VanessaHo and worm bit

My whole family was already out and I needed to hurry. It was too warm for a jacket, really, but it drizzled, so I put on the soft felt hat my father had brought from the Grand Canyon. It was just getting dark outside and a white van was waiting for me, driven by the lovely tomboy I want. I chucked my things into the back and joined her in the front.

The cast of Downton Abbey was discussing things like it does, when a group of young Americans came near, sat down at a green wooden picnic table by a fence in this grassy meadow, and unpacked sandwiches, fruit and beverages, and proceeded to eat and talk amongst themselves. Lord Grantham was perturbed. He protested and tried to gain their attention - apparently this table and this ground belonged to Downton Abbey premises - and I turned my attention to the direction the Americans had come from. Sure enough, I saw a bunch of white horses fenced in by blue bands, and a dog trying to play with them, which freaked them out. They chased him away and then two ran for the fence-bands, turning a handsome rich dark brown as they jumped the band, and turning into a couple of cartoonish cows. They jumped several of these blue bands and I watched them gallop and jump, gallop, gallop, and jump ... When they had jumped the last band as flawlessly as the rest in perfect synchrony, I heard the Grantham family behind me mentioning something about food shortage.

I went to neighbouring grounds, where I expected to find the tiny, tiny, gnomishly little boy who should be about four years old but had the height, though not the body development, of a baby. He was there and had raided the neighbour's refrigerator. I could tell he had eaten a lot and he pointed at stuff in the fridge and went on about how he'd eaten almost all of the good dumplings. I shooed him forward. At one point I picked him up and carried him the last few paces to the earth pile at the end of my garden. It had holes in it, about head sized, and I asked him twice how exactly it worked for thim and his kind to sleep in there. I let him down and he dug himself into one of the holes - I wondered if his foodbroadened frame might give him trouble and get him stuck in the tunnels - and I peeked into another to see the very broad to pointy end of a giant worm, which I knew to be the tail of another boy, protruding glisteningly from the dark. It was still, so he was probably already asleep.

I turned around and this morph mix of two girls I want stood in my garden. She wore some kind of figure skating dress, in red with something sparkly sewed on it. She performed a neat acrobatic trick and then looked at me. I grinned and did a backwards somersault. It was her turn and she walked on her hands, holding her torso and legs up above the grass horizontally(!) somehow. It was eerie and very impressive. We sort of circled each other a bit, she gave me bits of information about her, and I smiled brightly, came closer, and when she lay on her back in the grass after her latest stunt (wearing regular jeans, t-shirt and button-up shirt now), I took her hands and kneeled over her, straddling her waist. She tried to push me away, but not very hard, and I didn't budge and she finally let me lean in really closely and kiss her. She kissed back, too, and all the while we were wrapped in a giant brochure portfolioing all the information about her she'd brought with her. This was what I kissed and through which she kissed me. It caught my attention and we studied it a little, because we thought it would be good for her to see a doctor. Two addresses on her big sheet didn't match and she explained she'd refreshed one of those earlier. We moved from the grassy garden ground to the ground floor of my house, the hallway to be exact, where I learned that she had sung a song called "When Nothing Else Matters" in a "WSKRIM" (Women "Skrim" = meaning scream) contest that had been presided over by a famous band she liked. Several times I saw a lovely photograph of her on stage with brown, glinting backdrop and atmosphere, holding the microphone in one hand, tilting her head with tousled soft short brown hair back with closed eyes, holding the mic stand in the other ... the photo and its caption changed ever so slightly each time I saw it. She held an envelope in her hand now and proceeded to open it. It informed her that she'd won the SKRIM contest and her joy made her hug me tightly. I was impressed and proud and wanted to hear her sing.

Rapid Guilt

I used an old black and green desk chair I haven't had since summer last year to skate around in the streets, or mostly the pavement of this city, probably supposed to be my own, but a bit more consequential (metropolitan and pretentious, if you will). I knelt on the seat and had always at least one hand on the back, because that was really necessary, as rapid and wild as this thing was.

It was fast and nearly uncrontrollable, but that was why I used it. It was cool and exciting.

It was also my job to cook some sort of snack, or I was asked to, or I wanted to, or all of the above. I botched up something with chocolate that I put into a box of something else... not important, I was just a little guilty for messing it up, because it was supposed to be for a friend.

He chanced a look at me and my bad snack. I also soaked a few old slices of white bread in a sweet mix of egg ,milk and flour, to roast or bake with raisins or something, but looking at the pans on the stove and the grill plate (the ones we have at work - this was my restaurant kitchen) I knew or feared that it wouldn't work.

I had to turn away anyway and take care of something.

You, Matt, were sitting with a friend or acquaintance of yours at a crossing I have in my neighbourhood. One of the low houses there seemed to be yours. Both of you sat on stools at a small high round table like the ones they have in front of chipper vans and coffee stalls, in front of your front yard on the pavement.

It was dark, either early morning or late evening or whatever. It was nightly dark. (but streetlamp-lit, of course)

I came out of your low front yard gate with some card in my hand, like a greeting card. I placed it on the table where some similar things were already stacked and standing, and turned away from you to the traffic light, ashamed of something (being there in person for you and your friend to see?) and guilty for not acknowledging you.

You acknowledged me and the card, and mentioned me to your friend. I was sorry as I stood there waiting for the lights to turn green for me.

Then I came out of some building onto a dark early morning street (or was it evening? Who the bloody hell cares) that was lined with parked cars, those in turn framed again by a typically German patchwork of appartment buildings. The concrete and pavement glinted wetly.

I looked to a street corner where I'd left my chair.

There was a young man in half a suit (jacket wasn't on), who looked around and lifted my chair, apparently to take it with him.

He appeared to be saying something to himself along the lines of "If no one's there..." with a shrug in his voice.

And he proceeded to carry my chair towards the opened trunk of a car.

I hurried to him, calling: "Heh, that's my chair. Oi! That's MY chair!"

He acknowledged me the second time I called but didn't put the chair down.

He put it into his trunk and somehow made me understand that since it had been on the pavement by itself it was free for the taking, tough luck for me. But I happened to know the law.

He shut his car and left it standing there, and put on his jacket and began to walk across the street and over a bridge rather briskly, and I followed him closely, and kept next to him as best I could.

I said "Are you a lawyer or something?"

He said with some kind of pride: "Well yes, I happen to be" writing a book something blah di blah.

I said: "Well, for a lawyer you don't know the law very well. That's still my chair."

The sky lightened a bit.

And I was woken up.