Hypothetically Speaking...

Phantasm

2010-04-10T19:03:00.008+12:00

Well, I never was very faithful in the blogging department, but since I've been at Uni, I've been perfectly hopeless. I took to writing poetry over the summer... a requirement for the course I was doing. And would have enjoyed it, too, if it weren't for the deadlines. This is the one I think is best.

Phantasm
Westward lies a distant land
Where faeries dance ‘pon elven strand
By lee of hill all crowned in white:
A city fair and bathed in light.

A chink into another wood
Where summer’s golden grace’s withstood.
Encastled thrones, the Lion’s breath,
A deeper life beyond the death.

The Alder, Ash and lovely Beech,
The winding road, no end in reach,
The haunted shadow found and lost,
Redemption gained at greater cost.

And down the hill the war-horn cries:
Come thund’ring hooves! Come foe’s demise!
Come flash of steel! Come quick’ning dawn!
Come ev’ry man to goodness sworn!

This call is loud, this yearning strong,
A weighty, trembling, broad’ning song;
Its shafts return to strike anew
And pierce my bursting organ through.

A Elbereth Gilthoniel!
And unto Aslan’s sake as well!
His golden mane, Her glint of stars,
I’ll gladly bear their joyous scars.

Adjectives in the Spring

2009-10-05T12:30:00.007+13:00

I don't know how many of you will "get" this. It spilled out hurriedly when I intended to do something else.

It was October. And October meant spring: sharp, wild storms followed by wide, crisp, sunny days still yet too cold for much outdoor activity without a thick coat; orchards roofed with a delicate thatch of white and pink blossoms; green buds opening to the chilly nip of the wind; days beginning to grow longer and richer golden light in the evenings.
It also meant white-baiters. In their tall black boots and heavy ugly waders, they tramped along the sands of the beach and rivers, despoiling the banks with haphazard baiting-stands and deep, muddy trails: the new flowers uncaringly trampled underfoot. Axes hewed the bothersome branches off trees who had stood quietly in the river-woods minding their own business until the white-baiters decreed in their foolhardiness their ruin only to erect their corrugated iron squatter’s huts. The sacred glades were defiled, ancient treasure troves broken open and rifled, filth strewn on the dancing lawns.
Deep in the woods the black hearts of the trees were stirred to wrath. In the eyes of the woodland lords a deep green flame was kindled. The Lesser Folk showed to them their unbounded sorrow: the houses destroyed and wives, children and brothers slain by ignorance and pride. Mighty they rose up: the woodland kings and their fair queens. Their spears shone bright like the gleam of dawn, their helms like the sun and paling stars. They allied with the dark savages, their natural foe, whose hands were ready on their deadly bows, against the common threat. The blood of the faeries was swift to rise, and they harkened at the silver horns of the Kings and Queens.
And there was battle ‘neath the trees.
The invaders were put to fight. Like madmen they fled and lamented loudly when they saw their brothers laid low. Their huts given over to the flame, their stands cast deep into the river-water. The dirty white nets were set on high poles to fly loose in the wind as white banners of victory.
‘Now, children!’ cried the woodland king, ‘May we feast and dance through the night. May songs be sung and may a great victory fire be set on the silver sands to roar with warmth. May there be joy and merriment forevermore!”
From the safe shadows afar lurked the pirates, in the outer darkness. They watched the jamboree in darkling dismay, but they were barred from joy.

Beowulf

2009-09-16T10:37:00.013+12:00

I started reading Beowulf again the other day. I read it once several years ago (Seamus Heaney's translation. No, as much as I would like to, I don't read it in Anglo-Saxon. I only know about four words of the language. Hwaet, werguild, wyrd, and wyrm, if you care to know.) I wasn't that impressed with it then. The story was good - I could see that - but I felt let down by the words Heaney used to translate it. They didn't seem to me to fit, somehow. The story would be soaring along and then some jarring, modern word would intrude. I suspect that this was chiefly because I had just finished reading Tolkien's The Lay of Leithian (which is an awesome epic poem, by the way, though it be incomplete) and he matches his style his theme. This time round I laid hold of different translation. Strange to say, I'm finding I don't really care about the style it's told in - the story's simply too wonderful. It feels almost as if I'm reading Lord of the Rings in verse, even to the point where they seem to share the same characters. Its even set in Middle-earth, or Middangeard.I read somewhere recently (can't remember where) that Tolkien himself said that Beowulf was one of the greatest influences on his work.
I took the book to the beach with me yesterday, found a lonely rock upon the silver strand and, to the sound of the waves (I can never decide if they sound mournful or joyous) read a good bit of it aloud to myself - the part where Beowulf is preparing himself to wrest with the demon Grendel. Ah! But it was stirring!
I remember the basic plot line, but not the details of the rest of the story - may it meet my expectations and hopes!
And just for the record: Beowulf is NOTHING like the despicable film that has been made based on it. Beowulf is really a hero! Suffice to say, I have not seen the film, but when I heard the movie had been released, I read a review and was shocked - nay - scandalized by the changes they'd made.

Some New Words

2009-09-07T20:36:00.003+12:00

I found these in a book about books (or matters literary). I believe they are from yet another book by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd called "The Meaning of Liff." They've taken town names (mostly British) and given them useful meanings. These following examples seem to apply to either me or folk I know.

Ahenny - the way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.
Ainderby Quernhow - one who continually bemoans the "loss" of the word "gay" to the English language, even though they never used the word in any context at all until they started complaining they couldn't use it anymore.
Bathel - to pretend you have read a the book under discussion, when in fact you've only seen the TV series.
Beppy - the triumphal slamming shut of a book after reading the final page.
Dalmilling - continually making small talk to someone who is trying to read.
Frithram - a paragraph that gets you stuck in a book . The more you read it, the less it means to you.
Great Wakering - the panic that sets in when you badly need to go to the lavatory and cannot make up your mind about what book to take with you.

Dashed Good Book, This One

2009-09-03T13:16:00.007+12:00

Originally it was called Alec Forbes of Howglen.

Instead of the one, near perfect (but somehow still likeable) character I encountered in his The Shepherd’s Castle pitted against narrow minded, hypocritical “Calvinists,” MacDonald has here a whole array of imperfect characters simply living (or not living) their faith and growing in it. He never expressly says “this is the wrong doctrine” or this is “right,” whereas in Shephard’s Castle his attacks on what he considers wrong is sometimes almost rabid. Thomas Crann the stonemason thinks it’s his duty to “dangle souls over the hell-fire” and frighten them into repentance and love, but for all that, he is a very lovable character, as is Mr. Malison, the school master who beats his pupils up quite badly. I won’t say why I love him – would spoil the story and ruin a truly MacDonaldian moment in the book. There’s old Mr. Cowie, Robert Bruce (no, not that one), Curly, blind Tibbie, and, of course, Alec Forbes and Annie Anderson. But the character who outshines them all is old Mr. Crupples the alcoholic librarian. And Crann wouldn’t even call him a Christian! Well, he doesn’t attend the Missionary Church, which is a great pity, if not a minor sin in the stonemason’s reckoning. You just enjoy all these characters, and see how they change as the story goes on. There’s something hobbitish or Austenian about their lives and about Glammerton and the countryside about. The rest of the world exists, they don’t deny that, but somehow it doesn’t effect them overly. They are quiet self-contained with their two churches, four seasons and converted and unconverted on their doorstep. Only when Alec goes off to University do we catch a glimpse of the rest of the world, but it is still only that which pertains directly to events and people in Glammerton. It would make a great BBC drama, if only they kept it faithful to the strong Christian message and themes throughout (is that asking too much?)

I still can’t decide whether the fact that it has been edited is to be mourned over or blessed. The editor, Michael Phillips, I think (to hear him tell it) has done a pretty good job. but I've never been able to get my hands on an unedited novel of MacDonald's. If he has actually changed anything essential, I don’t know. But one of the chief edits he has done is remove the heavy Scots dialect of the dialogue and replace it with English most everyone can understand. (In his introduction he includes a piece of the original for comparison. Does anyone know what a “clanjamfrie” is? Or what it means to “sook o’ the tappit hen?”)
In his books (that I’ve read) George MacDonald really does attempt to show the love of God. Not just the “God loves you anyway” approach or assume that everyone is at least a nominal christian as many nineteenth century authors seem to do, but he has a real John-Piper-reminiscent “God delights in you, and calls you to delight yourself in Him” message, which is always very edifying.

If you've read Tolkien and Lewis, then you really must explore MacDonald, if you haven't already. His novels are remarkably good, but his fairytales and fantasies are simply incredible.

Balrog in the Bible?

2009-08-11T20:28:00.007+12:00

I couldn't help but smile when I read this verse the other morning: "Then I saw another beast, coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon." (Revelation 13:11) It goes on to describe how he calls down fire from heaven too.

Tolkien On Imagination

2009-06-26T21:04:00.003+12:00

From the Notion Club Papers, which is included in Sauron Defeated. I thought it rather interesting.

‘When you are writing a story, for instance, you can (if you’re a vivid visualizer, as I am, and are clearly visualizing the scene) see two places at once. You can see (say) a field with a tree and sheep sheltering from the sun under it, and be looking round your room. You are really seeing both scenes, because you can recollect details later. … As far as my own visualizing goes, I’ve always been impressed by how often it seems independent of my own will or planning mind (at the moment). Often there is no trace of composing a scene or building it up. It comes before the mind’s eye, as we say, in a way that is very similar to opening closed eyes on a complete waking view. I found it difficult, usually quite impossible, to alter these pictures myself, that is my purpose. As a rule I find it better, and in the end more right, to alter the story I’m trying to tell to suit the pictures. If the two really belong together – they don’t always, of course. But in any case, on such occasions you are really seeing double, or simultaneously.’

C. S. Lewis mentioned something like this, too, I think, when talking about how he came to write Narnia. He had ‘pictures’ of such things such as a faun standing in the snow with an umbrella. I wonder if the pictures they talk about predate the stories they wrote, or as they wrote the stories or thought them out, the pictures cropped up. Hm.
If these pictures are such as I suppose them to be, then I know of one instance where I had to alter my story to fit the ‘picture’ that I have of a scene. Not very interesting to others, perhaps, but my hero was meant to be walking through a valley that came out onto a plain, but instead I saw him standing on top of a cliff looking out over that same plain. And the mountains that I’d put in my map were in different places in the picture. Darn.
But they do seem to come prefabricated, to a certain degree, which helps in describing detail. Anyhow, I, as I said, thought it was an interesting quote.

Vampires? Oh Yes.

2009-06-15T16:47:00.005+12:00

I feel I owe some of you an explanation on vampires, vis. why I read and enjoy Dracula, if not positively rave about it, while I decidedly turn up my nose at the very idea of Twilight. There is, of course, more to it than the latter’s being a “girl’s book.” I read Jane Austen. Hopefully I can gather up my very scattered thoughts and make them intelligible, and perhaps even convincing.

Stories, essentially, tell us how to live. They also entertain us. These are the two greatest points of a story. For a long while I have been part of the school that can’t see why we have to analyze a story so deeply that we take it beyond what the author meant. Can’t we just enjoy it at face value? Enjoy it for the story’s sake? Never mind if it has a moral or a meaning, if it is not an obvious allegory, leave it alone. Don’t dissect it. Then I began to realize that this doesn’t quite hold water. Not all the time. Every story has underlying prepositions imputed consciously or unconsciously by the author, and we need to have some idea of what those are, because, whatever we say, every story we read or watch does affect us in some way or other. I certainly do not mean we must destroy the story to examine its cogs and wheels and veins and atoms. That would rob it of the entertainment. With some stories, such as George MacDonald’s Golden Key, that is impossible. What I mean is we should be aware of what is being subtly suggested to us. We should choose entertainment that influences us for the good.
What does this have to do with Vampires? Some would say to steer clear of them at all costs. They are evil. Read about real stories. Read a biography. Or at least an historical fiction. True. Vampires are evil. Fantasy isn’t real. But they are true. Or, at least, they communicate truths about reality.
In Dracula the Count is portrayed as evil through and through. His victims, once they too become vampires, are damned. Without the choice of whether they want to be evil or not. The book says they cannot enter heaven, that their souls are lost. (It does hint that there might be some sort of redemption at the Judgement, on account of the state of their hearts before they were turned into vampires.) But what is important is that he represents an evil that, like Sauron, needs to be fought against. Because he is evil by his nature. The same is true with dragons, goblins, werewolves, ogres and all those “conveniently ugly creatures.” They may not be allegorical, but they do represent a truth. That truth is that there is real evil in the real world, maybe not so obvious or initially so ugly, but it needs to be fought against all the same. This is where the Devil comes into it. Aren’t we meant to fight him? To fight our own temptations? That is a war. Isn’t it?
Now, Twilight. I confess I have not read the books, nor seen the film. But I have tried to find out about it a little. It seems there are two groups of vampires. One who are traditionally evil, and another who take a more modern, enlightened approach. They are “vegetarian.” That is, they only prey on animals. Not only that, but they are model citizens, protecting humans from the first group, and more importantly, falling in love with them (with the humans, that is.) Hmmm…. that doesn’t sound so awful. Sounds almost noble. Very noble. But remember what vampires traditionally represent? Evil. The Devil. Yet here we have a good vampire. A family of them. I don’t mean to mock this story. It is serious.
Maybe this inversion is put down to originality. But I can’t help but regard it more like to heresy. It seems to hint at dangerous ideas. Something that has always been thought of as evil is being portrayed as good, even desirable. Once again, the line between good and evil is being blurred. How bad can bad be before it is evil? Maybe evil can be tamed, loved and just plain gorgeous. Is that a truth? Can the Devil be tamed? Will he fight against his own kind?
When evil is presented as attractive, don’t we often desire it? What then if the idea of living eternally with the person we love (Apart from God. We make the rules.) is presented to us? In Dracula it is shown to be a terrible alternative. In Twilight it is, I believe, shown in quite a different light, if not at all explicitly. It is a falsehood. But if we instead desire to stand along side the aged Dr. Van Helsing, Frodo, King Peter, Desperaux and all the others and fight evil – both in the world and in our own lives – is that not a truth?

G. K. Chesterton said: “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” But who would want to slay the dragon or the vampire if he/ she is a cute, noble heart throb?

New Header

2009-06-09T20:27:00.002+12:00

Livi asked me to make a new header as she was renovating her blog tonight, so here is the header I spend the evening making ... um ... it's for my blog. Whoops. How did that happen? I found some very neat images here. Knights and weapons and things.

Cleese on Beekeeping

2009-06-04T20:13:00.002+12:00

Both Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese. A rich mix. Do enjoy.

Heroes from Literature

2009-04-16T10:41:00.019+12:00

I came across this idea whilst sampling yonder blog, and it seems to have caught on somewhat, I thought a male perspective to complement it wouldn't be amiss.
When I first put together this list, I got about twenty-five heroes. Having just recently read a chapter in Doug Wilson’s Future Men on fairy tales and heroes, I decided to choose which of these make virtue most lovely, most commendable. Which would want to be like, if I could? After that it wasn’t so hard. Still, all these fellows I should just like to put at number one and list nine others after them.

10. Edwin Ransom from Perelandra

I can’t leave off a fellow who actually fights in hand to hand combat with a man possessed with Satan. I’d like to list him in a better spot, but there are too many others who deserve to be awarded those. In the newly created world of Perelandra (which we call Venus) he realizes that if he is to defeat the Devil and win for Perelandra the freedom from sin which was lost in our world, then he can’t try to reason with him. That might postpone evil for a while, but eventually the possessed Dr. Weston would win. He must fight him; destroy the instrument that the Devil uses to tempt the Eve of Perelandra into staying on dry land (a thing which is forbidden.) He is Perelandra's ransom.

9. Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings
I originally had Aragorn much further up the list, at third, actually, but as I wrote about the others he kept being knocked down a position. I don’t know how he got down (or up) quite this far. I can’t pin down one particular thing I like about Aragorn, he seems to be everything. A gentleman, a knight, a king. I do like the way he behaves toward Éowyn. And also the way he patiently waits and proves himself for Arwen.

8. Beren Erchamion from the Silmarillion
People tout Romeo and Juliet. Others talk of Helen and Paris. And apparently Heathcliff had a bit of a thing for Cathy. All these shoot rather wide of the mark, I’m afraid. The greatest romance is that of Beren and Luthien. Beren, a mortal man, literally goes through hell to win the elf maid Luthien’s hand (and has one of his own bitten of by a demon wolf in the process.) I don’t know if many of you know the story, but her father jokingly promises to let them marry if Beren brings him back one of the priceless jewels from the iron crown of the Dark Lord (Morgoth, not Sauron), a task which he thinks impossible. But of course, Beren takes him at his word and, with a goodish bit of help from Luthien herself, enters hell and steals the jewel, only to have the hand which held it bitten off! I won’t say any more, just read it, if you haven’t, but it is a tale of love beyond death, much more so than Heathcliff’s and Cathy’s. I guess Beren doesn’t always come across as the humblest, but the elves do tend to treat him somewhat slightingly – he is, after all, only a man. But he fights nobly to win his love against all odds, and, off course, she helps him win in every way she can.

7. Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility
I can’t rave about him as much as I can some of these others, but that is only because I don’t know him as well, having only read the book once, quite awhile ago. I can really only go by the portrayal of him the films, which is noble, kind, and good.

6. Anados from Phantastes
He enters Faerie, and all the opportunities of the land before him, and what does he do? Exactly what I would do in his position: makes a hash of everything. He lets his selfishness and ignorance rule most of his actions. When he awakens the White Lady and falls in love with her, he pursues her across Fairyland assuming that he has a right to claim her as his own, because he woke her. But then he loses her, and begins to redeem himself. Until he is able to say, when the goblins and the old hag taunt him that the Lady is to marry another, for Anados is not worthy of her, that he is glad of it. Finally he redeems himself fully when he dies protecting the Lady’s husband (who is a truly good knight.)
I also love the tale of Cosmos (a person) that Anados reads in the Fairy Queen’s Library.

5. Faramir from The Lord of the Rings
To be so hated by your father, and blamed by him for your dear brother’s death! Despite that fact, when faced with the chance to gain his father’s love by taking the Ring he passes it up. (And he handles it much better in the book than in the film.) And then, off course he saves Éowyn from despair, and gives her something to live for. He’s noble and courteous. He doesn’t want to fight, preferring his books. But when the days are dark and his people need him, then he leads them bravely. (Boromir could have easily have taken this place, a pity he couldn't fit on the list.)

4. Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings
What is there not to like about Sam? Few authors achieve the accomplishment of making a hero out of the simple folk without creating something of an obnoxious brat. Maybe it’s because Sam is so humble that he avoids this fate. He is so dedicated to Frodo, so hopeful, so cheerful, and courageous. He watches his master slowly dying in the torture of the Ring, and can do nothing but carry him up Mount Doom – which is perhaps one of the most moving acts in the book, if not in the entirety of literature. He loves his master with a manly loyalty greater than his fear and his overwhelming inadequacy for the task before him.

3. Mr. Knightly from Emma
He always does the right and decent thing, regardless of what people think of him. He honestly cares about everyone, he doesn’t fain politeness. Actually, he’s not polite. He’s good. That is, he doesn’t do what he should do, but what he wants to do (which happens to be the same thing.)
I’ve heard people say that Emma doesn’t deserve him, but that’s just it. It is almost as though he condescends to love her, but not in the proper meaning of the word. There is no pride in his make-up. Not of the wrong sort. Probably that is the wrong word altogether. It’s not that he marries Emma because he thinks it will be good for her to have him around all the time, so he can lecture her with greater ease. He does love her, and redeems her through his love, as it were. He cares enough about her to hurt her.

2. Gandalf the Grey from The Lord of the Rings
I always liked Gandalf the Grey better than the White. By which, I don’t mean I don’t like him as the White. He may basically be an incarnate angel (take a look in the appendices and the Silmarillion) with all the power of such a being, but he must work within the confines of the body of an old man. He gets tired, he gets cast down, he loses hope. But he labours on, like most of Tolkien’s characters, beyond immediate hope, because of the indefatigable knowledge of what is right and good. Although he is grey, it is only the grey of light veiled behind a cloak, not of goodness compromised. He knows that there are greater powers than that of evil. Of the five wizards who came to Middle-earth to fight Sauron, he is the only one who keeps to his purpose.

1. Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia
Who said these all had to be human? Aslan just has to be the greatest of my heroes. He strides rightfully proud though the green hills of my imagination, a blaze of gold, might and nobility. He gave his life for the traitorous Edmund, suffered gross humiliation before his enemies, and was willing to do so. (I’ve just realized that four of my heroes die and come back to life.) He always loves and protects the children, and rebukes them when they need it, in the way they need it. I don’t think I need to say anymore, we all know him. But, oh! To sink my hands into his golden mane and laugh and cry at his feet! To say nothing of the fact that he is about the best Christ figure that ficton’s got going.

Further and Further On; A Tale of Faerie: Part One: How They Left Home

2009-03-30T20:18:00.007+13:00

Edit: 4 September 09, This is actually pretty outdated now. I've revised it quite a bit, for those of you who scroll down this far.

Once there were two brothers. Ingold and Ingram the sons of Ingame were their names, and they where proud to be called by them.
Together they lived a great many ages ago on their father’s farm, helping him with the plowing and the sowing and with the reaping at harvest time. Ingram loved this work.
He loved to see the empty fields slowly fill with shoots of green and ripen into golden heads of wheat. He loved to be in his village with its rambling gardens spilling out onto the dusty roads and to hear the chat of his neighbours gossiping about the swallows and where they where nesting or how Windlaf’s new bed of potatoes had been hit with grubs last night. And they always had a good word to say for his father’s crops, being widely pronounced to be the best in the village, if not in Kingsland.
Sometimes, as they gathered round the hearth after a good meal and a hard day’s work, they would speak of the old tales, or some grandfather would lean on his stick and hum out in his creaky voice a half-forgotten song of the olden days, when there were dragons and monsters in the world and heroes would rise up and slay them with bright swords.
At those times someone might tell of the Great Wars fought long, long ago or maybe of Eli: how he had made the world and loved it, and given so very much to save it from evil.
They were the times the brothers loved best. They would sit with eyes shining eagerly in the firelight loving each word they heard spoken.
As Ingram listened, for he liked best to listen and seldom joined in the talking, and heard of the high and mighty deeds and the fearsome monsters of the old wide world, he loved his village and its funny people all the more. Here was peace and quiet. He was glad the heroes had fought long ago so that now there was safety.
But as for Ingold, who was the eldest, when he heard the old tales, he longed for the wars and the excitement of those days. He wished he had lived then, so he could ride bravely off and fight back the shadows. Then the old men would sing about him around their fires.
He wanted to go to the City and fight for the King, like their father had done, and win the King’s praise. Or maybe he would rather be a bold traveller, and tread the long paths eastward, where no one ever went, until he would come at last to the shores of the Great Sea. But he would not stop there. He would find himself a ship, and set sail across the sea, until maybe he would come to the far off Dark Continent that folk spoke of as only a nursery tale.

And so one day, when Ingold had become a man, he took down his father’s old rusty sword from where it hung on the wall, kissed his mother and father goodbye, and set out into the world to see what adventures would fall in his way.
Their mother cried when he left, for, as all mothers do, she loved her son very much indeed, and it is always hard for mothers when their sons leave them, even if they must.
Their father, too, looked very solemn and was silent when he went out into the fields, when before he had used to sing, for he loved Ingold no less than his wife did.
So Ingram was glad that he was not yet old enough to have gone with Ingold, though Ingold had wanted him to. Instead he did what he could to help his mother and worked still harder for his father and each day hoped for Ingold’s return.
Every morning he would climb to the top of the hill near the village and peer off into the east, looking for the cloud of dust along the road that would announce Ingold’s homecoming. Maybe he would come with a glorious company of knights from the king, all clad in gleaming armour. They would tell of Ingold’s brave deeds and how he had fought gallantly in the king’s wars. Then there would be a feast such as never had been before in the village.
Maybe he would bring home a wife. That would make his mother glad again; gladder than she was before he had left. Maybe she would be one of the King’s own daughter’s whose love Ingold had won. And maybe they would have a family of their own. How father would laugh to see his grandchildren. He would sing them all his songs.
But Ingold did not return, not even alone. One year passed, two years, three, four. Mother didn’t cry anymore, at least, not so that Ingram could see it, and Father sung again as he worked, but often his songs were not as full of joy as they once were.
And so Ingram grew up and became a man, whether he wanted to or not; and he decided that there was only one thing to be done if his parents were to be happy again. He must go after Ingold and bring him back from wherever he was, or at least find out what had become of him.
But when he told his father and mother how he wished to follow Ingold, they at first would not let him leave, but he told them how it was not for himself that he must go, but for them. Then they blessed him, and said that although they loved him dearly, and even more so since Ingold had been lost, they saw that he must go whether they willed it or not, but that he must promise not to forget them and to come back one day to bring them news of Ingold and himself.
That, Ingram had said, was an easy thing to promise, because the small village had his heart, for it was home.

So thus it was that Ingram set out on the very same road that he had seen bear away his brother with nothing save a stout walking staff and a parcel of food and cooking things slung on his back. He had not even a sword, because the only one in the village had been his father’s and Ingold had taken that.
His mother and father watched from the village gate until he disappeared around the bend and was hidden from them by the woods. All that was left was the dust on the road stirred up by his feet.

Here's Something

2009-03-17T22:01:00.005+13:00

I'm told I need a new post. Which is probably a fair comment. Right ho. I hereby publicly announce this: Red Roses is dead, I do not know what happens next, nor do I particularly care how Sebastian ends up. There. I've said it. So if anyone goes giving me some really good ideas, I dare say I'll take it all back.
You know, I have half a mind to be serious, and write some commentary on society or review one of my favourite books to attempt the conversion of my readers to my way of thinking. Then again, I could just squander fifteen minutes of my life and write some utter bilge about what I'm going to write. Say! that sounds like more than half a plan.
Right, so the reason there's been no post here for such a while, is mainly because I've had much better things to do. Like write other things. There was one project that I perhaps ambitiously called a child's novel, and was getting along at rather decently with it. But then, suddenly, while (properly) I was reading my Bible, an idea for a fairy tale struck me smack! between the optical organs.
So as soon as I was able I sat me down with my laptop at the ready and, on the first day, spat out 6600 words. Now, for me, who would usually spend a couple of hours maybe rewriting the same 300 words or so several times over, that is plain incredible. If not phenomenal.
So guess what will be appearing here soon! I'll just sort out a kink or two in the beginning, and it should be good.
So, there you have it. I wouldn't bother reading this, if I were you, it serves absolutely no purpose.

Twelve Red Roses: The Continuing Narrative

2008-12-14T14:25:00.000+13:00

“The Boss wants you…” began Ruben, but with the suddenness of a car breaking suddenly, the driver suddenly broke the car. We were brutally thrown forward, and if we hadn’t “made it click,” things could have gotten messy.
“Dang it!” yelled Ruben. “What the hang was that?”
“Sir,” said the driver, “By adroitly breaking, I have avoided sustaining considerable injuries to our fender, sir.”
“How’s that?”
“There was a vee-hicle in front of us that ceased to move with an abruptness that I confess had me startled; I believe the driver was checking for mice in his glove-compartment, not unlike the Strange Case of the Cautious Motorist, if you will remember.”
“But this is madness.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Suppress such beliefs.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dispose of the Cautious Motorist.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t allow him to stand in your way.”
“No, sir.”
“Plough through.”
“As you say, sir.”
“And enough with this “Yes, sir, No, sir, As you say, sir” business. We’re beginning to sound like a sampling of Wodehouse dialogue.”
“Rightchar, then.”
“Thank you.”

For the rest of the journey Ruben seemed to be sunk in a moodful reverie, possibly on the subject of the cautious motorist and the hazards he presents to the modern forward thinker. My existence and importance was forgotten. I did venture to lubricate the general chit-chat with a comment or two about the weather, but the result was only a disapproving stare and a terse observation that talking in a moving vehicle induced nausea, and that to enforce such an abject condition upon a person was probably encroaching on the Bill of Rights, and if the League of Nations didn’t have something fairly scorching to say on the subject, then someone was very much mistaken.

I was just beginning to nod off, when we pulled up outside a fairly imposing building. When I say fairly imposing, I mean it would have been if it weren’t for the frantic renovations going on. The streams of tradesmen pouring from the side entrances and still more swarming across the face and roof of the building lessened its impossibility somewhat. In fact the two men brawling nine stories up on the scaffolding pretty much submerged it. The peculiar thing about these men, however, was that they all seemed to be men of surprisingly romantic inclination, for they all wore buttonholes in their overalls.

The main entry, however, was unmarred. The grandeur of its arches and Corinthian columns was not lost on me. Nor was the impressive nature of the forty-nine steps up to the door. These doors, for they were plural, had the ominous monogram R.I.P emblazoned across them and their handles were in the shape of thorny roses. So thorny, in fact, that I began to have doubts about placing my hand on them so as to open the doors. It was a thorny problem.

All throughout our ascent Ruben had retained a determined grip on my arm, but as we trod the twenty-second step, his impersonation of a vice seemed to lose something of its conviction. At the twenty-seventh, his features palled. By the time we reached the thirty-fifth, he was positively quaking. And when we gained the forty-eighth he gave the distinct impression of a man who, having arrived late for a dinner party, finds that, in addition to having to enter under the gaze of simply everyone, he has forgotten to change his bedroom slippers for his dress-shoes and spats, and decides that he really would rather be at home reading a one of Austen’s wittier novels.
Could it be the grotesque statues of aphids lurking between the pillars? Or was it knowledge of what lay behind these doors?
Looking like a sailor unsuited to the turbulence of his profession, Ruben called to one of the men in black who had brought up the rear of our party.
“This is Zebulun – not his real name, you understand – he will take you the rest of the way,” he said to me. “I find that I am incommoded in the going forward.”
He shook my hand.
“Well, this has been jolly, but I really must be off,” he said, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. Then he was gone, bounding down the steps five at a time.
All this had a disparaging effect on my constitution.

“You mustn’t mind him,” Zebulun reassured me, “Ruben is of a nervous inclination. Even as a small child, I remember he would quail at the administration of the cod liver oil. A most peculiar boy, mother often remarked on it.”
“Oh, really,” I said, feeling I was required to say something.
“But as to business…” Zebulun marched up to the door, pricked his hand on the handle, swore, and kicked the door open instead. And we entered

The ceiling went right up to the ninth floor, from whence was heard the faint clanging and cursing of the work men, like the distant cooing of doves. Well, not really, but it’s poetic.
The general atmosphere was of an ancient library on a wet day where They frown and look at you askance if you enter with the intent of reading something or are too eager in your pursuit of an obscure novelist. Gloomy, one might say. Oppressive, even, but in a majestic way.
Books lined the walls, bookcase upon bookcase, floor upon floor, fifty staircases leading to a hundred mezzanine floors wound their serpentine way about the walls or rose up suddenly in the middle of the room like the pillars that we had just recently left behind us outside.
In some places the books were padlocked behind wire girdles, as if whoever put them there were afraid of their escaping.
Loose sheets of paper lay piled up on desks or on the floor, covered over on both or one sides with writing, in all manner of differing hands –hasty, pedantic, old-fashioned, feminine, bold, meek, erratic, blithe or moody– some scribbled out as though rejected, some bound together with string or staples as if they formed a whole. On the floor were heavy chests which I had no doubt contained still more papers. These, too, were locked, each with multiple locks.
The strangest thing was that, although one could see that nothing was ever touched or moved, there was not a speck of dusk to be found, unless it was floating in the rays of sunlight that filtered down from the windows near the ceiling.
Nor was there a chair to be seen, neither overstuffed and welcoming, or stiff and uncomfortable.
From somewhere came a tuneless humming, sounding as though it was emitted from the white mustached mouth of a contentedly eccentric old man in pince-nez.
“Old Dinggle seems happy enough today,” muttered one of my escort to Zebulun. He murmured his concurrence.
“This is the Room of Bans,” he whispered to me in reverent tones, by way of an explanation, “Here’s your card.”
He handed me a plastic card with nothing on it but a barcode.
We approached the far wall. At first I thought we were making for a picture of a young girl, hanging on the wall. I don’t mean to say that it was a picture of a young girl hanging on a wall, but that it was the picture, of the girl, which was hanging on the wall, if you get my meaning. The subject in the picture looked as though she thought the artist and his art was a thorough bore. But as we drew near, she suddenly moved, causing an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, like when one spies a ghost where one doesn’t expect to see one.
It was a window, not a painting, and a real, bored girl, not an imitation one. She looked about to wish us good morning, but Zebulun gave her a glance of iron austerity.
“Here! None of that, missy.” He said.
He thrust an identical card to the one he had given me at her. Simultaneously, the ten others produced like cards. The interest that had glimmered briefly in the girl’s eyes when she had first seen us died away. After shooting a glance of deepest pity at my person, she glazed over again. She opened a draw with the handle of a rose (carefully avoiding the thornéd steam) and, with lethargy dripping from every limb, drew forth a rose shaped gun, and pointed it at each card as it was presented to her. Twelve times the gun emitted a high-pitched, double beep, and twelve times the girl said in weary tones, “You’re cleared.”
“Pipe down, down there!” came a cry from about four stories up, and a head bearing a remarkable resemblance to the tousled A. Eisenstein, only more so, peered over a rickety banister. The head, which appeared also to have a hand attached, raised a feather duster of ostrich feathers at us and waved it about intimidatingly. “You’ll raise the dust! Don’t exhale! Don’t inhale! Don’t hail! The weather looks ill! Cads! Bounders! Terrorists! Down, I say! Heel! Out! Out! Out! Howzat! Wipe your feet first! You’ll let in the dust! Leave your shoes at the door! Leave your hat at the door! Leave your mind at the door! Apply for leave! Leave! The dust falls like the leaves in the autumn!”
As he discharged this authoritative oration, the head rapidly began to descend from his high perched throne, bobbing and bouncing, clambering down ladders, skittering across landings, bounding down stairs like the deer and roe upon wherever they bound.
Evasive action seemed to be called for, and evasive action, true to its duty, was preformed. The girl hit a button on her desk (the button was shaped like an opened rosebud), and a secret door appeared next to her window. We dashed through the door and the girl pulled down a wooden shutter over her window, showing a turn of speed that proved that the vegetable was not her only state.
Zebulun was the last to enter. He slammed the door with vehemence. A sound against the other side was heard quite loudly, as though books were being hurled against it.

Mythopoeia Ankáia Part 2: Of Áthru Balágnor 2/2

2008-11-29T22:10:00.000+13:00

Yet the treachery of Balágnor was not bounded to this alone. For long ere he came to Úngothon he saw the maiden Silféinyn as she kindled her silver lamp Henrásilin in the cold dawn; and as the grey light of morning fell upon her face, he saw that she was indeed beautiful. So he took her, without the leave of Telúmono’s blessing, and she became his wife, and for a little while they were happy together. And many where the children she bore him, the Athrúfinen, as they were named.
But as Balágnor bent all his though upon his work and his lust for power grew as deceit and malice gnawed at the foundations of his heart, he came to forget Silféinyn and her silver lamp, for in Úngothon all light was forgot, until at last she was left to made the long passage of the heavens alone, the first to herald the dawn and first to mourn at day’s dying hues, even as she mourned at her own loneliness.
Yet his children he never forgot, for they soon followed him to Úngothon at his summons, and would gladly follow his leading along whichever path he took.
And thus it was that he sent them out into Nerethnimlo with lies on their tongues and guile in their hearts to win over, if they could, those who tended the Lamps, they who could see the very gate of Vinyoldë from the rail of their bright ships. And wherever they went, there always was some ear willing to listen.
Many of the nameless Ailósti fell into dark thought and abandoned their lamps so as to follow Balágnor. But even these were trapped, for they lost their fair, ethereal forms and were bound by their folly in hideous shapes of many kinds. Some became the mighty Draigángan, the dreaded demons of later tales; fire-breathing monsters with iron teeth and impenetrable hides. And so their lamps were put out and their ships strayed as lost ghosts through a darker Nerethnimlo.
But more terrible still was the fall of Tintwiel and of Ilún the Cold; for they knew Telúmono and saw through the lies of Balágnor even to the malice that lay in his heart. They were not deceived. They thought, maybe, to first ally themselves with him for a while and so throw down Telúmono with their untied strength, for in the vanity of their pride this was their thought and folly, and afterward overthrow the Black Hand and have the mastery to themselves. But how to divide up the world between them, they gave little thought, and if it could have come to pass, they would have fallen to warring against each other in the end. And so it was by their prideful desires that they fell into evil ways.
And so Áthru Balágnor the Overlord gathered to him followers of every kind, and the shades beneath Oralláigon grew dimmer and deeper. His black hands moved all things across the face of Ankáia to his will, and those who would not bow at his name he harried and waged war against until they were all destroyed or hid.
One such who withstood his wrath was from among his own people, Óchë of the Athrúfinen. Óchë the Faithful. Óchë Evertrue, alone of all his kin to gainsay their father and reproach him to his face; he would have thwarted much of his father’s malice if he could, but his brothers took him and gave him over to the Mimúthrioth and the fastness of their nets. There he was held in torment by the endless gnawing and worrying and cruelty of the Shadow Weavers.
But such treachery as that wrought by Balágnor could not remain forever hid from the light, and even as Tintwiel and Ilún fell swiftly into darkness, her brother Tastúplë and red Dindíol came to Vinyoldë and sought the audience of Víor to ask how it was that evil was allowed to prevail in Ankáia. Maybe it was that they too were tainted by the black lies, for they feared to go straight to Telúmono with news so ill, and so did not then learn the answer.
As it was, all that they learned was that at their coming Víor was roused in wrath beyond reckoning and that the hour was at last come to end the absolute rule of the Black Hand and cast him down from his dark throne.
As a thousand tempests Víor hurled himself from Vinyóldë, calling to his banner all who would still heed such a summons. And they broke upon Úngothon with might and fury, riving through the grey webs and driving the Mimúthrioth before them in a wild terror of their light; and thus was Óchë released from long torment. But Balágnor was not there.
For at the very moment that Víor flew to rage and ruin in Úngothon, Balágnor led forth his dark army with the sounding of many brazen throated horns against Vranos Sunskindler, even as he set west beyond the Ódan Echirímunt which girdled Ankáia. And Balágnor wielded Góthangon the Hellstooth, his great iron tipped spear that he made in the fires of Talquóro.
With the strong cords woven by the cunning of the Mimúthrioth, they caught Korcérason the Sunship and made it fast to the mountainside, and all that fell host clomb wildly over the rail, with shrieks and clamour and tumult. They broke the glass of Eilion, the lamp that Vranos kept, and would have put out the Great Flame, but ere they could quench its fire or be eaten up in its heat, there came two figures between them: Vranos himself and Rástmu, alone to stand at his lord’s side. And they defied their foes to come closer, and for a moment that host faltered in their purpose, even Balágnor with all his might. But taking up a shard of glass, Ilún sprang forward and drove it deep into Rástmu’s breast, so that Rástmu fell back into the flame, and was seen no more in Arí.
Then did Víor perceive his brother, and beheld the deed of Ilún, even from afar. And with all his following he raged toward Korcérason, even as Vrános was beaten down, with Góthangon pressed to his throat. But ere Góthangon could bite, it was smitten from the hand that wielded it, for Víor was come upon them, and battle was joined.
That war, the Great War of Brothers, devoured all the Worlds. From the bows of Korcérason it spilled over throughout the heavens, so it seemed all the sky was ablaze with fire. And Lirósto received a dreadful wound from Góthangon that he bore as a red scar in his side ever after.
From thence it raged across the face of Ankáia, and the Rilthilan were caught up in the turmoil. Many fought on the side of Víor, but still more fought in Balágnor’s name.
Elmó was slain as he led a host of his people against Ílo of the Cerastili. Those two met upon the wide fields of Ankáia and fought hand to hand; and Ílo wept as he felled Elmó beneath his stroke.
As for Nibbû, he took his two lesser osilan and clasped them against his breast and cast himself from a precipice, for he had lost the Osíltelo in the convulsions of the earth; for Ankáia was broken asunder, torn in two so that all the seas ran together into one place and the land was divided: Vuintalon in the west, and Eratalon in the East.
And as the seas rushed together, Oralláigon was surrounded, and stood far out in the middle of a vast ocean; but Dindiol drew his blade Draiglin and coming anigh the tree, he smote the great column of its bole so that an upwelling shiver ran all through it great length. From its deep root to its furthermost twig, it quaked as if it were some living thing raked with the pain of the blows. And though his blade was notched, Dindiol struck again and again; and Draiglin bit ever deeper, until with a crash that resounded far across Ankáia, Oralláigon fell into the depths, and it was swallowed up by wave and water and white spume rolled over its fruits.
And at the last Balágnor was taken and bound, for he had fled before Víor when he had first come with all his host behind him and his eyes bright with wrath and a light unfailing. He hid himself in a dark lair long prepared against such a chance; and he laughed, for there he thought he was secure, beyond the ken of his brother, but Óchë knew his father’s ways and had long sought to know all concealed doors and unseen paths of his father’s making. And so he delivered Balágnor over to Víor, and Víor named him blessed, and gave to him the place and ward of Rástmu who had passed away, by Vrános’ side.
Thus it was that Áthru Balágnor Overlord, the Accursed, was overthrown at the height of his power and was thrust from Ankáia into Lebtámos, beyond Vinyóldë, and into the prison of adamant prepared for him which is called Cúrleigon. There he sat in mouldering malice until the time when he would be loosed once more to his destruction.
But evil was already abroad in Ankáia, and the hour was not yet come for its mending. Though Víor and his folk hunted out or drove into hiding many of Balágnor’s servants, and the world was never again so wholly covered in evil for many ages, Ilún escaped their devices, and Tintwiel repented not her fall. And so evil endured, sleeping a little while still, yet ever present.
And as the Lady Mára Most Fair and Most Loved, looked down upon Ankáia from the Paroth and saw how tainted that fairest world had become, and how the greatest outrage of death was begun, she wept. In her grief she cast herself from the window of her home and strayed in the skies ever after, her tears shed in bitterness for the blighting of Ankáia oft wetting those very lands below. And she became wildered and was lost.

Mythopoeia Ankáia Part 2: Of Áthru Balágnor 1/2

2008-11-19T21:11:00.001+13:00

When Telúmono gave over Ankáia to the dominion of the Rilthilan, as has been already told, Áthru was ill pleased, for he loved the new world dearly –dearer perhaps than he ought. And the hope of governing Ankáia himself as his own house had grown unbidden in his heart.
He thought at first to share the government with his brother and sister, and they would reign over the Rilthilan how it seemed best to them; but when he learned that this was never a part of Telumono’s purpose, Áthru forsook Vinyoldë and strayed homeless for a time ere he came to Úngothon, the craggy under-regions of Ankáia. He found that place lonesome and empty, unlit even by the Arlóserri and Ailósti, for as they passed beneath the world all save Vranos extinguished their lights and tended them as to be ready to rise once more in the East. But the flames of Vranos beat upon the rocks and deep pits and subterranean mountains of Úngothon without rest.
In those starless lands lived only the sightless, formless shadow-wraiths; and they feared and hated the light Vranos shed, for it stung their swollen eyes. Whence they first came is difficult to learn; many among the wise hold that they were fays who fled the light shed by the sky-barks when they first rose in the beginning days.
And as Áthru came across Úngothon, the Mimúthrioth (for that was their name), found him and held him, and would have done him ill. But Áthru was a master of words, and by fair speech he won them over and persuaded them to help him in the task of turning Úngothon into a paradise after the fashion of Ankáia, only cooler and dimmer; a land of cool shadows in which to hide from the scorching day; for that, he said, was his purpose in coming to Úngothon. And he fashioned them bodies to clothe themselves with in return for their service. But the bodies he gave them were terrible, like those of great spiders; and like spiders they wove thick grey meshes of web that shielded them from the rays of Éilion, the Great Lamp of Vranos. And they came to be bound by oath and a strange love to their new master.
In the midst of Úngothon Áthru set a mighty forge – Talquóro he named it, for upon its fires he smelted the metals from which he sought to fashion his realm. But the fires of Talquóro grew hot and burned fierce, and of a sudden they leapt forth and burned Áthru’s hands as he worked there, so that they pained him always and could not be healed and hindered him in everything. Thus was his own curse that he spoke in Vinyoldë worked out upon himself. And he was called ever after Balágnor, which is Black Handed.
Neither was anything he fashioned fair, but ever his designs would turn awry and result in forms of dismay – dark and twisted towers, blasted trees and poison lakes, dead cities of shriveled gardens and sightless windows; and over all the Mimúthrioth would hang their grey webs. And never could Áthru imitate the gift of life that was Telúmono’s alone to give, though he sought the secret unceasingly.
And so his shame and jealousy grew and he came to hate Ankáia with malice as strong as his former love, for he was neither permitted to rule it nor could he imitate it. And his cunning turned from how he could create life to how he could ensnare that which already was, and so come to rule it at last.
He sought out the purest of metals and gathered them together and brought them to Talquóro where he forged them long and hotly, thought his hands pained him sorely and his wounds opened up and wept blood upon his work. Yet his malice drove him on, and by his long toil he made the fairest and at the same time most fell of all his works: Oralláigon, the Iron Bough, a tree of vast measure. And he took Oralláigon and planted it in Ankáia that the eyes of all men, Ngóstili, Cerástili and fays might be turned towards it. For it was indeed a mighty edifice, its boughs spread far across the skies, league upon league, and they were hung with leaves of beaten silver in imitation of all the leaves of the trees that grew in Ankáia. They were set together so thickly that they veiled the land from the light of the lamps, so that it was cast into a shadow that even Vranos could pierce only as a half-remembered glimmer. And among the leaves were set many flowers, the wrought likenesses of the yellow drooping eilystin and the fiery blooms of quorordhon, and many others beside.
But its fruit was of the deadliest black; swollen berries of smooth stone, perfect and shapely, unlike anything else to come from the mind of Áthru Balágnor. Some were as large as a man’s clenched hand, and yet others as small as the worn pebbles of a riverbed. But all were most lovely, at times seeming to glow with a distant, inner luster.
And he treated with the Quendíli and the Ngóstili, appearing to them in a lesser guise than he was wont, more like an ailóstë of the heavens than his true form. And so they knew not who he was, nor whence he came, knowing only that he gave good gifts, as they thought them, and that he called himself Telúmanan, the Giver of Gifts; and that they saw no evil portend in this was indeed a wondrous thing.
But it may be that they knew nothing of evil, and that they were lulled by the goodness of his gifts and the willingness with which he gave them. And shortly he came to speak to them of different ways and other wisdom, as he said, a hidden knowledge that Telúmono had kept from them, for, he said, Telúmono considered them of small importance, mere playthings for his children’s amusement. If they would but heed him, and inquire into this better wisdom, he would show them a knowledge with which they might rival even the wisdom of the Vinyarni themselves.
And as a mark of his friendship Balágnor plucked seven fruits from Oralláigon, the osilan, and offered them to those that harkened to his words. And they took them and treasured them.
To Nibbû he gave three, one larger, two smaller, and the larger was called by Nimró Zrâmkâbbel, which is Desire in the speech of his people, but the Quendílli named it Osíltelo and Ngostheimë, which is Gift-fruit and Dwarvesbane. And Nibbû would suffer none save his own sons to touch or handle it, for he thought it the greatest of all the fruits given, as indeed it was. Therefore he counted himself deep in Telúmanan’s counsels.
To Elmó and his sons Áthru gave only two lesser fruits, and the remaining two he would have given to Ílo, but Ílo refused to take them, saying he would not treat with one who denied Ankáia the proper light of day and, with fair words albeit, sought to usurp the place of Telúmono.
And with his choice he saved his people from the deadly doom that fell upon the Quendíli and Ngóstili, for when they accepted his gifts and lorecaft, they gave themselves over to the dominion of Balágnor Black Hand, and took with along with the fruits his final gift and curse: that of death.
For the new wisdom that Áthru taught them was that of strife and envy, of greed and ambition and of a thousand other griefs and ills. And when their hearts were fully poisoned with shadow, they could no longer live, and so they died – slowly and still yet over many years, but the disease of death was loosed, and one by one they were laid cold in earthen mounds.
And yet some said still that it was better, now they knew fully. And they held to the lore of Balágnor and called him Master, for he freed them from their ignorance.

I Hate to Repeat Myself

2008-10-27T15:56:00.005+13:00

A friend of mine and I swapped a sentence each to make a story out of said sentence. He gave me "Molly and the Caterer." Take a few liberties with conjunctions and whatnot, this was the result:

There comes an hour when every man, every woman, every child and every dog must make an important decision. A great crossroads lies before them, a diverging of paths, a separation of ways. All their future prospects hang on this single moment. Some choose wisely and are met with success. Others choose more poorly and everything that follows thereafter is a disaster spiraling into a decent of unmitigated failure. Such a choice was now before Edmund Dotteridge. There it lay on the counter. Steak or Mince? True, Steak was nicer, but undoubtedly it would be mainly gravy with the few gaps filled in with one or two shavings of meat. Mince, on the other hand, might be fairly solidly filled with good meat, but who knew where the meat had come from, or what it was? And they always tried to sneak bits of veggies in: peas, carrots, corn, that sort of thing. It was a hard call. He chose poorly. Another thing about mince pies is the small white fragments of something that defies description that one occasionally finds in ones’ mouthful of pastry and butchered animal (presumably cow). Is it paper? Or plastic? Or the digestive tract of the animal? In the present case under the rigours of our examination, it was definitely paper. It was the first of the consequences of a bad choice, the first step in that downward spiral. As Edmund pulled it from his mouth, this truth began to dawn on him. But the second step was about to reveal itself. Something about the fragment caught his eye. He unscrunched it and saw written there in bold capital letters one word; one word of fate.

MOLLY

One word messages are always the most enigmatic, I find. Though I’ve never found one in my pie, I believe that distinction belongs to Edmund alone. Another thing that I’ve never found in my pie is that golf ball of fat I’m repeatedly told is in each and every one. However, I stray from my topic. Not unsurprisingly, Edmund was perturbed. “Eh, what?” quoth he. A feeling of cold nausea swept over him, like the time I found a fly peaceably doing the backstroke in my coffee.
“Egad!”
He rose from his seat with the wrath of a man denied his full sustenance, muttering complains under his breath. This wouldn’t do. A chap doesn’t unearth what might be considered by some as practically a novel from among the ingredients of his midday meal and just let the thing drop. Some one was about to get an earful. As I say, he rose and, carefully selecting the strongest words of reproof from his mental store, strode off in the direction of the bakery whence came his pie. But he had hardly gone two paces when fate, if you go in for that sort of thing, once more intervened. His gaze was cast heavenward, as if to seek inspiration from the clouds (cumulonimbus) for a more grilling turn of phrase with which to finish off his coming assault on the bakery, when his eye was arrested by a sight which made his jaw sag open an inch or two, his feet to falter, his breath to come in short, rapid gasps. In brief, his whole body was stricken with sudden paralysis. There had been a building going up in the area lately, no one really knew what it was for or who owned it, but there it was; and it was to this structure that Edmund now turned his face. It had finally been completed, and was having its signage painted. Across the front of the building was blazoned in bright, cheerful letters one word:

MOLLY

With the sudden perception of a sleuth, Edmund knew that this building was his destination, and not the bakery. What was the bakery, when there were buildings declaring their mollishness to the world? The bakery, one might say, was a mere footling waste of time Uttering a triumphant “Aha, aha,” Edmund changed tack, and hove off in the direction of said building. Five blocks away, he reckoned the building to be, seemingly so very close, yet that small distance was only to be crossed at his diremost, if that is even a word, peril. But such men, filled with the indomitable fire of adventure, mock at peril. A man I once knew told me a story of how he was eating a quiche, and enjoying it too, when he found within a message that filled him with fear. Along with detailed instructions, the message came with a nail file, a flashlight, a small crowbar and a tube of Colgate toothpaste. But upon setting out, my friend had come to the first busy road that came between him and his goal, and, observing the velocity at which the cars travelled and calculating the comparative speed at which he would need to weave between their fenders, his nerve failed, fear took him, and he collapsed in a blubbering heap on the footpath. Such is the fate of chaps who think they can get by on quiche. And to my knowledge, his beloved Molly is still locked in the tower from where she sent out a secret plea for help and rescue. But Edmund experienced no such weakening of the spine as he encountered a similar such road. With nimbleness that any given deer leaping about in the hills could have picked up hints from, he bounded across the street, scattering cars left and right. It was not until he had won across to the far side did an icy hand of fear grip his heart, a sensation somewhat like brain freeze, only not quite, as it deals with quite a different organ. A stray car careened toward him, swerved at the very last moment, narrowly missed a passing lamppost, and ended its wild dash in the river. It was not the close encounter with old man death that had Edmund thoroughly shaken, but what he had seen before the vehicle had plunged off the road and disappeared into the depths, its moistened driver swimming ashore with a lingering look in his eye that bespoke evil thought. As it had ripped past, Edmund had caught in the blur a word painted on the side of the car. Only one word.

MOLLY

He shook. He quailed. He dash well near fainted on the spot. But it was not quiche that feed this man, no, it was pie that filled his stomach, lubricating his mind and sinews. Edmund turned in the direction of the building, and raising his fist and shaking it with vigour, he cried out with all the fiery passion mustered in his soul: “Curse thee, O thou lady of despair! Verily, I say, even though the quest lead to my death, I shall pursue thee and uncover the secrets of thy mind!” Having lightened his soul, Edmund proceeded on his way, more wary now, and wiser. Determination was in his every step, and the blocks fell away. Four blocks to go. Three. Two. The building now took up nearly all the skyline, its many eyed windows frowning out across the city, its brazen signage still bellowing forth its monodeclarive – and that I know not to be a word – message. There are people whom I have met who would consider being only two blocks away from their destination as being as good as having arrived. “Two blocks?” they’d say, “Tchah! Nothing to it.” But this is not the soundest of philosophies. A veritable menagerie of things might happen to a person between here and there, no matter how close there may be. They might fall into a sudden hole. They might be mugged by a cucumber wielding bandit. They might be chased by a savage dog. The government might suddenly declare themselves a dictatorship; oil might be discovered in your backyard; you might be followed by an agent of a secret organization even as you read this; a member of the press might pounce on you from behind an unassuming billboard and demand an opinion on current events, and so immortalize your statement forevermore, but the appearance of your name and photo in the paper would let your enemies you have been avoiding for ten years know your whereabouts – a bittersweet situation. What I’m driving at is this: never assume the unassumable. And while we’re at it, don’t jump to conclusions. But I never intended to come over all moralistic. Here was Edmund, the light of fierce resolve burning bright in his eyes, his goal less distant than it had ever been, but did he assume safety? Did he allow his to shoulders sag and his feet to scuff, careless of his surroundings? Did he so soon forget his lesson at the road? Well, yes, I’m sorry to say he did. And that explains why he never saw the two men following him until they were nearly upon him. Now generally speaking, there is nothing unusually alarming about two men on the footpath behind you, unless they are policemen and you have recently committed a miscellaneous felony of one kind or another, which I trust you haven’t, or if the men are both wearing snazzy business jackets with one word embroidered on the left side of each.

MOLLY

Forgive me if I am becoming a shade repetitive, but as a matter of integrity I am bound to relate events exactly as they happened, I can’t just knock about fabricating a purely imaginary narrative. It must be the truth or nothing. Suffice to say, Edmund ran. Like the dickens.
“Ho!” cried one snazzy jacket.
“Hoi!” roared the other.
It has been observed by a certain humorous author that words such as “Ho” and “Hoi” are never really very easy to find a reply to, not that Edmund worried over much about making conversation. With the pair of snazzy jackets on his heels, he covered the remaining two blocks at a pace that would have left any selected cheetah standing. The building stood before him, its doors yawning wide. Edmund halted the doubt of fear bearing down upon him – dare he enter in? But as he glanced over his shoulder, he saw the snazzy jackets were also bearing down on him. He plunged through the doors, and took his fate into his hands. There were plush carpets, mahogany wall panels, and rows of pictures on the wall of long gone executives dating, by the looks of them, from the mid 1700’s. A deep, imposing stair-case disappeared into the darkness of the floors above, and semi-clad works of art clustered around the foyer. Not that Edmund had the time then to notice any of these things, as he was too preoccupied in the task of disengaging himself from the broad waistcoat belonging the gentleman who had rudely obstructed his flight. For a moment neither person spoke a word, both having had the breath knocked soundly from them.
“Here, what’s all this?” exclaimed Broad Waistcoat, as Edmund’s two pursuers burst through the door.
“My pie! Paper,” gasped Edmund.
“What? Speak sense man!”
Edmund hastened to collect himself. He drew himself up, and eyed Broad Waistcoat with a frosty glare. “Paper! My pie.” He said, and he meant it to sting.
Turning to the Snazzy Jackets who stood panting at the door, Broad Waistcoat raised his eyebrows in cold inquiry. “I don’t suppose either of you two goons would care to shed some light on this lunatic’s drivel?” he said.
“Sorry boss,” stuttered one.
“We never meant…” stammered the other. “But we think he’s the One.”
“You think he’s the One? He’s the One, is he? And that being so, you have chased him the length and breadth of the city?” snapped Broad Waistcoat
“Well, I wouldn’t have exactly said the whole…”
“That’s enough!” Broad Waistcoat growled, “It remains that you did chase him.”
“Yes boss.”
“Is this how we treat our customers?”
“No boss”
At this point Edmund had sufficiently recovered. “Here, I say,” he said. But his comment earned no reply.
“The customer is king!”
“Yes boss.”
“And would you hound a king down dark alleyways and dim backstreets?”
“No boss. Sorry boss. But we thought.”
“I don’t suppose…” interrupted Edmund.
“No buts!”
“Yes boss, but...”
“Ahem!”
“Could I please get something cleared up?” said Edmund.
“Right then, be off with you,” said Broad Waistcoat.
“I do beg your pardon?” said Edmund, with a touch of offended incredulity.
“Oh, terribly sorry, I didn’t mean you,” said Broad Waistcoat, coming over all politeness, and laying on the honeyed tongue. “I meant these two goats here. You must forgive them; they’re just a touch exuberant in their methods, what with you being the One, and all.”
“Ah, yes, I was hoping you’d get back to that,” said Edmund, “What exactly is this One you keep mentioning, if you don’t think it too rude in my asking?”
“Why, you’re it.”
“Ah yes? But I mean what I am I then?”
“My dear old horse, you, and I know it would make your mother proud, are our very first customer.”
“Oh? Yes? I think you must have crossed the wires somewhere, you see I came here because there was paper in my pie.”
“Yes?” Broad Waistcoat said, as thought this were no extraordinary thing, an everyday occurrence.
This stumped Edmund a bit. “Don’t you find that a tad bit disturbing?” he said, flapping his arms about for emphasis.
“Should I?” asked Broad Waistcoat.
“Well, yes, dash it all. It’s disgusting”
“Ah, but you came,” said Broad Waistcoat with a knowing smile, like a father who smiles upon the innocence of his child.
“Eh? I'm afaid I don't exactly follow.”
“My dear, valued customer, it was an advertisement.”
“What!”
“Yes, we put our name where people are sure to find it, and require our services.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, your first pie was spoiled, so you came here to find another, more superior pie, or any other dainty you may desire, for you and your family and every special event.”
“Good grief! What on earth are you on about?”
“My dear chap, you are at Molly Catering Services. We cater for you. I’m Molly. Octavian Tiberius Herbert Molly. Mr. Molly. How many pies will that be?”

Mythopoeia Ankáia Part 1: Elmo Vranriman

2008-10-27T15:34:00.006+13:00

Ere aught else was yet conceived there was Venaur, Lord of All, called Telúmono. And his thought went out thither into the Void, across the lonesome, unbounded regions of Nerethnimlo, and thence by his word sprung his beloved, the Vinyárni, his Holy Children. And they were three in number.

Foremost among them was Víor whose eyes shone bright with a holy fire, for his mind was most akin to Telúmono’s own. Second to him came Áthru, and his thought ran deep and so his brow was lined with the care of many mysteries. Last came the Lady Mára, the most fair and most dear to her brothers. Her voice went forth in the sweet music of song, and the halls of Vínyoldë which Telúmono shaped to house his children, was filled with joy at the sound.
Once more Telúmono extended his thought into the Great Barrenness; and by the word of that thought was shaped Ankáia, the Lower World, for this he hung without the Paroth Ankáia, the arched window which looked out from Vínyoldë into Nerethnimlo.
For this was the shape of Arí, the Whole Worlds: Lebtámos was first and lay beyond all else, and it was the Outermost Void and truly Nothing, final and endless, until the day when Telúmono ordains to work anew the Worlds. Within Lebtámos, and yet not a part of it, was Vinyóldë, the Hallows of Telúmono and the Halls of the Vinyárni. And Vinyóldë encircled Nerethnimlo, which for a little while was the Inner Void, until Telúmono’s works filled it with light and life. Last was Ankáia, fairest and midmost of the Worlds.
Now, Ankáia was in shape like as vast, flat disc; and Telúmono clothed the new born world in trees and grasses and raised the massy ranks of mountains and cut the trenches of the sea upon its face, and breathed the first winds to stir across the wide spaces of the land.
He placed the beasts upon the land, and filled the sea with fishes and made the birds to ride the untamed air. And he made the Ilmáran, the fays of wood and mount.
And that Nerethnimlo would be empty no more nor without light as it then was, Telúmono fashioned the Skybarks, and set burning in each a great lamp to shine on Ankáia. And every ship was given to be piloted and every lamp to be tended to single helmsman each. The Arlóserri and the Ailósti they were called, the Greater and the Lesser.
Of the Ailósti, who were the lesser, there were numbers uncounted, and though Telúmono gave to each their own name, scarce few are remembered in the histories. But of the Arlóserri there were but ten and their names are held dear by all who watched the heavens.
There was Vrános, Watchman of the Day, his very sails and hull seeming to be alight with a glorious flame, yet never burning up. His lamp was Eilion, the greatest of all lamps. And there was Quë, his gentle wife, Mistress of the Night, for her lamp shone silver only when Vrános had lowered his fiery sails and passed beyond the rim of the world.
After her came Rástmu who dared take his ship in closer than any other to Vrános his lord. And also there was Silfeínyn of the Morning, second in beauty only to the Lady Mára herself. And there was Dindíol the Red-headed with his pale blade Draiglin; and doughty Lirósto; and Kilmárë with her shining garlands hung about her; and Tastúplë and his sister Tíntwiel; and distant Ilún, the last and least Arlóserrë. Indeed, some held that he was no Arlóserrë at all, but an Ailóstë.
All these were by Telúmono’s command set in their courses across the sky. And his work was good, and it was fair, but it was yet incomplete.
For when the Vinyárni saw the beauty of Ankáia they were enamored and sang of its wonder. And they said to each other; if only they might join together with their father in his labour and each add something to his work.
This pleased Telúmono well, for it was he who had first placed the thought in their minds. Thus it was that together they gave shape to the Three Races of Ankáia, the Rilthilan; and Telúmono gave them will and intellect and kindled life beneath their unliving flesh.
But when the Vinyárni had completed their work and saw how the fathers of the Rilthilan walked in gladness in the glades and fields of Ankáia, Áthru felt suddenly ashamed. For although they shaped the Rilthilan together, each race was formed after the particular thought of one Arvánë.
Thus Nibbû, father of the Ngóstili, and his wife Krâlmim were the product of the chief of Áthru’s thought. They were a stunted, moody folk, oft quick to quarrel and swift to find fault; he fancied them harsh, unlovely and rude – ill matched with the grace of Ankaia. And he cursed his hands, that they had fashioned an ill favoured people.
In truth, they were not as he thought them – they were not ugly; yet nor were they passing fair, not as fair as were the other Rilthilan, but they were hardy, able to endure greater feats of strength than their kin. They knew best the crafts of masonry and steelwork, being able to raise soaring towers or – through a craftsmanship that they alone learned mastery – they could hollow entire mountains to be cities for their people.
Those people who were sprung form the designs of Víor were the Quendíli, and Elmo and Ulmí were the first. They were a noble, beauteous folk, with mastery of the birds and beasts of Ankáia, and able to tame them and keep them to add to their joy or to aid in their work. For this people learned the art of growing things and how to cultivate the earth as they pleased.
As for the folk of Mára, they were the Cerástili, and were most lithesome of the Rilthilan, and were oft times mistaken by the other races for Ilmáran as they danced in the woods or along the strands by the sea which they loved most. Therefore they made for themselves worthy ships to ride the heaving surf and they sailed wither they would in the world.
And to these races Telúmono gave dominion and judgment over all things with Ankáia, bounded only by the path of Quë, the closest of the Arlóserri which circled about Ankáia.

More Poetry Not of My Own Making

2008-10-11T17:32:00.005+13:00

Once again I thought the general public needing enlightening in the region of humorous poetry. Therefore I introduce Ogden Nash, who was the poet laureate of America's light verse. Anyhow, I think he's quite incredible, and so, apparently, did a great many other people. Some of his rhyming is rather on the fantastic side, if you follow me, and that is his beauty. I cannot say which is my favourite, so I have picked one, more or less at random. I will try to find the one about Columbus, which I reckon to be a real whatever the word is.

So Does Everyone Else, Only Not So Much
O all ye exorcizers come and exorcize now, and ye clergymen draw nigh and clerge,
For I wish to be purged of an urge.
It is an irksome urge, compounded of nettles and glue,
And it is turning all my friends back into acquaintances, and all my acquaintances into people who look the other way when I heave into view.
It is an indication that my mental buttery is butterless and my mental larder lardless,
And it consists not of "Stop me if you've heard this one," but of "I know you've heard this one because I told it to you myself, but I'm going to tell it to you again regardless,"
Yes I fear I am living beyond my mental means.
When I realize that it is not only anecdotes that I reiterate but what is far worse, summaries of radio programs and descriptions of cartoons in newspapers and magazines.
I want to resist but I cannot resist recounting the bright sayings of celebrities that everybody already is familiar with every word of; I want to refrain but cannot refrain from telling the same audience on two successive evenings the same little snatches of domestic gossip about people I used to know that they have never heard of.
When I remember some titillating episode of my childhood I figure that if it's worth narrating once it's worth narrating twice, in spite of lackluster eyes and dropping jaws,
And indeed I have now worked my way backward from titillating episodes in my own childhood to titillating episodes in the childhood of my parents or even my parents-in-laws,
And what really turns my corpuscles to ice,
I carry around clippings and read them to people twice.
And I know what I am doing while I am doing it and I don't want to do it but I can't help doing it and I am just another Ancient Mariner,
And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener.
Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?

Heck, lets go for another...

The Purist
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

The End of the Beginning is Nigh

2008-10-09T20:56:00.004+13:00

For those of you who care, it seems to me that I am only a few paragraphs - or even sentences- away from completing the rewrite of the first part of my Mythopoeia (one day I really should look that word up to make sure that it does mean what I think it means, I must find Tolkien's poem by that name) which will make it, I think, its fourth revision in just about as many years. I am excited about it, like no one else possibly can be, that is why I write this post. I will try to get it done tonight - that is, finish writing it. Then I have to put it together (it is on three different files on two different computers) print it out, check the names, have it proof read (thanks Mum) and then probably come up with a new concept that needs to be incorperated, and so start over again.
I warn you, it is the same story as here, only with new names, new concepts, and more words. To take one example, the cheifest, the world it no longer called Handaion, but Ankaia. That's An-keye-a (as in eye, which you have two of) not An-ka-ee-a.
I had best be getting on.....

Twelve Red Roses

2008-09-29T11:08:00.005+13:00

I found this languishing in a forgotten folder on my computer today. Like most of my stuff, unfinished, but as I can't remember what was meant to happen next, if I ever knew, I don't think I'll get it completed. Sorry about the change in fonts, I can't seem to fix it. It complains about something or other in the Html when I try.

Someone was at the door. Expressing my frustration by means of a series of onomatopoeic exclamations, I shut my book with a resounding clap (it was a 400 page hardcover), rose from my chair and made for the door. Hastily putting on my “about-to-receive-an-unknown-guest” face, I opened the said portal to find an impatient courier upon the step.

“Sebastian Teach?” he snapped, daring me to be anyone else.

“That’s me,” I stammered.

“There’s a bouquet of flowers for you – sign here.” He thrust a technological do-hickey at me.

“A bouquet of what!”

“Flowers.”

I signed. He snatched the whatchamicallit back.

“Flowers?”

“Yes, flowers.”

Observing the conversation to have stagnated, the courier pitched a large, cellophane entombed bouquet at me, leaped into his van and roared backward down the drive. A little old lady with a walking frame shook her fist and hurled bloodcurdling oaths at him as he narrowly missed running her down.

I hurriedly shut the door before my ears were scorched off at the sound of her profane cursing and examined the unexpected garland. There were twelve red roses – blood red.

Who could they be from? A morbid thought hit me like an icy snowball of compacted fear and horror. A girl? Never! “Doesn’t the Post Office screen anything?” I suddenly found new meaning in these words of my sagacious friend Calvin.

In feverish anticipation I drew the customary card from amongst the carmine petals. Tentatively I read the flourished inscription – at least, I tried to. These flowers can't be from a girl, I mused, they might be an incomprehensible barrier to understanding at times, but never so unintelligible as this. There was one word – pistachio.

My mind reeled and staggered in a merry Bacchic dance. I was not used to such enigmatic mail. Voting papers were nothing in comparison.

Beneath this word was a series of numbers that resembled a phone number somewhat. Acting contrary to my nature, I reached for the phone and dialed the number.

“Hello?”

“Ah, Hello. It's Sebastian Teach speaking, I've just received twelve roses and your number was on the card so...”

There was a gasp on the other end and the sound of someone conversing excitedly in the background came thru the earpiece.

“Are the roses red?” they asked.

“Well, yes, but...”

“And violets are blue. We'll be there in half an hour.”

“What? I just want to know...”

But they had hung up. All I could do now was to wait.

They came in black cars, black suits, black glasses and patriotic ties – all twelve of them. I could swear they stepped from their cars and walked to the door in slow motion. The tallest addressed me.

“Morning,” he said in a voice that reminded me of an elephant seal (don't ask), “Ruben's the name – not my real one – but that's the one you'll call me by.”

He seemed a nice sort of chap. Grabbed me by the collar and chucked me in the car.

As we drove along we passed a red headed youth executing an amazing bicycle stunt over an elderly lady's car. You could tell he was well practiced. But Ruben was unmoved.

“The Boss wants you...."

A Question

2008-09-08T21:08:00.007+12:00

The other day I received this email from Simeon:

If T and E multiplied by T = Book

And if F and A multiplied by E and D = Sent

Then what does T and O multiplied by I and C =

a, Boat

b, Poison

c, Phone

Answer plus reason please!!

When I finally figured it out I gave my answer and reason in the following manner:

H. and W. were walking down the street, avoiding puddles and deep in conversation.
"Let's review the facts of the case, my dear W." said H.
"Yes," replied W., "I confess that it all appears to me as nothing but a muddle."
"This morning at 9 o'clock the body of T. was found in the City Library with a book in one hand and a phone in the other. The librarian, Miss E., had the misfortune of finding the corpse and, she claims, the book in his hand was Boat Sense, an exceedingly dull book only of interest to aspiring boaters."
"Yes, yes, that's all clear."
"Well then, this is where you must follow me closely. The janitor, a certain Mr. T., - no relation to T. so far as I can gather - who came when he heard Miss E. scream, holds that the title of the book was The Sent of Poison. But this must surely be a mispronunciation, and he must have meant the book was The Scent of Poison by the well know novelist F. A. Boat."
"Which could account for Miss E. mistaking the title of the book," interjected W., "She would have seen the Scent and the Boat and being in a state of confusion, what with the dead body and all, jumped to conclusions and..."
"My dear W., it is you who are doing the jumping. You always are too keen to think the good of everybody. No, she did not mistake anything. You are forgetting, as you usually do, that in T.'s other hand he held a phone. And that the last number to be rung on that phone was a cellphone number belonging to an individual from the city. From this we can deduct that Miss E. was clearly covering for a unknown party, who for the sake of simplicity we will call X. Now, as you can imagine I saw this as an obvious clue. Elementary, in fact. And it has led me to suspect that Mr. E and Mrs. D of the Multiple Textual Omissions Society are not at all what they claim to be. It fact, from a faxed editorial sent to me by a friend, my suspicions were proved to be correct. From this we were quickly able to round up most of the gang. T. was already accounted for, the sad victim of the jealous rival for the hand of Miss E. O. and I. I found at the nearby cinema engaged in the dubious activity of throwing popcorn at the screen. And C. was cornered in the Rental Fiction section reading a work of more than usual atrocious sentimentality. The only one who was missing was the culprit himself, X. It was at that moment that I remembered that today was Monday, and not a public holiday at that. Therefore, with all haste I caught the tram to the quay and arrived just in time to see X's escape boat sinking into the inky depths carrying the murderer to a ghastly, but not altogether unjust, death."
"You astound me, H." cried W.
"That may be," replied H., "But we are still left with the question of the murder weapon. Was it the boat, the phone, or the glass of sherry left on the library table?"
"But I would have thought it was the book," started W.
"No, W. Why can you never see? It was the sherry. It was poisoned."

An Agony in Twenty-Nine Fits

2008-08-25T13:36:00.004+12:00

Once again the West Coast shows itself up. One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at this homicide of the decorum of grammar. This document is the actual information sheet our local "National Kiwi Center" hands out to visitors. I suppose they figure that as we get a lot of tourists through, they wouldn't know English that well anyway, so why bother in making it comprehensible? The numbers correspond to the exhibits in the building.

Fables for the Frivolous

2008-08-09T16:42:00.003+12:00

These, in my humble opinion (and here is where I can voice that as much as I like), are dashed clever poems. The fellow has (some hundred years ago) reincarnated a number of Aesop's fables as poems, and as the wider public didn't know what they were missing out on, I saw fit to post one of my favourites. Thus, I present you with:

THE ICONOCLASTIC RUSTIC
AND
THE APROPOS ACORN

By Guy Wetmore Caryll

Reposing 'neath some spreading trees,
    A populistic bumpkin
  Amused himself by offering these
    Reflections on a pumpkin:
  "I would not, if the choice were mine,
  Grow things like that upon a vine,
  For how imposing it would be
  If pumpkins grew upon a tree."

  Like other populists, you'll note,
    Of views enthusiastic,
  He'd learned by heart, and said by rote
    A creed iconoclastic;
  And in his dim, uncertain sight
  Whatever wasn't must be right,
  From which it follows he had strong
  Convictions that what was, was wrong.

  As thus he sat beneath an oak
    An acorn fell abruptly
  And smote his nose: whereat he spoke
    Of acorns most corruptly.
  "Great Scott!" he cried. "The Dickens!" too,
  And other authors whom he knew,
  And having duly mentioned those,
  He expeditiously arose.

  Then, though with pain he nearly swooned,
    He bathed his organ nasal
  With arnica, and soothed the wound
    With extract of witch hazel;
  And surely we may well excuse
  The victim if he changed his views:
  "If pumpkins fell from trees like that,"
  He murmured, "Where would I be at?"

Of course it's wholly clear to you
    That when these words he uttered
  He proved conclusively he knew
    Which side his bread was buttered;
  And, if this point you have not missed,
  You'll learn to love this populist,
  The only one of all his kind
  With sense enough to change his mind.

  THE MORAL: In the early spring
  A pumpkin-tree would be a thing
  Most gratifying to us all,
  But how about the early fall?

Read more here

The Lord of the Rings in Sixty Seconds

2008-07-03T16:17:00.002+12:00

Now this is funny

A Synoptic History Part 1

2008-05-19T15:15:00.008+12:00

Update 4/10/08: If you have not already read this, don't bother starting now. I have very nearly rewritten it all, replacing a lot of the names. I mean to post it in smaller portions next time, in a couple of weeks, perhaps.

I've called this Part One for a reason, however the other parts to come are still rather sketchy - even in "synoptic" form. (Of the Rise of the Quendilli; Of Ereston Irchamilon; Of Ingold and Ingram; Of Adinnir Drakesbane; Of Loquendon and Oedis; etc.) You'll just have to try your luck with the names. And please don't anyone mention "The Silmarillion" - those of you who know what that is.

Of the Creation of the Lower World and the Great Enmity

First there was Venaur, called Telúmono, Lord of All; and from the word of his thought sprung his beloved, the Arváni, named his Holy Children. Of these there were three. Foremost among them was Víor, the Lord of Light; second to him came Athrú, Lord of Darkness – for in those first days ere time was yet counted, darkness was pleasing and night held no fear, for fear had not then been conceived. Last came the Lady Mará, and most dear to her brothers. And they dwelt together with Telúmono in Vinyóldë.

Erelong, Telúmono fashioned that which he called Hándaion, the Lower World, for he hung it without Vinyóldë, in the Void, and made a window looking down upon it from his throne. This world he clothed with trees and grasses and raised mountains and cut seas upon its face. He placed beasts and birds on the land and fish in the waters; and he made the soulless fays of tree and mount.

And the Void he filled with the greater and lesser Seraphs, the Arlússindi and the Ailostí. The lesser seraphs were numberless, and none have learned all their names; but of the Greater were only a few, and their names are recounted in all the histories. There was Vrános the Watchman of Day, ablaze with a great flame and chief of all the Seraphs; and there was his wife Quë, gentle Mistress of the Night. Also there was Rastmú who dared to pilot his ship closer than any other to fiery Vrános; and also bright Silfeínyn of the Morning, fairest of all; and Díndiol the Red Headed; and doughty Lirósto; and Kilmárë with her shining garlands hung about her; and Tastúplë and his sister Tíntwiel, and distant Ilún, last and least among the Arlússindi. All these were set by Telúmono in their courses across the sky. And his work was good, and it was fair, but it was yet incomplete.

For when the Arváni saw the beauty of Hándaion, they were enamored and sang of its wonder. And they said to themselves that if only they might each add something to this work. Therefore they came to their father and asked that they might join in his labour together with him.

This pleased Telúmono, for it had been his own thought that he had placed in their minds. Thus he decreed that they three should each of them shape a man and from that man would come an entire race; and under the unliving flesh of these new men, he himself would kindle life.

But when the Arváni had fulfilled their task, and saw how glad were these fathers of men as they walked in the glades of Hándaion, Athrú felt suddenly ashamed. For though the men of his brother and sister were fair and oft merry, his was short and grim and quick in temper. He fancied them to be harsh, unlovely and rude; creatures ill matched with the beauty of Hándaion. And so he cursed his hands, that they had fashioned these malformed people.

In truth, they were not as him thought them – they were not ugly, but nor were they passing fair – but they were hardy, and skilled in craftsmanship. Yet they seldom cared to fashion small, delicate things, but would fainer raise soaring towers and fine cities. They were named by Telúmono the Ngóstili, the Stalwart Folk.

Mará's people he named the Merdili, for they loved the oceans of the world and its heaving surf, and the wide northern skies, therefore they took their homes beneath the seas.

To the last race, those of Víor, Telúmono gave the name Quendili and it is with them that this history is chiefly concerned.

Now, to these three races Telúmono gave dominion and judgment over all things within the spheres of Hándaion, bounded by the path of Quë, who sailed closest of all the Seraphs to Hándaion; but this pleased Athrú illy. He loved the new world dearly – dearer than he ought, nigh covetously – and desired that he and his brother and sister should govern it as their house. But this was never in Telúmono's purpose.

Therefore Athrú thought to make himself a new world to be his home; so he took himself to the underside of the disc of Hándaion – called Úngothon, the Nether-hells – were nothing lived, save the sightless, formless shadow-fays, to whom Athrú gave their visible shapes in return for their service.

But the bodies he gave them were terrible, like those of great spiders; and like spiders, they wove gloomy meshes of web that barred-out the daylight shed by Vrános. They were the Mim-Úthrioth, bound by oath and strange love to their master.

Neither was anything else he fashioned fair, but always his designs would go astray and result in forms of dismay – dark and twisted towers, blasted trees, and poison lakes, dead cities of shriveled gardens and empty windows. But never could he imitate the gift of life that was Telumono's alone to give, though he tried unceasingly.

In the midst of Úngothon, Athrú set a great forge – Talquóro he named it, for upon it he smelted the materials from which he sought to fashion his realm. But as the fires of Talquóro grew hot and burned fierce, of a sudden they leaped forth and burned Athrú's hands as he worked there, so that they pained him always and hindered him in everything. Thus was his own curse worked out.

And so his shame and jealousy grew and he came to hate Hándaion with malice as strong as his former love, because he could not copy it. Moreover, it came upon him to employ all his cunning to secretly turn the designs of Telúmono awry, for in the defeat of the work of his hands and fruit of his mind he greatly envied the power that his Father wielded.

Now, long ere his fall into darkness and jealousy Athrú had seen the beauty of Silfeínyn, Morning Star, and had wedded her, and had had many children by her. These children were, for the most part, of the same mind as their father, ready to follow his will. One alone among his off-spring still fainly sought Telúmono's favour; Óchë he was named. But he was scorned by his brothers and sisters, and because he oft spoke against their father and would have thwarted much of his malice, they bound him in the nets of the Mim-Úthrioth, and there left him to torment.

Athrú's first move to further his ambition against Telúmono was to send out into the world of Hándaion these children under the fair seeming guise of lords and ladies bearing gifts and teaching wisdom and knowledge to the Three Races. Some he sent even into the heavens to deceive the very stars that could see the gates of Vinyóldë from the rail of their bright ships.

And to all who would harken, Athrú's children whispered discontent and spoke of freedom from the fancied constraints of Telúmono, promising a new and better power would rise in his place; and everywhere they went they won over countless thousands by these lies and the trickery taught them by their father.

Of the Three Races, the Ngóstili were ever the readiest to listen and learn from the children of he who had shaped them, for they forgot that it was not Athrú who had given them life, but Telúmono, therefore they turned aside to worship Athrú, and with them many of the Quendili were also deceived; for both these races desired autonomy.

And among the Arlússindi they won over Tíntwiel and also Ilún, who was flung the furthest out in the heavens, and who desired most to take the place of Rastmú by Vrános' side. And many of the nameless Ailostí they won also; and thus were the heavens thrown into disarray.

But among the Merdili they found no welcome, for those people of the sea were content with their lot and they saw through the lies of Athrú's messengers.

Such black treachery as Athrú's could not long remain hidden, and when the darkened mind of Tíntwiel came to be known to Tastúplë her brother, he and and Díndiol, fearing to go to Telúmono with such evil tidings, came first to Víor as he sat in Vinyóldë and told him of all that was passing in Hándaion by Athrú's design.

And at the telling of their tale, Víor waxed mighty in wrath; and he threw himself down upon Hándaion in the dreadful fury of a thousand tempests to see himself how things went. And as he came he gathered to him all the scattered Seraphs who would still heed his summons.

But even as they came Vrános set in the West of Hándaion, and as he passed beyond the Odán Echirímunt – the mountains which encircle the world – Athrú led forth his dark army in tumultuous clamour to overturn Vrános in his fire-ship and to put out his light. And thinking to usurp his place, Ilún, captain of Athrú, drew his sword and slew Rastmú as he sought to defend Vrános his lord; the first and most terrible of all deaths in Hándaion.

But this deed was beheld from afar by Víor, and he perceived in that moment all the evil his brother had wrought in the world; and he hurled himself with all his following into the battle. Thus the first of the great wars to rend Hándaion – the War of Brothers – was joined.

In that battle Úngothon was destroyed, the fires of Talquóro were quenched, and the webs of the Mim-Úthrioth were torn asunder, and Óchë the Faithful was freed from his bondage. Hándaion was riven in two and all the seas ran together into one place, severing that world into two great continents. And Athrú was utterly defeated, though in the fight he dealt Lirósto a grievous wound in his side. But he was finally taken; and bound in the same webs that had held Óchë fast, was thrust into Cûrleigon in the outer void, his prison of unyielding adamant, there to remain until the ending of the age.

And Telúmono gave this judgment also: that Athrú was banished forthwith from Vinyóldë and fated to one day lose all he sought and whatever he gained, and in the end to be finally destroyed along with all who served him. And the Ngóstili and the Quendili were cursed with mortality for choosing to follow the lies of Athrú. Yet Telúmono swore also an oath that he would not forever abandon them to their doom, but that they would one day be saved, and whosoever trusted in that oath would regain their immortality in the end. But ere that day's dawning, he turned the world over to the servants of Athrú to do with as they pleased.

At the uttering of this doom, Mará, who had alone sued Telúmono for her brother's forgiveness, cast herself in grief from the doors of Vinyóldë and ever after strayed in the skies above Hándaion, her tears shed for the lost world oft wetting those very lands below.

But to faithful Óchë was given the place of Rastmú by Vrános' side. And for a little while their was peace.

And so an age past, and a thousand years of captive malice lay dormant in Athrú's heart; and he escaped from out of Cûrleigon, even as Telúmono had foreseen. And as the gates of Vinyóldë were forever barred to him, he came to Hándaion thinking to regain his power there and once more take up his dark sceptre over all the lands. But he found things little to his liking, for although in his stead Ilún had rebuilt Úngothon and rekindled the fires of Talquóro, and many of his former servants had gathered there to await his return – or had found darksome holes and hideaways in Hándaion, safe from the wrath of Víor – Athrú found that Tíntwiel had abandoned him, and in contention had raised herself up a mountain in the midst of the great sea and had enthralled there under her power two of the kings of Hándaion and all their people with them. These kings were Nímro of the Ngóstili and Khúro of the Quendili; Thrall and Bondage; and by their hands she had fashioned herself a false paradise named Torodíor Găth, a snare to unwary mariners who ventured too near her realm. For although the land seemed fair, upon the mountain top was built a tall tower and a gold dome – a heathen temple to herself, within which was daily offered a sacrifice of mortal blood. She was the queen of sorcery and witchcraft and necromancery.

And so Athrú hated her, as he hated Telúmono and the three Races, and plotted her destruction and the destruction of all the world.

By this time many of the Ngóstili and the Quendili had lost all remembrance of his former evils, for in their mortality they had many of them become weak-minded and ignoble, and this Athrú worked to his gain.

He issued a summons to all the Ngóstili, calling them to Ilábtoron – the easternmost continent of the two in Hándaion– and claimed their fidelity by saying he was their sovereign lord and maker, and as such they were bound to serve him. As of old, many Ngóstili heeded his words and those that followed him to Ilábtoron were named the Chorochán, for he fed them upon his hate, and they became truly foul and grotesque, even as he had first thought them.

But a few still recalled the tales of his ways and refused to again listen to his lies; and so they remained in the west, in Vuintoron; and they were the Úlethoch, for they were separated from their kin.

And He set the Chorochán to work making great engines and armories as to ready them for battle against the Quendili and Úlethoch, and so destroy or enslave all the peoples of the world and cling to his mastery of Hándaion, defying even the final curse of Telúmono.

Alien: A Response

2008-05-17T17:11:00.006+12:00

I wrote this in response to my friend's assertion here that we should not rule out the possibility of the existence of aliens.

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No, I think we can rule out the possibility of aliens altogether. Where do they fit in with God's plan? Where is the biblical allowance for them? True, we might say that about many things - birthdays, computers, and other things the Bible doesn't mention. But if there were alien life forms, this other race of beings would have to be damned in the fall of man. They Bible says that as a result of Adam’s sin "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of child birth right up to the present time" (Romans 8:22) God holds them accountable for our sin?

And what of their relationship to their Creator? If they were cursed by the fall of Adam, are they saved by Christ’s coming to earth as a man and dying as a man to redeem man save them also? Or must He come to Mars in the body of a Martian to bring the Martians salvation also? Of course not, “For Christ died for sins once for all” (1 Peter 3:18).

Could he have created them at a later date, or an earlier? No, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) And if you believe in six day creation, as I do and I know you do, Andy, here is the “beginning” of the first day. Then six days later “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because he rested from all the work of creating He had done.” (Genesis 2:1-3) So if God made aliens, as I see it, He would have had to have done it in those six days, they would have to come under the curse of Adam, and Christ’s death as a man would have had to save them from God’s wrath. Does this agree with the Bible theologically? I may not have made myself very clear, but Andy, you at least know the context within which I am arguing.

Another point, isn’t the search for alien life spurred at least partly from the fear of man “being all there is”? We are corrupt, perverse, immoral, degraded. Humanity presents a grim picture to the most optimistic of people – those who are optimistic hope we’ll get better, we’ll find world peace or make poverty history. Only the completely deluded are content with humanity as it is right now.

Who would want current man to be the pinnacle of evolution? Those who search for extra-terrestrials want to find them because if man was “it”, there is no hope, for man would be the highest rational power in the universe.

But man isn’t “it”. He isn’t the highest power. If by “aliens” we mean “rational beings other than man” they do exist. But they don’t inhabit some distant planet, nor will billions of dollars find them.

The Bible speaks of angels, of demons, of Satan, and of course, of God. Man is not alone.

2007-11-19T19:56:00.001+13:00

Just a couple of youtube videos I thought were rather neat. The first needs no introduction - Jerry Lewis & Lord of the Rings. The second is a Paul Colman song, before he became a Newsboy - back in the PC3 days - set to Lord of the Rings. Good music, good movie.

Another Reason to Revile Against the Foods Festival

2007-11-19T19:28:00.001+13:00

Is this bumper sticker an official document? Do They mean to confirm the low opinion some people have of the citizens of the West Coast and promulgate - in the minds of those certain persons of malicious inclination - our illiteracy? Not that we're all so incompetent in that field - I hope. But, I mean, come on! If the Wildfoods Festival wasn't bad enough already...
What's the bet I committed some defamatory error or other in this denunciation, and condemned myself to endless ridicule.

John Piper is Bad

2007-09-11T14:08:00.000+12:00

A defamatory video? Watch and find out....

Mission: Implausible

2007-09-07T21:16:00.000+12:00

Exterminate Yous - All of Yous

Like the meaning of life and absolute truth, English speaking people are globally searching - often subconsciously - to find a Plural Third Person Pronoun. We all know there should be some solution within the reach of mortal man - it screams to be found - and in this modern era we have attempted to fill that void with misconceived and faulty answers. The most infamous of these is the repugnant word “Yous”. It has spread throughout our society, infiltrating even one of the highest and most respectable paragons of our culture: the television advertisement.

Also like meaning in life and truth, the answer can be found in that which modern man has cast aside as obsolete and antiquated. Our forebears made wide use of the Personal Pronouns “Thou” and “Ye”, but to hope that we could return to this form of language, however practical, would seem to be more than could be asked of this ever-advancing generation.

Unlike meaning and absolute truth, in language at least we can happily compromise. I suggest we take our language deftly and deliberately into our own hands, modeling a new word of reasonable respectability to fill the vacuum left by the exclusion of the more archaic Personal Pronouns and to finally exterminate that unacceptable, unrefined and undignified word. We must cast it from our linguistic presence - our great and noble society depends upon it.

The Work Camp, part 3: The Continuing Story

2007-09-07T19:35:00.000+12:00

Part 1 / Part 2

'Here, what's this then?'

The grating voice came from behind the van. I wheeled around to find myself confronted with a swarthy, sweaty, crude-looking man who wore an oily moustache – more like Stalin's than Hitler's – and smoked a fetid smelling “roll-your-own” of dubious ingredient. He wore a colourless military cap slung at a slovenly angle and decorated with what – at first glance – looked like badges, but were in reality beer bottle caps. And not just Tui, but Speights, Heineken, Stella, Monteiths, Tasman Bitter, DB Canterbury Draught and many more.
At his side, tied to his belt by means of a cheap, third-world-country-manufactured green garden twine, was an empty Tui bottle. No, maybe the bottle wasn't empty after all. It was half-filled with what looked like bits of shredded coconut....
“It can't be!” I thought to myself. Choking back the rising nausea, I identified the bottle's contents – bitten off ends of finger nails; and perhaps even toe-nails – that large, thick sliver on the top (I could just make it out through the black glass and peeling label) looked as if it could once have belonged to a big toe. Needless to say, it didn't make things look overly hopeful in the way of constructive hobbies and pastimes in my new home. If the guards had to resort to fingernail collecting as an amusement, what did the detainees do?
Standing behind my new acquaintance, like one of the gargoyles on the old cathedrals in Europe – before they'd been destroyed – was my old friend, the Limper. An ugly leer of ugly intent decorated his ugly face.
I drew a sharp breath of consternation and frustration. “Now I'm for it,” I thought, “No chance to find Kit now.”
The new man spoke again, his voice was certainly not subject material for the romantic poets. “This won't do,” he rasped, “A male detainee walking free in the woman's camp? What's his number? Who's the dipsomaniac responsible for keeping him 'safe'?'
'Not thinking of running off were we lad?' he croaked at me. 'In these parts we don't take none too kindly to folks who go putting themselves forward. You're at Camp Kaiapoi now, and if you start any monkey business, then my name's not Superintendent Kronckendolf if I don't make it your hell. Understand? Good.'
'Hell? Dosen't he know that's a real place?' I tried to think up some suitably bitting remark, but was interrupted in what I confess is a unbelievably difficult exercise and not to be undertaken by those apt to be caught on the proverbial hop. Hopping is an entirely different form of work-out altogether. A milk of a different ilk.
'Here, Harry!' the repulsive superintendent gasped at the Limper, 'Get this boy back in the van with the others. He'll come to no harm there, I'll see to that personally.'
'Right you are, chief,' the Limper shrilled.
They made a good pair, the Limper and the Superintendent – a soprano and a wood-saw. A perfect duet.

Back in the bus with the other male prisoners, I tried to shrink inconspicuously into one of the back seats.
'You just come an' sit up the front with us, kid,' came the rasping command, 'I want to keep my eye on you.'
'Curse it,' I muttered, wondering if the circumstances would excuse me if, just this once, I used a much more potent expletive than was usually heard to issue from my lips.
The superintendent shoved me roughly into the chair next to him. As I hit the seat (bad springs – with the foam padding bursting through the faded coverings) my hand touched something small, hard and lumpy clinging to the underside of my chair. Why must they always stick their chewing-gum there?

One of the guards gave me a toothless, unsavory grin. Or was it a smirk? It's a peculiar thing that you become so distracted in times of trial by the smallest details such as application of word definition.

'Well now, me bonnie lad,' began the Superintendent. 'Bonnie...' he repeated, running the word over his tongue as if he relished the taste. That word has a distinct flavour of horse-radish to me – bitter. Over the coming weeks I was to learn that 'Bonnie' is synonymous with humiliation.
Chuckling in perverse delight – a sound not unlike a heavily asthmatic sheep – the Superintendent leaned over to the Limper. 'Where's Bonnie here staying?' he asked. The Limper grasped at a muddy Adidas backpack, from which he extracted a battered clipboard. Muttering the alphabet under his breath, he ran his finger down the list: 'Smythe, Andy; Admitted April 23 '07, No. 0065219, Sector 12, Block C, Hut 511.'
They already have everything planed, even down to the date I would be “admitted”. How long have they been watching me? How long has my name been on on their list?
These thoughts and more darted through my mind.
'What say we relocate him over to Sector 13, eh? We'll put him up in a nice, special place.' The asymmetrical leer returned to Limper's face as he heard these words. Across from me the other guard's eyes widened in excited anticipation.
'Sector 13, Hut 666, that's were we'll put you up in.' said the Superintendent, committing a gross prepositional solecism. 'You superstitious, Bonnie?'

The whinny of Limper and the drunken gulp from Toothless mingled with the incredible imitation of farmyard animals with respiratory trouble pushing furniture over concrete emitted from the Superintendent.

An Ordinary Boy

2007-01-19T12:23:00.000+13:00

This is as far as my imagination took me on this venture, only the introduction of an mock E. Nesbit book. I have no idea what would have followed thereafter.

Michael Attwood was not like most storybook children you might read about. For starters, he was not an orphan. No, both his parents were living and were in the best of health, with neither in any risk of suddenly falling ill, dying or even disappearing. Nor was he an only child, he had three other brothers and two sisters. All four of his grandparents were still very much alive and preferred things to be left just as they were, thank you very much. He had no indulgent, bachelor uncles nor any solitary, dowager aunts, which is not to say that his aunts and uncles were not kind or caring, they simply had enough children of their own to worry over. He knew almost everyone he was related too and it was clear that none of them had any great treasures or fortunes, hidden or otherwise. He had not uncovered any dark family secrets, for there were none. His father, like his father before him and his father before him, was a dentist, with little hope of changing the tradition. They lived in a fairly new house with little to speak of in the way of attics and basements, or even wardrobes for that matter. The nearest lake was a full fifteen miles away, the nearest wood, even further. The truth of the matter was that the only thing that really stood out and labelled him as a storybook child was his full name: Michael George Thomas William James Leroy Richard Henry James Peter Ernest Attwood. And none of these were too peculiar, excepting, perhaps, the repetition of the name “James”, but that is what happens when you are the eldest child and your parents are set on honouring all their uncles and fathers. What galled Michael especially about the whole business was that he had all those names and he could not make an acronym – a word using each of the first letters from each name – out of them. Not enough vowels. Despite all this abnormality for a storybook child, Michael Attwood was one and he did have the most amazing of adventures, which involved none of his family but all of his names.

An Insidious Home Network

2006-11-03T16:14:00.000+13:00

"Welcome to my parlour," said the Spider to the Fly.

The Spider sat impassively at the nucleus of her web. In the morning sun the dew laden, silken threads, which formed the orbed product of her nocturnal labour, glistened like the remains of a decimated bay window shimmering in the dulled brilliance of a burglar’s torch. Each crystalline bead of water exquisitely embodied the ambience of that yet unsullied dawn; the herald of new beginnings, fresh opportunities, hope of a better life. Who would dare to suspect that this thing of such subtle beauty was in reality an unscrupulous snare of death, a very symbol of callous bloodthirstiness and evil?

The Fly buzzed lethargically. His mind transmitted cerebral exchanges at what seemed a profoundly slower rate than the pace at which his wings bet the crisp air. Nevertheless, even his aerial appendages were palpitating with an atypical air of settled apathy. Undoubtedly, this slothfulness of mind and body was accredited to a fusion of the waxing morn’s nippy temperature and the Fly’s physical constitution.

Perhaps he was an artistic highbrow among a genus of intellectual dropouts and he appreciated the delicacies of fine art, or maybe it was due merely to an observational error that the Fly, like Icarus, whose misadventures were bourn to a conclusion almost as grim as that about to be enacted, flew perilously nigh to an orb resplendent with fraudulent beauty.

With something akin to an inverted maelstrom or contrariwise cyclone in the inner sanctum of his digestive region, the Fly suddenly felt the iron embrace of the silken chains. Spending all his limited energy in a futile endeavour to break free from these fetters of death, the Fly sensed the web vibrate in a movement which originated at an epicentre entirely independent of his own desperate activities. He turned to behold the Exo-skull of Death bearing down upon him like a rabid, pesticidal arachnid descending upon its wretched prey. Indeed, this simile is glaringly redundant. As compound eye met compound eye the Fly was fully gorgonized, even without the Spider’s paralyzing venom; and certainly, neither of the insectoid visages could comfortably adorn a friendly greeting card. The Fly perceived the glinting, poison-suffused fangs manoeuvre into striking stance. And the rest we will cloak in a curtain of non-violent, non-confrontational, anti-aggressive silence.

The Spider commenced her task of repairing her insidious network after performing her part, however menial, in staying the perpetual advance of contamination spreading creatures into the human world.