Day 1 - Babelism

‘Father, what’s this?’

‘Put it down son, it’s not anything of use now?’

‘But Dad?’

‘Do as I say, nothing good can come of it.’

Jake looked at his father and could see he meant it. As he lowered the thing to the ground, his father turned away. ‘Come on, there’s nothing good here, let’s get back to camp.’

Jake stood, slung his satchel over his shoulder; it was weighed down with the results of their scavenging, some rusted tins, a few prime pieces of metal. There wasn’t a lot now, the town had been stripped bare by previous scavengers.

As the two of them headed out of the ruins of what was once a small farmstead, both in their own thoughts. Naturally quiet, as much as they were thinking they were always listening.

‘You can’t tell anyone, Jake.’

Jake looked at his father, he looked tired, in his mid-forties, he was an old man with only a few years left in him. Not that he was frail, or ill; just that in the world they lived in, no one lived long beyond 50, at least no one that Jake new. ‘Tell anyone about what?’

‘That thing back there, the thing you asked about.’

‘What was it?’

Dealing in time

Why on earth would a woman in her mid-thirties ask for time to be taken away? They never ask for time to be taken away.

He’d been dealing in time for decades. Living in the same 1920’s terrace house on Gloucester St since he’d returned from the Second World War in 1945. Seventy two years ago and yet he did not look a day over 46. The age he was when he first moved in.

He didn’t think about it much these days; age really meant nothing to him anymore. Today though, with the young woman asking what she had, he had reason to pause. He would be 118 years old this year, in all of that time he had never had someone ask to have time taken away.

Yeah, sure he had his regulars, although they had diminished somewhat in the ’70s and ’80s. Most, if not all, dead due to the gangsters Abe Saffron, George Freeman and others. Even Mr Saffron himself had been a regular right up until he died in 2006.

His customers always asked for time to be added. They wanted to maintain their youthfulness, live longer to reap the rewards of their oft ill-gotten gains. None, even Abe Saffron himself, an apt user of his services, had ever thought to take time away.

An Explanation

Zack sat still, the white noise of the ceiling fan, rhythmic, clicking, blending in with the stillness and silence of the room. The brightness of the outside a contrast to the shadowed mahogany of his office; a shadow broke by the square of sunlight laying across his desk and onto the floor.

This was his space, his floor to ceiling bookshelf with barely a book on it, filled with boxes of case files, Manila folders all held together with string.  Plush red carpet and a single cone light hanging from the ceiling, it's glow too weak to counteract the sunshine.  The smoked glass door of his office open, with his name emblazoned in gold. Zackary Gumm, Private Investigator.

Dice - Day 2 - The Ale Mage

    

     Andrut the Ale Mage stood at the rail atop his tower. The brasserie burning behind him, flames reaching four foot into the air, the orange of the flames reflected off the back of his red and white plaid, short sleeve shirt, the flask loops on his bracers dully reflecting bronze in the flame.  Tonight, he would know if he was a true master, for tonight he would taste his apprentices first brew.
     Johter started up the stairs ever so slowly a pewter mug held in each hand, filled to the brim, each with a perfect head.  Each step slow and precise, as he did not want to spill a drop of his first brew, the first tasting. It was his moment, he’d stuffed the old cheddar and jatz into his cargo shorts, the perfect complement to the ale he had made.
    BANG! ‘Andrut! Aaaaaandrut!’

Dice - Day One - Medusa

Jelex stood atop the precipice, her trusty dog Nutmeg standing at her side. They had finally arrived. There hovering above the clouds in the middle of the valley sat the parthenon. The citadel of the reptile queen Medusa.

‘Well you two, we are finally hear.’ Talking aloud to what appeared to be a company of one, her dog.  A dog, that surely would no respond. Was she going to acknowledge herself? Did she really talk about herself in the third person.  

‘We’re not there yet Jelex, let’s not get ahead of ourselves’ responded a tiny high pitched voice.