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This is intended to be a long, long project. Any volunteers to beta based on this teaser snippet?
It was, perhaps, the chanting I hated most of all. The long, bleary struggle to consciousness was full of unpleasant feelings, and certainly not lacking things to dislike, starting with how long it took and how bleary I was. That it was a struggle added the element of fear tending toward panic. The constant chanting through it all, though, was a constant reminder that there were people watching me, and they were full of joy and happiness and bubbly cheerfulness while I was lying miserably in their midst.
This is not the sort of thing, I must note, that happens to me regularly. I am no foolhardy adventure-seeker, prone to mad jaunts into the distant wilderness full of savage cannibals or cursed ruins. I prefer to avoid anything more exciting than the café on the corner serving a new blend of tea. The annual review of the University’s budget provides more than sufficient danger to my existence. I would long to have my picture in the dictionary next to the word boring, were it not for the concomitant notoriety such exposure might bring.
Lying in some field being chanted at, then, is clearly a distinct departure from any activity to which I might reasonably be expected to consent. That I had not in fact consented thereto I was quite certain, though even in my intellectual incapacitation at the time I was above the belief this had any bearing. As I lay there, I was absolutely convinced I would dislike everything I saw if I were to open my eyes, convinced utterly by that detestable chanting. In the event, this confidence was revealed to be completely justified the moment I took that necessary action.
Pixies. Sprites. Fairies. Small, girlish figures, sure to inform me of some such mythical name for themselves, circled in some sort of ring-dance with me at its center. The chanting was apparently intended as singing, for their feet kept time with their tongues. I shall eschew such fantastic words as “unearthly” or “alien,” but the tonal quality of their repetitions was comprehensively foreign to any music I have heard produced by humans. Lest the reader be deceived, I must stress that this should in no wise be taken as praise or recommendation.
It was, perhaps, the chanting I hated most of all. The long, bleary struggle to consciousness was full of unpleasant feelings, and certainly not lacking things to dislike, starting with how long it took and how bleary I was. That it was a struggle added the element of fear tending toward panic. The constant chanting through it all, though, was a constant reminder that there were people watching me, and they were full of joy and happiness and bubbly cheerfulness while I was lying miserably in their midst.
This is not the sort of thing, I must note, that happens to me regularly. I am no foolhardy adventure-seeker, prone to mad jaunts into the distant wilderness full of savage cannibals or cursed ruins. I prefer to avoid anything more exciting than the café on the corner serving a new blend of tea. The annual review of the University’s budget provides more than sufficient danger to my existence. I would long to have my picture in the dictionary next to the word boring, were it not for the concomitant notoriety such exposure might bring.
Lying in some field being chanted at, then, is clearly a distinct departure from any activity to which I might reasonably be expected to consent. That I had not in fact consented thereto I was quite certain, though even in my intellectual incapacitation at the time I was above the belief this had any bearing. As I lay there, I was absolutely convinced I would dislike everything I saw if I were to open my eyes, convinced utterly by that detestable chanting. In the event, this confidence was revealed to be completely justified the moment I took that necessary action.
Pixies. Sprites. Fairies. Small, girlish figures, sure to inform me of some such mythical name for themselves, circled in some sort of ring-dance with me at its center. The chanting was apparently intended as singing, for their feet kept time with their tongues. I shall eschew such fantastic words as “unearthly” or “alien,” but the tonal quality of their repetitions was comprehensively foreign to any music I have heard produced by humans. Lest the reader be deceived, I must stress that this should in no wise be taken as praise or recommendation.
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