I hope you like Demezen as I think I quite like him and might bring him back once or twice when the prompt warrants it :) I'm also hoping you're enjoying a tour of Death's palace since... it carries on today.
The ringing of the bells Famine walked through the corridors, his feet clicking on tiled floors that seemed to stretch on for miles. Each corridor was wide enough for eight or ten people to walk comfortably side-by-side and high enough to have drones fly overhead with banners and flags announcing who they were. The walls were broken into large panels, each painted with a scene from history that Death found particularly interesting or pride-inducing; the destruction of Pompeii took up sixteen panels and nearly half-a-kilometre of wall-space. Between the panels were statues, mostly of notable warlords, some dressed in ancient armour and some just painted to reflect what they looked like. Now and then bare marble would stand up whitely amidst the rest, but Famine found that it just reminded him of bone rather than being a welcome contrast. Somehow, walking through Death’s hall got him thinking of what people looked like under the skin whereas normally he considered how to make the skin the dominant feature of the body. The halls were lit with chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, enormously branched silver and platinum creations with ornate but fake candles at their ends. Instead of burning wax they had tiny, brilliant LEDs set into them that cast a soft but nearly shadowless light around them. Death had been so pleased by the LEDs when they’d been invented, and the lack of a need for an army of cleaners to keep sweeping up the wax, that he’d granted the inventor of them an extra thirty years of life. Famine consulted his mental map and took a left, opening a door and walking into a room the size of an aircraft hangar. This was known, at least by Death, as the small drawing room. The room was completely empty except for three chairs set around a table, which in turn was set in the dead-centre of the room. There was easily thirty metres of space between any side of the table and the walls, and when you were invited to sit down in here and talk, by Death, you spent a lot of your time feeling agoraphobic. The only, minor, plus to it all was that you could be shouting and no-one could secretly overhear you or eavesdrop on you. Famine heaved a huge breath and set off to hike across the room to the other side. Beyond the small drawing room was another corridor the width of a football field, and Famine walked briskly down this. Half-way along, just after a mural of Day 3 of the operation of the Guillotine during the French Revolution, he stopped and walked behind a white bone plinth on which was set one of von Hagens’s plasticised bodies and looked down. Set into the floor was a circular metal plate that looked like a manhole cover, with a rectangular handle towards one edge. Bells started ringing as he looked at it, and he smiled: the bells in Death’s house tolled for special arrivals. Demezen would be scurrying to the main hall to greet the newcomer, check their records in Death’s Ledger, and explain to them what would happen next. He reached out casually, not something he would normally bother to do but he had a suspicion that he knew who had arrived. There was a sensation of heat, roaring flame that melted skin and boiled fat, and then an ammoniac smell of fish, and Famine pulled back. Rijbka’s meal had arrived in Death’s house. With sudden energy Famine pulled the metal cover up, revealing a spiral staircase that led down to the top floor of the library. Now that Rijbka’s meal had arrived here, he realised, Death would know quickly that the Swimmer Beneath was on the move, and it wouldn’t take him long to link that and the smell of fish he’d picked up when talking to Famine, and then there would be the usual awkward questions and difficult silences. He slipped into the library and let the manhole cover fall back into place.
Hanging to the end of the rope was a prized position and being one of only 5 children in our church...our rotation came often. If I was lucky, I shared the position with my best friend and we would grasp onto the white rope and pull with all of our might. Standing on our tiptoes in the narthex we would pull as hard as we could to ring the bells alerting the beginning of Sunday School or church. You could hear the clang of the bells all though the grove alerting all to come.
3 comments:
I hope you like Demezen as I think I quite like him and might bring him back once or twice when the prompt warrants it :) I'm also hoping you're enjoying a tour of Death's palace since... it carries on today.
The ringing of the bells
Famine walked through the corridors, his feet clicking on tiled floors that seemed to stretch on for miles. Each corridor was wide enough for eight or ten people to walk comfortably side-by-side and high enough to have drones fly overhead with banners and flags announcing who they were. The walls were broken into large panels, each painted with a scene from history that Death found particularly interesting or pride-inducing; the destruction of Pompeii took up sixteen panels and nearly half-a-kilometre of wall-space. Between the panels were statues, mostly of notable warlords, some dressed in ancient armour and some just painted to reflect what they looked like. Now and then bare marble would stand up whitely amidst the rest, but Famine found that it just reminded him of bone rather than being a welcome contrast. Somehow, walking through Death’s hall got him thinking of what people looked like under the skin whereas normally he considered how to make the skin the dominant feature of the body.
The halls were lit with chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, enormously branched silver and platinum creations with ornate but fake candles at their ends. Instead of burning wax they had tiny, brilliant LEDs set into them that cast a soft but nearly shadowless light around them. Death had been so pleased by the LEDs when they’d been invented, and the lack of a need for an army of cleaners to keep sweeping up the wax, that he’d granted the inventor of them an extra thirty years of life.
Famine consulted his mental map and took a left, opening a door and walking into a room the size of an aircraft hangar. This was known, at least by Death, as the small drawing room. The room was completely empty except for three chairs set around a table, which in turn was set in the dead-centre of the room. There was easily thirty metres of space between any side of the table and the walls, and when you were invited to sit down in here and talk, by Death, you spent a lot of your time feeling agoraphobic. The only, minor, plus to it all was that you could be shouting and no-one could secretly overhear you or eavesdrop on you. Famine heaved a huge breath and set off to hike across the room to the other side.
Beyond the small drawing room was another corridor the width of a football field, and Famine walked briskly down this. Half-way along, just after a mural of Day 3 of the operation of the Guillotine during the French Revolution, he stopped and walked behind a white bone plinth on which was set one of von Hagens’s plasticised bodies and looked down. Set into the floor was a circular metal plate that looked like a manhole cover, with a rectangular handle towards one edge.
Bells started ringing as he looked at it, and he smiled: the bells in Death’s house tolled for special arrivals. Demezen would be scurrying to the main hall to greet the newcomer, check their records in Death’s Ledger, and explain to them what would happen next. He reached out casually, not something he would normally bother to do but he had a suspicion that he knew who had arrived. There was a sensation of heat, roaring flame that melted skin and boiled fat, and then an ammoniac smell of fish, and Famine pulled back. Rijbka’s meal had arrived in Death’s house.
With sudden energy Famine pulled the metal cover up, revealing a spiral staircase that led down to the top floor of the library. Now that Rijbka’s meal had arrived here, he realised, Death would know quickly that the Swimmer Beneath was on the move, and it wouldn’t take him long to link that and the smell of fish he’d picked up when talking to Famine, and then there would be the usual awkward questions and difficult silences. He slipped into the library and let the manhole cover fall back into place.
Hanging to the end of the rope was a prized position and being one of only 5 children in our church...our rotation came often. If I was lucky, I shared the position with my best friend and we would grasp onto the white rope and pull with all of our might. Standing on our tiptoes in the narthex we would pull as hard as we could to ring the bells alerting the beginning of Sunday School or church. You could hear the clang of the bells all though the grove alerting all to come.
-Jerri Howard
Greg - indeed, I do like Demezen. He seems like my sort of fellow :)
Oh my goodness I love the LED detail :)
And yes, definitely enjoying the tour.
Kim - again, another lovely bit you've shared with us. I can easily picture a young child 'hanging to the end of the rope' :)
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