Posted by PK on December 15, 2002 at 16:44:11:
Romany Soup
"Lionel Lark was an Alchemist by profession but he loved to quest." Marianna heard on her
earphones. She kicked off her shoes and ignored the crowd, her escort, the watching waiters.
Nice of them to supply grass, she thought. Now her toes liked her, they didn't know about
external causes. The dress she wore didn't have room for underwear. Dresses shouldn't. Not
blue ones, anyway. Perhaps none of them. Possibly it should be a law of pataphysics, except
that pataphysics doesn't have laws. But that would mean that there was a law against laws
which would mean...
"Mari?"
"Huh?"
"Ready to order yet?"
Order or Chaos, she was hungry.
Order. Food. Hmmm....
Miriam, or possibly Mal or Mirr....mrr....scented meat.
"Food," she decided. "I'll have food." Suddenly that seemed like a good idea. Maybe that was
why they were in a restaurant.
"Any particular sort?" The tone was ironic. Or Irenic. It was wasted on her. Or she was wasted
on it.
"Warm." Mrr focussed on the room. Why was she here at all? The reasons escaped her.
"And don't call me Surely," she added. In case that wasn't clear, she summed up. "Or Shirley.
Or anything but not Mari."
The decor was an uneasy mix of mock-neo-Gothic and post Imperial Roman decadent. If
something seriously evil didn't lurk in the shadows, she guessed she'd be disappointed. Until
then, she had her music. Not Danse Macabre, just too, too dreary. Something that sent
lightning. Something that made her want to wander in the wild, wild, woods and maybe find
her way to the path inside the forest to the pool in which she'd drown.