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.

Furious Fiction - September Submission

It had to be in an airport.
Needed to include the statement 'it was empty'
and the word spring.

Water of Life

‘What do you mean it was empty?’

‘Just that you dopey bugger. It was empty.’

‘So you're just going to leave it?’

‘Yup, useless to us now, isn’t it?’

Don stepped forward and opened the hard metallic case. The foam insert where the bottle had been was now void. It had been locked and loaded onto the flight as baggage. This had been Mike’s idea as they could not afford to lose it on the way through security.

‘There, the other side of the carousel. It’s the priest.’ Murmured Mike pointing with his chin to get Don to look in the right direction.

Sure enough, not four metres away on the other side of the baggage carousel stood the priest, long flowing cassock and white dog collar. The same priest who had been following them since they took the water from the well at St Mary of the Spring in Istanbul.

Don and the priest stood watching each other, one holding the bottle of water the other wanted.  He sensed more than saw, Mike edge his way around the end of the carousel; neither the priest nor Don moving.

‘Now!’ Mike leapt towards the priest.

Don sprang into action, first stepping onto the moving carousel, up to the centre divider, tripping on his way down the other side, falling hard at the priest's feet.

The world slowed, Don could see Mike lunging to tackle the priest, the priest side stepping them both. Don watched as he sprinted to the end of the carousel. Diving through the hole in the wall where bags exited the baggage handling area; through the leather straps that hid the ugliness of the airport.

Why would the priest do this? Surely Don had not been the only person to take water from the spring? Why did he wait until the Sydney airport to take the water bottle from him?

Don rose and sprinted after the priest, diving through the same hole in the wall.  Baggage handlers were sprawled everywhere, there was no sign of the priest, simply a puddle of water.

The same water he had so wanted to take to his sick wife. The same water she believed would save her, heal her of the cancer that had spread throughout of her body.  

He had hoped his wife was right and the healing waters of the St Mary Spring would save her.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s gone.’

Mike hugged his friend; he knew Don had put all of his faith into that one bottle of water.  As he held his friend, a single sparkle caught his eye. Breaking the embrace, Mike walked over and picked up a large diamond from the puddle.

‘Well, we know what the priest was after.’

Don taking the diamond held it up to the light. ‘Mate that’s like 10 carats uncut, how did the bugger get that into the bottle?’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t the only one, and I am sure he wasn’t a priest.’

Story a Day 2018 is over

Story a day is done,

I’ve had my fun.

Now it’s time to write some more,

Now that I achieved my perfect score.

31 stories a day in may,

no less and no more from me today.

Day 31 - Weird is the workplace

‘There exists a romanticism about personal and life fullfillment that comes in the shape of our work.’

(To romanticise is to think about or describe something as being better or more attractive or interesting than it really is.)

 I once heard, or maybe I read it, I suspect I learnt it; in reality it was all three. ‘Politics is caused by the pursuit of a scarce resource.’

What is phenomenal is that everyone’s scarce resource is different and it can be perverted in many ways.  I know Bolman and Deal’s (B&D’s) ‘Framing Organisations’ identifies four key perspectives as structural, political, symbolic and humanistic.  Alain De Botton’s also tried to tackle some aspects of this in his book ‘The pleasure and sorrows of work’. Although I read this book cover to cover, and found it quite interesting, I found it particularly lacking that he did not tackle the premise of work that Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) professionals deal with on a daily basis.

Day 30 - Dawn's Perspective

    There was something there, she could tell, she could feel the air shift. Not a big shift, not a draft or anything like that.  Having laid still, watching her treasure reflect the glow of the torches that where scattered, floating around the room; digesting the cow that had been dinner two months earlier.  In that whole time the air had not shifted.
    It was everything she could do to sit and wait, having noticed the air movement Dawn had slowed her heartbeat and breathing even more.  If you were going to take two months to digest a cow you had to be skilled at regulating your body and the energy it consumed.  Now her breathing slowed down to less than one breath a minute, trying to reduce any noise her body would produce to try and hear better.
   Then she heard it.

    ‘What?’

    ‘It’s a dragon you dope. Go have a look.’

    ‘What? Why me?’

    ‘Your the burglar.’

    It was great, the voices where humanoids of some sort, not like the ones she had spent half a century getting rid of, out of her catacombs; kobolds, Orissa and other such foul smelling bitter tasting creatures.  These ones were smart, they'd realised that they had come across a Dragon's lair.  At least one of them had experienced dragons before; this made her very curious.
   She dare not move, luckily two months ago knowing that she was about to hibernate to digest she had wiggled her way into her gold, so deep that the treasure had covered the length and breadth of her body with the exception of her eyes, nostrils and head frill being the only things visible above the treasure.
   The air was moving again, one of the humanoids was coming down the tunnel, cautiously, slowly.  She waited, not moving, breathing so slow, heart near stopped excitement and anticipation coursing through her body.  It was so exciting to finally have a visitor coming to her, and one that seemed intelligent, much more intelligent than her previous companions.

   Whoever it was it was cautious, blinking slowly she opened her eyes to see a small humans swing into her cavern.  Even though the cavern was exceptionally well lit by all of her floating flames the half human was hard to spot, it’s skills at hiding in the shadows were tremendous.  She could see it scanning, looking everywhere.  Oddly there was not stench of fear, there barely discernible smell, this creature was so good at what it was doing it not only blended into the shadows, it’s smell melded with her treasure.

   This half human was so good it was almost tempting to let it take some of her gold; it wouldn’t be able to carry that much.  She wanted something so much more than the gold; that could come and go, it always had.  She’d gather it, someone or something would steal it, more would come; some would some succeed some wouldn’t.  What Dawn wanted was some conversation, it had been so long since she’d had some conversation.

    The human had stopped now, it was squatting in the shadows, she could not make out what it was doing so she imagined it scanning the her domain.  How was she going to reveal herself, would she simply rise out of the treasure.  She’d done that in the past hoping for a conversation only to cause her guest to faint.  No this time she would try something different.

   Taking a deep breath, inhaling as much air as she could, exhaling whispering the cantrip.  A sense of glee swelled up in her as the little humanoid floated into the air, it made no noise, it was obviously to calm and collected for that, as if it had experienced.

   ‘Hello Dragon.’

   She rose out of her treasure, the tinkle of gold and jewels falling all about her. 

   ‘Hello Little human, why are you not scared?’

   ‘You are majestic, more majestic than any creature I have seen before. As far as I am concerned I have gotten everything I came for.’

   ‘You faltter me little man, you are a man are you not.’

   ‘Yes, my name’s Harry, yours?’

   ‘Bit impertinent of you, what do you want to do with my name?’

   ‘Oh nothing really, just wanting it to complete the story when I tell it to my grandchildren.’

   Dawn watched as the half man floated in front of her, curious, confidant.  This character was definitely foolhardy, yet not a fool.  Now she had him, what would she do with him?  

   ‘Grandchildren? Humans are not that long lived that someone such as you could possibly have grandchildren.’

   The creature Harry burst out laughing; ‘Oh Dragon I am so much more than you think I am. What is your name? You’ve got me floating around, it’s not like I can do anything to you?’

   ‘Are you alone?’

   ‘No.’

   She knew there was at least one more, she’d heard them speaking, was there fore those, did she need to be scared. The two of them stared at each other, he’d drawn no weapons. The air was still relatively still, although with all the commotion of the half man floating around she could not really tell.  Thinking back, the movement before he’d arrived had always been just slight.

   ‘How Many?’

   ‘Oh Just one.’

   ‘Is it like you?’

   ‘Tell me your name and I will answer your questions.’

   ‘Dawn.’

    The little creature started to laugh; first a bit of a chuckle and then pure unhinhibtted laughter.

   ‘What’s so fun little man?’

   ‘Well Dawn the Dragon, you’re talking to Harry the halfling.’

   Dawn Gaffawed, her deep sultry voice making the loudest noise she’d made in months.  She liked this Harry.

The voice prompt today from Story a day was - to write the other perspective of a story you have written - Day 13 is the reverse of this story.
http://afstoryaday.blogspot.com/2018/05/day-13-dawn.html