I'm glad you've had a chance to enjoy your long weekend! And thank-you for the notes on the picture frames, that was quite an interesting little work tale. Now, I saw recently somewhere that other people'sdesk photos can be much improved if you buy some of those little googly eyes and attach them over the eyes in the photos....
The long and the short of it "That was my queen," said MacArthur. He sounded a little hurt, but considering he usually sounded a lot injured, or possibly on life-support, it passed unnoticed. "I had plans for her." "Mad Frankie has plans for Monkeybutt," said Miss Sapphire. "Well. In fairness, he's had plans for her for a long time, and some of them have already worked out. But the new ones are going awry and askew and other words he likes only because he can play them at Scrabble, and the Anger Management are on holiday, so..." "That leaves me?" MacArthur's King kicked the knight off the board and into Miss Sapphire's lap. She quirked her lips as though fending off a grin and delicately retrieved the chessman and sat it on the side of the board by her wineglass of gin. Around them the rain eased off very slightly and the pattering of water on leaves became calming. "There's always you, Mac," she said. "I bet you were only ever picked last for team sports when you were at school." She hesitated. "If you were picked at all." "Hah!" Mac grinned and for a moment it was as though all of hell's demons had decided to peer out through a single pair of eyes. "I was picked first, every time." Miss Sapphire considered the white pieces in front of her, seeming to think about them and not what Mac had just said. After a few more seconds she moved a pawn on the queenside. Then she raised her head and met his red-eyed glare. "People have been dying around you since you were a child?" she asked. "Did no-one send you to a child therapist?" The rainclouds overhead squeezed together a little tighter and the rain fell more heavily again. Across the street a drain started overflowing and a little man struggled, futilely, to light a cigarette. As he gave up, so did the cigarette and it fell apart into brown strands of tobacco and soggy white paper. "She died," said Mac shortly. His knight tap-danced towards White's kingside pawns. "I turned up at her office one afternoon, not long after my parents tried to give me away to a travelling circus, and found her slumped in her chair with a bullet-hole in her forehead." "Did they catch who did it?" Miss Sapphire's queen, the only one on the board now, glided across to the queenside and started eyeing Black's king menacingly. "The long and the short of it is no," said MacArthur. "The really long of it is that they interrogated me for somewhere around 48 hours non-stop, and the really short of it is that I found out years later Mad Frankie had offed her because she'd diagnosed him a little too accurately. Check." Miss Sapphire stared at the board, wondering how she'd missed what MacArthur was up to, and above the clouds bunched up even more, preparing for a cloudburst.
2 comments:
I'm glad you've had a chance to enjoy your long weekend! And thank-you for the notes on the picture frames, that was quite an interesting little work tale. Now, I saw recently somewhere that other people'sdesk photos can be much improved if you buy some of those little googly eyes and attach them over the eyes in the photos....
The long and the short of it
"That was my queen," said MacArthur. He sounded a little hurt, but considering he usually sounded a lot injured, or possibly on life-support, it passed unnoticed. "I had plans for her."
"Mad Frankie has plans for Monkeybutt," said Miss Sapphire. "Well. In fairness, he's had plans for her for a long time, and some of them have already worked out. But the new ones are going awry and askew and other words he likes only because he can play them at Scrabble, and the Anger Management are on holiday, so..."
"That leaves me?" MacArthur's King kicked the knight off the board and into Miss Sapphire's lap. She quirked her lips as though fending off a grin and delicately retrieved the chessman and sat it on the side of the board by her wineglass of gin. Around them the rain eased off very slightly and the pattering of water on leaves became calming.
"There's always you, Mac," she said. "I bet you were only ever picked last for team sports when you were at school." She hesitated. "If you were picked at all."
"Hah!" Mac grinned and for a moment it was as though all of hell's demons had decided to peer out through a single pair of eyes. "I was picked first, every time."
Miss Sapphire considered the white pieces in front of her, seeming to think about them and not what Mac had just said. After a few more seconds she moved a pawn on the queenside. Then she raised her head and met his red-eyed glare. "People have been dying around you since you were a child?" she asked. "Did no-one send you to a child therapist?"
The rainclouds overhead squeezed together a little tighter and the rain fell more heavily again. Across the street a drain started overflowing and a little man struggled, futilely, to light a cigarette. As he gave up, so did the cigarette and it fell apart into brown strands of tobacco and soggy white paper.
"She died," said Mac shortly. His knight tap-danced towards White's kingside pawns. "I turned up at her office one afternoon, not long after my parents tried to give me away to a travelling circus, and found her slumped in her chair with a bullet-hole in her forehead."
"Did they catch who did it?" Miss Sapphire's queen, the only one on the board now, glided across to the queenside and started eyeing Black's king menacingly.
"The long and the short of it is no," said MacArthur. "The really long of it is that they interrogated me for somewhere around 48 hours non-stop, and the really short of it is that I found out years later Mad Frankie had offed her because she'd diagnosed him a little too accurately. Check."
Miss Sapphire stared at the board, wondering how she'd missed what MacArthur was up to, and above the clouds bunched up even more, preparing for a cloudburst.
Greg - can never have enough googly eyes.
Really enjoying this chess match and the verbal jousting that is accompanying it :)
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