“Is that what?” asked Earnur, in a bemused tone of voice. He was still trying to figure out whether he had been here before…or after…or not yet…or something.
“…almost as if I…climbed a fence…and read a poem late at night…” he muttered to himself.
“I thought you’d stopped drinking,” said Merisuwyniel.
“A poem?!” said Vogonwë, with just a touch too much eagerness.
“Ooooooo-oooo, ahhhh, ermmmm, ehhh…” babbled Kuruharan in a hurried attempt to change the subject.
“What?” asked everyone together. Well, actually, that’s not strictly true. Earnur was still struggling with his reverse case of déjà-vu. Vogonwë was still trying to find a word that rhymed with drunkard. The Gateskeeper was still trying to figure out what was so intensely fascinating about that thing they’d just been riding in. Pimpi was thinking about food. Leninia was wondering if Earnur was daydreaming about her. Orogarn Two was trying to figure out how to get revenge on everybody present. Soregum was trying to find something to give Pimpi. Chrysophylax could not care less about…anything, really. And last, but certainly not least, Merisuwyniel was asking herself something to the effect of, “When exactly did I lose control of this Quest?”
By process of elimination that left only Grralph (I think, it is getting so hard to keep track of everybody) to make the aforementioned inquiry as to the nature of Kuruharan’s…whatever it was.
“Uhhh,” continued Kuruharan in the same train of thought. He realized with a touch of embarrassment that he was flapping his arms about like a demented ostrich. Frantic to find some means of salvaging the situation (and he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten into this mess in the first place) he announced loudly to the Someridiculouswordhere-ship, “The ground is below us!”
Everyone took a minute to verify this particular piece of information. Yes. It did seem that the ground was below them. Everyone turned to look at him (yes, this time it was everyone).
Sensing that he had decisively seized control of the conversational high-ground, Kuruharan took advantage of his momentum. “That looks like a stone!” he said, pointing to the thing in front of them.
Orogarn Two strode forward and knocked on the rock. “Yes, it seems to be,” he confirmed.
“Do you have any point to this?” asked Merisuwyniel.
“Uhh,” said Kuruharan, as he folded his hands behind his back and looked up toward the heavens. (It looked like there was some sky up there, but he feared that he’d been driven off the conversational high-ground by frontal assault, so he made no comment on that). “No,” he said at last, and thankfully brought this entirely useless discourse to a close.
|