Caes vs Circe: The last thing holding me (1953 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: uber-related
Rating: 1.96 on 52 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <fickle.muse.at.gmail.com> (View user info) at 2006-02-02 10:27:12 EST
(We both missed the deadline for Ubertines, so here's our tiny little contest to stop us feeling bereft and all alone.)
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As far as it is possible for a knock at the door to be pompous and insufferable, this one was. It was loud and sharp and insistent, but only repeated twice. It said "I expect this door to be opened by someone grateful to see me and in awe of my natural charisma." It was, not to put too fine a point on it, irritating.
Sarah Beddings opened the door and looked at the visitor with naked gratitude and undisguised awe. He swept past her and into the house with the kind of grandly eloquent gesture that had an unspoken "Out of my way, peasant" flourish.
"I," he announced, declaimed, declared, and any number of other two syllable words that far outweigh the simple humble 'spoke', "am Phillip Trent-Whyndam, world famous Psychic Detective. And I sense a restless spirit in this house!"
This announcement was not greeted with the usual gasp of horror. Rather, Sarah Beddings ran a hand over her face wearily and said "Yes, I KNOW. That's why I called you. None of us have slept a full night since we moved in, what with the cackling and thumping at all hours of the night and day. Can you just get rid of it?"
A little put out, Phillip threw his head back and held his arms out in the posture of a martyr being nailed to something and cried out in his rolling baritone "Spirits, leave this place!"
The bottle of sherry on the sideboard wavered into the air, uncorked itself, tilted, and filled a nearby glass. The glass floated across the room and hovered in front of Phillip for a moment before splashing its contents down his shirt.
There was an unmistakeable snicker.
"This," declared Phillip Trent-Whyndam, "may be a little more complex than I had imagined."
"We'll be staying at the Holiday Inn," said Sarah.
Daniel Cooper opened his front door in response to wholly irritating knock at 6.30 in the morning. Some guy in - 'is that a cape?' thought Daniel - a cape swept past him and stood in the centre of the living room, his entrance only slightly hampered by the ancient, arthritic dog that latched weakly onto his ankle and appeared to fall asleep there.
"Daniel Cooper!"
Daniel adjusted his boxer shorts and scratched his bare chest. "Yeah."
"Your grandmother Emily passed away twenty years ago, in her home on Walnut Street, did she not?"
"Yuh-huh."
"Her restless spirit still walks those rooms! Your grandmother is haunting this world from The Other Side! Her soul cannot rest and wanders this mortal realm in endless misery!" His voice rolled out like thunder, rich and grand, filled with the inevitability of all that mortal men fear.
Daniel scratched his jaw, nails making a rasping sound against the stubble, and said "Sounds like the kind of thing she'd do. You want me to come over, then?"
Phillip swept grandly into the house and was followed sedately by Daniel, who looked around at the room and smiled. "It's been twenty years, and I can still smell lavender," he said fondly.
"The scent of the restless spirit permeates this house," intoned the world famous psychic detective, before he was roundly slapped by nothing.
The same nothing brushed Daniel's hair back from his face and straightened his collar. Phillip noticed and his face set itself into what he imagined was a forboding expression of stern disapproval, but which looked more like the pout a child gets right before it whines "You like him more than you like me!"
"We shall begin the cleansing," he stated firmly, and sat himself at the kitchen table, cape swirling around his legs.
Daniel poured a sherry and placed it carefully at one of the empty seats before taking his place across from it. "Gran always liked a nip of sherry on cold days," he said defensively in answer to Phillip's cold stare.
"It's midsummer."
"Gran got cold easily."
The angry, somewhat drunken breeze whipped around the room, gathering speed and force and, above all, shrapnel. Half a dozen knives and three skewers whirled around the table in a slowly tightening spiral.
Phillip Trent-Whyndam, world famous psychic detective, sat with his head in his hands and wailed in frustration. "She won't go! I've read from The Golden Bough, The Bible, some old book bound in pigskin I found at a garage sale that's written in backwards latin, and The Good Housewive's Guide to Ports and Sherries, and she won't leave!"
Daniel nodded mildly. The last few hours had been something of an education. He'd never seen a man dance the hokey-pokey in a magic pentagram before. Naked.
"Perhaps," he ventured carefully, "We should find out what she wants?"
"Wants? WANTS? She wants to drive me mad, is all! Utterly stinking batshit mad! And ruin my career!'
Daniel shrugged. "Nevertheless..."
Phillip snorted and stood up. He strode to the whirling wall of knives and skewers and recently added food processor blades, and raised his arms in his classic "Nail me to a tree" pose. His voice rang out, clear and loud and possessed of a certain fatalistic sarcasm.
"Oh mighty ghost gran, tell us, what do you want? What do you need? What fruits of the mortal realm bind and hold you to this ragged plane? What the fuck is going to make you JUST GO AWAY?"
Every sharp metal thing in the kitchen turned and pointed directly at his head and hovered, trembling. He sat down very, very slowly. A book slid from its high and unnoticed place on the top of the pantry and thumped onto the table, covered in dust and cobwebs.
"The Cat in the Hat" read Daniel, quietly. His eyes turned toward the threatening wall of knives and blinked. "Stop scaring the nice man, Gran.. come sit down and I'll finish it."
He shrugged apologetically to Phillip. "I was five when she died. I'd been reading this to her, a page a day after school, and she died before I could finish."
The knives, skewers, and blades of pointy badness all fell to the floor with a clattering sound. The level of sherry in the glass rose, and then sank again.
Daniel read. Four lines of rhyming silliness, read in the deep voice of the man he'd become since the last time he'd opened this book, and there was a sigh...
and the sound of a kiss being blown...
and the satisfied shivery exhale someone makes when they slide into a hot bath after a long, long day...
and nothing.
Phillip Trent-Whyndam stood up as soon as he figured it was safe and reached out as if to embrace the air in the room.
"I declare this house cleansed!" he... declared. "Once again I, Phillip Trent-Whyndam, world famous psychic detective, have--"
"You pissed yourself a little there, Phil," said Daniel.
*****Shortly after this story was written, Phillip Trent-Whyndam gave up psychic detecting and became a carpenter. Daniel Cooper wrote a children's book called "There's a Granny under my bed!" and made a fortune. Sarah Beddings fell in love with a botanist she met at the Holiday Inn and left her husband and children asleep in their room while she ran off with him to Antarctica to grow marijuana. Daniel Cooper's ancient and arthritic dog still bites anyone in a cape.*****
User Reviews
Submitted by Mike-Mc (user info) at 2007-10-24 08:13:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Very Good :)
Submitted by Alter (user info) at 2007-09-26 22:05:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No, Comment.
Submitted by Bickerstaff (user info) at 2007-07-17 09:23:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Director (user info) at 2007-07-14 14:05:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"The scent of the restless spirit permeates this house," intoned the world famous psychic detective, before he was roundly slapped by nothing.
The same nothing brushed Daniel's hair back from his face and straightened his collar.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-18 16:20:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-02-05 16:53:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"Sarah Beddings fell in love with a botanist she met at the Holiday Inn and left her husband and children asleep in their room while she ran off with him to Antarctica to grow marijuana."
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I've missed your posts.
Holler at me sometime. I promise I won't bring up the delightful and expansive subject of poo.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2006-02-04 18:11:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-02-03 13:06:32 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 12:37:55 (#)
Ranking: 2
Now now Caes,
Need I paste the comment from one of my posts where you pretty much said the same thing in kinder language?
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Heh heh. Okay, okay.
BUT -- you gotta admit, out of all the not-shit posters on Uber, Circe gets a lot more glory than most (well deserved, mind you)
==============
She posts shit sometimes to, people just tend to let her shit slide.
This was good.
caes' was better.
I'm just not sure how to give this a 1.85 so I'll let the +2 stand.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2006-02-04 15:05:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. You have a gifted imagination.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-02-04 14:04:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This Familiar Place
Category: Romance
Rating: 1.72 on 29 reviews (Rate this item) (View all ratings)
Submitted by The Caes (View user info) at 2006-02-03 13:16:22
***********************
See! You threw in the towel too early. One disgruntled review from Shlongy is all it takes.
Methinks da winnah is Circe!!
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-02-04 11:56:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-02-04 10:54:33 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-02 18:22:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
You guys remember 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'?
Fuck. I do.
Nice job Lyn.
_____________________________________________________________________
The writing is absolutely beautiful. Fantastic job.
You guys remember 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'? Of course.
Hell, I remember watching Elvis on Ed Sullivan. . .
Old guys do it better!
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-02-04 10:54:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-02 18:22:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
You guys remember 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'?
Fuck. I do.
Nice job Lyn.
Submitted by fried-green-potatoes (user info) at 2006-02-04 09:19:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-02-03 21:21:49 (#)
Ranking: 0
One day I'm going to write something involved and subtle and layered with nuance and subtext and it's going to take DAYS"
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WTF I'm not reading all that!!
*ducks and covers*
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-02-03 22:17:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ha ha ha ha!
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-02-03 21:21:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Jesus you two can be pushy.
I mean, really, really pushy. And you nag like my mum.
"Faster than a frat boy in a whorehouse"? I like it.
One day I'm going to write something involved and subtle and layered with nuance and subtext and it's going to take DAYS and you two are going to read it and go "Seems a little forced to me."
:)
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-02-03 20:47:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 16:53:09 (#)
Ranking: 0
She usually does, but this is better than anything I've written and I'm guessing by the flow that she did it semi-casually.
When Circe puts her mind to fiction, great things happen, and it sucks when she doesn't get the response she should, cuz then I know I gotta wait a lifetime before she posts another piece.
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Ha ha, you shamed yourself with this zero. And possibly made me the winner of this nonexistent contest.
First: this is not better than anything you've ever written (but it is good). Second, I get the feeling that she whipped this out faster than a frat boy in a whorehouse, and it still came out pretty fantastic. But I haven't seen Circe put her mind to fiction in a while.
YOU HEAR US, CIRCE?? We demand greatness.
* mwah *
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:27:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nerp?
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:21:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I am poo
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:20:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
titmouse
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:20:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Chaff
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:19:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Getting kinda sore now.. think the lube's wearing out.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:19:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
And another
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:19:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck X2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 19:19:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ahhh fuck
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 16:53:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
She usually does, but this is better than anything I've written and I'm guessing by the flow that she did it semi-casually.
When Circe puts her mind to fiction, great things happen, and it sucks when she doesn't get the response she should, cuz then I know I gotta wait a lifetime before she posts another piece.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-02-03 15:39:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 00:53:27 (#)
Ranking: 2
This post should have 50+ reviews.
Fuck you all.
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heh.
Submitted by MichelleNJ (user info) at 2006-02-03 15:04:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this
Submitted by coocoocachoo (user info) at 2006-02-03 13:57:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You sure she didn't catch a whiff of Jeanneee and get a hankerin' for some lime Jello? That would have been my first guess.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-02-03 13:06:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 12:37:55 (#)
Ranking: 2
Now now Caes,
Need I paste the comment from one of my posts where you pretty much said the same thing in kinder language?
*********************
Heh heh. Okay, okay.
BUT -- you gotta admit, out of all the not-shit posters on Uber, Circe gets a lot more glory than most (well deserved, mind you).
Submitted by Stin (user info) at 2006-02-03 13:02:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 12:37:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Now now Caes,
Need I paste the comment from one of my posts where you pretty much said the same thing in kinder language?
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2006-02-03 04:52:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ubertines makes me think of cutlery.
This, however, is seven different colours of awesome.
Submitted by Falco (user info) at 2006-02-03 04:09:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I choose the person who i not Circe.
-2nafish!
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-02-03 01:17:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 00:53:27 (#)
Ranking: 2
This post should have 50+ reviews.
Fuck you all.
********************
Hush your bitch mouth, Snark. Usually Circe can't post anything without an 80 review minimum.
Yeah, so you went comedy, huh? Thas coo. I deliberately avoided reading your entry until I had the first part of my story ready, so I wouldn't accidentally leech off your genius.
You and your fucking genius.
:)
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-03 00:53:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This post should have 50+ reviews.
Fuck you all.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-02 18:22:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You guys remember 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'?
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-02-02 16:26:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome. I laughed. You rock.
That is all.
Submitted by MistressFist (user info) at 2006-02-02 15:42:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Kopesh (user info) at 2006-02-02 14:39:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
nice one, once again!
Submitted by peckerhead (user info) at 2006-02-02 13:19:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by ozzy (user info) at 2006-02-02 10:57:51 (#)
Ranking: 2
In the absence of a hydroponics set up, marijuana wouldn't grow in Antartica.
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Yes, ozzy. Yes it would! It's simple. Just tunnel down to 3.59 meters above Hell. Make sure you keep the radius constant for the floor -- and this will provide the exact amount of heat to sustain the grow op. I did it once.
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What?
Here, have a plus two and I'll be on my way.
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2006-02-02 13:05:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
*sigh*
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-02-02 12:31:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
cool
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-02-02 12:14:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:13:42 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:05:37 (#)
Ranking: 2
yeah kinda glad your writing's not in the competition, i'd be wiped easily.
I will be anyway.
I am kinda sad you're not in it and again offer my deepest apollogies.
Submitted by MANICMOTHER (user info) at 2006-02-02 12:13:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
How could you go wrong with a story like this.
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2006-02-02 12:12:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bravo!
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:54:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by fried-green-potatoes (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:49:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Atta girl!...excellence in understatement.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:13:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:05:37 (#)
Ranking: 2
yeah kinda glad your writing's not in the competition, i'd be wiped easily.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:05:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
yeah kinda glad your writing's not in the competition, i'd be wiped easily.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:05:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-02-02 10:58:21 (#)
Ranking: 2
Daniel Cooper's ancient and arthritic dog still bites anyone in a cape.*****
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Nice touch.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-02-02 10:58:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Daniel Cooper's ancient and arthritic dog still bites anyone in a cape.*****
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Nice touch.
Submitted by ozzy (user info) at 2006-02-02 10:57:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
In the absence of a hydroponics set up, marijuana wouldn't grow in Antartica.
What?
Here, have a plus two and I'll be on my way.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-02-02 10:43:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Whatever ubertines is, this seems to work.