Goat Cheese and Rice

There once was an old, old man. How old, exactly, one cannot be sure, and in fact the old man himself couldn't quite remember. He was fairly sure that he was either four-hundred-ninety-eight or four-hundred-ninety-nine. In any case, he'd decided not to celebrate "the big five-oh-oh" on his birthday next July, nor the one following.

Julia Skipram had a question for the old man on the hill. Making sure she'd packed the necessary offering, and lacing her comfortable boots for the trek, she pondered her phrasing.

The old man wasn't tired of goat cheese and rice. More precisely, he was tired of the idea of goat cheese and rice. For ninety years now, people had retained a notion that these were his favourite foods, and while this had become true enough, it still irked him to no longer have a taste for much else.

He was thinking all this as he watched the pretty blonde girl from the corner of his eye. She was finishing her trek up the hill, and when she arrived at last he sat upright in his hammock to greet her.

Without haste, Julia laid out bowls and spoons on a reed mat, and joined him cross-legged on the lush groundcover beneath the elm. They ate together silently, and once they had finished she carefully packed the bowls and reed mat away again.

After a not-uncomfortable pause, the old man began. "To what do I owe this fine meal on this fair day?"
"To a fair-haired maiden and good walking boots," she smiled.
He returned the smile. "I'll be sure to direct any repayment to the former."

Julie had no doubt in the value of the old man's wisdom, and so did not hesitate:

"What effect do my thoughts have on others?"

The old man almost frowned. Almost. After a brief moment he responded, carefully:

"I like goat cheese."

It wasn't a request for more cheese; it was an answer. Nonetheless, Julia was frustrated. As she turned to leave, knowing his wisdom was often cryptic and unlikely to be explained, the old man's voice stopped her.

"I wish someone had asked me earlier." He almost looked sad. "I'd like to ask a favour of you, which perhaps will help you understand."

Julia frowned, but nodded. The old man continued, "when you go home, tell this to your family and friends: When I was younger, it was prophesied that I would die on the morning of my 500th birthday, which is tomorrow. I wish a burial, and nothing more."

Her frown stayed with her, but when Julia returned to her family and friends in the village at the base of the hill, she did as the old man had asked.

The villagers, quick to believe the words of a wise old man, made arrangements for a proper burial. When they arrived the next day, they did indeed find that the old man had died peacefully in his hammock.

Julia finally understood.


-Faiora
494 Words
August 28, 2007

Only the Lonely

In the two hundred and twenty years since his wife and daughter had died in a fire meant to take him, the march of time hadn’t touched Matthew Simpson. It was a gift with dark wrapping. He hadn’t thought it possible when his family had died, but now he was sure; he was lonelier now than he ever had been. What use this gift of eternal youth if all of your friends aged and died? He had stopped getting close to people after the first 50 years. For the most part he had also stopped asking why… Why him? Why did he get to live when his family, when everyone else, died?

In what was once a yearly pilgrimage but had now become once every decade, Matthew again found himself standing in front of the crumbling pile of rock that marked the grave of his family. As he had done before, he tried to recall everything he could about them. Just like previous times, he was able to remember less and less. He could no longer picture their faces, but recalled that they both had hair the color of wheat at harvest time.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a figure in a robe that looked like a piece of pre-dawn sky. He turned and stood face to face with what could only be Death. A voice like boulders grinding together issued forth from the cowl covering its face. “Matthew... I’ve been waiting for you.”

Not caring about the consequences, he grabbed at Death’s robe and blurted out, “Take me. Give me peace.”

Death reached up its skeletal hands and lifted the hood off of its face. The transformation was instantaneous. Where the archetypal skeleton had been was now a young woman dressed in the same slate grey robe. “I am so terribly sorry, Matthew, but there’s nothing I can do. You missed your time to be taken all those years ago. It was my mistake taking your daughter, your wife and your unborn son.”

Matthew gasped and fell to his knees. Ruth had been pregnant? The hurt and emptiness welled up in him stronger than it had in over two centuries. Death reached down and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, instantly reducing his pain with a small measure of her power. He looked up at Death and asked, “Why?”

“You are living all the potential life from your son and daughter and all of their descendants. That you haven’t aged since that day is proof that you would have had a strong, prolific line. Again, I can’t apologize enough.” Death stepped back from him, gathered up her scythe and adjusted her hood back up on her head. She was again the skeletal figure.

“This may sound unorthodox, but if you’re interested I sure could use an assistant.” She held out a hand to help him to his feet. “You are uniquely qualified and to tell you the truth, I’ve been a bit lonely…”

-Babaluzer
499 words
August 19th, 2007

A Palace

Meya had learned four loaves ago that is was better to stoke up the oven fires after putting her baking into the oven. That way, when her bread rose, it took on a lovely consistency very like the bread from the bakery in town, but with a nice added crisp.

Right now though, Meya wasn't baking her regular recipe, but working on a project for the Palace. She often did paid work in the palace kitchens when extra hands were needed, and had friends there, too. She slid a pan into the oven, upon which sat a small clay bowl of liquid, and a medium-sized and slightly pink-tinted round lump of dough.

This I can help with. Meya considered herself somewhat of an inventor, so when Alina (fond of her complexion) complained of grease in the air from the lard boilers, Meya had begun inventing a loaf which could absorb oils and grease from the air into its crust.

Not that she minded the kitchen air so much, herself.

It had taken a while to find an ingredient that both absorbed enough oil and was edible. Meya had done some asking around in the marketplace until a passer-by had suggested she try Vigwort, which was apparently a powdered root of some sort. Its added magical properties, he said, gave it the absorbent properties required when heated, and also a mysteriously deep fuchsia tone. The small amount she added was diluted to a lovely pale pink.

The lump of dough and bowl of oil now in place, Meya closed the oven door, and using a candle, took a flame from the wick of her oil lamp to stoke the fire.

On the other side of the wall backing Meya's little oven, sat a wiry and oddly jittery older man.

I've been waiting too long for this. He pulled stacked firewood from the wall, revealing an opening he'd created, and wedged his hands in along the sides to lift the backing from the oven. He pulled the lump of dough from the oven, replacing it with a similar lump he'd bought in town, this time mixed with a touch of magical colouring agent. He quickly took a brush and spread some oil from the bowl onto the loaf, then carefully wiped out the bowl with a cloth and put it, then the oven's back wall, back in place.

When the next Palace feast came about, Meya had perfected the recipe. The oil-absorbing properties of her new loaf were astounding, its gentle pink tone delightful, and its flavour tantalising.

The bread was started the morning before the feast, and Meya stepped in to add the necessary Vigwort to half of it (as discussed with Alina). The dough was left to rise through the afternoon, which Meya spent stuffing and preparing the catches of this morning's hunt.

By late afternoon the bread was ready for the ovens.

By duskfall, the palace was reduced to a crumbling pile of rock.

But who was to blame?


-Faiora
500 Words
August 17, 2007