The exercise:
Write about: ghosts.
Happy Halloween! The boys got Minecraft costumes this year, but if you think they stood still long enough to get their pictures taken then I strongly suspect you are unaware of the direct link between sugar and children's inability to stop moving.
2 comments:
Aren't you supposed to put the costumes on them before you let them at the sugar? Still, I'm sure seeing them in their costumes has given you memories enough!
Ghosts
The Unreal City had exits to the Solid City on the other side; it was generally accepted by everyone that if you swam across the river at the right time of day (and there were arguments over exactly what the right time of day was) then at some point the splashing faded away like the end of a film and when it came back again the water had changed and the Solid City would come into view -- if you had enough strength left to get there. There were also rumours that the river in the Solid City was busier than in the Unreal City and that swimmers were more often killed by being run down by boats, but no-one had returned to tell those tales so they remained only rumours.
The Unreal City also had access to the Echo, the other City, the one on the other other side, the one where the Seraphim and the Schedim resided. Getting access to the Echo was hard these days, though again there were stories of when the borders were more permeable and the strangeness of a City where you were tolerated but not wanted and where you could literally starve to death because no-one would sell you anything to eat. It was said that only ghosts came across from the Echo to the Unreal City, and it was also said, but much more quietly, that Madame Sosotris knew all the ghosts and where to find them.
Madame Sosotris was sat in the lounge bar of the Ruined Smokestack, a ramshackle pub on the edge of the river. Broad mullioned windows provided light from across the river and a corrupt, distorted view of the grey, swirling waters. A door near the windows led out to a flight of stone stairs that descended to the river bank, though at this point it was barely wide enough for a mudlark to sidle along looking for interesting pickings, and there was probably an unlicensed boat tied up down there somewhere. A goose honked somewhere not too far away, and Madame Sosotris hoped it wasn't on the roof. Geese of the roof were bad luck, in her personal lexicon of superstitions.
She leaned forward to pick her drink up from the table where the bartender had set it and paused. On the stool on the other side of the table was a faint mistiness that didn't belong.
"That seat is taken," she said. She decided to pick her drink up anyway and sit back.
"You're the only person in here," said a breathy voice. It was slightly damp somehow, as though the speaker was salivating heavily. "How many chairs do you think you can sit on? I wouldn't call you thin, but calling you that fat would be rude."
Madame Sosotris blinked once and then sipped her drink carefully. "It's hard to see how what you've just said could be called polite," she said, picking her words carefully. "Ghost? Or are you just too ugly to show your face?"
There was a splutter; it might have been outrage, or it might have been the beginnings of a laugh. It might even, given how wet the voice was, just the invisible being starting to drown.
"Ugly?" the voice sounded wetter, if anything. "Ah, well, beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder, yes?"
"This is a cocktail," said Madame Sosotris who'd picked her drink by pointing randomly at the menu and had no idea what it was or what was in it.
"It's a chemical weapon if you ask me," said the voice. "Let's call me a ghost for the sake of argument. They tell me that you know all the ghosts in the Unreal City."
"Maybe," said Madame Sosotris inspecting her nails. "My hand seems surprisingly empty of money though."
Greg - by the time the costumes go on they are already singularly focused on attaining candy. Posing for pictures would only slow them down and that is not allowed, apparently.
(We did actually get a couple of pictures, just not particularly good ones - and retakes were definitely not on the menu)
Happy to see this carry on, and your scene setting continues to delight, as well as your dialogue.
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