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.

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.