Between cobwebs and dust, it's not like yer gonna find gold.

[amanuensis1]

Oh my god. Look, look what I found in a stray notebook in the back of my childhood closet:

"Retief," Assistant Undersecretary Magnan muttered from the corner of his mouth, making waving motions at the obscuring cloud of grey smoke, "would you kindly extinguish that foul-smelling narcotic? Ambassador Grosgrain," he gestured toward the grey-haired little man lavishly bedecked in layers of gold braid, engaged in a severe coughing fit, "simply cannot tolerate the stench of that thing!"

First Secretary Retief removed the cigar from his mouth and exhaled, but made no move to extinguish it. "Is that the problem, Magnan?" he said in a tone just a little too audible for Magnan's liking. "It seemed to me that the source of Ambassador Grosgrain's coughing was this intolerably long preliminary speech of Ambassador Crodfoller's," he finished casually, heedless of Magnan's desperate shushing gestures.

When I was fifteen-sixteen, I evidently started to write Keith Laumer's Retief fanfiction. Snort. But, I mean, really, who wouldn't love Retief? Futuristic cousin to James Bond, spiritual predecessor to John Constantine. And it's not as sucky a sample of writing as I might have feared. (Notice how I am not sharing the Doctor Who Mary Sue scripts with you.)


(If you see me using my Jedi icon a lot the next couple of days, there's a reason; I'm in the mood for it. Last night I had the first pleasurable dream I've had in ages, and it was a doozy. Me as Anakin Skywalker, seduced good and proper by Obi-Wan*--I think it might have been my first slash dream ever. Eee!)

*(Though I'm still a Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan fan at heart.)