{"id":4563,"date":"2017-01-23T08:19:36","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T13:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/?p=4563"},"modified":"2021-08-15T19:33:03","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T23:33:03","slug":"the-strange-woman-i-had-been-following","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/the-strange-woman-i-had-been-following\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strange Woman I Had Been Following"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-13\" src=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/j-avatar-e1443983489508.png\" alt=\"by jen\" width=\"81\" height=\"81\" \/>love is all you need<\/li>\n<li>ritualistic intensity<\/li>\n<li>brilliantly lighted streets, the hard pavements, and death.<\/li>\n<li>cherry cough medicine<\/li>\n<li>smoothed the map out on her lap<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tune in next time part 147\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>The strange woman I had been following entered the train station and took a map from the rotating display rack. As she sat on a bench, awaiting the arrival of the candy-colored Rainbow Connection locomotive, she <em>smoothed the map out on her lap<\/em> and traced a route with her finger. I grabbed myself a copy of the map and stood across the room watching her. It was easy for me to follow along because she wore gloves of the same <em>cherry cough medicine<\/em>-red as her coat.<\/p>\n<p>When her brilliant red fingertip reached Barbershoppe, she tapped the map twice and smiled grimly to herself. I stepped behind a potted palm tree and thought of all the things\u00a0Barbershoppe was famous for: the<em> brilliantly lighted streets, the hard pavements, and death.<\/em>\u00a0According to my Uncle Jinx, the inhabitants of that curious little city were possessed of a <em>ritualistic intensity<\/em> that made them industrious workers. I recalled him telling me how he&#8217;d hired only Barbershoppian contractors when he built TinselTown.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the year-round Christmas theme park was built on the outskirts of Barbershoppe. I studied my map. Where my yuletide amusement ought to be was something called Valentine Village. Their motto? <em>Love is all you need<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I seethed. Someone had shanghaied my inheritance and changed its theme! Now I might never find the answers I needed.<\/p>\n<p>I wondered if the perpetrator was a member of my own duplicitous family. Perhaps Jason.<\/p>\n<p>When the train arrived, the tinsely woman boarded the green car. I followed and took the seat directly behind her. I was ready for some answers.<\/p>\n<p>bonus points for using them in reverse 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>love is all you need ritualistic intensity brilliantly lighted streets, the hard pavements, and death. cherry cough medicine smoothed the map out on her lap Tune in next time part 147\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Click Here for Earlier Installments The strange woman I had been following [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,4],"tags":[91,341,403],"class_list":["post-4563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stichomancy-prompts","category-writing-prompts","tag-bonus-points","tag-clothes","tag-tune-in-next-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4563"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4567,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563\/revisions\/4567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}