Saturday Wordzzle 104

It's Saturday! Yay!

What's a Wordzzle? Go and vist any of Raven's Wordzzle posts to find out the full s.p. but, briefly, each week Raven posts a list of words and we players have to construct a piece of writing which includes them.

The mini (swimming pool, cargo, czar, focus, fine)

The story so far....

A blind seer has a vision about a young man coming to harm from an old man living in a tower. To try to avert this fate, she anonymously pays for him to take a holiday somewhere far away. She then has a nightmare which she believes is connected to the young man's fate and resolves to go after him. She gets to the holiday town and realises this is the very place the tower is located. She gets lost trying to locate it and bumps into the young man on his way there. The seer soon discovers that this is the very man from her vision. as they talk, a car comes around the corner too fast and he pushes the seer out of its path, only to be struck himself. At the hospital, the car driver - who lives in the old tower! - and the seer wait anxiously by the young man's bedside. He awakens but can remember nothing.

The Seer speaks...

I think I've probably cried enough tears to fill a swimming pool, but at least he's awake now, or so the nurse has assured me. Mr Fitzpatrick has gone to forage for more coffee and snacks for us both. I'm not sure I want any more coffee, though: a combination of caffeine, worry and tiredness is making it hard for me to focus. I'm sure I heard someone say just now that they know the Toilet Czar, but replaying my mental tape it seems they knew where the toilets are. Get a grip, woman! I ask the young man how he's feeling and he says he's fine, which really can't be true, now can it? I tell him about the accident. He doesn't remember a thing about it - not surprising, given the bash on the head he's had. He doesn't remember very much it seems, doesn't know who I am or what town he's in. I tell him I'm a friend, which will have to do for now, and it's true anyway, or at least I'd like it to be. Mr Fitzpatrick has returned with a cargo of coffee and bottled water, and some crisps which I'm mildly surprised to find I'm hungry enough to eat.

The 10-worder (culture, sheep, skin, mentally, box, desert, several people, church, Greece, thirst)

New to Harold? Click here to catch up.

"Dysprosium, Sodium and Molybdenum, are you sure?" said Othello, raising a quizzical eyebrow at Prada and Harold.

"Absolutely," declared Prada, "OK, there were other hits for the numbers, but when you add in the chemistry book, this has to be it."

"Well, it could be, I guess." acknowledged Othello, "I haven't found anything even remotely pertinent on Emerald's computer, so maybe this is the direction he wants us to go in. Sodium and Molybdenum, I've heard of but, Dysprosium?"

"Should we google them too?" Asked Harold, brightly. He had been mightily impressed with this instant knowledge-giver and was keen to see it in action again.

"We could," said Othello, "but, I'm thinking the answer might be in front of us." He picked up the chemistry textbook from Emerald's apartment.

"Now, let's see..." He flipped open the book and turned to the inevitable reproduction of the Periodic Table of the Elements. The others leaned in to get a good look at what he was doing. With the combined stares of several people boring into him, Othello ran his eyes over the chart, looking for the three elements. Maybe Emerald had written something or left some other clue. The page, however, was as clean as the day the book was printed.

"Nothing here," murmured Othello, and began to turn the page.

"Wait a minute!" said Teatime, excitedly. "Go back to the chart." Othello did so.

"Look at the chemical names for those three elements!"

"Dy, Na, Mo!" breathed Othello, "Well I'll be.."

"Dynamo?" asked India, who had mentally been wishing Harold back to the Basement as hard as she could ever since he had entered the room, and – just to be annoying – had deliberately stood right next to her.

"Does that mean something to you?" asked Prada.

"It's the name of an OGS project that was discontinued years ago."

"What was the project about?"

"That I don't exactly know, but I think I know someone who does."

-0-0-0-

"This is Peck," the Private Investigator's smooth voice reeked of culture and a private education.

"Go on." Mr Teeth had had a long day and had just exhausted himself at the gym. His skin still tingled from the pounding the masseur had inflicted upon it, but he was wide awake now and his attention was riveted to the telephone.

"My associates have traced the vehicle your boy was seen getting into. It belongs to a company called "Aunt Aggie's."

"Aunt Aggie's?"

"Yes, they used to make cheesecake apparently. Used to – the company no longer exists."

"And yet they own a car?"

"Apparently so."

"Did you get an address?"

"Naturally." The temperature of Peck's voice dropped a few degrees at this slightest of hints that he had been less than completely efficient.

"Let me get a pen."

When the call was over, Mr Teeth stared thoughtfully at the slip of paper containing his barely legible scrawl. He could send Peck over there, he supposed, but he was curious now. Aunt Aggie's must be a front, but for what? It would be very interesting to find out. He yawned suddenly. Whatever it was, though, would have to wait till the next morning: Mr Teeth was beat.

-0-0-0-

 

Othello put down the phone. "Ok, it's all set. Reverend Box will meet with us tomorrow."

"Reverend Box?" asked Mercury, who had just joined the others. "The Reverend Box?"

"Who's Reverend Box?" asked India, "And why would he know about Dynamo?"

"Box used to be an agent," explained Mercury, "but he retired from active duty."

"And became a preacher?" said Prada.

"In a manner of speaking," replied Mercury. "He's not actually an ordained minister, but he's built himself a little church out in the desert."

"I can't imagine he'd have a very big congregation out there." said Prada.

"He doesn't." said Mercury, "In fact, no-one actually goes to his church – unless you count the sheep."

"Sheep? In the desert?" cried India, "Wouldn't they die of thirst?"

"According to Box, the Gods provide for them."

"Plus the fact he's got a fairly decent well in back of his place." added Othello, drily.

"Hold on a minute," said Prada, "You said he said the Gods provide? The Gods, plural?"

"Yeah," sighed Mercury, "That's why he had to retire: he started telling everyone that the Gods of Ancient Greece were back and were demanding worship."

"Oh, great," groaned Prada, "So now our most reliable source of information is a nut-job. This just gets better!"

The Poetry Bus - Complete the following...

This week's poetry challenge from TotalFeckinEejit is to finish what he started...

She was wearing Stella McCartney
I was drinking Stella Artois.
We were worlds apart-ney
Divided by wealth and class

She was wearing Stella McCartney
I was drinking Stella Artois.
And still she broke my heart-ney
And told me I was crass.

So now...

I am wearing Stella McCartney
I'm not drinking Stella Artois.
The Docs took me apart-ney
Now, as a woman, I will pass.

Yeah, I know, but it's all I could think of.  Sorry.

Saturday Wordzzle 103

Ok, so it's Sunday rather than Saturday but it's here now.  For more info on Wordzzling go to Raven's Nest.

The mini (liver spots, pesticide, plaid, unpredictable, upsetting the apple cart)

The story so far....

A blind seer has a vision about a young man coming to harm from an old man living in a tower. To try to avert this fate, she anonymously pays for him to take a holiday somewhere far away. She then has a nightmare which she believes is connected to the young man's fate and resolves to go after him. She gets to the holiday town and realises this is the very place the tower is located. She gets lost trying to locate it and bumps into the young man on his way there. The seer soon discovers that this is the very man from her vision. as they talk, a car comes around the corner too fast and he pushes the seer out of its path, only to be struck himself. At the hospital, the car driver - who lives in the old tower! - and the seer wait anxiously by the young man's bedside.

The young man speaks...

A lady in a nurse's uniform comes and checks on me - I'm in hospital then. I've no idea how I got here though – or even where here is, for that matter. By the looks of things, one of my legs has got broken somehow and my head is bandaged and aches like the devil, the pain coming and going in unpredictable waves. The air smells like pesticide, no, no, that's not it, disinfectant! Yes, definitely a hospital then. These two people standing anxiously by the bed, who are they? An old, bearded man with liver spots on his hands and a young woman who is either a celebrity hiding from the media, a druggie, or blind, maybe, in a plaid coat and sunglasses. I don't know them at all. They might be my family. She might be my wife or sister. No, I remember my sister, she's not blind and she's blonde, not brunette. My wife, maybe? Surely not, I'd remember if I had a wife, wouldn't I?. Better be careful with her then, don't want to go upsetting the apple cart by saying something inappropriate. She is attractive though, probably out of my league..

The 10-worder (slimy, Pluto, champing at the bit, peaceful, chapter, upright, depression, starfish, matches, channel changer)

New to Harold? Click here to catch up.

Agent India watched as Othello worked on Emerald's computer. His slim brown fingers flew over the keyboard as he scanned directories, opened up files only to close them, ran searches only to discard the matches they threw up, all the while not saying a word, totally absorbed and barely aware that she was in the room, it seemed.

It was nice to be away from that demon, she thought. She hadn't been joking when she said it made her teeth itch: its physical presence was a constant irritation, like fingernails scraping down a blackboard. It was also nice not to have to witness its slimy attempts to make friends with everybody. Did it seriously think anyone here, of all places, would fall for its blandishments? It must be the stupidest demon in the history of the world if it thought that. It probably was, though, she reminded herself: it was that monkey-thing that was doing all the thinking in that outfit.

She couldn't be the only one champing at the bit to send it back where it belonged, surely. What had that angel been thinking, teaming OGS and a demon up together? It was like one of those really terrible B-movies, where the hero and his arch-enemy have to work together and then become grudging friends – the sort of movie that has you reaching for the channel changer after the first five minutes. Well, there'd be no friendship, grudging or otherwise from her. Not after what had happened to her family because of fiends like that one.

Her brother David had been in his last year in High School when he'd met the beautiful Saskya. She had been new in town, new to the school and, being a kindly soul, David had taken her under his wing, as it were. Soon they were dating and when he brought her home to meet the family, India's teeth had itched mightily. Of course, she hadn't known what was making her feel so bad whenever Saskya was around – her gift had not been explained to her yet.

She had tried to warn David that she was suspicious of this beautiful, funny, charming, clever girl that he was smitten with, but he'd just laughed it off as younger sister jealousy. She sort of half-believed him. The two of them had always been close – as thick as thieves, as their grandma would say - and the arrival of David's love interest had reduced the amount of time he spent with his little sis. That's all it was then, just little sister jealousy. Wasn't it?

Then David had started staying out late on school nights, and when his parents tried to talk to him about it, India's normally peaceful and easy-going brother would fly into a rage and go stomping upstairs to his room. All of this could just have been teenage rebelliousness, but then he started skipping classes, choosing instead to lie on his bed all day, talking to Saskya on the phone or just staring up at the ceiling. Suspecting depression, India's parents had tried to get David to see a doctor, but he was having none of it.

He became gradually more and more moody and withdrawn. India had suspected he was using drugs and had searched his room when he was out. She didn't find anything; he was obviously too smart to hide stuff in the house.

So she'd confronted him.

If there was one single moment in her life that India would go back and change, it was this one. She'd accused him of taking drugs, and had accused Saskya of giving them to him. As soon as she'd mentioned his girlfriend's name, David had gone berserk, shouting and swearing and throwing stuff around the room, denying everything and telling her to get the hell out of his room and his life. As she'd been scurrying out of the room, he'd called her name. She'd turned around, thinking that maybe he was going to apologise or something.

The look on his face still gave her nightmares. His eyes were as dead as two stones and, while he was smiling – at least his mouth was in the shape of a smile – there was a fixed, frozen look to it, as if someone else were operating his muscles by remote control.

In his hand, he held up a little china figure that India had bought him when she was eight. It was Mickey Mouse and Pluto at the seaside, complete with buckets, spades, starfish and whatnot. Having got her attention, he slowly and deliberately set the thing down on the floor and then stamped on it, smashing it. Keeping his eyes on her the whole time, he had ground his heel back and forth on the pieces.

When he had started laughing, she had fled the room.

That day, David had left the house and disappeared. The Police searched, India's parents searched, driving for hours all over the town and local area. The school reported that Saskya had also disappeared and the address on her file turned out to be a derelict property which had not been lived in for years.

The end of the whole sorry chapter came a year later when a policeman had turned up at the door, bearing the news that a body had been found in a filthy squat in a town in the next state. ..

She was startled upright out of her reverie as the door opened and an excited Prada and Harold burst into the room.

The Poetry Bus replacement train service

Today it's off the bus and onto the train with TFE's Monday Poetry Challenge.  Write anything you like, he said, but write about trains.  Now, I've spent a large potion of my life waiting for and sitting on trains, none of which will be evident from this poem.

Night Waiting

Passengers are advised

That the train approaching platform 2

Will not be stopping at this station.

Please keep away from the platform edge.

It is night.

It is raining.

And the Voice of the Station

Has just broken my heart.

I’ll never get there now.

Cradled in light

The lucky ones go flashing past.

For a split-second

I see their various faces,

Pensive, bored, self-absorbed.

Sleepy, happy, tired,

All Snow-White-and-seven-dwarved,

Cradled in warmth.

Cradled in hope.

I see them.

I envy them.

Oh, I want to be them,

Ticket-borne homewards.

Then the train whisks them away,

Shrieking and rattling

Into the night.

Leaving me alone on the platform,

Keeping all my

Personal longings with me

At all times.

I'm Not Going to Heaven

Well, finally got it recorded and uploaded to BoobTube.  I got my good friend Don't feed the Pixies to join in the fun as well.  My voice is really rough on this (tired from singing a load of other stuff first) and there are some mistakes in the lyrics.  Nevertheless....

Enjoy!

Saturday Wordzzle 102

A-wordzzling we will go! Come and join in the fun!

For more info on Wordzzling go to Raven's Nest.

The mini (Hershey kisses, pregnant, scarring, cadet, grist mill)

The story so far....

A blind seer has a vision about a young man coming to harm from an old man living in a tower. To try to avert this fate, she anonymously pays for him to take a holiday somewhere far away. The young man arrives at the holiday town and sees an interesting tower, which he plans to investigate. The seer has a nightmare which she believes is connected to the young man's fate and resolves to go after him. She gets to the holiday town and realises this is the very place the tower is located. She gets lost trying to locate it and bumps into the young man on his way there. The seer soon discovers that this is the very man from her vision, and asks him to accompany her to where they can have a quiet talk. His phone rings, interrupting the conversation. As he completes his call, a car comes around the corner too fast and he pushes the seer out of its path, only to be struck himself .

The seer speaks...

The driver of the car, a Mr Fitzpatrick, tells me that the young man looks horribly pale, almost as pale as the hospital sheet covering him. His voice is shaking as he talks. The docs have patched up the young man as best they can but it’s up to him now, they say. Apart from the gash on his head, he shouldn’t have any other scarring, which is good I suppose. I wonder when he’ll wake up, I hope it's soon. Fitzpatrick has fetched us both some awful-tasting coffee from the vending machine and a bag of chocolate sweets – Hershey Kisses, apparently – which taste far too sickly for me right now. The man tries to make conversation – a nervous reaction to all that has occurred, I suspect. He tells me of his life from his days as a young sea cadet, his marriage to his childhood sweetheart – even though she was already pregnant by another man, his widowhood after many happy years with her. I feel the aching loneliness of his days. I ask him if he lives here in the town and he tells me, no, he actually lives in the old grist mill, that the locals call Gerard’s Folly, the old tower on the hill. The old tower on the hill!

The 10-worder(sugar daddy, page, Copernicus, liquid, craggy, trapezoid, milquetoast, blizzard, food cream, dental problems)

New to Harold? Click here to catch up.

It was a subdued group that made its way back to Aunt Aggie’s bearing the two pieces of a puzzle left for them by their late colleague.

In the outside world, life continued unabated, heedless of their loss. Apparently (according to the headlines displayed on a newsstand they passed), supermodel Page Brookes had split up with her sugar daddy, the famously craggy-featured and fabulously wealthy octogenarian media mogul Copernicus Blizzard. The thrash-metal band, Suicide by Propeller, had pulled out of their “Fifty Dates in Fifty States” tour, citing their lead singer’s illness following surgery to correct long-running dental problems. The economy was in its usual poor state. Some politician had been caught falsifying his expenses.

In short: the usual.

Harold stared thoughtfully outwards and upwards at the shining blue trapezoid of sky visible through the car window. He felt vaguely sorry for the humans – they were never going to see again in this life someone they cared for. Demons didn’t have that problem, of course, being immortal. At least, he corrected himself, they hadn’t until now. His old friend Illyriel had disappeared and might never be found again and, while it had been thousands of years since Harold had seen him, the years had not dimmed his affection for his old friend, nor damped the sense of separation and loss he had felt when he had found himself cast out with the others, never to return to the realms of light, love and warmth. If only he hadn’t been such a milquetoast back then, things could have been so very different. Still, what was done was done and there was no mending it now. He sighed.

“Something up, old sock?” enquired Teatime.

“Not really,” replied Harold, “I was just thinking is all…”

“I shouldn’t do that if I were you, you might hurt your head.”

“Ha, ha, very funny! You know, I really don’t see the point of us hanging around with these humans. I mean, we’re not actually helping them and pretty soon they’re going to realise it and…”

“Relax,” soothed Teatime, “The humans will do only what Baruthiel tells them. Besides, we may not be helping them, but it looks like they could be helping us, what with the all cryptic clue nonsense. At least they have a lead of sorts.”

“I suppose,” Agreed Harold reluctantly, “But it would be nice to make some kind of contribution.”

“Oh, dear, you’re not hoping to impress the humans are you?” warned Teatime, “Because if you are, I’d have to say you’re wasting your time. They’ll never trust you and they’ll certainly never like you. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be for everyone.”

“I don't know,” mused Harold, “That agent Prada seems friendlier than the others. She was quite chatty this morning.”

“You are such a dullard at times,” groaned the little monkey, “It’s a wonder you can tie your own shoelaces. She wasn’t being friendly, she was trying to get you to let your guard down and maybe let slip some useful information.”

“Do you think?” Harold was disappointed. The idea that Prada had been anything other than genuinely friendly had not even occurred to him. He really was a dullard. He’d be on his guard now though all right.

“Luckily for us,” Teatime continued, “You don’t actually know anything that would be of use to these OGS lickspittles.”

“Thanks a lot. Can I help it if nobody tells me anything?” retorted Harold, slightly stung.

“You have a point there, old shoe,” conceded Teatime. “But be careful all the same. These people are not to be trusted.”

"Were you speaking Infernal back there in the car?" asked Prada. They were back at base and Othello had disappeared to work on Emerald's computer, leaving the others at something of a loose end.

Harold sipped his coffee, relishing the taste of the bitter liquid, before answering in the affirmative.

"It sounded really quite beautiful." Prada went on, "I kind of expected demons' talk to sound, you know –"

"All gutturals and hissing sibilants?" prompted Teatime, from his usual perch on Harold's shoulder.

"Well, yes, actually." Prada admitted. "That's how it's always been portrayed in books and movies, anyway."

"Well it is actually a variant of Celestial, and has not diverged that much over the centuries." replied Teatime. Harold could sense a lecture coming and was tempted to remind Teatime about his earlier comments regarding giving away information.

Teatime nattered on for a bit and Prada appeared to be listening intently, nodding and umming in the right places. Harold's mind wandered. He started thinking about the three strange numbers they had found what their connection might be to the chemistry book.

Then he had an idea.

"Why don't we try typing those numbers into the Internet?" he said, interrupting Teatime's exposition on the Great Vowel Shift or some such.

"What?" Teatime said, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

"Let's type the numbers into Google and see what pops out."

"I hardly think agent Emerald will have made it that obvious, old sock." began Teatime. But it was too late; Harold and Prada were already heading out of the coffee room to the nearest OGS computer.

"You have to careful what you put in here," said Prada, seating herself in front of the machine, "I once typed in 'food cream' when I actually meant 'foot cream'. I didn't get anything for my grandma's bunions," she laughed, "but I did discover the history of ice cream. Now, what were those numbers?" She flipped open her notebook and typed in the string of digits and dashes.

"Interesting," she murmured, as a series of links appeared on screen. "They do seem to be connected with chemicals."

"Try each one separately," suggested Harold.

Prada's immaculately manicured fingers rattled over the keys.

"Hmm, nothing here but a load of radio station frequencies," she said, disappointed, "Oh wait, there is a chemical reference. Seems this number relates to 'Dysprosium', whatever that is."

She repeated the exercise with the two remaining numbers.

"So, we've got Dysprosium, Sodium and Molybdenum." she jotted this down in her notebook. "I flunked chemistry at school so I have no idea what this means. I think we need to talk to Othello." She got up and hurried off to find him.

"There you go, old bean," said Teatime, "you've made a contribution after all."

I Have ISSUES!

Is it my imagination, or is the word “issue” just about the most over-used and hackneyed word in business English today?

If I have to hear one more person say something like “There’s an issue with the data” or “He has an issue with opening the Online Monthly Report”, when they simply mean that there’s a PROBLEM, I swear I’ll be fired for “punching-a-fellow-worker-in-the-face” issues.

Apropos of this and nothing, a colleague told me today that one of his neighbours is on disability and is unemployable because of ”anger management problems” (he actually said “issues”, but don’t get me started on that again!).

I’m going to see if I can get disability and leave the world of work because of, I dunno, sarcasm management problems. I’m practicing already:

Boss: There’s another release of the KlueLess Decision Support System to install.
Me: (rubbing hands in apparent glee) Ooh, goody, another quality, trouble-free delivery from the Developers that will run first time, no problem, and not totally wipe out our web content, bring it on!

Boss: Oh, there’s also the refresh of the test environment from live…
Me: Yeah, I’ll just take off my shoes and do that while I’m doing the other install, my feet had nothing better to do anyway.

Boss: They’ve asked us to babysit the overnight job tonight as the Minister for Dumpy-Fingered Children* is visiting client site tomorrow and they want all the numbers to be there for him…
Me: Sure, no problem, I’m giving up sleep for Lent, anyway.

Boss: When can you start on the database tuning for the KlueLess overnight jobs? They’re running really slowly.
Me: How about never? Is “never” good for you?

Boss: One of the Business Analysts wants to talk to you about running some SQL queries for him. Can I tell him to come over and meet with you about it?
Me: I dunno. Is he wearing a cricket box?**

I'll let you know if my cunning plan succeeds.

Notes
*And that’s another thing. In England, there is a government agency that gives out laptops and paid-for internet access to supposedly deprived families with school-age kids to help them get educated (whilst at the same time shutting down all the libraries). Now, try to think of the smallest time unit imaginable – a millisecond? A nanosecond? Getting closer.  A femtosecond, maybe. Got it yet? Well cut that unit in half and that’s about how long it was before the first of these free laptops appeared on eBay and, get this, the cheeky, shameless, sponging monkeys even posted a link to the agency’s own website so that potential bidders could see what they were going to get. That’s my tax money, you thieving gits!

** Dunno what these are called in other parts of the world –it’s a kind of rigid shield to protect a male sportsman’s gentleman vegetables. Now being worn increasingly frequently in office situations involving overworked, under-appreciated techies.