Micro-Fiction

[Ghostman]

Some Dune inspiration there, I see. Nice little story, nothing too complex. It's easy to guess who sent that wasp :D

[Steerpike]

Yeah, very Dune, though also I was thinking of the spy-fly from The Golden Compass.

[Ghostman]

BTW, are you familiar with the prose poem Ennui by Clark Ashton Smith? Your story of boredom reminded me a lot about this piece.

[Steerpike]

I hadn`t read it, but I love Clark Ashton Smith.  Thanks!

[LD]

Ghostman, really? Who do you think sent the wasp?

[LD]

[ic=Degeneration]The Ember River was so named for the peculiar transformation which overcame it at gloaming when the sinking sun, filtered through the tattered canopy of the sprawling Tangle, lit the sinuous waters with a scintilla of reds and blues, like the scaled throat of some exotic serpent.  A kind of haunted quality overcame its shimmering length during these twilight hours, lending the river a dappled otherworldliness.  The Ember's mystique was further enhanced by the decaying statues lining its banks: ivy-strangled, weather-stained memories with faces smudged and muddied, once beautiful bodies made grotesque with the mottled depredations of time and encroaching vegetation.  The plaques at their feet proclaimed the names of these faded legends in dead languages, their ancient monikers further obscured by weeds and rushes and clots of turquoise moss.  

At dawn villagers from Hewtown to Thistle would dip their water buckets in the Ember; in the late morning women would wash their families' clothes in its sun-stippled flow; in the afternoon children would play about the statues, or race their carved wooden boats in the darkening currents.  But with the onset of night the children would be ushered hastily from their frolics: the Ember flowed out from the Tangle, its origin doubtless some fey well or enchanted spring, and was widely believed to bewitch any who drank from it or bathed in it after sunset.  Only the first rays of sunrise would dispel the magic.

One tale tells of a weary traveler passing down the Thornroad on his way to the Free House of the Weeping Moon.  A stranger to the Edge, the ignorant traveler (often called 'Haskell', sometimes 'Hugh', and in some rarely heard versions 'Hamfast') was in some hurry to reach the Free House, having an appointment with one of the fair folk (usually identified as the witch Glyness, the Lugh-Shee Lænoch the Lanky, or an unnamed impish trinket-peddler).

Though he failed to reach the Weeping Moon before twilight he refused to make camp, as a he should have done, instead pressing on as the shadows lengthened further and further and finally all was covered in a dewy shroud of fog and darkness.  Wearied by his journey, brow drenched with sweat, flesh clammy from the grasping tendrils of the night's thickening miasma, the traveler stopped briefly by the banks of the Ember River to refresh himself.  Removing his velvet gloves he quickly washed his face and hands with a modest splash of river-water before continuing across Gargoyle Bridge towards his destination.  But as he walked, his cloak drawn close about him to ward off the probing mist, a strange sensation overcame him.

It began at the end of his nose and the tips of his fingers, a prickling strangeness that at first he dismissed as mere numbness inflicted by the chill night air, but as the sensation crept up his knuckles and flushed through his face, the beginnings of panic fluttered in his chest.  He groped at his face but found himself unable to properly feel through his thick velvet gloves.  Hastily he pulled off the right glove, revealing, to his horror, not the soft pink skin of his own familiar hand but a clawed, scaly thing '" a reptile's hand, or a bird's, the bony fingers tipped with black talons.  He opened his mouth to scream: the sound that issued forth was not a human gasp, but rather a squawking hiss (some claim this emanation resembled the susurrus of a snake, others the caw of a rooster, and a few insist the traveler hooted like an owl).  

Wretched and despairing, the cursed traveler pressed on even faster towards the Weeping Moon, no doubt in hopes of finding some warlock or hedge magician at the free house who might cure his affliction; but when he arrived at the wrought-iron gates of the old inn, the gate-guards mistook him for a crepuscular ghoul and promptly shot him full of quarrels, killing him instantly.  Needless to say, his fey liaison was reportedly unperturbed by the man's death, and proceeded to have a night of good cheer and wholesome debauchery in lieu of their planned business.
[/ic]

...This one reminds me of a classic Lovecraft tale. I cannot recall which one though... It certainly picks up on one of HP's major themes.

[Ghostman]

Ghostman, really? Who do you think sent the wasp?

[spoiler]Herself. Arranging that wasp attack in advance and then using the amnesiac drug to forget about it. At least it wouldn't be boredom killing her...[/spoiler]

[LD]

Oh!

If that is the case, then it makes me appreciate the structure of the short even more- that explanation seems more than plausible.

[spoiler]...That makes sense. It would explain the gun placed on the dresser...[/spoiler]

[Nomadic]

Ghostman, really? Who do you think sent the wasp?

[spoiler]Herself. Arranging that wasp attack in advance and then using the amnesiac drug to forget about it. At least it wouldn't be boredom killing her...[/spoiler]

hmm never thought about that... interesting thought.

[Steerpike]

[spoiler]I heartily endorse this reading, though I didn't intend it; the Lethe, though, totally makes it possible.  Very Memento.

EDIT: tweaked slightly to better accomadate the possibility of Ghostman's reading.[/spoiler]