Well, I managed to coerce a lemonade stand into the Four Horsemen story, but it wasn't easy. There were tears. There may be reports made to HR, and forensic investigations after this....
The lemonade stand
For a moment there was the silence of your ears being overloaded with sound and your brain shutting down input from them: War and Famine were both aware that the world was around them and things were proceeding as normal, but the screaming in their heads made it impossible to do anything other than stare mutely around. In front of them, the bearded Jesus animated, lifting his cross and driving it down into the lamb. Blood ran from the lamb and quickly grew from a trickle to a torrent and flooded across the floor of the church until the altar was a white stump in a red lake. The blood-flow slowed, then stopped and the last ripples died out as they traversed the surface of the lake. “Well,” said Famine, not bothering to speak normally but just reaching out to War’s mind, “that was a little unexpected.” A new ripple started across the lake and War and Famine immediately paid attention to it. It was followed by another, and then another, and then blood sprayed everywhere around the church: viscous droplets clinging to pews, to gold leaf on wooden walls; and daubing the statues so that it looked like a massacre had occurred. The altar crumbled and dissolved, and the surface of the lake parted so that Narusheteli could rise up from stygian depths below. For a moment there was a sense of dread, a swirling vortex of grey flecked with sparkles of primary colours and a feeling like feathers tickling every exposed inch of skin, and then the vortex bent somehow, folded up like origami, and became a plump, middle-aged woman wearing a floral-print summer dress and carrying a turquoise parasol. The screaming stopped, and War and Famine both visibly relaxed. Narusheteli looked at them both: the blood had somehow missed Famine altogether and he was standing casually, his weight on one leg and his arms folded across his chest with a now prove it look on his face. All the blood that had missed him seemed to have struck War, however, who while still looking like Thor after a century of steroids also looked like he’d been swimming in the lake of blood and only come out because he’d been told to. “It’s been a while,” said Narusheteli. “So long in fact that I don’t remember your faces.” “We’ve never met,” said Famine. “Grandad talked about you once or twice, but I don’t think he met you either.” “You met my father once,” said War. His voice resonated extremely well in the church, seeming to fill it completely. “You were… some part of you was at Versailles. You and he were at a lemonade stand, he said.” “Ah!” Narusheteli smiled and twirled her parasol. “I remember! He was tired; and scarred too – he had beautiful scars. You could trace them across his skin so far….” War blushed.
Greg - hah! Well, you could have written about something else, you know...
Anyway. That was the name of the beer I had when I met up with a friend in Vancouver at a craft beer restaurant. It was tasty enough that I had a second.
Well. That was sure a lot of blood. And the person who appeared after it was done was not at all who I expected, so well done with that.
And now I am most curious to learn more of... I'm choosing to call her Narush... more of Narush's story.
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Well, I managed to coerce a lemonade stand into the Four Horsemen story, but it wasn't easy. There were tears. There may be reports made to HR, and forensic investigations after this....
The lemonade stand
For a moment there was the silence of your ears being overloaded with sound and your brain shutting down input from them: War and Famine were both aware that the world was around them and things were proceeding as normal, but the screaming in their heads made it impossible to do anything other than stare mutely around. In front of them, the bearded Jesus animated, lifting his cross and driving it down into the lamb. Blood ran from the lamb and quickly grew from a trickle to a torrent and flooded across the floor of the church until the altar was a white stump in a red lake. The blood-flow slowed, then stopped and the last ripples died out as they traversed the surface of the lake.
“Well,” said Famine, not bothering to speak normally but just reaching out to War’s mind, “that was a little unexpected.”
A new ripple started across the lake and War and Famine immediately paid attention to it. It was followed by another, and then another, and then blood sprayed everywhere around the church: viscous droplets clinging to pews, to gold leaf on wooden walls; and daubing the statues so that it looked like a massacre had occurred. The altar crumbled and dissolved, and the surface of the lake parted so that Narusheteli could rise up from stygian depths below. For a moment there was a sense of dread, a swirling vortex of grey flecked with sparkles of primary colours and a feeling like feathers tickling every exposed inch of skin, and then the vortex bent somehow, folded up like origami, and became a plump, middle-aged woman wearing a floral-print summer dress and carrying a turquoise parasol. The screaming stopped, and War and Famine both visibly relaxed.
Narusheteli looked at them both: the blood had somehow missed Famine altogether and he was standing casually, his weight on one leg and his arms folded across his chest with a now prove it look on his face. All the blood that had missed him seemed to have struck War, however, who while still looking like Thor after a century of steroids also looked like he’d been swimming in the lake of blood and only come out because he’d been told to.
“It’s been a while,” said Narusheteli. “So long in fact that I don’t remember your faces.”
“We’ve never met,” said Famine. “Grandad talked about you once or twice, but I don’t think he met you either.”
“You met my father once,” said War. His voice resonated extremely well in the church, seeming to fill it completely. “You were… some part of you was at Versailles. You and he were at a lemonade stand, he said.”
“Ah!” Narusheteli smiled and twirled her parasol. “I remember! He was tired; and scarred too – he had beautiful scars. You could trace them across his skin so far….”
War blushed.
Greg - hah! Well, you could have written about something else, you know...
Anyway. That was the name of the beer I had when I met up with a friend in Vancouver at a craft beer restaurant. It was tasty enough that I had a second.
Well. That was sure a lot of blood. And the person who appeared after it was done was not at all who I expected, so well done with that.
And now I am most curious to learn more of... I'm choosing to call her Narush... more of Narush's story.
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