Sunday, 25 November 2012

Doctor Who: The Ice Machine Monster

There was a bang, a crash and a gurgle.

"Hmm, the ice-machine is making a lot more noise than normal today" thought Amy as she opened the back room door.  She put down the empty ice bucket and switched on the light. It flickered on and then off and then finally sputtered into life. As the door closed shut behind her the sound of the club and drunken shouting died to a distant drone. She breathed a quick sigh of relief, relishing the fresh air without the stale smell of sweat and alcohol. The room was more or less empty except for the ice machine to the left of the door and lots of pipes and pumps connecting the barrels to the bar out front. Boxes of bottles and cans littered the floor in organised chaos. Waiting to be taken out and consumed by an eager drinking horde. A blue tarpaulin hung from the ceiling, separating the room into two halves, and behind this was where all the barrels were kept. The door to the back of the club through which the barrels were brought down was letting in a cold draught, however she swore it was a lot colder than it normally was in the room.

Amy walked over to the ice machine in the corner and pushed open the hatch to get to the ice, picking up the plastic scoop. The real plastic scoop had gone missing a couple of weeks ago and it hadn't been replaced yet, so instead they were using one made out of an old 6 pint milk bottle. Not as sturdy as a real scoop but it did the trick. She re-read the 'do not leave scoop in the machine it will get covered!' sign once again, as she always does.

More bangs and gurgles from behind the blue curtain made her jump. She giggled at how pathetic she was being.

"I've been watching far too many horror stories" she scolded herself.

She reached into the machine and started filling up the bucket with ice. There was another bang, this time followed by a hiss and the sound of something being dragged across the floor.

Amy turned around nervously, then started filling up the bucket quicker.

"It is really busy in the club, I better go back." She thought to herself.

She pulled the ice machine hatch closed just as the lights in the room went out.

"Hey! What's going on?" she shouted, her voice shaking slightly. "James? Is that you? Very funny, now stop it! You're starting to freak me out".

She started feeling her way to the door, to turn the lights back on. She tripped over one of the boxes of bottles, banging her knee and came up cursing.

"If this is one of your stupid jokes I am going to bloody kill you!" She made it to the door and felt along the wall to find the switch amongst the pipes leading along the wall. She found the switch but it was horribly wet and sticky for some reason.

"Urgh!" She said, turning it on. The light flickered again and turned on. She looked at her hand and saw that it, and the light switch, were covered in yellow slime.

"Oh my god what the hell!?" She said, quickly wiping her hand on her jeans. She felt something warm drip onto her neck, she flinched, and wiped it away instinctively to find that it was covered in more yellow slime. Warm this time.

Another drip onto her face.

She looked up.

And tried to scream.

It was too late.

The door clicked shut again and a small puddle of water slowly formed under the door from the dropped ice.

Amy's colleagues assumed she had simply quit work without saying anything.

It had happened before...



'Doctor Who' is copyrighted to the BBC

Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Dragons, dragons dragons!

Ok, so my plan on writing one of these a week has already fallen through! But I have a spare 5 mins so thought I would do one now :)

Not much has really progressed in the world of Hesti recently. More gone backwards or not moved at all. I have just given in my notice at my place of work, which I have mixed feelings about. I love working there but with Christmas and Masters I just wouldn't be able to keep it up. Going to be very sad to say goodbye to all the lovely people I work with but hopefully I will be able to keep in touch, from the other side of the bar! It does also mean I can pick up some shifts at the Baths again over Christmas, which I have to admit I am really looking forward to. I always loved walking around the Great Bath when it was a cold miserable day because the steam used to make it so atmospheric, so really looking forward to what it will look like in the dead of winter!

I am also failing in buying things. Since having a job I actually have money and it is great! Only I keep forgetting that I won't have a job soon and therefore stop spending!!! Just bought a load of jewellery off of the internet for my various piercings and managed to basically get all of the sizings wrong. Another classic Hesti moment! So as a result I am now re-stretching my ear from a 3/3.5 to a 4, because for some reason I think that would be easier than sending them back for new sizes! I also bought a big bag of balls (te he) because I kept pinging the balls off of my bars when drunk, so now I have 50 balls of various colours but no where to put them so I want more jewellery and more piercings! Bit of a fail.


One sort of good thing that is happening at the moment is I am actually getting on with writing my essay! Well, when I say writing I mean reading books and making notes and thinking up awesome one liners that I want to put in! Today I went to the library and got a book out called 'J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator' by Hammond and Scull. For some obsurd reason I never realised that Tolkien was an artist and most of the original pictures for his texts were actually done by him! The picture of Smaug I put on the bottom of my last post was by him! No idea! And yes I feel very stupid for not realising! Today I have completely fallen in love with his work and now want to get one of his dragons (the one to the left) tattooed on my wrist (if I ever man up enough to get one done that is!). That dragon is (apparently) inspired by Beowulf and the words underneath read 'hringboga heorte gefysed' which is taken from the Old English which means 'Now was the heart of the coiling beast stirred to come out to fight.' How cool is that!? So yeah, my day has been predominately dragon filled!

Writing essays, thinking about working at the Baths and also updating this has made me feel a bit homesick which is strange but I must soldier on. I have work tonight which hopefully won't be too bad and I might be able to pick up a few tips to add to my jar! If it is empty (which is quite often is at the start) I think I will just either sit and think, or clean and think about my essay some more, just to at least pretend that I feel on top of it all!

I leave you with another of Tolkien's paintings which I really want to have on my wall at some point, it is 'Smaug flies around the mountain'


Laters!
x


Monday, 5 November 2012

Thank you! & Update!

Ok, first things first, thank you so much to everyone who has read my blog I have over 1000 views! ^_^ Means so much to me! Especially all the awesome comments I have had back from it telling me how good my Doctor Who episode is! The amount of times I've been told I need to give it to the BBC to make it in to a real episode is unbelievable! Personally I don't think they would even give it the time of day!

Secondly I should probably apologise about not writing anything for ages! Been caught up in Masters, working and, who am I kidding, drinking whilst back at uni! Hopefully cutting down on the last one and picking up the other two more! I have a new positive 'get sh*t done!' attitude!

Thought I would let you know what I am doing in my Masters, as I think it is pretty cool! First off I am doing a module on the Myth of King Arthur, which I absolutely love! I did my undergrad dissertation on Merlin so I am very happy with this! Thinking of getting the feminist out of her bag for my essay for that one which could be interesting! The other module I am doing is Tolkien's Medievalism, which basically means I am reading Tolkien's work alongside the medieval texts which inspired him. Have you ever thought of reading Beowulf alongside the Hobbit? No? Well do it! It is so cool! I am planning on writing my essay on dragons and how cool they are! Well not really, but how Tolkien uses Dragons in his children's stories and comparing them to the dragons in Beowulf and other Old English texts. Which, in my honest opinion is pretty blooming cool!

I think I will try and start writing this once a week again. It might be pretty boring after the excitement of Doctor Who though. I am hoping to write another story for this (This time a murder mystery!) But I need time to do that, and at the moment when I have spare time I should be reading or writing my essays! (Part of my new attitude!) Hopefully it will last for at least a while!

Here is an illustration of Smaug from the edition of the Hobbit I own myself


Laters! x