Dear Readers,
Ever heard of text-based adventure games? You will after you finish this post. I have only a few comments before we get into the riveting action.
First, I'm not playing computer games of late, in an effort to redeem time for better activities. So far most of the "redeemed" time has gone to watching other people play computer games. I would like to say this didn't count as breaking my virtual fast, but I'm not so sure. Just because it's old and text-based doesn't mean it isn't a time-nivorous computer game.
Second, if you have Ubuntu linux you can get this game for yourself. It actually comes with the emacs GTK text editor (who would have thought?) which I just installed to use for fortran editing. So I was actually innocently checking out the capabilities of my new editor when I stumbled upon the "games" folder in the menu. Who knew so many games could be built on a text editor?
Enough of this. Enjoy my first attempt at a little game known as:
"Adventure."
You are at a dead end of a dirt road. The road goes to the east.
In the distance you can see that it will eventually fork off. The
trees here are very tall royal palms, and they are spaced equidistant
from each other.
There is a shovel here.
>take shovel
Taken.
>examine shovel
It is a normal shovel with a price tag attached that says $19.99.
>remove tag
I don't understand that.
>walk east
I don't understand that.
>go east
E/W Dirt road
You are on the continuation of a dirt road. There are more trees on
both sides of you. The road continues to the east and west.
There is a large boulder here.
>examine boulder
It is just a boulder. It cannot be moved.
>sit boulder
I don't understand that.
>stand boulder
I don't understand that.
>examine sky
I don't know what that is.
>examine road
I don't know what that is.
>examine trees
They are palm trees with a bountiful supply of coconuts in them.
>climb tree
You manage to get about two feet up the tree and fall back down. You
notice that the tree is very unsteady.
>shake tree
You begin to shake a tree, and notice a coconut begin to fall from the air.
As you try to get your hand up to block it, you feel the impact as it lands
on your head.
You are dead.
You have scored 0 out of a possible 90 points.
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part VII
Dear Readers, At last I do no need to apologize for an extended period of blogging silence. Instead, I point you to the links for any necessary review, and happily introduce the closing chapter of what has been a most enjoyable story to write.
PartVI
Part V
Part IV
Part III
Part II
Part I
“Don't!” shouted the sweet-smelling blacksuit, and he held up his hands, fingers splayed wide to display at least a dozen rings. The Ringmaker, his own hands halfway out from behind his back, froze, eyes widening.
“I don't know what these would do and I don't care,” growled the blacksuit, “but each of us can rub ten or twenty at a time, and one of those is bound to do something unpleasant. So you will stand there and do nothing while we take each and every ring from your fingers.”
Nathanael eyed Graybeard, then looked down at his own pocket. Graybeard tilted his head in acknowledgment and cleared his throat.
“You know,” he began, and then cowered back as the blacksuits turned their wands and rings on him, “I said, you know,” he began more quietly, “I always thought you were overdressed – sunglasses and coats inside -- but this, well gaudy perfume is just embarrassing!”
The smelly blacksuit's cheek twitched.
“I don't know, Graybeard,” smiled Georgie in her sweetest voice, gesturing hyperbolically, “It's such a delicate fragrance, so elegant, so ostentatious! Where did you get it?”
One of the blacksuits coughed. The aromatic leader turned to eye his compatriot with a gaze even darker than his glasses, then turned back to Georgie. “You will regret that,” he rumbled, and stepped towards her.
Georgie stepped to meet him, jaw clamped angrily.
Nathanael's hand had been sliding ever-so-gently towards his pocket. Now it dove in and found the ring. Graybeard, seeing the blacksuits completely distracted by Georgie, grabbed his and rubbed it for good measure.
At first Graybeard thought the sound overhead was popcorn, but after a moment he realized it was the rapidly swelling chords of jazz music. A table and two chairs, containing a large pizza and a radio playing jazz, Miss Doris, and the Cabbie, respectively, crashed to the ground around them. Two blacksuits were pinned by the table. The smell of garlicky crust filled the warehouse as popcorn began to accumulate on the bill of the cabbie's flatcap.
Nathanael found himself nose to nose with the cabbie, who had apparently been standing up to get another piece of pizza. “Ya tries to have a date, jus'a nice simple date, and whaddaya get?” the cabbie asked Nathanael.
Nathanael was opening his mouth to answer when the blacksuits interrupted him with an indescribably miserable howling.
“Garlic!” Georgie heard the leader choke out, grasping for his throat, and then he was gone into the darkness. The others followed, except for the one unfortunate enough to land under Miss Doris' chair. The fairy secretary leaned over upside down, brandishing a garlicy crust in one hand, and began explaining exactly how many ways she could vaporize him.
“Well done, Georgie!” Graybeard grinned in excitement as the Blacksuits staggered away. “You had them thoroughly distracted.”
“I wasn't trying to distract them,” Georgie's face flashed between grin and glower, “I was just mad.”
“Whaddis goin on here!” yelled the cabbie, once the howling had died away into the dark.
“Sorry to call you like that,” explained Nathanael, tipping his hat and slipping out from between the table the the cabbie, “but, you see, we were under considerable duress.”
“Du-ress!”
“And we need to take a look at all the rings you were given for the frequent user's special. Unless, of course,” he turned to the Ringmaker, “the proper ring was one of these two,” he held up his own ring, and motioned with his other hand to Graybeard's.
“The Incomparable Ring of the Magic Taxi? And The Popcorn Shower Circle? No, definitely not. Neither of these will be of any ultimate use against the blacksuits.”
“All we need,” exclaimed Georgie, exasperated, “is a ring of garlic!”
“Well, we, er, got rid of that one,” the Ringmaker raised his hand as if to scratch his head, but thought better of it. “There were too many complaints from users, even after we started marketing it as the Ring of Ensured Seclusion from All But the Severely Olfactorily Challenged.”
During this conversation the cabbie had eaten two more slices of pizza and washed them down from a bottle of beer. Now, grumbling, he snapped his fingers, at which gesture his taxi fell from somewhere above them and bounced on the floor a few feet from where they were all gathered. By the time everyone had climbed up from the floor, where they had hurled themselves in an effort to avoid being squashed, the cabbie had restored his stogie to its familiar position between his lips, and retrieved the container of rings from the taxicab.
“Why would you do that?” asked Nathanael, as he, Graybeard, and the Ringmaker went over to investigate the rings.
“Yes, you could have killed someone!” agreed Graybeard.
“No,” Nathanael interrupted the Cabbie's “whaddya mean...” by explaining, “I meant, Mr. Ringmaker, why on Earth – or, in this case, why on this particularly ridiculous world -- would you destroy the only ring sure to repel the blacksuits? How could you be so foolish?”
The Ringmaker wilted under Nathanael's remonstrations. “It was going to be a hard fight either way and we...the Council of Wise Fairy Tale Characters (we call it 'Cwyftyc' for short)...decided that we might stand a better chance of being sent some good users to help us if we put ourselves into an extra dire state.”
“You're joking.”
“I'm afraid not. There were some protests from the grandfatherly wing about the ethics of putting everyone more at risk to try to trigger some kind of happy fate, but the arch-villain party insisted this was a partisan argument and that in times like these we had to reach across the aisle.”
“You must have access to C-SPAN,” muttered Nathanael.
“As a matter of fact we do. Now, this ring here is capable of turning any food in any world into chicken....”
While the Ringmaker examined the rings and the cabbie stood with his arms crossed, puffing his stogie and glaring at the darkness surrounding them, Georgie went to talk to Miss Doris, who now had the blacksuit waiting upon her, though there was not much for him to do, since she was already within reach of the pizza and her bottled water.
“I love what you've done with your wings,” ventured Georgie, smiling boldly as she eyed Miss Doris' delicate wings, on which were painted curly-cues and flowers in shades of turquoise and aquamarine.
“Turn down the ra-di-o!” shouted the fairy to the blacksuit, then, her grimace of command changing to a sweet smile, “Awww, thanks deary,” she replied to Georgie's compliment. “The cabbie tells me you go to school. Whaddaya wanna be?”
“...and this one,” the Ringmaker said, “is the Temperature Indicator of Good and Bad Jokes,” he shook the empty can and his head. “None of these! None of these!” he once again made as if to rub his head, getting his hat off this time before realizing what he was doing and whipping his hands behind his back. The cabbie examined his floorboards with a shrug.
Nathanael stopped tapping his chin with the head of his umbrella. “I say, cabbie....”
Benjamin Dobbs stretched and yawned. He'd wasted most of the last half hour gazing emptily at the sunset out the window. Now it was dark and his head, which had started hurting hours ago, was beginning to protest loudly. The last students had passed through after dinner. A study group had formed at one of the tables, so he had moved to one of the couches beneath the television, books spread heavy and hot across his legs. His notebook was a mess of scribbled and many-times-erased calculus.
There was a presidential press conference on the news. He frowned at the screen, trying to discern from the cryptic statements on the ticker what was the current crisis. The president himself was no help, having paused to sneeze. Benjamin couldn't help but smile as the sneezing continued and intensified. How embarrassing, Benjamin though, allergies acting up on live tv.
Benjamin cocked his head and frowned. The president's sneezing was exceptionally powerful and constant. But even as Benjamin thought so, the president stopped, gasping for breath and pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. Benjamin relaxed and sat back.
The sneezing recommenced.
Benjamin stopped to watch. The sneezing stopped.
He shook his head dismissively and looked down, pulling his ring out of his pocket where he had been absent-mindedly playing with it. The sneezing began again.
Benjamin wondered. He held the ring still. The president stopped sneezing, shoulders now heaving, aides whispering to each other in the background.
Benjamin rubbed the ring. The president sneezed.
Benjamin ignored his buzzing cell phone and repeated the test.
The president sneezed to the beat of Mission: Impossible before Benjamin believed it. He examined his ring closely, looked up at the televised view of the conference room, then back down at the ring. The tiny symbol against the background banner was indeed the presidential seal of the United States of America.
He glanced at his phone as it began to ring a second time. Seeing who it was, he snatched it up.
“Graybeard!”
“Benjamin, look...”
“My ring makes the president sneeze!”
“Really?” Graybeard asked intensely “(it makes the president sneeze!)” Benjamin heard him call.
“Listen, Benjamin,” we think your ring is the key to solving our problems. We're not sure how yet, just rub it and don't stop.”
“How would it help? The president looks pretty worn out, anyway...”
“Just rub it! Now!”
Benjamin closed his mouth and began rubbing.
“You really think it's the one, Ringmaker?” Graybeard inquired, covering the mouthpiece of his cellphone.
“There can be no doubt,” the Ringmaker said enthusiastically.
“But it makes the president sneeze.”
“Yes, it does at that.”
“Who thought that one up?”
The Ringmaker stared at Graybeard, and a thoughtful gaze full of curiosity filled his face. “I can't quite recall...”
“Oh, it doesn't matter. I just can't believe my cell phone got through,” said Graybeard.
“Yes,” Nathanael chuckled, “I don't blame you, but you can never tell in fairy tales, I guess.”
“Hold on,” Graybeard put a hand to one ear as he listened to his phone. “Benjamin says the press conference is canceled; the president is being taken to detox. They think it's some sort of poison or terrorist plot or something...”
Far above them there was a thunderous crash. Sunlight and the roar of jet engines poured in as pieces of the roof plummeted to the ground. Several metallic craft sank through the hole towards them.
“More Blacksuits!” Graybeard growled.
“Ringmaker, anything you can do?” inquired Nathanael.
“I'll hold them off for as long as I can. You had better run. This is the climax, so I bid you farewell!” The Ringmaker tossed his light ring to Graybeard and disappeared into the darkness. Blacksuits were already zipping down ropes into the dark around them, and soon there was the sound and flash of thunderbolts from the direction the Ringmaker had gone.
There was a shrill scream from behind them. They all whipped around.
“Georgie!” yelled Graybeard and Nathanael.
“Doris!” yelled the cabbie.
They rushed towards the sounds of violence, Graybeard rubbing the light ring furiously.
Their run brought the blacksuit into view. He was face down on the floor, at the feet of Georgie and Doris, who stood laughing, arms around each other's shoulders like old friends.
“Sorry for screaming,” said Georgie.
“He tried to make a break for it!” explained Miss Doris indignantly. “We had to smack'im.”
“Let's go!” suggested Nathanael vehemently, starting for the light that was the trailer door.
“Bub,” said the cabbie, not moving, “if yous think yous can get out on yous feet, be my guest. I'll be takin t'cab.”
“But how will you get out of here?” Nathanael changed his course and once again they all piled into the cab.
“I'll take care of that!” the cabbie rumbled, opening the passenger door for Miss Doris. The three friends in the back seat raised their eyebrows as he gave her a hand in.
“The latest word is that the president's sneezing attack continues...” entoned the news anchor.
“This is one of those things,” commented a student, standing behind Benjamin to watch the television, “that you can't help but laugh at, but might not turn out to be funny. They're acting like he could be dying.”
The study group had ended when someone noticed the television reporting that the president was being taken for emergency medical treatment. Now a number of students were clustered around Benjamin who, with a rising sense of guilt, tried to hide his ring hand and furiously rubbing thumb from view.
“Graybeard!” he hissed into his phone, “this could hurt him! Why in the world am I supposed to be doing this?”
“Look!” Graybeard shouted back over the phone, “It's the Ringmaker!”
As the cab flashed past, they saw that the Ringmaker was surrounded by a half-dozen protective auras and waving his hands in desperate ring-rubbing combinations that sent fire, ice, grandfather clocks, sea turtles, and yogurt hurting into the line of advancing blacksuits. Behind the line roared their dropships, jet turbines turned Earthwards to maintain their altitude. Streaks of orange light burst from the pods on their wings, and everyone ducked their heads as the first of the rockets exploded, having been detonated by the materialization of a giant snow globe around it, presumably brought about by a wave of the Ringmaker's hand. Fragments of what had probably been models of Santa and his reindeer swirled furiously in the few moments it took the globe to plummet to the Earth.
“The door's too narrow!” shouted Graybeard, peeling his eyes away from the fight behind them.
“Just buckle yous seatbelts,” growled the cabbie, and swerved to the side as a rocket blew a crater in the ground in front of them. Miss Doris screamed.
Georgie sank down as far as she could into her seat, feeling very carsick.
Graybeard clung to the interior of the car and watched the trailer door approach.
Nathanael glanced back in time to see one of the rockets hurl the Ringmaker to the ground, and the blacksuits rush to surround him, wands flashing blue. Another rocket shot towards the cab.
The cabbie, watching in his side view mirror, swerved out of its path; then, as the rocket nosed into the ground where they had just been, he swung the wheel over so that the cab swerved into the explosion.
Expanding air and shrapnel batted the cab onto its side, and, sparks flying and metal shrieking, the vehicle shot out the narrow opening of the trailer door and fell the few feet to the warehouse floor, rotating around its front fender before crashing down on all four wheels again.
“Well,” said Georgie from where she sat squashed between Graybeard and Nathanael, “that's awkward.”
Nathanael muttered about diamonds and Roger Moore as Graybeard and Georgie clambered off of him.
Miss Doris did not clamber off of the cabbie, but clung to his shoulder, scolding him.
The cabbie grumbled defensively as he unsuccessfully tried to restart the cab. Shrapnel had eaten chunks out of its front, and smoke was pouring from the mangled hood.
“Graybeard? Graybeard?” Benjamin's concerned voice came muffled from the floorboards where the cell phone had fallen.
Two more dropships landed beside them. Black sunglasses peered into the windows.
Graybeard picked up his cell phone.
“Benjamin, tell my family I love them,” he said cheerfully, “better tell all our families.”
But the blacksuits reached to their earbuds, listeneing attentively. Then they turned away, climbing back into their dropships.
The dropships rose and hurtled away through blasted holes in the roof of the warehouse. Everything but the hissing of the radiator became very quiet.
“Why are they leaving?” asked Georgie.
“Guys? Guys? Graybeard, what's happening?” hissed Benjamin.
“We seem to be fine now,” replied Graybeard, looking inquisitively at Nathanael for answers. His friend shrugged and shook his head.
“What's going on there?”
“They've locked down the White House. They think it may be a biological attack of some kind...um...they're moving the vice president and the joint chiefs of staff...the military is on high alert...the Secret Service has all been called up to secure....to secure...” Benjamin's face lit up in understanding just as everyone else's did.
“They look just like Secret Service agents!” Georgie giggled.
“Of course!” Nathanael slapped his knee.
“No. Not 'of course'. Why would the blacksuits have anything to do with the Secret Service?” asked Graybeard. “Are they the Secret Service?”
“Well,” reasoned Nathanael, “they probably have their fingers in as many governements as they can get them. What better way to know the pulse of a nation than to infiltrate its upper level of security? And when they were all called up just now, because the president cannot stop sneezing, they had to call off their attack or be found out by the government; or rather, not found by the government, which would mean the same thing -- the end of their infiltration.”
“Seriously?” asked Georgie. “That sounds pretty unlikely.”
“Well,” said Nathanael sadly, “I don't think we'll be able to ask the Ringmaker. He was right about not living through the end of the story.”
“I suppose he was the Christ-figure,” murmured Graybeard.
“When I was talking to him, when you two were climbing into the trailer,” said Georgie, “he told me he had a wife and three kids. He said I could come babysit sometime and he would pay me with custom rings.” She sighed.
“You count as a frequent user now, deary!” Miss Doris leaned back and patted her on the shoulder, searching for some way to comfort her “You'll get a ring.”
Georgie smiled politely back, but a sad silence still clung to them as they watched the cabbie work under the hood.
“And then!” Nathanael could hardly contain his laughter, “the cabbie gets back in the cab, starts it up, turns to Miss Doris, and says 'Whaddya say wes gets married, Doris?'”
The friends' table in the Great Hall erupted with astonished laughter. Benjamin leaned in to make himself heard.
“What did she say?”
Georgie took up the baton as Nathanael leaned back in his chair. “She slaps him,” she paused for a roar of laughter, “says 'Cabbie! Not in fronnadda fare!', takes off his hat, and gives him a big kiss.”
“She said she would invite me to the wedding!” she concluded proudly, as the laughter finally died down and the friends wiped the tears from their eyes.
“So we get to keep the rings?” Benjamin asked. “I still feel bad about mine. It took hours for everyone to calm down about the president.”
“I wouldn't worry too much,” Nathanael reassured him, “they're talking about giving him a Guinness world record for longest sneezing fit, and the news channels had their highest ratings this year,” he broke into a chuckle.
“I wish I'd gotten a ring,” Sheep said.
“You can have this one!” Graybeard handed it across the table, “I don't like popcorn, and I have the light ring anyway.”
“Thanks!” Sheep glanced around at the other tables and rubbed the ring enough to bring a few scattered kernels falling around them. He laughed “this could be great in the middle of class.”
“Well,” said Graybeard, “since this is a fairy tale there has to be a moral.”
“Don't use taxis?” chortled Nathanael, buttering his dinner roll.
“Don't stay home from a fairy world adventure to do homework?” suggested Graybeard, and Benjamin rolled his eyes.
“I know, I know. Next time I'll come, ok?”
“Good!” Graybeard nodded approvingly. “Now I'm going to get dessert, and when I get back I want to know what you all think. Was what they did ethical – the fairy council, I mean?”
“Creating a situation so bad that we would get drawn into it? Hmmm.” Nathanael fell into deep thought.
“I've got to go, guys,” Georgie smiled at them all as she stood. “It's been great.”
“Georgie,” Nathanael looked up from his thoughts to ask. “You said the cabbie let you pick a frequent user ring. What did you get?
Georgie grinned. “I don't think I want to tell anyone yet; you'll find out eventually.” she left in the middle of a chorus of disapproval and goodbyes.
Graybeard sat down with his milkshake. “So,” he said.
“So,” replied Nathanael, “there's a limited number of options when we're dealing with...”
The two philosophers argued ethics for some while, until finally Nathanael raised both hands with an air of finality. “Look, all I can say is that I'll be quite happy if no one ever puts a magic ring in my breakfast again.”
“Oh, I don't know,” laughed Benjamin, “it sounds like it was a lot of fun, and they were right, you know, you did save them.
“For now!” corrected Nathanael sternly, a finger and an eyebrow raised in caution. “We saved them for now! We never know when they'll come barging in again.” He glanced slyly at Graybeard, who was gazing thoughtfully past him, and, leaning across the table, drank his milkshake.
PartVI
Part V
Part IV
Part III
Part II
Part I
“Don't!” shouted the sweet-smelling blacksuit, and he held up his hands, fingers splayed wide to display at least a dozen rings. The Ringmaker, his own hands halfway out from behind his back, froze, eyes widening.
“I don't know what these would do and I don't care,” growled the blacksuit, “but each of us can rub ten or twenty at a time, and one of those is bound to do something unpleasant. So you will stand there and do nothing while we take each and every ring from your fingers.”
Nathanael eyed Graybeard, then looked down at his own pocket. Graybeard tilted his head in acknowledgment and cleared his throat.
“You know,” he began, and then cowered back as the blacksuits turned their wands and rings on him, “I said, you know,” he began more quietly, “I always thought you were overdressed – sunglasses and coats inside -- but this, well gaudy perfume is just embarrassing!”
The smelly blacksuit's cheek twitched.
“I don't know, Graybeard,” smiled Georgie in her sweetest voice, gesturing hyperbolically, “It's such a delicate fragrance, so elegant, so ostentatious! Where did you get it?”
One of the blacksuits coughed. The aromatic leader turned to eye his compatriot with a gaze even darker than his glasses, then turned back to Georgie. “You will regret that,” he rumbled, and stepped towards her.
Georgie stepped to meet him, jaw clamped angrily.
Nathanael's hand had been sliding ever-so-gently towards his pocket. Now it dove in and found the ring. Graybeard, seeing the blacksuits completely distracted by Georgie, grabbed his and rubbed it for good measure.
At first Graybeard thought the sound overhead was popcorn, but after a moment he realized it was the rapidly swelling chords of jazz music. A table and two chairs, containing a large pizza and a radio playing jazz, Miss Doris, and the Cabbie, respectively, crashed to the ground around them. Two blacksuits were pinned by the table. The smell of garlicky crust filled the warehouse as popcorn began to accumulate on the bill of the cabbie's flatcap.
Nathanael found himself nose to nose with the cabbie, who had apparently been standing up to get another piece of pizza. “Ya tries to have a date, jus'a nice simple date, and whaddaya get?” the cabbie asked Nathanael.
Nathanael was opening his mouth to answer when the blacksuits interrupted him with an indescribably miserable howling.
“Garlic!” Georgie heard the leader choke out, grasping for his throat, and then he was gone into the darkness. The others followed, except for the one unfortunate enough to land under Miss Doris' chair. The fairy secretary leaned over upside down, brandishing a garlicy crust in one hand, and began explaining exactly how many ways she could vaporize him.
“Well done, Georgie!” Graybeard grinned in excitement as the Blacksuits staggered away. “You had them thoroughly distracted.”
“I wasn't trying to distract them,” Georgie's face flashed between grin and glower, “I was just mad.”
“Whaddis goin on here!” yelled the cabbie, once the howling had died away into the dark.
“Sorry to call you like that,” explained Nathanael, tipping his hat and slipping out from between the table the the cabbie, “but, you see, we were under considerable duress.”
“Du-ress!”
“And we need to take a look at all the rings you were given for the frequent user's special. Unless, of course,” he turned to the Ringmaker, “the proper ring was one of these two,” he held up his own ring, and motioned with his other hand to Graybeard's.
“The Incomparable Ring of the Magic Taxi? And The Popcorn Shower Circle? No, definitely not. Neither of these will be of any ultimate use against the blacksuits.”
“All we need,” exclaimed Georgie, exasperated, “is a ring of garlic!”
“Well, we, er, got rid of that one,” the Ringmaker raised his hand as if to scratch his head, but thought better of it. “There were too many complaints from users, even after we started marketing it as the Ring of Ensured Seclusion from All But the Severely Olfactorily Challenged.”
During this conversation the cabbie had eaten two more slices of pizza and washed them down from a bottle of beer. Now, grumbling, he snapped his fingers, at which gesture his taxi fell from somewhere above them and bounced on the floor a few feet from where they were all gathered. By the time everyone had climbed up from the floor, where they had hurled themselves in an effort to avoid being squashed, the cabbie had restored his stogie to its familiar position between his lips, and retrieved the container of rings from the taxicab.
“Why would you do that?” asked Nathanael, as he, Graybeard, and the Ringmaker went over to investigate the rings.
“Yes, you could have killed someone!” agreed Graybeard.
“No,” Nathanael interrupted the Cabbie's “whaddya mean...” by explaining, “I meant, Mr. Ringmaker, why on Earth – or, in this case, why on this particularly ridiculous world -- would you destroy the only ring sure to repel the blacksuits? How could you be so foolish?”
The Ringmaker wilted under Nathanael's remonstrations. “It was going to be a hard fight either way and we...the Council of Wise Fairy Tale Characters (we call it 'Cwyftyc' for short)...decided that we might stand a better chance of being sent some good users to help us if we put ourselves into an extra dire state.”
“You're joking.”
“I'm afraid not. There were some protests from the grandfatherly wing about the ethics of putting everyone more at risk to try to trigger some kind of happy fate, but the arch-villain party insisted this was a partisan argument and that in times like these we had to reach across the aisle.”
“You must have access to C-SPAN,” muttered Nathanael.
“As a matter of fact we do. Now, this ring here is capable of turning any food in any world into chicken....”
While the Ringmaker examined the rings and the cabbie stood with his arms crossed, puffing his stogie and glaring at the darkness surrounding them, Georgie went to talk to Miss Doris, who now had the blacksuit waiting upon her, though there was not much for him to do, since she was already within reach of the pizza and her bottled water.
“I love what you've done with your wings,” ventured Georgie, smiling boldly as she eyed Miss Doris' delicate wings, on which were painted curly-cues and flowers in shades of turquoise and aquamarine.
“Turn down the ra-di-o!” shouted the fairy to the blacksuit, then, her grimace of command changing to a sweet smile, “Awww, thanks deary,” she replied to Georgie's compliment. “The cabbie tells me you go to school. Whaddaya wanna be?”
“...and this one,” the Ringmaker said, “is the Temperature Indicator of Good and Bad Jokes,” he shook the empty can and his head. “None of these! None of these!” he once again made as if to rub his head, getting his hat off this time before realizing what he was doing and whipping his hands behind his back. The cabbie examined his floorboards with a shrug.
Nathanael stopped tapping his chin with the head of his umbrella. “I say, cabbie....”
Benjamin Dobbs stretched and yawned. He'd wasted most of the last half hour gazing emptily at the sunset out the window. Now it was dark and his head, which had started hurting hours ago, was beginning to protest loudly. The last students had passed through after dinner. A study group had formed at one of the tables, so he had moved to one of the couches beneath the television, books spread heavy and hot across his legs. His notebook was a mess of scribbled and many-times-erased calculus.
There was a presidential press conference on the news. He frowned at the screen, trying to discern from the cryptic statements on the ticker what was the current crisis. The president himself was no help, having paused to sneeze. Benjamin couldn't help but smile as the sneezing continued and intensified. How embarrassing, Benjamin though, allergies acting up on live tv.
Benjamin cocked his head and frowned. The president's sneezing was exceptionally powerful and constant. But even as Benjamin thought so, the president stopped, gasping for breath and pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. Benjamin relaxed and sat back.
The sneezing recommenced.
Benjamin stopped to watch. The sneezing stopped.
He shook his head dismissively and looked down, pulling his ring out of his pocket where he had been absent-mindedly playing with it. The sneezing began again.
Benjamin wondered. He held the ring still. The president stopped sneezing, shoulders now heaving, aides whispering to each other in the background.
Benjamin rubbed the ring. The president sneezed.
Benjamin ignored his buzzing cell phone and repeated the test.
The president sneezed to the beat of Mission: Impossible before Benjamin believed it. He examined his ring closely, looked up at the televised view of the conference room, then back down at the ring. The tiny symbol against the background banner was indeed the presidential seal of the United States of America.
He glanced at his phone as it began to ring a second time. Seeing who it was, he snatched it up.
“Graybeard!”
“Benjamin, look...”
“My ring makes the president sneeze!”
“Really?” Graybeard asked intensely “(it makes the president sneeze!)” Benjamin heard him call.
“Listen, Benjamin,” we think your ring is the key to solving our problems. We're not sure how yet, just rub it and don't stop.”
“How would it help? The president looks pretty worn out, anyway...”
“Just rub it! Now!”
Benjamin closed his mouth and began rubbing.
“You really think it's the one, Ringmaker?” Graybeard inquired, covering the mouthpiece of his cellphone.
“There can be no doubt,” the Ringmaker said enthusiastically.
“But it makes the president sneeze.”
“Yes, it does at that.”
“Who thought that one up?”
The Ringmaker stared at Graybeard, and a thoughtful gaze full of curiosity filled his face. “I can't quite recall...”
“Oh, it doesn't matter. I just can't believe my cell phone got through,” said Graybeard.
“Yes,” Nathanael chuckled, “I don't blame you, but you can never tell in fairy tales, I guess.”
“Hold on,” Graybeard put a hand to one ear as he listened to his phone. “Benjamin says the press conference is canceled; the president is being taken to detox. They think it's some sort of poison or terrorist plot or something...”
Far above them there was a thunderous crash. Sunlight and the roar of jet engines poured in as pieces of the roof plummeted to the ground. Several metallic craft sank through the hole towards them.
“More Blacksuits!” Graybeard growled.
“Ringmaker, anything you can do?” inquired Nathanael.
“I'll hold them off for as long as I can. You had better run. This is the climax, so I bid you farewell!” The Ringmaker tossed his light ring to Graybeard and disappeared into the darkness. Blacksuits were already zipping down ropes into the dark around them, and soon there was the sound and flash of thunderbolts from the direction the Ringmaker had gone.
There was a shrill scream from behind them. They all whipped around.
“Georgie!” yelled Graybeard and Nathanael.
“Doris!” yelled the cabbie.
They rushed towards the sounds of violence, Graybeard rubbing the light ring furiously.
Their run brought the blacksuit into view. He was face down on the floor, at the feet of Georgie and Doris, who stood laughing, arms around each other's shoulders like old friends.
“Sorry for screaming,” said Georgie.
“He tried to make a break for it!” explained Miss Doris indignantly. “We had to smack'im.”
“Let's go!” suggested Nathanael vehemently, starting for the light that was the trailer door.
“Bub,” said the cabbie, not moving, “if yous think yous can get out on yous feet, be my guest. I'll be takin t'cab.”
“But how will you get out of here?” Nathanael changed his course and once again they all piled into the cab.
“I'll take care of that!” the cabbie rumbled, opening the passenger door for Miss Doris. The three friends in the back seat raised their eyebrows as he gave her a hand in.
“The latest word is that the president's sneezing attack continues...” entoned the news anchor.
“This is one of those things,” commented a student, standing behind Benjamin to watch the television, “that you can't help but laugh at, but might not turn out to be funny. They're acting like he could be dying.”
The study group had ended when someone noticed the television reporting that the president was being taken for emergency medical treatment. Now a number of students were clustered around Benjamin who, with a rising sense of guilt, tried to hide his ring hand and furiously rubbing thumb from view.
“Graybeard!” he hissed into his phone, “this could hurt him! Why in the world am I supposed to be doing this?”
“Look!” Graybeard shouted back over the phone, “It's the Ringmaker!”
As the cab flashed past, they saw that the Ringmaker was surrounded by a half-dozen protective auras and waving his hands in desperate ring-rubbing combinations that sent fire, ice, grandfather clocks, sea turtles, and yogurt hurting into the line of advancing blacksuits. Behind the line roared their dropships, jet turbines turned Earthwards to maintain their altitude. Streaks of orange light burst from the pods on their wings, and everyone ducked their heads as the first of the rockets exploded, having been detonated by the materialization of a giant snow globe around it, presumably brought about by a wave of the Ringmaker's hand. Fragments of what had probably been models of Santa and his reindeer swirled furiously in the few moments it took the globe to plummet to the Earth.
“The door's too narrow!” shouted Graybeard, peeling his eyes away from the fight behind them.
“Just buckle yous seatbelts,” growled the cabbie, and swerved to the side as a rocket blew a crater in the ground in front of them. Miss Doris screamed.
Georgie sank down as far as she could into her seat, feeling very carsick.
Graybeard clung to the interior of the car and watched the trailer door approach.
Nathanael glanced back in time to see one of the rockets hurl the Ringmaker to the ground, and the blacksuits rush to surround him, wands flashing blue. Another rocket shot towards the cab.
The cabbie, watching in his side view mirror, swerved out of its path; then, as the rocket nosed into the ground where they had just been, he swung the wheel over so that the cab swerved into the explosion.
Expanding air and shrapnel batted the cab onto its side, and, sparks flying and metal shrieking, the vehicle shot out the narrow opening of the trailer door and fell the few feet to the warehouse floor, rotating around its front fender before crashing down on all four wheels again.
“Well,” said Georgie from where she sat squashed between Graybeard and Nathanael, “that's awkward.”
Nathanael muttered about diamonds and Roger Moore as Graybeard and Georgie clambered off of him.
Miss Doris did not clamber off of the cabbie, but clung to his shoulder, scolding him.
The cabbie grumbled defensively as he unsuccessfully tried to restart the cab. Shrapnel had eaten chunks out of its front, and smoke was pouring from the mangled hood.
“Graybeard? Graybeard?” Benjamin's concerned voice came muffled from the floorboards where the cell phone had fallen.
Two more dropships landed beside them. Black sunglasses peered into the windows.
Graybeard picked up his cell phone.
“Benjamin, tell my family I love them,” he said cheerfully, “better tell all our families.”
But the blacksuits reached to their earbuds, listeneing attentively. Then they turned away, climbing back into their dropships.
The dropships rose and hurtled away through blasted holes in the roof of the warehouse. Everything but the hissing of the radiator became very quiet.
“Why are they leaving?” asked Georgie.
“Guys? Guys? Graybeard, what's happening?” hissed Benjamin.
“We seem to be fine now,” replied Graybeard, looking inquisitively at Nathanael for answers. His friend shrugged and shook his head.
“What's going on there?”
“They've locked down the White House. They think it may be a biological attack of some kind...um...they're moving the vice president and the joint chiefs of staff...the military is on high alert...the Secret Service has all been called up to secure....to secure...” Benjamin's face lit up in understanding just as everyone else's did.
“They look just like Secret Service agents!” Georgie giggled.
“Of course!” Nathanael slapped his knee.
“No. Not 'of course'. Why would the blacksuits have anything to do with the Secret Service?” asked Graybeard. “Are they the Secret Service?”
“Well,” reasoned Nathanael, “they probably have their fingers in as many governements as they can get them. What better way to know the pulse of a nation than to infiltrate its upper level of security? And when they were all called up just now, because the president cannot stop sneezing, they had to call off their attack or be found out by the government; or rather, not found by the government, which would mean the same thing -- the end of their infiltration.”
“Seriously?” asked Georgie. “That sounds pretty unlikely.”
“Well,” said Nathanael sadly, “I don't think we'll be able to ask the Ringmaker. He was right about not living through the end of the story.”
“I suppose he was the Christ-figure,” murmured Graybeard.
“When I was talking to him, when you two were climbing into the trailer,” said Georgie, “he told me he had a wife and three kids. He said I could come babysit sometime and he would pay me with custom rings.” She sighed.
“You count as a frequent user now, deary!” Miss Doris leaned back and patted her on the shoulder, searching for some way to comfort her “You'll get a ring.”
Georgie smiled politely back, but a sad silence still clung to them as they watched the cabbie work under the hood.
“And then!” Nathanael could hardly contain his laughter, “the cabbie gets back in the cab, starts it up, turns to Miss Doris, and says 'Whaddya say wes gets married, Doris?'”
The friends' table in the Great Hall erupted with astonished laughter. Benjamin leaned in to make himself heard.
“What did she say?”
Georgie took up the baton as Nathanael leaned back in his chair. “She slaps him,” she paused for a roar of laughter, “says 'Cabbie! Not in fronnadda fare!', takes off his hat, and gives him a big kiss.”
“She said she would invite me to the wedding!” she concluded proudly, as the laughter finally died down and the friends wiped the tears from their eyes.
“So we get to keep the rings?” Benjamin asked. “I still feel bad about mine. It took hours for everyone to calm down about the president.”
“I wouldn't worry too much,” Nathanael reassured him, “they're talking about giving him a Guinness world record for longest sneezing fit, and the news channels had their highest ratings this year,” he broke into a chuckle.
“I wish I'd gotten a ring,” Sheep said.
“You can have this one!” Graybeard handed it across the table, “I don't like popcorn, and I have the light ring anyway.”
“Thanks!” Sheep glanced around at the other tables and rubbed the ring enough to bring a few scattered kernels falling around them. He laughed “this could be great in the middle of class.”
“Well,” said Graybeard, “since this is a fairy tale there has to be a moral.”
“Don't use taxis?” chortled Nathanael, buttering his dinner roll.
“Don't stay home from a fairy world adventure to do homework?” suggested Graybeard, and Benjamin rolled his eyes.
“I know, I know. Next time I'll come, ok?”
“Good!” Graybeard nodded approvingly. “Now I'm going to get dessert, and when I get back I want to know what you all think. Was what they did ethical – the fairy council, I mean?”
“Creating a situation so bad that we would get drawn into it? Hmmm.” Nathanael fell into deep thought.
“I've got to go, guys,” Georgie smiled at them all as she stood. “It's been great.”
“Georgie,” Nathanael looked up from his thoughts to ask. “You said the cabbie let you pick a frequent user ring. What did you get?
Georgie grinned. “I don't think I want to tell anyone yet; you'll find out eventually.” she left in the middle of a chorus of disapproval and goodbyes.
Graybeard sat down with his milkshake. “So,” he said.
“So,” replied Nathanael, “there's a limited number of options when we're dealing with...”
The two philosophers argued ethics for some while, until finally Nathanael raised both hands with an air of finality. “Look, all I can say is that I'll be quite happy if no one ever puts a magic ring in my breakfast again.”
“Oh, I don't know,” laughed Benjamin, “it sounds like it was a lot of fun, and they were right, you know, you did save them.
“For now!” corrected Nathanael sternly, a finger and an eyebrow raised in caution. “We saved them for now! We never know when they'll come barging in again.” He glanced slyly at Graybeard, who was gazing thoughtfully past him, and, leaning across the table, drank his milkshake.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part VI
Dear Readers,
Goodness it's been a while. Spring 2009 was a rather hectic semester, and I was recalled from the majority of my writing and public musing to working and musing with my friends, my family, and my heavenly Father. I cannot express how tickled I am that so many of you keep reminding me that Graybeard and Georgie are still surrounded by blacksuits. If you don't remember the details, here is what's happened so far (I recommend you re-read part V, if nothing else):
Part V
Part IV
Part III
Part II
Part I
And if you are interested in a little update and plans for summer writing, click here.
A little man in a striped suit with well-gelled hair and polished, long-toed dress shoes shuffled in behind the blacksuits.
“Ahem!” he coughed in a faint, squeaky voice, his hands behind his back.
All three blacksuits spun around, and all three, catching sight of the little man, stepped quickly backward, lightening shooting at him from their wands.
He whipped his hands forward, and, through a sheet of blue and yellow lightening bolts, Georgie and Graybeard saw rings of all shapes and sizes shining and flashing on his fingers. The lightening played around him like fireworks, but did not touch him.
The blacksuits continued backwards until the two on the floor were shoulder to shoulder with Graybeard, who, not trusting the staff, decided to wait and see what the little man did.
What he did was simply to cross two of his fingers and rub them together, setting half a dozen rings clinking.
The remaining lights and the purple fire went out instantly. The darkness was total, overwhelming. The blacksuits on either side of Graybeard blended into the black and were gone. He lost his balance and fell to his knees; the staff shattered in his hands. Georgie fell through the dark with the boxes and Styrofoam but stopped suddenly a few inches from the floor.
The lights came back on slowly, to reveal Nathanael Booth standing in the middle of a field of wilted fescue grass, umbrella under his arm, holding his hat in one hand, running his other through his hair. Graybeard was helping Georgie regain her feet. The little man's hands were behind his back again, his mouth grinning innocently behind his mustache and his eyes blinking rapidly behind his thin-rimmed spectacles. The blacksuits had blinked out with the lights.
“If anyone comes up with a better diversion than that, friends, I will drink his milkshake!” announced Nathanael. “Allow me to introduce the Ringmaker. Mr. Ringmaker, this is Miss Georgiana Vurner and Mr. Graybeard.
“We ran all the way over here to help you,” he explained to his friends.
“Just in time!” noted Graybeard, shaking hands with the Ringmaker. “We certainly weren't trying to be a diversion,” he complained, “but I think Mr. Jones was right, it looks like we are the protagonists. By the way, Georgie, nice pitching.”
“Thanks! And nice to meet you, Ringmaker!” said Georgie, “by the way, thanks for the soft landing.”
“Not at all, not at all,” he said faintly but energetically. “Nothing to it if you have these,” he waggled his fingers for a moment. “Now, we must be going. We have already wasted precious time.”
“What happened to the blacksuits?” asked Graybeard.
“They were repulsed but not destroyed,” sighed the Ringmaker sadly. “I fear they will be after us again in no time at all. Come now! Come.”
“Not so much like our last guide,” said Graybeard as they emerged into the warehouse at large from the scarred returns room.
“No!” laughed Georgie.
“Better taste in head wear,” murmured Nathanael.
They made their way through the maze of stockpiled magical items, marveling at the size and decor of the warehouse almost as much as at the purported powers of the items contained within.
“So where are we going?” asked Graybeard.
“Miss Doris said we could find the cabbie somewhere in the other direction,” added Georgie. “We were almost there when the blacksuits caught up with us.”
“We're going to save the world, of course,” explained Nathanael. Georgie and Graybeard eyed him thoughtfully. “Ask him! Ask him!” Nathanael motioned violently with his umbrella at the little man who moved briskly through the aisle ahead of them.
“Um, Mr. Ringmaker,” began Georgie.
“We were wondering what the dickens is going on!” Graybeard laughed with frustration.
“Oh, of course, your friend here knows, but I haven't told you two. Here, here, walk beside me and I will explain.” He smiled broadly at each of them, then cleared his throat with a sound like a woodwind.
“There are many rings in this place, created in time immemorial by me and my forebears. Each one has a past, and also a future. You see, the first rings were created for great purposes, but it was found that people became bored with rings that gave them three wishes, or made them powerful, or got them friends. And the Ringmakers, to be frank, grew tired of making them. So we branched out. We made rings of humor, rings of sadness, and rings of weakness. What we soon found was that all of these were just as worthy of being called rings of power as those that could move mountains. Each ring, you see, has its own destiny. Each ring, properly applied, can be so important that, to be concise, the world would end without it.
“Applying this principle to our present crisis, the solution to the blacksuit problem is simply to find the correct ring and to implement it in the correct fashion, you see? I know the power of each ring, and now I know you. It should not take me long to determine which ring has the destiny of winning this battle against the blacksuits. But here we are.”
“You're right, Graybeard,” Georgie whispered triumphantly “We are the protagonists. He finishes talking and we arrive. Our time isn't wasted!”
“Yes,” Nathanael mused, “Capital, really.”
While they were whispering to each other, the Ringmaker had put a ring into the keyhole of an iron padlock on the door of a whimsically decorated trailer. Graybeard chuckled and pointed out the license plate to Nathanael. In place of county it read “2nd circle unlawful good.” The Ringmaker swung the trailer door open with amazing vigor, his shined shoes scritching on the ground as he half- pushed on, half-hung from the handle. Then he leaped, coattails flying, into the dark mouth of the trailer.
Nathanael ran a gloved finger along the rusty trailer step and sniffed. Graybeard, voicing a question about why the Ringmaker and his compatriots had chosen a trailer from that particular circle in which to store their rings, clambered up onto the step and stood shakily, brushing rust from his clothes before offering Nathanael a hand. Nathanael set his hat and umbrella in the dark opening and took the proffered hand, scrambling up quickly and almost tipping Graybeard back over the edge.
Graybeard turned to give Georgie a hand up, and blinked in surprise.
“Oh,” he said, as he heard her voice somewhere inside the trailer, conversing with the Ringmaker, and the two young men followed their companions inside.
At the far end of the trailer there was a single light bulb dangling from a string and failing to illuminate anything besides the three travelers, the Ringmaker, and a circuit breaker with a gold-plated panel and runes on the individual breakers. The Ringmaker reached up with both hands and flipped the main. Every wall and shelf in the room lit up with a moon-like blue glow.
“Well I'll...I'll...I'll drink his milkshake,” Nathanael laughed in astonishment.
They were not, as they had believed, standing at the back of the trailer, but at a pillar in the middle of a large room. The door to the trailer was there, fluorescent light streaming in, yet around it rose walls stretching out of sight. The walls, pillars, and shelves were similar in design to the outer warehouse, except for the strange blue luminescence. The room was lined with shelves. Some of the rings were in open canisters, as if they were popcorn. Others were on strangely lifelike human or animal hands that stretched up from the shelves, some with fingers arched desperately, as if trying to get out, others straight and elegant, as if in greeting. Some of the rings sat on pillows of black velvet, their jewels glinting against the dark backdrop. Some hung from chains around the necks of dwarf and elf dummies.
All three students breathed in slowly as their eyes breathed in the rings.
The Ringmaker tapped one toe on the floor for a few moments, pursed mustache gazing along the near shelves.
“D17, I'd bet my tophat on it,” he cried, and took off into the depths of the shelves. The students followed him to D17, a particularly small shelf. There could not have been more than a hundred rings on it.
“The ring we need...I'm sorry, the ring you seek is almost assuredly one of these.” He smiled broadly at them.
“Well, which one?” asked Nathanael.
“Oh, I don't know; we'll have to look at each of them.”
“Then how can you know it's here?” Graybeard pressed.
“Well if I didn't you would be in a pretty tight spot, wouldn't you? No way to finish the story then!”
“That's a little ridiculous,” said Graybeard.
“It's my purpose to know these things. Don't blame me for it.”
“That's an interesting epistemology,” Graybeard complained.
“Yes,” Nathanael's eyes sparkled with the reflection of the rings. “Knowledge through purpose. But is it truth?” He and Graybeard glanced at each other thoughtfully, their minds working extra hard. Then they both started talking at once.
“What's that smell?” asked Georgie after the discussion had continued for a few moments.
“Hmmm?” pulled out of their philosophical musings, the two sniffed the air. “It doesn't smell any stranger than it did before,” said Nathanael.
“It's gone; but there was something...”
The Ringmaker was behind them, muttering and shaking his head as he examined each ring. “Here's one,” he called to them, his voice drifting with whimsy “to be used when milking cows. It pasteurizes the milk. And here's one,” he raised a big green one with a jade stone, “that causes trees to grow. But no, no, they aren't what you need, I don't think.”
Despite the number of rings on the shelf, the Ringmaker was already nearing the bottom of the shelf.
“Well?” Graybeard glanced back towards the trailer door. “Can't you find it?”
“Apparently it's not his purpose too,” chimed in Nathanael.
“I have smelled that before,” said Georgie emphatically. This time everyone crinkled his or her nose as they sniffed.
“It's like perfume,” Graybeard said incredulously.
“Bad perfume,” agreed Nathanael. “Did you happen to rub a ring of sickly-sweet smells, Mr. Ringmaker?”
“No, no, I wonder what that could be?”
The light from the trailer door seemed to blink for a moment. “Did you see that?” asked Graybeard, crouching down. Georgie and Nathanael nodded. The light blinked again.
“There's someone here, Mr. Ringmaker,” Georgie whispered, “and unless that perfume is a whole lot more popular than it ought to be, it's the blacksuits. Remember the one I hit with the jar?” she asked Graybeard, and he nodded violently in recognition. “That's it. It's got to be them.”
Then the lights went out. The echo of the circuit breaker being thrown lasted interminably, then a ring on the rinmaker's finger lit up.
“Is there another way out?” whispered Nathanael.
“No.”
“They'll be able to see us in that light...”
Even as Georgie spoke, a flash a blue lightening struck beside them, fragments of shelf, dummy, and ring singing past and into them. Graybeard held a hand to a cut on his temple as they darted deeper in amongst the shelves by the light of the Ringmaker's finger. Finally, they stopped to catch their breath. Just as the Ringmaker was extinguishing his light Nathanael noticed Georgie grimacing as she plucked a shard of silver shelf from her arm. “You all right?” he inquired.
“I'm fine. Ask Graybeard -- he's bleeding.”
“Nothing,” Graybeard hissed embarrassedly, and then spoke to the Ringmaker. “Did you find it?”
“No. No, and it wouldn't have helped if we had been able to stay, either,” exclaimed the little man. “That was the right shelf, I can feel it in my bones. But I checked every ring on it, and I'm just as certain that none of them are correct. I cannot understand it.”
“Then what do we do?” asked Graybeard and Georgie at the same time.
“There is nothing you can do!” boomed a deep voice from somewhere near the front, and a harsh snicker followed the voice, echoing out of the darkness on all sides of them. “We have you trapped. Your only hope is to give yourselves up.”
The three looked at the Ringmaker in the long silence that followed.
“Well?” asked Graybeard.
“Well what?” The Ringmaker snorted at them in his high voice, “I'm about ready to give up on you myself. Not much of a set of fairy-tale children, are you? Much too old, anyway. Fine! Give yourselves up.” He waved his be-ringed fingers at them dismissively.
The three stared into the dark, then back at him.
“I just wonder if it's safe...?” Graybeard explained.
“They will probably respect your world's notable neutrality in the matter,” the Ringmaker's emphasis on the word “notable” could only have been called bitter.
“You hold us responsible?” Nathanael's words were pitched high with disbelief.
“It's not like we could just send troops to help, even if we knew about it,” muttered Georgie. “But what will happen to you, Mr. Ringmaker?”
“Oh, they'll kill me, of course,” he replied.
“Oh!” they said.
“That settles it, then,” Graybeard shrugged, and Georgie nodded.
“We can't let them kill you. We'll just have to find a way out.”
“Could the ring have been moved?” asked Nathanael abruptly. He had spent the last few moments thinking and gasping with pain as he used a handkerchief to bind up a deep cut in his leg.
“Moved?” the Ringmaker cocked his head. “But I am notified of all in-use rings. But of course!” The Ringmaker hopped half a foot in the air in sheer excitement, shoes clattering in the dark. “That's it! There's a ringuser's special they just started. My helper elves haven't told me which rings they took for distribution yet. It must be one of those!”
“Ooooh,” said Graybeard, Georgie, and Nathanael.
“Too late,” said the deep voice, and the lights came back on to reveal that they were once again surrounded by blacksuits. A frog in dark glasses ribbitted its agreement from beside the men, and one of the blacksuits smelled sickly-sweet.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part IV
Dear Readers,
It has been quite a while since the last installment, for which I am truly sorry, but college is both busy and distracting. Now, however, with the summer come, I intend to update with more of my usual promptness, in other words, at least once a month. To refresh your memories, note
Part III
Part II
Part I
The taxi roared over the top of the hill and down the access road. Everyone looked that way, and the blacksuit menacing Nathanael began turning to face it, but he was not fast enough. The cab ran him down and came to a stop over him, rocking from the sudden stop.
“Look, doc,” the cabbie said as the four students dove inside, “I can't be responsible for your friends who stand in the way...holy moses!” he dropped his stogie as he saw the three other blacksuits. The forth stood to his feet just outside the window, grimaced, and popped his neck. There were tread marks up the front of his suit.
“Time for a little vacation, eh?” smiled Nathanael, as the cabbie gunned the cab away. “I'm glad you were so prompt.”
“When did you use the ring?” asked Graybeard.
“I counted to about three after I rubbed it before he appeared,” said Nathanael nonchalantly.
“How does it always get here so fast?” asked Georgie.
“You waited that long?” Graybeard almost shouted.
“We've got more important things to worry about; the only exit this way is behind Carter, and they keep it blocked off,” groaned Benjamin.
“Well, Graybeard, the timing had to be perfect for him to hit the blacksuit. Cabbie? Cabbie...” said Nathanael politely, leaning forward.
The stogie stopped in mid chew.
“What. Doc.” growled the lips.
“I wonder, is there a place where we'll be safe from those blacksuits?”
“Safer than here. You gotta ask to get there, though.”
“I think he just did,” said Graybeard and Georgie at the same time.
“Whatso funny?” muttered the cabbie. He reached up and whacked the meter.
“Hey!” he growled after a minute, and slammed on the brakes. “What's this? Somebody doesn't really want to go. It don't work unless everybody wants to go.”
“Oh, well,” it was Benjamin, long legs folded up in the middle of the back seat. “I just need to be getting back. I've got tests Monday, you know.”
“Benjamin,” said Graybeard quietly.
“Whatever, doc. Hop out now. Anybody else wanna bail?”
“Where exactly are we going?” asked Georgie.
“The repository of magic rings, doc.”
“Benjamin,” said Graybeard a little louder as his roommate clambered over him and out the door.
“So it's another world?” Georgie pressed.
“Yeah, yeah, now make up your minds already.”
“Benjamin, it's Friday. You have all weekend!” Graybeard remonstrated.
“I'd love to come -- you guys know that -- but I just can't; I've got work to do. I haven't studied for the tests at all yet, and...”
“That's a beautiful speech, bub, now have fun,” the cabbie gunned the cab and sped out of sight into the woods, leaving Benjamin in the dust. There was a brief crashing sound as they passed where two metal poles should have blocked the road, and then the engine roared into the distance. Benjamin sighed and began to trudge uphill towards Carter. It was going to be a long evening.
Even Nathanael buckled his seat belt as they squealed off Jupiter Road onto Scenic Highway.
“I never knew a taxi could do that,” commented Georgie, fighting back panic.
Graybeard just gripped the door handle tightly.
The taxi had jumped over the two poles blocking the road.
“Here we go, yous guys, the repository,” sneered the lips, and the cabbie slapped the meter. The winding road in front of them jerked and uprooted itself from the mountain, taking a new course directly toward the sun. They accelerated, leaving quaint houses and pine trees far below. The road itself seemed to be moving too, adding to their speed. Nathanael leaned back comfortably, but his face was a little pale. Graybeard caught a glimpse of the valley below them, and the vibrations in the cab caused him to accidentally rub his ring. They broke the sound barrier in a shock wave of popcorn, and the world they knew was gone, the sunlight reaching out around them to swallow it.
The cabbie grumbled something about after work traffic and swerved, flashing past objects so quickly the students couldn't see what they were. They were on a multi-lane highway, zipping downhill at breakneck speed. They hurtled underneath a sign:
And then, another marvel, they watched a knight in shining armor cross the road. When he was directly in front of them he bobbed his head in their direction, feather-crest dipping over his visor, and continued on his way.
“What are m-miles?” asked Georgie.
“They stutter!” snapped the cabbie, and then he guffawed loudly, guiding the taxi down a winding, forested road.
“Oh yeah?” Graybeard and Nathanael tensed in the backseat as Georgie's voice developed an edge. “Look, buddy,” she continued, “I really appreciate you saving us and driving us around and everything, “really,” her voice lightened for just a moment, “I do,”
“But!” she leaned forward in her seat. “You are going to have to shown us some more respect. I mean, you call that being a servant? You're passing performance with flying colors, but your attitude needs a spanking.” She sat back with a huff, and for a while everyone faced straight ahead. The lips worked on the stogie.
“That last part was a little strong, I'm sorry,” Georgie said in a subdued voice.
“d'mention't,” grumbled the cabbie, and there was another period of silence.
“In case yous guys were wondering,” the cabbie roared suddenly, spinning to address the passengers in the back, “m-miles are magic miles. One of yous's cars wouldn't never make it anywhere's,” turning back, he busied himself adjusting his flatcap.
Graybeard and Nathanael smiled in the back seat.
“Here we are, doc! The Ring Center in the Ring Repository.”
“Oh, how well-designed!” smiled Graybeard. They drove through a tunnel in the side of a circular
building, whole tree trunks supporting the floors above them, and into an open court in the middle. In the very center of the ring-shaped court was a massive, gnarled tree trunk. Walkways connected it to the upper stories of the surrounding building, windows peered out of the trunk and some of the branches, and several thin, metal spires rose through the uppermost branches, reaching towards puffy white clouds in a deep blue sky.
“Ring Center, very clever,” agreed Nathanael.
They got out (“watch the killer insects,” warned the cabbie) and tip-toed their way past scorpions and tarantulas to the door. “Lazy repository workers never get around to collectin'm again after they get sent for” he explained, and led them inside.
A gaping hole in the side of the tree trunk admitted the party and the sunlight. Curving stairs carved into the tree led from polished platform to polished platform. The leaves of the tree gave off a green light, and amber glowed a soft red.
“State the nature of your problem, cabbie,” whined a Brooklyn accent, coming from a female fairy in business casual from behind a desk of mossy bark.
“These users needs asylum, Doris, you know that! Blacksuits are out again.”
“I gotta follow pro-to-cal, cabbie; take 'em to the Pretty Seriously Almost in Charge Boss. Third floor, first platform on the...hey, I'm talkin' ta you!” she shouted as the cabbie brushed past her.
“I know where the Boss is!” retorted the cabbie, and led them up the stairs as her voice echoed behind them “You know it's pro-to-cal.”
“What kind of boss again?” inquired Graybeard as they ascended.
“Right above the Sort of in Charge Boss, and right below the Really and Truly Boss – bureaucracy, pah! You'knows?” said the cabbie.
“Oh yes, we have the same model in most of our businesses,” smirked Nathanael.
They reached the top of the stairs, and the cabbie opened a door into an office.
“But...but...” Georgie protested, staring at the door, or, rather, around it. There was a frame for the door, but no walls around the office.
“I think it makes 'em feel important,” the cabbie said in a forced whisper, and left them standing in front of a large desk.
“So good to see you,” said a portly man from behind the desk, and he stood to greet them. He wore a green elf-hat, red suspenders, and had pointy ears, but he must have been at least six feet tall, and almost as wide. The students shook hands with him respectfully, each relieved when they managed to retrieve their hand from the huge fist that swallowed it.
“I'm Lilliput, Lilliput Jones.”
The students introduced themselves.
“Lilliput?” Georgie whispered to Nathanael, “I thought they were the small ones.”
“Perhaps Swift got it wrong; perhaps his parents had a cruel streak.”
But before the two could decide which was more likely, Lilliput interrupted them with a “Well, I'd love to get to know you, but, down to business. I'm in charge of the Magic Ring Repository, or 'MRR'. We here at MRR make sure that magic rings show up in your world in magical ways, and that, more importantly, they always work to the user's satisfaction. We've been having some trouble lately. The Mean and Evil 'Hood ('MEH') has been sending agents after our ring-runners and trying to follow them back in here. You see, MEH is comprised of all the villains who aren't magical at all. The magical villains are actually not so bad; they give us knowledgeable and resourceful good minor characters a reason to exist, thereby keeping the economy going. But anti-magic villains want to harness our magic, industrialize it, and run us out of business. Since the head of the Fair Fairy Business Bureau came down with a case of Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, MEH has taken the opportunity to use some...er...below-board methods. Anyway, this is a big enough problem that we thought maybe if we brought you all in it would cause the plot to progress to a fairy tale ending in which you defeat the blacksuits against all odds, and we reap the benefits. In other words, we were hoping you wouldn't mind being the protagonists.
A lullaby sounded, and Mr. Jones pulled a cell phone from his suspenders pocket, “excuse me.” He answered it.
“Hello, Jones here. Mmmhmm. A tracking device on the taxi? They just dropped through an artificial dimensional vortex? They're about to zip line agents into the Ring Repository? I see. Thanks. Hmm? No, no that won't be necessary, we can handle it, but Al...Al? Yeah, if you happen to pass the bakery tree run by those elves, get me a half dozen double-fudge wafers, ok? Mmmhmm, they're uncommonly good. Yes, I know about the muffin man; I don't like muffins. Yes, I know where he lives...now stop that, stop that right now, Al, I will not play this game.”
He hung up and looked at them, smiling.
“You know, I got a desk job because I was too fat to be a convincing elf – user stereotypes and all. I thought I would never get to be in a real fairy tale. But it looks like I will be after all. The blacksuits are infiltrating the building as we speak. You had better get going and start causing that fairy tale ending. Here's the big clue: Find the Ring-Maker. He'll be somewhere around the ring building. He can tell you which ring to use to defeat the blacksuits.”
It has been quite a while since the last installment, for which I am truly sorry, but college is both busy and distracting. Now, however, with the summer come, I intend to update with more of my usual promptness, in other words, at least once a month. To refresh your memories, note
Part III
Part II
Part I
The taxi roared over the top of the hill and down the access road. Everyone looked that way, and the blacksuit menacing Nathanael began turning to face it, but he was not fast enough. The cab ran him down and came to a stop over him, rocking from the sudden stop.
“Look, doc,” the cabbie said as the four students dove inside, “I can't be responsible for your friends who stand in the way...holy moses!” he dropped his stogie as he saw the three other blacksuits. The forth stood to his feet just outside the window, grimaced, and popped his neck. There were tread marks up the front of his suit.
“Time for a little vacation, eh?” smiled Nathanael, as the cabbie gunned the cab away. “I'm glad you were so prompt.”
“When did you use the ring?” asked Graybeard.
“I counted to about three after I rubbed it before he appeared,” said Nathanael nonchalantly.
“How does it always get here so fast?” asked Georgie.
“You waited that long?” Graybeard almost shouted.
“We've got more important things to worry about; the only exit this way is behind Carter, and they keep it blocked off,” groaned Benjamin.
“Well, Graybeard, the timing had to be perfect for him to hit the blacksuit. Cabbie? Cabbie...” said Nathanael politely, leaning forward.
The stogie stopped in mid chew.
“What. Doc.” growled the lips.
“I wonder, is there a place where we'll be safe from those blacksuits?”
“Safer than here. You gotta ask to get there, though.”
“I think he just did,” said Graybeard and Georgie at the same time.
“Whatso funny?” muttered the cabbie. He reached up and whacked the meter.
“Hey!” he growled after a minute, and slammed on the brakes. “What's this? Somebody doesn't really want to go. It don't work unless everybody wants to go.”
“Oh, well,” it was Benjamin, long legs folded up in the middle of the back seat. “I just need to be getting back. I've got tests Monday, you know.”
“Benjamin,” said Graybeard quietly.
“Whatever, doc. Hop out now. Anybody else wanna bail?”
“Where exactly are we going?” asked Georgie.
“The repository of magic rings, doc.”
“Benjamin,” said Graybeard a little louder as his roommate clambered over him and out the door.
“So it's another world?” Georgie pressed.
“Yeah, yeah, now make up your minds already.”
“Benjamin, it's Friday. You have all weekend!” Graybeard remonstrated.
“I'd love to come -- you guys know that -- but I just can't; I've got work to do. I haven't studied for the tests at all yet, and...”
“That's a beautiful speech, bub, now have fun,” the cabbie gunned the cab and sped out of sight into the woods, leaving Benjamin in the dust. There was a brief crashing sound as they passed where two metal poles should have blocked the road, and then the engine roared into the distance. Benjamin sighed and began to trudge uphill towards Carter. It was going to be a long evening.
Even Nathanael buckled his seat belt as they squealed off Jupiter Road onto Scenic Highway.
“I never knew a taxi could do that,” commented Georgie, fighting back panic.
Graybeard just gripped the door handle tightly.
The taxi had jumped over the two poles blocking the road.
“Here we go, yous guys, the repository,” sneered the lips, and the cabbie slapped the meter. The winding road in front of them jerked and uprooted itself from the mountain, taking a new course directly toward the sun. They accelerated, leaving quaint houses and pine trees far below. The road itself seemed to be moving too, adding to their speed. Nathanael leaned back comfortably, but his face was a little pale. Graybeard caught a glimpse of the valley below them, and the vibrations in the cab caused him to accidentally rub his ring. They broke the sound barrier in a shock wave of popcorn, and the world they knew was gone, the sunlight reaching out around them to swallow it.
The cabbie grumbled something about after work traffic and swerved, flashing past objects so quickly the students couldn't see what they were. They were on a multi-lane highway, zipping downhill at breakneck speed. They hurtled underneath a sign:
Before they could catch their breath, they decelerated hard, everyone leaning forward in his or her seat, and swerved off and down an exit ramp. They slammed back into their seats as the taxi came to a complete stop at a little stop sign. The cabbie signaled, “first legal thing he's done, I think,” whispered Graybeard to Nathanael.Fairy Tale Center: 4 m-miles
Holiday Character and Tooth Fairy Residences: 2 m-miles
Magic Ring Repository: 1 m-miles
And then, another marvel, they watched a knight in shining armor cross the road. When he was directly in front of them he bobbed his head in their direction, feather-crest dipping over his visor, and continued on his way.
“What are m-miles?” asked Georgie.
“They stutter!” snapped the cabbie, and then he guffawed loudly, guiding the taxi down a winding, forested road.
“Oh yeah?” Graybeard and Nathanael tensed in the backseat as Georgie's voice developed an edge. “Look, buddy,” she continued, “I really appreciate you saving us and driving us around and everything, “really,” her voice lightened for just a moment, “I do,”
“But!” she leaned forward in her seat. “You are going to have to shown us some more respect. I mean, you call that being a servant? You're passing performance with flying colors, but your attitude needs a spanking.” She sat back with a huff, and for a while everyone faced straight ahead. The lips worked on the stogie.
“That last part was a little strong, I'm sorry,” Georgie said in a subdued voice.
“d'mention't,” grumbled the cabbie, and there was another period of silence.
“In case yous guys were wondering,” the cabbie roared suddenly, spinning to address the passengers in the back, “m-miles are magic miles. One of yous's cars wouldn't never make it anywhere's,” turning back, he busied himself adjusting his flatcap.
Graybeard and Nathanael smiled in the back seat.
“Here we are, doc! The Ring Center in the Ring Repository.”
“Oh, how well-designed!” smiled Graybeard. They drove through a tunnel in the side of a circular
building, whole tree trunks supporting the floors above them, and into an open court in the middle. In the very center of the ring-shaped court was a massive, gnarled tree trunk. Walkways connected it to the upper stories of the surrounding building, windows peered out of the trunk and some of the branches, and several thin, metal spires rose through the uppermost branches, reaching towards puffy white clouds in a deep blue sky.
“Ring Center, very clever,” agreed Nathanael.
They got out (“watch the killer insects,” warned the cabbie) and tip-toed their way past scorpions and tarantulas to the door. “Lazy repository workers never get around to collectin'm again after they get sent for” he explained, and led them inside.
A gaping hole in the side of the tree trunk admitted the party and the sunlight. Curving stairs carved into the tree led from polished platform to polished platform. The leaves of the tree gave off a green light, and amber glowed a soft red.
“State the nature of your problem, cabbie,” whined a Brooklyn accent, coming from a female fairy in business casual from behind a desk of mossy bark.
“These users needs asylum, Doris, you know that! Blacksuits are out again.”
“I gotta follow pro-to-cal, cabbie; take 'em to the Pretty Seriously Almost in Charge Boss. Third floor, first platform on the...hey, I'm talkin' ta you!” she shouted as the cabbie brushed past her.
“I know where the Boss is!” retorted the cabbie, and led them up the stairs as her voice echoed behind them “You know it's pro-to-cal.”
“What kind of boss again?” inquired Graybeard as they ascended.
“Right above the Sort of in Charge Boss, and right below the Really and Truly Boss – bureaucracy, pah! You'knows?” said the cabbie.
“Oh yes, we have the same model in most of our businesses,” smirked Nathanael.
They reached the top of the stairs, and the cabbie opened a door into an office.
“But...but...” Georgie protested, staring at the door, or, rather, around it. There was a frame for the door, but no walls around the office.
“I think it makes 'em feel important,” the cabbie said in a forced whisper, and left them standing in front of a large desk.
“So good to see you,” said a portly man from behind the desk, and he stood to greet them. He wore a green elf-hat, red suspenders, and had pointy ears, but he must have been at least six feet tall, and almost as wide. The students shook hands with him respectfully, each relieved when they managed to retrieve their hand from the huge fist that swallowed it.
“I'm Lilliput, Lilliput Jones.”
The students introduced themselves.
“Lilliput?” Georgie whispered to Nathanael, “I thought they were the small ones.”
“Perhaps Swift got it wrong; perhaps his parents had a cruel streak.”
But before the two could decide which was more likely, Lilliput interrupted them with a “Well, I'd love to get to know you, but, down to business. I'm in charge of the Magic Ring Repository, or 'MRR'. We here at MRR make sure that magic rings show up in your world in magical ways, and that, more importantly, they always work to the user's satisfaction. We've been having some trouble lately. The Mean and Evil 'Hood ('MEH') has been sending agents after our ring-runners and trying to follow them back in here. You see, MEH is comprised of all the villains who aren't magical at all. The magical villains are actually not so bad; they give us knowledgeable and resourceful good minor characters a reason to exist, thereby keeping the economy going. But anti-magic villains want to harness our magic, industrialize it, and run us out of business. Since the head of the Fair Fairy Business Bureau came down with a case of Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, MEH has taken the opportunity to use some...er...below-board methods. Anyway, this is a big enough problem that we thought maybe if we brought you all in it would cause the plot to progress to a fairy tale ending in which you defeat the blacksuits against all odds, and we reap the benefits. In other words, we were hoping you wouldn't mind being the protagonists.
A lullaby sounded, and Mr. Jones pulled a cell phone from his suspenders pocket, “excuse me.” He answered it.
“Hello, Jones here. Mmmhmm. A tracking device on the taxi? They just dropped through an artificial dimensional vortex? They're about to zip line agents into the Ring Repository? I see. Thanks. Hmm? No, no that won't be necessary, we can handle it, but Al...Al? Yeah, if you happen to pass the bakery tree run by those elves, get me a half dozen double-fudge wafers, ok? Mmmhmm, they're uncommonly good. Yes, I know about the muffin man; I don't like muffins. Yes, I know where he lives...now stop that, stop that right now, Al, I will not play this game.”
He hung up and looked at them, smiling.
“You know, I got a desk job because I was too fat to be a convincing elf – user stereotypes and all. I thought I would never get to be in a real fairy tale. But it looks like I will be after all. The blacksuits are infiltrating the building as we speak. You had better get going and start causing that fairy tale ending. Here's the big clue: Find the Ring-Maker. He'll be somewhere around the ring building. He can tell you which ring to use to defeat the blacksuits.”
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part III
Dear Readers,
Happy New Year, by the way.
I'm beginning to tire of finding creative but applicable ways of saying "said." I hope you aren't beginning to tire of reading them.
For part I, click here.
Here is part II.
And, of course, part three awaits you below.
Georgiana froze at the door. “Does this count as a time when a girl can get the door for a guy, or is it more...”
“Goodness gracious,” Graybeard exclaimed, slamming the door open for them, “do you really think we have time to discuss the rules of chivalry...”
“I don't know, it just seems like,” Georgie's yell dropped to a hissed whisper as they passed the second set of doors into the library at a run, “it might be even more important at a time like this when things are serious for the men to be...”
Benjamin couldn't help but laugh as they darted up the stairs, feet echoing in the confined space, dodging around two professors deep in conversation. “But that would put you at the back, and you'd be the first one they'd catch!”
“That's right!” exclaimed Georgie, “it's so hard to decide.”
“Friends!” wheezed Nathanael emphatically, “Lend me your ears!”
“What?” snapped Georgie, but she was laughing.
“Which way out?” replied the other.
“Oh! Left here, down the stairs, back door towards Sanderson.”
“Thank you! Now you may continue your argument.”
“No they can't!” huffed Graybeard, “what will we do if they're waiting outside?”
“I'll show them waiting outside,” smiled Nathanael, and he waved his hand as he ran, showing the ring on his finger.
“Oh, Nathanael, I didn't know! Who are you engaged to?” asked Georgie.
They ran in silence for a few moments. A few guffaws slipped from tight lips.
“That was awkward,” Georgie turned red, laughing at herself.
“M'dear,” Nathanael consoled her, as they pounded downstairs to the back door, “this ring is incomparably more agreeable than the variety to which you allude. Allow me to demonstrate.”
He stepped out the door and rubbed the ring.
“All clear for now,” said Benjamin from the corner.
“Not for long; I hear them behind us,” came Graybeard's report from the door.
“Ah, but I hear our ticket to escape!” exclaimed Nathanael, and he had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the bright yellow taxi cut off a truck pulling into the campus, rumbled up the hill, and screeched to a halt in front of the students.
The cabbie was working furiously on a new stogie, and his cap was pulled down flush with his eyes. “Where to doc, and don't take all day deciding this time, I've got places to be.”
“Away!” said Nathanael, hopping into the back.
“This...this is what the ring...this is why the chapel lawn...where are we going to....?” asked Georgie as the others piled in.
“Shotgun, Georgie, and make it quick!” shouted Benjamin. The back door of the library slammed open and two of the men in the suits ran out. At the same time, one emerged around each side of the library.
Georgie wrung her hands, grumbled something about stress, and jumped in beside the cabbie, barely getting her feet in before the cab was squealing forward.
The first thing Georgie saw when she looked up was one of the men in suits running straight at them.
“Look out!” shouted Graybeard, pounding on the cabbie's seatback. The cabbie grimaced, gripping his stogie with his teeth, and spun the wheel, spinning the cab in a cloud of tire smoke and sending it shooting the other way. They took the hill past Sanderson at about thirty, smashed through a shrub into the parking circle, and were already making about fifty when they hit the highway.
Benjamin and Graybeard buckled their seatbelts.
Georgie hyperventilated.
Nathanael folded his gloves and took off his hat.
“Told yous guys I had places to be, didn't I?” grumbled the cabbie as he drove, “Almost got us all killed.”
“Almost got him killed, you mean!” retorted Graybeard.
“Whatchya mean, doc? He wouldn'ta had a scratch. Not those guys.
“What do you mean?” asked Benjamin.
“About the only thing those guys can't handle is garlic. That one woulda peeled my hood like a banana, and you'd still be cryin' for your mommas.”
“Graphic!” Nathanael ran a hand through his hair, then began drumming on the door, watching the landscape hurry by. “I say, where exactly are we going?”
The cabbie slammed on the breaks. “You's the boss.”
“I've got class,” said Benjamin.
“I'm late for work,” admitted Georgie.
“Back to campus, then,” sighed Graybeard, “if you don't mind, that is.”
“You's the boss!” repeated the cabbie, “those guys'll be gone now.”
“Spoil-sports,” whispered Nathanael as the cabbie turned around.
Halfway back to campus, Georgie turned to the Cabbie with a friendly smile. “My name's Georgiana Vurner.”
“I'm so happy for you,” spat the lips.
Benjamin had a coughing fit in the back seat.
“I almost forgot!” said the cabbie as they piled out in Mac circle, glancing suspiciously up at the library. The groundspeople were there, shaking their heads at the tire marks, but no men in black suits.
“You's guys get the frequent user promo:” he grabbed a tin from beneath his seat and popped the lid. Inside were a collection of cigars.
“Oops,” said the Cabbie, and he rummaged for another tin.
This one contained rings.
Benjamin dug around with his hand.
“Come on, come on,” growled the cabbie.
Benjamin selected a ring with some sort of symbol overlaying a banner.
Graybeard took one with a jagged star burst design.
The cabbie slapped the lid back on.
“Hey!” said Georgie. “What about us?”
“Mister hat-and-gloves 'as already got one. One only, that's the rules. And you are no frequent user. You was only here this time. Now see ya!” and he roared away.
“Nice meeting you too,” rumbled Georgie.
The four watched the cab disappear and then Georgie and Nathanael turned their attention to Graybeard and Benjamin.
“Who wants to try theirs first?” asked Georgie.
“You can go, Graybeard,” offered Benjamin.
“Well if you insist so strongly...” Graybeard rubbed his ring. Immediately, a shadow fell over the little group. A rumble started somewhere above them, grew, and turned into a cascading crackling, popping sound. The air was thick with electricity.
Georgie and Benjamin moaned under their breath. Booth opened his umbrella. Graybeard grinned nervously.
“Aaaahh!” screamed Georgie, throwing her hands over her head.
“It's like, a thousand white messengers of...buttery goodness!” laughed Benjamin.
“Manna from heaven!” agreed Graybeard.
Nathanael peeked out from under his umbrella, caught a falling kernel, and chewed it slowly.
“No salt. How disappointing.”
The popcorn storm ended almost as soon as it had began, and covered only a small area. Passing students barely gave it a second glance. Clearly, someone had just dumped a bag of popcorn out their window.
“Well, Benjamin,” sighed Graybeard, “let's see yours.”
Fifteen minutes later they were still trying to get Benjamin's ring to work.
“Weeeee could try rubbing it underwater,” suggested Georgie.
“We tried that while you were on the phone,” sighed Graybeard.
“Oh.”
Nathanael laughed. “I know, maybe it responds to a vocal command. Open Sesame! Ring around the rosy! A gold ring in a pig's snout! Silver bells are ring-ing...” they all stared at the ground. “Well, I'm sure we'll find out what it does someday,” comforted Nathanael. “At least there's still a chance it's better than Graybeard's.”
“His is practical!” retorted Benjamin angrily, but then he grinned, “no more microwave stuff for us!”
“Well, guys, this has been fun, but I'm really late for work,” said Georgie, and they all scattered to their scholarly occupations.
A few minutes later, a golfcart pulled into the campus off the highway. Onboard it sat four figures in dark suits and glasses. Each one placed a strange, wand-like object inside his coat as the cart stopped,
and then they headed off in different directions.
Nathanael was whistling as he finished his day's work in Technology Services and strolled back to Maclellan Hall. It had been a busy but productive day, and he was satisfied. Who wouldn't be, with a magic ring on their finger? As he neared the entrance, he saw a few men of Sutherland poking their heads out the windows, black waterguns at the ready for anyone they wanted to prank.
Benjamin was in his room on the second floor of Mac Hall, sorting books as he prepared to go study. Victorious shouts of laughter from across the hall told him that his fellow Sutherlanders had shot another unsuspecting victim from the window. He ducked across the hall to see who it had been. The guys were draped across the furniture in stitches of laughter. It took Benjamin a good minute to get an explanation out of them.
One started to explain. “We were aiming for a girl, and, and we hit this guy in a black suit.” Benjamin froze. “He was like, administration or something. He whipped off his sunglasses and looked so mad!”
“Where did he go?” asked Benjamin, dead serious.
“To the front of Mac, I guess...why?” but Benjamin was already gone.
As he rounded the corner of the hall, heading for the stairs, the elevator door chimed and slid open. Not one, but two men in black suits and dark glasses gazed through it at him. He crashed through the door into the stairwell, his shaking hands dialing Graybeard's number as he sprinted up to the third floor – Nathanael's floor.
“Graybeard, it's Benjamin; the men in the suits are on the hall; call Georgie, tell her to meet us...to meet us at the road out back. I'm going to get Nathanael.” he flipped his phone shut as he rushed down the hallway. He pounded on Nathanael's locked door, but there was no response.
“Look, I'll be glad to open it...” Nathanael began to joke, walking up behind him.
Benjamin jumped and gasped. “Nathanael, you scared me to death. How'd you get up here?”
“The back stairs, why?”
“The men in the suits...” down the hall, the elevator dinged. Benjamin quietly thanked God for the slow Mac elevators as the doors opened, disgorging the two black figures.
“So much for a quiet evening with Bob Dylan, I suppose,” muttered Nathanael, and they ran the other way, for the back stairwell.
They burst out of the back doors at a run and headed down the steps for the access road, looking around for the others. They were nowhere to be seen.
Nathanael pulled off a glove, “What do you think, should I use it now?”
“We should wait; the cabbie might leave and not come back if we tried to make him stick around for Graybeard and Georgie.”
“We can't wait much longer; those blacksuits are gaining on us.” The two students broke into a run up the access road.
It was at that moment that they heard a call behind them. Graybeard and Georgie were coming along the road from the other direction, not noticing the two blacksuits about to enter the road almost on top of them.
“We're boxed in,” mused Nathanael, as Benjamin hand-motioned frantically, trying to warn the others.
“Now will someone explain why I was so rudely jerked from a stimulating conversation, to kidnap a girl (not that I dislike your company, of course, Miss Vurner)?” began Graybeard.
“Look!” Benjamin pointed with both arms. The blacksuits were spreading out, surrounding them, and they drew short, shiny black wands from their coats.
“What do we do, guys?” whispered Georgie. The four formed a circle, back to back.
“Other than pray?” hissed Graybeard.
“If only I had my staff,” muttered Benjamin.
“Just a little longer...” whispered Nathanael. The blacksuit facing him walked forward, and, with a smirk, extended his wand.
Happy New Year, by the way.
I'm beginning to tire of finding creative but applicable ways of saying "said." I hope you aren't beginning to tire of reading them.
For part I, click here.
Here is part II.
And, of course, part three awaits you below.
Georgiana froze at the door. “Does this count as a time when a girl can get the door for a guy, or is it more...”
“Goodness gracious,” Graybeard exclaimed, slamming the door open for them, “do you really think we have time to discuss the rules of chivalry...”
“I don't know, it just seems like,” Georgie's yell dropped to a hissed whisper as they passed the second set of doors into the library at a run, “it might be even more important at a time like this when things are serious for the men to be...”
Benjamin couldn't help but laugh as they darted up the stairs, feet echoing in the confined space, dodging around two professors deep in conversation. “But that would put you at the back, and you'd be the first one they'd catch!”
“That's right!” exclaimed Georgie, “it's so hard to decide.”
“Friends!” wheezed Nathanael emphatically, “Lend me your ears!”
“What?” snapped Georgie, but she was laughing.
“Which way out?” replied the other.
“Oh! Left here, down the stairs, back door towards Sanderson.”
“Thank you! Now you may continue your argument.”
“No they can't!” huffed Graybeard, “what will we do if they're waiting outside?”
“I'll show them waiting outside,” smiled Nathanael, and he waved his hand as he ran, showing the ring on his finger.
“Oh, Nathanael, I didn't know! Who are you engaged to?” asked Georgie.
They ran in silence for a few moments. A few guffaws slipped from tight lips.
“That was awkward,” Georgie turned red, laughing at herself.
“M'dear,” Nathanael consoled her, as they pounded downstairs to the back door, “this ring is incomparably more agreeable than the variety to which you allude. Allow me to demonstrate.”
He stepped out the door and rubbed the ring.
“All clear for now,” said Benjamin from the corner.
“Not for long; I hear them behind us,” came Graybeard's report from the door.
“Ah, but I hear our ticket to escape!” exclaimed Nathanael, and he had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the bright yellow taxi cut off a truck pulling into the campus, rumbled up the hill, and screeched to a halt in front of the students.
The cabbie was working furiously on a new stogie, and his cap was pulled down flush with his eyes. “Where to doc, and don't take all day deciding this time, I've got places to be.”
“Away!” said Nathanael, hopping into the back.
“This...this is what the ring...this is why the chapel lawn...where are we going to....?” asked Georgie as the others piled in.
“Shotgun, Georgie, and make it quick!” shouted Benjamin. The back door of the library slammed open and two of the men in the suits ran out. At the same time, one emerged around each side of the library.
Georgie wrung her hands, grumbled something about stress, and jumped in beside the cabbie, barely getting her feet in before the cab was squealing forward.
The first thing Georgie saw when she looked up was one of the men in suits running straight at them.
“Look out!” shouted Graybeard, pounding on the cabbie's seatback. The cabbie grimaced, gripping his stogie with his teeth, and spun the wheel, spinning the cab in a cloud of tire smoke and sending it shooting the other way. They took the hill past Sanderson at about thirty, smashed through a shrub into the parking circle, and were already making about fifty when they hit the highway.
Benjamin and Graybeard buckled their seatbelts.
Georgie hyperventilated.
Nathanael folded his gloves and took off his hat.
“Told yous guys I had places to be, didn't I?” grumbled the cabbie as he drove, “Almost got us all killed.”
“Almost got him killed, you mean!” retorted Graybeard.
“Whatchya mean, doc? He wouldn'ta had a scratch. Not those guys.
“What do you mean?” asked Benjamin.
“About the only thing those guys can't handle is garlic. That one woulda peeled my hood like a banana, and you'd still be cryin' for your mommas.”
“Graphic!” Nathanael ran a hand through his hair, then began drumming on the door, watching the landscape hurry by. “I say, where exactly are we going?”
The cabbie slammed on the breaks. “You's the boss.”
“I've got class,” said Benjamin.
“I'm late for work,” admitted Georgie.
“Back to campus, then,” sighed Graybeard, “if you don't mind, that is.”
“You's the boss!” repeated the cabbie, “those guys'll be gone now.”
“Spoil-sports,” whispered Nathanael as the cabbie turned around.
Halfway back to campus, Georgie turned to the Cabbie with a friendly smile. “My name's Georgiana Vurner.”
“I'm so happy for you,” spat the lips.
Benjamin had a coughing fit in the back seat.
“I almost forgot!” said the cabbie as they piled out in Mac circle, glancing suspiciously up at the library. The groundspeople were there, shaking their heads at the tire marks, but no men in black suits.
“You's guys get the frequent user promo:” he grabbed a tin from beneath his seat and popped the lid. Inside were a collection of cigars.
“Oops,” said the Cabbie, and he rummaged for another tin.
This one contained rings.
Benjamin dug around with his hand.
“Come on, come on,” growled the cabbie.
Benjamin selected a ring with some sort of symbol overlaying a banner.
Graybeard took one with a jagged star burst design.
The cabbie slapped the lid back on.
“Hey!” said Georgie. “What about us?”
“Mister hat-and-gloves 'as already got one. One only, that's the rules. And you are no frequent user. You was only here this time. Now see ya!” and he roared away.
“Nice meeting you too,” rumbled Georgie.
The four watched the cab disappear and then Georgie and Nathanael turned their attention to Graybeard and Benjamin.
“Who wants to try theirs first?” asked Georgie.
“You can go, Graybeard,” offered Benjamin.
“Well if you insist so strongly...” Graybeard rubbed his ring. Immediately, a shadow fell over the little group. A rumble started somewhere above them, grew, and turned into a cascading crackling, popping sound. The air was thick with electricity.
Georgie and Benjamin moaned under their breath. Booth opened his umbrella. Graybeard grinned nervously.
“Aaaahh!” screamed Georgie, throwing her hands over her head.
“It's like, a thousand white messengers of...buttery goodness!” laughed Benjamin.
“Manna from heaven!” agreed Graybeard.
Nathanael peeked out from under his umbrella, caught a falling kernel, and chewed it slowly.
“No salt. How disappointing.”
The popcorn storm ended almost as soon as it had began, and covered only a small area. Passing students barely gave it a second glance. Clearly, someone had just dumped a bag of popcorn out their window.
“Well, Benjamin,” sighed Graybeard, “let's see yours.”
Fifteen minutes later they were still trying to get Benjamin's ring to work.
“Weeeee could try rubbing it underwater,” suggested Georgie.
“We tried that while you were on the phone,” sighed Graybeard.
“Oh.”
Nathanael laughed. “I know, maybe it responds to a vocal command. Open Sesame! Ring around the rosy! A gold ring in a pig's snout! Silver bells are ring-ing...” they all stared at the ground. “Well, I'm sure we'll find out what it does someday,” comforted Nathanael. “At least there's still a chance it's better than Graybeard's.”
“His is practical!” retorted Benjamin angrily, but then he grinned, “no more microwave stuff for us!”
“Well, guys, this has been fun, but I'm really late for work,” said Georgie, and they all scattered to their scholarly occupations.
A few minutes later, a golfcart pulled into the campus off the highway. Onboard it sat four figures in dark suits and glasses. Each one placed a strange, wand-like object inside his coat as the cart stopped,
and then they headed off in different directions.
Nathanael was whistling as he finished his day's work in Technology Services and strolled back to Maclellan Hall. It had been a busy but productive day, and he was satisfied. Who wouldn't be, with a magic ring on their finger? As he neared the entrance, he saw a few men of Sutherland poking their heads out the windows, black waterguns at the ready for anyone they wanted to prank.
Benjamin was in his room on the second floor of Mac Hall, sorting books as he prepared to go study. Victorious shouts of laughter from across the hall told him that his fellow Sutherlanders had shot another unsuspecting victim from the window. He ducked across the hall to see who it had been. The guys were draped across the furniture in stitches of laughter. It took Benjamin a good minute to get an explanation out of them.
One started to explain. “We were aiming for a girl, and, and we hit this guy in a black suit.” Benjamin froze. “He was like, administration or something. He whipped off his sunglasses and looked so mad!”
“Where did he go?” asked Benjamin, dead serious.
“To the front of Mac, I guess...why?” but Benjamin was already gone.
As he rounded the corner of the hall, heading for the stairs, the elevator door chimed and slid open. Not one, but two men in black suits and dark glasses gazed through it at him. He crashed through the door into the stairwell, his shaking hands dialing Graybeard's number as he sprinted up to the third floor – Nathanael's floor.
“Graybeard, it's Benjamin; the men in the suits are on the hall; call Georgie, tell her to meet us...to meet us at the road out back. I'm going to get Nathanael.” he flipped his phone shut as he rushed down the hallway. He pounded on Nathanael's locked door, but there was no response.
“Look, I'll be glad to open it...” Nathanael began to joke, walking up behind him.
Benjamin jumped and gasped. “Nathanael, you scared me to death. How'd you get up here?”
“The back stairs, why?”
“The men in the suits...” down the hall, the elevator dinged. Benjamin quietly thanked God for the slow Mac elevators as the doors opened, disgorging the two black figures.
“So much for a quiet evening with Bob Dylan, I suppose,” muttered Nathanael, and they ran the other way, for the back stairwell.
They burst out of the back doors at a run and headed down the steps for the access road, looking around for the others. They were nowhere to be seen.
Nathanael pulled off a glove, “What do you think, should I use it now?”
“We should wait; the cabbie might leave and not come back if we tried to make him stick around for Graybeard and Georgie.”
“We can't wait much longer; those blacksuits are gaining on us.” The two students broke into a run up the access road.
It was at that moment that they heard a call behind them. Graybeard and Georgie were coming along the road from the other direction, not noticing the two blacksuits about to enter the road almost on top of them.
“We're boxed in,” mused Nathanael, as Benjamin hand-motioned frantically, trying to warn the others.
“Now will someone explain why I was so rudely jerked from a stimulating conversation, to kidnap a girl (not that I dislike your company, of course, Miss Vurner)?” began Graybeard.
“Look!” Benjamin pointed with both arms. The blacksuits were spreading out, surrounding them, and they drew short, shiny black wands from their coats.
“What do we do, guys?” whispered Georgie. The four formed a circle, back to back.
“Other than pray?” hissed Graybeard.
“If only I had my staff,” muttered Benjamin.
“Just a little longer...” whispered Nathanael. The blacksuit facing him walked forward, and, with a smirk, extended his wand.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part II
Dear Readers,
It is a truth, and not a sad one, that I too must live out my life, as do my characters. The sad part is when my life does not involve recounting theirs. If I had nothing else to do but write, this would have been posted long ago. But if I never did anything but write, I would have nothing to write about. So, with that convoluted excuse for the delay, please enjoy this second segment. To see the first installment, click here The rest, I truly hope, will follow quickly on its heels.
"I suppose it was about time they took me away," muttered Nathanael, as the motor of the cab rumbled, interrupting the crows in their good-mornings, and sending echoes off the chapel walls. Students across the lawn stared in surprise, but a few were already turning away to hurry on to their classes. Stranger things had happened.
"Excuse me?" said Benjamin after a moment.
"You're excused," murmured Nathanael, pacing back and forth behind the other two, taking off his hat to run a gloved hand through his hair.
"What's the matter? Don't you's guys know where you're headed?" the lips spat out from around the stogie. "If so, please, say so; I 'aven't got all day, y'know."
"I think you've made some mistake," stammered Graybeard.
"No! Wait!" shouted Nathanael, clapping his hat back on his head and stepping forward.
"Where exactly can you take us?"
The face scrunched itself up even more, almost swallowing the stogie in cheek and chin.
"Where exactly can you pay for, doc?"
"Rates?" inquired Nathanael casually, drawing out his wallet, his umbrella hanging in the crook of his right elbow. But in his other hand the ring still lay, and he played with it as he flipped open the wallet.
"Nathanael!" interrupted Benjamin, "what...?"
"Who you trying to fool, doc?" asked the cabbie. "That ring'll get you's guys wherever you wanna go."
"Then Sanderson, good man, and make it quick; we're late for class." Nathanael opened the rear door and turned, motioning his friends inside.
"You're joking," said Graybeard flatly.
"You're late for class," tempted Nathanael.
Benjamin glanced around, shrugged, and dove into the cab. "Anyway, why not?" he laughed, and stuck his head back out to grin at Graybeard. "Come on!"
"For Pete's sake!" laughed Graybeard, but he followed Benjamin into the cab. Nathanael hopped in, compressing the other two, and slammed the door. "Drive on!" he exclaimed, tapping his umbrella on the back of the driver's seat.
"Don't get prissy, doc," came the reply, and the cab leaped forward, spewing turf behind it.
"Oh! Drive carefully or you'll tear up the lawn!" entreated Nathanael, but to no avail. ("What'd'ya think this is, landscaping service?" grumbled the cabbie.)
It took perhaps thirty seconds to cross the lawn, squeeze past the library, and arrive at Sanderson Hall. The three students piled out, Benjamin turning red as he noticed others staring at them.
"Come on!" he whispered, tugging on Nathanael's jacket-sleeve.
"Well! Thank you!" said Nathanael, leaning down to speak into the cabbie's window.
"D'mention't," the cabbie revved the engine.
"Any chance you could wait around for an hour and...um...pick us up?" ventured Nathanael, throwing his arms into the air in a gesture of wild speculation, the ring still in one hand.
The cabbie rolled his eyes, and, removing his stogie, leaned out the window.
"This is a cab, bub, not a limo. See ya." And with a roar of the old engine, he was gone, dropping off the curb at the bottom of the hill and squealing onto Scenic Highway.
"None too soon; let's get inside," said Graybeard, grabbing Nathanael by the shoulder with one arm and motioning towards an approaching staff golf cart with the other. The three entered the building and rushed to their respective classes, hoping no one had recognized them in the cab. Nathanael, as he removed his gloves, dropped the ring into one of them.
“Gentlemen, I have let fall the proverbial legume side dish,” grinned Graybeard as they regrouped in Sanderson lobby after class.
“Spilled the beans?” Nathanael forced a chuckle, nodding his chin at his friend, “that's terrible.”
“Yes, I ought to have said it,” laughed Benjamin, and then, speaking past Graybeard, “Georgiana Vurner! What are you up to?”
“I think she's the one upon which our friend let fall...” began Nathanael.
“Let's go take a look at the chapel lawn!” interrupted Georgie, “I want to see the wrathful looks on the faces of the ground's team,” her whole face contributed a huge smile and she bounced, hands clasped in front of her, but then suddenly her hands and face fell, “this makes me sad, though, guys. You'll be doing so much Practical Service to make up for it I'll never get to see you anymore.”
“I assure you, we had nothing to do with it, m'dear,” said Nathanael, at the same time ramming through the difficult Sanderson doors and motioning them on with his umbrella. “It was entirely due to the cabbie's driving.”
“And by the way, Nathanael?” said Georgie as they exited the building, “what you were about to say about Graybeard spilling beans on me is a little grose.”
The walk from Sanderson to the chapel lawn was a short one.
“I've got to be in the library for work anyway,” noted Georgie, “this will be...oh...my...goodness!”
She had been correct in her prediction of the groundspeople's dispositions. They mulled about beside their maintenance cart, shaking their fuming heads, as several men in suits examined the tracks and conversed with each other. The cab had torn four deep swaths through the sod all the way across the lawn. Pieces of turf were lying everywhere.
“Maybe they'll pay us for aerating, but somehow I don't think so,” murmured Benjamin.
Graybeard sighed. “Why did I get into the cab?”
“Chin up,” said Nathanael, his voice, for once, almost serious, “they don't know it was us, yet.”
“Are you sure about that?” Georgie giggled nervously, “because they're coming this way.”
“What?” gasped Benjamin.
It was only too true. The men in the suits were walking, four abreast, straight for the four friends. There was no one else near them; the men must have been told who it was rode the cab across the lawn.
“Since when does the administration wear sunglasses?” asked Georgie, backing towards the library door.
“Do you recognize any of them?” Graybeard asked suddenly, sharply.
The others replied in the negative and began backing with Georgie.
“Guys?” whispered Georgie, “are they running at us?”
“Booth, the ring!” shouted Graybeard.
“No, no time,” snapped Benjamin. The men were almost to them, coattails flying in the breeze, polished black shoes tossing dew with each purposeful stride.
It is a truth, and not a sad one, that I too must live out my life, as do my characters. The sad part is when my life does not involve recounting theirs. If I had nothing else to do but write, this would have been posted long ago. But if I never did anything but write, I would have nothing to write about. So, with that convoluted excuse for the delay, please enjoy this second segment. To see the first installment, click here The rest, I truly hope, will follow quickly on its heels.
"I suppose it was about time they took me away," muttered Nathanael, as the motor of the cab rumbled, interrupting the crows in their good-mornings, and sending echoes off the chapel walls. Students across the lawn stared in surprise, but a few were already turning away to hurry on to their classes. Stranger things had happened.
"Excuse me?" said Benjamin after a moment.
"You're excused," murmured Nathanael, pacing back and forth behind the other two, taking off his hat to run a gloved hand through his hair.
"What's the matter? Don't you's guys know where you're headed?" the lips spat out from around the stogie. "If so, please, say so; I 'aven't got all day, y'know."
"I think you've made some mistake," stammered Graybeard.
"No! Wait!" shouted Nathanael, clapping his hat back on his head and stepping forward.
"Where exactly can you take us?"
The face scrunched itself up even more, almost swallowing the stogie in cheek and chin.
"Where exactly can you pay for, doc?"
"Rates?" inquired Nathanael casually, drawing out his wallet, his umbrella hanging in the crook of his right elbow. But in his other hand the ring still lay, and he played with it as he flipped open the wallet.
"Nathanael!" interrupted Benjamin, "what...?"
"Who you trying to fool, doc?" asked the cabbie. "That ring'll get you's guys wherever you wanna go."
"Then Sanderson, good man, and make it quick; we're late for class." Nathanael opened the rear door and turned, motioning his friends inside.
"You're joking," said Graybeard flatly.
"You're late for class," tempted Nathanael.
Benjamin glanced around, shrugged, and dove into the cab. "Anyway, why not?" he laughed, and stuck his head back out to grin at Graybeard. "Come on!"
"For Pete's sake!" laughed Graybeard, but he followed Benjamin into the cab. Nathanael hopped in, compressing the other two, and slammed the door. "Drive on!" he exclaimed, tapping his umbrella on the back of the driver's seat.
"Don't get prissy, doc," came the reply, and the cab leaped forward, spewing turf behind it.
"Oh! Drive carefully or you'll tear up the lawn!" entreated Nathanael, but to no avail. ("What'd'ya think this is, landscaping service?" grumbled the cabbie.)
It took perhaps thirty seconds to cross the lawn, squeeze past the library, and arrive at Sanderson Hall. The three students piled out, Benjamin turning red as he noticed others staring at them.
"Come on!" he whispered, tugging on Nathanael's jacket-sleeve.
"Well! Thank you!" said Nathanael, leaning down to speak into the cabbie's window.
"D'mention't," the cabbie revved the engine.
"Any chance you could wait around for an hour and...um...pick us up?" ventured Nathanael, throwing his arms into the air in a gesture of wild speculation, the ring still in one hand.
The cabbie rolled his eyes, and, removing his stogie, leaned out the window.
"This is a cab, bub, not a limo. See ya." And with a roar of the old engine, he was gone, dropping off the curb at the bottom of the hill and squealing onto Scenic Highway.
"None too soon; let's get inside," said Graybeard, grabbing Nathanael by the shoulder with one arm and motioning towards an approaching staff golf cart with the other. The three entered the building and rushed to their respective classes, hoping no one had recognized them in the cab. Nathanael, as he removed his gloves, dropped the ring into one of them.
“Gentlemen, I have let fall the proverbial legume side dish,” grinned Graybeard as they regrouped in Sanderson lobby after class.
“Spilled the beans?” Nathanael forced a chuckle, nodding his chin at his friend, “that's terrible.”
“Yes, I ought to have said it,” laughed Benjamin, and then, speaking past Graybeard, “Georgiana Vurner! What are you up to?”
“I think she's the one upon which our friend let fall...” began Nathanael.
“Let's go take a look at the chapel lawn!” interrupted Georgie, “I want to see the wrathful looks on the faces of the ground's team,” her whole face contributed a huge smile and she bounced, hands clasped in front of her, but then suddenly her hands and face fell, “this makes me sad, though, guys. You'll be doing so much Practical Service to make up for it I'll never get to see you anymore.”
“I assure you, we had nothing to do with it, m'dear,” said Nathanael, at the same time ramming through the difficult Sanderson doors and motioning them on with his umbrella. “It was entirely due to the cabbie's driving.”
“And by the way, Nathanael?” said Georgie as they exited the building, “what you were about to say about Graybeard spilling beans on me is a little grose.”
The walk from Sanderson to the chapel lawn was a short one.
“I've got to be in the library for work anyway,” noted Georgie, “this will be...oh...my...goodness!”
She had been correct in her prediction of the groundspeople's dispositions. They mulled about beside their maintenance cart, shaking their fuming heads, as several men in suits examined the tracks and conversed with each other. The cab had torn four deep swaths through the sod all the way across the lawn. Pieces of turf were lying everywhere.
“Maybe they'll pay us for aerating, but somehow I don't think so,” murmured Benjamin.
Graybeard sighed. “Why did I get into the cab?”
“Chin up,” said Nathanael, his voice, for once, almost serious, “they don't know it was us, yet.”
“Are you sure about that?” Georgie giggled nervously, “because they're coming this way.”
“What?” gasped Benjamin.
It was only too true. The men in the suits were walking, four abreast, straight for the four friends. There was no one else near them; the men must have been told who it was rode the cab across the lawn.
“Since when does the administration wear sunglasses?” asked Georgie, backing towards the library door.
“Do you recognize any of them?” Graybeard asked suddenly, sharply.
The others replied in the negative and began backing with Georgie.
“Guys?” whispered Georgie, “are they running at us?”
“Booth, the ring!” shouted Graybeard.
“No, no time,” snapped Benjamin. The men were almost to them, coattails flying in the breeze, polished black shoes tossing dew with each purposeful stride.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
In The King's Court
Dear Readers,
Below you will find the next in my series of self-plagiarisms. Written, again, for my introductory English composition course in the spring of 2006, this is probably my favorite paper of the semester simply due to its personal significance to me. Enjoy.
I have not seen an abundance of "turning points" and epiphanies in the course of my life. For the most part, I have lived in happy monotony, working and playing, thinking and sleeping; even the occasional surprise or crisis has been picayune -- a flat tire, a surprise party, a lost paper, or a broken bone. It took God Himself to drive home the idea of a turning point to me, at the age of nine, as I sat in tears at the end of a sermon, wondering why I had not understood how amazing God was before. Even this event had a string of mundane occurrences leading up to it. So can say I was surprised when two hours spent pecking away at the keyboard in our den changed how I wrote, dramatically and permanently; however, I cannot say I was surprised that there was a lifetime of experience and instruction behind this event.
It began with my parents reading me bedtime stories when I was but a little tyke, buried under the covers in body but journeying to far away places and adventures in spirit. If I sound like the advertisement on a Pizza Hut box to read to your children, so be it; it happened.
My parents have been reading to me since I was born -- they have not stopped yet! I grew up on Lewis, Verne, and the Bernstein's; dreamed of space voyages, unicorns, and small town mysteries; and even survived Moby Dick, lounging in my dad's study and watching my sister fall asleep. I learned words I could not yet pronounce, heard of places I was not sure existed, and packed away enough stories and characters in my head to last me a lifetime. I learned to take words listened to and turn them into ideas of people and places.
From ideas came images of the mind produced by one of my greatest pleasures: "pretending." I cannot count the times I have been surprised in my yard by a neighbor or family member, caught in the act of reliving stories I had heard, or crafting new ones. I wonder exactly what they thought I was doing, running around, waving my arms in the air, humming and talking to myself. Pretending was my method of writing stories from the time I could walk until the fall of 2003. I needed neither paper nor pen, grammar nor form. I lived the stories in real time, played all the parts, and lost myself in the adventure.
The motivation to write my first full-length story came from a writing course my parents signed me up for. Learn to Write the Novel Way was its name, and that was exactly what I did. It was nothing new for me to think up a story, but the knowledge that I would spend an entire year writing it down for all to see added nervous anticipation to my efforts. I wrote up the initial plot on half a page, entitled "A Novel Idea." It was not, actually. The story took place in seventeenth century England and the Caribbean. An aged admiral, decorated for his negotiation skills, is dispatched in command of a refitted merchant vessel to neutralize a pirate group acting under the British flag. I plotted out fourteen chapters, originated characters, and then prepared myself for the great moment -- the moment when I would actually begin to write the story.
I set apart a morning in which to write the first five pages. It was, thankfully for me, a sunny day. I think best in brilliant, unadulterated sunshine. Chapter outline in hand, I sat at the computer desk downstairs, fired up Word, and, a little giddy, began.
In some ways, it was like scuffing around on the front drive, pretending. But now I could go back after each sentence and live that moment of the story again. The story pulled me in, and the knowledge that it would receive a grade gave me caution. I described the scene carefully and thoroughly. I introduced Admiral Hambly to my imaginary reader with all dignity, yet with all the visual reality I could muster.
What I described was a scene symbolic of the turning point those two hours were to me. The admiral "strode" (I felt very proud of myself for using that word) down a corridor with his dignified fellows, soft red carpet under his feet, just as I had made the journey through stately pages and dreams in the company of my family. Soldiers at the end of the hall saluted the dignitaries and swung open the doors, revealing, to Admiral Hambly, the court of King Charles II, to me, a similar great chamber, full of great yet flawed people communicating desperately important truths. Hambly and I were there to join them, there to try our tongue and pen at their own game, and see if we could make a difference.
Ironically, what Hambly had to say was not so very important. And, by the end of the book, he almost despairs, seeing how useless his life has been. Regardless of this warning sign, I sat, at the end of my first two hours and five pages, my fingers aching and my hands quivering from excitement, knowing that my life had changed for good. I had begun to learn in those first two hours the beauty of description, the centrality of character, and the necessity of plot in a "good" story. Familiarity caused me to lose some of my excitement and caution in future chapters and books. I must fight for them now every time I write. I understand more and more that, if I am going to write, I had better have something important to say, and say it well. There are already too many cheap ideas and cheap deliveries.
But I learned something in those two hours that I hope will never leave me. I knew already how to translate words spoken into thoughts and ideas. I had discovered and refined already how to take those thoughts and ideas and make them sounds and images in my mind. Finally, that morning, I learned how to capture sounds and images in words, completing the cycle. I was equipped to begin making what had, in many ways, made me.
If I hold to the Truth I first learned in the second row at church, in my first epiphany, and work at conveying it, I can do lasting good with what I learned in The King's Court.
Below you will find the next in my series of self-plagiarisms. Written, again, for my introductory English composition course in the spring of 2006, this is probably my favorite paper of the semester simply due to its personal significance to me. Enjoy.
I have not seen an abundance of "turning points" and epiphanies in the course of my life. For the most part, I have lived in happy monotony, working and playing, thinking and sleeping; even the occasional surprise or crisis has been picayune -- a flat tire, a surprise party, a lost paper, or a broken bone. It took God Himself to drive home the idea of a turning point to me, at the age of nine, as I sat in tears at the end of a sermon, wondering why I had not understood how amazing God was before. Even this event had a string of mundane occurrences leading up to it. So can say I was surprised when two hours spent pecking away at the keyboard in our den changed how I wrote, dramatically and permanently; however, I cannot say I was surprised that there was a lifetime of experience and instruction behind this event.
It began with my parents reading me bedtime stories when I was but a little tyke, buried under the covers in body but journeying to far away places and adventures in spirit. If I sound like the advertisement on a Pizza Hut box to read to your children, so be it; it happened.
My parents have been reading to me since I was born -- they have not stopped yet! I grew up on Lewis, Verne, and the Bernstein's; dreamed of space voyages, unicorns, and small town mysteries; and even survived Moby Dick, lounging in my dad's study and watching my sister fall asleep. I learned words I could not yet pronounce, heard of places I was not sure existed, and packed away enough stories and characters in my head to last me a lifetime. I learned to take words listened to and turn them into ideas of people and places.
From ideas came images of the mind produced by one of my greatest pleasures: "pretending." I cannot count the times I have been surprised in my yard by a neighbor or family member, caught in the act of reliving stories I had heard, or crafting new ones. I wonder exactly what they thought I was doing, running around, waving my arms in the air, humming and talking to myself. Pretending was my method of writing stories from the time I could walk until the fall of 2003. I needed neither paper nor pen, grammar nor form. I lived the stories in real time, played all the parts, and lost myself in the adventure.
The motivation to write my first full-length story came from a writing course my parents signed me up for. Learn to Write the Novel Way was its name, and that was exactly what I did. It was nothing new for me to think up a story, but the knowledge that I would spend an entire year writing it down for all to see added nervous anticipation to my efforts. I wrote up the initial plot on half a page, entitled "A Novel Idea." It was not, actually. The story took place in seventeenth century England and the Caribbean. An aged admiral, decorated for his negotiation skills, is dispatched in command of a refitted merchant vessel to neutralize a pirate group acting under the British flag. I plotted out fourteen chapters, originated characters, and then prepared myself for the great moment -- the moment when I would actually begin to write the story.
I set apart a morning in which to write the first five pages. It was, thankfully for me, a sunny day. I think best in brilliant, unadulterated sunshine. Chapter outline in hand, I sat at the computer desk downstairs, fired up Word, and, a little giddy, began.
In some ways, it was like scuffing around on the front drive, pretending. But now I could go back after each sentence and live that moment of the story again. The story pulled me in, and the knowledge that it would receive a grade gave me caution. I described the scene carefully and thoroughly. I introduced Admiral Hambly to my imaginary reader with all dignity, yet with all the visual reality I could muster.
What I described was a scene symbolic of the turning point those two hours were to me. The admiral "strode" (I felt very proud of myself for using that word) down a corridor with his dignified fellows, soft red carpet under his feet, just as I had made the journey through stately pages and dreams in the company of my family. Soldiers at the end of the hall saluted the dignitaries and swung open the doors, revealing, to Admiral Hambly, the court of King Charles II, to me, a similar great chamber, full of great yet flawed people communicating desperately important truths. Hambly and I were there to join them, there to try our tongue and pen at their own game, and see if we could make a difference.
Ironically, what Hambly had to say was not so very important. And, by the end of the book, he almost despairs, seeing how useless his life has been. Regardless of this warning sign, I sat, at the end of my first two hours and five pages, my fingers aching and my hands quivering from excitement, knowing that my life had changed for good. I had begun to learn in those first two hours the beauty of description, the centrality of character, and the necessity of plot in a "good" story. Familiarity caused me to lose some of my excitement and caution in future chapters and books. I must fight for them now every time I write. I understand more and more that, if I am going to write, I had better have something important to say, and say it well. There are already too many cheap ideas and cheap deliveries.
But I learned something in those two hours that I hope will never leave me. I knew already how to translate words spoken into thoughts and ideas. I had discovered and refined already how to take those thoughts and ideas and make them sounds and images in my mind. Finally, that morning, I learned how to capture sounds and images in words, completing the cycle. I was equipped to begin making what had, in many ways, made me.
If I hold to the Truth I first learned in the second row at church, in my first epiphany, and work at conveying it, I can do lasting good with what I learned in The King's Court.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Economic and Social Safety Progress Report
Dear Readers,
In an effort to free up more time for my scholarly vocation, I have, among other measures, devised a way to update my blog without writing anything. I will "self-plagiarize" by posting past pieces of prose. More specifically, I will post what I hope to be enjoyable and rather open-ended essays I was assigned in the Spring of 2006. This, the first installment, was my effort at a satire. Enjoy:
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present the North American Provincial Legislature for Economic and Social Safety with my comparison report concerning the last two years, 2344 and 2345. The progress achieved in the arenas of work reduction, technological advancement, safety process refinement, and job creation are therein detailed, showing dramatic improvement continuing the overall trend towards excellence. In addition, physical, social, and mental health is considered in detail. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the report contains several guiding cautions for the legislature's benefit. For the purposes of simplification, I will now summarize the report, giving the final figures for each area, as well as examples of progress.
On the forefront of work reduction are the technological applications committees. In 2345, these committees introduced advancements in robotics, transportation, and interface controls such that the average citizen was saved six percent of his or her work time, compared to a four percent reduction in 2344. The average citizen now spends only five percent of his or her time carrying out his or her occupation. Following are brief descriptions of a few of the technological advancements made in 2345. Robotic artificial intelligence and self-maintenance have been improved dramatically. Touch-activated interfaces have been made five times more sensitive to pressure. Thinkpads, such as the one used to format this presentation, transpose brain waves directly into text. Personal transport systems are safer, faster, and smarter. Again, these examples are but a few of 2345's advancements.
Safety process improvement committees report that, with new, standardized, biannually-updated safety registration forms, required monthly from all citizens, personal injuries have decreased by point-four percent. New assistance robots have put answers within reach of every citizen compiling these forms. The average citizen spent three percent more time on safety forms last year, for a total of only twenty-four percent of his or her total time.
Occupational opportunity committees report a point-three percent increase in job openings gained last year, with a gain of forty-thousand job opportunities for a loss of only twenty-seven thousand. Of these new occupational opportunities, forty percent were in government and supervision venues. Another forty percent were in health research and physical fitness training. Six of the remaining ten percent were in the venue of education.
Health and physical fitness committees report that the average citizen spent fifty-one percent of his or her total time researching for personal health and exercising for physical fitness. Dieting technology research introduced fourteen new dieting techniques last year, and nutritional manufacturers produced innumerable new foods. These foods contained less nutritionally harmful contents and new biodrugs for only a slightly higher price per ounce, and were either generalized to appeal to the most dieting plans, or specialized for a specific plan. The most popular new food last year was H-Two O's, which requires only the addition of water to create a bowl full of milk and healthy cereal. As a result of these advancements, the average citizen gained only four pounds last year, compared to a six point-three pound gain in 2344.
Social interactment and leisure time requirements remained steady in 2344; however, 2345 showed a new trend. Sleep reduction research yielded new therapies and drugs which reduced the average citizen's sleep requirement to only seven percent, allowing the final thirteen percent total time to be spent in social interaction and relaxation. Included in my report are some examples of sleep replacement technology, such as hypnotist robots and chemically-modified-caffeine misting implants.
Now, Mr. Speaker, with all this progress, there are still some areas of concern. Due, according to the psychology committees, to increased responsibility as each citizen is entrusted with the management of a larger portion of his or her country's robotic workforce (in order to allow further extra-terrestrial colonization), the average citizen was eight percent more depressed, four percent more likely to be obese, and nine percent more likely to take his or her own life last year. These figures represent an increase of approximately one percent in the growth of each of these areas compared to 2344. The committee on mental and physical well-being recommends more research into satisfaction-inducing drugs, genetic therapy to reduce the human body's storage of fat, sleep reduction to allow more free time, and work reduction to cut down on fatigue.
Finally, the committee on the North American Colony to Mars reports that last year's selection of colonial citizens has proven to be superb. Though suffering from dietary and general food shortages and forced because of power shortages and lack of repair equipment to take on ninety percent of the robotic workforce's duties, our brave colonists are physically fit and mentally healthy. The committee and the colonists themselves urge the legislature to allocate more robotics, food, and biodrugs to the colony with "haste brought on by appreciation for our brave citizens' work."
To conclude, Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to see the increase in progress last year, especially in its across-the-board nature. The legislature needs no reminder, I am sure, to push for better research in responsibility strain reduction and colony supply allocation. With a continued passion for progress, this nation can realize a brighter, happier future.
In an effort to free up more time for my scholarly vocation, I have, among other measures, devised a way to update my blog without writing anything. I will "self-plagiarize" by posting past pieces of prose. More specifically, I will post what I hope to be enjoyable and rather open-ended essays I was assigned in the Spring of 2006. This, the first installment, was my effort at a satire. Enjoy:
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present the North American Provincial Legislature for Economic and Social Safety with my comparison report concerning the last two years, 2344 and 2345. The progress achieved in the arenas of work reduction, technological advancement, safety process refinement, and job creation are therein detailed, showing dramatic improvement continuing the overall trend towards excellence. In addition, physical, social, and mental health is considered in detail. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the report contains several guiding cautions for the legislature's benefit. For the purposes of simplification, I will now summarize the report, giving the final figures for each area, as well as examples of progress.
On the forefront of work reduction are the technological applications committees. In 2345, these committees introduced advancements in robotics, transportation, and interface controls such that the average citizen was saved six percent of his or her work time, compared to a four percent reduction in 2344. The average citizen now spends only five percent of his or her time carrying out his or her occupation. Following are brief descriptions of a few of the technological advancements made in 2345. Robotic artificial intelligence and self-maintenance have been improved dramatically. Touch-activated interfaces have been made five times more sensitive to pressure. Thinkpads, such as the one used to format this presentation, transpose brain waves directly into text. Personal transport systems are safer, faster, and smarter. Again, these examples are but a few of 2345's advancements.
Safety process improvement committees report that, with new, standardized, biannually-updated safety registration forms, required monthly from all citizens, personal injuries have decreased by point-four percent. New assistance robots have put answers within reach of every citizen compiling these forms. The average citizen spent three percent more time on safety forms last year, for a total of only twenty-four percent of his or her total time.
Occupational opportunity committees report a point-three percent increase in job openings gained last year, with a gain of forty-thousand job opportunities for a loss of only twenty-seven thousand. Of these new occupational opportunities, forty percent were in government and supervision venues. Another forty percent were in health research and physical fitness training. Six of the remaining ten percent were in the venue of education.
Health and physical fitness committees report that the average citizen spent fifty-one percent of his or her total time researching for personal health and exercising for physical fitness. Dieting technology research introduced fourteen new dieting techniques last year, and nutritional manufacturers produced innumerable new foods. These foods contained less nutritionally harmful contents and new biodrugs for only a slightly higher price per ounce, and were either generalized to appeal to the most dieting plans, or specialized for a specific plan. The most popular new food last year was H-Two O's, which requires only the addition of water to create a bowl full of milk and healthy cereal. As a result of these advancements, the average citizen gained only four pounds last year, compared to a six point-three pound gain in 2344.
Social interactment and leisure time requirements remained steady in 2344; however, 2345 showed a new trend. Sleep reduction research yielded new therapies and drugs which reduced the average citizen's sleep requirement to only seven percent, allowing the final thirteen percent total time to be spent in social interaction and relaxation. Included in my report are some examples of sleep replacement technology, such as hypnotist robots and chemically-modified-caffeine misting implants.
Now, Mr. Speaker, with all this progress, there are still some areas of concern. Due, according to the psychology committees, to increased responsibility as each citizen is entrusted with the management of a larger portion of his or her country's robotic workforce (in order to allow further extra-terrestrial colonization), the average citizen was eight percent more depressed, four percent more likely to be obese, and nine percent more likely to take his or her own life last year. These figures represent an increase of approximately one percent in the growth of each of these areas compared to 2344. The committee on mental and physical well-being recommends more research into satisfaction-inducing drugs, genetic therapy to reduce the human body's storage of fat, sleep reduction to allow more free time, and work reduction to cut down on fatigue.
Finally, the committee on the North American Colony to Mars reports that last year's selection of colonial citizens has proven to be superb. Though suffering from dietary and general food shortages and forced because of power shortages and lack of repair equipment to take on ninety percent of the robotic workforce's duties, our brave colonists are physically fit and mentally healthy. The committee and the colonists themselves urge the legislature to allocate more robotics, food, and biodrugs to the colony with "haste brought on by appreciation for our brave citizens' work."
To conclude, Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to see the increase in progress last year, especially in its across-the-board nature. The legislature needs no reminder, I am sure, to push for better research in responsibility strain reduction and colony supply allocation. With a continued passion for progress, this nation can realize a brighter, happier future.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part I
Dear Readers,
it is my pleasure to bring you the beginning of another Adventure of Benjamin Dobbs, this time guest-starring, as indicated by the title, Nathanael Booth. The story takes place on the campus of Covenant College in ('on' is more accurate) Lookout Mountain, Georgia. The college is real. So are many of the characters. Alas, the ring of power has yet to be discovered. Please forgive unintended inconsistencies with reality. The story is in no way crafted to offend, but to entertain. Enjoy.
"There are two great questions in college, both crude renditions of that historic interrogative, 'to be or not to be?'" announced Nathanael Booth, standing at the head of the table, and all eyes were upon him as he continued.
"The first is, will my classes ever be of any practical value in the real world. The answer to that question is an intriguing mix of yes and no -- yes, because the real world is just as eager to demand pointless exercises and trials as college, and no, because no one really needs to know the name of our neighboring galaxies.
The second question is, do I starve or eat Graphgood's? To that question, alas, I still seek the answer. But today, I eat."
Nathanael set his loaded tray down on the table, sloshing a few drops of cappuccino into his egg-beaters, and seated himself carefully, his hat and coat already resting on the back of the chair. Breakfast in the Great Hall was always an adventure of sorts, prepared as it was by the dining service Graphgoods. One never knew exactly what to expect.
"Betelgeuse -- or is that a star?" murmured Benjamin Dobbs, as he attempted to spread grape jam onto a half a biscuit, and succeeded in mutilating it. "Anyway, I would certainly like to go there, and you can't like to go someplace without knowing what it's called."
"My dear sir, I most certainly can. If I wish to go to a place of rest and relaxation, I don't need to know that it's called 'my suite with Bob Dylan playing on the stereo.'"
"But could you find that place without its name?" asked Graybeard, engaging in melee combat with his hashbrowns.
"Ah! Would not a rose, by any other name, smell as sweet?" smiled Nathanael.
"Practically speaking, though, if you didn't know it was called 'rose,' you could never get one to smell," replied Graybeard, and they were off, two philosophy majors flexing their intellectual muscles. Nathanael never allowed himself to sound completely in earnest, always testing the boundaries and making no assumptions. Graybeard, eager and happy, with fluent speech rebounded from each attack to a sortie of his own. Benjamin ate his bacon and tossed in the occasional amateur fallacy that his friends graciously chose to ignore rather than squelch.
The few minutes of breakfast soon fled, and the three friends ended the conversation only to scarf down the last few bites they could before hurrying to class.
"Aack! What a place to keep a...a." Nathanael spat something from his mouth and fished it off of his tray, even as the other two stood up to go. Benjamin peered over the rim of his glass, grimacing as he hit the bitter dregs of his orange juice.
"What's that in your breakfast?"
"A ring...goodness, the places people put them nowadays."
"Perhaps someone is trying to propose?" Graybeard glanced here and there, catching the eyes of a few weary freshmen who still bothered to pay attention to what was going on around them in the Great Hall.
"Hang on to it and see if you can find whose it is," suggested Benjamin, leaning over Nathanael's shoulder and eying what appeared to be an expensive ring underneath its false-egg garnishing.
"Hmph," said Nathanael, chugging the last of his cappuccino as they hurried to the tray return. "I'll just put it through."
"But it could be worth a lot. Here," Benjamin took Graybeard's water-glass. "Rinse!"
Nathanael rinsed. "I suppose it might look good on me, now that you mention it," he allowed.
"Goodness, Nathanael, it's you!" exclaimed Graybeard, examining the piece.
The ring had a broad silver band with a strange design cut into a swath in its center. The band widened to a circular head, which was set with a ruby stone.
"Are those letters around the stone?" asked Graybeard as the three left Carter Lobby, their book bags slung at various awkward angles, squinting at the sunrise and pulling light jackets tighter about them. It was barely fall, but the morning breezes were still cold.
"I hadn't noticed those," said Benjamin, and the two leaned in over Nathanael's shoulders as he obligingly rubbed egg-beater remnants from the ring.
"Latin," said Graybeard decidedly, and Nathanael nodded. Benjamin was opening his mouth to read the words aloud when the sound of an engine coming up behind them brought them all about in surprise, just in time to see a bright yellow taxicab jump the curb and slide, slinging turf, onto the sidewalk. All but the most dedicated and tired turned and stared as the cab squealed to a halt beside the three friends.
"Holy cow!" exclaimed Benjamin.
"Good grief!" gasped Graybeard.
"I'll say," commented Nathanael.
The window of the cab rolled down, and from behind a stogie and beneath a flat cap spoke a fat face with a long pointy nose.
"Where to, doc?" It asked.
it is my pleasure to bring you the beginning of another Adventure of Benjamin Dobbs, this time guest-starring, as indicated by the title, Nathanael Booth. The story takes place on the campus of Covenant College in ('on' is more accurate) Lookout Mountain, Georgia. The college is real. So are many of the characters. Alas, the ring of power has yet to be discovered. Please forgive unintended inconsistencies with reality. The story is in no way crafted to offend, but to entertain. Enjoy.
"There are two great questions in college, both crude renditions of that historic interrogative, 'to be or not to be?'" announced Nathanael Booth, standing at the head of the table, and all eyes were upon him as he continued.
"The first is, will my classes ever be of any practical value in the real world. The answer to that question is an intriguing mix of yes and no -- yes, because the real world is just as eager to demand pointless exercises and trials as college, and no, because no one really needs to know the name of our neighboring galaxies.
The second question is, do I starve or eat Graphgood's? To that question, alas, I still seek the answer. But today, I eat."
Nathanael set his loaded tray down on the table, sloshing a few drops of cappuccino into his egg-beaters, and seated himself carefully, his hat and coat already resting on the back of the chair. Breakfast in the Great Hall was always an adventure of sorts, prepared as it was by the dining service Graphgoods. One never knew exactly what to expect.
"Betelgeuse -- or is that a star?" murmured Benjamin Dobbs, as he attempted to spread grape jam onto a half a biscuit, and succeeded in mutilating it. "Anyway, I would certainly like to go there, and you can't like to go someplace without knowing what it's called."
"My dear sir, I most certainly can. If I wish to go to a place of rest and relaxation, I don't need to know that it's called 'my suite with Bob Dylan playing on the stereo.'"
"But could you find that place without its name?" asked Graybeard, engaging in melee combat with his hashbrowns.
"Ah! Would not a rose, by any other name, smell as sweet?" smiled Nathanael.
"Practically speaking, though, if you didn't know it was called 'rose,' you could never get one to smell," replied Graybeard, and they were off, two philosophy majors flexing their intellectual muscles. Nathanael never allowed himself to sound completely in earnest, always testing the boundaries and making no assumptions. Graybeard, eager and happy, with fluent speech rebounded from each attack to a sortie of his own. Benjamin ate his bacon and tossed in the occasional amateur fallacy that his friends graciously chose to ignore rather than squelch.
The few minutes of breakfast soon fled, and the three friends ended the conversation only to scarf down the last few bites they could before hurrying to class.
"Aack! What a place to keep a...a." Nathanael spat something from his mouth and fished it off of his tray, even as the other two stood up to go. Benjamin peered over the rim of his glass, grimacing as he hit the bitter dregs of his orange juice.
"What's that in your breakfast?"
"A ring...goodness, the places people put them nowadays."
"Perhaps someone is trying to propose?" Graybeard glanced here and there, catching the eyes of a few weary freshmen who still bothered to pay attention to what was going on around them in the Great Hall.
"Hang on to it and see if you can find whose it is," suggested Benjamin, leaning over Nathanael's shoulder and eying what appeared to be an expensive ring underneath its false-egg garnishing.
"Hmph," said Nathanael, chugging the last of his cappuccino as they hurried to the tray return. "I'll just put it through."
"But it could be worth a lot. Here," Benjamin took Graybeard's water-glass. "Rinse!"
Nathanael rinsed. "I suppose it might look good on me, now that you mention it," he allowed.
"Goodness, Nathanael, it's you!" exclaimed Graybeard, examining the piece.
The ring had a broad silver band with a strange design cut into a swath in its center. The band widened to a circular head, which was set with a ruby stone.
"Are those letters around the stone?" asked Graybeard as the three left Carter Lobby, their book bags slung at various awkward angles, squinting at the sunrise and pulling light jackets tighter about them. It was barely fall, but the morning breezes were still cold.
"I hadn't noticed those," said Benjamin, and the two leaned in over Nathanael's shoulders as he obligingly rubbed egg-beater remnants from the ring.
"Latin," said Graybeard decidedly, and Nathanael nodded. Benjamin was opening his mouth to read the words aloud when the sound of an engine coming up behind them brought them all about in surprise, just in time to see a bright yellow taxicab jump the curb and slide, slinging turf, onto the sidewalk. All but the most dedicated and tired turned and stared as the cab squealed to a halt beside the three friends.
"Holy cow!" exclaimed Benjamin.
"Good grief!" gasped Graybeard.
"I'll say," commented Nathanael.
The window of the cab rolled down, and from behind a stogie and beneath a flat cap spoke a fat face with a long pointy nose.
"Where to, doc?" It asked.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Timothy and the Grenobles, Part IV
Dear Readers,
I am satisfactorily drowsy after writing this final chapter, and so to, you will find, are Timothy and Lisa, and, in fact, the Grenobles themselves. But I do not doubt, and I think you cannot, that after all are sufficiently rested (how long that will be I cannot say), they will wake up and have another adventure together.
Timothy, meanwhile, skipped, leapt, dropped, lowered himself, and, at times, fell down the stairs. He arrived at the next door unaware that Lisa was had stopped following him. Looking inside he saw a little kitchen. In he stepped, and turned all the way around, staring up at open, wooden shelves. A beautiful, wild window frame was carved into the wall, but there was no glass, only glowing amber lighting the room, showing up wisps of smoke and steam from the stove. Pots and pans hung from the wall; a deep, Earthy smell, like fresh bread but ten times better, wafted from the oven; and in the cabinets were all manner of roots, petals, grinders engraved with labels, and brown packages tied with rough yellow twine.
As the smell reached Timothy's empty stomach he sat down in the middle of the paneled floor and cried.
The Grenoble seized two moss gloves, dipped them into a basin of water, flung open the over, letting out more of the smell and a brilliant glow, and pulled out two trays, the mitts hissing and spluttering. With a flourish it carried them over Timothy's head, dripping water onto his bangs, to the only open counter and set them down on wicker coasters.
The spluttering and splashing and, most importantly, the trays of food, had stopped Timothy's eyes. He stood behind the Grenoble's leg, looking from the counter's edge, which he could not quite see over, to the Grenoble above him, which was busy doing to the food whatever mothers and fathers and Grenobles do to food while they make you wait too long before you can eat it. Finally, it raised a deep brown, almost-black colored muffin to its mouth, smacked a bite out of it, and closed its eyes.
Timothy let out a quiet whine.
"It is ready," whispered the Grenoble through dark crumbs, and handed one to Timothy. Timothy, now that he had his food, took his time examining it, and picked off a few crumbs to fall to the ground. Then he bit in. It's texture was that of rich wheat bread, and it tasted of freshness, grains, sugar-glaze, and birthdays. Then the Grenoble took from the other tray what looked something like the play clay snake Timothy had made the day before. Timothy examined this even more carefully (for he had taken a bite of the snake, and it had not pleased him); it was brown, flakey, crisp, and firm on the outside, and curled all around. He bit it; it crunched all the way through and filled his mouth with a strong taste, like after he had eaten six ginger-snaps at once when no one was looking, and started crying because of it. This time he did not cry at first, because he was getting to be a big boy and like spicy things. He took bite after bite, and then ran around the room in circles, tears pouring down his face, but laughing hard even as he wailed with the strength of the root. The Grenoble did something else on the counter, and then carried two packages with steam coming from them over to one of the cabinets. Putting these away, it rang a little triangle and stepped back out onto the stairs. The light coming down the trunk was reddish, like that at sunset, and Timothy yawned. Lisa came out of the room up the stairs, also yawning, and stretching, with the other Grenoble. The brother and sister took each other’s hands; Timothy thought Lisa smelled like syrup; Lisa thought Timothy smelled like gingersnaps.
"Food," said Timothy, pointing into the kitchen.
"Hmm," yawned Lisa, "books," she flung her hand behind her to indicate which way.
"Now, we..." she began to say to the Grenobles, but then she noticed that they had already begun to descend again.
"Come on!" she giggled, remembering a part in the book she had just read where the children found a cave on the estate and explored it.
They passed many more quaint little rooms with knothole doors. Timothy found it all quite ordinary, and nothing to compare with how tired he was, or how good the food had tasted, and Lisa marveled at how perfect and pretty it all was. There were several sitting rooms, with various types of lamps and chairs and tables, and writing rooms with desks and almost-empty shelves, old yellowed papers, quill pens, and ink wells, and closed doors, and dusty pantries, and rooms that were only a tangle of vines or branches, and two rooms that must have been the Grenoble's bedrooms, for inside of them were round beds of leaves and moss and dirt. Instead of cups and baths were little springs bubbling up from the floor, and foresty mobiles hung from the ceilings and circled slowly, casting shadows of leaves and creepers on the walls.
when they came to these two doors, the Grenobles yawned, stretching their limbs so that they squeaked and creaked, and opening their mouths wider and wider, so that wind sighed straight down the stairs, sleepy, pulling downwards, making Timothy's eyes sag.
Then they closed their mouths so quickly that Timothy jumped to see them disappearing into their faces.
The two Grenobles stood by their bedroom doors, crossing their arms behind their backs.
"You have made us be home," they said, "goodnight." Then they each hugged Timothy and Lisa in treeish embraces, which felt like throwing yourself against a young mossy tree that gives way under your weight so that it does not hurt. Then they hugged each other, wind whispering about, went each into his room, and closed perfectly shaped doors on the knotholes. The light from the sunset was fading from above. Timothy shivered.
"Come back?" he asked the door in front of him.
It cracked open, and the Grenoble poked its head out, a nightcap on its head, the burr that tipped it hanging in front of its face.
"Go to the bottom; that is the way home for you," it said softly, and closed the door again.
Lisa looked down. She could see only one more light below them, and no more rooms. She looked up. It was getting dark; she could see the vaguest tint of red far up at the top of the submerged trunk.
"Oh, Timothy, our shoes are up there; we had better go get them," she said, and then stood still and sighed wistfully. Timothy's footsteps retreated from her hearing down the tunnel. By the time she understood the sounds, he was out of sight below her.
"Timothy!" she hissed, trying not to disturb their hosts. "Ah!" she bounded down the stairs after him. There was a wooden candlestick with an amber candle glowing in it on the wall; she took it carefully as she went past ("I'll return it later," she said to herself).
Timothy came to the bottom of the stairs and ran into a closed door. He pushed and shoved on the handle; he even growled at it and banged his head on it, but it would not budge. Turning back he found himself at the bottom of the tree trunk on a dirt floor covered with leaves. Lisa leaned down from the stairs not far above, lit up by her candle.
"Wisa, door won't go!" remonstrated Timothy, thrusting an accusative finger at the knothole. Lisa was a big sister, and Timothy knew that when she wanted to she could be very helpful with doors (only she didn't want to be helpful often).
But she could not budge this door.
"Open!" said Timothy, annoyed that she was not cooperating with him. He was hungry again, and tired, and cross. When he was hungry and tired and cross Lisa should not be so silly as to not open doors.
"It's locked," she said, beginning to realize they were alone in the dark. The shadows cast from her steady amber candle shivered inexplicably, and Lisa took Timothy's hand (in case he was scared) before turning to survey the rest of their surroundings. Across from them was an opening beneath the stairs. She stepped to it with her candle and peered through, Timothy shrinking back a little so that she had to stretch out both arms to get the candle to the opening.
A shallow gust blew through the doorway, but the amber glowed brighter in its presence. She could see trees of a forest, and, now that she looked so hard, some lights. She pulled Timothy through the doorway, and, turning back, saw that they had just stepped out of an ugly gash in the side of an oak. The sun was setting behind the tree. Dogs barked from the lights.
"Home. Come on!" cried Timothy, and yanked Lisa towards the lights, so that she dropped her candle. It hissed in a puddle, and when she picked up what she thought was it, she found only an oddly shaped branch in her hand. "Come home!" said Timothy, and carefully led his sister through the forest towards the sound of the barking. Soon they were trudging through the backyard. Timothy saw the rest of the family sitting down around the meal, and the siblings dropped each other's hands to run up the back porch steps and inside.
"Play wit' 'nobles!" yelled Timothy as his mother served him.
"What's that, Timothy?" asked his father.
"He said we played with the Grenobles," said Lisa somberly, looking down at her plate. "They...they...we played a game with them...a dancing game with the wind."
"Oh," said her father.
"Funny dancing, fell in wa-water, funny feets!" Timothy clapped his spoon in his hands.
"Oh!” laughed his mother, spooning him out a bowl of soup.
"I'm sorry I got my dress dirty...oh!" said Lisa, for she had just at that moment realized that her shoes were back on her feet. She stuck her head under the table to see Timothy kicking his feet -- shoes and all -- against his high chair.
"Lisa, what are you doing?" asked her father. She sat up quickly, grazing her head on the table and making a leaf fall from her hair.
"Making sure Timothy didn't loose his shoes."
"Did he?"
"No."
"Want to play wit' 'nobles," pouted Timothy as he saw his mother approaching with the soup. He wished he could have another of the muffins, or one of the spicy snakes.
"It's dark now, Timothy; they probably had to go home, too," said his mother, sitting down beside his high chair. "You will have to play with them again later. Now, eat up."
She blew on a spoonful of soup.
It spun and danced under her breath.
Timothy giggled.
I am satisfactorily drowsy after writing this final chapter, and so to, you will find, are Timothy and Lisa, and, in fact, the Grenobles themselves. But I do not doubt, and I think you cannot, that after all are sufficiently rested (how long that will be I cannot say), they will wake up and have another adventure together.
Timothy, meanwhile, skipped, leapt, dropped, lowered himself, and, at times, fell down the stairs. He arrived at the next door unaware that Lisa was had stopped following him. Looking inside he saw a little kitchen. In he stepped, and turned all the way around, staring up at open, wooden shelves. A beautiful, wild window frame was carved into the wall, but there was no glass, only glowing amber lighting the room, showing up wisps of smoke and steam from the stove. Pots and pans hung from the wall; a deep, Earthy smell, like fresh bread but ten times better, wafted from the oven; and in the cabinets were all manner of roots, petals, grinders engraved with labels, and brown packages tied with rough yellow twine.
As the smell reached Timothy's empty stomach he sat down in the middle of the paneled floor and cried.
The Grenoble seized two moss gloves, dipped them into a basin of water, flung open the over, letting out more of the smell and a brilliant glow, and pulled out two trays, the mitts hissing and spluttering. With a flourish it carried them over Timothy's head, dripping water onto his bangs, to the only open counter and set them down on wicker coasters.
The spluttering and splashing and, most importantly, the trays of food, had stopped Timothy's eyes. He stood behind the Grenoble's leg, looking from the counter's edge, which he could not quite see over, to the Grenoble above him, which was busy doing to the food whatever mothers and fathers and Grenobles do to food while they make you wait too long before you can eat it. Finally, it raised a deep brown, almost-black colored muffin to its mouth, smacked a bite out of it, and closed its eyes.
Timothy let out a quiet whine.
"It is ready," whispered the Grenoble through dark crumbs, and handed one to Timothy. Timothy, now that he had his food, took his time examining it, and picked off a few crumbs to fall to the ground. Then he bit in. It's texture was that of rich wheat bread, and it tasted of freshness, grains, sugar-glaze, and birthdays. Then the Grenoble took from the other tray what looked something like the play clay snake Timothy had made the day before. Timothy examined this even more carefully (for he had taken a bite of the snake, and it had not pleased him); it was brown, flakey, crisp, and firm on the outside, and curled all around. He bit it; it crunched all the way through and filled his mouth with a strong taste, like after he had eaten six ginger-snaps at once when no one was looking, and started crying because of it. This time he did not cry at first, because he was getting to be a big boy and like spicy things. He took bite after bite, and then ran around the room in circles, tears pouring down his face, but laughing hard even as he wailed with the strength of the root. The Grenoble did something else on the counter, and then carried two packages with steam coming from them over to one of the cabinets. Putting these away, it rang a little triangle and stepped back out onto the stairs. The light coming down the trunk was reddish, like that at sunset, and Timothy yawned. Lisa came out of the room up the stairs, also yawning, and stretching, with the other Grenoble. The brother and sister took each other’s hands; Timothy thought Lisa smelled like syrup; Lisa thought Timothy smelled like gingersnaps.
"Food," said Timothy, pointing into the kitchen.
"Hmm," yawned Lisa, "books," she flung her hand behind her to indicate which way.
"Now, we..." she began to say to the Grenobles, but then she noticed that they had already begun to descend again.
"Come on!" she giggled, remembering a part in the book she had just read where the children found a cave on the estate and explored it.
They passed many more quaint little rooms with knothole doors. Timothy found it all quite ordinary, and nothing to compare with how tired he was, or how good the food had tasted, and Lisa marveled at how perfect and pretty it all was. There were several sitting rooms, with various types of lamps and chairs and tables, and writing rooms with desks and almost-empty shelves, old yellowed papers, quill pens, and ink wells, and closed doors, and dusty pantries, and rooms that were only a tangle of vines or branches, and two rooms that must have been the Grenoble's bedrooms, for inside of them were round beds of leaves and moss and dirt. Instead of cups and baths were little springs bubbling up from the floor, and foresty mobiles hung from the ceilings and circled slowly, casting shadows of leaves and creepers on the walls.
when they came to these two doors, the Grenobles yawned, stretching their limbs so that they squeaked and creaked, and opening their mouths wider and wider, so that wind sighed straight down the stairs, sleepy, pulling downwards, making Timothy's eyes sag.
Then they closed their mouths so quickly that Timothy jumped to see them disappearing into their faces.
The two Grenobles stood by their bedroom doors, crossing their arms behind their backs.
"You have made us be home," they said, "goodnight." Then they each hugged Timothy and Lisa in treeish embraces, which felt like throwing yourself against a young mossy tree that gives way under your weight so that it does not hurt. Then they hugged each other, wind whispering about, went each into his room, and closed perfectly shaped doors on the knotholes. The light from the sunset was fading from above. Timothy shivered.
"Come back?" he asked the door in front of him.
It cracked open, and the Grenoble poked its head out, a nightcap on its head, the burr that tipped it hanging in front of its face.
"Go to the bottom; that is the way home for you," it said softly, and closed the door again.
Lisa looked down. She could see only one more light below them, and no more rooms. She looked up. It was getting dark; she could see the vaguest tint of red far up at the top of the submerged trunk.
"Oh, Timothy, our shoes are up there; we had better go get them," she said, and then stood still and sighed wistfully. Timothy's footsteps retreated from her hearing down the tunnel. By the time she understood the sounds, he was out of sight below her.
"Timothy!" she hissed, trying not to disturb their hosts. "Ah!" she bounded down the stairs after him. There was a wooden candlestick with an amber candle glowing in it on the wall; she took it carefully as she went past ("I'll return it later," she said to herself).
Timothy came to the bottom of the stairs and ran into a closed door. He pushed and shoved on the handle; he even growled at it and banged his head on it, but it would not budge. Turning back he found himself at the bottom of the tree trunk on a dirt floor covered with leaves. Lisa leaned down from the stairs not far above, lit up by her candle.
"Wisa, door won't go!" remonstrated Timothy, thrusting an accusative finger at the knothole. Lisa was a big sister, and Timothy knew that when she wanted to she could be very helpful with doors (only she didn't want to be helpful often).
But she could not budge this door.
"Open!" said Timothy, annoyed that she was not cooperating with him. He was hungry again, and tired, and cross. When he was hungry and tired and cross Lisa should not be so silly as to not open doors.
"It's locked," she said, beginning to realize they were alone in the dark. The shadows cast from her steady amber candle shivered inexplicably, and Lisa took Timothy's hand (in case he was scared) before turning to survey the rest of their surroundings. Across from them was an opening beneath the stairs. She stepped to it with her candle and peered through, Timothy shrinking back a little so that she had to stretch out both arms to get the candle to the opening.
A shallow gust blew through the doorway, but the amber glowed brighter in its presence. She could see trees of a forest, and, now that she looked so hard, some lights. She pulled Timothy through the doorway, and, turning back, saw that they had just stepped out of an ugly gash in the side of an oak. The sun was setting behind the tree. Dogs barked from the lights.
"Home. Come on!" cried Timothy, and yanked Lisa towards the lights, so that she dropped her candle. It hissed in a puddle, and when she picked up what she thought was it, she found only an oddly shaped branch in her hand. "Come home!" said Timothy, and carefully led his sister through the forest towards the sound of the barking. Soon they were trudging through the backyard. Timothy saw the rest of the family sitting down around the meal, and the siblings dropped each other's hands to run up the back porch steps and inside.
"Play wit' 'nobles!" yelled Timothy as his mother served him.
"What's that, Timothy?" asked his father.
"He said we played with the Grenobles," said Lisa somberly, looking down at her plate. "They...they...we played a game with them...a dancing game with the wind."
"Oh," said her father.
"Funny dancing, fell in wa-water, funny feets!" Timothy clapped his spoon in his hands.
"Oh!” laughed his mother, spooning him out a bowl of soup.
"I'm sorry I got my dress dirty...oh!" said Lisa, for she had just at that moment realized that her shoes were back on her feet. She stuck her head under the table to see Timothy kicking his feet -- shoes and all -- against his high chair.
"Lisa, what are you doing?" asked her father. She sat up quickly, grazing her head on the table and making a leaf fall from her hair.
"Making sure Timothy didn't loose his shoes."
"Did he?"
"No."
"Want to play wit' 'nobles," pouted Timothy as he saw his mother approaching with the soup. He wished he could have another of the muffins, or one of the spicy snakes.
"It's dark now, Timothy; they probably had to go home, too," said his mother, sitting down beside his high chair. "You will have to play with them again later. Now, eat up."
She blew on a spoonful of soup.
It spun and danced under her breath.
Timothy giggled.
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