Daily writing prompts from June 9th, 2008 to December 31st, 2022
Sunday January 26th, 2020
The exercise: Write about: the ox. We might have a bit of a theme starting up here. I'll try not to get too carried away and totally derail your tale, Greg.
Well, I'm off to Kiev tomorrow until the end of the week, and then I'm off to London for the ICE conference the week after, so my tale might get a bit disjointed with all the travelling and other stuff I have to do. Maybe I'll put it briefly on hiatus until I'm settled back in one place again :)
Ox The Inspectral sat at his desk, clearly upset by something as he was floating at least 5cm above the seat and his hands kept dipping down into the surface of the desk. There were documents on the desk in front of him – ghosts tended to have problems with computers – and Adams was stood up staring out of his window at the rooves of the local houses. “Where were you?” The Inspectral’s voice was like a cold wind blowing across moorland at midnight. “You were supposed to change your shoes.” “So you didn’t keep leaking sand everywhere.” Adams sounded slightly amused. “Sweeping the sand up,” said Collins. “So other people didn’t start walking it into the station.” The Inspectral stared for a couple of seconds at Collins, and then the ghost of a smile appeared on his ghostly face. “Good thinking,” he said. “People used to think like that back before this all started. Not so much now, but it’s not like it’s worth the effort to complain. Well done.” He shuffled the papers, immediately revealing that they’d been dusted with ectoplasm so that they were usable by both humans and non-vital. “Reports are coming in,” he said. “I’m not happy about what this is telling me either.” “More vodoun?” Collins was slightly surprised to hear his own voice asking that and wondered for a moment if he was getting confidence from somewhere. “I think that’s what I’m supposed to think,” said the Inspectral. Adams adjusted her stance a little, resting her hands on her hips. To Collins’s mind she looked aggressive, like she disagreed with the Inspectral. “There was blood in the sand at the bottom of the hole on the beach,” said the Inspectral. “It’s being analysed in the labs and we’ll probably have a report back tomorrow. I’m expecting it will be animal blood, probably pig.” “Chicken or goat are the standard in vodoun rituals,” said Adams. Her voice was just a little tense, as though this was an argument they’d been having before Collins had arrived. “And this is supposed to look like a vodoun ritual but isn’t actually one,” said the Inspectral. “This is all a distraction from something else.” “What something else?” Adams turned now, and her expression was mutinous. “You keep saying that, but you won’t say what you think is going on. You brought up vodoun in the first place, and now you think it’s all a distraction. A distraction, I might add, that’s so far taken us to the beach and the graveyard and had disturbed war graves and stirred up poltergeists. It’s a pretty detailed distraction! So what’s it distracting us from?”
“I don’t know,” said the Inspectral. “And that’s a problem, yes. I agree with you. But I’m not wasting time on a wild goose chase.” Adams turned back to the window, but Collins could still see the anger in her stance. Her stubbornness in dealing with the Inspectral struck him as ox-like: she seemed inclined to dig her heels in and refuse to move until she either changed her mind or got the answers she liked. “What else is in the reports?” asked Collins. The Inspectral offered him the papers and he took them, feeling the oddly glossy texture that came from finely powdered ectoplasm. “Seven skulls in total,” said the Inspectral as Collins turned the pages. “Seven is a ritual number, but one of the skulls is much older than the others and wasn’t in a box. Might or might not be part of this, possibly it just turned up where we digging by chance.” Adams snorted. “Blood mixed in the sand. Extra, old bone in the makeup of the boxes. Lots of confusion, like someone’s just thrown stuff into a hole to draw attention to it.” “Vodoun rituals invoke natural forces that are personified as Gods,” said Adams. “All these bone fragments could be there as part of a summoning of Baron Samedi.” “I’ve written up the request for the disinterrment,” said the Inspectral. “That’ll go to the judge tomrorow morning as well. I’d say our chances are fifty-fifty. So for the rest of today, I want you to finish reading the documents, give any feedback on them to Adams, and then the pair of you can go and do foot patrol in the town centre. Someone’s been keying cars parked on the streets, so ask around and see if you can find out that Michael Batts is doing it.”
4 comments:
Well, I'm off to Kiev tomorrow until the end of the week, and then I'm off to London for the ICE conference the week after, so my tale might get a bit disjointed with all the travelling and other stuff I have to do. Maybe I'll put it briefly on hiatus until I'm settled back in one place again :)
Ox
The Inspectral sat at his desk, clearly upset by something as he was floating at least 5cm above the seat and his hands kept dipping down into the surface of the desk. There were documents on the desk in front of him – ghosts tended to have problems with computers – and Adams was stood up staring out of his window at the rooves of the local houses.
“Where were you?” The Inspectral’s voice was like a cold wind blowing across moorland at midnight. “You were supposed to change your shoes.”
“So you didn’t keep leaking sand everywhere.” Adams sounded slightly amused.
“Sweeping the sand up,” said Collins. “So other people didn’t start walking it into the station.”
The Inspectral stared for a couple of seconds at Collins, and then the ghost of a smile appeared on his ghostly face. “Good thinking,” he said. “People used to think like that back before this all started. Not so much now, but it’s not like it’s worth the effort to complain. Well done.” He shuffled the papers, immediately revealing that they’d been dusted with ectoplasm so that they were usable by both humans and non-vital. “Reports are coming in,” he said. “I’m not happy about what this is telling me either.”
“More vodoun?” Collins was slightly surprised to hear his own voice asking that and wondered for a moment if he was getting confidence from somewhere.
“I think that’s what I’m supposed to think,” said the Inspectral. Adams adjusted her stance a little, resting her hands on her hips. To Collins’s mind she looked aggressive, like she disagreed with the Inspectral. “There was blood in the sand at the bottom of the hole on the beach,” said the Inspectral. “It’s being analysed in the labs and we’ll probably have a report back tomorrow. I’m expecting it will be animal blood, probably pig.”
“Chicken or goat are the standard in vodoun rituals,” said Adams. Her voice was just a little tense, as though this was an argument they’d been having before Collins had arrived.
“And this is supposed to look like a vodoun ritual but isn’t actually one,” said the Inspectral. “This is all a distraction from something else.”
“What something else?” Adams turned now, and her expression was mutinous. “You keep saying that, but you won’t say what you think is going on. You brought up vodoun in the first place, and now you think it’s all a distraction. A distraction, I might add, that’s so far taken us to the beach and the graveyard and had disturbed war graves and stirred up poltergeists. It’s a pretty detailed distraction! So what’s it distracting us from?”
“I don’t know,” said the Inspectral. “And that’s a problem, yes. I agree with you. But I’m not wasting time on a wild goose chase.”
Adams turned back to the window, but Collins could still see the anger in her stance. Her stubbornness in dealing with the Inspectral struck him as ox-like: she seemed inclined to dig her heels in and refuse to move until she either changed her mind or got the answers she liked.
“What else is in the reports?” asked Collins. The Inspectral offered him the papers and he took them, feeling the oddly glossy texture that came from finely powdered ectoplasm.
“Seven skulls in total,” said the Inspectral as Collins turned the pages. “Seven is a ritual number, but one of the skulls is much older than the others and wasn’t in a box. Might or might not be part of this, possibly it just turned up where we digging by chance.” Adams snorted. “Blood mixed in the sand. Extra, old bone in the makeup of the boxes. Lots of confusion, like someone’s just thrown stuff into a hole to draw attention to it.”
“Vodoun rituals invoke natural forces that are personified as Gods,” said Adams. “All these bone fragments could be there as part of a summoning of Baron Samedi.”
“I’ve written up the request for the disinterrment,” said the Inspectral. “That’ll go to the judge tomrorow morning as well. I’d say our chances are fifty-fifty. So for the rest of today, I want you to finish reading the documents, give any feedback on them to Adams, and then the pair of you can go and do foot patrol in the town centre. Someone’s been keying cars parked on the streets, so ask around and see if you can find out that Michael Batts is doing it.”
Solid and sturdy
The ox patiently awaits
The work of each day.
Greg - safe travels!
Hmm, an intriguing game is being played out here. I am keen to discover what is being distracted from.
Morganna - nice! This paints a lovely picture.
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