fiction - brigits_flame - digging

[hwango]

Dr. Carson turned away from the chalkboard and froze. He stared at the man who had apparently snuck in through the back door of the classroom while Carson was lecturing, and who now gave him a friendly little wave and a smile. Only when Carson's students began to start fidgeting and quietly whispering to one another did he realize that he’d stopped talking in mid-sentence and that everyone was looking at him expectantly.

"…assisted in the natural preservation of these artifacts," Carson said, which silenced the chatter and replaced it with the scratching of pencils. "That will be all for today. For Tuesday’s class I will expect all of you to have read and be prepared to discuss Hodge’s conclusions regarding the people of the Tikundu Delta, and the errors he made in drawing those conclusions based on evidence from the physical record. Good day to you all."

The man at the back of the room waited until all of the students had departed before he approached Dr. Carson. He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, but Dr. Carson raised a hand to forestall him and simply said "No."

The man’s smile faltered a bit. "But Ted, you haven’t even heard where we’d be going!" he said reproachfully.

"I don’t care, Oswald, I’m not going. I don’t work in the field anymore, and I certainly don’t work in the field on any of your digs."

"We still like to call them ‘excavations,’ you know. We real archaeologists do, at any rate," Oswald said.

"Hah! You might have at least tried flattery before changing over to belittling my current work. And only the most charitable of observers would call any expedition of yours an ‘excavation.’ They would be far more likely to call it a ‘fiasco,’ or ‘catastrophe,’ or perhaps most accurately of all ‘gun battle.’ I cannot think of another man in our discipline who packs an elephant gun as part of his field equipment."

"Come now Ted, you of all people should be grateful I had that gun – that mummy was about to take your head off."

"That’s precisely my point!" Carson said triumphantly. "You do realize that most real archaeologists, as you name them, find that the tools they rely upon most often are tiny brushes and magnifying lenses? Not, as in your case, holy water and 4-gauge ammunition!"

"Come now, that gun is only 6-gauge. And again, I’d just like to point out that you were glad of that holy water at the time," Oswald said.

"And again, you make my point for me. I’m quite happy here in my university where the most dangerous thing I’m likely to encounter is someone trying to discredit my latest publication and sabotage my tenure. I’ve had enough of mummies and vampires and shoggoths."

Both men shuddered unconsciously at the mention of shoggoths. Oswald quickly recovered, though. "I promise you, Ted, this is going to be different."

"I don’t care. More to the point, I don’t believe you." Dr. Carson punctuated this pronouncement by slamming shut the open book on his desk. Then he stuffed the book and some other papers from his desk into his satchel, obviously intending it as a dismissal of his unwanted guest. Oswald pressed on regardless.

"Australia," Oswald said.

Dr. Carson paused, a book halfway into his bag. He cursed himself for that pause. Oswald certainly knew his weaknesses. "I don’t care," he repeated.

"Now, we both know that's not true. Come on, Ted. This looks like it could be big. The relics found so far don't appear to be from any documented human civilization."

Dr. Carson's defenses rallied. "Do they match any documented vampire civilization?"

"Come on, Ted, I can't believe you're still sore about that. You thought all of those stories were colorful local folklore just as much as I did. You can hardly place all of the blame on me," Oswald said.

"Hah! I suppose you're right – I should have learned long ago that with you around I can't trust anything to be just 'colorful local folklore.' Once again you undermine your own argument. It's long since time I learned that lesson and had enough sense to stay away from you."

"But there aren't any local rumors of monsters of any kind near the site! It's perfectly safe. Well, perfectly safe for Australia, at any rate. I'm not taking responsibility for the snakes. Everyone knows about those," Oswald said. When Dr. Carson didn't say anything immediately Oswald sensed an opening and pressed on. "Come on, Ted, this is going to be amazing, and I can't handle the whole thing on my own. I need you on this one. Just come to the site and take a look before you say no. For old times' sake."

Dr. Carson still didn't say anything. Oswald smiled. He knew he had him.

* * *

Oswald hummed a happy little tune to himself as he headed for his car. As he'd expected, he'd eventually managed to convince Dr. Carson to join the expedition. His driver opened the car door for him as he approached.

"I take it your trip was not wasted then, sir?" he said.

Oswald smiled at him. "Indeed it wasn't. Dr. Carson shall be joining us at the new excavation."

The driver raised an eyebrow. "Am I to assume then that you didn't tell him about the nightmares, sleepwalking, and ravings in unknown languages that the advance team reported?"

"Pfah," said Oswald. "I'm sure they're exaggerating."

Comments

[terravayne.livejournal.com]

Haha, the things people will gloss over to make someone do something. This was quirky and I enjoyed it. ^^

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Glad it amused. = )

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Sorry the ending didn't work for you. It must have been too subtle, but the nightmares, sleepwalking, and ravings in uknown languages are meant to be the background noise generated by what they'll dig up. Trust me, it's worse than mummies, vampires, and shoggoths. = )

[hwango.livejournal.com]

I'd like to - we'll have to see how the week turns out.

[mermaidbia.livejournal.com]

*puts down her popcorn bowl, still chewing*

It's so good to be reading you again.

You're awesome, dude, but you know that.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Hey, nice to hear from you again, too. Glad to hear somebody missed me. = )

[cedarwolfsinger.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of your other pieces with archaeologists. Good work, even though Oswald is a lying sneak -- which Carson clearly knows but let himself forget in the cloud of BS. Are you going to go on with this? Just curious!

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it reminded me of the good old "Conveyance" days, too. I really enjoyed writing those, and thought I'd return to that style again.

I'm hoping to continue with it, poll results and schedule both willing. I guess we'll see.

[transitiongodin.livejournal.com]

well written!
good take on the prompt, it never occurred to me to use archaeology...glad someone did. :)

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Thanks! One of my old friends majored in archaeology/anthropology in college. We used to joke that materials you had to buy for Archaeology 101 included several textbooks, a fedora hat, and the headpiece to the Staff of Ra. = )