Piratey Nonsense

Writing prompt for 9/19/16

Yaaaaaaaaaargh. 

It's a bit too early for visitors, but you figure if someone is ringing your doorbell at 5:45, a full 15 minutes before your alarm usually goes off, it's probably important. You stumble to your front door, pajamas askew. A man is there, standing behind what you can only describe as a Chest. The man is bearded, swarthy and he has an actual, honest to goodness eyepatch. "This be for ye," he says, nodding seriously, before turning and tromping down your stairs and off into the world. 

The dachshunds, of course, went nuts.

They were sure it was the squirrel ringing the doorbell. So sure, in fact, they darted to the back door and howled to be let out so they could get the squirrel – forgetting, of course, that the doorbell button is on the front of the house.

But I let them out. Better to have the whole neighborhood awake at a quarter to six on a Saturday than to have that doggy din making my ears ring.

The doorbell rang again – but I am not its servant.

Through the frosted glass of the side-window, I could see a shape – a massive shape – waiting impatiently on the front porch, or so I judged by its swaying. Beyond the shape, beyond the grass and still-running sprinklers, an immense dark car at the curb.

The churl leaned on the doorbell button. I wrenched the door open.
“Ah, finally! This be for ye!”

“Ben? What the hell?”

The pirate on the porch – no other way to describe the swarthy, bearded man with the eye patch and leather jerkin – maintained a smile. “If ye were expecting Ben, methinks ye’ll be disappointed. My name, it be Solomon. But no never mind,” he said, sniffing in great breaths of the cool morning air. “I’ve done me duty, brought you this chest, and now I’m off. Off again to the seven seas!”

He looked me in the eye, then dropped his momentarily, winking. I looked at his feet – well, a foot and a peg – to see a small chest lying on the welcome mat. He turned and step-thumped down the concrete sidewalk to the vehicle rumbling at the curb. With an enormous squeal he shut the trunk.

“Dammit Be –“ I stepped forward and stubbed my toe on the chest.

“Ah, that takes me back. Makes me miss me mateys, hearing ye use them sailors’ words,” Solomon said. “These days, nobody curses proper. It’s like Old Jack, he said – ah, Old Jack. Last I saw him, t’were in Victoria, slumped on a stool at the Post and Patch. Probably still there. Though last time I saw the Post and Patch, t’were a McDonalds.” Solomon chuckled. “If he still be there, he be drinking Coca-Cola and be sated with French fries.”

I bounced and cursed out to the curb as Solomon, watching, leaned against the car – burgundy-colored, dripping with chrome and with great square tail lights.

“And ‘tis a fair jig ye do there, though I’m not familiar with the tune.” His smile revealed gold teeth. His eyes suddenly widened. He tapped the side of his nose with one hand and with the other reached inside his jerkin. “Forget me own head next,” he said, pulling his hand out and proffering a key. “Ye’ll be needing this.”

When I didn’t reach out for the key, the man smiled wider. “Old Jack warned me, he did,” Solomon said. “’Cold and unfriendly he be, but fulfill yer duty, Solomon me lad. No difference if he be cold as a fish when ye deliver it. Duty be done, by God. Duty be done.’” He hung the key by its silver chain on a button on my pajamas, wrenched the door to the car open and squeaked onto the red leather seats. “’Tis a good thing it be me left leg that’s a peg, or driving this Cordoba would be much more difficult,” he shouted. “Robert Louis Stevenson, I calls it. Not much more difficult than rowing a dinghy, but much, much more comfortable. Bought it new, I did. Though it’s all cold metal. Not wooden, like in the old days.”

“How time passes,” he said, half to himself.

Then he leaned out of the car, from which I could hear country music playing from an 8-track. “It’s a terrible thing, waiting for time to pass, me lad. Why, I’ve waited for ye” – he prodded me in the chest with a blunt finger, attached to a hand disappearing into ruffled lace – “for nigh on two hundred years. That be a long time to be away from the sea. And a long time to be sober. That’s been the worse of it, the sobriety. But Old Jack insisted he did, and he be a hard man if crossed. And don’t think for a moment Old Jack – wherever he be, even if God rest his soul – ain’t been a-watching Solomon all these years, waiting for Solomon to fulfill the Duty. And now it be done. And I go in search of a drink to quench this two-hundred-year-old thirst.”

He slammed the door shut. “Any message for Old Jack?” he asked through the open window. “He’s waited even longer than I. Blest be his name if he still be alive to receive it. But --” he laughed “—I still live. Why not he?”

“Ben – ”

“Solomon,” he said. “Only know one Benjamin. Got himself marooned somewhere, last I heard. Deserved it too, by the last account. Probably went mad. So I can see why he might be a friend of yours. But back to OId Jack. He sent ye this gift. No kind words for the daft old man?”

“Um – ”

“Um it be, then,” Solomon said. “The cops, they’ll be coming back. Been following me ever since I got to town. Don’t like the looks of me, I suspect,” he laughed. “Not that anyone ever does.” He revved the engine. “This beast, I’ll miss,” he added. “Look smart!” I leaped back. With a whinny, the car lurched from the curb and bolted down the street, then turned east.

Away from the sea.

A thousand mile journey to the west.

Ben’s done some jokes, I thought, walking back to the house, toes throbbing. But this one. Well . . .

I got to the porch and stubbed my other toes on the chest.

Small. Neither dachshund barking in the back yard would have fit inside. Wood and leather and hammered iron. Just like in the movies. And, just like in the movies, a tiny lock holding it closed.

The key and the chain dropped from the front of my pajamas as I bent over.

I hefted the chest. Small, but heavy. And freshly-oiled, smelling of Stockholm tar and sea salt.

I shook my head. That’s stuff I read in books. I’ve never been to the ocean. And the tar – weren’t they fixing potholes on the next street over? Yes, that ‘s it.

I put the chest on the table, where it dribbled a little oil.

The dogs at the back – one black with a cut like a schnauzer, the other dapples black with brown and white spots – leaped at the door.

Underneath one of the straps, a folded bit of paper, sealed shut with a gob of red wax. Pressed into it, what looked like a backwards capital J.

Old wax. When I pulled the letter out, the wax crumbled, leaving flakes on the straps, flakes on the chest, and flakes I brushed off the paper onto the table.

The paper was oiled as well. Translucent. Covered with a filigree of words in turn covering other words, layered and faded, with swirling f’s where the esses should be.

The first word I could make out on the letter: Crenshaw.

My first name.

Passed on for generations. I hated it. I go by Ishmael, my middle name. Not much better, but certainly better than Crenshaw.

I read further, scratching my beard.

The clothes washer roared, set on a timer to start at 6 am; the water sloshed, slurping and bumping as if against the legs of a pier, jostling many boats. The dogs squealed at the back door. Squealed like seagulls.

I scratched my beard again.

But I have no beard. I hate them worse than I hate my first name.

Beards remind me of Ben.

When I looked up from the letter, it was at grey canvas sails fitfully flapping. At oiled ropes dangling from arms and pulleys, and white clouds scudding in a blue sky.

I scratched my beard again, and it had always been there.

There was a smell of burnt coffee and dead fish.

An elbow jostled me. “Better get to scrubbing!” The voice belonged to a suntanned youth, holding a bucket of water in one hand and a dripping brush in the other. He nodded at a bucket and brush by my feet. “Old Jack will be here soon, and you know him. ‘Everything clean! Everything ship-shape!’”

“I am not the brush’s servant,” I sneered.

“Tell that to the brush when Old Jack jams it in your mouth,” the youth said, laughing.

I laughed back, and the youth marched off, followed by two small long dogs, one a schnauzer-looking black, the other dappled black with brown and white spots. Both had earrings and wore blue-and-white striped bandanas. A seagull flew by low and the dogs howled, pursuing it.

A sudden roar went up from the crew, and I looked. They had rushed, to the man, to the pier-side of the boat and waved their arms, their hats, their head-bands, cheering. I joined them – a head and a half taller than most – to see Solomon waving his own hat to the men as he descended from a burgundy carriage pulled by six black whinnying horses. He caught my eye, smiled, and tapped the side of his nose.

I went back to the chest, perched on a barrel. I took the key, hanging from a button on my leather vest, and set it into the lock.

Writing Prompt: Retiring Horseman

Writing prompt for 9/14/16

One of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse is retiring, and you're on the specially appointed Committee of Damnation, charged with finding a replacement. Tell me about your favorite candidates.

“I expected something more . . . foreboding.”

The giant with the skull necklace set his spiked mace down, gouging grooves in the wooden floor of the inn. I motioned him to a chair. He squeezed into it, the chair creaking and groaning as he settled.

“This inn serves our needs,” I said. “It lies at the intersection of several ley lines; two of fire, one of water, three of stone and is convenient to the temple city of Perseopolis.”

“And they do things with potatoes and onions in the kitchen that no one else can,” my colleague, drumming his stack of papers, added.

“There are drawings of lambs on the wall,” the giant said.

“Just think of it as mutton,” I said.

“Mutton,” it said. It smiled slightly. With giants, it’s hard to tell whether it’s a he or she, and one does not ask straightforward. That’s considered rude.

The giant shifted in its chair. Then farted prodigiously. Its face reddened. “Pray excuse me. I’m so nervous.”

“So. We know why we’re all here. Let’s get started.”

My colleague spread his files out, dipped a feather pen in ink, and poised to write.

“You brought your curriculum vitae?”

The giant looked nervous.

“Sorry. Your, uh, credentials. List of accomplishments. References. ‘Bthnk k’yarnak phlegeth?¹”

“Ah. Yes.” The giant leaped from its chair, seized its mace and with skirts swirling, uttered an oath. With lightning and thunder the giant blasted words onto the inn wall, obliterating the twee pictures of the lambs.

A shriek from the kitchen startled us all. The giant dropped its mace.

“Strewth! Didn’t I tell you NO fiery LETTERS! NO fiery EYES! NO crystals!” The innkeeper flew at the giant, smacking at it with a cast iron frying pan hot from the stove, spewing potatoes and onions all over. “And now you’ve gone and set the thatch on fire! Hamlet!”

The woman seethed as Hamlet, the inn’s dull errand-boy, loped into the room, saw the fire, shook his head and loped out again. A few moments later we heard him scrabbling on the roof, shouting “Ow! Ow! Ow!” as he grabbed faggots of burning thatch and threw them into the courtyard. “I’ll have it out in half a tick,” he said, his voice muffled through the thatch. “Just let’s not start another one while I’m up here, all right?”

“You!” the innkeeper said, prodding me in the chest with her frying pan. “I cain’t expect your clients to know the rules – “ she nodded at the giant, who held the handle of it’s – his – mace (the vision of what was under the swirling skirts when he bellowed his oaths was still fresh) in his hands, shifting it from one to the other nervously as a spike gouged a hole into the floorboard – “but you! You’ve been here how many times, and how many times have I said No FIERY ANYTHING?”

“Every time,” I said. “But you have to understand – “

“Nothing!” she shouted. “I have to understand NO-THING! Ley lines and Perseopolis be damned – yes, I said the Temple City be damned. NO ONE sets my thatch on fire, unless it’s ten years old and time to get rid of the rats. Now,” she said, smoothing her dress. “I go back to the kitchen. Your potato-and-onion fry will be LATE, as I’m sure you know.”

She stomped out of the room. My colleague picked up a fried potato from the table and popped it into his mouth. “Shame,” he said, chewing. “It was almost done.”

“Should I . . . do you think,” the giant muttered.

“No,” I said. “Sit down. I’ll smooth it over. This won’t be the first time we’ve had a little, ah, incident with the rules. She’s gruff on the outside – “

“Inside, too,” my colleague said.

“But we pay her well. Shall we continue?” I read the still-glowing words on the wall.

“You know, of course, Pestilence is retiring,” I said idly, filling in the silence as I read.

There was an enormous hiss and a belch, followed by a bellowing outside. From the kitchen we heard the innkeeper dart out of the inn and yell “Strewth! He rode a DRAGON here? How many sheep has it eaten? Oh, they KNOW the rules! They KNOW them!”

“Pestilence,” the giant said, still nervously fingering his mace.

“A good old gal. Terribly reliable,” I said. “Skin so scabbed with smallpox you could strike a match on it. Still, times do move on. Oh, she had a few bright moments lately, what with the anti-vaccine movement, but generally, she could see the writing on the wall.”

From outside: “Strewth! It’s et SIX horses?”

“Promising list, promising,” I said, still reading. My colleague nodded.

“Mister – “

“Tharanak r’luh Shogg,²” the giant said.

“Yes. We might have to simplify that just a little bit. Says here you laid waste to the” I squinted as the writing was dimming, wisps of smoke wafting from the inn’s walls “Billion in the City of Hosh-Glugab.”

The giant nodded.

“Impressive. And in only three months?”

The giant nodded again.

“Left no survivors?” my colleague asked. One of his cardboard files lay open on the table in front of him.

“Well, one,” the giant said.

We stared at him blankly.

“One,” the giant said again. “Or the story doesn’t get out, see. I have to leave one. Or two. Or nobody knows. Any idiot comes in, takes credit, you know. Seen it a thousand times. I go to all the work to lay waste to an entire city, stamp out every last one of them, and some yob comes in with his own fiery writing or stone tablets or pillars of salt and claims credit and you know these humans – “he sneered at the surviving lamb drawings “ – they only believe what they see.”

“Thirteen thousand,” my colleague said, removing the small set of spectacles he’d placed on the end of his nose to read from his file. “Thirteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-two, to be exact.”

The giant stared at the floor.

“That’s more than one survivor. Or two,” I said. “I’m sorry, but we’re looking for someone who can get the job done. Pestilence, now, despite her faults, she never let one live. Not one. And she didn’t give a fig for recognition or glory. That comes with experience. Not by the job.”

“The COWS! It got into the pasture?”

“We’ll consider you,” I said. “But we do have other interviews. You’d better find your dragon and wing it home, before it’s eaten so much it can’t fly any more. We’ll let you know.”

The giant left, dragging its mace across the floor.

“So much resume-padding these days,” my colleague said.

“Who’s next?”

He slid a file across the table to me, and I read.

“Ah, yes.” We both put on thick glasses and rubberized coats, waiting for the next candidate to arrive.

¹loosely translated, “essence exchange realm of information”

²”Promise Secret Realm of Darkness”

Writing Prompt: Hello There

Writing prompt for 9/13/14

It’s great you found that washer/drier set for so cheap on Craigslist. You felt like a hero when you spent only 50 bucks for the set that goes for almost 2K new. You didn’t mind picking them up in the middle of a field or that the seller seemed a bit twitchy. Hooked up, ready to go, you did your load of wash, then threw them in the drier. Then the chimer chimed and you opened the drier.

“Hello there,” says a voice inside the drier.

“Hello there.”

“Um.” Mark stared at the dryer. A tube sock lolled out of the opening like a tongue. A tongue with a dryer sheet stuck to the end of it.

“I did say hello,” the voice said.

“Huh-hello,” Mark said. “Um, I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time, take your time,” the voice said as Mark backed out of the laundry room. “I can see you’ve got your hands full.”

Mark backed into the kitchen, dropped the armload of laundry onto the table, then reached over and closed the laundry room door.

The dryer hummed, idly, stopping only for a moment when Mark opened the door a crack and peeked through.

“Would you prefer I didn’t talk?” the dryer said. “Or that I talked like this?” The voice switched from a rather neutral male voice to the sultry voice of a woman dripping molasses from her mouth.

“And if you want” – the dryer had gone back to its neutral voice – “I could sing a song. It’ll sound familiar:

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do.

I’m half-crazy, all for the love of you . . .

The dryer went on, with Mark staring through the cracked-open door. But midway through the second verse, it got a little tetchy.

“You know, it’s not easy to sing with you staring at me like that,” the dryer said. “Are you always this rude?”

“Um. Sorry,” Mark said. He closed the door.

The dryer went back to singing. Then shouted: “You do know you left some dry clothing here, right? Five socks and seven pairs of underwear, two hand towels, and a jock strap? Not that I mind – you shoved them all wet into me a little while ago. Just doing my job. But you know the old joke. I don’t want to be held responsible for losing any of your socks. Not like last time.”

Mark opened the door a crack again.

“Left me in a field, he did. And I did my work, just like the others! Never ate a single sock. And I’m the one who gets tossed out! Oh, that toaster, it never said a word but always – always – burned his toast. And I want to strike up a casual conversation after three months’ service, and he abandons me in a field and sells me to, well – pardon the expression – another thoughtless ape-man. Who is clearly NOT a conversationalist.”

“Now wait a minute,” Mark said, pushing the door open and stomping up to the garrulous appliance. But the sock looked so much like a tongue, Mark’s courage quailed.

“Oh, take the sock!” the dryer cried. “What am I going to do? Eat you? All I do is dry clothes. All I ask is that you clean the lint trap. And, well, listen to a little Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Or Poe. You could say I’m in a Poe phase right now. He’s such a delight:

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived who you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me . . .

He couldn’t be sure, but for a moment Mark thought the washing machine blushed.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “My fifth grade teacher read that one to us. Over and over.”

“You know, someone used to bring a single rose to his grave in Baltimore. Year after year. Up until a few  years ago. He or she must have died. And no one, as of yet, has taken up the tradition. Shame, really.”

“You’re a dryer,” Mark said.

“Smart appliance,” the dryer sniffed. “Nothing in my manual says I can’t enjoy a whim or fancy between loads. Or even during. You have good wi-fi here, by the way. Can you take the sock now, please?”

Mark reached out for the sock.

“It’s a little ticklish.”

Mark froze.

The dryer sighed. “No teeth. No digestive tract. Just a drum, some belts, and that natural gas heating element. Don’t let your pareidolia get the best of you. Just take the sock.”

Mark jerked the sock out of the dryer’s mouth.

“Ah. Much better. But you’d better get the rest of it. I neglected to mention you’ve got a white shirt here. Get it hung up quickly, and you won’t have to iron it.”

“I’ll be right back,” Mark said. He returned with a set of tongs from the fireplace.

“Really,” the dryer said.

Mark retrieved the rest of his clothing.

“You’ll have to wash it again. You didn’t clean the soot off your tongs.”

Mark grabbed his laundry and fled.

“Simple boy,” the dryer said. “Just like the other.”

“Will he be . . . will he be our friend?” the washer asked.

Lights on the dryer’s panel glowed amber. “Only if you don’t go off-balance. I just lose it when you’ve got an unbalanced load. And your Streisand? It still needs work.”

Framderick, or I Am Both Proud and Ashamed of What I Have Done

Writing prompt for 9/7/2016

One hundred years after the great war, people still sing the song of Framderick the undying, the great labradoodle who lead the people of Klof to victory over the rat armies of Kenputeris. Well, everyone wants YOU, poor traveling bard, to sing it for them. You hate this song SO MUCH, but it's your bread and butter, and you're almost ten minutes into your set. ...aaaannnd, there's the request. 

“Of course. Of course they want Framderick. What group of mud-streaked, smelly peasants does NOT want Framderick?” Patrick thought. “There is not enough wine in this inn to convince me to sing it. There is not enough wine in the KINGDOM. But, alas . . .”

Patrick strummed his lute. As the familiar chords shrivered his spine, the crowd shouted until debris and a few cats fell out of the overhanging thatch. He strummed a bit longer and watched as mothers of young children, aghast, pulled them from the crowd and out the door, while the men – oh, the familiar men, all old and wrinkled before their time so it was impossible to tell one of thirty from one of seventy – pushed to the fore, leering and elbowing each other in the ribs.

Patrick began to sing.

The floods of spring came early,

That dark and loathsome year.

The Klof bore mud and branches

Bringing yon Kenputeris near.

The rain, clouds shed, the mountains fled

The villagers soaked their hats

When on the mats of floating wood

Came Mount Kenputeris’ fearful rats!

Framderick! Framderick! To you the nation calls!

Horribly, Patrick could see the crowd getting ready. Swelling to a man, filling their lungs with air, sucking in the stinking fug of the inn, ready to belch out their contribution. He scanned the room for sympathizers – and saw them. A pack of frowning women, arms folded sternly across their breasts. They would help. By the steely looks in their eyes, they would help. Frantically, he tried to remember the order – and then sang, without missing a note:

Framderick! Framderick! While the kings’ men lick

THE WALLS!

He breathed a sigh of relief. Though the men poked each other, laughing terribly at their wit, Patrick and the women knew they’d won. Putting the heavier strings on his lute had helped, Patrick thought. They make a heavier sound.

But the battle was not over yet. Some of the men jeered at him as the sound of what had won penetrated the alcohol. Others turned to their women-folk and half-heartedly barked at them to leave.

Patrick continued:

The rats were black and ravenous,

They ate crop and home

Then they ate the fish of the River Klop,

Spreading blood among the foam.

The kings’ men came a-hunting,

With sword and pike and spear

But they all got drunk and with a hunk

The rats bit them in the rear!

The men, Patrick knew, were ready this time. Fewer had sung the refrain, sucking in what air was left in the room, swelling for the chorus:

Framderick! Framderick! To you the nation calls!

Framderick! Framderick! While the kings’ men lick

COW STALLS!

Oh, the men shrieked at their misfortune as they knew once again they had lost the battle, while the weaker ones passed out from the exertion of shouting. A few began to throw bits of fallen thatch and empty mugs at Patrick, but the innkeeper came with more beer, clinking the change the women had collected.

“Come on, bard, sing it right! Sing it right or we’ll toss you in the well!”

The shouter looked capable of performing that feat. Built like a brick outhouse, but swaying slightly out of tune with the music. If Patrick were lucky, he’d be on the floor before the next chorus. And he knew even though he and the bulwark of women fought common cause, they would not intervene, having enough to handle when their drunk husbands and fathers began to sober.

But the pups of the famed Framderick

Framderick, Whelper of a Thousand Pups!

They caught the rats and chewed them up

As Framderick birthed a dozen more!

The doodles then chased the kings’ men

Out of the village, out of the fen

Leaving a trail of reddened pats

Stained in the blood of a thousand rats!

Framderick! Framderick! To you the nation calls!

Framderick! Framderick! While the kings’ men lick

SEAGULLS!

Tin plates sailed through the air as the crowd vomited displeasure and warm beer. The women in the back of the room, arms still folded, smiled smugly, and shouted at Patrick to stop. But they made no move when the men churlishly turned their backs on them and urged Patrick to continue. The rhythm of the song led him to the final verse.

When at last the food was gone,

The rats stole in to the babies’ cribs

But the pups of famed Framderick

Crushed the rats’ curved ribs.

Then the plague set in, with terrible din

The women of the Klop did pray

But the pups of famed Framderick

Remained in the terrible fray.

Framderick! Framderick! To you the nation calls!

Framderick! Framderick! While the kings’ men lick

KINGS’ HALLS!

Oh, with the howling, Patrick thought the plague had returned, as lamentations threatened to lift the thatch clear off the rafters. Men were smashing chairs into the floor and climbing on tables, rending their clothes and dancing naked, filling their mouths with beer and spraying it at the women and at Patrick. But for every one man able to climb on the table and sloppily spit half a mouthful of beer in the direction of their tormenters, there were five stumbling about, knocking those more sober off the tables, upsetting tables, smashing chairs over their compatriots’ heads until the sheriff burst into the inn with six armed deputies, all bellowing for calm.

“You! Minstrel!” the sheriff yelled. “What doggerel stirs these fine folk to such debauchery?” The sheriff, who gutted a man only last week for urinating in the street in full view of the priest, rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.

“Balls.”

One word from a weak voice at the bottom of a pile of drunken men, and the room was in pandemonium once more.