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 Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 1:37 pm
☎▶ . . . journal
▶ A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Home After the Thirty-seventh Annual Helveston Flower Gala…
The society ladies were out in full force for the thirty-seventh Annual Helveston Flower Gala, named for its late, great, patron, Lord Charles Thomas Helveston, beloved for his dedication and innumerable contributions to the study and cultivation of gardenias. Indeed, as his Lordship would have desired, gardenias were by and large the order of the day, a munificence of varieties enchanting all visitors to the esteemed ground of submissions, their collective fragrance an inimitable wash of milk and honey so prized by their admirers. Despite the natural inclinations of the Helveston Gala, however, much of the blue ribbon predictions centered around Mrs. Constance Pemberton's rare double cascade petunias: the unusual breed that she had nurtured expressly for showing at the Gala captivated many a fancy with their billowing fuschia petals. Imagine, then, the surprise that swept the crowd as the grand prize was eventually awarded to Lady Elizabeth Fadderly's dark horse azalea-
He didn't have the time to start on the 's' - the final 'a' of his internal monologue was precisely where his right big toe swung into an immovable force. Philip Clarkson, aged twenty-seven, odd-job reporter for The Aimes Atlas, was quite used to cutting a pathetic figure, but even by his standards, the current was more pathetic than most: bent double, both hands seized upon a foot as the other hopped and reeled deliriously in an effort halfway between pain and balance. This wordless pantomime flapped on for half a minute before drunkenly meandering to a stop. Having thus regained his composure, he sourced the origin of his woe: it appeared to be a bottle, glass, round, stoppered, dab in the middle of the street corner. He frowned. A cursory glance to make sure it wasn't some prank, with a cluster of urchins giggling at their ingenuity behind a wall (the walls seemed clear), he reached carefully for the offender and pulled - stumbling backwards as it lifted off as neatly as one would expect a bottle to. He staggered to a standstill and blinked. This was the immovable force? Another glance; a more diligent sweep: it was the only obstacle for yards. Careful stamping around the paving stones: no unusual topographical elements. Had he exaggerated the force of the blow? Ah - No. The pain was still real…and he was certain the culprit had not budged. This was the only possibility; he stared.
It appeared innocuous enough.
Well-made, perfectly round, perfectly smooth, no flaws in the thick walls. It was difficult to ascertain what it held within, the glass tended towards dark, the refraction seemingly deliberately calculated to obscure. A curious image of a white tiger's head dominated visual inquiry. Exquisite work, really, to suspend it just so that it would show by mere degrees more or less at any angle. It was of considerable heft: he held it up to his ear to determine if he could detect a telltale slosh…verdict: unclear. But from the feel of it, it seemed unlikely the bottle was empty - and by all appearances, it was a vessel for perfume, delicately wrought, a dainty treasure brought, most likely, as a lady's keepsake from Helena. He looked around for ladies, but there were not many, this close to the Spartan building that housed his own modest apartment (just a few numbers onwards). Craning his neck, he located one halfway down the street, but even as he begin sprinting the distance, the bottle held out at arm's length ("Excuse me, Miss," he had called), she had began shuffling quickly away with a look of alarm. Well. He slowed, peering gloomily at the bottle; he supposed he did look rather the eccentric - the navy suit had perhaps not been the best of choices, it was dusted over with a fine layer of pollen now. He teased the stopper…it would not move. Brows creasing, he gave it a firm yank - nothing. He ran the edge of a nail around the rim - but could not find a seam. Curiouser and curiouser…but then, Helena was known for novel advancements in the field of beauty, and it certainly looked luxurious enough to be visited by cutting-edge technology. He would run an ad for it in the Atlas lost-and-found tomorrow. In the meantime, he had a cat to feed.
*******
Said cat bolted right to the top of the icebox as soon as he entered the door of his apartment, bottle in hand.
"Johannes, get down from there this instant," the only reply he received was a bloodcurdling yowl; he hurriedly shut the door behind him.
"Now, Johannes," he tried again, adopting a mildly admonitory tone as he deposited his trappings onto the work table, "we wouldn't want the neighbours to complain, would we? Get down here, there's a good cat."
It was as successful as one could expect. Changing tack, he reached into the icebox itself for the second half of the above-named's daily rations. Wide green eyes tracked his movement with pinpoint accuracy, but still the bearer refused to budge even after the bait had been deposited.
"Come on, Yoyo," he wheedled, waving the bowl about the target. The last time he had gone in after 'Yoyo', his reward had been a lacerated thumb. This time, the cat only regarded him with stoic immovability.
Johannes never missed a meal.
"Do what you want," he capitulated, depositing the bowl at the foot of the machine, "I've got other things to worry about." The Helveston Gala report wasn't going to write itself. So followed routine: the simple dinner (a fry-up for Wednesday), with Johannes stalking from the top of the icebox like a vulture; the wash-up; the quick bath; and finally back to Helveston, tapping away at his old typewriter as the building fell slowly silent around him. …the unusual breed that she had nurtured expressly for showing at the Gala captivated many a fancy with their billowing fuschia petals. Imagine, then, the surprise that swept the crowd as the grand prize was eventually awarded to Lady Elizabeth Fadderly's dark horse azalea-
Never the 's', always at the point of the 'a.' It was difficult to ascertain when the pressure behind his eyes had started building, but easy to nominate when he had to stop mid-tap, and turn to stare - and double-take because he could swear he had seen the bottle spark and he could - he could see nothing in it now, but something must have happened, for at the precise moment he had leapt from his chair, Johannes had snarled. He whipped his stare towards the icebox - yes, there was the cat, pressed, a black-and-white fury of fur, between the wall and the ceiling. Back to the bottle - there was no light in it now. Cautiously, he reached out to touch…for a split second it felt red-hot - but, no, it was cool. Glass-cool, like a bottle ought. He picked it up. Nothing had changed. Dark glass, and the tiger within. Had he imagined it? But then, Johannes… His pallid gaze moving curiously between the two cats, he inched towards the icebox with his bounty in hand. At first he could only see the wide green eyes peel back, the fur fluffing higher - then he could hear it, the low spitting growl that erupted into a full-fledged caterwaul as he moved too close -
"Sshhh, sshh, shh," he whispered, backing away, "alright, I won't do that anymore." What manner of devil's plaything had he brought home? For a moment, he contemplated simply tossing the bottle out the window, but the tiger head within it caught his eye, and, studying the delicate make, it seemed still a shame. Perhaps it was the scent of it, that made Johannes fear it so. It was a perfume bottle, after all. Perhaps it was made from cats (or tigers), the way that musk was scraped from civets. He could smell nothing from it (and, testing the rim again, could find no way to uncork the glass), but then, he was not a cat. Nevertheless, when he had finally finished the piece on the Gala, he took the offending object in with him to the bedroom, that Johannes could finally descend to dine in peace.
*******
He awoke to a strange, dry, tickle in the back of his throat: when he reached for the clock, his fingers descended instead upon a mass of fur, and the lazy swat of a tail against his wrist. Johannes was curled up on his nightstand. It was no mean feat: it was rather a small nightstand, while Johannes was not particularly a small cat; nevertheless, it was managed with aplomb, with only the tail and the outward edge of a dark rump and one haunch carefully suspended over the side of the wood. Where was his clock, then, was his initial concern, before an accidental knock revealed the object of his quest to be, in fact, beside him on the bed. What was Johannes doing here, was the next, as a cursory investigation assured that he was not yet late for work; his allergies were manageable enough with their casual cohabitation, but right in the bedroom was a bit too much, and the moggy had besides never before demonstrated the inclination.
It was only then, regarding the sleek, dark outline with some puzzlement, that their unusual guest from the night before was recalled to mind. Johannes had feared the bottle, he had brought the bottle in so that Johannes may dine; he had put the bottle next to him on the nightstand. Johannes was now curled up around the bottle, sleeping.
The ways of cats and women were not for mortal men to fathom. He got up to put the kettle on the boil.
end.
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 3:13 pm
☎▶ . . . journal
▶ Close Your Eyes and Click Your Heels Three Times
Johannes was a black and white tuxedo cat, not especially large, but by no leap of imagination in any way miniature. The tip of Johanne's tail was white, to be fair, but just the tip, and the rest as black as soot. And, certainly, Johannes did not glow. But so deep was the human desire to believe in normality, that when the flicker of bright, bluish light caught the corner of his eye, his brief glance at the tiny, glowing silhouette of a jungle cat wrapped around the slender glass stem had his mind nevertheless momentarily convinced that it was 'just Johannes, curled around the bottle again'.
Mr. Winslow's customers complained that the price of the Camembert had remained the same for over twenty years, and the unprecedented increase was - It took a moment more before he whiplashed his wide-eyed stare back to the bottle. It was - obviously - not Johannes. For one, Johannes was huddled against the wall on top of the icebox again, green gaze blown and cautious. Without a feline's luxury of an icebox perch, the human instead had little choice but to approach the new development.
The bottle had always been mysterious - beautiful, but ineffably mysterious. The very day he had brought it back, a strange find on an innocuous street corner, it had sent Johannes running for greater heights - and when the inexplicable spark had briefly lit it up, it had nearly sent him running for greater heights as well. But by the next morning, Johannes had taken a shine to it, and his efforts to locate its rightful owner, expensive-looking tchotchke as it was, had slowed somewhat. It had been busy at the Atlas. It looked elegant in his Spartan apartment. Johannes seemed to appreciate its company. Even when the spark had repeated itself, followed by the occasional darting spangle within the walls of glass, after the initial alarm, there had always been some reason or other to put off the hunt. Over time, man and cat had grown used to the eccentricities of the bottle, and he had figured that if it hadn't burnt the house down yet, there was nothing too much to worry about. He would find the owner…in time.
It appeared he had not found the owner in time. Sparks, yes. Flashes, yes. A complete manifestation of a feline form composed entirely of light curled around its stem. Very. Much. No. He inched towards the bottle as if it were a ticking bomb, any stray touch of which would blow them all sky-high. The form stretched as he tiptoed nearer…undulated - and turned its featureless head towards his face.
Philip Clarkson was officially petrified.
Nevertheless, Philip Clarkson, as the sudden yowl from the icebox reminded, had to soldier on. Gingerly, he reached a trembling - just slightly, mind - finger towards the translucent light. It tensed - for the briefest of moments he could see the strange intimation of a snarling maw, of fangs - but it was too late as he made to recoil and the jaws of light tore together into his… Through his fingertip. A flash of heat had been all he'd felt, and as he yanked his hand back and examined the offended digit, there were no marks. The feline form seemed as aggravated by this development as he was mystified. Emboldened now, he reached towards the restless form again, ignoring (though his heart did jump that tad) the tense and snap of tiny see-through fangs. His fingers passed easily enough through that light, bathed in light and an odd, throbbing heat - but no pain. The form was irritated. It shook itself out and pulled away, snapping impotently. When he withdrew his hand, it stalked around the stem, haunches high, in affront.
It was…
…almost…
…cute.
"I guess you're just a small big kitty, aren't you?" he said, and though his voice was thin and broke for just a moment around the 'g', he thought he was doing an acceptable job of pretending not to be petrified anymore, "it's okay, Johannes. You can come down now. The new kitty isn't going to be hurting you." As it were, Johannes had not waited for his all-clear. Johannes was already coming towards the bottle. Even so, he contemplated, watching the pink nose touch tip curiously against the blue light, it made him feel better to say it. The miniature feline form appeared not to resent Johannes' intrusion as much as it had his hand. The glowing muzzle touched tip back. Thus satisfied, Johannes padded away for a late-night snack. Three more rounds, and the form folded up to rest around the stem.
Philip Clarkson was discombobulated.
But neither cat nor bottle-form seemed fussed, and he had an article to complete. Thus clinging to the shreds of his sanity, Philip Clarkson beat a strategic retreat to his old typewriter. He did not take the bottle to the bedroom with him as he usually did, and when the form - still very much present, he noted with some dismay - registered its displeasure at having been left outside by soundless snarling and snapping as he made a grab for it, he only thrust it into a paper bag and crumpled up the top, holding it carefully by his side as he made his customary way to work with a quicker step than usual.
It was time - or long past time - to find that rightful owner.
end.
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Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 1:01 pm
Kitty.
(Dust Spin --> Child Quest*) It's almost four in the morning and Philip knows something is wrong -- probably because there's been some very strange, very unnatural sounds outside the bedroom door. It's also likely Philip knows the cause of it as the bottle with its creeping feline companion is missing from its standard place. When Philip finally goes to investigate, he'll find his precious bottle enveloped in the spectral body of a full sized white tiger, as though the feline that crept around the top had become life sized. Awe or fear have to wait, however, as that enormous feline is crouched and ready to spring at an unfortunate Johannes -- who happens to be perched on Philip's typewriter! What will he do? Will he save his cat and his typewriter, or will the great white beast find him more of an interesting target? How will the face off end? *Please note, there's a minimum word requirement of 500 words for this quest.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 12:51 pm
☎▶ . . . journal
▶ When I Die, Bury Me Deep
It read precisely three fifty-one am on the clock. He sat, perfectly still, in his bed, and listened. A minute passed; the unusual sounds that had awoken him - an odd, low clicking, a constant rumble, falling and rising at turns, the occasional edge of a…roar? - had not abated. Once again, he looked towards the nightstand: verily, the bottle was absent. With deliberated calm, he slid out of bed, and unplugged the table-lamp.
When he exited the bedroom, lamp brandished at a menacing angle, it was strangely quiet. He rounded the corner cautiously, peering towards the kitchenette - only to have his stare fall straight upon the tuxedo moggy perched upon the apple of his eye.
"Johannes!" Clarkson shouted incongruously, with an exasperated flail of the lamp, "Get off of my typewriter, you know you're not supposed to be there!"
Incongruously, as he discovered a split second later, because the massive spectral tiger that was poised to pounce upon cat and typewriter both was the more immediate threat.
Half of Clarkson engaged in a nervous breakdown right there; "Aww," it thought, nodding approvingly at the bottle ensconced within glowing bulk of the enormous beast, "it's all grown up."
The other half, unexpectedly and awkwardly enveloped by a surge of rarely experienced adrenaline, flung the lamp onto the couch, and dashed towards cat and typewriter with a strangled cry. Cat was easy enough, a grab and tuck under one arm, ignoring the sharp squawk of protest. Typewriter, however, brought the adrenaline rush harshly back to reality: it was a good model, a solid model, a heavy model, and as he swept it towards him with a commanding pull…it scraped. Perhaps an inch.
"Dammit," he muttered, the arduous memories of the day he moved in suddenly returning to him with clarity. Again, he tugged, and again: barely, he managed to lift it this time, but it wasn't going anywhere in a hurry, not without another arm at least - but he wasn't yet ready to let go out of the cat. …But that was all irrelevance, really, as he spared a moment to glance at the spectral beast.
All fight left as he met the tiger's eye: his attempted heroics, his desperate fumblings - all of it was nothing to the cold, alien stare of the monster. A momentary curiousity, a fleeting distraction, before the ruthless accomplishment of the creature's desire. His arm slackened, the typewriter returned to its repose; Johannes kicked briefly, and slipped from his grasp. Man and Beast stood still a moment more, then Beast strode over and, in one fluid motion, swept Man into the icebox.
"You can touch me now," he panted, slumped against the machine like a ragdoll, mind half-gone, "that's not fair, you're changing the rules." The tiger gave no indication it'd heard; dragging him to the floor with a heavy paw, it sniffed him over briefly and bared its fangs in a snarl. The teeth, Clarkson noted, were transparent as the rest of it - but nevertheless looked like they would feel very, very solid indeed in his flesh.
That was when fight returned. He kicked - lashed out with a desperate foot, and where the tiger could touch him, it appeared he could touch it too, it roared, but almost perfunctorily, as if more annoyed than truly angered, and raked at his leg with a spare paw - ow, Clarkson thought, but the weight on his chest did not ease, and he remained trapped. Flailing a wild arm, he smacked into the door of the icebox and - and catching his fingers on the edge, prised it open. The gust of colder air caught the tiger by surprise, and as it raised its head to investigate, he strained - and dragged himself backwards from under the paw as far as he could go. Half up against the icebox again, he twisted back and rummaged desperately through the sparse shelves till his searching fingers closed around a clammy package - as he pulled it out, the string around the soggy wrap came undone, the thin, bloody fluid of the modest cut of cow's liver. That definitely caught the beast's attention.
"You want it?" he gasped, breathless, squeezing the cut till a puddle spread - as the creature slid its paw off him to pad towards the patch, he scrambled to his feet and staggered across the room, leaving a bloody trail across the room that the it followed with calculated interest. Flapping the meat across its path till he was sure its steely eye was on it alone, he uttered, "Then go GET IT!" - and flung it in a wet arc into the bedroom.
The spring of the beast was an awe-inspiring thing to witness - the rippling of each spectral sinew as it coiled back upon itself…then the breath-taking flow of the unstoppable leap -
- and Clarkson slammed the door upon it as it cleared the threshold.
There was a thump of protest - and then no more. He let out the breath he hadn't realised he still held. He turned to see Johannes sat primly on an arm of the couch, tail swishing lazily back and forth. Before he could open his mouth, he was pre-empted by a reproachful meow.
"That's easy for you to say," he retorted, dragging a weary hand - the unstained one - through his hair as he crossed the kitchenette to shut the icebox door. As he slowly wet a rag and got down on his knees to clean up the trail, he considered his options. It was not hard, he hadn't many: his impulse was to leave, to call for help - but where could he go, and who could he ask? Help, there's a killer ghost tiger in my bedroom. Yes. That would go across well. Wieczorak might have some inkling of what had transpired and what would come to pass - but he was reasonably sure that as soon as he mentioned specifics, the other man would slam down his phone. As he wiped up the last blood and rose to wash out the rag, he heaved a sigh and reconciled himself to the fact that he would have to remain in the same apartment as a killer ghost tiger at least till morning, where he might able to wheedle out a knowledgeable contact from Wieczorak - or perhaps locate an exorcist. Hands scrubbed, he settled gingerly onto the couch, clutching the lamp to his chest and staring at the door to the suspiciously quiet bedroom with wary eyes.
That was the last thing he remembered, as he woke up to a complete lack of feeling in his left foot. Shifting the lamp slightly in his lap, he blinked his eyes open - to the sight of the killer ghost tiger asleep on his leg. Every nerve in his body sparked up in fear, his leg jerking compulsively in an instinctive if futile need for escape - the good news was that his foot could still move, the bad news was that the tiger cracked a steely eye open to fix his blown-out stare…and closed it again. Then, he noticed that Johannes was curled up upon its massive back.
Great.
Just great.
He wasn't even going to pretend that anything he could do might make a difference anymore. If he was going to be eaten by a ghost tiger within the next few hours, it would at least put him out of his misery. Clarkson slumped into the cushion in defeat, reaching out for the phone to call in sick, and, oh, might Wieczorak happen to be in at the office yet.
end.
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