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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Fartmoodles: chapter 9

How to Capture a Fartmoodle
Chapter 9:
"Even hydrogenDioxide can kill you"
First Edit
by: Nellie Tobey

In the kitchen of the bar, the woman threw down a very large warm tortilla.  She was placing meat in it, and yelling out the door.  "I'll get you another in a minute Frank, and don't call me that."   She smiled a little and started gently sprinkling something with the letters CUMEN on the meat.   Tooty held out her hand and got some powder to taste.
  Steve looked impatiently back out the door at BrewMinister standing by 'Frank's' drink tipping a drop of brew into Frank's short stout glass.  "Is it going to work?"  Steve couldn't sense flavor, and had no idea what the difference was between water, or the stuff humans liked to call 'hot sauce'.
  Tooty relished the new sensation from the brown powder.  "I can't imagine why not."   She then flew over at the cambro with the green peppers in it and took a taste. "Oh these.... These are...",  Tooty coughed, and her eyes watered, "perfection."   Steve flew over to minister to let them know it would work.
   A few moments later a yellow and fucia chameleon handed the small copper lined glass bottle to Tooty, she poured it onto the top most peppers vigorously.
BrewMinister gasped. "No no no, that's way too much!"
   Tooty smiled at the concerned Gremlin.  "If we aim to cause mischief, we need to do this right."
   Minister lashed out the lizard tongue and took a taste of the peppers.  "Oh, this is going to be interesting, I do say ..."  And BrewMinister stopped and said nothing more, but smiled oddly at Tooty.
  Steve had a pang of jealousy, and tried to control it. "You two just keep on talking, but I think our human is getting ready to leave!"
  The man in the suit jacket stood and was shaking someones hand.  The bartender was just carrying out the burrito covered in the enhanced jalapenos.  Steve, Tooty, and an agitated chameleon stood on the bar counter watching intently.  "Hey Morgan, you're not leaving before you get a taste of my cooking are you?"
  The suit pointed to his coworkers,  "They'll devour it, I promise.  Not a one of them turns down free food, and I gotta go home to the kids."
   The woman nodded and placed her other hand on his shoulder.  "You will let me know if you need any help.  You have your hands full, and anyone in this town would be happy to help."
  Morgan nodded. He laid his hand on hers in a grateful gesture.  "She was the one who would know what to do, and I know she'd want me to home with them Martha."  He paused for a second, took out his wallet and handed her another 50.  "Don't let any of them drive if you can stop them.  Ed and Gerry will walk, they are smart, but those other new ones just aren't smart enough."
  Martha took the 50 and smiled.  "I already got two sets of keys, you know I'll get John's with a wink and a nudge."
  Morgan laughed and bowed out the front door.
  Minister had turned into a ferret and was growling at the floor.  "We didn't get a chance!"  Tooty poked the ferret in the ribs.
  "We still got that burrito, let us see what the others know."  Steve gave a sharp head nod when minister looked at him.
  BrewMinister smiled at Tooty in that odd way again.  "And if we don't, we sure as flip have a time getting them humans into trouble!"

    *******************************

It was nearly morning and three empty bottles of goblin brew #99 were scattered by Steve's tent, as Tooty sipped from her mother's goblet.  Kettle, Red and Minister were giggling at the idea that Tooty had effectively talked Martha into inviting John out to pizza after the bar had closed.
  Kettle pointed at Tooty in a grievous way suddenly. "Who would of thought a well timed stink would make them laugh so hard. You dear are a Master."  Tooty did a curtsy and  raised the goblet.
  "To being invisible, and knowing that Frank can't hold one in!"
  The three gremlins cheered and then Kettle and Red's eyes drew down in a sudden sleep.  BrewMinister stood, seemingly unaffected by his two empty bottles, and walked up to admire the cup in Tooty's grasp.  "I do believe this is some of the best copper work ever produced in this village."
  Tooty dropped the cup and stared at Minister.  "My mother."  She fluttered her wings without even knowing it.  "It was my mom wasn't it!"  Minister smiled, picked up the goblet and handed it back.
  "T'wasn't me that said a thing."  And BrewMinister turned and walked away into the darkness as a great fluffy tailed squirrel.  The squirrel turned around before being swallowed by the dark.  "Her light was engulfing, but it was your father's glow that I always fancied."  Then the brown and silver tail danced away into the shadow.

***********************************

  Tooty was busy playing swords with the Owlets (they informed Tooty it was their new club name),  as once again the biggest one snapped it's pine needle trying to stab a dead leaf on the ground.  The smaller two jabbed and swung at Tooty as she blocked and danced around to give them a chance to swing at her.  "The brown needles will just keep breaking, they're not flexible any more."  She noticed Steve approaching with his notebook swinging from one hand and a determined look on his face.  "Ok Owlets, I gotta get back to work."
  There was a slight protest, and then they started digging through the pile of pine needles for greener weapons.
  Steve got close and couldn't contain himself, "I figured it out Tooty, I think I know how to get the information, but it's going to be dangerous."
  She took a look at the magazine page Steve handed her.  "The children? No Steve, I refuse.  The Gremlins will too."  The picture was of a girl playing with a doll that very much resembled a fairy, but was far to pale, big headed and lacked the claws or mandibles. It could be a Pixie if the appendages weren't so short and the wings so smooth.  A Pixie also didn't sparkle.  Maybe glow from time to time, but never sparkle.
  "Hear me out, we won't hurt them, or do anything that could put them in harms way."  Steve sighed a bit.  "Not any harm the human's aren't putting them in already that is."

***********************

   BrewMinister, OldRed, and KettleStruck immediately refused.  Steve was still trying to explain, "They are going to be in factory anyways, we just need to get a good look around without being sucked into some bit of machinery."  
   Tooty tried to help Steve explain, but was also not very fond of the idea. "It happens sometimes in our region, and most times the kids end up opening the jar at some point so we can get out."
   BrewMinister shook the restless porcupine quills occupying their backside.  "I promised your mother and father absolutely no harm would come to you, and I will not deliberately let you be in a jar for a human to carry around on some cold cement factory floor!"
   Steve started rifling through the pages of one of the books he had gotten from the goblin market. "These things where the humans take the small ones to work, it's not that dangerous."  Steve showed them the picture of a big man in bright yellow garb and a ridiculous plastic hat.  The man and two other big ones were guiding a group of small ones all with the same hats and yellow garb to match.  "See here,  they make them all wear this protection, and Tooty is smart, strong and fierce, she wouldn't be in danger in the hands of a child."
  Tooty was taken aback by the compliment, but then watched Kettle and Red do the hand gestures and Minister waving furry paws to say no.  Minister finally turned around and walked away.  "Damn humans!"
  Kettle and Red nodded and spoke, "We are sorry for the silent communication, but some things are still the Gremlin way no matter how much we want to include both of you."  Steve started to believe maybe his plan had hope.  Red pointed at the giant rat trap on the next page of Steve's book.  "The thing is, we could not help you, we could not be in that place to make sure you two come out safely. "
  Steve started to protest, but Kettle held up it's hand, slightly translucent in the sunlight.  "But we are also going to all die if we don't find out how to stop this."
  Tooty felt her determination harden inside.  "I will be fine, we go among the humans, in their human places all the time where we are from."  It was a tiny lie, she herself had just begun training to do just that.  "Steve is our top academic, and there is no one more equipped with the knowledge I'll need to survive in there."
  BrewMinister had returned, clad in a suit of fish scale armor, "If we leave our Shepard, we die, if we let this human poison continue, we die."  Red and Kettle tried interrupting Minister but that just made the Gremlin louder.  "The way I see it, we have to get in there and stop this, I'm the strongest one of our village, and I will not die before I try anything possible to stop this."
  Tooty pointed at the picture of the 'not' fairy and the child.  "First thing we have to do is find Morgan's kids and figure out how to get them to see me."
  Steve unrolled the blue flyer that was at the pizza joint Martha and John ended up in.  It read 'Bring your kids to work day'.
  Tooty put a firm hand on BrewMinisters slimy fishy shoulder. "Time to get yours truly caught in a jar."   


Saturday, January 19, 2019

story idea #98


As I write the introduction to my idea,  I have hurried and written the idea.
My memory was good when I was a teen.  After years in the mental health system it was severely destroyed by the amount, and variety of medications they guinea pigged me with in the system.  The system saved me in a way, but it also left lasting damage.  Another reason I like the Matt Daemon character, he spurns the system with such grace and profanity.  And well, Robin Williams, who I grew up with.  'Mork and Mindy'  is the search term you want, younger folks.

Anyways, I know if I write this little fiction, it would be an egocentric exploration, but I imagine there are a lot of people out there who wish they had a pill to bring them back to normal/exceeds normal memory.  And while there are those that want super strength, laser eyes, the ability to heal, badass quick moves, telepathy, all those other things, this is a super power I would find near and dear to my heart. 

example:
I don't intend to tell a lie.   Sometimes I get in the middle of saying something, and I honestly can't remember the answer.  I have to flub it. 
Someone: "What were you doing yesterday"
Me: "I made a chapter."
Someone: "That's it?"
Me:  *trying to remember if I was working or home that night, trying to remember if I did anything else*  "I made supper, nothing much"

My nephew once tried labelling everything that was incorrect, a lie.  That's not exactly true.  Sometimes, we don't know the exact details, and have to guess.  I just happen to have to theorize and guess a lot.  I might have said to someone, "Your goat has the rippled fur of a highland Norwegian Elkhound."
But what comes back when I try to remember the conversation is:
"Your goat looks like a dog from that snowy place."

Anyways the story idea.
The stuff I hurried and wrote before this intro:
***********************************************

I had to hurry and write the idea down.  I started watching 'Good Will Hunting', and I absolutely adore the movie, but I am always jealous of people with good, or even normal memories. 



_______________________________________
heroine: memory handicap intellectual

There is a memory pill that increases memory. For normal people it's not a huge benefit...  but for someone with a deficit, it's a huge improvement.

She normally has skills and intellect that can rival many, but can't use it efficiently because she can't locate memory to store things she's learned, and apply it without great effort.

She takes the pill, becomes slightly better then neural typical, but because of the stuff stored away that she couldn't reach, she can now have super power like ability to read situations and problems with an almost physic ability.  Years of trying to predict behavior, and predict needed responses has programmed a pathway in her brain to search for data to make the right thing happen, the right response, the right answer, and now.... she can, with a supernatural ability, because now, she can remember the ways in which to do all the things she was always reaching to achieve.

Saturday, January 12, 2019

little poem

The Forest

hope like an ember
fading in the cold
what light is this in the dark
to heat an aching soul

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Fartmoodles: chapter 8

How to Capture a Fartmoodle
chapter 8 : "A wet burrito"
edit #1
by: Nellie Tobey


The gremlin village was not much of a village at all.  A few haphazard silk huts had been erected by an enormous Bristlecone Pine.  Steve stared at the tree hypnotized He could almost see the centuries radiating around the massive trunk.  Tooty was admiring a needle from its branches.  It was rigid but soft, and very nicely pointed.  A great size to fit squarely under a thumbnail.

  OldRed and KettleStruck were obviously ignoring one another.  The two younglings had been taken to the base of the ancient pine where a shaman was looking them over and assessing what needed to be done. OldRed stood on two Hawk feet staring down at the little ones.  Kettle was in Wolverine form on the outer edge of the tree's base watching everything and pacing. Massive paws were treading a path into the hard earth.

Tooty nudged Steve out of his trance.  He swore the tree had been singing for a second. Tooty pointed to the creek downhill from where they stood. "Is that where the younglings got into the stuff?"
  Steve looked over his notes and a nicely drawn map that one of the gremlins had provided. "It must be, looks that way on here."  Steve led the way to the sandy edge of the flowing waters.  "I don't understand why they brought the two little ones with them on this trip.  It seems much safer if something was making them diminish, to stay close to home."
   Tooty stuck her pine needle down into an iridescent patch of water.  It was unnatural and beautiful, and wrong.   "Not if the home is where the danger is."   She held the needle end up for Steve to examine.  "What is it?"
   Steve remembered that it had been coming in contact with it had made the gremlins ill.  "We don't have anything like this back home.  It's definitely human."
   Steve handed a piece of tartan cloth to Tooty. She wiped it off.  "Look Steve, it leaves that same shine on the cloth."   Tooty tried to put it in the water and wash it off.   It only seemed to get thinner and spread.  "What is this?!"  Tooty put the cloth in her pocket deciding that later, at the fire, it would be best to burn it.

                                *****************************
  The younglings had recovered enough to sit next to the fire pit as twilight rolled in and the small branches were being stacked.   Kettle and Red started to talk in short bursts with their hands.  Even not knowing what it meant, Tooty could tell it was a formal focused set of statements.  A gremlin from the town approached them as other gremlins had started to fit Steve and Tooty with new skirts.   Tooty's Black with grey trim, and Steve's Yellow with black trim.  Tooty imagined her Aunt would love to see the way they sewed the thick cloth. Not a seem was visible.  The gremlin, in the shape of a very enormous beetle, pointed to the town lights in the distance, "We will visit the local bar first, See what the humans are saying."
  Steve remembered what OldRed had told him.  He interrupted the older Gremlin's silent conversation. "The one that can open the door in that factory, will it be there?" OldRed nodded.
  Tooty looked over at the two young gremlins kicking at a gigantic pine cone.  They were seeing who could get the thing to move.
  "They seem to be recovering. I am glad."  KettleStruck changed, purple spots ablaze and spear in hand.  "Is everything ok KettleStruck?"  Tooty watched the grip from those long green fingers loosen on the shaft.
  "I have some of our journey-skilled gremlins scouting for a fresh source of water."   Kettle looked up at the tree towering above.   "The old one has to have water, and if that stuff can hurt us, it can hurt our great Sheperd."
  Steve made note of the reverence that was given the giant pine.  Tree's were considered sacred in their home region also, but this was something much more. He did not have a word for it yet.  "We can't possibly move that tree... can we?"
  Tooty looked to OldRed, "We're here to stop the humans, aren't we?"
  KettleStruck sighed.  "We don't know how to influence the human's like you do.  We can add spirit to their drink, but otherwise, we are completely unable to interact with them.   I am told the Fartmoodle clan has a specific charm that allows you to talk them into small things,  influence them."
   Steve dropped his jaw. While other Pixies could make suggestions to the humans, what Tooty had done in the supermarket, getting the human to open the door by influencing his choices, was a clan secret.  Suggestions were easily dismissed by most humans, and the other pixies had rarely been able to get a human swayed enough to do as intended.

*** A clan called FistMongers was constantly trying to get humans to physically fight one another,  and was only successful by making physical objects move.  A very infamous trick among them was to talk cats into knocking objects from surfaces for no apparent reason.  It did involve risking ones safety by enticing the cat to believe the fairy was a tiny red light to be swatted at, and some had died in glorious tactics to achieve such feats.  Cats were also not prone to suggestion, but they couldn't resist a brightly lit dot placed in the perfect location. The dot most times being the fairy itself.  No scholar was sure if the cats could see the fairy itself in this form, but it was debated enthusiastically.***

What Fartmoodles could do with humans was almost direct communication.  Steve regained his composure. "How did you know?"
  Tooty stood silent, waiting for an answer.  She had just learned the skill not that long ago and hadn't known about it until it was her turn to be taught it.
Steve said she was a natural, and better even than her mother.
  OldRed answered this time,  "One of our elder members was once friends with a pixie of your clan in the old lands.  They would often sneak off to human grounds and ... "
  KettleStruck finished for Red, "They would cause mischief of legend."
  Tooty tried to imagine what pixie it must have been to cause the kind of bravo-ed tones happening between Kettle and Red.  Steve was excited, "Who?  Who was it?" 
   Red and Kettle made a hand gesture that resembled a great claw, and then what could not be mistaken, 'NO'.  "We can not tell you."
   Tooty remembered the piece of cloth in her vest, "What can you tell us about this stuff in the water?"  She unfolded it and the Gremlins both had to stop themselves from backing away suddenly.
  "That's what is making our kind ill.  The younglings got into it, thinking it was pretty, something from our great Shepard.  They were down for days.  We had to take them to our sunniest clearing in these woods to keep them from blinking away."   Kettle picked the cloth out of Tooty's hand carefully avoiding the spots where the liquid shimmered.
   Red stepped forward, "I'm going to show them KettleStruck."  Kettle held the cloth out. OldRed put  one green wrinkly hand on it to demonstrate.   The skin began to fade. A dimly glowing skeleton shape in glistening lime-green fog.
  Kettle pulled the cloth away.  "That's enough.  We can't have you getting sick on us too."  Tooty took it from KettleStruck and walked to the fire.   She tossed it in, letting the vile thing burn.   The thing sparked and hissed, sending tiny wisps of white-hot embers from its surface.
  Steve wrote more notes.  "We shouldn't try to burn it."  Steve pointed to a torch in the distance that had been placed by the huts set up for himself and Tooty.

  ***  The Gremlins, while having no issue with doing the extra work to put the structures up, had been thoroughly baffled that Tooty and Steve did not sleep in the same space.  According to BrewMinister, the safest and more logical thing to do for creatures that required such a state of unconsciousness would be to be side by side, in a group.  The others had nodded in agreement with BrewMinister. ***

    Steve then pointed to the embers still emanating from the cloth.  "If it isn't safe to touch, it is probably more dangerous when it has that kind of reaction."
    Tooty noticed the scouts had returned and gathered around a large black cauldron that they were.... what looked like, urinating in.
    KettleStruck let out a snort and a giggle when Tooty's concern couldn't be hidden in her face.  "It's tradition, to bring a little brew with us on these missions.  It loosens the human's tongues, and we need to find out what that poison is."
  Steve looked over at the gathering around the pot. "Oh well, that makes sense!"
  Tooty admired Steve's ability to glean information from the world around them, but in this case, she was pretty sure she did not want to know what 'made sense'.

                           ***************************************
After the scouts had tracked the shiny liquid to an empty reservoir labeled with a town companies logo, A plan had been established.
The small crew of Pixie and Gremlin stood at the portal erected to enter the town built up around the companies factories.
  The younglings hopped around the three of them, (BrewMinister, Tooty and Steve)  begging to come along.  They had chosen the form of tiny barn owls at the fire the night before and hadn't changed since.

  Tooty and Steve looked to BrewMinister to handle the little ones. They now understood BrewMinister's role was warrior and mischief master.  The younglings wanted the warrior's approval.

  "When you are recovered, I promise."  The two little ones bowed their feathery heads.  Tooty watched them hop away and hoot between themselves. BrewMinister led Tooty and Steve through the portal.
 
  In an instant, the small Trio stood behind the local bar. "Our scouts have been keeping track of our target, they say the human is here, with his workmates tonight."  Steve was admiring the scent coming from the giant dumpster sitting beside the back door.

BrewMinister continued. "We need to know where they keep it, how to destroy it. The human is seen entering and exiting the place that smokes and stinks. 
  Steve nodded in agreement. "We may get more information that can give us a better solution.  In our experience, no matter how much you try to get the humans to stop doing something dangerous, they will just keep doing it."
  Tooty nodded.  "They'll just make more."
  BrewMinister, taking the form of an enormous cockroach climbed the wall beneath the open window.  Brew waved with foggy brown wings from the sill when they were sure the place was safe.   Tooty and Steve flew up and crawled under the wooden pane.  The kitchen was clean but old and worn.   The cook, they had been told, was also the bartender, and she was not to be disturbed if at all possible.  There was a certain respect for the human that the Gremlins were not keen to explain.
  They made it behind the bar without any issue, and found the target sitting in the corner at a large round booth with the other factory workers.  They dressed in similar attire, except the one in the blue suit jacket, he was the one they needed.  BrewMinister, hiding behind the bottles of vodka was changed back to traditional form, and pulling out the Gremlin brew.  They nodded among one another and Tooty and Steve made their way over to the table to listen to the human's talk.   Four of them had drinks, but the suited man had only water.
One of the four tried to offer him a shot glass.
  "You know I don't drink." The suited man pushed the glass back at the employee. "You guys have fun, it's bonus week, I'm paying."
  Tooty frowned.  "Well, the brew is out of the question."
  Steve and Tooty listened to the humans talk about sports, movies, and someone at the factory they referred to as "that Dingus."  The suited man spoke up when the conversation about the person turned to malicious comments.  "I'm not supposed to let you all know this, but the reason he's gotten so bitter, is because his brother down in waste management just got diagnosed with Cancer again."
  The employees looked ashamed of themselves.  Tooty took the opportunity to get up on the suited man's shoulders.  She cleared her throat and yelled into his ear.  "WHAT IS IN THE FACTORY?"  The suited man stiffened and held up his glass of water.  "To Gabe, and all those lost to that vicious disease."  The others raised their glasses too, and a somber shadow fell over the group.
  Steve fluttered off to talk to BrewMinister.   When he came back, Tooty had made her rounds to each of the people at the table, and tried to get them to say what was in the factory.  "I'm not sure what to do Steve."
  Steve was holding the gremlin brew.
  "But it won't work with the water, the Gremlins said it has to have a really distinct flavor to cover it's presence."  Steve then walked over to the menu sitting in front of who they now knew was called 'boss', and kneeled in prayer.  Tooty followed when she saw the picture and the human words written below it.
"Wet Burrito,  extra spicy"

Steve finished his little prayer, and stood.  Tooty knew what needed to be done.