ALL GOOD THINGS MUST EVENTUALLY be replaced, though not without some effort or expense – so Prosatio Silban discovered on a cloudy summer’s day in stony-hearted Tirinbar, whose inhabitants were the most reputedly avaricious in the Uulian Commonwell’s Three Cities…
Tag: WIP
Works In Progress. The “typing” part of Writing — and the most challenging.
Day’s Life (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
IT IS SAID THAT WERE it not for the leather-lunged hawkers of epicurean Pormaris, the sun would not know when to awaken. But whether or not that’s as true as it sounds, the great island-city’s markets are indeed its economic…
Prosatio Silban and the Difficult Patron
FROM THE INEXORABLE RULES OF mercantile interplay comes the inescapable principle: “There’s Always One.” “With what may I please you?” Prosatio Silban asked the stoop-shouldered man sitting down at one of two tables-and-chairs in the lee of the beefy cook’s…
We Interrupt This Blog …
… FOR THE FOLLOWING PUBLIC-SERVICE AGGRANDIZEMENT: The current plan (and behind-the-scenes task) involves formatting all 90+ Prosatio Silban stories for an independently published paperback and e-book titled Across the Rimless Sea; as a size comparison, the collection so far (‘prox.…
Prosatio Silban and the Professional Contretemps
THERE ARE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES to every collegial association: protective fellowship on one hand, and tedious bureaucracy on another. And as a more-or-less “free spirit,” Prosatio Silban sometimes found it a difficult balance. The beefy cook was also a Freehander…
Prosatio Silban and the Dread Reckoning
WHEN SOMEONE THREATENS YOU WITH a knife at close quarters, your options may not be so limited as you might think. “Do you know who I am?” the intruder asked. “You mean, aside from my potential assailant?” Prosatio Silban replied.…
Words to Bring Back: “Meme”
– Definition: n. an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. – Used in a sentence: Charles MacKay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is perhaps the Western World’s first serious…
Prosatio Silban and the Birthday Party
IT ONLY CAME ONCE A year, but for Prosatio Silban, once was almost too much. His galleywagon was parked in the small marketplace at the village of Whistleshoe, and he had begun this particular day by staring into his berth-side…
Circus Bred (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
IT WASN’T OFTEN THAT PROSATIO Silban cooked and sold something he didn’t like to eat in a place he didn’t want to visit, but when one was near-penniless in stony-hearted Tirinbar – that least forgiving of the Three Cities of…
Prosatio Silban and the Perfect Ingredient
SOMETIMES, THE PERFECT INGREDIENT IS just beyond a cook’s grasp. And when that happens, said cook must either go without – or make good use of both resourcefulness and perseverance. Prosatio Silban frowned at himself. He had been experimenting with…
Prosatio Silban and the Saucemaker’s Tale
A JASMINE-SCENTED NIGHT BREEEZE carried the distant buzz of an enthusiastic if slightly off-key hurdy-gurdy through the open half-door of Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon, ending and re-beginning amid a cloud of applause and children’s laughter. The small umber man – a…
Small Packages (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR a layman’s questioning, Prosatio Silban might never have learned of the Hidden God. “What’s with all the filled fare?” he overheard someone say, on a day when the beefy cook was browsing cosmopolitan Soharis’ thronged…