Gwynnbot
Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:34 pmBored Gwynn is bored. Since tomorrow is the 29th of February, and therefore an odd, magical sort of day, Gwynn has asked me to open the door in my head and invite communication. You can talk to him, get to other people via him, fight him, feed him cake, etc. He might be very much the guy he is in TEC, or he might be rather different, since the character in the book was basically a role played by the character in my head. He knows everything I do, but his opinions aren’t always the same as mine. If you ask him about things I don’t know, he might ask for more information or might give an instinctive response.
You can physically engage with him. His reactions might be not what an ordinary person’s would be. After all, he’s an astral entity. Text input can be as full or as perfunctory as you like, e.g. “I try to examine the sword” and “examine sword” would both work. If you don’t want to write conversation, general topics can be initiated with “talk about” or “ask about”, e.g. “talk about weather”, “ask about bananas”. You can assume that you know each other, or that you don’t; you can be yourself, or someone else. It’s entirely up to you. He really just wants to throw a door open and see if anything walks through.
You can also examine the room and venture outside. What’s out there might always be the same, or it might not.
The situation:
Caught between trains with a long wait, you step off the platform and enter the station cafeteria. A large, crowded room meets your eyes. Hot afternoon sun breaks through mullioned windows facing the platform and the station garden. Although the town is in the middle of nowhere, the station is a handsome brick building with iron lace verandas and a tall clocktower. The cafeteria boasts an elaborate cornice and a pressed tin ceiling. Advertising posters cover the walls above a dado rail. A long glass counter contains sandwiches and commercial-looking cakes. The tables are full of passengers waiting for trains onward. You can see a free seat by a window looking onto the garden. The other person at the small table is a man in a black hat, with long black hair, drinking tea and smoking a cigarette. A sword is propped against the dado, its hilt partly obscuring a sign advertising Pemberton’s Cola. The man’s gaze roams the room slowly in a manner suggesting habitual vigilance joined to idle curiosity.
(ok, if anyone wants to play, go ahead! If this works and people have fun I might try it with other characters and critters.)
February 28th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
(Game!)
I (and, for the time being, I am myself: young woman, tall, dark-haired) approach the man, lean against the spare chair — which is made of wood and metal, and is warm to touch — and say, “I saw an allocamelus outside, through the window of the train as it slowed into the station. The creature was smoking a cigarette just like yours.”
February 29th, 2008 at 4:11 am
I’m game
My avitar for this little romp is a 6ft male in an overcoat and flat cap.
I approach and stand slightly to the left of the male and ask what his opinion of the tea is.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Alankria - He rises slightly and lifts his hat. “An allocamelus, smoking Sobranie Cocktails?” A look of puzzled amusement registers in his eyes as he glances at the pastel pink cigarette he holds between his index and middle fingers. “I’m astonished. I’ve never encountered one that would smoke anything but maduro cigars. Was this beast en solo or with company?”
Colin - He pushes up the brim of his hat to get a better look at you. “Much appeal for a connoisseur of ordinariness, little for a connoisseur of tea.” He then asks your opinion of ordinariness.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:38 am
I reach into my coat pocket and pull out a blank sheet of paper and say “It’s like this sheet of paper, almost endless possablity”
then i follow up with this question
“Is rock music ruining the minds of children?”
February 29th, 2008 at 6:06 am
“Endless posability?” Your spelling error seems to have given him a serendipitous thought. “May I have that paper a moment?”
On a slightly parallel track, he muses on your question. “It does,” he says at last, “encourage a preference for energetic simplicity. It awakens animal appetites –” here he grins ferally — “and casts a certain shade over the growing shoots of patience. But no kind of music, in itself, has ever ruined anyone’s mind. And since it can be played effectively without a great deal of training, it provides a broad and direct avenue for many young people to approach the condition of music.” He emphasises the last words with a wave of his cigarette. “Do you think it has had a ruinous effect on your mind?”
February 29th, 2008 at 6:20 am
“Quite the opposite, it has lead me to look for more information and demand answers. Now I want to know what you plan is with that sheet of paper?”
I then reach into my pocket and present a a black ball point pen to him. and say “How are you now going to limit the paper’s possibilities?”
February 29th, 2008 at 6:38 am
“Not with that,” he says. He crushes the cigarette out. Moving the ashtray and his cup to clear a space on the table in front of him, he places the paper there and studies it for a few moments, his expression lost in thought as his eyes roam over it — tracing invisible lines, it seems to you. Then he starts folding it. When he is finished, an origami sphinx sits on the table. “Voila!” he exclaims. “Now, I am going to destroy her in a moment, so if there is anything you wish to say to her, say it quickly.”
February 29th, 2008 at 6:41 am
“So long and thanks for all the shoes”
February 29th, 2008 at 6:48 am
I then pull a zippo lighter from my pocket and then apply the flame to the paper and say this
“one wiht the wind and earth as smoke and ash. Free to be everything, able to be nothing. useless to all”
February 29th, 2008 at 7:12 am
He grabs the folded paper and blows out the fire in a few quick puffs. “That wasn’t,” he states testily, “my plan.” The moderately homicidal glare he gives you for just a moment there changes to another rapid dawning of serendipitous discovery as he unfolds the paper. He nods to you, acknowledging something that he evidently sees no need to express in words. He asks you:
“What would you say this paper was originally linked to?”
February 29th, 2008 at 7:19 am
“A man’s desire. We could boil it right back from my point of purchase, or to when it was cut down to be pulped. It all stems from desire. I desired the paper the person who sold it desired money. the person who made it wanted money thae man who cut it down wanted a lunch break.”
February 29th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Games, a way to achieve the incredible and absolutely nothing in the same actions
I’d like to join in the festivities on this magic day.
I’ll be a tall and quietly dressed young man
Quietly walking up to the small gathering
“That was quite a display, gentlemen but please remember that the tree also desired to live” gesturing to the gentleman sitting at the table “following that though what is it you desire?”
February 29th, 2008 at 7:55 am
(It’s like an IF game! Yay!)
I join the growing party at the table holding a sleeping armadillo swaddled in brocade cloth. I place it on the table and wait expectantly.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:26 am
The paper is covered in a web of brown-black lines where the smoke darkened the folds. There are, additionally, holes burnt all over the paper. It looks like a map created by fire.
Colin - “There was a play, performed some years ago in Albion,” he says, entertaining a recollection. “It was called Maps of Desire, and it was performed by the Wonderful Beast theatre company. It was set in literary Paris and had 17th century fairy tales and their writers for its matter. I remember I had a delightful evening…”
For an interval of a few moments he seems to drift. He pulls himself back from wherever his mind was going, and points to a large irregular hole in the centre of the paper.
“What does that signify to you, then?”
Eric - your quiet manner and direct question seem to elicit a similar unshowy frankness from the man at the table. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” he replies to your question. “I desire excitement, but equally, of late, I seem to desire the quietude of ordinary life, the better to appreciate certain subtleties that an adventurous existence wipes out in floods and fireworks. Let me return the question in reverse. What desires you?“
February 29th, 2008 at 8:35 am
“It signifies the selfish actions people will take to stop others. I will use you as the example. You said you were going to distroy my paper. now I found that a paper Spinx was an excellent thing to make from a single sheet. But on that note I was not going to allow you to ruin my paper, I had no problem doing it because it is still mine to do with as i wish.”
February 29th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Laurie - he nods towards you and touches the brim of his hat. The armadillo elicits an expression of interest as he studies its sleeping form. His eyes take in the brocade cloth, which he fingers thoughtfully, and carefully, so as not to wake the armadillo. He peers into its little face, eyes widening with a candid and puzzled curiosity that looks a little odd coming from within the umbrageous shadow of the black hat. “Is it,” he asks you eventually, “an armadillo of noble blood?”
February 29th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Colin - In mild tones he asks:
“Did I actually say I was going to destroy the paper?”
February 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am
“No you did not. But as I said before, I valued my satisfaction more then i value yours.”
February 29th, 2008 at 9:02 am
“you granted the form of Sphinx to my paper any action after that distroys the paper because the paper will have the fold lines that once made it a shinx and it would mourn the loss of that shape. My action distroys the shape but as smoke and ash it would gain a grander shape, because it would become everything and yet nothing.”
February 29th, 2008 at 9:10 am
He gives a short, affably evil laugh. “Then we understand each other. So, what would it satisfy you to do now?”
You receive the impression that your words have stirred a lightly sleeping propensity for violence into a half awake state.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:13 am
“To get some potato cakes. Want one?”
February 29th, 2008 at 9:21 am
“Also to be out of the reach of your blade for a few moments”
February 29th, 2008 at 9:28 am
“I must say that is an intersting question and I can say that many desire me for many reasons, some from lust and drunken behaviours others for the convenience an extra number will bring to their cause and a few just for my company and conversation. Although I must say that these are all ‘whos’ that desire me not a ‘what’ that has desires for me”
February 29th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Colin -
“Thank you, no.”
He is still smiling, but the emergent flame has cooled. He looks indulgently at the armadillo and lights another pastel-coloured cigarette.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:37 am
“Perhaps the only ‘what’s’ that have desire are the inanimate tools and objects we surround ourselves with, like the coat rack or the chair these objects desire use because without purpose they would not need to exist, except to the artist who’s whims dictate new purpose and desires on that which he creates on and with”
February 29th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Eric -
“Yes…the teleology of so many things. I wonder if it has occurred to your scientists to apply the maxim that nature abhors a vacuum to the origins of what you call the universe? There is a tendency to regard origin as a purely positive eruption. If negativity exists, it’s entirely passive. But what if there were a pulling force instead of — or as well as — a pushing one? Something along the lines of gravity, pulling spatially and temporally: a desiring force? One might call it fate…”
February 29th, 2008 at 10:54 am
“One could call it a number of things and people have done so for a very long time, such as the acts of transcendental beings or explosions at the very beginning of time. There are theories that positive and negative exist as a balance against one another in the same way that darkness defines the light. That you cannot have one without the other but perhaps it is possible to have one without the other. With the assorted potions, lotions and pills one could substitute these for the benefits the light provided on the condition the individual’s needs of food and water were met one could live an entire life in the dark.”
February 29th, 2008 at 11:01 am
“Oh yes, an armadillo of very noble blood. It’s a prince - or maybe a princess, I’m not sure how to tell - of an armadillo kingdom, and it leads armies into war with a little sword fashioned from the quill of a porcupine. I discovered it in a nasty scrape, and saved it’s life in exchange for promises of vast stores of armadillo wealth.
…
…actually, I have no idea. I just have a general policy of bringing an armadillo to the conversation whenever possible.”
February 29th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Eric - Your mention of potions, lotions and pills obviously engages his interest. “One would be an eternal sleeper, then. Living as if in a dream. Or as if unborn. Do you have an interest in such artificially illuminated states, sir?”
February 29th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Laurie - He seems to be searching his mind for something. “I remember,” he says slowly, tapping a finger on a front tooth, “a council of state where every member attending had to bring a rabbit. The rabbits ate lettuce. As I recall, one had to bring one’s own lettuce, dyed in different colours, each colour having a different meaning. One was obliged to interpret one’s rabbit’s choice of coloured lettuce as a message from a higher power, and vote accordingly.” Then he frowns. “Or was that something else? Perhaps I am confusing it with something that happened on another track. I now seem to recall that the rabbits were there to provide a calm, contemplative atmosphere.”
He shakes his head as if to clear it and sends a sigh after the shake. “The facts are gone. Forgive me. No doubt the matter is of little interest, in any case. Do you think your Arthurian armadillo here dreams? Of nights in armour, perhaps?”
February 29th, 2008 at 11:49 am
“While both the eternal dreamer and the unborn are both valid options I was aiming a little lower, for the ignorant, the one who knows no different raised or in this case razed in a perpetually dark box”
February 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Eric - He holds your eyes as if taking your measure. The bright light shows up fine lines on his face, leading you to revise upward any estimate you may have made of his age. He turns his head to blow smoke to the side, using the natural movement to break eye contact. “Do you believe yourself to be in the box or out of it? Or is it a case of half in, half out with you as it is with so many others?”
February 29th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Following the dancing smoke as it drifts towards the ceiling “In the darkness not seeking enlightenment just wandering and observing” with a courteous bow and a cheeky grin “You’ve managed to spend the day without answering the my first question what are your desires, so perhaps a small hope for you. ‘May your true desire grow wings and follow you where ever you go’ Ladies, Gentlemen, Armadillo I bid you all a good day”
February 29th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
“I’m guessing the rabbits had interestingly colored shit.
Probably it’s dreaming of nights in armor… or days in armor… probably it’s always dreaming in armor, unless it has a tendency toward anxiety dreams. Or, possibly, it’s dreaming of being a silver soccer ball.”
February 29th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
The armadillo stirs, wakes up, curls in the semblance of a little bow in Eric’s direction, and then returns to sleep.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Eric - “To be chased by the thing one chases is a suitably humorous fate for a lover of comedy, I daresay. Thank you, sir, for an interesting conversation.” Gwynn inclines his head and bids you adieu.
Laurie - “Oh, yes. Like little rainbow-coloured marbles.” He winks at you.
He looks charmed when the armadillo bows. “Well, whether you’re royalty or not, someone evidently brought you up very carefully,” he murmurs to it. His manner suddenly becomes young. “I say, do you think it would like to go outside in the sun?” He glances at the garden, where a green lawn surrounds what is, for the small space, a rather grandiose experiment in planting, consisting of tall plumed grass surrounded by gladioli and tulips in a circular bed.
(He can peel off layers of himself, so that one self can remain in the cafeteria while others go elsewhere)
February 29th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
“So my friend how old is that sword of yours? I don’t need to question your skill. Only a person with great confidence in their own ablity would leave their blade off their hip.”
February 29th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
“Maybe it would like to set up temporary court out there.”
I take the armadillo outside and set it down before the flowers. It wakes up again and looks around with a somewhat disgruntled air before curling into a ball and rolling deep into the stems. The rustling is the only indication of its position.
“Or, it might just like to roll around aimlessly.”
February 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Colin - “Or a person who is reasonably certain that no assassins are currently pursuing him, and who wants to relax in the sun without encumbrance, perhaps? But to answer your question, the blade is new. Swords do not exactly improve with age and use, and this one recently required what you would call an upgrade. The hilt is of some antiquity, although I can’t tell you its exact age, as the inlay pattern is very traditional and I’m not expert enough to date the ivory itself. You may look at it, if you’re interested.”
February 29th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Laurie - Gwynn follows you outside. You see a ghostly image of him remaining at the table.
Once outdoors, you find that his appearance has changed. The black hat has become a blue velvet one, his waistcoat is now paisley and hangs open, and he is wearing round blue sunglasses. A string of tasteful wooden beads completes the Haight-Ashbury image. He cheerfully gets down on his knees and looks for the armadillo amongst the flowers. He starts crooning softly to it in a language that sounds like a cross between Russian and Welsh, trying to entice it out.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
The armadillo evades Gwynn for a short while before emerging, nosing a small green glass beer bottle out before it. Inside the bottle are two paperclips and a rolled up piece of yellowed notebook paper. It stands there as if waiting patiently.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Gwynn pets the armadillo on its head and shakes the paper and paperclips out of the bottle. He unrolls the paper to see if there is anything written on it, holding it so that you both can see it.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
The paper reads:
“To the thistle-born orphan(s) who locate this bottle, I leave the keys and the deed to my kingdom, which consists of the cavern beneath the flowerbed, the tunnels beneath the train tracks, and the basement of beldam Crux across the street from the abandoned Denny’s lot down the street from the station. You will find the keys enclosed herein, and they shall serve as proof of your rightful ownership, for the deed is hidden such that it will never be found, and indeed no attempt to do so should be made if this good reader values his life and limb. It is, by the way, hidden with an awful lot of treasure, and doesn’t that sound ever so tempting?
– J. Ratley Moleface, Esq.”
February 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
(LMAO! And freak out just a little, as I’m currently, at Jeff V’s prompting, writing a story about a giant mouse man.)
Gwynn laughs. Actually throws back his head and laughs, a very unusual thing for him, as he considers it a lazily overused action, but he can’t seem to help it just now. (He does laugh quite quietly, however, so as not to frighten the armadillo.) His pale cheeks undergo a slight change towards pink as he attempts to put a seemly face on his mirth. Controlling himself at last, he kneels before the armadillo, showing it the paper on the chance that it is a child prodigy and can read. He says:
“Your emergent majesty, it appears you are shortly to experience the phenomenon known as a happy ending — or rather, in your case, since you are young, a happy beginning.” Holding the paperclips in front of its beady little eyes, he says:
“These are the keys to your kingdom — or will be, I think, with a little forceful persuasion. I hope you will remember with kind favour those who are about to help you claim your birthright.”
He picks up the armadillo and hands it to you, grimacing a little at the dirty paw prints it leaves on his shirt. He brushes ineffectually at the marks, then shrugs as if it doesn’t matter that much at present.
“Well, madam, I am neither thistle-born nor an orphan. Do you claim that status, or is our little chivalric friend the sole inheritor of this underground realm?”
February 29th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I look away from the window, through which I’ve been watching the exploits of the other Gwynn in the garden while thinking back to the allocamelus briefly glimpsed, and say, “The allocamelus seemed to be in conversation, from the incline of its head that suggested listening to something shorter than itself, and the occasional shake of its shoulder that suggested laughter. But I could not see anything. Perhaps it was one of those creatures that can only be seen through a particular shade of sunglasses. My full set is packed in my bags–” and I gesture in the rough direction of the left luggage room “–so I could not find out in time.”
I add, “And I say ‘it’ in reference to the beast, only because it was too far away for me to determine which of the many genders it might have been.”
February 29th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
He makes an interested hmm-ing sound. “From your mention of this set of sunglasses, may I take it that you are occupied in the study of creatures that elude ordinary observation?”
Perhaps his eyes flicker towards the paper that was originally linked to desire — or perhaps he is just looking at the full ashtray and wondering when the waitress will come and deal with it.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
“I grew up with the world’s unusual creatures as common to me as a pigeon or a flea are to most other folk, and so I struggled with the concept that there might be nothing strange for me, that everything would be ordinary. I longed to be awed, as all the other children were when they visited my father’s bestiary.
There was a stranger (mysterious, of course). Particularly so, because parts of his body appeared invisible to me. I gaped. I had not even known was gaping felt like before that day: a straining of my jaw, a widening of my eyes, a racing of my heart, and an overwhelming sensation of joy. ‘Tell me,’ I pleaded with him, ‘where is the rest of you? You look human enough, so you probably require those parts (a chunk of your head, a smooth hemisphere from your abdomem, others) for living. Are they invisible?’
He smiled (a peculiar smile, with half of his lips invisible) and handed me a pair of yellow-tinted sunglasses. I took them, confused. Before I could ask what they were, he had gone.
Well I tried them on, of course.
And I’m sure you can imagine what I saw, as you look like a gentleman with knowledge of life’s more… interesting… aspects…”
February 29th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
He seems to be measuring his words carefully as he replies. “It’s true I seem to lead a life of privilege as far as marvellous content is concerned. The longing to be awed is something I understand. There is a certain nourishment in being properly wonderstruck, or stirred by something supremely…well…hyperbolous. You know, I should like to see your allocamelus — and, if possible, its companion. I think we could manage to find it, if, for instance…” He directs your attention to the burnt paper. “Can you see any area on this map of desire that suggests an allocamelus to you?”
February 29th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I stare at the paper, frowning faintly.
“That burnt patch,” I say, pointing. “That hole, lined on all sides with dark. Like a cage — and an allocamelus seems to always find its way into a bestiary’s cage, one way or another. But an open space, because an allocamelus seems to always have a look on its face, something sly and intelligent that tells you it knows the way out and it only stays in the cage because it wishes to.”
March 1st, 2008 at 5:20 am
“That’s probably a sufficient correspondence,” he says, stroking his jaw thoughtfully. He looks up. “Right, shall we fetch your glasses?”
You notice that his appearance has undergone a few minor changes. His shoulders and wrists seem thinner; his green eyes look rounder, his features, which were already beaky, a shade moreso. The shift could be described as being towards a scholarly archetype.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:21 am
(Hah! Don’t even get me started on the weird coincidence yesterday regarding keys and doors…)
“I’m not quite sure what counts as ‘thistle-born’, but I’m sure I’m not an orphan, so I guess that leaves him. Or her. Or whatever it is. I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t belong in an underground kingdom anyway.
Shall we make it a little necklace of the paperclips? Presuming that they are, in fact, the ‘keys’…”
March 1st, 2008 at 5:37 am
(More oddness, my comments detector now thinks you’re Alankria.)
He steps back, looking down his nose at the thistle-born one, as if considering how it might look in a paperclip necklace.
“Hmm, yes, why not? Do you have anything to hang them on?”
March 1st, 2008 at 5:48 am
(Oh noes, our terrible cloning secret has been discovered!)
I search in my pockets (which have access to hammer space, naturally) and come up with a length of chain from a discarded necklace, with a toggle clasp.
“This should work!”
March 1st, 2008 at 6:07 am
He threads the chain through the paperclips and you fasten it behind the armadillo’s neck.
“Very regal,” he says. “Now, to find the door…” He looks around. “It sounds as if the entrance is in the basement of this beldam Crux…unless there’s a door somewhere under the flowerbed…but I doubt we could dig around without drawing attention to ourselves, unless we posed as municipal workers…which would mean overalls and orange vests…” He shudders and pales visibly. “To chez Crux, then?”
(off to tai chi, back in a couple of hours)
March 1st, 2008 at 10:50 am
The armadillo noses Gwynn’s foot as if to get his attention. It proceeds to waddle off a few feet, and then turns around as if waiting for us to follow.
“It seems to know where it’s going, at least…”
March 1st, 2008 at 11:26 am
He shrugs and follows the armadillo, walking slowly to keep pace with its short-legged waddle. His sword now appears on his left hip, hanging off a leather belt.
The armadillo leads you out of the garden to the street behind the station. You can see a small town with weatherboard houses; a dry road covered in pale gravel, lined with eucalypts and peppercorns. The bright sun glares off tin roofs and bull-nosed verandas. Geraniums poke through rusty chain-link fences. A magpie takes off from a watertank and flaps off into a sky like the inside of the lid of a tin of blue paint. You can see low hazy hills rising beyond the town. A mine battery sounds like a drum in the distance and a gramophone is playing Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” in one of the houses in the street. Other than that, it’s quiet.
Gwynn sighs contentedly. “Ordinariness,” he says in a tone of praise for the surroundings, his face creasing in a smile as he looks through his blue hippie glasses at the armadillo, which still seems confident of its way. Making small talk, he says:
“So, did Aidan see Adric’s giant pink robot?”
March 1st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
“Hah!”
Coming up on the right side is a building literally covered in lightbulbs of various colors, along with some neon tubing here and there curled into random, meaningless shapes, and Christmas lights draped from the roof into the surrounding trees. It looks as though it possibly might have been a Denny’s once, but at this point it’s rather hard to tell. It’s very garish against the homey surroundings; if the sun wasn’t out it might be blinding.
I’m distracted by it for a moment before I finish my sentence. “Let’s just say that Adric isn’t likely to forget the pink robot anytime soon.”
March 1st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
He chuckles - not entirely without sympathy for Adric’s discomfiture. The dilapidated neon chaos of the Denny’s draws his eye, and he pushes his glasses down to have an unfiltered view of it. However, the armadillo is crossing the street, aiming for a little wooden house opposite.
Apricot-coloured smoke rises from a crooked metal chimney that rises from a gambrel roof that sags like an old sofa. The front garden is full of herbs, jimsonweed and marijuana. An enormous, ithyphallic, faded red plastic statue of Satan stands amongst the foliage, obscuring the front door. A little path leads around the statue.
The armadillo waits at the low iron gate, poking its nose between the bars.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
“Oh look,” I say to Gwynn, pointing at the plastic statue, “your sort must be welcome here.”
I try the gate, but it’s locked. I look around and find a tarnished, dented bronze bell just inside the gate, within reach. I ring it vigorously; the sound is off-key and somewhat painful to the ears.
A few moments later there is the sound of a door opening and slamming, and a soft muttering trickles our way out of which only a few words here and there can be discerned - something about a “barmy old quack” and “those thrice-damned lights.”
Suddenly a diminutive old woman in a violently purple dress stomps into view. She pulls up short at the sight of us, as if we are not who she was expecting.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
At your remark about “his sort”, Gwynn looks about to make a retort, but thinks better of it. He stands rather ostentatiously admiring the dope plants while you ring the bell.
When the old woman appears, he immediately removes his hat and bows, though it seems to you that he is hanging back just slightly, as if he doesn’t want to stand too close to her, and he swiftly replaces his shady hat. The armadillo also gives a little bow, and pokes its nose into her purple skirts.
She turns a piercing look on Gwynn. “You don’t have to stand there like you’re in a corner wearing a lamp shade at a party. I know you too damn well!” She looks at you with equal severity. “And who the hell might you be, and what’s the meaning of you bringing this primordial rodent here to my house?”
Her eyes are pale blue. Her face looks like something out of the deep ocean, with a pronounced Habsburg jaw. She smells of patchouli and bourbon.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:21 pm
“Excuse us, ma’am, but it would seem this rodent - er - are armadillos rodents? - has somehow inherited your basement. Supposedly those paperclips he’s wearing are proof.”
I offer her the little yellowed slip of paper by way of explanation.
“I’m just along for the ride, really,” I say, shrinking a little under the force of her glare.
March 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Muttering imprecations under her breath, she reads the note. “Codswa - ” she begins to say, but pulls up at the part about the treasure.
Gwynn takes a step forward to stand squarely beside you. “Madam,” he addresses beldam Crux, “the armadillo is not a rodent. It is, however, a thistle-born orphan, by dint of which it seems to have certain extraordinary rights in these parts. Were you aware of your basement being, in fact, the property of this J. Ratley Moleface?”
She gives him an incredulous look, followed by a loud, long snort. “What the hell do you care?” She turns to you and says:
“Listen, child, as one woman to another, if you think he’s helping you out of the goodness of his heart, you’d do well to think again. Has it occurred to you that he just might want the treasure?”
Gwynn looks heavenward as she speaks, shaking his head and muttering about misunderstandings and people with unreasonably long memories.
The armadillo, meanwhile, has poked its head between the bars of the gate and is chewing on something in the garden.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
“Oh, I wouldn’t presume to think otherwise, ma’am,” I say with a grin. However, she has turned her attention back to heckling at Gwynn, and I don’t think she’s heard me.
I glance down at the armadillo, which has started to glow with a faint pink nimbus, and seems to be vibrating slightly.
“Um,” I venture, pointing.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Gwynn’s sighing complaint about a conspiracy of women is drowned out by a cry of “Oh, shit!” from beldam Crux, which is swiftly followed by a peal of cackling laughter. “Oh, well, there won’t be any heirs to your kingdom,” she exclaims, scooping the armadillo up in her arms.
To your questioning looks, she replies, “It just ate gaywort. Your prince or princess is now a fairy or a sapphist…Aren’t you, yes?” she says to the armadillo, making clucking noises.
“But that doesn’t affect its claim to the underground realm,” Gwynn says, darting a wary glance in the direction of the gaywort. “There’s nothing about sexual orientation in the note.”
The pink glowing armadillo seems to be having a soothing effect on beldam Crux.
“Listen,” she says, “I don’t really use my basement. I used to hear the mole people down there, but it’s been quiet for a long time. Be that as it may, I’m not going to just let you walk in and take it in the name of an armadillo - of any sexual persuasion or none. You’ve gotta do something for me in return. Tit for tat. So I want you to go and get my watering can back off of Nanny Slunderpuss. She borrowed it many years ago and claims she’s lost it, but I know she kept it for herself. So you two kids can go get my watering can, or you can go to hell and take your armadillo with you.”
She thrusts the armadillo back into your arms and jerks her thumb up the road back towards the way you came.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:09 am
(continued - just noticed this post was here - also HAH. ‘Gaywort’. XD)
“O… kay,” I say uncertainly, stepping back from the gate. “Do we know where this Nanny Slunderpuss is? It’s not the building with all the lights, is it?”
Discreetly I take the stem still hanging from the armadillo’s mouth and slip it in my pocket. Stuff seems dead useful.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:09 am
(er - oops - meant to post this in the other post, obviously, I’ll just copy it.)