Alfa Alfa - A Limited Story
“Alfalfa?”
“Bravo Charlie” I brayed, scampering back to the hall mirror, closing my eyes to the deltas of wrinkles spreading out jauntily from every corner of my characterful face, closing my ears to the over-throttled roar of his prized Bonneville echoing up and down the cul-de-sac.
Living with Charlie was like doing the foxtrot with a bag of golf clubs . . . . he was always tripping you up . . . . . Like that business in the hotel when we first arrived in India, Juliet a paler shade of white on account of the kilo she’d been swaddling round her middle since Lima (Mike! . . . I should have killed him back in november when I had the chance) and Charlie, making his bid for an Oscar no doubt, suddenly starts spouting this nonsense about Papa Doc hiding out in Quebec, complete with latin romeo and a done deal with the local separatists concerning their latest terrorist atrocity . . . . . . . Of course I hadn’t seen the black Sierra, nor anticipated the terse verbal tango that ensued with the uniformed custom’s officer who’d quietly crept up behind us . . .
“To the victor the spoils!” Charlie suddenly trumpeted, giving a quick, mock ‘one, two’ to Juliet’s bulging midriff before spinning around to extract a bonded whiskey bottle from our clinking luggage, plying the stunned official with a treble and asking him if he’d brought his x-ray machine with him . . . . The poor guy stumbled out muttering something about crazy yankees.
“Are you still on Zulu Time or what?!” I exploded
“Doorman” he grinned, “On the door, as we came in” pouring me and my traffic light complexion a double double.
Comments
brilliant!
phew! . . . . glad someone likes it . . . . . written and posted very quickly yesterday . . . . . . necessarily nonsense
– Bjondon
Dave must be proud of you, or laughing his head off.
Very clever and I think you got ’em all in… !!
Yippee! . . . . . good morning, or should that be good evening Tiz . . . . . . I’m waiting nervously for Dave’s reaction . . . . . . Thought of including the entire bizarre list in the tags, but that would have been too easy :))
– Bjondon
I really was envisioning the story line and then “click” and oh, my, just too good … reminds me of Evelyn Waugh gone punk. Or something.
p.s. It is just past 1 a.m.
You will be asleep now, but thanks for the vote of confidence . . . . . If I wanted to be really pretentious I could venture a comparison with what Barthes described as ‘empty writing’ . . . . . I do enjoy this sort of abstract prose gaming, but not really committed (interested?) enough to do it seriously . . . . . so just a bit of fun . . .˙∆˚¬
– Bjondon
Jules, as I read I found myself trying to predict the next inclusion and how it might take the story forward.
I enjoyed your bit of fun very much.
If I may I will pass your text through the cypher translator. Assuming you won’t mind, would you prefer triarcle, circuare or squangle?Back-dated permission granted . . . . and circuare was always my favourite (not wanting to make the others jealous) . . . . . .. Teehee, glad you like this •>¡<•
– Bjondon
Oh and I have only just seen the dedication – so kind :O)
Knowing you would say yes, I went ahead and made a circuare translation. In posting it to redbubble I found a problem, or maybe a result. It depends on the audience perspective I guess.
Here is the translation.
Superb . . . . it’s almost alfaromeotango!?
– Bjondon
My alter ego asked me to pass on this link to the full visual encoding. This time with a larger ‘font’.
Most kind rb1fm . . . . . please thank your alter ego . . . . I am sure he will be amused to hear I attempted to download the ‘image’ (Ha!) . . . . . . eventually resorted to Grab (needed 4) . . . . . will promise to negotiate a commission when I get my 20ft high bathroom tiled :)
– Bjondon
:O))
Tiles are a good idea. Suddenly I need a kiln :O)
°¦ °¦°° °¦¦° °°°° °¦ °¦ °¦°° °¦¦° °°°° °¦
| ||| ||| ||º ||| ||| |ºº . . . reminds me of linear B . . . . perhaps combine three codes as a ‘soft’ rosetta stone
Is there an international debate about the correct spelling of alfa/alpha?
– Bjondon
I slipped back into the phonetic spelling for the title. Everything else is a direct coding of your writing. Should I correct myself or not? I will take the guidance of your own words ‘Once transmitted, no corrections allowed’ and so will leave as-is. The most famous alfa is a make of car and then of course there is the ‘alfalfa’ too – a plant I believe :O)
Focussing on this strange alphabet, it does seem a travesty to spell alfa that way . . . . Apparently it’s all down to the International Civil Aviation Organisation . . . . . And I can’t help thinking (pre-wiki) that the Alfa Romeo make of cars was inspired by this list . . . . . I’m guessing the letters AR actually stand for something very mundane and utilitarian . . . . will have a quick butchers
– Bjondon
Well, a slightly strange story . . . . . ALFA stands for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili . . . . . quite how that word ‘anonima’ is understood in Italian I don’t know (a straight translation gives ‘anonymous’) . . . . . but otherwise a fairly utilitarian tale . . . . the company being bought by Nicola Romeo in 1915. . . . . so no connection to NATO, aeroplanes or policemen then.
– Bjondon