[NetBehaviour] Saladin, Guy and what Mouse imagined

[Simon Mclennan]

Drawing detail here https://www.instagram.com/p/CGdSe73nLnP/?igshid=16uirz8c1cz5q

Certain archers had deep clefts in their noses and chins; the bowstring twine’s red weal recalls the flight feathers, sometimes cormorant, other times rook or jay.

Anyway this hover-craft thing was made from tiny quills, was shaped like a long bow and worked on the principle of dark matter — or in layman’s terms at that time — majik! 

Meanwhile Saladin and Co were camping by the seashore.

Guy of Wherever, the Frankish Knight, watched the soldiers over the yellow sand dune. Seeing there were quite a few camped out there, he changed his mind and put the attack on hold — flip this! Words like zut and putain were muttered as he slid down the crabby tussocks and ran in his red and white over-smock garment and fish skin chain mail leggings  towards the very skinny looking craft. He climbed up the rope side-netting into the main cabin on the front and pushed a lever. The great bag of gas started to billow outwards and up and then ropes creaked and the little dirigible lifted into the air and it was then he engaged the anti-matter neon/argon gas combo drive and she picked up speed and afore he could whistle much of a tune they were passed Cyprus heading for Corsica.

‘Let’s just put it off indefinitely’ he thought and made a mental note never to do anything much more along the lines of attacking, holy wars, siege engines and errrr anything involving skirmishes with Saracen archers etc etc. 

Better to travel incognito as some kings were known to do occasionally. Dressed as some kind of oaf, an actor or balladeer! A small troop merrily trooping ‘men of no fixed abode’. 

For instance he loved to play the old guittara and especially the ancient Classical Greek lyre. He could crank out a right good song every now and then. He liked to experiment with special tunings, quarter notes even and had studied some early music from Italy. All in all it was a unique style he had and was sure he could get somewhere with his novel versions of popular songs of the day.

‘Yessiree Bob we is gonna take em by storm’, and he imagined great parties after the gig back at the hotel. He’d invite the audience, anyone who had a mind to come, to the party. Never mind the concierge he’d be in on it too. The wine skins would be fat and the larder stocked with pate — well not that canard job which he didn’t like — but nice mushroom pate and golden pears in brandy, raspberry and lemon cheesecake, roast artichokes and vanilla ice cream with hot Meade sauce. 

He glanced up at the rail above him where le Mouse was parodying his enthusiasm for partying. His friend and companion, little mouse was his familiar and helped out here and there when needed but generally took the mickey.

‘Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world’ he squeaked. God only knows how a Mouse in the tenth century would know a Grateful Dead song but hey, they had flippin ion drive, hovercrafts and knew about dark matter!

Certainly these lot had been about a bit shall we say. More than meets the eye.

Sun poured over them as they hopped between clouds over the lemony green sea below. 

Two roseate terns landed on the prow of the craft and preened and walked up and down the bow sprite. 

Mouse coughed, louse laughed, fish hiccuped and smoke curled from the tiny pipe Mouse was pondering and puffing upon. Now he thought about the novelette he was working on - surrealisme and the inky tentacle in a time of famine - love and the divine - the oracle of Thebes - when we get to Elysian Fields what’s it gonna be like - how magnets work on iron and brass - consciousness, cats and other questions - all matter is inherently conscious by degree he thought. Stone is very stone, itself wrapped in its stone-ness. Wood be wood fully wood at all times perhaps to change but seemingly fully itself. Mind you those fluxes of Crystal and smoke and fire... all themselves no doubt about it - conscious of themselves! 

Mouse was full of ideas. Boy, and was he going to live it up (even more than now? In a flying craft fleeing the Saracen archers?) when he had his first tome published. A hefty bound leather job coming in several volumes he hoped.

Soon they reached Corsica and descended slowly, eventually to alight upon a wooden platform just above the main roof of the castle tower.

S





 


Sent from my spyphone 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20201017/975c7bf5/attachment.htm>