly shut it, you will come to the furry notion that I have said no such thing."
The cactus gave her a level stare. He was trying to remember if he had, actually, told this fine excuse for a chilli plant his parental background and after two electric seconds he decided, no, he had not.
"I'm psychic," one of Harriet's leaves waved in front of his face with a swish and she swayed in the sun with authentic agility. "One of my many gifts. Now, tell me about your mother."
"Hold up there! Prove it!"
"Yes- what?" Harriet stopped being agile to show authentic confusion. Her leaves fluttered slowly and her head drooped a little.
The cactus smiled in a satisfied, cactus-kind-of-way: tight-lipped and without much movement. "Answer me this question correctly and I will forever be in confidence of all your decisions!" he cleared his throat as if he did this at every hour of every day and rumbled: "What is my name?"
The cactus was smug on the inside. He was almost bursting with the knowledge that she would say his name was 'cactus', and then he would burst out with laughter, right in her face, because she would be wrong and he loved seeing people so unsure about what they were so sure about.
Harriet gave a short shriek of laughter that made a bird take flight from the grass. It was probably meant to be a snort, it was so short and not at all very high-pitched, but it worked also as a shriek and it sounded better when she described it to her own ears. How maddeningly childish this cactus was! It was a pleasure to have him entertain in such an earnest manner. She should ask him to stay.
The cactus's demeanor faltered. "Yes?"
"Your name is Gregory Oswald and your mother is a sweetpea and she's called a sweetpea and it's all from your aunt's cousin's side- which is awfully tragic in itself, there being a cousin from your aunt and so on- and it's all set in stone so I don't even have to ask you because I know you will say yes, so welcome, Gregory, to The Bench!"
Gregory watched her many stems spread out wide in a welcoming gesture. He thought about sitting beside this psychic for all eternity, knitting and singing and wearing snail-shell hats and looking through acorn binoculars at that damn (yet stunning) tree and swapping steamy mugs of FertilizeThis! while listening to clams debate from the ocean-side on wireless radio. Had it come to this already?
"I- I am- oh!" he suddenly remembered, "You're Harriet the Psychic!"
"Yes!" she beamed.
He laughed and she did not care for the loud, hooting, caw that she heard. "I was always under the assumption- that is, I heard on the wireless, not that the base had it often, nor did we indulge when we could!- but I remember it being 'Harriet the Sidekick' and I wondered, rightly as I must have, where the hero was."
Harriet stared. She was insulted. Not only was she now stuck alongside a cactus who thought she was second best in some radio drama, there was absolutely no way she would be able to 'accidentally' knock his terrifying, corded spike-straightener off the bench into a bucket of innocently maneuvered rainwater.
(--____0)v
Sunday, 6 March 2016
What do you see between the cracks?
"Well, I don't know why you would," she said in a miffed voice. He was almost running to keep up with her as she glided down corridors and through arched doorways into bigger or darker or intensely more cluttered rooms.
"It's Quentin-" he puffed, lifting his leg over a stack of old books, but she cut across him by calling back over her shoulder: "Cupid is not called Quentin. Goodness."
"He told me h-"
"Armund," she turned abruptly in one sweeping motion and smiled down at the little dwarf trailing her every move. How atrociously adorable. "Armund," she repeated, and he looked up at her with a frown, as if suspicious. "I have met the budding archer- if he can be called that! His failed attempts far outweigh all his successes, which could be why he drinks chocolate all day-"
"He doesn't!" Armund cried in horror.
"He does! And he pays for it! With coins from right out of his purse!"
"Scandal!"
"Outrage!"
"Sacrilege!"
"Outstandingly contemptuous!"
"Startling!"
"Ok, I'm out of woulds beginning with 'o'..."
"Yes, I was faltering also..."
She straightened her shoulders. "My point is, dear Armund and all you stand for, is that I have met this charming Cupid and he has never been a Quentin, ever, in all his lives."
"Oh..." Armund dropped his gaze to the polished floorboards, wishing he knew how to ask for her interior designer while simultaneously wondering where she kept her silverware. It certainly wasn't in any of the kitchen drawers, or bathroom drawers, or bedroom drawers, nor had any been found under the stairs or in the linen basket. He was tired and poor. It only seemed fair that he exchange some of her expensive household items so he could buy that silky undergarment he'd had his eyes on for the past two and a half weeks, did it not?
He smiled at nothing, lost in his admiration.
"Hello, Armund? Are you among the living?"
"Pardon!"
She was eyeing him suspiciously and he had a sudden terrible feeling that she could read his mind.
"Begging your pardon to my earnest slip of reality, the one and only Candace, I must have had an overload of cream cake this morning." Armund gave a small bow, rather a little tip of the head that would have been deeper had he been wearing a hat or shoes with bells on. He did like to admire those bells.
"I feel you are unwell."
He nodded sagely.
"Yes..." Candace stood and stared at him without seeing. "Cream cake and the power within. Excuse me Armund! I have business to attend to!" and she swept off through another door.
What bother! How was he ever supposed to keep an eye on her if she flew through the house like a bewitched hen?
"Your ladyship! I mean..." Armund hastily made his way through the door and spied her dress whipping around the corner at the end of the corridor.
"I must insist you leave, dear dwarf!" she called from far away. "I fear anyone ever setting their lovely eyes upon my baking skills... unsightly! Ghastly! Like wearing a see-through slip on the top floor balcony!"
"You cannot bake a cake!" Armund called, somewhat agitated. "Quentin is coming to see you, five thirty sharp!" His agitation stemmed from his bare feet that were not accustomed to running, and they rightly shouldn't be seeing as how he spent most of his time in caves, digging, or reading Elvish Elerberry Stews and Other Recipes Elves Don't Want Dwarves Knowing.
"I can and I will!"
Silly female! Armund skidded and tripped past sunny rooms with large windows and white furniture, past clocks and what looked like a dream catcher made out of bones. He slid under wooden arched doorways and through a bathroom when he realised what was making him sweat more than this very un-fun game of chase. "You have no doors!"
"I pardon you?"
"The doors!" Armund slowed to a stop, breathing hard, bending over once again to steady himself and also admire the shiny, if dangerously slippery, flooring.
"What about them?" Candace called over a muffled bang.
"You have none!" he yelled, unsure why he was so angry, but sure that he could make out his reflection and this did not sit well with him.
Candace laughed. There were more loud noises that could probably be a spoon scraping a metal bowl or an electric mixer starting up or sifted flour flying up to puff in a face, but would most likely be Candace falling over her abnormally long daytime attire and knocking over a vase.
Silly woman!
"I've just run through the bathroom and you have not one hinge in place, not one doorknob waiting on the sink, not one 'do not disturb sign', and where is that sign Candace the great one, where is that sign?"
"Your poor little brain!" she exclaimed with some kind of glee or delight, "To be so addled over something so trivial!"
"I protest you!" he said angrily and then stopped short, awash with fear.
"You would!" was her gay reply.
He breathed a sigh of relief that sounded like a thousand wind-chimes caught in a rainstorm. Since when had that been his exhaling noise of choice?
He heard it again.
"Candace! Quentin has arrived!"
"Oh, Gerald!" Candace came rushing into where Armund stood, with a swish of her dress, elegant, at ease, and glowing down to her very essence. "Yes, it is about time," she said.
"It's Quentin," Armund shot at her. His expression softened when he noticed cake batter smeared on her neck and flour sprinkled like dust all down one side of her dress, and he ran after her.
"I was making a cake," he heard her laugh as he turned into her high entrance hall to find Candace chatting animatedly with a little boy.
"Armund!" the boy called happily, looking past Candace.
"Greetings, Quentin, master of the bow and stealer of hearts just the same..." he bowed again, a proper bow this time where he pretended to have shoes with bells. The proper bows always gave him an ache in the neck when he straightened.
The boy laughed heartily, "I don't steal hearts, silly dwarf, I rip them out and feast!"
"Of course." Armund nodded easily as he knew this.
"Now, I feel," started Candace in a high-pitched way, "that we delightfully passed the important business of introducing ourselves, and while Armund and you have clearly met, I wonder if you and I may have the honor?"
Quentin looked up at her, his straight caramel hair shining in the sun, his pale face open and his light grey eyes intensely curious. He beamed. "Absolutely. Hello there," he stuck out a small hand, "My name is Quentin."
Candace gasped. "You just can't be!"
Quentin smiled, "I probably could."
"You lie!"
"Only when hungry."
"I'm afraid I do not, and will ever not, believe you, entirely, until the day I die," she said firmly.
The boy swung his basket, smiling and sparkling and positively unaffected by this ambiguous insult. "Whatever seems right in your world," he replied. "But you have a job for me, yes?"
"Oh, Candace," Armund said sadly.
"Times are busy, they are," Quentin said matter-of-factly.
"Are they?" Armund asked without a real need for the answer.
"People always want to be in love, always. I've had to see a physiotherapist four times this year."
"How dramatic," Candace supplied without feeling but with an oozing of sarcasm so thick it was like liquid. "If you highly enterprising gentle creatures of the world will excuse me, I must be off to immerse myself in things which actually matter." and she turned on a heeled-foot and strode haughtily back where she had glided from moments ago.
Quentin smiled at Armund and Armund felt his core center itself. He felt goodwill and cheer. He felt like the colour pink.
"Oi!..." he took a step back.
"Candace is upset that I'm named differently, as if I changed my entire person."
Armund chuckled. Then thought, why do I find this amusing?
"Yes," Quentin chuckled too. "It is."
Oh well! Armund gave another chuckle, feeling at one with the world and almost as if he could rise into the air like a giant, dwarf-shaped balloon and explode with the blooming contentment of it all.
"Do you have a job for me?" Quentin asked. His silver arrows glinted and sang. His bright eyes danced.
"I wanted to call myself Barry," said Armund proudly. "But it was taken already by a troll and a gnome."
Quentin laughed and it was music. Armund sighed.
"What a coincidence!" Quentin remarked. Armund nodded eagerly. How small and delicate the little boy's wings were; his tunic must be cut to allow for them. And that smell! Armund inhaled with all his breath as if he were about to snorkel without an air tank or otherwise be shot dead, and it was pure magic all at once. He wondered if could breathe in like this until his dying day, lest he die of grave dissatisfaction and discomfort, when there was suddenly a loud bang from the kitchen area and he blinked.
Quentin was watching him in a mild, patient yet expectant way.
Armund said hurriedly, "I feel the need to continue my antisocial ways as we dwarves have always, certain that I will meet a fellow, possibly wearing mining gear and carrying a large axe and hoarding stories of gold and diamonds and manuals about how to ride a tractor and where to buy sheep, which can be expensive hence the need for fine silverware and even finer undergarments, so I say good day to you, stealth warrior who gives abundant pleasure but takes even more, may you find eternal happiness and that pair of shoes which actually fit."
He slammed the door in Quentin's face just in time. His eyes had turned a violent shade of pink and his wings had flared out, six times their original size and a superior metallic grey. Thin, claw-like fingers with red nails had been reaching back to seize an arrow.
"YOU DON'T SLAM THE DOOR AT CUPID!" Candace came screeching in and almost bowled Armund over. She grabbed Armund and shook him.
"Lovely Candace!" he exclaimed up into her face, "have no fear!-"
"There is everyth-"
"-he was trying to enchant me! A dwarf! I tell you-"
"You scum of the lowest pond in the furth-"
"-but I bade him a well wish-"
"That won't sto-"
"-and your house is ant-"
"It is certainly not!"
There was another bang, but louder and insanely heart-stopping as the living room window burst open. Candace yanked Armund away from the glass and they ran.
"You undid the charm!" Armund yelled accusingly.
"I felt it was time!" Candace yelled defensively.
"I gave him a well wish! I wished him well! That is not something we dwarves do! I will now face ridicule and open sneering!"
"Oh go wipe your face with that ridiculous sneering nonsense and bring yourself to the attention of our ever-present predicament: we will very shortly be shot with an arrow of love and I am not ok with that!"
~
Armund chuckled. Then thought, why do I find this amusing?
"Yes," Quentin chuckled too. "It is."
Oh well! Armund gave another chuckle, feeling at one with the world and almost as if he could rise into the air like a giant, dwarf-shaped balloon and explode with the blooming contentment of it all.
"Do you have a job for me?" Quentin asked. His silver arrows glinted and sang. His bright eyes danced.
"I wanted to call myself Barry," said Armund proudly. "But it was taken already by a troll and a gnome."
Quentin laughed and it was music. Armund sighed.
"What a coincidence!" Quentin remarked. Armund nodded eagerly. How small and delicate the little boy's wings were; his tunic must be cut to allow for them. And that smell! Armund inhaled with all his breath as if he were about to snorkel without an air tank or otherwise be shot dead, and it was pure magic all at once. He wondered if could breathe in like this until his dying day, lest he die of grave dissatisfaction and discomfort, when there was suddenly a loud bang from the kitchen area and he blinked.
Quentin was watching him in a mild, patient yet expectant way.
Armund said hurriedly, "I feel the need to continue my antisocial ways as we dwarves have always, certain that I will meet a fellow, possibly wearing mining gear and carrying a large axe and hoarding stories of gold and diamonds and manuals about how to ride a tractor and where to buy sheep, which can be expensive hence the need for fine silverware and even finer undergarments, so I say good day to you, stealth warrior who gives abundant pleasure but takes even more, may you find eternal happiness and that pair of shoes which actually fit."
He slammed the door in Quentin's face just in time. His eyes had turned a violent shade of pink and his wings had flared out, six times their original size and a superior metallic grey. Thin, claw-like fingers with red nails had been reaching back to seize an arrow.
"YOU DON'T SLAM THE DOOR AT CUPID!" Candace came screeching in and almost bowled Armund over. She grabbed Armund and shook him.
"Lovely Candace!" he exclaimed up into her face, "have no fear!-"
"There is everyth-"
"-he was trying to enchant me! A dwarf! I tell you-"
"You scum of the lowest pond in the furth-"
"-but I bade him a well wish-"
"That won't sto-"
"-and your house is ant-"
"It is certainly not!"
There was another bang, but louder and insanely heart-stopping as the living room window burst open. Candace yanked Armund away from the glass and they ran.
"You undid the charm!" Armund yelled accusingly.
"I felt it was time!" Candace yelled defensively.
"I gave him a well wish! I wished him well! That is not something we dwarves do! I will now face ridicule and open sneering!"
"Oh go wipe your face with that ridiculous sneering nonsense and bring yourself to the attention of our ever-present predicament: we will very shortly be shot with an arrow of love and I am not ok with that!"
~
Sunday, 27 December 2015
How long ago did the kettle boil?
Avery glided softly through the mist, sighing every now and then and focusing on nothing in particular. Her departure had caused her mild grief. Now she had sand in her shoes and a fluttering heart, constant concern for the only men in her life that she had left still with shock and surprised like the coloured portraits hanging around them, and she wondered if she had been a little wild.
Could her exit be considered wild? Certainly, she had been thinking about it for some time. When she served out that over-sized plate of grapes, for instance. And, similarly, when Second had dropped his soggy handkerchief in her entrance leaving a wet patch that he slid in, just a little but enough to smear, causing Watt to step in it also, all while he infuriatingly waved away her concerns about his overall, obviously ailing, health.
This memory made her quiver with slivers of contempt. The problem with Avery was her inability to work up an appropriate level of anger so people would take her seriously. She simply did not have the energy.
She realised this as her foot hit something hard yielding and she cried out, looking down to see a figure hunched up on the sand.
"Oh!" the figure exclaimed and leapt up.
"Goodness!" Avery stepped back instinctively, "You were very far down."
"Yes, I was," Quintus agreed, rubbing his bottom and squinting at her.
"Could you see far?" she asked, wanting to get the scope of his vision.
"I could not," he answered honestly. "The fog is too thick."
"Oh, of course," her mind wandered once again as her disinterest took over.
They both stood and stared at the fog, avoiding each other, and then Quintus said in a rush: "Sorry, is that- is that why you kicked me? Because of the fog density?"
Avery swayed gently to a silent tune. She said: "I walked out on all the people I love" in a whispery voice.
Quintus leaned in closer so the whispers would swim into his ears. "I did, too."
Avery nodded. "My husband, Brunei, works down at the gates. His work keeps him long hours and his friends visit often. His two friends... they love him."
Quintus watched strands of her hair fly in her face and marveled at her lack of concern. He wondered if she was one of those people who were carved out of stone, set, and then animated using goat fur, honey and candle wax. "What gates were these, do tell?" he asked instead, because this town had taught him caution in conversation and seven different ways to weave a basket.
"The Peyying Gates," she recited proudly, a faint smile lighting up her dull eyes.
Quintus thought about all the gates he knew and realised that they were all made out of wood and housed animals. He felt on edge.
"Oh, Peyying," he remarked as casually as he could. "Are they south of the farm?"
"They say he does not work hard enough," Avery said loudly and Quintus jumped. "They say, the workers at the gates are not- your hat looks very peculiar," she interrupted herself. She was peering at him in that intrusive way people do when they're trying not to insult someone about a malfunction of their appearance.
"It's hand-made!" said Quintus defensively. "Made entirely by hand!"
"By your hand..." Avery whispered, neither impressed nor ready to give a compliment, and Quintus felt the fondness he had developed for this vague woman disappear almost completely. She said: "It looks like a baby bottom" and turned to the sea in an effective conversation-ending gesture.
"This hat has silk!" he declared.
"It also has bells," she replied dismissively. "Loud, cantankerous, soul-ripping, soul-crippling, soul-squenching bells..."
"'Soul-squenching'?" Quintus echoed, uncertain.
Avery nodded at the sea.
"Soriary was wrapped up tight in a ball of self-destruction and there was no way to pierce the outer layer," Quintus said. "I could not. I was a coward! I made myself flee as if I, myself, had witnessed the brutalities of war..." his voice caught in his throat and he looked away, afraid he would choke or sob or vomit.
Avery swayed, seemingly lost in thought.
"There was nothing you could do," she said after a while, in a soft yet practical motherly way, and a weight Quintus did not know he was carrying instantly fell from his hunched up shoulders. She said: "Some people are a war themselves and they must learn to wield their own sword, or fall heavily upon it."
"Yes!" Quintus heaved, even though he didn't believe that her analogy applied to the beautifully worn flower that was Soriary. He did his best to blink back tears. He wiped his nose on his tunic sleeve. He smiled gingerly at the ocean but the ocean did not smile back. Probably because there was too much fog in the way. Or probably not.
"My departure was very sudden. It caused a slight disturbance, but I have not been back to see," Avery closed her eyes.
"It might be for the best," Quintus said without consideration, as he did have a lot of practice at departing and none in tact.
"Would you think so?"
"I fear-"
"Yes," Avery cut in, "Your fear. It is rather unbecoming."
Quintus frowned. "What is?"
"All this fear..." and her voice was lost and so far away that Quintus leaned in further, a tad annoyed now that she couldn't keep proper volume.
"I believe fea-" he started but Avery interrupted again with a soft sigh: "Of course you would. But look at that," she pointed ahead to where there seemed to be mountain tips growing out of the thick, fluffy fog.
"The confusing peaks." Avery breathed, almost in hushed awe.
"Yes..." said Quintus, dragging his uncertainty back to the front-line of his current emotional state, trampling over confusion and exhaustion and the need to urinate.
"They think he works up there. They do not listen, therefore misunderstand almost everything Brunei says." Avery blinked her sad eyes and Quintus felt something sharpen in his chest. "But fear..." she went on, "...fear can take us places. There are great places and I think..." she stepped forward.
Quintus jolted, "Are- are you-?"
"... I think we should walk right up to fear." Avery took another step and Quintus felt such a sudden rush of loneliness that he lunged forwards as well.
"Yes..." Avery whispered, staring out at the rising peaks with an expression of something like excitement mixed with horror that surrounded a hint of a smile.
"...let us see where fear will take us."
Could her exit be considered wild? Certainly, she had been thinking about it for some time. When she served out that over-sized plate of grapes, for instance. And, similarly, when Second had dropped his soggy handkerchief in her entrance leaving a wet patch that he slid in, just a little but enough to smear, causing Watt to step in it also, all while he infuriatingly waved away her concerns about his overall, obviously ailing, health.
This memory made her quiver with slivers of contempt. The problem with Avery was her inability to work up an appropriate level of anger so people would take her seriously. She simply did not have the energy.
She realised this as her foot hit something hard yielding and she cried out, looking down to see a figure hunched up on the sand.
"Oh!" the figure exclaimed and leapt up.
"Goodness!" Avery stepped back instinctively, "You were very far down."
"Yes, I was," Quintus agreed, rubbing his bottom and squinting at her.
"Could you see far?" she asked, wanting to get the scope of his vision.
"I could not," he answered honestly. "The fog is too thick."
"Oh, of course," her mind wandered once again as her disinterest took over.
They both stood and stared at the fog, avoiding each other, and then Quintus said in a rush: "Sorry, is that- is that why you kicked me? Because of the fog density?"
Avery swayed gently to a silent tune. She said: "I walked out on all the people I love" in a whispery voice.
Quintus leaned in closer so the whispers would swim into his ears. "I did, too."
Avery nodded. "My husband, Brunei, works down at the gates. His work keeps him long hours and his friends visit often. His two friends... they love him."
Quintus watched strands of her hair fly in her face and marveled at her lack of concern. He wondered if she was one of those people who were carved out of stone, set, and then animated using goat fur, honey and candle wax. "What gates were these, do tell?" he asked instead, because this town had taught him caution in conversation and seven different ways to weave a basket.
"The Peyying Gates," she recited proudly, a faint smile lighting up her dull eyes.
Quintus thought about all the gates he knew and realised that they were all made out of wood and housed animals. He felt on edge.
"Oh, Peyying," he remarked as casually as he could. "Are they south of the farm?"
"They say he does not work hard enough," Avery said loudly and Quintus jumped. "They say, the workers at the gates are not- your hat looks very peculiar," she interrupted herself. She was peering at him in that intrusive way people do when they're trying not to insult someone about a malfunction of their appearance.
"It's hand-made!" said Quintus defensively. "Made entirely by hand!"
"By your hand..." Avery whispered, neither impressed nor ready to give a compliment, and Quintus felt the fondness he had developed for this vague woman disappear almost completely. She said: "It looks like a baby bottom" and turned to the sea in an effective conversation-ending gesture.
"This hat has silk!" he declared.
"It also has bells," she replied dismissively. "Loud, cantankerous, soul-ripping, soul-crippling, soul-squenching bells..."
"'Soul-squenching'?" Quintus echoed, uncertain.
Avery nodded at the sea.
"Soriary was wrapped up tight in a ball of self-destruction and there was no way to pierce the outer layer," Quintus said. "I could not. I was a coward! I made myself flee as if I, myself, had witnessed the brutalities of war..." his voice caught in his throat and he looked away, afraid he would choke or sob or vomit.
Avery swayed, seemingly lost in thought.
"There was nothing you could do," she said after a while, in a soft yet practical motherly way, and a weight Quintus did not know he was carrying instantly fell from his hunched up shoulders. She said: "Some people are a war themselves and they must learn to wield their own sword, or fall heavily upon it."
"Yes!" Quintus heaved, even though he didn't believe that her analogy applied to the beautifully worn flower that was Soriary. He did his best to blink back tears. He wiped his nose on his tunic sleeve. He smiled gingerly at the ocean but the ocean did not smile back. Probably because there was too much fog in the way. Or probably not.
"My departure was very sudden. It caused a slight disturbance, but I have not been back to see," Avery closed her eyes.
"It might be for the best," Quintus said without consideration, as he did have a lot of practice at departing and none in tact.
"Would you think so?"
"I fear-"
"Yes," Avery cut in, "Your fear. It is rather unbecoming."
Quintus frowned. "What is?"
"All this fear..." and her voice was lost and so far away that Quintus leaned in further, a tad annoyed now that she couldn't keep proper volume.
"I believe fea-" he started but Avery interrupted again with a soft sigh: "Of course you would. But look at that," she pointed ahead to where there seemed to be mountain tips growing out of the thick, fluffy fog.
"The confusing peaks." Avery breathed, almost in hushed awe.
"Yes..." said Quintus, dragging his uncertainty back to the front-line of his current emotional state, trampling over confusion and exhaustion and the need to urinate.
"They think he works up there. They do not listen, therefore misunderstand almost everything Brunei says." Avery blinked her sad eyes and Quintus felt something sharpen in his chest. "But fear..." she went on, "...fear can take us places. There are great places and I think..." she stepped forward.
Quintus jolted, "Are- are you-?"
"... I think we should walk right up to fear." Avery took another step and Quintus felt such a sudden rush of loneliness that he lunged forwards as well.
"Yes..." Avery whispered, staring out at the rising peaks with an expression of something like excitement mixed with horror that surrounded a hint of a smile.
"...let us see where fear will take us."
Saturday, 21 November 2015
When will it be that time again?
"Fudge it!" Quintus ran down the street, his powdered-blue cap tingling with the sound of bells that were attached to it and his caramel-coloured bloomers rubbing against each other. "They're going to start a fire!"
Quintus was no stranger to running. He ran almost everyday because the other boys chased him and threw chalk. They called him names, like 'Forenry!' and 'Heshem!', which were insults in his town. They stole his fried potatoes that he packed for lunch, or they stole his money. They left twigs in his desk, let his pig free in the fields, and lounged around in his art space, messing up his paintings and whittling down his favourite pencils.
"I simply cannot stand it any longer!" he had cried, last Tuesday, holding his dripping wet boots that were filled with eucalyptus oil and fighting back tears.
So he had ran.
"Quintus!" his mother had called from their front porch as she watched him sprint off at a slight angle through the gate and along the road (he had never been the straightest sprinter, or the fastest, or the most elegant). "Where will you go? You don't know anyone! And you're lousy at making conversation!"
"You don't need conversation to do laundry and pick peaches!" he had shouted back.
His mother had shaken her head as she wiped her dough-covered hands on a tea-towel, thinking, actually, you do.
For four days, on and off, Quintus had ran, walked, skipped, sat, slept, and limped into and out of various towns. He had eaten bread, stolen apples, washed his bloomers in the stream and put them straight back on, due to the public nature of his washing, and he had cried while sitting in the wet patch. He had been laughed at while he sang, danced, recited poetry, and told stories of shoes that talked. He had been given coins out of pity and then had them taken out of greed.
Finally, after many long conversation-less days and nights, Quintus found himself outside a run down building that had blue shutters in front of all the windows, and yellow and orange potted flowers hanging from the separate balconies. Quintus thought, this looks like where magic happens.
And he walked inside.
He sat down against the corridor wall, which was white and peeling, and stared ahead at the row of little wooden post-boxes all with little keyholes. There were thirty-nine rooms in this building. That meant thirty-nine keys. What a lot of little objects there were!
"Fucking useless!"
Quintus jumped at the voice as the building door opened and a girl came struggling in. She looked like she was heaving in a gigantic sack full of heavy body parts. Quitus jumped up.
"Hello!" he cried, filled with unease but out of sincere habit.
The girl looked up. Cans spilled about the place as she paused and glanced up and down at Quintus with her bright green eyes, as if he was being scanned for a price.
"Hi there," she said, turning her attention to the cans rolling around. "Fuck it!"
"Do you need help?" Quintus asked.
"Of course I do!" the girl grunted. "My bags have split wide open, and then some."
Quintus helped the girl carry all her cans up the stairs and into her apartment. Turns out she lived in apartment twenty, where a mattress lay in one corner, a row of potted plants lined up along the opposite wall, and there was a large nude portrait of a shapely woman blocking the bathroom door.
"Don't worry about that," said the girl, waving her hand. "I'm only holding it for a friend until she gives me the green. You smoke?"
Quintus blinked. "Smoke?"
The girl assessed him once again, this time with her head tilted to the side. "Why does your hat have bells on?"
"It's hand-made!" Quintus said loudly in a defensive stance, and the girl said, "Alright! Don't worry, I like it. It looks like a baby's bottom."
"A baby's-?"
"Do you drink?" the girl asked, turning away with disinterest. Then turned back and said, "Oh sorry, I'm Soriary. But everyone calls me Soria."
"I'm Quintus," Quintus said.
Soria smiled without the light touching her eyes, so Quintus thought she didn't look acquainted or charmed at all.
He watched as she poured some kind of honey liquid into a glass and drank it quickly. She poured another and raised her eyebrowse at him. "Do you want some?"
Quintus frowned, suddenly unsure why he was still there. He said, "No thank you. My heart, it burns, you see, when I drink coloured liquid so I try my best to stay away."
"Suit yourself," she drank that quickly, too, and then sat on the floor. Quintus decided to sit also, and told her the stories about shoes that spoke, but she didn't laugh or mock and she said he was welcome to sleep if he had nowhere else to go, before vanishing into the bathroom for a long time.
She came out when Quintus had settled himself on the floor and stumbled into the mattress.
In the morning she threw up, said, 'here's something interesting you can incorporate into your stories', and Quintus had decided to stay.
He stayed for two days and in those two days they ate only flaky noodles that tasted like rubber with parsley on top.
"I HAVE PARSLEY!" Soria had screamed, banging her fist on the table and throwing out her other hand at the line of plants. "SO WHY NOT FUCKING EAT IT!" and Quintus had felt his chest tighten with fear.
They sat on the floor while Soria played quiet opera music. Quintus listened hard, straining his ears and leaning in closer so he could understand the messages and the melodies, but he didn't. Soria disappeared into the bathroom randomly throughout the day and would emerge looking vague or relieved or ashamed. Quintus noticed cuts and bruises and vomit stains, but never said anything just in case.
He watched Soria drink the honey liquid and sat next to her at the window where they looked out at the night sky.
"The stars, Quintus, are you looking?" Soria asked on the second night while they stared up at the darkness sparkling down at them like little winks of reassurance.
"I do see them," he replied.
"There are always shooting stars. What I mean is, there are always stars that fall. All over. Like signs."
"But there are so many still in the sky," Quintus said softly, afraid and alert but squinting around it.
"Yes, there are, I can see that! But look at the ones falling. Look at the ones falling! Ok? Is that so fucking hard!?" She waved her arms when she yelled.
Quintus said, "No. Yes. I can see them."
Soria stood up roughly and stalked into the bathroom. Quintus thought about leaving. He still had so far to run. His journey had not even began yet and here he was, holed up with a girl who spoke plainly of ending hers as if it was just another activity to fit into the day, without realising that every time she looked into the night sky she was desperately searching for hope.
"There is nothing here but patches of good and patches of bad spread out over the entirety of existence, Quintus," she had told him that night, "and you have no fucking idea how tiring it is to be stuck in the patch of bad."
He did know.
Soria came floating out of the bathroom and Quintus stood up, the bells on his hat tinkling in a cheery, courageous way that strengthened his resolve.
He said, "I fear it is time for me to leave."
Soria whipped around, her eyes ablaze and her skin weeping. She waved her arms, "Leaving! Ha! God, the problem with YOU, Quintus, is that you never see, you never know what it all means," and she grabbed the bottle.
Quintus watched her pour with a shaking hand and felt the emptiness that he had been trying so hard to escape grow inside his chest, seep through his arms and legs, down into his toes. Whenever he had experienced this before, he had run. Just before it touched his head, right when it had seized his throat in a deathly tight grasp, making him hoarse and numb and terribly afraid of breaking, he would jump up and flee.
But this time he couldn't, not without trying. Because this time he was watching someone else fight it.
"I am afraid," he said.
Soria laughed once between gulps.
"I am afraid," Quintus said again and stepped closer. "So very afraid of never seeing you smile like you do. It is your smile that lights up my world. In the truest way." He frowned at her as she stood with the drink raised in one hand, frozen and staring, as if dead already. "I have travelled very hungry, and wet, and I have been cast down upon! My world has not been kind to me. I was ridiculed and hated, I have known fear. I have walked with my eyes down and too afraid to walk with noise! How to silence shoes such as these, other than to tell tales?"
Soria stared at him. He stared back. Then he said, "To be true, the blackest of days take our hearts and squeeze, and we look for stars to take it away. But, if you do not buy some fruit and paint, an easel and some birds, a wind chime, some books, a couch, a hot chicken... just what is life if it is not about sitting with wet underpants while eating a hot chicken?!"
And he gathered himself up, gave her a tinkling nod and half a curtsy due to the stiffness of his bloomers, opened her door, and slammed it shut behind him.
*
Quintus was no stranger to running. He ran almost everyday because the other boys chased him and threw chalk. They called him names, like 'Forenry!' and 'Heshem!', which were insults in his town. They stole his fried potatoes that he packed for lunch, or they stole his money. They left twigs in his desk, let his pig free in the fields, and lounged around in his art space, messing up his paintings and whittling down his favourite pencils.
"I simply cannot stand it any longer!" he had cried, last Tuesday, holding his dripping wet boots that were filled with eucalyptus oil and fighting back tears.
So he had ran.
"Quintus!" his mother had called from their front porch as she watched him sprint off at a slight angle through the gate and along the road (he had never been the straightest sprinter, or the fastest, or the most elegant). "Where will you go? You don't know anyone! And you're lousy at making conversation!"
"You don't need conversation to do laundry and pick peaches!" he had shouted back.
His mother had shaken her head as she wiped her dough-covered hands on a tea-towel, thinking, actually, you do.
For four days, on and off, Quintus had ran, walked, skipped, sat, slept, and limped into and out of various towns. He had eaten bread, stolen apples, washed his bloomers in the stream and put them straight back on, due to the public nature of his washing, and he had cried while sitting in the wet patch. He had been laughed at while he sang, danced, recited poetry, and told stories of shoes that talked. He had been given coins out of pity and then had them taken out of greed.
Finally, after many long conversation-less days and nights, Quintus found himself outside a run down building that had blue shutters in front of all the windows, and yellow and orange potted flowers hanging from the separate balconies. Quintus thought, this looks like where magic happens.
And he walked inside.
He sat down against the corridor wall, which was white and peeling, and stared ahead at the row of little wooden post-boxes all with little keyholes. There were thirty-nine rooms in this building. That meant thirty-nine keys. What a lot of little objects there were!
"Fucking useless!"
Quintus jumped at the voice as the building door opened and a girl came struggling in. She looked like she was heaving in a gigantic sack full of heavy body parts. Quitus jumped up.
"Hello!" he cried, filled with unease but out of sincere habit.
The girl looked up. Cans spilled about the place as she paused and glanced up and down at Quintus with her bright green eyes, as if he was being scanned for a price.
"Hi there," she said, turning her attention to the cans rolling around. "Fuck it!"
"Do you need help?" Quintus asked.
"Of course I do!" the girl grunted. "My bags have split wide open, and then some."
Quintus helped the girl carry all her cans up the stairs and into her apartment. Turns out she lived in apartment twenty, where a mattress lay in one corner, a row of potted plants lined up along the opposite wall, and there was a large nude portrait of a shapely woman blocking the bathroom door.
"Don't worry about that," said the girl, waving her hand. "I'm only holding it for a friend until she gives me the green. You smoke?"
Quintus blinked. "Smoke?"
The girl assessed him once again, this time with her head tilted to the side. "Why does your hat have bells on?"
"It's hand-made!" Quintus said loudly in a defensive stance, and the girl said, "Alright! Don't worry, I like it. It looks like a baby's bottom."
"A baby's-?"
"Do you drink?" the girl asked, turning away with disinterest. Then turned back and said, "Oh sorry, I'm Soriary. But everyone calls me Soria."
"I'm Quintus," Quintus said.
Soria smiled without the light touching her eyes, so Quintus thought she didn't look acquainted or charmed at all.
He watched as she poured some kind of honey liquid into a glass and drank it quickly. She poured another and raised her eyebrowse at him. "Do you want some?"
Quintus frowned, suddenly unsure why he was still there. He said, "No thank you. My heart, it burns, you see, when I drink coloured liquid so I try my best to stay away."
"Suit yourself," she drank that quickly, too, and then sat on the floor. Quintus decided to sit also, and told her the stories about shoes that spoke, but she didn't laugh or mock and she said he was welcome to sleep if he had nowhere else to go, before vanishing into the bathroom for a long time.
She came out when Quintus had settled himself on the floor and stumbled into the mattress.
In the morning she threw up, said, 'here's something interesting you can incorporate into your stories', and Quintus had decided to stay.
He stayed for two days and in those two days they ate only flaky noodles that tasted like rubber with parsley on top.
"I HAVE PARSLEY!" Soria had screamed, banging her fist on the table and throwing out her other hand at the line of plants. "SO WHY NOT FUCKING EAT IT!" and Quintus had felt his chest tighten with fear.
They sat on the floor while Soria played quiet opera music. Quintus listened hard, straining his ears and leaning in closer so he could understand the messages and the melodies, but he didn't. Soria disappeared into the bathroom randomly throughout the day and would emerge looking vague or relieved or ashamed. Quintus noticed cuts and bruises and vomit stains, but never said anything just in case.
He watched Soria drink the honey liquid and sat next to her at the window where they looked out at the night sky.
"The stars, Quintus, are you looking?" Soria asked on the second night while they stared up at the darkness sparkling down at them like little winks of reassurance.
"I do see them," he replied.
"There are always shooting stars. What I mean is, there are always stars that fall. All over. Like signs."
"But there are so many still in the sky," Quintus said softly, afraid and alert but squinting around it.
"Yes, there are, I can see that! But look at the ones falling. Look at the ones falling! Ok? Is that so fucking hard!?" She waved her arms when she yelled.
Quintus said, "No. Yes. I can see them."
Soria stood up roughly and stalked into the bathroom. Quintus thought about leaving. He still had so far to run. His journey had not even began yet and here he was, holed up with a girl who spoke plainly of ending hers as if it was just another activity to fit into the day, without realising that every time she looked into the night sky she was desperately searching for hope.
"There is nothing here but patches of good and patches of bad spread out over the entirety of existence, Quintus," she had told him that night, "and you have no fucking idea how tiring it is to be stuck in the patch of bad."
He did know.
Soria came floating out of the bathroom and Quintus stood up, the bells on his hat tinkling in a cheery, courageous way that strengthened his resolve.
He said, "I fear it is time for me to leave."
Soria whipped around, her eyes ablaze and her skin weeping. She waved her arms, "Leaving! Ha! God, the problem with YOU, Quintus, is that you never see, you never know what it all means," and she grabbed the bottle.
Quintus watched her pour with a shaking hand and felt the emptiness that he had been trying so hard to escape grow inside his chest, seep through his arms and legs, down into his toes. Whenever he had experienced this before, he had run. Just before it touched his head, right when it had seized his throat in a deathly tight grasp, making him hoarse and numb and terribly afraid of breaking, he would jump up and flee.
But this time he couldn't, not without trying. Because this time he was watching someone else fight it.
"I am afraid," he said.
Soria laughed once between gulps.
"I am afraid," Quintus said again and stepped closer. "So very afraid of never seeing you smile like you do. It is your smile that lights up my world. In the truest way." He frowned at her as she stood with the drink raised in one hand, frozen and staring, as if dead already. "I have travelled very hungry, and wet, and I have been cast down upon! My world has not been kind to me. I was ridiculed and hated, I have known fear. I have walked with my eyes down and too afraid to walk with noise! How to silence shoes such as these, other than to tell tales?"
Soria stared at him. He stared back. Then he said, "To be true, the blackest of days take our hearts and squeeze, and we look for stars to take it away. But, if you do not buy some fruit and paint, an easel and some birds, a wind chime, some books, a couch, a hot chicken... just what is life if it is not about sitting with wet underpants while eating a hot chicken?!"
And he gathered himself up, gave her a tinkling nod and half a curtsy due to the stiffness of his bloomers, opened her door, and slammed it shut behind him.
*
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Can I go back to when I believed in everything and knew nothing at all?
Secil yanked open the door with a mixture of frustration at the time-consuming activity that was answering doors, admiration at the gentle way this stranger handled their doorbell, and wondering if this was the same place the door had been in yesterday.
"Yes?" she said forcefully.
The man coughed and Secil stared.
"Hello," he said, smiling mildly. She took in his fluffy black hair and bright green eyes and slammed the door shut in his face.
Then promptly opened it.
"Sorry!" she exclaimed, "It must be the potion, I mean, pois- the drink- I had a drink earlier- tea! yes...tea, I had tea, lousy... lousy tea..." Secil smiled and tried to twinkle and sparkle and glow up at him in a friendly and less-intimidating manner.
The man said kindly, "Ghastly, this tea business." But Secil wasn't listening.
"Yes, that's right, over there," she said suddenly, sliding her gaze from the scratches on the wooden door over to the left window, as if she'd just been hit with a memory orb. "The door was over by tha-"
"Oh, you have roaming doors, too?"
Secil jerked back to the stranger and narrowed her eyes. "Only on Thursdays and every other Monday at four, nine and twelve, twice around the clock."
"Clocks!" the man exclaimed, looking appropriately enthusiastic.
"The very same," Secil agreed, although she didn't know what she was actually agreeing too. Was he happy at the relevant-ness of time? Or did he feel overwhelmed at all the hand variations and clock sizes? She asked, "Does your mother know you're out this late?" in a condescending way.
"I'm nearing thirty," he replied apologetically, with a wave of his hand as if to indicate how useless it all was.
"Oh, yes, of course..." Secil nodded with full understanding, "...the clocks. Do come in then."
"Thank-"
"No wait! You have to say your name first!"
"Ah." the man smiled again, in a knowing and approving way. "It's Alfred."
Secil and Mercery had built a whole room (with magic of course. They both refused, rightly so, to do anything manually exerting while in possession of wands) devoted entirely to store captured names, and which sometimes became an area for Mercery to practice the art of Loom. Secil would barge in with a jar containing a name that she had worked very hard to steal, sometimes wasting hours of her life with searching, and complimenting, and bargaining, and learning how to play the flute and make wooden clogs, to find Mercery taking up all her shelf space.
"I NEED TO LOOM!" Mercery would yell.
"YOU NEED TO MAKE A RUG WITHOUT YOUR FACE ON IT!" Secil would retort.
"I AM A WORK OF ART!" Mercery would scream in a fit of self-adoration, "I NEED TO BE PUT OUT IN THE WORLD. I NEED TO FLY, TO DREAM, TO BURST FORTH IN A FLURRY OF TALCUM POWDER AND ALLSPICE AND THOSE LITTLE DEFORMED PINE CONES."
"THAT'S THE WORST SOUNDING MIXTURE OF AMBITION I HAVE EVER HEARD OF," Secil would scream back.
"THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER DREAMT OF SEEING YOUR FACE AT THE ENTRANCE OF PARLIAMENT HOUSE."
"THAT'S BECAUSE I DON'T DREAM OF BEING A WELCOME MAT."
They would glare at each other. Then they would realise that they were both inconceivably right, and would hug, babbling their apologies, and Mercery would make Secil her own welcome mat that Secil would later burn in the pretense of cleansing her aura, and Secil would bake Mercery a love-cake that Mercery would insist they leave for a while so she could stare at its beauty and would later add to her potting mix and throw out in her veggie patch.
"Did you say Alfred?" Secil asked in a whisper as the man stepped through the doorway.
"I did."
"Oh..." she stared up at him, quite transfixed. He looked down at her, quite amused and a little self-conscious at the state of his shoes, which mattered now, what with her being so close to them.
"Sorry... I, uh, I normally get them cleaned-"
"But how long have you been called Alfred?" Secil demanded, the waves of lust spilling all around her in absolution.
"Ah, all my life..." he looked worriedly around the entrance, "You're not planning to take it, are you?"
"And no one's tried to steal it?!" Secil asked, swaying a little in the pale pink cloudy fog, breathing in a scent of preferred perfection, blinking against the magnification of colour.
"Are you alright?"
"Mercery..." Secil breathed.
"I'm terribly sorry, I only came about the letters. I think you summoned me?" Alfred took a step forwards, worry and fear sliding around his face, and Secil laughed out loud.
"The starfruit!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"It's an enhancer," Secil spun around clockwise waving her left arm and then anticlockwise waving her right arm. "I forgot. I get it mixed up with pineapple."
Alfred frowned, "They look nothing alike."
"Mmmm, I think one of my eyes may come from Jupiter." She shook her head and looked back up at him. There was nothing Secil disapproved of more than attraction, except maybe fatal attraction. She had books to write and movies to be a part of and spells to reconstruct- people today were so sloppy and traditional, always adding rose petals or saying some long incantation, it curled her silvery- white hair for days after reading them.
"Are you talking about the planet?" Alfred asked
"No, there's a place down the road called Jupiter's Duty. They sell eyes. But they don't do the insertion process, that's further down, past the post office- wait a minute..." Secil narrowed her eyes at this absurdly attractive excuse for a human. "You said roaming doors."
Alfred nodded. "Yes."
"And summoned. You said the word 'summoned'."
"I did."
Secil's heart started beating faster but this time she wasn't wrapped up like a lusty bean burrito, she was unravelling like a disorganised, sweltering mummy lost at the beach.
She said quietly, while thinking up numerous ways to incorporate the dry leaves around Alfred's feet in a curse, "That means you're a-"
"SECILIA!" Mercery shouted from down the hall.
Alfred jumped. Secilia shot out her wand arm with her wand in it and jabbed Alfred in the face.
"Oh! OW! Christ!"
"Oh no, sorry! It's reflex! I was a junior warrior ninja scout battle maiden as a child, and the training stuck!"
Bent over and groaning, Alfred gave a short laugh that sounded more in exasperation than overflowing with admiration and intimidation. "You can't be all those things at once."
"SELIA. I JUST GOT THE MAIL, FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE," Mercery yelled, sounding closer. "WHY FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE- FROM INSIDE THE KITCHEN NO LESS? WHY? WHY AM I HOLDING PINK ENVELOPES NEXT TO THE FRIDGE AT FIVE IN THE MORNI-"
"GO ON THEN," Secil shouted back, watching Alfred, torn between her desire to comfort and her impulse to verbally scorn.
Mercery suddenly strode into the entrance hall, scowling and red in the face, which did nothing for her complexion. "YOU DIDN'T TURN THE MAILMAN INTO A TOAD."
"Oh, didn't I?" Secil replied with casual elegance.
"SOME OTHER POOR HUMAN IS CROAKING OUT JAZZ MELODIES IN OUR GARDEN, MISSING THEIR FAMILY AND NINE-TO-FIVE, AND THE MAILMAN SUDDENLY IS UNABLE TO GET AT OUR FRONT DOOR."
"Shame..."
"That's me," Alfred straightened up, blinking. "I put a retreating marker on the door."
"OH," yelled Secil, beside herself and filled with defiance, defense, guilt and feelings of lust, "Charming OUR doors and stealing OUR letters, posing as a regular human to capture our hearts and souls and bewitch our minds with your enchanting smell and posh blue shirts-"
"'Regular human'?"
Mercery said, "Don't change the subject!"
Secil was quite blind with all her emotions and she may have also been suffering from caffeine withdrawals. She lunged forward, ready to push this impossibly good-looking thief out the door before hexing him into a snail with a crookedly dented shell, but she slipped on a mark on the floor, skidded sideways and crashed into the dresser.
"Good grief!" Alfred exclaimed. "Is your house nothing but full of traps?"
"Oh that's right..." mused Mercery, "I tried to clean the cauldron marks as your nightmares keep me awake all night, and I used polish instead of cleaning stuff, I mean, we really need to re-label our products. It said 'essen posoap lish' and I thought, 'lish, what a nice sounding fragrance'."
"It does sound nice," Secil agreed.
"It does."
"Like a spice," Alfred chimed in.
"Oriental."
"From somewhere far, like Atlana."
Alfred scoffed, "Atlanta doesn't exist."
"It does," Mercery shot back, "it's on a cloud."
"What cloud would hold an entire underwater city?"
"That's Atlantis. Honestly..."
"I say this calls for tea," Secil said firmly.
"Yes," Mercery nodded, "I'll get the Globe."
Alfred's eyes lit up. "You don't by chance have Minty Minting Flash?"
Secil scrunched up her face, "What's that?"
"It's like stepping into a cool-"
"We have tea with essence of toe," Mercery interrupted. "The toe, and that's it."
"Tea with toe," echoed Alfred, sounding ridiculous. Secil sighed. How could she ever be in sensuous longing with someone who said absurd things like that?
Mercery said, "The very same."
"But why not use the whole toe? Why only use essence?"
"Because," sighed Secil, waving at the pink lust waves once more and puzzled at why anyone would have to ask such a question, "Just imagine the taste of tea made entirely of toe!"
"Yes?" she said forcefully.
The man coughed and Secil stared.
"Hello," he said, smiling mildly. She took in his fluffy black hair and bright green eyes and slammed the door shut in his face.
Then promptly opened it.
"Sorry!" she exclaimed, "It must be the potion, I mean, pois- the drink- I had a drink earlier- tea! yes...tea, I had tea, lousy... lousy tea..." Secil smiled and tried to twinkle and sparkle and glow up at him in a friendly and less-intimidating manner.
The man said kindly, "Ghastly, this tea business." But Secil wasn't listening.
"Yes, that's right, over there," she said suddenly, sliding her gaze from the scratches on the wooden door over to the left window, as if she'd just been hit with a memory orb. "The door was over by tha-"
"Oh, you have roaming doors, too?"
Secil jerked back to the stranger and narrowed her eyes. "Only on Thursdays and every other Monday at four, nine and twelve, twice around the clock."
"Clocks!" the man exclaimed, looking appropriately enthusiastic.
"The very same," Secil agreed, although she didn't know what she was actually agreeing too. Was he happy at the relevant-ness of time? Or did he feel overwhelmed at all the hand variations and clock sizes? She asked, "Does your mother know you're out this late?" in a condescending way.
"I'm nearing thirty," he replied apologetically, with a wave of his hand as if to indicate how useless it all was.
"Oh, yes, of course..." Secil nodded with full understanding, "...the clocks. Do come in then."
"Thank-"
"No wait! You have to say your name first!"
"Ah." the man smiled again, in a knowing and approving way. "It's Alfred."
Secil and Mercery had built a whole room (with magic of course. They both refused, rightly so, to do anything manually exerting while in possession of wands) devoted entirely to store captured names, and which sometimes became an area for Mercery to practice the art of Loom. Secil would barge in with a jar containing a name that she had worked very hard to steal, sometimes wasting hours of her life with searching, and complimenting, and bargaining, and learning how to play the flute and make wooden clogs, to find Mercery taking up all her shelf space.
"I NEED TO LOOM!" Mercery would yell.
"YOU NEED TO MAKE A RUG WITHOUT YOUR FACE ON IT!" Secil would retort.
"I AM A WORK OF ART!" Mercery would scream in a fit of self-adoration, "I NEED TO BE PUT OUT IN THE WORLD. I NEED TO FLY, TO DREAM, TO BURST FORTH IN A FLURRY OF TALCUM POWDER AND ALLSPICE AND THOSE LITTLE DEFORMED PINE CONES."
"THAT'S THE WORST SOUNDING MIXTURE OF AMBITION I HAVE EVER HEARD OF," Secil would scream back.
"THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER DREAMT OF SEEING YOUR FACE AT THE ENTRANCE OF PARLIAMENT HOUSE."
"THAT'S BECAUSE I DON'T DREAM OF BEING A WELCOME MAT."
They would glare at each other. Then they would realise that they were both inconceivably right, and would hug, babbling their apologies, and Mercery would make Secil her own welcome mat that Secil would later burn in the pretense of cleansing her aura, and Secil would bake Mercery a love-cake that Mercery would insist they leave for a while so she could stare at its beauty and would later add to her potting mix and throw out in her veggie patch.
"Did you say Alfred?" Secil asked in a whisper as the man stepped through the doorway.
"I did."
"Oh..." she stared up at him, quite transfixed. He looked down at her, quite amused and a little self-conscious at the state of his shoes, which mattered now, what with her being so close to them.
"Sorry... I, uh, I normally get them cleaned-"
"But how long have you been called Alfred?" Secil demanded, the waves of lust spilling all around her in absolution.
"Ah, all my life..." he looked worriedly around the entrance, "You're not planning to take it, are you?"
"And no one's tried to steal it?!" Secil asked, swaying a little in the pale pink cloudy fog, breathing in a scent of preferred perfection, blinking against the magnification of colour.
"Are you alright?"
"Mercery..." Secil breathed.
"I'm terribly sorry, I only came about the letters. I think you summoned me?" Alfred took a step forwards, worry and fear sliding around his face, and Secil laughed out loud.
"The starfruit!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"It's an enhancer," Secil spun around clockwise waving her left arm and then anticlockwise waving her right arm. "I forgot. I get it mixed up with pineapple."
Alfred frowned, "They look nothing alike."
"Mmmm, I think one of my eyes may come from Jupiter." She shook her head and looked back up at him. There was nothing Secil disapproved of more than attraction, except maybe fatal attraction. She had books to write and movies to be a part of and spells to reconstruct- people today were so sloppy and traditional, always adding rose petals or saying some long incantation, it curled her silvery- white hair for days after reading them.
"Are you talking about the planet?" Alfred asked
"No, there's a place down the road called Jupiter's Duty. They sell eyes. But they don't do the insertion process, that's further down, past the post office- wait a minute..." Secil narrowed her eyes at this absurdly attractive excuse for a human. "You said roaming doors."
Alfred nodded. "Yes."
"And summoned. You said the word 'summoned'."
"I did."
Secil's heart started beating faster but this time she wasn't wrapped up like a lusty bean burrito, she was unravelling like a disorganised, sweltering mummy lost at the beach.
She said quietly, while thinking up numerous ways to incorporate the dry leaves around Alfred's feet in a curse, "That means you're a-"
"SECILIA!" Mercery shouted from down the hall.
Alfred jumped. Secilia shot out her wand arm with her wand in it and jabbed Alfred in the face.
"Oh! OW! Christ!"
"Oh no, sorry! It's reflex! I was a junior warrior ninja scout battle maiden as a child, and the training stuck!"
Bent over and groaning, Alfred gave a short laugh that sounded more in exasperation than overflowing with admiration and intimidation. "You can't be all those things at once."
"SELIA. I JUST GOT THE MAIL, FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE," Mercery yelled, sounding closer. "WHY FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE- FROM INSIDE THE KITCHEN NO LESS? WHY? WHY AM I HOLDING PINK ENVELOPES NEXT TO THE FRIDGE AT FIVE IN THE MORNI-"
"GO ON THEN," Secil shouted back, watching Alfred, torn between her desire to comfort and her impulse to verbally scorn.
Mercery suddenly strode into the entrance hall, scowling and red in the face, which did nothing for her complexion. "YOU DIDN'T TURN THE MAILMAN INTO A TOAD."
"Oh, didn't I?" Secil replied with casual elegance.
"SOME OTHER POOR HUMAN IS CROAKING OUT JAZZ MELODIES IN OUR GARDEN, MISSING THEIR FAMILY AND NINE-TO-FIVE, AND THE MAILMAN SUDDENLY IS UNABLE TO GET AT OUR FRONT DOOR."
"Shame..."
"That's me," Alfred straightened up, blinking. "I put a retreating marker on the door."
"OH," yelled Secil, beside herself and filled with defiance, defense, guilt and feelings of lust, "Charming OUR doors and stealing OUR letters, posing as a regular human to capture our hearts and souls and bewitch our minds with your enchanting smell and posh blue shirts-"
"'Regular human'?"
Mercery said, "Don't change the subject!"
Secil was quite blind with all her emotions and she may have also been suffering from caffeine withdrawals. She lunged forward, ready to push this impossibly good-looking thief out the door before hexing him into a snail with a crookedly dented shell, but she slipped on a mark on the floor, skidded sideways and crashed into the dresser.
"Good grief!" Alfred exclaimed. "Is your house nothing but full of traps?"
"Oh that's right..." mused Mercery, "I tried to clean the cauldron marks as your nightmares keep me awake all night, and I used polish instead of cleaning stuff, I mean, we really need to re-label our products. It said 'essen posoap lish' and I thought, 'lish, what a nice sounding fragrance'."
"It does sound nice," Secil agreed.
"It does."
"Like a spice," Alfred chimed in.
"Oriental."
"From somewhere far, like Atlana."
Alfred scoffed, "Atlanta doesn't exist."
"It does," Mercery shot back, "it's on a cloud."
"What cloud would hold an entire underwater city?"
"That's Atlantis. Honestly..."
"I say this calls for tea," Secil said firmly.
"Yes," Mercery nodded, "I'll get the Globe."
Alfred's eyes lit up. "You don't by chance have Minty Minting Flash?"
Secil scrunched up her face, "What's that?"
"It's like stepping into a cool-"
"We have tea with essence of toe," Mercery interrupted. "The toe, and that's it."
"Tea with toe," echoed Alfred, sounding ridiculous. Secil sighed. How could she ever be in sensuous longing with someone who said absurd things like that?
Mercery said, "The very same."
"But why not use the whole toe? Why only use essence?"
"Because," sighed Secil, waving at the pink lust waves once more and puzzled at why anyone would have to ask such a question, "Just imagine the taste of tea made entirely of toe!"
Friday, 23 October 2015
Can we make it bigger?
I feel as though I have been running. My feet ache and my lungs burn. I feel old and worn, lost in the process of decaying day by day. My outer shell has cracked and split apart, there are bits falling constantly, fading, temporary: skin, blood, memories, equations, plans, words, whispers, ambitions. Laughter.
The things that define us slowly change with time until we become someone new and when we see our reflections, our hearts weep for the way we were.
"Yes, yes, this is fascinating, but please pass the sugar will you?"
Secil scowled. "This is an autobiography, Mercery, it has to contain fact and musings."
"You can't muse without coffee-"
"Actually, I'm on a cleanse."
"A cleanse?" Mercery gasped in horror.
Secil smiled inwardly. Outwardly, she said, "Rightly so. I'm on green tea and soda water."
"No tonic?" Mercery whispered.
"None at all."
"No gin!"
"Not even."
Mercery gasped again, louder and with wider eyes, and clasped a hand to her chest. "Secil! The madness!"
"It is," Secil agreed wholeheartedly, because it was. She hadn't planned to go on a cleanse, as it were. She'd been down at the post office paying a bill, with intentions to visit the herbal shop next door for supplies - what with Beatrice on holiday and Beatrice's husband decaying six-feet under ground, slowing down progress - when the man behind the counter had pointed out her dismal appearance.
"He was rather rude," supplied Secil, "telling me I had circles under my eyes-"
"You do," Mercery interrupted grimly.
"- and going on about bronze door knockers and the time his niece broke into the neighbour's house for a lawn gnome-"
"Huh?"
"- honestly," Secil waved her wand through the air dramatically, "it's a wonder I didn't turn him into a toad weeks ago!"
"You did what!?"
"Hmm?" Secil had glanced down at her ingredients list and noticed a spelling error.
"SECIL!"
"How do you spell mushroom?"
"DID YOU TURN THE MAILMAN INTO A TOAD?"
"Keep your wig on!" Secil crossed out 'munchroom' and wrote 'muchroome', stared at it and sighed, crossing that out, too.
"SECILIA!"
"Yes! I turned him into a toad. And I took him home, and he's in the garden, playing, and feeding, and singing to his people. Now, tell me how to spell mushroom. It's not with two e's, is it?"
Mercery said, "Oh, alright then. If he's singing..."
Secil tapped the paper with her wand. (It wasn't really a wand; it was a longish, semi-straight stick that had a thin branch growing from one side, which she had tripped over while running away from a bad date one night. Secil refused to buy a proper wand. She had performed a complicated, slightly illegal enchantment on her stick, and after seeing how well it worked out, Mercery had done away with her own wand and copied her.)
The letters rearranged themselves, appearing and disappearing, until the correct spelling of mushroom shimmered up at her.
"Hey, those aren't my o's!"
Mercery clicked her tongue, stood up and stretched. Secil's laziness always made her extremely tired. "That's what you get for enchanting."
"I turned the milkman into a toad, too," she said casually.
"WHAT!?" Mercery dropped the kettle. It bounced extremely hard on the wooden floor and shot out the kitchen window. "FOR FUCK'S SAKE! THAT FUCKING ANTI-SHATTER CHARM IS JUST NOT WORTH IT!"
Secil sighed again, this time in calm contentment. Mercery's aggression at her own spell inventions always gave her a sudden tranquil feeling, much like stepping under a cleansing waterfall after drinking three pots of green tea at once. (She was a recovering coffee addict and the herbal stuff just did not fly). She wondered about detection work. She wondered how to trace handwriting. Was it done?
"You can't just turn people into frogs, Secil, it's not proper!" Mercery turned away from looking out the window. She tugged on her black and silver-star wellingtons, yanking them on so hard in her anger that her toes pushed out the end, and she cursed the stupidity and apathy of whoever made them.
"It's boring being a regular human," Secil complained. "Look at all these spelling errors, look at the multiplication sums on the fridge, look at the shopping carts in Beddells! They're so slow and the people scan my items with glazed eyes, as if they've never heard of-"
"You've never heard of!" Mercery interrupted forcefully, sounding like she didn't know what Secil was talking about (which she didn't). "And now I have to trudge out in the ponds so I can make tea!"
Secil watched Mercery stride out the back door, her long black hair breezing out behind her and long skirts swishing around her legs in determination. When she was gone, Secil jumped up and rummaged around in the kitchen for flour, starfruit, bread crust, ginger, and three sour lollies.
"Spell for tracing..." she murmured, flicking through her little notebook. Secil also refused to perform spells from books. She kept her own notebook with her own inventions, working tirelessly through her mundane existence, switching between writing her soon-to-be famous autobiography (that would go on to become a film starring majorly important actors, and probably even a television series) and creating her own brand of enchantments that she called Severely Secil. Her autobiography was entirely fictional because her own existence was as dull as a wilting cucumber.
"Nothing! Why is there nothing! Why have I not thought of this before?" she groaned in frustration, paused in thought for a millisecond, before snatching up the ingredients and putting pinches, halves, teaspoons and entire packets, haphazardly into the fat, alarmingly green cauldron that sat next to the fireplace. She stirred with the end of a mop, thinking about how expensive cauldrons were these days. This one had been bought from a second-hand store and heaved into the house with the help of three strangers.
"A wedding present!" Mercery had said with false brightness.
"My wedding," Secil had lied in clarification.
"We like to make soup," Mercery offered for no reason, so Secil had countered with, "For the homeless, down on Main."
"So many homeless," Mercery continued.
"Inventive instruments," Secil complimented pleasantly, thinking of the men and women she'd seen shaking their cans with coins in, as if playing a tune.
The cauldron-dragging had resulted in four lined marks all the way from the front door to the fireplace, and none of Secil's spells had worked so far in cleaning it up. It was dismal. Secil still had nightmares about these marks.
The cloudy grey mixture in the cauldron emitted a puff of glittery smoke, which Secil took as an indication that the potion was ready. She scooped half a ladle into a mug, drank it quickly and burped. It tasted like eggplant and brilliance. Yes, she thought smugly, how brilliant she was.
She waited, standing next to the cauldron, holding the mug, and watching the mixture slowly turn a pale violet colour. Bubbles formed in clusters on the surface. Another glittering puff rose up and dissipated.
Secil turned to her right and threw up. She crossed out 'sour lollies', sure that they were reacting with the other ingredients, and wrote 'bottom half of a gingerbread man' instead.
"SECIL!" came a shout and Mercery burst through the back door, puffing, just as the font doorbell rang.
"I think it needs an incantation," frowned Secil.
"Oh my god, Secil..."
"Yes... I know."
"No! You don't! Secil, Beatrice buried her husband in our yard!"
The doorbell rang again and Secil wondered who on earth was calling round at four in the morning. She looked up suddenly, registering. "Buried?"
"YES! SHE BURIED HER HUSBAND IN OUR YARD AND THEN WENT OFF TO CELEBRATE, PROBABLY EATING OCTOPUS AND GETTING A TAN!" Mercery stopped. "What are you doing?"
Secil stared unseeing at Mercery, thinking about starfruit and bubbles and alkalizing and the soothing, restoring properties of dead human toes.
She smiled. "Lead the way."
+
The things that define us slowly change with time until we become someone new and when we see our reflections, our hearts weep for the way we were.
"Yes, yes, this is fascinating, but please pass the sugar will you?"
Secil scowled. "This is an autobiography, Mercery, it has to contain fact and musings."
"You can't muse without coffee-"
"Actually, I'm on a cleanse."
"A cleanse?" Mercery gasped in horror.
Secil smiled inwardly. Outwardly, she said, "Rightly so. I'm on green tea and soda water."
"No tonic?" Mercery whispered.
"None at all."
"No gin!"
"Not even."
Mercery gasped again, louder and with wider eyes, and clasped a hand to her chest. "Secil! The madness!"
"It is," Secil agreed wholeheartedly, because it was. She hadn't planned to go on a cleanse, as it were. She'd been down at the post office paying a bill, with intentions to visit the herbal shop next door for supplies - what with Beatrice on holiday and Beatrice's husband decaying six-feet under ground, slowing down progress - when the man behind the counter had pointed out her dismal appearance.
"He was rather rude," supplied Secil, "telling me I had circles under my eyes-"
"You do," Mercery interrupted grimly.
"- and going on about bronze door knockers and the time his niece broke into the neighbour's house for a lawn gnome-"
"Huh?"
"- honestly," Secil waved her wand through the air dramatically, "it's a wonder I didn't turn him into a toad weeks ago!"
"You did what!?"
"Hmm?" Secil had glanced down at her ingredients list and noticed a spelling error.
"SECIL!"
"How do you spell mushroom?"
"DID YOU TURN THE MAILMAN INTO A TOAD?"
"Keep your wig on!" Secil crossed out 'munchroom' and wrote 'muchroome', stared at it and sighed, crossing that out, too.
"SECILIA!"
"Yes! I turned him into a toad. And I took him home, and he's in the garden, playing, and feeding, and singing to his people. Now, tell me how to spell mushroom. It's not with two e's, is it?"
Mercery said, "Oh, alright then. If he's singing..."
Secil tapped the paper with her wand. (It wasn't really a wand; it was a longish, semi-straight stick that had a thin branch growing from one side, which she had tripped over while running away from a bad date one night. Secil refused to buy a proper wand. She had performed a complicated, slightly illegal enchantment on her stick, and after seeing how well it worked out, Mercery had done away with her own wand and copied her.)
The letters rearranged themselves, appearing and disappearing, until the correct spelling of mushroom shimmered up at her.
"Hey, those aren't my o's!"
Mercery clicked her tongue, stood up and stretched. Secil's laziness always made her extremely tired. "That's what you get for enchanting."
"I turned the milkman into a toad, too," she said casually.
"WHAT!?" Mercery dropped the kettle. It bounced extremely hard on the wooden floor and shot out the kitchen window. "FOR FUCK'S SAKE! THAT FUCKING ANTI-SHATTER CHARM IS JUST NOT WORTH IT!"
Secil sighed again, this time in calm contentment. Mercery's aggression at her own spell inventions always gave her a sudden tranquil feeling, much like stepping under a cleansing waterfall after drinking three pots of green tea at once. (She was a recovering coffee addict and the herbal stuff just did not fly). She wondered about detection work. She wondered how to trace handwriting. Was it done?
"You can't just turn people into frogs, Secil, it's not proper!" Mercery turned away from looking out the window. She tugged on her black and silver-star wellingtons, yanking them on so hard in her anger that her toes pushed out the end, and she cursed the stupidity and apathy of whoever made them.
"It's boring being a regular human," Secil complained. "Look at all these spelling errors, look at the multiplication sums on the fridge, look at the shopping carts in Beddells! They're so slow and the people scan my items with glazed eyes, as if they've never heard of-"
"You've never heard of!" Mercery interrupted forcefully, sounding like she didn't know what Secil was talking about (which she didn't). "And now I have to trudge out in the ponds so I can make tea!"
Secil watched Mercery stride out the back door, her long black hair breezing out behind her and long skirts swishing around her legs in determination. When she was gone, Secil jumped up and rummaged around in the kitchen for flour, starfruit, bread crust, ginger, and three sour lollies.
"Spell for tracing..." she murmured, flicking through her little notebook. Secil also refused to perform spells from books. She kept her own notebook with her own inventions, working tirelessly through her mundane existence, switching between writing her soon-to-be famous autobiography (that would go on to become a film starring majorly important actors, and probably even a television series) and creating her own brand of enchantments that she called Severely Secil. Her autobiography was entirely fictional because her own existence was as dull as a wilting cucumber.
"Nothing! Why is there nothing! Why have I not thought of this before?" she groaned in frustration, paused in thought for a millisecond, before snatching up the ingredients and putting pinches, halves, teaspoons and entire packets, haphazardly into the fat, alarmingly green cauldron that sat next to the fireplace. She stirred with the end of a mop, thinking about how expensive cauldrons were these days. This one had been bought from a second-hand store and heaved into the house with the help of three strangers.
"A wedding present!" Mercery had said with false brightness.
"My wedding," Secil had lied in clarification.
"We like to make soup," Mercery offered for no reason, so Secil had countered with, "For the homeless, down on Main."
"So many homeless," Mercery continued.
"Inventive instruments," Secil complimented pleasantly, thinking of the men and women she'd seen shaking their cans with coins in, as if playing a tune.
The cauldron-dragging had resulted in four lined marks all the way from the front door to the fireplace, and none of Secil's spells had worked so far in cleaning it up. It was dismal. Secil still had nightmares about these marks.
The cloudy grey mixture in the cauldron emitted a puff of glittery smoke, which Secil took as an indication that the potion was ready. She scooped half a ladle into a mug, drank it quickly and burped. It tasted like eggplant and brilliance. Yes, she thought smugly, how brilliant she was.
She waited, standing next to the cauldron, holding the mug, and watching the mixture slowly turn a pale violet colour. Bubbles formed in clusters on the surface. Another glittering puff rose up and dissipated.
Secil turned to her right and threw up. She crossed out 'sour lollies', sure that they were reacting with the other ingredients, and wrote 'bottom half of a gingerbread man' instead.
"SECIL!" came a shout and Mercery burst through the back door, puffing, just as the font doorbell rang.
"I think it needs an incantation," frowned Secil.
"Oh my god, Secil..."
"Yes... I know."
"No! You don't! Secil, Beatrice buried her husband in our yard!"
The doorbell rang again and Secil wondered who on earth was calling round at four in the morning. She looked up suddenly, registering. "Buried?"
"YES! SHE BURIED HER HUSBAND IN OUR YARD AND THEN WENT OFF TO CELEBRATE, PROBABLY EATING OCTOPUS AND GETTING A TAN!" Mercery stopped. "What are you doing?"
Secil stared unseeing at Mercery, thinking about starfruit and bubbles and alkalizing and the soothing, restoring properties of dead human toes.
She smiled. "Lead the way."
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