“White ink is the bane of all tattooers’ existence, if they choose to work with it. … I do single needle for everything, because it seems to heal with a bit more precision than using a 3 or 7 [needle] for shading, but that’s just my experience. For maintenance, it really varies from person to person and from piece to piece.”
I went back to the hole to try and get my phone back but no luck. Sent a whole roll of string down it but still can’t find the bottom. That makes it at least 100 meters deep!
I’ve tried ringing it from a land-line, but surprise surprise, no signal. (damn you, O2). Would have been funny if someone answered. But with how deep it’s gone, it would probably count as an international call, and I don’t really wanna pay for that.
The hole was wider. About a foot across now, And about two feet down it, I spotted something was stuck in the side. I reached in and grabbed it along with a handful of the dirt.
It was a little sprout. Nothing weird for a change. I was about to cast it aside when I noticed a noise coming from somewhere close by. It wasn’t coming from the hole. I closed my hand around the sprout and the noise stopped.
Weird.
I pulled my hand up next to my ear and listened carefully. Not a sound. I slowly opened my hand and the noise started again, and it was definitely coming from the sprout! It sounded like it was crying? I cupped my other hand over the top of it, and the crying stopped again. I guess it doesn’t like the light.
Well, little buddy. You’re in luck, because I live in a basement flat with no windows.
So I brought my little buddy home, and planted them in a Nine Inch Nails coffee mug.
They live under my sink now.
#SomethingWeirdHappenedToday
Something weird happened today.
First thing this morning I checked on the little sprout and he’s doing well. We’ve named him Gomez He’s cute. No leaves yet. Just a thin green stalk. Wonder what he’ll grow to be.
I checked on the hole again. It’s had gotten bigger again. Now it’s almost two meters wide. Still can’t see the bottom. Looks like the Council tried to fence it off with some hazard tape during the night but that’s already falling apart. Unless the Occultists took it down.
Oh, yh. The Occultists. I’ve got a good view of the park from outside of my house and saw the Occultists were setting up camp there. They’re easy to spot. Purple hooded robes, lined with gold. All of them wearing a different kind of theatrical mask, like they looted the costume department for the ball scene in Labyrinth. Love that film. Don’t love the Occultist so much. Still… nice to see people being responsible and wearing masks.
There’s about a dozen of them that I could see. Most were setting up tents or constructing their own rope fence around the hole. A local trade union had set up a stall a outside their encampment. They usually show up whenever there’s any kind of gathering in the city. A couple of Occultists were being distracted by one of them handing out newspapers.
When I wandered over to do my morning check on the hole, one of the purple hooded figures approached me. She made a diamond shape with her hands by putting the index fingers and thumbs together.
“Abandon all hope, neighbour,” she chirped. By her welcoming tone, I gathered this was a greeting.
“Thanks. And you. What’s going on here?”
“Oh, we misplaced our hole.”
“That thing’s yours?”
“Yeah,” she replied meekly. “It was meant to be in Millennium Square, but looks like our coordinates were a bit off again.”
“Again?”
“Oh, I mean this time,” she corrected herself. “It’s kind of embarrassing. Dante was certain he got the ritual right. We must have summoned it 7 or 8 times before we found out it arrived here.”
Her voice trailed off. “Now that I think about… I hope this is the only one. Hmm. We should check on that.”
She carried on. “It’s bloody inconvenient though. If it were central Leeds we could just get a bus into town. Now we have to get a bus into town, just to get a bus back out of town. And they never show up. Bring back the trams, I say.”
I agreed. “I’m with you there. Did you know we’re the biggest city in Europe without a railed public transport system?”
“Did you know they started building an underground tram system back in the 1940s?” she responded.
“I did not.”
“Yup. But they never opened it to the public. Not surprised really. In this city, things get weird the deeper you get.”
“Well, that sounds ominous,” I thought to myself while peering down the very, very deep hole that opened up opposite my house. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you gonna be here long? And why are Occultists summoning holes in my park?“
"Excuse me,” she protested. “We’re not Occultists. We are a perfectly respectable book club.”
Oh, that’s right. Occultists were banned last year after the incident on the Headrow. If I remember, it was the called the Abomination of the Fire Breathing Hydra. Actually I think they had the same robes as these guys.
They had set up camp on Briggate and were trying to summon a very small demon they could use as a group mascot. Things didn’t go according to plan and they ended up summoning a six legged, three storey tall, 42 tonne fire breathing hydra outside PC World.
Fortunately it was quite friendly. And they managed to banish it in the end, but not before it had trampled its way to the bottom of The Headrow. The road wasn’t built for that kind of heavy foot traffic. The council are still repairing the damage to the street.
“So not the Abomination of the Fire Breathing Hydra then?”
“Nope. We’re The Followers of Virgil. I’m Rosalind by the way.”
The person handing out newspapers approached us. “Copy of Socialist Worker?”
“No, thank you.”
They moved on to someone struggling to set up a pyre.
Rosalind continued. “Don’t suppose you fancy joining our club?”
“I’m more into manga. I’d watch your step around that hole. I lost my phone down it earlier this week.”
“You mean this one?” Rosalind pulled my rose gold iPhone out from under her robe.
“That’s it! Thank you! Wait, how did you get it?”
“It’s how we found the hole. Dante got a text from your phone saying he screwed up the coordinates. Then the hole spat it out when we got here.”
“It’s not even cracked. Nice. Really appreciate it.”
“No problem, neighbour. Glad we found its owner. I got to get back to setting up the tents, but it’s been nice chatting. You know where to find us if you do wanna sign up for the book club.”
It’s definitely a cult. “Sure. I’ll think about it.”
“Abandon all hope, neighbour.”
“You too.”
Now here’s where it gets weird. My phone was absolutely fine. It even still had a charge! But now it can connect to my mobile network even while I’m underground which is weird because I could never get a signal in my basement flat before. And the WiFi isn’t working properly. It keeps disconnecting from my home network and reconnecting to some other network whose WiFi name is just corrupted ASCII characters. Complete gibberish. It’s got good bandwidth so I’m not complaining. It’s just weird.
I went back to the hole to try and get my phone back but no luck. Sent a whole roll of string down it but still can’t find the bottom. That makes it at least 100 meters deep!
I’ve tried ringing it from a land-line, but surprise surprise, no signal. (damn you, O2). Would have been funny if someone answered. But with how deep it’s gone, it would probably count as an international call, and I don’t really wanna pay for that.
The hole was wider. About a foot across now, And about two feet down it, I spotted something was stuck in the side. I reached in and grabbed it along with a handful of the dirt.
It was a little sprout. Nothing weird for a change. I was about to cast it aside when I noticed a noise coming from somewhere close by. It wasn’t coming from the hole. I closed my hand around the sprout and the noise stopped.
Weird.
I pulled my hand up next to my ear and listened carefully. Not a sound. I slowly opened my hand and the noise started again, and it was definitely coming from the sprout! It sounded like it was crying? I cupped my other hand over the top of it, and the crying stopped again. I guess it doesn’t like the light.
Well, little buddy. You’re in luck, because I live in a basement flat with no windows.
So I brought my little buddy home, and planted them in a Nine Inch Nails coffee mug.
