I am in snowy Kiev, and though the travel day was excruciatingly long yesterday, and then there was a little drama at the airport with one of the team being taken for questioning because she has a Russian passport, we did all get to the hotel in the end and things are now going more or less in the right direction. Without further ado then, let’s get to ‘stuck on repeat’, which clearly indicates that your iPod has been damaged by the snow and you are holed up in your assassin’s nest in your ski chalet listening to Jona Lewie’s ‘Home for Christmas’ over and over again.
Stuck on repeat The air was still, the stars were concealed by a blanket of cloud, and where they might have twinkled was now just the light glitter of the beginnings of a snow-fall. Down in the valley below there was the occasion boom of an exploding kitten, each of which made War’s smile just a little broader. “18,” said Famine. “How many kittens did you bring, War?” “Enough,” said War. He was sitting on the porch of the ski chalet, his boots resting in six inches of snow that were hiding the steps to the ground, and his cup of hot chocolate now had marshmallows in. “It’s kind of nice to have something so humane, to be honest. Over in Syria they’re using much, much worse than that. For a while they were using body-parts as lures: you blow up a peacekeeper, chase off his friends, then grab his arms and legs and use them to make the peacekeepers think that they’ve got injured comrades somewhere else... only the bodyparts are on top of another IED.” “I had a girlfriend who used one of them, once,” said Pestilence. He sounded far-away, and was standing in the doorway staring into the chill night-air. “I think you mean IUD,” said War. “Are you catching something from Fam? And shouldn’t it be the other way round?” “I’m clean,” said Famine, and it sounded reflexive. There was a pause. “I think the only thing I could give Pest would be anorexia, anyway. If that’s contagious.” “Only amongst high-school girls,” said Pestilence dreamily. “No, I meant IED. She only used it once. She probably wanted an IUD though.” “Jesus,” said War. “That must have been-“ “Messy,” said Pestilence. “Yeah. But you do the best you can, and 14 people managed to catch one of those face-eating bacteria from the clean-up, so I came out in profit on the whole.” There was another boom in the valley below. “Anyone ever think that we seem to be stuck on repeat?” asked War. “Just doing the same stuff over and over again?” Famine shook his head. Dandruff drifted around, indistinguishable from the snow. “Not us,” he said. “The humans never seem to learn, but we’re just helping them out. They’re the ones who won’t learn that population control and good agricultural practices might alleviate a lot of trouble and put me out of a job.” “Me too,” said Pestilence. “Especially if they pay more attention to sanitation.” “Me three,” said War. “No food issue, no major diseases to flee, then who needs to fight?” “If you think I’m doing all the work by myself,” said Death, stepping out of the shadows, “you have another think coming.” “You picked up the kids?” Death nodded. “And a dozen chickens,” he said. “The kittens kept chasing them. Luckily War had a few spares.” “Ho, ho, ho” said War.
2 comments:
I am in snowy Kiev, and though the travel day was excruciatingly long yesterday, and then there was a little drama at the airport with one of the team being taken for questioning because she has a Russian passport, we did all get to the hotel in the end and things are now going more or less in the right direction.
Without further ado then, let’s get to ‘stuck on repeat’, which clearly indicates that your iPod has been damaged by the snow and you are holed up in your assassin’s nest in your ski chalet listening to Jona Lewie’s ‘Home for Christmas’ over and over again.
Stuck on repeat
The air was still, the stars were concealed by a blanket of cloud, and where they might have twinkled was now just the light glitter of the beginnings of a snow-fall. Down in the valley below there was the occasion boom of an exploding kitten, each of which made War’s smile just a little broader.
“18,” said Famine. “How many kittens did you bring, War?”
“Enough,” said War. He was sitting on the porch of the ski chalet, his boots resting in six inches of snow that were hiding the steps to the ground, and his cup of hot chocolate now had marshmallows in. “It’s kind of nice to have something so humane, to be honest. Over in Syria they’re using much, much worse than that. For a while they were using body-parts as lures: you blow up a peacekeeper, chase off his friends, then grab his arms and legs and use them to make the peacekeepers think that they’ve got injured comrades somewhere else... only the bodyparts are on top of another IED.”
“I had a girlfriend who used one of them, once,” said Pestilence. He sounded far-away, and was standing in the doorway staring into the chill night-air.
“I think you mean IUD,” said War. “Are you catching something from Fam? And shouldn’t it be the other way round?”
“I’m clean,” said Famine, and it sounded reflexive. There was a pause. “I think the only thing I could give Pest would be anorexia, anyway. If that’s contagious.”
“Only amongst high-school girls,” said Pestilence dreamily. “No, I meant IED. She only used it once. She probably wanted an IUD though.”
“Jesus,” said War. “That must have been-“
“Messy,” said Pestilence. “Yeah. But you do the best you can, and 14 people managed to catch one of those face-eating bacteria from the clean-up, so I came out in profit on the whole.”
There was another boom in the valley below.
“Anyone ever think that we seem to be stuck on repeat?” asked War. “Just doing the same stuff over and over again?”
Famine shook his head. Dandruff drifted around, indistinguishable from the snow.
“Not us,” he said. “The humans never seem to learn, but we’re just helping them out. They’re the ones who won’t learn that population control and good agricultural practices might alleviate a lot of trouble and put me out of a job.”
“Me too,” said Pestilence. “Especially if they pay more attention to sanitation.”
“Me three,” said War. “No food issue, no major diseases to flee, then who needs to fight?”
“If you think I’m doing all the work by myself,” said Death, stepping out of the shadows, “you have another think coming.”
“You picked up the kids?”
Death nodded. “And a dozen chickens,” he said. “The kittens kept chasing them. Luckily War had a few spares.”
“Ho, ho, ho” said War.
Greg - glad to hear things worked out, in the end.
Pretty sure this prompt was a reference to Max. Possibly Miles. Potentially both.
I could legitimately read these four interacting for weeks without complaint.
I mean, eventually I'd start complaining about missing Derby, but you know what I mean :)
Post a Comment