🤍🤍🤍a snippet from a book i'm writing ! :❝ Our aforementioned resident, one Mr. Benedict Moore, stumbled into the dining hall with one arm wrapped around a thick wedge of books pressed against his broad chest, clutched with such force it appeared he feared the very concept of even letting them dislodge from his grasp. Silly, it seemed to me, as neither I nor, I believed, Madame Atmore, had the faintest interest in his novels and journals of the notions of what I’m sure were fascinating recounts of adventures of late globetrotters, and thus he had absolutely no valid reason to fear one of the two of us pilfering them from him should he leave them unattended.*What I was interested in, however, was maintaining any semblance of the quietude that the madam and I grew to enjoy during meals, before Mr. Moore would scrutinise his pocket watch and realise, with an oddly humorous gasp that I had heard many a time in this residence, that he would be late for meals if he did not remove himself with great difficulty from his study and bring himself to the dining hall.With his free arm, Moore pushed his glasses up his nose, as they so often slipped down his face. Gingerly he did so as to not snap the delicate bridge of his spectacles, which had withstood tremendous force from the great oaf’s blunders throughout the Manor and were ill-suited for another tumble, I thought. Madame Atmore regarded him through the corner of her eye with a shrewd glare, dabbing at her mouth with the same aster-seamed handkerchief. She focused her eyes downward at her meal, still as untouched as when it was laid before her and breathing wispy curls of steam into the air, and pursed her lips. Moore advanced toward the seat by her side, fumbling with the stack of books in his grasp to pull it outward.Goodness, oh God! Oh God, am I late?” cried Benedict, busying himself with pulling out the dining chair with minimal noise. Unsuccessful were his endeavours, to my dismay, as the left eye of Madame Atmore began to twitch minutely as he babbled misshapen apologies, shuffling his items from his left arm to his right and scattering loose documents upon the tiled floor. "Dreadful of me, I apologise- pardon Madame, do watch that foot- such intense focus is required in that study upstairs, I'm sure you do both know!"At once I was overcome with a great sense of discontent, an emotion so sudden in its revelation that I felt the bones in my shoulder slump forward with melancholy and the lids of my eyes grow heavy with misery. I found I no longer had an appetite for the meal laid before us, neither the diced potatoes laden with thick gravy and sauteed onions, nor the cherries jubilee, presented out in front of me on a silver dining plate, a matching dessert fork poised at the plate's side akin to a guard and his lance. No, I could not bring myself to even touch the meal, such was the magnitude of the storm that had washed me in its thunder! Ah, though perhaps I am thespian in my emotions - conceivably it may be my own natural fatigue masquerading as irritation at the theatrical actions of Mr. Benedict Moore, yet gallivanting around his seat at the table as though dancing with it.Eventually, through excessive dramatics, Mr. Moore was seated at his place at the table, his items balanced precariously atop his lap and his dessert spoon grasped in his gloved hand.“Did you know,” he started, and at once I braced myself for the torrent of information I was soon to be subjected to, regardless of whether or not I requested nor required it, and I observed Madame Atmore do the same, “food historians generally credit Auguste Escoffier for the development of this fine dish, a dessert created to mark Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Celebration? How marvellous! Does that not explain the titular title of this dessert in a most delightfully simple way for us to enjoy?”The lips of Madame Atmore pressed together in a most thin line as she raised another spoonful of soup to her mouth. “How riveting, Moore.”Alas, her blatant disinterest was not nearly enough to scotch Mr. Benedict Moore! No, not at all, for not even a moment after his forkful of cherry jubilee had reached his lips had he in his mind conjured yet another piece of information he thought, with what I believe must have been quite strong conviction, that the madam and I absolutely needed to know, lest this dinner end in strife and chaos. Which, I admit, I believed it may do regardless.“Indeed!” Moore cried, spraying forth unpalatable flecks of pastry from the confines of his mouth. The whites of Madame Atmore’s eyes grew vivid and I observed her conscious effort to refrain from reeling away from Mr. Moore, despite how the very nerves in her body must have burned with exceptional desire to do so, and I found it notably impressive how her trained reaction was simply to reach for her napkin and place it daintily over the table where the food had landed.🤍🤍🤍Welcoming of WinterFree! cried the wind
As it reveled in the wide expanse
Of the woods, dancing through
Every tree, every leaf, a child! Billowing sleeves of a
bouffant dress too large
for such small bones.Away! exclaimed the Evening Sun,
Brighter than the Holy One,
Scorching heat now lost, not wasted,
On the bones of mankind.
Heat, thrilling, blessed heat,
These people of the world won't meet!Forever Gone! Cried the moon,
Watching from its realm of lune,
The people of the world shall sleep,
And in the morning cold shall weep
Into the very marrow of their flesh,
Through the fibers of their dress,
To coat them in a film of frost,
Lumined by this evening Moon.
