Oct 11-12 Grandfather and Folk Music

I was a little under the weather yesterday since I got my flu shot, so I didn’t write a blog, but I’m back today. Also, get your flu shot. It’s important, especially this year.

Rehearsal continues for A Spot On the Hill. Show opens on Friday!

Today’s prompts, Grandfather and Folk Music.

“Gregor knew he should get up and press on, but he couldn’t muster the energy. He kept staring up at the stars. “My grandfather told me not to go into higher academia, you know, told me it was cutthroat and ruthless. This coming from a guy who spent half his life in the military, but he kept on insisting. I didn’t listen, obviously. No, I was going to cure some major disease or make some huge discovery and win a Nobel prize, but where am I?” Gregor glanced over at the body tangled up in the tree limbs.

“I did admire you, you know, until you stole my research and thwarted my publishing attempts, and I know you did it to me because someone else did it to you. Guess my grandfather was right.

Gregor took a shuddering breath. It felt like the weight of the last 20 years was pressing down on him. “That same grandfather, he was Jewish, and he told this story from the Old Country about a king and his servant. The servant came to the king one day, all upset because he had seen Death in the garden and knew he was going to die. He asked the king to borrow his fastest horse so that he could travel to the next town ten miles over and escape Death. The king lent him the horse, and the servant rode off. The king went out to the garden and Death looked really confused. ‘What’s the matter?’ the king asked. Death replied, ‘I am supposed to kill your servant today in a town 10 miles from here, but unless he rides on the fastest horse, I do not see how he can get there.’ Then my grandfather said it was fate, and you can’t fight fate. Maybe this is fate, right here, right now.”

Gregor fell silent and the night was enormous around him. “Are you kidding me?” a voice spoke up and Gregor almost screamed. “Get your sorry ass up. Get my body up, and get moving.”

Gregor looked over to see Richard’s ghost hovering nearby. “I thought you wanted Dr. Hozier to kill me?”

“I may hate you, but I hate him even more. I’ve thought about it, and that asshat does not get to win. He couldn’t even manage the department’s budget properly.”

Gregor sat up. “Right?!”

“I may not be able to help you physically, but I know how to motivate you, Gregor. If you get to your apartment and dispose of my body, I promise to tell you something, something I should have told you a long time ago. And then you’ll take Hozier for all he’s worth.”

“Obviously.”

“Now get up and get going!” Gregor sprang to his feet and removed the body from the limbs. “Can you not hit my body on every branch.”

“I’m doing my best. I hadn’t planned for a giant tree.” As Gregor finally managed to extricate the body, a strange noise caught his ear. It wafted along on the night air. It sounded like a song his grandfather would have played, a song from Eastern Europe. “Do you hear that music, or is it in my head?”

“I hear it,” the ghost confirmed.

Gregor lay the body back down and slowly crept to the thicket of bushes ahead of them. He peeked through to see some sort of ceremony taking place complete with lutes and lyres. “My grandfather was right about something else. The woods are weird at night.”