oloriel | Poterum Sero Quam Numquam* (Reply)

I thought I heard a voice from somewhere at the side of the road, from the bushes. I thought I heard someone calling for help. But I didn't see anyone; and the other people around didn't seem to hear anything. If they noticed anything at all, they quickened their pace and hurried on.
But I am curious, and so I cautiously went to look. I peered into the bushes, but still I didn't see anyone. Yet, the voice was definitely there. "Help! Here!"

I looked down, and saw a large grey rat shuffling through the frozen leaves at my feet. It stared up at me with jet-black eyes and mouthed, "Finally! Help."
On instinct, I took a step back. It's not really that I'm afraid of rats - I trained myself not to be afraid of rats, caterpillars or spiders at an early age - but large wild rats aren't quite the same thing as tame pet rats, and besides, hearing a rat speak is never a good sign.
Luckily, it didn't follow me. And because I'm a curious person, I fought my surprise and squatted down to look at it. After all, you don't meet speaking rats every day.

I did, however, risk a look around. There were still people, but they didn't seem to find it odd that I was squatting next to the bushes on the very left side of the sidewalk. But then, people are good at ignoring odd things. I tried to make eye-contact with one of them, but they were all very much not looking. I sighed.
The rat gave an indignant huff. "I said, are you even listening to me?"

I blinked a few times, I even rubbed my eyes and pinched my hand (methods of testing whether one dreams or not, although I have always found them lacking - what if you only dream you pinch your hand? Aha.). The rat was still there, staring at me with its little beetle-eyes, unblinkingly. "...well," I finally said. "I'm not really used to listening to a rat."
"I see that; otherwise you'd be a bit more polite. But I need someone to help, so I'll forgive you for now. Will you get moving now?"
I blinked again. "Wait, wait. Why me?"
"Because you're the first one to stop and listen, though you're doing a bloody job of it."
"I didn't even know that I understood Rat."
If a rat's eyes were more than just black orbs, I could've sworn that it was rolling its eyes at me. "You don't. I'm speaking Human."
"Oh. Of course." I had reached the point at which I was willing to accept that this was just another odd dream. But then, most of the times that you believe that it's just a dream, you're in for a surprise, aren't you?

While I had been busy with these thoughts, the rat had turned around and made to walk deeper into the bushes. With a shrug, I followed it. Strangely enough, the branches parted as though to make room for me. With an impatient flick of its tail, the rat told me to walk faster.

I knew these bushes, and I knew the meadow that lies behind it: It was right next to my kindergarten and very close to the elementary school I went to, so I spent quite a few days there, playing. When I passed through the bushes now, however, there was no trace of the meadow I knew. Instead, there was a market-place of sorts, with stalls full of exotic fruits and strange carvings, colourful fabrics and delicate jewellery. I stared in surprise at the mass of people moving around. I only say 'people' because I cannot think of any better word: There were animals both in their ordinary size (such as the impatient rat calling to me to follow it) and as large as, or even larger than, your average human. There were humans, too, although the term 'average' probably wouldn't have applied to even one of them. There were gnomes and trolls - or, at any rate, creatures whom these terms seemed to fit better than any other. There was noise and song and the scent of food, the smell of strong drinks and illegal pipe-fillings. There were a thousand things to look at - shrinkheads, wooden masks, tiny sculptures made out of semi-precious stones, elaborately decorated knives, ancient swords, dresses and shirts in strange colours and cuts, dusty old books -

but I must afraid that I was so shocked and confused that I didn't look at any of them, didn't follow the rat either, but turned around and ran back through the bushes. The branches whipped at me and roots tripped me up, but nonetheless I reached the sidewalk on the other side. One or two people were stopping and staring now. I gave them some sort of apologetic smile, and they shook their heads and marched on. I looked around. Everything seemed just as it had been before I left. So I bit my lip, looked around again, and fought my way through the bushes again. One of those swords had looked really interesting...

However, on the other side of the bushes, there was only a frozen meadow.

... actually, my day was surreal enough even without talking rats. I visited my parents' (as in, my parents' house, as my parents themselves are currently in Austria). As soon as I came in the door, my brother said that it was good I was there because he needed help making a medieval-looking letter, and what to do about the paper. So I initiated him in the high art of Making Paper Look Parchment-Like By Painting It With Black Tea (Or Coffee, But Then It Will Smell). I even found an ancient tiny rest of sealing wax in my room, and managed to cut him a seal from a bit of soapstone I still had in my room as well (see? This is why I never throw things away!). Uh-huh, I was a seal-maker today. It's a very rough and simple seal, but with some imagination you can see that it bears a phoenix rising from five flames, which is the badge of my brother's subcreated world. Then I taught him to use the sealing wax and the seal, and it even worked. Nothing like being able to help your little brother ('little', in this case, meaning 25cm taller than me, but nonetheless 1 1/2 years younger)...
In return, I stole his Scrubs DVDs. Hah.

I filled my car's tank, but it wouldn't take my bank card (saying something about me having exceeded my credit limit). Which is odd, because I haven't really done anything wild with my bank account this month, so there should've been more than enough money on there. Will have to investigate. Bah.
As the bill came down to 55€ and I only had 30€ in cash with me, I was really lucky that the guy at the cash desk accepted those 30€ and my promise to bring the missing 25€ tomorrow before noon. Argh.

And for tomorrow night, we're invited to witness some sort of mysterious genetic experiment at Jörg's mother's place. I'm not quite sure what the outcome will be, but it has to do with a chicken, a tin of beer, South African spices and a salad I'm supposed to make. We will see what comes out of that. If you hear anything about a drunk giant chicken pelting people with sun-dried tomatoes, chilis and mangoes tomorrow, you'll know where it comes from...

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*"Late is better than never"