The exercise:
Write something which takes place in: the outback.
We braved the smoke (and reinstated mask mandate for the Central Okanagan due to a rise in cases there) and took the boys on a drive to visit Kangaroo Creek Farm this morning.
Well worth the trouble. Spent a few hours there dodging people and feeding animals, then grabbed some lunch to go on the way back and ate it in a park. Much better than sitting around here in the smoke all day.
Back to work tomorrow, after a much needed long weekend.
2 comments:
The farm sounds nice! And the day out sounds like a good idea too :) I hope work is pleasant and easy upon your return :)
The outback
Dorothy had not improved over her time in Oz. Where once she had been fat she was now obese. Where once indolent, she now only moved in order to avoid making her bedsores worse. Where she had been stupid she was now vapidly ignorant and where she had lacked sufficient attention to her personal hygiene, she now had gangrene in places other people didn't expect her to have places. Black patches had appeared here and there, and the smell of putrifying flesh was appalling, worse than chicken meat left out in the sun for six days and then boiled in lobster guts.
"I think we should take her to see a doctor," said the Scarecrow. He sounded obstinate, as though this was an old argument being rehashed again. "She's not well."
"She was never well," barked Toto, wagging his tail angrily. It thudded against the wall of the barn they were resting in. Outside smoke from wildfires drifted past, covering much of the Outback. "Not much has changed and you didn't want to pay for a doctor back then!"
"I didn't have a brain then!" retorted the Scarecrow. "Or a worry that I might catch things from her. She gave me mice two months back, you know."
"Don't you mean lice?" The tinman was stood in the doorway of the barn watching the direction of the smoke. So far the wind was blowing it away from them.
"I mean mice! Lice don't care for straw, that would have been fine. I could have just shaken them out."
"Can we afford a doctor?" asked the Cowardly Lion, who was stretched out on the barn floor trying to sleep. He yawned, and a smell like an abattoir briefly pushed aside the rancid, acrid odour emanating from Dorothy. "I thought we were saving up for a holiday?"
"Saving?" Toto barked so sharply he nearly choked himself. "We've got enough money to eat this week, so long as we don't get greedy and want fresh vegetables or anything that looks like meat. If we ditched the witch-killer we could probably do a whole lot better ourselves."
"She did take us to see the wizard," said the Scarecrow into the silence that followed. "We owe her something for that, right?"
"Still?" asked the Tinman. He stared out at the smoke; it looked like there was a patch of it clearing in the middle. "How much repayment are we going to make on that debt?"
"Do-ho's been repaid plenty of times over," barked Toto. "And I owe her less than they rest of you anyway, she dragged me here along with her and has never apologised."
The Tinman frowned, which was an achievement for a metal face. There was definitely a hole in the smoke now, but the light seemed odd... wrong. Black, somehow.
"We could leave her here," said the Lion. "That would be.... courageous of us, to set out on our own and not... burden poor Do-ho-- I mean Dorothy -- with our troubles and tribulations still."
"Can we though?" asked the Scarecrow.
"Yes!" said the Tinman, recognition dawning. "Absolutely! Remember the Sphere of Annihilation she set loose from the Munchkin Manse? It's heading this way, and there's no way we can get her into a wheelbarrow and moving before it reaches her. But we can get out of its way!"
Greg - thanks!
Man, the Sphere is really going on a story tour isn't it?
For the record: I am loving all these visits to places and characters I haven't seen in a long time.
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