#baboonicorn

[small-tales]

#SmallTales – The Remembrance of the Creators (Waste) @baboonicorn

“Hear a tale, my boy, not often told, of how the Creators in Their wisdom made the world. Pluck’d from the heavens, the brightest shining stars; They put their light into our eyes so that we might see. They made the land from Their own bodies, and the seas from Their tears of joy at their creation. Before long, all that was left was their waste, stinking, foul and depraved, and from that filth, the First Men shaped their gods, to whom we give praise and obeisance to this day. The Creators, beneath and all around us, lie forgotten.”

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Hood #SmallTales @Baboonicorn

The wolf cubs played in the den, snapping and pouncing.

“What would you like to do when you grow up?” asked the Alpha Bitch calmly from her corner.

“I want to be just like you!” said one.

“I want to eat a whole buffalo!” said another.

“I want to howl so loud that the moon howls back!”

“I want to be the biggest, baddest wolf in the world, EVER!” barked the runt.

“Little wolves that want to be big and bad,” chastised the Alpha Bitch calmly, “had better be ready for The Girl With The Hood.”

The others fell silent.

https://baboonicorn.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/small-tales-hood/

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Derelict @Baboonicorn #smalltales

Briggs and Korolev took the crew wing, clanking down the corridors of the rusting derelict as it drifted listlessly in far orbit around Gamma Seven.

“Anything here, Briggs?” rasped Korolev.

“Looks like the galley, Captain,” replied the ensign. “Let’s take a look.”

The two salvagers looked upon the ensuing scene with horror – one surface was coated in a thick patina of brownish slime, organic in origin according to Korolev’s scanner.

“What is that stuff? Scan it.” A distant scurrying seemed to echo round the room as Korolev took a sample.

“It’s chilli. Cook must’ve spilt it before they abandoned.”

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Candle #SmallTales @Baboonicorn

The whispering in the corners of the room intensified, a susurrus of eerie mutterings rising from the shadows, forming humanoid shapes without the humanoids present to cast them.

Lisping, bestial hisses and gurgles coalesced into the odd, identifiable word.

“Mistress…”

“…dying…”

“…light…”

“…pray…”

“…save us…”

“…night.”

The lone candle, placed reverently atop an altar of eldritch horror, guttered and choked on the remains of its tallow, before winking out forever.

There was a momentary wail from the shadow creatures as the darkness consumed them, then silence, for the shadows cannot exist without the light.

https://baboonicorn.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/small-tales-candle/

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Body @Baboonicorn #SmallTales

It had started quietly, as these things tend to, with a flotilla of jellyfish left stranded on the beach at low tide.

Local folk thought little of it, but the beachings increased in number and intensity, first with shoals of reeking fish providing the local gulls with plenty to quarrel about, then dolphins, whole schools laid out on the sand gasping feebly for breath as their bodies crushed them.

Then it came, the great leviathan itself, a gargantuan cachalot whale, its ancient flesh scarred with barnacles and wounds from past battles, reduced to yet another stinking body on the shore.

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Plethora @Baboonicorn #SmallTales

The university conference room was heaving as Professor Hobbes concluded his talk, opening the floor to questions from the media on the most exciting zoological discovery for over a hundred years.

One journalist leapt up.

“James Littlebrow, Ilford Gazette. What’s the group noun for these buggers, then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Like you get in a posh diary, you’ve gotta have a group noun. Parliament of owls, murder of crows, crash of rhinos, y’know?”

“A flock, then?”

“That’s boring, mate. You need a good word, like scramble, imbroglio, or plethora.”

“Oh, alright, plethora, then.”

“That’ll do, cheers mate!” The journalist scribbled excitedly.

https://baboonicorn.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/small-tales-plethora/

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#SmallTales @Baboonicorn Shade

The engines of the space-tug flared and faltered as it hauled its mighty load into place, the huge red sun bathing it in ionising radiation which caused the craft and its robotic crew to slowly disintegrate.

From the surface of an orbiting world, Imperator Qvrak III stood on his balcony observing the sunset. An aide barked up “The Shade is in place, most supreme and wise magnificence.”

The harsh red light bathing the planet’s cracked surface faded to a soft pink. The Imperator clapped his forelimbs, pleased that his cosmic uplighter has worked just as intended.

https://baboonicorn.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/small-tales-shade/

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Bluff #SmallTales @Baboonicorn

“Y’see,” said Fingers, rubbing his hands in the ratty woollen gloves that lacked his namesake, “the plan can’t fail!”

“You always say that,” drawled Leoric, resting on the butt of his railgun, “and this plan is even more stupid than the others.”

“That’s the genius of it! The plan’s so stupid, nobody’ll be expecting it, and if, by some fluke, they are, they’ll expect it’ll fail, so when it don’t, it’ll catch ‘em totally off-guard.”

“I think he might be right?” mused Nessa.

“It’s the ultimate double-bluff, mates. An inverse-triplicate recursive double-bluff. Squared!”

I had a bad feeling about this.

https://baboonicorn.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/small-tales-bluff/