K. Fairy Wings - Part 1

Like some megalithic pillar propping up the sky, Schwarzwald tower
just scraped the fat underbelly of the clouds leaving eddies swirling
in its wake. On the lee side of the topmost of four enormous rings that
encircled the column, so high that dawn had already come, in a small
room behind a full length open window, Herr Schmitt pulled gingerly at
the line, checking the tension. It was not beyond the machines to get
their sums wrong and misscalibrate for a man's weight, he was a bigger
than average man.

"Slack's being taken up." Said the gnome, gesturing for Schmitt to
hurry up.

"What the hell." He replied. "Go for it."

The gnome swiftly secured Schmitt to the wire with well practised
movements. Checked each shackle had locked with a tug, moved round
behind the large man and placed a hand on each buttock and, after what
Schmitt could have sworn was a brief squeeze, pushed him out the window
into the early morning sky.

*****

Alone in the control room Adrielle struggled with the machines. It
was all her little green arms could do to pull the release lever, why
the hell did the button have to be so bloody stiff. Bloody gnomes. She
leapt sprightly to the corner of the room, picked up the mallet,
dragged it with difficulty back to the panel where the unlock was
audibly ticking away it's time out, heaved the mallet above her head
and let it fall, finally depressing the button. With a click the
extinguisher dropped on the red flame and the adjacent green flame
sparked and leapt into life, somewhere or other another fat human had
been saved from falling. Bloody humans. Bloody machines. Bloody
gnomes.

Adrielle placed the mallet back in its receptacle and retired to the
dead branch she was using as a perch to watch for the next near
emergency. At least she had most of the week off.

*****

It is absolutely true that gnomes are small, fully grown gnomes vary
from as little as eight inches to as much as three feet. It is also
true that gnomes wear pointed hats out of preference, it is true that
they frequently live in underground burrows, more often than not,
stolen from rabbits, it is true that they are notorious kleptomaniacs,
it is true that they make remarkably intricate and hard wearing
machinery, it is even true that they enjoy relaxing in the shade,
smoking pipes and fishing. It is however a complete falsehood that any
gnome would ever eat fish.

Wallace son of Chris son of Albersnatch son of Olafson son of blind
King Dragonswort was sheltering from the night air under the shrubbery,
smoking a slow pipe and enjoying a spot of fly fishing. He had tethered
Old Betty, his number one fly, with a loop around the indent between
her thorax and abdomen padded with a strip of wormskin. It was a
complicated procedure, too loose and the fly would thrash herself free,
too tight and even with the wormskin he risked severing her in half as
she flogged against the thread.

Tired from fighting against her leash and supporting the weight of
the snare, Old Betty had been reduced to circling in a pendulum motion
at the bottom of the line. Fatigue periodically overtook the urge to
escape and she would let her wings rest, swinging on the thread, before
attempting to fly again and pulling the pendulum away in a different
direction, causing it to move in an unpredictable, chaotic motion.

Buzz, rest, buzz, rest, buzz, rest.

She dropped within millimetres of the pond surface and Wallace
immediately raised the rod slightly giving her motion another jerk. A
wet fly this tired would be useless, as it was he was only carrying on
because it was Old Betty, any other fly and he would have given up and
gone home as soon as she first started to flag. That and he needed the
money.

Suddenly, from the edge of the pond a frog struck, its long tongue
lashed out with deadly precision and struck Old Betty square. The
impulse triggered the snare which sprang shut on the bulbous adhesive
end of the tongue, skewering it right through with one tiny viscous
steel hook. The frog, instinctively retracting its tongue before the
pain had even registered, lifted off from the lily pad and found itself
suspended by the fishing line above the surface of the pond.

Wallace pulled up the rod and examined his catch, it was a pretty
big one, a good inch less than marvellous but at least it wasn't
another toad. He clasped the rod between his thighs, held the frog with
one hand, forced two fingers inside its mouth and levered it open. With
the other hand he pinched the end of the tongue and pulled it out as
far as it would go, it was nearly twice the length of the frog itself.
He clutched the tongue in the middle where it was thin and sinewy,
yanked it out with a sharp tug and threw his kicking catch back into
the pond.

After carefully releasing the snare and checking it thoroughly to
see that it hadn't been overly strained he gently liberated Old Betty
from the adhesive and the fishing line, placed her back in her box,
stuffed the frog's tongue in a leather satchel with the rest of his
catch, packed up his tackle and started home. As he stealthily crossed
the lawn other tongueless frogs hopped uselessly out of his way. Humans
were stupid, he mused, they would not notice a thing until the whole
lot died of starvation in a few days time.

At that point the security light flashed on. Wallace swore under his
breath, stopped still as a stone statuette and waited for a good two
minutes until he was sure that nobody had woken up. Poaching was a
mug's game, he thought to himself, and poaching from fish ponds doubly
so. Furtively he reversed back on himself and headed for the hole in
the hedge at the bottom of the garden, it was there, with dawn only
moments away, and a severe artificial light illuminating the ground,
that he spotted something glinting in amongst the nettles.

*****

High above Herr Schmitt glided through the air with an
uncharacteristic grace, his body arched slightly back and his arms flat
by his side he achieved an almost perfectly level flight behind and far
below the orbital skyhook. He drifted through the sky at a stately
apparent speed of about fifteen miles per hour, angled slightly into a
low head wind. Behind the balloon like facemask his eyes scanned the
air ahead of him, searching for that telltale golden flash. His stomach
rumbled.

Loosing the elegance of his position Schmitt twisted his shoulders
against the harness in an attempt to face in reverse, went twice round
in an unexpected lateral spin before ending up being pulled backwards
in an ungainly but stable sitting position. His appetite unaffected by
the aerobatics he delved into the flightsuit pockets and retrieved a
bread roll, a small knife on a string, half a bratwurst and an
individual sachet of butter. He placed the items in his lap, wedging
them slightly between his thighs to prevent them from blowing away, cut
the roll in two and buttered both halves before mindfully folding up
the expended butter sachet and placing it back in the pocket. He then
cut two generous slices from the sausage, constructed a sandwich and
carefully skewered it with a large cocktail stick, tethered, like the
knife, to his person.

Licking his lips Schmitt opened his facemask to eat. He took a
breath, gasped in shock at the ice cold air and started to roll
forwards. He quickly stabilised himself using both arms as fins but
watched in helpless horror as the bratwurst rolled steadily down his
thigh, over his knees, bounced off the end of his foot and leisurely
tumbled away towards the ground. A surreal surprise for somebody he
mused as he bit into the sandwich and regretted not bringing any
pickle. He stowed the knife, cracked open a can of Bavarian lager
retrieved from yet another pocket and watched the still falling
sausage. This was the life, he thought, weather permitting he should do
this every weekend.