It's all a Mystery

“I have been here all the time.” He [Needles] replied.

Was that answer existential or literal? She pondered.

“Well, very glad to meet you in any event,” Eve beamed, holding out her hand for him to shake.

Plop. He dropped a diamond into her palm - same diamond that had been lost in a rock pool some centuries before.

He smiled. He liked her. He felt her warmth. And it had been a very long time since someone had seen him, and been nice to him at all.

“It's a mystery,” he said.

“You mean, everything?”

“Yes” he nodded, “everything”.

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

The Wisdom of Dwarves

BB 

The thing was, Dwarves are a whole lot smarter than people know. When they don’t have an impaired mental condition, they are conversant in all of the sciences, and actually inspire the thinkers of Humanity to find but the smallest particles of their fay fare and deep wonderings.

They love and consume knowledge - it lives within them - they are, in many respects, the living intellects of future men. It is therefore doubly distressing to find that the hardship of men and women can affect them so regressively - and it becomes a downward spiral so to speak with one race impacting the other with such deliriums.

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

Albert Einstein

Needles clamoured into the front seat to join her, and made himself appear.

“You look a lot like the scientist Einstein …. are you Albert Einstein?” asked Eve, due to his uncanny likeness of hair.

“Yes” he said affably, neither caring for, or knowing his true name.

“You are not going to believe this, but I have always wanted to meet you!” She went on … “I know you were a champion of the imagination - oh crap, I have forgotten that quote …”

Eve excitedly fumbled through her phone and tapped into Gaggle ‘Famous Einstein quotes’ -

“Yes! Here it is!” She proudly read out loud:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

“You know, I feel that this is about the very best quote I have ever read.” she said appreciatively.

The old fellow bowed his head nodding off again.

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

Why did the chicken cross the road?

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” she heard an invisible voice say.

“To get there first” same voice answered itself with a genuine chuckle.

“First?” Eve asked.

“Yes, before the egg you see”, Needles answered.

“Well, that clears that up” said Eve awkwardly.

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

Crossing Over

For all intents and purposes, Eve was convinced that her passenger had completely disappeared. She had also congratulated herself, in helping the poor lost soul to ‘cross over’; all the while this poor lost soul was still onboard, asleep in the back, dreaming of his younger times.

At the intersection her phone rang - interrupting the live stream that was still recording, with its twelve people listening in, frustrated at the outage.

“Hello” she said tentatively.

“Hello” said a deeper voice.

A family of ducks crossed the road in front of her, as she idled at the lights.

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

Morte de rigor

A passerby looked into the straw nest and said authoritatively “Morte de rigor”.

Jonathon started to fumble. His shoulders ached and he had no idea what should be done next - he just wanted to pass out with fatigue, and fought the immediate urge to do so.

The courier who was charged to reward him accordingly in exchange for the strange cadaver, was now refusing to do so. Jon gingerly lifted the flax flap of the basket where the remains of his father lay, and looked very quickly inside at its contents: the hay was sodden, but the head was still grey white unlike the other.

“No silver for you, nor this. I’ll take this one instead” the Steward said, snatching the basket of Jon’s father out from its pole.

Within the space of two minutes he had hooked it onto a side nail of his five foot high mount, and ridden away. A hundred feet from where Jon stood dazed, Stuart turned the horse, threw a purse, and then rode fast into the distance.

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

Like Begets Like

“An orange shall not grow from an apple seed, nor will a healing ever come from a harm"

***

Cor Stuart pulled Jonathon severely by the arm.

“What is this? You have brought me a monkey head?”

Stuart had never seen a monkey in his entire life, but if he had, this is what he thought it might look like.

Jon stared blankly into the basket. The head he was carrying was as black as pitch and suppurating. He remembered back to what it first looked like, when comparing it to the portrait that he was given, and it was not this.

“Ei man, I hear ye, but won’t believe this to be so.”

“This is not blanc! You have brought me a Nubian and expect me to make trade for it!”

“Nay.”

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