The TFP Plotto Machine Output #7

Precisely 1,000 words.

Serving Elizabeth

He really did love her at some point. He liked to believe that at some point she had loved him. Some 10 years before, Elizabeth’s high-society family was throwing some of their old money into a fund raiser for rain forest preservation. Edward was a butcher; he and his father were working with the caterer to supply some of their locally-renowned meats. Edward—though back then, he was just Eddie—noticed Elizabeth from across the room. Elizabeth made eyes at Eddie, and that was it. He knew he wanted to make her happy. He knew he wanted to serve her.

So, he pursued her. He wooed her. Against all odds, he married her. He supposed he could have been a kept man, spoiled by her money and wanting for nothing. But that wasn’t the way he was raised. He loved running the butcher shop with his old man, perfecting their house-made sausages, perfecting their proprietary spice blends, perfecting his techniques for breaking down an animal to get the best use out of every last piece, and working toward expanding the butcher shop and opening a lunch counter.

Understandably, Eddie never quite fit in with Elizabeth’s circle, despite her efforts to change him. She decided how he should get his hair cut. That never really bothered him. She decided he should grow up and go by Edward instead of Eddie. That irked him a bit, but he got used to it. One day while he was at the shop, she threw out all his clothes, without asking or telling him, and bought new clothes for him. He was angry about that one. She cried. He made himself forgive her. After everything, it didn’t matter what he was wearing. He just wanted to serve Elizabeth.

They would host dinner parties for her rich, snooty friends. He drank beer while they drank rare and exotic vintages. He tried in vain to keep up with their conversations. They would cast sidelong glances at him and share jokes behind hands and wine glasses. Elizabeth would playfully tell them to be nice, because he was “just a butcher”. He swallowed the indignity. He was willing to smile in their faces to make her happy, because he just wanted to serve Elizabeth.

Four years back, Edward’s father was killed in an auto accident. It was hard on him, and Elizabeth was little comfort. She seemed to treat the wake more like a cocktail party, drinking martinis, chatting and laughing with her friends. At graveside, she said to him, “now that there’s nothing keeping you there, maybe you can sell that little store of yours and really do something with your life.” Edward had never been so hurt in his entire life. He said nothing. He tried to convince himself she didn’t mean it and that she may even apologize. There was a small part of his brain that knew this was the beginning of the end, yet he still wanted to serve Elizabeth.

She never apologized, and he made himself put the incident behind him. He kept on at the butcher shop, more determined than ever to open the lunch counter that he and his father had dreamed of. However, as delicious and as popular as his chops, cuts, and sausages were, he began to realize that he would need investors if he was going to expand. He tried to reach out to Elizabeth’s high-finance friends, but she wouldn’t let him. He rolled over and took it. Because he had spent so much time serving Elizabeth, it just came out of habit.

After nearly two years of trying to get even one investor interested in his expansion, he had run out of options. He had grown weary of serving Elizabeth. So he hatched a plan. He would show her just what it meant to be “just a butcher”. He would show her just what the shop meant to him, and what the expansion would mean to him.

So he took her to his shop, for the first time in their ten years together.

“This shop is why we met in the first place, remember? Your family—including you—enjoyed the meats that this shop puts out.”

“Of course I remember. But I thought you had grown up since then. When are you going to let go of this silly game?”

“A game? Why do you think all this is silly? There’s an entire community around here that relies on the service I provide. Y’know what? Come into the back with me. I’m going to show you something.” He led her back to the cooler where they had just received a fresh side of beef. “Do you know what this is?”

“Um….meat?”

He let loose a sharp chuckle. “Yeah. It’s meat. This is the left half of a cow. If you cared, I could show you right this second where ribeye steaks come from, where the tenderloin is, where the shank is, even where the meat comes from for that shepherd’s pie you’ve always loved so much.” He then pointed to a series of knives hanging from the wall. “And these are the tools of my trade. I’m very proud of them.”

“I’m sure you are. But I don’t see what’s so special. You’re just a butcher. Anyone could do this.”

No more. He was sick of serving Elizabeth, and he was never going to do it again. He decided in that instant to show her how well he could use his knives.



Three weeks later, Edward had some of Elizabeth’s friends over for a meal in her honor. He served up the best that his shop had to offer. There was a charcuterie sampler, a variety of sandwiches, even a family-recipe blood sausage. As a main course, he served Elizabeth’s favourite: shepherd’s pie. The dinner guests were all amazed at the quality of his foods. When they asked him what his secret was, he just smiled.

In the end, he didn’t mind serving Elizabeth one last time.

 

I have to tell you Altermoose, your writing has improved so much since we all started on this. I really enjoyed reading this though I do have to confess that I knew what was coming pretty much from the start. Being the big Twilight Zone fan I am, I remembered the episode called "To Serve Man" and thought of it immediately as the logical outcome especially considering Edward was a butcher. It didn't spoil the read for me though.

Good writing!

 

Yeah, that was where I went the second I wrote the title, but I couldn't resist the double entndre. Writing that last line made me positively gidy, though!

Thanxz for the ongoing support my friend!

 

A person swayed by pretense, being impelled by an unusual motive to engage in crafty enterprise, rescues integrity from a serious entanglement.

No too long ago Lidia came back to her hometown because she believed she had a connection with a man that felt like comfort to her. She wanted to feel happiness and knew he always said the right things to make her feel good at that moment, until he had her in his grips once again. It did not take long for her to feel his sting of his obsessive behavior towards her.

She was away for so long and forgot about his horrible remarks and making her feel like she was worth nothing, she was nothing without him.
This time he actually held back until he had her convinced that she needed him to be able to be anything in this world.

She went home that night and cried, knowing he cannot change.

It is a game of manipulation with him. He had told her “Lidia I will come live with you anywhere you decide to go.” In her mind she knew he did not work and never has worked.
He deals in dope to make his money and tells her it is easy money and she could have anything she wanted.
She did not have to go to college and have a career for he would take care of her.

She wanted to get away from him right then, knowing she had made a major mistake by seeing him. Her flight was not for another day and just to keep the peace she stayed with him one more night, wanting to puke with anxiety.

Once she finally escaped his grips, she made it to the airport. But not without him calling her 50 times before she was at the airport. She was so confused and forgot her ID. She did not make her flight and had to reschedule until the following day. She decided it would be best to stay at her brother’s house far away from him.

It was incredible, as if the devil was working in her life as he always has in her mind.
She could not find her ID once again at the airport. She fought her tears back and thought someone is really working hard to keep me here. Is it evil or just a lesson to be learned; how hard would she fight to leave.
Lidia recalled that when she had to purchase another ticket the night before that maybe she had left her ID at the ticket counter. She screamed with delight when they said it was there and they had forgot to return it to her.

She had boarded the plane before its departure, but before it actually left the airport the plane was called back to the gate. By this time Lidia was shaken to the core, what is this, what spirit is in control? I just need to get out of here now.
They removed a sick man from the flight and finally she was on her way back home. When the plane landed Lidia took in a deep breath and knew everything was going to be okay.

 

Darkness, Part 7.

Jezebel and Isabel have deserted Stan and Satan, and have gone to Jezebel's place in ancient Babylon ... but Satan is not taking it lying down. Re plotto prompt ... Moloch is protagonist in this section. He will not get to achieve the 'atonement' until the next section. OK .. here goes



Meanwhile, back in Hell, Satan had run the course of invective, threats and curses. He was practising his magnanimous welcome home speech.
“Ahhhh, Jezebel, I thought you’d come crawling back - an eternity by my side has furnished you well, and you do not wish to relinquish what you have gained. I may forgive you, but I certainly shall not forget. Draw closer NO don’t get up … on your belly is the way it should be - you may not stand proud for you have nothing, I repeat nothing to stand proud for!”

With a flourish, Satan swirled his cloak as he turned away from the space where Jezebel wasn’t.

He turned back to the space, and, glowering, said “Heh .. Back so soon? I am not surprised but you may enter no more. This is not your home so scuttle away to the cold and dark!” Then turned back and away a few times to perfect his swirl.

After swirl number 48 he gave a jaded “Muahahahaha” and called “Moloch? Moloch. MooooooooooLoooooooooch!”
The response was a distant rumble and sounds like a steam train “Ssssssss Sddddd, Fffffffff Fffffffff, Ssssssss …” Louder and louder until burst into the room Moloch, somersaulting and skidding as if thrown from a speeding vehicle. Satan leapt aside as this tumbling specimen of Demonhood skimmed the marble floor like a stone on the water, hardly any friction to slow him down, and came to a sudden and crashing halt against the far wall.

Satan ambled toward Moloch to help him up, caught himself, and backed up a small flight of stairs to sit in his throne, and practice raising one eyebrow at a time. Left right left right glower. Right left right left glower. Left glower right glower left glower right. Glower and release glower and release and …. Relax. Wu-sahhhh.

Moloch, meanwhile, had collected himself and approached the throne. “You called, master?”

“No Mafter? I never thought I’d hear the day.”

“I’m tired of being criticised for doing it. I’ve decided to stop. What is your Will and Command?”


“My Will and command? Cheek. My will and command is anything I want it to be. What is it that YOU most want, Moloch? What do you need.”

Moloch scratched his head, in between his horns and said “Well, I’d like to come out of this boiler-room level of Hell. It’s steamy, clanky, lonely. Everything I don’t like.”

“To be fair,” Satan replied “You are not supposed to like it - Hell is about punishment, about wanting to be somewhere else, like MacDonalds on a Saturday afternoon. But there is a way you may regain my favour and re-seat yourself In your old rooms”
“How, Master?”

“Find Jezebel and bring her back here or tell me where she is so I can have her fetched. She is wilful and must be brought to heel. Do this, and you are redeemed.”

“Redeemed? Surely, only Jesus can redeem?”

Satan’s face went redder than usual and his neck expanded five collar sizes until an observer would have expected nothing other than a bullfrog croak, but no such luck. “That’s blasph … er I don’t like it when you say that name. And I don’t mean that kind of redemption anyway. Just … Oh hell … heck … Find her, and bring her or report her whereabouts and you can come back upstairs. That clear enough? Moloch? ”
“Yes master”
“Then go to it.”

Moloch went to it. Leaving the room only slightly less quickly than he entered, Moloch scoured the corridor for hidden corners-in-plain-sight where there might be inter-dimensional portals. He had run enough errands for his master over the last few millennia, he was familiar with almost all places to go to that could be gone to. Let’s say he was very well travelled, and there had always been jobs for him to do.


Finding portals is like dowsing for water with a forked stick … except that Moloch had no stick, only his horns, so he crept up and down the corridor with his head held down, waiting for sensations in his horns. He was at the ‘Pope’ section of the corridor … all popes that had ever been or ever would be were depicted … Carved into the rich brown wood and painted with oils, they were like living moments of history, shimmering with lives past, present and yet to be. Each pope had either a halo or pair of horns painted above their head, depending on whether he had been ‘one of us or one of them’. Moloch paused his perusal as his head began to shake and twist. He clasped his neck in a Mui-Thai neck grip and the shaking and shuddering, though pronounced, was less teeth-chatteringly vigorous. Moloch went through is first portal.

And all was darkness, blackness, coldness. Moloch extended his senses, and reached .. More darkness, more coldness and more blackness. All of him was shivering by now, and he was relieved to sense no life-forms whatsoever. He stepped back and was again in the warm corridor.

“Bugger” He concluded and continued along the corridor until he got to the Next portal

“Kreeeee-GAH!” and slap at his forehead an enormous toothed beak.

“Sodding Pterranodon!” And pulled himself back,. Muttering “Next”
“Bring out your Dead!” Nope.

“Ibraheeeeeeeem!” That was more like it, and the waft of duduk .. It had to be and look, there’s a camel and “Shit …. It’s Harrison ford” And Yes … there was the camera crew and Spielberg waving his arms, dad gum it. Next
“Ibraheeeeeeem!” HAH … no camera crews. Real deal and … HAH … he could tell that Jezebel imprint anywhere. If she were a flower, the last of her species, and she were anywhere on a world, and Moloch were landed anywhere else on that world, he’d immediately knew she was there, so unique and pervasive her fragrance. Not niffy smelly pheromones, but spiritual hallmark. How the fuck Satan had labelled her “Whore” never made sense to Moloch. Yes, she looked great in the costume but she’d look great in anything, and that red dress she’d changed into was gorgeous. If he’s been human, Moloch would have fancied her something stonkingly rotten, but since he wasn’t, then … well OK, truth be told he DID fancy her but only in the way that people who aren’t bestialists might fancy the occasional dog. Just enough to go ‘ewww’ but not enough to dwell on it. Not that he ever went ‘ewwwww’ when he thought of Jezebel, because she was hot, for a human. It was that Boadicea essence, that ‘don’t mess with me’ appeal’. Like his darling Wolock. He stopped in his tracks and his horns seemed to droop. It had been a few thousand years since their last kiss. Those old testament bastards had seen to that. They couldn’t just demonize both of them in the same breath and send them off to one hell. Oh bloody no. “Wo with Mo unclean is therefore purged shall be unto the blah blah generations, and to opposite corners shall be sent” with fug-ugly archangels with swords akimbo or however swords are presented … wielded, posturated, whatever. And that was the last of her all these years. Jezebel. Shit, they could have been sisters … apart from the scaled skin, horns, red eyes, forked tail .. But that’s just skin deep … Jezebel couldn’t help the way she was and he was not one to damn according to prejudice. If he closed his eyes and stopped up his ears, then they could be identical twins, they were that similar.

“Bring Jezebel back to Satan, then I’m back upstairs, and back on track to being released and free to seek my darling Woloch.” Simple.

With this hope Moloch set off across the desert with a merry tune on his lips, while camels and biblical-looking characters lost control of their body functions and fled screaming.

“Surely, I don’t sing that badly”, he thought, and continued into the heart of Babylon.

 

Like a glass of lemonade after crossing a great desert. That's just what I needed, Zen. That's what was missing.....
Moloch as protagonist: masterstroke.
"Bring out your dead": PERFECT.
I'll be recommending this book to....well, everyone.