This story was written well before the no-no thing started about dogs dying in a story.
[I realize dogs are our best friends. I’ve owned a dog myself and it was a wrench to let her go when that became necessary. She was only nine years old when she developed a brain tumor and could not be saved.]
In this story one of the dogs briefly dies. So, I guess, you can take this as a spoiler alert.
One of those photos I make of a seemingly hidden pic on the TV screen, a god-like figure in the hidden depths of a mysterious pool, inserted … even seeded … in there, perhaps to act as an eventual hook for a new series. I seem to remember that I got it from The Mandolorian somewhere. This camera shot surprisingly clear compared to the original.
Instead of sedately side-stepping back to the original Lodestar story, or going way back to the first or third installments, I’ve decided to skip to part 12. [This is all on the Page about the Lodestar Timeline] Which in a way can be thought of as the very first installment and anyway is a necessary prequel to the Doomed Trilogy.
Claire and Nalbo retired to the valley where the alien engineer, original owner of the spacecraft known on Earth as The Lodestar, decides to spend time on Earth to renew a member of his life support system. Things don’t go well as can be expected when species as different as the alien engineer and his support system, and humans meet.
I was only about fifty when I began writing this installment, and thought I should wait until I was much older to know what it felt like to be old and crotchety. Well, I’m seventy-seven now, high time I tackled it.
Two weeks ago the old woman went to Bunnings on the little bus and got, among a few other doo-dads, a 50 meters of a black twine-like substance.
When she got home she cut off a piece to test it for knots, she said. Making a few of them in this stuff and dragging it along the floor.
A black string dragging along the floor is like a red rag to a bull if you get my meaning… when I see it I have gotto chase it.
It’s been my only interest for two weeks and I still don’t know how to stop it sliding from between my toes when the old woman tugs it.
She’s getting bored with it, she tells me as she put another knot in the end for me to catch hold of. She tells me it’s the easiest form of playing. She means it requires the least output of energy by me. And she’s right, I like to take it easy.
This is me looking at the string draped over my pillow case with catnip in it.
This me starting a game. Except then I heard her starting to video me and I walked away. I hate that little noise. Lucky the corner was right there.
When she started typing, the one-fingered type, I came back and am just sitting here looking at my black string. Hoping it’ll magically start moving itself so I can chase it.
PS she gave the rest of the string to the builder in the family. It’s 100% polyester and too slippery to hold a knot.
I’ve been wanting to share Nicholas Beckett’s art for a while. Today’s cryptic comment is par for his course, and the reason why I enjoy his output …
Rita de Heer 