UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The Challenge

...continued from The Insults

Selena turns slowly. Suddenly a hush has fallen over the Taverna, as those steel-grey eyes narrow and flash.

"Alexis." The voice is deceptively soft, deceptively melodious.

"You may suppose me to be elderly. You may suppose me to be unemployed, or even unemployable. You may declare me to be lacking in social graces.

"But no one -- no one, Alexis -- suggests that the Valkyrie needs a crutch in a bottle.

"Quite the opposite!" interjects Oosh. "But thank you both so much for this! I haven't laughed so much in ages!"

"And no one -- Alexis? Are you listening? No one impugns my aunt's fanny."

Selena faces the two sniggering, whispering Taverna patrons sitting in newly appalled silence on their stools.

"Alexis, these insults are insupportable. I challenge you to a duel. Your choice of weaponry."

She turns to the laconic Australian sitting at a nearby table. "Doctor, will you be my second?"

"Too late to be your first, I suppose?" inquires Oosh, hopefully. Ignored in the tense atmosphere, she sighs, "Oh heck..."

Gary pales, remembering how Alexis gleefully cheered on the last duel, calling for blood and gore. Will she call on celia to be her second? he asks himself.

His concern hasn't stopped him from recording .wav after .wav and recording the event with his digital camera.

"Ladies, ladies, ladies," Shon attempts a conciliation, "or if you prefer, old lady and young nymph, why resort to unfeminine things like weapons, duels and other nasty macho things?

"Why not just mud-wrestle like Amazons of yore? Get some Sacred Suntan Oil of Diana and go at it like proper women. Do your female heritage proud and get messy and slide all over each other as you desperately try to pin the other between muscled thighs and shiny boobs like the Goddess intended."

Shon is obviously overwrought by his own illustration. "I'm going to have to lie down now."

Bradley Stokes would have no truck with attempts to ameliorate the dispute. "Don't stop! This is beginning to get interesting." He continued, "I want to find out how this troika between Gary, Souvie and Alexis resolves itself. It shows great promise. Teasing, coy and delightful. More. More. Please. We don't get enough chain fiction on ASSD."

Vinnie whispers to Bradley, "Shh! Brad! You're breaking the mood--hush up 'till the duel is arranged."

Jordan Shelbourne, red hair gleaming in the dim light of the Taverna, is pre-re-dewriting chapter 4 of Pushing the Envelope when a mention of "redheads" distracts him from Kim's confession to Gil and the curious consequences thereof.

He smells the ozone left from the crackling dialogue exchanged by these two ladies. Slightly relieved--and vaguely disappointed--that he is not the topic of conversation, he sidles over.

Alexis' accusation of liver spots seems patently unfair; Selena's hand is merely robustly freckled. To step between them, however, is suicide.

And when the discussion turns to her aunt's fanny, Jordan's side is determined. He was lucky enough to know Selena's aunt--and her fanny--during a brief stay in Birmingham while performing in a Noel Coward revue, and has only kind words for her. And it. Honour demands he take Selena's side.

"You have already chosen a second," he murmurs to Selena; "allow me to join your gallery."

Alexis drew herself to her full height. "So, Doctor. You've decided to try your hand at the job of 'second' have you? So be it."

Alexis turns again to the remarkably handsome gentleman to her side. "Padre? Can I impose upon you to act as my second? The dowager Jardine seems to have called me out. And my choice of weapons, nonetheless."

"But of course, my dear," he said gallantly. Given half a chance, he would have been her first as well, thought Nat, beating oosh to the punch (this time). He looked hopeful. Did this mean another drink? "And naturally it's your choice of weapons. Shees, was Selena raised by wolves?"

She considers her favorites, but ultimately decides that she's unwilling to impose upon the barman to clean the inevitable results from a pistol duel. 'Besides,' she thinks, watching the tremor in her opponent's hand, 'innocent bystanders would surely be at risk if this woman were to lay her hands upon a firearm. Bows are obviously out as well. The poor woman's shoulders could never take the strain.'

"Ms. Jardine. If you feel the overwhelming need to defend your aunt's fanny or your attempts at sobriety, then by all means. If I may suggest something more suitable for a woman of your stature? Shall we say a flash? Crossed words at sunset. No more than 300 words." "Excluding title, author attribution, copyright notices and the like?" stipulates her anal retentive math geek second. "Two words slurred together do not count as one, so I might kindly suggest you put your drink down for this. It's summer, and it seems as though the Taverna's patrons' thoughts have turned to romance lately. Let's indulge them. Flash fiction, romance theme?

"Romance theme?" says Father Nat, concerned. "Do we want to go there? I mean, every time someone says 'Rom' around here, we have these endless discussions, too boring. Also, Rom is one of your particular strengths. You're inevitably going to clean her clock anyway, but I think we owe it to the fans to maintain some pretence, however illusory, that there's an actual competition going on here."

Alexis shrugs. "Do whatever you have to do," she says. "I trust you."

And, presently, when Fr. Nat has picked himself back up off the floor, he sidles over to DrSpin. "G'day, cobber," he says, smiling insincerely, "Get you..." (he struggles to keep a straight face) "...a schooner of gassy lager, there? Listen. Can we can the "Rom" bit? Not equitable, know what I mean?"

DrSpin cheerfully accepts an ice-cool glass of Victoria Bitter, which after all is one of the world's top-selling beers not without reason. He's endured South African beer in the past. They call it Lion, or Tiger, or Giraffe, or something. Or maybe that's New Zealand beer. Oh well, same horrible thing. "Yeah, this rom business," he says.

HIM: I LOVE YOU YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW.
HER: I LOVE YOU YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW TOO.

"Mate, let's ditch the rom thing. I mean, I think "MacBeth" is rom. Bloke and his missus very much together on an issue, you know what I'm saying?

"Yep." Father Nat nods sagely. "And safely past the stomach-turning 'I love you yesterday, today, and tomorrow' crap, so there's less puking and more blood spilt. Most satisfactory. We are as one."

"Let's lift the restrictions and get ourselves a full-frontal Flash contest going here. No holds barred. Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war."

Despite the "We are as one" remark, Father Ignatius can't help but slip into the guise of editor:

"Cry 'Havoc,' and let loose the dogs of war!" he sighed, correcting DrSpins improper use of quote marks.

"'let SLIP the dogs of war!'" corrects Denny, employing his WCE™ skills.

"Erm, well, almost..." Conjugate corrected simultaneouly with Denny. "Don't they, '...let slip the dogs of war!' or am I misremembering?"

Smiling at Denny, Conjugate says, "Cry 'Santhemum' and let slip the florists of war!"

"I'm not completely up on classical mythology but shouldn't the dogs of war be at the side of the god of war?" asked Tesseract, feeling left out. "So that only means that Swift was theologically aware. But what are Greek dogs doing with a Roman god?"

"I don't know for sure; that's never been one of my Ares of interest, opunned Conjugate. "But I suspect that I should not have used the name Mars, or else I should have used the Roman names for fear and panic, if indeed the Romans kept the dogs. But yes, Swift might have made the number of moons two out of a reference to the dogs of war. They weren't discovered and given those names until much later."

Father Nat shrugs, and says to DrSpin, "Okay, I was just trying to stop the playing fields from being so egregiously unbalanced that the crowd will be bored. But have it your way."

He whispers to Alexis, "It's okay. He bought it."

DrSpin employs his poker face to good effect. The fools. There will be blood on the floor here. Thin Alaskan blood.

"You obviously weren't paying attention when we had that thread from Frank-from-Minnesota about cold-weather sex," Nat points out to Spin. "Alaskan blood is not thin. You want thin blood, go look in the tropics. Relative to you that's... Oops. Sorry."

DrSpin laconics his way past that, and asks, "What about Urfé's post?"

"I didn't get an Urfé post," says Nat, blankly. He double-checks. Zip. "Was it," (he coughs discreetly) "a long post?"

DrSpin rolls his eyes.

"Ah," says Nat. "Long posts take ages to get to me. And very long posts often don't make it at all. Was it, perchance, a very long post?"

DrSpin rolls his eyes.

"Ah," says Nat. "Well, let's not go down that desperately tedious track again. What did it say?"

"Stop fannying about and get the fuck on with it."

"Fuck him. Who's he in this duel anyway?"

"The match referee."

"Oh?! Why am I never told these things? Okay, then, on the fuck with it we get. Here's what I propose. If the two ladies can be induced to desist from scratching each other's eyes out, they can withdraw to the back room to churn out an original, written-for-this-duel Flash each. Okay? For a start, anywaze? And, in the meantime, let's warm the crowd up by posting some of their previous Flash, written any time before. How about that? Challenger goes first."

"Now, that's just plain rude," Conjugate chastised the seconds. "Here we were talking about Dogs of War, and you segue' into a discussion of Alexis and Selena. You're lucky they aren't here to scold you as you deserve. Goodness, what a faux pas." He broke into a grin. "Still, I can forgive you; I got a job offer today, so I won't be unemployed in the forseeable future. Hee hee hee hee." Ray and Rui were among the first to pound him on the back in congratulations.

Alexis raises her glass in mock salute. "To you and your traitorous second, Ms. Jardine. I wish you the best of luck." She drinks from the newly-served margarita and finishes, "I've seen your writing--you'll not be able to hide behind the loquacious developments you seem to favor. But alcohol does loosen one's tongue--or pen. In this one, you'll need all the luck you can gather."

Selena looks sardonically at the squat redhead swilling margaritas before her, examines the last two entries in this dialogue, and wonders just which of them Alexis supposes is going to have trouble with Flash fiction. "Loquacious developments"? Selena whistles softly under her breath. She wishes, not for the first time, that these undereducated pseudo-intellectuals wouldn't *try* so hard with their word-a-day calendars.

"Take no notice," Fr. Nat counsels Alexis. "'Squat' is reserved for fireplugs. People of unusual size are often derogatory towards petite, more visually appealing persons. Depend up it, it is a cry for help."

Not, he reflected to himself, as if there was any help out there for cries like that. But, being the gentleman he was, he didn't articulate this thought.

"I accept your choice. Flash fiction it is, Alexis. Three hundred words, no more. I'll be looking forward to your... ah... no doubt very snowy offering on Wednesday.

"Honor will be satisfied, Alexis."

She turns to her second, eyes aglow.

"Did you hear that? Just what we were hoping for..."

A long, low chuckle fills the room.

To be continued...