Not Knowing What to Do Next

Uncertain what to do next Tyh continued to stand outside the Quartermaster’s office, behind the Quartermaster’s back. His arms remained slack at his sides. Apparently they only moved when compelled to by Keena and then only to be led around. Bem, content, sipped from a porcelain cup Tyh’d not noticed earlier. Somewhere in the space of time following the Quartermaster’s truncated outburst and the bottom of Bem’s drink Tyh sensed the Quartermaster changed his thoughts from anger to some other consideration. Tyh shifted on his feet and took a breath to speak.

“Behind the door.” The Quartermaster interrupted. Tyh wondered if he’d been commanded behind the door or simply been given information. Either way, the words answered the only question he’d ever asked himself, “What do I do now?”.

Bem glided to the opposite side of the opening and out of Tyh’s way. He set the cup back in it’s saucer on the counter of the Quartermaster’s window. “What must you have done this morning that landed you here this afternoon. And where will you turn up tomorrow? Were you to need anything, please call. It will surely amuse me to learn how this all plays out.”

Bem turned and addressed the Quartermaster, “We may speak more later, sir.” Bem politely went away.

Tyh closed both halves of the door and found an unused broom behind them. He began cleaning.

Day 286

The First Thing You Notice is the Honga

Crap-a-doo-dah and fleh!

I couldn’t decide which one to lead with this morning so I went with both.  I know I wrote Monday but that was a bit of a cheat if you ask me—no I don’t know what the ‘rules’ are ether.  I missed last Friday for some reason and the skipped yesterday due to a bout with bad timing and then there’s the weekends that I’ve just given up on entirely, so I haven’t written in a week.  If I don’t get something in today next week’s schedule is going to make it a fortnight.

Inspired by this, this, and this.

Let’s see whats in the bag…

Tyh gaped.

The honga stared.  The honga drooled.  The honga blocked the sun.

Tyh was being jerked to his feet and he was being pulled around the honga—apparantly three things existed.  Tyh struggled to believe that even he could fit into the same world as this sky-darkening monstrosity but looking away broke the lock.

Keena tugged him toward a half-door mounted along the wall of the honga-pit.  A slight man in pilots’ gear leaned in the jam outside the office with one hand on the half-door’s shelf.  Another man, inside the office, held his head raised above his crossed arms on the same shelf.  Each watched Tyh’s nearly involuntary approach.

“Quartermaster.  I’m bringing you some help,” Keena declared.  The Quartermaster slumped his face into his arms.  His pendant earrings jangled onto the shelf.

“Keena,” said the man dressed as a pilot.

“Keena,” mumbled the Quartermaster.

“Quartermaster did you hear me?  I’m bringing you a helper.  Someone to sweep your office.  Someone to clean your window.  Someone to collect your papers.”

The Quartermaster left his head on his arms.  “I know what help is Keena and I do not need it.”  The last four words he spoke increased in anger and volume.  His bald head flushed with blood and his gold scalp ring went from limp to perpendicular as his jaws clenched the skin over his skull taut, but his face never left its hiding spot.

“Of course you do.”  Keena slung Tyh toward the door and headed off into the back of the pit.

“Dammit, Keena!”  The Quartermaster pulled the half-door open so quickly Tyh felt the rush of air.  The Quartermaster chased her for three enraged steps and then just stopped.  The man dressed as a pilot blandly watched Tyh throughout.

“You see!  You see?  You see what she does to me.  Don’t you?”  The Quartermaster didn’t have to turn slightly to the man dressed as a pilot for Tyh to know he wasn’t being addressed.  Tyh decided it would be easier to speak to the Quartermaster’s back than to wait for him to turn around and show his face.

“I’m Tyh.”

“I don’t care.”

The man dressed as a pilot chuckled, “I’m Bem.”

Day 267