When I Should Be Working.
Around this time last year, sharplittlteeth and I came up with NaMoWriMo - National Moustache Writing Month. Somehow 12 months has managed to fly in the space of three, maybe four, and here we are again. I've taken way too long to write this and it's a lot longer than I expected it to be. Go read David's effortlessly cool contributions, then come back here and wallow in my verbal mire.
Geoffrey watched the last of the sun disappear behind a landscape that looked as though someone had plugged in the Geography Amplifier and turned the "Cold Grey Mountains" dial to 11.
He was staring out of the window that took up the entire western wall of the hall with only half a mind; the rest his mental effort was diverted to unsuccessfully ignoring the whispers behind him. In the window he could see the faint reflections of his fellow partygoers watching him like frightened pigeons in a park anxiously debating the wisdom of coming forth and getting the crumbs from beneath the sandwich you're still eating. He wondered which of them would be first.
Geoffrey steadied his drink just as Eugene's hand clapped him on the back.
"Well done, again, Geoffrey. That makes it what now, three?"
It was four, the last three of those in a row, and Eugene bloody well knew it so Geoffrey told him it was 5 and was pleased by the flash of annoyance across Eugene's face; Eugene had won only 2 grand prizes and those weren't back to back.
"I thought your ale this year wasn't as great as last year. The subtlety was replaced by an unwelcome boldness, but I guess there are those who like that kind of thing."
"You are right, Eugene. I can say with absolute certainty that my ale is suited to those who like to taste something."
Geoffrey suppressed a smile as two spots rose on Eugene's cheeks.
"And some people like to mix their beer with cordial 'for the taste', it doesn't make it right"
Eugene spun and walked away without saying goodbye while Geoffrey turned back to the window, completely dark now and so perfectly reflecting the faces of everyone else in the room staring at him. Master Brewer three years running versus the man who would be king. Geoffrey allowed himself a smile then while he fingered the crystal trophy standing on the table next to him and brought his glass to his lips.
What was this shit? Geoffrey rolled the liquid around in his mouth then spat it back into the glass. He sniffed at the contents and recoiled. He'd given the organisers ten crates of his prize-winning ale and this, quite evidently, was not it. Apparently someone had decided to keep the amber gold he brewed for themselves and in its stead serve something that looked and tasted like the strained remains of that one half-full glass that someone had left on the outside window-sill at the party and which everyone else had used as an ashtray.
Looking around he couldn't believe nobody was complaining, yet it only served to prove his theory that most people were dead-mouthed morons led more by trends and the vagaries of "cool" than the evidence of their own senses. Words would be had, but not tonight; tonight was for enjoyment and basking in his glory. That enjoyment was not going to be found here with the idiots, sycophants and sub-standard tipple. He emptied his glass into the pot plant - hoping silently to kill it - picked up his trophy and made his way through the room, out into the car park to his car and then through the night to the source of his success.
*
Geoffrey parked the car little way from the brewery on the side of the gravel road that lead up to it from the gate. He loved this place during the day, but even more so at night. He loved to walk up to it, to watch it loom out of the darkness. The building was old and grey, qualities reflecting the forest and mountains that surrounded it. He didn’t know how old it was, but it was the oldest structure for miles and miles and he suspected that parts of it were some of the oldest in the land.
He walked without hurry around the impressive structure that housed the maturing barrels and the pots and burners and fermentation vats that were all part of the magic turning simple ingredients into something with near infinite complexity. Yet Geoffrey needed none of it.
He made his way to the far side of the structure, a corner protected from prying eyes by trees and hedges that pressed themselves up against the brickwork and ivy that worked its way up. He swept aside some branches that looked impenetrable yet could be moved with ease by someone who knew their arrangement. Beyond them was a small clearing where he stood and pressed a few stones in an order he barely remembered and enacted mostly from muscle memory. At the very last he stood on his toes, reached high above his head, and pressed one final stone. There was a faint grinding noise, like an old man’s papery cough, and a section of the wall slid aside to reveal a small doorway. Geoffrey stepped inside, picked up the torch from a small shelf near the door, pressed another stone to close the gap behind him, and started his way down the stairs.
The staircase was winding and narrow, the steps well worn. Though he had traversed this space hundreds of times he still took his time, shining the torch ahead while keeping one hand sliding along the wall.
The staircase went down far deeper than it had a right to, beyond any cellar or basement: deeper and colder and wetter and older; above all older. The journey was not an easy one, but a necessary one and one from which Geoffrey gained a whole lot of pleasure.
Finally, out of breath and covered with a thin sheen of sweat despite the cold, he reached the bottom. He stood in the roughly hewn doorway to catch his breath while looking around the dimly lit chamber in front of him.
What faint light there was, was provided through Victorian ingenuity bordering on madness. An elaborate system of mirrors reflected sun and moonlight down and through natural chimneys with supplementary lighting being provided by a system of oil lamp that drew their fuel from a common oil chamber, which Geoffrey refilled every other month.
Once his heart had stopped pounding from exhaustion. He stepped in and made his way carefully to the light control board. He turned the lamps up and, despite knowing every detail of what was before him, still felt the breath catch in his throat.
The chamber was enormous; a natural cave made smoother by human hands - the remnants of scaffolds and ladders were propped up against the walls and now facilitated maintenance of the lamps and pipes that lined the walls. The pipes diverted water from a natural spring that gushed from the far wall into a large pool. Geoffrey had no idea as to the source of the water, but it was the sweetest and purest water he'd ever tasted. The pipes ran from the spring to a point above a giant brass drum that stood on one side of the chamber and then back out of the drum and up through the rock into the brewery.
A giant of a man was chained to the wall close to the drum. He was naked but for a filthy loincloth and was five metres tall if he was an inch. The chains that ran from the wall ended in shackles around his ankles and wrists. Where the shackles rubbed, his arms and legs were raw, weeping and scarred. Scars on scars, the product of decades of struggle: a calendar of pain. He was bald, but with a long and thick moustache that was stretched and pinned across the top of the drum like a rough gauze through which the water pouring from the pipes was being filtered.
He was staring right at Geoffrey.
"Ah, you're awake."
"I'm always awake."
His voice was resonant and deep, though turned strange by the forced paralysis of his top lip.
"I'm always awake and even if I weren't, your stomping down the stairs would be more than I need to be alerted."
Geoffrey waved his hand in impatience.
"Something's happened to the quality, to the taste. I won the grand prize, but comments were made. Disparaging comments."
The giant sighed.
"I've told you before. I don't know what affects the taste or the colour. I don't know why my moustache turns water to ale. I just know that it was ever thus."
Geoffrey walked around the room, adjusting taps, pressure gauges and flow inhibitors. He paused by the drum and tapped it with the butt of the torch. It rang out in an eerie metallic echo of the giant's voice.
"I may have to empty this thing. Perhaps a rat or a bird got down here somehow and drowned in the tank and is even now polluting the batch."
"Nothing has entered the water. I would know."
Geoffrey made his way around the drum and closer to the giant though still a very safe distance. He looked up at him with a sour look on his face.
"I don't care what you say, there's no way I'd trust you. You may be right and the problem could be with the inflow pipes, but I think I'll start with the drum."
The giant slowly stretched himself out, as far as his bonds would let him. While still crouched and restrained, there was something majestic about him despite his appearance and something regal despite his surroundings.
"You don't trust me?"
He stood taller despite the pain.
"I was Silenus and Osiris. What I said was worth more than gold and lasted longer than stone. The men of the frozen north knew me as Aegir and in the heat of the south I was Tezcatzontecatl. I bonded fathers to their sons, kings to their queens, and armies together as brothers. To some I was Radegast and to their kin, Raugupatis. I said the things I did and did the things I said and you dare stand while I am hand and foot bound and call me untrue?"
Geoffrey was petrified and tried desperately not to show it, though failing at stopping every traditional sign of fear short of pissing himself and even there it was touch and go.
"You..."
The giant breathed on him then.
Geoffrey's vision swam and he stumbled back. He could smell sunshine and malt. He saw men fighting and fucking, then drinking. He saw women cavorting where wine flowed freely, their robes stained purple. He saw mighty ships leaden with goods encircling the globe and in the next moment he saw a shepherd fermenting the milk of his mare. He smelled honest earth and golden barley. He saw paupers and kings and smelled adventure.
Finally his vision cleared and he gasped and sputtered.
"If you ever try anything like that again..."
He broke off, realising his voice sounded squeaky and about as threatening as a dinner reservation. The giant had closed his eyes and was back in his crouch, looking nothing like the man he was moments ago. Geoffrey decided that improvements and amendments could wait for another day and, trembling with courage, he turned down the lights and made his way out of the hall.
All the way up the stairs he tried to tune out the low and rumbling laughter, ominous, like thunder on the horizon. Once outside he made sure the door was secure, replaced the foliage in its natural state and drove away just faster than was entirely safe.
Geoffrey failed to notice that as soon as he stepped outside, a fly landed on his chest and ate a tiny, near-invisible speck of beer that had landed there when the giant breathed on him. The fly flew far away from the brewery finally being caught in a spider's web. Its last word was "Yasigi", in the language of spiders and flies.
A bird, in turn, ate the spider just after dawn - but not the latter whispered "Mbaba Mwana Waresa". The bird flew and flew, across the sea, and when it landed to rest was promptly eaten by a cat - barely managing to yelp out "Ragutiene".
*
The cat ran as day became night became day. It hid when it was raining and ate when it was hungry - though never enough. It was running home as cats will, but a home it had never been to. It ran to the home that rested in the bird in the spider in the fly in the beer, the home that lived in the tears of a giant who wept under a brewery so far away.
The cat found itself in a city that was uniquely unlike any it had ever been to, yet it somehow knew the streets to walk and the fences to jump. It finally crossed into the yard of one particular house and knew that it was home. Sensing the end of its journey and perhaps a reward - either a tasty or comfortable one would do - it ran up the stairs and through the kitty door where, on the other side, it started winding itself around some ankles.
The ankles were just above dainty feet and the cute ends of shapely legs that emanated from incredibly sexy hips: this pattern repeated itself until resolving at a stunning face topped with lustrous hair.
The woman bent down to scratch the now-filthy cat behind the ears.
"Hello beautiful, where did you come from?"
The cat continued the winding, but looked up at the woman hoping she'd recognise his need for couch and pilchards.
The woman met the cat's gaze and froze. She then swooped down, picked him up and held him at eye level.
"He's alive? You know where he is?"
The cat stared back, a growing unease in the back of its mind that dinner was slipping away.
"You don't know where he is, yet somehow you do, at least enough to lead me there. Come then, Mister Cat, let's go to free my love and on the journey we’ll think of the terrible revenge we’ll have on those who've kept him away from me."
I guess that was dinner waving goodbye.
"But first let's clean you up and get you something it eat.”
Result.
Geoffrey watched the last of the sun disappear behind a landscape that looked as though someone had plugged in the Geography Amplifier and turned the "Cold Grey Mountains" dial to 11.
He was staring out of the window that took up the entire western wall of the hall with only half a mind; the rest his mental effort was diverted to unsuccessfully ignoring the whispers behind him. In the window he could see the faint reflections of his fellow partygoers watching him like frightened pigeons in a park anxiously debating the wisdom of coming forth and getting the crumbs from beneath the sandwich you're still eating. He wondered which of them would be first.
Geoffrey steadied his drink just as Eugene's hand clapped him on the back.
"Well done, again, Geoffrey. That makes it what now, three?"
It was four, the last three of those in a row, and Eugene bloody well knew it so Geoffrey told him it was 5 and was pleased by the flash of annoyance across Eugene's face; Eugene had won only 2 grand prizes and those weren't back to back.
"I thought your ale this year wasn't as great as last year. The subtlety was replaced by an unwelcome boldness, but I guess there are those who like that kind of thing."
"You are right, Eugene. I can say with absolute certainty that my ale is suited to those who like to taste something."
Geoffrey suppressed a smile as two spots rose on Eugene's cheeks.
"And some people like to mix their beer with cordial 'for the taste', it doesn't make it right"
Eugene spun and walked away without saying goodbye while Geoffrey turned back to the window, completely dark now and so perfectly reflecting the faces of everyone else in the room staring at him. Master Brewer three years running versus the man who would be king. Geoffrey allowed himself a smile then while he fingered the crystal trophy standing on the table next to him and brought his glass to his lips.
What was this shit? Geoffrey rolled the liquid around in his mouth then spat it back into the glass. He sniffed at the contents and recoiled. He'd given the organisers ten crates of his prize-winning ale and this, quite evidently, was not it. Apparently someone had decided to keep the amber gold he brewed for themselves and in its stead serve something that looked and tasted like the strained remains of that one half-full glass that someone had left on the outside window-sill at the party and which everyone else had used as an ashtray.
Looking around he couldn't believe nobody was complaining, yet it only served to prove his theory that most people were dead-mouthed morons led more by trends and the vagaries of "cool" than the evidence of their own senses. Words would be had, but not tonight; tonight was for enjoyment and basking in his glory. That enjoyment was not going to be found here with the idiots, sycophants and sub-standard tipple. He emptied his glass into the pot plant - hoping silently to kill it - picked up his trophy and made his way through the room, out into the car park to his car and then through the night to the source of his success.
*
Geoffrey parked the car little way from the brewery on the side of the gravel road that lead up to it from the gate. He loved this place during the day, but even more so at night. He loved to walk up to it, to watch it loom out of the darkness. The building was old and grey, qualities reflecting the forest and mountains that surrounded it. He didn’t know how old it was, but it was the oldest structure for miles and miles and he suspected that parts of it were some of the oldest in the land.
He walked without hurry around the impressive structure that housed the maturing barrels and the pots and burners and fermentation vats that were all part of the magic turning simple ingredients into something with near infinite complexity. Yet Geoffrey needed none of it.
He made his way to the far side of the structure, a corner protected from prying eyes by trees and hedges that pressed themselves up against the brickwork and ivy that worked its way up. He swept aside some branches that looked impenetrable yet could be moved with ease by someone who knew their arrangement. Beyond them was a small clearing where he stood and pressed a few stones in an order he barely remembered and enacted mostly from muscle memory. At the very last he stood on his toes, reached high above his head, and pressed one final stone. There was a faint grinding noise, like an old man’s papery cough, and a section of the wall slid aside to reveal a small doorway. Geoffrey stepped inside, picked up the torch from a small shelf near the door, pressed another stone to close the gap behind him, and started his way down the stairs.
The staircase was winding and narrow, the steps well worn. Though he had traversed this space hundreds of times he still took his time, shining the torch ahead while keeping one hand sliding along the wall.
The staircase went down far deeper than it had a right to, beyond any cellar or basement: deeper and colder and wetter and older; above all older. The journey was not an easy one, but a necessary one and one from which Geoffrey gained a whole lot of pleasure.
Finally, out of breath and covered with a thin sheen of sweat despite the cold, he reached the bottom. He stood in the roughly hewn doorway to catch his breath while looking around the dimly lit chamber in front of him.
What faint light there was, was provided through Victorian ingenuity bordering on madness. An elaborate system of mirrors reflected sun and moonlight down and through natural chimneys with supplementary lighting being provided by a system of oil lamp that drew their fuel from a common oil chamber, which Geoffrey refilled every other month.
Once his heart had stopped pounding from exhaustion. He stepped in and made his way carefully to the light control board. He turned the lamps up and, despite knowing every detail of what was before him, still felt the breath catch in his throat.
The chamber was enormous; a natural cave made smoother by human hands - the remnants of scaffolds and ladders were propped up against the walls and now facilitated maintenance of the lamps and pipes that lined the walls. The pipes diverted water from a natural spring that gushed from the far wall into a large pool. Geoffrey had no idea as to the source of the water, but it was the sweetest and purest water he'd ever tasted. The pipes ran from the spring to a point above a giant brass drum that stood on one side of the chamber and then back out of the drum and up through the rock into the brewery.
A giant of a man was chained to the wall close to the drum. He was naked but for a filthy loincloth and was five metres tall if he was an inch. The chains that ran from the wall ended in shackles around his ankles and wrists. Where the shackles rubbed, his arms and legs were raw, weeping and scarred. Scars on scars, the product of decades of struggle: a calendar of pain. He was bald, but with a long and thick moustache that was stretched and pinned across the top of the drum like a rough gauze through which the water pouring from the pipes was being filtered.
He was staring right at Geoffrey.
"Ah, you're awake."
"I'm always awake."
His voice was resonant and deep, though turned strange by the forced paralysis of his top lip.
"I'm always awake and even if I weren't, your stomping down the stairs would be more than I need to be alerted."
Geoffrey waved his hand in impatience.
"Something's happened to the quality, to the taste. I won the grand prize, but comments were made. Disparaging comments."
The giant sighed.
"I've told you before. I don't know what affects the taste or the colour. I don't know why my moustache turns water to ale. I just know that it was ever thus."
Geoffrey walked around the room, adjusting taps, pressure gauges and flow inhibitors. He paused by the drum and tapped it with the butt of the torch. It rang out in an eerie metallic echo of the giant's voice.
"I may have to empty this thing. Perhaps a rat or a bird got down here somehow and drowned in the tank and is even now polluting the batch."
"Nothing has entered the water. I would know."
Geoffrey made his way around the drum and closer to the giant though still a very safe distance. He looked up at him with a sour look on his face.
"I don't care what you say, there's no way I'd trust you. You may be right and the problem could be with the inflow pipes, but I think I'll start with the drum."
The giant slowly stretched himself out, as far as his bonds would let him. While still crouched and restrained, there was something majestic about him despite his appearance and something regal despite his surroundings.
"You don't trust me?"
He stood taller despite the pain.
"I was Silenus and Osiris. What I said was worth more than gold and lasted longer than stone. The men of the frozen north knew me as Aegir and in the heat of the south I was Tezcatzontecatl. I bonded fathers to their sons, kings to their queens, and armies together as brothers. To some I was Radegast and to their kin, Raugupatis. I said the things I did and did the things I said and you dare stand while I am hand and foot bound and call me untrue?"
Geoffrey was petrified and tried desperately not to show it, though failing at stopping every traditional sign of fear short of pissing himself and even there it was touch and go.
"You..."
The giant breathed on him then.
Geoffrey's vision swam and he stumbled back. He could smell sunshine and malt. He saw men fighting and fucking, then drinking. He saw women cavorting where wine flowed freely, their robes stained purple. He saw mighty ships leaden with goods encircling the globe and in the next moment he saw a shepherd fermenting the milk of his mare. He smelled honest earth and golden barley. He saw paupers and kings and smelled adventure.
Finally his vision cleared and he gasped and sputtered.
"If you ever try anything like that again..."
He broke off, realising his voice sounded squeaky and about as threatening as a dinner reservation. The giant had closed his eyes and was back in his crouch, looking nothing like the man he was moments ago. Geoffrey decided that improvements and amendments could wait for another day and, trembling with courage, he turned down the lights and made his way out of the hall.
All the way up the stairs he tried to tune out the low and rumbling laughter, ominous, like thunder on the horizon. Once outside he made sure the door was secure, replaced the foliage in its natural state and drove away just faster than was entirely safe.
Geoffrey failed to notice that as soon as he stepped outside, a fly landed on his chest and ate a tiny, near-invisible speck of beer that had landed there when the giant breathed on him. The fly flew far away from the brewery finally being caught in a spider's web. Its last word was "Yasigi", in the language of spiders and flies.
A bird, in turn, ate the spider just after dawn - but not the latter whispered "Mbaba Mwana Waresa". The bird flew and flew, across the sea, and when it landed to rest was promptly eaten by a cat - barely managing to yelp out "Ragutiene".
*
The cat ran as day became night became day. It hid when it was raining and ate when it was hungry - though never enough. It was running home as cats will, but a home it had never been to. It ran to the home that rested in the bird in the spider in the fly in the beer, the home that lived in the tears of a giant who wept under a brewery so far away.
The cat found itself in a city that was uniquely unlike any it had ever been to, yet it somehow knew the streets to walk and the fences to jump. It finally crossed into the yard of one particular house and knew that it was home. Sensing the end of its journey and perhaps a reward - either a tasty or comfortable one would do - it ran up the stairs and through the kitty door where, on the other side, it started winding itself around some ankles.
The ankles were just above dainty feet and the cute ends of shapely legs that emanated from incredibly sexy hips: this pattern repeated itself until resolving at a stunning face topped with lustrous hair.
The woman bent down to scratch the now-filthy cat behind the ears.
"Hello beautiful, where did you come from?"
The cat continued the winding, but looked up at the woman hoping she'd recognise his need for couch and pilchards.
The woman met the cat's gaze and froze. She then swooped down, picked him up and held him at eye level.
"He's alive? You know where he is?"
The cat stared back, a growing unease in the back of its mind that dinner was slipping away.
"You don't know where he is, yet somehow you do, at least enough to lead me there. Come then, Mister Cat, let's go to free my love and on the journey we’ll think of the terrible revenge we’ll have on those who've kept him away from me."
I guess that was dinner waving goodbye.
"But first let's clean you up and get you something it eat.”
Result.