Thursday, August 30, 2007

ALMOST APOCALYPSE

The four horsemen of the apocalypse rode out into the sunshine of another summer’s day. Three of them were girls. They would start their tour of destruction in the back garden.

But first there were daisy chains to be made and butterflies to be chased. The boy dangled his toes in the water of the stream which bubbled along at the bottom of the hill. There would be hell to pay when mother found out but demonic angels were accustomed to adversity and later was a long time in the future.

The youngest girl interrupted her butterfly chase to scrunch her eyes shut as a bee flew by too close for comfort. “A pestilence on all bees!” she announced to the indifferent blue sky. She wasn’t sure what a pestilence was but it sounded like a good way of avoiding bee stings.

The eldest girl tried hard to avoid the rumblings of her stomach as she concentrated on making a flower necklace for pestilence, who was fond of such fripperies. She wished that she had eaten some breakfast though it didn’t seem like an appropriate way to bring about famine and anyway she was on a diet. Daddy didn’t like fat girls.

War was having similar thoughts as she attacked the crisps, which she had smuggled out of the kitchen along with a bottle of pop. What daddy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, she thought as she battled to unscrew the top from the lemonade bottle.

The morning stretched out in front of them, an endless panorama of possibilities. It would be a shame to bring the world to an end before they had explored some of them. The four gathered under a great oak tree to discuss the situation in the cool of its tranquil shade. A unanimous decision was reached to delay the apocalypse until after lunch, which was a lifetime away.

War mustered her forces, cunningly disguised as trees, she shouted commands to the sentinel bodies of the attentive forest and pestilence ran away from a huge spider wishing heartily that all insects would get sick so that they would have to stay in bed. Famine pondered the problem of what if anything she should eat for lunch as she tied off the daisy chain and set about making a matching bracelet. The boy, otherwise known as death wandered away on his own, he had some time to kill…..

20 comments:

lime said...

oh how wonderful! the fabulous imaginigns of childhood in summer.

Blancodeviosa said...

your back!!! yay!

i missed you

SIMON said...

Missed you Cathy, glad you are back and back you certainly are!

That's a good post to bounce back with!!

Childhood oo that was along time ago!

val said...

Excellent! What a clever way you have with words.

val said...

OMG just realised DEATH is with us. I love Terry Pratchett.

ann said...

wooooo hoooo Cathy's resurrected herself...

this is a brilliant post... can't wait for more

hope all's well in your world

lotsa luv ann xxxxxx

Unknown said...

Marvelous! You remind me of the summer days of my youth.

Unknown said...

Nice one Cathy!

Blancodeviosa said...

are you and your sister in competition to see who can freak me out the best.

sheez..

Queenie said...

Yay! your back missed your posts they always get me thinking or giggling...

Michael said...

DEATH? THAT'S HOW YOU SEE ME HUH?. NOW WHERE"S MY HORSE? ANYONE SEEN BINKY?

Jocelyn said...

How ominous you manage to make the father...

And how well you put us back into our own childhoods.

Anonymous said...

war mustered her forces cunningly disquised as trees...
Love it.I agree with lime on this.
Welcome back
tc

cathy said...

lime, I wrote it on holiday one lazy, hazy morning.

blanco YAY!!!

EBEZP, It was so long ago that I'm living my second one :)

val, Aren't the discworld novels great?

ann, I don't know about resurrected; I'm feeling a bit zombified at present.

ss nick, ah! memories...

Pauline, Have you been watching the sports channel?

blanco, I never compete with pol...
... I hate losing.

queenie, nice to see you too.

michael, well you like cats.

jocelyn, Mmmm. It was the daisy chains, right?

TC, you guys agreed to make typos?

AZZITIZZ said...

Ohhhh for my youth...such sweetness...such innocence
mwa..ha..har..
:)

Logophile said...

Ahhh, good to see you back, Cathy.
Interesting that Pestilence enjoys fripperies, sort of mirrors my take of both of them.

Ali said...

Welcome back Cathy, I hope you have plenty to write about to make up for the time you were missing!

Elaine Denning said...

Good to see you back, Cathy.
Brilliant writing...as always.
Hope you're ok :)

Travis Cody said...

Well done. I missed your short stories and flash fiction.

cathy said...

azzitis, I recognise that evil laughter. LOL.

logo, AND NICK NACKS, eewwww!

ali, Plenty to write about but no damn time to write it in.

miss understood, I'm managing to keep one step beyond the jaws of disaster!

travis, Nice to see you. I've missed your video clips:)