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In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
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.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Will someone get rid of that old woman with the horrible accent?” hissed Finnley, ungraciously.
“What on earth for? She is doing a splendid job. I must say though, Finnley, just as a side note, it is good to hear you sounding more like your normal ungracious self.”
“I found dust,” muttered Finnley, glaring accusingly at Haki.
Elizabeth look unaccustomedly thoughtful. “Do you think you need a break, Finnley dearest? You really must be exhausted after all the splendid proof reading you have been doing for me this year. Why don’t you go home for a while, on full pay of course.”
Finnley burst into tears. “Where is my home though?” she snuffled. ”I am not good with descriptive details. I just found myself in this stupid story doing your stupid cleaning. And now I have a Bulgarian sister, to boot. And,” she looked witheringly at Elizabeth, “ proofreading is one word”
“Crikey, matey,” said Norbert patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Christmas is a killer, in’t? Family coming out of the woodwork like blimmin worms. Keep ya chin up though, eh. Ya can’t be letting things get to ya like this. Ya wouldn’t be able to carry on like this if ya were in bloody China ya know. Like bloody robots they are there. I don’t think they know the meaning of the word feelings over there.” He shook his head in wonder at their philistinism.
“And ya right about that one,” he added quietly, with a conspiratorial raised eyebrow and a slight nod of his head towards Haki.
Elizabeth leapt up and rushed to the bookshelf. “I know what you need! some Lemon Juice! I will pick one at random; they are all absolutely superb.” She opened the very small book and closing her eyes stabbed the page dramatically with her finger.
”Let’s not be overachieving fucks.”
“Wow,” she mouthed, awestruck. After taking a moment to recover herself, she looked sympathetically at Finnley.
“The oracle has done it again. Do you hear that Finnley? You are an overachieving fuck.”
Finnley rolled her eyes.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Oh !”, said Finnley graciously. “I forgot to mention my sister was coming tomorrow for Krismas she’s bringing the honey turkey stuffed with siberian mushrooms and a few bottle of rakia”, she said the last word as if she was about to spit. “I told her we would need that for the entertainment.”
Liz flinched. “I didn’t know you had a sister in Bulgaria,” she said.
“Well, not exactly from there, it’s home made. Better, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask.”In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
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.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god,” mumbled Finnley, head in hands and rocking strangely.
Elizabeth was startled by this strange behaviour from the normally quiescent Finnley.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” she asked irritably.
Finnley raised her head from her hands and regarded Elizabeth with tired, bloodshot eyes.
“What’s wrong with me?” she snarled. “I will tell you what is wrong with me. All these fucking batshit crazy characters making mess and expecting conversation is what is wrong with me. What’s going on? It’s not fucking Christmas is it?”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Finnley, what are you still doing here? Can’t keep away, eh! Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, you amuse me,” Elizabeth said graciously.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
”Don’t worry, Lady Elizabeth, Your Royal High Goddess, you go and take an aspirin. I will keep an eye on him for you,” smirked Finnley.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Elizabeth felt that she was losing track of all the new characters being added willy nilly without her prior consent and approval, it was most disconcerting. She decided to make a new law, that no new character could add more characters without her express permission. She would grant the existing characters a weekly audience in which they could present their new characters for inspection. Characters that Elizabeth failed to approve would be sent to Mars, or the Australian outback.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
I wonder if they realize, Elizabeth was thinking, that I could write them all out of the story at the rat tat tat of a few keys.
“Rat tat tat tat,” Elizabeth said to Haki by way of a warning, enunciating each word clearly, and then wincing as she bit her tongue again in the same place.
Arona Haki wasn’t sure what to make of it, and fled.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“I think it should be have you, not has you, Miss Liz” remarked Haki, helpfully.
Elizabeth bit her tongue, literally, in her attempt to swallow her reply.
“I blame you for that” she said, unfairly.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Elizabeth slept late, not waking until the alchemy of the early morning had long since passed and the sun was high. It was a long luxurious moment between the remaining fragments of dreams and the harsh reality of the day before she remembered all the new additions. Where had they all come from? By what strange forces of attraction had they been drawn to her?
Enough of that nonsense, she told herself, as she climbed into her arthritis as if it were a pair of old slippers. She buttoned on a belly ache for good measure, and placed a headache on top of her tousled hair.
“Now then” she said, “Who the fuck are you lot and what are you all doing here? Has any of you thought to make coffee?”“
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
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?”In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
”What exactly are you still doing here, Finnley? I have Haki to do the cleaning and look after the baby and Sonia. And what a beautiful job she does too. Without any unnecessary complaining,” Elizabeth added pointedly.
Finnley rolled her eyes. “And I suppose you expect her to do your proofreading as well?
“Oh yes,” Elizabeth conceded gratefully, always amazed at Finnley’s perspicacity.
”By the way,” said Finnley, ”I know you miss Godfrey but you might want to stop with all the comfort eating. Your bum is starting to look obese.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
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.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Aunt Idle:
Trying to get a conversation out of Bert was like trying to prise a can of beans open with a nappy pin. If he’d been a bit more willing to discuss it with me I might have told him about the note, but I didn’t. I suppose he was disgruntled because I was more interested in that medical team buying up ghost towns than his bridge, so we sat in silence for the rest of the trip. Not that I wasn’t interested in the place on the other side of the river, but there was something very odd going on, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. That note, made from old maps at the Brundy place, then Flora’s card with the same name on ~ what the dickens was going on? Should I ask Flora point blank, or would that alert her that I was on to her? Might be better to be more subtle, see what I could find out before confronting her. I even thought of getting the remote view team to see if they could find anything out ~ although the results were so sketchy that might just be a wild goose chase, lead me off in the wrong direction.
“Take the next left, Idle, down this here track,” Bert said.
Miles away I was, so I didn’t hear him at first and had to slam the brakes on a bit sharpish. I caught Bert rolling his eyes at me and glared at him.
The track hadn’t been driven on for months, if not years ~ that much was obvious. We bumped along kicking up a cloud of dust for a few miles before the river came into sight, then the track followed the river for another half a mile or so, eventually petering out.
“We’ll have to walk from here,” said Bert, getting out of the car. I passed Bert the rucksack with the bottled water and locked the car. “You don’t need to lock the car here” Bert snorted.
“Habit,” I snapped, “Lead the way.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Arona Haki, have we any nappies? Or something to feed this thing? Baby formula and bottles, that sort of thing?” Liz asked.
The old woman shrugged. “How would I know?”
“Well you had better beetle off down to the shops then and buy whatever we need. I’ll hose it down on the patio.”
Shocked, Arona Haki wondered whether it was her place to tell the new boss that wasn’t the way to treat a baby. “Miss Liz, I really don’t think…”
“I don’t pay you to think!” Liz snapped, not that she meant it, but she felt the need to establish some respect, after the fiasco with the last staff.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Finnley was glad Elizabeth had hired that old maori woman as a replacement maid. Especially if there was to be a baby to look after. She did a quick search to find the meaning of guano.
“Gross,” she muttered.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
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.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
”And that’s another thing,” she continued. ”Why do all your characters have to be in some form of servitude to you?”
She looked accusingly at Elizabeth.
“I’m a lowly cleaner and Godfrey’s sole purpose in life seems to be to agree with everything you say and now poor old Norbert is a gardener! From New Zealand! Of all the godforsaken places you could have chosen.”
“Steady on, Finnley …” began Godfrey
Finnley ignored him.
“You could have made the poor man anything and yet you made him another slave to carry out your every warped whim. Granted, that was rather an obscure comment I made about him liking smelly old fish. Perhaps that did narrow your options somewhat.”
Exhausted, Finnley lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
Elizabeth gazed at her in awed admiration. ”Finnley, your perceptiveness has rendered me speechless.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
