Don't think for a moment that I couldn't write the last couple of pages of Lord Derby's tale using the prompt syncopated, but I have a character that's already associated with that word (why do I feel that there's probably only a handful of people in the world who could honestly say that?) so obviously we're going to visit them. Plus, I think Lord Derby's really into the epilogue now.
Syncopated The marsh was green and brown beneath a grey sky. The clouds had been gathering for the past two days, forming a holding pattern above the Unreal City where they circled, threatening rain but never delivering like a young unemployed mother telling her children that this is the night she'll bring them food. The river estuary sparkled occasionally as the clouds let through a finger's width of sunlight and it bounced off the water, a broken token of hope in a rusted world. The smell of salt vied with the smell of dying things, and there was a strange metallic taste in the air, like tea served from a copper cup, that scientists claimed came from the action of halophilic bacteria where we couldn't see them. Offshore, probably a mile out, the shadowy hulk of Monkeybutt's prison ship held firm against the tides and winds. I staggered through the mud and ooze, my gait syncopating with my heartbeat which my doctors said was physically impossible. After watching it for a minute or so they usually closed up my file with a sigh and prescribed antibiotics. The last one was honest enough to say that he hoped a megadose would kill me, though he was also honest enough to open my file back up, close it again, and mutter that it seemed nothing else could. I pissed on the door to his office after I left. It attracts cats. But in the here and now I was splattering my way through salt-laden muck, going up and down from boggy puddle to grassy hummock like a whore on a pogo-stick -- and that brought back memories of one of Madame Jeanne's Reviews in Soho. I winced and reflexively put my hand back to my lower spine to check it was still undislocated. "MacArthur!" Only one person I know has a voice like a shotgun shell going off in your ear, and I turned slowly, doing a full 360 on one leg while the other paddled me around. I suddenly realised I know how a swan must feel when it wants to go the other way. Despite the noise, the bellow of my name, there was no-one in sight. The landscape was mostly flat, but there was a pile of driftwood over to my left, so using the Holmsian theories of deduction I made for it. And fell flat on my face. Turning around like that had effectively screwed my foot down into the mud, and what it had claimed it refused to let go of, so I went over like a bouncer taking Ketamine after losing the beat-down. Rotting grass caught my face and poked my eyeballs and the mud sought entry into my mouth and nostrils like rats driven out of their nest by fire. Pain ran up the back of my leg like Usain Bolt with his eyes on another title as the tendons stretched because my foot was still going nowhere. I tried to scream, but it turned out my lungs were exhaling so it was more of a startled gasp. Which makes this the most polite injury I've ever had. A hand on my collar, and another in my crotch. This was too much like my wedding night for comfort, and as I still hadn't managed to get my breath back I was just as incapable of complaining. I was hauled from the mud with a noise like a toddler trying to get the last of its milkshake out of the cup using just the straw and set back on my feet. Staring at with with an expression that crossed dismay with discomfort and just kept the dis- parts was the owner of the stentorian voice: Pussy Boots, former PA to the ex-mayor of London Dick Whittington, possible Black Widow, and definitely not a woman to be found out in a marsh unless there was money or sex in it for her.
2 comments:
Don't think for a moment that I couldn't write the last couple of pages of Lord Derby's tale using the prompt syncopated, but I have a character that's already associated with that word (why do I feel that there's probably only a handful of people in the world who could honestly say that?) so obviously we're going to visit them. Plus, I think Lord Derby's really into the epilogue now.
Syncopated
The marsh was green and brown beneath a grey sky. The clouds had been gathering for the past two days, forming a holding pattern above the Unreal City where they circled, threatening rain but never delivering like a young unemployed mother telling her children that this is the night she'll bring them food. The river estuary sparkled occasionally as the clouds let through a finger's width of sunlight and it bounced off the water, a broken token of hope in a rusted world. The smell of salt vied with the smell of dying things, and there was a strange metallic taste in the air, like tea served from a copper cup, that scientists claimed came from the action of halophilic bacteria where we couldn't see them. Offshore, probably a mile out, the shadowy hulk of Monkeybutt's prison ship held firm against the tides and winds.
I staggered through the mud and ooze, my gait syncopating with my heartbeat which my doctors said was physically impossible. After watching it for a minute or so they usually closed up my file with a sigh and prescribed antibiotics. The last one was honest enough to say that he hoped a megadose would kill me, though he was also honest enough to open my file back up, close it again, and mutter that it seemed nothing else could. I pissed on the door to his office after I left. It attracts cats. But in the here and now I was splattering my way through salt-laden muck, going up and down from boggy puddle to grassy hummock like a whore on a pogo-stick -- and that brought back memories of one of Madame Jeanne's Reviews in Soho. I winced and reflexively put my hand back to my lower spine to check it was still undislocated.
"MacArthur!" Only one person I know has a voice like a shotgun shell going off in your ear, and I turned slowly, doing a full 360 on one leg while the other paddled me around. I suddenly realised I know how a swan must feel when it wants to go the other way. Despite the noise, the bellow of my name, there was no-one in sight. The landscape was mostly flat, but there was a pile of driftwood over to my left, so using the Holmsian theories of deduction I made for it.
And fell flat on my face.
Turning around like that had effectively screwed my foot down into the mud, and what it had claimed it refused to let go of, so I went over like a bouncer taking Ketamine after losing the beat-down. Rotting grass caught my face and poked my eyeballs and the mud sought entry into my mouth and nostrils like rats driven out of their nest by fire. Pain ran up the back of my leg like Usain Bolt with his eyes on another title as the tendons stretched because my foot was still going nowhere. I tried to scream, but it turned out my lungs were exhaling so it was more of a startled gasp. Which makes this the most polite injury I've ever had.
A hand on my collar, and another in my crotch. This was too much like my wedding night for comfort, and as I still hadn't managed to get my breath back I was just as incapable of complaining. I was hauled from the mud with a noise like a toddler trying to get the last of its milkshake out of the cup using just the straw and set back on my feet. Staring at with with an expression that crossed dismay with discomfort and just kept the dis- parts was the owner of the stentorian voice: Pussy Boots, former PA to the ex-mayor of London Dick Whittington, possible Black Widow, and definitely not a woman to be found out in a marsh unless there was money or sex in it for her.
Greg - yeah, I'm pretty sure it's only you.
And, for the record, I'm so far behind on comments that I had no intention of timing it this way. So thanks for taking it gracefully :P
Ah, Mac. Always a treat to read. In a disturbing, sort of hopeless sort of way...
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