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Aunt Idle has again tried to do us some fancy French dessert but ended up again burning it all.
Didn’t help that she used old Bert’s welding tools to caramelize the top.
Now the whole inn, including the fish is smelling of smoked charcoal.
It even brought Mater out of her room, where she’s been in a sort of retreat the past days.

When one is so desperately bad at something, is it a proof of character to do it over and over until some miracle happens?

“No, no, no, you can’t do that!” Liz complained loudly, after having read the last pages Finnley had diligently proofread. “A bag lady of all characters, can’t possibly steal the limelight from me now. Don’t forget who is the star of this reality tut tut.” She paused briefly and continued.
“Well, even if somebody had to care for the baby, she can’t me more mysterious and interesting than me…”
Seeing Finnley despondent more than her usual silent yet quipping self, she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially “you’ve been worrying me dear, ever since you stopped thumbing up my posts on fruitloop. What has gotten into you? Let’s just hope it’s a passing fad.”
She poured herself another serving of quince tea, and picked a slice of lemon with a soured face. “See, my lemon diet is doing me good, you should do the same.”

Christmas has always been a strange tradition in our family.
Maybe because first and foremost, Christmas is all about family. Besides the twins and their bond, sometimes I wonder what makes us a family at all.
It doesn’t help that we can never get snow around this place, and dressing in red and white fluff is not going to make things suddenly magical.

It was comical to see the exterminator come with a red bonnet, panting and all red himself, as if he were some genial Santa bringing gifts of death to our yonder’s rodents residents.
He didn’t catch a rat, but got himself a fright. Thanks to Mater, when she erupted in the attic in her white hanuka honey cream face-lifter mask. I think that sneaky Finly got to her in the end.
The mystery of the strange noises in the inn is not going soon, apparently.

Bert and Aunt Idle got back from their trip in the evening. Apparently Bert had insisted to bring some sort of shrub to make a Christmas tree in the great hall (it’s not so great, but we call it that). Finly didn’t seem pleased too much with it. Raking leaves in summer, bringing pests inside… she didn’t have many kind things to say about it. So Mater sends her to cook a “festive dinner”, that’s what she said. I heard Finly mutter in her breath something about kiwi specials. I like kiwis. Hope she’ll make a pavlova… just, not with Mater’s face cream!

It seems that giving small gestures of appreciation got the mood going. Aunt Idle is always very good at decorating with the oddest or simplest of things, like rolls of TP. Sometimes she would draw nice hieroglyphs in the layer of dust on the cabinets, it gives the furniture a special look. Mater always says it’s because she’s too lazy to do some cleaning consistently, but I think it’s because cleaning is not creative enough for her. Can’t believe I just said nice things about Aunt Idle. Christmas spirit must be contagious.

Then, Devan came home with some pastries. It’s not often I see Devan these days, and usually he’s always brooding. I would too, if I had to come back home when I could just start my life away from there. Finly was all eyes on him all of a sudden. Seems nobody noticed, not even the twins, too busy being snarky while playing on their phones,… it looks like there is some strange game between these two, my brother and our Finly. I think Finly makes a lot of efforts to look younger with him, I can see when she fiddles with her hair. They would make good friends, and I’m sure Devan doesn’t mind the accent.

As always, it’s not about how pretty the tree is, or how good the food is, or how big the gifts are… It’s more about being together, for better or for worse. And Dad, and Mum are always out of this almost nice picture, but somehow, it matters less today.

There’s a good thing about that Christmas spirit. It gives you the weirdest ideas. To be nice, I asked Mater if we should invite the guests to our festive dinner, and probably lifted by the mood, she said yes, of course. When I went to the closed door to invite the guy, I thought a random act of kindnes is a perfect occasion to learn more about our mysterious resident stranger… Maybe that’s what the adults mean in church when they say you should always be kind to each other.

The young Yz looked with disbelief at the new girl. “What on Mars are you on about? Psychic archaeology? Come on Lizette, you must be joking. Barely 30 years is hardly enough to produce archaeological artefact of any interest, no?”

Yz had been called up to the mothership to participate in the maintenance drills, as part of the regular knowledge exchange program between Earth and Mars.
She was quite eager to see the central intelligence (“FinnPrime” as she liked to call it), a technology which had not yet been brought to the surface of Mars to date.

At first, Lizette had seemed like an interesting new friend. Very feminine and glamourous, with a flair of Earth fashion to her, something quite attractive.
But as soon as she started to talk, Yz realized how little they had in common.

That girl is going to have a tough call back to reality when we land… she thought while smiling to the giggling Lizette.

Just as Elizabeth was explaining Finnley her thoughts about the Political Correction Police, and that her casting of overly stereotypical minorities wasn’t a cultural insensitivity on her part (including the fact that skinnies were more the minorities versus fatties here), the bell at the door interrupted her once more.

“Madam Liz, Madam Liz, there’s someone at the door, says he’s your husband… Not judging, but looks like a mess too.”
“Husband? He didn’t tell you his sequence number by any chance?”

The Postshiftic traumanic drumneling groupcircle was helping a lot Godfrey with his new goals. He’d found there many like-minded individuals, working through their past trauma and healing psychic abuses with a good dose of mushrooms and drumming, and visits to the Spore Hit World.

At first, hearing about the mushrooms, he was a bit anxious. Not so much about the hallucinogenic effects (he was rather impervious to them), but dreading that it would attract Elizabeth and detract from the catharsis.

The other day, while he was walking in the street, and trying to stay in the Gnowme, he bumped into Finnley. He couldn’t recognize her at first. She usually hid her long flowing hair in some kerchief to do the chores, and hid her genius in plain sight.

He couldn’t help but enquire about how things were going back at the Tattler Mansion, expecting a bit of disarray, but nothing like what she told him (in her usual scarcity of words).
“A baby now? Seriously?”

Liz didn’t strike him as the motherly type, looking by the way she treated her paper babies at least.

“I heard she got herself a fine help, with a strong grip on things.”

Godfrey sighed. It always started like that.

“So what’s around there to do?” Prune asked Maya at the welcome party.
She gauged the woman, who had an air of de facto authority, and seemed open and friendly with everyone. A bit too much to Prune’s tastes to be honest.

“Whatever you feel like. It’s the magic of it. It’s all open, all up to us to build the world we want.”
“Sounds like a hell of a lot of work to do.” Prune snickered against her will.
“That’s the thing. It’s only work if your heart isn’t in it. For most of us, it’s our life’s purpose, and we quite enjoy it. Not to say there aren’t some days we’re tired of it…” Maya smiled, “but we make the best of it anyway.”

Prune didn’t think of anything clever to retort, and didn’t want to look into all those years of resentment after her family for limiting her. Maybe her family was for nothing in it. The thought of it was terrifying.

Maya broke the uneasy silence with lightly compassion “And what brought you here? I mean, apart from the obvious… The real reason you took this harrowing trip to nowhere?”
Prune shrugged, and almost immediately started to giggle uncontrollably while catching her stomach. Stop it, stop it she whispered to her stomach.

Maya smiled. “You should let it out. It’s been a while I haven’t seen one. They’re so cuddly and cute.”
Prune stopped speechless with surprise.
Maya laughed “The hair on your clothes is a bit of a giveaway. Come on, don’t worry, the quarantine is pretty relaxed here.”

Prune let the little guinea pig out of her jacket, and it squealed in delight. She let a smile open her face “It’s the last surviving one of my grandmother’s. I just couldn’t leave it…”

Maya rose from her formica chair, and took her arm. “Come, I’ll show you the crops. We have some fantastic kale, I’m sure it’ll love it.”

Finnley’s tirade stirred something in Godfrey.

He may not have completely given voice of the thought in his head, but it made him realize that the thought of quitting for something different had been here all along.
He liked Elizabeth well enough. To be honest, such caring for an ungrateful and volatile lady was borderline devotion, but still, it wasn’t about that.

I wanted to change the world, and Elizabeth vision of greatness and madness alike was, for a time, something he could fall in line behind and support with passion.

Through visionary books, to open the minds of the pleb to the realms of possibilities, ah! no matter how deliciously delirious and quaint such possibilities seemed. That was a grand epic in budding.

And then, after so many years of relentless editing, copy-writing, and of course maid after maid interviews, all there was left? Unbridled madness and tyranny from the well of grandiose ideas that Elizabeth had been, and to some extent still, was.

In fact, Godfrey had stifled his own creativity by falling in line behind the writing giantess. There were timid attempts at writing his own story, and only piles of old notebook to account for it.

Purpose, Truth, Action those were the magic words…

“Oh, bugger it Liz’. I quit.”

How’s that for action? Another thread would do me good. Like to see what life’s brewing on Mars.