Wednesday 31 July 2013

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (50): How A Victory Became Mine

I went straight out there armed with oats, sugar and milk to find the clearing as deserted as it always was upon my arrival.  I eagerly set up all the parts I had trundled along in my cart and begun to cook up the juice that I needed.

By mid-afternoon it was bubbling nicely, steam drifting out across the forests in all directions on the ever-changing winds.  It attracted nothing.  The unicorn was nowhere to be seen and nor was any other living creature.  She was still presumably trapped by her kind.  Or maybe by herself now.  I left the clearing as empty as I had found it.

My persistence in my insistence to keep trying was the main reason for this victory.  Every week I returned and did the same thing.  I got up, loaded the van, carted it all to the clearing, set up the cauldron, lit the fire and cooked up the porridge.  The lubricant to make her slide away with me. 

And always the same breeze blowing through to signal my failure, the same birdsong mocking my very presence.  The same nothingness of a non-event.  The only welcoming thing the black burned spot in the middle each week.  There to will me on and tell me everything would be okay.

I’m sure I would have gone mad, slowly growing old as I hung about for something that just wasn’t meant to be.  Instead, all of a sudden one week I heard a movement in the undergrowth - a large-ish animal rustling about in the fallen leaves.  To begin with I dismissed it as a deer or such.  I was quite worn down by this point and forgot I’d never seen a deer about or even heard or seen an animal since the unicorn had been snatched away.  Then, looking through the trees, I saw a flash of white fur followed by a silvery tail. 

After three weeks of the rustling getting closer she finally appeared at the edge of the clearing.  I dished up a bowl and took it over to her.  At the first flick of her tongue she stopped briefly at the addition before very quickly continuing and eating the rest quickly.  I gave her a second bowl before putting the rest onto the cart and wheeling it back to the van.

To begin with she got in my way, trying to make me stop and serve her.  I just nudged her aside and kept on.  Once sure I would not relent she tried to jump into the cart to eat straight from the cauldron but there was no room for her to fit in or to grip on enough to succeed.  Which was a bit of shame in a way.  She kept trying though.  I had to stop and scald her, worried that she was going to tip the whole pot over.

For the rest of the way she followed gloomily.  I was worried she would give up but the old elf was right.  I could have walked forever and she would have kept on following in the hope of receiving more.  So mesmerised was she that she didn’t seemed to notice the trees ending, didn’t see the road and couldn’t see the van for what it really was.  Rather she got excited, seeing the plod at an end as I unloaded the cauldron, and bounded up the ramp to finally feed straight from it.

All the way home I was uneasy, convinced something would go wrong and that I would open up the van to find it empty.  I strained my ears to try and hear her moving about or eating.  The engine drowned out everything for most of the way so that I was grateful for the town and its red lights.  I turned off my engine briefly to hear the unicorn scraping her heels impatiently, the porridge having run dry.

The concern was for nothing, though, as I pulled into the garage with a unicorn in the back.  I closed the front end and opened up the back end of the garage.  And then, finally, I led the unicorn into my garden and into her new home.

And that is how a victory finally became mine.

Tuesday 30 July 2013

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (49): The Elf on Great Sugar Loaf Mountain

I went to County Wicklow to escape it all.  I removed myself over the seas and into the past, to the birthplace of an ancestor of mine who left the Emerald Isle to escape the famine.  She married a man from County Cork and settled in Norwich, I think.  At least, that is where their grandson, my great-grandfather was from.

Anyway.  I stayed in Bray (watched Wanderers on the Friday) and went out driving and walking in the surrounding countryside.  It was such a massive change to walk around relatively open ground.  I could see for miles most places.  And the sky.  So much sky.  With great fluffy clouds.  Uninterrupted coverage, not a canvas bordered by trees.  Where I couldn't see for miles my view was obscured by Great Sugar Loaf Mountain.

I had decided even before I arrived that I would climb this feature of the countryside.  On an earlier trip it had captivated my imagination as I passed on the train to and from Dublin.  As well as on a trip to a local estate where I couldn't take my eyes off her.  All the beauty that estate’s owners had tried to landscape into the garden seemed like a sick parody of nature in comparison to the Wicklow Mountains' centrepiece.

On the third day I trekked around and up the slopes of the Great Sugar Loaf.  It was on those slopes I met an elder of the Mountain’s elf inhabitants.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  A tiny (two foot by my reckoning, I never saw him standing) old man with a great wiry grey and white beard that reached down to his middle was sitting on a rock looking up at me as if we had an appointment.  What I could see of his face was kindly and tanned, possibly from a lifetime of sitting on that very rock.  A stick leaned against his leg, covered in elaborate decorative carvings that I never managed a complete study of.  "Good afternoon," he bid me, in an accent that seemed to mix Scandinavia with Ireland and just as any rambler would have done.  When I did not return the greeting, but stood open mouthed, he added, "Unicorn hunter."

My jaw dropped further at that, although I did manage to find it in me to talk.  "Good afternoon to you," I replied with a nod.  And then down to business, "How..?"  I paused, unable to complete the question, still just a bit too thrown by his greeting.

It didn't need to be completed.  "My wife, a very wise and gifted lady-elf, predicted your coming some years ago.  As a child she learned to see the future in the waters of the Vale of Avoca.  She saw you and I talking.  She put an image of you in my mind so that I would know you when you came.  That you sought to trap a Unicorn she sensed.  I know not how.

"The vision seemed odd to our minds at the time as we elves have very little contact with you giants on account of your violent nature-raping and elf-squishing tendencies.  Although there have been times.  We have fought side by side with your kind as well as helping out and hindering in other ways. 

"Come now, boy, sit and let us talk.  My wife said I would be able to help you in your task, although she did not know how.  Her visions are quite silent."

And so I sat down on the ground, removing a flask of tea from my rucksack and offered the elf a cup.  He said yes, producing his own flask and a cup.  Later on I would try a most delicious sweet minted tea that tasted very much like humbugs.

He told me of the history of the Elves of Great Sugar Loaf Mountain.  The theories on how they came to be there, in Ireland, and the story of how they came to be at the Mountain itself.  Apparently the leader of the time, Olf, selected and rejected sites all over the country before finally settling on a site close to where they had first landed.

And he also told me other tales from their past, involving other key characters who had shaped their time and society living inside the Great Sugar Loaf.  He told of their fights with the indigenous elves of Lugnaquilla and how they were solved, of Morris and his trip to Iceland where he found the courage to return and end the cult of kings and decadence.  The old elf told me of how they had played tricks on and helped in equal measure both bandits and refugees in the times when the Wicklow Mountains were still remote to humans.  And of how they stole buttons from the British Army at a time when they were not.  Finally he told the adventures of his own life and how he had met, fell in love with and rescued his wife from her own elf brethren.

I learned too of their craft-bound ways, how they strived to live surrounded by beauty merged with practicality at all times.  It reminded me of that visit to the V&A; I mentally shrugged.  He spoke of the great hall where they met and ate each evening.  And of the homes they lived in, all cut into the sugar found below where we sat.

And then he asked about me.  I told him all I had told Schnizzelwort and the Merlungh, adding all that had happened since in regard to the domestication and how the attempt had ended.

"They rescued her because I got too close," I ended, looking down. 

The elf fell quiet.  After a long pause he asked thoughtfully, "Do you know why, or how, you got too close, as you put it?"

I looked at him, puzzled, "The stable, making her dependent," I answered firmly.

"Not exactly.  Your human things wore her down, you see.  They took her magic, made her incapable of escape."

"That's why she seemed lethargic and lost the appetite to wander?"

"Precisely.  It is also why she has never got into your 'van'.  It is always on the road, yes?"  I nodded, “Mostly.” 

"It is the man-made element she fears.  Get her above the road and she will be powerless and yours."

"But how?"

"The one thing you have never tried and yet would have been obvious to so many.  Sugar."

Now, given where we were and all, I thought the aged elf was having me on.  I gave him a look that suggested as much.

"To be sure.  Sugar.  Unicorns go mad for the stuff.  Do not try and feed it directly, though.  She will be too sensible to eat sugar lumps, no doubt.  Put it in her porridge and she will go anywhere for you, mark my words, she will."

And that was that.  I couldn't believe I had not thought of it before.  Always with the god damned oats it had been.  On discovering this secret I thought not of the warnings hidden in our conversation.  All I wanted was that unicorn at home and for victory to finally be mine.

Monday 29 July 2013

250 Words: A dry week

Why have you forsaken me?  Off with the more successful are you?  Chart toppers and award winners- the boys and girls in print?  They’re all very good and all but I only write 250 Words a week, it’s not like I take much effort on your part- just a title or a sniff of an idea written on a scrap of paper and I’m off, happy as can be and soon done.  So why not pop in for ten seconds to see me of an evening.  Or at work, even, where it’s safer- I know I come on a bit strong sometimes, always after one thing and never ruminating first (and sometimes just staring).  I was once the same with a friend who was posting stuff I’d written on the internet- I practically crushed him with my excitement.  And I’m sorry (to you both) but I enjoy this so much I can’t
help myself sometimes.  Not much of an excuse, I know.  Sorry.  But nothing?  Not even a dream or a whisper on the wind or a funny event to witness?  That’s cold.  You’re supernatural, for crying out loud.  It doesn’t take much to visit.  Even such a perv as I!  I suppose you’re elsewhere, (over?) compensating for centuries of white male control.  Fair enough to some extent but it had literally nothing to do with me- why should I suffer from neglect?  Oh, it’s been a dry week without you, what can I do now?

(With thanks to Clio).

Sunday 28 July 2013

Stories written for BBC Radio Kent Competitions (1): Odd Dream

I was prepared to listen to her advice about the cheese, but why was she dressed as Joan of Arc?  Mum’s normally more conservative as a dresser.  Plain knitwear, skirts, shirts and petticoats; that sort of thing.  And she is far too Conservative to support women, or anyone for that matter, rising up as Joan did all those years ago and upsetting the status quo. 

And why was her hearing aid melting?  We were standing by a fridge in a supermarket and I was freezing.  She was telling me in her nasal tones about the right time of the day to eat cheese but the outfit was confusing me so much that I excused myself and turned away to shop. 

Still a little confused, I wandered further up the fridge section and saw my old headmistress, and chief tormentor on the playing fields, being upturned into the yoghurts.  I smiled as she stood up, the various shades of white dripping down the suit that she’d always seemed so proud of.  The smug grin she used to carry with her had been wiped clean off her face. 

Beyond her I saw William by the meat counter and he was crying.  I went over to see what was wrong and noticed he had a big pointy something in his side.  Oddly, the meat counter made me feel guilty, so I led William away before asking him what was wrong. 

“Why can’t my parents accept my sexuality?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I told him, “But sometimes we have to talk to people we don’t see eye to eye with.” 

I then suggested that shoplifting might cheer him up.  I took a sponge and he stole a rusty spanner but, alas, we were seen. 

As we legged it from security, an army of shoplifters joined us and we fought back, aiming to take over the supermarket.  William and I were generals and we fought side by side with our stolen goods as weapons until he turned into my first boyfriend and we were kissing under the iron bridge.  But it didn’t feel right; I preferred Glenn, wanted to be seen in the back of his car and make love on its cold leather seats so I could die with a smile on my face.  Glenn never knew, though,  because I never even told him how I felt, never went up to his house to inform him.  And now it was too late.

I decided to drown my sorrows down the pub.  I drank ale with Antony and Cleopatra, discussing the sizes of girls, just what would be enough to make Caligula blush and why he supposed my mother was dressed as Joan of Arc.  He didn‘t know who Joan was, though.  I gave Antony a look of disgust at his ignorance and left.  Instead of drink, I tried to forget Glenn through charity work (more specifically, making cards with the mentally ill) but I couldn’t help bursting into tears every so often. 

One night, though, a tattooed boy from Birkenhead opened my eyes, showed me love was insane and unnatural for people such as us anyway.  He took me to a cemetery and we had a discussion about Keats, Yeats and Oscar Wilde until my old reverend came by wearing a tutu and doing ballet.  I paid him no heed, though: he’d always told me to treat others as you would yourself. 

Then I was at a fairground on its last night; on the whirling waltzer with Sheila.  She told me she’d met a charming man without a stitch to wear.  His name was written on her arm in biro. 

We flew off into the night and landed in daytime in the old grey school playground.  Everyone from work was there.  Andy and Mike had played a joke on Johnny and Stephen.  Somehow I knew what the joke was and told them it was a horrid joke to play- far too close to the bone- just plain nasty- only played by children. 

I chased them away and took Johnny and Stephen to see the Queen.  We ran at her with the sponge and rusty spanner from the supermarket before putting her head in a sling and dropping our trousers to her.  What sensible children we were! 

Then Johnny disappeared and me and Stephen went to the disco.  At the disco, Stephen had a dancing competition with another man and danced him to death.  We felt bad and left once Stephen gave an interview to the Belgian press (“You have to please them,” he explained). 

We were lovers now, dressed in rags, strolling down the street, the sun shining out of our behinds.  It was great- he was somebody who loved me for sure.  But it all went wrong. 

On a Friday night, he tried to become a protest singer.  He thought all you needed was an acoustic guitar, and so it all went horribly wrong and we were chased out of the building.  “We’ll smile about this later,” he said as we got to the road and a ten tonne truck mowed me down.  As they wheeled me into outpatients I fell into a coma. 

A montage showed Stephen waiting by my side for days and weeks and months; crying, getting angry and feeling drained and useless.  In a dream sequence, soil rained down on me, covering me.  It was awful, I could really feel it.  I called out to my mother to help me but it just kept on falling. 

It all got sadder and sadder and I tossed and turned until Morrissey appeared, told Stephen it would be OK and started to shake me, telling me my alarm had gone off so I had better wake up.

When I came round my alarm was going beserk.  I sat up and hit the snooze button just in case I fell back to sleep. 

The Smiths back catalogue was still playing on random repeat all and the cheese had started to turn.

Note: when trying to find a link to the competition pages, I instead found other stories starting with the same line, presumably written for the same competition.

Saturday 27 July 2013

George Joy’s Guide to Faerytale Creatures, No 16: Safety Sprites

Much has been written about the beasties on the moors, on rivers, at sea and other places that send people astray.  Whether it be horses that ditch drunks in the middle of nowhere or one of the umpteen sexist tales of creatures turned into beautiful women (the ones that are true always handily ignore the males of those species as well as failing to record the lost human women).  But little is known of those that do help lost and weary travellers. 

One such creature is the Safety Sprite who live across the globe on moors, in forests and jungles, deserts, ice plains and anywhere else where there is no human habitation.  To the human eye (and that of most beasties) they are almost always invisible, they are so small.  Descriptions of captured Safety Sprites, however, say they are tiny creatures, only a couple of millimetres tall with humanoid bodies in proportion with our own but with the addition of wings that allow them to fly or hover, though usually they fly no higher than grass - except in forests where they have been seen flying higher, but will not stray more than a few centimetres away from the nearest tree or tree branch. 

Some medieval and later writers have claimed they live in burrows in the ground (whether earth, ice or sand) or in trees in huge communities who employ lookouts that seek animals or humans in need.  Others believe them to live in another dimension where they watch over ours (and possibly others) so as to transfer across when needed.

Whether to guide a lost soul home or to help an injured party be found, these creatures reveal themselves by lighting up.  A lost person on moors may suddenly find thousands of small lights in the grass appearing and that following them will take them towards home normally to the appropriate road - they have been known to line the roads, ensuring the lost party will head in the right direction, fading out only when they are sure the person is no longer lost. 

How these creatures know where people need to go is thought is often put down to psychic powers but is probably largely luck and a good knowledge of the land they call home.

Friday 26 July 2013

250 Words: Photographic reminiscences

I know what you mean, Adrian.  When we were children we were the same but with photographs.  We used to love opening the big brown drawers and remove the Kodak yellow and the Boots black envelopes, each filled with a film’s worth.  Or the large school photographs.  Or the album with the couple walking on a beach at sunset.


We had seen every single one before, always knew what was coming up, whether it be baby photos, family holidays or back garden snaps.  We would sit in a line on the sofa, the initiator at one end removing each set of photographs and passing them down, followed by the envelope for their safe return.  And we would marvel at whatever was in each picture- remarking, maybe, on me in a pink coat at Hastings, or Sarah (possibly David) dressed as Mr Sneeze, or Rachel in David’s arms with me and Sarah all sat on the bed (on which I was born) or Dad’s long hair or the bell bottoms Mum cursed every time- almost as if viewing them for the first time.  


Long afternoons in school holidays ran in this way (and occasional bonus sessions when relatives were around).  Even then there was a need for memory and nostalgia, to look backwards at what once was to ensure it was real and not a dream or false memory.

So, yeah Adrian, forty years may have passed between our childhoods but not a great deal changes in the lives of children.

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (48): Why

Saturdays and Sundays soon became a hole I sunk into only for work to drag me back out again.   I looked to fill the weekends with something new but came up short every week.  Even began to wish I still had John.

I had gone back to work heavy hearted, feeling it was all over, that I would never have another chance.  I sat at my desk each day redundant.  Rather than let my mind wander to find the next plan, I could only reminisce of what had been before.  That planning and anticipation had been what got me through the week.  Now I sat vacant mostly.  Until events began to pull me back out.

After a couple of months whispers started to go around the office.  An e-mail had arrived at another desk explaining why I had left and what I had been doing while I was away.  How they found out I do not know.  That has always been a mystery to me.

At first it was just that, whispers.  Then there were sniggers as well as I walked by.  Then the hints and allusions that became more and more snide until the actual piss taking began.  How they laughed and joked at my expense.  Until, finally, among it came the questions.  “Why?” was an oft repeated one, prefixing many different questions.  With the men, laughter accompanied and with the women it was pity.  But always, “Why?”

*

It was a mixture of wanting to, needing to, and still being able to that got me started.  The last perhaps being the most important.

The whole madness came out of a visit to the Victoria & Albert Museum.  It is a wonderfully huge museum where I always seem to find something I haven't seen before.  One time, I remember, it was the plaster casts of Trajan's Column.  I stood at the bottom of each half staring up and getting dizzy before moving to the bridge and taking them in more properly.  I felt excited that I had probably got a better view than the pilgrims in Rome yet hungry to see the real thing standing in what is left of Trajan's Forum.

That fateful day it was the tapestry room.  I had gone in to look at the Pre-Raphaelite paintings hanging in the V&A.  I'd already been to Manchester, the gallery at Uni and the Tate to see the boys.  And I had seen the William Morris section of the V&A British Galleries on another day.  That day paintings were to be my thing.  I scanned the map and planned the route to see Jane Morris in a Day Dream and The Mill-Girls Dancing to Music by a River.

On my way I walked by a pair of big, heavy, tinted glass doors that ignited my curiosity in an instant.  I was extremely intrigued to find out what was beyond that needed such a mysterious and guarded entrance.  Although it must have said on or by the door, I went through to discover and meet my fate.

Almost immediately upon entering the darkened room a small tapestry in the far right corner caught my eye; in particular, the white area at its centre.  Maybe it was just because this piece happened to be in my line of sight.  Or perhaps because all the other tapestries were huge, faded and filled with too much action, while this, though much smaller, was quite vibrant, colourful and eye-catching.  Either way I was drawn toward this slab of colour arranged around a bright white core.

I wandered almost trance-like towards the far end ignoring all else around me until I had learned more.  The tapestry was a type called a Millefleur, a form in demand around 1500 which was covered by many different flowering plants.  This one was a square filled mainly with flowers and a few animals (birds mainly) that were brown and almost indistinguishable from all around them.  In the centre, however, a white beauty stood out, a great horn sticking out from her head.

I had not thought of unicorns for some time.  Once they had appeared in my dreams and brought warmth at a time when I felt often cold and alone.  Gladdened once more I read on and discovered my future.  I left feeling different because I now had a purpose.

The unicorn tapestry was next to one depicting the medieval myth man Roland, known to me as The Gunslinger.  As I left Room 94, I thought of him and how I was now as him, on a quest.  Not for the Dark Tower, though.  Not for a curse.  At least, that was how I felt at the time.

*

Trailing around London can drain you, leaving you on a low ebb.  Within a week I was in my local library starting the research that would take me to the enchanted forest where I found what I’ve always felt was the scene in that tapestry.  I went after the unicorn because I wanted to, because I needed to, and because I still could.  Nothing had changed.  No matter what anyone said, I simply had to go on.

First, though, I had to let things simmer down.  I extended my respite in Ireland.

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (47): Moving Her Out

With the fence down, I tried to think of other ways to test the unicorn's readiness for embarkation.  I sat alone and cross-legged, a little paranoid the trees were watching and waiting for a second pop.  Their problem had to be the fence, though, not me or they would have attacked long before now.  So I kept telling myself. 


I sat thinking for five minutes or so before deciding the unicorn's presence would help to inspire me in one way or another.  I went into the stable and led her out, one hand in her mane.  Perhaps this should have been enough.  Instead it gave me an idea. 



The unicorn sat down and I strapped a nosebag over her head.  I then sat down myself at her other end and began to plait her tail.  It had been years and years since I had last plaited hair.  The skill came back pretty quickly, though - much, so they say, like riding a bike.



I grew up with four sisters, all older than me.  I didn't like to play by myself, especially when those four, or combinations thereof, always seemed to be having so much fun without me.  That's why I played with dolls a lot as a child.  Helping to arrange their homes, marrying them off to one another and the like.  And, also to fit in and have company, I helped do their hair.  Becoming a bit of an expert at some styles.  The youngest of the four even had me do her hair for her sixth form ball.



My dad, the great buffoon, always seemed terribly worried I would "turn out" gay.  He must have been ecstatic, then, when I got old enough to disappear into the woods and play more at being a boy.  Something the girls never followed me into.  Mind you, if he had known about Randy....



I sat, then, creating a tight and near-perfect plait, brushing the hair through as I went. Then I gave her coat a brush (I had also gone horse riding to fit in, too) through before combing her mane down to the side and over one eye.



Throughout it all she did not budge and made no fuss.  I knew the time had come and, with the tree's hostility, was shaken enough to not wait about.



I packed everything I thought would be needed immediately and rushed it back to the van.  The stable I would leave as I had a more permanent one waiting for the handover. 



She was still chewing on the contents of the nosebag when I returned for her.  I took it off her and slung it into the cart before pouring more oats in, all at one end.  Then I encouraged her to get in, which she did and sat.  I was ready for the act I had been preparing for for months.



Pulling the handle seemed like I was pushing a destruct button.  A button that started up the program that was designed to undo all that I had done: as simply as blowing over a house of cards; because, apparently, that's what it had become all of a sudden.  Or maybe it had always been.



I never heard or saw them come.  The five apparitions were circling around the edge of the clearing.  They were neither solid nor the transparent nothingness of a ghost.  Rather like a milky white liquid that was one whole.  Like a mini milk if it could flow or move.  They had no legs, only a vague body and a head complete with pointy protrusion to identify them by.



Round and round they whirled, blocking my exit.  Creating an almost complete white rotating wall as their bodies stretched out. 



Then one broke rank, the others quickly stretching to fill the void left behind.  I started to move, to try and block its approach to the unicorn.  But it went nowhere near her, instead floating toward the root I had savaged, disappearing into the fence hole containing the cut tree root.  There it stayed for a full minute, the hole looking like it was full to the brim with frozen milk or plasticine.



The full circling procession continued, though it now began to work its way inward.  I pulled the cart to the centre of the clearing and stood ready to try and block any attack that came my way.



Nearer they came until they were just five feet away.  In they worked until one broke free, the rest following, and moved toward us.  I braced myself but it swerved and the line moved upward and started to spiral round us from top to toe tighter and tighter until I was suddenly thrown aside and the unicorn was engulfed in a milky glob for a second and they were moving out of the clearing again, a smaller pointy-headed apparition following at the rear.



In shocked disbelief I stood alone in the clearing for the first time in a long time.  The first thing I did was to look into the hole.  The root's gash had been filled with what looked like moss mixed with mud and lavender.  I was later told that, though I had angered the trees (and most of the forest) by trying to create my own private space, their ferocity in attack had stemmed from my not applying this or any other form of remedy.  Initially they were only going to rot my fence posts slowly, but were concerned that that tactic would not have had enough time to work.



I wound up staying in the clearing for a further week.  I had been so fucking close and they had stopped me right at the death.  When she didn’t come back I decided to go home.  For the first few weeks before going back to work I kept returning on Saturdays, albeit without plans.  She never joined me and eventually I stopped returning and got on with my life.

Monday 22 July 2013

250 Words: End of Empire

As the leviathan pulls back, drained of the blood from Empire's lair, it rakes and scratches the land, cursing it and leaving its soul in tatters.  

As Empire's armies leave she begins her second phase; this new beginning or legacy that stays behind to create disturbance and to kill, whether in the immediate aftermath or later in wars between new nations created or over time as her poison slowly acts against the ungrateful inhabitants left behind after her beautiful creation has been undone. 

Though this bloodshed supplies her lair with a lesser flow, it is more than enough to please her schadenfreude tendencies.  The blood of population interchanges, of old and new people clashing and of new nation civil wars is as sweet to her as that of her own beast, even if not as plentiful.  She takes pride in her trail of destruction, purring at the thought of what her way of life leaves behind as a tainted gift.

But, mostly for now, though, Empire can only mark out her old lands, both taken and controlled by, for further pain or for guilt and a kind of empty tenderness for something lost brought by the further growth of her bitter seeds while she waits for man's desire for her to come into play when her generals will lay with her in a bath of blood once more, feed her more, touch her the way she likes and place a new and bloodied standard upon the wall of her lair.

Saturday 20 July 2013

George Joy’s Guide to Faerytale Creatures, No 15: Tinners

Tinners are Cornish and Devon cave dwarves of the kind often called “wild” or “uncivilised.”  Though they are cave dwarves, they actually live in the tin mines of South West England where they have been surviving through bullying tin miners since prehistoric times.  


How they lived before is unknown, of course, but through threatening behaviour they gain daily feeds from humans.  Some people think it is a little harsh to call them uncivilised when they can clearly strike and maintain such a good bargain - though in most other aspects of their being they can certainly be seen as such.


Tinners, like all “wild” cave dwarves, are small even for dwarves, in stature and are different in other ways too.  They have pale, slightly translucent skin and the large, virtually blind, eyes that are often seen in creatures living underground.  They have no nose to speak of, or ears, but instead two nostrils and an ear hole on the each side of their head - it is thought that the tunnels themselves act as ears by catching and sending sounds to them while their nostrils are big enough to sniff out the food left for them.  Unlike dwarves they are quite hairless and wear no clothes.  


Their hands and teeth are the main other difference - as well as being the means to their dominating miners.  The fingers of cave trolls are elongated and have hard, sharp nails that jut out from the end.  Their teeth are many, small, triangular and very sharp.  The two combined have been enough in the past to first scare miners into freezing before making demands that have culminated in the eternal tradition of leaving the scraps of their lunch for Tinners to collect at night.


The creatures themselves live in the deepest, darkest parts of the mine and are rarely seen nowadays.  The only sign they still exist is the disappearance of offerings for them.  

Perhaps they died out at some point and have been replaced by rats, perhaps it is safe to no longer pay the Tinner Toll... but then the crust of your pasty is but a small price to pay for your life.

Friday 19 July 2013

250 Words: Episodes in the life of Edwinski (4)

Struggling from the 287 step climb, the fat man holding a bunch of flowers breathed heavily as he recognised those that Edwinski held and approached the spy who, in comparison, was totally relaxed having been waiting some fifteen minutes, filling time by looking out over Edinburgh. 

Edwinski, by a rule of thumb, was always early on these occasions.  Partly so that he could ensure he was first to make first impressions but mostly just to look cool and not be the one having to do the searching.  


The fat man approached Edwinski asking, “Did you know that Hogmanay is just six weeks away now?”  


“Then it must be Christmas in five,” was the spy’s required response.  


And so began a seemingly innocent conversation about approaching festivities that was peppered with codes referring to important discs, the men in possession of them and the location of these men.  A conversation Edwinski was supposed to be able to remember word for word.  Which was why a dictaphone was left running in his pocket so he could later analyse the conversation to make sure of any conclusions he had drawn once he was back in his room at the Balmoral Hotel.  Should he need to.


Finally the fat man finished and Edwinski was the first to descend the Scott Monument into the gardens below.  As all spies do he took the long way home, walking away from Princes Street and paid the castle a quick visit so as to lose any unwelcome followers.

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (46): Domestication: Fencing Her In

I disappeared for a day to get everything I would need to start the capturing and ensure the taming process was complete.  If she didn't try and get away then I felt pretty sure I would be able to get her to the van and home.

Just a boundary stood between me and victory.  Boundaries, after all, are what domestication is all about - whether it's a cage, a fence or the hedges that separate fields of crops.  If she could live within it then she would surely be mine.  Or if she fought and failed then when she gave in she would be still.

I returned with a mattock, some concrete and posts with slots in for the cross-hatching fence panels.  They were cross-hatched because the unicorn still seemed to look out at the forest a lot even if she never actually left the clearance for it anymore.  They were also reinforced with metal, on the forest side, just in case she tried to ram it down.  She seemed incapable of magic now, not quite a shadow of her former self, but part way there.  She was still lively and playful, just in a different way. 

The plan was to ease her in with this cross-hatching fence.  I was then going to nail panels up later, to take the forest away, before taking her away from the forest.

Next morning I set to work, having driven all the kit to the clearing.  I really didn't think I would be able to do this but, well, it just goes to show...  The forest had often surprised me like this; I should have gotten used to it by now.

Anywho, I started by digging all the holes for the poles.  This took some doing.  I had it all planned out so that the fence would run a few feet inside the clearing to avoid the worst of the roots that had caused so much trouble before.  I still hit one, though, cutting a deep gash into it.  Water and sap poured out and soaked into the soil at the bottom of the hole.  I waited for something to happen, for the worms to attack or the tree to retaliate.  Nothing did so I thought nothing of it and continued my work.

Once all these were dug, I prepared the concrete before starting to erect all of the posts.  These took me the rest of the day so that we went to sleep that night inside a downmarket and wonky woodhenge.

On the second day of the fence and the last of the domestication experiment, I slotted home all of the cross-hatched panels.  They would have been light enough to lift and drop into place if it wasn't for all the metal.  As it was I had to use a ladder to get higher than the poles.  This took me some time and it was around about lunchtime when I finished.

No sooner was it done than it started to become undone.  It was just like my cage at first.  The poles began to turn.  All together, all anti-clockwise.  But the metal soon stopped their movement, too strong for whatever force was at work.  Not the unicorn, of that I was sure.  She wore exactly the same confused and worried look as I did.  And when the poles stopped trying to break the fence she sat down and bit at the nearest tuft of grass.

I smiled at the failure and shouted out, "Is that the best you can do?  Come on, you'll have to do much better than that!"  I wasn't sure quite what had come over me, I wasn't normally like this.  Suddenly I was winning and I felt ten feet tall.

It soon became evident that that was not the best they could do.

A great groan started to surround the clearing.  It was all I could hear and it was all around me.  The noise was everywhere and it was most disturbing - like a long drawn out battle cry.  You could sense an anger that meant to do something bad or dangerous.  It was no surprise that the unicorn disappeared into her stable.

Then the wind stopped and the trees became very still.  There had been a slight breezy wind all morning. and it had gone very suddenly just as the groan took on a new pitch, becoming more and more urgent.

Until it reached a peak and stopped.

There were a horrible few seconds of anticipation before it happened.

For a moment the wind started again but it was coming from above, blowing straight down at the ground. 

Then, all at the same time, a branch for every post swung down and knocked them, their concrete base and the fence panels all outwards and away.  Some of the parts hit trees and splintered into thousands of pieces.  No mark was left on the trees.  The rest came to rest forlornly here and there.  One post made a very nasty dent in my van.

I stood in shock, tripped up in part by my sudden rise in confidence.  And then I just shrugged.  "This doesn't actually change anything as such," I thought, "I'll just have to skip that test."  The unicorn was, after all, in the stable.  She had not left or made any attempt to do so despite the anger of the trees surrounding us.

Two hours later the whole domestication plan was finished.

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (45) Domestication: Activities

I started with the introductions, getting the unicorn settled into her stable and starting a routine for porridge cooking.  Very soon I knew I needed to kick the second part of the domestication plan into practice. 

I didn't want it to be solely about reliance because I didn’t think it could be.  The unicorn was clearly a resourceful and independent being who didn't need me.  I could probably only convert her to stables and oats to a certain degree - maybe only create a fad.  I also needed to build up a new rapport with her.  To become friends based on each other.  More best friends than that weird flirtation and oneupmanship nonsense. 

I had done the groundwork with the introductions to the scheme, now I needed to work further toward the pay out.  I wanted to make her want to come with me.  Therefore we had to do stuff together.  I thought about trying the Sudoku again but doing it with her.  I figured the trust would have gone a little too much, though.  Instead I brainstormed a number of games and activities we might be able to play and do together.

I started with the slightly patronising ball.  Although, because I thought that, I never actually tried to make her fetch it.  Instead I would roll it to her, either across the grass or a stretch of the stable clear of hay.  And she would nudge it back with her nose if she was lying down or kick it if she was standing.  Or, if I was lucky, she would whack it with her horn.  And, boy, she could really smack it with that - it would come at me real quick.  That was quite fun.

While getting started with this simple game I was busy in the interim converting the Sudoku board.  Despite earlier thinking this a poor plan, I hadn't been able to get it out of my head.  I had decided to convert it to noughts and crosses.  Or rather, make it double sided by flipping it over and carving then painting the 3x3 open-sided grid and making larger pieces with an '0' or a 'x' carved onto them. 

The unicorn flinched when she first saw the board and started to grow agitated, unsure of what to do.  Until she noticed the larger pieces and different grid (which I had cunningly painted with thick white lines to make it stand out and be noticed).

We played that game quite a lot until she got tired of its short time span and repetitive nature.  So I had a rethink and created an Othello board instead - reducing the Sudoku grid and making 64 reversible pieces.  And that she did not tire of.  More and more it became the game that we would play while eating porridge and letting the fire burn down each evening.

Another activity involved decorating the stable.  I took different colour paints and borders and wallpapers as well as sponges and rollers and brushes.  After choosing a silver and purple colour scheme, and opting only for paints and glow in the dark stars to stick on the ceiling, which we painted very dark blue, I attached a roller to her horn and we were away, painting it inside and out.  She then shook the roller off, dipped the tip of her horn in the silver paint and drew a pattern on the walls.

There were some activities that were more for me than her.  Especially once I moved out there.  I took a battery operated record player out there, for instance, and played tunes during our Othello matches.  I also took a film projector and a screen out there.  It was one we had about the house as kids and I hadn't watched any of the reels for years.  It was all old cartoons - Goofy, Roadrunner, Mickey, Tom and Jerry, Marvin the Martian and so on.  She would sit with me and do nothing but stare.  I guess it was just a bit too weird.

There was a bit of a theme of re-hashing old plans as friends.  The epitomy of this was when I set up a train set - just a simple circle of trust.  She seemed to really enjoy watching it go round and round.  With this one, though, I was the one that got bored of it.  So I set up something more complicated with points and sidings and bits that made the train stop at stations.  I even laid down a track that ran cars on it.  She had even more fun with this one, pointing to where she wanted the train to go, making me scrabble about doing her bidding.

There were all sorts of things we did together.  A lot of the time we would just sit together in the hay or the grass - basking in the sun or cowering from the rain.  Otherwise we would be dancing manically, attempting to hula hoop and falling about laughing, trying to chip golf balls into mugs and smashing them to pieces, painting the trees, we cooked together once or twice, the unicorn doing all the stirring, arranging flowers from the clearing, her giving me instructions or suggestions as we built them up.  It was kind of cool the way we had to do most things together to make it work.  That really helped a lot.

And it all seemed to go better and better as we went along, both of us spending more and more time in the clearing as I started to get up earlier and go to bed later.

Until one night, after Othello, porridge and cocoa, the unicorn didn't want me to go.  She pulled at my sleeve and started to follow me once I had freed myself.  That was when I pitched camp in the clearing.  I even found a water source close by to keep myself there for longer.

That was when I found out for sure that she was sleeping in the clearing.  I had suspected that was the case, but had never seen her fall asleep before leaving or found her so in the morning.  Now she was certainly sleeping (and even shitting, keeping me on my toes) in the stable. 

Plus she was spending virtually all her time there, only wandering out of the clearing for a few minutes at a time.  Initially, as I have said, she only came to the clearing when I was there before.  Then she slowly started to get there before me.  But even so, she would either wander off before I left or disppear for an afternoon stroll.

It was all proving such a success that I felt it was time to try the second to last step in my glorious plan and fence her in.