The exercise:
Write about: the mimic.
It snowed this afternoon. I realize it's still early February, but it hadn't done that in a while.
Stupid reality, interfering with my dreams of spring...
Mine:
"Hey Jessica!"
"Hey Jessica!"
Oh for... come on! Seriously? How the hell did Tony know I was going to be here?
No. No, I should have known better. He's always around when I least want him to be. Always. There's no escape.
"Hey Graham," Jessica says. Maybe she didn't hear Tony. But now she's waiting for me to say something. I can't just go mute and run for it. Or maybe I can?
Nope, I can't. And it's too late to pretend I didn't hear her. The one time I don't have my earphones in...
"Sorry, Jess... late for class. Gotta run!" I jog away but I needed to sprint to get out of earshot in time.
"Sorry, Jess... late for class. Gotta run!"
And there go my chances with Jessica Lewis. I am never going to get a date with Tony following me around like this. What girl would want to be with someone who has a talking shadow? Especially one who repeats every last thing I say, only as voiced by a mouse who has learned human speech... but who has also just sucked in a giant helium balloon.
Frickin' maniac. I mean, sure, I probably shouldn't have said that thing about his mother and the aquarium. But how was I supposed to have known it was true?!
2 comments:
I have to watch the Norwegians sports to see snow, and you get it on your doorstep... this world is an unfair place.
I really like the idea of a talking shadow, and especially one that's such a nuisance. I feel a little sorry for Graham, but not too much, especially in light of the last paragraph. But still, I'm curious to know if Jessica thinks differently, and I'd definitely like to see more of Graham's attempts to live a normal life!
The mimic
The mimic was proving to be a problem. It had turned up one afternoon the castle ballroom and chased the ladies-in-waiting around making them scream. When the musicians had come in to see what the noise was (and check on their instruments, though they were noticeably less interested in them than in the ladies-in-waiting) the mimic retreated deeper into the castle, and, as luck would have it, into the wizard's study. Now the castle had a wizard and a mimic pretending to be a wizard, and no way of telling them apart.
"Why don't we just tell people we have two wizards now?" Queen Esselbelldra was a deeply practical woman who drew her own water for her baths and sewed her own clothes.
"Because people would expect them to be independent of each other," said King Gorment. He sighed and shook his head, both in weariness and frustration. "As it is, whatever the wizard does the mimic does at the same time, only one of them is effectively good and the other evil. But I can't tell which is which!"
"Sack the wizard? Perhaps the mimic will go and copy someone else."
The King brightened for a moment, and then his face fell again. "But that doesn't get it out of the castle," he said. "What if it mimics you?"
"A good and evil me?" Queen Esselbelldra laughed, and then a look crossed her face. Her husband, who knew her well, facepalmed.
"Don't tell me," he said. "I really don't want to know what you've thought of."
The Queen crossed the room and stood between the wizards and said something too quietly for the King to make out. After a moment's hesitation both wizards leaned in and whispered in the Queen's ears.
"That one!" she pointed. "That's the mimic. Guards, kill that wizard!"
A brief, but bloody, interlude later, the King was wiping blood off his robes and trying to avoid where sticky things were dripping from the ceiling. "How did you know?" he asked, his tone suggesting that his curiosity was beating his common sense.
"I asked them what they'd do to me if I were naked right now," said Esselbelldra, smirking as her husband blushed. "Our wizard's still a virgin of course, but the mimic... well, let's just say I have some ideas for a little later on."
Greg - heh, I'll have to bring this group back for another visit then. Perhaps that would provide a little more depth to all three of them.
I quite like Queen Esselbelldra, for all that I hate typing out her name. She seems very resourceful! Also: I enjoyed all the little details you included to bring this scene to life. Well, perhaps enjoyed isn't the right word for the description of things after your brief interlude at the end there...
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