Northern Mist: An Earplug Adventure (part 3)

Once the first couple of episodes were posted, I kind of ‘got into the groove’ so-to-speak. My rate of photo production accelerated. As of this posting, there are now 130 completed scenes , which may not sound much, but this was only ever going to be a short story anyway, so 130 isn’t too far short of the number required to tell the tale. But that’s for the near future: for now let’s get on with the story…

Moments later they raced through the narrow walkways of the artisan quarter…

But all too quickly Dumper’s physical reserves depleted sufficiently to leave him far behind in Fanny’s wake. So it was Fanny alone who reported the news of the Northern Mist to a RoboSecGua that was on-loan to Lemon Stone from the Museum of Future Technology…

If it was possible for a servomechanism to be startled, Fanny felt confident that she witnessed it that feverish evening.

“Cripes,” it yelled through its tinny forward speaker grille as its cyber-eyes bulged, “I shall instigate an alert instantaneously. But first I must implore you to make your way immediately to the Museum of Future Technology. They too must be alerted: the wind is blowing in their direction!”

By now other earplugs were discovering the horrible truth. Already the first tendrils of the mysterious mist were beginning to make their presence known…

“Run, run,” some would yell, “but try to hold your breath at the same time!”

In their watchtower that overlooked the valley that led from the museum to Lemon Stone, four monks of the Order of the Holey Vest quaked in their sandals as the mist rolled by…

“Shut the window, Augustus,” one of them snapped, “and ram a periodical or some toilet paper into the gaps.”

Monks soon swarmed from the monastery dormitories…

“Honestly,” many would complain, “the order demands that we all go to bed at a ridiculously early hour; and now we’re turfed out by a sodding siren. Despite not being really tired, I was just nodding off too!”

Other, quicker-thinking monks went straight to their closest air filtration units…

“If we only breathe the air that’s coming out of this,” they reasoned, “we won’t be overcome and suffer whatever fate befalls those who encounter the Northern Mist.”

Fanny Gander meanwhile was trying to hold her breath as best she could…

George and Edie Peashuck, who had only recently moved to Lemon Stone, following a lifetime tilling the soil as mountain pea farmers, could only watch in bemusement as the green-faced earplug shuffled by, en route to the giant toad religious icon…

…where she quickly passed on some advice to the Father Superior and his retinue:

“Hide yourselves away in a sealed room.” She yelled. “And, for good measure stick a paper bag over your head too.”

Then she was gone – in the opposite direction to almost everyone else…

When questioned they answered that they were hoping to catch one of Lemon Stone’s emergency hot-air balloons and float above the scary mist.

Meanwhile the monks at the filtration units were beginning to have their doubts…

“Maybe if we sat on it,” one of them suggested, “and breathed through our bottoms. It’s only an idea, you understand: but I think it’s a good one.”

Meanwhile a group of visitors couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about…

“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” The shorter of the two purple earplugs was heard to complain. “If everyone wore an atom-proof helmet like mine, there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

By now the stairs to the highest towers were being scaled by the vanguard of fleeing earplugs….

Within moments the first emergency hot-air balloon lifted serenely from the ramparts…

“Well that’s us up and away,” the escapees would say to one another, “I don’t give a fiddle what happens to the dimwits who didn’t make it. It’s a plugmutt eat plugmutt world where only the strong survive. If they didn’t escape the Northern Mist it’s because they didn’t deserve to. In fact I bet it was one of them who brought it here – you know, like people bring germs home from holidays abroad and that sort of thing.”

© Paul Trevor Nolan 2023