Deleted posts/ Jeff and the Giant Apple

       Hiya. I've unfortunately had to delete a couple of blog posts today - Awakening and How to Fight a Dragon - which is a big ol' shame, seeing as they were two of the most popular blog posts on here. Anyway, I had to take them down because I want to submit them for coursework, and it says in the guidelines that the work can't have been published in any way, shape or form, prior to submission, which I didn't consider when I posted them.*cry*

        I'm thinking I'll be putting them back up a while after I get the results back for them, which will probably be in February, and they're likely to be of a higher standard by then too. So, to make up for taking dragons away from you, here's a sci-fi-ish piece I wrote for my coursework last year, it's a bit Douglas Adams-y, because I love him and he is my literary hero. I called it Jeff and the Giant Apple, because we were told to write a story including 'an apple, a painter, and an abandoned castle.' This how my mind works:

The castle was chilly, damp and musty. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d been asked to do a  job in a decrepit, abandoned castle; they’d gone out of fashion in 2136, only a few years after coming into fashion. The problem with castles in general, is that nobody wants to eat a meal which takes at least half an hour to get to the table after being served. They tried in vain to come up with a solution; moving the dining tables closer to the kitchen – this only resulted in a rise in doctors’ appointments. Then they tried conveyer belts, but it turned out that they tend to move at about the same speed as people, and don’t move faster when shouted at. They even tried teleportation devices, which, apart from being a huge eye-sore, caused gargantuan fires, wiping out an entire generation of RoboMaids43Z. Eventually, they gave up on the whole escapade, leading to a massive increase in caravan sales.               

                He looked around, shuddered and then noticed something, or rather, nothing, because the thing he had noticed was that something was missing. There was no dust, cobwebs, or mould. He stood open mouthed for a while before reminding himself that a person who can afford a castle can probably afford a self-cleaning one. Just as he came to this realisation however, he saw a figure with an extremely bulbous head standing silhouetted against the doorway opposite him.

                ‘H...hello?’ the painter offered, not expecting a reply, at least not one in his own language. The reply which he at first thought he had imagined shocked him more than seeing the outline of the thing in the first place.

                ‘Ahh, hello, daahling! What is bringing you here?’ from this, the painter could deduct with near certainty, that the creature he was speaking with was female, mostly. ‘Don’t be shy, daahling! Would you like a pina colada?’ the painter stood rooted to the spot, mouth agape, not able to answer with anything more than a blink.

The creature began moving towards him, he considered running from the place screaming, but firstly, his legs would not move, despite all of his willing, and secondly, he was pretty sure that anything with a head that round would either have super-Martian speed, or an army who did all the running for it. Instead, he came up with the plan that it the thing got too close to him; he could shoot it in the face with his Paint-o-Matic Ray gun carbine 3000, which would at least give him time to get to somewhere near the front door.

Once the thing came into the light however, he realised that it was not a ‘thing’ at all, but an oddly proportioned woman wearing a somewhat abstract hat.

‘That’s a very, abstract hat’ blurted out the painter, not exactly knowing how the woman would react and wishing he hadn’t said anything.

‘This old thing? Thank you, daahling! I made it myself you know!’

‘Oh, you did?’

‘Yeees, I entered it into a competition once on saturn, when it won me first place for largest apple in the galaxy-‘

‘It is a very large apple’ observed the painter

‘Don’t interrupt me daahling! Where was I? Yes, when it won me first prize for largest apple in the galaxy, I didn’t want it to go to waste, so I emptied it and made 50 apple pies for the local laundrette and use the outside as a hat, it makes for very good storage you know. Now, about that pina colada...’

‘When you say storage-‘

‘Pardon daahling, oh, yes, I like to keep things in my hat, why at the moment, my little kitty cat is in there! Come out now Mr Nibbles! He’s very shy.’ She lifted up the apple to reveal a mass of bright orange hair, from which she lifted a tiny grey tabby. She now held the kitten out in front of her with her hands under his front legs. The painter had never seen a cat display such a range of emotions, anger, fear and confusion were among the mix, but it seemed that it was becoming more and more difficult to form expressions as its tiny head sunk into its shoulders and its body extended by the second. Eventually the woman put down the cat and it scurried away into the shadows, not to be seen again for some weeks. ‘Well, I won’t see him again for a while; it’s so much easier when I keep him in my hat.’ The woman sounded remorseful as she watched the cat scuttle away, but quickly turned back to the painter with a large grin ‘So, daahling, you never told me your name! And why you are here.’ It took a moment for the painter to register that he had to answer this.

‘Oh erm, I’m Jeff, and I’m here to paint.’

‘Very good, daahling! Yes, it’s the upstairs lavatory; it’s been such a boring shade of hot pink for so long, I really would like a change you know’

‘What colour were you thinking of changing it to?’ the woman considered for a moment, before returning her attention to him

‘I think what might be nice, is a little, apple green daahling, to match my hat, don’t you think?’ Jeff nodded, not really in agreement, it was more to do with the fact that he thought the woman was totally insane, and reasoned that if he were to argue with her, she might become quite unstable. ‘Now daahling, you still haven’t answered my question; would you like a pina colada?’

‘Erm, it’s a quarter past ten in the morning, isn’t it a little early for cocktails?’ Jeff asked meekly. The woman stared on and considered for a moment.

‘I could make it a mocktail daahling; I take out the pineapple and make it with apples instead?’

‘I think the idea of a mocktail, is that you take out the alcohol, not the fruit.’

‘Well where’s the fun in that daahling! Ok fine you have your way; you can have some fruit juice.’ She turned around and began to saunter off. Jeff began to follow her.

‘I’d rather tea, if you’ve got any.’

‘Daahling, I haven’t seen a tea bag since 2112’ Jeff turned around, dejected, if he was going to carry on being a painter in this day and age, he would have to start bringing his own tea bags. 

I hope you enjoyed this, I still like this one, so it must be a bit good.

Thanks for reading! Laura

                               xoxoxox