The exercise:
Write about something that is on: the top shelf.
Kat's friends did, indeed, arrive this afternoon. Max and Harrison, their three year old son, took about five minutes to warm up to each other and then they were playing together like old friends. It was pretty fun to see that.
After dinner Becky and I got started on the berry picking for this week's local orders. We've got about half of the raspberries we need and we're into we'll take more if you have more territory with the strawberries.
Now we just need the rain to stay away tomorrow morning for us to finish things off. Fingers crossed.
Mine:
Up so high
I think that I
Would need to fly
Just to touch it.
I wonder why
They think that I
Should have to fly
Just to touch it?
I shall learn to fly
To reach the sky
So that one day I
Will touch it.
Perhaps that's why
It's up so high -
So that I
Will not be satisfied
By all that I
Can touch without
Needing to fly?
nice
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of nice how fast kids can get along with each other; I wonder what it is when we're adults that makes us so much more suspicious? Well, apart from the fact that you're all clearly out to get me.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great poem, with the careful rhyme scheme, short metre, and clever repetition. I really like that each verse is almost, but not quite, a rearrangement of the previous one, but with the meanings all carefully altered and renewed. Really great work!
The top shelf
The data centre was cold despite being in the middle of a desert. The black-clad figure shivered at the top of an aisle; outside in the sunshine the clothing had been sweaty and unbearable, but here inside it wasn't enough. The soft hum of air conditioners assured her though that it wasn't going to get any warmer, and her research had already indicated that if the temperature in any one spot rose by more than four degrees then alarms would go off. So she would have to keep moving. Which might at least warm her up a little.
She turned on a tiny torch that could be concealed in her fist. The machines; aisles and aisles of stacked boxes in cabinets separated by solids waterfalls of cables that cascaded to the floor and disappeared under the black, matte tiles, had tiny flashing LEDs that made her feel like she was inside a constellation, but they tended to just break vision up rather than aiding it. The torch beam let her see where she was walking. She played the light beam around and was relieved to see that the aisles were labelled, albeit cryptically. She was between A7-RQ3 and A8-RQ12. She turned left, and padded softly across the top of the aisles.
Isabella Bonfontaine was a relic hunter, a retriever of ancient artefacts with unusual properties for the right price, and this was the first time she'd retrieved anything as... well, young? new? as this. As she checked the aisle letterings looking for the right one she found it faintly odd that she wasn't in danger of waking ancient gods, or disturbing the undead, or even just setting off a 700-year old booby trap. She permitted herself a tiny half-smile (the left-hand side of her face was paralysed after a stroke some years ago) under her mask. This was almost child's play.
She reached aisle A17-RW2 and turned down it, reviewing in her mind the schematic. She wanted the eighteenth cabinet, and the contents of the top shelf. Her fingers pulled gently on the cabinet door and it opened; they weren't ever locked. Standing on tiptoe, she could just see the top shelf –
She froze, her fingers inches away from the slim grey box sitting there. A slim grey box with an Elder Sign drawn on the front of it.
She closed the cabinet door again and started walking, aware that she couldn't stay still and create any hotspots. She needed time to think though... what the hell was that sigil doing in a datacentre this modern?
Unknown - thank you :)
ReplyDeleteGreg - yeah, must have something to do with the out to getting factor...
And thank you as well!
Great atmosphere and scene setting here, with an unexpected twist at the end. I wonder what her next move will be?