Andrew MacLaren-Scott's Blog, page 113

Reluctant reacquaintance

Another sample from the first draft of the further adventures of the lads from Report on Sample 717, with this episode following on from here...

'I thought you said that the men were more dominant here Edrig?'

'So they are, my Lady Ezma, at least they have been more dominant over many centuries, although the ladies are now fighting back quite effectively, but cunningly, not with fists or guns.'

'But those two horribly ugly thin ladies. They were so small yet they just commanded Adm to go home with them as if to issue commands was their natural way, and he followed without question, and I think we know what ordeal he may have to endure with them too.'

'Ah yes my Lady. An ordeal... With the eh... horrible skinny ugly small ladies. Well... It's hard to explain my Lady, some things are hard to explain.'

'An ordeal,' Adrig muttered. 'An ordeal... I should have done the brave and manly thing and volunteered to take his place, for I am old enough to endure the suffering better than him.'

'I think you may have been telling us falsehoods dear man,' Arma suggested to Edrig. 'These ladies did indeed seem perfectly capable of ordering Adm to do their bidding.'

'Ah well. Well...'

'Yes?'

'I don't know my lady, perhaps things are more complicated than they seemed to us when we were here. And anyway. Look. I do believe I see two police officers ahead.'

'And look! Exclaimed Adrig, 'I do believe they may know us!'

'Oh? Lesley and Jack?'

'I do think so my boy. Dear Lesley and Jack.'

'Lesley! Jack!' Edrig called out, but the response was not what he had hoped for. Lesley and Jack stopped, stared, both betrayed a flash of recognition across their faces at the same time, and then they both turned sharply to their right, Lesley tugging at Jack's elbow to lead him away as they marched quickly down another narrow alley off of the wide street.

'Oh...' said Edrig.

'Well whoever they are they did not seem pleased to see you,' Arma said, 'And did you see the way the lady pulled him aside? That lady was in charge there! This place is much more properly ordered than you have suggested.'

'I do think,' Adrig began slowly, 'that our previous encounter may have somewhat diminished Lesley and Jack's enthusiasm for a repeat.'

'Ah...' said Lady Ezma. 'I think I know about that encounter, with Jack anyway. With the Lady Lord? Our dear departed Lady Lord? We saw him enter her rooms, but... he is a footballer is he not? The fine and fit young footballer that you brought for her. She liked him too! Kept him all to herself, the bitch.'

'Ah, yes. Indeed,' Edrig began to explain. 'A footballer my lady, but eh... a policeman too... Eh... The police football team. They are very good.'

'Really?'

'Yes really.'

'Really?' Adrig added.

'Yes really Adrig,' Edrig declared firmly, before continuing with, 'Never mind, I think that the police station, eh... the police hotel is quite near here. We should go and present ourselves there, and with any luck they may arres... em... invite us to stay a while in their nice safe locked rooms with some hot food to enjoy.

'Locked?'

'For your safety my Lady.'

'Oh. And all free of charge?'

'Indeed my Lady. They do take care of visitors quite well here.'

'And so, Edrig digs himself deeper and deeper...' muttered Adrig in the words that the Ladies would not understand.

'Indeed I do my friend. After all it is what I do best. And I hope the police may have some spare shoes or even clothes to offer us from their lost property department perhaps. If you've got any better ideas let's hear them.'

'Sounds like a fine plan,' conceded Adrig, speaking in his own language again.

'Lead us on then,' Arma commanded. 'To the police hotel!'

Little tree time

Self-propagated little suckers who have burrowed in from next door, and now losing their leaves for the very first time. Fear not little trees, another Spring should come, and I have decided that you can stay. It's a shame that the lady next door chopped down your Momma a few months ago, but you have reached safety now.




These are Rhus "Staghorn" suckers, and I do know that some brutal and regular control of the further suckers burrowing out from these suckers will be required, but no need to worry them about that just yet, although my saw has already cut circles in the ground around the little infants.

Another view of just what was there

because I rather like it,

and a man has to pass the time somehow when his coffee is done, his fruit and nut flapjack has been eaten (422 kilocalories), the newspaper has been read and his Lady has still not returned. 'Wait there. Don't get into trouble. I'll be back for you,' she said, and, eventually, she was. Although I did nearly get myself into trouble trying to turn the camera casually towards another couple of large Lady Lords. It's a dangerous business for a man out alone on these mean streets.

Poor Adm

Another sample from the first draft of the further adventures of the lads from Report on Sample 717, following on from here...

In the absence of any better plan, the four superior beings and the more primitive being from a different and devastated sample set off down the track that led to town. The Ladies had suggested just hiding in the woods until the 'inevitable' rescue came, but Edrig's talk of the hot food he had previously enjoyed in a police cell had been the persuasive factor, even if he had substituted the word 'hotel' for cell.

'A police hotel?' Ezma had said. 'What a strange concept, but okay, let's go and see if the police or anybody else can help us.'

'Oh, ah, ouch...' were the words that came from Adrig and Edrig as they walked barefoot upon the stony path. 'We need to get some shoes, fast.'

'Shoes?'

'Sneaks Adm. Sneaks... and they have much better sneaks here than your ones, may I say.'

'My feet fine,' boasted Adm, 'Come on! Why so slow?'

'Oh, oooh, ah, ouch...'

And so the few people on the top deck of an early morning bus were bemused by the odd little party that they saw reaching the parkland near to where the Lady Lord had so recently met her end. Three men in dark brown fur gowns, open at the arms and revealing bare legs from the knee down, and two bulky women dressed in silvery suits from neck to feet. One of the men, young and muscular, stepping out confidently in his 'sneaks', a second man somewhat chubby and bald and seemingly in his mid-fifties, alongside the taller, slimmer and older looking man with the thin but long silvery hair; and all of them still dripping some water from their cold baths.

'Your communifiers,' said Edrig, the smaller and more chubby of the older men... before adding, 'Oh... still in the pod and now far away, eh? But still, they were broken anyway.'

'No communifiers,' said Lady Ezma, 'No stunners,' added Lady Arma, 'No money,' said Adrig, 'No credit card and no food,' added Edrig. 'Oh, and no damn sneaks.'

'Or underpants,' offered Adrig.

'What you chirrupin' about?' asked Adm. 'Come on. Police hotel and hot food!'

'One has to admire the young fellow's bright enthusiasm,' Adrig commented in his own language, as they plodded alongside each other and into town.

And it was a waking Autumnal town on a Saturday morning, where people gazed at this odd grouping as they progressed through the central streets, drawing laughs and more than a few shouted comments.

'Ha ha! Looks like it has been a great party!'

'Love the outfits guys!'

'Ha ha. Look at that lot. Probably still out of it...'

There was even some applause for them.

'What are they saying?' Ezma demanded. 'Why are they whacking their hands together?'

'In welcome my Lady. In welcome. It is how they greet strangers. They are very friendly, mostly.'

And that was when two slim and gorgeous young ladies, perhaps in their mid-twenties, disembarked from a nearby taxi and staggered towards Adm, whistling and calling out their approval.

 'Hey. Gorgeous! looks like your party was almost as much fun as our one.'

'Huh?' said Adm, while looking at the swaying and staggering approaching beauties in their flimsy brightly coloured party dresses and precariously high heels.

'You been buggy beering?' Adm asked, while instinctively reaching out to catch the arm of one of the ladies as she appeared about to fall just as she came alongside him.

'Oh thanks honey,' the first of these two long-haired beauties remarked. 'Such a gent!'

'Oh! help me too gorgeous,' the other one cried out as she grabbed hold of Adm's other arm 'Help us home! We're still up for a party! You coming with us?'

'Yeah... Help us home gorgeous! Just round there...' and they nodded in the direction of a nearby alley.

Adrig and Edrig looked on, somewhat stunned by these sudden events and by the young girls' beauty.

The Ladies looked on with some disgust.

'So sticky thin!' Arma chirped. 'So unhealthy! So ugly!'

'Oh... yes...' Edrig agreed, unconvincingly. 'Thin... Ugly...'

'Beautiful though,' whispered Adrig in 717 English. 'Just... simply... beautiful...'

By this time the two drunk but beautiful ladies of Sample 717 had led Adm some way away, towards the alley, and Adm was not at all reluctant to be led.

'I help them. Help home...' He called out. 'Better than police hotel. You go. I will find. Back here later.'

'You talk a bit funny, darling,' one of Adm's new friends remarked. 'Come on. Help us home. It's still party time!'

And Adrig and Edrig just watched as Adm was led away until a short distance down the alley the three of them turned a corner and then were out of sight.

'Well that's a shame,' said Ezma, 'Should we follow?'

'Best not,' Adrig advised. 'Best not.'

'He'll be fine,' said Edrig. 'Better than with us, although... He should go back, I suppose. Our rules... but then... Ah... if we have led him into a pickle then it is a pickle that he may well enjoy.'

'Better than our new pickle, that's for sure,' said Adrig switching back into the language the Ladies could not understand, while looking regretfully towards the big Ladies in their silvery suits.

'So thin though,' insisted Ezma. 'So ugly... Poor man.'

'Oh yes. The poor, poor man,' Edrig offered in quiet agreement, with a slow shake of the head and a heavy sigh. 'But we must just hope that he can make the best of it, poor man.'

Just what was there

A bumbling bee

In response to desperate pleading by a horde of readers (well, a few... more than one...) extracts from the first draft of the further adventures of the lads from Report on Sample 717, still continue, following on from here...

Adrig opened the pod door and the fresh sweet smell of an Autumn morning began to pervade the pod. Within seconds a fat and furry bumble bee had drifted in and, perhaps somewhat befuddled by the unseasonal early Autumn warmth outside, it began to explore, looking for nectar. It bumped lightly against the walls and then against the bright location screen before moving up to the small display that Adrig had recently used to select 717 as their destination. The occupants of the pod followed its bumbling progress with faint smiles. Even the Ladies seemed quite pleased to see this evidence of free life entering what they had previously feared might be a terminal prison.

As the bee bumped into the display that said 717 a few times, Edrig noticed up and down arrows that were lit up next to the Sample number. And then the bumbling bee buzzed sideways and explored the lit Auto-Return button. No nectar there either, but options for the watching Edrig to ponder.

While Edrig considered the issue that the bee had put into his mind, Adrig was considering the issue of what to do next.

'I suggest we get out,' he said to the Ladies, but the Ladies were not convinced.

'I suggest we stay here and try to get home,' the Lady with the long brown hair and the slightly less puffy face responded.

'May I ask your name, my Lady?' Adrig dared to request, on an impulse.

'My name? You want to know my name?'

'Yes please my Lady. We may be together for a while in this, eh... unfortunate predicament, and it would be better if we could respectfully address you each by name.'

The brown-haired Lady thought about this.

'My name, she eventually conceded, is Ezmaraldo, well... Ezma, and this is Armadalla, or Arma.'

'Ah... Very fine names my Ladies. Lady Ezmaraldo with the fine brown hair and Lady Armadalla with the beautiful black hair.'

'Do not attempt to become over familiar,' Armadalla cautioned him sternly, 'but you may call us Lady Arma and Lady Ezma, given the intimacy we have already shared, I suppose.'

'Well thank you my Ladies,' Edrig said with a slight bow of his head, 'and yes... intimacy... I do believe we have met before actually, unless you have very similar looking sisters.'

'Yes we have met,' said Ezma, 'on your night of interrogation.' And both Ladies managed a weak smile before Arma gave a big fat wink of a big dark eye and said, 'You were alright actually, both of you, when the testosterjuice had fully kicked in.'

Edrig shuddered a little, but managed to smile and say, 'Thank you again my Lady. Thank you.'

Adrig then began the procedure of trying to persuade the Ladies to leave the pod, while Adm had been following this exchange of unintelligible high-pitched screeching with some impatience, awaiting any information in the language that he could understand..

'We could decontaminate our exteriors out there,' Adrig suggested to the Ladies, 'and that would make it less hazardous for you to be in contact with us. I do believe there is a little stream not far from where we have arrived, if my memory of our previous visit is correct. And you could decontaminate the outside of your suits, perhaps, although I suspect it will all be relatively harmless, considering that Adm here has survived and thrived in it for many years.'

'You talking about me?' asked Adm, noticing a nod of the head towards him.

'Yes my friend. Please forgive but we have to talk in our own language to the Ladies. I am trying to persuade them to get out.'

'I'm off out now,' said Adm. 'Looks nice.'

And with that announcement, Adm pulled his muscular young frame in its furry brown covering out through the hatch and began to stretch and breathe heavily outside.

'Good. Sunshy. Good,' he called back towards the inside of the pod.

'Sunny, I think you mean,' Adrig called out in correction.

'Well sunny. Good. Nice.'

The Ladies looked out at Adm's lower torso and muscular legs, somewhat admiringly, Edrig thought.

'I do think it would be best to get out,' he told them, 'After all, this pod has malfunctioned once. It could be in an unstable state. It may decide to go anywhere. Somewhere worse. This place is good. Good until we get rescued.'

'But there will be people out there. Primitives. Ugh...' said Ezma.

'Actually they are much more civilized than you may suspect my Lady, and they might help us.'

'Help us?'

'Yes... Eh... Their police, perhaps...'

'Police?'

'Perhaps... Until we get rescued. Your suits will have tracking chips, I'm sure, and somehow or other even Adrig and I were monitored, though we only have these furs on.'

'Hah... Chips under your skin this time my lad, I believe,' Ezma revealed. 'Yes, we will get rescued.'

And so the Ladies were persuaded to leave the pod and investigate what Sample 717 had to offer.

And what it had to offer initially was a sunny morning and an opportunity to wash in a fast-flowing little stream that Adm had waded into, just twenty paces or so from the pod. And the two Ladies watched intently as Adm boldly pulled off his furry gown and sat down naked into the cold water, shouting out meaningless yelps as he did so.

'Hah! Cold eh?' remarked Adrig, having helped the Ladies out and then pulled himself from the pod, leaving only Edrig inside.

The Ladies could not understand what Adrig had said, but in her own language Ezma muttered, 'Probably cold but not cold enough to diminish that young primitive's magnificence eh?' And she gazed at the bathing Adm.

'Indeed not,' replied Arma. 'Indeed not.'

And then Adrig ventured to sit down in the water too, without removing his fur gown, while the Ladies pulled their suits down to their waists and reached down inside to pull out their absorbency pads which they quickly hurled into the woods nearby.

'Oh Big! Oh Biggy...' Adm said quietly to himself, for the Ladies he was now looking at were revealed to be naked beneath their suits. And then he said 'Biggy' to himself a few times more as the Ladies hauled their silvery suits off with some difficulty and sat down in the water downstream from Adm and Adrig.

The Ladies did not shout or shiver at the cold, for their plentiful fatty covering made it feel almost warm to them, after an initial brief jolt of coldness to the skin.

Edrig meantime, was outside of the pod but looking inside at the bumble bee still buzzing around and bouncing off the various lit-up screens and buttons. And not for the first time in his life he decided to act without too much thinking, as he reached in, pressed Auto-Return, and pulled his hand out quickly before turning and walking towards the others.

'Why did you do that?' Adrig demanded, in 717 English, as the pod began to hum and dematerialise.

'Do what?'

'You didn't do it?'

'I think it did it itself,' Edrig claimed, as the pod disappeared into the spear of bright light that shot up into the high blue sky and then was gone.

'It must have Auto-returned itself,' he shouted in his own language at the rather astonished ladies who had turned to witness the sudden departure. 'But... That could be good... They will know where it came from. They will find us.'

'Yes,' shouted Adrig in the words that the Ladies would not understand. 'Yes, and that could be bad eh? Why did you do it? Did you do it?'

'Eh...'

'You did, didn't you?'

'Eh...'

'Yes. You did.'

'Well anyway,' Edrig said, avoiding the question. 'Who knows what's for the best eh?'

'Not you my boy. Certainly not you.'

'Have you thought of the problems if the police found it?' Edrig asked quietly.

'Oh...' said Adrig. 'But... Have you thought of how it might have helped us if the police could find it?'

'No, I...'

'Still my boy. Still... Who knows eh?' And then they were forced to turn their attention to the Ladies' demands for explanations and plans, barked out towards the men as the Ladies rinsed their suits in the water and put them on again.

Adm, meantime, was standing covered up again in his own freshly rinsed furry gown, gazing up in the sky at the point into which the pod's beam of light had disappeared.

And inside the pod, somewhere out there in the land of interdimensional and interstellar limbo, a befuddled bumble bee was still buzzing around... until it bumped rather heavily into a touch-sensitive screen, which immediately began to scan through numbers.... until the bee bumped rather heavily again into the selector symbol beside the numbers while the display was showing '621'.

A Lady Lord on 717?

and talking to Adrig? Or do my eyes deceive me as much as my mind does?

yM middled mund

I don't know why I bother stating on this blog how regular or irregular posts of whatever nature may be, because there is a monkey in my mind that keeps messing about with my priorities, much like this monkey on the top of an information board in Dundee, whose messing around with "Information" always amuses me greatly, as well as making me seek possible deeper meanings within. And he seems to be conveying a debatable message in the Scots language too.

 
And there is that imp in my mind as well, who keeps whispering the latest adventures of Adrig and Edrig and others as yet unpublicised to me, and with the monkey and the imp playing havoc all the time it is a wonder that I ever manage to convey a pretence of sanity at all. And maintaining that pretence is not easy while keeping up the monthly howling at the moon too:


And whatever other priorities I have, and I do... the imp keeps insisting that there are things I should report sooner than intended. Sigh... I think I will be banning myself from ever attempting to predict what will happen next, on this blog, or in my mind, or anywhere else... But looking back,  I do know that it has been a strange week, so far.

Seeking sleep

Counting sheep... One, Two... One, Two... One, Two...

Back next week, I hope

Back again

This is the last episode, at least for a while, in the first draft further adventures for the lads from Report on Sample 717, following on from here... The rest may eventually appear in a new book.

The Ladies came back to consciousness, and gasped.

Adm looked at their faces, now fully revealed, and muttered, 'Uh... Big.'

'Ah yes,' agreed Edrig, 'Big and round eh?'

And the Ladies were not exactly grateful for having been rescued, as they soon made clear with their chirping.

'Now we are contaminated, and the smell in here is awful. Perhaps we were just sleeping.'

'No, you would have been dead, my Ladies,' declared Adrig with as much fake confidence as he could muster. 'Your atmosphere was all gone.'

'All your fault, this disaster. It's all your fault.'

'But you Ladies sent us there.'

'Still... All your fault. There will be punishments.'

'Or the atmosphere in the pod will run out, perhaps, and then we will all be dead. No punishments then.'

'Fix it!' the Lady with the bushy dark hair screamed, soon followed by the equally aggressive lady with the long brown hair screaming, 'Yes! Fix it!'

'This is, indeed, a pickle,' announced Edrig in 717 English.

'Oh do shut up,' Adrig told him, wearily.

'I like pickle,' Adm said... 'Best is buggy ferment of apple and fruit pickle though... Almost as good as beer.'

'Cider actually. I told you,' snapped Edrig, irritated.

'You say cider I say beer.'

'Oh shut up the both of you,' said Adrig, also irritated.

'Shut up and fix it!' screeched the ladies in their own language.

And that was when Adrig got to his feet and kicked out at the wall, very firmly.

Nothing happened, so he kicked again.

'Stop it!' shouted the Ladies, but just as they shouted out, he was already kicking again at a different location.

And that was when the pod started to hum.

Edrig was impressed, shouting, 'My goodness Adrig! You may have fixed it!'

The Ladies said nothing. They just looked at each other, but they looked pleased.

Above the shoulder of the Lady nearest to him, Adrig noticed a little screen had started shifting through numbers with what he thought might be a 'select' button flickering alongside it. Hmm... 660, 661, 662... And he also noticed that the Auto-Return button was flashing again, above and behind the Ladies' heads.

He waited, looking slyly across at Edrig, who was also watching the screen. Adrig raised his eyebrows and looked into Edrig's eyes.

'717 was okay,' Edrig said quietly in 717 English, 'Better than home, but... Oh... Decision time...'

And just a few seconds later when the number on the screen reached 717, Adrig pressed the button.

The screen went black, while the pod continued to hum.

'What are you doing up there?' The dark-haired Lady demanded of Adrig.

'Just trying to see if I can work out what is going on,' he assured her. 'Oh... I feel dizzy.'

'So do I,' said Edrig, 'Sit down man.'

So Adrig sat down, and soon all occupants of the pod lost consciousness.

And Adm was the first to regain consciousness, seemingly almost immediately when the pod had come to a halt. The first thing he noticed was a rather familiar scene on the large location screen, a scene of grass and trees with green leaves just turning towards Autumnal hints of yellow.

'Back home?' he called out, hopefully.

His voice stirred Edrig into opening his eyes and focusing on the location screen.

'Ah no, my friend, not home, but probably quite like your home only before the, eh... before the biggy booms.'

'Oh! Like before biggy booms. Wow.'

'That looks damn familiar,' came Adrig's voice in his own language, having sensed that the Ladies were stirring. 'It looks just like the place near the hill where we arrived with the Lady Lord.'

'Yes,' agreed Edrig, speaking loud for the benefit of the waking Ladies and any recording system that he remembered there might be. 'In Perth on 717. Perhaps the system locks on to places that we have already visited. Eh.... Oh, I don't know anything about it.'

'Anyway my boy,' said Adrig cheerfully, 'Things are looking up. This is much better than stuck in a broken pod.'

'Well, except we have no money, no credit card and only these damn stupid furry gowns to walk around in. Not even any, eh... sneaks for our feet.'

'Oh yeah... And we are not smelling too good either are we, rather soiled as we are. I think we need to find a river or a pond to wash in immediately.'

'Ah... so we are home then,' the awakened lady with the long brown hair chirped out with the dominant confidence of her voice returning.

'Eh... We don't think so my Lady,' Edrig informed her as he pointed at the screen. 'There seems to have been a location malfunction.'

'What!' screeched the Ladies together.

'Very strange my Ladies. Perhaps the pod just took us to the nearest location...or eh... or something. I don't know. But we seem to be on Sample 717, where Adrig and I have been before.'

'717? Where the Lady Lord died?'

'Eh, yes my Ladies.'

At this news, both Ladies pulled out their communifiers and began chirping into them while Adrig and Edrig looked on, wondering.

'Dead,' the bushy dark-haired Lady announced.

'Still dead,' the long brown-haired one confirmed.

'Oh dear,' said Edrig, faking disappointment. 'They route through the pod, eh... or do they? The pod is... well... I don't know anything about it.'

'Oh dear,' Adrig added, 'but perhaps they will trace you two with your tracking chips, or the pod's own tracking devices, or whatever else they use to monitor what is going on?' He was thinking fast, and in a muddle about what he had done.

'Oh yes,' muttered Edrig, in the 717 English that the Ladies couldn't understand. 'Oh dear and oh damn and oh yes. But still... who knows what's for the best.'

'Yes indeed. Who knows?' Adrig agreed.