Good morning one and all. I woke up this morning and the world was dressed in white. We had a lovely coating of snow this morning. Luckily it didn’t affect the power lines. Since it spent yesterday raining, I am pretty sure there is a nice thick layer of ice right under the fluffy snow. I do not have to go out into it today. I can curl up with my coffee and just watch it come down. That, to me is the best kind of snow. So while the coffee brews, lets start the morning off with our first prompt of the week. Ready? Good, let’s go.
Okay I kind of like this. This seems like a character you can create all sorts of misfortunes, both real and imagined, for. Not sure if he is the main character or a secondary one. I’d need to dive deeper into the story to figure that out. But for now it isn’t a bad way to kick off the week.
Monday, January 17th: The mosquitos were out in force and in less than an hour he had forty six bites.
The mosquitos were out in force and in less than an hour he had forty six bites. He knew, he counted them, twice just to ensure there weren’t any he missed. He could feel each one itching, a continued assault upon his skin. He looked at the others. None of them seemed bothered by the bites.
‘Peasants,’ he thought sourly to himself. ‘So accustomed they don’t even notice.’ He resisted the urge to scratch, knowing it was undignified. The desire to scratch was an almost physical ache, but he refrained. In his mind he could hear his governess pronounce judgement for those who scratched their bodies in public. She termed it a practice acceptable only in the vilest, filthiest sectors of the unwashed of humanity. While his governess was long gone, he had no desire to be condemned posthumously by her. She had been enough of a force in his life that he had no doubts about her being able to rise from the grave and scold him now.
‘Especially now,’ he thought. He felt the muscles in his jaw clenched. He and his family were being tested. A new regime was in place and their loyalty to it was being questioned. Their place in the new world order was being debated. They had tight ties with the old regime and there were those who thought those ties were too close for the family to remain in a position of authority. He sept countless argues arguing the points that made his family both loyal and invaluable. They had ties to the old order but they were by necessity. One couldn’t do business let alone prosper in the old order if one didn’t have connections. He argued vehemently that many of those connections still held and that those connections could be of use to the new rulers as they had been to the older one.
It was why he was out here in the first place, tromping through land that any sensible person could see should be left undisturbed. He was here to prove his value. Once there were some old connections of the family in this direction. Diplomatic relations had fallen off for reasons he couldn’t remember let alone bother to care about and the new monarch was eager to restore relations again for reason he couldn’t bring to mind but was certain were spelled out in great detail in the paperwork he had locked in his luggage.
He looked at the map before joining the party and assumed they would be traveling by civilized conveyance along civilized roads. It had been galling to find out that his maps were several generations out of date and that the civilized roads no longer existed. Civilized transport was not an option. He frowned and darted a quick glance to the commander of this expedition. He remembered the humor dancing on the man’s face when he presented him with the maps and asked to have his carriage brought around.
Now he not only had to prove his value to the new ruling class, he had to do so while traveling cross country on foot and providing a blood banquet for a host of mosquitos. He felt a stink on his arm and slapped the skin coming away with a dead mosquito and a splattering of his own blood.
‘Forty seven,’ he declared, trying to fight down the queasiness he felt at seeing his own blood. He ground his teeth and tried to look around the men marching in front of him. Sure they must be reaching some sort of shelter for the night. He couldn’t be expected to march the entire night through.
Ten til Midnight 