The Merriweather Balloon Boat & Mobile Market

It turns out that trying to write at 6 AM without a plan for what to write is not a great way to write what you were hoping to write at 6 AM. That turned out to not be anywhere near as humorous as I’d hoped.

Broke for Mt Dew and an English muffin with butter and homemade jelly. Let’s see if that does the trick…

So I thought I’d write this somehow: http://www.intothepixel.com/artwork-details/winner_details.asp?idArtwork=1278

The Merriweather Balloon Boat & Mobile Market burned from the Crows’ Crow’s Nest to what would have been the waterline had it been a seafaring craft and not a…balloon boat (and mobile market). But I’m getting ahead of myself with the hook and you’ll be wanting a little less medias in your res.

Gondola Mike Evercotts lashed the last of his boxed cargo into the main net and tossed it overboard to dangle below his dad-made skiff—
—ok, some things will be easier if I just come right out and tell you: Mike goes by “Evercotts” and not Mike or Gondola Mike. When he did briefly go by ‘Gondola Mike’ they stressed the second syllable not the first, thus: ‘gone-DOE-luh mike’. He gondoliered for maybe two weeks one summer and it stuck—except that no one ever calls him that to his face. Usually you’ll hear people introduce him as “Gondola Mike Evercotts [as I did above], but just call him ‘Evercotts’.” He’s got iron-black hair and is shorter than you’d like him to be but as tall as he needs.

Also, it’s best if you imagine me narrating in something like an Irish accent—not a brogue though. Later my narrative accent—again,you should imagine—will drift into anything applicable from the western parts of Europe, Morocco, and once Italian…Italy. You know what I mean. However, for the ease of your reading I’ll be typing it all out in American English. I’ll just let you know which to imagine when we get there.

324 words on day 889

A Lesson to Me

But now that Dunsa had made it this far and was this close and the joy of seeing her fathers again tugged at her sleeve like a puppy she wasn’t sure being here was what she wanted. She wanted the hugs and the ensuing dinner meal. She wanted the cups of wine after and the frontroom storytelling. She wanted to climb the narrow stairs to her waiting bed and sleep till the smell of bacon woke her. She maybe wanted to repeat that the next day, but she didn’t want to the third day or the fourth or the fifth or the hundreth. She wanted to come home; she didn’t want to stay.

If I walk in that door, she thought, I’ll never have the strength to leave again.

She felt the trees on the slope behind her become an answer.

Wow, I hadn’t expected this head writing to be so hard. Clearly I need a better idea of what’s going on in this girls life around her before I can write what’s going on in her head. I was going to try to muscle through this to the end—and I should—but I’m going to wimp out and not do that. Let that be a lesson to me.

208 words on day 888

A Rare Ending

Dunsa set down her sword. The monster was dead, the celebration ended, and Coll gone home to her husband and brothers. She stood at the edge of her fathers’ valley; their cottage and paddock directly below her. Neither was outside nor was the dog, but Dunsa lowered her profile to a cross-legged sitting position to avoid being seen. She hadn’t decided if this place was where she wanted to be just yet.

After the quest ended, Witta returned to his shop to sell the trinkets he’d collected and to make arrangements for obtaining and selling more from the Baltenes he’d befriended along the way, someone else did something else longish to describe but different from the first one on the list, and even Heb just went back to being a soldier. Dunsa hadn’t given it any thought. She stuffed her few clothes and her [quest prize thing] into a pannier and humped off into the mountains toward home expecting her enthusiasm to rise with each mile. And it did rise for the first bit. Occasionally she skipped when the trail flattened or declined. She’d even sprigged a forget-me-not and tucked it above her left ear—which made her cry and think of Coll.

Coll would be home for a week or more by now. The jumping, crying, and bellowing of her return already dulled to just a heartfelt squeeze in the kitchen or extended kiss before the day’s work dipping tapers.

240 words on day 887