Two Posts Today

Would you look at that - lots of inactivity and suddenly there're two posts in one day... What wonders...

Bernita's Weirdly Contest - A Short Story

I discovered yesterday - nothing like leaving things to the last minute - that Bernita, over at An Innocent A-Blog, was hosting a short story competition which closes at midnight EST tonight and is entitled the Weirdly Contest. The rules can be found here, should you wish to create a piece in haste.

I have to confess that the muse has been scarce of late and while the image posted on Bernita's blog inspired what follows, the scribbling had plenty to do with participation and pretty much nothing to do with winning. Like those good people always say, it's the taking part that counts and it really is pretty cool being part of such a wide and various group of writers.

So, let us start with the image upon which the competition has been based...

(Photo from the Fortean Photo Library)

And herewith the story... Those who recall my involvement in trying to save the local plantations and forests may perhaps get where this story springs from...

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum* aka The Dryad's Revenge

The far lookout beckoned. Commander Jisprit moved towards him.
"What is it?"
"Men - advancing upon the kingdom."
"Many?"
"Yes, in armoured horses."
Jisprit turned to gaze first at the palace, towering high into the sky, sunlight filtering through its windows. Then he cast his eyes upon the forest and the other cities in the Realm.
"Ready the warriors," he ordered.
"Yes, my lord."
Jisprit watched as messengers sped along the branching pathways of the Imperial City. Flight heralds soared above him to pass on the alert.
A glint of light caught his eye and turning, he saw his queen observing him from the tall turret.
He flexed his wings and rose up.
"My Lady," he said, bowing low.
"Trouble, Jisprit?"
"Men, My Lady, in armoured horses."
"They will sport with us or…?"
"Who knows, My Lady, but we cannot take chances. They have decimated the kingdom too often before."
The queen nodded, her face thoughtful. "They think not, these giant brutes. They see not. What is ours they believe to be theirs. You are right, we must be on our guard. Too often do they despoil and destroy the Realm." She paused a moment. "No, wait… let us be pre-emptive, Jisprit. For a change we will strike first."
"My Lady?"
"They destroy us and we let them. It is time to stop their constant advance. Call upon the Elementals, let their lightning strike the men as those plunderers have always struck us. It is time for change."


* In case you're wondering what Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum means, it is "If you wish for peace, prepare for war".

The Tag Demon strikes again

It seems the tag/meme demons are afoot again, and just in time for the silly season. Now why am I so not surprised?

First of all Scarlett and then Christine tagged me to do the Christmas meme. I told Scarlett I'd like to be excused since Christmas and I really don't get along well. She graciously excused me. Then Christine tagged me too, and so, taking a line from one of the comments on her blog, I said, if I had to write 12 favourite things about Christmas, could I please just put down Christmas tree 12 times.

So here go my 12 favourite things about Christmas - Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees, Christmas trees. There, done!

Then I was tagged by PJ - or rather, I was infected....

A blogger named, Splotchy recently started a viral story, then tagged SamuraiFrog, who subsequently infected PJ who decided to kindly (not!) infect me - as if I haven't had enough bugs to deal with lately!

PJ wrote, from Splotchy's blog: "As Spiderman knows, with great power comes great responsibility, so I hope that my particular strain of this virus will infect loads more bloggers (like crabs but without the itching).

Here are the terms & conditions:

“This has probably been done before, but that is not stopping me, oh no.

Here’s what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don’t know how realistic it is, but that’s what I’m aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.

If you are one of the carriers of this story virus (i.e. you have been tagged and choose to contribute to it), you will have one responsibility, in addition to contributing your own piece of the story: you will have to tag at least one person that continues your story thread. So, say you tag five people. If four people decide to not participate, it’s okay, as long as the fifth one does. And if all five participate, well that’s five interesting threads the story spins off into.

Not a requirement, but something your readers would appreciate: to help people trace your own particular thread of the narrative, it will be helpful if you include links to the chapters preceding yours.”

So, here goes:

I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

My first idea was to put the applesauce in the microwave. Hey, I was still tired. Could I scoop some out and put whipped cream on it? No, too solid. Why was it so damn cold in here? I walked over to the thermostat and saw that the heat hadn’t clicked on all night and the temperature had dropped substantially overnight. Now, tired and hungry, I opened the access panel on the heater. There’s the problem: why was someone cooking a duck in here? (SamuraiFrog)

I grabbed the bird and bit into a leg. It tasted like cheese. Or chicken. What kind of weird duck was this? I spat out the rancid meat and threw the rest of the duck in the bin.
Jackson strode into the kitchen, his short dreadlocks bouncing lightly around his face.
“Is my duck ready yet?” he said as he turned towards me. “Hey man, put some clothes on!”
Shit, I had forgotten to put on my boxers. (PJ)

Which explained why I was so damned cold. I grabbed a tea towel and tried to make myself look half decent.
Jackson snorted, "You'd do better with a fig leaf!" Yeah, well, whatever.
"So, where's my bird?" Jackson asked.
"In the bin," I snapped, "where it should be - thing died long, long ago."
"You binned my bird?" Jackson's eyes had started to bulge with rage. "Why you..."
"It would've killed you," I yelled as he lunged at me, the breadknife in his hand. "Damn! It was only an off-duck!" (Absolute Vanilla)

So, of course, to keep the tag demons alive, I'm going to send this one on to...
Scarlett (heh heh)
Christine (tee hee)
Shameless
Canterbury Soul
and
Kyklops

And now I'm going to hide before Christmas and anymore tag/meme demons try to get me!

Politics? Nah, let's stick to beauty.

Which way up, you decide.

Not much to say today - actually, that's not true. I had written a post about the upcoming African National Congress (ANC) election for a new president of the ruling party. But D decided what I'd said was far too contentious and I was likely to get sued. I did say that sometimes I liked to live on the edge. He said he didn't think this particular edge was a good place to be living. So... what I can tell you is that we live in interesting times as the current president of both the country and the ANC, Thabo Mbeki, goes head to head with his former deputy president, Jacob Zuma. One is a manager and a pragmatist with a strong Thatcherite bent and some very odd views on AIDs/HIV. The other's is the people's man, who's recent past has been dogged by charges of corruption and allegations of the rape (unprotected) of an HIV-positive woman.

"Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."
Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte

Let it not be said that life is ever dull. But let it also be said that while comrades in the ANC may be at each other's throats and stakes may be high, beauty nonetheless abounds in all sorts of other places.

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Simply beautiful.

"Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all."
W. Somerset Maugham

Guinea Fowl Capers

I have spent the better part of today, hanging out the window and lurking in the garden, trying to "study" the guinea fowl. They are, I've decided, the most hopeless of parents. The ones next door who produced their lot a few weeks ago - six in all - have managed to lose four. I suspect three were taken by cats or the sparrowhawk, but the other one they simply lost. Off went the family while one little creature was left behind - peeping frantically all day long, running up and down along the garden wall. By the end of the day the peeping had stopped and I imagine from the unhappy "Oh!" expressed by the neigbhour that the poor mite hadn't made it.

Yesterday, amidst much excitement, we discovered we had four babies in our garden. By this morning there were only three. Mind you, the one had looked very poorly and the screeching and cackling in the night was also indicative that something probably snatched the weakest one since it's not around today. I'm inclined to be like a mother hen with all the babies about, but I realise I stress myself out totally while the guinea parents just get on with it. What, oh, we've lost one, well, there we go. Sometimes I think life must be a whole lot easier just living in the now with no tangible past or future - just this moment. I'm alive, I'm dead. There's food, there's isn't. I've got six babies, now I've got five. That's not to say the guinea fowl aren't protective of their young, they're just not efficiently effective. The males stand up on their toes, squawk loudly and flap their wings, the females just run away. The rest of flock may issue warning screeches. The babies, at least, generally have the good sense to hide, assuming they've run fast enough to get away.

Aside from the clutch of new babies, there are also still the two from next door and another slightly older pair.

Watching the antics of all these baby birds is too sweet for words. Today the very littlies were trying out their wings - we don't go far and we don't go high, but, gosh, mom, look at me fly. They have voracious appetites and their diet consists of seed and insects - I watched one enjoy a snack on a small spider and another peck off the seed heads of my daisies. There has also been a lot of peeping - which is always a sure sign that someone has managed to get left behind and doesn't know where the rest are - but then the parents are inclined to wander off without ensuring the entire family is together! Kind of reminds me of the day my mother lost me in the supermarket when I was three...

Blending into the garden edging...

So this is parsley...

Big, big, little, little, and two teens...

See how they run...

Big brother and little brother...

In Honour of the Silly Season and Courtesy of Atyllah the Hen…

And just when you thought it was safe to go back into the world… the silly season descends. And not just that…

There I was trying to make my way through the ravening hordes at the mall – having fought my way through at least five traffic jams – when there was a tap on my shoulder. I recognized that tap and so tried to ignore it.
“You know what happens next, don’t you?” hissed an all too familiar voice.
I shoved my fingers in my ears. But not in time.
“BA-KAAAAAAAK!”
Oh bother, what can I say, she came back.
For those of you who haven’t been journeying with me for that long you may not be aware of Atyllah the Hen, Chicken with Attitude. Now I would tell you that Atyllah is a fictional character who used to have her own blog. Atyllah, however, will tell you that if you think she’s fiction then your life is one big fantasy. She’s that kind of Chicken. Moreover, she’s an alien chicken from a distant galaxy and a planet called Novapulse. Nova Pullis – New Chicken – geddit? Well, I try not to because it really just becomes far too much.
“What are you doing here,” I hissed, steering her to an alcove. One doesn’t, after all, really want to be explaining oneself to the authorities when they ask what you’re doing with a five foot four chicken – and one who is likely to give them a good pecking if they “get smart” – her words, not mine. “And where’s your human suit?” I muttered, “Couldn’t you at least have made some effort to blend in?”
“Ha! Blend in, with you lot, why by the great Corncob and all that is unholy would I want to do that? Eh? Anyway, I’m perfectly blended, in it’s your silly season time, people will just think I’m part of the festive appeal.”
“Yes, but you’re not appealing.”
“Oh really? You’re joking, come on, tell me you’re joking.”
“Yes, all right, I’m joking.” Anything for a quiet life. I’m an eternal optimist.
“So, what are you doing here?”
“Checking up on you.”
“And? How’m I doing?”
“Well, Aunt Aggie would be proud of you but Granny Were thinks you’ve gone a bit sappy and that there's been far too much seriousness on your blog of late.”
“Yes, well, she would. She is, after all, a WereChicken. But I don’t see how Aunt Aggie can be proud of me, she died.”
“Oh, I know, from an excess of human toxicity..." Atyllah glared at me in a meaningful way. "But happily for us she reincarnated. She decided she was missing us too much.”
“It’s as easy as that?”
“When you are as evolved a being as Aunt Aggie you can do pretty much as you want. Anyway, listen, I can’t hang about chatting, the spacepod is parked up on the roof – I wasn’t going to risk teleporting here with all the air traffic flying in at this time of year – Corncob, this place is overrun with tourists!”
“And you’re not a tourist – an intergalactic one?” I said raising an eyebrow.
I received a scathing look for my pains.
“As I was trying to say, since we were aware that this was your festive, urgh, season, we thought we’d jolly together for old time’s sake and provide you with some good cheer. Of course, you know my view on these things, “bah, humbug”, but, oh well, anything to humour a reincarnated great-aunt. Come on, I’ve got something to show you.”
I was dragged and bustled through the shoppers and wailing children - and past a man who clearly wasn’t Santa - and up to the roof of the mall, where a very strange sight awaited me. The Hens had all descended and were putting on a show!
You can decide for yourself just how pretty it was – and I’m sorry to say, I got dragged in too.
Oh well, ‘tis the season to be jolly, tra-la-la-laa and bah very humbug.

Atyllah's impersonation of Scrooge may be viewed here

(Pictured from left to right - Aunt Aggie, Granny Were, Atyllah and yes, well, I got dragged in too.)

The full-on Hen impersonation of jolly little elves may be viewed here.

Of course, you can join in the mayhem and silliness by going to Elf Yourself.com or Scrooge Yourself.com. Ho ho ho...

Interconnection

My apologies for long and sporadic posting this week - I'm trying to catch up on everything that was left undone while I was ill. Hopefully all will be back to normal (normal being as relative as it is...) next week.

I was pondering the other day the nature of the concepts “world” and “universe” – as one does… But seriously… I was thinking about the interconnectedness of all things, of ourselves as part of each other and of the far greater whole that extends beyond this world and out into the far reaches of infinity. And I thought then of how much we are a microcosm of the macrocosm, a part of the greater whole, our own bodies small worlds within themselves, every bit interconnected, related to, part of the other bits.
And all this made me ponder the nature of what holds us together, what sets us apart, how some of us view ourselves as interconnected and others, well, just don’t. Those others seem to view themselves as set apart – okay, maybe a part of other small, independent whole - perhaps a distinct group or race or class – but still separate from the greater body of humanity. Of course, at this point my toes lose the edge of the lake and I find myself plummeting into colder, deeper waters, contemplating things like the war in Iraq, the riots in Paris, the new corporate “superpowers”, the original response to the English teacher in the Sudan… Suddenly the list becomes endless and it begins to strike me that we are always at each others throats. And then I realize that I have strayed from where I started, the miracle of interconnectedness – and all because those who remain unconscious manage to clamour for and gain attention on our TV screens and in our newspapers. And they all seem bound together by manmade, rather than “God” inspired ideas. (I use the term “God” in its loosest sense. I do not refer to some biblical god – rather to the greater creative/divine energy.) So, I drag myself back to where I started… the concept of worlds, ourselves as small worlds. I like the idea because it points out, it seems to me, the reality of our place in the greater reality – as I said, small parts of the whole. And then, as it does, the clip below popped into my mail box and I though, “ah, yes, see, now that just sums it up perfectly.” Our bodies are miniatures of the universal whole and who, considering that, can possibly say that we are not all interconnected, that everything in the universe is not interconnected, that what one does, impacts upon another. That all things are in balance and that a greater wisdom, consciousness, drives it all.

And then I remembered I'd written something like this in one of my many notebooks early last month... clearly the subject is much on my mind...

Think of yourself... you are a world - as is your family and your home. And there is our world - a whole - a mass of energetically integrated organisms and life-forms. I wonder how many see it that way though?

Think of your home, your family, yourself - all worlds in their own right - connected, interconnected, functioning interdependently.

Consider this: you cut your toe, it bleeds and it hurts. The pain runs through your entire being courtesy of a multitude of neurotransmitters firing off alarms. Your mouth, your vocal chords echo the pain. Your body's defense mechanisms spring into action to prevent infection. The clotting mechanisms kick in to ensure the cessation of blood flow. Your hands, on the ends of your arms, reach out to tend the injury. The cells within the tissues, your skin, go to work to close the gash. Everything, every bit of you, functions together to heal the wound - and ensure the well-being, not just of your toe but of your entire being.

The same might apply to your family or your home. Your brother may need help. The family rally round to offer support - it may be financial or emotional or practical. Or, your roof springs a leak - you don't leave it (I hope!), you get up there and fix it or call someone in to do it, because not doing so would mean damaged timbers, sodden carpets, wrecked furniture. You treat your home as an extension of yourself - your world - you protect it because in doing so you ensure your own well being.

So, if we think then of the world we live in, planet Earth - we live in it, or so we should, in the same way. We should tend it, just as we tend ourselves, our family and our home. Because it is part of us and we are part of it in the same way. This part interconnected with that. That part reliant on this. Something goes wrong in the east, the west rushes to help. One place experiences a tsunami or an earthquake, another place sends help. Discontent in one part, affects another part. Injury to one place impacts upon some other place.

The trouble is though we don't treat the world as though all is interconnected. Too many of us, tiny worlds in our own right, ignore the plight of another part. Too many of us turn a blind eye to the pain experienced elsewhere - in fact, still worse, there are those of us who actively set out to create dissent, pain and destruction - as though we would willingly cut off our own foot, or poison ourselves, burn ourselves, mutilate ourselves. Consider what we think of those who do such things... consider those of us who do those things to the world - our world. Generally, most of us don't treat ourselves with such self hatred, such lack of love and respect. So why do some of us treat our world in this way. Are not all of us not part of it? Is it not part of all of us? Do we not collectively rely on every part of our world so that it and we function as a whole?

What kind of strange species have some of us mutated into that literal self-destruction has become a core objective? Sure some may gain personal wealth to ensure better healthcare for that cut toe but if some are allowed to continue in this way - and they encourage others to imitate them in a continual praise of Mammon - all that accumulated wealth will be of no use as the world, our world, the place where we stand, where we build our homes and create our families, slowly crumbles away. It is time all of us realised that we are not separate - nothing is. All is one.


The images used here are reflections - but which is truly which, or is one element part of the other? Are they trees, or trees reflected on a granite surface - or is just granite. Is it a painting, or the garden reflected in a painting... Or a painting of a garden? Consider beyond the obvious.