DISCLAIMER: Don't own it. Nothing. Not one damn character. or anything to do with the British Rail system.
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"Backwards and forwards. All the time. Can't anyone else doing this. Who'd they think I am? All this supernatural mumbo jumbo..." The murmerings and the howling wind filled an otherwise silent street.
A knock on a door.
A teenager, 15 - perhaps 16 - answered. His hair was a very light shade of blonde. His skin too, was very pale. He looked, generally, as if he were ill. His pale conplexion was countered only by his vibrant blue eyes, and his somewhat loud, generally cheerful voice.
"Hello? Yes?"
"Delivery for you sir. Backwards and forwards with these things all day. Don't know what they take me for. Dead one minute..."
"Um, yes. Package for me? Is there a return address?" The boy replied, fumbling in his pocket for a coin.
"No, just annonomous. These things always are though. Not that I know what's going on, though. oh no, nobody would tell me..."
"Thank you." The boy said pointedly, dropping the tip into the man's open, waiting hand. "Yes, thank you very much. Goodbye."
"Yes, thanks. Goodbye. Should at least, tell me, I've a right mind to..." He mumbled, into the distance.
A delivery? The boy thought What could it possibly be? And annomous? Quite odd.
Being a practical and quite uncomplative person, he was already openeing the package at this point. He was just at the point of forming an idea that it could be a very late birthday present (*Very* late, for that was 5 months ago) from that old uncle of his, when he saw the glint of metal.
"Oh," he started when he saw what it was "A cr-"
"-own." he never actually finished the word, and his lips only mouthed 'own'
Although perhaps *his* lips was a bit misleading.
The new occupant closed his eyes, disorientated for a split-second.
"Oh." He said as he opened his eyes again "Oh good."
Anybody who had known the boy would have been able to tell the difference, easily. The eyes were no longer that birght blue, but instead a dull grey. It was hard to say more than that really. His voice, too, no longer held any interest or charisma, just a dull drone, that a listener, asked to comment, would probably stammer over for a while then say something about smoke. Not that anybody would comment on this person, or try to describe his eyes, for he was background, nothing but background.
Anoybody who had known the boy would have been able to tell the difference, but what matter was that, for they would never see him again.
And so he left. He knew where he had to go. He only stopped to buy some weedkiller.
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"Okay! Coming, just a minute!"
Her bright red hair had the effect of leaving her presence, in the eyes of the type of casual observer who feels like he's not actually being payed for being a casual observer, and so should slack off as much as possible, as being red hair. Walking down a road. It would take some thought and concentration to actually link a body to this red mass, and most people would want dental care and a christmas bonus before they actually did that as part of their *casual observation experience*.
Her har was not red, it was *red*. Not that orangey hair that people call red, this hair had progressed through the ranks, through brown, blonde, orangy but not really, ginger, and was now sitting just below blue. In short, this hair was *red*.
It was atttached, for we are not simply casual observers (you are being payed for reading this, surely?), to a head. This head was attached, in the normal way of things, to a body. But, staying on the head, as the body is even less interesting, we find a freckled, good natured face, currently giving off the aroma that can only be achived by using a perfume of sweat and washing-up liquid. Her teeth were quite perfect, and a gleaming white. She had had a fair amount of dates, and often got looks from the men in her "place", as she called it. Everybody else called it "Dave's Fish and Chips", except the derranged one who came in on thursdays and thought that he lived there.
She (or possibly her hair) was in a ponytail as she answered the door, cheerfully.
"Hi! What've you got?"
"Delivery for you, miss." The sight of the woman (or was it her hair?) had put him of mumbling for a while.
"Really? Oh thanks." She tooked the package, then flicked a coin to him, which he just managed to catch.
"Y'r welcome, miss" he said, and once again was off.
"'m a busy man" he began to say over his shoulder, but descided to turn it into a complaint against the people he was working for. Whoever *they* were.
Used to living in a constant state of Not Having Time to Waste, and not being one to think to hard about things, the woman opened the package without even bothering to wonder what it might be. She didn't even have a chance to react when her fingers closed around the cold steel.
When she did touch the sword, the change, again, was noticable. Her face, most impressively, changed totally, from one bearing freckless and good-will, to one of venus fly-trap-like lure. It was perfect. Her eyes contained a before-unseen glint, and there was only ever one language which could accurately describe her smile*. Her voice, too, had changed totally.
She stood, for a second dis-orientated, although it would be impossible to have told, walked to a road, stuck her thumb out, and took a cab to the nearest place she could buy a car.
*This language quickly died out, along with the people that spoke the word, that, roughly translated means "The" "Him" "Whence" and for some reason "Mountain with eight rocks, a hippo, and some red coconuts". The was, coincidentally already a curse in an even ancienter language (isn't it always the way?) to drive people insane.
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He glanced at his watch. 4:04:45.
Shit!
That means, if he left now, and really ran, he'd get to the station, roughly, mmm, about 12 minutes late for the train. Oh, shit! And the next one would be during *rush hour*.
If it was possible to spit a word in your mind, then he would have.
Oh, great. Well, might as well get some work done.
*This* was a Office Worker! His face, his "My day, like all my days invoving trains, has gone so badly that I can't even pause to admire the originality of the troubles that British Rail and whatever other cluprits there may be are able to come up with. I am so angry, that I feel like jumping under a train, or at least talking very loudly on my mobile phone for the whole journey, because misery loves company" expression (and it was scary how a normal person could fit such an expression on a single face without monthes of meditation. Oh, well. That's what london does you), the breifcase, the haircut, the mobile phone (Ringtone: Default #004), the salary that he was convinced everybody else was getting more than, the odd newspaper and sturbucks coffee turning up in odd places somehow; every part of him was oozing: I'm A Londener! Kill The Government!
And this was a Londerner, an Office Worker, a soul tormented beyond even the capacities of Hell; this was a man going to catch a train home from Waterloo *during rush hour*.
"Ohhhhh *Shit!*"
Perhaps he would have been slightly relieved if he had known exactly what was about to happen.*
A blonde haired woman stuck her head round the door
"Delivery for you sir. Being sent up here now. I gave him 50p tip which will come of your salary."
Oh, great! He didn't even know whether that was a joke or not, it's hard to tell working here. And the wrong reaction would surely seem utterly rude ("Why are you laughing? Did you think it was a *joke*? Did you *really* think that we'd be paying *you're* tips?" or "Why are you looking at me like that? Oh come *on*! You can't have thought I was serious? Do you really think we're *that* cheapskate?")
Well, if all esle fails, Mmmm it off.
"Mmmm" he said, nodding vaugely and staring at a computer screen, trying, and failing dismally, to make it look like he had been consentrated on that the whole time. "Mmmm. Well, do yo know what is in there?"
"No." She replied, stiffly.
Was she angry? He glanced over at her and saw her drawing what appeared to be a large "X" over some section of a notepad with a biro. She certainly looked angry.
Oh, fuck what've I done now? I didn't do anything! No, no can't have been me. Must have been... someone else (The bizarre thought that it may not have been some black mark on the permanenet record and future job-getting potential did not even cross his mind) Oh, *fuck*!
Just at this moment, the small brown box entered the room, carried by yet another, annonomous, suited victim. Caarying packages? Must have been somebody doing an even lower job than he was. He would bet his last penny, though, that he had a better salary than him. Oh, and the box was sealed with that transparent, brown tape that, unless he was Freddy Crugar, or had a handy knife (Soon, he would tell himself, on his worse days, soon), then it would take *ages* to get into. Well, better get started.
When he finally did manage to open the box ("I am going to move. I am going to get a nice little job on a nice little farm somewhere in this country. I am goig to have a nice life in a small, icolated village where everybody is freinds, and I am not, *not* ever going to come back to this *fucking city*!") his hands closed around some strange, old looking scales. And his dream came true. Well, okay, not the bit about the farm. Or having a nice life. Or actually a life at all. But at least the bit about not being in London.
Raven Sable stood up. It is strange that there can be a smile reserved only for people who are goig to go to a large "all-you-can-eat" reseraunt, order everything on the menu until they're sold out, and then throw it in the bin, and then go somewhere else and repeat, and love every moment of it. It is, indeed, strange. Raven Sable's face, however, was proof that it was also true.
That would have to wait though. First, he had to go to...
*Notes to Americans and other Aliens: Please. Don't even attempt to understand this. If you're *that* anxious to know what this description is all about, buy a house in England, in the suburbs of London, 15, perhaps 20, minutes away from the train station. Get an office job within the city. One of those 9:00 to 5:00 type jobs that goes on from 8:00 to 6:00. in an office block. A tall one, perhaps a shiny new one that was made in the vauge hope that it would make Everything Okay. Make sure it has a short lunchbreak, just enough for you to run to the nearest Starbucks and buy an awful coffee and a tuna salad sandwhich from the shop next door. If you take the tube as part of this routine (and of course you will)you will have the added joy of seeing people playing various instruments and knowing that they probably earn more than you do.
Soon you will have a schedual worked out exactly. A perfect routine. This will ALWAYS require running quite fast to at least one train (of course, the trains are only late if you get there on time). Before you know it, you'll have you're own *spot* on the platform to stand, just where the door will open. You'll also have you're own seat on you're own carriage. You will find yourself getting very angry with anybody who occupies this space or seat, and wishing their death. Then perhaps, if you are the contemplative sort, your own.
Follow these instrcutions and you may find it hard to believe that you didn't actually die on the flight to England (you'll think back to those days wistfully) and that Crowley had advised Hell, yet, again, to take a leaf out of Man's book, and Hell decided that, in fact, Crowley had descovered a goldmine of tourturing perffection and that Hell should be renamed Greater London.
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I must admit that I got quite carried away in the description of the life of an Office Worker. Especially for somebody who only knows this inforamtion from travelling a few hundered times with somebody who does have a lifestyle very similar to that of The Horseman of the Apocalypse Formally Known As Annonomous Office Worker.
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"Backwards and forwards. All the time. Can't anyone else doing this. Who'd they think I am? All this supernatural mumbo jumbo..." The murmerings and the howling wind filled an otherwise silent street.
A knock on a door.
A teenager, 15 - perhaps 16 - answered. His hair was a very light shade of blonde. His skin too, was very pale. He looked, generally, as if he were ill. His pale conplexion was countered only by his vibrant blue eyes, and his somewhat loud, generally cheerful voice.
"Hello? Yes?"
"Delivery for you sir. Backwards and forwards with these things all day. Don't know what they take me for. Dead one minute..."
"Um, yes. Package for me? Is there a return address?" The boy replied, fumbling in his pocket for a coin.
"No, just annonomous. These things always are though. Not that I know what's going on, though. oh no, nobody would tell me..."
"Thank you." The boy said pointedly, dropping the tip into the man's open, waiting hand. "Yes, thank you very much. Goodbye."
"Yes, thanks. Goodbye. Should at least, tell me, I've a right mind to..." He mumbled, into the distance.
A delivery? The boy thought What could it possibly be? And annomous? Quite odd.
Being a practical and quite uncomplative person, he was already openeing the package at this point. He was just at the point of forming an idea that it could be a very late birthday present (*Very* late, for that was 5 months ago) from that old uncle of his, when he saw the glint of metal.
"Oh," he started when he saw what it was "A cr-"
"-own." he never actually finished the word, and his lips only mouthed 'own'
Although perhaps *his* lips was a bit misleading.
The new occupant closed his eyes, disorientated for a split-second.
"Oh." He said as he opened his eyes again "Oh good."
Anybody who had known the boy would have been able to tell the difference, easily. The eyes were no longer that birght blue, but instead a dull grey. It was hard to say more than that really. His voice, too, no longer held any interest or charisma, just a dull drone, that a listener, asked to comment, would probably stammer over for a while then say something about smoke. Not that anybody would comment on this person, or try to describe his eyes, for he was background, nothing but background.
Anoybody who had known the boy would have been able to tell the difference, but what matter was that, for they would never see him again.
And so he left. He knew where he had to go. He only stopped to buy some weedkiller.
***********************************************************************
"Okay! Coming, just a minute!"
Her bright red hair had the effect of leaving her presence, in the eyes of the type of casual observer who feels like he's not actually being payed for being a casual observer, and so should slack off as much as possible, as being red hair. Walking down a road. It would take some thought and concentration to actually link a body to this red mass, and most people would want dental care and a christmas bonus before they actually did that as part of their *casual observation experience*.
Her har was not red, it was *red*. Not that orangey hair that people call red, this hair had progressed through the ranks, through brown, blonde, orangy but not really, ginger, and was now sitting just below blue. In short, this hair was *red*.
It was atttached, for we are not simply casual observers (you are being payed for reading this, surely?), to a head. This head was attached, in the normal way of things, to a body. But, staying on the head, as the body is even less interesting, we find a freckled, good natured face, currently giving off the aroma that can only be achived by using a perfume of sweat and washing-up liquid. Her teeth were quite perfect, and a gleaming white. She had had a fair amount of dates, and often got looks from the men in her "place", as she called it. Everybody else called it "Dave's Fish and Chips", except the derranged one who came in on thursdays and thought that he lived there.
She (or possibly her hair) was in a ponytail as she answered the door, cheerfully.
"Hi! What've you got?"
"Delivery for you, miss." The sight of the woman (or was it her hair?) had put him of mumbling for a while.
"Really? Oh thanks." She tooked the package, then flicked a coin to him, which he just managed to catch.
"Y'r welcome, miss" he said, and once again was off.
"'m a busy man" he began to say over his shoulder, but descided to turn it into a complaint against the people he was working for. Whoever *they* were.
Used to living in a constant state of Not Having Time to Waste, and not being one to think to hard about things, the woman opened the package without even bothering to wonder what it might be. She didn't even have a chance to react when her fingers closed around the cold steel.
When she did touch the sword, the change, again, was noticable. Her face, most impressively, changed totally, from one bearing freckless and good-will, to one of venus fly-trap-like lure. It was perfect. Her eyes contained a before-unseen glint, and there was only ever one language which could accurately describe her smile*. Her voice, too, had changed totally.
She stood, for a second dis-orientated, although it would be impossible to have told, walked to a road, stuck her thumb out, and took a cab to the nearest place she could buy a car.
*This language quickly died out, along with the people that spoke the word, that, roughly translated means "The" "Him" "Whence" and for some reason "Mountain with eight rocks, a hippo, and some red coconuts". The was, coincidentally already a curse in an even ancienter language (isn't it always the way?) to drive people insane.
***********************************************************************
He glanced at his watch. 4:04:45.
Shit!
That means, if he left now, and really ran, he'd get to the station, roughly, mmm, about 12 minutes late for the train. Oh, shit! And the next one would be during *rush hour*.
If it was possible to spit a word in your mind, then he would have.
Oh, great. Well, might as well get some work done.
*This* was a Office Worker! His face, his "My day, like all my days invoving trains, has gone so badly that I can't even pause to admire the originality of the troubles that British Rail and whatever other cluprits there may be are able to come up with. I am so angry, that I feel like jumping under a train, or at least talking very loudly on my mobile phone for the whole journey, because misery loves company" expression (and it was scary how a normal person could fit such an expression on a single face without monthes of meditation. Oh, well. That's what london does you), the breifcase, the haircut, the mobile phone (Ringtone: Default #004), the salary that he was convinced everybody else was getting more than, the odd newspaper and sturbucks coffee turning up in odd places somehow; every part of him was oozing: I'm A Londener! Kill The Government!
And this was a Londerner, an Office Worker, a soul tormented beyond even the capacities of Hell; this was a man going to catch a train home from Waterloo *during rush hour*.
"Ohhhhh *Shit!*"
Perhaps he would have been slightly relieved if he had known exactly what was about to happen.*
A blonde haired woman stuck her head round the door
"Delivery for you sir. Being sent up here now. I gave him 50p tip which will come of your salary."
Oh, great! He didn't even know whether that was a joke or not, it's hard to tell working here. And the wrong reaction would surely seem utterly rude ("Why are you laughing? Did you think it was a *joke*? Did you *really* think that we'd be paying *you're* tips?" or "Why are you looking at me like that? Oh come *on*! You can't have thought I was serious? Do you really think we're *that* cheapskate?")
Well, if all esle fails, Mmmm it off.
"Mmmm" he said, nodding vaugely and staring at a computer screen, trying, and failing dismally, to make it look like he had been consentrated on that the whole time. "Mmmm. Well, do yo know what is in there?"
"No." She replied, stiffly.
Was she angry? He glanced over at her and saw her drawing what appeared to be a large "X" over some section of a notepad with a biro. She certainly looked angry.
Oh, fuck what've I done now? I didn't do anything! No, no can't have been me. Must have been... someone else (The bizarre thought that it may not have been some black mark on the permanenet record and future job-getting potential did not even cross his mind) Oh, *fuck*!
Just at this moment, the small brown box entered the room, carried by yet another, annonomous, suited victim. Caarying packages? Must have been somebody doing an even lower job than he was. He would bet his last penny, though, that he had a better salary than him. Oh, and the box was sealed with that transparent, brown tape that, unless he was Freddy Crugar, or had a handy knife (Soon, he would tell himself, on his worse days, soon), then it would take *ages* to get into. Well, better get started.
When he finally did manage to open the box ("I am going to move. I am going to get a nice little job on a nice little farm somewhere in this country. I am goig to have a nice life in a small, icolated village where everybody is freinds, and I am not, *not* ever going to come back to this *fucking city*!") his hands closed around some strange, old looking scales. And his dream came true. Well, okay, not the bit about the farm. Or having a nice life. Or actually a life at all. But at least the bit about not being in London.
Raven Sable stood up. It is strange that there can be a smile reserved only for people who are goig to go to a large "all-you-can-eat" reseraunt, order everything on the menu until they're sold out, and then throw it in the bin, and then go somewhere else and repeat, and love every moment of it. It is, indeed, strange. Raven Sable's face, however, was proof that it was also true.
That would have to wait though. First, he had to go to...
*Notes to Americans and other Aliens: Please. Don't even attempt to understand this. If you're *that* anxious to know what this description is all about, buy a house in England, in the suburbs of London, 15, perhaps 20, minutes away from the train station. Get an office job within the city. One of those 9:00 to 5:00 type jobs that goes on from 8:00 to 6:00. in an office block. A tall one, perhaps a shiny new one that was made in the vauge hope that it would make Everything Okay. Make sure it has a short lunchbreak, just enough for you to run to the nearest Starbucks and buy an awful coffee and a tuna salad sandwhich from the shop next door. If you take the tube as part of this routine (and of course you will)you will have the added joy of seeing people playing various instruments and knowing that they probably earn more than you do.
Soon you will have a schedual worked out exactly. A perfect routine. This will ALWAYS require running quite fast to at least one train (of course, the trains are only late if you get there on time). Before you know it, you'll have you're own *spot* on the platform to stand, just where the door will open. You'll also have you're own seat on you're own carriage. You will find yourself getting very angry with anybody who occupies this space or seat, and wishing their death. Then perhaps, if you are the contemplative sort, your own.
Follow these instrcutions and you may find it hard to believe that you didn't actually die on the flight to England (you'll think back to those days wistfully) and that Crowley had advised Hell, yet, again, to take a leaf out of Man's book, and Hell decided that, in fact, Crowley had descovered a goldmine of tourturing perffection and that Hell should be renamed Greater London.
***********************************************************************
I must admit that I got quite carried away in the description of the life of an Office Worker. Especially for somebody who only knows this inforamtion from travelling a few hundered times with somebody who does have a lifestyle very similar to that of The Horseman of the Apocalypse Formally Known As Annonomous Office Worker.
