Time off always vanishes like that. In order for it not to you have to have planned things to do during it so that you've got markers for you memory and things you feel you've achieved. Just taking time off and not doing anything you wouldn't normally do slips by like sand through an hourglass :)
I've seen your email and I'm thinking hard. You'll get a reply this week :)
In search of lost time The house at Westrill seemed like a good place to start, but it didn't want to be found. I tried the usual approach, across the snow-coated fields of Yarden watched by curious shaggy cattle who swiped the snow aside with their noses to find tussocks of grass to eat, and every time I saw the walls rear up ahead of me there was a smell of tobacco smoke and the ghostly caress of strong, warm hands on the back of my neck, and I was approaching Eastbrook. Then I tried the harder approach; taking the shuttle-bus back across the river and heading north for a way until there was a ford with mossy stones that tricked the nervous and cautious into stepping on them and sliding off into the water with a splash. As I strode across with the cool water washing over my bare ankles and my shoes, tied together with their laces, hanging round my neck there was a sensation of old, worn leather rubbing against the back of my legs and a mutter of conversation too indistinct to grasp words from and then the house would appear between the trees on the far bank and it would be Southstream. You can argue that they're all the same house, just seen from different angles, but when those angles are the corners of time, it matters. There were three dead schoolchildren in Malaysia, collateral deaths because the assassins who were hunting Dr. Arissa hadn't been told to be careful enough. That mattered to me, and I wanted to approach Westrill. I considered the yet-harder approach; climbing the hills where the peonies grew in abundance and goats bleated to distract you and cause you to slip, lose your grip and slide down rocky slopes to narrow ledges, grazed and gashed and bleeding. But I was sure that the bleating would just hide that the house you were approaching was angling itself to be Northrunnel. I toyed with the chain about my neck; I had found it there after I'd killed an angel in Rio, and the chain had tried to strangle me more than once. No-one I knew, and in fairness I know some very strange people indeed, had been able to remove it or advise on how to get it removed, so for now it stayed. Sometimes I could use it to reach the Seraphim but... I sat down for a moment and considered the favours I was owed. The truth was that the Hechadim owed me more favours and the Seraphim might be reckoning some things on their side that I felt were best disregarded. When I pulled the tiny brass hourglass out of my pocket and tilted it this way and that, watching the sand ignore gravity and flow in whatever direction it preferred there was a sudden jolt like the sensation of falling when you're lying in bed and almost asleep. I recognised it, which made me unusual: it was the sensation of time ceasing to affect you. "Justin?" I said without looking up. It pretty much had to be him; of all the timeless-ones that I'd met he alone had said more than three words to me. "Must you?" he said, sighing. He sat down next to me, and I continued to play with the hourglass. "Time has been lost already. You're going to make it worse."] "You don't know that." "You always make things worse before they get better," he said. "They get better though," I said, with just a note of triumph in my voice.
Greg - yeah, we managed to do a few things out of the ordinary routine, but it still went hella quick.
Seen your reply. Will answer... possibly tonight? We'll see how the next little bit goes.
The angel in Rio line brought with it a rush of memories of this setting. Nice to see it again. It's amazing to see how many tales and characters we don't see when you get focused on telling one tale for a long while. I'm surprised you remember them all, actually - do you use Scrivener to keep track of them all?
2 comments:
Time off always vanishes like that. In order for it not to you have to have planned things to do during it so that you've got markers for you memory and things you feel you've achieved. Just taking time off and not doing anything you wouldn't normally do slips by like sand through an hourglass :)
I've seen your email and I'm thinking hard. You'll get a reply this week :)
In search of lost time
The house at Westrill seemed like a good place to start, but it didn't want to be found. I tried the usual approach, across the snow-coated fields of Yarden watched by curious shaggy cattle who swiped the snow aside with their noses to find tussocks of grass to eat, and every time I saw the walls rear up ahead of me there was a smell of tobacco smoke and the ghostly caress of strong, warm hands on the back of my neck, and I was approaching Eastbrook. Then I tried the harder approach; taking the shuttle-bus back across the river and heading north for a way until there was a ford with mossy stones that tricked the nervous and cautious into stepping on them and sliding off into the water with a splash. As I strode across with the cool water washing over my bare ankles and my shoes, tied together with their laces, hanging round my neck there was a sensation of old, worn leather rubbing against the back of my legs and a mutter of conversation too indistinct to grasp words from and then the house would appear between the trees on the far bank and it would be Southstream.
You can argue that they're all the same house, just seen from different angles, but when those angles are the corners of time, it matters. There were three dead schoolchildren in Malaysia, collateral deaths because the assassins who were hunting Dr. Arissa hadn't been told to be careful enough. That mattered to me, and I wanted to approach Westrill.
I considered the yet-harder approach; climbing the hills where the peonies grew in abundance and goats bleated to distract you and cause you to slip, lose your grip and slide down rocky slopes to narrow ledges, grazed and gashed and bleeding. But I was sure that the bleating would just hide that the house you were approaching was angling itself to be Northrunnel.
I toyed with the chain about my neck; I had found it there after I'd killed an angel in Rio, and the chain had tried to strangle me more than once. No-one I knew, and in fairness I know some very strange people indeed, had been able to remove it or advise on how to get it removed, so for now it stayed. Sometimes I could use it to reach the Seraphim but... I sat down for a moment and considered the favours I was owed. The truth was that the Hechadim owed me more favours and the Seraphim might be reckoning some things on their side that I felt were best disregarded.
When I pulled the tiny brass hourglass out of my pocket and tilted it this way and that, watching the sand ignore gravity and flow in whatever direction it preferred there was a sudden jolt like the sensation of falling when you're lying in bed and almost asleep. I recognised it, which made me unusual: it was the sensation of time ceasing to affect you.
"Justin?" I said without looking up. It pretty much had to be him; of all the timeless-ones that I'd met he alone had said more than three words to me.
"Must you?" he said, sighing. He sat down next to me, and I continued to play with the hourglass. "Time has been lost already. You're going to make it worse."]
"You don't know that."
"You always make things worse before they get better," he said.
"They get better though," I said, with just a note of triumph in my voice.
Greg - yeah, we managed to do a few things out of the ordinary routine, but it still went hella quick.
Seen your reply. Will answer... possibly tonight? We'll see how the next little bit goes.
The angel in Rio line brought with it a rush of memories of this setting. Nice to see it again. It's amazing to see how many tales and characters we don't see when you get focused on telling one tale for a long while. I'm surprised you remember them all, actually - do you use Scrivener to keep track of them all?
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