Pure Publications exclusive! Debut of our live news service!

Best one yet! and it advances Forumshire lore considerably to boot.- Halfy

{{ Thanks Halfy, those that are a bit of a struggle to get done often turn out for the best I find, and its always fun when something presents the opportunity to add to the mythos of the place, this story has turned out to be (not by design) quite useful for that with the Fringes, and Lurkers and Holy Fry-Ups and stuff. }}

Just wanted to see if everything is honky dory. That would mean reading everything and catching up. I’ll just assume everything is honky dory. Carry on.

Orwell!

You picked the right thread to read then! Excellent mix of myth and reality.

Yes, things are hunky-dunk, but would be more so the more we see of you!

yay! Orwell

Always nice to pop in and check up on things. As long as I don’t have to do any work. In this way, I perform my Moderator duties in the way I always have. Good to see you folk carrying on. It is like an endless Carry On movie in a way. And I’ll steel myself and read through this whole thread. There. I hope I don’t find anything unnatural.

Nothing unnatural in this thread.

Good to see you, Orwell!

Nothing unnatural in this thread. - Amarie

{{Well, Odo was in the last part so depends on your 'unnatural' mileage And Orwell I am relying on you to read this and put the thread back on track by being, well you know, Ozzie, about it. }}

What is unnatural is the Similar topics area have three links to the Bandersnatchers live. I assume it's to taunt me for not writing more for it. My own site, making me feel bad for not contributing more. What has the world come to?

{{{hahahaha, it was so simple, all along the answer was staring me in the face. Nothing to thi-}}}

5. An Unexpected FHART

The smell was atrocious and for once it wasn't all coming from Petty. In fact it was mainly coming from the lively conversation of the trolls that clustered under the bridge Petty had come to call home, well home was stretching it a bit, he was sleeping in a cardboard box he'd stolen from the back of Mrs Figg's Emporium, it was long and narrow. Not that the box helped anyway as everywhere under the bridge, what with it being a bridge meaning it had to bridge something, was wet and damp from the stream that ran below it. And the trolls had taken up all the dry spots on the higher ground on the bankings. And a troll was hard to shift, given in essence it was just a large pile of several tons of not very bright rock. They weren't exactly conversationalists either, worse most troll communication was conducted through foul smells and hitting each other with bits of rock so conversation on Petty's side tended to be nasally assaulting, brief, painful and usually ended with him being knocked out before they'd got passed 'hello, how are you today?' The other problem with trolls was that they tended to view anything not made of rocks as just being a 'squishy' and any squishy that stayed still long enough they just saw as a soft comfortable thing to sit upon. And no one wanted to wake up with four tons of troll sitting on their face. So Petty was squeezed to one side barely sheltered by the edge of the arching bridge and sleeping sitting upright lest a troll sit on him, in an inch of cold muddy water on a soggy mat of cardboard and feeling utterly alone. He was also dangerously low on buckie.

This couldn't go on. He was going to have to do what he had been putting off doing since the very beginning. He was going to have to go home. Not to his destroyed barrel but home, home. The ancestral McTryant pile, he was going to have go home and ask Paw for help, he had run out of other options.

As soon as the sun had crept above the horizon Petty stood, wrung out his kilt and stepping carefully between the snoring piles of rubble he slowly and reluctantly went to ask Paw for help.

The McTyrant ancestral home was not massive but it was comfortable, a sprawling smial set into a low bank and whose exterior was strewn with old couches, buckie bottles, random long rusted gardening equipment and currently a caravan with a fed up looking horse before it.

Petty groaned, the caravan was pink. Not here and there pink, not fringed with pink, not with a touch of pink. It was PINK. Garish, overblown, sickeningly pink everywhere. And it was so deliberately girly in such a twee fashion with flowers daubed onto the pink, real flowers trailing along its roof and lace seemingly everywhere as trimming that even Barbie would have had her feminist principles challenged by it. And it was clear from its pink headdress, pleated mane with pink bows and ribbons tied to it down to its pink hoof covers why the horse bore its fed up expression.

Petty groaned again only louder and with more pain than before, there was only one person in the family with so little taste and yet so big a desire to advertise it.
The caravan door swung open and his sister Pretty came out, chest first which was always how she entered any space, to those in the know or with prior experience it was natures way of giving forewarning of her arrival; like a sharks fin sticking above the water. She was wearing a skintight body suit, it was of course a nauseating bright pink, and despite the fact she was several years older than Petty, well the few remaining bits of her she hadn't purchased later were older, she wore her hair in girly pigtails. They had pink ribbons in them.

Pretty descended the caravan with grace it had to be said, but then Petty happened to know she had spent quite a sum of money on private tutorial at the Little Sisters night school taking classes in Embarking and Disembarking from a Carriage Like a Lady Without Exposing Yourself to Palantiratazzi, it was a popular course, or it was at least with its teacher Odo Banks who was known to be a particularly hard task master in this matter and could spend hours just lying on the floor peering upwards, scrutinizing every move, making his students repeat the task over and over until he was absolutely sure they were doing it just right.

Petty briefly considered making a dash for the front door of the smial and pretending he hadn't seen her, though that was tricky to justify as the caravan, and indeed Pretty were too garish to miss. Besides she was already bearing down on him wearing a smile he had known since childhood, it was the one she smiled when she meant 'Petty's fucked up, Paw's going to nail him to something and I'm here to enjoy and gloat about it', the sort of smile that made Pretty feel good. She enjoyed the suffering of others which was one of the reasons she had had so many husbands.

“Come crawling tae Paw huv yi?” she sneered as she approached, “A hurd whit happened tae yi frae the papers.”

“Yi've a cheek,” Petty said indignantly, “Yi're nearly ten year older thun me but thurs almost no a part o' yi Paw hasnae paid tae huv rebuilt, a couple o' bits several times!”

Pretty slapped him hard, “Don't yi ever dare mention ma age!” she roared at him, “Oh, A cannae wait tae hear whit yir going tae sae tae him. He's goannie rip yi a new wan.”

“It wisnae ma fault, it wus a monstrous...”

“Save it fur Paw,” Pretty interrupted, “he's been expecting yi fur days, he knew yi'd come crawling sooner or later.”

Petty decided to sidestep thinking about Paw, “Wit aboot Maw? She said ought?”

“She's been practising her 'disappointed an let doon, wishing she'd ne'er gien birth tae yi' face in the mirror aw week,” Pretty grinned back.

Petty's shoulders slumped, he was not looking forward to this but then not looking forward to it was probably a worse feeling than actually getting it over with. He tried to square his shoulders, took a long slug from his buckie bottle and was about to set off when an unexpected FHART blew in.
It was in the form of Blue, rushing down the road on a bicycle waving a sheath of papers at them and shouting “Petty! I've got something for you!”

Pretty, sensing this was some sort of temporary reprieve for her brother turned with a snort and went back to her caravan disappointed, besides she would rather not speak to anyone associated with the Admin's Office given her rather complex personal tax history. She slammed the door behind her however just to remind everyone she was there and important.

Blue more or less brought his bike to a halt, its ancient brakes screeched under protest and as it slowed the entire thing wobbled, apparently aided by the bulky bag tied to the back of it. Blue wobbled with it.
Blue himself was not living up to his name in that he was red of face, and panting. He tried to say something, gasped for air, and waved the sheaf of papers in Petty's general direction.

“Does Admin noo gie yi a cart at least?” Petty said eyeing the old rickety bike Blue had arrived on.

“Eru, no!” Blue exclaimed  between puffs of breath and his slow recovery “my expenses wouldn't cover that. For that matter my wages wouldn't cover that.”

“So whit's this aboot?”

“Come with me, I think we'll just walk there and I can explain along the way.”

“Walk whur?”

“I just said I'd explain on the way,” Blue said with an annoyed shake of his head as he pushed his bike along and led Petty back the way they had come, “Why does no one ever pay attention to the terms and conditions?”

They went some way, perhaps a mile or so in relative silence, it was familiar ground for Petty. Blue was leading him in the general direction of his old barrel, in fact it was not far off now on their right through the pine trees and made Petty feel a mix of homesickness and nostalgia, “Awricht Blue, whit's this aboot? Whur wi going?”

“Do you remember how you acquired your barrel?” Blue asked.

“Aye o' course A dae, an' aw that wis looked intae at the time by the proper authorities an' A ne'er...”

Blue held up hand, “Yes, I know, but your barrels stands, or rather stood,” Petty winced at that, “where it always had, where the Exhibition had been held I mean. It never moved.”

“Aye, so?” Petty asked as Blue led them along a faded path that led left and began climbing a gradual slope between thick patches of birch and hazel.

“Well that barrel was for the unveiling of the specially commissioned rasberry Buckie for Her majesty Queen Tinuviel. A buckie everyone thought was brewed in secret somewhere on the outer Fringes of Forumshire.”

“Aye every wan kens that, whit's yir point?”

“That everyone is wrong,” Blue said as the path conventionally turned round a cluster of hazel and revealed a low building with a curved barrel like roof. The path to it was over grown, “they built it right here, right next to the Exhibition. If you think about it,” Blue said as he lent his bike against a tree and began untying the bulky parcel on the back of it, “the size of your old barrel, and the amount of buckie you'd need to fill it, well, you could never move it in secret from the Fringes to the Exhibition where the barrel was, not to mention the cost.”

Petty strode closer to the building, it had large bay windows, like a shop front, and a large imposing double door, pitch black and studded, in fact on closer inspection Petty noticed it did not in fact have studs in it, it just gave off the impression it should have. Above the imposing door there was a  white sign, it simply stated the address and announced itself in white circular writing as 'The Old Shop'. No hint as to what sort of shop, just a shop.

“How comes it says it wis a shop?” Petty asked as Blue having successfully untied all the knots began unravelling the mystery package.

Blue grabbed some papers from his pile and waved them at Petty, “According to these old Admin files I found the whole thing was top secret, the shop bit is just a front for their secret experiments, its a shopfront, they took it rather literally it seems. The entire endeavour, as it was under Royal Direction was classified under the Forumshire Secrets Act, I had a devil of a time getting all the papers and I've got almost full clearance.”

Petty noticed a sign, it was almost entirely overgrown by an enormous fern, but it was bright yellow and the sharpness of the colour peeping out from behind the dark green had caught his eye, he pulled back the fern and read, “Warning! Hazardous Dwelling! No Entry Under Any Circumstances by Order of Admin Ady!' and was followed by a lot of warning symbols of the sort you'd expect to see round a nuclear spill site.
“Um, Blue?” Petty said turning round slowly to find that Blue was not to be seen, well a small square of his face was to be seen through the visor of the full hazardous materials body suit he was wearing, “Is thur sumthing yir maybe noo telling me?”

“It's perfectly safe,” Blue reassured.

“Fir who?” Petty replied cynically, “why is this sign here, an' why ur yi wearing yon get up?”

“Well you see, according to the files the reason this was all classified top secret, hushed up and the cover rumour about it being in the Fringes was started was because there was a good deal of, well experimentation went on, to get the rasberry buckie just right.”

“Experiments eh?”

“Yes, and well some of them it seems were rather toxic, and may have, you know got embedded.”

“Embedded?”

“Yes, in the ground, the walls, that sort of thing.”

“An' its toxic?”

“Maybe, it was a long time ago it might have lessened by now,” Blue explained with a shrug, which was exaggerated by the huge padded shoulders of his suit.

“So if this wee hoose is full o' dangerous chemicals how come 'ave noo goat a fancy suit tae?” Petty asked with a crabbit frown.

“I'm rather hoping you won't need one. You see whilst its true there are a lot of toxic chemicals here, they are also all variants of buckie chemicals. I'm rather hoping you are naturally immune.”

Blue waddled in his suit up to the door, fumbled with the keys in his large thick gloves and dropped them. Petty stooped and picked them up, “Let me,” he said unlocking the double doors and swinging one open with a creak, “whit doesnae kill yi makes yi crabbit,” he ruminated and stepped inside. He almost immediately hit his head on another door just inside the first one, it too was locked. He looked at the key chain and saw there was a second smaller key, as he did so he couldn't help but notice that not only were there large firm bolts on the back of the outer door but slots too for a plank of wood to be barricaded across it. He unlocked the inner door, the buckie brewing wizards of Forumshire had been taking no chances. He braced himself and stepped into the interior.

Behind him Blue squeezed through the doorway with a lot of squeaking as his suit rubbed against the frame, when he got inside it was to find a large bare room, with a wooden floor and high ceiling, light was streaming in the bay windows now and the interior seemed to glow, and standing in the middle of it was Petty, arms outstretched inhaling deeply.
It smelled, it smelled of buckie, of old buckie, of buckie in the air, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in short it felt very much like home. It smelled exactly like his old barrel.
He turned to Blue a far off look in his eye and a very rare smile playing on his lips, “I'll take it,” he managed hoarsely, then with a tear in his eye he added softly, “I'm hame!”

Spoiler:

The End.




Hold on, the end? What about the cliffhanger from part one, where Petty was being held aloft by an eldritch terror? We never found out what happened, how he survived or what happened to the tentacled monstrosity!
Ah well, there's a reason for that lad, they decided to do an epilogue style thing.
Why?
Cause it'll sell another issue of course, now shut that thing off and lets get down the Duck and Muck.

  Can't say I follow all the legal maelstrom swirling about this, but glad to find you've got a home!

cool!

{{ Halfy- in the story or in my real life? }}

either one.

{ So much for writing a stroory that folk can follow! I give up! }}

Shop front. Also awww! My eyes got a bit watery there.

I live in the old shop. That's a conversation starter for sure. So happy for you!

...and I'm eagery waiting for the epilogue .

I live in the old shop. That's a conversation starter for sure. So happy for you!- Amarie

{{ Thanks Amarie- feell in love with the place at first sight and determined somehow I was going to end up here, couldn't beleive when I actually got it.
And when I first saw the sign above the door it was niggling at something at the back of my head, and then I realised I could use that real world fact to tie the ending of the story back into, what was at the time of writing, just some story setting and window dressing to the background of Petty's barrel with the Exhibition from Ady's time. I love it when that sort of thing happens, makes it look like I almost know what Im doing and as if plan these stories out rather than drunkenly making them up as I go along and hoping it works out by the end.

Talking drunkards, I kept one of my two cats in for two weeks after the move (the other doesn't go out) but he was desperate to get out, being a 80% outdoor cat. So I cautiously let him out into the back green, away for the road, hoping he'd take some time find his bearings- nope, bolted straight across the green over the garden wall and gone.

Two weeks later, and posts for him on various local social media sites and he finally is spotted and turns up. Where I hear you ask? Did he make his way all the way through town to the old place? Nope, he's defineently my cat, he did exactly what I'd do if lost, disorientated and feeling down and worried and not knowing where to go, he went to the pub!

Where the nice lasses at Sinbad's (for so its called) were looking after him, well feeding him, and he was sneaking in after closing time to sleep in their beer tent out back when it rained- he's not daft.}}

Aww....we tend to worry about cats too much. They can look after themselves just fine. Did you take him back?

I like the multi directional windows of the new place. Adds a feeling of class as well as light.

Cats are ace aren't they. super intelligent blaggers. glad he is back.

That's your cat alright!

Did you take him back?- Halfy

{{ I had to take him back, he was putting everything on my tab! }}

Epilogue

Petty's barrel had exploded. Bad for the barrel worse for Petty who was unexpectedly thrown high into the air above it. On the plus side he did have a good view of his barrel splintering, expanding, tearing apart at the seams and at its centre a Thing. The Thing from his fridge which was blobby, mouldy, shiny in patches and wet, a little frosty near the top where it had  pressed against the freezer compartment and tentacled. Lots of tentacles.

It was about this moment when gravity, taken aback as much as anyone else by the goings on, noticed Petty high up in the air and decided it was about time it reasserted itself on the matter. With a sudden shriek Petty fell, kilt flapping up round his ears so it was very lucky there was no one else about to look upwards or they'd have had to cope with more than one eldritch horror that morning.
His fall was abruptly halted, so abruptly it knocked all the wind out of him but that was ok as the reason he had stopped was that a huge tentacle had wrapped itself around his middle and breathing did not feel like it was going to be much of an option anyway going forward.
His one and only regret as the tentacle swept down taking him, he presumed, towards some sort of disgusting gaping maw of teeth and slime was that he couldn't get at the buckie bottle he had stashed in the folds of  his kilt. He'd always hoped he'd go out drinking.

And then the tentacle swooped down till Petty was held face to face with the Thing from his fridge, well face to unsightly hideous smelly blob and that was just looking from it's side.
He prepared for the end and closed his eyes, but nothing happened, slowly and cautiously he prised open one eye, the other opened in shock to join it at what the first eye had seen. He was being stared at, a massive bloodshot eyeball was staring right at him, and Petty knew that look.

“Ah”, he said with a squeaking cough, “A thunk A may be able tae help yi thur pal.”



It was a month later and Petty, thanks to the file hunting of Blue, was happily in his new home at the Old Shop when he was seen, huffing, panting and cursing his way back from the Duck 'n' Muck dragging a ginormous fridge. It was a UShobbit style fridge, which meant it was twice the size of Petty and could hold more food than Petty had ever eaten in his life, or about a weeks worth for a UShobbit, not that he was planning on putting much food in it. Instead, when he had finally dragged it to outside his new home he opened the door, examined the pristine white interior and proceeded to pour buckie into it, as a generous afterthought he placed a half drunk bottle on the bottom. He followed this up with a half eaten sandwich, and some squirming newly stolen vegetables from Dave's experimental patch and then for a final good measure he smashed the little light bulb that lit up the interior and swung the door wide open. He whistled loudly and shrilly, out across the space of trees between his new home and the glade where his old home had stood, and waited.

Eyes can tell you a lot. What the big eye that had stared balefully at a suspended Petty above his broken barrel had told him was something very familiar. It was as clear as day to him what had happened, the Thing having existed solely within the dark confines of the fridge had exploded into a much bigger brighter world. Much, much bigger. Vastly bigger. Mindbogglingly bigger. And far too bright. The look it had borne in its eye spoke of one thing - instant existential crisis.
The Thing had broken into the world and been overwhelmed by its very existence, unable to cope it had frozen in existential fear.

It was exactly how Petty felt on the rare occasions he woke up sober. It was a world he couldn't cope with, everything was in focus, all the friendly blurred edges of the world sharp and instant, all the problems from the tedious like paying bills, eating, being civil to others, remembering to use an actual toilet to the fact of his own eventual demise and his seeming attempts to drink his way more hastily towards it, all suddenly were something he had to cope with. The look in the Thing's eye was exactly a match for the look in his own when sobriety hit. Sheer and utter horror.

All it had taken was the offer of a bottle of buckie, an understanding of its crisis of being and a plan.




He slammed the fridge door shut, well jammed it shut with the press of his shoulder and all his weight as the last of the Things tentacles slipped inside, then using a length of rope he dragged the entire lot inside the Old Shop and put it in the corner of the room where he proceeded to use the rope to tie shut the fridge door.
He drew a bottle of buckie from his kilt, cracked open the top and drank the entire bottle in one long gulp listening to the muffled, but somehow satisfied sounds of the Thing in his Fridge settling into its new home.

Oh aye, he thought, looking about his new home and adding his freshly finished buckie bottle to the new growing pyramid of empties in the corner, the world was back to rights.

It was about this moment when gravity, taken aback as much as anyone else by the goings on, noticed Petty high up in the air and decided it was about time it reasserted itself on matters.

The old physics teacher in me twinkles with delight. I see now that my explanation of the way things worked was dry and unintuitive; small wonder students have difficulty with the stuff. Newton was a cad.

"The Thing had broken into the world and been overwhelmed by its very existence, unable to cope it had frozen in existential fear."

tell me about it.