Well, this was supposed to be a sort of week between trips that would be a break, but it's really not worked out that way. On the plus side, I'm getting better at writing things so that lawyers read them and nod approvingly :)
Changing lanes He screamed like a stuck pig, which is a metaphor that puzzled me for a long time until I found myself on Beau Peep's family farm one etiolated Spring day. There were no pigs involved but there was a lot of blood and I realised where I'd wrong in trying to understand the words. But in the here and now I figured the metaphor was entirely apt, and perhaps not even really a metaphor. He screamed again, and I leaned on the knife. "I can twist it," I said, aiming for a whisper and getting the kind of hoarse voice that means you dialled the wrong phone-sex line. "So I'd get to the point, if I were you. Before the point gets through you." "I can't get it myself because of where it is," said the man. His words tumbled out like water spilling from a broken mains pipe. "There are three copies of La Disperse in the Pritek collection in the Lady Victoria library. I can't even get to borrow them because they've suspended my library privileges, so I want you to retrieve one of those copies for me. They won't miss one when they have three!" "Can't you just get an interlibrary loan from somewhere you do have privileges?" He squirmed, and not just because my weight on the knife was steadily forcing it deeper into his hand. "No!" There was just a touch of shrillness, a hint of a squeak. Blood was starting to pool underneath his hand now and the cut above my eye seemed to be bleeding harder in sympathy. I sighed with a noise like bagpipes deflating; my doctor, may he rest in peace, told me that I've got a chest like an accordion that's been neglected for fifty years. "Fine," I said. "Standard contract: five hundred a day flat fee, plus expenses and there's three hundred a day danger money if I have to have anything to do with Monkeybutt or Mad Frankie." "That's not how she pronounces it," he said, frowning. It made his face look like bacon crinkling in the heat of the frying pan. I twisted the knife fifteen degrees and the blood drained from his face so fast that I swear I saw his neck inflate to accommodate it all. "Not that that matters!" he yelped. "Sounds fine! Fax me the contract and I'll sign. I'l sign!" I pulled the knife out of his hand and he fought for consciousness for a few moments like a drowning man who's grabbed the life-preserver you've thrown him only to discover that you made a large hole in it first. As he slumped over I poured what was left of my gin over his head so that people around would assume that he was just another drunk, another victim of Monkeybutt's social policies and leaned back. Libraries would be a whole new world for me, a bit like changing lanes at seventy miles an hour when the windscreen's crazed from the bullet-shots from the car in front, the engine's roaring like a meth-frenzied bull elephant, and the passenger seat is occupied by the only judge in the county that'll give you a fair hearing. But what the hell, maybe I could pick up some book-learning while I was in there. I stood up, and spat on the unconscious man, mostly for assuming that anyone still used fax machines.
Greg - I... guess that's a good thing? And also you're still managing to find time to write here, so things can't be too terrible :)
Ah, pleased to see this continued. Your description of changing lanes was delightful. And I am both amused and worried by the though of Mac in a library...
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Well, this was supposed to be a sort of week between trips that would be a break, but it's really not worked out that way. On the plus side, I'm getting better at writing things so that lawyers read them and nod approvingly :)
Changing lanes
He screamed like a stuck pig, which is a metaphor that puzzled me for a long time until I found myself on Beau Peep's family farm one etiolated Spring day. There were no pigs involved but there was a lot of blood and I realised where I'd wrong in trying to understand the words. But in the here and now I figured the metaphor was entirely apt, and perhaps not even really a metaphor. He screamed again, and I leaned on the knife.
"I can twist it," I said, aiming for a whisper and getting the kind of hoarse voice that means you dialled the wrong phone-sex line. "So I'd get to the point, if I were you. Before the point gets through you."
"I can't get it myself because of where it is," said the man. His words tumbled out like water spilling from a broken mains pipe. "There are three copies of La Disperse in the Pritek collection in the Lady Victoria library. I can't even get to borrow them because they've suspended my library privileges, so I want you to retrieve one of those copies for me. They won't miss one when they have three!"
"Can't you just get an interlibrary loan from somewhere you do have privileges?"
He squirmed, and not just because my weight on the knife was steadily forcing it deeper into his hand.
"No!" There was just a touch of shrillness, a hint of a squeak. Blood was starting to pool underneath his hand now and the cut above my eye seemed to be bleeding harder in sympathy. I sighed with a noise like bagpipes deflating; my doctor, may he rest in peace, told me that I've got a chest like an accordion that's been neglected for fifty years.
"Fine," I said. "Standard contract: five hundred a day flat fee, plus expenses and there's three hundred a day danger money if I have to have anything to do with Monkeybutt or Mad Frankie."
"That's not how she pronounces it," he said, frowning. It made his face look like bacon crinkling in the heat of the frying pan. I twisted the knife fifteen degrees and the blood drained from his face so fast that I swear I saw his neck inflate to accommodate it all. "Not that that matters!" he yelped. "Sounds fine! Fax me the contract and I'll sign. I'l sign!"
I pulled the knife out of his hand and he fought for consciousness for a few moments like a drowning man who's grabbed the life-preserver you've thrown him only to discover that you made a large hole in it first. As he slumped over I poured what was left of my gin over his head so that people around would assume that he was just another drunk, another victim of Monkeybutt's social policies and leaned back. Libraries would be a whole new world for me, a bit like changing lanes at seventy miles an hour when the windscreen's crazed from the bullet-shots from the car in front, the engine's roaring like a meth-frenzied bull elephant, and the passenger seat is occupied by the only judge in the county that'll give you a fair hearing. But what the hell, maybe I could pick up some book-learning while I was in there.
I stood up, and spat on the unconscious man, mostly for assuming that anyone still used fax machines.
Greg - I... guess that's a good thing? And also you're still managing to find time to write here, so things can't be too terrible :)
Ah, pleased to see this continued. Your description of changing lanes was delightful. And I am both amused and worried by the though of Mac in a library...
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