After merely moderate drinking at Brian’s new local pub in the village, he and his visiting friend, whose name was also Brian, returned to the newly moved-in house. So recent, indeed, there were still unpacked cases in various hallways among which the two Brians had to pick their way to reach the kitchen where the visitor eventually sat while the new resident fussed around failing to locate every means of making coffee.
They soon gave up any mission other than the visit itself. No TV. No internet. Nothing fixed up. So, they returned to the pre-modern ways of talking the talk. But even that wore thin as air. Modernity still seemed to suffocate the old ways, despite modernity itself having not yet been officially established beneath this particular roof.
“You know I have some more stuff here, if you’re interested.”
He opened a drawer that provided materials far more easily than anything else they had sought during the previous hour.
He placed a white pellet thing on the pastry-board and proceeded to grind it with a pestle. Much harder and noisier than one would have expected, as if, indeed, he was attempting to grind mineral rather than vegetable or animal. Meanwhile, they kept up the small talk.
“You know we’ll need more of this for later. Did you keep that other bit you found? It was too late in the day, really, for me to tell.”
The other felt in his pocket and shook his head.
“I must have dropped it.”
He now consciously inspected his red, raw hands for the first time since arriving back. Hands that had man-handled various large stones and slabs.
There was silence as the pestler inspected the gritty residues upon the pastry-board, leaning forward to sniff.
“Hmmm, the powderghost has not yet arrived.”
He squinted uneasily.
The visitor had recently announced he’d fetch a cushion from the living-room to ease the hardness of where he sat. Except, in the confusion, he had mistaken the bedroom for the living-room. He wandered through various – now seemingly uncluttered – dark hallways, rocking to and fro whatever it was upon his chest. He coughed then choked upon some dust in his throat. And saw the eye that stared down at him from within nightmare’s moat.
