Tag Archive | giraffecall: april2013

B is for Beryl and her Boys, a story of the Aunt Family for the A-Zed Giraffe Call

Apr15

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt.

Aunt Family has a landing page here

After Sister Help.

My Giraffe Call is open! Leave an alphabetical prompt!
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As much as it galled Beryl to admit it, Chalcedony was right.

Getting out – going to the mall, first, with Chalce and Stone and Jake, and then to miniature golf a few days later, and then to the park for a Moose Lodge picnic the next weekend – made her feel better than she’d felt since Aunt Asta had died.

Getting out with her brother and sister was pretty cool; Chalce wasn’t a bad sort, for a big sister, and Stone was pretty awesome, especially for a guy in their family. But getting out with Jake felt better than anything, which was just about like being in Heaven. Getting out with Jake was awesome in ways Beryl had never before felt.

And, just for good measure, hanging out and acting like herself again ticked off her cat and her necklace.

Radar spent most evenings glaring at her. Joseph – well, she felt bad leaving him in the drawer all the time, so she’d started wearing him on Mondays. The first time she’d put him back on, he’d spent a full thirty minutes berating her.

She’d gone into the bathroom and carefully explained to him that if he did not shut up, she was going to flush him down the toilet and let the alligators have him.

After that, he kept his complaining to a sort of dull roar, which, in turn meant that Beryl could listen to Jake and her friends.

And the other boys – now that was a revelation. The more she talked to Jake, the more other boys started to talk to her. Beryl wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Until Radar grumbled to her one evening: “I hope a cute set of eyes, or whatever this latest one has, is worth giving up your legacy.”

Then Beryl knew exactly what to do.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/510365.html. You can comment here or there.

A is for Alpha

Apr15

For an Anonymous prompt: A is for Alpha

My Giraffe Call is open! Leave an alphabetical prompt!
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It all began with the first of us, called, as was appropriate and due, the Alpha.

I never knew what other name the Alpha might have held, before this place, before Everything Else. But sometimes we called her Anna, or Angie, when we were being informal.

There were not all that many minutes in which we were being informal, truth be told. The formality was something to lean upon, something to prop us up. And we needed all the props we could get, then.

But I was saying. Alpha came first. That much I was told: Alpha, and then Beta, of course, who we called Bill in those rare informal moments, and then Gamma (Gail) and then me. Delta, fourth-arrived, fourth-in-line, and sometimes Dean.

“It was more relaxed, when it was just the two of us.” I never knew if Beta was complaining or explaining when he said that. I did know that, as we went from the four of us to the whole alphabet, twenty-four of us with Omega playing last-in-line, everything got more and more formalized.

Our sanctuary was none too large – a half-sunk building in what had once been a park, surrounded by the wildlife and the monsters – and twenty-four people filled it to capacity and stretched our food supplies even more than it stretched our space. “We’ll stop there,” Alpha said. “One for every letter. It only seems fair.”

We all knew it wasn’t really going to work that way – well, I can’t speak for the first three, but I knew it, and Theta and Iota knew it, and they were the ones I spent the most time talking to. But Alpha, Beta, and Gamma seemed insistent on sticking to it. They even sent away the first two or three people to show up after that.

That’s when the rumbling began – no. That’s when the rumbling got audible. I think the rumbling had begun the minute Alpha said “I was here first, and I’m in charge.”

But now our alphabet starts at Delta, and we’re building a new wing onto the building, and we’ve started giving people Arabic letters.

There can’t be that many survivors left in the world. We shouldn’t run out of letters again, I don’t think.

And if we do, we can start again at Alpha.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/510157.html. You can comment here or there.

Time Travel Does Not Exist.

Apr28

“And that is why time travel is impossible.”

Professor Guddenkind had earned his distinguished grey hair, his wrinkles, his old, mothball-smelling sweater, in more or less the usual manner. He had a tendency to blink owlishly at his students, as if surprised to find them still there; sometimes, rather than blinking, he simply winked.

His students filed out, two, three at a time. Miss Heruon, as she always did, took a moment to smile at him and thank him for the lesson.

Professor Guddenkind always felt as if she was a little bit disappointed by what she heard. He wished he could give her the answers she wanted.

“Ah, there.” She popped back into the room and grabbed her notebook off of her desk. “I’m sorry, Professor, I thought I left this here.” She dropped the notebook in her bag and exited again.

Professor Guddenkind watched her leave. He had thought, a few minutes before, she’d had brown hair and a red sweater, not reddish hair and a brownish sweater.

Next: The Impossible

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/521705.html. You can comment here or there.

T is for This Love

Apr28

“Daniel Guddenkind?” June stepped up to the young man with her best shy-coed smile. “I believe you dropped these.”

He looked a bit like a scarecrow. His hair was everywhere, his shirt did not fit him quite properly, and his smile was more than a little crooked. He took the sheaf of papers June handed him, completely willing to believe that he’d misplaced them.

“Thank you. I don’t believe I’ve seen you around…?”

“Jane.” She lied easily. “Jane Elizabeth Inger. I’m new to the school, and I saw your thesis talk last week.”

“Oh, that.” He flapped his hands. “It’s just…” He turned, suddenly distracted by a kerfluffle happening across the grassy university quad. He missed, and June-Jane did not, a slightly older and better-combed Daniel Guddenkind slipping three more pages of notes into the sheaf of papers.

Later-young-Daniel met Jane-June’s eyes. They both smiled. “Nineteen fourty-six.” June spat the words out before she had time to second-guess herself.

“Mmm?” Younger-Daniel turned around. “It’s nineteen-forty, miss.” He sounded as if he thought she was slightly slow.

“My mistake. It was a very nice talk.” Jane hurried back to her time machine, to nineteen forty-six.

—

Jane-June and Daniel had a brief, tumultuous, and affectionate romance, half love and half science.

And, out of half love and half science, they eventually brought forth a child. “I can’t raise her.” In 1967, June Heruon could not show up with a baby with no father, nor could she claim the actual father, when he was a tenured science professor.

“I have a childless cousin. Nessie Heruon.” Daniel, staring at their tiny daughter, did not see the expression on Jane-June’s face. “Let’s name her June.”

“June Heruon. I like it.” She tasted a strange feeling in her mouth. So this is time travel.

Next: The Impossible

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/521855.html. You can comment here or there.