Fire Fighters

This room of the Mansion is in the East Wing with the other apartments.

This apartment belongs to the Fire Fighters, mannequins that remain motionless until brought near open flames larger than a hearth.  Upon being brought nigh, the fire will erupt and take humanoid form.  The Fire Fighters will take a boxer’s pose in response.  Fire and Fire Fighter will brawl as pugilists until the Fire Fighters beat their enemy into scraps of flames.

When the Fire Fighters have stomped out the last flame, they will sit motionless, again.

Snow Dial

The Snow Dial stands fifty paces before the entrance to the Mansion.  A waist-high column of plaster takes the balance of length between the square slab of concrete on the ground and the Dial itself in front of you.  It is a circle of brass, glass on the face, and a chrome arrow from center to edge.  The glass covers a pie-sliced face of colored sections: white, yellow, blue, brown, orange, red, and black.  The arrow sits amidst the white section.

Await the next snowfall.  Go to the Dial.  Turn the arrow.  See what comes.

When the arrow is set in the yellow section, the snow falls sweet and tart on the tongue, goes down like lemonade.  In blue, the snow evaporates in stinging sparks at the touch of living flesh.  In brown, the clouds shed soil in steady falls that choke and cake.  Giddy phantasms dazzle the mind on smelling snow when the arrow points to orange.  At red, the snow never touches ground; it hovers and swirls from ankle-height to two stories high, makes the shortest paths impassible.

When the arrow of the Snow Dial is set to black, the drifts awake and form hulking shapes of two legs and four.  They lumber and shamble, avoiding large objects, people, trees, houses, you.  The friction of grinding snow in their joints is soft, then grates as Spring arrives and the heat makes their bulk pitiful.

Iron Trees

You find a box in the attic.

In this box is a bag of seeds labeled “Iron Tree”.  When planted, the seeds will grow into what appear to be oak trees.  The rate of growth is normal for oak trees given proper watering and sunlight.  Examining the acorns will reveal, beneath the cap and outer skin, an ingot of pure iron.

Also in this box are bags labeled “Mercury Trees”, “Gold Trees”, and “Weapons-Grade Uranium Trees”.

Failure Fog

From the Lexicon.

Failure Fog (noun):  Cloud of notions, accusations, glances, and breaths that inhibit the production of good work.  You are not good enough.  This will take so long.  Success is unimaginably far off.  Do this other pleasant thing, instead.  You are a loser.  You are a failure.

Dust Bunnies

Beneath the furniture, motes meet as clumps.  Clumps coalesce into piles.  The piles of dust receive motion from an eddy of stirred air.  The tumbling piles re-form themselves, grow limbs and stubby antennae.  Dust Bunnies.

The dust bunnies scamper in search of food.  They graze in forgotten corners.  They gather dust from between tangled computer cords.  They feast on lint traps and unattended vacuum cleaners.

Have a face mask ready for when they strike.  They will pounce at your mouth and nose, choking you with their matter.  They will leave your moistness to decomposition and the roaches.  They will paw the dry remains for more material.

The Green Gun

You find a box in the attic.

In this box is a rifle made of vines and caked with moss.  It shoots seeds as bullets.  The seeds splatter on their targets as tufts of grass whose roots infect the victim.  This rifle carries the Greenpeace logo.

The Factory Mines

From the Lexicon.

Factory Mines, The (noun):  Quarries and tunnels along the southwest slopes of the Soft Mountains.  The source of many finished goods.  The shafts of these mines produce drywall, granola, spun glass, gears, raw circuits, and paper.

The Goldilocks Scent

This room in the Mansion is located between the bathrooms and the Arboretum.

The wall to the right is of glass entire and looks out to ponds, to their sweet water, and the flowers between them.  Three beds back into the wall to the left.  Each mattress exudes its own scent.  The perfume insinuates dreams and lidded eyes.

Sleep comes swiftly upon laying your head on the bed nearest the entrance, despite the perfume’s tang.  Nameless menace limns your dreams.  Sleep comes slowly on the bed furthest the door; it’s saccharine perfume faintly stings your eyes.  Jumbled phantasms flub within skull.

The bed between them is the best.  Its scent is sweetest.  Afterwards, you hardly distinguish the last waking memory from the first dreaming moment.  Synaesthetic vistas ornament your rest, coherent and benevolent.

Only For the Tone-Deaf

You find a box in the attic.

In this box is a songbook.  If you sing each song in order, you will eventually sing the song that ends the earth.

Fields of Fur

There are fields two miles to the North of the Mansion; past the gardens and ponds.  These fields grow fur.

The fur arises from spherical mounds of rooted flesh, from snaking lines leathered soil, and heavy sheets of wrinkled skin.  Blue, grey, purple, and green.  Soft, coarse, and thick.

The Brick Room

This is a room in the Mansion.  The entrance to this room is in the sub-basement.

This is a small room.  Its ceiling is low and easily reached without extending your arm overmuch.  The walls, floor, and ceiling of this room are concrete except for the wall to the left as you pass the entrance.  That wall is made of brick.

The mortar between the bricks is a stiff putty, moist and throbbing.  The bricks twitch and fidget in their nooks.  Removing a brick leaves a hole in the putty which will grow a new brick within a day.  The orphaned bricks are attentive, apt to receive instruction on how to gird and form each room of this mansion.