Archive | September 26, 2016

You’ll never know the murderer sitting next to you….

Sep26

Speculative ficlet of Boom, pre-apocalypse. Not even the ficlet I meant to write.

“Hey, you. Are you still alive?”

Feccrick came to conciousness slowly. There was a redheaded woman leaning over him, seemingly unbothered by the raw gaping sword wound across his chest.

“Alive?” Better to feign fogginess. “Yeah, what…?”

“What’s your name?”

“Fred. Fred Kirk.”

“Good, good.” She stood up, talking into her shoulder radio. He couldn’t make out any of the words, but he thought he heard his name.

Shoulder radio… a cop. Jeans and a jacket – detective? Feccrick tried to shake himself awake while trying to look as vague and uncertain as possible.

“All right, Fred. What happened here?”

“Some guy. Some…” Mara type, hero complex, swinging his sword around… “Freak with a sword. Came in and started plowing through everyone.”

“Why did he leave you alive?”

Alive? The rest were… Feccrick looked around: blood, and body parts, and a broken machete.

“Shit. shit, shit, they’re all dead?” Panic seemed like a good idea. He didn’t even have to fake it. “All of them?”

“Why’d he let you live?” she repeated.

“Shit, I don’t know, I…” Some words came back. You’re not to blame. You’re not like them. The man had sounded sincere. “…I think he maybe thought I was a good guy. Which I am, I mean…” The guy had clearly been a nutjob.

“Thank you.” This time, he heard the Words. They started with Abatu Intinn…

He didn’t have time to panic before he was gone.

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Autumn is Here, and a weekend of weekend-ness

Sep26

Autumn is here, in fact as well as in name.

I can tell not only because my apples are coming ripe and the grapes in my hedgerow are sweet and full, not only because every store is selling pumpkins and my dash is full of Hallowe’en, but because between Thursday and Friday the temperatures dropped precipitously.

Both highs and lows are 10-20 degrees F lower than they were at the beginning of last week – from low 80s and low 50s (28°C/12°C or so) to low 70s-> mid 60’s down to mid-40s at night(18°C-4°C or so). It came on literally overnight, and here I am, hoping the chimney sweep and the furnace check-up guy get here soon. Brrr!

In the meantime, we’ve been chopping brush to burn, hauling firewood into the house, moving firewood around the garage… cleaning the garage so we have room for the firewood (that’s mostly T)…and pulling the gutters down on the short front of the house.

(Our house has two sections: a one-story section that houses the kitchen & utility room (and dreaded foyer) and a two-story section with the rest of the house.)

The gutter was… interesting. When we pulled down the rotted board BEHIND the gutter, we found about a jillion dead wasps nests, some dead wasps… and a skeleton mouse. Yay nature~

Autumn is here, ‘though the leaves haven’t started to change yet. Home repairs are going into overdrive in anticipation of the cold that’s coming, and the cats are growing an extra coat of fur for the winter. “Winter is coming,” Oli insists, as he devours an extra helping of food.

“Winter is coming,” I agree, and stack some more firewood.

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