part 10
Please excuse the evening update, my art history paper unexpectedly turned out to be due on the same day all along and it just happened to be wednesday. Oops. Anyway...on with the tentacles. (we get to meet Wilbur! You have no idea how long I have been waiting to introduce Wilbur..)
The park was sprinkled with other couples who had our idea before we got there. I could see the hats with this season's high plumes waving about in the paths and the day toppers bobbing next to them. We walked side by side and joined the processional, one of several pairs going round and round passing each other. I felt odd walking with a companion, I had made a habit of perambulating as it allowed me to think and I felt it was good for my health and digestion. I spent so much time absorbed in my own thoughts that it had become second nature for other pairs to avoid me on principle as I had walked directly into a few of them. I will admit that it had been on purpose a few times but having a bruised bum from one such encounter had put a stop to my petty amusements. As we rounded the corner of a tall hedge I saw the large museum that bounded one side of the park and it occurred to me, he had worked there for some time. Right there. Had he seen me before? Was this where he had decided to pursue me? I half turned to ask but he had anticipated me.
"No." He was smiling slightly. "I saw you for the first time in the street outside Mr. Davenport's home."
"How did you know?" I looked up at him as we walked.
"You were staring at the museum and you have a quick mind, you would have asked eventually. Would you like to go in?" He was steering us around the next corner closer to the sprawling building.
"I would love to see inside, can we go behind the public area? I want to see where you work." I sped up a little without thinking about it, realizing only when I felt my arm pulling at him limb. I slowed again a little embarrassed but he was smiling at me again.
"Let's go."
We wound around to the side of the building behind the columns of the facade to a smaller door set into the brick work. He produced a key from some pouch under the cloak and opened it standing aside to let me proceed first. It was a dingy hallway with rooms branching off either side and some loud noise coming from the last room but one on the right. He stepped in behind me and pulled the door shut after us. A high pitched shrieking echoed down the hallway startling us both. He took off at speed with a string of curses following in his wake and me tagging along at the end. That last door but one was hanging open by the time I got there and I looked cautiously around the frame. Whatever I had expected to see it wasn't a huge wooden contraption with leather bands dangling from it studded with spikes and hung about with manacles. A thin short man was half under the largest studded beam of it desperately holding it off his lower anatomy, Luther stood beside him.
"Wilber, how many times have I told you not to set off your contraptions till I get here?" This had the sound of a conversation that had roots, the kind of thing you hear between couples that have a good argument and chew it like best toffee. Luther looked like he would have been tapping his toes if he could have. A rapid flicking at the hem of his cloak betrayed something tapping at any rate.
"I was just tensioning the spring a bit to see if my calculations were correct, It shouldn't have gone off." He sniffed, he actually sniffed in annoyance, pinned under eighty pounds of spiky lumber and struggling to keep it from perforating him like a receipts book.
Luther sighed and bent forward and suddenly the timber was suspended over his head. His cloak fell back exposing eight tentacles thicker than my thigh flowing from the trunk of his body partially covered by a kilt of linen. Two of them held the beam aloft with no apparent effort and the other six braced out radially to support the lift. Wilber crawled out of his death trap and stood some little distanse away dusting himself off. I decided it was safe enough and slid around the doorway coming into full view of both men. Luther started as if he had forgotten I had been behind him and turned abruptly to the smaller man. "Where do you want this porcupine?"
"Back in the rests if you don't mind" Wilber looked a bit abashed and rather dusty still. He started shifting rapidly from foot to foot brushing surreptitiously at his trousers.
The Beam settled back into it's niche in the contraption smoothly and the cloak was yanked back into position with more force than was really necessary. By the time he turned back to face me it was a smooth wall of cloth as it had been before. He gestured with his head,"Wilber this is Miss Cora, Cora this is Wilber the Idiot." His tone would have etched the streets clean.
I proffered my hand since I had no idea what else to do and I couldn't leave Wilber standing there looking so crestfallen. He leapt at the chance to redeem the situation and shook my hand so vigorously my elbow rattled in it's socket. I withdrew my hand rather more quickly that I had offered it, asking simultaneously. "What is it you do Wilber?"
"Ah, you may not…let's just say that Wilber has an unusual specialty and leave it there." Luther put himself in-between the two of us and started nudging me to the far side of the room. I could see a massive old desk with all kinds of random things strewn around the surface. As I got closer I realized it was the grown up version of my little closet, with all kinds of glue and fixative, tools in orderly rows and dozens of little drawers I desperately wanted to poke through.
He gave me a gentle push toward the desk and heard Luther say "Look at anything you want to see."
The park was sprinkled with other couples who had our idea before we got there. I could see the hats with this season's high plumes waving about in the paths and the day toppers bobbing next to them. We walked side by side and joined the processional, one of several pairs going round and round passing each other. I felt odd walking with a companion, I had made a habit of perambulating as it allowed me to think and I felt it was good for my health and digestion. I spent so much time absorbed in my own thoughts that it had become second nature for other pairs to avoid me on principle as I had walked directly into a few of them. I will admit that it had been on purpose a few times but having a bruised bum from one such encounter had put a stop to my petty amusements. As we rounded the corner of a tall hedge I saw the large museum that bounded one side of the park and it occurred to me, he had worked there for some time. Right there. Had he seen me before? Was this where he had decided to pursue me? I half turned to ask but he had anticipated me.
"No." He was smiling slightly. "I saw you for the first time in the street outside Mr. Davenport's home."
"How did you know?" I looked up at him as we walked.
"You were staring at the museum and you have a quick mind, you would have asked eventually. Would you like to go in?" He was steering us around the next corner closer to the sprawling building.
"I would love to see inside, can we go behind the public area? I want to see where you work." I sped up a little without thinking about it, realizing only when I felt my arm pulling at him limb. I slowed again a little embarrassed but he was smiling at me again.
"Let's go."
We wound around to the side of the building behind the columns of the facade to a smaller door set into the brick work. He produced a key from some pouch under the cloak and opened it standing aside to let me proceed first. It was a dingy hallway with rooms branching off either side and some loud noise coming from the last room but one on the right. He stepped in behind me and pulled the door shut after us. A high pitched shrieking echoed down the hallway startling us both. He took off at speed with a string of curses following in his wake and me tagging along at the end. That last door but one was hanging open by the time I got there and I looked cautiously around the frame. Whatever I had expected to see it wasn't a huge wooden contraption with leather bands dangling from it studded with spikes and hung about with manacles. A thin short man was half under the largest studded beam of it desperately holding it off his lower anatomy, Luther stood beside him.
"Wilber, how many times have I told you not to set off your contraptions till I get here?" This had the sound of a conversation that had roots, the kind of thing you hear between couples that have a good argument and chew it like best toffee. Luther looked like he would have been tapping his toes if he could have. A rapid flicking at the hem of his cloak betrayed something tapping at any rate.
"I was just tensioning the spring a bit to see if my calculations were correct, It shouldn't have gone off." He sniffed, he actually sniffed in annoyance, pinned under eighty pounds of spiky lumber and struggling to keep it from perforating him like a receipts book.
Luther sighed and bent forward and suddenly the timber was suspended over his head. His cloak fell back exposing eight tentacles thicker than my thigh flowing from the trunk of his body partially covered by a kilt of linen. Two of them held the beam aloft with no apparent effort and the other six braced out radially to support the lift. Wilber crawled out of his death trap and stood some little distanse away dusting himself off. I decided it was safe enough and slid around the doorway coming into full view of both men. Luther started as if he had forgotten I had been behind him and turned abruptly to the smaller man. "Where do you want this porcupine?"
"Back in the rests if you don't mind" Wilber looked a bit abashed and rather dusty still. He started shifting rapidly from foot to foot brushing surreptitiously at his trousers.
The Beam settled back into it's niche in the contraption smoothly and the cloak was yanked back into position with more force than was really necessary. By the time he turned back to face me it was a smooth wall of cloth as it had been before. He gestured with his head,"Wilber this is Miss Cora, Cora this is Wilber the Idiot." His tone would have etched the streets clean.
I proffered my hand since I had no idea what else to do and I couldn't leave Wilber standing there looking so crestfallen. He leapt at the chance to redeem the situation and shook my hand so vigorously my elbow rattled in it's socket. I withdrew my hand rather more quickly that I had offered it, asking simultaneously. "What is it you do Wilber?"
"Ah, you may not…let's just say that Wilber has an unusual specialty and leave it there." Luther put himself in-between the two of us and started nudging me to the far side of the room. I could see a massive old desk with all kinds of random things strewn around the surface. As I got closer I realized it was the grown up version of my little closet, with all kinds of glue and fixative, tools in orderly rows and dozens of little drawers I desperately wanted to poke through.
He gave me a gentle push toward the desk and heard Luther say "Look at anything you want to see."