Fragments 2024
Feb. 2nd, 2024 01:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scott_sanfordVarious tidbits too small to stand on their own. The completely arbitrary cutoff is 500 words; longer than that and stories get their own files.
For earlier very short works, see the files for 2022 and 2023; for later, see 2025.
Drabble #1, Garlic Toast (2 February 2024)
Omake: In a While (5 April 2024)
Snow 1 (23 Sept 2024)
Snow 2 (27 Sept 2024)
Wire Paladin (29 Nov 2024)
(2 Feb 2024) This scene wasn't growing into anything larger, so I tried cutting it down to a drabble.
Jenny Everywhere eats
Garlic Toast
by Scott Sanford
2 Feb 2024
I got home and as soon as I got in the door a smell hit me.
“Whooo...” Melodramatically waving my hand in front of my nose, I remarked, “That’s… a lot of garlic.”
“I felt like making garlic bread,” my roommate Kim answered from the kitchen. “Just think of it as toast we’ll both like!”
“I do like it! But I feel like any joke I could make right now would come out as racist.”
Kim poked her head out of the kitchen and quipped, “It’s okay. I’m not Italian!”
I laughed at that because that wasn’t what I’d meant...
(5 April 2024) Sure, I did one thing for April Fool's Day, but then the Noodle Man business got posted. (It also feels a derivative of A Fish in Time.) And then I got pounced on by a mostly developed scene all at once, so here's a thing.
Note: As with No, Not Wales, this scene uses no proper nouns and may be disregarded from any and all continuities. It might not even happen in any universe seen before, depending on how much housekeeping gets done.
Someone will see you
In a While
by Scott Sanford
5 April 2024
It’s not a trivial thing to be the universe’s best postman, even in a small and rather quirky bespoke universe, but some people enter the profession with prior advantages.
One day the person holding that title returned home to find that the place was, in certain special ways, an absolute shambles.
“My goodness,” he remarked. “Have we had visitors?”
“No, why?”, his wife said.
“Time is a mess all over the house,” he said. “People speak of time lines. Imagine if you will a plate of spaghetti, and that after it’s been dropped on the floor.”
“Really? That’s not good.” She didn’t doubt him for a moment of course; her husband knew about these things.
“Someone has left causality a mess in here. You did not, and I would not, which leaves few other suspects. Have you checked the baby lately?”
“About ten minutes ago, in my time,” she told him. “Let’s go look again.”
United in purpose, they proceeded to the baby’s chamber and were relieved to find her asleep in her crib – the new Mark IV Baby Crib made only a few weeks ago, its brightly polished armor plates laser-engraved with magical wards, this edition equipped with a long-ranged tracking beacon, radiation detector, and automatically deploying parachute. (It was nice to have a mad scientist around who appreciated the need to protect the baby from the world, and vice versa.) She was sound asleep, half out of her blankets, with one hand wrapped tightly around the throat of a stuffed animal.
“Aw. That’s what I was hoping to see,” her mother cooed happily. “She’s right where I left her, safe and sound.”
“So she is,” the proud father agreed. “But tell me… Do you recognize the toy?”
“No… No, I don’t. Where did she get that?”
“I have a very good idea where she got it.” Spotting something else, he reached into the crib and retrieved a business card; upon examination it claimed to belong to one Fred Nudleman, a professional in clock repair. This produced a skeptical and eldritch chuckle.
“Let us leave the toy where it is for now,” he proposed. “Remind me in a week or two and I’ll consider putting it back where it should be. In the meantime… we can let her enjoy her stuffed crocodile.”
(23 Sept 2024) This scene came to me without context and I was just going to put it away in case something appropriate came to me - but the folks on Discord wanted to see it.
Snow 1
by Scott Sanford
22 September 2024
The northern winds blow cold in Alaska. Winter is not a mere season up here, but a force of nature. Every living thing this far north took what shelter it could, struggling to survive through to the brief arctic spring and summer.
The hunter needed no shelter, no food, and no summer. She knew the far north from other eras. She had been on similar errands before, in Alaska and Lapland and Siberia, some of them very long ago. She had done this hunt before. The hours and days slipped by unmarked as the snow slowly settled over her.
High above the only trail there was no moving. No breathing. No blinking. No body heat. Just the cold of winter and the patience of the dead.
Some unmarked time later the sound of a snow machine echoed through the forest.
Slowly thinking began again and the hunter compared the approaching vehicle and rider to her quarry. It was time.
The unsuspecting prey passed her tree.
She leapt.
(27 Sept 2024) We find out why Kim was out in the Alaskan bush.
Snow 2
by Scott Sanford
27 September 2024
The hunter slowed the snow machine and stopped, still a kilometer away from the cabin. She turned it off, dismounted, and started walking.
“Hello the house,” she called, when close. There was no answer. After the manner of her kind, she already knew there was life and warmth inside.
The door was small and badly hung but she knocked, for the sake of being observed to follow the custom. The human she knew was inside didn’t respond.
She pulled on the door, then she pulled a little harder and with the sound of breaking wood the door came open. She moved the door out of the way and stood in the opening to let herself be seen. Conspicuous to her, despite the dimness within, was a hot stove and a warm-bodied little girl halfway behind a pile of boxes.
“You must be Susan.”
The girl watched her without moving.
“I’m not him. He’s not coming back.”
The child spoke. “Why?”
The hunter hadn’t expected the question, but it was a fair one. She considered and groped for an answer.
“Sometimes, just sometimes, a monster will run into another monster, something more terrible and more dangerous than they could imagine.”
The child seemed to accept that answer, or at least find it less disturbing than the hunter did.
“Get anything that you need to take with you,” the hunter told her. “I have a snow machine. I will drop you off in town. The grown-ups there can get you back to your parents.”
As child got ready to leave, the hunter was feeling human enough to add, “After that, I’m coming back here and burning the cabin. Some things are best forgotten.”
(29 Nov 2024) Others released things on Thanksgiving, so here's a dinner table scene. Peer pressure gets you fiction!
Jenny Everywhere remembers to
Wire Paladin
by Scott Sanford
29 Nov 2024
One ordinary night, three friends gathered around a table for dinner.
“This is nice,” Jenny said. “I like getting to eat and socialize before I go out. I mean, I can always catch food at a club but eating with friends is special.”
“I like cooking once in a while,” Kim told her. “Besides, it’s Friday so David won’t be cooking for himself.”
“Not tonight, I think.” He shrugged lightly.
“You’re a better cook than I am anyway,” Jenny said. “And it’s a great excuse for neighbors to get together.”
“Speaking of neighbors, I had an unexpected question the other day,” Kim said. “Eric asked me who Wire Paladin was.”
“What? Wire Paladin?”, David asked.
“I was reading a book I hadn’t opened in quite a few years, and I had used an old business card as a bookmark. Eric had never seen it before but he could read ‘Wire Paladin, San Francisco.’”
David laughed heartily at that.
“That’s a rare first name, ‘Wire.’ You don’t meet too many fellows named Wire,” he said, delivering it as a joke.
“Wire Paladin? Should I know this guy?”, Jenny asked.
“Ask your other selves,” Kim suggested.
Jenny looked thoughtful for a moment as her attention spread out across realities, then she gasped.
“Oh, right! Paladin!” She looked at Kim with a raised eyebrow and said, “You must have had that business card for a long time.”
“A while, certainly,” Kim said. “Things get stuck in books. It’s easy to lose track.”
“That takes me back, though,” David said. “I hadn’t thought of Paladin in years.”
“’Paladin, Paladin, Where do you roam? Paladin, Paladin, Far, far from home…’” Jenny quoted quietly, half to herself, then added, “Although not really all that far; the Hotel Carlton is still in business. It's on Sutter Street, just a few blocks off of Van Ness.”
“You didn’t know who Paladin was but you remember where he lived?”
“I do now, for the moment. Other Jenny Everywheres knew that,” she told him.
“Handy to be millions of people sometimes, I’m sure.”
“It’s pretty cool, yeah,” she agreed.
“So did you ever get young Eric sorted out?”, David asked Kim.
“Yes, I explained that ‘wire’ meant to send a telegram, back in the day. He knows about telegraphs but I don’t think he’s ever seen one.”
“Hm. I think I still have a straight key somewhere. I can try to find it if he ever decides to learn Morse code.”
(The Ballad of Paladin)
Read earlier or later shorts (2022, 2023, and 2025) or check out the table of contents
The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.
For earlier very short works, see the files for 2022 and 2023; for later, see 2025.
Drabble #1, Garlic Toast (2 February 2024)
Omake: In a While (5 April 2024)
Snow 1 (23 Sept 2024)
Snow 2 (27 Sept 2024)
Wire Paladin (29 Nov 2024)
(2 Feb 2024) This scene wasn't growing into anything larger, so I tried cutting it down to a drabble.
Garlic Toast
by Scott Sanford
2 Feb 2024
I got home and as soon as I got in the door a smell hit me.
“Whooo...” Melodramatically waving my hand in front of my nose, I remarked, “That’s… a lot of garlic.”
“I felt like making garlic bread,” my roommate Kim answered from the kitchen. “Just think of it as toast we’ll both like!”
“I do like it! But I feel like any joke I could make right now would come out as racist.”
Kim poked her head out of the kitchen and quipped, “It’s okay. I’m not Italian!”
I laughed at that because that wasn’t what I’d meant...
(5 April 2024) Sure, I did one thing for April Fool's Day, but then the Noodle Man business got posted. (It also feels a derivative of A Fish in Time.) And then I got pounced on by a mostly developed scene all at once, so here's a thing.
Note: As with No, Not Wales, this scene uses no proper nouns and may be disregarded from any and all continuities. It might not even happen in any universe seen before, depending on how much housekeeping gets done.
In a While
by Scott Sanford
5 April 2024
It’s not a trivial thing to be the universe’s best postman, even in a small and rather quirky bespoke universe, but some people enter the profession with prior advantages.
One day the person holding that title returned home to find that the place was, in certain special ways, an absolute shambles.
“My goodness,” he remarked. “Have we had visitors?”
“No, why?”, his wife said.
“Time is a mess all over the house,” he said. “People speak of time lines. Imagine if you will a plate of spaghetti, and that after it’s been dropped on the floor.”
“Really? That’s not good.” She didn’t doubt him for a moment of course; her husband knew about these things.
“Someone has left causality a mess in here. You did not, and I would not, which leaves few other suspects. Have you checked the baby lately?”
“About ten minutes ago, in my time,” she told him. “Let’s go look again.”
United in purpose, they proceeded to the baby’s chamber and were relieved to find her asleep in her crib – the new Mark IV Baby Crib made only a few weeks ago, its brightly polished armor plates laser-engraved with magical wards, this edition equipped with a long-ranged tracking beacon, radiation detector, and automatically deploying parachute. (It was nice to have a mad scientist around who appreciated the need to protect the baby from the world, and vice versa.) She was sound asleep, half out of her blankets, with one hand wrapped tightly around the throat of a stuffed animal.
“Aw. That’s what I was hoping to see,” her mother cooed happily. “She’s right where I left her, safe and sound.”
“So she is,” the proud father agreed. “But tell me… Do you recognize the toy?”
“No… No, I don’t. Where did she get that?”
“I have a very good idea where she got it.” Spotting something else, he reached into the crib and retrieved a business card; upon examination it claimed to belong to one Fred Nudleman, a professional in clock repair. This produced a skeptical and eldritch chuckle.
“Let us leave the toy where it is for now,” he proposed. “Remind me in a week or two and I’ll consider putting it back where it should be. In the meantime… we can let her enjoy her stuffed crocodile.”
(23 Sept 2024) This scene came to me without context and I was just going to put it away in case something appropriate came to me - but the folks on Discord wanted to see it.
by Scott Sanford
22 September 2024
The northern winds blow cold in Alaska. Winter is not a mere season up here, but a force of nature. Every living thing this far north took what shelter it could, struggling to survive through to the brief arctic spring and summer.
The hunter needed no shelter, no food, and no summer. She knew the far north from other eras. She had been on similar errands before, in Alaska and Lapland and Siberia, some of them very long ago. She had done this hunt before. The hours and days slipped by unmarked as the snow slowly settled over her.
High above the only trail there was no moving. No breathing. No blinking. No body heat. Just the cold of winter and the patience of the dead.
Some unmarked time later the sound of a snow machine echoed through the forest.
Slowly thinking began again and the hunter compared the approaching vehicle and rider to her quarry. It was time.
The unsuspecting prey passed her tree.
She leapt.
(27 Sept 2024) We find out why Kim was out in the Alaskan bush.
by Scott Sanford
27 September 2024
The hunter slowed the snow machine and stopped, still a kilometer away from the cabin. She turned it off, dismounted, and started walking.
“Hello the house,” she called, when close. There was no answer. After the manner of her kind, she already knew there was life and warmth inside.
The door was small and badly hung but she knocked, for the sake of being observed to follow the custom. The human she knew was inside didn’t respond.
She pulled on the door, then she pulled a little harder and with the sound of breaking wood the door came open. She moved the door out of the way and stood in the opening to let herself be seen. Conspicuous to her, despite the dimness within, was a hot stove and a warm-bodied little girl halfway behind a pile of boxes.
“You must be Susan.”
The girl watched her without moving.
“I’m not him. He’s not coming back.”
The child spoke. “Why?”
The hunter hadn’t expected the question, but it was a fair one. She considered and groped for an answer.
“Sometimes, just sometimes, a monster will run into another monster, something more terrible and more dangerous than they could imagine.”
The child seemed to accept that answer, or at least find it less disturbing than the hunter did.
“Get anything that you need to take with you,” the hunter told her. “I have a snow machine. I will drop you off in town. The grown-ups there can get you back to your parents.”
As child got ready to leave, the hunter was feeling human enough to add, “After that, I’m coming back here and burning the cabin. Some things are best forgotten.”
(29 Nov 2024) Others released things on Thanksgiving, so here's a dinner table scene. Peer pressure gets you fiction!
Wire Paladin
by Scott Sanford
29 Nov 2024
One ordinary night, three friends gathered around a table for dinner.
“This is nice,” Jenny said. “I like getting to eat and socialize before I go out. I mean, I can always catch food at a club but eating with friends is special.”
“I like cooking once in a while,” Kim told her. “Besides, it’s Friday so David won’t be cooking for himself.”
“Not tonight, I think.” He shrugged lightly.
“You’re a better cook than I am anyway,” Jenny said. “And it’s a great excuse for neighbors to get together.”
“Speaking of neighbors, I had an unexpected question the other day,” Kim said. “Eric asked me who Wire Paladin was.”
“What? Wire Paladin?”, David asked.
“I was reading a book I hadn’t opened in quite a few years, and I had used an old business card as a bookmark. Eric had never seen it before but he could read ‘Wire Paladin, San Francisco.’”
David laughed heartily at that.
“That’s a rare first name, ‘Wire.’ You don’t meet too many fellows named Wire,” he said, delivering it as a joke.
“Wire Paladin? Should I know this guy?”, Jenny asked.
“Ask your other selves,” Kim suggested.
Jenny looked thoughtful for a moment as her attention spread out across realities, then she gasped.
“Oh, right! Paladin!” She looked at Kim with a raised eyebrow and said, “You must have had that business card for a long time.”
“A while, certainly,” Kim said. “Things get stuck in books. It’s easy to lose track.”
“That takes me back, though,” David said. “I hadn’t thought of Paladin in years.”
“’Paladin, Paladin, Where do you roam? Paladin, Paladin, Far, far from home…’” Jenny quoted quietly, half to herself, then added, “Although not really all that far; the Hotel Carlton is still in business. It's on Sutter Street, just a few blocks off of Van Ness.”
“You didn’t know who Paladin was but you remember where he lived?”
“I do now, for the moment. Other Jenny Everywheres knew that,” she told him.
“Handy to be millions of people sometimes, I’m sure.”
“It’s pretty cool, yeah,” she agreed.
“So did you ever get young Eric sorted out?”, David asked Kim.
“Yes, I explained that ‘wire’ meant to send a telegram, back in the day. He knows about telegraphs but I don’t think he’s ever seen one.”
“Hm. I think I still have a straight key somewhere. I can try to find it if he ever decides to learn Morse code.”
(The Ballad of Paladin)
