Writing

Prosatio Silban and the Anxious Drummer

(Two printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.)

NOT FOR NOTHING HAD PROSATIO Silban parked his galleywagon outside cosmopolitan Soharis’ main military barracks. Soldiers are a notoriously hungry lot, and use any excuse to spend their extra pay on the sort of food they aren’t able to obtain in their daily mess.

His location was perfect – not so far from the bayside city’s bustling fish market as to discourage the attentions of peckish shoppers, not so close to the barracks as to be thought a security risk. The wind rising from the bay was also cooperative, keeping the market’s fabled aroma at a discreet distance.

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Crit, Writing

“…And Just Exactly What Is A ‘Buopoth?'”

“MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT the quaint and lumbering buopoths native to the Exilic Lands and other curious places – but to this day, little remains understood about the shy beasts beyond the proverb that ‘they will haul all day on a fatberry-cake and a kind word.'” — from Road Bound

That’s the in-universe explanation from one of my Prosatio Silban stories. Outside the stories, it’s a different matter entirely…

According to H.P. Lovecraft‘s 1927 novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (a ripping good read if you’re so inclined):

In former dreams he had seen quaint lumbering buopoths come shyly out of that wood to drink, but now he could not glimpse any.

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Food, Writing

Cook’s Honor (A Prosatio Silban Tale)

(Three-and-a-quarter printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

THE FIRST CLUE PROSATIO SILBAN had to the midnight intruder was the sound of someone rifling through his galleywagon pantry. The second was the paring-knife at his throat – his own paring-knife.

“Wake up, stranger,” came a frightening – or was it frightened? – whisper in his right ear. “I need your silver.”

“I don’t have any,” the cook whispered back. “It’s been a bad week. But if you let me live, I’ll cook you a meal more than worth your time.”

“A meal!” scoffed the would-be thief. “What do I want with a meal? I can make my own meals. What I need is your money. Fetch it now.”

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Writing

Plague Haiku

THE PAIN IN MY CHEST
Is growing by the hour.
I hope it’s heartburn.

My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”
— John Dominic Crossan

Food, Writing

Prosatio Silban and the Last Meal

(Three printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

ASIDE FROM BUOPOTHS, NO ONE knows exactly what a fatberry-cake tastes like. But measuring by how many the quaint lumbering beasts eat, the greasy maroon lumps (smelling faintly of lavender) must be a delightful treat.

Prosatio Silban pondered this mystery as he fed his own buopoth, Onward, a sixth cake of the day and wiped his hands on his faded green apron. It’s a good thing fatberries are ubiquitous, he thought, or I’d be out a useful dray-beast – and a beloved traveling companion.

He scratched Onward behind one ear, told him what a good buopoth he was, and stashed the fatberry-cake bag under his galleywagon’s driver’s bench.

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Living

Hunkerin’

THE PHRASE OF THE DAY — let’s face it, of the hour (or even minute) — is “an abundance of caution.”

As I write this, I am anticipating a shelter-in-place order for my county (Sonoma) to begin today. No telling when it will end, or even if. It may not happen at all.

The mood at the Attinson Digs continues to be stop-and-go watchful. I imagine that’s true for most people in the world right now. As for me, I am delving more intensely into my daily routine (Torah and astronomy study, handwashing, cooking [actually, baking, as the fresh fruit and vegetables have all been picked over by my fellow locusts], loving the cat, handwashing). It seems to help, somehow, either as an escape or a connector. Or both.

The early morning Sonoma streets were largely empty today, but the grocery store parking lots were crowded.

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