The exercise:
Write about: a leak.
Unexpectedly worked from home for the first time this afternoon, as there was a gas leak at the boys' school and they were sent home rather early in the day. Kat had a client booked, so I came home at lunch and managed to get a couple things done while keeping an eye on the boys.
Hoping next time I work from home they'll be safely away at school.
2 comments:
You should have taken them into the office with you and introduced them to the joys of filing and making coffee for your colleagues. And then the joys of cleaning up coffee spills and making clean copies of coffee-stained documents and making more coffee. And maybe even drinking coffee :)
Leak
Fabian set a timer for twenty minutes, not because he wanted to test Dread but because he was certain that Dread hadn't just guessed at a number. And sure enough, thirty seconds before the timer would have reached zero there was a knock at his door and a short, scruffy, smelly person who epitomised the worst stereotypes of 'student' was standing there.
"Admiral Dread sent me, sir," said the student and saluted smartly. There was a breath of an odd smell that Fabian, thinking hard, decided might be grave-rot. "He said you had a leak, sir."
"Maybe," said Fabian, trying to get the image of this bearded, grubby young man digging up a grave and cackling to himself out of his head. He was sure he was being racist or speciesist or people-ist in some way but he couldn't quite work out how. "I've been told there's spider-elf magic around my doorway."
The student, or whatever he was, frowned which pulled his shock of greyish-brown hair down far enough to meet his beard and hide his eyes and nose completely. It looked a little like a hedgehog acting defensively. "That doesn't so much leak as grow, though, sir."
"Grow?" Fabian remembered the lecture on magics and realised that the next one was due the following evening. He decided impetuously to continue going to them. "That wouldn't be good, would it?"
"Hang on." The student had stepped back and, feeling oddly worried, Fabian stepped back as well so that there was now a good two metres of space, and the doorway, between them. The student muttered something and pointed at the air between them and it shimmered and rippled in rainbow colours, like a pool of water with oil coating it being stirred. "Definitely got something there, sir...."
Fabian found himself waiting for the words, "looks expensive, it's gonna cost you, sir," and finally settled on his problem. He was being a bigot. He pressed his lips together as he made an effort to redescribe the student to himself: someone doing a tricky job and here to help, who hadn't been at all rude to him. Why was this harder than thinking Rystin was a person and not a 'rust-elf'?
"Very odd," said the student. "That's not a leak exactly, it's more a drip-feed. Do you spend much time in the doorway, sir?"
"What?" The unexpectedness of the question completely destroyed Fabian's intention to sound suave and welcoming. "Not really, no. I prefer to be in the office."
"I prefer to be out of it, myself, sir," said the student and winked. "This isn't spider-elf magic, sir, I don't think, but it's very close to it. It's... maybe spider-elf magic cast by a non-elf? Or maybe non-elf magic cast by an elf. Hard to tell, it's not like there's all that much spider-elf magic to study."
"It's all locked up in the Halls of Sunset," said Fabian. He found himself pleased to see the student start, as though Fabian had taken him by surprise.
"Mostly," said the student. "Any chance of a tour, while I'm here?"
"Ask the Assessors," said Fabian, catching himself at the last moment from adding "if they can find the key."
"Hah," said the student. "Not a forthcoming bunch, them lot, sir. Right, let me just add a drain to this...."
Whatever he did, Fabian didn't follow it, but the rainbow colours drained away as though leaking through a poorly fitting plug, leaving Fabian in his office, the student in the corridor, and two bemused looking curators who had come to see if they could talk to Fabian.
Greg - I was with you right up until the end. They do not need coffee. Coffee, I dare say, needs them.
Or their energy, at least.
I am fascinated, as usual, by Fabian's inner dialogue and his repeated attempts to be better. Also I quite like this student and I hope he either hangs about for a little while or comes back to us for a visit later on in the tale.
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