Merry Go Round

Old Age and Acid

Timmy and his friends were riding upon his cloud, the sun was shinning and the day pleasant and they were heading to the next town of Wedlock.

"What happens when you get older?" asked Timmy to his turnip.

But it was not the turnip who answered but the apothecary who had joined them on their journey, "As men and   women grow old,    their joints become    stiff and cold.    They find it    harder to bend    or move, their    skin begins to    sag and crack.    Their hair falls    out. Their teeth    begin to decay    and as well    as this their mind,    however sharp it    was in youth,    inevitably starts to rot.    In short, everything    goes to pot."

 From here the turnip took on the explanation, "They get dimmer and dumber, their joints stiffer and harder, their bodies more cracked and cold. Until one day they wake to find they have turned to solid stone... that is what happens when you grow old."

BURY ME, called Jimmy in everyone's mind.

"A talking corpse?" said the apothecary, "How interesting, I    carried out some   research into the   unquiet dead, if   only I had   had such a    fine sample as   him then. My   research would have   gotten a lot   further I expect."

"Well all he is to us is a bloody nuisance." yawned the cat.

"And also our gift for war for which we intend to retrieve Daddy, if you remember Cat." Said Timmy sternly.

"Shame such a    shame" said the Apothecary.

As they flew on they soon reached the town of Wedlock, upon where the cloud dropped altitude to a slight hover above the ground. They floated through the unguarded Town gates. As they floated down the central paths, Timmy spotted a large circle of naked greying old people holding hands and standing on the side of the road, they were not only in a circle on the floor but there was a second circle of people on top of the first, carefully balancing on the heads of those below them. "What are they doing?" he asked his turnip.

The turnip replied, "Though most places prefer to use natural rocks and bricks or only use the stones from old people once they are dead, some places like Wedlock prefer to position the aged in the shape of houses while they are alive and only in the beginning faze of petrification. Then all the builders have to do is manoevure them close together and pack the few gaps with cement. Then once the aged are dead and they turn fully to stone, the house is complete. Its very efficient, the only draw back you get is the occasional talking wall."

 Once they were inside the town, they stopped at the town centre where there was a tall clocktower made entirely out of the petrified aged. It was a magnificent structure and the clock at the top was held in place by many wrinkled hands. Timmy and his merry band stopped beneath this structure and after some deliberation they decided that they would not make it to the next town before sun down and so, not wanting to risk Midnight Faeries or Bats, they would stay in Wedlock.

They soon found a tavern at which to stay the night and they went to their room, a small place on the ground floor. Its walls were grey and cracked, the window was dusty and brown. The each set up an area within that room, decreed their own. Jimmy the darkest coolest corner, out of the sun and decomposition, Timmy took the sofa for his small body fit it snugly, the apothecary announced he didn't sleep, the cat took the bed, the turnip took the bathroom sink filled with water and the cloud was let out the window its lead tied to a bedpost.

 But there were still many hours till sundown and the group was wondering what to do, when a voice called from the walls. In a section of the grey walls was a grey wrinkled face, a craggy down turned mouth and deep sad eyes. The old man spoke in a hoarse whisper, occasionally coughing up dust "It as been a long time since I was cemented to become part of this wall, and finally i can feel the petrification completing, my flesh becoming only stone and losing my conscience. I have lived a long and full life full of regrets and sadness but there were happy times too... I cannot complain about my current situation but I would apreciate it if you do me one last favor."