...sometimes it's fun to go silly ;)
If you ask me why I did it, I can only say it was because of the devilled ham.
Door-to-door salesmen are the worst. They ring the doorbell when you’re running late, or towel-clad and wet from the shower. They spiel dreck about “changing your life!” as they peddle vacuum cleaners, knives, cookies, and religion.
Each hungry, aggressive salesman wears down another layer of patience and civility, so when that cocky wolf stood there this morning, can you blame me for reaching for the kindling axe?
You should never try to sell devilled ham to a pig.
very good. I've got nothing - between the a-z some other stuff and this anthology shit - my brain is toast
ReplyDeletehammy-toast?
DeletePoor pig; I do wonder at heavenly ham now, though ... someone missed a marketing chance with that :)
ReplyDeleteI thought you'd like my new take on 'The Three Little Pigs' ;) Didn't we do that in our writing group once? Skew a familiar fairy tale/myth?
Delete“‘If you ask me why I did it, I can only say it was because of the devilled ham.’ That’s what you told the police.”
ReplyDelete“It was enough,” Dyer says tightly, thin fingers wrapped about his cup of coffee.
“You caused a dozen people to faint and six more to run away while screaming obscenties at the meat counter. I said: ‘We could use some granola bars,’” I snarled. “Not: ‘And while you’re at it, let’s blow what little budget HQ gives us in getting you out of prison.’ We’re lucky CASPER gives us enough for food and gas and you went and – what did you do?”
Dyer blinks. “You’re just asking me now?”
“You bribe and intimidate an entire backwoods poilice department and see what kind of mood you’re in,” I say. The snarl hasn’t gone away.
He flinches, the ghost who is as solid as anyone real, and looks so frail and weak – as he did upon dying – that I want to say I’m sorry. I don’t. I glare at him, resisting the urge to let the god inside me come out to play.
“Charlie, I – it wasn’t blasphemy. Quite the opposite.”
I glare him into more words.
“I spoke high Enochian. It has to be spoken, and there was a foulness – a spirit – inside the ham. Something that used the name as a way to enter it, and from it would enter people. Infect them. Maybe even kill them, if they were very lucky.”
“You’re telling me some kind of ghost made a plague?”
“I don’t know.” He slumps into the seat at the Tim Horton’s. “Not only humans make spirits. It could even be something from Outside that found a way into the grey lands. I banished it.”
“And you had to scream the words in the middle of a grocery store?”
“I banished it all over the world. So yes,” he says, raising his chin to glare back at me.
I blink. Sit back. I don’t know much about enochian, only that it’s hard to learn and can let people do exorcisms of staggering power. I eat gods; Dyer eats ghosts. Using enochian, we can both do far more than just eat a few gods in an area or destroy a handful of ghosts. He’s never offered speifics. I hadn’t thought to ask.
“Let me get this right. You did an exorcism that effected every instance of that being on the entire planet – using six words in enochian – and the best lie you could tel the police was ‘the devilled ham made me do it’.”
“That’s not what I said; I told them as much as the truth as my Oath to CASPER allows.”
“The truth.”
“You don’t like to the police,” he says simply.
Some days I forget he’s been dead a hundred years. Other days I wonder how Dyer survived this long. I’m almost certain some of him is an act, but I never know how much. I drink my coffee and let the matter drop.
Sorry for the mis-posting :) And yeah, CASPER is fun. The Centre for Secure Poltergeist Elimination Research, funded by the department of education to basically show people that ghosts don't exist. By using a 100-year old ghost to destroy said malevolent ghosts. And apparently have a very, very limited budget.
DeleteErr, 'like to the police' == 'lie to the police'
Deletehaha, I didn't care about the mis-posting, I just didn't want anyone to miss reading yours :)
DeleteI'm pretty sure I remember CASPER from writing group ;) Was nice/nostalgic to have it pop up again ;)