Vivid description exercise

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

Recalcitrant duck:

There's a fox about, judging by the way Ginger keeps growling at night. So I round up the ducks early. Spreading my arms wide and stamping slowly along behind them is enough to get most of the birds up the slatted ramp into the wooden duck-house. But not Penelope. Penelope doesn't like be told what to do, so she breaks out of the flock and goes flapping across the pen, her webbed orange feet going "slap-slap-slap" on the mud. She's an Aylesbury cross, stout and fluffy-feathered, all mottled white and caramel with a pale orange bill. Not as clean as she might be- the ducks have a tiny pond in their enclosure, which sounds lovely but in practice it always looks like the pigs have been in it. She has quite a low-pitched quack, and when she gets agitated like she is now, it sounds like she's a Punch-and-Judy man laughing.

I close the duck-house door, then I catch up to Penny by the fence. I try to steer her back by holding my wax jacket in front of her, but she's not playing. In the end, I have to bundle her up in the coat and carry her over. And let me tell you, these birds are not light. I raise them for eating, not for eggs or display. Penelope weighs nearly as much as a goose, and she's strong for her size. I stagger over to the duckhouse with an armload of desperately thrashing duck, pry open the door with my foot, and stuff her inside. Sweet dreams, Penny. I shoot the latches to, then (feeling a bit silly) I click the padlock closed as well. Bertie Morris never did figure out how that fox got at his hens, so I'm taking no chances.

Next:
Alarming soup.

 

[Alex The G and T]

The "Specialty of the House," soup de Jour comes in a heavy stainless steel bowl. A creamy broth; it bubbles and seethes as if it's still on the fire.
The aromatic steam smells like a brisk sea breeze on a foggy morning.with a hint of the dank loamy cloy of buried truffles in deep forest loam.

It has been served with a large spoon, a trident and a stiletto. A tentative prod with the trident is seized by a writhing tentacle and the trident is wrenched beneath the foamy broth.


Next:
Frenetic Sculpture

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

Frenetic Sculpture:

I stroked my neat little beard as I leaned in to inspect "Arachnoid III", the lastest masterpiece by Gunhilde von Scunthorpe. It was roughly human-sized, and quite magnificently ugly. The twisted, interconnecting ribs of it arched through space at awkward angles that must have been the result of hours of agonising aesthetic deliberation. The metal was pitted and warped in a most artistic manner, and blotchily painted in a daringly vile shade of yellowish-brown. "Ah, yes," I pronounced, "once again, von Scunthorpe has executed an metonymic approach to the liminal reification of the-"

It moved. I jerked back just in time as one grungy pig-iron elbow swept through the space where my head had been. The sculpture erupted into a flailing spasm of activity, a swarm of vast spiders fighting to the death in mid air. Knees and elbows whirled past each other with millimeters to spare, and claws lashed out at random intervals. I retreated, minus my cufflinks and carnation. At last it shook itself free of the pedestal and expended its final energies against the innocent pine flooring, like a toddler who doesn't want his switchblades taken away.

"Kinetic sculpture!" said Gunhilde, beaming. I hadn't seen her approach. "It's triggered by critical theory buzzwords. I'm very proud of it."

Neglected airship