Beetroot
The viceroy was extremely uncomfortable. And when he was uncomfortable, he fidgeted with his otherwise unnecessary monocle.
So he stood in the parlor, fidgeting with his monocle, and staring at the object that had just crashed through his fine Victorian window onto his very fine Persian carpet, fetched back from Egypt after a haggling session that only came to an end when his wife stormed in and demanded they be off with it for... well, whatever the currency was. He couldn't be expected to keep up with every little detail of his backstory.
His wife, speaking of, crashed through the wide double doors connecting the parlor to the sitting room. They often spent evenings one in the other, as they'd never quite figured out the difference between a sitting room and a parlor and made the effort to make the best use of each. "What in the heavens is that!" She pointed to the thing to which she was referring.
"Well," he said, twirling his monocle absentmindedly, "It appears to be a space ship."
"In a Victorian story?" She didn't have quite the same distinctive prop to twirl in times of anxiety, she was the more active of the two, less passive, and she was used to driving the action, should it be accidentally tackling a gorilla, ending a bartering session for her favorite rug, upon which was now sitting a small-to-medium sized space ship, or nagging her husband about this and that around the house. She had to content herself with worrying the ends of her apron strings.
"I suppose."
"Should we move it?" She made a move towards the craft, peeking her head under the saucer-like portion of the ship that had come to rest off the floor, and her favorite carpet.
"Umm, no, I should think not. You're not supposed to move a... well, umm. I haven't a clue what to do. A native charging, sure, I could manage that. Or wild animals, or fire. But space ships crash landed on my parlor floor, well, I'm a little bit lost what to do."
The two of them spent some time staring at the space ship, little wisps of smoke sticking out from the sides of the saucer as if it were a child, sticking its tongue out at them.
"I can tell you one thing," said the viceroy's wife, "Reginald would love this. He's always going on about space ships, isn't he? Shall I get him?"
"Umm, no. No. We shouldn't. In fact, it'd be better if we got it out of sight before he came down, just put it behind that door, there." He pointed accordingly.
She straightened, and took a step towards the door. "Oh, I don't know if we should use that door, after all, I don't even know if it opens at all any more. I mean, I come into this room and I expect it to be open, I couldn't imagine shutting it, if only for a moment to get a space ship hidden behind it. It just wouldn't feel right. The room would be forever changed for me... I'd feel very uncomfortable... wouldn't you, dear? And you know how much you do love this room. Don't you?"
"Look, dear, I know about my lion's head being back there. I'm okay with it."
"Oh. Yes. Sorry about that. I just hate it looking at me."
"Well, I figured shoving the lion's head and the space ship behind there will keep each other company. I don't even properly recall shooting the lion, so search me where it came from, anyway."
The viceroy's wife went off to the kitchen to get oven mitts, which were hidden in the pantry, deep on one of the shelves, as they were rarely used in the story, and quite out of keeping with the decor. And she took one side, he the other, and they pushed the space ship behind the door, just beneath the mangy lion's head with a slightly flatter nose than it originally had, thanks to the door being pressed into it through all the years.
They both then both retired to the sitting room, as the parlor had now become something slightly different. And stank of leaking cooling fluid, which had stained the carpet a bright green.
disclaimer:
And so it ended, part the fifth.
This is a reader alert, I repeat, reader alert. Due to circumstances mostly beyond our control, we may or may not be disrupting service very, very soon now. You see, the janitor is expecting a little baby, and we've hired a lot of employees that get excitable around that sort of thing, so when the big day does indeed come, well, we're probably going to be a little less focused on turning out fine quality whatever it is we turn out weekly. For a few weeks, at any rate.
We shall see what happens after that, but, for now, we're just issuing that warning. So appreciate us while you can. Or maybe feel comfortable in the fact that our employees will have heirs, and someone will be around to keep writing this mess.
Oh, and by the way, this month marks the TWELFTH year of Sane Magazine. Twelve. Jee. Zuss.
If you had feelings about this week's issue, be sure to let us know how you felt. If your feeling isn't covered here... well, I guess you're stuck, then, aren't you?
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