View topic - [Update] Quirky Acuity - 11 Sept 06

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Forum index » Archive » Archive: Perplex City » PXC: General/Updates

[LOCKED] [Update] Quirky Acuity - 11 Sept 06 - Not Good

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PMAvers
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Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Posts: 83
Location: NW OH, USA

[Update] Quirky Acuity - 11 Sept 06 - Not Good

Perma-Link: http://www.quirkyacuity.com/archives/2006/09/not_good.html

Quote:

It's never a good sign when you wake up and can't remember what you did the night before. It's an even worse sign if you can't remember where you are, or who you might be with. Fortunately, as an unfamiliar room swum into view this morning I realised that it was, in fact, both alone and in a very familiar room. My own bedroom. Only I was lying the wrong way round on the bed. In my clothes. With the faint but noticeable sensation that something had crept into my mouth and died during the night. Possibly after having clawed its way out of my skull. My key beeped. I wondered when I'd set it to "stun".
"What is it?!" I shouted across the room.
The irritating calm peaceful voice of my calendar program replied: "Meeting with Professor Sedgewick in 10 minutes time."
On a morning like this, falling over while putting on my boots and discovering that Scarlett had made off with my current favourite jacket were really the least of my problems.

I'd made the appointment with Professor Sedgewick on Saturday morning - intending to ask her about Scarlett's thrilling new piece of the Granier mystery. Of course, that was before I went to poker on Saturday night and won a rather nice number of Lecks. And before I decided that I should celebrate on Sunday night, non-boyfriend be damned. And before I lost all motor control, along with all memory of the previous evening.

I was 20 minutes late by the time I was striding through the courtyard towards Professor Sedgewick's office. Well, maybe striding is the wrong word. What's the word for the kind of walking where every step causes a rictus of pain to travel through your entire body, ending with an explosion at the top of your skull? Perhaps it would be better to say I was "wincing" toward her office. I'd taken some Ceretin and some Tetracodamine but they didn't seem to be doing much good. And I was beginning to feel some rather ominous nausea. I tried to remember if there were any bathrooms within sprinting distance of Sedgewick's office.

And, as I knocked on the door I was still racking my sore and tender brain to tell me what on earth I'd done the previous evening to get into this state. I remembered... celebrating. Yes, I'd definitely decided to celebrate my big win. And I'd called... Kurt. Yes. I remembered that. Called Kurt in the early evening, and he'd suggested going out for dinner with a couple of friends and I'd said... had I said I had a better idea?
"Ent-ah!" came the voice from the other side of the door. I went in.

I'd decided to show the note to Professor Sedgewick on the basis that I don't want to get any more members of the Languages department killed if I can possibly help it, and she, I thought, would be sufficiently dotty to believe my story without questioning too hard and putting herself in danger.
"You are late, my dear," she said, looking at me over her half-moon spectacles.
Before I could reply, she continued "no matter, no matter, please, look at this magnificent specimen and tell me your reaction. Immediately, no hesitation please!"
I had time for only mild trepidation about what she might want to show me before she pulled up a holographic image from her key of a large white flower with a slightly alien look to it. I glanced at Sedgewick's face.
"It's... er... beautiful?" I hazarded.
She beamed. "Precisely. Pre. Cise. Ly. But why can't the council see that, eh, eh? They want to destroy one of the last 50 habitats for this species of giant orchid in the city region."
I shook my head, trying not to let the pain show on my face.
"Terrible," I said, "terrible."
She grabbed my hand "ah, my dear, I knew you would think so - I'm sure you won't mind if I add your name to the Bankside Rescue Union for Natural Orchids, will you?"
"Ummm..."
"Excellent! BRUNO will be delighted."

Bruno! Suddenly, a portion of my evening swum into focus. I had had a marvellous idea. One of Caine's band members, Bruno, was playing a solo gig at a club downtown. And I had thought it would be a super idea to go and see him. With Kurt and some of Kurt's friends. For some reason. Yes, that was it, we'd gone to a club and I'd drunk...

"Can I do anything for you, my dear?" Sedgewick's voice summoned me back.
"Oh, er, yes," I said. "I was wondering if you'd look at this," I handed her a copy of the note Scarlett found in our uncle's house. I hadn't brought the puzzle with me - I didn't want her to start investigating it and either a) tell my father or b) meet a sticky end. "It's, um, a sort of joke. A friend made it for me and I, er, wanted to find out what it means. It's written in this old style, for, er, fun, and yeah, he's a linguistics expert and..."
This was not coming out as coherent as I'd imagined when I first thought of the plan. Luckily, Sedgewick was too intrigued by the paper to notice my stuttering. Or the small army of gnomes intent on mining the inside of my skull for mineral deposits.

"Ah," said Sedgewick, looking at the paper "a love puzzle? A little trinket from a young man, perhaps? I remember when Morris and I were courting, he would often make little treasure hunts for me of this sort..."
She drifted on for a while. It was all I could do to nod from time to time in a not-moving-my-head-very-much sort of way.
"It's rather beautifully done," she said. "Your beau must be rather an expert in the field. I shall have to keep it for a few days to make sure I have understood every element correctly. I hope that will not inconvenience you?"
I made a non-commital noise to indicate that that would be fine.
"Yes," she said, "it's rather lovely, is it not? So many tiny touches which indicate fine penmanship. This glyph here, for example, one might think it was simply part of the border, but in fact it is a navigational symbol representing a rotation, starting at due North, and circling 360 degrees clockwise. This young man must be rather taken with you to go to such trouble."
I nodded again, squirrelling away the information to pass on.
"Youth," she said, "it makes everything it touches sublime."
And as I stumbled out into the hallway all I could do was stutter my goodbyes. Because I had finally remembered what it was I'd done last night. The details aren't relevant. I did a thing I shouldn't have done, with a person I shouldn't have done it with. Believe me, you don't want to know. Seriously. I don't want to know. Do you think, if I beg hard enough, I can get Cognivia to make some memory-erasal tablets?

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:36 pm

BrianEnigma
Entrenched

Joined: 05 Oct 2003
Posts: 1199
Location: Pacific Northwest

Sorry... this has already been covered in this thread

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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:55 pm

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