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In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Liz had taken well to her new prescription drugs.
In appearance, it had seemed to have drained out the inexhaustible source of inspiration that let her write novels after novels. Or maybe that was just due to the absence of Finnleys to take care of the editing.In the meantime, Godfrey had worked hard to nurture her back to whatever state she called sanity and suited her best, and gently coax her to resume her former passion.
“Godfrey, let me retire from writing, it’s too passé.” she was pouring concrete into the silicon molds to make new saint statues. Over the years, she’d accumulated quite a few of those saints and martyrs that she collected (or stole) from derelict places of cult during her travels. She liked to paint them back to life with gaudy colours, mimicking some sort of Mexican style. Sometimes she would dress them, and ask Finnley to sew them clothes and little hats.
Strangely, getting her out of the hospice had made her want to populate the whole house with concrete clones of those statues. Maybe to fill a void of inspiration ?
Nevertheless, Godfrey was amazed at her capacity to innovate. Her writing momentum was certainly at a low, but did she channel her creativity in many ways.
The last batch of Christian martyr statues painted in the many outfits of David Bowie were a testament to that.In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Sam woke up the next morning feeling puzzled. There was no apparent reason for it, so he thought it might be related to the new moon or to some singular configuration of space time crossing with the known universe. He scratched his 3 days and a half beard a few times. He liked the sound of it and did it frequently. Only then would he get out of bed and prepare some breakfast.
When he came to the kitchen, the tv was on. A certain Godfrey was speaking about an upcoming wave of migrants due to lack of rafts in the sea of confusion. Sam thought he wasn’t the only one feeling puzzled.
“Do you have all your papers ready ?” asked Al, already dressed up as if he was going to a wedding.
“I like when you wear your tuxedo”, said Sam. Al looked absolutely delicious. “And yes, I have all my papers ready. But I wonder… Why do you need papers when you’re asking for a new identity?”In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Flinnley plicked up Glodfrey’s head, that was still swilming with the ramifications in the cacklwarium, and plut it black florceflully on the man’s bloody blody.
“Gloss” said Arona with a disglusted flace.
“Thanks, Finnley. Godfrey, doln’t be so pleaslandish”, said Lelizabeth to Glodfrey, “there lare and will lalways be more lants in all the probable versions of Earth than there will be chlaracters in a stooly.” She tlook some tlime to appreciate what she had just said, finding it would sound good for the plosterity.In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
~ ~ ~ ~ She forgot the trout! ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A read herring, was as good as red. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ But for a clue-fish, who would diss a trout ? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Liz’! Liz’!”
…
“ELIZABETH !” (sometimes caps were better to catch her attention)
“I’ve come back from Mars to take you home.”She couldn’t make out whether the medications were wearing off or kicking in, or was that really Godfrey, back for her?
“Liz’, I’ve got to tell you the most astonishing things.”
“Godfrey… I think you should wait a bit…” she slurred words died out in a pool of drool
“Liz’, wait till I explain you all about the blue benders. Aliens, new frontiers! >-) There’s hope yet for a new best stellar! I’m taking you out of this dreadful nursing home!”In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Godfrey had started to sweat when Lizette had called him Gordon, fearing she might have blown his cover. Just as he made a move to clamp his hand over her mouth, the medical bay had lurched sideways, throwing Lizette with force in the direction of his approaching hand. The result of the two forces colliding on her face had knocked her out cold.
But nobody was paying any attention to them in the confusion. Godfrey slung Lizette over his shoulder like a sack of rice, and hastily retreated from the medical bay. The stupid woman had made everything that much more complicated. He toyed with the idea of just leaving her on the waiting room floor, but it was too dangerous. What might she blurt out when she came round?
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
If anything special about being in the vacuum of space, was that anywhere else than in the pressurized and breathable areas, the silence was deafening, and explosions silent.
With the main galleries under tons of rubble, Godfrey was glad to have followed his instincts with the evacuation. It was an unbelievable miracle that there were so few people down with him at that time.
He could hardly prove whether there actually was a controlled explosion triggered down there, but even without dramatic fires, the effect had been felt all throughout the colony. A few of the most fragile structures had collapsed, but at least most of the security protocols were active, and had allowed people to evacuate without too much damage while sucking the air out to avoid dangerous explosive oxygen leaks.The medical bay was quite busy now treating the wounded, while everyone remained mostly calm despite the unusualness of the situation. Amazing how the survival training (more like brainwashing) they had before coming here was kicking in, with almost minute and automatic precision.
As the only member of the board of operations in duty, he had to report to the central area, where they would likely debrief about it. When he arrived at the pod, there was already quite a commotion, and quarrelling voices could be heard in the airlock.
“… decently leave like this!”
“ We should listen to…”
“stayed for too long to stop now!”
“plan? no strategy at all!”
“was all written over,…” “failure since the beginning…”When the airlock finally opened, people continued to speak out of turn without paying much attention to him. Good he thought, that was time people release the pressure and start being honest. Let’s just hope it doesn’t end in a bloodbath.”
He was already stuffed with kale fritters and almost drunk with free kale ale from the buffet when the monitors started displaying the broadcast everyone was apparently waiting for.
As usual, Earthlings are a bit late for the battle. he thought when the familiar face of the broadcaster appeared in the middle of interferences.
“… A wave of Greta rays has been delaying the communication, in conjunction with the super moon retrograde in Spices. We apologize for the inconvenience, as we were not able to warn you of the meteor impact that hit Mars surface a few hours ago.”
Godfrey wasn’t sure this was real, or his kalecohol level hitting his brain, but the science seemed sketchy at best. He struggled to pay more attention.
“Not only the actively increased meteoric warming, but also given the Manta ray pulses from Juice pitcher, we fear all electronic equipment on which the Mars ant colony depends may be fried and lead you very soon to eternal damnation without hope for safe return. Our commercial spacecrafts cannot be risked to save you, so we advise you to pray. This broadcast was brought to you by Dismay Channel.”
Even if Godfrey wasn’t sure everything he heard was completely right, he could tell from the confused face of his colleagues that there would be a hell of a run for your lives to follow.
If only they had anywhere to run to…In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
It was a quiet day in the mines.
Godfrey’s teams were operating at less than 10% of the usual. Most of the Indian guys who worked there had taken unpaid leaves for the observance of the Ganesh festival.It was all a bit silly, come to think about it, for so many reasons.
One obviously, was that the dates were aligned on Earth’s calendar, for supposedly practical reasons, but which had nothing to do with the environment they were living in now. What good was a lunar calendar when Mars had two main moons, the lovely named Fear (Phobos) and Dread (Deimos), and of course completely different day times and years.
Anyhow, that wasn’t the least of the incoherences. You’d normally have to find a natural body of water to immerse the elephant clay statues. Good luck with that on Mars. But there was no stopping the rituals to find ways to survive. He’d heard an artificial pool would be temporarily erected at the Matrimandir to allow for the ritual to be performed.
A waste of good water, if you asked him.The only good thing about it was that there was more calm than usual, mostly robots diligently carving the walls, and harvesting the yellow stones.
The day before, there had been an unusual ruckus after a heated speech by the Head Nutter of the Religious Nuts, the old wrinkled as a prune Mother Shirley. She spoke of dread and doom, and having to repent and all. Gosh, did she put on a show.
He smirked. All that was missing was a human sacrifice, and they would be irrevocably back to the good old ways of the religious fanatics…Even his Hindu friends seemed to have been affected and shown a renewed fervour at their own rituals. After all, their Lord Ganesh was supposed to remove obstacles. Or well, truth is, He was also supposed to create obstacles for the demons. But you’d never know whether you were on his good side or not.
Maybe the unusualness of that day gave him some heightened attention, but Godfrey started to notice some other strange patterns.
The Finnleys on duty were acting glitchy this morning. Looking through the console, he’d noticed there were some logs for the past days’ activity missing, and an unusual activity around some of the old tunnels which were used for temporary storage of the sulphur’s crates.An irrational doubt started to creep on him, enhanced by the feeling of unusually low activity inside the dusty bowels of the red planet.
There was really no reason to worry, he tried to reassure himself, but as he’d liked to repeat, better be safe than sorry.He pushed the intercall button and called for an emergency evacuation drill.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Finnley, there you are!” Elizabeth snickered at the new Filipino maid, “don’t balk at me like that, darling, and read me a quote of dear ol’ Lemone, from his inspired words of wide wisdom in his new compilation of aphorisms Reduction of My Broad Thinking .”
The new nurse was looking desperately around the nursing home’s room. She’d been warned her patient was a tough cookie, or that’s probably what they meant by ‘tart pickle’ anyway.
“Yes, yes, that book!” Liz shrieked of delight. Since Godfrey left her for Marcella, she never quite recovered.
She could hear the words pouring in her head like an earworm symphonie of words in knots, and of naughts in wad.
Prunella started to read the phonebook with painful anguish, while Elizabeth was writhing in pure delight at the words she was hearing :
“Pas de lieu Rhône que noue… Etymologically, the French word dénouement is derived from the Old French word desnouer, “to untie”, from nodus, Latin for “knot.” It is the unravelling or untying of the complexities of a plot. But can we unknot the knot we know not? Hence the need for good plot knot development. My denouement should be done in accordance with swift Japanese johakyo style, but never shy to include a few Dei ex machina, some toasted honeyed MacGuffins, or a tartine of marmite and red herring, washed down with Chekhov’s gunpowder tea.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Well, here we all are again!” Liz beamed, after a momentary pause in which she considered snorting. Not finding that snorting was consistent with her mood, notwithstanding the sparkle in the air of anticipated unexpected impishness, she beamed, and beamed again as she looked around the room.
No one spoke. There was a sense of suspended animation for a few moments, or was it longer? A bit like holding ones breath while easing into a hot bath. Or perhaps not a hot bath, thought Liz, delicately mopping the sweat dripping down her cleavage with a paper towel.
“Finnley, have you seen my reading glasses anywhere?” Liz asked on impulse.
Finnley’s sunny beam shifted as she rolled her eyes and replied, “I saw them in a dustbin on Brighton Pier.”
“My god, it’s started already!” Godfrey exclaimed, although he wasn’t at all surpised. “ Have you seen the new dragon tree in the park?”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
It had happened “once”, and it may “certainly” happen again, although “god” knows she wasn’t expecting it. One has to look “outside” periodically, especially if one endeavours to “grow”. There were times when there were comments “galore”, and characters like “bert” indulged in threadjumping ~ oh yes! indeed, there were times when it was a veritable “sea” of comments, rich with “symbol” and humour. Unexpected characters popped in , like “linda” (who the fuck is Linda, was the unspoken question on everyone’s minds), and rich with “half” assed, half hearted half measures to stay on track, much to “godfrey“s disgust. Far be it from me to “form” an opinion, Elizabeth said, foolishly: she “herself” hadn’t given a “fuck” for “months”, berating “self” for “breathing” life into the “character“s in the first place. Ah well, she did “enjoy” it at the time.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“I knew you’d have something to say about that Godfrey, but hear this: no comments at all doesn’t count much for a manuscript either,” Elizabeth snorted. “Pass the tissues please, Godfrey, I seem to have snorted a bit too much.”
“At least there is the possibility of a random daily quote sync, I suppose,” replied Godfrey, while averting his eyes to Elizabeth’s chin. “Which is not to be, er, sniffed at.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Someone told me that gazing at the clouds doesn’t count as a manuscript, dear”
“Godfrey? Are you back now?” Elizabeth raised a contemptuous eyebrow.
“Well, I figured you needed some help… Oh, bugger, I guess the truth is that Mars gets boring rather quickly. I should have taken my chances with France instead.”
“Go figure.” She raised painfully from the couch “Evelyn would call me an evil Yankee-bashing witch to say I’m not surprised, but the hell with her, she always, hem mars everything. Now be a dear, fetch me a hot cup of vegemite, and tell me all about it.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Haki, did you find that baby a good home?”
“I left it at the shrine, madam…”
“Please, call me Liz!”
“I left the baby at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Yellow Burden, Liz. It’s a busy shrine, I’m sure someone will pick it up and look after it.”
“Well, perhaps you could pop back and check tomorrow, just in case it’s still there, Haki.”
“I think the thing with shrines, Liz,” Godfrey butted in, “Is not to keep revisiting them.”
“Don’t be daft, Godfrey, people flock to shrines all the time.”
“Precisely,” he replied.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
It was good to see the back of them, although it was a shame that Crispin Cornwall ~ alias Godfrey Trueman, I now knew ~ hadn’t paid his bill. I could trace him via Liz, but I wanted to keep a distance. I had two pieces of the Tattler, Trout and Trueman puzzle, but who was Trout? Why did they send me that note made of ripped up maps, and what did Flora have to do with it all? And what were they doing buying up ghost towns?
Of course, considering Liz was involved, it was entirely possible that none of it meant anything at all. Then again, with Liz, one never knew. And I don’t know a thing about Trueman, and less about Trout.
Perhaps there was a clue in room 8.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
It was good to be back, and surprisingly pleasant to have Godfrey back. Even more delightful was to see the back of that baby. Arona Haki had taken it off somewhere, to find it a good home, Elizabeth supposed. Finnley was as cranky and taciturn as ever, which was a comfort to Liz after her brief foray into the story.
The people at that dreadful dusty inn would no doubt be disappointed at losing Godfrey as a paying guest, so Elizabeth, feeling relaxed and generous, decided to write a little surprise into the story to mollify them.
Mollify, what lovely word, she mused, mollify, mollify, mollify….
“What’s that you say?” croaked Finnley, “No flies in here.”
“Oh Finnley, dear, do turn your hearing aid up a bit, will you?”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Who ratted me out, obviously”.
Godfrey said finishing a mouthful of peanuts from the smallish bag the air attendant had just given to them.
“So, what’s the next destination now? not home surely?” “By the way, this nice Australian family will rue the day they met you. You managed to make their only paying guest flee as soon as you arrived with that bawling baby of yours.”In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
“Don’t look so grim, Idle, we’re not staying,” Liz said, “We only came for a mince pie. We’ll be off in a minute but first I must have a word with Godfrey in private.”
What a relief, I can tell you! “I’ll go and get him, shall I?”
“No, I think I’ll have a word with him in his room, if you don’t mind,” she replied. “I think he has something to show me.”
Curiosity over ruled any shreds left of anxiety, and I had to bite my tongue not to ask straight out, not that she’d have told me. Always full of enigmatic little secrets, she was, always had been. It was never a hundred percent clear if she knew what she was talking about and was very clever, or if she hadn’t got a clue what was going on and was winging it. Anyway, the main thing was that she wasn’t staying long, so if we got through the next half hour without any more confusion ensuing, we’d be laughing. Feeling more inclined towards gracious kindness than previously, I beamed magnanimously at her and politely ushered her down the hall to room 8.
“Mr, er, Cornwall,” I didn’t know whether to call him Godfrey, and decided against it. His bill was in the name Crispin Cornwall, and I wasn’t about to have him flitting off with Liz and her entourage without paying it. “Elizabeth would like a private word, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Bloody Liz Tattler’s the last person I wanted to see,” he said. “Trust her to just happen to land on my secret hideaway.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Did you say Tattler?”
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
I was offering the plate of mince pies to Mr Cornwall, who had been coaxed out of his room for the first time in ages and was sitting next to the gum tree sapling that Aunt Idle had strung with fairy lights in lieu of a Christmas pine, when they arrived. We were all surprised to hear the taxi hooting outside, that is, except Bert. I heard him mumbling something about “She bloody meant it, the old trout,” but I didn’t remember that until later, with all the commotion at the unexpected guests.
“Here, take the lot,” I said, shoving the mince pies on the old guys lap, as I rushed to the door to see who it was. A tall autocratic looking woman swathed in beige linen garments was climbing out of the front seat of the taxi, with one hand holding the pith helmet on her head and the other hand gesticulating wildly to the others in the back seat. She was ordering the taxi driver to get the luggage out of the boot, and ushering the other occupants out of the car, before flamboyantly spinning around to face the house. With arms outstretched and a big smile she called, “Darlings! We have arrived!”
“Who the fuck it that?” I asked Clove. “Fucked if I know” she replied, adding in a disappointed tone, “Four more old farts, just what we bloody need.”
“And a baby!” I noted.
Clove snorted sarcastically, “Terrific.”
Suddenly a cloud of dust filled the hall and I started to cough. Crispin Cornwall had leaped to his feet, the plate of mince pies crashing to the floor.
“Elizabeth! Do my eyes deceive me, or is it really you?”
“Godfrey, you old coot! What on earth are you doing here, and dressed like that! You really are a hoot!”
“Why is she calling him Godfrey?” asked Prune. “That’s not his name.”
“He obviously lied when he said his name was Crispin Cornwall, Prune. We don’t know a thing about him,” I replied. “Someone had better go and fetch Aunt Idle.”
