Running out the clock, 3310 words

 I've got a character and a place, and my character has some sort of inner desire. To not be alone. Now I'm going to run out the clock. Type words and words and words until something starts to happen. Luckily, I have Sam's blog and ridiculous family stories and text threads to give me something to put into those words. 

So, in today's session, I wrote about herbicide, two stores in a nearby village, called ‘Kountry Knick-Knacks’ (specializing in large antique furniture (no knick-knacks)) and ‘Toodle Ooh!’ (vintage postcards and doilies). And Jackie's Place, which is the name of the tiny ramshackle grocery store in the village. 

Here are a couple of excerpts for you.

First, a classic tale of herbicide and a philosophical dilemma.

There was an account of two wealthy merchants with a cottage on a lake outside of Rye, pissed off about the unsightly oak trees at the edge of their neighbor’s property. The trees weren’t blocking any view, the merchants just thought the leaves were an unsightly shade of green. They tried painting the leaves, but green paint at that time was made with arsenic, and the trees quickly sickened and started to die. Suspicion quickly settled on the merchants, who had been grumbling about the oaks for years, and the owner of the property next door – an eccentric Oxford professor of philosophy tried to have them arrested for homicide, arguing that trees are people. Sadly, the homicide case was dismissed, but the judge created a new precedent for herbicide law. The merchants were discovered to actually be smugglers, which most Rye citizens were fine with, but they drew the line at herbicide. The judge ordered the smugglers to plant “fifteen fine oak trees” across the waterfront edge of their property, and to paint the outside of their cottage the color of the hated oak leaves. “If the trees do not live for five years, you will be hanged,” the judge said. 

Was this law still on the books in England, wondered Fenn? 

arsenic green

Second, a favorite character returns.

There was a yellowed, torn sign in the front window (it was probably mud splattered all over the window, right?) that read, inexplicably, ‘This Ain’t the Hilton.’ 

The first time Fenn had entered the shop, the bell over the door jangled, and a grey-black shape had whirled across the counter, then army-crawled toward them, holding a yellowed sock over its face. 

“Oh, it’s you.” The shape stood up and stuck out a hand. “I’m Jackie. He/him.” Fenn shook the hand, and regretted it later, when they needed carbolic soap to get rid of the stench. They also regretted that they had lifted their hand to their face, to investigate said stench. Some investigations are best left to the professionals. 

“You’re on the list,” Jackie said. His face clearly communicated, ‘if you ask about the list, you will regret it with every fibre of your being.’ He pointed to a shopping cart in the corner, then sauntered angrily back behind the counter, where he glared at nothing while wiping grime onto a bottle labeled ‘cooking oil.’ What I mean by this: there was literally a canister in front of Jackie labeled grime, and he used a rag to dip into the canister and wipe it onto a previously sparkling bottle. He inspected it in the dim light, grunted what must have been approval, set the bottle down, and turned to the next. 

Eventually, Fenn would learn that Jackie was a true artiste of grime. Every bottle was grimed differently. Some splattered, some smeared, some covered in murky fingerprints, some encrusted with substances that could have been … anything. I was going to make a list of possibilities, but I was already too disgusted.

photo by Ian Layzell