I feel like you're dropping a hint, though I can't tell if you want more Inspectral or if you think that Larry needs to pull himself together a bit and stop being so... erratic :) Let's see which one I go with.
Refocus The disinterrment was permitted by the judge, though there were some handwritten notes on the forms of consent making it very clear that only as much as was needed was to be dug up, and only for the shortest possible time. They arrived at the police station a little after 10am, and the Inspectral then had a long phone call with someone else in the building, followed by a shorter one with the Chief Inspectral, and then received an even shorter, angry phone call telling him that the disinterrment would be begun the following morning. “Probably the best we’re going to get,” he said, sounding almost cheerful. “Sheila started off telling me it would be next month though, so it’s a good improvement. How did you get on with finding Mr. Batts?” “We didn’t,” said Adams quickly. Collins, who had been going to wait for her to speak, smiled a tiny smile and looked at his shoes. “There have been no reports of any keyings last night though, so it seems like he might have heard we were looking for him.” “You can spend the morning looking for him some more,” said the Inspectral. “Reinforce in his mind that we’re keeping an eye on him.” Adams frowned, opened her mouth to complain, and then thought better of it. “Fine,” she said. “Come on Collins, let’s get going.” “Actually,” said the Inspectral, and Collins looked up just in time to catch the flicker of fury on Adams’s face, “Collins is going to go to the records office and do some research for me. Ethel called last night and said that he’d cross-referenced the ritual signs he’d found with our records, and there was a point of similarity with a case from twenty-five years ago. The name he came up with was William Fulton. Go find out if he’s still alive, and if not who he hung around with that might be.” Collins nodded, feeling alert all of a sudden. This felt like real policing, better than walking the streets with Adams asking about scratched cars. He looked over at Adams, who was smiling as though she thought she’d won first place. “Great,” she said, and there was a note of real pleasure in her voice. “You go have fun with the books, and I’ll go and do real police work.” She stood up and started out of the room. “See you after lunch,” she called behind her. “Twenty-five years ago,” said Collins, thinking hard as he also stood up. “Isn’t that—” “When the Radiance happened? Yes. Well done. Ethel says that the case happened about a month after the Radiance, and he seems to think that it might be important though he couldn’t explain why. Gut feeling, though I’m sure he’s had no guts for quite a long time now.” The Inspectral paused, and then added quietly (and given how quiet he already was, Collins had to strain to hear), “It seems like there’s a refocus on the Radiance all of a sudden. I hope I’m wrong.” Collins hesitated in the doorway, wondering if was polite to ask how ghosts could be hundreds of years old if the Radiance had only happened twenty-five years ago. “Get going,” said the Inspectral. “We all have work to do.”
She sat down in front of her computer. The blank white before her burned itself into her eyes, taking her from her cozy spot next to the fire into a cold winter wasteland. How she yearned for the black footprints to walk themselves across that clean snow, showing her the way out of the wilderness and towards someplace beautiful. She wished those black marks could flow easily from her fingertips. She remembered how it used to be. How easy it had been for her to lose herself in that winter. Back then, the vast emptiness held so much potential. It used to be made of magic, not frozen despair. She remembered how her gaze would lose focus as the magic of the white took hold and began to flow. How she wasn’t conscious of where her fingers were moving—they simply glided over the keys and made those footprints on the map as easily as if she was walking herself to all these mystical places. Then came school. Then came work. Then came life. She had to decide which life to spend her time in: the real or the magical. She lost sight of the power that came from that winter wonderland. She lost the ability to create those tracks. The white lost its hazy halo and instead turned to a burning nothing. It took too much time and effort to even visit that place. But she still dreamt of it, of all the magical places that winter plain could lead. If only she could set down a new set of tracks and follow where they led. She made up her mind one day. She would devote more time and effort into forging ahead through the snow. She would discover those new worlds, meet all those fantastical people. She would again turn her sites to the bright horizon. Now was the time to refocus and lose focus once more.
Ah, good, you got the hhhhhey, look over there! No, behind you!
*scrams*
Ivy - oh, man. I feel this one. And you've handled it beautifully, almost poetically. Love your description of the blank screen as winter and the typed words as footprints. Bravo!
3 comments:
I feel like you're dropping a hint, though I can't tell if you want more Inspectral or if you think that Larry needs to pull himself together a bit and stop being so... erratic :) Let's see which one I go with.
Refocus
The disinterrment was permitted by the judge, though there were some handwritten notes on the forms of consent making it very clear that only as much as was needed was to be dug up, and only for the shortest possible time. They arrived at the police station a little after 10am, and the Inspectral then had a long phone call with someone else in the building, followed by a shorter one with the Chief Inspectral, and then received an even shorter, angry phone call telling him that the disinterrment would be begun the following morning.
“Probably the best we’re going to get,” he said, sounding almost cheerful. “Sheila started off telling me it would be next month though, so it’s a good improvement. How did you get on with finding Mr. Batts?”
“We didn’t,” said Adams quickly. Collins, who had been going to wait for her to speak, smiled a tiny smile and looked at his shoes. “There have been no reports of any keyings last night though, so it seems like he might have heard we were looking for him.”
“You can spend the morning looking for him some more,” said the Inspectral. “Reinforce in his mind that we’re keeping an eye on him.”
Adams frowned, opened her mouth to complain, and then thought better of it. “Fine,” she said. “Come on Collins, let’s get going.”
“Actually,” said the Inspectral, and Collins looked up just in time to catch the flicker of fury on Adams’s face, “Collins is going to go to the records office and do some research for me. Ethel called last night and said that he’d cross-referenced the ritual signs he’d found with our records, and there was a point of similarity with a case from twenty-five years ago. The name he came up with was William Fulton. Go find out if he’s still alive, and if not who he hung around with that might be.”
Collins nodded, feeling alert all of a sudden. This felt like real policing, better than walking the streets with Adams asking about scratched cars. He looked over at Adams, who was smiling as though she thought she’d won first place. “Great,” she said, and there was a note of real pleasure in her voice. “You go have fun with the books, and I’ll go and do real police work.” She stood up and started out of the room. “See you after lunch,” she called behind her.
“Twenty-five years ago,” said Collins, thinking hard as he also stood up. “Isn’t that—”
“When the Radiance happened? Yes. Well done. Ethel says that the case happened about a month after the Radiance, and he seems to think that it might be important though he couldn’t explain why. Gut feeling, though I’m sure he’s had no guts for quite a long time now.” The Inspectral paused, and then added quietly (and given how quiet he already was, Collins had to strain to hear), “It seems like there’s a refocus on the Radiance all of a sudden. I hope I’m wrong.”
Collins hesitated in the doorway, wondering if was polite to ask how ghosts could be hundreds of years old if the Radiance had only happened twenty-five years ago.
“Get going,” said the Inspectral. “We all have work to do.”
She sat down in front of her computer. The blank white before her burned itself into her eyes, taking her from her cozy spot next to the fire into a cold winter wasteland. How she yearned for the black footprints to walk themselves across that clean snow, showing her the way out of the wilderness and towards someplace beautiful. She wished those black marks could flow easily from her fingertips.
She remembered how it used to be. How easy it had been for her to lose herself in that winter. Back then, the vast emptiness held so much potential. It used to be made of magic, not frozen despair. She remembered how her gaze would lose focus as the magic of the white took hold and began to flow. How she wasn’t conscious of where her fingers were moving—they simply glided over the keys and made those footprints on the map as easily as if she was walking herself to all these mystical places.
Then came school. Then came work. Then came life. She had to decide which life to spend her time in: the real or the magical. She lost sight of the power that came from that winter wonderland. She lost the ability to create those tracks. The white lost its hazy halo and instead turned to a burning nothing. It took too much time and effort to even visit that place.
But she still dreamt of it, of all the magical places that winter plain could lead. If only she could set down a new set of tracks and follow where they led.
She made up her mind one day. She would devote more time and effort into forging ahead through the snow. She would discover those new worlds, meet all those fantastical people. She would again turn her sites to the bright horizon.
Now was the time to refocus and lose focus once more.
Greg - hints? Moi? Certainly not...
Ah, good, you got the hhhhhey, look over there! No, behind you!
*scrams*
Ivy - oh, man. I feel this one. And you've handled it beautifully, almost poetically. Love your description of the blank screen as winter and the typed words as footprints. Bravo!
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