Unsung Antiquities

As the most exclusive antiques dealer in London, I’ve seen a lot of oddities. Sure, your low market guys have to deal with fakes and worthless crap, but the peerage and the upper crust? They think the weirdest things are valuable.

Like last week, this Lord came in and placed a painting and a manuscript on the table, and asked for a price. I looked them over.

“Well, this is real van Gogh, and this is a Shakespeare original.”

“Valuable then, yes?”

“A little, if you find hardcore collectors. I mean, van Gogh texts are common and Shakespeare couldn’t paint…”

Maintaining The Gimmick

Every week, when he came to ringside, at the end of his intro spiel, he’d claim he was a genius.

“I speak five dead languages! And I can tell it’s not butter!”

And now he was sitting in front of the singer-songwriter of the famous “Unspeakable You”. He claimed that he knew who it was about.

He got called on it.

The moment the camera crew left, he began to beg.

“Look, it’s just a gimmick, I have no idea who the song’s about, unless it’s… You? I dunno.”

Her jaw dropped. And then she begged to maintain her gimmick.

My Friends’ Friends

As I entered the room, my Redriver counterpart was sculling back some mead.

“Ah, join me in trying this, you people make a good drop…” he exclaimed. I shook my head and looked over the map, feeling something was wrong.

“Are you sure your allies are loyal?”

He snorted.

“Of course! Fastwater has always been loyal to us, and the Elves want access to our wool, and the Dwarves? We’ve been trading with them for decades! Relax!”

“But… What if the Dwarves get a better offer?”

He went to laugh this off, but the floor gave way at that point.

Finding Its Way

I stormed onto my boss’ cloud.

“We need to sort this out.” I said with no fanfare. His wings ruffled, a sign he was annoyed, but I had to press on.

“Look, I understand why we started getting people to live in cities, it certainly made it easier to ensure their soul mates were within close proximity, and also allowed for backups to be lost in the crowd until such time as they were needed. But what about those outside the cities? They aren’t being matched quickly…”

Then Cupid tossed me a file.

‘The Internet’, it’s called. Should solve everything.

Faulty Pattern Recognition

Jack and Geoff had an agreement, Jack didn’t try to convert Geoff, and Geoff didn’t quote Dawkins at Jack. But then after yet another failed relationship, Jack saw something.

“Look buddy, the last few girls, remind me, going backwards it was...?”

“Uh, well I just got dumped by Mary, before her was Faith, then before that was Grace, Chastity, Ruth… What?

“And you don’t see a pattern here? You don’t think that maybe there’s something missing, a hole you’re trying to fill?”

“I… You may be right…”

Jack was pleased, until a week later when Geoff introduced him to Mark…

Australian Pride

She was standing on the corner with a perplexed look on her face.

“G’day love. Need a hand?”

She turned and smiled. I could tell from her teeth she was a Yank. But hot.

“’G-Day’” she began, as I tried to hide my smile. “I was looking for the Subway station.”

“Train’s this way love, follow me. So where you headed?”

“To the Zoo, I want to see a Koala Bear, but apparently they aren’t all over the place…”

I chuckled.

“I got a pet one at home…”

Hey, what’s more Aussie then lying to get into some girl’s pants?

Overlooking Armageddons

He entered the large crystal doors to be met by a smartly dressed Arachnoid mothertype.

“Hello, and welcome to The Facility. Please follow me to your new workplace.”

She spun around and led me to an empty crystalline cave in a wall full of them. She waved a griplimb and the wall lit up.

“We monitor 47,634,196 different beings, forces or items that have the Armageddon rating of potential damage here at The Facility. You shall assist in this.”

I looked at her.

“But there’s 47,634,197 of them.”

She looked worried till I pointed to the counter behind her rising.