Introduction to "The Taming of the Ferret": Like most online writing communities, Subreality sets its writers challenges from time to time (write a story about someone's birthday, deliberately write your characters out of character, etc.). Unlike most writing communities, however, it has no deadlines for submission, which was how I was able to compose this rather unorthodox approach to Kielle's Red Rose Challenge six years after the challenge was announced.
This story was posted on the SCML on 15 February 2006, and makes reference to no particular fandom.
Disclaimer: It is by the grace of God and the inspiration of Kielle that I am able to write this story.
Erineae glanced around at the small, rocky world, at the nearby horizon and the stars beyond it.
"This is the place?" she said.
Qoheleth nodded.
"This asteroid will be the setting for the story you will write in response to the Red Rose Challenge?"
"This very one," said Qoheleth. "All the astronomers are agreed."
"But there is no red rose on this asteroid," Erineae pointed out. (As a matter of fact, there wasn't much of anything on the asteroid apart from two small vents that belched smoke every so often – and, of course, Qoheleth and Erineae.)
"I can't see one," Qoheleth agreed; "but then, the eyes are so often blind, don't you agree?"
Uh-oh, Erineae thought, he's getting cryptic again. Aloud, she said, "Well, then, do you plan to open my eyes anytime soon?"
Qoheleth did not answer. Instead, he glanced toward the horizon and said, "It will be sunset shortly. I like a good sunset, don't you?"
What this had to do with anything, Erineae couldn't say, but she responded dutifully, "Yes, Solomon, I adore sunsets. I cannot count the number of times you have been unable to write the next chapter of The Parallel because I was off in Bulgaria, watching the sun set. Now, can we please…"
"Oh, good," said Qoheleth. "It shouldn't be more than a few minutes now; curl up and make yourself comfortable." He pulled out his Philippians pen, Wrote a lawn chair and a small red pillow onto the dusty ground, and sat down in the former; and Erineae, ruing the day she had chosen a vocation that required her to deal with artists, curled up on the pillow and turned her face to the west.
One might suppose that an asteroid sunset would seem rather underwhelming to a native of Earth. After all, much of the grandeur of an Earthly sunset comes from the play of light in the atmosphere, which a planet the size of a house necessarily has in short supply. As it happened, however, the asteroid's tiny lining of air came up just to Erineae's eye level, so that the setting sun appeared to her rather like an orange pearl being dipped into a river of gold; an image to which her irreducibly poetic soul could not help but respond.
When the pearl had been completely immersed, she turned to her Writer and said, "Thank you, Solomon; that was lovely. Now, about the rose…"
"Ah, yes," said Qoheleth. "Perhaps if we head in that direction (he pointed to the west), you will find what you seek."
Erineae wondered about that "perhaps". A writer, she felt, ought not to be uncertain about his central plot point. Still, he was a Writer, so there was very little point in arguing with him.
So the two of them headed eastward. Not very far eastward, of course; the world was too small to go very far. They hadn't taken more than five strides (or twenty, in Erineae's case, given the number and size of her legs) when Qoheleth stopped, glanced at his Muse, and enquired, "How about now?"
Erineae glanced around the new landscape, and found that it was, as far as she could tell, indistinguishable from the one they had left. Certainly there was nothing on it that suggested a red rose: no enchanted princes, no Earls of Lancaster, not even an unusual geologic formation.
She glanced up at her Writer. "Sorry."
"Not yet, huh?" said Qoheleth. "Oh, well, it's not a total loss." He gestured to the horizon. "That's the nice thing about these small planets: take five steps and the sun's setting again."
And without further ado, he brought out his pen again and summoned the chair and the pillow forward five yards, leaving Erineae with little choice but to sit back down and watch another sunset.
Maybe that was it, she thought. Maybe the sunset was the red rose, and Qoheleth was going to keep hauling her around this miserable asteroid until she got that point. She stared at the celestial symphony, trying to discern some vaguely floral features; but to no avail. The golden orb remained steadfastly golden and orbicular; not red, and certainly not rose-shaped.
Erineae tapped her tail impatiently until the sun disappeared, at which point she turned to Qoheleth and said, "Solomon, all this is very entertaining, I'm sure, but I have yet to find a red rose connected with any of it."
"True," said Qoheleth. "I suppose we must not have gone far enough. Strange that it wasn't immediately obvious, but… oh, well. Shall we?"
As they walked a few paces further west, Erineae diligently searched every patch of ground she could see for even the slightest hint of red, but nothing appeared. The entire world was grey rock, except for the occasional puffs of black from the smoking vents.
Qoheleth stopped and turned to Erineae. "Well?"
"Solomon," said Erineae, who by this point was starting to fear for her Writer's sanity, "there is no red rose here. There is nothing here. This is a lump of iron and rock floating aimlessly between Mars and Jupiter, not a hanging garden of Babylon."
Qoheleth frowned, as though he had expected rather better from a Collegium salutatorian. "Well, if you say so," he said.
Then he glanced over his shoulder at the horizon. "Although…"
Erineae shook her head decisively. "No, Solomon," she said. "We are not watching another sunset."
One of the vents belched a particularly noxious column of smoke, and Qoheleth turned his head to examine it. "No, we aren't," he agreed. "You are. I have other duties to perform."
And he pulled out his pen and Wrote for the third time; but this time only the pillow appeared, and on top of it a dishrag and a bottle of yellow cleanser. Qoheleth picked up these items, went over and knelt on the ground, and began vigorously scouring the inside of the vent. He remained at this task for about three minutes, at the end of which time, instead of the irregular burps it had been giving off before, the vent was releasing a steady, visually pleasing column of grey smoke.
He then went over and repeated this process on the other vent, and then on a third outcropping of rock which was the same size and shape as the other two, but hitherto had produced no smoke of any kind; and it was as he scrubbed this third object that Erineae's curiosity got the better of her. She walked up to his side, sniffed the bottle (it had a distinctly lemony smell), and looked at its label.
IGNA-PURGE, it read. FAST-ACTING, ALL-PURPOSE VOLCANO CLEANSER.
Erineae's eyes widened with realization. "They aren't vents," she whispered, too quietly even for Qoheleth to hear. "They're volcanoes." And with that hint, all the pieces of the puzzle fell together.
When Qoheleth got up from the volcano, she was waiting for him on the pillow, a look of quiet surety on her face.
"So, then," she said, "you have dwelt on a planet scarcely larger than a house; you have watched three sunsets in one day; you have cleaned out the insides of three tiny volcanoes, one of which appears to be extinct."
"Just so," said Qoheleth. "After all, one never knows."
"And somewhere in this story," said Erineae, "there is a red rose."
"Exactly," said Qoheleth.
A smile crept over Erineae's muzzle. "That is really very sweet of you, Solomon."
Qoheleth bowed. "I do my best."
Erineae sighed, and glanced around. "What place would you advise that we visit now?" she asked.
"The Subreality Café," said Qoheleth. "It has a good reputation."
And the two of them went away, thinking of a flower.
Author's note: I realize that, if you haven't read Le Petit Prince, this story made no sense whatsoever; but then, if you haven't read Le Petit Prince, you have bigger problems than not understanding this story.
