250 Words: One of my favourite things

They say simple things please simple minds and, well, this is a pretty simple thing.

Certainly a small and inconsequential thing.

But one that can bring pleasure on a daily basis: and at work too, invading the daily
grind delightfully.

As with most excitement at work this revolves around tea.

Whittards, I think it is, advise putting the milk into your cup before the tea because
the two will mix (or maybe it’s “fuse”) more easily in this order. (This can be seen
quite easily with the naked eye, actually).

However that way round misses out on a little bit of fun because, with a steady hand
and a little milk, beautiful clouds can be made.

If you get it right the milk will disappear without trace before reappearing as a
writhing mass of milky storm that rises and falls as it spreads out and consumes the
previously dark liquid.

An unsteady hand and a lot of milk still gives a nice effect but is clearly one gone
wrong: an almost complete whitewash sitting under a thin layer of black tea.

The best effect I’ve seen, though, was with a wide rimmed teacup in Birmingham.
I poured the milk into the centre of the cup and saw it return in several equally
spaced ‘jets’ around the edge like a fountain working in reverse (and encased within
another liquid).

Whatever the result, I always feel it a shame to dip in a teaspoon and bring these
little miracles to an end.

Myths of our Solar System (21): Poseidon outdone

Poseidon was pleased with himself and his effort. He felt his entry in the competition (the
prize of which was to the Patron God of the City) was a bit of a corker. All he had had to
do was produce something more useful than his rival.

The day of the contest was a hot one and, up on the Acropolis, Poseidon became inspired.
He looked down at his feet, seeing dry dust and rock, then he looked out to sea, his
domain, that these people transported their wares on for sale and got food from: but could
not drink.

The idea pleased Poseidon, he would complete the circle of gifts from him. With that he
struck the rock with his trident and from it sprung a stream of clear, pure water that would
forever provide for the people of the city founded by Erichthonius. They would be able to
drink this and use it for agriculture.

Poseidon, however, had got himself caught up on an idea that proved too simple. As the
God of the Deep Blue Sea, with water running through his veins, this was easy to do. He
had not looked between the Acropolis and the sea to see what the people had and had
not.

They had sunk wells, they had drinking water and water for irrigation. And true, they had
food from the sea. But so do all cities by the sea. And fish, though they can be salted
and sold abroad, are bulky and cannot easily be transported and sold in particularly great
numbers. Poseidon had not recognised the need for a new crop.

Athena had. And from the earth she made grow the city’s first olive tree- and the people
saw a fruit they could eat and transport in great quantities around the world as food or as
oil. Not to mention the exclusivity of this plant. Everyone would have to come to them and
only them for it.

And so Poseidon was outdone and it was Athena who gave her name to that City of
Greece.

Myths of our Solar System (20): Neptune, first protector of humans at sea

In the First World Neptune had been a servant; and one of the ones who would later
became known and remembered to this day. He had been a water carrier, one of the boys
who collected and distributed water from the great wells in the lowest level of the tower, far
below the great fields and the Tree of Life.

Not long before the end of the First World, Neptune had become the water carrier to
Mother and Moon’s chambers. It was Neptune’s job to ensure they always had cool water
to drink and hot water for washing.

In doing so the young man caught the eye of Sedna, one of the daughters of the great
leaders, and she his- something that did not escape the notice of Mother. Not that a
romance could have blossomed in the First World, of course. For various reasons, not
least of which was The Great Change that was about to occur.

Neptune found himself in the bowels by one of the great wells when the First World began
to break-up. The shock of the first earthquake flung him head first into it and was followed
by a great chunk of ceiling, under which he sunk quickly toward the centre of the earth.

As the world above began to shift and change, so did Neptune. The young man was
prodded and poked by the rocks about him, their sharp fingers scratching into his neck-
and just in the nick of time- before he drowned Neptune had received a means of
breathing underwater.

They then continued to alter the boy, skin was removed from Neptune’s back and used to
form webs between his fingers and a special film formed over his eyes and within his nose.
Then Neptune’s fingernails grew rapidly and Neptune was pushed against the wall and his
toes were fused together and then his feet were flattened and stretched to form flippers-
then, finally, his ankles were set as if he were forever on tip toe and his heels shaved off,
completing the job.

Once this was done Neptune stopped sinking and began to rise a little. Then suddenly
he shot up and up and up until he, all the other water carriers who had gone through the
same process as he, and all the water in all the wells shot out of the ground, through the
empty space where the First World had been.

Then over the plains of rock they flew until they all landed in the sea, dazed and
bewildered. Here Neptune was, at first, very confused by all he had been through. But
the young man was a survivor and he quickly learned to swim, finding his new feet very
useful indeed. Soon Neptune and the others were hungry and he led them in catching
fish, finding he now had much faster reflexes than before and that his longer fingernails
were very handy for grabbing the little blighters.

Through this quick recovery and leadership, Neptune was able to further organise his
colleagues and so it was he who became the first King of the Sea Imps.

250 Words: Thompson's last space walk

The spacewalk had gone well. All repairs had been successful, everything was fully
operational again and the Heimdall’s crew were relaxing in the lounge. Jonsson
seemed happy enough to ignore the anomaly of the outside damage. He was pretty
blasé about most things, though. And he hadn't been on the spacewalk.

Thompson, however, was unable to shake the idea of sabotage; ridiculous as it
seemed so far from anyone. The damage to the craft did not seem like that made
by space debris, of which there was plenty in the quadrant and was the usual reason
for spacewalks. Certainly it was no malfunction… someone had gouged into the
side of the ship and ripped parts out. And he couldn't ignore the feeling that he had
not been alone in the airlock.

These fears he voiced to Jonsson who pushed them aside. Ridiculed them in fact.

“It's just us out here, you know that. And we'll be out of here in a week," he’d said.

"Yeah, it's just cabin fever."

"Precisely."

Although Thompson had managed to put Jonsson’s mind at ease it was hard to
ignore what he felt. Not quite everything was right. The fear in Jonsson's eyes
quickly confirmed this. They were fixed to a point above and behind Thompson's
head, their pupils wide in confusion and disbelief. And in them Thompson saw the
faint reflection of something that made his eyes do the same. It was the last thing he
ever saw.

Six weeks later the war began.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (16) Tracking for Reconnaissance

Before the flirting I wanted to find out more, stay at peace, keep the ceasefire active for a bit while I found it in me to attack again.  My need to tame her was still as alive as ever but my confidence was shaken by those great worms.  So I took a day off work in the week to do some reconnaissance - to try and discover something about this unicorn to help with said proceedings.  Was she part of a herd, for instance?  where did she live, exactly?  and how old was she?  was she still a foal or was she fully grown?

I left my van with a rucksack containing my lunch, some maps, biscuits and flasks of tea and coffee, and headed for the clearing first.  Here I breaked for a spot of morning coffee - washing down some tasty biscuits, shortbread I believe they were.  Then I went in the direction the unicorn normally left in and started looking for signs of her.  I hoped that she might have bumped into some trees and/or left hairs in bushes after the ordeal with the quagmire… though she had left in quite a calm manner so I knew it might be in vain.  Quickly, however, I started to find these signs - first on the trunk of a tree then in some thistles - she must have got clear of me and started to run home.  She must have left restrained and dignified, not calm from shock.  Excited, perhaps for the wrong reasons, I kept on.

On past the holly, the ivy on the willow by the stream, across whose rocks I slipped and stumbled toward the oaks, up a hill of bracken toward the forest of tall trees I didn't recognise but seemed familiar where I stopped for lunch: a scotch egg, turkey sandwiches, smokey bacon crisps, fruit cake and a hazelnut yoghurt washed down with the first half of my flask of tea.  I would remember this so well because, for a while, I thought it would be the last meal I ever ate. 

After lunch I continued onward through the woods and until afternoon tea it went much as the morning had.  Clues of hair and hoof prints by rocks, on tree trunks, in bushes and so on appeared to me and onward I trudged.  On and on I walked, happy I was getting somewhere, that eventually I would see the unicorn herself.

And then, while drinking tea and eating chocolate digestives, I realised I had eaten lunch in the same spot.  Five minutes later I went by a disturbingly familiar oak.  And then I found my own tracks on a path through some undergrowth that I had made earlier in the day.  I was going in fucking CIRCLES.  Bugger.  Well, it was just one circle at that point but I was starting to panic and half an hour later I was back on bracken hill for the frigging fourth time, shortly before slipping on the same damn stream rocks for the third time, this time losing my balance and the maps I'd forgotten I even had.  Standing up red-faced and soaked to the bone, I realised I was really in the shit now, starting to picture myself half-friezing, half-starving to death or stumbling into the web of a giant spider.  And, worse still, it was beginning it was to get dark.  And I had no dinner, no way to get dry and no night provisions.  I began to scramble madly about hoping to find some shelter, forgetting about the unicorn entirely and starting to get paranoid over every sound that came rattling through the trees.  Naturally they were the same sounds I'd been hearing all day and in the clearing for months but they sounded pretty bloody fearsome by then, believe me.  Like lions and tigers and stuff.  So it was some relief when I found a cave.  Inside I went, curled up and waited for morning, too dejected and gloomy to do anything sensible.  Content instead to shiver and bemoan my fate.

It was two hours before I noticed the unicorn hair glittering at my foot, beside me and all round me.  Two hours of jittering fear, uncontrollable shuddering and flinching at every sound, every branch movement, every change in the moonlight.  The hair relaxed me instantly and I soon found the mossy bed to fall asleep on.

Damn pity I didn't have enough sense or wits about me to check further back in the cave because I woke up in the back of my van, naked and wrapped in straw, my clothes drying out beside me.

I guessed it was time to get back to the games in our little amphitheatre, that was where my bread would be won, after all, and forgot the whole episode for quite a long time.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (15) All Apologies

The next Monday night I woke with a start, realising what I had done.  To the unicorn and the clearing.  No matter how much I wanted to capture and tame this creature, putting her life in danger was unforgivable.  I had discovered her weakness and found I was just as scared of it as she was.  And the damage I had done to a place of such astonishing beauty was as big a crime.  I remembered how I had felt when first I entered the clearing.  Somehow that hope had been destroyed and I was left with festering gloom.

I slept no more that night and called in sick the next morning, spending an hour or two in a Garden Centre, picking up grass and flower seeds and bulbs and plants hoping the quagmire had dried up sufficiently for me to work.

It was a tense, nervous drive out that day.  Fraught with guilt, I felt physically sick, slowing down several times just in case I threw up.  Once at the edge of the forest, in my usual parking spot, I loaded up my big cart with my morning's purchases before dragging it slowly to the clearing.  As I got close, I slowed down, not wanting to see the wreckage I had created.

On entrance, though, I was pleased and astounded to find it was all as I had first found it - long grass and dandelions and daisies and buttercups and butterflies.  Relieved and pleased, I lay in the grass at he centre of this miracle, cart at my side, letting the night catch up with me and fell into a blissful and relaxing sleep. 

I was woken some hours later by a wet sensation on my face.  I opened my sleepy eyes to find the unicorn licking my face awake in delight, clearly excited about something.  I nudged her head away with my hand and sat up, still a little delirious.  She stood staring at me for a second before nudging my cart a little and smiling, I think, and finally turning to trot away. 

Forgiven, I felt better but not complete.  At least I knew normal service could resume. 

However, until I met the elves, it was just cartoonish fun.  Knowing, or believing, I could not win, I simply went to the forest and tried different ideas because I enjoyed it and needed something to do.  And it was the same for her, I guess; she enjoyed playing me for a fool, foxing me and what have you, and she needed something to do too.  So, in short, we became friends who flirt a lot.

250 Words: Horny fucker

The snake writhes ceaselessly in the pants, the juice stirs and whips it to action,
aided and abetted by the man's eyes, and sometimes nose. So many sights make
his groin restless, not least his memory (which the horny fucker is always ready to
hump; and is already doing so in his head). Bare arms and legs, beautiful eyes or
hair, cleavage. All triggers to set him flowing.

The mucky mind stays active at all times: whether in frozen foods or the street, on
the bus or train, or, oh lord, the beach in summer. Every woman passed is a woman
to kiss, caress, seduce and enter, leaving her changed. The horny twat likes to think
his eagerness is all that matters.

On the scene standing against the wall, a bottle in hand to help later hold back the
flow and a roving eye lining them up in the order in which to take a crack at taking
them home. A method honed to precision with words, smiles and even moves on
the dancefloor where he shakes his ass like its the key, moves his hands in when
invited, only letting them wander once invited; a brain keen enough to hold back until
the eventual ruck.

And home to do the bad thing or to masturbate furiously, the ladies of that night
either racing through his mind in various positions and states of undress or doing so
under or on top of him. The snake satiated for one more day.