The exercise:
Write about something that is: atypical.
Inspired by the fantastic Netflix show. Kat and I finished the series last night and while we both wish there was another season, the ending was pretty much perfect.
The exercise:
Write about something that is: atypical.
Inspired by the fantastic Netflix show. Kat and I finished the series last night and while we both wish there was another season, the ending was pretty much perfect.
2 comments:
I haven't seen the show, but that's my usual response to most TV shows and films these days :) It sounds like it was worth watching though!
We're continuing yesterday's tale a little, just because I felt that the cliffhanger needed resolving.
Atypical
I hadn't. I'd assumed, as I'm sure most people would, that we were fishing for fish. Thinking about it a little more, and trying to ignore Justin's smirk, I suppose that a Timeless one probably had better things to fish for than actual fish, and he had just finished telling me about how the rivers mixed time up, so maybe, with hindsight, I should have seen this coming. But... I guess you don't go around killing angels in Rio if you actually pay attention to the world around you and think about what you're doing all the time.
I hauled on the line. The fish, or whatever it was, wriggled and tried to pull away and the rod bent alarmingly, but I still managed to turn the reel and pull the fish slowly towards the shore. It was a proper struggle and sweat stood out on my forehead after maybe only fifteen seconds. The smirk never left Justin's lips and I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me lose this thing, so I kept turning the reel, pulling on the rod to gain an advantage, and finally I started short-stepping backwards, away from the bank, to drag the fish into the shallows so I could reel it in a bit further.
Justin stepped into the water with the net and scooped the damn thing up at last and the tension went off the rod and line and I realised how much my shoulders were burning with the effort of what I'd been doing. I dropped the rod and rubbed them, wishing I could get behind myself to do this properly.
"Not bad," said Justin. He held something up, and it looked like a large fish to me, maybe a metre long, possibly a bit more, silvery blue and still wriggling like it intended to get back into the water.
"That's a fish," I said, being the wit I am. "You said we weren't fishing for... well, fish."
"It looks like a fish here and now," said Justin. "But this is a little bit atypical for a fish. You'd find out if you tried to cook it."
"Atypical how?" I picked the rod up, wincing just the once, and came back to Justin on the bank.
He smoothed a finger over the fish and I realised that there were no scales; the outside of the fish was smooth somehow, almost metallic-looking. There were no gills either, which made no sense; without gills the fish couldn't possibly breathe. And when it jerked in his hands and tried to wriggle free again, I started to wonder how this thing, that clearly couldn't breathe, was still alive having been out of water for so long.
Justin must have managed to read some of my concerns on my face. "Actually," he said, "atypical might be an understatement. This is very typical of what it really is, but atypical for a fish. And since you just fished it out of the river, you would naturally find it atypical."
"You're just being confusing now," I said, giving up hope he was going to explain himself. "What's it for then?"
"It's a key," said Justin, and the smirk reappeared.
Greg - well, I recommend it. And I am grateful for the continuation!
A key? That was certainly unexpected. I hope to discover what it is a key for at some point!
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