| chill |
Nov 22, 2007 2:19 pm
2288 Views |
it's colder
than I thought
out here
 on my own
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40 Comments | |
| grizzled skipper |
Nov 21, 2007 10:01 am
1945 Views |  | the grizzled skipper butterfly
has been seen
further north
than ever before
now
I don't know
if this is
a good thing
or a bad thing
but you have to admit
the grizzled skipper butterfly
has the coolest name
of any butterfly
you know
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18 Comments | |
| And all because the lady loves... |
Nov 20, 2007 9:17 am
2022 Views | It was a dark and stormy night. It was England, it was wintertime, the sun had set; it was always going to be a dark and stormy night. Mook wrapped his cloak more tightly around his body. Rain poured pitilessly down the back of his neck. He was soaked to the bone. At least he had elected not to wear full plate armour, wisely surmising that the last thing he wanted was to find himself in a tight spot, unable to move for rust. His chain mail shirt clinked wetly as he trudged across the moor. This was not a night for a knight errant to be out and erranting about. This was a night for roaring fires and mulled wine and the company of friends. Mook wondered who would be in The Slaughtered Lamb tonight. Gawain certainly. When he wasn’t questing, he was drinking. Parsifal, Roland and Guy would be playing at skittles, badly as usual. Perhaps even Tom and some of the other squires would be taking advantage of a night off from polishing armour and be at the bar, loudly boasting of their latest exploits in a not always vain attempt to impress the serving maids. Mook grinned, remembering when he had been squire to Sir Hector. The quick-tempered old knight had been a good master, even when raging and foaming at the mouth. Once you learned to ignore all the oaths and expletives, you could pick up a lot of useful information.
Mook sighed. This was the worst part, the approach. Horses feared the moor and would not set hoof on it. The only way to get to Castle Craven was on foot and at night. At night because for some curious, and undoubtedly arcane reason, the castle did not exist during the day, at least, not in the dimension that Mook liked to call home. And there it was. Castle Craven. The low battlements hugged the hillside like a squat toad, bloated and immovable. A single tower rose from inside the walls, lit by the occasional torch and the lightning that still split the sky. Mook checked his pack. Rope, grappling hook, skeleton key, piece of chalk, half eaten sandwich, spare cloak, dry underwear and a Swiss mercenary knife. Something was missing. Mook growled. He always forgot something, but what was it this time? He went through his mental checklist once more. Walls – rope and hook; door to tower – skeleton key (opens 90% of all enchanted portals according to the sales wizard); in case of labyrinthine tunnel system – piece of chalk; chafing thighs due to wet undies – dry underwear; hypothermia – spare cloak; in case of munchies – half a sandwich. That seemed like everything, but still a nagging doubt remained. Mook shrugged. Time would tell.
Castle Craven’s guards were of the undead variety. Mainly zombies. All very well in a keep-on-coming-even-though-you-chopped-my-arm-off kind of way, but pretty useless at quick sprints and taking the initiative. So, when Mook coughed loudly at one end of the battlements, all the guards shuffled over to investigate, allowing Mook to double back to where they had come from. The well practiced throw-tug-step-and-heave routine with the rope and hook quickly saw him inside the castle grounds. He crossed the compound to the base of the tower like liquid shadow and halted at the door. No sounds of alarm. He had remained undiscovered. Inserting the key in the lock, he gave it a clockwise turn. Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing. He cursed. Trust his luck to find one of the ten percent. In frustration he turned the key anti-clockwise, towards the lock. The door clicked open. Mook had never understood why some locks turned the wrong way, but now was not the time to ponder such things and he slipped inside.
The stairwell curled up into the smoky shadows. Mook’s soft leather boots, now muddy and soaking wet, made an uncomfortably loud squishing echo as he ascended. He took a sputtering torch from its bracket on the wall. What he sought was in the topmost room of the tower. As he passed each landing, doors led off in every direction. Taking any one of them, Mook knew, would lead to insanity or death. The doors whispered at him as he climbed. Some promised riches beyond imagining, others power beyond compare. Strangely, some offered things that Mook found a little repulsive, but it took all sorts he supposed.
Finally, he stood outside the single door on the top floor of the tower. The whispering had ceased. Mook pushed the door open silently and stepped inside. It was a bedroom. His eyes were immediately drawn to the bed where lay a young woman. Crossing to the bedside, he knelt and took the woman’s hand in his own. It was cold as a winter’s dawn. Reaching out, he placed his other hand upon her brow. She stirred, as if trying to awaken from a bad dream. Suddenly, the words of his master, Hector, came echoing to him from across the years,
“Gods damn you, you dolt! How many times have I told you? When you go to rescue a maid held under an enchanted sleep, always remember to take chocolates. You can’t expect to awaken a girl from a hundred year nap and not have some choccies for the lady, can you?”
Okay...right...now then. Mook swallowed, desperately trying to think of a solution. Somehow he knew that a half eaten sandwich (filling uncertain) was not going to do the trick.
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24 Comments | |
| congratulations |
Nov 19, 2007 9:09 am
2182 Views | Congratulations to nooneyouknow
for being the only person who
realised that my previous post
marked my first anniversary in the blogs.
Sadly, there is no prize.
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35 Comments | |
| order from chaos? |
Nov 16, 2007 4:09 am
2756 Views | Around this time last year, a tree fell in a forest and nobody heard.
The unused sound wave travelled a short distance, got bored and dissipated. But not entirely. A small band of determined air molecules stayed together and pushed on until they reached the ear of a small shrew. The resulting whisper of an echo of a falling tree wasn’t enough to bother the animal, but it did distract it long enough for the moth that it was about to pounce on to escape.
Unaware of its close shave with the killer rodent, the moth flapped steadily towards the nearest light source. Its busy little mind was so taken up with mothy thoughts that it completely failed to notice that it had reached the nearest village, flown into a house through an open window and was now banging its head against a naked light bulb. The little girl noticed though, and called for her mother to come and evict the dusty creature from her bedroom. Downstairs, both parents were engaged in a heated discussion about whether or not the husband was having an affair with the local shepherdess (the husband had claimed he was, the wife was still recovering from a fit of hysterics). Wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks, the mother left her indignant spouse in the kitchen to go and see to the girl.
The man stormed out into the street. He’d been trying to impress the boys from the bar for weeks with tales of his philandering. They hadn’t believed him and neither, it seemed, did his wife. He got into his car, jammed it into gear and headed into town. It was a quiet night and these were quiet roads, the man was not expecting to meet any other traffic. But he did. Juan was hauling a load of ball bearings into town. He had been a truck driver his whole adult life. He’d always said he’d die behind the wheel. He was just about to be proved right. The car jumped the first set of lights on the way into town. Juan braked too late. The resulting fireball was quite spectacular. Ball bearings scattered far and wide. The local kids were still finding them weeks later. Little Paco found one buried two inches deep in the wall of his house. It took him nearly an hour to prise it out with his penknife. It took him less than ten minutes to get it wedged in his ear.
The junior doctor on duty in the local casualty department was nonplussed. No matter what he did, the ball bearing would not budge. The ear was becoming inflamed and Paco was in some considerable pain by this time and had started to cry. Calling a passing nurse to come and sit with the boy, the doctor said he was going to consult with a colleague (in fact he was going for a crafty smoke and a nap, he’d been on call for 73 hours and could no longer see straight). The nurse had actually been at the end of her shift and on her way home. Now she would be late. She’d wanted to get home on time because she was studying for an English exam and had a class that evening. Sighing, she knew she was going to have to cancel her class.
The teacher was understanding. These things happened. He wondered what he was going to do for the next hour or so.
He decided to start a blog.
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46 Comments | |
| genesis |
Nov 14, 2007 3:51 am
3566 Views |  | Man said let there be light. And there was light
and it did burn even in the darkest hours of night.
And there was evening and there was morning,
the first day.
Man separated the earth from the waters and
the sky. And he did break the earth and poison
the waters and foul the air.
And there was evening and there was morning,
the second day.
Man ploughed the land and brought forth the
fruit of the earth. And in his hunger he did sow
the ground with fertilizer until it would yield
no more.
And there was evening and there was morning,
the third day.
Man coveted the moon and stars. And he did send
forth rockets and satellites and pour his wealth
into vain pursuit.
And there was evening and there was morning,
the fourth day.
Man devoured the animals of the land and the
fish of the sea. And those he could not eat
he extinguished, and those that tasted good
he enslaved.
And there was evening and there was morning,
the fifth day.
Man created man in his own image. And the
lands of the earth did groan with his weight,
and the peoples did fight amongst themselves
for food and water, and they did burn the
forests and level the mountains and pollute
the seas and skies.
And there was evening and there was morning,
the sixth day.
By the seventh day Man had finished all the
work he had been doing. And he saw all that
he had made and was unhappy.
So on the seventh day Man created God.
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76 Comments | |
| ready or not |
Nov 13, 2007 9:42 am
1914 Views |  | oh, that one was good!
what?
you missed it?
you want me to do it again?
well, I don’t know...
okay, okay, don’t get like that!
right, ready?
and...here we go!
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12 Comments | |
| nothing happens |
Nov 12, 2007 5:55 am
2141 Views |  | nothing happens
here
one day is very much like
the next
slightly curled
at the edges
deeply sepia beneath
a nicotine sheen
night falls
sun rises
wrapped in a
patina of sighs
an apathy born
of bonhomie
no pasa nada
está bien así
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30 Comments | |
| what the people want |
Nov 8, 2007 9:05 am
2206 Views |  | watch
rolled up sleeves expose innocent arms
nothing in this hand
fingers flare in eloquent emptiness
see the sword
silver flash mesmerises
and
audible collective intake of breath
the strike
screams as steel passes through flesh
blood splashes and pools
audience gets to feet
some alarm
don't be alarmed
reveals unbroken skin
rapturous applause
thank you
bows
exits stage left
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21 Comments | |
| whatever doesn't kill you |
Nov 7, 2007 10:14 am
2130 Views |  | they say whatever
doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger
I say
bollocks
it might not
have killed me
but
it certainly
scared the crap out of me
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28 Comments | |
| To link to this blog (gowerboy) use [blog gowerboy] in your messages. |
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