Fried Fish

Tindle spent his days and nights at the water’s edge, looking out into the vast blur of greys and blues across the horizon. He scanned the skies for birds and clouds, and angelic beings; he would spot the odd fishing boat with its flapping flags, and sometimes wave cordially to the silhouetted fishermen, who were clanking their baskets in the misty distance.

He often wondered obsessively about his new friend Jon, and Jon’s spectre-love.

Yes, he had seen her, and it was because of Fatima and her intimacy with Jon he had felt the need to return home. He found it incredibly hard to be around the couple, and admonished himself about the rise of feelings he would experience when he enviously thought of her etherial seductiveness.

He also had visions of Sylphs that came to taunt him on a nightly basis. They would call to him whilst he dreamt, and Tindle would wake in a fever of both disappointment and delight come the morning.

On this day a strange visitor appeared at the cove in the frosty hours - the rocks were wet with the dew of the sea, and the clammy sprays showered all around. Tindle was intrigued to see this man, wearing a leathered hood and cloak, watching him in the distance. In all of his adult life he had never been in the company of someone who was as tall as he, who could speak face to face with him naturally. 

The Elvish Adept Puck/Robin strode the beach just metres before him. The sand at the soles of his feet were aggravating, and he stopped to displace them - some shards worked their way into his boots and he rested his weight from one foot to the other alternating. It looked something like a slow dance.

The Puck had been watching Tindle for some time before he realised.

Tindle approached, and said respectfully to the stranger “Aye greetings vagrant”, (The term vagrant meant displaced: i.e to not belong directly to the local vicinity - it was not a slur on the stranger’s aptitude or character.)

Puck smiled a smile as a prelude to a friendship that had just begun. His long curly hair exceeded his shoulders and glinted gold in the early light. His boots still irked him, and so he sat upon a rock to cast them off and shake them out. Several small silver eels slid out of his boots into the sand, then glided away into the cracks of the dune. 

He glanced up behind Tindle to where a mermaid was leaning on a mottled mound. Nathan could not see her, but she seemed to be fixated with him. Puck waved to her, however she did not acknowledge his greeting, except to turn her back and slip into the waters with a splash.

Tindle turned and looked behind him but could not see who the stranger was waving at.

“I have a gift for you - sit boy - and I will explain to you my thoughts.” He drew from a leather satchel a parcel of white linen paper; steam appeared to be rising from it. He solemnly handed it to Nathan, who momentarily winced as the heat which was coming from the package felt as hot as a burning coal.

“Here, come and sit closer so that you may see what is inside” the Elvish master said importantly.

Captivated with this very important moment, Tindle could feel his own history in the making. He carefully unfolded the pages of paper: there appeared to be many layers, and the parcel became hotter the more he unfurled.

A delicious smell preceded the battered fillets of fish and salted potato within.

“What is this packet Master?” the tall boy asked the stranger.

Puck helped himself to a chip and ate it. Nathan did the same.

“This is to be your future Nathan - this handsome meal has a coating of batter and some splendid hot frying … it is to be called ‘Fish and Chippys’ and it will make you your fortune in the days and years to come.”

And so it was, the beginning of a trend that saw Tindle into employment and fortune, with a little batter and a frying, and a paper to wrap and carry the fare. 

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Tele-transport

Cheryl King

“Where is this Granoldi?” she finally asked.

“He’s in the car having a sleep.”

Sounds promising, she thought wryly to herself, now awoken from her momentary rapture and back into confusion.

“Well then, maybe you should go wake him up and bring him in then,” she said with a sigh. “My spare room’s hardly bigger than a closet”, she then added. “It is safe to have this Granoldi isn’t it?” From his name he sounds like he comes from the continent, she thought.

“Oh yeah, he does come from far away - but he’ll cause you no trouble - probably sleep another month or so I am thinking.” Puck looked around and then said thinking out loud, “I’m going to need a wheelchair.”

The beings of Faerie cannot tele-transport one another as they can themselves or the mortals. It might have something to do with the fabric from which they are made - whatever the reason, even within the material world, they use physical constraints and vehicles, for this purpose.

“I’ll go and see if Lettie has hers left over from her husband still.”

Five minutes later she came back with the sad creaking frame that smelt of old urine.

“Perfect”, said Puck, who took the handle bars and wheeled it to his car. “Won't be long” he called out to the mystified clairvoyant.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

A Deep Look

Gabriella Barouch

"I have a favour to ask you.” Puck called through the door.

Eve opened it slowly and stood looking at the apparition, who once again, looked as real as herself. She felt a mixture of happiness to see him, and annoyance that it had taken so long for him to call by. Also, she was doubly agitated because she would very much have liked to prepare, but as it was she was wearing a very worn baby pink t-shirt and matching track-pants, and her favourite bright green sandals. Her hair was all over the place as she was only half-way through drying after taking a shower.

“You turn up after three months of radio silence and expect me to let you into my apartment, and then, give you a favour? Is that what you are calling it?” as Eve said this it occurred to her for the first time who the voice was on the radio call-in asking her the obtuse questions …

“No no, you have me all wrong,” said Puck a little irritated. Eve was berating him too harshly - and he really could not stand being talked at angrily - it pricked his skin from the inside. It crossed his mind fleetingly to throw a glamor over himself, or her, or both of them, but his days of Elvish romance were spent.

“I’ll go”, he conceded. This was all too hard. “I can put Granoldi up at my place.”

“Granoldi? who’s Granoldi?”, Eve asked, being surprised at the feeling she was getting by saying his name.

“Granoldi is a prince, trapped in a bear’s body”, Puck said, somewhat sarcastically. This was not lost on Eve, she already knew that as witty Puck could be, he could also be terse. Still, the name, echoed in her mind…

“Granoldi?” she asked, hesitating to shut the door on him.

He stared at her with his best green eyes. She in turn stared back. Sometimes a look, a deep look was more intimate than sex she thought to herself. But then again …

“That’s because it is with someone who feels your weight from the inside,” Puck said out loud. “I not only hear your thoughts, I understand them.”

A sensation in her stomach curled - there was an awkward, yet wonderful silence.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Blessings & Marvels Basket

Kisung Koh

Granoldi was a polar white Bear who had been saved from the medieval travelling show some decades earlier by the Franciscan community on the hill … or more exactly, by Francis, himself. He had come to settle in the encampment, ere before the community had a formal name at a time when the Brothers in Unity resided amongst the trees and scrub, long before there were lodgings to house them or their chapel. 

For his early participation in this very blessed history, he was revered, and also held to be a personal friend of the deceased Saint. Those who remained all respected the elderly bear in ways that the elderly should be respected. He was watered and fed and much loved.

He never failed to show up for breakfast, or Mass, with the exception of those times of his long rest of hibernating slumber. During this sleep, he would be coddled beneath an old cart that was covered with the shielding shade of a rainbow cloth, now faded from the elements.

Hannah Mary, who was also a pioneer of the early Community, would check on him several times of the day during his sabbaticals, even though the steep path up the small mountain was wearing to her aged bones. She had forgotten to count the years as they had come and gone - taking from her one by one, her brother, her daughter, her loved ones.

She knew by the plaque that rested in the stone wall of the founding block, that she must have overshot her eightieth year, but more than that could not be said of her. She never once asked herself how it was that Granoldi had remained living for so long. Magic, and all things magical, were simply and plainly accepted.

These findings were put into the blessings and marvels basket: whereupon little miracles were never to be questioned, lest they evaporate under the scrutiny, leaving only endless wonderings in their place.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Snoring Bear

“Try not to get mud on the floor,” Puck said, as the enormous albino bear shimmied into place lying sideways across the back seat of his Mercedes.

“It's good to see you old friend”, he added, noting to himself just how quiet the big bear was. He blamed himself for losing track of his whereabouts. The owner of the caravan company that had housed the faerie bear had died of old age, and he had since been relocated to the prison farm of the miniature zoo. 

“Poor chap, you really have had it hard,” Puck said affectionately. 

But Granoldi did not hear him, he was snoring ever so loudly deep in sleep.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Magic & Mango Chutney

“My life cannot go on like this.”

“Good!” exclaimed Goober. “It was a miserable one and it strikes me that a do-over is just what you need. He slapped Tu’s shoulder to exaggerate their camaraderie.” 

The two had been sitting in the bus shelter, whilst Goober was still catching his breath after the Jin’s attack. 

“Whoah” said Tu, who felt the gardener’s broad hand sting with the smack and whack over his left shoulder blade. 

“Nothing ever went right”, he continued mournfully.

“Nothing in this world works as expected - that’s its magic.” said Goober consolingly. 

“Care to explain further?” asked a mellowed monk.

“Would if I could dear chap, but dunno. That Tu, is part of the magic you see, also.” 

“So let me get this straight … ‘magic’ really stands for ‘all that we cannot comprehend or understand?”

“Precisely” nodded Goober - who was leading Tu back into the monastery, only this time it was the modern-day version.

“Why are we going back in? are you hoping it will revert back to where we came from?”

“Lord no. I thought we might sample its menu … the spiced pineapple rice sounds pretty good - the one with mango chutney.”

All Tu really could think of was that he hoped they served liquor. Goober read his mind of course, and hesitated before going all the way in. He quickly scrolled the menu to see that there was no alcohol for sale there. This time he led the way, and Tu followed him back inside.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Boo!

Just then, an elemental fairy, with a fat black body and spikes coming out from its centre, swung from a tree at Goober’s face. “Boo!” it said trying its hardest to disarm him.

Goober stepped back, caught by the surprise, and a hive erupted on his cheek. 

Another annoying sprite came at him from behind, and although it did not touch Goober or Tu, it was menacing, and aiming for maximum surprise. 

“BOO!” it shouted ethereally into Goober’s ear.

Startled once more, this throat felt like it was closing.

“These beings are the true allergens”, he mumbled, “somebody get me a spray for them!”

Tu pulled some little darts from Goober’s throat - and found that attached to three of them were fat bellied fairies that loved to suck off the energy of the allergic reaction they created.

“Begone!” the monk exclaimed, uncharacteristically. Several clung on to his own robe with persistence.  

“They are not called ali-jins for nuthin”, said Goober very seriously. “These Jins are one of the most persistent of the fay - and when they are good they are the savants of
our world - but this variety are obsessive … little Jin vampires of a kind”, he finished this statement by kicking one to the curb.

“So you have known this all along? Why do you let them get to you?”

“Wull my boy, if I could answer that, I would have the answer.” Goober said matter of factly.

His face brightened - he added, “Now what to do now while we’re out?”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series