Staring at the Basket

Robertus was not a kind man: he did what he could, he maintained his family as best he might - however, he was not loved, for he was rarely loveable.

His wife Isabelle, was considerably younger. She was not Johnathon’s mother, but a substitute, being his second wife after the early death of the first wife who passed from a rupture to the stomach, that came from a blow from Robertus.

When Jonathon returned home he found that Isabelle was gone. She had left behind a note and a loaf of cake.

Exhausted, Jon sat beside the pitted bench, staring at the basket with the unknown head inside.

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

Costly Money

The horses had all died - not one pony, mule or nag, remained. It was a disease that no one understood, and so everyone thus attributed their deaths to bewitchment.

The village of Farnham was small, and the one and only metal-smithy would clean his tools in the trough nightly - the same trough that the horses would drink from when coming to be fitted for shoes. Eventually the lead in the water from the shoes had poisoned each and every one of them.

Without the income from the horse shoe manufactory Jonathon’s father, Robertus, had tried to supplement the family’s fare with counterfeit coin. He would work on his marvellous imprints forged in tin alloy, weathering each with a dint and a scratch, for added authenticity. He was however, in a fairly short time, caught out, when one merchant felt his purse to be too light for the contents within.

Of course it was an offence against the coffers of the King to use his portrait on tin replicas of Silver - and Robertus was consequently sentenced to death.

And so with the few pieces left over that were overlooked in the confiscation, Jonathon had set out to redeem his Father’s head after it had been excised.

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

Two Huge Fellows

These two huge fellows [Mastiffs] had been bequeathed to her a few years before from a dying man to whom she had tended to in his final hours; however, the man had survived the pox, and with his renewed life, had decided to go on an adventure, leaving behind his chickens and his dogs.

Fatima would have preferred the chickens but the neighbour had collected them in stay of the rent still owing. To whit, the warmth of these giants kept her alive throughout the long nights, and secure in their protection, and so she was ever grateful for his parting gift.

Each wore a thin bracelet of silver around one ankle, where their name was inscribed in cursive script. Both had had their tails clipped and wore neck-chiefs made from leather. Each had a black raven tattooed inside one ear. Paul was blind (thus his name) and Pete was lame.

The butcher would bring Fatima his bonemeal, which she would mix with the grain. They were her only family, and she loved them well.

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

Peter & Paul

It was in the early hours of the morning when Fatima woke to go about her chores. The cold air bit her neck as she unwound her night scarf and replaced it with her worn woollen shawl. The stone floor beneath her feet was glazed with frost, and the hearth was cold, bereft of its usual succouring warmth.

At the age of fourteen Fatima had been weakened with a heart condition, and two years later, her lips were mostly a shade of blue … yet this morning they were grey and soon to blush with the dawn.

“Up!” She called in command to her sleeping dogs.

Obstinately both stayed draped upon her small straw mattress. The hay there was regularly exchanged to then become fodder for the cow, although soured by the canine scent, flattened with the weight of her mastiffs, who lay on its blanket in a tangle of limbs and slobber.

Fatima tugged on the covers to wake them, and then, when that did not move the hounds, she pulled the blanket abruptly from under them. Pete groaned, Paul slept on.

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

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