The night was dark, as nights usually are, and dreary. The tanker rocked gently in the silent water, a tad indecisively, as if not quite sure whether it was supposed to do that.
Aboard a lifeboat a mile aft, Agent ZB-009 took another drag, dug his hands deeper into his jacket and whispered into his collar. "It’s like an elephant stuck in cement… minus the trunk…"
The radio under the tarp hissed static and crackled.
"… at!??"
"I said… it’s like an elephant minus the… "
"An ele… ant? How did an elephant get to the …iddle of the sea??"
"Like an elephant… not it’s an elephant. It’s a simile."
"Dra… …ergeant! It’s not the … for similes."
"Yes Sir."
"Did you take … of the …ompass?"
"Yes Sir."
"Good. Now get …ack here."
Lights came on at one end of the tanker. They turned off and the next one turned on, and then the next one. As the light hopped across the deck Agent ZB-009 sighed and took another drag. A pity it wasn’t the time for similes.
Aboard the tanker the captain’s face creased into a worried rag. Not that his face wasn’t already well wrinkled - he was pushing fifty anyway. The last thing he needed… well that didn’t matter, the first thing he needed was a compass.
He had a deadline and they were terribly late. First, they’d started off a day late and then they made a couple of hundred miles before someone realized they’d forgotten to fill up the tanks. Thank heavens it wasn’t as bad as the last time though - they’d been picked up for piracy after having started off with the wrong ship.
To top it all off, the people he were meeting didn’t have a reputation for encouraging repeat business if you showed up late. Their last suppliers had been scuttled near the north pole. They said the ship didn’t make it to the ocean floor - the whole thing had frozen solid and just bobbed back up.
He doubted that was true though, nothing could freeze that fast. But he had a particular lack of empathy for curious cats. There was a saying about them coming to a sticky end and besides, he was allergic to cat hair.
And now, there was this business of the compass. Fifty eight people onboard, including the three stowaways he wasn’t supposed to know about and the newspaper boy who got stuck with them because he couldn’t find his way off the boat. And not one of them knew how to read the stars.
This wouldn’t have been a problem yesterday, before his sleepwalking navigator had fallen overboard and lost his contacts. The man was practically blind without them and no one could make any sense of his long drawn out explanations on how to figure out from the instruments whether they were going in the right direction.
He’d tried too, spent half an hour with the man listening carefully to what sounded like gibberish before the first mate got the ship’s manifest and found the man was Greek. Darn the government melting pot and all their cultural recipes.
In the end it had been the newspaper boy who suggested they could use a little magnet he had. He carried one on a string round his neck. Bless that kid. They’d all watched the magnet spin round and round for fifteen minutes before the second mate pointed out that all that metal on the ship would be messing with it.
Then the first mate had this brilliant idea to magnetize the whole ship - they were going north anyway. They could even leave the rudder unmanned. It would have to be done in stages though. They’d have to use the kid’s magnet to magnetize something bigger, use that to magnetize something more bigger and finally do the whole ship.
He’d called an all hands, carefully explained the situation and the task on hand. He thought he’d done a good job, covered all the angles, stressed the importance of them reaching their destination on time and why nothing else could be more important.
So when they reached the port of call half a day ahead he’d patted himself on the back and drew in a long self-satisfied breath. Then he’d turned around to look at a two hundred mile oil slick and knew what curious cats felt like before they got turned into cat sized ice cubes.
Someone had had the idea to let out all the crude so that they could reach their destination in time.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
How to Get a Big Project in 24 Hours or Less
As with most big problems, getting a big project can be broken down into 3 smaller problems. While this doesn't make it any easier to solve, you now have more problems. Since most reviews are based on how many problems you solved during the past year, this will probably help keep you from being invited onstage during the annual employee sacrifice.
Also, smaller problems can be delegated to your minions allowing you to spread accountability over a much larger area. After multiple delegations the fabric of accountability will be stretched so thin that when, eventually, things start going south* it will be difficult to find out where the tear started.
In the highly likely event that none of these three steps solve your problem or help shovel responsibility into your neighbor's cubicle consider entering our annual goat-look-a-like contest.
1. Creating the need - when it comes to software features, wishes can be horses that beggars can't fly. In other words, they needn't make sense. Your accounting software may do that thing it is supposed to do yearly but does it allow you to "friend" your accountant?
2. Budget - For non-monopoly players a reliable strategy is to issue promissory notes for imaginary savings from unrealized potential. Monopoly players are the harder to convince, especially if the budget is over $20,580. A good strategy here is to give up and delegate.
Note - while a recent study suggests that clients are more likely to invest in a new project if you say you are losing money on it, we're not sure whether to trust this; they apparently lost a lot of money conducting that study.
3. The illusion of competence - extended discussions on skill-sets and capability are kryptonite to getting a new project. Showing clients new websites in advance and speculating on how it could have been implemented (this one uses AJAX with a dash of Java, so I'm pretty sure it'll go well with a side of JQuery) is a proven variation of the "When you can't defend, attack" strategy that might help.
* unless of course your project involves moving something south. In which case things will probably start going north.
Also, smaller problems can be delegated to your minions allowing you to spread accountability over a much larger area. After multiple delegations the fabric of accountability will be stretched so thin that when, eventually, things start going south* it will be difficult to find out where the tear started.
In the highly likely event that none of these three steps solve your problem or help shovel responsibility into your neighbor's cubicle consider entering our annual goat-look-a-like contest.
1. Creating the need - when it comes to software features, wishes can be horses that beggars can't fly. In other words, they needn't make sense. Your accounting software may do that thing it is supposed to do yearly but does it allow you to "friend" your accountant?
2. Budget - For non-monopoly players a reliable strategy is to issue promissory notes for imaginary savings from unrealized potential. Monopoly players are the harder to convince, especially if the budget is over $20,580. A good strategy here is to give up and delegate.
Note - while a recent study suggests that clients are more likely to invest in a new project if you say you are losing money on it, we're not sure whether to trust this; they apparently lost a lot of money conducting that study.
3. The illusion of competence - extended discussions on skill-sets and capability are kryptonite to getting a new project. Showing clients new websites in advance and speculating on how it could have been implemented (this one uses AJAX with a dash of Java, so I'm pretty sure it'll go well with a side of JQuery) is a proven variation of the "When you can't defend, attack" strategy that might help.
* unless of course your project involves moving something south. In which case things will probably start going north.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The War of Ra
Alexandria on 28-Apr-2010
In what is now being called the War of Ra, the Pharaohs of Egypt dealt a crippling blow to spam by cutting an undersea cable near Alexandria today. Spam lords were left scrambling for red wire and insulation tape after the early morning attacks, masterminded by flying ninjas and coordinated with deadly precision, brought spam to a grinding halt. "The attacks targeted only wires going in one direction, which just blows. People are still replying to older spam and we have our wires down." said one spammer.
The seeds of war were sown late last August when King Butankahem IV hit a flashing monkey with a banana and won 2 free iPods. After he received 2 iPads in early September, the King emailed the monkey demanding an explanation for the typo on the devices. He didn't get one, but a daily deluge of stock tips and [redacted] started later that month. In a rare public display of anger the King vented through his cats. "It was the lies that got to him. Half of them didn't even work!", said one cat who refused to be named.
The exchange took an ugly turn after the King hired the flying ninjas in March. "It was mostly the cost benefit - our offshore delivery centers mean that we don't have to go to our targets - our targets come to us, all expenses paid. Cheaper missions means more missions. We will continue to leverage our global presence and local knowledge to improve and benefit from this spectacular success." read a ninja statement released just after the attack.
While the flashing monkey could not be reached for comment, an animated paper-clip intercepted a mid-noon rant about it all being a giant conspiracy. The giants refused to comment on the allegations, but one of them passed us a handwritten note which when reversed read "siht ni devlovni ton era ew". Readers who have any idea what this means are advised to get in touch with their local news agency.
As the cable continued to leak emails, innocent fish were also caught in the clash of civilizations. After several fish complained of headaches and dizziness European Fish Foundation members powdered aspirin through the night to dump over the cut cable. "E-mail providers reduce the font size before transmitting, to keep the size small. Information overload and small fonts are a deadly combination." said Professor Walton who refused to be named.
On the Gulf shore, thousands of volunteers turned up with buckets, with more expected to come by the 1 pm bus. "We'll need a lot more people to empty all the water. If we don't keep the insulation dry, it won't be long before more water leaks into the internet. One thing we all hate is soggy email." a volunteer told us. At home their better halves hauled desktops and laptops out into the sun to dry up their mailboxes before the first flood of soggy emails. Local supermarkets reported increased dryer sales and stocks of all major fan makers continued to rise through the morning.
Click slightly above here to win two free iPads.
Click harder.
In what is now being called the War of Ra, the Pharaohs of Egypt dealt a crippling blow to spam by cutting an undersea cable near Alexandria today. Spam lords were left scrambling for red wire and insulation tape after the early morning attacks, masterminded by flying ninjas and coordinated with deadly precision, brought spam to a grinding halt. "The attacks targeted only wires going in one direction, which just blows. People are still replying to older spam and we have our wires down." said one spammer.
The seeds of war were sown late last August when King Butankahem IV hit a flashing monkey with a banana and won 2 free iPods. After he received 2 iPads in early September, the King emailed the monkey demanding an explanation for the typo on the devices. He didn't get one, but a daily deluge of stock tips and [redacted] started later that month. In a rare public display of anger the King vented through his cats. "It was the lies that got to him. Half of them didn't even work!", said one cat who refused to be named.
The exchange took an ugly turn after the King hired the flying ninjas in March. "It was mostly the cost benefit - our offshore delivery centers mean that we don't have to go to our targets - our targets come to us, all expenses paid. Cheaper missions means more missions. We will continue to leverage our global presence and local knowledge to improve and benefit from this spectacular success." read a ninja statement released just after the attack.
While the flashing monkey could not be reached for comment, an animated paper-clip intercepted a mid-noon rant about it all being a giant conspiracy. The giants refused to comment on the allegations, but one of them passed us a handwritten note which when reversed read "siht ni devlovni ton era ew". Readers who have any idea what this means are advised to get in touch with their local news agency.
As the cable continued to leak emails, innocent fish were also caught in the clash of civilizations. After several fish complained of headaches and dizziness European Fish Foundation members powdered aspirin through the night to dump over the cut cable. "E-mail providers reduce the font size before transmitting, to keep the size small. Information overload and small fonts are a deadly combination." said Professor Walton who refused to be named.
On the Gulf shore, thousands of volunteers turned up with buckets, with more expected to come by the 1 pm bus. "We'll need a lot more people to empty all the water. If we don't keep the insulation dry, it won't be long before more water leaks into the internet. One thing we all hate is soggy email." a volunteer told us. At home their better halves hauled desktops and laptops out into the sun to dry up their mailboxes before the first flood of soggy emails. Local supermarkets reported increased dryer sales and stocks of all major fan makers continued to rise through the morning.
Click slightly above here to win two free iPads.
Click harder.
Otherwise We Bake
"The lady Aurice. She can't think..."
That, she probably couldn't. I crossed my fingers as Mr. Leahy stopped to wheeze in a few short breaths. If he could only remember to do that every floor, I wouldn't have to worry about getting 200 pounds of landlord down three flights of stairs one of these days.
"She says you make too much noise last night too. Your clause... "
Sometimes he sounded like one of those squeaky toys you got at the dollar store.
"...no pets, no smoking and no noise. This is the third time this month. You keep it down. Otherwise I evict. It's in the..."
Squeaky toys. And money trees. That's another thing he reminded me of. Bummer they stopped doing that salt for money thing. You could have just stood him out to dry and scraped it off.
"...clause.”
“Yes Mr. Leahy. I was a little late in yesterday and the smoke..."
"Come early then."
And let them eat cake. That probably was there in the clause as well. Otherwise I bake.
"Right Mr. Leahy. The thing is the..."
"Good. I go tell lady problem solved then.”
“The smoke detector seems to be...”
“The smoke detector? It is in clause. The tap doesn't work, the lights don't light? You break it, you fix it."
He went down to tell 2B to give the thinking another shot. Rumor had it that her uncle was in the mob. She could probably have me killed off if I made more noise. Maybe the clause said it was ok.
"Book closes on dead librarian. Mob not guilty. It is in clause.".
Well, that wouldn't be right though, officially I was an assistant librarian. But I guess headline writers have their own version of a poetic license. Maybe they'd call me a book runner. It sounded more dashing.
"Book runner dead. Landlord bakes cake. It is in clause."
It still left me dead though. Which wouldn't be good for half a dozen county libraries that would be stuck with each other's books. And yeah, being dead wouldn't be much good for me for either.
It was snowing, and the Ford had a flat, again. If the pay phone in the hallway didn't work I'd have to walk five blocks to the gas station to call in late.
I had quarters in my bag from... great, there was a loose page in one of the books that was supposed to get to the Wales library today. I'd have to go back up for waxed paper and glue.
Pg. 503 didn't come from the book it was in, way too wide for that. And it was a dark shade of yellow, different from the usual yellow that old paper takes on.
"... it is important that only one figurine be used for one person, and vice versa. Multiple figurines for a person are best left to..."
There were a couple of lines of phonetics in the middle. I checked the other books that went to Wales. No luck there. And I wasn't sure we had books as old as the one this looked like it belonged to. I'd have to check with Mrs. Silverstone to be sure though. And maybe I could walk around town and look for posters.
"Have you seen this page?"
Or, we could start a new section for loose pages and stick it in there. If you weren't the reading type you could just check out a page at a time.
I got a dial tone on the hallway phone. Thank God for small favors. I stuck in three quarters and waited.
“Hello... Mrs. Silverstone?... Yeah, it’s still snowing here... Oh good. Wales is closed too, right?... Great... No... Oh wait, actually yeah. Do you know if someone called in a missing page... something about voodoo magic, old book... Ok... I’ll check with Doris tomorrow... you too, Mrs. Silverstone.”
I was trimming the cracked edges of a plastic jacket, the ones that go around the more popular paperbacks, when the beeps started. They were god-darned loud, even from across the hall, and the penknife slipped.
There were books all over the table, so I had to hold the cut over the carpet, the one Mr. Leahy had installed at the lowest per-square-foot price in the tri-state area. It wouldn't pass a fire hazard test if it studied for a year.
I tried visualizing the smoke detector turning off. That didn't stop the beeps, so I unscrewed the darn thing on my own. I did the visualizing thing once in a while, just on the off chance I was actually telekinetic and hadn't figured out how to use it yet.
I had to dress the cut before I started on the jackets again. It wasn't deep, just that I would probably get prints on the books if I left it open. And nobody wanted to read a bloody book.
I was looking for the pack of dressings in closet when I saw the little dolls. Palm sized ones stuffed with straw from last year's summer camp and... why not? I was stuck at home today anyway, unless the snow cleared, or the Ford went and bought itself new tires. I picked one that looked like Ms. Thinker and settled down to read Pg. 503.
Contrary to popular perception, you didn't really need anything that belonged to the person - no hair, amulet or eyeball. All the well if you did though, you just needed the first line of phonetics. Otherwise you used set one and then set two with a name. Which was what I was going to do since I didn't think going down to 2B and asking Lady Aurice to cough up a hairball would go down very well. It was probably in the clause somewhere, with the other commandments - thou shall not ask other tenants for hair.
Five minutes and Ms. Aurice was strung upside down, to increase blood flow to the brain. Frankly, I had no idea what else I could do. Till I found the rest of the book it was either that, or stick in needles - which seemed a tad over the top. I could probably start with the acupuncture if she called her uncle.
It was still snowing outside.
I turned around after I stuffed all the flyers from my mailbox into the one marked 2B and found a pretty concerned Mrs. Gupta, 1A.
"What happened to your hand? Did something happen?"
"Cut myself. "
Talking with Mrs. Gupta was like talking to two people at once. If you didn’t want to get caught in a conversational free for all you learned to pick short answers that answered both of her.
"You could put a band-aid on it you know? It’s dangerous if there's rust, you could get septicemia. You got your shots? "
"Yeah..."
"Good. My sister cut herself on a rusty gate when she was nine, almost died. God, it's been snowing since yesterday night. Did you hear about Aurice?"
She wasn’t such a bad sort, Mrs. Gupta, but her conversations had grown up in the boring part of town, and they cycled through the same old rumors until a new batch came in.
“From 2B?"
"Yes, you know... the one whose uncle is in the mob."
"Yeah, what about her? Mr. Leahy was giving me a hard time..."
"Her car flipped turning a corner... she was upside down for half an hour. They say its..."
Someone opened a door around the corner and a cold draft blew in.
"...but I think it's something to do with the mob. You ok there?"
"Yeah... I guess... feeling a bit out of it. She's ok?”
“I guess so, we'd have heard otherwise. My! I just remembered. I’ll have see to lunch now. You take care of that hand then.”
Vampires had stakes, werewolves had silver bullets and Mrs. Gupta’s conversations had lunch, if you wanted to draw an analogy.
I realized I had my hands clenched into fists and let go. I would have to change the dressing, it was stained red. There's a tribe in Africa that believes drinking a brave man's blood makes them brave. Maybe I could make them all assistant librarians.
The snowstorm went on till evening and I concentrated on not reading Pg. 503 again. I put the Aurice doll away. I didn't want to do anything with it... not until I figured out what actually happened first. If it actually worked... hell it was dangerous... but if I could find the rest of that book I could...
There was one way to find out... and maybe get back at a certain clause maker… nothing serious of course. I found the perfect doll for Mr. Leahy, one bursting at the seams. I tied the straw in with some of the bandages from after I dressed the cut and got the page out.
The lights went out after I finished the first line of phonetics. I had candles in the drawer. I lit one and returned to Pg. 503. The little doll looked grotesque in the candle light. The shadows painted a twisted smile, and the hands... the hands weren't even - it was missing almost half the right hand. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
The candle was a one-dollar affair and the wick burnt way slower than the wax. I flicked at the flame and a glowing bit fell on the carpet. It started smoking and I got up to get the extinguisher. That pushed the doll, tipping the candle over. It rolled to the other side, and over the edge.
By the time I got the extinguisher from the closet I had two patches burning merrily. I should have stamped it out then instead of fiddling with the fire extinguisher. But I spent ten minutes trying to get the bloody thing to work before I figured out it hadn't been charged in like, forever.
The doll caught fire, and the strip of bandage tied around it caught my eye. It was stained, with dried blood... and I had read the first incantation. I stumbled to the kitchen in the light of the fire, looking for something to pick up the doll with.
When I came back with a spatula the whole hallway was on fire. There was no way I could walk through that to get to the front door. Where the heck were the firemen? The fire station was close by and they could be here in like five minutes once they heard the alarm.
And that’s when I realized that the only sound I could hear was the fire crackling.
That, she probably couldn't. I crossed my fingers as Mr. Leahy stopped to wheeze in a few short breaths. If he could only remember to do that every floor, I wouldn't have to worry about getting 200 pounds of landlord down three flights of stairs one of these days.
"She says you make too much noise last night too. Your clause... "
Sometimes he sounded like one of those squeaky toys you got at the dollar store.
"...no pets, no smoking and no noise. This is the third time this month. You keep it down. Otherwise I evict. It's in the..."
Squeaky toys. And money trees. That's another thing he reminded me of. Bummer they stopped doing that salt for money thing. You could have just stood him out to dry and scraped it off.
"...clause.”
“Yes Mr. Leahy. I was a little late in yesterday and the smoke..."
"Come early then."
And let them eat cake. That probably was there in the clause as well. Otherwise I bake.
"Right Mr. Leahy. The thing is the..."
"Good. I go tell lady problem solved then.”
“The smoke detector seems to be...”
“The smoke detector? It is in clause. The tap doesn't work, the lights don't light? You break it, you fix it."
He went down to tell 2B to give the thinking another shot. Rumor had it that her uncle was in the mob. She could probably have me killed off if I made more noise. Maybe the clause said it was ok.
"Book closes on dead librarian. Mob not guilty. It is in clause.".
Well, that wouldn't be right though, officially I was an assistant librarian. But I guess headline writers have their own version of a poetic license. Maybe they'd call me a book runner. It sounded more dashing.
"Book runner dead. Landlord bakes cake. It is in clause."
It still left me dead though. Which wouldn't be good for half a dozen county libraries that would be stuck with each other's books. And yeah, being dead wouldn't be much good for me for either.
It was snowing, and the Ford had a flat, again. If the pay phone in the hallway didn't work I'd have to walk five blocks to the gas station to call in late.
I had quarters in my bag from... great, there was a loose page in one of the books that was supposed to get to the Wales library today. I'd have to go back up for waxed paper and glue.
Pg. 503 didn't come from the book it was in, way too wide for that. And it was a dark shade of yellow, different from the usual yellow that old paper takes on.
"... it is important that only one figurine be used for one person, and vice versa. Multiple figurines for a person are best left to..."
There were a couple of lines of phonetics in the middle. I checked the other books that went to Wales. No luck there. And I wasn't sure we had books as old as the one this looked like it belonged to. I'd have to check with Mrs. Silverstone to be sure though. And maybe I could walk around town and look for posters.
"Have you seen this page?"
Or, we could start a new section for loose pages and stick it in there. If you weren't the reading type you could just check out a page at a time.
I got a dial tone on the hallway phone. Thank God for small favors. I stuck in three quarters and waited.
“Hello... Mrs. Silverstone?... Yeah, it’s still snowing here... Oh good. Wales is closed too, right?... Great... No... Oh wait, actually yeah. Do you know if someone called in a missing page... something about voodoo magic, old book... Ok... I’ll check with Doris tomorrow... you too, Mrs. Silverstone.”
I was trimming the cracked edges of a plastic jacket, the ones that go around the more popular paperbacks, when the beeps started. They were god-darned loud, even from across the hall, and the penknife slipped.
There were books all over the table, so I had to hold the cut over the carpet, the one Mr. Leahy had installed at the lowest per-square-foot price in the tri-state area. It wouldn't pass a fire hazard test if it studied for a year.
I tried visualizing the smoke detector turning off. That didn't stop the beeps, so I unscrewed the darn thing on my own. I did the visualizing thing once in a while, just on the off chance I was actually telekinetic and hadn't figured out how to use it yet.
I had to dress the cut before I started on the jackets again. It wasn't deep, just that I would probably get prints on the books if I left it open. And nobody wanted to read a bloody book.
I was looking for the pack of dressings in closet when I saw the little dolls. Palm sized ones stuffed with straw from last year's summer camp and... why not? I was stuck at home today anyway, unless the snow cleared, or the Ford went and bought itself new tires. I picked one that looked like Ms. Thinker and settled down to read Pg. 503.
Contrary to popular perception, you didn't really need anything that belonged to the person - no hair, amulet or eyeball. All the well if you did though, you just needed the first line of phonetics. Otherwise you used set one and then set two with a name. Which was what I was going to do since I didn't think going down to 2B and asking Lady Aurice to cough up a hairball would go down very well. It was probably in the clause somewhere, with the other commandments - thou shall not ask other tenants for hair.
Five minutes and Ms. Aurice was strung upside down, to increase blood flow to the brain. Frankly, I had no idea what else I could do. Till I found the rest of the book it was either that, or stick in needles - which seemed a tad over the top. I could probably start with the acupuncture if she called her uncle.
It was still snowing outside.
I turned around after I stuffed all the flyers from my mailbox into the one marked 2B and found a pretty concerned Mrs. Gupta, 1A.
"What happened to your hand? Did something happen?"
"Cut myself. "
Talking with Mrs. Gupta was like talking to two people at once. If you didn’t want to get caught in a conversational free for all you learned to pick short answers that answered both of her.
"You could put a band-aid on it you know? It’s dangerous if there's rust, you could get septicemia. You got your shots? "
"Yeah..."
"Good. My sister cut herself on a rusty gate when she was nine, almost died. God, it's been snowing since yesterday night. Did you hear about Aurice?"
She wasn’t such a bad sort, Mrs. Gupta, but her conversations had grown up in the boring part of town, and they cycled through the same old rumors until a new batch came in.
“From 2B?"
"Yes, you know... the one whose uncle is in the mob."
"Yeah, what about her? Mr. Leahy was giving me a hard time..."
"Her car flipped turning a corner... she was upside down for half an hour. They say its..."
Someone opened a door around the corner and a cold draft blew in.
"...but I think it's something to do with the mob. You ok there?"
"Yeah... I guess... feeling a bit out of it. She's ok?”
“I guess so, we'd have heard otherwise. My! I just remembered. I’ll have see to lunch now. You take care of that hand then.”
Vampires had stakes, werewolves had silver bullets and Mrs. Gupta’s conversations had lunch, if you wanted to draw an analogy.
I realized I had my hands clenched into fists and let go. I would have to change the dressing, it was stained red. There's a tribe in Africa that believes drinking a brave man's blood makes them brave. Maybe I could make them all assistant librarians.
The snowstorm went on till evening and I concentrated on not reading Pg. 503 again. I put the Aurice doll away. I didn't want to do anything with it... not until I figured out what actually happened first. If it actually worked... hell it was dangerous... but if I could find the rest of that book I could...
There was one way to find out... and maybe get back at a certain clause maker… nothing serious of course. I found the perfect doll for Mr. Leahy, one bursting at the seams. I tied the straw in with some of the bandages from after I dressed the cut and got the page out.
The lights went out after I finished the first line of phonetics. I had candles in the drawer. I lit one and returned to Pg. 503. The little doll looked grotesque in the candle light. The shadows painted a twisted smile, and the hands... the hands weren't even - it was missing almost half the right hand. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
The candle was a one-dollar affair and the wick burnt way slower than the wax. I flicked at the flame and a glowing bit fell on the carpet. It started smoking and I got up to get the extinguisher. That pushed the doll, tipping the candle over. It rolled to the other side, and over the edge.
By the time I got the extinguisher from the closet I had two patches burning merrily. I should have stamped it out then instead of fiddling with the fire extinguisher. But I spent ten minutes trying to get the bloody thing to work before I figured out it hadn't been charged in like, forever.
The doll caught fire, and the strip of bandage tied around it caught my eye. It was stained, with dried blood... and I had read the first incantation. I stumbled to the kitchen in the light of the fire, looking for something to pick up the doll with.
When I came back with a spatula the whole hallway was on fire. There was no way I could walk through that to get to the front door. Where the heck were the firemen? The fire station was close by and they could be here in like five minutes once they heard the alarm.
And that’s when I realized that the only sound I could hear was the fire crackling.
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