Nano 2012 Day Twenty

Her name was Calliope in the chat, though a few of the other members called her "Bel" implying that they actually knew her in real life, though it was possible that they didn't. He didn't notice that they had started holding get togethers out in public for everyone to come meet each other, enjoy each other's company and chat in public. Menelaus had been to something like that before, with another chat room he used to speak with, but it was back when he was 19. He remembered that it mostly involved lots of mixed drink experiments and people bringing along their laptops and half chatting to people that were there while catching up with people online at the same time. It all seemed a little disconnected to him.

"Well next time pay more attention to what you are doing. We don't accept that sort of behaviour here." That was Calliope on the screen. "I'm really sorry! I'll try to pay more attention to what I'm writing."

"You'd better." She seemed to be quite hard on the new person, but what did Menelaus know about anything relating to online ways of conduct? Probably close to nothing. He paid more attention to what was happening. The new person had made an excuse and quit the room and now Calliope was talking with a friend of hers in the channel. Their name only came up as Guest3029 so they obviously had registered their name as something and not put in the password in time so the system had forced that name on them. Unless they were signing in from a web client or something, but that didn't sound likely if they knew the operator. They were talking about each other's respective writing prospects and how it related to all the school work they had been marking. Evidentally they were both teachers or involved in education. Interesting. Now they were talking about the next meet up. "Hey M, you should join us."

"Me?"

"Yeah, it'd be fun! We all get ice cream somewhere afterwards."

"Hmm.. maybe. I do like ice cream."

He thought about it. He DID like ice cream. Although, he was also on the cusp of a new relationship, was it a good idea to go straight to a meet up like that? He realised what he was doing and snapped himself out of it. He couldn't be adjusting his plans based on someone he had only slept with the night before, even if it was Tina. He should do whatever he would've done to begin with. Right now ice cream with a group of mostly anonymous people sounded like a good idea.

"Sure, I'll do it as long as I don't have to do something for Peter in hospital or once he's out alright? When were you all thinking of meeting up?"

"We were thinking on the 10th"

He looked at his calendar, today was the 7th. "Hey, that's pretty quick."

"Well, the weather is meant to be a little warm. Good weather right now, we don't want to risk it getting cold. Plus it's better than putting something far forward into the future."

"Alright sure, count me in. Barring any emergencies of course."

"Of course. Yay!"

He smiled and said his goodbyes and closed the laptop. That might be something to get his mind of things. At the least, it would distract him from his thoughts of Tina, which just led to other distractions. We went back to the couch and found the book he had been reading. It was a study of different smells as they related to some historical figure. The whole thing was fiction but it was presented as an academic study and was just as boring. He wasn't quite sure why he had started reading it to begin with aside from it having an interesting cover but he was beginning to really hate it, with its 'trying too hard to be clever' prose style and its footnotes within footnotes. He studied the cover again. It consisted of a woodprint drawing of a navigator's telescope sitting with the large lens pointed towards the reader and an apple was positioned a foot or so behind the small lens at the other end. Within the large lens was a distorted reproduction of the apple, processed through the lens and you could see slight signs of rot in the skin. The bright red of the apple gave way to a yellowing patch with a hint of black beneath the surface. It obviously was meant to hint at the smell it gave off in its putrefaction but Menelaus liked to think of it more as a study of how something that at first glance was perfect would reveal serious flaws unpon close inspection. Which is what he expected the book to be about but instead it proved to be what it was like. ALthough, at first the only thing that seemed perfect was the cover. It was built upon an interesting premise but that wasn't enough to save it. He flicked through it again to see if it could retrieve his interest and read:

The scientist readjusted his instruments and observe the chemical compound twist and swirm under the microscope. He knew the resultant smell would be rich with phosperous and amber highlighting but he could not allow himself to care. This was about Juliet, damn it all to hell! The family would have to just deal with the smell of rotting carrots for a while, if it meant saving his one true love.

One true love? Where did this passionate passage come from? He checked the page number and it was one which he had certainly passed over before. Did he just zone out at that point? Was the author slipping in these passages amongst the tedium to make sure readers were paying attention? He turned to another page at random.

As they kept steady purchase on the back of the giant African alligator with their legs firmly tried into the harness that had been attached to the beast for them by the natives, James pointed a small cluster of trees and yelled, "Sally! Look at that!"

The girl, beautiful, green eyed, buxon followed his arm to the patch. She squinted. "That patch of trees over there?"

"Yes, ignore the trees, just look in that direction and take a deep whiff in. What do you smell?"

She sniffed delicately and said, "I don't know? Oranges?"

He sighed. "No, really make a whiff of it! Close your eyes and breathe in deeply, what do you smell?"

She closed her eyes and brought a large gust of wind into her lungs, swelling her already considerable bust, and then held the breath for a second before slowly expelling it. "Alright, I still have a faint scent of oranges but this time it is accented. There is the smell of... ochre, a bit of ginger, maybe... banana?"

James was smiling confidentally, his blue eyes sparkling under a tuft of curly blonde hair, "That's right, darling, you're doing well. What else?"

"Well..." She thought about it for a second and took another experimental sniff in that direction, "I couldn't say for certain but..."

"Yes, yes, go on?"

"I think I can possibly smell something quite similar to what I smelled when I went out to the white cliffs with my mother when I was young.”

“And what do you think that was?”

“Maybe limestone?”
“Correct!” His eyes sparkled with excitement. “You will be an adventurer yet. People underestimate the importance of scent.” With a sudden lurch they were thrown forward. The alligator made a low unhappy groaning sound. “Oh my god!” Sally said and pointed ahead of them. James looked to see the river they were on terminated in only a few meters with a sudden drop, likely a long waterfall. “We must have gone down the wrong fork of the Nehimazzar!” James exclaimed, “Well we’ll see what we can do about that.” He reached into his knapsack and pulled out a small metal anchor with three upturned hooks with barbs on each end. Attached to it was a long rope. “Now stand back, darling.” He said as he stood up on his harness, “I’m about to try something dangerous.” He began slowly swinging the anchor around his head getting faster and faster. “Oh James, save us!” Sally exclaimed and hung on to his leg for comfort.

He smiled down at her assuredly and spun the hook faster and faster till it was a helicopter blur above his head. Above them the birds cried out, as if to each other to witness the spectacle underneath, the spectacle of man...

Menelaus was snapped out of his reading reverie by a knock at the door. He closed the book and put it back, giving it a confused look. That definitely was not the same book he read the last time he opened it. Something really weird was going on. He went to the door and opened it. Standing there was Tina, looking a little sheepish. She grinned when she saw him. "Hello Menelaus!"

"Hi Tina!" He took her in. She was wearing a little tennis skirt and a yellow polo top, "playing tennis today?"

"Haha no, I just wanted to wear something comfortable. Can I come in, am I intruding?"

"No of course not, come through."

She walked in past him, giving him a kiss on the cheek as she walked past and pinching him on the butt as well for good measure. He turned and watched her swish through his living room. Her little skirt was making a spectacle of her long legs and afforded occasional glimpses of her hips underneath. He swallowed. "So, what's happening?"