{"id":4488,"date":"2016-12-28T08:17:05","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T13:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/?p=4488"},"modified":"2024-03-24T18:46:55","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T22:46:55","slug":"come-with-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/come-with-me\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Come With Me&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-24\" src=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/k-avatar-e1443983846496.png\" alt=\"by Kent\" width=\"81\" height=\"81\" \/>\u201cIs this an ocean menagerie?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to<\/li>\n<li>shot him in the mouth<\/li>\n<li>a converted fireman<\/li>\n<li>young ladies usually are<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tune in next time part 140\u00a0<\/strong><b>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/tune-in-next-time\/\">Click Here for Earlier Installments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Come with me,&#8221; I said to Freya. She flung herself onto her\u00a0ersatz Claus and shook her head, a perfect, petulant tantrum. It might have been adorable when she was two, and apparently the white-bearded man laying underneath her had much laxer standards.<\/p>\n<p>I wrote her off. She knew she&#8217;d have mother to answer to later, and apparently she didn&#8217;t care. I had to move quickly, as the tattoo admonished. Quicken my steps, as mother had scolded.<\/p>\n<p>The message inked on my chest was not meant to be taken literally. I knew, for example, that the glistening treetops it referred to were branching bioluminescent coral formations on view at the Contrarian National Aquarium. Handy that it was three blocks away.<\/p>\n<p>Admission was free. I headed down three levels to the proper tank, and stood gazing at glowing, gently swaying fronds, like a deep-sea rave where someone subbed horse tranquilizer for ecstasy.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Is this an ocean menagerie?&#8221;<\/em> asked the red-haired lady beside me. It sure sounded like a coded phrase, but I had no countersign that went with it. She must be meeting up with a different operative. I nodded, because the correct answer to her question was, &#8220;Yes.&#8221; This exchange was <em>something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to<\/em> acknowledgement of a coded signal. She set down her shopping bag beside my feet and wandered off.<\/p>\n<p>Whoever was running their game, I would like to have <em>shot him in the mouth<\/em> with a squirt gun full of bleach. I stepped away from the bag so its intended recipient wouldn&#8217;t feel the need to do anything drastic when he showed up.<\/p>\n<p>Half an hour later, I was still alone at the viewing window, with only the abandoned shopping bag for companionship. Maybe I misread the situation? Maybe the red-head was the headmistress? Worth a glance in the bag to figure it out, right?<\/p>\n<p>The bag contained a jigsaw puzzle, or at least I hoped it was just one puzzle&#8217;s worth of pieces. Of course, the moment I picked it up was when more people entered the exhibit, so I couldn&#8217;t just leave it.<\/p>\n<p>But something else distracted the arriving throng. I turned back to the glass and saw a diver in the dark water, using <em>a converted fireman<\/em>&#8216;s breathing apparatus in place of real SCUBA gear. Apart from the breather, the diver wore only a bikini, and she wore it well. I noticed an odd pattern to the way she released her bubbles, but my view was quickly blocked by a few dozen high-school boys pressing their noses to the glass. When they swim in skimpy costumes, <em>young ladies usually are<\/em> an irresistible lure for teenage boys.<\/p>\n<p>bonus points for using them in order<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Stichomancy Writing Prompts\" href=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/stichomancy-writing-prompts\/\">about stichomancy writing prompts<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/stichomancy-writing-prompt-generator\/\">try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIs this an ocean menagerie?\u201d something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to shot him in the mouth a converted fireman young ladies usually are Tune in next time part 140\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Click Here for Earlier Installments &#8220;Come with me,&#8221; I said to Freya. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,4],"tags":[91,469,403],"class_list":["post-4488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stichomancy-prompts","category-writing-prompts","tag-bonus-points","tag-scuba","tag-tune-in-next-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4488"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10010,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions\/10010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}