Monday 3 June 2013

82 - Wings


Linda talked of herself as having a ‘butterfly mind’, and when prompted by puzzled expressions would expand “Oh, I just flit from idea to idea without being able to concentrate on any of them!” She would then take the metaphor further, and explain how at least from her fleeting chance encounters she had gained a good overview of how beautiful the world around her was. What she never understood, what was missing from the eulogizing at her crowded humanist cremation, was how beautiful the friends around her regarded her flitting among them. For from where they stood, Linda’s wings had made a snow angel from their powdery existence.

Friday 8 February 2013

81 - Scape-bread

One friend taught her to make scape-bread. “Knead it hard for at least ten minutes; I work out all my anger when I’m making bread!”

Another showed her that dough was in want of caresses rather than pummelling. “Fold gently; treat it with respect: it is a living creature.”

So it is that she lives life as an apprentice baker, beating her frustrations into those around her, or nurturing their growth, as the day takes her.

Friday 25 January 2013

80 - A Quick Game of Drabble ...*

“Hurry up, Mikka!”
Across the space between them appeared ‘Three of the moons were droid-made’.
“Double-phrase for ‘droid-made’, makes 43 klep.”
Sor smiled sweetly as he joined ‘moons’ to ‘Saturn’ with ‘imploded above’.
“Triple-syllable for ‘imploded’: 92.5 to me, sucker!”
Mikka mind-melded with his weapons. You could never be sure an old-time galanaut like Sor had entirely lost the habit of post-victory genocide, and Sor’s ship was itching for a fight.
There was a burst of noise aft.
“Mother ship beacon,” sang Mikka. “Call it a draw.”
Before Sor could answer him, the retreating picket’s neutron-drive scattered the phrases.

* I don't know if sci-fi writers invented flash-fiction, but a 'drabble' is an SF story no more than 100 words long.

Friday 11 January 2013

79 - The Cock-a-Leekie Ebbs

The cock-a-leekie ebbs from the right of the bowl, and I read in its jetsam a turn to the north. It is part way through the Wellington that I realize that though the meal is just right the train itself is quite wrong. I have until the dessert course to re-think my holiday, and until breakfast to make contact with my luggage, checked-in to the van. I’ve made worse mistakes, I decide, and order a liqueur.