Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

Life is like an unmade bed
Like week-old mashed potater
You think of things you should have said
About a fortnight later

Jane Jago

You may well ask how one ever came upon this ‘literary classic’, as it is undoubtedly aimed at pre-pubescent females. However, it can also be aimed in a wholly different set of circumstances at the nodding cranium of a son who dares to fall into slumber when his beloved Mumsie is watching Kramer vs Kramer for around the four millionth time. One had been inveighed into the parlour by the promise of Mama Mia, and then let down with a bump by one’s perfidious parent so that one was unhappy, to say the least, but not stupid enough to attempt escape whist the turgid trash droned on and on and Mumsie sniffed and snotted unbecomingly. One had briefly succumbed to all but terminal boredom and allowed ones head to drop for a moment when ‘thwack’, a heavy leather-bound volume hit one’s forehead corner first, causing a large and purple contusion.

“You, Moons, are an awful little shit,” Mumsie declared in tones of doom. “You can just fecking well sit there and read quietly and stop spoiling my film.”

And thus I became acquainted with Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy.

Now.

My Review

Four sisters living in poverty during the American Civil War hardly seems a recipe for riveting entertainment, and in truth it isn’t a thundering good story. But it has some sort of something, because one was unable to discard the tome until it was read. The four girls have different characters, different dreams, different problems, but all are dealt with in some clever way so as to keep one reading. It seems dreadfully plain and unadorned. An yet… Motherly Meg, tomboy Jo, sickly Beth and beautiful Amy. Not all survive. Not all prosper. One laughed. One even cried.

One’s  mater actually accused one of becoming ‘almost human’ as one read this old-fashioned morality story with sympathetic tears staining one’s cheek.

As she remarked. Perhaps one is closer to nineteenth-century female children than to one’s own contemporaries. Who understands.

Three stars reduced from four because of the bump on one’s cranium.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

She knew it made good sense. Great-aunt Tiffany had given an understanding smile and patted her hands, folded like pinioned birds in her lap.

“It will keep the money in the family and it’s not like Cousin Richard is a monster or anything.”

Not a monster.

No.

Kind, but thirty years older than her and smelling of foot powder and stale pipe tobacco. 

At the altar, he took her hand.

“You alright, m’dear? We can call it all off. Even now. I’m an old bear but not a grumpy one.”

For a moment she hesitated.

“My old bear,” she said.

Eleanor Swift-Hook.

Take this exclusive opportunity to explore the mysteries of the zodiac through the wisdom of the esoterically enigmatic Madam Pendulica…

Aries. 

Be very careful this month as there is a very real possibility of leading your followers up a blind alley and being trampled to death when they panic.

Taurus.

This is not a month for locking horns with your enemies. Better to ruminate for a while before moo-ving into the attack.

Gemini.

Be very careful when crossing roads this month. Always look both ways…

Cancer.

This month the best way to deal with almost any situation is to scuttle away. Sideways.

Leo.

The new moon will see you needing to wake up and shake your golden mane in order that nobody sees how lazy you actually are.

Virgo.

Prim your mouth and pull up your sensible panties, somebody is after your cherry. Resist at all costs

Libra.

Weigh your options carefully as this month will offer many opportunities for vacillation and the refusal to make decisions.

Scorpio.

Whatever it is you are doing now, stop it. Say sorry nicely and don’t do it again.

Sagittarius.

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are out to get you this month. Hide.

Capricorn.

This is not a good month for giving way to your goatish sexuality. Celibate Capricorn’s will do well

Aquarius.

Drink plenty of water this month. 

Pisces.

This month you must swim with the tide. No going upstream to spawn. That way lies madness.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

My love is like a grouchy bear
That someone asked to dance
My love he really does not care
For kisses or romance

Yet what’s left of his hair is fair
And very blue his eyes
And he will be about somewhere
Till all the bars gang dry

Till all the bars gang dry of beer
And all the wine is gone
Yes I will love you still my dear
And bore you with a song

So goodnight, my friend goodnight
And sleep now for a while
And in the morn I’ll look a fright
But you’ll still make me smile

Jane Jago

Dying to be Cured is set in a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. Dai and Julia take on a fight against institutional corruption whilst dealing with the demands of family, friendship and domestic crises.

It was a couple of hours later that Dai got back to the Villa Papaverus. As a debriefing, it lacked a lot, but then not too many debriefings he had attended took place in a cozy room with his wife curled in his arms and both of them with cups of steaming mead-sweetened milk. 

Bryn took Gwen home after she was checked over by a medicus, who seemed sure a good sleep was all she needed to overcome the effects of any drugs. Tests had shown the last syringe to have been a mild hallucinogenic. The medicus explained that Gwen would have woken up feeling energised and been hugely suggestible. It took little imagination to see how that would have played out. With the addition of a bottle of some sort of ‘elixir’ to take away with her, a harmless hypochondriac like the woman she was posing as could easily have been tricked into believing in a religious vision and some sort of ‘cure’ even if it would have been at the cost of shortening her life.

“So was that all it was? A scam to make people believe they were cured?” Julia asked, her brow furrowing. “I saw more than that happening, I’m sure.”

“Nope. Was more. A lot more. Some of the less reputable big pharma companies were involved as was the medicus in charge of the ‘treatments’. We caught him trying to escape out the back door. He has a lot of names, but whatever he is calling himself now he’s wanted in about ten provinces. His regular M.O. was to suborn the Pontifex of a small rural temple with promises of wealth and fame. The priesthood raked in money on the growing myth of healing, and behind the scenes he got paid to run unlicensed and unapproved trails for drug companies wanting to know the effect of their drugs before going for regular human trials.” 

He broke off to sip at the sweetened milk. The thought of it all was leaving a bad taste in his mouth.  “Of course, some work and people get their genuine ‘miracle cures’, but most either don’t get better or go into a decline when they go home. But everyone around them just puts that down to the sick person losing hope after not being healed. Zirri Yedder had been after him for a decade. One of the first places he pulled the stunt was Tingist and at the time he had not perfected the trick of it so Yedder got wind of it. Looks like he finally got an in via Fabian Thrace, but they got rumbled. It was Thrace’s finger and ring in Yedder’s throat. It seems both bodies were weighted and dumped at sea, but somehow Zirri Yedder popped up again to be washed on the beach near Segontium.”

“But why were there so many men fighting us?”

“After they rumbled Thrace and Yedder they hired a whole new load of security guards – but these were not the reputable kind, they were more thugs who had no problem breaking heads. Apparently the Pontifex and our medical man feared Yedder had some associates who might be planning a raid on the temple.” 

“So what happened after I left?” Julia asked.

“Not much,” Dai admitted. “You caught the thick of the fighting. All we had to do was finish up checking the place and securing the perimeter. Those who were left in the temple after the initial confrontation didn’t put up much of a fight. Gallus and his men cleared the temple and the Vigiles were charged with clearing the supplicants carefully back to the village and making sure they were who they claimed to be.”

Julia sighed and stretched back against him, from there she was looking up into his face.

“I guess that means the supplicants will go home disillusioned having seen their miracle cures are nothing but a medical fraud.”

Dai shook his head and his jaw tightened.This was the bit he didn’t like.

“I wish that were so, my love. But it won’t happen that way. The Pontifex will be holding services tomorrow and offering blessings. Rome cannot allow the people to see the Divine Diocletian in any way linked with a fraud. The people must never see that their god has feet of clay.” He stopped speaking and stroked her hair in an effort to calm himself, before carrying on in a flat voice. “Word is being spread that the disturbance was the work of a gang of would-be thieves who infiltrated security – and the Pontifex summoned the Vigiles to arrest them.”

Julia sat up so fast she nearly caught his chin.

“So that miserable priest gets away with it?”

“No. Not at all,” Dai assured her. “Gallus and his men are currently manning the security of the place and their brief is to ensure the Pontifex goes nowhere. He will be replaced in a couple of days and returned to Rome, no doubt, never to be heard of again.”

Julia shook her head slowly, her expression one of near disbelief. “And the healing services will go on?”

“Yes. Only at least now it will only be laying on of hands and mumbling blessings.”

“So no one sees anything change.” Julia lay back again with a sigh of frustration. “Except, of course, the miracles will stop.” 

“Well, that’s the interesting thing,” Dai told her, placing a gentle kiss on her brow, “in some of the temples where our friend set up and then moved on, there are still people who claim to be cured. Turns out that faith, even in gods of clay, can be a powerful thing.”

FINIS

Dying to be Cured by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook first appeared in Gods of Clay: A Sci Fi Roundtable Anthology.

Somewhere high in some mountains near you lives the Oracle…

“What do they call you, boy?”
“Watson,” he whispered.
The oracle stared at him for a couple of seconds before breaking into the wheezing laugh that all but robbed her of breath. When she recovered somewhat she waved a grimy hand.
“Elementary my dear Watson.”
Then she was off again, laughing out loud at his evident discomfort. Even her fat orange cat seemed to find him amusing enough to stare at him from its mismatched eyes. She wiped her streaming eyes on a sleeve.
“What were we talking about? Oh. Yeah. How come I’m still here?”
He nodded and waited patiently whilst she adjusted her time frame and thought back.
“Originally it was a three-month gig while the proper oracle had a bit of a rest. But she never came back. And I wasn’t doing too badly, particularly once I got the knack of rolling my eyes back in my head. The folks who own the mountain came to see me, mouthing some crap about doing me the favour of letting me stay on. I pretended innocent stupidity. When they were gone I talked to the owners of a mountain in the next state, who would have loved to get themselves an established oracle.”
She sniggered as if at a particularly diverting memory, and scratched at something in her armpit.
Before she could continue, the bell that announced a visitor pinged. Watson made himself scarce, sitting just inside the cave from whose darkness he could observe whilst remaining unobserved.
The man who scrambled up the last few feet of the path was overweight and sweating profusely. He knelt in the dust and gravel in front of the oracle’s grimy slippers and bowed his head.
“Who comes to beg the guidance of the mountain?”
He lifted his face and it was evident from his scowl that he didn’t much care for the idea of begging. At first, he said nothing and the oracle waited in a silence that grew heavier by the second.
In the end it was the supplicant whose nerve broke.
“It’s a simple thing, really, but the uneducated fool who I would honour insists that he will only abide by the word of the mountain…”
“Say on, little man.”
He puffed out his chest in an effort to look large and important, then his face paled.
Watson would have been willing to bet rather a lot of money that the old bag had rolled her eyes back in her head. Then she began to speak.
“Return from whence you came. The woman is not for you. You have a wife and three fine sons. That is enough for any man.”
He reddened and for a nanosecond it seemed as if he might attack the oracle. Watson now understood the sawn-off shotgun that reposed among her tattered skirts.
The man pulled himself back from rage and spoke whiningly. “The angel of God tells us that a man may have as many wives as he can support.”
The oracle cackled. “That’s as maybe but the legal law says no.” Then her voice changed again, moving into the singsong reaches of prophecy. “A young wife would be thy death warrant, thou hast not the health for such. Return home to the woman whose care for thee is both tender and kindly. Stray not from her love lest such cost thee thy life.”
The fat man lost all his colour, being pale as milk now.
“Are you sure?” he quavered.
The oracle dropped her prophetic tones and spoke quite normally.
“I’m sure that whatever the spirit of the mountain told you is no less than the whole truth.”
“Whatever? Don’t you know what you just said?”
She leaned forward and a small river of dust ran out of her clothing.
“I have no idea what I said. I’m just a vessel for the prophecy.”
The fat man bowed three times and scrambled backwards out of the presence.
The oracle turned to face the cave and smiled a raptor’s smile.
“Thank goodness for Facebook”, she said mildly before falling abruptly into sleep.

Jane Jago

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

As I polished a genie appeared
With three wishes to shine up your year
May you journey in style
Avoid crocodiles
And never run out of cold beer

Jane Jago

One remembers a rather exciting games master at the old alma mater reading us random chunks of this, among other books, when it was too inclement for rugger practice.
For this reason, it will always be associated in one’s mind with the smell of lineament and teenage sweat and the burns on the back of one’s legs caused by sitting on the clanking, clunking radiators in the second form changing room.
Happening upon a dogeared paperback copy propping up the door of the summerhouse* one determined to visit the whole oeuvre. Quel disappointment.

Review

A girl child called Scout lives somewhere. I think it is colonial. Possibly America. Persons seem truly uneducated and not one’s type at all.
Nothing much happens for a very large part of the book. Then a man is accused of a crime he seems not to have committed. But he is found guilty anyway.
And nothing much happens again. There is a rabid dog, and a nasty man who has evil designs on the heroine and her brother. There is a struggle. The bad man gets killed somehow, I’m not clear how.
End of story.
One star – for longevity.

*It’s a shed, you pompous little prat! ed. Jacintha Farquhar

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

The face smiled, belying the words it spoke.

“We have decided it’s not in our commercial interests to allow you to continue to use those chips in your tech.”

Targena drew a sharp breath.

“Is there nothing we…?”

“The decision’s been taken at the highest level and is final. All future shipments are cancelled.”

A moment later the smiling face vanished from the screen.

Targena sighed then picked up her phone and spoke into it.

“You have your funds, professor.”

It took less than a year to develop a superior chip and wipe the smile off that face for good.

Eleanor Swift-Hook