Nine Swords

“It’s just that it seems that the whole weight of the world is suddenly falling down on me. We can’t stop the filth, that fight goes on and on, and when I finally get some feeling of reaching an end, like with my gear, they devise some upgrade which requires me to start training again. And I am so tired that I feel I live in some virtual reality environment, like when you have the feeling of being in a film, you know?”

“Floryn. Hey, Floryn, snap out of it. You’re talking to yourself. Are you okay?” Shirley looked worried.

“Talk to me Floryn. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Floryn avoided looking at Shirley as tears began to well up in his eyes. “It’s just that...it seems as if...oh, I don’t know.”

Shirley put her hand on Floryn’s knee. “Easy, Flo. It’s me. Whatever is on your mind, it stays with me.”

Floryn held back the tears no longer. “I feel my life has come to nothing! Nothing, Shirley! My whole life has been a string of haphazard choices! Wrong choices!”

Shirley looked him deep in the eyes. “But swallowing that bee wasn’t your choice, Flo. That was fate.”

He could not believe it. He watched the video Anta had sent him with disgust. There he was on stage, with a Beatle-wig and all. He even got the words wrong. Floryn banged his phone against his forehead. It hurt but he deserved it.

“The only way to salute The Beatles is to listen to them,” he whispered.

Floryn hated covers of Beatle-songs. Blasphemy. And yet, now he had done it too. Unforgivable. Floryn stared at a black and white poster of his idols. “I’m so sorry.”

His friends had meant well, but Floryn’s depression was back, with a vengeance.

Happy
Joy
Euphoria

(now try being sad )

“[...] the answer, you know, is how to get peace of mind, and how to be happy, that's really what we're supposed to be here for. And the difficult thing is that we all go through our lives and through our days and we don't experience bliss, and it's a very subtle thing to experience that and to be able to know how to do that is something you don't just stumble across, you've got to search for it.”

Floryn paused the video. “George is right,” he thought and picked up the phone. “Shirley? It’s me…yeah, I feel great. Let’s meet.”

Floryn browsed through his diary. It had been a while since he added something. The last entry was from 21 October of last year. The last few entries he had added suprised him. Had he written this? Right now he could not imagine that he had been in such a state. “Good thing I swallowed that bee after all,” he thought.

Floryn picked up his multi-coloured pen from the table and selected the ball point with green ink. “True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done,” he wrote down.

“Right then. Oswald!”
“Oswald! Time for your bath, Oswald!”

Drabbles are go! Again. Super. Have some more:

Chou-fleur
Stroopwafel
Bathysphere

“Shirley! Move over. It’s my turn now.”

“Flo, get lost, I have only had one minute.”

“Yeah, right. More like 5 minutes. Move...over.”

“Stop pushing me, Flo. Now let me see what is out there.”

“You’ve seen enough already. I want to have a go now. Move!...over!”

“That’s it. I’m not gonna take any more of this. Temp to base, come in, Temp to base, over.”

“Base here, over.”

“Get us up. Now. Over.”

“But we just lowered you, over.”

“I know, but this bathysphere isn’t big enough for the both of us. Over! Floryn, stop pushing me!”

Bloemkool

Floryn pronounced the two words really slowly. “Bloom coal. Now you try it.”

Ishco cleared her throat and made a first attempt. “Blöm cool.”

Floryn showed a thumb up and smiled. “Nearly there. Good first attempt. Try to say ‘bloom’ with the same ooh-sound as in ‘chou’.

Ishco smiled nervously. “Bloom cool.”

Floryn showed two thumbs up. “That’s it. We’re halfway there. Now try to say ‘coal’ with the same ‘oh’-sound as in ‘oh-la-la’”. Floryn chuckled.

Ishco chuckled too. “Okay, here goes. Bloom coal.”

Floryn smiled broadly. “Whoo! That’s it. So cool. Now you can say ‘chou-fleur’ in Dutch.”

Templar Handbook, page 634, “Love”.

As is well known, falling in love often leads to emotional and physiological instability. You bounce between exhilaration, euphoria, increased energy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, trembling, a racing heart and accelerated breathing, as well as anxiety, panic and feelings of despair when your relationship suffers even the smallest setback. These mood swings parallel the behavior of drug addicts.

It is therefore adviced that you seek immediate consultation with a counselor to remedy this behaviour as it can affect a positive outcome of missions and have a negative effect on the safety of other team members.